Brenda W. Clough - How like a God

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How Like a God
By Brenda W. Clough
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part One
CHAPTER 1
It was Rob's turn to drive the kids to day care. As usual the noise and
chaos of the morning departure were stupendous, enough to make a strong man
quake. Davey, eighteen months old, was perfecting a full-throated imitation
of Tarzan of the Apes. Julianne carried him yodeling out to the minivan on
one hip, her briefcase slung over her shoulder and a bulging diaper bag
hooked over the other arm. In the living room Rob wedged the filled baby
bottles into Angela's diaper bag and scooped his daughter up. "No!" she
shrieked. She raised her arms into noodle position and almost slipped right
out of his grasp. He foiled her by grabbing one chubby leg.
"Come along, sugar pie." With his free elbow he pushed the new storm door
open. He had installed it himself only last weekend, and made a good job of
it—a white steel frame and door with a safety grate over the glass and a
self-storing screen.
"No no no no!" Angela howled. Rob stuffed her expertly into the carseat in
the center seat of the van. Before she could wiggle away he clicked the
latch home. In the other carseat, Davey had already accepted the inevitable
and was philosophically eating Cheerios by the fistful.
Rob slid the door shut on the pair of them and waved at Julianne's
retreating back. "Bye, darling!"
"Have a good day, hon!" she called over her impeccably tailored pink
shoulder. "Don't forget to tell Miss Linda about the shots!" Then the
Washington, D.C., commuter bus roared into view at the far end of the
suburban street. Julianne sprinted to catch it, her satin blonde hair
bobbing.
Julianne was always in a rush. Years of hurrying in high-heeled designer
pumps had taught her to run as fast in them as in sneakers. But she had cut
it too fine this time, Rob decided. The bus showed no signs of slowing
down. The gray diesel plume of its exhaust streamed out straight behind
like a fox's tail. Probably the driver hadn't even seen her. Shaking his
head, Rob went around the maroon van to the driver's side. If only Julianne
would allow herself five more minutes! Now she would need a lift to the
Vienna Metro station, and that would make them both late. The family
schedule had no slack in it at all.
The revelation came to him suddenly, just as his fingers touched the van's
fake wood door panel. The bus driver had indeed seen Julianne. Rob was
absolutely certain of it. The blue of the May morning sky over his head was
not more obvious. The rotten bastard! Taking out his petty frustrations on
an innocent commuter . . . Rob jerked open the door, seething.
A warm solid wall of sound and odor hit him in the face. The twins yelled
in stereo and he realized that at least one diaper was very thoroughly
soiled indeed. Bitter experience had taught Rob there was never any
percentage in postponing the inevitable. Holding his breath, he climbed up
between the front seats and clawed a diaper bag out of the back with one
hand, unlocking Angela with the other. It was fifty-fifty the diaper was
hers, and she was sobbing with rage, in desperate need of soothing.
Cheerios crunched underfoot as he backed out. Davey had broadcast his snack
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with happy liberality onto the dashboard, over all the seats, and into his
sister's clothing and hair.
Out of the car again, Rob stared, the screaming child muffled against the
knot of his necktie. The bus had stopped after all. But not at the bus
stop, not for Julianne. It had halted right in the middle of the street. A
few passengers were climbing out, and others were crowded at the front.
Julianne came trudging back. "Thank god you haven't left yet," she said.
She tossed her briefcase into the front seat. "You'll have to drop me at
the station."
With his free hand Rob shook the orange plastic changing pad open and laid
it on the driver's seat. "Sure—can you hold her for me?"
Out here in the open air it was evident that Angela wasn't the culprit.
Julianne took the hiccuping toddler and said, "Now what?" But when Rob
hauled Davey out in a hail of falling Cheerios no further explanations were
necessary. The stay-dry gathers had utterly and visibly failed in their
duty. Rob held his reeking son and heir at arm's length to save his tan
sports jacket. Sighing, Julianne pulled the wipes and a complete change of
clothing out of Davey's bag.
"What happened to the bus?" Rob asked as he wiped.
"I didn't see. The other passengers said the driver went into convulsions
or something. A woman with a cellular phone called 911."
"Lucky there wasn't an accident." An ambulance sped past the bus and
halted, lights flashing. Rob didn't look up. The appalling condition of
Davey's clothing and car seat commanded his full attention.
