Side Effects

by Harvey Jacobs

  In the farthest part of the room, workers steamed, pinned and folded dresses, suits, shirts, ties, T-shirts, gloves, scarves—every conceivable kind of apparel, then loaded it into large cardboard cartons. The plant opened onto a loading dock where the cartons were fork-lifted onto trucks and vans that came and went non-stop.

  “This where you work. At desk in corner. Preparing invoices and keeping track of our shipments. I count on you to set good example for others. In no time you advance to a foreman. Most of my workers live upstairs in dormitories. Smelly, tiny cubicles. Not for you. For you I rent room in Montibello on Huckleberry Street where Fish Boy can enjoy privacy. Don’t thank me, Simon. I am always in your debt. And, oh, I am sending you a tube of Tiger Balm for your strange affliction.”

  81

  Because Warden Donal was a devoted fan of Wallace Waldo’s radio show, Wallace, Benny Valaris and Rosy Freeman were brought to Simon Apple’s cell without the traditional courtesy of asking permission from the condemned man. Though Simon was deep in philosophical thought, he was glad to see what he’d come to call The Nairobi Trio in a tribute to the monkey band created by the late comedian, Ernie Kovacs.

  “Who did the set design?” Waldo said, examining the cot, sink and toilet. “I like it. There’s a stark realism, a post-modern minimalist expressionism.”

  “Probably,” Simon said.

  “So, our own Sinbad Green turns out to be a killer,” Benny Valaris said. “I always thought there was something a tad holier than thou about you. But I wish you’d confided in me. If you had, you’d be living somewhere in the Caribbean or maybe Budapest. I’m like a conductor on the Underground Railroad and just for the hell of it. I like helping deviants.”

  “Sinbad, er, Simon, knows you have a good heart,” Rosy said. “Is there anything you need, baby? Anything we can do for you?”

  “Nothing,” Simon said. “The fact that you bothered to drop in is more than enough. So, Benny, how’s life in the theater?”

  “Not what it was. The ingenues are into karate these days. My total score is down but the quality is up. I think it’s the Actor’s Studio thing.”

  “You know what I think about some nights?” Simon said. “The piano store downstairs.”

  “That’s curious,” Rosy said. “I dream about the place.”

  “Unplayed pianos make marvelous music,” Waldo said.

  “Very profound,” Benny said. “A line like that could make the Buddhist edition of the Bullshit Times. Listen, Sinbad, the thing is, you’re a real celebrity.”

  “Until midnight,” Simon said.

  “Right,” Benny said. “After twelve you’re just another ghost. But I was wondering if you might say something to the news ghouls who come to witness the last crap you let fly into the diaper they wrap you in because the sphincter lets go when that heavenly white light switches on. Personally, I always thought the twenty-one grams of soul the New Age undertakers write about exit the body through the same back door. But enough of that. Hey, good buddy, for old times sake, if you’d drop a plug for Beaver Beer before you start gagging on phlegm, like, Christ, wouldn’t a can of Beaver Beer taste great about now, made from pure mountain spring water? It would mean a lot to us, especially Wallace here because frankly the business hasn’t been doing so great. Right, Rosy? I know you believe Rosy.”

  “He promised he wouldn’t ask you,” Rose said.

  “He can’t help himself,” Simon said.

  “Pure mountain spring water tumbling over ice cold rocks,” Waldo said. “Beautiful message except for the fact that fishes fuck in pure mountain spring water.”

  “It’s been nice seeing you all,” Simon said. “But I’m a little tired now, so—”

  “Yeah,” Benny Valaris said. “Later.”

  82

  FROM THE DESK OF MARVIN KLIPSTEIN, ESQ.

  To: The Honorable Taylor Sturgeon, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court

  Dear Justice Sturgeon,

  My name is Marvin Klipstein, who, as you may recall, was privileged to plead for clemency (which the Court unanimously denied) in the landmark case of The United States of America v. Simon Apple earlier this afternoon.

