Back In the USA

 

(Santa Barbara, 1972)

 

I smiled down at the Caribbean with hopes held high, my future looking incandescent. A lot brighter than it looked a week earlier from that Peruvian jail cell. With more ups and downs than a roller coaster, my year in South American hadn’t gone as planned. My mission to raise world consciousness flopped, the sexy señoritas shunned me, and damn near every-thing else tried to kill me.
But I was flexible for a philanthropist, and Plan B, a little export business out of Lima, was about to net me a fortune. I’d use some of the proceeds to buy a ranch in Hawaii and resume my noble mission there. But first, I had to pick up Mighty Widget and convert his contents into cash.
Eight hours later, strapped to an electric chair in the Good Family dungeon, my future looked bleak. The present felt painful. I had to stop thinking. Every time I did, my head exploded. I didn’t blame the poor thing, not after my crazed father destroyed my fortune in uncut Peruvian flake. All my clever work and planning went down the toilet. Well, not literally. The ten kilos inside Mighty Widget wouldn’t fit down the can, so Dad dumped them in his salt water aquarium. Unable to stop him, I watched supercharged fish fly from the tank. I drank tears and ate sushi that night.
I tried to console myself, knowing with five hundred g’s worth of evidence destroyed, Dad wouldn’t be sending me to prison. But consolation didn’t come easy. Nor did sympathy. My friends gave me hell. It wasn’t the first time Dad had sabotaged my efforts at bringing joy to the people. Nicknamed Dr. Strangelove, his job title was CIA Mad-Scientist-in-Chief. (Picture Lex Luthor in an Uncle Sam costume.) His mission involved doing evil for the greater good. And by greater good, he meant for capitalism and the American way—whatever it took, as long as it reaped big profits for defense contractors, oil companies, and the struggling Good Guys Bomb Shelter company. That was the big picture. On a more personal note, I rubbed Dad the wrong way.
Given his loose association with sanity, it was natural we didn’t agree on the benefits of growing marijuana, smuggling cocaine, creating a huge trust fund for me, or, well, anything else. And yet, as a sanctioned madman, he appreciated my ingenuity in creating Mighty Widget. It was a masterpiece of deception, something he admired—at least in principle. Made from the exotic element nosuchthingium (gathered from crashed spaceships in Peru’s Nazca region), my widgets were impenetrable to x-rays, invisible to radar, and as hard to open as a Rubik’s Cube. They looked like nothing else and every-thing else at the same time and passed through Customs inspections without notice.
It was bad enough that he’d drowned my fortune in blow, but he also wanted the secret to my widget technology. And not to deliver untold quantities of contraband together—an idea I approved of—but to build a stealth plane and deliver nukes to communist countries. An idea I did not approve of.
“You’re a chip off the old block, son,” said Dad, adding insult to injury. “For once, you’ve made me proud. Now if you’ll just cut that hair.”
“Forget it.”
“Cutting your hair or giving me the secret?”
“Either one. I designed Mighty Widget for peaceful means.”
“You mean smuggling recreational drugs?”
“See? You get it. We should use the widget to make people happy, not atomize them.”
Not getting it, he said, “You had your chance. Now it’s my turn.”
Aw, man, what had I unleashed upon the world? Nothing yet. He’d captured Mighty Widget, but without an alien metallurgist and a source of crashed spaceships, he wouldn’t be able to duplicate the technology. Although there was Roswell, New Mexico and Area 51 in Nevada and a ready supply of both those things. . .not that I’d remind him of it. Still, I knew it would only be a matter of time. About then, I knew how Einstein must have felt.
“Since you won’t cooperate, son, I’m rewarding you with a trip to the dentist.”