There was heavy traffic on the way to the train station, and then Miss
Linda had to be brought up to date on the twins' vaccinations. Rob didn't
have a chance to catch his breath until he got to Chasbro Corporation, in a
Fairfax City brick-and-glass office complex. Luckily nobody noticed he was
late. He dropped his briefcase on his desk, hung up his jacket, and hurried
to the kitchen alcove for that first reviving cup of coffee.
"Yo, Bobster," Danny Ramone said. He was bearded and generously built, like
a rollicking black Santa Claus. "How they hangin'?"
If there was a name worse than Bob, Rob thought, it was Bobster. But he
didn't want to say this to the head of the software project. Instead he
said, "Low, Dan, very low—in need of coffee. Traffic on 66 was all shot to
hell this morning."
"You should leave earlier. Hey, I got in at 5:30 this morning! The commute
was a breeze!"
Once more Rob held back his first words. Daycare didn't start until 8 A.M.,
and it was impossible to ask for more. Miss Linda already kept the twins
until 6 P.M. And Julianne's job at the Garment Design Association demanded
so much from her—
Again there came that opening sensation, as if a skylight gaped wide in his
forehead. In the driveway at home it had been a mere flicker of
enlightenment, a camera shutter opening and then shutting again. Now Rob
stared at his boss, amazed at the flood of sightless unheard perception.
Danny was pouring coffee and saying something about the joys of unlocking
the office and having the mainframe all to himself. He hadn't intended to
annoy or criticize. He was too busy contemplating his own vigor, efficiency
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and intelligence. There was no more malice in him than there was in the
elevator doors that shut before the passengers crowd on board. Rob could
almost taste Danny's magnificent, glistening self-absorption, like a
Thanksgiving turkey huge enough to shrink everyone in Chasbro Corporation
into small potatoes and side dishes. "Wow, that's weird," Rob said.
"Coffee too strong for you, huh, Bobster?" Danny clapped him on the back
with a meaty hand and turned away. Rob stood staring at nothing for a few
moments. Had he always been able to do this? It felt so natural, to inspect
personalities in fine detail through this new mental microscope. Then why
had he never done it before?
But self-examination had never been Rob's habit, and anyway the oddity of
the whole business made him uncomfortable. He dismissed all these peculiar
thoughts and went back to his cubicle to immerse himself in the day's work.
Since the days of the abacus, no software has ever been developed smoothly,
cheaply, or on time. Nor was Chasbro going to be the first to do it. Rob,
like everyone else on the team, in the division, and in the entire company,
was racing the clock to produce, lurching from one looming deadline to
another without letup. It was a crazy way to make a living.
As the program booted up, he briefly considered getting away from it
all—doing something entirely different with his life. But the thought was a
fleeting one. The mortgage, the twins, the car payments: All these turned
his paycheck into golden handcuffs. Although Rob was only in his early
thirties, his life was already laid out from here to retirement.
Absorbed in writing C++ computer code, Rob jumped when one of the junior
programmers stuck her head in the door. "Lunch in five, Rob," Tawana
called. "Can we count on your van for the ride?"
"Sure," he said. "Uh, we're going out?"
"C'mon, you remember—Jean's getting married next month, and we're going to
give her the present. Lori chose this absolutely buff Fiestaware salad
set."
Rob had completely forgotten, and scrambled to put on his jacket. At
Chasbro it was important to fit into the corporate culture, to make all the
right noises and touch all the bases. He liked people, but since social
skills didn't come naturally to him, Rob had learned to compensate by
deliberately joining things and saying yes to all invitations. He followed
Tawana over to Lori's desk and duly admired the salad set before the gift
box was taped shut.
For the luncheon the bride had chosen the Blackeyed Pea, a restaurant just
up the road that advertised its comforting American-style food. Rob ordered
the meat loaf special and ate without tasting it, hardly listening to the
technical chat around the table. He was too busy observing people.
What a fascinating variety of personalities there were! It was like looking
out over a delightful intricate garden in which every flower was totally
different, not only a different color from its neighbor but a different
species entirely—a cactus next to a rose, a sequoia shading a pansy. Here,
a staid computer nerd with a lurid second career writing leather porn;
across the room a waitress working on a Ph.D. in heuristics. He worked
among Trekkies and canoeing fanatics, an ex-CIA agent and a world-class
glazer of chocolate truffles.
