"Women are the greatest enemies of science, and the wise man ought to keep himself aloof from them."
"In legitimate marriage also?” inquired my father.
"Especially in legitimate marriage,” replied the philosopher.
—Anatole France in the morning the day workers come in—an entirely different set of men. The lights are turned out and the radio is taken home by the night man. All the inmates are exhausted, of course. They lie, drunk on lack of sleep, too tired to care what happens to them, grateful only that the music has stopped at last.
The doctor has also been up all night. He's been trying to write his grant application. He has decided to start off with a quote from Marcus Aurelius:
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"Think often of the bond that unites all things in the universe. All are, as it were, interwoven, and in consequence linked in mutual affection; ... That is the way in which the universe has all things to its liking."
—and to proceed with an analogy ... a sort of warning:
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Gentlemen, look up at the night sky and imagine the whole Milky Way sliding sideways, out of kilter. An equally dramatic loosening is occurring.
That should scare them (as if they weren't scared already, as they should be).
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Let us, for a moment, imagine the earth as a living being. What sort of being would it be? Consider the fickle forces of nature ... the fluctuations wherein the very platforms of the continents are not to be counted on to stay in place from one era to another. Surely you must grant, then, that the earth is unquestionably female: the tides, the seasons, the moon, the changing courses of rivers, the erosion bit by bit by bit ... And what is this earth up to now? What small hold it had on rationality in the past, it seems to have lost altogether. And they, being of the same sex as their planet (would that it were otherwise and that we had a truly rational planet less subject to moods and bad temper), they have surrendered to the changes. They have let themselves go.
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In order to stress the confrontational aspect, he goes on thus:
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Remember that the female has always been a formidable enemy both of society in general and of man in particular, as well as a formidable enemy of the rational. And now they are blundering onward, a menace not only to civilization and to life as we know it, but even to themselves. What, one wonders, are their ulterior motives? What are their objectives? And, most important, what is their plan of attack?
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He already has the ending. It goes as follows:
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I propose to build a sort of two-part cage connected to a computer, with electric shock plates on the floors of each side that can be used simultaneously or alternately. Also a dispensing machine from which one may receive either a reward or a chit of some sort to be saved up and used to purchase small necessities of which I plan to keep a stash. The experimental activities will take place in basement rooms that will be heavily shielded from contamination by the outside air and particularly by the moon.
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It has occurred to the doctor that perhaps just a set of thumbscrews would be adequate for his purposes. They would be less expensive and take up much less room in the laboratory, but the cage would be a nice piece of equipment and would show the grant committee that their money had been well spent. Also he would have a nice control board with lots of dials and little buttons so that he could manage everything from his desk, quite like the pilot of a 747.
He rounds off the grant request with this last:
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I shudder to think what the world might degenerate into if studies of this sort are not carried out by qualified people such as myself—and quickly. In fact, the thought of what might become of us is so horrifying to me that a soft coo or the flutter of wings at my office window is enough to throw me into a deep depression.
And what, gentlemen, tell me, what of motherhood!
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The doctor attaches his curriculum vitae and sends the application out.
And now shouldn't he be taking a good look at his own wife? Been too busy to think about her for quite some time. House clean. Food good. Very good, in fact. Laundry always done. And over all these years, too. Really quite remarkable once one thinks about it. Perhaps ought to praise. Yet, perhaps better not to cheapen his praise on the everyday—on jobs that should, in fact, be taken for granted. Two reasons: one, she may no longer take her work for granted herself simply from the praise, which might make her think she was doing something unusual so that she would question it and perhaps stop. And two, she may come to expect praise—even daily praise—for doing her daily duties. That would be more than he could manage, especially in the midst of this most important research. (Actually there is a third reason, which is that the doctor would feel uncomfortable and rather shy doing something he hasn't done for such a long time.) But, he thinks, must keep an eye on her. Here is one of their kind close at hand, available for immediate study. Could even start today. But could get the others today, too. Where find them, those average, homeless females in their various states of change? How most cheaply round them up and with as little fuss as possible and without chasing after them in an undignified way in the streets with a net?
He has already spent several thousand dollars of his own with the expectation of being reimbursed by the grant committee. He has a cattle prod, a horse-nose-twister, several sets of handcuffs, an ear-splitting siren. If force is called for, then force there will be. We cannot afford long years of negotiations. He has actually seen three grown women in what were clearly their best hats, playing in a tree house. They were so sparkling and lively in their feathers, even in the midst of this chaos, that it seemed to him monstrous, unforgivable that they allowed their bestiality to take over so completely. Also, as part of his researches, he has been to Macy's, or rather, tried to go, but that store, with twice as many guards as usual, has become a haven for any strange creature with money to spend. He left quickly. Later tried Bloomingdale's. Found it somewhat better. At least they only let in those who were presentable and who had a modicum of dignity, though he noticed they had added the most outlandish clothes to a department on the third floor, and their lingerie department was so upsetting that he lost his scientific detachment and hurried through it with eyes averted. On the way out he found the jewelry department full of masks and feathers and necklaces of sharks’ teeth or claws, plus a few shrunken heads. Clearly, haste in his research is called for.
