Buck was wearing nothing but one of Jack’s borrowed sweat pants as he bareknuckle jabbed in basic one-two combinations at a punching bag suspended from the shed’s ceiling. She had known him all her life as thin and frail, not the six feet tall, two hundred pounds of sweaty, brown muscle expertly pummeling her equipment with his powerful fists. Buck’s dark arms were slightly longer than normal for someone his height, giving him an increased range that provided an advantage he ruthlessly exploited. He had been a world heavyweight champion, one of the best boxers of the early twentieth century, a man who had three of his fights dubbed ‘the fight of the century’. She could see some of that in his movements now though he was taking things relatively easy. Buck looked just like he did in old pictures and news reel footage: tall and handsome, built like he could break through skulls with a single punch or hearts with a single smile.
“That’s not meditating,” she said.
“It is for me, girl.”
He added some footwork, moving around the bag on his bare soles as his simple strikes continued.
“All these years in this house and the closest I ever got to out here was gardening and cooking in that fucking kitchen.”
Anaea flinched. She had never heard her grandfather curse in all her forty years.
“You… Uh… You baked some great ham… and you never showed any interest.”
“I did this shit hours a day for thirty years. I should never have given it up.”
“After the accident…”
Buck stopped, his hands falling to his sides as he pulled himself up to his full height.
“I took punches to the head for decades but one car accident turned me into a retard. Ain’t life fucked?”
Anaea’s grandfather had been a sweet man who cared for his third and final wife and their son by working numerous menial jobs up and down the Carolinas. Her grandmother never talked about what Buck had been like before he crashed his car in 1946 but there were more than enough articles and tabloid gossip from the time to piece together that he wasn’t the nicest person. Drinking, cheating, spending all his prize money on everything but his family… That young Buchanan Robinson was a terror Anaea was happy to have never known, and she realized she might not to be happy knowing this young Buck, either.
“Nice setup in here, girl. I got a good workout.”
“Glad you enjoyed it. We need to talk, Papa Buck. It’s about that nurse.”
“Easterman? The scrawny cunt who killed me?”
“He’s dead.”
“Can’t say I’m broken up. Who offed him?”
“The police aren’t sure.”
“At least I got to look him in his blue four eyes this morning and let him know I’d be the one sending him for lethal injection this time around. Hhh. I guess someone who knew other people he killed got him first. Remember what he said in that weak voice? About killing people because he got off on trying to save them? Sick fuck had it coming.”
Buck took a towel from a weight bench and wiped his sweaty face and muscular chest. As she watched, Anaea had to remind herself this gorgeous man barely in his twenties was her supercentenarian grandfather.
“You stopped him.”
“He still stuck me and killed me. It’s the best thing that could’ve happened, though.”
“What?”
“I’d rather spend three days like this, being myself again, than fuck knows how much time I had left in that hospital bed.”
“The doctors said you were getting better.”
“There ain’t much to look forward to when you’re a hundred and twenty, girl. I’ll take these three days, thanks.”
“Papa Buck…”
“Just call me Buck, yeah.”
“Buck… Do you remember dying? Do you remember anything about the other side?”
Anaea had never seen anyone with the look on Buck’s face before. She couldn’t identify it, either, beyond being possibly an otherwise impossible mélange of disparate emotions.
“The immortician said not to talk about that. Breaks the spell early.”
“I didn’t know, sorry.”
“It’s OK, girl. I’m going for a shower. Have some of those little Lazarus cakes for me when I get out.”
The immortuary provided Lazarákia since the spicy-sweet breads were part of the ongoing ritual to keep this old yet new him, this renewed him alive.
“OK, Papa…” Anaea stopped and corrected herself. “OK, Buck.”
“Good girl.”
Buck squeezed her shoulder with his free hand, looked into her eyes, smiled, then went into the house. It was all Anaea could do not to pull away. As the punching bag slowly swung, Anaea wondered how much of the old Buck had returned and how much of the true Buck she had ever really known.
IV: Deep Taint
“These aren’t the kind of damages I was expecting you to discuss, Dr. Greaves,” Anaea said to the woman seated across the desk from her and immortician Ayodele. The hospital administrator’s room was cozy, filled with books and family pictures and plants, its view took in the hospital garden and the river that ran through the heart of the capital along which a few tourists kayaked.
“With the unprecedented return of your grandfather’s youth, we’re taking special note of abnormalities and anything of interest, Ms. Robinson,” Greaves began. “We have his MRI results and a preliminary genetic analysis.”
The doctor tapped a few buttons on a keyboard, and a holographic screen appeared between her and the other two women. Greaves reached into the blue light and enhanced a slowly rotating three dimensional brain scan with her fingers.
“Mr. Robinson’s brain as seen in his full body scan taken when he was admitted last week. As his doctor discussed with you, there was severe chronic traumatic encephalopathy common to people who fight and play football and other contact sports. Violent behavioural and destructive mood disorders are almost universally present at this level of traumatic brain injury… but everyone describes Mr. Robinson as a sweet, gentle soul perhaps a bit below average on the IQ scale.”
“That sounds right. And what about his scan from today?”
Greaves reached into the hologram again, enhancing and rotating a second brain scan.
“Instead of being shrunken and withered, his brain is now, just like the rest of his body, perfectly healthy… except for here,” Greaves said while pointing at an area highlighted in yellow near the center of the second brain scan. “There is greatly reduced activity in his orbital cortex which regulates emotions, impulses, morality, and aggression. With everything around it suffering from a degenerative disease, it was impossible to see this. All that damage most likely also mitigated against the sociopathic tendencies many with this condition exhibit. Has he done anything strange since you took him home?”
The boxing, the cursing, the way her skin crawled when he touched her shoulder and smiled at her…
“No… I… don’t think so.”
“Watch for them. His preliminary genetic screening showed the MAOA-L gene variant as well as at least two other mutations linked to impulsive behavior, sleep disorders, mood swings, hypersexuality, and violent tendencies. This is very serious.”
Greaves sighed, took a deep breath, and continued.
“I’m sorry for throwing so many terms at you, Ms. Robinson.”
“No kidding,” Anaea replied, not even trying to appear unflustered, “since you’re telling me Buck is insane.”
“Sociopathy manifests itself as egotism, persistent antisocial behavior, and impaired empathy and remorse… and I promise I’m done listing pathologies now. Some incredibly successful and non-violent people have these traits to varying degrees. Ruthlessness in business and sport can be an asset, and Mr. Robinson was an incredibly successful boxer. He was described as fearless and unflappable according to my research.”