Freezing People is (Not) Easy (25 page)

“The total cost of the dry ice replacement over that time span was exactly $10,800, not counting the labor and the transport of one hundred miles per week. If you calculate that, it comes to twelve thousand miles of Mr. Nelson driving to faithfully replace that dry ice without ever missing once. Does that sound like a con man?

“I ask you to please be fair with Mr. Nelson. While you may not like the idea of frozen bodies and trying to bring people back from the dead, the ultimate truth is this: Was this transaction a donation, or was it a scam? I thank you sincerely for your honest consideration.”

It was 11:30 a.m. when the judge dismissed the jury for lunch and ordered them back the next day for deliberations. Winterbotham and I arrived at about noon the following day and waited around. I kept asking him what he thought the jury would do, based on his experience and their expressions and demeanor. He shrugged and said it could go either way. At 3:00 p.m. the light went on in the courtroom, indicating that the jurors had reached a verdict. The verdict would be announced at 3:30.

I felt sick about Joseph Klockgether. He always had good intentions, but I feared that Nothern's angle of pitting Joseph and me as competition to God was going to be a tough hurdle to overcome. At 3:30 we were all standing at attention, facing the jury. The courtroom was packed with spectators and news media. My heart was racing, and I had to keep my hand on my knee to keep it from shaking. The court clerk asked in a loud, booming voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, have you reached a verdict?”

The forelady answered, “Yes we have.”

“Would you please read the verdict?”

The forelady read loudly into a microphone. “On the matter of intentional infliction of emotional distress, we find as to the defendant Joseph Klockgether
for the plaintiffs,
Terry and Dennis Harrington, and order the defendant
to pay damages
in the amount of . . .”

With those words, it seemed like the building began to shake violently, accompanied by the roar of an enormous ocean tsunami. In my head I screamed,
No, no! You can't do this to this innocent wonderful man. Joe Klockgether only gave his help freely to those who asked for it. How could you not see this truth?

A surge of rage and hurt rushed through my body like I had never felt before. I tuned out hearing the amount of the damages against Joseph Klockgether. I knew the same fate was about to fall on me, but I didn't care about myself. All I had was enough money for gas to get home!

I said as loud as I could, “You have no idea the mistake you have just made.”

The forelady ignored me and continued rattling on with the judgment against Joseph. I was devastated for him. I stood up, walked past the jury, and stomped out of the courtroom. I was not giving them the pleasure of witnessing my reaction as they delivered the verdict against me.

My unexpected maneuver allowed me to avoid the ten news cameramen who were waiting to learn the verdict; they were caught completely unprepared for my sudden departure. I just rushed past them and their bewildered looks. I was almost out of the courthouse before they realized I was their story. They hollered, “Mr. Nelson, where are you-u-u-u . . .” as the Hall of Justice doors slammed shut behind me.

I had driven a friend's car to court that day since I didn't want to be with Winterbotham in case the verdict went against me. About halfway home I heard on the radio that Klockgether and I had been found at fault.

Four hundred thousand dollars . . . each.

I slammed the off button on the radio, slammed the car door when I reached my apartment, and then slammed my bedroom door, those words reverberating inside my thick skull for hours.

I could feel the compassion, cultivated by my cryonics goals, draining from my body. My lifelong dream had resulted in catastrophe. I locked myself in my room for two days, needing to recover from getting my head smashed with a sledgehammer. Judgment day will endure forever as an excruciating memory—even if I am suspended and revived centuries in the future.

I now owed those vultures almost half a million dollars. I needed a new attorney, and it would cost twelve thousand dollars to obtain a copy of the transcript so that I could file an appeal. I vowed that day that I would never again discuss cryonics with anyone, beyond what might still be necessary to finish up this legal mess. I would forever turn off that cryonics switch in my head and once again make my children, who had for so many years seen so little of me, my focus for the rest of my life.

Chapter 16

Appeal and Settlement

The insult of that jury's decision was more than
my soul and spirit could bear. I had given years of my life to this journey and had been condemned for my trouble. I tried hard to fight off the self-pity, but I still could not comprehend that this nightmare was the end product of all my hopes and dreams.

I was numb with disbelief at the verdict; the jury had ignored the facts and documentation and instead handed down an emotional verdict based on the image that Nothern had projected onto Klockgether and me.

The jury likely felt it was their job to stamp out a perceived assault on Christianity. It was, without a doubt, the prime objective of the plaintiffs' effort to pit us against God. That malevolent and hypocritical distortion made me sick. I had the deepest respect and love for the teachings of Christ; to me cryonics was a gift of the Creator, no different than organ transplants or any other heroic medical treatment.

