THE GIFT

The tenseness in the tiny court room was a live thing that you could feel clear down to your insoles. The thick silence was broken as the judge said solemnly: "Your objection will be taken under advisement by the court, Counselor. In what manner will the childhood of the defendant be relevant to this case, Mr. Prosecutor?"

"It is my purpose to show, your Honor, that the defendant has been of unsound mind since birth, and therefore has long been a public menace, not merely a victim of circumstance as the defense would have us believe." The prosecuting attorney nodded briefly in the direction of the table for the defense.

"Objection overruled," the judge said. "You may call your witness."

"Thank you, your Honor." The prosecutor helped the flighty woman into the witness box.

"Will you please give the court your name?"

The woman simpered. "Ida Mae Holk. Mrs. Ida Mae Holk."

The prosecutor cleared his throat and ruffled the papers in his hand.

"How long have you known the defendant, Mrs. Holk?"

"Why, ever since he was about two years old. Him and his Ma came to Elmwood right after his Pa was killed in that big Oak Ridge explosion. He was born right there on the government project, you know. Never could understand why Mrs. Sloan, that was his Ma, never did get married again, her being so pretty and all, and any number of nice widowers just—"

"Uh, yes, Mrs. Holk," the prosecutor interrupted. "Was your acquaintance with the defendant continuous throughout his childhood?"

"Well, it was until he was ten years old. They sent him away to that crazy house then."

"I object to the term 'crazy house', your Honor," the public defender addressed the court.

"I am sure that the witness meant to say the Rochelle School for Retarded Children," the prosecutor said mildly. "Didn't you, Mrs. Holk?"

"Well, I guess that is what they call it," she said grudgingly. "Anyway, they kept him there until he was eighteen. Then he came back to Elmwood and I've known him ever since."

"As a child, was the defendant er, ah, strange; that is, different from the other children?"

"He certainly was." The woman drew herself up primly. "Why, the first time that I ever laid eyes on that boy I said to my neighbor 'did you ever see a child with such a big head and such brooding eyes', why—"

The public defender started to rise.

"I don't mean physical characteristics, Mrs. Holk," the prosecutor hurriedly interjected. "The court is interested only in facts that will prove relevant to the case at hand."

"Oh." Mrs. Holk seemed disappointed. "Well, he never played much with the other children because they made so much fun of him. Not that they didn't have a right to, the way he was always acting. Picking up stray dogs and cats, and every thing else under the sun, and telling everybody that would listen how he cured their sores. It was enough to make a person sick. He even claimed that he could cure himself, and that was the reason that he was never sick! Hmmfp.

"Of course, he wasn't ever sick. No sir, not a day in his life. Never had the measles or the mumps like my Sally, and even when that terrible flu epidemic hit town he was just as chipper as you please. If you want incidents, I can tell you a dozen. There was one time when he was about five and I was over visiting with his ma. He came running into the house telling some big story about a bird with a busted wing that he had fixed up. Of course, his ma shut him up; she always was too easy on him. Another time—"

The man with the too big head and the serene features gazed softly at the witness stand. He remembered about the bird. He had been very young at the time and hadn't known, yet, that everyone didn't have The Gift.

He had found the little bird at the base of the old oak tree, scared and trembling from the dangers that threatened it out of its known element. He picked it up gently and felt the fluttering of its tiny heart in the palm of his hand. He saw that its wing was injured, and, with a feeling of pity and kindness, he located and repaired the injury. The little bird lay quietly in his hand, as if sensing a friend. Then it flew away into the blue sky.

He ran into the house to tell his mother about the bird that he had found helpless in the yard and how he had made it well so that it could fly again.

"Yes darling," his mother smiled tolerantly. "I'm sure you were a good boy."

He could see that she had a headache. He could see the pulse and flow of the waves of pain and he wondered why she didn't fix it. He was never sick. It was so easy to be well....

With the directness of the very young he asked her, "Mother, why don't you make your headache go away?"

His mother dropped to her knees in front of him.

"Why you sweet boy," she said. "Always thinking of your mother. Here, kiss my head and the ache will go away."

Gravely he looked at her. Grownups were a funny lot. He didn't have to kiss her head to make the headache go away; but she was his mother and he loved her. If she wanted to pretend, why, then he would also. So he kissed her head and caused the ache and pain to recede and disappear. Laughing, his mother got to her feet, took two aspirin tablets, and shooed him out to play. Strange, that he couldn't remember Mrs. Holk being there....

"Thank you, Mrs. Holk," the prosecutor said. "That will be all for now unless the defense wishes to cross examine."

