July 1992
I’ve been home just a few days,already so overwhelmed on so many fronts that I felt I already needed counseling. So glad Domenic is still around, just one visit over 7 years ago, but he really seemed to remember me and was happy to help. Three days later I was in his office, chatting away. Domenic expected my call.
During a background check my employer Danze Corporation learned of the only time I sought out mental health help. I wasn’t really surprised it was done, it’s the thoroughness of the invasion of privacy that concerns me. Still, Danze Corp is primarily a DARPA military contractor and even though the CEO may be my best friend, the background checks appease protocol.
When I got to Domenics’ office I already had worked myself in to a rather tight ball of tension, anxiety really. I was immediately told to start journaling my thoughts and concerns. Dom actually scolded me for not doing so since my last visit. I also learned he has had intermittent contact with my boss, The Dance. Domenic was sure I had some interesting stories and wanted a biographical free form narrative of my experiences from my:
1st enlistment, 85-87
Short civilian life, March thru June 87
2nd enlistment, July 87 thru July 92
That’s all I had asked? Each of those time frames are packed with a shit ton of experiences, thoughts and realizations. I wouldn’t have time to keep a current journal, I kinda whined. None of this was the reason for my visit. I had two major issues.
The 1st, still feeling conflicted about not going to the family business. I told Dom I was sure it was a campaign organized by my Dad to guilt in to coming back. Each phone call from my sister, step-mom, TOCO employees, even my brother seemed scripted, covering the same bullet points. “It should be all yours someday”, “Dads still running the company for you to take over”. I properly countered “you’re family, it could yours to run instead” and to employees, “talk to my a Dad, your boss, about an employee buyout”. One day of checking general ledgers confirmed my doubts, sales are a third of what they were 5 years ago. The pro’s that raised me in the business, all union men, were gone, fired, the union busted; in fact the future of all local #246 is in doubt. Union leaders embezzlement of funds left those retired or retiring soon a little more concerned. It seems more than a trend, building trades companies all over SE Michigan were either busting the unions out or closing shop, only to reopen later as non-union. I use to fence-sit regarding unions vs. management/owners. Now it’s clear, to me at least, where the ideals of capitalism and industrialization will eventually lead.
I had gotten of topic and Domenic thought I may be using faulty logic followed to an extreme and unlikely result. That’s another problem of mine I’m told by others, thinking too much. I wanted out of the family business, and in fact argued for its dissolution before it becomes worthless. My sentiment hurt my families feelings, and quietly angered my Dad. I was right, he couldn’t admit it, and it seemed sobriety was off the table for my Father. It was all true, but I was the bad guy for stating the obvious. Now they’re glad to have me out, but were shocked when I told them I wanted my buyout to reflect 1987 worth. By my calculations in just 5 years the value of the business declined nearly 80%. I showed them the math and walked out of the meeting. It hurt all of our feelings, but it’s easier for all of them to be mad at me then face the truth. Dom called it a family culture of alcoholic codependency. He told me I did the right thing for me personally, and maybe even for the the rest of the family.
Solved just like that. All but the mending he assured me, so on to my pressing second worry. I said it plain, I think my boss is a mad scientist. Domenic didn’t even blink, just sat there quietly in what would be prep for a long exposition on Daniel Danze’s escape from Nazi Germany. It was unbelievable and likely true given all the evidence I maybe purposely over looked. It was a comic book origin story, but you can’t tell if it’s for the hero or villain. What follows is my abbreviated version.
WW2 1943, 3rd Infantry heading north thru Italy spooked a lab of Joseph Mengela’s located near Italy and the Austrian border. Expensive equipment and notes were the only things to be evacuated as heard by a Jewish physician, Dan’s father.
I was confused, Daniel Danze, my boss looked my age, younger even. The math didn’t make sense and I interrupted saying so. I got hushed, it’s still funny to me. Domenic is a long-haired, bearded, sandal wearing hippie with a total Mediterranean/Middle Eastern look of one of Jesus’s apostles; and he just shushed a 6’2” 220+ lb line Infantry officer like I’m a little boy. I promptly followed his order.
