Lost in the Cosmos

me, Doc, everybody wants something. I know what you want. You’re a nice person and you deserve it.
    D R. B ETTY (bantering) :And what do I want?
    C HICKEN: You want exactly what I’m offering. I know the clerk here. I got a key and the use of a room. Look. Four thirty-seven. It won’t cost either of us a dime. I’m going up now. You wait five minutes and come up the back elevator.
    D R. B ETTY: This is something else. Talk about acting out! Talk about acting out aggressions to mask little-kid insecurity. Okay, then what happens?
    C HICKEN: What happens then, Doc, is that I am going to fuck you as you have never been fucked before. I don’t want to nurture you. I want to fuck you. I’m going to fuck you till your eyeteeth rattle. This is an invitation, Doc. All you got to do now before I leave is say okay, so I don’t waste my time.
    D R. B ETTY (consulting her wristwatch) :Okay.
    THE BANAL-LETHAL

    S CENE II: A Washington hotel room. It is wartime. Enter Dr. F__, a Nobel Laureate scientist. Taking off his jacket, he sits on the bed wearily, rubs his temples, lies down, and closes his eyes. After a while, he turns on television. The show is a closed-circuit screening of Behind the Green Door, a pornographic film. Presently he masturbates, almost casually, but not before taking the trouble to fetch a special container from his suitcase to catch the ejaculate.
    He switches off the television, lies down, closes his eyes.
    The telephone rings. With a frown and a curious groan—is it weariness? irritation? anger?—he picks up the receiver. After a moment he hooks up a device, a scrambler, to the phone. We hear only his side of the conversation.
    Yes.
    Yes, General.
    Yes, it was a very long meeting.
    I realize that a decision wasn’t reached.
    I know it’s important, General.
    True, there was no closure in the decision-making process.
    Yes, I realize it was a tie vote.
    That’s correct—I didn’t express an opinion to the Chiefs.
    Yes, that’s true. I have some standing in the scientific community.
    Well, thank you, General. It’s nice to know you people respect one scientist.
    That’s right, General. It’s no breach of security to call it by name. The eyes-only folder you have—and the only secret is its composition and mode of delivery. It’s a neurotoxin, airborne and water soluble. They’re working on it, too.
    For one weapon? Ten million more or less, depending on population density.
    Right. It violates no first-strike agreement or Salt III. It’s a weapon, but not an explosive device.
    I know that’s a high civilian casualty factor, but it will save lives in the end.
    A demonstration? A demonstration of what? How to kill a few hundred reindeer in Siberia? No way, General.
    You’re really putting me on the spot, General.
    Okay, I’m going to surprise you. I’m going to give you an opinion. I think we got to go with it. For the ultimate good of man. Indeed, in the interests of peace. In fact, why don’t we call it Project Peace?
    You like that? Yes, that’s right. Go. You can tell them.
    I say go.
    After hanging up, he picks up the cylindrical double-walled container, carefully pastes on a sticker containing the address of a California laboratory which collects the sperm of Nobel Laureates for the purpose of inseminating thousands of genetically screened women. Still holding the container, he opens the door, walks rapidly down the corridor to the ice machine.
    Question: Do you think the U.S. gene pool and the future quality of life will be improved by the contribution of Dr. F___'s ejaculate?
    ( ) Yes
    ( ) No
    ( CHECK ONE )

    S CENE III: The following conversation occurs in a momentarily stalled elevator in the Rockefeller Foundation building.
    S CIENTIST A (a post-Darwinian evolutionist): All phenomena in the Cosmos can be explained by the scientific laws that govern matter in interaction. This principle applies to the simplest chemical reaction between atoms to the most complex, including the behavior of organisms, the origin of the species, and the ascent of man. Like any other organism, man evolved when mutant forms and functions such as the opposable thumb for tools and weapons, the cortex, and the larynx-pharynx conformation for the language gave him an advantage over other primates in adapting to the environment.
    S CIENTIST B (a post-Wallacian evolutionist): Then how do you account for the fact that with the appearance of man there also appeared for the first time in the Cosmos, as