Elixir. Part 20

The next morning before she left, Chris asked Jenny if she would call the Rose Hill nursing home in Connecticut to check on Sam's condition. She agreed and he gave her the number and some instructions. A little after ten, Jenny drove off in the van. In her handbag she carried the photos of Wendy and Chris and sample signatures. Also, two ampules of Elixir.

On their eighteenth night, Chris drove to a call box outside a fire station in Rumford. The street was dark and deserted. A little after nine, Jenny's call came through. But after a few seconds he could tell something was wrong. Had the authorities cornered her? Did she and Ted fear they were getting in too deeply? Was it a money problem?

"Chris, I'm sorry. It's your father. He's dead."

"Oh no."

"I did just as you said: I identified myself as an a.s.sistant prosecutor from Ma.s.sachusetts...."

"When did it happen?" Chris asked.

"Ten days ago. They said his remains were cremated, which was the home's policy when next of kin couldn't be located. I'm sorry, Chris."

He felt the grief well up in him, but he pushed it back. "Thank you, Jenny." He hung up and headed home, concentrating on driving under the speed limit.

He arrived at the cottage around eleven. Wendy and the baby were in bed. But he knew he would not be able to sleep. He knew he would have to confront the full force of his grief and guilt. So he sat on the couch and turned on the television.

One of the channels was playing The Wild One with a lean, young Marlon Brando swaggering about the screen in tight jeans and a hurt truculent look. Today he was a three-hundred-pound bald and wheezy mound of fat draped in black tunics to hide what time had done to him.

Chris watched the movie with the volume off. The only sound was that of the sleeting rain against the windows. With his gla.s.ses off, the picture was fuzzy. But that made no difference, because all he could see was Sam lying in his bed, a pathetic shriveled shadow of the man he had been, dying in an inst.i.tution made up of hands and feet and mouths moving without sense.

Chris knew that Sam hadn't had long, that his organs would give out as he languished in a vegetative state. But what ate at Chris was that he had not had the chance to say goodbye. That life had turned so bizarre he could not even risk visiting his father one last time.

Blankly he stared at the TV and proceeded to drink a six-pack of beer, one can after the next-brain cells be d.a.m.ned-until his head was a throbbing ma.s.s and the geometry of the room took a non-Euclidian slant and the fuzz on the screen sharpened into shapes and forms that pulled him in.

Green. The black and white had turned a dazzling green. He was walking on a vast lawn between Sam and his mother Rose. They were at Campobello, Hyde Park, New York. He could see it with brilliant clarity-the great white house with the high windows. The ma.s.sive white marble tombstone of FDR. Then he was rolling on the lawn and his seven-year-old legs were cool from the gra.s.s. He was wearing navy blue pants with black-and-white saddle shoes and a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap.

"Hey there, slugger!"

Then gra.s.s s.h.i.+fted and became a dirt diamond at Goodwin Park in Hartford, and Sam was at the pitcher's mound with a bucket of baseb.a.l.l.s and Chris at the plate with his Louisville Slugger. Sam held up a clean white hardball. "What do you say we give this one a run for its money?" And Chris swung with all his might and cracked the ball up to the clouds.

The next moment Sam was climbing aboard the dive boat on a reef off Boroko on the southern coast of Papua New Guinea: his body still lean and bronze, joking about the giant grouper that had spooked him, handing Chris a triton sh.e.l.l. Chris held the sh.e.l.l up to his eye imagining he could see around the curves spiraling forever inward... until he was peering through a window of the nursing home where he spotted Sam in the bed....

Chris climbed through the sh.e.l.l window thinking how odd it was that Sam was sleeping in his navy blue jumper shorts with a white polo s.h.i.+rt and socks and saddle shoes. But Sam's face was not tanned and full, but thin and dry and spotted with age. His hair was a wispy cloud across a sad pink skull. He breathed in short raspy starts through a raw toothless mouth. So that he wouldn't injure himself, Sam's hands had been bound to the sides of the bed. Chris untied one and pushed up the sleeve of his johnny. The arm, strapped with an IV needle, was like a stick covered with old wax paper. Sam looked like a mummy of himself.

"Dad? It's me, Chris."

Sam stirred but he didn't open his eyes. He didn't know Chris's name. He didn't know his own name. Chris removed the syringe from his pocket and inserted it into the IV and pushed the plunger.

It didn't take long. Sam's eyes opened. He looked confused and frightened and Chris's heart slumped. "Dad, it's me, Chris."

Sam nodded and closed his eyes. When he opened them again he smiled. "Hey, slugger, where you been?"

As if by magic, his face had tightened and smoothed out, his lips plumped up and skinned over, and his eyes lit up. From under the sheets he produced a bright new baseball. "What do you say we give this thing a run for its money?"

You betcha!

And Chris woke up.

His s.h.i.+rt was damp with sweat. His head thrummed painfully and his mouth was sour with beer. The television was still on: Young-buck Brando was mounting his chromed stallion.

