All the evidence indicates that separation of the hemispheres creates two independent spheres of consciousness within a single cranium, that is to say, within a single organism. This conclusion is disturbing to some people who view consciousness as an indivisible property of the human brain. It seems premature to others, who insist that the capacities revealed thus far for the right hemisphere are at the level of an automaton. There is, to be sure, hemispheric inequality in the present cases, but it may well be a characteristic on the individuals we have studied. It is entirely possible that if a human brain were divided in a very young person, both hemispheres could as a result separately and independently develop mental functions of a high order at the level attained only in the left hemisphere of nor mal individuals.
laughs.)
We know you were one of the people in that group, the seated medical deputy said. It doesnt matter which one. None of you could look at the bike and perceive the simple mathematical operation involved in determining the number of its very small system of gear ratios. In the deputys voice Fred heard a certain compassion, a measure of being kind. An operation like that constitutes a junior high school aptitude test. Were you all stoned?
No, Fred said.
They give aptitude tests like that to children, the other medical deputy said.
So what was wrong, Fred? the first deputy asked.
I forget, Fred said. He shut up now. And then he said, It sounds to me like a cognitive fuckup, rather than perceptive. Isnt abstract thinking involved in a thing like that? Not
You might imagine so, the seated deputy said. But tests show that the cognitive system fails because it isnt receiving accurate data. In other words, the inputs are distorting in such a fashion that when you go to reason about what you see you reason wrongly because you dont The deputy gestured, trying to find a way to express it.
But a ten-speed bike has seven gears, Fred said. What we saw was accurate. Two in front, five in back.
But you didnt perceive, any of you, how they interact: five in back with each of the two in front, as the black told you. Was he a highly educated man?
Probably not, Fred said.
What the black saw, the standing deputy said, was different from what all of you saw. He saw two separate connecting lines between the rear gear system and the front, two simultaneous different lines perceptible to him between the gears in front running to each of the five back ones in turn. What you saw was one connective to all back ones.
But that would make six gears, then, Fred said. Two front gears but one connective.
Which is inaccurate perception. Nobody taught that black boy that; what they taught him to do, if anyone taught him at all, was to figure out, cognitively, what the meaning of those two connectives were. You missed one of them entirely, all of you. What you did was that although you counted two front gears, you perceived them as a homogeneity.
Ill do better next time, Fred said.
Next time what? When you buy a ripped-off ten-speed bike? Or abstracting all daily percept input?
Fred remained silent.
Lets continue the test, the seated deputy said. What do you see in this one, Fred?
Plastic dog shit, Fred said. Like they sell here in the Los Angeles area. Can I go now? It was the Lions Club speech all over again.
Both deputies, however, laughed.
You know, Fred, the seated one said, if you can keep your sense of humor like you do youll perhaps make it.
Make it? Fred echoed. Make what? The team? The chick? Make good? Make do? Make out? Make sense? Make money? Make time? Define your terms. The Latin for make is facere, which always reminds me of fuckere, which is Latin for to fuck, and I havent
The brain of the higher animals, including man, is a double organ, consisting of right and left hemispheres connected by an isthmus of nerve tissue called the corpus callosum. Some 15 years ago Ronald E. Myers and R. W. Sperry, then at the University of Chicago, made a surprising discovery: when this connection between the two halves of the cerebrum was cut, each hemisphere functioned independently as if it were a complete brain.
been getting it on worth jack shit lately, plastic shit or otherwise, any kind of shit. If you boys are psychologist types and youve been listening to my endless debriefings with Hank, what the hell is Donnas handle? How do I get next to her? I mean, how is it done? With that kind of sweet, unique, stubborn little chick?
Each girl is different, the seated deputy said.
I mean approach her ethically, Fred said. Not cram her with reds and booze and then stick it into her while shes lying on the living-room floor.
Buy her flowers, the standing deputy said.
What? Fred said, his suit-filtered eyes opening wide.
This time of year you can get little spring flowers. At the nursery departments of, say, Penneys on K Mart. Or an azalea.
Flowers, Fred murmured. You mean plastic flowers or real flowers? Real ones, I guess.
The plastic ones are no good, the seated deputy said. They look like theyre well, fake. Somehow fake.
Can I leave now? Fred asked.
After an exchange of glances, both deputies nodded. Well evaluate you some other time, Fred, the standing one said. Its not that urgent. Hank will notify you of a later appointment time.
For some obscure reason Fred felt like shaking hands with them before he left, but he did not; he just left, saying nothing, a little down and a little bewildered, because, probably, of the way it had shot out of left field at him, so suddenly. Theyve been going over and over my material, he thought, trying to find signs of my being burned out, and they did find some. Enough, anyhow, to want to nun these tests.
Spring flowers, he thought as he reached the elevator. Little ones; they probably grow close to the ground and a lot of people step on them. Do they grow wild? Or in special commercial vats on in huge enclosed farms? I wonder what the country is like. The fields and like that, the strange smells. And, he wondered, where do you find that? Where do you go and how do you get there and stay there? What kind of trip is that, and what kind of ticket does it take? And who do you buy the ticket from?
And, he thought, I would like to take someone with me when I go there, maybe Donna. But how do you ask that, ask a chick that, when you dont even know how to get next to her? When youve been scheming on her and achieving nothingnot even step one. We should hurry, he thought, because later on all the spring flowers like they told me about will be dead.
8
On his way over to Bob Arctors house, where a bunch of heads could usually be found for a mellow turned-on time, Charles Freck worked out a gag to put ol Barris on, to pay him back for the spleen jive at the Fiddlers Three restaurant that day. In his head, as he skillfully avoided the radar traps that the police kept everywhere (the police radar vans checking out drivers usually took the disguise of old raunchy VW vans, painted dull brown, driven by bearded freaks; when he saw such vans he slowed), he ran a preview fantasy number of his put-on:
FRECK: (Casually) I bought a methedrine plant today.
BARRIS: (With a snotty expression on his face) Methedrine is a benny, like speed; its crank, its crystal, its amphetamine, its made synthetically in a lab. So it isnt organic, like pot. Theres no such thing as a methedrine plant like there is a pot plant.
FRECK: (Springing the punch line on him) I mean I inherited forty thousand from an uncle and purchased a plant hidden in this dudes garage where he makes methedrine. I mean, hes got a factory there where he manufactures meth. Plant in the sense of