The Portable Veblen (44 page)

He remembered an afternoon in her youth when the weather was warm and the sun fell for hours on her shoulders after she’d packed herself a lunch to spend the day in the century-old crab apple by the ravine. There was a comfortable crotch about ten feet up that held her like a travois, and sometimes she fell asleep in it. He’d watch her to make sure she didn’t fall. There came a time when the sun came straight down on the part in her hair, and she’d felt her scalp burn. Later, small beetles came out along the shady sides of the limbs, colliding senselessly like tiny bumper cars. She noticed a wound on the tree where a branch had split, full of earwigs that she dug out with a twig, scattering them from their hermits’ home. Then she regretted it, and wondered how hard it would be for the earwigs to start over.

Was it worse for earwigs to lose their home in a tree, or for a tree to be riddled away by earwigs? she had asked out loud, knowing full well there was no answer to it.

“And into this estate these two persons present now come to be joined. If any person can show just cause why they may not be joined together, let them speak now or forever hold their peace,” spoke the officiant.

Justin chose the moment. His chair squeaked loudly as he flung
out his arms and said, “I was strangled. When I was a baby! And Paul understands me now.”

The guests all turned to behold him, strangled as a baby.

“Quiet down, Justin,” said Bill.

“Paul understands me! Because I was strangled when I was a baby!” Justin yelled again, starting to cough.

Bill stood and pressed Justin back into his seat. “Quiet, boy. I mean it.”

“Paul, do you understand me now?” Justin called out.

Veblen looked to Paul, who said, “Dad, it’s okay. I do, Justin. I understand you now.”

Bill hesitated, then sat again. Justin kicked his legs.

The squirrel scuttled down the redwood, and dashed around them in that zigzag pattern that made squirrels look totally insane.

Perhaps he was.

“Oh, he’s lovely!” someone said, pleasing Veblen very much.

“Yes, look at it.”

The squirrel was having fun, putting on a show.

“When a wild animal comes near people, it means it’s sick or rabid,” Melanie declared, and for the squirrel, that was the last straw.

“I was strangled, but now I’m okay!” bellowed Justin, beating his chest.

“Shhhhhh!” hissed Bill.

“Holy god, it bit me!” screamed Melanie, for it seemed the squirrel had stopped under her chair and given her calf a strategic pinch.

Linus kneeled in the duff to examine the wound.

“I’ll have to be treated for rabies! God almighty, I’ll have to go
under those needles! Get me some ice!” sobbed Melanie, and even her former husband, Rudgear, jumped up to be of help.

There came a scratching sound and some fiber showered down from the redwood, and then came a chittering in the tree.

Seeforyourselfforyourselfforyourself.

So there was a pause in the proceedings, as the wedding party splintered to help Melanie with her new sore.

The couple held back, to help by not helping.

And from a branch in the tall tree, a small gray squirrel released a mighty
roar.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

Dr. Raymond Bullen

Dept. of Endocrinology

Clinical Study Center

Stanford University Hospital

Stanford, CA 94305

Dear Dr. Bullen:

Thank you for your attention during my recent participation in your clinical trial at the Stanford University Hospital. As promised, I’m enclosing a list of my current problems. Though the trial failed to detect primary hyperaldosteronism, I’m hoping these random recollections will help add to the overall picture you may be forming, but I’ll leave that up to you.

1. gums, very bad condition

2. left side pain, lymph nodes under jaws, around ear, parotid and mastoid area

3. psoriasis and other skin eruptions

4. continued hand difficulty, discomfort, rigidity, poor circulation

5. pain in hip

6. distended abdomen

7. alternate constipation/diarrhea

8. atrial ectopics and other arrhythmias

9. hiatus hernia, periodically

10. discomfort in groin

11. neck pain

12. change in face shape over the last 1½ years

13. inside mouth, white and peeling

14. intermittent complete drying of eyes and mouth

15. spasms in larynx in middle of night while asleep. Horrible experience.

16. shocks down roof of mouth

17. lumps on face, eczema around nose

18. at irregular intervals, floating stools, whitish and puttylike, or yellow and chalklike

19. sequelae in right leg, ulceration at site of animal bite

It means the world to me, your acknowledgment that mine is an extremely complex case. I welcome further comment.

Sincerely,
Melanie Duffy

APPENDIX B

TBI and Indigenous Sami and a Man with a Mission

Tromsø, Troms County, Norway—Dr. Paul Vreeland, an American neurologist, began his career trying to make a difference for American troops injured in combat. He notes that it might seem incongruous to find him living and working now among the Sami people of Norway, one of the most peaceful people on the planet. Vreeland, who suffered injuries in a widely publicized accident with American pharmaceutical heiress Cloris Hutmacher last year, was ready for a change after leaving his post at Greenslopes Veterans’ Hospital in Menlo Park, California. “I still wanted to do something that mattered.”

