Dinner conversation at Faire Isle started with the historical origins of Thanksgiving, shifting to my holiday sail, with all three of us omitting mention of my "lady friend," and skipping gracefully to the art of sailing, which was, of course, an English invention.
"Wessie has a nautical background. He was born in Cornwall," Margaret fluttered.
"Yes," I said, turning to him. "You were at Exeter. Is that in Cornwall?"
"Close. Devon, actually. Exeter is on the Exe River which flows into the English Channel at Exemouth — like Plymouth. There’s a certain logic in these things."
With the help of Wessie’s gratuitous pedantry, we had no difficulty moving to Sir Francis Drake ("sailed out of Plymouth, you know") and to the nautical origins of the British Empire. And from there we retreated to the safe territory of our agreed-upon Anglophilia. Thus, the Old Boy and the Old Girl artfully avoided confrontation with the fact that their little Italian protégé and his Jewish girlfriend had shacked up on a sailboat for four days.
After dinner, the Old Man and I took our stations on the balcony. In code, I told him how I had given up on Ashton. Dr. Westley nodded.
"At the time, Dr. Ashton was a logical first choice, whom we have now eliminated."
"Dr. Westley, I have some new information on Dr. Ledbetter which seems very interesting."
"Really!" he said in surprise. "I see." He wiggled in his chair, and then slowly got up. "If you could excuse me for a second, Ben. It is a little nippy out here, and I would like to get a sweater."
He popped into his study. A couple of minutes later he reappeared, wearing a heavy, rumpled blue cardigan, made of dyed Shetland wool, no doubt. He did not sit down.
"Actually, Ben, if you don’t mind, we might be more comfortable in my study."
He gestured me to the overstuffed leather chair near his desk and perched himself on the edge of his Pharaoh Chair. So someone really could sit in that monstrosity! A squeaking sound issued from his bookcase. An ancient reel-to-reel tape deck was running. I casually gazed around the room until I found two microphones, well-positioned to pick up my words.
I told the Old Man what I had learned from my "lady friend," Rebecca, about Ledbetter’s lecture to the medical pharmacology class. Speaking in double-entendre as code, the Old Boy told me he was very interested. He expressed disappointment that Ledbetter denied me a rotation in his lab. He compared the lab to an orchestra.
"Incidentally, what sort of orchestra does this maestro conduct?" Westley asked.
"Just a three-man combo. He plays piano, carries the melody, provides harmony and calls all the shots. He has two side-men: one Chinese post-doc and one technician. Drums and bass, if you will. In terms of creative contributions, he could just as easily be a solo act. He does all the thinking, and they do all the hands-on work."
"All the thinking? Perhaps the maestro doesn’t want you in his jazz trio because he doesn’t like to ‘give up the lead,’ as a beatnik jazz musician would say."
We agreed that I would "listen in on his jam sessions." It was surreal, speaking in double-entendre as the wheels of the old tape recorder squeaked, with the Old Man perched on the edge of his Pharaoh Chair, talking about beatniks in the room decorated in Order-Of-The-British-Empire, with choirboy Westley staring at me from a 55-year-old photograph.
Something else proved surreal: The 18 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas break went by like a video on "fast-forward." I had to prepare for finals, buy Christmas presents for Mom and Dad, and check the boat every second day. Rebecca and I didn’t have enough time to turn our nascent love into a committed partnership that could endure all challenges. In fact, her love seemed to be fading away.
Our first reality check was the phone. Rebecca didn’t want me to answer it. This meant that someone important to her wasn’t supposed to know about me. Slowly, it became clear that an invitation to New York for the holidays was not in the works. The unspoken question grew on the horizon like a navigation marker on the bow. Something would be decided in New York. Our hectic schedules didn’t leave us much time to reflect. Then came the final exams, which sapped our last ounce of strength.
Could a post-exam tour of Coral Gables breathe magic into the last two days before Rebecca left for New York? I showed her the crown jewel of Merrick’s vision of the Venice of the South: The Venetian Pool, carved from coral rock in the 1920s. We swam around barber poles, under arched bridges and aside low-lying Mediterranean-style buildings. We swam along the coral rock walls and into a grotto where we played prince and mermaid until Rebecca got cold.