My anger at these circumstances was almost unbearable. Joseph Klockgether, who had given his time and services free of charge for years, was also now expected to pay almost half a million dollars to these liars. If anyone had a right to hate me, it was Joseph. I had gotten him dragged into this trial, and I had made all the decisions that led to the closure of the vault. But the bloodsucking, soul-killing plaintiffs needed
me
to get at
Joseph's
insurance money. Despite everything, Joseph and I are friends to this day, as close as we were during the beginning days of the cryonics movement.

My friend Stella Gramer advised me to either appeal the verdict or move to Canada. “You can't avoid a punitive damage judgment; you can't even use bankruptcy against it. You have to appeal. There's simply no choice.”

Between the judge not allowing the AGA documents and my lawyer's failure to disclose his lithium medication and his resulting crazy behavior in the courtroom, I had an excellent shot at winning an appeal. The only problem: I was flat broke. I had already sold my beloved Porsche to pay Winterbotham. There was nothing left.

I was grateful when my friend Sandra Stanley offered to help with my legal woes. She was a newly practicing attorney and immediately filed for the right to appeal with the second appellate court. Joseph's attorneys also filed. Sandra petitioned the court to waive the twelve-thousand-dollar fee for the trial transcript, basically telling them I was destitute. This was crucial to what happened later, and that snake Worthington watched closely.

I finally learned the loophole that justified the judge's inexplicable decision to exclude the Anatomical Gift Act. Judge Shelby had written the California attorney general before the trial and asked that if the AGA was fraudulently utilized, did that protect the person perpetuating the fraud? In a fit of bureaucratic sleight of hand, the reply stated that even if an organization was declared a medical research nonprofit, it didn't mean they actually were a medical research nonprofit. To my knowledge, there was never a hearing prior to Judge Shelby's ruling so that we could establish that the CSC was a legitimate foundation and we had not fraudulently used the AGA.

If I obtained the waiver, nothing would prevent a second trial. With Sandra's help, I could represent myself in court. A delicious benefit would be the nightmare I'd create for Worthington. Not only would the judgment against Joseph Klockgether's insurance company be delayed indefinitely, there was a real chance that Worthington could lose that judgment. However, without the waiver, I couldn't get my hands on the court transcripts, and no transcript meant no appeal.

About a month into the legal process, Sandra received a call from Nothern with an unexpected offer to settle the judgment against me. Joseph's insurance company had made overtures, suggesting they would pay the debt, but they wanted to wait until my appeal was resolved. Nothern and the rest of the vultures needed my appeal dismissed so that they could get their hands on the four hundred thousand dollars in insurance money—the big prize. They knew I didn't have any money.

Their strategy proved very well thought out. Additionally, they wanted to represent me in a lawsuit against my attorney, Winterbotham. Of course they would pocket whatever money they managed to get from him.

I was now in the peculiar position of negotiating with the vermin and charlatans who had created this situation, destroyed my legacy in cryonics, and excoriated my honor in court. However, the offer sounded great. They could feast on Winterbotham if they dropped that ridiculous judgment against me. I just wanted to be freed of the ordeal, but I would reject the offer if it harmed Joseph.

I called Joseph the next morning and explained Nothern's offer. The trial's negative publicity had damaged his reputation, and a lien had been placed against his mortuary until the insurance company paid the judgment. My heart ached for him.

Joseph agreed to the offer and wanted to talk to his attorney. A couple days later, he called me back and said, “Don't be concerned about my case. Just do whatever you need to end this and put this insanity behind you.”

This was a great relief. “Joe, I'm so sorry. I never thought we'd get to this point.”

“Don't feel guilty on my account. I know this was a money grab, and I know there'll always be people like that. After all my years in the business, nothing surprises me.”

I didn't feel charitable like Joseph. “Worthington surprised me. I'd heard about such nasty lawyers but had never met one. He engineered this whole thing—found the Harringtons, convinced them to sue, and fed them the lies.” About that time I learned, too late unfortunately, that if I hadn't shown up for trial, Joseph would have won by default—there was no evidence against him. By trying to do the right thing morally, I did the worst thing possible strategically.

“For them it's just business,” Joseph said. “That doesn't make it okay; it's just the way of the world.”

Sandra and I made an appointment to meet with Nothern at his Century City office to finalize the agreement. I told Nothern that I would deal with him only and not with Worthington; that man had become the only person on this planet I actually hated. For me,
he
was the con artist, swindling an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar judgment out of the jury.

