“Right. Put the boy in my car and the girl in yours.”
“Gotcha,” the state policeman said.
Patty stood up and then went to Gregory Wilson’s side to take his right hand.
“Greg, Greg. What can I say? I don’t know how we missed it before, but your wife was so incoherent, and that teacher looked like he had broken into the house without reason. … Lois always seemed so competent, I just …”
The tears were streaming from Gregory Wilson’s eyes now, and there was a perceptible vibration through his body. Patty could feel it in his hand.
“Easy, buddy. We’ve sent for an ambulance. We’re goin’ to get you back to the hospital where they’ll check you out and get you on the right road again. And Dorothy’s goin’ to be all right, too. Jesus,” the town cop said, turning away from the crying man. He looked down at the wires he had dropped to the floor and then reached up to jerk the gong cable out of the ceiling. He tore it out, pulley and all, causing the gong to sound one last time.
“You’re not going to need that anymore, buddy.” He patted Gregory’s hand. A smile had formed in the invalid man’s eyes. Patty bit his lower lip to contain his own emotion. “I’m just going to go downstairs and check on things. Be right back, buddy.”
“Ambulance is on its way,” the state policeman said, “and both kids are in the cars.”
“Kids. I’d hardly call her a kid.”
“What went on here?”
“I don’t know all the details. Some sort of science experiment. Couldn’t understand what that teacher was babbling about in the car, but when we got to town, I called Mr. Wilson’s doctor and the teacher spoke to him. He told me to get right back up here, Lois was performing some cruel experiments on her father. You saw some of it.”
“What the hell are we goin’ to run into next?”
Patty sent the state policeman ahead, but he waited in the car while the ambulance came and the attendants loaded Gregory Wilson back into it for his ride to the hospital. Billy waited with Patty. The little boy was crying continually now.
“Easy, Billy,” Patty said softly. “We’re going to follow the ambulance to the hospital, where the doctor’s going to look you over too. All the while you can tell me about those things your sister tried to do with your father, OK?”
Billy shook his head. “Lois doesn’t like me to talk to people about it.”
“Oh, I’m not people, now, am I, Billy? I’m a policeman. She didn’t mean policemen too, did she, son?” Billy wondered. “And you want to do anything you can to help your father, right?”
“Yes.”
“So. That was quite an idea, that gong. I bet that helped a lot, huh?” Billy nodded. “Did you have to do something special with it?”
Billy started to talk about the chart, and as the police car traveled through the night, following the blinking lights of the ambulance, the little boy continued to narrate the tale, the words pouring forth as though language itself had been stifled within him for years.
Epilogue
Professor McShane did not want to go to this session. He wanted no more of it. He wanted the nightmare to end, the images to come apart and dissipate, for he carried all of it like a moral burden, unable to detach himself from feelings of guilt and responsibility, despite all the rationalization he could muster.
Physically, he looked like a war veteran: his wrist in a cast, his knee heavily bandaged, walking with the aid of a crutch, his face still bruised. When asked about the battle, he invariably depicted the enemy as something of himself. Sherry chastised him for that.
“If anything, what you did was heroic, not evil. What should we have done,” she asked him, “tried Hitler’s history teacher as a war criminal?”
“Not the point, not the point,” he replied. “I think we’ve all got to realize that an idea can be just as dangerous as a weapon, maybe more so. We can’t teach in isolation.”
“I agree, of course, but the kind of responsibility you’re talking about could put an end to original thinking, to creative ideas.”
“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”
“Doesn’t sound like my scientific idealist. Weren’t you the one who said, ‘By the close of the twentieth century, man will be on the verge of replacing God’?”
“I said it, and it might just happen if we’re not careful. If we’re not careful,” he muttered. The phrase began to haunt him.
He stopped in the lobby and inquired for directions. He was told to go to room thirty-three. He was nearly late and hobbled as quickly as he could down the immaculate corridor. He opened the door and peered in. They waved him to a seat just as Lois entered the other room.
She paused and considered the chair and the three inquisitors. It was as she had imagined it would be: a very neat and sparse room—one long table for the professors, well lit, no audience, a chair for her with no desk. She was happy to see that one of them was a woman. She had been afraid of narrow-minded males. There was no time nor any place for silly prejudices. They had no nameplates, but that didn’t matter. She thought she recognized the man on the right. No one smiled. She didn’t mind that either. She liked people who wanted to get right down to business. There wasn’t time for frivolity in this sort of situation anyway. The woman, who sat between the two men, indicated that Lois should take her seat. She did so.
“I brought some notes,” she said. “I hope that’s permitted.”
“Of course,” the woman said. “I’m Dr. Elwood. This is Dr. Butler,” she said, indicating the man to her left; “and this is Dr. Durrel.” Lois nodded at the two men. “We’re happy you’ve decided to speak to us.”
“Well … under the circumstances.”
“Yes, we know. You’ll be moved to a private room immediately after this session.”
“And the books I requested?”
“If this is a satisfactory session,” Dr. Durrel said, “you’ll get those books.”
“I’m ready to answer anything I can,” Lois said.
“Good,” Dr. Butler said. “I wanted to ask you about your thesis.”
“I thought you would.”
“When did you first think of the idea?”
“I was reading Lewis Thomas’s Lives of a Cell and I thought if a beehive could be thought of as though it were one animal with each segment contributing toward the single goal, every bee like a single cell in a large animal, why not apply the concept to Homo sapiens in a similar way: every part of our body contributes to a single goal—the health and welfare of the body.”
