by Walker Percy
“What’s not perfected?” Art bends his knees, mambo style, and combs his hair like a sailor with quick alternating strokes of comb and hand.
“My sensors won’t penetrate melanin pigment in the skin.”
“Hm.” Art wets his comb. “You mean your MOQUOL doesn’t work on darkies?”
“No, it doesn’t.” I look at him with surprise. Darkies?!
“Anything else wrong?”
“Yes. I don’t yet have a therapeutic component. As it stands, my device is a diagnostic tool, no more.”
“I know.” Art goes on riffling his flat-top with a wet comb. Is he trying to make it lie down? Some hairs stick up like a wet airdale’s. “What would you say, Doc, if I told you your invention has the capacities and is incremental for both components?”
“Eh?”
“That the solution to both the melanin problem and the therapeutic problem is under your nose.”
“Where?”
Art laughs. “You know all I’m good for, Doc? I’m a coordinator. You’ve got the big ideas. I’m a tinkerer. In fact, I’ve got a little gadget right here that would fit your device—”
“Excuse me. I’m late. I’ve got to—”
“We’d make a team, Doc! All you got to do is sign the funding application!”
“No.”
But we say goodbye and shake hands agreeably enough. His is curiously inert, as if all he knew about shaking hands he had learned from watching others shake hands. A heavy smell of sweat neutralized by deodorant pushes to my nostrils.
Art holds my hand a second too long. “Doc. Just in case anything should go wrong, I’ll be around.”
“What could go wrong?”
“Just in case!”
As I leave him, he opens his attaché case on the windowsill. He looks like a traveling salesman doing business in the post office.
My hour of triumph is at hand.
3
In the outer office of the Director the typists do not look up, but the secretary is pleasant. She nods toward a bench. There are no staff members present. A row of patients, dressed in the familiar string robes of the wards, sit on the bench, hands on their knees. They look at me without expression. There is no place to sit but the bench.
Quite correct of the Director not to make a fuss! Yet it is an annoyance when one of the patients is called before me. I do not mind. The encounter with Art Immelmann has left me thoughtful. Was he trying to tell me something?
When my turn does come, the Director greets me warmly, if somewhat vaguely, at the door. The first thing I catch sight of over his shoulder is—yes!—my Brain article and my lapsometer lined up side by side on his desk.
“You are very imaginative!” cries the Director, waving me to a chair opposite him.
“Thank you.” What does he mean?
The Director is a tough old party, a lean leathery emeritus behaviorist with a white thatch and a single caliper crease in his withered brown cheek. Though he is reputed to have a cancer in his lung that is getting the better of him, one can easily believe that the growth is feeding on his nonvital parts, fats and body liquors, leaving the man himself worn fine and dusty and durable as Don Quixote. The only sign of his illness is a fruity cough and his handkerchiefs, which he uses expertly, folding them flat as a napkin over his sputum and popping them up his sleeve or into the slits of his white coat.
Though he is a behaviorist and accordingly not well disposed to such new ideas as an “ontological lapsometer,” I take heart from two circumstances: one, that he is an honorable man of science and as such knows evidence when he sees it; two, that he is dying. A dying king, said Sir Thomas More, is apt to be wiser than a healthy king. A dying behaviorist may be a good behaviorist.
The Director coughs his fruity cough. His eyes bulge. Handkerchiefs pop in and out of his pockets.
“With your permission, Tom, we’re going to do a feature about your project in the Rehab Weekly.”
“The Rehab Weekly?”
“Yes. We think you’ve shown a great deal of imagination.”
“Sir, the Rehab Weekly is the patients’ mimeographed magazine.”
“I know,” says the Director, his eyes bulging amiably.
The unease that has been flickering up and down my spine turns into a pool of heat in the hollow of my neck. Strange, but I feel only a mild embarrassment for him.
