Beth tried to explain. “It’s not really a ritual we want, I think Sheila, Val, and I feel the way we get married should somehow reveal our deep feelings for each other as individuals. Maybe we’re just being feminine. Maybe we want something to remember ... something that will give the commitment we will make to each other real meaning. Something neither the church, nor the state can provide. The church rituals are meaningless to us. The state ritual is nothing more than a legal contract.”
“Why not write our own marriage ceremony?” Stanley suggested. “If we make it interesting enough, we can invite all the classes at Harrad. Maybe Margaret and Phil will let us use the Little Theatre.”
We discussed it with the Tenhausens, who were immediately enthusiastic. They had a friend who was a justice of the peace and could legally marry us. Whatever else we wished to add to the conventional state contract was up to us. With typical enthusiasm InSix ploughed into the problem.
Last night, when it was all over and Stanley and I, Beth and Harry and Val and Jack were married, we agreed that our ceremony was a success. The weeks of discussion needed for planning each step paid off, not only for us, the participants; I think everyone at Harrad found it a memorable experience.
At quarter of eight, the Little Theatre, lighted with electric candles that flickered in all the windows, cast a friendly glow and made soft shadows on the faces of the students. The second movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was playing softly. We had taped the music, amplifying it from four speakers and timing it so that the Chorale Movement wouldn’t start until everyone was seated. Jack had made a new translation of Schiller’s poem The Ode to Joy, so that everyone could follow the Chorale which is sung in German. We had multigraphed this onto the programs. The programs also gave the marriage vows we would take. The timing was perfect. As the chorale Hymn to Joy began, growing out of the searching music as it does, a hush fell over the audience. The flickering lights of the candles and the rapture of the music created a feeling of time and people encapsulated, as if momentarily, we were all living in a new dimension and every person in the room was interlinked by a mysterious unity.
As the Chorale Movement concluded, the electric candles were dimmed and the stage was bathed in a blue light that gave the floating quality of swirling mist and fog. Valerie, Beth, and I, in white linen dresses, walked on stage left of center facing Harry, Jack and Stanley who appeared right of center wearing black trousers and white short-sleeved shirts, open at the neck.
In measured steps, as the quiet opening of Gliere’s Concerto for Voice and Orchestra filled the theatre, we walked toward each other, and then turned to face the audience. Three separate groups, our fingers interlaced, we listened, facing the guests, while the exquisite voice of a coloratura soprano, wordless, but using her voice as the ultimate orchestral instrument in soaring flights of pure sound led the orchestra and probed love, life, God and beauty. After about fifteen minutes of sheer emotion and feeling, when the final measures of the concerto were reached, the students were watching us in hushed silence. We waited silently for a few seconds, and then we spoke in unison.
“I Stanley, I Sheila, I Harry, I Beth, I Jack, I Valerie, having experienced deep love and warm affection with the person whose hand is laced in mine, having joined our bodies many times in a small attempt to convey to each other our love, having experienced the ineffable wonder of surrender of ourselves into the unity of something beyond our comprehension, having the desire to express this feeling in the culmination of the creative act available to all human beings; our children, who will link us with the future of all men and women and perpetuate us in time, as man knows it; having full confidence that our abiding faith in each other as human beings will last our lifetime; seek permission, petition and enjoin the State of Massachusetts to recognize us and bind us in responsible marriage, asking not that our love for each other be circumscribed for a lifetime of single devotion, but recognizing that as our love and understanding grows it may encompass others without harm or deprivation to the one with whom we are legally joined.”
We had learned the words perfectly. Spoken together by the six of us, they carried the simple majesty of a Greek chorus. Then through amplifiers, our unseen Justice of the Peace responded in a warm, friendly feminine voice.
