more concerned. Eric, however, simply didn’t care.
He turned off the alarm and opened Verdi’s cage. The macaw hopped out onto the bed, then swaggered over to him for a dog biscuit, which it devoured with the voraciousness of a German shepherd. The bird had been a fixture in Eric’s life for nearly three years—since the day it was delivered by the uniformed chauffeur of a man whose son Eric had saved from a potentially fatal gunshot wound. It arrived with no note or instructions—no name, no age, no sex—and spent its first month in Eric’s company glaring at him.
Eric initially named the bird Hippocrates after the father of medicine. But that was before it began singing opera. From what Eric could tell, it could do snatches of a dozen or more arias—all Italian. There was no way it could be induced to sing on cue; nor, once it started, was there any nonviolent way to stop it. But sing it did, sometimes for as long as ten minutes at a stretch. And although Eric had never held any great interest in opera, he had listened to enough of it now to tell that Verdi was not very good.
Eric waited until the macaw had headed down the hall before shoving the box of biscuits back under a sweater in his closet. Then he checked his calendar and confirmed that Marshall would be covering theE.R. that day. Eric had decided to pass the hours until the search committee meeting working in the lab with Dave Subarsky. The prospect was bittersweet. From all indications, Subarsky would be closing shop soon.
Over the few months since he and Eric had successfully introduced their pericardial laser, the biochemist’s lab, like many others at the hospital, had fallen on hard times. Two government grants he had been counting on—grants that would have been automatic in the past—had been refused. A reordering of priorities coupled with a decrease in available funds was the explanation the NIH and National Science Foundation people kept giving. But everyone in science knew what they really meant.
Finding a cure for AIDS had become politicized, both within the scientific community and without. Pressure on the federal government had been passed on to the big government research installations, which, in turn, had responded with a demand for more authority to direct investigations, and of course for more funding. The reductions in university-centered programs such as Subarsky’s had gone from cuts to hatchet jobs. A whole community of scientists were suddenly “outsiders,” and for them the situation was desperate.
The professor with whom Dave originally worked had given up basic research altogether and returned to full-time clinical practice. Subarsky had begun searching for jobs in industry. But even using the laser as bait, he had been unable to attract any decent offers.
Today, unless some miracle had intervened over the few days since they had last spoken, Eric knew that he and his friend would begin dismantling and packing their work. Their laser project was, for both of them, a sideline. They had proven its applicability in one rather unusual medical situation. Unfortunately, “sideline” and “unusual medical situation”were not what the current Washington funding sources wanted to hear.
In a month or two, Dave Subarsky, perhaps the brightest man Eric had ever known, would be unemployed.
Eric sat on the edge of his bed and flipped through the classified ads in the back of the
New England Journal of Medicine
. There were a dozen or so from various hospitals for emergency physicians, but none for genius biochemists. If the committee chose Marshall, Eric would have no problem finding a job somewhere—probably a damn good one, too. Such options were a luxury Dave Subarsky did not have. Yet not once had Eric seen even a small crack in the man’s quietly positive outlook.
Why, he wondered, couldn’t he get his own situation into perspective? Why, for weeks, had there been a persistent knot of anxiety in his chest?
The answer
He turned off the alarm and opened Verdi’s cage. The macaw hopped out onto the bed, then swaggered over to him for a dog biscuit, which it devoured with the voraciousness of a German shepherd. The bird had been a fixture in Eric’s life for nearly three years—since the day it was delivered by the uniformed chauffeur of a man whose son Eric had saved from a potentially fatal gunshot wound. It arrived with no note or instructions—no name, no age, no sex—and spent its first month in Eric’s company glaring at him.
Eric initially named the bird Hippocrates after the father of medicine. But that was before it began singing opera. From what Eric could tell, it could do snatches of a dozen or more arias—all Italian. There was no way it could be induced to sing on cue; nor, once it started, was there any nonviolent way to stop it. But sing it did, sometimes for as long as ten minutes at a stretch. And although Eric had never held any great interest in opera, he had listened to enough of it now to tell that Verdi was not very good.
Eric waited until the macaw had headed down the hall before shoving the box of biscuits back under a sweater in his closet. Then he checked his calendar and confirmed that Marshall would be covering theE.R. that day. Eric had decided to pass the hours until the search committee meeting working in the lab with Dave Subarsky. The prospect was bittersweet. From all indications, Subarsky would be closing shop soon.
Over the few months since he and Eric had successfully introduced their pericardial laser, the biochemist’s lab, like many others at the hospital, had fallen on hard times. Two government grants he had been counting on—grants that would have been automatic in the past—had been refused. A reordering of priorities coupled with a decrease in available funds was the explanation the NIH and National Science Foundation people kept giving. But everyone in science knew what they really meant.
Finding a cure for AIDS had become politicized, both within the scientific community and without. Pressure on the federal government had been passed on to the big government research installations, which, in turn, had responded with a demand for more authority to direct investigations, and of course for more funding. The reductions in university-centered programs such as Subarsky’s had gone from cuts to hatchet jobs. A whole community of scientists were suddenly “outsiders,” and for them the situation was desperate.
The professor with whom Dave originally worked had given up basic research altogether and returned to full-time clinical practice. Subarsky had begun searching for jobs in industry. But even using the laser as bait, he had been unable to attract any decent offers.
Today, unless some miracle had intervened over the few days since they had last spoken, Eric knew that he and his friend would begin dismantling and packing their work. Their laser project was, for both of them, a sideline. They had proven its applicability in one rather unusual medical situation. Unfortunately, “sideline” and “unusual medical situation”were not what the current Washington funding sources wanted to hear.
In a month or two, Dave Subarsky, perhaps the brightest man Eric had ever known, would be unemployed.
Eric sat on the edge of his bed and flipped through the classified ads in the back of the
New England Journal of Medicine
. There were a dozen or so from various hospitals for emergency physicians, but none for genius biochemists. If the committee chose Marshall, Eric would have no problem finding a job somewhere—probably a damn good one, too. Such options were a luxury Dave Subarsky did not have. Yet not once had Eric seen even a small crack in the man’s quietly positive outlook.
Why, he wondered, couldn’t he get his own situation into perspective? Why, for weeks, had there been a persistent knot of anxiety in his chest?
The answer
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