"Really? Do you go up often?
"Not as often as I should. Free time is never in abundance for me, especially these days."
Howard shifts the pyramid approximately one quarter inch to the right. He must have some super-hero kind of power to see at perfect right angles. Grid Man, able to align corners in a single bound.
"Let’s get back to our original group," I say. "Can you give me some more details about the pianist? His results seem amazing."
Howard finally opens the file in front of him, scanning through pages that look very much like the pages of a patient’s medical chart. All the notations are handwritten, and even though I am very good at reading upside down, I can’t decipher anything. Classic doctor illegibility. Howard shuts the folder and moves it off to the side. My pen is poised over my notebook.
"His daughter came to us," Howard begins. "She’d heard about the testing from a friend of a friend of a friend. Often times, even I don’t know how all the participants come to join us. That’s really Gavin’s area."
So Gavin is the number one scavenger. That’s very interesting. I picture a seagull with Gavin’s face swooping down out of the sky, plucking old people out of their walkers.
"As I recall, this particular patient was quite advanced in his symptoms. In fact, I remember being a bit reluctant to take him. I feel our greatest potential for success lies with early intervention. But, contrary to what you may think, Mr. Mackey, I do have a heart."
Howard pauses for a moment, leans back in his chair and smiles at me. His smile is reptilian, satisfied, as if he’s just swallowed something much larger than his head.
"The daughter told us her father had been a concert pianist. Not a famous solo artist but a well respected orchestral member and a teacher. I don’t really follow the classical music scene. Do you?"
I think about Mia for a second but shake my head, no.
"He was very small. Barely five foot three and maybe 110 pounds soaking wet. But his hands were big. They were made for the piano. His fingers were long and thin and there was no swelling in his joints. I know that’s an odd thing to remember about a patient, but of course I knew he’d been a pianist and so I took note of his hands, but more than that, every time I saw him his hands were moving. Clasping and unclasping, rubbing, clenching, twining. It was almost as if he thought he could squeeze the memory back into them."
Howard demonstrates with his own hands.
"So when you met him," I ask. "How long had it been since he’d stopped playing?"
"According to his daughter he had been able to continue to play even as other memories deteriorated, but that’s normal. Alzheimer’s is regressive, so our earliest learned behaviors are often the last to go."
I’m scribbling notes as Howard tells the story. I’m also thinking how horrible it would be to slip backwards like that—to unspool.
I realize Howard is still talking.
"This present to past regression is why sometimes you’ll have a patient who doesn’t appear to notice relatives and friends around him and can’t carry on a conversation, but when the crowd gathers to leave, he’ll thank them for coming. We learn the basic routines of politeness as very young children and they pop back up automatically. Our pianist had been playing since he was three or four years old. When he and his daughter came in for the interview, the majority of his symptoms were quite pronounced, but his daughter said he’d lost the ability to play only six months earlier."
"Where is he now," I ask. "I’d like to interview him and his daughter."
"I’m sorry, that’s impossible."
Howard crosses his arms.
"Impossible?"
I scratch the word onto my note pad and underline it. I stop writing but don’t lift my pen from the pad. Instead I lift my eyes and stare at Howard.
"Why?"
Howard shifts in his chair and smoothes an invisible wrinkle on his slacks.
"Anonymity is a requirement of the testing. It’s a legal contract we have with all the participants. I could jeopardize the entire project if I were to go against it."
"Don’t these people love to talk about their recoveries? At the funeral there were a lot of people who spoke about how Michael had helped them. And, of course, there were all those TV interviews Michael did."
Howard reaches up with one hand and rubs his neck. This is the choking gesture. It means there’s something he’d like to say but he’s keeping it in.
"I could be mistaken," he says. "But I don’t recall that any of the people who spoke at Michael’s funeral were our test participants. They were most likely people from his own practice or research."
"What if we had just one or two of the patients sign a release saying they waive their anonymity for this one interview? Your choice, perhaps the folks who traveled the talk show circuit with Michael and are used to the media."
I think this is a reasonable request and an innovative solution to our impasse. I’m not demanding the whole enchilada, just a small bite. He’s got to give me something and he knows it.
Howard brings his hands together as if in prayer and taps them lightly against his lips. His eyes are closed. I think he’s just considering my question, but if he is really praying, I hope I don’t get struck by lightning.
"That’s not entirely out of the question, Albert."
"Really?"
Damn. That slipped out. It’s not good to sound surprised when your strategy works. I look at Howard to see if he noticed. He’s still praying.
"What I mean, Howard, is anything you could arrange would be extremely helpful. I want to be able to bring the research up to the present. You know, a ‘where are they now’ kind of thing. Readers always want to know how the story ends."
"An interview is one thing. I don’t think these people will want their lives laid open for everyone to see in a book."
"Even if they knew it could help someone else?"
"I’ll look into it. That’s all I can promise. There are a couple of participants who might be more willing than the others. But it will take me several days at least to see what I can come up with."
