The Institute Read online

“Luke’s not in trouble, is he?” Eileen asked when they were seated. “If he is, he hasn’t said anything.”

  “Not at all,” Greer said. He was in his thirties, with thinning brown hair and a studious face. He was wearing a sport shirt open at the collar and pressed jeans. “Look, you know how things work here, right? How things have to work, given the mental capacity of our students. They are graded but not in grades. They can’t be. We have ten-year-olds with mild autism who are doing high school math but still reading at a third-grade level. We have kids who are fluent in as many as four languages but have trouble multiplying fractions. We teach them in all subjects, and we board ninety per cent of them—we have to, they come from all parts of the United States and a dozen or so from abroad—but we center our attention on their special talents, whatever those happen to be. That makes the traditional system, where kids advance from kindergarten to twelfth grade, pretty useless to us.”

  “We understand that,” Herb said, “and we know Luke’s a smart kid. That’s why he’s here.” What he didn’t add (certainly Greer knew it) was that they never could have afforded the school’s astronomical fees. Herb was the foreman in a plant that made boxes; Eileen was a grammar school teacher. Luke was one of the Brod’s few day students, and one of the school’s very few scholarship students.

  “Smart? Not exactly.”

  Greer looked down at an open folder on his otherwise pristine desk, and Eileen had a sudden premonition: either they were going to be asked to withdraw their son, or his scholarship was going to be canceled—which would make withdrawal a necessity. Yearly tuition fees at the Brod were forty thousand dollars a year, give or take, roughly the same as Harvard. Greer was going to tell them it had all been a mistake, that Luke wasn’t as bright as they had all believed. He was just an ordinary kid who read far above his level and seemed to remember it all. Eileen knew from her own reading that eidetic memory was not exactly uncommon in young children; somewhere between ten and fifteen per cent of all normal kids possessed the ability to remember almost everything. The catch was that the talent usually disappeared when children became adolescents, and Luke was nearing that point.

  Greer smiled. “Let me give it to you straight. We pride ourselves on teaching exceptional children, but we’ve never had a student at the Broderick quite like Luke. One of our emeritus teachers—Mr. Flint, now in his eighties—took it on himself to give Luke a tutorial on the history of the Balkans, a complicated subject, but one that casts great light on the current geopolitical situation. So Flint says, anyway. After the first week, he came to me and said that his experience with your son must have been like the experience of the Jewish elders, when Jesus not only taught them but rebuked them, saying it wasn’t what went into their mouths that made them unclean, but what came out of them.”

  “I’m lost,” Herb said.

  “So was Billy Flint. That’s my point.”

  Greer leaned forward.

  “Understand me now. Luke absorbed two semesters’ worth of extremely difficult postgraduate work in a single week, and drew many of the conclusions Flint had intended to make once the proper historical groundwork had been laid. On some of those conclusions Luke argued, and very convincingly, that they were ‘received wisdom rather than original thought.’ Although, Flint added, he did so very politely. Almost apologetically.”

  “I’m not sure how to respond to that,” Herb said. “Luke doesn’t talk much about his school work, because he says we wouldn’t understand.”

  “Which is pretty much true,” Eileen said. “I might have known something about the binomial theorem once, but that was a long time ago.”

  Herb said, “When Luke comes home, he’s like any other kid. Once his homework’s done, and his chores, he boots up the Xbox or shoots hoops in the driveway with his friend Rolf. He still watches SpongeBob SquarePants.” He considered, then added, “Although usually with a book in his lap.”

  Yes, Eileen thought. Just lately, Principles of Sociology. Before that, William James. Before that, the AA Big Book, and before that, the complete works of Cormac McCarthy. He read the way free-range cows graze, moving to wherever the grass is greenest. That was a thing her husband chose to ignore, because the strangeness of it frightened him. It frightened her as well, which was probably one reason why she knew nothing of Luke’s tutorial on Balkan history. He hadn’t told her because she hadn’t asked.

