Dr. Anthony Faucistein’s area of research was… strange. Some of his fellow researchers considered him to be a mad genius, but most thought he was just mad. He only just received his doctorate last year, late in 1993, and he was eager to blind, or stop, the world with his intellect.
His research focused on answering the following question: “can a person’s sexual orientation be changed by grafting-on a body part?”
“We’ll need a recently deceased gay man, and a straight man who has been dismembered,” his new assistant said. “But what idiots would fund it?”
“The idiots at the NIH, that’s who. We’ve been funded for 5 years!” Faucistein gushed in his thick Boston accent. His large glasses fogged over for a moment.
“How did you spin it, doc?”
“I had them classify it as ‘gain of function’ research! They really are idiots!”
“Gain of… function?”
“Yes - we’ll be taking a straight man and turning him bi, or maybe even gay. See? Gain of function!” The doctor and his assistant high-fived each other. Dr. Faucistein raised his noodle-thin arms triumphantly and shouted “I… AM… THE… SCIENCE™!!” pronouncing “science” as “SOYence.”
They didn’t have to wait long for the “source material.” A gay mass-murderer named Jeffrey Dahmer, while serving 16 terms of life imprisonment, was killed by his cell mate. “The body is being flown in from Wisconsin”, the doc told his assistant, pronouncing it “WisCONNsin.”
On almost the same day, a young bon vivant named Jay Gatsby lost his hand in a car accident. He was driving his dad’s DeLorean on the freeway when he crashed into the berm. The prostitute he had in the car was providing “personal service.” If it wasn’t for that prostitute - or more specifically that prostitute’s head - the steering column would have gone through his abdomen. Instead, the column took off his right hand, the hand he was using to keep the prostitute’s head in position.
“Perfect!” Dr Faucistein exclaimed on learning this. He quickly scheduled an operating theater. Dr. Faucistein loves theater.
In the operating room, Gatsby was under general anesthesia. All the doctors and technicians were wearing masks. Except for Dr. Faucistein, who wore two.
The assistant carried a large flask containing Dahmer’s right hand into the operating room.
“Are you sure you got the correct donor?” Faucistein asked.
“No, the hand came from somebody named ‘Abbey Normal.’” Faucistein rolled his eyes.
The operation went smooth. After it was finished, Faucistein and his assistant looked at the patient, still unconscious.
“He’s so light and thin, you’d think he would be gay if you didn’t know him,” Faucistein said.
“You’d think he’s gay even if you did know him!”
The anesthesia was wearing off, and Gatsby started to stir. Faucistein rushed from the patient’s room, and his assistant followed. “Don’t you want to talk to him?”
“Listen,” Faucistein told his assistant, “I must observe Mr. Gatsby to see how our experiment is proceeding, so he must never know I performed the operation. Check in with him on a weekly basis. Ask him about his overall health as well as any unusual dreams or urges he’s had.”
Following his release, Gatsby spent the next several weeks recuperating at his parents’ home, mostly lying in bed, mostly watching TV, or reading the newspaper.
Every few days, Gatsby would read a headline titled something like “Rent Boy Strangled” or “Gay Man Killed” or “Another Hate Crime”. Gatsby read the stories, mostly out of boredom. In each case, the victim’s own semen was found on his clothes. And in each story, the coroner was quoted as saying “he was strangled, but he died with a smile on his face.”
During one of the first calls, Gatsby told the assistant, “I decided to redecorate my house - the upholsterers will be here next Monday.”
In a later call, the assistant inquired if Gatsby was having any dreams.
Gatsby was quick to respond: “I had the most horrible nightmare - I dreamt that my new hand detached itself!”
“Dismemberment nightmares are common with patients who have lost a limb. I don’t think the dreams will ever go away, at least in your case, but you’ll find them less intrusive as time goes on.”
The following week, the assistant asked, “have you had any more of those dismemberment dreams?”
“Yes, almost every night. And you’re right, they’re not stressful anymore. In fact, I can even see my right hand crawling behind seedy restaurants. But that’s impossible!”
The evening news lead with a story about a gay man whose body was found behind a diner, strangled. According to the police report, the victim’s pants were covered with his own semen. The reporter concluded by looking solemnly at the camera and saying, “at least he died with a smile on his face.”
It was Friday afternoon at 4:30 PM. The phone next to his bed rang, just as it always did on that day and time. Gatsby answered it, knowing it would be the assistant.
“How are you feeling, Mr. Gatsby?”
“Well, I have this strange desire to go to the gym. I’ve never been to the gym in my life, but for some reason I think I’ll have a religious experience there! Isn’t that weird?”
“Not at all - many people think that the gym is the one true God. But why don’t you try something relaxing, like going to a bar? A new one just opened down the street from you, called ‘The White Swallow.’”
