NORMAN
I met him on my birthday. The sand under my back was all dry and tickled. Some of it was sandwiched in my waistband, but I didn’t want to move since the chair was molded like clay to my body. Birthdays always made me tired. Every birthday, I liked to think that I had a twin brother to celebrate with since my parents were anti-birthday parties. They thought “vacations were a better party.” They did get me a few gifts though: the new Pearl Jam cassette and a Boogie Board which was, to give them some credit, an awesome gift. I loved the water. Whenever you’re in the water, you feel like you’re its twin brother. Like you couldn’t tell us apart.
My eyes were closed but I heard the water calling me with its crushing oceany voice. I shot out of the lounge chair, weave-pattern all over my red face cause I hadn’t been moving. I grabbed my Boogie Board with my goose-fleshed arm, ready to meet it, and bounced off the ground with sand fanning behind my steps. As my feet fell, birds sprayed upward, afraid to block me. I was a bullet train. I hit the water. Belly on the board, I closed my eyes, the rest of the world invisible except for the waves moving me. I knew the birds envied me, no animal could feel like that.
It was over quick. My board slid onto the sand, feet burning against the brash surface. I imagined my wet teeth glowing under the sun above them.
I opened my eyes and a face with gray hair on top looked down at me.
“Cool,” said the face.
“I’ve been practicing, I want to be a pro surfer one day,” I said.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Do you want to try?” I said.
His face had no wrinkles or blemishes. It was smooth and boyish. His hair, though, was gray and glimmery like a seventy-year-old rockstar or a comic book villain. The rest of him looked like he was my age and he had a proper British accent like I’d seen on TV programs. I’m not sure if I had met an actual British kid, but I’d seen a bunch of old Doctor Who episodes my dad had on VHS, so I knew the culture pretty well. He had a name tag covering a purple hibiscus on his shirt. It read NORMAN. From my board, I lifted myself and poked the name tag, water darkening the paper.
“That’s your name?”
“No, it’s really my nickname,” said Norman.
“I’m Gus, do you want to try with my board? It probably has good birthday luck.”
I pushed the board into Norman’s stomach, leaving him hunched over.
“I really must go,” he said, holding his stomach.
I frowned. “Are your mom and da–” but before I could finish my question, Norman ran to the hotel behind us.
I had a fight with my parents in the hotel restaurant. My mom held a cigarette in her hand and my dad, a mojito. I didn’t have much room to defend myself: earlier in the day, I was caught with the Macy’s catalog snuck into my suitcase, all pages ripped out save for the underwear section, a secret I thought I could keep discreetly. A friend at school gave me the catalog. It wasn’t even mine. My friends took turns on who could have it, and it was my turn. They showed me its “magic” during gym class, hiding in a corner behind the bleachers. When I first saw it, I watched them all light up and some of them said that it made them feel really nice, so I wanted to feel the same way. But my parents didn’t get it. They didn’t understand that it was just my turn.
A few tables down, I saw Norman sitting with two normal-enough looking adults. His hair was still gray, he wore some khaki pants a few sizes too big and a polo shirt his parents probably forced him to wear. He still had his name tag on.
My parents were still trying to teach me a lesson about sex and maturity, but I had stopped listening. I wondered if Norman’s hair was real, and I intended to find out. So I leapt out of my seat and announced, mid-conversation, that I needed to use the restroom. On my way, I stopped behind his mom, looking at Norman, emphatically nodding towards the direction of the bathroom. He scrunched his eyebrows and shook his head. Denied. I got more animated and directed my arm like those guys that work at airports. His eyes got big and frightened. His parents turned around looking at me, but in a moment of feline instinct I turned around and faced the bartender.
“Something, sir?” He asked
“I would like a mojito please.”
“Virgin?”
“Right.”
I turned back around and Norman’s seat was empty. Impressive. I spun towards the bar again, and found a tall glass filled with green flora and sugar waiting for me. I snatched the mojito and determined towards the bathroom.
