The Death of Wendell Mackey (2 page)

“No, it’s not— Look, if you knew a bomb was going to go off somewhere, you
knew
about it, you’d be obliged to tell people, right?”

Wendell dropped two more bags, kicking them into place with his foot. To his left a white van sporting an assortment of antennae and a retractable arm topped with a satellite dish stopped and parked. News media.

“If you knew, if you knew what we know, and if you knew now what you’ll certainly know soon enough, then you’re the guy who knows about the bomb.”

“Kinda confusing.”

“No, just
listen
.”

“It’s just scientists, doctors and nurses,” Wendell said, eyeing a journalist—an attractive young blonde holding onto her capped coffee mug for dear life—and camera man who exited the news van. “Aren’t there starving kids somewhere, or some dirty politician you guys could be bothering?”

“Lives get poisoned, man.” The protestor was attempting a sinister tone, but it came off as trite and rehearsed. His gray eyes floated behind oversized lenses.

“Just take it easy man,” Wendell said.

Another news van arrived. Then a third. The crowd was growing too, with a chartered bus depositing a crowd carrying preprinted signs.

“No offense, man,” said the protestor, “but you’re just a groundskeeper. You have no idea.” He wasn’t attempting condescension; it came naturally.

This is why Laughlin thumped one of them
, Wendell thought. “I know what I know. More than you.” Probably not. Wendell still didn’t even know where the cafeteria was.

“…serving their corporate masters, all for a buck,” said the protester, speaking a thought that started in his head and had spilled out mid sentence, “all so that they can keep feeding their beast, this…this whole…” He was searching for the right pejorative as he waved at the institution in the distance. “…Frankenstein’s castle!” He spat it out, seeming pleased.

“Just relax, man. Cops’ll be here soon.”

“Because you’re scared of us.”

“What?”

“Scared of us. The cops are for us. Even though they’re the threat.” He pointed at the institution.

“Whatever you say, man. Some of the higher ups will be making a statement later on. And we just—”

“And what?” The man was already growing agitated, which Wendell thought didn’t bode well for the morning. “You see back there?” The man turned and pointed into the crowd, to a group already talking to one of the reporters. “You see those two men?”

Wendell recognized the men speaking into a camera. Both were movie stars, or had been movie stars, the limelight in recent years turning towards younger and more bankable talent. The younger of the two men had made his career battling terrorists and aliens on the screen—singlehandedly, of course, and without a single hair on his manicured head ever bent out of place—while the older played elder statesmen, the presidents and attorneys and sage old professors that are the stock and trade of former superstars unable either to do their own stunts, or to any longer draw an appropriate superstar’s box office purse. They bled passion on the screen and lit up Oprah’s couch with their magnanimity. But their most recent film, in which they both starred and produced, and to which Wendell had inadvisably donated his ten dollars to buy a seat at the local theater, had tanked with reviewers and audiences alike. Their pet causes usually tended towards the political and the religious, as far as Wendell knew, so he wondered why they were involving themselves in something as small potatoes as the institution.

“Those guys know what it’s all about,” said the protester. “Not you, my friend. Sorry, but it’s true.” He smiled pitifully at Wendell. “And so you gotta figure out what side you’re on in this. We’re here,” he said, waving his hand at the growing crowd, “and they’re here,” he said, pointing to the actors, “because we care, we care about this world and the poison pouring out of that building, and we care about what’s happening in the name of science—” and he spat the word out of his mouth like it was bitter, “—and compassion and medicine. Those two guys are world famous, donating their time here because they
know
, they know what’s going on, and it’s important enough to them to call attention to this…this…crime against humanity.”

Wendell looked at him, a bit bemused, even though he was still confused about the whole hubbub. But to see this man work himself into a lather—and nearly chew his tongue off with righteous indignation—was more than a little enjoyable. After all, it was just a research institution. No one was getting bamboo shoots under their fingernails.

“Hey man,” said Wendell, drawing closer to the protester, dropping his voice, “maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s like you’re saying. But I’m just wondering…”

“What?”

“Nah, it’s nothing.”

“Look, you can tell me. We can help you.”

“Well, I don’t know…”

“Anything man, just say it.”

