Lloyd flashed a sardonic smile. “It’s a dark place, isn’t it?” He rubbed his palms together. The set-up was complete. Time for the pay-off. “But I think I can offer a glimmer of hope.”
Lloyd stepped back on the podium, grabbed a small remote control from the lectern and squeezed it with his thumb. A close-up photograph of a white mouse with sharp, pink cones for ears projected on an overhead screen.
“Meet Ludwig. Whereas my memory, as I’ve already told you, is only average, Ludwig’s memory is truly exceptional. He can memorize a maze with incredible ease. Even the most complicated three-dimensional labyrinth is no match for him. He can run a maze just once, yet recall it in detail a month later with no fall in performance. He simply doesn’t forget.
“But what is even more astonishing is that Ludwig wasn’t always this way. You see, Ludwig is a strain of a tau transgenic mouse: an animal model we use to study dementia. As a pup, he couldn’t find his way out of a paper sack. Everything changed when Ludwig became the first mouse to receive a new experimental treatment – a single intravenous injection that indelibly changed him.”
Lloyd scanned the faces of the students, his eyes narrowed and beaming.
“Within seventy-two hours he was slogging his way around simple radial mazes – these are just straight corridors extending from a center circle. Within a week his capacity for learning was equivalent to a normal mouse and by the ten day mark his performance was more than two standard deviations above the mean faster than the average healthy mouse. Now, Ludwig would make a great witness in court. If he could only talk…”
“What did you inject him with?” the strawberry blond student asked.
Lloyd paused teasingly.
“I injected him with a proteinaceous infectious particle, or as most people call it, a prion.”
“As in mad-cow disease prion?” Mills asked from the third row.
“Mad-cow disease is tabloid newspaper terminology, Mr. Mills,” Lloyd said.
“Bovine spongiform encephalopathy,” the sallow woman in the front row said softly.
“Now that’s real doctor talk, Miss Polanski.”
“But I though prions took years to manifest their effects,” a student in the back spoke up. “Like in Creutzfeld-Jacob disease.”
“CJD, now that’s one hideous neurodegenerative disease,” Lloyd said. “And you’re absolutely right. The incubation phase for prions can be long and unpredictable, two qualities that are the bane of biomedical research. But we discovered that by linking it to a specific glycopeptide moiety (to which our medical center holds the patent) we could stimulate consistent, rapid uptake of prion into the neuronal lysosome.” Lloyd puffed out his cheeks. “So what other prion diseases do you know?”
“Kuru,” the strawberry blond said.
“Excellent. And what exactly is Kuru?”
“Well, there was some tribe somewhere, like in Africa or something...”
“The Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea,” Lloyd corrected.
“Right, that’s the one,” the student said, snapping his fingers. “Anyway, these tribesmen had some mysterious deadly neurologic disease and someone figured out that it was because they were eating the brains of their dead family members.”
“Very good,” Lloyd said. “And when brain samples obtained at post-mortem from the corpse of an eleven year old girl were injected in a chimpanzee, the poor chimp developed the disease. A discovery that earned Dr. Daniel Carleton Gajdusek the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 1976.”
“Then why would you want to inject a prion in a poor demented mouse?” Miss Polanski asked with an indignant mien.
“Why indeed?” Lloyd said. “To understand that we have to understand the nature of prions.”
A burly man in a red bow-tie and a starched white doctor’s smock entered the lecture hall from a back door and waved at Lloyd in a fairly good imitation of a British monarch. Lloyd raised his eyebrows as the man settled in a seat in the back row. He glanced at his wristwatch.
“Why don’t we call it a wrap for today?” Lloyd said. “The topic of our next discussion will be prions. I want you to hit the library and research the evolutionary advantages and beneficial effects of prions.”
A student with a bulbous nose, his neck tie askew said, “Umm, library? What’s that?”
“Dude, he means Wikipedia,” the heavy set fellow sitting next to him said. The rest of the students laughed. Lloyd shook his head, a broad grin carved on his face.
