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from the Matrix. I listen with growing ears.
    “Robert’s mother was a meth-addict. What is it nowadays with the
meth? Everyone is on meth it seems. You read about it all the time, like they
sell meth at the grocery store and gas stations. Nowadays you can just buy it
along with your melons and toilet paper. Where do these people get meth? It
makes no sense. When I was a kid, you couldn’t find drugs if you tried. You
were lucky to find someone with an aspirin in their pockets when you had a
headache. And your parents wouldn’t even let you drink coffee for fear you’d
become addicted to caffeine. The world has changed too much. Don’t even get me
started.” He swats at nothing.
    I don’t say a word.
    He continues. “Anyway, his mother couldn’t take care of him,
seeing that she was far too busy scratching invisible bugs on her skin, selling
herself in alleys, and going to jail. She couldn’t be bothered to take care of
her kid. So Robert ended up with me and then three of my other foster kids. We
did the best we could, I suppose, but we were more of a bruised, weather-beaten
version of a family—all pretty messed up, myself included. Had more dark spells
than good ones, but Robert turned out okay, didn’t he?” he asks me, his shoulders
slumped, his eyes weakened.
    “Yes, I think so.”
    He pokes out his lips slightly. “I mean you gotta turn out all
right to get into Stanford,” he grunts. I sense he’s talking to himself more
than me at this point. “Robert was the only one of my foster kids who went to
college, and the only one who visits me now. The others are off with their real
families, living their own lives.”
    Mr. Spencer pauses to scratch his head and suck on his lozenge. It
smells of medicine.
    “You know Robert took extra classes in high school and skipped a
grade?”
    “No.”
    “That helped get him into Stanford. Plus he wrote a college essay
about his life. Wouldn’t let me read it, of course, but the admissions
lady from Stanford called our house afterwards, personally, and left a message
on the answering machine, in tears no less. Said she’d never heard a story like
his before. Said she didn’t know how someone could go through so much in life
and not be outright crazy.” Mr. Spencer chuckles. “Huh, looking back, I don’t
know how I got this lucky. I’m just a plumber by trade, but look at me now.” He
gestures around the small room and then at me. “I got a pretty secretary delivering
me slippers, and I get to live in one of the nicest senior homes in San
Francisco, with a view of the bay. We get trips to museums and Golden Gate Park
and Union Square at Christmas time. Aside from living alongside Mr.
Poop-his-pants, I’d say I’m doing alright.”
    Mr. Spencer opens the drawer and pulls out another lozenge.
    “I’m talking your ear off, aren’t I?” he asks. “My medicine makes
me blabber. Robert says I need to let other people talk. Tell me about
yourself.”
    I can hardly speak. Thoughts trail through my head like cold, dark
mountains. The quarters of my brain that believed Robert came from a rich
family with connections that got him into Stanford are being crowded out, run
over, and squished. They’re being replaced with alien images of a motherless
boy living with a makeshift family, a child hiding dark secrets he never talks
about, and a young man who writes an essay that makes strangers cry.
    “You look shocked,” Mr. Spencer says. “Most people are. Robert
doesn’t like me talking about him, which is why I never get invited to any of
the firm functions. I don’t want to go anyway. Lawyers are dull as soup. But
I’m proud of him. He’s not my boy, but he is, you see. He’s the closest I’ll
ever have to a son and better than most, I think. He’d make any father proud.
I’m sure he doesn’t sound like the Robert you know. Doesn’t surprise me though.
Robert is a cruel mule on the outside. He’ll kick you faster than he’ll be nice
to you, but if