BRAINSTORM

by Gordon Kessler

  It had happened on an icy bridge six months back. Michelle and Will were returning from visiting relatives in Summitview. She’d lost control of the car and crashed into the railing. A ruptured spleen nearly killed Mish, but she recovered quickly from her physical injuries. Recovering from the emotional ones—the guilt for what had happened to Will—was a different story. Our son had broken his neck, but he was alive. We were fortunate. And there could be good news today.

  My optimism spilled over into song as I scrubbed my arms and chest.

  “Up every morning in the drizzlin’ rain,” I sang in a spontaneous eruption—a deep loud bellow. “I grab my chute, and I board the plane. C-130 rollin’ down the strip.” I turned my singing volume down a notch, but continued while wondering from where this cadence-like song had come. I sang it more slowly and considered the words that came out so naturally that it was as if I’d sung it a hundred times. “Airborne daddy gonna take a little trip. Stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door. Jump right out and count to four. If my chute don’t open wide, I got another one by my side. If that one don’t open, too, I’ll hit the ground before you do. If I die on the Russian rear, bury me with a Russian queer. And if I die on the Russian front, bury me with a Russian . . .”

  Where had I gotten such a song? My memory failed me once again. I was never in the military, but maybe I’d heard it in one of those war movies like Full Metal Jacket or Platoon.

  I finished my shower and stepped out, quickly going to the doorway to see if Michelle was within earshot, which I hoped she wasn’t. She might not care for my choice of stimulating morning shower tunes. Mish wasn’t in the bedroom, and seeing once again I’d forgotten to put the seat down on the toilet, I was glad. I set the lid in place.

  From the towel rod on the shower door, I reclaimed my glasses and pulled off the towel I’d just hung there. Even though it smelled fresh and still had a new stiffness in its fibers, I inspected it carefully for gerbil droppings, just in case. When satisfied the towel hadn’t been desecrated, I dried off briskly and wrapped it around my waist.

  At the vanity, I picked up my Norelco Advantage electric razor with the shaving lotion inside and began work on the stubble on my chin. I loved gadgets, and this little number applied the soothing lotion to my skin with the push of a button and without missing a stroke—ah, the wonders of modern man.

  A whiff of frying bacon caused me to hasten my morning preparations. My stomach growled. I finished my shave, snatched up an unblemished tube of Dentisol toothpaste and pushed the first dent into its side. While applying it to a spotless toothbrush, I recalled the Dentisol toothpaste slogan from their television commercial: Nothing’s fresher than a Dentisol-fresh mouth.

  Upon reentering the bedroom, I saw Michelle had already made the king-size bed and neatly laid out my clothes for the day. Light brown, argyle socks; a tan, heavy-knit T-shirt—I didn’t like ties—and a chocolate-colored, Arnold Palmer sport coat with matching pants. All were neat and pressed as if they’d come straight from the store. I quickly dressed and stepped into a pair of unscuffed brown Rockports. Immediately I noticed the shoes were a bit stiff. They appeared to be a recent purchase, as was evident by the rigid leather. I shrugged off trying to remember where I’d gotten them—simply another of those lost memories.

  In the breakfast nook, the morning’s Denver Post waited beside my place at the table. Michelle turned away from the small TV on the counter and flashed me one of her award-winning morning smiles. It was a wonderful thing that I had not seen in over half a year, and it caught me by surprise—she was finally starting to cheer up some. Perhaps my optimism was becoming contagious. I only hoped that today’s doctor’s report would be a good one. Otherwise, I was sure the tremendous guilt that weighed on her delicate frame so mercilessly would set in once more and suffocate her beautiful, naturally cheerful spirit, never to be resurrected again.

  She brought me a plate of eggs over easy, crisp bacon and toast, and I sat down and watched as she placed it before me. She poured my coffee and then prepared herself a plate before sitting at the other side of our small, round breakfast table.

