The Man From Primrose Lane Part 3

"A robot lives there."

Tanner blew a loud raspberry. "Nuh-uh, Dad!"

"It's true. His name's Elektro."

"Is it a dangerous robot? Like General Grievous?"

"No. He's a friendly robot."

"Like WALL-E."

"Like WALL-E," David agreed. "But taller."

The Mansfield Museum of Circuitry and Robotics was located in an old bank downtown, past the abandoned and rusting buildings where Westinghouse had once produced affordable and durable appliances for consumers across the Midwest. The factory had employed half the town. When the late-seventies manufacturing bubble burst, it destroyed the local economy. Westinghouse's laboratories and office s.p.a.ce were emptied and local businesses that fed off its employees-bars, convenience stores, retail-perished. That's one reason why a seldom-visited robotics museum could afford to rent a historic gothic bank, David supposed.

David had come across an article in the Plain Dealer years ago about the museum's curator and his efforts to restore Elektro and to rebuild Sparko, its trusty servant, a robot dog that had been run over by a car. According to the writer, Sparko's eyes had been photosensitive. If you waved a flashlight on the ground, it would follow the spot of light anywhere. Unfortunately, some engineer had left the door to the lab open one night and Sparko had been attracted to the headlights pa.s.sing by outside. The idea that there was this odd man restoring a robot friends.h.i.+p here in Mansfield, where the biggest employer was a toilet factory, had always stuck with David like a burr on his sleeve, more so since his memories of Elizabeth were entangled with the place, too. What was it that had made her so sad about the notion of an eternal life?

David pulled into a diagonal s.p.a.ce directly in front of the museum. Theirs was the only car downtown. Most of the nearby storefront windows had been newspapered or painted over long ago. Across the street, a homeless man warmed himself on a sewer grate. Above the door the neon sign pulsed rhythmically: MEET ELEKTRO THE ROBOT.

"Cool," said Tanner, unbuckling his car seat.

David helped the boy out of the car and took his hand, keeping a close watch on the b.u.m across the street. But the b.u.m didn't move.

Beyond the front doors, the air was brutally warm. Somewhere a heater shuddered against a wall, blowing dry air into the museum with its last ounce of strength. They stood there, David and the boy, for a few moments, looking about the lobby. Dozens of black-and-white framed photographs of the 1939 World's Fair hung on the scarlet walls. In each, a seven-foot-tall smooth humanoid robot performed some new trick. Here he was smoking a cigarette. There he was tossing a hot dog to Sparko as the dog sat on its hind legs, its mouth wide open. And here was one where Elektro was shaking hands with a man dressed as the Tin Woodsman from The Wizard of Oz. The Tin Woodsman might have been crying in agony.

After a while, David led Tanner to the ticket counter, behind which a doorway to some office or storage room was blocked by a black velvet curtain where dust bunnies clung, their tails dancing in the breeze of the dying heater. A bra.s.s bell rested on the counter next to a laminated hand-drawn sign: RING FOR SERVICE.

David rang the bell. Its sound reverberated in the shallow room.

From behind the curtain came the sound of metal things falling to the floor, as if the bell had set off some b.o.o.by trap that had caused a box of tools to tumble from its perch.

"Is it the robot?" Tanner whispered, clutching his father's hand.

"No," David said. "It's the tour guide."

A little man trundled through a seam in the curtain. He stood just over five feet tall and had a wiry white beard that hung below his chin in a braid. The man was small, but not a midget. Old, but not ancient. A smell followed him out of the back room. Cinnamon? David watched as the man climbed onto a stepstool to better see his visitors from behind the counter. He noticed the man had something in his right hand. Something squarish and white. A cell phone?

"We'd like to see Elektro," David said.

The man brought the white object up under his braided beard. In a flash, David knew what it was. He had only enough time to realize this was about to be one of those moments Tanner would likely recall in therapy one day. There just wasn't enough time to explain before it happened.

