“Perhaps we could best use the minutes we have together to discuss any questions you may have about what role you can play as an individual in making tomorrow’s world a better place. With nearly three billion of us on earth right now, and billions more coming within your lifetime, you will undoubtedly have some questions about the ability of developments in science and technology to meet the world’s rapidly growing needs. Some of you may have questions about where you can fit in to help science meet these new challenges. If so, I’ll try to answer those questions, or if I can’t, to direct you to where you might find answers. I welcome your questions now.”
For the first time since the visual “demonstration,” there was total silence.
The better part of a minute passed. The students were getting fidgety. Then Mr. Ivesson broke the silence.
“They are always a little shy at first. But they’ll warm up to you. So I’ll just get the ball rolling by asking you a question that is directly in your line of expertise. Do you see any limit to the use to which atomic energy can ultimately be put? For my part, through its application I can see mankind ascending to currently unimaginable heights, solving one problem after another until we reach the realm of what I like to call ‘pure life,’ a truly worthy goal.”
You could have heard a pin drop. Dr. Pearson lowered his eyes to the floor, trying to make sense of the words he had just heard. Then, as if to himself, but loud enough to be heard, he said, “Pure life? Where there are no problems left to solve? One wonders what would actually happen to people if there were no problems left to solve. Anyone I know whose life seems problem-free either invents problems to keep himself challenged, or he atrophies and dies a slow death. Man has had the means for millennia already to transport himself into a state of induced euphoria, if that’s what life is all about. Alcohol, hallucinatory drugs, morphine, peyote cactus, just to name a few of them, all are perfectly capable of freeing a man from his problems by inducing in him a state closer to death than to life…. No, eliminating problems is not the road leading to a better world. Eliminating evil is that road. And they are not at all the same thing. As a matter of fact, right now…,” he paused and looked around at the students and at the magnificent teaching theater, “right now I can conceive of no greater evil or curse on our race than to succeed in solving everyone’s problems for them.”
Even before he had completed that last sentence, a voice boomed out from the back of the room.
“Hey, Doc! What do you think of the brand-new fuel injection system like in the Rambler Rebel? I got one for my birthday last week and I’m betting anyone it’s the hottest stock car on the road. You’re a scientist! Tell these cruds here what a really good engine is, would you?”
He gestured toward two comrades flanking him on either side.
“Oh, get a life! Doc, tell this jerk once and for all that a double-carbed Rocket Eight will outdrag any old Rambler on earth!”
“Boys! Can’t you forget your cars just once? That’s not why Dr. Pearson is here. Now let’s have some good questions. I told you to go home last night and bring a list of them to class today. Ruthie, read us one of your questions.”
“Me, Mistah Ahvsin?… Me?” peeped an alarmed voice from the front row, long curled eyelashes batting. “Why, Mistah Ahvsin, ah just couldn’t think up a really good one … sir?…”
“Well, Ella, we can depend on you to have an intelligent question.”
One of the horn-rimmed girls near the rear sat up straight, adjusted her spectacles, and read from her prepared list.
“All right, Mr. Ivesson. Dr. Pearson, what advancements do you foresee that will relieve the institution of womanhood of the drudgeries of her slavery to the daily chores of homemaking? Please be specific.”
Ella looked up from her list and readjusted her spectacles.
Again the visitor faltered, shuffling his feet on the tile floor before venturing a response.
“Actually, Ella, I haven’t given that issue too much thought, and I’ll tell you why. It has been more my concern to extend the use of our present conveniences into the hands of the millions of women worldwide for whom housework is real drudgery. To do this we are developing a way to harness solar energy by panels for cheap electricity available to all and to produce simple electron stoves that will fry an egg in seconds without heating the top of the stove and will roast meat in a few moments. It’s merely a question of making the roast complete a circuit. But considering the conveniences we already possess in America, will future refinements of them make that much difference for us in the years ahead? I doubt it.”
Ella couldn’t think of a response and took refuge behind the four or five hands that shot up in the air.
“Tom,” acknowledged the teacher with pleasure.
“Sir, please don’t get the idea we’re just a bunch of complainers. It’s just that there’s always room for improvement. We wouldn’t have progress at all if everyone was satisfied with things as they are. A man can never say that everything he has is the best possible or that he has the best of everything. Isn’t that what tomorrow is all about? Working to improve our lot? Making life easier, safer, more enjoyable?”
