“No, I doubt it, they were killed in a plane crash when I was fifteen—I’m now about double that—away at prep school then—”
“Ah, the great shock,” persisted the same doctor.
“No great shock. Mildly upset naturally, but I quickly got over that. There was enough money left to put me through college.” He sighed. “Gentlemen, I’ve had no shock in life, and I’m not interested in wasting everybody’s time on fruitless biographical details.”
“Agreed!” said the cybernetics lady. “We need less psychotherapies, more recognition that the mind’s a very involved electrochemical circuit in the present, a circuit of which we understand, so far, only several diagrams. You’ve hit on a few truths about this wiring, Doctor, and shown the superiority of valid technique over ineffective, well-intentioned ‘love’ as a curative approach.”
The group therapist’s nose twitched for a sneeze, but Stanler knew from well-worn lines appearing around his nostrils that the sneeze would, as usual, remain unachieved. “Ah-ah—” said the man—”well! We may often try to bring out aggressions but they must end in affection between the group members—not some coldly technical mutual manipulation of psyches!”
“No hasty conclusions!” cried the Revisionist. ‘Technique becomes all-important if devoted to a decent social goal. The ideal for a therapy system is to develop techniques so adequate to patients’ problems that any therapist-worker can automatically apply them.”
“Oh, no!” moaned several doctors.
“Oh, yes!” put in the chemotherapist. “Would you rather have a heart operation performed by a relative or by a skilled surgeon indifferent to you as a person? But our ‘revolutionary’ friend here, dragging out all our dirtiest linen before Mr. Stanler, is actually as verbal as the rest of you. Only fully developed psychochemical treatments will permit cures by a doctor who’s totally indifferent emotionally!”
Stanler let the wrangling continue for about ten minutes more, then slammed the desk for silence. “Some committee! I’ve seen about enough. Believe me, it’s not that complicated—I simply have a talent for identifying people’s shortcomings so clearly that they see what I see. And none of you have the slightest understanding of what I’ve just said!”
The accusation of nonunderstainding, the ultimate in professional insults, brought angry retorts from everyone. “Nonsense! . . . Everything has a reason! ... A charlatan, I said it all along! . . . God gave us— . . . Poor eating habi— ... Inferiority complex parading as utter self-confi— . . . Reactionary obscurant—” Stanler could almost feel their resentment as a solid wall closing in on him.
Suddenly disgust was too overwhelming for amusement and, before he could stop himself, he snapped: “Indifference? What did ‘technical’ indifference ever achieve? The only way to have useful insights into these people, any people, is to hate them—and I hate them all!”
A mistake, he thought, considering their stunned expressions; he had lost control and now they would surely find some law— But they were beginning to smile a little —knowing smiles of superiority—and then all looked unsurprised. “Utterest nonsense!” said the first to recover. “The one thing you can’t cure anyone with ever is hate, all schools of thought know that much. And you know it, too, Stanler, as well as any of us.”
“Right,” several doctors murmured, starting to get up.
Stanler watched them leave, then stared into the convenient darkness of his eyelids. Nothing would be done against him; the world’s ultimate secret could safely be exposed and still remain a secret. When he opened his eyes again the one true world was still out there, and he felt the grin on his face become painfully, pleasurably, co-equal with that of his skull.
<
* * * *
Charles Arnold
SPRING CAME TO BLUE RIDGE EARLY THIS YEAR
I PLACE MY BAG of instruments in the back seat from force of habit. I know they will not be needed. I get in the driver’s seat and pause for a moment to get my breath. I am panting slightly; old age comes to doctors too, I tell myself—there is nothing else to say. The engine turns over easily and begins to whir; I let out the clutch slowly (we don’t want to buck) and we, the old Dodge and me, rumble the half block from my office to Main Street.
I turn left to go to the high school, having the feeling that this has all happened before. It has all happened before, as a matter of fact, except it was winter, the morning after the heavy snow, the first time Sam Goodrich called me out, and now it’s spring. I had been counting on spring to dispel the gloom that has settled on the town, but instead it has brought it into higher relief, has brought it into focus by contrast.
