Here & There (18 page)

“It was supposed to lead us right to him. But we just couldn’t find him. Kept following the pings till we went too far, then retreated,
followed the pings. He was supposed to be right where we were, but there was only ash and earth.

“I was so frustrated, I just didn’t know what to do, and I finally broke down, sat on my ass, and started bawling. The other guys averted their eyes, kept circling around trying to follow the pings, adjust the detector.

“I finally got a hold of myself. Choked everything down. And it was while I was sitting there on the ground, that I noticed this lump in the earth. Like a bubble in brownie mix. I let out a whoop, whipped out my shovel, and just started digging until I hit fire shelter.

“That’s when the ground screamed. Tyler struggled to sit up, dirt pouring off him like a rising zombie in an aluminum cocoon. He and I both unzipped his shelter while he screamed at me from behind his oxygen mask, holding his arm. The wily fucker had buried himself alive with his extra O2 tank! Not a scratch on him, except for the gash I made on his arm shoveling him out.

“We didn’t care. We were all so happy he was alive! If we had paid a little more attention, we would have thought to clean the cut. Instead, some dirt got in there while he was clotting up. Stained his flesh.”

Toby grinned big at me. He finally realized where I was heading. The girls were shaking their heads in disbelief until I finally told Toby to show ‘em. He hung his head, rolled up his right sleeve, and showed them the birthmark on his forearm that looked like a dirt stain.

“You don’t get a nickname like Burrows without a good reason.”

And that’s how I finished off my little tale, with the slightest bow of the head to Toby. Still, it didn’t do us any good. Well, at least not me—but Toby was cleaning glitter out of his apartment for weeks after that night. Hilary and I lilted outside together, but then she started holding the side of her head and giggling about how she wasn’t used to absinthe. Didn’t even like licorice really. Man, had she been drinking the wrong drink.

I guess I could’ve pushed. Offered to make sure she got home ok and taken her back to her place. Put a hand on her inner thigh in the cab ride as she leaned against me. Felt the texture of her stockings against my palm as she nuzzled through the green mist into my armpit. But the thought of it made me feel more lonely than actually being alone. A dark part of me was weirdly intrigued at what it would have been like shouting “Hilary” in the throes of ecstasy, but under the circumstances I would only be reminded that Mom was gone.

So I hailed her a cab. She stared at me for a moment, waiting for the fog to clear. Then she said thanks for a fantastic evening, fell against my mouth with her lips, and plopped down into the backseat of the cab all in one fluid motion. No number, no date, just red brake lights as the taxi took the next left.

I felt like a sheet of discarded Bubble Wrap that had been all popped out. I’ve never been to Oregon. Never jumped out of an airplane, that’s for sure. And not even once have I considered trying to be a fireman, even when I was little. The closest I’ve ever gotten was standing with my parents and a number of neighbors in our back alley at four thirty in the morning, watching a house on the other side of our block go up in flames.

Some distant survivor instinct must have kicked in and pointed me north as I strolled up through SoHo in my own cloud of self-loathing. The last thing I remember was staring at Bloomingdale’s display window, switching my focus back and forth between my reflection in the glass and the perfect presents under the tree, so immaculately wrapped you couldn’t help but be drawn to them even though you knew they were completely empty on the inside.

The next morning I woke up still in my coat, lying on my bed. In spite of the memory lapses, I didn’t have much of a hangover, just felt like I was thinking through mud. Getting upright cleared things up. The room had to catch up before I understood I might very possibly still be intoxicated. Somehow, through all that, though, I remembered what had started all this. What I was telling you about originally.

Eve’s story. The website. The bulletin board. I shuffled right to the computer.

Wouldn’t you know it, for the life of me, I couldn’t find it. Not any of it. No Bourg. No oubliettes. No Hoggle. It was gone. Without a trace. Did I dream it? Was I misremembering? Could I just not conjure up the magic phrase for the Google genie that let me in on the Siberian bartender’s iPad?

Or had it been dismantled?

The Deputy was thorough, to say the least, but ultimately unsuccessful in his efforts to create order and harmony. His instincts about her were right. It’s just his timing was wrong.

“Is it on? Can you see me?” Reidier turns backward in the passenger seat.

“Yes?” a soft, high voice responds.

