'70
Spring Sale
Herb was always handy with tools — well, most of the time, unless his thumbs got in the way. This Saturday he finally wrapped up the job of painting their bedroom after incessant prodding from his wife, Sadie, who had selected the paint at Sears two years ago, hoping he would get around to covering up the discoloration loitering for thirty years. Sadie had painted the room then─ still a youngster of thirty-six. To Herb painting was for women and faggots. A man was designed to do something more utilitarian with his hands than to waste their strength on meeting the cosmetic needs of women. Their bedroom served them well regardless of the original cream color now sick yellow with puffs here and there of nicotine mist and sharply outlined variations from changing family pictures on the wall and furniture locations over the years. Sadie, however, reminded him that the bedroom had been freshly painted when they moved in forty years ago and was apparently conducive to a more vital life, since they had conceived five children within six years. "Though I surely don't long for anymore children and certainly don't wish to carry on like honeymooners in bed, it would be pleasing to gaze up at soft pastels before drifting off to sleep."
Anyway, he dumped all the rollers, brushes and cans and roller pans in the garbage can out back, muttering good riddance to them. He strolled through his yard and checked the ravages of winter. He raked up some twigs and acorn shells that the squirrels left behind. "Why can't those little buggers shell them in their nests?" he grated to himself. "If those bushy-tail rats shake the bunches off my grape trellis again this year, I'm putting poison around."
For thirty-five years, he had been threatening to do that, but Sadie would never allow him "to offend God's creatures"─but more importantly, she observed, it was too dangerous with the children, and divers dogs they had had over the years.
When he had reminded her that there was no dog anymore since the kids had grown up and married off, she countered, "Well, we have to think of the grandchildren now and their dogs." Then she added peevishly, "of course, we never see the children anymore." Herb always shook his head over this comment she habitually made─especially one day last August when she reflected this sentiment, and he had not yet recuperated from having the kids over for a barbecue on the Fourth; the twenty-two grandchildren had run him ragged to the point that during the summer he hoped that the Labor Day sales come-ons would be so outrageously and attractively misrepresented that the whole crazy brood would spend their day shopping and stay away—they didn't.
He decided it was still too chilly to be doing outdoor work so he headed for the basement and gathered up his plumbing tools to undo his son-law's botched hook-up in his absence last fall when he was hospitalized for gall- bladder surgery. Sadie had talked her unskillful son-in-law into installing an old faucet that her husband had lying around the garage with the rest of his forty year accumulation of hardware and lumber from the endless projects he saddled himself with after every annual IRS refund check. The first thing Herb did when released from the hospital was to check his son-law's work. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Sadie, why did you ask him to this? It leaks more than the other one. Not only that he's got the cold water on the left! Damn teachers what the hell do they know about plumbing—or anything for that matter!"
After bending over the kitchen sink for forty-five minutes installing new washers and then turning the valves under the sink back on, he was satisfied that the washers worked perfectly—except for a drip now and then. He said—-he thought to his wife—who earlier had been at the kitchen table browsing through a Sears sales catalogue, "There, Sadie, good as new." He turned around and she was no longer there. He walked through the house and found her in the bedroom. She had been shampooing the blue carpet to remove the pink paint stains and was now busy scraping the globs off the windows. She was pleased that the faucet no longer leaked, but added, "I almost burnt my lips last week drawing a glass of water—can't you do something about switching the cold water where it belongs? The grandchildren could scald themselves. They're all coming over next week for Easter dinner, you know."
"Don't our kids ever spend a holiday in their own homes?—at least you'd think they'd go to the in-laws once in a while; it's always us!" He went back into the kitchen and squeezed himself under the cabinet. Forgetting to turn the valves back off, he applied torque to a compression nut, instead of turning to the left. His powerful hands and arms cracked the slip washer and it started raining down on him. Frustrated and swearing at his daughter for marrying a teacher, he tried tightening it more and he cracked the nut as well. He turned off the valves and stuck his head out of the cabinet looking disgusted just as Sadie returned to resume her thrill-reading of the spring sales. "Well, he said, "I guess it's time to buy one of those new fangled single-lever faucets you've been pestering me about. Is there one on sale in the catalogue?"
Noise and confusion thundered from the back door and his middle daughter's brood jumped the steps into the kitchen, the mother following. "Oh, what a pleasant surprise!" Sadie rhapsodized as she bounced about the kitchen hugging all five of her daughter's energized children before accepting a kiss from her daughter, Jean. Being the "middle child" Jean always had to make the overture in kissing her mother, who, on the other hand, always gestured melodramatically in greeting her other children—especially the boys. "So what brings you here today?"
Jean said, "Oh, the usual; I've come for the discount card...have a lot of Easter shopping to do." Sadie, a retired Sears employee, had a lifetime 10% discount card and whenever her children shopped they took advantage of it— charging their purchases in her name and then when the statement came in they would settle up. Sadie was a whiz at keeping records and whenever there was a question like—"Gee, Mom, are you sure that was my purchase and not John's wife?"—they would always yield to her wisdom.
"Ah, yes, never pay full price! As long as the ticker holds up, eh?" She had said that a thousand times to her children the thousand times they came to use the card. Though utterly delighted that they used the card freely, she would always remind them of her heart condition and that someday the card, if not her, would be missed. "Well, since your father needs a new faucet I think I'll go to Sears with you."
