“So you’re implying that my hallucinations are the result of some psychotropic drugs my mother took before I was born? Over forty years ago?”
“That plus your genetic proclivity for psychic ability. But more than that, I’m suggesting that your visions are actual events. They are not hallucinations.”
Someone dropped something in the kitchen and the clash of porcelain on tile resonated through the restaurant.
“I didn’t see that coming,” Scott said.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Blackwell answered. “Last week, just after you parted ways with Bell Intelliservices, you experienced an episode—Tuesday, am I correct?”
“How’d you know about that?”
He ignored the question. “What visions did you have during that episode? Do you remember them?”
“They were all jumbled together. They always are.”
He accented each word. “What do you remember?”
Scott took a short breath, feeling like a schoolboy asked to recite a poem. “A strange house…at night. It was out of focus.”
“Yes,” Blackwell said. “Go on.”
“I sat down in a recliner—plaid, cloth.”
“Ahh. The visions are multi-sensory.” The doctor typed notes on a tablet. Scott hadn’t seen him take it out of his briefcase.
As Scott recalled the images, he focused away from the little diner and out the large glass window beside their table. “It seemed like I was in Frank Jackson’s house. He worked at Bell. He also killed himself.” He turned his gaze back to the doctor.
Dr. Blackwell stopped typing.
“And that was it.”
“Do you remember where you were when you had that vision?” He still didn’t call it a hallucination. All of the other doctors had.
“You tell me,” Scott said. Perhaps this guy was just a clever charlatan. “You’re the one who claimed I had an attack on Tuesday.”
Dr. Blackwell squinted his eyes and studied Scott’s face. “You were on your back porch after being laid off. You soaked in a hot tub.”
Scott stared back. He was correct. He had the hallucination in the Jacuzzi. But he had left out the fact that Scott had been drinking.
“Oh, and I believe you were drinking Scotch whisky.”
That startled Scott. “You said you wanted to help me. How?”
“Mr. Moore,” Dr. Blackwell began. “I believe you and I can work together to manage and possibly help you profit from your gift.”
“No way. I’m nobody’s guinea pig and I’m not a sideshow freak.” He started to collect his belongings to leave.
“Of course not. But you would like to be in more control, wouldn’t you? You’d like to keep from having such hallucinations, wouldn’t you?” It was the first time he used that word.
“Yes.”
“I believe I can be of assistance to you.”
“And if I agree?”
“I will pay you for your efforts. In fact, I’m willing to pay twenty-five percent more per month than you received at Bell Intelliservices. If you’re ever uncomfortable, just say so, and we will cease our arrangement.”
“Let me talk with Grace.”
***
“Hell, no! I won’t let some quack pump you full of LSD or PCP or any other drug.” She was banging pans around in the kitchen. She always banged pans when she was upset. Scott could tell how upset by the volume of the pan banging.
“I work with druggies every night, and I don’t want my husband to be one of them.”
“He’s not going to do that,” Scott said. “Besides, he may be able to help me. No one else has.”
“He may kill you,” she added.
He threw his hand down in disgust. “He’s not going to kill me.”
She stopped what she was doing. “You don’t know anything about him.”
“He seems legit.” Saying, “legit” made it sound like it had more credibility.
“I want to see a diploma. I want to talk with him. I want references.”
When she started making demands, Scott knew she was weakening. After all, if he could provide those things, could she still resist? “Grace,” he said. “I don’t think paranormal psychologists have references.”
“That’s just the point. He sounds like a quack.”
Scott wasn’t surprised by her hesitation, but something made him feel she wasn’t telling everything. “I don’t think he’s a quack.”
“You met him once…at Jasper’s Breakfast House.”
“Honey, he’s also willing to pay me. Let’s face it. If I don’t land another job in a few months, we may need every cent we can get to make ends meet.”
“I’d rather be in the poor house than lose you.” It sounded reassuring, but almost too reassuring, perhaps even overplayed.
