Layman's Report

by Eugene Marten

  The tower is struck by lightning forty to fifty times a year.

  THE CROWN: Are you a chemist, sir?

  WITNESS: Technically speaking…

  THE CROWN: Yes or no, please.

  WITNESS: I have had basic training at the college level.

  THE COURT: Are you a chemist, yes or no?

  WITNESS: No, ma’am.

  THE CROWN: Are you a physicist?

  WITNESS: No.

  THE CROWN: Are you a toxicologist?

  WITNESS: No.

  THE CROWN: Are you an historian?

  WITNESS: I minored in history at the undergraduate level.

  THE COURT: That’s a no.

  CLERK: So noted.

  THE CROWN: Are you a statistician?

  WITNESS: No.

  THE CROWN: Are you a forensic archaeologist?

  WITNESS: I’m not sure what that is.

  THE COURT: Me neither. How about a philematologist?

  THE CROWN: Are you an engineer?

  WITNESS: I believe I have the required background and training both in the classroom and in practice to perform my function as an engineer.

  THE CROWN: Do you have a degree in engineering, sir?

  WITNESS: Well, I would question what an engineering degree is.

  THE COURT: I wouldn’t. Do you have a degree or no?

  THE WITNESS: I was unable to complete my studies due to financial hardship.

  THE COURT: Let the record show the witness practices engineering without degree, certificate, or license.

  CLERK: So noted.

  THE CROWN: Yet you felt qualified to conduct this… investigation.

  WITNESS: I conducted it.

  THE CROWN: Chemistry, forensics, toxicology, engineering—all disciplines pertinent to this proceeding, yet you can claim expertise in none of them.

  THE WITNESS: Well, I would question what is meant by expertise.

  THE COURT: I’ll bet.

  WITNESS: Anyone who’s gone to college for two years has the necessary math and science to practice electrical engineering in the state of O___, and to do what I did in the field.

  THE CROWN: How much research did you do?

  WITNESS: As much as I could in the time I was allotted…I could build a crematory with what I’ve learned. I ran a bone press.

  THE CROWN: What kind of research materials did you use?

  WITNESS: Maps, floor plans, original blueprints…the bulk of them from the official archives at the camps.

  THE CROWN: These don’t look so official to me. I would suggest that all you did was procure tourist materials available at any souvenir kiosk.

  THE COURT: Archives my ass.

  WITNESS: I did not go there as a tourist.

  THE CROWN: I would suggest you went there as an amateur, a fraud and a trespasser. My Lady, the methodology of this inspection, if it can even be called that, is ridiculous and preposterous and I ask the Court to determine this witness not be allowed to provide expert testimony as the paucity of his training in all relevant areas, as well as his unsuitability to comment on questions of engineering, is unequivocal.

  THE COURT: Let the record show the witness has…paucity. (Gavel.) Now why did I just do that?

  CLERK: So noted.

  EXHIBIT P-4: AMENDED VERSION OF INFORMATION NUMBER 14476777

  A: Sample One showed no detection Sample two showed no detection Sample Three showed no detection Sample Four showed no detection Sample Five showed no detection Sample Five duplicate test showed no detection Sample Six showed no detection Sample Seven showed no detection Sample Seven spike recovery test indicated one hundred and nineteen percent Sample Eight showed no detection Sample Eight duplicate test showed one point nine milligrams per kilogram Sample Nine showed six point seven milligrams per kilogram Sample Ten showed no detection Sample Eleven showed no detection Sample Twelve showed no detection Sample Thirteen no detection Sample Fourteen no detection Sample Fifteen showed ten point three milligrams per kilogram Sample Sixteen showed one point four milligrams per kilogram Sample Sixteen spike recovery test indicated ninety-six percent Sample Seventeen showed no detection Sample Eighteen showed no detection

  THE CROWN: Are you a chemist, sir?

  WITNESS: I have a doctorate in analytical chemistry from Cornell University.

  THE COURT: Bingo!

  THE CROWN: Tell us about Prussian blue.

  WITNESS: I graduated first in my class at Harvard, summa cum laude.

