by James Cole
On one side of the stage a skinny platinum blond played bass guitar, her bra worn outside her shirt instead of underneath. On the opposite side stood the guitarist, a cross-dressed male with Asian features and blank, cadaver-like eyes. Between the two towered the vocalist, a tall long-haired character with searing eyes and crooked teeth who commanded the astute attention of the crowd that groped and grabbed at him as if he were Jesus himself.
The arrangements performed by Singe were of a unique passive-aggressive style which oscillated between two extremes, often in the same song. Soft and melodic sweetness would suddenly transform into intense driving metallic rock where riffs rolled from screaming electric guitars and the never-ending beat of drums pounded with the intensity of some great natural force. It was as if the music were a living, breathing organism, bound to experience the same highs and lows, exuberance and despair, beauty and repugnance, that exists in all of God’s creatures.
After the band began, any communication was accomplished only with difficulty. Simple hand signals worked best, like pointing in the direction of the restrooms or bar before going to empty one’s bladder or to fill it up again, respectively, or the occasional thumbs-up in appreciation of the band members’ talent. Only Tavalin, unable to disable the direct line between brain and mouth, attempted to be heard over the auditory onslaught, unaware, Jeremy supposed, that most of what he said was no more interpretable than monkey grunts.
Through a fleeting peephole in the boisterous crowd, Jeremy caught one brief glimpse of her, the girl with the raven hair and angel wings, as she head-banged to the beat, seemingly oblivious to everything and everyone, save the music. Again, he felt her soft warm kiss, and again, he worried that Jinni had witnessed it. His guilt did not, however, prevent him from looking for her during subsequent trips to the bar and the restroom, but she was nowhere to be found, hidden from his sight.
Maybe she really was an angel.
*****
After the show, Jeremy pulled up in front of the Facility to drop Tavalin and Jinni off at their cars. Tavalin got out first.
Jeremy glanced up at June’s lab. The lights were on. “I think June is still working,” he said, thinking aloud. “I wish I were half as committed as she is.”
Jinni said, “Don’t sell yourself short. I know you’ve been spending a lot of time up in June’s lab lately – especially late night.”
For some reason, perhaps because he had nothing to hide, Jeremy had told Jinni of the night he and June drove out to the lake together. At the time, Jinni didn’t say anything to indicate that she was bothered by it, but, based on a smattering of comments she had made since then, he wondered if she were becoming suspicious of his relationship with June.
Changing the subject, Jeremy asked, “Do you want to come over to my place?”
“No, thanks,” replied Jinni predictably.
Jinni paid him a goodnight kiss before she exited his car. Jeremy waited until she got safely inside her SUV and drove off before he pulled away from the curb. He waved to Tavalin, who was sitting inside his own car, having not yet left. However, instead of going home, Jeremy circled around to the small parking lot behind the Facility, the one that was supposed to be reserved for faculty. Like Jinni, Tavalin had taken note of how much time Jeremy was spending in June’s lab, and Jeremy didn’t want Tavalin to see him go inside.
Jeremy had not told anyone, not Jinni and certainly not Tavalin, about the metabolism studies he and June had been feverishly pursuing over the last three weeks. While Jeremy simply did not trust Tavalin to keep a secret, it was for a different reason that he chose not to inform Jinni. If he asked Jinni not to tell, Jeremy trusted that she wouldn’t. In fact, it was largely because of her squeaky-clean persona that he didn’t mention the clandestine project to her. Compared to him, Jinni was an angel and he generally made it a point not to call attention to the difference between them. He could tell her later, if and when something came of the research.
“Boo,” Jeremy said in a conversational tone as he entered June’s lab. He didn’t want to scare June but rather alert her that he was there so he wouldn’t startle her.
“Hey, Jeremy,” she said.
“You sure are working late,” he said. “I was driving by and saw the light on and thought I would come bug you.”
“I’m glad,” replied June. “I’ve got some results I think you might be interested in.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It’s your mitochondria,” she said.
“What about my mitochondria?” For some reason, probably because of the beer, the sound of his question sounded comical in Jeremy’s ears. He suppressed a smile.
“They’re not normal,” she said.
“How so?” he asked.
“We’ve already determined that your metabolism runs very fast at the cellular level. That, in and of itself, is not unusual in well-trained athletes who have a high density of mitochondria. More mitochondria are naturally expected to produce more energy. Yet, with you, there seems to be an additional energy component – this is what I’ve been stuck on. Finally, I figured out that this extra energy component must be due to more energy output per single mitochondrion.”
“In laymen’s terms?” he asked.
Early on, Jeremy made every attempt to understand all the implications of the various experiments but swiftly came to realize that June’s knowledge and understanding far surpassed his own.
“Mitochondria are the engines of the cell,” she explained. “Trained athletes extract more energy from their cells by growing, if you will, extra engines. In your case, you not only have extra cellular engines but each of your engines has more horsepower.”
“And that would translate into faster race times?” asked Jeremy.