Norman stood at a urinal and I approached him, cautious not to make noise. Feet falling delicately, I arrived behind his hair. Here it was. I’d never seen a kid my age with hair like that. It was shiny hair. It was cool. I wasn’t jealous. Without thinking, my hand grasped the gray tufts yanking the scalp binding them. Norman yelped while his head bent backwards. He whipped to face me.
“Why’d you do that?” he barked.
“I thought it was a wig, I’m sorry. My arm has a mind of its own. Maybe it’s a disorder or something. Why’s your hair gray anyway?” I questioned.
“Well-”
“Are you in a punk rock band?”
“No.”
“Metal rock band?”
“No.”
“Do they do Halloween on a different day in England?”
“No, I — ”
“So what is it?”
“I’m mechanical.”
“You’re mechanical, like a robot? Like a Dalek? Have you seen Doctor Who?”
“No and yes, that’s exactly right. I was made in a workshop to be a lot like all of you. I am almost the same, but instead, I have wires everywhere. But I am similar.”
“Why did they build you?”
“I’m not sure of my purpose. I just know what I am. My chip activated after the factory, so I don’t have any recollection before that. But I do have two keepers, caretakers.”
“Your mom and dad?”
“Yes, it’s like that. They make sure I don’t malfunction, and they keep all of my parts in optimal shape, but now I’m not sure they are caring for me. I’m not sure what they want.”
“Oh.”
“They have been acting strange. They watch me closer, monitor where I go, what I eat. I know this may seem like a lot to tell you now, but I do fear that they’re trying to disable me. A reset of some kind.”
“My parents just took away my Macy’s catalog,” I said. “But it was just my turn to have it.”
“Exactly.”
The mojito glass in my hand started to get sweaty so I offered Norman a sip.
“Oh… No thank you.”
“No, it won’t get you drunk or anything,” I said. “It’s virgin.”
“No, I just can’t drink it. Because of the wires,” he said.
“I didn’t know it was that serious. So you can — ”
Norman tacked his hand over my mouth and whipped his head towards the door. We heard steps marching through the hallway. His eyes grew wide, and he ran, crashing through the door of the bathroom stall, placing his feet on the toilet and crouching to remain invisible. Norman ran like it was something horrible, so it was. I stood solitary next to the urinals, unsure of what to do with my arms or my mojito.
They pounded like drums, louder and louder, building to a creaking crescendo of the door. The minotaur. An orderly-dressed man with cheekbones that could cut through a ribeye. I recognized him. Yes, I had seen those piercing eyes before. It was Norman’s caretaker.
“Hi, have you seen Norman anywhere?” asked the man. Cold voice. He sounded like he didn’t like dogs. I was paralyzed. I had a few options: I could lie to the man, I could make a run for it, I could beat him up, or I could come clean and tell the truth. I scanned the bathroom for a minute, looking for a weapon, stalling, putting on a show, looking upwards like Norman could have crawled through the ceiling vent. The man raised an eyebrow, and I began murmuring to myself.
“What was that?” asked the man. Very cold voice. He definitely didn’t like dogs.
“Oh nothing. I think I saw him leave a few minutes ago.”
The man groaned and nodded his head, walking out the door. And as soon as he closed the door, Norman popped from the stall with a bright smile. My heart was pounding like mad and my eyes scattered and couldn’t focus, but he was so happy so it was OK.
“That was perfect!” said Norman. He hugged me, gripping tight. He was strong.
He explained that we had to escape the hotel and that his parents would keep pursuing him.
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But I didn’t really want to. I explained that my parents would never allow something like that. Norman gave me a confused look.
“How do I even know that you’re a robot? Can you prove it?” I asked.
“How can I prove it?”
“Well, do you have powers or something?”
“No, not really.”
“Anyways, my parents will kill me. I’ll be dead, I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
“The catalog,” said Norman.
Tough one. I thought about it and grit my teeth. Norman was my new friend. And I felt like we had a lot in common. I nodded my head. OK. We ran through the lobby and onto the life-crowded street outside. The stars and people all looked the same.
