Side Effects

by Harvey Jacobs

  “An abrupt ending,” Dr. Fikel said.

  “We did a few tests. Expeloton worked to a point but actual disposal proved to be a problem. Instead of passing through the digestive tract, the disintegrated metal chips burst through the epidermis. Most of the patients hadn’t realized a few instruments were left rattling around their insides and we didn’t exactly rush to trumpet that information; the malpractice mafia would have had a field day. In most cases we usually shut up about it and even if there are certain aftershocks it takes years for complications to show up. Long after the statute of limitations is past. The Ethics Committee determined that prudence was the better part of valor, to let sleeping dogs lie. For a patient to experience a pair of clamps or a handful of staples jumping out of his belly seemed counterproductive. So we stopped all experiments with Expeloton. The Regis people made some attempt to interest the military in the solvent during World War Two, but the costs were prohibitive considering the sheer tonnage of shrapnel carried around by the Purple Heart crowd. Besides, the drug worked better on stainless steel than lead. To my knowledge, Expeloton was shelved. I don’t know if any samples were stored but you might contact their people. I’m not saying it would do any good here, but what’s to lose?”

  “ Expeloton . I’ll write that down,” Dr. Fikel said.

  A month later a phial of Expeloton arrived in Glenda packed in dry ice. A note from the Regis Pharmaceuticals Shipping Department, attached to an invoice, acknowledged Dr. Fikel’s order noting that it had taken weeks to locate the product. Only a few hundred milligrams had survived from the original batch; those were kept only for archival reference.

  The note went on to say that a copy of Dr. Fikel’s request had been sent to Regis Van Clay for his personal attention ( Expeloton had been one of his pet projects) and assured the doctor that Mr. Van Clay would be more than delighted if it proved effective in the case of Simon Apple.

  When Regis Van Clay called Dr. Fikel forbidding him to administer Expeloton or any other Regis Brand item, including vitamins and cold pills, to the Apple boy, it was too late; Simon had ingested 50 mg, the suggested dose, and immediately lapsed into coma. After a touch-and-go struggle to keep him alive, on the third day after the infusion of Expeloton, all remnants of the Camaro were forcibly ejected. The spring had failed to deteriorate sufficiently and propelled Simon out of his bed to the far wall of the hospital tent. It took seven hundred stitches to repair his exit wounds but Simon was left generally intact and free of Camaro debris.

  Expeloton

  Trade name: Sepronalol

  Splinterrific! from Regis Pharmaceuticals, Ltd.

  Simon was discharged from Glenda Memorial and sent home for rest and rehabilitation. Marvin Klipstein, Esq., succeeded in having all charges dropped by the court after a plea successfully linking Simon’s erratic behavior to his use of Aquathaline. Following the verdict, that medication was required to carry a warning of possible hazard to operators of heavy equipment, drivers of passenger vehicles or trucks and women who were or might consider becoming pregnant. In addition, Regis Pharmaceuticals agreed to pay Simon Apple’s legal and hospital bills and to provide Chirp Bennet with a new Corvette convertible, all without admitting to any liability or malfeasance. The substantial cost of 50 mg of Expeloton was absorbed by its makers after Simon and Robert J. signed a paper agreeing not to press for further compensation. Marvin Klipstein explained to the Apples that proof of Aquathaline’s involvement in the bizarre bonding was sketchy at best and advised them to accept the Regis offer.

  While he recovered, Simon was tutored at home by a series of volunteers recruited by Glenda High under the close supervision of Mrs. Tabitha Binwasser, the former Miss Ulman, who’d unexpectedly eloped to Las Vegas with the art teacher a few weeks earlier. Simon’s only contact with Chirp Bennet was a letter that said:

  Dear Oedipus, i.e. Motherfucker,

  I am glad you’re coming along nicely. Someday I hope I can bring myself to visit you in person but not yet. When I think about the Camaro may she rest in peace I get bad cramps followed by the trots. Also, I vomit. My mom put me in therapy and the doctor says it would be better to keep some distance between us until things calm down.

