Part 1, Episode 21: "A Dab of Reality, A Pinch of Mortality"

As Conrad walked toward his office the next morning, he could hear growling from Gretchen’s cubicle, an early warning sign of trouble. He felt his pace, already slower than usual after another restless night because of his sore shoulder, reduce to nearly a crawl. After the emotional ringer he had been through the last few days, he just didn’t need to start the day with a new problem.

As he reached his office, Conrad saw that this was not a new problem. Rather, it was a new episode of an ongoing concern. “Conrad, I really, really need to see you,” the water polo coach, Biff Fishwell said as he stood to greet his boss. Conrad stopped, took a deep breath, and escorted the coach into his office accompanied by the background noise of Gretchen’s barking.

After plopping into his chair and grimacing when it felt that a hot knife had been stuck through his shoulder, Conrad engaged the obviously troubled water polo coach. “What’s on your mind, Biff?”

“I can’t take this anymore, Conrad,” Fishwell blurted out. “I just can’t freaking take it!”

“I’m assuming you didn’t win yesterday,” Conrad said.

“Are you kidding?” Fishwell screeched. “We don’t win. We lose and lose and lose, and then you know what? We lose some more. I can’t take it!”

Conrad sighed and gingerly sat back in his chair. “How bad was it yesterday?” he asked.

“14-0,” Fishwell spit out. “14-0! You just can’t lose a water polo game 14-0. This is an embarrassment. My reputation will be ruined! I can’t take it anymore.”

Conrad pulled his chair up to the edge of his desk, sat up straight, and locked into direct eye contact with Fishwell. “Look, Biff,” Conrad said, measuring his words in a very firm tone, “you talked Mr. Farnsworth into starting this program. You told him you could put together a decent team when common sense would tell you otherwise. Now you have failed miserably and you want to bail out!? Are you really that much of a weasel?”

Fishwell looked at Conrad for a moment and softly said, “I’m afraid I am.”

Conrad, not for the first time since coming to Farnsworth U, fought the urge to jump over his desk and strangle the person sitting in front of him. After again successfully resisting that urge, he looked at Fishwell and said, “I will not allow you to bail out on those poor kids that have tried their best to represent this school. They’ve been put in a no-win situation, literally, and I will not let you sneak out the back door. You make sure your ass is at practice today working with those kids and trying to salvage something out of this disaster. They deserve your best effort, and you had better give it to them. Understood?”

“Yes sir,” Fishwell sheepishly said.
“Good. Now get out of my office,” Conrad concluded and turned toward his office window.


Another Saturday meant another exciting afternoon of Fighting Ferret football. For this game, Conrad and Troy Flemstone had to make the three and one-half hour trip to Charlesport, Pennsylvania to broadcast Farnsworth’s game against the Charlesport College Charley Horses.

The Ferrets entered this game at 0-8, having suffered two blowout losses since their last-second defeat vs. Key College. Charlesport’s season was heading in the opposite direction, with only one loss in their eight games. Conrad and Troy both expected to watch another bad beating vs. the Horses, and agreed that the only thing worse than watching your team get slaughtered was having to go so far out of your way to do so.

Conrad and Troy correctly anticipated the outcome, a 45-3 thrashing. Perhaps the most discouraging thing about it for Conrad was the fact that the Ferrets had not made many mistakes. They had drastically reduced their tendency to turn the ball over deep in their own territory and set their opponents up for easy scores. That should have been encouraging, but instead the Farnsworth team was physically pummeled on both sides of the ball.

Charlesport did not need turnovers to dominate the Ferrets. They totally controlled the line of scrimmage and methodically marched downfield nearly every time they had the ball. Stump Williams’ team seemed helpless to do much about it. The defense had kept them in games early in the season, but that unit appeared to have nothing left in the tank at this point.

Troy noticed Conrad was unusually quiet on the trip back from north-central Pennsylvania, passing countless bars and adult bookstores on the winding and hilly country roads. Conrad mentioned how sore his shoulder was and asked Troy how his collarbone was healing. The news from his doctors was good and he was healing at a rapid pace. He was now nearly off the painkillers and feeling a lot more like himself.

“Do you have any of those with you?” Conrad asked.

“You mean my painkillerth?’ Troy replied.

