Noble Vision

by LaGreca, Gen

  “But . . . but . . . David . . . ” The thought of the letter in the drawer of his study choked Warren’s denial.

  “I guess you didn’t do enough to please your boss, so he sent you out to squeeze the noose around my neck tighter. And you obliged. Tell me, Mr. Secretary, if CareFree is as great as you and your boss say it is, then why are you two scared silly of me talking about it on television?”

  The sonata on the radio ended, leaving the question to linger in the silence. Warren was too petrified to say more, David too revolted.

  Just then the radio announcer reviewed the day’s news: “Today Governor Burrow will announce his running mate for the gubernatorial election. Sources are now doubtful that he will choose Secretary of Medicine Warren Lang, once the leading contender, because of the secretary’s ongoing family disputes. The charges of corruption that his son made against CareFree are said to be an embarrassment to the governor.”

  “So that’s it,” David said with certainty. “Burrow is about to spit you out. You need to shut my mouth, so I won’t cause ‘family disputes’ or make embarrassing ‘charges of corruption’ to keep you off Burrow’s slate. So you’re blackmailing me with a letter that you yourself already have and could burn if you were really concerned about it hurting me. I’ll tell Nicole that I won’t appear on TV to fight for her surgery after all. I decided to let her rot in a world of darkness so that my ex-father can practice his new line of work: lying, blackmail, backstabbing, and abusing power.”

  Warren’s face twisted into a soundless scream. He had found no welcome in Burrow’s parlor, only disapprobation. He now found only contempt in the office of a son who had once given him the only hero worship that he had ever known.

  “But David, you make me sound terrible. It’s not like that. I just try to help people.” Warren was unconvincing, even to himself. “I was the hero of your childhood. Don’t you want to patch things up between us?”

  “You never were the man I thought you were,” David said quietly, as if talking to himself. “You enjoyed medicine for a while, but you never loved it the way I do. You craved something else more than medicine, more than me . . . more than anything. I was wrong about you.”

  “I don’t crave . . . what Mack does! I couldn’t stand to be like him. It can’t be true. You’re just being difficult. Why won’t you try to make up with me?” Warren cried desperately. “I’m losing everything!”

  “So you want Nicole and me to lose everything instead. Get out of here.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Just go.”

  David walked to the door, politely holding the knob the way he would for a salesman overstaying his visit. Two terrified eyes looked into two unyielding ones, and Warren knew that he had lost forever David’s admiration, the greatest gift that anyone had ever given him.

  * * * * *

  The secretary walked into the building next door, tracing another familiar path, this one to the glass and chrome executive offices of Riverview Hospital. An inner voice, cultivated over years as a public official, recited lines for him automatically: He was furthering a noble cause; therefore, it was permissible to bend the truth on occasion. However, he could no longer remember a cause other than his own political ambition.

  After being refused admittance, Warren pushed his way past a receptionist into the office of his other son. The father expected to be thrown out, but Randy remained seated at his desk, as if the intruder were not worth the effort of evicting.

  Warren pleaded the same case: He wanted to protect David’s license from a scandal cooked up by Burrow. Would Randall help save his brother by convincing him not to speak against CareFree on television?

  “No,” Randy said flatly.

  “David trusts you. You’re the only one who can save him from a terrible scandal that will cost him his license.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you want to save David?”

  “By collaborating with his enemies?”

  “But this is for a worthy cause, Randall.”

  “Your only cause is you and Burrow.”

  “Won’t you hear me out?”

  “No.”

  “But the situation is urgent!”

  “No.”

  “Once I’m elected, I can help you and David.”

  “Get out.”

  Warren felt as significant as a fly on the wall.

  * * * * *

  Frantic with fear, he returned to the limousine. He had only one option left. If it worked, he could not only win a place on the governor’s ticket but also make amends with his sons, he told himself. “The Rutledge Hotel, please,” he directed the chauffeur.

  Moments later, Warren beseeched the governor in his parlor suite. “Mack, the only way to stop David from talking on television is to allow him to finish Nicole’s treatment.”

