KATACLYSM: A Space-Time Comedy (16 page)

Eric Silver licked his lips in anticipation as he made one last clockwise turn of the dial and unlocked his locker.  In his mind, he could already smell the aroma of fresh Orange Pekoe.  Wasting no time, he reached way back along the top shelf of his locker, plunging his hand through the now familiar Jell-O barrier.  Immediately his hand felt warm and it touched the side of what he was sure was another tea packet.  He caressed it gently and locked his fingers around it.

Then, just as Eric was savoring his moment of triumph, the most unusual thing happened.  The resident suddenly heard the clatter of footsteps outside and a frenzied couple accompanied by a little green man bolted around the corner and charged him.  Eric clenched the tea in his hand with all of his might as the three strangers tackled him.  But just before his arm was torn from the locker, his startled hand knocked about the contents behind the Jell-O wall. Eric could feel packets and flasks being sent in all directions.

Then all went black.

“…It’s treasonous!  It’s outrageous!  Why, I ought to have you arrested where you stand.”

On a chilly February day in 1774, Thomas Hutchinson’s eyes bore into Crépuscule’s.  The Governor grabbed the untouched cup of tea in front of him and took an angry sip, ready to pounce on the Frenchman.  Then, his gaze never leaving Crépuscule, Hutchinson took a moment to swirl the contents of his mouth around his tongue.  He swallowed slowly.

“Edward!”

The servant who had been waiting dutifully outside the study burst into the room to see what was wrong.  On seeing his master’s expression, he cowered and bowed humbly.

“Edward!  I have never tasted a tea such as this.  I sent for Orange Pekoe.”

“Ay, sire.  But ‘tis my hard luck that the tea which I swear to ha’ saw in yer pantry on’y this morn’ is somewhere lost.  I hoped to satisfy ‘ee by brewin’ a fine pot o’ black tea and mixin’ in some essential oil o’ bergamot orange which I happened across.”

Hutchinson looked down at his teacup and took a sip before raising his arms up, gesturing to the poor servant as if to say finally, after months of disappointment, something had gone his way.

“Edward,” the Governor shook his head, “…loyal, trusty Edward.  It’s delightful…”

He took another sip.

“…simply delightful.”

Normal is a relative concept.  The normal state of things is not so much a concrete, tangible entity as it is a mindset.  It’s something fairly imaginary that we all believe in because it gives us a sense of comfort and security like the tooth fairy or Santa Claus or the United Nations.  And insofar as things can ever be called ‘normal’, everything in the world had gotten back to being that way.  Well, almost at any rate.

You see, as in the ‘normal’ sequence of events in the ‘normal’ history of the Earth, Governor Hutchinson spurned Crépuscule as he sat in his chair on that cold midwinter’s day, rejecting the Frenchman’s offer on the spot.  But that is not where the story ends, because instead of simply sending Crépuscule on his way and sitting by the fire with his tea and a nice pipe, Hutchinson made a choice that would have consequences for the lives of a great many people.  Indeed, so buoyed and invigorated was he by Edward’s unexpectedly flavorful concoction, that Hutchinson had the Frenchman immediately arrested.  It seemed something had been stirred up in the Governor.  A fire had been lit under the beleaguered old man and over the next few days he personally saw to it that Crépuscule was sent to England where, after a brief show-trial, he was publicly executed by hanging at Execution Dock in London for crimes against the King and the whole of the British Empire.

And this is where the normal flow of history changes slightly, for George III was so swayed by Hutchinson’s act of patriotism and loyalty that he did not order the General Thomas Gage to replace the man as governor and military commander of Massachusetts later that year.  So it happened that it was Hutchinson and not Gage who led the British in the first throes of the American Revolution.  And though equally unsuccessful in his endeavors, upon returning to England, Hutchinson was nonetheless celebrated as a national hero for so valiantly defending the crown.

So as Edward the servant, the catalyst of this whole affair retired quietly, leading much the same life as he would have otherwise, the new path which Hutchinson’s life took had the unusual effect of changing the history of food and drink in two notable ways.

As you might gather, the first change concerned the age-old practice of tea drinking.  It was, at one point, common knowledge that early in the 19th century Charles Grey, then Prime Minister of England, received a gift of tea derived from the oil of a small orange called bergamot.  At once, he fell in love and as the tea grew in popularity in Britain, it took on the familiar name Earl Grey.  At least, that’s what should have happened, had Thomas Hutchinson not returned a hero, married the King’s daughter Elizabeth and promptly been made an Earl half a century earlier.  But that, of course, is exactly how things went.  So when Hutchinson arrived home and joined the noble class, at a time when Charles Grey was but an awkward teenager ruminating over his many pimples, the new Earl sang the praises of bergamot and the English public knew exactly what to do.  They called the new tea Earl Hutchinson.

