Chicano Frankenstein, page 13
The man thought for a moment. The breeze grew stronger and the wishing notes fluttered petulantly.
“Yes,” said the man. “I want to know.”
“And why do you want me with you when you meet the doctor?”
The man sighed.
“Do you know?” said Faustina.
“Yes, I know.”
“Well?”
“Because,” said the man, “I am frightened about what I might learn.”
Faustina looked intently at the man. “Anything else?” she said.
“And I trust you.”
Faustina took in a deep breath. She moved closer to the man and looped her left arm into the man’s right.
“Okay then,” said Faustina. “Call the good doctor and let him know that you and I want to meet him.”
The man stared at Faustina in disbelief.
“Well?” said Faustina.
“Thank you,” said the man. “Thank you.”
“I’m a full-service docent,” said Faustina. “Guided tours and moral support and pretty good sex, if I might be so blunt.”
The man laughed.
“And I’m pretty funny too.”
“Yes,” said the man. “You are.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“I THINK THIS IS the place,” said Faustina as she pulled in front of the well-kept house that was illuminated by a bright moon. “I wish the good doctor had agreed to meet at his office.”
“He told me that since the FBI raid, Clerval Industries is being watched closely,” said the man as he lifted the cardboard box from the floor to his lap. “Outside visitors especially so.”
“Makes sense, but this feels creepy. Daytime in an office feels safer than nighttime at a private residence anytime in my book.”
“But he’s a doctor.”
“Okay, okay,” said Faustina as she turned off the car and unbuckled her seat belt. “Let’s see what the good doctor has to say. I also have to pee really badly. A two-hour drive to Oxnard will do that to a girl. Traffic through the San Fernando Valley really sucked.”
“I’m sure he will let you use his bathroom,” said the man as he opened his car door.
“If he doesn’t, this meeting ain’t happening,” said Faustina.
As they walked toward the house, they noticed the curtains move in the bay window.
“We’re being watched,” said Faustina.
“Maybe I scare him,” said the man as he hugged the cardboard box tightly to his chest.
“Why?”
“My people have been getting a lot of bad press lately.”
“Your people?”
The man looked at Faustina and smiled just a bit.
“Your sense of humor is improving by the hour,” said Faustina.
They walked up the four steps to the small porch and stared at the front door. A large, grinning jack-o’-lantern sat on the left end of the porch.
“Someone likes Halloween,” said Faustina.
“Well,” said the man, “I guess someone should ring the doorbell or knock.”
“Sounds like a logical choice. I vote for knocking. It’s much more assertive. We need to approach from a position of strength.”
“You’re sounding like a lawyer.”
“Guilty as charged.”
The man raised his right hand, made a fist, and prepared to knock. But before he could, the door opened. In front of Faustina and the man stood a short, gray-haired man who held a black-and-white cat in his arms. He was boxy and neat like his house.
“Dr. Prietto, I presume,” said Faustina.
Dr. Prietto looked at the man and then Faustina and then back at the man. He smiled and nodded. “Come in, please,” he said as he stepped aside to let his guests in.
“Which way to your bathroom?” said Faustina as she entered.
“Oh, yes,” said the doctor. “Down the hallway, on your left. We’ll be over here in the living room.”
Faustina nodded her thanks and walked quickly toward the bathroom. The doctor nodded back and then guided the man down a different hallway to the living room. They entered a capacious but cluttered area whose major furnishing seemed to be books of all sizes on wall-to-ceiling bookshelves and every horizontal surface including the floor. Side one of Tierra’s City Nights filled the room at a low volume from a turntable hidden in the shadows. The doctor set his cat down on the couch and then removed about a dozen books from the same couch and carefully stacked them in a corner of the room near another stack of books. The doctor motioned to the man to sit near the cat. The man obliged. The cat looked up at the man, blinked, licked its lips, and closed its eyes to sleep. The man set the cardboard box down on the coffee table, which was already covered with various books. He turned to the curled-up feline and scratched the back of its head. The cat seemed to appreciate this gesture immensely.
“Quetzi likes you,” said the doctor.
“Quetzi?” said the man.
“Short for Quetzalcoatl. The Plumed Serpent! You know, the greatest of the Aztec gods.”
“Oh.”
“May I get you a drink?”
“No, thank you.”
The doctor walked to a small table that groaned under various bottles and glasses. “I could use another little splash,” he said as he refilled his glass with an amber liquid from a cut-crystal decanter. “Doctor’s orders!” he chuckled as he retrieved his now-full glass and settled into a large leather wingback chair across from the couch. He took a long drink and exhaled loudly. “¡Híjole!” the doctor exclaimed to himself as the booze warmed his throat.
“Oh, there you both are,” said Faustina as she entered the living room. “I found the kitchen and another little room before I found you gentlemen. I guess I was distracted when you pointed to where you were going. A full bladder will do that to me.”
The doctor stood and held up his glass. “Drink?”