Howard stops speaking abruptly and I’ve been in enough conversations with him to understand this means he is done with the subject at hand. There will be no further discussion. After backing him into a corner over the test participants, I’m reluctant to push further, but I have to. I need more details than Howard is willing to divulge.
"In the meantime, if I can’t talk to the participants, how about the investors?"
I think Howard has stopped breathing. His expression is frozen, his lips forming a rigid horizontal line across the bottom of his face. You’d have to slice them apart with a knife in order to allow him to speak. But that turns out not to be necessary because he suddenly forces the line into a sly smile.
"I was going to say no, but I just got a delightful idea. I would love for you talk with one of our investors. I think it might be good for everybody."
"I’m glad you agree."
Howard is positively grinning now.
"Roger Jones. You need to talk with Roger Jones. He’s one of our biggest investors. Right now, he is also one of the biggest pains in the ass I have to deal with."
This is a decidedly un-Howard-like statement. Along with that goofy grin, it makes a bizarre package. It’s creepin’ me out.
"What’s the problem with Mr. Jones?"
"He thinks we’re too far off schedule. He’s ready to pull out his money unless we find a way to get things back on track. He’s worried Michael’s accident was the death knell for the entire project. I get at least three calls a day from him, none of them pleasant."
"I’ll hazard a guess he was the lunch date you cancelled for our meeting."
Howard nods.
"Jones has been in on lab construction from the very beginning," Howard continues. "He can give you his perspective on the entire project. It will give him a way to vent his frustrations, he’ll stop calling me, and you’ll get more infor
mation than you ever wanted. He’s a talker."
Howard slides open the top drawer of his desk and removes a small pad and pen. He scribbles something and hands it to me.
"That’s his direct line, rings right at his desk. He is always there. The man has no life outside of work."
"What exactly does he do?"
"Commercial real estate. Big deals. Office towers, corporate parks. He owns this development we’re in."
I look at the piece of paper. It’s a local number.
"He’s here in town?"
"Lived here all his life. Call him. You’ll like him."
"You haven’t made him sound particularly likable."
"When he’s not shouting and complaining, he’s actually quite personable. I used to like him a lot. I’m sure once we get over this little disagreement, I’ll like him again."
There is the sound of a soft chime. Must be that clock I heard earlier. Howard looks up over my head then back at me.
"I hate to cut this short, but I wasn’t able to completely clear my schedule this afternoon. I’m afraid I have another meeting. Shall we schedule a new time to get together?"
I shake my head.
"Let me call Jones first. And you can follow up with the test participants. We should both have enough to keep us busy for a little while before we need to meet again."
Howard gets up and walks around to the front of his desk. He sits on the corner and crosses his arms over his silk sweater.
"You don’t like me much, do you Albert?"
This catches me completely off guard. Does Howard actually care what I think about him? I pause in the middle of gathering my pen and notepad and look up. I cannot stop my face from registering surprise. It’s true, I don’t like Howard much, but I didn’t think it showed. I’m not used to people discovering how I really feel. I must be slipping.
"I think we got off on the wrong foot," he continues. "And I think it was probably my fault. I know I come across as a bit straight-laced. But I prefer order and predictability. Everything surrounding Michael’s death has been chaotic. I’m simply not cut out to deal well with the chaos. I’m afraid it’s put me on edge."
He extends one hand to me.
"I’d like to start fresh."
I drop my pad back down on the desk and accept his peace offering.
"Okay," I say. "But if we’re going to bare our souls here, then I should probably fess up to being too harsh. Hazard of the trade. Sometimes I’m too cynical for my own good."
"We have a lot to gain from one another, Albert. I’d rather have you as a friend than an enemy."
Howard and I are more alike than either one of us would ever admit. He’s about a hundred times smarter than me, but we both have an image to keep up. We both care about Lily and respect Michael. We are both trying very hard to make the best of a bad situation. Just because his is real and mine is imaginary doesn’t make it any easier. I am not ready to go for beers with the guy, but he does seem to be sincerely apologetic about his behavior. He also has a lot of information that would be very helpful if I’m ever able to move this ridiculous project forward. He’d probably be more willing to divulge some of it if he thought of me as an ally.
"You can never have too many friends, Howard."
TEN
I am standing outside a convenience store, listening to Lily’s phone ring in my ear. The break in the clouds is long gone and it’s drizzling again. Voice mail picks up and I leave a short message asking her to call me. From inside the store I hear the minor chords of Indian or Persian music. There’s a guy with a stringy ponytail at the counter buying a case of Pabst. He looks a little drunk already. I open the door and the volume of the music jumps. The clerk looks over at me and smiles.
"Hello and how are you today?" he says.
I nod and head back to the coolers. It’s closing in on three o’clock and I haven’t had any lunch. One door of the refrigerated section is devoted to an assortment of prepared foods. Microwave burritos, plastic-wrapped sandwiches, bagels and cream cheese. There’s also a selection of frozen dinners that look equally unappetizing. Even fast food would be better than this, but I’m here and the food’s there. I grab a couple of burritos and head for the check out.
