Deconstructing Dylan

by Lesley Choyce

  I dug all the way back to February 23 of 1997 and the first public reports about Dolly. One headline read, “Researchers Astounded &hellips; Fiction Becomes True” and the subtitle said this: “Dreaded Possibilities Are Raised.” And that was only about a sheep. A Dr. Silver from Princeton University said, “It basically means there are no limits. &hellips; It means all of science fiction is true.” And a so-called medical ethicist from Missouri added, “This technology is not, in principle, policeable.” He suggested that soon scientists would consider cloning the dead.

  This and other speculation seemed to scare the living daylights out of the public. But that was then, right? That was a long time ago.

  Even though Wilmut defended cloning animals for the purpose of harvesting biological materials that would help haemophiliacs, people with cystic fibrosis, and more, he was thoroughly thrashed by much of the media and the public.

  During those days following the news of Dolly, my mother was pregnant with me and she understood full well that she had to ensure that my birth was a secret. And it took its toll on her.

  I kept poking away at the avalanche of information, digging randomly here and there. I soon realized how difficult it was to separate the facts from the myths about cloning. Around the end of the century, several radical cults had claimed they already had a cloned child among them. Several publicity-seeking parents had claimed their children were clones but had been proven to be liars.

  Then there was the court case in California of parents, also genetics researchers, who had brought a cloned baby into the world in secrecy. When the child died of a birth defect in the brain, the truth came out. They were prosecuted and put in jail. The public had supported the prosecution.

  Most tragic of all were the three cloned children in England. Each was born to a grieving parent, aided by a doctor who had taken on cloning as his mission in life. The children were healthy and had been in the spotlight up until a few years ago. Their families had been ostracized to the point that they were forced to leave their communities and move, seemingly disappearing. But they were no doubt out there somewhere, keeping secret the nature of their children. The doctor, another geneticist by the name of Eugene Benson, had himself been stalked and assassinated much in the way that pro-life fanatics had killed abortion doctors in the 1990s.

  I began to realize that I was part of something much bigger than me. I comprehended why I had been kept in the dark and I understood why I needed to guard my secret.

  But I had read enough to know that there were others like me out there. Any parent who had followed the fate of the researchers and the cloned children could see that the only sensible thing to do, if you were going to make use of the cloning technology, was to keep it a secret.

  It was conceivable that I was the oldest cloned child of them all. And the odds were good that there were more and more coming into the world — here in North America and in other parts of the world. But few parents would want their cloned children exposed to the scrutiny of the public and the potential danger it would bring.

  I dipped back into the past again. An online magazine from 1997 called Salon had an interview with Ian Wilmut himself. It was titled, “Dr. Frankenstein, I Presume.” I didn’t quite know whether to laugh or cry. When asked if human cloning was possible, even someone as committed to cloning research as Wilmut said, “It is possible &hellips; but we would find it ethically unacceptable to think of doing that.”

  And I’d scavenged the net for long enough to know that the vast majority of citizens out there would still agree with that statement today. Genetic research had lurched forward with roadblocks at every corner but cloning was still, for most people, “ethically unacceptable.” So what did that make me?

  I thought about Robyn and her commitment to avoid anything that was genetically modified, whether it was pants made from GM cotton or cornflakes made from GM corn. What would she think if she ever found out the truth about me?

  I switched off the vidscreen and sat in silence. I began to wonder how long it might be before someone, some hotshot journalist, stumbled onto my story. It wouldn’t take a genius or even a trained professional to follow the breadcrumbs, then take a poking look at all the researchers who were working in and around Ian Wilmut back then. It wouldn’t take long for this hot-shot to eventually focus on Mary Gibson and unearth the story of the death of her son. The birth of me. And if that all came out now, what would I do? What would my parents do?

  The phone rang. I saw that it was Robyn’s number. I answered and flicked on the phone’s vidscreen for the call. Robyn had always insisted on that when we talked. She said she had to see my eyes when I spoke.

  “Dylan. I just found out. It’s Carla. She’s dead. She was in Seattle. They found her in a rooming house where she was staying. She died alone. Drugs. I didn’t find out until tonight. She never had a chance to stop running. Nothing I ever did to help did any good at all.”

  And then there was silence on the line. Robyn was crying.

  “I’ll be right over,” I said.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Robyn was sitting alone in a cold pool of fluorescent light at her kitchen table. I opened the back door and walked in. She stood up and came to me, hugged me tightly so that for a moment I felt like I couldn’t breathe. She was crying. I wanted to tell her how sorry I felt for her. I wanted to tell her that I knew everything was so unfair. My own confusion and fears were still with me, not buried, not background, but fully part of my compassion for the loss of her friend.

  As I held Robyn to me, I understood that she would also feel a sense of guilt that she did not deserve. And there would be anger, too. I knew that.

  “No one ever gave Carla a chance. Once you get a label, then that’s it. No one accepts you for who you really are. If you’re different and if you’re not afraid to show how different you are, there are some out there who will crucify you.”

  “I know,” I said. “I know.”

