I had decided that I would not beg or plead or try to negotiate. Maybe that was the point of the process: to have me reach a state in which survival was so unimportant to me that I would cease to care. Well, if so, then I was well on my way.
But I wasn't going to beg. Not after everything I'd already been through. Uh-uh. Sorry. Not me.
Instead, I sat and listened.
The rest of the trainees bargained.
Theme one: This is a waste of a human life.
Foreman's reaction:
"Agreed. This is a waste of a human life. I agree with you. But this is the way we do this process."
"But every human life is precious."
"Is it? Before the plagues there were ten and a half billion people on the planet. The best estimate now is that we're down to three, and still dropping. But even with only three billion people on the planet, what difference does one more or one less make? We're all going to die. Why does it make a difference whether it's today or next week?"
Et cetera.
Theme two: This is cruel and unusual.
Foreman's reply:
"Unusual? No. The statistics don't validate that position. Death by gunfire is unfortunately very usual. Cruel? I doubt it. It's instantaneous. It's painless." Foreman added, "I admit it'll be messy to splatter McCarthy's brains across that wall, but cruel and unusual? No."
Theme three: This is unnecessary to the success of the training.
Foreman: "Are you a certified Mode Trainer?"
"No."
"I am. There's a copy of my certification on the screen. I will decide what is necessary to the success of the training. You don't get a vote on it."
Theme four: Isn't there another way to accomplish the same result?
"No."
Theme five: What is it that you want us to say or do to prevent this outrage?
"Nothing. Nothing at all. There's nothing that I want you to get. There's nothing that I want you to do. There's nothing that has to happen. But you might want to notice the philosophical equation underneath that statement. It's obvious that you think communication is about getting someone to do something.
"If that's all that you think that communication is, then that reduces irrevocably to 'Get a gun and threaten to use it on someone to get them to do what you want.' And in fact, when someone does point a gun at someone, that's what you think is happening-that I'm trying to get someone to do something. Wrong. I don't care what McCarthy or anyone else in this room says or does. The process will continue until McCarthy is dead. But you want to notice that you are stuck in a state called 'Bargaining' and you will say anything or do anything in order to achieve the goal that you have decided is right. Life is right. Death is wrong. Therefore, you are stuck in the paradigm that you must bargain, negotiate, plead, wheedle, beg, implore, demand, protest-you will do anything you have to do to keep alive."
Foreman turned to me at this point.
"It's obvious that McCarthy has chosen a stoic silence as his response. This is called 'passive aggressive' behavior. It is also a form of bargaining, because he thinks that by doing it he will be able to get me to do something that will be more appropriate to his survival." Foreman studied me thoughtfully for a long moment, then announced to the entire room. "No, I don't think so."
The way he said it, we all laughed, even me. But we were still bargaining.
Theme six: Isn't McCarthy more valuable alive than dead?
"This isn't about McCarthy's value. This is about McCarthy's death."
Theme seven: Well, if you're so committed to killing McCarthy, then why haven't you gotten it over with already?
"Because we haven't finished going through all the stages of the process. There are five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They're not always as clear and distinct as we see them here, and they don't always occur in the same order. Sometimes there's a lot of overlap too. Sometimes you'll flip back and forth between two stages for a while. Sometimes you'll go through one of the stages so fast you won't even notice it. But in here, the way this process is conducted, you will experience all five stages of the process. Whoops, there's a little anger now. . . ."
Theme eight: This is unfair.
"So? What's your point?"
Theme nine: What is the point of killing just McCarthy? Who's going through this process? McCarthy or the rest of us? If the process is about all of us, as you say, shouldn't you be threatening all of us?
This particular argument triggered no small amount of consternation in the room. "Don't give him any ideas!" someone shouted. Others took it more seriously; they were afraid that Foreman might feel it necessary to expand the focus of the exercise.
Foreman waited until the room quieted down before he answered the question.