  I recalled the day we met in grade school. I was in second grade and she was in first. She’d been wearing a pretty blue windbreaker and a smile, sans eye teeth. I’d never seen a girl so cute, and I fell in love immediately. Now, she was still the cutest girl I’d ever known, and she looked really good in the dark-blue blouse and blue jeans that she wore this morning. An old proverb came to mind—something about those who wear blue are always true. I remembered true blue, trust them, do.

  Huh? Harvey asked.

  I answered him in my thoughts that you can always trust a person who wears blue.

  Are you for real?

  The voice inside my head—an imaginary persona—was asking if I was real. I ignored him. To Michelle I said, “Navy’s your color.” I nodded and gave her a wink.

  She glanced at me. “Last week you said it was green.”

  I didn’t remember, but I made a quick recovery. “On you, they’re all your color.”

  She pursed her lips at me.

  “By the way,” I said, “don’t open the linen closet door in the bathroom.”

  She raised her eyebrows while placing a napkin on her lap.

  I told her, “We have a gerbil.”

  She stared at me.

  I elaborated. “Big gerbil with big feet and Mickey Mouse ears.”

  Now her eyes crinkled, and she gave me a dubious smile—but even the skeptical upturn of her lips warmed my heart and gave me hope that her spirits were slowly lifting from the bog.

  “I’m serious. There’s a gerbil in our closet.” I wasn’t about to tell her about Harvey.

  “Okay,” she said, nodding slowly, “I’ll go along with you. And I’ll call the exterminator when they open.”

  “I can call them from work,” I said, wanting to ensure the little fellow wouldn’t be harmed. “I want to make sure they use a live trap.”

  “Robert, I will defend your little friend with my very life,” she said, her eyebrows raising again as she smoothed out her napkin. She wasn’t really smiling anymore. She had one of those you-really-have-gone-whacko-on-me sort of expressions on her face. “I’ll call first thing, and—”

  “Remember,” I said, “live traps. No reason to kill our houseguest.”

  She nodded again.

  Enough about Mickey, I thought and dug into my eggs.

  Michelle seemed in agreement. “I called the children’s ward while you were showering,” she said and bit into a slice of toast.

  “I was going to ask you if you had.”

  “Will’s sleeping in.” Her eyes lowered, and her voice was somber. “I think we stayed too late last night.”

  I recalled the night before when we’d sat at William’s bedside and talked to him about the coming test results. His hopes were high. My son had given me a big grin and said, “I want to play catch again, Daddy. And ride my bike.” Michelle had broken into tears then and had to leave William’s hospital room.

  I reached across the table and took her hand. “Mish, don’t worry. Good news today. Gotta think positive.”

  She looked up at me, her eyes sad and teary. “You won’t forget our appointment?”

  She was referring to my little memory problem of late, and I couldn’t blame her. “How could I forget it?” I smiled at her. “Thought we might bring Will a present. You know, maybe something that’ll cheer him up a little . . . give him something to shoot for.”

  Michelle didn’t ask what. I released her hand, and she wiped her eyes with her napkin.

  I slurped my coffee and used a slice of toast to sop up some egg yolk. “What do you think about snow skis?”

  She frowned, an incredulous look in her eyes. “Robert, he’s paralyzed. What if Dr. Xiang has bad news?”

  “He won’t. Look, winter’s coming. Maybe Will’ll be walking before it’s over.” I frowned realizing how ridiculous that was. Even if Will
qualified for the experimental surgery he needed, it would be weeks or even months before we could get him in and, after that, there would be months of therapy ahead. I recanted, “If not this year, maybe next. If we give him the skis, he’ll know for sure he’s going to get better—he’ll be encouraged, it’ll lift his spirits. I had a pair of kid’s skis and snow boots his size delivered to the store last week. We can wait until after Doc Xiang tells us the test results, then we’ll go to Will’s room and break the good news to him with the skis. Good plan?”

