\nIt isn\u2019t easy to kidnap a man, let alone do it without raising your heart rate \u2013 which would likely cause me to die on the spot. You might think I\u2019m exaggerating. I wish I were. My affliction is called Grave\u2019s disease, and it causes my thyroid to produce so much excess hormone that all sorts of things can go wrong. Irregular heartbeat is one. Seizures are another. Don\u2019t forget tremors and muscle weakness. Plus the goiter in my neck makes breathing hard. If I were to break into a run and a heart attack didn\u2019t get me, I\u2019d probably asphyxiate all the same.\n<\/p>\n
\nYep, Grave\u2019s Disease is a killer. But then again, as some of you might know, it\u2019s really not, not in the first world anyway \u2013 since there are ways to manage it medically: beta-blockers and anti-thyroid medicines, radioiodine therapy too. Only a lunatic would choose to pass up treatment. So maybe I am. Grave\u2019s disease is also linked to irritability and paranoia, but I\u2019ll take that over whatever mental disorders have been inflicted on you.\n<\/p>\n
\nMy wife doesn\u2019t like it when I talk this way. It gets on her nerves \u2013 me and my theories \u2013 and so I try to keep quiet around her. Brenda and I have grown so distant recently, though the process started long ago. She doesn\u2019t approve of my interests or my friends, and she certainly wouldn\u2019t approve of my kidnapping plot. No, she really would not.\n<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019ve got sympathy for her, though I\u2019m aware she hasn\u2019t got much left for me. She didn\u2019t bargain for this, an invalid husband. When she married me, I was a healthy man, my disease well controlled. We were doing all right, had good jobs, a bright future, plans to start a family. I remember clearly those days when Brenda was first pregnant: her lying on the examining table during her prenatal hospital visits, with ads for Briars ice cream and Heinz pickles playing on the screen overhead. That was how it all started, if you recall, those innocent ads.\n<\/p>\n
\nSome of us might have missed the legislation behind them \u2013 I know I didn\u2019t pay much attention back then – healthcare prices were soaring and the system was on the verge of collapse when advertisers stepped in to save it. And if there were a few protests about the ethics of it all, those voices shut up pretty fast when premiums went down by half. Honestly, it all seemed innocuous enough. Brenda and I used to sing along to the jingles as a distraction while awaiting the results of a test.\n<\/p>\n
\nBy the time we neared the delivery, I knew all the songs and slogans for Pampers and Gerber, plus a dozen more. I recall playing a game, in the hours I waited: I\u2019d wander the halls and try to guess patients\u2019 ailments according to what ads played beside them: weight loss and health club ads for cardiac patients, extravagant getaway packages for the terminally ill.\n<\/p>\n
\nDid any of these suffering souls mind these displays? Maybe they lacked dignity, but so does the whole experience of being a patient. Who especially noticed or cared, while being stuck with needles and strapped into machines, what images floated on in the background? Now and again, the ads even offered useful ideas. Brenda was a huge fan of that pregnancy meal-delivery service \u2013 back then she hated cooking \u2013 and frankly, we\u2019d felt grateful for the trouble it saved us, and even more grateful when Proctor and Gamble picked up our hospital tab.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nThe worst of it really started two months ago when our little girl, Lilly, got sick. It was an ordinary evening: I came home to find Brenda as I often find her when I return from work \u2013 I\u2019m still able to work, though I\u2019ve been moved from salesman to manager at the shop, so I can just sit over papers at my desk. Brenda was cooking in the kitchen, though the space was already filled with dishes she\u2019d been preparing throughout the day. They were stacked on the table alongside the home-furnishing catalogues. We\u2019d fought over these things so often I\u2019d learned to say nothing, just like she\u2019d learned to say nothing \u2013 most of the time \u2013 about the state of my declining health, or my meetings with Gary and the other members of my group.\n<\/p>\n
\nI came up behind her and kissed her on the neck. She stiffened and turned. She was upset.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cLilly\u2019s sick.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOh I\u2019m sorry. Like a cold?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWorse than a cold, I think. She\u2019s had a headache and chills all day. I\u2019ll bring her to the doctor tomorrow.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThere was an air of defiance in the way Brenda said this, as if she was expecting me to object. I didn\u2019t, though she wasn\u2019t wrong about the thoughts running through my head. I didn\u2019t want those doctors messing with my little girl.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIs she in her room?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cShe\u2019s sleeping,\u201d Brenda said, clearly not wanting me to get near our daughter, frightened of what I might say. Often in my own home, I\u2019m made to feel like a threat. It\u2019s easy to forget Brenda and I were ever happy, but we were. Before Brenda gave birth, we were very happy.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt was a hard delivery, though, and Brenda was bedridden for a while and overwhelmed by postpartum depression. The doctors became concerned she wouldn\u2019t be able to care for the baby, so they prescribed Brenda a special anti-depressant \u2013 newly innovated, they claimed, to stimulate a nesting response.\n<\/p>\n
