Bewilderment

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THEY WANTED ROBIN ALONE for the second session. Currier thought I might distract him. As part of that painful feedback-training called parenthood, I surrendered Robin to the power of others.

I could tell things had gone well when I picked him up at the lab. Currier looked pleased, although he played his cards close to his chest. Robin was walking on air, but without the usual mania. A strange new awe possessed him.

They gave me music this time. Dad, it was totally crazy. I could raise and lower the notes, and make them go faster and slower, and change the clarinet to a violin, just by wanting it!

I cocked an eyebrow at Currier. His smile was so benign it made me queasy. “He did great with the musical feedback, right, Robin? We’re learning to induce connectivity between the relevant regions of his brain. Neurons that fire together wire together.”

Astonishingly, Robbie let another man tickle him on the most sensitive part of his ribs. Currier said, “‘For use almost can change the stamp of nature.’”

What’s that supposed to be? Robin said. Like poetry or something?

“You’re something,” Currier said. Then he booked us for a third visit.

Robin and I walked from the neuroscience building to the lot where I was parked. He held my forearm, chattering. He hadn’t grappled me so much in public since he was eight. Decoded Neurofeedback was changing him, as surely as Ritalin would have. But then, everything on Earth was changing him. Every aggressive word from a friend over lunch, every click on his virtual farm, every species he painted, each minute of every online clip, all the stories he read at night and all the ones I told him: there was no “Robin,” no one pilgrim in this procession of selves for him ever to remain the same as. The whole kaleidoscopic pageant of them, parading through time and space, was itself a work in progress.

Robin tugged on my arm. Who do you think that guy is?

“What guy?”

The one whose brain I’m copying?

“It’s not one guy. It’s the average pattern of a few different people.”

He slapped my hand from underneath, like he was patting a ball into the air. His chin lifted and he skipped a few yards, the way he used to when he was younger. Then he waited for me to catch up. My son looked happy, and it chilled me.

“Why do you ask, Robbie?”

I feel like they’re coming over to my house to hang out or something. Like we’re doing stuff together, in my head.