Side Effects

by Harvey Jacobs

  “Thanks,” Simon said, “but a patch is not a smoke. I need the taste of smoke. A patch is like giving Sitting Bull a heating pad to send signals.”

  “We’ll be back tonight,” Rabbi Bakla said.

  “I really appreciate your concern,” Simon said. “But it isn’t productive for you and Father Mahoney to waste time on a lost cause. Simon Apple is doomed and damned.”

  “You needn’t sound proud of it,” Father Mahoney said.

  “Put away childish thoughts,” Rabbi Bakla said.

  “Put them where? Where should I put them? I often wondered about that,” Simon said.

  When Father Mahoney and Rabbi Bakla stood to leave, Simon felt a rush of cold. He missed their body heat. The powers-that-be kept the cell cold. His guard said it was the warden’s attempt to save on the cost of heating oil. Simon supposed it was to preserve his fragile meat.

  4

  Simon Apple played a game with himself. He dangled his arms until his hands scraped the cement floor, then pranced around grunting like an ape. He tried a handstand, then a somersault, then climbed the bars of the cell door. He knew he was on suicide watch, that his antics were broadcast to some video monitor, but no guard rushed to investigate; they were used to his simian routine.

  Simon kept moving until he exhausted himself, the point of all that nonsense, then lay on his cot, closed his eyes and let his mind wander through its own jungle. If today was the time for his life to pass before his eyes, the parade was proving to be a shadowy procession of wisps and fragments. He struggled to piece together memories of his early years from specks of dust, the detritus of overheard telephone calls, nursery conversations, family gossip and his father’s famous sleep talking, those garbled monologues babbled on a dark stage for an invisible audience. Was his father trying to tell him something there in the dark, carefully coding the messages among coughs, snores and snorts?

  Simon was born a month premature, four pounds, six ounces, a lusty baby “impatient to get his tail slapped” his father, Robert J. Apple liked to say. His first weeks were spent in an incubator warmed by light bulbs. All he recalled about that claustrophobic pod was blazing yellow light without the balm of darkness. That light stayed with him even after he was plucked from his cocoon.

  Simon couldn’t swear to exact details—filtered through time’s distorting prism—but he seemed to remember being baptized and circumcised on the same day. He was yanked from sleep, wrapped in swaddling and hustled out of the hospital to a chapel in Blessed Queen of Angels Church where he was dunked and certified as a Roman Catholic.

  From there, a rented Lincoln Continental carried him to Sons of Israel Synagogue. His father, a semi-lapsed Catholic, insisted on twin ceremonies. Simon’s baptism was a fillip to his father’s family and made Robert J. Apple feel better about himself. His mother, Francine, born Jewish, also had left a trail of wounded relatives when she married outside her tribe. She wanted her son to be circumcised if only for the record.

  So Robert J. hired the resident mohel at the synagogue, a famous specialist in removing foreskins, to perform the bris. A naked Simon, still damp from holy water, waited while the mohel dipped a wad of Johnson & Johnson cotton into a silver cup of Manichewitz Concord Grape wine and painted it across Simon’s flailing tongue. The baby licked at the fuzzy pink cloud of anesthesia. Then came the slice, worse than the freezing baptismal bath. Simon went from sprinkled to snipped, from icy chill to hot pain, screaming protest with a passion that frightened everybody in the shul. Simon’s startled eyeballs blinked like traffic lights. He wouldn’t stop howling.

  When Simon’s parents got him home he began to run a sweaty fever. Robert J. called Dr. Henry Fikel who still made house calls back in the nineteen-sixties.

  Dr. Fikel couldn’t tell if the infant’s problem was caused by baptismal bacteria or trauma from the mohel’s blunt blade. Whatever the cause, the doctor recognized that Simon was burning up because of a serious infection that could cancel him out in a matter of hours.

  “Listen, the battle is not lost,” Dr. Fikel said. “I’ve been involved with testing a new drug called Cripthalizine developed by Regis Pharmaceuticals. It’s about to be approved by the FDA. The test results have been tremendously positive. The drug is hugely expensive but lucky for you I’ve got samples. If you agree, I’ll administer a dose now. It should be repeated every eight hours until his fever breaks.”

