Chapter Two
At his apartment, Michael was pacing along his usual path that went from the kitchen window, through the little eating area where the front door is, around the corner into what passed as his living room, and to the window next to the television set. He stands for a moment next to the TV, peers around the drapes out of habit but doesn't really look at anything in particular, and then turns to make the return trip to the kitchen window. Michael would do this when he was overwhelmed; too much information going through his head.
Over the past fourteen years, Michael had slowly developed an understanding of how his brain worked. Over those years he noticed that he paced less the more he understood about what was happening around him. He also noticed that he did other things less frequently. The fingers in his ears always embarrassed him, but he also rocked in place, or wrung his hands, when there was no room to pace. On the other hand, he also noticed he was getting better at talking to people. He now regularly looked some people he knew in the face while talking to them. But still, that only lasted so long before they reach a point in the conversation that pushed Michael away. When that happened his eyes dropped back to the ground and he would start wringing his hands or rocking. His friends understood. Well, actually, they did not understand, but they were familiar with it as being the end of the conversation.
Michael understood why this happened to him and even categorized three different kinds of reactions that he could not control; there were the times when his brain was overloaded, there were the times when something was happening around him that his brain did not understand, and there were the times when people would emotionally push him away and he could not physically get away. Also, he knew how different levels of intensity appeared in his reactions; ranging from simply becoming submissive with his eyes on the ground, to running down the street with his fingers in his ears. He knew that his senses were very sensitive, and a very little change in the environment could cause him to react. Michael was aware that it could take him a very long time for him to become comfortable in a new place because he had to register every little aspect of that environment. Even longer when the environment included the variables of other people's ever changing emotions. However, he had also learned that there was a process to it all. That the over stimulation of his senses would inevitably lead to over working his brain as it tried to catalog and make sense of everything. Thus, all new experiences ended in pacing, and the amount of pacing was dictated by the intensity and duration of the experience. In the end, however, Michael was optimistic, because if he was aware of the process, then he might someday learn to use and manipulate that process to his benefit. In recent years, for example, Michael had experienced that he retreated inwards when he focused on his emotional sense, and that looks exactly the same to other people as when he was backing away from them. This understanding was a happy groundbreaking moment for him as it helped him realize that he could not trust how people acted towards him as a measure of how he was behaving. Before that he would get angry and frustrated when people treated him in a way that he didn't feel he deserved, or that didn't correspond to what he was thinking of himself at the time.
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Michael had no idea how long he had been pacing; losing time was a part of it. A long time ago he had paced for two whole days before he realized that he was hungry and couldn't remember the last time he had something to eat. That time was shortly after a holiday dinner where his oldest sister and her new husband, glowing in their love, remarked how they had no idea why they were so compatible; she a literature professor who thought in words and phrases and he was a mathematician who thought in numbers and formulas. Michael could read and write, and he was alright at math, but he didn't think in those terms, he thought in pictures. That was the beginning of his journey, the realization that everybody was different and not just him. However, everyone else was different in ways that were understood, accepted, and folded easily into society. Michael was different in a way that was not understood by the routines and processes of the community he was living in. For two days he considered all of this as he paced, focusing on the processes he used for language and math. From that point on, Michael was fully aware of the fact that everything in his brain was done with pictures. From that point on he started to alter his life to accommodate that understanding.
A knock at the door brought Michael out of his processing.
He stood in the middle of the kitchen, a little startled, trying to think who could be knocking on his door. At first he was scared that someone might have broken in the outside door of this old boarding house turned into apartment building, but he remembered that the outside door was usually open during the day. There were only four apartments in the building and the landlady lived in one of them, so she had made sure things remained decent. His mind then remembered the woman he ran into and left on the ground. A wave of guilt came over him. There was simply too much for him.
The door knocked again and he went and opened it a little, bracing his body behind it; not to keep it from opening further, but to hide behind it. In the hallway there were two big and imposing men looking at him. They looked like soldiers to him, but they were not wearing uniforms; just regular clothes and blue jackets that had FBI in yellow letters.
“Mr. James?” the biggest one said. Michael kept his eyes on the floor, but nodded his head.
“Mr. James, my name is Agent O'Brien and this is Agent Sullivan. We would like to ask you a few questions about what happened today.”
