Socket 3 - The Legend of Socket Greeny (19 page)

“There’s a school project, ma’am,” I said.
“Scott’s my partner.”

“Okay.” She opened the door and suddenly
smiled. “Well, sure, come in. Come in.”

“Thank you.”

I stepped inside. A hallway led straight from
the front door through an entertainment room to the kitchen in the
very back where the aroma of homemade spaghetti filled the house.
To the right was a formal living room with light blue walls and
expensive, clean furniture. The staircase to the upstairs was on
the left, went up next to the wall and then turned right along that
wall so that I could see part of the upstairs. Pictures covered the
walls below the steps.

Maddi leaned against her mother’s leg. “Would
you get Scott, dear?” her mother asked.

Maddi watched me on her way to the bottom
step, then took a deep breath and shouted, “SCOTT!”

Her mother winced. “Maddi?”

Maddi looked back and rolled her eyes. She
walked up the stairs, one step at a time, sliding her hand on the
polished railing and watching me as she went.

“If you’ll excuse me,” the mother said.
“Scott will be right down.”

Hard music leaked from upstairs when a door
opened. Maddi’s voice was lost in the beat and a deeper voice
responded. They were bickering about something other than the
stranger downstairs waiting for him. Maybe Maddi forgot why she
went up.

I went to the wall and the wooden floor
creaked. The pictures were randomly framed and placed. The last
twenty years were captured in photos, starting with a wedding
picture, followed by babies and grandparents holding a baby and
mother at a baseball game and kids swimming in a pool and someone
blowing out candles. The frames were dusty and the glass cracked on
a particular one. The picture was somewhat recent.

It was the mother and father standing at the
top of the Grand Canyon. The father was holding Maddi when she was
only two years old, her hair lighter and curlier, sucking her
thumb. The mother had her hands on the shoulders of their son; he
was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. They were smiling, but
not the smile one gives when someone counts to three and they all
shout cheese. No, it was like someone said something really, really
funny and the smiles came from way down deep.

I touched the glass, dragging a track through
the dust, as if I could plug into the joy emanating from a moment
captured in time.

The steps thumped like a bowling ball was
bouncing down and Maddi went running past, grabbing the post at the
bottom and sling-shooting past me toward the kitchen, moaning out
the word, “Mooooom.”

The music cut off and a door shut upstairs.
The steps groaned differently, this time. One at a time. I stepped
back toward the door. Scott slid his hand as he took each step
deliberately, turning the corner midway and looking at me.

A magnetic force pulled at my stomach. And
the closer he got, the stronger it became. It vibrated from my
core, chattering in my teeth and under my tongue. The force grew
stronger as he reached the bottom step, gushing inside like I was
drinking from a fire hydrant. I bumped into the door behind me,
grabbed the knob.

It’s me.

Every detail. The dour expression. The slight
bend in his nose. The relaxed demeanor of his eyes, it was all me.
Except for the hair. He had normal brown hair.

He stopped at the bottom step. I held onto
the door, afraid I’d be pulled against him.
Is this what it
feels like to have the essence sucked out you?

Shock suddenly opened his eyes a bit wider.
He was looking at himself standing in the foyer. I looked down,
centered my focus, drew on whatever power I could find to project
the illusion of different features. I had to stay focused, or all
of them would be looking at Scott’s identical twin. When I looked
up, the tension eased on his face. He blinked, reset himself, still
not sure what was happening. I couldn’t tell if he was experiencing
what I was feeling. I didn’t know anything. I couldn’t see his
thoughts or motivation or memories. He was completely unknown, and
yet his presence was overwhelming me.

“Hey, uh, Scott.” I squeezed the doorknob
tighter. “You remember… in class, sociology class, we got paired up
to do the, uh…” I swallowed. “The project?”

I projected a thought in his direction,
hoping it would plant in his mind like a memory, of me sitting
behind him in a class that felt like sociology. I couldn’t feel his
mind, where it began or ended, I could only throw out the
suggestion like slinging a dart through the dark, hoping to hit the
bull’s-eye.