“The State of Massachusetts has through me, Sarah Forstner, investigated the physical health of the petitioners and found it good. In full confidence that each of you will approach your lives together in a continuous proud and happy realization of your love and the love of your children, by the laws vested in me, I pronounce you, Sheila Grove and you, Stanley Kolasukas; you, Beth Hillyer and you, Harry Schacht; you, Valerie Latrobe and you Jack Dawes, man and wife. May you treasure this trust and responsibility and live fully happy lives. And now if the respective males have some tangibly symbol of their affection they wish to gives their wives they may do so before these friends and witnesses.”
The rings the boys placed on our fingers were simple gold bands engraved with our names and the word “Mizpah.” We kissed excitedly. And then the six of us, tears running down our checks, hugged each other for a moment, and walked slowly down the center aisle. The voice in Gliere’s Concerto filled the theatre in one final trill of ecstasy.
“It was lovely,” Beth marvelled before we were joined by the entire Harrad student body milling around us and happily congratulating us. “We wrote it ourselves, rehearsed it, and yet when it actually happened for real, I was so trembly and awestricken I thought I would burst into tears.”
Val and I were crying happily. “We are married, Sheila,” she grinned through her tears. “I can’t really believe it. Somehow, we are all married to each other, too.”
And we were married. Not just for better or worse, or richer or poorer, or in sickness and health, but somehow with an even deeper commitment that transcended all of these. We had learned to like each other, and discovered that liking was the leaven of love. Poor Daddy, he loved a lot of women, but he didn’t like them much.
FROM THE JOURNAL OF STANLEY COLE
January and February, the Fourth Year
Before graduation, all seniors must turn in a joint thesis to complete their work in the seminar on Human Values. Phil Tenhausen assigned the project in September, with the papers due in May. The subject is “How our present Western Society might evolve, could, or should evolve within the next hundred years into a society where each individual could live lives that realized their full potential as human beings.”
The Tenhausens have insisted that we try to keep our projections within the realm of possibility, hence capable of evolving out of the framework of the present economic, social, and religious environment of a reasonably democratic country. We are given two assumptions. One, that with all its deficiencies Western democratic society as we now experience it is probably superior to any form of social, economic or political system now, or previously in existence, in the world. The second condition is that the type of “Psychologic individual,” who must ultimately dominate our projected society, has been investigated in a preliminary way by Abraham Maslow in his many analyses of the “selfactualized” healthy human being, and described in some detail in Maslow’s book Motivation and Personality.
So far as I know, none of the senior roommates have started their papers, but all of us have spent hours of discussion, kicking around various approaches; arguing and disagreeing on the fundamental principles involved in such a society. When we all started to talk about our Utopias, Phil tried to kill this approach. He pointed that Maslow had offered the idea of “Eupsychia,” a Utopia where all men were psychologically healthy. From what Maslow claimed he knew of healthy people, he felt he could predict the kind of culture that would evolve if a thousand psychologically healthy families migrated to a desert island where they could work out their destinies as they pleased.
Phil feels the desert island approach is unrealistic, and was evolved to its ultimate stupidity by Irving Wallace in his novel The Three
Sirens. So Phil is challenging us to a far more demanding solution by insisting that we work within the reality of the Harrad experience and extend the insights we have gained to a larger social environment.
Aside from discussion, Sheila and I had found no logical approach to our thesis. Sam’s death and our marriage kept the cross-currents of our thinking from coming into focus. A few days before Christmas, Sheila’s mother and her husband drove up to Boston to discuss the details of Sam’s wilL Reluctantly, Sheila met her at the Charter House Motel in Cambridge. From there they were going to the Boston lawyers who had transcripts of the will and full information for the heirs. Sheila knew in advance that her mother was disgruntled and unhappy at her share in Sam’s estate. “I suppose she expects that I’ll give her more,” Sheila told me grimly, then laughed. “What the hell, maybe I will ... and then I’ll shake hands and say Goodbye Mother for this lifetime. I hope we don’t meet the next time around.”