When we met, I told myself to smile, but I hated shaking Nothern's hand.

He patted my hand, his voice sounding as smooth as a hypnotist's. “Mr. Nelson, I'm so sorry for everything you've just gone through. I know this has been terribly difficult, but it will all be over soon.”

With his instinct for knowing exactly what to say and how to say it, he had managed to enchant me once more. Sitting at that oak conference table in a sumptuous leather chair, sipping divine coffee that a gorgeous secretary had brought me, I felt like I was making some Faustian agreement. Although the deal was technically good, I still cringed at the injustice, since I had tried to help the plaintiffs. Through that verdict, I feared the lawyers' lies would become the official version of my actions at Chatsworth and negate my contributions to cryonics. After all my years of investing my time, my soul, and my money, I wondered what my lasting contribution to cryonics would be. In the end, had I advanced the goals that I loved? Had I helped advance the life's work of my hero, Professor Robert Ettinger?
Had my work mattered at all?

My pen hovered over the settlement papers with the same trepidation I had felt when I sat in another lawyer's office and had signed my divorce papers. With that signature, I had ended my vow of lifelong commitment to my wife Elaine, and I knew these settlement papers would be my last act as a cryonicist. With this signature, all those hopes and dreams I had carried for more than fifteen years would fade into the past, becoming more hazy and irrelevant with each passing year. My life, which had once seemed so destined and sure, now seemed hazy, as though I was peering through the fog of liquid nitrogen vapor. I wondered about that man, that future Bob Nelson, who wasn't a cryonicist.

I was just about to sign the document when Nothern dropped what he tried to represent as a minor detail. Marie Brown wasn't willing to settle, so this agreement excluded her; that left me still owing her sixty-five thousand dollars. I stood up and paced the room in disgust—even now, there was more deception and more greed from these people. Sandra quickly reminded Nothern that the agreement was the dismissal of the entire judgment, which included Brown. This last-minute change was not acceptable; we left, papers unsigned. That tiny victory gave me a microscopic measure of happiness. The lawyer's charm hadn't worked this time.

Nothern eventually talked Brown into accepting the settlement, and I finally agreed as well. He also sued my attorney, Winterbotham, for me and received sixty thousand dollars; I got nothing. While I waited on the settlement, the court extended the deadline to file briefings. Sandra never filed, and we allowed the appeal to die on the vine. On January 25, 1983, the following judgment was handed down: “Pursuant to appellant Robert F. Nelson's request, the appeal is dismissed.” It was over.

With the signing of the settlement papers, I banished cryonics from my mind and heart forever. All my love and passion was gone, robbed from me in a courtroom by people who cared only about pilfering a buck.

Chapter 17

Closed Doors, Opened Windows

I had one asset left—my electronics repair business,
California Video Repair, in Huntington Beach. At least I could sleep and eat in the back of the store. After suffering an almost lethal blow to my soul, I reverted from using my biological father's name back to my stepdad's name, Robert Buccelli. I simply wanted
Bob Nelson
to disappear. Whenever I received any requests for an interview, I hung up the phone without saying a word. Bob Nelson was on another planet.

Slowly I crawled back into the world of the living. I found a home in Huntington Beach and started life over again. For the next three years, I worked at my repair business day and night. All the energy that I had invested in the vault now went into the store.

It wasn't until 1987 that I recovered from the cryonics fiasco. I went home one evening and cooked myself a big filet mignon. With a glass of fine red wine, I retired to my backyard to watch a gorgeous mountain sunset. I thought,
Wow, I am pretty lucky. I've got it all.
Then I heard a voice taunting me: “Is this really it Bob—a big steak, a new Honda Prelude, a nice home? Are you
really
happy now?”

I knew almost at once that I was kidding myself. I was missing one of the most important elements of being alive—that of being in love.

Several months later I was driving to my store in Huntington Beach. Just before the freeway entrance stood a bakery where I occasionally stopped for coffee and blueberry muffins.

As I entered the bakery, I noticed a breathtaking Asian woman working the counter. She was a petite, smiling beauty with silken black hair to her knees. After gazing too long at her, I managed to say, “Hello.”

I ordered my coffee and muffin. All week, I couldn't stop thinking of this beautiful lady who glowed with an enormous inner radiance. She certainly had attracted my attention. Though not worldly, her eyes revealed a startling awareness that was utterly enchanting.

I stopped in the bakery every morning, but I was making zero progress. I learned that her name was Moeurth and she was thirty-three. She had emigrated from Cambodia and had lived in the United States for five years. After the first week, I invited her to lunch at a restaurant a block away. She said no and explained that she had never been on a date. In her country, her father picked her husband, and she was not yet ready.

