Death of a Cure Read online

  I quickly arranged for emergency bereavement leave and then purchased a last-minute, first class seat from Tokyo to New York on an Asian-based airline that I had used extensively. The price made me think that I was buying into the airline, not just renting a seat. At least this airline’s idea of service actually included service. What a concept. On a 747 they would have over forty flight attendants and a purser. In first class, the ratio was one flight attendant for each six passengers. If you inadvertently lifted an eyebrow, one would magically appear by your seat. In my case, an aisle seat — 3B.

  This particular airline amused me. All of the flight attendants were females between eighteen and twenty-four years old. They all had the same body size and shape — diminutive, a size one dress. There had to be a factory that made them somewhere, an assembly line where small, always smiling Malaysian ladies came off a conveyor belt. I don’t know what the airline did with them when they turned twenty-five. Maybe they went back to the factory for refurbishment and smile reconditioning. They were consistently shy, and I had noticed on all of my fights with this carrier that they had peculiar names. Not peculiar because they were Asian, but rather because their names were American. That is, American circa 1950. The two attendants waiting on me on this flight had name tags displaying, “Mabel” and “Ethel.” Stopping Mabel, I asked her what her real name was. She became very uncomfortable and nervously looked around before answering me.

  “Airline give me name.”

  “So, what is your real name?”

  She checked up and down the aisle again and whispered something very exotic that slipped off of her tongue without effort.

  “Why can’t you use your real name? It’s very pretty,” I quickly added.

  “Airline does not want to offend Americans.”

  Amazing. “Americans could use a little offending,” I said, maybe a little harshly. I enjoyed a quick fantasy about taking apart the ancient oriental bureaucrat who had traveled to the States fifty years ago and was the official “re-namer” due to his worldly sophistication. I was a surgeon — I could take him apart.

  Eyes cast downward, she wasn’t sure what my words meant and was still nervous about being overheard. As she moved away, I smiled at her trying to change the mood and then, making sure no one could hear, I said thank you and did my best to use her real name. She smiled back. It was a very large smile on the face of a very small lady.

  I focused on trying to sleep. On this flight, I did not have it in me to make any more small talk with the flight attendants or anyone else. The only thing needed was sleep. Sleeping on a plane is usually never a problem for me. Sleeping anywhere at anytime is never a problem for me. For transoceanic flights, the airlines have made first class a very reasonable place to sleep. The seats fold down flat and make up a bed with a little divider between you and the rest of the world. Still, tonight it wasn’t working.

  I got up and walked the length of the aircraft a couple of times. This is something I seldom do although I should. Long-distance flyers can get clots in their legs if they remain too sedentary. Everyone should get up and walk every four hours and drink lots of water to stay hydrated. Returning to my seat and electing not to watch the movie caused me to fend off another visit by a flight attendant. This time her name was Mildred, checking to see if anything was needed, was the movie playback working? Finally, I’m not sure when, I fell fitfully into a world full of bad dreams, reliving the moment when I was told that Ron was gone, over and over again.

  *

  The two Briggs brothers were physically about as different as two brothers could be. Ron was small in stature, trim with a high energy level set to a constant boil. He always sported a bow tie and wore a spotless white shirt that was never unbuttoned. I was more than a foot taller, wider at the shoulders than Ron and was considerably less driven than he was. I have never been able to get Ron to go either hunting or fishing with me. The pace would have placed his sanity in jeopardy.

  We were, in spite of our personality differences, very close. As the only two children of wealthy parents, we have had little to worry about financially, allowing us to develop diverse interests and careers. Most of this we owed to our dad. He was not going to let us rest on the family laurels and made education and making something of ourselves the priority — a distant, boarding school priority, but a priority none the less. Demonstrating considerable good sense, Mom stayed out of our father’s way when it came to the establishment of personal goals. When I was eight years old and Ron was a senior in college, our parents were killed in an auto accident. Ron finished college and entered medical school — one of the good ones.

  My little big brother was a truly great doctor, scientist, and philanthropist, and my pride for him was genuine. It was because of Ron that my military career was redirected to medical school and residency. He was, however, the really gifted physician; I was a mechanic — a fixer. In spite of his exuberant nature and fast pace, he had the intrinsic patience necessary to see scientific experimentation through to a successful end, with him pushing every step of the way. I struggle finding the patience for long-term anything. Even though I usually look like I am half asleep, I am restless and impatient with the world. Ron is the nice guy; I can’t suffer fools for very long. As a doctor, I learned surgery so I could fix problems and move on. Ron shared funny stories with his friends. I shared waterfowl hunting techniques. Ron pursued science and the cure to one of mankind’s most debilitating diseases. I pursued girls and the next mission — mankind was on its own.

