Читать книгу Requiem for the Bone Man - R. A. Comunale M.D. - Страница 4

“She’s really going to the prom with you?” Edison said to himself as he looked in the mirror.

He still couldn’t quite believe it—he’d actually asked her to the senior prom and she had accepted. What would Galen have thought?

Galen.

Because of him, Edison had been able to finish high school without too many bruises. For one thing, the rabbity kid had developed the small-animal instinct of running at the slightest hint of danger. For another, the calls of “Let’s get Four Eyes” had become a distant memory ever since that chance meeting with Greg Thornton in the stairwell when, miracle of miracles, he’d found a protector and a friend in the schoolmate he came to call Big Brother.

Galen was long gone, but the effects of their friendship lived on in the confidence Edison had gained about himself.

Still, he missed the big guy. They had made quite a team in radio club, and life had gone a lot smoother when they’d put their heads together on school projects. They had won the science fair two years in a row, and that last idea of theirs, a device to make people’s hearts work better, had become a legend among the high school faculty.

“Mr. and Mrs. Edison, it’s so nice to see you again this year. The boys have done some splendid work again with their project. I just hope the judges will be able to understand it!”

All of the exhibits at the East Coast Science Fair, where their son and his friend Robert Galen had entered their project, dazzled Ron and Gloria Edison. They shook the hand extended by Concepción High School’s principal and nodded thanks.

“Ron, why don’t you walk around and check out the competition, while I see how the boys are holding up.”

“Sure. Just come get me if anything happens.”

So Gloria walked back to the boys’ exhibit and Ron wandered down the aisles of displays representing the different age groups, from junior high on up. Some of the stuff was routine, but a lot of ingenuity showed as well.

He was proud of his boy, who could beat him hands down with anything mechanical or electrical. Bobby truly was his father’s son. He smiled quietly to himself as he remembered how the boy had found that old cathedral-style Philco radio in the attic—the one he himself had rescued from the trash, fixed up, and given to Gloria as a wedding gift back in 1941—and actually restored it to working condition.

How much he had loved those old broadcasts.

“Okay, guys and gals, jivesters and beboppers, this is your old professor, Kay Kaiser, and his School of Musical Knowledge. We’re gonna play some special stuff for all our brave men and women in the armed forces overseas. Maestro, let’s hear it!”

As Ron’s mind drifted, he could hear the strains of “Don’t Sit under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else but Me” pouring out of the radio’s single speaker. And he could see himself getting up to turn the volume down then going back to sit next to his wife of one month.

...

“Honey, I got my notice. We ship out in two days.”

Gloria looked at him, the lanky Michigan farm boy she’d fallen for at first sight at the enlisted men’s dance, but she didn’t say anything. Back then he hadn’t known, hadn’t seen in her eyes, the secret she carried.

“Will you write to me?”

He hadn’t known, as he’d gazed at his rosy-cheeked Gloria, why the tears had begun to glisten in her hazel eyes. He’d just pulled her to his chest and hugged her.

“Silly, you know I will,” she replied.

Then she hugged him tight—as though she couldn’t let go.

...

“Ron, I think the judging is going to start soon.”

He snapped out of his flashback and turned around to see her standing behind him.

“Okay, let’s head on over.”

Just then, he noticed a man standing next to a young girl and her exhibit in the junior high school section. He knew that face!

“Wait a minute, Gloria, there’s someone here I think I know, but I can’t remember from where.”

As he started to walk toward the man it hit him.

Ira. It’s Ira!

Now he was standing on the deck of the troopship conveying its human cargo of soldiers to the War in Europe, headed toward Naples now that Italy had fallen to the Allies.

He could feel the letter in his pocket that he had been carrying with him everywhere.

Dear Ron,

Congratulations, Daddy, you have a son!

I didn’t want to tell you that last day. You would have tried to stay and we both know that wouldn’t have been possible. Our little Bobby, Robert Aaron Edison, was born on September 18th. Now there are two of us you have to return to.

Be careful. The Red Cross lady said she would get this letter to you.

I love you!

Gloria

He had received it months later, just before he shipped out, but he had read it every day.

...

“All hands, commander on deck.”

He stood at attention by his bunk.

