The Egg Code (16 page)

Thriller

1984

On television, a man stands before a series of charts. “Hello,” he says, “my name is Herbert Hollows. I’m a scientist. I design prototypes for the Kellogg Corporation. When someone opens a box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, he should know exactly what to expect. The flakes must all convey the same message. Speaking anthropomorphically, the ideal flake should say to the consumer, ‘Greetings. Allow me to introduce myself. I am a Kellogg’s Corn Flake. Please note my familiar shape.’ ” The man continues past a long drafting table. Cheesy music plays in the background, something from a sci-fi movie. “For this reason, the people at Kellogg have hired me to develop six templates, six variations on a basic theme. All future flakes will derive from these primary sources.”

Dr. Hollows’s voice upsets you: drab, distinctly Midwestern. This is not how scientists are supposed to talk. You seek the comfort of an exotic German accent, the fruity vowels, the
v
for
w
transpositions, the lab coat, the thrilling graphs, the clipboard, the adventurous eyebrows, the gurgling beakers. You want the
font
. You want the
scientist font
. This is why it bothers you, seeing this complicated schematic hanging above a drafting table two miles north of Battle Creek, Michigan. In pencil-drawn lines and dashes, the common corn flake appears otherworldly, like a supernatural gemstone. Already you fear that you are in way over your head. Television spoils everything. You would like to believe that these things just happen, that no greater purpose informs their structure beyond a plain desire to please you, the informed shopper. Touchingly naive, you still cling to the notion that there is fun in the world. Nothing is fun, my friend. Your every pleasure is a function of rigidly formulated theorems carried out to an irreducible conclusion.

But while your unhappiness stems from these impersonal revelations, Herbert Hollows has more daunting reasons for his concern. With malicious intent, his own son responded to the advertisement in the Kellogg newsletter last fall, calling for submissions from ambitious young filmmakers. Deliberately, dishonestly, he rented a 16mm camera and scads of editing equipment, needlessly wasting a whole year’s allowance. Equipment in hand, he knocked on the studio door—said he was interested in his dear old daddy’s work, and Dr. Hollows believed him, flattered by the attention, not knowing that his comments would later appear in the boy’s contemptible commercial. Edited down, given a cheap, ironic spin, the thirty-second spot won a special citation from the heads of Enthusiasms, Inc. “What a talented son you have,” they said, shaking his hand, calling him
mister
. Those shark-eyed salesmen would never understand the real work of the engineer. If they want his child, they can have him.

Walking off-screen, Dr. Hollows leaves his drafting table and strides down the hall of his modern, prefab home. Teenybopper music rises up from the boy’s room. The window over the landing shows a two-lane highway cutting across a brown field. The sky above is blue and empty. He leans against the banister and shouts down the stairs.

“What are you doing?”

“What I’m always doing.”

“Well, get up here.”

“I can’t now.”

“Yes, you can now.”

“Minute.”

“And don’t get sarcastic with me.”

Downstairs, he hears the sound of typing, then a frustrated silence. His wife, Joan, encourages these literary pursuits, and while Herbert takes a moderate pride at the boy’s obvious intelligence, he cannot approve of the time wasted, time better applied to other things. When Dr. Hollows was a student, math and physics were the only subjects he considered worth studying; he read literature occasionally, taking notes and demanding a refund from the publisher whenever the author got the science wrong. And now his only son, aged thirteen, is two hundred pages into a projected million-word epic called
Walter Munch, from
Morning to Night
, seeking to reinvent the Ulysses tale by grafting it onto the mundane existence of a young resident of Battle Creek, Michigan. Herbert has not read the manuscript, despite his son’s urgings. These fruitless ambitions must not be humored in a child of thirteen. Dr. Hollows has known too many marginal prodigies whose lives of frustration began with a parent’s unconditional support.

“Coming?”

“I’m doing something.”

“Now.”

“All right.”

“Hup-two.”

“Come on.”

