The Man Who Sold His Son (Lanarkshire Strays)

The Man Who Sold His Son

by

Mark Wilson

Paddy’s Daddy Publishing

Some years ago…

Garth felt an impulse rack his little body, sending another spasm of intense pain through his neurones. He felt the pain travel along his chest and down his spine. Unable to respond to it, the ten-year-old merely observed as it travelled to his toes and left as quickly as it had come. He felt a pang of regret as it left him. He experienced so little of anything physical these days that these spikes of intense pain were becoming old friends. They reminded him he still existed. The only other things that tied him to the world were the voices he heard. People moving around his bed, talking, discussing him. Wondering aloud if he could hear them. He certainly couldn’t respond.

Doctors, nurses, his father – they discussed his future, or lack of it. They argued over treatment, whether to continue or if the time had come to turn off the motors and pumps that kept his lungs inflating and his blood circulating. Part of him wished they would. Part of him was ready to go somewhere else. Not yet, though. He had
his
voice to cling to. His father’s voice.

“
I think it’s time to consider the removal of the viral particles from his spinal-fluid.”

“That’s a very risky option at this stage. He’s unlikely to live through the procedure.”

“He’s not
living
now. This isn’t life. He hasn’t breathed alone in months. There are no detectable traces of brain activity. It’s over; it’s time to switch these machines off... With a sample of the particles, directly from his spinal fluid, we could make huge progress in understanding this virus. Maybe prevent what’s happened to Garth from happening to anyone else.”

“I still believe that if we can give him more time, we should.”

“He’s been this way for eighteen months. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but Garth’s condition is unlikely to change. This is a totally unique, totally new virus we’re dealing with. It has properties we’ve never seen before in a pathogen of this type.”

“I know. I just wish there’s more we could do, other than keep him comfortable.”

“This young man’s contribution will change the lives of millions, maybe billions. This is the right thing.”

Garth listened to them, smiling to himself.
It’ll be over soon. At least I’ll get to help other kids. Other people.
He took his mind elsewhere, to happier times, years before, when Mum was still alive. Before her illness, before Dad lost himself in his work and put Garth into a boarding school. Garth watched images of his mother and father flashing across his mind’s-eye. Happy smiles, hot chocolate, racing through long grass in meadows filled with summer flowers and love. His family.

Would Mum be waiting for him? Would his dad be all right once alone, or would his son’s passing make him even more detached, more fixated on his business. He couldn’t know.

He felt himself being moved along a corridor. The lights overhead flashed through his eyelids. Suddenly the gurney stopped and the metallic sounds of surgery began to filter through. A mask was pressed to his mouth. He tasted rubber and unfamiliar gasses. Garth focused on the voices again.

“How long until he goes under?”

“Seconds. He’s probably under already. If you’ve anything to say, do it now. He won’t hear you, but if you don’t, you’ll regret saying nothing to him before he’s totally gone.”

Garth felt a warm fluid flow over him. All pain was gone. He could move again, he could think again. He was free of the dulling effect of the morphine. He was free, period. As he moved into his mother’s arms, he heard his father’s voice whispering into the ear of what used to be his body.

“You’re going to make me a lot of money. Goodbye, son.”

“I’m terribly sorry, sir. He’s gone,” the surgeon said.

“Right. Get me that sample, Doctor. I’ve got work to do,” replied the businessman.

The veteran surgeon pushed back his dislike for the man beside him and made the incision into Garth’s spine. Ten minutes later he watched, sickened, as the businessman’s eyes brightened when he handed him the small vial of spinal fluid.

“He could’ve had another few months, you know.”

The businessman held the vial of his son’s fluid up to the light and stared into it.

“My son’s contributed more to medicine with this sample than you have in your entire career, Doctor. This…” the businessman held the vial up for him, “… this will change the world.”

The surgeon bored holes into the businessman with his eyes. He’d made allowances for this man, these last few months. He’d ignored his clinical manner, his coldness towards the comatose boy. At times it had felt like he’d been protecting the boy from his own father.

Since succumbing to the virus, this new virus, and slipping into his vegetative state, Garth had lain in the same bed, in the same room, in his care. Garth’s father visited every day, but said nothing to the boy. He didn’t kiss or hold him. He barely looked at the boy’s face. His father would just sit there for hours, tapping away at his handheld computer; working. Waiting. Making plans for the genome of the virus that was killing his son.

