Porter (2 page)

Other than the fellow at the medical school who
m
her dad told that she had “an unusual ability,” no one else was told that Allie was the center of
a
new research program.
When the
MRI
was done there was no recognizable difference between her brain and any other.
Dr.
Dans’
grad student kept working on
Dans’
grant funded
research
project
, getting barked at when he interrupted the “Allie research” with questions about their funded study. Everyone that came into the lab was told that Allie was there to “keep her out of her Mom’s hair” or to “see how science worked.” Her dad strictly forbid her to tell any of her friends or
to
do any tricks for
anyone except for him. Video
s he made of the effect in action carefully excluded Allie from the field of view.
He was very pleasant to her, ordering out lunch from all her favorite restaurants and setting up a computer for her to use between tests. But nonetheless, she was there in the lab all day almost every day! Even most weekends!

             
The rest of Allie’s summer was ruined with 12 hour days at the lab and she began to look forward to
the start of
school
simply because it would provide
a break from the constant testing. Her mother and father
had
started to argue about it –
out of her presence
,
but she could hear
the
m
fighting
through the walls.

             
At the end of her first day back at school Allie was dismayed to see her dad’s car parked
in front of the school
.
She opened the door,
“Dad, I’ve got homework!”

             
Distractedly he looked up
from
the
paper
he’d been reading
and smiled at her, “
I know Kiddo. It’ll just be for an hour
. Besides you can do your homework during my setup time between the first experiment and the second.
You look great in your new outfit!
”

             
Sullenly, she got in the car. As she expected, one hour turned into two, then an angry call from her mother
was needed
to get them home for dinner.

             
Her dad became more and more frustrated as test after test demonstrate
d
odd but miniscule
physical phenomena
around the port area at both entrance and exit.
There was a tiny rotating electrical field, fluctuating magnetic phenomena and
a slight attractive force, possible gravitational, around the “ports.”
The electromagnetic and possible gravitational fields were so tiny they were at the limits of detection for the most sensitive measuring devices he had
available
. Worse, the measurements would be different from one repetition of a port setup to the next! He worried that
all he was detecting was
“noise” in the measurements.

He determined that material
s
only flowed through the ports like they would through a hose, from
high
pressure to low pressure. Interestingly,
Allie
was able to open ports over a longer distance when the flow of material through the port was energetic. Thus a port from a high pressure pipe could be opened over a
much
greater distance than a port from a glass of water.
When it was opened over a
very
long distance, the water sprayed out with little pressure, as if the energy of that pressure was being used to cross the distance.
When Allie was fresh she could open a port
as big as
3mm in diameter but the diameter dropped off
quickly
when she got tired.

             
Her dad had no handle on the phenomenon, and therefore could not
reproduce
it
;
much less magnify the effect as he had hoped. He became more and more
frustrated
and
,
though it seemed impossible, even more absent minded.
Allie’s parents started to fight. Her mother threatened divorce if he didn’t let Allie have time to “be a kid.”

             
But then, Thanksgiving weekend came and Allie got sick. High fevers and a cough, the doctor diagnosed “the flu that’s going ‘round” and prescribed “rest and fluids, it’ll get better.”

             
While she was sick
Allie
discovered that she
couldn’t make a port
.
T
o her dad’s
great
dismay, when the flu resolved,
she didn’t recover her ability. He checked her morning and evening, first in dismay, then in frustration, then in anger
, accusing her of just refusing to make ports.
B
ut
,
as the weeks and m
onths passed
,
it seemed that the
startling physical phenomenon
/ability
was
likely
gone forever.

             
Allie
wasn’t too happy about her dad’s constant queries
about
her ability which
had so rapidly
gone from exciting
,
to
irritating
,
to
maddening
.
Then
she
star
ted puberty and became
a
sullen
teenager. Sullen and angry
about everything
,
and
especially
about her lost ability. She
locked herself
in her room
for hours
on end
,
playing electric g
uitar into headphones.
Sarah offered to pay for lessons,
Allie
didn’t want them.

