The Art of Forgetting (6 page)

              “Yes, I remember it so well.”

              “So you have a good memory?” Lloyd asked.

              A distant expression engulfed Spalding’s face. “Of my life, I have some memories.”

              “Of your life?”

              He leaned forward and whispered, “What is this place?”

              “This is your home.”

              Spalding waved away the answer. “I know that! What is this place? I mean, how did we get here?”

              “I’m not sure I understand,” said Lloyd.

              “I don’t know how I came to this moment. I feel like I’ve just woken up but I don’t recall being asleep. What I’m saying is… I’m not sure I’m alive.” He swallowed. “Is this… purgatory?”

              “No Mr. Spalding. You’re very much alive. The problem is your memory.”

              Spalding slumped back in the armchair and brought a finger to his chin.

              “I’m a doctor that helps people with memory problems. Your wife asked me to meet with you.”

              “My wife? Beverly? You’ve seen my wife?”

              “Yes I have.”

              “Why, that’s… that’s wonderful. I miss her so much, you know.”

              “What did you have for breakfast this morning?”

              “Oh, I just woke up I think.”

              “Who’s the president of the United States?”

              “It’s that nice fellow,” Copeland waved a finger in the air. “What’s his name?”

              “John F. Kennedy?” Lloyd asked.

              “Now don’t get smart with me, young man. It’s Carter. Jimmy Carter; peanut farmer par excellence.”

              “How’s your hand?”

              “My hand?  What do you mean?”

             
Good, he forgot the pin-prick
.

              Mrs. Spalding entered the room, a large glass tumbler in each hand. “I’m back with your drinks.”

              Cecil Spalding’s face lit up. He sprang from the armchair with boyish enthusiasm and opened his arms. “Look who’s here! Oh, darling.” He cupped his hands on her cheeks and kissed her. “I love you so, my darling.”

              “I love you too, Cecil. But you’ll make me spill everything on the floor.”

              Cecil laughed and kissed her again.

              “It’s like this some twenty times a day, Dr. Copeland,” Mrs. Spalding said. “I go for a short trip to the ladies room and when I come back, Cecil’s there to greet me as if he hasn’t seen me in ages. I knew I was marrying a romantic but this…” She smiled wearily, “Well, this is the nice part, I suppose.” She carefully set the drinks onto wooden coasters on the coffee table.

              Lloyd took a sip of tea. “Very refreshing,” he said. “Thanks.”

              “So glad you like it,” Beverly Spalding said. “Cecil has difficulty with flavors. He doesn’t enjoy food as much as he used to. It’s all a bit overwhelming to him and bland at the same time, if that makes any sense.”

              “I relish your cooking, my darling,” Cecil said as he sat back in the leather chair and patted the arm rest to invite his wife to sit.

              “The painting,” Lloyd said. “It’s quite remarkable.” Lloyd turned to face the canvas. It displayed a serene scene of a mountain lake. A stone stairway seemed to come up from dark blue waters leading to a small terrace, flanked on one side by two tortuous marble columns. Past the terrace stood what seemed like a series of archways and in the distance, the silhouette of mountain peaks.

              “That’s Lake Como,” Beverly Spalding said.

              “So he told me.”

              “I don’t know how familiar you are with Lake Como, Dr. Copeland, but I can assure you that every detail on that canvas is absolutely spot-on, as if he were painting it while sitting on a balcony in Villa Monastero.”

              “That’s very impressive, Mr. Spalding,” Lloyd said.

              “Oh hush. I’m a rank amateur with a paint brush.”

              “But you’re an accomplished author,” Lloyd said. “Do you still write?”

              “Write? What should I write? I haven’t had an original thought in my whole life,” Spalding said in a perturbed tone.

              “Let’s not talk about writing,” Mrs. Spalding said.

              “I’ve never lived a day of my life!” Spalding shouted, wringing his trembling hands.

              “Would you like to see more of Cecil’s paintings, Dr. Copeland?  He sometimes needs a minute to himself to… settle.”

