“Something effecting, well, everybody. Say, a universal curse.”
The engineer pursed his lips. “You know, one of the difficulties with these subjects is our terminology. Use a term such as miracle, or curse, or magic, and intellectual hackles immediately go up, as conditioned. But without getting into semantics, to answer your question, yes. There would seem to have been miracles, and, if so, there probably still are, or, at least could be.”
Ed held up a hand. “Now, wait a minute. Name just one.”
“You can have a dozen if you want. Moses parting the waters. Jesus feeding the multitudes with a few fish and seven loaves of bread.”
Ed said, in disappointment, “It’s debated whether or not either of them ever lived.”
Jim Westbrook shrugged. “The Moslems are just as convinced that Mohammed performed various miracles, and nobody would deny his historicity. Or take Saint Teresa, of Avila. She could evidently levitate. I suppose that would come under the head of miracle, or magic, to most of her contemporaries and most of ours. I just object to the terms. I thing that levitation is a, well, normal attribute of some persons. The fact that it is poorly understood doesn’t make it a miracle when someone such as, say, Saint Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, performs the act. Or, offhand, among others I can think of who could levitate were Saints Philip Benitas, Bernard Ptolomei, Dominic, Francis Xavier and Albert of Sicily. Then there was Savonarola, who was seen floating a couple of feet or so off his dungeon cell floor just before they burned him to death.”
“All of them religious fanatics,” Ed complained. “I don’t trust their witnesses. A fanatic religious crank can see anything when he’s keyed up. I’m an old hand, what with my program.”
His host twisted his mouth. “Well, then there was D. D. Home. His witnesses were far from religious cranks when they saw him float out of a window and then return through another one, ten stories off the ground. And Mrs. Guppy and the Reverend Stainton Moses, all fairly recent and all well checked upon by figures of prominence in the scientific world.”
Ed Wonder was unhappy. He rubbed the end of his nose with his left forefinger. He felt an urge to scratch his now nonexistent mustache.
Jim Westbrook looked at him, eyebrows slightly raised, waiting for the next.
Just to say something, Ed made a sweeping gesture to encompass the room. “What’re you trying to put over with this kooky room, Jim?” When the engineer didn’t seem to get the question, he added, “All this out of date furniture, no autobar, no TV, primitive art, if you can call it art, on the walls.”
Jim Westbrook said wryly, “Velazquez and Murillo weren’t exactly Cro-Magnon cavewall painters, Little Ed.”
“Yeah, but what do your friends think about all this twitchy layout?”
Westbrook considered him, his mouth twisted slightly in sour humor. “I don’t have a great many friends, real friends, these days, Little Ed. Those I do have, usually agree with me. They think this room is comfortable, which is the basic thing, and utilitarian, which is next. Beyond that…” he laughed “…at least some of them prefer Velazquez to the Surrealistic-Revival agonies of Jackson Salvadore.”
It came to Ed in a quick surprise that the heavy-set, alert engineer across from him didn’t particularly like Ed Wonder. It came as a surprise, because Ed had known the other for some years and had always got along with him. He’d had him on the Far Out Hour several times, since the man had a bent for offbeat subjects and seemed to be an authority on everything from parapsychology to space travel. Above all, he had a mischievous love of baiting scientific conventional wisdom and was a veritable Charles Fort in finding material with which to butcher the sacred cow.
He had always thought of Jim Westbrook as a friend, and only now did he know the other didn’t reciprocate. Before thought, he blurted, “Jim, why do you dislike me?”
The other’s eyebrows went up again and he held his silence for a long moment. Finally he said slowly, “It’s not the sort of question people usually ask, Little Ed. When they do, they seldom really want it answered.”
“No. Tell me.” Those words came out too, without volition.
