Patient H.M. (31 page)
Authors: Luke Dittrich
But researchers struggled to make sense of the clear exceptions to Henry's amnesia. How did he know anything at all about the Kennedys and the Kennedy assassination? Or Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat? They offered tentative explanations. Maybe some vestigial portion of his hippocampus allowed particularly vivid events or people to stick. Or maybe other nearby brain structures had picked up the slack, taking over some of the functions of Henry's medial temporal lobes.
Nobody knew for sure.
Sometimes Henry just remembered things he had no business remembering.
Other times, he remembered things that never happened at all.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Do you know who any of the people there are?
Wilson held up a photo.
H
.
M
.:
I think of the Rolling Stones right off.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Rolling Stones? Who are the Rolling Stones?
H
.
M
.:
Rolling Stones were the singers.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Yes. What sort of music?
H
.
M
.:
Jive music.
Wilson pointed at the photograph again.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
They're not the Rolling Stones.
H
.
M
.:
They're not the Rolling Stonesâ¦.Noâ¦I didn't think they were because I thought there was fiveâ¦Rolling Stones.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
That's right.
H
.
M
.:
And I can only see four there.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Their name begins with B.
H
.
M
.:
Uh. B. I know they're brothers. They're naturally four brothers. Because there's four of them thereâ¦andâ¦But I can't think of their names.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Beatles. Did you ever hear of them?
H
.
M
.:
B-E-A-T-L-E-S, the Beatles.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
That's right. Do you listen to them?
H
.
M
.:
No. I haven't.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
But you know how to spell their name?
Henry went quiet for a few seconds, his gaze shifting to one side. He was having a petit mal seizure. Maybe he scratched at his leg, maybe his jaw moved up and down, back and forth. Then he stopped seizing and came to.
H
.
M
.:
Hmm?
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
You know how to spell their name?
H
.
M
.:
Whose names? See, I'm sorry. I went into a spell. Just as you were asking the question and everything. I sort of, popped right out.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
What do youâ¦What happensâ¦What do you feel when that happens?
H
.
M
.:
Don't feel anything in a way andâ¦it's just thatâ¦wellâ¦I guess you could sayâ¦like waking up in the morning, when an ordinary person wakes up in the morning they comeâ¦andâ¦to a realization of thingsâ¦that I guess you could call itâ¦more realization ofâ¦andâ¦wellâ¦the big question mark that you have yourself, of course. You wonder what the heck it is now, because you know that you've been awake before, because you remember that in a way, butâ¦not in the way youâ¦butâ¦not remembering in a way, but you know that you've been awake, then that little blank spell and you wonder what has been going on there. Because there might have been something, an awful lot. And you don't remember, and like you, even though you heardâ¦you couldn't tell ifâ¦wasâ¦what the person said or anything like thatâ¦you wonderâ¦yourself.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Well all I asked you was what wasâ¦uhâ¦
H
.
M
.:
The names.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
I can't remember myself now! Oh yes, the Beatles.
H
.
M
.:
Beatlesâ¦I was, uh, thinking of names, trying to think of theâ¦uhâ¦I was thinking of first names of the Beatles andâ¦can't think of them.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
You thought of another singing group, didn't you?
H
.
M
.:
I can't think of it, no.
Wilson held up another photograph, this one of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Now, what's this a picture of?
H
.
M
.:
Well, it's a man walking on the moon.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
You reckon?
H
.
M
.:
Um, that'd be the first photograph of a man walking on the moon.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Do you know the name of anybody on the moonâ¦went to the moonâ¦what do they call them?
Wilson waited for a while, then gave Henry the answer.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Astronauts.
H
.
M
.:
Ah, the astronauts. And. Right as you say astronauts, I think of, uh, how there are some going aroundâ¦and some guys that, uh, four of them, trying, call themselves the Astronauts, and they are trying forâ¦They call themselves the Astronauts. Singing.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
The Astronauts?
H
.
M
.:
Yes.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Singing?
H
.
M
.:
Well, they call themselves the Astronauts. They are notâ¦
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Ah, they're a singing group?
H
.
M
.:
They're a singing group.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
And what sort of music do they play?
H
.
M
.:
Well, jive music.
Wilson held up a photograph of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. It was the famous photograph taken just a second after the gunshot, Oswald facing the camera, Ruby lunging toward him, the pistol aimed at his gut.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Do you know who that is?
H
.
M
.:
Well, I think of Frank Sinatra. Right off in the middle. That's being shot.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Do you think it must be in a movie, or what?