              Beverly Spalding led Lloyd to a door at the end of a corridor. She took a key from a pocket of her house-skirt and unlocked it. “It’s not safe for Cecil to go to the basement,” she said in an apologetic tone.

              Lloyd followed her down the wooden steps and was quite unprepared for what he saw when he reached the bottom. Stacked against the cinder block walls of the basement were canvases of various sizes, too numerous to count. Each canvas portrayed the same bucolic scene from precisely the same vantage point: a mountain lake with a stone staircase emerging from deep blue waters, a terrace with two marble columns, an archway and in the distance, the silhouette of mountain peaks.

              Lloyd picked up a canvas lying on its side, righted it and lifted it for inspection. “When did you last travel to Lake Como?” he asked.

              “Some thirty years ago, I’d say.”

              “So he’s able to retrieve old memories.”

              “Only just a few. He remembers next to nothing of the year leading up to the illness. As for the time after the infection… Well, he still thinks our grown son is eight years old. Doesn’t even recognize him when he visits. Which isn’t very often anymore.”

              “Yes, Dr. O’Keefe told me. So he can’t form any new memories?” Lloyd carefully set the canvas down.

              Beverly Spalding shook her head. “He won’t recognize you when we go back upstairs. It’s as if… I think of it as if his life is the bow of a ship, slicing through the water, and the only thing he can experience is that very water he is parting. The wake that he leaves, the entire ocean surrounding him, he has no way to experience. He’s trapped in the present. I call it, the never-ending happening.”

              “I’ve never heard it put quite that way,” Lloyd said peering into her eyes.

              “So, Dr. Copeland. Can you help my Cecil?”

              Lloyd averted his eyes. “It’s not so simple. I have a potential treatment –”

              “Yes, I know. Dr. O’Keefe told me,” she smiled. “I don’t usually allow doctors to come to the house, not lately at least. It’s all been so disappointing. But I understand you hold a fresh promise.”

              The image of the white mouse, stiff and still at the bottom of the plastic bin flickered in Lloyd’s mind. “It’s never been tried on humans.”

              “Dr. O’Keefe already explained that to me too,” she said. “Honestly, Dr. Copeland, who would be a better candidate to be your first human subject than my husband?”

              “There are risks involved,” Lloyd said.

              “Please don’t patronize me. Every moment of every day for the last sixteen years has been a torment. How much worse can it possibly get?”

              Lloyd paused. “I only just received FDA approval for testing in human volunteers but the trials haven’t started yet.”

              “And I understand you’re looking for research subjects to enroll. So when do we start?”

              “Look, I’m not promising anything, understand that, but if your husband were to qualify as a subject –”

              “He’ll qualify,” Mrs. Spalding said resolutely.

              “We would have to wait for my hospital’s Institutional Review Board to give me the green light.”

              “How long will that take?”

              “It’s hard to say. It might take some time.”

              “Time.” Mrs. Copeland smiled feebly. “Such a funny concept when you think about it.” She grasped his arm and searched his eyes. “I know I can count on you to do the right thing. Dr. O’Keefe told me you’re a little rough around the edges but that deep down you’re a decent man. You’re my only hope. Cecil’s only hope.”

              Lloyd wondered exactly what Mark had told her.

              “Shall we go back upstairs?” she said. “I left the door unlocked and I don’t want him to come down and see… this.” She surveyed the stacks of paintings.

              When Lloyd entered the living room, Cecil Spalding was back behind the easel. Spalding turned at the sound of footsteps behind him and laughed with excitement before walking to his wife to hug her as if she had surprised him by coming home unannounced from a prolonged trip.

              “Have we met?” Spalding asked Lloyd.

              “I’m Dr. Copeland.”

              Spalding raised his bushy eyebrows and smiled good-naturedly. “A doctor?  Well, I hope all is well.” He erupted in wheezy laughter.

              Lloyd held out his hand while studying the man’s facial expression. Spalding moved his arm forward but stopped abruptly. He knitted his brow, his smile fading, and crossed his arms behind his back.

              “Won’t you shake my hand?” Lloyd asked.