  “We have prodigies here,” Greer said. “In fact, I’d rate well over fifty per cent of the Brod’s student body as prodigies. But they are limited. Luke is different, because Luke is global. It isn’t one thing; it’s everything. I don’t think he’ll ever play professional baseball or basketball—”

  “If he takes after my side of the family, he’ll be too short for pro basketball.” Herb was smiling. “Unless he’s the next Spud Webb, that is.”

  “Hush,” Eileen said.

  “But he plays with enthusiasm,” Greer continued. “He enjoys it, doesn’t consider it wasted time. He’s no klutz on the athletic field. He gets along fine with his mates. He’s not introverted or emotionally dysfunctional in any way. Luke is your basic moderately cool American kid wearing rock band tees and his cap around backward. He might not be that cool in an ordinary school—the daily trudge might drive him crazy—but I think even there he’d be okay; he’d just pursue his studies on his own.” He added hastily: “Not that you’d want to road-test that.”

  “No, we’re happy with him here,” Eileen said. “Very. And we know he’s a good kid. We love him like crazy.”

  “And he loves you. I’ve had several conversations with Luke, and he makes that crystal clear. To find a child this brilliant is extremely rare. To find one who’s also well-adjusted and well-grounded—who sees the outward world as well as the one inside his own head—is even rarer.”

  “If nothing’s wrong, why are we here?” Herb asked. “Not that I mind hearing you sing my kid’s praises, don’t get that idea. And by the way, I can still beat his ass at HORSE, although he’s got a decent hook shot.”

  Greer leaned back in his chair. The smile disappeared. “You’re here because we’re reaching the end of what we can do for Luke, and he knows it. He’s expressed an interest in doing rather unique college work. He would like to major in engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and in English at Emerson, across the river in Boston.”

  “What?” Eileen asked. “At the same time?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the SATs?” It was all Eileen could think of to say.

  “He’ll take them next month, in May. At North Community High. And he’ll knock the roof off those tests.”

  I’ll have to pack him a lunch, she thought. She had heard the cafeteria food at North Comm was awful.

  After a moment of stunned silence, Herb said, “Mr. Greer, our boy is twelve. In fact, he just turned twelve last month. He may have the inside dope on Serbia, but he won’t even be able to raise a mustache for another three years. You . . . this . . .”

  “I understand how you feel, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation if my colleagues in guidance and the rest of the faculty didn’t believe he was academically, socially, and emotionally capable of doing the work. And yes, at both campuses.”

  Eileen said, “I’m not sending a twelve-year-old halfway across the country to live among college kids old enough to drink and go to the clubs. If he had relatives he could stay with, that might be different, but . . .”

  Greer was nodding along with her. “I understand, couldn’t agree more, and Luke knows he’s not ready to be on his own, even in a supervised environment. He’s very clear-headed about that. Yet he’s becoming frustrated and unhappy with his current situation, because he’s hungry to learn. Famished, in fact. I don’t know what fabulous gadgetry is in his head—none of us do, probably old Flint came closest when he talked about Jesus teaching the elders—but when I try to visualize it, I think of a huge, gleaming machine that’s running at on
ly two per cent of its capacity. Five per cent at the very most. But because this is a human machine, he feels . . . hungry.”

  “Frustrated and unhappy?” Herb said. “Huh. We don’t see that side of him.”

  I do, Eileen thought. Not all the time, but sometimes. Yes. That’s when the plates rattle or the doors shut by themselves.

  She thought of Greer’s huge, gleaming machine, something big enough to fill three or even four buildings the size of warehouses, and working at doing what, exactly? No more than making paper cups or stamping out aluminum fast food trays. They owed him more, but did they owe him this?

  “What about the University of Minnesota?” she asked. “Or Concordia, in St. Paul? If he went to one of those places, he could live at home.”

  Greer sighed. “You might as well consider taking him out of the Brod and putting him in an ordinary high school. We’re talking about a boy for whom the IQ scale is useless. He knows where he wants to go. He knows what he needs.”

  “I don’t know what we can do about it,” Eileen said. “He might be able to get scholarships to those places, but we work here. And we’re far from rich.”

  “Well now, let’s talk about that,” Greer said.

