Marge and Rebecca both laughed, but Ben felt his anger rising up like steam from a boiling kettle.
“Bull—” he said, but caught himself. Hell, if one of the girls had said what Gary did, he’d have been proud, not angry. So he backtracked. “Well, Grandma Alice always told me that God gave us brains so we could think for ourselves. And she was right. When you’re old enough to vote, Gary, just try to get all the facts you can, then trust your own judgment.”
He even tried to smile at his son, but couldn’t quite pull it off.
Gary, only minimally aware that he’d just won a small skirmish with his father, knew to leave well enough alone. But Marge rubbed her son’s shoulder and beamed.
Damn! Why couldn’t he like his own son? Ben felt ashamed, yet baffled. Old habits died hard, he supposed. Apparently he just hadn’t been ready for a child when Gary came into the world.
After making his promise to Marge on Gary’s third birthday, he’d never spanked the boy again, no matter how much he seemed to deserve it. Yet he wondered if Gary’s compulsive behavior and obvious self-image problems might have been a result of the earlier blows. Ben regarded striking his son as a great mistake, but he felt no guilt; the shame lay deeper, subcutaneous and festering.
After medical school and residency, Ben had decided to specialize in gastroenterology. He steadily honed his skills and became well-known. His practice prospered.
He’d always had a compelling bedside manner which helped attract patients. For many doctors, that was the hardest part, but for Ben it came easily; he had an instinctive sensitivity for others, so it was just a matter of developing the proper habits. Over the past six years, his style had changed little. He’d designed all of his practice’s policies with common sense and a knack for mechanical effectiveness; what would later be termed “ergonomics. “ Before scheduling patients, a member of his staff always interviewed them, so his appointments ran on time, a rarity in the medical profession. He never rushed his cases, although his staff sometimes did; they were all very protective of Ben.
He kept his calendar on track by allowing slightly more time for each patient than was actually required. Then he used any remaining minutes between appointments to make follow-up calls. His patients appreciated those calls; few specialists went to the trouble. But Ben had realized long ago that this added contact during lulls was an efficient way to get feedback on treatments, and to demonstrate that the results of his treatments were of great concern to him, and, by extension, that his patients were, too.
When Ben developed a successful procedure to relieve intestinal blockages in cancer patients in 1957, he’d been written up in every major medical journal. He began conducting seminars for other doctors, and hundreds of them had converged on Boston to learn the technique. His income had soared.
Since then he’d lavished money on his children and given generously to charity; but he and Marge seldom entertained, had no servants, and nearly always ate at home. And Ben, who’d never flown in an airplane since returning from the war, planned all their vacations: cross-country drives with the kids, always staying in economy motels or campgrounds. “It’s more fun to rough it,” he’d told them, and Marge agreed. At the end of each year, they’d never spent even half of what he brought home.
He invested the rest of his earnings in commercial real estate and blue chip stocks. And he continued to upgrade the family’s living quarters, moving into larger apartments and finally, last month, their five-story brownstone on Chestnut Street.
* * *
After breakfast Rebecca and Max began to watch a Christian minister on television. “Hell’s pitiless fires,” he intoned, “and heaven’s reward are both unceasing. A human life is so very short: the blink of an eye. But a soul is eternal, so a single soul, your soul, has more value than the sum of all life on earth. Earthly existence is merely God’s test. Are you worthy of everlasting joy, or eternal damnation?”
The girls appeared mesmerized by his words, gestures, and the emotion in his voice. Wondering whether they were attracted by the content of the man’s speech or by his hysterical delivery—it never occurred to him that it might have been the medium itself that had so captivated them—Ben broke the spell. “He’s just guessing,” he told his daughters. “All he really wants is your money. Don’t fall for it. He doesn’t know any more about heaven and how to get there than anybody else who’s still alive.”
Marge, washing dishes in the kitchen, overheard this. “He’s enthusiastic, though.”
“True enough. I watch these guys myself sometimes, but only for their entertainment value. They can, unwittingly, teach you how to think. But for goodness’ sake, you sure don’t want to let them teach you what to think.” Ben had great faith in God, but precious little in His self-anointed messengers. He remained an optimist, and a skeptic. Sure, he understood and loved humanity, but with the understanding necessarily came a certain distrust.
They’d all expected to have a picnic today at the Boston Public Gardens. It was not to be.
The phone rang; Marge answered. Her expression turned somber. “It’s Alice. Your father’s at Beth Israel. Intensive care. I’m sorry, Ben, it’s another heart attack.”
Ben’s mind went momentarily blank, his face frozen in disorientation and denial. The children glanced tentatively toward each other, and then at their mother, for clues about how they were supposed to act. Marge’s gaze cast back a grim, composed resolve. She gently grasped Ben’s hand and pulled him back to reality.
The family rushed to their car. Jan had no idea what a heart attack was, but sensing the mood, did not ask. She sat in the front with Ben and Marge, her head resting on her father’s lap as he drove. The three older children huddled solemnly in the backseat, numb to the reality of losing their Grampa.
Except Gary.