  “She was found alone in a rooming house. Drug overdose. She never did drugs when I knew her. They say she had track marks on her arms. Needles.”

  “There’s nothing you can do now. I’m so sorry, Robyn.”

  “That’s the problem. There is nothing I can do now. But I let her leave; I let her run. She told me she had to get away. I even agreed. I should have gone with her. She was my friend.”

  “Robyn, you had your own life to live. If you’d gone with her, it would have been unfair to your parents, unfair to you. And I would have lost you.”

  “Carla’s parents are having the funeral in private. No one is invited. Not even me. They are ashamed of their daughter and how she died. They didn’t understand her at all. No one did.”

  “You did. You accepted her for who she was.” As I said those words, I felt an upwelling of my own fear and confusion. I had never met Carla. She was a stranger to me but I cared deeply about Robyn and what she was feeling. Yet there was something else. I was wrestling with my new-found knowledge of who I was. It was going to take a long time to adjust. Like Carla, I felt like I was on my own.

  No one would understand, if I told them. No one would understand what it felt like to be me. It may just have been my imagination, but I closed my eyes, as I continued to hold Robyn, and I was again in a hospital bed. I felt hot and I felt heavy and very, very tired. I was certain that I somehow carried Kyle’s memory with me, even the moments of his dying. There was some inner drive that kept taking me back to that event. And I found myself believing that I was not just remembering but reliving Kyle’s experience. With my eyes closed and my arms locked around Robyn, I felt the heaviness and the pain, but soon something began to change. It seemed a great weight was lifted from me. There was lightness, a feeling of freedom. And then it disappeared.

  Robyn pulled herself slowly away and then sat back down at the kitchen table. There was a newspaper open and she had been reading the article about Carla’s death. She looked angry now, fierce even. She ripped the page out of the p
aper and shredded it. “They got it all wrong. She’s dead and even now they have it all wrong. It’s a stupid, ugly world we live in, Dylan.”

  “Maybe it is,” I said. It was my time to speak and I didn’t know what to say but I gave it my best shot. “I’ve been reading those books you loaned me,” I began. “I don’t really understand much of this, but I remember that in The Tibetan Book of the Dead it says that when you die, everything changes. First, there is a kind of emptying of yourself, a leaving behind of your life and identity.”

  “I don’t know if any of that makes sense,” she said, now cynical, despite the fact that she was the one who’d introduced me to these rather far out ideas. “Maybe nothing happens when you die. Maybe you cease to exist. It’s all over. Maybe we just want to believe that there is something after this life.”

  “Yes. We do want to believe that. I still don’t know what I believe in. Heaven, maybe. Hell? But it’s worth considering all the possibilities. I remember reading in your book the thing about trying to help the dead. It sounded strange but it made a kind of sense to me. I thought about my dead brother and I sent him kind thoughts and it made me feel a little better.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.” I wanted to bare my soul to Robyn just then — not that I was sure I had a soul. I just wanted to offer her something that might help take her pain away. I had my own fears that she might run, not necessarily run away, but cut herself off, become hardened by the sad truth of her friend’s death. “I’m trying to remember the next stage of what the Tibetan book says. It was something about ‘radiance,’ a kind of shining colours and light and a wonderful sense of fullness. The next phase comes back to &hellips; I’m trying to remember the words for it &hellips; ‘ceaseless manifestation.’ I guess it’s about recreating something from all that light and energy and becoming &hellips; a person, I guess, moving back into this world.”

  “I’d like to think that Carla wouldn’t have to return to this world.”

  “Maybe there is some kind of purpose to the life she lived, some kind of meaning. Like it was a step on a path.”

  Robyn balled up the rest of the newspaper and crushed it with her hands. “Where’d you get that from?”

  “You,” I said.

  She let out a sigh. “I called Carla’s parents. I tried talking to them but they said they had nothing to say to me. They never liked me because I was one of the few people who accepted Carla for who she was. I encouraged her to be who she wanted to be. And look where that led.”

  I touched her shoulder and realized there was very little I could do to console Robyn. I felt frightened by that fact and sensed she was slipping away from me.

  It was then I realized I couldn’t keep what I had learned about me to myself. “Robyn,” I began, “this is probably not the best of times to tell you this, but there’s more to the story about my brother. My parents told me the truth.”

  She didn’t look at me until I was halfway through my story. At first I didn’t know what to make of her expression. Shock. Amazement. Was it revulsion as well?

  “You’re not making this up?” “No. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. There are others out there.”

  Now she looked worried. “They’re going to crucify you. The same people who hounded Carla. They’re waiting for their next victim.”

  “I think I know that. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to take it. But now I’ve told one person. Now you know. Does it change the way you feel about me?”

  Robyn looked at the news article that she had shredded. “Yes,” she said. “I think I love you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I wasn’t at all prepared for the way things went over the next few days. It was like somebody had suddenly changed all the rules. If there had ever been rules to begin with.

  After calling my parents, I spent the night on Robyn’s living room sofa. In the morning, Robyn was very quiet and moody. I knew she was feeling terrible about the death of her friend. I guess she was feeling guilty about not being able to help but it came out as anger. It seemed that she was angry with everyone, including me. The look on her face frightened me.

