by Laird Barron
Fortified, she’s able to turn a calmer and less partisan eye on the mad chimera of her husband’s fevered brain. She asks herself if good science can truly come of bad, or at least undisciplined, art. She herself could never work this way, but she herself is not the subject.
The man who is has his own trippy way of thinking when he’s doing science (conceiving and designing experiments, for example), or when, like now, he’s doing science once removed. He appears to work at random, but she knows this isn’t the case. He has a plan, even if he can’t articulate it. He’ll execute it, and once it’s done, he’ll know what it was to begin with. (This would be like working backwards for her.) His eccentricity looks eruptive, even slapdash, but it bears the stamp of an interior design.
She can kind of see what he’s getting at, the spiraling core of pipes and tubes, which must represent strands of DNA, the chunkier lattice of wood and metal surrounding it, like a supporting structure, each section moving and bending through hinge and ball-and-socket joints and rotating gears, smoothly at times but mostly not. Herky-jerky and spastic, like a newborn’s twitchy limbs, but less every day, also like a newborn. Self-corrective and decidedly interactive. It’s his vision of the epigene, which they’ve talked about, and which, in fact, is on her final list of topics. Not his vision of it, but hers.
The epigene, so her thinking goes, is not simply a biological phenomenon, it’s a model for how change of any sort—on an individual level and on a larger scale, a societal scale—occurs. And how the different levels of change influence one another and interact. It can be used to describe and predict political, cultural, biological, psychological, anthropological and sociological transformations (any and all of which, she suspects, can be given eigenvalues). Potentially, a powerful tool. And it hasn’t been written about, not in the ethnobiology literature, which means the field is wide open.
She sleeps a dreamless night, which is how she likes them, wakes early, and intercepts her husband before he disappears downstairs. This is critical, because once he does that, any meaningful conversation is pretty much a lost cause.
“Can we talk for a minute?” she asks.
He steals a glance at the basement door, gives a curt nod.
“It’s about me,” she adds in the interest of full disclosure.
What he wants most is to get to work. Second-most is for his Carol to be happy.
“You know what I was before a scientist?” he asks.
It’s not the best beginning, but she plays along. “What’s that?”
“I collected beetles. Studied them, labeled them. Like Darwin. Raised some, too. Left the collection to my science teacher when I graduated high school.”
“And you tell me this because . . . .”
“There’re three skills you need to be a successful collector. One, you need to be curious. Two, you need to be patient. Three, you need to be able to pay attention.”
She gives him a look, like “are you kidding me?” Then one of her eyebrows rises, just the one, which she can do only if she doesn’t try. If she does try . . . nothing. It’s controlled from somewhere beyond her control, like a tic but with a beautiful, arching purpose, and it happens once in a blue moon, when curiosity, skepticism, and annoyance intersect.
“So this is what? Yes, you’ll listen to me? Or yes, you’ll observe me and take notes?”
“I’ll give you my thorough and undivided attention.”
She knows he’s capable of this. For how long is always the question.
“Thank you. I could use your help.”
She leads him to the living room, which has a pair of windows, one facing the street; the other, the yard. The latter is a potential distraction for him, but less of one than the door and stairway to the basement, which are like the siren’s call. He can only resist them for a certain amount of time, mainly, she assumes, because he doesn’t want to resist. If he did want to but couldn’t, she would worry that something was seriously wrong.
He takes the sofa, placing his back to the window overlooking the yard, and makes eye contact with her.
It’s a gesture of sincerity on his part, and feeling bullish—provisionally—about the upcoming conversation, she lowers herself into an armchair. “I’m coming up for tenure soon.” Pauses, can’t tell if his look is expectant or blank. “You know that, right?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“I’ve decided to write a paper on the epigene. My side of it, my version. A view through the ethnobiological lens.”
“Interesting.”
“I’d like to pick your brain.”
He half-turns his head toward the window and makes a flourish with his hand. “There it is.”
“Will it bother you? My writing about it?” She means before he does.
“Not at all. Pick away.”
She summarizes what she’s read: the epigene is a dynamic system. It’s in a state of continual flux, but every so often something gets fixed in place. A molecule is attached at a certain spot, and this causes a permanent change.
“Correct,” he says. “Relatively permanent.”
“And this is different and distinct from a change in the sequence—a mutation, say—of the DNA. Which is what people usually think of when they think of permanent genetic change.”
“Not molecular biologists.”
“Normal people,” she says.
“A benighted bunch.”
She pushes on. “And the reason this molecule is formed, then attached, can be due to a number of factors. Hormones, for example. The environment. Stress.”
“Yes. The engine of progress, fortunately, has many triggers.”
“And this change can be inherited.”
“For a generation or two. In certain cases more.”
“So evolution can be fast, not slow. It doesn’t need eons to manifest itself.” The idea is as exciting now as when she first heard of it.
“It’s always fast, when it happens.”
“What I mean is, it doesn’t have to be random. It can be responsive and even purposeful.”