Then, sitting at a table overlooking the pool, we drank cappuccino. Lightheartedly, we studied the photographs of the 1920s bathing beauties. Rebecca discovered the plaque that told how William Jennings Bryan, namesake of our medical school, had "lectured" there on the virtues of Florida living.
My narrated bicycle tour of Coral Gables took us past the old Biltmore Hotel with its Renaissance Italian tower with a spiral staircase. We rode past iron gates guarding Mediterranean-style mansions, and along coral-lined canals. But the City Beautiful worked no magic.
That night at South Beach, the violinist was gone — the fiddler had fled. She was replaced by a saxophonist accompanied by his pre-programmed synthesizer. He played a lot of aimless riff jazz interspersed with some Latin hot. A pair of German tourists offered us some comic relief. During the break, the husband Klaus reached into his bag, pulled out a boom box and played a Euro-Pop tape, booming at German march tempo, pseudo-Italian melodies, punctuated by heavy-handed percussion, with the accent on the first beat of every measure. His wife Inge — blond, sunburned and about 25 pounds overweight — became animated, and they danced a spirited polka.
We talked about the German couple the next evening, in the charming French ambience the Café Place St. Michel in downtown Coral Gables. We compared the French and the Germans with the Franks and the Teutons who preceded them, 60 generations earlier. I proposed that certain ethnic characteristics can persist for many generations. Rebecca didn’t like the idea that human behavior couldn’t be made over in one generation. Was human nature intrinsically good or just perfectible?
"You know, Ben, there’s a school of anthropology that interprets all human behavior in terms of biological theories — as if we were just animals! The males are supposed to be driven by their hormones to get power over each other and impregnate a lot of females."
"I know who you mean — Napoleon Chagnon. He did his field work on the Yanomamo Indians in the Amazonas. He makes a pretty good case for that theory."
"How disgusting!"
Yes, I thought, many things in life are disgusting. But the Yanomamos are our last "unspoiled" example of mankind. And primitive emotions have been around for a long time. Classic Greek literature recorded for us the whole gamut.
But Rebecca didn’t like the idea. She argued for love, charity, altruism and sacrifice for the good of your fellow man. Suddenly it occurred to me: This wasn’t an abstract conversation on theoretical anthropology. This was the question of Ben Candidi versus the boyfriend back in New York. Rebecca was watching me carefully. It was my turn to answer.
"Rebecca, when it comes to fulfilling my life with the woman I love, I can’t afford altruism. I’ve thought hard about this question since meeting you. I won’t subjugate my needs and creep away for the ‘good of the tribe.’"
Our eyes locked across the table as my words sunk in. There was nothing more to say. At her apartment that night, my body delivered the same message as my words.
The next morning in the cab, Rebecca put her head on my shoulder and sighed, "Oh, Ben." I kissed her cheek and tasted a salty tear. She cradled her head on my shoulder, and I held her hand, wordlessly.
The cab stopped. I quipped about the unreliability of curb-side agents as I unloaded the trunk and carried her bags to the counter. We walked together to Concourse C until we reached the metal detectors and x-ray machines. Then I pulled Rebecca over to the side, pressed a wrapped Hanukkah/Christmas present into her hand and said, "I can’t read your thoughts, but I can sense your feelings. I’ve given you a lot of things to think about."
"But haven’t I given you a lot of things — to think about too, Ben? A lot of questions?"
"Yes, Rebecca, but I know the answer. I love you and want to build my life with you. It’s a lot simpler for me because I don’t have to please my father and mother." Rebecca’s eyes moistened. "And because I don’t have anyone else in my life."
Face to face, holding hands, the truth could not be suppressed any longer. Rebecca looked down, and when she looked back up, her eyes were wet with tears.
"You can sure see through a girl, Mr. Ben Candidi."
She choked on my name. I sensed that people were starting to stare.
"Rebecca, I want to talk to you every other day. I understand why I can’t call you at your folk’s house. So please call me at the lab. Think whatever you have to think, say whatever you have to say, do whatever you have to do. Just remember that I love you. And come back to me. In January, I want you back in my life."
I started with male stamina and conviction, but by the time I got to "in my life," I was all choked up.
"I will. Goodbye, Ben . . . ’til January," she said, kissing me lightly on the lips. She turned and walked through the metal detector. I didn’t say any more for fear of blubbering. When Rebecca reached a bend in the corridor, she turned and waved just before passing out of sight.
