2.

Professor Bailey

Thursday, March 7 - 1:45a.m.

Two hours later, when Dr. Elders said it was all right, the band burst into Mike’s cold and sterile hospital room, and Mike looked like a wet rag on the bed. They said, “What the hell happened, man? You scared the shit out of us.”

He wondered if he should tell them about his near-death experience, but decided it was just too weird. “I don’t know. I don’t remember much. You guys look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Ted the drummer said, “You almost were a ghost, man. Dr. Elders said your heart stopped when you passed out on stage. You’re lucky there was a doctor in the casino. He also said you broke your left ankle when you fell. You remember the hypnotist, don’t you?”

“Yeah, sort of, but it’s all kinda fuzzy. What did Zolli do to me?” he asked.

Jimmy said, “He didn’t do anything to you, man. He was trying to regress you back to your birth, when all of a sudden you stood up, screamed something weird and collapsed.”

“I screamed something? What did I say?” He was intrigued.

“I don’t know. Nothing in English, man. It sounded like a foreign language or something. You must have been delirious. You really had us scared.”

A worried look crossed Mike’s face. “Where’s my Harley? You guys didn’t leave her with one of those jerk-off valet drivers, did you?” He suddenly looked like a mother worried about her lost child.

Karl said, “It’s fine, Mike. Ted rode it to your apartment and left it there before we came.”

Mike assumed a humorous mock-anger and turned toward Ted. “What? You rode my baby? You better not have hurt her. She is really sensitive you know. She doesn’t like strange men riding her.”

Ted handed him the keys to his apartment and grinned. “Oh come on, Mike, you’re not going to be able to ride her for a while with that cast on your ankle. Why don’t I drive her for a while? You know. . . keep her cylinders lubricated?”

Mike smiled back. “Don’t you mess with my girl. I’m the jealous type.” Still, disappointment showed on his face. It was simple: Live to ride, Ride to live. He valued his Harley almost as much as his vocal cords.

Karl asked, “When are you getting out of here?”

“I don’t know. The doctor is keeping me here overnight for observation and more tests. I won’t find out until morning.”

Steve was angry. He said, “You know the schedule, man. We’ve got gigs every Wednesday and Saturday. Are you going to be able to sing Saturday?”

Mike needed the money. “I don’t know, man. I’ll have to work on the doctor a bit. Hang loose and I’ll see what I can do.”

After the band shuffled out of his room, he stared up at the ceiling and started worrying about how he was going to pay the hospital bill. As a rock and roll singer, he didn’t have insurance, but regardless, he couldn’t imagine any other career. He was well-suited to the role of rock singer. Music was his passion, and he gave himself to it completely. He loved being on stage. It made him feel more virile and alive than when he was offstage. It gave him the chance to experience a mystical high unlike any other. He could be another person, someone confident. He even looked the part: his long reddish-brown hair, mustache and short beard complemented his narrow face and pointy chin. But his most interesting feature was his eyes, stunning blue, set deep in their sockets, piercing but gentle. They were wild with passion, especially when he screamed. At times his eyes looked a little unbalanced, like Charlie Manson’s eyes. They made people uncomfortable, almost as if he could see their darkest secrets. Ronnie James Dio, who sang for Rainbow and Black Sabbath before starting his own band, had those kind of eyes. Mike even patterned his eye-movements after Dio, especially during covers of Rainbow’s “The Man on the Silver Mountain,” Sabbath’s “Heaven and Hell,” or Dio’s “Holy Diver.” But while most people were unsettled by his eyes, they were equally relaxed by his warm, gentle smile.

Playing rock and roll was a tough business, but it had its moments of glory. His band was called “The Original Artists.” He remembered what Jimmy had said: “That’s a stupid name for a band,” and he had countered, “Yeah, but think of all the free publicity on TV.” It was just what they needed to stick in people’s minds, and it helped keep them in business. They weren’t playing Caesar’s Palace, but every band starts out small.

Their fantasy, like every other band, was that some big shot would wander into the casino and like them enough to offer them a big gig or even a record contract. Mike would have liked the security of a record contract, but he was realistic enough to know that the music they played didn’t show off the band’s talent. All the audiences wanted was regurgitated classic rock from the seventies and eighties, which became what the casino’s entertainment director wanted, so that’s what they played.

Mike would have preferred to play his own songs, or at least his style, but his taste in music was a bit odd. He loved raw passion, speed and power in his music. He didn’t care if it was head-banging heavy metal or baroque symphonies as long as it was fast and furious. He had once found a classical composer named Alkan who wrote and played piano pieces as fast as Metallica played in the early days. Another composer, Paganini, was so impassioned that people of his era thought he was possessed; the Catholic church refused to bury him in hallowed ground for years after his death. As for rock music, Mike liked high-energy bands like Dream Theater, Megadeth and Stratovarius, but his favorite was a little-known band called Savatage. “Philosopher’s metal,” he called it. He wished his band could play that kind of music–music with a message–but that’s not what audiences wanted.

