In a letter she writes me some months later, she describes Afghanistan and her own work there. ‘Afghanistan is pretty screwed up—a discouraging place to work. It has the highest amputee rate in the world (thanks to extensive landmining by the Soviets), the highest infant mortality rate in the world, and one of the highest illiteracy rates. There are no reliable phone systems, water systems, sewage systems, or electricity supplies. And the civil war goes on, fraught with human rights abuses, age-old hatred and tangled ethical dilemmas. I worked for SERVE in Mazar-I-Sharif, Afghanistan for the summer between my sophomore and junior years here at Bryan College. I flew in from Peshawar on a tiny Red Cross plane (the only way in and out of the city) right after a battle. The place was a sandbagged, shot-up disaster. War is an odd thing. It can seem normal when you’re in it. Life goes on, and human beings become accustomed to catastrophe.’
You could also make a case that the intellectual lives of Laurie and her friends are richer than those of most non-Christian kids of their class. They have thought seriously about the nature of existence, albeit from a position which tends to be fixed at the outset, and make a better case for their own interpretation of it than would the average student. Most whom I spoke to had studied other religions and philosophies, which, again, an ordinary kid might not have. Some whom I met during the cave trip will be narrowed by their unrelenting consciousness of their faith and the lack of it in others; but looking at my hiking pals—now plunging into the water again as I lie prostrate on a boulder—I don’t believe this will be true for them. These three could fit in anywhere.
And then there’s their ‘spiritual’ life. At least one of these splashing kids will likely end up working in a refugee camp or somewhere similar, doing genuine good, their religion irrelevant to the grateful recipients of their charity.
It is this idea of spiritual peace through service for which I most envy them.
I remember the period in my childhood when I wanted to be a missionary of some kind, a worker among the dispossessed. I remember the imagined sensation of waking up each morning sure that where I was was where I should be and what I was doing was unquestionably right. The serene clarity of such an existence, dreamed of at seven but never tried, is, I realise, something I still long for. Perhaps the void I’ve tried to fill with sex and love, with alcohol and drugs, with illicit romance and relentless work, perhaps this lifelong gasping vacuum is actually just hunger for this state of grace.
I close my eyes and stretch out further on the rock, arms thrown wide like Jesus on the cross, and think about my new religion.
It will be taught that there are three circles of responsibility, each of which must be satisfied if you are to live a full and happy life.
The first is responsibility to yourself. This is not selfishness, but a simple, practical matter. Buddhists say that a person should measure his or her wealth by what can be done without. But to understand what you can do without you must understand what you cannot do without. You must be accurately aware of what you need to maintain mental equilibrium. I myself require four things beyond the obvious necessities of food, sleep, and shelter. I require exercise, work, books, and perhaps most important of all, solitude. I can do without people and without love or sex—at least the kind requiring another person—for fairly extensive periods, although I’d much rather not. If I lack any of the other four, however, I rapidly sink into depression and anxiety and start to go mad. This, of course, benefits no one.
The second circle is the responsibility you have to those who you know, starting with your immediate family and friends, but expanding out to people you deal with at work, in shops, on the phone. If you use your energy and imagination to bring happiness or relief to people, then pleasure and relief will be your reward. If you constantly make anyone’s life even marginally worse, or if you fail those who need you, you will be, whether you are aware of it or not, contaminated by shame and despair. All this is obvious if not necessarily easy.
Last, and most important, is the third circle. This is your responsibility to the world beyond your own direct experience. Here the result of action or inaction is seemingly invisible. Why should you care about a faceless African starving to death in a village you never heard of, and what possible effect could it have on you if you ignore his plight? Materially, none. And it is precisely this—that there is no reason to care for him—which makes it vital that you do. To neglect this distant stick-figure who shares nothing with you except his humanity is to deny the possibility of epic humanity. To care for him, to take action for him, is, on the other hand, to confirm humanity in its grandest sense.
Before I can think more about this, I feel water dripping on me. Laurie and her friends are out. ‘You wanna go back?’ asks Laurie, as I remain supine on the hot, flat boulder.
‘Sure,’ I say, looking at her differently.
Here is a woman half my age, who, for all her theological faults, is, any way you cut it, far closer to fulfilling the obligations of her three circles than I am. In comparison to hers, my life seems ill-considered and without purpose.
The return journey is even more anxiety inducing than the one which brought me here. Climbing up a rock is one thing, climbing down another. When you go down, your head is at the wrong end. You can’t see what your feet are doing and if you try, if you poke your head out, you overbalance and fall. It is a testament to my professionalism that as we walk and scramble at breakwrist speed down the rocky gully, I continue to dig and probe. I ask Laurie if she and Matt are boyfriend and girlfriend.
‘No,’ she says, ‘just friends.’
And the cock crowed thrice …
Finally, they return my damp, floundering body to the motel. I thank them effusively, particularly Laurie. They nod, and in that way of theirs, fade away in polite retraction. I rush inside and light a cigarette. Oh, blessed relief—survival.
