by
                                                  Seth Kindler
 
 

It had been a viciously cold December morning when they slapped him on his
bloody butt and the first air had not flowed into tiny, immature lungs. The
pediatrician quickly placed him on a respirator, and pastel-blue skin turned to
red within seconds. His exhausted mother only got a brief glimpse before they
whisked him away to the preemie ward. Nineteen, frightened, and confused,
she told the gum-chewing nurse with the birth certificate in one hand and a
red-and-white-striped ballpoint in the other that the boy's name was Tuba.
    "Tuba?"
    "Yes, his name is Tuba."
    "Tuba! Yer serious?"
    "Tuba, like in the big horn."
    "Tooooba?"
   I don't want to argue about it, lady.
    "How'dya spell that exactly, darlin'?"
    The nurse had said no more about it. After all, what could you expect
when the poor kid's mother was named Cheezie. A flower child of the
sixties, Cheezie's mother had legally changed her own first and middle
names to Midnight Sun in awed reverence for the Lionel Hampton/Johnny
Mercer song  made famous by June Christie when she was singing with
Stan Kenton.

    "Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice, warmer than a summer night;
    The clouds were like an alabaster palace, rising to a snowy height;
    Each star its own aurora borealis, suddenly the sky turned bright,
    And we saw the midnight sun . . . ."

    When Cheezie had become old enough to understand where babies with
funny names come from, she'd often wondered if Mom had been eating
Cheezits during conception or during delivery. With a last name like
Mummert, it didn't really matter.
    Tuba's father had been a toss-up in Cheezie's mind. He could have been
a bricklayer, a bureaucrat, or a rock musician. She slept with all of them on
the same night within the space of three hours. The debauchery had taken
place in a spare bedroom while an occasional party goer walked in with a
surprised, "Whoops. Just looking for the john." Invited by a perfect stranger
who had gone through her check-out line at the grocery store, the lonely
young woman had managed to get drunk inside half an hour.
    Taken individually, her facial features were well within the "acceptable"
range--blue eyes, straight nose, good smile (when she used it) with perfect
teeth. However, the size of the features was a bit skewed. The nose would
have worked considerably better on a larger woman. It was indeed long,
straight and perfectly formed, but it tended to dominate the woman's small
face, and the proboscis' prominence was accented even more by the fact
that Cheezie's mouth with its thin, chaste lips was meant for a very small
woman perhaps from some distant country where women as a rule are
smaller to begin with. Then there was the complexion problem. While
plodding through puberty, Cheezie Mummert had bought Clearasil by the
case. Her face was as pockmarked as a 20-year-old county road. The
woman's most noticed asset was the fact that her 105-pound body was
blessed with breasts that God would normally have dolled out to a 145-
or 165-pound woman. They had begun sprouting in sixth grade and by the
time Cheezie was a freshman in high school, Mummert's mammeries were a
constant source of speculation for most of the males in the senior class.
Finding her endowment a certain means of getting attention, she began
wearing open-necked tops, and was not a little pleased to watch eyes widen
and mouths drop whenever she bent over. At least the viewers were no
longer looking at her face.
   Most of the men coming through the grocery's checkout line must have been
happily married. All the bugged eyes belonged to guys who scared the
daylights out of her when they asked her out. Of only average intelligence, too
shy to be successful at ladder climbing, and a timorous monotone when
engaged in conversation, Cheezie had lived in the Big Apple's suburbs for
over a year while making only a few laundry friends. Prolonged loneliness can
sometimes reset a young woman's moral parameters. If a picture is worth a
thousand words, willingness is worth a thousand sofa fantasies on lonely
nights in an apartment shared only by a few dozen cockroaches.
    After the boy was born, Cheezie quit her job to become a career AFDC
mother who could be home with her son all day. It would have cost too
much to place him in a day care center. The state of New York paid her
rent and medical care; it gave her food stamps, plus money for diapers,
cigarettes, and all the other necessities of life.
   At fourteen months, the baby began to sing along with the television jingles
as he slapped his toys in perfect rhythm against anything hard enough to
make a sound.
   Had to be the guitar player . . .
    Cheezie began to believe she had guessed right when she gave him a
musical name, such as it was. By the time he was two and a half, he could
sing all the jingles on the tube and sing them perfectly in tune including the
scoops and other stylings performed by the vocalist. He sang them not in
the high falsetto of a baby, but in a deep chest voice that was in the same
range as the performers.
    By age four, whenever a band or an orchestra came on the screen, the child
would sit totally mesmerized while carefully scrutinizing everything that was
going on. Later he would try to recreate what he'd heard by using pots and
pans, hitting them with table spoons, and "singing" the instruments in a variety
of voices. Cheezie made him a kazoo by wrapping wax paper around a comb
and then regretted her pragmatism deeply for the next three weeks, day and
night, through an entire roll of wax paper. Any time she bought him a toy
instrument, Tuba would wear it out within a few days.
    A few months before it was time for him to begin elementary school,
Cheezie picked up stakes and moved out of the big apple. The old
hometown near Binghamton had been tempting, but there was nothing there
to go back to. Midnight Sun had died of a drug overdose the year
Cheezie moved to the city, and there were no others in the family. Using a
New York State map at the public library, she picked a medium-sized town
that was located on the Barge Canal between Albany and Utica; they made
Beechnut chewing gum nearby. She drove her 12-year-old Dodge to the
town and spent two days searching the area for an apartment. After finding
one that overlooked the water, she allowed the Empire State the privilege
of moving her.
    The day Tuba began school, Cheezie started working part-time as a clerk at
the local Walmart. A few months later, she had saved enough money to buy
him a secondhand Wurlitzer electric piano she found in a pawn shop. Within
a week he was playing songs on it using both hands.

