Flowers for Algernon

by Daniel Keyes

  Is there time?

  Burt is annoyed with me. He finds me impatient and the others must feel the same. But they hold me back and try to keep me in my place. What is my place? Who and what am I now? Am I the sum of my life or only of the past months? Oh, how impatient they get when I try to discuss it with them. They don't like to admit that they don't know. It's paradoxical that an ordinary man like Nemur presumes to devote himself to making other people geniuses. He would like to be thought of as the discoverer of new laws of learning—the Einstein of psychology. And he has the teacher's fear of being surpassed by the student, the master's dread of having the disciple discredit his work. (Not that I am in any real sense Nemur's student or disciple as Burt is.)

  I guess Nemur's fear of being revealed as a man walking on stilts among giants is understandable. Failure at this point would destroy him. He is too old to start all over again.

  As shocking as it is to discover the truth about men I had respected and looked up to, I guess Burt is right. I must not be too impatient with them. Their ideas and brilliant work made the experiment possible. I've got to guard against the natural tendency to look down on them now that I have surpassed them.

  I've got to realize that when they continually admonish me to speak and write simply so that people who read these reports will be able to understand me, they are talking about themselves as well. But still it's frightening to realize that my fate is in the hands of men who are not the giants I once thought them to be, men who don't know all the answers.

  June 13—I'm dictating this under great emotional strain. I've walked out on the whole thing. I'm on a plane headed back to New York alone, and I have no idea what I'm going to do when I get there.

  At first, I admit, I was in awe at the picture of an international convention of scientists and scholars, gathered for an exchange of ideas. Here, I thought, was where it all really happened. Here it would be different from the sterile college discussions, because these were the men on the highest levels of psychological research and education, the scientists who wrote the books and delivered the lectures, the authorities people quoted. If Nemur and Strauss were ordinary men working beyond their abilities, I felt sure it would be different with the others.

  When it was time for the meeting, Nemur steered us through the gigantic lobby with its heavy baroque furnishings and huge curving marble staircases, and we moved through the thickening knots of handshakers, nodders, and smilers. Two other professors from Beekman who had arrived in Chicago just this morning joined us. Professors White and Clinger walked a little to the right and a step or two behind Nemur and Strauss, while Burt and I brought up the rear.

  Standees parted to make a path for us into the Grand Ballroom, and Nemur waved to the reporters and photographers who had come to hear at first hand about the startling things that had been done with a retardate adult in just a little over three months.

  Nemur had obviously sent out advance publicity releases.

  Some of the psychological papers delivered at the meeting were impressive. A group from Alaska showed how stimulation of various portions of the brain caused a significant development in learning ability, and a group from New Zealand had mapped out those portions of the brain that controlled perception and retention of stimuli.

  But there were other kinds of papers too—P. T. Zellerman's study on the difference in the length of time it took white rats to learn a maze when the corners were curved rather than angular, or Worfel's paper on the effect of intelligence level on the reaction-time of rhesus monkeys.

  Papers like these made me angry. Money, time, and energy squandered on the detailed analysis of the trivial. Burt was right when he praised Nemur and Strauss for devoting themselves to something important and uncertain rather than to something insignificant and safe.

  If only Nemur would look at me as a human being.

  After the chairman announced the presentation from Beekman University, we took our seats on the platform behind the long table—Algernon in his cage between Burt and me. We were the main attraction of the evening, and when we were settled, the chairman began his introduction. I half expected to hear him boom out: Laideezzz and gentulmennnnnn. Step right this way and see the side show! An act never before seen in the scientific world! A mouse and a moron turned into geniuses before your very eyes!

  I admit I had come here with a chip on my shoulder.

  All he said was: "The next presentation really needs no introduction. We have all heard about the startling work being done at Beekman University, sponsored by the Wel-berg Foundation grants, under the direction of the chairman of the psychology department, Professor Nemur, in co-operation with Dr. Strauss of the Beekman Neuropsychiatric Center. Needless to say, this is a report we have all been looking forward to with great interest. I turn the meeting over to Professor Nemur and Dr. Strauss."

  Nemur nodded graciously at the chairman's introductory praise and winked at Strauss in the triumph of the moment.

  The first speaker from Beekman was Professor Clinger.

  I was becoming irritated, and I could see that Algernon, upset by the smoke, the buzzing, the unaccustomed surroundings, was moving around in his cage nervously. I had the strangest compulsion to open his cage and let him out. It was an absurd thought—more of an itch than a thought—and I tried to ignore it. But as I listened to Professor Clinger's stereotyped paper on "The effects of left-handed goal boxes in a T-maze versus right-handed goal boxes in a T-maze," I found myself toying with the release-lock mechanism of Algernon's cage.

  In a short while (before Strauss and Nemur would unveil their crowning achievement) Burt would read a paper describing the procedures and results of administering intelligence and learning tests he had devised for Algernon. This would be followed by a demonstration as Algernon was put through his paces of solving a problem in order to get his meal (something I have never stopped resenting!).