  2

  When Herb and Eileen returned to the school that afternoon, Luke was jiving around in front of the pick-up lane with four other kids, two boys and two girls. They were laughing and talking animatedly. To Eileen they looked like kids anywhere, the girls in skirts and leggings, their bosoms just beginning to bloom, Luke and his friend Rolf in baggy cords—this year’s fashion statement for young men—and t-tops. Rolf’s read BEER IS FOR BEGINNERS. He had his cello in its quilted case and appeared to be pole-dancing around it as he held forth on something that might have been the spring dance or the Pythagorean theorem.

  Luke saw his parents, paused long enough to dap Rolf, then grabbed his backpack and dove into the backseat of Eileen’s 4Runner. “Both Ps,” he said. “Excellent. To what do I owe this extraordinary honor?”

  “Do you really want to go to school in Boston?” Herb asked.

  Luke was not discomposed; he laughed and punched both fists in the air. “Yes! Can I?”

  Like asking if he can spend Friday night at Rolf’s house, Eileen marveled. She thought of how Greer had expressed what their son had. He’d called it global, and that was the perfect word. Luke was a genius who had somehow not been distorted by his own outsized intellect; he had absolutely no compunctions about mounting his skateboard and riding his one-in-a-billion brain down a steep sidewalk, hellbent for election.

  “Let’s get some early supper and talk about it,” she said.

  “Rocket Pizza!” Luke exclaimed. “How about it? Assuming you took your Prilosec, Dad. Did you?”

  “Oh, believe me, after today’s meeting, I’m totally current on that.”

  3

  They got a large pepperoni and Luke demolished half all by himself, along with three glasses of Coke from the jumbo pitcher, leaving his parents to marvel at the kid’s digestive tract and bladder as well as his mind. Luke explained that he had talked to Mr. Greer first because “I didn’t want to freak you guys out. It was your basic exploratory conversation.”

  “Putting it out to see if the cat would take it,” Herb said.

  “Right. Running it up the flagpole to see who’d salute it. Sticking it on the five-fifteen to see if it gets off at Edina. Throwing it against the wall to see how much—”

  “Enough. He explained how we might be able to come with you.”

  “You have to,” Luke said earnestly. “I’m too young to be without my exalted and revered mater and pater. Also . . .” He looked at them from across the ruins of the pizza. “I couldn’t work. I’d miss you guys too much.”

  Eileen instructed her eyes not to fill, but of course they did. Herb handed her a napkin. She said, “Mr. Greer . . . um . . . laid out a scenario, I guess you might say . . . where we could possibly . . . well . . .”

  “Relo,” Luke said. “Who wants this last piece?”

  “All yours,” Herb said. “May you not die before you get a chance to do this crazy matriculation thing.”

  “Ménage à college,” Luke said, and laughed. “He talked to you about rich alumni, didn’t he?”

  Eileen put down the napkin. “Jesus, Lukey, you discussed your parents’ financial options with your guidance counselor? Who are the grownups in this conversation? I’m starting to feel confused about that.”

  “Calm down, mamacita, it just stands to reason. Although my first thought was the endowment fund. The Brod has a huge one, they could pay for you to relocate out of that and never feel the pinch, but the trustees would never okay it, even though it makes logical sense.”

  “It does?” Herb asked.

  “Oh yeah.” Luke chewed enthusiastically, swallowed, and slurped Coke. “I’m an investment. A stock with good growth potential. Invest the nickels and reap the dollars, right? It’s how America works. The trustees could see that far, no prob, but they can’t break out of the cognitive box they’re in.”

  “Cognitive box,” his father said.

  “Yeah, you know. A box built as a result of the ancestral dialectic. It might even be tribal, although it’s kind of hilarious to think of a tribe of trustees. They go, ‘If we do this for him, we might have to do it for another kid.’ That’s the box. It’s, like, handed down.”

  “Received wisdom,” Eileen said.