The man behind the counter was the curator, of course. And the thing in his right hand was not a cell phone, but an electrolarynx he had used to talk since doctors at the Cleveland Clinic had removed a five-pound tumor-and his voice box-from his throat, in 2004. Because he was old and his hearing was going, he kept the box turned up to eleven, so he could hear what he was saying, too. What came out when he finally addressed his first guests in three weeks was both manufactured and loud. "JUST YOU AND THE BOY?"

Tanner had not let his father carry him for more than a year, but by the time the curator had said "JUST YOU..." the boy had scrambled up David's legs and had buried his eyes in the fold of David's right elbow.

David gave the curator a one-moment sign. The man nodded back. Obviously, he was fairly used to this sort of reaction from young ones.

Walking back toward the door, David slowly pried his son off him and set Tanner down. The boy peeked around him, spotted the curator, ducked his head back behind his dad, and let out a small moan. David felt pangs of guilt but knew it was important that he not just pack the kid up and turn tail for home. That would only compound the terror and the nightmares. He realized this was the first time he was going to ask his son to face a fear. Was Tanner old enough for such a lesson, at four?

"Tanner. Tanner, listen to me," David said.

"You said it wasn't a robot. He looks so real."

"Tanner, that man is not a robot."

Still shaking, the boy gave David a look of reproach. That was new, too. And David felt it deeply. This was the first time he had told his son the truth and his son had decided that he was lying. Not just teasing. Lying.

"Sometimes people get hurt, their throat gets hurt in an accident or something," he said. "And sometimes, when they're fixed up, they can't talk like you and me. They have to use a little voice box, which they hold up to their neck. The box lets them sort of talk but it sounds really weird when they do."

Tanner stopped shaking a little bit. He stole another glance at the curator, who waved at him.

"How come I never saw anyone like that before?" he asked.

"Probably because we don't get out enough, kiddo," David replied. "My fault."

And then Tanner smiled and all was well with the world once more. "Can I have one?" he asked, already envisioning a scenario, no doubt, that included a sudden leap from the shoe closet with an electrolarynx pressed to his neck as Aunt Peggy searched for the duster.

"LUKE, I AM YOUR FATHER," the curator said in his mechanized voice.

Tanner laughed, but squeezed his dad's hand as he did. "Cooooool!"

David nodded a thank-you to the curator. "Just us," he said, handing the man a ten-dollar bill.

The curator shoved the money down the front pocket of his oil-stained overalls. He stepped off the stool and swung a section of the counter up so he could walk out from behind it, even though he could just as easily have ducked. "FOLLOW ME," he said as he stepped toward a steel door that had once led to the bank's gigantic vault, but which now held more priceless treasures. From his front pocket he withdrew a six-inch-long skeleton key, which he considered for a moment before handing it to Tanner.

The boy's eyes grew ever wider as he felt the weight of the key in his palm. David sensed that his son believed this to be a magical key, one that might open doors that led to other worlds. It certainly looked like a key from some fairy tale. Even David caught himself imagining the door opening onto a forestscape bathed in gold and green light from a star not unlike our own.

Tanner let go of his father's hand and walked deliberately to the metal door. The boy slipped the key in the hole below the gla.s.s doork.n.o.b and turned it lightly. What followed was a loud tumbling of gears from inside that seemed to go on for ten seconds. Finally, it ended with a grinding THUNK! and the door creaked open an inch.

"IT'S A GOOD THING YOU CAME," the curator said. "THAT DOOR ONLY OPENS FOR CHILDREN AND I LEFT MY HAT BEHIND THE LAST TIME I WAS INSIDE."

Tanner smiled and handed the key back to the curator, watching it disappear in that front pocket again, an adultlike expression of loss in his eyes. He was old enough, then, to understand that magical moments were rare and fleeting.

The museum was dedicated to the history of man's attempt to create a machine in his own image. A pathway snaked across the main room, past photographs and displays of early Westinghouse models, machines that vacuumed or served canapes, some with misguided names like Mammy Was.h.i.+ngton.

