Lost Boys Part 3

"I know I know," said Betsy.

"I wish I didn't have to teach you things like this," said DeAnne. "But there are bad people in the world. Not many of them, but we have to be careful. Now, what if I really did send somebody to pick you up, because maybe there was an accident and I had one of the other kids at the hospital or something?"

"The pa.s.sword," said Stevie.

"And what is it?"

"Maggots," said Stevie.

"Little oozy baby fly worms!" yelled Robbie. Step had thought up the pa.s.sword, of course.

"Quiet, Road Bug, this is serious," said DeAnne. "And do you ask them about the pa.s.sword?"

"No. I don't even tell them that there is a pa.s.sword. But I never go with anybody unless he says, 'Your parents told me to tell you Maggots."'

"Right," said DeAnne.

"If they don't say that, then they're a liar and I refuse to go and I scream and scream if they try to take me anyway."

"Right," said DeAnne.

"Mom," said Stevie.

"What?"

"What if n.o.body hears me scream?"

"You should never be in a place where n.o.body can hear you yell for help, Stevie," she said. "But please don't worry too much about this. If you do all that you're supposed to, I'll do all that I'm supposed to, and so nothing will go wrong. OK?"

"Mom, I'm scared to go in."

Great, thought DeAnne. And I just went through a kidnapping-prevention catechism, to add a whole new layer of terror to the day. "Come on, Stevie. Dr. Mariner is a wonderful kind lady and you'll like her."

Dr. Mariner did have a knack for putting kids at ease, and within a few moments Stevie was smiling at her and then laughing when she told a joke. But the fear returned when, after only a few minutes in the office, Dr. Mariner took Stevie by the hand and said, "Let's go to cla.s.s now."

Stevie withdrew his hand and immediately rushed to stand by DeAnne. "Can't Mom walk me to cla.s.s?"

"Certainly she can, if she wants," said Dr. Mariner. "Your teacher's name is Mrs. Jones. That's an easy name, right?"

"Mrs. Jones," said Stevie. He repeated the name several times, under his breath. Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones.

DeAnne let Dr. Mariner lead the parade through the corridors, for all the world like a tour guide. She pointed out where the kindergarten and first-grade cla.s.ses were, and then brought Stevie along to the vestibule that Mrs. Jones's cla.s.sroom shared with another. It was time for Stevie to go into the cla.s.s. He clung tighter to DeAnne's hand.

"Do you really want your mother and brother and sister coming into cla.s.s with you on the first day?" asked DeAnne.

Stevie shook his head violently.

DeAnne s.h.i.+fted Elizabeth's weight on her hip and squatted down beside him. "Sometimes you just have to drink the cup," she said.

He nodded, remembering. It was when he was only three and had a bad stomach flu, and didn't want to drink the prescription Tylenol syrup that she had to give him to help bring the fever down. Step had knelt beside his bed and told him the story of Christ praying in Gethsemane. Sometimes you just have to drink the cup, Step had said then, and Stevie had drunk it without another murmur.

It worked the same way now. He tightened his face and nodded to show that he understood. Then he turned and walked through the door that Dr. Mariner was holding open for him. His stride was so like Step's had been earlier today, trying to be brave. DeAnne felt a lump in her throat for both of them.

Inside the cla.s.sroom, there were immediate cries of "New boy! New boy!" She caught a glimpse of the teacher, Mrs. Jones, who was turning without enthusiasm to look in Stevie's direction. Then Dr. Mariner swung the door shut.

3: Gallowgla.s.s

This is the company where Step worked: Ray Keene had been the computer systems guy at UNC-Steuben when the Commodore 64 started showing up in K-marts. Ray saw right away that it was the 64 that was going to put computers in every home in America, if somebody had the brains to come up with cheap software so people could do something with the machine. Commodore sure wasn't coming up with the right combinations-in Ray's opinion all the software they offered was second-rate and way too expensive. So he came up with Scribe 64 and sold it for twenty-nine bucks, discounted to nineteen bucks including postage if you ordered it direct from Eight Bits Inc.

There were a couple of bad times early on. Right at first, Ray's lack of business experience nearly killed the company-he was paying so much for packaging that in fact he was actually losing 22 with each unit sold. So when he ran out of that first run of a thousand boxes, he began s.h.i.+pping in a much smaller box with no printing on the outside, just a sticker that said "The only word processor you'll ever need-$29" and began making four dollars a unit. It sold even faster, and the profit per unit got even better, and one day his wife said, "Ray, I got no house left, it's all Eight Bits Inc. Either me and the kids move out or the company does."

