Miracle Man (23 page)

Rollie read Owens’ report and combined it with his own findings and those of several local agents from other locales whom he had engaged in the process of locating Alan. The research showed that Alan had tried a succession of southern cities, staying in each for a period of months, doing the odd part-time job and living in short-term rental accommodations. Though it had been two decades prior, Rollie and his agents were able to retrace Alan’s nomadic journey through Atlanta, Charlestown, Little Rock, Pensacola, Miami and then the Keys.

When Susan picked up the report, Rollie said, “Well, Miss Jones. I’ve written a lot of missing person reports, but this one’s a doozey. What a freaky story. And wow—-so much press on this guy. That’s why the report is so thick—-I stuck in a lot of the press clippings. It provides ‘flavor’ if you know what I mean.”

“Mr. Carter, that’s very interesting but I don’t want to hear anymore. Please put it in a sealed envelope for me.”

When Susan gave Bobby the package, he locked his office door, cut the tape and removed the black folder. He placed it in front of him on his desk and stared at it for awhile. Then he began to read. Two hours later, he buzzed Susan on the intercom and asked her to come in.

“I read the report. I think you made a good choice on the detectives you hired.”

“Well, they cost enough. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yes I did. It’s actually better than what I was expecting.” Bobby looked into Susan’s kind brown eyes. There wasn’t a person on Earth that he felt closer to or trusted more. He had confided everything else, and the openness of their relationship entitled her to know. But he just couldn’t bear to tell her. “I’ll tell you soon, Susan. I promise. Now’s just not the right time. Thanks for helping me.”

That night Bobby brought the Bay Colony report with him to the living quarters which were attached to his office at the laboratory. He opened the folder to the page which had Alan’s contact details. Sitting down at his computer, he began to type a letter to him. It wasn’t an easy letter to write but finally Bobby was satisfied. He folded the single page into the stamped envelope. He then removed stacks of books from atop an old trunk that he had stashed in a far corner, and placed the report inside of it. The trunk already contained hundreds of press items he had researched on the internet and printed out, or sent away to publishers for, which dealt with the “Dumpster Baby” story. Bobby closed the trunk and began to stack the books back on top of it. But then he stopped. He sat down on the floor and just stared at the envelope that held his letter to Alan. He opened the trunk and threw it in.

36

I
t was a warm Tuesday in early October six years later. The leaves were
beginning to turn their autumnal colors. Bobby lounged on a day bed drinking a large Bloody Mary. It was one in the afternoon and he had awakened only an hour ago. He squinted from the sun shining into the room and cupped his left hand against his forehead to block the rays. He had been on one of his binges and his last night’s companion was still asleep in the bedroom. Bobby looked around the room. It was a typical scene for this apartment. Wine and liquor glasses, their contents in various states of consumption, were all over the place. Overflowing ashtrays were on the coffee table and floor. The sofa looked like it had been attacked. Its cushions were everywhere. Various items of female attire were strewn about. The apartment’s air was stale with the mixed odor of booze, incense, pot and sex. This was one of the rare times when Bobby was actually in his own loft apartment on Front Street.

As Bobby sipped his drink, he reflected that this apartment was really no more than his den of iniquity. He was only there when he needed a private place for one of his crash landings. Otherwise, he lived in the small quarters adjacent to his Tufts office. To put an end to Susan’s badgering, Bobby had rented this place so that as she put it, “You can make believe you have a life.” That was eight years ago. The one bedroom apartment wasn’t luxurious, but it was the nicest place of his own that he had ever had. Susan had found it for him and the lease was in her name to preserve Bobby’s anonymity, of which he had become increasingly protective after the media circus that his autoimmune disease breakthrough had inspired. Bobby had taken an immediate liking to the apartment because most of the living space consisted of a large open area with oak floors and expansive floor to ceiling windows—“very un-claustrophobic” was how Bobby described it. The apartment was cluttered with the hundreds of books that Joe had given him, large sketch pads which stood against the walls, an electric piano, two blackboards on wheels, boxes full of CDs, and endless stacks of scientific periodicals.

Bobby glanced in the mirror. He pondered which looked worse, him or his old abused sofa. The two day bender that he had just been on was the pressure valve release which had followed three months of intensive work. Switching on the TV, Bobby flicked the remote from channel to channel, settling on a twenty-four hour news network. Looking at the screen blankly, he was about to change the channel when the reporter excitedly jumped on a new story:

“This breaking news just in. The Nobel Prize Committee in Stockholm announced minutes ago that it has awarded this year’s Nobel Prizes in both medicine and chemistry to Dr. Robert James Austin for his revolutionary discoveries in gene augmentation therapy that have resulted in a cure for Muscular Dystrophy. The Committee’s announcement went on to say— and I quote, “These tools are of such extraordinary significance that they have established a new paradigm for the entire scientific community in battling other human maladies.” Bobby settled back into his chair and sighed. He knew what this would mean. She continued, “We now go direct to our reporter in Stockholm, Richard Shaffer, who is at the headquarters of the Nobel Foundation where the announcement was just made”.

