Side Effects

by Harvey Jacobs

85

  When Simon left his office, Dr. Milkowitz made a slide from the scraping and shipped it down to the National Institutes of Health in Washington. His son, Milton, worked at NIH researching the mounting national death toll from legally prescribed medications, a worthwhile field of study considering that multiple thousands of victims are wiped out annually (and more thousands of cases go unreported). Those statistics result in billions of dollars in lawsuits filed against doctors and drug companies by widows, widowers, and occasional orphans. The vindictive lawsuits cause real inconvenience to health care practitioners forced to pay astronomical insurance premiums (passed on to their surviving patients) and, worse yet, to cope with mounds of time-consuming paperwork.

  Dr. Milkowitz thought his son might be able to dig around and find out about any adverse side effects associated with a compound called Compassarate Dioxide. He asked Milton for a quick reply since he gave Simon Apple no more than a few weeks to live at his present rate since he suspected that Simon suffered from a rare case of Fractus Epidermal Magneticia Detritum complicated by Multilobal Oculap Exaggeritus with signs of AAN ( Attendant Aural Neuropathy ).

  The reply he got was not from his son; it came from a smooth talking woman who identified herself as Captain Ginger Flytrap, a public relations officer with the North American Air Defense Command. She informed Dr. Milkowitz that his inquiry about Compassarate Dioxide impinged on a highly restricted area of profound military concern. The caller demanded to see all records pertaining to the patient designated Apple, Simon. When Dr. Milkowitz mentioned the issue of doctor-patient confidentiality, Captain Flytrap lowered her voice and told him to shove a sigmoid scope up his anal flexure.

  An hour later, Milton called urging his father to “comply with NORAD’s request without further delay and ask me no further questions.” His son said, without further explanation, that the letter accompanying the slide Dr. Milkowitz sent for analysis hadn’t helped his career.

  An hour after that, the Regis sales rep called to apologize for prematurely mentioning Compassarate Dioxide. “The drug showed initial promise as an anti-inflammatory,” the Regis rep said, “but all testing for human use has been suspended. In this business, you win some, you lose some.”

  “Products or patients?” Dr. Milkowitz said.

  “A little of both,” the salesman said. “Either way, for me, it comes down to income. I should have gone to med school.”

  Dr. Milkowitz hurried to send Simon’s records to Washington before the post office closed, then he walked down to the Broadway Diner for a cup of decaf and a friendly chat with Henry Sharp.

  “Thank you for recommending me to that young man, Henry. It turns out he’s been exposed to a highly toxic substance. You may have saved his life.”

  “All in a day’s work,” Henry said, flipping a pancake.

  What amused Dr. Milkowitz was Simon’s comment about his nanny—what was her name? Victoria?—dipping him into oatmeal baths, the identical panacea his own mother forced on the Milkowitz brood in poison ivy season. “So much for super drugs,” he told Henry Sharp. “There’s still something to be said for the Old Faithfuls.”

  “Like roast chicken and mashed potatoes,” Henry said.

  86

  Much to Dr. Milkowitz’s surprise, by late spring Simon Apple reported that oatmeal immersion had worked wonders, that it was no longer necessary to hide his face behind a beard and his elephantine earlobes had significantly reduced in size. The doctor didn’t know whether to credit Quaker Oats or nature’s best healer, time itself.

  He wanted to tell Milton about Simon’s dramatic recovery but ruled out any further involvement with clandestine governmental experimentation. It was best for his son if the whole incident quietly faded away.

  No longer a pariah, Simon was promoted to floor manager at Shen Wa’s bogus boutique. Part of his new job involved thumbing through a ton of magazines each month, ripping out pages with photos of celebrity trendsetters. The trends they set often began in the least expected places before being swallowed by the ravenous marketing apparatus, sanctified in shopping malls and department stores soon to be copied by Shen Wa’s elves.

  Simon also watched the adolescents around Montibello with a detached, critical eye. If he saw something he thought might be imaginative, a harbinger of a future fashion fad, he’d snap a few quick Polaroids, then attach them to a report for Shen Wa.