Purpose, he would say, is a human concept. Evolution of whatever stripe conforms to the laws of chemistry and physics, not the laws and needs of man. But that’s a discussion for a different time and place. Fundamentally—biologically, that is—she is right.
“Expression is the key,” he says. “Everything else is just wishful thinking. A change in the epigene or even the DNA sequence does nothing if it doesn’t result in other changes: transcriptional or translational changes, in RNA expression and protein synthesis. Otherwise it just sits there, like a train in the station. Only when the train starts moving does it actually become what it is. Only then does it deserve the name ‘train.’”
“I like this,” she says. “Random mutation is so . . . so . . . random. So passive. So gloomy. It cheers me up to know we can do something. We can adjust. We do adjust.”
“Constantly.”
“I like the idea that we’re in active conversation with everyone and everything, whether we know it or not. We’re participants, not bystanders. We can control who we are and who we become.”
“To a degree,” he says, then adds, “Control appeals to you.”
“Self-control, yes. And I like that we’re not complete pawns in the game. That we have something to say about our destiny. I like it because I like it, and I like it even more because it’s true.”
“You’re an idealist.”
“I’m an optimist,” she offers as an alternative.
“I’m one, too. But realistically, there’s only so much we can do.”
“Of course. We’re only human.”
He grins. “Will you mention Lamarck?”
“I will. How could I not? Epigenetics should have a footnote with his name attached.”
On this they agree. It wasn’t called epigenetics back in those explosive eighteenth- and n
ineteenth-century days of observational science, but rather the inheritance of acquired traits, a controversial theory, the most famous example of which was the progressive lengthening of a giraffe’s neck so that it could reach higher leaves and thus out-compete its fellow giraffes. Such a trait, so the thinking went, was passed on to its progeny. A fair number of scientists held this opinion in an often heated and partisan debate, but it was only one arrow in Lamarck’s remarkable quiver. His observations and conclusions about the natural sphere were seminal. He was among the first to believe—and demonstrate—that the world was an orderly place, built and governed according to immutable natural laws. This was before Darwin, who later paid homage to him.
As Dr. Jim does now. “A towering figure, Jean-Baptiste. A gifted scientist.”
“He deserved better than he got.”
“He bore the cross, it’s true. You’ll point this out?”
“I’ll state the case. It’s not total chaos down here. We’re not doomed to some predetermined fate. If people want to believe otherwise, there’s not much I can do. But if it was me, I’d take heart.”
“Lamarck did. It pleased him to know there was structure. Structure and purpose. He liked a world like that.”
Who wouldn’t? she thinks. It seems the most human of desires and beliefs. How could anyone live with the inevitable highs and lows of life, the swings and shifts of fortune, not to mention mood, without stable ground to stand on and without purpose?
“He liked his giraffes getting taller to reach those leaves,” Dr. Jim adds. “His waterbirds developing webbed feet to improve their swimming. These were useful adaptations, and usefulness was rewarded.”
“In Heaven and on Earth,” she replies, a reference to the world in which he and everyone else of his time lived, the world of religion and the tug-of-war between religion and science.
“Heaven?” Dr. Jim cocks his head. “Is there such a place?”
“He was Catholic. I’m sure it was useful not to antagonize the Church.”
“Antagonism is who we are. Rise and fall, push and pull, positive and negative feedback. Contradiction defines us.” His eyes drift toward the kitchen, and his attention wavers, then shifts. “We’d be nothing without it,” he adds in a trailing voice.
It’s a reference, she assumes, to his visits downstairs, and it’s as close as he’ll come to mentioning them. Although, when she thinks about it, it could be a reference to almost anything, and in fact, his attention has veered again, this time back to the yard, where his gaze is now fixed. In profile the changes in his face are more pronounced, the thickening of the muscles along his jaw, the roughening of his cheeks with their now ubiquitous stubble, the deepening of his eye sockets and paradoxical prominence of his eyes. He looks, oxymoronically, both nourished and underfed, replete and hollowed out, a man of wealth and of hunger, sybarite and victim of his own fanaticism, at this particular moment in intense communion with what he’s built.
The look is not deceiving. He’s enchanted by what he sees, especially his latest addition: a tetrad of pulleys fused together, a kind of block and tackle, which represents the four-pronged histone unit of the epigene. Through one of the pulleys he’s threaded a cable, which represents a strand of DNA. The histone both protects and holds the DNA firmly in place, but below it, between it and a second tetrad of pulleys, the cable is more open and exposed, more accessible and also freer to move, like a running loop of rope. DNA-wise, this is where the action is. Where genes transcribe themselves, communicate with other genes, make RNA and proteins.
He’s built, in short, an epigene within the epigene, a microcosm of the whole, a kind of fractal. His paltry skills as an engineer and sculptor don’t come close to capturing what the real McCoy represents and does, what it’s capable of. Such a cunning design, the epigene. Such a beautiful, pliant system. But what next? What next?
