To the science editors of the Boston Globe:
I just found smallpox scabs from Boston's 1902 epidemic. Would anybody in a Boston medical school like to examine these and also help with my term paper?
To the American Society of Infectious Disease Specialists, he wrote a different message:
If a person stumbled on intact smallpox scabs and breathed in the dust of them and rubbed them against his nose and mouth, would that person be at risk?
This was the question that mattered.
But maybe he wouldn't send it. Mitty had come to a conclusion: when Donald Henderson's team (if you could call ten thousand health workers by the plain old word team) had ringed sick guys, they just waited out the illness. Those sick guys must have shed smallpox scabs all over their beds and blankets and houses. There would have been a zillion. But the World Health Organization guys just headed home. If scabs could actually pass on the disease, wouldn't they have had to sweep up the scabs each time?
So it was stupid to worry, and that was why he wasn't writing to the CDC, who were way too official for stupid questions and had better things to do than worry about some kid's high school paper.
Because that was all this was. A high school paper. Nothing more, nothing less.
He was such a loser he'd been scared of light and dark on Roosevelt Island. He was really a loser to be having smallpox nightmares. He'd better not become a doctor. He'd get every symptom of every illness in every textbook.
Of course, with his grades, he wasn't getting into bartender school, never mind medical school.
The best thing, Mitty decided, was to toss both the scabs and the book. This would end their crazy grip on him. He would flush the scab dust down the toilet, throw the book down the garbage shaft and put this behind him. He picked up Principles of Contagious Disease to retrieve the envelope. As they had been doing all week, facts leaped up off the pages and attacked.
Prior to vaccination, 400,000 smallpox deaths occurred in a routine year in Europe, but only one-third of smallpox patients died, so the actual number getting smallpox was 1.2 million.
And those guys were spread out, thought Mitty, with rivers and mountain ranges in between. They just sat there in their little feudal huts. They weren't catching the subway, thirty thousand here and twenty thousand there. Nothing separates New Yorkers from each other.
Most epidemics, the book informed him next, were in winter. Smallpox spread better in cold weather.
From the window, Mitty felt cold weather.
And then he found the page where the envelope had been resting all those 102 years. It had discolored the page, leaving a rusty two-inch-by-six-inch patch.
In this book written by doctors who knew their smallpox, who had buried its victims, autopsied them, and slid their scabs into envelopes, it said: After a patient got well, not only should every surface in his room be disinfected, not only should his clothing and bedding be burned, not only should his furniture be destroyed—the wallpaper in that patient's room should be scraped off and burned.
Mitty was strung out like a guy on his tenth cup of coffee. He put the book down. He forgot about getting rid of the envelope. In the silent dark he padded to the kitchen and ate ice cream out of the carton.
The chocolate felt good going down his sore throat.
Twelve to fourteen days before a person is infectious, thought Mitty. Today is February 9. Only a few safe days left. Unless this is some other strain of variola major. A quick strain. An infect-you-in-ten-days strain.
Mitty took the carton of ice cream into the living room with the fabulous skyline view. They never pulled a shade or a curtain in this room. Night and day, summer and winter, they had Manhattan for their neighbor. He finished the whole carton. At last, he slumped down on the pillows and dozed fitfully.
In his bedroom, on the computer screen, the little flag of incoming mail began blinking.
CHAPTER NINE
Mitty never knew why he was in school on Mondays, but he really didn't know why he was in school this Monday.
Classes felt like strange rituals devised by some unknown tribe. Desks and pencils, computers and hallways were alien objects. Friends were difficult to recognize and conversation was impossible.
Nobody noticed.
Derek talked about his favorite subjects. Teachers rattled on about their favorite subjects. Olivia chattered about her favorite subject.
Mitty was silent, thinking about his e-mails.
Would anybody answer? If they did, could he trust their answers? What would he do if the answers seemed to indicate that he, Mitty Blake, might actually be getting smallpox?
He didn't feel as if he occupied his flesh in the usual way. His body was a container; he was standing inside it, like a person badly dressed.
At lunch Derek expounded on anthrax. Olivia offered to share her Rice Krispie marshmallow bar, but Mitty didn't want to touch it. He didn't want to touch anything.
“Are you all right?” Olivia asked.
“He's fine!” said Derek irritably.
Olivia flushed.
“I am fine, thanks, Olivia,” Mitty said. How sober his voice was. He could not inject it with his usual—
What is my usual? he thought.
When school ended, Mitty stood in the foyer. He let his backpack slide to the floor. He examined his palms. Lesions started at the extremities: hands, head and feet were first and worst.
“Mitty, what's wrong?” said Olivia, with her little frown of concern.
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Don't you have to hurry to your ballet class?”
“Yes. But what's the matter?”
He changed the subject.“I wouldn't mind seeing you in tights.”
She beamed at him.“I have a solo in the recital the first Saturday in March.”
He started to say “I wouldn't miss that for anything.”
But this was not true.
At home, in the safety of his bedroom, Mitty turned on his laptop and went online.
