Body by Blood

by Patrick Johnston

  Impressive rhetoric. He’s definitely matured since the days when Dad used to severely scold him in front of us just because he couldn’t talk fast enough.

  “What’s your organization’s position on New Body science?”

  “You mean Iowans Supporting Life?” I nod. “Compassionate care for all parties involved. We don’t judge, but we don’t want to see clones terminated for cuts on their forehead either. We supported your law because it regulated clone termination compassionately, requiring multiple physicians to confirm that it was necessary, kept it privately funded and not funded by the taxpayers, and ensured that processing and transference was painless. We would like to see the donor notified that their clone meets the scientific criteria for life before obtaining their consent for transference or processing. But that’s a battle for another day.”

  I’m aghast at the crumbs that appear to please them. “So, let the donor know that they’re killing someone, and then they can kill them? That’s pro-life?”

  His lips turn down at my underhanded mockery. “Let’s not do this again, Ray . . . ”

  My limo driver keeps looking back into the rearview mirror. Curious, I turn my head to see what has piqued his interest behind us. “See something, Jim?”

  “Possibly.”

  “What?”

  He doesn’t answer. “We may have a tail.”

  Thomas looks through the rear window. “A tail?”

  “Glass is bulletproof.” I turn to Thomas. “You were saying?”

  “Legislation like this saves lives, Ray. Clones are people and all people deserve the right to life. But we accept that it will never happen, so we try to regulate the inevitable for the better. We’re mechanics, not philosophers, and we’ve got to get our head out of the clouds and get our hands dirty to fix this. The culture’s not ready for a ban on terminating clones. It would bankrupt the politically and culturally popular industry. The culture, like a big ship, turns slowly. Sometimes we simply must accept that the best we can do is just slow down the unavoidable slide of moral degeneracy.”

  “Slow it down, by being an accomplice?”

  “No. Not an accomplice. Go no further than the left’s well-publicized hatred of us to see whose side we’re on.”

  I smile at his ability to calmly articulate his beliefs. I even feel a hint of pride on how my brother has risen to leadership in the pro-life community. “I’m sorry I’ve been so critical. I’m just sorting things out in my own head.”

  “Brother, if you expect perfection of yourself, you have a bloated view of your own abilities. We all sin. Jesus obeyed so you don’t have to. Do penance and be at peace with the good you can accomplish.”

  His counsel fills me with a renewed determination to intervene in the treatment of clones. I’m expecting too much of myself.

  “Tell you what,” he continues. “I’m allocated some time as director of Iowans Supporting Life that allows me to meet with policy makers to make changes for the better. Can I come and help you for a month?”

  “You mean, help with my ethics policy recommendations?”

  “Yes.”

  A burden begins to lift off my shoulders. “Ah, I would love that.”

  My driver drops us off at the front entrance of a classy Italian restaurant downtown. Jim opens the limo door and, when I step out, he murmurs, “Sir, may I have a moment?”

  “Sure, Jim.”

  Jim rests his arms against the top of the open door, leans close, and whispers, “The past couple of days, we’ve had a black town car following us.”

  I look back. A car parks by the road behind us. The windows are reflective, and I cannot see how many people are inside. “Are you sure?”

  “I spent my last two years in the Corps as a personal bodyguard to a high-ranking intel officer. I’m pretty confident in my ability to discern these things. Do you want me to do anything about it?”

  I sigh. It must be government agents assigned to watch me. Just a few days ago I, one of the most influential and powerful men in the nation, was trying to bring down one of the most profitable companies in the nation, a company personally favored by the President. They don’t trust me.

  “Come with me.” I start walking away from the restaurant toward the black sedan, with my burly limo driver right behind me. He unbuttons his jacket in case he has to reach for his concealed handgun.

  I motion to the occupants of the town car to roll down their window so I can speak to them. “Hey! Come on in and eat with us!”

  When I get within two feet, they drive off.

  “I got it.” Jim turns to me.

  “Got what?”

