We were somewhere around 24 hours away from the submission deadline when the drugs began to wear off. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should type..." when there was a terrible roar all around us and the lab was full of huge bats. Waving and flapping their paper wings stapled in the corner and violated in red pen. And a voice was screaming "Holy Jesus! Didn't I tell you I canceled office hours this week?"
Then it was quiet again. My postdoc had taken off his shirt and was pouring espresso on his chest to assist in the creative process. "What the hell are you yelling about?" he muttered, staring up at the ceiling. "Never mind," I said, turning the laptop toward him. "It's your turn to write." We had inverted the video. White on black. The illumination turned to 11. The display buzzed in some otherworldly language, threatening to burn our shadows into my office wall like the A bomb at Miyuki bridge.
No point in mentioning the undergrads, though. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.
It was almost midnight, and we still had a hundred pages to go. They would be tough pages. Very soon I knew we would be extrapolating.
The department had given me $300 in cash which I had used to purchase every kind of CNS stimulant known to science. The lab refrigerator looked like it belonged in a sophomore dorm room preparing for a guilding raid. Frappuccinos. Moccachinos. Stacks of 4 count doubleshots. Half a salt shaker of theoyphilline. Off-brand energy drinks I had procured from a quartet of Guatemalan dock workers. On the label was a mascot mouse, eyes trembling in a Gaussian blur. Nystagmus incarnate. Small print stated the product could be used as a colonoscopy prep in locales where the AMA had no jurisdiction. I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff soon enough.
"Man, this is the way to write," said my postdoc. He reached over and turned up the volume on NPR. We listened to some unpaid stringer trying to break into journalism by taking mortar fire. I couldn't understand what she was going on about. A local calypso band confronting a corrupt government. The more pressing concern was my postdoc, who had taken to singing along with the interview while extending the Experimental Design in an uneven rhythm.
It's vital to type at a steady pace. It gives autocorrect time to ponder unfamiliar fare like "oligodendrocyte" and "synaptotagmin" without throwing a wrench into the operating system. A constant speed also makes it easier to gauge progress, which for some reason seemed important at the time. Avoid any quick bursts of acceleration. It drains blood from the head.
My postdoc saw the grad student before I did. Standing outside the laboratory, his upturned innocent face reading our conference poster that hung in the hallway. Bambi's mother.
"Let's give this boy a job," he said. And before I could wave him off the kid had scampered into the office.
"Hot damn, I never wrote a grant before," the kid said.
"We'll it's high time you did," I replied. "Do you want a nicotine patch?"
"We need an ethics statement," my postdoc told the boy. "Go find us one we can copy and paste.
"No more of that talk," I said sharply, "or I'll make you grade the midterms." He grinned, seeming to understand. Luckily the noise in the lab was so loud -- between the wind and the printer and the flapping undergraduates -- that the kid couldn't hear a word we were saying. Or could he?
It was a capital mistake, bringing help on at such a late hour. This could only end badly. And when it did, well, the kid would have to go. I was protected by tenure. And my postdoc, he was far too wily to succumb to such trickery. Lord knows I had tried. No, it would be this poor dew lapper. Cut his head off and bury him in the vivarium with the others.
Jesus! Did I say that? Or just think it? I glanced over at my postdoc, but he seemed oblivious -- staring into the laptop point blank, his ample fingers mashing at the keys like Rondo Hatten playing a Chopin etude.
Maybe I'd better have a chat with this boy, I thought. Perhaps if I explain things, he'll rest easy.
I leaned around in my chair and gave the kid a big smile. "I want you to understand that this man at the laptop is my postdoc! He's not just some dingbat I found at ARVO. He doesn't look like you or me, right? That's because he's a foreigner. I think he's probably Teutonic. But it doesn't matter, does it? Are you prejudiced?"
"Oh, hell no!" he blurted.
"I didn't think so," I said. "Because in spite of his race, this man is extremely valuable to me." I glanced over at my postdoc, but his mind was somewhere else.
"By the way," I said. "There's one thing you should probably understand."
The kid stared at me, not blinking.
