Forever and Ever

by Dan A. Baker

  “I’ve always been crazy, but it’s kept me from goin’ insane.”

  The Waylon Jennings classic played softly as the last light of the day disappeared and the sharp black mountain silhouettes suddenly emerged. She turned to Will.

  “Is that your song?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so. I tried to calm down a little, but it is so easy for me to see these things. I don’t know why other people can’t see it. That is what drives me nuts; just how little vision there is in the human race.

  That’s why I like Nielsen so much. He sees what I see.” Will was starting to open up to her.

  “I’ve always been crazy, but it’s kept me from going insane,” he sang along with Waylon, suddenly laughing his crazy laugh.

  Jasmine hugged him. “I’m glad you’re not insane.”

  Will looked over at her, stroking her hair gently. “You’re the first woman I’ve ever known who decided to just let things play out. Decided not to interrogate me, or confront me, or threaten me, and I love you for that,” he said, enveloping her in arms.

  Jasmine said nothing. She felt content, and rested for the first time in a very long time.

  “Where I come from it’s not polite to play just one Waylon Jennings song,” the DJ on the radio said. “So, here’s the flip side.”

  “She’s a good hearted woman in love with a good-timin’ man…”

  They listened to the song as the soft warm wind from the desert blew over them, and the moon rose behind the mountains. They looked at each other for a long moment. Jasmine laid her head on Will’s chest and just breathed in the moments.

  “She loves him in spite of his wicked ways she don’t understand.”

  “The desert after rain,” she said softly.

  “Chlorine,” he whispered.

  “Through teardrops and laughter they’ll pass through this world hand in hand.”

  “Speed stick deodorant,” Jasmine said, turning her face into his arm.

  “Sun block,” as Will moved his nose down Jasmine’s neck.

  “She’s a good-hearted woman; lovin’ her good-timin’ man.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “Give me the ski or I’ll tear your throat out!” Darla said to Will.

  “You can ride in the tow toy, but skiing will put a lot of pressure on your shoulders and you’ll tear ligaments,” Will said. “No way are you going to water ski.”

  “Where’s the toy, then?” Darla asked.

  “I’ll blow it up,” Will said, as they drifted in the middle of Lake Havasu.

  They pulled Darla around for over an hour, on the big bright red inflatable Jet Ski. Darla turned and pumped her arm in the air, and then she tried to stand up, finally falling off. “That’s enough!” Will yelled, “Get back into the boat.”

  “I’ll swim back!” Darla said, breaking into a very good freestyle. Jasmine enjoyed the long swim, chasing Darla. It took a long time to catch her.

  “God, I feel great!” Darla yelled, hugging Jasmine in the water. “How can I ever thank you for returning my life back. I just can’t imagine what it’s going to be like to be young again! Oh I love this!” she said, as she hugged Jasmine in the water.

  “Just don’t push it Darla. You’re going to feel like doing a lot of things you shouldn’t, and we don’t want any broken bones or torn ligaments. Promise,” Jasmine pleaded.

  “Okay, except for one thing,” Darla said, turning back to the boat.

  “What’s that? Jasmine asked.

  “Sex, I’m getting really, horny,” she said. “What do I do?”

  “I don’t know,” Jasmine said. “We’ll have to find someone to make a lengthy probe into your situation,” she deadpanned, remembering an old police joke. Darla roared with laughter as they swam back to the boat.

  They dedicated the entire day to trying to keep both Darla and Easton from hurting themselves, and out of the sun. They had left the marina early, and it was almost noon. The sun was hot, even in late September. “The last thing we need right now is a sunburn,” Will said, sounding almost frantic. “Let’s get back to the house.”

  The weather changed rapidly as they motored back. Huge thunderheads moved up from the south and east at the same time.

  “I’ll be done in a couple of months out here,” he said, as they were driving back in the Jeep. “You feel like a cruise in the Med?”

  “I always wanted to go on a cruise,” Jasmine said, realizing that she was completely relaxed.

  “We’ll do a nice one in the Med, and maybe we’ll buy a boat and sail for a few years,” Will said, gently stroking her arm.

