Teddy Wayne - Kapitoil

I turned my eyes to Mr. Schrub, who was smiling as he watched. I reviewed through the binoculars. The hawk was now eating the squirrel, whose fur was bloody. I shifted the binoculars slightly to the left so it would appear I was still observing it, but instead I focused on an area of grass.

“He’s hardly going to be able to fly after this,” said Mr. Schrub. “See how engorged his chest is?”

I said yes. After five minutes, Mr. Schrub said we should go back into the trail and watch more birds. They weren’t hawks, and none of them hunted animals, so I was able to magnify them.

As Mr. Schrub watched a downy woodpecker through his binoculars, he said, “I could never seem to get Jeromy or Wilson too interested in birding.”

“It can be difficult to make someone else interested in what you are interested in,” I said. “They have to have some initial interest independent of you.”

“Maybe so,” he said, and he put down the binoculars. “But you’d like to think a father and his sons would have some intersection. As far as I can tell, the only thing that drives them is having a good time.”

“If you drew a Venn diagram of my interests and my father’s interests, the intersection would also be minimal,” I said.

“Well, you don’t choose your parents. And, despite your best efforts, you don’t really choose your kids, either.” The woodpecker began contacting the tree with his beak. “Take a closer look,” he said, and he put his arm around my shoulders as I used the binoculars. I was glad the binoculars covered my face and Mr. Schrub was focused on the woodpecker, because my smile was possibly the broadest it has ever been.

When we returned to the house Mr. Schrub said he had to do some work in his study. Sounds ejected from the living room, where his sons were playing a video game and yelling. “I’m afraid that doesn’t sound too enticing?” he asked.

I said, “No, I would like to try to get to know them more.”

He looked pleased. “Thanks, Karim,” he said.

Although I’m a skilled computer worker and have optimal hand-eye coordination from racquetball, I’m poor at video games, as we were never allowed to have them, and the solitary way to become adept at any system is by practice. In addition, certain personality types excel at video games, and mine isn’t one of them.

It was a shooting game, and the television was bisected so Jeromy and Wilson could each see out of the eyes of his own character as they hunted each other. “My hunger for human flesh is insatiable,” Wilson said as his character ran through a dark tunnel. “My thirst for blood, unquenchable.”

“Bring it on, fat boy,” Jeromy said. “How were the birds, Karim?”

“It was educational and interesting,” I said. “I have not been in a true forest before, and I have never seen a hawk in person.”

“He does love those fucking hawks,” Wilson said, and I observed his eyes rapidly shift to Jeromy’s side of the television and then return.

“Yeah,” Jeromy said, and his face and voice looked and sounded like he was going to cry. “More than he loves his own family.”

Wilson crashed Jeromy with his elbow, and they both laughed. “Come on, play, you ADD-riddled piece of shit,” he said.

Wilson soon shot Jeromy and his character exploded and fell and blood leaked out of his body. “Defeated,” Wilson said. “Conquered, subjugated, dominated, enslaved, made my bitch.”

“You cheat. You always look at my guy’s POV.”

“I’m trying to understand your point of view better — to empathize with you,” Wilson said. “Karim, you want to try?”

I said yes. “I’ll coach him,” Jeromy said. “Let’s beat this arrogant spoiled brat.”

Jeromy instructed me on how to operate the controller, and soon I became efficient. Wilson’s character and my character were both in the same maze, and because it was a newly created maze, Wilson didn’t have a special advantage over me in finding weapons and power bonuses. In fact, because my spatial intelligence is robust, I quickly deciphered where these things were in the maze, and I could tell he was having difficulty because he was cursing to himself.

Then I saw Wilson’s character far ahead with his back to me, but because I knew he cheated and would rotate if he saw that I was observing him on my side of the television, I rotated my character 180 degrees and ran in reverse so that Wilson didn’t know I was near him.

Then, when I knew I was very close to him, I turned around again, and Wilson’s character’s back was directly in my targeting cross. Jeromy contacted my shoulder lightly with his hand to signal me to shoot.

But I didn’t.

Wilson’s character quickly rotated and shot me. My side of the television turned red like closed eyelids after looking at the sun.

“You had him,” Jeromy said.

“No one ever has me, ha ha ha,” Wilson said, and he put Jeromy’s head inside his angled arm and depressed his fist over the top of his head.

“I am sorry,” I said as I looked at the red half of the monitor and Jeromy pushed Wilson off and called him a motherfucker. “I will go upstairs now and allow you two to play.” They said good-bye to me and restarted the game.

I resumed The Grapes of Wrath , which I enjoyed for two reasons: (1)It taught me about U.S. history during the Great Depression through a stimulating story (e.g., there was no minimum wage in the time period of the novel, which causes problems for the workers on the free market), and (2)I liked partnering with the main character, Tom Joad. He attempts to provide for his family and has strong values, and he has an intriguing way of speaking to boot.

Then Irma knocked quietly on my door and told me dinner was ready. In fact it wasn’t dinner yet, but Andre carried a tray with a bottle of wine and crackers and several cheeses into the living room. Wilson and Jeromy wore higher-quality clothing now, and I felt foolish in my hiking clothing, but it was too late to change.

When Andre deposited the tray on a small table, Wilson reached for the knife and cut multiple large cubes of cheese for his plate and ate ASAP without crackers. Jeromy ate more slowly and with crackers.

“Save some room for dinner, boys,” Mrs. Schrub said.

Mr. Schrub watched them mutely and looked as if he were truly watching something in his brain. “Maybe we’ll have the ’94 Burgundy tonight,” he finally said.

“We had that last night,” Mrs. Schrub said.

“We had the ’93.”

“Dear,” she said as she put her hand on his leg, “I think you may be having a senior moment.”

“Do you want me to go down and bring up the inventory?”

Mrs. Schrub smiled and petted his head. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“You think I’m wrong, don’t you?” Mr. Schrub said. “That’s it, I’m getting it.”

“Derek!” she said. “Do you always have to be right?”

I remembered also that it was the ’93 and that he was right, and I also dislike it when someone thinks my memory has a glitch, so I said, “I think I can prove that Mr. Schrub is correct.”

Everyone looked at me. “I use a voice recorder to learn English.” I showed it to them. “If you give me a few minutes, I will locate the part when Mr. Schrub asked for the wine.”

They all observed me as I set the voice recorder on rewind and listened at different points on low volume so only I could hear. It was high pressure with everyone watching me, but I felt confident that I remembered. Then I put it on the table and played it for everyone to hear Mr. Schrub’s voice: “Andre, would you bring up the ’93 Burgundy?”

“Much appreciated, Karim,” Mr. Schrub said, and he picked up the voice recorder and inspected it before returning it to the table. He turned to his wife. “Do you have anything you would like to add?”