Dan’s mother was a nurse, separated from her doctor husband at a concentration camp. She was fair-haired, blue-eyed, smart and beautiful. So she was “recruited” for horrendous experimentation. Raped daily by a lumbering blond German soldier to ensure impregnating. Then the mother and child were subjected to polonium poisoning via blood transfusions. It wasn’t until delivery that Daniels’ parents met again, he was ordered to assist in the delivery of her child. He was also the one that heard the Nazi order to evacuate. A low ranking German officer was tasked with destroying the facility, including killing of all the subjects and Jew physicians.
There were so few pregnancies the made it too term, those that did were either stillborn or significantly deformed. Dan’s father could hear soldiers moving from room to room, wards of Jewish women and male physicians being shot dead in place. He worked desperately to deliver the child and save his wife, but when the that same low ranking officer entered the delivery room he knew it was too late. He begged the officer, it may be a viable child, he needed to continue. The officer shot Dan’s mother in the head and instructed her husband to cut and pull the fetus from the dead body. The baby survived, more surprisingly it/he seemed healthy. It seems that was the point where the German officers’ will broke, he told the doctor to cleanup and wrap the baby, to escape using a back-up tunnel, head west to Switzerland. That officer never left the cave-like outpost, blowing himself with it. The journey went through Switzerland, France, Belgium and finally Netherlands where they caught a ship to the US, it was nearly a year later they went through Ellis Island. Their names now Robert and Daniel Danze, made it to a Jewish neighborhood in Detroit. The doctor was welcomed and served the Jewish and Black communities. The child developed severe medical issues, it was blind and prone to life threatening seizures multiple times per day. He grew too quickly, in 3 years Dan was the size of a healthy 8 year old, brilliant, talked like an adult and had learned Braille. An unlikely combination of marshal arts and an electronic bio feedback device changed that child’s world. Through meditation, a buzzing electronic biofeedback device, and hours of daily concentration within 5 years the child somehow gained control over his seizures. More alarmingly Dan really could see, but seemed to see ‘everything’ in his own words; air movement, electrical fields, heat/cold, it elven gave him a some sort of ballistic sensory defense (like a spidey sense) all with the appearance of blindness. It took extremes of light and dark to get any pupil change, otherwise they went unnoticed. I did noticed, it’s why or how we really became friends, from day one I thought he could see. I called it intuition, Dan called it my subconscious recognition of micro expressions on his part . Anyway, somehow the polonium treatments caused several unseen or unforeseen side effects.
Dan has 2x the folds of a normal brain. The years of seizures conditioned his body to constant and brutal cycles of damage and repair, resulting in:
inhumanely quick twitch muscles.
The ability to put on and maintain enormous muscle mass.
Twice the strength of considered humanely normal, even for his size.
My brain went ‘bink’ and reached a conclusion. The Dance had somehow done something similar to me though none of it seemed detrimental, but definitely disconcerting. During my 2nd enlistment my height and weight seemed to go unchecked and I didn’t realize my actual size until I acted on a whim. I never seemed to get sick, but wanted help digging some chiggers from my legs so I went on sick call. While waiting I weighed and measured myself. I was 2-1/2” taller and weighed 225lbs, 30lbs heavier than my ideal fighting weight but I felt the same, even stronger and faster and getting more so. My recall…
There Dom cut me off. He said remember the medically induced coma? I do/did, 5 weeks disappeared after I passed out during a 10 mile run with The Dance. A clot turned embolism caused a blockage. Emergency surgery, then complications took me out for 5 weeks. Domenic told me that’s when Dan manipulated my genetics, some to improve basic health and longevity, others that reproduce characteristics like The Dance. I was then in a type of shock while Domenic rattle off the changes, here’s what I remember.
Surgery to correct malformed arteries and veins in my legs.
