Lost Yesterday

Chapter 1

Mankind had lost its power because it allowed itself to reciprocate negative energy. The only reason anyone had a headache or couldn't lose weight was negative energy. If you knew you wanted to lose weight and knew how to lose weight, then why didn't you lose weight? If you didn't want a headache and you got a headache, then why did you get it? It was your head to control, right?

Wilbur Smot asked these questions earnestly and was earnestly ignored.

“I'm not joining Poweressence, Wilbur,” said the secretary to the chief chemist of Brisbane Pharmaceuticals of Toledo, Ohio. To any unenlightened man, the secretary seemed attractive, but Dr. Wilbur Smot had learned that true attractiveness was harmony with the forces of the universe. Those who resisted could only exude a spiritual homeliness. That was why a Poweressence soul could only be happy with another Poweressence soul.

The secretary's perfect breasts and cupid mouth were only empty temptations unless she had Poweressence. Her sparkling eyes and dimples were really snares. He was attracted to all the wrong things, he had been taught. That was the reason so many marriages failed. People went for the deceptions, not the truths.

The truth was that once Wilbur attained spiritual oneness, he would be able to commune perfectly with another person fortunate enough to be freed from self-destruction by Poweressence. That would be paradise.

Unfortunately, breasts, dimples, and smiles still held their allure for the young chemist. He didn't care that his boss's secretary was still hopelessly caught in the big “No” of the pitiful little planet Earth.

“Wilbur, you'd better stop talking that nirvana stuff. Brisbane Pharmaceuticals is a scientific institution,” she said.

“Scientific as nail polish and headache formulas,” said Wilbur. He was twenty-three years old, presentable in a thin sort of way, almost, but not quite, athletic. Almost, but not quite, dark and handsome. Almost, but not quite, one of the better chemists.

The best thing about being a chemist for Brisbane was that one did not have to be as well-dressed as the salesmen or look as solidly prosperous as the executives. Barring obscene dress, the chemists could wear just about anything that fell out of the closet. Even the lowliest secretary could tell the chemists at a glance. They were the ones who looked comfortable.

Wilbur customarily wore a white shirt and chinos. He ate candy bars and, in those rare moments when he wasn't extolling Poweressence as the salvation of the world, he complained that he wasn't doing important things for mankind through chemistry.

And that was the one freedom Brisbane did not allow its chemists. As the foremost manufacturer of women's hair colorings and over-the-counter symptom suppressants for headaches, sniffles, sleeplessness, and other nuisances of life, Brisbane demanded that its hardworking chemists never doubt the importance of their jobs. They were all in pursuit of scientific excellence. Period.

“Wilbur, don't knock it,” said the secretary with all the ensnarements the negatives of the world could muster.

“It's so,” said Wilbur.

“So what?” said the secretary.

“The truth will set you free,” said Wilbur.

“Well, the truth is that Poweressence is a phony religion run by hucksters who are under indictment. It was made up by some writer who was broke. It's a fraud.”

“You have to say that,” said Wilbur. “Otherwise you couldn't live your miserable little life, knowing you could be freed from your slavery to the negative rejection of all that is positive.”

“If I'm so negative, why do you keep hanging around me?”

“I want to help you.”

“You want to help yourself into my pants.”

“You see? That's the negative way to look at love. Your whole life is devoted to love of the big 'No.'”

With that, Wilbur left, telling himself he was leaving her to mull over his brilliant analysis of her character flaws. What he could not know was that he was really leaving to threaten to return all mankind to the intellectual dark ages. For Wilbur Smot was about to unleash on an unsuspecting world the most dangerous chemical compound ever created, a potion that could rob the human race of its past, and therefore, its future.

In a way, old Hiram Brisbane's “brain regenerator” had already robbed Brisbane Pharmaceuticals of a proud past. Its very existence was a problem because it hinted that the modern pharmaceutical company was founded by a snake-oil salesman. Which it was, much to the chagrin of its public-relations department.