"Is Elektro here?" Tanner asked his father.

"RIGHT THIS WAY, YOUNG MAN, RIGHT THIS WAY," announced the curator, with a flourish of his hands that would make a carnival barker blush. "NO SENSE DELAYING THE MAIN ATTRACTION."

They soon arrived at the back of the museum, where a floor-to-ceiling black velvet curtain hung from the rafters.

"BEHOLD, THE APEX OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING. THE REALIZATION OF MAN'S IMAGINATION. THE WORLD'S MOST FULLY FUNCTIONAL ARTIFICIAL HUMAN. EEEEEEELEKTRO."

Pocketing his electrolarynx, he pulled at a long length of rope nearby and the curtain parted.

Slowly, slowly, a stainless steel frame was uncovered. It was easily more humanoid than the robots that had preceded it, and yet, less human. Elektro was seven feet tall, a barrel-chested giant with cool gray eyes and a mouth that suggested it was either attempting to smile or was gritting its teeth. It was frozen in time, its arms and hands extended outward in a gesture reminiscent of a model from The Price Is Right showcasing a new blender. There was a peculiar smell emanating from the robot; it smelled of waterfall mist, of positive ions, of ozone.

"Wow!" shouted Tanner, hopping in place excitedly.

David nodded. "Pretty cool," he agreed. "Can it still blow bubbles?"

The curator dropped the rope and returned the white box to its place under his wizard beard. "I'VE NEVER ACTUALLY GOTTEN UP THE NERVE TO PLUG IT IN," he said. "I'M AFRAID IF I DO, IT'LL FRY ITS INSIDES AND BURN THE PLACE DOWN."

Tanner looked distractedly down at the thick and tattered electrical cord trailing behind Elektro's left leg and at the wall socket a few inches away. David took a moment to get a better grip on his son's hand, before he got any sudden Frankensteinian ideas.

"AFTER THE 1939 WORLD'S FAIR, ELEKTRO TOURED THE COUNTRY AND MADE A DECENT LIVING FOR MANY YEARS. THE MONEY WESTINGHOUSE TOOK IN FROM HIS ENGAGEMENTS WAS SET ASIDE IN A SPECIAL FUND THAT COULD ONLY BE USED FOR HIS UPKEEP AND MAINTENANCE. THE INTEREST FROM THAT FUND IS WHAT KEEPS THIS MUSEUM OPEN TODAY."

"He had a dog, you know," David told Tanner. "He had a pet robot dog."

"Really?" The boy turned to the curator. "Is the robot dog here, too?"

"AFRAID NOT."

"The scientist made the dog so that it was attracted to light, so that whenever it saw a beam of light, it knew to follow it," said David. "Do you understand?"

Tanner nodded.

"But one day the scientist forgot to shut the door, and during the night the dog ran out into the street and it got hit by a car."

Tanner looked at the curator again. "Is that true?" he asked.

"NOT A WORD OF IT," the curator said, looking annoyed.

"Isn't that the story you told the reporter a couple years ago?" asked David. "I thought that's the story I remembered."

"SURE. THAT'S WHAT WAS WRITTEN. BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED."

"What's the real story?" asked David.

The curator looked up at Elektro, as if consulting with him before he continued. And when he did speak again, he did so nervously.

"THE TRUE STORY IS ... STRANGER," he said. "WHAT REALLY HAPPENED WAS THIS. ONE NIGHT, THE ENGINEER, WHOSE NAME WAS SAMUEL MCGEE, HE LEAVES THE LAB. GETS INTO HIS CAR. STARTS TO DRIVE HOME. SPARKO RUNS OUT INTO THE STREET. SAM RUNS IT OVER. DOG GETS STUCK IN WHEEL WELL, SENDING THE CAR INTO A TELEPHONE POLE. THE CRASH KILLED SAM. KILLED WESTINGHOUSE'S ROBOTICS DEPARTMENT, TOO."