Wendell hesitated, and scratched his chin. “You think you could get me their autographs?”

The joke died in the air between the two, and the protester turned and marched off under a dark cloud.

But the joke did earn him a beer from Laughlin after work, and allowed a shy Wendell to open up a bit with his new associates. Comfort began to set in. But it was fleeting. Much as he didn’t want to admit it, the protestor’s words had bite, and stayed with him over the coming weeks. “It’s not what you think” was the phrase that began to gnaw at him. Even before Wendell’s trouble started, thinking back to the protestor, with his pompous college intern certainty, made Wendell pause when catching the eyes of any of the institution’s staff. Something about the institution felt askew, off kilter, as if the janitorial crew’s fanaticism for whitewashed walls covered a hidden desire to scrub away the institution’s real intentions. Every Friday he would make his way to the billing office—or what he assumed was the billing office—for his envelope of cash, and look around at the institution’s overly sanitized world, like a ripe piece of fruit ready to turn. He would then take the stairwell down to the ground level, one ear to the vents in the walls, wondering if what he heard through them—almost imperceptibly at first— were faint screams coming from the building’s lower levels.

Finally, they turned to Wendell.

“Mr. Mackey, right? Yes, good morning to you too.”

Seeming accidental, the doctor had run into Wendell in the hall, dropping his pile of papers.
Seeming
accidental, as the doctor knew Wendell’s name, even though Wendell wasn’t in his coveralls with his name stenciled on the front pocket. The supposedly chance encounter had begun a conversation continued over coffee on Wendell’s job at the institution. Peppered into the conversation were questions about Wendell’s background—awkwardly framed as innocuous, as some of them bordered on the intimate, but didn’t cause the doctor to bat an eye. Wendell, not conversationally adept, still knew enough to suspect that the casual conversation was more of an interview, or an examination. The white collars and the blue collars didn’t mix, and Wendell’s status on the bottom rung of the ladder shouldn’t have warranted any attention—be it serious or friendly—from the upper levels. But still, the doctor, a Dr. Scotia from one of the research divisions, was interested in him. Wendell remembered that first encounter in the hall, looking into Dr. Scotia’s face, which was pink and smooth, as if all laugh lines and brow creases, all expression, had been wiped clear and thrown away. His lab coat, his black slacks, his white shirt and pale blue tie, all had been pressed with obsessive care, giving his shape subtle, but unnatural, sharp edges.

Their first encounter was followed by a second, more intentional one. “A bit under the weather, perhaps?” he remembered Dr. Scotia saying, dedicating little time to small talk. It had been in the cafeteria. Scotia had dropped his cinnamon bun onto his tray and folded his hands under his chin. “You look, well, you just don’t look up to par. There is a bug going around, you know.” There were eyes behind the glasses, but nothing behind the eyes. He had brought Wendell up to his office on the top floor of the building and put a thermometer in his mouth, all of which led to a quick physical exam—“Friend to friend, Mr. Mackey, nothing else”—in an adjacent examination room. Blood pressure, temperature (again), otoscope, ophtholmascope, probing the lymph glands in his neck, all followed by copious notes written into his tablet PC.

“So, what kind of bug is it?”

“Nothing.” Scotia looked up from his computer. His pupils looked slightly dilated, and Wendell saw the faint flutter of his heartbeat in his neck, but his face stayed placid. “Nothing to get worked up about. But all of this does present us with an interesting opportunity.”

Expressionless words from an expressionless face, but with hindsight, they worked with the efficacy of a magic incantation opening a secret door, through which were unhinged horrors and the black heart of the institution. Somewhere below him, the screams in the vents had increased.

“What do you mean?”

Scotia turned and went back into his office. He returned, shaking a bottle of medication in front of him. “Everyone wants to be better, Mr. Mackey. Not just healthier, but better. More alert, in great shape, smarter and happier. A simple regimen of these vitamins is the first step. Not only will it knock that bug out of you, it will improve everything. It’s something we’ve been developing for years, but we’ve only been doing voluntary tests for the past few months. It’s completely safe, of course, and it comes with monetary remuneration.”

“With…”

“Payment, Mr. Mackey, as many medical studies do. But after a few weeks, I assure you you’ll feel like you’re stealing our money.” He handed it to Wendell. “Three a day, with water.”

