That made the ancient Greeks, of Plato’s time, nonhumans, since arithmetic was unknown to them, only geometry; and algebra was an Arab invention, much later in history. Arbitrary. It was not a theological arbitrariness either; it was a mere legal one. The Church had long since—from the start, in fact—maintained that even the zygote, and the embryo that followed, was as sacred a life form as any that walked the earth. They had seen what would come of arbitrary definitions of “Now the soul enters the body,” or in modern terms, “Now it is a person entitled to the full protection of the law like everyone else.” What was so sad was the sight now of the small child playing bravely in his yard day by day, trying to hope, trying to pretend a security he did not have.
Well, he thought, we’ll see what they do with me; I am thirty-five years old, with a Master’s Degree from Stanford. Will they put me in a cage for thirty days, with a plastic food dish and a water source and a place—in plain sight—to relieve myself, and if no one adopts me will they consign me to automatic death along with the others?
I am risking a lot, he thought. But they picked up my son today, and the risk began then, when they had him, not when I stepped forward and became a victim myself.
He looked about at the three frightened boys and tried to think of something to tell them—not just his own son but all three.
“ ‘Look,’ ” he said, quoting. “ ‘I tell you a sacred secret. We shall not all sleep in death. We shall—’ ” But then he could not remember the rest. Bummer, he thought dismally. “ ‘We shall wake up,’ ” he said, doing the best he could. “ ‘In a flash. In the twinkling of an eye.’ ”
“Cut the noise,” the driver of the truck, from beyond his wire mesh, growled. “I can’t concentrate on this fucking road.” He added, “You know, I can squirt gas back there where you are, and you’ll pass out; it’s for obstreperous pre-persons we pick up. So you want to knock it off, or have me punch the gas button?”
“We won’t say anything,” Tim said quickly, with a look of mute terrified appeal at his father. Urging him silently to conform.
His father said nothing. The glance of urgent pleading was too much for him, and he capitulated. Anyhow, he reasoned, what happened in the truck was not crucial. It was when they reached the County Facility—where there would be, at the first sign of trouble, newspaper and TV reporters.
So they rode in silence, each with his own fears, his own schemes. Ed Gantro brooded to himself, perfecting in his head what he would do—what he had to do. And not just for Tim but all the P.P. abortion candidates; he thought through the ramifications as the truck lurched and rattled on.
As soon as the truck parked in the restricted lot of the County Facility and its rear doors had been swung open, Sam B. Carpenter, who ran the whole goddamn operation, walked over, stared, said, “You’ve got a grown man in there, Ferris. In fact, you comprehend what you’ve got? A protester, that’s what you’ve latched onto.”
“But he insisted he doesn’t know any math higher than adding,” Ferris said.
To Ed Gantro, Carpenter said, “Hand me your wallet. I want your actual name. Social Security number, police region stability ident—come on, I want to know who you really are.”
“He’s just a rural type,” Ferris said, as he watched Gantro pass over his lumpy wallet.
“And I want confirm prints offa his feet,” Carpenter said. “The full set. Right away—priority A.” He liked to talk that way.
An hour later he had the reports back from the jungle of interlocking security-data computers from the fake-pastoral restricted area in Virginia. “This individual graduated from Stanford College with a degree in math. And then got a master’s in psychology, which he has, no doubt about it, been subjecting us to. We’ve got to get him out of here.”
“I did have a soul,” Gantro said, “but I lost it.”
“How?” Carpenter demanded, seeing nothing about that on Gantro’s official records.
“An embolism. The portion of my cerebral cortex, where my soul was, got destroyed when I accidentally inhaled the vapors of insect spray. That’s why I’ve been living out in the country eating roots and grubs, with my boy here, Tim.”
“We’ll run an EEG on you,” Carpenter said.
“What’s that?” Gantro said. “One of those brain tests?”