  Jasmine thought about the life they could have, traveling in Europe and enjoying the wonderful things life had to offer, as they drove home in the open Jeep.

  They lay down on the big bed and watched the white fan rotate slowly in the late afternoon heat.

  “Money won’t be a problem,” Jasmine said. “We can do anything.”

  “You can say that again,” Will replied.

  “What does that mean?” Jasmine asked.

  “I’m almost done. Is what it means,” he said.

  “Nielsen?”

  “Nielsen and a few others: If I win, they pay.”

  “That…?” Jasmine let the question hang in the air.

  “That I can deliver a safe reliable gene therapy that will reverse aging and provide functional immortality.” “Then they pay?” Jasmine continued.

  “Then they pay,” Will said.

  “Pay big?” Jasmine asked.

  “Big for me, for them it’s not a big deal, but for me it’s a big deal,” he said, leaning back against the couch.

  “What’s not a big deal for them?”

  “Five-billion,” Will said.

  “Five-billion dollars,” Jasmine turned to look at him.

  “That is to say if I chose dollars, but I like Swiss Franks and certain positions in certain companies. I want companies that can be expected to do well in a new set of circumstances.”

  “Like what kind of circumstances?” Jasmine asked,

  “Real estate and land holding - stuff like that,” he said.

  “But you’re working on something else,” Jasmine said.

  “Yeah, a little side bet with Nielsen. I’ll tell you about it later, but it’s almost done too, so I’m ready for a little time off, say, two or three hundred years, with a beautiful young woman, and a great scientist,” Will said, slowly pulling her hair into his mouth and chewing it.

  The strange, stormy evening passed slowly. The wind finally tapered off and clocked around to the North as darkness fell. The big thunderheads brought torrential rain and a vicious circling wind that battered the house, and lasted into the next day. It was an eerie subdued day, a lot like a blizzard day at the ski cabin, Jasmine thought.

  They ordered a small car full of Chinese food and watched Gattaca, a dreadful film about a post human future where only those who had been bio-engineered succeeded. Even Jude Law and Uma Thurman couldn’t save this dark “science goes bad” film, but some of its scenarios, however badly drawn, were possible. When the credits finally rolled, Jasmine thought about what Easton had said about the discussions scientists had in the very early days of molecular biology. Will had the only comment.

  “We can improve on that,” he said, and went out to the garage to work on his mini-mainframe.

  Easton followed, stretching and turning at the hips as he walked. “There wasn’t much sex in it,” he said, as an after thought.

  As Jasmine put the tape back in the box, she noticed some printing on the front of the box. There is no gene for the human spirit. Jasmine stepped out into the garage and showed the box to Will.

  “Not true,” he said, and walked off before Jasmine could pursue the comment.

  Easton and Will were constant companions. Will spent full days and nights with him at the mini-mainframe they had installed in the garage. Easton was very impressed with the gene constructs, and offered several good
ideas that no one else had thought of. He would peer at the monitors for a long time, finally sitting back, shaking his head.

  “I can’t believe I lived to see this,” he would say, repeatedly. Then he would tell stories about how they talked about some of these exact possibilities in the fifties and sixties, knowing that genes controlled the entire fabric of life, and that one day these controls would be in the hands of their owners. Will and Jasmine sat totally absorbed, as he told story after story about the early days of molecular biology.

  “Every time we thought we’d reached a point where it was impossible to go on, we’d discover, yes! It was impossible to go on. It’d be that way for about ten years, then some dumb bastard who didn’t know it was impossible tried a totally new way to do it and off we went again, to the next impossibility,” he said, looking back at the fifty-year history of molecular biology.

  “I’m starting to feel pretty damn good!” he said. “God almighty, I’ll have to start thinking about what I’m going to do now. How are we going to handle this fight, Will?” he asked.

  “We hope you’ll be quiet for a couple of years. We need two years with you, to tweak the treatment, and make sure you don’t go out there and die in front of a hundred video cameras. Do you think you can do that? Lay low for that long?” Will asked.