"No questions." The public defender leaned toward his client. "Are you sure that you won't testify in your own behalf?"

The man smiled and shook his head.

"May I call the next witness, your Honor?"

"Will you tell the court your name and position, please?"

"My name is Sylvia Johnson, and I am floor superintendent at the Rochelle School."

"Were you superintendent during the eight years that Carl Sloan was in commitment at that institution?"

"I was."

"Will you tell the court any pertinent facts concerning his behavior up to the time of his discharge?"

She smoothed the hem of her dress and looked thoughtful for a moment.

"At first Carl seemed to be the oddest of all of the children in the school. He seemed to think that he had some kind of miraculous healing powers and couldn't, or wouldn't, understand why the rest of us weren't similarly blessed."

She waited for the small titter to subside and then continued.

"However our rather necessarily stern measures soon cured him of his delusions, or, at least, so we thought at the time. After that, he didn't seem to be very much different from the others. A little more sullen, perhaps, and not quite as quick to learn the duties expected of him as some of the less handicapped children; but then, we can't work miracles at the school."

She paused and those nearest the quiet defendant turned and stared at him.

He didn't even notice for he was once again ten years old and standing outside his cousin's bedroom window. He wasn't supposed to be there because Billy was sick with an odd virus and had been quarantined until the doctors had decided what ailed him.

"No," Billy said, in answer to his question. "Don't be silly. If I could get rid of this awful cough I would, wouldn't I?"

"I can," Carl replied, his youthful voice confident.

Of course Billy didn't believe him but Carl saw what was to be done and did it. Billy's dad, disturbed by the excited conversation, came and told Carl to go on home where he belonged; but Carl forgot his scooter and had to go back after it. He could hear Billy's parents talking in the living room.

"Carl is a very strange boy," said Billy's mother.

"If you ask me, he's half crazy. All of this wild talk about doctoring cats, and that dead frog that he said he brought back to life."

(This was not quite true, Carl knew. The frog had not been dead, only sick. He had proudly told his uncle of the incident only a day or two before.)

"I think that we should have a little talk with Jane. Surely, she can see that he is not normal. He should be in that school for abnormal children over in the valley," Billy's father said emphatically.

The next day his aunt and uncle had talked to his mother and Carl listened at the window. He knew that he wasn't supposed to eavesdrop but he was puzzled, and scared. At first, his mother answered the proposal with a flat "no", but his uncle's persuasions won out in the end. Tearfully, she finally agreed that a year or two in the school might be of some help in correcting his too obvious imagination. The news spread rapidly and the tongue-waggers worked overtime.

"Did you hear about the Sloan boy?" one would ask.

"Oh, yes," another would answer. "Crazy as a loon, quite."

"I always knew that there was something wrong with that boy, him never getting sick and all that. His head always was too big for the rest of him. I knew all along that he was crazy, all right."

"They're going to ship him off to school, I understand. Well, good riddance I say. Wouldn't want my Henry associating with a goofy kid."

He didn't like to recall the school. It was dim and foreboding and the beds always seemed to be cold and dank. He learned quickly that none of the institutional authorities were interested in his Gift and after the first several rebuffs and their consequential punishments, he never again talked about it to anyone. He was, by force, a recluse; but he learned the lessons that they thought that he should learn, and, if they were much more simple than his intellect warranted, he didn't blame the teachers.

As if he could feel the stares of the curious people, Carl raised his head. The prosecutor was still examining the superintendent.

"Then he was released as fit to be assimilated by society when he was eighteen?"

The witness leaned forward in the box.

"Yes," she said intently. "The exact disposition of his case history was 'Simple minded, but perfectly harmless'."

Simple minded? Yes, if shyness and averseness to people constitute simple mindedness. He did odd jobs for the townspeople and they tolerated him. Gardening, fetching and carrying, sweeping out the library. He read. Avidly he read everything that he could find. He learned about Mendel and his peas, and he knew what he was. An ugly word, a Mutant. It made him different and gave him a Gift that no one believed that he had, or wanted him to exercise.

That crazy Sloan, or that half wit Sloan, the townspeople called him, but he didn't care. He had never had any friends or companions and therefore felt no need for any. The small animals were his friends, and the children. He was never too busy to make a kite, or mend a toy or a skinned knee. He never mentioned his Gift but silently, unnoticed, as he went his shy way around the town, performed the small services that he was able to, unknown to the recipients. Some little aid, some little kindness every day. He was happy.

