Again, my sincere apologies for the tardiness of this installment!

No Man Knows My Story

by "The Enduring Man-Child"

All standard disclaimers apply.

As always, thanks to cpneb for the beta.

Chapter 5

Kim watched the setting sun from her seat beside Vivian in her obviously expensive, but externally modest looking, Honda. It was at the level where one could look into it without discomfort but still had rays and had not yet assumed the form of an over-sized orange. By its light Kim could see that they were on their way out of Metropolitan Middleton and moving in the direction of Lowerton. Is that were Ned lived, she wondered. If so, funny that he didn't work there instead.

As they entered the outskirts of Middleton Kim noticed a definite decline in the quality of the neighborhoods. Well, if Ned's home was indeed in Lowerton, maybe it would be in a nice neighborhood. She smiled. Over the past two days Ned had been transformed from a familiar face to an enigma, and now she was going learn where he lived, maybe even meet his family.

Unfortunately her musing was brought to an abrupt halt when the car stopped and Vivian announced "We're here."

Kim blinked. They were in the parking lot of one of those seedy once-upon-a-time motels that catered to travelers in the pre-Interstate and pre-Bypass days of yore that had long since become a set of decidedly low-class residences for people in who-knows-what sort of circumstances. Is this where Ned lived? Why? Where was his family?

Kim followed Vivian out of the car and to the door marked "36." Vivian took the key from her purse and unlocked the door. Slowly and with some protesting, the door creaked open.

Vivian flipped on the light. Kim's nose was assaulted by the combined odors of various species of mold and mildew that apparently had been left to grow unimpeded for some time. Her eyes were assaulted by—chaos.

"Oops. Should have warned you about the smell," Vivian said. "As a matter of fact, I really should have brought some Lysol. Sorry I didn't think of it."

"No prob," Kim replied, "If Ned can live here I'm sure I can stand it long enough to find his insurance card," though upon entering she wondered if this was indeed the case.

The aforementioned visual chaos consisted several elements. The walls here and there sported crookedly placed posters—Einstein giving the raspberry was joined by gaudy and colorful fantasy posters of various kinds. Walking required precarious stepping amidst comic books, computer disks, and the packages and contents of various role playing games. The cot against the far wall looked as if it hadn't been made in months. Likewise the computer shared its desk not only with disks and books of various genres but a long-gone-stale cup of coffee and a hideous slice of pizza that had been there no telling how long. Against the wall adjacent to the computer desk, from where it could be watched, was an old nineteen-inch television, a cable box on top and a VCR/DVD recorder on the tray beneath it. The latter was covered with sloppily scattered disks in clear holders, magic marker writing being their only labeling.

"Well, I have no idea where he might keep his wallet, but I suppose we might as well begin with the obvious," Vivian said as she opened the top drawer of the computer desk. Kim wasn't sure she wanted to look at the contents among which Vivian had to scrabble and instead picked up one of the books on the desk. Not surprisingly, it was a book of Escher prints. The book under it was on something called "Fermat's Last Theorem."

"Where do you want me to look?" Kim asked. She was not used to being a bystander, and after all, Vivian had brought her in order to use her deductive skills.

"Just make yourself at home," Vivian answered, absorbed in the task at hand.

Kim picked her way precariously to the cot, unsure what to do with herself. She felt something under her foot—it was a plastic "action figure" of some kind, cloaked and bearded and holding a staff. She was unsure for a moment if she wanted to sit on the cot and crinkled her nose at the prospect. She looked at the door in a nearby wall: must be the closet. Maybe she should look inside? No...not really something she wanted to do. She sat down carefully only to feel something else on the bed beneath her. Eww! She timidly retrieved the object and saw it was a battered paperback with a colorful cover illustration of a dragon and its rider. It was splayed open from long neglect in its current position. There was a tiny settee by the head of the bed holding an alarm clock.

"Found it!" Vivian announced in triumph. "Well, his wallet, anyway. I just hope his insurance card is inside. Ah...here it is. Mission accomplished!" She slipped the card out and into her purse.

"Sorry I wasn't any help," Kim said. She was not accustomed to feeling useless.

"That's all right. I wanted the company anyway," Vivian replied. "Why don't we go into the kitchen and see if there's any coffee?"

The kitchen/dining room was the only other room to the apartment, the first room seeming to serve as everything else. Well—there was a bathroom, or course, just as there was a closet. The door to this was in the wall perpendicular to that which separated the living/bed room from the kitchen. The door was closed and Kim was quite glad that this was the case. No telling how much fungus had been allowed to grow in there.

