Dawn of the Unthinkable (35 page)

He looked at his chart and was satisfied
that it would suffice for the first rudimentary design of the
system. Each category’s ten levels would be ranked from one to ten,
and with ten categories of regulated resources, a person could
combine the levels in any combination up to fifty points. The goal
of each person would be to be awarded additional life points each
year through achievements to eventually reach one hundred points,
at which time he could “graduate” to the next level. The goal of
society would be to eventually raise the quality of each level,
starting with the bottom levels and working up. He thought he would
try to design several lifestyles to start using his variables. He
picked someone he knew intimately, himself, to decide what he would
want out of life and what he felt he deserved. Here was his
profile:

Age: 39 (Used only to project most likely
health needs)

Sex: Not relevant for determining “package”
of goods

Race: same as above

Marital status: Married

Number of children: 2

Major Life Achievement: Family, Ph.D.

Job Status: Senior Professional

Practicing Religion?: Yes (Used to allocate
donations for religious organization)

Salary Band: Upper Middle Class to Lower
Upper Class

Based on the proposal, his salary band
allowed him a few more options than lower levels, but not as many
as higher levels. For example, he might be able to choose a BMW,
but not a Ferrari. The voting would determine how many point he
would have to delegate for Regulated Resources. With a maximum of
100 points, he determined it was a safe bet to allocate himself 50
points for this exercise. He decided that housing was more
important to him than his vehicles. As there were ten levels of
housing in his mid-range lifestyle band (
That would be the third
level out of five
, he thought.), he would use ten points to get
the best house available in his band. That left him forty points to
spread over the remaining eight categories. He didn’t think he or
anybody in his family would need cosmetic surgery, so that left
forty points over seven categories. He didn’t really care much
about cars, so three points would get him comfortable but basic
transportation, times two so his wife could have a car, also. That
left thirty-four points. He liked premium food and classical music,
so he would allocate six on food and five on premium entertainment,
leaving twenty-three. He liked high-end stereo and personal
computers, and golfing, so nine points would be spent on premium
goods and services, leaving fourteen. He didn’t take many
vacations, being a bit of a workaholic, so only six would be
devoted to that, leaving eight in the “bank.” The banked points
could be used to raise the level of categories when the need or
desire arose. This way if he developed a taste for really fine
wine, he’s have some extra points to satisfy his desire.

He looked at the lifestyle package he had
designed for himself, and while it had limitations, it would be
acceptable if it improved everybody in America’s lot. It was of no
concern to him whether the people who had mansions and boats could
live with it, as it was not his job to convince them. He simply had
to design a computer system model that would show whether this
man’s idea was feasible, not whether it was good or bad, smart or
stupid. The relative certainty of feasibility appealed to Charlie
Lao’s precise brain. The fact that the idea of eliminating poverty
and racism in determining standards of living appealed to him,
also. While he prided himself as being an objective scientist who
let the facts take him where they may, he also knew that models
could be manipulated to show positive results. He decided that this
project might just get a little bit of a helping hand from him. He
was not sure if his father, who had been sent to an American
internment camp for Japanese during WWII, would approve of any
variations from the absolute truth. But Lao was American enough to
know how the game was played. And in Washington, people never let
the facts get in the way of a good story. He chuckled to himself.
If nothing else, this plan was a good story.

He hummed a merry little tune as he set
about designing the system. In this realm, he was a mighty general
who could make his troops of numbers march in a dazzling
formation.

Summer 1994

Wayne Cunningham saw the article. His mind
raced trying to imagine all the permutations of launching the media
campaign in this manner. He had wanted to try to hold back until he
had a read on which way Kennedy was going to go, but that was hard
considering how many Wobblies had been brought on board. He
suspected that one of them had caught this reporter’s ear and from
there on to Ryan. But he had hoped for a more auspicious roll out
than a lifestyle blurb.
Oh, well, what’s done is done
, he
thought, and now he had to plan how to make the best of it.

He decided that he better let Karen Strock
know, not because the senator’s name was mentioned, but just
because the story might start to heat up a little now. He called
her and had her look for the story in the
Times
, where
mercifully it hadn’t appeared. So unless people were really looking
hard for it, there probably wouldn’t be much notice. Of course,
there was no telling at this point as to how interested the
reporter was or whether he would keep trying to follow up.
Cunningham made a note to look into that. Strock was not overly
concerned; she said she had called the Brookings Institution and
they said they were about three weeks away from issuing their
report to Kennedy, and that he and her staff might take another
week or so after that to determine their response. She said the
best thing to do would be to lay low and to try not to have any
more press contacts. If the senator was going to go for it, they
would coordinate press releases from thereon and get the coverage
onto the serious news pages where it belonged. If he passed on the
idea, they were naturally free to pursue it in any way they saw
fit. From her perspective, she preferred to continue to examine the
idea without the prying eyes of the press.

Cunningham assured her they would do their
best to avoid media contact in the future, but that it was
difficult with so many people already aware. He promised to call if
anything else came up and hung up. Now he had to figure out what to
say to Ryan, who was probably worried about what he said and what
Cunningham would say to him and also what to do about Palma who was
trying to sit on some rather skittish colts. He also felt he should
clue the university in because it appeared that something was going
to happen, if not what he hoped. He would take care of Ryan first
and placed the call. Ryan answered, and Cunningham could hear the
tension in his voice.

