Mahogany's Dream Page 6

  Over time, Norma developed a maternal fondness for her extraordinary patient. Dyson was easygoing and personable, laughing whenever she called him a mutant and listening raptly when she rambled on about things that had nothing to do with his treatment. But she admired his brilliance most of all. His mind was spectacular. There was rarely a topic, including clinical psychology, he could not discuss like a trained expert. He often gave her fascinating insights that kept her brain churning late into the night. And when he talked about physics, it was like sitting down with Galileo or Einstein.

  They kept in touch long after she had stopped treating him. The rapport she developed with him was so comfortable that she sometimes had the notion that Dyson Conwell was the son she never had.

  Except, of course, he was black.

  __________

  Dyson examined the dark sheets on Norma’s table. All of them were decorated with familiar splotches of red and blue. “More PET scans,” he said disparagingly.

  “Yes,” Norma said, “but not of your brain. These are tomographies of Mahogany’s brain during REM sleep.”

  Dyson perked up. “Really?”

  “See for yourself. Look at the flow to her PFC. Does that look familiar?”

  He examined two of the sheets closely. “Amazing,” he said. “I’ve never seen scans like these that weren’t of me. Are you sure these were done during REM?”

  “Don’t insult me, Dyson. I was there for the whole procedure. I injected the glucose myself.”

  “You did?”

  “Under close supervision. Mahogany became hysterical when she saw the needle. I was the only one she would let get close to her. And I know the techs over there pretty well from all the times I went there for your scans. Trust me, she was dreaming when she went in.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just—”

  “It’s just that in your whole life you’ve never come across anyone else with this condition. And then, without any warning, I drop this on you. Don’t apologize. Believe me, I understand. I would be just as skeptical. Taking this lightly is the last thing I would ever do. That’s part of the reason I subjected Mahogany to those dreadful tests. I wanted to be sure.”

  “But you were already sure,” he speculated.

  “There were signs: Persistent nightmares. Curious comments about events she shouldn’t be aware of.”

  “And?” Dyson prodded her.

  “And it just became obvious,” Normally finally admitted. “Children do not keep secrets. If Mahogany received a dream from another student, she’d let them know about it as soon as she saw them. If that weren’t bad enough, she started receiving dreams from everybody—her teachers, Michelle, me…even Blake.” Norma suddenly had a thought. “Say, have you ever had any of Blake’s dreams?”

  Dyson squinted at the third PET scan a little too hard. “Her amygdalic activity is off the charts.”

  “That’s classic avoidance, Dr. Conwell. Lucky for you I don’t suspect him of cheating. If I did, I would torture the information out of you.”

  “All I have to say is: Who knew CEOs liked to use handcuffs?”

  “Very funny. Blake would never go for handcuffs. Silk scarves are another story though.”

  “What did Mahogany’s vitals look like after this episode?” he asked, pointing to one of the scans.

  “As bad as you would expect. Her heart rate was over one twenty when we woke her.”

  “One twenty?” Dyson exclaimed. “That’s too high for a child’s heart, Norma. You need to watch whom she comes in contact with. And monitor her REM closely every night.”

  “This is a school, not a hospital. But we do the best we can.”

  “She could have a heart attack if the episode is severe enough.”

  “That won’t happen,” Norma said confidently.

  Dyson was puzzled. “How do you know?”

  “The cardiologist says she has a mild case of VT, but not to worry because Mahogany has a heart like a distance runner. Actually, he was amazed at Mahogany’s little ticker. He said that he’d never seen a nine-year old with such a strong vascular system. He thinks her vascular muscles have overdeveloped to cope with the frequent stress. He wanted to write a paper about it.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir.”

  Dyson was relieved that Mahogany had Norma in her corner. “She’s lucky to have to you. All the children are.”

  “You told me once that there is no such thing as luck, something about how for every outcome, there’s a parallel world where the outcome was different.”

  “The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics,” Dyson said. “I’m impressed you remember.”

  “Don’t be. I think it’s utter nonsense.”

  “But how else can you explain photon interference?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea, Darling. I don’t even know what that is. My point is that it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, because we’re in this world. And in this world, I don’t know what to do to protect Mahogany except lock her in a padded room.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t need protection. I mean, no one locked me in a padded room and I survived.”

  “Actually, that’s why I wanted to see you. I’m hoping you can help Mahogany do the same. When Dr. Martin told me his theory about Mahogany’s vascular muscles, it got me to thinking. What if brains adapt to stress like hearts do? What if the brain has its own form of overdeveloped muscles? It would explain some of the neurological anomalies in people with PTD.”

  “You mean besides PTD itself?”

  “Well, yes. Of course.”

  “What’s anomalous about my brain besides PTD?”

  “Are you kidding?” Norma said in disbelief. “What’s not? You have those unusual sulci formations in both parietal lobes. You can solve math problems with right brain activity. Your IQ.”

  “So intelligence is an anomaly?”

  “Intelligence like yours might be.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “I’m serious, Dyson. Now that I’ve seen two live cases of PTD, I think I’m starting to understand it a little more. In fact, I have a hypothesis.”

