Aside from a brief bout of nausea when he came home from the hospital last night, he felt fine. He’d slept like a log all night, Jenny being careful not to bump into him as she slept on her side of the bed, her back to him. She’d gotten up this morning to go to work—she worked as a cashier at Wal-Mart in Ephrata—and his mother was supposed to come over later this afternoon to help out around the house. Jenny had made him a ham and cheese sandwich and placed it, along with a banana and a pear, in his lunch box and placed it by the bed. He had a bottle of water with him, which he drank from constantly. He could hobble out of bed to the bathroom easy enough, although he had to take it slow. He was still rather stiff. He’d inspected himself briefly this morning; the doctors had dressed the wound with gauze and bandages and then bundled his private parts in a jock-strap and a cloth-like diaper. They wanted him to keep the jock strap and diaper on as much as possible for the next five days, then Dr. Schellenger would take a look at him Wednesday during his follow-up appointment. Michael was relieved the first time he felt his dick at the hospital when he took his first piss. He hadn’t dared touch his scrotum yet to see what it felt like after the surgery, but at least his dick was still there. Dr. Beck told him the day before that he would be able to function just fine sexually, but of course there could be side effects to the surgery. Michael didn’t care; he just wanted the cancer out of his body. Still, in a few days when he felt better, he wanted to make sure everything worked, see if he could get an erection (and if he was able to pop a woody he was going to jack off to see if the pump still worked). But he was going to take these things one step at a time.
He was lying in bed now, watching TV, his mind wandering, when there was a knock on the front door. His mother. “Hey ma!” He called out. “Key’s under the doormat! Come on in!”
A moment later he heard the key slip into the lock and the front door opened. He heard footsteps and he frowned. There was more than just his mother showing up to help out around the house. If she brought his grandmother and his Aunt Becky over he was gonna be pissed. “Ma, who else did you bring?”
The footsteps headed down the short hallway of the trailer, and when the well-dressed men stopped in front of the doorway to his bedroom Michael’s heart leaped into his throat. He sat bolt upright in his bed, unmindful of the surgical wound in his groin. “Who are you?” His voice squeaked in surprise and sudden fear.
“I’m Matthew Hall, from Red Rose Medical Insurance,” one of the men said. He gestured to another man next to him. “This is Bill Moreau. The rest of the men here are Red Rose Insurance Adjusters. We’re here about your case.”
Michael relaxed a little bit. “Damn, you scared the shit out of me. I thought you were my mother.”
The men entered the room and surrounded him. Bill Moreau was a young man, perhaps a few years older than Michael, and he was carrying what appeared to be a black medical bag. He opened it and began rummaging around for something as Matthew Hall addressed Michael. “We have some papers to give you.” Matthew nodded at one of the other men, who thrust a sheaf of papers at him.
Bill Moreau found what he was looking for and grabbed Michael’s left arm. Michael started. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Relax,” Bill Moreau said as he quickly applied an alcohol swab to Michael’s left arm and deftly gave him a shot from a syringe he was concealing.
“What are you doing!” Michael yelled. He was suddenly being restrained by the other two men in the room as the injection was administered.
When Bill was finished administering the injection, he replaced the syringe in his bag and the men released their grip from them. Michael felt a flare of fear rise inside him. Something’s not right here...something’s not right...
“We’re enclosing bills for your surgery, hospital stay, your consultations with Crossroads Medical Group and Lancaster Urological Group, and Bill Moreau’s house call,” Matthew Hale said, tapping the papers that had been dropped on his chest. “Please remit payment within thirty days as directed.”
“What?” Michael was confused. Bills for surgery? Hospital stay? That was supposed to have been covered! Dr. Beck was supposed to have taken care of all that. And Bill Moreau’s house call? “What did you inject me with?” he asked, rubbing his arm.
“The injection will show up as a separate line item in one of those bills,” Matthew Hale said, his voice crisp and business-like. “Don’t worry, you weren’t injected with any drug. It’s just the cancer cells which were found in the biopsy of your right testicle yesterday in the lab.”
The implication of what Matthew just said hit him like a ton of bricks. Michael felt his face go slack with shock. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.” Matthew Hale’s features were stony, completely devoid of emotion. “Red Rose denied your original claim. That was our original business decision. Therefore, the bills for your surgery and hospital stay, as well as pre and post care, not to mention Bill Moreau’s services here today to deliver what was yours in the first place.”
The absurdity of it all was so overwhelming, so wrong, that Michael was stunned. He wasn’t a highly-educated man but he knew that it was unethical for a business, especially a health care business, to jeopardize the health of their members. “This is insane!” It was the only thing he could think of to say.
“No, it isn’t,” Matthew Hale said. “It’s just business.”
“But I’ve got fucking cancer!” Michael screamed.
“And Red Rose denied your original claim,” Matthew Hale said. “Had you and your health care provider operated within the parameters of our contract, this wouldn’t be happening.”
“But I’ve got cancer you nitwit!” Michael was growing frantic; he could feel his face growing hot, his breathing growing heavy.
