Chapter 29
September 6, 1992
Angels Camp, California
Spending the previous day with Trent left Crockett feeling as if every ounce of energy remained drained from his body. True to form, Trent had been machine-like, appropriately equipped with an encyclopedic mind that was always in perpetual motion. Their planned two-hour meeting had stretched non-stop from breakfast through early evening before they finally parted ways. Adding the one-hundred thirty mile drive home extracted the last ounce of energy from his body.
Nearly noon the next morning, Crockett was still in bed. The footsteps he heard climbing the hardwood stairs was a sure sign that his prolonged rest was over and leaving his bedroom door open was an invitation for Anna to barge in. She wasted little time taking advantage. “What’s that thing downstairs?” she demanded.
Crockett reached for his glasses on the nightstand. He purposely ignored Anna’s question, suppressing an urge to supply some sort of weak response. The truth was that he didn’t know how to answer the question. Trying to fake an answer about something he knew absolutely nothing about was never one of his strengths.
Still standing just inside his bedroom door, Anna persisted. “Well?”
“It’s a gift from Jeremiah Trent!”
His reply didn’t work. Anna’s diminutive frame was inversely proportional to her persistence. “I didn’t ask where it came from. I asked what it is!”
Over the years, Anna’s job as his housekeeper and personal assistant quickly escalated to that of his best friend. While he would never admit it, he considered her propensity to rein him in when he got off course invaluable. “It’s a personal computer. Trent called it an IBM 486, whatever that means.”
“And why is it you need one of these things at this stage of your life?” she demanded.
“Anna, so help me God, it is my highest hope and aspiration that all of us, every man, woman, and child throughout the world, may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace. That wish includes everyone except the inventor of the telephone. Now, I’m afraid we’re going to have to include all those folks at IBM along with Alexander Graham Bell. IBM created that damn thing downstairs and, as far as I can see, it’s going to be a bigger pain in the ass than the telephone!
“So Dr. Trent thinks you need a computer?”
Crockett nodded in submission. “It would seem that way. He says it’s for something called e-mail. Says it will help us to stay in touch with each other better. He’s used one for years at the Mayo Clinic and now he’s got one at home. He’s already scheduled some technician to come out after Labor Day to set it up and train me. It’s even got a printer!”
“The printer won’t do you any good if you can’t even turn the computer on!”
Crockett ignored Anna’s observation and just looked up at her. Anna shook her head, rolled her eyes, and continued on to the linen closet with an armful of freshly washed towels. She wished him luck on the way back down the stairs, emphasizing something about how much of it he was going to need. Some things were best left alone and, given his lack of patience for technology, Crockett knew the computer was one of them. If he had his way, he would outlaw digital clocks. In his advancing years, progress had become an unpleasant fact of life.
Early evening, Crockett sat with Anna outside on the patio deck. It was always their favorite time of day. At thirteen hundred feet elevation, a predictably normal cool evening summer breeze was always welcome and tonight was no exception. Crockett topped off Anna’s glass with a bit more chardonnay before tending to the business at hand. He had made a decision.
In their thirty-four years together, he had never asked Anna to do something he could do himself. They had become equals, not bound by the typical employer-employee relationship. “Anna, I am going to ask you to help me with something that is entirely different from anything I have ever asked you to do.”
Crockett took Anna’s nod as his queue to continue. “I’m afraid that I’ve committed to a project that, as far as I can see, there’s no telling how long it will last or where it will lead. It’s something I am prepared to see through to the end providing the man upstairs allows me to stick around long enough.”
“With Dr. Trent, I presume?”
“Yes! I don’t want to oversimplify a complicated subject but, if Trent is right, some pretty sad history in our country may be about to repeat itself.”
Anna appeared confused. “What history?”
“What do you know about Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome?” he asked.
“You mean AIDS?”
“Yes.”
Anna paused a moment. “Well, I suppose not much more than anyone else. I know it’s a horrible disease and has something to do with homosexuals. Is that what this is all about?”
“No, but it’s a good analogy.”
Crockett knew his explanation would not be easy. He stood up, walked over to the deck railing and leaned back, facing Anna. “When Rock Hudson died of AIDS a few years ago, the tabloids and newspapers couldn’t stop printing articles about his death because the public’s appetite for information on the subject had become insatiable. What I found interesting was that, until his death, nothing about the affliction ever interested the media. It took a movie star’s death to get the country’s attention. Eventually, a misinformed public finally realized that there were people with AIDS other than homosexuals. Almost overnight, heterosexual adults, men and women, married and unmarried, were being diagnosed positive. Even children were not immune. The shame of it was, by the time Hudson was diagnosed, thousands of people had already died. Prior to that, there had been no publicity about AIDS.”
“But, I thought Rock Hudson was gay!”
“He was! However, it was the first time someone died of AIDS that everyone knew. The perception was that it only happened to other unnamed souls, kind of like the burial sites for the unknown soldiers. People know the gravesites exist but, without names, they have only a distant reverence with not much emotion tied to it. Hang a name on the cross, particularly one that is nationally known, and it takes on a whole new meaning. It’s sad, but real. That’s what Hudson’s death meant to the AIDS movement.
“But what’s all this...?”
Crockett interrupted. He had already anticipated Anna’s question. “I am not talking about AIDS, but we have similar problem staring us down as I speak. It’s just in a different arena. The tragedy of the AIDS crisis was that by the time everyone started paying attention, it was too late to do much about it. The threat was everywhere. What most people didn’t know was that the problem had been festering for years. The day Hudson died, over twelve thousand Americans had already died and it never hit the newspapers. The world’s been playing catch-up ever since!”
“Are you going to tell me what this is all about or do I have to sit here and guess all night?”
Crockett turned back, walked over to the table, and sat across from Anna. “All those people died back in the eighties because the public health authorities and the political leaders that were supposed to be providing leadership and funding for those agencies dropped the ball. Hindsight tells me political gain or job security likely came before public health. I am embarrassed to say that I am just as responsible because I was in Congress when all that was happening. I was a part of it and I did nothing. Apparently I didn’t care or know enough to ask the right questions about AIDS.”
“This has something to do with autism, doesn’t it?”
Crockett looked over Anna’s shoulder, as if he were directing his response to the pine trees. “Yes, but I’m embarrassed to say that it took Jeremiah Trent to finally get me involved. When Scott was diagnosed, I remember being apprehensive about visiting him. I never told Elena, but I was actually