He had won scholarships to attend university, so his father’s troublesome question about affording it all had been partly answered, at least for this first big step.
Galen had expected his father to share his happiness about being able to go to university, but the closer he came to leaving home the quieter his father became, and his mother had no answer when his father summarily rejected all conversation. Then, as graduation day approached, he realized this might be the end of spending time with his only friend, Edison.
He also knew Edison could take care of himself now. The scared rabbit was gone. The young man had gained the confidence and strength of knowing he could do something really well: electronics.
They promised to stay in touch, a promise they both fully intended to keep.
...
A little more than three years later a much-anticipated letter reached Galen, as he was now called in his days at university.
He had breezed through his studies, so he could always find time for extra lab work and experimentation. As an undergraduate he had published eight papers and more kept filtering through his mind, but that all-important letter had dominated his consciousness ever since senior year had begun.
Galen hesitated to open it for fear of what it might not say. Boyle, his roommate, watched him clutching the envelope, not moving, almost not breathing, so he snuck up from behind, snatched the envelope away, but after a second thought and a sheepish grin, he handed it back to the man with those powerful arms.
Boyle had gotten along fine with Galen most of the time, but he had heard what The Bear—as Galen also was known—could do when provoked, and he was not about to tempt fate, not after what Trish had told his girlfriend Mary about her date with the big guy.
Come on, Freiling, finish up. You’re not saying anything new
.
Galen sat bored witless listening to his physiology professor drone on, repeating the obvious in less than understandable terms.
“And so, ladies and gentlemen, just remember that beneath the surface we are what our distant ancestors were. Or, to use a catchy phrase, Ontology recapitulates Phylogeny.”
Score another dried-up conundrum for the prune face! Come on! I’ve got a lot to do before seeing Trish tonight.
“We think ourselves superior to the lower animals, and yet, when we are threatened, we revert. We become that lower order of animal whose prime motivation is survival. Then that wonderful powerhouse, the autonomic nervous system, kicks in and floods the body with stimulants, even rage-producing hormones and other chemicals that precipitate the possible alternative reactions of fight or flight.”
…
or fucking.
“Just remember that when you think you are the rational beings the philosophers say you are. When you are cornered, you are nothing more than a reptile. Have a nice weekend, and don’t forget your fifty-page paper is due Monday.”
Okay, that’s more like it. I finished your stupid paper last week, so no sweat.
He stopped by the dorm, glanced at what he did have to finish, and decided Saturday would be soon enough. Meanwhile, a quick shower and change, then off to pick up Trish at her room. What a sharp girl—decent-looking and smart, kind of fun to talk with. He checked his finances. Enough put aside from tutoring the freshmen having difficulty with organic chem to have a nice meal at the Alpine in town, then maybe a stroll around the park before the movies.
Let her pick what she wants to see. It can’t hurt to build some brownie points for later.
He was feeling good as he did his shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits knock on her dorm door. He could hear giggling on the other side. The female guardian of coed virtue, who looked like Freiling’s twin and stared at him as if he were vermin, had to relent on her special Power of No to any boy attempting to trespass the girls’ dorm. This was Friday night.
She was standing in the hallway, a few of her dorm mates nearby. He stared at her: saddle shoes, solid gray poodle skirt, and light pink sweater that accentuated her, uh, front-to-back dimensions. Her light brown ponytail topped a strawberry-freckled face.
Oh, yes, he was feeling good tonight!
“How’s the Alpine sound to you, Trish?”
As he had hoped, it sounded great: burgers, cherry Coke, and something new to the college town, pizza. Not the real stuff like the nanas in the old country would make, but none of his classmates would know the difference.
Satisfied, they headed out for a quick walk around the park, then the Hitchcock movie down the street, then …
who knows?
The old streetlights cast multiple shadows as the couple rounded the monument to Oliver Wendell Holmes. They were about to do the return half-circle when two of the shadows separated from the darkness and stood blocking their way.
“Looka what we got here, a broad and a pig! Maybe we oughta make pork chops and save the broad for dessert!”
The bigger one laughed, his eyes staying focused on Galen and Trish, his hand wrapped around a snub-nose .38.
The shorter one started to laugh as well. “Let’s see how much pork the pig has!”
He held a metal pipe and started to wave it around in front of the couple, who stood there staring in shocked silence.
Galen felt strange, almost as if he were standing to the side watching what was happening to him. He felt a flush beginning to burn in his face and a fine trembling in his entire body as the short mugger kept waving the pipe closer and closer. He suddenly recalled the part of his physiology paper on the flight/fight syndrome:
When you are fighting for your life there is a weird transformation into the limbic-brained beast that resides within all of us. You function (“you” meaning a person, not you specifically) on two levels, almost standing outside of yourself as you descend into the darkness within. You feel the other person’s life. The rational ghost denies the truth of the outcome while the limbic beast howls both rage and conquest. Then you physically collapse. The difference between that action and the premeditated action of a trained killer is the overwhelming chemical surge as the sympathetic nervous system floods you with all the rage-producing chemicals it can. Then you lash out at those who seek to kill you and return the favor.
The surge that erupted within him could not be controlled. His left hand shot out, grabbed the shorter man’s wrist in an iron grip and swung the pipe down across the hand of the gunman. His ghost image felt the bones break and heard the agonized scream as the pipe clattered to the street.
His right arm moved forward, his hand grasping the shorter man’s neck and tightening until he could feel the cartilage start to give way.
The larger mugger picked up the pipe and started to swing it. Galen dropped the other man, blocked the pipe wielder’s arm and twisted it until an audible crack sounded; again the man let out a guttural scream. Galen started to reach for the screamer’s neck.
“Stop, for God’s sake, stop! You’re killing them!”
