The Mentor (40 page)

“You,
mister,
remember
!  Oh, tell me, tell me, tell me!”

“Just a
matter of time, man.”

She leaped
at me and hugged me around the neck.  Pavan gave me a glance, popped his
eyebrows.

No, we’d
never been like that. But, we’d been close.  From what I did remember,
she’d come from one of the tiny states in the northeast-- Delaware, Rhode
Island, something like that, it hadn’t all come back yet-- and in Atlanta,
she’d felt a bit swallowed up.

We’d met in
Freshman English, and quickly became pretty good friends.  When either of
us would be heading out on a date, she or I (the memory was becoming clearer
and clearer) would send a picture from our phone to the other with the caption,
“How do I look?”

Invariably,
the answer was: “You look fat.”

Oddly, that
line calmed the dater’s nerves a little, we’d both once admitted to each other.
 So it soon became our everyday greeting.

I’d not
remembered it again, for years, until that moment.

“We just
got through the staff meeting, and we’re putting together the show.”

“Shit, is
this a bad time?”

“No, no.
 The Line Producer has to stack it and we take the stories we’re assigned
and segment produce.  It’ll be another half hour before I’ve got to start
thinking about my bit.  You wanna quick tour?”

I shook my
head.  “Nah, but I was hoping you could give me the thumbnail sketch on a
piece you did about a charity.  Solomon-Bluth.”

The doors
parted and we stepped onto the fifth floor.  Weaving through video editing
bays the size of small walk-in closets, one by one in succession along the
walls, we crossed another threshold and she pulled us toward the newsroom.

“Yeah, not
us.  That was the 10 o’clock show.  They had the G.A. reporter work
up a piece for part of a theme week we had about real-life Superheroes.”

“Real-life
Superheroes? Ick.”

Shrugging,
she said: “It was a sponsored series, D-man.  A lot of 'news' gets done that
way now.”  Back at Sci-Cad, Karen had a
cooler-than-you
habit of
often using a person’s first initial when talking with them.  It seems she
held onto that even years later.

“Did you
see the piece?”

“Actually,
yeah.”  Once away from the low ceilings of the editing bays, we crossed
over a common area, and into the newsroom.  There were more televisions
hanging on the wall than during a Best Buy superstore Black Friday sale.
 Each tuned to a different network, around the world.

Overhead,
an “all call” (as she described) was pointing out the various channels around
the world, camera feeds from around the country, that might be due special
attention because they were airing material relating to a top story-- or a
potential newsmaker.

Rows upon
rows upon rows of computer monitors, each broken up into “National,”
“Regional,” “International” and others.  Karen worked for one of the day
side shows, the last that broadcasted out of Atlanta before the handover to the
Washington, D.C. studios.

“The hard
part is finding a way to do the stories everyone else did all day a little
differently.”

“Do people
normally watch
all day
?  That'd probably put someone in a depression
coma.” I said. “So, you spend a lot of time changing something most people
haven't seen, then?”

She reached
for me again, hugged my waist.  

“Oh my
goooddd!”  She squeezed me.  “I’m so happy my Dexter friend is back
from his extended vacation!”

She stopped
at her station, but I couldn’t help but suddenly feel stupid.

“If I just
said something dumb, ignore me.  I'll blame it on my brain injury."

She plopped
into her chair and barely got a raised eyebrow from the person right next to
her at the next station.

“No, not at
all,” she said, and pointed a finger at me, grinning.  “But that sort of
thinking is why you don’t have any chance in TV.”

Pavan,
who’d been enamored with all the monitors and lights and pretty girls, broke
from his spell and glared at her.  

“Fuck it,
this is all bullshit anyhow.”

Karen’s
eyes widened and she smiled again, raised both hands.  

“Exactly,
P-man,” she said, smiling.  “Exactly.  So please leave your logical
talk at the security desk, puh-leeze!”

My best
guess, I’d scared the shit out of my friend when I’d collapsed at the
university.  Still a bit wobbly, maybe he felt it his job to protect me a
little.  