  Simon saw proof that the acorn doesn’t all far from the tree; shades of Robert J., he was orchestrating what amounted to a peek-a-boo album of his own featuring a curious cast of local characters. Ironically, his interest was in the clothes and shoes that covered Montibello’s beauties, not in intimate glimpses of their cleavage. Shen Wa’s mantra was: “Big money in suits, not birthday suits.” If Simon’s photos and a few rough sketches piqued his boss’s attention, the material was faxed to addresses in Thailand, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Korea, the Philippines, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay and Mexico—always with a blind copy marked for China.

  One evening after work, Simon wandered into The Irish Song for his nightly bracer. Since his promotion and the raise that came with it, he’d switched from beer to vodka martinis. He noticed that the oasis had switched bartenders, a definite upgrade if the girl who’d replaced buxom Cyril Shaunessey looked as good from the front as she did from the back. Her neat bottom, really unusual for that depressed area, immediately caught Simon’s eye and not for obvious reasons. There were two large daisies painted on the tight-fitting denim that framed her buns, their green stems running like seams down the backs of her pant legs, disappearing into the depths of her Ferragamo boots. He got out his Polaroid—flowering butts could be the wave of the future—and snapped a picture. The bright white flash made the new girl in town whirl around. Simon saw it was Polly Moon.

  “If you asked I would have smiled for you,” she said. “Do you have some kind of fetish or was hitting the button just another case of premature ejaculation?”

  “It was the hills beyond,” Simon said, astonished to see his Placebo mixing drinks in that piss-perfumed dive.

  “It’s peculiar but I think I know who you are,” Polly said. “Give me a minute to zero in.”

  “More to the point, I know who you are. Why in hell is a rock star like Polly Moon mixing drinks in a joint like this?”

  “Well, mister X, fame is fleeting. At the moment Polly’s star needs a new battery. I’ve definitely seen you somewhere. A very long time ago. Jog my memory.”

  “Simon Apple. From Glenda.”

  “Simple Simon from back home? Of course I know you. Didn’t we share our formative years?”

  “You wouldn’t share. But the truth is, we’ve seen each other much more recently. I guess you were too stressed out to remember.”

  “Stressed or stoned. I’m supposed to be working. Name your poison.”

  “Smirnoff martini on the rocks. With a twist.”

  “Chip chip. A nice boy like you drinking Smirnoff martinis in Six Pack Country? You win the lottery?”

  “I work at Feinberg’s Pine Lake Villa. It’s a famous hotel.”

  “I once played the Concord. But I thought all the ritzy hotels were dead and buried.”

  “Not Feinberg’s. It has a loyal clientele. Polly Moon, I’m very confused. The last time I saw you you’d just won a Pan for Record of the Year. You were riding the whirlwind.”

  “Long time ago, Simon.”

  “Not that long.”

  “You’re talking about the music business. Wildest roller coaster in town. But I’ll soon be ready for my first comeback.”

  “You will, Placebo. I know you will.”

  “Didn’t you used to call me by that dumb name?”

  “Polly. I meant Polly. Old habits die hard. So tell me, where are you staying?”

  “I found a room in a boarding house on Huckleberry Street. A few blocks from here.”

  “No, what a fantastic coincidence. It’s where I live. Huckleberry just off Broadway.”


  “Synchronicity,” Polly said. “It’s what makes the world go around. We never did have a chance to get to know one another. Maybe now we will.”

  87

  Dearest Love,

  Before now I never understood the Song of Solomon or the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám. If I met Sol and Omar, say for a drink, I could have asked about the problems of being the King of Israel or maybe the best carpet maker in Persia and told them something about Polo or DKNY knockoffs but I don’t think I could have really related to them beyond a point and they’d know it.

  All that changed this week. Now those guys and Simon Apple could have a one-on-one exchange of ideas concerning the outermost boundaries of love, time, luck and death. I do believe they would recognize me as a true peer, not as a king or carpet maker or duplicator of a Vuitton sack but, if I may say so without sounding pompous, smug, or self-satisfied—as a total human being in the making.