Vreeland is now affiliated with the University of Tromsø and the Center for Sami Health Studies. “Snowmobile accidents are a common hazard in the life of the herder,” Vreeland said recently, in his ATV on the way to the scene of an accident. “For much of the year the herders lead a nomadic life and suffer many unreported accidents. What we hope to do here is create awareness of these injuries and train people on how to prevent the consequences.”

According to Vreeland, diagnosing a brain injury is not simple, and sometimes there’s no time to lose. Some fifty to sixty thousand Sami still depend on the reindeer for their livelihood, and herders are often far from medical facilities when they sustain injury. Vreeland believes that with proper training, early TBI diagnosis and treatment may become part of basic first aid among Sami herders.

When Vreeland is not out following the migratory path of the reindeer, training, and treating injuries, he is educating others at the University of Tromsø. His wife, Veblen Amundsen-Hovda, works for Translators Without Borders and participates in the Norwegian Diaspora Project out of the University of Oslo.

Was the transition difficult, from the hotbed of California’s Silicon Valley to the quiet city of Tromsø?

“Nothing could have prepared me for the natural beauty of this area, nor for the satisfaction I’ve gotten from taking part in the time-honored traditions of these people,” Vreeland says. “You think you’ve got it all planned. You never know what life has in store for you.”

APPENDIX C

65 Ways to Say Squirrel

Ainu—
akkamui

Albanian—
ketri

Apache—
na’iltso’

Arabic—
sinjaab

Armenian—
skyurr

Azerbaijani—
d∂l∂

Basque—
urtxintxa

Cherokee—
sa-lo-li

Chickasaw—
funni

Chinese—
songshu

Croatian—
vjeverica

Czech—
veverka

Danish—
egern

Dutch—
eekhoorn

English—squirrel

Estonian—
orav

Filipino—
ardilya

Finnish—
orava

French—
écureuil

German—
Eichhörnchen

Greek—
skiouros

Haitian—
ekirèy

Hausa—
beram-bisa

Hebrew—
snaiy

Hindi—
gilahari

Hopi—
sakuna

Hungarian—
mókus

Icelandic—
íkorna

Igbo—
osa

Indonesian—
tupai

Irish—
iora

Italian—
scoiattolo

Japanese—
risu

Korean—
dalamjwi

Lakota—
tasnaheca

Lao—
ka hork

Mandinka—
kerengo

Maori—
ke-rera

Mbunga—
nganu

Miwok—
mewe

Navajo—
hazèìtsoh

Norwegian
—ekorn

Papago—
chehkul

Persian/Farsi—
sanjaab

Romanian—
veverita

Romany—
viaveritsa

Russian—
belka

Sami—
oarri

Sanskrit—
kalandaka

Seminole—
wiyo

Sioux—
nayhenowenab

Swahili—
kidiri

Swedish—
ekorre

Tamil—
anil

Thai
—krarxk

Tibetan—
say mong

Tlingit—
dasq

Turkish—
sincap

Uigar—
tiyin

Vietnamese—
con sóc

Welsh—
wiwer

Yiddish—
Ww’ww’rq

Yucatec—
ku-uk

Zapotec—
bi’achez

Zulu—
ingwejeje

APPENDIX D

Cloris Hutmacher Discusses Her Work with UNICEF

J
OHN
D
AVIDOW, HOST:
She grew up in the family that started one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, with annual revenues in the neighborhood of forty billion dollars, and she’s faced a difficult year battling it out in the courts, but it’s Cloris Hutmacher’s role as UNICEF’s goodwill ambassador that is now at the center of her life. Since being appointed earlier this year, Hutmacher has been all over the world—in war-torn Sudan and Somalia, in Zimbabwe, the DRC, and Libya, helping children who live in crushing poverty. But for Hutmacher, the work is far from over. Hello, Cloris.

C
LORIS
H
UTMACHER,
UNICEF
GOODWILL AMBASSADOR:
Good morning, John. Suffering is always a part of human existence, even mine, and, and, I’m sorry, but I forgot what you were saying.

D
AVIDOW:
That’s fine, Cloris. Tell us a little bit about the pictures we’re looking at right now.

H
UTMACHER:
Let’s see, here I am in Somalia. I look good here, don’t I? As you know, Lifeline Somalia was sabotaged several
times, but there are still many, many good hotels for foreign visitors. We stayed in a very nice one. UNICEF has hotels in more than one hundred thirty countries in the world. Please speak up, I can’t hear you.

D
AVIDOW:
Of course. Maybe you could tell us something about the medical crisis you underwent last year—some kind of brain injury, as we’ve heard from our sources?

H
UTMACHER:
No, that is a mistaken identity I would like to correct, John. I had a minor problem and I’m very lucky to live near a sophisticated medical facility. I’ve always been very fortunate and that’s important to me.

D
AVIDOW:
Well. Cloris Hutmacher, some people would have retreated from the public eye after being found guilty of felony kickback schemes, false and deceptive acts, and obstruction of justice. Not to mention being named in a major whistle-blower suit against your family’s company, and overseeing the worldwide recall of a recently acquired medical device, enraging stockholders and costing the company millions in settlements and legal fees. Was this public service ordered by the courts?