Karen had a
few words with a violent-looking woman with jet-black hair, who looked as
though she may have killed the very animals that made up the fabric of the
clothes she’d put on  that morning.  I caught a momentary glare from
her and knew that our visit would have to be short.

She did a
quick search at her work station, and a minute later the laser printer at the
end of the row came to life.

“Here’s the
transcript,” Karen said, handing me two sheets of paper with small type.
 “You could watch the piece if we had an open computer but you’ll get the
same thing from that.”

“This is
great,” I said, choking a bit on my words.  With the memories, the
emotions came back too.   Those seemed harder to compartmentalize but
it was nice to feel, I dunno,
love
from people I used to know.  
Connection
. 
It was something that I’d mostly forgotten mattered to me.

“I scanned
it as it was printing.  Nothing special there, I don’t think,” she said.
 “But who knows maybe you’ll see something.  The questions were all
softballs and the ‘in depth’ reporting meant they’d interviewed more than one
person, I suppose.  But, like I said, it was light programming, not an
investigation.”  

“Who is the
Solomon of Solomon-Bluth?  Another fat cat?”

She stuck
her tongue out and said, “No.  As in Solomon, he of the
cut-the-baby-in-half logic.  It’s supposed to be wisey, I suppose.”
 She then glared at me.  “Hey, why are you asking?  Should there
be an investigation?  Does someone need to revisit Solomon-Bluth, D?”

“No, I
don’t think so.  Just looking for a guy who, uh, might work for them.
 Fishing expedition.”

“Oh, so mysterious!
 But, I gotta get on my bit here sooner than I thought.  They've got
me doing a pre-interview because we're short staffed again,” she said as I
finished up reading the transcript.  She was right, nothing there.
 “Gimme a buzz when you come out next time and we can at least have lunch
or something.”

“No,” I
said, putting the sheets down on her desk.  “My bad for not calling you
ahead of time.”

“Do you
even remember the number?”  She said and laughed.

It was my
turn to raise my hands, and I then held them toward her, bear-hugging her head
as she sat there.”

“Seriously,
you are awesome and--”

Behind us a
warm voice said: “Of course she is!”

Karen
straightened a bit, then stood a little quicker than I thought possible.  

She said,
“Dr. Patel, you didn’t have to come down here.  I would have--”

“No, no,”
he said.  “I just wrapped up a surgery down the street and, you know, that
tiny, tiny work, the surgery, I could use a macro-view, you know, of the
newsroom.  It’s like a domed football arena with all these smart people,
working hard to make people like me look smart.”

He grinned
and Karen blushed.  
Oh my goodddddd.

Instantly,
I’d recognized him as the network's TV doctor.  Fit, charming, pleasant and
used to talking to people like they were all middle-schoolers.  Given your
average TV viewing audience, that probably was appropriate.

Pavan
recognized him, too, and asked: “Oh, shit!  You’re Doctor Patel?
 I’ve seen you on my tee-vee!”

“Yes, I’m
sorry for most of it.”

“No, you
are cool, man!”

Patel shot
a glance at Karen but wasn’t being unkind or elitist.

“Thank you,
I appreciate that,” he said to Pavan, then to Karen: “You want to go over that
research segment really quick?”

“The
coffee-breast cancer stuff, sure, yes.  Right now.”

That,
obviously, was our cue to leave.

Pavan
reached out and shook Karen’s hand, then with TV’s Dr. Patel, he’d given him
the two-handed shake.

“A pleasure
to meet you, tee-vee doctor.”

“Yes,
absolutely.”

“You need
to do more stories about the health benefits of pot,” Pavan said, unabashed.

Patel took
it in stride, unfazed, and said to Pavan: “Maybe I can get some of your data--
you look like you've done a fair bit of independent research already."

"Nah,"
Pavan gave him the poker face and said, "You'll have to wait until I
publish.  Read it in the journal, TV doctor."

