The Mentor

by Pat Connid

  “Well, this is what you wanted,” Marsh said and plopped the fizzing tablets into an empty glass. “Bring him in. Do it now.”

  SURPRISINGLY, THE HEADACHE FADED fast but when it did I became very aware of how much my entire body ached. It’s like when you get one of those awesome sneezes, you feel like you’ve blown yourself back in time, and when you just want to sit and bask in the wonder of it all, fat nerves around your body, every inch, raise up and seem to stop mid-throb and everything is sore and tight.

  I had no intention of going to get poked and prodded at the urgent care. I still had burns under my legs from volcano gases, burst capillaries from nearly drowning and nerve and muscle damage from electrocuting myself.

  Body aches were nothing at this point.

  Still, I could feel the memories filtering back-- not quite the flood but certainly no trickle-- and, more importantly, each seemed to be slowly settling into its place: tinkle-tick, tinkle-tick.

  Pavan was hungry and I had an idea about a quick stop to see a friend downtown. At the Network Center, we tackled both.

  In the atrium, the food court of the Net Center is geared toward tourists who are visiting the Zoo or Centennial Olympic Park downtown. It’s also aggressively supported by a staff of more than a thousand coffee-addicts and sandwich junkies who work on the floors above at the News Network.

  At the sorta-Greek place Pavan got a gyro after finally working out how to say "falafel" without laughing hysterically. I asked the nice man with hound-dog eyes behind the counter to double the order and I paid for both.

  “Hey man, you don’t have to do that. I got dough.”

  “My treat, no biggie man. I owe you much more than that.”

  My friend took a moment to process what I’d said and, whether he understood completely what I’d meant, he smiled and nodded.

  After he’d taken a huge, unnaturally huge, bite of his gyro, he asked about my friend who worked upstairs.

  “Can I meet the hot anchor babe who does the morning show?”

  “She's at the sister network.”

  “What? Sister network? They've got a black lady channel in this building, too?”

  “They-- no. What are you talki--?"

  "Oh, I've got a touch of the Jungle Fever, Dexter!" Pavan said taking a massive bite out of his falafel. "I didn't even know she was black. Oooo, sexy sister!"

  "Put more food in so you stop talking, please," I said. "I said she works for the sister network-- It's like the news-lite channel. We're going to the other one." He was a bit obsessed, but, I couldn't fault him for his fascination with her-- the woman was gorgeous.

  If my friend were around, I just wanted to ask if she knew anything about the piece they did on Marion Bluth, the titular second half of Solomon-Bluth.

  The guard at the security desk sent an email “upstairs” to see if my friend was around.

  “You don’t have an appointment?”

  “Do you make an appointment when you go see your friends”

  He shrugged me off.

  A moment later, his head snapped to the screen and he told me to stand for a picture for my temporary visitor’s badge.

  By the time Karen Wainscott drifted downstairs, Pavan was on his third attempt to get a picture where he didn’t make a face, close his eyes or give some sort of finger gesture.

  “Dex,” she said smiling, but her eyes were more guarded. She searched my face. “Oh my Gooooddd!”

  I couldn’t help myself; I laughed out loud, remembering that when she was happy or surprised she’d sing the last word of that phrase. It was nice to see her but, selfishly, I was happy because up until that moment, that memory-- “Oh my Gooodddd!!”-- had been buried for more than two years.

  Simply put, I was happy to have another small piece of my clunk back into place.

  Hugging her, I whispered, “You look fat.”

  She snapped her head back, and I thought tears would fall from her eyes at that instant.

  “Oh, oh... oh, Dex,” she said, her face finally lighting up, her eyes smiling. “You remember me now? Really?”

  “Karen, I remembered you before.”

  Pavan finally got his badge and stuck it to his shirt. Karen led us toward a long escalator after I’d made proper introductions. In the safety of the elevator, she spun toward me. Then, gave me a crooked smile.

  “You, mister, remember! Oh, tell me, tell me, tell me!”

  “Just a matter of time, man.”

  She leaped at me and hugged me around the neck. Pavan gave me a glance, popped his eyebrows.