As a teenager, Hiram Brisbane had toured the Midwest with a wagon, two good horses, and case upon case of his father's homemade snake-oil medicine. The snake oil, he said, would cure everything from rheumatism to male impotence. He peddled women's solutions, as well; especially potions reputed to reduce the pains of the “monthlies.” Like most of the tonics of the time, Brisbane's elixir contained a good dose of opium. As a result, his following was very large and extremely loyal.

Brisbane was a natural businessman and before long, he had turned his wagonload of home brew into a pharmaceutical company. He had to give up traveling, of course. He also had to give up his huckster past, which meant giving up his father's snake oil for more refined compounds. Last but not least, he had to give up hawking his potions from a wagon and learn to hawk them in print.

But the one snake-oil throwback old Hiram Brisbane refused to give up on, although he never tried to sell it, was his father's prized “brain regenerator.”

“Indians used to give it to their worst criminals. I thought it was poison. I was a boy at the time, traveling with my father,” old Hiram would say.

“Well, they would single out the most horrible outlaw of their tribe, but they wouldn't hang him by the neck like civilized people. Hell, no. They wouldn't even cut off the balls of a rapist like good Christian folk. They'd just give him a shot of this potion. And you know what happened?” old Hiram would say, waiting for his college-educated chemists to ask, “What?”

“Nothing would happen,” he would answer. “Worst damned criminal in the world would just grin from ear to ear, then wait to be taken back to his teepee. He'd just smile. Now, is that a fitting punishment?”

Old Hiram would shake his head. And he would wait of course for his college-educated chemists to shake their heads also.

“Criminal looked so happy, my father wanted to try it. But the old medicine men wouldn't let him. Said it was the greatest curse on earth. Now, how could being struck that happy be a curse?”

The college-educated chemists were shrewd enough to appear puzzled.

“How, Mr. Brisbane?” someone would have to ask.

“Medicine man wouldn't say. But since he was grateful to my father for providing elixir on short notice, or at least the opium part, he gave my father a batch. Warned him not to try it on any living soul. So my father gave a teaspoon to a nigger. Nigger swallowed the damned thing and became ornery as hell. Wouldn't say-'sir' or 'ma'am.' The man just stood there grinning. Wouldn't fetch. Wouldn't haul. Wasn't good for anything for the rest of his life, but he never had no headaches, neither. Nosiree— that nigger's headaches were gone forever.

“My father tried it again on a man in West Newton, Wyoming, named Mean Nathan Cruet. Old Cruet was one mean-looking SOB— never did hurt nobody, though. He just went around mumbling. Mumble in the morning. Mumble in the afternoon. Finally my father asked what he was mumbling about, the old Cruet answered he had this headache. Had a headache from the first bejesus day he could remember.

“My father warned him about the potion, but said it might help in a small, small dose. Mean Nathan Cruet took just a little bitty tongue touch from the jug my father was saving, and a smile crossed his face. A big, benign smile.”

Hiram's voice would become mellow with that statement, his hands marking the path of a big smooth smile.

“And my father said:

“'Nathan, how is your headache?'

“And Mean Nathan Cruet, who had been suffering from headaches since as long as he could remember, answered, clear as a bell:

“'What headache?'

“Gentlemen, I don't know what they teach you in your fancy colleges, but I don't need no slide rule to recognize a headache remedy. What we're selling now is a headache remedy in spruce water. Pure spruce water. But figure out what's in that Indian potion and Brisbane will be the biggest drug company in the world. We'll call it the 'brain regenerator', just like my daddy did. God rest his soul.”

With that, in the presence of the first generation of Brisbane chemists, the old man ordered the big safe in his office to be opened. And for the first time ever, out came the wood-stoppered jug. One chemist actually tried to analyze a small portion of it. Some said he merely tasted it. Others said he took a big drink. In any case, he wandered away from the lab and never returned, his mind so addled he didn't even recognize his wife.

To Brisbane's first chemist, the “brain regenerator” had proven itself to be as cursed and “ungodly” as Darwinian theory, but in the 1950's, when no scientist believed in curses and the faith of reason ruled the land, another chemist decided to analyze the potion. This was a time of splitting the atom, of mass spectrometers, of the absolute certainty that all things were matter, and all matter could be understood. It was a faith so firm it would have made a pope envious.