“Sir,” I say presently. “Perhaps you have misunderstood me. You say there are plans to do a feature on my work in the Rehab Weekly. Very good. But the reason I submitted my article to you was to obtain your approval and support before submitting it to Brain.”
“Yes, I know,” says the Director, coughing.
“It is also necessary to obtain your sanction of my application to N.I.M.H. for funding.”
“Yes. In the amount of—” The Director is leafing through—not my proposal but my medical chart!
“Twenty-five million,” I say, blushing furiously. Why am I so embarrassed? What is shameful about twenty-five million?
“I see.” The Director lays his head over, eyes bulging thoughtfully. “You are on patient-staff status.”
“Technically, but—”
“Doctor, don’t you think that before launching such a ah major undertaking, it might be well to wait until you are discharged?”
“Discharged?”
He slides the chart across the desk. “According to our records you are still a patient on A-4, which means that though you perform staff duties, you have not yet reached an open ward.”
I find myself nodding respectfully, hands on my knees—like a patient! I blink at my trousers. Where is my string robe?
“Sir, I left the hospital five months ago.”
“Left?” The glossy eyes bulge, the pages flip past He’s lost me somewhere in the chart “Here. You’re still on A-4.”
“No sir.”
“You’re still on patient-staff status.”
“Yes sir, technically.”
“I remember that. It is the first time in my experience that a doctor-patient on A-4 has ever been put on patient-staff. Remarkable. We have great respect for your abilities, Doctor. Let’s see, you’re in encephalography with Dr. Wilkes. How is it going?”
“I was with Colley Wilkes. Five months ago.”
“I noticed today you’re down for The Pit, heh heh heh. I saw you once before, Doctor. Great, heh heh heh. What’ll it be today, high medicine or hijinks or both? You know, Doctor, if you could ever get on top of your mood swings, you have a real contribution to make. Hm”—again poking through the chart—“too bad the Skinner box didn’t do more for the anxiety and elation-depression. I wonder if we hadn’t better get on with implanting electrodes—”
“Sir, excuse me. I believe I understand. Rather, there is a misunderstanding. You are under the impression that I am here as a patient together with the other patients outside, for my monthly visit with you. Right. I’d forgotten, Monday is patient day.”
“That reminds me.” He consults his watch. “I fear we’re running a bit over. But don’t worry about it. Always glad to see you. I predict you’ll soon make A-3 and permanent staff. For the time being, hang in there where you are.”
“With Colley Wilkes.”
“Tremendous fellow! A renaissance man.”
We rise. There lying on the desk between us like a dog turd is my lapsometer. I can’t bear to look at it. Neither can the director.
“But, sir—”
“Dr. More, tell me the truth.”
“Yes sir.”
“Do you think you are well?”
“No sir, I’m not well.”
“Well—?” He spreads his hands.
My God, he’s right. $25,000,000. An ontological lapsometer. I’m mad as a hatter.
But the Director suddenly feels so much better that in an access of goodwill he does look at my machine and even gives it a poke with his pencil.
“Amazing! What workmanship. Say, why don’t you use it in The
Pit today, heh heh heh. Where did you get it machined?”
“In Japan,” I say absently. “You remember Dr. Yamaiuchi.”
“The Japanese are amazing, aren’t they?”
We reflect on the recent excellence of Japanese workmanship.
“What do you call this thing, Doctor?” the Director asks, exploring the device with his pencil.
“Lapsometer.” I am unable to tear my eyes from his strong brown farmer’s hands.
“The name interests me.”
“Yes sir?”
“It implies, I take it, a lapse or fall.”
“Yes,” I say tonelessly.
“A fall perhaps from a state of innocence?”
“Perhaps.” My foot begins to wag briskly. I stop it.
“Does this measure the uh depth of the fall?”
I stand up.
“Sir?”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“Am I to understand then that you do not intend either to approve my article for Brain or my application for funding from N.I.M.H.?”
