The Adding Machine (17 page)

Ungrammatical French would suggest that one of the Americans made the entry. A chapter in
The Soft Machine
entitled ‘Back Seat of Dreaming’ was based on this incident ‘It is raining Miss Charrington.. .’ Last words of Ulysses S. Grant spoken to his nurse.

Poppy field on screen... the petals fall like snow in the wind.. .

Commentator voice: ‘The opium poppy has been cultivated for thousands of years and opium extracted from the ripening seed pods.’ As he says this we see workers emptying little scoops of opium into a cauldron of water.

‘The juice drained from the pods is boiled and filtered to remove impurities, then processed into raw opium.’ — Blocks of opium on screen — ‘And for thousands of years opium has brought relief to suffering humanity — suffering from the pains of sickness .. .’ — persons in various costumes from togas to suits take opium in one form or another for coughs, colds, lumbago, toothache, leprosy, etc. — ‘The pain of old age .. .’ — Old Chinese smoking opium — ‘The pain of grinding poverty .. .’ — Indian farmers in a hovel wash down opium at dawn — ‘Or the pain of simple boredom.’

Eighteenth-century gentleman in chemist’s shop; Chemist: ‘Shocking night out sir.’

Gentleman: ‘Yes indeed. Need a spot of laudanum.’

Chemist: ‘Certainly sir. How much?’

Gentleman: ‘A litre. Taking to my bed for the winter you know.’

Chemist: ‘Of course sir. Very sensible of you sir.’

(Commentator continues:) ‘Armies have marched on opium from Vietnam to Asia Minor a thousand years ago.’ A soldier in Vietnam leans his M-16 against a tree and takes a shot... same soldier in Turkish dress washes down his ration of opium, dates, and brown sugar.

‘But long before the poppy was brought under cultivation and man learned to extract the opium, some intrepid experimenter must have eaten an opium pod, discovered its medicinal properties, and passed this knowledge along to apprentices. Here are the Unglings, a Cro-Magnon tribe 30,000 years ago. Homo sapiens like you and me — or the folks next door.

The prehistoric Unglings are in animal skins, carrying stone axes; one is old, suffering from rheumatism, hobbling along with the aid of a staff. They come to a field of opium poppies. The petals have fallen and the pods are ripe and yellow. The old man can go no further. He sinks down among the pods. One hands rolls a pod in his fingers; there is a speculative look on his face. He bites into the pod, sucking the juice. He gets up and throws away his staff. Vigorously he directs the others as they gather pods.

‘Throughout the long cold winter the Unglings take refuge in a cave, cooking the pods into thick black brew. It is a bitter potion, but somehow it makes it easier to endure the cold, the hunger, the endless search for food.’

The Unglings pass around the gourd of opium solution. They shudder at the bitterness but then smile as the potion takes effect, and go vigorously about their tasks.’

‘But unexpected things were happening.. .’ A female Ungling, hands on hips, stands over a young male. She breaks into vituperative words. ‘What is she saying? Well I think we can all guess ... and now something else: as spring comes on and the last of the pods have been used, the Unglings are suddenly very sick. What is this mysterious illness that afflicts not only the old but also the young? Can nothing be done? The wise old Ungling has an inspiration. There must, he thinks, be some connection between the lack of pods and the illness. Young Unglings are dispatched. They return with pods. And soon the old man’s wisdom is manifest.’

Over the years countless millions were to confirm the findings of the wise old Ungling, and to learn that opium affords relief from pain, discomfort, illness and fatigue, but exacts over a period of time the price of dependence. Four to six months’ daily use establishes addiction, and the sudden withdrawal of opium then brings on a spectrum of incapacitating symptoms: stomach cramps and diarrhea, watering of the eyes and nose, sneezing fits, restlessness and insomnia, weakness and prostration, hypersensitivity, spontaneous orgasms, and nightmares.

Cocteau likened withdrawal symptoms to the spurting flow of sap into the trees. Yet at the same time there is a feeling of renewal and increased health; Thomas De Quincey wrote: ‘Jeremy Taylor conjectures that it may be as painful to be bom as to die, and during the whole period of diminishing opium I had the torments of a man passing from one mode of existence to another. The issue was not death but a sort of physical regeneration, and a restoration of more than youthful spirits.’ (The experience of withdrawal has never been more precisely or succinctly stated.)

