Doctor Rat (15 page)

“Yes, and try some of that weed there…yes, that’s it. A little spice in it…yes? I knew you’d like it. Have more, have more. The banks are filled with it hereabouts. Plenty for two rogues like you and me.” Well, this is fine, very fine. We can enjoy many such days together, telling the old tales, if I can remember them. And if I can’t remember, if I can’t tell a tale, then Limping Bull will find me a good listener and he can tell the stories. The great unreachable fruit sets in a certain way here, just beyond those trees—at evening it makes one mellow. I’m tempted to go right now to the plum grove. But green plums make a very sour drunk. It would not be what it should be. Patience, old fellow, patience. Limping Bull is lifting his head to speak:

“I thank you for your kindness. Now I must go…”

“Go? But, Limping Bull, why torment yourself with further traveling? Here is all you need. There’s food, water, and plums for a good drunk. What could be better?”

“You haven’t heard, then?”

“Heard what, Limping Bull?”

“A great meeting on the savannah. I must attend.”

“Limping Bull, please listen to good advice. I see now that you have never attended one of the great musterings on the savannah. But I have attended, many times. One must be young and strong for such a meeting. Permit me to say that you do not appear well enough.”

“What you say is true, Old River Elephant. I am not well enough for a mustering. I know what they are, for I was not always sick. Once I too was near the Central Elephant. I know the mustering and its dangers. But this is no ordinary meeting.

“In what way does it differ, Limping Bull?”

“It is a mustering of all the animals, River Elephant.”

“All the animals? But what could be served by that? We don’t exchange blood with the other animals. We don’t form herds.”

“I cannot say for certain why it is. Many different stories are passing through the forest. But you know what it’s like at a meeting of elephants. After a few days together…”

“Yes, we feel like one elephant. I was just telling the little bird about it, about the herb of the savannah…”

“This great mustering, so they say, will produce a feeling far greater than any produced by the herb, River Elephant. It will be the feeling of one animal.”

“One animal? But what one animal would it be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Limping Bull, this is a drunken monkey’s dream you’re telling me. If you want to have such a dream you don’t have to go a step further. As I said, in the grove only a few steps away are some of the loveliest plums—not ripe, I admit. But soon to ripen, and then…”

“Old River Elephant, forgive me, but I must go. I am a slow traveler, and the great savannah is distant.”

“Hold on, Limping Bull, just hold on one moment more. I feel a strange wind blowing over me as you stand here.”

“Old River Elephant, I know how you feel. I too had found a quiet spot for myself, with fruit and roots and tubers. I was certain it was my last piece of jungle. The days were quiet and I was resigned. And then I felt the forest tremble. I heard the drumming of the chimps upon the tree stumps. And I saw them soon enough, in numbers so great I couldn’t believe my eyes. All around were monkeys of every kind, millions of them. The floor of the jungle was suddenly alive with little creatures, all proceeding in the same direction. The branches were filled with snakes, slithering along. I couldn’t stay in my grove. The feeling was too strong. And I can’t stay with you at this pleasant riverbank. I must cross the river now.”

“Little bird, have you heard of this great mustering?”

“Yes, Father Elephant.”

“And why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought perhaps your plums would ripen first.”

A mustering. A mustering so great that the heavens will shake. “Little bird, you know the sky and all its gifts. Is that thunder I hear in the distance? I’ve heard it for several days. Is it the thunder that precedes the rain?”

“No, Old River Elephant.”

“It’s the sound of the mustering?”

“Yes, River Elephant.”

“Then let us cross this stream, my friends. If I seem to falter as we cross, if I seem to be miring in the mud, remind me that when we reach the great savannah I will taste again the herb-which-brings-insight. That will get my old feet moving.”

I move along quietly through the blood-sample test tubes, where numerous rebels have gathered, paying respect to the blood of our ancestors. Observe: I do not bow my head all the way.

“…enough blood spilled to fill an ocean…”

Pontificating rat-bastards. These rebel speechmakers are a bigger pain in the ass than a glass rod. A little acetylcholine iodine in their biscuit would change their tune in a hurry. They’d be crying bloody tears (see
Typical Action of Acetylcholine Iodine in Rats).

I’ve got to have help if I’m going to stop this rebellion. Gently I slip off this table and scurry along the window sill.

