2030_ The Real Story of What Happens to America - Albert Brooks [43]
Max was with this family when the father died of cancer, having no access to the cure. The mother was never well, drank too much, but still tried to take care of four children, and Max wound up being their surrogate dad for a period of eight months. After his year was up, the mother had gotten worse and the kids were now living with relatives. Max felt as if he had accomplished nothing, except that he had. He had changed forever. He officially rejected the destiny his parents had planned for him and vowed to be one of those people who made a difference. And he was serious.
Instead of going back to college, he traveled. He worked with several community organizations and became a charity bum, helping out groups in different cities, seeing the world, and trying to find out what was in his soul.
He worked in Indianapolis for a charity that helped underprivileged children, and he liked it there. The vibe felt right. So Max bought a small farm on the outskirts of town, did some sculpting and painting, and spent time with the underprivileged kids, basically living like a retired person, but it suited him. At twenty-one he inherited enough money to last him a lifetime and all that was left was to find his passion. He knew one thing: The children he was working with had lost all hope. They were not excited to grow up. They felt overwhelmed, and at such an early age. Max knew this was wrong and it had to change. That was why he held that meeting, the meeting where he met Kathy. He could get any girl he wanted, but he had never really fallen for any of them. Until now.
Max was lifting weights when he heard her voice. He was listening to music in his earpiece and it was interrupted by the call. “Did I bother you?” Her voice was so clear, he actually looked around the room to see if she was there.
“Who is this? Kathy?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“I just did. What’s wrong?” She didn’t get much out before Max left to go to her house. In what seemed like ten minutes, he was standing at her door and she was crying in his arms. Her father was still in the kitchen.
“How did it happen?”
“He stood up and that was it.”
Max walked in and took off the blanket. He stared at her dad. “He was handsome. He was a good man.”
“How do you know?”
“You. I know because of you.” And then they kissed. Right there, with her father on the floor. How insane, she thought. She was madly in love with this man, his tongue deep in her throat, and her father lying there, dead. She almost laughed.
“What a strange way to ask for permission to date,” she said.
Max looked in her eyes. He didn’t laugh or frown or make any facial expression. He just knew that this was the person he was waiting for. And at that moment the doorbell rang.
“Dead body?” one of the men standing in the doorway asked.
“In the kitchen,” Kathy said.
The other man took all of the relevant information. He asked Kathy if he could take a quick brain wave from her. It took five seconds and nothing had to be worn, just something passed over the temple. The PTS, or Portable Truth Scanner, had been in use for almost five years. It was not admissible by itself in court, but if you failed you would be asked to take an old-fashioned lie detector test, which was admissible. And if you refused the PTS, you were thought guilty by that very fact. Even in the product’s literature they pointed out how in ninety percent of the cases that people refused to be scanned, they were lying. Refusal equaled deception.
Kathy passed her test. They removed her father and told her he would be cremated unless she had other plans. “Other plans?” she asked. “Can you bring him back to life?”
“No, ma’am. Of course not.”
“Then cremate him. That’s fine.”
Kathy went into the living room and sat down next to Max. She put her head on his shoulder and cried. One man was gone and another man had arrived. God, life is strange sometimes.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
These were