Breaking and lengthening of both femur, humerus, tibia and fibula, radius and ulna, even a spacer vertebrae in my spine. The breaks healed using some sort of bone glue. Gene modification virally introduced, corrected familial genetic errors, the aortic aneurysm that kills men in my paternal line. I too now have more folds in my brain, I felt smarter but who could I tell til now without seeming an ass. Muscle mass and strength increased, I have quick twitch muscles now, I can see better than anyone, even Dan. Even cosmetic changes, fuller head of hair, I tan but never burn, nose straight again, scars gone, etc, too personal.
Dom continued, it seems Dan used medical technology years ahead of current medicine, stem cells, gene modification, even the bone glue. It eugenics, it’ll be illegal when the rest catch up. There was more, but my head was swimming with realizations of the past few years. I should’ve been furiously mad, but not at Dom. He was a buffer between me and the mad doctor.
So I sat for a moment, then changed the subject. I told him I’m having the same death dream from childhood. Shot while relaxing in a swimming pool, surrounded by young people and kids. When I was very young, before school, my dreams were sometimes premonitory, my Mom even logged them. For Catholics, my family was full of closeted spirituality.
So I came home, immediately got depressed and my death dream returned. Dom seemed concerned, yet stopped us there and sent me home. He walked me out, noticed my car and said he’s glad I kept it. It feels kinda too flashy for me now, but it was a gift from Poppa. I miss Poppa more than I can say, got a little weepy thinking of him getting in the car. Then I wondered how Domenic even knew about the car.
Technically I had 30 days between ETS’ing from the service and starting work at Danze Corp., less than a week into this ‘vacation’ and I needed something to do. It was early Saturday morning, 0900hrs and I had already worked out and eaten. I’m living in a shared townhouse of many overlooking the same little lake my only living grandparents live. I had planned on visiting with them today, but Dan busted into my place and told me we may be late for a disc golf tournament, it was only only a few minutes away. I played in the Pro Open division, it must’ve been a site. My blind caddy, who’s an absolute doppelgänger for Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), and I walking the course arm-in-arm for two rounds. Surprisingly not a homo comment was heard, even though two very large buff men were walking around like at prom date escorting their date. It wasn’t really until then I realized how scary we reallly looked. In the Army even our body types are anomalous, but everyone was big and in shape. Back home my size drew much more unwanted attention.
Before I re-upped I told Dan about Disc golf and regretted not trying it before heading back to Benning. It seems Dan signed me up for a disc golf membership with a national association. While I was in, Dan and the guys started shipping golf discs and baskets to me to practice wherever I was stationed. The tourney was peppered with veterans from work, and I hadn’t noticed until the end of the day. Dan and I were sitting eating snacks and waiting for the awards ceremony when guys from work kept joining us, 15 of us in all, 25% of the competitors. Dan said I had started something with just a casual comment. I said something like ‘The combination of aggressive throwing, long distance accuracy and pinpoint putting should really appeal to soldiers. Personally I can’t help to think of them as grenades’. Dan said it took hold, in fact nearly every casual comment I had made became a goal, objective or SOP for everyone at Danze Corp. I was taken aback, then started to notice how the were addressing us, Dan was ‘Boss’, I was ‘sir’.
Sir, i eventually became accustomed to it in the service, but still felt Nom-Com down to the bone. When I was in, in my mind, we were all brothers (and sisters). The sir and saluting were just part of the dog and pony show of the military. After all of the training, special ops and recovery I was given my own command. I was back in the 3rd ID, where I belonged. I was a 1st Lieutenant, had my own platoon and whipped them up into the best, first the platoon, then company wide when made commander in the same unit. Not a hint of depression, it was the life I was meant to lead. I was looking forward to battalion command even the wait for time-in-grade and service didn’t bother me. However I yearned for no more, taking a command above Lt. Colonel means no direct command of the troops, I couldn’t Imagine a military career that separated me from those who risked so much. So after another 5 years of service I stalled my own career, being a full bird held no interest for me.
Dan had heard my views of military command somehow and told me I was needed at home. My command there had become unwieldy without me around, obviously confused I asked ‘what command at home?’.
