She says, “I have an email from Danny.” Danny says, “He and Louis will be extremely busy over the next two months. You will be hearing from them in a few weeks.”
Then she asks, “Are the young couple who are leasing Danny’s apartment, going to renew the lease at the end of November?”
I answer, “No, they are not. Should I keep the apartment open, so when Danny gets back in December, he can stay in his own place?”
“Yes, that’s what he wants.” Then Susan adds, “Are you staying at Louis’s apartment?”
“Yeah I am but just for tonight, than I am leaving for Boston in the morning.”
Susan says, “Too bad I am busy this evening with the kids.”
“Maybe we can get together after Thanksgiving?” I ask.
“Be sure to call me.” She gives me a peck on the cheek and I leave.
Susan is an Irish girl that likes Italian food. Her favorite restaurant is Divino’s on Second Avenue near Eighty-First Street. We have eaten there a couple of times. I like Susan. Her fair skin always smells fresh and clean.
Two weeks have gone by since my trip to New Jersey and New York. Seghar and I are about to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Woburn. Scotty, Seghar and I just completed a meeting at the WFD building in Wakefield. The date is Thursday, the twenty-fourth of October.
Seghar says, “How’s the food here?”
“Not bad, try the burritos. They are pretty good.”
He orders the beef burritos and a pint of Bohemia beer on tap. I order the same.
He says, “What time does your train leave for Memphis tomorrow?”
I answer, “The Amtrak train leaves from South Station to Chicago, tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 PM. I’ll be in Chicago, Saturday morning. Then I will have to kill ten hours in Chicago before the train leaves for Memphis. I’ll arrive in Memphis, Tennessee Sunday, the twenty-seventh.”
Seghar asks, “Is Memphis a foreign city to you?”
“No, I’ve been in Memphis. Saint Jude Hospital, Graceland and Beal Street are places familiar to me in Memphis.” After I pay for dinner, I drop Seghar off at the Woburn train station. He still lives in Cambridge not far from where he went to school.
As Seghar exits the car he asks, “Are you going to park in long term parking for two weeks, when you take the train into Boston tomorrow?”
“No, it is cheaper to take a taxi then park for two weeks at the Woburn Train Station.”
He says, “Have a nice trip.”
I answer, “See you in a few weeks.”
Chapter 28
Memphis, Tennessee
It is 7 AM, Sunday morning, the twenty-seventh of October, 2002. I had an extra hour sleep because daylight savings time just ended. I have arrived in Memphis. The train station is desolate. I am nervous and tumble down an entire flight of concrete stairs. I land on my luggage. My luggage consists of a backpack and a medium size carry bag. Both the backpack and carry bag are stuffed with clothes. After the fall, I don’t have a scratch on me.
I leave the Memphis Train Station and walk across the empty street to the Arcadia Restaurant. Luckily, the diner is open. I ask the waitress, “Do you have a telephone number for a taxi cab?”
She writes down the number on a napkin and gives it to me. I call the taxi service from my cell phone. The cab is in front of the diner to pick me up in a few minutes. I ask the driver, “How did you get here so fast?”
He drives us around the corner and points to the cab company. I know where I am. Beale Street is about six blocks to the north in downtown, Memphis. A song sings in my brain, “Just about a mile from the Mississippi Bridge.” I can see the Mississippi River and the bridge to the southwest. The bridge in the song is the Memphis-Arkansas-bridge, which is Interstate 55. The bridge’s original name was the E.H. Crump Bridge. It was the first bridge I ever drove across the Mississippi River. About one mile north is the Hernando De Soto Bridge. It crosses the river at Interstate 40. I don’t think the Hernando De Soto Bridge was built until 1973. I have crossed that bridge many times.
Many moons ago, The Chickasaw Indians inhabited this area when Hernando De Soto explored the Mississippi Basin in the 1540’s. James Winchester, John Overton and Andrew Jackson founded the City of Memphis in 1819. Andrew Jackson is my favorite United States President.