    "Hey Tooby Booby, can you play Tubby the Tuba with yer ass farts?"
    Fifth grade.
    The teacher had played them the CD of Tubby the Tuba that morning.
Kids can be vicious.
    Tuba was small for his age. He was also underweight for a fifth-grader.
Whenever the boys took their shirts off, Tuba's bones provided a base relief
sculpture of the ten-year-old's structural skeleton. And the nose . . .
    "Hey, Todd, why don't you grow up so your intelligent quotient can catch
up to your age."
    Seriously precocious, he fought insults with intellect. It was gym class, and
the boys were on the ball field playing softball. Tuba was playing right field
and a grounder had squirted through his legs. He could hit, but he couldn't
catch the ball. Flies went over his head; grounders squiggled through his legs.
The pitcher was a filthy-mouthed kid named Todd Ketchinson who looked
like he was always in need of a bath.
    "Next time, why don't you just tilt your head back and catch it up your
nose, Tooby."
    More giggles rippled around the field. The teacher was on the other ball
diamond where the girls' gym class was playing their own game. The girls'
phys-ed teacher was a stunning brunette who wore short shorts and doubled
her teaching salary moonlighting as one of the area's premier aerobics
instructors.
    The next year, sixth grade, Tuba was the first kid to sign up for the
elementary band. The music director took one look at his size and knew that
the kid would never be a tuba player.
    "What would you like to sign up to play, Tuba?"
    The boy had already taught himself how to read music on the electronic
piano. His mother had found the Thompson beginning piano books at a
garage sale. Within four months, he was playing hymns from an old
Methodist hymnal with ease.
    The hymn book, along with a stack of musty sheet music from the thirties
and forties, had been donated by a neighbor--a 57-year-old harpy who had
hair the color of a copper Brillow pad and a persistent nosiness that was the
studied by-product of idleness. Mrs. Sedlecki had never been married, and
the woman was intent on appropriating Tuba as her own son, or grandson, or
whatever. She was constantly trying to entice the boy into her house by
offering cookies and ice cream. Tuba didn't like the woman. She smelled like
sour whiskey and four-day-old Ponds cold cream. She also liked to put her
hands on him--shoulders, arms, back, bare leg (if he was wearing shorts).
One time she brazenly cupped one of his buttocks, then released and
patting it like it was a glob of flour on the dough board.
    Occasionally, at her insistence he would play her badly out-of-tune Mason
Hamblin 6-foot grand, mentally gritting his teeth as each key was struck. If
she hadn't been so cheap and had kept the instrument in tune, he probably
would have been more amicable.
    "Bassoon."
    "Bassoon? Why? That's an instrument usually reserved for high school. It's
very difficult."
    "I like the sound."
    "Okay. I have an old one that hasn't been played in several year. I think I
can get it to work. Biggest problem is the reeds anyway. Even if the
instrument is in perfect condition, you get a bad reed and it's pure torture."
    "I've been reading up on it in the library. I'm going to make my own reeds."
    "More power to you, Tuba. I'll do everything I can to help."
    Within three months, the band director had moved the boy into the senior
band, adjusting Tuba's schedule with the guidance counselor to make it
possible. The boy was playing the instrument better than the senior girl who
had been playing for four years. It was not unusual for him to spend three or
four hours a day practicing. No matter how badly his mother wanted him to
do a few household chores, he couldn't tear himself away. There were too
many finger exercises that could be played faster, smoother. There were piles
of music to read, scales to iron, arpeggios to gloss. Cheezie always gave in
and took the garbage out herself. Tired as she was working eight hours a
day six days a week, she would make the trip to the grocery store down the
street herself to get a quart of milk for the next morning's breakfast.
    He's not a bad boy. He just thinks he can't make time. You could be
putting up with a lot worse, girl. So he's obsessive. You're not going to
change him. You can argue with him or learn to live with it.
    Perpetually worn threadbare with fatigue, and an enduring
nonconfrontationalist, she inevitably performed his chores along with her own,
saying nothing, allowing the boy his head.
    The next year, Tuba fell in love--hard!--with the cello. The sound had
been growing on him for years, although he hadn't realized what the
unconscious pull had been whenever he'd heard the low end of an orchestra in
the process of layering its ubiquitous chordal foundations. And there were
those countermelodies. He had come close to the sound when he'd chosen
the bassoon, but the night he heard Gaspar Cassado play the "Boccherini Cello
Concerto in D Major" on the public radio station, something snapped. He had
just turned twelve.
    "Mr. Waters, does the school have a cello?"
    "You want to learn the cello?"
    "Yes. I think it would be very fulfilling. I'll keep playing bassoon in the band,
of course."
    Actually, the boy was fairly certain that once he began playing the cello,
they could chop the bassoon up for firewood and he would never look back.
One of the standing jokes in the school band was: What's the difference
between a bassoon and an oboe? Answer: A bassoon burns longer.
    Tuba tried to contain his excitement. Since he had heard the cello soloist the
evening before, he'd been able to think of nothing else. He had barely slept all
night. The exquisite sound was driving him crazy. It was like a drug. He had to
learn to play that instrument or life would turn into a totally meaningless
experience. The exquisite feel of it between one's legs--so primal . . . Tuba
knew enough about sex to recognize the sexual overtones the instrument
conjured in his mind.
    "Well, the school sold off all the orchestra instruments years ago when there
was no longer money to fund the program. However, I have a surgeon friend
who is an avid cellist. He drives to Utica once a week to play in the
community orchestra. He has several instruments, and I'll wager if we ask,
he'll loan you one."
    "Super! When can I get it?"
    "Tell you what--I've got a free period right after lunch. I'll call his office,
and we'll find out. Stop by my office during seventh period."
    "Thanks, Mr. Waters. Thanks most incredibly!"
    The enthusiasm was no longer containable.
    That night, Tuba knocked at the doctor's home twenty-five minutes early.
He had simply been unable to wait any longer. It was a two-mile walk but he
scarcely noticed. The man opened the door himself. Tuba introduced himself
and the doctor said, "Hi. I'm Jonathon Logan. Come on in." They shook hands
and the surgeon said, "Let's go back to the music room." Tuba guessed the
man was in his late thirties in spite of the premature gray hair.
    The doctor led him toward the rear of the huge home that had probably
been built around the turn of the century. The ceilings were 12 feet high, and
large sections of the walls were covered with varnished-panel frames that were
inlaid with wallpaper. The floors were polished hardwood, and peering into the
rooms that opened from the hall, Tuba could see that the furniture was
contemporary, not antique. When they reached the music room, monstrous
arched windows stretched over the two outside walls from the floor to the
ceiling. The boy was forced to explain one more time that his mother, whose
name was Cheezie, had given him the name (heaven knows why) and it had
stuck in spite of his constant attempts to acquire a nickname.
    "A Steinway!" A long, ebony-black concert grand sat in the middle of the
room. There was a crystal chandelier hanging over it. "Holy . . ."
    "Do you play, Tuba?"
    "Yes, but I've never played a Steinway."
    "I'd love to hear you. Would you mind?"
    "I'd be delighted."
    The small, pimply boy with the long, dirtyish dark hair sat gingerly on the
pleated, leather-top bench and reverently considered the reflection of his
hands in the instrument's gloss. There were two pianos at school--obscure
names, both--and they were never in tune. They were uprights and had been
beaten senseless over the decades by an army of duos playing "Chopsticks"
and "Body and Soul" which had the same chord progression as the old
standard, "Blue Moon." Upon playing the first few notes of "Chopin's Prelude
in A major," the boy was lost in reverie. The incredible instrument not only
played and sounded like something in a dream, it was perfectly in tune. He
played several other pieces--Bach, Beethoven--and was in the middle of a
Brahams nocturne when he realized where he was and that he might be
overstaying his welcome. He finished reverently, his soul having been
mesmerized by the sound like a deer in headlights. When he turned to the
doctor, the man's face was streaked with tears.
    "My God, son! Where did you learn to play like that?"
    He wiped the tears with a white handkerchief. The kid wasn't much to look
at, but he had been filled to the brim with industrial-strength talent. Tuba made
another quarter turn on the bench to face the doctor. The boy's thick,
oversized black eyebrows shaded dark eyes which demurely refused to
observe the man's embarrassing predicament. He quietly explained that he
was self taught--that he had learned to play on the Wurlitzer--that he had
learned to read on his own.
    "And you want to learn the cello? Mr. Waters told me you already played
bassoon in his senior band. You're in what, seventh grade?"
    "Yes, sir. The sound has seriously got under my skin--gives me
goosebumps. I want to learn it more than I've ever wanted anything in my
life."
    Dr. Logan offered Tuba a ride home, but the boy refused him.
    "I want to get the feel of it, sir. Even in the case."
    The hours he had spent practicing the piano and bassoon were now
doubled with the addition of the cello. Drugged with the sound, the young boy
couldn't get enough of it. Cheezie was now working two jobs, and Tuba would
consistently skip supper to practice if she wasn't there to cook. Sometimes, he
was up at five in the morning to practice. Two years before, he had found a
large supply of foam rubber at a surplus store. The charcoal colored slabs
were covered with geometrical rows of foam projections and pockets that
made them look like they had been designed to hold giant eggs. He had
