Trent nodded. “My name is Jeremiah Trent. I was told there would be an envelope here for me.”
The woman nodded back. “We were expecting you.” Without a word, she turned around, and disappeared through a door a few feet behind her desk.
Trent was mildly impressed. His call to the admissions office the day before requesting they not mail his notice had obviously worked. In his business, customer service was a nonentity. Trying to mask his anxiety, he turned away, fidgeting with his moustache while looking aimlessly around the office. His mind was blank. Nothing was registering. He was scared. He had no other word to describe it.
Seconds passed. For Trent, it was an eternity. A voice came from behind. “Doctor Trent?”
Trent turned back. “Pardon me?”
The woman was nearly nose-to-nose, clutching a large white envelope, peering ominously over the top of her glasses. “This envelope says ‘Doctor Jeremiah Trent’. Are you Doctor Trent?” she demanded.
Trent nodded, meekly. The woman reminded him of his mother who had always been brutal when it came to details. Never impressed with his Ph.D., people frequently mistook the Dr. in front of his name to mean he was a medical doctor. Correcting the misinterpretations became annoying. He found it simpler just to eliminate the credential whenever possible. “Most people just call me Trent,” he answered.
The woman ignored his explanation. “Well then, Doctor Trent, good luck!” she said, placing the envelope on the counter with one hand while silently offering a mock salute with the other. In an instant, she was gone.
Trent froze, staring at the counter. A neatly sealed white envelope, possibly outlining his entire future, was within reach, and all he could do was look at it. A minute passed before he gathered the courage to pick it up and walk outside. He stood on the landing, his back to the gusting winds, the envelope clutched to his chest. His bare hands trembled, but not from the cold. Tearing open the envelope, the sick feeling he had in his stomach suddenly went away. We are pleased to inform you….
Trent yelled to the sky. “I’m in!”
Twenty minutes after the false alarm in Paris, a gray-white airplane finally slipped gradually out of the darkness at Le Bourget field. An estimated 50,000 pairs of eyes strained upwards. At 10:22 P.M. Paris time, the Spirit of St. Louis finally touched down completing the first ever-Atlantic crossing by an aircraft. Lines of soldiers, ranks of police officers, and stout steel fences were no match for the gang-like assemblage of people as all fell before the crowd’s frenzied rush that was a force equal to the ocean at high tide. His aircraft engulfed by a sea of humanity, Lindbergh had won. What began as a humble quest to win a $25,000 prize for the first crossing of the Atlantic, had instantly blossomed far beyond anyone’s most optimistic expectations. Like a match to a bonfire, the voyage had lit up the world. Tonight, the world was temporarily Lindbergh’s kingdom.
As Lindbergh sought temporary refuge from the frenzied crowd in a nearby hangar, Trent’s euphoria had already succumbed to reality. Frantically, he made his way back to Union Station to catch the last train to Minneapolis with just minutes to spare. Four hours out, resting his legs on the empty seat in front of him, his relaxed outward appearance defied the turmoil he felt burning inside. His mind was still racing, listening to his heart. While his brief career as a chemist had paid the bills and helped supplement his aging parent’s finances, he never considered his employment permanent. His fascination with medical school always lingered like an open wound, unreachable, and financially impossible. It was on New Year’s Day that his years of unhappiness finally escalated from mildly unacceptable to unbearable. Time was not on his side. He had to move on. Now, he had a letter in his pocket that confirming his chance for a new beginning. His agonizing uncertainties about medical school were finally over but there was one more on the horizon.
It was already Sunday morning in Paris when Trent finally disembarked in Minneapolis and Lindbergh was already on his way to yet another celebratory event to honor his amazing feat. While Lindbergh’s odyssey was over, Trent knew his was just beginning. Plan B was suddenly staring him in the face, but it was not without risks. Like Lindbergh, he too had to take a chance, but there was a difference. Lindbergh didn’t have to fly across the Atlantic. It was his choice. Trent knew he had no such option. He had to pay for medical school.
Chapter 3
May 28, 1927
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Jeremiah Trent’s office mates were gone for the weekend and he welcomed the privacy. He took a deep breath and unlocked his center desk drawer, exhaling only when he saw the backside of a small piece of well-worn paper slide slowly into view. Two days before, his project finally complete, he had penned his new formula on the reverse side. On the surface, it didn’t look like much, nothing but a series of letters, numbers, and a few symbols for some chemicals along with his initials scribbled to one side. As simplistic as the symbols appeared, everything added up. The formula could potentially change his life forever. He was looking at his future. Closing his eyes, Trent retraced the genesis of the paper resting in the center drawer.
It was last January when it all started. He was on the final day of his winter holiday in Toronto. The Canadian snowstorms were refusing to cooperate so he decided not to brave the elements and stay in. He bought a cheap mystery novel from the hotel’s newsstand along with a copy of the Toronto Daily Star.
The novel didn’t last past the first page. He dumped it in favor of the newspaper because the newspaper’s headline, Canada’s Polio Epidemic Intensifies, wouldn’t go away. His undergraduate years taught him that epidemics were as old as history, but methods to limit the damage the diseases caused were relatively new. It was in the second half of the eighteenth century when Edward Jenner, an Englishman, observed that milkmaids, unlike everyone else in the population, miraculously escaped the ravages of smallpox epidemics. Smallpox survivors were usually easy to recognize because of their hideous facial pockmarks, a lingering reminder of the effects of smallpox. When Jenner discovered that many milkmaids boasted blemish-free complexions, he theorized that their protection from catching smallpox could have been because they had previously contracted another disease. Jenner was convinced that cowpox, a much milder and less damaging version of smallpox, had produced sufficient antibodies in the milkmaids that helped them fight off smallpox during the epidemic. Jenner put his observation to the test in 1796 when he inoculated a young boy with cowpox pustules and waited. After a few days, he purposely infected the boy with smallpox. The experiment was a success. The boy didn’t get sick, and it ushered in the current era of immunization. Jenner’s experiment was considered by most historians to be the first vaccine in the history of medicine. Jenner’s success was only a start. While his theory was quickly adapted to develop vaccines to stem epidemics for many other diseases, the method of distribution was excruciating. The vaccines frequently spoiled before arrival.
Using the Canadian epidemic as his inspiration, Trent spent the entire train ride home from Toronto letting his mind go free. He knew that the problem with most epidemics was always a case of too few vaccines too late. When sufficient quantities were available, they often arrived too late because all vaccines required refrigeration to prevent the antibodies from spoiling. There simply weren’t enough properly equipped trucks or rail cars available to fill the need. There had to be a better way, he was sure of it. He saw an opportunity and took the bait.
Trent allowed himself a subtle smile as he carefully pulled the paper from the drawer. He turned it over, revealing the recipe for his creation. It was his future. He was proud.
An alkyl mercuric