Half Life

by Helen Cothran

  This is like asking if an addict wants a fix. “Yes, please!” I barked, and he grimaced again, probably wondering if I were in need of his psychological services. Shrugging, he turned and walked to a small microwave cart behind his desk and started fussing with his one-shot coffeemaker. I had no intention of lying down on the couch, so I plopped my butt down on the middle cushion and set my purse down beside me.

  While Cornwell prepared our coffees I studied him. He was pole thin and over six feet tall, his posture perfect. He moved like an android, every movement precise and preprogrammed. His skin was so pale you could see through it to his veins. The epidermis looked thin and fragile, as though a good wind gust might rend it open. The dry desert air had electrified his white-blonde hair, causing strands to rise up from his head like white worms. I noted that he wore a tailored white shirt and red silk tie: The good doctor dressed for success even though he couldn’t afford better office space.

  I decided that I better start playing the part of the Author before he came back with the coffee. I began rummaging through my voluminous handbag for my pad and pen, my fingers finding gum, wallet, sunglasses, AA batteries (huh?), and lots of other stuff, but not the sought-for items. I bent down to peer into the bag and somehow—leave it to me—my fake strand of pearls got caught up on the buckle of the purse. I tried lifting my head to break free, but the damn pearls held fast, and I was stuck peering into my purse as though I were barfing in it. If I didn’t rectify this situation fast, I just might.

  I heard scuffling and knew Cornwell was coming back with the coffee. Hastily, I worked at the buckle and pearls, desperate to dislodge myself before Cornwell arrived. With my head caught five inches above the purse, blood gorged my face, making my nose throb. I worked furiously but could not figure out how to get free. Damn pearls! If only I hadn’t been so fiendishly clever with my disguise. And Cornwell hadn’t even noticed! With sweat rolling down my temples, I finally figured out that the pearls had separated, leaving a bare segment, which had gotten caught under the tip of the metal buckle. Hallelujah! Breathing like a marathoner, I worked my index finger underneath the buckle and pried at the strand with my nail. Had I possessed Vanessa’s long, perfectly filed fingernails, I’d have broken free in an instant. But as usual my nails were in haphazard condition, and the critical index finger nail was short and ragged. My sister would have loved to be there rolling her eyes at me, pointing out in her smug way yet another benefit of having higher standards of personal hygiene. I worked at the strand, my heart thumping wildly, feeling Cornwell draw nearer and nearer with every second. Finally, after what seemed an hour, I felt the strand part from the buckle, and with a flick, I released it.

  Just in time. Cornwell appeared the minute I sat up. I looked up with big blinking eyes, trying not to gasp and pant. My face must have glistened with sweat. Cornwell looked at me funny, seemed on the verge of asking if I were on the brink of cardiac arrest, then just handed me the coffee. He had obviously concluded that I was seriously weird but harmless.

  I took the coffee and, with relief, watched as he sat down in the chair opposite me. He lowered himself into it as if afraid his hips would break. He was the most awkward man I have ever seen, seemingly convinced that he would disintegrate if hasty or careless. I supposed that with skin so fragile, and a frame so reedy, one might be inclined to play it safe.

  I took a gulp of coffee to steady myself and got my breathing under control. I decided to proceed without the pad and pen—I sure wasn’t going to risk that stunt again. To get things rolling, I said in a fake, flattering voice, “Thank you for making time to see me. I know how busy you are. Everyone I’ve talked to says you’re the point man for the mayor’s proposal. Given that you are Mayor Tyler’s right-hand man, I’m extremely fortunate to be able to meet you.” This was so gross I almost made myself barf.

  My obsequious flattery worked its magic. Cornwell’s pale grey eyes grew bright, and he sat up straighter, if that were possible—he already looked like his spine had been welded into place. He ran a pale hand down his red tie. “I’m glad to help. So, what do you want to know, Ms. Larkin?”