Rob had never wanted or been able to delve into his associates' private
lives. Now this painless panorama delighted him. The charm of living in the
greater Washington area was its diversity. There were so many different
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kinds of people here, and now he could really appreciate and enjoy it. The
kaleidoscopic view reminded him of his first experience of computer
bulletin boards—a hundred thousand topics to surf through, each holding a
hundred thousand messages.
"Yoo-hoo, Earth to Rob! Would you pass the ketchup?"
With a start Rob looked up. Lori, one of the secretaries, smiled
impatiently at him and pointed at the ketchup bottle. Everyone was looking
at him. This was obviously not her first request. He lunged awkwardly for
the bottle in front of him, his hand feeling as large as hams. Rob had
never been graceful—even as a boy he had dreaded Little League and square
dancing. Now his reaching hand closed an instant too soon. He could feel
the glass bottle sliding across his fingertips. It went spinning onto its
side across the table and a gush of ketchup hit Danny Ramone dead center.
"Damn it!" Danny exclaimed, leaping up. When he dabbed with a napkin, the
stain merely spread down the broad white expanse of his shirt.
Two of the younger programmers applauded. "Definitely hit points!"
"Holy mackerel, Danny, I apologize!" Horrified, Rob held his own napkin to
Danny's belt buckle, to save his pants. The secretaries giggled. Their
waiter bustled over with a towel. People at other tables craned their necks
to see. Rob yearned for the earth to open and swallow the entire
restaurant. He wouldn't live this one down for weeks—celebration lunches
always made the company newsletter, and any incident was fodder for it.
Danny burst into one of his braying laughs. "I look like a drive-by
shooting victim! You're lucky I don't hold grudges, Rob!"
"What with salary review coming up next quarter," Lori said.
Other people at the table chimed in with wisecracks too. Rob ignored them
and said, "I'll swing by the mall on the way back and pick up another shirt
for you, okay?"
"I sure can't go to the design meeting this afternoon like this!" Danny
laughed. He mimed being hit by a bullet, clutching his stained chest and
slumping back in his chair. "Bitch set me up," he moaned, sounding enough
like D.C.'s ex-con mayor to get another big laugh.
Rob could only be glad that Danny was being such a good sport. Still, he
wished with all his heart that everyone would forget his role in the entire
stupid incident. And the all-important software design meeting with the
customer had completely slipped his mind! He was too flustered to hang on
for dessert. He left a twenty with Lori to cover his share of the meal and
hurried off to the mall. A men's shirt sale was on at Hecht's. Rob bought
three plain white shirts in the three most likely sizes, since he had
forgotten to ask what Danny wore. For good measure he bought a tie too, in
a vivid Wile E. Coyote pattern that Danny would be sure to appreciate.
His stomach was in a knot by the time he got back, and Rob swung by his own
desk to pop a few Tums before rushing to Danny's office. "Thank goodness
you're still here," he exclaimed. "When's that design meeting?"
"Doesn't start until three," Danny said absently, staring at his computer
screen. When he looked up and noticed the bag in Rob's hand astonishment
spread over his plump brown face. "Good god, Bobster!"
Rob took the shirts out of the shopping bag. "Didn't know your size," he
said. "I'll return the ones that don't fit."
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"This is above and beyond the call of duty, my man! And a necktie, my god!
You're really determined I'll represent the division with pride!" With
genuine surprise and pleasure Danny held the coyote necktie up, unbuttoning
the stained shirt with his other hand.
"Well, this is the least I could do, considering my part in the whole
debacle," Rob said uneasily.
"What part?" Danny demanded. He flung off the ruined shirt and tore open
the largest new one. "All my own clumsiness! I better not tell the wife
either. She'd never let me forget it." He buttoned the fresh shirt up over
his pot-belly and tucked in the shirttail. "Damn, I need a mirror to do the
tie."
"But—don't you remember? When I pushed the ketchup bottle over?"