  After prep school and college with frequent visits from Ron, I entered the Marine Corps as an officer candidate, my engineering degree doing little to impress my drill instructors. Six months after training began, I graduated and was placed in command of my first platoon as a freshly minted 2nd lieutenant. My road to adventure started with a lot of growing up. Thirty-nine soldiers and a platoon sergeant were rightfully suspicious of my leadership abilities. I learned quickly and had a very experienced platoon sergeant to keep me out of trouble. Through a couple of lucky breaks, I was selected for Force Recon training — the Marine Corps’ special forces. We thought we were truly the baddest of the bad. After all, the regular Marine units view themselves as equals to the other service’s special teams. Force Recon was a cut above that.

  Two tours of running with the best of the best made me just about the world’s biggest pain in the ass — but Ron still put up with me. On one visit while recovering from a training injury, Ron leaned on me one more time about medical school. We made a bet about the pre-admission test, the MCAT, which I would have to take to get accepted into medical school. The rules were simple. I had to try my best, take a prep course, and if I scored above a mutually agreed upon number, I had to give med school a chance. If I scored under it, Ron would leave me alone and happy with my fellow jarheads. Answering the 146 questions took over four hours. I scored two points above the target.

  Having presented my commander with my MCAT score, the military was happy to have me in medical school. I took a temporary leave of absence and promised to return. The government offered to pay for my tuition expenses and even continue my then-1st lieutenant’s salary in exchange for some more of my life after graduation, internship, and residency. Declining as I didn’t need the money and even though I planned to return to the military, I wanted to keep my options open and not extend the period of my indenture. After a one-year internship, a very respectable surgical residency at an institution where Ron was well known accepted me into their program. Although he never admitted it, Ron must have intervened on my behalf.

  Returning to the Marine Corps as a newly promoted captain and the only medical doctor in the corps, I gave up the “snake eater” life for surgical tours in forward Army and Navy medical units where eating snake would have been a way to improve on the cuisine. The work, however, was rewarding, and maybe I was finally growing up. News of my impending maturity must have made it to the senior members of the Marine Corps. Fortunately for m
e, they stepped in and rightfully put a stop to that evolution. Two years after serving as a military surgeon, the corps requested, strongly and with several not-so-veiled threats, that I volunteer for a billet in a new group comprised of officers from each branch of the military which had combined front-line skills with medical or science/engineering specialties. It turned out to be the best thing that could ever have happened to me. For the last six years, my position happily blended my two military lives. I was one of five docs in the group, and the only one who knew what “Semper Fidelis” meant — the rest being stunted in their development, as they did not have the benefit of being a Marine. This was something that I reminded them about regularly. In addition to my surgical skills, my new command added some crash courses in internal medicine and infectious diseases/bio warfare to my resume. Ron was a big help with these add-ons helping me in our almost daily phone calls.

  The satisfaction of base-level curiosity had kept me in the game during medical school and residency. It had been the same with engineering in college. For me, finding out how things work takes the work out of learning. However, without Ron’s constant support, my time at USAMARID learning about bacteria, viruses, and genetics would have been a nightmare. I hoped that my training had adequately prepared me to evaluate what Ron had been up to.

  All of that seemed like it was a million years ago. Losing Ron made everything else insignificant. I struggled with the facts of his death. Suicide? Why would Ron kill himself? There had to have been an accident. He would never have taken his own life. I was sure about this. How could I be wrong?

  L.A. BOUNCE

  Missing my connection in Los Angeles caused me to spend the night. Waiting for the shuttle to the hotel, I had to laugh at the civilian attempts at airport security. While standing at the curbside, I watched the TSA approved “Rent-A-Cops” chase off a young wife attempting to pick up her husband. She was driving a minivan with two kids in car seats in the second row. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail. She made several loops around the arrival level before the hotel shuttle arrived, and with each trip she was becoming more stressed, probably concerned about her husband’s late arriving aircraft. Her driving was becoming impatient as she mingled with the other stop and go traffic.

  Lining the curb, at least fifteen cabs long, was a taxi stand with very little activity given the time of night. Every driver in view had a turban wrapped around his head. One was beside his car on a prayer rug facing, to the best of his knowledge Mecca, with his forehead touching the rug and his butt pointed skyward.

  Let me understand this: “Suzie Homemaker,” with kids in tow, is forced to circle the airport while the middle-eastern cabbies wait unmolested by the front door. Now I don’t want to practice any “profiling” as the bleeding hearts put it, but this was somewhat beyond stupid. Next time I want to blow up an airport, I’ll wear Islamic garb and show up in a cab filled with explosives while I pray next to it. My earlier plan to disguise myself as a suburban housewife, complete with kids, was obviously a bad idea. Approaching the uniform, I stated the obvious.

  “You know, the population at large would have some degree of respect for you guys if collectively you had more than one brain cell.”

  “What? What’s the matter with you?” he asked.

  “There’s no guarantee that Blondie in the minivan isn’t a terrorist, but most would lay better odds that Achmed over there just might be.”

