Dear Mr. Pivner. . Eddie Tefnic wrote.
Gee you would really be interested in the work we are doing here now, and I guess I won't ever really be able to thank you for all you have done giving me a start, and treating me practically like a son and all, I mean by helping me go on with my education to where it really comes to grips with humanity and learning all about things in science like in the work we are doing here. I'm sure glad you had your operation, and believe me I sure did everything I could so you would, even after I talked to you and I guess finally convinced you that it was a good idea, because now modern science knows what these things are and how to fix them, not like the Dark Ages. So maybe by convincing you to go ahead with it and have the operation, and while all along I'm working here right in the forefront of all that kind of things, maybe in that way I'm repaying you.
Let me tell you about the work we are doing here now, first we are studying anxiety neurosises by giving some animals a nervous breakdown. Like we have a whole bunch of kids (ha ha I mean little goats) which' are hooked up so that when the light dims it gets a shock, so after a while then the minute the light dims the kid backs into the corner and gets tense so after a while of that he gets anxiety neurosis, because at first he's only tense but then when we change the signals around on him then he gets the real anxiety neurosis. Then you do that about a thousand times on him, you should see them kicking out their both hind legs so they won't get the shock except waiting for it when they don't know it's going to happen at what moment then they get the anxiety neurosis which is a breakdown, while all the while we measure everything so that we know. So after about a thousand times then we try to get them out of it, and everything is recorded real close by the lab and then we go over all that and try to get them out of it, you can see it's real interesting and how much good it will do.
You must have a real nice nurse up there, to write me your letter like she did and all. I have been in the laboratory here where they took a sheep's brain apart so I could see what it must be like having those nerve tissues between the frontal lobes of the brain severed off of the mid-brain which is where you have the emotions, so I can see where the prison psychiatric doctor said how it might be a good thing because things like counterfeiting and forging arent crimes of violence but more something emotional maybe that gets mixed up so if you sever it off then it can't get mixed up any more and you don't want to do things like forging and counterfeiting any more. Which even though they aren't crimes of violence they sort of mean something's wrong somewhere.
Like I already wrote to you the last time mostly what I do here still is things like cleaning the pens of these kids and feed them if their being fed if we're not testing something on them or something, and all things like that, which keeps me pretty busy because the rest of the time mostly I spend reading these books so I even haven't been to church for a while now, and even the radio I don't turn on listening just to music but only the news broadcasts, because there is all this I want to learn and the scientists here are real nice about if you want to ask them questions how they'll explain everything to you, so I keep studying so I can too some day, I mean explain everything.
That's too bad about like you're having this child to play with and like being trained all over again about things like going to the bathroom but gee we took care of the main thing didn't we, and gee if I have repaid you by convincing you to have that operation when we talked in the prison, gee you know how much I appreciate how much I owe you and all, and I guess you sure must know I didn't ever think anything bad about you when that happened, I mean that you were a criminal or like that, but just something was wrong somewhere which wasn't your fault but a good scientific explanation for it, so Jf I have repaid you that way and by studying hard like I am and all, then I guess that's the best I can do to show you how much I appreciate all you've done for me and all, and I sure study every minute, like last night this friend came by he had tickets for some concert when I was studying and he tried to keep asking me to go and I said no.
Yours very truly, eddie
P S I'm enclosing something I saw in the newspaper about this man who was a counterfeiter which they were trying to catch for a long time, I guess he was pretty good at it too which just goes to show you there was something wrong somewhere, like they found him in this hotel sort of in Spain it looked like he took his own life there, so I guess we took care of the main thing didn't we, I mean if a counterfeiter has to take his own life like that, and thats one thing, I mean restoring life after death that science hasn't figured out yet, but we're working on it.
Dear Friend. . Mrs. Sinisterra read on a postcard,
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She tore the card in half and went up the stairs alone. When she got inside, she clung to the edge of the slopped sink for a minute, her body hunched as though in pain and her head up, listening; she turned the plastic knob on the box pinned to the collapsed folds of her bosom, her head still up, as though listening. Then she went to a medicine cabinet at the end of the sink, opened it, and took the same attitude. — You!. . she called out. There was a disagreeable sound of response from somewhere. — You took my. . Then she stopped, and held her forehead in a hand.
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