The Last Goodbye (34 page)

That comment drew the first genuine applause; a few hoops and hollers were heard in the hall. “But I want to talk about the personal side of Charles Ralston, something that gets too little attention in the climate of today's business.” The video screens dissolved to show a black-and-white video shot panning slowly across the wrecked world of the Atlanta projects. Located only a few miles away from where we were sitting, the contrasts were staggering. The chairs we were sitting on—about which we hadn't given a thought—were more luxurious than anything inside those gates.
“This
is the public health scandal of America,” the speaker said. “While politicians pander for votes on tax breaks for the rich, they do nothing to stop the poverty, racism, and hopelessness that is killing our poorest citizens. If African Americans were considered a separate population group in the world, their infant mortality rate would rank number forty. And when I look out at the business landscape, I don't see many people reaching inside that world to effect change. We have among us today one shining exception to that indifference.”

The screens changed, now showing a moody, Annie Leibowitz-style black-and-white photograph of an adult Ralston. He stared into the camera like a sphinx, inscrutable and—ironically—undeniably romantic. “The Horizn needle-exchange program is everything right about American business, and a challenge to other pharmaceutical companies,” Taylor said. “Instead of merely profiting from the treatment of disease, Charles Ralston does something to prevent it. Horizn holds the patent for the most effective drug in the world for treating hepatitis C. And yet, at considerable political and financial cost, the company does all in its power to protect the citizens of Atlanta from needing the drug in the first place. There are people in this city who don't believe in the needle exchange, and thankfully, Charles Ralston doesn't bother listening to them. Instead, he just chooses to save the lives of his people. I celebrate that courage and generosity, ladies and gentlemen. And today, that generosity is extending to our community in a new and exiting way. I'm going to give you the chance to celebrate this extraordinary man with me. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce you to the best friend the Georgia Tech research community ever had. Please welcome Dr. Charles Ralston.”

Ralston rose from his chair, and he got the love. He began his walk up the stairs to the stage, a phalanx of media in step with him, their lights basking him in harsh illumination. For twenty-first-century Atlanta, this was the complete package: the brilliantly educated, ultra-successful black man who reaches back into the projects to give a brother a hand. Although the audience was overwhelmingly white and Asian, the applause was sincere, wildly enthusiastic, and prolonged. I have no doubt Ralston could have announced he was running for governor, and most of the people in the place would have signed up to help on the spot. Ralston took the stage and reached his hand out to the dean, who ignored it and emotionally embraced him. Ralston, momentarily startled, seemed nonplussed; he patted the dean's shoulders gently, like a parent who doesn't want a child to muss his clothes. The oblivious Taylor hugged Ralston's neck awhile, then released Ralston to the microphone.

Ralston stood calmly in his exquisitely tailored suit, motioning for the applause to die down. “Thank you, honestly. Thank you so much.” Eventually, Ralston got the crowd quieted. “It's a great pleasure to be here among my fellow scientists. I return to the academic world from time to time, just to remind myself of what I fell in love with as a young man. I look out and see your faces and I feel great envy. Envy at what you will see in your lifetimes. Envy at the world you will create. Envy at the power you will one day hold in your hands.”

As Ralston spoke, the auditorium grew still. They were soaking up his words like acolytes listening to a religious leader. “There are those who will fight you on your journey into the future. They will throw their gods up at you and try to limit your research. You must fight them. Always remember two things: first, they are nothing new. Pope Pius forced Galileo to get on his knees and beg forgiveness for having the temerity to suggest that the earth revolved around the sun. Those who oppose your research are descendants of that ignorance. Second, remember that you will certainly prevail. Not possibly. Not even probably. Certainly. Those who fear the forward progress of science will one day take their place on the ash heap of history, alongside those who believed the earth was flat and that black men”—here, Ralston stopped a moment, choking back emotion—“That black men were possessions, something to be bought and sold.” He looked back out into the audience. “All such ignorance will one day be defeated. Horizn has made a commitment to genetic research at Georgia Tech for the same reason we are committed to research everywhere: because of the incalculable benefits to mankind it promises. I believe in that world, the world of the future. I believe in a world where people don't have to travel to Bombay to buy a desperately needed organ on the black market. That might be fine for a rich white man from Europe, but it doesn't help my people here. I believe in a world where the whooping crane is brought back from the edge of extinction through the science of cloning. And above all, I believe in a cure for the great diseases we face, diseases that confront my people disproportionately. I will never stop pushing—whether it's through research or the needle-exchange program—to save their lives.”

