On the way back to the test center, wonder if Mom’s not right. Maybe time to get a job. Learn how to read, too.
Bet she knows how to read.
Eight o’clock next morning. Come downstairs wearing my rat gear. Gym shorts, football jersey, sneaks. Time to go to work for the advancement of science and all mankind.
Dr. Bighead is waiting for me. Not as friendly as he was yesterday. Takes me to clinic and waits while I fill another bottle for the doctor. Escorts me to the lab.
Four power treadmills set next to each other on one side of the room, with a TV hanging from the ceiling above them. Stupid purple dinosaur show on the tube. Sound turned down low. College kids wearing white coats sitting in front of computers on other end of the room. One of them is the guy who picked me up at the airport. Glances up for a second when I come in. Doesn’t wave back. Just looks at his screen again, taps fingers on his keyboard. Too cool to talk to rats now.
Two other rats sitting in plastic chairs. Already wired up, watching Barney, waiting to go. Walk over to meet them. One is the skinny longhair I saw last night. Wearing old Lollapolooza shirt. Name’s Doug. Other guy looks like he works out a lot. Big dude. Shaved head, nose ring, truck stop tattoo on right forearm. Says his name is Phil.
Doug looks bored, Phil nervous. Everyone swats hands. We’re the rat patrol, cruising for a bruising.
Time to get wired. Sit on table, take off shirt, let one of the kids tape electrodes all over me. Head, neck, chest, back, thighs, ankles. So much as twitch and lines jump all over the computer screens. Somebody asks what I had for breakfast, when was the last time I went to the bathroom. Writes it all down on a clipboard.
Phil asks if the TV has cable. Please change the channel, he says, it’s giving me a headache. No one pays attention to him. Finally gets up and switches over to The Today Show. Dr. Bighead gives him the eye. Wonder if this is the first time Phil has ever been on the rat patrol. If the scientists want you to watch Barney, then you do it, no questions asked. Could be part of the experiment for all you know.
Don’t mess with the scientists. Everyone knows that.
Last rat finally arrives. No surprise, it’s the girl I saw last night. Wearing one-piece workout suit. Thank you, Lord, for giving us the guy who invented Spandex. Phil and Doug look ready to swallow their tongues when they see her. Guy who tapes electrodes to her gets a woody under his lab coat when he goes to work on her chest and thighs.
She ignores his hands, just like she ignores everyone else, including me and the boys. She’s a true-blue, all-American, professional rat.
Time to mount the treadmills. Dr. Bighead makes a performance about us getting on the proper machines, as if it makes a difference. The girl is put on the machine to my left, with Doug on my right and Phil next to him.
Grasp the metal bar in front of me. Dr. Bighead checks to make sure that the computers are up and running, then he switches on the treadmills. Smooth rubber mat beneath my feet begins to roll at a slow pace, only about a foot or so every few seconds. My grandmother could walk faster than this.
Look over at the girl. She’s watching Willard Scott talking to some guy dressed like a turkey. Asks Dr. Bighead if he’d turn up the volume. He say no, it would just distract his team. Think he’s pissed because Phil switched off the purple dinosaur.
Just as well. Gives us a chance to get acquainted.
She starts first. Asks me my name. Tell her. She nods, tells me hers. Sylvie Simms. Hi Sylvie, I say, nice to meet you.
Scientists murmur to each other behind our backs. Sylvie asks me where I’m from. She tells me she’s from Columbus, Ohio.
C’mon, man, Phil says. Turn up the volume. Can’t hear what he’s saying about the weather.
Dr. Bighead ignores him.
Look over at Doug. Got a Walkman strapped to his waist. Eyes closed, head bobbing up and down. Grooving to something in his headphones as he keeps on trucking.
Been to Columbus, I say. Nice city. Got a great barbecue place downtown, right across the street from the civic center.
Sylvie laughs. Got a nice laugh. Asks if it’s a restaurant with an Irish name. Yeah, I say, that’s the one. Serves ribs with a sweet sauce. She knows the place, been there many times.
And so we re off and running. Or walking. Whatever.
Doug listens to rock bands on his Walkman, getting someone to change CDs for him every now and then. Phil stares at the TV supplying his own dialogue for the stuff he can’t hear, bitching about not being able to change the channel. A kid walks by every now and then with a bottle of water, letting us grab a quick sip through a plastic straw.
Sylvie and I talk to each other.
Learn a lot about Sylvie while waiting for the blisters to form. Single. Twenty-seven years old. Got a B.A. in elementary education from the same university where I got my start as a rat, but couldn’t get a decent job. Public schools aren’t hiring anyone who don’t have a military service record, the privates only take people with master’s degrees. Became a rat instead, been running for two years now. Still wishes she could teach school, but at least this way she’s paying the rent.
Tell her about myself. Born here. Live there. Leave out part about not being able to read very well, but truthful about everything else. Four years as a rat after doing a stint in the Army. Tell her about other Phase One tests I’ve done, go on to talking about places I’ve gone hiking.
Gets interested in the last part. Asks me where I’ve been. Tell her about recent trek through Nepal, about the beach at Koh Samui where you can go swimming without running into floating garbage. About hiking to the glacier in New Zealand and the moors in Scotland and rain forest trails in Brazil.
You like to travel, she says.
Love to travel, I say. Not first-class, not like a tourist, but better this way. Get to see places I’ve never been before.
Asks what I do there. Just walk, I say. Walk and take pictures. Look at birds and animals. Just to be there, that’s all.
Asks how I’ve been able to afford to do all this. Tell her about mortgaging my organs to organ banks.
Looks away. You sell your organs?
No, I say, I don’t sell them. Mortgage them. Liver to a cloner in Tennessee, heart to an organ bank in Oregon, both lungs to a hospital to Texas. One kidney to Idaho, the other to Minnesota….
Almost stops walking when she hears that. You’d sell them your whole body?
Shrug. Haven’t sold everything yet, I say. Still haven’t mortgaged corneas, skin, or veins. Saving them for last, when I’m too old to do rat duty and can’t sell plasma, bone marrow or sperm anymore.
She blushes when I mention sperm. Pretend not to notice. She asks if I know what they’re going to do with my organs when I’m dead.
Sure, I say. Someone at the morgue runs a scanner over the bar-code tattoo on my left arm. That tells them to put my body in a fridge and contact the nearest organ donor info center. All the mortgage-holders will be notified, and they’ll fly in to claim whatever my agent negotiated to give them. Anything left over afterwards, the morgue puts it in the incinerator. Ashes to ashes and all the happy stuff.
Sylvie takes a deep breath. And that doesn’t bother you?
Shrug. Naw, I say. Rather have somebody else get a second chance at life from my organs than having them rot in a coffin in the ground. While they’re still mine, I can use the dough to go places I’ve never been before.
Treadmill is beginning to run just a little faster now. No longer walking at a granny pace. Dr. Bighead must be getting impatient. Wants to get some nice blisters on our feet by the end of the day.
Phil sweats heavily now. Complains about having to watch Sally Jesse instead of Oprah. Don’t wanna watch that white whore, he says. C’mon, gimme that black bitch instead. Doug sweating hard, too, but just keeps walking. Asks for a Smashing Pumpkins CD, please. One of the kids changes his CD for him, but doesn’t switch channels on the TV.