  I still consider you my friend on the one hand but then there is the other hand. Your actions violated every oath pledge and promise which leaves me wondering exactly what honor means to you Simon—about as much as a bag of shit is my feeling. I don’t know how long my grief will last but when (and if) it ends you’ll be the first to know. Meanwhile I try to focus on the good times we had together. By the way my Corvette is a hoot but not the same. It’s like when my dog died and my Uncle Al came up with a replacement puppy. Thanks but no thanks!!!!! if you know where I’m coming from.

  Sincerely yours,

  Guess Who

  PS. Why you didn’t use the towel as agreed upon between us I can’t say and maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference but I still feel as if you brought this on yourself not to mention me. But why cry over spilt milk or whatever it is you spilt? Fuck you.

  42

  Simon recognized the trustee who carried a portable table, a white cloth, paper napkins, a set of plastic utensils with a spatula in place of a knife, plastic party plates, a plastic glass and a lobster bib to the center of his cell.

  The chubby, middle-aged convict with a limp and twitchy eyes was Milton Stanwick, formerly an Executive Vice President of Crawford, Tolley and Smythe, the accounting firm that once represented many Fortune 500 companies including Enron, Adelphia and Regis Pharmaceuticals. One of the few white collar predators actually convicted for complicity in the great corporate scandals that burst the hot air balloon of prosperity in the first years of the new millennium, Stanwick had turned state’s evidence and copped a plea.

  One editorial in the National Review called him the Wall Street Jesus, a scapegoat chosen to atone for the sins of his peers. From an interview on Entertainment Tonight, Simon knew Stanwick saw himself as a hero of unfettered capitalism. If he’d crunched a few numbers and shredded some documents, he’d acted in reverence to the God of laissez-faire and helped the economy thrive.

  Stanwick had expected full vindication and a Presidential pardon. Instead, he was promised lush accommodations in a minimum-security facility and early parole but, media-fucked, he was forced to serve out his full term in a Federal dung hole. He was sustained by the knowledge that for all the indignities and an occasional reaming in the shower room, after a few years he’d return to his ranch in Texas. His personal fortune was intact except for a few million in fines; he’d be embraced by a loyal family and grateful comrades.

  The ideal inmate, Stanwick felt his sentence was more unjust than the death penalty decreed for Simon Apple or anyone else. Simon smelled the amiable arrogance behind Stanwick’s ballet of self-effacement. Still, Stanwick moved like a penitent just doing his job.

  Simon waited, arms folded, while the portable table was snapped open and set with precision as if it would appear in a spread for House Beautiful. Stanwick patted down the white cotton tablecloth that would hold Simon Apple’s last meal as if he were smoothing his own shriveled soul. He would probably bow before he got his ass out of there.

  “You hate me, don’t deny it,” Stanwick said when he finished setting the table. “If you ask me, it’s a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. Did I force you to invest in mutual funds? Well think of it this way, Mr. Apple. In half the world it’s tomorrow. You’re already dead on five continents.”

  “There’s a smudge on my coffee cup,” Simon said. “Unforgivable. And I never invested in mutual funds.”

  When the guard came to let Stanwick out, Simon was informed that his two nieces were waiting in the visitor’s room to say their farewells. Simon had no nieces he knew about and he wasn’t particularly curious to find out who the imposters were. Probably kooks or enterprising reporters. But that table in the center of his cell and the lingering essence of Milton Stanwick gave Simon enough
motivation to shrug, nod and hold out his hands to be cuffed.

  He was led to the visitors room where one of his hands was freed after the other was securely chained to a metal bench. Through the glass, Simon saw two formidable women stare back at him.

  One was built like a Sherman tank with breasts like cannons. She had skin like an armadillo and hands the size of a catcher’s mitt. She wore a black leather jumpsuit with buttons like rivets. Her features were heavy but they fell together under close cropped hair in a way that made her strangely attractive, a comic book superbitch.

  The other was a wraith who might have been fashioned out of spare parts from a puppet factory. Her hair was topping for a Boston cream pie, her porcelain face as remote and saintly as a stained glass portrait of the Virgin. She wore a cotton dress covered with dragonflies hovering over curled waves. Simon couldn’t see below her waist but he wouldn’t have been surprised if she dwindled into fog.