While Earl Hutchinson tea became renowned and beloved across the globe, the more important consequence of Hutchinson’s newfound fame, at least for the players in this particular story, came from a small pastry store in London called de Vries Pies.  On a whim, the owners of this modest confectionary, who had emigrated in the mid-1700s from the Netherlands, decided to capitalize on Hutchinson’s prominent standing by naming a candy bar in his honour.  It was called the Double Dutch Hutch and it consisted of several wafers sprinkled with generous helpings of buttered pecans, nougat and caramel, topped with two coats of the finest Dutch chocolate.  As one might have imagined, the sweet toothed Londoners literally gobbled up the Double Dutch Hutch when it came out and the chocolate bar became a staple for many years thereafter.

This is where things get interesting.  Almost two centuries later, a couple who were soon to be known as Sir George and Sally Conlan brought their Siamese cat and son oversees to England so that George could be knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.  At the reception after the ceremony, the royal chefs served a very special version of the Double Dutch Hutch.  Sally, normally a calorie conscious woman, was so enamored with the treat that she ate three of them.  They were the most marvelous thing that she had ever tasted.  So marvelous in fact that she insisted on having two of them, one at breakfast and one after dinner, every day for the rest of her stay overseas.  When the family returned to Washington, Sally had scores of the chocolate bar imported from Europe until she was able to convince a local business to produce a high quality Double Dutch Hutch just for her.

And so Sally happily went about with her two favorite pastimes, championing her various obscure animal rights causes and ruining her son’s life, all the while eating her beloved chocolate bars.  Unfortunately for this particular wealthy socialite, the field of cardiology and cardiovascular research was, to be generous, quite primitive during Hutchinson’s time and wholly unknown to the family de Vries.  Had they been more enlightened, the Dutch bakers might not have chosen to make a candy bar with such a high fat content.  In fact, as it happens, Sally Conlan would have had to scour the Earth to find a fattier bar than the Double Dutch Hutch.  So, as a result of indulging in so many of these desserts, her cholesterol was quite a bit higher than it would otherwise have been and a plaque in her left carotid artery, that previously would have caused her no problems whatsoever, grew larger.

One day, many years later when her son had already finished university, this plaque ruptured sending a shower of tiny particles into her brain, causing a small stroke.  Though she survived relatively unscathed, the stroke left her impulsive and, for some reason, with the idea that the boring old domestic cat was really the only animal she was truly passionate about.

When Sally returned home from the hospital she scooped Wila, her black Siamese cat, into her arms and showered the squirming beast with slobbery kisses.  While, at first, the animal was simply surprised and annoyed, after two weeks of this kind of treatment, Wila became withdrawn and edgy and had taken to destroying Sir George’s various sculptures in the middle of the night.  Sally’s cat was stressed out and she knew exactly what to do.

Jude looked on in a kind of horrified awe as he opened the door to his tiny Boston apartment to find his mother standing with suitcase in one hand and Wila in the other.  Despite his mother’s vehement pleading, Sally’s son categorically refused to massage her cat, citing deeply held ethical misgivings about treating ‘relatives’.  He told his mother that if she wanted a cat massage, there were fifty-one other perfectly competent cat massage therapists in the Boston area phonebook who would be happy to do the job.

Left with no other choice, that’s exactly who Sally contacted.  And later that very day, she visited one of those massage therapists, a man who identified himself only as Carl.  To Sally’s mind, Carl was an unusual fellow.  He seemed startled upon coming face to face with Wila, as though he had never seen a cat before, and his office looked more like the epicenter of a small earthquake than a pet spa.  Still, Carl diligently massaged the cat for a full ten minutes as requested and Wila purred contentedly when it was all over.

“How much do you charge?” asked Sally as she scooped her placid cat off of Carl’s desk.

“Well…uh…” Carl started uncomfortably, scratching his head.

“Don’t be shy,” Sally admonished.  “You did a fine job and you should be proud of yourself.  Here,” she said stuffing two crisp one hundred dollar bills into his front pocket.  “That ought to cover it.”

“You imbecile!” shouted Terry when he heard about Carl’s exploits.  “After all I’ve done for you…and this is how you repay me?  By wasting time massaging cats?”

The leader was livid.

“But, I only spent ten minutes massaging the cat…” Carl implored as he stood with his master alone in their secret meeting hall.

“How dare you.  We have real work to do here,” Terry barked, his words echoing around the empty chamber.

