Pharmakon by Dirk Wittenborn

eyes were wide set, her mouth generous and bowed, her hair was the golden brown of a wild silk moth. She was beautiful—too beautiful.
    He was ready to call off the experiment. It would never work out with someone this lovely. Then he saw she had two canes and her legs were encased in steel braces. Casper was transfixed as he watched her struggle to open the car door. She reached down to release the lock in her braces at the knee, and slid gracefully behind the wheel. Whereas Nina’s being crippled by polio would not have been a plus to 99.99 percent of Yale freshmen, to Casper Gedsic it meant that he had a chance.
    Casper was so overwhelmed by the way in which the improbable had morphed into the possible before his eyes that he did not think to call out her name until the Buick had pulled away.
    Casper began to run. It was difficult to keep up the pace and ask directions to the library at the same time. Getting lost twice, nearly hit by a laundry truck once, an hour later he was still two blocks from the library. Bent over double to catch his breath, he saw the rear end of Nina’s two-tone Buick halfway up a one-way street.
    A man in a leather jacket and jackboots was leaning up against the driver’s window. His hair was duck-assed over his collar and his cheeks were cratered with acne. Leather Jacket looked up and down the street and opened Nina’s car door. When a police car passed, he closed it, stepped away from the car, and lit a cigarette. Casper was disappointed that Nina would have a friend like this. It was a heartbeat or two before he realized that this juvenile delinquent was about to steal Nina’s car.
    Casper was on the passenger side of the Buick now. He saw the custom hand controls mounted on her steering wheel for the brakes and gas. More important, he saw the keys dangling in the ignition.
    The face on the duck’s ass swiveled in his direction. “Get lost.”
    “J-j-j-just give me a minute t-t-t-to . . .” Casper smiled as he opened the passenger door. He had been beaten up enough in his life to know that a grin confuses a bully before it enrages him. Casper was hoping that would give him enough time to . . .
    “What the fuck are you doing?”
    “I f-f-forgot my keys.” Casper had them in hand now. He pushed the driver’s side door lock down before Leather Jacket could open the door and throw him out of the car.
    “Why didn’t you say it was your car?”
    Casper locked the door now. “I didn’t know you were trying to steal it.”
    Leather Jacket laughed. No question, the trajectory of Casper’s life had changed.
    He found Nina between HA and HL in the library’s card catalog room. He passed her slowly, goggle-eyed, like a fish in a neighboring aquarium. It was too good to be true. She was writing down the Dewey decimal numbers of the works of Heidegger. She had just jotted down the title of Heidegger’s Being and Time. Her nostrils flared and she tickled her cheek with a tendril of her hair as she flipped through the card catalog. All wasn’t just right in the world; it was perfect. He had pushed his luck enough for one day.
    Wanting to savor the possibilities of the future, not wanting to risk a setback, he borrowed an envelope from an assistant librarian, and on the outside wrote Nina’s name and the following: “For the time being, being and time does not permit more than this thank you for giving me the opportunity to prevent your car from being stolen. Do you think Heidegger was really a Nazi? Yours respectfully, Casper G.”
    Putting the keys inside, he licked the envelope and handed it to the assistant librarian. “Could you give this to the girl with the cane over by the card catalog?”
    As she read the note, Casper admitted, “It’s d-d-d-difficult to be funny about Heidegger.” When the assistant librarian laughed out loud, Casper shushed her and headed home to replan the rest of his life.

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