The Mind Digger Part 2

"How do you figure that?"

"The brain has three princ.i.p.al functions. It can store information for recall, it can a.n.a.lyze and correlate this information and finally it can synthesize creatively. Now the latter two functions are inherently dependent upon the quality of the first, or memory recall. As a truly thinking animal, man considers he has reached some acme of perfection because his brain is so superior to the lower animals. Actually, the real gulf is between what man _has achieved_ and what he _can achieve_ with his brain.

"The key lies in perfecting his recall. What good does it do to keep pouring in information when most of us are forgetting old things almost as rapidly as we are learning new ones? Of course, we don't really ever forget anything, but our power of exact recall grows fuzzy through disuse. Then when we need a certain name or factual bit of information we can't quite dig it up, or it comes up in distorted approximations.

"The same holds for calling on experience to help us with new problems.

We may grasp the general lesson of experience, but most of the specific incidents of our lives are dulled in time. The lessons we paid dearly to learn are largely useless. So we go on making the same mistakes, paying the same penalties over and over again."

I shrugged. "Everybody would like a better memory, I suppose, but I've never known anyone to go off the deep end over it like you have. What more can you gain?"

"Can't you visualize what it would be like to have even a short life-time of knowledge and experience laid out in sharp detail of recall? Think of the new a.s.sociations of thoughts and concepts that would be possible! Consider the potential for creating drama, alone!

Every word ever read or spoken, every emotion ever conveyed, every gesture of anger, love, jealousy, pain, pleasure--all this raw material glittering brightly, ready to pour out in new conflicts, dramatic situations, sharp pungent dialogue--"

He made me sense his enthusiasm, but I couldn't quite feel it. Would such a tremendous ability necessarily be good? Something about its immensity frightened me, and I didn't care to consider it for my own use at all.

I said, "Don't get me wrong. If this is what's going into your playwriting, I'm all for it. And what you do with your money is your own business. What do you propose?"

"Can you absorb more of my work?" he asked abruptly.

"I'm your agent, aren't I? I'll peddle it if I can't use it myself," I told him, not that I was so eager for the broker's 10% so much as I wanted to have the pick of his output for my own productions.

I didn't know what I was taking on. He turned out his third play in just ten days. _Ten days_, I said. I read to the bottom of page two and decided to h.e.l.l with peddling this one. I'd produce it myself.

Before I got into second gear on _Beach Boy_, however, Hillary sends a messenger over with _Madame President_, a satire so sharp I knew it would make _Call Me Madame_ look like _Little Women_.

What do you do? There are just so many legitimate theaters in the city.

While I'm pondering this and negotiating with a Hollywood agent to maybe take _Beach Boy_ off my hands, along comes _Red Rice_, an epic novel of Communist China that out-Bucked Pearl a hundred heart-wrenches to one.

One phone call sold that one to McMullin, and when they got a look at the ma.n.u.script they raised the advance to $10,000. This was not bad for a first novel, and I didn't resent my $1000 agent's fee.

Before the summer was over I was about ready to give up show business and become a one-author agent. Hillary was keeping four secretaries busy taking dictation and transcribing. He never researched, never revised, never even glanced at the copy. I've known some prolific writers, but none could grind it out like Hillary Hardy.

And it was good! Every piece was better than the last. His characters were strictly 3-D right on paper, and word pictures! When he mentioned bedbugs, you itched and bled; when the villain slugged the hero a low-blow, you felt it in your guts; and when boy got girl--brother, turn up the house-lights, quick.

I got so involved trying to produce five plays at once, making d.i.c.kers with publishers and motion picture studios, fighting off television people and answering mail demanding a chance at foreign rights, that it was mid-November before I realized that it was over a month since I'd heard from the golden goose.

In fact Ellie drew my attention to it one morning. "Hadn't you better call the sanitarium?" she suggested. "Maybe he had a breakdown or something?"

The thought chilled me. Not only had I sold Hillary's complete output to date, but I had a file full of contracts for future novels and movie scripts worth a couple of million dollars.

I didn't phone--I went. To Hoboken.

In the outskirts I found his private hospital, demanded to see Sam Buckle and was told to sit down and wait. He was in therapy.

Two hours later they took me to him. He lay on a hospital bed in his shorts, staring at the ceiling and the sweat all over him like he had just stepped out of a showerbath.

"h.e.l.lo, George," he said, still looking at the ceiling.

"Hi, kid! You sick or something?"

He smiled a little. "The surf at Monterey. The sun fading through the low morning mist, a golden ghost peering through the somber veil--and Julia, beside me, clinging to my arm, crying softly--"

"Hey, kid, I'm in New Jersey. Where are you?" I said nervously.

He blinked. "In California, George. Two years ago. I'm there. Do you understand? _I'm really there!_"

It was a little embarra.s.sing. I felt like an intruder on a beach picnic.

"Well, Hillary, that's just fine," I stammered. "I suppose that means that--that you've done what you set out to."

"That's right." He nodded slightly. "Total recall, George. Every instant of my existence re-filed under 'urgent'. Every vision, every sound, every sensation, laid clean and sharp like a sound film ready for running. I've done it, George."

"How long ago did you--"

"Three weeks ago I began heavy dosing with the vitamin. Today--just this last hour--I reached back into prenatal to the first instant of my cellular existence. And it was like ripping a curtain aside. I--I can't exactly tell you what it's like. Something like coming out of a black cellar into the noon-day sun. It's almost blinding."

He closed his eyes, squinting as though to shut out a glare. His blond hair had grown long, and it lay on the pillow like a woman's. He had lost some weight, and except for the heavy chest muscles and thick forearms, he had the appearance of a poet, a delicate soul dedicated to some ephemeral plane out of this world.

I figured I'd better provide a little ballast. "Congratulations and all that," I said, "but what about your work?"

"I'm done," he said quietly.

"Done? Are you forgetting that you bought a sanitarium?--some eight hundred grand worth? And it's only half paid for?"

"Oh, that. The royalties will take care of the payments."

"Hillary, you keep forgetting about taxes."

"Then let them take it back by default. I'm through with it."

"Dammit," I said, "I looked into this deal. People don't take back sanitariums like over-ripe bananas, especially when they got you on the hook for more than it's worth. They'll hold you to the contract. And you can't get your equity out if you don't protect it by keeping up your payments. You have a wonderful start, and if you just fill the contracts I have on file now you can pay it off and have plenty left to retire on.

But right now you aren't so solvent, boy."

Well, he finally came out of his trance long enough to agree to fulfill the commitments I'd made for him, and I thought that once he got started there would be no holding him.

Just to make sure I did something on my own. I let his ident.i.ty and whereabouts leak out.

It was a sneaky thing to do to him, but I figured that once he got a real taste of the fame that was waiting him he would never let go of it.

The papers splashed it: "Mystery Genius Is Lad of 19!"

They swamped him. They swarmed over him and plastered him with honorary literary degrees, domestic and foreign. They Oscared him and n.o.belled him. They wined, dined and adored him into a G.o.dhead of the arts.

The acting, publis.h.i.+ng, TV, radio and movie greats paid homage to his genius by the most hysterical bidding for his talents their check-books could support. I kept waiting for the Secretary of the Treasury to present him with the key to Fort Knox.