"The dog caused a crash that killed the man who invented it?"

"WAS IT REALLY SPARKO?" The curator shrugged. "SOMETHING ELSE THE WRITER GOT WRONG: SPARKO'S EYES WERE NOT PHOTOSENSITIVE. THE DOG WAS MADE TO RESPOND TO VOICE COMMANDS. BUT IT WOULD ONLY RESPOND TO ELEKTRO'S OWN VOICE."

"But how did Sparko get out?" asked Tanner.

"THERE'S THE REAL MYSTERY. THE JANITOR SAID HE LOCKED UP THAT NIGHT. IF HE'S TELLING THE TRUTH, THERE'S ONLY ONE THING THAT COULD HAVE LET THE DOG OUT." He glanced, coldly, to Elektro. To David, the robot suddenly seemed to be listening to them and pretending not to be alive. "ELEKTRO MUST HAVE PLAYED A PART IN IT. AFTER ALL, THE DOG COULD ONLY HAVE RUN INTO THE STREET IF ELEKTRO HAD CALLED TO HIM." And with that the curator continued walking down the length of the museum to the models of later robots built by other dead Westinghouse engineers.

"Dad," whispered Tanner.

"What, bud?"

"Dad, that was the best story!"

On the way home, they counted the stars. David had once heard-though he had no idea if it was true-that there were exactly eighty-eight constellations in the summer sky. "Can you name that one?"

"The Big Dipper!" shouted Tanner. "Duh. Who put the stars in the sky, Dad?"

David felt his blood chill. That had been his line, once. One of his first memories, actually: Riding in the car-in the front seat, beltless, natch-with his mother, when he couldn't have been more than two, two and a half, watching the factories of Cleveland belch fire as she drove them from Lakewood to his babysitter's in Bedford before work. As soon as they were away from the fire, the stars would appear. It had been five in the morning then, and not night. He'd asked that same question, every single day. To David, this was a bad omen. His worst fear, unsaid, was that his boy would grow up to be just like him.

Still, he used his own mother's old answer. "G.o.d," he said, though he no longer believed it to be true.

"Why?" asked Tanner.

"Some people think it's so that we can see how beautiful they are."

"Oh. They are pretty stars. I like them."

For a couple minutes there was silence. David was about to flick on the radio when his son spoke again. "Why do you think G.o.d put the stars in the sky?"

A stumper. No way to answer that one, for now. And the kid was only four. "So the Indians could read at night before electricity was invented, I think," he said at last.

Soon Tanner was asleep. As he snored into his shoulder in the back seat, David called Paul on his cell phone. He picked up on the first ring.

"I'm in," said David.

EPISODE THREE.

MENTAL CIGARETTES.

"But where are we going?" asked Elizabeth. She slouched back in the pa.s.senger seat of his first car, a '79 Monte Carlo, bare feet resting on the dashboard as he drove them through the tangles of Kent's frat-row side streets. Her red hair was shorter, bobbed just above the white tube top she had bought for the way he looked at her exposed shoulders and the suggestion of b.r.e.a.s.t.s underneath.

"Palcho's," he said.

"Why?"

"Donuts."

"David, we're going to eat Chinese in, like, five minutes," she scolded. "Are you pregnant?"

It had been seven months since they had first visited Palcho's together, a formative evening that was already slipping into a gray jumble of forgotten episodes for Elizabeth, but which David still remembered in explicit and lovely detail.

They arrived and David quickly ran around the car to open her door. She stepped out and gave him a look of cold suspicion. "What's wrong with you?" she asked.

"I'm in love with you," he said.

"Cheesy," she replied. "Like, eighties after-school-special cheesy."

"Yeah," he admitted. "And this is probably worse."

David dropped to one knee as he pulled the purple-velvet jewelry box with the snap lid out of his pocket. He opened it. The ring inside was white gold, with bits of crushed diamonds set in the top. He'd had it sized for her already.