Eye Bleach

by Paul E. Creasy

  “Come on now,” Sylvia said. “That is rather dismissive.”

  “It is,” Hector said, “but, it is dismissive for a reason. People of science should know better. And…, sticking with the Vegas theme, suppose a person was at the roulette wheel, and the marble landed on Red 32 a thousand times in a row. This would be pretty extraordinary, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would,” Sylvia said.

  “And what do you think a reasonable person would surmise by this?”

  “I see where this is headed,” Sylvia said.

  “Yes,” Hector said as he smiled. “A reasonable person would wonder if the game is rigged. Now, it is remotely possible it is all legitimate, and the gambler just got very lucky. Possible, but highly unlikely. Now, imagine the same scenario I described, but instead of landing 1,000 times in a row on Red 32, it was a trillion times. Would it still be reasonable to say it is just by chance?”

  Sylvia said nothing.

  “You know the answer,” Hector said. “The answer is clearly no — it is not reasonable. Any rational person would know something is not right. And that, my dear, is the ultimate answer to the big question. This game is not an accident. We didn’t just get really, really, really lucky. The wheel is rigged. The game is fixed; and, if the game is fixed, there must be someone who fixed it.”

  “OK, Hector,” Sylvia said. “You have made some interesting points and have given me a lot to think about.”

  “I try,” Hector said.

  “But…”

  Hector raised his eyebrow and said, “I knew there would be a but.”

  Sylvia reached across the table and pointed at the crucifix hanging around the priest’s neck. “I may be able to accept some sort of ultimate force being God as you have described. This may be reasonable. But…, this is not what this is all about, is it? No.” She reached over and lifted the cross around his neck into her hand and said, “This is your God, isn’t it? Not some ultimate force. This is a bridge too far for me to pass.”

  “Why is this a bridge too far?” Father Hector asked.

  “Come on, Hector,” Sylvia said. “You are a very smart man, I can tell. But…, I mean, the virgin birth, and the whole walking on water bit. It’s all too much. Doesn’t all of that seem far-fetched to you? Look, I concede you have made some good points tonight, and, frankly, some give me pause. But you forget, I grew up Catholic. I know the whole drill about Christianity and I just can’t buy any of it. Do you really believe all of this…, stuff?”

  “I do, Sylvia,” Hector said. “I believe all of it.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t,” Sylvia said. “My parents tried to instill their faith in me — God knows they tried. But, as soon as I got out of their house, I got as far away from all of it as I could.”

  “Well, perhaps they didn’t tell you the whole story,” Hector said.

  “They seemed pretty thorough. I heard the story, and I didn’t buy it.”

  Hector raised his hand and motioned to the waitress. “I don’t know about you, but, I could go for some coffee and churros. Are you game?”

  “Do those churros come with chocolate?”

  “Of course,” Hector said. “Do they come any other way?”

  “Well, sign me up,” Sylvia said with a smile. “I am never one to turn down chocolate.”

  Hector placed their order with the waitress, and after she left he turned to Sylvia and asked, “And as we wait for our dessert, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  “Of course not,” Sylvia said.

  “I understand people struggle with faith. Unfortunately, many people have bad experiences with religion during their childhood.”

  “Yes, I know I did,” Sylvia said.

  “It is a shame. But, I am curious…, regardless of all your negative experiences with religion, I want you to answer just one fundamental question for me.”

  “OK, I’ll try,” Sylvia said.

  Father Hector asked, “Who do you think Jesus was?”

  Chapter 18

  April 28th, 1996 - New York Presbyterian Hospital - Room 312 - New York City - 2:00 PM

  John stared blankly at his wife lying motionless in the hospital bed. His mind was numb with grief, worry and most of all — exhaustion. It was the end of a ten-hour vigil. Soon he would have to return to their apartment. This repetitive pattern of hospital/apartment/police department and back to the hospital was approaching nearly a week and his body was fast reaching its limits of endurance.