The air is warm and sweet, filled with the smells of damp earth and green life; as I drive down Main Street, the breeze ruffles my hair (it is all white now, no gray left) and the sun is warm on my elbow hanging out the window. At one time I would have felt invigorated; now I am merely reminded of how thoroughly pervasive is my tiredness.
I pass Dr. Hermann’s office. There are five or six people in his waiting room. He is old and clings to the old ways, refusing to work on an appointment basis. Since he no longer makes house calls, and I’m the only other doctor in town, the onus falls upon me to make this one.
(I was weary and tried to get Hermann to go on that call to Walshville. Half asleep on the way back, I saw the car ahead of me lose control on an ice patch, and come to a precarious stop on the shoulder. The passenger was sure to be uninjured. There were cars coming in both directions and someone would stop to help. Who needs a malpractice suit? I thought. It snowed heavily that night.)
The usual complement of old fogies are sitting on the bench in front of the pool hall, where they can greet the other fogies that might pass by, and discuss baseball and arthritis without being interrupted by women. As the years pass, it pains me to note, more and more of them are my old schoolmates. They all wave as I go by; I am probably the biggest event of the afternoon so far.
Mrs. Simms pulls from a parking place without looking, as always, and I must stop suddenly to avoid plowing into her trunk. This too, it seems to me, happened the last time as well, or perhaps I just think so. It has happened often enough, it makes little difference. Her engine dies as she shifts from reverse to drive, so I must wait a moment. Finally she gets the lever into neutral, and turns the key. The engine ignites immediately, but she holds it on start for a good five seconds.
It’s good I’m not going on an emergency call. There is no hurry. In fact there is no need to go at all, but no reason to avoid going, either. I know what will happen; it will be a repeat of last time. I will walk into the principal’s office and Alice, the secretary, will say, “Go right in, Dr. Tyler. Mr. Goodrich is waiting for you.” I will smile and nod and leave my bag on a chair and say, “Keep an eye on this for me,” and I will go in. Sam Goodrich will stand up behind his desk and stretch his meaty hand to me. We will exchange greetings and he will comment about the pleasant spring weather. I will agree that the weather is indeed agreeable for early March on the prairie, and I will sit down next to a window and say, “What can I do for you?”
Mrs. Dreiser, the guidance counselor, will be called in, and we will perform the greeting ritual again. Then Sam will say, “I’m sorry to bring you here again on something so vague, but frankly I’m worried. There were only six students last time, but the number has grown to over thirty now, and nothing seems to help them. I’m probably wasting your time, but I wish you’d examine some of the new cases.”
“Yes, Dr. Tyler,” Mrs. Dreiser will say, “you’ll make us feel better, even if you don’t discover anything new. We just don’t know what else to do.”
I will fend off their apologies with forced jocularity, and we will go to the first-aid room, where there is an examination table. On the way, Mrs. Dreiser will tell me how the incidence is higher among the more intelligent students, which to her is the most mystifying aspect of the whole thing.
(“The mystifying aspect to me,�
�� Randy, the day cop, said, “is how that little bump on her head could kill her.” “It wasn’t the bump,” I told him, “she froze to death.”)
The brightest boy of the junior class (or senior, or freshman) will be waiting when we arrive. Sam and Mrs. Dreiser will hover discreetly in the background as I examine the boy. I will open my bag and take out several instruments. I check his heart rate and listen to his chest. I take his blood pressure and tap his knee with a hammer. I shine a light in his eyes and peek in his ears, and no one will notice that his problem can’t possibly be in his ears, but the whole thing is for show anyway. I know ahead of time exactly what I will find: nothing.
