The Focus Group of Doctor Moreau

for Stanislaw Lem

I really hate doing it and some people around here have gotten the wrong idea, but I really hate doing it, it’s the worst thing about my job. But I have no choice. Otherwise they will never be men. So I have to place myself in the position of holding my charges in that bath of pain in order to remake them. I’m up to my ass in it, actually. Of course the screams bothered me at first, but this is science: the science of cutting up various animals while they are alive and conscious and making them into funny creatures that walk on two legs, talk and worship me as a living god.



-You know, Montgomery, I think I’d like to get another cat

-What kind of cat?

-Something big and aggresive.. maybe you could pick up a puma...

-A puma, huh?

-Yes.

-Moreau, those things are a pain in the ass to ship...

-The hell you say. You’re just going to get another case of Tanqueray anyway. I bust my balls every day in the “House of Pain” every day -for science, cutting apart living flesh and...

-I know, Moreau, I know. We’ll get a Puma.

-Don’t say it like that.

-Like what?

-Like that. I mean, what’s the point? I don’t want to just do it, if, if you’re just going along with it. This is science. It used to be something we did together. I’m not going to do it if you don’t really have any enthusiasm for it, though I can’t say when the last time you came up with a new animal (Pause) You hate my Puma Man idea.

-The Puma Man idea is fine, Moreau

-What’s wrong with Puma Man?

-Well, we’ve already got, Leopard Man, Tiger Man and Panther Man. It’s like you’re kinda doing the same thing over and over. It’s bad enough that you’re playing god without plagarizing yourself. What about that little sloth thing?

-I’m not making another one of those.




Montgomery writes in his diary:

Moreau seems to have taken my critique of “Puma Man” very badly. As usual. He just sulks in his apartment for the most part, doodling a tiny “mini-comic” based on his creations. I’ve seen it. In the comic, most of his creations live together on a houseboat and talk a lot better than they do in real life. They don’t seem to solve crimes or anything. It doesn’t have much of a plot. I think it’s like one of those Japanese romance comics. This makes me shudder when I consider that it might show some insight into Moreau’s true motives.

Moreau still sullen, depressed. Can barely get up the energy to torture the living hell out of Wallaby Man, usually just to get to sleep.





-WHAT IS THE LAW? SAY THE WORDS.

-NOT TO GO ON ALL-FOURS; THAT IS THE LAW. ARE WE NOT MEN?

-NOT TO SUCK UP DRINK; THAT IS THE LAW. ARE WE NOT MEN?

-NOT TO EAT FISH OR FLESH; THAT IS THE LAW. ARE WE NOT MEN?

-NOT TO CLAW THE BARK OF TREES; THAT IS THE LAW. ARE WE NOT MEN?

-NOT TO CHASE OTHER MEN; THAT IS THE LAW. ARE WE NOT MEN?

-NOT TO PUT THE PENIS ANYWHERE OTHER THAN IN VAGINA OF LAWFULLY MARRIED SPOUSE; THAT IS THE LAW. ARE WE NOT MEN?

-NOT TO LICK GOD’S FACE; THAT IS THE LAW. ARE WE NOT MEN?

-IF IT IS YELLOW, IT IS MELLOW; IF IT IS BROWN, FLUSH IT DOWN; THAT IS THE LAW. ARE WE NOT MEN?


His is the House of Pain
His is the Hand that makes
His is the Hand that wounds
His is the Hand that heals

His is the lightning flash
His is the deep, salt sea
His are the stars in the sky

(this is sort of to the tune of "Shoo-fly")
Montgomery misses a chord change. His playing has gotten sloppy.


He is a five-man, a five-man, a five-man—like meeeeeeee! sang the Ape-man.


As soon as this is over, thinks Montgomery, I am going to get so wasted so help me God.



Later

-So my friend, what did you think?

-It’s incontrovertable, Moreau. They are regressing.

-I admit, the writing is no where near as subtle as last year’s but I think they’re just playing to the audience

-Moreau, Lady Windamere ate Lady Windamere’s fan. We nearly had to shoot Mrs. Cowper-Cowper.

-I thought I heard tears in the audience

-It’s a comedy Moreau. That wasn’t tears. It was drooling.

-What about the ending?

-That’s where they really lost me. Were we watching Wind in the Willows or Animal Farm?

-You can be so goddamn mean when you’re sober.

Pinkerton does not return.



Montgomery’s diary:

Bad Signs:

Eating things that are not cereal in bowl with a spoon like they are cereal, like potato chips or pepperoni slices.

Related: Any kind of similar breakfast meal with an alcoholic beverage replacing milk, worse, if the beverage is clear.

Perhaps if I only drank on the weekends. Oh migod who am I kidding? I need to keep drinking just so I can look at the staff.

SLEEP IN TONIGHT. LOCK YOUR DOOR IF YOU HAVE TO.




Montgomery, returning, drunk and scratched up

-M’Ling! M’Ling! M’Ling! M’Ling can I get some fuckin’ ICE?

-Montgomery I have to work in the morning.

-Sorry, Doctor

-You know Montgomery, I have never said a word to you about your indulgences, but ...are you using ...are you taking the right precautions?

-What, you mean like tetnaus?

-You know what I mean?

-Oh you gotta be shittin’ me. What are you worried about?

-Well, though the traits don't seem to carry... they are completely fertile and though we’ve never ...the offspring might be an abomination

Montgomery collapses laughing

-What, Mongomery?

-I’m relieved. I was afraid you accuse me of doing something unnatural (laughs) You’re a funny man, Moreau. What do you think you’ve been doing?

-Science, of course.

-Frankenstein was science, you ass. This is like Pliny the Elders’ fan fiction. What have you been working on all day? Look at it! Whoever heard of a Doberman Mini Lop?

-You think I’ve made some sort of a Faustian bargain...

-Faust got something in return for his soul, knowledge, chicks, something. What have you got? A rabbit that licks its balls.

-What are you saying, Montgomery?

-Doc, they don’t have a name for what you’ve been doing, nor, strictly speaking a law about what I’ve been doing. Do the words rum and bugger mean anything to you?

-So you’re saying that we’ve lost our way...

-It’s been almost a decade, Moreau, of snips and snails and puppy dog tails. What have we got to show for it? A bunch of fucking dog-snails!

-What if I made an oversized beaver that had like smaller beavers for hands?

Thank god I’m drunk, Montgomery thinks, this is the worst research assistant post ever.



In the morning, at the beach dock

-I always appreciate you taking these little trips, Montgomery. I know you do, but I also appreciate, well, I appreciate all you do do around here.

I can’t manage it all by myself. I’ve given everything, you know, to science.

Someday, Montgomery, your name and my name...

I think this Puma, is really going to be the breakthrough we’ve been looking for, I really do. All evidence points toward it. What we have needed is a bigger, more aggresive, deadlier creature.

This is my last trip, thinks Montgomery. I am only going to print out my CV at the Kinko’s in Arica.

-Knowledge, especially of creation’s deepest secrets, is a heavy burden. Our wisdom is in a race with catastrophe. None of this is easy for me to bear. It is not easy to be a creator. Mistakes have to be made. It's the experimental method. If I knew then what I knew now, by god, Montgomery, think. If I only had a machine that could travel back in time...

You know what you can do with that.

NUMBER 54, WEEK 41, WORD COUNT: 46,619
NEXT BY 4 APRIL 2006