I thought
Karen was going to implode, drawn in by a singularity of infinite fear and
embarrassment, but Dr. Patel eased the moment by bursting with a laugh that
rattled off every wall in the newsroom.

"Holy
cow, I love that!" He gripped Pavan's shoulder, grinning.

Pavan
smiled back. "I'll be honest-- I don't know what that even means, really. 
Heard it on
CSI Miami
or something."

Before my
friend could say anything more, I grabbed his other shoulder and turned him
away from the desk, began to walk away.

“Hey,
thanks, Karen.”

With her
terror moment quickly dissipated, she leaped up and hugged me.  And I
loved it.  

I'd been
put in an induced coma after the accident because of my injuries.  Woke up
after nearly a week, but now, all these years later, it was like finally
really
coming out of that coma.

Every good
emotion sort of floored me, like a muscle just now getting its range-of-motion.
 

But, it
wasn't lost on me: unquestionably the bad emotions, the hard memories, were
just waiting somewhere up in the rafters of my mind.  Just waiting.

As we began
to walk, a thought struck me.  I spun back and asked the “tee-vee doctor” if he
knew much about hydration procedures or research, that sort of thing.

“Well,” he
said, interest piqued.  “Yeah, sure.  I’m a surgeon and post-op
recovery and care can be as important as the surgery itself.  Why?”

I gave him
a line about a friend at Sci-Cad working on a re-hydrating procedure, then
asked if he’d give me a thought on the half-sequence I could remember.  I
repeated to Dr. Patel the same thing Professor Marsh had heard an hour earlier.

He asked me
to repeat it as he pulled out a pad of paper, making some notes, organizing his
thoughts.

“Huh, you
have me at a disadvantage.  I don’t see… Are you sure that’s right?”

“Well,
that’s just the first part of it, but it should be right.  I’ve got a
pretty good memory for the things I’m told.”

Seeing that
Patel was interested, Karen chimed in: “Oh, hell.  Dexter hasn't forgotten
anything he’s ever been told!"  She glanced at me with a wink.  "At
least, not permanently.  If he says that’s what he heard, he heard that.”

I smiled at
Karen and started to apologize, I'd only had a scrap of the whole thing, when
Dr. Patel stopped me midsentence.

Patel
interrupted, his eyes fixed on what he'd written down: “No, it’s clear what the
process is trying to achieve. And, I'll be honest, it's unique.  Fascinating. 
This… this part, wow, that's really kinda genius.  Who did you say is working
on this?”

My voice
caught in my throat for a moment but I forced it out, forced myself to calm: “A
friend.  Chem professor.  Working on a hydra--”

“Yeah, you
said that, but... well, that’s not hydration process.  Did he say that?”

“No.
 No, actually.”

“Looks like
you may have forgotten something you’ve heard after all,” the doctor said
playfully and grinned at Karen, who blushed.  “That’s not hydration. What
you’re talking about, that’s gene therapy.”

“Gene
therapy?”

“Yeah and,
wow, your friend may be onto something,” he said lost, muttering as he
manipulated the paper in his hand, jotting more notes. “Yeah, not remotely
hydration.  No question it’s gene manipulation.”

“Okay, I...
I’m not sure--”

Patel laughed.
 “How old is your friend?  Is this a personal project?”

“Why?
 I don’t--”

Patel
turned the paper toward me, where he’d made quick notes on the sequence I’d
given him.  In true form, I couldn’t read a word of what the doctor had
written.

“It’s seems
to be a cocktail of processes to affect gene presentation--
hormonal manipulation,
monoclonal antibody therapies and, ha, a clump of stuff I can’t get my head
around yet
.  One part
here, he's using the binding to give off false-positive states which, um, sort
of overclocks the activator protein--" Patel stopped, blinked like he was
coming back from somewhere else, and smiled sheepishly.  "Uh, sorry, it's
just this…. Dexter this is
out
there.  You sure you don’t remember
the rest?  Is it completed?”