Chris clicked off the TV, then stumbled into the bathroom and threw up. When he returned to the living room, his eyes fell on a framed photograph of Sam and Rose and Chris in box seats at a Was.h.i.+ngton Senators game. Chris must have been thirteen.

Suddenly Chris felt grief press up from the pit of his soul like a geyser. He grasped the photo and slipped to his knees to let it come. And it did. He collapsed onto the photo and dissolved into deep wracking sobs-the kind that came with no inhibitions, that rose up in black fury. Chris wept for his father. For his mother. For Wendy and Adam and himself. For the loss of it all. He wept until his eyes stung and his chest was no more than an aching hollow cavity.

"What do you say we give this thing a run for the money?"

Chris's breath stopped short. For an instant he felt totally sober.

No need to act surprised. It's been there all the time, a few layers beneath the skin of things. Like some strange organism with a life of its own, every so often sending up signs of life. Little fetal kicks and rolls, getting stronger by the day. What finally took a jab at old Dexter Quinn.

Chris pulled himself up. His legs felt wobbly like a newborn colt's. But he felt a sudden sense of purpose. Dexter was desperate, he told himself. He had had a bad heart and knew he would die soon. That was a one-shot thing. But not me. Got flagons of the stuff-last a hundred lifetimes.

Chris started to giggle but burped up a bubble of acid.

You're twisting things, buddy boy, another voice cut in. Pulling out of the hat every rabbity reason for taking a leap off a cliff in the dark, hope against hope that you'll end up in the land of milk and honey. The problem is you're f.u.c.king drunk. That's right: Ga.s.sed, blotto, smashed and filled with guilt and grief up the yin-yang. You're like the guy who convinces himself he's got this special alcohol-resistant radar unit inside his skull that will lead him home in the rainstorm no matter what, but who slams into a tree only to spend the rest of his life in a coma, curled up like a shrimp.

But another voice whispered, "Hey, slugger, what do you say we give this thing a run for the money, Huh?"

Don't want to end up like Dad, now, do we? he asked himself.

Uh-uh, no way!

But what if you miscalculate?

Impossible! He had worked out the dosages long ago.

And what if it doesn 't work?

Iwati never lied. "...on the soul of Jesus."

What about Wendy and Adam? What do you tell your wife?

That could be worked out, he reasoned. She could take it too.

And what if it works and forty years from now your kid wonders why you both look the same age?

Chris was in no mood for speculations. Forty years from now: He'd worry about that when they got there. This was carpe the diem while you still had some diem and brain cells left to guide your hand.

You're crazy drunk and reasoning through a point-eight blood alcohol level. You saw what happened to- Suddenly his mind hit a void.

He balanced himself against the fireplace and stared into the dying embers, concentrating with all he had to remember the name of that old rhesus monkey. He could see the animal's face. He could see him jumping around the cage like a juvenile. How could this be? He had worked with the animal daily for months.

Jesus! Two syllables. Two b.l.o.o.d.y G.o.dd.a.m.n syllables. Think.

Simba. Rumba. Rambo. Jumbo. G.o.d Almighty! Help me remember that monkey's name.

It's the beer, he told himself. You're just drunk.

Bulls.h.i.+t! You know what's going on. Just an inch behind your hairline whole cl.u.s.ters of neurons are turning into gumb.a.l.l.s. That's right, you're beginning your little b.u.mp down Alzy's Lane. Sure, it's bright up at this end, but watch the dark close around you as the rest of your brain sludges up so all that's left of Dr. Christopher Bacon is something connected to a catheter.

He shook his head and the fugue gratefully ceased. Silence.

He stared into the dying hearth for a long moment.

Then a little bright node sphinctered open at the core of Chris's consciousness, and moving on some crazy autopilot he followed it out of the bathroom and through the living room, stopping once to remove the small black pouch from the desk drawer, then proceeding down the hall to the cellar door which he opened, and then he flicked the light switch and quietly walked down the stairs, feeling the musty chill of the cellar air and the hard concrete floor that led toward the thick oak door with the large steel lock whose combination Chris couldn't recite but which his fingers knew, spinning through the right-left turns until the tumblers made that gratifying click that let the door swing open so he could grasp the pull chain of the overhead light which lit up what to the untrained eye was a wall of wine bottles behind which sat two trunks that opened with the keys around his neck.

For a long spell he stared at the rows of clear gla.s.s ampules-212, each capable of sustaining a 170-pound man for three years.

Two ampules were missing.

That couldn't be. Maybe he had miscounted when he packed them. G.o.d knows that was possible given the condition of his mind. But at the moment he could not have cared less.

He opened the pouch and removed the alcohol pads and syringe.

"Hey, slugger, what do you say?"

His mind dipped as he thought of Wendy upstairs asleep, Adam beside her. But he snipped off those thoughts.

