by David Kersey
CHAPTER FIVE – young Joshua
“Van, as one proficient in the behavioral sciences, I think you will be interested to hear my story. I was born with severe developmental challenges in my brain. Do you want to hear my story, which is quite long, or grab a bite to eat first?”
“By all means I want to hear your story.”
“I do have a father, and I don’t. My mother was quite the player, a heavy user of street drugs and alcohol, promiscuous, and to my knowledge she had no recollection of who fathered me. Her body was laced with LSD at her death, which occurred one day after she gave birth to me. I became a John Doe and was handed over to the state of Arizona. Whether the abnormalities in my development stemmed from drug related birth defects, or what happened when I was three years old, or a combination of both, was uncertain for many years.
I was placed in a foster home with a childless couple in Springerville, Arizona. I don’t remember them at all, other than what has been told to me. The story goes that the man and his wife were often violently abusive with one another. During one altercation, when I was three, I was thrown down the basement steps which resulted in a broken arm and a cracked skull.
Of importance to you may be that the man was spooked by me in that, when I’d sit in the backyard as a toddler, the rabbits would play with me, jump around and cuddle with me for hours on end. That occurred regularly and before the fall to the basement, if that is interesting to you.
The woman, who thought my presence was a contributing factor to the violence, gave me away to an acquaintance, a Native American woman who lived in the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation. I spent eleven years on the reservation, was schooled there, and became a student of the earth which underpins the Apache way of life.
An elder of the tribe, quite old when he took me under his wing, tutored me and became my ‘father’. He named me Yashua, which name was his understanding of one belonging to God. I spent a considerable amount of my formative years living with him in a cave, where he taught me volumes about ancient herbal remedies. It was during that time that the confusions began. Hallucinations. Eerie flashes of pictures that framed themselves in mosaics. Images of people I had never met, all of them talking simultaneously, saying something unheard but they were all looking at me. Dozens of them at the same time, speaking to me but I couldn’t hear them.
As a result I had terrible problems communicating with others. Their words triggered the pictures, images that captivated my attention, so that I couldn’t respond to people’s words. The debilitation led to my becoming an outcast among my peers and even adults. I became reclusive and avoided contact, but that didn’t help with the visions that raced in my head. But I did find something that did help. I became a student of the books in the reservation library. White mans’ books. Science books, history books, poetry, autobiographies, just about anything that had ink on paper. As I’d sit on the rock shelves of Mount Baldy, I would read from dayspring until nightfall. And I could remember everything I read, but I had difficulty expressing to others what I had read. The stories would jumble, become intertwined, and I knew it but couldn’t correct it. I couldn’t slow myself down. So I stopped talking to others altogether. I realized my brain was a super absorbent sponge, but it meant nothing since it wouldn’t sort itself out. So I left the reservation at age fourteen.
That is the first part, but before I go to the second, do you have questions?”
“I have questions but please continue,” Van replied. Adele had her eyes closed the entire discourse. She was unusually quiet. Joshua used his gift of perception, his telepathic gift, and stated that Adele knew his story, in response to which Adele briefly opened her eyes and smiled at Van.
“I hitched a ride to Tulsa and lived homeless in the wooded areas on the banks of the Arkansas River. I was beaten up by another homeless man there. I had stolen a loaf of Italian bread and offered him some of it. He wanted all of it. He also stole my possessions, which amounted to a change of clothes and a transistor radio.
I attempted to shoplift some clothing the following day but was caught. The manager of the thrift shop noticed my bruises and cuts, walked me to a section of the store and gave me some pants, a shirt, sweatshirt, and jacket, then sent me on my way out the back door. It was an act of kindness that meant the world to me. He offered to take me to a shelter but I refused, instead I stuck out my thumb and eventually after a few lifts landed in St. Louis.
I stayed in downtown St. Louis, at the Sunshine Mission for over a year. Paul Mcnally, the overseer, took a special interest in me. He brought me books to read and had me do odd jobs which put a few dollars in my pocket, enough to go the corner Crown Mart to get a sandwich.
One day he handed me an old, tattered text book entitled Human Biology. I devoured it. I read the entire book in two days, then repeated reading it for days on end. I had visions that emanated from the book’s diagrams. I became, in my illusory imagery, infinitely small, able to enter into my own body’s cells, each one became as large as an auditorium. I walked around in the cells, dodging the bullets of free radicals that zinged by me, that bounced off my cell lining, leaving scars and pockmarked wounds on the cell walls. It was a dangerous place, a war being fought in each cell I entered. I stepped over tiny ropes of reticulum and microfilaments that crisscrossed, making progress arduous. I found an open door to the mitochondria room and entered. Inside there were tiny bursts of liquids that lasted just a microsecond. I dodged those and found in the center of the room a lever that moved in accordance with the microbursts of liquids. I had found the energy center. I moved the lever up and the bursts of liquids became streams, continuous streams until I lowered the lever. When I lowered the lever to its lowest extreme, the illumination dimmed, so I restored it to how I had found it, and the din of renewed energy resumed. Again outside the mitochondria, I came across a gelatinous structure, quite large and pulsating with no apparent entry except for tiny perforations too small for me to enter, so I peeled my way inside through a thick, clingy substance. Inside the round room were spiraling ladders and a control desk with an operator that continuously directed activity. I stepped closer to the operator and recognized the face, it was my face, in the nucleus, in the operations center. I began to shake uncontrollably. Joshua, Joshua, wake up man, you’re dreaming and shaking all over.