  “Sure! No one gives a damn about me anyway. My kids won’t talk to me anymore and my old lab won’t talk to me anymore. I’ve got lots of money, so hell, I’ll just disappear for awhile,” he said. “Maybe I’ll buy a house here, after I get into Darla’s pants!”

  Jasmine looked at his beaming face for a moment, as his eyes glittered. The mind is invincible she thought. Earl was right.

  The next few days were very quiet. Darla and Easton went through a period where they slept almost all day. Will was away in Dallas, and Jonelle took Roy to Las Vegas to see some shows.

  For the first time in a very long time, Jasmine had nothing to do. The one thing that obsessed her most was Darla’s skin. It was beautiful, and supple, and without the age spots that bothered Jasmine.

  When Will returned from Dallas he was very excited. “It’s done!” he said. The last generation of stem cell organs was functioning perfectly in the dogs and in both humans, and they were pumping out prodigious numbers of cloned embryonic stem cells.

  “I’m ready,” Jasmine said to him, looking at the skin on her forearm.

  “Funny you should say that,” he remarked. “I waited an extra two days in Dallas for these,” he said, crossing over to the refrigerator. “His and hers stem cell organs, and I finally got my hot rod flames,” he said, pulling up his shirt to reveal a small incision and a new tattoo. “When do you want to go under the knife?”

  “Today,” Jasmine said, surprising herself. “Things are quiet for a change.”

  “You’re going to like this,” Will said, as he prepared her for the simple operation.

  Jasmine said nothing, still surprised that her innate conservative nature was overridden by the desire to stop the aging she was just beginning to see and feel. The insidious wrinkles in her skin, and the incident in the box of reflections at the Burning Man festival instilled a profound longing for health and youth. “I don’t want to be old. I don’t want to be baggy and tired.” The small distant voice was an almost constant force now. Will paused for a moment, holding the small red organ. “Stock or high-performance?” he said in his boyish, irreverent voice.

  “High performance,” Jasmine said, and closed her eyes.

  The changes began in a few days. Jasmine was sitting by the pool when she first noticed a change. She suddenly felt like swimming, and knocked out fifty laps with long, powerful strokes. The stretching motion of swimming felt wonderful, and she just couldn’t get enough of it. The subtle joint pain in her knees and shoulders wasn’t there anymore, and she took deeper breaths and held them longer. She hit the end of the pool twice, unfamiliar with the speed she was swimming.

  Darla finally threw a plastic chair in the pool to get her to stop swimming and answer the phone. Jasmine pulled herself out of the water in a single pull and stood up straight for a minute before answering the call.

  “Hi Mom, guess where we are? Vegas! We’ll be down in about two or three hours, if that’s okay,” Malia said.

  “Sure pumpkin head! I can’t wait to see you. I’ll fax the directions to the hotel,” Jasmine said as she jotted down the number. “How long are you going to stay?”

  “Just a few days, I’ve got a job interview in San Jose on Friday,” she answered. “We were just up for a road trip.”

  “It’ll be nice to see you,” Jasmine said, her mind racing.

  “Are we going to party hardy?” Malia asked.

  “Who’re we?” Jasmine asked.

  “Koji, me, and his girlfriend,” she replied.

  Jasmine froze.

  “Mom,” she waited.

  “I’ll see you in a few hours then,” she said.

  “Are you sure everything is okay? You’re not like doing anything weird are you?” Malia asked.

  “Of course not, she said, we’re just resting here, and enjoying the desert,” Jasmine said.

  Will reacted calmly, which surprised Jasmine. “I’ll take Roy and Jonelle, and we’ll put Easton and Darla in a hotel for a few days,” he decided, clicking through Roy’s MRI images. “He’s through the hard stuff.”

  “Where are you going?” Jasmine asked.

  “I think I’ll take Roy to Phoenix. He’ll like the chopper ride, and I’ll take them both to the Heard Indian Museum. We can show him some real Indian tomahawks,” Will said.

