by Mark Russell
Michelle held up the packet. Moving headlights played across its uneven surface. A dollar bill folded into a rectangle with George Washington's officious face on one side. 'That's truly neat packaging. What is it? Coke?'
'No, it's not.' He smiled at her and shifted up a gear. 'It's something quite different. Open it up and have a look.'
She eyed him decisively and twirled the bill. Shadow and light from passing traffic moved hypnotically across her face. He sensed she was weighing up the pros and cons of this new development in their short relationship. He half-expected her to hand back the bill with a polite but firm, “No, thanks”.
Even so, he turned on the interior light. She deliberated before unfolding the packet. She gazed dispassionately at the mounds of crystallized powder overlaying the one-eyed pyramid of the Great Seal. 'Hmm, it looks different to coke. Do you snort it?'
'No, I wouldn't recommend it,' he said, with blunt authority. 'It's best taken orally. Dissolve half a teaspoon in a glass of water.'
'So you've tried it?' She refolded the bill and slipped it into the change pocket of her jeans, a sleek feline movement of hip.
'Sure, a few times now.'
'You did say you were giving it to me?'
'Uh-huh, keep it.'
'Thanks.' She folded her arms non-defensively and snuggled back in the passenger seat. 'So what's it called? And how does it effect you?'
'Well, its chemical name is 3,4 Methylphenyloxytocin-dioxymethamphetamine.'
'Ah, come on,' she giggled in response to his syllabic onslaught. 'What's its, you know, street name?'
'Actually it hasn't got one yet because it's so new. It's a psychotropic compound that ...'
He sensed her waning comprehension. 'It's a mood-altering drug invented by a chemist friend of mine ... and has apparently become popular with Californian therapists.'
'Really? Why's that?'
Jeez, he thought, what a load of crock. Still he felt no pang of conscience, as he saw these self-serving lies as his only recourse against the foolhardy act of making up a packet of MPA at the gas station restroom. His attraction for the woman beside him allaying any concern about giving a virtual stranger Silverwood contraband.
In any case, what he'd said about Californian therapists had a ring of truth to it. Created in Germany in 1917, MDMA was a close cousin of MPA. It produced similar effects when ingested; though MPA, with its Oxytocin component, had proved the stronger of the two. Goldman remembered Haslow saying MDMA was tested at Silverwood Centre as a possible psychological warfare agent back in 1953, but only on rats, monkeys and dogs. The senior chemist believed if MDMA had been tested on humans back then the army would have made a mountain of the stuff. Haslow had gone on to say that psychotherapists now prescribed clinical MDMA to help patients overcome communication barriers; and accordingly the drug had proved beneficial during marriage counselling sessions.
'Really? Why's that?' Michelle asked.
He looked blankly at her as traffic streaked past his window. The freeway awash with red and white lights. A dim apricot light hugged the horizon.
'So why is it popular with Californian therapists?'
'Well ...' He took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the wheel. 'Because of its uncanny ability to make you say things you normally wouldn't have the inclination or courage to talk about.'
'You mean subconscious blocks, emotional blocks. Stuff like that.'
'Exactly, and after you've got everything off your chest, you feel amazingly confident and relaxed. In fact you feel really good, if you know what I mean?' He looked at her and nearly winked, then braked as traffic suddenly slowed.
Michelle stared through the windshield at a sea of flashing brake lights, at the REAGAN/BUSH 1980 bumper sticker on a Ford Town and Country wagon in front.
'Hmm, you've certainly got me interested. It sounds quite extraordinary.'
'It is.' He toed the gas pedal to keep pace with the slow-moving traffic. 'When you told me about your, um, boyfriend, I felt to give you some, so you could share it with him.'
Michelle grinned and rubbed her hands together in an anticipatory manner, as if visualizing some longed-for occasion. 'I just hope he'll take some with me ...' She turned in her seat, her enthusiasm broken, her face etched with concern. 'But tell me, is it illegal? Can I get busted for it?'
'No, not at all,' he replied, with a reassuring smile. 'The authorities haven't even heard of it yet.'