It was Kevin Bowdler shaking me, one of the residents of the shelter. Even though it was a dream, it was the onset of my fascination, my compulsion to understand the remarkable human body, and my body in particular. Adele has heard all of this before, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I’ve heard it word for word as you told it to me eighteen years ago. And Van, keep in mind he was only fifteen at this point in his story.”
“I also took a similar trip through my brain, which was equally astounding to me, but I will skip that and fast forward to when I met Adele. Van, do you want me to proceed?”
“Please do, I am fascinated. But will it hurt if I take another little sip?”
Joshua laughed as did Adele. “Let’s all do,” he mused.
“To continue, Mr. Mcnally approached me one day and said he knew of a job opportunity I might like but it would entail moving to Lexington, Kentucky. When I learned it was to work in a health food store I jumped at the chance. So I hitched to the bluegrass and met store owner Liz Holstock, a truly beautiful woman inside and out, who had a heart of pure gold. I loved working there but I had no money to obtain a roof over my head, so I lived in an alleyway close to the University. A Lexington cop, Jack Meadors, jerked me from my sleep late one night and took me to the station, booked me on vagrancy charges, and I spent the rest of the night and next day in the slammer. Then I heard ‘you have a visitor’ and saw a lady standing outside the cell bars. And there she sits. Before I go on, I love you Mrs. Meadors.”
Adele rose and hugged Joshua with tears in her eyes. “Honey chile, you don’t even know. But can we take a break? I gotta go again.”
Van asked as Adele was leaving, �
�So Jack the cop is Adele’s husband?”
“Indeed, only now he’s Detective Meadors. Are you hungry?”
“Getting there. So when in Tulsa, then St. Louis and afterwards Lexington, were you still having hallucinations?”
“Yes, but I was learning to deal with it better. Adele was the one who broke me free from it.”
“Wow, I’m vitally interested in which regimen she took you through. So the Arizona connection, the things you use to complete the NIL, the items come from the Indian reservation?”
“Yes, that’s correct. Van, while we’re alone I need to tell you that Adele has cancer.”
“Ohhhh no,” Van hung his head in his hands. “Where is it and how far along?”
“She had both breasts removed, but it’s moved into her lymph nodes. She’s taking an experimental drug and that’s what is causing her need for the bathroom. Here she comes back.”
“Hey you galoots, let’s go stretch our legs, sit outside and watch the stars come out. They are magnificent down here in the hills.”
“There are some Adirondack chairs behind the barn. You two take a seat back there, and I will bring something to munch on. Edamame, capers, a little curry for dipping, a cracker or two. How’s that sound?”
“Perfect, but what about Ben?” Jamison asked.
“Haha, I hope he comes by here. We got a thing goin’, me and him.”
“You’re kidding, a bear?”
“He’s better looking than you.”
Van studied his female friend. His mind was wracked in anguish for her, yet she carried on in a valiant effort to live life fully. Could it be that her brash talk is a defense mechanism, a maneuver to divert the pity of others? The thought impressed him. He hoped he would have been so strong if it had been him with the disease.
“Adele, does this mixture of Joshua’s have legs? I mean, you and I both know there’s a myriad of hurdles in his way. But if he’s really on to something here, the sky is the limit for him. And another thing, Namanda, being developmentally delayed in some areas, wouldn’t it be taking a chance with her if she was given the potion?”
“Let me say this. It has curative properties, Van. I will ingest it until the day I die. That’s how strongly I believe in what he has here. As far as Namanda goes, she, with her parents’ full consent and prompting, would not spend a fortune which they’ve done in relation to how much money they have, to make this trip without full disclosure of the potential risks. They want this to happen desperately.”
The sun had set in the west. The valley below their feet was lost to the darkness. The two sat and gazed at the purple-black sky that topped the distant pines. A head popped up, then two. Just their heads rising above the slope. Staring. Wondering. When Joshua returned and sat he murmured something guttural, and the heads ascended into approaching bodies. The two deer stood directly in front of the humans, face to face. Joshua handed the edamame pods to Van and instructed him to feed them. Squeamishly he offered his laden hand out. Inch by inch the creatures neared and then the connection was made. They politely ate from his hand, then abruptly bound down the slope. Joshua said they had caught the scent of Ben in the wafting breeze.
“I’ve never experienced anything remotely close to that; wow, I am amazed.”
“They liked you, Van.”
“You got some sick deer around here then,” Adele could not stop her good natured jabbing, though Van thought she was taking it over the top. He debated saying something but let it go.
“Eat. There’s more if you want.
