The Portable Veblen

21 CAN YOU PATENT THE SUN?

So,” Veblen said. “Not just bad, but also weird.”

Paul took her hand. “Very weird.”

Paul was out of the ICU, in another room resting after a battery of tests. According to Dr. Munoz, there were excellent N20 components in his evoked potentials. His corneal reflexes were first-rate. His extensor motor responses were superb. There had been no myoclonus status epilepticus whatsoever. His neuron-specific enolase levels were below thirty-three micrograms per liter. His creatine kinase brain isoenzyme was within range. Brain oxygenation and intracranial pressure were normal. He had retrograde amnesia about the immediate circumstances of the accident, but that was thoroughly anticipated by Ribot’s law. He scored VIII on the Rancho Scale for postcoma recovery, the highest possible. He was “appropriate and purposeful.” Yet the more he remembered and the clearer his mind became, the more ill at ease he felt.

He began to insist that he must leave the medical profession. That he must find something entirely new.

Veblen let him say such things, as if he needed to drain himself of a poison.

He remembered writing the letter about the discrepancies in the trial, but could not piece together what happened next. There was something nightmarish on the periphery, some obviously false memory of a struggle. Sure enough, Veblen reminded him he had visited the simulator just before the accident. That was where he’d dropped his letters. Paul said, “Then that simulator is something else. I have this strange impression of being in some kind of hand-to-hand combat.”

“Visitors,” the nurse announced.

Veblen looked to the door. Two young women came in, escorting a well-built man shuffling with the aid of a cane.

“Sorry, is this a good time?” one of the young women asked. “We don’t want to bother you.”

“No, come in,” Veblen said, and they introduced themselves as Sarah and Alexa Smith, their father as Warren Smith, a veteran who had been a participant in Paul’s trial.

Paul sat up stiffly and placed his hands over his neck.

Sarah said, “See, Dad? Dr. Vreeland is okay. See?”

Smith squinted at Paul, then turned for the door.

“Our father has something to say,” Alexa said. “Dad, get out your coping cards, remember?”

Smith stopped and pulled some index cards from his jacket pocket.

“Go ahead, Dad. It’s okay,” Sarah said.

Smith began to read: “What happened was a mistake, and I apologize for that. I take full responsibility for my aggressive, impulsive, and insensitive behavior. I have a history of blaming others for my problems, and this needs to stop. I take responsibility for causing you pain.”

Smith finished. He folded up his cards and returned them to his pocket, then turned again for the door.

“Pain?” Paul said. “You’re Sergeant Major Smith, am I right?”

Smith stopped and nodded.

“I appreciate your kind words, but really, you have nothing to apologize for, do you?”

“Let’s go,” said Warren Smith.

“Well, that’s nice of you,” said Alexa. “Um, also, we feel really bad telling you this, but we’re not selling the Sea Ray, right, Dad?”

“The Sea Ray!” Paul nodded. “Well, I guess that didn’t prove to be the most popular idea. Good luck with everything then.”

“You too, Dr. Vreeland, you take care!”

They shuffled out with their father.

“What did he do to you?” Veblen wanted to know.

“I have no idea,” Paul said, still rubbing his neck. “Come here. I can’t believe what I’ve put you through.”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“I wish I could remember it better. Cloris really tried to kill me?”

“She hit you with her car,” Veblen confirmed.

“There’s something about Cloris Hutmacher I’ve never liked,” Paul said shrewdly.

He drank some water through a straw, then said, “In Vienna in the late 1800s, there was this medical-device-maker guy, Erwin Perzy, and he tried to invent a surgical lamp that would be brighter than the bulbs they were using at the time. He knew that setting a candle behind a glass of water enhanced the light, so he started playing around encasing bulbs in globes of water, then adding tinsel and white sand for reflection. It didn’t work for lamps, but you know those things called snow globes?”

“Yeah.”

ERWIN PERZY I, INVENTOR OF SNOW GLOBES.

“That’s what he ended up inventing. To this day, that’s what he’s known for.”

“Really! That’s a great thing to be known for. I love snow globes. They’re way better than surgical lamps.”

“Not if you’re having surgery.”

“But, Paul, your device works and it’s still going to do all the things you hoped it would.”

In statements issued through Hutmacher’s attorneys, Shrapnal and Boone, Cloris claimed that Paul threw himself in her path, and that the accident had nothing to do with the allegations in Paul’s letter, nor with the research materials for the trial found in the boxes in her backseat. An investigation was under way.

“Dad’s all over it,” Paul said. “He’s got some hotshot activist lawyer on the case.”

“I know. And that guy James Shalev wants to write about it.”

“Oh my god.” Paul rubbed his temples fiercely. “He has guts.”

“Paul, you know what? A couple of nights ago, I had an outburst with my mother. I kind of attacked her.” She said it almost proudly.

“Oh no!”

“And yesterday, I was talking to you before you were conscious, and I said some stuff your parents overheard, and they’re upset too.”

He looked surprised. “No one could blame you for being stressed out.”

“You think? I don’t feel myself, upsetting people.”

Paul struggled to sit up more, but managed only to lift his head. “Oh, look, a squirrel!” he cried happily, pointing into the oak outside the window.

Sure enough, leaves were scattering under the rush of a squirrel’s feet down the long arm of the oak, and Paul was smiling at the sight of it.

“Paul, you seem totally different. You hate squirrels.”

“You think I have brain damage?”

As a matter of fact, she was starting to wonder.

“I don’t think it’s brain damage,” Paul said soberly. “But we’ll make sure. I’m having some realizations, that’s all.”

“Really?”

His brow wrinkled sensibly. “Do you know what Jonas Salk said when he was asked if he’d patented the polio vaccine? He said, ‘Can you patent the sun?’ The idea of a patent was shocking to him. What humility! I feel like — maybe I’ve been on the wrong track.” His voice cracked, and he swallowed and pushed back into his pillow. “I can’t explain it, it’s like someone turned a fire hose on me. All these slimy layers of meaninglessness are coming off. Why shouldn’t you talk to squirrels?” he said, with a faraway look in his eyes. “You know what happened to me a long, long time ago?”

“What?”

“Well.” He rubbed his eyes. “Now I’m nervous. What if you don’t believe me?”

“Try it.”

“Okay.” He tried to push himself up on his elbows. “Once, seriously, I’m not kidding — I heard snails scream.”

“Really?”

Paul nodded. “When I was a kid.”

“What did it sound like?” Veblen asked, with great curiosity. Snails had a lot to scream about. “Sort of like a hiss?”

“No.”

“Kind of a slurp?”

He tried to re-create it, clenching his jaw, his breath squeezing past his tonsils.

“Wild.” Veblen laughed.

“You believe it?” he croaked.

“Sure, screaming snails. Of course!”

“Don’t break up with me right away,” he said suddenly. “Give me another chance, okay?”