Solomon versus Lord

Eighteen
DORIS FROM INTERCOURSE

When he turned the corner onto Kumquat Avenue, Steve was running out of gas. Drained of adrenaline, feet like slabs of concrete. Winded and scared. Nearing his house, he saw two cars parked in the gravel driveway.

Neither was a muddy green pickup.

One was his old Caddy. The other was a shark-gray, four-door Chrysler with blackwall tires. The bumper sticker read: “Go ahead and Honk. I'm Reloading.”

Steve walked in a circle around the Chrysler, bent forward, sucking air. His fear was subsiding. He thought he knew who owned the car, and one look through the windows confirmed it. A pair of women's spikes-size ten, he guessed-sat on the front seat, along with gloves and rib pads. In the backseat, several lacrosse sticks, various Ace wraps, adhesive tape, and a jar of a high-protein powder.

Yeah, he knew who was inside, and he was not happy about it. Tucking away thoughts of the green pickup, he sidestepped the overhanging Spanish bayonet leaves on the stone path and stormed into his house.

Dr. Doris Kranchick stood in the middle of his living room, hands on her wide, sturdy hips. The doc wore sensible pumps and a drab gray business suit. Her hair was pulled back so severely, it seemed to tighten her scalp. She was bulky without being fat. Her legs were two stout tree trunks descending to thick ankles. She had a broad, bland face that disguised both her limitless tenacity and a deep reservoir of fury. The white-rimmed remnant of a scythe-shaped scar ran across one cheekbone, a memento of a slashing in a college lacrosse game twenty years earlier.

Despite his best efforts, Steve Solomon had failed to make a dent in Dr. Doris Kranchick. When she was first assigned as Family Services' consultant on Bobby's case, Steve had tried the friendly approach, pitching their common background.

“Hey, we were both athletes in college.”

In truth, she'd been far more accomplished, an All-American at Penn State. He knew little about lacrosse but learned that her position, point on defense, was similar to middle linebacker in football, where it helped to be both agile and hostile.

Steve had done his homework. At their first meeting, he had asked Dr. Kranchick about her studies of savant syndrome and frontotemporal dementia, compulsive learning and photographic memory, eidetic imagery and echolalia. He'd even read her article in Psychology Today: “Unlocking Your Inner Rain Man.” He'd used the lawyer's trick-you're fascinating; tell me about yourself-of getting a witness to open up.

Nothing had worked. Doris Kranchick regarded him as she would an opponent advancing on the goal. If she couldn't steal the ball, she'd level him with a cross-body check or an elbow to the spleen.

Now, in the living room, Bobby was huddled in a corner of the sofa. Barefoot and wearing only underpants and a T-shirt, he hugged his knees and rocked silently, his head cocked, his eyes unfocused. Back in his shell. The same look as when Steve had rescued him ten months earlier.

Damn her. Bobby will be a mess for days.

“Everything's okay, kiddo,” Steve said, going over to him.

“She's not taking me away?” His voice barely a whimper.

“Of course not. We're just going to talk a bit.” Trying not to let his anger show. “Doctor, you should have called.”

“Home visits are permitted to be unscheduled,” she said.

“This is an invasion of my privacy as guaranteed by Article something-or-other of the Florida Constitution.”

“Article One, Section Twenty-three,” Bobby whispered.

“How about that? My nephew knows more law than I do.”

“I'm sure that's true,” the doctor shot back dryly, “but I have other concerns. Just look at the poor child.”

Bobby trembled, then turned away, staring off into an unseen corner of the universe.

“You scare him,” Steve said. “Hell, you scare me.”

Kranchick took off her gray jacket. It looked as if she planned to stay a while. “Robert should be at Rockland, where there are facilities for his special needs.”

“He doesn't need a hospital. I'm hiring a private tutor and a therapist.”

“Who?”

“The best people. As soon as I get paid on this big case.”

“Right. And just look at this place.”

“What's wrong with it?” Steve reflexively straightened the scattered magazines on his surfboard cocktail table. He didn't bother with the empty beer cans and three-day-old pizza boxes. Nearby, a corn plant had died and was shriveling into a drooping skeleton of brown leaves.

“When your sister gave up Robert-”

“Janice didn't give Bobby up. I rescued him.”

“The details have always been so vague,” Kranchick said. “I can't wait to hear your story under oath.”

To Steve, that sounded like a threat. Like something Zinkavich would say. He strained to keep his composure. It wouldn't help if Kranchick's report called him belligerent as well as deficient at dusting.

“I'm sure Robert's mother would want him to have the best care,” Kranchick said.

“Janice is a crackhead who doesn't care about anyone but herself. The only one who worries about Bobby is me.”

“Then you should want what's best for him.”

Steve felt himself heating up, something that almost never happened in court. Arguing your own case was different. Impossible to keep emotion out of it.

“There's no better place than Rockland for high-functioning savants,” Kranchick continued. “Robert can learn a vocational skill, and we can learn more about him and others like him.”