A soft baritone voice to my right was addressing me: "Sir, it would be okay if you want to accompany the passenger to the gate — "
It was a middle-aged African American who worked at the metal detector — sincere and well-meaning.
"No . . . Thanks," I said, as his slow, placid eyes searched me persistently and sympathetically. "I couldn’t go through saying goodbye to her again."
"My guess is that you’se gonna get lot’sa chances to say hello and goodbye to that little lady. Now you have a good Christmas vacation."
"Thanks, you have a good one, too."
My tears belied my Yanomamo Indian Theory. The cab ride back proved I couldn’t play a hard-shelled Humphrey Bogart. The driver played an oldies station. Bertie Higgins sang wistfully about how he and his girl once had it all, playing Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, true to life, while sailing away to Key Largo. I felt sure he had lost the girl. Entering the med school, I steeled myself by remembering the song about sailing under the Southern Cross.
"It’s great to see you here," McGregor said with some sarcasm. I had not really gotten started on his project.
"Sorry, Rob, but I just put my girlfriend on the plane to New York."
"Look," he frowned, "you’ve been saying goodbye to her for the last week. Now you won’t have anything to distract you. Rejoice!" McGregor lightened up. "You are working over Christmas vacation, and you’ve got everything to yourself — the centrifuges, the scintillation counter and me. Now, are we going to get this project done by New Year’s Day or aren’t we?"
"Let’s do it, Rob!" I said, feeling like I’d joined the French Foreign Legion.
So Rob and I chemically handcuffed proteins and enzymes, catching them by surprise like adulterous couples while they were "doing business" in the living cell. We busted the cell walls like divorce detectives busting down motel doors. And we grilled the handcuffed molecules on the gel electrophoresis machine and identified them by molecular weight, using identifying antibodies.
I reverted to my old Swarthmore routine of working hard to keep from feeling sorry for myself. I had no complaints about Rob except that he wasn’t a good enough sport to leave the room when Rebecca called. It was a subdued conversation, with our feelings deep below the surface. She was spending most of her time getting a head start on pathology and visiting relatives and old friends. She promised to call me every third day, which she did faithfully.
An envelope containing the semester grades appeared in my pigeon hole: A’s in both courses, and a note of congratulations from Dr. Gordon Taylor. For form’s sake, I did some routine maintenance on the instruments at the M.E. lab, preparing their cocaine, narcotic and alcohol equipment for that peak load of human self-abuse that accompanies the holiday season.
I looked up all Ledbetter’s recent publications and found nothing useful. He had published 34 papers in the last 10 years, a prodigious output. But they were either scientific studies of selectins or reports of their use in diagnostic applications. I found nothing that would revolutionize the field of drug delivery — none of the stuff that he had bragged about to the medical students but had concealed from the members of his own department.
The Old Man was clearly disappointed when I called and told him I had no news. He said that we wouldn't meet until early January and that I should work hard on the Ledbetter investigation.
"While the cat's away, the mice will play," goes the expression."
But how was the mousey Ben Candidi supposed to play? Sure, I’d scampered up and down the hall often enough to get a good picture of Ledbetter’s lab operations. The angle between his office and laboratory doors allowed me a split-second glimpse of him as I walked down the hall. It was just long enough for me to see him, but not long enough for him to look at me. I mentally averaged three days worth of glimpses and constructed a moving picture of Ledbetter’s daily routine.
Ledbetter was always working hard at his desk, usually typing on his personal computer. People said that he was always getting something ready for publication. He had the best publication record in the department. Occasionally, his assistant, Dr. Chiu, brought a sample that Ledbetter would scrutinize. Sometimes I caught a "sound bite" about sending a sample to a company or a fragment of a discussion on "time of release," "bioavailability," "secondary and tertiary layers" or "first pass effect."
Then, Dr. Chiu would hurry out to the lab and give some instructions to the technician while Ledbetter made a notation in the computer on his desk. The outer laboratory had no computer. All their record-keeping was done in old-fashioned, bound laboratory notebooks with carbon paper and detachable duplicate pages. There were shelves and shelves of these notebooks.
