Monday, November 2, 2009

Chapter Two

Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life. - Bertolt Brecht





Chapter Two


It was 6:43 A.M. on Tuesday, and James was late. He stabbed frantically towards his mouth with a toothbrush while trying to finish a cup of coffee and put on his socks. After a near-disaster, he put down the coffee and focussed on brushing his teeth. He put his left sock on the rest of the way, tucked his shirt in and stood in front of the mirror trying to put on his tie. It took several tries, but he finally succeeded in tying a knot that looked OK. He picked up his cup of coffee and promptly spilled it down the front of his shirt, tie and slacks.

“Oh, awesome,” he said, and pulled frantically at his tie to get it off again.

At 7:14 A.M., he emerged from his house in a completely different suit. He ran for the bus, which was scheduled to arrive at his stop in two minutes. He turned the corner just in time to see his bus roll away from the curb.

James sighed heavily, and walked the rest of the way to the bus stop. It was ten minutes until the next bus arrived, assuming it was on time. He was pouring sweat, partly from running, and partly from anxiety. He had a meeting with the investors funding his research at eight o’clock sharp, and he was going to be lucky to arrive on time.

As it turned out, the bus was not on time. It arrived six minutes late. James found a seat and willed the bus to go faster. It didn’t work. In fact, it seemed the fates were against him, because the bus arrived at each intersection just in time for the stoplight to turn red. And then the bus was rear-ended by some college kid driving a rental truck.

James arrived at the office forty five minutes late for his meeting. The investors were less than impressed with him.

“I hope your research standards are more rigorous than your time keeping, James,” said one of the investors with a very tight smile.

“Oh, yes, quite a bit more rigorous,” James said. “Sorry to keep you all waiting this morning, I encountered some difficulties on my way in to the office.”

“So we’ve gathered,” said another one of the investors. “Now, what do you have for us today?”

“In a nutshell, a birth control pill for men,” James said.

None of the investors responded for nearly half a minute. James took a breath to go on, when one of the investors spoke.

“You’ve spent the last year working on birth control, for men?”

“Yes, I think that…,” James said before he was interrupted.

“You think that men will take a birth control pill?”

“Well, yes. It seems just as reasonable to expect men to take precautions as it is to expect women to take birth control pills,” James said.

“Yes, but men can’t get pregnant.”

James took a deep breath and tried to explain.

“You’re right, men can not get pregnant. However, I think we can all agree that men have a significant role in the process of getting a woman pregnant. And I think most men can see the benefit in having a backup mechanism, for want of a better description, in preventing unplanned pregnancy.”

“No one will buy a male birth control pill. It’s a market that doesn’t exist!” an investor exclaimed. “Please tell us this formula of yours does something else. Acne control perhaps? Eliminating heart burn? Something?”

“Well, we haven’t discovered any other effects yet, no. But I think a birth control product for men, besides condoms, will be quite successful,” James said.

I think you’re nuts. I’m not putting any more money into this project. Call me when you come up with a solution to a problem people want solved.”

The other investors muttered their agreement, and stood up to leave.

“What? Hey, this is a major breakthrough. We can’t abandon our research now,” James said

“You don’t have to abandon your research; we just aren’t going to pay for it any longer. Call us when you have something new, James. Have a good day.”

The investors left the office. James watched them go, then sat down at the conference table with his head in his hands. He couldn’t think of a medical product he’d like more than male birth control. Shoot, if the condom broke, everything would be just peachy as long as no one was carrying any nasty bugs. And what could cause more dis-ease than an unwanted kid caused by a balloon malfunction?

Of course, James could barely remember the last time he’d had sex, so his purchase of any birth control products would more or less just be wishful thinking. The probability of actually needing such a thing, he knew, was very low.

Now he’d have to focus on finding another use for the chemical he’d synthesized. Perhaps it could eliminate acne, or reduce the severity of irritable bowel syndrome, or something. He’d direct his lab techs to start testing it against everything. There was still enough cash to continue research for a while, and he could probably find some more investors. He was sure they would find something it was good for, apart from preventing sperm production in a controllable and non-surgical manner.