The chemist announced that with only one gram of the potion, he would quantify to the last molecule every ingredient in the “cursed brain regenerator.”

He uncorked the jug with a smile. He was still smiling when he asked what time of day it was. He was told it was three-thirty.

“Oh,” he said, beaming with enlightenment. “That means the little hand is on the three, and the big hand is on the six. That is the six, isn't it, the one with the handle and the little circle on the bottom?”

In the progressive fifties, crazy people were helped, not ignored. So the chemist was helped into a straitjacket, then into a quiet hospital. Within a few days he was well again. But he could not remember one iota of what had gone wrong. The last thing he could recall was spilling a drop, and trying to wipe it up.

When, decades later, Wilbur Smot happened over the company threshold, Brisbane Pharmaceuticals was on the corporate forefront. Their nursery provided day care for under-paid female employees. Their Enlightened Employment program introduced “blacks” both into the vocabulary and the lab. A minority quota was hired, and that quota met visiting government officials at the door and toured them around the lab. In fact, the “enlightened” employers knew there were no more blacks in the laboratory now than there were during old Hiram's days, but now everyone knew not to call them insulting words. And they had learned something else— something about the “mind regenerator.” It could actually be absorbed through skin.

Thus when Wilbur Smot walked into the lab, it didn't surprise him to see the senior chemist wearing rubber gloves and a rubber mask. He knew he was trying to crack the chemical code of the “mind regurgitator,” as the chemists jokingly called it.

Wilbur sidled over to the senior chemist. He had to make him understand that the real power of the mind could be unlocked only by eliminating resistance to natural power.

“I've got it,” said the senior chemist, seeing a pale cloudy reaction in a beaker. “Of course. Do you know what it is?”

“No,” said Wilbur Smot. He knew the senior chemist had discovered a component because it had reacted to an element in the beaker, a common chemical test. But he had no idea what great secret the senior chemist had discovered.

“This supposedly cursed formula doesn't regenerate the brain at all. It is unique, no doubt about it. But it doesn't make the brain work better, although people might think it does.”

“What is it?”

“It is the reverse of sodium pentothal. I've never seen anything like it.”

“The truth serum?”

“No. Pentothal used in small doses will trigger the memory, free it up. It isn't so much truth you get with Pentothal but memory. This 'brain regenerator' actually hardens the arteries in the brain, cutting off functions, not freeing them. It is like instant amnesia.”

“So that was why the chemist in the fifties forgot how to read time?” said Wilbur. “Every Brisbane chemist knew the story of the old Indian secret the founder of the company had challenged his chemists to unlock, and how the years had yet to bring an answer.”

“Exactly,” said the senior chemist. “But his memory came back. Fifty years earlier he would have been allowed to wander out of town, like the previous one. Maybe the first chemist took too much. Powerful compound.”

“And the black person,” said Wilbur, understanding now, “forgot to be subservient. It eliminated all learned functions.”

“So he became absolutely normal, and was called ornery.”

“And the Indians gave criminals a large dose so that their negative adult behavior patterns reversed to those of infancy,” said Wilbur, who had learned much about negative thoughts at Poweressence. But then he wondered why it would be called “cursed” by the Indians.

“Well, think about it, Wilbur,” said the senior chemist. “If you forget enough, you forget who you are. You forget who you love or who loves you. You forget where you belong. And for an Indian to forget his traditions is to die a living death.”

“That's awful,” said Wilbur.

“Yeah. We should be able to sell this to mental hospitals,” said the senior chemist, swirling the fluids in the beaker to better examine the reaction. He breathed deeply, satisfied with himself.

“But if it is so powerful, don't you think we should use it for all mankind?”

“Use what for all mankind?” said the senior chemist.

“The solution you're examining.”

“What about the solution I'm examining?”

“It can harm people,” said Wilbur.

“This?” said the senior chemist, holding up the vial.

“Yeah,” said Wilbur.

“What is it?” said the senior chemist.

“The 'mind regenerator.' You have discovered it works in reverse of a memory jogger. You've broken the secret of the curse. You have discovered it induces amnesia.”

“What induces amnesia?” asked the senior chemist.