When the moon shone, that was a new world to us, and we looked at the noise as an audience. Smoke, chatter, warm café lights, people walked on the endless street towards their nights. In front of one of the bars were some middle-somethings with exposed golden chests, bushels of hair grown on top of their skin. They smoked cigarettes in between blurbs of shouting and smiling, and they punched each other softly when they made jokes. I didn’t want to admit it, but I savored the whiff of tobacco. A cream-orange cat raced in front of us, fleeing towards its own whims. We strolled arm-in-arm, afraid to lose each other.
I couldn’t believe how normal it all felt, comfortable. They were all nicely placed in the puzzle of movement. Of course I didn’t understand that, and it was better that way; to perceive it all for the first time without understanding. That was understanding.
While we walked, I got another whiff of tobacco coming from our left. This time, I followed the smoke like a bloodhound, until it led us to an empty red-checkered tablecloth with a smoldering cigarette on the ashtray. Three chairs sat together, alone. We sat in the two across from each other and looked at the cigarette.
“Have you ever tried one?” Norman asked.
“Yes,” I lied.
“Can you show me how to do it?”
I held the cigarette trembling between my un-calloused fingers. Long overdue to be ashed, some gray tobacco fell from the end and sullied the tablecloth. I had seen Marlon Brando smoke in a movie, so I followed his lead, exuding suave. It tasted like paper and iron. My breath shot inward, lips puckered, and I held in. I kept it there and the smoke crawled up the walls of my lungs, tickling. But I kept holding and my lungs gave up, letting smoke flee and then my spit was all over the table cloth. I told Norman that I was sorry and that it must have been expired or something, but before he could answer, someone sat down in the third seat; a woman. Mortified, we looked at her like she could claw us to death.
She laughed a bit and, in an accent, asked me how I enjoyed her cigarette. I stammered, searching for an answer, but I don’t think I ended up saying real words.
“Aren’t you kids supposed to be with your parents?”
“They’re trying to ruin our lives,” said Norman.
“I remember that age. How are they trying to ruin your lives? Are you guys grounded? Is this your great escape from your tyrants?”
We didn’t know what that word meant but we were too embarrassed to admit that, so we said yes. We were a bit scared to say anything.
“Well that’s alright. You can stay here for a bit if you want. I’m just watching,” she said as she pulled a fresh cigarette from her shirt pocket. She had curly brown hair down to her back, blinked a lot, and smelled like burnt sugar. She didn’t speak very often, only when she knew what to say. We explained to her the entire situation. That Norman was, in reality, not a human like us, and that he needed protection from being turned off.
“You’re a robot? Like with a motherboard and wires?”
“Well… yes. Yeah,” Norman said.
“Yes?”
“Yes!” Norman raised his voice, looking at me the whole time.
When she did speak, it was as if we were equals. A poet, a banker, a barista, it didn’t matter what she did. We didn’t think to ask what she did for a living because we didn’t care what our parents did for theirs. She told us that she appreciated that. For living, however, she told us that she did quite a bit. Among her hobbies, she said that dancing helped the most. Her name was Apollonia. I asked Apollonia if I could try the cigarette again now that I had some practice.
“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t have let you try it the first time. Anyways, you guys need to go back to your parents, I’m sure they miss you — ” she corrected herself. “They’re trying to ruin your lives, I know this. But I’m sure you could hide in the hotel.”
I looked at Norman, asking with my eyes if we should go back, but he just fidgeted with the purple fabric of his shirt.
“Not yet,” said Norman.
“Not yet?”
“I just…” He looked at Apollonia for the first time. “What are you doing? You’re just nothing?” He still couldn’t look her in the eyes.
“I guess I’m not a robot. That’s surely something.”
“But how do you know what to be?”
“Whenever I feel like I am, I know… you boys are staying in the hotel on the water, right?”
We nodded.
“Ok. Let’s walk there.”
Away from the balmy lights, We followed her down the cobblestone like ducklings. Norman and I were holding hands, but he held on harder than I did. As we got near the hotel, we heard muffled singing coming from a paint-faded brick building beside it. Its door had a fur of splinters and an older woman with a glass of red wine sat outside with her eyes closed, swaying to the muffled song.
Inside was warmer. It was a tight space with around ten people, but it felt filled to the brim. They chatted but not much; the attention was all centered around three figures in the middle. A woman with ink black hair tied back, wearing a lush red dress and two men sitting behind her. They were very old and their wrinkles looked like proof of experience. One had a felt hat and a guitar. The other was hatless with nothing in his hands. He began to clap in rhythm.