“Get to work, clowns.” Lloyd retrieved the deck of playing cards and slipped it in its cardboard box which he tucked in a pocket of his lab coat. The students filed out, some chortling, some muttering subdued good-byes. The last, a tall black girl who had sat quietly throughout the class, strutted by him with coy propriety – a Nubian princess awakened from her magical slumber. Her skin was the color of the cream on espresso, her face sculpted with high cheekbones that seemed to pull the lateral canthi of her cinnamon eyes into tear-drop shapes. Queen Nefertiti in a lab coat.
She said, “Thank you, Dr. Copeland”, deliberately over-enunciating every syllable, extending the tip of her tongue to the mid upper lip for the th- sound: a luscious strawberry dipped in milk chocolate. She smiled coquettishly and paced out of the classroom in a gait that seemed practiced for a Milan catwalk.
The bow-tied doctor, who by now had stepped to the front of the classroom, muttered, “Looks like Dr. Copeland’s gonna have some brown sugar with his morning coffee.”
Lloyd stuffed his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. “Dr. O’Keefe. To what do I owe the pleasure of –”
“Oh, cut the crap, Lloyd.” Mark O’Keefe grabbed Lloyd in a head lock and tousled his hair with his free knuckle. Lloyd struggled to break free.
“And they promoted you to Associate Professor,” Lloyd said with a grin, trying to comb his hair back in place with his fingers. “I guess maturity wasn’t a prerequisite.”
“It’s all in who you, Kemosabe.”
“You mean, who you blow.”
“That too, my friend. While you fritter your time away chasing medical student tail, I’ve been busy earning my promotions the old-fashioned way.”
“On your knees.”
“Damn right. Kissing every dimpled, sagging, senile butt in the department. I don’t have your beautiful brain, Lloyd. Never will.” Mark said tapping his temple with his fingers.
“Meanwhile, I’m still an Assistant Professor.”
“That’s because they expect so much more from you. They figure if they promote you too soon it’ll take away your hunger. Speaking of which, did you have lunch yet?”
“It’s barely noon,” Lloyd said.
“Good. Walk with me. I’m heading for the caf.”
The two walked through the sterile hallway connecting the medical school to the main hospital building appearing every bit the odd couple: lean, slick, dark-haired Lloyd dwarfed by the bow-tied, heavy-jawed, ambling red giant that appeared capable of stepping back in the lineup for the University of Iowa at nose guard on a moment’s notice. Despite outward appearances, since the day they were matched up as roommates their freshman year of medical school, the two instantly clicked.
“Do I have a scoop for you, my friend,” Mark said. “You’re going to owe me big time for this.” Lloyd’s facial expression gave no hint of curiosity so Mark stopped, put a hand on Lloyd’s shoulder, pulled him to the side and scouted the corridor with an embellished sense of secrecy. “I had the most amazing phone call a couple of days ago.” He glanced over Lloyd’s shoulder once more and whispered, “I found Cecil Spalding.” Lloyd shrugged and jutted out his lower lip. “Cecil Spalding… The Constellation of Doom?”
“Aah, that Cecil Spalding,” Lloyd said nodding his head. “I don’t know who the hell that is.”
“And you’re supposed to be the cultured one. Cecil Spalding was one of the most promising Science Fiction writers of his generation. Wrote a trilogy called The Constellation of Doom. A dam
n masterpiece of story-telling, won him all sorts of awards and accolades.”
“I didn’t know you were for a Sci-Fi geek.”
“Are you kidding? The universe fascinates me. Did you know NASA just found water on Mercury? Water on Mercury! Anyway, at the peak of his career, Cecil Spalding suddenly disappears. Never publishes another book, just vanishes in thin air like some magical unicorn.”
“And now you found him.”
“I met him this morning… in the flesh.”
“He was naked?”
“You know what I mean,” Mark said with a frown.
“Well, the mystery’s solved then,” Lloyd said flatly. “Well done,” Lloyd patted Mark’s shoulder.
“I told his wife you would see him… as a patient.”
Lloyd studied Mark’s face. “Why don’t you see him… as a doctor?”
“This is your ballpark Lloyd. The man has the most severe short term-memory dysfunction I’ve ever seen. You can talk to him for half-an-hour, step out of the room for a piss, come back in and he has no recollection of ever having met you. He thinks his grown son is still eight years old – doesn’t recognize him as his son at all. Only person he does recognize is his wife.”
