GRAY MATTER (21 page)

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Authors: Gary Braver

BOOK: GRAY MATTER
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“The earlier the better. As a child approaches puberty, everything changes. Yes, nerve cells are still generated—even in adults. But the massive wiring of the brain takes place early. More importantly,” he added, moving his finger across his head, “the long axonal connections from one section of the brain to another are most important in terms of cognitive functions, and they’re laid
down and fine-tuned well before puberty. At six, your son’s brain is still experiencing large-scale cognitive development. But it’s already begun to diminish.”
“I understand,” Martin said. He was beaming.
Malenko’s face seemed to harden. “There’s something else that you’ll need to factor into your decision: I ask that you maintain total confidentiality even if you decide against this. And I’ll be honest with you: Enhancement is not standard clinical procedure for the treatment of LD children. It’s an alternative, but it’s not FDA-approved.”
“May I ask why not?”
“Because, although the procedure is medically safe and sound, it would be something of a social taboo. It’s not
politically correct.
And unless they wanted full-scale riots on their hands, no government administrators would support the procedure. And until they do, we play hide-and-seek.”
The unexpected element of secrecy made Rachel even more uneasy and confused. On top of all the disquieting medical unknowns, she now had to be concerned with social and ethical issues. Malenko was right: If word got out about a medical procedure that enhanced the intelligence of children, the social implications would be astounding. Every parent who could afford it would have his or her LD kid fixed. In the long run, that would throw off the balance of society, the intellectual diversity. Not to mention the class problems—the haves versus the have-nots. Enhanced versus the enhanced-nots. Not to mention how every liberal left of Joseph Goebbels would raise a stink about
eugenics
and
social engineering
. And rightfully so. But at the moment, social questions weren’t most pressing. “But you say the procedure is medically safe?”
“Absolutely, and one hundred percent effective.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning every enhanced child is now a genius.”
Martin looked at Rachel in wordless amazement. “And how many is that?” she asked.
“Several.” His expression was unreadable.
Trade secret,
she thought.
“But what about the ugly stuff,” Martin asked. “Cost?”
Malenko made a bemused smile. “A lot, but nothing we should discuss now. First things first, and that’s letting this all sink in.” He stood up and came around the desk. The meeting was over.
“What I’d like you to do is go home and think about this. Think if this is something you want to go through with, because you’ll be making a lifetime
decision for your son, probably the most important in his life and yours. It’s a decision that transcends the merely medical. If you’re uncomfortable with the philosophical or social implications, then this is not for you. If you feel this runs counter to some ethical position you maintain, then this is not for you. But if you take the less global view—that this is your son and that your son has but one life to live—then you may accept the tenet that
intelligence is its own
reward.”
Rachel and Martin rose.
Malenko walked them out of the office to the front door. “Once again, I must caution you about confidentiality. Security is supremely important. Be it understood that this will not work if people talk. You are not allowed to discuss this with others. You are not allowed to seek others’ opinions. You are not allowed to put anything in writing. There will be no enhancement if I suspect that you will breach confidentiality. Is that understood?”
“Yeah, sure,” Martin said weakly.
Rachel nodded.
“Good. If we agree that this is the best thing for Dylan, then you’ll be asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement, the details to be explained later. Then we’ll discuss the ugly stuff.” He shook their hands. “Now go home and think about all this, and we’ll talk next week.”
Throughout the interview, Rachel had seen in Malenko a man of intimidating self-assurance and intelligence, a man whose polished rhetoric and keen instinct had nearly stripped her of defenses, had maneuvered her and Martin nearly to admit that they were here because of their dissatisfaction with their own son. And while part of her hated how she had bought into the presumption that intelligence was it own reward, this was the first time in their hour-long discussion that she sensed an abstract menace behind the porcelain smile.
Malenko opened the front door. “By the way, is Dylan right-handed or left?”
“Right,” Martin said.
“Good,” Malenko said, but did not elaborate.
“Doctor, I want you to know that before I can make a decision,” Rachel said, “I would have to meet some enhanced children.”
“You already have.”
Then like a half-glimpsed premonition she heard Malenko say: “Lucinda MacPhearson.”
“
B
ut she’s brilliant?”
“She is now,” Sheila said. “They raised her score by seventy-something points.”
They were at the Dells, in the café just outside the day care center having a muffin and café au lait.
“It’ll be two years in December. We took her in over the Christmas break from preschool, and when she returned her hair had grown back and nobody even knew. Then over the next months, she began to show signs of improvement—talking better, understanding better. In a year she was reading and reasoning and thinking. God, it was like somebody cranked up the rheostat.”
“That’s incredible.”
“You’re telling me? And they can do the same for Dylan. I mean, it’s a miracle. She was this hairless little monkey, and now she’s … Lucinda.”
“Hairless little monkey.” Was that how she regarded Dylan?
“If you don’t mind my asking, what was the nature of her problem?”
“What do you mean?”
“Brain deformities or anomalies or whatever?”
“No.”
“Some kind of accident or trauma?”
“Not really.”
“Well, what made you bring her?”