He opened [email protected]. Twenty-seven messages were waiting.
He couldn't bring himself to open them. He got up and opened a real window instead. Studied traffic for a while, put on the radio, chose a soda. Then he doubleclicked.
re: scabs: I am a science reporter for the Boston Globe. Where did you get these scabs? When can we do an interview? Phone, e-mail, or if you're near Boston, let's meet.
The science reporter just wanted an article; he wasn't nervous, wasn't afraid.
re: scabs: Your e-mail was forwarded to me. I am a virologist at Harvard Medical School. When did you find this scab and how did you identify it? E-mail or call promptly.
So somebody with great credentials was interested, and he didn't sound nervous either.
re: scabs: I am with USAMRIID, the U.S. Amy Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. We need to examine the scab you have. Answer ASAP.
re: scabs: Thank you for contacting the International Association for Infectious Disease Research. IAIDR would like toobtain the scabs. Infectivity may have survived. Please call the phone number below or e-mail immediately.
Infectivity was the ability to infect. Infectivity may have survived?. Mitty thought. Well, it didn't. If infectivity had survived, the Harvard guy would have said so.
And then he thought, Wait. I didn't write to USAMRIID. I didn't write to any government agency. I'm not into authority right now.
So somebody had forwarded Mitty's message.
He had known for several days now that he was not in control of his body or his health. But somehow he had expected to be in control of his own questions.
re: scabs: Your e-mail was forwarded to me. Where on earth did you find scabs of smallpox? How do you know that's what they are? Did you touch them? Call the hotline of your CDC.
This was from a doctor in Germany. Mitty had written to sites with the word international in their title, but he figured international was just a word, like association or fellowship. But
of course it wasn't, especially not on the Web.
re: scabs: I am an infectious disease researcher with a collection of material related to epidemics. I wouldvery much like to examine these scabs and possibly purchase them. When and where did you locate them?
That was the sickest hobby Mitty had ever heard of. A guy who bought disease leftovers? But Mitty was drawn to sick people. Besides, this message was kind of fun, and Mitty felt in need of a little fun, so he wrote back.
>I'm the one with the smallpox scabs.
The collector was online and answered in real time, which was a nice coincidence.
>I would do anything to get those.
Mitty responded.
>I know some sick people, but you're out there, man.
>I'm a collector. Collectors are nuts. I own the lancet Edward Jennings used when he cut James Phipps's arm open for the very first vaccination. It looks like a switchblade made of tortoiseshell. Want to see it?
Wouldn't a thing like that be in some important British museum? thought Mitty. Or a medical school exhibit?
>When did you find the scabs? wrote the collector.
>Last Sunday in an envelope inside an old medical text.
>You've been handling them for seven days? You near a major medical center?
>I'm in New York. I'm near fifty major medical centers.
>I'm in New York too. Let's meet so I can get the scabs and you can see my other stuff.
Mitty had a moment of caution.
Kids in New York City had more independence by far than kids in suburbs. In suburbs their moms had to drive them; in the city kids learned to navigate on their own; they spent their childhoods getting safety lectures and holding hands and pairing up during school excursions, and then they walked out the door into a vast city. Almost always, they were just fine.
Almost.
This guy—or woman—was maybe too weird to meet. Mitty abandoned him and opened the next message.
re: scabs: I am an infectious disease researcher with a pharmaceutical firm and would be very excited to examinethose scabs. If you live near me, I'll take you to our research facilities. We could use my scanning electron microscope so you can photograph virions of your very own scab. If you don't live near me, I'll find a colleague in your area. Dr. J.H.D. Redder.
Mitty loved those three initials. Maybe instead of changing from Mitty Blake to Mitchell Blake, he'd become M.J. Blake. He found a paper and pencil and wrote M.J. Blake.
Boring. It needed that third initial. Mitty entertained himself with selections of initials. He'd always been fond of the letter X.
M.X.J. Blake? No.
He doubled one of his initials: M.M.J. Blake.
He liked it.
Then he answered Dr. Redder's e-mail, because although he had no idea what a scanning electron microscope was, it had to be better than the junk in the school science lab, and he didn't know what a virion was either, but photographs of his own virions would definitely oneup Nate.
Dr. Redder too was online at that moment and cruised right up with a response. Late afternoon was a pretty common time to be online, because people were checking their end-of-the-day mail, but Mitty was a little surprised to have been reached by two in a row. It was like middle school, when nobody had anything to do except communicate.
>When did you locate the smallpox scabs?
Mitty and Dr. Redder went through the same exchange of information he had gone through with the collector.
>Where are you? I'll find a lab with a SEM.
>New York answered Mitty, which wasn't giving much away; eight million other people were in New York too.
>Terrific, I'm at New York Presbyterian.
>I was just up there at the medical library! typed Mitty and immediately regretted it. Dr. Redder would expect a brilliant student to show up. Mitty wasn't one. He decided to bring Olivia along.