On entering the kitchen they found a slim refrigerator to their immediate left. After this was a counter with cabinets and a sink. A microwave often, in much need of cleaning was also available. The sink contained several plastic trays, obviously from precooked pizza or TV dinners (or both). A quick look inside the freezing compartment of the refrigerator (again, in need of attention in the form of defrosting) revealed the accuracy of this guess. The lower part of the refrigerator contained soft drinks, condiments, milk, a few eggs, and a some green vegetables. On the wall adjacent to the counter was a range. Unlike the other equipment they'd seen, it seemed practically new and unused. Indeed, the only indication it had ever been used at all was a greasy skillet on one of the eyes. The wall opposite the counter was bare but had a small eating table pushed against it. Like the range, it looked as if it were not subject to frequent use. One chair was pulled up to it.

"Looks like Ned does most of his eating in the other room," Vivian observed.

After taking inventory of the small room she went through the cabinets looking for the desired caffeine. She finally found a jar of instant and a few cups behind it. The first drawer she opened revealed the flatware.

"I haven't found any sugar. Would you like milk in yours?" she asked Kim.

"No thanks. I'd rather not take a chance on what's in the fridge," she answered.

"I don't blame you," Vivian said. Just take a seat and I'll mix us up a couple cups of black."

"Um, there's only the one seat," Kim reminded her.

"Duh! Sorry, wasn't thinking," she apologized. "How about you go bring the computer chair in here?"

"I'll be right back!" Kim told her.

Soon the two of them were seated at the tiny table (Kim took the regular chair at Vivian's insistence) enjoying their coffee. Especially Vivian, who got up twice to make extra cups.

"I know it's getting dark and this isn't a very nice neighborhood," Kim said after a while, having declined any further cup of coffee beyond her one, "but I wish you'd tell me a little about Ned. He's been such a familiar part of my world, but now I see I didn't know anything about him. Are you...free to do that?"

Vivian pursed her lips. "Why haven't you asked your friend Wade?"

Kim recalled that Wade had indeed seemed to be in on all this from the beginning. "I—I don't know," she said. "I just assumed that he wouldn't keep any secrets from me."

"Well, it seems the boy knows how to keep secrets," Vivian smirked, "and that you, above everyone else should appreciate that."

Kim realized at once that she was right.

"So...you're not going to tell me anything, right?"

Vivian seemed to think for a moment before beginning.

"Of course I haven't lived in Middleton as long as you. It was during that unfortunate incident with my former 'mentor,' Dr. Finn, that Wade asked me, while I had nothing else to do, to keep an eye on his friend Ned.

"Exactly how Ned got along before I became such a close friend I don't know. I assume he took a taxi to work, or biked, or maybe just depended on first one person and then another. But since Wade and I are his two closest friends, and I'm the one with the driver's license, I've done most of his chauffeuring of late. I suppose it's because of that fact that he told me so much.

"Ned's from Upperton originally. His father is some big shot professional of some kind. I don't know anything about him because Ned won't talk about him. They don't get along too well. I don't know if he had any brothers or sisters. I do know that his mother is dead, though not any of the details.

"Anyway, the family was Jewish though not particularly observant. But his dad noticed from early on that he was some kind of prodigy, so he sent him as a boy to the local yeshiva. That's where he got his elementary and middle education.

"Kim, have you ever heard of people who can pick up a volume of Talmud, stick a pin through the pages somewhere, and then, just from looking at the top page, tell you exactly what letter the pin goes through on every page all the way down?"

Kim was shocked. "I've never heard of such a thing! Are there really such people? And...you mean to say that Ned—our Ned, the manager of the Middleton Bueno Nacho—is one of them?"

"Oh yes, there really are such people, and 'our' Ned most certainly is one of them," Vivian answered.

"Then why...why does he work as a manager of a fast food place? With a mind like that he could do anything. He could go to Harvard. He could..."

"That's precisely why he works at a fast food place," Vivian said.

"I—I don't follow you."

Vivian went back up to the sink to mix yet another cup of coffee.

"His father obviously expected great things from him," she explained. "But when he was taken out of Yeshiva and put in regular high school...he just floundered."

"You mean someone that smart had trouble learning regular subjects?" Kim wanted to know.

"Oh no. In fact, just the opposite. He learned the subjects without any trouble at all. It was quite easy. Too easy. He got bored."

"I see," Kim said.

"So he dropped out of school. And why not? There wasn't any point to it. There wasn't any challenge at all."

"You mean he knew it all already."

"Oh no, not at all. It's just that learning what he didn't know required no effort whatsoever. One look. One lesson. Boom. Next grade, please. So he didn't enjoy it one bit. It was so boring. So as soon as he was of legal age he dropped out."

