Pollock No. 5 Read online

  “Very impressive, Dr. Dawson! But I thought MATAL stood for your two first names—Matthew and Alexiev! I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Current TAVR systems are so big and difficult to deploy. This puts those systems to shame. You’ve sold me!” Mr. Morgan concluded with a smile.

  “Well, let’s make it happen,” said Alex.

  “Not so fast,” Morgan proclaimed, raising his right hand like a cop stopping traffic. “We have a little issue over the IP. You see, my patent attorney found two significant prior art patents that read on your invention, the Brooks patent and the Fairfield patent. Each references a method and system for placing aortic valves using a ‘launch-able’ platform that appears very similar to yours, at least according to Sid Fox, our IP expert.”

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Morgan, but we are well aware of the Brooks and Fairfield patents,” Alex abruptly protested. “Neither uses our rotating screw mechanism to deliver the valve, nor its access point. I feel confident that you will come to the same conclusion, once your Mr. Fox talks with our Mr. Lippert. I will email you his number and he will be happy to clarify any and all IP issues. Let’s just enjoy our meal.”

  Alex knew how to change gears. At that precise moment the waitress brought out my Rooster Noodles, a mixture of “pork belly, crab, head-on shrimp, and teff ramen.” Alex devoured the Blackened Catfish, while Morgan feasted on Helga’s Meatballs. After our feast, we shared one order of Sweet Potato Doughnuts, and sipped our “Illy Blend dark roast coffee” and then all got up to leave.

  “Goodbye, Dr. Dawson and Dr. Shaw. You will be hearing from me this week.” Morgan extended his hand and gave both Alex and me a firm handshake.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Morgan,” I said as I wrapped up the MATAL system and slipped it back into my pocket.

  “Great meeting you,” replied Alex with his usual confident smile.

  Chapter 3

  The livery service had a Lincoln Town Car waiting in front of Red Rooster. Alex and I hopped in and headed across the Triboro and then to the Grand Central Parkway. The driver pulled to a stop at Alex’s stately mansion in Plandome, a North Shore Long Island treasure of a town. Unlike me with my unlucky investments, Alex was smart enough to hold onto his “just desserts” from our ventures, and his seven bedroom, four-car garage, three-acre compound put my place to shame.

  “Bye, Alex, thanks for saving my ass from those goons,” I said, almost teary eyed. I realized that without Alex’s protection, I would not only be wallet-less, but possibly even lifeless.

  “No thanks needed. What are friends for?” He shut the door, and I looked back at him and thought of Seagal

  The livery driver headed further north, back up Stonytown Road and then up Port Washington Boulevard to the much larger, more populated, adjacent town of Port Washington. Three short turns and we were at my more modest abode in the village of Beacon Hill.

  “Here we are,” said the driver. “That’ll be two hundred dollars.”

  “Credit okay?” I asked.

  “Fine,” he said.

  I gave him my Platinum AMEX and left him a forty-dollar tip and walked through my side door. I had forgotten my keys but tested the door, it was open. It was almost midnight and the lights were still on downstairs. On the kitchen counter I saw an open bottle of Caymus Cabernet almost completely finished. The cork was still in the opener, and dirty dishes remained on the counter. I went upstairs and looked at my daughter’s bedroom. It was dark and shut. My bedroom door was ajar, the lights on, and there was Shari, sitting up in bed, finishing what looked to be the last bit of the Caymus. She was still wearing her clothes and her eyes were slightly glassy.

  “Shari, are you okay?” I asked. I had seen her like this before.

  “Yes. Why do you ask?” she said somewhat sluggishly.

  “Did anything happen tonight? Are the kids okay? Did you have any company? Did my mom call?”

  “All is well,” she said in a monotone, without making eye contact. “The kids are fine. Your mom did not call. Just sat home and had dinner with our daughter and watched TV.”

  She did not seem fine. She was a little more than buzzed. In the old days we would refer to this as “shit-faced.” My wife was quite petite, and a full bottle of wine would make anyone that size “shit-faced.” She started looking ashen grey and then blurted, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  Chapter 4

  She scurried to the bathroom and then I heard a disgusting puking sound. I ran to the door and watched as she spewed into the toilet bowl.

