Three Screams
The Neo-Lamarckian studies his test-tubes and charts the data. Florescent cylinders illuminate him from above; below, ordered columns of figures march upon his cluttered workspace. A half-drunk Diet Coke provides the necessary companionship. This is his home, this Vancouver laboratory. The Neo-Lamarckian makes a notation in his tiny notebook and grins like a maniac. Thinking about Darwin, he feels his blood pressure rising, the vein in his forehead inflating dangerously. Transferring solutions, examining transformations, observing relationships, he works furiously, until the anger boils over. “Natural selection, my ass!” he screams, “Galapagos Finches, my hairy ass!!” but nobody hears him because it is 3 a.m. on a Saturday and the lab, save for himself, is empty.
In a small town near Omaha, The Stratego Player studies his remaining
pieces and settles on his next move. With his left hand (always his
left, though he is otherwise right-handed; Stratego players are second
to none when it comes to superstition), he lifts a bomb, pretends to
consider moving it one space forward, then replaces it in its original
position before moving the adjacent Sergeant (“7”) one space
to the left. The idea, of course, is to trick the opponent, make her
think the bomb is actually a movable piece. This move is his invention
and the key to last year’s national championship. By this season,
however, the move has become old hat and fools nobody. “Pulling
a Jackass?” asks his adversary in this quarterfinal match-up,
invoking the common query now routinely uttered to ridicule the shopworn
tactic. Thinking about his lackluster performance these last six months,
The Stratego Player feels his blood pressure rising, the vein in his
right temple inflating dangerously. His pimply adolescent opponent smirks
and takes his bomb with her Miner (“8”). The Stratego Player
is visibly shaken and performs poorly during the game’s denouement,
his defeat virtually assured by the loss of this last bomb. When his
flag is finally taken, and his exit from the national tournament finalized,
his anger boils over. “I need a new move,” he screams, clearing
with one sweep of his hand the rest of the board’s red and blue
pieces. “I need some new damned thing!!”
As the intruder ransacks the upstairs floors of his suburban Maryland
home, The Millionaire struggles to free his hands from the coarse rope
that binds them to his Princeton Class of `81 Chair. He and his wife
look at each other from opposite sides of their ornately decorated living
room. She too has been bound tightly to a chair; hers, however, boasts
a Wellesley seal and is constructed from a lighter shade of wood. The
intruder reappears at the foot of the staircase and flaunts his treasure.
“My girlfriend will love this necklace,” he says, swinging
the string of brilliant sapphires around his head like a lasso. When
the wife audibly groans, the intruder figures it is time to finish the
job. Watching the intruder approach with butcher’s knife drawn
high, The Millionaire feels his heart racing, works his fingers desperately
to free himself. When he realizes all is hopeless, his anger boils over.
He turns to face his struggling wife and screams: “God damn it,
how could you leave the door unlocked again? How many times have I told
you? What’s your problem?” And then it’s lights out.
At The Millionaire’s funeral, The Neo-Lamarckian and The Stratego
Player pay their final respects to their brother, talk quietly about
their childhood. The last time they saw each other was a half decade
ago, at the side-by-side funeral that followed their parents’
bizarre murder-suicide incident. Then, the media trucks outnumbered
the mourners. Now, the graveyard is quiet and creepy. The service ends.
The brothers embrace, take one last sad look around the cemetery, go
their separate ways.