I’m running out of clothes and my sneakers are filled with mud and water. I wash them in the sink and then put them out in the humid air before finding the laundry room. I dump everything into one of the machines except for a pair of shorts and a T-shirt which I’m wearing. The motel is situated between the upper points of a U-shaped road, each end of which connects to the highway. Looking out through the laundry door, I see Laurie’s car turn off and slide down the road alongside the motel on the opposite side from my room. She is alone and doesn’t see me. I head back toward my room, expecting her to have made the curve of the U and be arriving. She had said she would deliver a paper we had spoken of. Instead, I see her take a small offshoot from the U and pass behind another part of the motel, a new extension. I wait for her car to emerge. It does not. I wait. I can see the rear fender of her car. It’s parked behind the building.
My curiosity grows. Is she concerned that to visit me alone might appear sinful and so has hidden the car and now awaits a deserted forecourt to make her dash toward me? Or is she in some kind of spiritual crisis? After a while I get in my car and drive around as if going someplace. She sits in the front seat, alone. I draw up alongside. All the windows are open.
‘Hello, Laurie, what are you doing?’ I ask.
And then I see another figure in the car, Matt, lying on his back on the wide front seat, his head resting on her lap. Blushing, but continuing to stoke his hair affectionately, Laurie says, ‘Oh, just talking.’ Matt does not sit up. I apologise and drive away.
Well, well, well. Tut tut. And so on. Not boyfriend and girlfriend, eh? I like them all the more for this. They are more filled with humanity and romance than with theology and dogma.
A short while later, Matt brings me the paper I wanted and I apologise again. He does not seem as embarrassed as Laurie did and shrugs. It’s not a problem. He tells me he’ll be passing through Manhattan on his way to Egypt. I won’t be in town at that time, unfortunately, but I promise to get him the names of some cheap hotels and the numbers of two YMCAs. He gives me a fleeting smile and walks away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A Ticket Home
The next morning when I wake up, even the air-conditioning can’t fight the humidity, which now resembles the creationists’ water canopy, except unlike that dense fog, this stuff doesn’t stop five feet from the ground, it goes all the way down. Rather than go out, I decide to stay in my room and finish reading the transcript of the trial which brought me here.
Tuesday, July 21, was the eighth and last day of the trial. After the prayer, Judge Raulston said he didn’t think Darrow’s interrogation of Bryan had any value in determining the case and would not help a higher court decide the issue on appeal. This case was not about how God created man but about whether Scopes taught something prohibited by the state. The court was therefore expunging Bryan’s testimony from the record.
Darrow stood up. ‘Of course, I am not at all sure that Mr. Bryan’s testimony would aid the Supreme Court, or any other human being, but he testified by the hour there and I haven’t got through with him yet.’
But he had. The court would not permit him to continue.
In that case, Darrow said, as he was not permitted to bring on any other witnesses and could offer no further arguments against this narrow definition of the crime, the court might as well bring in the jury and instruct it to find Scopes guilty. The defence, while still pleading not guilty, would offer no objections. Clearly the case could only be settled on appeal.
Bryan was appalled. He had been robbed! There would now be no opportunity to cross-examine Darrow, nor to make his closing arguments, which he had been working on for weeks! He stood up and complained that he had been deprived of the chance ‘to answer the charges made by the counsel for the defense as to my ignorance and bigotry.’
As he was clearly about to make a speech, Darrow asked the judge, ‘Why can’t he go outside on the lawn?’ But the judge permitted the old man to continue. Bryan begged the press to publish his closing arguments and also the questions he would have asked Darrow had he been given the opportunity. Darrow stood up and said loudly that he’d happily answer the questions in front of the press. In fact, why not stage a debate?
Bryan did not agree to this and rambled on, bemoaning his fate. ‘I simply want to make that statement and say that I shall have to avail myself of the press without having the dignity of it being presented in the court, but I think it is hardly fair for them to bring into the limelight my views on religion and stand behind a dark lantern that throws light on other people but conceals themselves.’
Malone said that all of the defence lawyers would be happy to answer any questions Bryan might have in any forum he desired; but again Bryan did not take up the challenge and eventually sat down.
The jury was called in and, having received its instructions from the judge, was told by Darrow that under the circumstances it had little choice but to find a verdict of guilty and that he had no problem with this. The jury was out nine minutes and then came back with a guilty verdict at 11:23 A.M. The fine had to fall somewhere between $100 and $500. The judge decided on the minimum and set bail at $500. Both these sums were paid by the Baltimore Evening Sun. Scopes made a short statement saying the statute was unjust and he would continue to fight for academic freedom, and it was all over but for a few polite and conciliatory speeches.
Darrow went back to Chicago. Bryan stayed on in Dayton, giving speeches and sermons, looking for a location for Bryan College, and most importantly, reworking his 15,000-word ‘closing argument.’
It would indeed be his closing argument. Five days after the trial ended, he ate one of his customarily large lunches and died in the ensuing post-prandial snooze. Few newspapers published his closing speech in its entirety, it was far too long, and most didn’t publish it at all.
