Chapter Eight: Sundial
---1---
Larry had bad news: Some extremely vocal students are complaining, he said, admin insists on speaking with you—the head of the department to begin with. It's caught up with you, Charles, they want to know why you've missed so many classes without notifying anyone or getting someone to cover for you, why you cancelled the other sessions and particularly why you didn't take care of this sooner, before the situation got out of hand. Your argument in the hallway with Professor Weeks didn't help matters. He has your number, Charles, and he wasn't timid about adding it to his very candid opinion and the voices of the students. I've done what I can to mitigate these circumstances in your absence, but you must step forward and defend yourself or risk irreversible repercussions.
Charlie listened without comment and said he'd take care of it, hung up without saying goodbye. He retrieved the black bat and in his study, put on earphones, indulging in that sensory-pounding music he'd been looking forward to all day, and pondered which students could be so hasty in their judgments, which colleagues. The spoiled ones, he reasoned, who are threatened by the slightest variation in their precious schedules.
How's this for a variation in your schedule?---Scaling a mountain under a madman's sniper fire, freezing and caked in mud, dragging your bleeding, concussive brother—who can barely lift his feet—in a desperate fight to save yourselves from crashing down onto the rocks below or from getting shot in the head.
On the chalkboard, he erased a portion of his current explorations into cognitive theory in favor of a newer project—the armillary sphere sundial, which, after a little research, he would try to build himself. It would be metal, black with gold etchings and numbers, classic but unstuffy, modern and unpretentious. With a fresh chalk, he drew a flat ring five centimeters wide. It filled the board. Inside, he intersected two additional rings: a thick, tilted ring called the elliptic, which represented the sun and planets; and a thinner one which represented the earth's equator.
Next, he split the first ring in two with a rod shooting from the lower left to the upper right, like an arrow through a heart. On the outside of the elliptic he confidently added symbols for the signs of the zodiac and inside, Roman numerals which indicated the time of day, then labeled everything. With a few details and shading, he pulled it into three-dimensionality and retreated to the old couch to review his work.
He rested temporarily, tapping the chalk to his lip, humming and whistling randomly, the bat on the couch, and shortly rose to include a base on the skeletal sphere and structural details on the rod, called a gnomon, which would be set parallel to the Earth's axis, casting its shadow on the equatorial band. Angles would have to be adjusted for accuracy and he preferred it be at least forty centimeters in diameter or larger to create a stunning sight.
For precise readings, the sundial had to be level, positioned east to west, with the gnomon directly above twelve o'clock on the band. It would also have to be customized to the exact latitude and longitude of the city: thirty-three degrees, fifty-six minutes north; one hundred and eighteen degrees, twenty-four minutes west, respectively. He had a lot of work to do.
Stepping back, he analyzed it and began another sketch on the second chalkboard, rendering a map of the garden, the pond, trees, and flowerbeds in relative position to the house, envisioning where it would look best from the windows. Occasionally, a stray cat would monitor the koi and fantasize about actually nabbing one of the big fish and Charlie was concerned those cats could also get into the nasty habit of marking his sundial as their territory. Because of this, he drew the sphere in on the map near the house, outside the back window, reasoning that the felines might be hindered from claiming it as their own if they saw humans in motion.
Finished, he slipped off the earphones. Cats. I wonder if Jacobi is home. There was a torn piece of notepad paper…somewhere. And his mind backtracked to where he'd put it. In his pants or on the table? Didn't throw it away, wouldn't have done that. In his bedroom, he found the number in his jeans, in the laundry, and called her, going back to his study to chat.
She said she lived about a block or two over, round a couple of corners, and was having a late dinner and studying, still no cat.
Even on the phone, she had an approachable manner and Charlie felt at ease, began to tell her about his musical mother, how she gave up Vienna for the law and his father, and how he sometimes heard her voice calling him in the morning—get up, time for school—and Jacobi said she'd had the same experience with her mom. He talked about how his dad technically lived with him, how he'd grown up in the Craftsman home and loved it, could never part with it, would like to raise his own family there. Jacobi loved the Craftsman, too.
He told her about his latest project; she said it would be a fantastic addition, complimenting him on his creativity, impressed by his career.
As their discussion hit its stride, Charlie rediscovered a phenomenon of human nature, one that happens between two people who've just met. He'd opened up to her, a virtual stranger, revealing details about his inner life—feeling safe to do so, actually relieved. Details he'd been unable to share with family or friends.
He mentioned Reylott and she reacted with grace, told him she recalled reading something about the case, the FBI man missing and the search, that they'd been found alive. She was glad they'd survived, found it unbelievable anyone could be that cruel.
Charlie confided, telling her facts the newspapers had never known, about the unbearability of having killed someone; about Don and his struggles and the Reylott sightings. Volkov. Post stress. Dad. Larry. Work. Charlieland.
"You've had a tough time of it, haven't you?" she said.