“At ease, men. The Dewey is transferring a platoon of Marines to our ship by special orders. Must be secret stuff for them to transfer troops from the Pacific. I know it’s already crowded, but we’ll have to double-bunk them. We’re only two days from destination, so it won’t be for long.”

The commander turned and left.

He heard the other men complaining, but with sixteen brothers and sisters back home, it was nothing to him. Double-bunking was a luxury compared to that.

“Edison!”

“Yes sir?”

“Think you can do something about the air in here? You’re a machinist’s mate, ain’t you?”

The chief knew the extra men on board would make it like an oven in the bunks.

He had the fan unit apart in no time. He pulled out the heavy-duty C wrench from the tool kit and began to work. Within minutes the fan was purring again. He hefted the wrench and began to clean off the grease. Beautiful workmanship, he thought as he read the markings stamped on the handle: NEWARK FOUNDRY 3.

Now he had to endure the gauntlet of backslapping and hair rubbing from the happy men.

They all heard the heavy boots tromping down to their level. The door opened and a gravelly voice boomed out:

“Awright, you jarheads! Git yer gear stowed! The Navy is sharing its luxury accommodations with us, so no fights or crap like that. Anybody steps outta line, you gotta deal with me!”

Tired-looking Marines poured into the compartment. One stopped by his bunk, a short, powerfully built, Levantine man, with eyes sunken in chronic sadness.

He stood up and held out his hand.

“Ron Edison, machinist’s mate.”

The guy looked at him.

“Seligman, Ira Seligman, corpsman. Thanks.”

“So who’s the foghorn?”

“That’s our old man, Gunny Crowley. He’s twenty-five if he’s a day.”

...

His mind continued to flip through those past scenes of men under wartime stress, occasionally coming back to the present as he pushed slowly through the crowd. Judges were all around the girl’s display now, but the face he thought he’d recognized wasn’t there, so he kept heading toward the boys’ entry. Then he spotted his son off by himself staring across the room at the red-haired girl.

She’s really cute. I just can’t believe a girl, and a seventh grade girl at that, could do a project called “Avitaminosis A and its effects on baby mice.” She must be smart. But she’s too young for me. I’m sixteen! Uh-oh, Dad’s coming over. I’d like to try and talk to her, but I’d better get back with Galen.

As Galen waited for his friend to return, his mind drifted, too.

I wish Papa and Mama could have come. But they probably wouldn’t be comfortable here. Besides, Papa has to work.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the judges have made their decisions. Let’s start with the younger folks first. For junior high school, best original idea and best in her category: Nancy Seligman.”

Applause rang out from the crowd as the principal read each award category.

Edison grew nervous. Someone else won in their category, a kid from Virginia. He hadn’t quite heard the name, but it sounded like Crowley.

“Now, the winner of the Grand Prize and the science scholarship. This one’s a twofer, folks, in more ways than one. For the second year in a row, our winners are the team of Robert Edison and Robert Galen. Congratulations, boys!”

The project had come out just as they’d planned it, from the design of the circuitry to the demonstration of their device’s ability to restart a frog’s heart with a time-pulsed direct current. But neither one of them dared tell anyone how they had hatched the idea. Even now Edison had nightmares about it. What if they’d been wrong?

...

“Sweet Jesus!”

Edison’s words rang out as they watched the ’51 maroon Ford veering from one side of the quiet stretch of road to the other before finally ramming into the power pole. The hood sprang open and steam poured out of the ruptured radiator.

As they ran toward the car, Edison’s first glimpse of the driver made him stop and spew up his lunch, but Galen kept going.

The guy, who looked old to them, maybe mid-thirties, wasn’t going to have any more birthdays. His head stuck halfway out the broken windshield, his body impaled by the steering post.

Automatically, Edison started thinking about the idea of a collapsible steering column and maybe even some type of restraining belt to halt the body’s forward momentum. Then the nausea hit again. What remaining bile he had in his stomach ended up on the pavement.

“Hurry up, Edison! There’s another guy in here! We need to get him out in case the car goes up.”

They both grabbed the passenger door and pulled. It moved slowly and Edison figured it probably yielded more to Galen’s strength than his own. The passenger had been thrown forward but hadn’t gone through the glass. And there was, of course, no post to skewer him.

Galen was muttering to himself.

“Dr. Agnelli said to always check the airway and neck first—then the mouth, chest movements, heart pulsation.”