To Ferris, Carpenter said. “The law says the soul enters at twelve years. And you bring this individual male adult well over thirty. We could be charged with murder. We’ve got to get rid of him. You drive him back to exactly where you found him and dump him off. If he won’t voluntarily exit from the truck, gas the shit out of him and then throw him out. That’s a national security order. Your job depends on it, also your status with the penal code of this state.”
“I belong here,” Ed Gantro said. “I’m a dummy.”
“And his kid,” Carpenter said. “He’s probably a mathematical mental mutant like you see on TV. They set you up; they’ve probably already alerted the media. Take them all back and gas them and dump them wherever you found them or, barring that, anyhow out of sight.”
“You’re getting hysterical,” Ferris said, with anger. “Run the EEG and the brain scan on Gantro, and probably we’ll have to release him, but these three juveniles—”
“All genuises,” Carpenter said. “All part of the setup, only you’re too stupid to know. Kick them out of the truck and off our premises, and deny—you get this?—deny you ever picked any of the four of them up. Stick to that story.”
“Out of the vehicle,” Ferris ordered, pressing the button that lifted the wire mesh gates.
The three boys scrambled out. But Ed Gantro remained.
“He’s not going to exit voluntarily,” Carpenter said. “Okay, Gantro, we’ll physically expel you.” He nodded to Ferris, and the two of them entered the back of the truck. A moment later they had deposited Ed Gantro on the pavement of the parking lot.
“Now you’re just a plain citizen,” Carpenter said, with relief. “You can claim all you want, but you have no proof.”
“Dad,” Tim said, “how are we going to get home?” All three boys clustered around Ed Gantro.
“You could call somebody from up there,” the Fleischhacker boy said. “I bet if Walter Best’s dad has enough gas he’d come and get us. He takes a lot of long drives; he has a special coupon.”
“Him and his wife, Mrs. Best, quarrel a lot,” Tim said. “So he likes to go driving at night alone; I mean, without her.”
Ed Gantro said, “I’m staying here. I want to be locked up in a cage.”
“But we can go,” Tim protested. Urgently, he plucked at his dad’s sleeve. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it? They let us go when they saw you. We did it!”
Ed Gantro said to Carpenter, “I insist on being locked up with the other pre-persons you have in there.” He pointed at the gaily imposing, esthetic solid-green-painted Facility Building.
To Mr. Sam B. Carpenter, Tim said, “Call Mr. Best, out where we were, on the peninsula. It’s a 669 prefix number. Tell him to come and get us, and he will. I promise. Please.”
The Fleischhacker boy added, “There’s only one Mr. Best listed in the phone book with a 669 number. Please, mister.”
Carpenter went indoors, to one of the Facility’s many official phones, looked up the number. Ian Best. He punched the number.
“You have reached a semiworking, semiloafing number,” a man’s voice, obviously that of someone half-drunk, responded. In the background Carpenter could hear the cutting tones of a furious woman, excoriating Ian Best.
“Mr. Best,” Carpenter said, “several persons whom you know are stranded down at Fourth and A Streets in Verde Gabriel, an Ed Gantro and his son, Tim, a boy identified as Ronald or Donald Fleischhacker, and another unidentified minor boy. The Gantro boy suggested you would not object to driving down here to pick them up and take them home.”
“Fourth and A Streets,” Ian Best said. A pause. “Is that the pound?”
??
?The County Facility,” Carpenter said.
“You son of a bitch,” Best said. “Sure I’ll come get them; expect me in twenty minutes. You have Ed Gantro there as a pre-person? Do you know he graduated from Stanford University?”
“We are aware of this,” Carpenter said stonily. “But they are not being detained; they are merely—here. Not—I repeat not—in custody.”
Ian Best, the drunken slur gone from his voice, said, “There’ll be reporters from all the media there before I get there.” Click. He had hung up.
Walking back outside, Carpenter said to the boy Tim, “Well, it seems you mickey-moused me into notifying a rabid anti-abortionist activist of your presence here. How neat, how really neat.”
