Like Mind
Copyright
Copyright© 2013 by James T. Wood
This, my friends, is a work of fiction. I made it up or am using real things in a made up way. Sure I borrowed from the news and I did my best to research the details, but the end result is a flight of fancy.
I’m going to go ahead and copyright this work. Please don’t make any copies of it without asking. Thanks, I appreciate it. Oh, plus all applicable copyright laws are in effect, so abide by them. Like “The Dude.”
Cover Design by Jason Gurley
Dedication
I offer my humble and sincere thanks to television for filling my brain with moving pictures, to books for, um, filling my brain with different moving pictures, and to my wife for communicating with me in a nearly indecipherable code of references.
MAX Melee
When I sat down, I pulled out my smart-phone as quickly as possible. On the surface I looked like everyone else on the MAX but while the other riders were calm, bored even, I was a hunted animal.
The video couldn’t load fast enough for me, despite the super-fast connection I paid so much for. I kept checking around me to see if anyone was watching me. Of course someone was watching me; I just wanted to see them doing it.
Once the video started I locked in. The squealing train wheels and muttered conversations faded as I saw the jujitsu maneuver explained by “Billy” the friendly internet black belt. In two minutes the video was over and the recorded transit voices announced the next stop in both English and Spanish.
This was my moment, in the crowds exiting at Pioneer Courthouse Square, I might be able to escape and figure out what was going on and why these people were following me. I stepped between people, ignoring their personal space, and receiving angry looks for my trouble. But I reached the doors just as the train lurched to a stop. They slid out of the way and I immediately stepped onto the red brick of the square.
For a moment, I was the only one outside the train. I checked to my right and left again. Then I saw him step out past several moms with strollers. He wore a tan sport coat that barely contained his muscles. His button down shirt and dressy jeans caused him to blend in with everyone else in Portland, but the intense, angry look on his face starkly contrasted with the laid-back attitude of my adopted home.
I took off walking across the square, hoping he would follow. But I felt crazy for hoping that a burly, angry man would follow me based solely on my viewing of a simple instructional video. The surreal nature of my life nearly overwhelmed me as I reached the top of the amphitheater stairs on the south side of the square.
I felt his hand on my shoulder, just like in the video. I reached up, grabbed his thumb with one hand, pulled it down and in front of me, and pushed my other hand against his elbow. Despite his strength and size, I controlled him with this simple move. But I panicked and threw him forward - down the amphitheater stairs. He grunted when his face hit the first step, he moaned when his feet flew over his head to land farther down. After that he just made the flopping, meat-sounds of a steak being tenderized.
A yell from behind me said he wasn’t alone. I took off for the other side of the square. At the bottom of the stairs I stepped over Mr. Burly who was already starting to swell and bleed where the brick had pounded his body. Soon I was in the center of the square, at the base of the amphitheater, when the other one yelled from behind me.
“Stop where you are!”
Why did I listen? I’ll never understand how that simple command worked, but it did. I turned to face a man who, if anything, was more blandly burly than the first. As I stood there, my mind raced to anything I could use against him. The jujitsu move would only work if I could get a hold of his thumb. His tightly clenched fists made that an impossibility. I’d have to do something else, or more likely, get beaten up in view of all the dreadlocked hacky-sackers of Portland.
Something about the way he strode toward me gave me a flash of memory. I thought of
The Matrix
when Neo and Mr. Smith are fighting in the subway. He walked up to me and swung his right arm in a haymaker that would crush me. But, mimicking Mr. Smith, I blocked with my forearm and swept his arm down until I had it pinned at my side. He tried to punch me again with his left, again I blocked and pinned him. Then I went in for the finishing head-butt.
You never see on TV or in the movies how much it really hurts to head butt someone. I saw stars and nearly passed out, but Captain Burly-pants just staggered back a few steps. If I didn’t do something else, he’d finish me off. My store of videographic fighting moves was running dangerously low. There was one finishing move that must trump all others.
