Flowers for Algernon

might hurt yourself. So I figured I'd hang around. I felt so sorry. Anyway, I kept this handy, just in case…' She pulled out a heavy book end she had wedged between the bed and the wall.

'I guess you didn't have to use it.'

She shook her head. 'Boy, you must have liked peanuts when you were a kid.'

She got out of bed and started to dress. I lay there for a while watching her. She moved in front of me with no shyness or inhibition. Her breasts were full as she had painted them in that self-portrait. I longed to reach out for her, but I knew it was futile. In spite of the operation Charlie was still with me.

And Charlie was afraid of losing his peanuts.

June 24

Today I went on a strange kind of anti-intellectual binge. If I had dared to, I would have gotten drunk, but after the experience with Fay, I knew it would be dangerous. So, instead, I went to Times Square, from movie house to movie house, immersing myself in west­erns and horror movies—the way I used to. Each time, sit­ting through the picture, I would find myself whipped with guilt. I'd walk out in the middle of the picture and wander into another one. I told myself I was looking for something in the make-believe screen world that was miss­ing from my new life.

Then, in a sudden intuition, right outside the Keno Amusement Center, I knew it wasn't the movies I wanted, but the audiences. I wanted to be with the people around me in the darkness.

The walls between people are thin here, and if I listen quietly, I hear what is going on. Greenwich Village is like that too. Not just being close—because I don't feel it in a. crowded elevator or on the subway during the rush—but on a hot night when everyone is out walking, or sitting in the theater, there is a rustling, and for a moment I brush against someone and sense the connection between the branch and trunk and the deep root. At such moments my flesh is thin and tight, and the unbearable hunger to be part of it drives me out to search in the dark corners and blind alleys of the night.

Usually, when I'm exhausted from walking, I go back to the apartment and drop off into a deep sleep, but tonight instead of going up to my own place I went to the diner. There was a new dishwasher, a boy of about sixteen, and there was something familiar about him, his move­ments, the look in his eyes. And then, clearing away the table behind me, he dropped some dishes.

They crashed to the floor, shattering and sending bits of white china under the tables. He stood there, dazed and frightened, holding the empty tray in his hand. The whistles and catcalls from the customers (cries of 'hey, there go the profits!'… 'Mazel tov!'..and 'well, he didn't work here very long…' which invariably seems to follow the breaking of dishware in a public restaurant) confused him.

When the owner came to see what the excitement was about, the boy cowered—threw up his arms as if to ward off a blow.

'All right! All right, you dope,' shouted the man, 'don't just stand there! Get the broom and sweep up that mess. A broom… a broom! you idiot! It's in the kitchen. Sweep up all the pieces.'

'When the boy saw that he was not going to be pun­ished, his frightened expression disappeared, and he smiled and hummed as he came back with the broom. A few of the rowdier customers kept up the remarks, amusing themselves at his expense.

'Here, sonny, over here. There's a nice piece behind you ..'

'C'mon, do it again…'

'He's not so dumb. It's easier to break 'em than to wash 'em…'

As the boy's vacant eyes moved across the crowd of amused onlookers, he slowly mirrored their smiles and fi­nally broke into an uncertain grin at the joke which he did not understand.

I felt sick inside as I looked at his dull, vacuous smile—the wide, bright eyes of a child, uncertain but eager to please, and I realized what I had recognized in him. They were laughing at him because he was retarded.

And at first I had been amused along with the rest.

Suddenly, I was furious at myself and all those who were smirking at him. I wanted to pick up the dishes and throw them. I wanted to smash their laughing faces. I jumped up and shouted: 'Shut up! Leave him alone! He can't understand. He can't help what he is… but for God's sake, have some respect! He's a human being!'

The restaurant grew silent. I cursed myself for losing control and creating a scene, and I tried not to look at the boy as I paid my check and walked out without touching my food. I felt ashamed for both of us.

How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibility, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes—how such people think nothing of abusing a man born with low intelligence. It in­ furiated me to remember that not too long ago I—like this boy—had foolishly played the clown.

And I had almost forgotten.

Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined them in laughing at myself. That hurts most of all.

I have often reread my early progress reports and seen the illiteracy, the childish naivete, the mind of low intelli­gence peering from a dark room, through the keyhole, at the dazzling light outside. In my dreams and memories I've seen Charlie smiling happily and uncertainly at what people around him were saying. Even in my dullness I knew I was inferior. Other people had something I lacked— something denied me. In my mental blindness, I had be­lieved it was somehow connected with the ability to read and write, and I was sure that if I could get those skills I would have intelligence too.

Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men.

A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows hunger.

This day was good for me. I've got to stop this child­ish worrying about myself—my past and my future. Let me give something of myself to others. I've got to use my knowledge and skills to work in the field of increasing human intelligence. Who is better equipped? Who else has lived in both worlds?

Tomorrow, I'm going to get in touch with the board of directors at the Welberg Foundation and ask for permis­sion to do some independent work on the project. If they'll let me, I may be able to help them. I have some ideas.

There is so much that can be done with this tech­nique, if it is perfected. If I could be made into a genius, what about the more than five million mentally retarded in the United States? What about the countless millions all over the world, and those yet unborn destined to be re­tarded? What fantastic levels might be achieved by using this technique on normal people. On geniuses?

There are so many doors to open I am impatient to apply my own knowledge and skills to the problem. I've got to make mem all see that this is something important for me to do. I'm sure the Foundation will grant me permission.

But I can't be alone any more. I have to tell Alice about it.

June 25

I called Alice today. I was nervous, and I must have sounded incoherent, but it was good to hear her voice, and she sounded happy to hear from me. She agreed to see me, and I took a taxi uptown, impatient at the slow­ ness with which we moved.

Before I could knock, she opened the door and threw her arms around me. 'Charlie, we've been so worried about you. I had horrible visions of you dead in an alley­way, or wandering around skid row with amnesia. Why didn't you let us know you were all right? You could have done that.'

'Don't scold me. I had to be alone for a while to find some answers.'

'Come in the kitchen. I'll make some coffee. 'What have you been doing?'

'Days—I've been thinking, reading, and writing; and nights—wandering in search of myself. And I've discov­ ered that Charlie is watching me.'

'Don't talk like that,' she shuddered. 'This business about being watched isn't real. You've built it up in your mind.'

'I can't help feeling that I'm not me. I've usurped his place and locked him out the way they locked me out of the bakery. What I mean to say is that Charlie Gordon ex­ists in the past, and the past is real. You can't put up a new building on a site until you destroy the old one, and the old Charlie can't be destroyed. He exists. At first I was searching for him: I went to see his—my—father. All I wanted to do was prove that Charlie existed as a person in