carefully lined the walls and door of his room. It was nearly soundproof. The
occupants in the other half of the house had never complained.
    Three months later, Mr. Waters took him to the auditions for the all-state
orchestra which was made up of the best players in the state. Tuba made the
orchestra and was the only kid ever to do so having only played for such a
short period of time. Most of the kids were juniors and seniors.
    The day after his thirteenth birthday, Mrs. Sedlecki died. Cheezie and her
prodigious son were shocked when a lawyer knocked on the door and
informed them that the copper- haired woman had left the house and
everything in it to Tuba and his mother. The will was probated one month
later, and they wasted no time in moving next door. Cheezie spent $75 on
tuning and repairing the Mason Hamblin. Although it was certainly not a
Steinway, Tuba fell in love all over again. Now he split his practice time
between the cello and piano. He had talked Mr. Waters into allowing him to
play the bassoon part on the cello in the high school band. They were both
bass clef instruments, both in the same range.
    "We may be the only high school band in the state with a cello, and it may
cause a few chuckles when the audience sees you sitting there in the bassoon
section. But ten years from now, nobody will remember that. Besides, I
know for a fact that the Air Force Band in Washington, D.C. uses two
cellos. I'm not the pig-headed purist who's going to force you to play
bassoon when you may eventually make your living playing in a string section.
There's a lot more work for string players than there is for bassoonists, Tuba.
However, for marching band you may have to find a way to mount it on wheels.
Maybe we could rig up a golf cart. You sit and play; we'll have a designated
driver . . ."
    His grin caught Tuba by surprise.
    "Marching band, I'll play bassoon." He grinned back.
    By the time he was in ninth grade, Tuba was playing organ and piano for
weddings and bar mitzvahs. Organ had come easy. All it had taken was learning
the bass pedals, and that little chore had taken all of three minutes. He also
found a job playing in a local Baptist church for $60 a week. It meant choir
practice on Wednesdays and Sunday school and church on Sunday mornings,
plus a Sunday evening service, but the boredom was endured because it was a
steady source of making money. There was also the occasional funeral which
paid from $20 to $50, depending upon the worth of the deceased.
    Using the "Easy Steps to the Band" books, the boy picked up trumpet,
trombone, flute, and clarinet. At the beginning of the year, he had scheduled
every study hall for the band room. Additionally, there were band, chorus,
and theory. Any free periods were used to play in a pick-up combo or just
learning new instruments. After school, two afternoons a week, there was
stage band for an hour and a half. No study halls meant homework that had to
be squeezed in somewhere. If there was no time to do it immediately after he
got home from school, then he could be found sitting on the sofa with a
notebook on his crossed leg late that night--12:00, 1:00 a.m. Sometimes, it
took two hours just to do his Latin translations.
    Gradually, all the evenings of the week had been filled with performing or
rehearsals. Monday and Tuesday nights, he rehearsed with two bands--one
rock, one country--on keyboards. He also doubled on trumpet or trombone
on novelty tunes--dixieland, polkas. The two bands had steady gigs every
Friday and Saturday night at the area Moose, Elk, V.F.W. and American
Legion clubs. On Thursday nights, the boy made the half-hour drive with Dr.
Logan to play in the community orchestra in Utica. Because of his ability, he
had been gradually moved from the last row of cellos to the front row, first
stand, with the section leader who was a professional. Wednesdays and
Sundays were taken up with the church gig. Whenever Cheezie asked him to
do even the simplest of chores--clean his room, mow the lawn, put a roast in
the oven--he was not above throwing a tantrum because it would take time
from his practicing. Too tired to argue or put her foot down, she would simply
give up and do things herself.
    By the time he was fourteen, Tuba's fanaticism to play and practice were
well established and he found himself in desperate need of more stamina. It
would be unthinkable to relinquish any of the precious playing or practice time
to something so mundane as more sleep.
    "Maybe we should try some vitamins, sweetie."
    Cheezie had been selling them at the pharmacy where she worked three
hours a night, plus Saturdays and Sundays. It took two jobs to make enough
money to pay health insurance, house insurance, taxes, water, electricity, heat,
repairs, and all the other extras it took to maintain a house without the
breadwinning contributions of a father and husband. Even though Tuba was
making as much as two hundred dollars a week, he refused to do little with it
except sock it away in the bank for college--Julliard, if he had anything to say
about it. Cheezie was left to shoulder instrument repair bills, music, getting the
piano tuned once a week, new instruments, and dozens of other intangibles.
The boy now possessed and played no less than 12 instruments including a
Yamaha DX 7 synthesizer with its stereo amplifier and two speakers, a
trombone, a trumpet, a flute, clarinet, guitar, accordion, xylophone, and
vibraharp.
    "Tell you what, I'll bring home a bottle of multiple vitamins and we'll try
them for a month or so to see if it makes any difference in how you feel."
    Tuba immediately noted an increase in his stamina and was able to shed
some of the chronic fatigue that had been plaguing him for months.
    "I think they work, Mom. Is there any more of that stuff that will make you
feel better?"
    "I don't know. We've got some pamphlets and magazines. I'll bring some
home and you can read up on it."
    He stepped up the vitamins to two times a day and added ginseng. Within a
week, he found that he had considerably more energy. Encouraged by the
results, the boy waded in with his usual obsession and began to read everything
he could get his hands on which pertained to health. According to all the
health-food pamphlets and magazines, there were many other sources of
energy, and the body desperately needed much more than what it got from
the four basic food groups.
    "Mom, can you get me some bee pollen?"
    "Tuba, that health stuff is very expensive. I'm doing all I can right
now--surely you can see that. If you want to try those things, you'll have to
pay for them out of your own money."
    She expected the usual argument, but for once, it didn't come. He bought a
bottle of bee pollen pills and was convinced within a few days that not only
had it lessened his allergies to dust, grass, pollen, mold and a dozen other
goodies God had salted the earth with in order to keep the Great Master of
the Planet honest, it also boosted his energy level.
    "Man, what have I been missing?"
    He was able to cut his sleep from five hours a night to four and a half
hours and found he didn't even notice the difference. He now had an extra
half hour to practice. Cello still took most of his time. The high notes
provided a euphoria that could not be achieved in any other manner. He
would quit practicing only when something demanded that he stop--school,
for instance.
    At least a dozen times during the school year, he had convinced his mother
that he was sick. That he needed to stay in bed.
    "Just don't feel good, Ma. Gotta be the flu, I don't know. I'll be okay. Just
need to stay in bed and rest. Don't worry, if I need anything, I'll call."
    As soon as Cheezie was off for work, he would spring out of bed and
spend the day with his instruments. These days were the best--even better
than Saturdays. Stolen fruit is always sweeter.
    The more he read about health and nutrition, the more he understood why
he'd always been on the frail and anemic side. He had neglected his body,
and now the bill had come due. Twenty minutes a day would be given to
exercising. He found a set of weights in a pawn shop, and after lugging them
home in two trips, he began "pumping iron." Within a month, he'd found that
the twenty minutes a day had made a difference.
    "This is great, mom! I don't think I'd miss another twenty minutes of
practice. I'm going to step up the weight regime to forty. Also, with all the
exercising, I'll need an antioxidant. Expensive, but it's obvious that it would be
a good investment. All those loose ends floating around inside my body have
got to slow me down."
    Loose ends? Nothing's gonna slow you down, kid. Fourteen years and
you still wear me out.
    He bought a large bottle of Nature's Way Multi-Carotene Antioxidant, and
within hours he was sure he could feel the free radicals disappearing from his
body. The next day, the weight session was practically effortless. Within two
weeks, he was bench pressing 85 pounds. Not bad for a kid who only
weighed 125.
    If removing the free radicals from his body felt so good, what would it feel
like if he could clean out some of the other poisons? The next night Cheezie
brought home a pizza for supper. She usually had half an hour between jobs,
and if she didn't feel like nuking a TV dinner in the microwave for the two of
them, she'd bring home a carry-out. Tuba entered the kitchen and wrinkled
his nose.
    "Ma, that stuff is pure poison. It has screwed up my system for years, and
I just won't eat it anymore. You ought to give it up, too. I bought some
vegetables and tofu from the organic store. You can't trust the stuff in the
grocery stores; it's riddled with chemicals. I'll whip us up a salad in five
minutes."
    "You eat the salad, Tuba. I'll eat the pizza so it doesn't go to waste."
    Cheezie hoped he wasn't in an arguing mood. She was too tired.
Fortunately, he wasn't, and he busily set about husking, chopping, and slicing.
The kitchen counter and sink were littered with the plant waste within a
few minutes. Cheezie knew she would have another mess to clean up. He
wouldn't clean it up--not enough time in the old busy schedule. Maybe this
health-kick thing wouldn't last.
    She was wrong. Over the few months she watched the bottles of pills that
lined the kitchen cabinet slowly, but surely, multiply geometrically.
Acidophilis capsules for the immune system; garlic pills--"Russian penicillin,
Mom, great stuff for all kinds of things. Notice I haven't had any colds?" Phos
fuel for his workouts; protein powder for a breakfast drink; beta carotene for
