Fleabrain Loves Franny

by Joanne Rocklin

  “I’m not sure I understand all that, but it sounds wonderful,” said Franny.

  “ ‘Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life.’ Sweet mysteries of the molecules and atoms of which we are composed. Never, ever underestimate them. Small is great, I am learning.”

  “You are great, Fleabrain,” said Franny. “And kind, too.”

  “I meant ‘great’ in the ‘powerful’ sense,” said Fleabrain, “as opposed to the ‘wonderful’ sense, although small can be wonderful, of course. Small is great. Invisible is great. The atom is great. Antibodies are great! I’m sure the German-born physicist Albert Einstein—born March 14, 1879—and I are in accord about all this, as we are about many things, although I’ve never quite reconciled myself to his vegetarianism. And as the Roman philosopher Lucretius—born 99 BC, died 55 BC—suggested …”

  At this point Franny couldn’t suppress a yawn, which she tried to hide with her apple core.

  “Oh, dear,” cried Fleabrain. “I’m prattling on and on! I just find everything so fascinating, and, before meeting you, I haven’t been able to share it with anyone.”

  “You’re not boring me, Fleabrain. I’m just sleepy and comfortable,” said Franny. “Small is great. I will remember that. But what about viruses? The poliovirus, for instance.”

  Fleabrain paused briefly. A flea-millisecond of a pause, but Franny noticed.

  “Not so great,” he admitted ruefully. “Powerful, yes. But not wonderful. Anyway, let’s not talk about viruses. It’s time to cross the boulevard and meet a couple of fellows who are very important to me, besides yourself and Alf, of course. And do bring that apple core.”

  A police car from the Northumberland station was patrolling the area. Fleabrain and Franny and Alf waited until the coast was clear, hiding behind a big dark tree. Then they scurried across Beechwood Boulevard and along English Lane to the stables.

  A joyful whinny soon greeted them—Lightning, stomping about in the second stall. Fleabrain unlatched the gate to the stall, as the other horses watched from theirs. The horse approached Franny, bending down, as he always did, to nuzzle her neck.

  “For you,” said Franny, giving him the apple core. “Dear Fleabrain thought of everything.”

  Meanwhile, Fleabrain had delved into Lightning’s tail and the area around the horse’s bottom. “Over here, Francine,” he called in a muffled voice. “Come meet some friends of mine.”

  On close inspection with Sparky’s Finest, and by the light of the gleaming moon, Franny could see Fleabrain leaping and cavorting with several tiny multilegged insects, who seemed very excited to see him. “I visit the ticks as often as I can,” said Fleabrain, “whenever Alf takes this particular route. Unfortunately, a few of these cute tykes will be dead by tomorrow.”

  “Oh, no!”

  Fleabrain sighed. “Well, c’est la vie. Excuse me; translation from the French: ‘such is life.’ Or such is the life cycle of the ordinary tick. Very, very short. I’m the stablest, most constant part of their lives. They like to tell me old tales they’ve heard of my father, one lonely flea wandering among their own tick ancestors, long, long ago, before he jumped onto Alf’s tail to join my mother. ‘Long ago’ in relative terms, of course, considering their short lives. I think of them as my adopted family. To them, I am their dear Uncle Fleabrain.”

  “Fleabrain, you are so kind and good and generous. I am very, very glad to know you, especially in person.”

  “Well …” Fleabrain covered the sides of his face with his front legs, where Franny supposed his eyes were, but they were so tiny, she could hardly see them, even with Sparky’s Finest. “This is embarrassing to admit, but since we’ve met in ‘person,’ I’m realizing I have to be honest with you. If we’re going to be true friends, that is.” His breath caught in a sob.

  “Fleabrain, what’s wrong?” Franny asked.

  “Oh, it’s Charlotte. It’s always Charlotte, bug it!”

  “You mean Charlotte, the spider from Charlotte’s Web?”

  “Of course I mean that Charlotte! Who else?”

  “I don’t understand …”

  “I could never fathom her appeal, quite frankly. But after pondering on it, I sense she is lovable for her motherly quality toward all. So I wanted you to know that I’ve got some of that quality, too. Up you go, kiddies! Uncle Fleabrain will give you a ride!” Fleabrain bounced several ticks on his back boisterously—a difficult task, since they were larger than he was. “I’ve actually learned to enjoy myself around these young ’uns.”