  “Don’t keep me in suspense, Dr. Hawthorn.”

  “Well, we know that the brain makes dreams from the material it has to work with: memories, repressed feelings, current events in your life. Sometimes these components are combined in bizarre ways, but the fact remains that the primary source material for your dreams are your experiences. But telepathic dreams are composed of content your brain never experienced. So when you receive a telepathic dream, your brain has to make brand new neural connections in order for you to mentally render it—just like you were actually having a new experience. That’s part of the reason telepathic dreams are not forgotten after you wake up. All this extra neural activity takes energy away from the normal maintenance functions that the brain performs during sleep.

  My hypothesis, at least as it applies to you, is that when you first began to have telepathic dreams as child, your developing nervous system falsely interpreted the excess neural activity as a brain injury. In the same way that a muscle reconstitutes itself to lift heavier weights, your brain responded by developing more efficient neural pathways that require less energy. These superior pathways were permanent changes that are available to you when you’re not sleep, which would account for your exceptional intelligence. It’s almost the same phenomena we sometimes see in autistics. Their brains compensate for an injury in one cameral hemisphere by overdeveloping the other. Some of these individuals can do incredible mental calculations, yet they can’t tie their shoes or interact socially.”

  “The Rain Man Effect,” Dyson said.

  “I prefer the term Savant Syndrome, but yes, that’s the phenomenon I’m referring to. Except in your case—and Mahogany’s too—there is no actual brain injury, just a paranormal ability that looked like one to your nervous system. The
result is that each of you has extraordinary mental capacity on one side of your brain, but no shortcoming in mental functions on the other side.”

  Dyson had long ago come up with a more sophisticated variation of Norma’s hypothesis, but he was gracious enough not to say so. “Some of my ex-girlfriends might disagree with your hypothesis,” he quipped.

  “Testosterone is a neurotoxin,” she said. “But that’s a brain injury all men have.”

  “I can think of several flaws in your hypothesis,” Dyson said. “But for argument’s sake, let’s say that you’re essentially right. I think it’s safe to say that my mental turbo booster is in my left hemisphere. Is it the same with Mahogany? Is she mathematically inclined? Does she excel in science?

  “Let me show you something,” Norma said.

  She handed him a rolled up poster bound with a rubber band. He unfurled it, revealing a dazzling color drawing of a wildflower meadow. Mahogany ‘09 was inscribed in the lower right hand corner. “Wow,” he remarked. “Is this your way of telling me that Mahogany is right brain oriented?”

  “You don’t get it,” she said. “Turn around. Look on the wall.”

  Hanging on the wall in a gilded frame was a large color photograph of the exact same scene as the one in his hand. Mahogany’s reproduction of it was stunningly accurate, down to the smallest details.

  “How old is Mahogany?”

  “Nine.”

  “Incredible. She has an eidetic memory.”

  “Better than that,” Norma said. “Eidetic imagery works by approximation. As you can see, what you’re holding is not an approximation of the original, but a replica. Apparently it’s some kind of mental coping mechanism for her. Whenever she’s awakened by a nightmare, the first thing she does is start drawing. No matter what time it is, if she can find a writing instrument and paper, she draws. It’s all we can do to keep her room stocked with art supplies. The really interesting thing is that her heart rate and blood pressure decline to normal within minutes of the time she puts the pen to the pad. It’s an odd thing to witness. The technician at the hospital was a bit frazzled when Mahogany woke from an obvious nightmare and, right there on the floor next to the PET scanner, drew a detailed picture of the inside of the machine.”

  Dyson, still transfixed by the drawing in his hand, said, “That’s quite a coping mechanism.”

  “Yeah, well, some people draw pictures and some people solve physics equations. Whatever works.”

  “Touché,” he said.

  “There’s more,” Norma informed him. “Sometimes she draws images from her dreams. People. Places. Entire scenes. Think about that. She can reproduce detailed images of experiences she never had.”

  “I’m thinking about it right now,” Dyson said.

  “Well think about this too: See that picture you’re holding? Mahogany drew it three days ago after visiting me here in my office for no more than fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes and all that detail! As soon as I saw it hanging in her room, I asked her how she drew such a good copy. I nearly fell down when she told me that all she did was count the flowers and the grass.”

  There were hundreds of flowers and thousands upon thousands of blades of green grass in the original photograph.

  For the first time in as long as he could remember, Dyson felt flummoxed. “But…how is that possible?” he stammered, vacillating his head between the photo and the copy.

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” Norma said.

  But he could not.

  “Can I meet her?” he asked.

  Norma checked her watch. “You sure can. She should be waiting outside with Maris right about now.”

  Norma got up and walked into the reception area outside her office.

  She came back holding the hand of the most angelic little girl Dyson had ever seen.