And with that, Wendell was sent home. Wendell the Employee of the Month, the triathlete, the supervitamin spokesman and future Nobel laureate. He would change. Dr. Scotia would help. Better times and greener pastures.

“Screams,” Wendell said to himself, sitting at the wooden table in his mother’s empty apartment. “Wonder if anyone heard mine through those vents.”

He recalled an exchange he had at a local bar with his coworkers, two weeks after his examination. The three men had been huddled around a circular table with a painted checker board fading into its top. Wendell was cupping his empty mug, waiting for it to magically refill.

“They got you guys on those performance vitamins?” he asked.

Laughlin and Connor put down their beers and turned towards Wendell.

“You know,” he continued, “those vitamins, the red ones that they leave in your locker?”

The two men looked at each other, then back to Wendell.

“With a note?” Wendell said. “Says something about workers being less effective due to bad sleeping habits, yadda yadda, something about a substitute for caffeine, and…”

“They giving you vitamins? Hell, they don’t even give me two weeks’ vacation,” said Laughlin.

“It’s nothing then.”

“No, it’s not nothing. Connor, you?”

“Just making enough to pay for school,” said Connor.

“So why’re they giving you them? Afraid you’ll fall asleep on the mower and run yourself over?” When Laughlin laughed, his lips revealed teeth lined with black at the gum line.

“Honestly, I don’t know. You think they’re, you know, running some special experiment with me or something?”

Now it was Connor’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, sure Wendell, with you. And I hear that the Air Force is recruiting bus drivers for test pilots.” He lifted a hand to signal the waitress for another pitcher. “It’s probably just surplus they’re trying to junk. You’re more Oscar the Grouch than the Six Million Dollar Man.”

“I don’t know. They told me about some study…”

“They’ll say it’s for some study, but some company policy says they can’t just throw it all out. It’s probably just a placebo. It’s just tricking you into thinking it’s doing something, when in reality it’s just a sugar pill.”

The waitress returned and filled Wendell’s mug before setting the pitcher on the center of the checker board.

“But I’ll say this,” said Laughlin, “that whatever they’re giving you sure isn’t working. You look like hell hung over.”

“They told me it’d take a week of two of ‘cleansing’ before things started to…feel good.” Cleansing apparently meant nausea and vomiting, and diarrhea that felt like it was propelled by a jet engine. The first time Wendell felt it coming, he had to dash to the men’s room using his hand to squeeze his buttocks together. What he did to that toilet had rattled the windows. “So I guess that means that this whole color thing—” and he used his hand to circle around his face.

“You mean lack of color,” Connor said.

“Yeah, whatever. But it’s not supposed to last.”

Of course, it had. He had soiled himself once during the night. Two days later, he awoke with a line of red descending from the corner of his mouth to a faint splotch of pink on his chin. He had rubbed it off, thinking they were pillow creases, and not blood. Another splotch, far more pronounced and at the bottom of his boxer shorts, made him reconsider. Still, he hesitated to contact the doctor, even though the doctor had insisted that Wendell contact him with any concerns. It was the way he had said it to Wendell, “Call me with problems,” abrupt and seeming to contain a veiled meaning, that bothered him, as if Scotia expected Wendell to call, hoped he would in fact, and wouldn’t see Wendell’s concerns as anything at all concerning to him. The doctor seemed too eager.

“You think beer’s good for you right now?” Connor refilled his own mug. “You know, the whole ‘Don’t mix alcohol and drugs’ thing.”

“Not drugs. Vitamins.”

“Potato, po-
tah
-to,” said Connor. “If they come from a doc where we work, they’re drugs.”

Laughlin looked at Connor and planted his knuckles onto the table. He turned to Wendell. “Don’t listen to him. So who gave them to you?”

“Some doctor. Works on the top floor. Dr. Scotia.” Wendell thought of the notes that Scotia left in his locker with the refills, his last name always printed and not cursive, and with a line drawn under it, but for emphasis, arrogance, or out of sheer habit, Wendell couldn’t guess. The
t
in Scotia was always larger than the other letters and looked like a cross planted into the soil of the underline.