The Regulators - Stephen King [30]
I hope he didn't understand the service meant the rest of his family is dead, gone from him forever. Herb is sure he doesn't know ('The kid doesn't even know where he is,' Herb says), but I wonder. That's the hell of autism, isn't it? You always wonder, you never really know, they're broadcasting but God hooked them up with a scrambler-phone and nothing's coming through at the receiving end but gibberish.
Tell you one thing — I've gained a new respect for Herb Wyler in the last couple of weeks. He arranged EVERYTHING, from the planes to the obituaries in both the Columbus Dispatch and Toledo Blade. And to take Seth in as he has, without a word of complaint — not just an orphan but an autistic orphan — well, I mean, is it amazing or is it just me? I vote for amazing. And he seems to really care for the poor kid. Sometimes, when he looks at the boy, a preoccupied expression comes into his face that could even be love. The beginnings of it, anyway.
This is even more remarkable, it seems to me, when you realize how little a child like Seth can give back. Mostly he just sits plonked down out there in the sandbox Herb put in as soon as we got back from Toledo, like a big boy-shaped raisin, wearing only his MotoKops 2200 Underoos (he has the lunchbox, too), mouthing his nonsense words, playing with his vans and the action figures that go with them, especially the sexy redhead in the blue shorts. These toys trouble me a bit, because — if you're not entirely sure I've lost it, this should convince you — I'm not sure where they came from, Jan! Seth sure didn't have any such expensive rig the last time I visited Bill and June in Toledo (I checked in Toys R Us, and the MotoKops stuff is VERY pricey), I can tell you that. They aren't the sort of toys Bill and Junie would have approved of, anyhow — their toy-buying ideas ran more to Barney than Star Wars, much to their kids' disgust. Poor little Seth can't tell me, that's for sure, and it probably doesn't matter, anyway. I only know the names of the vans and the figures that go with them because I watch the cartoon-show with him on Saturday mornings. The chief bad guy, No Face, is tres creepy.
He's 50 strange, Jan (Seth, I mean, not No Face, har-har). I don't know if Herb feels that as much as I do, but I know he feels some of it. Sometimes when I look up and catch Seth looking at me (he has eyes of such dark brown that sometimes they actually look black), I get the weirdest chill — like someone's using my spine for a xylophone. And some odd things have happened since Seth came to live with us. Don't laugh, but there've even been a couple of incidents like the poltergeist phenomena they sometimes dramatize on what Herb calls 'the psycho-reality shows'. Glasses flying off shelves, a couple of windows that broke seemingly for no reason, and weird wiggly shapes that sometimes appear in Seth's sandbox at night. They're like strange, surreal sand-paintings. I'll send you some Polaroids next time I write, if I think of it. I wouldn't tell anybody this stuff besides you, Jan, believe me. Thank God I know and trust your wonder . . . your curiosity . . . and your DISCRETION!
Mostly Seth is no trouble. The most annoying thing about having him around is the way he breathes! He takes in air in these big, sloppy gusts, always through his mouth, which is always hung open and halfway down to his chest. It makes him look like the village idiot, which he really is not, regardless of the problems he does have. Mr Marinville from across the street was over the other day with a banana cake he baked (he's quite a sweetie for a guy who once wrote a book about a man having a love-affair with his own daughter . . . and called the book Delight, of all things), and he spent some time with Seth, who was taking a sandbox-break to watch Bonanza. Remember that one? TNT shows the reruns every weekday afternoon (they call 'em the Afternoon