  CHAPTER

  12

  The Oak Lane Diner at Broad and Sixty-Sixth is a throwback to the heyday of silver diners. On the outside it’s all stainless steel, neon lighting and wedding cake corners. On the inside, the décor is strictly 1950, down to the ancient cash register that makes real cha-ching sounds when it dispenses change by punting coins down a pewter slide. The food is good enough to draw crowds even though the neighborhood around it has changed a dozen times in forty years, each time for the worse.

  It was Damien’s favorite place to eat.

  _________

  Blake had never been so far north of downtown and he was apprehensive. He wasn’t expecting Beverly Hills, but he was taken aback by the foreignness of Damien’s neighborhood. Rowhouses stretched to the horizon in every direction. They surrounded the diner like a giant rat maze.

  _________

  In their corner booth, Damien tapped cigarette ashes into his empty plate. “I don’t know, man,” he said worriedly. “I don’t know about this.”

  “Do you have a better opportunity knocking at your door?” Blake asked him. He knew Damien was unemployed. In fact, Blake was the reason he was unemployed.

  _________

  Sixteen months earlier, Damien had been a minimum wage security guard at the CSB branch on Olney Avenue, across the street from Albert Einstein Medical Center. Every two weeks, like clockwork, dozens of hospital employees came into the branch to cash their paychecks.

  One day, a friend of Damien’s came to him with a can’t-lose scheme. It had something to do with another friend who worked in the payroll department at the hospital.

  “All you want me to do is take some pictures?” Damien had asked them.

  They gave him a cell phone. It was a new model with a built-in digital camera.

  The next payday at the hospital, Damien spent nearly his entire shift standing near the kiosk where the bank’s customers filled out their deposit slips. He pretended to talk on the phone, all the while snapping pictures of customers writing down their account numbers and signatures. Two shots per deposit slip, just as he had been told.

  No one at the branch appeared to give his odd behavior a second thought.

  Later that night, Damien gave the cell phone back to his friend in exchange for five hundred dollars in cash.

  Two weeks after that, a hulking monster from the CSB Security Department was waiting for Damien when he arrived for work. The giant shocked him by driving downtown to CSB headquarters instead of the Thirty-Fifth Police District. At headquarters they rode a private elevator to the fifty-first floor. Damien followed his menacing chaperon past surprised looking secretaries into a plush office that was bigger than his whole apartment.

  Inside the office, a white man with a beach tan sat behind an enormous desk, staring out the window at a view of what looked to Damien like the entire world.

  “I assume you know why you’re here,” the white man said.

  “Fuck’re you?” Damien answered.

  The stranger raised a quizzical eyebrow to his henchman. The monster just shrugged dumbly.

  “I’m Blake Hawthorn,” the stranger said, as if that explained everything.

  The name didn’t mean anything to Damien, even though he suspected it should. “What the fuck do you want, Blake Hawthorn?” He figured he was eventually headed for jail and he wasn’t in the mood to play Name That Song at the top of the world.

  “I want my money back,” Blake told him bluntly.

  “What money?” Damien asked unpersuasively.

  Blake looked at him with a mixture of contempt and disgust.

  He never forgot that look. And he never went to jail.

  _________

  A young waitress came over and pleasantly asked Blake if he’d like something else. He said he didn’t. By the time her head swiveled towards Damien, her affability had vanished. “Do you?” she asked him rudely, the corners of her lips more twisted than an anaconda wrapped around a lug wrench.

  He shook his head no.

  When she reached out to collect their dishes, she saw the ashes on Damien’s plate. “You can’t use an ashtray, boy?”

  H
er sudden antipathy startled Blake.

  “Just do your job, Tina,” Damien said dismissively.

  After Tina had disappeared into the kitchen, Blake said, “Friend of yours?”

  “Neighborhood chick.” Damien lit another cigarette. He was chain smoking to calm his nerves.

  “Do we have a deal?” Blake asked him. “Unlike you, I don’t have all day.”

  “I don’t know,” Damien repeated. “How much did you say them unions pay?”

  “Twenty-three dollars per hour for an apprentice laborer, more when you finish your training.”

  That was big money to Damien. “And all you have to do is say the word and I’m hired? Just like that?”

  “Whose name is on the sign?” Blake said rhetorically.

  But Damien still wasn’t convinced. Sensing this reluctance, Blake said, “You owe me.”

  “I don’t owe you shit,” Damien retorted immediately. “So you can save all that. You have nerve and a half talkin’ ‘bout ‘You owe me’. It wasn’t even your money. Shit, it wasn’t even the bank’s money.” Two old men sitting at the counter across from their booth turned to look at them. In a lower voice, Damien went on. “And I heard that Bernard’s lawyer found out that the bank’s insurance company paid the hospital back.”

  “Bernard is in prison,” Blake reminded him. “Is that where you want to go?”

  “Can’t go to jail for takin’ no pictures, man. You know it. And I know it. That’s why you didn’t turn me over to the five-oh when it happened. I been thinkin’ ‘bout that shit a lot.” He took a long, pleasing drag of his cigarette. “As a matter of fact,” he said boldly, “I shoulda sued your ass for firin’ me.”

  “I still have the tapes,” Blake said calmly.