  One corner of Michelle’s mouth curled up again, and I realized why I loved her. She smiled that same way last year when William had made her a mud birthday cake on the breakfast-nook table. “Wonderful plan,” she said softly.

  I took two chomps from a piece of bacon and said, “Doc Xiang’s a big man with a big heart. We’re lucky to have such a caring doctor, don’t you think?” I suddenly had one of those déjà vu moments that makes a person pause. It was as if I’d heard or perhaps even said those exact words before, not long ago.

  This is weird, my Harvey voice told me.

  I pictured the white rabbit again, its switch off. In my mind, I plucked out its batteries. But I knew what Michelle was going to say, and I couldn’t help chewing vacuously as I watched and waited for her response.

  “Very lucky,” she said in an almost rehearsed, mechanical manner. “Dr. Xiang is a good man and—”

  In my mind, I finished the sentence with her, and a good friend.

  I was right, word for word. It made me shiver. I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle, and I had a sudden feeling—a premonition of sorts—of impending trouble. I whispered, “Very weird.”

  “What?” she asked, but then turned her attention to the weather report on the TV.

  Jerry Denton, the local weatherman for more years than I could remember, told of a beautiful morning ahead, highs in the low seventies and marred only by haze from a forest fire now under control in Estes Park, a hundred miles away. By late afternoon, however, temperatures were to drop, and scattered rain in the early evening would quickly turn to snow. There could be an accumulation of up to fifteen inches in northwestern Colorado.

  “Brrr,” I said.

  “Mmm,” Michelle agreed.

  She pushed back from the table, pointed the remote control at the TV, and switched it to her favorite morning news program, Breakfast with America.

  Hosts Sid Keats and Charlotte Dunn welcomed their guest, Senator Avery Lawrence, to the show. They began talking about the senator’s presidential aspirations in the next year. He didn’t say he would run. Nevertheless, he was obviously leaving the door wide open.

  Michelle asked me to pass the grape jelly.

  Host Sid Keats queried the senator on his position concerning China. Avery replied, saying he would stand tenaciously against giving a Presidential waiver allowing Normal Trade Relations—formally known as Most Favored-Nation Status—to a government so deaf to human rights.

  “What do you think, hon’—our next President?” Michelle asked between bites. She frowned as she chewed.

  I grunted. I wasn’t too excited about the possible candidates—actually, at that moment I couldn’t remember any of them.

  Michelle said, “He’s pushing that big bill he sponsored in the Senate to lower taxes with across-the-board cuts. That means no more government funding for stem cell and spinal cord regeneration research. He’s also pretty heavy handed with insurance companies. I heard a news story last week that said if he got elected, insurance companies are likely to disallow any kind of payment toward operations that seem in the least bit experimental.” Michelle’s brow was drawn, face full of concern.

  I hadn’t heard about either of those things. Just last week, Dr. Xiang had given us hope—telling us that we’d received the acceptance letter from Bethesda Hospital in Washington, DC. All Will needed now was to pass some tests—the results of which we were to discover at our appointment this afternoon. The mending of Will’s severely damaged spinal cord depended on the yet experimental regeneration procedure done in the U.S. only at Bethesda. It was likely to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars that we didn’t have. I gritted my teeth. A powerful rush surged through my body, and my fork dropped from my hand and clattered onto the plate.

  The thought of Senator Avery standing in the way of William being able to walk again seemed to trigger a stabbing pain in my temple and the base of my skull tingled. I glared up at the TV as a gush of what seemed like fire rushed up my backbone.

  The back of the television exploded with a flash. It flared twice. Sparks showered out in a fiery fountain. The tube went blank as the light above the sink popped, and its fragments chimed into the stainless-steel basin below.

  Chapter 5

  U.S. President Francis Allen Mason gazed into the dim light from the tinted, bulletproof picture window of his study in Upstate New York. Three years ago, at the age of forty-five, he was elected as the youngest U.S. President aside from Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. During the election, his athletic nature, charm and youthful looks had elicited a comparison to Kennedy, and the media coined him “the Republican’s JFK.” Such visual ties to one of America’s most honored statesmen and heroes opened the door to connotations of strong leadership, good judgment and political savvy. Mason had tried hard to live up to these high marks. He now stood rigidly, his hands clasped behind his back as he waited.