              Spalding smiled apologetically. His eyes darted about avoiding eye contact.

              “I prefer to bow… like the Asians.” Spalding bowed twice and chuckled.

              Lloyd smiled and bowed in return.

              When Lloyd returned to his office there was a sticky note pasted on the video monitor of his computer:  “Call Bender.” Lloyd peeled off the note and tried to wipe off the thin residue left on the screen with the sleeve of his white coat.

              Dr. Martin Bender was an old-school academic – the chief of the Department of Neurology and the only faculty member who had completed training programs in both Psychiatry and Neurology. Uncle Marty (a moniker Bender cherished) had served as faculty advisor to countless residents, including Lloyd. He was one of the few senior faculty members that Lloyd felt he could trust.

              Lloyd dialed the number to Bender’s office but reached his secretary who had a message for him.

              “He’d like you to meet him tomorrow at eleven, Neurology conference room.”

              There was a knock on the door. Kaz stuck his head in.

              “It’s five-thirty,” he said.

              “You leaving?” Lloyd asked.

              “Unless you need me to do something.”

              Lloyd shook his head.

              “What’s the matter?” Kaz asked.

              Lloyd raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

              “You look worried.”

              “I think I know who the first human to receive the prion will be,” Lloyd said.

              “Well, that’s good. So why are you worried?”

              “I’m not worried.”

              Kaz scratched the stubble on his jaw. “Wait a minute.”

              He stepped away and returned a short while later with a plastic bag. He plopped it on Lloyd’s desk.

              “What’s this?” Lloyd asked.

              “Organic vegetables… from my community garden. You need to eat better. You’re starting to look a little like shit.”

              “I thought they were for the mice.”

              “There’s plenty for everyone,” Kaz said.

              “You’re giving me mouse left-overs?”

              “Better than the highly processed, hormone-injected, pesticide-laden crap
you
eat every day. And I’m not talking about your girlfriends, this time. Take it easy this weekend. Go for a walk on the lake, breathe in some fresh air, clear out your head my friend.” He raised his hand and flashed a peace sign. “I’m punching out, comrade Copeland. Hasta mañana, amigo.”

              “
Dasvidaniya
, comrade Volkov,” Lloyd replied.

              Kaz chuckled and shook his head as he walked away. “Man, your Russian sucks!”

              Once the outside door clicked shut, Lloyd peered into the plastic bag. There were several crooked carrots, two ears of corn, and a moth-eaten leafy vegetable that might have been kale. Lloyd shook the bag and tied a knot in the plastic handles.

              He straightened in his chair and held a hand out. No tremor. With an outstretched index finger, he alternated touching the tip of his nose with pre-selected items laid out on his desk: the eraser tip of a pencil, the stamp pad of a stapler, the serrated edge of a tape dispenser. Smooth as oil. 

              Chapter 4

             
A
t five minutes to eleven the next morning, Lloyd was standing outside the neurology conference room when its door opened and a dozen students in short lab coats streamed out. A tall scrawny man with a poorly trimmed mustache was singing Tammy Wynette’s Stand by Your Man.

              Lloyd couldn’t help but smile. He thought back to the day that Uncle Marty had regaled him and his classmates on the psychiatry clerkship with the fabled lecture on personality disorders. Did he look as young and naive back then as the students who were now stopping in the hallway to chat? Lloyd looked on as they laughed with airy indifference to the stern expression of a respiratory technician who was struggling to maneuver a ventilator draped in clear plastic past the different cliques that had congealed in the hallway. No, he had never been like them. And he felt pity, not for his past self, but for these young men and women whose adolescence had been extended by their protracted education, and who walked through life oblivious to the painful truths that awaited them.

              Once the last of the medical students percolated through the door, Lloyd entered the conference room. Bender was coiling a thin extension cord around a tiny cubical speaker. On the white board behind him, in cursive penmanship a retired grade school teacher would be proud of, a table consisting of two columns had been written under the heading,
Personality Disorders
. In one column was a list of psychiatric conditions, in the other, the names of popular, if somewhat dated, songs.