Applause spontaneously erupted through the hall. Ralston stood in its wake, waiting a long time for it to subside. “I leave you with this thought,” he said. “There are those who think a scientist lives in an ivory tower, that science doesn't involve normal concerns. To them I say that science is life. Nothing exists outside its influence. And today, the need for scientific understanding in public policy is unprecedented. We stand at the portal of a new Eden. For every Eden, there must be an Adam and an Eve. We are witnessing the next step of human evolution, the creation of the transgenic human. Everyone in this room is incredibly fortunate to be alive at this moment, our moment of triumph. For half a million years mankind has been crawling toward the instant we release ourselves from the shackles of our genetic destiny and begin the process of choosing our own. It is nothing less than an emancipation from gene-slavery. It is the most important event in the history of mankind. By comparison, the inventions of the wheel and fire are mere trivialities. And you”—he gestured with open, outstretched hands, like a sign of the cross—“will be its masters.”

There was another, even greater, outpouring of applause. Ralston nodded offstage, and a man and woman walked out, carrying one of those large, phony checks they give to lottery winners. The check was facing away from the audience, so the amount was hidden. “This is the cheapest money I've ever spent,” Ralston said. “The Charles Ralston School of Biomedical Engineering will do important work for the benefit of mankind. And if some of you studying there should need employment when you graduate, well, I think we might arrange something.” More applause, followed by a cheer as the oversized check was turned over. The amount was four million dollars.

The crowd rose, and Ralston motioned to Michele, waving to her to come on stage with him. She inflated upward out of her chair, lifeless but obedient. Her capacity for matrimonial theater finally exhausted, she walked woodenly toward the stage, incrementally gaining momentum. When she reached her husband, she turned and faced the cameras, her face expressionless. Even an attempt at a smile was beyond her. The cameras flashed light across their faces.

Nicole pulled on my arm. “I think I'm in love,” she said, cooing. “He's magnificent.”

“You sure you want him as the new Messiah?” I asked quietly.

Nicole look surprised. “You're missing the point, Jack. It's all going to happen either way. The only question left is who is going to profit.”

There were a few last moments of camera flashes, a final stiff smile, and Ralston released Michele. Free of his touch she deflated again, turning away and walking off stage. Before she could manage more than a few steps, however, a face I hadn't expected came into view: Bob Trammel, the man with her in St. Louis and at the Four Seasons. She stopped when she saw him, but Trammel advanced with the same pleasant, utterly fraudulent smile I had witnessed before in St. Louis. She started to walk around him, but he placed his hand on her arm as she passed, steering her toward the wings of the stage. Together, they disappeared into the enormous black curtains.

“Hang on a second, will you?” I asked Nicole.

“I'm running, darling,” she said. “Call me later?”

“Yeah. I'll do that.”

Nicole waved down some people she knew from Shearson, and I made my way against the flow of the crowd toward the stage. By the time I arrived the media had dispersed, and no one noticed when I slipped up the side stairs. Ralston had already left the stage, escorted by the dean to whatever was next on the agenda. It was only three or four steps to the curtains, and I slipped into the darkness, looking for Michele. I pushed through, and in the dim light on the other side I could see Trammel from behind, about fifteen feet away. He was holding Michele firmly by the arm, his face very near hers. Suddenly, Michele wrenched her arm free. She looked terrified, as though Trammel had just threatened her with something. Trammel started speaking again, but I had seen enough. I sprinted—a little painfully, but reasonably quickly—the fifteen feet or so between us, and Michele saw me first.