Sheila looked at her incredulously. “She was slow.”
“Wait a minute. You’re mean these enhancement procedures aren’t just for kids with neurophysical defects?”
Sheila’s face darkened. “Well, a few are.”
“You’re saying that most are kids with no physical abnormalities—lesions, tumors, malformations—or whatever? They’re just … slow?”
Ever since Sheila had hinted at enhancement, Rachel had assumed it was a medical procedure to correct some anatomical defect of the brain. Now she was hearing something else: a secret practice for raising the intelligence of kids who tested low and whose parents had financial resources. In Martin’s words “an IQ jack-up” for the privileged. Rachel was about to articulate those thoughts, when Sheila’s eyes suddenly filled up and her mouth began to quiver.
“I didn’t want to tell you at first,” she whimpered, “but I could see how you were agonizing over his problems. I knew exactly what you were going through, watching your child struggle with things other kids get automatically. Lucinda couldn’t follow the simplest directions. She didn’t understand the simplest concepts. It would kill me to watch her try to put together her little puzzles—baby puzzles—cutouts with the pictures under them. She couldn’t do them,” Sheila said, wiping her eyes. “It ate me up to see how frustrated she’d get and end up throwing pieces across the room. So I knew completely what you were going through. But I really couldn’t say anything.”
Rachel nodded, feeling a vague uneasiness in Sheila’s tearful response.
“So, I’m telling you it’s like a miracle what they did for her, and they can do the same for Dylan.”
“Except I’m not sure I can grapple with manipulating his intelligence. Or even what that means. I thought you were telling me about a procedure to medically correct brain abnormalities.”
“I am, and it means making him smarter, simple as that.”
But it isn’t as simple as that,
thought Rachel.
“Look, no two brains are alike—like people’s faces. Slow brains are different from smart brains, is what they told me. So, it’s like a
brain
lift.
” Sheila wiped her eyes and chuckled at her own analogy.
“What do you know about the operation?”
“Just that they make little incisions and implant some kind of neurostimulation like what they do for epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease—stem—cell stuff. I don’t know the details, but what I do know is that after a year or more, the kid’s a little whip. Like day and night.
“At three, Lucinda couldn’t distinguish red from green even though she wasn’t even color-blind-the next year, she was reading at third-grade level. The year after that she was doing fifth-grade math. What can I say? A miracle. She was like a sponge—and still is. Everything she’s taught she learns like that and
remembers
. And what’s more, she’s a regular Miss Confidence. Sometimes it’s Miss Obnoxious, but she’s got self-esteem up to here. What can I say?”
As she listened to Sheila, Rachel had a mental flash of Lucinda sitting poker-straight at her computer screen, her dual golden ponytails rising from the top of her head like bullwhips, her fingers on the keyboard like a concert pianist, her little pink mouth flapping directions on how best to navigate the search engines. Miss Confidence.
Miss Obnoxious.
Then Rachel saw that fat pink chipmunk face fill with noxious glee.
“That’s not a tiger, it’s a cheetah.”
“You must be taking stupid pills.”
“Hey, Dylan, thanks for the free goal!”
Children could be astonishingly cruel, but Lucinda was a soulless little bitch. “And she’s okay?” Rachel said. “No personality problems, behavioral issues, side effects, headaches?”
“Uh-uh. It’s been great. She’s already talking about being a doctor when she grows up.”
Rachel nodded, studying Sheila’s responses. “And where is it done?”
“They have some off-site location. But they’ll fill you in.”
“And you have no regrets?”
“Regrets? Uh-uh. No way.”
Sheila shook her head a little too much and could not hold on to Rachel’s stare.
“Nor did Harry,” Sheila added.
From what Rachel knew, her late husband was something of an intellect, a great reader and a man who became a chief engineer at Raytheon. He had died a year ago, so she couldn’t get his input. That was unfortunate because Rachel could sense something forced in Sheila’s manner—overwrought confidence.
“Does Lucinda know she’s been enhanced?”
“God, no! And there’s no reason. In fact, the doctor says that it’s best they don’t know. Besides, she was sedated the whole time and remembers absolutely nothing.”
“How long did it take?”
“The operation? A few hours, I guess. They kept her a couple days in recovery, which she slept through, and when she came home she didn’t have a clue. Not even a headache. And when the hair grew back, she stopped asking about the boo-boos.”
“Amazing,” Rachel said. And yet, all she could think of were the countless and dark unknowns. “What about the fact that it’s not legal?”
Sheila rolled her eyes. “Legal-schmegal. Forty years ago abortions weren’t legal, but that didn’t stop people from getting them. It’s just that enhancement isn’t very PC, if you know what I mean.” She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Stuff like that gets out, it could cause class warfare.” She chuckled nervously at her own glibness.
“But that’s a legitimate ethical concern,” Rachel said. “It’s just one more advantage the rich have over the poor.” And that bothered her. If this was the miracle it appeared to be, then it opened a Pandora’s box of social woes, not the least of which was the fact that it ran counter to everything democracy stood for and to Rachel’s fundamental beliefs in social justice and equality. A secret privileged thing that was tantamount to intellectual apartheid.