For four plus years The Dance and I spoke on the phone at great length about my thoughts on his company, it’s priorities and what else it could do. For me it was just a fun but infrequent evenings of conversation and mental exercise outside my expertise… and I may have griped a little about some of the limitations of a non to slow evolving, but near perfect example of a, socialistic society – The Armed Forces. Then he’d swear at me, accusing me of being a military lifer. I’d swear it was true and I was right about the socialism aspect of the military. If you gave me every American child for 3 years after HS I could significantly reduce let’s say racism to nearly zero within 40 years. They most certainly wouldn’t all be soldiers and put at risk, but they’d serve. But all initially trained in a similar manner, looking past color/religion as a matter of necessity… at first. That and my other non-compliant thoughts on military life and command.
My views on Danze Corp significantly shifted while I was soldiering. I was all about weapons for soldiers. Then I applied capitalism to war, and this was and is the best view I could imagine. Remove the human from the equation, pursue the drones.
Now it’s just, lets make leaps in power cells and accessories. In its place we’ll make money off the government mastering all of their public funds, starting with returning soldiers. Currently, most serve as a logical escape from dire home/economic/socials environments. They have no real home to come home to, no place to acclimate to a now foreign environment… civilian life.
If done right, an incomparable work force, and I want to build low and no cost housing for any/all honorably discharges veterans. Professionally train all of them in the building trades. Eventually send others to school, we’ll need our engineers and doctors and accountants. They’ll just be contracted to come back and work for us, none of them pay for school. Contract length depended on cost/need/etc. Eventually we could house them all, with dependents, with free health care, and retirement… and still pay a competitive wage rate or better then the ‘civilian’ counterpart. I did the math, short and long term. It can be done, on a backbone of affordable or subsidized housing.
We also talked about my sci-fi daydreams. I can’t say for sure how many times I’ve read Herbert’s entire Dune series. I jokingly blaspheme to some on that it’s my bible. I’ve a strong argument for it though, it definitely makes me think and reflect about my own life, and thoughts on honor, governing, religion, power, social responsibility, and on. Then I blow it by asking if their bible really does the same for them, so disassociating on my part.
Anyway, the big science questions. Nearly free power. Flying ships for all real environments: air, water and space. Space elevators, shields/deflectors, gravity plates… inertial dampening! Someday we’ll learn they’re all electrical fields, even gravity. We’ll learn the universe hum’s in some key near C… it’s not tinnitus I can hear the universe. The opposite of that universal vibrating C note is repulsive/repulsor tech. How much will the military, NASA pay then. Free power, blasphemous socialism.
Other big questions I’ve answers for, now.
The egg came first, it’s mutation is the chicken. Mom is pre-chicken.
I can’t answer that, did you just fill or sip from that glass?
Hot water freezes faster due to currents, their momentum and exposure to outer cube tray exposure.
Sunday is almost over, I fished with Grandpa and spooked Grandma with questions about her spirit writing days. On the way out Grandpa chastised me for bringing up what we called ghost writing (properly named spirit writing). It was my fault she quit, she got really spooked. Grandma is/was sure ‘they’ wanted my death, I was only 10 years old when that happened. Never mention it again.
Tomorrow’s Monday Domenic, I’m leaving romance off the book, both here in the journal and real life as well. I think I’m ill suited by nature and most certainly by nurture for a real adult romantic relationship, if one can really exist.
So tomorrow I’ll start work at 0900, and will have exercised and run for 75 minutes. Eaten breakfast, shit-showered-shaved and shipped off to an office with a bag lunch. No one lives on their own freshly retuning from active duty, so my suite mate and I are likely to walk to work together. I hear he works for the Quartermaster in the laundry and is going to law school; I know what job is more necessary and honorable, hope he does too. My specialty (happy place) will be R&D for home building, I’ll suffer admin as a CEO, and have KP duty for fun (and enforced socialization). Roommates and I have the same low pay rate, and I heard his HS sweetheart is already bugging him to leave the BAQ, poor dude.
It almost happened. I was introduced to a veteran and artist and really thought we’d meet up so I could create the Escher tiles. It could still happen that way, but I’m more likely to just join an open clay class, maybe even this winter.
robotomens 