That's when Ray Keene bought the ugly building on Palladium. It had originally been a climate-controlled clean shop for the a.s.sembly of calculators in the mid-70s, but it had been standing empty for a couple of years and the owner sold it to Ray at a price that said he was just glad to get it off his hands. Ray had the whole thing rewired and half the big factory s.p.a.ce cut up into offices. There weren't any windows and the place was ugly but everybody in the company, which was up to ten employees by then, was so happy to have enough room to turn around that they loved it like a mama loves an ugly baby.

When Step came down for interviews six weeks before, all he got from everybody was that sense of exuberance and excitement. But this first day at work there was something else. Ray Keene had remodeled his office since Step was there before, and it showed signs that Ray had apparently read that book about power that was on the lists the year before. Ray now sat behind a ma.s.sive desk in a rock-back chair while all the chairs that visitors had to sit on were hard and too low and didn't have enough s.p.a.ce from front to back, so that you always felt like you were sitting on the edge of the seat because, in fact, you were.

"You won't report to me," said Ray. "I've made d.i.c.ky Northanger the vice-president in charge of the creative end of things, and you'll report to him, but send me memos from time to time. We'll be hiring an a.s.sistant for you as soon as we can, but for now all the manuals for all our software will come through you, but pa.s.s it all by d.i.c.ky for final approval."

d.i.c.ky Northanger was the guy who used to do all the manuals. He was the first person Ray Keene had hired, and he and Ray were now great buddies, going every Sunday afternoon to pick up the New York Times at the Magazine Rack bookstore. He was genial, heavyset, and middle-aged, probably the oldest man in the company, and Step didn't see any problem with reporting to him. But he felt a vague sense of disappointment, since the job had been represented to him as one that would report directly to Ray. Of course Ray couldn't have everybody report to him, but the company only had twenty-five employees right now, and it seemed weird in a company that size that Step was already being told that he was not to contact Ray except by memo.

After Step met with Ray alone for that half hour of physical discomfort, they went straight on in to a staff meeting, where the new health plan was explained to everybody and, as an incidental at the end, Step and a new guy in the art department were introduced around. d.i.c.ky introduced him, and Step was a little embarra.s.sed when d.i.c.ky made a great point of talking about what a genius Step was for having programmed Hacker Snack-and then, even more embarra.s.sing, he pointed out to everyone in excruciating detail that Step would report only to him, and that while Step must have access to every programmer at every stage of development of all software, he had no authority over anyone and no one was to ask him for advice about anything to do with programming. Step was here solely to write manuals.

Why don't you just cut off my b.a.l.l.s and hold them up for everyone to admire? thought Step.

Then he went straight in to a meeting with Bob, the "vice-president in charge of finance"-he had been the bookkeeper until job inflation struck Eight Bits, apparently within the past six weeks. He was a lean, weathered-looking man in cowboy boots who had more of a Texas tw.a.n.g than a southern drawl, and the first thing he did was slide a two-page contract across the desk for Step to sign.

"What is this?" Step asked, for he had already signed the employment contract.

"A confidentiality agreement," said the cowboy accountant. "Industry standard."

Step read it anyway, though Cowboy Bob kept shuffling papers to show his impatience with Step's taking so much of his time. And sure enough, it turned out to be a lot more than a confidentiality agreement. "This contract buys all rights to anything I do in programming for the rest of my natural life," said Step.

"Well, not exactly," said Cowboy Bob.

"I just came from a meeting where I was specifically and totally excluded from all programming here at Eight Bits."

"Eight Bits Inc."

"So why should I sign a contract giving Eight Bits Inc. all rights to any programming I come up with during my time here? I won't do any programming, right?"

"Oh, that was just d.i.c.ky," said Cowboy Bob. "He got jealous because even though you were coming in to write the manuals, everybody knew you were the most successful programmer ever to set foot on the premises, so he's just making sure everybody knows that he's your boss. In fact Ray and I expect that you'll sort of do quality control over all the software, because d.i.c.ky isn't that good a programmer and he kind of makes changes in all the programs and then they end up getting released with bugs. Sometimes. Just between you and me, of course."

"d.i.c.ky just forbade anyone to ask my advice about programming," said Step.

"Yeah, well, just don't rub his nose in it, that's all me and Ray expect from you."