He walked into the kitchen and put his arms around her, in a constraining way. Struggle as she might, she could not break free. It sent the message that she wouldn’t break him of his plans to work with Dr. Blackwell. “Let’s just have dinner together. The three of us. We’ll take it one step at a time.”
“And if he slips us LSD?”
“We’ll have a hell of a dinner.”
***
They met at a locally owned steakhouse. The steaks were grilled over wood with an unusual marinade, filling the entire restaurant with a smoky oak scent. Thick baked potatoes and a large family-size bowl of mixed vegetables rounded out the meal. For desert, they all chose the house’s special cheesecake topped with fruit.
As he knifed the large slice of desert, Dr. Blackwell made his pitch. “I believe we will be able to discover things that no one, to date, has known about man’s ultimate abilities. We can open the door to new ways of thinking about communication, creativity, relating and more. We can turn the world on its ear and Scott can make that happen,” he said. He seemed to be talking to Grace alone.
“How do we know it will be safe?” Grace interrupted. Scott knew she had been waiting to broach that subject all night. When Dr. Blackwell opened the door, she ran through it.
“We will take every precaution we can. I’ll require tests and scans, constant monitoring, whatever is necessary to keep Scott safe. After all, everything depends on his ability and willingness to be tested. It’s not like I have people standing in line who were part of Dr. Dekhtyar’s original study.”
“So you’ve never tested Dr. Dek, Dek…”
“Dr. Dekhtyar,” Dr. Blackwell said.
“You’ve never tested his hypothesis on anyone else?”
“Oh, back at Emory we ran some students through various exercises. It was all quite benign, and pointless, for that matter. And of course, none of them had received Dekhtyar’s original treatment.”
“This had better be benign, as well,” she said.
“Grace. I promise to keep you informed every step of the way.”
“Where will your research take place?”
“I’ve rented some space in an office complex on Maple. I’ve hired an assistant and will record and document everything.”
“That all sounds expensive. How can you afford this?”
“I consider it to be an investment,” Dr. Blackwell said, dabbing up the last crumbs on his plate with his fork. “Besides, I inherited a bit of money from my father who had invested in a good deal of land in the northeast. It won’t last forever, but will help us get a good start.”
“And we will have the power to stop this if we ever feel it isn’t safe?”
“I guarantee it.”
Scott listened to the banter in silence. He knew Grace as well as anyone could and felt, for Dr. Blackwell’s sake, that it would be best if she never felt it was not safe.
CHAPTER FIVE
Scott’s first session with Dr. Blackwell took place four days later. The two men met in his office and shared cups of decaf coffee. The doctor set a rule in the first meeting that they would only drink decaf, if anything, during their meetings.
They worked through a ba
ttery of tests and profiles. By the end of the morning, Scott’s head throbbed with a powerful headache. That afternoon they drove to a nearby clinic and Scott underwent CT and MRI scans. Technicians drew blood samples and he took a full stress test. They ended back at Dr. Blackwell’s office.
“Scott, you’ve had a couple of episodes in the last two weeks, is that correct?”
“Yes, two.”
Scott felt like he was undergoing a lie detector test. “On the day you were laid off, you had a vision and you were under the influence of alcohol at that time.”
“Plus, I was relaxing in our hot tub.”
“Ahhh, yes. Good point.”
“And in the second episode, you were at the gym, having just completed a vigorous workout.”
“That’s right. I passed out.”
“My observation is that the first incident, to some extent, was influenced by a depressant. Alcohol is clearly a depressant. I’m also assuming your workout was tough enough to exhaust you and bring you to a somewhat depressed state.”
“That makes sense, I guess.”
“So I’d like to begin with some mild sedatives and see if we can duplicate the state you were in during those episodes. If we achieve success, we can adjust the dose to determine if we can learn to manage them.”
They shook hands and went separate ways.
Scott couldn’t ignore the feeling that he wasn’t hearing the complete story.
