Remember Me (31 page)

“I have several students, all with more than enough background to meet your needs,” he told me over the phone. His voice really didn’t convey the same level of assuredness as his statement implied. He went on, “Frank Uthoff is one, John S 231 S

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Kenny is another, and then there is always Stebben Burkle.” He said Burkle’s name with a clear disdain in the tone of his voice.

Based on my overall general impression of Drolet, I was

immediately peeked by the mention of Burkle. “Tell me a little more about Stebben Burkle,” I asked him.

Drolet scoffed on the other end of the line. After a moment he said, “Burkle is…how can I best say this…unique. I’m not sure if he will ever do anything other than be a career student. As far as his level of intelligence, he is top notch, brilliant in fact, but motivation to turn that brilliance into something worthwhile—it’s completely and utterly lacking.”

I think I had the picture instantly. Drolet was extremely jealous of Burkle’s free flowing nature and probably even more so of his level of intellect. One man’s problem is another man’s solution. “He sounds intriguing,” I responded. “Maybe the right motivation would jump-start him on the road to enlightenment!” I had a hard time suppressing my laughter. I was doing my best to mimic Drolet’s pessimistic assessment of Burkle.

“You never know, he just might come around. I fear it will be all for naught,” Drolet rolled out in his inflated tone of actually caring. He and I both knew that taking Burkle off of his hands would be exactly what he would like.

“Can you set-up a time for me to meet with him next week?”

“I can most definitely arrange that! Would Monday at four p.m. work for you?”

I wanted to laugh again, “Works for me. Where should I

meet him?”

“The Stephen’s Administration building has a small meeting room on the first floor. Ask for Mary at the reception desk when you get there. She’ll direct you to where you need to go.”

“Great! Anything else I should know about him ahead of

time?”

After a long silence he began to speak. This time I felt it S 232 S

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was with more genuine concern. “Stebben was orphaned at an early age, and his grandmother raised him. She died a couple of years back. They were extremely close. It might be one of the reasons he stays in school. She was uneducated but instilled in him the desire to make something of himself. He is not easy to like, always walking around in a cloud of sadness. I believe that he needs to move on. Maybe you will finally be that missing catalyst which leads him down the path of reaching his true potential.”

My opinion of Drolet increased three-fold. Maybe he did

have a human bone in his body after all. “I’ll certainly keep it in mind! Thanks again, and I look forward to meeting you,” I said it sincerely this time.

“I won’t be around on Monday, but if things work out

please feel free to call or stop-by some other time.”

“I’ll make it a top priority,” I said and then hung up the phone.

I spent the rest of the week updating the documents I would take to the meeting. Stacy was also interested in the comments I’d made about Burkle. If you were going to be a decent lawyer, then psychology was a prerequisite. She had the same vibes that I did. I was pretty sure I had a good handle on how best to approach Stebben. For the life of me I still couldn’t figure out why I knew his name, and what it was about it that pricked at my brain. Maybe it would come to me when I met him.

On Monday, I was thirty minutes early to the Stephen’s

Administration Building. Lucky for me there was an open

parking slot in front of the building, otherwise I might have been hoofing it a long way. Mary graciously escorted me to the open meeting room, offering to get me anything I needed.

Her hand lingered, ever-so-lightly on my arm. I felt that tingly tell-tale sensation in my stomach. She was pleasant and attractive for her age. I also noticed that the hand on my arm didn’t S 233 S

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include a wedding ring. I may have been making assumptions about her intent, but my gut reaction was usually fairly good indicator. I gave her my best “Thanks but not interested” smile and shooed her out the door. I promised to come get her directly if I should need anything.

Mary never lost her smile and she exited without a word.

I set myself up at the first open chair on the right side of the conference table as you faced it from the door. I wanted Stebben to sit with his back to the entrance, to avoid the distraction of people moving past the window next to the door.