“Here, let me see it.” Reidier reaches toward the camera and takes it. In a jarring blur, the interior of the car sweeps across the frame
until the shot comes to rest on Reidier’s lap. Past his knee, on the floor mat is the torn plastic cover of a Flip camcorder.

“Yeah, no. It’s on.” The world spins again, stopping at an unflattering angle of Reidier looking down at it. “This is pretty cool, I got to say. For something you can buy at a drugstore. Check it out, Eve.”

The frame blurs again, stopping on the dashboard as Reidier holds it up for Eve to see.

“Not now, Rye,” we hear her say in a crisp tone. “Driving.”

“Eyes on road,” Otto’s soft voice sings from the backseat.

The camera swings back, past Ecco, to Otto.

“That’s right, Otto; Mommy’s got to keep her eyes on the road. But you,” interior spins again as Reidier hands the camcorder back to Otto, “have two sets of eyes.”

Otto giggles.

“Rye, are you sure that’s appropriate for a three-year-old?” Eve asks. She casts a sideways look at him.

“He’s practically four. And who cares if he breaks it, I bought it at CVS.”

Reidier seems completely genuine in his response and completely oblivious to the fact that he’s not addressing Eve’s question at all. Or rather he is answering the question he heard, not the question she asked. There seems to be no malice or passive aggressiveness in his tone and demeanor. It is possible that it is a subconscious, almost instinctual response that avoids actual confrontation through confusion. More likely, Reidier is doing what so many of us do with our spouses: assuming an I-know-you-like-the-back-of-my-hand insight that creates a porous enough connection to allow our own sublimated concerns to be poured into our significant other. It is not a willful act. In our need to unite with others,
⁴⁹
we inevitably cover up parts of them with ourselves. Creative destruction, or at least creative obfuscation.

Nevertheless, this begs the question, how well do any of us know the back of our hands?

What we learn in this moment is that Reidier’s consistent misinterpretation of Eve was a dynamic set in motion long ago.

We are deprived of any visual consideration of Eve’s response by Otto’s toddling cinematography as he spins the camera on himself: “My birthday’s in twenty-free days.” The camera spins to Ecco, who sits behind Reidier, quietly watching his brother. “When’s Ecco’s?”

Ecco half huffs, half laughs, and smiles when his brother looks at him.

“The same day as yours, Otto,” Reidier says.

“Really?” Otto asks with narcissistic disbelief. The camera shifts back to Reidier.

“Like always.”

“Don’t do that,” Eve snaps.

“What, hon?” Reidier asks with a smile.

“Don’t patronize him.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were. You were correcting him. It’s not his fault he doesn’t know.”

Reidier doesn’t say anything for a few moments. He looks at Eve, but she won’t make eye contact. She never turns her head, just focuses on the road. Reidier looks back at the boys and smiles.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Reidier turns back in the passenger seat and faces forward.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Otto?”

“Do I hafta share my cake?”

Reidier erupts with laughter. “No Otto, we can get two cakes.”

Otto lets out a
Yay
. Ecco joins in. Eventually it turns into a repetitive singsongy chant of two cakes, two cakes, two cakes. The camera bounces back and forth from Otto to Ecco with every chant.
Ecco smiles and bobs his head in unison with the camera. Presumably he’s mirroring his brother’s head bobs.

This spat might not go any deeper than the fact that they’ve been driving for almost two days straight going from Chicago to Providence. Eve’s acerbic attitude seems more persistent than travel fatigue, however.

At one point, Otto films his brother as they play in what appears to be a physicalized version of cryptophasia, otherwise known as idioglossia or “twin language.”

Ecco stares at his brother.

Otto’s arm reaches into the frame from behind the camera. As Otto reaches in, Ecco similarly reaches toward Otto.

Otto flattens out his hand horizontally (like one would play paper in Rock, Paper, Scissors). Ecco flattens his hand out.

It’s unclear which of them begins the next movement (even slowing down the footage and flipping through frame by frame). In apparent unison, both hands turn upward, their fingers splay apart, their mirrored hands then drift together camera left and then pull back to their respective owners.

The boys giggle in concert.

Otto turns the camera on himself and smiles. Then he turns it on Ecco, who smiles. Back to Otto. Back to his brother. Back to Otto. He repeats this again and again, adding the labeling narrative, “Otto. Ecco. Otto. Ecco.”