“Well, do it. Now. And don’t get smart.”

Leaving his work, Gray steps over a pile of spiral notebooks and climbs the stairs. His room is small, and he keeps it neat. A top-of-the-line Atari 2600 game console lies in its unopened box. A curl of wrapping paper sticks to the package. A chimney. A black boot (Mr. Claus is coming). Gray’s birthday is on the twenty-fourth of December. He feels personally responsible for the holiday buildup. The bustle, the chaos, the Christmas vacation—but at the end, no parties and the usual number of gifts.

“I will say this in as few words as possible. I’m angry with you. I’m very disappointed in you. I don’t know what to say to you right now.”

“Well, I don’t . . . I don’t know.”

Dr. Hollows hates the look on his son’s face. Loose lips, open mouth—
What did I do?
—as if any of this should come as a surprise. His shirt—oh!
nice
shirt (choke you with it).

“It seems to me—and you can address this any way you see fit, because if you want me to treat you like a man, I’ll treat you like a man—but it seems to me that you have no respect for the hard work I do, and if you think you can ridicule me in front of your little TV camera, then I just don’t know what to say about that.”

Herbert can hear the stereo playing in his son’s room. Gray likes his music; it helps him to focus on his writing. On those tense weekends when the whole family stays at home to work on their individual projects, the low drum sometimes pounds against the floor of the upstairs studio. Herbert tolerates this racket without complaint. Being tolerant appeals to the doctor; these small inconveniences enhance his sense of responsibility.

“Gosh, Dad. Most people thought it was funny. My English teacher liked it a lot.”

“Do you think it’s funny?”

He hates the shirt. The color. Nectarine.

“Well, no. I’m sorry. I don’t know why you’re so mad at me all of a sudden. I’ll tell the guy you don’t like it, and maybe he can take it off.”

Buttons. Three of ’em. One fastened, two loose.

“Gray. Are you really that stupid?”

The stereo pauses in the silence between songs. This particular record is quite popular with the kids these days. The cover shows a black man in a white suit cuddling a baby leopard. Gray’s mother purchased the record while out running errands with the boy. Seeing the covetous look on his face, she offered to buy it for him, but Gray said no, not wanting to endure the thank-you ritual, the questions he was now bound to answer (what? record? artist? do? you? like? other? kids?). Red in the face, he pretended not to see as his mother brought the record up to the cash register. Grateful, ashamed, he forced a reaction;
thanx!—
he said, then eagerly unwrapped the cellophane on the way home.

“Everyone liked it. They showed it at school. They had a special assembly, and everyone sat down. Right when it was coming on, they said to wait and we’d watch it. And then it came on. And most people laughed. They thought it was funny. My English teacher—”

“Your English teacher is of a questionable persuasion.”

Gray’s throat feels dry. He sees his English teacher, sees his father pushing the small woman against a blackboard. The dry feeling inside his throat breaks. “She said it was really good. Mom was there.”

Joan Hollows sits in the upstairs family room, pretending to read a
TV
Guide
. This is what she does whenever she hears her husband yelling at the boy. Having experimented with several different periodicals, she has determined that the
TV Guide
is best suited to this purpose, thanks to the loud noise it makes when she flips through the pages.

“So this is what you’re going to do. Run to your mother. Are you that much of a baby?”

“Well, I’ll call the guy. I’ll do it right now. I’ll tell him to take it off, and to stop showing it.”

He hates the shirt. Spoiled little jerk, his mother buys him everything.

“Are you so
stupid
that you think you can call a man who’s in charge of billions of dollars in revenue and simply tell him to put a stop to it— because
you
didn’t think, and because
you
were selfish, and because you’re acting like an immature brat?”

The buttons, and the little insignia, logo, whatever they call it—a small patch, what’s that, a muskrat? a tiger? some stupid gimmick, all the kids want to look the same.