By four-fifteen he still hadn’t arrived. At four-thirty I packed-up my materials. I had a hunch about where he might be and decided to go with it. I didn’t want to leave campus until I had a chance to meet with Stebben…it just felt too right. I asked Mary where the applied science building was located. She also gave me her best guess as to where a grad student working on his PhD might be found.

With a campus map in hand and instructions from Mary, I

strode across campus to the Dixon Science Building. I entered the door on the west side of the building. Mary had indicated it on the map for me. I took the three flights of steps up to the third floor. This was the wing where most of the labs were housed and my hunch was that Stebben was in one of them.

The first two labs on my left were completely dark. There didn’t seem to be anyone around that I could even ask if they might know Stebben. I moved on down the hall until I came to a “T” intersection. Looking both left and right, and straight ahead, I decided on right. I didn’t have a particular reason for my decision; each direction looked the same to me.

I was nearly to the end of the corridor when a door opened in front of me. A tall and lanky young man with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, and sprouting a willowy goatee, hustled past me.

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“Hey!” I shouted after him, “I’m looking for Stebben Burkle!”

The young man stopped and turned back to face me.

“Man…are you Mr. Warren?”

His face conveyed the look I’d anticipated. My hunch had been correct. Burkle had been at work in a lab and completely forgot the time. “I am, and you must be Stebben,” I said reaching out my right hand.

Stebben shook my hand, and I could feel the softness in

his. I wondered if he was planning on meeting me the way he was dressed or if he was going to change first. He had on a Def Leppard tee shirt, stained, and supporting a rip at the seam under the arm he had stretched out to me. He was wearing a pair of glasses. He easily could have been mistaken for John Lennon’s younger brother. It hit me all at once! I knew what it was about Burkle that had been nagging at my brain.

Sometime in two thousand-four or five he was going to win the Nobel Prize. His hair would still be long, and the glasses would be perched on a much older face. I couldn’t remember what he had won it for, but I did remember the news cast announcing it. The pictures would be up on the television screen, side-by-side, Lennon and Burkle. Jokes were made about him being Lennon’s illegitimate son and his brilliance a product of the sixties...

Burkle put up with all of it and even managed to occasionally turn the tables on those trying to gain a laugh at his expense. He was a darling of the media for exactly one month following his winning the Nobel Prize. He was easy going and had a quick wit. More than once he used his affable attitude to put his hosts at a disadvantage. When they weren’t expecting it, he brought the audiences to fits of laughter by cracking a joke about the hosts themselves. He was in Washington D.C.

for an awards banquet when he was stabbed trying to break up the mugging of an elderly woman. The same hosts, who once S 235 S

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made fun of him, now honored him as a selfless champion

who went above and beyond. Thankfully, he wasn’t seriously injured and recovered. It all came flooding back to me. I even remembered his grandmother’s name, Elsie, like the cow. His life story was sad. I remember the emotional tribute he gave to his grandmother during his acceptance speech. He said without her, he never would have amounted to anything.

“You okay?” Stebben ask me.

I let go of his hand and suddenly felt sick to my stomach.

“Fine…I’m fine.” My insides were in turmoil. Somehow the past wasn’t as conveniently random as I thought. There were too many coincidences that had already happened to me. It made me feel like the past wanted something from me…

what…I didn’t know.

“Man, you don’t look so hot!”

I smiled and made an attempt at regaining my composure.

“Is there some place close by we could talk and maybe get something to drink?” (I was in desperate need of some water.)

“Sure, follow me.” He pivoted around and headed back

down the hall. At the “T” he took a right. I had to nearly jog just to keep up with him. After a short stretch, the hall opened up to a large area where the main steps going up and down were located. Off to the left of the stairs was a lounge, complete with vending machines and restrooms. Stebben dug in his pocket and put some change into the nearest candy dis-penser. “Starbursts” danced around in my head; they were his addiction. Sure enough, he pulled the knob and I watched as a packet of Starbursts fell into the receiving tray. He reached in and pulled them out. I didn’t have any change in my pocket and the “dollar readers” were still a few years away. Thankfully, a water fountain was between the restroom doors. I stood over the tallest one and drank my fill.