  The window of the President’s ranch-style summer home faced the rolling foothills that quickly grew into the Adirondacks. Three Secret Service agents had taken position within easy view from that window, and the President knew at least a dozen more were within a stone’s toss.

  Surrounded by six hundred acres of wooded hills, the home was the quietest place he knew, making it his favorite locale for a little R and R. Modestly decorated with cornflower-blue country curtains, family heirlooms and antiques, it was as comfortable as the worn out pair of Adidas sneakers and Go Navy sweatshirt he now wore. The hardwood floors and built-in oak cabinets and bookshelves were original—an important part of the home’s design when a rich mink farmer built it back in the early thirties.

  The “Double R” was also President Mason’s favorite place during any sort of crisis—international, domestic or personal. The past three years had been turbulent, and he had been here almost as much as he had been in the White House.

  Secretary of State James Coates sat to the left of the President’s desk, his hand patting the chair arm impatiently as he watched his Commander-in-Chief. Seated next to him, Defense Secretary Jacob Banks leafed through an intelligence report that had been handed to him by his attaché fifteen minutes earlier as he’d entered the room. Chief of Staff Edward Thurman had found his usual seat, symbolically, as far to the right as possible. He sat slumped in his chair, flicking his nails. An unoccupied spot between Banks and Thurman was reserved for Central Intelligence Agency Director Carl Winston.

  Paramount decisions would be made today, and Mason wanted no distractions from any of his other advisors. He wanted no bleeding heart opinions, no humanitarian whining.

  The four were deep in their own thoughts and silent, Mason studying the window’s reflection of three of his most trusted advisors. Sweat beaded on Coates’ upper lip, which had sported a broad mustache during his prior assignment as Secretary of the Navy. With the more politically scrutinized station of Secretary of State that Coates now held he’d decided with great reluctance that his facial hair go, and Mason was sure his friend of thirty years still missed it every morning when he shaved. He knew Coates also missed the mustache at times like these when he would have normally pulled at it while considering such an important dilemma. Although Coates was a warm and passionate man, he had yet to let his emotions get in the way of his job.

  Defense Secretary Jacob Banks was also personable. When he spoke, it was important and honest. A third generation military man, Jacob Banks came through the ranks as a former U.S. Air Force pilot and Vietnam
War Veteran, and most recently was the first African-American governor of Kansas. The air of a simple man, under this thin layer of restraint was a complex strategist.

  Chief of Staff Edward Thurman was a different story. The closely cropped, gray hair added to his cool and hard character. He seldom showed any sort of emotion, was always curt to the press and as aloof as a hermit. Considered as one of Mason’s political coffin nails by most Republican Party leaders, Thurman had been a close friend since college days, and the President would have no one else for his Chief of Staff. Over the past thirty-two months, Thurman had pegged every foreign crisis before it arose. He’d given advice that helped stave off many tense situations that could have blown quickly out of proportion and would have required U.S. troop involvement on foreign soil. He was a needed and trusted confidante, no matter that the man lacked any sort of personality trait that could be mistaken as the slightest bit mammalian. And the cigars he insisted on smoking were detestable. The air still stank of the one he’d put out directly after arriving.

  When CIA Director Winston joined them, the room would become as electrically charged as a summer thunderstorm. Winston was always Mister Cool—expressive, yet reserved and normally soft-spoken. Although at all times courteous, he acted as though he thought himself slightly better, knowing more, smarter than everyone else—including Mason. Hell, he probably was correct, President Mason thought and nodded to himself.

  While waiting for Director Winston, Mason decided he would not rein in the passions of his four advisors, but let their feelings come out. In a situation such as this, there was no place for holding back.