american dream?

Jerry Montrose is a good mechanic/ machinist who has a loving wife and good friends. After months of feeling bad he goes to the doctor only to find out that he has a faulty heart that is in need of repair. Jerry and his wife can’t afford the medical procedures so they apply for state offered aid. After months of paperwork and hoop jumping Jerry is denied of financial help because he actually works and makes a meager living, but doesn’t make even close to enough to pay for his needed surgery. Feeling depressed and letdown by the system Jerry comes up with an idea. Jerry has some leftover high-grade titanium and parts from a military pump contract he did a few years ago. He draws up some rough plans and decides he will fix his own problems. Jerry figures he can build his own heart. Over the next week he actually builds his own mechanical heart. One way flapper valves, speed sensitive ventures, zero friction piston pumps, straight cut gears, Jerry’s heart was a beautiful piece worthy of a space shuttle ride for sure. Now with the heart complete he had to decide on a way to drive it. For Jerry electrical drives are out of the question, what if they failed during the night or when he was away from his shop? No one could help him, he would surely die. With this on his mind Jerry was left with only one alternative, to have it manually driven. Jerry would install a hand crank that cannot fail and can be worked by anyone. With the plans decided Jerry prepares for the home operation. With a small fish tank filter pump to keep him alive while the heart transplant is taking place Jerry instructs his wife and friend Dino who will perform the surgery on how it will go down. With no complications Dino the mechanic performs the surgery and Jerry’s wife cranks the new heart until Jerry recovers. With his heart now in service Jerry is feeling like a new man. With the support of his friend and wife Jerry has it scheduled where he sleeps eight hours a night while they crank his heart. Over the next few months Jerry’s wife begins to tire and Dino stops showing up for his night shifts. With no other alternative Jerry’s wife has to pick up the extra burden created by Dino’s disappearance. Jerry and his wife discuss hiring some one to take over her and Dino’s old shifts because she is getting tired. With the lack of resources they now have they look into getting a caregiver. They all say they would love to help but they need to make a living too, it just isn’t feasible to work for what Jerry has to offer. Jerry’s wife is growing very tired and explains that she can no longer do this, she cannot take care of his heart anymore and the only way she can be happy now is to leave him because his heart is to demanding. She packs her belongings the next morning and heads out in search of a heart less demanding. The sadness Jerry now feels makes him crank his heart slower until he feels light headed and forgets about her. With the passing of the next three nights Jerry gets no sleep and begins to get delirious. With no hope in sight, no friends, his wife left him, Jerry heads off in search of a day laborer. He figures he can surely afford to hire one of them until he can find someone who loves him again. Jerry hires a new crew consisting of Juan Velasquez, Jose Sanchez, Victor Velasquez, Carlos Menendez and Jose Sanchez the second. With this new crew he can now sleep again. He isn’t comfortable with the new language being spoken in his house but he deals with it because he needs their labor. Within a month the radio only plays Tehano music and Telomundo is always on the TV. Jerry’s house now has three cars dead in the driveway and children of all ages running wild throughout it. Jerry is now confined to his bedroom where he has his own fortress of solitude where he dreams of the days when all he heard was English I love you’s, not a foreign dialect that is so unsoothing to the soul. Jerry in his own house, now a foreign land, begins to think about stopping his heart. Forget to crank for twelve seconds and all the pain and loneliness will go away. Jerry, just a prisoner of his own heart knows that the world he once knew is now gone forever.