Rebel searchlights continually sweeping the lab, and these are suspicious movements I’m making, but I’ve got to get across this aisle…

…up the leg of this chair, round and round it I go, dodging the rebel spotlights. Quick, across the seat and up the back of the chair!

Now another leap—to the steampipe—and up the side of it—hurry, hurry. From the steampipe it’s just—a short leap—to the Pleasure Dome, high above the other cages. Here, on the most exclusive level in our laboratory, I might find sympathizers.

The Pleasure Dome rises spherical and transparent, a magnificent bubble of contentment. Surely I’ll be able to enlist some allies, for here is where the most fortunate of all rats dwell. They don’t want to see their happy life disrupted by a revolution!

Yes, this is the place, friends, the place of places. Look, look at the rat who’s touching the doorbell with his nose. He touches it, the bell lights up, giving him an electric buzz which goes straight to the delicately crafted components surgically placed in the pleasure center of his brain. He stands for a moment, reeling with delight, and then he touches the doorbell again, receiving another pleasure stimulus.

“Good evening, Pleasure Rat.”

He turns toward me, a stupefied look of happiness in his eyes. He opens his mouth, trying to speak, but only emits a deep satisfied sigh, after which he turns back to the doorbell and gives it another buzz.

He’ll be at the threshold of the Pleasure Dome for several weeks, possibly months, depending on how soon he becomes insensitive to this level of voltage. Then he’ll venture inside, toward other, stronger buzzers, and deeper, greater pleasures.

I enter the hallway and find another rat there, pleasuring himself on the next buzzer, which makes his ears twitch when he touches it and renders him into a jelly of delicious sensations.

“Good evening, Pleasure Rat.”

“Gaa—gaa—” He mutters incomprehensively, his speech centers discombobulated from happiness. Obviously, he will be of little use to me.

At the end of the hallway is another Pleasure Rat, stretched on the floor and flopping about ecstatically, tongue lolling from his mouth. He’s tickling the next-strongest buzzer with his tail, and the currents of ecstasy are racing up and down his spine. His eyes, at least, appear intelligent, and perhaps I can enlist his aid.

“Pleasure Rat, you must help me.”

“Help yourself, friend, the buzzer’s right there.”

“But I haven’t been wired.”

“Unfortunate fellow.”

He touches the buzzer and flops spasmodically, spittle running down his chin. I can see that he is not army material.

Through the crystal-beaded doorway, then, I pass, its electric charges touching me, but doing nothing for me. But how a brain-wired rat must feel, passing through this curtain of happiness!

And so—the center of the Pleasure Dome before me.

Rats sprawled about, touching the numerous buttons that line the walls. They look at me, sympathetic joy in their eyes, believing that I am an initiate to the Pleasure Dome, that I will join them in their unspeakable delights.

“Pleasure Rats, I haven’t come for happiness. I’m here on scientific business of the highest order.”

“Oh, shut up, rat, and get a buzz on.”

“Yes, just touch any of the buzzers.”

“My dear Pleasure Rats, there’s trouble brewing for you.”

They quickly lose interest in me and go back to their buzzers, which activate those deeply hidden wellsprings of well-being our good doctors have wired. The pleasure rats flop, crawl, squirm, wriggle, and moan joyfully as luscious states of intense fulfillment take them over. Only one of them seems coherent and he is the only rat who has reached the central buzzer at the very center of the Dome, where the highest voltage is found.

“Oh Great Central Pleasure Rat!”

“This is it, rat,” he says softly. “This is the best button of all. Come in and touch it with me. You’ll never go back to the other buttons again. This is the Total Happiness Button and it’s yours if you want it.”

“Central Pleasure Rat, I hate to be the one to tell you, but there’s a revolution going on and your ass is going to be grass when the rebels bust in here.”

“Impossible, rat. I am the God of Complete Joy. Nobody can bring me down. I just lean over and…”

He touches his nose to the central button. His eyes light up, his tail shoots out, his tongue flutters like a snapped window-shade, and he does a complete somersault.

“I’m just beginning to groove,” he says, coming back to his seat. “The somersault is only a transition state. The highest possible joy is to ride the energy without moving a muscle. Pure unadulterated kicks, my friend. Come on, try some.”

“I can see you don’t know the Legend of the Pleasure Dome, Great Central Happiness Rat.”