  There are certain truths I wish to share with you, anticipating the remote possibility of some future opportunity, however unlikely, to face the Supreme Court at some future date. It is my fervent hope that you and your colleagues will not harbor any ill will toward me for presuming to attempt any delay in the scheduled execution of my client, Simon Apple, by lethal injection this evening.

  My usual legal energies involve less noteworthy cases, often drawn from the underbelly of the Law: I specialize in accidents, insurance claims, real estate closings, Civil Court proceedings, traffic violations and similar humble assignments. It is obviously no secret, to you or to myself, that Marvin Klipstein, Esq., is absolutely unqualified to appear before you.

  I hope you will realize that I accepted the mandate to represent Mr. Apple pro bono that was thrust upon me by Judge Harrison Theodore Bane of the First District Court in Glenda, Minnesota.

  Judge Bane assured me that all proceedings would be pro forma, that your verdict was inevitable. Of course, clemency is out of the question here.

  I believe that even a country lawyer like myself who never wanted to be part of this profession, who was goaded into attending law school by a brutal father who hit me with prayer books when I hesitated to honor his will, should bring a modicum of passion to his efforts on behalf of any client.

  I did not want Simon Apple to feel, in that awful second before the chemicals seize his heart, that he was badly represented by counsel. I was obliged to mount a strong argument on behalf of the very idea of compassion.

  I myself would never condone postponing this execution. But the process must be served. In our democracy even a Simon Apple, may he soon find peace, has the right to one last gasp of—or grasp at—hope even if the condemned man has renounced that right time and again.

  Simon Apple was given a rousing defense (allowing for the absence of certain highly sensitive information concerning extenuating circumstances which might have confused deliberations). Presented with overwhelming evidence, the men and women of the jury agonized for the better part of an hour before finding him guilty.

  Nine of the twelve jurors in that courtroom shed a waterfall of tears even as they rose to their duty and demanded Apple’s demise! They wept for the victims and possibly for the accused as well, once a good person, turned somehow in a fiendish direction.

  Since the day of his sentencing some twenty years ago, no less than thirty-six appeals have been filed on his behalf by interested parties, this despite the fact that before each appeal the condemned man requested no further action be taken to spare or to prolong his life. Simon Apple knows full well that he represents a clear and present danger to the economic welfare of our blessed nation and the way of life we so cherish!

  We can justly say that we have given Mr. Apple his due as an American citizen. And I can say to you that Lawyer Klipstein, repulsive as the task was, did his best to stay the scythe of the reaper. I hope you can forgive me if my efforts to save my client appeared too zealous and I want to apologize if the Court felt I wasted your precious time and taxpayer money indulging some frivolous whim.

  Eternally grateful for your understanding, I remain,

  Sincerely yours,

  Marvin Klipstein, Esq.

  83

  Simon’s first responsibilities at Shen Wa’s high-end counterfeit clothing factory—checking manifests and mailing out invoices—were repetitious and boring, exactly what he needed to rest and regroup an addled brain. After the hectic flight from Long Island, Simon wanted a mental vacation; he enjoyed every vacuous minute of the peace that comes with mindlessness.

  Each day he left his rooming house on Huckleberry Street at dawn. As promised, Simon’s boss had arranged for him to be driven to Feinberg’s Pine Lake Villa. His driver was the mechanic responsible for maintaining th
e motors, belts and pulleys that kept the factory going—a native of Montibello who called himself Thunderclap Bald Bird and claimed to be the last member of an obscure branch of the Mohawk Nation.

  In addition to his mechanical acuity, Thunderclap was Shen Wa’s ace in the hole in his fight to turn the area into another Las Vegas. If the government ruled that a large portion of Sullivan County was the rightful property of Thunderclap’s family and therefore entitled to reservation status, there was no law to prevent slot machines, crap tables and roulette wheels from bringing new prosperity to the tribe.

