Нил Шустерман: The Schwa Was Here

Howie comes running down from the bridge.

“What happened? Did he break? Did he break?”

“Yeah,” I told him, picking myself off of the ground. “We’re gonna have to change his name to ’Headless Joe.’”

Ira, still behind the camera, moved in closer to the body, paused dramatically, and finally stopped filming. “Where’d his head go?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, over there somewhere. So much for unbreakable plastic.”

“Are you looking for this?” I heard another voice say. The voice was scratchy, like a kid who’s screamed a little too much. I turned, and I swear to you, the first thing I see is Manny’s mannequin head floating in midair. I only see it for a split second, but it’s the creepiest thing. Then in that split second my brain does a quick retake and I see that there’s a kid holding the head under his armpit. I couldn’t really see the kid at first on accounta his clothes are kind of a brownish gray, like the rocks around him, and you know how your mind can play tricks on you when the light is just right.

“Excuse me,” said Ira, “this is a closed set.”

The kid ignored him. “That was pretty cool,” he said. “You should have dressed him up, though, so when he fell he looked like a person and not a dummy on film.”

Ira pursed his lips and got a little red, annoyed that he didn’t think of it.

“Don’t I know you?” I asked the kid. I took a good look at him. His hair was kinda ashen blond—real wispy, like if you held a magnetized balloon over his head, all his hair would stand on end. He was about a head shorter than me; a little too thin. Other than that, there was nothing remarkable about him, nothing at all. He wasn’t good-looking; he wasn’t ugly; he wasn’t buff and he wasn’t scrawny. He was just, like, average. Like if you looked up “kid” in the dictionary, his face would be there.

“I’m in some class with you, right?” I asked him.

“Science,” he said. “I sit next to you in science class.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right, now I remember.” Although for the life of me I have no memory of him sitting next to me.

“I’m Calvin,” he said. “Calvin Schwa.”

With that Ira gasped, “You’re the kid they call the Schwa?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Ira took a step back.

“I’m Anthony Bonano,” I told him, “but everyone calls me Antsy. These are my friends Howie and Ira.” Then I pointed to the head in his hands. “You already met Manny.”

He took Manny’s head back to his body. “So what’s all this for, anyway?”

“Pisher Plastics product stress test,” I told him, trying to sound professional.

“Manny gets an F,” Howie said. “He’s supposed to be un­breakable.”

“Technology fails again,” I said, all the while noticing how Ira still kept his distance from the Schwa, as if he were radioactive, like some of those flounder they found off Canarsie Pier.

The Schwa knelt next to Manny’s headless body.

“Technically he’s not broken,” the Schwa said.

“If your head comes off, you’re broken,” says Howie. “Trust me.

“See? Look here.” He pointed to the neck. “His head is held on by a ball-and-socket joint. It just popped off—watch.” Then the Schwa snapped Manny’s head back on as if it were a giant Barbie. I was both relieved and disappointed. It was good to know my dad’s work was successful, but upsetting to know that I couldn’t destroy it.

“So what do we do to him next?” Howie asked.

“Pyrotechnics,” said Ira. “We try to blow him up.”

“Can I come, too?” asked the Schwa.

“Yeah, sure, why not?” I turned to him, but he’s gone. “Hey, where’d ya go?”

“I’m right here.”

I squinted to get the sun out of my eyes, and I saw him. He’s waving his hands, like to get my attention or something.

“I don’t know,” said Ira. “You know what they say about too many cooks.”

“No, what?” asks Howie.

“You know—too many cooks stink up the kitchen.”

Howie still looks confused. “What, don’t these cooks know from deodorant?”

“It’s an expression, Howie,” I explained. Howie, you gotta understand, ain’t dumb. He just doesn’t think out of the box. Of course, if I ever told him that, he’d wonder what box I was talking about. He’s the kinda guy who’s hardwired to take everything literally. Which is why he’s so good at math and sci­ence, but when it comes to anything creative—he tanks. He’s about as creative as a bar code. Even when he was little, he would do real good at coloring when there were nice thick black lines in the coloring book—but give him some crayons and a blank page, and his forehead would start to bleed. So, anyways, by a two-to-one vote the Schwa is allowed to join us in our next attempt to bust Manny. Ira voted no, but he wouldn’t look at any of us when he did.

“So what’s up with you?” I asked him.

“It’s my opinion. I got a right to an opinion.”

“Okay, okay, don’t get so touchy.”

With Ira suddenly unsociable, the Schwa decided to leave rather than make any further waves.

“See you in science,” he said.

Only after he’s gone does Ira pull me aside and say, “I wish I would’ve gotten that on film.”

“Gotten what on film?”

“Remember a second ago when you asked the Schwa where he went, and he practically had to jump up and down to get your attention?”

“Yeah?”

“He was standing right in front of you all along.”

I waved my hand like I’m shooing away a fly. “What are you talking about? He moved behind me. That’s why I couldn’t see him.”

But Howie shook his head. “He never moved, Antsy.”

I scowled at them like this is some conspiracy to make me look stupid.

“And I’ve heard things about him, too,” Ira said. “Crazy stuff.”

“Such as?”

Ira came in close enough so I could smell last night’s garlic-whatever on his breath. “His eyes,” Ira whispered. “They say his eyes change color to match the sky. They say his shoes are al­ways the same color as the ground. They say if you stare at him long enough, you can read what’s written on the wall behind him.”

“That’s called ’persistence of vision,’” Howie says, reminding us that behind his veil of idiocy is a keen analytical mind. “That’s when your brain fills in the gaps of what it thinks ought to be there.”

“He’s not a gap,” I reminded him. “He’s a kid.”

“He’s a freak,” said Ira. “Ten-foot-pole material.”

Well, I didn’t know about Howie and Ira, but I’ve spent enough of my life keeping weird things at ten-foot-pole dis­tance.

“If any of this is true,” I told them, “there are ways of finding out.”

My family lives in a duplex—that’s two homes attached like Siamese twins with one wall in common. On the other side of the wall is a Jewish family. Ira knows them from his temple, but we just know their names. Once a year we ex­change Christmas cookies and potato latkes. Funny how you can live six inches away from people and barely even know them. Our neighborhood is a Jewish-Italian neighborhood. Jews and Italians seem to get along just fine. I think it has something to do with the way both cultures have a high regard for food and guilt.

The Schwa was about six inches away, too, in science class, but I had never noticed him. It was weird, because in school I notice almost anything as long as it doesn’t actually have to do with the lesson. And then there was the way Ira got all freaked out about him. It made me want to do some investigating. It took a couple of days, but I did come up with something.