De Quincey has written a detailed and accurate account of the opium experience in his
Confessions of an English Opium Eater;
and I invite all those who have shared the whole or any part of this experience, if only a pre- or post-operative injection of morphine or a percodan for a toothache, to enter into the mind and body of a 19-year-old English youth on a rainy Sunday in London.

The date is September 17, 1804, De Quincey has wandered forth from his digs, in great pain from facial neuralgia brought on by an infected tooth. Walking seemingly at random, he finds himself in front of a modest tea house, which he enters. He recognizes an acquaintance from Oxford, Audrey Lawson, and sits down with him. When his tea arrives he cannot control a spasm of pain from the hot liquid on his tooth. His friend inquires as to his difficulty, and listens sympathetically.

‘I would recommend a tincture of opium. My great-aunt was in great pain from shingles, and obtained complete relief from the use of this remedy.’

Walking home along Oxford Street, De Quincey sees a light in a chemist’s shop. The rain has abated, to be followed by a heavy fog, and fog drifts into the chemist’s shop as he opens the door. A ghostly druggist looks at him absently.

‘Do you have a tincture of opium?’

‘Laudanum? Certainly sir.’ His movements are unhurried and old as he fills a small bottle. He gives change for a shilling. ‘Twenty-five drops every four to six hours sir.’

Back in his lodgings, young De Quincey measures out 35 drops. He drinks the draught, lights a fire in the grate, and sits down. He will later write that the dreams and visions of opium are like to those of a drowning man when his entire life passes before his eyes ...

‘Let there be a cottage in a valley, a white cottage embowered with flowering shrubs. Let it however not be spring, summer, or autumn but winter. Paint me then a room seventeen feet by twelve ...’ De Quincey sits by the fire drinking tea, with which he washes down a carefully measured dose of laudanum from a decanter.

De Quincey has catalogued the opium experience with an accuracy and a candor that has never been surpassed; even noting the metabolic predisposition to addiction recently confirmed by research into endorphin, a natural pain-killer produced by the brain. He has described, under the section entitled ‘The Pains of Opium’, the extreme melancholy and continual nightmares that can accompany heavy over-dosage. His nightmares involved evil Oriental faces and scenes. He describes withdrawal symptoms and how opium can be gradually withdrawn, a system that is used to this day. He remarks the extreme difficulty of withdrawal carried out by the addict himself, who will always find some excuse for an exception. During fifty years he was only free of opium use for one period of six months and one period of four months.

On the whole, one cannot but feel that he was better off for using opium than he would have been without it, and he says that without opium he would have died from consumption at an early age. At that time the use and purchase of opium were quite legal, and even though he was criticized on moral grounds, no one questioned his right to buy and use opium. Some of this criticism came from Coleridge, and after Coleridge died in 1834, De Quincey, in the revised
Opium Eater
written when he was 70 years old, provides this amusing account of Coleridge’s unsuccessful attempts to overcome the opium habit:

‘It is notorious that in Bristol he went so far as to hire men — porters, hackney-coachmen, and others — to oppose by force his entrance into any druggist’s shop. But, as the authority for stopping him was derived simply from himself, these poor men found themselves in a metaphysical fix, not provided for even by the prince of Jesuitical casuists.

‘Porter:
“Oh sir, really you must not; consider, sir, your wife and—”

‘Coleridge:
“Wife! What wife? I have no wife!’’

‘Porter:
“But, really now, you must not, sir. Didn’t you say no longer ago than yesterday —”

‘Coleridge:
“Pooh, pooh. Yesterday is a long time ago. Are you aware, my man, that people are known to have dropped down
dead
for timely want of opium?”

‘Porter:
“Ay, but you tell’t me not to hearken —”

‘Coleridge:
“No matter what I told you in times long passed. An emergency, a shocking emergency, has arisen — quite unlooked for.’”

And so we take leave of Thomas De Quincey, Esquire, with his laudanum, his tea, his books and papers. In his
Confessions
he describes a dream from which he awoke with the phrase ‘everlasting farewells’ echoing in his mind. And such farewells are never taken without a deep feeling of nostalgia. Winter evenings, a cheery fire, candlelight on the ruby red decanter of laudanum.