The boy visualized his grandfather’s face. He could see it with near-photographic clarity. He was grateful for his ability to remember shapes and textures so well, but sometimes it could also be a curse. He thought of all the times Grampa Sam and Grammy Alice had accompanied his mother to his soccer and Little League games, and all those science fairs and art shows at school. Especially the art shows. Gary’s own father rarely showed up, even though he usually won the blue ribbon. But they almost always did. They were proud of him. And he felt special whenever Sam was there.
Eyes moistening, Gary began to shiver. It seemed as if all warmth had suddenly been drained from him. “D-Do you th-think… he’ll be… okay?”
Ben’s hands tightened on the wheel, as though by squeezing hard enough his emotions might vent through his fingers. “I don’t have time for your questions right now,” he snapped at the boy; nearly a shout. Marge gently nudged him, and Ben added quietly, “Have to concentrate on my driving, Gary.”
Gary’s fingernails dug into the soft leather, scarring it. Tears ran down his cheek.
Rebecca patted Gary’s right hand, her eyebrows raised in commiseration, as if to say, That’s just the way he is. Gary gazed back at his sister. He silently mouthed Thank you, and put his arm around her shoulder.
Ben fought back his own tears, trying to evoke only happy memories, his gratitude to both of his parents, and the feeble hope his father would quickly recover. But all he thought about was death, a terrible fact of nature he could never fully accept.
The heart attack was massive. By the time the family arrived at the hospital, Samuel Smith, fifty-eight years old, was dead.
* * *
Some nine hundred miles away, Robert C. W. Ettinger, a young physics professor at Highland Park College in Michigan, was hard at work researching The Prospect of Immortality: The Scientific Probability of the Revival and Rejuvenation of Our Frozen Bodies.
Ettinger’s theory held that decay of any human tissue could be virtually halted by submersion into liquid nitrogen, and that someday scientists would possess the means to restore frozen humans to life. The inability to resuscitate a person, he believed, spoke only to the limits
of the technology of the day, and little or nothing about that person’s potential for life.
He had analyzed death from five discrete viewpoints:
(1) Clinical death: The accepted definition at the time, its criteria being termination of heartbeat and respiration.
(2) Biological death: The state from which resuscitation of the entire body is impossible by currently known means.
(3) Legal death: a term subject to constant reinterpretation.
(4) Religious death: Also an evolving concept.
(5) Cellular death: The irrevocable degeneration of the body’s cells.
To Ettinger, death was relative at every level. “A man does not go like the one-horse shay,” he wrote, “but dies little by little usually, in imperceptible gradations, and the question of reversibility at any stage depends on the state of medical art.”
His book, published in June 1964, would initiate the cryonics movement in the United States.
Far too late for Samuel Smith, but in time for his only son.
October 27, 1963
It had been drizzling off and on all afternoon. The field was slick with mud. Nearing the final whistle, the Wildcats trailed 21-16. It was a very big game: playoff time, or better luck next time. Gary Smith’s mother, grandmother, and all three sisters were sitting on cold benches, along with his girlfriend, Minerva Homer; every time he looked, he saw them completely engaged, ardently cheering him on.
But his old man had better things to do.
As they lined up on the opposing team’s thirty-eight yard line, Gary glanced at the scoreboard clock, and calculated they probably had time for two more plays; three at the most. Greg Cadbury, the lummox he was assigned to block, had to outweigh him by what? Fifty pounds at least. But the guy was sluggish, and about as bright as your average oak tree.
At five-foot-nine, 154 pounds, Gary knew he had no business playing center, even on junior varsity. But he couldn’t run fast enough to play backfield or end, and of course he’d been willing to work twice as hard as anybody else, a characteristic well-appreciated by his coach. In fact he’d started every game this season, had been elected co-captain, and figured next year, as a senior, he would have a clean shot at his letter. Maybe his father would even show up for a game or two. After all, the man had played on several sports teams at Wakefield High School, hadn’t he?
Gary shook his head in sudden frustration. Here he’d made straight A’s for two years running, at the toughest prep school in Suffolk County. It wasn’t like he didn’t have to work for those grades, either, like some kids; he’d studied his butt off. Tons of extracurricular activities, too; science and art prizes up the wazoo. And now football. Shit. What else did he have to do? You’d have thought the man could let loose with an occasional “good job” or something, for heaven’s sake.
Joe Marchetti, the Wildcat quarterback, called for the snap, and Gary stuck the ball perfectly into the guy’s hands. He just needed to hold fatso off for three seconds. Three lousy seconds. Gary tried to imagine the lineman as Ben instead. That always seemed to work, even when he felt as depleted as he did right now. With every ounce of strength he could muster, grunting loudly, he drove into the guy’s midsection. But his right foot couldn’t get the traction he’d expected, and his inertia deviated slightly off center. Cadbury was going to blow past him.
Shit!
Impetuously, almost as instinct, he extended his left leg and hooked the lineman’s ankle, tripping him before he could reach Marchetti. Cadbury toppled crosswise, dropping his full weight onto Gary’s leg. Both boys heard a loud snap, like a broom handle breaking across someone’s knee.
Gary watched as Marchetti sailed a perfect spiral toward a wide-open man on the six-yard line… who dropped it.
