6

Gordon meets Alan.

The day after John arrived, Gordon experienced his first semi-formal, Tracy brother 'conference'. In the tiled sunroom, with the big french doors open to a lush breeze, and gathered around a glass-topped table, the four Tracys met to talk.

Boastful nonsense, much of it, with a bit of 'catching up' thrown in for good measure. Scott and Virgil did most of the talking, leaning forward in their seats, Virgil gesturing broadly with the half-smoked Marlboro in his right hand, Scott often laughing too hard to speak. John, long legs stretched far out beneath the table, sun-warmed and half asleep, threw in a few lazy comments from time to time, but seemed content mostly to nurse his second beer, and listen.

Then, about an hour into this 'huddle', Virgil said something that struck Gordon as decidedly odd. They'd been discussing the ranch in Wyoming; Scott and Virgil telling the boy how vast the 'spread' was, and how much he was going to love it there, when all at once, Virgil bragged that he could...

"...Land Thunderbird 2 in the front yard, with room on either side to run a hundred head of cattle. No lie."

Scott gave his younger brother a sharp glance, and Virgil at once stoppered the offending comment with a huge bite of his roast beef sandwich, mumbling something about the 'Wind River Indian Reservation Stunt Flying Team'. But...

Thunderbird 2? As in..., the big rescue vehicle?

Perplexed, Gordon looked over at John, whose expression had darkened, slightly. Sitting up a bit, John said,

"Seems to me we've wasted enough time bull-shitting, Scott. Why don't you just exp..."

A faint, polite, throat-clearing sound cut him off in mid-syllable. Kyrano, the family's oriental manservant, had entered the room. (Thin, small and fastidious; he looked rather like a maths professor Gordon knew in Sheffield.) Coming forward, the old man bowed fluidly, saying,

"Good afternoon, Young Sirs: Mr. Scott, Mr. John, Mr. Virgil, Master Gordon...,"

"What's up, Kyrano?" Scott inquired, actually seemingrelieved at the interruption.

"Sirs, I have received word that the company jet bringing Master Alan for his summer visit will arrive within the hour."

The manservant bowed again, looking around at the three older brothers, none of whom exactly fell over themselves volunteering to pick the boy up. Kyrano made a graceful gesture of assent, saying smoothly,

"With your permission, Young Sirs, I shall betake myself to the airstrip, there to await Master Alan's arrival."

Gordon looked from one face to another, more than a little troubled. This 'Alan' was their brother, too..., wasn't he? What could he have done, really, to justify being banished and ignored, like that?

He caught John's eye, but wasn't able to decipher his quiet sibling's deadpan expression. John noticed, however, and reacted.

"Tell you what, Gordon," the blond told him, glancing first at Scott. "Why don't you go along with Kyrano? It'll give you a chance to escape all this shop talk, and get to know your...,"

"Juvenile delinquent," Virgil cut in, grinding out his cigarette.

"Demon spawn...," Scott muttered darkly.

"... Brother," finished John, as though he'd heard nothing amiss. "Go on out and bring him back."

"In a bag, preferably," growled Scott, who seemed to have the least regard for the youngest Tracy.

Good enough. A great sports philosopher had once said,

"You can observe a lot, just by looking."

Well, Gordon meant to go look, observe, and form his own opinion of the infamous Alan.

The trip back down to the airstrip took much longer with Kyrano at the wheel. Gordon honestly believed that he could have walked the distance faster. To pass the time, he tried asking the cagey old servant a few questions about his father and brothers, but quickly discovered that Kyrano was a master of circumlocution; he used more words than Gordon had ever heard, telling him nothing he didn't already know, with a quiet rebuke into the bargain. Gordon wasn't positive, but he had the distinct impression that somewhere amidst all that flowery prose, he'd just been smacked down for prying.

Right, then. As Kyrano was a dry hole, he rested his arm along the humvee's open window, stared outside for two-headed things, and fell to considering a mystery; one he really had no idea how to ask about.