He blinked. “Um…”

“Good, sure. Well, I was wondering if, you
know, you had some time to get it out of the way because I’ve got…”
I pointed my thumb behind me, gestured like there were things to
do.

He looked down, working hard to recall the
project and school, like a dream that begged to be remembered but
wasn’t really sure if it happened or not. I worked harder at
projecting that thought, attempting to make it solid and real. He
was getting it, but not believing it.

“Scott, time to eat.” His mother stepped
between us. Scott stared at her, trying to wake up.

“Scott?” she said. “Are you all right?”

He looked at her, back to me. I was losing
him. He was scattered, trying to make sense out of his thoughts and
the new ones trying to convince him of a new reality. In one last
effort, I threw all my energy into the new reality.
I’m a new
student, I sit behind you. We’re working on a project. I look
nothing like you. I am not you.

I AM NOT YOU.

He licked his lips, and then clarity settled
in. He smiled. “Sure, um, yeah. I’m all right.”

His mother smiled, then looked at me. “What’s
your name?”

“My name is Socket.”

“You want to stay for dinner, Socket?”

Scott watched her invite me, then waited for
an answer. Like his mother, he was cleared-eyed and settled. They
accepted the new reality.

“That’s very kind of you,” I said.

“Very nice.” She started for the kitchen.
Scott nodded with a sly smile. I paused at the pictures, gazed once
more at the Grand Canyon, recognized the smile looking back.

Like one of the family.

There were two dogs in the backyard. They’d
dug holes near a shed, white paint peeling from the walls, and
looked half dead in the shade. I sensed their exhaustion and dreamy
thoughts, their legs twitching in a long afternoon nap. Beyond that
a pasture was enclosed by an old wooden fence and three horses
grazed at the back of the property. Stables were on the other side
of the shed and a smaller fenced area with chickens and goats
inside.

I was surprised by my level of comfort. My
world was standing on its head, but here, inside this house, I
didn’t feel like an alien. I felt like I was home, like I’d know
these people all my life.

Maddi was slopping a spoonful of spaghetti
sauce over a mountain of noodles, her eyes big and hungry. Scott
was at the table, waiting for the rest of the family. Their mother
was near the sink, filling a plastic cup with apple juice.

“What would you like to drink, Socket?” she
asked.

“Sweet tea?”

“What’s sweet tea?” Maddi asked.

“Um, it’s tea with sugar.”

“Well, then why don’t you just add
sugar?”

“I can do that,” I said.

Her mother put a tall glass of tea at the
table setting next to Scott, along with a bowl of sugar. “Go ahead,
Socket, help yourself to some food.”

There was no need to eat. I had no appetite.
But I got myself a small helping, savoring the scent of homemade
sauce. It wasn’t so much the spices and tomato sauce that I
savored, but the effort that went into making it. The entire house
had a special energy, one that was lived-in, the intermingling of a
family essence that wove tightly through the walls.

They were waiting for me to sit. Maddi
already had noodles spun on her fork. As soon as my butt hit the
chair, they were in her mouth. The meal began. There was another
setting at the head of the table, like someone else was coming but
not until later.

Things were spinning, like I was the one in
an alternate reality, eating next to my identical twin. It could be
easy to forget I didn’t belong. Easy to believe I didn’t really
exist, but I let myself believe it. For the moment, I belonged.

There was nothing but the sound of knives on
plates and spinning forks. Scott ate without issue. Maddi was
moaning with each bite, eyeballing me. I slowly cut the noodles and
pushed the food around. I wasn’t fooling her, so I took a bite.

“You know, it’s kind of weird that Scott’s
friend is eating with us,” Maddi said. “I mean, we just met
him.”

“Mind your manners, dear,” the mother
said.

“I’m just
saaaaaying
…” she sang.

The mother stopped chewing and glared. Maddi
slurped a noodle into her mouth like a worm running for cover. I
smiled at her and she laughed, splashing sauce all over her
lips.

“Where are you from, Socket?” the mother
asked.

“South Carolina.”

“I thought you sounded a bit Southern.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is Socket a southern name?” Maddi asked.

“I don’t believe so.”

“Well, if you were born there, why don’t you
have a Southern name?”

