G. Wright: Broken Things

The sounds of traffic slowly faded, drowned out by a new noise. It sounded like a high pitched whine, seeming to come from everywhere at once. It took a moment, but Josh realized it came from his head. Great, he had damaged his head. Not from the video games, but from the fresh air. You didn’t get hit by cars sitting in your bedroom.

He crawled toward the house, forcing himself to move one limb at a time. He caught a flash of metallic blue hidden within a tuft of grass. Even a part of his bike had been thrown up on the lawn. He made his way past it, focusing on the porch steps. Almost there . But the world faded, turning gray, then black.

Josh remained on the lawn, unaware, as the Saturday morning turned to afternoon. The yard belonged to one Ted Gayer, an industrial roofer trying to enjoy his weekend. His Saturday morning had been spent drinking beers, and he had yet to accomplish his goal of two six packs before the day slipped away from him.

Ted had no problem with the kid sitting in his yard all day. Kids did their own thing, and in Ted’s mind, it was always best to ignore them. You could never tell how they were going to respond. To Ted’s credit, he couldn’t remember being a child, and beyond the fact that he knew he’d once been one, they weren’t on the top of his list of things to think about, except maybe to be thankful that his wife, Rose, hadn’t asked for one, at least not for a few years. He supposed that the novelty of children had started to wear off. He’d told her years ago that they were a fad. Robots weren’t a replacement for the real thing and never would be, like a Christmas present that everyone had to have, but forgotten the following year.

He’d heard the impact. Impressive, too. He’d rushed to the window, wondering what kind of crash had made such a noise. People always drove down his street too quickly anyway. He hadn’t expected to see a kid. He couldn’t believe to see the thing in one piece, but as it turned out, the thing was pretty damned durable. He’d even managed to drag himself out of the street, all of his limbs still attached. He never thought they’d be built so tough. Over the course of the day he peered out the window, just to see if the kid was still there. He thought about telling it to get off his lawn, but then again, that brought him back to actually have to interact with the thing.

Rose, on the other hand, not wanting to say anything to Ted, felt that her husband should get off his ass and do something about the kid on their lawn, but she put up with it so as not to ruin his Saturday. After all, he worked so hard all week. By dinnertime though, after Ted had checked on him for the hundredth time, she finally spoke up.

“Are you going to take care of that or not?” she demanded.

“Nope,” he replied, cracking open another beer, “It’ll go away on its own.” He pointedly made a show of kicking back in his recliner. It groaned in response.

“Are you kidding me, Theodore? It’s busted to pieces. Aren’t they supposed to have their owner’s name on them or something?”

“I reckon.” Ted sighed and sat his beer down, missing the coaster on the side table put there for that purpose. “Don’t touch my beer.”

She scowled and moved his beer to the coaster, watching him stalk across the living room and out the door. She gave him a ten second head start, and then went to watch from the doorway. Both her living room and craft room (once originally intended to be a spare bedroom) was full of glass hutches displaying her modest collection of dolls. She had just passed sixty of them, and had her eye on a few others. Their perfect porcelain skin, unblinking eyes, and beautiful little dresses and suits brought her happiness. Those robot kids were messy, although once she’d considered getting one, but she considered herself to be of an old school mentality. She couldn’t lock one in a hutch. Dolls weren’t meant to move.

Ted knelt down next to the boy and looked him over. “Where’s the owner name on these things? I don’t want to touch it. It’s all… bloody and nasty.” He wiped his hands on his jeans as though being near the boy had soiled them.

“I don’t know,” Rose said from the house, “Maybe on his clothes or something?”

“I’m not touching the thing’s dang clothes,” he mumbled, “Maybe there’s something on the bike.”

Ted got back to his feet with an ‘oof’ brought on by his ample beer gut and grabbed the bike scrap, turning it about. “Look at this thing,” he said in admiration, tilting it toward the house, “It’s torn up worse than the kid. I thought they made these things tougher than that. It’s probably made in goddamned China.” Ted liked to blame China for many things, and though often wrong, this time he wasn’t too far off. The bike had come from Taiwan.

Despite his vocal protests, he walked down the sidewalk to where the largest piece of the bike’s frame had come to rest. The broken chain dropped and swung like a pendulum as he picked it up, still hooked on a gear. “Sumbitch,” he muttered under his breath, “They wrote the phone number on the bike. Probably thought the kid would lose it or something.”

He pulled out his cell phone and five minutes later, the Nortons arrived to pick up their boy and the bike. Mr. Norton walked the street gathering up the bike, all the while muttering under his breath while Mrs. Norton knelt next to Josh and shook him, trying to get a response. Finally, they packed him into the back of their SUV, squeezing the mangled bike in next to him. Neither of the Gayers came out to help. They’d already shut their curtains.

Unfortunately for Josh, being the weekend, his parents couldn’t do anything for him until Monday morning. Mrs. Norton wanted to bring him inside, but her husband talked her out of it. They’d just have to tote him back out again. He spent two nights in the SUV, never regaining power.

Late Monday morning they took him in to Magic Valley Androids, a service and repair center for kids. When he awakened, he wished he hadn’t. His five senses came back on all at once, overwhelming him with bright lights and pain , pain from everywhere .

His body seized uncontrollably and he heard a new voice, that of the tech, ordering Mr. Norton to “Hold him down!” Josh didn’t know it but the tech had little experience working on kids. They were just another type machine. Between his father and the tech, they pinned him down until he regained control of his body. The tech glared at him as though his seizure had been on purpose. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath.

Josh glared back, but he couldn’t really focus. Everything hurt, and though he didn’t know it, most of his scrapes were infected. His parents had only superficially cleaned his injuries and now they were filled with puss. The tech didn’t even try to hide his disgust as he sewed him up. The needle became another source of inescapable pain.

“Dad?” he looked up at his father, standing opposite of the tech.

“Quiet Josh, let the man work.” His father stood back with arms crossed, watching the tech work. Though his father wore his poker face, Josh knew his every expression. He’d imprinted everything he could of his dad into his memory and right now he radiated with displeasure.

He looked about intently, trying to focus on anything other than the tech. It looked much like his father’s garage, with tools scattered all over workbenches that lined the room. The only difference was the presence of several antiquated computer monitors with numerous wires and attachments. Next to his metal bed the tech had placed a cart with other more torturous tools, such as scalpels and clamps. The walls were covered with posters of children and child anatomy. Though he couldn’t say why, he found them unsettling and looked away.