It’s a Tuesday morning in February, and I get up as usual, and I stumble into the bathroom to take a shower in the dark. Which is my school-day method because it’s sort of like an extra ten minutes of sleep.
It’s after the shower. That’s when it happens.
It’s when I turn on the bathroom light and wipe the fog off the mirror to comb my hair. It’s what I see in the mirror. It’s what I don’t see.
I look a second time, and then rub at the mirror again.
I’m not there.
That’s what I’m saying.
I’m. Not. There.
I feel kind of dizzy, so I make my way back to bed because if I’m dreaming, bed is the place, right? And I wait to wake up. But I don’t because I already am.
I feel my heart pounding in my chest. My breath comes fast and my mouth is dry. I lift my head off the pillow and see my shape on the bed. It’s right there, under the covers. Then I pull off the electric blanket and the sheet.
Nothing.
So I go back to the bathroom, to the big mirror. And I’m still not there. The mirror is the mirror, and it is on the wall, and I am not there in front of it. I think I am—I mean, I see the mirror, I see my towel wave through the air, I see the shower curtain jump when I punch at it. But I don’t see me.
So I panic, and I wrap the towel around my waist, and I go to tell my mom and dad.
Which is not like me. I don’t tell them much. I mean, they’re okay in small doses, and they can be useful. Them knowing what I’m up to usually makes them less useful.
But they are smart, I give them that much, and this looks like a problem where smarts might count, so I’m headed for the kitchen. I know they’ll both be there, because this is a work day, a school day, and on such a day in the Phillips house, eggs and toast hit the heat at seven-fifteen. Always.
I go down the hall to the stairs, and I stop. I’m scared of the stairs. Normally, I have good eye-hand coordination. I don’t dork out, don’t drop my tray in the cafeteria, trip on the stairs, nothing like that. But there’s a problem this morning: no hands, no arms, no legs, no feet. I feel them, but I can’t see them. I hang on to the banister and feel my way down like a three-year-old.
Then I’m in the kitchen doorway, my feet cold on the tile floor. Dad scrambles the eggs, Mom reads the paper. And I say, “Guys! I can’t see myself!”
They glance at the door to the dining room, and Dad says, “Well, come on in here and let’s see what’s the matter.”
And I say, “But that’s what’s the matter—I am in here!
I can’t see myself! You can’t see me. I can’t be seen—like, I’m invisible!”
Mom looks at Dad, and she smiles that “Kids!” kind of smile that I hate, then looks back to her paper. She turns on her Voice of Authority: “Stop messing around now, Bobby. You’ve only got twenty minutes before your bus. Disconnect the microphone or the walkie-talkie or whatever it is you’re playing with, come hang up this wet towel, and then get in here and eat. Now.”
Meet Professor Mom, also known as the Director. Her motto is, When in doubt, give an order. She’s used to the timid little freshmen in her literature classes at the University of Chicago. She expects “young people” to jump when she barks at them.
I’ve been accused. I’m “messing around,” goofing off. Again. So I pull out my chair, sit on it, grab my orange juice, glug it down, and thump the glass onto the place mat.
And now I’ve got their attention. Completely.
Dad stops stirring eggs and stares at my empty glass. Mom leans so far forward that she spills her own juice, and it drips into her lap. She doesn’t notice.
Dad says, “This is a trick, right? Do something else.”
So I pick up my spoon, lick it, and hang it on my nose—a pretty good trick even when your nose looks like it’s there. The spoon hangs in midair.
“Bobby?” Mom’s voice is squeaky. “Bobby, stop this.”
Another order.
“I’m not doing anything, Mom. It’s just happening.”
The spoon drops and jangles on the floor. It’s a ceramic floor in an old Victorian kitchen in Chicago in February, and I’m sitting on an oak chair wearing a damp towel. I’m freezing.
Dad turns off the heat under the eggs.
Have you ever had the science of exactly what happens during the process of making scrambled eggs explained to you, in great detail? I have. About ten times.
Dad stands there with the wooden spoon in one hand, frying pan in the other. The look on his face says, Perplexed Physicist at Work. I’m expecting a theory any second. And Dad delivers.
He says, “Since we can’t all be dreaming this…we must be looking at some kind of visible light anomaly. I’ve read the research on this kind of thing—I mean, the research on the mathematical theories—but this…this is a phenomenon, an event!”