The surgeon made excuses for the businessman’s demeanour. He knew the family history well. The man’s wife had died from meningitis three years back. His small business was in trouble. Having created synthetic gametes that nobody wanted, his company looked to be going into liquidation. Simply, no one wanted to have children conceived using synthetic sperm. The businessman had expected single, career women who’d left it too late or couldn’t find a partner to jump at the chance. Or married gay couples, but there just wasn’t the interest. People had chosen to use the DNA of a stranger or relative rather than his lab creations.

The man was on his knees. Dead wife
so young
, his son dying
so very young
. The surgeon had found plenty of reasons to excuse the businessman’s behaviour, until now. The callousness of his patient’s only parent’s actions today clawed at the surgeon’s conscience. He felt a fool for having made allowances for this man, who had effectively used his dead son for profit.

Injecting all the venom he could muster into his voice, the surgeon spat out, “You sold out your son to get it. I hope it was worth it.”

The businessman had already turned and begun to walk towards the exit.

The surgeon headed in the opposite direction, his next task the disposal of little Garth Ennis’s remains.

Bellshill, Lanarkshire

Scotland

2055

 
1

Alex sped the along Bellshill Main Street on his vintage Kawasaki Ninja enjoying the freedom of being on his bike. It was past midnight and a warm July night so he had the roads to himself. Hardly anyone drove these days, most choosing to use The Tubes. Those who did drive invariably chose those soulless hydrogen-powered cart monstrosities.

Alex couldn’t imagine being without his bike. Riding his Kawasaki was more or less the only real freedom he had these days, but that was ok. Life was good in so many ways.

Continuing along the long road, he glanced up at the windows of his duplex noting the living room light flickering and that the light in Tommy’s room was on.
Damn it, Sarah!

At the end of a long shift in the hospital, the last thing Alex needed was another argument with his wife.
Why couldn’t she just be a little kinder to the boy?

Disappearing down his building’s ramp, he noticed the underground garage doors sliding up in response to his bike’s approach and gunned it, ducking slightly as he impatiently sped under the ascending metal. Riding the elevator to their duplex apartment on the twentieth floor of the Sir Matt Busby building, Alex removed his helmet and steeled himself for the inevitable confrontation that awaited him two hundred feet above. Forcing himself to breathe deeply, Alex thought of his grandfather.

Tom Kinsella had been a Bellshill resident but had moved to New York in adulthood. Tom had fathered twin girls, Natalie and Patricia. Patricia was Alex’s mother and currently on extended vacation in Cornwall. In her fifties, the relative warmth suited her and the beautiful scenery helped in her day job. Like her father, Tom, Patricia was a writer and had returned to live in her father’s home country whilst pregnant with Alex.

Alex had been lucky enough to spend his younger years splitting his time between Scotland and his grandfather’s home in New York City. Of course, this was when people still travelled to other countries relatively cheaply and freely. These days, only the very rich could afford overseas travel and, as a consequence, almost no one left their country of birth anymore. Only a few could afford to travel over to mainland Europe by Tube and fewer still had the desire. International travel was all but unattainable for most people. Alex hadn’t seen his grandfather in years, although they spoke often over the Holo-Net.

 
Tom Kinsella was the calmest, most composed man Alex had ever known. Having lost his wife in his twenties, Tom had raised the twin girls in New York and seemed completely incapable of getting angry or flustered. He was a terrific grandfather and entirely Alex’s hero, which is why he’d named his son for the man. Speaking to, or even thinking of, his Granda Tom always helped Alex to compose himself.

The shudder of the elevator, followed by a ping, shook Alex from his reverie and prompted him to step out onto the plush carpet of the twentieth floor. Each floor was identified by different décor. Every time Alex stepped out onto the blue of the twentieth floor, he gave silent thanks that he didn’t live on the fifteenth, the orange floor.

The Sir Matt Busby building was a luxury apartment complex built on the site of a long-demolished leisure centre. The building had been named for a twentieth-century football manager, born in Bellshill, and was the new centre of the once-again affluent town. In years gone past, Bellshill had been an impoverished, ex-mining, ex-steelworks town but had benefited from a decision to base Synthi-Co’s global headquarters for reproductive science in the now resurgent town.

On the verge of being granted city status, Bellshill had expanded exponentially to become a global hub and mecca for biological and reproductive research. Research labs provided skills, education and employment for the thousands of locals and hundreds of thousands of new settlers the town attracted. Several new hospitals had also been built in recent years, including Alex’s current workplace, the Ally McCoist Clinic for Reproductive Health, again named after a former footballing native. The locals had loved football at one time but with most of the population now composed of Synthi-kids and adults, the desire, passion and drive that made people follow or play for football clubs was absent and the game had died.

