35 Again.

by Louis Shalako

“Ah. He wiggled his toes.” Doctor Horace Brooks nodded in satisfaction.

The nurses guided the gurney through busy hospital corridors, arriving at a private room on the third floor.

“I’ll take over now.”

The nurses made sure the patient was still securely strapped in, although the trip from the operating theatre had been a short one. They padded silently out while Horace checked his patient’s vital signs using a good old finger on the wrist vein, and another quick check of fifteen seconds, spent listening through the stethoscope to the strong and rhythmic pulse of the heart.

Ed was going to be fine. He peeled back an eyelid.

“Ed?”

No response. He straightened up. Michelle Newell was in the waiting room. She would like to be here for her husband’s recovery.

***

They stood, with Doctor Brooks at the foot of the bed, and Michelle at Ed’s side, holding his hand. She blinked back tears.

“As you can see, the gene therapy is already well advanced.”

Michelle gulped, unable to look away from her husband’s swollen features, especially florid-looking around the rims of the eyes. His lips were puffy and the neck lacked all distinction, for Ed was a tall, rangy individual. Even his rather prominent Adam’s apple was gone.

“It’s all temporary. He’ll make a full recovery. I give you my word, Michelle. Ed will be back to normal, better than normal in no time.”

Ed snored lightly in the bed.

He had opened his eyes, looked up at wife and smiled sleepily.

“Is the coffee ready?” Then Ed’s eyelids drooped as she murmured sweet nothings and he was gone again.

Horace beckoned at a slope-backed chair in yellow leather.

“By all means, sit with him for a while.” Horace needed a cup of coffee, and when he got back, they could make arrangements for Ed’s transportation home.

She was just all wound up with worry. He’d seen it before, plenty of times.

The elevator was at least quick in this small suburban hospital, compared to some of the ones downtown, in the real trenches, like St. Jo’s where he had put in his internship.

The long hall led to the casual but comfortable cafeteria. It allowed him to enjoy a moment of serene contemplation, with his sternum held high and his chin up, breathing fully down into the core. Moments of professional satisfaction must be savored, as did the ride home from work in the green Jaguar and the nights in front of the fire with Anne, looking out over the lake and watching the sunset.

His life was like a fine cognac. He didn’t have it too bad, when he thought about it.

It was also important to appreciate such fortune, as hokey as some might find the sentiment.

Horace knew what he liked and what he cared about. He knew what was important to him.

The patients really did come first. It made all else possible.

Ed was a good guy, but then Horace had rarely met a patient he didn’t like.

Ed would be up and around in no time, but the bio-chemistry was invasive. His cells would undergo rapid changes, and the side effects included everything from nausea, vertigo, and disorientation, to the more easily treated diarrhea and inflammation. Normal reflexes and body control would come back fairly rapidly once that stage had passed. At his age, Ed had been physically active on a regular basis and the outlook was very good for such patients. He recalled that Ed had beaten him up pretty badly, in a tennis singles match only two, or maybe it was three years ago.

Horace had done this procedure dozens of times before and had full confidence in what he was seeing from Ed.

***

Mrs. Newell was on the phone and she was very upset.

Ed sat at his desk in the funereal silence of his main office, the big room done all in oak, although he had the normal, more utilitarian consulting rooms, a whole hallway full of them in fact.

“I swear to God, I’m going to kill him.”

“Now, now, Michelle. There’s no need to be hasty. Ed’s just taking a while to readjust. I’ve seen all of this before, and it just takes a little time—”

“You should see what the man did this time.” The statement was like a bear trap snapping shut.

Horace sighed. He had three more appointments, all routine by the look of them, although Mrs. Dare liked to talk. In her eighties, and with those salacious stories, he usually indulged her. She was a great old gal with a husky, smoker’s voice, the voice of a man he’d always thought, and a big, hearty, booming laugh.

This afternoon he had a golf date with some friends. For once the weather was perfect.

“Ah, what’s he done?” He put a smile into his voice although he didn’t feel it.

What the hell did she expect? They knew all the possibilities ahead of time—a better word than risks, as there were many rewards and trade-offs.

He was very thorough in preparing patients in what to expect. His professional reputation was riding upon it.