              Lloyd still remembered the significance of every song, how Uncle Marty had cleverly linked each one to a particular ailment as a teaching aid. Paranoid personality disorder was listed with Bob Dylan’s Positively 4th Street, schizoid personality with Simon and Garfunkel’s I Am a Rock, narcissistic disorder with You’re So Vain by Carly Simon, and of course, Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man appeared next to the heading of dependent personality disorder.

              “You haven’t changed your lecture,” Lloyd said.

              The professor lifted his white-haired crown and looked at Lloyd with an expression of disbelief. “What are you talking about?  It’s been completely updated – totally modernized.”

              “Those are the same songs you used when I was a medical student.”

              “Yes, but when you were a student I played forty-fives on a record player. Now I just plug my smartphone into this little speaker. There’s really no comparison.”

              “But it’s the same songs!”

              “Honestly, Lloyd, you don’t expect me to use hip-hop to unveil the hidden forces that drive human behavior. And don’t even talk to me about that Justin…” Bender snapped his fingers a couple of times

              “Timberlake?”

              “The other one…”

              “Bieber?”

              “That’s the one. Can you please explain to me, what the hell is that all about?”

              Lloyd laughed. Bender set the speaker on the lectern, stepped forward and grasped Lloyd’s hand in both of his.

              “Have a seat Lloyd,” Bender said. “I have a bit of news you’ll be happy to hear.” The two men sat next to each other in the front row of chairs upholstered with rough gray fabric. “You’ve got your IRB meeting. Next week, if that’s convenient for you.”

              “Hell yes, that’s very convenient,” Lloyd said.

              “You’ve been waiting for this moment a long time,” Bender said.

              “Forever, it seems.”

              “Well, you deserve it. I can’t tell you how proud I am.” The professor reached up and rubbed his nose with a hooked finger.

              “Then don’t tell me. Not until this thing goes to market,” Lloyd said.

              “Very well.” Bender’s lips stretched into a thin smile. His eyes looked at the floor as if there were a heaviness to them. “There is one thing you should know, Lloyd. The committee is headed by George Lasko. You know him?”

              “Sure. He’s some big shot cardiologist, a heavy hitter in electrophysiology research.”

              “He’s also the new Chief of Staff,” said Bender.

              “Should I worry?”

              “I wouldn’t take this process too lightly. Just because the FDA cleared you for phase one doesn’t mean you’re home free. Don’t treat this as a mere formality,” Bender shifted in his seat. “Lasko wants to add rigor to the medical center’s clinical research. He thinks things have grown careless over the years – protocols ignored, data massaged so heavy-handedly that it squeals. And then there was the debacle in the Department of Anesthesia which could have tarnished the reputation of the whole institution if word had gotten out. Anyway, he insisted on personally heading your IRB. He wants it to be a model for things to come.”

              Lloyd shrugged. “I can handle Lasko.”

              “He’s a driven man.”

              “So am I, uncle Marty. So am I.”

              Bender nodded and looked up at the white board. “So Lloyd, do you remember? Which one of those is your song?”

              “I don’t have a personality disorder, Dr. Bender.”

              “Of course not. But we all have tendencies, don’t we?”

              “Why do you ask questions to which you already know the answer?” Lloyd said.

              Bender laughed. “Forgive me. I’m so immersed in the Socratic method of teaching I’m sometimes unaware that I’m doing it.” He patted Lloyd’s hand. “Monday morning, Lloyd. Be prepared.”

              Lloyd stood up and squeezed Bender’s shoulder.

              “Don’t worry Uncle Marty. A rock feels no pain.”

              Bender smiled wistfully. “And an island never cries.”

              Chapter 5

             
L
loyd rang the doorbell of the Burr Ridge McMansion and stepped back on the porch to survey the manicured lawns circling the cul-de-sac. Within seconds, Mark opened the door. He wore an enormous hunter green polo shirt and baggy khaki shorts that exposed pale, hairless legs. Rather than inviting Lloyd inside, Mark stepped out onto the porch and shut the door.

              “Great of you to come, brother,” Mark said, giving Lloyd a whack on the shoulder.