"Hello and how are you today?" the clerk asks again.
"Good. And yourself?"
"I have been particularly well, thank you."
I wonder if this guy knows he’s fulfilling my stereotype of a convenience store owner. Dark and wavy hair, a mustache, the skin around his deep-set eyes darker than the rest of his face, like two shades of melted chocolate. Warning buzzer: we’re not supposed to notice skin color; everyone’s the same. Bullshit. If your skin were beautifully smooth and brown wouldn’t being compared to chocolate be better than being compared to gravy or mud or … bullshit? One of the things I like about my hobby is walking a mile in someone else’s loafers. We’re different. We look different, we act different, some of us like mayonnaise, some of us don’t. I wouldn’t mind someone describing my skin as melted chocolate instead of how they usually describe it: chicken flesh, marshmallow cream, the underbelly of a trout.
The scanner beeps as it records my lunch. A group of three teenage boys clomps into the store and the clerk watches them walk into the candy aisle. Two are tall and gangly; the third is short and thick. They’re all wearing matching rock band t-shirts and indolent expressions.
"You’re pretty close to that big lab project, aren’t you?" I ask. "You get a lot of the construction workers in here?"
"Why yes we do. Very good for business."
He smiles and drops the burritos into a paper bag, still watching the teenagers who have moved into the next aisle to read magazines.
"Young boys," the clerk calls out to the teens. "I cannot sell the magazines if they are wrinkled and covered with your greasy fingerprints. Only touch what you are planning to buy."
The kids look over at the clerk then laugh to each other, but they put the magazines back and return to the candy.
"That will be $3.19 with tax. Anything else?"
I fish a five dollar bill out of my pocket.
"Did they stop working after that guy died? You know, the doctor guy?"
He rings up my sale and counts out change.
"Oh no. They never stop working. I believe they must finish no matter what. Such a shame about the doctor. I heard he was important."
I take my paper bag off the counter and pocket the change.
"I think he was."
A pretty young woman walks in and heads for the dairy case. With a blond ponytail, tiny pink shorts and matching pink sneakers, she looks like a life-size Barbie. The boys watch her. I watch her. The clerk watches the boys.
"Always the good people die," the clerk says. "Never the bad people."
He smiles at me again.
"You know what they say," I reply. "Only the good die young."
"Billy Joel, right?"
"Yeah, Billy Joel."
"Have a nice day, sir"
I turn to head back to the car with my burritos. The Barbie girl is at the counter now with a carton of yogurt and a water. Behind her are the three boys, each holding a liter of pop and a bag of chips. I have to get out of Stereotype-Mart before a cop comes in for a doughnut.
Sitting in my car, I wonder if Billy Joel really was right. If so, what does that make me? I was the one who didn’t die. The survivor. The one who lived to tell the tale. Like that’s some sort of prize, except it's more like being condemned to stay behind and relive the story. Maybe bad people are stronger, more disease resistant, better able to suffer the slings and arrows of everyday existence. But I don’t think so. I think we’re at the dawn of a major good-people revolution. They’re gonna rise up and smash the bejesus out of the bad, which will make us all one.
The road in front of the lab expansion project is not the shortest route home, but I’m curious to see it for myself. Lily has been promising me a tour, but other things keep getting in th
e way. The storm did some damage. Shards of plastic hang like black icicles from the upper floor on one side of the building. A man in striped coveralls is inside sweeping water over the edge with a giant push broom. Sweeping water. Isn’t that kind of like herding cats? The far side of the building appears to be intact with windows in place and a stone façade. It’s going to be an impressive structure, but it’s far from finished. I can understand why Howard is starting to freak out over the whole thing.
I loop around the block and head back towards the condo. There’s white panel van in my driveway with Sam’s Glass Repair painted in large red letters on the back and huge racks hanging off either side. The racks are empty. My front door is open and I hear a loud whining noise as soon as I step out of the car. It sounds like one of those leaf blowers. As I start up the stairs, a guy comes out of the door with my tree limb over one shoulder. He’s young, probably not more than 18, just a kid really, with thick black hair and a brick shithouse build. He stops and looks at me, balancing the huge branch like a jacket he’s casually tossed over his shoulder. He’s wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. The sweatshirt has the same red lettering as the van.
"Hey," he says, shouting a little over the noise and moving to one side to allow me to continue up the stairs. "This your place?"
"Yes it is."
"We’re almost done. Thought I’d get this out of your way."
He hefts the branch up off his shoulder to indicate what he’s talking about.
"Thanks. I appreciate that. I was pretty surprised to have that thing come through the window."
The kid shakes his head as if sharing my disbelief.
"You’re not the only one. We’ve been all over town today fixin’ stuff. But I think you win the prize for the biggest."
He shifts the weight of the branch and starts down the stairs.
"You know," I say. "I thought it was pretty strange it wasn’t a pine branch that came through the window. The only thing around here is pine trees. Can’t imagine where that thing came from."
The kid’s forehead wrinkles into three massive skin folds.
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