Spend last few days trying to learn as much as I can, but can’t get past one thing.
Sylvie.
Started to learn how to read because I wanted to shag her. Going along with her seemed like the easiest way of getting her into bed.
Can’t do that during an experiment, because sex with other rats is a strict no-no in the standard contract. Seen other rats get punted for just being caught in someone else’s room, even when both persons had their pants on. When tests are over and everyone’s paid, though, there’s nothing wrong with a little party time at the nearest no-tell motel.
Still want to sleep with her. Get a Jackson sometimes just sitting next to her in the rec room, while she’s helping me get through some word I haven’t seen before. Can’t take my eyes off her when she’s running the treadmill next to me.
Different situation now, though. Isn’t just about getting Sylvie in some cheap motel for some hoy-hoy. Not even about learning how to read. Got some scary feelings about her.
Two days before the end of the tests. Alone together in the rec room, reading Spider-Man to each other. Ask her straight. Say, hey, why are you helping me like this?
Keeps looking at comic book, but flips back her hair and smiles a little. Because I’m a teacher, she says, and this is what I do. You’re the first pupil I’ve had since college.
Plenty of winos in the park who don’t know how to read, I say. Could always teach them. Why bother with me?
Gives me long look. Not angry, not cold. Can’t quite make it out.
Because, she says, I’ve always wanted to visit Kathmandu, and maybe I’ve found someone who can take me there.
Can take you there, I say. Can take you to Nepal, Brazil, Ireland. Mexico to visit your brother, if you want.
Blushes. Looks away for a second, then back at me. Maybe you just want to take me to nearest hotel when we’re done here, she says. I’ve done that. Wouldn’t mind doing it again, either.
Shake my head. Like Kathmandu better, I say. Sunrise over Annapurna is incredible. Would love you to see it with me.
Love? Thought I was just teaching you how to read.
Look around to see if anyone is watching. No one there, but there must be someone behind the lens in the ceiling.
Hell with them. Put my hand under the table and find hers. One more word you’ve taught me, I say.
She smiles. Doesn’t take her hand away. Finds a pen in her pocket, hands it to me, pushes some paper in front of me.
If you can write it, she says, I’ll believe you.
Phase One test of the product pronounced a success on the final day. Last batch of Brand New Improved Green Stuff doesn’t smell, doesn’t itch, doesn’t burn, and heals the blisters on our feet. Doesn’t do a thing for our leg cramps, but that’s beside the point.
Dr. Bighead thanks us, writes his name on the bottom of our checks. Tells us we’ve been wonderful test subjects. Hopes to work with us again soon. In fact, are you available next March? Scheduled test of new anti-depressant drug. Looking for subjects now. How about it?
Look at Sylvie. She’s sitting next to me. Doesn’t say anything. Look at the check. It’s written on an account at the First Bank of Boston, and it’s signed by Dr. Leonard Whyte, M.D.
Thank you, Dr. Whyte, I say. My agent will be in touch with you. Ciao.
A cab is waiting for us at the front door. We tell the driver to take us to the nearest hotel.
Three years have passed since Sylvie and I met in Boston. A few things are different now.
She finally managed to get me to use proper grammar instead of street talk. I’m still learning, but personal pronouns are no longer foreign to me, and it ’s no longer necessary to refer to all events in the present tense. To those of you who have patiently suffered through my broken English during this chronicle, I sincerely apologize. This was an attempt to portray the person I once was, before Sylvie came into my life.
We used the money earned during the Boston tests for a trip to Mexico City, where Sylvie got see her brother for the first time in two years. Six months later, we flew to Nepal and made a trek through the Annapurna region, where I showed her a sunrise over the Himalayas. Since then we have gone on a safari in Kenya and rafted down the Amazon. Now we’re planning a spring trip to northern Canada, above the Arctic circle. A little too cold for my taste, but she wants to see the Northern Lights.
Anything for my baby.
The first night in Kathmandu, I promised to give her the world that I knew in exchange for hers. She has made good by her promise, and I’m making good by mine.
Nonetheless, we re still rats.
We can’t marry, because the labs that supply our income won’t accept married couples as test subjects. Although we’ve been living together for almost three years how, we keep addresses in different cities, file separate tax returns and maintain our own bank accounts. Her mail is forwarded to my place, and only our agents know the difference. We’ll probably never have children, or at least until we decide to surrender this strange freedom that we’ve found.
Our freedom is not without price. I’ve mortgaged the last usable tissue in my body. Sylvie hasn’t repossessed the rights to her corneas, despite her attempts to find a legal loophole that will allow her to do so, and although the time may come when she has to give up an organ or two, she insists that her body is her own.
More painful is the fact that, every so often, we have to spend several weeks each year participating in the Phase One tests. Sometimes they’re the very samt experiments, conducted simultaneously at the same test facility, so we have to pretend to be strangers.
I haven’t quite become used to that, but it can’t be helped.
But the money is good, the airfare is free, and we sometimes get to see old friends. We spent a week with Doug a couple of months ago, while doing hypothermia experiments in Colorado. He and I discussed favorite Jules Verne novels while sitting in tubs of ice water.
For all of that, though, I lead a satisfactory life. Sylvie and I have enough money to pay the bills, and we visit the most interesting places around the world. I have a woman who I love, my mother has stopped bothering me about getting a job, and I’ve learned how to read.
Not only that, but we can always say that we’ve done our part for the advancement of science and all mankind.
For what more can a good rat ask?