Free Mind of My Mind by Octavia E. Butler Page B

liked
    variety.
     

 
    Well, she had variety in Clay and Seth. One son was not only a failure but a helpless
    failure. Clay was abnormally sensitive even for a latent. But as a latent, he had no control.
    Without Seth he would be insane or dead by now. Doro had suggested privately to Seth
    that a quick, easy death might be kindest. Seth had been able to listen to such talk calmly
    only because he had been through his own agonizing latent period before his transition.
    He knew what Clay would have to put up with for the rest of his life. And he knew Doro
    was doing something he had never done before. He was allowing Seth to make an
    important decision.
     
    "No," Seth had said. "I'll take care of him." And he had done it. He had been nineteen
    then to Clay's twenty. Clay had not cared much for the idea of being taken care of by
    anyone, least of all his younger brother. But pain had dulled his pride.
     
    They had traveled around the country together, content with no one place for long.
    Sometimes Seth worked—when he wanted to. Sometimes he stole. Often he shielded his
    brother and accepted punishment in his stead. Clay never asked it. He saved what was left
    of his pride by not asking. He was too unstable to work. He got jobs, but inevitably he
    lost them. Some violent event caught his mind and afterward he had to lie, tell people he
    was an epileptic. Employers seemed to accept his explanation, but afterward they found
    reason to fire him. Seth could have stopped them, could have seen to it that they
    considered Clay their most valuable employee. But Clay didn't want it that way. "What's
    the point?" he had said more than once. "I can't do the work. The hell with it."
     
    Clay was slowly deciding to kill himself. It was slow because, in spite of everything,
    Clay did not want to die. He was just becoming less and less able to tolerate the pain of
    living.
     
    So now a lonely piece of land. A so-called ranch in the middle of the Arizona desert.
    Clay could have a few animals, a garden, whatever he wanted. Whatever he could take
    care of in view of the fact that he would be incapacitated part of the time. He would be
    receiving money from some income property Seth had insisted on stealing for him in
    Phoenix, but in more personal ways he would be self-sufficient. He would be able to bear
    his own pain—now that there would be less of it. He would be able to make his land
    productive. He would be able to take care of himself. If he was to live at all, he would
    have to be able to do that.
     
    "Hey, come on in here," Clay was calling from within the hermit's shack. "Take a
    look at this thing."
     
    Seth went into the shack. Clay was in what had been a combination kitchen-bedroomliving room. The only other room was piled high with bales of newspapers and
    magazines and stacked with tools. A storage room, apparently. What Clay was looking at
    was a large cast-iron wood-burning stove.
     
    Seth laughed. "Maybe we can sell that thing as an antique and use the money to buy
    an electric stove. We'll need one."
     
    "What we?" demanded Clay.
     
    "Well, you, then. You don't want to have to fight with that thing every time you want
    to eat, do you?"
     
    "Never mind the stove. You're starting to sound like you changed your mind about
    leaving."
     
    "No I haven't. I'm going as soon as you're settled in here. And—" He stopped, looked
    away from Clay. There was something he had not mentioned to his brother yet.
     

 
    "And what?"
     
    "And as soon as you get somebody to help you."
     
    Clay stared at him. "You've got to be kidding."
     
    "Man, you need somebody."
     
    "The hell I do! Some crazy old man lived out here by himself, but me, I need
    somebody. No! No way!"
     
    "You want to try to drive the van into town yourself?" Suddenly Seth was shouting.
    "How many people you figure you'll kill along the way? Aside from yourself, I mean."
    Clay had not dared to drive since his last accident, in which he had nearly killed