“It is definitely one component of performance,” she said, “There are other factors that come into play. The delivery of oxygen to the muscles is equally important but that is not what we are looking at here.”
“Any idea what’s causing this?” asked Jeremy.
“No, I don’t know what’s causing this effect and I don’t know how we might remediate it.”
“Remediate it?” Jeremy asked, puzzled. “Why? This is a good thing, is it not?”
“Good, yes, but maybe some bad too,” she said.
Before June could expound, Tavalin appeared unexpectedly at the doorway.
“Hi, guys,” he said jovially.
“I thought you’d be home in bed by now,” said Jeremy. “What are you doing here?”
“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” replied Tavalin.
“June and I were just going over some results.”
“Can I see?” asked Tavalin as he approached them.
“We’re trying to wrap it up here so we can go home,” replied Jeremy as he closed the notebook.
Tavalin returned a puzzled look and then asked, “So did you have fun tonight?”
“I did. You were right about the band,” replied Jeremy. “They’re really good.”
“Yeah, but did you have a good time?”
Tavalin’s tone made Jeremy wonder if his friend had witnessed the kiss he shared with the angel.
“Yes, I had fun,” replied Jeremy in a neutral tone.
“Where’s Jinni?” asked Tavalin.
“She went home.”
“Does she know you’re here?”
“I don’t know.” Jeremy did not try to hide his irritation. He wanted to finish his conversation with June. “I suppose not. Why does it matter?”
“I was just wondering.”
“Alright then,” Jeremy said leadingly. “We’re trying to get out of here so I guess I’ll see you Monday in class.”
“Yeah, whatever,” said Tavalin grudgingly as he headed for the door.
After giving his friend ample time to extricate himself from hearing range, Jeremy said, “I think Tavalin suspects we are up to something.”
“We can’t let him find out because I’m sure his big mou
th would never be able to keep quiet.”
Jeremy laughed at June’s out-of-character remark. He said, “Tavalin does have a big mouth, doesn’t he?”
June opened up the notebook with the results but, before she could speak, Jeremy raised his hand and whispered, “Wait.” He walked to the door and looked up and down the empty hallway. “I want to make sure Tavalin isn’t still hanging around.”
June took advantage of the delay to scribble something on a piece of scratch paper. “What is this word?” she asked.
Written on the paper was the 7-letter word, “helluva”.
“I came across this word in a novel yesterday night and it was not listed in the dictionary.”
Yesterday night was June’s unique jargon for last night.
Jeremy smiled. “That’s just a casual spelling of this phrase,” and he wrote the words “hell of a” on the same piece of paper. “It’s a mild explicative.”
“Oh,” she said, embarrassed.
He smiled affectionately at her and she responded in kind.
“You are alright, June,” Jeremy remarked impulsively, “and I’m so glad I got the opportunity to get to know you. I hope it’s alright for me to say that I think of you as my good friend.”
“It’s okay,” she said, blushing. “I think of you as my friend, too.”
The touching moment bordered on the awkward, and Jeremy relieved the pressure by turning the conversation back to their research. He asked, “You were saying there could be drawbacks to my accelerated metabolism?”
“Yes, maybe,” June replied. “A by-product of metabolism is the production of free radicals. Free radicals, because of their highly reactive nature, cause injury to the cell in general, and specifically, to the mitochondria within the cell and also to the DNA in the mitochondria. DNA acts as the blueprint for the production of the next generation of mitochondria, and so, when the blueprint becomes error-ridden, the new mitochondria are less efficient and produce even more free radicals as byproducts. This cycle repeats itself causing each successive generation of mitochondria to produce less energy and more free radicals.”
“In laymen’s terms?” Jeremy asked again.
“It’s as if your cellular engines are over-revving, generating extra energy but potentially causing extra damage to themselves in the process,” she explained in simpler terms. “Free radicals damage the mitochondria, including the DNA blueprint. The net result of a damaged DNA blueprint is that the next generation of mitochondria produces even more free radicals. It is a self-perpetuating cycle where the damage is multiplied over time.”
“That doesn’t sound good, does it?” he mused. “What impact might this have on my overall health?”
“Maybe none,” replied June. “One must remember that this process of damage by free radical production is common to us all – everyone’s mitochondrial DNA accumulate errors over time. The worry for you is that the process might be occurring at a faster-than-normal rate, but I’m not sure about that yet. I need to do some more reading.”
Though Jeremy chose not to pursue it, he thought that perhaps June was holding out on him and that the negative health repercussions might be worse than she let on.
He said, “I would offer to stay and help but I gotta tell you, I’m beat.”
“You look beat.”
Jeremy laughed as he turned to leave and replied, “Thanks a lot, June.”
She smiled. “Goodnight, Jeremy.”
“Goodnight.”
*****
Back at his apartment, Jeremy readied for bed. On emptying his jean pockets of their contents, he discovered a stray five dollar bill. He unfolded it and, as he was about to stuff it into his wallet, something caught his eye. Written in red ink along all four edges of the bill, on both the front and back sides, were the repeated words burn baby burn baby burn…
Jeremy might not have given it a second thought had the bill not been the one passed to him as payment for a certain White Russian. He wondered if a certain girl with raven hair and black-lace angel wings might have penned the curious message, and if so, what in the world she meant by it.