"What about college?" asked Kim. "However dull he found high school I'm sure he would have enjoyed that."

"Well...maybe, maybe not. It's all academic now anyway—no pun intended. But the way he explained it to me was that school at any level is simply agony to someone who can learn that quickly. As I said, it's not that he already knows it all—it's just that learning what he doesn't know is simply so easy that it's boring. Four or more years are an awful long time to someone who can learn new information on just about any subject in a matter of minutes."

"Suddenly I feel so inadequate," Kim responded after a while.

"You and me both, girlfriend," said Vivian, to Kim's surprise. "Anyway, since he refused to conform to his father's plans for him he basically kicked him out: disinherited him. They have nothing to do with each other."

"That's—that's terrible!" Kim said, and she meant it. Her only experience of a family had always been so supportive and nurturing that she could hardly visualize any other kind. True, she knew in her mind that this too often wasn't the case, but this was dry head knowledge. Her heart simply couldn't conceive of such a situation.

"Is there no way he can get out of this awful place and get a better job?" she asked at last. I mean, for someone so gifted that they don't have the patience for college living in an old motel and working at Bueno Nacho has got to be torture!"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you, Kim?" Vivian answered. "But the fact of the matter is, unlikely as it may seem, he's actually happy."

"I—I don't understand."

"Neither do I, completely, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that this little two-room apartment, Bueno Nacho, the Robot Rumble, Nerd Nirvana—he's tickled pink. He's as happy as a lark. He's perfectly satisfied. And while I don't completely understand it, I'm glad that he is."

"But that doesn't make any sense at all!" Kim complained. "If he's so smart that a Ph.D. Program at a world famous university would bore him, how can he possibly...?" She let the question dangle at that point as words failed her.

"I think I know why," Vivian explained to her. "It's the people."

"Is that what he said?"

"No, because I've never asked him," she said. "But that's what he talks about whenever I take him to and from work. He's fascinated by the people. And I suppose it only makes sense," she added. "After all, those letters on all those pages of the Talmud never change. That's why they were so easy for him to learn. But people...they're all different. An infinite variety, each individual not only different from all the others but never completely the same from one moment to the next. And that boring little job of his is just perfect for watching, and studying, and dealing with people—and the same probably goes for the crowd at the Robot Rumble and the comics store too. I suppose to someone truly different like him us 'normals' are an infinite mystery. Can you imagine how alien to him a 'normal life' must seem?"

Kim looked down at the floor. "I'm so ashamed of myself!" she whispered.

"Why? What brought that on?" Vivian asked.

"Because I've always thought I was a good person...but I'm such a snob!"

"Why? Why would you say that?"

Kim actually sniffed a little. "Because: I have a great family and a great life. I have a great boyfriend and I help people all over the world. People everywhere know who I am. And I've always felt so proud of myself. I've tried not to act it, but I've always felt so proud."

"Well? Why shouldn't you?" Vivian said. "You have every right to, and I don't think you act proud at all."

"And poor Ned...he's had this life and I knew nothing about it: never even thought to ask him. I just always took him for granted. Oh, I am such a snob!"

"Now cut that out, Kim!" Vivian's tone was harsh and devoid of sympathy. "You're a wonderful person and you know it. You're just a little shocked to learn this about someone you thought you knew and, if you're honest, probably still feeling a little inadequate too. That's no reason to start putting yourself down, so you stop it right now!"

Kim raised her eyes to look at Vivian. "You don't think I'm a snob?"

"Not at all! You're a hero, Kim! People all over the world owe their lives to you! Heck, I owe my job you, and I haven't forgotten—even if I haven't been acting like it this evening. The only thing you need to remember is that there's more than one kind of hero. You're one, you're boyfriend is another—and in his own way Ned's a hero too. I suppose the world is full of heroes when you think about it, whether the traditional kind like you, or the unconventional kind like Ned."

Kim was about to say something else when they heard the slam of a door from an adjacent apartment followed by loud talking from the other side of the wall, which reminded them this wasn't the nicest place for two attractive and unescorted young ladies to find themselves after dark.

"I think that's our cue to be getting out of here," Vivian said.

Kim could only agree.

Vivian finished her coffee and put the cup in the sink ("I really should come over and do a little housecleaning for him while he's recovering," she observed), checked her purse to make sure she had the insurance card, and the two of them returned the swivel chair to its place at the computer desk, turned off the lights, locked the door, and got back in the Honda. They wasted little time in getting back on the road.

Both ladies were silent on the way back to the hospital, each deep in thought.

To be continued...