Somewhere along the way, much like in the Bugs Bunny–Daffy Duck debate about whether it’s duck season or rabbit season, Otto gets turned around and starts labeling his brother as Otto and himself as Ecco. These moments capture the fluidity of play between the boys, and as with Bugs and Daffy, the misdirection of rhythm.

Otto turns the camera on his brother and holds it there.

Ecco faces his brother, pantomiming his own camera.

And then Otto says, “Mi-ya-co. Mi-me.” Without taking the camera off his brother, he repeats it, “Mi-ya-co. Mi-me.” Turning it
back on himself and pointing to the camera, he says, “Little me.” Points to himself, “Me me.”

Off camera, Ecco’s high voice sings, “Mi-ya-co.”

That’s when Eve screams,
Arrête-toi!
A litany of French rants pour out of her, in a sort of Parisian homage to Ricky Ricardo.

Otto freezes, startled. Reidier quickly reaches back, takes the camera from his son, and turns it off.

Accepted research suggests that cryptophasia manifests most often in twins with immature or disordered language. More recent studies indicate that twin language is more likely to be one of the twins modeling the underdeveloped speech patterns of his co-twin, resulting in the incorrect use of speech sounds and grammar by both twins. While it might sound like a foreign language, it’s actually young twins mimicking each other’s attempts at language, often incorrectly.

Perhaps Eve was merely testy from the trip. While it seems to be an innocent scene of toddlers at play, reflecting the fascination little kids have with their own image, to the trained psychologist it reveals a much less charming reality.

Ecco’s complete lack of self-expression (he rarely says a word during the car video), and his focused mirroring of his brother in their unique type of gestural idioglossia, point to severe developmental issues. Where Otto is quite precocious, Ecco is abnormally simple. That’s not to say he’s slow or exhibits any signs of retardation or Down syndrome. There would be several physical cues if this was the case, and none are present.

Most children develop language at their own pace, and of course there is a broad range of normal. Diane Paul-Brown, PhD, director of clinical issues at the American Speech-Language Hearing Association,
asserts that certain children develop their language skills faster than others. Furthermore, roughly 15-20 percent of young children have some kind of communication disorder. Boys tend to develop later than girls. To be labeled a “late-talking child” however, a toddler must speak fewer than ten words by twenty months, or fifty words by thirty months. By the end of the second year, a toddler should be able to use two- to three-word sentences. By the third year, a child should be able to follow a multistep instruction, recognize common objects, and understand most of what is said to him. And be able to speak in a way understood by those outside the family.

Nevertheless, it is rare for identical twins to develop their language skills at disproportional rates. Inevitably, the discrepancy can create anxiety and sleepless nights for worried parents. This can be amplified by parents comparing the child’s development to that of his older sibling and, only more so, with a direct comparison to an identical twin. As time passes, this apprehension can turn into panic.

These car scenes provide us with our first glimpse into how Reidier and Eve cope, or don’t, as the case may be. Reidier focuses on Ecco with the intensity of an explorer scanning the horizon for land. He studies him and how he reacts to different stimuli, as shown in another moment when he plays peekaboo with Ecco.

Reidier hides behind his headrest and then pops out, first with just a boo, then with his name, “Daddy.” When Otto starts to answer for his giggling brother, Reidier stops. He points to Otto and asks, “Who’s that?” Ecco rolls his eyes. He points to Eve and asks again. Otto jumps the gun and answers. Reidier gently castigates Otto, saying good, but he was asking Ecco. Reidier’s eyes shift back from one boy to the other. The game is over, however, and he turns around in
his seat and stares out the window. (It was at this point that Otto began his Otto-Ecco game.)

Eve, on the other hand, tries to ignore the discrepancy, and in fact sometimes just ignores Ecco altogether. It’s an all too common response for parents of children with disabilities. They can refuse to accept their child because of how it reflects on them. If their child is damaged, then they are by extension. Or sometimes parents deny the child and his impairment because they irrationally feel they are somehow responsible. If they don’t repress it, they’ll be crushed with guilt. This can be especially true with mothers who fear they might have done something wrong during the pregnancy through diet, or exercise, or lack of exercise, etc. Or parents can create a distance because they’re incapable of empathizing. Somewhere in the subconscious, the brain throws up its hands and says, “This child is not like me, I don’t understand how he experiences the world at all and cannot relate or help.”