“We’ll cross that bridge at our next month’s meeting. Right now I’m more interested in the hijinks in The Pit, heh heh. And don’t worry about being on A-4 much longer. I believe you’re ready for A-3. Glad to have you aboard. You’ve no idea how hard it is to keep staff these days. Now back to the old hospital in Boston—”
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“There is one thing I don’t understand.”
“What’s that?” I’ve gone past my ten minutes. His glossy eyes bulge at his watch.
“Why did you tell Art Immelmann you had approved my application?”
“Who?”
“Art Immelmann.”
“I never heard of him.”
“He’s a liaison man between N.I.M.H. and the funds.”
“Oh my, one of those fellows. They’re bad news. They all say the same things: the war in Ecuador has dried up the money.”
“He says Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller are willing to fund me.”
“Good!” He doesn’t believe me.
“But you don’t know him?”
“I steer clear of those fellows!” For some reason the Director laughs immoderately, which in turn sets him off into a fit of coughing.
“Then you’ve told no one about my invention or article?”
Handkerchiefs pop in and out. The Director, still red-faced, shakes his head and gazes past me. He has other patients!
The next patient passes me in the doorway, a sorrowful angry man in a string robe who stares at me furiously, tapping his watch with trembling forefinger. His cheek quivers with rage. I’ve encroached upon his time. Rage shakes him like a terrier. I recall being possessed by this demon. Once, after brooding two days over a remark made by a fellow patient, I walked up to him with clenched fists. “I resent that remark you made two days ago. In fact, I can’t stand it any longer. Take it back!” “O.K.,” said the startled man and took it back.
4
My feet shuffle past the elevators, my hands groping for the pockets of my string robe.
Where am I going? Back to the wards?
The center is not holding.
Where am I going? Back to my narrow bed on A-4 with its hard mattress and seersucker spread stretched tight as a drum, a magic carpet where I can lie and wing it like a martin.
Why is it I feel better, see more clearly, can help more people when I am crazy? Not being crazy, being sane in a sane world, is the craziest business of all.
What I really want to do is practice medicine from my bed in A-4, lie happy and stiff on my bed, like a Hindoo on his bed of nails, and treat sane folk and sane doctors from the sane world, which is the maddest world of all.
Where am I? Going past Love. On the bench in the hall sit volunteers. J.T. Thigpen and Gloria and Ted ’n Tanya. J.T. strokes his acne with his fingernails. Gloria reads a textbook open on her plump thighs. Through the diamond-shaped window I catch a glimpse of Father Kev Kevin reading Commonweal at the vaginal console.
“See you Wednesday!” whispers Ted.
“What’s that? Oh.”
On the lower level Buddy Brown and Moira are standing next to Mr. Ives in a wheelchair. Moira hangs her head. Buddy greets me with the cordiality of a good enemy.
“You’re just in time, Tom!”
“In time for what?”
“To give Mr. Ives the once-over. Be my guest.”
“No thanks.”
“Look at this.” Taking a reflex hammer from his pocket, he taps Mr. Ives’s knee tendon with quick deft taps.
Mr. Ives dances a regular jig in his chair, all the while watching me with his mild blue gaze.
“Isn’t that upper-motor-neurone damage, Doctor?” Buddy asks me.
“I don’t think so.”
“Try it yourself.” He hands me his hammer, a splendid affair with a glittering shaft and a tomahawk head of red rubber.
“No fanks.”
“What? Oh. Then I’ll see you shortly.”
“Fime.”
I do not speak well. I’ve lost. I’m a patient. But Buddy doesn’t notice. Like all enemies, he puts the best construction on his opponent. But Moira knows something is wrong. She hangs her head.
“Is something wrong?” she asks in a low voice.
“I’m fime.” I notice that they are waiting outside the tunnel that leads into The Pit from the lower level.
“Don’t forget Howard,” says Moira.
“Who? Oh.” Howard Johnson. “Nopes.”
