Perry was my friend, and this story is as true as Perry's words were to me and is as accurate as my recollection of his words will permit.
It seems that every time July comes around, Perry does too, at least in my thoughts. It's a completely involuntary experience, but it's very powerful and very vivid. Oh yes, Perry died in the month of July, and his death after all these years, still troubles me deeply.
In some July's, I make the drive to visit his grave, just because ... well, I feel some kind of compulsion.
It's very hard for me to tell this story, and with each year that passes, I'm more and more afraid that I'm approaching the time that I will not be able to do it at all. I can't let that happen though. Perry deserves to have his story told, and since I believe that I am the only person who knows it, I'd better do it now. Then maybe I can have some peace of mind.
I don't know what I'll eventually do with this document. I may keep it completely private, writing it only as my own personal cartharsis, or I may decide to release it to the world (or at least to a few people), because there's something important for others to learn from the things Perry was forced to endure.
I had only known Perry for a short time, just a couple of years, before he died. We worked together. I was a computer consultant, and he was employed as a programmer by my client. Although I was solely responsible for my project, I needed to have Perry teach me about some programs that he'd written that I needed to use in my project.
Perry was a typical geek, totally in love with his programming job, and consequently he was extremely good at it. I quickly became impressed by how creative he was. He was by far the most talented in his department, and everyone else knew it. Nearly all of his co-workers admired him for his talent and brains. I suspect that a few were even in awe of him, and viewed him affectionately as some sort of strange genius. He actually was brilliant enough that he gained membership in Mensa, the society for those people possessing very high IQ's
Perry also had a family, of which I initially knew nothing. His wife, I soon learned, worked as a secretary in our department, and I met her shortly after I met Perry. He also had a teenaged daughter, the light of his life.
Perry and I started meeting for lunch, usually just the two of us, but sometimes joining one or two other employees. Perry and I talked about many things, and we immediately discovered that we were interested in many of the same things. I was also in love with my work, and we found that we had much to learn from each other both professionally and personally.
In no time at all, I felt that we were completely comfortable with each other, like we had known each other for a very long time. I realized that this feeling must have been caused by Perry's complete openness. Right from the start, he would just so casually confide to me very personal things about himself, the kinds of things I wasn't used to hearing from someone whom I'd known for such a brief time.
The first time it happened, we were in Perry's office, and it was the first day that he was attempting to familiarize me with the software he had written, and which I was going to be using as part of my project. He was pounding away at his PC keyboard, setting up the software. I was seated behind him with a good view of his monitor. Occasionally, he'd say something to me about what he was doing, never even slowing down to look up or at me. When I had to ask him to slow down a bit so that I could have some time to absorb all that he was doing, he said "OK", again without looking up, and with only a small reduction in his pace.
After a while, I needed for him to pause for a moment, so my mind could catch up with his. I used the boombox as my reason for interrupting things. Just above and behind me some good music was playing from a large boombox. It wasn't at all distracting, but I commented on it just to get Perry to pause.
I said, "That's a real fancy boombox you've got here."
Instead of pausing to look up and reply to my comment, he kept going on with the work at hand, and at the same time, he said, "It was my daughter's."
I asked, "Did she get a newer and better one?"
Again without even pausing or looking up, he contineud, "She's dead." I gasped, and before I could even utter a polite "I'm sorry", he continued without even catching his breath, "She shot herself. She had a fight with her boy friend. She was fourteen years old."
I didn't know what to say, and I don't even remember what awkward words came out of my mouth in response to his shocking revelation. And then I think I just sat there for a while in stunned silence, while Perry continued his work.
I was very troubled by what Perry had just told me and the way he had done it, and I had trouble concentrating on our work from then on. I asked if we could call it a day and resume the next morning, and he agreed.
I went back to my office, and I told what had just happened to another consultant I knew. She had been in the department for a few years, and she knew about the suicide of Perry's daughter. I mentioned to her that Perry had just blurted out his story to me as quickly and as casually as though the whole thing had happened to someone else, not to him. He showed no emotion at all while relating the event to me.
Kate said, "I was here the time when it happened. Perry was absolutely devastated. I'm not sure he's ever gotten over it. They were so close. I would often see them riding down the street on Perry's motorcycle. She would have her arms around her father's waist from the rear seat, and they were always laughing together."