  “Oh, shit,” I rebuked her. “Again? You can’t keep drinking like this.” I came home and wanted to share the evening’s events, but there was no point. Even if I did tell her the news, she wouldn’t remember. Not in her inebriated state. After she spewed her guts out, she collapsed on the bathroom floor, apparently unresponsive. I checked her pulse, watching her breathing. I bent over, picked her up, and carried her into bed.

  “Shari, what am I going to do with you?” I said. She was out like a light. I was so damn frustrated, that I could not talk with my wife, I just went downstairs, turned on the TV, and switched to Fox. It was a football game. Not college, not the NFL, but an old TV rerun of M*A*S*H called “The Army-Navy Game.”

  The next morning, I awoke at my usual time: five-thirty a.m. Shari was still out cold, but Bridgette was up early, getting ready for the FIRST Robotics competition. The Schreiber High School bus was set to leave at six-thirty a.m. for Stony Brook University. Shari was supposed to give her a lift, but it was now up to me.

  “Bridge, are you ready?” I asked.

  “Okay, Dad,” she replied. “Let me just throw in some cucumbers and a yogurt and I’ll meet you in the garage.”

  I hopped in the car, started the engine, and within no time Bridgette was in the passenger seat. In less than two minutes we were at Schreiber.

  “Bye, Bridge. Good luck!”

  “Thanks, Dad. I’ll be home by six. Will call you later for a ride. Love you.”

  She was always the ultimate optimist. Yes, she had her sarcastic moments, but not before a test or a robotics competition. As a senior, this was her opportunity to shine. This was her moment. Four years on the Robotics team, and now she was the team captain—she loved every minute of it! Imagine, the only girl on the Robotics team. “Her pick of the nerdy litter,” I thought.

  When I returned back, I crept upstairs; Shari was making a loud snoring sound. To say that she was cutting wood was putting it mildly. Her repeated alcohol binges and the ensuing problems to our marriage totally obliterated any attraction in our relationship. It had been years without any romance or intimacy, if you get my drift. All that remained was hanging on a thread with the hope of keeping our marriage going for the sake of our kids, at least until they were all grown-up and out of the house.

  I went next door to a small, quiet alcove, which I call my office. It consisted of a black Pottery Barn desk, a series of horizontal files, and some bookshelves. The room was filled with little trinkets from my previous trials and tribulations: a trophy for placing first in the Collegiate Inventor’s Competition, a bottle of Perrier Jouet champagne from my lawyer after the Magnetostent deal, an early prototype of the MATAL system, along with a collection of art books picked up from second-hand bookstores over the years. This was my “man cave,” the place where I made it all happen, my respite from society, where I could let out all my creative juices.

  Chapter 5

  I was working on my MacBook Air till midnight every evening this past week. Not rounding on my patients or doing procedures as I used to do. But working on a research paper for our upcoming Twenty-fourth Annual TCT Meeting in Miami, Florida—TCT 2012. TCT stands for “Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics.” My presentation is on “The Effects of Magnetic Stenting on Endothelialization.” I am still amazed that I was lucky enough to think of applying magnetism to stents. I have this romantic fascination with those little metal contraptions that I place in a patient’s coronary arteries t
o keep them open to prevent a heart attack. It never ceases to amaze me that these little gizmos work the way I imagined they would. I felt like the luckiest man alive when I learned that the addition of the magnets made the stents more effective, and as a byproduct made me millions. Millions that led to a lifestyle that consisted of a brownstone apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a mansion in the suburbs in a little town called Port Washington, and a place on the water out in the Hamptons.

  That was at least up until five years ago and the downturn in the stock market. You’d think an established doctor would be set—that is, at least financially. But like many other folks, I put my trust in a big New York name and invested all my money with him. Unfortunately, that BIG NAME made-off with all my money! My money was caught up in the largest Ponzi scheme of the modern era. Like many wealthy New Yorkers, I lost almost everything.