stress; MetaboLift with mahuang extract and chromium picolinate--"Better
metabolism, Mom. More energy. It's great!" Vegi-power broccoli
tablets--"RDA. Gotta have it, folks." Brewer's yeast--"B-vitamin complex,
super amino acid protein. Body craves it, Babe. It's got nucleic acid, lecithin,
selenium, potassium--dy-no-mite!" Hormone-free bovine cartilage for a tiny
spot of psoriasis that had stubbornly refused to leave the palm of his hand for
two years--"It's also good for pain, Mom." Immune formula with Echinacea
astralgus; colon cleanse formula with fiber; and a string of bottles filled with
individual vitamins and minerals, including a gallon jug of vitamin C tablets which
he wolfed a dozen at a time.
    Along with heaps of vegetables and fruits, the refrigerator shelves gradually
filled with bottles of juices: a gallon jug of aloe juice--"Great for the digestive
tract, Ma." Alfalfa tonic to prevent fatigue and allow better sleep; green drinks
with chlorophyll for internal cleansing.
    The pharmacy where Cheezie worked only carried the health basics. Tuba
was buying the fare at the local health-food store and spending more and more
time hanging out there. He could afford it. He'd been able to cut down to four
hours of sleep a night and get in ten hours of practicing a day. He consistently
arose at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. to start his day.
    "Tuba, got a minute?"
    "Sure, Dr. Trimble."
    "Let's go into the hall. I want to ask you something." Ted Trimble, the
conductor of the Utica Community Orchestra, was a music professor at
Syracuse University. The orchestra rehearsed on the auditorium stage of a
local community college, and the noise of the players warming up was
distracting. The timpani player was taking out a week's worth of frustration on
the drums. Tuba had just got his cello out of the case and was loosening the
anodized wing-nut screw to extend the end pin--the pointed metal rod which
he would carefully jam into a crack or a small hole in the stage floor. Cellists
all over the world had ruined floors and stages for centuries. Frustrated
because it had slipped a couple of times over the last few months, he had
filed a point on the blunt, metal end so it would remain stuck into the floor.
    The boy laid the instrument on its side, grabbed the rosin and bow, and
began tightening the horsehairs as they walked toward the door to the hall.
    "I've heard you playing parts of the Boccherini Cello Concerto during
warm up. Do you know the whole piece?"
    "Yes, sir. I've been working on the Grutzmacher arrangement which
includes his own Adagio in G Minor. Boccherini's slow movement wasn't
very interesting, so Grutzmacher substituted his own work. Those guys often
pulled that kind of thing. Some of them even stole each other's pieces note
for note, maybe transposed them up a key or something. I'm sure you know
more about all that than I do."
    The boy's heart began to pound, because he had an idea what the conductor
was going to ask. His nervousness had manifested itself in a useless lecture to
the professor.
    "Would you consider performing it with us--whenever you feel ready, of
course?"
    "Oh, man! I'd love to! I can't think of anything I'd rather do. With the
symphony behind me . . . Oh, man, what a trip!"
    "We've got a concert coming up in three months. How about I put you on
the program as the featured artist?"
    "Oh, man, Dr. Trimble. That would be my highlight of the year. I've never
performed as a soloist on the cello. It's my favorite instrument. I mean, I'm
playing as a soloist all the time on the keyboards, and on some other
instruments in the bands I play in . . . but to perform in front of the
orchestra . . . You've made my day, Dr. Trimble. Thanks!"
    Tuba grabbed the man's hand and pumped it. The conductor was sure the
kid's enthusiasm was going to blow the narrow hall apart if they didn't move
into a larger area.
    "Super. Well, let's get the rehearsal started. I'll announce that you're going
to be the featured soloist on the spring concert. I know you'll knock the
audience dead. It'll be a hoot." He grinned in order to match the boy's
6-inch-wide beam.
   When the conductor made the announcement that Tuba was going to be
the featured soloist in the next concert, the boy got a round of applause from
the orchestra members. His talent had not gone unnoticed.
    He attacked his practice regime with a sinister and concentrated devotion.
He wanted badly to drop out of at least one of the bands he played
keyboards in so he could use the time for cello practice and weight lifting.
However, he needed the money for the health foods. Cheezie could simply
not afford the $100 a week he spent on the foods and supplements that kept
his body free from the debilitating poisons.
    Two mornings later, he read something that was slated to make even more
changes in his daily routine. He was standing at the kitchen counter downing
the usual 32 pills which were swallowed by sipping his favorite breakfast
blender-concoction--carrot juice, spinach juice, and wheat germ. Along with
the usual few drops of a mineral and trace-element supplement, he had laced
it this morning with a new addition--several tablespoons of elderberry cleanse
tonic. It was part of a kit that contained juice concentrate, herbal extract
tablets, bulk fiber, and an herbal tea, all of which he would use over the next
ten days to cleanse the body of even more toxins. The natural chemicals from
the primrose plant would fight sluggishness--an added bonus. A few drops of
a mineral and trace-element supplement had also been added to the breakfast
drink along with a drop of colloidal silver--an antimicrobial which was
supposed to strengthen the immune system against scores of diseases ranging
from acne to whooping cough. An article in the magazine said that exercise
was a waste of time unless an aerobic routine was added several times a week.
He was shocked to read that the body needed at least 25 minutes of
uninterrupted exercise to plunge the blood into an oxygen deprived state
wherein the heart and lungs would go into overdrive to make up the deficiency.
Making the cardiac and pulmonary systems work in this manner was an
absolute necessity if good health was to be maintained. Weight lifting didn't
qualify; it couldn't be sustained for 25 minutes straight. He needed to run.
    Within a week, Tuba was running almost three miles in the half hour he had
allotted himself. Eight weeks after being asked to perform with the orchestra,
he had become addicted to the running and increased the time allocated for it
to an hour, some of which was stolen from the weight routine. It was
wonderful--the freedom to turn down streets, to run through the countryside,
along the river, through the parks, on the grass, on the sidewalks; he'd never
experienced anything so liberating in his life. To make up for the lost 60
minutes, he'd also dropped some practice time on the horns--trumpet,
trombone, woodwinds. It made him feel guilty, and in a defensive dismissal
he said to himself, "Hey, I don't use them that much. After the concert, I can
go back to them."
    The day before his fifteenth birthday, Tuba carried his health kick to
another level.
    "Mom, I'd like to get a complete physical. They gave me my annual exam
at school this week, but it was a farce. That G.P. family doctor they use
doesn't know what he's doing. He wouldn't have enough time to be thorough
even if he did. I'd like to go to a specialist and get a real physical--have blood
work done along with an EKG and some diagnostic stuff. You never know
when there could be problems that could easily be fixed now but not later."
    "Fine, honey. Our insurance will cover it, I'm sure. You want me to make
an appointment?"
    The kid was in the best shape of his life. He was filling out like a body
builder and with all those pills and weird foods . . . Still, it was easier to go
along with him than it was to argue.
    "Yeah, as soon as possible. I want to know what kind of shape I'm in from
cover to cover. No sense in taking any chances."
    How long it this fad going to last, folks?
    They spent six hours running him through every test the insurance company
would pay for, and two days later when the results came back, the boy made
a point to go by the doctor's office to get them first hand.
    "Tuba, you are in better shape than anyone I've ever seen. You're in
better condition than ninety-nine out of a hundred of the finest athletes I've
ever examined. There isn't a single test that came back negative. You were
at a hundred percent right down the line. You're certainly doing something
right. If you ever decide to bottle whatever it is, let me know. We'll sell it and
make a fortune."
    On the boy's fifteenth birthday, Dr. Logan gave him the exclusive use of a
Gianinni cello. The exquisite sound of the instrument held him captive for six to
eight hours a day during the school week. On Saturdays, he would spend ten
hours practicing cello, an hour and a half to two hours on the keyboards, then
two hours working out and running. After grabbing a quick protein drink for
supper, he'd be picked up by the van belonging to one of the band members.
They'd load all his equipment, then drive sometimes for an hour to the
Saturday night gig which with travel, setup, and tear-down, could involve
six hours. Tuba would get home at 1:00 a.m. then be up at 4:00 or 5:00 to
get in four or five hours of practice on the cello before having to leave to
play piano in Sunday school.
    The Gianinni was the most incredible instrument, it's sound utterly
consuming to the boy every time he sat down to play. He just could not get
enough of it. The concerto began to shine and glitter like an expensive
diamond. His talent and the years of hard work were beginning to pay off--big
time! He was finally ready. Now the world would know. The audience could
be no less than flabbergasted at the small kid with the big nose, long hair, sad
dark-brown eyes, and funny name. He could play the concerto flawlessly
upside down with both hands tied behind his back in his sleep. He was
confident that someone could detonate a bomb while he was performing on
that stage and he wouldn't miss so much as a 32nd note!
    The days and remaining weeks flew by at no less than a presto tempo, and
before he knew it, the spring concert was only a day away. The event had
been announced continuously on Utica and Rome public radio; there were
posters in all the area schools--posters which featured large bold type
advertising:

