Miracle Man

by William R. Leibowitz

  Susan took Christina’s hands in hers and squeezed them as she looked directly into her eyes. “That’s not true. I told you a long time ago—love is stronger than secrets. Everything happens for a reason. I believe that and I’ve always told Bobby that. The two of you were destined to be together. The circumstances that brought you together are immaterial—that was just the vehicle. The only thing that matters is that you found each other.”

  Christina looked down. “He hurt me so badly.”

  “Do you love him?”

  The emeralds looked up at Susan. “I’ll always love Bobby.”

  “Then promise me this. When he comes to you. And he will come to you…”

  Christina cut Susan off and nodded.

  “I’ll keep my heart open. But I need time, Susan.”

  “So does he, honey.”

  64

  Back from Washington, Bobby was emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed by remorse. He desperately wanted to see Christina or at least speak to her, but Susan told him she wasn’t ready. So, Bobby did what he had done so often in the past. He retreated from the emotional turmoil in his life by immersing himself in a punishing and unrelenting regime of work.

  Bobby estimated that tuberculosis was only six years away from becoming a worldwide pandemic that would dwarf cancer and AIDS in its destructive power. He called it “the sleeping giant of diseases.” While it wasn’t too long ago that the scientific community thought they were close to eradicating the disease, the landscape was dramatically altered by two things: new mutant “smart strains” of the Tubercle Bacillus that are multi-drug resistant, and the weakened immune systems of tens of millions of people infected with HIV that makes them particularly susceptible to TB and transforms them into fertile breeding grounds for the highly contagious disease. Sitting in his lab, Bobby knew that there were now more cases of TB in the world than at any other time in history, with one-third of the world’s population already infected and a person dying from it every second.

  Perhaps it was Bobby’s sleep deprivation, fueled by his nightmares, and the absence of Christina to help him cope, but as the months of grueling work progressed, he felt increasingly detached from the present. As Bobby watched through his microscope as the Mycobacterium Tuberculosis mutated to become more and more resistant to the newest and most powerful antibiotics, he found himself experiencing an emotion that he never felt in his research.

  He became angry. “Look at you. You think you’re so damn smart. You think you’re going to destroy the whole human race, don’t you?” he muttered contemptuously to the microscopic creatures occupying the drop of water on the slide. As Bobby stared intensely at the small piece of glass on the microscope stand, he began to feel increasingly uneasy. It was three in the morning but he sensed he wasn’t alone. Silently and invisibly, a force of destruction was performing its dark miracles in a drop of water right in front of his eyes. The intellect behind this energy of mayhem astonished Bobby with its efficiency and perverse elegance. Nothing was wasted. There were no mis-steps. It all took place with effortless precision. Was the lab getting colder? He whipped around to look behind him. He dropped to his knees to look under the desks and consoles. There was nothing there that he could see, but he felt a presence bearing down on him, like someone or something was standing very close. A wave of nausea surged through him and he began to shiver even though his body was wet with perspiration. He was scared. But the fact is, he had been scared for a long time. The more he learned and the more he struggled against this omniscient force of negativity, the more scared he became.

  Bobby knew that formulating a new antibiotic was a waste of time. At best, it would work for a few years, after which the bacteria would have built up its immunity so it would be even stronger to take on the next drug. A vaccine was needed—one that could be taken orally and would work on all age groups. Bobby wanted it to be something fitting for this killer with grandiose aspirations. He wanted it to be nasty and punishing. He turned to the neglected science of bacteriophage, which was gaining ground in the 1920s and 1930s, until it was abandoned in the Western hemisphere with the advent of antibiotics. What appealed to Bobby was how it worked. The phage, a type of virus, hijacks the metabolic machinery of the bacterium, forcing it to produce hundreds of new phages that take up so much room inside the bacteria that they cause the bacterial cell walls to literally explode.

  While the science of bacteriophage is aimed at finding a virus that already exists in nature to fight a particular bacteria, Bobby wasn’t interested in this haphazard process—instead, he would modify, through genetic engineering, a series of readily available phages so that they would target the full array of bacteria that cause TB. To ensure that the bacteria couldn’t escape detection by the phage, Bobby would seek to identify numerous unique characteristics of the TB bacteria, each of which would be capable of triggering the phage’s appetite. This was his plan for the vaccine against the plague about to come.

  65

  Three months had passed since Bobby and Christina had broken up. When Susan got to the lab, she found Bobby pacing nervously in her office waiting for her. His voice strained, he pleaded. “I can’t live like this. I can’t go backwards. I’ve got to see her. You know where she is. Tell me.”

  Christina’s absence, coupled with the pressures of his work had taken its toll on Bobby. Susan looked at him pitifully as she wagged her head. “I shouldn’t do this,” she said, writing down an address and handing it to him. As he rushed out of her office, she yelled after him, “Take a shower, shave and change your clothes first. You look terrible.”

  Bobby made the drive to Providence, Rhode Island in less than an hour and a half. He pulled up to a nondescript three story building in a run-down part of town. A cheaply made sign affixed to the structure bore the name, Harmony House. Bobby walked through the institutional glass and aluminum door into a small reception area.