  Before this week, I think my limit in the loving department was somewhere between the Kama Sutra and Frank Sinatra. Over the years I have had intimations of sensuality as a bridge to spirituality but few and far between. With you, when our bodies touch, I am catapulted over endless horizons, finally on the highway to realization—a road without toll booths or traffic lights.

  Who would have thought nirvana was located on Huckleberry Street in Montibello, New York, a mile from the raceway? Certainly not me. You must know that since I first saw you pink and purr-fect in your pram, even the formidable barrier named Fritzel could not keep me from adoring you. Nor could your constant and brutal rejections i.e. all that spitting and vomiting, etc. Because I knew back then that behind those slings and arrows of repulsion lurked sweet ambivalence.

  I was convinced that you were my destiny and remained so, though when you became a musical idol I admit to doubting our future together. Your beautiful rendition of The Windchime Concerto seemed to carry you out of reach.

  You don’t remember a certain delivery from Wallace Waldo Enterprises involving a refrigerator with the capacity to manufacture its own ice cubes, which I saw as a mechanical metaphor for the robotic person I felt you’d become.

  I won’t dwell on details of a certain afternoon encounter when a certain girl fell asleep before she was asked to write a receipt acknowledging said delivery (for which the delivery person took a mountain of flak) except to tell you that the incident was the closest a certain young man had ever come to heaven’s gate. Still, for him it was a lonely experience. He could only hope that the certain girl’s subconscious would remember something of the afternoon she’d spent in the arms of that certain young man if only in a dream, recognizing that the odds against such a miracle of synchronicity were about fifty-to-one, if not more.

  And now, time-seasoned, we have come together!!! I think wiser; you could say tenderized by life’s thumps and bumps, ready to accept the cosmic and comic experience of absolute fusion along with the terrifying prospect of inevitable fission which is the outrageous price we must pay for “following our bliss” (as Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell advise we do on the Public Broadcasting System).

  What we have discovered together is beyond any words that might possibly approach an adequate expression of gratitude except perhaps for a simple thank you, that most humble verbal daisy not unlike the flower blooming on the back of your jeans.

  I cannot write anywhere nearly as well as Sol and/or Omar but you get the idea, you know your welcoming lips have devoured Simon Apple’s heart with every kiss, and his befuddled soul is swallowed up when you allow him to enter the Rubaiyat of your deepest cave. Thou art fair, my beloved, and don’t ever forget it—whatever the critics might say—and they will, they always do.

  Totally yours,

  Simon

  “I shouldn’t have let you read that,” Polly said.

  “No secrets between us,” Agent Beem said. “Rest assured, it will be treated with the utmost discretion.”

  “I have everything you asked for in triplicate. Fingerprints from all ten of his fingers, hair clippings cranial and pubic, nail cuttings, whisker fragments, earwax, enough seminal fluid to float the Andrea Doria and this letter of which I’d like a Xerox copy. There’s even a little vial of Simon Apple’s tears. Now, do you have the signed contract? As per the terms of our agreement?”

  “Two copies, both notarized,” Brian Beem said. “Polly Moon is now the property of Regis Muse Horizons. They’re committed to produce your next album and to promote the aforesaid with their best efforts, well in advance of next year’s Grammys. In addition the company agrees to sponsor a live tour of no less than twenty major cities across the United States. Please sign your name on the lines marked with an X and return the second copy to me. After you hand over that case of goodies, as per—”

  “As per,” Polly Moon said. “What happens to Simon now?”

  “No concern of yours. Oh, before I forget my nephew, Ronald, would appreciate your autograph. I promised to ask you. ‘Best wishes, Ronnie’ would be fine. When he heard me mention your name he got all excited but he couldn’t remember why.”

  88

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to get back,” Brian Beem said. “As the poet might say, ‘Things to do and miles to go before you sleep.’ Scratch that remark. It was crass.”