Jim Westbrook leaned back in his chair. “All right, friend. The fact is I don’t dislike you. I’m neutral. You know what? You’re a stereotype, like practically everybody else. We’re becoming a nation of stereotypes. Everybody is a stereotype. Why in the world should all girls want to look like the current sex symbol, Brigitte Loren? But they do. The short and the fat and the tall. And all ambitious young businessmen want to look exactly the same, in their Brooks Brothers suits. They’re scared to death not to look exactly the same. They want to conform to the point where conformity becomes ludicrous. What in the hell has happened to our civilization? Remember when we had the term individuality? Rugged individualism? Now we’re frightened not to look exactly like the man next door looks, not to live in the identically same sort of house, drive the same kind of car.”
“So you think I’m just one more stereotype.”
“Yes.”
He had asked for it, but as the burly engineer had gone on, Ed Wonder had felt himself coming to a slow boil. Now he bit out, “But you’re not, of course.”
Jim Westbrook had to chuckle wryly. “I’m afraid calling a man a stereotype is something like telling him he has no sense of humor, that he isn’t a good driver, or that he’s a poor lover.”
Ed snapped, “Not to resort to an old wheeze, but if you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”
The other cut off his amusement and there seemed an air almost of compassion in what he said. “I am rich. About as rich as a person can get, because I’m doing what I want to do and have achieved or am achieving the things I find desirable. Or did you mean money? If you meant money, I have all I need. Probably if I devoted more time, especially if I devoted all of my time, to getting more, I could. But I haven’t enough time as it is to do all the things I want to do, so wouldn’t it be rather silly for me to spend any more time than necessary to chasing money?”
“I’ve heard that bit before,” Ed said. “But I’ve always noticed that those who have it on the ball, who are really smart, get up there on top.”
Jim Westbrook said gently, “I’m not disagreeing, friend, but it might be a question of what you consider the top. A chap named Lyle Spencer, who was president of the Science Research Associates at the time, did some research on intelligence quotients. He found that engineers and scientists of top ranking average about 135 in I.Q. Top business executives went to about 120. Spencer pointed out that most presidents of corporations weren’t as smart as their employees in their research departments. In fact, on averages they ranked under such mundane occupations as pharmacists, teachers, medical students, general bookkeepers, mechanical engineers and accountants. So evidently intelligence isn’t the prime ingredient in getting to the top, as you call it.”
Ed sneered, “Oh, great. So if somebody came along and offered you a half million, you’d say, ‘No thanks, I’m too smart. I’d rather be happy, playing with my darkroom and electronics shop, down in the basement.’ ”
The other laughed. “I didn’t say I’d refuse more money if it came along, Little Ed. I realize the advantages of having money. It’s just that I’m not going to spend the balance of my life pursuing the stuff at the price of giving up what I really value.” He came to his feet. “We don’t seem to be hitting it off any too well today, friend. What do you say we postpone matters until another time?”
It wasn’t too crude a brushoff, but brushoff it was. Disgusted more with himself than the other, Ed stood and started for the door. Jim Westbrook followed him. Evidently, the engineer hadn’t been in the slightest discomfited by the radioman’s words.
At the door, Ed turned and said, “Get a newspaper, or walk on over and talk to your nearest neighbors that have a TV set or radio. Maybe I’ll get in touch with you again later.”
“All right,” Westbrook said mildly.
The bars had been packed the night before, and the time you were allowed to remain, rationed. Ed Wonder had given up his hopes of sitting in one long enough to get an edge on, and the taste of what Jim Westbrook had said to him out of his mouth. It hadn’t tasted so good.
Not only had the bars been packed, but the streets as well. In all his memory, Ed Wonder couldn’t remember ever having seen the streets so thronged with pedestrians. They didn’t seem to have any place in particular to go. Just strolling up and down, aimlessly. The lines before the movie houses were so long as to be meaningless. Those toward the end couldn’t possibly have got inside until the following day.
Ed had gone back to his own apartment and sank into his reading chair. He grunted his contempt of the overstuffed antiques in Jim Westbrook’s establishment. Comfortable? Sure, but how kooky could you get?