By the second week I was becoming frustrated. She always waited on me with a big smile, remembered my order, and asked me sweetly, “How are you today? You go to work?” However, I couldn't make the slightest progress, so I decided to appeal to her younger sister for help. Penny also worked at the bakery, was more Americanized, and was excited to play matchmaker. In the third week, Moeurth handed me a bag with two blueberry muffins instead of my usual one.

She gave me a shy smile and said, “The other is for your wife.”

I was thrilled she thought of me. “I'm not married, ma'am. I'm too young.” We both just smiled—very warm smiles. It was a good day.

The next day Penny told me that Moeurth had agreed to lunch, but she would drive her own car the two hundred yards to the restaurant.

I thought it was strange but was happy with whatever I could get. At lunch she ordered only a Coke.

“How can I become your friend?” I asked.

“That is my parents' decision,” she replied.

“How can your parents consider me if we haven't met?”

“I don't know, but I will ask them.”

Two days later, Moeurth said her parents had invited me to their home in Pomona. I was excited; this quest was like climbing a mountain, but I was doing it.

When I arrived at her home, I saw that it contained many small rugs and several lovely, colorful sheets hung from the ceiling to partition off different parts of the rooms for privacy. Her mom greeted me with some kind Cambodian words and then handed me a huge bowl of fruit and gestured for me to sit on a worn-out couch. Her mom and I exchanged big smiles and a few words during my two-hour visit. When I used the bathroom, I counted thirteen toothbrushes. This was truly a loving family, struggling to keep their way of life intact.

The next week I met her father at the Pomona Buddhist temple, where he was serving a six-month commitment as a monk. The temple was a converted three-bedroom house, retrofitted with stained-glass windows and gold-plated steel horns on the four corners of the roof. Orange and yellow rugs covered the floor of the spartan room, and pictures of great monks and mountains adorned the walls. The four Cambodian monks wore ochre robes over one shoulder, and they all had shaved heads. I felt quite honored and nervous when they welcomed me, but I quickly felt their acceptance.

Her father gave his permission for our first date at Knotts Berry Farm. After about two hours of blissful togetherness, I took a bold step and reached out to hold her hand. She was shy but didn't pull away and soon relaxed.

“I'm so happy to have this chance to take you out.”

“This is very new for me and not at all the Cambodian way.”

“Yes, but you're in America now. You are now both Cambodian and American, so you need to learn how to integrate this exciting new world into your precious life.”

Moeurth nodded. When things were explained logically, I realized that she and her family were quite willing to adapt.

Against her wishes, I bought her a jacket. She was confused about how to handle the difference in cultures, while I tried to be sensitive to this strain on her conscience. I was falling in love.

On our third date, as we ate a meal of fish and clams, Moeurth said, “Bob, I need tell something important.” In her beautiful broken English, she told me that after three dates, we couldn't see each other again.

She explained that Cambodians do not allow any more connection without an engagement agreement. I sat there stunned. I wasn't thinking about engagement; we'd only just started dating. I balked at the all-or-nothing prospect, but I was scared to lose her entirely.

When I brought her home before dark, Moeurth said, “Not to worry about us. We enjoyed each other's company. Thank you so much for our wonderful friendship.”

No hug, no kiss, not even a handshake, just good-bye. She closed the door, and then she was gone forever. I stood outside, staring up at her house, and wondered if this supposed Cambodian custom was merely a pretense for breaking off our relationship.
Had I been in love alone?

On my drive home, I gripped the steering wheel and tried to console myself by thinking I would simply move on to the next woman. I wasn't a bad catch, I thought. But Moeurth had morals and honor such as I had never before encountered. And my heart would not listen to this “other woman” nonsense; it knew whom I loved. Each morning I drove by her bakery, and I felt a painful longing to call her.

Still reeling from the lies and duplicity of the trial, I was attracted to her genuine and innocent heart. I knew she wasn't a delicate child; her life hadn't been sheltered. Moeurth had been a happy girl in Cambodia. They never had electricity or running water, but they had a cow she doted on, and her father carved her any toy she wanted from wood. As a teenager, though, she had been placed in a Communist prison camp and forced to work in the rice fields every waking hour for three and a half years. Guarded by soldiers dressed all in black with machine guns on horseback, she witnessed them executing her friends and family by slashing their throats or bellies with their long knives. But through all her hardships, she had maintained her serenity and sweetness. I had become cynical after the cryonics trial, but Moeurth had never lost her optimism and never would. She would have been an amazing wife.