"So you're telling me that in fact, besides manual writing, I'm to be the quality control officer, only I can't tell my direct supervisor that that's what I'm doing and I have to carry on all such activities behind his back?"

"That's why we're paying you thirty thou a year, my friend."

"And in the meantime, I'm supposed to sign over every idea I ever have to Eight Bits ... Inc.? Why not just everything I come up with related to software being developed in-house?"

"This agreement is a condition of employment, Step," said Cowboy Bob. He still seemed friendly and genial, but if this had been a saloon in a western, the tone of his voice would have sent half the customers out into the street to avoid getting hit over the head with a breakaway chair.

"This agreement makes me promise that if I leave here I'll never enter into compet.i.tion with Eight Bits Inc."

"Our lawyer said that was a real good idea."

"Well, try this. I came here to write manuals, not to develop software. I'll help out with quality control if Ray wants me to, but I want it to be out in the open so I don't have to skulk around like a spy. And I won't sign this agreement until it's rewritten to limit the non-compet.i.tion clause to one year, to protect my rights in all software I wrote prior to coming here, and to protect my rights in all software I might write after leaving here."

"No way," said Cowboy Bob.

Step stood up. His knees were trembling and he felt a little faint, but he also knew that there was no way he could sign that agreement. "I just moved my family to Steuben on the strength of a contract with Eight Bits that said nothing about this. As far as I'm concerned, this paper means that you are in material breach of our contract. So if your lawyer won't revise this agreement, he'll be talking to my lawyer about getting from Eight Bits the costs of moving here, the costs of moving back, and, if we can get the court to agree to it, and I think we can, a year's salary. You have my phone number."

Step could not believe that he was already quitting and it was only eleven in the morning, but in a way it was almost a relief. The scene in Ray's office and d.i.c.ky's display in the staff meeting had already made Step so wary of the future here that having an excuse to leave sounded just fine to him. But his bold talk about what a lawyer could get for him was just talk-even if it worked out that way, litigation would drag on until they were long past financial inconvenience. It wasn't just the mortgage on the house in Vigor and the cost of moving here. It was the fact that they had expected to pay last year's taxes out of the royalty check this past fall, and so now they were deeply in debt to the IRS, and even bankruptcy couldn't get them out of that. Quitting this job would be such a devastating blow that they'd probably end up slithering back to Orem, Utah, to live in DeAnne's parents' bas.e.m.e.nt while the IRS auctioned off everything they owned.

And still it felt pretty good to be walking toward the door in Cowboy Bob's office.

"Wait a minute, Step," said Cowboy Bob.

Step turned around. The vice-president of finance was reaching into a drawer of his desk and pulling out another paper. "Since you didn't like that first one, try this one before you walk out on us and we have to sue you for breach."

Step came back and took the paper out of his hand. He read it without sitting down. To his disbelief, it was a version of the agreement that could only have been written for him-it excluded prior software, it excluded programming on computers for which Eight Bits Inc. was not publis.h.i.+ng software, and the non-compet.i.tion clause was for exactly one year.

"You already had this written," said Step.

"Yep," said Cowboy Bob.

"So why did you show me that other?"

"Because you might've signed it." Cowboy Bob grinned. "This is business, Step."

Step stood there looking at him, debating inside himself whether he wanted even to live on the same planet with this guy, let alone work with him.

"We've met every one of your objections, Step," Cowboy Bob prodded him.

"I'm just wondering whether there's another paper in that drawer."

"There is. It has our lawyer's phone number on it. How do I put this kindly, Step? Sign or be sued."

"Gee, Bob, is this the way you talk to all the boys?"

"Look at it this way, Step. You won't be working with me. The only thing you'll know about me is that I sign your paycheck, and after you get a few of those you'll like me just fine. You're p.i.s.sed off now, but that'll pa.s.s, and in six months maybe we'll have a couple of beers together and laugh about how mad you were this first day."

"I don't drink," said Step.

"Yeah, I forgot, you're a Mormon," said Cowboy Bob. "Well, then, that's out. Because looking at you, I'd say you could never forgive me without a couple of beers in you."

He said it with such a twinkle in his eye that Step couldn't help but smile. So Cowboy Bob knew he was a son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h, and didn't particularly mind. Well, Bob, I know you're a son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h, and I guess I don't mind that much either.

Step laid the paper down on the desk, signed it, and walked out.