The cab driver continues the ride and turns south to enter Interstate 240. We are driving to East Memphis. The ride is twelve miles. It takes about a half hour to arrive at the La Quinta Inn. I have a suite here. Because it is early in the morning, I wait an hour before the rooms are ready. The hotel has a free breakfast buffet. I have coffee and whole, wheat toast.
It is Monday. I am driving a rented, gray, Chevrolet, heading west on Poplar Avenue. The ride is a bit more than five miles and ends near the University of Memphis on Central Avenue.
I am inside a three-story building. Presently, I am speaking to Mario Francolone. He is the owner and president of Payen Nanotechnology. There is a black and white photo of a very pretty girl on his desk.
Mario Francolone was born in Philadelphia. He is a large structured young man. He stands six feet three inches tall and weighs two hundred thirty pounds. He has a dark complexion, dark hair and eyes. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania and graduate work at MIT. He explains, “A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. Nanotechnology is the engineering of tiny machines. Payen Nanotechnology builds nanorobots that perform a specific task. We research the transportation capacities of proteins. Under ultraviolet light a two nanometers dot glows green and a five nanometers dot glows red. These two quantum dots show colored trails when injected into cells inside Petri dishes. Do you understand the concept?”
“Yes,” I answer. “The colored trails make the proteins easy to track.” I think of the colored subway lines in Boston that are also easy to track. Then I say, “Mario, are you related to that greatest, Italian American, Benjamin Francolone?”
“Absolutely,” he answers.
I know that I shall get along really well with Mario.
Then Mario enthusiastically states, “In the future, these nanorobots may be able to cure disease caused by genetic deficiencies, by altering the deoxyribonucleic acid molecules.”
“Woo,” I think.
My work at Payen Nanotechnology is a bit different. The computer work involves the usual data entry. However, I am running statistical tests. I run a Paired Two Sample Means T-Test on the data. This is a parametric test. I also run the numbers through the Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks Test, which is a non-parametric measurement.
The difference between a parametric test and a nonparametric test is the following. A parametric test makes the assumption of a normal population distribution. This is a bell shaped curve. A nonparametric test does not make an assumption about a population distribution. Computer software easily calculates the P-values for these tests. A P-value measures evidence against the null hypothesis. The smaller the P-value, the higher the probability is that we should reject the null hypothesis.
The null hypothesis states that two sample means are equal. The computer I am working on has high, speed Internet access. So I type into an Internet search, null hypothesis +definition. I want to be sure I understand what I am doing, so I read the entire null hypothesis definition.
At WFD Genetic Engineering, Manchester Automated Robotics and Payen Nanotechnology, I work only with the principal owner of the firm. I do not work with any other employee. When I come into contact with other employees during lunchtime, someone always asks me, “What is my job at the company.”
I answer truthfully. “I am a temporary employee. My job is data entry.”
In the four years I worked for Danny and Louis at L&J Incorporated I was the only employee. They never brought in temporary help.
On Friday evening, the first of November, All Saints Day, Mario takes me to dinner. We are in a g
ood country restaurant. The waitress comes over and Mario says to her, “I’d like a southern fried steak, mashed sweet potatoes and turnip greens; oh, and a bottle of Budweiser beer to drink.”
I say, “I’ll have the same.”
He says, “Do you know what southern fried steak is?”
“Yeah, in Texas it’s called chicken fried steak. In New York City you would call southern fried steak and turnip greens, a veal cutlet and broccoli rabe.”
“It’s just like Italian food,” says Mario.
Then he asks, “Where did Louis and Danny find a guy like you?”
I answer, “A number of years ago, they placed an advertisement in the employment section of the newspaper. I answered the advertisement and they gave me the job.” I continue, “Originally, I thought I would be doing general bookkeeping and accounting work. But I started doing some of the scientific stuff too. Danny and Louis were traveling all the time doing consulting work. They needed someone to do the data entry and statistical applications.”