  “The Great Spirit works in mysterious ways” was a favorite and frequent observation of Thunderclap in the brief conversations he had with Simon. Mostly they talked about the lousy coffee they regularly picked up at the Broadway Diner or the odds spread on the following Sunday’s football games. That ritual of comfortable non-communication was repeated every night, when Simon was driven back to Huckleberry.

  After work, it was Simon’s daily habit to stop in at a bar called The Irish Smile. The place had known better days; adapting to its collapsed location, the eponymous Smile had drooped to a forlorn frown. The place was falling apart. Like his numbing job and those anesthetic chats with Thunderclap Bald Bird, the scene dovetailed perfectly with Simon’s mood. He’d have a solitary beer while he watched Vanna White cross back and forth turning consonants and vowels on Wheel of Fortune, then cross over to the Broadway Diner to order the Blue Plate Special, whatever it happened to be.

  Henry Sharp, a huge black man, the diner’s owner and chef, had cooked for hotels like Grossingers, The Concord, Laurel’s Country Club, Feinbergs Pine Lake Villa, The President, and Kutcher’s—elite establishments that catered to a strictly kosher crowd. His specialty was preparing dishes that tasted like something else: kosher bacon, kosher chow mein, kosher prawns, kosher oyster stew—forbidden foods miraculously transformed to conform to orthodox standards. He accomplished that magic using certified meat, fish, vegetables and a dazzling array of spices. One of Henry’s most valuable talents was to visit a table that ordered some pseudo goyish delicacy and take an oath that no gourmet could distinguish his ersatz dishes from the real thing; what Shen Wa’s operation did for clothing, Henry Sharp did for recipes. When Simon ordered a dish like crab cakes or meatloaf at the Broadway Diner he could never be sure it wasn’t made from leftover flounder heads, collard greens or sheep’s kidneys decimated then married in a Waring Blender; reasonable doubt remained even if Henry put his hand on his heart and swore to its authenticity. But the food was generally edible and the price was right.

  After dinner, Simon would pick up a newspaper or a magazine at Iggy’s Convenience Store on the corner of Broadway and Huckleberry, then head back to his room.

  He wished desperately to call Robert J. and Rowena, to hear familiar voices, but he knew better; if Simon Apple was a fugitive from Federal Communications Commission investigators, an accused arsonist, a homicide suspect, or a candidate for medical research wanted for stealing a precious tube of Compassarate Dioxide, the phones back in Glenda were surely tapped.

  None of that would matter if the peculiar skin condition that began with his first Compassarate Dioxide massage got much worse. Simon had the feeling his life was coming to an end. By spring, Simon quit shaving because the touch of a blade was agonizing and looking into a mirror even more painful. The beard he sprouted helped hide his face but not his earlobes which had graduated from moth-sized flaps to bat wings.

  Even the gathering of chronic depressives and bond slaves at the knock-off factory, The Irish Smile drunks, the Broadway Diner regulars with spirits like wilted lettuce, the inmates at the boarding house on Huckleberry Street looked away when Simon passed through their field of vision. Mornings and evenings, Thunderclap plastered himself against his driver’s door, sitting as far from Simon as the car allowed.

  It was Henry Sharp who directed him to the office of Dr. Franklin Milkowitz on Cherry Lane. Milkowitz, a retired family physician, took on a few interesting patients just to keep his hand in. Simon postponed making an appointment for as long as he could, then arranged for a consultation.

  “Are you a real doctor or one of Henry’s concoctions?” Simon said to a round, energetic man wearing a stethoscope that hung like a necklace.

  “I’m the only game in town,” Dr. Milkowitz said. “You’re lucky you got here before an owl tried to eat you. When did you first notice you had a problem?”

  “It’s a long story,” Simon said. “It might have something to do with an ointment called Compassarate Dioxide.”

  “Coincidence,” Dr. Milkowitz said. “A sales representative from Regis Pharmaceuticals mentioned that to me only earlier today. Said that the stuff was way off-the-record, but he thought I’d hear about it from my son if I hadn’t already. I got the idea it has something to do with electronics and might be harmful to magnetic resonance imaging equipment, not that there’s an MRI in Montibello, and probably a danger to pacemakers. How did you happen to get your hands on a restricted designer chemical? Are you involved in some kind of test?”