  Lying prone in her hospital bed, Sylvia had never looked more beautiful, or for that matter, tragic. In her left arm an IV was attached to a drip bag hanging from the chrome rack overhead. Numerous wires hung down from pads adhered to her temples, crisscrossing her chest before finding their home in the EKG monitor to the side. Pings punctuating the moving lines on the monitor revealed her brain was active. She would recover eventually, but not yet. For a week she had not spoken a word or even moved an inch on her own power.

  John reached over and took her hand inside his. He closed his eyes and sighed. He needed her, and loved her more than ever, but…, part of him wanted her to stay unconscious. He hoped that Billy could be found before she woke up. The horror was too much for her fragile psyche to take.

  He let her hand go and it dropped to the bed. He stood up and stretched, his back creaking and popping like dry twigs on a November afternoon. Hospital guest chairs were not designed for long-term use. His eyes roamed around the room and he sighed. At least here she was well tended. There was some solace in this. Even during the worst week of his life, he could at least take comfort in that. Even pitiful consolation, such as having your comatose wife cared for in a top-notch hospital, was precious to him now. A small flickering candle always burns brightest in the darkest room.

  A nurse entered, glanced across at one of the various monitors arrayed on the back wall and dutifully wrote down some numbers into her log. Over the past seven days, John had seen this routine many times. It was simple, efficient, and oddly comforting. Like the changing of the seasons, or the ticking of a grandfather clock, it was at least some pretense at normality in a world gone mad. Somewhere else, at least, life was going on as usual.

  Various nurses would enter the room to check Sylvia’s intravenous feeding bag a few times a day, update her charts, and roll her over to avoid bed sores. Often, they would make pleasant chit-chat before departing. An hour or so later, another would return to do the same thing again — rinse and repeat, all day long.

  “I think your wife is showing some signs of improvement, Mr. Delaney,” today’s nurse said.

  John smiled weakly and nodded.

  “Yes,” the nurse said as she looked down at the chart. “All of the vitals are close to normal. Nothing unusual is showing in the brain activity.” She stopped herself and added, “at least, nothing that can be detected.”

  John nodded again but said nothing. He was never sure if such a non-report required a response.

  “Have the police gotten any leads on your little boy?” she asked.

  John shrugged and mumbled, his lips moving and noises emitting from his throat. He didn’t know what he said. It didn’t matter anymore. He was so tired of lying, both to himself and to others. All his systems were on automatic now. Keep up a brave front. We are praying for Billy. All will be well. Just have faith. Yada Yada Yada. He knew this dance well and could motion through the steps better than Gregory Hines. It was all very nice and totally sincere, but he believed none of it. He knew the dark truth. As each day passed, that truth grew gloomier, although none would acknowledge it. To say it, was to make it happen — and no one wanted that. The phone mercifully rang, ending the tiresome forced happy talk, and the nurse answered.

  “Room 312…, Yes, sir …, Yes…,” she said. She glanced over at John and added, “Yes, he is here… I will send him right down.”

  “Who was it?” John asked.

  “Mr. Perry, our administrator,” the nurse said.

  “Oh? What d
id Chris want?”

  “You know him?”

  “Yes,” John said. “He and his wife are good friends with Sylvia and me.”

  “That explains it,” the nurse said. “Well…, he wanted you to come to his office when you get a chance. He said to tell you he may have made some progress with an issue you asked him to look into.”

  For the first time in days John smiled. He jumped up from his chair and raced out the door. Maybe…, just maybe… His feet flew down the highly polished white linoleum halls to the elevator.

  A few minutes later, he was sitting in Christopher Perry’s office again.

  “I will tell you, John,” Christopher said. “This is the damnedest thing I have ever seen.”

  “So, what do you think?” John said. “When that old priest told me Sylvia was adopted…, and not just adopted as an infant, but as a ten-year-old child, I thought he must be crazy, or maybe I was losing my mind! I immediately ran home and got her birth certificate.”

