Love In The Time Of Apps (21 page)

“It’s not that simple,” Wang said quite somberly. “I’m afraid that what you are about to see, Mr. Goodwin, will definitely not please you.” The “Mr. Goodwin” part alerted Goodwin to the fact that something was acutely wrong.

Wang led Goodwin out of the bedroom and across the living room towards another door marked “Hospital Personnel Only.” Goodwin
had assumed that he was entering a typical diagnostic room, one housing cat scan and MRI images mounted on background lighting. He expected that Wang would point out an large ominous mass shaped roughly like a partially eaten cheese-ball and explain that the cause of the swelling was a variant of an awful disease, akin to the flesh- eating bacteria only the reverse, one in which bulimic bacteria that would purge into the host adding to her weight. Goodwin’s assumption, however, was totally wrong. The room was occupied by another patient and was identical to the room he just left. A woman was lying in a bed at the far end of the room. There was little doubt as to who it was. It was Sheila or as Goodwin correctly described it, a second Sheila.

A cocktail of shock, fear and anger coursed through Goodwin causing him to lose control. As loudly as he could Goodwin screamed: “What the hell is going on?”

“Physiological schizophrenia.”

Raising his voice two octaves higher, and thus breaking his personal best for loudness, Goodwin yelled, “Stop with that fucking expression. What are you talking about?”

“Remember in high-school biology, the concept of amitosis? Well, in biology amitosis means the division of a cell into two identical parts. That is what apparently happened with your wife. It was as if she was one giant amoeba and divided into two identical clones of the Original Sheila. I know it sounds unbelievable, but your eyes are not deceiving you. There are now Two Sheilas.”

“You said there would be no down side to this procedure.”

“There was not supposed to be any,” Wang whined. “Here look for yourself. The monograph on a related procedure shows no contraindications.”

Goodwin’s eyes glanced down at the monograph and somehow focused on a footnote on the first page that read: “Caution: Because of its unpredictability, this procedure is contraindicated in patients suffering injuries from severe electrical shocks such as those received from lightning strikes.”

“What do you mean there is nothing in the literature on contraindications. The monograph specifically says you’re not supposed to
conduct this procedure upon people who have had severe electrical shocks.”

Wang was “shocked” himself and started rambling, “Where? Where?”

“Here, damn it, on page one. Read for yourself.” Goodwin reread the footnote aloud. Finally spotting the language and in an effort to minimize the damage that this incident was going to cause to his reputation, and in a state of total panic bordering on a psychosis, Wang screamed: “Who reads footnotes?”

“I’m going to sue your ass off.”

“Go ahead,” Wang replied, “I’m a corporation.” Wang was giggling when he replied, though it was not an amused giggle. It was one indicative of total hysteria. “Anyway, the first thing we did was call our lawyers and they said there’s no liability. If we killed Sheila, well, that would be one thing. You’d have a wrongful death action. But, we just gave you an extra wife. There’s no such thing as a wrongful life action or should I say ‘wrongful wife’ action.” Wang, unlike Goodwin, was amused by his little play on words and giggled for several more minutes.

“Sorry,” he said, having regained some of his composure. “Why don’t you take some of these? They’re M&Ms with a Xanax core, a new joint venture from Pfizer and Mars Candy Company. It has a great slogan: ‘Melts In Your Mind, Not In Your Hands.’” Wang began giggling again and wringing his hands. He was downing his sweet tranquilizers as if they were real M & M candies.

Though he was never a violent man, Goodwin knocked the dish out of Wang’s hand, grabbed his lapels with both hands, and shook him violently. “Jesus Christ! You tell me everything will be all right and I come back to two wives. For Christ sake, it’s hard enough to be married to one Sheila.” He released his grip on Wang’s lapels and stared out into space. What he did next was something that in retrospect seemed startling, an act triggered no doubt by the full realization that he was now married to two Sheilas. He raised his arms up towards the ceiling and said in a somber tone, “This tempest in my mind doth from my senses take all feeling.”

“Hey, King Lear” said an orderly who was working nearby.

Diverted for an instant and impressed, Goodwin responded, “Why yes. How’d you know? Did you study Shakespeare in school?”