  “I’m not part of any test. How I fit into the picture is a very long story,” Simon said.

  “I need time to noodle this out,” Dr. Milkowitz said. “Meanwhile, I could give you some wonder drug but you might end up wondering why I used a hydrogen bomb before trying a sparkler. One of my mother’s magic potions might help. Whenever I had a rash on my pipick, she headed for the kitchen, not the drugstore. I suggest you buy a large box of Quaker Oats at the market and large patches of loose surgical gauze from the pharmacy. Staple the gauze into small pouches, fill them with uncooked oatmeal flakes and dangle a few of the bags in a hot bath. Soak in the tub at least twice a day for an hour or more. When you finish bathing, squeeze the wet oatmeal bags over a glass like tea and wash your face and ears in oatmeal soup.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Simon said. “It sounds like witch medicine. I think my nanny, Victoria, did something like that to me when I was a baby. She was very holistic. And she hated to waste food.”

  “I’ll take a scraping to see if we’re dealing with a fungus, a virus, bacteria or just another one of God’s little jokes,” Dr. Milkowitz said, reaching for something shiny and sharp.

  84

  FROM WALL STREET WHISPERS—YOUR INSIDER MARKET REPORT

  ARE WE HEARING RIGHT? IS REGIS PHARMACEUTICALS ABOUT TO UNLEASH A GIANT? IS REGIS’S NEW VENTURE, MUSE HORIZONS, A “SOUND” INVESTMENT? LISTEN UP . . .

  Dire predictions downgrading the future of Regis Pharmaceuticals, resulting from the dramatic loss of revenue caused by the governmental ban on Stalagamide, might prove premature. Word on the Street is that the company is about to release a blockbuster new product—HypaVibe/The Miracle Module—under the mantle of a new division, Muse Horizons.

  Strange as it may seem, HypaVibe, far outside Regis Pharmaceuticals usual product mix, is aimed at the burgeoning consumer electronics market!

  When quizzed about very loud buzz predicting a fifty-point jump in Regis Pharmaceuticals stock, analysts point to very optimistic remarks by Mr. Van Clay at a gathering of Pop Culture mavens in the sparkling new Regis Auditorium in Hollywood.

  “Regis Muse Horizons, our newest division, will quickly establish itself as a leader in all aspects of sound technology ranging from a new generation of hearing aids to speakers with unparalleled fidelity. Our involvement in the pop and classical music scene will blend the technical with the creative. We will engage in the production of CD albums and videos featuring multiple Grammy Award–winning musical groups, top singing stars and the world’s great orchestras. The transition from LP and VCR to CD formats can only be compared to the inevitable decline of Neanderthal culture and the exciting transition to Cro-Magnon dominance. Who can say what the future will bring?”

  When asked about Regis Pharmaceuticals sudden entry into the music business, Mr. Van Clay explained that his entire working life has focused on curing illness and decrepitude. “A
wareness of those horrors has increased my appreciation for the gift of music. The old saying that ‘music hath charms to soothe the savage breast’—or is it beast?—is absolutely accurate. So I will do my best to put aside thoughts of virulent viruses for a moment and allow time and energy for our company to contribute to the hearing, and listening , pleasure of millions. HypaVibe improves the performance of any speaker system, telephone to stereo.”

  Along with talk of Regis’s sudden interest in sound transmission, there are also several unanswered questions floating around concerning the “Miracle Module’s” role as a “miracle molecule” with future medical and military applications. The company refuses to confirm or deny the validity of any such claims. Our attempts to investigate reports of a whopping contract awarded to Muse Horizons by the Department of Defense proved futile. One wonders if the military has developed a sudden interest in attack dancing—or if something else is afoot?

  WALL STREET WHISPERS has upgraded Regis Pharmaceuticals stock to a magnetically attractive BUY NOW.