A 33-year-old Carleton man who had spent six months in a “persistent vegetative state” recently regained consciousness at the Greendale Rehabilitation Center in Cabot, Mass … .
“Is this a problem?” asked Marilyn Pierce.
“Is what a problem?”
“The article goes on to say that the guy returned from the coma with memory powers that baffle his doctors. Some sharp-eyed neuro-pharm person from another lab might find a connection to the Solakankji jellyfish and scramble to come up with a competing compound for treating dementia, you know, tweak the molecule a little and get their own patent.”
“Hardly,” Coleman said. “We’ve got the patent for the parent compound, plus patents on sixteen molecular ‘for use’ variations. Nobody else is even close, unless they’ve got a variant synthesis we haven’t thought of.”
Coleman was right. Those patents represented proprietary as well as legal rights to scientific property. For another company to develop a competing compound, it would have to be an ingenious and unforeseen molecular variation that also demonstrated pharmacological uses in combating Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia—a process of biochemical identification, extensive three-phase testing of animals and humans, and the implementation and organization of the R&D required to launch a decade-long process. Even if some little-known lab could secretly put together a competing drug, there’d be a leak—if nothing else, word filtering down from the FDA, one of the many Alzheimer’s associations, or employees in the very tight and incestuous pharmaceutical industry.
“Someone would have to make a connection between the jellyfish and the guy’s enhanced memory,” said Thompson. “And there’s no way anybody would. You just have a miraculous recovery. And sometimes that happens.”
“Not a problem.” And Moy slipped the article into his folder.
But Jordan thought that he detected a lingering concern in Gavin’s face.
Whatever, they would take the CRO route. And if all went well, they’d go to market before anybody else. Thanks to marketing, Memorine was not just a household term already; it had become to the needy an incantation.
GAVIN MOY SAT ALONE AT THE head of the table after the others had left. From outside he could hear the sounds of jets on their approach to Logan Airport over Boston Harbor.
His eye fell on the newspaper article again.
Jack Koryan.
It sounded French or maybe even Irish (like one of his neighbors at Bayside, a guy whose face was the map of County Cork—named Kevin Lorian). Maybe even Israeli—à la Moshe Dayan. Possibly Arabic, a variation of Koran. Whatever, the guy had been sent into a coma for nearly seven months.
Moy had wondered at the odds of a casual tourist on Homer’s Island getting stung by Solakandji. Those things don’t come around but once in a blue moon—could be decades between occurrences. An absolute rarity.
But who was this Jack Koryan? And what the hell was he doing out there taking a swim with a storm brewing?
A simple statistical coincidence. Nothing more, nothing less.
Maybe Mark Thompson was right. Maybe the real problem was Nick Mavros.
56
IT WAS DUMB, BUT JACK STILL went.
Another three weeks would pass before he was released from Greendale; and he had circled the day in red on his calendar. But on occasion an aide would take him for a field trip to a local park or mall where he could exercise his legs. Of course, the aide was always at his side with a medical kit—the football, as Jack called it.
But that Friday morning, Jack convinced the aide, Andre LeVal, to swing by his old place in Carleton where he and Beth used to live. He also convinced Andre to let him stroll up Hutchinson Road by himself while Andre kept an eye on him from his parked car. Andre saw no problem and let Jack out.
It had been a long time.
Jack made his way with the cane, moving along as if he were crossing a minefield, taking little mincing steps not because of his legs but because if he didn’t sneak up on the place it might come at him too hard. So he stopped across the street, under the maple in front of the Helms’s place. Tom and Marilyn both worked, so they wouldn’t catch him, come out, and ask him in for coffee and a good cry.
He looked at the house and waited for a reaction. But there was none, probably because the anticipation had all but anesthetized him.
The place looked the same—white colonial, green shutters, sloping lawn, low stone wall, azaleas and boxwood bushes that he had planted. The paint looked brighter than he remembered. The flower garden was still there, blazing with daffodils. Beth had sent away for hundreds of bulbs one year, and for several hours they planted them all, getting goofy on the dirt and sweat.
Jack thought about crossing the street, but there was no sidewalk, which did not make for casual strolling, especially with a cane. So he stood under the tree, hoping no cars would come by and wonder if he was some kind of stalker.
You don’t live here anymore, Jackie Boy. That was pre-coma you.
He moved down the street.
Why are you doing this, asshole? The last thing you need is a good-old-days fix. Only going to make you more miserable.
Niggling thoughts, and he shook them away. Just this once.
Bullshit.
Jack’s mind was a fugue. He had not been here in months, and this was coming to terms with that. Reality test, turning point, sayonara—your basic parting shot.
The lawn was a brilliant green, looking better than he remembered it. But it always did look greener in April before summer turned it New England brown. The house looked the same, but the setting looked reshuffled. At the top of the lawn sat the pink dogwood he had planted the spring they moved in. It had been pruned, and the shrubs looked taller—or maybe it was his imagination. At the side of the house was a child’s riding toy fashioned after a train engine. A kid or kids lived there now. He and Beth had wanted to fill the place with babies—three or four of them. Whatever, somebody else’s tree, somebody else’s shrubs. Somebody else’s kids.
Jack felt disoriented from the double vision. To a major portion of his brain, this was his house. He and Beth had lived there just a few weeks ago. Now people with unknown names filled the rooms with their voices, there furniture, their kids, their own I-wish-I may-I-wish-I-mights. Different voices hummed the walls, warmed the bed. Same stage, different cast.
Suddenly a fierce sadness sliced through him like a sickle. This was what grief was like—grief for the loss of it alclass="underline" for his Beth, his world, the old Jack. Sure, he was alive, but was that really better than the alternative?
Shit! Just what he didn’t want was to get locked into yearning for what no longer was. He needed to rise above the swirling muck of anger and self-pity. This wasn’t a matter of getting on with his life since there was no life to get on with. It was a matter of your basic makeover. Renewal. Renascence: Jack Koryan II.
About the past and that place across the street, he just wanted to forget. But, man, it was hard, and there were times like this when he envied the Greendale old guys their forgetting. He’d kill to go blank, erase the palimpsest of his old soul and get an all-new impression.
He started up the street and glanced at the house again …
One big fucking mistake, pal! Go back to Andre and get out of here.