  No, we’d never been like that. But, we’d been close. From what I did remember, she’d come from one of the tiny states in the northeast-- Delaware, Rhode Island, something like that, it hadn’t all come back yet-- and in Atlanta, she’d felt a bit swallowed up.

  We’d met in Freshman English, and quickly became pretty good friends. When either of us would be heading out on a date, she or I (the memory was becoming clearer and clearer) would send a picture from our phone to the other with the caption, “How do I look?”

  Invariably, the answer was: “You look fat.”

  Oddly, that line calmed the dater’s nerves a little, we’d both once admitted to each other. So it soon became our everyday greeting.

  I’d not remembered it again, for years, until that moment.

  “We just got through the staff meeting, and we’re putting together the show.”

  “Shit, is this a bad time?”

  “No, no. The Line Producer has to stack it and we take the stories we’re assigned and segment produce. It’ll be another half hour before I’ve got to start thinking about my bit. You wanna quick tour?”

  I shook my head. “Nah, but I was hoping you could give me the thumbnail sketch on a piece you did about a charity. Solomon-Bluth.”

  The doors parted and we stepped onto the fifth floor. Weaving through video editing bays the size of small walk-in closets, one by one in succession along the walls, we crossed another threshold and she pulled us toward the newsroom.

  “Yeah, not us. That was the 10 o’clock show. They had the G.A. reporter work up a piece for part of a theme week we had about real-life Superheroes.”

  “Real-life Superheroes? Ick.”

  Shrugging, she said: “It was a sponsored series, D-man. A lot of 'news' gets done that way now.” Back at Sci-Cad, Karen had a cooler-than-you habit of often using a person’s first initial when talking with them. It seems she held onto that even years later.

  “Did you see the piece?”

  “Actually, yeah.” Once away from the low ceilings of the editing bays, we crossed over a common area, and into the newsroom. There were more televisions hanging on the wall than during a Best Buy superstore Black Friday sale. Each tuned to a different network, around the world.

  Overhead, an “all call” (as she described) was pointing out the various channels around the world, camera feeds from around the country, that might be due special attention because they were airing material relating to a top story-- or a potential newsmaker.

  Rows upon rows upon rows of computer monitors, each broken up into “National,” “Regional,” “International” and others. Karen worked for one of the day side shows, the last that broadcasted out of Atlanta before the handover to the Washington, D.C. studios.

  “The hard part is finding a way to do the stories everyone else did all day a little differently.”

  “Do people normally watch all day? That'd probably put someone in a depression coma.” I said. “So, you spend a lot of time changing something most people haven't seen, then?”

  She reached for me again, hugged my waist.

  “Oh my goooddd!” She squeezed me. “I’m so happy my Dexter friend is back from his extended vacation!”

  She stopped at her station, but I couldn’t help but suddenly feel stupid.

  “If I just said something dumb, ignore me. I'll blame it on my brain injury."

  She plopped into her chair and bar
ely got a raised eyebrow from the person right next to her at the next station.

  “No, not at all,” she said, and pointed a finger at me, grinning. “But that sort of thinking is why you don’t have any chance in TV.”

  Pavan, who’d been enamored with all the monitors and lights and pretty girls, broke from his spell and glared at her.

  “Fuck it, this is all bullshit anyhow.”

  Karen’s eyes widened and she smiled again, raised both hands.

  “Exactly, P-man,” she said, smiling. “Exactly. So please leave your logical talk at the security desk, puh-leeze!”

  My best guess, I’d scared the shit out of my friend when I’d collapsed at the university. Still a bit wobbly, maybe he felt it his job to protect me a little.

  Karen had a few words with a violent-looking woman with jet-black hair, who looked as though she may have killed the very animals that made up the fabric of the clothes she’d put on that morning. I caught a momentary glare from her and knew that our visit would have to be short.

  She did a quick search at her work station, and a minute later the laser printer at the end of the row came to life.

  “Here’s the transcript,” Karen said, handing me two sheets of paper with small type. “You could watch the piece if we had an open computer but you’ll get the same thing from that.”

