"She just appeared there, like a scary groupie or something?" I interjected, for clarification.
"No no, it wasn't like that. She called first and asked if I minded if I would like a visitor. She was very thoughtful and all that.
"I was theoretically prepared for a visitor by the time she actually was at the door. In reality I was a complete mess. My mind and my heart were both racing, so fast that I really couldn't make much sense of what was happening. Actually it felt a lot like how you feel after you just took the LSD a half hour earlier or so."
"It's pretty hard to imagine how you must have felt."
I was trying to sound more sympathetic than jealous. I'm not sure if Zerzinski was completely impressed with my efforts, but he continued his storytelling anyway.
"This was basically your first date, post-diagnosis?"
He looked slightly miffed, and then more just perplexed, at my question.
"It wasn't really a date, you know. Well, I don't know. It was what it was. For me it was lovely. I hope it was for her. I'd like to think on a few different levels it might have been. But all I can be sure of is one of them.
"That's the problem, you know? That's always the thing. From that moment on, I have something people want. So who knows if all the rest is real or not? But I'm not the only person who has to try to figure that kind of stuff out."
He looked like he was once again shifting gears from philosophizing to storytelling. Which are different things, though related.
"So Charity came to my door. Bearing a small basket of perfectly ripe Georgia peaches. They really do grow peaches in Georgia, it's not just on the license plates. Charity was a few years younger than me. We're still in touch, you know."
I sensed a little bristle, and didn't comment on it. I could understand how he might feel defensive about these things. Needing to point out that they're still in contact. The moral quandaries Zerzinski had to deal with did indeed seem like tough ones. At least for someone who gave a shit. Which it was becoming increasingly clear to me this guy is.
"I did notice that she was a lovely, fit woman with engaging expressions on a charming face. But I really wasn't thinking about sex, either - I mean it was such an ever-present thought that I was actually not thinking about it.
"I knew it would come up as a regular thing on a regular basis, but I wasn't thinking about the details. I was just glad to have an intelligent person to talk to, who felt like visiting, or felt obligated to visit, or whatever it was. I was glad.
"She could see right away that I was troubled. And after we sat down in the living room area of the suite they were putting me up in, she was trying to be helpful. She asked me if there was anything else from my little crash course in genetics at the CDC that day that I wanted to know.
"It wasn't the science that I felt like I needed a better handle on, though, I told her. It's the implications of this thing. It's where does my life go from here?
"I'm still so thankful that she came over that evening. She's a scientist, and has a wonderfully scientific approach to life's questions.
"She just broke it down into a multiple choice kind of scenario for me. And it was like, yes, those are useful thoughts. Glad someone's brain is functioning right now."
"Nice when the brains function, eh?"
He chuckled. He looked a bit tense, remembering that evening. I realized I was hoping with the blithe comment to make him laugh a little, so he'd breathe. Which he did. Along with taking a sip of his cold cappuccino.
Then he looked somehow lost. I was wondering what that was about, when he explained it for me with a question.
"Where was I...?"
"Charity's multiple choice."
"Oh yeah. So she was like, 'let's look at the inputs and the outputs.'
"And then she even made a numbered list in two columns on the little notepad they always have next to the beds in hotels.
"The first column was 'value,' about how I have something very valuable. To the right, her multiple choice options were 'secrecy' and then 'security.'
"OK, the categories might seem kind of obvious. But I was finding the mere fact of the numbered list with columns really therapeutic at the time."
"Giving order to things can be very calming, eh?" I echoed.
Having also done LSD in the past as Zerzinski evidently had, I also added, "that first hour after dosing, we're often trying desperately to keep everything ordered, too, before the order melts away, eh?"
He smiled a knowing smile.
"Indeed," he said.
"What was her next category?"
"Her next category was 'treatment.' Which at first I found alarming. Do I need treatment for something? Is something wrong?
"That's when she smiled really broadly for the first time, and looked like she was suppressing laughter. 'No, Robert - you
are
the treatment.' She looked me in the eye up close and spoke slowly and clearly to make sure I got that sentence."
"And what were her suggestions for treatment?"
"She kept on referring to ethics. And how this was a field of science on its own. And how one aspect of ethics is my right to my own body, and my right to basically disregard this whole thing and continue with my life as if nothing big had happened. Letting the CDC do its research, and me just going about my business. That was her first option, which I think she titled 'avoid.'
"Another aspect of the ethics talk was about the value of helping people. Even when this involved various risks or pitfalls of one kind or another.
"So then she had #2 and #3. Two was what she suggested might be the most ethical and least practical, which she titled 'donate.'
"Three was what she said she thought was ethically the most challenging. But more practical and therefore more beneficent than other options, in her view."
"And what was #3?"
"'Sex.'
"She said if I wanted to be most useful to people, until the point came when what I have could be effectively synthesized and mass-produced, I could either masturbate into a petri dish every day - with each wanking session potentially saving a life, she emphasized. Though she didn't use the term 'wanking.'
"Or I could have as much sexual intercourse as possible with different women, obviously unprotected.
"That, she added, itself came with a multitude of challenges. Which she then listed in another column. She had obviously been thinking about this. She had - and has - a wonderful mind for tangents and possibilities. She had things like 'preventing STDs,' 'choosing clients,' 'rejecting clients.'"
"It's a lot to assimilate," I noted.
"It was," he said. "When I saw her write down the word 'clients,' my heart jumped. Yikes. That was the first time I had considered this concept."
"Which concept?"
"The concept of having lots of sex with women. Clients. And I was their treatment. That was the first time I thought about how if I was open for that kind of thing, I'd need to have some systematic way of choosing and rejecting potential clients. And preventing STDs."
"A lot to think about all at once," I chimed in.
"Yes. And just as I was trying to digest the idea of 'clients,' she moved past that one to the next thing.
"She said, in that lovely South Carolina lilt, 'Now, my name may be Charity, but I have no experience running either a charity or a business. However, if you went with option three, this is essentially what you'd be doing, or what someone would have to do on your behalf. And you'd have to think about things like paying rent, paying staff, hiring security, and all that. Just like at a clinic.'
"I was really glad she had laid that stuff out there, followed logic to its conclusions a bit. It really helped, and I realized I really needed to think through the possibilities very thoroughly before doing anything.
"I was thinking that as attractive as aspects of the 'sex' option were, maybe the other two options would be better in the long-term. Maybe I could have a more normal life. And maybe that would be better. Maybe the cons outweighed the pros."
"You thought that, seriously?" I was a bit shocked, despite myself. I didn't even mean to say that. It just came out.
"Seriously!" he replied emphatically. "Yes. You can ask Charity about that.
"But it didn't last long, for reasons outside of my control."
"Outside of your control?"
Zerzinski looked at me somewhat sternly.
"I was outed, you know. I'm not saying I wouldn't necessarily have gone public or started a clinic or whatever otherwise, but that's what happened."
"You had no other options? I mean I'm not saying you made the wrong move. I'm just wondering."
He took a deep breath. "It's complicated. I'd say options felt very limited, and I'm not sure how many other options there were. The more complex part, I'd say, is what you do with your options once you decide on one."
"Explain that?"
"Like, once you decide you're starting a clinic, then you have to figure out how do you attract clients? Or in my case, how do you repel them, and which ones do you reject?"