“Original claim denied.” Matthew looked and sounded more like a robot than he did a human being.
“I—” Michael was at a loss for what to say. Except for the sharp pinprick in his left arm from the shot, he felt fine. He didn’t think Bill Moreau had injected him with any kind of drug, and if he did there was going to be hell to pay.
The well-suited men from Red Rose stepped out of the bedroom. Matthew Hale was the last to leave. “Oh, another thing. Due to the fact that you violated our contract, Red Rose is dropping you as a member. Please pay all claims promptly.”
“Fuck you!” Michael shouted. He threw the mass of bills at Matthew Hale.
Matthew’s features didn’t change. “Regardless, you’re still liable financially for this due to the fact that Red Rose denied this claim. Please pay all bills—”
“Get the hell out of here!” Michael made an attempt to get out of bed and a stab of pain rocked through his groin and lower abdomen.
“—promptly. Thank you.” Matthew Hale stepped out of the bedroom, and as Michael gritted his teeth against the pain in his groin he heard their footsteps receding down the hall and out the door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DESPITE THE FACT that it was three a.m. and Michelle Dowling had dropped off to sleep immediately after laying down in bed at eight-fifteen p.m., she was wide awake when the alarm went off.
She went into the bathroom and quickly brushed her teeth and gargled with Listerine. She applied deodorant and dressed quickly in a pair of blue jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. She ran a brush through her hair, inspected herself in the mirror briefly, then went back into the room and pulled on a pair of white gym socks and put her tennis shoes on. As she dressed, she thought about what happened and what she’d learned from Donald and Jay shortly after she returned to her room after the meeting.
Things had worked out at the meeting as Alan said they would. When they returned from the Ladies Room, Michelle quickly found her seat and sat down, her attention riveted on the presentation which Nick Dowd was still conducting. She barely noticed Alan leaning forward and whispering something in Sam Greenberg’s ear, but she caught a glimpse of her boss’s face as he nodded at what Alan was telling him. A moment
later he was giving his undivided attention to Nick’s presentation. That told Michelle he’d bought whatever bullshit story Alan told him. That was good enough for her.
She talked to Donald the moment she got to her room and learned the latest: Crossroads Medical Group had fired him and two other doctors over the Michael Brennan case; he and Jay had gone searching for Michael and later came upon his trailer park and saw two police cars and an ambulance. Donald had gone out and talked to a neighbor woman who said Michael had called 911 and reported a break-in and an assault. Donald and Jay had followed the ambulance to Ephrata General Hospital and Donald was able to speak to Michael briefly. “He was hysterical,” he related to Michelle. “He claimed four guys from Red Rose broke into his house and held him down while one of them gave him an injection of what he claimed was his cancer cells. Lancaster General is running tests on him now and I called Red Rose to find out what the hell was going on. They wouldn’t talk to me, said Michael was no longer covered, either. I spoke to the attending physician and gave him a brief outline of what’s been happening, and he’s promised to monitor Michael’s prognosis.”
“Is he going to die?” Michelle had asked. When she heard Michael was injected with his own cancer cells she’d gasped.
“No,” Donald had said. He’d sounded tired and worried. “At least I don’t think so. We won’t know until the lab tests come back and give us a definite answer on his cancer.”
She was concerned about Michael, whom she’d never met, and even more concerned about how the powers that be—the American Medical Association or whoever it was that governed the Health Care Industry—was going to respond. Donald didn’t know either. While he was at the hospital, Jay had taken the car to retreat away from the limelight and the police. After conferring with various hospital administrators and other physicians, Donald had left the hospital, called Jay on his cell phone, and they’d hightailed it back to the house to come up with a strategy...and that strategy alarmed Michelle.
“Jay insists on us driving out there,” Donald said. “I feel very strongly for it, myself. I left a message with Dr. Brown and told him not to expect me in Monday, that I would call him when I return. Maybe he’ll think I’m out of town to apply for a new position somewhere.”
The conversation ended with Michelle telling Donald and Jay to be careful. “We’ll call when we get there,” Donald said before telling her he loved her and hanging up.
Michelle inspected herself in the mirror one last time, then grabbed her ID, keys, room passkey, and exited her room.
When she reached the lobby, Alan Perkins was waiting for her dressed casually in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt near the double glass doors of the hotel. “This way,” he said.
They stepped into the chilly, Illinois night. “You okay?” Alan asked.
“Fine,” Michelle said. “Anybody else up?”
“They’re out like a light,” Alan said, leading her between parked cars toward the end of the lot. “We still have to be careful, though. No telling how much of a hold they have on this place.”
Michelle glanced around at the parking lot and noticed a security camera directed toward the north end of the lot. Alan was leading her away from that area, but she was certain they’d been caught on another camera somewhere else. She wondered if this was something she had to worry about, and then Alan opened the passenger side door of a white Toyota Camry.
Michelle slid into the passenger seat wordlessly and shut the door. A voice from the back seat spoke and the suddenness of it scared her so bad, she jumped.