FIVE
Rod Haslow rested on his living room sofa, his head propped up by matching lace pillows (some of the fineries left behind by his ex-wife). He leant forward and grabbed the TV’s remote from off the coffee table.
“... and now over to our Los Angeles correspondent, Trisha Tran ... Thanks John, street-gang violence has been prominent in the last ...”
White static and a plethora of images flitted across the screen as he surfed channels. There must be some comedy, he beefed. Anything, Hawkeye and Hot lips. Max and Ninety-Nine. Recently he'd enjoyed late-night reruns of Gomer Pyle, finding in Jim Nabor's goofy character an agreeable travesty of the army's macho image.
Unable to find anything in a comical vein or of real interest (save for a brief CBS coverage on the rise of drug-related deaths in the DC area), he turned off the TV and stared at the blank screen. So, Goldman's invited me over to his place tomorrow night. God knows what kind of woman he's lined me up with...
He swung off the sofa and headed for the kitchen. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and looked out the window above his plate-piled sink. In the day's fading light local girls played on the sidewalk. Watching the girls' spirited game of hopscotch, he reflected on his own childhood.
Haslow was born in Lublin, Poland in 1937. He was the youngest of two boys, Peter his elder by eighteen months. Six months before Hitler's invasion of Poland, Frederick Haslowski and his family migrated to the United States. A registered Polish chemist, Frederick Haslowski sat for prerequisite exams with the New York State Board of Pharmacy. He scored passable grades and was eventually granted a US pharmacist license. As such he built up a meagre drug store business in Milltown, New Jersey.
The migrant family scrimped and saved, and though the world was bogged down in another global war, the Milltown Road store slowly turned a profit. However young Rod Haslow's world changed forever on a cold December afternoon in 1943. While returning home from a pharmacist convention in Philadelphia, Haslow's parents were killed from a red-light-running dumpster plowing into their Plymouth sedan. Haslow would always remember that day's damp twilight when he and his brother had waited in a neighbour's house for their parents' return. By nighttime the children and the neighbours knew something was amiss, and several hours later they were informed of the tragedy.
The boys had no relatives in America and communication with anyone in their war-torn homeland was all but hopeless. After staying on with the same neighbours for a while, the brothers, as wards of the community, were sent off to a Catholic orphanage. It was only Haslow's prodigious interest in chemistry, which he acquired around the age of eleven, that prevented him from succumbing to the powerful currents of depression, anger and delinquency that inflicted many of his fellows in the Delaware orphanage.
One of the orphanage brothers fostered Haslow's singular interest by bringing him extra-curriculum texts to study. He told him about a wealthy lady who supported notable students from orphanages. The brother said if Haslow scored consistently high grades this lady would be willing to pay for his university tuition. Spurred by the remarkable offer, Haslow scored highly indeed and his benefactress supported him financially for the duration of his studies.
After graduating with a Ph.D in Chemical Technology from Georgetown University in 1965, and legally shortening his name, Haslow found employment with the US Army, which was then augmenting its drug research programmes. Driven by a need to excel and by increasing salary packages, Haslow rose to prominence as chief research chemist at Silverwood Centre. Due to budgetary constraints,
and to Haslow's inventiveness and inexhaustible capacity for hard work, the other chemists at the laboratory were gradually reduced in number until only Haslow remained. Before Goldman's arrival Haslow had been a one-man-show at his workplace for nearly two years.
Haslow's older brother Peter also rose to prominence in his field. His devotions, however, were far less schooled. As soon as he was of legal age, Peter Haslowski hit the streets with a vengeance. It seemed his dark nature and orphaned upbringing had fated him for a life on the wrong side of the law. After several years of un-convicted burglary, car theft and armed robbery in Philadelphia and New York, the tough young Pole made a meteoric rise through the ranks of a Montreal-based drug syndicate that he'd joined as a courier. By the end of 1965, having gained the respect and trust of his French and Italian colleagues (due in no small part to his street-wise acumen, keen business sense, and the way he'd handled a couple of hits for the syndicate during his probationary years), Peter Haslowski was distributing a considerable slice of the eighty-odd kilos of Golden Crescent heroin that the syndicate smuggled annually into Canada for distribution in the United States.
