“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Avery actually wasn’t Kip’s brother, but the son of Bennett’s second wife, Emma. Bennett had married Avery’s mother four years ago knowing full well that her son was a unique soul, but it wasn’t until she suddenly passed away, two years to the day from their wedding, that he realized exactly how peculiar his live-in son was. Without his mother to serve as a buffer between the men, Avery had become increasingly erratic, emotionally despondent, and mildly delusional. Soon after losing his mother, Avery quit his job as a computer repair technician and sequestered himself in his upstairs bedroom. Bennett, however, had loved Emma and promised her before she passed to allow Avery to continue to live with him in the house. Besides, Bennett knew he wasn’t getting any younger or healthier and needed Avery’s occasional help and company, as bizarre as it usually was.
As Kip approached Avery’s room, he couldn’t help but notice a strange odor emanating from that end of the hallway. It smelled vaguely of corn chips and butane gas. The partially open door to Avery’s room had a sign that read SKUNK WORKS nailed to it. Kip pushed open the door and spied Avery hunched over a dingy white keyboard surrounded by five computer monitors of various sizes. The monitors were resting on a wooden picnic table pushed up against the far wall. The middle section of the table appeared to have been sawed out, creating a U-shaped workspace with room for the collection of eclectic monitors. His keyboard rested on a folding tray table in the middle of the cut-out section, while Avery sat on the still attached bench. Either failing to notice Kip’s entry or intentionally ignoring it, Avery continued to type deliberately on his keyboard using only his two index fingers.
The best way to describe Avery would be “soft.” Less than average height, he wasn’t exactly overweight, just soft and kind of squishy. Years of sitting in front of a computer with only an occasional swipe at exercise had transformed him into a pale, slouching lump of a thirty-year-old man. His overly large head was covered in an outrageous tangle of dark brown hair. An overgrown beard that would have been called untidy if only it had been trimmed in the last year encircled his perpetually pursed lips. His pale blue eyes, however, were most interesting. He didn’t look. He stared. A stare that alternated between a blank gaze and bright-eyed excitement, rarely anything in between.
While in the house, which Avery rarely left unless forced, he wore an old terrycloth robe that was originally dark green. Now it more closely resembled a woodland camouflage of stained and faded spots. On the odd occasion Avery when would appear in the outside world, he wore a canary yellow tracksuit and black high-top sneakers, usually untied.
Much of Avery’s time was devoted to his work. This was comprised of refurbishing his collection of computers and using the Internet to research his personal projects, mostly ridiculous, and his theories, mostly conspiratorial. For the remainder of his day, he preferred to compose letters to editors, politicians, academics, and anyone else he thought posed a threat to his health, welfare, or intrinsic freedom. That meant pretty much everyone.
“Excuse me,” Kip said.
“State your business,” Avery replied in an annoyed tone.
“I wanted to introduce myself. I’m Kip; we haven’t actually had the chance to meet.”
“Of course it is and of course we haven’t,” replied Avery without looking away from his monitor. “The insane doctor who lives down the hallway informed me of your impending visit. I’ve been monitoring your approach to my office since your arrival. If you were anyone but who you say you are, I would have treated you as another of the nefarious intruders or gluttonous interlopers we all too regularly receive and incapacitated you posthaste. You see I’m quite proficient in several styles of Filipino stick fighting, including the most lethal variant, the Doble Baston. However, I’m sure the doctor informed you of that already.”
“No, actually he didn’t,” replied Kip.
“Consider yourself duly forewarned.”
“Appreciated,” Kip said as he stepped into the dimly lit room. The light from the glowing computer monitors and a few faint wisps of sunlight leaking in around the drawn window shades provided the only illumination. Above Avery’s workstation hung a large corkboard. Thumbtacks held in place dozens of pages of legal pad paper inscribed with wildly chaotic flowcharts, sketches of black canine-shaped images, and technical diagrams. Apart from the area of the deformed picnic table, the walls were lined with bookshelves and metal racks crammed with a various assortment of dog-eared magazines, scientific and historical books, manuals, spare computer hardware, and tools. A wooden ladder was propped against one of the bookshelves. Several pairs of old tube socks hung on the rungs. A small bed sat at the far end of the room. The bed was stripped of its sheets, which were bundled at the foot. Above the headboard and taped to the wall was a vintage White Star Line travel poster depicting the mighty Titanic being pushed away from the Southampton pier by a small tugboat dwarfed by the enormous ocean liner. On the pier, a young woman in the crowd wearing a striped hat stood, waving a white handkerchief as if to solemnly say goodbye.
“Quite a setup you have here,” Kip said with an undertone of sarcasm.
“Don’t mock what you don’t understand,” Avery replied quickly as he finally turned away from his monitors and addressed Kip directly.
“Sorry,” Kip said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “What don’t I understand?”
“Ever since the dawn of time, those that have demanded more of life than simply being spoon-fed useless information or preferred to avoid being beaten senseless with lemming-like cultural and religious traditions have had to search for empirical truth on their own. Take for example today—the vast majority of people who inhabit this country are intellectual plebeians who measure their merit and worth by the number of possessions they can accumulate via revolving debt they either don’t understand or won’t ever have the financial wherewithal to repay. Why? They don’t know. They’d rather not know. All they understand is that two HDTVs are better than one and not nearly as noble as three.” Avery covered his ears with his hands and whispered in a hushed tone, “I’m a free thinker. My setup, as you refer to it, is my crucible.” His voice rose as he spread his arms slowly above his head, “The Romans, yes, the mighty Romans, utilized refractory containers to meld brass out of copper and zinc, allowing them to rule their universe. I, however, employ my crucible to melt and alter the properties of ignorance.”
“Okay…so how’s that working out for you?”
“Not bad,” Avery replied, spinning back around on the wooden bench and leaning his face in close to his monitors. “Keeps me busy and in a relatively low tax bracket.”
“Can I ask a question? How the heck did you manage to get that picnic table in here?” Kip inquired.
“I disassembled it in the backyard and reassembled it in here to suit my purposes. Don’t worry. It’s only temporary. I’m having IKEA design a custom workstation for me as we speak. I sent them the technical specifications and blueprints to work from several months ago.”
“I didn’t realize they did custom work.”
“They will for me. I’m allowing them a share of future revenues from each unit sold. It will undoubtedly be a huge success. Could very well secure the financial future of the company.”
“I’m sure they’ll appreciate that,” Kip said as he wandered around the room, surveying the contents of the shelves. He noticed a stack of three books that didn’t look as dusty as some of the others. “Hmm, Crop Circles,” he said, reading the title of the first book. “Ranch and Farm Management and UFOs,” he continued as he perused the other two. “Some kind of connection?”