Jean seemed disappointed. "Well, I hadn't planned on taking the children. I thought I could leave them here with you; it's so much easier...so much more can get done that way."
"Fine, leave them here. You're father can't do anything until the faucet is here anyway, right Herb?"
Herb looked up with ambivalence as he was greeting his grandchildren who were busily tugging on his work pants and belt or jostling with him. Herb was always elated to see his grandchildren as long as he was not stuck with them and could head for the cellar or garage on the pretense of a "project". He masked his scowl with a nod and a vacant smile. "But don't take forever—I know how you two get lost in the store."
He headed for the TV in the living room to turn on pro-bowling. The kids followed him in after they raided the cookie boxes and the grandmother broke out the soda cans before she and her daughter left for the store. The kids were fascinated with bowling for about two minutes; then each took turns getting up from the floor to change the channel whenever a commercial came on. Each time the grandfather bellowed that they change it back, but after some twenty minutes he yielded, dividing his time watching an old movie with them and staring at the digital clock that incongruously stood along side a thick 78rpm album on a long forgotten console phonograph.
After another hour elapsed the movie ended to his relief—and much to the relief of the middle child who had been pouting through-out because the others would not let her watch old re-runs.
Restless, he ordered them to put their coats on and he paraded them out to the garage, handing a man-size lawn rake to the next eldest and two toy rakes to the tiny tots. He rolled out the light garden cart for his favorite, the middle child. Her broad smile overrode her perennial pout. Pruning shears went to the oldest boy. Not much got done; but at least plenty of play-time and energy were expended outside the house—tossing weathered acorns at each other as they rolled and wrestled on the lawn. Their coats were littered with dry, mulched leaves. After a half hour the kids one by one started disappearing into the house under the pretense of having to go to the bathroom. Of course, Herb knew they were raiding the cookies again and watching TV. Left alone, he put the things away, fiddled with some junk then went back inside. He looked up at the clock on the kitchen wall and moaned. He chanced dismantling the old faucet, hoping they would be home soon. The faucet was so corroded that he stripped the threads on the fitting under the sink where the supply tube connected, but he managed to remove the faucet without chipping the porcelain sink too badly. He was certain the new faucet would cover most of the chipping. Looking up at the clock again and shaking his head and mumbling profanities, he sat down at the table and rustled through the catalogue. He was delighted to see that the ball-action faucet was indeed on sale. After a while and growing impatient, he went into see what the children were doing. In spite of the cookie crumbs, leaves and acorn shells littering the floor, and soda cans making rings on the tables and on top of the TV, he was content—at least they were quiet.
The little ones jumped up when they heard their mother pull into the driveway and ran to the kitchen door. Sadie and Jean returned with half the inventory from Sears. {It is miraculous what a 10% incentive, together with a sale, can do for the shopping spirit of women.} Mountains of bags and boxes were deposited on the dining room table as Jean opened each before her children to check her expertise in estimating sizes. Of course, each pair of shoes, each dress, sweater and jacket jelled with the intuitive, measuring eye of motherhood. Sadie, too had to break open the bags to show her husband the wonderful bargains she had gotten for all their grandchildren.
With each bag he expected a box to emerge so he could get right to work installing the shiny new and modern faucet. His patience at an end he demanded to see his faucet.
"Oh, that...," she said as though the farthest thing from her mind, "they can't deliver till Monday."
"Deliver?...What the devil are you talking about?...a little faucet you couldn't carry after carting all this home?" he queried in a distressed tone, gesturing to the mountains of sales items on the dining table.
"Oh, yes, that's right the faucet!...Well, they didn't have it in stock. Besides, I couldn't resist the offer—what with the fabulous sale and the 10%, I saved all of thirty dollars!"
"Are you telling me we have to go the weekend without water in the kitchen— why didn't you just forget the sale item and buy whatever they had?"
"Oh I wouldn't pay list price!"
"Sadie, for God's sake, this is an emergency and you still get your 10% off! And how could you save thirty dollars on a fifty-nine dollar item? Furthermore, what's the difference?—just what you bought for the grandchildren could have paid for a crate of faucets!"
"I'll have you know everyone of these was on sale—and I still got my discount," she said as she held up to her breast a toddler's sweater.
He shook his head in disgust and reached out his hand. "Give me the card, I'll go get it myself."
"Oh, no, you can't now! Everything's signed for. I 'm not passing up a thirty dollar saving because you can't wait a few days. Why, do you realize the deal? Heavens, along with the single-lever faucet and a beautiful walnut-stained cabinet with a Formica top, they're throwing in a new kitchen sink!"
Short Story: 4400 words:
Copyright 1988, Richard R. Kennedy
A copy of Plato's Dialogues patched with duct tape was endearingly pressed to his tweed. A wrinkled folder containing copies of a course outline and a reading list was in his other hand as the old professor hurriedly left his office and headed for his class to launch the new semester. He hoped, though forty years of experience dictated otherwise, this would be a banner year. He wanted to retire with a flourish—recover some of the glory years when he began teaching after the noble war. The campus then was filled with vibrantly searching WWII veterans who had not so much as dreamt before and during the war that they would ever be so honored as to be granted a college education through the G.I. Bill.
Not only veterans were gripped by the thirst for knowledge. The nation was on a high: knowledge was in demand because of the euphorically expanding nation in which anything was possible. Teenage males fresh out of high school and through some means escaped Universal Military Training; the females lucky enough to have parents willing or substantially well off to invest in forward-thinking daughters—came to the campus already mature and responsible to prepare to take on the adult task of higher learning. However, over the years a glut prevailed, glazing over the reverence of college for its own sake in favor of but another step in the syndromic path to material gain.