“Thank you, Sally. There’s a lot of excitement here. The awards announced today will be Austin’s fifth and sixth Nobel Prizes. He received his first two, chemistry and medicine, when he was twenty-five years old for his multiple sclerosis cure, which established the scientific blueprint and methodology that led directly to the cures for over eighty other autoimmune diseases. Two years later, he stunned the world when he won a Nobel Prize in biochemistry for his cure of ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrigs disease, and then three years after that, a Nobel in biophysics for his selective electromagnetic cellular regeneration methodology.” There’s speculation as to whether this time Austin will personally attend the awards ceremony. He never has done so in the past and has directed the Committee to pay the cash award directly to his research foundation. If he does the same this year, that will bring the total to over eight million dollars.”

“Thank you, Richard. Truly amazing. But so little is known about this reclusive thirty- three year old genius who shuns publicity and all celebrity. We don’t even have photographs of him and there appear to be no records of his life prior to his years at MIT and Harvard. Tune in tomorrow evening at eleven for a special report—“Miracle Man In Our Midst.”

Bobby downed the rest of his drink. Every time he received an award or made a discovery, it became an impetus to the press to dredge him up as the subject of a story or special report. The snooping began anew. He hated to admit it, but in retrospect, he was grateful to Orin Varneys for having taken possession of all records relating to his childhood and sealing them under the protection of the OSSIS. Bobby shuddered to think about the field day the media would have if they had been able to discover his past. The mere thought caused him to grab the half empty bottle of Macallan 18 that was perched on the coffee table, fill a glass that was lying on the floor and take a long gulp. He glanced uneasily at the old trunk that was tucked into a corner of the living room, piled high with books. As he stared at the amber liquid that had been Joe’s favorite scotch, he became lost in thought. Later that night, he opened the trunk and retrieved the letter he had written to Alan Gottshalk some six years earlier. This time he would mail it.

Over the course of the ensuing year, the name used by that one news network to describe Bobby in the title of their special report gained increasing traction. Much to his embarrassment, Bobby began to be routinely referred to in the worldwide media as “Miracle Man.”

37

A
lan Gottschalk smiled as the screen door of his house banged shut behind him and he breathed deeply
of the cool fragrant air coming in off the surf. Holding a mug of steaming black coffee that he had just poured, he walked to his mailbox. His dog, Jackson, a large brown mutt that he had rescued from the dog pound two years earlier, followed him dutifully. The tall sea grass in Alan’s garden swayed rhythmically in the salty breeze. The few clouds looked like torn white ribbons in the azure sky. Alan’s favorite sound, that of sea gulls, was overhead and as he looked up to see them, the sun shone so brightly that his eyes squinted shut. He never tired of the climate and beauty of the Keys. He was thankful every day that he had been given a reprieve from the darkness of his former life. Opening his mailbox, he took his few pieces of mail and brought them back to the kitchen and threw them on the kitchen table as his two pieces of toast popped up. He gingerly grabbed them out of the toaster, buttered them and then cracked two eggs into the frying pan with the casual expertise of a short-order cook. When his sandwich was ready, he placed it on a plate and sat down at the table. As he sipped his coffee and ate his breakfast, he perused the mail. Phone bill, electric bill, advert flyer from the local supermarket, and a plain white envelope with no return address. Opening the envelope, Alan unfolded the piece of paper in it and read:

Dear Mr. Gottschalk,

I am so happy that I was able to find you and I apologize for any intrusion that I may have caused in doing so. Many years ago, you were very kind to me. You showed great courage and moral character and in the process, you saved my life and gave me my first home. I am indebted to you beyond words and will always be. I hope to meet you one day, but for now I have work to complete. My accomplishments are your accomplishments.

Sincerely,

Robert James Austin a/k/a ‘Little Fella’

P.S.—I would greatly appreciate if you would keep our communications confidential as privacy is very important to me.

He read the letter again. He then stared at the piece of paper incredulously.
Is this some kind of sick joke? Who the hell would do this to me?
Alan sat at his kitchen table gazing blankly out the window. Like he was watching a movie, his mind began to replay with uncanny clarity and detail, events that had taken place over thirty years ago—-events that had changed his life forever. How he had brought the infant back to his shanty in a rambling homeless community that the media cynically had dubbed “Riverview Estates.” How he had roughly fashioned a baby bottle out of a hypodermic syringe that he had sanitized with crazy Mary’s cheap vodka, how his neighbors had embraced the child and stolen every supply needed for his sustenance from strollers in the city’s parks that were left unattended by distracted nannies, and how after two weeks of taking care of the baby, the police had found them. Slumped in the chair with his eyes closed, vivid memories asserted their supremacy over him as if it had all happened yesterday.

The squad cars screeched up to the station house. Two social workers from the Bureau of Child Health and Welfare Services were already there and waiting. Alan was escorted out of the car, still holding the infant and surrounded by four police officers. The social workers’ eyes widened as they looked at a man in full homeless regalia tenderly holding a baby who appeared to be happily accustomed to being in his arms. The more senior social worker, Natalie Kimball, reached out to take the child from Alan. He lowered the baby from his cradled position and held him out vertically, directly in front of his face. Looking deeply into the child’s clear light blue eyes, he said, “Look how handsome you are ‘little fella’ and look how much you’ve already grown.”

Alan pressed the baby against his chest and planted a kiss on top of his head. Putting his scraggly whiskered face against the baby’s right ear, he whispered, “You’re a very special little boy. Never forget that. I love you ‘little fella’.”