A few moments passed, and then a bright-red Mazda sped up to the entrance of the Facility. A tall man with a light beard got out, unwound camera and audio gear, walked leisurely over to Carpenter. “I understand you may have a Stanford MA in math here at the Facility,” he said in a neutral, casual voice. “Could I interview him for a possible story?”
Carpenter said, “We have booked no such person. You can inspect our records.” But the reporter was already gazing at the three boys clustered around Ed Gantro.
In a loud voice the reporter called, “Mr. Gantro?”
“Yes, sir,” Ed Gantro replied.
Christ, Carpenter thought. We did lock him in one of our official vehicles and transport him here; it’ll hit all the papers. Already a blue van with the markings of a TV station had rolled onto the lot. And, behind it, two more cars.
Abortion Facility Snuffs
Stanford Grad
That was how it read in Carpenter’s mind. Or
County Abortion Facility
Foiled in Illegal Attempt to…
And so forth. A spot on the 6:00 evening TV news. Gantro, and when he showed up, Ian Best who was probably an attorney, surrounded by tape recorders and mikes and video cameras.
We have mortally fucked up, he thought. Mortally fucked up. They at Sacramento will cut our appropriation; we’ll be reduced to hunting down stray dogs and cats again, like before. Bummer.
When Ian Best arrived in his coal-burning Mercedes-Benz, he was still a little stoned. To Ed Gantro he said, “You mind if we take a scenic roundabout route back?”
“By way of what?” Ed Gantro said. He wearily wanted to leave now. The little flow of media people had interviewed him and gone. He had made his point, and now he felt drained, and he wanted to go home.
Ian Best said, “By way of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.”
With a smile, Ed Gantro said, “These kids should go right to bed. My kid and the other two. Hell, they haven’t even had any dinner.”
“We’ll stop at a McDonald’s stand,” Ian Best said. “And then we can take off for Canada, where the fish are, and lots of mountains that still have snow on them, even this time of year.”
“Sure,” Gantro said, grinning. “We can go there.”
“You want to?” Ian Best scrutinized him. “You really want to?”
“I’ll settle a few things, and then, sure, you and I can take off together.”
“Son of a bitch,” Best breathed. “You mean it.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do. Of course, I have to get my wife’s agreement. You can’t go to Canada unless your wife signs a document in writing where she won’t follow you. You become what’s called a ‘landed Immigrant.’ ”
“Then I’ve got to get Cynthia’s written permission.”
“She’ll give it to you. Just agree to send support money.”
“You think she will? She’ll let me go?”
“Of course,” Gantro said.
“You actually think our wives will let us go,” Ian Best said as he and Gantro herded the children into the Mercedes-Benz. “I’ll bet you’re right; Cynthia’d love to get rid of me. You know what she calls me, right in front of Walter? ‘An aggressive coward,’ and stuff like that. She has no respect for me.”
“Our wives,” Gantro said, “will let us go.” But he knew better.
He looked back at the Facility manager, Mr. Sam B. Carpenter, and at the truck driver, Ferris, who, Carpenter had told the press and TV, was as of this date fired and was a new and inexperienced employee anyhow.
“No,” he said. “They won’t let us go. None of them will.”
Clumsily, Ian Best fiddled with the complex mechanism that controlled the funky coal-burning engine. “Sure they’ll let us go; look, they’re just standing there. What can they do, after what you said on TV and what that one reporter wrote up for a feature story?”
“I don’t mean them,” Gantro said tonelessly.
“We could just run.”
“We are caught,” Gantro said. “Caught and can’t get out. You ask Cynthia, though. It’s worth a try.”
“We’ll never see Vancouver Island and the great ocean-going ferries steaming in and out of the fog, will we?” Ian Best said.
“Sure we will, eventually.” But he knew it was a lie, an absolute lie, just like you know sometimes when you say something that for no rational reason you know is absolutely true.
They drove from the lot, out onto the public street.