  “This is great,” I said, choking a bit on my words. With the memories, the emotions came back too. Those seemed harder to compartmentalize but it was nice to feel, I dunno, love from people I used to know. Connection. It was something that I’d mostly forgotten mattered to me.

  “I scanned it as it was printing. Nothing special there, I don’t think,” she said. “But who knows maybe you’ll see something. The questions were all softballs and the ‘in depth’ reporting meant they’d interviewed more than one person, I suppose. But, like I said, it was light programming, not an investigation.”

  “Who is the Solomon of Solomon-Bluth? Another fat cat?”

  She stuck her tongue out and said, “No. As in Solomon, he of the cut-the-baby-in-half logic. It’s supposed to be wisey, I suppose.” She then glared at me. “Hey, why are you asking? Should there be an investigation? Does someone need to revisit Solomon-Bluth, D?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Just looking for a guy who, uh, might work for them. Fishing expedition.”

  “Oh, so mysterious! But, I gotta get on my bit here sooner than I thought. They've got me doing a pre-interview because we're short staffed again,” she said as I finished up reading the transcript. She was right, nothing there. “Gimme a buzz when you come out next time and we can at least have lunch or something.”

  “No,” I said, putting the sheets down on her desk. “My bad for not calling you ahead of time.”

  “Do you even remember the number?” She said and laughed.

  It was my turn to raise my hands, and I then held them toward her, bear-hugging her head as she sat there.”

  “Seriously, you are awesome and--”

  Behind us a warm voice said: “Of course she is!”

  Karen straightened a bit, then stood a little quicker than I thought possible.

  She said, “Dr. Patel, you didn’t have to come down here. I would have--”

  “No, no,” he said. “I just wrapped up a surgery down the street and, you know, that tiny, tiny work, the surgery, I could use a macro-view, you know, of the newsroom. It’s like a domed football arena with all these smart people, working hard to make people like me look smart.”

  He grinned and Karen blushed. Oh my goodddddd.

  Instantly, I’d recognized him as the network's TV doctor. Fit, charming, pleasant and used to talking to people like they were all middle-schoolers. Given your average TV viewing audience, that probably was appropriate.

  Pavan recognized him, too, and asked: “Oh, shit! You’re Doctor Patel? I’ve seen you on my tee-vee!”

  “Yes, I’m sorry for most of it.”

  “No, you are cool, man!”

  Patel shot a glance at Karen but wasn’t being unkind or elitist.

  “Thank you, I appreciate that,” he said to Pavan, then to Karen: “You want to go over that research segment really quick?”

  “The coffee-breast cancer stuff, sure, yes. Right now.”

  That, obviously, was our cue to leave.

  Pavan reached out and shook Karen’s hand, then with TV’s Dr. Patel, he’d given him the two-handed shake.

  “A pleasure to meet you, tee-vee doctor.”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “You need to do more stories about the health benefits of pot,” Pavan said, unabashed.

  Patel took it in stride, unfazed, and said to Pavan: “Maybe I can get some of your data-- you look like you've done a fair bit of independent research already."

  "Nah," Pavan gave him the poker face and said, "You'll have to wait until I publish. Read it in the journal, TV doctor."

  I thought Karen was going to implode, drawn in by a singularity of infinite fear and embarrassment, but Dr. Patel eased the moment by bursting with a laugh that rattled off every wall in the newsroom.

  "Holy cow, I love that!" He gripped Pavan's shoulder, grinning.

  Pavan smiled back. "I'll be honest-- I don't know what that even means, really. Heard it on CSI Miami or something."

  Before my friend could say anything more, I grabbed his other shoulder and turned him away from the desk, began to walk away.

  “Hey, thanks, Karen.”

  With her terror moment quickly dissipated, she leaped up and hugged me. And I loved it.

  I'd been put in an induced coma after the accident because of my injuries. Woke up after nearly a week, but now, all these years later, it was like finally really coming out of that coma.

  Every good emotion sort of floored me, like a muscle just now getting its range-of-motion.