A few nights previously, when he'd finally managed a moment alone to wander the house, he'd come upon a long hall, a sort of portrait gallery. There were many pictures hung there, some of them holographic, but most simply old-fashioned oil paintings.

One in particular caught his eye, and his heart, for he knew her. It was a large portrait, nearly life-sized, done in gem-like shades of rose, and gold, and richest blue. It was a woman, beautiful and blonde, with the same blue-violet eyes as John and Scott. She was smiling, same as ever, though it gave him a start to see her out of the water. Heart thudding, Gordon had reached forth a hand.

Sometimes..., when he'd swum so hard and so long that he wanted to crawl off somewhere and collapse, when oxygen deprivation turned his limbs all to fire, and made his lungs an aching void... sometimes, then, he saw her.

She'd be looking just that way, soft and encouraging. Only, there 'd be a swim mask on her face. Her hair, instead of falling loose about her slim shoulders, would be a floating cloud of gold. And, she'd be reaching for him. He'd... somehow, he knew that he'd made her proud. That he'd done something right.

His fingers encountered the ridged, swirling texture of dried paint, not silky cloth and warm flesh. No surprise, really. He couldn't quite reach her in the water, either. Not ever.

A word came to his mind, but he pushed it aside as disloyal. Anyhow, you didn't say it like that. The proper word was mummy.

Mum.

There was a brass plate affixed to the bottom of the picture, lit by a tiny bulb. 'Lucinda Marie Tracy'. He'd stared at the picture for a very long time, wondering a great many 'whys?'

Sitting in the humvee, now, thudding and bumping along the rutted trail at a garden-toad's pace, Gordon wondered who he might safely talk to about his... about the picture. Grandmother, he finally decided.

She was a fearsome old thing; tiny, erect and agile as a songbird, with a sailor's mouth and a saint's heart. After meeting Gordon, taking his hand and bidding him sit down to "chat a spell", she'd stumped off and had an enormous row with her son, Jeff.

Gordon, choosing life, had made himself scarce until Jeff departed (early) for Tokyo. If anyone had answers, it was Grandmother Tracy.

A noise overhead caught the boy's attention. Pointing up and out the passenger window, Gordon said to Kyrano, (still creeping along at a majestic 10 kilometers an hour),

"Oh, look! It's the Lear. How 'bout I pop out and run meet it, and you catch up when you can?"

Kyrano gave him a rather severe look, but he grudgingly tapped the accelerator pedal perhaps a whole millimeter closer to the floorboard. Gordon pretended to be hurled backward.

"Warn me, would you, Kyrano," he groused, "Next time you decide t' stamp on th' accelerator like that? I might have got whiplashed!"

All at once the vehicle stopped, andhe really did end up footing it, jogging and bounding cross-trail and through jungle; reaching the airstrip after the Lear jet, but before (hah!) Kyrano. Giving the distant humvee a jaunty, over-the-shoulder wave, Gordon strode up to the parked and keening jet.

He was drenched, panting and scratched. Looked like something the cat had better sense than to drag in; but Gordon was quite proud, still, that he'd made it there in time to greet his younger brother.

Alan Tracy slouched out of the jet and down to the tarmac alone, the cabin crew having evidently decided that he could show himself out. He was about as tall as Gordon, but chubbier, with spiky blond hair, round blue eyes, and the truculent expression of one who expects trouble, and welcomes it.

They stared at one another. Then Alan shifted his torn and marked-
up book bag to the other shoulder, demanding,

"Who are you supposed to be? The ghost of brothers past?"

Recalling his manners, and controlling the urge to snap back, Gordon extended a hand.

"I'm Gordon Tracy, y..."

But the younger boy cut him off, his golden eyebrows flying nearly to his gelled hairline.

"The Gordon Tracy?" He inquired facetiously.

That did it.

"No, dammit, th' other one!" Gordon raged, as six days of breath-holding, stomach-sucked-in good behavior finally crashed around him in little shattered bits. "And I'm bloody well changin' my name! David! Now, there's a thought; no one ever says, 'omigod, it's David'!"