  I took another sip of coffee before I answered, sucking up the caffeine like a junkie. “I’m interested in the mayor’s reasons for wanting a waste repository in Desert Rock.”

  He nodded solemnly, sat back in his chair as though suffering from a back ache. He was one controlled dude. In a measured tone, he said, “The reasons are two-fold, both practical and philosophical. First, practically, the repository would bring money and jobs to Desert Rock. It’s easy to see how the project would create jobs—men have to build the facility.”

  I noticed how he said “men” as if surely no woman would be caught dead in a hard hat.

  Cornwell went on. “The financial benefits are both near and long term. First, the federal government is providing generous grants to communities that volunteer for the program.”

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  “I don’t have exact figures,” he said in a snippy fashion, obviously irritated to be asked to substantiate this claim. “As I was saying, the grants would be a guaranteed source of income right from the start. In addition, the extra workers needed to plan, construct, and manage the project would need to move here, buy houses here, shop here, and so forth, thereby enhancing the economy.”

  This was a nice speech. Polished and smoothly delivered. This was Cornwell’s comfort zone, his words preplanned and practiced. I needed to push him off script but not so far and so fast that he would shut down on me. I said in a neutral voice, keeping my face open and smiling, “I can see how people would need to move here to get the facility built. What about when it goes online? I assume most of those workers would not be needed any longer and would likely return to wherever they came from. And what about the remaining residents? What I’m hearing is that many are afraid of living near radioactive waste. I’m wondering if some folks would move away. And maybe others who had thought of moving here would decide against it.”

  Cornwell’s body grew still and taut. His eyes narrowed, and a tic emerged on his right cheek. “I’ve heard these arguments. They’re all supposition.”

  As if his arguments weren’t. I said as pleasantly as I could, avoiding any impression that these were my thoughts, “Your opponents say that your arguments are also supposition. Do you really know how much money in grants? How many workers, and for how long would they work here? How many residents would leave, and how many would-be residents would stay away?” I smiled to show that I was just a nice writer asking innocent questions.

  He did not smile back. His pale face looked like quartz, hard and brittle and easy to see through. He waved an index finger at me, this tiny gesture all that my comments merited. “The mayor has all this well in hand.”

  My inconvenient questions had been dismissed. I wondered if the mayor himself were equally evasive. Or was it that Cornwell and Tyler really did not know the answers? If so, I was shocked. The mayor was responsible for the well-being of Desert Rock. If he wanted this waste dump for self-interest purposes, without fully understanding its impact on the city, then Sampson was right, he should be recalled.

  I took a sip of coffee for reinforcement. “You spoke of philosophical reasons for the project?”

  This redirection seemed to loosen him up again. His facial muscles stopped bunching up and he leaned back in his chair. “This country is facing an energy crisis. Environmental regulations have shut off domestic production opportunities, so we have had to import more and more oil from the Middle East. More than half of our oil is imported. This makes us vulnerable. Not only do we have to pay whatever the oil cartels want to charge, we are also vulnerable to supply interruptions. Terrorist nations could shut off the tap any time they wanted to hurt us.”

  I gulped more coffee to stay awake during this speech. I had done extensive research on the energy situation for my book on wind power and was familiar with the argument he was making. Still, I
wanted to hear his perspective. “Go on.”

  “The point is, we need to produce energy here at home. To protect our economy and to protect our citizens from terrorists. Nuclear power is the answer. We have ample domestic stores of uranium and plutonium. Just a tiny bit of those fuels generates massive amounts of energy. And the environmentalists should be happy. Nuclear power plants produce no greenhouse gases.”

  This was true, strictly speaking. But I had read that the construction of the reactors was material-intensive, requiring lots of fossil fuels to make the concrete and steel and other building materials. The fuel itself is highly processed, an operation that requires extensive use of greenhouse gas-producing fuels. But I understood what he was saying. Nuclear energy production was certainly cleaner than producing energy from oil or natural gas.

  He said, “Environmentalists keep harping about wind and solar power. Those alternatives sound good in theory, but they are too expensive.”