  Just to escape the overwhelming burden of an enormous mortgage on the house in Port Washington and out east, my wife and I had to sell our place in “the City.” A beautiful Manhattan turn-of-the-century brownstone on a southern-oriented park block on East Eighty-Ninth Street. And not far from where I worked. Classic stoop, first-floor kitchen and large living room, which led to sliding-glass doors out back, that opened up to a New York paradise. Our own private backyard surrounded by other glorious townhomes. All gone!

  But we still have our large brick colonial house in Port Washington! Nearly 6,000 square feet, and lots of wall space to display our art collection. The art we had consisted of very collectible prints, typically of American contemporary artists. And some were from the Bay Area, where I received my cardiology training. Like Richard Diebenkorn, who created masterful abstract landscapes called Ocean Parks, colored in whites, blues, yellows, and greens to reflect Northern California. Or Wayne Thiebaud, with delicious chocolate cakes and imaginary San Francisco scenes, with steep streets and tall buildings, all with the greens and blue hues similar to Diebenkorn’s.

  And we had our majestic place out on the East End of Long Island!

  Chapter 6

  Things have not been the same between my wife and me! Last night’s drinking episode was just one of many that occurred over the past few years. Easter, at the Breakfast Egg Fest at St. Peter’s of Alcantara, hit me like a brick wall. I remember, as clear as day, being pulled aside after Father Bob had scooped scrambled eggs and bacon onto my wife’s plate.

  “Hey, MD, can I talk to you a second?”

  “Sure, Father Bob,” I replied. He motioned to me to come into his private library. I followed him. “MD, I have to talk to you about something personal. I hope it’s okay.”

  “Sure, Father Bob.”

  “It’s about Shari. While serving her, I detected a heavy alcohol odor on her breath. First, I thought it might have been her perfume, but after we talked for about a minute, I was convinced it was alcohol. For me, this is quite unusual in the morning. I just wanted to bring it to your attention.”

  “Father, I know Shari has been drinking more than usual. But I was not aware of her drinking so early morning. I’ll talk to her about it.”

  “Maybe you should get some help from AA. We have weekly meetings right here at St. Peters every Thursday evening. Always confidential! You would be surprised by our regular clientele, well-respected members of our community. Most importantly, AA works. “One day at a time!”

  “Thanks for the advice,” I realized Father Bob was just trying to help. But this helpful suggestion hit me like a ton of bricks.

  I left that breakfast, disturbed. The distance between Shari and me had increased gradually. Perhaps I was in denial, or in my own little world of research and medicine. What began as a spark and developed into a loving relationship was now an emotionally devoid, depressing situation. Did I have something to do with this? Every night, when I came home late from the hospital, I observed her finishing off a bottle of wine, or maybe a few glasses of Dewar’s on the rocks, alone. Our relationship suffered more and more. Over the years she became withdrawn and incommunicative. I couldn’t seem to reach her.

  Fortunately, I thought, our kids were old enough that they would both be out of the house, and we’d lick this problem together. At least, that’s what I had hoped! The hope of turning back time, and restoring our spark, and eventually relocating and downsizing to one place. Albeit a much smaller place. And if it had to be one place, it would certainly be the one that beacons out onto Quantuck Bay just southeast of the village of Westhampton Beach! Maybe this was just my fantasy world. Or maybe not?

  Chapter 7

  Thank God for research. The act of identifying a problem, testing a hypothesis, discovering the results, and coming up with sound conclusions. Sounds exciting? Well, not really. It is tedious and boring. I am sitting in my hospital-based office, staring over the park—Central Park, that is—reminiscing about the way things were and “the way we were.” Sounds like an old Barbara Streisand flick, doesn’t it? Just a few years ago, my wife and I had an active social life. At least one night a week out to dinner in the city. Taking in a show or maybe Lincoln Center on the weekends. And medicine? Just a few years back I had a booming practice, and very little time for research, writing papers, and presentations. Boy, has the world changed! You think that health care has changed due to the reelection of President Obama? Well, perhaps. But the Affordable Care Act of 2010 evoked a whole lot of other changes to us members of the medical field. Changes made for the survival of Big Pharma, medical-device companies, health insurance companies, and, lastly, medical institutions like the one I am currently working for—the Mount Sinai Medical Center. The physicians themselves were left holding the bag. I was fortunate, because I always worked for a hospital. But the physicians in private practice all were scurrying to join with a big institution just to survive. Doctors survive? Yes, survive! It takes a lot of money to cover malpractice insurance, office overhead, and staff (as well as their own health insurance coverage).

