A Day in the Life of a Human Lab Rat

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95. The top of my head sometimes feels tender.

96. I like to go to parties/other affairs where there is lots of loud fun.

It is 8:53 a.m. and in my hand I'm holding four pink pills that may or may not contain calcitriol, a synthetic Vitamin D analogue used as a calcium supplement. The drawl of Fried Green Tomatoes echoes behind the staccato click of pool balls and the incessant be-boop-boop of Super Mario Bros. I swallow the pills and gulp down a glass of water.

"Open your mouth, please," says the nurse. I open my mouth. She looks in, prying back my cheeks with a tongue depressor. "Lift up your tongue." I lift my tongue. She looks under it. "Please open your hands."

"Excuse me?"

"Your hands. Please open them and show me the palms." I imagine Jesus coming in after me and slowly, coyly, revealing his stigmata.

Then I realize what she's looking for. After all I've been through, a month of shakes and cold sweats, nic-fits and caffeine withdrawal, and endless brown rice and vegetables, with not even a beer to wash them down, Phoenix thinks there's a chance I would palm their little pink pills. What for? To save them for later? To sell them to some milk junkie? But I do not protest. I show her my palms.

190. At times I feel like smashing things.

191. Someone has control over my mind.

It is 9:14 p.m. We have had lunch and dinner and have just finished our evening snacks. We have had 16 different needles pushed into our veins. Our arms are swelling and bruised and one person has fainted and one has vomited and three seem to have disappeared. I have responded yes or no to 244 inane statements. Besides Fried Green Tomatoes, we have watched Nell and Spaceballs and ConAir and Dances with Wolves and now, as they are attaching the electrodes to me for the last of the day's 15 EKGs, I can hear the TV blaring the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Some sadomasochistic freak has chosen A Clockwork Orange as the day's final video.

The nurse smiles at me. "You don't mind if I shave your chest," she says.

Behind her I hear Malcolm McDowell's voice-over: ". . . it seemed a bit crazy to me, but if I was to be a free young malchick again in a fortnight's time I would put up with much in the meantime. Oh, my brothers!"

An urgent voice blasts over the loudspeaker: "Number 5—Jesus—to the kitchen to finish his milk. Jesus did not finish his milk."

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