"Can you hear me?" I yelled.
He nodded.
It was here I recounted the tale that had brought us to this crossroads, this intersection of fate and panic.
Continue to Part II
Then it was quiet again. My postdoc had taken off his shirt and was pouring espresso on his chest to assist in the creative process. "What the hell are you yelling about?" he muttered, staring up at the ceiling. "Never mind," I said, turning the laptop toward him. "It's your turn to write." We had inverted the video. White on black. The illumination turned to 11. The display buzzed in some otherworldly language, threatening to burn our shadows into my office wall like the A bomb at Miyuki bridge.
No point in mentioning the undergrads, though. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.
It was almost midnight, and we still had a hundred pages to go. They would be tough pages. Very soon I knew we would be extrapolating.
The department had given me $300 in cash which I had used to purchase every kind of CNS stimulant known to science. The lab refrigerator looked like it belonged in a sophomore dorm room preparing for a guilding raid. Frappuccinos. Moccachinos. Stacks of 4 count doubleshots. Half a salt shaker of theoyphilline. Off-brand energy drinks I had procured from a quartet of Guatemalan dock workers. On the label was a mascot mouse, eyes trembling in a Gaussian blur. Nystagmus incarnate. Small print stated the product could be used as a colonoscopy prep in locales where the AMA had no jurisdiction. I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff soon enough.
"Man, this is the way to write," said my postdoc. He reached over and turned up the volume on NPR. We listened to some unpaid stringer trying to break into journalism by taking mortar fire. I couldn't understand what she was going on about. A local calypso band confronting a corrupt government. The more pressing concern was my postdoc, who had taken to singing along with the interview while extending the Experimental Design in an uneven rhythm.
It's vital to type at a steady pace. It gives autocorrect time to ponder unfamiliar fare like "oligodendrocyte" and "synaptotagmin" without throwing a wrench into the operating system. A constant speed also makes it easier to gauge progress, which for some reason seemed important at the time. Avoid any quick bursts of acceleration. It drains blood from the head.
My postdoc saw the grad student before I did. Standing outside the laboratory, his upturned innocent face reading our conference poster that hung in the hallway. Bambi's mother.
"Let's give this boy a job," he said. And before I could wave him off the kid had scampered into the office.
"Hot damn, I never wrote a grant before," the kid said.
"We'll it's high time you did," I replied. "Do you want a nicotine patch?"
"We need an ethics statement," my postdoc told the boy. "Go find us one we can copy and paste.
"No more of that talk," I said sharply, "or I'll make you grade the midterms." He grinned, seeming to understand. Luckily the noise in the lab was so loud -- between the wind and the printer and the flapping undergraduates -- that the kid couldn't hear a word we were saying. Or could he?
It was a capital mistake, bringing help on at such a late hour. This could only end badly. And when it did, well, the kid would have to go. I was protected by tenure. And my postdoc, he was far too wily to succumb to such trickery. Lord knows I had tried. No, it would be this poor dew lapper. Cut his head off and bury him in the vivarium with the others.
Jesus! Did I say that? Or just think it? I glanced over at my postdoc, but he seemed oblivious -- staring into the laptop point blank, his ample fingers mashing at the keys like Rondo Hatten playing a Chopin etude.
Maybe I'd better have a chat with this boy, I thought. Perhaps if I explain things, he'll rest easy.
I leaned around in my chair and gave the kid a big smile. "I want you to understand that this man at the laptop is my postdoc! He's not just some dingbat I found at ARVO. He doesn't look like you or me, right? That's because he's a foreigner. I think he's probably Teutonic. But it doesn't matter, does it? Are you prejudiced?"
"Oh, hell no!" he blurted.
"I didn't think so," I said. "Because in spite of his race, this man is extremely valuable to me." I glanced over at my postdoc, but his mind was somewhere else.
"By the way," I said. "There's one thing you should probably understand."
The kid stared at me, not blinking.
"Can you hear me?" I yelled.
He nodded.
It was here I recounted the tale that had brought us to this crossroads, this intersection of fate and panic.
Continue to Part II
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