Chapter 14
Wednesday, November 5
Despite untold hours spent thinking about Claire and the ghost story, Jeremy had no accurate mental picture of the hippie queen. Though the quality was not all that great, one of the old newspaper articles included photographs of five of the seven hippies killed in the fire. It gave no explanation for the two omitted photos, but Claire’s was one of those missing. All five were posed shots of the typical head-and-shoulders style. Though this was not the first time Jeremy had seen the pictures, it was the first time that he realized their likely origin. Most, if not all, of the commune members had likely been students at the University. These were their yearbook photos.
Claire, he recalled, had also attended the University. Exactly when or for how long he did not know, but for a time she was a graduate student in the biology department. He did know she died in 1969. In the library he easily found copies of the four years prior to and including the 1969 edition of the University yearbook. While he found it interesting to see how people dressed and wore their hair 40 years ago, he found not one photo of anyone by the name of Claire Wales.
Though a long shot, Jeremy decided that a visit to the biology department should be his next move. They might have an old photo of Claire floating around somewhere. Jeremy ran across only one person, a secretary, who even had an inkling who Claire Wales was. The talkative secretary, an old maid who went by the name Ms Lang, had been working in the biology department for 30 years. Even so, Ms Lang knew few details of Claire except that she was the one who died in the fire.
Ms Lang did, however, direct Jeremy to a bank of filing cabinets in a musty-smelling storage room.
“We switched to electronic files for students 20 years ago, but this is where all our old student records ended up,” she said. “I’m not sure how far they go back or how complete they are.”
“And it’s okay that I look through these?” asked Jeremy.
“There’s probably some law against it somewhere, but I think it’s okay if we make an exception in your case,” replied Ms Lang.
For two hours Jeremy rummaged through the files. Most of the records contained only sketchy personal information, primarily local addresses and phone numbers of the students. Included in most were their University transcripts, which included the courses taken, grades received and the date, if applicable, of graduation.
Jeremy’s job might have been easier if the files of the graduate students had not been mixed in with those of the much more numerous undergrads. It also would have helped if the files had been in a more ordered state. Two hours passed before he found the skinny folder labeled WALES, CLAIRE.
Upon reading its contents, Jeremy learned that Claire had been enrolled for three semesters, starting in the fall of 1967. During her final semester at the University in the fall of 1968, she received a research fellowship under the direction of Dr. Ray Nevins. Included in her file was her research proposal abstract, which very vaguely outlined how she planned to study the local flora. The last detail Jeremy gleaned from Claire’s folder was that she apparently quit before receiving any degree.
The only lead Jeremy thought might be worth following up on was her research advisor, Dr. Nevins. Jeremy took the folder and tracked down Ms Lang, who was in the small break room drinking coffee from a large Styrofoam cup.
“Are you still here?” she asked in a tone too playful for her advanced years.
“Have you ever heard of a Dr. Ray Nevins?” asked Jeremy. “Apparently he worked in the biology department as a professor in 1968.”
“The name doesn’t ring a bell so I know he wasn’t here when I started…”
“When did you begin working here?” asked Jeremy.
“That would have been on the bicentennial year of our great nation, 1976. I started what I like to call my sentence in June of that year.”
W
hen Ms Lang finished her coffee, she was nice enough to look up Dr. Ray Nevins. Old faculty records, unlike those of the students, had been preserved and were easily accessible. Approximately 35 years had elapsed since Dr. Nevins, a botanist, retired from the department at the age of 65. Though Jeremy would certainly like to talk to him about Claire, it seemed unlikely that the man could still be alive after all this time.
“Anything else I can do, just let me know,” offered the perky old secretary.
“I will,” replied Jeremy, “and thank you for all your help.”
Though Jeremy had been very excited to find Claire’s folder, he was disappointed at the scant information it held. There had been no photograph of Claire and no indication as to where she might have lived before moving to Destiny.
*****
“There’s no way I’m going to be ready for this test.”
Jeremy was talking to Tavalin on the phone.
“You do know it’s not required that we take it, don’t you?” asked Tavalin.
“What?”
“Only the final exam is required.”
“I did not know that…”
“Of course you realize the risk,” warned Tavalin. “If you skip a test, then the final exam must necessarily constitute a larger proportion of your final grade.”
“I won’t decide until I see how the studying goes this week,” replied Jeremy, though the seed of procrastination had been sown.
Jeremy hung up the phone and promptly turned his thoughts to his afternoon visit to the biology department and to the hippie queen’s research advisor, Dr. Ray Nevins. A quick search revealed no reference to the man on the general pages of the internet, nothing about him on the University site, and no obituary. Jeremy wasn’t sure how information on the professor would help him learn more about Claire anyway, though it might be interesting to learn more about the nature of Claire’s research project.