I take the lunch sack and the book from the passenger seat, relock the car, and walk quickly to the transit stop. I have the cards of the police officers in my wallet. I can call them from work.
On the crowded train, people stare past one another without making eye contact. They are not all autistic; they know somehow that it is appropriate not to make eye contact on the train. Some read news faxes. Some stare at the monitor at the end of the car. I open the book and read what Cego and Clinton said about how the brain processes visual signals. At the time they wrote, industrial robots could use only simple visible input to guide movement. Binocular vision in robots hadn’t been developed yet except for the laser targeting of large weapons.
I am fascinated by the feedback loops between the layers of visual processing; I had not realized that something this interesting went on inside normal people’s heads. I thought they just looked at things and recognized them automatically. I thought my visual processing was faulty when—if I understand this correctly—it is only slow.
When I get to the campus stop, I now know which way to go, and it takes less time to walk to our building. I am three minutes and twenty seconds early. Mr. Crenshaw is in the hall again, but he does not speak to me; he moves aside without speaking, so that I can get to my office. I say, “Good morning, Mr. Crenshaw,” because that is appropriate, and he grunts something that might have been, “Morning.” If he had had my speech therapist, he would enunciate more clearly.
I put the book on my desk and go out in the hall to take my lunch to the kitchenette. Mr. Crenshavy is now by the door, looking out at the parking lot. He turns around and sees me. “Where’s your car, Arren
-dale?” he asks.
“Home,” I say. “I took the transit.”
“So you can take the transit,” he says. His face is a little shiny. “You don’t really need a special parking lot.”
“It is very noisy,” I say. “Someone stole my battery last night.”
“A car’s only a constant problem for someone like you,” he says, coming closer. “People who don’t live in secure areas, with secure parking, really shouldn’t flaunt having a car.”
“Nothing happened until a few weeks ago,” I say. I do not understand why I want to argue with him. I do not like to argue.
“You were lucky. But it looks like someone has found you out now, doesn’t it?Three episodes of vandalism. At least this time you weren’t late.”
“I was only late once because of that,” I say.
“That’s not the point,” he says. I wonder what the point is, besides his dislike of me and the others. He glances at my office door. “You’ll want to get back to work,” he says. “Or start—” Now he looks at the clock in the hall. It is two minutes, eighteen seconds past starting time. What I want to say is, You made me late, but I do not say that. I go in my office and shut the door. I am not going to make up the two minutes, eighteen seconds. It is not my fault. I feel a little excited about that.
I call up yesterday’s work, and the beautiful patterns form again in my mind. One parameter after-another flows in, shifting the pattern from one structure to another, seamlessly. I vary the parameters across the permitted range, checking to see that there is no unwanted shift. When I look up again, it is an hour and eleven minutes later. Mr. Crenshaw will not be in our building now. He never stays this long. I go out in the hall for some water. The hall is empty, but I see the sign on the gym door. Someone is in there. I do not care.
I write down the words I will need to say, then call the police and ask for the investigating officer from the first incident, Mr. Stacy. When he comes onto the line, I can hear noises in the background. Other people are talking, and there is a kind of rumbling noise.
“This is Lou Arrendale,” I say. “You came when my car had its tires slashed. You said to call—”
“Yes, yes,” he says. He sounds impatient and as if he is not really listening. “Officer Isaka told me about the windshield the following week. We haven’t had time to follow that