Miracle Man (10 page)

“Oh my.” Edith’s voice sounded like she had seen the face of God. Her words stopped mid-sentence.

12

H
arvard Yard was barren, unwelcoming and monastic on a nasty March day. Frozen sleet pelted the ground as Bobby looked out the window. Sitting in the office of the head of the astrophysics department, Bobby was bored as he read a pre-publication draft of the professor’s latest article. The inaccuracies were so evident to Bobby. They jumped off the page. Eager to be done with this task, Bobby made his corrections quickly, circling formulas and equations that he knew were wrong and scribbling revisions, as he had done many times in the past for his teachers. The renowned scholar sat next to Bobby, craning his neck to look at what Bobby was doing to his treatise, and asking Bobby to explain so that he understood what he had done wrong. That was the part that Bobby disliked the most, as it always took a lot of time for them to comprehend what he was saying. There was a knock at the door as Jason Winterthur, the dean of Harvard, walked in.
A reprieve,
Bobby hoped
.

“Professor, can you please give Robert and me a few minutes?”

“Of course. No problem. I’ll go get my nineteenth cup of coffee. Maybe then I can keep up.”

Once they had privacy, the dean said, “Robert, I just received word.” The dean placed his hand on the eleven year old boy’s shoulder as he softly said, “Your parents have been in a car accident. Apparently, they were on their way here to visit you. A trailer truck jack-knifed and slammed their car head-on. The officers said they died instantly. I am so sorry, Robert.”

Bobby’s face drained of color as he crumpled to the old wooden floor. He lay there on his side sobbing and gasping for breath. Dean Winterthur knelt over him. As the pitiful sounds of the child resonated through the vacuous halls of the Jefferson building, students and professors rushed into the room to see what was going on. Despite everyone’s efforts, Bobby was inconsolable. He lay there crying for fifteen minutes, and then he was gone, silent. The Harvard medics rushed the unconscious boy to Massachusetts General Hospital. Dean Winterthur called Dean Vanderslice who politely chided him for not having had Bobby brought to the Institute’s own medical facility. Vanderslice called Uhlman who called Director Varneys.

Varneys slammed his fist against his desk as he barked at Uhlman, “I want Austin out of that public hospital immediately. This is outrageous. Get him back to the Institute now.”

“I’ll see how quickly I can get him released,” said Uhlman. “Mass General has strict protocols.”

“I’ll take care of it myself,” Varneys snarled. “Meanwhile, get Vanderslice over there and tell her to take security with her. I don’t want anybody at that hospital touching Austin.”

Within one hour of Uhlman’s hanging up the phone, Bobby was in an ambulance heading to the Institute, accompanied by Vanderslice. Four security guards followed in a black Lincoln Navigator. Bobby still had not regained consciousness. Via webcam, Uhlman supervised Bobby’s installation into a heavily equipped hospital room at the Institute. As he did this, he called Director Varneys.

“We have him back now,” Uhlman said.

“Now what the hell happened?” asked Varneys.

“You remember we discussed Professor Dabrowski’s Overexcitability Factors and how the magnitude of those are directly proportional to intelligence?”

“Yes, of course I remember,” replied Varneys.

“Two of those OE’s came into play when Robert got the news of his parents’ death. ‘Psychomotor’ and ‘Emotional’. He was overcome. His mind just shut him down.”

“When will it power him back up again?” asked Varneys.

Massaging his forehead, Uhlman was hoping he could keep his headache from escalating to a migraine. “I don’t know. But I can tell you that this will have consequences.”

Varneys face reddened. “Well, it’s your job to minimize them. The boy’s officially now a ward of the federal government. He’s in our hands. I’m having his background records sent to me. They’ll be sealed.”

Dr. Uhlman, Dean Vanderslice, and three professors accompanied Bobby to his parents’ funeral. The twelve other foster children that Edith and Peter had raised were all there, as were their spouses and children, many friends, neighbors, Peter’s co-workers and Natalie Kimball. The Austin’s church, an unpretentious wood frame building with worn gray carpets and pews badly in need of refurbishment, was full. Because the accident had been so catastrophic, the caskets were closed. Never had Bobby felt so alone, except in his nightmares.

As Kimball listened to the eulogy and stared at Bobby, her mind drifted back eleven years. She remembered how she had visited him at least once a day in the orphanage, usually on her way to work. She could still visualize him lying in a tiny crib in the cavernous ward, one in a triple- line of identical metal cribs numbering over fifty. Mantra like, Kimball had repeated to the infant, “Don’t worry. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” She recalled her conversation with Dr. Drummond of Child Welfare Services after he had completed his examination.