Mario says, “Danny, Louis, Scotty, Seghar, and I have been working on this project for quite a while. I will encrypt all the data. All of us have the encryption code keys to unscramble any data that we shall transfer amongst ourselves. No one else in any of our firms will see the completed material. Our employees work on sections of the research, so they will not understand the totality of the project. Do you know what is going on?”
“Yes, if there is a biological attack in the future, you want to develop methods to rapidly diagnose the causative biological agent. The agent can be bacteria, virus or a toxin. By genetic engineering, you’ll alter the DNA or RNA of the bacteria or virus, so it does not cause any infectious disease or epidemic.” Then I say, “You will also want to have the capability of manufacturing a drug or vaccine against the causative agent. The project is to stop the germ spreaders.”
“That’s it,” says Mario.
The waitress brings our dinner. The food is very good.
Late Saturday morning the second of November, All Soul’s Day or the Day of the Dead in Mexico, I drive south on US Highway 61 to the casinos in Tunica, Mississippi. It is a forty miles drive that takes seventy minutes. I park the rented Chevy at the Gold Strike Casino. The actual location of this casino is Casino Center Drive Robbinsville, Mississippi. I explore the four casinos in this area: the Gold Strike, Grand, Horseshoe, and Sheraton.
At lunchtime, in the Gold Strike’s fast food, restaurant section, I have a piece of pecan pie and coffee. When I am in the south, I always enjoy a piece of pecan pie.
I need to be careful how I pronounce the word coffee. When I was seventeen years old, I visited my uncle in Los Angeles, California. We went to a coffee shop. When I ordered coffee, the waitress said, “You must be from the east.” I had pronounced the word coffee, “caw-fee.”
Years later in late June of 1996, I was driving through Fort Worth, Texas and stopped at McDonald’s. I ordered a cup of coffee. The order taker, a young girl about nineteen years old said, “Are you from New York.”
“Yes,” I answered.
Then she said, “Have you ever read the book Sleepers?”
“No, I never heard of it.”
The young girl then said, “Read it, you’ll enjoy the book.”
Eventually I did read the book Sleepers and enjoyed it. The girl was correct.
There are a number of casinos spread over several miles throughout Tunica, Mississippi. I take a shuttle bus and visit most of them. I visit the Hollywood, Harrah’s, Sam’s Town, and Bally’s. The casinos have replaced some cotton fields. I think of the song lyrics, “Those old cotton fields back home.”
At the entrance to Sam’s Town Casino a sign reads, “No guns allowed.” I never saw a sign like that in the Atlantic City casinos or the Las Vegas gambling palaces.
After my shuttle bus ride, I return to the Gold Strike Casino. I watch the poker players. They take poker very seriously in Mississippi. I would never sit to play poker here. I pass the time playing the poker slot machines. I lose twenty dollars in forty-five minutes and listen to the people in the casino. Most of them are from Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas.
What I like most about the Tunica casino is listening to the blues band and drinking a few beers. There is no charge for the beers and I leave the bartender ten bucks. As I watch the southern woman dance around in blue jeans, I keep my mouth shut. I enjoy the evening. At midnight, I drive back to my hotel in Memphis.
After a week at Mario’s company I receive an email from Danny. Danny says, “Louis and I are doing fine. Hope the work is going smoothly.”
My last night in Memphis is Friday, the eighth of November. I have an early dinner with Mario and his girlfriend Nancy. We are at Ruth Chris’s steak house, near to my hotel. We all order steak and wine.
Nancy says, “Is the Godfather your favorite movie? It is Mario’s favorite movie.”
“No,” I say. “My favorite movie is The Usual Suspects. Do you know the movie?”
“Oh yes,” she says. “Gabriel Byrne and Kevin Spacey star in it.”
Mario says, “What is your favorite Italian, gangster movie?”
“Goodfellas,” I answer.
“Did you grow up with guys like that back east?” Mario asks.
“Yes, I did.”