Then they brought Henry Jones, bitter and disillusioned, home from the hospital in the city. He had been kicked in the head by a horse while he was away at college, and would never see again. The doctors all agreed on that point. He was permanently blind. Carl was trimming the Jones' hedge the first day that they pushed Henry out for his daily airing in the sun. He saw the blood clot that blocked the nerves to the brain center and his powerful mind worked smoothly, efficiently.

"Open your eyes," Carl said simply. "You can see."

"It was a miracle," everyone said. "A true miracle."

The newspapers scented a lucky circumstance and whipped up a human interest story that was more fantasy than fact; the wire services carried the story and people flocked to see the person who had performed a miracle. By twos and threes they came. Then by scores. They came to see because they were curious, or to be healed of some real or imagined ill. By the hundreds, by the thousands, they came. The lame, the halt, and the blind. The doctors, lawyers, ministers, newspaper men, newsreel cameramen, zealots. Men, women and children; from near and afar. The religious, and the heretics. He couldn't begin to help all of those who came to him. Some, with missing organs or diseased in a manner impossible for him to aid, were turned away and added their cries to the pack who bitterly denounced him. For the most part his work was confined to the eyes of a few, but the numbers of those he helped without their knowledge he knew were legend.

The crowd expected to see miracles and they demanded to see them. His failure to perform according to their tastes set off disputes that swept across the country. Was he a healer or a charlatan? A wise man or a fool? A public benefactor or a fraud?

"He has never healed anyone," learned doctors gave statements to the papers. "It's all a matter of mass hypnosis. He tells the ignorant that they are cured and, for a short while they actually force themselves to believe that they are cured. A very simple matter, indeed."

He went on ministering to the crowds that increased daily. He asked nothing for his work, and they gave nothing; but the popcorn vendors, the soda pop dispensers, the ice cream wagons, had a field day. It was a circus and they assigned extra policemen to control the frenzied crowds.

He remembered the day, finally, they brought a little girl, suffering from leukemia, from a distant city. The best doctors had given their best to save her, and they had failed. The distraught parents were grasping at the last straw. He knew that it was much, much too late for him to do anything to aid her, but he tried. She looked at him with her large, beautiful eyes, set so deep in her pale face, and arose from the ambulance couch and walked a few steps toward him. Then she collapsed and died. The eager crowd pushed forward to get a better view and some were trampled. Some were injured, and some, the weak and unlucky, were killed. The police, frightened and faced with an ugly situation for which they had no rules, arrested him and whisked him off to the county seat. The crowd slowly dispersed and soon the only evidence that they had ever been there was the mass of empty cartons, the soda bottles, and the damaged shrubbery in the town square....

The judge leaned over from his tall bench.

"Mr. Sloan," he said sonorously. "In view of the evidence presented by the people of this state this court has no recourse but to convict you for the deaths of seven people. The court finds you charged and adjudged guilty of five counts, four minor and one major. Perpetrator of an unlawful assembly, inciting a mob to violence—" the voice droned on and on until the sentence was pronounced.

The flash bulbs popped and the crowd mumbled and whispered as he was led back to his cell. He had known from the beginning of the trial that there could be but one ending. He hadn't asked for the deaths of anyone but through him they had died and it was best that the sentence of the court be exacted and the Gift forever stilled. The world was not ready for a power such as this, he knew. Not now, not yet, perhaps not ever....

The wrought iron gates in the high stone wall clanged shut behind the official county car with a dismal finality. Later, he was taken to a small room and his clothes stripped from him, replaced with a simple two pieced garment. This, then, was to be the end of life, of awareness. No more to feel the warmth of the summer sun or the caressing coolness of the light spring wind. Yet, he felt no bitterness, no regrets, rather only a sense of vast loneliness in the knowledge that he would not be able to fulfill the promise of his life.

Straps were placed around his ankles and secured so that the sudden shock wouldn't tear them loose. A strap around each leg, just above the knee. More, biting into his wrists, his upper arms, and, finally, the two plates. They were placed carefully, one just behind and above each ear. A last quiet check to see that the bindings were in their proper places.

The plates held his head in a vise-like grip and he couldn't turn it in any direction but he knew the time was at hand....

There was a sharp pain, blinding and searing. Starting in his head, just behind his eyes, and then permeating throughout his muscles and body. He jerked spasmodically, but the strong bonds held him fast. For a long agonizing moment the pain persisted, and then the welcome blackness, nothing....

The young interne smiled at the officiating doctor.

"That was a very nice operation, sir. A wonderful discovery that electronically destroying a part of the brain will cure some forms of insanity. Of course, he won't have much of his ego left, but he will be able to obey simple orders and do menial tasks, and, at least he will be sane."

"Yes," the doctor said cheerfully as he disconnected his apparatus, "at least he will be sane."