A.J. closes the folder and puts his elbow on it, leaning forward, He looks at B.J. with cold disfavor.

A. J.: ‘Frankly we don’t like to hear the word
‘last’
around the Studio — ‘last’
anything
. .. What’s the Weenie, B.J.?’ (Note: The ‘Weenie,’ the ‘Macguff,’ the ‘gimmick,’ the ‘routine,’ are all Hollywood lingo for the formula, the map, the deed, or whatever it is that motivates the action of a film: what everybody is trying to get or hang onto.)

B.J.: ‘What if a sure one-shot cure for drag addiction is discovered? And what if not only the Mafia and other organized dope dealers, but also the American Narcotics Department and the CIA attempt to block this discovery by any means, however execrable? You got a neat switcheroo on the clean-cut agents chasing slimy traffickers. Here the agents
and
the slimy traffickers are united against this threat to their common livelihood.’

A.J.: ‘All right so far... the ground is already broken by Watergate and
The Marathon Man
...’

B. J.: ‘It must be made clear at the outset that the possibility of an effective cure has actually existed for some time, and has so far been successfully blocked by the above-named interested parties. A brief account of the apomorphine cure as introduced by Doctor Dent of London, the combination of apomorphine and L-dopa now successfully used in Denmark, and acupuncture. . . a certain amount of technical information which must be conveyed to the audience in a simple, interesting, and novel form. The recent discovery that all vertebrates, even the most primitive fish and reptiles, have opiate receptors in their brains and are in consequence susceptible to addiction — (I got a great running gag here A.J. about addicted dinosaurs) — well this discovery of opiate receptors led scientists to the supposition that the body manufactures a substance similar to morphine, which is released in the body in response to pain, tension and anxiety. In the event of massive injury and acute pain, this substance is not produced rapidly enough or in sufficient quantity to counteract bodily defense reactions, leading in many cases to circulatory collapse, shock, and death.

‘As soon as scientists inferred the presence of a morphinelike substance produced by the body itself, they set out to isolate this substance. A Doctor Goldstein has isolated a substance he calls Pituitary Opioid Peptide — P.O.P. We now have a more precise formulation of the mechanism of withdrawal. When morphine or heroin is taken over a period of time, the body ceases to produce P.O.P., which is no longer needed. And when the morphine or heroin is then cut off, the body is without its natural painkiller — so that what would ordinarily be scarcely noticeable discomfort, owing to the action of this natural painkiller and regulator, now becomes intolerable until the body again produces the P.O.P. Scientists have suggested that acupuncture may work on addicts by stimulating the production of P.O.P.

‘We can further surmise that apomorphine, which is made by boiling morphine with hydrochloric acid but has no painkilling but addicting properties, acts directly on the opiate receptors to stimulate the renewed production of P.O.P., which therefore leads to quicker recovery, although the recovery is by no means immediate or devoid of discomfort. Now suppose we treat P.O.P. with hydrochloric acid to obtain a
super-regulator,
which restores the production of natural P.O.P. and normal metabolism with a single injection?
And suppose this cure is actually announced as the film is released?
How about
that
for P.R.?’

A.J.: ‘Yeah, how about it? Next thing the Industry gets blamed for fires and monsters and epidemics and earthquakes ... We can do without P.R. like that.’

B.J.:
‘A
number of questions must be answered before our film —’

A.J.:
‘Your
film, B.J.’

B.J.: ‘Well, the film has to be logical and believable. Research on the isolation of the P.O.P. is underway, and has been reported in scientific journals and the public media. No doubt some of this research is in fact government-sponsored. How then can such research be stopped, without creating a monster scandal which would be picked up by the media? Well, we postulate a super international commando team of narcs, CIA, Mafia, Chinese, Blacks and Mexicans: ruthless, well-financed, prepared to stop at nothing. We outline methods of attack: actual sabotage of laboratories while spreading the story that the Chinese Communists are the perpetrators and their motive to protect their worldwide drug-smuggling operations; setting up dummy laboratories to deliberately produce negative results; blocking the drag from release by ‘demonstrating’ falsified dangers; in some cases murdering key scientists by poisons that cannot be detected. These measures our commandos consider adequate in the absence of organized opposition.