James groaned and stood up. He blamed his bad luck on it being Tuesday. He switched off the light in the conference room and walked back to his office. His office was actually more of a closet with a desk in it. He didn’t do what he considered his real work in the office, but the lab didn’t have a door he could close, and he wanted to be alone for a bit.

He shut the door to his office, and switched on his computer’s monitor. He stared at it without doing anything until the screensaver came on.

There was a knock at his door then. James moved the mouse around a little bit to switch off the screensaver, and opened a spreadsheet so it would look like he was doing something.

He then said, “Come in!”

The door opened a little bit, and one of his co-workers poked her head into his office.

“Did I catch you at a bad time, James?” she asked.

“No, Jill, I just reached a good stopping point,” James said.

Jill looked at the blank spreadsheet displayed on James’s monitor.

She smiled and said, “Yeah, ‘haven’t started yet’ is always a good stopping point. So how did the meeting go this morning?”

“Not well at all. Please tell me the kids in the lab have found some other possible applications for this drug,” James said.

“None yet, but there are plenty of things we haven’t explored at this time. Maybe it’ll turn out to be a great oral anesthetic.”

James leaned forward a bit and said, “Have there been any reports of anesthetic properties?”

“No.”

“Too bad. That would have been something we could sell to the investors.”

“They weren’t impressed with the possibilities of male birth control pills?”

“No. Actually, they were pretty hostile about the whole idea. I guess they’re a little worried about their own fertility,” James said. He winked at her and smiled a bit.

“I bet that’s exactly it,” Jill said. “So, have you got any plans for lunch today?”

“I expect I’ll be staying here, trying to find a way to convince our investors to give us their money,” James said. “Why, what do you have in mind?”

“I heard about a new Mexican place just down the road. Want to check it out with me?”

James could feel his face flushing. Having lunch would be kind of like going on a date. And going on a date would be good, assuming he could avoid making an utter ass of himself.

“Sure, I like Mexican food. What time do you want to go?”

“Quarter to noon?”

“Sure.”

“OK, see you then, James.”

Jill left, and shut the door behind her. James took a deep breath and exhaled. Maybe the day wouldn’t be a complete waste after all.

Of course, now he had to find away to keep himself busy, and coffee-stain free, until lunch time. He clicked around aimlessly on his computer for about twenty minutes until he realized that he wasn’t actually accomplishing anything worthwhile. He turned off his monitor and went down to the lab to see if there was something to do there for a while.

A lunch date with Jill, he thought. Woo hoo!

James spent the next hour fooling around in the lab, taking things out and putting them away in different places and not really accomplishing anything more than he would have had he just stayed in his office and checked his email. He was however, accomplishing a whole lot of nothing in his enthusiasm.

In his exuberance, he wrote a note on the whiteboard: Let’s see what this drug will do against cancer, then AIDS, then general stupidity. After all, why not aim high? He didn’t have anything to lose, apart from some more money.

James checked his watch and saw that it was 11:40. He put the cap back on the marker he’d been using and hurried off to meet Jill for lunch. A
date!

He slipped quickly into the men’s room to check his hair and general tidiness. He actually looked pretty sharp today, on ordinary days without investor meetings, he generally wore jeans and an untucked shirt. What luck that he was dressed to kill.

He washed his hands, then stepped out of the men’s room again and walked down to Jill’s office.

“Wow, right on time,” she said, and smiled.

“Well, I try not to keep pretty ladies waiting,” James said.

“Yeah, right. So, let’s go get some tacos.”

They passed one of the lab techs on their way out of the building. He was hurrying in, clutching a fast-food bag and an enormous soda.

“Hey guys, need to escape for a while, huh?” he said.

“Yep. Good luck with your lunch there,” James said.

“Oh, I’ve got it under control, don’t worry.”

“Good deal. See you later,” James said.

1 comment:

  1. Reads like a novel/screenplay (envious anonymous writer wrings hands and dreads editing process) Will mine be this well written? Jeeesh!And they really do need a birth control pill for men!

    ReplyDelete