Danny rapidly transferred three pens, a pink highlighter, and a 0.5
millimeter mechanical pencil from the old shirt pocket into the new one,
and sat down. "That was me, Bobster. I pushed it over. Stupidest thing I've
done this week—except for this damned code here." He frowned at the glowing
screen and tapped a few keys, the unknotted necktie draped around his neck
already forgotten. Stunned, Rob began to retreat. "Leave the receipt and
I'll reimburse you later, Bobster," Danny surfaced briefly to say.
"Appreciate your thoughtful-ness, pal. I won't forget it."
"It was nothing, really," Rob muttered, and left him to it.
Obviously the thing to do was to interview the witnesses, talk to the other
people who went to lunch. Rob made a quiet circuit through the division,
eavesdropping. As long as he frowned down at the printout in his hands he
blended in completely. No one mentioned the luncheon at all, so he was
forced to bring it up himself. He caught up with Jean, the upcoming bride,
at the water cooler. "Pretty messy scene at lunch there, huh?" he greeted
her.
"Oh, I've seen worse," Jean said. "My future father-in-law is like Danny—so
involved in his thoughts that there's, like, no one at the helm."
"It was Danny who spilled the ketchup," Rob said. "You're sure."
She stared at him. "Well, yeah. We all saw it."
"I, uh, must have been lost in my thoughts myself."
Jean shook her head, smiling. "That's like, an occupational hazard around
here."
As obliquely as he could, Rob quizzed a few more friends. Testimony was
unanimous. "A typical Dano trick," Lori pronounced it. Unable to let it
rest, Rob slipped out of the building and drove back to the restaurant. It
was midafternoon, and the dining room was nearly empty. The hostess
chirped, "Would you like the lunch menu, sir? We don't start the dinner
menu until four-thirty."
"I don't want a menu," Rob said. "I was here at lunchtime, with a group
from Chasbro. Could I speak to our waiter? We were sitting right over
there."
"That would be Julio's table, but he's gone now. But I was here. Maybe I
can help?"
"There was a little accident—someone spilled ketchup on one of the guys."
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"It wasn't our server's fault," she said quickly.
"I know that—but who did it? Who actually knocked the bottle over?"
The hostess wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. "If your associate would bring
us the dry-cleaning bill for his suit, we'd be happy to—"
"No, no! Besides, I already bought him a new shirt. Did you actually see
the incident? Who knocked the bottle over?" He wanted to shake the answer
out of her.
She began to look nervous. "From where I was standing it looked like he
picked the bottle up himself, and it slipped out of his hand and down his
front. Look, let me see the receipt for the shirt. If the manager gives an
okay—"
Rob turned on his heel and almost ran out of the restaurant. He stood on
the sidewalk, swaying on his feet, sweating in spite of the mild spring
weather. His brain seemed to have overloaded. He couldn't think properly.
It would be crazy to try and drive in this state. He'd have to get a grip
on himself first. Across the street he saw the post office and, just
beyond, the Fairfax City branch of the library. He took a deep breath and
crossed with the light.
Libraries were one of Rob's favorite places. In college he had even written
a paper about how the entire goal of civilization was to build libraries
and produce books to fill them. Now he stepped through the double glass
doors and collapsed gratefully into an ugly institutional armchair. The
library's familiar atmosphere of friendly neglect enveloped him. As long as
he didn't become noisy or destructive he could do anything here—sleep, use
the restroom, read lowbrow military adventure novels. Nobody would bother
him with questions, or descend on him demanding why he was wasting time
when there was software to be debugged and diapers to be changed. He
relaxed and took the nearest paperback from the rack for camouflage.
Now he felt able to analyze his problem rationally. What the hell has
happened to me? he wondered. Can I really be looking into people's heads?
Altering their memories? I know what happened at lunch today! How did
everyone at Chasbro forget? He took out the pocket notebook he always
carried, and made a list:
1. Ketchup
2. Danny at the coffee machine
Slowly, he added:
3. Julianne's bus driver
But before this morning, there had been no weirdnesses. Vague memories of
the comic books of his boyhood came to him, of unlikely accidents involving
meteors or lightning bolts. "Was it my Wheaties this morning?" he asked out
loud. But he couldn't remember anything special. His routine yesterday and
last night—in fact, for the entire past year—was set in concrete. Having
twins did that for you. He and Julianne hadn't even gone out to a movie
since Before Children.