“He’s bought some bloody fishing camp up near Espanola!”

Oh, dear. This would call for some tact.

“Well, Mrs. Newell. The rejuvenation of a fifty-eight year-old man into a whole new body, the body of a thirty-five year-old, has its risks. I thought you guys talked about all this, in fact I know you did—we did—because I was there.”

He was there for at least some of it, guiding them through what he liked to call a process of mutual discovery. They must have discussed their plans privately. Apparently it hadn’t been mutual enough. They should have shared of themselves more.

The problem was a classic one—a lot of unspoken dreams, dreams on both sides, all lined up for afterwards. If only he’d known, he had turned down a few patients due to risky personality-types.

It was a question of having the maturity to handle it.

“Well, I’m not going up there.” She nattered on and he glanced at his watch. “Can you blame me? Argh. All them bugs. Fish, for crying out loud.”

She muttered away from the phone for a moment. He thought they had a small dog or something these days. Of course the thing would be right there in her lap.

“And that’s not the worst part.” She took a big breath and found her courage. “The man is insatiable. He pesters me all the time, and when I don’t give it to him, he goes off downtown and drinks beer all day. I have eleven grandchildren, for Christ’s sakes.”

“Well, yes, but you have to realize—” They had talked about all of this, at least Horace thought they had.

He could have sworn she understood, as well as Ed, every word of it. She had nodded intelligently in agreement and Ed seemed to be quite looking forward to it—the significance of which fact she had apparently missed.

“I think he’s going to strip bars.”

“Now, now, plenty of men indulge in a little beer and such. It’s nothing to be worried about. It’s just a little phase Ed’s going through.” He felt sheepish for saying it, but there was not much more he could do for the woman. “His regular, family doctor had him off alcohol for the last five or six years. He’s just enjoying life again.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have to put up with it.”

Horace repressed a snort. He really couldn’t blame her for being upset. She was fifty-nine years-old herself, and why she wasn’t interested in the treatment was beyond his comprehension. What older woman wouldn’t like to take twenty-plus years off her age?

But she hadn’t gone for it, and now wasn’t the time for the hard sell.

“I understand.” It was all he could do, to be there for her, lend a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on if necessary.

He didn’t think it was the money. They had plenty of that by all accounts. Michelle didn’t want to do it for reasons unknown. She needed to overcome that.

Otherwise she had only herself to blame, if things didn’t work out.

***

He stood awkwardly and let it all sink in, one word at a time.

Approximately six months and a hundred and fifty thousand dollars later, Michelle Newell was the envy of her country-club set. With the body of a young girl, as she seemed very fond of saying, her tanned legs were as smooth as silk and cellulite-free, and that was saying something after what she’d had before. A few varicose veins in there for garnish hadn’t exactly helped.

Doctor Brooks had just finished up a round of golf at the exclusive Brentwood Golf and Country Club, and after putting his clubs away in the locker room, cut across the pool area to grab a quick vodka martini.

He was heading for a quiet weekend at home with Anne and the boys on what might be the last warm weekend of early autumn.

“So. I left the bastard.” Her mouth was an unattractive line. “You know what I did? I told him I wanted to have another kid—a little baby girl, one to have for all my very own. I figured we could re-decorate the spare bedroom as a cute little nursery, and all of a sudden he flipped out, just totally flipped out.”

She gulped at her drink.

“Honestly, I actually thought he was going to hit me, standing right there in front of me, all stinking of beer and shouting obscenities.” She rolled her eyes, and engaged the woman beside her in a look.

The lady patted her on the back of the hand.

He sighed, shoulders slumping a bit, sort of cringing inside, as he knew there must be more. Her eyes bored into his. He summoned up some moral reserves.

“I’m sorry to hear that. But you’re looking very well!”

She smiled so hard her eyes practically disappeared, a little pink in the whites he noticed. The three ladies, all of them high-maintenance types, looked like they’d been there a while, wearing bikinis that weighed an ounce each and cost a thousand bucks.

“Anyway, Doctor, thank you.” She raised her heavily-frosted mug.

If she was drinking Long Island Ice Teas, and it sure looked she was, then she really was on the loose.