Ledbetter conducted a lively trade in samples from and to industry. The samples were received in styrofoam boxes packed with dry ice. Dr. Chiu unpacked them into a Revco liquid-nitrogen-temperature freezer out in the hallway. It stood like an oversized casket, and when they opened the hinged door, a cold mist spilled over the sides. Chiu carefully reached in with rubber-gloved hands and removed or replaced precious samples from the witch’s brew, while the foam insulation and aluminum foil wrappers crackled in response to temperature changes, sounding like the samples were coming to life.
They processed many of the incoming samples with their homogenizers, spray dryers, freeze dryers and coating machines. My spot-checks of Ledbetter’s mail slot verified a steady stream of correspondence with industry, but an end-of-the day sifting of the paper recycling bin down the hallway failed to turn up any evidence that they were dealing with toxins.
After a few days, Ledbetter’s door was closed: He had taken off for Christmas vacation. Dr. Chiu and the technician worked two days longer, and then they too were gone. All I could glimpse was a solid, locked door. It was like a sailboat race when the wind suddenly dies. Everything was put in stasis. My life was on hold.
Rebecca called, telling me they had a foot of snow in New York. Miami’s cold snap arrived the next evening, with the mercury plunging to 40 degrees. The 30-knot north wind sweeping through Coconut Grove didn’t kick up terribly high waves in my anchorage, but it was hard to row against the next morning. My wind generator turned at a good clip, and my batteries were always topped off, allowing me the mindless luxury of limitless 12-volt, small-screen television.
Next, I would look up Ledbetter’s patents. After some calling around, I found out that the Dade County Public Library is a repository for the U.S. Patent Office, with everything since 1970 on microfilm. After a hard but productive day in McGregor’s lab, I rode my bike downtown to the library. The quadrangle, consisting of the library, an art museum and an historical museum, is an example of something Dade County has done right. The walls of the complex are high, both inside and out, reminiscent of a Spanish fortress, an impression that is reinforced by its large blocks of quarried coral rock and wrought-iron barred windows some 15 feet above ground level. I took the main approach to the edifice, walking through fortress-like gates and carrying my bike up a long stairway running parallel to a water cascade.
I locked my bike to a post on the tiled quadrangle next to an ancient English three-speed. It was eight o’clock, three hours before the lowering of the fortress gates. Passing a sleepy circulation desk clerk, I found the business section where the patents were located. It was staffed by a single librarian, a short guy of about 25, who was slightly heavy for his size. In a high-pitched voice and friendly manner, he told me that his name was Robert and asked me what I needed. He got out a compact disk, put it into a computer near the counter, brought up a program, showed me how to bring up the "inventor option," and then left me to do my search.
I punched in "Ledbetter, J" and got two patents, granted one and three years ago. Selecting the "print option" from the menu, I got a hard copy that I took back to Robert.
"I got two citations, Robert. Can you show me how to look up the patents." He preferred Robert to Bob.
"Sure, Benjamin. We should have it on microfilm."
He took a bundle of keys to a 15-foot row of filing cabinets and opened drawers, each containing 50-some boxes of microfilm. He handed me a box labelled 4,897,323-4,898,133 and went to another drawer and got a box from the 5,000,000s.
"Wow," I said, looking at the cabinets, "that’s a lot of patents."
"Yes, there are over five million of them now, Benjamin. You can take these spools to the microfilm reader, but first I need your driver’s license. It’s library policy that you give it to us as collateral, to be sure we get the microfilms back. These things are pretty valuable, and Washington doesn’t like to send us replacements."
"Just one problem. I don’t have my driver’s license with me. I generally don’t have it."
"You’d better watch out, Benjamin. They can be pretty rough on you when they pull you over."
"You don’t need a driver’s license to ride a bicycle," I answered.
Robert’s face lit up.
"So you ride around on a bicycle!" he exclaimed, in an excited voice an octave higher than before. "I ride a bicycle, too."
I said, "The fuel is cheap, I don’t need to buy insurance, and I can park it anywhere for free."
"And it doesn’t kill people and pollute the environment."
"Was that your English three-speed out there?"
"Yes, my Hercules Royal Prince, built in Sheffield, England. It used to belong to my dad."
We continued to chat for a while until I realized there would be little time for my patents. I gave Robert my American Express card, which impressed him, being as how I was a bicycle rider like himself.
