Dr. Marsteller Chapter 23
23
When he
woke up he was relieved the dreams he felt sure to haunt him never entered his
mind. He slept like a lioness after the
kill. His head hit the pillow followed
by a moment of black slate and then he was awake, well rested, energized. He rubbed his eyes and sauntered over to the
computer to check his email. A lot of
emails were from people looking for postdocs or soliciting him for his
information. Normally he discarded them,
but one caught his eye from a company in town.
He clicked on it.
Dr.
Marsteller, I talked to you at Mrs. Viscane’s birthday party. You guys seemed to leave pretty quick, so I
didn’t get to talk to you much about a business offer. I was wondering if you would like meet for a drink
sometime. it would be worth your
while. Fletcher
Dr.
Marsteller wondered if it was possible for a man who specializes in aluminum to
produce and market gene therapy. If
true, Fletcher is a valuable person to know if the therapy is successful on Mrs.
Viscane. The only thing left to
accomplish would be FDA approval for human trials. They couldn’t expedite the process by
revealing a successful trial with Mrs. Viscane.
But they could lie even more dramatically with their rodent trials. And no moral qualms will enter the mind about
lying if it is successful. The lies will
be justified.
Fletcher,
certainly, how about the old oaken bucket tonight or tomorrow. I can meet you there around 8 or so. Sly
He always
ended his emails with Sly. Sometime in
the 80s and 90s a mass decision seemed to be made by professors to not call
themselves doctor and to insist other people address them informally by their
first name. Dr. Marsteller felt he was
one of the first to force his students to do so. But in these situations he didn’t like
it. They weren’t working for him. But he didn’t want to seem pompous. The whole thing was ridiculous, he thought. I’m a doctor.
He googled
himself to pass the time and came across an article entitled Dr. Marsteller’s Potion: Fiction or Reality
but he didn’t click on it. He didn’t
want to know what some random author thought of his research. Most likely they would quote Dr.
Mueller.
His wife
entered the room.
-You’re up,
I see.
-Yeah. You were right; I needed some rest.
-You were
not sane this morning.
-I just saw
Mrs. Viscane’s chest get cut open, honey.
It was a strange experience.
-I imagine.
His wife
regarded him with the stoic eyes of a man in front of a firing squad who has
come to peaceful terms with his impending death.
-Honey, can
you go to jail for this?
-No.
-Are you
sure? You guys performed a rogue surgery
with an unapproved treatment.
-Nichola,
relax. We all signed agreements so we
wouldn’t be liable.
-What if
something goes wrong?
He thought
she looked wonderful standing there: innocent and inexperienced. She looked the way she did the first time
they had sex. He loved the feeling he
had that day and he loved the feeling he had right now. She wanted protection. She had complete faith in him no matter what
transgression he committed. He could
commit murder and she’d stay by his side and justify his actions no matter how
malicious or nefarious. Her thoughts
traversed many higher levels but her basic instinct as a devoted wife remained
the same. Her career was delightfully
laid back – a history professor. He had
a love of history as well when he was growing up and respected her profession. But he knew he’d never be able to do it. He didn’t want to be another ineffectual pipe
smoking cad proclaiming wild correlations such as the impact of Stonewall
Jackson’s death on the eventual unionization of industrial workers. But little did he know that he wasn’t the
righteous one. Her life was the
righteous path. Because as a history
professor, her job is to propose opinions related to the facts. But as a scientist, there was no room for
opinion. And only recently did he
realize people couldn’t escape their opinions.
And only in the last year that he decided science was entirely
corrupt. But maybe he thought this
because he was corrupt. Maybe because he
was corrupt (unless the therapy worked on Mrs. Viscane) he began pointing
fingers and judging other scientists so he wouldn’t feel alone in his
deleteriousness. It was all crooked
anyway, he thought. Evil likes
company. How much easier would life have
been if he’d been a history professor?
-Nothing is
going to go wrong. And god forbid if it
does honey, but we’re not liable. And
please don’t tell anyone I told
you. The only reason I told you is because
you’re my wife.
This originally appeared in Dr. Marsteller