\nFive years later, Brenda is still shopping for ways to improve our home. She is powerless to stop, despite my sitting her down a hundred times to look over credit card bills or point out how many bassinettes, then blankets, and potholders, and throw-pillows, we already have stacked in the closets and in the storage units I\u2019ve been obliged to rent simply to keep pace with her compulsion to feather our little abode. Before the drug was administered, Brenda had planned on returning to her work as a public defender, but afterward, the only occupation that interested her was scouring catalogues from West Elm, and Wayfair, and Bed Bath and Beyond.\n<\/p>\n
\nI pushed the catalogues aside to make room to set the table. Of course Brenda stopped me from helping. She needs to do such things, can accept no household assistance, so I left her and tiptoed upstairs to Lilly\u2019s bedroom.\n<\/p>\n
\nInside the room, Lilly was in bed watching something on her screen. I\u2019ve tried to insist on screen-time rules, to limit her exposure to ads, but Brenda does nothing to enforce them and it\u2019s a losing battle.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn the light of the screen, Lilly looked like a shiny doll. I stroked her hair.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMommy says you\u2019re not feeling so hot.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019m not,\u201d she said in her small voice, even smaller that night. \u201cMy throat hurts. And my head.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYour body\u2019s strong. You\u2019ll fight it off, Tiger.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMommy\u2019s taking me to the doctor. For medicine.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI tried not to reveal my concern. Brenda and I have made an effort not to dispute each other\u2019s point of view in front of Lilly. \u201cWell, it\u2019s good she\u2019s taking you, and we\u2019ll see if it\u2019s necessary, the medicine, I mean.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMommy says you don\u2019t trust medicine, that\u2019s why you don\u2019t use it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI kissed her on the forehead. \u201cYou should sleep. The best medicine is rest.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nMy plan is to drug him first \u2013 The Exxon Mobile Man. I realize I jumped ahead there, but I\u2019ll be introducing him soon. Anyway, once I\u2019ve put something in his water to make him woozy, then Gary will come in to help. Gary isn\u2019t afflicted by infirmities like me. He\u2019s a large man in his prime – his only issue is confidence in bed. I met him shortly after his wife had left him. Apparently, prolonged use of Viagra had led to a dangerously expensive hobby of purchasing fast cars. He blamed the medicine. His wife blamed him.\n<\/p>\n
\nI know a lot of folks would side with Gary\u2019s wife. Most don\u2019t accept the claims we make, but Gary and me and the rest of our group, we\u2019ve done our research. So that\u2019s who I went to see after I\u2019d put Lilly to bed that night, Gary and the guys. Brenda was annoyed, especially when I brought some of her leftovers along — she doesn\u2019t like to see her cooking feed \u201cthose wierdos\u201d as she calls them, but even with an extra fridge down in the basement, there\u2019s nowhere to put all the extra food she makes.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt was a pretty full meeting that night over at Gary\u2019s: Rick and Diego were already there, and later Lester, Lou and Mac. Poor Mac is near the end and was coughing his guts out so that it was hard for some of the guys to eat. Sometimes it feels like we\u2019re mostly there to gripe about our symptoms, or about how much our wives and kids detest us for not seeking medical attention. But in fact we\u2019re also doing important work, exposing the links between medications and their corporate tie-ins.\n<\/p>\n
\nI don\u2019t think most people are even aware of when medical records became legally sharable with corporations, or cared when the ads began appearing, the targeted campaigns. But we cared. We kept track.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt was Ned who discovered that if you take insulin or lithium or prednisone \u2013 all of which increase appetite\u2013Dominos and Grub-Hub ads will pop up on your phone. And it was Diego who realized that there are prominent medications for Parkinson\u2019s and restless leg that cause irresistible urges to gamble, shop, and have sex. If you ever come across someone boasting they got an insane offer on a Vegas Trip, chances are those meds are in their luggage.\n<\/p>\n
\nOf course, none of this is as dangerous as the drugs, like the one Brenda was given, that are engineered to shift consumer behavior, inspire corporate loyalty, and mold us to their agenda.\n<\/p>\n