“I'm not letting you stick electrodes in his brain.”

Stay calm. Don't blow it.

“Transcranial magnetic stimulation is noninvasive. And our drug therapy is quite promising.”

She walked to Bobby and stroked his cheek: he burrowed even deeper into the sofa.

“Whatever happened to Robert, he has memory abilities rivaling that of the highest functioning autistic savants, but without organic brain damage. Do you realize what a rare opportunity this is?”

“For you or for Bobby?”

“Your intransigence will be noted in my report to the court.” She sounded even more like Zinkavich.

“You're supposed to remain neutral, Doctor, not carry Zinkavich's briefcase.”

“Do you think forces are conspiring against you? Do you feel persecuted, Mr. Solomon?”

“More like I'm being kicked in the cajones.”

“Do you have unexplained bouts of anger?”

“Aw, fuck that. You want to write me up as a psycho, Doc, go ahead.”

“Your language will also be noted.”

“What do you have against me? What have I done to offend you?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “My sole concern is Robert's welfare.”

In truth, Doris Kranchick loathed everything about Steve Solomon. His city boy cockiness. His manner. Loosey-goosey, her mother, Edna, would have called him. Even the bouncy way he walked. As if he held the key to some secret kingdom, as if every footstep led to some deserved pleasure.

She understood that her own mix of anger and envy was irrational. She had come far from her family's farm in southeastern Pennsylvania, but she knew enough psychology to realize she had never really left behind her low self-esteem. From the clothes she wore to junior high, to her billboard-size forehead, to her dishwater brown hair, there was almost nothing she liked about herself. She still remembered her embarrassment at that high-school all-star lacrosse game when the PA announcer introduced her: “Starting at point, Doris Kranchick, from Intercourse.”

“Where's Intercourse?” asked a Pittsburgh girl, laughing.

“A few miles south of Blue Ball,” replied a Philadelphia girl, accurately but nastily.

The other girls giggled and clickety-clacked their lacrosse sticks. And from that day, they called her “Doris from Intercourse.”

The nickname followed her to college, and all the dean's lists and all the forced turnovers could never change it. Seething with anger, she led her team in yellow warning cards and in loneliness.

One lacrosse game stood out in her memory. A joyous game, even though she received seventeen stitches in her face for her efforts. In the Big Ten playoffs, Doris tripped a cute, speedy, ponytailed player from Ohio State. On her way down, the young woman whipped her stick across Doris' cheek, maybe accidentally, maybe not. With blood already spurting, Doris slammed to the ground, aiming her shoulder squarely at the dimple on Miss Ponytail's chin. A fractured mandible left the girl eating through a straw for months. Doris still smiled when she replayed the game in her mind.

Looking back, Doris realized she did little in her college years but hit the books, hit the sack, and hit her opponents. But then, in her senior year, she met Fritz Braeunig, a soccer player from Germany. After a sports banquet, he took her back to his apartment, plied her with red wine, and pried her knees apart with his own well-muscled thighs. Fritz's problem, she thought, was not taking nein for an answer. What choice did she have? As he maneuvered inside her thighs, she circled his chest with her lumberjack legs, locked her ankles behind his back, and snapped three of his ribs with the sound of a crab shell being shattered by a mallet.

Doris chose Johns Hopkins for medical school because she could help coach the university's famed lacrosse team. In the winters, she played indoors, where she was frequently penalized for “boarding from the rear.” Lately, she took out her aggressions by playing in a men's league near the Florida International University campus.

Although her life was bereft of companionship and friends, she did not consider herself unhappy. She was doing good work for a good cause and had traveled far from the Pennsylvania farm. Employed by various pharmaceutical companies, she'd worked in drug research programs in Argentina, Hungary, and Bulgaria before settling in the more prosaic Ft. Lauderdale. For the past two years, she'd directed the pilot autism project at Rockland State Hospital, where she aggressively pursued new treatments.

Hey, you can't score if you don't shoot.

She could not understand why Steve Solomon refused to share Robert with her. How could anyone be so selfish and shortsighted? She could help the boy, and by extension, many others. And if her research led to more government grants and a profile of her on 60 Minutes, well, so much the better.

Steve vowed to show his humble side. He'd flatter her while keeping his true feelings in check. “Let's not fight, Dr. Kranchick.”

“That's up to you, Mr. Solomon.”

“I really admire the work you do.”

You are a weird, freaking woman.

“Thank you.”

“But if you knew Bobby, you'd see the best place for him is with me.”

I wouldn't board a German shepherd with you.

“Raschk korno duchk,” Bobby mumbled, his head buried in a pillow.

“What did you say?” Kranchick said.

Bobby lifted his head. “RAKISH CORN DICK!”

Oh, shit, Steve thought. He couldn't let Kranchick know that Bobby was making anagrams of her name.

“When Bobby's nervous, he talks gibberish,” Steve said.

“RADISH COCK RINK.”