As he entered the building to the classroom, he paused in the entry, switching the folder to join the book, He unbuttoned his elbow-patched tweed jacket to extract from the vest-pocket of his cardigan his father's old Elgin watch, tethered to a silver chain his wife had given him years ago. He was on time. He remembered how years ago, no matter how late he arrived, the students then would always wait beyond the mandated twenty minutes grace. Today, God forbid, he should be five minutes late with a punctual class., for the room would be emptied out in a flash. As a rule, however, students arrived later than he. He wondered if compulsory attendance in the old days helped sustain the respectful attitude. Nevertheless, he thought it ironic that attendance-taking was least needed then and more accurately superfluous. As he passed by a few smokers in the corridor, he recalled how in the old days the corridors were smoke-leaden. In this respect at least, he reflected, great advances have been made.
He turned into his room; at his desk he drew the class list print-out from his folder: there were some thirty names at minimum. He looked up as a host of tank shirts of both sexes and other motley vogue drifted into the room. For a couple of decades now he bemoaned the lost styles of dress shirts, creased trousers, and blazers of the youth and the crisp lace blouses and plaid or pleated skirts of the young ladies. He glanced round and estimated there were still some twenty students still to enter. He called for the registration cards. He asked one young lady, whose heavy strands of long hair cob-webbed her tan shoulders and curving descent of her loose bosoms, to hand out the required and reserved reading lists while he matched the cards to the class list─there were still eighteen short. He could hear them moaning and groaning as the reading list was being distributed.
One young man blurted out, "I don't have the time for this Sshii...!" as he waved the paper in front of him. "Professor Garret, I'm a business major. This required list is bad enough without the hogwash of library time for the reserve readings!"
Garret peered over the rims of his glasses and stared momentarily at the troubled youth with an olive tank shirt accentuating his muscular arms and shoulders. In a placid tone the professor said, "Business, you say? My, that's splendid─I wish we had more of you taking philosophy."
The youth shook his head and compressed a smirk, replying, "You can be sure, I didn't want to...only course available for my schedule."
A youth in a Mets t-shirt, sitting next to him spaced by several desks grunted to confirm, "Seems like the registrar rigged it so there would be little choice!"
The professor smiled, turning attention to him. "I too am entitled to make a living, young man. I think you might be right, the administration feels sorry for me. After all, I'm not exactly popularity timber, you know." He heard light twitter among the weaker sex. "Of course,...uh, what is your name, young man?"
The youth in the Mets garb answered, Jimmy...Jimmy Collins."
"Well, Mr. Collins, it seems your plight is not as dire as..." interrupting himself to glance at the one in the muscle shirt. "And your name, sir?"
"Oh, just call me Rocky," he rumbled. The ladies in the class giggled.
Garret looked down his class list. "Hmm, perhaps you don't have a problem, after all, Mr. Rocky, as I don't see anyone by that name on the list." There were a few chuckles and giggles.
"Oh, ...the joker card, eh?...Tony DiAngelo."
"Oh, yes, I see it here now." He looked up from the list and aimed his eyes at Jimmy. "At any rate, Mr. Collins, you say you do have other choices; whereas Mr. DiAngelo does not."
Jimmy jumped, "Oh, sure, if I want to take drudgery like Statistics in sociology or the history of television!"
"So, there is hope, after all, Mr. Collins: at least, you value philosophy over the others. You should feel at home here....Apparently there is no such satisfying compromise for Mr. DiAngelo." He glanced over at the youth unconsciously flexing his biceps. The poor man has no options and is unhappy with his new home."
"Well, I wouldn't call Indian Theatre an option." He laughed and turned his head side to side glancing at his peers apparently to urge them to pick up his laugh. He had few takers.
"Why that's simply marvelous, Mr. DiAngelo, that you indeed had a choice and as a result you have not chosen this one under duress; consequently time in the library cannot not logically breed a feeling of tyranny and subsequent contempt since it follows that you have voluntarily accepted this course." He grinned at the young man who seemed flustered, and went on in a conciliatory tone, "Lest I be accused of devaluating Theatre, let me assure you that the history of theatre in India is a marvelously interesting and culturally enriching course."
DiAngelo slapped his forehead. "Not the American Indian?" The class laughed.
"If you read the entries in the catalogue, you would not be surprised, Mr. DiAngelo."
"Well, I'll be," DiAngelo slouched down in his desk-chair, then popped up again. "Maybe...Na,...what good would that do me in business!"
The professor chuckled. "Oh, one never knows, Mr. DiAngelo,...just as you don't know yet what philosophy has to do with business."
A young dark-complexioned lady in hip-high cut jeans and breasts wrapped in a bandanna, got up out of her seat. "Well, I still have an option," she announced, and slinked to the professor's desk. "No problem for me is Theatre─in fact, sounds cool." She thrust out her hand to him, while with the other hand flipping the reading list on the desk. "I'd like my card back."
Calmly, Garret looked up and asked pointing to his class list, "Would you point out your name for me, please?" She complied, and he then shuffled through the cards. As he was about to hand it to her, he briefly flicked back his wrist, withholding it from her while he said, "You, know young lady, it grieves me to do this─what with your Greek name it seems a shame that you would abandon the great Greek philosophers, the founders, as it were, of civilization."