"The process is about all of us. Everybody in this room is doing The Survival Process. You are doing the process. I am doing the process. The Course Manager is doing the process. McCarthy is doing the process. As for how many people should or shouldn't die today-McCarthy is the focus for this exercise. There is no need to expand the focus. The truth is, everybody dies alone."
I noticed something now, something about Foreman, something about the way he was talking, something about the training and the way everyone was responding now: we had all become deadly serious. There were no more jokes, no more clever remarks, no more entertaining tangents.
Now we were talking seriously about death. It was a reality in the room.
The process would continue until I died.
That's when the red-haired boy stood up. He was only eighteen. Foreman looked over at him. "Yes? Parent?"
"I volunteer to take McCarthy's place."
"You do?"
"Yes, I do."
"Why? What do you hope to accomplish?"
"McCarthy doesn't want to die. I don't care if I do or not. Everything I have to live for is gone."
"There's an assumption in there that McCarthy doesn't want to die-but it's a fair assumption. However, it's irrelevant whether McCarthy wants to die or not. He doesn't get a vote in the matter. Neither do you. And you'll get your turn to die when you get your turn. Sit down."
Parent didn't sit down. "You, yourself, said that it didn't matter who was the focus. I insist that you use me instead. I'm willing to die. McCarthy isn't. That's at least a lot more fair, isn't it?"
"This isn't about fairness. What's your point?"
"My point is just that. You've agreed that this isn't fair, that life is precious, that every human being is special and unique. Well, that means that the responsibility falls on each and every one of us to do whatever he or she can to make it all a little bit less unfair. This is something we can do something about. This is something we do get a vote on."
Foreman nodded thoughtfully. Parent's words had apparently touched something in him. He acknowledged, "You have part of it. You're getting there. First, I never agreed that this is unfair. Death is very fair. It takes everybody. Young. Old. Rich. Poor. What's fairer than that?
"As for how precious life is, on this planet life is abundant. Nature wastes lives. Life is abundant so it can feed on itself. Nothing lives except by feeding on the death of something else; so death is just as abundant as life. The myth that each life is precious or unique is a misunderstanding of nature. The uniqueness of each life is merely an effect of nature's need to spawn life in infinite variety; the fact that a life is unique guarantees it no special favors or privileges. Every life has to compete against the same hostile universe. Only those that win the competition win the right to pass on their genes. That's the short version; I won't go into detail about the various games that life plays on itself to guarantee that this or that set of genes will be given the opportunity to reproduce; that's another seminar. But if you must look at this from a sociobiological point of view, even this is-evolution in action. We're just removing the carrier of some very unlucky genes from the gene pool." The way he said it, it wasn't a joke.
Parent
remained standing.
"'Every man's death diminishes me,"' he quoted.
"John Donne. 'Therefore ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.' So, what?" asked Foreman.
"So, if you're going to kill McCarthy, you have to kill me too." Parent was resolute.
Somebody applauded. And then somebody else. And then abruptly, the whole room was applauding.
A woman near Parent stood up, still applauding. Then a man. Then two more men.
And then, the whole room was standing and applauding. It went on and on and on.
They were applauding Parent. They were applauding me. They were applauding themselves.
I was moved beyond words. The tears ran down my cheeks and I couldn't begin to tell you what the emotion was. Maybe it was joy, but nobody ever felt joy like this in the face of death. It was . . . unity.
I stood up and begin applauding too. Foreman was wrong.
I wasn't going to die alone.
And then finally, after several exhilarating centuries, the applause began to die away.
Foreman had waited until we were through. He had made no attempt to stop us or slow us down. He let us expend our energies in a gaudy release of all our pent-up feelings.
"Thank you," he said. He did not tell us to sit down. "Thank you for that display of unity. But . . . ," he spoke thoughtfully now. "How am I supposed to interpret this demonstration? Is it a vote of agreement for Parent's stand? Or mere approval that he's letting the rest of you off the hook?"
