A New Man
At an hour when many people's workdays were coming to an end, Bart Ellerbee pulled his vintage Cadillac into his personal parking spot and entered the former First National Bank building that was now home to radio station WREP.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Ellerbee," the pretty twenty-two-year-old receptionist called to him when he passed through the lobby.
"Hi, there, sweetie," he replied.
He knew her name, but he never used it. Despite the #MeToo movement, he continued his lifelong habit of addressing women with pet names like honey, baby, babe, sweetheart and doll-face. Some women, he knew, were flattered, but most considered his behavior either sexist or patronizing. He did not care one way or the other how they felt.
"This sensitive man nonsense is all a pile of horseshit!" he often declared. "I didn't get to be America's leading talk radio host by being politically correct. Quite the opposite. I built my career on offending people."
At precisely 3:55 p.m., he walked into the studio where a red-haired, freckle-faced college senior, who was this year's unpaid intern, had a hot cup of French roast—black with one sugar—and a glazed donut waiting for him.
"Thanks, honey. You're an angel. I bet Hannity and Limbaugh never had a real looker like you fetching them coffee."
The controversial radio host then took off his leather jacket, revealing a T-shirt emblazoned with the acronym G.O.A.T., meaning "greatest of all time."
What it really means, the intern thought to herself, is that you're an old goat, but that would be an insult to goats.
Like a king sitting on his throne, Bart took his seat at the broadcasting desk. At precisely four o'clock, the engineer in the control room flicked the ON AIR button, and the host turned on his microphone.
"Good afternoon to all my listeners out there. Hey, today is February 12. Do you know what happened on this day? Abraham Lincoln was born back in 1809. Yes, good old Honest Abe. That leads me to wonder: when was the last time we had an honest man in the White House? Abe Lincoln was the first Republican president. Did you know that? And they shot him. Do you think John Wilkes Booth was a Democrat? Yes, the first Republican president was assassinated by an actor, and Hollywood liberals have been crucifying Republicans ever since."
The intern rolled her eyes in disgust, wondering why she had accepted the internship in the first place.
It's my own fault, she chastised herself. I knew what a jerk this guy was.
Once Bart's conservative rant was over, he introduced his first guest: a former CNN reporter who had just written a book on Vietnam. For the next twenty minutes, there was a heated debate on whether or not U.S. forces ought to have been fighting in Southeast Asia. When the segment came to an end, the former television journalist angrily left the station, complaining that the show's host was an ass. He got no argument from the studio personnel.
"My next guest," Bart announced after a few pitiful attempts at humor, "is exercise guru, Carla Margrave, who wants to introduce us to her latest creation—did I read this correctly?—New Man."
"That's right," the guest said.
"You're on my radio show to pitch a new product. What's the matter, honey, couldn't you get a spot on Shark Tank?" the radio host laughed.
"I'm not looking for investors. I don't need a high-powered entrepreneur trying to get a piece of my company."
"New Man? Tell me, what exactly is it, a blow-up sex doll for women?"
Carla did not acknowledge his crass remark with a reply. Instead, she chose to ignore it.
"It's a tonic."
"You mean like those traveling salesmen sold in the Old West? Those tonics claimed to cure everything from thinning hair to bunions."
"No. New Man is a restorative. It gives you energy and makes you feel like a new man, or woman, whatever the case may be."
"Women can take it, too, huh? Isn't it rather sexist calling it New Man then? Why not New Person? You better be careful or the PC Police will be after you."
"According to Merriam-Webster, the word man can mean a member of the human race, one of either sex."
"You don't have to argue your case with me, honey. It's the left-wing nuts you have to watch out for."
"As I said before," Carla continued, "New Man gives you energy and stamina and makes you feel years younger."
"Like a liquid form of Viagra?" the host laughed.
"Why? Do you need it?" she countered.
"Hell, no!"
The remainder of the segment seemed more like an infomercial than a radio talk show. Bart and his guest discussed where the product could be purchased and how much it cost. As Carla was about to leave, she gave a bottle of New Man to the host.
"Are you gonna charge me for this?" he laughed.
"No. This bottle is on the house."