Like a chat with Dad, a visit to CIA dentist Dr. Kim Chee was no reward. Picture Kim Jong Il in a dental smock. Then give him atrocious breath, a barbaric technique, and a disdain for anesthetics. No doubt why he’d failed in private practice. Same with dental school. But when it came to torture, his skills were unparalleled.
“Hello again, Michael,” hissed the close-talking Dr. Kim Chee, as his assistant, Dr. Joseph Mengele, Jr., tightened the restraining straps on the dental chair. “It’s been a while since I’ve had the pleasure.”
“Not long enough. Are these restraints necessary?”
“No, but it makes for a more enjoyable experience,” assured Dr. Joe.
“You kidding? I’m uncomfortable as hell.”
“I didn’t mean for you.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. Plus, a bunch of other dentist-related stuff.”
“You should be.”
“You know, Jr., it’s uncanny how much you resemble your father. Not just the sadism and bizarre experiments, but your looks, too.”
“Isn’t it?” he answered in a way that made my skin crawl.
“Now open wide and let me have a peek,” said Dr. Kim Chee. “Looks like you still have all your teeth. For fun, I’ll drill some holes in them.”
Same thing he always said.
“Oww. . . Jesus, Doc, what about the novocaine?”
“What about it?”
“We talked about that the last time you tortured me.”
“Pussy. You really want an anesthetic?”
“Well, yeah, I’m not a masochist.”
I woke up six hours later with no memory. Also, a mouth full of drool.
“That’s some strong novocaine.”
“That wasn’t novocaine,” said Dr. Kim Chee.
“What was it?”
“A little something Dr. Joe and I are experimenting with. Here’s my card. Call me if you experience any unusual side effects.”
“You mean the copious drooling?”
He shrugged as if unsure. “There may be other things.”
“Like what?”
“Nothing to worry about. At least for me.”
I started to protest, but the jingle coming out of my mouth wasn’t in my own voice, or gender. It implored the doctors to see the U.S.A. in a Chevrolet.
“Was that a side effect?” I asked.
“Was what a side effect?”
“You didn’t hear that?”
“You really ought to cut down on the pot.”
“But. . .”
“Here’s a lollipop. Now get your drooling butt out of my office.”
You can see what a lunatic the CIA had on its hands. I mean my dad, not the dentist. I considered Nixon’s reckless act of giving Dad access to our country’s nukes a conflict of inter-est, while Dad and silent partner Uncle Dick saw it as a business opportunity for the Good Guys Bomb Shelter business.
“What conflict of interest?” asked Dad, astounded at my density. “We live in a capitalist society and your Uncle Dick is behind me all the way.”
“That’s because he has a twenty-five percent share.”
Dad took my words to heart. “Son, you need to straighten up and fly right. And unless you want to lose your inheritance, you better keep your liberal mouth shut.”
Mouth shut, I hummed my theme song, the one that inspired me to change the world.
“What is that horrible racket?”
I rolled my eyes. It took a real square not to know.
“That’s Revolution by the Beatles. You dig it?”
“Hate it. Turn yourself off.”
“You kidding? After how hard I work to stayed turned on?”
As fathers went, Dr. Strangelove made for a brutal nemesis. But since he’d tinkered with my DNA, I was as resilient as a starfish. And though he’d won some of the short term battles—all right, all of them—I hadn’t given up on my mission. A less determined anti-hero would have. So would anyone with common sense. At least I think so. Dad removed mine to make way for the starfish genes, so I had no point of reference.
I liked to mention that when he asked, “Why don’t you make better decisions?”
“You have only yourself to blame.”
With my latest dream crushed, I was gut-wrenched, mind-blown, and bummed out. I needed a change of scenery and a change of attitude. I needed to get my butt to Hawaii, grow tons of mood-elevating pot, and make the world a happier place. If nothing else, Dad’s costly lesson about crime not paying nudged me back on track. So, a silver lining. Grief tarnished the hell out if, but it was there. I doubted if he’d appreciate the irony. I had a hard time with it myself.
First, I needed to recuperate, adjust my attitude. A week of partying with old friends ought to do it. And yet, staying up all night for days didn’t cheer me up. Neither did my friends, all of them pissed off about the kilos of pure blow they didn’t get.
“Who mails ten kilos of blow to a mad scientist?”
I explained the little mix-up involved Señor Beatriz, my androgynous coke connection in Lima. Also, her dyslexia and the correct mailing address for Mighty Widget.
“Don’t get mad at me,” I’d say. “Get mad at Señor Beatriz.”
When that didn’t work, I made another suggestion. “Take it out on my dad. Please.”
“Yeah, right, and have a CIA hit squad after me?”
It was both safer and more convenient to be mad at me.
After a week of cheering up, I felt like death warmed over. Also, depressed. Talk about your expensive sushi.