              “I’m not about to pass up Kobe rib-eyes.”

              Mark let out a stiff chuckle and looked out over the porch to the driveway. “You rode the Ducati. She’s a real beauty.”Lloyd knew Mark hated motorcycles. Called them donor-cycles and chastised Lloyd for riding without a helmet at every opportunity. Yet here he was gazing at the bike as if he were envious. “D’you see Spalding?”

              “Yeah.”

              “Yeah, his wife called, told me you did.” Mark faced Lloyd and narrowed his eyes. “Fascinating, huh?”

              “Amazing.”

              “Right?”

              “I gave him the Claparède handshake,” Lloyd said.

              “You pricked him? Was Beverly okay with that?”

              “I did it when she wasn’t in the room.”

              “Jesus, Lloyd…”

              “Relax. It was just a tiny pin-prick.”

              “That’s not the point.” Mark sighed. “So?” Lloyd raised his eyebrows. “So, did he remember?”

              “He sure did.”

              “So implicit memory is intact?”

              “I’m not sure that I’d say intact, but something’s there.”

              “That’s crazy, man. But great, right?”

              “Who knows?” Lloyd said. “Yeah, I guess that’s good.”

              Mark stood there smiling and nodding.

              “Okay, what the hell is going on?” Lloyd asked.

              “What?”

              “You’ve got this dumb look on your face like you’re about to make a wise crack.”

              “It’s just good to see you outside the hospital is all.”

              “Bullshit. You’re acting goofy. What’s up?”

              Mark leaned on the wooden porch railing and looked at Lloyd as if he were sizing him up. “Monica invited someone she wants you to meet. A girl.”

              Lloyd smiled, looked down at his feet and shook his head. “You know I’d rather meet women on my own.”

              “Yeah, yeah, I know. But this is a really nice girl,” Mark said.

              “That’s exactly why I like to meet women on my own.”

              Mark’s grin faded. “Look, Lloyd, I can’t fault you for polishing your meat knob with the best tail Chicagoland has to offer. And you just might own the world record for one-night stands. I mean, I love my wife and all but, shit, that’s gotta be fun… until you wake up one morning and you’re pissing needles. But you gotta understand, Erin is special.”

              “She’s a
nice
girl.”

              “She’s a class act.”

              “And she’s a friend of Monica,” Lloyd said.

              Mark crossed his arms. “Her cousin, actually.”

              “Oh, fucking great.”

              “Lloyd, listen to me. I’m your friend. Hell, I’m the only real friend you’ve got.”

              “I know. I appreciate the warning.”

              “I didn’t come out on this porch to warn you about anything, you dumb prick. I came here to tell you that sometimes life can hand you a friggin lottery ticket, a goddam Mega Lotto jackpot. But it’s up to you to take your ticket to the Seven-Eleven and cash in or you end up spending the rest of your life sucking down a Big Gulp of regret.”

              “Well, my life doesn’t work that way.”

              “Oh, I forgot. You’re a fucking martyr,” Mark said. He unfolded his arms and rested his hands on the porch railing.

              “So is she hot at least?” Lloyd asked.

              “You know, Lloyd, I love you and all, but the way you act sometimes… you really don’t deserve to meet her.”

              “If she’s so great, why hasn’t Monica ever introduced us before?”

              “Because she just moved back from Boston and because she was married. She just got a divorce.”

              “I guess her husband didn’t think she was so great. But I love divorcees,” Lloyd said. “They have all this pent up anger. They just sizzle with sexual energy.”

              Mark walked towards the door. “I’ve got steaks to put on the grill.” He stopped, the door knob in his hand, and without facing Lloyd said, “Don’t fuck this one up, my friend.”

              “Now, that does sound like a warning,” Lloyd said.

              “No, that’s a threat.”

              Monica O’Keefe was opening a bottle of California merlot over the black granite counter as Lloyd and Mark entered the kitchen. A woman with shoulder length chestnut hair stood next to her. She wore a cream-colored silk crepe blouse, a knee-length mauve skirt and leather pumps.