Such a useful observation. The guy can’t help being Joe Physics. It’s what he does. He works at FermiLab. That’s one of those places where they smash atoms and then take pictures of the bits. Life is one big science experiment for Dad.
Dad’s been waving the spoon around as he talks. Egg boogers are all over the place. Mom tries to talk again, but all we get is more squeaks. I’m starting to wonder when the smarts are going to kick in.
Dad gets it back under control almost right away. He mops up Mom’s juice, serves up three plates, and sits down. Dad and I start to eat, but instantly he stops chewing. Dad watches as I float forkloads of rubbery eggs up to my mouth. So does Mom. And I’m watching too. It’s a good show: Bobby and His Disappearing Breakfast, now appearing on the Big Screen of Life in the Kitchen of the Weird.
Mom’s hand starts reaching for where she figures my arm will be. She’s off by about a foot, so I lean forward to help out. When her hand hits flesh, she freaks, like she’s grabbed a lizard or something.
“Oh, God! Oh, God! It’s Bobby! It’s him! He’s there! He’s…he’s not…Oh, God, David, do something! Let’s…let’s call Dr. Weston—or someone else, a…a specialist.”
So I’m thinking, Oh, great. Yeah, let’s call one of those Invisible Teenager Specialists. I’ll get the Yellow Pages.
But I don’t say that. I say, “Mom, come on, pull it together. I’m not sick or anything. I’m okay. See, I’m eating a healthy breakfast to help build strong bodies twelve ways. Really. Mom. I’m okay.”
And I reach over and pat her hand. She jumps again, but then she grabs hold of my hand with both of hers. She squeezes so hard, I can feel my bones turning to tuna salad.
She’s kind of rocking back and forth in her chair, trying to get her breathing to slow down. She doesn’t know where to look. Her eyes dart all over where I’m sitting, but then she focuses in on the Captive Hand—that blank space between her two hands that feels like her only child, her little baby Bobby, her life’s big disappointment.
It’s Dad again. He’s clearing his throat. That means he knows something we don’t, and he wants to be sure we’re listening carefully. “Emily, now think. We can’t tell a soul about this. Not one person. Not your parents, not Dr. Weston, not Margie or Louis, not anyone. Imagine what would happen if the news of this…whatever this is…if this got out into the public. We’d have every reporter and every camera in the world on our front steps in half an hour…and the government?—I know the government. They would be here ten minutes after the story broke—to take Bobby somewhere ‘safe.’ You think the CIA and the Joint Chiefs would be interested in this? I can tell you, without a doubt, they would. So we tell no one.”
He stops to let that sink in.
When there’s a family crisis or something bad happens, usually you get to call for outside help. When Bobby gets caught shoplifting, you call your lawyer. When Mom drops her ring down the drain, you call a plumber. Dad spills the charcoal grill onto the deck, you call the fire department. But if your kid dissolves in the shower one morning? Who do you call? No one. Dad’s got it right. This has to stay in the house.
Then Dad crams some phony cheer into his voice and says, “Hey, who knows? Everything could be back to normal in half an hour. But no matter what, we tell no one. Agreed?”
Mom slowly nods her head yes, and so do I.
Dad looks in my direction and says, “And you agree too, Bobby?”
Then I realize that Dad can’t see me nodding.
So I say, “Absolutely. My invisible lips are sealed.” Then I say, “But Mom’s got a good point—even if we can’t tell anyone, don’t we have to do something?”
Dad again. “Do? Well…first we have to think. Things that’re impossible never happen, and everything that happens has a law behind it. I mean…there’s only cause and effect, right? We are looking at an effect, so there must be a cause. We find the cause, we reverse it, and that eliminates the effect.”
Joe Physics again.
It’s the look on Mom’s face that makes me talk back to Dad, because she isn’t buying his little science speech either.
So I say, “Yeah, that sounds great, Dad. But that still doesn’t answer the question—which is, what do I do, like right now, like all day today, and…tomorrow, and maybe next week. This isn’t some physics lab, Dad. This is me. Why don’t you just admit that the truth is, you have no idea what I should do.”
That brings Mom back to life. “Now listen here, young man.”
It never fails. Whenever I screw up or mouth off, I miraculously become a young man.