“…and she paid me two hundred bucks.”

“We’re in the business of bringing about utopia, do you understand me?” Terry continued.  “We don’t have even a moment to squander…sorry…hang on a second…how much did you say she gave you?”

“Two hundred dollars,” Carl reiterated eagerly.

Now Terry was a fanatic, there was no question about that, but he certainly wasn’t stupid.  He could multiply as well or better than the next doomsday cult founder, so he knew that this amount worked out to twelve hundred dollars an hour.

“Tell me again Carl,” the leader said raising an eyebrow, “this woman said that you did a good job?”

“Yup,” Carl replied proudly.

“And she wasn’t just being polite?”

“Nope,” said Carl who was now positively beaming.  “In fact, she wanted to come in again tomorrow.”

“Does this woman have any friends whose cats are also jittery?”

Carl shrugged his shoulders.

“Well that seems an awfully important detail, don’t you think?”

As it turned out, Sally did actually have scores of wealthy friends who owned cats and after a few more productive sessions with Carl, she was happy to return to Washington to spread word of his expertise.  Unbeknownst to Sally, it was Terry who had gotten Carl to push for a glowing recommendation.  So while she went off to tell all of her friends about cat massage at her usual cocktail parties, the leader busied himself organizing seminars where Carl would teach the rest of the cult members how to give a proper cat massage.

And that’s how the epidemic started.  Two of Sally’s close friends returned with her at first, then a few more, then they told some of their friends and still more came.  By the end of the quarter, each cult member had worked for only about twelve hours performing, on average, just over seventy cat massages and collectively they had earned a quarter of a million dollars.  By the end of the year, they had taken home more than ten times that amount.  And just like that, cat massage had become all the rage among the yuppie elite trophy wives in the north east who were eager to do something with their time while the majority of their businessman husbands finished serving out their sentences.

At the same time, Terry and the rest of his followers forgot all about Adam Outerspace.  They were simply too busy growing the business.  Not only did their operations spread across America but they opened offices in Kennebunkport, Toronto, Florence, the Loire Valley and they even had a tiny shop right next to Windsor Castle where, it was said, the Queen herself occasionally brought Jubilee, the prized royal cat.  Indeed, all of the ex-cult members had become millionaires, with one notable exception.

Greg had given it the best effort he had in him, but he simply couldn’t do it.  Unfortunately, the truth was that he suffered from a paralyzing fear of cats, which was fine as long as he was a phony cat massage therapist, but now that he was being asked to become a
real
cat massage therapist, he was having frequent and devastating panic attacks.  During his first session with Carl, he passed out before the cat was even brought into the room.  To be sure, as an anxious, terrified follower, he had made an excellent right-hand-man for Terry when they were searching for Adam Outerspace, but these same qualities now made him a liability to the business and he was quickly forced out.

As his former friends became rich, Greg grew progressively depressed and insulated within his tiny apartment.  He would often contemplate suicide and once he even mustered the courage to jump out his window, but this was of no use because it was a basement apartment.

On one of his more miserable days, Greg received an unexpected phone call from his sister Julia who was one of the few people on Earth genuinely concerned about his welfare.  On talking to him, Julia was distressed to find her brother sounding so sad, but she understood his reasons and found it difficult to cheer him up.  Desperate to be of some help, she recommended that Greg go to see her psychic.  At least, she thought, it would get him out of the house.

Greg agreed, albeit unenthusiastically, and, the following Sunday, he went to see Madame Sfortunata.  Later, Greg would claim that this meeting was one of the most stressful experiences of his life.  The psychic turned up an hour and a half late with no recollection of the fact that they were supposed to meet and promptly set Greg’s coat on a hot burner atop her stove.  After the fire was quenched, however, Greg did learn a few important pieces of information.  The first had to do with his pants.  You see, the lower half of Greg’s body had always been oddly proportioned and, like Lyndon Johnson, he had been forced to wear pants that were too tight in the crotch for most of his life.  While Madame Sfortunata did not know of any retailers who sold pants that would fit him better, she did suggest an excellent tailor right next to Fenway Park who would later rework Greg’s entire collection of trousers for next to nothing.  In passing, the psychic also suggested that Greg go, as soon as possible, to see a mystic named Amish who lived in Beacon Hill.  Although she told him that the mystic was not available on that particular Sunday, Madame Sfortunata assured the anxious, ex-pseudo cat massage therapist that if he went to see the man on Monday, Amish would be most helpful in finding a remedy for Greg’s panic attacks.