As he lay on the hospital bed, he wished he had a book to read. This is going to be a long night, he thought. Offstage, he was a bookworm, an introvert and a quiet man. While his band-mates were out getting drunk and trying to get laid, he was usually at home reading books on philosophy and the world’s religions. Some people said his quietness offstage went beyond genetics, that it was a quiet form of inner wisdom. His favorite quote was “Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.” Without a book to read, he stared at the ceiling and waited for morning. He hoped there was nothing wrong with him; nothing that would impact his career, anyway.

Thursday, March 7 - 10:00a.m.

Doctor Elders had done his tests. Mike had been poked, prodded, and manipulated until he felt like a pin cushion: blood work-ups, urinalysis, MRI scans, EKGs and EEGs. Finally they concluded that Mike’s heart had stopped due to a deficiency in vitamin B-1, coupled with physical exhaustion and dehydration. After his overnight stay, the good doctor scolded him for his poor diet, made him promise to “take it easy for the next couple of days.” The cast on his fractured ankle guaranteed that. After they discharged him, he took a taxi cab back to his tiny apartment.

Using the crutches he got at the hospital, he limped to the door of his apartment, unlocked it and went inside the hallway. He hobbled to the side door that led to his garage, opened it and peered inside at his Harley, a black 1995 Softail. Shiny chrome gleamed back through the dark at him. Reassured the bike was all right, he closed the garage door and went to the bedroom to pick out clean clothes.

He showered and put on his favorite pair of jeans, a gold chain and a black T-shirt with “Savatage” written on it. Philosopher’s metal, he thought, as he hopped to the livingroom using his good leg, and then plopped on the couch. He was happy to be reunited with his books. He found his bookmark in the Hindu Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and shut the world out.

Resting was not one of Mike’s strong points, however. He was bothered by his outburst on stage. His curiosity kept haunting him. Something in the back of his mind was nagging at him: What did the strange, foreign words mean? He tried to keep himself busy reading, but his thoughts kept slipping back to the strange words from his fall on stage. What was it I said? he wondered.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, he slammed the book onto the coffee table, grabbed his crutches and propped himself up. He limped over to the kitchen cabinet where the phone book was collecting dust. He opened it up and found the number for the casino. He dialed the number and asked for the entertainment director. He explained that he was from the band and he asked how he could contact another one of their acts, The Great Zolli. After a little coercion, he managed to get the phone number for Zolli’s publicist who, when called, took down his phone number and said that Zolli would call him back.

Forty-five minutes later, his phone rang. “Mike Tomson? This is Arthur Zolleski. I do a hypnosis act called The Great Zolli. My publicist said you were looking for me.” Zolli’s accent was completely gone now.

“Hi. Thanks for calling. I’m the guy who collapsed on stage last night at your performance.”

A feeling of dread came over Zolli. It smelled like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Maybe if he apologized, he could talk his way out of it. “You’re the singer in that band, right? Look, man, I’m sorry. I’ve never had that happen before. Are you all right?”

“Except for my broken ankle, I’m fine. The doctors kept me in the hospital overnight for observation, but released me this morning. I’m okay now.”

Zolli was glad to hear Mike admit he was all right but he regretted he wasn’t recording the conversation for proof, just in case it went to court. “Good. Glad to hear it. What can I do for you, Mr. Tomson?”

“Listen. I’ve got a strange request. The guys in the band said that I screamed some foreign words right before I collapsed. Is that true?”

“Yes, you did scream something, but I didn’t understand it. I tell you what, though. I can show you the tape if you want. It was very dramatic.”

“The tape?”

“Yes, I tape every performance. It’s to cover my ass. That way, if I get sued by an upset client, I have evidence that I didn’t do anything wrong. Hypnosis is a tricky business. . . . You’re not going to sue me, are you?”

“No. I know the accident wasn’t your fault. The doctor said it was a vitamin B-1 deficiency and dehydration, but I would like to get a look at that tape.”

Relieved, Zolli said, “Sure. I’ll be here all afternoon.”

Thursday, March 7 - noon

Unable to ride his Harley, Mike took another taxi to the address Zolli had given him. He hobbled up to the door on his crutches and rang the doorbell. A much plainer-looking Zolli, minus the black cloak and makeup, answered the door in jeans and a T-shirt. He ushered Mike inside and brought him to his livingroom where his television and VCR were sitting. The air stank of stale cigarette smoke and the room was cluttered with ashtrays, beer cans, partially-opened mail and dirty dishes.

