Elixir. Part 22

21.

THE PRESENT.

DEVIL'S LAKE, WISCONSIN.

The kid with the blond ponytail under his cap was good.

He was from Pierson Prep where they had an experienced team and a dedicated coach who trained his wrestlers as if they were heading for the Olympics.

Wally Olafsson had watched the kid's last match earlier that afternoon. He had pinned the captain of Appleton Tech in a mere thirty-nine seconds. He wasn't too tall, but he was well-built, fast, and balanced. Worse, he knew some fancy moves Wally's son, Todd, hadn't experienced before, including a cunning reverse cradle. Unfortunately, Todd was facing the kid for first-place finals in the 135-pound weight cla.s.s for the region. If Todd won, he'd go home with a two-foot-high trophy. If he lost, he'd take second and a fourteen-incher.

It was after seven, and the gym was packed with wrestlers and spectators filling the stands and pressed five deep around the three mats where the matches had been running continuously since ten that Sat.u.r.day morning. Parents with cameras were squatting on the edges, hooting and hollering for their boys.

Wally sat high in the stands so he could get an overhead zoom of Todd through the video cam.

All around him were wrestlers-young hardbodied Zeuses smelling of Gatorade and testosterone. The heat of their presence took him back to his own high school days when he played varsity baseball at Buckley High in Urbana. Now he was fat, bald, and grossly out of shape. His joints cried out just watching the boys twist each other into crullers. Yet, there was a time when he, too, was lean and made of hard rubber. But, sadly, at fifty-seven, Wally Olafsson had decided that he was beyond physical fitness and had settled into middle age ripeness. George Bernard Shaw was right: Youth is a wonderful thing; too bad it's wasted on the young.

Because Marge had moved to the other side of the state with Todd after their divorce, Wally saw his son wrestle only at these weekend tournaments. And this was the biggest-a three-state regional. Wally could barely steady the camera as Todd faced off with the kid in the green Pierson tights. First place would mean everything to Todd.

The ref blew the whistle, and instantly the Pierson kid dropped to a predatory crouch, dancing to keep Todd at bay. It was the same strategy he had used in his last match-start low, jig a few seconds, then springing to take his opponent off guard and pulling him down like a cheetah on a gazelle.

Tiring of the sparring, Todd made a move to get the kid in a headlock. But he missed. And the Pierson boy flew up, catching Todd around the shoulders and pulling him down on his back with a hard thud. In a reflexive squirm, Todd rolled onto the kid's back which through the viewfinder seemed like a smart move but proved fatal-a ploy the Pierson kid had used on his last opponent. In a lightning flash, he whipped his right arm around Todd's neck, turned 90 degrees to his body, and pressed his back to Todd's front, brilliantly arching him into a reverse cradle. The ref dropped to the floor, and a moment later smacked the mat with the flat of his hand. It was over. Todd had been pinned in fifty-seven seconds.

Instantly, the Pierson crowd exploded and jumped in place. Wally's heart sank as he zoomed in. The disappointment on Todd's face was palpable. He shook hands with the Pierson kid who pulled off his cap and waved at the crowd.

In the split instant as the kid turned full-face into the camera, something jagged through Wally's consciousness. It was too fast for him to process the experience-like trying to recompose a television image after the set had been turned off. But something tripped his mind.

He climbed down from the stand and cut through the crowd, hoping to console Todd who sat on the bench with his head in his hands. He muttered a few words of consolation, but Todd wanted to repair on his own.

The big green Pierson team was on the far side of the gym. Although Wally was toxic with resentment, he decided to congratulate the winner. He also wanted to dispel something he had picked up through the viewfinder.

He cut behind the gallery until he spotted the blond ponytail, then aimed the camera. The kid was taking slaps and high fives from teammates. Wally thumbed the zoom b.u.t.ton until he had a tight shot on the kid's face. He was handsome, with a tight muscular jaw, finely etched features, a thin straight nose, high forehead. Somebody put his arms around him in a bear hug, and Wally froze.

The man in the blue sweatsuit and baseball cap was clearly the kid's father-the same build and facial structure. What stopped Wally's breath was not the strong resemblance to his son but to somebody else... the guy who lived upstairs from him at Harvard back in 1970.