I decided that Sam’s money was none of my business even though Sheila and I were married. I promised to meet her later in the Harrad gym when she returned. A group of us congregated at the end of the pool and were discussing our thesis in terms of a book called Images, by Daniel Boorstin. His analysis of our culture, which depends so much on pseudo-events and pseudo-news, and numerous books in the same vein by Vance Packard and others seemed to show a straight path to an Orwellian future with little hope that reasonable people could halt the roller coaster ride to hell. None of these critics of our society had any real solutions, and were perhaps making their “Reality” even more real by identifying it and then walking away without answers.
Phil and Margaret joined us and our discussion switched to whole-hearted approval of Margaret’s well-formed body. Last year she had been pregnant. She and Phil had a daughter aged six and a boy eighteen months. With three children, she still remained as trim as a girl in her twenties. Margaret was trying to convince us it was simply a matter of calories and judicious exercise when Sheila, pattering along the edge of the pool, her breasts bobbling unconcernedly, her face wearing a preoccupied frown, joined us, a little breathless.
“God,” she sighed. “It’s good to be back after a day among the philistines. I heard what you said Margaret. It’s not only calories. It’s middle class stuffiness. Millions of Americans are inflated not only by food but by their own pomposity. My mother used to be a fairly simple woman. She claims she left Daddy because she couldn’t stand his drive and aggressiveness. She married Harold because he was an uncomplicated person whose hobbies of fishing and home carpentry left plenty of time for clubs, television, and Sunday family togetherness.
“Daddy discovered a very nasty way to prove to her that all men are corruptible. Three years ago, Harold was suddenly promoted from the accounting department of Grove Oil to eastern Vice President and Controller. From eight thousand dollars a year, Harold now earns forty thousand dollars a year. His once simple life has become complicated by a big house in Saybrook, a cabin cruiser, two automobiles, and the kids in private schools. Mother and Harold are enamoured with their prestige and new status in the community. They are owned by their possessions. They spend more than they earn to maintain their new image of success. Mother has passed from girdles to corsets. Harold’s favorite occupation is hotel size steaks, which he proudly barbecues with the help of a handy man and maid for his summer guests, while everyone present consumes oceans of liquor and tasty hors d’oeuvres. The men discuss business and tell each other dirty jokes while the women courteously rip apart all their friends.”
I interrupted her tirade. “Why did your mother come up to Cambridge?”
“That’s the second installment of the sad story,” Sheila said grimly. “She’s quite upset about Daddy’s will. She, and Daddy’s second wife, whom they are trying to locate (she married an Iranian prince), received two hundred and fifty thousand dollars each. Beejee got all the property and a million dollars. Asoka got two hundred and fifty thousand. I inherited five million dollars. The balance of the estate is largely the stock of the Grove OiL It went into the Grove Foundation. I have the entire voting control of the Foundation. Mother is more than exasperated. She feels that I could spare at least a million.”
While Sheila had told me the details of Sam’s will, the others were surprised and a little shocked by so much money. “Good God,” Jack Dawes whistled. “I knew you were rich, but I never thought you were filthy rich. When are you kissing goodbye to Harrad and your proletariat friends?”
“Damn all of you if you feel that way,” Sheila flashed. “I’m not interested in money. It can do nasty things to you. Look at my mother. She got a quarter of a million dollars because she slept with Sam Grove a few years and had me. Now she firmly believes that she is entitled to more. And if she had it, what would she use it for? A villa on the Riviera, a house in Palm Beach or Palm Springs, a bigger yacht. A life of sheer waste. As far as I’m concerned, Daddy played her a dirty trick. The two hundred and fifty thousand dollars will give her and Harold sufficient delusions of their own importance to make them completely intolerable.”
“What are you going to do with your money?” Beth asked. “Foundations have to disburse all their money.... Ye Gods!”
“Sheila is going to underwrite experimental movies,” Jack said mischievously. “Now we can finish the Meshugana Ape.”