  THE CROWN: So the absence of color doesn’t necessarily mean cyanide radicals aren’t present?

  WITNESS: I also have a full professorship at Cornell. I sit on the boards of DuPont, Proctor and Gamble, and Clairol.

  THE COURT: Let the record show the witness sits on boards.

  CLERK: So noted.

  WITNESS: My heroes are Marie Curie and Gaylord Perry.

  THE CROWN: So by the time they got to you the samples had pretty much been reduced to powder, is that correct?

  WITNESS: Correct. I also enjoy sailing and tennis, and consult with the government on a number of projects which I’m not at liberty to discuss. Go Tribe!

  THE CROWN: Would you say, then, that their integrity as samples was pretty much compromised?

  WITNESS: What was the question?

  THE COURT: What’s the difference between a Jew and a louse?

  WITNESS: About three hundred parts per million.

  THE COURT: Good enough for me. (Gavel.) Mexican, anyone?

  DEFENSE: If it’s all the same to My Lady, we’ll stick with the cafeteria.

  IN THE COURT OF QUEEN’S BENCH OF ONTARIO

  FINAL JUDGEMENT

  BAILIFF: All rise.

  THE COURT: Has the jury reached a verdict?

  FOREMAN: We have, My Lady..

  They’d come from everywhere—from the city, the provinces, the States; from across the ocean. They’d traveled by car, bus, plane; they’d walked, biked, hitchhiked, hopped trains. They were skinheads and militant Jews, Klansman, militant blacks, communists, revisionists, homosexuals, libertarians, survivors, survivors of the dead, defenders of free speech, civil rights activists, groups without affiliation, people who just wanted to hurt things and people who were there to watch things hurt. It was somebody’s birthday. The street in front of the courthouse had been blocked to traffic and the demonstrators gathered there with their signs and banners and megaphones and effigies, some in gas masks, facing the line of Mounties who were to keep them off the courthouse steps. No ceremonial red but black leather, crash helmets, the long white batons held crosswise and end to end to form a single rail. It was the twentieth of April.

  Rank sweetness of horseshit in the street. The sky a cold spring blue, elm trees blossoming in spite of everything.

  The defendant appeared on the courthouse steps with his defense team, the Frenchman, Fred and his wife, a dozen other witnesses and sympathizers, everyone in yellow hardhats like a cadre of building inspectors. The Crown had not yet emerged. The barrister’s bandages were off, ragged pink patches of new skin on her face. The skinheads took up a low, one-word chant, their voices a percussive thump like a blunt instrument. A bass hum of disapproval, cheers, applause. The riot squad stood as still as the trees.

  They started down. Local news teams closed in. The defendant turned to Fred and and raised his voice. “You and the missus can ride with me,” he said, not for the first time.

  Fred looked around dubiously. “I don’t think we’ll all fit.” Wasn’t there a rear exit?

  “First come, first serve,” the German said, and this was the extent of the plan. A microphone bumped his mouth. Shouted questions he answered in motion: only the beginning…they had not heard the last…would not be silenced, he assured them, and then the crowd, friend and enemy alike, drowned him out. His lip was bleeding.

  Fred’s wife held onto his arm. The police pushed the demonstrators to the curb, opening a path on the sidewalk. The demonstrators pushed back and the passage narrowed, then opened up again
. The air felt thick, crowded with cries. On the street mounted officers floated above the roofs of parked cruisers. A single reporter and her cameraman still dogged the defendant, who by now was only trying to get away. What car? Fred saw something red burst on the side of the reporter’s head, felt it wet on his face, saw someone wearing a handkerchief like a bank robber. He couldn’t tell which side her eyes were on. Then he looked ahead and couldn’t see the defendant anymore.

  In the street someone was burning a flag.