The two brothers rarely spoke, other than the few times Peter rang suggesting they meet; but Haslow refused to break the standoff. The Silverwood chemist had erected a solid wall between himself and the dark days of his institutionalized childhood; and didn't intend to disrupt his law-abiding life (however mundane it sometimes seemed) for his criminal brother's sake.
Outside Haslow's house, the girls ran off noisily into the gathering darkness, drawn by the enticing lights and mealtime aromas of their respective homes. Haslow turned from the window and dropped his empty beer can into a swing-top tidy bin. He pulled the ring-tab off a fresh can and returned to the living room.
He paced the dimness like a caged animal, spurred by an undertow of unresolved torments. At work his professional mind performed like a well-oiled machine, but alone at night he was sometimes prey to inner demons, resulting in late-night depressions which offered him little chance of satisfying sleep should he not take prescribed sleeping tablets.
Clasping his beer, he dropped on to the sofa.
Madeleine. Lovely, auburn-haired Madeleine who wasn't coming back. The recent divorce settlement had proved that. But as yet he had no inclination to look for another woman. He knew he wasn't the first divorced man to console himself with drink, nor would he be the last. Still he believed he would get on his feet soon enough. Until then it would be more nights like the one on hand: the cold comfort of a well-furnished house, a train of inner dialogue which did little to lift his spirits, an empty (and usually unmade) bed to end the day.
Again his mind drifted back to that damp afternoon he'd come home from work to find a letter on the kitchen table. Three pages of sorry and goodbye. Courtesy of Madeleine Haslow. The same woman who'd promised to stand by him through sickness and health, and all else grandly enshrined in their wedding vows. The letter contained forceful scrawl about her and Julian being inseparable. Julian was Madeleine's director in Seven Suns. A risque play produced by Triados, an amateur theatre company Madeleine had been involved in for several years, mostly as an actress, plus some unsuccessful stints at set design and stage production.
Haslow found out about his wife's affair a week before she left. He'd thought at the time the affair was finished, and that Madeleine would resume her role in the marriage – indeed Madeleine herself had signalled the same. Though hurt and angered by her betrayal, Haslow promised to be a more devoted husband, to be more sensitive to her womanly needs, as much as he could detect and fathom them. Anytime she wanted children was fine by him. Furthermore, he pledged to take a keener interest in her theatrical pursuits.
Not a scientist of love, he miscalculated the forces at play. He wrongly pegged thirty-three year old Julian as just another artsy stud into booze, blow and whatever woman he could bed. He thought Madeleine would eventuate as just another notch on Julian's wandering gun.
He couldn't have been more wrong.
After Madeleine left, Haslow did a lion's share of phoning, promising and pleading – but to no avail. Unable to dissuade his wife from ending their five-year marriage, Haslow, a figure of defeat, took up his lot: the empty house and bottles at night; the fleeting, wretched imaginings of Madeleine making love to another man; the long-distance telephone calls to Jake Travis, Haslow's only friend who'd moved to California by way of his job for Xerox in developing network protocols.
Now, Haslow swallowed more beer and by rote turned on the television. Changed channels. Then an infomercial for a travel company struck his attention. A handsome couple strolled the sands of a palm-lined haven. Their gleaming smiles and tan bodies promoted an island holiday resort available on a special discount package. The scene changed to an ocean liner silhouetted against a postcard-perfect sunset, its spacious deck alive with lights, music and partying passengers.
As Haslow stared at the orchestrated images, a substantial shift took place inside him. A weight lifted from his chest; an emotional knot which had plagued him since the breakup of his marriage. Incredibly he felt extricated from his wife's shadow, from the hurt of her leaving. How was such a turnaround possible? Had some higher force interceded? Of course he didn't know; nevertheless change was upon him.