“That,” said Wilbur, pointing to the vial.

“Yes. What is it?” said the senior chemist.

“A memory suppressant?”

“Thank you, no. I already forgot what the hell I am supposed to be doing today,” said the senior chemist.

And in that instant, Wilbur realized his superior had inhaled the potion. He also realized it was too valuable to leave in the hands of the crudely commercial. It had to be taken from those people whose negativity was so strong they would inflict it on anyone just for profit.

This boon or curse to mankind belonged in the hands of the only people who truly cared about human life; the people liberated by Poweressence, which was not a cult, not a religion, not a fraud, but as Wilbur Smot understood in the very marrow of his soul, the absolute truth.

Wilbur eased the older man back to his office and then, being very careful neither to breathe nor to touch the brownish potion, he discarded the tests in the beakers. He removed all the notes compiled by the Brisbane chemists throughout the years and stuffed them in his pockets. Wilbur would take both the vial and notes to the one place in the world that would know how to use it. He would get them to the place he trusted, the place he trusted so much he allowed them to take thirty percent of his pay every week.

It was an old brownstone building, bathed in the sharp light of a sunny winter day, snow caked on the roof, a big sign in front offering a free character test. Wilbur had taken one of those when, lonely and frightened, straight from college, he came to Brisbane Pharmaceuticals.

The first level of tests showed that he had suffered blockages that made him, in the words of the attractive female examiner, unsure of himself.

At first he thought anyone could have assumed that simply because he had taken the test at all. Wilbur was not stupid. But then their probing questions turned up areas of fear and anger that even he was surprised to see actually existed. And when the examiner gave him a simple mental exercise to do, among a group of people, and the fear was diminished, he signed up for Level One. He did not hesitate, especially since the course was going up in price the next week.

Level One gave him a sense of a grand goal in his life as well as the tools to help him achieve it. Level Two gave him a sense of strength and peace. Level Three, far more expensive, gave him the challenge of throwing off all the shackles that bound everyone outside Poweressence.

Level Four, he knew, would be far more expensive than Level Three, and he did not know how many more levels he had to pass to free himself totally. But he did know he had found the truth. Those who made accusations against this wonderful freedom-loving, human-enriching movement were really suffering; they were sunk in the mire of negativity right up to their eyeballs.

The truth always had enemies.

Dr. Rubin Dolomo, founder of this great freeing secret of mankind, was perhaps, like all the great truth givers, the most persecuted person of his time. And why?

People feared the truth. From governments to secretaries with nice breasts and dimples, the truth presented a danger to them. And why? Because if they knew the truth, they would have to give up their slavery to their negative meaningless lives.

Dr. Rubin Dolomo did not hate these people, he felt sorry for them, and Wilbur should also. They were in darkness and could not help the things they did.

Of course this didn't mean the group didn't have to defend itself. Indeed it did. A child driving a massive truck might be innocent of all wrongdoing because of its age, but still the truck would do horrible damage. Imagine it running into a crowd. Imagine how many people it would kill.

In that case would it be wrong to remove the child? Would it be criminal then, to save so many?

When Wilbur looked at it like that, the fact that an eight-foot alligator was deposited into the swimming pool of a newsman writing defamatory articles about Poweressence did not seem so terrible. Poweressence had no intention of killing the man; they only wanted to bring him to his senses. Not that Dr. Rubin Dolomo would ever do anything like that himself. But enthusiastic supporters, full of desire to free the writer's soul, had ventured what might seem too far in the eyes of the world at large.

“You mean you follow a man who sneaks alligators into people's pools because they say bad things about him?” Wilbur's mother had asked.

“You don't understand, Mom. Dr. Rubin Dolomo can free you from a life of pain and underachievement and loneliness. Someday I hope you will change your mind.”

“I already have. I used to think he was a hustling fraud. Now I think he is a vicious hustling fraud. Wilbur, leave those people.”

“Mom, get rid of your negative forces before they ruin you.”

“I'll pray for you, Wilbur.”

“I'll release my negative forces for you, Mom.”