\nThat night, we were focused on one such drug in particular: Diego had found a possible correlation between gun-stockpiling and treatments for gout.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s lymphoma!\u201d Brenda came in crying after visiting the doctor again with Lilly. I hadn\u2019t gone along. Hospitals make me too agitated and Brenda didn\u2019t want me there.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOh Lilly!\u201d I felt the tears spring to my eyes and hugged Lilly tightly, reassuring her she\u2019d be ok. I tried to comfort Brenda too, but she just sent Lilly upstairs and then started hurling at me the dozen throw pillows that completely bury our living room.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHow could you?! You stupid, selfish maniac!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat did I do?\u201d I pleaded, dodging pillows. Though with a knot of dread in my gut, I realized what the problem had to be.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHow could you not pay the premiums? How could you leave me and Lilly unprotected?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI had no answer for her. At the time, seeing those insurance bills, I\u2019d had the thought that I couldn\u2019t possibly contribute my own money to the source of the corruption. In retrospect, this seemed like a bad idea.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019ll talk to the insurance companies and I will fix this,\u201d I told Brenda, shaking.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou won\u2019t even fix yourself,\u201d she retorted, with a look of hate that stung my soul.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe Exxon Mobile man showed up the next week. He was tall and strong and dressed in a neat blue suit. I noticed how Brenda looked at him from the moment he arrived, right before she whisked him away to speak in private.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s going on, who is he?\u201d I demanded, holding Brenda back a moment.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe pulled her arm out of my grip. \u201cHe\u2019s our corporate sponsor. The man who\u2019s going to pay the bills to save our little girl.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nBrenda went to talk with the man inside our bedroom and locked the door against me. I was too weak to force the lock, so I just banged on the door for a bit and then waited, fuming, until the man would have to leave and confront me on the way out. Through the door I could hear Brenda weeping in gratitude – \u201cOh thank you, you don\u2019t know how grateful I am.\u201d \u2013 until my heartbeat rose so high I had to lie down on the floor.\n<\/p>\n
\nI was still lying there when the man stepped out.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMy husband,\u201d Brenda gestured toward me with contempt.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe man knelt to shake my hand. \u201cIt\u2019s an honor to be able to help your family in this way.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhy are you doing this?\u201d I demanded. \u201cSome kind of PR stunt?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWell, part of the deal will involve some advertising commitments on your family\u2019s part. But that\u2019s only because we want the nation to know how much we value your children.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHoping that offsets the whole ruining the planet bit?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nAs Brenda helped me up, I felt her nudge me in the ribs, hard.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\n\u201cRight in your own home,\u201d Gary said, aghast, when I told my story to the group at our next meeting. We had no food that night. Brenda had begun having Exxon Mobile Man to dinner, and he gobbled that extra food right up.\n<\/p>\n
\nGary shook his head. \u201cHe corporate sponsored your child right out from under you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThat\u2019s how it\u2019s gonna be, I bet,\u201d said Ned. \u201cJust a matter of time till corporations pick up the tab on all the poor and stick their logos on them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThat\u2019s going a bit far,\u201d said Diego.\n<\/p>\n
\nNed disagreed. \u201cThings in this country always go further than we can imagine.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThat they do,\u201d said Gary. \u201cAnd corporations will fuck us and fuck us in every way they can.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI couldn\u2019t follow anything that was said after that. I just kept on thinking of the Exxon Mobile Man alone in my home with my wife.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nThe next day, I left work early and came home without warning to see what I could find. Brenda had claimed she was taking Lilly out of school and to the doctor, but instead I saw her car in the driveway, alongside Exxon Mobile\u2019s SUV. I hurried into our house, or went as fast as I could without collapsing, and found our bedroom door was locked. I wasn\u2019t sure what to do next \u2013 should I bang on the door, confront the pair I was sure must be in there, naked and disgustingly tangled in my bed? At the mere thought, my goiter started acting up and suddenly I couldn\u2019t breathe. I was afraid I might faint so I dragged myself away and called up Gary from the driveway.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHelp me. I think Exxon Mobile Man\u2019s fucking my wife.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThat was when I started plotting the kidnapping. My intention wasn\u2019t to kill him \u2013 or at least probably not \u2013 I only wanted to scare him off, to make clear I\u2019d fight to the death for my wife and my place in our family. He needed to know that, whatever Brenda might have told him, I was a committed father who would find a way to give my daughter what treatment she needed without interference from some fucking corporate dick.\n<\/p>\n