As usual, the psychic was correct on all counts.  Amish was not available on that day because he had decided to attend an unusual fair of religious and mystical teachings from around the world at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Centre.  The fair had the surprising effect of changing the Hindu mystic’s entire outlook on life.  It was around the time that Amish and his companion, Jaya, came to the Jewish exhibit and began to chat with a French Rabbi named Pierre Levi that it happened.

It was the most peculiar feeling for Amish as he stood there in front of the live camel that the French clergyman had brought along with him.  The massive beast had the words ‘soyez gentils avec tout le monde’ or ‘be good to everyone’ spray painted in large red letters across its side.  On seeing Jaya’s incredulous expression, the Rabbi explained to the pair that for quite a while he had lamented the fact that Jewish teaching no longer seemed to hold a powerful sway with the younger generations as he remembered it had in his own youth.  He had seen so many of these young Jews exploring different belief systems and following trendy ideologies like the ‘JewBus’ who had been so taken with Buddhist philosophy.  Rabbi Levi said he felt a duty to do something about it and one night after seeing an interview with the Dalai Lama on late night television, he had come up with an idea.  He would use a camel and it would have a simple message that would explain the essence of Judaism to all who saw it.  The exhibit was called ‘Be good to everyone, the rest is dromedary’.

As they walked out of the exhibit, Jaya prodded Amish and snickered, but the Rabbi’s bizarre, yet simple message somehow struck a chord with the mystic.  You see, for all of his adult life Amish had been in the business of cheating people.  At first, he had done this the conventional way by making millions through Microsoft’s software monopoly.  Now, he had found a creative way to prey on the sick and gullible so that he could hobnob with Donald Trump and his other neighbors in Palm Beach.

When he returned home, Amish experienced a feeling of emptiness and despair reminiscent of the last time he had seen an episode of Martha Stewart Living on television.  It was unbearable.  He felt that he had to act, to do something that would undo all of the harm created by the sham diagnoses he had so freely dispensed and the incessantly glitch-prone operating systems he had carelessly designed.

The first thing Amish decided was that he was not going to see patients for a little while, which is why he was so surprised that evening to find himself making an appointment for the next day with a man named Greg who hated cats.  Despite his resolution, something told the mystic that this was the right thing to do.

When Greg met Amish, the mystic was not at all what he had expected.  Amish greeted him at the door wearing a T-shirt that hung loosely over a pair of faded old jeans and then beckoned his nervous guest to join him in the kitchen for a pot of Darjeeling.  The two men sat and chatted casually about life, their aspirations and regrets.  Over about an hour, Greg began to grow comfortable with his strange companion who seemed genuinely interested in why he was feeling so anxious all of the time.  He decided to level with the man and reveal his most private thoughts.

“I know this is going to seem very strange to you,” Greg began, a slight tremor running through his hand forcing him to set his teacup clattering onto its saucer, “but I’ve always loved languages.  The problem is that when I tried taking language courses in university, the professor would always make me get up in front of the class.  But, I couldn’t do that. I was just too nervous.”

Amish said nothing, but the kind look in his eyes gave Greg the strength and permission to go on.

“So I ended up taking some pretty unusual languages, ones that didn’t have a conversational component.  And there was one…”

Greg hung his head and took a deep breath.

“…There was one that really spoke to me…It was called Syriac…It’s always been my dream to teach Syriac.”

Greg exhaled deeply and his whole body relaxed in his chair as though a great weight had been lifted from upon him.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” he added with some resignation, not looking into the mystic’s eyes.

Amish was sincerely touched by Greg’s honesty and gave a candid response.

“That’s not true at all Greg.  I think I understand you very well.  I’m sure you’d be surprised to know that I’m actually fairly familiar with Syriac.  You see, although I am a Hindu, where I come from in Kerala there are many Syrian Orthodox Churches and I believe that they use Syriac or something similar in their ceremonies.”

Then Amish said something that surprised both Greg and himself.

“You know, I’m planning a trip to Kerala, to go back and reconnect with my roots.  I’d be very pleased if you joined me.  I’m sure we could find you a quiet place where your expertise would be helpful.”

Greg was floored.  This was the kindest thing anyone had ever said to him.  The men sipped from their teacups and smiled at each other.

The following Monday, Amish and Greg arrived at Cochin airport in Kerala.  They immediately hired a taxi and, after driving inland on the highway, they began searching for churches Amish remembered from his childhood.  As luck would have it, they found a small Syrian Church just outside of Kottayam whose priest spoke some English and was willing to take Greg in.  Though Amish stayed at a nearby hotel for several weeks to see how Greg was faring, this was completely unnecessary.  For the ex-phony cat massage therapist, Kerala could just as easily have been heaven.  By his fourth day, Greg was so occupied by the task of instructing the church faithful in the finer points of Syriac declension that he was too busy to talk to Amish when he came to visit.