  “He looks smaller than I thought he was,” the first ersatz niece said.

  “Like Yul Brynner does,” said the puppet. “Or teeny-tiny Dustin Hoffman.”

  “My name is Belladonna,” said the first counterfeit niece.

  “I’m Trilby Morning,” said the second.

  “Why are you here?” Simon said. “You can be perfectly honest, considering the fact that you’re my long-lost relations and this conversation is being monitored.”

  “It’s a little hard to explain,” Belladonna said. “It’s about your Uncle Regis.”

  “Regis is very important to us,” Trilby said. “You could say, he’s our best and most loyal client. We’re his massage therapists.”

  “You do know that I’m scheduled for execution in a few hours,” Simon said. “If my Uncle Regis sent you to give me a massage, thank him, but I doubt the authorities would allow that even if I was in the mood for your services.” He pushed back his chair, ready to head for his cell.

  “He didn’t send us. We came of our own volition,” Belladonna said, clasping her hands in her lap.

  “We’re so worried about him. He’s been acting strangely,” Trilby said, shaking her head in a gesture of puzzled despair.

  “He came to see us both in the same day,” Belladonna said. “For intensive intervention. Very intensive. In the same day.”

  “The same day,” Simon said. “I heard you the first time.”

  “He usually comes once a month,” Trilby said. “And that leaves him exhausted. He is getting on. There’s only so much a man can take.”

  “How shall I put this?” Belladonna said. “The technique I practice is a bit unconventional. It’s very physical.”

  “I can only do so much post-traumatic healing,” Trilby said. “Are you following any of this?”

  “I’m beginning to catch the scent,” Simon said. “If Regis Van Clay is having emotional problems, I’m deeply sorry for him.”

  “What about us?” Trilby said. “If anything happened to Uncle Regis it would affect our lifestyles in a very negative way. When he found me I was working in a cubicle behind a tattoo parlor.”

  “What can I do that would guarantee your fiscal stability?” Simon said.

  “I can read people,” Belladonna said. “Regis tried to convince me that he’s a happy man today. It has to do with your execution, Mr. Apple. He was raving about the joy of closure. I wasn’t convinced.”

  “Yes, he seems to believe that after this nasty business is done with he’ll be free of stress,” Trilby said, licking her lips. “But Regis seemed very stressed. Stress can do damage.”

  “If I’ve caused Uncle Regis excessive stress, please make my apologies,” Simon said. “I think it’s time to end this conversation.”

  “We were wondering if you’d be willing to opt for cremation and sign your ashes over to us,” Trilby said in a burst, bowing her lips. “We’d treat them with every consideration. I own the most gorgeous urn I bought at Sotheby’s—a museum piece. It was featured on that Antiques Roadshow program. It has a documented provenance. It was commissioned by Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France. The actual Queen of France. It’s a classic design that would complement any décor. I was saving it for myself. But I’d be willing to have your ashes placed—”

  “Oh shut up, you stupid cunt,” Belladonna said. “Listen, Mr. Apple, my thought is that Uncle Regis might like to keep you where he can see you. Possibly in his office or on a mantle at home. For constant reassurance.”

  “Making certain you’re definitely dead would surely lift his spirits,” Trilby said, with a schoolgirl smile. “Of course, we’d be willing to pay for all rights.”

  “In cold cash to your heirs. Or to a favorite charity,” Belladonna said with a knowing wink. “Bye-bye estate tax. What if you turn us down? What do they usually do with the bodies? Shovel them into a lime pit?”

  “I was planning to be stuffed and mounted,” Simon said.

  “I can relate to that,” Belladonna said. “But it’s not very realistic.”

  “This conversation is getting gross,” Trilby said, making a face. “Let’s lighten up. Mr. Apple, we have all the papers with us. All you’d have to do is sign on the dotted line. Isn’t it better to leave a joyous legacy than just decompose? I suppose they promised you perpetual care for your grave but never count on perpetual . I wouldn’t.”