He suddenly froze at her words. God, it was real! He was living the prophetic words of his own paper!
He leaned against the lamppost, staring down at the two men writhing in pain on the grass-bordered walk.
Then he turned to her and saw her staring at him—not in relieved gratitude but in fear and horror. He saw it in her eyes: To her, he was the beast incarnate, someone capable of killing, even though he probably had saved her life, or at least her honor.
“I’m going home,” she said softly, then turned and walked away.
“Come on, Galen, fish or cut bait. It’s not going to change if you keep staring at it. Let me open it for you. If it’s not good, I’ll put it down and leave you alone for awhile, okay?”
Galen took a deep breath and handed the envelope over, then sat down on the edge of his bed.
Boyle carefully opened the letter, glanced over it, looked up mournfully at his roommate, put the letter on his desk, opened the door and took a half-step into the hall.
Galen’s heart fell, just before Boyle broke into a big grin.
“You got in, you big ape!” he yelled, taking off as fast as he could down the hallway before Galen could grab him.
He went to the desk and picked up the heavy linen paper letter with the gold-embossed seal at the top.
Dear Mr. Galen:
It is with great pleasure that we notify you of your acceptance to the Class of 1965 of the university’s Medical School. Your exemplary academic record and test scores indicate the potential for a great career in your chosen future field of medicine.
We welcome you. Please submit the enclosed matriculation forms as soon as possible. You have also been granted scholarship status. You will report for introductory orientation session next August 1.
It was signed by the dean.
He ran outside and stood in the middle of the quad, arms outstretched, eyes turned up to heaven.
“I made it!” he shouted, to everyone and no one.
He felt on top of the world as he walked the main corridor of the science building where he had spent most of the last three years. As he passed by one of the labs, he heard his name being called.
“Mr. Galen, may I see you for a moment?”
It was Dr. Freiling, professor of physiology. Galen had gotten the only A ever granted by the shriveled old man. It must have royally pissed him off, but Freiling couldn’t have done anything else. Galen’s papers and exams were perfect, and he had even caught a mistake in one of the solutions the professor himself had explicated.
“Yes, Dr. Freiling?”
“Mr. Galen, I hear by the grapevine that you’ve been accepted to medical school. Is that so?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Galen, I know that you are brilliant, but to be honest, you don’t have the personality to be a good doctor. I wouldn’t want to be under your care.”
Galen knew he was being baited. It was Freiling’s style, a last-resort attempt to gain the upper hand.
“Yes, sir, thank you for your confidence in me. Is there anything else?”
Freiling shook his head, frowned and walked away.
Galen felt as though he had just been shot down by the Red Baron. He knew Freiling was a bitter man, but even so, he had done well in his class and had hoped that would be all that mattered.
He walked to the pay phone halfway down the hallway and called his parents. It had only been two years ago that they had finally installed a telephone.
He whirled the dial wheel once, and when he heard the operator he gave her the number. A moment later, his mother’s quiet voice said, “Hello?”
“Mama, it’s Berto. Tell Papa when he comes home I got accepted to medical school!”
The phone was quiet for a few seconds, then his mother responded, still strangely quiet.
“
Si, Berto
, I will tell him. This is wonderful news.”
He hung up the phone. He had expected her to be as happy as he was, but he sensed the reserve in her voice. What was wrong?
It was true he and Papa hadn’t seen eye to eye on a number of things since he had started college. His father still dealt with him in the old way, never acknowledging his growth as a person or his reaching adulthood. He understood the cultural imperative of the old country, deference to parental authority being the highest level of respect a child could demonstrate.
Yet he had grown tired of the petty arguments over everything, the endless fault-finding and criticism. It seemed as though his father was trying to drive him away.
He would call later when his father had come home from work.
He walked slowly across the campus and sat down on one of the benches outside the main library, which had served as his sanctuary.
“Mr. Galen, are you all right?”
He looked up and saw his favorite professor, Dr. Basily, chairman of the anthropology department and curator of the school museum. His back ramrod straight—the result of a war wound from Korea—he was never too busy to talk over class points or just about anything else.
Galen wished he could talk to his father the way he did with Basily.
“I just got accepted to medical school, Dr. Basily.”
“And this is what gives you the long face? Spill it, Galen.”
He told the older man about his encounter with Dr. Freiling and the strangely unenthusiastic response from his mother.
“That old fart Freiling isn’t happy unless he’s making someone else miserable. Listen, Galen, let me give you some advice that took me twenty years to learn. In your life you will meet two types of people of whom you should be very wary: dream eaters and soul stealers.
“Freiling is a dream eater. He will tell you that what you strive for is not for you, and that you don’t have the ability so you shouldn’t even try. Dream eaters can be teachers, friends, counselors, or even family. These people, like Freiling, are emotional vampires, manipulators, control freaks. Later, when you become the fine doctor that I know you will be, you will run into the soul stealers. These will be your colleagues, your bosses, collateral individuals who will try to sabotage what you do. They also are emotional vampires who live off your misery. Unfortunately, your worst enemies will be yourself and those closest to you—your family. This is when your guard should be at its highest, and you should resist with all your might.”
Basily reached over and ruffled the hair on Galen’s head.
“C’mon, let’s go to the student union. I’ll buy you a soda to celebrate the good news.”
“Dr. Basily, would you mind if I asked you a personal question?”
“Shoot.”
“Your back must hurt quite a bit. Can anything be done for it?”
“Mr. Galen, it hurts like a sonofabitch. And no, I’ve been told it’s as good as it will ever get. That reminds me of a third point I need to share with you.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Shit happens, no matter what you do and no matter how hard you try to prevent it.”
Galen smiled, the muscles of his own shoulders visibly relaxing—for a short time, anyway.
“Antonio, we have to tell him.”