  I could take some issue with this point as well. The local wind farm produced nearly 100 percent of the electricity for Desert Rock. And as turbines have become more sophisticated, wind energy has gotten cheaper to produce every year. Again, though, his overall point was essentially correct.

  I was growing impatient. In talking about nuclear power in general, he had drifted away from the issue of the toxic waste dump in Desert Rock. I needed to get the interview back on track. “You talk about the positive aspects of nuclear power. But you neglect to mention the number one problem: radioactive waste. Since the first reactor went online, nobody has figured out a good way to dispose of it. That’s why there has always been such contention around nuclear power, for all its virtues.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly it,” he said, leaning forward and straightening his tie again. “Nobody has wanted the waste stored near their towns, so it has been left at the facilities that produce it. This is costing the taxpayers a bundle.”

  I had read about this, too, but I wanted to hear him explain it. “What do you mean?”

  “We taxpayers actually pay a fine, called damage payments, to compensate utilities for the government’s failure to supply a central repository. In addition, ratepayers pay a fee collected on each kilowatt-hour of nuclear-generated electricity for a waste program that has never been implemented. Fees collected so far equal about $25 billion. That’s a lot of money for nothing.”

  “I see where you’re going with this. The mayor believes that by volunteering to host a repository, Desert Rock can help solve this problem. If the central issue with nuclear power can be solved, the country’s energy crisis goes away.”

  “Exactly!” I thought he was going to clap his hands together, he was so pleased that I got it. “That is the philosophical underpinning of the mayor’s position.”

  I nodded. “Makes sense,” I said, just to butter him up before I went on the attack again. I could tell he didn’t know what to make of me. On one hand, I looked like a frumpy young writer with a caffeine addiction. On the other hand, I seemed aggressive and sneaky, attacking his arguments but attributing the attack to his detractors. And I was weird. I seemed to have gotten him off balance, which worked for me.

  To throw him off even more, I tried a non sequitur. “Shouldn’t repository sites be chosen that are free of seismic activity? Couldn’t a big quake damage the facility and potentially result in a release of radioactivity? Desert Rock is sitting near the San Andreas fault.”

  He gawped at me, and ran his hand up and down his tie as if it was a lucky rabbit’s foot and I was bad luck. “These facilities can be built to withstand any natural disaster,” he said, regurgitating a well-rehearsed claim.

  Of course, that’s undoubtedly what engineers believed when they built the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. And then in 2011 the country got hit by an earthquake, then tsunami. The catastrophe resulted in a partial meltdown of two reactors, which released radioactive particles into the atmosphere. Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes, and several workers at the plant became contaminated. The world watched, holding its collective breath, as one containment effort after another failed. It took months before plant personnel stabilized the facility. This was one scary incident, and nations around the world quickly initiated inspections of their own nuclear facilities and in many cases adopted stricter safety standards and procedures. Questions about the viability of nuclear power resurfaced in a big way.

  I have a lot of respect for scientists and engineers, but I just think there are limits to what we can know and do. There are forces in nature too big for us to handle. And the price of failure when it comes to something as dangerous as radioactivity is astronomically high. I wanted to maintain an open mind about these issues while I worked on my book, but I struggled against what felt like irrational fear of what this stuff can do to a person. I guessed that the virulence of my emotion had something to do with the fact that my mother had died of breast cancer less than a year ago. You can’t nurse someone who is dying of cancer without developing a healthy fear of it. To think of bringing cancer-causing waste to my hometown felt terrifying.

  Wisely, I did not share these thoughts with Cornwell. Instead, I asked, “So, what is the status of the mayor’s proposal?”

  “The city is preparing the application to send to the Department of Energy. So, we’re very early in the process.”

  “What about the protests? Do you think they will derail the project?”

  He smiled smugly. “I think the good people of Desert Rock will see the benefits of what the mayor proposes. They will appreciate his vision.”

