Strip Search by William Bernhardt Page A

he was content to keep it that way. It hadn’t held him back any so far. And there had been benefits, he thought, as he gazed down at his hapless autistic adult offspring, who was thumbing through the pages of
Wuthering Heights,
a book he’d read so many times he could probably recite it from memory.
    Forget the
probably.
He could recall every word, like one of those living books in the last chapter of
Fahrenheit 451.
The image brought a small smile to O’Bannon’s face. Darcy was his boy, after all. At least a little piece of him.
    O’Bannon placed his sterling steel cane against his desk and eased into his chair. He’d spent every day for the past several months pretending he wasn’t having any serious trouble getting around. What was a gunshot wound in the gut to a tough old cop like him, anyway? Barely worth mentioning. Except that it still hurt, even half a year later, every hour of every day, even with the medication no one at the office knew he was taking. It was much more difficult now for him to get around, to take care of business. More difficult to take care of Darcy. And Darcy typically required a lot of care.
    “Have a good day, son?”
    “Okay,” Darcy said, not looking up from the book on the floor, his chin propped up on both elbows. “Not Excellent. Certainly not Very Excellent.”
    “Did you go to the day care center?”
    “For three hours and forty-six minutes. But they do not really let me do anything with the children. Not by myself.”
    “And I guess there was no time for custard. Because of course then it would be a Very Excellent Day.”
    “Susan took me to The Custard Factory.” He rolled over onto one elbow and, although he didn’t actually make eye contact with his father, did look in his general direction. “But she got a call before we finished. I had to take Bus 14, then Bus 36B home.”
    “She, um, didn’t take you with her?”
    “No. Not this time.”
    “Did she say why?”
    “She said they would not let her.”
    “Did she say who
they
was?”
    “No.”
    “Did you ask?”
    “No.”
    Well, that was a relief. “Why didn’t you?”
    “B-B-Because I already knew.” He twisted back onto both elbows and resumed the adventures of Heathcliff and Catherine.
    Oh. Well, of course he did, damn it. The kid was scary sometimes, the way he knew everything. Except the common sense and social skills normally acquired by a five-year-old. Looked like O’Bannon was in for a chilly evening. Unless maybe…
    “Darcy, you wanna play a game? Maybe chess? It’s your favorite.”
    “But you hate it,” he said, mumbling into his hand. “It is not fun to play with someone who is not enjoying the game.”
    “Okay, what about Scrabble? We both enjoy Scrabble.”
    “I always beat you at Scrabble.”
    Yes, that would be because you know every word in the whole damn dictionary and can anagram letters like a code-breaking computer. “I still enjoy playing.”
    “I would rather not, if you do not mind.”
    “Well…what would you like to do?”
    Again he turned, if only for an instant. “I would have liked to have gone with Susan.”
    O’Bannon sighed heavily and closed his eyes. He knew better than to perpetuate a discussion that could never reach a satisfying result. They couldn’t talk to each other. They just didn’t know how. And much as he might like to, he couldn’t blame it all on the neurological disorder. Darcy did much better with Susan. Some of the young women at the day care center. Even small children. But not with his father.
    He still remembered sitting in that child psychiatrist’s office, twenty-three years ago, hearing the devastating news for the first time. He hadn’t wanted to go at all, but the administrators at Darcy’s nursery said there was a problem, a serious one, and that he wouldn’t be allowed to return unless they sought some professional help. So they did, and the great man in the glistening white coat returned after half a day of observation and