I read both patents in projected negative image on the screen. Unfortunately, they had nothing to do with toxins or with oral delivery of a protein. They were the same stuff as Ledbetter’s seminar — imaging the liver and other organs using radiolabelled selectins.
Robert found me in a dejected state when he announced five minutes to closing. He suggested that I make copies. When I asked how much it would cost, he said they would be free because the cash box was already locked. He rotated the spools and pushed buttons with considerable dexterity, producing in short order, 10 chemically fragranced and slightly moist pages comprising the two patents. He looked at the face page of one of the patents where it said:
John Ledbetter of Miami, Florida.
"That’s a coincidence!" Robert exclaimed. "He lives right here in town!"
Robert replaced the two spools and returned my credit card. I followed him out, and we talked bikes, bike routes and neighborhoods for a while. Robert lived in the north end of Coconut Grove in a garage apartment behind the house of a "nice couple." I could imagine his apartment in the second story of a freestanding garage, accessible by an outside wooden stairway, tucked in behind a charming two-story Coconut Grove house. His monthly rent was probably between $150 to $300.
Robert was a native Miamian with an interest in local history. I agreed to follow him on his "favorite bike route," which took us south through the commercial marina, boat yard and warehouse district. We stopped at the center of the bridge over the Miami River at Second Avenue. Several 80-foot, wooden, island freighters were tied up side by side along the shore. The upper decks were covered with bicycles, stacked 10 high.
"Do you know where all those bicycles are from, Benjamin? They were stolen from people here in Miami. And do you know where all those bicycles are going? Haiti! And what do you think those freighters bring back from Haiti? Refugees to steal more bicycles! Sometimes I feel like jumping into that river with my brace and bit and drilling a few holes in those boats."
"The river’s pretty dirty, Robert."
"But it didn’t used to be. My father used to swim in it!"
The ride home was along the Atlantic Coastal Ridge, a long coral ridge running parallel to the Bay, four blocks inland. Although only 15 feet above sea level, the ridge served to hold the water back in the Everglades until commercial man invaded in the first quarter of this century.
Despite darkness and cold wind, Robert provided interesting narration, pointing out historic houses along Miami Avenue, the neighborhood he knew as a boy, and griping about the long string of high-rise buildings lining Brickell Avenue. He pointed up to a high-rise condominium building.
"Of course, you know what TV program made that one famous, Benjamin."
It was The Atlantis, with its famous hole between the 25th and 30th stories, filled with a palm tree, a spiral staircase and a jaccuzzi. We pedaled past the Museum of Science where Westley got his start and where Robert used to go as a kid. As we passed the John Deering Estate, Robert told me all about Deering’s Vizcaya Mansion — the European art treasures, the social-climbing "Vizcayans" who jealously guard it, and the wedding ceremonies held in its formal garden.
We passed the high-rise Mercy Hospital where he was born. When he was 12, the taxes got too high and his family had to move out to Kendall. Several blocks later on Tigertail Road, Robert told me it was time for him to turn off. He said he hoped to see me again. I thanked him for his help and rode alone the last mile and a half of my everyday route.
I was not in good spirits, rowing to the Diogenes with a strong, cold wind in my face and with the hard-sought yet worthless patents folded in my jacket. On board, I tossed them on the dinette table and fixed dinner. Over a cup of after-dinner tea, I studied the patents. What else to do but study, when the boat was rocking, when a cold and persistent wind was blowing, and when the cabin was so cozy inside? If the patents wouldn’t give me the answer, perhaps they would give me a clue. So I read them from stem to stern, from abstract to claims — as if they were fine literary works. Ledbetter’s diagnostic invention was well-described. His working examples were virtual recipes for making his injected selectins deliver radioactivity to the targeted tissue. He defined his field of application in grandiose terms, claiming every selectin, discovered or undiscovered, and every conceivable diagnostic application.
"I CLAIM: 1. A radiological method of obtaining a two dimensional or three-dimensional image of an organ, which method consists of attaching a gamma-irradiating radionuclide . . ."
None of his 13 claims said anything about oral delivery of proteins.
So he hadn’t yet patented his world-shaking drug-delivery system. Could the funny listing of references on the face pages give any clue? Most of the cited documents were U.S. Patents, identified by number (like 4,876,194) and by the date when it was granted. But what was the meaning of the numbers and letters in second listing, called "International Priority"?