Foreman counted off on his fingers. "I see three possibilities here. One, that you don't care. You only took advantage of the opportunity to applaud as a chance to get out of your chairs and stretch."
There was some laughter at this remark.
"I think not," Foreman said. "Second possibility: that you are impressed with Parent's courage, his willingness to take a stand. He gets to be a hero and I'm appointed the villain by default. A nice ploy on Parent's part. He gets to be right. I get to be wrong. It doesn't change anything. Parent gets to look good. You get to stand up and applaud and vote on it. But nothing is changed. We're still in the process. McCarthy is still going to die. And I think we're far enough along that you all know that. I think Parent knows it too. I think Parent is absolutely serious and totally sincere in everything he has said here. So, I'm going to discard this possibility too; because it diminishes us. All of us.
"That leaves us with the third possibility. That all of you are standing because you think a display of unity will change the results. I am impressed with the display. It will not change the results."
Parent said, "I repeat, Dr. Foreman. If you kill McCarthy, you have to kill me too. That's why I'm standing."
"Me too," someone else said, I didn't see who. "And me-"
"And me too-"
And then the whole room was shouting it. "Me too!" Foreman waited patiently.
He stepped back to his table and took a drink of water before he continued. For just the briefest of moments, I wondered at the incredible physical demands that this job must make on him-and yet, he still looked like the most alive person in the room.
He turned around and faced the trainees again. They were still shouting.
After a while, Foreman held up a hand. He did not look concerned. In fact, he grinned. "I appreciate the clarification." He sighed, long and loudly. "But it would be excessive, not to mention counterproductive. It's not the way we do the process. You can all sit down."
They remained standing. All of them. Every single one. It was a wonderful disobedience.
Foreman did not look displeased. Somehow I had the feeling he'd seen this response before.
"Look," he said. "There's no glory in dying en masse. In fact, it's a rather stupid thing to do. The logical, rational thing to do would be to make it as hard as possible for someone to kill you-that's survival. But, you want to notice that what you're doing here now is something that most of you would call 'defending a principle.' Most of you, if we found the right principle and the right circumstance, would die to defend it. We call this 'being a martyr.' It's a great way to be right. Your body may die, but your principle lives on.
"This is what happens when your mind gets confused, when it starts making false connections, when it invests a significant part of its identity into family, nation, or species. It's especially true when the mind identifies itself with noble ideas and principles. Suddenly, the survival of the concept is more important than the survival of the individual. This is called a 'moral victory.'
"So, here we are. You're all willing to die to be right. You should be laughing right now. Don't you get the joke your minds have just played on you? You're so invested with survival of your identity that you as an individual will die to guarantee the survival of your identity. Talk about confusion. . . . " He gave us all that sideways skeptical look; it was the kind of look that made you wonder if your philosophical fly was open.
"So, you're saying that principles and family and nation are the wrong things to die for?" someone hollered accusingly.
"I said nothing of the kind. I said that your mind has such an investment in the survival of your identity that you will die rather than let that identity be destroyed. You have invested your identity in principles and family and nation and species. Whether it's right or wrong is totally irrelevant; you'll do it anyway. You did it before you came in here. You'll do it when you leave. The only difference is, you'll know you're doing it. You won't be doing it unconsciously-and that will affect the decisions you make. You'll consider your choices in a totally different context."
"Just the same," said Parent. "If you kill McCarthy, you have to kill me too."
"That's not the way we do the process," said Foreman quietly. He picked up the gun, opened it and withdrew the round. He held it up for all to see. "We have only the one bullet. That's all." He looked out over the roomful of trainees. "You can sit down now. You've made your point. But, you don't get to vote on things that you don't get to vote on, no matter how often you vote on them. The universe doesn't care. Rocks are hard. Water is wet. So what? Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. The only choice you get is whether or not you're going to accept that this is the way the universe works.
"The process continues until you die."
