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FILE 871

The Quest For TruthBy deMichael Myer

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 deMichael Myer
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-0280-1

Chapter One

Most of us look forward to final journeys. Just getting there, unpacking, and relaxing are the key elements to the sojourn ... unfortunately this one had a "Rest in Peace" overtone to it. Thirty-something seemed like an eternity back when I was a small child, but now it's just a speck of time in a lonely life. It's too late to change what I have or have not done, so all I can do is lie here motionless and stare into the eyes of my best friend. My soul mate as she puts it. Soul mate, that's an interesting concept. While I do believe there are several people right for each one of us, there is but one true mate that gets to the very heart of one's soul. That someone only comes along once in a lifetime, and Lucy Demonds was it for me. Lucy was a beautiful, vibrant woman with a quirky, but wonderful personality. Sometimes she would be playful and the next minute she could be cold and distant. Her smile was her most redeeming feature; it always lit me up whenever she was near. Stalwartness was her main attribute, which explains why she had been there for me right up to the very end.

Lucy, the mother of three beautiful girls, Missy, Kelly and Alex, was someone who began as an affair and ended up as an eternal love. Who would've guessed that I would fall in love with my best friend that just happened to be married? Bob, a close friend of mine, told me not to do it. He said, "Don't even think of it Ian, just fuck her and enjoy it." Bob asked me if I really wanted Lucy to leave her husband, and if so, was I ready for the ramifications. The answer was a simple yes; I did want her to leave her husband. Basically I loved her because she was the woman of my dreams. As fate would have it her husband actually left and divorced her. He hired a private detective to follow us, which wasn't too difficult seeing that we weren't very discreet. Our sexual activity was often found in a variety of local motels, parked cars and the occasional blanket in the woods. I assumed Lucy's husband couldn't live with the idea that I was having more sex with her than he was, so he up and left. I actually felt bad for him, but great for Lucy.

So here I am, frantically trying to exorcise the demons that have haunted me for the past fifteen years. This special care unit, or hospice as it's called, was designed to let the terminally ill pass away with dignity. Dignity ... I had no more dignity. It was long gone by the time I was twenty-one years old. And now Lucy, my oncologist, and my mother have gathered together one last time to bid me farewell. Tom Brokaw is on the television, so I'm thinking its evening. Mom's talking to Dr. Lipson, and Lucy is looking down at me, sadness written on her face. Her eyes are fixed on mine. I can read her thoughts as well as feel her pain. The love that she has shown in our short life is still there; it's euphoria for me even now. She keeps asking me, "Ian can you understand what I'm saying?" I would love to be able to answer her, but a stroke has left me incapable of speaking. A small blood clot broke off in my carotid artery and went to my brain, so conversation is no longer an option. If I could, I would tell Lucy how much I still love her and thank her for taking care of me, especially in these last few months. She knows that she is the one true love of my life, but it would be rewarding to tell her one last time. I would wish her well and tell her to hug the kids for me. Ask them to remember the great times we had together, as short as they were. Life would never be the same for any of them again, and the same could be said of me. I would simply slip away in the next few hours ... becoming a distant memory in a couple of years.

The one thing I wished I had done was to marry Lucy before I got to this stage of my life. She and the kids would have been able to capitalize on many of my government benefits. Lucy especially could have obtained some Social Security income to live on. Of course, that meant I would've had to take some sort of action, but as things go, long-range planning was not one of my better attributes. I procrastinated a lot and my live-in family would be the victims of my mismanagement. It seemed love and sex suited me better than solid decision-making, and that is why Lucy and I were soul mates.

I find myself drifting in and out of consciousness. It comes and goes a lot these days. I'm here and gone and back so much that I sometimes think I'm in a time machine. Thoughts range from my childhood, to the war and to the many loves of my life, but most often I think of Lucy. The pain is so unbearable; I'm not sure how much more of this I can endure. You'd think that the morphine drip that was going through my veins would slow the pain, but after awhile no amount of drugs can help. When I was still able to use a self-injector, I would hit myself with a dose of morphine all the time. The nurses informed me that I could only get so much in a single dose over a given period of time, so constant injection was a waste of time. Not for me, I didn't give a shit. I just believed that it was going to take the pain away. When you're this close to death you'll believe anything. The pain still engulfed me, except I could no longer tell anyone how bad it really was. No voice meant no more whining. The nursing staff liked it that way because they were completely tired of my complaining. I guess I was even tired of it myself. My body was rapidly closing down with no way to stop it. My life was getting shorter and shorter by the hour, to where I would soon welcome death. I wanted to go now, but one last glimpse of Lucy was enough to keep me going for whatever amount of time I had left. And that smile, it was still there showing right though what must have been total despair.

This microcosm of life that I had led was tragically concluding, but what got me here is infinitely more important than anything you could ever imagine. The lies, deceit and betrayal of our government led me down this path, but what matters most is that I am still here to tell my story.

It all started when I graduated from Robbinsdale High School. The year was 1966, Johnson was president, and I was in the fast lane, planning my life right on down to the model of Porsche I was going to buy. I figured I'd start out with a mildly short college career, followed by a lucrative contract in professional hockey. I'd attend school for a couple years and get drafted by the Canadiens or the Islanders. Play, say seven or eight seasons, and retire while I was young and physically able to maintain my mobility. Beautiful women would fulfill my childhood fantasies and off-ice endorsements from skate, stick or helmet manufacturers would keep me in cash well into the twenty-first century. Retirement would be pleasant if I invested shrewdly. I was young, smart and strong; I knew hockey like Keats knew verse. Life looked like it was going to rain gold on me; what followed was a shit-storm of epic proportion.

My freshman year at St. Cloud State College was fast paced ... majoring in parties and minoring in young female coeds. It was a mid-sized college just seventy quick miles up Interstate 94 from Minneapolis, with an enrollment of approximately 12,000 students. A short stones throw from home, but far enough away that I wouldn't be getting any unexpected visits from my parents. I attended classes infrequently, physically showing up only if I couldn't con some adorable young girl into taking notes for me. I was six foot two and weighed one...