But a search for a cause was time-wasting. Instead, what should he do about
this? Rob got up and took the elevator upstairs to the reference room. The
librarian showed him the directories for doctors and medical specialties.
The thickness of the books was disheartening, and he moved over to the more
popularized medical books on the nonfiction shelves. A fast skim through
indexes and tables of contents showed him this was hopeless too. Nobody
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seemed to have his disease, if it was a disease. If he wanted a medical
opinion he'd have to consult a doctor in person, and would Chasbro's health
insurance cover such a speculative visit? "Holy mackerel, Chasbro!" Rob
exclaimed. He should be at the office!
Dashing out of the library and up the street to his car, Rob realized he
had made a default decision. This wasn't an important or interesting
ailment. It was just a weirdness. He was going to ignore it and carry on
with regular life. Eventually, like a cold sore, it would go away by
itself.
There was no time to ponder matters further. Rob stepped into the office
and was instantly collared by Lori. "Danny needs you!" she exclaimed. "The
customer doesn't like the way the GUI is laid out—can you fold in these
changes right away?"
"I'm on it," Rob said, and dove for his cubicle. Graphical Unit Interface
was always a royal pain in the neck. He spent the next two hours moving
multicolored widgets around on the screen. Danny phoned in twice with yet
more alterations. His opinion of the customer was sulphurous.
"Everybody's a critic," he groused. "Everybody! Now they want the menu at
the top of the screen, not the bottom. They don't know squat about what's
under the hood, noooo! But everybody's got an opinion about the user
interface!"
Rob was stuck at the computer until past six. He did phone Julianne, but
she didn't have the car and therefore couldn't pick up the twins. Rob
picked them up himself very late, which made Miss Linda positively icy.
When he pulled up in their driveway Julianne stood in the doorway, frantic.
"I told you I was running late," he protested.
She ignored him, seizing a twin instead. "How's Mommy's big boy, then?" she
cooed to Davey. "And Mommy's darling Angel?" With a tot in each arm she
marched up the walk and into the house, leaving Rob to bring in the diaper
bags.
She was deliberately making her peeve quite clear. Rob was resigned.
Juggling twins plus a two-career lifestyle took incredible drive and
organization, and it was mostly Julianne who kept those particular balls in
the air. Rob's sphere was more traditionally male: car maintenance, home
repair and improvement, the lawn—all the Harry Homeowner stuff. There was
no point in complaining about occasionally getting caught in the machinery.
Julianne never stayed in a snit for long. Over the years Rob had learned
that reconciliation was lots of fun. Besides, getting steamed about things
might lead to weirdness. Much better to pick up the ball and run.
He grabbed the phone off its hook and punched one of the preprogrammed
buttons. While it rang he began emptying the diaper bags, sorting out the
empty bottles and dirty clothes. "Hello, China Garden? I'd like a delivery:
two egg rolls, one shrimp lo-mein, no MSG ..."
A tumultuous meal and the kids' bedtime routine gave them no time to work
it out. The twins insisted, as they always did, on hearing their favorite
story, "The Three Billy Goats Gruff." After a hundred readings Rob had
honed his dramatic technique finely. He made his voice go deep and gluey
for the troll's words, "Who's that tripping over my bridge?" And when he
bleated the reply, "It's only meeee, the tiiiniest Billy Goat Gruff," Davey
giggled and Angela crowed in delight.
After the story and the final kisses, Rob came into the undersized master
bedroom and pushed the lock button on the doorknob. Julianne lay on her
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side under the king-sized duvet, pretending to be asleep. But he saw the
smile dimpling the corner of her mouth.
Kneeling by the bed he bent and kissed that dimple, tracing the line of her
upper lip with the tip of his tongue. Her mouth quivered under his as she
giggled. She raised the covers and slid an arm out to circle his neck.
Under the edge of the duvet she was naked. Her creamy-pale breasts in their
post-pregnancy state sagged charmingly slightly sideways across her chest.
"Rise and shine, sleepy," he said a little breathlessly.
If his family was the center of Rob's life, then the white-hot molten core
of it was here, in bed with Julianne. Plunging into that sweetness
refreshed and renewed him like nothing else. The tensions of the day burned
off in her embrace, and he touched an exquisite reality that didn't exist
in other areas of his life. After five years of marriage he knew her body
well, all the hot buttons and favorite places. And her orgasm always drove
him wild, right over the edge.