Mrs. Simms finally gets her Buick moving again, and jerks down the street with her nose brushing the steering wheel. I notice her windows are up, and she is wearing her fur coat. At the second intersection she turns without signaling or varying her speed from its constant fifteen m.p.h., and heads home. With her out of my way, I soon reach the railroad tracks and clatter over the six rails. Two of the six are rusty on top. The depot to my right, like everything else in town, is run down and in need of repairs. Howard, a retired telegrapher, is sitting in front of his old office, and waves as I pass. The smells of coal dust and diesel fuel blow in on the warm air; for a moment I feel better than I have all day.
The boy will say nothing during the examination. I will poke and prod, and he will be malleable, like putty. His eyes will be dull, his manner listless. “Going out for track, Dick?” I will say when I’m through with my monkey tricks. “I haven’t decided yet,” he will mumble in reply. “How do you spend your time at home?” “Homework . . . TV.” He has not yet turned to face me. “What are you planning to do when you graduate?” “Hadn’t thought much about it yet.”
I’ll tell him he’s in good health, though a little run down, and he should go out for track to build his body up. As he shuffles out, Sam and Mrs. Dreiser will look at me questioningly, anxiously. I will shake my head. “I couldn’t find anything wrong with him, physically.”
They will bring in the next student; it will be a girl this time, a cheerleader, a homecoming queen, the prettiest, the smartest girl in her class—at one time. Like the boy, her grades have been slipping, her class participation is nil, her attention span, her initiative, her creativity dead. I will go through the motions of the examination again, and I will find nothing. Her breasts will be full, her hips round, but I will hardly notice, and my indifference will be more than professional.
(“You seem worried about something,” I told the girl last time. “Do you want to tell me about it?” “It’s happened before, but my mother didn’t come home last night,” she said. Then they told me Randy, the day cop, was looking for me, and I learned her mother was dead. They expected me to tell her, of course.)
Passing by Millie Perkins’ house, I see her in her usual place in the bay window, where she can see the street, see the TV set, and reach the telephone at the same time. She is at the phone now. No doubt she is anxious to discuss the soap opera which has just finished its latest episode, the afterimage of the final frame still etched on the screen, the final organ groan vibrating the china as she dials. The TV provides more of her gossip than the street does these days. She is probably calling my wife, herself an intimate of the mythical personalities that dance and blink through our living room:
(“Yes, you did get a call last night, just before you got home, but it came during the last five minutes ofGunsmoke, and then Millie was on the phone, and I forgot to tell you.” “What did the caller say?” “He said there was an unconscious, woman in a car on the road to Walshville. Oh, dear, I do hope nothing terrible happened to her.”)
I may examine one or two more kids, but probably not. We will decide there is little point in it.
“What is it, Dr. Tyler?” Mrs. Dreiser will say. “What’s wrong with them? It doesn’t make any sense, and I, for one, am scared.”
“I don’t know,” I will say. “Can’t understand it myself. I’ve seen people like this many times in my career. It’s often a reaction to mourning, or a buried psychological problem. Usually the person will come out of it by himself, given time. I’ve never seen it so lasting or widespread, though. If it’s any consolation to you, it’s happening all over the country, striking the young mostly, just like here. It started in the small towns, but it’s spreading to the cities now.”
“But what is it?” Sam will say.
“The journals have called it various things. I prefer ‘chronic apathy’ myself. It’s as good a term as any. I haven’t heard any satisfactory explanation of the cause.”
Mrs. Dreiser will probably start sobbing. “What’s going to become of these young people?” she will ask between sniffles.
“Yes, Dr. Tyler,” Sam will say. “What are we to do? What are we to do?”
I will hide my face and shake my head, and pretend I don’t feel like crying myself. I will pretend there never was a time when I was ready for any commitment, no matter how great; never a time when my hope and confidence and energy were unlimited.
“I wish I knew, Sam,” I will say. “I wish I knew.”