  “We closed that door, Warren,” Burrow said impatiently.

  “But David doesn’t care about anything else, not even his license.”

  “He’s grounded and stays grounded.”

  “We can find a loophole for him to appeal the case, Mack. Then we can reinstate him and allow the new treatment because it’s in the public interest. David’s on the verge of a medical breakthrough, and the public needs new discoveries. CareFree must support these efforts.”

  “Warren, you tire me,” Burrow said, sitting at the antique desk in the expansive room, reading his messages and glancing at the newspaper headlines while Warren stood over him, pleading for his life. “The public needs a lot of things. You decided what they needed seven weeks ago when you told me you couldn’t make your payroll, and you told the doctors they had to limit their tests and treatments. How can you blatantly contradict yourself?”

  “But you contradict yourself all the time, Mack. I mean, you change your mind on issues constantly. So we can say that I changed my mind. The public interest lies in new treatments and cures.”

  “The public interest lies in limiting treatment, so we can meet CareFree’s payroll.”

  “The public interest lies in nerve repair, Mack.”

  “The public interest lies in vaccinations for kids.”

  “The public interest lies in crossing new frontiers.”

  “The public interest lies in keeping up with our old frontiers.”

  “The public interest lies in David’s work!”

  Burrow smiled slyly, like a card player holding the better hand. “Warren, you silly man. Don’t you know that human desires and needs are unlimited? Is it good to cure baldness? Yes. Is it good for mommies to rest in the hospital after having their babies? Yes. Is it good for people to get expensive brain scans every time they bang their heads, just to be safe? Yes. Is nerve repair good? Is it better than curing cancer? Better than fixing bad hearts? Better than kidney transplants?”

  “David’s research has to have a place in all that. You can’t decide it doesn’t, Mack.”

  “Grow up, man! I do decide. The public elects me to decide these things. Right now I’ve got to win in November, otherwise there won’t be any CareFree, so it’s definitely in the public interest for me to get votes. And that’s not gonna happen if we cave in to the doctors. Your son broke the law, and you clipped his wings. If we backed down now, the press would cremate you for favoritism. I can’t have another running mate embroiled in scandal. Case closed.”

  “But, Mack, listen to yourself. All you’re saying is that David acted against you and will make it harder for you to win. But he didn’t do anything against the public.”

  “I stand for the public! An act against Mack Burrow is an act against the people!” Burrow roared angrily. Then his voice lowered to a whisper, as if sharing a secret: “The public interest is me, Warren. Haven’t you figured that out yet? The public interest is me!”

  Warren looked dumbfounded, like an animal frozen in the sudden glare of approaching headlights. “You mean,” he said, his voice trembling, “that there is no . . . noble cause. There’s only . . . you?”
The headlights were closer, larger, blinding.

  Burrow’s sagging face came alive. The immense power he wielded burst from his towering voice. “That’s the glory, man! Great leaders make an impact on their times. We alter the course of history!” His hand was raised in a fist, his eyes wild with excitement.

  Warren was shaking, his voice a mere whisper. “Are you telling me, Mack, that I sacrificed the gifted surgeon who is my son for the sake of your interests . . . for . . . you? I thought that I was working for something greater than us, something noble. But now you’re telling me that the public interest is only you—it’s whatever you want, your wishes, your . . . arbitrary . . . whims.”

  “It’s your whims, too, Warren. Don’t forget that,” Burrow said shrewdly. “We’ve been over this ground before, man.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll have to figure out how to deal with your son myself from now on. I’ve got a press conference, so if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  He rose from his desk and reached into the drawer. He examined two different documents and selected one.

  “What did you choose, Mack? Plan A or plan B?” Warren asked timidly, his white hair disheveled, his imported suit rumpled, his face unable to capture its former dignity. His eyes held the fixed stare of a patient dreading a terminal diagnosis.

  “I’m afraid it’s plan B, Warren.” Feeling slightly sympathetic, Burrow tapped him on the shoulder consolingly and left the room.

