The Evolution of Ethan Poe, page 6
“Kyle, for God’s sake! Take that thing off this minute. What are you trying to prove?”
He stands beside his chair looking all serious. “With all due respect, Mother, I can’t do that.”
“You what?”
By the time he opens his mouth and starts to form words, she’s closed the distance between them and is yanking at the strips of fabric remnants that came from different sewing projects: a length of kitchen curtain gingham, some bright red from an unfortunate skirt effort, a nine-year-old piece of the racing car pattern from the construction of the bedspread that’s still in my room upstairs. I’m expecting Kyle to protest, or try to get away, but he just stands there, eyes squinted shut, mouth pursed like he’s some kind of martyr and Mom’s striping him with lashes instead of removing stripes of random cloth. He winces as she forces his hand open, it was bound that tight. The guy is crazy. Life’s weird enough without this.
Mom pushes him down into his chair, the fabric scraps in a pile at her feet. “Ethan, set the table, and give your dumb-ass brother a glass of his beverage of choice.” I know it’s ginger ale, so I don’t ask him anything. Everything calms down a little as pizza slices find their way onto plates, and I bring mine and Kyle’s to the table. Mom sits down and stares at him a minute.
“Kyle Poe, I’ve had about enough of this insanity. If you can’t stop ‘stumbling’ without this idiocy, then that church of yours isn’t holding up its end of the bargain.” He looks at her and is about to say something. “Don’t! Just don’t. I’ve had quite enough churchiness for one day. I don’t want to hear you quoting anything or praying anything. Do it in your head if you must, but don’t inflict it on me.”
The rest of the meal is pretty silent. Kyle’s right hand might not be tied to his body now, but he leaves it hanging down, useless and pathetic.
Friday night, when either Kyle or me or both of us should have a date, we don’t. I guess officially Mom doesn’t, either, but at least she’s going out. Another casual meeting with Jimmy Korbel. I don’t have anything against him, exactly, but I can’t say I want him to marry my mom. The idea of a man not my father in what I still think of as my parents’ room makes me feel sick and then furious.
So there we are, the two teenage boys of the house, hanging around on a Friday evening. I’ve just finished washing the dishes, thinking about Max and wondering why he hasn’t asked me to “check out the sights” yet, and as I hose out the sink I decide I’ll watch some TV or maybe get on the computer, or both, but when I go into the living room Kyle’s already on the computer, poking away with only the fingers on his left hand. So of course this is when I realize that the computer is really what I want, not the TV.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“My business.” He doesn’t even look away from the screen.
“Well, you can’t hog that all night just because I had to do the dishes that you can’t do because you won’t use your fucking hand.”
Again, no turn of the head. “Don’t say that word.”
“Fucking, fucking, fucking.” But that’s not going to get me the computer, so I decide to wait him out and watch some TV in the meantime. I put the thing on mute while I cruise from channel to channel, looking for something to watch without being subjected to even a word of advertising, and before I land on something watchable I’ve lost out again, because Kyle’s turned the volume up on the computer so he can watch a YouTube video. At first this really pisses me off, and I consider a battle of audio, figuring the TV would have to win. But then I hear recorded laughter, and then more, and I pause in my intended war of sound to see what Kyle’s watching. I stand a little way behind him and watch as this clean-cut guy on the screen cracks jokes with the audience about his life, his family, about the Bible, and about science. If he hadn’t finally picked up a Bible and declared that he believed it, cover to cover, I would have suspected he was a comedian making fun of both sides.
He really is funny, actually, and he seems likeable. It sure seems like he has his audience eating out of his hand. And then with no seam, no break, no “okay that’s enough funny stuff we’re getting down to business now,” he’s into his presentation. This guy is an entertainer.
He says he likes science. And then he proceeds to make it sound like he doesn’t. It’s clear to me pretty quickly that what he’s doing is picking on some very specific things about science, lots of them decades old, and pointing out the flaws.
