Steven Popkes - Two Boys.pdf

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TWO BOYS
by Steven Popkes
Although he spent ten years getting a B.S. in Zoology and an M.S. in
Neurophysiology, Steven Popkes now works on avionic software for NASA’s Ares Rockets.
In his spare time, Steve has published two novels and about thirty short stories. His latest
tale for us takes a look at how Neanderthals might cope with the modern world.
Now:
Alice wasn’t sure what she expected.
She’d heard from both Janesha Craig and Freddy Ali that a Neanderthal family had
moved into Bolton. The rumor was there was a boy and he’d be in school today. Home room
came and went. Rumors washed over the school: He’d come and decided the school was
too intimidating, the school wasn’t good enough for him, he wasn’t good enough for the
school, the secret service decided security wasn’t sufficient, he’d run away from the secret
service. The rumors agreed on one thing: He was here in town and he wasn’t coming to
Bolton Middle School.
“I bet there is no Neanderthal,” Alice whispered to Janesha in third period. “I bet it
was just someone who had himself modified to look like a Neanderthal.”
Janesha thought for a moment. “Then they better have a good lawyer,” she said. “My
Daddy was on the Mattel team against a Neanderthal form copyright suit last year? And he
said Mattel never had a chance. And that was just over that silly action doll and not an actual
modified person .” Janesha shook her head. “Daddy says everything’s covered by copyright.
Nothing left for us but piercing and scarification. Boring. ”
Neanderthals had been all over the news as long as Alice could remember,
brokering a peace deal in Malaysia, managing environmental reconstruction in Brazil. It
seemed like every Social Studies class had some current events topic in which they figured
prominently. She especially liked the restoration of the Brazilian highlands. But she’d never
seen a Neanderthal in the flesh.
When she had a chance, Alice looked up Neanderthals. They were recreated fifty or
sixty years ago from a frozen Neanderthal woman found under the retreating Paradies
Glacier. Now they had two reservations—one in North Dakota and the other near Basel,
Switzerland. She could access all the technical literature she wanted, and if she ever wanted
to learn about nucleotide differences and phenotypic expression of hox complexes, she’d
know right where to look. Just not right now, thank you very much. But there was next to
nothing about their likes or dislikes, culture or marriage practices. She lowered the
credibility rating and found out it was really the Neanderthals that had caused the melting of
the Greenland glaciers, triggering the coastal flooding and collapse of the arctic fisheries at
the same time. Neanderthals used up rationed power for their own purposes, thus causing
the brownouts. That was how they melted the glaciers. Neanderthals had penises the size of
your arm—and you could, too! Neanderthal girls were born with beards. Don’t make a
Neanderthal mad; he’ll rip off your head and crap down your neck. Really. No fooling. Really .
In other words, only Neanderthals knew about Neanderthals, and they weren’t talking.
* * * *
 
Then:
Tom Nicholson spoke to himself under his breath as he wrote the words. “Outside of
Antarctica, the glaciers of Greenland are the largest on earth.”
He liked writing with a pencil, by hand, on white ruled paper. He liked the smoothness
of the sheet, the texture of the graphite on the paper, the feeling of the tiny yellow pencil
impossibly dwarfed by his huge hand. Later, he’d scan or dictate the report into his
computer. But for now, he enjoyed just writing it out.
“The warming trend now seems irreversible,” Tom continued. “But even so, it will be
fifty years or more before the Greenland Glacier is completely melted. The
consequences—”
“Tom?” called his mother from downstairs.
“Working on my paper, Mom,” he answered.
“Come on down,” Agatha called up.
Tom sighed and slipped off the chair. He stretched for a moment. He should figure
out how to cushion the chair to fit the curve of his back. One of these days.
He started to jump down the stairs, checked himself. While it was fun to jump the full
length down to the landing, the noise scared Mom. Tom walked down instead.
He turned the corner into the kitchen. She was waiting for him, standing next to a
small table with a cake on it. On the corner counter was a continuous news feed. This time it
was environmental destruction in Brazil and how the denuded rainforest was being
destroyed by an unconfined Amazon River. He ignored it. There was always something on.
Mom was a news junkie. Tom stopped in front of the cake. It wasn’t his birthday. Not
Christmas. Then, he had it.
“Conception Day.” He laughed.
“You forgot?”
“Hey, I bet most people would forget once in a while if they had two birthdays.”
Agatha nodded and led him into the kitchen.
It was chocolate with bananas. Nice. “Any ketchup?”
Wordlessly, she pulled a bottle out of the refrigerator and set it in front of him.
“The paper’s almost done,” Tom mumbled around a piece of red-smeared cake. “I
can hand it in later today.”
Agatha nodded absently and sat across the table from him. “You’re fifteen now.”
“Not until spring, Mom. It’s Conception Day. Not Birth Day.”
“Would you like to be home schooled?”
 