He was running his hands along the man’s spine.

“Keep his head and neck still while I lift him out, Edison. We can put him on the grass.”

Slowly, very carefully, they maneuvered the man onto the roadside grass. He was breathing slowly but steadily. Galen put his head against the man’s chest and tried to listen.

He looked up at Edison then jumped back in surprise when the man’s body started to arch and twitch, then lay still. Galen put his head on the chest once more: no heartbeat. He remembered something Agnelli had told him about a way to restart a person’s heart by shocking it and pounding on the chest.

“Edison, we need electricity!”

The big kid started hitting the injured man’s chest.

Edison was almost tempted to laugh, whether out of astonishment or at the juxtaposition of his name and electricity, or both. Then his mind kicked into overdrive. They couldn’t tap the power pole. The only electricity available was from the car battery. He ran to the open hood and saw that the battery had been jarred out of its holder. He yanked with all his strength and it came loose with the wires attached. It was heavy, but he managed to get it over to where Galen was still pounding away.

By then Edison had worked out the procedure.

“I’ll hold one wire, you hold the other, and when I say ‘go,’ we touch the two wires to his chest. Ready? Go!”

The contact from the wires caused the body to convulse suddenly then fall still again.

Galen put his ear to the chest and smiled.

“It’s beating!”

They stayed by the man, debating whether one of them should go for help when they saw a car coming up the normally deserted road. They ran toward it, waving their hands. The driver slowed then stopped as he saw what had happened. Edison went up to the car and quickly explained that the guy was still alive.

Twenty minutes later the police ambulance pulled up.

“Don’t tell them, Edison,” Galen whispered as the ambulance driver and his partner approached. “We’ll probably get into trouble if they find out what we did.”

“Won’t they reward us?”

“That’s not the way it works, Little Brother. No good deed goes unpunished.”

...

Edison stared into the mirror. Taller now, still slender, zits still marking his maturing face, he knew himself better now and what he could do. Time, hormones, and the gym had done their job. He was no longer the scrawny runt he had been; the kid who had once hated PE found he had a natural talent for gymnastics, and he had grown to love it almost as much as he did electronics.

He was about to graduate. No more Mickey Mouse routines for him. Now, headed for Tech, he was finally going to be able to sink his teeth into electronics and radio.

He picked up and admired the little Crosley battery-powered set he had repaired.

“Boy, won’t Betty be surprised when I give her this! Bet she’ll like it better than some old corsage!”

“Edison, the transmitter is on the fritz again. Want to give it a try?”

The senior in charge of the university’s FM radio station had spotted the geeky underclassman awhile back hanging around the broadcast studio, peering at the equipment with curious eyes. When he’d approached the kid, thinking he might have found another aspiring announcer, he was floored to learn he already had his Class A commercial radio license. Not even the technician from the company that maintained the equipment had achieved such an advanced certification.

From then on the transmitter was Edison’s baby. He tuned it so well it had never sounded better—and he even did some subbing as an announcer when he set up the first remote broadcasts by the school station.

Edison felt like he was in heaven, but he was also aware that there was nothing eternal about it. He was amazed at how time was speeding by. Before he knew it, he had left undergrad studies for graduate school and his research thesis, then a doctoral dissertation.

His reputation was such that even before he earned his doctorate, various tech firms across the country were pitching job offers. The winner: Ma Bell.

“Edison, your dissertation can’t be published.”

“What’s wrong with it, Dr. Baker? Isn’t it good enough?”

Baker didn’t respond.

“I can prove every point and substantiate everything. You assigned me the topic, for heaven’s sake! Do the other members of the doctoral committee agree with you?”

Baker looked at the strangely intense young man, who suddenly made him feel old and tired of the game. The boy had achieved more in his short time at school than most of his colleagues had in a full career. His only drawback was not understanding how things worked in the real world. This kid should have been born in the Middle Ages, where he could have spent his whole life safely tucked away in some monastery scrawling his manuscripts, hoping that someday they would be discovered by future generations.

He was too honest to survive the piranhas out there.

The professor rubbed his bald spot as he thought things through. What he said next probably would determine the boy’s entire future.