Then Gary passed out from the pain.
When Gary awakened at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital that evening, surrounded by his entire family, including Ben, Marge grasped his hand and described how the Wildcats had scored on the next play, making the playoffs.
Without him, he thought.
Then she told him that he’d suffered multiple fractures from hip to mid-shin. The doctors had estimated that he would remain in traction for ten days and in a cast for seven months, and that when the cast was finally removed, his left leg would be half an inch shorter than his right, if he was lucky. He would never play football again, or serve in the armed forces, or walk without a limp.
Through pain now barely contained by narcotics, Gary silently told himself that his dad would never have been so careless. What a goddamn loser he was.
He looked at his father, and found no argument in his eyes.
July 1, 1971
The main auditorium of New York City’s Americana Hotel was a vast, high-ceilinged space with white walls and sweeping, angular lines, its acoustics designed more for impact than clarity; one of those monuments to egoism that seemed to proclaim that no trivial utterance should ever resound from its scaffold. The chairs were oversized, plush, and comfortable.
Ben sat himself in the back just as Professor Carl Epstein began, “For the great majority of our cases, we doctors are thoroughly and worthlessly irrelevant…”
Over the past decade, Epstein had evolved into a legendary figure in the field of medical education, an iconoclast whose views did not merely challenge, but demolished, conventional wisdom. He had written over seven hundred published articles, authored eleven books—two best-sellers, both controversial—and for two years had hosted a weekly medical ethics program on National Public Television.
Physicians were used to playing the role of God’s stand-in; they were not known for self-doubt. Were it not for his talents as a lecturer, Epstein’s commentary would probably not have received much notice from this reactionary field of science. Yet today roughly a thousand persons, all medical practitioners, willingly ingested his speech, titled, “The Downside of Hope.”
Ben recalled with pride and amusement that, but for his own heroics some thirty years earlier, the renowned instructor from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine might instead have nourished fish at the bottom of the Pacific. The two men had kept in touch since the war, but had last seen one another three years ago at a New England Medical Association conference. That morning Ben, who still refused to set foot on an airplane, had made the four-hour journey by car for the sole purpose of matching wits over dinner with his longtime friend.
“The overwhelming majority of illnesses and injuries heal themselves,” Epstein continued in his trademark conversational style, never referring to notes, “and often we do nothing to speed the process. In fact I estimate that about one-fifth of medicines and surgeries prescribed actually do more harm than good.
“And yet I can prove statistically that our profession adds at least a decade to the average human life span, while improving quality-of-life significantly. How can these two facts be reconciled? Simply because of those rare instances in nearly every person’s life when today’s medical science makes the difference between complete recovery and permanent disability. Or life and death.
“As some of you know, during the Second World War I was the only medical officer at a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. To cope with the workload, I managed to press-gang my friend, a teenage fire controller third class—now an acclaimed gastroenterologist, by the way—into assisting with my duties. As if I didn’t already owe him enough for having saved my life. But that’s another story.”
Ben smiled, surprised to hear himself mentioned, especially since Epstein had never actually thanked him.
For fifty-five minutes the professor regaled the room with tales of their experiences nursing fellow prisoners without medicines, and described their informal study of placebos. The audience was engrossed; there was barely a cough or a murmur.
“A single human brain,” he concluded, “is many times more complex than every telephone network and computer on earth combined. Its power to heal the body is well-documented, although still far beyond our comprehension.
Yet it’s this very talent of the mind that permits quackery of the worst sort; quackery that doesn’t merely deprive patients of their money, quackery that seduces them to abandon other treatments that could save or prolong their lives. Who among us has not heard of miracle cures and spontaneous remissions; patients given up for dead who now bounce around, healthy as horses, spreading their stories of hope like a freshly imported, antibiotic-resistant substrain of syphilis?”
Epstein went on to describe case histories of patients seduced into harmful or worthless treatments after discovering that those same regimens had “proven successful” on others. “Of course,” he added, “it’s doubtful that these so-called successful treatments had anything to do with the cure. As I said, faith and hope are powerful and enticing medicines.
“Doctors are educated as scientists, trained to resist wishful thinking in favor of objective detachment. Yet it must also be our job to understand the prescientific, the human element of healing.
“I knew one doctor, a young woman of considerable medical talent, a gifted scientist with a keen mind. Tragically, she was diagnosed with a stage T-2 breast cancer last year. Her physician urged her to undergo radical surgery immediately. ‘It’s only a breast,’ he explained to her with detached objectivity, ‘not an arm or leg. With the surgery, your odds of survival are better than seventy percent. There’s nothing to think about. I can operate tomorrow.’ It never occurred to him that her disease was not the only foe; that there might be a far more implacable enemy.
“Her husband was a caring, optimistic fellow whose sister, a Christian Scientist, had defeated a similar cancer six years earlier. I believe the man loved his wife and genuinely had her interests at heart. ‘My sister simply prayed her tumors away, honey, and so can you,’ he cajoled her. ‘If you have faith, this surgery is completely unnecessary. Why put yourself through it? Don’t you know God decides what’s best for us?’
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