Alex breathed deeply, expelling any residual anger he’d felt on noticing the lights on in two separate rooms in his home, pressed his thumb to the door’s scanner and gently pushed open the aluminium door. Striding past the living room on his right, Alex ignored Sarah’s half-hearted “Hi” and continued to the staircase at the end of the hallway. Ascending the spiral staircase, he reached the upper floor and lightened his step to approach the door to Thomas’s room. Grimacing at the noise as he creaked the door open three inches or so, Alex poked his nose in, checking if his son was asleep. Although there was a light on in the room, Thomas often fell asleep despite the brightness, a habit left over from infancy.

Alex’s eyes followed a trail of books along the floor leading towards Tommy’s bed. All titles well in advance of his ten years, the books were creased and well read. Thomas had always refused to use an E-reader or tablet, preferring
real
books. He took after Tom, his great-grandfather and a man he’d never met in person, in this regard. With his thick blond hair and green eyes, Tommy looked like Tom as well. Alex smiled as he raised his eyes to see his son sitting up in his bed, back to the wall, knees bent in a makeshift book rest.

“Hey, Dad.”

Smiling broadly, Alex entered the room, closing the door behind him.

“Hey, son. What you reading?”

Thomas lifted the hardback edition, showing his dad the cover.

“
Rot and Ruin
? Great book. I read that when I was a kid. Isn’t it a little younger than your usual choice?”

Tommy nodded “Yeah, but the writer’s amazing, Dad.”

Alex nodded in agreement. Propping one buttock on the bed he ruffled his son’s hair. “You been in here long tonight?”

Tommy’s eyes darted back to his book. “Na. Only for half an hour. Just wanted some quiet time, to read,” he said softly.

Alex could tell he was lying, and Tommy knew it. Alex always saw the lies in his son’s eyes, but neither pushed the issue any further.

Tommy looked up at his father. “It’s all right, Dad. I like to read alone… Please don’t argue with Mum again,” he pleaded.

Thomas’s eyes had filled a little.

Alex allowed the rising anger to dissipate and smiled warmly at his boy. “Tell me about your day at school.”

Tommy slid a bookmark into his book, threw it onto the floor and launched himself into an animated account of his school day. Alex listened carefully as his son described his various classes and friends, and passed along some jokes from his mates. Thomas ended up with hiccoughs from giggling so much. When Tommy had finished and Alex had caught his breath from laughing, he raised an eyebrow and asked the boy, “Any arguments today?”

Thomas nodded.

“Mr Chase again?” Alex asked.

“Yeah, but he wouldn’t listen to me, Dad. I had a good point to make.”

Alex nodded. “You know how proud I am of you, don’t you?”

Tommy nodded back at his father.

“I love that you’ve got your own ideas, that you think for yourself, but whilst you’re at school, you have to be careful not to be too...” Alex searched for the word, “… spirited.”

They’d had the same conversation dozens of times before. Thomas was such a livewire, so bright, athletic and full of life. It crushed Alex to dampen the boy, but it wasn’t good to shine too brightly in this modern world.

Thomas’s eyes filled with hurt, the same way they always did when Alex had to reluctantly rein him in. “All right, Dad. I’ll try harder.”

Alex winced. He hated making his son hide his talents, but what else could he do? Smiling again, he told Thomas, “I love you more than sausages.”

Tommy laughed. “Daaad,” he groaned.

Alex repeated, “I love you more than sausages.”

Thomas’s cheeks flushed red. They’d played this game since Tommy was a toddler. It was just embarrassing now. But still…

“I love you more than chips,” he replied, bringing a toothy smile form Alex.

“I love you more than cheesecake.” Alex grinned, initiating a ping pong of
I love you more thans
for a few minutes. After a few rounds Tommy yawned, signalling that his patience had run out.

Alex waited for him to lie down and then tucked him in. Sitting himself next to his son, he stroked his hair for a while. Tommy, with drooping, sleepy eyes, turned to face him. “Dad, I do love you, and Mum. I just wish that she… liked me a bit more.”

Anger and pain lanced Alex’s heart but he didn’t allow it to show in his eyes.

“She does love you, you know that, Tommy. She’s just… got her own way of showing it.”

Alex searched his son’s face. The kid didn’t believe a word of it, but pretended to be comforted, for his Dad’s sake. It broke Alex’s heart to watch his son protect his feelings in this way. He reached out and tugged Tommy’s right ear.

“G’night, Bacon Ears,” he laughed.

Tommy grabbed his Dad’s nose and yanked. “Night, Sausage Nose.”

With that he rolled over and Alex quietly left his room. Anger building once again, he made for the living room and another fight.