Nancy, the movie buff, asks, “What is your favorite foreign film.”
I answer, The Night Porter, starring a young, stunningly beautiful Charlotte Rampling and Dirk Bogard.” I also think about a comedy starring Ugo Tognazzi, but I don’t mention it.
“I have never seen it,” she says. “Is that about a Nazi concentration camp survivor and a former SS Officer?”
“Yes.” I don’t tell her that it is an Italian film by Liliana Cavani, made in 1974. The title in Italian is Portiere di Notte.
Then I say, “You guys may be able to rent a video of The Night Porter.”
Nancy says, “I have seen Charlotte Rampling in the movie The Verdict, with Paul Newman. What movies has Dirk Bogard starred in?”
I answer, “He was in The Damned with Charlotte Rampling and Death in Venice. I did not like those movies very much.”
A few hours later, at 11:00 PM, I board the Memphis train to Chicago. It is a warm evening and clear night. All the Twilight Zone People are on the train. I do not worry about the Twilight Zone People. They are not the watchers.
Chapter 29
Back in Boston
On Veteran’s Day Monday, November 11, 2002, I receive an email from Louis.
Louis’s email says, “Danny and I have completed this set of language courses in California. We are currently stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We are in training and are attached to the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion. This group provides interrogation of enemy prisoners of war. The 519th also does long range reconnaissance, surveillance and counter intelligence support to the XVIII Airborne Corp.”
I email back, “That sounds like extremely interesting work and a terrific assignment.”
On Wednesday, the twenty-seventh of November, I return to New Jersey from Boston for Thanksgiving. I took the train instead of driving. I celebrate the holiday with my cousin Nicky and his family.
Saturday morning the thirtieth of November, I take a New Jersey Transit Train to New York City. I spend Saturday evening with Susan. I am glad I did not forget to call her.
The next day Sunday, the first of December, I return to Boston on the Acela Express Train. With the exception of the two weeks I spent in Memphis and a couple of trips to New Jersey and New York, I have been in Boston since the beginning of September. The weather has become much colder through the month of November.
The date is Thursday December 19, 2002. I am preparing to leave Boston for New Jersey. Both Scotty and Seghar offer me a job. They say, “Danny and Louis will be in the service for a few more years and there will not be any real work for you to d
o in New York. Why don’t you stay here and work with us?”
I thank them both but turn down the job offer.
I reflect on the time I spent in Boston. I never finished the book I was reading about forensic accounting. I only went to see one movie, City by the Sea, starring Robert Di Niro. The movie setting was Long Beach, New York but much of the film was shot in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Most of my evenings in Massachusetts were spent, searching the Internet. I also listened to music and watched movies on HBO. Because of the cold weather and frequent snow, I had to join Gold’s Gym and run on a treadmill throughout the months of November and December.
I enjoyed Boston. The people were nice and the food was good. I got to visit the campus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I also saw the Boston University Campus. I never made it over to Harvard or Boston College. The entire time I was in Massachusetts, I did not notice any watchers watching me, or unmarked white vans following me.
Chapter 30
New York/New Jersey
It is Monday, the twenty-third of December. At a local Manhattan pub, I am having an early dinner with Louis and Danny. We are having hamburgers, French fries and Bass Ale. They both look strong and healthy. They talk about army life and say that they are intelligence analysts. At some point in time they will be translators. After more than a year in the service they are still second lieutenants.
They ask me to spend Christmas with them. I know they have girlfriends in the city and they have been invited to have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with the girls. I tell them I am having the holiday in New Jersey with my cousin’s family.
Danny is staying at his West Side condominium. I will lease the condo again, after he returns to North Carolina in January 2003.
The coming year, I will also lease Louis’s Eighty-Third Street apartment. There will be no need for me to remain in New York City. I can always take the train from New Jersey into Manhattan and return back to New Jersey. When necessary I can spend the night in a Manhattan hotel.
Danny says, “Thanks for doing such a fine job for us in New England and Memphis.”