Afterwards she rested on his chest to catch her breath. He lay beneath her
with his eyes closed, savoring the lassitude and occasionally running a
hand down her sweaty back and firm buttocks. This was the best time to
talk, about the past, the future, or just nothing in particular at all.
"... if you get a raise," she was saying drowsily into his neck. "And I
talk Debra into bumping me up one grade. It'll be three hundred dollars
extra every month once we pay off the van. If we save that, put it into a
money market or something, in a couple years we'd have some real money.
That's my idea—buy a bigger house. With more bedrooms, and a bigger yard
for the kids."
"Sure, Jul," Rob yawned. "A raise. Your wish is my command."
She laughed, knowing as well as he did that she was daydreaming. He could
feel her rib cage expand under his palms as she sighed contentedly. "I love
you, hon. You put up with a real pushy dame."
"There are compensations." He squeezed her butt gently as she rolled off
him. It was only at times like this that Rob could say, "There's nothing I
wouldn't do for you and the kids."
"Me too," she murmured, already more than half asleep. An unwelcome little
flashbulb pop of weirdness showed him that she hadn't really heard his
avowal. But words weren't important. Enacting this love, in bed and out,
was enough: bringing home the bacon, as well as sex.
They both liked to keep in contact during sleep—nothing grabby, but maybe
her hand on his flank, or his foot against her leg. As she settled against
him, Rob thought sleepily about doing something with the weirdness for Jul.
For instance, could he use it to convince the head of the department to
give him that raise? Probably it wouldn't fly—salary review took place only
in September, and Chasbro had no procedure for midcourse corrections. Was
there any way he could use it to pick a winning Lotto number? Or influence
Ed McMahon? Jul was right—it would be so nice to have some money for a
change! Take a vacation, buy a bigger house . . . Holding her, he slipped
into sleep, skipping like a stone over the sunny wavetops of materialistic
dreams.
CHAPTER 2
Julianne got the car the next day. On the way to dropping him at the office
she said, "Is that a new tie?"
Rob looked down at the beige silk necktie against his white shirt front. "I
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think your brother Ike gave it to me a few Christmases ago."
"Maybe it's the way you parted your hair. Something different, anyway."
Rob glanced at her, but Julianne was giving most of her attention to the
road. In the back Angela murmured, "Troll, troll, troll," as she pretended
to read her favorite book, and Davey sucked on a bottle. "I haven't changed
anything," Rob said as casually as he could. He had looked at his
reflection in the bathroom mirror this morning to shave. As he recalled, he
looked just like usual: tall but not really good-looking, his thick light
brown hair not yet due for a trim, his gray-blue eyes surrounded by
fair-skinned and slightly doughy flesh. As bland as supermarket white
bread. But he never did pay much attention to how he looked. It was
Julianne who had a sharp eye for appearances—as part of her job. She had
revamped his entire wardrobe after they married, for instance, ruthlessly
tossing out the polyester neckties and shirts with overly-long collar
points.
"What sort of different?" he asked, and was immediately sorry he had. What
if some sign of the weirdness was becoming visible?
But Julianne was no longer listening. A green sports-utility van cut in too
close in front, and Julianne as usual got ticked. "Bastard," she muttered
between clenched teeth, and gunned the engine to bring the van right up
behind the other vehicle.
"You're going to clip him!" Rob exclaimed, instinctively flinging one hand
back to shield the twins.
"Gimme a break. When have I ever made contact?"
"If you wouldn't take your driving so personally—" They had this same
pointless fight about every other month, every time Rob let Julianne's
pushy driving style get his goat. Now he made a deliberate effort to simmer
down. Suppose—suppose he could fix Julianne's little foible here? Transform
her into a sensible, conservative driver? As the idea seized him his
confidence rose, warm and heady. It could be done. He was sure he could do
it. How funny! Yesterday it never would have occurred to him to do stuff to
her—to fool her into believing he hadn't been late, for instance. And
fixing her style behind the wheel would be a good thing to do, he argued to
himself. Julianne was a lousy driver. One of these days she'd piss off a
crack dealer or a psycho, and get shot or something. Or she'd rear-end
somebody, endangering the kids and incurring outrageously costly body-work
on the van. He would be saving her from herself, really.