Christopher Bacon.

A thrill of recognition shot through him. The last he had heard, Chris had taken a job at some chemical lab around Boston. He must have relocated.

Wally cut through the crowd for a closer look. The man turned. Except for the dark beard and long hair, it was Chris Bacon.

Sweet Jesus, the guy had kept himself in good shape. Through the zoom, he pulled the man in all the way and hit the record b.u.t.ton.

If it was Chris, he must have had some plastic surgery-lots of guys did these days-because he didn't look any older than he did in grad school when Chris was doing a post-doc in biochem, and Wally, a doctorate in economics. They had both been freshman proctors at Pennypacker House, Chris on the second floor-a corner room, and the center of all-night bull sessions.

In a flash, Wally was back in Cambridge: in that room, at the Wursthaus in the Square, clinking gla.s.ses (and under the warm glow of the alcohol swearing "Friends for life!"), partying at tight Garden Street apartments, protesting Dow Chemical recruiters on campus, storming Harvard Square over Nixon's carpet-bombing of Hanoi, getting maced by Cambridge cops after Kent State, Harvard-BU hockey games, double dating at the Orson Welles Cinema, and the King of Hearts marathon in Central Square.... (What was his girl's name? Brenda...? Wanda...? No...Wendy. That was it: Wendy.) As Wally peered through the zoom, it all rushed back as if he were looking at a kinescope through a time warp.

While he told himself that the guy just looked like a young Chris Bacon, that he was somebody else completely, Wally felt himself flush with emotions, as if trying to hold onto a make-believe moment-not wanting the guy in the viewfinder to be anyone other than Chris Bacon of 1970. It was irrational and pathetic, but for one shimmering moment Wally slipped through the lens to a greener day.

A buzzer went off, and he was back in the gym.

He moved to the wall where the elimination matches were posted. On the 135 weight-cla.s.s sheet, Todd's final opponent was listed: BRETT GLOVER, Pierson Prep.

Glover, not Bacon.

Wally's heart sank. Not Chris Bacon, but, G.o.d, what a resemblance!

He made his way to the knot of green uniforms. "Great job out there."

The Glover boy thanked him.

At the same time, the boy's father glanced over his shoulder. And Wally's mind jogged in reflex. Chris Bacon!

"That was my son he just pinned." His held out his hand. "Wally Olafsson. By the way, you look very familiar."

"Roger Glover," he said. "I don't believe we've met before." But something flitted across his eyes.

"You didn't, by any chance, do a post-doc at Harvard, did you?"

"Nope."

"...or date a girl named Wendy?"

"Sorry, wrong guy." Glover made a move to get away.

Too young-tight smooth face, no wrinkles, no eye pouches, no paunch overhanging his belt, no thinning hair or receding forehead. None of the a.s.saults of time and gravity that made Wally look his fifty-seven years.

But Mother of G.o.d! It was uncanny-like looking through a tear in the time-s.p.a.ce continuum.

The wrong guy, Wally told himself.

(Those eyes. Something about those eyes.) wrong guy coincidence "Guess not." Wally apologized. "Your son knows some good moves. h.e.l.l of a wrestler. Congratulations." He mumbled, feeling foolish.

Glover nodded and turned his back.

But Wally was transfixed, his mind still stuck on details long forgotten. Like stumbling on your first Little League glove decades later, amazing how it all comes back-the leathery smell, the way the shiny rawhide ends curled, the company logo magically incised on the wrist strap, your name proudly lettered in ballpoint. Little lost oddities that rush into place at first glimpse. The same with faces. The set of the mouth, the widow's peak, the way the nostrils flare, the slightly asymmetrical eyebrows.

Coincidence, he told himself.

(The eyes.) Just a resemblance.

As Glover moved off with his son, Wally could not suppress a dumb impulse. "Hey, Chris!" he shouted.

The man did not flinch or even peer over his shoulder.

A childish test, and the guy had pa.s.sed, leaving Wally wondering what he would have done had the man looked back.

Imperfect memory, Wally told himself, born out of nostalgia and an aging mind. And I made a thundering a.s.shole out of myself to boot.