“No, I just studied television.
Jeopardy
had a whole show on Shakespeare and one question was, ‘Royalty extremely disappointed by conduct of their son.’ I yelled out, ‘Who is Queen Elizabeth?’ But the real answer was: Who is King Lear? Shit, I thought he just made jet planes.”

The break with the orderly helped Goodwin regain his composure. He apologized to Wang, who was weeping, “I’m sorry, Dr. Wang, I can’t comprehend this.”

“No one can. The video of Sheila shows her in her bed as one person. Then, around two a.m., the light intensifies beyond anything we could imagine. It becomes so intense that the filters surrounding Sheila’s cocoon become useless. The force of the light knocks them over. The entire Med-TV room is totally immersed in super-blinding light. Nothing at all is picked up on the closed- circuit cameras. After about 30 minutes, the bright light begins to flicker on and off, like a series of flash bulbs. The flickering stops suddenly and then there is an electrical failure in the Med-TV room. It becomes totally black. Lefty and Righty try to get into the room, but the doors are jammed shut. Several minutes pass. The lights go back on. When the picture on the television monitor comes back into focus, we cannot believe our eyes. We all assumed that there was something wrong with the television set, but, it depicted an accurate picture. Mrs. Goodwin had undergone amitosis. The resultant Sheilas are, we believe, an identical amitotic pair. Even her Cartier watch divided in two.”

“We’ve put patient tags on their wrists. The Sheila in the room on the right is, for now, ‘Sheila Right’ and the one in the left room is ‘Sheila Left.’ We thought it best to separate them because the psychological trauma if they woke up might be fatal. Your wife, the Original Sheila, is the first known cases of Physiological Schizophrenia. That is to say, instead of a split personality, she’s a split person.”

Before Goodwin could respond, though he really didn’t know if he was capable of speaking at that point, Dr. Kildare, who had been enjoying the status of a “Medical Consultant” to a television network,
strutted into the room smoking a cigar. His demeanor was manic. Addressing Goodwin he said: “Well, my friend, I guess you heard the good news. It seems in the middle of the night your wife said, ‘I am an amoeba’ and divided in two. And, I suppose it’s a good news, bad news scenario. First, the good news: the light is gone and your wives seem in perfectly fine health. Now the bad news: Blue Cross/Blue Shield makes no provision for additional wives. Only one spouse is covered, but the hospital takes major credit cards, and think of the bonus points. Why, you and your wives can vacation at Marriott’s Hawaiian Paradise hotel for nothing, assuming the hotel has a triple bed.”

“I know what I see, but it’s impossible,” Goodwin replied.

Goodwin slumped into a seat and began to mumble to himself, “Why did this have to happen to Sheila? My luck, the only one in the history of the world to have ever split in two has to be my wife. Why couldn’t this happen to someone who would do the world some good?” Goodwin tried to think of someone in this category, and the first one that came to mind was Oprah. “Yeah, why couldn’t it have happened to Oprah? Then, we’d have two of the nicest people in the world.”

For an instant he thought about the concept of two Oprah’s. Oprah would interview Oprah and then, shifting seats, Oprah would interview Oprah. His thoughts shifted to life after the split. “How,” he wondered, “is it going to look at the Harborside dinner dance, me strutting in with two wives? How do we do a tax return? It’s no longer a joint return. Am I a bigamist? How do we book golf times? My club only books foursomes. How do we dance? What do we do, a hora? How do I explain this incomprehensible and unbelievable event to my friends? Sheila is terrific. She’s twice the woman she used to be? And what if they want sex? I’ll feel guilty, like I’m cheating on one of them. And when I tell jokes, what’s going to be their response?
We
don’t get it?”

Kildare tapped Goodwin on the shoulder and said, “We are going to start the press conference, so we have to return to the Med-TV Room.”

The Med-TV Room was filled with reporters. All of the electrical equipment was gone, replaced by two- side- by side 60 inch flat screen
television monitors suspended about twenty feet from the floor of the room. One monitor was marked “Sheila Left,” and one marked “Sheila Right.” The room had been restored to its original state, except for the addition of a lectern and several chairs placed below the monitors. Wang, flanked by Kildare and Goodwin, approached the lectern. Wang looked out to the 2000 or so reporters and assumed correctly that there were also hundreds of millions, if not billions, of television viewers watching the event.