  “Leave all my stuff here. I’ll just go buy a house,” Easton said, turning around. Jasmine was shocked. He didn’t look the same as he did just a few days before. His face had changed noticeably and he seemed to be taller. His eyes were clear and he stood up straight.

  She crossed over to Darla’s room and woke her. The change was unmistakable. Jasmine looked at her face for a long moment, and then opened the blinds. The wrinkles were fading away, and the color of her skin was beautiful. It was pink, flushed, and shining, like a newlywed on a honeymoon.

  “Do I have to get up?” Darla said groggily, reminding Jasmine of Malia when she was a young girl. When she got up and walked across the large room to the bathroom Jasmine noticed how flowing her movements were, and how long her strides were.

  “Yes, connecting rooms,” Jasmine said to the desk clerk at the Holiday Inn, annoyed at answering the same question several times. She turned around to give the keys to Darla, but she was out in the parking lot flirting with two young men in a bright red Nautique ski boat.

  “Here’s your key, Darla, and I’ll call you in the morning,” Jasmine said.

  “I want to be on Girls Gone Wild!” Darla said. “These wonderful young gentlemen say they’re filming here this weekend!”

  Jasmine suddenly had a moment of panic as she looked up at the rack of airbrushed wake boards. She waited for an opportunity and pounced.

  “Darla, your body is in a very sensitive state right now. Your bones and joints are regenerating rapidly, and I’m sure you feel great, but you must not, cannot get hurt, and you can’t get sunburned. Will you promise me that you’ll control yourself?” Jasmine bore down hard.

  “Of course, I really want to be a Girl Gone Wild!” Darla said, suddenly pulling up her tank top, revealing her small but nicely shaped breasts. The two young men in the boat laughed so loud everyone in the parking lot looked around. Darla did a quick spin to show all the bystanders.

  “Darla! Come on! Please tell me you’ll be careful!” Jasmine heard herself screech.

  “I will! I will!” Darla said, smiling broadly.

  Using a trick she had learned when Malia was in high school, Jasmine went from room to room with a plastic garbage can and just threw everything in it and tied it up. Easton’s books were no problem, but Darla’s endless junk was like a film over the entire house.

  Jasmine took a quick
rinse off shower, and discovered her scar was still visible, small, but visible. Her skin was beginning to shine, and the wrinkles on her face and arms were beginning to fade. Her muscles were beginning to tighten as well. She first noticed that the skin didn’t hang down when she held her arms out, and when she picked up a gallon of milk, the muscles on her arms were sharply outlined.

  The minutes ticked by as Jasmine thought about her daughter. The decision to have only one child had always haunted her. She wanted to have another one, but Earl insisted they were too old, and he was right. Many of these thoughts were occurring to Jasmine, now that life could be limitless. It still took time to adjust to the idea of having two, three or more families, and raising these children, watching them grow, develop, mature and head off into adult life.

  The egg issue began to occupy some of Jasmine’s thinking. Where would she get the eggs for another family, from Malia? What would those discussions be like? She had followed several of these cases at the UCSF ethics board meetings, and they produced quite a bit of turmoil.

  There would be a point, assuming she and Will had opted to provide immortality to their embryos, that she and all her children would be roughly the same age, indefinitely. Like the other dilemmas, this was simply unimaginable.

  The wind had been blowing steadily for a week, and had finally stopped. Jasmine couldn’t help going to the door and looking down the street. Malia was always late, but three hours had gone by and Jasmine started to worry a little. When the light blue rental car roared down the block and screeched to a stop, she was relieved.

  “It’s a rental!” Koji shouted, as they piled out.

  “Hi Mom,” Malia exploded out of the car with a garland of plastic party beads around her neck, wearing a bikini and a black T-shirt that said BLING BLING in gold rhinestones.

  “What took you so long?” Jasmine asked.

  “We went for a ride on Route 66, just to say we did it!” Malia said. “You look great, Mom,” holding Jasmine’s hands and looking at her.

  “I feel great too. I’ve been swimming, sunning, and walking in the desert,” Jasmine said, wincing slightly as Malia hugged her.