Absolute Values

Declan Doyle’s parents were not happy about the state of his college applications. Worst part about it: he was only in the eighth grade. Deep intellectual gifts had been bequeathed upon him back when sperm met egg. These gifts were ordained. And these gifts came with baggage, bowling ball-filled briefcases that his parents forced into his hands daily, a well-loved Xbox controller clattering to the ground in the process.

“The game these days,” advised his father, Frank, a defense attorney who knew everything, “is well-roundedness. I definitely want you to play a JV sport—even tennis is OK. But for the whole person angle, you need more than just a couple of hours a year volunteering at a soup kitchen. I know you understand what I’m saying. To stand out in the application process at an elite level, you’re going to need charity as an extracurricular, and you’re going to need a few years of a track record on it. Becky?”

“We do want Harvard,” his mother explained. A director of demand generation in big tech, she had a smile with sharp edges. “Or something like that.”

Declan took their advice to heart, or something like that. An only child, he was used to weathering such injunctions. His moves were limited. Aggression would be blunted by punishment; even his highest-caliber argumentation—ah, and he was something of a Socrates!—would be forced into a Family Discussion. Such an event could conclude only with a project plan, often mapped out in Excel by his father’s loud mouse clicks, his mother making analytics requests that required actual VLOOKUPs. Simply put: it was best to just say yes.

A genius in the head and an artful dodger at heart, Declan had already graced upon the worldly truth that it was possible, more often than not, to give people what they asked for, all while extracting a little something for yourself on the side. It was like solving a small story problem. No, it was more than that—it was his personal microeconomics. He would pickpocket the world, all while appearing to pay it forward. It was absolutely nothing less than the values he had been raised under: His parents offered him every advantage, from money to genetics, and then exhorted him to go forth and conquer.

Yes, what his parents valued most was a demonstrated bias for action. It would be cruel—and, more importantly, unstrategic—on Declan’s part not to give that to them. And so it was a matter of days, not weeks, before Declan bootstrapped his own unpaid tutoring side gig. Math: his platinum subject. He had a roster of three little kids with whom he would spend two 30-minute sessions per week. They were children in educational need, apparently, but they all lived in the Doyles’ gated community, wealthy, healthy, and insulated from the city’s ills. Perhaps the parents were just being frugal—or did they think they were helping him?

He kept these thoughts to himself.

“I’m a Community Servant, Pa,” he said, with a rakish tip of his Mets cap.

That evening his mother came home from work with a soft leather three-ring binder, a box of mechanical pencils, and six cans of that same nitro coffee that she’d been warning was turning him into a monster. With a short laugh, he accepted the gifts. They were adequate sponsorship for the easy work ahead of him.

_________________

All of Declan’s young students were curiosities to him, and not just because of their deficiencies in math. You know the happy meal toy that’s the worst in the current series…the one you throw back in the box with all the wrappers?!? It’s like they’re all that. all broken in totally different ways, he reported to his group text. A dramatic pause of two minutes. But I love kids, guys!! Bloop, went the send.

Melanie, nine, was the first bewilderment. Instead of a child’s desk, she had a workspace as large as a kitchen table. Three of its four edges were crowded by the hard butts of every kind of Barbie doll. They sat with legs dangling, only a little more vacant-eyed than their owner regarding a textbook. It took most of the first tutoring session just to convince her to break up the crowd so that Declan, too, could be seated. With the time they had left, he sighed and simply asked her to count the dolls. On the way out, he deftly migrated the best Elsa into his backpack, along with an unopened Amazon box from a tidy but toppling pile in the foyer.

Nick’s parents must have been riding in the same helicopter as his. The kid was barely four years old, and they were already micromanaging his education. For this, Declan evinced some fondness. “Little bro,” he said, ruffling the child’s blond curls. “You’re pretty cool, like a superhero.” A beat. “Where does Daddy keep the keys to that cabinet over there?”

The last community service of the day was Parker, twelve, only marginally Declan’s junior. Declan already had a bad taste about Parker, whom he knew vaguely from the hallways at school. Parker’s dad was a local news anchor and his mom some sort of retired beauty queen who still made money on appearances. They owned no fewer than three Teslas. (Story at 10, smirked Declan.) 