  But, it wasn't lost on me: unquestionably the bad emotions, the hard memories, were just waiting somewhere up in the rafters of my mind. Just waiting.

  As we began to walk, a thought struck me. I spun back and asked the “tee-vee doctor” if he knew much about hydration procedures or research, that sort of thing.

  “Well,” he said, interest piqued. “Yeah, sure. I’m a surgeon and post-op recovery and care can be as important as the surgery itself. Why?”

  I gave him a line about a friend at Sci-Cad working on a re-hydrating procedure, then asked if he’d give me a thought on the half-sequence I could remember. I repeated to Dr. Patel the same thing Professor Marsh had heard an hour earlier.

  He asked me to repeat it as he pulled out a pad of paper, making some notes, organizing his thoughts.

  “Huh, you have me at a disadvantage. I don’t see… Are you sure that’s right?”

  “Well, that’s just the first part of it, but it should be right. I’ve got a pretty good memory for the things I’m told.”

  Seeing that Patel was interested, Karen chimed in: “Oh, hell. Dexter hasn't forgotten anything he’s ever been told!" She glanced at me with a wink. "At least, not permanently. If he says that’s what he heard, he heard that.”

  I smiled at Karen and started to apologize, I'd only had a scrap of the whole thing, when Dr. Patel stopped me midsentence.

  Patel interrupted, his eyes fixed on what he'd written down: “No, it’s clear what the process is trying to achieve. And, I'll be honest, it's unique. Fascinating. This… this part, wow, that's really kinda genius. Who did you say is working on this?”

  My voice caught in my throat for a moment but I forced it out, forced myself to calm: “A friend. Chem professor. Working on a hydra--”

  “Yeah, you said that, but... well, that’s not hydration process. Did he say that?”

  “No. No, actually.”

  “Looks like you may have forgotten something you’ve heard after all,” the doctor said playfully and grinned at Karen, who blushed. “That’s not hydration. What you’re talking about, that’s gene therapy.”

  “Gene thera
py?”

  “Yeah and, wow, your friend may be onto something,” he said lost, muttering as he manipulated the paper in his hand, jotting more notes. “Yeah, not remotely hydration. No question it’s gene manipulation.”

  “Okay, I... I’m not sure--”

  Patel laughed. “How old is your friend? Is this a personal project?”

  “Why? I don’t--”

  Patel turned the paper toward me, where he’d made quick notes on the sequence I’d given him. In true form, I couldn’t read a word of what the doctor had written.

  “It’s seems to be a cocktail of processes to affect gene presentation-- hormonal manipulation, monoclonal antibody therapies and, ha, a clump of stuff I can’t get my head around yet. One part here, he's using the binding to give off false-positive states which, um, sort of overclocks the activator protein--" Patel stopped, blinked like he was coming back from somewhere else, and smiled sheepishly. "Uh, sorry, it's just this…. Dexter this is out there. You sure you don’t remember the rest? Is it completed?”

  “No, I... what did you say that sequence did?”

  “Oh,” Patel said, rolling his eyes. He blushed and laughed again. “I’m sorry. It’s to fight off cell degeneration. Permanently. Keep them intact.” Our blank faces asked the question we hadn’t. “That process you have, at least what I can infer from it, if it’s completed... it sets up a process to, in a nutshell, switch off the aging gene.”

  “Switch it off?”

  “Sure,” Patel said and pocketed his notes. “Sounds crazy, but I think you’ve got a part of what ol’ Ponce de Leon died searching for.”

  Impossible. I didn’t understand.

  Patel added-- sure, in his dramatic TV way, but still he actually seemed a bit shaken himself-- “You have, essentially, a crack in the door there. It's the opening stages of a treatment that... well, would stop you from getting old. Gene therapy synonymous with the fountain of youth.”

  “That's not possible, though. Right?"

  The part-time brain surgeon, part-time television personality stood up from his seat at the edge of my friend’s desk. He put both hands on my shoulders.

  "I'd love to talk to your friend, if I could. This…"

  "Well, he… I don’t-- I can’t...”