\nWe hatched a plan, Gary and I. A simple one, really. I\u2019d put some heavy sleeping meds \u2013 Brenda had them \u2013 in their wine at night, and then Gary would come in and drag Exxon Mobile to his van.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI just need to know,\u201d Gary said. \u201cAre you sure about all of it? I mean really sure? Like you saw them fucking? You know he plans to steal your wife? Because to risk this we need to be one-hundred percent clear you\u2019re not just being paranoid.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nWas I being paranoid? It was a nagging question, one that had dogged me for years. Brenda and doctors had insisted I\u2019d begun suffering from paranoia after I went off my medication and my disease took over. As I said at the start, that can be a symptom of Grave\u2019s disease and, at the worst stages, people in my advanced condition are even known to suffer paranoid psychosis. But I didn\u2019t say this to Gary.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHe\u2019s providing for her, he\u2019s screwing her, he\u2019s practically moved in. It\u2019s a corporate take-over of my family and we need to make it stop!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nI nearly died that night, the doctors later told me. The heart attack I suffered should have felled me on the spot, and I was lucky, very lucky, that Exxon Mobile man had saved me.\n<\/p>\n
\nI have almost no recollection of events that night, but Gary has filled me in. Apparently we did succeed in our kidnapping plans \u2013 up to the point where the Exxon Man was tied up in Gary\u2019s van and started to struggle. Gary was driving, and I tried to subdue our prisoner until Gary could pull over, but the exertion involved was too much. I collapsed and stopped breathing. Without a doubt I\u2019d have died then if the Exxon Mobile Man hadn\u2019t untied himself to help me \u2013 he proved to an expert both at knots and CPR.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cBy the way, we\u2019re getting married,\u201d my wife informs me. It seems Exxon Mobile Man proposed while I underwent surgery that night. \u201cOf course we\u2019ll only marry once our divorce is finalized or\u2026\u201d She leaves off, and I\u2019m quite sure I know why.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI just want you to be happy again,\u201d I tell her and I mean it. We were happy once, we really were. Once we sat in a hospital room like this one, singing along to pampers jingles and looking forward to the life together we would build.\n<\/p>\n
\nI have never stopped loving Brenda. In fact, loving her \u2013 and hating what happened to her \u2013 is pretty much what started me down this course to begin with. She was a brilliant public defender when we met. Not at all the sort of woman to end up with the Exxon Mobile man. If it\u2019s my fault, Brenda, if I did this to you, I\u2019m sorry. It breaks my heart to let you go.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut there is good news. Lilly is doing well, making a full recovery. Thank heaven. My sweet Lilly.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe came to my hospital room the other day and laid her soft, innocent face in the palm of my hand, staring up.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cTake the medication, Daddy, please. Make yourself well again, please.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI will,\u201d I whispered and started to cry. I didn\u2019t have the heart to share with her the truth.\n<\/p>\n
\nFor days now, the ads on my hospital room screen have been for charitable donations and funeral arrangements. The advertisers know – they always know – I won\u2019t last long, not even long enough for a vacation getaway.\n<\/p>\n
Robin Kirman studied philosophy at Yale before receiving her MFA in writing from Columbia, where she also taught for several years. Her curiosity about human psychology has led her to combine work in psychoanalysis with writing fiction. She is the author of two novels, including Bradstreet Gate (Crown) and The End of Getting Lost (Simon and Schuster). Her short story, “Not All Hauntings Are By Ghosts” will be published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and her long short story, \u201cStarborn\u201d will appear in Amazing Stories.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It isn\u2019t easy to kidnap a man, let alone do it without raising your heart rate \u2013 which would likely cause me to die on the spot. You might think I\u2019m exaggerating. I wish I were. My affliction is called Grave\u2019s disease, and it causes my thyroid to produce so much excess hormone that all …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107954,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20136],"tags":[20137],"class_list":["post-140326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-51-spring-2024","tag-the-colored-lens-51-spring-2024","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107954"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140326"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140329,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140326\/revisions\/140329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}