  Not that I had anything against Burt. He had always been straightforward with me—more so than most of the others—but when he described the white mouse who had been given intelligence, he was as pompous and artificial as the others. As if he were trying on the mantle of his teachers. I restrained myself at that point more out of friendship for Burt than anything else. Letting Algernon out of his cage would throw the meeting into chaos, and after all this was Burt's debut into the rat-race of academic preferment.

  I had my finger on the cage door release, and as Algernon watched the movement of my hand with his pink-candy eyes, I'm certain he knew what I had in mind. At that moment Burt took the cage for his demonstration. He explained the complexity of the shifting lock, and the problem-solving required each time the lock was to be opened. (Thin plastic bolts fell into place in varying patterns and had to be controlled by the mouse, who depressed a series of levers in the same order.) As Algernon's intelligence increased, his problem-solving speed increased—that much was obvious. But then Burt revealed one thing I had not known.

  At the peak of his intelligence, Algernon's performance had become variable. There were times, according to Burt's report, when Algernon refused to work at all—even when apparently hungry—and other times when he would solve the problem but, instead of taking his food reward, would hurl himself against the walls of his cage.

  When someone from the audience asked Burt if he was suggesting that this erratic behavior was directly caused by increased intelligence, Burt ducked the question. "As far as I am concerned," he said, "there's not enough evidence to warrant that conclusion. There are other possibilities. It is possible that both the increased intelligence and the erratic behavior at this level were created by the original surgery, instead of one being a function of the other. It's also possible that this erratic behavior is unique to Algernon. We didn't find it in any of the other mice, but then none of the others achieved as high a level of intelligence nor maintained it for as long as Algernon has."

  I realized immediately that this information had been withheld from me. I suspected the rea
son, and I was annoyed, but that was nothing to the anger I felt when they brought out the films.

  I had never known that my early performances and tests in the laboratory were filmed. There I was, at the table beside Burt, confused and open-mouthed as I tried to run the maze with the electric stylus. Each time I received a shock, my expression changed to an absurd wide-eyed stare, and then that foolish smile again. Each time it happened the audience roared. Race after race, it was repeated, and each time they found it funnier than before.

  I told myself they were not gawking curiosity seekers, but scientists here in search of knowledge. They couldn't help finding these pictures funny—but still, as Burt caught the spirit and made amusing comments on the films, I was overcome with a sense of mischief. It would be even funnier to see Algernon escape from his cage, and to see all these people scattering and crawling around on their hands and knees trying to retrieve a small, white, scurrying genius.

  But I controlled myself, and by the time Strauss took the podium the impulse had passed.

  Strauss dealt largely with the theory and techniques of neurosurgery, describing in detail how pioneer studies on the mapping of hormone control centers enabled him to isolate and stimulate these centers while at the same time removing the hormone-inhibitor producing portion of the cortex. He explained the enzyme-block theory and went on to describe my physical condition before and after surgery. Photographs (I didn't know they had been taken) were passed around and commented on, and I could see by the nods and smiles that most people there agreed with him that the "dull, vacuous facial expression" had been transformed into an "alert, intelligent appearance." He also discussed in detail the pertinent aspects of our therapy sessions—especially my changing attitudes toward free association on the couch.

  I had come there as part of a scientific presentation, and I had expected to be put on exhibition, but everyone kept talking about me as if I were some kind of newly created thing they were presenting to the scientific world. No one in this room considered me an individual—a human being. The constant juxtaposition of "Algernon and Charlie," and "Charlie and Algernon," made it clear that they thought of both of us as a couple of experimental animals who had no existence outside the laboratory. But, aside from my anger, I couldn't get it out of my mind that something was wrong.

  Finally, it was Nemur's turn to speak—to sum it all up as the head of the project—to take the spotlight as the author of a brilliant experiment. This was the day he had been waiting for.

  He was impressive as he stood up there on the platform, and, as he spoke, I found myself nodding with him, agreeing with things I knew to be true. The testing, the experiment, the surgery, and my subsequent mental development were described at length, and his talk was enlivened by quotations from my progress reports. More than once I found myself hearing something personal or foolish read to this audience. Thank God I had been careful to keep most of the details about Alice and myself in my private file.

  Then, at one point in his summary, he said it: "We who have worked on this project at Beekman University have the satisfaction of knowing we have taken one of nature's mistakes and by our new techniques created a superior human being. When Charlie came to us he was outside of society, alone in a great city without friends or relatives to care about him, without the mental equipment to live a normal life. No past, no contact with the present, no hope for the future. It might be said that Charlie Gordon did not really exist before this experiment.... "

  I don't know why I resented it so intensely to have them think of me as something newly minted in their private treasury, but it was—I am certain—echoes of that idea that had been sounding in the chambers of my mind from the time we had arrived in Chicago. I wanted to get up and show everyone what a fool he was, to shout at him: I'm a human being, a person—with parents and memories and a history—and I was before you ever wheeled me into that operating room!

  At the same time deep in the heat of my anger there was forged an overwhelming insight into the thing that had disturbed me when Strauss spoke and again when Nemur amplified his data. They had made a mistake—of course! The statistical evaluation of the waiting period necessary to prove the permanence of the change had been based on earlier experiments in the field of mental development and learning, on waiting periods with normally dull or normally intelligent animals. But it was obvious that the waiting period would have to be extended in those cases where an animal's intelligence had been increased two or three times.