  The Mounties surged back toward the steps and knocked Fred off his feet. His wife yelled his name and helped him up, his glasses half off his face. When he put them back on he saw a pair of blue-jeaned legs under a huddle of cops, white helmets clicking together. The demonstrators flooded the sidewalk. Some of them ran up the courthouse steps, though Fred wasn’t sure now exactly what they were demonstrating. He’d thought they might come after him but they seemed more interested in each other; he was a reason to fight. He couldn’t hear himself yelling. Couldn’t get alongside her so he pushed her ahead of him across the sidewalk. He was no longer sure which way the hotel was, they just had to get off this block. In the street he looked to his right. Another contingent of cops were advancing in a wedge, gas-masked, prodding the demonstrators before them with the long white batons. Behind them the tear gas squad, riot guns slanted across their chests, moving in slow lockstep like a dream parade of the faceless. The retreating crowd solidified around him, a hard grip of backs and shoulders going nowhere. A woman was screaming. He saw his wife driving herself toward the other side of the street; either she was just beyond this knot or too strong for it. A horse trotted between them. The hard muscle of the mob relaxed and he could move again. A man with a long beard spat in his face. Fred hadn’t thought of himself as anyone’s enemy, then realized he was somehow still wearing the hardhat. A skinhead grabbed the beard and flattened the man’s nose with his forehead, and Fred, who did not condone violence unless absolutely necessary, was about to thank him when a cop appeared behind the skinhead, got a baton under his chin with both hands and dragged him off. The crowd flexed again. Fred felt himself lifted off his feet like a piece of something in a sea. He couldn’t see her, nor hear her, nor hear himself saying her name. They were pressing in from all sides now and it was getting hard to breathe, let alone believe: this was not making history, this was being crushed in its coils.

  This was losing yourself.

  Every day is somebody’s birthday.

  Probably the tear gas saved him. A sound like a car backfiring, but muffled, and the crowd let him go for good. An acrid smell. He heard the sound again, closer, and his eyes began to sting. He could just see a plume of white drifting in when they shut so tight his head hurt. He had a handkerchief somewhere, went down on all fours like he’d dropped it but didn’t they say it was lighter than air? Someone stepped on his hand, he had to beat on someone’s leg. He crawled. His skin burned. His eyes felt like wounds. His nose too full to breathe with, he sucked air through his mouth but it was made of fire and he coughed it all out, inhaled and coughed again, deep, retching ejaculations that turned him inside out like some damage to his deepest self. He listened for her, tried to sort her out of the shouting, crying, the laughing horses, shattering glass, the coughing and choking, rattling of metal. He crawled with his face inside his shirt. The street was covered with snot. Then he was sitting on the other side of it, another casualty on the curb with a rope of mucous a foot long pending from one nostril. He managed to open one eye. A canister rolling by, dividing into three pieces, each one exploding. Nonlethal. He turned and tried blindly to rise, endless tears pouring forth like some inexhaustible grief of which he were only a channel.

  Dear Fred,

  First, let me apologize for taking so long to respond to your inquiry. It took considerable time for the dust to settle after the rec room incident of last month, and I’m afraid all my time was consumed dealing with the matter at hand. I’m happy to say that order has been restored and, though the tragedy was regrettable, I believe the Institute is all the stronger for it. I do hope the delay has not caused you too much inconvenience.

  In regards to your proposal, I’m sorry to say that we’re going to have to pass. The Board of Corrections here as well as the state budget office have deemed the bid too expensive, and have opted instead to refurbish the existing facility. The contract has already been awarded, though I’m not at liberty to say to whom. I’m sorry that things had to work out this way. I found your visit enlightening, and I assure you the outcome would have been different had I more say in the matter.

  If I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to call on me at any time.

  Sincerely,

  Bill A. A_________

  The icebreaker was at a sports bar so lousy with television there seemed to be a set for each customer. Drinks were free for the first hour. Fred didn’t attend. The next evening there was a formal dinner at the Holiday Inn, and Fred was there with his wife. The banquet room had a flowing fountain in the center, chandeliers and a twenty-foot ceiling and was accessible to the handicapped. Silk draperies in school colors hung from the ceiling and the tables had matching skirts, with china, silverware, crystal glassware, and balloon bouquets for centerpieces. Maitre’d service, unlimited champagne, live music, a menu of full-course meals—all courtesy of the Mystery Guest, about whom there was no shortage of speculation.

