Slaughter by John Lutz Page B

fluid. He enjoyed working on things mechanical, large and small. He had a driving curiosity. Jordan liked to think that anything he took apart he could reassemble. He was as wrong as he was confident, but that didn’t stop him from tinkering.
    He saved his money and bought a model airplane he had to construct by hand. When it was finished, it looked more like a Russian MIG than the sleek American Saber Jet pictured on the box. When he tried to glide it, the plane looped and then nosed hard into the ground. He would have rebuilt it and tried again, only his father stomped on the plane, laughed, and said he’d thought it was a big bug.
    That was how Jordan’s childhood went, except for his dreams where he went to hide. Except for his nighttime hours of lying in the silence and thinking until early morning, when he was forced to get up and do his chores before walking down to the road and waiting for the school bus.
    Kent sometimes walked with him, but usually had been sent on before Jordan. Nora, too young for school, lay dozing in her crib and was treated like a princess.
    Jordan knew she wouldn’t always be treated like a princess. Sometimes he found himself looking forward to that and felt guilty.
    He was thirteen when he came upon an old Movie Spotlight magazine that was mostly pages of beautiful women posed various ways in various skimpy costumes. Some of the women Jordan was familiar with, like Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan. Others were more his friends’ grandfathers’ age; Sophia Loren and Ava Gardner. Others had names that were only vaguely familiar.
    Jordan turned a page and was surprised to see a photo of a man. Bing Crosby. Jordan knew he had been a singer and a movie star—had been famous for some time. There was a black-and-white photo of Crosby leaning on the fender of a car. A newer photo, in color, had him leaning on a tree and looking straight at the camera. He was, in fact, looking straight at the camera in both photos. In the earlier one, his ears stood straight out, not so unlike Jordan’s. In the newer, color photo, his ears were almost flat against his head. Beneath both photos was the caption “Bing’s Secret.”
    Jordan read the accompanying short text. It seemed that Crosby’s ears did stick out, but there was this tape that was sticky on both sides that the movie star used when he was in front of the camera. Supposedly, Clark Gable used it, too.
    Jordan couldn’t help but smile. If famous people used the special tape, he shouldn’t be embarrassed by his ears. He could find where the tape was sold and buy a roll.
    He stood before the bathroom mirror, holding both ears back with his forefingers.
    Yes, it made a difference.
    He was almost as handsome as Kent.
    He got a role of white adhesive tape from the medicine cabinet, and unrolled about an inch of tape, tore it off the roll, and then doubled it so it was sticky on both sides. He tried it on his right ear.
    It worked for a few seconds, then the ear pulled lose and sprang out from his skull.
    When he attempted to tear off another piece of tape, the metal and cardboard spool came apart. That and the roll of tape flew from his grasp and clattered to the tile floor.
    The door opened. His mother. She looked at him, then at the clutter on the floor.
    â€œWhat the hell are you doing?” she asked.
    Jordan was too surprised and frightened to reply.
    She grabbed him by the right ear, squeezing hard, and walked him out of the bathroom. He could feel tears streaming down his cheeks.
    His father was standing in the hall, holding a sheet of newspaper—the sports page. “What the hell you catch him doing?” he asked Jordan’s mother. “Jerking off again?”
    â€œWho knows or cares?” his mother said. She released his ear and slapped him hard on the left side of his face. His cheek burned.
    â€œWhat’d he break now?” his father asked. “Was he taking that tape