“A little happy juice would be nice,” said Faustina as she made her way to the small table. “A fine collection of adult beverages.”
“There’s ice in the bucket there,” said the doctor as he sat again and smiled at this beautiful woman’s unabashed desire to have a drink.
Faustina dropped three ice cubes into a glass and examined her options until she found the bottle she wanted. “Ooh, you have Johnnie Walker Blue Label!” she cooed as she snatched up the bottle and poured a healthy glass of whiskey. “I deserve a treat after all of that driving,” she added as she returned to the couch and settled in next to the man.
“I’m glad you called me,” said the doctor. “You’re saving me from being a superfluous man.”
The man clutched his knees and nodded. Faustina enjoyed her drink.
The doctor smiled at Faustina and took a drink as a sign of camaraderie. He then gingerly balanced his glass on a pile of books on the coffee table and reached for the cardboard box. The doctor placed the box on his lap and slowly opened it. He smiled.
“Why do I have this book?” said the man.
“I put it with your new belongings when you were reanimated, of course,” said the doctor.
“But why?” said Faustina.
“What does it mean?” said the man.
“Two very different questions,” said the doctor. “Which one shall I answer first?”
Faustina turned to the man and waited for him to respond.
“Answer her question first,” said the man after a few seconds of thought.
“I’m glad you chose that first, because the second question is a bit harder to answer,” said the doctor as he returned the book to the cardboard box. He took a long drink and sat in silence for almost a full minute. Finally he said, “The short answer is what I alluded to before. I don’t want to be a superfluous man.”
“Wait,” said Faustina. “You were the doctor who worked on his reanimation, right?”
“I am, along with my team, yes.”
“So how could you be a superfluous man if you gave him life?”
“It is one thing to set something—or someone—in motion; it is something else to give that act of creation meaning.”
“I don’t understand,” said the man.
The doctor drained his glass, stood, and walked to his makeshift bar. He refreshed his drink, returned to his chair, and took another drink before considering how he could answer. The doctor breathed in deeply as he thought about where to start.
“Think of a parent who brings a life into this world,” the doctor slowly began. “A ‘bad’ parent, if you will, would abandon that baby and not think twice about its welfare or education or development, correct?”
The man and Faustina nodded in unison.
“Well, after my first five years of creating life and then abandoning my children—if you will—to the world, setting them adrift with their culture and history all wiped clean, I decided to violate the legal and ethical protocols and offer my reanimated subjects a little bit of their identity back when possible. Think about what I was struggling with. Yes, I did create life, but that life was a clean slate wiped of personal memories and experiences—all the things that make us who we are, the things that make us human. But I didn’t want to do too much or leave my children’s own desires and feelings out of the equation. So I settled on an elegant solution. I planted a hint, nothing more, in their belongings that they would eventually find. Perhaps a bit subtle, but I have found that it is just enough to allow my children’s free will to take it from there and do what they need to do. For themselves, not for me.”
“A hint?” said the man. “Like this children’s book?”
“Yes, like that children’s book, plus a note on my business card that left it to you when you were ready. That’s called free will, no? And here you are, of your own volition. You must be ready. You have agency, as they say. And I am not the Dr. Frankenstein that so many people just love throwing at my face. Ni modo. That is a different discussion. In any event, I believe that I have answered the why. Now as for what the book means, are you ready for that?”
The man and Faustina looked at each other. Finally, the man turned back to the doctor and said softly, “Yes.”
“There’s a Mexican saying my mother used to rely on because, frankly, we didn’t have much. She would say, ‘A falta de pan, tortillas.’ It’s all about making do with what you’ve got. And for you, all I had was that children’s book.”
“How did you get it?” said Faustina.
“Another question!” said the doctor with a laugh. “But the answer to that helps me with responding to the question of what does it mean, no?”
“I suppose so,” said the man.
“Are you sure you don’t need a drink?” said the doctor.
Without waiting for a response, Faustina gave her drink to the man. The man looked at it, thought for a moment, took a gulp, then handed it back to Faustina.
“Wise move,” said the doctor.
The man nodded, fortified by the alcohol.
“You died in a car crash,” said the doctor. “The left side of your body was crushed, but the rest of you was almost pristine. Remarkable, really. I still have the photos at the lab. We photographed everything, but all of that is shut down, of course, and we are repurposing—as they say—our medical technology. We’ve learned a lot, you know. In any event, we were able to graft a new left arm and leg onto you. Sorry for not matching your left arm very well, but new limbs don’t grow on trees, no pun intended. At least, we can’t grow them yet!”
The doctor let out a guffaw at his last observation. The man and Faustina did not smile. The doctor composed himself and continued: “But when we put you together—me and my team—and completed the reanimation process, I thought you looked beautiful even with mismatched parts. Do you know why?”
The man shook his head.
“You were beautiful to me because you were alive,” whispered the doctor.
“That’s it?” said the man.
“What is more beautiful than life?”
The man and Faustina nodded in unison.