He tried to put on his usual jaunty act by
saying, “Yo, professor, what’s up?” but Cunningham knew he was
nervous.

“Easy, big fellow, no irreparable harm has
been done. It wasn’t your fault that this guy was such a
third-stringer that he ends up in the lifestyle page. I already
called Kennedy’s office, and they’re not concerned but asked that
we not have any more articles come out until they’re done with
their review, which should take about another three to four weeks.
Do you know if this guy planned any follow up?”

Ryan answered, “I don’t know, but he seems
to sense something big here, and I don’t think he’s been allowed to
cover anything like this for quite a while. So I think he’s going
to be on my ass pretty good, but I’ll just keep telling him
nothing’s happening. What do you think of that?”

Cunningham paused and thought. “Okay, let’s
see how that works, but if he starts nosing around for more, let me
know. I guess we could throw him some more scraps and hope it
doesn’t appear in the gardening section.” They both had a laugh at
that, and Cunningham was pleased he managed to relieve his friend.
There would be enough stress soon.

He next called Palma and got the picture of
how the story was leaked to begin with. The leaker was a lonely guy
down south who nobody paid much attention to, and this was his
moment of glory. Not much could be done about that, but now Palma
was trying to walk a fine line between keeping the members’
enthusiasm high for being a part of something big while not letting
them actually do anything about it. As his people were mostly
independent cusses who weren’t fond of taking direction, this was
like trying to herd Jell-O uphill. He warned Cunningham that three
weeks was about the outside limit that he could keep the lid on,
and that gave them an idea. Three weeks would take them up to the
Fourth of July; why not shoot for announcing it then? With or
without Kennedy, they could announce the Wobblies’ participation
and see how people reacted. They could also test all of their
abilities to work as a team out in public because everything so far
had been out of view. Cunningham and Palma agreed that this was a
good idea, so they called Ryan and let him know. He agreed as well,
so it was set, and the three became very excited.

Cunningham was elated. This was a real, live
social experiment that he was right in the middle of, and it was so
much more thrilling to be a part of it than just relating it to
bored freshmen. Now he had some idea of how Dr. King felt, using
ideas to spur people to action. He wondered if he himself would go
down in history as a beloved revolutionary or as a despotic
crackpot? He grinned at the last image; people in general had such
a bad image of black people, was he going to make it worse? Oh,
well, he was in up to his nose now. No turning back even if he
wanted to.

Now would come the hard part—informing his
dean. He could hardly wait to see what his reaction would be; they
had granted him tenure very reluctantly. Now he would be proving
their worst fears about rampant activism. While there were no rules
against becoming involved in politics, business, or causes, it was
frowned upon as removing the objective basis one needed to be a
skilled observer and commentator on the modern condition. Some of
his fellow professors seemed to have an inordinate amount of free
time. They used stagnant syllabi, regardless of the changing times
and technologies, and employed grad students to grade papers.
Cunningham never took advantage of that perk, remembering his old
days of slave labor for maniacal professors who didn’t want to do a
scrap of work. Besides, some of the students’ work was quite
interesting and even innovative, as Ryan’s paper had shown.
Professors were expected to publish quite frequently, and in a
perverse way, this became more valued than the ability to teach.
While a well-taught course could enlighten thirty to forty-some
students a semester, a well-received book or article with the
university’s name attached could reach thousands. So from an
economic standpoint, the university became more interested in the
writing ability of the professor and was content to let the grad
student teach from the professor’s notes. It didn’t matter too much
to the school that the student was being short-changed by not being
exposed to the professor who helped give the school its good
reputation. Once they had his or her money, the actual content of
the education was not always quality controlled.

All this aside, they still paid him every
two weeks, so he had some degree of loyalty to the place. And now,
he was going to tell them he was trying to rearrange the fabric of
life.
This should go over like the proverbial flatuance in a
house of worship
, he thought. He went to the dean’s office and
checked in with his pleasant but overworked secretary to see if he
could spare him a few minutes. She glanced at the dean’s
appointment book and said if he could be brief, he could sneak in
at the end of the phone conversation he was on. Cunningham lied and
said that he would be brief and sat down to wait. On the waiting
room coffee table were education magazines booming the latest
teaching methods or professor’s accomplishments. He had the feeling
he was going to blow that category wide open.

The dean got off the phone and came out of
his office for a quick stretch and cup of coffee. His eyes widened
in surprise when he saw Cunningham sitting there, as they did not
usually have many one-on-one meetings. He tried to hide his
discomfort, but Cunningham caught it, as he had seen it on so many
white faces in his life.

He put on a false bonhomie, saying heartily,
“Wayne, good to see you, man. Our paths don’t cross much, do they?
How are you doing? How’s the wife and kids?”

Cunningham could see he could not remember
whether he even had a wife and kids, let alone what their names
were. Cunningham didn’t care; he would never count this man as a
friend, just one of the facts of his life. He replied, “They’re
fine, Harry. Growin’ like weeds, and Nancy’s fine.” He said this
last to test his theory about the dean not remembering his wife’s
name.