  Cripthalizine

  Trade name: Cribangel

  Another miracle from Regis Pharmaceuticals

  “Do it,” Robert J. said. Dr. Fikel produced a small bottle of greenish liquid from his bag along with a medicine dropper, sucked an inch of Cripthalizine into the glass tube, squeezed open Simon’s mouth and squirted the emulsion down his throat. Before Simon could react to its oily taste, a rubber nipple was stuck between his bare gums. He sucked at formula, warm and sweet.

  Simon Apple knew he’d been bottle fed from overheard conversations that became family lore. Despite heavy pressure, Francine Apple had opted for symmetrical tits over the arguable joys of in-flight fueling. There were extenuating circumstances; Simon’s first baby teeth were like little razor-sharp tusks. Not even the most devoted of mothers could have endured the assaults of his appetite. Simon’s first nickname was The Little Ripper. (Years later that was mentioned at his trial.)

  Cripthalizine worked quickly and well. Within 24 hours his fever was gone, the infection subdued.

  There would be certain catastrophic side effects but they took time to manifest.

  5

  Agent Brian Beem, a tall, lanky man, a crane with a rugged human face, wore his traditional black suit, navy shirt, gray tie, ribbed black socks and black shoes. The outfit set off his tidal wave of white hair, a beach of pale skin and wide, wet eyes with pupils that seemed to float on blue-green lakes. Beem pulled out a pack of Marlboros, lit one with a wooden match, snapped the match as if it were a wishbone, inhaled deeply and blew a tunnel of smoke rings toward Simon Apple who lay splayed on his cot staring at the ceiling.

  Simon sat up, greedily accepted a cigarette, touched it to the glowing orange tip of Beem’s and took a long drag. He watched Beem flip open the lid of a small, round portable ashtray decorated with the Swiss Army insignia of a white cross on a red circle and drop his broken match into the container. Beem cleaned up his messes. Simon flicked his own worm of ashes onto the concrete floor.

  “You look depressed,” Beem said.

  “Really?” Simon said. “What have I got to be depressed about?”

  “There are worse ways to die.”

  “Ah. Thanks. I feel much more cheerful now.”

  “Simon, I’ve been authorized to answer some of your questions,” Beem said.

  “I don’t know if I care anymore. But I suppose it will make you feel better to get some of that pus off your manly chest. Everybody seems eager to make their peace before they kill me. As if it matters who I love or hate.”

  “First the disclaimer,” Beem said. “Nothing I tell you won’t be denied under oath.”

  Beem’s voice lowered to a barely audible whisper designed to confound any hidden microphones in the cell. “Apple, can you get it through your thick head that we want you to know the truth? Bottom line, we’re all in your debt. This morning the President of the United States of America got down on his knees and prayed for your immortal soul. We’re not without gratitude.”

  “Do I seem ungrateful for your gratitude? Don’t I know what must be must be? What I resent is that you boys took the decision away from me. If you’d just presented the facts I would have gladly stuck my head in the oven.”

  “We couldn’t be certain of your reaction, Apple.”

  “What’s done is done. But I would like to know the details. They say the Devil is in the details, right? And since I might meet the Devil in a few hours I wouldn’t mind being one up on the bastard. Why was it all so complicated and how did you pull it off?”

  “You already know you were framed.
And the very good reason why. Are you sure that isn’t enough baggage to carry down the glory trail?”

  “How much baggage am I allowed to carry? Is there a weight restriction? Listen, Brian, I need to know the hows and whos.”

  “Even I don’t know the whos,” Beem said.

  “Then the hows? I’d settle for the hows.”

  “Before getting to hows, which are arguably irrelevant, I’ve got to feel certain that you fully understand that what was done was done only after much deliberation at the highest levels. There was never gloating, no smug guffaws at those meetings. We care. We take you as seriously as we take the flag.”

  “As seriously as you take an unborn fetus? A stem cell?”

  “Cheap shot, Apple,” Beem said.

  “You’re right. Forget I said that.”

  “There is no reasonable alternative. You can’t be left alive.”

