KAREN

SEXUALITY: heterosexual

INTELLIGENCE: highly gifted

CLINICAL PICTURE: predilection to obsessive behavior (licking light switches)

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR: inadequate

ETHNICITY: genetic defect

FAMILIAL CONNECTIONS: two brothers. Single mother.

I’m alive, thought Karen. She didn’t know whether she should be wildly happy about this. She wasn’t the emotional type.

She was injured and had suffered trauma. Said a paramedic. “What’s your name?” asked the paramedic while dealing with Karen’s head wound. “Karen,” said Karen. And the paramedic’s glance wandered past her, searching for a more interesting victim, someone with a bullet hole through which he’d have to shove intestines back in, or someone whose leg needed to be sawed off immediately, right there. Without anesthesia, like in the movies. Here, bite down on this, it’s going to hurt for a minute. He would have saved a life and then would rise, covered in blood, with the severed leg backlit. The paramedic said: “You probably have trauma.” “That’s normal,” said Karen. “Can I leave?” The paramedic nodded. Karen removed herself without rolling her eyes. All children had trauma. It was a permanent condition. Karen didn’t care. Trauma was her middle name. Karen lived with her mother, who was always on the verge of a breakdown, an older brother, who tortured her whenever he felt like it, which was often, and a younger brother, who would die soon, though that didn’t keep him from being an evil asshole, all in an apartment that would have been too small for one person. Karen didn’t care about that either. She was, as mentioned, not the emotional type. She believed in genetics. Her genes must have jumped generations. There must have been a scientist somewhere in her ancestral line. Because Karen was smarter than her entire family, probably smarter than all the residents of Rochdale put together. Her life took place in books and online. She operated in a wonderful world of microbes, genes, bacteria, viruses, and microorganisms to which she gave names. She dreamed about them. Karen’s life became uncomfortable only when she had to leave her own head and do things regarded as normal. Like going to school, eating, washing herself. The only joy Karen took in so-called normal life was the weather. It rained so often in Rochdale that at least on the street she could use an umbrella. Beneath an umbrella Karen was invisible. She tried the trick at home. But it didn’t work.

“For the love of god.”

Cried the mother of

DON

In the next room. She’d heard about the incident on the news.

There were still news programs on the state television station, rain constantly blowing into the faces of sturdy blonde reporters. Who were always standing with microphones in their hands in front of police tape, commenting on catastrophes.

So Don’s mother cried, “For the love of god.”