Application for John Amsterdam: New Amsterdam

[400_years_young]

The dog entered the Sorting Room first, followed by a leash, followed by a tall man in a black coat being dragged behind. "Six, knock it off!" the man said, with an accent somewhere between Noo Yawk and European. He let the leash slide from his hand and the dog took off to sniff out the corners off the room

Comments

[mello_n_choco]

I take a bite out of my chocolate bar. "How many names does one person need?" I ask. It hardly matters which one is real. It's not like I use my birth name anyways. I glance at the man and at the number of days he listed as being sober. "And, are you sure you didn't add an extra zero?"

[400_years_young]

"Only as many as it takes to get by," John explained. "I've even got spares: Sullivan, J. G. Benwaar, some really good ones in there." He preferred variations on John. He shook his head at the last question. "Trust me, I know how many days. When you go it one day at a time, you get really good at counting them."

[mello_n_choco]

I cock my head at him. I've seen some odd things in my day. "You don't look over 50, which is putting your rehabilitation starting at 10." I knew some kids. "So, how does it work?" I ask. I don't expect an answer, but I've found it good to start with the most direct questions. Put them on the defensive and then I can get information out of them by 'easing back.'

[400_years_young]

He deliberately misinterpreted the question. After all, they had been talking about the 12 steps. "Like I said, you do it one day at a time. You follow the Twelve Steps." Number 8 had been quite involved. "I get to the meetings when I can. It had only been around for a few years when I started."

[mello_n_choco]

"We both know that's not what I meant," I reply coolly. Deliberate evasions are obnoxious and insulting. Trying to pretend I'm not intelligent enough to know the difference. I bite the chocolate bar a bit viciously. "The age thing. Someone who's had a drinking problem badly enough to require a twelve step program, regardless of how old they were when they started drinking or joined the program, will look older than they are. It is the nature of alcohol and alcoholism to age someone. How is it that you do not even look like you could have been sober as long as you say you have?" If I have to spell things out, I will. It'll just irritate me to no end and I'll take it out on him. Heh, I could use the outlet, anyways.

[400_years_young]

He rubbed his chin. "So how many alcoholics in rehabilitation programs have you met? Did you line them up and ask their age? Or is this more your opinion on how I should look?" If this guy thought he looked anywhere near fifty, his judgment was a bit off. "Not everyone has to drink hard and heavy every day to have a problem."

[mello_n_choco]

Fine, then. I'll lay it out for him, though he probably won't get most of it. "Name's Mello, graduate," sort of, as much as one can be, "of Whammy's house, trained to be successor to L from the time I arrived there. I am a social scientist, holding the equivalent of multiple post doctorate degrees." Probably. It's not like we ever actually got degrees in Whammy's, but I'd seen my own research and writings in post doctorate study material, with a string of letters after a false name, so it was true enough. "And, yes, I have seen early and late alcoholics, even those after multiple years of recovery. Alcohol leaves a trace, just as tobacco and any other drug does, that is rather obvious. You lack all those traces." You also lack the physical signs of looking over 40.

And, why did I just give this guy all that? Maybe I should consider learning to control my temper.

But, then, that would go against my character.

[400_years_young]

Somebody had personal history to get off their chest. "So then, if you're the scientist, with all of that research under your belt, what's your best guess? I'm sure that I'd just be spitballing compared to what you could figure out."

[mello_n_choco]

I remember Roger challenging me like this. Fine, he wants it, he can have it. "To be sober as long as you say, you'd need to be at least 55, and that would assume you started a 12 step program when you were 12. Most likely, given the statistics on 12 step programs, you should be about 70. You appear to be in your mid-forties, at the latest. Deliberately avoiding a question I know and you know was about your age is rather annoying. Are you always deliberately annoying?"

[400_years_young]

"Yes," he said to the last question. "Trust me, I've been told that many times." It was up there with 'freak of nature.'

"So you tell me how a kid like you gets all of these fancy degrees and special training, and I'll tell you how I got to be so pretty."

[mello_n_choco]

I bite back a sigh. I think I heard once 'in for a penny, in for a pound.' "Whammy's house is an orphanage that specializes in training promising children, the younger the better, to take the place of the world's greatest detective." I frown. I'd never had to explain how I'd grown up and only had a passing knowledge of what passed for 'normal.' "We were assigned tasks, to create scenarios, to solve cases the police were working on, to constantly think outside the so-called box." I shrug. "Since I've left, I've seen many of the things I've worked on in practice." And had nightmares about them. "I claim the degrees based off the degrees I've seen listed on the papers I wrote and were subsequently published under other names."

[400_years_young]

If the organization was trying to deflect attention, the name 'Whammy's house' was doing a good job. The concept didn't shock him. While this didn't seen to be a military setup, it reeked of tactics that both sides had used during WWII. "So you're a bunch of child crackerjack detectives," he said. "You doing detective work now?"

[mello_n_choco]

I shrug again. "Last case killed me." I take another bite from my chocolate bar, noting it was almost gone. I don't have anymore in my pockets, though. Oh, well. "But, then, it also killed the one we were trained to replace and my death was instrumental in closing it, so I can't say I fully regret it." I narrow my eyes at him. "I've answered your questions. Answer mine."

[400_years_young]

This was the third person who confessed to coming back from the dead. Having been resurrected himself, the concept wasn't so surprising. The laid-back attitude was a bit disconcerting, though.

"Simple," John said. "Really bad luck. Although I don't know if it was getting run through with a sword, or being brought back that I would consider worse."

[mello_n_choco]

I raise an eyebrow. Not the answer I expected. "I'm going to go on the assumption that 'getting run through with a sword' was not the event that precipitated your arrival here. How long ago, for you, was that?" Stranger and stranger, the people that show up here.

[400_years_young]

"No, that would have been taking the dog for a walk." Most people weren't up and running around after cold steel through the heart. "It was a long time ago. When's the last time you've heard of somebody dying like that?"