“What was the cause?” Lloyd asked.
“Viral encephalitis, sixteen years ago. Was in a coma for three weeks. Woke up but his memory was Swiss cheese.”
“Mmm,” Lloyd said with downcast eyes.
“You’re getting a woody, aren’t you? I can hear the little gears spinning in your head. You’re thinking, ‘This guy’s a perfect subject for my study.’”
“I haven’t even received the green light for human trials yet.”
“When do you go in front of the IRB?”
The Institutional Review Board was the hospital panel charged with reviewing and approving studies that employed human subjects.
“I don’t know,” Lloyd said. “Soon I guess.”
“Well, then, you’re welcome,” Mark said. “Just remember your friends when you get that early morning phone call from Stockholm one day.”
“I just don’t know when I’ll be able to see him,” Lloyd said. “I’ll have to check my clinic schedule.”
“No need. You’re making a house call. The guy doesn’t leave his home. It makes him batty.” Mark placed his hand on Lloyd’s back and the two started walking again. “Don’t worry. I was there this morning, cozy little home in Hinsdale. Wife makes great iced tea.”
“When?”
“Today,” Mark said.
“You want me to go today?”
“Don’t bullshit me. I know you’re champing at the bit. And it’ll be good for you. It’ll help to broaden the horizons of your social life past the walls of your excellent bachelor pad. By the way, you free this weekend?”
“I’m not on call,” Lloyd said.
“And no previously scheduled engagements?” Mark traced quotation marks in the air with his fat fingers.
Lloyd briefly thought of Alison: beautiful, sensual Alison, whose memory did not arouse the slightest tinge of an emotion. “No, I got nothing, man.”
“Good. Monica asked me to invite you to our house for a little back-yard barbecue, Saturday afternoon. Scored me some premium Kobe rib-eyes – not the kind of stuff you can buy at the supermarket. Husband of a patient of mine is a restaurant supplier.”
Dr. Mark O’Keefe was beloved by his patients who regularly manifested their devotion by showering him with gifts. Around the holidays you could barely move in his cramped office without tripping over a honey-baked ham or stepping into a basket of fruit. Mark might have been able to publish the definitive text on bedside manner if he could find a way to sit still long enough for his burly fingers to type out the manuscript.
“You want me to bring anything?” Lloyd asked.
“I don’t know, I was thinking you might bake a nice casserole,” Mark said in a sing-song voice. “What the hell are you going to bring, foolish lad? Bring your appetite.”
Lloyd’s beeper chirped. He unclipped it from his belt and looked at the display. “It’s the lab. I gotta go.”
“What about lunch?” Mark asked as Lloyd walked away.
“We’ll have lunch on Saturday.”
In the lab, a compact disk player on a bare counter was playing Chopin’s nocturne in C-sharp minor. Kazimir Volkov, the chief laboratory technician, fervently believed that lab mice found classical music soothing. Lloyd doubted this claim and, just to badger him, once wondered aloud whether exposing the mice to music might introduce an uncontrolled variable to the study. Without sensing the sarcasm, Volkov argued that if both the control mice and the study subjects were exposed to the same music, the variable would be, in effect, controlled. Lloyd was satisfied by the scientific tack taken by the middle-aged self-styled philosopher and the matter was permanently put to rest.
And even if the effect on the mice might have been negligible, the laboratory assistant took solace in the fact that he was able to spark in Lloyd a feeble interest in classical music. Despite Volkov’s continued accusations of being tone-deaf, the repeated exposure in his laboratory goaded Lloyd to an enthusiastic appreciation of, if not an outright love for, Chopin’s piano sonatas.
“You’re a hopeless romantic after all,” Volkov once said.
“No Kaz, it’s the mathematical precision I admire.”
“What do you know about math?” Volkov said in his thick Russian accent with a chuckle. “You’re just a doctor. Barbers used to do your job!”
Lloyd stopped just inside the door and surveyed the lab. He immediately sensed something was wrong. Kaz sat on a metal bar stool, his shoulders slumped, peering into a plastic bin which lay on the black Formica-covered counter.