“First, enhancement does work. And second, you’re looking at it the wrong way, hon. This is for your son. For his future. That’s where your priorities are. You’re talking about making life better for him, right? Right. Which means if you can afford it, you have a moral obligation to do it. It’s for your one-and-only kid, and that’s what counts, period! In a sense, it’s good for society too, because—who knows?—Dylan may grow up to be a great scientist or doctor. He may even be president someday. Or better still, another Bill Gates.”
“And what about this Dr. Malenko? What do you know about him?”
“Talk about brilliant! The man’s a world-class neuroscientist—a pillar of the community, a member of every civic group. He’s on the board of Mass General Hospital and the Lahey Clinic. A member of the Brain Surgeon’s Society or whatever. What can I say: He’s the cream of the crop, is all.”
Rachel listened and nodded, and took a sip of her coffee. Outside two greenskeepers were leaning against the pickup truck and laughing over some joke. One of them, a man in his fifties, probably had done manual labor most of his life and lived with his wife and kids in one of the humbler towns in the area, or maybe New Hampshire. He couldn’t be earning more than thirty thousand a year. She wondered about his life. She wondered if he was happy being who he was.
“Another thing is the fee. When we asked, he just said it was expensive.”
Sheila’s eyebrows arched. “It
is
expensive. But you’re making an investment like nothing else in life. You’re buying genius for your son. His enhancement could mean the difference between a so-so life and a great one.
“Think about that and about how much you’ll save in pain, missed opportunities, humiliation, and the rejection your child would suffer—not to mention costs for tutors, therapists, special schools—including Nova Children’s Center—SAT prep courses, et cetera. Or imagine the emotional payback when your kid wins a science fair, or writes the class skit, or is editor of the school newspaper, makes the honor roll, the National Honor Society. Or he graduates at the top of his class at Harvard only to start working at seventy-five thousand dollars a year at the tender age of twenty-two, or younger since he’ll probably skip grades. How do you put a price tag on all that? You can’t. Honey, if you can afford it, then you owe it to him.
You owe it to him.
”
Inside the playroom, Miss Jean was wrapping up the hour. Lucinda made a wave through the one-way window at Sheila. She couldn’t see her, of course, but she knew she was there. She knew it was a one-way window. Behind her Dylan watched in puzzlement as she waved at a mirror.
They got up to leave. “Do you know other enhanced kids?”
“There aren’t many in the area, but I know a couple.”
“Anyone I know?”
Sheila suddenly seemed torn. “Well, you may know
of
them.”
“Such as?”
“Look, I’m not supposed to tell,” Sheila whispered. “I mean, everything is
très
confidential, especially the identity of the children, if you know what I mean.”
“Sheila, if we’re going to consider this, I want to meet other children and talk to the parents.”
Rachel could see her struggling but Sheila was not someone who could sit on a secret.
“Julian Watts,” she whispered.
“You mean Vanessa’s son, the boy who wrote a book on mazes?”
“Uh-huh. He’s like
megasmart
and talented. I don’t know his case history, but his mother, Vanessa, is this superstar scholar and the father, Brad, he’s an architect. And Julian was born …
challenged.
”
“We got an invitation to her book party at the club.” A fancy invitation
had arrived the other day for a double-header Scholarship Banquet next Saturday night celebrating both caddy scholarship winners and Vanessa Watts’s publication of her new book on George Orwell. Rachel had met Vanessa in passing at the club, although she didn’t know her. Nor her son. “How do we go about meeting them?”
Sheila leaned forward into her conspiratorial huddle again. “Let me first explain that these kids don’t know they’re enhanced, know what I mean? It’s just not a good thing if they think they were
made
special. I mean their ego, and stuff. So you can’t really talk to them about, you know, before and after.”
“How could they not know they had a brain operation?”
“I’m telling you they don’t. They’ve got this amnesia drug the doctors use—something called ‘ketamine’ or ‘katamine.’ Whatever, it’s used for trauma cases, and whatnot, but it works like magic. They just don’t remember anything including how they were once, you know … different.”
“What about follow-up visits? Dr. Malenko said he checks up on their progress.”
“They only need to be seen two or three times until things level off, which is about a year or so,” Sheila said. “But it’s the same thing. They go in, he gives them the ketamine/katamine stuff. They get checked up and are sent on their way, and they don’t remember a thing. It’s incredible.”
“So these kids don’t even know about other enhanced kids.”
“Not a clue.”
Through the window Rachel could see Dylan put on his backpack. “I’d like to talk with the Wattses and meet Julian.”
“I’ll have to check, but I’m sure it can be arranged.”
As they walked outside to meet the kids, Sheila stopped. “I think you’re making the right decision for him.”
“But we haven’t made a decision yet.”
“Well, I mean you’re thinking about something that will make all the difference. I mean, I know, believe me. It’s like she got over multiple sclerosis or blindness or something.”
They walked into the sunlight. It was bright and warm, and the grass and leaves on the trees seemed to glow. Other mothers were waiting in the shade of the huge elm chatting among themselves.

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