                            Boccherini Cello Concerto
                               Played by guest artist
                                   Tuba Mummert

    The first half of the concert went well, and during the intermission, Tuba set
up a chair in a classroom just down the hall from the stage's entrance and
whisked through the harder parts.
    "Onstage, let's go!"
    He made his way to the wing and was wished well by the musicians as
they trouped by him on the way to their places. The Boccerini was the first
piece in the second half of the program.
    Later, the boy would only vaguely remember making his way to the chair
they had set up for him at the front of the stage. He was totally focused on the
music he was about to play. He smiled and bowed to the audience as they
applauded, then turned to look behind in a subconscious gesture to make sure
the chair was beneath him. More than one player, in total concentration of
what was before him or her, had sat down and missed the chair. It would be
a great gag for a comedy act, but not an auspicious beginning for an artist's
debut.
    The depth of the school's stage to the back wall was not deep, and the
sheer size of the orchestra forced the boy's playing position to be only a few
inches from the lip. The violins sat immediately behind him, and he was
positioned at an angle so that he could see the conductor. He searched for the
same small hole in the stage's wooden floor he had used in rehearsals to
anchor the cello's end pin. Finding it, he leaned on the instrument hard to set
the pointed peg into the wood. Nothing could be any more frustrating than for
a cellist to have the pin slip at a crucial point in the music. To have it happen
to an artist was inexcusable.
    Perhaps in the depths of his concentration, and not knowing the strength
of muscles which had been seriously enhanced because of the extensive
weight-lifting routines, the boy may have applied just a little too much
pressure. He was totally unprepared when the peg slipped out--violently. He
lurched forward and the right front leg of the plastic chair flew over the
edge of the stage. Tuba lurched backwards to prevent himself from being
launched into what the musicians facetiously called the "bottomless pit." At
the time the building was designed, an over zealous music teacher who was
into opera had insisted that the orchestra pit be lowered to a depth of 8 feet
below the lip of the stage instead of the usual 4 to 5 feet prevalent in most
schools. For an opera or a musical, the orchestra should be heard and not
seen. Four feet in front of the front-row seats, there was a cement lip and a
pipe railing to prevent patrons from falling into the abyss. The young boy
lurched backwards so violently, the chair tipped to the side and the legs flew
from beneath him and into the void. The cello went airborne over his head
and as the audience gasped in horror, Tuba Mummert went flying over the
edge, chair and all. He did a back gainer in the same manner Greg Loughenis
had performed it in the Olympics when the diver hit and cut his head on the
diving board. However, Tuba's head cleared the stage lip (barely), and he
fell to the cement floor below where he landed directly on the back of his
head and his neck. There was a loud crack as four cervical vertebrae
disintegrated on the cement. However, Murphey's ridiculous law was not
finished with the kid. The cello, which had been tossed into a higher arc
when Tuba dropped off the edge, flipped over once like an airborne knife,
then descended with trigonometrically inspired accuracy so that the
sharpened end pin drove through the already smashed bone at a point
exactly where the boy's first vertebra met the skull. Stuck in the side of the
unconscious musician's neck, gravity slowly twisted the cello to the floor,
wrenching the neck and spinal cord like a windlass.
    The concert ended immediately. Most of the audience was on its feet in
order to see where the young artist had fallen. When they saw the cello
sticking out of his neck, there was a sudden exodus toward the doors and
bathrooms where the sound of vomiting emanated for the next 15 minutes.
The metal rod had just missed both the carotid artery and vein, and loosening
the cello's set screw, paramedics removed the shaft, pulling it entirely out of
the miraculously undamaged $40,000 instrument. With the spike sticking from
the boy's neck like a war-wound bolt from a fifteenth century crossbow, Tuba
was flown by helicopter to Syracuse University Hospital where surgeons
extricated it. It had been buried four inches in his extreme upper neck where
the twisting action macerated part of the medulla oblongata.
    Tuba slowly awakened in the intensive care unit the next morning to find he
couldn't move his arms and feet. He could feel no part of his body below his
eyes. He knew he must be hooked to a respirator--its metronomically-perfect
sucking sound quickly prodded him toward madness.
    The terror built slowly, roiling through his brain in greater and greater
demonic clouds of filthy, sooty fright as he discovered that he could not speak;
he could not move his head or face muscles; he had control over nothing
except his eyes; and he could hear.
    "Okay, it's temporary. It'll go away. It's only until I heal. And I will heal.
Anyone in as good shape as I am will definitely heal."
    He was mouthing the words to himself inside his head, but the voice was
high and squeaky. Five days later, when they were sure--when they were
absolutely positive that there was zero chance for recovery--after extensive X
rays, CAT scans, MRIs, MRAs, ultrasounds, and a dozen other tests, Dr.
Logan broke the news to the young boy as late-afternoon shadows crawled
snail-like down the room's wall toward the gray tile floor.
    "Son, we'll fight this. We'll find a way for you to communicate. You can do
all kinds of productive things. There are computers that can be rigged to
respond to whatever movement you have. You can write. You might even
learn to write music with some of the music software. We'll get equipment
that's custom designed to meet your needs. Tuba, you're a lucky boy. If you
hadn't been in such incredible health, I believe you would have died when you
hit that floor. Your body is in tremendous condition. I've seen the charts and
the test results. The way you've looked after yourself and built yourself
up--kid, you can look forward to a very long and productive life. I'd bet the
farm that you'll live sixty, seventy years!"
    The only way Tuba had of reacting was with tears. His entire body encased
in hardened cement, he was a permanent, suffocating prisoner of machines.
He did not want to live another sixty or seventy years. He did not want to live
another sixty or seventy microseconds.
    Cheezie had taken the news in her usual laconic way. She had been at the
concert, had gone with him in the helicopter. Through the efforts of Dr. Logan,
the boy would be permanently institutionalized in one of the area's better
facilities. Because of his genius for playing instruments, the university and the
state of New York made his case a special project: they would foot the bill
if he would allow them to experiment on him with computers and
communication devices for the handicapped. They transported him to a
sanitarium overlooking Oneida Lake where a special room was set up.
Cheezie breathed a sigh of relief. There was no way she could care for him
full time, and he needed attention 24 hours a day. He was permanently
attached to the respirator, and there was a permanent tube in his stomach to
feed him. More tubes took care of the waste.
    Wonder how long it'll take him to get them to fill those tubes up with
wheat germ and carrot juice? At least I won't have to clean up after him.
    Within two months, the doctors and scientists had rigged an ingenious
console which stretched across the boy's bed at the level of his lap. It was
outfitted with a computer coupled to a soft-laser device which responded to
eye movements. After calibrating it with a simple set of exercises before each
use, all Tuba needed to do was focus his eyes on the special keyboard's
letters and symbols. A low powered laser charted the movements of his
eyeballs, and the correct letter was transferred to the monitor. At first, it
was slow, laborious and tedious. However, with his usual fanaticism for
practicing, the boy quickly became adept to the point where he could type
almost as fast as a slow typist. Using the computer, he could turn the room's
lights on and off, could adjust the temperature, could turn the TV on and off
and change its channels. He could even play the special radio and change the
stations all by using only his eyes.
    The experimenters were ecstatic with the boy's progress--always quick
to adopt his written suggestions. The community college's insurance company,
along with the orchestra's liability carrier, settled out of court in one of the
fastest claim settlements on record in the state of New York. They knew if
they were taken to trial, the award would be astronomical--a combination of
paying medical bills the rest of the boy's life plus serious punitive damages for
building the stage so high. Tuba couldn't have cared less when Cheezie told
him that he now had over four million dollars in an account in the bank. For
the first several dozen times his mother visited him, he had written on the
computer screen, "please pull the plug, mom. please let me die." She had
simply said, "No." He'd finally given up, had known from the beginning that she
didn't possess the inner strength.