While this turn of events helped Amish feel better about himself, the rest of what he saw in his homeland made him feel much worse.  He was shocked by the living conditions in some of Kerala’s poorer neighborhoods and he was ashamed that he had lived in such opulence for so many years while many of his countrymen were suffering so greatly.

On his return to America, the mystic landed in West Palm Beach on a mission.  There, he met up with Kiran and Jaya who happened to be available on Spring Break and together they organized a black-tie ‘clinic’ and fundraiser at The Breakers Hotel.  Donald Trump and Amish’s other wealthy neighbors were treated to a night of dinner, dancing and free medical advice in exchange for sizeable and tax-deductible donations to the cause of eradicating poverty in the province of Kerala.  Everyone left the evening happy, but none more than Amish who was positively glowing.

That night alone generated ten million dollars in pledges to Amish’s fund and that was only the beginning.  By summer’s end, everyone in Kerala knew Amish’s name and he was eventually to become known as one of India’s great philanthropists.  But Amish didn’t want to stop at revitalizing the province’s slums.  He wanted to create a legacy. So his pièce de résistance was a scholarship program which he started for bright young Keralans so that they could come to America to study and follow in his footsteps.

Amish’s first protégé landed at Logan International Airport in late August of that year to begin the fall term as a freshman at MIT.  In fact, it was Greg, an honorary member of Amish’s selection panel, who had convinced the petite and shy girl to request that she be admitted to his old alma mater.  When she arrived there, she kept to herself except for the odd pub-crawl and studied earnestly for her first day of college.

On that day she got to class early and sat in the front row closest to the lecture podium.  She sipped at her bottled water and when the professor entered and said “good morning and welcome” she promptly passed out, her body sprawled on the auditorium floor.

The girl was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital where she was admitted to internal medicine under Dr. Albert Avery.  But try as Dr. Avery and his team might, they were unable to find anything wrong with her and, although Amish saw to it that she received the best care money could buy, her condition steadily deteriorated.  Three days later, Dr. Avery leaned over the tiny, pale Indian woman who had now begun her death rattle, listened to her chest and said “looks like we’re going make the diagnosis at autopsy”.  An hour later, one of Kerala’s most promising students had died, but Avery was wrong.  He conducted the autopsy himself but, despite his best efforts, he was still unable to find the cause of her illness.

The following day, Dr. Avery went to the bathroom, as was his usual routine before morning report, and was surprised to find that his urine was colored a dark maroon.  Walking straight past the conference room where his residents and medical students were waiting for him with trepidation, the distressed internist headed for the office of the chief of urology.

An hour later, the short, fat, ebullient surgeon licked his lips at Dr. Avery as he shoved a tube through his urethra and into his bladder.  Though he also saw the oddly colored fluid therein, the chief of urology couldn’t pinpoint any culprit.  Sensing the possibility of a publication, he suggested exploratory surgery.  With some reservation, Dr. Avery reluctantly agreed.

When the anesthetic had worn off after the surgery, the chief of medicine discovered two unpleasant facts.  One, the urologist’s efforts had yielded no new insight.  Two, and more alarmingly from his point of view, he was now completely incontinent and was dribbling the viscous maroon fluid all over the place.

Frustrated and angry, a few days later he visited one of the other staff urologists at Massachusetts General, a tall, jittery, skeletal man who seemed equally baffled by what was happening to his new patient.  The urologist could only recommend an intensive course of a cocktail of medications followed by more surgery.  Apparently with no other choice, an increasingly desperate chief of medicine acquiesced.

Two weeks later, Dr. Avery was no longer incontinent.  Now that the second urologist’s therapy was complete, he wasn’t peeing at all and what had begun as an annoyance had now turned into a matter of life or death. The once mighty physician had been forced to talk with one of his nephrologist friends about the possibility of going on dialysis and he was also seriously considering putting his name on the list for kidney transplants.

Though he still continued to work, the vigor had been so sapped out of Dr. Avery, that he had lost the will to berate his residents during his days on call and would just sit there quietly as they presented their cases.  One evening several weeks later, Eric Silver breezed into his supervisor’s office with a quirky look on his face.

“I’ve got a weird one for you.”

Dr. Avery hacked out a few coughs in response and waved for Eric to close the door and sit down.

“Are you ok?” the resident asked.  And then, feeling it was probably safe, he hazarded a joke.  “Don’t tell me you’re holding out for an autopsy?” he said with a small grin which was not appreciated by the man on the other side of the desk.