Virtual Café II
It was timing.
Biology dictates that the young follow a timeline that may be more acute and profound in women compared with young men their own age. Likewise, the response to that imperative, arises without announcing itself.
How many times have children grown into adulthood as close friends, found themselves at odds as how to mind the gap in emotional maturity as their biology becomes increasingly serious, and physiological?
There are cultural preconceptions and fairy tales, but eventually each must find his own way whether or not it conforms to type.
The consequences…playing such games without knowing the rules, is both naive and inevitable.
…
Marriage at an early age, is a wager of undefined resources against invisible odds. Some women will play you and you don’t realize it until later.
You just never know.
Meanwhile, time marches forth and the years come to pass as quickly as days once had.
A friend consoled me as others hadn’t.
“You never forget the first one…” she commiserated.
It wasn’t just that.
…
There had been all those innocently naive conversations that can often drift into night.
“If you die before me…”
“Yes?”
“I mean, if there is anything on the other side, would you let me know?”
That was six years before she expected me to ask, and seven before I did.
Too late, however.
She had had it all figured out early: three boys. At that time, it is the furthest thought from the mind of a young man.
No: she was ready, I wasn’t. When I finally had a job after college and felt her slipping, she was gone.
***
She dropped off the edge of the world but by then, I couldn’t take women seriously. Takes a long time to build a sustainable career.
What shocked me later, was she would often stop by to chat with my mother. It is not obvious to a young man why.
By then, I was working, progressing with a career in Los Angeles, then Berkeley, then to Houston. I would occasionally catch a glimpse, but frankly, I never wanted to see her again.
“It was about money,” my mother confided.
“So?”, feigning nonchalance.
There were other women but it took five years to see clearly again.
***
Decades passed.
I had wanted to become famous, and my scientific research career was my ticket. There was no time to think of the past.
There was a large annual research meeting at the Muscone, San Francisco, and riding BART, I thought how my return to Berkeley had come full circle. I had left with hope and had returned with a career and certain small acclaim for work I had done in Houston.
If only she could see me…
A Down Syndrome researcher, an academic pediatrician whom I had met but had not known well, won the society’s annual career achievement award.
I drifted toward the back of that cavernous hall, so far, his image at the podium was unrecognizable.
However, the top of the podium and his upper body had been broadcast on the massive screens, one in center behind him and one on each side of the hall.
He was reading his acceptance speech and as he did so, his glasses slid down his nose a little.
What I saw astonished me and changed my priorities forever.
As he lifted his right hand, I perceived he was missing fingers. His work on a mouse model of Down’s had made him famous enough to attract the ire of a reportedly brilliant felon, dubbed the Unibomber.
The Unibomber knew nothing of Professor Charlie Epstein: not his life or work. This had not prevented him from sending a wrapped anonymous package to UCSF which, upon opening, blew up.
****