So anyway that’s how I met Adele. From my jail cell. The first thing she did was take me to a real restaurant, not the Styrofoam ones, and fed me real food. She took me to Macy’s, a real store that had new, unworn things in the Fayette Mall, fancier than anything I’d ever seen, and bought me clothes and shoes. When I told her I had probably lost my job she said that I hadn’t, she had already taken care of that. I remember hanging my head in embarrassment and shame in her car, yet being so very appreciative of the angelic woman who had appeared out of nowhere. My Apache ‘father’ prophesied that it would happen just like it did, but I never believed it would, not until it really did come true.
I lived with Adele and Jack for well over a year in their fine Tates Creek home. She was the first real mother figure I ever knew. I tried to earn my keep by mowing the lawn, straightening the garage, primping in her garden, shoveling snow, and faking interest in her passion…..basketball. Oh my, talk about crazy people over a stupid sport. Meanwhile I worked and learned at Miss Holstock’s Mother Earth store. Adele encouraged me to start my own garden at the rear of their property, which I did, half knowing what to do, the other half clueless about how to raise and care for exotics. But by the end of summer there was abundant evidence of my labor, and we all ate heartily from what once were mere seeds. The feeling of accomplishment was overwhelming.
She snuck me into her psych classes for a while, then finagled a way for me to attend some classes in the biological and agricultural engineering courses.”
“Stop right there, Joshua. I didn’t risk anything. I went as high as the President of the University and explained what I had found in you. He agreed to allow you to sit in on classes without being matriculated. You couldn’t have been, you had no high school degree. Do you ever remember taking a test?”
“No, the prof took no notice of me.”
“Oh yes he did, believe me, he did. He confided in me that he knew you were well advanced of your ‘classmates’, even though he never called on you to participate.”
Van took the opportunity to ask, “What I’m interested in is what happened to the hallucinations and disconnection syndrome? That’s what it was, or is, right Adele?”
“Yep, you get an A Dr. Vance. We did a scan and saw some damage, some lesions in the cerebrum white matter axons. There was no damage in the cortex so the diagnosis was predictable, expressive aphasia. There were no dysarthria or reception issues. We came to the conclusion that the lesions were caused by the fall down the steps at age three. So a speech therapist worked with him on the “leaping” of thoughts among other things, like the TUF linguistic approach, and we prescribed Piracetam which proved effective. We reactivated some lost function by using transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS, to suppress inhibitors. All in all there was noticeable improvement in Joshua’s ability to reply to communication.”
Van interrupted. “Was it audiovisual senses out of sync, as in autism?”
“It was, which was tagged ‘leaping’ by the therapist. Similar to seeing captioned words well out of sequence to a movie scene. As you know, autistic children often put their hands over their ears while visually focusing on something. They want to use one sense at a time. Joshua had similar disconnection, but further complicated by what we would have to call telepathy. We couldn’t find a directory that would give us a clue as to the source of his telepathic abilities. Does anybody really know where to find that? I wouldn’t know where to look, would you?”
“Joshua, do you have telepathic abilities?” Van asked.
“Adele forgot to mention one thing. During that time I ate beets every day and I still do. I had learned of the rush of nitric oxide that beets can provide. It’s one of the power elements in my formula that many overlook. Ok, about the telepathic ability. Sometimes, not all the time. For instance when we first sat and talked, I knew what your second question would be while you were asking your first question. So I avoided answering you for fear I would answer the second question first. That’s what the therapist labeled as ‘leaping’. So is it telepathy? You tell me. I know where Ben is right now. Is that telepathy? Will it rain tomorrow? I have no idea, but I would bet you some of the animals would know that in advance. What scientific term would you ascribe to that?”
Adele discerned the two men were headed for an impasse. Telepathy can be a polarizing topic. In the scientific community the paranormal is discarded as capricious fiction, so she shifted gears, but wondered wh
y Joshua had minimized his gift. And then it dawned on her. Joshua was reading Jamison’s skeptical mind.
“Van, this property is a big old place, nearly three hundred acres. See those hills to each side and in front of us? The downslopes on the far sides end at the Cumberland River which makes a big horseshoe bend around all these hills you see. Tomorrow I hope we have time to explore. Joshua’s got a bunch of interesting vegetation up in dem dar hills and the views are splendid. I’m getting tired, you buffoons, what are the sleeping arrangements? Put me somewhere safe from this ugly mess of a man sitting next to me.”
“Follow me.” Joshua led Van and Adele to the logged structure, but Van had no desire to retire this early, he was still three hours lagging behind the local time, and he had a ton of concerns. Trepidations actually. He needed answers, the most insistent of which was why was he here?
+ + + + +
General Hargrove’s war-hardened face furiously reddened. “I could give a coon’s ass about the damn bird flu, Senator. If Taiwan for God’s sake has a vaccine, then so should we. The future depends on Operation Impervious and I’m not going to allow the damn flu to get in the way.” Senator Collins shook his head in disbelief. What Hargrove was advocating was darkly nefarious. Didn’t he remember Agent Orange? Impervious is immoral, and so is restricting funds toward the growing threat of the airborne H7N9 virus that kills thirty percent of its carriers. But since when did Washington care about morals? Not since Reagan, and half of his constituents didn’t know who Ronald Reagan was or what he stood for.