She wrested the card from him as she grated. "Couldn't care less, prof,..." She abruptly headed for the door as his and others’ eyes followed. She turned, "In case, you haven't heard, Dr. Garret, there's a different civilization today." She left, and his jaw dropped.
He cleared his throat and composed himself. He stood up and paced awhile before turning to the class. He cleared his throat again. "Well, class, it behooves me to begin─it appears the others on the list have chosen a priori not to attend and are at this moment obviously beating down the doors to Theatre, Statistics or, God have mercy, the History of Television." The class laughed─even DiAngelo and Collins. He continued, "I promise not to bore you this first day for too long. I shall keep it short so that hopefully you will be motivated to head for the bookstore. I think you will be pleased when requesting the texts, though there are several─and very fat─ they are paper back and shouldn't cost you more than twelve dollars in total." The class cheered. "Ah, yes, you have reason in this day and age to rejoice─the poor girl who just left will have tantrums when she finds out the price of the drama text!─the hand-me-downs alone are going for forty dollars." The class whistled. With a twinkle in his eyes, he said, "Perhaps, then, out of gratitude you will find it in your hearts to humor me in my final year."
He spent most of the period talking to each, one on one, to get to know them as living individuals in lieu of mere names in the register and faceless physical space in class. Other than for their names, grade levels and majors, he would seldom ask a member the same questions. He was careful to frame them so that the students would be required to explain beyond yes and no. For instance, when it came to Collins' turn, Garret asked him why he felt that there was, however little and reluctantly, some value in choosing philosophy.
Collins scratched his head for a while, nervously grinned and replied, "I guess there's always some hope."
In waiting a moment, it became obvious that nothing more was forthcoming, so Garret asked, "Could it be, Mr. Collins, that by choosing the least of three evils one could salvage some value through the mere satisfaction of making a judgment call? Tell me why judgment calls and not simplified, clear-cut objectives and decisions are made more often than not─surely, Mr. Collins, you have had to make other such choices."
"Oh, yeah, Dr. Garret, many times things don't work out like they should and I guess you sort of have to compromise and hope you get by."
"For instance?─aside from having to choose this course─what choice did you make that was compromising to a more resolute decision?" the professor pursued.
"Well, just this summer, I almost made one─I guess, depending on how you look at it. I was making good money as a roofer. It's tough work, but it ends your budget problems. My boss tried to persuade me to stay on as a union-paid full time employee...." He smiled at Garret. "I gotta tell you, doc, I was really tempted. I figured I could keep the job and go for my degree at nights─and never have any student loan problems again....But then I figured, Jeez, if I did opt for it, I'd be an old man by the time I got a degree in engineering."
"Are you sure that was the reason, Jim?" Garret asked with a glint of skepticism in his eye.
A girl, who was fresh out of high school, chimed in, "I'll bet, Dr. Garret, that Jimmy was afraid he would never get that degree."
Jimmy looked over at her. "Yeah, you might be right there. After a day's work on a roof you don't much care to crack the books."
The professor rubbed his chin and then inserted, "I noticed you said at the outset that you almost made the compromising decision. I take it then you made an absolute decision that by coming back here you made the only purely logical decision because you perceive yourself primarily as a student and not a roofer."
"Check, doc," he agreed, shaking his fist. "I would have made a mess of my life if I had."
"You are a very perceptive lad; there's no wonder why you chose philosophy, then, is there, Jim?"
The young girl who Garret learned in the class interview was an eager freshman already bent on a writing career. In questioning her, Garret was intrigued when she reverted back to Jim's situation and reminded him that Jim's decision was in fact uncompromising and therefore had never really answered his question. She proceeded to cite the following case: "When my closest girl friend graduated with me last June, she made one of the worst decisions in her life. Of course, I blame her father because it never should have been her privilege to make the decision."
"Oh?...And just why was that, Yvonne?" Garret was already beginning to feel that his final year might indeed turn out to be a rather successful one.
"Well, she and I had planned for years to come here together as English majors. But she also wanted her cake and to eat it too. Her father promised her a new car as a graduation present. Instead of just buying her any new car, he made the mistake of letting her pick it out─without any restrictions. Of all things she fell in love with a Porsche! Her father, of course, objected....Well, being the spoiled brat that she always was, she stormed up a fit of passion to the extent that neither would talk to each other. Her mother interceded by trying to convince her daughter that a modest little Civic or Escort was more than enough to expect from them. My friend, having lost all sense of values, would not even follow up with pre-registration and announced to her father that since she was not going to college, she was entitled to the Porsche and in actuality was saving them money! Her father was so infuriated that he bought her the Porsche and then promptly threw her out of the house!" The class burst into laughter. DiAngelo blurted, "The father should've thrown her out to begin with! To buy her the car and then do it is ridiculous!"
"I agree," Yvonne said. "That's like throwing the baby out with the bath water. But as I said, she was spoiled all her life and knew that the father would relent which he did. He was so gratified to have her back home after staying with me for three weeks, he completely ignored his primary wish to have her go to college. And as Zeus is my witness, by this time next year she will have her cake and eat it too!"
Professor Garret arched his gray brows. "Are you serious, Yvonne? You really think the father will relent after all that?"
"Absolutely."
Jim piped, "Then where's the compromise?"
The young girl quickly responded, "Only that she loses a year for being a wretched daughter! But more so in that she has lost her self-respect."