    would like to set up access to bank account and get credit cards. can use to
shop on cable tv. fun.

    The scientists installed a software program which would allow him access
to his humongous bank account. Cheezie had steadfastly refused to take any
of the money. She continued to work at the grocery store, although she was
able to quit the other jobs.
    "That's your money, sweetie. I would feel horrible taking even a dime. I get
along just fine. You spend it on yourself and be thankful that they aren't taking
it for your medical expenses. You lucked into this deal with the scientists. The
hospitals would bleed you dry in no time."
    He didn't argue.

    thanks, mom. i love you.

    It was the first time she'd ever heard him say that. Maybe that chiseled
mind was mellowing with all the adversity.
    "I love you too, sweetie."
    With the ability to spend his own money, he could now order pay-for-view
movies and special events. Any escape that would take his mind off his
condition was a breath of fresh air. He began to order things from the Home
Shopping Network and from other sources, paying the bills by using the
computer's link to the bank. He gave the cheap jewelry, CDs, and other
trinkets to the staff and to Cheezie. It was a small but substantial source of
pleasure to give the stuff away after he'd seen it arrive in the mail and
watched someone open the package. He was directly responsible for the
delight on the recipient's face; it was something he had done entirely by
himself; no one had helped. However, the interminable feeling of panic was
always simmering just beneath the surface.
    The only respite came from nightly dreams where he was always whole,
could once again run along the canal or play his instruments. He even found
himself dreaming about taking the vitamins and supplements and preparing the
health foods. Without fail, whenever he awakened even from a short nap,
there was an immediate explosion of viscous, abject terror which would
slowly swirl around the inside of his head where it mixed and mottled with
megadoses of revulsion and loathing. Even the most restrained captives,
chained and gagged, had some freedom of movement--could wiggle toes,
contract a thigh or arm muscle; there was always hope that conditions could
improve. Tuba's horror stemmed from the fact that other than his eyes, he
would never again move a fraction of an inch, never taste food or feel the
5:00 a.m. July breeze on his bare chest and legs; he would never kiss,
wrinkle his nose at the smell of two-day-old road kill; never feel the needling
rays of a too-cold shower; never feel the glossy ivory keys of the Mason
Hamblin or the wire-wrapped low-C string of the Giannini, which Dr. Logan
had taken back anyway; and the doctors kept assuring him that because of
all those vitamins he'd gulped, he would live a long and productive life. He
had been in such incredible health, his body had springboarded from the
salubrity to establish a benchmark for his maintenance. It was a cruel joke.
He was a prisoner of what had been his own extraordinary health, and now
that the machines and prescribed daily nutrition had taken over, he was
condemned to live to a ripe old age. Tuba Mummert didn't even have the
freedom to take his own life--to step into the next world, regardless of
whether it was better or worse than this one. He couldn't quit eating; he
couldn't pull the plug on the abominable respirator; he couldn't even fall out
of bed on his vulnerable neck.
    "Tuba, good news. Your body has stabilized, and we're going to take you
off the monitors and IVs. You're doing great, little buddy."
    "That's good news?" he had thought to himself.
    They removed the remote infrared alarm which, for months, had connected
his vital signs to the monitors at the nurses' station. It was now up to the
respirator and if it quit, another alarm would sound at the desk. However, the
feeding tube and "waste removal systems" remained in place. They were
permanent.
    It was through a series of television advertisements for America On Line
that the young boy's life was dramatically changed. He signed up for the
computer service believing that it would turn out to be another version of
cable television. He was wrong. AOL started him on a mesmerizing journey
which would never cease to astound and amaze him. He found an entire
world where he had instant access to news, games, reference books, clubs,
hobby interests, computing, entertainment venues for movies, television,
sports, and music.
    However, by far the most interesting feature AOL had to offer was a
scrolling screen of typed, real-time conversations called "People
Connection." The paralyzed boy who couldn't talk could now converse fluently
and instantly with people all over the country as fast as he, and they, could type!
No one could even suspect that he lay in a hospital bed, tube-laden and
stone-immobile for the remainder of his pathetic life unless he chose to tell
them. "People Connection" consisted of hundreds of "rooms," each filled with
men, women, and children (as young as six years old) who wanted to talk.
There were even specialty rooms for news, sports, teens, romance, and
numerous other categories. Tuba had spent nine months in the hospital room
with only a few visitors and the people on staff to communicate with. Suddenly,
he had instant access to thousands of individuals, many of whom were as
lonely as he was.
    "This thing is mind boggling. It would really be enjoyable if I could sit at a
desk and type like normal people. Well, they don't have to know what it
looks like from my end."
    AOL had a link to the internet. With a taste of the World Wide Web, the
boy quickly set up an cable account with a carrier in Syracuse to allow him
super-speed, direct access to the net. Online, he found a world which was
totally mind boggling. Countless lists (some numbering in the thousands) of
topics, "sites," and "links" included a diversity of interests that was beyond
anyone's imagination. "Search engines" allowed him to type in a topic, and
thousands of articles and sites that included that topic plopped onto the screen
within seconds. The first word he typed in was Boccherini, and within
seconds the composer's biography and life's works, including the "Cello
Concerto in D major," flitted onto the screen. He was even able to listen to
Pablo Casals playing the piece while the written music scrolled across the
screen.
    "Not bad, Toobs--that is if you can't dance . . . "
    There were many others pieces of music, along with thousands of other
topics, and the World Wide Web quickly became the most mesmerizing thing
the 15-year-old had ever known. It was a never-ending array of doors that
opened into rooms with more doors which opened into even more rooms with
even more doors. There were an unlimited number of  "chat" sites like AOL's
People Connection and many of them were not limited to people in the United
States. He could now talk to people in Australia, Great Britain,
Sweden--anyone in the world who was connected to the internet. It was
glorious! He began to deeply resent any intrusion on his netsurfing--nurses
turning him to avoid the constant threat of bedsores; his daily bath; the
quotidian routine with the physical therapists; the scientists who were always
pumping him for more suggestions and always monkeying with the equipment.
    Online in the chat rooms, no one in their right mind revealed their real name.
A screen name was safer, and many of the pseudonyms were ingenious and
humorous. There were also the "smilies," most of which had to be turned
sideways to be comprehended. There was :-) for a smile; ;-) for a wink and a
smile; *** and {{ }} for kisses and hugs; <g> for a grin. He picked the
screen name "cellojello" and was soon spending six to eight hours a day
talking with people from every walk of life imaginable in locations from
Syracuse to Sydney; Boston to Borneo. On line, he was whole. He was an
equal.
    He made friends with a number of familiar chatters, their screen names
popping up over and over. As the months went by, the boy came to know
some of them quite well. One of the attributes of the "talkers" was the
"Private Room" feature. Two or more onliners familiar with each other could
elect to go to a private room and carry on a conversation without being
interrupted. Here, it was easier to let the hair down, to reveal things that might
not be written safely in the public rooms. For most, revealing too much in the
public rooms could result in some "crazy" knocking on your front door to say,
"Hey, I looked you up from what you said online. Now I'm going to rape
your mother and gut you with my ax. I get all my dates this way."
   Cyberspace was a great time occupier, but the suffocating panic and
depression never left the boy. It was always seething only a hair's breath
below the redline. With the private room feature, a plan began to form in
Tuba Mummert's mind--a plan which would extricate him from his
imprisonment--permanently!
    "I don't need them. I'll take care of this little matter myself."
    The words scampered through his mind, bringing the first hope he'd felt
since he'd entered the hellish world of paralysis. After two months and
hundreds of hours of searching and prodding for the right personality, he
finally found someone whom he thought might be right. He had met her in the
"Over Forties Room" on Yahoo's ICHAT. Her screen name was
Mugwump5. The first time he had been "talking" to her, someone else in the
room had asked for an age/gender check. She had written 46/F. By
clicking on her name in the "People In This Room" box, he was able to
bring up her profile. She had posted it--many didn't, preferring to remain
totally anonymous. With three clicks of the mouse, he was able to find her
real name--Margaret. She had wisely not listed her last name. She lived in
the Baltimore area; she was widowed; her hobbies were singing, listening to
music, growing plant-box flowers; the type of computer she was
using--Dell Pentium II 350; her occupation: owner of a candy store; her
personal favorite quote: "Lapping up life's leftovers is better than going
hungry," whatever that meant.

