Saving the other Scott

This good news story has come to the attention of the Fenris Universal Caring Knowledge Union …

File number 97,288,274 Confidential

Name: confidential … let us call him Scott
Gender: Male

Backstory:
Scott is a successful patient of Doktor Julius Noh, having just returned from the Messerschmidt clinic in beautiful Odessa City, Bolivia. Scott has written a letter, from the heart, to you, the people who care in the hopes of getting the needed money he, and others like him, need to get better …


Hello. My name is Scott. I got back from the clinic about a month ago. I feel a lot better.

Before I left, my IQ was in the 60 range, and now, thanks to Doktor Noh, I am in the 140 range. I am collecting welfare and a disability pension.

I have two friends that live on the same floor of the rooming house as I. There is Richard, and ShakaZulu.

Richard is a male prostitute, catering to the latex fetish tourist market here in Toronto. He is a hypochondriac, complaining about a different life-threatening ailment each month. He had cancer over Christmas. For Easter, his heart was failing. And this month, he is dying of the asbestos dust in the subway tunnels here in Toronto. He is quiet, and does not each much. I guess all that high protein sperm he guzzles as part of his job supplies most of his nutrients. He sure does complain a lot though. Richard is a negative person.

ShakaZulu is a welfare artist. He gets a lot of mail and travels to different towns, like Brampton, Markham, Ajax, and Etobicoke, to pick up his welfare checks. He drinks a lot. He gets mean when he drinks and plays his music loud. Its hard for me to sleep with all that hip hop pounding and he does not sing very well.

I was at the library. Doktor Noh encourages me to learn stuff. I was at the library researching complex numbers with regard to their use in modeling the flow of compressible fluids, when I had an idea. I could use my smarts to solve the problems of Richard and ShakaZulu! The nice lady who lets me volunteer at her riding office always has encouraged me to solve problems using my head.

I was attracted to the psycho-active properties of certain unusual proteins, namely alpha-amanitin, found in common mushrooms. In particular, this cyclic nonribosomal peptide of eight amino acids found in the amanita phalloides, or white angel. Like all life saving drugs, they are toxic in large quantities. My challenge was to determine the suitable sub-lethal dose that would cure ShakaZulu of his alcoholism. My plan was to reduce ShakaZulu’s liver function to around twenty percent, so that even a simple sip of alcohol would quickly bring on all the horrible extreme symptoms of hangover and alcohol poisoning, namely depression, nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, and the dry heaves. I was helped by my ample free time and research at the Toronto Reference Library. The librarians there are very helpful.

I soon had a suitable supply of amanita, and using a simple Neuman solvent, was able to extract an ample amount of alpha-amanitin. I measured up what I calculated to be a sufficiently large sub-lethal dose to neutralize eighty percent of ShakaZulu’s liver, leaving him more that enough of his liver to maintain life functions. Certainly not enough for him to need an emergency liver transplant, just make him a little queasy. Of course, I am keeping a journal of all this in my Junior Scientist Notebook, because I want to be a good Junior Scientist. I added the crystalline alpha-amanitin to ShakaZulus coffee last Monday evening as it takes a week for the healing drug to do its work.

As for Richard, I was intrigued by the beta-thionyl-chlorpromazine family. The Germans, during the first world war, experimented with these as an insecticide. These compounds had an unusual effect on people who injested them: they complained of symptoms that almost exactly matched that of cholera. Discomfort usually lasted three days … three days of intense diarrhea, fever, and vomiting. Usually non-fatal, the only permanent effects were acute hemorrhoids and weight loss in the ten to fifteen pound range. Although Kaiser Bill and his Prussians could not use beta to protect the sugar beet crop from grasshoppers, I could use it to show Richard what really being sick was like.

Beta is an easy compound to synthesize, and I was helped a lot by the University of Waterloo’s online Organic Compound Synthesizer Utility. All I needed was some chlorine bleach, acetone, a pack of cigarettes, and some drain cleaner. I had a batch of beta whipped up in no time. I placed the beta, in crystalline form, in Richards evening mug of Metamucil on Friday.

By Friday night, Richard was holed up in the bathroom, vomiting into the sink while he emptied his intestinal tract into the toilet. He stayed there for three days, just like the German military medical research said he would. Then he got better by Monday, although he was thinner and his hair had turned white.

As for ShakaZulu, he has lost weight too. But he was quiet all weekend, except for Saturday morning when the third stage of alpha-amanitin toxicity set in, when I found him passed out in his own vomit in the hall, having passed out from the dry heaves.

I am confident that my two room mates are better people now. My member of parliament in Ottawa says it is important to help people to be better. I want to be a social worker, or a social engineer when I am allowed to go to school.

Thank you, Doktor Noh, for helping me. Thank you Fenris Badwulf for believing in me.

Please send money to Fenris Badwulf so he can keep helping people.

Scott (not my real name)

I, Fenris, am sharing this with you