“Jack!” she said, stepping quickly out from Trammel's grasp. “Jack, it's too late. You've got to get out of here.”

When Trammel spun to face me, he gave me an evil smile, the kind that black belts turn on unsuspecting people unfortunate enough to wander into their plans. For a second, I thought I was due for my third beating of the week. I was just about to retreat into that glassy state required to not care what was going to happen next—the essential ingredient in a street fight—when the stage door opposite us opened, and a large group of noisy students began pouring into the space around us. A bespectacled woman of about forty was saying, “Come on, class, we only have the stage for an hour,” and holding the door for a throng two and three deep.

Trammel dropped the attitude, but I barely noticed. What I did notice was Michele slipping through the crowd and out the door. Trammel—his face wrenched into an unsuccessful attempt at calm—took a step to push through the students, then checked himself. Even in his elevated state, he realized that two amped-up men chasing after a woman on a university campus isn't exactly low-key, especially with ten television trucks loading up outside. The seemingly endless class filtered through. The teacher, who was holding the door, eyed us suspiciously, like she had a pretty good idea who belonged in the area at that moment, and we weren't on the list. When the last student finally passed, she walked directly up to the two of us and said, “May I help you?”

Trammel stared, apparently unable to speak. I smiled at her and said, “Yes, you certainly can. We're lost. Can you point us toward the Couch Building?”

“Certainly,” she said in a schoolmarm's voice. She pointed past us, out the doors at the opposite side of the backstage area. “Straight
that
way. You'll run into doors to the outside when you pass through. It's all the way across campus.”

“Thanks,” I said, nodding. I looked at Trammel. “Come on, Bob, old pal,” I said. “We don't want to get in the way of the nice lady's class.” Trammel shot me a wicked look, then turned and followed me across the stage. I could feel him right behind me, the teacher watching us.

There are times when waiting around for what happens next is a sucker's bet. Bob Trammel—having recently been interrupted in the process of manhandling a woman—was not, I decided, a reasonable man. So when I opened the stage door and walked through, I didn't wait to hear what he had on his mind. Instead, the moment we were both in the landing with the door safely closed behind us, I pasted him with the hardest punch I've ever thrown in my life. It connected somewhere between his left cheek and eye, sending splinters of pain through my fist. But it also knocked Trammel down the landing stairs, collapsing him into a heap at the bottom. I didn't bother asking how he was. Instead, I bolted through the doors leading to the hallway, out through the exterior doors, and into the sunshine of Georgia Tech.

I can hardly express the exquisite pleasure that I received from rearranging the soft tissues of Bob Trammel's face. Locked somewhere in the genetic information that Ralston and his friends were so determined to manipulate, there still roamed a pleasure center undiminished by time, connected directly to the primordial joy of wiping a self-satisfied smile off the face of a bully. It was all I could do not to turn around, go back inside, and do it again.

I trotted around to the other side of the building, but there was no trace of Michele. Once I got to my car I got in, started it up, and pulled out into a messy coagulation of noontime traffic. Cars were barely moving in any direction. It would have been quicker to walk.

I had crawled a couple of blocks toward I-75 when I saw Michele's silver Lexus several cars ahead and one lane over. She was going to turn right onto 75, toward south Atlanta. I pushed my way into line behind her, and pulled out into traffic a hundred yards or so after she did.

It would have been easy to get her attention, but I didn't. I kept her car in sight but hung back, playing a hunch. If she was in danger, I wanted to be close enough to protect her; on the other hand, I wanted to know what that danger was, so I decided to let her drive on. At one point I crept up adjacent to her left quarter-panel, several lanes away. Her expression was rigid, the blank stare of a mannequin. I dropped back a few car lengths behind and continued to follow. It was a few minutes later when our destination began to occur to me, although I resisted the thought as long as possible. But when we missed the Crane Street flyover and turned off the freeway, I had no doubt where we were going. Michele was headed back to McDaniel Glen.