>I'll make you a 3-D image of your specific virus on the SEM.
Mitty thought, Wait. You can't be with a pharmaceutical firm and also be with New York Presbyterian, can you? I'll get back to you, he wrote. Mitty had a bad history of getting back to people at the best of times, but this guy was too eager.
Mitty moved on. He was sorry he had e-mailed anybody. He couldn't be going around displaying his scabs like a sideshow and making appointments with people to schedule envelope openings.
Mblak: Thank you for contacting our site. We have a policy of notresponding to questions from students doing papers. We suggest sites linked to this one.
Same to you, thought Mitty.
He was feeling pretty normal again. Sure, one outfit thought infectivity might have survived, and the doctor in Germany wanted him to call a hotline, but everybody else seemed pretty low-key.
The next message was from the woman who had been looking for survivors.
re: scabs: I don't think the scab could be contagious after all this time— viruses tend toward a shelf life measured in hours or days—but I don't know; I don't suppose anyone knows. I've forwarded your e-mail to the CDC. Meanwhile, please telephone me promptly to discuss this. If there is infectivity, it must be controlled. I need to examine the scabs in my laboratory.
This was the only person whose responses he knew were real, because he had answered her. Everybody else could be insane guys with political problems staying up all night and telling lies. If there is infectivity …
re: scabs: Your e-mail was forwarded to me. How long have you had these scabs? Are they infectious? I guess not, oryou'd be dead by now and so would your country. How do you know they're smallpox?
re: scabs: Your e-mail was forwarded to me. I'm a public health physician in Louisiana. A case of smallpox would take precedence over any health problem on earth. Go to the CDC home page and notify them that you have been exposed to dangerous material.
re: scabs: It's barely three years since we had an anthrax scare and you're trying to start a smallpox scare? I've forwarded your threatening e-mail to the FBI.
An e-mail from Mitty Blake, bottom of the junior class at St. Raphael's, had been forwarded to the FBI?
If the FBI and the CDC didn't have people reading stuff on Sunday night and Mondays were too busy, they'd read it Tuesday. First they'd figure out who [email protected] was. Government agencies could order a provider to hand over information, so the FBI would know in a heartbeat what straph.edu was. One call to St. Raphael's and they'd be told mblak's full name, address, phone number and probably his grade point average and where his mother was born.
Of course, now that he thought about it, pretty much anybody with half a brain would know that edu meant a school. They would separate straph into st raph and come up with St. Raphael's. Probably several schools inAmerica were named St. Raphael's, and he knew of at least one hospital, but it wouldn't take long to narrow down. Even the guy in Germany must have guessed Mitty was American because Mitty wrote in English and referred to a term paper.
The FBI? Come on. They had better things to do.
A case of smallpox would take precedence over any health problem on earth.
In which case, no, the FBI would not have better things to do.
“Hey, Mitt!”yelled his father.
The front door slammed. Mitty shut down his e-mail.
“Mitty!” caroled his mother.“We're home! Do you want to order pizza? There's a UConn game tonight! Notre Dame! We're going to slaughter them!”
But Mitty Blake was playing a more serious game.
CHAPTER TEN
It was a close game.
His parents were excited and then desperate, cheering and then moaning.
It was all Mitty could do to mumble a syllable now and then. He wanted to tell his parents everything, but he wanted them away from him: miles away, oceans away. And here they were on the same sofa.
He couldn't follow the game—he, Mitty, who loved college basketball the most of any sport. When the camera panned the crowd at Notre Dame, he saw only variola major working its way through eleven tho
usand people.
UConn lost.
Mitty hardly noticed.
Normally Mitty yelled and stomped, threw things andhigh-fived, placed rational or insane bets and groaned afterward about how UConn should have played better.
Now he just waited quietly while his father wound down from the excitement and the frustration of a loss until at last Mitty could retire to the safety and privacy of his room.
He couldn't sit. Couldn't lie down. Couldn't do anything except listen to the echoes of electronic voices. Infectivity may have survived. Answer ASAP. A case of smallpox would take precedence over any health problem on earth. I have forwarded your e-mail to the FBI.
He was aware of his parents in their room and the blockade of closets and bathrooms between them. He heard when they turned off their bedroom TV and closed their books; except for sports, they never watched TV without also reading. (It seemed to Mitty that they missed the entire point of television.) At last all was still and they were asleep.
And Mitty too was still.
When he was little, Mitty had often been mesmerized by the round windows in the humming clothes dryers down in the building's laundry room. He would stand holding his nanny's hand, watching socks inside get thrown against the glass, then underwear, followed by pillowcases, and here would come those socks again. His thoughts had always been like that—like flailing sleeves of shirts, revolving and tumbling.
The cycle had ended. Mitty's mind lay as quiet as folded laundry.
Call the CDC hotline.
If he called the CDC and said, “I opened this old book?And handled old smallpox scabs? And I might be infected?”—wouldn't they just laugh?
But if they didn't laugh? If they came to his house? Wanted to examine him?
Then what?
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