“Hey, Chad-Kyle,” I said.
“Oh hi there,” he said. He unpinched the fob, dropped the cures on the counter. “Bet you’ve never seen this one performed before.”
The cures, on their backs, sniffling and gasping, rocked side to side, rolled onto their bellies. Tiddleywinks, the one I’d previously met, hastily started to crawl in my direction. The other two, apparently not Independenced, went the opposite way, toward Chad-Kyle’s hand, which was resting near the edge of his side of the counter. The rubberband leashes went taut, stretched long. The Curios’ converse advances slowed, and, as they groaned through their noses, popeyed and panting, threadlike tendons strained their neck skin til, suddenly, Tiddleywinks, which was all but stationary, lost its traction and slingshot backward, snout over keister, blurring past the other two, colliding whole-bodied with Chad-Kyle’s knuckles.
He wiped them on his trousers.
Tiddley lay stunned, or dead, on the counter.
The wakeful members of the chain gang painsang.
Chad-Kyle said, “How boss was that?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Is that because you’re disabled?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“I’m asking if maybe it’s because of the same mental illness that prevents you from being an independent adult that you don’t think that was boss.”
“Maybe in a way?” I said, neither able to determine—owing to his blasé, uptalky tone—whether Chad-Kyle’s question were intended to insult me, nor whether he’d be any less despicable if it weren’t.
“What way?” he said.
“It’s just never really been my kind of thing,” I added, neutrally.
“What hasn’t been your kind of thing? History? Witnessing history’s never been your ‘thing’? Dude, that’s your disability talking for sure. What just happened—it’s never happened before. Not unless another Independence beta tester/demonstrator came up with it in the last few days or whatever, or one of the PerFormulae Abuse Labs Brothers, or…what? I mean, who else could have? Some R&D science nerd at Graham&Swords? Those are the only three possibilities, and I truly doubt all of them. Me aside, beta tester/demonstrators don’t think outside the box—I’ve met a bunch of them by now, so believe me: I know. As for the P.A.L. Bros, yeah, they’re sharp enough to think outside the box, for sure—they’re the best—but they hardly ever think outside the box using props. Like, when’s the last time you saw them use props? that KarateHands segment back in 2011, with the mini plywood boards? I mean, they do work with props, I’m not saying they don’t, but hardly ever, I’m saying, do they work with props. Plus, seeing how Independence won’t be out for another few weeks, I doubt Graham&Swords even sent the Bros their samples yet, right? So that leaves us, last and massively least, with the G&S R&D nerds, which: really? Come on. Come on. Don’t make me laugh. Scientists just aren’t that good at creative. They never have been. Like, take that old story about the dynamite, right? About the soldier with the dynamite—the one who first thought to use it in war…I can’t remember his name…It’s…”
As Chad-Kyle thinkily stared at the ceiling, Lotta’s customer headed for the exit. Lotta removed her nameplate from the counter, offered me a wink and a just-a-minute finger, then vanished through the door in the wall behind her station.
“Do you remember his name?” said Chad-Kyle.
“I don’t think I even know the story,” I said.
“Oh, you should, though. It’s an important story because check it out: Before this soldier I’m talking about came up with the idea to use it in war, dynamite was only used for construction purposes, like to blow up mountains and forests and stuff. That’s what it was invented for. But then this soldier comes along—not a scientist, this soldier, just a creative personality—and he’s like, ‘Guys, we can kill lots of people at once with dynamite, so duh, let’s use it in this war we’re fighting,’—this was World War I if I’m not mistaken, and that guy was on our side, thank God, so the Nazis lost. And it’s because of that discovery that the scientist who invented dynamite killed himself, cause here he was, just a nerd in a lab who made a truly amazing new tool of war for the good guys, but yet he didn’t have the creative spirit needed to realize that’s what it was best for. He was too busy trying to figure out the fastest way to clear mountains and trees for dams and farms and skyscrapers, you know? And so he blamed himself a little—well, a lot—for not originally selling dynamite as a weapon, and eventually he got convinced it was his fault World War I took so long, since if he hadn’t confused everyone by telling them that his dynamite was for construction purposes, someone might have figured out earlier that it was great for killing the enemy, and then a lot less guys on our side would’ve wound up dead at the hands of the Germans. So that sucked for the scientist. Obviously, right? But the silver lining of the story—and it’s a big and thick and shiny one—is that even though he killed himself, he willed it in his suicide note that all the money he’d earned off dynamite patents should be used to fund a little thing you might have heard of called the Pulitzer Prize, which, every year, goes to the most creative people and helps them keep their most unique and personal creative juices flowing. Anyway, I’d be exaggerating if I said that that slingshot performance I just engineered these cures into doing was as important as discovering the usefulness of dynamite on the battlefield, which changed the face of war forever, but to say that I conceived of the performance from the same kind of unique place of creativity inside my mind that was accessed by that brilliant soldier inside his mind when he had his Topeka moment—to say that would not be an exaggeration at all.”
“I’m not sure you’ve got your facts right,” I said, “about dynamite.”
“Right is a pretty strong word there, hombre. It’s the opposite of wrong. But the facts are subjective anyway, so that’s not really the point. What I’m trying to tell you is that you’ve witnessed history here and you should be more psyched. Next time I see the marketing liaison, I’m gonna have these cures do the same performance for her that they just did here for the very first time on this counter, and dollars-to-donuts that when it comes time to start gearing up for the initiation to begin the launch of the rollout to advertise the premiere of Independence’s debut, she’s gonna ask permission—and maybe even pay me—to tape these cures, or three others just like them, performing this performance so Graham&Swords can use it in commercials. You know what that would mean? Millions of people—millions of Independence-buyers—will one day be having their own cures perform the same performance. Like remember how, in that one commercial for BullyKing, the hobunk takes that little baseball bat from the cure? Do you even understand that, before that, they didn’t even make little baseball bats for cures, except for just the once as a prop so they could shoot that commercial? But the commercial was so successful that everyone who bought BullyKing wanted to relive the moment, live, right in the comforts of their own homes. So many millions of people wanted that so bad, and so specifically, that Graham&Swords started manufacturing those little baseball bats.”