H
.
M
.:
Ah, uh. And I think of Boston.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Frank Sinatra being shot in Boston?
H
.
M
.:
I think that's it. And. Uh. I have an argument with myself, though. Of Boston andâ¦or was it out throughâ¦was itâ¦not out throughâ¦But was it in Dallas? And thenâ¦Then Detroit comes into the picture.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Where who was shot?
H
.
M
.:
Um. Sinatra, I thinkâ¦The man in the middle.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Who's he being shot by?
H
.
M
.:
And I think ofâ¦thoughtâ¦I think I said that rightâ¦Iâ¦Probably wrong. The Oswald. That's what I thought. I thought of Oswald.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
Where? What? Do you think that's Oswald?
Wilson pointed at Oswald.
H
.
M
.:
No. That one.
Henry pointed at Ruby.
M
ARSLEN-
W
ILSON:
So Oswald is shooting Frank Sinatra?
Henry nodded.
H
.
M
.:
Frank Sinatra. In Detroit.
The questioning went on for days, years, decades.
Graduate students would cycle in and out of MIT's Clinical Research Center, cherishing the time they got to spend with the increasingly famous Patient H.M. Jenni Ogden, for example. A visiting neuropsychologist from Auckland University who spent 1986 to 1987 in Corkin's lab, Ogden recorded several of her conversations with Henry, brought the tape back with her when she returned home, held on to it for decades, and still listens to it now and then, like a favorite album. Some of the recordings document an unpublished experiment she conducted with Henry, when she tried to determine if he was capable of parroting different emotional states. (She asked him to repeat the phrase “We're going to the movies” in just about every way imaginable: sad, angry, anxious, happy, amused. He did fine.) The parts of the tape Ogden likes best, though, are the less structured parts, like the bit when she and Henry just sat and chatted about Elvis.
O
GDEN:
Do you know what Elvis Presley was? Or is?
H
.
M
.:
Well, he was a recording star. And he used to sing a lot.
O
GDEN:
He did indeed! What sort of things did he used to sing?
H
.
M
.:
Well, jive.
O
GDEN:
Jive, yeah. Do you like to jive? Or did you like to jive?
H
.
M
.:
No.
O
GDEN:
Why not?
H
.
M
.:
I didn'tâ¦Well, I liked to listen. That was all.
O
GDEN:
You did. He's a good singer. Do you think he's still alive, Elvis Presley?
H
.
M
.:
No, I don't think so.
O
GDEN:
Have you any idea what might have happened to him?
H
.
M
.:
Well, I believe that he got the first bullet. I think. That was for Kennedy, I think it was.
O
GDEN:
And you remember Kennedy?
H
.
M
.:
Yeah. Robert.
O
GDEN:
Robert Kennedy. What was he?
H
.
M
.:
Well, he was the president. I think about three times.
O
GDEN:
The president about three times.
H
.
M
.:
Yeah. He was appointed president, too. And he got a bullet.
O
GDEN:
So what was that all about?
H
.
M
.:
Well, they were trying to assassinate him.
O
GDEN:
And did they? Did they kill him or not?
H
.
M
.:
No, they didn't.
O
GDEN:
So is he still alive?
H
.
M
.:
Yes, he's still alive. But he got out of politicsâ¦.
O
GDEN:
What's that thing over there?
H
.
M
.:
Well. I think, a videograph.
O
GDEN:
A videograph? I'll give you aâ¦What's another word for it? Anything else you can think of?
H
.
M
.:
Well, you can seeâ¦You can put questions in it, and you have a
yes
or
no
on it, too.
O
GDEN:
That's right. You certainly do. That's called a co�
She paused, waiting for him to complete the word.
H
.
M
.:
Cardiograph?
O
GDEN:
No. Com� Com�
H
.
M
.:
Compressor?
O
GDEN:
No. You sometimes get it. Com�
H
.
M
.:
I can't think of the word.
O
GDEN:
Computer.
Henry's failure to come up with the word was not a surprise. Computers like the one sitting on a desk in the examination room weren't invented till long after 1953, and Henry's vocabulary had more or less ceased to expand since his operation, though occasionally he could come up with a word if prompted with the first syllable or two. Sometimes researchers asked Henry to provide definitions for modern words or terms, and his answers were almost always wrong. He defined boat people as “people who cater bon voyage parties,” granola as “a portable keyboard wind instrument,” apartheid as “the separation of young cows that have not yet given birth to calves,” and brainwash as “the fluid that surrounds and bathes the brain.”