  “Please stop apologizing,” Simon said. “Some things are past apology. Look, I feel like I walked into the theater when the movie was half over. I’ll be out of popcorn before the loop comes around again. I’ll never catch up with the plot and I won’t be here for closing credits. So please fill in the missing pieces. That would make these last hours much easier to endure.”

  “I’ll do my best. First, you must see that if we simply blew you away, even if it was made to look like an accident, there might have been questions. It had to seem like you deserved your demise. Which, in a way, you do.”

  “One murder was enough to convict me. Then why so excessive? Why magnify the body count?”

  “Flawed planning. Human error. Collateral damage. Lousy luck,” Beem said. “Hey, Apple, we all know shit happens.” Simon watched Beem take a long tug on his cigarette and let the smoke leak from his nose and mouth as if his guts were simmering.

  “You know why I want to know how you guys pulled it off?” Simon said. “Even if it makes no difference? Because I hate loose ends.”

  “I can relate to that,” Agent Beem said.

  6

  Francine Apple announced to Robert J. that she did not take gracefully to the traditional role of housewife and mother. She told her husband her time would be better spent following a career where her full potential could be realized.

  Utterly in love with his trim, pretty, perky, strong-minded, capable wife, Robert J. feared that Francine might interpret any opposition to her voyage of self-discovery as oppressive. Too many seemingly established couples the Apples knew were recently divorced citing conflicts of interest as the reason for separation. Winds of change were uprooting even rock solid marriages. The idea of subtracting Francine from his life and his bed was unthinkable. Inwardly conflicted, Robert J. agreed that Francine should test her ambition. He agreed to be a supportive spouse.

  It was decided that a nanny should be employed to watch over baby Simon. His mother would then be free to spend her days working beside his father at Quikpix, a store that processed film and offered glossy prints in one hour. Quikpix had recently expanded to offer a full range of necessities to amateur photographers. Two new machines were installed for photocopying documents of letter and legal size. Francine argued that the salary Robert J. paid to his clerk would be better kept in the family, albeit in Francine’s personal checking account.

  Losing the clerk in question, Rowena Trask, was not an easy thing for Robert J. Apple. The peppy cheerleader from Glenda High was a pleasure to have around. After school on weekdays and for half a day on Saturday, Rowena came exploding into Quikpix spewing huge energy and eager efficiency. Plump, blonde, well endowed, a natural extrovert, Rowena was a definite asset to the business. She made customers happy. She made her boss happy. She radiated happiness. Like Robert J., Rowena Trask was fascinated with the whole idea of photography.

  When Quikpix was empty of customers, and after hours, Robert J. instructed her in the use of her 35mm Nikon, a gift from her grandfather. He taught her about light meters, shutter speeds, film sensitivity, the importance of composition. He impressed upon her that “a camera is the equivalent of an artist’s brush, a marvelous tool in the eternal search for truth and beauty.” Rowena brought out a poetry of expression Robert J. never suspected drowsed inside him.

  Rowena allowed Robert J. to take spicy Polaroids of her fresh-from-the-garden body in the tiny studio he’d set up in back of the store, but only from the waist up. Her boss had a file exclusively dedicated to pictures of her fledgling breasts, their rosy spigots pointed bravely toward his GE floodlight. Robert J.’s plan was to translate Rowena into a private calendar. He was hopeful that soon Rowena would slough off what remained of her girlish modesty and slide out of her jeans and panties.

  To hasten that lovely moment of revelation, Robert J. swore Rowena to secrecy and showed her his private collection of stills culled from thousands of Kodak rolls shot by their neighbors in Glenda.

  Every so often, in the midst of familiar images of locals at work and at play—friends, aunts, uncles, grandpas, grandmas, kids, cousins, dogs, cats, birds, turtles, gerbils, whatever—Robert J. would confront some astonishing vision among the drying celluloid strips. There was Mrs. Cornby’s naked bottom displayed on a cushion, Professor Haliday’s battle-worn genitals gripped by an unknown hand, one of Rowena’s coy classmates, blurred but recognizable, servicing a football jock in the back of a pickup. This pantheon of astonishing intimacies made what had seemed to be the expected and familiar suddenly decidedly unfamiliar. Rowena felt as if she’d been given X-ray vision, the kind usually saved for comic books superheroes.