At the end of the second patent was a stray page, the face page of a pharmaceutical patent to an English scientist working for a British drug company. Robert had apparently copied one page too many. Under foreign priority, it had a "PCT" number followed by "GB" and another number, both with dates. These dates were slightly less than one year before the filing of the U.S. Patent. Does an inventor file his patent in his native country first, and in foreign countries a year later? Did Ledbetter have foreign patents? Who could answer my question?
The next morning, I stopped by the library with my patents in hand. Three clerks manned the desk where Robert had worked and the place was busy. I browsed the latest issues of the Patent Gazette, searching for a listing of a recent Ledbetter patent which might not yet be microfilmed. Nothing. I returned to the desk and addressed the most senior-looking lady, explaining that I needed information on a U.S. patent, one that couldn’t be found in the microfilm or in the Patent Gazette, but that might come out in one year.
"If it isn’t in one or the other, you can’t find out anything about it," she said authoritatively. "The patent is a secret in the U.S. Patent Office until it gets published in the Gazette."
I showed her the British patent and started to ask about the "Foreign Priority" numbers, but she cut me short.
"It must be a foreign patent office number. We do not keep any foreign patents here. The U.S. Patent Office keeps its patents secret until they are published."
"But — "
"But, young man, when this patent collection was installed by the Department of Commerce, I attended a three-day course on patent librarianship. I know that whereof I speak."
A grammatically tortured sentence from a snippy school-marm. Probably a transplanted Bostonian, like we read on those old tombstones in the Woodlawn Cemetery.
"Is there anyone else here at the library who could — "
"I am the head of this Department."
But she grudgingly affirmed that Robert would be back that evening.
At the med school, my mail included a small package from Rebecca bearing the warning, "Do not open until Christmas." After a productive day with McGregor, ending about eight-thirty, I rode back down to the Dade County Library. Robert seemed glad to see me. I posed my question about whether foreign filings could give any advance information on the contents of a U.S. Patent.
"Yes, they can. But you have to special order the foreign applications."
"Great! Can you tell me how to do it?"
"You just write the World Patent Service. I can get you the address."
"And they can give me a copy of a foreign application at the same time that the U.S. Patent Office is keeping the U.S. application secret?"
"Sometimes," Robert said with a smile.
"Why do you say ‘sometimes,’ Robert?"
"Because it depends on whether the American inventor filed for a patent with the European Patent Office under the PCT."
"It sounds great, Robert, but I don’t quite understand."
Robert uttered a childishly innocent laugh, tapped me on the shoulder like I was a schoolboy friend and said, "It’s really simple, Benjamin. It works like this. Say there’s an American inventor and he files his invention with the U.S. Patent Office. Now, they have to examine his application. They keep it secret until they give him the patent. That might take two or three years. Now, if the inventor wants to have patents in other countries, he has to file patent applications in those countries. And to make things simpler, all the countries got together and signed this treaty that says that the European Patent Office will examine it. And part of the treaty says that they will respect each other’s priority dates. So the American inventor has exactly one year to file his application with the European Patent Office."
I nodded to Robert after every sentence, to keep flowing this stream of expert information.
"Now, Benjamin, the European Patent Office doesn’t keep the patent applications secret. Right after the patent is filed, they give it to the World Patent Service, and they publish the title. And they’ll sell a copy of the whole application to anyone who wants to order it. It’s crazy, Benjamin. The American Patent Office is trying to keep the patent application secret and the European Patent Office is letting people publish it!"
His hearty laugh could have come from a 13-year-old.
"So, Robert, what you’re saying is that anyone can order a copy of a patent application about one year after it was filed in America."
"Yes, Benjamin. As long as the inventor filed an application in Europe."
"Boy, Robert! That’s great news! You sound like a patent lawyer." I said this in genuine appreciation.
"No, I’m not smart enough to be a patent lawyer. But I know a patent lawyer. Mr. John Barnaby, Esquire. He’s a real nice guy. I helped him with some microfilms, and then one evening he taught me all about the numbers on the front page of the patent. Once, he paid me to do a special project in my spare time. But don’t tell anyone here at the library about the money."