“Tom,” replied Dr. Pearson. “Let me just raise two points with you, two points we often leave out of our reckoning, especially if we are young or if we’ve never really grown up. In the first place, when you say ‘improving our lot,’ whose lot do you mean? When we pray ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ who is ‘us’?… And in the second place, do you think that everything that improves you always makes your life ‘easier, safer, and more enjoyable’? By the same token, does everything that makes your life ‘easier, safer, and more enjoyable’ always improve you? My dear young friends, the men and women who have risen to the greatest heights, whose love of life has been the keenest and most contagious, have reached that point only through much pain and suffering and great difficulty, often voluntarily taken upon themselves for the good of others. They tell us it’s the only way to true and deep happiness. You know whom I am talking about: Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Blaise Pascal, Albert Schweitzer, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Rose of Lima, Our Lord Jesus Christ, for goodness’ sake! All of these marvelous human beings exuded great joy because they embraced suffering for the benefit of others. Each of them sought in a great variety of ways to relieve their fellowmen of crushing burdens, burdens of every description, for which even the strongest back was no match. When the burden you are bearing becomes bearable, that’s when you can help somebody else with their crushing burden. And that’s when you discover what life and joy are all about. Not just fun which comes and goes, but joy which comes and stays. A life without burdens is a life without love. And a life without love is death.”
“Mary Sue.”
“My daddy wouldn’t like that kind of talk. He says that your only chance for happiness in life is to work for what you want and then go out and get it. He’d call what you just told us impractical. And I see his point. If he saw life as you see it, we wouldn’t be living in our big beautiful house, we wouldn’t have our fiberglass speedboat that’s so much fun in the summer, I wouldn’t have my show horse Sammy, we’d be down to one car, we wouldn’t be able to afford closets full of really nice clothes to choose from, we wouldn’t have friends that share our way of life. Heck, our life would be just the pits!”
Nods of agreement were seen on all sides.
“But wouldn’t your father say that it is important to live in such a way as to make the world a better place for everyone, not just for us?”
Mary Sue balked and curled her eyebrows.
“I don’t think he would say that. He’d say everyone needs to look after their own happiness. That’s just the way things are. People are responsible for their own happiness or misery. That’s not my daddy’s problem. His job is to see that we have what we need to be happy. If he spent his time worrying about other people’s misery when they should be doing something about it themselves, where would that leave hi
s family? What else does it mean for us to be living ‘in the land of the free and the home of the brave’?”
Silence descended on the classroom. A few people sitting near the front heard these words in a low murmur.
“The free and the brave? You’ve just described slaves and cowards.”
Then in a louder voice, “Surely there are those among you who care about the grinding poverty, the destitution, the slavery of so many of our fellowmen, and who want to do something effective to give them and their children a chance.”
“Of course!” declared a girl from the middle of the theater, glaring at him indignantly. “Almost every Sunday in church we are reminded of them, and we give ‘as we are able.’ My aunt actually works in a church refugee camp in Jordan.”
Nobody laughed.
Things had come to an evident impasse. Mr. Pfister took out his gold pocket watch and decided it was time to be moving on to the next class. Mr. Ivesson thanked the visitor in some dismay and thought to himself that this man was surely the oddest atomic scientist he had ever run across.
For the remainder of the afternoon, Mr. Pfister made an attempt to guide the discussions along more fruitful lines, but certain elements could simply not be evaded—the rudeness that erupted unchecked in every classroom, the self-absorbed mind-set evidenced by most of the students, their assumption that any future worth having would necessarily include ever increasing prosperity, the extravagance of much of the underused equipment in each theater. It was a world filled with magnificent technology that very dearly wanted the people to match it.
Finally the ordeal was over. Grateful to be back in his “office for the day,” Steve confessed his desire to take a little nap in one of the reclining chairs. Mr. Pfister responded well to the idea, stating that he had another hour’s work in his office before he could leave the school and guide the Pearsons to “Seafoam” to enjoy dinner with his wife and him “in a quieter environment.”
In a few winks Steve was sound asleep. When Kay came in a few minutes later, she placed a pillow under his drooping head and kissed him on the forehead.
“My poor dear Steve,” she whispered.
The only other event of significance that afternoon occurred as they were leaving the school to follow the principal home for dinner. When they got into their DeSoto, something felt wrong right away. Then the engine wouldn’t start. Steve went out and raised the hood. He had no trouble spotting the problem: all the spark plugs were missing.
There was no doubt about it as he slammed down the hood: the front end of the car was at the wrong angle. However, checking the front tires, he found them properly inflated. Then he bent over and took a good look under the car.
“Well, at least they could have got together on it,” he told Kay, straightening up and shaking his head.
Under the rear axle were two cement blocks raising the rear wheels just off the ground.
“What a shame. One prank wrecked the other one.”
Naturally Mr. Pfister apologized profusely and arranged for a nearby garage to repair the disabled car over the supper hour at the school’s expense. Then, escorting them to his gleaming black Chrysler, he drove them to “Seafoam,” his estate in the hills on the west end of the municipality.
“And what are you chuckling about?” inquired Kay of Steve from her place in the backseat.
“Reminds me of a prank I engineered in my high school days. But I’m sure it didn’t take as many of us to lift the rear end of that Model T off the ground and slide a couple of blocks of wood under the axle as it took them to lift our DeSoto off the ground.”
XI
Dinner was a relatively pleasant break in a day otherwise full of strain. The affair had all the calm and coolness of polite social decorum. The hosts made a point of steering clear of controversial subjects.
