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TUSCARORA REVIEW 2016
2016 TUSCARORA REVIEW
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“I work for, umm . . . a Fortune 500 company . . . .” I can’t believe I almost
told him the name of my workplace! I can’t have this guy showing up sometime,
chatting up my coworkers about Russian spies and fucking “prologuing.”
“What’s your job, though? Or do they just pay you to wear a suit!?” Sam
chuckles at his own joke. He seems different than when he was rambling;
somehow, I feel like I can talk to him.
“I manage our mining operations on the East Coast,” I say. Dammit! Why
am I telling this crazy person so much about myself? Is he . . . is this “prologuing”
bullshit actually real!? Is this guy inside my head? I grip the steering wheel tighter.
“Metallurgical Physics!” he shouts.
“I’m sorry?”
“Oh, I’m a master of Metallurgical Physics! That was a big part of my platform
on my first election cycle. I even wrote a book before I got in to politics.”
“Really?” I’m caught off guard. I know what it takes to be a master in that field,
I worked with a few poindexters who had that degree hanging in their offices, and
it’s a big deal.
“Yeah, it’s called
Natural Magnetism in Living Organisms
. It’s all about
my techniques in manipulating metals with your mind, using your natural
magnetic field.”
Wow. That’s even crazier than I could have imagined. And to think, for a
second I actually believed this guy could be sane.
“I could teach you! It’s all in my book here.” He slaps the cover of the
hardback he had been reading earlier.
I chuckle nervously. “I doubt I’d have a knack for it.”
Sam looks at me angrily. “Do you have any gumption in you at all, boy? I offer
to teach you everything I know, and even to put you in the White House, and you
just say no? What on earth is stopping you?”
What shocks me more than his anger is my own silence. I genuinely have
no answer. What was stopping me? Hell, I’m probably going to be fired today,
anyway. Why don’t I just run off and learn to be a spoon-bending homeless
wizard like Sam? I have no family, nothing tying me down but my house and
credit card debt. My cell phone goes off in my pocket. My boss’s ringtone. Damnit,
I’ve let this guy make me even later than I already was, distracting me with his
crazy promises of cabinet positions and magic powers. I spend the rest of the
drive in silence. Sam just goes back to playing with his paper clips.
We are just outside the city now. I need to drop this guy off somewhere, fast.
There’s a gas station up ahead, that’s about as good a place as any.
“Well, Sam, this is as far as I can take you,” I say. Sam smiles and steps out of
the car. A part of me wonders how much of his rambling was genuine or if he was
just trying to make himself interesting so I would keep him company. Then I think
of how late I am and put the car in drive.
“What about that bagel?” Sam asks.
“Oh! Uhh. . . I got cinnamon raisin, I got poppy seed, sesame seed—”
“Sesame seed,” Sam says. I hand him a warm bagel. “Thanks again for the ride,
man.” He takes a bite from the bagel.
“Well . . . bye.” I drive off. Goodbyes always felt awkward to me, especially
when I was saying goodbye to a fucking mental case. I drive six miles before
I realize Sam had left his book on the car seat:
Natural Magnetism in Living
Organisms,
by Professor Harding. I think about turning around to return it to him,
but I think better; even if he notices, there’s no way he isn’t long gone. I doubt I’ll
ever see that man again.
The rest of my drive is uneventful. Once I find a place to park, I pick up Sam’s
book and flip through some of the chapters. “
Chapter 1: Controlling Your Magnetic
Field” . . . “Chapter 9: Advanced Patterning Techniques.”
“What is this,” I say, “a
training manual?”
Carla, the secretary, pulls up and parks next to me. She’s wearing the necklace
I got her last office Christmas party but I notice only because of where the
diamond is resting on her chest.
“Hey Carla,” I say, getting out of my car and walking towards her convertible.
“You’re late, too?”
She turns to respond, and her eyes go wide. “Oh, my God! What happened to
your car?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Your door!” She points at my passenger side. I look at the car door and drop
the book. The entire door is warped into a whirlpool of solid black steel. I can’t
believe it—this is a lease! How am I going to explain this? How could something
like this even happen? I fall to my knees in disbelief. The book had fallen open to
a random page:
“Chapter 7: The Effects of Prolonged Magnetic Exposure on the Human Brain.”
Meghan McKee,
Beast
— Drawing