wouldn’t be ready for at least an hour. The Detroit Lions were hosting the New York Yanks at Briggs Stadium. Lions quarterback Bobby Layne had just scored a touchdown on a one-yard keeper and about the time Doak Walker kicked the extra point, Theresa walked out the kitchen door.
She used her time wisely and went to the garage and got the hose that she’d purchased from the hardware store earlier that week. She hooked the hose to the muffler and placed the other end of it through the rear window, when she started the car she thought of her family and her friends at work. She thought of poor Dr. Drake and her last passing thought was that damned baby. How she wished he would have been stillborn. She hated that baby.
******
Evelyn was as unhappy as anyone could be and her thoughts about life and death had changed; she was good to go. The nightly dreams about car accidents were an omen and she died in every one. Evelyn lived alone and her parents lived in upstate New York. She visited them every weekend unless she was working. They were elderly and she spent as much time with them as possible. This Christmas they would go to Mass and then spend the day together, just the three of them. She found herself going through the motions of Christmas and the usual preparations, but she no longer cared. As a devout catholic she suspected it was wrong to question her faith. Evelyn knew the sin of suicide was a sure-fire ticket straight to hell. She didn’t care, because that was exactly what she wanted most.
On the way to her parents’ house it was no surprise to her that she accelerated on Highway 221 when the sign by the curve warned everyone to slow down to twenty-five miles an hour. Evelyn was going sixty when her Chevy left the road and catapulted over the guard rail to a fiery crash a hundred feet below. When the car was airborne, Evelyn thought of nothing, she couldn’t help looking in the rearview mirror. She was actually smiling.
The REAL People and the First Deal
1954
R ichard and Meredith were intimidated by Harley. He wasn’t at all like other four year olds. Harley required little sleep and was reading at the same level as a high school student. There were no standardized IQ tests for children under the age of ten, which was just as well; they would have been shocked. Harley’s IQ was 173; thirteen points higher than Albert Einstein’s.
Meredith told her friends, “Harley remembers events and things you wouldn’t even notice; he has a really good memory for places and details.” What Meredith never told her friends or Richard was how Harley frightened her. She actually trembled sometimes when he looked at her.
It never occurred to Harley that he was mad as a hatter; he was clever enough to keep things to himself. Like his father’s favorite deck of playing cards. They had two baseball players on the back of each playing card as well as two large circles with baseballs inside each circle. A single baseball was between two baseball bats. Harley spent hours looking at the cards; he was sure they were very important. Time would tell.
By year’s end it occurred to Harley that the number of cards in that special deck he pilfered from his father were all he needed. He was cagey and ingenious when it came to self-preservation. Harley had an epiphany of sorts. He was certain there were only fifty-two other people in the entire world that were like him...REAL people! All of the others were nothing more than props in a stage play. They mattered little to him as none of the others could harm him; if he wanted to survive it was imperative that the other fifty-two REAL people had to go.
His immediate concern was his parents. He had to be careful, at least for a few more years. He was getting older and learning. He was very adaptable. It had already occurred to him that his parents were REAL people...two of the only fifty-two REAL people that existed. He knew they could mess him up, so he placed them on his short list.
She used her time wisely and went to the garage and got the hose that she’d purchased from the hardware store earlier that week. She hooked the hose to the muffler and placed the other end of it through the rear window, when she started the car she thought of her family and her friends at work. She thought of poor Dr. Drake and her last passing thought was that damned baby. How she wished he would have been stillborn. She hated that baby.
******
Evelyn was as unhappy as anyone could be and her thoughts about life and death had changed; she was good to go. The nightly dreams about car accidents were an omen and she died in every one. Evelyn lived alone and her parents lived in upstate New York. She visited them every weekend unless she was working. They were elderly and she spent as much time with them as possible. This Christmas they would go to Mass and then spend the day together, just the three of them. She found herself going through the motions of Christmas and the usual preparations, but she no longer cared. As a devout catholic she suspected it was wrong to question her faith. Evelyn knew the sin of suicide was a sure-fire ticket straight to hell. She didn’t care, because that was exactly what she wanted most.
On the way to her parents’ house it was no surprise to her that she accelerated on Highway 221 when the sign by the curve warned everyone to slow down to twenty-five miles an hour. Evelyn was going sixty when her Chevy left the road and catapulted over the guard rail to a fiery crash a hundred feet below. When the car was airborne, Evelyn thought of nothing, she couldn’t help looking in the rearview mirror. She was actually smiling.
The REAL People and the First Deal
1954
R ichard and Meredith were intimidated by Harley. He wasn’t at all like other four year olds. Harley required little sleep and was reading at the same level as a high school student. There were no standardized IQ tests for children under the age of ten, which was just as well; they would have been shocked. Harley’s IQ was 173; thirteen points higher than Albert Einstein’s.
Meredith told her friends, “Harley remembers events and things you wouldn’t even notice; he has a really good memory for places and details.” What Meredith never told her friends or Richard was how Harley frightened her. She actually trembled sometimes when he looked at her.
It never occurred to Harley that he was mad as a hatter; he was clever enough to keep things to himself. Like his father’s favorite deck of playing cards. They had two baseball players on the back of each playing card as well as two large circles with baseballs inside each circle. A single baseball was between two baseball bats. Harley spent hours looking at the cards; he was sure they were very important. Time would tell.
By year’s end it occurred to Harley that the number of cards in that special deck he pilfered from his father were all he needed. He was cagey and ingenious when it came to self-preservation. Harley had an epiphany of sorts. He was certain there were only fifty-two other people in the entire world that were like him...REAL people! All of the others were nothing more than props in a stage play. They mattered little to him as none of the others could harm him; if he wanted to survive it was imperative that the other fifty-two REAL people had to go.
His immediate concern was his parents. He had to be careful, at least for a few more years. He was getting older and learning. He was very adaptable. It had already occurred to him that his parents were REAL people...two of the only fifty-two REAL people that existed. He knew they could mess him up, so he placed them on his short list.
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