    Mugwump5:   Arriving with **** and {{{{}}}} for cellojello.

     cellojello:       morning mugwump.

    They spent more and more time talking, sometimes three or four times a
day. Over a period of several months, he came to know her quite well. He
told her about his music, his accident and permanent condition, the useless
money in the bank. She eventually told him about her ten-year-old son who'd
been in a coma for over three years after an automobile accident in which his
father was killed. She had finally received permission from the court to pull the
plug and allow the boy to die. It was only after he'd been talking for several
weeks that Tuba finally told her about his plan and asked if she would carry it
out for him.

    Mugwump5:    Absolutely not! That's murder! :-(

    cellojello:         no. its not. i need your help. be me. doctors say i'll live
                           60 70 years. 1000 times worse than solitary confinement in
                           prison.

    Mugwump5:   You're doing fine. Learn to enjoy what you have.

    cellojello:         please think about it. im encased in cement. life is awful.
                           cant play cello. will never play again. need peace.

    Mugwump5:   It's wrong, Cello. You shouldn't do it.

    cellojello:        think about your own son. youve been through it once.

    Mugwump5:  That was different. He wasn't cognitive.

    cellojello:        neither am ii. please

    He begged for whole day before she finally relented and said she might
consider helping him. He was persistent and persuasive. When he made the
offer of two million dollars, which he would transfer to a numbered bank
account in the Bahamas for her, it seemed to add the final incentive, and she
reluctantly agreed to his plan. Besides, her candy store was on the brink of
bankruptcy. He knew she wouldn't get caught; he had figured out every
possible contingency to prevent anyone from finding out who she was, much
less what she had done.
    She came during the January thaw. They had discussed at length the type
of disguise she would wear. It had to be totally convincing--no room for
someone on the staff to come up with a composite picture that could be
manipulated on a computer to reveal what she really looked like. Not even
Tuba would know her true appearance.
    He had chosen Monday morning for her "visit." It was the only day of the
week when the staff was short two people. Mondays, he rarely had any
visitors. They tended to come on the weekends.
    "Hi, Cellojello."
    She was fat. Obese, in fact. He was surprised. It hadn't occurred to him
that she would be fat.
    He typed:

    hi, mugwump. did you bring it?

    "Yes, I have it."
    She had short, flaming red hair which had flown apart in the 25 mph wind
that starched the American flag, outside Tuba's window, to uncharacteristic
stiffness. Her cheeks were rosy, probably from the walk from her car in the
parking lot on a day when the 50-degree temperature felt like 30 because of
the wind. He had to wonder what part of her was in disguise. She looked
pretty real to him.
    Using the internet, he had searched the library files of several medical
schools to find the right poison. It didn't have to be exotic--no need to worry
about pain--he couldn't feel anything anyway. It did have to be slow-acting
so Margaret could be long gone; it had to be a substance easily carried and
concealed and one which Margaret could come by easily. She simply did not
have the contacts to obtain a vial of curare or digitalis or the 60 to 100
capsules of one of a few dozen prescription drugs that would do the job. He
had settled on two quarts of wood alcohol--easily bought in any paint or
hardware store. It took from 12 to 48 hours to act, and the rapid, shallow
breathing side effect would be counteracted by the respirator. Also, she
would include several ground-up tablets of motion sickness pills bought over
the counter in any drug store. They would prevent an involuntary bout of
vomiting brought on by the methanol. He did not want the staff alerted until it
was much too late to do anything. The only tricky part would be that she
would have to empty the entire supply into his food bag--a clear plastic sack
which hung on a hook beside his bed. If the dose was not lethal, he would end
up not only remaining paralyzed, he would also be permanently blind. Tuba
intended to make sure that she put in enough to kill three people. It would be
the most carefully monitored operation of his life.
    They chatted for a few minutes and he typed:

    we'd better do it. every minute you stay here leaves that much more
   opportunity to be caught.

 "Cello are you sure you want to do this?" She fondled his face with a puffy
hand.

    put yourself in my shoes--shoes, good one there--havent had shoes on in
    almost a year. every minute is panic--like being buried alive and you know
    you cant die and no one is going to ever rescue you. ive never wanted
    anything more in my life. stuffll just put me to sleep. nothing to it. wont
    feel a thing

    She leaned over and kissed him. "I could never do this except I did a lot
of thinking what it must be like for Jeffery when he was alive. It must be
awful. Trapped. Helpless. Dependent on someone else to . . . I had to help
him. It took a long time in the courts, but I'm sure he wanted me to pull the
plug."

    cant pull plug here--alarm--theyd know instantly. show me your bank
    number. ill have money transferred. itll just take a couple of minutes. they
    wont find transaction until much too late.

    "You know I'd do it without the money, Tuba."

    its no good to me. mom will have plenty left. really. she never spends
    anyway. be careful you dont draw attention spending it.