Wilbur remembered that sad conversation as he bowed to the portrait of Dr. Rubin Dolomo, founder of Poweressence, set above the entranceway to the second floor of the building. Only those who had passed the first level were allowed up here. Those walking in from the street for their free character test were kept downstairs in booths, away from pictures of Dr. Dolomo, even away from any mention of Poweressence. This was not deception.

The deception was all the lies people told about Poweressence. Therefore, to hide the fact that Poweressence was behind the tests was really giving the truth a chance, because then the person, after taking the test and seeing what was offered, would have a chance to judge fairly. Otherwise, bombarded by newspaper propaganda, a perfectly innocent person might logically be led to think this was all a come-on for a fraud, a hustle to part a victim from his money and his self-control.

Therefore, Dr. Rubin Dolomo's picture was kept only on the second floor, and only when a person reached this floor was he allowed to venerate the picture and understand, yes, indeed, in the secrecy of pure surroundings, that this was religion, and Dr. Dolomo was sent by the forces of the universe to help mankind.

Only when he saw the picture did the young chemist allow himself to think thoughts of religion. He kept the vial and the formula close to his body. He told one of the workers he had an urgent message.

His Level Three guide was unavailable, so a Level Four guide had to come and see him. The Level Four guide looked somewhat harried for someone who was supposed to be free of negative thoughts.

“I have discovered in my job an incredibly powerful drug that will remove people's memory. It is so dangerous only we should have it.”

“Fantastic. What does it do?”

When Wilber explained the chemical formula, the Level Four guide decided it was above his power to make a decision and moved Wilbur up to a Level Five guide. The Level Five guide whistled at the thought of blocking memory with a whisper of a substance and he passed Wilbur along to the next level. The Level Six guide was working an adding machine and smoking a cigarette. Cigarette addiction was something Poweressence was supposed to cure.

Level Six did not seem at peace with the positive forces of existence, rather still a sufferer of negative input.

“Okay, what do you got? Whatya got?”

Wilbur explained.

“Okay, what do you want for it?”

“I want for it to be used for the positive power of mankind.”

“C'mon. You gonna do business or you gonna play in my pudding? How much you want? You sellin' the formula? You sellin' what? A dose? A quart?”

“I am not selling anything. I want to give back the many blessings I have received.”

“Where did you come from?”

“From downstairs.”

“What level are you?”

“I have, with the good help of my guides, broken through to Level Three.”

“Ooooooh,” said the man with the light of recognition on his face. “I see. This is not business. Good for you, kid. You're going to give it away, right? Explain it to me again.”

And Wilbur tried to explain the formula.

“Look, kid. That's too big for this Toledo franchise. You had better go right to headquarters yourself. Right to Dr. Dolomo.”

“I'm going to see the doctor?”

“You got to. This is national. But tell him that Toledo is in for Toledo's share. Okay? He'll know what I'm talking about, and don't forget to tell him you're at Level Three. Right?” said the man, giving Wilbur's cheek a little pat.

“I'm only at Level Three. I don't know if I am qualified to talk to the good doctor myself.”

“Yeah. Yeah. You are, kid. It's beautiful. You're a sweet boy. Just tell him what you told me.”

“Do you think I should work on a rapid transcendence of the spirit before I enter his presence? I've heard it could be rushed with help.”

“What's that, the $1,998.99 weekend in our Chillicothe temple?”

“No, I believe the offering is $900 and it's a day's intensive powering in the Columbus facility.”

“Just pay for your own plane fare to headquarters. That's purifying enough. Okay, kid, anything else?”

“Yes. I thought you weren't supposed to smoke once you passed Level Three,” said Wilbur, nodding to the burning cigarette.

“Right. Go downstairs; there are people paid to explain it all to you. Now get outta here, kid, and don't forget— tell Dolomo this is a Toledo find. He knows what I'm talking about.”

Wilbur went right to the airport, not even bothering to inform Brisbane Pharmaceuticals he was taking a day off. He was troubled by the cigarette smoking at so high a level. But then he remembered what they had told him at Level Two, when he had paid for the $500 hard-bound step-by-step guide through the levels.