Stebben had already sat down at the table opposite the

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vending machines. I sat down across from him and set my

briefcase on the floor by my chair.

“I’m really sorry about missing our time,” he said. I could read his sincerity by looking in his eyes. “I wasn’t going to wear these clothes either!”

“No problem, no apologies needed,” I said back to him. I wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. My head was now full of conflicting thoughts. I liked him and my opinion of him had been formed long ago…or would be in the future anyway.

I wondered if God did have a hand in what was happening

to me. All the coincidences were becoming harder to explain away. If Stebben came to work for me there was a good chance he wouldn’t get stabbed, but he might not win the Nobel Prize either. It was as they say, “A riddle wrapped around an enigma.”

“I understand that you have been working in computer engineering and software development?”

“That and just about every other field of science,” he said laughing. “I have to admit that I bounce from one thing to another like a ball in zero gravity.”

I wasn’t seeing the dark somber side that Drolet had

mentioned. Burkle’s eyes were full of life, and he gave the appearance of someone very comfortable in his own skin. I took a stab in the dark, “What do you think of the new Star Trek—

The Next Generation series?”

His eyes lit up and he said, “Way better than the campy

series with Kirk. You know they aren’t too far off of where we will be some day. The science is already here, but the ability we have to crack the technology and make it a reality isn’t. Our brains can conceive so much, but desire alone can’t build it.”

“You’ve got that right,” I said and my smile couldn’t have been any wider. “How would you like to be the one to bring Star Trek to the everyday world?” I couldn’t have told you what possessed me, I just knew. I reached into my briefcase and laid S 237 S

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my phone on the table in front of him. I also laid a sheet of paper next to it, the writing facing him. “Before you pick it up, I’m afraid that I’m going to need you to sign the confidentiality release. Before I let you turn it on, you’ll need to agree to come work for me and E.M.J.” Not one thing I’d just done or said was anything I’d rehearsed, but it came…oh so naturally.

Burkle was motionless. His eyes were fixated on the phone.

I waited him out. After nearly two minutes, maybe more, he picked up the pen and signed the release. His eyes left the phone for the briefest moment so he could locate where he needed to sign. After signing, he looked up at me and then back down at the phone. As I reached for the paper, his hand shot out lightning quick and swooped up the phone. The first thing he did was slide the screen away and examine the minia-ture keyboard. He closed it and weighed the phone by putting it in the palm of his hand and then lifting his hand up and down.

A sound similar to a coo, from a Morning Dove, escaped from his pursed lips. I grinned even more.

Underneath the table his leg began to bounce up and down.

I watched as my pen started vibrating on the table. I’m not sure if his face could get any whiter. He now managed to look like a softer shade of white chalk. “What year?” he asked me.

“What do you mean?” I replied as nonchalantly as I could, but I already had a feeling he’d guessed the truth.

“What year is this from?” he asked me again, his voice was barely above a hush. “Not sure what it is, a micro computer maybe,” he said turning my phone over to look at the back.

Stamped on the back was the lettering 3.0 megapixel, next to the camera lens. “A camera of some sorts…I’m guessing.”

Then he tossed a statement out at me: “This is…no pun intended…light years away from today.”

“Not really,” I said “only about ten or so.”

His head shot up and his eyes bore into mine, “You too?”

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“Yep, two thousand and ten.”

He didn’t even blink when I confirmed it. “I’ll bite, tell me!”

“I can’t do that until I know you are on board. If I leave now and you talk, there isn’t much to tell, but if I share my story…well that’s a different issue all together.”

“Is this about money or changing the world?” he asked. Just like he would do in the future, he was turning the tables and making me the interviewee.

I took my time. I got up from my chair and got another