Michael stood still with his eyes wide, staring at the feet of the two men. The men were growing a little agitated when Michael whispered something.
“What was that?”
He took a breath and tried again, “Are you with the FBI?”
The big man let out a chuckle and looked at the other man and held out the lapel of his jacket that had the yellow letters on it and said, “Yes sir, we are with the FBI.”
Michael returned quietly, “But I don't recognize you. I know all the agents that work in my building. Can I see your badges?”
Again, the big man looked at his partner, but this time they were not laughing. “Sure...” and they both pull out a leather fold and flapped them open. “We' re not from this office. We were brought in to help.”
Michael released his grip on the door a little to reach his hand out to grab one of the badges and get a closer look, but the man pulled the badge away and put his hand on the door with weight and said in a stern voice and wry smile on his face, “You can trust us Mr. James. May we come in?” And to Michael's surprise the door kept opening slowly under the increasing weight of the big man.
At the intrusion, Michael backed away from the door and, for an awkward moment, didn't know where to go; he just went around in a circle until he sat down in his usual chair at the kitchen table and started to rock back and forth and wring his hands. The men watched Michael do this little dance with shock on their faces. They enjoyed how they intimidated people, but this was more than they were used to. The bigger man pulled a chair from the table and put his foot on it while the other man slowly walked around the little apartment – picking things up and putting them down. The bigger man started asking Michael all sorts of questions, but Michael found that he couldn't talk. The man quickly figured out that he had to keep his question to a simple “yes” and “no” format if he was going to get anywhere. Nonetheless, the man started getting more and more frustrated at Michael, which caused Michael to pull further and further away.
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, the bigger man stopped and looked up at his partner, who was standing in the living room behind Michael, and gave a nod. Michael heard a snap unfasten and the man behind him fidget with something heavy and metallic. He heard metal screwing onto metal. He had no idea what was going on, but he grew terrified and started moaning. As the big man turned away and walked to the kitchen window, the other man walked up behind him. And then, there was another knock at the door.
The knock
quickly became frantic, “Michael? Are you in there? Are you all right?” It was his landlady and friend of his mother. She was a nurse in her 60's who was always very nice to Michael and, oddly, always there when he needed her. Shortly after he started his own journey, he found that his mother was getting into his way. It wasn't her fault, she wasn't trying to disrupt him, she was simply reacting normally in a society that was structured to avoid insecurity and doubt. His grandfather would go on and on about how people spent so much time and energy developing ways to distract themselves from the world. Michael took this idea further to the understanding that since people went through life collecting, processing, and acting on information, they would condition themselves to voluntarily clog their own input devices, their own data collection devices, with redundant information because they were afraid of new information. Especially if they did not understand that new information right away. Then, Michael realized that people were not really afraid of new information, but the insecurity and doubt that was attached to new information. People in this society, as Michael saw it, would go a long way avoid responsibility, and the first defense against responsibility was to block and fight against all new information. The second defense was to create false information to counter, or overpower, the original information. His mother was getting into Michael's way because she would react negatively to the insecurity and doubt Michael was inviting into his own life by his effort to understand himself better. Michael was looking for more responsibility and that scared her. So, after too much unnecessary fighting and mean words that were not meant, Michael moved into an apartment his mother's friend had available.
The bigger man came from the kitchen to the door, and before opening the door, looked at his partner and shook his head saying, “Forget it. It's not worth it. He's a tard anyway. We need to get out of town.” Michael heard the man behind him turn and walk back into the living room just before the bigger man opened the door.
The landlady saw Michael sitting at the table first and then was surprised by the big man at the door. “Oh... is everything alright?”
“Yes ma'am. We were just finishing up asking Mr. James a few questions about what happened today.”
“Yes, I've just come from the hospital. Michael's mother and I were worried,.. she would've come herself, but she used to be an ER nurse, and well... Do you know who did it?”
“We're not at liberty to say ma'am, but if you will excuse us... we need to get going.” And the two men quickly bulled their way past the landlady standing in the doorway. She spent a moment puzzling at the strange behavior of the FBI agents as she watched them leave, but then, as though she just remembered, she snapped out of it and went to Michael. She sat next to him and rubbed his back and started to sing.