The blonde with the tan shoulders interjected, "Seems to me that little bitch never had it to lose."
Yvonne's bright eyes popped innocently and she cried, "Oh, no, all of us have it by nature, though we may not realize it at any given time. Someday she'll look in the mirror and notice it missing."
Jim shook his head and said, "I don't know, Yvonne; I still don't get how that ties in with it." He then glanced over at his professor.
"Well," Garret began, then rubbed his chin, "at first, this girl had the option of choosing a car within reasonable means as any of you would have done. Perhaps the father in leaving it to her was testing her character. Some of us might have said right off that since there was the expense of a four year college, basic transportation is more than enough─perhaps even gratefully settling for a used car or perhaps even none at all. But this young lady worked herself into a corner by displacing her values in education and seeing only the glamour value of an automobile. Having graduated from high school, and evidently being well-off, she had a zest for immediate adult life of high society. Therefore she chose, without even realizing the compromise, the lesser value. By this time next year, even if her parents' do not send her to college, the Porsche will no longer possess the value in more ways than one as she values it today. Furthermore and ironically, if she does win and her parents relent by sending her to college, she will feel more cheated because of an invaluable year that she lost. I would go so far as to say that when Yvonne returns home for the Thanksgiving break this girl will have realized that she disastrously compromised her values because she will be forced to look into that mirror and compare herself with the progress of her friend."
As was his custom at the close of the first class he quoted a brief passage from the "Apology" in which Socrates asked his persecutors to rebuke his children should they grow up caring for riches, rather than virtue. Because the class had interacted so well it did not end early as planned; yet he could with few exceptions still see the familiar subcultural glances of puzzlement and contorted expressions communicating among them a painful expectation of a long grueling year. Despite his minor success, he was skeptical that this year would be any different with perhaps the exception of the freshman girl who would soon be muffled by short-lived curiosity of others who would not tolerate a legitimate love of wisdom in its undying pursuit of truths. Besides, he was aware that the English department was unabashed in its contempt for his small department and inevitably rubbed off on the undergraduate majors. Nevertheless, he was gratified to have this untainted child in his class for the year; he hoped that perhaps his legacy would be that she would convert her major.
He loitered awhile at the desk, absently flipping the worn, curled up corners of his old "Dialogue" text as he glanced down at the class list. He noticed a name; it had a familiarity about it and it had not been checked off for attendance. It was one of many who never showed up. He rustled back to the "Apology"; he was amused by his ancient underlining and marginal notes some of which had been crossed out, others revised─watered down. Much of the spirited excerpts over the years of frustration was marginally noted with "forget it" or "skip." He chuckled with self-effacement some of the youthful enthusiasm of his earlier commentary. One in particular yielded strangled hysterics: "Socrates─20th century man." He sighed, and yelped to the dead walls of the room: "O man of Athens─apology indeed!" Flipping several more pages he let his mind slip into Plato's cadence and rode the realm of ideas.
His brain shut down Elgin time. He pushed out from the desk, rocked back the chair and felt the cold slate against the back of his bald pate. He rotated his head to stare out the big fixed window wall. He yearned for the old philosophy building with old double-hung windows that would allow him to poke his head and breathe in the free natural air. Rocking forward gently he eyed the course outline and wondered how far it would take him this year. He rocked the chair further forward and it landed with a thud. He checked his Elgin, extending its chain and pressing its shiny white gold casing to his ear. He grimaced, then shook the watch vigorously; the second hand edged south nervously, then paused. He checked the winding, but it was taut. He shook it again; it started ticking slowly then stopped. He pulled out the winding stem, but it wouldn't turn the hands; he tried it counter-clockwise; the minute hand moved back and the second hand responded by jittering backwards. He shook it again but the second hand continued its journey back up the northeast slope. He slipped the watch back in its pocket, the old Elgin had finally given in to the relentless track of time. . He got up from the desk and went to the big window and pressed his forehead against the pane to look down over the expanse of the campus, cluttered with students aimlessly mobile, wending in out of tall buildings that seemed to be all black glass and no brick framing in mark contrast to the original pre-war buildings two stories high, windows sensibly cased in the security of old brick.
Examining the old watch again, he noticed the minute hand had apparently moved, and the second hand had continued its backward journey to the twelve mark, passed it but stopped at the fifty-nine second mark. He fondled the watch as his tired old eyes burned away the new buildings outside and refocused on the temporary barracks used for classes during the late Forties. The campus magically rolled out its green turf shaded by immense tulip and maple trees. The campus became tranquil but strangely alive with an undercurrent of students probing excitedly while gathering round or walking with professors. Other students were stretched out on the grass sunning themselves while reading. Others sat under the trees reading poetry or engaged in dialogue. Benches along the walks were filled with students reading newspapers, discussing their assignments or the day's politics─perhaps predictions of a Dewey landslide to offset Truman's proposed "socialized medicine." He chuckled to himself wondering if Frisbee had been invented would those students still be wiling away their time in matters of thought. Just as quickly as the scene unfolded it flipped on edge like a giant poster, revealing another face up.