  “The tag number.”

  When we walk back toward the restaurant, Thomas gestures, “Do you have some enemies?”

  I chuckle at his choice of words. “You have no idea.”

  He rests a hand on my shoulder. “You’re in good company.”

  Jim opens the driver-side door. “I’ll check it out and pick you up in an hour and a half.”

  “Perfect.” He turns to leave. “Wait, on second thought, feel free to not be on time. I’m sick of perfect.”

  27

  MY WIFE’S NEURO-PSYCHIATRIST, DR. DEVONAIRE, has more degrees than a compass. The wall of her luxurious waiting room is covered with the frames. Morgan has stacked the deck against me, conspiring to have Thomas present to help the graceful and intelligent Harvard-trained neuro-psych try to flatten the scruples that punctuate our strained discourse. Although Thomas has changed and doesn’t appear to be the pushover he used to be, I doubt he has the courage to take my side in any contention with Morgan and her ivory tower psych-quack. Morgan may have buttered him up to her view of things already, recruiting him to induce change in me.

  My first five minutes with Dr. Devonaire tells me a lot about her. First, I’m not even sure it’s a her. She has a well-crafted balance of both masculine and feminine features, flaunting a pompous pink-and-black metrosexual fashion that fudges the ordinarily broad line between gothic and gala. I can’t describe her as handsome or lovely—she’s an unnatural mixture of both. When I catch a glimpse of her pointy elf-like ears through the tufts of her golden curls, my heart sinks. This is going to be a difficult hour, I fear.

  The love seat in which she comfortably reclines across from me is crisscrossed with cursive splatters of every hue of pastel seen throughout the meticulously designed office. The pastels suggest innocence and openness, more like a nursery than a psychiatrist’s office. A thin wisp of smoke on a corner table is the source of the scent of some kind of calming incense.

  She has a naturally seductive tone, like a highly compensated European-accented voice at an upper-end Las Vegas strip club. The accent is invitingly surreal and as pleasant as her vocabulary is broad. Is her voice natural, or has she modified it in some way through vocal training or surgery? By the way her voice dances like gently flowing water over rocks, I imagine her teaching a Yoga class in her spare time.

  The chatting abruptly ends when Dr. Devonaire implies that if I appreciate my new body, then it is hypocritical for me to criticize others for what I do. That’s similar to what Thomas said to me during our contentious phone conversation, and he nods with her counsel, concurring. The psychiatrist has engaged my conscience, and tilted the majority in her favor right at the onset. Yep, she and Morgan have definitely prepped for this encounter.

  Unable to refute her point, I appeal to a metaphor that they will find offensive, but is accurate nonetheless. “I appreciate my new body,” I alternate flexing and extending my fingers, “as much as a Nazi would appreciate a lampshade made from Jew hide.”

  Morgan gasps, and Dr. Devonaire sighs heavily, appearing to accept that this conversation will be inescapably volatile.

  “I appreciate all of the wealth and perks I have legally accumulated over the decades, like Dr. Cranton, like our body-marketing counterparts in Germany’s National Socialist Party, but that doesn’t mean I have to continue to perpetuate the gross inhuma
ne injustice associated with it.”

  Thomas’ countenance exudes disappointment, as if I dared to articulate something he boasted that he had successfully convinced me not to believe anymore. At the mention of Redd Cranton, Morgan looks confused, like she cannot comprehend the comparison.

  “Is this you talking, or your sister?” Dr. Devonaire sits upright in her love seat, wrapping her hands around her knees. Morgan affirms the question with an aggressive nod, as if she knew that Devonaire’s attempt to set me at odds with who she suspects to be a moral authority in my life is the next strategy to disarm me and leave me malleable like putty, like a rudderless yacht susceptible to their hot air in my sails.

  Morgan leans forward to make eye contact with me. “You know her organization almost killed you when they bombed the television studio. How can you defend her?”

  “Tamara provided evidence that the suspect had long been kicked out of her organization for encouraging violence.”