Once Michael was settled down a bit, she got up and made him some food in his kitchen. When she finished the preparation and put it on the table in front of him she said, “I'm sorry I cannot stay Michael, but I have to get back to the hospital.” She put a hand on his shoulder and looked at him warmly, “Are you going to be OK?”
Michael looked at her waist and smiled, “I will be alright, thank you.”
“Of course you will. And you are welcome.” Then, she gave him a kiss on the head and left.
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Agent Spencer and her partner, Agent John Gonzales, climbed the stairs towards Michaels apartment. It had already been a very long day for the both of them. She was stuck at the hospital until fully checked, scanned, and tested and had to learn an old lesson over again – sometimes the fastest way to get through an obstacle course was to be cooperative. He had spent the day helping emergency crews in any way he could. They were both tired and motivated at the same time. Doing nothing was not an option. At this point, nobody knew anything, and since the building, along with it's security camera tapes and data, were still in a state of lockdown until the all clear was given for people to start looking for such things, there was only one lead to chase; the one person who seemed to know what was about to happen.
At the top of the stairs they both took a moment to compose themselves and then Agent Gonzales knocked on the door of Michael's apartment. A few moments passed and the door opened to the end of it's chain, a chain that Michael was using for the first time, and Michael's head peered around the door.
“Hello?”
“Mr. James, my name is Agent Spencer and this is my partner Agent Gonzales. We are with the FBI.”
“”May I see your badge, please?” Michael put his hand out.
“Yes, you certainly could...” Agent Spencer quickly got her badge out and handed it to him. “I kind of figured you would have recognize us from the building.”
“No, I recognize you alright. Enough to know that Agent Gonzales is always late.” Agent Spencer gave Agent Gonzales a 'told you so' look and he responded with a shoulder shrug and mouthed the word 'traffic'. Michael handed the badge back and said, “I wanted to compare it to the badges of the other men that were here earlier. They're different.”
Agent Gonzales, shocked, started, “Other...” but the door shut in his face which shocked him again. They heard the sound of the chain coming off the door and the door swung slowly open. By the time it opened enough for the agents to get through Michael was already sitting back down at his table. The agents walked in slowly looking around and taking out their notebooks and pens.
“Mr. James...” Agent Spencer started.
“Please, call me Michael.”
“Ok, Michael... what other men? FBI agents?”
“The said they were FBI agents, but I didn't believe them. They forced their way in and questioned me, but I was so scared I couldn't talk. I'm not proud of that reaction, but it is what it is. That is what my grandfather says anyway.” All the while Michael's hands worked at his table moving cards around.
Agent Gonzales stood completely still in a state of disbelief. Michael's table was covered with what looked like Tarot cards. He could see that some of them were actually Tarot cards, but the rest, a majority of them, were like Tarot cards only hand made. The pictures were nothing like any he had ever seen before, and he was somewhat embarrassed that he knew what he was talking about.
As Agent Gonzales stood there, images of his aunt flooded into his head. He called her his crazy aunt Frieda, and every time his mother heard him say that he would get a slap upside the head. She was a woman who bought into all that New Age junk that he believed to be nothing more than a marketing scheme to take advantage of people who were disenfranchised. Kind of like Dead Heads and hippies in the old days. He and his brothers used to have a field day whenever she came to visit. Once she left her Tarot cards behind by accident and they spent hours pretending to tell the future with them. His brother was the best at it, doing all the acting and drama; “John,” he would say after spreading the cards out all over the place, “John, I see in your future that you will eat breakfast... and you will do this more than once.”
“Do you remember their names?” Agent Spencer asked as she tapped Agent Gonzales on his hand holding the pen to knock him out of his trance. But, no sooner than agent Gonzales snapped out of it, he was shocked again by the wall of information coming at him as Michael gave every detail he saw on their badges; names, addresses, and so forth. He even rattled off a twelve digit badge number from each of them. He tried hard to get all the information, but found it highly unlikely that any of it was all that accurate. He figured that Michael would have had to examine their badges for an hour or two to get that kind of detail, and he doubted anyone would have let him do that. When that was done he gave his partner a look of doubt, but noticed she was a little different; she had a little soft spot for this man. He snapped his notebook shut and asked Michael if he minded if he had a look around. Michael, with his head down and hands busy said he did not mind.