“Yeah, you got any on you?” Conrad reiterated.

“Why?” Troy asked. “You aren’t thopothed to take thoth without a prethrcipthun.”

“I know, but one would hopefully take the edge off and let me get some sleep tonight.” Conrad said.

“Well, I gueth tho,” Troy acquiesced. “You really thould eat thomething with that, though. Let’s thtop at the next gath thation and get a thnak.”

“Okay, whatever,” Conrad agreed. “I don’t need to get sick to my stomach on top of my shoulder throbbing.”

“Ith none of my buthineth, but have you thought about theeing a doctor?” Troy reluctantly inquired.

“Yeah, but I hate to take the time,” Conrad said, trying to blow off the suggestion. “I’m sure I just slept on it wrong or something. I just need to get some sleep and give it time to heal up.

“I hope you’re right,” Troy said, feeling he had nudged Conrad as hard as he was comfortable doing. About 15 miles outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Troy saw a gas station with a food store and pumped gas while Conrad went in to select snacks for them both. Back on the road, Conrad quickly downed his Twinkies and a bottle of water along with one of Troy’s pain pills and managed to doze off before they crossed the Mason-Dixon Line back into Maryland.

Troy drove Conrad to his suite on campus and refused the gas money offered to him. “You’ve got the next trip,” Troy said, “jutht try to get thome retht. If you don’t get any relief, pleath go and get your thoulder looked at.”

“I will Troy,” Conrad lied, “thanks again for the ride.”


It was still before 9:00 PM on a Saturday night, but Conrad had eyes only for his bed. He went to his room, closed the door, and plopped on the bed without bothering to take his clothes off. He had figured he still had some buzz from Troy’s pain pill and wanted to get the maximum benefit.

Conrad slept until nearly 1:00 AM when he awoke to a burning, searing pain now shooting down his shoulder through his left arm. Still not fully awake, his clouded mind told him he might get some relief by going out onto the couch, where he could get some support for his shoulder. He tried that for a while with no noticeable relief. Nearly crazed with pain, he got up and paced around the suite. Junior popped out of Freddie’s room acting like he wanted to play whatever game he thought Conrad was playing, but all he succeeded in doing was nearly being stepped on. Finally seeing the little ferret at the last second, Conrad avoided squishing Freddie’s adopted son.

That momentary distraction from the pain provided a moment of clarity in his foggy thoughts. Shooting pains down the left arm, he thought, that sounds like a heart attack, or at least some type of heart problem. Oh my God! I’ve got to break down and get this checked out, he thought. I’m not going to just stand here and keel over like my dad did.

Since the hospital was less than two miles away, Conrad decided to drive himself to the emergency room and not disturb Freddie. He knew late Saturday night/early Sunday morning was the worst time to go, since he would get mixed in with victims of bar fights, shootings, and other alcohol related mischief, but he was too afraid to wait until later in the morning. Maybe at least they could give him something for the pain while they diagnosed what the cause was, he hoped.

It was after 2:30 AM when Conrad walked through the emergency room door at Central Maryland Hospital. Apparently there was not the usual amount of Saturday night mayhem, or else it had occurred earlier and been cleared out, because he had only a short wait before being called up to the admission window.

Trying to get an asian-american nurse to spell his polish-american name probably kicked his blood pressure up at least another ten points, but the effort finally proved successful. His blood pressure checked in at a disturbing 180/110, which probably accounted for the warmth he felt in his face and ears. This usually happened when he was angry or frustrated, so it was a sensation he had become all too familiar with the last few weeks.

The beds in the emergency room were not known for comfort, and try as he might Conrad could not get himself positioned in a way that did not exacerbate the nearly overwhelming pain in his shoulder that was steadily making its way down his arm, now passing below the elbow. His blood pressure was checked again, now registering 185/113. The obligatory “just-in-case” IV tube was inserted into a vein just above his left wrist, a normally unpleasant feeling that tonight was agonizing.

After only a few minutes of waiting, an attendant showed up with an EKG machine. The leads were quickly attached, and the test was run. “Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks I’m having some type of heart episode,” Conrad thought. He received further confirmation of that a brief time later when a doctor came in holding the printout.

“Mr. Kondratowicz, there is an irregularity in your EKG,” the doctor, with “Patel” on his nametag, told Conrad. “We’ll be sending you down for an MRI shortly to check it out some more.”