Parker sucked at “timesing” things. He preferred to think of the act of multiplication as counting one number over and over again. That made him more comfortable. And no, he would prefer not to memorize the tables. He wondered if they might do something else.

Declan pantomimed a half-true migraine, letting Parker loose to get some corn chips five minutes before they were scheduled to quit. Shortly after, the Community Servant strode down the front hallway, saluting his client as his Raven Fjall backpack, heavy with jewelry and electronics, slapped against his spine like Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart.

_________________

Over the next month, Melanie’s Barbies absconded in twos. Of course, he was a natural suspect in the case; Melanie herself confronted him with streaked cheeks. But golden-haired, hazel-eyed, and thin-limbed Declan had a faultless look to him, when he summoned it. He patted Melanie’s tear- and candy-sticky palms and walked her through a thought exercise in which he enumerated the number of daughters and granddaughters in the lives of the housekeeper (2+4), the nanny (2), and the geography tutor (1+2). That totaled five daughters and six granddaughters who all needed Barbies. All girls loved Barbies, right?

Melanie sniffled. Did he think that…?

Declan smiled, sphinx-like. “Hey, look! We just did math.”

To avoid any pattern recognition (admittedly, by someone who could not even distinguish the common characteristics of a series of odd or even integers), the Barbies disappeared at different junctures: impromptu games of hide ‘n’ seek, Melanie’s frequent potty breaks. Their common denominator was their means of demise: a quick chuck into an alley recycling bin on the short walk home.

They were just a ruse for the bigger game, of course. With all eyes on Barbie Gate, Declan found himself in sudden possession of two pairs of new-in-box designer heels, a delectably old-in-bottle Talisker 18, and a few crisp twenty-dollar bills that kept regenerating in a shallow ceramic bowl on an end table. Amazing that these people wouldn’t pay him.

Such adventures at Nick’s house were a bit more difficult. It was rare not to find one or both parents hovering around the kitchen table the entire time. But even the best helicopter pilots take breaks, and one Thursday, as Daddy hopped on a spur-of-the-moment Zoom call about a bad email that had gone out, Declan slid his chair a little closer to his charge. “Hey, Nicky,” he said. “Hey. The funny thing about numbers is that they’re everywhere. I bet your Mommy even types in a number to get into the garage, doesn’t she?”

The child agreed. He had been told that magic code was his birthday, just in case of an emergency, just in case he needed to know—but usually, it was a secret.

Declan nodded seriously. And, after allowing a week for this conversation to fade in memory, he asked Nicky’s mother if it was true that the boy’s birthday was coming up soon.

“I mean, that’s what he said,” said Declan. “But I know that could mean any time! I’d like to bring him a little gift, if it is.”

“Oh, no,” said the mother, looking up from her phone with alacrity. “His birthday is August 4th. Obama’s birthday! But thank you.”

The golf clubs sold so quickly on Marketplace, it was as if they were never even in Declan’s possession.

He got the code to Parker’s garage, too, of course. In this case, he simply requested to ogle the Teslas (“Understandable, man?”) and watched hawkishly as Parker fat-fingered it twice….three times. Parker was terrible at numbers, even when the numbers weren’t doing anything to each other. 

But, his general ineptitude notwithstanding, Parker would be the end of things.

After all, Parker was old enough to pay attention, to pick up some of the stray pieces of thought in Declan’s chill gaze as he surveyed the living room around him in between flashcards. The real problem was that Parker’s older sister, Maddie, was now dating the twin brother of a friend in Declan’s group text. It wasn’t like an update was sent to this end; who cared? But when Declan posted a photo series of himself draped over the hoods of all three Teslas, the twin passed it on, and just one degree of separation later, Maddie was shrieking in the living room how what why gross—and for once in her life, allowed her mother to take her phone from her hand, whereby the math tutor was identified, and suddenly all the other recent losses across the household (scotch, a pair of new-with-tags Lululemon leggings, canned coffees from the beverage fridge) floated to mind and were corroborated with camera footage that usually lived and died, unviewed, on the cloud.