Sheila giggled. “I think it would be better, Jack, to set you up as a fashion designer. Such originality as Fanny Fashions should be encouraged. Seriously, I’m going to see that a lot of the Foundation money goes to Harrad. From that point on I’m open to suggestions. With the income from my personal estate plus the Foundation money, the lawyers tell me I’ll have about four million dollars a year to get rid of. At the moment, several hundred people are eager to help me figure how to spend it,” Sheila grinned. “My only friends are right here at Harrad.”
Hilariously, we made Sheila stand up while we all kissed our naked Santa Claus. Phil was last in line. He picked Sheila up, whirled her around joyously, and jumped in the pool with her. We all jumped in after them. Sheila came to the surface gasping, her hair plastered over her head. “Oh gosh,” she yelled. “I love you all.”
It’s strange, the way ideas spring into being. I couldn’t offer Sheila any really good suggestions on how to disburse the Foundation money, but the thought of it was in the background of my mind. Maybe the way to have a steady source of new ideas is to treat your mind like an insatiable, giant hopper. Keep tossing everything and anything into the pot. If you don’t try to start grinding, eventually when you get enough in the mill, the gears will start turning themselves.
For the past few weeks, in a course in Political Science which I have been taking, we have been studying election returns in the various states. While perhaps I should have been aware of it, I was conscious, for the first time, that the total vote for both candidates for governor of certain states was only a few hundred thousand votes, and the winning margin in many cases was exceptionally small. Theoretically, in those less populous states it was easier to run for governor, both financially and in the area of actual political contact, than in states like California or New York. On the other hand, an exceptional governor of even a small state could very readily create national political interest in himself as well as his state.
I was taking a shower with Sheila, soaping her breasts and belly and pussy, and I suppose my mind should have been preoccupied. She was shampooing her hair and enjoying my playing . . . when somehow The Idea snapped into place.
“Eureka, I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” I yelled and hugged her soapy body against me getting soap in my eyes and mouth as I kissed her excitedly. “I’ve got a practical proposal for how a unique society could develop within the framework of United States. Supposing a group like InSix, backed with sufficient money and a complete social program, infiltrated one of the smaller states and gradually developed it as a show-case society for the rest of the country to emulate. That Sheila, my love, is the launching
point we can take for our thesis in Human Values.”
“Sounds way-out and mad,” Sheila said practically as she rubbed me down with a towel. “What state? And how could you change the people within a particular state? After all, for good or bad they’re all Americans with much the same perspective, values, and outlook on life. There is no fence around any state.”
In no hurry to dress, we lay on my bed and discussed it. “Several states in the Northwest jump into my mind,” I told her. “Obviously, the people in these states have some of the pioneering spirit left. Where could we start? Let’s visualize a group of six or more men and women with a definite social program designed to help people live to their full potential. Let’s assume this Utopian group would take up residence in this State, which they have carefully preselected and studied statistically in every possible way. Our group is thoroughly acquainted with the economics of the state, the racial groups, the political problems, the religious groupings. They would plan the first stage of their program to take a minimum of ten years. The first goal to be accomplished would be a complete rewrite of the state laws. One of the group would have to be a lawyer. Fortunately, most of the laws governing marriage, divorce, censorship, education, wages, and working conditions, all crucial to the new society they have envisioned, are within the province of the state and can be changed, for the most part, without Constitutional conflict. It would even be possible to make changes in the State laws, knowing they conflict with the Constitution, and then wait until these laws have been tested in the Supreme Court. This is where money would come in. Our dedicated group, backed by a foundation with plenty of money available like the Grove Foundation, would carefully plan its long range propaganda and project a complete approach that eventually would give them political control of this State. Once our group is functioning within the State, they would go all out to attract within their orbit all the thinking citizens of the state. Within a few years their plan would be to control the political machinery and elect a sympathetic Governor and legislature.
The Harrad Experiment Page 24