There before his blinking eyes was a huge crowd swarming the Acropolis and to take the rock-cut seats of the Dionysus Theatre. Athenians were everywhere buzzing with anticipation. A small group of youths filed into the first row as though reserved for them. A mobocratic jury with determined expression was seated in the orchestra. The professor’s eyes blinked again and popped when he saw himself in his anachronistic garb midst the splendid robes of the times. There he moved down the steps among the masses who were ascending looking for seats. He was drawn to the lower section and found a seat behind the row of youths. They were leaning forward nervously wringing their hands or burying their faces in their hands while others, looking grim, would seem to scan round the massive stadium as if to find a kind expression in the sea of faces. In their midst was a powerfully built youth busily writing on a scroll while another fragile, youngster held the scrolling frame for him.
The unruly crowd began to chant: "Bring out the prisoner, this vile Corruptor of Athenian youth. Let him appear to face the stern justice of our belovéd Athena." From out of the central stage-building a thin, erect figure appeared between two sentries who halted at parade rest on the edge of the upper stage, and urged the man in tattered robe to descend the steps to the proscenium. The man alone paced the stage as if waiting for the crowd's derision to subside. Each angry invective rode upon its predecessor to the crescendo of mob hatred. Dr. Garret, eyes welling up and hands cupping his ears, squirmed in his seat and wished away this horrid dream that would not, however, dissolve. He stood up, flew from the row and rushed past the jury, which still sat fixed seeming to enjoy the spectacle. Garret ascended the proscenium steps. The crowd hushed in observing wide-eyed this anachronistic interloper. His steady footsteps echoed round the amphitheater as he approached the thin, forlorn bearded man. Garret touched the man's shoulder across the barrier of time. The ugliness permeating was sucked into Zeno's infinitesimal scintilla of time and a strange quiet rushed in. Garret pleaded, "Oh, master and friend to those dedicated to understand this obstinate world, why? With all your bright moments, why must I be witness to this one─the darkest?" Garret looked to the deus ex machina and pleaded, "Why not the glorious probes of the New Republic? Why this damnation of philosophy?"
The deep brown eyes of the sage glistened softly without a hint of surprise. "Why?─ah, the very word I live for! How sweet the word that stimulates the mind and yet despairs the heart. But the merging of the two, so strangely incompatible, forge another for which all who touch the world are truly dedicated."
"Ah, noble sage, you must mean justice."
He nodded and said, "If only my fellow citizens you see here, but for my followers, had learned the lesson as well as you. Truly you must be a friend of the special realm where insight flows without resistance."
"You do me great honor, Socrates, but I must confess whence I came the rancor is as great as you face today. Whether out of fear here or indifference there, ideas are kept in the shade."
"Oh, my, and I took you for a man of the future, not the past!"
"I'm afraid I am as you inferred, twenty-four hundred years into the future."
"How sad, I thought surely by then all resistance would have broken down. And yet why should I be surprised in this world of unpredictable action one must face the dumbness of the heart, which I suspect remains, and all generations struggle indefatigably to refine it, to master its wayward bent. Still, there is no rancor here, only confused emotion shorn of understanding and the expansive continuity of time. Look into their faces now shoveled into the abyss of time. They now must wonder what the next stroke of time will bring; for they know not whence they come as afforded you. For we Greeks seemingly out of nowhere brought forth an enlightenment so overwhelming to the nature of the human mind heretofore used as a tool to survive that they feel it is a trick of the gods to inflate our egos as they had poor, proud Prometheus who thought by simply snatching the light of insight mankind too would think things divine. Alas, it does not work thus in the field of unrelenting time. Only in the timeless state as we find ourselves within this suspended second─that is, in the realm of ideas─are we free of laborious intellection that in crude time slaves to root out the irrational delusions of Dionysus. Yea, only in this blissful state of timelessness─this wondrous moment of the infinitesimal can the mind truly reflect back onto itself and see glowing Truth." The sage waved his hand across the stadium. "These poor souls you see here having been so swept into the flux that they look into this moment and see nothing but a suspended cloud of darkness."
Garret patted the sage on the shoulder. "Good! Then let us keep them there. Are they not better off in this state of inaction than to experience what they are destined to do next?...Oh, Socrates, come away with me now! Flee from this drop of time and live! Why─as one four hundred years hence will have done─throw away your life?"
"Ah,
but is it mine?"
"Oh, I know whence you twist and turn. You have always claimed it belongs to Athens. But in this dark moment Athena does not reside here. It is only through her who looks kindly to your subtle arrogance that flicks light in thinking man. There is no such light here."
Socrates quickly countered, "Oh, but there is! I see it in your eyes." He stroked his beard and chuckled. "You see, Athens is not a place isolated from the linkage of time. You prove that, loyal friend─why, you may be more Athenian than I!─the light in your eye, however, blinds you to the moment─I too once thought that all need only be exposed to philosophy, the divine light that champions virtue and all would become virtuous. I have learned to settle for the chosen few. You need only to look below to the row of youths to carve out more than dark flux in suspension. Lo, the youths before you. See their enlightened expressions, however distraught. There is no confusion, rather a searching look, anticipating a brighter day." He pointed to the youth with the quill in hand. "There is a glow about him─happy impatience poised for the next stroke that will resume the flow of inspiration."
"Ah, yes, I do...he can be only..."
"Precisely, you know your history of ideas. And for him I willingly take the hemlock─even though, I admit, in spite of my ultimate faith in the tranquil calm and coolness of the realm of ideas, I shall miss the sweat of reason."
"Then, for Athena's sake, stay awhile and persuade the mob of your good intent that you labor over youth to advance the promise of the world," the professor pleaded.