Shortly after that, Perry missed a few days of work for some illness. It appeared that it was something serious. I became aware that some of his colleagues were asking for other co-workers to donate any excess sick leave they had to Perry, since he had used all of his. From Kate I came to learn that Perry was frequently in and out of the hospital for some condition that he wouldn't talk about.
When he returned to work, I met him for lunch, and welcomed him back. Not wanting to be too nosy, I casually asked him if he had fully recovered.
Perry replied with no hint of bitterness in his voice, "I'll never fully recover."
Being hesitant to press him further, I decided to change the subject, but before I had a chance, he began telling me his story, correctly assuming that I'd be interested. Here's that story.
Perry had previously been a sergeant in the Air Force, assigned as a technician doing maintenance work on ICBM's. The Air Force had never told him that he'd be working with some very dangerous chemicals, including chromium. Chromium is one of those elements that, like lead, mercury, and some other heavy metals, can cause serious and permanent mental and/or physical damage to a person if they should find their way into a person's body.
Not only did the Air Force intentionally not tell him that he would be handling chromium in his work, but they also didn't tell him prior to his being discharged from active duty, that medical tests done as part of his pre-discharge physical had revealed that a small piece of chromium had entered one of his lungs, and had become lodged there. So the Air Force not only illegally denied him the disability pension and medical benefits to which he was entitled, but they intentionally failed to tell him that he would at some point, sooner rather than later, be dead from chromium poisoning.
After re-entering civilian life, Perry began to experience some very strange and serious symptoms, and at first no one could figure out what was wrong with him. He didn't tell me exactly what symptoms he had, but they could have included chronic bronchitis, asthma, lung cancer, kidney failure, liver failure, etc. He merely stated that he was taking some very powerful drugs intended to slow down the disease's progress.
Eventually Perry learned with the help of his lawyer and doctors, that he was suffering from incurable chromium poisoning that he had contracted while on the job during his Air Force service. His death was inevitable, but his life expectancy was indeterminate.The government refused to accept any responsibility for Perry's condition.
Perry said that he had slowly resigned himself to his inevitable fate. But then he accidentally ran into a British surgeon, with whom he discussed his condition. The surgeon told Perry that while the present damage could't be undone, removing the chromium lodged in his lung would stop the progress of the disease and add many years to his life expectancy. Perry elected to have the surgery. A portion of his lung containing the chromium was removed. The operation was a success.
Then, a couple of months later, Perry began to experience some heart problems. It was about the time that Perry and I had met.
The bad news was that X-rays showed that, while his operation had been a success, the reduction in size of his damaged lung had left a void in his chest cavity allowing his heart to tip over into an unnatural position. Part of his heart was experiencing abrasion from abnormal contact with nearby body parts. His heart muscle had been so badly weakened from the abrasion that he could experience a fatal heart attack at any moment unless he reduced his physical activity to an absolute minimum.
The good news was that the problem was surgically repairable. His heart could be reoriented back into its normal position, and another repair could be made to assure that it would stay put. He could expect his heart to recover soon thereafter.
The other good news was that Perry's lawyer's persistance had succeeded in getting an important concession from the government. While the government still wouldn't admit any responsibility for Perry's condition, they did agree to allow Perry to be treated in a military hospital at government expense. In Perry's nearly bankrupt state, he accepted the offer.
So off he went to Bethesda Army Hospital in Maryland. There, Perry's heart was fixed, and again he returned to work. Perry told me that he felt much better. He said to me, "I can't believe it! A few weeks ago, I had no hope at all. Now I have a future. I can make plans for my life. I can allow myself look forward to things again." I was so happy for him, I nearly hugged him.
Perry soon had to return to Bethesda for a post-op exam. During the exam, doctors discovered that he had a grapefruit sized tumor on his liver and that it was malignant. The doctors believed that the tumor was probably caused either by the chromium itself or by the powerful drugs that he previously had to take. The tumor was however, operable, but there was always the chance that the surgeons couldn't remove all of it.
He had the liver operation. But for some reason, it was taking a very long time for the pathologist to get his report completed. In the meantime, Perry decided that he couldn't stand being in the hospital any longer. He left the hospital without authorization, and he began to hitchhike back home. His stitches had not yet been removed.
A truck driver gave him a lift to St. Louis. When they arrived there, Perry was exiting the truck, when in his severely weakened condition, he fell out of the truck onto the pavement, ripping out most of his stitches. He was bleeding badly, and had to be rushed to a nearby ER.