“Who is Howard?” Buddy asks.
“We can go now,” whispers Moira. She sees the abyss and is willing to save me.
“When will you come in?” asks Buddy.
“Eins upon a oncy,” I reply.
“O.K. Eins zwei drei,” says Buddy, willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. “He’s going to the men’s room,” he tells Moira, trying to make sense of me.
“Rike,” I say.
“Rotsa ruck.”
5
So I go back to the men’s room.
At the washstand there is a step behind me. A familiar smell of sebum-sweat overlaid by unguents.
“Hello, Art.” Where did he come from? He must live in a cubicle. Now he’s wearing a tie and jacket as if he were dressed for an occasion. But where did he get the tie and jacket? I take a closer look in the mirror. It is a tight gabardine “bi-swing” jacket, a style popular many years ago, with little plackets under each shoulder.
“How does it go, Doc?”
“Not so good.”
“Win a few, lose a few, eh?”
“What? Yes.”
I am gazing at my face in the mirror intently, like the man in Saint James’s epistle. The image reverses on the retina and a hole opens. Removing the bottle of Early Times from my bag, I take two long pulls.”
“Where to now, Doc?”
“I don’t know. Back to A-4.”
“As a patient.”
“I suppose.”
“Do you give up so easily?”
I shrug.
“What about our little proposition?”
“What proposition?”
“Let me see your MOQUOL.”
“Gladly.” Taking the device from my bag, I loft it toward the used-towel bin.
Art intercepts it, rubs it on his shirt front like a street urchin finding a dime.
“You got to have faith, Doc.”
“Faith?”
“Listen to me for a minute.”
“Why?”
“Sit here.” Taking my arm, he leads me to the shoeshine chair. I sit on the platform. Art hops up to the throne and fits his shoes to the treadles. The whiskey catches hold in my stomach like a gear. I feel better, engaged.
“And to make matters worse,” says Art cheerfully, “somebody’s beating your time with your girl.” Beating my time. I haven’t heard that expression since childhood.
“What do you want?” I ask him, slumping around the pl
easant engaged gear in my stomach.
“To show you something.” He hops over me, fumbles in his attaché case, which still lies open on the windowsill. It is a short barrel, like a telephoto lens, fitted with an adapter ring. He screws it onto my lapsometer.
“Life is funny, Doc.”
“It is.”
“There is such a thing as being too close to the woods to see the trees.”
“What is that thing?”
“It’s really your discovery. The principle is yours. This is just a bit of tinkering. If you want to give me credit in a footnote, ha ha—”
“What’s it for?”
“Doc, the trouble with your invention has always been that you could diagnose but not treat, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Now you can treat.” He tosses me the lapsometer.
“How’s that?”
“Don’t you know? You discovered it twenty years ago.”
“What—”
A behaviorist comes in to take a leak. Art begins combing his hair again, wetting his comb and bending his knees mambo-style. The behaviorist washes his hands, nods at me, and leaves. Art hops nimbly up into the shoeshine chair.
“Doc, you recall that you discovered the effects of Heavy Sodium fallout?”
“Yes.” I am wondering: if two drinks of Early Times makes me feel good, wouldn’t three drinks make me feel better?
“You had the answer. Don’t you see?”
“See what?”
“The possibility of treating personality disorders with Heavy Sodium and Chloride.”
“That would be like exploding a cobalt bomb over New Orleans to treat cancer.”
“That’s the point. How do you treat cancer with cobalt radiation?”
“I’ve thought of that. But you know, of course, that sodium radiation is a two-edged sword. In the same moment that you assuage frontal terror you might increase red-nucleus rage.”
“Exactly!” Art’s feet fairly dance on the treadles above my head. “And you of all people should know how to avoid that.”
“How?”
“With this.”
“What is that?”
“A differential stereotactic emission ionizer. Beams in either your Heavy Sodium or Chloride ion. Using your principle.”