“I’m s-s-s—”

“Now he’s going to cry. That’s an intelligent thing to do. How would you feel if I were to go on national television—‘This is my son, he stays in his room all day, he thinks he’s writing a
goddamn
novel, why don’t we put the camera right in his face and ha-ha, isn’t that funny?’ ”

“P-p-please.”

“Do you know what my colleagues are going to say about this piece of nonsense, this idiotic, unfeeling, uncaring thing you did?”

“I’m sorry!”

“Listen to me! Do? You? Know? What? Listen to me!”

Dr. Hollows brushes his son’s cheek—a symbolic slap—and goes back to his studio, pulling the door shut as the boy grabs for the knob. Gray does not want to let his father go. He wants forgiveness. His palm flaps against the wall as the space closes—now a sliver, now a seam.

“Go away. I’ll be down for dinner.”

Locking the door, Dr. Hollows sits at the drafting table and switches the overhead lamp from dim to bright. The pounding stops. Footsteps creep across the hall: Joan, coming to comfort, the mother smother, the easy part of the job. Dinner in two hours. Red eyes. Bills on the table. Food moving in a circle until everyone’s plate is full. Staring into the video camera—his
own
commerical, now—he waits for a light to flash, then begins his explanation. He hopes you will take this seriously. He hopes you will get it this time.

The Plot Reaches
New Levels of Thickness

1998

Steve waited outside the store as the meeting continued without him. He frowned to see an empty condom wrapper lying on the front curb. The opening crew must have ignored it during their morning maintenance sweep.
Sorry, Mr. Mould, ain’t nowhere it says I gotta pick up
that nasty thing
. A sudden revulsion overtook him, and he felt the need to rip off his Living Arrangements polo shirt and run across the parking lot, stripped to the waist, smashing the showcase windows of the neighboring stores. Scanning the lot, he noticed a woman shuffle out of the bakery two doors down, carrying a long baguette, her legs wrapped below the knees with flesh-colored bandages. Using the baguette as a cane, she made a sharp turn and headed for the furniture store. Steve stood frozen, intensely aware of his own shadow on the pavement.

The woman pivoted in her orthopedic shoes and glared at him through a pair of blue sunglasses. “Hey, you work here?”

“No, ma’am, I don’t.” He spoke in a careful voice, his eyes fixed on the sidewalk.

The woman pointed with her chin. “You got the shirt on.”

He looked down at his chest, then up again. “You’re right, ma’am. I’ve got the shirt on. You got me.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, making a bunch, one ugly shape, then another. “You don’t work here, how come they let you wear the shirt?”

Steve’s mind buzzed with alibis, half-baked excuses. There was a free giveaway. Free shirts for opening a charge account. Free shirts whenever you register a complaint. Complain, open, open, complain. Madness! Clenching his fists, he charged the woman, shrieking as he swung his hands. She backed away in a panic, finding her car, tearing out of the parking lot as he followed her down the driveway. Hands on his knees, he stood under a NO PARKING sign and caught his breath. The ground flashed a series of psychedelic colors—all red, all purple. When he looked up, he saw Gray Hollows coming out of the store, a stack of corporate literature under one arm. Steve hurried back to the entrance, intercepting the other man halfway to his car.

“Hi, I’m Steve Mould, I’m the manager of . . .” He waved at the store’s awning. “Well, you know all that.” His chest swelled as he leaned against one of the two limos from the home office. “Look, I don’t mean to be pushy or anything. I know that you’ve probably got a lot left to do this afternoon.”

“Not really.” Gray pulled a Dum Dum from his pocket and picked off the wrapper. “Actually I’m just going home to masturbate to my collection of antique geisha lithographs.”

Steve looked at the man and nodded intently. “Oh. Well, I don’t want to waste any of your time. I just wanted to say, I don’t know what you might have in mind for this thing you’re cooking up, but my son, um, is an actor, and uh . . .” One side of his brain suddenly felt heavier than the other. “
Wants
to be an actor, I mean. Would like to be. His mother tells me he’s very good.”