After a half hour of chumming about living in Las Vegas and being stage performers, Zolli fetched a tape labeled “March 6” from a cluttered pile of VHS tapes piled on a filing cabinet, and popped it into the VCR. The images flew by in high speed as Zolli pressed his thumb to the VCR remote, until he found the right spot on the tape. He pressed stop then play when he saw the image of Mike on stage.

Mike watched the tape of his fall twelve times. Listening to the words he yelled, he could tell they were foreign, all right. He asked Zolli for a piece of paper, then he wrote the words down as best he could, phonetically: “Eel eye eel eye lemma saw buck thawny.”

He folded the note and stuffed it in his pocket.

After Mike reassured Zolli he would not be suing him, Zolli drove him back to his apartment. When he got inside, he powered on his computer, connected to the Internet and tried to find the meaning of the strange words. The Internet was no help at all. But that made sense, since he was sure he had the wrong spelling. He tried a few alternate spellings, but it was useless. What could it mean? he wondered. Somehow it sounded familiar, as if he had heard it before. Maybe it was something I heard when I was a kid that’s been locked away in my subconscious.

Thursday, March 7 - 4:00p.m.

Frustrated and determined to find the meaning of the strange words, he got out a phonebook and opened it up to the blue government section. He thumbed the pages until he found “University of Nevada–UNLV General Information.” Fumbling with the phone, he dialed the number on the page. A woman answered, “University Information. How may I direct your call?”

He stumbled on his words for a minute. Women always made him a little nervous. He always felt they were judging him. He hadn’t thought about what he was going to say and he didn’t know exactly what he wanted. Finally he said, “I’d like to talk with a professor of languages. Is there such a thing?”

The woman said, “One moment,” and Mike heard a click. He had been transferred. Great, he thought, now what do I say? She probably thought I was crazy. Maybe it was a crazy idea to call. Just then another voice came on the line; this time a man. “Language department; may I help you?”

This time Mike was more confident because he was talking to a man. Men were harmless, comfortable. “Hi. My name is Mike Tomson. I’d like to speak with a professor in your department.”

“Do you know his name?”

“Sorry, I’m not looking for a particular person. I just want to speak with anyone who can help me identify a language. Does anyone come to mind?”

The receptionist said, “Professor Bailey is the best linguist we got.”

“Does he have office hours today?” Mike asked.

The receptionist said, “Tomorrow she does. Eleven o’clock to noon.”

“Do I need an appointment?”

“No. Walk-ins are accepted.”

Mike thanked the man and hung up. Then he realized that in his haste he had forgotten to ask where Professor Bailey’s office was. For a brief moment he had considered calling back, but then decided to spare himself the potential embarrassment. Men don’t ask for directions, even when they’re lost. He was sure it had something to do with pride, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Admitting an oversight like this would somehow be admitting weakness. Instead, he dialed up the Internet and typed in “www.unlv.edu,” and from there he printed out a map of the campus.

Friday, March 8 - 10:45a.m.

Mike limped over to the garage door, opened it and peered in at the Harley. He flipped on the light to behold the beloved bike. The smell of oil and grease filled his nostrils and a smile filled his face as he took it into his lungs. He said, “Not this time, darlin’. Doc says we can’t go riding for eight weeks,” and that thought was depressing.

Soon he was in the back of a taxi headed for the UNLV campus with his crutches resting across his legs. After paying the driver, he got out and looked at the map he had printed the day before. After hobbling around campus for a while, he found the language building and went inside. Stale cold air filled the halls as if the air conditioners hadn’t stopped running in years. He looked around uncomfortably. He liked hot desert weather; it seemed unnatural for people to be huddled in offices breathing cold, stale air. There was no one in the halls. It was as if the building was a tomb.

He limped down the desolate hall on his crutches, looking at the locked offices. Every step produced a crunch sound and a thump as the sole of his one Reebok squeezed against the stone floor and the rubber feet of the crutches hit. A small plastic nameplate was mounted on the wall beside every door. Searching from door to door, he didn’t find any with the name “Bailey,” so he went back to the long set of stone stairs and began to climb to the second floor, where he continued his search. He thought he heard footsteps echoing down the empty halls. As he stopped to listen, the footsteps stopped, as if someone did not want to be noticed. He paused a while longer to see if the footsteps would resume, but they didn’t. Nervously, he continued. Crunch-thump, crunch-thump.

