The Humanity Project

by Jean Thompson

  The other rooms were lined up one after another behind the first, so you had to walk through them all. The windows were covered here too, but her eyes were adjusting and the music wasn’t quite as loud as she went farther back, though it still made her ears itch. The furniture, beds, tables, chairs, was pushed together in dusty groups, like it was in storage. At the back was a bare-looking kitchen with a slopped-over pot of something on the stove, and next to it a closed door, the bathroom?

  Linnea knocked. Nobody answered. She pushed it open, then yelped and shut it again. A man with Jesus-style hair and a beard was reclining in the bathtub, his knees drawn up and poking out of the water.

  “Sorry,” she said, once she was back in the hall. “I didn’t think anybody . . . Sorry.”

  “That’s OK, come on in.”

  “Is there another bathroom somewhere?”

  “Sure, somewhere. Not in this house. Come in, I don’t mind.”

  “No, I’ll just wait.” She heard him moving around, the water lapping and sloshing.

  “You want the place all to yourself? You’ll be out there awhile. I just got comfortable.”

  Linnea clamped her legs together. She had to go so bad, tears started up behind her eyes. Maybe she could wet her pants a little. Why wasn’t she a boy? They could always pee in a sink, or anywhere else. She didn’t think she could make it back down the stairs and out again to somewhere else. It was one of those stupid things that kept happening to her.

  “Oh come on, what are you, pee-shy? I’ll throw a towel over my head. I promise I won’t look.”

  “I can’t.”

  “How about, I put my head underwater and hold my breath.”

  “No.”

  “It’s not that big a deal,” he said patiently. “I’ve seen a lot of girls pee. I could get testimonials from them.” She couldn’t tell if he was joking, if he said things that were some kind of joke that nobody got but him.

  “It’s not . . . private.”

  “Whoa! Private!” There was the sound of the bathwater sloshing. “Private isn’t a big priority around here. We aim for more of a communal experience.”

  He was talking like she’d come here to stay, and she hadn’t. “If I could just please use the bathroom for like, please two minutes, I’ll go.”

  “You already have my full and free permission to come in.”

  “Please,” she said again. She could feel the pee starting to slide out of her, a hot trickle.

  “You know who this is singing? Billie Holiday. You know Billie?”

  The woman’s voice wandered around the song, catching on a note, dragging it out into a moan. “No,” Linnea said.

  “One of the all-time great figures in American music. There’s a hole in your education. See, if you knew Billie, I might be more inclined to get out of this tub.”

  “I’m sorry,” Linnea said, her voice tiny. She tried squatting down. “I promise I’ll find out about her.”

  “They used to call her Lady. Because, well, they just did. I’m thinking, that’s what I should call you.”

  More water sounds, like a boat heaving around in a pond. Then the door opened, and the Jesus guy stepped out, a towel around his waist. Linnea guessed he was Sinbad, if names meant anything anymore. She didn’t know how old fifty made you, but he looked like something that had been left outside in the rain and forgotten. His hair and beard were greasy gray. He made a little bow and pushed the door open wider. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

  She barely got her pants down in time. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have been able to pee with some guy standing right outside—she could see the shadow of his feet moving underneath the door—but Linnea didn’t care, she was just grateful she hadn’t wet herself like some giant baby. The bathroom was cruddy, with water stains in the sink. It was the kind of place her mother would have made her put toilet paper on the seat before she sat down.

  She was just finishing up, just starting to pull her clothes back together, when the door opened. “Hey!”

  “Relax, Miss Lady. It’s OK if I call you that?” He stepped in and closed the door behind him. He was tall and skinny. There were hollowed-out spaces beneath his collarbone and at the bottom of his rib cage. He looked like Axe’s skeleton shirt. “Why don’t you say yes,” he suggested.

  “Yes.” Her pants were up over her hips but she didn’t have them zipped. Her belt buckle flopped to one side. She couldn’t get the zipper to work.

  He stirred the water in the bathtub with one hand, then pulled the plug at the bottom. “It got cold. See what you did? Now I have to run it again hot. What you got in there?” He meant her backpack.

  “Nothing. Clothes and stuff.” The music had stopped. Her ears tried to find something else to listen to besides the water draining away, but it was like all other sound was shut off with the record. She tried not to look at the towel he had wrapped around him, or the places the towel didn’t cover. It was like the towel was some other kind of joke, one that was directed at her.

  She felt the dark wings skimming over her, just beyond the reach of her eyes.

  Now he replugged the tub and ran the hot water tap. He said, “Somewhere around here I got these Dead Sea mineral salts. Most excellent. Loosens you right up. Oh well. Maybe next time.”

  There wasn’t room to get past him and out the door, and besides, she knew that he was waiting for her to try and make some kind of move. It was like she was an animal, or maybe they both were. Like the cat killed by the coyote. The cat frozen in place, all its nerves in its skin.

  But no. She steadied herself and finished zipping her pants. Funny how much better that made her feel. Like, not a dead cat. She cleared her throat so her voice would come out right, because everything depended on making him listen. And so she would tell him, if not the truth, something closer to the truth than anyone else had heard. “You know,” she began, just as he turned off the hot water and swept his arm across it in a gesture of invitation, get in, get in, “the last time I was stuck in a bathroom with some guy, I helped him shoot two people.”