* * *
At 8:00 p.m., his four-hour shift over, Bart Ellerbee bid his listeners farewell and headed home to his luxury townhouse. Three times divorced, he had no wife or children. Only his long-haired dachshund, Samson—"Sam" for short—greeted him at the door.
"You hungry, boy?"
The dog replied with a bark and danced around him, wagging his tail excitedly.
After putting a thick steak in the broiler and a baking potato in the microwave, the radio host opened a can of Blue Buffalo, knowing the dog would finish its food and then beg for the remains of his steak. Once both man and dog had eaten, the owner got his pet's leash and took the animal for a walk. Although they only went a short distance, roughly the length of two city blocks, the outing took nearly half an hour since Sam stopped every couple of feet to sniff the ground.
"You know, boy, this isn't much exercise for me."
The dog, concentrating on the scent of a French poodle, ignored him.
"Maybe I ought to join a gym. I've put on a few pounds lately. At my age, I have to worry about my health."
When the radio host got back to his house, though, he opened a can of beer, plopped down onto his recliner, picked up the remote and turned on the television. The movie being shown on his favorite station, one well-known for its conservative political viewpoints, was Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the sixteenth president. Bart immediately changed the channel, refusing to watch the film because a British actor was cast to play the title role.
"I don't know what Spielberg was thinking," he complained to Sam. "Couldn't he find an American to play Lincoln?"
Instead, he switched to another channel, one that was showing the Civil War epic, Gettysburg.
"This is more like it! A movie about American history shot in Pennsylvania and starring American actors."
He watched the film until the end. Then, since it was past midnight, he decided to go to bed. In his younger days, he would have stayed up until the early hours of the morning, making the rounds of his favorite bars and clubs. Since his last divorce, however, he became a homebody, staying in every night with only Sam for company.
"I just don't have the energy I had when I was younger," he told the sleeping dachshund who was curled up on what had been his last wife's side of the bed.
As Bart kicked off his slippers, he remembered the sample of New Man Carla Margrave had given him. He wondered if it really worked. He went downstairs to the hall closet and removed the bottle from the pocket of his leather jacket.
What have I got to lose? he thought and then unscrewed the top and swallowed the contents.
There was no medicine taste—thank God! In fact, there was no flavor at all.
Despite taking a tonic that was supposed to give him energy, he fell asleep as soon as he put his head on the pillow.
* * *
"Am I awake or asleep?" Bart wondered.
His eyes fluttered open, and he got a glimpse of his surroundings. He was definitely not in his townhouse.
I must be sleeping, but I've never had such a vivid dream before.
"Sam? Where are you, buddy?" he called, but no sound escaped his lips.
He tried to move, but it was as though he were paralyzed. His body would not respond to his mental commands.
The bedroom door—but not his bedroom door—opened, and an African-American servant entered with a tray of food.
"Here's your breakfast, Mr. President."
Mr. President? What the hell is going on here?
Again, although the words formed in his brain, they never left his mouth. Then his lips moved, and words came out, but they were not his own.
"Thank you. Is Mrs. Lincoln awake yet?"
Lincoln? Of course! Today was Lincoln's birthday. That's why I'm having this dream. I wonder if I look like Daniel Day-Lewis.
A hand—Lincoln's hand?—picked up the fork, and conveyed the food to his mouth. Bart could taste the egg as he chewed it.
Wait until I tell my listeners about this. Me, Bart Ellerbee, as President Lincoln! What a kick!
There was none of the weird surrealism that always characterized his previous dreams. This was like experiencing firsthand a day in Lincoln's life, played out in real-time. He could feel the slain president's muscles respond when he rose from his bed and got dressed. His legs carried the commander-in-chief down the stairs and into his office, overlooking the unfinished Washington Monument.
This is incredible! It's like watching a reality show on TV, but Abe Lincoln is the star, not Todd Chrisley, Hulk Hogan or Ozzy Osbourne.
Midmorning, Mary Todd Lincoln entered the office. In physical appearance, she was the antithesis of her husband. Abe was tall and lanky; she was short and stout. It was hard for Bart to imagine Sally Field playing the role of this squat first lady, but then he would never have cast an Englishman as the president.