<
* * * *
Steve Herbst
CREATION OF A FUTURE WORLD IN THE TRACER
FROMMEDIA, December, 1931: Of all the movies’ dream worlds, the palaces and exotic places in which we seek an escape from our Depression-burdened lives, by far the most fascinating and full of hope, is the dream world of the future. Indeed, the opulence of a screen drama is real for the actors alone, but the future belongs to everybody. And yet only a few films have tried seriously to deal with the consequences of scientific advancement and the changes that will result in art and society. “Science fiction” in the American cinema has lacked realism and has depended as much upon the imagination of the viewer as upon that of the filmmaker. In early September, however, German-born director Francis Rehage released The Tracer, a thrillingly realistic portrayal of the future. Rehage has made seven films in this country in three years; 1929’sAutomobile and his commissioned work regarding the upcoming World’s Fair both demonstrate an uncanny talent for fooling his audience with special film effects. In The Tracer, he has developed this talent to a remarkable level. Although the film is limited in scope, it affords us a most breathtaking view of a world that exists in Rehage’s mind.
Its simple story involves a robbery, the pursuit, and the eventual destruction of the criminal. Rehage’s protagonist criminal, played by burly Arnold Cooke and whose name in the film we never discover, is very much like the misanthropic heroes of Public Enemy and Big House. He is essentially fearless, possessed with the overpowering need to be on top. But despite his tough character, he is over his head in a technological super-world. Here, perhaps, is the film’s single most disturbing flaw: Cooke lives in that world but does not really belong to it; he is surprised and baffled, as we are, by elements of the future that he should take for granted. There is in him a fatal and enigmatic lack, because of which he is hopelessly at odds with the environment in which he finds himself. From the moment the film opens he faces justice in the form of mechanical devices, unlike anything that exists today and yet frighteningly convincing. No alarm sounds when he enters the offices of the futuristic Olympian Industries, but in an opening scene we follow his actions on a pair of eerie television-like screens. Here is where Rehage’s construction of a technology begins. To give the effect of impossibly sharp television pictures on the faces of impossibly small machines, Rehage used multiple exposure to combine three separate shots on one piece of film. The television pictures are actually film images printed through a grid of horizontal lines onto high contrast film. When they are added to the background of desk and office, it appears that we are witnessing the first in a series of electrical marvels.
The office scenes also show a whole range of more mundane objects that were completely redesigned for the future. Telephone switchboard, telephones and typewriters are all streamlined and hig
hly polished, dotted with trademarks and switches to make them seem real. Light fixtures and furniture were created especially for The Tracer out of what architects have said are the materials of the future: chromed steel, hardwoods, and white opaque glass. Wall-to-wall carpeting covers all the floors. The effect produced is glamorous, the appliances expensive yet functional. Director Rehage had a large staff of designers to help him, but it is the coordination of their efforts and the unity of their styles that creates the illusion of a future world for us. Rehage’s approach was to eliminate the frills of our modernistic art while preserving the simplicity of straight lines and smooth surfaces. The same philosophy of styling was applied to every object in his sets: the frames of doors, the elevator with its pushbutton controls, the squared man-sized forms that appear to be coin-operated vending machines. Such extensive and precise work must require a great deal of money; even though many of the design problems were handled by private companies. Rehage spent over a hundred thousand dollars building the office sets alone.
His outstanding achievement in these early scenes is the awesome dusk skyline of Chicago that we see for a total of under two minutes, behind the desk of Eric Haller. It is so believable and unusual, in fact, that we may tend to ignore Haller himself, the first man that Cooke encounters during the film. We should say a few words about this set. It was constructed primarily out of plywood and extends fifty feet behind the window of Haller’s office, and was used only in this final office sequence. A small staff spent two weeks building it, to Rehage’s detailed specifications; it is in almost no way related to the city’s present appearance. When time came for filming, Rehage sealed off the portion of the studio that contained his model and filled it with smoke. The haze hanging over the city keeps us from making out any detail that might give it away. This effective illusion, sealed off by a window from the clean and brightly lit office interior, takes us once and for all into the future.
Orbit 13 - [Anthology] Page 15
