Invisible man

                        Man, she hisses a wonderful stream,

                        Seventeen miles and a quarter,

                        Man, and you can't see her pot for the steam . . ."

            But now the music became a distinct wail of female pain. I opened my eyes. Glass and metal floated above me.

            "How are you feeling, boy?" a voice said.

            A pair of eyes peered down through lenses as thick as the bottom of a Coca-Cola bottle, eyes protruding, luminous and veined, like an old biology specimen preserved in alcohol.

            "I don't have enough room," I said angrily.

            "Oh, that's a necessary part of the treatment."

            "But I need more room," I insisted. "I'm cramped."

            "Don't worry about it, boy. You'll get used to it after a while. How is your stomach and head?"

            "Stomach?"

            "Yes, and your head?"

            "I don't know," I said, realizing that I could feel nothing beyond the pressure around my head and the tender surface of my body. Yet my senses seemed to focus sharply.

            "I don't feel it," I cried, alarmed.

            "Aha! You see! My little gadget will solve everything!" he exploded.

            "I don't know," another voice said. "I think I still prefer surgery. And in this case especially, with this, uh . . . background, I'm not so sure that I don't believe in the effectiveness of simple prayer."

            "Nonsense, from now on do your praying to my little machine. I'll deliver the cure."

            "I don't know, but I believe it a mistake to assume that solutions -- cures, that is -- that apply in, uh . . . primitive instances, are, uh . . . equally effective when more advanced conditions are in question. Suppose it were a New Englander with a Harvard background?"

            "Now you're arguing politics," the first voice said banteringly.

            "Oh, no, but it is a problem."

            I listened with growing uneasiness to the conversation fuzzing away to a whisper. Their simplest words seemed to refer to something else, as did many of the notions that unfurled through my head. I wasn't sure whether they were talking about me or someone else. Some of it sounded like a discussion of history . . .

            "The machine will produce the results of a prefrontal lobotomy without the negative effects of the knife," the voice said. "You see, instead of severing the prefrontal lobe, a single lobe, that is, we apply pressure in the proper degrees to the major centers of nerve control -- our concept is Gestalt -- and the result is as complete a change of personality as you'll find in your famous fairy-tale cases of criminals transformed into amiable fellows after all that bloody business of a brain operation. And what's more," the voice went on triumphantly, "the patient is both physically and neurally whole."

            "But what of his psychology?"

            "Absolutely of no importance!" the voice said. "The patient will live as he has to live, and with absolute integrity. Who could ask more? He'll experience no major conflict of motives, and what is even better, society will suffer no traumata on his account."

            There was a pause. A pen scratched upon paper. Then, "Why not castration, doctor?" a voice asked waggishly, causing me to start, a pain tearing through me.

            "There goes your love of blood again," the first voice laughed. "What's that definition of a surgeon, 'A butcher with a bad conscience'?"

            They laughed.

            "It's not so funny. It would be more scientific to try to define the case. It has been developing some three hundred years --"

            "Define? Hell, man, we know all that."

            "Then why don't you try more current?"

            "You suggest it?"

            "I do, why not?"

            "But isn't there a danger . . . ?" the voice trailed off.

            I heard them move away; a chair scraped. The machine droned, and I knew definitely that they were discussing me and steeled myself for the shocks, but was blasted nevertheless. The pulse came swift and staccato, increasing gradually until I fairly danced between the nodes. My teeth chattered. I closed my eyes and bit my lips to smother my screams. Warm blood filled my mouth. Between my lids I saw a circle of hands and faces, dazzling with light. Some were scribbling upon charts.

            "Look, he's dancing," someone called.

            "No, really?"

            An oily face looked in. "They really do have rhythm, don't they? Get hot, boy! Get hot!" it said with a laugh.

            And suddenly my bewilderment suspended and I wanted to be angry, murderously angry. But somehow the pulse of current smashing through my body prevented me. Something had been disconnected. For though I had seldom used my capacities for anger and indignation, I had no doubt that I possessed them; and, like a man who knows that he must fight, whether angry or not, when called a son of a bitch, I tried to imagine myself angry -- only to discover a deeper sense of remoteness. I was beyond anger. I was only bewildered. And those above seemed to sense it. There was no avoiding the shock and I rolled with the agitated tide, out into the blackness.