  Those strangely sad and innocent erotic studies were both illegal and immoral by accepted standards. Quikpix and similar establishments were required to confiscate anything resembling pornography and report it to the proper authorities. Robert J. was a law-abiding man but he felt that being entrusted to develop the community’s photographs gave him a certain immunity from mandatory disclosure, an almost priestly exemption as privileged communicator.

  That feeling of specialty was enforced by the fact that several of his “naughty” pictures involved local politicians, police, volunteer firemen and members of the clergy. So he delivered uncensored product to his clients without comment but not before making an extra copy of the best prints for himself. Sometimes he enlarged the photos so he could study them at leisure without using his reading glasses.

  Rowena Trask responded to the amazing collection with giggles and gasps but without any evidence of shock or horror. As Robert J. suspected—gambled on—Rowena was not only tolerant of those photographs, she was touchingly reverent toward both their subjects and the unknown photographers. Instead of breathing hard while she browsed his kinky album, Rowena actually wept. As he’d suspected, the girl was blessed with a generous heart.

  The evening he fired Rowena Trask, using economics as his excuse, Robert J. gave her a modest bonus, a glowing letter of reference, a gift certificate from Schneir’s Department Store and a kiss on the cheek. He broke the news that it would be best to destroy the semi-nudes she’d posed for, all things considered.

  They were both silent as he tore those Polaroids into scraps. There was a shared sense of loss. Rowena had responded quickly when Robert J. explained “photography is the poor man’s triumph over time and change.” That was when she’d first agreed to unbutton her blouse.

  Before the last of the Rowenas was fragmented, she begged her boss for just one souvenir of herself, a single reminder from the portfolio he’d described as “transient moments of ripening beauty already imprisoned in the past,” but Robert J. was a careful man and refused her that modest request. Francine Apple was a bloodhound; if she ever got wind of those pictures he would be forced to eat boiled cow flop for eternity.

  His former clerk watched him gather up the shards of her ripening beauty and toss them into a wastebasket. When that carnage was complete, without so much as a word, Rowena locked the Quikpix door, turned off the sign in the window, doused the store’s lights, led Robert J. to the back room studio
, flicked on a red lamp and stripped to her bare skin. Her shadow swallowed him in one gulp.

  Robert J., who considered himself faithful to his wife, realized it could do the tender girl terrible harm if he refused her nice parting gift. The two of them cuddled on cold linoleum and whispered last goodbyes. She moistened his sex with her mouth and helped him slide into her slowly, slowly, slowly. Rowena said she felt as if they were posing for Jesus’ camera, that the picture they made together, naked and tangled, was already preserved in Heaven’s stained glass.

  Later, after more kisses and tears, Rowena Trask gathered up her modest severance pay (two weeks, minimum wage), a very positive reference letter, the twenty-five dollar gift certificate redeemable at Schneir’s, her school books and knapsack, then went on her way.

  Robert J. felt her vanish into the future, a journey no camera could capture. He thought about his Rowena calendar, still missing vital fall and winter months. Left with a torrent of regret, he fell to his knees and said a prayer for Rowena Trask. Help like that was hard to find.

  During all this, Simon Apple lay in his crib listening to his mother’s flat voice read him the story of a rabbit transformed from a plush toy into the real thing. Simon wondered if that ending was happy or miserable—Francine’s tone left room for ambiguity—but he was too comfortable to care.

  7

  With his mother beginning her new career, someone had to look after baby Simon. Francine Apple interviewed a host of candidates for the position of resident nanny, among them a Polish woman, Victoria Wyzowik. After browsing letters of recommendation, including a paean from Dr. Henry Fikel, Francine invited Victoria to the house and listened while the lady recited a list of impressive credentials. But it was Victoria’s awful history that got Francine’s attention.

  Having lived a protected American life, Francine was hypnotized as Victoria struggled with the English language, nearly gasping between sentences. Francine had the feeling that the woman was badly dubbed, like actors in the foreign films that occasionally played at the Glenda Triplex; her lips and words seemed out of sync. But Victoria’s story was better then most of those dark dramas.