Turning left, he found an office door with a plaque that read, “Dr. A. Bailey.” The office was closed and dark like the others. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocket watch. Every time he pulled it out, it made him chuckle. He could never wear a wristwatch because they would stop ticking the minute he put them on. He remembered telling this to Mister Cook in a tenth grade physics class, but Cook didn’t believe him and had scoffed at the idea. “That’s ridiculous,” were Cook’s exact words, but when Mike had insisted he was telling the truth, Cook took his wristwatch off and said, “Put this on.” Always eager to put authority in its place, Mike had held out his left wrist in an act of mock submission. Cook had slipped the watch onto Mike’s wrist and for a few seconds, it ticked away happily. Cook had announced, “There. You see?” Then the watch had stopped, deader than a doornail. The memory never failed to bring a smile to Mike’s lips. The universe has ways of dealing with arrogance, he thought. He wasn’t sure why watches stopped for him; they just did. He once read a magazine article that said it often happened to Near-Death Experiencers, but as far as he knew, he’d never had any brushes with Death, except for Wednesday night’s collapse on stage, and he meant to keep it that way.

His pocket watch read 10:55 a.m., and just as though on cue, he heard the click, click, click of high heel shoes in the hall. A distinguished looking blonde came darting up the stairs, nearly tripping over his crutches and running right into him. Regaining her composure, she turned to him and said, “Sorry. May I help you?”

He gave her the once-over, scanning her from head to toe. She looked about forty years old, and about five and a half feet tall. Her blonde hair was even longer than his, pulled back into a pony tail. She was dressed professionally, in a gray suit jacket and medium-length skirt to match. She wore oversized thick-rim glasses, and the eyes behind them held a complexity that told him she was very intelligent.

“Professor Bailey?” he asked.

The formality of her title was like flattery to her and she accepted it graciously. “Yes. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I’m not sure where to begin.”

“How about with some amusing pick-up line?” she laughed. Her smile got even bigger when she saw him blush; a little payback for the once-over. Bailey unlocked the door to the office, turned on the lights and stepped inside. Books and papers were piled almost to the ceiling on every chair and shelf. A fellow book lover, he thought. On one corner of her desk sat a computer, spotless and pristine, but obviously well used. Bailey moved a large pile of books from a nearby chair and motioned for him to sit. Then she opened her desk drawer and fished out a business card and handed it to him. It read,

Dr. Alice Bailey, Ph.D.

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Department of Language Studies

Mike stuffed the card in his pocket, then looked around the office and wondered how much he should tell her or even where to begin. If he told her the whole story about the hypnotist, she might think he was crazy. He figured it was better to avoid embarrassing questions. Great, he thought. Here I am worrying about being judged by a woman again. Let’s just get on with it. “My name is Mike Tomson, and I was wondering if you could help me identify a language.”

Bailey adjusted her glasses to see him better and shot him a serious “I’ve underestimated him” look. “Well, Mr. Tomson, I can give it a shot. What information do you have about this language?”

“Just a few words.” Mike took the note from his pocket and unfolded it. “They sounded like this: ‘Eel-eye, eel-eye, lema saw-buck thawny’.”

“Is that all you’ve got?”

“Yep, that’s all.”

Dr. Bailey paused, wondering how much she should tell him. She knew that if she answered one question, more would likely follow, and since she had a huge pile of papers to grade before her two-o’clock class, she didn’t have time for them. If the words weren’t Hebrew, it might take her hours to decipher them, especially since they were given phonetically and not spelled correctly. Even if it was, Hebrew grammar was not her strong point, and it would take a while to discern the meaning. “Well, it could be a number of languages. My first guess is Hebrew. The word ‘Eli’ has several meanings in Hebrew, such as ‘God.’ I’d like to refer you to a friend of mine, Rabbi Louis Goldberg. I’m sure he’d be happy to translate it for you. He lives about a mile from here. He’s fluent in Hebrew and would be happy to answer all your questions.”

Mike was taken by surprise. She didn’t even look in a book, or type an equation into her computer. She just knew it off the top of her head. He wondered if she knew more about the strange words but didn’t want to get into it with him. “Thank you, Professor Bailey.”

She interrupted him by saying, “Alice.”

He saw that she wasn’t avoiding his intense eyes, but rather looking right at them. “Thanks, Alice. Can you tell me how to get there?”

She clicked her computer’s mouse a few times, then looking at the screen, she wrote Goldberg’s phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to him.

Mike hobbled down the hall and out of the Language building into the bright Nevada sun. So the word was probably Eli, and it probably meant God, he thought. Now his curiosity drove him onward. He had to learn the meaning of the strange foreign words.

Excerpt from The Gospel According to Mike

Someone asked, “How can we be closer to God?”

He said, “You can’t get any closer because the Creator is already there inside you. You need only stop ignoring God’s presence. The separateness is only an illusion, woven like a tapestry around our lives to encourage us to become more spiritual. And if you see through the illusion, you can plug back into God. In so doing, you can unleash God’s infinite power and wisdom.”