He gazed at a Thai silk painting on the wall opposite, indifferent to the ongoing antics of the TV. He was inspired him to leave the empty house and bottles behind. There was nothing else for it. He had to escape the fruitless confines of his boxed-in corner. Why had he wallowed in self-pity for so long? But a part of him knew the heart takes its own time to mend and is indifferent to the ongoing demands of the outside world. In any case, he couldn't shy away any longer. He had to start afresh.
He turned off the TV and took stock of his situation. After his recent divorce settlement, he still had considerable savings and assets (surprisingly Madeleine hadn't pressed for all she could have; it seemed she'd only wanted a quick out). He could easily quit his job, sell or rent his house, and travel abroad. For quite a time, if he so desired.
God knew enough people had told him to take a holiday. Even his brother had said as much during a phone call shortly after Madeleine left. Distraught by his wife's treachery, Haslow was unable to maintain the hard line he reserved for his brother. Subsequently a kindred tone had entered in on Peter's words, a corporeal thread which spoke of their shared physicality. That night Haslow had talked to his brother longer than he cared; though they hadn't talked since.
The middle-aged chemist finished off his beer and returned to the kitchen. He microwaved the remains of the previous night's pizza and leaned meditatively against the sink. With his employment history he could easily find another job should he tire of travelling and come home. There was no problem on that front. Meantime, who knew what women he might meet with time on his side and a sheaf of empty pages in his passport?
He looked through the window at the night-shrouded street outside. The houses and sidewalks looked the same as on any given evening, but inside him was the undeniable stirring of a second wind. Time to turn over a new leaf. No more 9 to5. No more listless weekends at home. No more same old, same old. His days at Silverwood Centre were numbered. He would see to it.
He'd quit his job.
SIX
General Kaplan studied his refrigerator's cluttered shelves. 'Damn.' He'd told his wife to include a six-pack of beer in the morning's groceries. He searched through the modular cupboards above and below the kitchen's main counter.
Nothing to drink.
The general was alone in his Aberdeen Proving Ground house. His wife at her Thursday-evening pottery class. His teenage son again unaccounted for. Probably at Ray's playing Space Invaders, he mused sharply. It was Dean's favourite line of late, its recent usage testing the limits of credibility, and equally Kaplan's patience.
He needed a drink.
Three fingers of Chivas Regal. He'd emptied his home of scotch a week before at the insistence of h
is doctor at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre. His stomach ulcer, he'd been told, was rupturing from the stuff. Not that he didn't know.
He was unsettled and had been for hours. He'd heard from a reliable source there was talk of transferring his command to a new missile-testing range in the Nevada desert. No way in hell would he be roped into anything like that. He had influence and would stand his ground until the posting was handed to some clown prepared to wear it. Moreover, he'd learned General Turner was coming to Silverwood Centre the following afternoon.
'Damn.' He brought his fist down on the counter, though more in gesture than actual aggression. He's probably coming to break the news about my transfer, and question me about Goldman. He marched into the living room and took off his uniform jacket. After inspecting its torn armpit, he spread the green jacket across the back of his leather reading chair. He loosened his tie and thought about Goldman. What did Turner know about the chemist?
Kaplan returned to the kitchen. His stomach ulcer flared like a stoked furnace in his midsection. He chomped down on an antacid tablet and opened the refrigerator. On the door's bottom shelf, next to a family bottle of Pepsi, was a small green bottle. One of his wife's drinks. He grabbed it and read the bottle's breezy label: CALIFORNIA SUNSHINE. A SPARKLING CONCOCTION OF TROPICAL FRUIT JUICES AND WHITE WINE.
Alcohol. He was tempted to try some, uninviting as the drink looked. His keen ears heard sounds at the front door. He returned the bottle to the fridge and slipped into the living room. He heard a familiar creak on the stairs as his son went up to his room. The general followed. The pencil-thin light spilling from under his son's closed door reflected off Kaplan's polished shoes as he stood outside the room. He rapped twice on the door and entered.
Sitting at his desk, Dean Kaplan spun round in a swivel seat. His hand shot in and out of his denim jacket's side pocket. 'Dad.' The lanky youth brushed aside his hair and slouched back on the desk. 'I've been over at Ray's.'