“Why aren’t we running experiments?” Lloyd asked, walking towards the lab technician.
Kaz turned and squinted as if he was staring into a floodlight. “We lost a comrade this morning.”
“The hell you talking about?”
“Wolfgang is gone.”
Lloyd stopped at Kaz’s back and looked over his shoulder into the bin. The tiny white corpse of a mouse lay stiffly next to a freshly-plucked dandelion.
“What happened?”
“I knew something was wrong when he bit me. Wolfgang is a gentle mouse. He would never hurt a soul,” Kaz said.
“What happened, Kaz?”
“When I fed him this morning he wouldn’t eat. He was trying to walk but he couldn’t. He was jerking.”
“How do you mean, jerking?”
“You know, jerking. Like un-coordinated.”
“Ataxia?” Lloyd asked.
“I think so. Then he went to the corner of his cage and huddled there. I thought he maybe need a little rest, I don’t know. I check him an hour later and I thought he was asleep, so I left him alone, but when I come back… Well, he just looked not very good.”
“I agree. He looks not very good.” Lloyd considered the significance of ataxia in one of his treated mice. Could it be the sign a prion-induced neurologic disorder? He exhaled forcefully trying to rid his mind of the thought. “Shit. We really didn’t need this. Not now.”
“Is that all you can say?” Kaz turned on the stool to look at him.
Lloyd reached in his coat pocket and fidgeted with his keys, kept looking at the tiny corpse to avoid locking eyes with Kaz. “What do you want me to say?”
“He was a good mouse. One of the greatest mice I’ve ever known. Smart, hard-working, brave…”
“Generous,” Lloyd said facetiously, regretting the comment as soon as the word left his lips.”
“Yes, generous,” Kaz said. “Very generous, because he gave all he had to give. He made the ultimate sacrifice… for us.”
“For humanity,” Lloyd muttered, the sarcasm waning.
“Yes, for humanity. He didn’t ask for this. But did he ever complain?”
“I never heard him complain.”
“That’s right. No one never heard him complai
n.” Kaz paused. He swallowed, cleared his throat. “Perhaps you can say a few words for our fallen comrade.”
“Me?”
“I was raised in an atheistic worker’s paradise. Your uncle is a priest. Didn’t you learn anything from him?”
“I haven’t gone to church in –”
“Please, Lloyd. Just few words.”
Lloyd inhaled deeply, opened his mouth, hesitated, licked his lips, and said, “We salute Wolfgang, born a humble tau transgenic mouse, named after one of the great composers. A mouse that selflessly devoted his life to the advancement of science and the betterment of mankind. May his sacrifice not be in vain.”
“Amen, brother,” Kaz said, his voice hoarse. “Amen.”
Chopin’s nocturne ended and a quiet somberness enveloped the men.
“We’ll have to do a post-mortem,” Lloyd said after a sufficient pause.
Kaz drew a deep sigh. “Yes, yes, I know.”
“You need help?”
“I know what to do,” Kaz said with a flat voice.
Lloyd put a hand on his assistant’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Kaz.”
Kaz nodded, exhaled through pursed lips and looked up at Lloyd. “I know.”
Lloyd nodded, removed his hand from Kaz’s shoulder and hid it in his coat pocket, then lifted it again to glance at his wristwatch. “Look, Kaz, I have an appointment…”
“Yes, yes, don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Please Lloyd,” Kaz said in his usual gritty, booming voice, “please go so I can get some work done.”
Lloyd nodded again, turned on his heels and headed for his office which was tucked in the south corner of the laboratory. He was half-way across the room when Kaz called out at him.
“Lloyd, you think the prion…?” He didn’t have to finish the question. Lloyd stopped but didn’t turn. He felt his ears grow hot.
“None of the other mice we injected have ever had a problem.”
“True, but…”
Lloyd faced Kaz. “Kaz, let’s not tell anyone about this.”
Kaz’s eyes widened.
“We’ll follow the study protocol,” Lloyd said, “but no one needs to know about this until we’ve determined the cause of death.”
The Art of Forgetting Page 3