“Mr. Edison, there’s nothing wrong with your dissertation. You’ve made a persuasive case for a worldwide information and communications system that would link every person and every bit of data available for research. Your encryption programs and algorithms are the most elegant I have ever seen. The committee and I fully agree with your conclusions.”

He paused and sighed.

“Don’t worry about your degree. Your work has already guaranteed you that. I can, in all honesty, say that you have been the most brilliant student I have ever dealt with.”

“What’s wrong, then? Why can’t it be published?”

Somewhere in Baker’s memory the question triggered another time and another young man standing in front of a professor, incredulous at what he was hearing. Was it that long ago? He had once been such an altruist, wanting to help humanity with his work.

“Edison, I work here at the university as a full professor of electronics and communications. But I also do consulting work on the side. With what they pay us here it’s been necessary, but it’s also an ego builder to know someone out there considers my opinions worthwhile.

“I consult for the government in certain areas, and because of that I am obligated to bring specific types of research to the attention of those involved in national security. Congress passed a law in 1951 called The Invention Secrecy Act that gives the government the right to suppress any invention or research considered dangerous to the national defense. Your paper falls into that category.”

Edison laughed at the implication.

“All my paper does is describe a network of individualized communications and exchange of knowledge bases. The programs I’ve designed protect it from interference. There’s nothing seditious in that, is there?”

Such a brilliant young man, Baker thought, how could he be so naïve? He looked at the sandy-haired, crew-cut, scarecrow-thin figure standing before him in worn khaki pants and polo shirt and tried one more time to get through.

“Edison, the whole power structure in this country is based on controlling the public’s access to information. Can you imagine what would happen if every comment a national leader made could be double-checked for truth and then disseminated instantly countrywide without being filtered through the news media? How about instantaneous access to the stock market? What would happen if it became worldwide?”

“Maybe that would bring about a better world than we have now, Dr. Baker.” Edison scratched his nose, and adjusted his glasses. He would have done anything to bring this conversation to a close. He had been raised to seek the truth, to test hypotheses and concepts against reality, but now he was being told that was wrong.

Dear God, an idealist!

Baker shook his head.

“Let me put it another way, Edison. Your government, your country, needs your abilities. There is a department called ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Pentagon runs it. The people there are very interested in your work. They want you to consult for them—part-time. I know you’ve already agreed to do research work at Bell Labs, but this won’t interfere. The only catch is you cannot publish your dissertation and you cannot discuss it with anyone. Officially, your paper title and material will be classified and a replacement will be substituted.”

“Dr. Baker, I’ve never heard of ARPA.”

“Well, they’ve heard of you. That’s all you need to know for now—that and the fact that I work for them. Are you interested? Tell me now.”

Edison just stood there, not knowing what to say.

“I’ll be honest, Edison. You really only have one option. If you don’t accept, it will be as though you never attended this university. Everything you’ve done here will stay here. It won’t be my doing, though. Neither one of us has a choice on this.”

Edison still didn’t speak. After a moment or two, he nodded his head yes, then turned and walked out of the office.

Welcome to the real world, boy.

Edison walked aimlessly across the campus, head down, a frown on his face, his mind in turmoil. Until this moment, things had been so black-and-white simple. Something worked or it didn’t. If it worked, you used it; if it didn’t, you fixed it. The only complexities involved dealing with people. On that score, things had never been easy for him, no matter how hard he had tried to apply the laws of physics to human relationships.

Naïve as he was, he knew immediately that Professor Baker’s offer was no offer; it was an ultimatum. As the professor had said, he had no choice—he had to accept. But he didn’t have to like it. Besides, sometimes passivity had its own rewards.

Now if he could only get his personal life in order.

His studies took up so much time and his shyness was sometimes so overpowering that he hadn’t had a steady girlfriend all through college. Yet he fantasized about starting a family. He wanted children he could love and teach. He wanted to see them grow and learn to love the things that fascinated him. He also wanted someone to share his feelings, someone to love and to be loved by. Even he knew that you could talk to a piece of equipment only so long before realizing it couldn’t sympathize when things went wrong.

He had tried school mixers, clubs, athletic groups, and even cycling competitions. About the only thing he hadn’t tried yet was the canoe club.

He had always liked water activities.

Maybe, just maybe, there might be someone there who...

He stopped himself.

Face it, Bob Edison, you’re lonely.