Robert Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

"Who cares now, Ira? They're all dead. It would be my version without giving them a chance to answer back. Let sleeping dogs bury their own dead. Besides, I told you my memory was playing tricks. I've used Andy Libby's hypno- encyclopedic techniques-and they're good-and also learned tier storage for memory I didn't need every day, with keying words to let a tier cascade when I did need it, like a computer, and I have had my brain washed of useless memories several times in order to clear those file drawers for new data-and still it's no good. Half the time I can't remember where I put the book I was reading the night before, then waste a morning looking for it-before I remember that that book was one I was reading a century ago. Why won't you leave an old man in peace?"

"All you have to do is to tell me to shut up, sir. But I hope you will not. Granted that memory is imperfect, nevertheless you were eyewitness to thousands of things the rest of us are too young to have seen. Oh, I'm not asking you to reel off a formal autobiography covering all your centuries. But you might reminisce about anything you care to talk about. For example, there is no record anywhere of your earliest years. I-and millions of others-would be extremely interested in whatever you remember of your boyhood."

"What is there to remember? I spent my boyhood the way every boy does-trying to keep my elders from finding out what I was up to."

Lazarus wiped his mouth and looked thoughtful. "On the whole I was successful. The few times I was caught and clobbered taught me to be more careful next time-keep my mouth shut more and not make my lies too complicated. Lying is one of the fine arts, Ira, and it seems to be dying out."

"Really? I had not noticed any diminution."

"I mean as a fine art. There are still plenty of clumsy liars, approximately as many as there are mouths. Do you know the two most artistic ways to lie?"

"Perhaps I don't but I would like to learn. Just two?"

"So far as I know. It's not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth-but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it...but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying.

"I must have been twelve, thirteen years old before I got that one down pat. Learned it from my maternal Grampaw; I take after him quite a lot. He was a mean old devil. Wouldn't go inside a church or see a doctor-claimed that neither doctors nor preachers know what they pretend to know. At eighty-five he could crack nuts with his teeth and straight-arm a seventy-pound anvil by its horn. I left home about then and never saw him again. But the Families' Records say that he was killed in the Battle of Britain during the bombing of London, which was, some years after."

"I know. He's my ancestor, too, of course, and I'm named for him, Ira Johnson."* (* (1) Ira Johnson was less than eighty at the time the Senior claims (elsewhere) to have left home. Ira Johnson was- himself a Doctor of Medicine. How long he practiced, and whether or not he ever let another Doctor of Medicine attend him,-are not known. J.F.45th

(2) Ira Howard-Ira Johnson-This appears to be a chance coincidence of given names at a time when Biblical names were common. Families' genealogists have been unable to trace any consanguinity. J.F.45th)

"Why, sure enough, that was his name. I just called him 'Gramp.'"

"Lazarus, this is exactly the sort of thing I want to get on record. Ira Johnson is not only your grandfather and my remote grandfather but also is ancestor to many million people here and elsewhere-yet save for the few words you have just told me about him, he has been only a name, a date of birth, and a date of death, nothing more. You've suddenly brought him alive again-a man, a unique human being. Colorful."

Lazarus looked thoughtful. "I never thought of him as 'colorful.' Matter of fact he was an unsavery old coot-not a 'good influence'-for a growing boy by the standards of those times. Mmm, there was something about a young school marm and him in the town my family had lived in, some scandal-'scandal' for those days, I mean-and I think that was why we moved. I never got the straight of it as the grownups wouldn't talk about it in front of me.

"But I did learn a lot from him; he had more time to talk with me-or took more time-than my parents had, Some of it stuck. 'Always cut the cards, Woodie,' he would say. 'You may lose anyhow-but not as often, nor as much. And when you do, lose, smile.' Things like that."

"Can you remember any more of what he said?"

"Huh? After all these years? Of course not. Well, maybe. He had me out south of town teaching me to shoot. I was maybe ten and he was-oh, I don't know; he always seemed ninety years older than God to me.* (* Ira Johnson was seventy when Lazarus Long was ten. J.F. 45th) He pinned up a target, put one in the black to show me it could be done, then handed me the rifle-little .22 single-shot, not good for much but targets and tin cans-'All right, it's loaded; do just what I did; get steady on it, relax and squeeze.' So I did, and all I heard was a click-it didn't fire.

"I said so, and started to open the breech. He slapped my hand away, took the rifle from me with his other hand-then clouted me a good one. 'What did I tell you about hangfires, Woodie? Are you aching to walk around with one eye the rest of your life? Or merely trying to kill yourself? If the latter, I can show you several better ways.'

"Then he said, 'Now watch closely'-and he opened the breech. Empty. So I said, 'But, Gramp, you told me it was loaded.' Shucks, Ira, I saw him load. it-I thought.

"'So I did, Woodie,' he agreed. 'And I lied to you. I went through the motions and palmed the cartridge. Now what did I tell you about loaded guns? Think hard and get it right...or I'll be forced to clout you again to shake up your brains and make 'em work better.'

"I thought fast and got it right; Gramp had a heavy hand. 'Never take anybody's word about whether a gun is loaded.'

"'Correct,' he agreed. 'Remember that all your life-and follow it!-or you won't live long.' *( This anecdote is too obscure to be elaborated here. See Howard Encyclopaedia: Ancient weapons, chemical-explosives firearms.)

"Ira. I did remember that all my life-plus its application to analogous situations after such firearms went out of style and it has indeed kept me alive several times.

"Then he had me load it myself, then said, 'Woodie, I'll bet you half a dollar-do you have half a dollar?' I had considerably more, but I had bet with him before, so I admitted to only a quarter. 'Okay,' he said, 'Make it two-bits; I never let 'a man bet on credit. Two-bits says you can't hit the target, much less stay in the black.'

"Then he pocketed my two-bits and showed me what was wrong with what I had done. By the time he was ready to knock off I had the basics of how to make a gun do what I wanted it to do, and wanted to bet him again. He laughed at me and told me to be thankful the lesson was so cheap. Pass the salt, please."

Weatheral did so. "Lazarus, if I could find a way to entice you into reminiscing about your grandfather-or about anything-I'm certain we could extract from such record endless things you have learned, important things-whether you choose to call them wisdom or not. In the last ten minutes you have stated half a dozen basic truths, or rules for living-call them what you will-apparently without trying."

"Such as?"

"Oh, for example, that most people learn only by experience-"

"Correction. Most people won't learn even by experience, Ira. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."

"There's another one. And you 'made a couple of comments on the fine art of lying-three, really, as you also mentioned that a lie should never be too complicated. You said also that belief gets in the way of learning, and something about knowing a situation was the essential first step in coping with it."