He turned in his seat to try it. With a hand-over-hand motion Julianne cut
the van hard right and jerked to a halt in front of the Chasbro building.
"Here you are," she said. "Have a nice day, hon." She leaned over to give
him a peck on the cheek.
Flustered, Rob grabbed his briefcase. "Bye, Jul. Bye-bye, kids!" He flapped
a hand vigorously at them through the window. Both twins stared at him but
only Davey flapped a fist back. With a squeal of tires Julianne pulled
away.
Just as well, Rob reflected. To mess with her driving style while she was
driving—wouldn't that be as stupid as changing the oil in a moving car?
Absorbed in his thoughts, Rob headed for the building entrance.
"Spare change, mister?"
Rob blinked. By the double doors slouched a homeless person, a heap of gray
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tatters with eyes. He or she—hard to say which—occasionally hung out here,
until the building security people noticed. A plastic 7-Eleven cup sat on
the pavement with a dime inside. Automatically Rob felt in his pants pocket
for change.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute here." Rob took his hand out. Now here was
the perfect subject for a little experiment. Hardly anything that happened
to this street person could make his situation much worse—when Rob
concentrated he could tell that the beggar was male. He put his briefcase
down and brought the weirdness to bear on him. It felt like reading a
newspaper obituary, all the biographical data in chronological order. "You
are Joe McNeal Moore," Rob said. "You are fifty-seven years old, a veteran
of the Korean War, former bartender, truck driver, janitor ..."
"What you say, man?" The homeless man scuttled back against the granite
facade of the building. His watery brown eyes, bloodshot and rimmed with
yellow matter, glanced frantically to either side. "Look, I ain't got no
money, okay?"
"Alcohol," Rob announced. "And borderline schizophrenia. Let me see ..." It
was like fixing one of Angela's toys, a SpeakNSpell or the pull-toy shaped
like a turtle. Unwind a tangle here, straighten out a bit there—his power
encompassed Joe Moore completely. This was easy. "Okay. If you go to the
homeless shelter, that Open Door Center over at Fairfax Circle, I bet you
can get a shower and shave and some clothes. Here's a couple bucks for the
bus fare." Rob held out the money with one hand, and pointed down the road
with the other. The homeless man stared up at him for a minute, and then
slowly took the dollars and tottered to his feet. Without a word or a look
back he shuffled off towards the bus stop.
Lori came up from the parking lot and said, "Morning, Rob. You give them
money, they just drink it up."
"Oh, I don't know." Rob picked up his briefcase and politely held the big
glass door for her. "You can always hope they'll turn a corner and get
better."
"Optimist," Lori snorted.
Now Rob knew what the Amazing Spider-Man felt like, in the comic books he
had once loved. With great power comes great responsibility, he quoted to
himself—wasn't that Spider-Man's motto? He could straighten out every
steam-grate crazy in the greater Washington area if he wanted to. The power
sang through his nerves, beat in his veins. And what other evils could he
not battle? Was he going to have to wear a cape and spandex?
With a laugh he tried to come down to earth. A brief fiddle with a schizo's
head, and he was ready to save the world. Surely it would be only sensible
to see how Joe Moore turned out first. After lunch he borrowed a phone book
from Lori and phoned the shelter. "I gave your center's name to a homeless
person this morning," he said. "I was wondering if he got there okay. His
name was Moore, Joe Moore. Kind of an older white guy."
"Oh him," the person on duty said. "He's doing great— in with the jobs
counsellor right now. Could I have him call you back?"
"No, no, that's okay. I'll check back later." Rob set the receiver back
into place. If he really had done it, actually turned a street bum into a
productive normal member of society, there was nothing he couldn't
accomplish. Suddenly he was sweating, sick with dread. He would have to do
it, then: take apart and reassemble the head of every wino in D.C., on the
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摘要：

file:///F|/rah/Brenda%20Clough/Clough,%20Brenda%20W%20-%20How%20Like%20A\%20God.txtHowLikeaGodByBrendaW.Clough----------------------------------------------------------------------\--PartOneCHAPTER1ItwasRob'sturntodrivethekidstodaycare.Asusualthenoiseandchaosofthemorningdeparturewerestupendous,enoug...

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