His wife, at least, is subdued through all this, somber actually, as well she should be. No, he will not take her down to the basement as his first experiment. She can be of help to him in other ways, typing reports and tidying up the dayroom and the cages. She has already re-covered an old couch for the basement, contributed cushions, made curtains for the high (and soon to be closed off) windows, though all these frills, or most of them, must certainly be removed when the grant people come to inspect the place. It wouldn't look scientific. But it's obvious she's trying to help. He will let her.
Meanwhile, back at the pound, Pooch, under the name of Isabel, is wondering if she will live through the morning. Several of them have been lined up, including Pooch with the baby, but they are confused as to whether this is to be a lice check or death in the back room. Pooch asks Phillip if she will take the baby if this turns out to be “it” for the rest of them. Phillip says she hates babies, but that she will if nothing else can be found to do with it. Isabel says, “Love baby. Love it. ok. See to it. Love it,” but Pooch feels that it would be better to leave the baby with Phillip, who hates babies, rather than with Isabel, who keeps talking about love and who, probably because of the difficult night, seems to have degenerated to little more than three-letter words. This is not really so surprising since every single one of the inmates is rather the worse off mentally at this point, even those who are on their way up the evolutionary scale.
The master has been notified and, it turns out, will not be coming to get his Pooch (Isabel) right away due to pressing business. Trusting her, he has told the keepers to put her on a Long Island Railroad train and to charge the ticket and the twenty-five-dollar fine to his Diner's Club card. He will, they tell Isabel, meet her at Wantagh and take her out to dinner and would she pick up a bottle of wine. Isabel, out of her cage now, is trying to convince the manager to let her go with the ticket money, but the more she talks, the more he wonders if she's capable of getting herself home alone.
"One of two way,” she says, “so go now out and be in it. You say not go. I say fit to go. So do it in time and not for you to do it, too. But the money. Yes."
"Are you sure your name is Pooch?” the manager asks. He is beginning to suspect something wrong here.
"Is Pooch. You see me as I am. To be Pooch is to be me. To be me is to be Pooch."
"But I seem to remember you coming in here last week fighting."
"Not me.” Isabel gets so angry she snaps at the manager. Mostly she misses. Just scratches the back of his hand a bit. She had managed to hold herself in check just in time, or rather, almost in time.
"To hell with you then,” he says. “I don't care who you are.” He charges an extra ten dollars to the master's Diner's Club card, hails a cab, and pushes her into it. “And I don't care what happens to you, just don't come back here or you'll be sorry."
"Am. Was.” Isabel shouts back, and then, as the cab pulls out, “Ha, ha, not Pooch,” but the manager, glad to be rid of her, gives her the finger.
Out of sight of the pound a moment later, Isabel takes off Pooch's collar and throws it out the window. Then she settles back, looking out with an elegant bored expression and picking bits of sawdust from her sleek black coat. “To the Pla ... to the Pla ... to the Pla ... za,” she tells the driver.
In the nick of time, and just after they had discovered that this lineup was not a lice check, they are informed that a kind gentleman has paid all their fines and, regardless of the nature of their crimes, this day's batch is to be released into his custody later on that very afternoon. Meanwhile, they are to return to their cages and wait quietly until the truck comes back from its daily roundup. Phillip begs to be let go with them, for they are all hoping this means freedom. “I'll give you a wonderful afternoon,” she says to the keepers. It's her only bargaining power. “You will anyway,” they tell her and immediately take her upstairs to the stockroom and visit her one by one, or as the case may be, two by two, or three by three, all afternoon until they are tired and careless, so it happens that just as the creatures to be rescued are lining up behind the truck, they see Phillip come snaking naked down the drainpipe. She joins the line when no one is looking and Pooch lends her the baby's blanket to hide not only her nakedness, but her brilliant black, yellow, and red self. Phillip is clearly exhausted and in pain, but is determined to escape with them. They hide her as best they can, and when the time comes they help her up into the truck.
Shortly after this, while they are riding along toward the kind gentleman's place, Pooch is delighted, as are they all, with the baby's first clearly distinguishable word: No.