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shutting me out from the companionship of my race because
of an unknown arbitrary standard that I failed in my innocent
desire for progress (not necessarily technological, though of
course that was the channel through which most of my work
had always been done, but social and spiritual as well.
Knowledge for its own sake was not, in my youth, the hollow
mockery of a goal that it has become today) to recognize, the
fools. And now I had no one at all to turn to: about this time
Wagner was due for his two weeks' vacation, which he spent
in the Catskills. When he returned he was a changed man.
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Dirty Tricks
by George Alec Effinger
"Master!" he shouted, slamming the screen door like I've
told him a thousand times not to do. "Master, come see! I've
taken myself a bride!" It was then that I realized that poor,
stupid Wagner never understood exactly what sort of
relationship we had. He dragged his new wife into the lab,
where I was busily preparing my pencils for the day's work.
The girl, to give her her due, was pretty, though not what I
would call especially attractive. She smiled shyly; I asked her
what her name was, and when she said "Linda" I could see
Wagner's surprised reaction. Later I learned that Wagner had
met her in a dancing class at the resort where he had spent
his vacation. "Linda" loved to dance, as did almost everyone
at that time. Wagner, though not a scientist, had been
immune to the epidemic through his innate lack of empathy.
But evidently "Linda" was a fine teacher, because I saw my
former assistant only twice more, the last time frugging his
heart out in front of a warehouse on Washington Street. I
don't suppose I'll ever forget him. I've kept his room just the
way it was, and his dish in the kitchen...
After nearly a half-century of scientific endeavor, during
which I made it a conscious practice to ignore all "artistic"
events, I find it remarkable how quickly I am able to master
this business of writing. Who knows where I might have gone
had I taken it up instead of the worthwhile pursuits. I admit,
Wagner used to come to me in the middle of the afternoon,
when our favorite radio programs interrupted the workday,
and tell me how much he admired my turns of phrase, my
bons mots, the precision of my language. But naturally I
discredited all this because he slept curled behind my knees.
206
Dirty Tricks
by George Alec Effinger
It is logical to assume, however, that someone such as I,
who was prepared for life in the old days, when, despite a
lesser quantity of knowledge being loose in the world, one
was expected to have a mastery over a far greater
percentage of it, might gain through that mastery an ability to
learn new things in alien fields at a faster rate than someone
who is expert within only one area, no matter how abstruse
that may be. I applaud myself here not out of egoism, as I
am sure that it must seem, but rather to indicate to the
reader the qualities residing within me from earliest youth
which enabled me to meet the crisis about which I am
presently writing, and to face the facts of that crisis with the
proper mixture of respect and sureness that would best
promote those positive results that were, at the time, so
desperately awaited by an unknowing world. My sentences
lengthen.
I was talking about Wagner, and the change in our
relationship that occurred during the crisis. No, actually,
before that I was talking about the laboratory itself, and I
hadn't really finished describing it. As I said, there were all
these shelves of chemicals, most of which I could see would
be totally useless for any sort of experiment that I would be
interested in. I considered selling them back to the store
(Wagner had gotten a good price from Schubert's Bike and
Hobby), but the salesman wouldn't hear of it. I phoned in an
ad to the Village Voice, and only the outbreak of happiness
prevented it from being answered. But, at the same time,
that inconvenience enabled me to stock the lab by
appropriating the necessary equipment from high schools in
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Dirty Tricks
by George Alec Effinger
the neighborhood. Looking back, that time was about the
happiest of my life. So early in the episode I had yet no idea
of the scope and potential for disruption possessed by an
epidemic of joy. I was not concerned and, indeed, at first I
gave no thought to looking for a cure. I was still intending to
direct my energies into more rewarding areas: dexterity
equivalencies, a cure for menstruation, acupuncture research.
We made up long lists, Wagner and I did, lists of materials
that we wanted to get. We paged through the Turtox
catalogue, our eyes blurry with tears like children looking
through the Sears Christmas issue. "Look!" I would say,
pointing to a bottle of Rana pipiens. I hadn't taken one of
those apart since high school. The nostalgia and the abstract
drive to do research made me giddy. Wagner couldn't
appreciate the subtlety of my feelings, but I'm sure that
somewhere beneath his hunched back he had something of
the same excitement. It was like setting up a new project, a
new office, beginning a new job: buying pencils and pads and
rulers and gummed reinforcements that you know you'll
never use. "Why don't we get a preserved sand shark?" I
said, mostly to myself. "I could practice on it, couldn't I?"
$300 autoclaves. $300 microtomes. Delicate pH meters that
would frustrate me with their fussiness. Racks of test tubes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]