A casual line spoken by the first lady suddenly turned the dream into a nightmare.
"Don't forget. We're going to the theater tonight."
This was no ordinary day in Lincoln's life. It was April 14, 1865, the day he would be assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.
"Good." The former lawyer from Springfield, Illinois, replied. "Now that Lee has surrendered and the war is drawing to a close, I could use a night out."
Apparently, the president had no hint of impending doom, at least none Bart could sense. On the other hand, the radio host felt his own fear mount with each passing hour.
When am I going to wake up? his brain screamed.
Then a memory came to him, a question from the past that once spawned a healthy debate with one of his show's guests: if a person dies in his sleep, does he die in real life?
What if John Wilkes Booth, in shooting Lincoln, kills me, too?
For the remainder of the morning, through the afternoon and into the early evening, Bart Ellerbee tried to force himself to wake up but to no avail.
If I could just prevent him from going to see that damned play tonight .... That's it! If Lincoln doesn't go to the theater, he won't be assassinated.
No matter how hard he tried to alter the president's movements, however, he was completely helpless. Although he could feel every physical sensation that Lincoln felt, he was incapable of responding. If Abe were to put his hand into a fire, Bart would feel the flames burn the skin, yet he would not be able to pull the hand away.
If I'm still a prisoner in this body tonight, I'll probably feel the bullet enter my head. I'll experience whatever pain Lincoln did when he was shot. Only in my case, it will be much worse! The president is unaware of the fate that awaits him whereas I'll have to endure the mental anguish of anticipating that fatal moment.
* * *
"And it happened just like I feared it would," Bart told psychiatrist Dmitri Petrakis. "I accompanied Lincoln to Ford's Theatre. I sat in the presidential box with the first lady, Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée, Clara Harris. I knew what was coming but could do nothing to stop it. Finally, around 10:15, during the last act of Our American Cousin, I heard the door behind us open. The president never knew what hit him—but I did!"
"And you had this dream ...."
"It wasn't a dream!" Bart cried. "It was some kind of spell cast on me by that witch who gave me the tonic."
"If, as you say, New Man caused you to experience this hallucination ...."
"It was no hallucination, Doctor. Damn it! Don't you understand English? Listen to what I say, will you? This didn't happen in my imagination. My mind was somehow put into Lincoln's body."
"Let's examine the facts," the psychiatrist said. "You drank the tonic before going to bed that night and had this ... experience. Chemists have analyzed random sample bottles of New Man and found it consists of nothing more than caffeine, ginseng, sugar, B vitamins, taurine and ginkgo biloba."
"What Carla Margrave gave me must have been different then."
"Assuming you're correct and that she deliberately put you in Lincoln's body, she would have had to find a way not only to transport your mind through space but time as well. I'm a man of science, and frankly, I don't know of any chemical that can do that."
"I have no idea how she did it, but she did!" Bart stubbornly insisted.
"Okay. You drank one bottle that night. It contained three ounces of tonic. In a man your size, the effects ought to have worn off within a few hours, yet you had other dreams—excuse me, experiences. How do you account for that?"
"They were obviously flashbacks like people get after using LSD."
"Those so-called LSD flashbacks referred to hallucinations people had long after taking the drug. If you think the subsequent dreams were flashbacks, then you admit they were hallucinations."
Bart, becoming increasingly agitated, jumped up from his seat. Then, remembering the importance of these sessions, he sat back down.
"Tell me more about these experiences," Dr. Petrakis said. "When did you have the second one? Who did it involve?"
"The next day. My first guest, a well-known Broadway actor, brought up the fact that the following day was Valentine's Day. A brief discussion about his plans for the holiday followed. That night, my mind traveled back to 1929 Chicago to the site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. It was imprisoned inside a man named John May, a car mechanic, who was only at the North Clark Street warehouse to repair one of the gang's automobiles. Again, I knew what was going to happen, but I was unable to do anything about it. At roughly 10:30 in the morning, a cop car pulled up outside the building. When the two men in police uniforms told everyone to line up against the wall, I was terrified, but none of the men took it seriously. They thought it was a shakedown and that Bugs Moran, who was expected any minute, would pay the cops off. I alone knew that our bodies were about to be riddled with machine gun bullets."
