The Thanatos Syndrome

sunroof slides back without a sound, letting in sunlight and the fragrance of pines warming. But there is still the smell of leather, oiled wood, and pipe tobacco.
    â€œYou old rascal.” He’s shaking his head again. “You jumped the gun on us. I told those guys! I told them!”
    â€œTold them what?”
    â€œTake a look.” From his suede jacket he takes a paper and hands it to me. It is stationery folded letter-size.
    â€œSo?”
    â€œTake a look at the date!”
    I take a look at the date. “So?”
    â€œThe date is the day before yesterday. It’s already in your mail. The original, that is.”
    â€œDo you want me to read it?”
    â€œAt your leisure. It’s a job offer—a proposition you can’t refuse—employment to begin in”—he consults his wafer-thin Patek-Philippe—“exactly twenty-six hours, contingent only upon your clearing the formality of probation tomorrow. It’s official. We even have the brass down from Bethesda, a couple of wheels from NIH. They want you aboard too.”
    â€œJob offer?”
    â€œTom,” says Bob, his eyes both solemn and fond, “we want you aboard as senior consultant for NRC’s ACMUI.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    He smites my knee. “You’re right. That goddamn bureaucratese. Okay, try this. You’re being offered a position as senior consultant on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Advisory Committee for the Medical Uses of Isotopes.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWhy? Because you know more about the brain pharmacology of isotopes than anyone else. You broke the ground. You’re our man. Starting tomorrow you’re on the team.”
    â€œWhat team?” I notice a broken V of ibis lowering on Tunica Island.
    â€œThere.” He nods toward Fedville. “Your office is waiting for you. Your salary of $85,000—chickenshit, if you ask me, but it was the best I could do, so I went on the assumption that you’re like me and that the service counts for something—will be supplemented by local QLC funding, which is mostly foundation money—I’m in with those guys—so you’ll be making about $135,000—not up to a big-shot shrink, ha, but we figure it will free you up to do your own research, plus you’ll have all the facilities of the center rent-free, as they say.”
    The wings of the ibis, not great flyers, are out of sync and flutter in the sunlight like confetti.
    Bob pops in a cassette and soon the Mercedes is filled with Strauss waltzes coming from all directions.
    â€œGod, don’t you love that,” murmurs Bob, lilting along with “Artist’s Life.” “Doesn’t that take you back to P&S, where we’d catch the Philharmonic, then hoist a tad of bourbon and branch at the Ein und Zwanzig?”
    â€œActually I’d be more apt to catch the flicks at Loew’s State 175th Street and hoist a beer at Murray’s Bar and Grill.”
    â€œSame old Tom,” says Bob absently, but adjusting the four speakers, ear cocked for the right balance, listening with a frown. Satisfied, he settles back.
    I take a good look at him. He has aged well. In his safari jacket, he’s as handsome as Eric Sevareid, as mellow as Walter Cronkite. We two have come a long way, he as much as says, seen the follies of the world, and here we are. Like Eric and Walter he has grown both grave and amiable.
    â€œAny questions, Tom?” asks Bob, moving his head in time with Strauss.
    â€œWhat is that heavy-sodium shunt at Ratliff all about?”
    Bob nods gravely, eyes going fine and gazing past me at the looming, lopped cone of Grand Mer.
    â€œGood question. Very good question. And if you don’t mind, I’ll answer it in my own way with a couple of Socratic questions of my own, shrinkwise, you might say. Okay?”
    â€œOkay.” The wings of the ibis flash like shook foil and drop into the willows.
    Bob leans back, puts forefinger to lips. “I’m assuming, Tom,” he says, and pauses, as the strains of “Artist’s Life” die away, “that we live by the same lights, share certain basic assumptions and goals.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œHealing the sick, ministering to the suffering, improving the quality of life for the individual regardless of race, creed, or national origin. Right?”
    â€œRight. But what does that have to do with heavy