  “How may I help you, sir?” asked a chubby, angelic girl who couldn’t be more than sixteen.

  “I’m here to see, Christina Moore.”

  The girl smiled as she looked him over.

  “And you are?”

  “Doctor Austin.”

  “You’re here on business?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sign here,” she said, pointing to the visitor log. Pulling out a schedule and running her finger down and across several columns, she said, “Doctor Moore should be in the auditorium now. Just go through those doors, make your first left, and then go to the end of the hall and make a right.” Before heading off, Bobby noticed a plastic receptacle containing some printed materials hanging from a nail in the wall and he took one. The cover page of the pamphlet described Harmony House’s mission as follows:

  ‘To provide a safe and caring environment for runaway girls in which their mental and physical health can be nurtured, their self-esteem reaffirmed, and their dignity as human beings re-established.’

  Bobby walked to the auditorium, opened the door and slipped inside. He took a seat in a corner of the back row. There were about twenty girls on the stage whose ages seemed to range from twelve to seventeen. They appeared to be concentrating hard as they looked at the young woman who stood in front of them. Christina was dressed in a black leotard with leggings. Her hair was pulled back in a pony tail and glistened in the stage lights. She called out instructions in a clear authoritative voice. The girls watched her execute dance routines as they tried to emulate her.

  At the end of the class, Christina reminded them to attend the math tutorials that she was giving in the afternoon. After the last girl had left the auditorium, while Christina was facing the other way, Bobby walked toward the stage.

  Though he wanted to seem relaxed, the tenseness in his voice betrayed him. “So how does it feel to be the most beautiful woman on this entire island?” He regretted the words as soon as they le
ft his mouth.

  Christina stiffened. She stopped what she was doing, but didn’t turn around.

  Bobby kept walking toward the stage as he spoke. “Christina, I was wrong. I said some terrible things. I’m so sorry.” Now she stood facing him, only fifteen feet away, glaring down at him from the stage. Her skin- tight leotard accentuated the grace and strength of her figure and her face glowed with the aura that was peculiar to her.

  Her almond eyes showed no softness and her voice was hard and detached. “I’m not ready to see you. You shouldn’t have come here.”

  Bobby stopped walking. “I’m dying without you. I miss you so much.”

  “What do you miss? This?” she said, as she roughly ran her hands down her body. “You hurt me, Bobby. Very badly.”

  “I had no idea what happened to you when you were a kid. When Susan told me, I was shocked.”

  “It doesn’t matter. What you did triggered something inside me that made me realize I had unfinished business with myself. That’s why I’m here.”

  “I’m not sure I follow,” he said.

  “I needed to stop being ashamed for what was done to me. To really stop. Not just intellectually, but deep down. Being here—I’m learning by helping these kids understand the same thing.”

  Bobby hoisted himself up on the stage and stood inches away from her. He took her hands in his and gripped them tightly. “Christina. I love you so much. Don’t shut me out.” As he looked intensely into her eyes, an energy passed between them.

  Christina broke his gaze by looking down. He gently lifted her chin with one hand and kissed her lightly on her lips. He cupped her face in his hands as if he were cradling a jewel and kissed her forehead. “I love you,” he whispered. “No one could ever love you more than I do.” She leaned into him slightly, but enough for him to feel the heat of her body.

  “I’ve never stopped loving you Bobby, but I’m not ready to come back,” she said softly. “I need more time to get my head straight and I want to see these girls through the next few months.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  Christina nodded.

  There was no way he could mask his disappointment. He held her tightly against him as he buried his face in her hair, his eyes closed. Her scent shot through his nervous system like an electric jolt and instantly made his memories of their intimacies come alive.

  She looked up at his sad face and smiled, her eyes wet. Tapping his lips playfully with her finger, she said, “But you know— that doesn’t mean you can’t come visit and take me out for dinner.”

  66

  At the same time Bobby was working on TB, he was also researching arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis—what he called “AA”. This diversion helped clear his mind, particularly because it was a different type of exercise for him. Similar to his earliest work in the autoimmune area, with “AA” — there was no bacteria, virus, parasite or other “invader” that was causing the problem. It was purely the internal operations of the human body that he had to grapple with. Just like his spilled martini had emulsified the grease on his stove, Bobby was looking to synthesize a safe ingestible substance that could dissolve away the plaque, cholesterol, calcium, and other deposits that clog the cardiovascular system causing heart attacks and stroke resulting in over fourteen million deaths annually.

  Using his integrative math language to design formulas and computer programs to run a seemingly endless process of analysis, he broke down the congesting materials into their chemical components and then structured equations to identify the chemicals which had the capability to dissolve each of them. Further formulas would isolate the beneficial components of the solvents and eliminate the harmful ones. Everything was expressed mathematically and it was this process which held the key not only to finding the solution, but in doing so in a small fraction of the time that traditional methods would take.