"So, this second experience was brought about by a relatively harmless discussion held that afternoon?" Dr. Petrakis asked.
"Yes."
"And what about the other incidents? What triggered them?"
"The following day I heard a Beatles song on the radio while I was driving home. That night when I went to sleep, I found myself in John Lennon's head. I clearly recall leaving the Dakota with Yoko Ono on the evening of December 8, 1980. When John autographed the Double Fantasy album cover for Mark David Chapman, I tried to warn him. But this weird relationship I have with these people only works one way. Apparently, they are completely unaware that someone else is in their brain."
"What did you expect?" the psychiatrist asked. "They're all dead."
"That's exactly what infuriates me! Why am I put into the bodies of men who were murdered? After hearing a Beatles song, why couldn't I have gone into Paul McCartney's body instead of John's?"
"That's why I'm here," Dr. Petrakis calmly explained. "To find out the reason you're having these experiences. What is it about murdered men that captivates you?"
"If you think I've got some kind of ghoulish attraction for the dead, you're wrong. She's the one who is responsible, not me."
"Carla Margrave? Forgetting about how she could manage to do the impossible, have you ever wondered why she would do it? What does she have against you?"
"Who knows? Why did Chapman kill Lennon? Why did John Hinkley shoot Reagan? Forget all the bullshit about The Catcher in the Rye and Jodie Foster. Those guys were insane—pure and simple. The world is full of nutcases! You ought to know that; you're the shrink."
"Yes. Well, I'm afraid our session is just about over," Dr. Petrakis announced after glancing at his watch. "Why don't we continue this discussion tomorrow morning?"
* * *
"My next experience—as you call it—was by far the most interesting one I had," Bart said after settling down on the psychiatrist's couch. "It was the only one where my curiosity outweighed my fear. For the first time, I knew what was about to happen, and I did not attempt to stop it."
"What triggered it?" Dr. Petrakis asked.
"Football. Weird, huh? One of my guests mentioned that Tony Romo played his entire career in Dallas. That was all it took. I was in JFK's brain that night. It was so real! I could actually smell the roses someone gave Jackie when we landed at Love Field. And I could feel the discomfort in Kennedy's back. My anticipation was building as we got into the Lincoln Continental that was to take the president to the Trade Mart. As the motorcade turned onto Elm Street, I hoped to find out once and for all if there was a gunman on the infamous grassy knoll."
"And did you?"
"No, damn it! I could only see what Kennedy saw that day. He was looking at the people in the crowd or occasionally at Jackie, Governor Connally or his wife. I couldn't even tell if the shot to his head was from the front or the back. All I was aware of was intense pain."
"During these experiences, do you ever feel the actual death of these men?"
"No. I'm not a religious man, but I do believe in heaven, or at least some form of life after death. Who knows? Maybe the Hindus are right, and we'll all be reincarnated. Still, I keep expecting to see some bright light as the end nears, but I always wake up first."
Since the psychiatrist believed his patient was suffering from elaborate delusions and that he could not possibly have shared consciousness with these men before they were killed, he did not press for details surrounding the actual moment of death. Instead, he wanted to know what triggered each event.
"Moving along, who was next after Kennedy?"
"Oddly enough," Bart replied, "Oswald. And—damn me!—he never once thought about the assassination. His mind was on his wife and children the entire time. So, I still can't solve the mystery of who shot Kennedy."
"Let's forget about conspiracy theories for now. Tell me about your experience with Oswald."
"I was in his mind when the Dallas police took him down to the basement of the police station and Jack Ruby shot him."
"And then ...," Dmitri prompted.
"After Oswald, it was Kennedy's brother, Bobby. I was in his mind as he stood beside Ethel when he spoke to his supporters at the Ambassador Hotel on June 4, 1968. I remained with him when he tried to exit the hotel through the kitchen and was taken down by Sirhan Sirhan."
"What triggered that experience?"
"I don't know. There was no mention of any of the Kennedys that day. Nor was there a trigger the next night when I was transported into the mind of Martin Luther King, Jr. My brain accompanied him during his last hours on earth. At roughly six o'clock in the evening, we were standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, talking to Jesse Jackson, when the assassin's bullet entered King's right cheek."