  “Charlotte was and is an inspiration to all, I agree,” said Franny.

  “I guess,” said Fleabrain grudgingly.

  “And, Fleabrain, I can easily tell that you are a terrific uncle.”

  Fleabrain’s body plates turned an even darker color of brown, which Franny assumed was an embarrassed but happy blush. “Thanks,” he said.

  Lightning whinnied, as if wondering why they were paying more attention to the back of him than the front.

  At that, Fleabrain gently dislodged a young tick from his back and took a giant leap forward, landing in Lightning’s straggly mane. “Now, for the other reason we are here—the most exciting reason, as a matter of fact! Equestrian delights!”

  FB Saliva #1

  After affixing Lightning’s famous old racing saddle and reins, Fleabrain helped Franny mount sidesaddle, then gently maneuvered her legs across the saddle and into the stirrups.

  “The idea came to me while reading the medical views of the ancient Greeks,” said Fleabrain. “Especially Hippocrates, born 460 BC, died 377 BC. ‘Riding’s healing rhythm,’ and all that. He was one smart doc, that Hippocrates.”

  “I’ve never ridden a horse,” Franny admitted, shivering with excitement.

  Fleabrain tied the yellow afghan like a cloak around Franny’s shoulders.

  “Lightning will take care of you—don’t you worry. His forebears, once companions to the gods, were taught to know and love the human soul. But first, an application of FB Saliva #1, for speedy woof and whinny travel. My saliva is composed of minute yet immensely powerful particles invisible to the naked eye—even mine.”

  Fleabrain hopped from Lightning to Alf, applying his solution to their ears and limbs with a few quick bites.

  “Now, heigh-ho, Lightning and Alf, away!” he called.

  Old Lightning’s arthritic trot was slow and tentative, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was free. Not quite a “healing rhythm.”

  “You can do it, O noble steed!” Franny whispered.

  Lightning tossed his head and whinnied, seeming to remember his godly heritage. Very soon his gait quickened to a confident gallop, following Franny’s wishes without her saying or doing very much. A tiny tug of the reins, a pat on his neck, and, yes, oh yes! even a nudge with her left toe every now and then, the same toe she’d wiggled in the bathtub.

  From somewhere within Lightning’s streaming mane, Fleabrain whistled Wieniawski’s concerto, quickening its rhythm to match the horse’s percussive hoofbeats. To Franny’s surprise, Alf raced at their side, not a fat and lumbering Alf but a sleeker, wolflike version of himself.

  “Atta boy, Alf!” called Fleabrain.

  Faster and faster they galloped upstreet toward Forbes Avenue, the warmth of Lightning’s flanks against Franny’s own, the wind whipping her face, the clatter of hooves pounding in her ears. How wonderful to look down from a mighty steed, rather than stare up at the world from her wheelchair!

  And here was the world again! The greengrocer and the deli and the butcher shops, the chickens and ducks and salamis swaying in darkened windows; Weinstein’s Restaurant; the post office; the bank. Still there! Across the street, the Manor Theater; the five-and-dime; the Waldorf Bakery. Still there, too! At the hub of Forbes and Murray, the Gulf gas station, the newsstand, Sol’s for pop, Isaly’s for towering ice cream cones, shops for stylish clothes. Everything was still there, exactly as she’d pictured it in her mind for so long.

  Faster and faste
r, and faster still! Then, with a loud whinny and a sharp woof, Lightning and Franny and Fleabrain and Alf left the sidewalks of Squirrel Hill. Up, up, up they flew, over red-hot slag heaps, great factories and steel mills, the new parkway, still a hole in a hill, west over silent and majestic parks, toward the graceful bridges whose rivers met at the Ohio. Higher and faster still, zooming back over downtown Pittsburgh’s tall buildings. Even over the Gulf Tower, tallest of all! Its neon-lit pyramid top gave the nightly weather report as they whizzed over it. Flashing blue meant cold and drizzly. Who cares? thought Franny. I’m warm atop my noble steed!