  Immersing himself in his work, more intensely than ever before, he bounced back and forth between TB and AA, relentlessly, hoping to make the most of every day. But as the weeks went by, Susan began to notice a difference in him. He was becoming increasingly detached from present reality. Even when he wasn’t in one of his frequent trances, he didn’t seem present. Reclusive and paranoid, he sequestered himself in his office with the door locked—or worked from the guest house for days on end. He began to look disheveled, shaving rarely, wearing the same clothing for days, his hair uncombed and greasy. In only a few weeks, he lost over fifteen pounds as he ate erratically, subsisting on micro-waved chili, pasta and pretzels, washed down with energy drinks or liquor. His desk was cluttered with toppling stacks of computer print-outs and notebooks whose pages were crammed with hastily penciled scrawl. He skipped staff meetings and minimized and eventually eliminated his interactions with everyone. Frequently, he didn’t seem to even hear Susan or anyone else who attempted to speak with him. He was in his own world, and that world was fast becoming very separate from the one that others inhabit.

  Alarmed, Susan called Christina. Susan’s voice was flat, devoid of its usual animated quality. “When’s the last time you spoke to Bobby?”

  “About three weeks ago. He called me, but since then he hasn’t returned my calls. He’s buried in work I guess. You know how he gets.”

  Standing in her office slowly walking in a circle, Susan was holding the phone so tightly that her knuckles were white. “He’s in a very bad way, Christina. We’re losing him. You have to come back before it’s too late.”

  “What are you talking about?” Christina asked, as she began to nervously run the fingers of her right hand through her hair.

  Susan’s voice was shaky. “Bobby’s losing his connection. He’s almost completely detached from reality. I called Varneys.”

  “You called Varneys?” asked Christina incredulously.

  “He sent a big expert down here—some doctor named Uhlman, who knew Bobby when he was growing up and …” Susan stopped talking in mid-sentence as she gulped in air and became silent.

  “Susan, tell me what this Uhlman guy said.”

  No longer able to maintain her composure, Susan began to sob. “He said this was always something that could happen to Bobby. He can slip into his own world, into schizophrenia or dementia, and never come back. Uhlman couldn’t even communicate with Bobby. He said he’s surprised it didn’t happen years ago. We’re losing him, Christina. We’re losing Bobby. I don’t think he even knows who I am most of the time.”

  Colum McAlister didn’t like what he was hearing about Austin’s behavior. To him, Austin’s increasing reclusiveness and alienation from his staff meant that something big was going to happen soon. He could feel it. A TB breakthrough. “Two billion a year in revenue down the drain, and our best meal ticket for the future shot to hell. That’s what this will mean Goddammit,” he scowled as he looked at Bushings latest numbers.

  “But you told me you got a good reception in Washington—you said we’re going to get some help from the FDA and Justice Department,” Turnbull said.

  “That will only plug the dam for awhile.” McAlister picked at his manicured finger nails.

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, Colum. It may take Austin a lot longer. We’ve got time to plan.”

  “Plan? I’ll tell you the plan I’m interested in. I need you to come up with a liquidation plan on my stock shares. I want to get out as quickly as I can— but smart. ”

  “Me, too. I’ve got to get out, also,” Turnbull said.

  McAlister’s face turned crimson and the veins on his forehead swelled. “No way. I don’t want this looking like a rush to the exit door. The SEC will be all over us. Your shares stay put until I say otherwise. Do you understand me?”

  “My life savings are in the stock—you got to let me get out.”

  “When I say so. Not before. It’s my call or you can le
ave right now. Don’t forget who got those shares for you in the first place.”

  67

  Christina arrived at Prides Crossing the morning after her call with Susan. She was shocked when she saw Bobby. His appearance had changed radically since she had seen him in Rhode Island for dinner six weeks prior. Looking like a crazed rock musician, he stood in front of three keyboards, each clued into a separate main-frame computer. He was typing at lightning speed, alternating from one to the other, as if he were possessed. His level of concentration on the equations he was typing was so intense that she could feel the energy radiating from him, something she had never experienced before. Although she stood next to him, his gaze didn’t stray from the keyboards and he didn’t say anything.

  Christina maneuvered in front of him and grabbed his hands away from the keyboards. She looked into his eyes and said, “Bobby. It’s me. Christina.”

  When he looked back at her blankly, her eyes filled with tears. She kissed him on his lips and leaned into him, pressing her body against his as she hugged him, her head cradled under his chin against his chest.

  Maybe it was the soft warmth of her body against his. Or the wetness of her tears as they seeped into his shirt. More likely, it was the scent of her hair, only inches from his face. But after a few minutes, she felt his hands stroke her head as he whispered into her ear, “Hey honey. You’re here.”

  Over the next several days, she worked on him slowly. She fed him nutritious food and hot green tea. Every morning, she took him into the shower with her and shaved his face, shampooed his hair and scrubbed him down. He would drift in and out of present consciousness, but physical closeness to her and the sound of her voice seemed to be the key to bringing him out of his nether world. Each day a little more progress was made. At night, she held him closely and that seemed to give him the comfort he needed to close his eyes and sleep. She was alert to any overt signs of night terrors so she could wake him before they became too destructive. Gradually, he began to clock some real sleep time. By the time twelve days had passed, he seemed to have crossed the line. Another two weeks after that, and the Bobby she knew was back. Almost. There was a new edge to him, an underlying anxiety. She could even feel it in the way he made love to her.