Tom chewed on a piece of cake so he didn’t have to answer immediately. He
glanced at his mother warily. “No,” he said after he had swallowed.
“Are you sure?”
“Mom, I like school. Absarokee is fine. I got friends there.”
“Other modified children.”
“Not all of them but some. Yes. Modified just like me. We have a good time together.”
“You could learn more at home. I could teach you.”
“ Mom . I like school. I want to stay . In school . Okay?”
“All right.” She sat back in her chair and folded her hands. “You are fourteen years
old, after all. You should be able to make some of your own decisions.”
Great. Now he had hurt her feelings. It was only the two of them. Agatha had told him
about an anonymous sperm donor when he was six. Tom had never wondered much about
his absent father. He’d read about kids so desperate to know their fathers they’d traveled
hundreds or thousands of miles to meet them. He didn’t understand it. What did he need
with some man he’d never met?
“I only want what’s best for you,” she said distantly.
“I know. But I’m doing okay at school.”
“I know.”
Tom bit his lip. He really didn’t want to get into this. But if he didn’t, who knew what
might come later? “Is there something wrong?”
“No.”
“This is about Kurt Nakana, isn’t it? His mom called, right? I just picked him up and
held him. I didn’t hurt him. I know the rules. I was careful. But he kept after me about looking
different. He hit me a couple of times, but I didn’t think anything of it. And then he picked up a
rock. Somebody was going to get hurt. Not me, maybe. But Sol isn’t very strong. Rahul looks
like a wolf boy, but he scares easy. Kurt wouldn’t take no for an answer. So I took the rock
away and held him up in the air until he started crying. I wanted him scared. But that’s all that
happened. I swear! ”
His mother watched him for a moment. She put her hand on his. “I’m not concerned
about Kurt Nakana. I’m sure you didn’t do anything I wouldn’t be proud of.”
“Then why all the worry about school?”
“Go on. You’ll be late.”
* * * *
 
Now:
Alice used her personal project time to see if there actually was a Neanderthal in
Bolton. There was no news about Neanderthals, of course. Whenever she searched for
news about Neanderthal families, minus all the political rot, she found no more than articles
on old Tom Nicholson, P’Chk Pandit Nicholson, and the relentless Neanderthal use of public
privacy laws.
But the real estate records were a matter of public record and easily accessible.
Alice looked at properties recently bought and sold, figuring Neanderthals would buy
rather than rent so they could renovate a house to suit their needs and because they could
probably get better privacy. She found three sales that might suit and after school, she lied
to her mother. Then she told Janesha she was going looking for cave men.
“Want to come along?” Alice zipped up her backpack.
“You have got to be kidding. I’d rather do homework,” Janesha said with a smile. “But
have fun. Maybe he’s cute.”
“Don’t be mental.”
The second sale was on a cul-de-sac not far from home. It was a nondescript white
ranch house with a slab porch. The property butted up against park land. The yard was
trimmed but uninspired. There were no flowers, but a small fruit tree grew in the middle of
the front lawn. A boy sat at a picnic bench, writing in a notebook. From the slant of his neck
and size of his shoulders, Alice guessed she had found pay dirt.
When the boy looked up, she knew she was right.
They stared at each other for a moment. Then the boy closed the notebook and
walked over to her.
“Bill Nicholson,” he said and held out his hand. “I’m the Neanderthal you must be
looking for.”
Bill was shorter than she was—he couldn’t have been more than five-three—but
broad. He wore a T-shirt that had a picture of a gerbil tightly wrapped in black tape labeled
“Spastic Holocaust.” Not a great band, but not bad. He wore thin shorts even through there
was a hint of frost in the air. Maybe the cold didn’t bother him. Alice noticed the muscles in
his arms and the size of his hands, the thick cords of his legs. Even Tim Matthias, who had
been in gymnastics since he was three, didn’t have muscles like that. Bill looked like he
could toss Tim over the top of the school.
He had black eyes marked with thin white streaks and a hint of laughter. That’s what
struck her then: Bill looked like he was about to laugh. Not at anything particular. Just in
general.
“Who says I’m looking for anybody?” This close, she could smell him, a dusty, papery
smell. Like old books, but completely different.
“I know the neighbors. You don’t live around here. And nobody is going to walk up this
road by accident; they’re going to be looking for one of us—me or Tom. You’re too young to
 
be a reporter—and they would know better than to look for one of us anyway. So: it’s either
celebrity hunting for Tom or some high school girl looking for the new Neanderthal in town.”
“Tom?”
“Old Tom Nicholson is visiting us,” Bill said. “You want to stay for dinner?”
“Tom.” She blinked at him, not immediately comprehending. “Tom Nicholson? The
first Neanderthal?”
“You catch on quick,” Bill grinned at her. “He flew in last night from Basel. You have a
name?”
“Alice.” Alice felt suddenly shy. Tom was famous .
Bill picked up on it. “It’s okay. Don’t worry. You’ll like him. Raised by humans to be a
regular guy.”
“Oh.” She made the connection. “So, is he your grandfather?”
Bill laughed, a sound like a bass drum being pounded by walnuts. “It’s only been
three generations. Truth is we’re all related. And just to confuse matters, a lot of
Neanderthals take the Nicholson name to spread the blame.” He grinned at her.
She stared at him. She wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was it a joke? “Who’s to
blame?”
Bill chuckled. “Exactly. We’ll get along just fine.”
* * * *
Then:
The discussion in biology class was on organ modification. The instant the subject
came up, the class looked at Tom and Rahul. It bothered Rahul but Tom didn’t mind. After
all, wasn’t Rahul the spitting image of Jack Brubaker, the Wolf Man? Wasn’t Tom, himself,
the perfect representation of the Swiss Ice Maiden? That is, if she weren’t dead. If she
hadn’t been frozen thirty thousand years ago. If she were male.
It was just the nature of the town. The first whole body modification had been publicly
uncovered here in Absarokee when that reporter discovered the Wolf Man. People
interested in variations on the human theme tended to settle here. There was nothing
special about it. Everybody started out from the same human embryo.
Class ended and Tom made his way to the gym. As he walked past Price’s math
class, he saw Kurt Nokana watching him.
The locker room was quiet. The current PE class was still in the gym and the next
class hadn’t arrived. He grinned. Tom liked to change by himself.
What he’d said to his mother was only generally true. He did like school. He did have
friends. But that didn’t mean the school didn’t have its share of idiots. Kurt Nokana didn’t
stand alone. Tom liked baggy clothes that hid the differences in his physique and he could
 

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