“Watch them,” said Apollonia.
The men groaned and sang. It wasn’t singing like I had heard before. No, it felt like it came from somewhere deeper in their chests. He cried. And the guitar sounded like it came from his voice too, or maybe they came from the same place. And the lady began to dance, slow at first. The fabric of her dress swayed and bounced like a sea animal living on her. She got faster. The clapping sped up. Their feet slammed against the wood floors, shocking me every time they hit the ground, and speeding the woman up so that she really marched. The men groaned and exclaimed things I didn’t understand, and the guitar seemed to put beads of sweat on her forehead, and I think I started breathing faster.
And that made sense. She appeared to be completely unaware of herself, mercilessly thrashing her arms in rhythm in physical harmony with the sound. She became what surrounded her. She was nothing, and comfortable in that. I would say she was beautiful, but I did not feel like I was looking at her. Not really. Not as she is. They all moved in her arms. I think that was the moment it all became unsure for Norman.
Hypnotized, we watched her whipping and flying. When I looked at her closed eyes and her slightly moving mouth, I recognized something. That’s how I looked when I was on my boogie board. Norman slid closer to me and put his head on my shoulder.
“I wish I could do that,” he said.
“Do what?”
“What she did out there?”
“You can learn stuff like that,” I said.
“I can’t. I can’t change.”
Apollonia came back to us and told us that it was time to go back, and we finally listened to her. Norman was ready this time. I asked him about his parents, if they would still be looking for him. In a shallow voice and head down, he told me that it was fine. We walked down the same street very slowly. We looked at every person, every dancer.
“Do you know how she could do that?” asked Norman.
“I’m not a very good dancer, but I can show you something,” I said.
We returned to the hotel and went to the beach. No one spoke there. No noise from the street, and no music save for the waves. Melodic shouts accompanied every crash. On the sand, I held Norman’s skin tight like I was testing to feel wires, but it all just felt like skin. We looked at the bare world, fully unoccupied save for the glint specks of stars, moon, and the water below. I took off my shirt and told Norman to do the same. He just shook his head, refusing to follow along.
“If I get in, you have to get in,” I said.
“I can’t.”
“You’ll feel really good. It’ll be like the dancer. I think you’re like me and I’m like you. We can be brothers in the water. Brothers for real.”
“I can’t,” he stammered, water filling his eyes.
“Because you’re a robot?” I said.
“I’m so scared. I’ve never tried it before.”
He twitched and he wouldn’t look at my eyes, just at my bare stomach. He looked at it badly. I wanted to say sorry, but something stopped me from saying anything. And before I could come up with something, Norman took his flower shirt off, and he ran. The shirt laid on my feet. Before me, he fanned sand on my knees and I yelled and told him no. I told him no and tried to stop him for some reason, but he kept running, but I said no again, when it was too late, after he fell into the blue. A wave crashed into him, covering everything. I bolted after him, but something jerked me back.
“Gus!” my mother screamed. “What are you doing?”
I looked back at the water and I didn’t see him. I pointed at the water in an effort to explain. I couldn’t speak, nothing would come up. I wanted to tell her so badly, to let her know that I needed to see him come out. She dragged me while I writhed, my feet brushing against the sand. I cried. All I heard was the waves crashing. They crashed and I hoped he came out.
That was the last time I spoke to him. I would have liked to have seen him. To know what he found out. But I don’t really get to know that. Not for Norman, not for me. But I see him sometimes. On the news the other day, I saw a group of boys rescued from a failed submarine mission. They pulled Norman out of the water, and he went home. My wife and I have a little boy too, and when he tells me with grave conviction that he’s the best basketball player in the world or that he’ll be a famous singer, I think of Norman. I think of his name tag in all capital letters because that’s what he thought it was. I think of him most when I swim though. Wading through the water, I still feel like it’s my twin brother. I feel like I could be the best basketball player in the world or a famous singer a pro surfer a dancer or a robot. I feel like Norman was wrong.