He plucked ragged threads from the hem of his jeans, finding it difficult to continue talking, to answer that particular question. She understood him. "Still am," he said.
"A man who's come through so much can't give up," she said. "Our moms would want us to work it out, no matter what we have to do."
Finally someone who simply listens to me without being paid to, who doesn't ask prying questions or make judgments or expect what I can't give them. Who lets me be me, accepts where I am, and doesn't give me grief. "Thanks," he said, smoothing the threads down. "Would you like to get together some time?"
She said she'd enjoy that and he invited her to lunch. After hanging up, he realized that toward the end of their conversation he'd forgotten about Reylott—for a few minutes at least.
An hour later, there was a knock at the door. Not now. Charlie was on his laptop, working out an auto design of his sphere, calculating its dimensions.
Another knock, louder.
"Who is it?" he said.
"Who do you think it is?"
Charlie let his father in and went back to the couch.
Alan carried a tray of food. "You must be hungry," he said, and put the food down on the rickety table against the inner wall. "Eat."
Charlie thanked him.
His father dawdled, perusing the chalkboards. "I didn't know you were having art class in here."
"It's a sundial."
"I can see that. You aren't planning on not being a mathematician any longer, are you?"
He saved his design. "Don't worry, Dad, simply a project. Something I've been wanting to do, a custom-made sphere for the garden."
"This is incredible," Alan said, raising his arms, obviously upset. "Aren't you concerned about work?"
"I'm tenured. They can't fire me."
"Charlie, sometimes the more we hide, the more we're noticed."
"I'm not hiding," he said. "I'm conferring with myself."
"No one's been able to reach Don. David's on the way to his apartment."
Charlie's gaze remained on his sphere. He was tired of hearing about Don.
Alan shook his head, fingers on the doorknob. "Whole family's gone to H-E-double toothpicks."
---2---
Charlie ate half the grilled sandwich his father had delivered, drank the hot tea which, by the time he got to it, was tepid. He'd become dehydrated without noticing and gulped it down. Before closing his laptop for the night, he received news from his father about Don: He was cocooned at home, didn't want to be bothered, David thinks he needs some time, that's all, he'll hopefully come to his senses and call us tomorrow.
Special Agent Don, the Notable Eppes. Sir Don, Protector of the World. Status not subject to debate.
He fell asleep where he sat, away from the bed of demons and nightmares. Unfortunately, the demons and nightmares and their companion, Reylott's ghost—a sort of Tortuous Trinity—all had prior knowledge of Charlie's whereabouts and followed him there, making sleep sporadic, plagued by an incongruent mixture of images ranging from shreds of bad dreams to pleasant ones of Jacobi, her speckled eyes inviting, to others of Don at the batting range, his body spotted with burn scars. Somehow, the wacky mixture combined to rot everything in the basket along with it, swallowing up the good images and feelings with the bad so that in the morning, he didn't feel very well and it felt as though the moth had returned, fluttering in his stomach.
Before washing up, he called into work, bypassing Larry, told his superiors he'd had a family emergency and wouldn't be in until further notice. He recommended one of his assistants cover his classes in the meantime.
The head of the department grumbled, told him there were recent erratic behaviors Charlie must account for, that this couldn't go on indefinitely.
Charlie grumbled back, told him there were plenty of other universities that would be happy to hire a highly skilled polymath on the spot.
He went up to his bedroom, heard Alan downstairs in the kitchen, and prepared for lunch with Jacobi, determined to have a nice, easy-going day. She'd suggested they meet at a café near the park at noon between her classes.
His father came up, greeted him with a smile, less tense than the previous night, and asked him about Volkov. Charlie told him he would reassess his decision then crossed his fingers hoping he would drop the matter.
Alan was dressed to go out. "I feel I should stick around," he said. "I keep remembering you're supposed to be at work."
Charlie sat to pull on socks. "I'm meeting a girl, Dad."
"Well, under normal circumstances I'd be elated, but since you and Don have been having such a hard time of it, I'm not so sure that's a good idea."
"She's beautiful," he said, tying his shoelaces. "She reminds me of mom in some ways."
"Really? Lot to live up to. Who is she?"
"Jacobi Genini. Lives nearby. First year music major at UC."
"Little young for you?"
"It's her second degree. She has a bachelor's in poly sci a few years old."
"I wouldn't move too fast," Alan said. "Your problems won't go away just because you meet somebody you think is beautiful."
Charlie got up, going to the closet for a shirt. "I didn't say they had." He selected a white one. "For my sanity, Dad," he said, putting it on. "I need to play."
Alan straightened his son's collar. "You two suffered a lot. You didn't deserve it. Don won't talk about it anymore. I don't know what to do for either of you. I'm lost."
From the nightstand, Charlie picked up his watch, clipped it on. "I'm going out, aren't I? I'm not hiding."
"Call if you want anything. I'll be seeing how your brother's doing." He gave him a tap on the face. "Play nice."
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