“The good news is that the little boy —#2764— is a healthy baby who’s about two weeks old. Some antibiotics are needed as a precaution, but he’ll be fine.”

“Wonderful,” Kimball replied. Is there any way you can speculate on what hospital he was born in?”

“Well, that’s easy. I don’t have to speculate. He wasn’t born in any hospital. He didn’t even have a professional home birth. This kid was born the old fashioned way.”

“Are you sure?”

“There’s no question about it. His lungs are congested by the presence of amniotic fluid due to the absence or improper administration of pulmonary suctioning following birth and the umbilical cord was left several inches too long when it was cut.”

At the end of the memorial service, Kimball came up to Bobby. “ I’m sure you don’t remember me Robert, but I just want to say that I’ve heard so much about your accomplishments and I’m very proud of you. I’m so sorry that we meet again under these circumstances.” Bobby stared at Kimball, his mind racing to recognize her. The face didn’t look familiar, but he recalled the voice. Just as he was about to start a conversation with her, Uhlman nodded to the two security guards who had accompanied them, and they ushered Bobby off to a waiting limousine.

Since his parents’ death, Bobby had changed. He had become quiet, withdrawn, taciturn and joyless. His quick light-hearted banter and precocious sarcasm were gone. As the ensuing months rolled by, it was evident to everyone around him that he was suffering greatly. Dr. Verjee did his best to try to draw Bobby out and comfort him, but the boy had erected a barrier around himself, a fence to insulate himself from any more hurt. He buried himself ever more deeply in his work and it became his refuge. Most nights, the grad students in the adjoining bedroom heard him quietly crying. His trances became more frequent and lasted longer. Dr. Uhlman became increasingly concerned.

“Orin, I’m worried about the Austin boy,” Uhlman said.

“He’ll get over it. Everyone does. He’s still working, right?”

“That’s not the point. He’s not headed in a good direction. Don’t forget his proclivity for reality detachment. He could shut down and check out, period. We have to do something affirmative,” Uhlman said.

“What do you propose?”

“We need to bring someone into his life who can rejuvenate him, help him get his spark back. His
joie de vie
. Someone who can be a surrogate parent, who he can relate to.”

“I’m not starting up with any more foster parents if that’s what you have in mind,” replied Varneys.

“What I’m thinking of, is to find him a mentor. Someone on a high intellectual level that he can relate to — not just another professor, someone who would spend real time with him and bring him back to the world of the living.”

“I’ll support that in principle as long as that person keeps him focused where we want him, and doesn’t waste time. I don’t need some boy scout here. And I don’t want anybody who’s going to fill his head with nonsense.”

“Let me work with one of your programming people and the database and I’ll see what I can find,” said Uhlman.

“Okay, but remember our priorities.”

Uhlman made a list of the key search criteria. The OSSIS data banks were among the most comprehensive in the nation, and within fifteen seconds of the programmer’s pressing “Enter,” Uhlman had a list of prioritized names and contact details.

13

U
hlman handed a thick red file to Joseph Manzini as they sat in the study of Manzini’s rambling Tudor style house in Brookline, a Boston suberb not far from the Institute.

“Dr. Manzini, I can’t leave this file with you as its contents are highly confidential, so please read through it now. Take your time, I’m not in a rush. That will give you the background on what I’m here to discuss,” said Uhlman.

Joseph Manzini was of Northern Italian ancestry. Standing five feet ten inches tall and of average build, he had an olive complexion and short black curly hair that was neatly coiffed behind a receding hair line. His nose was too prominent and imperfectly formed for him to be considered handsome but a broad smile illuminated his face and his warm brown eyes twinkled playfully. At 58 years old, his outgoing, high-energy personality was what one would expect in a matire’d at a fashionable bistro, rather than a renown bio-chemist. Manzini had risen to a prominent position in a major pharmaceutical company by virtue of his brilliant discoveries. Tired of corporate politics, he resigned from the company at forty-six, cashing-out hundreds of thousands of highly appreciated stock options that he had accumulated over twenty years on the job. His retirement was derailed when he was quickly recruited by Tufts University to chair its bio-chemistry graduate school program. Manzini held this position for nine years but then left so that he could spend all his time caring for his ailing wife. She passed away when he was fifty-six from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis— Lou Gehrig’s disease.