  “Yes,” Christopher said as he picked up the document from his desk and glanced at it again.

  “And as you can see, it says clearly that she was born in this hospital on November 23rd, 1966 to Vincent and Marie Padovana,” John said. “Now, I know I must be mad to draw you into this black helicopter conspiracy, but…, were you able to find the doctor listed in your archives? I know it is crazy, but…”

  Christopher’s brow furrowed as he put the document down on his desk. “You see…, here’s the thing—”

  “—Jesus! Don’t tell me you can’t find the doctor!”

  “Oh, I found him all right,” Christopher said. “Or at least the record he worked here, but…”

  “But?” John said as he stood up from his chair.

  “But…,” Christopher said as he lowered his voice. “You might want to sit down.”

  “I am tired of sitting,” John said. “All I have been doing for the past week is sitting! Sitting and waiting! Waiting for the police to find my son. Waiting for my wife to recover from…, whatever the hell it is that is wrong with her!”

  “John,” Christopher said in a warm tone. “Please…, please sit down.”

  John sat gently on the chair, gripping the armrests with both hands, his knuckles now bone white.

  “This birth certificate is a forgery,” Christopher said. “I’ve seen forged documents before, but this is the weirdest one I have ever seen.”

  “I don’t get it. Why do you say it is a forgery?” John asked. “It has the official seal on it and…, for Christ sakes, they even have Sylvia’s social security number on the form.”

  “And there is the problem,” Christopher said. “The number doesn’t add up.”

  “What do you mean the number doesn’t add up?”

  “What is your social security number?”

  “Mine?”

  “Yes, yours,” Christopher said.

  “050-38—”

  Christopher held up his hand. “OK, that is all I need. Now, you were born in New York in…, 1963, right?”

  “Yes!” John said. “You got all that just from the first few digits of my social security number?”

  “John, I deal with these numbers all day, every day. After a while, you understand how they work and can read them clearly.”

  “But, what does this have to do with Sylvia’s birth certificate?” John said. “Look, I know she didn’t get along with her parents, but, they were good people. I know they certainly wouldn’t commit a fraud.”

  “And they didn’t, technically,” Christopher said. “And this is why this was so cartoonishly easy to discover. You see, if you didn’t suspect something was wrong, you would never question any of it.” He pointed to the first few digits of Sylvia’s social security number and said, “her number begins with 400-74.”

  “Yes,” John said.

  “Those codes are reserved for Kentucky, John, for a Kentucky birth in 1966.” He pointed to the birthdate and said, “Which matches up to her birthdate, but, not the location.”

  “I don’t understand,” John said. “What does this mean?”

  “This is her real social security number, but, this document was created in 1976.”

  “How can you tell that?”

  “I did some investigation on the physician listed — Doctor Marstens. He only started working here in 1974 and —”

  “—What did he say? Did you ask him about this? This could be some sort of break through here!”

  “He is dead, John. I talked to his widow,” Christopher said. “He died two years ago. But, she told me he was very good friends with Sylvia’s father. They used to go to Kentucky every spring to go fishing and rented some sort of cabin down there.”

  “Where was this cabin? When did they—”

  “—Dr. Marstens’ wife told me they abruptly stopped going in 1976. She didn’t know the reason why, but, Dr. Marstens and Sylvia’s father had some sort of big falling out after they got back. So, I put two and two together and—”

  “—I don’t know what this is all about,” John said. “But, by God, I am going to find out! Where in Kentucky did they used to go?”

  “Some little town I have never heard of — Pikeville.”

  “Pikeville Kentucky,” John said. “OK. I need to see this thing through. I cannot imagine for the life of me why an obstetrician would forge a birth certificate for some little Kentucky girl to appear like she was born in New York. Why do that? It is just crazy! Crazy!”