Alan's jaw dropped, and then he chuckled.

"No, for real, man," he prodded, smiling this time. "The Gordon? As in, 'swept away in an avalanche, you can never be as good as he was', Gordon? Like, my arch-nemesis?"

"Arch... what?" Gordon snapped.

"Nuthin'! Just jokes, man. So, uh...," Alan began to walk away from the Lear jet, as the crew had begun gesturing impatiently through the windows. "... who conned you into coming out here to get me?"

Gordon fell into step at Alan's side.

"John's idea, really," the older boy responded, over the roar of engine and sea. "He thought we should become acquainted."

"Whoa!" Alan dropped his bag to the ground at the parking area (forgot it there for three days, too, but that was another matter.) Behind them, the jet had taxied back along the airstrip and turned into the wind. "You mean Megalo-man showed up? Dude! This is serious! We gotta talk. When 'd you get here?"

"Six days ago, give or take. I've been meetin' relatives day an' night. Damn hand's about t' fall off, an' half my ribs 're broke."

Alan grinned at him.

"So..., tell the truth and shame the devil; what d' you really think of the 'Bobbsey Triplets'?"

Gordon ought to have disapproved of Alan's rudeness, but it was nice talking to someone close to his own age.

"Well..., they're certainly friendly," he began, feeling each and every 'welcome home' bruise.

Alan snorted.

"To you, maybe! Got no time for me, though."

Gordon tried another tack, after the company jet had arrowed off into the turquoise distance.

"Well, John seems likeable enough. Quiet sort."

"Okay. Think that, if you want to; but don't get between him and dad, because...," Alan kicked aside the book bag, and struck a dramatic fencing pose, "...there can only be one!"

Gordon laughed, made as if to cross invisible swords with his brother.

"Highlander," he said.

"Dude!" Alan dropped the pose, grinning delightedly, "You know that movie?"

Gordon shrugged modestly, still smiling.

"Not much else t' do in Vallekas, is there, after th' bars 've closed?"

"You go to bars...?" Alan's voice was an awed whisper, his round face a perfect study in hero-worship.

"Free food," his brother explained succinctly. "Buy a cheap drink, an' you can eat tapas till they throw you out. Got t' stretch that damn athletic stipend any way y' can, trust me."

"Wow. That is so cool. Hey, listen...," Alan glanced over to where the laboring humvee had finally crunched its ponderous way around the final bend. "...You don't really want to wait for Kyrano, do you? I mean..., it's okay. I don't care, or anything, just... I know a shortcut. We could, you know, talk, and stuff."

Gordon never realized, till their last conversation, many years later, what his response meant to Alan.

"All right. Nothin' goin' on up there that won't keep. Rather see the shortcut than get batted around again, anyhow."

"Huh!" Alan marveled, as they waved Kyrano off and started walking. "This is, like, so weird. All this time, no offense, man, I hated you. I thought, if I ever finally met you, you'd be... I dunno... like them. Part of the 'Alan's not allowed' club. But, you're not. You're...,"

The baby-faced blond paused, groping for words. He hated school, hated being laughed at. Hated not having a father at home, and hated worse having to sit in his room with his music blasting to drown out the sound of his parents' latest argument. But most of all, he hated being the unwanted outsider in a family of proud heroes. Tall, strong and perfect, every one of them. Every one, but him. Here at last, though, was someone who, just maybe, didn't hate him right back.

"...You're, like, a friend or something."

"We're brothers, right?" Gordon replied distractedly, squinting around at dripping-wet dimness as they entered the teeming jungle. "Tell y' what, Alan; any radioactive horror with two heads pops out, you take th' left head. I've got th' other."

Alan nodded, thinking furiously. For the first time in all his twelve years, he'd connected with someone other than his mom. But... how to cement the friendship? How to keep Gordon from being pulled back over to 'their side'?

All at once, he got a notion. Not just a light bulb, but a halogen floodlight went off in the boy's mind as he said,

"Hey, Bro; wanna see something really cool?"