Later that evening after he had driven Todd back to his mother's place and returned home, Wally lay in bed and replayed the encounter over in his head, fixing as best he could the look that flitted across Roger Glover's eyes at the moment he saw Wally.

Yes, it was fast and nearly imperceptible, but for one split instant Wally would have sworn that what he saw in Roger Glover's eyes was recognition.

"He recognized me."

"How do you know?"

"I introduced myself as Roger Glover, but he called me Chris as I walked away. He didn't believe me."

Laura's expression froze. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. I kept walking."

"Then he'll conclude it's a case of mistaken ident.i.ty."

"Let's hope."

They had considered plastic surgery, but back then his face was too recognizable to risk walking into a surgeon's office. Nor could he leave the country with their photographs at every immigration checkpoint. So he had dyed his hair, grown a beard, and wore tinted contact lenses which combined with the initial rejuvenation created a sufficient cover until Brett reached the age to ask questions. By then they had moved to Eau Claire where n.o.body knew their faces. Chris kept the beard and hair, but put away the tinted contacts.

What Chris had not counted on was stumbling into somebody from his deep past. And, yet, it was a possibility that had sat in the back of their minds for thirteen years.

He stood at the mirror touching up his beard and sideburns with whitening makeup. Laura was in her nightgown ready for bed, her face glistening with her nightly cold cream. "Besides, you look half your age even with the gray."

"That's what bothers me." In college his hair was sandy, not black, and he didn't have a beard.

"Honey, it's been thirty years. I can barely remember what my roommate looked like from college, let alone some guy downstairs," Laura said. "Christopher Bacon is dead, so is Wendy."

After thirteen years that was the virtual truth.

All they had wanted was to become normal people again-to blend into the scenery, to remake themselves so n.o.body thought twice. So, early on they had engaged in regular psychodramas, playing out the deaths of their former selves until they were nearly convinced they had always been the Glovers. For hours on end, day after day, they recited their new names, dates of birth, and social security numbers like mantras, writing them out until they were second nature. They always addressed themselves as Roger and Laura, resorting to sneak tests until they had conditioned away all the old reflexes. They even took trips to Wichita and Duluth to visit the neighborhoods and schools of Roger and Laura. It was difficult, but like immigrants desperate to learn English, they eventually strip-mined their old ident.i.ties until they fell for the artifice.

"I know that. But Wally Olafsson doesn't," Roger said. "I look more like I did in 1970 than 1988."

Silence filled the room as they considered the risks.

"I'm not about to drop our lives and go into hiding again," she said. "I'll stop him first if he tries anything. I swear to G.o.d I will."

Roger could feel the heat of her conviction. They had been wrongly convicted by the media of monstrous crimes, and n.o.body had risen to their defense. n.o.body! Short of murder, Laura Glover would not allow Brett's life to be upset. It was what a dozen years of meticulous fabrication and maternal love had produced-a good, happy life for their son and the protective instinct of a mother bear.

Roger folded his makeup kit. "Laura, Wally was an old friend."

"So was Wendy Bacon," she said, and snapped off the light.

The dark silence of the bedroom took Roger Glover back. Back before his wife was Laura Glover, mother of Brett Glover and owner of Laura's Flower Shop on South Street in Eau Claire, and he was Roger Glover, co-owner.

Chris Bacon did not age and die that night in the Adirondack woods. On the contrary, Elixir not only had frozen his cellular clock but created restorative effects that had stabilized at a level where even with the beard he looked no more than thirty-twelve years less than his age when he first injected himself, and twenty-five years less than the number of years he had been alive. And the reason why his body did not waste away and his mind did not gum up was diabetes.

It took him some time to work out the logic, but he concluded that the tabulone steroid had attached itself to a hitherto unknown receptor in his cell makeup-one of the dozens of "orphan" receptors whose purpose science still did not understand. As Betsy Watson had long ago explained, once attached the new shape caused the manufacture of a protein which turned off the telomerase aging effects. It had also turned off other inhibitors that disrupt normal regulation of enzymes so that one would fast-forward die once off tabulone.

