Flowers for Algernon

“I think I’ve changed during these weeks away from the lab,” I said. “I couldn’t see how to do it at first, but tonight, while I was wandering around the city, it came to me. The foolish thing was trying to solve the problem all by myself. But the deeper I get tangled up in this mass of dreams and memories the more I realize that emotional problems can’t be solved as intellectual problems are. That’s what I discovered about myself last night. I told myself I was wandering around like a lost soul, and then I saw that I was lost.

“Somehow I’ve become separated emotionally from everyone and everything. And what I was really searching for out there in the dark streets-the last damned place I could ever find it was a way to make myself a part of people again emotionally, while still retaining my freedom intellectually. I’ve got to grow up. For me it means everything… “ I talked on and on, spewing out of myself every doubt and fear that bubbled to the surface. She was my sounding board and she sat there hypnotized. I felt myself grow warm, feverish, until I thought my body was on fire. I was burning out the infection in front of someone I cared about, and that made all the difference.

But it was too much for her. What had started as trembling became tears. The picture over the couch caught my eye-the cringing, red-cheeked maiden-and T wondered what Alice was feeling just then. I knew she would give herself to me, and I wanted her, but what about Charlie?

Charlie might not interfere if I wanted to make love to Fay. He would probably just stand in the doorway and watch. But the moment I came close to Alice, he panicked. Why was he afraid to let me love Alice? 141 She sat on the couch, looking at me, waiting to see what I would do. And what could I do? I wanted to take her in my arms and… As I began to think of it, the warning came. “Are you all right, Charlie? You’re so pale.”

I sat down on the couch beside her. “Just a little dizzy. It’ll pass.” But I knew it would only get worse as long as Charlie felt there was danger I’d make love to her.

And then I got the idea. It disgusted me at first, but suddenly I realized the only way to overcome this paralysis was to outwit him. If for some reason Charlie was afraid of Alice but not of Fay, then I would turn out the lights, and pretend I was making love to Fay. He would never know the difference. It was wrong-disgusting-but if it worked it would break Charlie’s strangle hold on my emotions. I would know afterwards that I had loved Alice, and that this was the only way.

“I’m all right now. Let’s sit in the dark for a while,” I said, turning off the lights and waiting to collect myself. It wasn’t going to be easy. I had to convince myself, visualize Fay, hypnotize myself into believing that the woman sitting beside me was Fay. And even if he separated himself from me to watch from outside my body, it would do him no good because the room would be dark.

I waited for some sign that he suspected-the warning symptoms of panic. But nothing. I felt alert and calm. I put my arm around her. “Charlie, I—”

“Don’t talk!” I snapped, and she shrank from me. “Please,” I reassured her, “don’t say anything. Just let me hold you quietly in the dark.” I brought her close to me, and there under the darkness of my closed lids, I conjured up the picture of Fay-with her long blonde hair and fair skin. Fay, as I had seen her last beside me. I kissed Fay’s hair, Fay’s throat, and finally came to rest upon Fay’s lips. I felt Fay’s arms stroking the muscles on my back, my shoulders, and the tightness inside me built up as it had never before done for a woman. I caressed her slowly at first and then with impatient, mounting excitement that would soon tell.

The hairs on my neck began to tingle. Someone else was in the room, peering through the darkness, trying to 142 see. And feverishly I thought the name over and over to myself. Fay! Fayl FAY! I imagined her face sharply and clearly so that nothing could come between us. And then, as she gripped me closer, I cried out and pushed her away.

“Charliel” I couldn’t see Alice’s face, but her gasp mirrored the shock. “No, Alice! I can’t. You don’t understand.”

I jumped up from the couch and turned on the light. I almost expected to see him standing there. But of course not. We were alone. It was all in my mind.

Alice was lying there, her blouse open where I had unbuttoned it, her face flushed, eyes wide in disbelief. “I love you…” the words choked out of me, “but I can’t do it. Something I can’t explain, but if I hadn’t stopped, I would hate myself for the rest of my life. Don’t ask me to explain, or you’ll hate me too. It has to do with Charlie. For some reason, he won’t let me make love to you.”

She looked away and buttoned her blouse. “It was different tonight,” she said. “You didn’t get nausea or panic or anything like that. You wanted me”