Because I wasn’t born.
I shrugged.

“You know what your name sounds like?” Maddi
said. “Like Scott’s name.”

Her mother stopped chewing and thought about
it. “Oh, yes, you’re right, Maddi. It does sound like it.”

I frowned, thinking also, but coming up
blank. “Ma’am?”

“Scott Teck,” she said. “Sock-et.”

And there you go. Mystery solved over a plate
of spaghetti. My name was an aberration of my original, a
scrambling of sounds and letters. Perhaps I wasn’t a weapon after
all. Just a reflection.

“Isn’t that odd, Scott?” the mother said.

He looked at me, taking another bite,
nodding. I looked away, but not too quickly. I couldn’t look into
his eyes, it started the magnetic pull in my stomach, and each time
it got stronger. I was able to resist, as long as I wasn’t looking
at him. Fortunately, he was more interested in eating.

“What’s your middle name?” the mother
asked.

“Pablo.”

“Oh, my gosh!” Maddi clapped and pointed at
Scott. “Tell him your middle name, Scott. Tell him! Tell him!”

He hovered over his plate, noodles dangling,
shaking his head.

“Scott doesn’t like his middle name,” the
mother said.

“Can I tell him, Mama?” Maddi asked,
bouncing. “Can I? Can I?”

“Picasso,” Scott said. “My middle name is
Picasso, isn’t that awesome?”

Maddi slumped in her chair, about as much as
I did. Pablo Picasso, one of humanity’s most celebrated artists, a
well-spring of creativity, the essence of being human. Would Pablo
be whole without Picasso? Could something be creative if it was
separated at birth?

And the hits just keep on coming.

“What’s your project about?” the mother
asked.

“Ma’am?”

“The school project?”

There was a moment when the family looked at
each other, a moment where the new reality faltered and a stranger
was sitting at the table. I got out of my thoughts and focused.
“Project, oh, yeah,” I said. “It’s a sociology project. We’re
supposed to, uh, interview each other about family. You know, your
parents and grandparents, where you were born, that sort of
thing.”

“That sounds interesting,” she said. “You
didn’t tell me about this project, Scotty.”

He shrugged, mouth full.

“We’re
adooopted
.” Maddi hunched over
her plate with a devious smile, not asking for permission to give
the answer this time. Her mother told her to pay attention to
dinner and Maddi looked at me from the corners of her eyes, her
feet thumping on her chair.

The back door in the pantry closed and the
father marched into the kitchen. “Sorry, guys. My meeting ran
late.” He hung his keys on a rack next to the doorframe and went
directly to the stove. While he shoveled food onto his plate, he
looked out the window over the sink. “Mary Ellen? Did someone let
the chickens out?”

“Oh, the gate must not have got closed,” the
mother said. “Maddi, can you get them?”

“I got to do everything.” She dropped her
fork on the plate.

“That’s because you’re Cinderella, honey.”
She whacked her on the fanny as she went out the back door. “How
was the meeting, Joey?”

“You know meetings.” The father sat down and
started eating, saying with food in his mouth, “Who’s our
guest?”

The mother looked at Scott. He wiped his
mouth. “Oh, he’s a friend from school. Stopped by to work on a…
project, I think. Um, his name is Socket.”

Joey’s arms were tan and hairy. The fatherly
essence was rich and powerful. The energy in the room changed with
his presence. It was stronger and tighter, enveloped the whole
house. With him at the table, the family was complete. I was whole
and unbroken.

“Have I met you?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“So, what kind of name is Socket?”

Maddi and the mother told him about my name
and how it sounded like Scott Teck, and the father nodded and
listened and laughed. Maddi told their father about the South and
how they were learning about the Civil War at school and Scott got
up to get more food. Fortunately, no one paid attention that my
plate had hardly been touched, how I expertly scattered the food
like I’d eaten as much as I could. Instead, I sat back and
experienced the flow. The conversation soon turned to Maddi’s
classmate that threw up at recess and Scott’s ex-girlfriend working
at the grocery store and their mother’s appointment at the church.
The sorts of things families talk about at dinner, I suppose.