I creep closer—not wanting Kyle to know I’m watching this thing—to see what it’s called, and I see the video title: 100 Reasons Why Evolution Is So Stupid. This comedian-slash-whatever would seem to be Kent Hovind.
I stand rooted in place while he trashes scientific point after scientific point, experiment after hypothesis after theory after idea, keeping his audience laughing and nodding, and basically doing his best to make anyone who trusts science feel like they’ve lost touch with reality. As I stand there, hearing Kyle chuckle along with the others, I start to hear a voice in my head. It’s saying things like, How is he doing this? Why does what he’s saying seem to make sense when I know better?
I really don’t want to get into it with Kyle. We have enough things to fight about. I back up as silently as possible, turn off the muted TV, and sneak upstairs to my room.
Lying on my bed, earbuds helping to drown out the world, I let my mind float. I don’t even want to fight this battle in my head. I just want it all to leave me alone.
About four songs later, my mind starts to free itself from Hovind’s fast-paced patter and the chuckles and giggles of his adoring audience. I pause the music so I can organize some thoughts.
First, his style sucks you in right away. He’s a very funny guy who talks fast and keeps the jokes coming, gets everyone liking him, gets them relaxed and laughing. And nodding. Then he takes examples of science questioning itself and calls that stupid. While you’re still chuckling about how silly science is, he starts cherry-picking questions science doesn’t even pretend to have an answer for, and he calls science stupid. Then he points out places where science made mistakes and says “stupid” again.
What he doesn’t say is what’s really going on. Because what would really be stupid is if scientists didn’t keep looking for better answers, and if they didn’t admit when they made a mistake. But they do. That’s how we know what the mistakes are. That’s where Hovind gets them—from science itself.
Hovind says the Bible answers questions that evolution is too stupid to know. What he won’t say is that we’re supposed to believe the Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true. He picks on science because it questions itself, because it requires proof—even from itself. What I get is that the only proof Mr. Hovind requires is the Bible’s assertion that the Bible is correct.
That’s stupid.
But—this isn’t my battle. The thing that haunts me is that I thought Kyle was smarter than this. I wouldn’t have thought he’d be so easily fooled by this guy. I mean, I see through him. Why doesn’t Kyle?
It’s only about eight-thirty or so, but I hear Mom’s car over the drone of that loon Kyle’s listening to. First she slams the car door, then the door of the house. I’m guessing the nondate with Jimmy didn’t go so well.
Kyle doesn’t have the sense to pause his video; I can still hear it going. There’s enough silence from downstairs around that loon’s rantings for me to imagine Mom standing there, listening, face darkening as she realizes what it is. And it seems I’m not far off.
“Kyle Poe! Turn that damned thing off this minute. Do you think I want to listen to that shit?”
“Don’t say—”
“Stop it!” Her voice is high, almost frantic. “Stop it right now! I’ve had more than my fill of parsimonious assholes tonight. Turn that damned thing off and go to your room.” There’s a pause, and I can tell Kyle mumbles something. “NOW!”
I’m sorry Mom feels like this, but I’m thinking it must have to do with Jimmy Korbel, and I can’t help but be happy about that. Call it unholy glee.
But I haven’t heard the end of Kent Hovind. Mom wakes me up Saturday morning to ask if I need anything; she’s running a couple of errands. By the time I make it downstairs, she’s pulling out of the driveway and Kyle is at the kitchen table spooning milk and cereal into his mouth with his left hand.
“Still stumbling?” I plunk my own cereal bowl onto the table and settle into Mom’s chair.
He swallows and then says, “You could stand a little contrition yourself, you know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know very well.” He scoops another spoonful into his face.
“What if I don’t? What the hell are you talking about?” Is he telling me he knows when I’m jerking off?
“Don’t say hell.”
“Oh, fuck off!”
