Dr. Abraham Krum, the German-American researcher, had in just five years astounded the psychiatric world with three complex sets of experiments, each of which proved something unique. He began by being the first man in world history able experimentally to induce psychosis in chickens, a creature previously considered of too low intelligence to achieve psychosis. Secondly, he .had managed to isolate the chemical agent (moratycemate) which caused or was associated with the psychosis, thus being the first man to prove conclusively that chemical change could be isolated as a crucial variable in the psychosis of chickens. Thirdly, he discovered an antidote (amoratycemate) which completely cured ninety-three percent of the chickens of their psychosis in just three days of treatment, thus becoming the first man in world history to cure a psychosis exclusively by chemical means.
There was considerable speculation about the Nobel Prize. His current work on schizophrenia in pigeons was followed, like stock market reports by large numbers of people in the psychiatric world. The drug amoratycemate was being experimentally administered to psychotic patients at several mental hospitals in Germany and the United States with interesting results. (Side effects involving blood clots and colitis had not yet been conclusively confirmed, nor had they been eliminated.) Dr. Krum was to be the guest of honor at a party given by Dr. Mann for his friends and certain luminaries of the New York psychiatric world. It was to be a major occasion, with the president of PANY (Dr. Joseph Weinburger), the director of the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene and two or three other extremely big deals whom I can never remember. The dice, imps of the perverse, ordered that I vary my person every ten minutes or so throughout the evening among six roles: a gentle Jesus, an honest dice man, an uninhibited sex maniac, a mute moron, a bullshit artist and a Leftist agitator.
I had created the options under the influence of marijuana, which I had smoked for half an hour as the result of an option created under the influence of alcohol, which I had drunk because the dice - ad infinitum. My dicelife was getting out of control and the party for Dr. Krum was the climax. Dr. Mann's apartment manages to resemble both a funeral home and a museum. His servant, Mr. Thornton, a cadaver, opened the door that evening with all the warmth of a mechanical skeleton, removed Lil's coat, ignored her plunging neckline, said, `Good evening, Dr. Rhinehart,' as if Dr. Mann had just died, and led us down the hall - filled with portraits of famous psychiatrists - and into the living room.
Whenever I entered the room I was always surprised to find living people there. Jake was against a wall of bookcases in one corner talking with Miss Reingold (there to take notes for Jake), Professor Boggles (there because my dice had said to invite him and his dice had said to accept) and a couple of other, men, presumably world-famous psychiatrists. On an immense oriental couch in front of a Victorian fireplace sat Arlene, Dr. Felloni (who nodded her head rapidly at my appearance) and an elderly woman, presumably somebody's mother. Arlene was dressed as briefly as Lil and with a slightly more spectacular effect: her two luscious breasts made it look as if lovely white balloons had been stuffed into her dress from above but threatened to float out at any moment. In easy chairs opposite the couch were an elderly, retired big deal I vaguely knew, a chubby woman, presumably 'somebody's wife and a small man with a tiny pointed beard, slump-shouldered yet intense: the Dr. Krum I knew from photographs.
Dr. Mann greeted us wineglass in hand, his face slightly flushed with glory, worry and booze, and led us toward the women and Dr. Krum. I shook the tiny die in a specially built watchcase in my pocket, eased it out and glanced at the result to discover which of the six roles I was now to play for ten minutes or so.
`Dr. Krum, I'd like you to meet a former student and colleague of mine, Dr. Lucius Rhinehart,' said Dr. Mann. `Luke, this is Dr. Krum.'
`Dr. Rhinehart, a pleasure, a pleasure. Your work I have not read but Dr. Mann says highly of you.'
Dr. Krum shook hands with short emphatic stabs and bared his teeth in an exaggerated grimace as he looked confidently up into my face, looming nearly a foot above him.
`Dr. Krum, I'm speechless. I never hoped to meet a man who'd done such work in my own lifetime. I'm deeply, deeply honored.'
`It's nothing, nothing. In a few years, then I will show you my dear, delighted, delighted.'
He bowed slightly to, Lil and clicked his heels as he shook her hand with two quick pumps. He looked up at her and then at me with a pleased, flushed face.
`Such lovely ladies this evening, lovely ladies. I regret verking with chickens.'
He laughed.
`Dr. Krum, your loss is the world's gain.'
As I said this, Lil glanced briefly at me, raised her eyes ceiling-ward and turned to talk to Jake, who had edged to the outskirts of our group. Arlene was sunk into the couch smiling up at me and I smiled broadly back at her.
`You're terrific, Arlene, you really are. You look sexier every time I see you.'
She flushed prettily.
`Who are you tonight?' she asked nonchalantly, sitting up a bit straighter and inflating her balloons.
`Just terrific, Arlene, you really are. I don't understand, Dr. Krum, these women, why they try to distract us when we
want to talk about your work.'
Dr. Krum, an elderly has-been named Latterly and I were all looking with dazed grins at Arlene until I turned to Dr.
Krum and said: `Your ability to isolate variables amazes me.'
`My verk, my verk.'
He turned to me, shrugged his shoulders and stroked his tiny beard. 'I'm verking now with pigeons.'
`The whole world knows,' I said.
`Knows what?' asked Jake, joining us with a Scotch for me and some purple something for Dr. Krum.
`Dr. Krum, I trust you know my colleague, Dr. Ecstein.'
`Of course, of course, the accidental breakthrough. Ve met.'
`Jake is probably the finest theoretical analyst practicing in the United States today.'
`Yoah,' said Jake without expression. `What were you talking about?'
`Dr. Krum has moved to pigeons and the whole world knows.'
`Oh yeah. How's it going, Krum?'
`Good, good. We haven't induced schizophrenia complete yet, but the pigeons are nervous.'
He laughed again, a quick ratatat-tat hehheh-heh.
`Have you tried injecting 'em with that chicken stuff - that psychotic stuff - you discovered?' Jake asked.
`Oh no. No. It has no effect on pigeons.'
`What methods of inducing schizophrenia in your subjects have you tried after the failure of your cubical maze?'
I asked.
`Presently ve teach homing pigeons to find home. Then ve move pigeon long vay avay and move the home. Pigeon
gets very vorried.'
`What problems have you encountered?'
I asked.
`Ve lose pigeons.'
Jake laughed, but when I glanced at him he cut it short and squinted nervously at me. Dr. Krum stroked his beard,
focused his eyes intently on my knees and went on.
'We lose pigeons. It is nothing. Ve have many pigeons, but chickens could not fly. Pigeons are smart but ve may have
to remove their vings,' he frowned.
Dr. Mann joined us, glass in hand, Jake asked a question and I removed my watchcase and glanced at the single die for
a second role. The tall, gaunt Mr. Thornton arrived, dispensing tiny hors d'oeuvres, crackers with minute pearl-like deposits on them like fish eggs waiting to be fertilized. Each of my three colleagues mechanically took one, Jake downing his in a swallow, Dr. Mann briefly holding his under his nose and then chewing it for the next ten minutes and Dr. Krum taking an intense experimental bite, like a chicken pecking at seed.