On hearing of Bryan’s death, Mencken wrote ‘God aimed at Darrow, missed, and hit Bryan instead.’
The Scopes case eventually came up on appeal before the Tennessee Supreme Court. The verdict was overturned on a technicality: the jury not the judge should have set the fine. A retrial was considered but Scopes was no longer employed by the state. Stewart, the prosecutor, let the matter drop, thus denying Darrow the chance to take the case to the Supreme Court. And that was it. The law was not repealed until 1967.
George Rappleyea, the man who brought the trial to Dayton, left town soon after it was over. He went to Canada, then to Mobile, Alabama, then New Orleans, and finally ended up in Miami. Along the way, he invented a new kind of road surface which was used on runways, and a device which improved aerial mapping cameras. During the Second World War, he was involved in a boat-building enterprise. After the war he was secretary and treasurer of a company called Marsarlis Construction. In 1947, along with Marsarlis and four other men, he was arrested for attempting to smuggle arms to British Honduras in violation of the National Firearms Act.
Rappleyea and Marsarlis served a year and a day in prison. George died in Miami in 1966 but was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, where, coincidentally, the author of ‘The Prince of Peace,’ William Jennings Bryan, had insisted on being buried. What Rappleyea did to earn a place in this exclusive boneyard of patriots remains a mystery.
Scopes moved to Chicago, where he occasionally had dinner with Darrow and his wife. He took a postgraduate course in geology. He was still considering a return to teaching, though at the college level, when an application for a much-needed fellowship was turned down by the president of a university who wrote, ‘Your name has been removed from consideration for the fellowship. As far as I’m concerned you can take your atheistic marbles and play elsewhere.’ Realising his notoriety would follow him wherever he went in academic life, Scopes left college and took a job as a geologist with Gulf Oil of South America. He spent several years in Venezuela and Mexico and remained in the commercial sector until he died.
Darrow tried a couple more cases and then retired. He died in 1938.
Arthur Garfield Hays went back to his law practice in New York. He continued to take civil rights cases until his death in 1954.
Dudley Field Malone got divorced again and remarried again. For some reason, his practise began to fail and he moved west. He spent the last ten years of his life in Hollywood, where he became a character actor in the movies. He died in 1950, the same year as I was born.
I decide it’s time to go home. I call the Chattanooga airport and find there’s only one plane I can catch today which will make the connection to New York out of Atlanta.
I have two hours to get there. I pack, check out, and start driving.
I’m going past the walking track just beyond the Chamber of Commerce—and there’s Gloria! Of course! Because I’m a week late for the re-enactment, she’s down here for her friends’ wedding. At this precise revelatory moment there’s a crack of thunder, the canopy bursts, huge drops of rain begin to fall, and Gloria’s determined march turns into an ungainly canter away from the highway. I realise I don’t have time to give chase and still make my plane.
A minute later, the rain is so heavy I’m blind if my speed exceeds twenty-five miles an hour. A minute after that, I don’t need whatever shoddy American car I’ve rented, I need an ark. I’m crawling along at ten miles an hour, the windows are misted up, and I’m low on gas. This continues for an hour.
When I finally arrive at the outskirts of Chattanooga, I get lost. I go on one highway and then another. I get off and get back on again. The rain, which has remained dense for the last forty miles, suddenly dwindles to a mere storm. Looking around in growing panic for a sign directing me to the airport, I see a huge jointed truck start to skid. The long trailer behind it swings sideways, lunges into the cab and launches it over a cliff. A half second later the rear of the trailer tilts up at the back, and the whole rig plunges over and disappears from sight.
As if in shock, all traffic instantly stops.
To be utterly cold about it, there is no need to stop. There is no obstruction, the truck is gone; but still everyone has to slow down and gawk in horror at the ripped barrier. One or two
people park on the hard shoulder, venture out into the rain, and look down at whatever lies below as if they might actually do something.
I now have twenty minutes to get to the airport, give back the car, be issued a ticket, find the gate, and hurtle down the tube into the plane. And yet I cannot hurry because if anything happens, if I crash or get caught speeding, I’m out of Sneed and Rocky’s jurisdiction and could easily face jail time. I lean out my window into the rain and yell at someone. ‘Which way’s the airport? ’ and they tell me it’s the next exit. ‘How far?’ ‘About one mile!’
Terrific, except the traffic is moving at one mile an hour, and even with my poor mathematical ability, I can figure out that if nothing changes … well, it’s going to take me a while to reach the exit.
Suddenly, my desire to be home becomes intense.
I want to sleep in my own bed, have a choice of books to hand, and feel the plaque-removing supersonic buzz of my own supersonic toothbrush. I want to put on my Issey Miyake suit and drive my big black Japanese Sport Utility Vehicle downtown to eat sushi at Nobu and drink sake. I want to stand despised among the wives of stockbrokers, waiting for my beloved daughter to emerge from her overpriced school in her little green uniform. I want to watch foreign films and eat fresh vegetables not cooked in batter. Then there is the matter of my wife, with her conviction and her wide smile and her round Brazilian buttocks.
Trials of the Monkey Page 36