“Know it? My friend, I
am
the Legend. I am the Light. I am the Buzz. I am the Groove. I am the Fun. I am
it!
I know everything.”

“Well, then I guess you know there are some revolutionaries downstairs who are already eating their way through the fucking fuse box. They’re going to de-generate the whole laboratory.”

“You’ve got to be kidding, mister. Nobody would dare do that in a government lab.”

“That’s what I thought, oh Great Grooving Pleasure-Buzz. I thought we were invulnerable. But…”

Central Pleasure Rat quickly dives toward the central buzzer and leans his nose on it, leaning, leaning, leaning as his eyes roll around, his tail flops on the floor, and he holds onto his pleasure for all he’s worth.

And there go the lights. Son of a bitch. I knew it. The rebels have gotten to the…

“Hey, what’s going on!”

“My buzzer isn’t buzzing.”

“Mister, where’s my buzz!”

“Quick, do something. You know I can’t live without my kicks!”

“I’m on the next-to-the-last button and it’s so wonderful…”

They sit around in the dark, slowly learning the last part of the Legend of the Pleasure Dome, that every rat who comes into it is one day
taken out of it,
never to return. And that, dear friends, is the worst that can happen to a rat.

“Call the goddamn janitor, someone! Please! My brother is over in maintenance. Get the water hoses. Get the—get the—”

They begin muttering incoherently. For a whole year their anxiety has been submerged and now it’s all surfacing at once. This is my moment, now I shall lead them: “My fellow Pleasure Rats, this is the work of a gang of low-life revolutionaries who know nothing of the ultimate pleasures to be enjoyed here. We’ve got to wipe them out!”

“Jesus, yes, rat. Let’s go!”

“Give me a—give me—oh god, I can’t stand it…”

“You
can’t stand it? I am the Great Grooving Pleasure God, the Central Buzz-on, the Happiest of the Happy, the—”

“Shut your hole, rat, we’re all in the same boat.”

“That is correct, Pleasure Rats, and your boat is going to sink if you don’t help me now!”

“Right, we’re with you. Let’s go, let’s get the rats who turned off the juice. Let’s get them and kill them all right away and get back here in a half hour.”

“Oh, I feel like hell, I can’t walk.”

“My buzz…my beautiful buzz…”

“Buzz of buzzes, loveliest buzz that ever was…”

“Cut the comedy, Pleasure Rats, and follow me, through the crystal curtain!”

“Through the crystal curtain? Never! I vowed never to go back out through the crystal curtain, ever!”

“Right, I’d sooner be sunk in cat shit.”

“COME ON, YOU MISERABLE BUZZ-JUNKIES! THE LINES OF JOY HAVE BEEN CUT!”

“Right, right, and we’ve got to hook them up. My cousin’s over in electrical shock therapy. He knows his shit, rat, let’s go find a screwdriver.”

What a fucked-up army I’ve got behind me. But at least they’re following me, through the crystal curtain…

“Oh my god, this is horrible, I can’t stand it, the crystal curtain is parting…”

“Oh crystal curtain, I’ll be back. I’m just going to get the water pails and put out the fire. My uncle’s over in the water trough. He’ll know what to do.”

“Pleasure Rats, to war!”

“Christ, it’s dark in this hallway. Who’s that I’m stepping on…”

“The buzzer went off. I was just lying here and the buzzer went off.”

“Yeah, all the buzzers are out, but we’re going to fix the fucking things. Come on, get up.”

“But I just got here!”

“Come on, Buzz Brother, we’re getting our shit together for about a half hour. We’re going to knock the piss out of some wise guys who’ve been fooling with the…fooling with the…holy god, look at that!”

It is, indeed, an awesome sight. Below, on the laboratory floor, the revolutionary rats are marching, all in file, all in perfect order, all armed with surgical picks, all wearing surgical-thimble helmets which glisten ominously in the moonlight through the window. They march, their feet resounding in the lab. And the Great Exercise Drum goes round and round, flashing its rebel broadcast, projecting finely focused footage on the wall. Chimps again, inferior types, jumping around, banging on some tree stumps. Perhaps if I’d given the New Necropsy an up-beat tempo like this one the chimps are using…

But it’s too late to think of that now. I’ve got to whip my army into shape. “All right, troops, fall in.”