  I had exhausted my questions about the repository and thought I might now be able to slip in some enquires pertaining to Pete’s case. One thing I wanted to know was whether Cornwell was ambitious enough to remove an obstacle like Pete Castillo, who was actively working to stop the mayor. If Tyler’s plan failed, Cornwell might look like a failure in the mayor’s eyes. That was a pretty good motive. It was important for me to learn as much as I could about Cornwell and his motives. I decided to go the flattery approach again, seeing that Cornwell responded greedily to positive strokes.

  “From what I’ve heard, you are the force behind the mayor’s plan. I see your picture in the newspaper, you are quoted in all the articles on the issue. The mayor must be thrilled to have you on his team. Have you ever thought about running for public office yourself?”

  He puffed up and straightened his tie. With totally false humility, he said, “At the moment I am quite happy to serve at the pleasure of the mayor.”

  I glanced around his office. “How do you manage to work on the waste project while working full time? You are a therapist, I believe?”

  “That’s right. I counsel young people struggling with life issues.”

  “What kind of issues do young people face in sleepy Desert Rock?” I knew what work Cornwell did, I just wondered how open he was to talking about it.

  “Drugs. Family dysfunction. Sexual identity.”

  I played ignorant. “Sexual identity?”

  Cornwell didn’t hesitate to go down this road. Though we were straying from the topic I had come to discuss, he seemed eager to talk about his life’s work. “Many young people become confused about their sexual identities. They come from homes with distant, unsupportive fathers and domineering mothers. These unwholesome dynamics rob children of proper role models to emulate. So they wind up identifying with the wrong sex.”

  So far he hadn’t even mentioned the word “gay.” I said, “Are you talking about homosexuality?”

  He looked pityingly at me. “You see, that is where we go wrong as a society. There really is no true homosexuality. It is not in God’s design. No, these young people are confused, psychologically fractured. They need healing. Children need to learn how to maintain healthy bonds with adults of the same gender. If they don’t, they confuse that need to bond with sexual desire. In my work I help them foster healthy relationships with adults of their gender. Once this
psychic healing takes place they no longer have homosexual attractions. My patients are grateful to me because I help them mend their relationship with the church and with God.”

  I had read about reparative therapy years ago while working on a book about homosexuality, and despite my efforts to keep an open mind, I remember feeling shocked. Now, listening to Cornwell justify making young people feel unworthy and sick just because they happened to be gay, I felt physically ill. I decided that I couldn’t trust myself to hear any more without opening my big mouth. Besides, the interview was coming to an end, and I still had one more critical question for Cornwell.

  “I just remembered another question I had about the protests. Have you ever heard of a man named Pete Castillo?”

  Cornwell’s body froze, his hand stopping mid-tie-stroke. He licked his lower lip with a quick flick of his tongue. “Pete Castillo?” he repeated in what sounded like a forced light tone. “No, I don’t think I know that name. Why do you ask?”

  “He was very active in the protest against the mayor’s proposal. I heard that your aide, Matthew Thornton, got into scuffles with him.”

  Cornwell’s eyes narrowed and he licked his lip again. “Ah. Well, yes, I do remember some incidents like that, but that’s par for the course when people clash over a controversial plan. I didn’t know the young man’s name. What’s your interest in him?”

  I lied easily. “When I learned about their scuffles, I thought it would be interesting to interview both Matthew and Pete for my book, get their opposing views, like a point-counterpoint. But when I tried to set up an interview with Pete, I learned that he had disappeared.”

  Cornwell went so rigid I thought he was having a seizure. Sweat glazed his forehead. He no longer looked at me, his eyes were on something internal and far away. I couldn’t figure out why he was so distressed. Was he worried that Pete’s disappearance would tarnish the mayor’s plan? That people might think someone on Tyler’s team wanted Pete out of the way? It’s a question I’d asked myself. After all, Pete was a vociferous opponent of the mayor’s proposal. Cornwell might feel that his disappearance would create bad publicity for the mayor and by extension hurt Cornwell himself.