Mom keeps talking. “Your father and I have always been good parents, and we’re not going to stop just because of some…some…special problem. So just mind your manners and keep a civil tongue in your head. We’ll do everything we can—you know that.”
Dad is nodding along, and he says, “Of course we will, Bobby. Now just everyone calm down. What we need to do most of all is think carefully. There’s no such thing as a problem that can’t be solved or…or a process that can’t be explained. It just takes clear thinking.” And by that, of course, Dad means his thinking.
They’re both talking loud, and yesterday I would have just shut up or said “I’m sorry” or something. But it’s amazing how brave you feel when the people who have run your life for fifteen years suddenly can’t see the disgusted look on your face.
I stand up so fast that my chair tips over backward with a big bang. I yank the towel from around my waist and throw it onto the table.
“Well, how about this?” I’m shouting. “How about if I just disappear for a while? You two go ahead and do all the clear thinking you want to. I’ll just drop out of sight—you know, lay low a little. Then, I’ll let you know what I’ve been thinking!”
I take three silent steps backward and stand near the doorway by the telephone.
Five, six, seven…ten seconds.
“Bobby?” Mom is on her feet, looking at where I used to be. But she can sense I’m not there. “Bobby! You stop it this instant!” Now she’s panicked. She’s figured out that I could be out the door and on a bus by now. She’s looking every which way, wringing her hands and biting her lower lip, and then yelling. “Bobby? BOBBY!”
And Dad—Dad is just sitting, palms flat on the table, staring at the floor, shaking his head. It’s the logic again. Dad sees right away that I have all the power, so he’s not wasting energy.
But then come the tears. Mom slumps down in her chair and starts crying, and I can’t take that. I can never take that. I have to fold.
So I say, real quietlike, “All right, all right. I’m right over here. But remember, I’m the one with the problem here, not you.”
Because that’s what they do, both of them. Like if I get in trouble at school, suddenly they’re the ones on trial, and they have to figure out what they have to do. It’s always about them.
Mom’s mad, but mostly relieved. “Robert, that was just mean. It’s not fair to…to hide that way. Promise me, promise me, Robert, that you will never do that again.”
And now I’m not the “young man.” Now I’m Robert. And I’m doing this to her.
But I promise—with my invisible fingers crossed, of course.
Then I say, “But guys, do you get what I mean? I mean like this isn’t just some—phenomenon. And it’s not like I’ve got the chicken pox or the flu or something. This is completely…different, and it’s happening to me, and it means that I can’t do anything like I did it yesterday. So that’s why I’m saying…what do I do?”
And now I’ve got myself scared too. Because it’s true.
Horribly true. Here I am, standing here with my feet cramping up on the cold floor, imagining the rest of my life as the ultimate weirdo.
I can’t go anywhere. Clothes are supposed to have a body inside them, and mine is missing. I could go out naked. But that’s not something sane people do anytime in Chicago, especially not in February.
School? Gone. Off the air. Not that I care much. It’s the U of C lab school. It’s where the professors and the local geniuses and all the rest of the university creeps send their kids. It’s supposed to be so great. Better than Francis Parkman. Better than North Shore Country Day. Blah, blah, blah. Most of the time I can barely tolerate it. Except for the libraries. And jazz band.
I mean, it’s not like I’m some psycho loner or anything. I’ve got friends, kids I eat lunch with, stuff like that. But I’m just not a private-school kid. I go there because my family moved here six years ago. Plus, my mom teaches at the university, so the tuition is cheap. Maybe my school’s a great place if you’re a show-off genius or a soccer god or something. But if you’re me, it’s just school.
But that’s over, at least for…well, at least for today.
I stand there in the kitchen, naked and shivering, and I look at Mom and Dad, still sitting at the table. They’re stumped. I’ve never seen them this way. And that might be the scariest thing of all. With parents like mine, you get used to having them tell you what to do next. But I can see they don’t have a clue. Not about this.
And suddenly I think, Why did I ever believe they had all the answers for me, anyway?
I mean, they do know a lot of semi-interesting stuff. Mom knows politics and history and English literature inside out, and Dad’s a certified brainiac, so he knows tons. And that’s fine for them. But all that, that’s got nothing to do with me, not right now.
So I look at them sitting there and I say, “I’ll be up in my room. I’ve got to figure out what to do.”
And it’s true. I’ve got to figure it out. Because this, what’s happening right now, this is about me.