Wang, his demeanor confident and calm again, addressed the audience, “Ladies and gentlemen of the press, we have passed out fact sheets for this momentous medical event. The sheet verifies the rumors you might have heard about our now famous patient, Sheila Goodwin, the Original Sheila, splitting in two. These are not rumors at all. In the history of medicine this event is extraordinary and without any precedent. Sheila Goodwin has in fact divided in two. She is the first known case of “Physiological Schizophrenia.” That is to say, instead of a split personality, she’s a split person. Her husband, Philip Goodwin, is standing to my left and Dr. Kildare, our medical consultant, is to my right.” Goodwin half-expected applause, but none was forthcoming.

“As you all know, Mrs. Goodwin was struck a number of months ago by an enormous and unusual bolt of lightning. We don’t know how she even survived. When, her body began to swell severely, we determined that her electromagnetic field was unusually high and we took steps to resolve that anomaly.” Goodwin sneered to himself. He thought “Anomaly, shit. Why don’t you admit it? You screwed up.”

“And to make a long story short, in the middle of the night, whether it was due to steps we had taken or the result of some physiological mechanism, the Original Sheila split in two. What we do not know at present is whether or not her, or should I say ‘their,’ mental acuity was affected, whether one of these Sheilas will be more like or identifiable with the Original Sheila or if either of the Two Sheilas will ever come out of their beyond REM states. For now, their vital signs are excellent and Mr. Goodwin is trying to cope with this momentous event as best he can.”

“We will be using the Med-TV room for all future briefing and news coverage, though you can appreciate if one or both of the Two
Sheilas regain consciousness, they will need privacy. For this reason we have moved them into a private suite, but we will be providing continuous television coverage from their rooms.”

A reporter asked, “If the Two Sheilas come out of their beyond REM states, when do you expect that to happen?”

“I’m not certain, but judging from all of her, I mean
their
brain waves and other signs, we are guardedly optimistic that it will happen quite soon.”

“What do you mean ‘guardedly optimistic?’” another reporter asked.

“We are required to use that term now when we give a more or less positive prognosis. Don’t you notice that no one is ever unqualifiedly optimistic anymore or absolutely sure about the outcome of an event or a prediction. They are always ‘guardedly optimistic.’ We learned this trick from watching congressmen on television. In fact in the latest book,
Strunk & White, The Elements of Political Style,
it says: ‘Optimistic is never used without a qualifier, such as guardedly or slightly. Pessimistic needs no qualifier, however.’”

A reporter from the back of the theater said, “May I ask Mr. Goodwin a question? How does it feel to have two wives who may be the same person?”

“Frankly, I’m too dumbfounded to answer any questions.”

The reporter continued, “We know that you and the Original Sheila were not getting along prior to the Sheila Bolt. How do you think this will impact your relationship with your wives?”

Kildare intervened. “Mr. Goodwin is in deep shock and I’m virtually certain he hasn’t fully absorbed what has happened.” Goodwin gave an affirmative nod. “We’ll keep you posted.” As they walked off the stage, Kildare put his arm around Goodwin’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort and said, “Is it true? Did you have marital problems? Boy, fighting with one wife is bad enough...” Kildare then made one of those great remarks, not very funny to Goodwin at the time, but later as he replayed the moment and thought about it, extremely amusing and so true. Kildare continued, “But fighting with two wives is an impossible undertaking. In the battle of the sexes you’re hopelessly outnumbered.”

Several hours after the press conference, the two 60 inch television monitors in the MED-TV room were operational. Each of the monitors projected identical pictures, one of Sheila Left and one of Sheila Right. Medical statistics for the Two Sheilas began to move across the bottom of each screen much in the way stock prices are flashed on the bottom of a television screen. As a medical statistic for Sheila Left appeared on the screen, blood type for example, a corresponding statistic for Sheila Right flashed on her screen. These images and statistics were being broadcast simultaneously all over the country and to most of the world. In the beginning this caused some confusion. An investor who saw BP at 120 (both Sheilas’ blood pressure readings) believed it was the price of British Petroleum and lost a fortune when he sold the stock short.

All of these tests were for show, however. Goodwin and the doctors knew that the Two Sheilas would be identical. Blood typing, DNA analysis, skin structure analysis, hair analysis, dental analysis, urine analysis, MRIs, CT scans, and every other test merely confirmed that the Two Sheilas were molecule for molecule identical.