Gray placed the Dum Dum inside his mouth and bit down on the stem. “Does he do nude scenes?”

Again, Steve stared. The words seemed remote—the talk, all theoretical. “Well, you’d have to talk to her about—”

“Don’t worry about it. It probably won’t come up.”

“It’s just that he’s kind of looking to get his big break and—”

“And you thought, Hey, being the concerned parent that I am, why not use my influence as head manager of . . .” Gray frowned at the building. “What the hell’s the name of this place again?”

“Living Arrangements—it’s, uh, right there on the sign.”

“Living Arrangements . . . oh yes, that’s right. Very clever.”

Steve coughed, then said: “It’s, uh, it’s really my wife who’s asking.”

The other man nodded; his voice, soft now, came from far away. “Something about nepotism . . . it’s so touching. In fact, hey, I’ve been a beneficiary my whole life.”

“That a fact?”

“Oh, sure!” He took the candy from his mouth. “My God, if it weren’t for the golden words of a certain crazed engineer from Battle Creek, I’d still be walking the streets of Crane City, peddling pages of pretentious prose to . . . portly producers from Pennsylvania.”

“Neat.”

“HA HA! Peddling pages of . . . Look, has this kid of yours ever worked in front of a camera before?”

Steve started to reply, then realized he didn’t know what to say, didn’t know these basic things about his son. “Um, my wife would have all of that information—”

“Your wife, of course. La Grande Duchesse. Knows all. Smells all.”

“I can give her a call.” He started back toward the entrance. “Wouldn’t take a sec.”

“No, no, that’s not necessary. I like the element of surprise. The unknown quantity.” Gray folded his arms and stared across the highway to the stores on the other side. “Theoretically, I should be able to construct a vi-a-ble campaign around your son no matter how untalented he is.”

“He’s really a terrific kid.”

“Oh, I’ll bet he is. Probably played Huck Finn in the school play, right?” He tapped his chin, mulling it over. “What the hell,” he said, thinking,
T. Kenneth’s gonna kill me
. “Might as well keep it in the family. I love working with children. They’re such prima donnas.”

Steve held a breath, then let it go. “Well, super-doop!” Laughing, he wiped his face with a handkerchief. “This was easier than I thought.”

Gray’s face darkened; his eyes dimmed behind his thick and ugly glasses. The moment passed, and he clapped his hands. “Well, this should be interesting. My suggestion, sir: Protect your investment, rub his feet with smooth stones and honey butter, and I’ll see you downtown at the EI headquarters ten a.m. Monday morning. But don’t keep me waiting! Much penalty for tardiness.” Amusing himself, he slipped into a German accent. “Paddle applied to buttocks. Angry salamander attached to anal sphincter.”

The two men split up, and Steve went back in the store. A few stragglers were still coming out of his office, Jim Carroll among them, Cam Pee too, a couple of worried accountants on hand to represent the views of the budget director. His room, normally a tidy little place, was a mess, with Styrofoam coffee cups scattered across the desk, the air rancid with cigarette smoke. As the room emptied, Steve smiled, nodded, looked each man in the eye. A punk from communications handed him a paper flower, then left, giggling. Jim Carroll, last to go, leaned against the sideboard. Tired, he belched and blew a fart.

“You got this mess under control or do you need one of us to stick around?” He shook his arms out at his sides, fixing the cuffs.

“No, you go on ahead, Jim. You’ve got more important things to do.” Steve brushed a few empty sugar packets from the seat of his chair, then grabbed the phone and dialed a preset. “I’ll take care of it later. I just have to call my wife.”

“Oh. Well, if you have to talk to your
wife,
I can at least gather my charts.”