  * * * * *

  Warren listlessly returned to his office, like a man who had nothing better to do. Doris followed him to his desk, standing over him with her notepad. “Senator Tibald and Congressman Ederly called. National Weekly wants to interview you.” She peered up from her glasses, “Dr. Lang? Are you listening?”

  “No,” said Warren indifferently.

  “Shall I come back later?”

  “If you wish.”

  “Dr. Lang, are you feeling all right? Can I get you anything?”

  “No,” he said despondently. “And I don’t want to see anyone.”

  “But people to whom you granted appointments are waiting.”

  “All right. Show them in.”

  A succession of citizens paraded into Warren’s office to plead their cases to the person who held their future in his hands.

  An older man with a cane was Warren’s first visitor. “Mr. Secretary, I pay four times the taxes my neighbor does. Four times! How come he got a liver transplant when I can’t get dialysis? What makes his liver more important than my kidneys? They say I’m too old to qualify for dialysis. I’m only sixty-two, not too old to pay taxes for other people’s treatment!”

  Warren’s next visitor was a woman in her fifties. “I’m on a waiting list for heart bypass surgery. I’m told there are no beds, but I passed a ward of empty beds in my hospital. It’s something about exceeding their budget, so the hospital took beds out of service. Does this make sense?”

  Then a woman in her forties entered. “I was able to get a screening test for lung cancer in one day. But now that I learned I have cancer, I have to wait three months for surgery. Three months! My neighbor’s kid just had an operation on his knee, so he can play sports. My husband is not an enlightened man, Dr. Lang. He doesn’t understand why the boy’s knee got priority over my lungs. I’m afraid he’s going to bash in the child’s other knee!”

  How could he decide these cases? Warren wondered, terrified at the answer flashing in his mind. He heard the echo of David’s voice: What must my patient do to win a door prize, too? And the snicker of another man who had said: It’s your whims, too, Warren.

  Then a hospital administrator arrived: “Why has Coleridge Hospital been denied a request to repair its only brain scanner? We’re a small hospital, Dr. Lang, but we’ve always prided ourselves on our modern technology. We’ve never been without a scanner, and Hudson Hospital just got two approved. Why them and not us?”

  Another hospital administrator followed that visitor. “Why can’t Mercy Hospital charge higher fees than Jefferson Memorial? Mercy is in a more expensive area, with higher mortgage, taxes, and other expenses. How can you expect us to charge the same rates as a hospital with half the overhead?”

  The gratification that Warren had once felt in deciding the matters before him now turned to revulsion. He recalled Randy’s haunting words: You don’t see that the same bug that bit Burrow has infected you?

  Warren no longer felt a thrill from granting favors, refusing requests, being the one who decides the fate of millions. When the person with the last appointment left, he picked up his picture of eleven-year-old David, wrapped in a surgical gown, watching his first operation. Warren observed the eagerness on the boy’s face. Then he thought of himself flying in a private plane, sipping whiskey with windbags at political meetings, and seeing his picture on the cover of National Weekly. He thought of the faceless doctors who had only a fraction of the talent of the boy in the picture, the doctors who would attend the right parties, say the right things, and mingle with the right people. They would get the grants and the positions of importance, he knew. Warren closed his eyes against a deadly question forcing itself on him: Who would have made that possible?

  He placed David’s picture in his pocket and opened the door. “I’m going home, Doris. I don’t feel well.”

  “But Dr. Lang, your department heads are arriving for a meeting with you.”

  She spoke to the back of his head as he quietly left.

  * * * * *

  When Warren arrived at his apartment, he removed the photographs hanging in his living room, leaving a dotted black line of bare hooks across the almond-colored walls. On one of the hooks, he hung the picture of David as a boy. Then he poured himself a drink and sat facing the little photo. He thumbed through a large scrapbook stuffed with news clippings and magazine articles. Years ago he had filled the book with stories of David’s surgery to separate the conjoined twins. He paused over a picture of David in scrubs after the landmark operation. His son looked weary from the ordeal, but his head was tilted upward and his eyes filled with the most profound pride that Warren had ever seen. He glanced at the boy of eleven in the OR, beaming at him from the wall. He saw the pride of the surgeon contained in the face of the boy, and the childlike excitement of the boy in the face of the surgeon. Then Warren left the room to enter his study. He returned with David’s love letter and lit a match to it.