“We just want you to relax in your little interlude in our home,” was the way Mrs. Pfister put it. “It’s not often my husband and I have an evening at home together, but when we do, we like to leave our work at the door and enjoy the peace and quiet. I inherited a real estate company which I have been running now for about ten years. That means both of us are with people all day long. It’s so nice to look forward to coming home to a clean house and a gracious and delicious meal after a full day at work.”
Dinner was served by Sarah, a large jovial Black woman who, they were assured, was absolutely indispensable around the house, especially as both of them were much too busy to look after the place properly. Kay imagined that it must indeed be a challenging job to chase dust off everything in such a spacious house inhabited by only two people and their domestic.
Too bad they have no children, she thought. He can’t be much over forty, and she could be my age. What a difference children would make around here!
After dinner they sat in the living room for half an hour, sipping expensive cognac. In the course of their conversation, they discovered that Steve was to be the last or “culminating” feature in a rather full program. The school concert band would be kicking the evening off with two futuristic pieces followed by three short talks of “no more than five minutes each” presented by three faculty members pertaining to future trends in literature, in South American politics, and in telecommunication. After that the Drama Department would be presenting a relevant skit, and then would come Steve’s address which would “gather up the loose ends and present them in a sweeping diorama of the World of Tomorrow.”
Dr. Pearson understood his task. He was far less certain of his duty.
“O yes!” exclaimed the principal. “There is a reception in your honor at the home of the Leif Landgrens on Merry Rose Lane in the Queen’s Crest Estates. Leif is executive vice president of the Three-N Corporation and his wife is a renowned obstetrician-gynecologist who serves on the school board. They have a son in Harvard, a daughter who is a junior in our high school, and a son in grade school. They are a charming family. Other members of the school board and their spouses will also be there, as well as our senior administrative staff. It will be a delightful way to close our day of celebrations with you.”
XII
If the size of the audience congregated in the music auditorium that evening was any indication, the Associated Parents and Teachers of the Reedville High School had more than a casual interest in the future. Only the last rows in the balcony were vacant. Dr. and Mrs. Pearson were accorded the honor of viewing the balance of the evening’s performance from the Surveyor’s Box, a comfortable elevated platform in the left wing of the stage just out of sight of the audience. The vantage point was excellent: they could see everything that happened on stage without being seen. There was room in the box for only two people, which limited their interaction with everyone except each other.
The first ten minutes of the program were consumed by announcements and business items concerning the APT, delivered out in front of the curtain by the president, the mother of one of the students. Meanwhile the members of the band were hustled to their places on stage. They and their director, the chap who had snapped to attention that morning, seemed unusually keyed up by the prospect of this particular performance. Kay thought she had never seen such handsome uniforms. In the spotlights from above, the shimmering hues of silky bright yellow and green blended in stunning harmony with each other in splendid contrast to the braided bright red tassels dangling from their epaulettes.
A weak applause was heard and madame president ducked backstage. A few moments of heavy suspense prevailed. The band director raised his arms. Then he plunged his organization into the crashing chords of the opening number at the very moment the curtains flew apart as if in alarm. Some applause greeted the band’s appearance but quickly retreated behind the noise. The conductor was making powerful definitive sweeps of his arms in response to which the musicians were plunging ahead in muddled rhythmic lurches. “Modern harmonies” battered up against each other from all sides. At first a semblance of order was detectible in the belting discords, a sort of
alternation between the sustained and the moving parts of the piece. From where they were sitting the Pearsons observed that this din seemed to be exactly what the conductor was expecting. He never once showed any sign of faltering as he pumped his long arms up and down in great pendulum strokes, giving the impression of exercising perfect control.
Before long, however, the cacophony became so tumultuous that this impression of control slowly disintegrated into the sham it was. The individual sections of the band were clearly now going their own stentorian ways, and even within each section there seemed to be little concern for presenting a united front. Steve noticed two trombonists who shared a music stand arguing over whether it was time to turn the page. The same issue was causing a furious debate in the flute section. About then, with a courageous display of self-assurance, the conductor flung himself at the tubas just as the piccolos pierced the air with a shrill squeal. Undaunted, he turned and made a commanding gesture at the clarinets just as two of them laid their instruments across their laps, only to be stabbed in the back by a deep blast from the tubas.
“Subtle signals, these!” Kay shouted into Steve’s one uncovered ear.
“How will this ever end?” he called back.
She shrugged her shoulders. “The uniforms look nice.”
Steve was now covering both ears. The tears were rolling down their cheeks.
The poor conductor’s face had turned a gorgeous vermilion. He looked like a man on his forty-ninth push-up whose capacity is fifty. Finally, with a look of desperation on his face, he held his arms aloft straight up into the air until he thought that every last player had seen them and had settled down on one note. Then he triumphantly dropped them and the battle came to a halt—except for one lone guerrilla, a third saxophonist whom news of the armistice did not reach on time. She continued to fire away after everyone else had laid down their arms. The startled conductor attempted to redeem the situation by pretending this was intentional and directing her into a proper closure. But the moment she realized she was all alone, she stopped playing in midair. And the farce was over.
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