Parent sat down, reluctantly-and I was alone again.
A woman who once faked a lettera
reference by which she could gettera
job much improved,
regretted her move
when they asked her to show her et cetera.
32
Parents
"Even Murphy's Law doesn't work all the time."
-SOLOMON SHORT
Later, after we'd bathed them and tucked them away for naps, Betty-John, still damp from the creek, came up and leaned on my shoulder, momentarily exhausted, but exhilarated too.
She looked up at me. "Are you beginning to get it now, Jim? I mean, about working with their psychoses?"
"Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. Maybe."
"Come on," she said. "Bar's open in my office. I'll buy you a drink. You looked so silly trying to give that lump of teddy bear a bath without really getting him wet."
"Yeah, well, I had to. You saw how Alec trusted me." I followed her up the hill.
The drink turned out to be lemonade. I should have known. "I would have had iced tea," B-Jay said; with one foot she kicked shut the door of the tiny refrigerator she kept next to her desk, "but the prices are ridiculous." She sighed and ran one hand through her fading hair, then realized what she had done and patted it back into place. "Stupid, isn't it? I should care how I look." She went back to muttering about prices as she pushed some papers around on her desk. "On the black market we can get bread for only ninety-five cents a loaf-can you believe that? And even beef. I know we shouldn't, but we haven't had roast beef here for . . . you know, I can't remember how long it's been, but other things, like tea and coffee and sugar, we just can't afford the
m any more, white or black market."
"Is it that serious?"
"It is if you're accustomed to those kinds of things. The kids won't miss it. God knows what most of them have been surviving on. I mean, this is a step up. We've got milk and potatoes and bread and what vegetables we can grow ourselves, so we're okay. We were supposed to get a truckload of canned goods salvaged from Sacramento, but it never arrived. Probably hijacked; we'll be able to buy the stuff on the black market next week." She sighed and sank back in her chair. The chair sank back too. It creaked and squeaked and swung so far backward that for a moment, I thought she was falling, but she was only putting her feet up on the desk. Both shoes had holes in the bottoms.
"You need new shoes," I pointed out, sipping my lemonade.
"I know. I need a lot of things." She rubbed her forehead tiredly, and for just a moment, she looked old.
I didn't know what to say. I said, "Pretty good group of kids, aren't they?"
She grunted.
"I mean, they're not as bad as I thought they would be. I mean, you were telling me about their psychoses. I expected them to be pretty screwed up."
B-Jay shook her head. "No, not this bunch. Most of these kids have been under some kind of human guidance. They're still human, at least. But just barely."
"Oh." I finished the lemonade and put the glass down on her desk. "Where exactly did all of them come from? This little boy, Alec, for instance, the one with the bear."
"I don't know. Orphans, like everybody else, I guess. When you kill off three-quarters of the human race, all you have left are orphans. Who has relatives any more?" She sniffed and wiped her nose. "Their papers haven't come over the wire yet. God knows when they will. It would help. Supposedly a team of caseworkers have worked these kids; we're supposed to get their reports. Don't hold your breath. In the meantime, we'll just have to start figuring them out from scratch all over again." She looked over at me. "There's something going on with every single one of these kids, Jim, don't ever doubt it, no matter how good they look. They're just as badly damaged as the rest of us, probably more so, still reeling from the plagues and the aftereffects. We're all going to be living with it for the rest of our lives, and so will the next umpteen generations until the world gets back to normal-if ever. The wounds may not always show, and maybe not in ways we can easily recognize, but they're there; that's why we've all got to be super-careful. We might be rubbing salt in them without ever knowing it. That's why I didn't insist on washing hands and faces this morning before lunch; it was more important to get them to trust us by giving them food than to confuse them by giving them another set of rules to learn. They could have seen washing as a condition necessary to having lunch, and we had to show them that lunch-and our love-has no conditions attached. You'd better keep an eye on that Alec kid, by the way. I'm surprised they sent him up here."
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