“Don't expect to get rid of a lifetime of wrong thinking just because you buy a set of books. It will take years. It will take courses. And most of all, it will take money. But don't feel that because you still worry, or want to smoke or drink or spend your money foolishly, that you have not progressed. Sometimes an isolated negative thought will strike even the most advanced of us.”

This explained why someone at so high a level could still be smoking. Still, Wilbur worried about it, though his concerns turned to elation as his cab pulled up to the famed “Tower of Poweressence.” Dr. Dolomo lived on an estate in California, facing the Pacific. It had more lawn than most state parks. He had read about it in Poweressence literature.

Dr. Dolomo, having achieved the highest level of Poweressence, needed no sleep and worked twenty-four hours a day for the good of mankind. And he worked his great works from here. Wilbur pulled out his step-by-step guide but he was too excited to cram. In a few minutes he'd be face-to-face with the young man with incredibly blue eyes who stared out of the book cover. This was a Level Two book. There were rumors that people just sleeping on it under their pillow had advanced in positive power. Wilbur slid it between the seat of the car and the seat of his pants.

There were guards at the gates, but once inside, people seemed to wander about at will. There were no prohibitions. Wilbur Smot tried to absorb the positive vibrations that must be coming from here. He felt the sun and the grass and he knew again all was good.

A secretary downstairs brought him to an inner room where a man who called himself the Midwest regional director watched a taped football game while eating chocolates.

“He's to see Dr. Dolomo. He's from Toledo.”

“Upstairs,” said the man.

“Don't you think you ought to go with him? He is sort of new to everything.”

“No. No. Leave me alone. What's there to climbing stairs? Get out of here.”

Wilbur looked to the secretary. That was definite negative behavior.

The secretary smiled.

“It's all right,” she said. “Just go upstairs.”

On the second floor a group of maids were in a frenzy. Mrs. Dolomo, he heard, was screaming about something. Mrs. Dolomo was using profane language. Mrs. Dolomo didn't want to talk to him or any other jerk from Toledo, Ohio. Mrs. Dolomo wanted her beige bathing suit and she wanted it now, and if he didn't know where it was, would he kindly stay the bleeping hell out of the way.

Wilbur Smot found Dr. Dolomo dozing, his potbelly heaving with each breath, a large cigar stagnating in an ashtray.

“Dr. Dolomo?” Wilbur said, praying this was not the man who had found the force that had released Wilbur from so much personal pain.

“Who wha?” cried out the portly figure in panic. He jerked himself up to a sitting position, reached for his bifocals, and focused his eyes. “Get me the pills. Those pills.”

Wilbur saw a pink plastic container on a table three steps away from the divan the man was lying on. He gave him the pills. The man's hands were shaking as he threw them into his mouth.

Wilbur perspired in his heavy Midwest winter clothes. Rays of beautiful California sunshine bathed the room as soft Pacific breezes played with a light curtain and made Wilbur's very breath a song of joy. The man cleared his throat.

“Are you trying to kill me? What do you mean coming into this room and waking me up? I don't know who you are. You could be the feds come to throw me in the slammer. You could be some disgruntled parent wanting his kid back come to kill me.”

“Those are negative thoughts you are bringing on yourself. You should speak to Dr. Dolomo sometime. You would realize you yourself are bringing all the bad things of your life into your life. No one else does it.”

“I don't need grief like that this early in the morning.”

“It's the afternoon,” said Wilbur.

“Whatever. Did Beatrice send you in here with that crap?”

“Beatrice?”

“Mrs. Dolomo. She resents anyone who thinks. I think. Therefore she resents me.”

“I feel sorry for you in your suffering in negativity, but I have been sent here from Toledo to see Dr. Dolomo.”

“All right, what do you want?”

Wilbur saw the eyes, the watery blue eyes. The whitish hair had been blond apparently. The face that sagged now had once been young. It was the man in the poster on the second floor of the Toledo Temple, the man that smiled out from the jacket of his Level Two book. Dr. Rubin Dolomo.

“No,” said Wilbur. “I have made a terrible mistake.”

“You already woke me up, so let's have it.”

“I am not giving you anything.”

“I didn't ask for anything, but now that you've ruined my day, I am sure as hell going to get what you came for.”