    Afterwards, he would remember how the look on her face had changed
when he told her his mother would have plenty of money left.
    "I'll be very careful. I'm going to sell my business and retire. It'll take my
full-time attention to get over this, plus Jefferey. Would it be possible to
make it a little more? I still have over a million and a half in medical bills to
pay."

    sure. I'll make it 2.5 mil. i wont need it where im going.

    The boy made the proper entries in the bank menus and after two minutes,
the words "transaction complete" flashed in the correct box. He had
transferred $2.5 million into the account number she had given him.

    check hall. fill plastic bag with it. then go quickly. thanks, mugwump.
    you saved my life.

    Her hose swishing loudly, she waddled over to the door and checked to see
if anyone was in the vicinity. It was clear. From her purse she took two flat,
quart cans. Tuba could see the words "poison" and "methanol" on one of them.
It only took a few seconds to unscrew the cap on the plastic bag, then pour in
the clear liquid. The alcohol had entirely disappeared within a minute, flowing
directly into his stomach.
    "There. It's done. God bless you, Celljel."
    She put the empty cans back into her oversized purse.

    thanks mugwump. youll never know how much i appreciate this. now
    scoot. ive got work to do erasing stuff on this computer. in a while ill just go
    to sleep.

    She wiped at her eyes and without saying anything, waddled out the door,
leaving by an exit that led directly to the outside.
    Tuba was asleep within half an hour. He drifted in and out of sleep for an
hour or two, then remained awake for the remainder of the day. Insomnia
continued through the night until almost daybreak. Tuesday midmorning when
he awakened, he checked to see if the bank transfer had gone through. Good,
Margaret had her money. It should be any time now that he'd simply go to sleep
and never wake up.
    On Wednesday morning, he was still wide awake. Forty-eight hours. He
thought to himself, "Got to take hold. Must be the state of my body that's
making it take so long. Should make a note of that on the internet for posterity.
'Poison takes much longer to work on quads.'"
    Thursday, Friday, Saturday--he slept only intermittently, and it slowly
dawned on him what she had done. No wonder there was no discernible
disguise. She wasn't going to be sought for murder. Over and over he said to
himself, "I thought I could trust her. I figured with something this important . . ."
The woman had taken his money, and he couldn't even tell anyone, much less
turn her in. She'd known that all along--the perfect crime. If they knew what
he'd done, they'd take his computer away. The liquid she'd poured into the
food bag was probably just water. She would be sun-roasting her whale body
on a south Pacific island right now. He doubted if she ever had a son and was
on the verge of bankruptcy.
    "Con artist. Dumb, Mummert."
    He knew it would be a waste of time to try to find her on ICHAT or  ICQ
(I Seek You), but he tried anyway. She was not online. She had never given
her last name or her address in Baltimore.
    Two days later, the notice of the transaction arrived in Cheezie's mailbox.
When she saw the huge withdrawal he had made and that the money had been
transferred to a numbered account, she began to consider what he could
possibly have spent that much money on. It didn't take long.
    My God, he didn't! He wouldn't . . .
    Obviously, his accomplice hadn't gone through with it or Cheezie would
have received a call from the sanitarium long before now.
    Well, I'm not looking forward to this, folks.
    January's thaw had extended into an unusual February, and a series of
dangerous thunderstorms pounded the area with a vengeance. After the nurse
had turned him toward the window, the teenager was able to watch the
pre-dawn lightning strikes illuminate the white caps on the lake. Trees were
bent at merciless angles as if tortured by some unseen demon. Unrelenting
rain pelted the window glass like BB's. On several occasions, the power had
been knocked out and the hospital thrown into blackness while Niagara
Mowhawk's computers searched for a new route on the grid. The
sanitarium's generator kicked in automatically to assure that Tuba's respirator
and numerous other life-support machines in the facility maintained their
rhythm, but it took a few seconds for the diesel motor to turn over and catch.
Frequent power surges and drops triggered the alarms at the nurses' station
with regularity, and nature's tantrums were forecast to continue another two or
three days.
  When Cheezie arrived, it was midmorning. She parked at the rear of the
hospital in order to use the staff entrance next to the kitchen. This way was
only a third of the distance to Tuba's room compared to parking in the front
lot and using the lobby. The rain had let up temporarily as she made her way
to the back door and stepped inside, but the thick, dark clouds were
obviously consolidating forces in order to attack with another tantrum of
indignation. He was sitting in his usual position in the bed, but the room's
lights were turned out. The screen of the computer's monitor radiated in a
kaleidoscope of complicated patterns which reflected across his face--a
screen saver. She turned on the lights and said nothing at first, simply holding
the envelope with the bank statement before his face. She could see the fear
in his eyes. Finally, she said, "You want to tell me about this?"
    The colors evaporated from the screen to be replaced with, "please, pull
plug."
    "You paid someone all that money to come here and murder you, didn't
you? You certainly wouldn't have spent that much on anything else."
    No answer.
    "You paid and they didn't do it. Is that what happened?"
    No answer.
    "Tuba, how could you? Don't you know how much I love you?"
    The letters and words quickly appeared once more.

    PLEASE! PLEASE LET ME DIE!

    She stood over him and stroked his forehead. Embarrassed for both of
them, she ignored the crisis and began a monologue based on the unusual
weather and her job at the grocery store. His words were once more
deleted from the screen. It wouldn't do for a nurse to walk in and see the
plea. After ten minutes of prattling, Cheezie gave up and turned him on his
side, facing away from the window. She knew he was mustering his
strength to argue with her, as clumsy as it was for him. She walked to an
overstuffed chair near the window, wearily collapsed, and turned her gaze
to the storm. Another storm cell was sliding dramatically across the lake
toward them. Frenzied low clouds churned in ominous combinations of
battleship-gray and navy-blue while needled fangs of lightning struck
continuously. The accompanying thunder rattled the windows louder and
louder as the storm approached. Turned helplessly away from his computer,
Tuba was fantasizing about a man dressed in camouflage--face blackened,
furtive eyes missing nothing--sneaking unseen into the antiseptic room

  ...he takes the automatic from its holster, screws on the silencer, aims at the
lump beneath the sheets . . .

    when one of Thor's spears stuck the hospital's flagpole, which was about
30 feet from the window. The strobe-like flash and tremendous explosion of
thunder brought the boy quickly back to reality. He heard the respirator and
the tiny fan in the computer shut down for the tenth time in the last three days.
The power was out again, at least for those five or six pregnant seconds
until the generator kicked in. He waited for the machines to start up again.
    Five seconds went by, then the computer's fan began to accelerate slowly.
However, the respirator remained silent. He began to feel drowsy. His ears,
still alert, waited for the inevitable suck-plop of the machine which had
become such an intricate and disgusting part of his life over the last ten
months. Nothing. During the next three minutes, the drowsiness turned
mysteriously into a black swirl inside his head, and gray spots began to
dance in front of his eyes--when he could keep them open. The spots grew
larger and more animated as they swallowed more and more of the darkness.
Finally, unheralded by fanfare or notice, Tuba Mummert, still not realizing what
was happening, slid without ceremony into the next world like a seal through
a hole in the ice.
    Cheezie waited a full hour and a half. She was certain someone would burst
into the room to answer the alarm which must be blinking or buzzing or
whatever alarms did when a patient was dying. She didn't care. She would take
the consequences. If he would go to such lengths once, he would do it again,
and with his fanaticism, it was only a matter of time before he succeeded. She
finally sighed, got up from her seat, and walked over to replace the respirator's
plug. Its now useless chuffing resumed where it had left off as if nothing had
ever happened. She leaned over, kissed the cooling forehead . . .
    Sweet dreams, honey. I just don't want to argue about it any longer.
    She slipped out the way she had come in--unseen.
 
 
 
 
 

Copyright 1997 by The All American Bb Music Company Nashville, TN All Rights Reserved