  The father spoke to the eleven-year-old boy in the picture:

  “You and Randall were right about me. I bragged about doing things for the public interest, but I was never concerned with real, individual people. I gave things to some people at the expense of others, prompted only by my political ambitions. Oh, yes, I admit it! I destroyed you, David, not for any noble cause but just so I could be Burrow’s running mate and grasp the most exciting thing I’ve ever experienced, the thing I breathe for. The true nature of my acts was never real to me until your case. I knew that the means used by Burrow—and me—were corrupt, but I didn’t know that the end . . . that there was no noble end, only a string of . . . injustices . . . I committed toward other men’s children, and now toward my own son as well. But the most shocking thing of all to me is that even knowing this, I’d still give anything to stand with Burrow on the steps of the capitol, and I’m devastated by losing my most passionate dream. To lose you and Randall on top of that is too much. There was a time when I did love medicine and you, and I see that I was happy then. Now there’s no going back . . . and no . . . going . . . forward.”

  * * * * *

  As Governor Burrow stood at a podium at the Rutledge Hotel, announcing the state comptroller as his running mate, there was a commotion on the street outside of Warren’s high-rise condominium. Someone had fallen from a balcony. A white head of hair lay crushed against the black pavement.

  Part Three: Hope

  Chapter 24

  A Colorless Day

  As Warren Lang pronounced his verdict in the courtroom, Nicole Hudson slept. She had
awakened during the night, and, exhausted from her recent bouts of sleeplessness and fearing the return of her nightmares, she had taken more sleeping pills, exceeding David’s prescribed dosage. Mrs. Trimbell had followed David’s advice and let her sleep through the trial. Hence, the ballerina rested as soundly as the princess of her childhood ballet. However, unlike the princess, Nicole was awakened not by the pleasantness of a kiss but rather by the ring of her cell phone. She groped for it on the nightstand.

  “Hello,” she said groggily.

  “Hello, Nicole, dear. Do you know who this is?”

  Nicole recoiled at the voice. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “I called to tell you how terribly sorry I am.”

  “About what?”

  “You mean you don’t know, dear?”

  Nicole tapped the talking clock on her night table. It was three-thirty in the afternoon! She sat up abruptly. “What are you talking about?”

  “You sound as if you’re just getting up. How very thoughtful of your doctor to let you sleep through everything. I’m talking about the news everyone knows but you, dear.”

  The voice paused teasingly, as if wanting to be prodded. Nicole did not oblige but waited silently.

  “This morning your doctor was suspended for a year, fined twenty-five thousand dollars, and prohibited from continuing your treatment. He must comply or lose his license and never practice medicine again.”

  The caller could not hear the gasp Nicole suppressed or see the phone trembling in her hand.

  “And I’m afraid there’s more, Nicole. Are you still there, dear?”

  It took the whole of Nicole’s effort to whisper two steady words: “Go on.”

  “Warren Lang fell from his balcony and was pronounced dead.”

  * * * * *

  By six o’clock that evening, Nicole had slipped two of David’s sleeping pills into Mrs. Trimbell’s coffee, and the hardy woman had fallen asleep. The distraught ballerina called for a car and, aided by her cane, left the apartment to wait for her ride. Someone observed her from a vehicle parked down the street: David. He had been returning from the hospital where he had identified his father’s body and met with family members. As he had been wondering how to tell Nicole the terrible news of the day, she appeared at the entrance of her building carrying a suitcase. The shock of the verdict and the horror of his father’s demise had unnerved him. The sight of Nicole running away again made him livid. He would teach her a lesson, so she would never pull this stunt again. Those events were what led a doctor to frighten a blind person.