Before Conrad could ask any questions, the doctor was gone and replaced by a nurse who was setting him up with oxygen. “Can I get something for this damned pain?” Conrad asked her.

“No sir,” she answered, “not until we run some more tests. Now just lay back and rest until we take you downstairs.”

Seeing no other options, Conrad did as he was told. He laid back and tried to take his mind off the pain still shooting down his arm and the possibility of a life-threatening event actually going on inside his body at that very moment.
He was scared, and he was alone.

Conrad had never felt so alone in his life. There had always been his parents there as a kid, his mother, at least to some extent, as a young adult, and then Camilla. But now, both his parents had passed on and Camilla was 3,000 miles away. When asked who should be contacted in case of an emergency, he had given the nurse his own home phone number and Freddie’s name. She gave him a strange look, apparently not familiar with Farnsworth U.

Conrad’s life had reached the point where the person closest to him in the world was a guy in a ferret suit. His best friend for over 25 years, Nick Petrocini, had apparently lost his phone number. Even the last couple of times Conrad had given in and called him, Nick got him off the phone as quickly as possible. How in the hell could things have come to this, he thought.

Suddenly, he heard a commotion down the hall and saw several members of the emergency room staff dash by his bed in a blur. The noised continued for a few moments until it was replaced by an eerie quiet, almost as if the oxygen had been completely sucked out of the area. A short time later, he saw a couple he believed to be husband and wife shuffle by his bed on the way to the exit. The woman was walking with her head buried in her husband’s shoulder, and Conrad could hear her quietly sobbing. Walking a few feet behind them, with a very somber look on his face, was a priest.

“Father, what happened?” Conrad called out to him without thinking.

The priest stopped and walked toward the foot of Conrad’s bed. “That couple just lost their four-year old son,” he said. “He had run out into the street and been hit by a car.”

“Geez, that’s terrible,” Conrad said.

“Yes, it was a very painful loss,” the priest agreed.

“I’ll offer a prayer for them, father,” Conrad said.

“Bless you,” the priest said. “I should be going.”

“Of course,” Conrad said, “Thanks for stopping by.”

Conrad began to drift off into sleep, still awaiting his MRI exam, when he heard a familiar voice. “Hey, Conrad, what’s goin’ on?” He didn’t even have to look to see the furry face that voice belonged to.

“They think I may be having a heart attack,” Conrad said.

“No!” Freddie said in astonishment. “Is that tied in with the pain you’ve been having in your shoulder?”

“They think so,” Conrad confirmed. “They said I had an abnormality on my EKG, whatever that means. I’m supposed to be going for an MRI to check it out further.”

“Damn,” Freddie said, clearly shaken. “You still in a lot of pain?”

“Oh yeah,” Conrad said ruefully. “I guess they don’t want to knock me out until they come up with a diagnosis.”

“You know,” Conrad continued, “I saw something pretty tough before you came.”

“Oh yeah?” Freddie replied. “What was that?”

“I saw a couple walk by that had just lost their four year old son,” Conrad said.

“He got hit by a car and died just a short time ago down the hall.”

“Man, that is tough,” Freddie agreed. “That’s about your daughter’s age, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” Conrad said. “It sort of puts things in perspective.”

“What do you mean?” Freddie asked.

“What I mean is that,” Conrad said, “even though my marriage is over and I’ll probably seldom see my daughter in the future, and I might be having a heart attack, at least at this moment I’ve still got a chance. I’ve already had chances that poor little boy never even dreamed of, and even though I’ve pissed those away, I’m still here. I can still get it right. I’m tired of feeling like a victim, Freddie, and if I walk out of this place, I will NOT be one going forward.”

“I hear that!” Freddie said as he watched tears stream down Conrad’s red cheeks.

“I mean it man!” Conrad shouted through sobs. “Whatever’s wrong with me physically, I’ll get it fixed and get on with my life! I can’t make up for the 43 years I’ve piddled away in bad relationships and working for ungrateful bosses, but I can make damned sure I stop that cycle right now!”

“You the man!” Freddie said, pumping his furry fist in the air.

“First, though,” Conrad concluded, “I need to find out what’s going on inside of me.”