***
Scott threw the Frisbee and Gumby dashed across the backyard to catch it before it landed. The playful mutt, eyes wide with delight, brought it back to his master. Scott chucked it again as hard as he could as Grace stepped outside carrying a couple of glasses of ice tea. Gumby reached him before she did, so he took the disc dripping with slick saliva, and hurled it toward the neighbor’s fence one more time. The frisky boxer lunged off in that direction, eager to retrieve it and go again. By the time he returned, Grace was handing Scott his glass of tea. The dog persisted, though, and pressed the toy to Scott’s leg, again and again.
“I just got a phone call from Amy Gray,” she said. “We’ve been invited to their house Sunday afternoon for a cookout.”
The news surprised Scott. Jeff Gray was not an outgoing sociable soul. He had never invited Scott and Grace to a cookout before. In fact, the big lumbering executive, intent on money and power, never showed interest in anyone who couldn’t provide something in return. Obviously Scott, a former lower level human resources manager, had little to offer Jeff. Until now. He took the Frisbee with his free hand and slung it across the yard. Dog slobber flung off in all directions from the plastic toy. Gumby raced after the Frisbee like a hound chasing a fox.
“They’re throwing a party for Jeff’s department at Solterra,” Grace said. “We haven’t seen them both since the reunion a couple of years ago. Sounds fun.”
The dog returned again with the damn Frisbee.
“She said Jeff wanted to introduce a new kid he’d hired to his staff at the party. Obviously, spouses are invited.”
“Oh, yeah, I met that kid in the outplacement center and introduced him to Jeff,” Scott said. “So, I guess he hired the guy.” He took the Frisbee from Gumby and tossed it again.
“According to Amy, Jeff is pretty excited.”
“How about that,” Scott said. “I did something right for a change.”
He waited for a reassuring response from Grace denying that he never did anything right, but none came.
***
The smell of hot dogs and hamburgers floated out into the street and greeted Scott as soon as he opened his car door. The Grays lived in a white two-story house at the end of a cul-de-sac lined with way-above-average homes. Scott could hear country music playing in the back yard.
Grace, wearing a revealing sundress and sandals, carried a homemade casserole. They approached the front door where Amy greeted them. She was drop-dead gorgeous with long blonde hair and a smile that could stop a truck. Scott never understood what she saw in Jeff. She welcomed them both with a light hug and a peck on the cheek, took the casserole from Grace, and ushered them through the spacious house and to the back yard where the party was in full swing.
Neither he nor Grace knew many of the people gathered around the back yard. Jeff was busy keeping a smoky grill from turning into a five-alarm fire. Other adults sat in chairs scattered here and there, drinking beer or glasses of what looked like ice tea. A few of the younger guys threw a football back and forth while they flexed for the younger women in the department.
“Welcome to my castle,” Jeff shouted over his shoulder. “It’s not much, but it’ll do.”
Scott wondered what Jeff thought would be “much.” He and Grace lived well, shared a house with two more bedrooms than they used and had never tried the bathroom in the guest room, yet their home did not compare to Jeff’s house. A spacious back yard that could have doubled as a golf course green spread out before them. Near the built-in grill, a pond-less water feature gurgled with the sound of a soothing creek.
Jeff called everyone to lunch and Scott and Grace joined the line to pluck some food from the bounty. Scott added a burned chunk of ground cow to a bun, realizing even he had never insulted a hamburger as much as Jeff had this one. After sitting at a picnic table beneath a giant oak, he drowned the patty in steak sauce, pickles, onions, and cheese and hoped for the best. When he bit into the charred mess, steak sauce, onions, pickles, and cheese dripped out of the corners of his mouth.
Chris Azorin delivered his plate full of hot dogs, a hamburger, and mounds of potato chips to the place next to him.
“Mr. Moore,” Chris said, extending his hand.