“Sorry.” The voice was young, female, and when Michelle turned around and looked in the backseat she caught the curious gaze of a young woman. The young woman was slim, wearing a dark baggy jacket and dark jeans—Michelle couldn’t tell what was on beneath the jacket; the woman had it bundled shut. Her hair was dark, almost shoulder length, and her features were delicate, pretty, yet possessed of an intelligence and cunning that set her apart from most pretty girls Michelle had run across. This woman gave her the impression she was not only street-smart, but book smart, too.
“It’s okay,” Michelle said, feeling her heart race. “You just...I wasn’t expecting you to be there.”
“Michelle,” Alan said, turning around in his seat so he was facing her. He gestured toward the back seat. “This is Rachel Drummond. She’s a member of the Coalition.”
“The what?” Michelle shook Rachel’s hand, still confused and curious and nervous about everything that was happening.
“Slow down, Alan,” Rachel said. “Give her brain some time to process.” Rachel rummaged around in the back seat, pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She held the pack out to Michelle. “Smoke?”
Michelle shook her head. “No.”
Rachel held the pack out to Alan, who took one. Rachel lit his cigarette with a silver butane lighter. She lit her own cigarette from it and they took their first drags. Michelle was restless, not knowing which of them she should be talking to or listening to for that matter. She decided to get the ball rolling by addressing Alan. “Okay, I’ve followed things according to plan. You got me out here. Now tell me what’s going on.”
“Here it is in a nutshell,” Alan said. “Rachel and I are members of an organization called the Coalition. We’re an anti-corporatist organization, and one of our goals is to influence public opinion and distribute information to the public on the growing threat of corporatism.”
“Corpora-what?”
“Corporatism, the new economic system,” Rachel said from the back seat. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “It’s been around for the past hundred years or so but it’s become stronger in the last thirty...especially the last ten. You want a lesson on it, I’ll be glad to tell you at another time. Right now, Alan needs to give you a brief history lesson on the Coalition and what’s happening so you have a better understanding of why you’re here.”
Alan cut in immediately. “The Coalition’s other goal is to infiltrate companies and government organizations who are embracing corporatism over classic capitalism and determine if they’ve been influenced by Corporate Financial Consultants. If they have, the ultimate goal is to destroy them.”
Michelle looked at Alan. “Destroy them? You mean...what? Blow them up or something?”
“That’s not a bad idea, really,” Rachel said. She took a drag on her cigarette. “Would be hard to do, but it’s certainly crossed our minds.”
Visions of the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, Washington from 1999 came to Michelle. She remembered watching news coverage of the protests, which turned to riots as various anti-World Trade Organization groups clashed with police, counter-demonstrators, and each other. She remembered watching the coverage one night when a bomb scare was called in at one of the main buildings hosting the conference, and a group called the Socialists Union for Workers claimed responsibility. “So you guys are terrorists?”
“No,” Alan said quickly. “We certainly don’t classify ourselves as terrorists. Companies adhering to corporatism may call us that, but we prefer to think of ourselves as good old fashioned freedom fighters.”
“But you encourage violence,” Michelle said, running on her train of thought. “Rachel just said she approved of the bombing of companies who are clients of my employer,” she said this with a sharp tinge of contempt, “and those who practice this corporatism thing...whatever that is.”
“Let me break it down for you,” Alan said. He took a drag on his cigarette. “You’ve been working for large companies either as a consultant or an employee for the better part of fifteen years now, correct?”
“Yeah, I suppose.” Give or take four years when she dropped out of the corporate world briefly to try to make a career out of her art. “Lots of people work for big companies. I also know they’ve become more bottom-line oriented, that workplace atmosphere sucks, that most companies operate from the same bullshit mentality, and that corporate greed is widespread and encouraged by those in u
pper management. Tell me something I already don’t know.”
“How many hours did you work in a typical week when you first started working right after high school?”
Michelle shrugged. “Forty hours at first, then when I got more into it I worked fifty, sometimes sixty hour weeks on the average, I suppose. Why?”
“What’s your average work day like now?”
“About forty. Sometimes more if I have a deadline.”
“Do you always try to stick to a forty hour work week?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I have a life.” Michelle glared at Alan and cast her gaze at Rachel, who was listening avidly. “Isn’t that why you decided to rope me into this discussion?”
“Have you noticed any differences between the corporate work-ethic and attitude from when you first started working to now?” Alan asked.
Michelle thought about this before she answered. “I suppose in a way there’s more of that bullshit workaholic mentality. The attitude that you have to stay at the office for twelve hours a day and work weekends. There was some of that when I first started working, but it seems more prevalent now.”
Alan nodded. “Anything else?”
Michelle frowned and thought about it some more, quickly traveling down memory lane. “I’ve noticed less company loyalty toward their employees and vice versa. Benefits packages being cut, CEO salaries going higher, wages remaining stagnant while inflation rises. But that’s happening everywhere.”
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