Waiting for Lydia to pick up, Steve watched the other man slide each of his charts into a giant leather portfolio. Little creep, he thought, turning away.
Back to HQ. Leave the dirty work to someone else.
He hoped Lydia would appreciate the effort. For years, her family had treated him like a hick, like a dumb Midwesterner.
Not no more
! A little reward was in order. Maybe a bottle of wine, some late-night TV . . . without the kid. He closed his eyes, picturing the two of them dancing barefoot on the brick patio, the breeze off the lake cool on their backs, a Glenn Miller CD playing softly with the speakers angled through the sliding screen. Without her heels, Lydia and Steve were both the same height. He always wondered how other couples managed to “do it”—a tall man and a short woman, or even the other way around. With him and Lydia, it wasn’t a problem. Still, eighteen years’ worth of his backaches and her ever-ascending hairdos had pushed the differential toward the extremes. Not so easy anymore. Next year, even worse. The incredible shrinking man. This was what they meant by growing apart.

The phone rang inside Lydia’s purse; checking her Caller ID, she put the receiver away and let her voicemail answer it. She and Donna were sitting at the head of the Skyes’ circular driveway, the engine still running. Neither wanted their extended luncheon to come to an end, each fearing the solitude of the late afternoon, the soporific cocktails, the wasting of the sun. Across the lawn, a neighbor’s dog prodded at the ground with its snout, its black, mucous-wet nostrils breaking the cap of a dead, dry mushroom. Lydia reached into her friend’s lap and took her hand. “Do it,” she said.

Donna’s knees were trembling. The seat belt made an awkward skew across her neck. “I don’t know.”

“You can’t lose.”

“I
can
lose.”

“How? You’ve already lost your husband. You have—”

“Nothing left, I know. Thank you, darling.”

Lydia took her hand back and rattled her keys, the chain hanging from the ignition. “I’m just being honest, Donna. I envy your position— no obligations, nothing to hold you back.”

“I want to take a bath,” Donna said. Determined, she hummed a few notes to herself. She was being silly and she knew it.

Lydia made an ugly face. “What’s with these baths you take, four, five times a day? You’re clean already!”

“This is my life, Lydia. My teeny-weeny pleasures.”

Lydia pressed a switch and all four door locks popped up with a unison clack. “Fine. Take your bath. But don’t give up on me, kiddo. If nothing else, do it for me.”

Donna sighed and pushed the car door open with her leg. Stepping out, she hesitated up the chipped and broken path. Derek had once mentioned getting an estimate for a new walk, but that was just weeks before the split, and since then the house and the surrounding land had continued its slow decay. She supposed that she could always round up the workers herself—no more complicated than cracking open a Yellow Pages, really—but that would mean having to negotiate over the phone with those mean old men, men who loved to browbeat women with their garbled talk of list prices and projected costs. That’s why Lydia’s plan was so ludicrous—the men, their stupid egos. The men would not cooperate, Reggie Bergman and his sort. They would squash the project somehow. Typical male insecurity. If anything, they feared a fair fight. His book, her book. No, the best thing for her to do was to stay put, to gladly pocket Derek’s generous settlement and to stare out at the calm, never-changing lake, gin in hand, while her home and everything else she possessed gradually turned to dust.

A small black box was sitting on the porch step, blocking the door. Donna waited for Lydia’s car to move down the street, then picked up the box and turned it around, looking for a return address. Breaking the seal, she reached under the flap and squished what felt like thick putty between her fingers. Over the course of the day, the contents had hardened into a gritty paste, shit-brown and ghastly. The smell was more than just repulsive; it was an insult.
His shit on her hands
. Blind with tears, she burst through the house and crossed the yard to the lake, sobbing as she heaved the package into the water. The box wobbled once on a wave, then tipped out of sight. Kneeling on the beach, she rinsed the clumpy residue from her fingers. Her arms trembled, and she could feel a dirty layer under her skin—something awful, cored away. This was Derek’s gift to her. Standing up, she ran back inside, her mind racing as well, its ecstatic transactions quickly cataloging the contents of every closet, every out-of-the-way cupboard and storage shelf, neurons stretching desperately toward that remote spot, the typewriter on the third floor.