For old time's sake, huh? You, me, and one-point-eight ccs.

Home run, Chris thought, and shot up.

He felt nothing.

Even if there were initial effects, his senses had to compete with seventy-two ounces of beer. Besides, the lab animals did not display any effects until the fourth day. So he staggered up to bed and slept a dreamless sleep until eight the next morning when he woke to a fifty-megaton hangover.

Wendy was downstairs with the baby. He could smell coffee and toast. With his head thudding painfully, he got up and took a shower and pa.s.sed the day trying to detect any effects from the drug. There were none.

None but the anxiety that gripped him like claws mid-morning when he realized what he had done. There was no turning back. The substance was in his system seeking a stabilizing level which he would have to maintain or risk deterioration. After two short weeks of treatment, withdrawn mice showed aging signs beyond their time. After three weeks, their steps shortened and they died prematurely.

The stuff had immediate genetic effect. He was already dependent. Worse, he would have to tell Wendy because soon he would manifest effects that he could not predict.

Over the next few days he had momentary panic attacks. Yet, on some level, he felt a perverse relief that all other options had been eliminated. He never let on to Wendy and filled his time with ch.o.r.es. Meanwhile, Jenny had come up with the names of three dead people from the Midwest whose social security numbers Ted was having transferred to bogus licenses and other IDs.

On the sixth day, Chris started to wonder if Elixir was working because he still couldn't detect a reaction. On the seventh day it hit like a storm.

He was alone in the attic fixing a leak, when he felt a strange buzzing sensation in his head, as if a hornet were trapped in his skull. Rapidly the hum seemed to light up the frontal lobe of his brain with a strange alertness.

He steadied himself against a beam to gauge the effects. His heart pounded and his arms tingled. Rapidly a sensation of lightness filled his body as if he had undergone a transfusion of helium.

He took off his gla.s.ses, feeling a craving for air. As he moved to a vent window, a giddy sensation rippled through his genitals and loins. Suddenly he wanted to move, to go outside and run, leap, jump-anything to release the energy percolating throughout his system. He pushed open the vent and sucked in the cold mountain air.

The view was splendid-the frozen lake, fringed with high dark pines, and in the distance the mountain range with a bank of brooding clouds. A deer was at the lake's edge where the ice made a window.

As he watched the animal drink, it occurred to him how sharply focused the scene was. Everything stood out in stereoscopic clarity. It was shocking because his gla.s.ses were dangling from his neck. "My G.o.d!" he whispered.

Every day since ninth grade he had worn gla.s.ses. Twenty-eight years of nearsightedness that grew worse with age. Not only was the lake in perfect clarity, but the mountain range, too-as if he were peering through binoculars. He turned around and the attic interior was sharp even in the dim light. It was almost magical. He slipped his gla.s.ses on, and everything turned blurry.

His muscles hummed to move, so he bounded downstairs. Wendy was fixing a toaster oven, and Adam sat in his car seat babbling. Chris slipped on his pullover and said that he wanted to get some air. Wendy had no immediate ch.o.r.es for him, so he left.

The temperature was 28 degrees, but he felt hot. With his watch cap pulled low he broke into a stiff run. For four miles his legs pistoned him powerfully to the main road. He stopped barely winded and humming to run more. It was astounding. Like old Jimbo running around the open pen.

Jimbo. The name popped up as soon as he went for it.

That was another thing: His mind felt acute and strong. No holes or shadows.

He ran back to the cottage. While Wendy was preparing dinner, he went out back and chopped more wood. After several minutes she came out with a cup of coffee. "You doing your Paul Bunyan impression?"

"Mountain air. Nothing like it," he chuckled. He took the coffee, thinking that it was Wendy's first gesture of reconciliation since they had arrived a month ago. He wondered how long before she finally forgave him, if ever.

"How much more do you plan to do?"

"Another half hour, why?"

"Just didn't want to see you wear yourself out." A small firelight flickered in her eyes. Something he hadn't seen for weeks. She smiled. "I was hoping you'd save a little for me."

"Tell me you don't mean moving a bureau."

"No, but take a shower first." She took his hand and they went into the house.

Chris showered, and when he came out Wendy was naked in bed and under the covers. A fire was burning in the bedroom fireplace.

Chris lay beside her. "It's been so long. Is it still done the same way?"

"Let's see if we can remember."

They did.

When it was over, they lay still and listened to the fire cracking in the hearth. In a few minutes, Chris brushed his lips against hers. "I love you, Wendy."

"Thanks," she said.

"Thanks?"

"I love you, too."

For a second he thought he would cry, having resigned himself to living their lives at p.r.i.c.kly odds, their love hardening to anger and hurt. But he didn't cry. Instead, he kissed her mouth and slipped down to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He then kissed a long slow line down her body until he was nestled between her thighs, moving his mouth over her pubis until she was arching herself against his face and groaning deeply again. He slid up and entered her again, feeling another full surge of pa.s.sion.