  “He’s got a hack’s license. They can wait next to the curb if they got a license,” he recited from the rulebook.

  “Background check comes with the license?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You checked to make sure that the driver is really the license holder?”

  “We don’t have to do that!” he yelled at me, his mouth hanging open at the end of the sentence. He was getting irritated and was about to lecture me on the perils of interfering with his important security-related duties.

  Fortunately, my hotel shuttle arrived before an arrest was made. After a short ride, the hotel loomed into view, and I checked in. Falling to sleep, images of terrorist taxi drivers chased my older brother away from me.

  *

  The next morning I stumbled, jet-lagged back to LAX for the final leg. By the time the plane landed at NY Kennedy, I wasn’t any better rested. I made my way to baggage claim without seeming to be of special interest to anyone. While waiting at the baggage carousel, another of the traveling public’s strange group behaviors revealed itself. Almost all the passengers think that it is necessary to stand right up next to the moving baggage carousel. When their bag finally revolves around to them, they almost kill each other pulling it off the belt due to the fact that they are jammed in side by side, the over-packed bags kinetic energy weapons.

  It always seemed to me that if they just stepped back ten feet, not only could they see their bags more easily, but when the time came to retrieve the luggage came, they could step forward and pull it out without knocking anyone senseless. The even more stupid behavior is that of parents standing right at the carousel with all of their small children next to them. I am sure that when I brain one of their little angels, they will be ready to bring suit.

  I waited for my single, medium sized bag, looking for an opening in the wall of bag grabbers like a halfback sizing up the defensive line. Pulling my bag out and not beaning one of the lemmings was difficult, but I managed not to put anyone in a hospital.

  Walking away, it became clear to me: I had officially become a pain in the ass. Even to myself.

  CONDO

  Moving quickly from the baggage carousel to the taxicab stand, I tried to stay in my own little world and not interact with anyone. It’s a mind game that men play when dealing with stressful times. Stay focused on the tasks at hand and try to make yourself feel good because you are accomplishing something, no matter how trivial. Keeping a hand over my billfold pocket for obvious reasons, I stepped through the crowds of people. One thing you can count on in any airport is that people look everywhere except where they are walking. You can get run over while a passenger is looking up at the electronic gate signs, looking for a bathroom, looking for a shoe shine stand, looking for an airline agent, looking for a place to buy one of those Hollywood gossip magazines that they just can’t live without, looking for their connecting gate, or looking for the friend who is supposed to pick them up. Looking everywhere except in front of them. Looking everywhere except at me — the guy they are about to crash into. They can’t stop to look. They must keep going. They are travelers.

  I nearly tripped over a dog recently released from baggage. He was looking desperately for a place to release the water that he drank during the flight from the cute little bowl molded right into his cute little airline kennel. I was looking at all the people not looking at me and not paying attention to the lower-to-the-ground life forms, not expecting there to be any. Sorry, guy. Hope he made it.

  Heading for the exit door and not the entrance door, although that did not appear to be an issue for many of my fellow travelers, I managed to avoid religious conversion — twice.

  On the way to the exit, the public address system warned passengers not to accept rides from “ground transportation” solicitors inside the terminal.

  It repeated over and over again. It was interminably warning those from out of town, the incredibly naive, “Please do not accept offers of ground transportation while inside the terminal. This activity is illegal and is not permitted by airport authorities.”

  Before getting to the door, I was stopped three times by unlicensed cabbies trying to get my business. I bobbed and weaved around a sea of drivers hawking their “illegal and not permitted” services. They obviously had not been listening to the announcements. Probably couldn’t hear them over the racket they were making trying to hustle business.

  It seemed to me that if this activity were really “illegal and is not permitted,” then it wouldn’t take much for the airport authorities stop it. The gyp
sy drivers were not hiding what they were doing in the slightest. A determined Cub Scout trying to get his “Crime Stopper” Merit Badge could have nailed two-dozen offenders in ten minutes. Like all travel security for the masses, it was a facade, hiding the truth in lies propped up by bureaucrats and politicians in an effort to make the taxpayers feel safe.

  The unseasonably hot and humid New York night reduced the efficiency of my perspiration/evaporation-based personal cooling system. I was going to sweat a lot for nothing. The forecast was for cooler weather starting tomorrow. City cool and crisp was better than city hot and sticky.

  There was no wait at the taxicab stand, and thus began the most dangerous portion of my trip from the Hawaii — the cab ride into midtown. My driver, Farouk, headed off for the Manhattan intersection closest to Ron’s condo in the mid 70’s and Central Park West. Forty dollars plus tip later we arrived. Farouk didn’t attempt conversation, and he didn’t try to rip me off. Farouk was OK in my book. I silently wished him luck as he made money to send home to his family in whichever of the ‘stans he was from.