As Agent Gonzales walked by Michael and his table, Michael said “It's not what you think.” but Agent Gonzales was already somewhere else in his head and simply let it go.
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Agent Spencer stood next to the table watching Michael move his cards around. Only a few of the cards were on the table, the rest, the bulk of them were on the chair next to him in a boot box standing on there ends with indexed organizers separating them into smaller categories. When he sat back down from answering the door he had picked up a section of them and returned some of the cards to the box and pulled others out to add into the huge complex setting on the table. “Can I ask what you are doing?”
“I'm thinking.”
“What do you mean, thinking?”
“Well, a mathematician will work out his thoughts with numbers on a chalkboard, a writer will work out their thoughts with with words and phrases with pen and paper, a musician will work out their thoughts with sounds on a piano, and a painter will work out their thoughts with colors and shapes on a canvas. I, however, do not think in numbers, words, music, or color; I think in pictures. And not just any pictures – to be more effective I have learned to think in emotional images."
Agent Spencer heard her partner let out a big sigh. She herself was aware that she was unbalanced, unable to not think of her youngest brother who was autistic. As the oldest, she decided to put distance between herself and her family when it started falling apart. Of her two brother's, the youngest started showing signs of being different early on, and as a result, everything changed. Her parents started fighting more and her brother got worse, which caused her parents to fight more still. And she avoided it all by burying herself in her studies. Her parents eventually divorced and her mother spent all of her free time taking care of her youngest brother. At that time it seemed all fine by her, but now she looked at this man and saw her brother. Although, there was something completely different; something she could not put her finger on.
Pulling herself back together and deciding to get past the Tarot thing for the benefit of her partner, Agent Spencer gently asked, “Can you tell us what happened today?”
“Yes, I can.” And with that Michael picked up a pad of yellow legal paper and started to tell his story as he referred to what was written on the paper. Agent Gonzales, finished with looking around, came to a respectful distance behind Michael to read over his shoulder as he took notes, but quickly realized that being sneaky would not work; only some of the writing was recognizable as words to him. Not wishing to make an issue of anything he simply focused on taking notes. Then he noticed that Agent Spencer gave up on the note taking and had her little tape recorder out. So, he went back to looking around the place, and only writing down certain things.
Michael recounted the story with excruciating detail. He told them how sorry he felt for the Arab man with blood on his hands and fear in his heart and how he wanted to help him. This caused Agent Gonzales to let out another sigh and give an angry glance at Michael. Michael went on to tell how he couldn't help because of the anger coming from the men in the van. He explained to them that it was not authentic anger, but the manufactured anger that some people use to mask the fact that they were not proud of what they were doing; like a high school football player's manufactured anger towards a weaker student that he bullies to gain the approval of his friends.
“Were these men in the van the same ones that were here earlier?” Agent Gonzales growled.
“No, they were not.”
“Could you describe these men?”
“Yes...”
“Why don't we hold off on that...” agent Spencer interrupted, “Let's just get the story for now and after the security footage is viewed we can decide if we need more.”
Agent Gonzales knew she was right, procedurally and in managing his anger. “Alright... so you couldn't help the terrorist... what then?”
Michael told of running around the corner and into Agent Spencer. He apologized profusely for that happening. He told her that he wanted to help but he felt the anger turn from manufactured anger to authentic fear anger, and it was focused on him. And all he could do was run. He finished his story with the two men coming earlier that day and them leaving when his landlady came to check up on him.
Agent Gonzales walked past Agent Spencer in a way that told her he was finished. Agent Spencer thanked Michael for his time and that they would be in touch if they needed anything else from him. Michael said goodbye and went back to working his cards as though they were never there.
On the way down the stairs Agent Gonzales quipped, “That was a waste of time. That guys just flat out nuts. I'm surprised they let him work at the Federal Building... I mean did you see what he had written down? It looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs for crying out loud.”
“Easy John, we don't know anything right now, and while his story does sound fantastic, there is probably some truth to it... just mixed with fantasy. We are all stressed, don't take it out on him.” She let a moment pass and then added, “His writing reminded me of sheet music.”
Bristling at the admonishment, Agent Gonzales simply walked to the car and got in. He knew she was right, but this was one of those occasions that she was going to have to accept a draw.
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