“Well, ah, I’m sorry to, ah, hear about you guys, and if there’s anything else I can ever do—” He turned to go. “It was nice running into you. Nice meeting you ladies.”

They waved languid arms and studied their drinks.

He’d already forgotten their names. Hopefully, they might not remember his.

“Doc!”

He looked at Michelle once more.

“Yes?”

She winked and took a long swig from her mug. She swallowed, lifting her chin and holding his gaze. The mug hit the table with a thunk. Those ruby-red lips parted, her back arched and her breast heaved as she blew him a kiss.

“Here’s looking at you, kid!”

With a faint blush and the horrible feeling that Michelle Newell was staring at his backside the whole way, Doctor Horace Brooks turned around and got the hell out of there while the going was good.

His own much-needed drink could wait until he got home.

END

If you enjoyed this story, you might want to check out The Stud Farm which is available from Barnes & Noble as well as numerous other fine retailers.

Louis Shalako's Top Five Tips for Being a Successful Writer.

Squee! Cupcakes!

by Louis Shalako

1.) Write a best-selling book, (and I can't stress that enough.)

2.) Get a million-dollar advance from a major publisher. Try not to be too long about it.

3.) Slap an award-winning cover on it and get great reviews from the New York Times, Oprah's Book Club and every other reviewer of note.

4.) Write a lot more best-selling books just as fast as you can, all edited by award-winning editors from major publishers, and oh; don't forget to get million-dollar advances for aforesaid books from aforesaid major publishers.

5.) Be nice to everybody, even when you feel like poking your eyes out with knitting needles.


SPECIAL FREE BONUS TIP:

Say 'Squee!' a lot and post some of the finest cupcake pictures since the dawn of time on Facebook and Pinterest.

Larger Than Life. Peter Henderson.

They just don't make 'em like that any more. 

by Louis Shalako

One of the great influences in my life passed away a few years ago. It's one funeral I’m glad I attended, for my broadcasting instructor passed away and I missed his funeral.

At least I knew when it was! But I had to help my brother or sister move, (forget which) and I recall sort of resenting that a bit at the time.

Honestly? There was this girl, and I was sort of wondering if she might be there…

Fifty-fifty chance, right?

I never even knew my old journalism instructor had passed until someone mentioned seeing it in the paper.

But Peter was different. He was larger than life. It sounds like bullshit.

Peter showed up one day when my old man dragged him home, probably the result of some long and involved conversation, over a couple of small pitchers of draft—my old man liked it because it was cheap, but honestly, it was a bit watery and the foam was pretty much gone by the time it got to the table.

There was a lot of thumping and talk and the sound of a dog, if you can imagine. He had this deep, rich, tobacco-brown voice, a sardonic voice with a note of contempt, superiority, enough to raise the hackles on any rogue male, and perhaps inspire a tremble in the midriff of any female lucky enough to still be of child-rearing age.

That guy always had the moral high ground. I don't know how he did it.

Yeah .I crawled out of the crib, and over a glass of un-needled moloko my old dad told me that Peter was renting his room for a hundred a month and was that all right or what?

“Well, sure,” I said doubtfully.

Why in the hell would anyone care what I thought, but of course my old man was always looking for someone’s approval.

That explains much.

Peter had a red Irish setter named Blue, and a nice short-haired grey cat, kind of old and arthritic, it was a Russian Blue, a cat with one eye named Squint, and he had been living in the camper on the back of a 1973 Ford F-150 which was mostly white but it had a blue stripe up the side.

He was returning from Montreal, but spoke English extremely well. He had grown up a few blocks away from where we lived.

So my old man took the smallest of three bedrooms. I had my own room, the fifteen year-old high school dropout with his own room, complete with stereo and mirrors on the ceiling as I recall, and Pete got the master bedroom for $100.00 a month.

My old man told him, “That’s room only, but we got plenty of peanut butter and I probably won’t let you starve.”

Peter had just taken a job with the local radio station. What a voice. Holy, crap, what a voice.

He had the morning talk show. The previous host had dropped dead of a heart attack while shoveling snow, and Peter had played a bit role in some National Film Board Canada documentary set in the Arctic, fuckin’ Nanook or something, and the station was willing to take a chance on him.

