Wracks, we are having a party this weekend at Eli’s. Would you like to come
I don’t have a date says the Wracks.
Just show up anyway, it will be mostly graduate students and the staff of the School of Microbiology. They will be giving oral final examinations and they want you to attend.
Where is it asks the Wracks. I can use my father’s car.
At the very top of the canyon, there is an access road leading to Eli’s estate. You can’t miss it; it is the only one up there. There is a sign, here is his address.
Okay says the Wracks, I will see you there.
It is five o’clock in the afternoon and the Wracks takes the zigzag road up to the summit of Pang-oh. He brings a bottle of wine and soon reaches the plateau at the top of the mountain where all the shops and restaurants are situated. An ephemeral river lies below this mountain and meanders to the coast where it forms a surfing point that is good in the winter on a westerly swell. I don’t see the number he thinks and travels a little farther up and looks at each driveway and can’t find the numbers or the entrance and when he is about ready to give up, he sees a dirt driveway the width of one car with a mailbox and the number posted in small letters on the top of the box. Putting the car in low gear he moves up the driveway about fifty feet and it culminates in a flat area with ample parking and at least ten cars filling the lot. The Wracks find a parking place, park, get out, and sight a large one-story Mediterranean ranch-style house that surrounds a small garden.
Glad you made it says one of the grad students. We were hungry and didn’t wait for you. All the pasta with clam crème sauce is gone but we saved you some briquets of French bread.
That is fine says the Wracks. I live on bread anyway. Bread is the staff of life
He goes inside and the male grad students are hanging out talking, eating chips, and swilling beer and brown whisky. Professor Nabut from Israel is there and waves to the Wracks. Oral exams will soon commence. Have some whiskey and wash it down with some beer fresh out of a chilled keg. Take another shot. All Immunologists must be prepared to work under pressure. We are all going to swig whiskey and then take the oral exams.
As usual, the Wracks are the last ones to be quizzed, and all the graduate students have moved out to the spacious garden in the middle of the estate.
Have another shot, says Dr. Nabut. How long does it take for the immune response to mature
IgM begins to appear on day three post-challenge and is established within a week. Then IgG appears in the serum and the immune response begins at fourteen days.
Good says Dr. Nabut. Have another shot. What is the function of T suppressor cells in the afferent wing of the immune response?
T suppressor cells function to stimulate memory factor Ia to limit the immune response. T suppressor cells work to limit the immune response so auto-immunity does not happen and the immune system does not react against itself.
Wash it down with some beer says Dr. Nabut. For the final question, how much Ig does it take to activate the complement system which is the effector link of the immune response?
One IgM molecule can activate complement. It takes two IgG molecules to activate complement.
We are done says Dr. Nabut, you pass. You must learn to function while obtunded. All the students are in the garden with Eli.
Two naked women flash out of the bedroom space and smile at the Wracks. Then they are gone
Did you see that asks the Wracks?
They are Eli’s daughters. Don’t mind them.
The grad students sit in the garden around a pond. The Wracks join them. Mr. Simms is there. He is part of the group studying bone marrow transplantation in mice. He shows a foot-long joint of grass to the Wracks and smiles. He lights the huge cigar, takes a couple of puffs, and hands it off to the graduate students. All ten of the graduate students take a puff of the huge joint and then hand it to the Wracks.
What is it says the Wracks. Is it OK?
Take a huge drag and hold it in says Mr. Simms. Then tell me what it is.
The Wracks takes a large puff and he is a cigarette smoker like his dad. Eli sits on a large wicker throne at the head of the pond and is not smoking. He looks at the Wracks. Wracks is in heaven and a student plays guitar; the gang swills beer and time moves on. As night begins the gang moves inside and the wracks sit on the sofa completely anesthetized and fall asleep.
The big greyish-blue eyes of the chief of Microbiology are peering at the Wracks. The Wracks wakes up.
What hit me says the Wracks. Where are the girls
It is past their bedtime and they have gone to bed. The party is over and you can go.
Thanks for the party, Eli. I had a good time. Eli waves from the front door and the Wracks finds his white Pinto runabout with the green coupe roof. He slowly backs down the earthen entrance road. Jan is down the way with a hunting rifle and a 3–9-inch scope that he carries recon style. The Wracks waves and he waves back. I guess he is guarding his field thinks the Wracks.
Down the mountain, he cruises slowly with high beams on. There are no street lamps up here and the guard rails on the road are only three feet high and the river runs down below the serpentine highway.
He makes it down to Highway One and the moon is full, with a slight offshore wind blowing out of the canyon and small three-foot waves break down the point. He pulls into the lot, gets out, and looks at the point, the moon, and the stars, and he gasps. This beautiful. I must check it out tomorrow morning. Night is here in Tranquil Hills and unlike everyone else, the Wracks use the darkness to sleep.