Richard Powers - Bewilderment

He didn’t want to read or be read to. He violently rejected a trip through space. He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Why did you hide it from me, Dad?

Because I was afraid of exactly what had happened. That was the honest answer, and still I hid. “I shouldn’t have.”

What’s going to happen?

“They’ll be put down. They probably already have been.”

Killed .

“Yes.”

Won’t it spread? With animals packed in like that? And getting moved around all over the place?

I told him I didn’t know. I do now.

Lying in his narrow bed, he looked impossibly pale. His hand reached out from under the sheets to cover his eyes. Did you see them? How they were moving? In the stillness, his whole body jerked, like that galvanic jolt just before sleep. He grabbed my hand for balance. His upper arm felt wilted and useless.

Last month , he said, then lost his way. Last week? I could have handled this .

“Robbie. Buddy. Everyone goes up and down. You’ll—”

Dad? He sounded petrified. I don’t want to go back to being me .

“Robbie. I know it feels like the end of the world. But it isn’t.”

He pulled the sheet up over his face. Go away . You don’t know what’s happening. I don’t want to talk to you .

I held still. Anything I said might drive him screaming back out into the dark yard. Minutes passed. He seemed to soften. Perhaps he started to fall asleep. He slid the sheet from off his face and lifted his head from the pillow.

Why are you still here?

“Aren’t you forgetting something? May all sentient beings—”

He held up a flaccid hand. I want to change the words. May all life. Get free. From us .

THE VISITORS SHOWED UP the next Monday. It wasn’t yet ten. I was reading an email thread from folks at NASA, with the latest on the Seeker. It wasn’t good. Robbie was spread over the dining room table, learning the provinces of Canada. They rang the front bell, a woman and a man in puffy coats, he cradling a briefcase on his chest. I opened the door a little. They offered their hands and IDs: Charis Siler and Mark Floyd, caseworkers with the Children, Youth and Families Division of the Department of Human Services. It would have been within my rights not to let them in. But that didn’t seem wise.

I took their coats and led them into the living room. Robin called out from the far side of the wall. Is somebody here? For a moment he sounded like the boy in the film. Like Jay. He tumbled into the living room, confused at the sight of daytime strangers in the house.

“Robin?” Charis Siler asked. Robin studied her, curious.

I said, “I’ve got visitors, Robbie. How about you take a bike ride?”

“Sit for a minute,” Mark Floyd commanded.

Robin looked at me. I nodded. He climbed into Aly’s favorite swivel egg chair and swung his legs against the ottoman.

Floyd asked Robin, “What are you working on?”

I’m not working. Just doing a geography game .

“What kind of game?”

Something he made . Robin aimed his thumb at me. He knows a lot, but he gets things wrong sometimes .

Floyd grilled him about his studies, and Robin answered. If the state meant to check on his curriculum, they had a satisfactory answer. Charis Siler watched the volley of questions and answers. After a bit, she leaned in and asked, “Did you hurt your head?” And everything clicked at last. She stood and crossed the room to examine the bruise, which protruded from his right brow like a blue carbuncle. “How did that happen?”

Robbie demurred, reluctant to tell a stranger what his animal self had done. He shot me a look. My head barely inclined. Siler and Floyd saw it, I’m sure.

I hit it . His words were tentative, almost a question.

Siler held his hair back with two fingers. I wanted to tell her to get her hands off my son. “How did that happen?”

The fact spilled out of Robin. I hit it against the wall . Honesty was his downfall.

“How, honey?” Siler sounded like the school nurse.

Robbie snuck me another sheepish look. Our visitors intercepted it. My son touched his bruise and looked downward. Do I have to say?

All three turned to me. “It’s okay, Robbie. You can tell them.”

He lifted his head, defiant for five seconds. Then he let it drop again. I was angry .

“About what?” Charis Siler asked.

About the cows. Aren’t you angry?

She stopped in mid-prosecution. I thought for an instant that she felt ashamed. But the tiniest muscles in her face said bafflement. She didn’t know which cows he meant.

The situation was heading south. I caught Robin’s eye and tipped my head toward the front door. “You want to go check on the owl?” He shrugged, defeated by adult stupidity. But he murmured goodbye to the guests and slipped from the house. The door closed behind him, and I turned on my prosecutors. Their masks of professional neutrality enraged me.

“I have never laid a finger on my child in anger. What do you think you’re doing?”

“We received a tip,” Floyd said. “It takes a lot for someone to phone in an alert.”

“He was frightened. Really, really upset over this bovine viral encephalopathy. He’s sensitive to living things.” I didn’t add what I should have—that we all should have been terrified. It still seemed a child’s fear.

Mark Floyd reached into his briefcase and retrieved a folder. He opened it on the coffee table between us. It was filled with two years of papers and notes, everything from Robbie’s initial suspension from third grade to my arrest in Washington for a public incident in which I’d employed my son.

“What is this? You’ve been keeping files on us? Do you keep files on all the troubled kids in the county?”

Charis Siler frowned at me. “Yes. We do. That’s our job.”

“Well, my job is to take care of my son the best way I know how. And I’m doing exactly that.”

I don’t remember what transpired after that. The chemicals flooding my brain prevented my hearing much of what the caseworkers said. But the gist was clear: Robin was an active case in the system, and the system was watching me. The next suggestion of abuse or improper care and the state would intervene.

I managed to stay contrite enough to get them to the door without more drama. Out on the stoop, watching their car pull away, I saw Robbie at the end of the block, astride his stopped bike, waiting for the moment when he could come safely home. I waved him in. He got up in the saddle and pedaled full-out. He did a flying dismount and left his bike lying in the lawn. He trotted to me and clasped me around the waist. I had to peel him off before he’d talk. The first words out of his mouth were, Dad. I’m ruining your life .

THE RIVER OF FORMS IS LONG. And among the billions of solutions it has so far unfolded, humans and cows are close cousins. It wasn’t surprising that something on the fringe of life—a strand of RNA that codes for only twelve proteins—was happy, after one small tweak, to give another host a try.

Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Denver: none of them matched the density of an industrial-scale feedlot. But human mobility and relentless commerce made up for that. And still, back in February, no one was all that worried. The virus tearing through the beef industry was being upstaged by the President. Week after week, he kept pushing back the rescheduled elections, claiming that digital security in several states was not yet adequate and that various enemies were still poised to interfere.