Miracle Man

by William R. Leibowitz

  He had found his replenishment mechanism. He knew it was superficial, but it would suffice. He felt he had no alternative. Relationships were time consuming luxuries that he believed he wasn’t entitled to. Joe’s words reverberated in his mind, but they had become distorted: “Don’t squander your gifts. We all have our allotted time—use yours well. Don’t be like some of the others who could have made a big difference but blew it.” Twisting this into a dark commandment requiring unrelenting discipline and self-denial, Bobby rejected any semblance of normal balanced living.

  But there was more to it than that. As Dr. Uhlman had explained to Peter and Edith when they were contemplating having Bobby enroll in the Institute, intelligence of the magnitude possessed by Bobby was self-isolating. His intellect would confine him and alienate him from society at large. Bobby’s intelligence was a roadblock to social intimacy. It awed and intimidated others to such a degree that he was ostracized by those who were enamored of him. People who knew who he was felt awkward around him. What should they say? Should they make small-talk? They worried they would sound like idiots. They didn’t realize that simple normal human interaction was something that Bobby craved, but his inherent shyness and undeveloped social skills inhibited him from taking the initiative. He got a reputation for being distant, detached, “in his own world,” and often impatient.

  30

  Even before losing his affiliation with MIT and Harvard, Bobby was concentrating his efforts on autoimmune diseases and to do this, he had focused on multiple sclerosis, one of over eighty diseases classified as autoimmune which afflict millions of people. In an autoimmune disease, the body turns its own immune system against itself, utilizing its antibodies to attack healthy cells as if they were hostile foreign agents. In effect, the body begins to destroy itself. Despite years of research and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, science knew little about what actually caused these maladies. Because of this, all that was available were ineffectual treatments, typically immuno-suppressing in nature, which had the undesirable side-effect of reducing the overall efficacy of the body’s immune response, thereby making the patient more susceptible to illness.

  Eighteen months into his experiments, he was frustrated. Every avenue he explored took him no further than his predecessors. “Damn, this is brutal,” Bobby muttered to himself as he decided it was time to call it quits for the night. It was two in the morning, he had a bad cold, and he had been in the lab since nine the previous morning. Walking in the downpour of the unrelenting thunder storm without an umbrella, he was soaking wet in less than a minute. As Bobby trudged across the deserted campus, Tufts looked like the set of a grade-B horror movie as its looming buildings were sporadically illuminated with strobe like intensity by the lightning flashes. Bobby sniffled and sneezed his way into his bathroom and pulled off his wet clothing. He stuffed his feet into his slippers, put on his terry cloth robe and then shuffled his way into the kitchen to get some orange juice. Grabbing the refrigerator door handle, the static shock that Bobby received was so powerful that his hand flew off the door, a spark blinded him, and he was propelled backwards from the force of the electrical discharge.

  “Holy crap,” he yelled out. Shaking his head, he went into the living room, this time being careful to gingerly lift his feet. Sitting by the window, he watched the violent storm intently and as he did, his mind began to drift. Becoming lost in thought, eyes closed, his cognitive processes gradually accelerated and then began to race. Bobby’s mind was now awash with thousands of numbers and scientific symbols flashing by in a blindingly white light as if he were careening along a mathematical autobahn. He clutched the arms of his chair as if to steady himself. And then his flight came to an abrupt stop.

  Oh my God. That’s it. That’s been it all along. Like I had to be hit over the head. Why didn’t I realize it? Bobby threw on some dry clothes, grabbed an umbrella and ran out of his apartment to get back to the lab. Electricity. His new research and experiments began that night, but within a month, he was sure he was finally on to it.

  It took another year and a half, but shortly after Bobby turned twenty three, he was ready to announce his findings. He submitted his scientific conclusions, together with over one thousand pages of formulaic and laboratory proofs to the New England Journal of Medicine, the premiere medical research publication in the United States. What Bobby had done was discover the underlying cause of autoimmune disease. The cause was something that no one had ever conceived of. In making this discovery, Bobby marshaled his full panoply of immense abilities in physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics.

  He proved that the reason the body’s antibodies attacked healthy cells was because those particular cells displayed irregularities in their bioelectrical current. Such irregularities were detected by the antibodies and led them to identify the cells as hostile foreign matter that needed to be attacked and destroyed. Having found the underlying cause of autoimmune diseases, Bobby knew what the cure needed to be. His submission to the New England Journal of Medicine included his reports and data on a complex chemical compound which he had formulated, which would travel in the bloodstream, detect bioelectric cellular irregularities and lodge in the affected tissues. The compound would then, through a process of regulating the exchange of potassium and sodium across cellular membranes, balance out any irregularity. Once the irregularity in the bioelectric current was eliminated, the affected cells immediately ceased to appear to be antigens to the body’s antibodies, that is, they no longer were earmarked for destruction as foreign matter. The attacks would stop and previous damage that had been done would in many cases be repaired by the body over time. This compound could be ingested in pill form as an ordinary daily medication. Bobby playfully named the compound, “Eversteady” — a take-off on the famous battery trademark, and a reference to the effect the medication had on the body’s bioelectricity.

