The album he was playing now had been a gift from his dad when Jim had been a kid, his very first music CD. He still remembered opening the tiny gift-wrapped package on his—when was it? His eighth or ninth birthday? He also remembered with a smile the look of conspiratorial smugness in his mom and dad’s eyes when he had said to them thanks, but you need a CD player to play a CD. His Mom had suggested that maybe he should go take a look in his bedroom. He’d grabbed the UB40 CD and sprinted upstairs. Bursting into his bedroom he saw a large wrapped box sitting on his bed, a big red bow tied around it and a note, written in his mother’s elegant hand that simply said, Happy Birthday. We love you son.
He was surprised the CD was still playable; he had listened to it so many times when he was younger, it was a wonder it hadn’t simply worn out.
Jim let out a sigh as bittersweet memories came rolling back.
His Dad had died in 2012 from lung cancer, a lifetime of smoking had first taken his left lung, twenty-five percent of his right, and finally on a rain-swept evening in September, his life. His mom, always a rock he could hold onto no matter what the problem, had simply fallen apart. Over the span of three years, he watched her collapse inwards until one day he received a call from his mother’s neighbor telling him he should maybe come on home; that something terrible had happened.
His mom had locked herself in the old Chevy Blazer, run a hose from the exhaust system into the interior and turned on the engine. She left a note to him that said, “I love you and I know you will understand.” The real sadness was he did understand. His mother and father had been inseparable, two halves of a single soul that could not bear to be apart for any longer than they already had.
Now, as he sat in the electronic glow of the amplifier and graphic equalizer display he allowed his mind to drift back to his childhood, to better days.
Always fascinated by the sciences, it still surprised him that he had become as successful as he had. Jim had never been a fan of convention. He had found the stodgy, methodical, teaching of most of his lecturers to be boring and unenthused, too slow for his desire to explore everything. His teachers were forever berating him for wanting to move onto the next experiment before they believed he was ready: You have to learn to walk before you can run James, was a cliché he had heard more times than he cared to remember. They failed to understand his natural ability to instinctively comprehend the processes involved in every experiment or project he worked on, mistaking his enthusiasm to move on for sloppy procedure.
That was all before he met Mr. Davies.
Jim knew that here was a teacher who was unlike any other he would ever meet when he witnessed the new teacher pull up for his first day at school in a grungy, weatherworn, leather jacket and sitting astride a huge Harley Davidson. The bike had roared and growled into the reserved area of the teacher’s parking lot like some tiger clawing at the gates of academia.
It was Mr. Davies who had shown him for the first time what it was to be a true scientist: you had to be thrilled by the wonder of it all, and you had to allow your imagination to run rampant if you ever wanted to push back any of the boundaries facing science.
Yes, he owed Mr. Davies a great deal.
Jim remembered the first day he had met him. Davies had wandered into class and immediately the children had fallen into silence. Looking more like a pirate than a teacher with his thick ginger beard and massive build, he had stared at the students for a moment, his eye finally falling on Jim. “You!” he had said pointing directly at Jim, “Come on up here and give me a hand would you?”
Obediently, Jim did as he was asked. “Take this,” the new teacher said handing Jim one of a pair of speakers, holding its twin in his own hand. “Now hold it directly over your head.” Unbuttoning his leather jacket, the pirate pulled a portable CD player from his belt and connected it to the speakers. Pressing the silver play button the sound of some rock group Jim did not recognize began pounding out from the speakers, Jim could feel the speaker reverberating in his hands with each drum beat. “For those of you who don’t know,” said the pirate to the rapt class of kids, “that’s a group called The Beatles. Now, watch this.”
Slowly, he brought his own speaker parallel with Jim’s and began moving it closer. When the teacher’s speaker was about six inches from Jim’s, the music had suddenly and inexplicably stopped. Jim could still feel the drum beat reverberating through his hand and down his arm to his shoulder but no sound came out. The teacher moved his speaker back an inch and the music magically began spilling into the classroom again. Forward an inch, it stopped. Back an inch, it could be heard.
The pirate’s face had suddenly been split by a massive grin and his eyes lit up with childlike excitement, “Cool, eh?” he said to the class and it was at that point Jim knew his life was about to change.
That day had stuck with Jim. When he needed reminding of the force that drove him, or when he found himself slowed by the whys rather than what’s, he would drift back and remember that display of physics.
So many times he had… Jim stopped mid thought. He picked up the remote control and switched off the music, walked over to the wall and flipped on the lights. Grabbing a pen and paper, he quickly jotted down some formulas before dropping his hands to his hips.
“Well, shit!” he said, tearing the page of figures from the pad before heading out the door.
Thirty
Rebecca was getting ready for bed when a knock at her door stopped her. She quickly threw on the baggy gray sweatshirt she had just tossed on to the comforter, buttoning up her jeans as she made her way to the door.
“Rebecca. It’s Jim. Do you have a couple of minutes?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you so late,” Jim said, as Rebecca ushered him into her apartment. “I just needed you to verify some figures for me, if that’s alright?”
“Sure,” came her reply, “it’s not a problem.”
Jim looked at her peculiarly, his head tilted just a little and his lips turned up in a lopsided smile, “Are you sure I’m not disturbing you?” He reached out and pointed to her neckline.
Glancing down she saw that in her rush to throw her sweatshirt back on she had somehow managed to put it on not only inside—out but also back-to-front. The tag was protruding pertly out from the sweatshirt’s neckline like some mischievous kid poking its tongue at her.
Rebecca felt her face flush with embarrassment, “Ummm! Could you excuse me for just one moment?” she asked and tried to walk with as much dignity as she could muster back to her bedroom, leaving Jim in the living room attempting to suppress his laughter as best as he could.
When next she emerged, she was wearing a white blouse and she could not help but notice the appraising look from Jim before he averted his eyes.
“It needed washing anyway,” Rebecca said, pointing a thumb back to her bedroom.
“Take a look at these,” Jim said, placing the sheet of paper he had torn from his pad on her coffee table. “Tell me if I’ve made a mistake.”
Sitting down on her sofa, she picked up the piece of paper and scanned Jim’s scribbled figures. Jim took the seat next to her, his hip brushing against hers; she caught a faint trace of his cologne and her heartbeat skipped a beat. She was surprised he could not hear it thudding behind her ribs it was so loud in her own ears. She swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on the numbers in front of her.