“In fact, when you first showed signs of life, I announced to my team: He is alive! Life is something that must be proclaimed, acknowledged, celebrated.”
The room fell into silence as the man absorbed the doctor’s observation.
“At the time of the crash,” the doctor said as he finally finished his digression, “you had a box of belongings with you that included this children’s book. There were other books but for adults as well, and some clothing, photographs, term papers, and the like. The best I could figure was that your mother had given you things that were cluttering up her home and that rightfully belonged with you—things that you had not taken earlier, when you had moved out on your own. Kids always do that. My son did, that’s for sure. I still have a box or two of his stuff stored in the garage. Anyway, I kept your children’s book and returned all of that other stuff to her.”
“You mean, my mother?” said the man.
“Lo siento, I’m getting ahead of myself,” said the doctor as he reached for the book again, opened it to the frontispiece, and pointed to the crayoned name. “This book belonged to a young boy named Fernando Ochoa.”
“Me?” said the man.
“Yes.”
Faustina handed her drink to the man, who took the glass and drained it.
“I know it’s a lot,” said the doctor.
“Why did you choose this one item for me?”
“Well,” began the doctor, “childhood is an important time for our development as humans. Our brains are like sponges, absorbing language and sensations and, well, the world that will shape us into who we eventually become as adults. I made a calculated guess that the book was precious to your younger self—after all, why keep it as an adult? And so I slipped it into your belongings in that cardboard box when you were transferred to your transitional housing after reanimation. So in my mind, that book represented your childhood. ¿Entiendes?”
“I think so,” said the man. “I think that makes sense.”
“But why not give him more?” said Faustina. “Why play a Citizen Kane game with him?”
“Oh, I love that movie!” laughed the doctor. “Rosebud, am I right?”
“I don’t know what that means,” said the man.
“I’ll tell you later,” said Faustina. “And we’ll stream the movie. You’ll love it, I hope. If you don’t, I might have to leave you.”
“Ha!” laughed the doctor. “I like this woman. But back to your question. Why did I choose this book? I had to be careful about how much I could breach the protocols. They have eyes everywhere, you know. Sometimes it was easy to become quite paranoid. Even now, with reanimation shut down, there are search warrants and the like. So, you know, I risked my medical and reanimation licenses. I had to be subtle, not get too bold, avoid raising any red flags. Just enough not to be a superfluous man. But some of the protocols made sense. One of the key protocols is to protect the survivors, allow them to grieve the loss of a loved one, move on with their lives. Your former self—Fernando Ochoa—is essentially dead.”
“But…” said the man.
“The person who was Fernando Ochoa,” continued the doctor, “no longer exists and he can never be truly resurrected. Period. Fin de la historia. That’s something you need to accept.”
“What can you tell me about my mother?” said the man.
“Well, not much. Nothing more than her last address. But I can’t give that to you, unless…”
“Unless what?” said the man.
“Again, as I said, you have to understand that some protocols should not be violated. You had signed a donor card where you agreed that upon reanimation, you’d be as good as dead to your family and friends. All of your old social media accounts were wiped and personal records purged. You got a new Social Security card and driver’s license, both marked with a big red R on the front of them. A scarlet letter! Your reanimation credential replaced your old birth certificate. And if you ever had your DNA determined by one of those companies—Ancestry or 23andMe or whatever—the reanimation statute required them to block those records and prevent any future attempt by a reanimated subject from getting a DNA test. If you ever became famous, you couldn’t be a guest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. on that PBS show, that’s for sure.”
“Oh, I love Finding Your Roots,” said Faustina.
“Why go through so much trouble?” said the man.
“All of that protects your family and friends as much as it protects you,” said the doctor before taking another drink. “I mean, you are not the same person they knew. It would be disastrous to pretend otherwise, no? But at the same time I understand your desire to know your roots. It’s very normal. That’s why you’d have to promise before I can give you any more information, such as your mother’s address.”
“Promise what?” said Faustina.
The man stared at the doctor and waited for an answer to Faustina’s question.
“If I give you the address, you must promise me that you will not inform anyone from your prior life who you were. You are dead to them, so you must understand that they have already mourned your loss. You could cause great emotional damage if you’re not careful. Can you imagine a situation, for example, where a reanimated subject returns to his former home and finds that his spouse has remarried and started a new life that might even include children? That kind of thing. People have moved on. And if they’re healthy about such things, they’ve processed the loss in whatever stages work for them. You are nothing more than a memory. And your memory of your past life was wiped with the reanimation process. So they are really strangers to you, no matter how much you might want otherwise. You can’t truly miss what you don’t remember.”
“But he could promise you anything to get that information and just lie through his teeth,” said Faustina. “I mean, think about it. You’re asking a lot. Maybe too much. He could lie to your face and you’d never know.”
“True,” said the doctor. “But not likely. One of things we’ve observed this last decade of reanimation is that our subjects are remarkably honest—honest to a fault, you might even say. Maybe it has to do with the wiping of their histories in the reanimation process.”
