I can hold my own with the better fencers in the group. But what does that have to do with the treatment or with legal rights?
People who fence in tournaments are serious about it. They have practiced. They have their own equipment. They want to win. I am not sure I want to win, though I do enjoy understanding the patterns and finding my way through them. Maybe Tom thinks I should want to win? Maybe Tom thinks I need to want to win in fencing so that I will want to win in court?
These two things are not connected. Someone can want to win a game or want to win a case in court without wanting to do both.
What is alike? Both are contests. Someone wins and someone else loses. My parents emphasized that everything in life is not a contest, that people can work together, that everyone can win when they do.
Fencing is more fun when people are cooperating, trying to enjoy it with each other. I do not think of making touches on someone as winning but as playing the game well.
Both require preparation? Everything requires preparation. Both require—I swerve to avoid a bicyclist whose taillight is out; I barely saw him.
Forethought. Attention. Understanding. Patterns. The thoughts flick through my head like flash cards, each with its nested concepts topped by a neat word that cannot say everything.
I would like to please Tom. When I helped with the fencing surface and the equipment racks, he was pleased. It was like having my father back again, on his good days. I would like to please Tom again, but I do not know whether entering this tournament will do it. What if I fence badly and lose? Will he be disappointed? What does he expect?
It would be fun to fence with people I’ve never seen before. People whose patterns I do not know.
People who are normal and will not know that I am not normal. Or will Tom tell them? Somehow I do not think he will.
Next Saturday I am going to the planetarium with Eric and Linda. The following Saturday, it is the third of the month, and I always spend extra time cleaning my apartment on the third Saturday of the month.
The tournament is the Saturday after. I do not have anything planned for then.
When I get home I pencil in “fencing tournament” on the fourth Saturday of the month. I think about calling Tom, but it is late and, besides, he said to tell him next week. I put a reminder sticky on the calendar: “Tell Tom yes.”
Chapter Five
BY FRIDAY AFTERNOON MR. CRENSHAW HAS STILL NOT said anything to us about the experimental treatment. Maybe Mr. Aldrin was wrong. Maybe Mr. Aldrin talked him out of it. On-line, there’s a flurry of discussion, mostly on the private news groups, but nobody seems to know when or where human trials are scheduled.
I do not say anything on-line about what Mr. Aldrin told us. He did not say not to talk about it, but it does not feel right. If Mr. Crenshaw has changed his mind and everyone gets upset, then he will be angry.
He looks angry much of the time anyway when he comes to check on us.
The show at the planetarium is “Exploring the Outer Planets and Their Satellites.” It has been on since Labor Day, which means it is not too crowded now, even on Saturday. I go early, to the first showing, which is also less crowded even on days when it is crowded. Only a third of the seats are occupied, so Eric and Linda and I can take up a whole row without being too close to anyone.
The amphitheater smells funny, but it always does. As the lights dim and the artificial sky-darkens, I feel the same old excitement. Even though these pinpricks of light that begin to show on the dome are not really stars, it is about stars. The light is not as old; it has not been worn smooth by its passage through billions and billions of miles—it has come from a projector less than a ten-thousandth of a light-second away—but I still enjoy it.
What I don’t enjoy is the long introduction that talks about what we knew a hundred years ago, and fifty years ago, and so on. I want to know what we know now, not what my parents might have heard when they were children. What difference does it make if someone in the distant past