I closed the distance between us with a few steps, rose up on the ball of my left foot while simultaneously pushing off with my right. The only thing that could have made the roundhouse kick look more like Chuck Norris had delivered it was a set of Texas cowboy boots.
The man crumpled and I ran like a scared kitten. I got to the opposite side of the square in time to catch the westbound MAX. I watched stair-face stumble over to kicked-head as the doors closed and we headed off toward Jeld-Wen Field. Just before I lost sight of them, I saw stair-face pull out a radio. I don’t know who he was contacting, but I guessed that it wasn’t good for me or for continuing my streak of not being punched in the face.
At the next stop I got off, jogged to the eastbound stop and boarded the Yellow Line. That’d take me close to my house in North Portland and, hopefully, give me some time to think. I settled in to a seat close to the door and pulled out my phone again. No new messages had come in while I was pretending to be an action star. I had no idea how I was going to figure this out without help.
Earlier in the day I’d responded to a Craigslist ad and went to OHSU - Oregon Health Sciences University - up on “pill hill” as it’s affectionately known. It was something about a study, blah-blah-blah, and fifty bucks. Rent was coming up, and I hadn’t sold any computers for a while, so the extra cash would help. I got there and waited for a few minutes before being led back into a room for, what they called, screening.
“Have you ever been outside the country?”
“Yeah, I went to Amsterdam last summer.”
“Anywhere else?”
“Does BC count?”
“As in British Columbia? Yes.”
“Yeah, I’ve been there too.”
The cute girl asked me questions about everything. My drug use, my sleeping habits, my schooling, my diet, my allergies. I figured after she knew all my deep-dark secrets she probably wouldn’t want to go out for beers afterward. Too bad, I dig redheads.
After the inquisition, they took me for a “few tests” which meant they would take about three-quarters of my blood and zap me with tons of radiation. The worst was the fMRI - functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. That’s the one where you lie still in a giant, noisy tube and they cook your brain with magnets. I guess it was supposed to give them a way to see what my brain was doing right that minute. They showed me a series of pictures on this tiny screen in the tube and then asked me questions about them.
Mostly it was boring. I remember they were all excited about the splotches on the screen, but I just wanted my money and to see if the cute girl out front would have a beer with me. She’d gone home or something because the guy who walked me out was definitely
not
cute. He was more like the Professor from
Gilligan’s Island
mixed with a manatee. I always thought mouth-breathers were dumb, but this guy proved me wrong. He gave me a crisp, new bill with Grant on it and walked me to the exit. At the door he asked if I’d be willing to come in the next week for some follow-up tests. The pay would be double.
After setting the appointment and heading out, I decided to splurge and ride the tram down the hill. After I got home, I settled in to watch my favorite movie,
The Matrix.
I didn’t think anything of the manatee-professor or OHSU until I saw them on the news the next morning. He was trying to cover up his face, but the whiskers, slobber and mouth-breathing made it clear. I turned up the volume to hear:
“…the doctor is being charged with seven counts of felony manslaughter. His study was not approved by OHSU and his lab has been sequestered as evidence. The President of the University offered his condolences and assurance the families of the deceased will be notified. At this time we know that all those who died had responded to an ad on the classified site Craigslist before dying. Local emergency rooms cite conditions similar to stroke, but in people with little or no risk factors.
“Thank you, Wendy. Now let’s hear about how the Blazers are doing and what that means for your weekend…”
I already knew about the Blazers, so that part didn’t really interest me as much as the murderer-manatee that had shot microwaves at my brain. I jumped on the station’s website to see if there was a contact number for people affected by the doctor. The best I got was the general operator at OHSU and they wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone. They just asked me to come in for questioning. I scheduled an appointment and hung up.
With nothing to do until the appointment, I went to my workshop to try and finish my latest creation. I sold custom computer cases online. This one was made from an old typewriter. I had to cut out the innards of the typewriter to get the computer to fit inside. Overall it was a fun job, even though it didn’t pay much. I could watch TV and movies while working.