It was nearly noon, and even though he was probably supposed to go find d.i.c.ky and ask where his office was, Step needed to stand outside this building for a minute and decide whether to scream or cry or laugh.

On the way to the staff meeting he had seen a back corridor that led to a door on the north side of the building-d.i.c.ky had told him in pa.s.sing that everybody in the staff used that door, since that's where the parking lot was. That's where Step headed now.

The scenery wasn't all that pretty outside just a narrow parking lot, a high chain-link fence with barbed wire on the top, and then an overgrown pasture where the only things still grazing were old tires and a rusting refrigerator with the door off. Ray's Mercedes was in the only a.s.signed parking place in the lot, directly across from the north door. Step felt a sudden urge to go pee on the tires like a dog, but he was satisfied just to imagine doing it.

I've been a free man for the past five years, he said to himself, not working for anybody. Living on student loans, I taught myself programming on the Atari just to get history out of my mind, and I ended up creating a program that gave some pleasure to a lot of people and it made me about a hundred thousand dollars in a year and a half. All that money is gone, I owe taxes on it that I can't pay, and I've just signed a contract to work for a company with byzantine internal politics, an owner on a power trip, a vice-president of finance who thinks that being in business means s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g anybody who'll let you screw him, and a supervisor who's so incompetent that they want me to clean up after him without letting him know I'm doing it. All for thirty thousand dollars a year. Twenty-five hundred a month. That's the price of my soul.

But it was no worse than what his dad had gone through, over the years. A sign company that went belly-up when Dad broke his back, and yet Dad refused to declare bankruptcy and paid it all off, slowly, over the s.p.a.ce of ten years, during which time he went back to school, got his B.A., taught at San Jose State for a while, and ended up working at Lockheed designing training programs for missile operators. If Dad had ever had half as much money as I made last year, he would have made sure he was set up as a free man forever. He would have had money in the bank against a rainy day. I spent it like it was going to last forever, and now I'm right where my dad was, all those years at Lockheed, saying yessir to a.s.sholes and moonlighting weekends at a camera store in the Hillsdale Mall. Never heard him complain, except that he apologized to Mom when she had to go back to work as a secretary in the public schools.

That's why I signed that paper, Step realized. So I don't have to make that same apology to DeAnne.

And if I don't find a way to make some extra money in the next year or so, the IRS is going to put us in that situation anyhow.

The anxiety, the desperation, the memory of his father's defeats-it all surged through him and burned in his throat and he thought, If I let myself get emotional about all this, it'll show on my face when I go back inside. He swallowed hard and breathed deeply, slowly, forcing himself to calm down.

Somebody opened the door behind him and came outside. Step didn't turn around at first, half afraid and half hoping that it was Cowboy Bob or even Ray Keene himself, worried about him, wanting to smooth things over with him.

It was just a kid, looked to be still in high school, who wandered a few yards away from him and lit up a cigarette. He took a deep drag, let the smoke out slow, and puffed it into rings.

"How long did it take you to learn how to do that?" asked Step.

The kid turned to face him. He had black-frame c.o.ke-bottle gla.s.ses so his eyes looked like they were swimming around in a specimen jar. "I been blowing rings since my mom taught me how when I was ten."

"Your mom taught you how to blow smoke rings? When you were ten?"

The kid laughed. "This is tobacco, country, Mr. Fletcher, and my people are all tobacco people. My mama used to blow smoke in my face when I was a baby, so I'd grow up knowing the difference between the cheap weed in Reynolds cigarettes and the good stuff in E&Es."

Step hoped that his shudder didn't show. When he and DeAnne were house-hunting, they had had to rule out the whole eastern edge of town, where the Eldredge & Emerson Tobacco Company kept the air filled with the pungence of tar and nicotine, like being trapped forever on an elevator with someone who put out his cigarette just before stepping on.

What business did Mormons have moving into tobacco country? Especially since DeAnne was so allergic to tobacco smoke that it made her throw up even when she wasn't pregnant. The idea of somebody blowing smoke in a baby's face made Step angry. There's things you just don't do to children, if you have any decency. And teaching a ten-year-old to blow smoke rings ...

"I don't want to sound like some kind of dumb fan or nothing, Mr. Fletcher, but I thought Hacker Snack was the best game anybody ever did on the Atari."

"Thanks," said Step.

"Of course, your A.I. routines really sucked."

It hit Step like a blow, that forced change from shyly, genially accepting a compliment to suddenly having to take criticism.

"A.I.?" he asked.