  EIGHT

  Do not speak, unless it improves a silence.

  They were all looking at her. Christie wished she could risk a cleansing breath to steady herself, but they’d only think she was that much weirder. “I guess we should get started.”

  There was an industrious noise of paper sliding across the polished wood table. They were opening folders, straightening and shuffling, readying their yellow legal pads. Now what? Christie hesitated a moment too long and the attorney, Mr. Kirn, jumped in. No, not jumped; a smooth acceleration, born of his long experience with meetings, depositions, negotiations, pleadings. “You’ll find the organizing documents in your folders. The name availability forms, the articles of incorporation, some of the tax requirements pertaining to 501(c)s. All of these will need to be filed with the secretary of state or the other state offices, or with the IRS.”

  Mr. Kirn was Mrs. Foster’s attorney. He was in charge of the legalities necessary to setting up a nonprofit organization, or rather, a foundation, which was sort of the same thing but not entirely. The differences had been explained to her often enough that now Christie only nodded and went along dumbly with whatever it was being said. Today’s assembled documents were meant to impress upon everyone the weighty responsibilities of such an undertaking, as well as make Christie feel completely unequal to the task at hand.

  They were meeting in the conference room of Mr. Kirn’s San Rafael office, which occupied a suite in a commercial park tucked in along the freeway frontage. The wall of windows looked out to the carefully edited greenbelt with its clipped grass and staked, half-grown trees, the unnatural nature that accompanied high-end California development. Also in attendance were: Mr. Alvarez, an investment officer from Mrs. Foster’s bank. Mrs. Foster’s aggrieved daughter, or one of them, Leslie Hart. Mr. Kirn�
��s secretary, who had not been introduced. And the only person who Christie imagined was not entirely hostile to her, a youngish man from county social services. He had a furry chin and wore a T-shirt under his sport coat, and the lettering on the T-shirt spelled out, improbably, STAIN. She had forgotten his name but that was all right since he had told everyone to call him Scottie.

  “Thank you,” Christie said to Mr. Kirn, because if she didn’t step up they would all ignore her and decide among themselves what ought to be done or not done. Which would be a relief, but also humiliating. “I expect once we’ve had a chance to look at these, we might have some questions for you.”

  Bluffing. She could read them for a week and not understand the first thing about them. Leslie Hart, the daughter, who was visibly unhappy about the disbursement of her and her sister’s inheritance, launched her first complaint. “I don’t understand, do we have an agenda here? An actual written agenda? I’ve yet to see one.”

  Mr. Kirn pointed out that there was no agenda because they did not constitute a board, or an executive committee, or any other body that operated under bylaws requiring agendas, and in fact, no bylaws had yet been set forth.

  Then what exactly were they here for, Leslie Hart wanted to know, unwilling to be placated. Mr. Kirn said that this was simply an initial meeting of some of the interested parties. Covering some of the basics. Brainstorming.

  “Ms. Schuyler,” he said, indicating Christie, “has been in on the planning from the beginning, and is Mrs. Foster’s choice for executive director.” He said it with a straight face, and Christie imagined him using the same pleasant tone to announce that someone’s entire estate had been left to their pet dog.

  “Mr. Alvarez will have initial figures for us. He and I have come up with some suggested organizational steps. Mrs. Hart is here to represent the family’s interests. And Mr.—”

  “Scottie.” A cheerful wave from his end of the table. Christie supposed that in his line of work, overcasual was the business norm.

  “Yes. Has been kind enough to come and share some of his hands-on experience in working with disadvantaged populations.”

  Leslie Hart said, “Is that what this is all about? Disadvantaged populations? Because you can pour all the money you want into people like that, it never changes anything.” She was the San Diego daughter. Christie knew, from Mrs. Foster, that she was somewhere in her fifties, with three expensive children of her own and a husband who worked in commercial real estate. She had gotten herself up in such sleek and polished fashion, she was so severely well groomed in her black-and-white suiting, that she looked nearly military.

  Scottie spoke up then. “That’s really not true. You do the right interventions, you make an impact. Give people better access to housing, health services, and job training, you get results you can measure. Reduced homelessness. Fewer sick kids. Less unemployment. You know, your basic benefits to society.”

  The others looked at him as if he was one of those talking babies in a commercial.

  “I think,” Christie said after a pause, “I’d like to hear what Mr. Alvarez has prepared.”

  Mr. Alvarez spent a long time clearing his throat. He was tall and stooped and dignified, with a waxy bald head and pink eyelids. He looked as if he’d been the Fosters’ investment adviser since they were all in the sixth grade together. His voice rumbled and mumbled. He made reference to the necessity of a business plan, the formation of committees: executive, financial, fund-raising, and so forth. Provisions for audit and for annual reviews. The description of staff positions, the hiring and compensation of staff. He was so thorough and droning, that it would have been easy to miss the actual numbers: an initial endowment of five million dollars, with the possibility of further funding in the form of a bequest.