"I won’t tell anyone, Robert. Can you tell me how to order the application?"
"Just a minute." Robert went to a shelf, pulled out a reference book and copied out the address and telephone number of the WPS. It was in Berlin, Germany. I thanked him and left for the Diogenes.
I awoke the next morning at first light, fixed a cup of coffee and ate a doughnut. After a brisk row to shore, I was standing at a pay phone along the bayside jogging path. With pen, paper and credit card in hand and the chilly north wind blowing in my face, I put in a trans-Atlantic call to the WPS. It was already two o’clock in the afternoon over there. The number was bad, and I had to get international directory assistance. Thank goodness the operators speak English, because my college German was rusty as hell. My second call connected.
"Guten Tag. Firma Hansjoachim Vogel," answered a businesslike female voice.
"Ich kann nicht gut Deutsch reden," I said with great difficulty.
"Zen ve kann speak Englisch. How kann I help you?"
"I want to order a patent application by John Ledbetter."
"Zen I kann give you the address, and you can make in writing your request."
Letters would take too long, so I turned on the charm, telling her I’d never used the service before and would follow their procedure with my next inquiry. And would it be possible for her to just check if there was at least one application by John Ledbetter.
"Vun minute please." I heard some clicking of a keyboard for a minute or two. I prayed that we wouldn’t get disconnected. The wind was cold as hell. "Yes, ve have one from this inventor. It appeared before three months. ‘Improved drug delivery using zelectin gleeko-proteins.’"
"Yes! That is exactly what I want. Can you tell me how to order it?"
"Certainly, but there are also two more. One is seven years past. One is eight years in the past."
She told me titles corresponding to the two American patents which I already had. I told her that I needed just the recent one. She told me the identifying number of the patent application, how much it would cost and how to order it. I thanked her and hung up.
Was I shaking from the cold or from excitement? A second cup of coffee at a greasy-spoon restaurant on the fringe of the Grove warmed me up. Sitting at the counter, I hand-printed a business letter ordering the patent application. After giving the waitress five dollars and saying "keep the change," I mounted up and pedaled to the Coconut Grove Bank and purchased a cashier’s check.
Next, I pedaled north, up McDonald Avenue to U.S. 1, west to Ponce de Leon Boulevard and then a couple of miles north. The Federal Express drop station was on Alhambra Circle in the fashionable downtown section of Coral Gables. A pleasant, uniformed woman gave me an envelope into which I put the letter of request and the check. I carefully filled out the paperwork and gave the woman $28.
Thus, I ordered the European patent application on "Improved Drug Delivery Using Selectin Glycoproteins" by John Ledbetter of Miami, Florida: Undisputable Mad Scientist, Braggart Before Medical Students and Suspected Murderer. Now there was nothing to do but wait three or four weeks. Too excited to go to the lab, I biked around the downtown Gables, stopping before fountains that lost their charm in the cold. Taking refuge in the Café Place St. Michel, I ordered a croissant and cappuccino, sitting at the same table where Rebecca and I had our last date. Well, Rebecca would really be proud of me now. But I couldn’t tell her. And maybe she wouldn’t even be mine when she came back.
To be truthful, intellect had not been pivotal to my tentative success. It had been persistence and curiosity — and my good luck to have met Robert, that nerdish little library clerk with the open manner and the high-pitched voice. I owed no thanks to his boss.
What a shame when style wins out against substance and when naked willpower wins out against good manners. These "power people" were the personification of the Yanomamo/Amazon Indian theory of the human condition. What a horrible world it would be if everyone acted that way. Jesus was right: The world does owe a lot to the meek.
I said a little prayer for Robert. If he had grown up in Washington and had found a mentor, he might have become a patent lawyer. But he grew up in Miami, and it didn’t happen. Was there any way to repay his kindness? No. If this thing panned out, I’d have to hope that Robert would forget me and the patent by John Ledbetter from Miami.
I saddled up and rode north, past the Woodlawn Cemetery and through Little Havana to the med center, where I devoted the rest of the day to the McGregor project. After three days of patient investigation of calmodulin and tyrosine phosphatase, I caught the two molecules in flagrante. I handcuffed them together and made them confess that the calcium-calmodulin complex had been kicking tyrosine phosphatase into high gear.
Over the holidays I almost got handcuffed, myself.