  While Bobby had focused primarily on multiple sclerosis, it was clear that this same approach would be equally valid across the full range of autoimmune diseases. The editors of the New England Journal of Medicine were flabbergasted. If Bobby was correct, then what he had achieved was one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history. They took his entire treatise including the thousand pages of proofs, and published a special edition, which due to its length encompassed five volumes. Over the course of the ensuing year, Bobby’s conclusions were tested in over two dozen of the leading universities and research hospitals of the world. The verdict was unanimous. Bobby had done it.

  31

  The news of Bobby’s discovery galvanized the worldwide media. But beyond the interest in the medical achievement, the curiosity about Bobby was intense. As one television newscaster asked, “Who is this prodigy who we understand is under 25 years old? Where does he come from? Who are his parents? What’s the next disease on his hit list? And just how smart is he anyway?” Reporters from newspapers, wire services and television stations descended on Tufts University in droves. They all wanted statements and interviews with Bobby. Dean Walterberg met with Bobby to discuss how this should be handled.

  “Robert, I’ve consulted with the university’s press department, and they would like to set-up an official televised “meet the press” session for you, to then be followed by a series of separate interviews which you’ll do with the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and then one major newspaper from each of eight designated international territories. Then, you’ll be scheduled for appearances on no more than three of the national talk shows.”

  “I don’t want to do any of that, dean.”

  “What do you mean Robert? This is a major public relations event for you and the University. It’s highly newsworthy. The public wants to know.”

  “Tufts can have all the publicity it wants. It deserves it. It supported me and gave me the use of its facilities. But I want none.” Bobby remembered the admonitions that Jo
e had delivered to him on Dreamweaver: “Don’t get seduced by the limelight… Some who could have made a difference went astray because they wanted publicity, adulation, glamour—they thought they were celebrities. They wasted their time.”

  Walterberg shook his head. “You’re the hero here. You’ve worked like a dog for years to get to this point. The world wants to know you.”

  “I’m not a celebrity. I’m a scientist. And I can’t take credit for a gift I’ve been given. I’m not interested in making public statements or being photographed. Please dean, leave me out of it. You make the speeches.”

  “They don’t want me. They want you,” Walterberg said. “What should I tell them?”

  “Tell them that the patents to my ‘Eversteady’ medication will be held by a non-profit corporation which I’m establishing, to be called ‘Uniserve.’ I’m going to use that company for all medicines I invent. These belong to everyone. They’re not there to profit me or pharmaceutical companies. I want them to be made available as cheaply as possible.”

  While Bobby shunned publicity and guarded his privacy, Dean Walterberg didn’t miss an opportunity for media attention. He took to the media like a mosquito to a picnic. The publicity had the benefit of attracting huge amounts of donations. Checks poured in from around the world. Bobby established a charitable fund for the contributions, The Edith and Peter Austin Foundation For Medical Research. A special bank protocol was set up to allow checks with Bobby’s name on them to be deposited into the fund, because despite the instructions that Tufts gave, donors just seemed to want to write the name Robert James Austin on their contributions.

  “Robert, I have some good news for you,” Dean Walterberg said. “I’ve spoken to the Trustees and they agree that some changes should be made. It’s no secret that you live in your office, so you’re getting a bigger one—and we’re customizing it for you so it will have an attached apartment. And let me be the first to call you ‘Professor’.”

  “I feel like the big winner on a TV game show,” Bobby replied, smiling.

  Walterberg rattled on excitedly. “There’s more. We’re hiring two additional lab technicians for you, and you’re going to have your own secretary.”

  “Now, you’re overdoing it, dean. I’m fully capable of making my own coffee and I never answer my phone anyway, so I really don’t need that.”

  “Yes, you do. More than you know. There’s a lot that needs to be taken care of and it will only increase. You have baskets full of unopened mail, the IT guys tell me that your voice-mail has never been listened to, acknowledgments need to be sent for donations, and invitations should be answered, one way or the other.”

  Walterberg gave Bobby a choice of several candidates. The one selected by Bobby was a woman in her early forties named Susan Corwin. She was five foot three, weighed somewhere in the vicinity of one hundred seventy-five pounds, and had short light blonde hair styled in what was at one time politely referred to as a “gentleman’s haircut.” She dressed in loose fitting slacks, simple blouses and flat shoes. Her face was round, her facial features small, and her fair complexion was made even lighter by her pale face powder which contrasted sharply with her rouge and deep red lipstick. While her job recommendations touted her efficiency and organizational skills, it was her outgoing, bubbly, up-beat personality and sarcastic sense of humor that were the deciding factors for Bobby. Susan was fearless and full of life and Bobby loved that. She was outspoken and didn’t hesitate to say what was on her mind, even if that could be impolitic at times. Susan was a very strong woman, but it hadn’t always been that way.