“Or that.” He stands, carries the bowl and spoon over to the sink. Before I know it he’s back at the computer, that “stupid” Hovind character rambling on again. I can’t tell if it’s the same video or not, because now he’s going on about sexual immorality, not evolution. I finish my cereal and chug some orange juice, planning to sneak up behind Kyle again to see what he’s watching this time. But I don’t get close enough to see before I hear Hovind going on about how people who allow themselves to be ruled by material life rather than God’s word are automatically immoral. It takes him no time at all to get to homosexuality. Maybe when the asshole struck so close to home for me I made some noise. Whatever, Kyle turns and sees me.
He hits the pause icon. “Pull up a chair.”
“You’re out of your mind. That’s stuff’s bullshit.”
“Sexual immorality? You think that’s not a bad thing?”
“Sexual orientation and sexual immorality are not the same thing.”
“Any sexual behavior the Bible condemns is immorality. If your orientation causes you to sin, then it’s immoral.”
“My orientation?” Does he know? Or was that a generic “you”?
“Did I say you were homosexual, Ethan?” His glance is dismissive, but then it changes, and he looks harder at me. “Ethan?”
Shit. I’ve blown it big-time. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, big brother. Your buddy there is just plain offensive to anyone with a brain.” I turn and stomp off upstairs before he can figure out that I’m scared shitless that I’ve just given myself away to the person second least likely to understand it. The first is my dad.
Chapter 4
Next week, after school on Monday, Mom says I need to help her with more signs. By then, I’ve developed a plan. “Tell you what, Mom. I’ll help you, for sure. As long as I can drive.” I hold my breath, half expecting an explosion. It doesn’t come. She just looks at me like she’s thinking. So I prod, “Deal?”
She tosses me the keys. YES! Out of my back pocket I pull the folded-up pamphlet I downloaded for charting my time. A short pencil stub is in my front jeans pocket, and I get that out, too. Mom says, “What are those for?”
“I have to rack up thirty-five supervised hours, remember? So I’m gonna log how much time I drive today. And you need to initial it. I guess I can’t count the time we’re hammering signs.” I look at her, half hoping she’ll say to just clock the whole time. But she has a weird look on her face.
“I don’t know about this, Ethan.”
“What? You said I could drive!”
“I know, I know. It’s just . . . all these rules. Instruction permit. Intermediate license. Unrestricted license. Two-year waiting periods. Honestly!”
But she gets into the passenger side, and I don’t ask any more questions until we’re under way. Then I say, “Is it that libertarian stuff again?”
“Yes, it is. If I were card-carrying about it, I wouldn’t even believe in drivers licenses. But I guess you can take it too far. And also, I do want you to be safe. So, go ahead. Clock your minutes. And slow down.”
I log fifty minutes by the time we get home. That’s the good news. The bad news is that she drives me insane the whole time. Watch out! Slow down! There’s a stop sign! Little boy on a bike! Slower around curves! And she keeps pumping the passenger brake. You know the one? It’s on the floor on the passenger side. Only, obviously, it isn’t. She just keeps stomping her foot on the floor.
As I’m drifting off to sleep that night I wonder if she was this bad with Kyle. She’d logged time with him; why wasn’t she better at it by now? But then I figured maybe she’d just had enough. And I start remembering; yeah, she was this bad with Kyle.
Terrific.
It takes Mom and me the whole week to get all those signs in the car plastered around the countryside. It takes a toll on both of us, but she continues to let me drive, and by the time they’re all placed I have about six hours of true driving time. Not much, but it’s a start. Now I just have to figure out how to keep going without Mom and me killing each other inside the car, or killing someone else because we’re arguing too much to see them.
But I gotta give her credit. The next Saturday, Mom says, “I’ve got to go up to Etta’s, Ethan. Got a little campaign strategizing to do. D’you want to drive me?”
I don’t stop to think what I’ll do while the two of them are talking. “Hell, yeah!”
“What did you say, young man?”
“Sorry. Yes. Please.”