The sage shook his head and heavy lips stretched a hesitant smile. "No, my friend, it is ineluctable that history place its marker on the error of man's fear of questioning the ultimate reason for being. The dark side of man, his animal side, still clings instinctively to action of immediate perceptive needs. You are of my profession and apparently as old as I, you then know of what I speak─especially, after centuries, apparently man has not changed."
The professor bowed his head and said with a sigh, "Yes, unfortunately, I suppose I do, but hopefully more have changed."
Socrates touched Garret's shoulder. "Good, then cheer the progress, however little; for, in face of compelling darkness, history always leaves a window of light for those like us. Behold again the youths, already they begin to stir before the others, and young Plato has set his quill upon the scroll..."
Time again rushed in: "Throw out the intruder!" bounced the cry off the limestone slope.
"Aye, hoist him back up to the deus ex machina!" echoed another, catalyzing all anger to stumble back into time's persecution.
Garret did not cower. He screeched, Please, furious men of Athens, hear me out! You misconstrue my intent. I am not here in behalf of this vile Corruptor of youth." Socrates' furrowed his forehead for a moment then his eyes lit up and he winked at Garret who continued to address the mob: "Nay, I am here to tell you that this philosopher of philosophers─unbeknown to him─needs no kind words, nor public approbation. If so, he would be a politician, not a giant of wisdom. I am here to advise the jury not to be led astray by anger which does not agree with the real aim to punish Socrates. Put him to death and you favor him. Exile him and you grant to him the same death sentence because he cannot exist anywhere but in his beloved Athens and will take his own life. But O men of foolish wrath and unproductive hatred, let him live— how he will then suffer! Alive he will never arrive at his darling truth! Oh, the torture of unrequited love! You all have heard this crafty man of sinuous words, yet think that his goal is to corrupt your youths! Again you are deceived: I insist you let him live and youth will corrupt him with their flagrant disregard for the good and just. Think not on Socrates as man of integrity whose aim is to reshape the values of this great city. He is a mere boaster. He dreams aloud of Athena and her will to justice as men of hot blood dream of Aphrodite; yet we do not exile, nor surely, sentence to death these men of uncouth fantasy. Why, then, this harmless fool?" Give him more time with hot-blooded youth and soon he will jilt Athena and drivel on, mouth watering, concerning the sensual pleasures of her sister. Then and only then should you contemplate ending his life on the grounds of hopeless senility living pleasure vicariously through those he corrupts.
Surely, you know how he boasts of placing the values of truth above the value of living. He has often implied that no man living has ever experienced the true worth of life. Not until death he cleverly explains, can one truly know the empty meaning of all the fuss on earth. O citizens of Athens, I alert you to be as cunning as Odysseus himself! Walk not Socrates' path, lest he cast his shadow─that life here shades the window of true life. Give this man the hemlock and you give him want he wants!"
"Let Socrates live!" bounced the cry off the rocky concave.
"Let him suffer as do we in life!" etched another voice into the limestones.
"Death is too good for the likes of him who derides our love of life!' Another rode the crest of the ensuing chant: "Poetic justice to Socrates! Yea, long live the lover of death!"
A juror rose up and beckoned the throng to silence. Unfazed in the bedlam he rotated a determined look to a sea of demanding faces until the busy quill of the youth could be heard scratching the rapidly unrolling scroll. "Do not be taken in by this foreign intrusion─though I must confess this stranger has the sophist's artistry that only Athenians heretofore perfected. Yet I rather think that he does not know Socrates as we do if he really believes our gadfly does not enjoy the sting of living. Oh, how Socrates sucks up the blood of life!
"And why not? Not since his productive contribution in the war has he had to scratch and claw for a living, preferring to sponge off the duped aristocracy who somehow had felt their sons were learning the rich heritage of our noble state. Be not deceived, fellow citizens; Socrates, not unlike this cohort, uses his flapping lips only to smack them later at a festive table to fulfil his true hedonistic character. Wine, food and young boys are all that matters to him─that's his ultimate truth─all else is but a clever subterfuge to that end. You would be fools not to believe that all those yarns he brings to the loom to warp and woof engaging dialogue is anything but subterfuge to shroud his true intent to fill himself with life's pleasures and in the process sting us with words he pretends come from the oracle. The aristocracy itself first hand has come to realize this and thus demands he be exiled, safe from its gullible youth who someday, don't forget, will have their hands on the helm of our ship of state. Allowed to continue and Socrates will have convinced our lads that government as we know it is mobocracy, not democracy, and that if city-state is to endure, the future leaders will reshape our beloved system to the likes this wily, demoniac sage who professes governance to be a mere tool for philosophers to explore their ideas in the realm of practice and a new republic while the so-called mob is relegated to the pens of guinea pigs. If this is what you want, O men of democracy, if this is the destiny you have in mind for your progeny, then by all means let this silly, pesky and pretentious philosopher continue his errant ways." His fellow jurors all nodded approval as the spokesman sat down, crossed his arms and stared defiantly into the crowd.
"Never! To Plouten with philosophy! Send him into exile to corrupt our enemies' youth!"
"Death to the wooly sage who dare take away our freedom!"
"End this mockery of the common man!"
"Death to him who will not labor for his supper!"
"Stamp out the fly who infests us with deceitful bites!"
Thus did the throng echo its renewed sentiments throughout the common limestone slope of singularity.