  I tried to hold her but she pulled away. “What I said last night, Dylan &hellips; I think maybe I wasn’t thinking straight. I was a little crazy. I am a little crazy. I wish I could help you right now but I don’t think I can even help me. I’m going to need some space.”

  The ground kept shifting under me and now I felt more alone than ever. “You want me to leave?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry but I really need time alone.”

  I picked up my jacket and looked around for my shoes. “I’ll see you later today?” I asked. “In school?”

  “I’m not going to school today.”

  “Will you call me?”

  “Maybe.”

  I tried to kiss her on the cheek but she pulled away and then walked into the other room.

  I called home and asked my dad to pick me up. I told him I would start walking and meet him along the way. When he stopped for me, I got in and explained about Robyn’s friend.

  “Did you know her? This Carla?”

  “No,” I said. “But I wish I had. Maybe I could have helped.”

  “You can’t always help people. Sometimes they have to fight their own battles. Sometimes it’s best not to get involved.”

  “Oh, that’s a great bit of advice,” I said, feeling like Robyn now. Angry. Really pissed at my father for saying such a stupid thing, pissed at the world for being such a screwed-up, hopeless place. Who exactly was I now that I knew my origins, and how could I ever fit in? If I couldn’t depend on Robyn for some support, who in the hell could I depend on?

  At home, my mother wrapped her arms around me. She’d been crying. “We’ve thought about what it would be like for you if you ever found out. Your father and I worried about this but we convinced ourselves you would never know. We thought we could keep it a secret and protect you.”

  “I’m glad I know the truth,” I said. There was venom in my voice and sarcasm. I was also lying. I wished I could have gone on never knowing what I was.

  “Do you remember Dr. MacKenzie?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “From Scotland,” my father said. “He examined you when you were sick?”

  “Right,” I said. “After Loch Ness. I remember.”

  Well, I remembered some of it. Much of the examination was boring and it seemed to take forever. But I remembered MacKenzie’s eyes and getting jabbed with a needle. And, just when I had decided I hated his guts, then came the pizza. Pizza and ice cream. But what I had really wanted to do was return to the loch and look for the monster. That familiar dark image appeared in the back of my mind — the Loch Ness monster surfacing in moonlight. I had wanted so much to see it in real life that it haunted my daydreams and dreams for years. It was almost as if I had actually seen the creature, swam with it beneath me when I threw myself into that cold, dark water that time. I had even held my breath as I dove deep in hopes of coming close to the beast.

  That’s where I wanted to be now — sinking into some watery fantasy world, hiding with the Loch Ness monster at the bottom of the deep lake.

  “We called him,” my mother said. “Dr. MacKenzie. He knew about you from the start. We’ve consulted with him on occasion and he’s followed your progress. He knows everything about you.”

  I was offended by the way she said it. “Jesus. What am I — some kind of science project? A walking, talking lab experiment?”

  My mom started to cry. I didn’t apologize.

  “Dylan,” my father said, “you have good reason to be mad at us but right now we want to help. Dr. MacKenzie is about the only person we trust. And he’s knowledgeable in this area.”

  “What area? Is he a shrink?”

  “He’s studied psychiatry, yes. He would understand what it would be like to be going through what you are going through right now.”

  “And I bet he’
s licking his chops over the prospect of having a real live clone to interview.”

  My mother shook her head and wept some more. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed into her cupped hands.

  “Me too,” I said and left the room.

  In my room, I started to get ready for school. I don’t know why. I didn’t want to go to school. I would arrive late and have to come up with some lame excuse. But I was secretly hoping that Robyn would be there. I sure as hell didn’t want to stay home with my parents. And I didn’t want to hole up in my room. The last thing I wanted was to be alone right now with my own thoughts. I felt myself sinking into some dark, ungodly place.

  While changing my clothes, I accidentally knocked the book Robyn had loaned me off the bedside table. When I picked it up I turned to the page where I had left off. The author now spoke of “four continuously interlinking realities.” He referred to them as “1. The natural bardo of this life, 2. The painful bardo of dying, 3. The luminous bardo of dharmata, and 4. The karmic bardo of becoming.”

  I couldn’t believe that I had let Robyn lead me into this crap. But then I was just a laboratory rat, a scientific experiment. Maybe that’s why I’d be willing to entertain any wacky idea a beautiful girl tossed my way. Maybe that’s why I really would have followed her to Tibet if she asked. I thought about Robyn and that made things worse. It was only last night she had said — what? That she loved me? Felt sorry for me was more like it. And today, something had changed. Something big. I was certain we could never go back to being the way we had been. My old familiar world had dissolved around me.

  I yelled down and asked my father if he could drive me to school.

  “Anytime you’re ready,” he shouted back. I figured he’d stay home from work and babysit my mother today. I wanted to feel sorry for her, too, realizing what she was feeling, what they both were feeling. But all I could think about was me. The confusion, the anger, the pain.