  Nemur's conclusions had been premature. For both Algernon and myself, it would take more time to see if this change would stick. The professors had made a mistake, and no one else had caught it. I wanted to jump up and tell them, but I couldn't move. Like Algernon, I found myself behind the mesh of the cage they had built around me.

  Now there would be a question period, and before I would be allowed to have my dinner, I would be required to perform before this distinguished gathering. No. I had to get out of there.

  "...In one sense, he was the result of modern psychological experimentation. In place of a feeble-minded shell, a burden on the society that must fear his irresponsible behavior, we have a man of dignity and sensitivity, ready to take his place as a contributing member of society. I should like you all to hear a few words from Charlie Gordon..."

  God damn him. He didn't know what he was talking about. At that point, the compulsion overwhelmed me. I watched in fascination as my hand moved, independent of my will, to pull down the latch of Algernon's cage. As I opened it he looked up at me and paused. Then he turned, darted out of his cage, and scampered across the long table.

  At first, he was lost against the damask tablecloth, a blur of white on white, until a woman at the table screamed, knocking her chair backwards as she leaped to her feet. Beyond her, pitchers of water overturned, and then Burt shouted. "Algernon's loose!" Algernon jumped down from the table, onto the platform and then to the floor.

  "Get him! Get him!" Nemur screeched as the audience, divided in its aims, became a tangle of arms and legs. Some of the women (non-experimentalists?) tried to stand on the unstable folding chairs while others, trying to help corner Algernon, knocked them over.

  "Close those back doors!" shouted Burt, who realized Algernon was smart enough to head in that direction.

  "Run," I heard myself shout. "The side door!"

  "He's gone out the side door," someone echoed.

  "Get him! Get him!" begged Nemur.

  The crowd surged out of the Grand Ballroom into the corridor, as Algernon, scampering along the maroon carpeted hallway, led them a merry chase. Under Louis XIV tables, around potted palms, up stairways, around corners, down stairways, into the main lobby, picking up other people as we went. Seeing them all running back and forth in the lobby, chasing a white mouse smarter than many of them, was the funniest thing that had happened in a long time.

  "Go ahead, laugh!" snorted Nemur, who nearly bumped into me, "but if we don't find him, the whole experiment is in danger."

  I pretended to be looking for Algernon under a waste basket. "Do you know something?" I said. "You've made a mistake. And after today, maybe it just won't matter at all."

  Seconds later, half a dozen women came screaming out of the powder room, skirts clutched frantically around their legs.

  "He's in there," someone yelled. But for a moment, the searching crowd was stayed by the handwriting on the wall—Ladies. I was the first to cross the invisible barrier and enter the sacred gates.

  Algernon was perched on top of one of the washbasins, glaring at his reflection in the mirror.

  "Come on," I said. "We'll get out of here together."

  He let me pick him up and put him into my jacket pocket. "Stay in there quietly until I tell you."

  The others came bursting through the swinging doors—looking guiltily as if they expected to see screaming nude females. I walked out as they searched the washroom, and I heard Burt's voice. "There's a hole in that ventilator. Maybe he went up
there."

  "Find out where it leads to," said Strauss.

  "You go up to the second floor," said Nemur, waving to Strauss. "I'll go down to the basement."

  At this point they burst out of the ladies' room and the forces split. I followed behind the Strauss contingent up to the second floor as they tried to discover where the ventilator led to. When Strauss and White and their half-dozen followers turned right down Corridor B, I turned left up Corridor C and took the elevator to my room.

  I closed the door behind me, and patted my pocket. A pink snout and white fuzz poked out and looked around. "I'll just get my things packed," I said, "and we'll take off—just you and me—a couple of man-made geniuses on the run."

  I had the bellhop put the bags and the tape-recorder into a waiting taxi, paid my hotel bill, and walked out the revolving door with the object of the search nestling in my jacket pocket. I used my return-flight ticket to New York.

  Instead of going back to my place, I plan to stay at a hotel here in the city for one or two nights. We'll use that as a base of operations while I look for a furnished apartment, somewhere midtown. I want to be near Times Square.

  Talking all this out makes me feel a lot better—even a little silly. I don't really know why I got so upset, or what I'm doing on a jet heading back to New York with Algernon in a shoebox under the seat. I mustn't panic. The mistake doesn't necessarily mean anything serious. It's just that things are not as definite as Nemur believed. But where do I go from here?

  First, I've got to see my parents. As soon as I can.

  I may not have all the time I thought I had....

  PART THREE

  PROGRESS REPORT 14

  June 15—Our escape hit the papers yesterday, and the tabloids had a field day. On the second page of the Daily Press there was an old picture of me and a sketch of a white mouse. The headline read: Moron-Genius and Mouse Go Berserk. Nemur and Strauss are reported as saying I had been under tremendous strain and that I would undoubtedly return soon. They offered a five-hundred-dollar reward for Algernon, not realizing we were together.