  “I need a few days to think about this,” Simon said.

  “I thought tonight was the night they throw the switch or whatever it is they do,” Trilby said.

  “It is,” Simon said. “I wish you sweeties had come sooner.”

  43

  Side effects caused by Expeloton proved more extensive than first supposed. After nearly a year, Simon Apple’s fillings came loose and shot out like bullets. That was no major surprise; the fillings were metallic, made from a silver and mercury amalgam. But a routine sonogram showed that his gall bladder was clogged with sludge and stones the size of golf balls. An unexpected and alarming development.

  Shortly after the gall bladder was removed and donated to the Heidelberg Institute for Medical Oddities, it was discovered that Simon’s spleen spontaneously shrank to the size of a split pea, detached, passed through his kidneys, entered his bladder, then was excreted into a cup during a urine test ordered by Dr. Fikel.

  Expeloton, never expected to produce important profits—car fusion was not a common ailment—didn’t merit further testing by Regis. The drug was assigned to a company subsidiary, Luscious Nature, Inc., a top-secret facility where stores of anthrax, smallpox, ebola and plague were kept in an underground vault below a greenhouse where popular medicinal herbs were organically cultivated.

  Simon’s weakened condition made a return to Glenda High impossible.

  His studies continued at home with excellent success. He was graduated with honors. Mrs. Binwasser, swollen with child, brought his diploma to the house. She invited Simon to pat her belly and asked him to wish her well. “If it was a boy I would have named him after you,” she said. “But it’s a little girl and calling her Simone seemed too pretentious for Glenda. You know how real estate people tell you not to build a palace in a middle class neighborhood? We’re going to call her Virginia Brett after Virginia Wolfe and Bret Morrisey.”

  “Best wishes,” Simon said. “And I want you to know, Tabitha, that if you feel any guilt because of what happened between us, please don’t because however many parts I lost, it was an experience I’ll cherish until I disappear entirely.”

  “Nothing happened between us,” the former Miss Ulman said.

  “Right,” Simon said. “I forgot.”

  “You might like to hear that Chirp Bennet got a scholarship to the School of Visual Arts in New York. My husband had something to do with that.”

  “Excellent,” Simon said. “Chirp and I lost contact. It was my fault. I caused him great pain. He came to visit me once but we had nothing to say to one another. He just sat there glowering.”

  “That’s an old, sad story,” Mrs. Binwasser said. “
Ships that pass in the night.”

  “Speaking of passing ships, do you ever see Polly Moon? I was expecting her to drop in for old times sake,” Simon said.

  “Another expatriate. She and the Essman boy formed a rock band. They call themselves Rumplestiltskin’s Revenge. I heard they went west.”

  “Interesting,” Simon said, feeling his blood pressure surge.

  “And you, Simon? Any plans for college?”

  “I’m undecided,” Simon said. “The story of my life. Maybe I will head for some college when I feel up to snuff. The honest truth is I’m impatient to sink my teeth into some real experience. I feel too old for school.”

  “You’re still a child.”

  “So I’m told,” Simon said.

  “Whatever you do, I’m sure you’ll do well,” Mrs. Binwasser said. “I’m glad our lives touched. I hope you’ll let us hear from you from time to time.”

  “I will. You taught me how to write great postcards.”

  Robert J. had Simon’s diploma framed and hung it on the wall of his son’s bedroom.

  While he hammered in a picture hook, he said Dr. Fikel could find no physical reason for Simon’s chronic malaise and attributed it to depression brought on by trauma. “What it boils down to is that you’ve got to muster your inner resources,” Robert J. said.

  “For a person without a spleen or gall bladder that shouldn’t be too hard,” Simon said.

  “One of my customers is a psychiatrist,” Robert J. said. “Dr. Herbert Trobe. His hobby happens to be photography. He takes pictures of creatures with shells and crusts.”

  “In Glenda?”

  “We’ve got snails,” Robert J. said. “And box turtles. All kinds of insects. Besides, he’s not from here. He’s on staff at Massachusetts General. He comes to visit his mother.”