“It could be a form of dementia,” Kranchick said, frowning.

“It's more like a game,” Steve suggested.

“DRINK SICK ROACH.”

She reached inside her jacket, pulled out a pad, and scribbled a note. “There seems to be a pattern here, but I can't quite get it.”

“No pattern,” Steve said. “Just random words.” Damned if he'd tell her that Bobby associated her name with “dick,” “roach,” and “cock.”

“This just reinforces my beliefs. Bobby needs intensive treatment in a residential facility.”

“You're wrong, Doctor. You're so damned wrong.”

“You'd have regular visitation rights,” she offered.

“Homeschooling's working fine.”

“Is it?” She reached under the sofa cushions as if looking for spare change. “Is this what you call schooling? Robert tried to bury the evidence.”

“He only reads the articles,” Steve said, anticipating a Playboy or Maxim.

Instead, she held up a black-and-white autopsy photo of Charles Barksdale. An incision ran from ear to ear.

“Oh, that,” Steve said, relieved.

“And this?” She grabbed a photo with the skin flaps pulled back from Barksdale's neck, showing the salivary glands and exposed jugular vein.

“Bobby likes autopsies,” Steve said. “He can recite the Coroners' Rolls from fourteenth-century England.”

“‘Inquest was taken at Middlesex,'” Bobby said in a British accent, “‘on Monday after the Nativity of Blessed Mary the Virgin in the reign of King Edward the Third…'”

“Parlor games,” Kranchick said. “Meaningless until we learn how he does it.”

“Hey, lady,” Bobby said. “Who lit the fuse on your tampon?”

“What! Is this what you teach the boy?”

“No. No. No.” Steve felt an icy fear. “That's a T-shirt or something. Bobby, tell her.”

“Bumper sticker on a Toyota SUV.”

“A Toyota SUV!” Steve proclaimed, as if Bobby had just turned lead into gold.

“With a bald left rear tire,” Bobby said. “License plate 7NJ843, manatee logo.”

“See, it's just his memory.”

Kranchick grabbed her briefcase from the surfboard coffee table. “Whatever's going on in this house is utterly inappropriate. Obviously, Robert needs guidance that you're unable or unwilling to give.”

“Look, Dr. Kranchick, maybe I've given you the wrong impression. If you'd stick around a while, let Bobby relax, you'll see how happy he is, how welladjusted-”

“My decision's made.” Her tone was curt. “I'm going to urge the court to deny your petition, terminate your custody forthwith, and make Robert a ward of the state.”

Steve's hands felt clammy. He'd gone the full route. Reason. Anger. Insincere flattery. Now full-scale panic. He heard himself begging. “Give me another chance, Doctor. Please. Bobby needs me. And I love him.”

“Love” wasn't a word he tossed around easily.

“Bobby's my whole world,” he went on.

“Your world? So that's what this is about. Your needs. Shouldn't this be about Robert?”

“He loves me, too. Depends on me. He's made tremendous progress.”

She clicked on a cruel smile. “How? By sharing your bed?”

“For two weeks, when he first got here. He was too scared to sleep alone.”

“Still,” she said. “It looks like one of those Michael Jackson situations.”

Is she fucking serious?

“You have a dirty mind, Dr. Kranchick.”

“It's my job to turn over every rock, see what's crawling underneath. Frankly, even if Robert had no problems, I'd question your fitness as a custodian. Face it, Mr. Solomon, you're undomesticated.”

“Whatever that means, it's just temporary. Just a phase.”

“Fine. When you've grown up, petition the court under the change-of-circumstances statute.”

“But I'm changing right now.” An idea was forming, a way to sway her.

“How so?”

“Getting married's a change, isn't it?”

“It can be, depending…”

“Well, I'm engaged. Getting married in a month. To a wonderful woman. She's smart and loving and-”

“An optimist,” Dr. Kranchick suggested snidely.

“Stable. A real stabilizer. My fiancee is a stabilizing influence.”

“Stable” seeming to be the only characteristic he could latch on to. Winging it now, just like in court. “When I'm with her, I feel more mature. More… domesticated.”

“Really?” The doctor did not sound convinced.

“Your report isn't complete if you haven't interviewed my fiancee.”

“Technically, that's true,” she conceded, with reluctance. “Who is she?”

Steve's mind raced. There was Sofia Hernandez, the court reporter. She was fine at reading back testimony, but ad-libbing wasn't her strong suit. There was Gina the model, who already had an engagement ring, but she was likely to steal the silverware. There were the twins, Lexy and Rexy, but neither one's IQ matched the temperature on a warm day. And there was Cece, but her tattoos and piercings might be off-putting, to say nothing of her rap sheet.

“I'll want to meet her as soon as possible.” Kranchick was pulling out her daily calendar. “How's the day after tomorrow?”

“Perfect! Let's make it dinner.”

“So what's the woman's name? This stabilizing influence?”

There was only one choice. “Victoria Lord,” he said. “You'll just love her.”