  “Here is the crazier thing,” Christopher said. “Dr. Marstens was not an obstetrician.”

  “Oh? I just assumed. What kind of doctor was he?”

  “He was a psychiatrist and a pretty renowned one at that. I looked up some of his old published articles — quite impressive. He was fairly famous, especially in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, although, it wasn’t called that then.”

  “That is Sylvia’s field!”

  “Yes, weird, isn’t it?” Christopher asked. “Did she ever mention him?”

  “Never,” John said. “I never heard the man’s name until today. But then again, I never knew Sylvia was adopted until all of this happened.”

  “And, I suspect, neither does she,” Christopher said. “It appears this whole document was designed to hide this truth from her. But why? This is the big question. What happened that was so horrific, it required all of this?”

  “This is why I must go to Pikeville,” John said. “I don’t know how, but I know my boy is there. I know that somewhere at the bottom of this twisted rotten barrel, that crazy priest from the police sketch has our boy and he is in Pikeville. Maybe Sylvia recognized him from her past and that is why she collapsed. I know there must be a connection. I just know it!”

  “I think you should leave this matter to the police, John,” Christopher said. “You could tell them what you know and they can take it from here.”

  “No!” John erupted. “I must do this myself. I will tell the police what I know, but, I also know they won’t do anything. It is too speculative for them to follow up on, but, I will. I will go down to Pikeville and get my boy!”

  Chapter 19

  April 19th, 2017 - Café Del Sol Mexican Restaurant - Mountain View California - 11:30 PM

  “Jesus? You mean the Jesus?” Sylvia asked.

  “Yes, the Jesus,” Hector said. “It is a simple, yet not easy to answer question. And it is the one question you and every other person on this planet has to eventually answer. All must take a stand on who they think Jesus is.”

  “Well…,” Sylvia said. “To be frank, I haven’t really thought too much about Jesus since I left home for college, so I don’t know how to answer. I do take issue with your statement, though. Why do you say every person must answer that question? If you ask me, the way you stated it is very imperialistic, ethnocentric and rather heavy-handed.”

  Hector smiled. “It is neither imperialistic or ethnocentric. It’s a realistic assessment of the way the world is. Regardless of wh
ether someone identifies as a Christian or not, there is no denying Jesus has had more of an impact on history than anyone who has ever lived. There isn’t even a close runner-up.”

  “I suppose you are correct about that,” Sylvia said.

  “Well…, I am happy to hear you say that,” Hector said. “You would not believe how many otherwise intelligent people have fallen under the sway of that idiotic ‘Jesus is Horus’ theory these days.” He shook his head and added, “the things people believe — sad, really.”

  “I heard all of that Horus nonsense back when I was a professor at NYU,” Sylvia said. “It is quite the rage on campus now.”

  “Yes,” Hector said. “Sadly, sometimes it takes tremendous effort, years of study and an advanced degree in order to learn the most stupid things imaginable.”

  Sylvia laughed and said, “Hector, you shouldn’t slam my old profession! I was in academia for many years, you know.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Hector said. “I meant no offense.”

  “None taken,” Sylvia said. “But, I will admit, there is much truth in what you say. Who was it that said, ‘the only Marxists left in the world are in North Korea and in the economics department of Yale’? Your point is well taken, but that doesn’t mean one should automatically be a Christian, of course.”

  “No, of course not,” Hector said. “I only meant to say claims Jesus never existed are insane. No rational person should take such theories seriously.”

  “Look, even though I am not a Christian, I haven’t fallen down that rabbit hole,” Sylvia said. “I earned a minor in History, and, to say Jesus never existed and is just a completely mythological character, is crazy, just as you state. There is far too much evidence that a rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth existed in the first century. Everything points to it.” She smiled as she added, “although, it does not mean the man was the son of God, however. He was just a misunderstood, and highly mythologized, itinerant prophet. You know, back then, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a couple of dozens of those guys.”