  “I’m immune to dumb jokes,” Simon said. “Living in limbo for two decades dulls the senses.”

  “ Tempis fugit. Has it been twenty years since your trial? Time flies what with all the bleeding hearts filing appeals. Not to mention the Pope’s letters, the Dali Lama’s protests, and the countless demonstrations when your death sentence came down.”

  “Twenty years almost to the day,” Simon said. “And after seven thousand three hundred and six days in a lethargic trance, I find myself in a hurry to die. You promised more details. We’re moving right along toward zero hour and I still have no idea how you linked me to Brother Lucas’s murder and a batch of tainted fish bladders. All I do know is that one balmy day in Montibello, I was chewing out a girl who’d sewed four hundred Gloria Vanderbilt labels onto Versace bikinis, a cardinal sin in the world of pseudo chic, when my boss came screaming down the factory aisles ordering everyone to quit whatever they were doing and make a dash for the rear fire exit. He was speaking about ten languages at once so I was a bit confused but the general idea was to get the hell out of the place ASAP. I ran with the rest. We made it outside and found ourselves on the set of a Dragnet film. There must have been a thousand cops surrounding Feinberg’s Pine Lake Villa, supported by more ordnance than it took to track down my quasar-powered boner as the cause of multimedia interupti in and around Serene Harbor.”

  “Actually about five hundred cops,” Beem said. “It was a lot of muscle. Possibly overkill. But the last shot we had at you was a dud. This time we were thinking Velcro. You weren’t going to walk away like you did at Brookhaven.”

  “Shen Wa was pretty pissed since he’d made all his monthly payoffs on schedule. He naturally assumed the raid had something to do with his business practices. I was happy to see the look of relief cross his face when he heard it was only me you were after.”

  “Yes, I liked seeing his face transform from pinched and anxious to loose and peaceful when he got the message. His color came back too, from wilted grass to verdant arbor.”

  “Verdant arbor? I never thought I’d hear you use language so eloquently.”

  “You hardly know me, Simon.”

  “You could arrange for us to get to know one another better.”

  “I don’t think that’s in the cards this time around. When Shen Wa and his people refused to single you out and hand you over I was filled with emotion. For a global entrepreneur and his miserable, exploited and abused wage slaves to defend a non-entity like you with so much passion, when they stood to lose everything, was truly inspiring. And when you volunteered to give yourself up, well, what can I say? It was a beautiful thing.”

  “I think it was you who read me my rights after o
utlining the charges against me. I expected my crime would relate to trademark violation or maybe the watch factory fire and the fate of Hyman Simbok. Your voice sounded so confident, so rehearsed. I felt really close to you, considering it had been so long since we first met at Quikpix. The accusations didn’t sink in until you had me inside that armored truck. Of course, knowing I was innocent, and being a fool, I assumed I’d be out of custody in twenty-four hours, not a hundred seventy-five thousand three hundred forty-four hours.”

  “You knew Hyman Simbok?”

  “Slightly. Whatever happened to him?”

  “He couldn’t deny it was his cigar that set fire to the factory building though he tried to incriminate the mayor, Evan Crimmins. I heard he’d sold a bag of hand-painted watch faces to the Whitney Museum in New York. Then I think he went down to Key West and reconnected with a childhood sweetheart from the old country.”

  “I hope he took Mengele along,” Simon said.

  “You’re losing me.”

  “His pooch from hell. Not important. I began to worry about myself when your men hustled me into that helicopter. I’d never been in a whirlybird before.”

  “Amazing machines,” Beem said.

  “The blindfold wasn’t necessary,” Simon said. “Or the cuffs.”

  “Policy.”

  “I had no clue where we landed. I never expected—”

  “You still can’t be sure about where you were,” Beem said.

  “Please. Humor me, tonight of all nights.”

  “This isn’t a conjugal visit. It’s not even official. Certain information is still classified. Which reminds me. Your friend Polly did request a conjugal last week. She said you two were married in the eyes of God.”