quite a lot. The doctor said he could make some drastic changes by dosing me up, but that he didn't want to. He said to wait and see if puberty wouldn't iron everything out.
Mr. BROADBENT. After the mirror.
BARRY RUDD. I've always been extremely self-conscious about my physical make-up. Once at the museum I saw the transparent woman, and I offered myself to one of the museum guards as a transparent boy. You see, I have this network of tiny veins on the surface of my skin, so I seem to have waxlike flesh.
Senator MANSFIELD. Now, sonny, after the mirror broke.
BARRY RUDD. Just while I was on my hands and knees picking up the pieces—we only have these two rooms, Mother and Father sleep on a convertible in the main room, my sister and I sleep in the kitchen on a rollaway—this was in the main room by the chiffonier, and, as I say, I was on my hands and knees grubbing around when Susan came in. She's my sister, she's seven. She's known as the beauty of the family: Mother says her hair's like silk, and Momma braids it for her, and then Susan has these enormous black lashes around big pale-blue eyes, so when she looks at you, it's this look of perfect surprise and innocence—completely misleading. She's very shrewd. She took in what happened, and she began to rub one forefinger against the other at me, and teased me, and I called her a brat and got after her, but she's too fast for me.
Mr. BROADBENT. So.
BARRY RUDD. I settled down in the kitchen to a problem I'd been thinking about, and I guess I was there about a half-hour, anyway my mother came in and asked what I was doing there moping. 'Always alone!' she said. I didn't say anything, but I thought of a quotation Dr. Gozar gave me one time. Emerson. 'Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend.'
Senator SKYPACK. By God, now he's an all-fired little genius.
85
THE CHILD BUYER
BARRY RUDD. Please don't mistake me, I don't think I'm a genius. Only in the sense that I would like to be worthy of Dr. Gozar's . . . that I would like to work as hard as I can. ... I thought of solitary ones—of the boy Newton playing alone with his machines, Edison with his chemicals. As a child Darwin loved long walks by himself, and once he became so absorbed in thought he walked off the end of a wall. Samuel Johnson, not joining in the sports at school, perhaps because of his defective sight and repulsively large size. Shelley, reading alone. Byron, loving to wander at night in the dark, lonely cloisters of the abbey . . .
Mr. BROADBENT. What was the problem you spoke of?
BARRY RUDD. It was out of my field, which is taxonomy. I was just daydreaming about the possibility of four-dimensional tic-tac-toe. I've played the game in three dimensions. The image I had was of a three-dimensional game moving through space at the speed of light. How would you represent X's and O's and their interplay in the fluid terms of that game? You see, I've been able since an early age to think of sizes and shapes and relationships in completely abstract terms, not as concepts related to my body, as is the case with most people. Perhaps I could get away from my body as a basis for si/c comparisons because it's unsatisfactory to me. I'm plain clumsy. When I try to do something with my hands, I just get mad. My grandfather carved violins; my father can use the tiniest tools. I can't even write: I get so impatient with my fingers when ideas are racing through my head!
Mr. BROADBENT. Master Rudd, how is all this connected—
BARRY RUDD. Senator Mansfield asked me to begin at the beginning and not leave anything out, and I've been trying to tell you everything that happened, everything that went through my mind, on the afternoon when all this began. I suppose the
actual beginning was what came next, just after Momma bawled me out for being a hermit—a knock on the kitchen door. This is on the street side, and the door's stuck, so I went to the window and saw it was the G-man, and I
Mr. BROADBENT. After the mirror.
BARRY RUDD. I've always been extremely self-conscious about my physical make-up. Once at the museum I saw the transparent woman, and I offered myself to one of the museum guards as a transparent boy. You see, I have this network of tiny veins on the surface of my skin, so I seem to have waxlike flesh.
Senator MANSFIELD. Now, sonny, after the mirror broke.
BARRY RUDD. Just while I was on my hands and knees picking up the pieces—we only have these two rooms, Mother and Father sleep on a convertible in the main room, my sister and I sleep in the kitchen on a rollaway—this was in the main room by the chiffonier, and, as I say, I was on my hands and knees grubbing around when Susan came in. She's my sister, she's seven. She's known as the beauty of the family: Mother says her hair's like silk, and Momma braids it for her, and then Susan has these enormous black lashes around big pale-blue eyes, so when she looks at you, it's this look of perfect surprise and innocence—completely misleading. She's very shrewd. She took in what happened, and she began to rub one forefinger against the other at me, and teased me, and I called her a brat and got after her, but she's too fast for me.
Mr. BROADBENT. So.
BARRY RUDD. I settled down in the kitchen to a problem I'd been thinking about, and I guess I was there about a half-hour, anyway my mother came in and asked what I was doing there moping. 'Always alone!' she said. I didn't say anything, but I thought of a quotation Dr. Gozar gave me one time. Emerson. 'Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend.'
Senator SKYPACK. By God, now he's an all-fired little genius.
85
THE CHILD BUYER
BARRY RUDD. Please don't mistake me, I don't think I'm a genius. Only in the sense that I would like to be worthy of Dr. Gozar's . . . that I would like to work as hard as I can. ... I thought of solitary ones—of the boy Newton playing alone with his machines, Edison with his chemicals. As a child Darwin loved long walks by himself, and once he became so absorbed in thought he walked off the end of a wall. Samuel Johnson, not joining in the sports at school, perhaps because of his defective sight and repulsively large size. Shelley, reading alone. Byron, loving to wander at night in the dark, lonely cloisters of the abbey . . .
Mr. BROADBENT. What was the problem you spoke of?
BARRY RUDD. It was out of my field, which is taxonomy. I was just daydreaming about the possibility of four-dimensional tic-tac-toe. I've played the game in three dimensions. The image I had was of a three-dimensional game moving through space at the speed of light. How would you represent X's and O's and their interplay in the fluid terms of that game? You see, I've been able since an early age to think of sizes and shapes and relationships in completely abstract terms, not as concepts related to my body, as is the case with most people. Perhaps I could get away from my body as a basis for si/c comparisons because it's unsatisfactory to me. I'm plain clumsy. When I try to do something with my hands, I just get mad. My grandfather carved violins; my father can use the tiniest tools. I can't even write: I get so impatient with my fingers when ideas are racing through my head!
Mr. BROADBENT. Master Rudd, how is all this connected—
BARRY RUDD. Senator Mansfield asked me to begin at the beginning and not leave anything out, and I've been trying to tell you everything that happened, everything that went through my mind, on the afternoon when all this began. I suppose the
actual beginning was what came next, just after Momma bawled me out for being a hermit—a knock on the kitchen door. This is on the street side, and the door's stuck, so I went to the window and saw it was the G-man, and I
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