  “And you believe her?” Devonaire sneers. She fixes her gaze on Morgan. “Does he believe her?”

  Morgan puffs out her cheeks and her limbs grow restless. My pulse pounds in my temples as my suspicion of their conspiracy to gang up on me increases.

  “Dr. Devonaire, do you know the President released her from custody just this morning? Isn’t that sufficient proof for you that she is innocent of any crimes?”

  “It was a technicality, as I understand it,” Dr. Devonaire leans back in her plush seat and puts an arm over the side. “I’m not denying she’s a good person deep down inside, and I think your disposition to respect your sister and believe the best is admirable. But I would withhold from vigorously defending her, especially publicly, for fear that you may be wrong and it may mar your reputation if it turns out she was conning you all along. She has said some very radical things, I’m sure you will agree.”

  The psychological effect of Dr. Devonaire’s demeanor and seamless fluctuating gestures is fascinating, always calculated to condescend to me, yet intermittently settle my frustrated tone and relax my naturally defensive response to her interrogation.

  “You said you have been trying to sort out the science and ethics on your own ever since you came out of cryo-preservation.”

  “That’s true,” Thomas affirms.

  Dr. Devonaire gestures to Thomas. “Why don’t you solicit the help of those pro-life and pro-family leaders you respect, like your brother?”

  So that’s why they conspired to have him present. They want to distance me from my sister and link me more tightly to my brother.

  “I am soliciting his help.” I nod at Thomas.

  “Why don’t you trust him to help you navigate the ethical landscape? And your wife?” She winks at Morgan, who casts a seductive smile back at her. “She knows you better than anybody. Plus,”—Dr. Devonaire grins mischievously—“she’s hot.”

  “Why thank you, Dr. Devvy.” Morgan bashes her eyelashes at her.

  “Being Morgan’s partner makes you the envy of the known world. Don’t you trust her as your confidante and partner in life, Raymond?”

  I can’t believe it. She’s hitting on Morgan right in front of me, and Morgan’s loving it. They both turn to me, awaiting my answer. Morgan sees that if I answer, I will answer honestly and embarrass her with an emphatic No, so she speaks up before I can respond.

  “We only want what’s best for you, sweetheart.”

  “And Mary Nell?” I lean forward.

  Dr. Devonaire sighs and looks away. Thomas shrugs and glances at Morgan.

  “Do you want what’s best for Mary Nell?”

  Morgan clears her throat, licks her lips, and turns to face Dr. Devonaire, as if she is either unwilling or unable to handle this issue I’ve raised and is punting this topic to her.

  I am disinclined to allow Morgan to squirm out from under this burden. “The researchers with whom we contract are going to experiment on her, put needles in her veins and arteries, extract her bone marrow, put tubes in her orifices—”

  “Please!” Morgan objects.

  “And then market her body parts out to the highest bidders, making Auschwitz’s butcher Dr. Mengele look gentle and loving by comparison.”

  “Raymond!” Thomas’ piercing voice snatches my breath away. “Such hyper-emotional words do not produce meaningful conversation.”

  “Butcher is an accurate term,” I respond calmly, “with one exception. They kill the cows and pigs before they butcher them for the market. Mary Nell will be afforded no such luxury, lest the sedation minimize the profitability of the tissue. She will be experimented upon, exploited, Cranton-ized—and all of it’s legal.”

  Morgan opens her mouth to upbraid me, but Devonaire speaks up first.

  “Thanks to your law.” Devonaire keeps her voice steady. “Don’t you think it’s hypocritical to oppose what people do when they are in compliance with a law you so adamantly defended just a month ago?”

  “I was wrong.” I shrug. “Dead wrong.”

  “It’s Savannah’s choice,” Morgan blurts out, “being Mary Nell’s lawful mother and legal caregiver. You used to respect personal choice.”

  “Caregivers have no right to consent to the exploitation and killing of those people under their care, Morgan! No right! What about Mary Nell’s choice?”