“I would never give it to you.”

“You've just realized this is a hustle and you're at Level One or something.”

“Three,” said Wilbur.

“All right. We'll give you your money back. I don't need this grief. But look, you didn't get in here without clearance. And you obviously have something for me. Right?”

Wilbur did not answer. He wondered if he could make the gate running full out. He wondered if he could climb over the gate at the far end of the expanse of lawns. He knew he shouldn't tell what he had.

“I was just reporting from the Toledo Temple. They said they are going to give you an extra payment this month.”

“Look,” said Dr. Rubin Dolomo with weariness in his voice. “I know you are here with something else. But worse for both of us, Beatrice will know you are here with something else. She'll know. And she'll get it. Me, I would just as soon fly away and not bother with any of this. Personally, I am sorry it all went this far. But you have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Dolomo. May you never have to endure that pleasure. So what is it?”

“I won't tell you.”

“I'm going to call her.”

“No,” said Wilbur.

“Before I call her, I want you to know, sonny, that I had nothing against you. And by the way, her name is Beatrice and never, ever call her Betty. Gets her nose out of joint.”

“I'm leaving.”

“Beatrice!” screamed Dr. Rubin Dolomo, and the woman who had been cursing in the hallway came into the room still cursing, cursing that she was being bothered.

“I knew you'd find out sooner or later. But there is some kind of good news from Toledo and this kid here is a believer and he won't talk.”

“I am leaving,” said Wilbur.

Wilbur found out that Mrs. Dolomo did not believe in arguments. She believed in radiators. Two large strong men with hands like steel vises tied Wilbur to a radiator. Even though the day was warm, there was still steam in the system. It was used to heat water.

Wilbur, understanding what the drug might mean in the wrong hands, held out until he was crying in pain. And then, mentally begging forgiveness, he told the Dolomos about the mind drug that could wipe out memory.

But he warned them how dangerous it was. He begged them not to use it, even as Dr. Dolomo talked of using Level Two people as guinea pigs, of selling small doses of it, or better yet, using it as a teaching booster at the first level. The possibilities were endless: give a group dose to the entire second level and then, as the dose wore off, make the members believe Poweressence had returned their memory. Of course, they would have to give the Toledo franchise its cut. Or better yet, a dose of the drug. They would forget they owned a piece of the potion.

“I was thinking about getting it into the food of the witnesses against us,” said Dr. Dolomo. He lit the end of the cigar.

“The witnesses against you, Rubin,” said Beatrice Dolomo.

“I am your husband.”

“Please,” cried Wilbur.

“What do we do with him?” asked Dolomo.

“I am not going to have someone with an assault charge in his pocket against me running around the streets,” huffed Beatrice.

“I told you, kid,” said Dr. Dolomo, shrugging.

“Please,” sobbed Wilbur. “Please let me up.”

The woman nodded for him to be untied.

“We don't have to kill him,” said Dolomo. “He already told us everything it did. Give him a good swallow like the Indians used. He'll forget everything.”

“No,” said Wilbur.

“Young man,” said Beatrice Dolomo. “Do you know how alligators eat their dinner? Well, either you take a swig out of that vial you just showed us, or you will become very familiar with the dental pattern of the American alligator. They rip their food rather than chew it, you know. Thrash it about, so to speak. Not much of a choice, is it, dear?”

Wilbur looked at the brown liquid. He wondered what he would feel like not remembering anything, not remembering who he was, who his parents were, or how he lived, and he understood in that last mature moment of his life what the Indians meant by a punishment. When he swallowed the little vial, he said good-bye to himself.

The liquid was surprisingly sweet and pleasant. Wilbur thought that he would make a mental note of how long it took before the potion took hold and what the last moments of memory would be like.

He did not harbor this thought long. He was standing in a room with people looking at him and had something sweet in his mouth. He did not know whether they were kind people or bad people. He did not know he was in California. He knew the sun was shining and someone, some nice person, was telling him they were going to fix the boo-boo on his backside. He had been burned. But Wilbur Smot did not quite understand those words. He did not know what burn was. He did not know what boo-boo was.

He was on the floor, because he had not yet learned to walk.