  Fred and his wife sat at a table near the fountain with two other couples and two empty chairs. To their right another husband and wife of whom which was the alumnus Fred would not have guessed had the woman not been wearing a name tag. Thin-faced and blushing, she gave him her hand and said they’d had algebra together.

  “It’s all right if you don’t remember,” she said. “I remember everything—I can’t help it.” She brandished a yearbook.

  “It’s some kind of syndrome,” her husband said, and they exchanged occupations.

  “Freelance engineer,” Fred said, and she asked what kind of engineering, and he said he specialized in punitory hardware then waited to be asked to elaborate but wasn’t.

  The man to his left was more familiar. He’d been voted Most Likely To End Up In Prison and this was in fact where he’d been. He didn’t say why or for how long but he’d also lost the use of his legs in a motorcycle accident and sat in a wheelchair wearing a leather jacket, a fringe of hair combed over his scalp, next to his girlfriend, a sweet-natured young woman not half his age with long yellow hair and pitted cheeks and a tattooed snake coiled around her jugular vein.

  The band played songs without words, slow tremolo, sleep-walking out of the past.

  Orders were taken: chicken, steak, or fish. Before dinner was served, the class vice-president, who’d resumed the endless martini he’d begun at the icebreaker, rose unsteadily to applause and whistling and stood behind the podium under the welcoming banner, fourteen feet of canvas screenprinted in school colors. The class vice-president welcomed his classmates, attempted a joke playing waistlines and hairlines off inflation and recession, mourned the dead (whose graduation pictures were displayed on the wall behind the podium and included the class president, a demise no one would speak of), raised his glass to the missing, hoped to see everyone at Cedar Point the following day, and raised his glass again to the Mystery Guest (“Thank you, whoever you are, and keep em coming.”), finally returning to the table he shared with the surviving class officers and the empty seat beside him.

  Lights lowered, candles lit. The band played ballads during the meal. After each song the diners would look up and applaud, and this was also the opportunity to look around, just happy to be there or hungry for the shock of recognition, the unkindnesses of time, perhaps stealing a glance at the man who’d been voted Nicest Eyes (Male) and his youthful (male) companion. Some of the tables called to each other in recollection, eruptions of merriment as oppressive as only the happiness of others can be. But everyone pondered the running question of the Mys
tery Guest, whether he or she had been voted Most Athletic, Most Intelligent, Nicest Smile, Class Clown, or anything at all; had succeeded in Hollywood, real estate, the computer industry, some endeavor which could not be admitted to publicly, or had simply dreamt a winning number. For all anybody knew the enigma was sitting among them now, or perhaps watching from the wings like Gatsby, waiting for the right moment to reveal not only his or her identity, but also a greater design of which this generous provision was only a prologue.

  Someone had to be Heimliched. A program too close to a candle caught fire.

  No one called to the table at which Fred and his wife sat, though it was not without conversation. The woman with whom he’d had algebra kept remembering things, disgorging bits of the past between bites. The girlfriend of the man voted Most Likely To End Up In Prison kept asking, “So how does it feel?” but nobody asked, “Didn’t I see you on TV?”

  “You should say something,” Fred’s wife said, near the end of her chicken breast.

  “That’s not why I came here,” Fred said.

  “It’s not?”

  “Say what?” the woman who’d had algebra with him said.

  “If you hadn’t waited so long, they could have put it in the program,” his wife said.

  “How’s your chicken?” Fred said.

  “You could still ask.”

  “Ask what?” the woman said.

  “Everybody going to Cedar Point?” the girlfriend of the man voted Most Likely To End Up In Prison asked instead.

  “Why not?” the husband of the woman who’d had algebra with Fred said. “You’re never too old if someone else is paying for it.”

  “No Blue Streak for me,” the man voted Most Likely To End Up In Prison said.

  “I can’t go on anything spinny,” the woman who’d had algebra with Fred said. “One ride and I’m sick for hours. Up and down and around is fine, I just can’t do anything that spins.”

  “Up and down ain’t so great either,” her husband said to no one and Fred’s wife said, “What about just miniature golf?”