"And was that when you decided that Carla Margrave was responsible?"
"No. I realized she was behind it all after I became one with Bugsy Siegel and someone fired through the window of Virginia Hill's apartment, putting four bullets in his body."
"Bugsy was right after Dr. King?" the psychiatrist asked, trying to make a mental chronology of his patient's delusion.
"No. Clyde Barrow was after King, and Bugsy was after Clyde."
"What was it about Bugsy's death that led you to put the blame for these experiences on Ms. Margrave?"
"It was something the gangster said before he was shot. He was telling his friend that Virginia made him feel 'like a new man.'"
"That was it?"
"Yes. New Man was her product, her invention."
"But that's a pretty common expression. I've said it myself on occasion."
"Don't you see? All these experiences began on February 12 with Lincoln," Bart explained, "and that happened right after I drank the bottle of New Man tonic. Every night thereafter I entered the mind of a different man—basically becoming a new man myself in the process—only to know that imminent death awaited me."
"What did you do after coming to this conclusion?"
The doctor knew exactly what happened next but wanted to hear his patient's side of the story.
"I went to her house and confronted her."
"What did she say?"
"That I was crazy. That New Man was harmless and was about to be sold by both Walmart and Amazon."
"And you didn't believe her?"
"Like all women, she lied. She was the crazy one, not me! You should have heard the things that damned bitch said to me, the names she called me."
"What exactly did she say?"
"That I was a racist, a misogynist, an ignorant redneck, a heartless Republican and worse."
"It's obvious from her comments that the two of you had some political differences."
"Yeah, she was a tree-hugging liberal and a woman's libber. I did the world a favor by getting rid of her."
There it was. The psychiatrist had succeeded where law enforcement officers had not. He got Bart Ellerbee to confess to murdering Carla Margrave. Of course, Dmitri could not divulge this confession to either the district attorney or the press. That would violate doctor-patient confidentiality. Besides, the jury had found him guilty based on the overwhelming amount of forensic evidence found at the crime scene, and he was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
"And since you killed Ms. Margrave, have these experiences stopped?"
The question seemed to visibly deflate the patient. His shoulders slumped and his head hung down.
"No."
The reply was barely audible.
"What did you say?"
"No," he repeated in a louder voice. "I still keep popping into people's heads—Mahatma Gandhi, Gianni Versace, Malcolm X, Harvey Milk, Huey Long, Sal Mineo, Jay Sebring .... There have been so many that I can't keep track of them all."
"And why do you think that is?"
"Because I killed Carla Margrave before she could remove the spell she cast on me."
"A spell?"
"Spell, curse, hex—whatever you want to call it. It still has me in its grip."
* * *
After his session with Dr. Petrakis came to an end, a prison guard escorted Bart Ellerbee back to his cell. As he walked down the hall, the convicted murderer peered through the bars of one cell and saw Carla Margrave sitting on the edge of the bunk.
"Only you can break the spell," she announced.
He averted his eyes and continued walking. As he passed the next cell, he saw her again in his peripheral vision.
"You know how. Just do it."
He tried to shut the image of his victim out, but the torment continued, seeing the witch with each cell he passed.
"You'll feel like a new man. Do it."
Bart knew what would happen next, but, like always, he was unable to stop it. It was as though he were in a speeding car heading directly toward a brick wall with no brakes and no ability to steer.
I'd do anything to break this vicious cycle!
It was always the same. It always began on the afternoon of February 12 when he pulled his Cadillac into his parking space in front of the former First National Bank building. He would have to endure Lincoln's assassination for the umpteenth time, as well as the deaths of Kennedy, Dr. King, Bugsy and all the others right up to and including his own. He would once again return to his cell, tie his bedsheet around his neck and hang himself from the ceiling—all the while knowing his death would not bring an end to the nightmares. For no sooner would his final breath leave his body and his heart stop beating in his chest than he would be back behind the wheel of his Cadillac, pulling into his parking space on February 12.
Salem once put himself in Morris the Cat's brain. He quickly left when dinner time was over.