  Life had not been easy for her. When she was sixteen years of age, she left home against her parents’ wishes to move-in with her lover, a man twelve years her senior. He promptly impregnated her, and by age nineteen, Susan had two children by him, a son and a daughter. The beatings began before her twentieth birthday. He terrorized and demeaned her daily. By age twenty-one, no remnants of her self-esteem or confidence remained. When the children were old enough to open the refrigerator, he put a lock and chain on it—and food could be removed only with his permission. It often was hard to obtain permission from someone who had passed out drunk, so it wasn’t unusual for the kids to go to bed hungry. It didn’t take long for them to realize that their mother was an abuse victim, as he raped and beat her with regularity. They heard her sobs and pleading through the bedding under which they would bury themselves trying to stifle the noise. When her son, Richard, was eleven, he made a stand to defend her, but his father pummeled him about the face and head so severely that Susan was afraid he had suffered brain damage. By the time Susan was twenty-eight, she had become an alcoholic and was beginning to eye drugs to further enhance her mental refuge.

  It was in a supermarket, armed with coupons and too few dollars clutched in her hand for groceries, that Susan met the person who would change her life forever. Anna saw her standing in the dairy section, looking glazed over as she tried to compute whether or not she had enough money to buy eggs. Anna saw the young woman’s hands trembling, the watery vacant eyes, and sensed the despair of a life being crushed. At the time, Anna was thirty-five years old. She was five feet seven inches tall and weighed over two hundred pounds. Her hair was silverish and styled in an Elvis Presley cut. She wore a black leather jacket, loose fitting dark colored jeans and black Doc Martin boots –the kind that have steel tips and are popular with punk rockers and motorcyclists. She thought Susan was adorable. Wounded but adorable.

  After two cups of coffee in the diner with Anna, Susan began to realize that she and her children didn’t have to live the way they had been living. There was a better life out there. A life without him —that mistake she had made when she was sixteen. Anna said she would help her. She would take control because Susan was hopelessly incapable of doing that. Back then, Susan didn’t know that Anna would eventually become the love of her life. Anna accompanied Susan back to Susan’s apartment. She saw the drunken bum sleeping on a decrepit lounge chair in the living room. She pulled him up to his feet and woke him by delivering a beating that was so punishing that he had to be hospitalized for two weeks. Anna broke four pieces of living room furniture over his head. She said to Susan, “Don’t worry. It was lousy stuff anyway. That’s why it broke so easily when I hit the fuck with it. He was lucky. If it had been good stuff, he’d be dead.”

  Susan and the kids moved in with Anna and they lived together as a happy family unit in the rent-controlled apartment that Anna had grown up in. When Bobby hired Susan, her kids were already young adults. Richard was a young man—succeeding in the Army, and Susan’s daughter, Grace, was a vivacious young woman, about to graduate from secretarial school. Susan and Anna’s love affair was fifteen years deep and counting. As Bobby got to know them, he was inspired by the devotion they had to each other. Their love was as vibrant as it had ever been. When Bobby asked Susan about how she had switched from loving a man to loving a woman, Susan said, “Ever since I was eleven I knew I was attracted to women but it terrified me. I felt ashamed. Like something was wrong with me. If I went that way, I thought my parents would never forgive me. And I wanted kids- how was I going to do that and be with a woman? So I had to bury it—very deep. I ran away with the first man who seemed interested. I didn’t know he would turn out to be the world’s biggest asshole. But every time he beat me, I felt like I deserved it. I had betrayed myself.”

  32

  It had been five days and no one had seen or heard from him. Finally, Bobby showed up unshaven and looking like he hadn’t changed his clothes in a week. Fast on his heels, Susan followed him into his office and closed the door.

  “Bobby, where the hell have you been?”

  “Relax Mom. I just needed some time off.”

  Susan’s face was flushed and she spoke quickly. “You’re so irresponsible sometimes. It wouldn’t kill you to call and let me know you’re still alive.
For such an intelligent guy, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. You’re going to get yourself in some real trouble one of these days.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Bobby as he kicked off his shoes.

  Susan wasn’t about to let up. “You hang out God knows where. With some bimbos I’m sure. Where were you sleeping? What kind of clubs did you go to? Those places can be dangerous. You’re not exactly a tough guy, you know.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  “I could kick your ass down the block, and Anna— forget it.”

  Bobby laughed as he sat down on the sofa and pulled off his socks. “Well that’s not fair. Anna could win the world heavyweight championship.”

  “Watch it, sonny.”

  Bobby smiled as he looked up at Susan who was standing over him. “Calm down, Susan. I know what I’m doing. And the young ladies whose company I enjoy are hardly bimbos—they’re libidinous creatures with impeccable powers of discernment.”