I listened to that guy, as you can well imagine, as well as looking after his cat. The dog, now, that thing rode to work with him and wandered around uptown all day. As far as anyone knows.

But Peter Henderson was the one who told me, “You’ve got a fucking brain in your head Louis. What the fuck are you doing laying around in bed all day until three o’clock in the fucking afternoon—(Peter always enunciated very well, putting the ‘g’ on the end and everything) and you can’t even get a job at a carwash and maybe try helping your old man out…”

I’ll never forget the way he pronounced fucking.

Oh, yeah, ladies and gentlemen, old Peter had a few things to say to a lazy teenager.

Peter was about six-foot three, with a big red beard and flaming, curly red hair. He came and went with a leather briefcase—I’ve never owned a briefcase in my entire life, but he had a leather jacket, a tie, shiny shoes, and he had the morning show, and I sure as hell listened to the most interesting son of a bitch I ever had heard in my entire God-damned fifteen year-old life.

Yeah, Peter and my old man drank at the kitchen table. I listened then too, but then my old man was buying and Peter was a hungry man back then. Peter ate my old man’s Viet Cong Stew, a favourite back then for us all. The recipe is now lost to history and maybe that's a good thing. He ate his peanut butter and his onion sandwiches with the salt and the pepper, which made him fart something terrible. It was a sore point between us, I can admit that after all these years. I gave him some awful painting and he hung it up on the bedroom wall, where he could lay on the bed with his dog and look at it.

“It brings me great peace,” he told me once.

I shall always treasure that remark.

But, ah, he went on to hold that show and this town, for many years, and I was sort of his snarky acolyte or denier or something and he told me a few other things besides.

“With that face, and that voice, with that fucking brain, Louis, you should be on TV.”

Think about what that did. It’s not like I ain’t got an IQ of about a hundred-forty and people do sort of look up to me, and even then I towered over Peter, my dad, and pretty much anyone around here. So why not, right?

But the man definitely had influence. He ran for election at some point, and the local politicos either loved him or feared him or just thought he was a pain in the ass, depending on how hungry they were getting. He would talk about them on his show, of course. It was a kind of power, I reasoned.

That thought stuck with me.

I finally did get a job, more than one, mixing mortar and carrying concrete blocks around in wheelbarrows and stuff like that, and what the hell, old Peter married a girlhood friend of my mother’s, and I attended the wedding along with some other folks, all attired in my own sort of tailor-made leather hippie jacket and I have, quite frankly, been a bullshit artist ever since.

Pete was a wonderful, loving, tough, loud sort of a talker. Never forget that guy. He’d stick his face right in mine, bad breath he always had, and he’d say, “You’re a lazy cunt, Louis.”

He'd grab me right by the collar and make it stick, too.

He was right, too.

Yeah, you couldn’t slide too much past old Pete.

He had a way of getting people talking, though.

There was the CBC on the radio, of course. We had eight or nine channels on the TV. Peter had a way of reading the local paper, knowing all about current events, and then he had his spiel. He’d open up the microphone at the top of the hour and spew out some reactionary, provocative point of view, just to piss people off more than anything, and then he’d go to a commercial, and then he’d nod at the producer—oh, yeah, I went in there a time or two just to watch, and then they’d open up the phone lines.

Let’s be honest, it worked every time.

After my old man died, my mother told me, “He blamed me for you becoming a writer.”

That’s a strange idea at the best of times. I worked my ass off at this like any other failed writer-bastard.

But seriously, folks, Big Frank really ought to have blamed that frickin’ homeless guy, the big red-haired one, the Shakespearean actor sort of guy, the one he dragged home, half drunk and staggering around with a silly grin on his face and talking all kinds of shit, all those long years ago—and that would be about 1974, as I recall.

The world was young back then, and full of promise, none of which has been wasted.

If there is a heaven, I can just imagine you two old sons of bitches up there, looking down here at us, raising a glass of the house draft, i.e. by that I mean the cheap stuff, and if you can have a good laugh at me that’s fine too.

You are gone but not forgotten.

You can figure out who’s to blame, for all of this, while you’re at it.

END

Blessed Are the Humble. Louis Shalako. (Amazon.)