“Chris!” Scott said, first wiping his hand on a napkin and then shaking Chris’ vigorously. Then he turned to his wife. “Grace. This is Chris Azorin, the young man I told you about.”
Grace nodded from across the table. Chris followed by reaching his hand out and Grace offered hers in response. They seemed to shake hands a moment longer than necessary.
“And, I guess you’re also the man of honor at this social event, right Chris?” Grace asked.
“I wouldn’t say that,” he suggested. “It’s just a chance for us all to get to know each other.” He didn’t take his eyes off Grace.
“You’re too humble, young man,” Scott answered, placing an arm around his shoulders and turning his body, and focus, away. “I hear they are very pleased to have you at Solterra.”
“It is a wonderful place to work. And it wouldn’t have happened without your help. I am forever grateful.”
“I’m glad it worked out.”
Grace turned her attention to a lady next to her who was massaging a burp from a tiny infant resting on her shoulder. The infant seemed to stretch this way and that in a spastic manner, as though he couldn’t get comfortable. “Man, there are more good lookin’ women in this company than on the entire Tech campus,” Chris semi-whispered to Scott. “It is incredible.”
“One of the perks, I guess.”
“Perks? Oh, Lord,” Jeff interrupted as he walked by trying to pass out second helpings of incinerated hamburgers. “Don’t get an HR guy talking about perks. We’ll be doomed to bankruptcy.” He wore a grill apron sporting the words, ‘Around here I’m the boss.’
“I’m just chatting,” Scott said.
“How’s the burgers?” Jeff asked everyone at the table.
“Delicious! Wonderful! Tasty,” everyone lied.
He moved on to another table.
“Talking about delicious, wonderful, and tasty,” Chris whispered to Scott.
Scott leaned back and followed the young man’s gaze. To his surprise, Amy Gray filled his line of sight. “Whoa, stud,” he cautioned. “She’s way out of bounds.”
“Still, she looks nice,” Chris said.
He was right. She may have been the most attractive woman at the event, even counting Grace who, like himself, had gained a little unsightly weight in unwanted areas and a wrinkle or tw
o over the years. He allowed himself to observe Amy from afar. No one would believe that she and Grace were the same age. Her inviting cleavage drew his look past her flat-as-a-pancake stomach to the hips of a twenty-year old. When she turned to speak with a man standing beside her, he could not take his eyes off her perfect ass. When she turned back around, her intoxicating smile caught him off-guard, making him blush and look away.
Instead, he looked into the eyes of his wife, Grace. Busted.
“Having a good time?” she asked.
He felt his face warm up even more.
“Don’t encourage him,” she mouthed softly.
Chris didn’t hear her, but Scott had learned to read her lips and her facial expressions years ago.
Dessert was strawberry shortcake, with fresh strawberries and abundant mounds of whipped cream. Scott rose from the table to get a plate for himself and to fetch another to offer as absolution to his wife. They shared their shortcake apart from the other diners near the stairs leading up to the expansive deck jutting out from Jeff’s house.
“You’re causing problems,” Grace said.
“Huh?” He looked up to catch Chris, hands in pockets and swaying back and forth in an awe-gee fashion as he talked with Amy Gray. She giggled and patted him lightly on his shoulder.
“What are you two talking about?” Jeff asked as he approached with his own plate piled high with strawberries and whipped cream.
“Oh, nothing,” Scott said. “You’ve got some nice people in your company.”
“Don’t believe it for a second,” Jeff said, washing down his words with a swig of beer. “Most of ’em are lazy freeloaders and all of ’em would stab you in the back if they could.”
“Now, Jeff. They’re not that bad.”
“I have to ride them like a cowboy riding herd,” he said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t get anything done.”
“Well, they’ve been nice to us today,” Scott said.
“And the food has been delicious,” Grace added.
“This new kid is a breath of fresh air,” Jeff went on, ignoring the compliments. “I don’t want the rest of them to be a bad influence on him. Where’d he go?”
2nd Sight: Capturing Insight Page 5