Philadelphia Folk Tales IV: A Mayfair Morality Tale

Philadelphia Folk Tales: A Mayfair Morality Tale

Young Grant Brandt, not to be confused with his father Old Grant Brandt (known around certain drinking establishments around town as the Old Colonel), a medical student at Albert Einstein Medical Center, had, like all men of a certain age, a terrible secret.

In these modern times, the second half of the first decade of a new millennium, Young Grant Brandt was still completely, absolutely, undeniably, hopelessly addicted to cigarettes. As a future physician—specializing in cardio-pulmonary illness no less—he knew all the facts, had seen all the damage, witnessed all the suffering first hand. He schooled his patients on Big Tobacco’s dirty tricks, manipulative advertising, and their convincing but empty pseudo-science. Just the other day, he had consulted an elderly couple, the Franks from Elkins Park, on the chronic obstructive lung disorders. Using the parlance of the ward, he explained the difference between pink puffers (emphysema patients) and blue bloaters (chronic bronchitis), and patiently held Mrs. Frank’s hand as she asked about treatments. And yet within five minutes of showing the Franks a model of a diseased lung, a gross looking hunk of plastic with cutaway sections that illustrated the effects of COPD, cancer, and asthma, he was outside the hospital doors lighting a Marlboro Red with a lighter he had filched from one of the nurses.

While illicit smoke breaks certainly hint at double life, it is not his only secret. Grant’s girlfriend of seven years, Adrijana Branislava, a psychiatric resident who had come to Philadelphia from Serbia in the 1990s, to study and build inpatient recovery treatment programs at Belmont Behavioral Health Center thinks of her mate as a stalwart testament to the virtues of monogamy. Which is mostly true most of the time except, of course, when it isn’t. His trysts are mostly meaningless affairs, fleeting afternoons spent in cramped Mayfair apartments or in rented lover’s hotels, or on extremely rare occasions when he can get away or when he is feelingly dangerously daring, at a wooded retreat in the Poconos or a seaside spot at the Jersey shore.

Now, while infidelity in itself is detestable, this is not the secret that weighs most heavily on Grant’s mind late at night. Nor is it the fact that he cheated throughout medical school—it began by borrowing classmates’ notes, then their homework, then paying friends to complete lab assignments, and finally stealing copies of exams. Nor is it is increasingly frequent usage of recreational pharmaceuticals, including but not limited to valium, marijuana, codeine, oxycontin, psilocybin mushrooms, ecstasy, and cocaine. His gambling habit, which is done mostly online, but has also taken the form of sports books, card playing, and spontaneous late night drives to Atlantic City, is problematic but hardly ever bother his conscience. He has lied to friends and family, cheated on his taxes, called out of work by means of false pretenses, failed to pay speeding tickets, urinated in public, welshed on bets, broken promises, faked illness, under-tipped restaurant wait staffs, ignored calls for help, broken the hearts of young girls, insulted the honor of older women, robbed strangers of their dignity, borrowed money that he never paid back, started fight with close friends, and wasted the trust of loyal supporters. But all these things, as objectionable as they may be, are not the problem either.

No, the problem Grant has, the secret he can’t tell anyone, not the Old Colonel during one of his scotch and cigar nights, not the Franks in the safety and privacy of the office, not Adrijana or any of the nameless lovers in the confessional of a ecstatic embrace, is that he is afraid he can do anything he wants and get a way with it. He is deathly afraid there is no punishment.