  “Wheeee-ee!” squealed Fleabrain. “Awhooo!” howled Alf, newly wolflike. “Eeeeeehhh!” whinnied Lightning nobly.

  Franny was too thrilled to shout anything at all. They circled back toward the neighborhood of Oakland and the University of Pittsburgh campus. Fleabrain hollered, “Prepare to descend!”

  Down they went, hovering at the bottom floors of the Pittsburgh Municipal Hospital on the campus grounds. Cigarette smoke floated from an open window. Franny leaned forward to peek inside.

  There he was, working in his famous laboratory.

  The great Dr. Jonas Salk.

  In the flesh!

  Franny recognized him right away. He looked just like his photo in the Pittsburgh Press—balding, bespectacled, smoking a cigarette. He was wearing his dignified white lab coat and squinting at a large test tube, which he held aloft. And there was his team of diligent lab technicians and scientists, also hard at work at the crack of dawn, including the erudite Professor Doctor George Gutman. Some were bent over vials, some were checking notes on, yes, graph paper, still others in the basement examined the shaking incubators holding the precious mixture—the mixture that would eventually be used to conquer polio, learn its secrets, and save its victims. All were so intent on their lifesaving mission that not a single one of them noticed a dog and a horse and the horse’s rider, wearing a red hat and scarf and wrapped in a yellow afghan-cloak, floating outside the laboratory window. Franny was cheered by their predawn industriousness and by the hope for prevention and cure wafting from the window with all that cigarette smoke.

  “Francine, now you can say you were a witness to history in the making. Because of yours truly.”

  “Thank you, Fleabrain,” said Franny. She’d known all along that Dr. Jonas Salk truly existed, but it felt wonderful to know for sure.

  “All right, team, prepare to ascend again!” Fleabrain shouted, his voice faint against the rising wind. A light rain began to fall, just as the Gulf Tower had predicted. They headed back toward the stables, in time to witness an unexpected spectacle as daylight returned.

  Two masked robbers, each carrying a bulging sack of cash, raced from Peoples Bank on Forbes Avenue. One burly man waited by a getaway car. Then two robbers and one burly lookout-man fainted dead away on the wet sidewalk, having spotted the equestrian Franny and her friends zooming overhead. Franny could hear sirens as police cars raced to the scene.

  “Superflea and Francine, the Girl of Steel! Champions of Truth, Justice, and the American Way! Our size belies our strength. Heigh-ho, Alfie and Lightning, away! Now we can go home, our mission completed for today,” exulted Fleabrain. “I’ve always admired the moral compasses of Superman and the Lone Ranger, fictional though they may be. Such fine examples of popular culture.”

  At the stables again, Fleabrain helped Franny down from the horse into her chair, then wrapped her in the afghan for the ride home. And Lightning, who would keep their secrets safe, always and forever, trotted back to his stall for breakfast.

  What the Professor Knew

  George Gutman knew his work was important, and he loved it.

  He loved the sound of the busy, churning canisters in the basement, and the clean smell of the laboratories above.

  He loved the lab’s monkeys in their second-floor cages, many of whom would die for a noble cause. He loved the elegant chain of events the monkeys represented: Salk’s scientific theories made real by patience and hard work!

  Kidney cells were extracted from the monkeys.

  The kidney cells were then used to harvest the poliovirus, large quantities of it, in churning canisters.

  The poliovirus was killed with formaldehyde.

  The inactive virus was made into a vaccine.

  The vaccine was given to monkeys.

  And then the inoculated monkeys were exposed to the dangerous poliovirus.

  Did those monkeys develop antibodies, disease-fighting agents against polio, after receiving the vaccine? Yes!

  Did the vaccine protect them against polio? Yes, most of the time.

  Over and over again the chain of events was repeated; day after sixteen-hour working day, six days a week, the search for a perfectly safe and effective vaccine continued.

  He even loved the smell of Salk’s cigarettes, because he loved his hardworking boss, although he did think his boss smoked too much.