Two weeks later, when I could not endure her absence any longer, I called her and asked, “Moeurth, can we meet to talk about engagement?”

After a pause she said, “I must speak to my parents. They must give their permission if we are to talk about marriage.”

I was shocked at the string of difficulties. With cryonics, I had wanted to take a time machine into the future. With Moeurth, it felt like I was taking a time machine into the past. It didn't matter though; I'd follow her anywhere. I asked, “What if they don't approve of our marriage?”

“Bob, I came into this world through the love of my precious parents. They are like God to me, and I have been taught to respect their guidance and wisdom. I will honor whatever they decide.”

Moeurth called me the next day and explained her father's stipulations for the marriage. They would convene the entire family in two weeks for everyone to have an opportunity to meet and question this American. They would determine whether I was worthy of marrying their beloved Moeurth. Additionally, I needed to bring at least ten character witnesses who would speak for my character and sincerity in this engagement.

On the day of the examination, about forty Cambodian people came to Moeurth's house. One of Moeurth's brothers-in–law, Sarinn, sat the family on the front lawn in a circle with one chair in the center for me. Moeurth was beautifully dressed in a long golden gown, her knee-length jet-black hair piled on her head.

An elder Cambodian began the discussion by asking my supporters to introduce themselves and express what they felt about Bob Buccelli to the friends and family. After all their compliments, the attention turned to me.

“Will you join Moeurth's family or try to keep her unto yourself?”

“I have honestly grown to care for her family. It would be an extreme honor to be considered part of this family. I would love to learn and participate in your customs.”

This seemed to please most, except for one gentleman who wanted to delve into my personal relationships and my ex-wife, who had been remarried for nearly ten years and had a daughter with her new husband.

Although I had expected difficult questions, I began to feel upset when another brother interrupted. “Bob, please don't get frustrated. We are just trying to be as careful as we possibly can. Moeurth is a grown woman, but we love her immensely and want her safe and happy. Please understand that.”

One of the friendlier brothers asked, “Robert, why do you wish to marry a woman of another culture?”

I turned to look at Moeurth and paused to choose my words carefully. “She is a flower and more beautiful than words can describe. Inside I have found an even finer soul. I will treasure her all of my days.”

With that came a round of applause and one last question. Because of the language difficulty, I thought they were asking when I wanted their decision. I said firmly, “I want that right now.”

The entire group roared with laughter.

The leader explained, “We were asking when you would like to marry if the group approved—not when we would give our decision.”

After dinner, Penny announced that the family would happily accept me as the husband of their precious Moeurth. “From this moment on until you become man and wife, you are both just like birds locked in a cage and waiting to be joined together. You are a lucky man, Robert.”

Amid the cheering, I went to Moeurth, whom I was still not allowed to touch. For the first time I said, “I love you.”

Now we could speak daily by phone or go out for a brief meal if the outing was related to our wedding plans.

The marriage could not occur until the dowry of five thousand dollars was paid to her father. Moeurth explained that usually an engaged couple would work together, sometimes for years, to save the money. She suggested that with us both working and saving, we could get married within a year or two. I told her, “I have the money, and I don't want to wait.” Moeurth then asked me for one special favor; her mother wanted an authentic Cambodian ceremony, which lasted two days and required eight costume changes for me and ten for Moeurth.

I happily honored her mother's request, although I had no idea what it would entail. We were married on June 16, 1990. The celebration began at 9:00 a.m. on the fifteenth, and the first day ended at 6:00 p.m. The ceremony took place in the back of Moeurth's home. Thirty people filtered in throughout the day. Everyone in the family was busy cooking, preparing the next performance, and helping with the costume changes. Both days Moeurth and I kneeled on a dais and soaked in the spectacle. I couldn't understand the words or the reenacted symbolism, but our wedding was filled with a stunning pageantry of colorful rented costumes and professional dancers in golden sedge hats and surrounded by red and gold paper decorations. Moeurth wore a matchless gown of gold sequins that accentuated her long silken hair. No matter how much my knees ached during those long hours kneeling on the floor, one look at my angelic bride revitalized me. The music and the dancers were entrancing; at times I felt as though I had died and gone to heaven. The only thing missing was my children. They were invited of course, but their own problems prevented their attendance.

At the end of the first day ceremonies, I was absolutely exhausted and asked, “Are we married now?”

Moeurth's younger sister, Penny, answered, “No Robert, but we're getting close.”

Giving thanks for another day of loving