  Why did I go into medicine in the first place, you might ask? The answer was, to take care of patients. I enjoyed every aspect of the job. And the term “job” is a misnomer. It was more than a job. It was a lifestyle, which included talking to the patients and their families, diagnosing their problems, explaining their treatments, answering their questions, and most of all performing procedures to help unclog blockages in their coronary arteries. As a Stanford-trained cardiologist, my heart, no pun intended, was always in taking care of my patients.

  The problem is, I don’t really have very many patients anymore. At least, not like I used to. Not an in-house consult in over one month, and my medical clinic has almost come to a complete halt. With the competing hospitals’ acquisitions of almost all my referrals, I have been relegated to spending more and more hours on research. Hospital rounds have now been reduced to the ritual of grabbing coffee in the doctors’ lounge and making social calls to the various administrators.

  But they too must realize what has happened! They get my numbers—kind of like the Dow in 2008, falling off a cliff.

  Thank God for research!

  Chapter 8

  Finally, vacation! I have had it up to here with all my work preparing for my speaking engagement at the TCT meeting in Miami. My presentation is almost complete, and a draft paper has been circulated to the other investigators. I had not been spending much time with my wife—hopefully you can understand why—and I rarely get to see my son or daughter. They’re almost all grown up, and their friends take priority, plus my late nights and weekends at work don’t help the matter. I’m so looking forward to this quality family time with them out east.

  But before going out to Westhampton Beach, first a little detour. Besides being my startup partner on all my medical-device ventures, including Magnetostent, Alexiev Shaw, aka Steven Seagal, is also my best friend in the whole wide world. Alex lives with his family in the neighboring town of Plandome. Plandome is a more subdued version of Port Washington, with bigger homes than Port—except for the Sands Po
int area, that is—but no downtown. Alex speaks quite eloquently and is fluent in at least ten languages. And that doesn’t even include his mastery of the computer languages such as arduino, java, and python, to name a few. You can call him Dr. Shaw, Alexiev, or Alex, but please don’t call him Al. When I first met him at a meeting up at the Marriott Copley Plaza in Boston, I called him Al and I will not ever forget it.

  “Dr. Dawson, do I look like I work at a gas station or a diner? Please, if you may, call me Alex, but NEVER call me Al,” he said with a snarl.

  To an outsider, Dr. Shaw, with his olive-skinned complexion, may have looked Eastern European or maybe even Middle Eastern. Shaw, however, considered himself only a Frenchman.

  A typical ritual of mine was to stop at Alex’s place before coming home or before going out east to decompress and unwind. I pulled down Port Washington Boulevard, veered right onto Stonytown Road, left on to Manhasset Woods Road, and then up Alex’s winding driveway.

  I knocked on the door. “Hello, come right in,” Alex said.

  “Good to see you.” I paused for a moment. “Just going out east for the week. How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Well, the business plan is done, our corporate papers have been filed, and our latest project is almost complete.” Alex always referred to our startup venture as a project. “How’s the hospital treating you?” he asked.

  “Time for a break. At last, I get a chance to reconnect with Shari and the kids,” I replied. “And maybe, just maybe, I could turn this thing around with her!”

  Alex then proceeded with his usual ritual, which was more like magic than a ritual. It happened without a request, almost instinctually. It included grinding fresh roasted coffee beans, always deep dark French Roast, putting the delicious ground beans into the holder, pressing them down, and pulling a single espresso shot. At the same time, he pulled a frozen steel container from the freezer and filled the container with whole milk. He then proceeded to steam it to perfection into a frothy delight. The espresso was poured into a classic, rounded, oversized mug, followed by the frothy milk, until the foam created the perfect white heart shape on top of the rich brown espresso. And presto—the “fiesta resistance.” The perfect cappuccino à la Shaw.