  And the professor knew that he loved his work even more, lately, because of that young girl with polio in his neighborhood. Annie? Fanny? He should find out her name again. Names were important. There were so many others like her. There were others who would become like her. That’s why his work was necessary. Time was of the essence, to create the lifesaving vaccine.

  But he also knew that this girl was unusual. Many were stricken with polio, but how many of them tried to read Franz Kafka? Kafka’s stories were for adults, difficult and strange. They didn’t make sense.

  The professor knew what the girl’s question for Kafka would be, if Kafka were still alive.

  “Mr. Kafka, how come some people get polio and others don’t? That doesn’t make sense,” she would ask.

  The professor knew that Kafka would have answered with more questions, because Kafka wouldn’t have an answer.

  “Young lady, who knows?” Kafka would ask, his dark eyes flashing with a gleeful anger. “Why ask me? Am I a scientist? And who says life itself has to make sense? If you wake up one morning as a bug, does that make any less sense than the world’s wars in Europe and Korea?”

  Life didn’t make sense to the professor. Once, he’d had a wife and a daughter, and they’d all lived together in a faraway European city. His daughter, blue-eyed and long-limbed, had loved books, just like his young neighbor on Shady Avenue. And buttered noodles with poppy seeds, and marionettes, and her clarinet, and her grandfather’s horse.

  Why, just today, from the corner of his eye, the professor had seen a reflection in the windowpane at the first light of morning. There was his daughter on that horse, riding home to him across a snowy field. Of course, it was only the professor’s mind playing a little trick on him. He’d been working too hard. His daughter had died in a concentration camp in a senseless war, as had his wife. Nameless and alone.

  And it didn’t make sense that this young neighbor should also feel alone, imagining herself waking up as an ugly, unwanted bug, that Ungeziefer in Kafka’s story. A beautiful girl, inside and out. Just like his daughter, Sophie, had been. Sophie Harriet Gutman.

  They must find the right vaccine! Test it on more monkeys until it was absolutely perfect. And higher primates, too! Of course he would test the vaccine on himself, just as the other researchers had.

  And then, the children. They must give it to all the children. But what if the vaccine gave them polio instead of protecting them? The risk was there. That was why he and Salk would keep working sixteen hours a day, six days a week, until the perfect vaccine was developed.

  Blisters

  The six little bites on Franny’s arm in the shape of a distinctive F were fading by early Sunday morning, as Fleabrain had promised. They had hardly itched at all. She was careful to keep the bites hidden from her family, but that was easy to do. Their house was always drafty and chilly in the winter, and knitted, long-sleeved sweaters were necessary indoors. She was sorry to see Fleabrain’s bites fade, since they were a reminder of their time together. Already the memory of
their ride was fading a little, too. She tried to re-create it, tightening her thighs, reaching out with her arms, pulling imaginary reins this way and that, and tapping with her toe, the one that moved. Of course, it wasn’t the same.

  Still, Franny felt a new joy blooming like a winter petunia inside of her. Was there such a thing as a winter petunia? A soft-petaled but determined petunia, pushing itself up through the snow.

  She was especially joyous because Nurse Olivegarten had called in sick with the sniffles. Next Thursday would be Christmas Day, and Nurse Olivegarten would be off then, too, and Friday and the next Saturday. Four Nurse Olivegarten–less days to look forward to. And whenever the nurse wasn’t around, Franny removed her hated leg braces and special, ugly, clodhopper shoes.

  The winter petunia inside of her was her beautiful secret. She hadn’t told anyone yet about her toe and ankle wiggle. Surprisingly, Nurse Olivegarten hadn’t, either. If her parents and Min had known, they’d be hollering with joy! She would tell them herself, when the time was right. Maybe she’d wait until she could stand up and skip right across the room.

  It was reading time at the Katzenbacks’, just as it usually was on Sunday mornings. Another reason to be happy. Even Before, the whole family had read together, the clock ticking cheerfully on the mantel, opera on the radio, a beet borscht on the stove warming the whole house. Min and Franny used to go to the library together, hopping onto the streetcar to the Oakland Branch, sometimes visiting the grand Carnegie Museums, as well. Or they’d bring home a stack of books from the new neighborhood bookmobile. Before. Nowadays Min went alone, bringing books home for Franny and herself.