“It feels good,” Ian Best said, “to be free… right?” The three boys nodded, but Ed Gantro said nothing. Free, he thought. Free to go home. To be caught in a larger net, shoved into a greater truck than the metal mechanical one the County Facility uses.
“This is a great day,” Ian Best said.
“Yes,” Ed Gantro agreed. “A great day in which a noble and effective blow has been struck for all helpless things, anything of which you could say, ‘It is alive.’ ”
Regarding him intently in the narrow trickly light, Ian Best said, “I don’t want to go home; I want to take off for Canada now.”
“We have to go home,” Ed Gantro reminded him. “Temporarily, I mean. To wind things up. Legal matters, pick up what we need.”
Ian Best, as he drove, said, “We’ll never get there, to British Columbia and Vancouver Island and Stanley Park and English Bay and where they grow food and keep horses and where they have the ocean-going ferries.”
“No, we won’t,” Ed Gantro said.
“Not now, not even later?”
“Not ever,” Ed Gantro said.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Best said and his voice broke and his driving got funny. “That’s what I thought from the beginning.”
They drove in silence, then, with nothing to say to each other. There was nothing left to say.
The Eye of the Sibyl
How is it that our ancient Roman Republic guards itself against those who would destroy it? We Romans, although only mortals like other mortals, draw on the help of beings enormously superior to ourselves. These wise and kind entities, who originate from worlds unknown to us, are ready to assist the Republic when it is in peril. When it is not in peril, they sink back out of sight—to return when we need them.
Take the case of the assassination of Julius Caesar: a case which apparently was closed when those who conspired to murder him were themselves murdered. But how did we Romans determine who had done this foul deed? And, more important, how did we bring these conspirators to justice? We had outside help; we had the assistance of the Cumean Sibyl who knows a thousand years ahead what will happen, and who gives us, in written form, her advice. All Romans are aware of the existence of the Sibylline Books. We open them whenever the need arises.
I myself, Philos Diktos of Tyana, have seen the Sibylline Books. Many leading Roman citizens, members of the Senate especially, have consulted them. But I have seen the Sibyl herself, and I of my own experience know something about her which few men know. Now that I am old—regretfully, but of the necessity which binds all mortal men—I am willing to confess that once, quite by accident I suppose, I in the course of my priestly duties saw how the Sibyl is capable of seeing down the corridors of time; I know what permits her to do this, as she developed out of the p
rior Greek Sibyl at Delphi, in that so highly venerated land, Greece.
Few men know this, and perhaps the Sibyl, reaching out through time to strike at me for speaking aloud, will silence me forever. It is quite possible, therefore, that before I can finish this scroll I will be found dead, my head split like one of those overripe melons from the Levant which we Romans prize so. In any case, being old, I will boldly say.
I had been quarreling with my wife that morning—I was not old then, and the dreadful murder of Julius Caesar had just taken place. At that time no one was sure who had done it. Treason against the State! Murder most ugly—a thousand knife wounds in the body of the man who had come to stabilize our quaking society… with the approval of the Sibyl, in her temple; we had seen the texts she had written to that effect. We knew that she had expected Caesar to bring his army across the river and into Rome, and to accept the crown of Caesar.
“You witless fool,” my wife was saying to me that morning. “If the Sibyl were so wise as you think, she would have anticipated this assassination.”
“Maybe she did,” I answered.
“I think she’s a fake,” my wife Xantippe said to me, grimacing in that way she has, which is so repulsive. She is—I should say was—of a higher social class than I, and always made me conscious of it. “You priests make up those texts; you write them yourselves—you say what you think in such a vague way that any interpretation can be made of it. You’re bilking the citizens, especially the well-to-do.” By that she meant her own family.
I said hotly, leaping up from the breakfast table, “She is inspired; she is a prophetess—she knows the future. Evidently there was no way the assassination of our great leader, whom the people loved so, could be averted.”
“The Sibyl is a hoax,” my wife said, and started buttering yet another roll, in her usual greedy fashion.