“Did you put down each and every thing you did to your father, as we requested?” Dr. Elwood asked.
“I didn’t do anything to him. I did things for him.”
“However you put it.” Lois didn’t reply. Dr. Elwood looked at Dr. Butler.
“You asked if it were possible for you to have some laboratory rats, did you not?” Butler said. Lois nodded. “Well, we can’t do that for you if you don’t do what we ask first.”
“I did it,” she mumbled.
“What’s that?”
“I did it.”
“Well, that’s good. Do you have it with you?” Lois was obviously hesitant. “You were requesting two rats?”
“Yes. Yes, I have it with me.” She took a small packet of papers from her notebook.
“Good. You’ll give it to us at the end of the session.”
“Go on about your thesis,” Dr. Butler said.
“As I said, I was impressed with Thomas’s thesis. For me the logical extension of that was: if we could modify the behavior of the whole animal, why not modify the behavior of each of its parts?”
“And you thought you could do that with your father—make each part of his body behave according to the way you directed it to behave, using proven techniques of behavioral science?”
“Precisely. As you will see from some of my findings, I was well on the way to doing that.”
“In other words,” Dr. Elwood said, “you believe you
can cure disease, any physical ailment or problem, through behavioral control?”
“Yes. If we can cause a single cell to behave in a predisposed way, why can’t we do it with groups of cells?”
“You look upon people as merely groups of cells?”
“What do you think we are?” she asked disdainfully. For a moment none of the three spoke.
“Do you think your father liked what you were doing to him?”
“I was helping him,” she said. “I was creating new nerve endings. I would have brought him completely back to life.”
“Did that make you feel like God? Do you feel like God?”
“I don’t know what God feels like.”
“I’m sure you can imagine …”
“I don’t accept the concept,” she said quickly. “It’s too simple; it makes it easy for us to accept mysteries and not work for solutions.”
“Then you don’t believe in right or wrong?”
“I didn’t say that. I think it’s wrong to prevent progress.” There was another silence. She looked at each of them. “I need a typewriter, you know. I’ve been asking for a typewriter since I’ve been here.”
“Yet you haven’t asked once about your brother. Are you worried about your brother?” She looked away. “Don’t you think about him at all?”
“All right. I’ll think about him. I’ll write him a letter; I’ll type it if you can get me a typewriter.”
“And your mother?”
“I’ll write her a letter too. I’ve got to begin working again soon,” she added in a more desperate tone of voice. “I never liked wasting time, and those group discussion sessions are a complete waste of time.”
“If you don’t go to them, we can’t let you have a private room, nor the lab animals, nor the typewriter.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t go to them. I just said they’re a waste of time.”
“All right,” Dr. Elwood said. “That’ll be all for today. Leave those notes with us.”
“When do I move into my room?”
“You’ll be notified later today. We’ll call you to the general office, using your assigned code: two gongs.”
“Thank you,” she said, standing. She brought the notes to their desk and walked out quickly. The light went off immediately, turning the see-through mirror back into a wall for the people sitting with McShane. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. After a moment Dr. Elwood, Dr. Butler, and Dr. Durrel came in.
“If you’ll excuse us, we’d like to talk to Professor McShane alone for a few moments,” Dr. Elwood said. The other observers got up and left the room.
“Do you see any changes at all? Even the slightest, most subtle thing might help us.”
“I don’t.’
“Well, she is being cooperative,” Dr. Elwood said. “Of course, for a price. I hate to resort to the most basic of behavioral techniques, but …”
“Well,” McShane said, a wry smile forming on his face, “I would wonder whether or not you’re really working any techniques on Lois Wilson.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re manipulating a great manipulator. She’s got to be totally aware of what you’re doing. It’s ironic and poetically just. I enjoy seeing that, but I wonder if she isn’t humoring all of you.”
“She’s doing things she doesn’t want to do,” Dr. Butler said.
“And regardless of what she said in there, she participates in the group therapy,” Dr. Durrel added.
“Beware of her,” McShane warned. “She might not be participating as much as you think.”
“I don’t follow,” Dr. Elwood said.
“She might be subtly taking it over. She’s a great subversive.”
“I should think our trained personnel would be able to recognize her methods, Professor,” Dr. Elwood said.
“Yeah,” McShane said, standing. “I should think so, too.”
“We respect the fact that she’s a very intelligent girl,” Dr. Durrel said, “and we understand why you have these fears.”
“Do you? That’s good, because I don’t.”
“Well, we’d like you to stop by from time to time, if you could, Professor, just to observe her progress.”
“Sure, sure,” he said.
“I suppose we should say, our progress with her,” Dr. Elwood corrected.
“Actually, Dr. Elwood, I’m hoping you fail.”
“I don’t understand. Hoping we fail?”
“I’m thinking ahead to the time when you release her back into the world. Frankly, despite my input and your expertise, I have the gut feeling that none of us will really know for sure whether or not you’ve made any significant changes in her. She’s too clever. She might fool us all. And when she gets back out there …” McShane opened the door. “Well, thank you anyway,” he said. Then he smiled.
“You see, despite everything, the scientist in me is still intrigued and wants to be part of this. And you know what, fellow scientists … ? That’s what makes it possible for Lois Wilson to exist.”
He left, closing the door softly behind him.
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Brain Child Page 25