  “You nailed it, Mom. The trustees’ll kick it to the wealthy alumni, the ones who made mucho megabucks thinking outside the box but still love the ol’ Broderick blue and white. Mr. Greer will be the point man. At least I hope he will. The deal is, they help me now and I help the school later on, when I’m rich and famous. I don’t actually care about being either of those things, I’m middle-class to the bone, but I might get rich anyway, as a side effect. Always assuming I don’t contract some gross disease or get killed in a terrorist attack or something.”

  “Don’t say things that invite sorrow,” Eileen said, and made the sign of the cross over the littered table.

  “Superstition, Mom,” Luke said indulgently.

  “Humor me. And wipe your mouth. Pizza sauce. Looks like your gums are bleeding.”

  Luke wiped his mouth.

  Herb said, “According to Mr. Greer, certain interested parties might indeed fund a relocation move, and fund us for as long as sixteen months.”

  “Did he tell you that the same people who’d front you might be able to help find you a new job?” Luke’s eyes were sparkling. “A better one? Because one of the school’s alumni is Douglas Finkel. He happens to own American Paper Products, and that’s close to your sweet spot. Your hot zone. Where the rubber meets the r—”

  “Finkel’s name actually came up,” Herb said. “Just in a speculative way.”

  “Also . . .” Luke turned to his mother, eyes bright. “Boston is a buyer’s market right now when it comes to teachers. Average starting salary for someone with your experience goes sixty-five thou.”

  “Son, how do you know these things?” Herb asked.

  Luke shrugged. “Wikipedia, to start with. Then I trace down the major sources cited in the Wikipedia articles. It’s basically a question of keeping current with the environment. My environment is the Broderick School. I knew all of the trustees; the big money alumni I had to look up.”

  Eileen reached across the table, took what remained of the last pizza slice out of her son’s hand, and put it back on the tin tray with the bits of leftover crust. “Lukey, even if this could happen, wouldn’t you miss your friends?”

  His eyes clouded. “Yeah. Especially Rolf. Maya, too. Although we can’t officially ask girls to the spring dance, unofficially she’s my date. So yeah. But.”

  They waited. Their son, always verbal and often verbose, now seemed to struggle. He started, stopped, started again, and stopped again. “I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know if I can say it.”

  “Try,” Herb
said. “We’ll have plenty of important discussions in the future, but this one is the most important to date. So try.”

  At the front of the restaurant, Richie Rocket put in his hourly appearance and began dancing to “Mambo Number 5.” Eileen watched as the silver space-suited figure beckoned to the nearby tables with his gloved hands. Several little kids joined him, boogying to the music and laughing while their parents looked on, snapped pictures, and applauded. Not so long ago—five short years—Lukey had been one of those kids. Now they were talking about impossible changes. She didn’t know how such a child as Luke had come from a couple like them, ordinary people with ordinary aspirations and expectations, and sometimes she wished for different. Sometimes she actively hated the role into which they had been cast, but she had never hated Lukey, and never would. He was her baby, her one and only.

  “Luke?” Herb said. Speaking very quietly. “Son?”

  “It’s just what comes next,” Luke said. He raised his head and looked directly at them, his eyes lighted with a brilliance his parents rarely saw. He hid that brilliance from them because he knew it frightened them in a way a few rattling plates never could. “Don’t you see? It’s what comes next. I want to go there . . . and learn . . . and then move on. Those schools are like the Brod. Not the goal, only stepping stones to the goal.”

  “What goal, honey?” Eileen asked.

  “I don’t know. There’s so much I want to learn, and figure out. I’ve got this thing inside my head . . . it reaches . . . and sometimes it’s satisfied, but mostly it isn’t. Sometimes I feel so small . . . so damn stupid . . .”

  “Honey, no. Stupid’s the last thing you are.” She reached for his hand, but he drew away, shaking his head. The tin pizza pan shivered on the table. The pieces of crust jittered.

  “There’s an abyss, okay? Sometimes I dream about it. It goes down forever, and it’s full of all the things I don’t know. I don’t know how an abyss can be full—it’s an oxymoron—but it is. It makes me feel small and stupid. But there’s a bridge over it, and I want to walk on it. I want to stand in the middle of it, and raise my hands . . .”