But being a diabetic meant that the extra glucose in Chris's system somehow signaled biochemical changes that activated the enzyme even without tabulone. In other words, some combination of tabulone and Chris's diabetes rendered the receptor active for long periods without the need for regular boosts. Apparently the same was true for Iwati, also a diabetic-which explained why he didn't need frequent shots, just an occasional smoke.

That was why Wendy had not found a shriveled, freeze-dried mummy in Chris's clothes when she returned from Lake Placid that night all those years ago. And why after three days of Chris's disorientation and fever, she had managed to nurse him back to health. In time he had worked out a treatment schedule, discovering that he could go as many as three months without a booster. Fortunately, his body signaled when it was time. Just in case, he wore around his neck an emergency ampule that was hidden in a simple tubular gold case with a tiny spring-release b.u.t.ton. It looked like a piece of jewelry, but contained a three-year supply of Elixir.

At fifty-six years of age Roger had plateaued at the health level of an athlete half his age. His blood pressure was 110 over 70; his cholesterol hovered at 160; and he had 10 percent body fat. Essentially Roger Glover nee Christopher Bacon was immortal. The only way for him to die was accident, murder, or suicide.

Of course, he had told Laura what he had done-how in a drunken moment fraught with grief and terror he had injected himself. As expected, she reacted with disbelief and anger. There was no turning back. Her first concerns were the unforeseen complications-potential cancers from messing around with his DNA and hormones. Those fears faded when in time he had stabilized. Besides, he felt extraordinary. Gone were arthritic twinges in his back and knees. Gone also were those frightening lapses in recall and memory.

Laura, however, refused to join him. Every instinct had told her Elixir was wrong. Nonetheless, the temptation reared its head higher as the years pa.s.sed. It was there where she applied makeup to her face each morning. It was there every time she considered the porcelain smoothness of Roger's skin, or felt his hard-body vigor and s.e.xual heat. Or when she considered the impossible anachronism they became by the day. It was there in his entreaties, in sometimes desperate reminders that she was p.r.o.ne to lumps in her breast.

Yet Laura held firm because of Brett. It was bad enough they would someday have to explain Roger. One freak parent was enough.

Because she kept in shape, n.o.body knew her exact age. They both looked about forty-Roger painting himself older, Laura painting herself younger. The problem was that Laura was fifty-five and Roger was biologically nearly half that. In ten years she could pa.s.s for his mother. His encounter tonight only brought that home.

"We're the same people," Roger said. He put his arm around her, hoping she'd sidle up to make love. As always he was primed, but she wasn't interested.

"But we're not the same."

There it was, he thought, the one sure measure of the distance separating them. With so much anguish and grief they had shared over the years, he wondered if he could go it alone when the time came. She would never agree to take Elixir as long as Brett was young, but he hoped that in time she'd change her mind-and before she was elderly. He loved her too much to watch that happen. He also did not want to spend the next century without her. She was the only one who knew who he was.

Until tonight.

"How did it feel to see him?" she asked.

"Strange. I wanted to hide and embrace him at the same time."

While he had stonewalled Wally, the encounter had touched the old Chris Bacon, setting off eddies of bad feelings. Wally had been a good friend, a funny guy he had shared laughs and good times with. Denying him tonight had killed a chance to connect to a past that had nothing to do with Roger Glover. Yes, he and Laura had acquaintances and business a.s.sociates; but there was a permanent divide that left them alone in an uneasy claustrophobia. It would be nice to connect with Wally again. But that was impossible.

The divide that was closing was Brett. They had told him nothing about Elixir or their past. Yet they were reaching the point of explanation. He was a bright, perceptive kid who believed his parents were in their late thirties. And they looked it. But he would eventually wonder why his father didn't age in family photos, and why he was younger than his friends' fathers. For the time being, it was still cool to have a dad who could sprint around the track and wrestle and who still got carded in restaurants. But the day would come when it would change: When Brett would close in on him. When they would appear like siblings. When Roger would be younger than his son.

It was a day that thus far had lain out there-in the general blur of tomorrow. A day they dreaded, because it meant sharing a secret not possessed by any other human being in the history of the species-or any species.

A federal warrant had estranged Roger from outsiders; Elixir had estranged him from his own blood.

But how do you tell your child that you will not age or die? It would be like announcing you were an alien: When the laughter died, you braced for the screams.