The question casts a shadow on his lofty thoughts and sunny state of mind. He doesn’t have the answer, and his love affair with what he’s done is pierced by uncertainty. He feels a heaving in his chest, and all at once he’s drowning in a sea of negativity and doubt. It happens like that: full of himself one moment, fighting for air the next. Presto chango. Snappety-snap. It’s a cold, dark place he’s fallen into. A bottomless, watery prison if he doesn’t get out. It takes every ounce of will to resist the descent. He has to get downstairs, throws a glance toward the kitchen, struggles to his feet.
A hand stops him.
“Stay,” says Carol. “Please. Just a few minutes more. Then I’ll let you go. This is really helpful.”
Her hand is manacled around his wrist, and he glances at it, then bares his teeth. Immediately, she lets go and quickly threads her fingers through his. He’s trembling, and she steadies him with a firm, reassuring grip. She’s iron to his quicksilver, ground to his jagged downward burst. At the moment she’s also a force greater than the siren call. But not for long.
A minute or two. Max.
“What were we talking about?” he asks in a gravelly voice.
“Lamarck.”
He nods, waits, searches her face.
“Will you sit?” she asks.
He sits.
“You said he was a gifted scientist,” she prompts.
“A true scientist,” he replies after a lengthy silence.
“True? In what way?”
“Not everything he did or said was right. But his effort was right. His passion. I count him as a colleague.”
The similarities between Lamarck and her husband have not escaped her. She has certain concerns about this, which must be handled delicately, and she asks herself if now is the time.
“He had a passion for truth. Is that what you mean?”
“For reason, I would say.”
She accepts his correction, though it makes her just a tad uneasy. Passion can submarine reason, just as certainty can masquerade as truth.
“Do you know he had no money when he died? His family had to beg for the funds to bury him. Couldn’t afford a private grave and had to put him in a rented one.”
“He was dead.”
“Still.”
“Private. Rented. What’s the difference?”
“I’m sure it felt different to his survivors. Especially when he was kicked out after the lease expired.”
“Great men suffer. It’s the same old story. He was brilliant but ahead of his time. His views were not accepted.”
“Are yours?”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “They will be, when I make them known.”
She doesn’t doubt it, though she does wonder how long this might take. Two hundred years, as it took for Lamarck, would be on the long side for her.
Not that she’s impatient, though she does worry a little about money, because her husband at the moment is making absolutely none. Her income supports them both. A non-issue if she gains tenure. If she fails, they will have to cut their expenses drastically, maybe even sell the house. Live in a trailer, not the worst thing. Revert further and live in the woods.
She could make it. That said, she’d rather have money than not. She likes what it does. Likes having what she needs when she needs it. Likes being able to support Dr. Jim in his quest. She’d prefer not having less of the stuff, though if it came to that, she’d survive.
She’s been poor before. She grew up poor. Nothing was ever handed to her on a platter. All that she’s gained has been the result of her own hard work.
It’s because of this that she values hard work, and it’s one of the reasons she values and respects her husband. No one could work harder than he does. And if it comes to pass that he finishes what he’s building and goes on to publish his epic book, and it makes no money, she’ll be disappointed because he will be, but otherwise she’ll be okay. She understands that poverty for some men and for many women is the price of eccentricity. It’s the cost of being different, the joy and
sorrow of being ahead of one’s time. It’s not financial poverty that concerns her. It’s not poverty of spirit: her husband has spirit to burn.
“Did Lamarck have friends?”
“I have no idea,” he replies.
“He had a family.”
“Yes.”
“A wife. Children. They lived together in a house.”
“I assume. You know as much about this as I do.”
“I wonder how he felt when he couldn’t provide for them. I wonder if he doubted himself. I wonder if he got depressed.”
He drums his fingers on his knee, glances toward the kitchen. He really needs to get to work.
“Your point?”
“You’ve never talked to me about what happened before we met. After you were fired by the university.”
“I was never depressed.”
“You were hospitalized.”
“That was a different man. That wasn’t me.”
She takes a moment to process this claim. Her husband is many things, and he operates according to his own set of rules and values, but dishonesty has never been one of them. And from the look in his eyes, he’s not being dishonest now.
“Aren’t there sometimes recurrences?”
Her questions are driving him further from where he needs to be, which right now is down in the basement. He fidgets, shifts, drums, then gets to his feet.
“Is that what this is about?”
Is it? She isn’t sure. She began the conversation talking about herself.
“I may not get it.”
“Get it?”
“Tenure.”
“You don’t need tenure.”
“I want it.”
“Lamarck had it, and look where he ended up.”
“You had it, too, and look at you.”
He doesn’t answer, as if to say what possible difference does it make, and instead begins to pace. He has a powerful urge to flee, when something out the window catches his eye and stops him. The epigene-in-miniature atop his creation is glowing like an ember, as though the rising sun has singled it out and set it on fire. It goes from liquid red to liquid gold, then all at once the light appears to gather and condense. He can barely look, it’s so intense.