I’d never really seen how far off the road Etta’s place is. It’s maybe an eighth of a mile to the house, and it’s the only house out here. Must be hell in the winter. That pit bull, Two, is sitting at attention beside the steps of Etta’s house. I can’t tell what I think of him. Everyone knows he could tear you limb from limb, and he sure keeps an eye on Mom and me as we walk from the car and up onto the front porch, but he doesn’t move. Maybe it helps that Etta is standing there to greet us. I don’t look at his eyes; it seems safer. And then I see a handwritten sign next to the front door.
Don’t touch Two. Don’t speak to him. Don’t look in his eyes.
Okaaay. Not much of a pet, though.
Etta looks about the same as the last time I saw her, probably in the grocery store or something. I guess I expect her to look like some old hag, living out here all alone and hardly venturing out into the world. But she looks pretty normal. Short gray hair, suntanned face with its share of wrinkles but no more. She’s kind of tall and slender, and not hideous or crazed. Clothes are pretty normal, too—jeans and a jersey camp shirt right out of L.L.Bean. She tells me to call her Etta, pours lemonade, and sets a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table.
“Help yourself, Ethan,” she says. “Take a napkin from the counter if you want to wander around. You can sit with us if you like, but that might not suit you.” She and Mom have taken chairs on either side of one corner of the table, pads of paper and a few pens ready.
“Thanks.” I take my glass and as many cookies as I can fit onto the napkin and make my way into the living room, where I’m very pleasantly surprised by the view from a huge picture window out across fields and toward distant mountains. I set the glass down on a soapstone coaster and look outside as I munch cookies, bending over a few times to pick up crumbs I’ve dropped, finally realizing that the rug they’re landing on is a rich, dark, blood red rug with lots of colorful designs. I guess this is an oriental rug, but I don’t remember ever being up close and personal with one before. I dig my fingers in. It’s not very deep, but the pile is dense and springy.
There are bookshelves along the walls anyplace there isn’t a door or a window. I down the last bite of cookie and approach a set of matched book covers that look like leather. They turn out to be all Shakespeare. One of them is on its side on top of the others, so I pull that one out and open it to where there’s one edge of paper marking a place. It’s in Hamlet, and there’s writing on the paper, which seems silly because the same words are on one of the pages the paper was marking. But there it is:
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
The paper seems really old, and the writing doesn’t look like the sign at the door, the one about Two. I put the book back where it was and nearly knock something off the shelf in front of the other leather books. It’s a dark, bronze-colored bowl with some kind of black design around the outside near the rim, and it makes a soft ringing sound when my knuckle hits it. I pick it up, feeling the slightly raised pattern of the design, and inside there’s a different design, also in black. One large shape that looks sort of like a letter in some other alphabet is inside, on the center of the bottom. When I tap one side with a fingernail, that note sounds again. It really is a note, like you might sing. I set the bowl back carefully and go stand in front of the window.
Just outside are a couple of Adirondack chairs, painted dark green. I grab my lemonade and head back to the kitchen and stand there until I’m noticed. Mom looks up, and I say, “Is it okay if I go sit in the chairs out there?” I point toward where I’d seen them.
Etta answers. “Certainly, Ethan.”
“Um, Two won’t mind?”
Etta chuckles. “I doubt it. Just keep your head up, move forward with purpose, and follow the three rules. He might come sniff you and then sit with you, though.”
Mom glares at me as I reach for another few cookies. So I say, “These are real good. Thanks.” I grab my jacket and head out.
It’s tempting to say something to Two, who’s still sitting where he’d been when we got there. Head up, I remind myself, and he lets me pass. I walk around the house to where the chairs are, settle into one of them, and stare out across the landscape. The other chair is close by. I let my hand move a little toward it and imagine Max’s fingers are waiting there for mine. We hold hands and just sit there. I feel so happy. So right. It’s warm in the sun, and I close my eyes and breathe deeply.