Socrates stepped forward and hailed them to listen to his voice for the last time. "O ye men who once were graced by the owl who no longer nests in her beautiful Parthenon , four flaps of her wings above us." He paused to gesture to the majestic temple. "Does this not tell us that we have offended our belovéd virgin?─that we have violated her pure sense of justice by deriding the just men and rewarding the unjust? Have we not toppled from the statesmanship of Pericles to the piloting of greed destined to wreck our ship of state on the rocks of chaos?" The crowd hooted and jeered. With a wave of a hand, he went on, "Oh, how you do frown on my words, but I beg of you grant me these dying words: I promise not to deceive you as my strange colleague standing beside me has done. He amused me with his satire─I swear he must have gone before the Delphic oracle and pretended he was Socrates; for it appears he knows me more than I know myself! Nevertheless, he has missed the mark: I do not wish to leave this world for my other world of ideas which may be an illusion. If I gamble wrongly, and find myself in Hades that turns deaf ear to dialogue, what else could measure up to the exciting life of an Athenian? But for meditation on the pure idea of an Athenian at his finest, there is no other life worth living. For all the current faults of this city, there is still the vitality that it will again be restored to its original intent, however much we muddle through. And that I shall miss; for I so much wish to a part of its ineluctable renascence.
"It is small comfort to me as Democritus suggests that at my death, I shall return to atoms that might blow across the city and settle on a youth and influence him. O the terrible indifference of such a teaching method! And then there is the terror of accident and chance: what if the youth should sneeze and send my monads wafting north to the barbarians? How more suitable to be nestled safely eternally in the realm of Ideas! I pray to Apollo and Athena it will be so!
"Oh, if I could recapture the belief of my youth! Still, there will come a day─even without your help─when I must give up this tired old body. Why, even now, some days my body aches so I do not wish to rise out of bed despite rosy-fingered dawn caressing my eye-lids with her dewy promises. Only the other day, I crawled out of bed─and despite what you think of my appetite─I couldn't eat a thing, so nauseous was I. I left the house and within twenty feet I had to lie down in the tall grass behind my modest hovel. There I lay contemplating─a term sophists invented as an excuse for doing nothing─on thoughts divine. Suddenly it occurred to me what a pathetically useless thing to do! I asked myself, 'Socrates. what have you done worthwhile lately?' Oh, to be sure, as the eloquent juror has inferred, I am a shiftless oaf! What will be my legacy? I have built no bridges, no roads, no marvelous temples as my productive fellow-citizens have done─why, my last contribution was hanging a shelf for my wife last month and things are still falling from it because I couldn't get it level!
"Is there any wonder than that I idle my time in philosophy? All my life I have urged youth to turn their thoughts inward as I myself have done, thinking the oracle to know thyself was the wherewithal. Yet I confess when I turned to know myself I found nothing there to contemplate! Alas, the fraud I am, for I should have taken my own life then and there in front of the oracle. For living is in the doing and there was nothing for me to do!" Socrates gestured to the youth still busy scratching the scroll, not missing a word.
"As I sat in the grass and had just stopped bemoaning my fraudulent life and ready to stuff a stone down my throat, young Plato here chanced by and saved me from the fate that would have robbed you the joy of execution. He yanked the stone from my lips and rebuked me for being so inconsiderate to take my life as I was already late for my continuing discussion with Zeno and Parmenides. Why this extraordinary young man bothers with me is even beyond our great thinkers to comprehend. Why, he should be home in his splendid courtyard vying with Homer! This bright young man has poetic talent unlimited, yet he wastes it recording my drivel. Though to his credit, he constantly pricks me with his pen and invariably says, 'No offense, venerable master, but would it not be better had you said...' Of course, I have to agree with him every time because his prose is so beautiful.
"Thanks to this young man, I realize that in the event there is not a realm of ideas for me to contemplate when I die, that through the clarity and beauty crafted by the lad's words, ideas, real or not, mine and his, will endure the end of time and render my death irrelevant."
Athens dissolved into the layers of time. Garret looked down at his watch; the hands were whirling at incredible speed. He heard the campus tower clock bong on the hour. The old Elgin slowed and was back to its reliable path of modern time. He wheeled round from the window when he heard the voice of Yvonne, "Excuse me, Professor Garret."
He peered over his glasses at the little freshman girl and then to a young man in the doorway holding by his side a shabby book, much like his own. He wore a white tourist t-shirt with Athena's helmet blazoned across the breast.
"You must not be harsh on my cousin here, good kind professor for missing class," Yvonne pleaded. "He has a legitimate excuse."
Garret chuckled, "My dear, he needs no excuse if he has truly chosen this class out of philos...." He chuckled again. "And to be perfectly honest, young man, beggars can't be choosers, you are welcome in any case."
"Thank you, Doctor,...you see, I was late for your class because I just returned from a summer tour of Athens. I could not wait another day to meet you, though I feel I have known you all my life." He held up the old text. "In my lifetime you have been quoted a thousand times─you see, sir, my grandfather was a student of yours."
"It's true," Yvonne said excitedly, "but not to be outdone my grandmother, my great uncle's sister was one too!"
The youth added, "Yvonne tells me that you are going to retire at the end of the year. How sad, for as a major in philosophy I shall miss you in the ensuing seven years....Further, I'll not be able to convince my frisky cousin to stay on with me."
Garret's tired eyes shone youthful at the youth, then glanced at Yvonne. "But together we shall!...Retire, you say?...Why what would I do with myself?"
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