Spoonbenders

15 Buddy

He stares at the clock, waiting for the lozenges of light to reconfigure and signal the final countdown to the Zap. The LEDs form numbers—1, 1, 5, 9—that quiver with import.

Nothing happens.

What if he’s stuck in this moment? What if his consciousness, rebelling at last of its pendular existence, has decided to come to rest here, in this second, forever? It would not be the moment he would have picked—that would be September 1, 1991, at 11:32 p.m., almost exactly four years ago, as he lay in a hotel bed—but some part of him would be relieved to land anywhere. To not have to keep going, to abandon his preparations for the apocalypse. To stop caring. Because as soon as the clock ticks over into midnight, the Countdown to Nothing begins.

Four days until the anniversary of his mother’s death. Four days until the Zap.

He fights down the panic. He can’t stop caring, so he can’t afford to lose track of the now. There’s so much to do. Yet, and yet, the glowing red lights of the clock refuse to move. Is it still now? The LEDs make him think of electrons and electron holes and suddenly it’s November 14, 1983. He’s fifteen, hiding in a study carrel in the Elmhurst Public Library, reading an article in Scientific American about how light-emitting diodes work. The key step is when an electron is pushed into a gap in an atomic lattice, like one of Frankie’s pinballs dropping into a kickout hole. This sudden plunge releases not bonus points but energy in the form of photons.

He flips a page, smiling to himself. Each drop is a quantum event. So beautiful—

And then he’s back, staring at the clock. Not even the World’s Most Powerful Psychic can know whether any one electron would fall into a particular hole, or ever drop at all. Electronic devices depend instead on statistical likelihood. Many holes, many electrons. Apply sufficient voltage, and enough electrons would almost certainly drop into place, causing the diode to emit light.

Buddy has tried to explain his job to only one person. Her name was Cerise. Is Cerise. I can’t know all the details, but I can spot trends, he says to her. And sometimes I give things a nudge. Cerise doesn’t understand. How can she? How can he make her understand what it’s like to keep track of a trillion pinballs bouncing along an infinite number of paths? Everything depends on sending them into the right lanes, off the right bumpers, at exactly the right time. Is there any metaphor—using electrons or pinballs or roulette balls—sufficient to explain how stressful his job is? “Oh honey,” Cerise says. “You’re getting stressed out now.”

He shakes himself back to 1995, the last few seconds of August.

11:59. There is no second hand on the digital clock. No way to know if 12:00 is coming soon, or ever.

Downstairs, the front door opens, and the sound reassures him that time is still flowing. (Unless—is this a memory of the door opening?) The visitor is Frankie, duffel bag in hand. A castaway, an exile, a refugee from the domestic homeland. Irene is up (she sleeps less than Buddy these days) and asks Frankie what the hell is going on. Frankie mumbles a reply, but it’s okay if Buddy can’t hear all the words right now; later they’ll talk more, and there will be donuts, and coffee despite the fact that it’s so late. Irene will raise her mug and say—

No!

He cannot skip ahead into the future. He has to stay on guard. Here. Now.

He glances back at the clock. A voltage knocks electrons into their graves, and suddenly it’s—