Ater some days in a St. Louis hospital, Perry returned home once again. He told me what had happened, and that he still didn't know the results of his surgery. He seemed pretty sure that there would be bad news in the pathology report. Then he astonished me by saying, "Bernie, no one knows about this but you. I have to ask you not to discuss it with anyone."
I replied, "No one but your wife and I know about it?"
Perry said, "You're the only one who knows."
I pleaded with him to tell his wife what was happening. I told him, "You can't go through something like this alone, Perry. Please don't deprive yourself of her support, and don't deny her the chance to help you get through this."
He said, "She can't take news like this. She goes to pieces with the slightest bad news."
I had to take his word for that, so I very reluctantly agreed to honor his request for secrecy.
I was leaving town for a one week vacation that evening, and Perry agreed to call me if he got any word while I was gone. I never got a call, so I assumed that everything was OK, or that there was still no word from Bethesda.
When I returned from my vacation, the first thing I did was go to Perry's office, but I found it dark, so I decided to catch him later in the lunch room. Before lunch though, I was approached by a co-worker and asked, "Are you planning on attending the funeral this afternoon?"
Never suspecting the answer, I asked who had died. When I heard, "Perry. Didn't anyone tell you?", I instantly went into some kind of shock, and I had to sit down so I wouldn't faint.
I asked what happened, and I was told that he had died in a drowning accident a few days earlier. Perry had for a long time been in the habit of taking long motorcycle rides out of town when he felt the need to be alone with his thoughts. If the day was especially hot, he would drive to his favorite swimming hole, and go for a nice cooling dip wearing all of his clothes, including his riding boots. He'd swim a long way out into the lake, and then turn around and swim back to shore to dry off in the hot sun.
Many people had seen him do his swimming routine in the past, and while they considered it a slightly nutty thing to do, it seemed to be pretty normal for Perry. On the day he drowned, he swam about his usual distance out into the lake, but this time, for some reason, he didn't make it back.
At the funeral service that afternoon, I got a chance to learn a few more things about Perry's life before we met. The most disturbing of those things was that Perry had always loved to swim, and he was a very accomplished swimmer. In fact, he had been a star on his college's swim team, winning a number of team and individual championships in those days.
So how could someone who was such an expert swimmer accidently drown? I'll probably never know how it happened. Had Perry seriously overestimated his endurance after his recent surgeries and just ran out of gas on his way back to shore? Perhaps he had received his pathology report and it had contained some terrible news. Perhaps he just couldn't take any more life-threatening illnesses, and being emotionally and spiritually drained, he just gave up and allowed the lake to take him.
After the church service, which for some reason was a closed casket service, I had to endure one final horror. During the burial service, I stood off to one side watching Perry's wife and surviving teenaged daughter at the graveside. I saw his daughter vomit up all of her grief onto the ground. The sight of her wreching in agony triggered in me a sudden understanding of the true horror that had led to this tragic moment.
I will go to my own grave knowing that our government robbed a good and decent man, husband, and father of his life, and also robbed me of a very dear friend. I'll always know that they did it willfully and callously in order to avoid responsibility for an innocent man's death.
Perry and I never even got to really say goodbye to each other. Not even those lovely and touching services were able to fill the huge hole left in me by his passing. It sometimes seems like that hole can never be filled, because I alone know just how cowardly and evil were the people responsible for his death and for my great loss, and that there will never be any justice at all for my friend.
Perry, I hope that I'm forgiven for finally telling your story. I did it partly to purge from myself the rage that I experience every time I think of you (which is very often), and I want it to go away. For all these years, I haven't been able to talk to anyone about you, and I just can't keep it all inside of me any more. I want to think of you as resting in peace, and as I am only now discovering, I need a little peace for myself as well.
I do think of you very often Perry, but even if I didn't, I know that somehow you will remind me to when July comes around again. And then you'll do it again the July after that, and the next one, and ... . I also know that in one of these upcoming July's, probably soon, I will feel haunted by your memory just a little more than usual, and I'll again be making that journey to your resting place and be briefly with you again.
Maybe one day I'll be able to speak of Perry without experiencing all of the rage and all of the tears, but for the time being, this written version is all that I'm capable of doing. Even writing it has been very difficult for me. I had to do it in pieces. I began this writing in July, and I'm only finishing it now in late December.
But this effort has helped me to understand just how badly I was damaged by Perry's completely unnecessary death. I hope that someday soon it will help me to attain the peace that I crave.
© 2004 by Bernard Schneider. All rights reserved.