When Declan showed up at Parker’s a few days later, the class dunce was sitting on the front room sofa wearing khakis instead of jeans, a tight smile instead of confusion. Declan knew it even before he heard the front door shut firmly behind him and two locks turn.

“I think we need to talk a little bit about your definition of community service,” said Parker’s mother. Oh, she’d practiced that line—standing in front of the mirror in that same coral lipstick and sweater dress. It was a big day around this big house. And then there was the news anchor father, materializing right behind her.

Declan rapidly calculated a cost-benefit analysis of his next action. He landed on benefit. Pulling out his phone, he texted: need u urgently at parker’s, accused of theft. They locked me in dad.

“I’m getting in touch with my attorney,” he said, to narrate his actions.

Declan practiced his Miranda Rights as expressions of disappointment, and sometimes even insults, were flung in his direction. His arms were crossed, his expression a masterful hybrid of aloof and withering. Parker, too, kept silent, consuming the tension in the room like television.

It wasn’t long at all before the substantial shadow of Frank Doyle, Esquire, filled the stained glass window.

“Linda. Ray. This is detainment,” he boomed. “Please unlock your door this instant.”

Once admitted, his father kept his eyes low to the ground. His voice rang with fatigue. “After a long week in court,” he said. “I was treating myself to a nap—when what happens? My phone buzzes with a text from my son, who’s a minor, saying he’s being held against his will. While he’s doing community service, no less.”

“Frank, we hate to break it to you, but your son is a thief. He’s run off with liquor, he’s even broken into our garage.” Linda stopped wringing her hands to move them to her angular hips.

“Broken in?” Declan’s father held up an eyebrow in exaggerated alarm.

“He stole the code to our garage.”

Frank pinched his nose and closed his eyes. “Look, I know this is all semantics to you. But it’s not to me. To me, it matters.”

“My son has given your family free service. He’s tried to instill within your son a love for mathematics.” He pronounced all four syllables of the word, hallowing it—shifting the subject.

Declan raised his gray-green eyes to the room and brightened them.

“My son is going to Harvard.” Frank looked up now sharply, his voice plangent. “My son is going places. He will do things in this world.”

“Frank, really, this is ridiculous.” The newscaster had grown scarlet. He cleared his throat to dig in: “This is a crime scene, not a graduation party!”

Frank raised a hand. Declan felt the cue to start walking.

“Invoice me for whatever has gone missing from your home,” Frank directed, lowering the hand to place that arm around Declan’s shoulders. He firmed the Mets cap on the boy’s head for loving measure. “We’re neighbors, Ray. Linda. I care for your happiness.”

With the other hand, he shut the heavy wooden door behind him.

_________________

It was not a long walk home, but they still kept the first few minutes of it silent.

“Good to know to let me go first,” said his father. “But it’s no surprise. You’re very shrewd.”

“And you texted me for a reason. Because you’re not just smart in an academic way. You have these—” here he paused, “—these machinations inside of you that, of course, I recognize, and that make me just as proud, if I can really be honest, but they just don’t pass in the general populace, out in the world. You have to wrap them up in something.”

“And I’m sure you did more than this. But your mother was happy to think of you being very kind, and building a résumé, and keeping out of trouble for once. So there’s that. So you need to just retire from your community service duties and find something else to do. Walk away. I don’t want to know what else, how much else. But I just have to say.”

He broke off.

“Stop fucking stealing if you’re going to get caught.”

The late afternoon sun was melting onto the sidewalk in front of their house. The boundarylessness of the image before him, coupled with the moral ambiguity being offered to him, made Declan’s heart beat wildly. It was beating about freedom.

“I can give you guys Harvard, Dad,” he laughed. “Or something like that.”

That was his father’s cue to say, in a discussion-closing tone: “I think we understand each other now, don’t we?”

“I think we absolutely understand each other,” agreed Declan, and he steeled his eyes against the sun to throw his old man a wink strong enough to roll credits.