  Meaning Mrs. Foster would put the Foundation in her will for further gobsmacking amounts. Christie couldn’t bring herself to look at Leslie Hart. No wonder she was furious. Even though Mrs. Foster had said that both her daughters would be well provided for, would have no lack or cause for ill will. “That doesn’t mean they won’t kick up a fuss,” Mrs. Foster had said cheerfully. “Just that they ought to be ashamed of themselves.”

  Well, they weren’t. People seldom were, in Christie’s experience. She forced her attention back to Mr. Alvarez, who was explaining that the actual operations budget for the Foundation would be the investment income from the endowment, minus expenses.

  Christie stopped herself from saying, “Of course.” She had been saying that too much lately, as a way of trying to sound knowledgeable.

  Mr. Alvarez finished up with some projected investment income figures, based on this or that strategy, market condition, et cetera. Of course, of course. The whole enterprise still felt preposterous to her: that there should exist such enormous, free-floating sums of money in the world, and that they should in any way intersect with her own life. She studied Mr. Alvarez’s graphs and charts, hoping to untangle the snarl of numbers.

  It took her a moment to realize that Mr. Alvarez had stopped speaking, the same way you only gradually realized that a fan or a motor had shut off. “Thank you,” Christie said belatedly. “This is all very helpful.” She actually had come with a few notes of her own. She consulted her scribbled list, willing it to expand into something more eloquent. “I was hoping we might come up with a mission statement today.”

  Mr. Kirn’s secretary was transcribing the meeting. From across the table, Christie could read, upside down, MISSION STATEMENT. It looked admirably straightforward and clear. It seemed a shame to scribble it over with everybody’s opinions.

  “Mission statement?” Leslie Hart echoed. Her pulled-back hair was so tight it drew her eyelids up at the corners. It was uncomfortable to look at, like plastic surgery gone wrong.

  “For instance, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, dedicated to ‘improve the health and health care of all Americans.’” Christie paused.

  “Or,” Scottie said, “the MacArthur Foundation, you know, ‘building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.’ The kind of groups who support NPR. National Public Radio,” he added, when Leslie Hart made another of her faces. “Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

  Christie wasn’t so sure now that she wanted Scottie as her ally. He could shoot off his mouth as much as he liked, and she would be the one to suffer the consequences. She turned to Leslie Hart and said, in her most coaxing voice, “It’s really just a statement of purpose. There’s also the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is—” She consulted her notes. “‘Dedicated to bringing innovations in health, development, and learning to the global community.’” Leslie didn’t answer, only gave Christie a sideways look from her sideways eyes.

  Once more Christie had let a silence linger, and the helpful Mr. Kirn filled it. “Perhaps you could give us a clearer idea of Mrs. Foster’s intentions.”

  “She is calling her foundation ‘The Humanity Project.’”

  “If that name is available,” said Mr. Kirn.

  “Who else would want it?” Leslie Hart put in.

  “And the aim of the Foundation, broadly defined, is to benefit humanity. I know, it needs considerable narrowing down. A lot more specifics. But it’s a good, generous impulse.” The greatest effort is not concerned with results.

  “You just try talking to her,” Leslie Hart said, appealing to Mr. Kirn and Mr. Alvarez, the grown-up powers. “All you get is this muddled, idealistic blather. And she’s ruining her house with a bunch of feral cats.”

  “These days,” Scottie said, “the preferred name is ‘community cats.’”

  Leslie Hart ignored this. “And now she wants to save the world. But from what I have no idea.”

  “From us,” Scottie said. “We need to be saved from ourselves. I mean, most any problem in the world today, except, I don’t know, sunspots or the decay of the earth’s orbit, we caused it.” Argument was making h
im animated. He raised his arms and his jacket opened enough to show that his shirt actually read SUSTAINA. Sustainable something? Growth? Farming?

  “Incredible,” Leslie said, as if providing commentary to an audience who agreed with her.

  “I believe,” Christie said, trying to put the unsettling notion of orbit decay out of her mind, “that Mrs. Foster would like to concentrate the efforts of the Foundation on local causes, at least at first.” She managed another look at the secretary’s notes. All she’d added was the word “Humanity,” followed by a question mark.

  Scottie said, “Five million. I can tell you exactly where to spend it around here. If you need ideas.”

  Mr. Alvarez swam to the surface of the discussion from the weedy depths where he had been dozing. “Five million is the endowment. The available funds will be, as I’ve said, dependent on investment results.”

  “Most people have no clue. They don’t know how hard it can be for an immigrant family, or the disabled, or the unemployed, to put food on the table. Speaking of tables? With the money you could get for this one, I bet I could feed a dozen of my clients for a month.”

  Everyone took the opportunity to contemplate the conference table, its solidity, its fine-grained wood and shining depths. Christie raised her eyes and met Mr. Kirn’s gaze. He looked unexpectedly sympathetic, as if the two of them, he and Christie, were in agreement about both the virtues and the drawbacks of young, passionate advocates. Whose idea had it been to include Scottie? She couldn’t remember. It was possible that Mr. Kirn had told his secretary to find them a social worker, and she had ordered one by phone.