  “Unfortunately, it’s legal.” Thomas speaks as if his conclusion is irrefutable. “We’ve got to work within our system of laws.”

  “You mean lawlessness,” I respond.

  “What?” Thomas furrows his brow.

  “Throughout history, many evils have been legalized, from slavery to genocide to sexism. But that doesn’t make those evils less wrong.”

  “Brother, we’ve been through this. You have to work within the system to make positive change.”

  Thomas is interrupted with a wave of Dr. Devonaire’s hand, as if she were the puppet master and they her obedient wooden toys. “We have been conversing for just sixteen minutes, and we’ve only briefly touched on at least a half a dozen topics that we could never conclude in our hour together. So out of respect for your valuable time, may I request that we focus on one very critical presupposition you unconsciously make?”

  I take a deep breath and nod.

  “You are a scientist, Dr. Raymond Verity—one of the best.”

  “That’s true,” Morgan responds for me, stretching a hand onto my thigh and patting me lovingly.

  “Celebrated,” Thomas adds.

  Normally, such flattery would calm my racing heart and dry my sweaty palms but, in anticipation that they are simply holding me steady for a knock-out punch, I stay on the edge of my seat, apprehensive and irritated.

  “As such, you are committed to the scientific method as a means of obtaining facts, of discriminating between truth and error in nature.” Dr. Devonaire’s tone is as graceful as it is conniving.

  I nod. Where is she going with this line of reasoning?

  “Throughout our discourse, you have continually referred to metaphysical myths such as evil, right and wrong.”

  I clear my throat. “Is love a myth, Dr. Devonaire?”

  She smiles and leans closer to me. “A wonderful, amazing, profoundly enjoyable myth. A story, a feeling, an opinion—not a fact and certainly not objective evidence. Let us help you distinguish between what is factual and what is whimsical and fleeting, and you will be the better scientist for it.”

  I find myself unable to instinctively object to this line of reasoning, so I listen intently.

  “How would you even perform an experiment to determine right from wrong, Dr. Verity? Would your conclusion be dependent upon your feelings, or the feelings of the consensus, or an archaic book of Scripture? Would that be a good experiment?”

  I look down at my hands. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Science looks at facts. Verifiable, documentable facts to support or refute a hypothesis.”

  “Facts are verifiable through our senses, our five senses w
ith which evolution has equipped us. Feelings are not facts. Facts are reliable, but feelings about love and morality and justice are notoriously unreliable. Feelings fluctuate with our upbringing and culture, and sprout from humanity’s desire for purpose and belonging. Subjective feelings may prompt us to hunger for understanding of the mysteries of nature before reliance on the scientific method can produce more accurate data. Myths and unfalsifiable beliefs are useful, but like children’s stories are useful—to teach important lessons about life and help us discover our personal preferences about what makes us happy. You can believe the universe is a dream of the Hindu god Brahma, or that Jehovah created the universe in six days. Equally implausible scientifically, but your personal choice nonetheless . . . ”

  Thomas chuckles condescendingly. I fully expect him to be disinclined to appreciate Dr. Devonaire’s shrewd refutation of the reliability of spiritual truths, because he claims to believe the Bible, but I remember he is a theistic evolutionist. He mocks the literal interpretation of the Genesis record. “Do not mistake unverifiable, unscientific myths to be facts, Ray.”

  “Morality is more like your favorite flavor of ice cream than it is like a measurable law of gravity,” Devonaire continues, “so let us not be so quick to judge those who prefer a different flavor. If you would personally prefer to care for a genetically defective child than to exchange her for a genetically perfected, mentally superior clone, that’s your preference, but don’t you dare put that yoke on anybody else as is the custom with bigots, homophobes, jihadists, and sign-wielding Personhood fanatics.”

  She smiles contentedly, giving me a moment to process her brilliant argument. Her false dilemma between science and morality is designed to set me squarely on the side opposite of those she has demeaned with her straw man argument.