“Oh yea, it’s right between ‘Fudge Packers’ and ‘The Sausage Factory!’ I think I’ll do that!” Gatsby hung up the phone and examined his wardrobe - he knew he had too many sweaters, but where did all those leather jackets come from?
Meanwhile, the assistant called Dr. Faucistein and relayed Gatsby’s evening plans.
Gatsby arrived at The White Swallow at 8 PM. The bar was crowded, and he noticed that the patrons and bartenders were all men. He noticed, but he didn’t care. “How could it be any other way?” he thought.
Against one wall stood a water cooler filled with what looked like blue mouth wash. Gatsby was slightly confused by it, then he just shrugged.
Gatsby saw a short thin man sitting alone at the bar. He wore rather large glasses and was dressed in a lab coat. He was also wearing two blue paper masks. Gatsby noticed that Dr. Dress-Up was watching him, and when Faucistein realized he was caught, he switched all his attention to the open notebook and half-empty martini glass in front of him.
Gatsby didn’t have a medical fetish, but he realized that way too many people would tolerate or even enjoy being dominated by that little creep.
Gatsby continued to scan the crowd, and locked eyes with a pair of dark-haired muscular men. Both had identical handlebar mustaches and were wearing identical leather hats, leather harnesses, jock straps, and nothing else. All their leather was decorated with metal studs.
Gatsby approached them and introduced himself: “Hello, I’m Jay.”
“Hey, I’m Tom”. Tom looked Gatsby up and down.
“Hey, I’m Seth” Seth also looked Gatsby up and down.
“Are you two twins?”
“Na, why’d you ask” Tom replied.
“No reason.”
“Hey,” Seth said, “Tom and I are going to the bathroom. Want to join us?”
Tom explained: “there’s twelve open stalls. It’s hot.”
“It’s very hot,” Seth added.
“I’ve never done anything like that before!” Gatsby said, his voice breaking.
A waiter was walking close by, and Tom asked him for something. The waiter removed three small plastic vials from his waist apron pocket. “Don’t be a buzzkill. Here’s some poppers.” Tom passed out the vials. They all inhaled deeply and the three of them went into the men’s room.
Gatsby perceived the whole experience as if he were looking through a thick fog. In fact, he didn’t feel like he was all… together.
After leaving the bathroom, Gatsby understood the purpose of the mouth wash water cooler, and he used it.
Later that evening the police had to be called - a man was found dead in one of those stalls. He had red marks across his neck, a crusty white stain on his pants, and a big smile on his face.
The next weekend, Gatsby went back to the White Swallow, and decided to explore the basement, poppers in hand.
After spending some time there, Gatsby began to panic. He didn’t want to be a buzzkill, but it was all too much. He ran up the stairs, almost tripping over the mouth wash water cooler. He suppressed the urge to vomit, and pulled the oil covered, brown stained latex glove off his right hand, tossed it to the floor, and shuttered.
Gatsby looked at his right hand, aghast, and shouted: “How could you do that? I didn’t know a fist could go inside such a small hole?” He expected his right hand to answer him, but the hand was… just a hand. He unconsciously walked onto the dance floor and continued staring at his right hand.
Tom and Seth watched him. They were both wearing blue jeans, black leather jackets, with no shirts underneath.
Of course, Dr. Dress-Up was there, sitting at the bar, wearing his large glasses, his usual lab coat and two paper masks. This time, Faucistein made no effort to conceal the fact that he was closely observing Gatsby. He opened his notebook and began to quickly jot notes.
Gatsby continued to shout at his right hand: “We’re going to the hospital tomorrow, and I’m going to have you removed! I don’t need a right hand that bad!”
Gatsby suddenly lost control of his right arm, and his right hand grabbed his own throat and started squeezing, hard. He tried using his other hand to dislodge the mutinous appendage, but to no avail. He started gasping and was soon on his knees.
The dance music stopped, and the crowd stared at the choking man, standing 6 feet back.
Observing this, Tom said “autoerotic asphyxiation, that’s hot.”
Seth added, “that’s very hot.”
Gatsby soon collapsed on his side, dead.
His right hand casually detached itself from his arm and crawled in front of his face. The hand gave him the middle finger, then flicked Gatsby’s forehead with its index finger.
The hand then crawled across the dance floor and exited the building. It was almost as if the hand was strutting.
The patrons in The White Swallow watched all this in silence, slack jawed. After an awkward moment, the crowd gave a mighty “woo hoo!” Tom and Seth chest bumped like two drunk frat boys, and the loud dance music resumed.
Beneath his masks, Dr. Faucistein smiled. He neatly closed his notebook and put his pen in the lab coat’s breast pocket. He left the bar, wondering what other gain of function grants he could get.