H
er parents were
completely
unaware
of just how
astonishingly
good
Allie
had become on the guitar
because they couldn’t hear
the sound in her headphones,
and she balefully refused to let them listen. When they insisted, she thrashed loud distorted pieces with dissonan
t chords. T
hey learned not to ask.

             
Dr. Dans spent long hours going over and over the data that he had
accumulated
,
trying to find something that he had missed and searching
the
literature for someone else who may have made similar observations.
He
had no doubt that
there must be some physical way to reproduce what his daughter had been able to do for those few fleeting months.
When
Sarah
questioned
him,
he admitted that there seemed to be little practical use for a port
no bigger than 3mm
over distances
of
no more than
20-30 feet,
but
,
if the phenomenon could just be understood,
he
hoped that it could be scaled up.

             
Allie’s mother gradually forgave
her husband
for his
earlier
behavior
,
but when he occasionally stopped by
Allie’s
room to ask her to
“
try to create a port
”
again, he could count on
Sarah
being there to tell him to “stop badgering the girl, surely she’ll let you know if it starts to work again.”

             
Allie’s teenage yea
rs slowly and
morosely
passed. Though she never seemed to study,
her parents couldn’t complain because she
got excellent grades. She joined a band and spent long hours at practice
with them
and playing a few gigs. Her parents were never invited
,
either
to
practice
s
,
or to gigs
,
and in fact were actively discouraged
from attending
.

             
Then, in her senior year of high school
, h
er mother knocked on her constantly closed bedroom door, first lightly, then loudly. “Come in.”

             
Sarah
opened the door.
Guitar on her lap,
Allie sat on the floor in b
aggy jeans,
and
a ripped t-shirt. She
had apparently cut her hair
to a ragged
inch long and dyed it black since her mother saw her
going out the door
that morning.
As usual her room was a disaster with clothes strewn everywhere. Gritting her teeth,
Sarah
ignore
d
the mess
. She
tried to sound chipper and upbeat,
“Hey Allie, I’m hoping that we can plan a trip to
visit some of the colleges you’
re interested in?”

             
“I’m not going to college.”

             
Startled,
“What?!?!”

             
Grimly,
“Not going.”

             
“Of course you’re going, what did you
think
you were going to do?”

             
“Band’s going on the road.”

             
“You can’t do that! We won’t allow it.”

             
“I’m eighteen, you can’t tell me what to do anymore… Well you could make me move out
now
I guess. Do you want me to?”
Allie raised an eyebrow.

             
“What
!
? Where do you think you’d live?”

             
“Friends
,
or the homeless shelter.
” She shrugged,
“
I’d have to work it out, so I hope you’ll give me a little warning if you’re tossing me.”

             
A tear formed and ran down her mother’s cheek. “Never,” she
croaked
.
S
he turned suddenly and left.

             
“Close my door!” Allie shouted after her. Then after a minute, she got up and closed it herself.
She wondered if “Never” had referred to the homeless shelter, or going on the road?

             
M
onths of shouting, pleading, arguments and long
glowering
silences passed without any change in Allie’s resolution. She was a musician, she wasn’t going to college. She might go to college if music didn’t work out, but she was
sure she was
going to make
a
music
career
work.
Her mother got little support in the battle from Allie’s dad, who as usual seemed too distracted to get very involved in the argument.

The morning after
Allie’s
high school
graduation Sarah Dans knocked on
her
door to ask what she’d like for breakfast but there was no answer. When she opened the door
she was astonished to see that Allie’s room had been straightened up. Not great
,
but bet
ter than it had been in years. Then, w
ith a sinking heart she saw that the guitar and amp were gone.

There was a note on the bed. “We’ve got gigs in
Atlanta
.” No “goodbye,” no mention of when she’d be back, no mention of where in
Atlanta
.

Sarah Dans sank down on Allie’s bed and had a good long cry. When she had herself in control she called Allie’s
cell phone
but it went straight to message.
In a trembling voice she
said, “Sorry
we didn’t get
to see you this morning. We wish you luck. Call if you need anything.”