David Gerrold - A Matter for Men

The instructor was somebody named Whitlaw. Nobody knew much about him. It was his first semester here. We'd heard some rumors though-that he'd once punched a kid for mouthing off and broken his jaw. That he couldn't be fired. That he'd seen active duty in Pakistan-and still had the ears of the men and women he'd killed. That he was still involved in some super-secret operation and this teaching job was just a cover. And so on.

The first time I saw him, I believed it all.

He stumped into the room and slammed his clipboard down onto the desk and confronted us. "All right! I don't want to be here any more than you do! But this is a required course-for all of us-so let's make the best of a bad situation!"

He was a squat bear of a man, gruff-looking and impatient. He had startling white hair and gun-metal gray eyes that could drill you like a laser. His nose was thick; it looked like it had been broken a few times. He looked like a tank, and when he moved, he moved with a peculiar rolling gait. He rocked from step to step, but he was surprisingly graceful.

He stood there at the front of the classroom like an undetonated bomb and looked us over with obvious distaste. He glowered at us-an expression we were soon to recognize as an all-purpose glower of intimidation, directed not at any of us individually, but at the class as a unit.

"My name is Whitlaw!" he barked. "And I am not a nice man!"

Huh-?

"-So if you think you're going to pass this class by making friends with me, forget it!" He glared at us, as if daring us to glare back. "I don't want to be your friend. So don't waste your time. It's this simple: I have a job to do! It's going to get done. You have a job to do too. You can make it easy on yourself and own the responsibility-or you can fight it and, I promise you, this class will be worse than Hell! Understand?"

He strode to the back of the room then, plucked a comic book out of Joe Bangs's hands and ripped it up. He tossed the pieces in the trash can. "Those of you who think I'm kidding-let me disabuse you of that now. We can save ourselves two weeks of dancing around, testing each other, if you will just assume the worst. I am a dragon. I am a shark. I am a monster. I will chew you up and spit out your bones."

He was in motion constantly, gliding from one side of the room to the other, pointing, gesturing, stabbing the air with his hand as he talked. "For the next two semesters, you belong to me. This is not a pass-or-fail course. Everybody passes when I teach. Because I don't give you any choice an the matter. Most of you, when you're given a choice, you don't choose to win. That guarantees your failure. Well, guess what. In here, you don't have a choice. And the sooner you get that, the sooner you can get out." He stopped. He looked around the room at all of us. His eyes were hard and small. He said, "I am a very ugly man. I know it. I have no investment in proving otherwise. So don't expect me to be anything else. If there's any adapting to be done in this classroom, I expect you to do it! Any questions?"

"Uh, yeah-" One of the clowns in the back of the room. "How do I get out?"

"You don't. Any other questions?"

There were none. Most of us were too stunned.

"Good." Whitlaw returned to the front of the room. "I expect a hundred percent attendance, one hundred percent of the time. There are no excuses. This class is about results. Most of you use your circumstances as reasons to not have results." He looked into our eyes as if he were looking into our souls. "That's over, starting now! From now on, your circumstances are merely the things you have to handle so you can have results."

One of the girls raised her hand. "What if we get sick?"

"Are you planning to?"

"No."

"Then you don't have to worry about it."

Another girl. "What if we-"

"Stop!" Whitlaw held up a hand. "Do you see? You're already trying to negotiate a loophole for yourselves. It's called, `What if -?' `What if I get sick?' The answer is, make sure you don't. `What if my car breaks down?' Make sure it doesn't-or make sure you have alternate transportation. Forget the loopholes. There aren't any! The universe doesn't give second chances. Neither do I. Just be here. You don't have a choice. That's how this class works. Assume that I'm holding a gun to your head. Because I am-you don't know what kind of a gun it is yet, but the fact is, I am holding a gun to your head. Either you're here and on time, or I pull the trigger and splatter your worthless brains on the back wall." He pointed. Somebody shuddered. I actually turned to look. I could imagine a red and gray splash of gore across the paneling.

"Do you get that?" He took our silence as assent. "Good. We might just get along."

Whitlaw leaned back casually against the front edge of his desk. He folded his arms across his chest and looked out over the room.

He smiled. The effect was terrifying.

"So now," he said calmly, "I'm going to tell you about the one choice you do have. The only choice. All the rest are illusions-or, at best, reflections of this one. You ready? All right-here's the options: you can be free, or you can be cattle. That's it."

He waited for our reactions. There were a lot of puzzled expressions in the room.

"You're waiting for the rest of it, aren't you? You think there has to be more. Well, there isn't any rest of it. That's all there is. What you think of as the rest is just definitions-or applications. That's what we're going to spend the rest of this course talking about. Sounds easy, right? But it won't be-because you'll insist on making it hard; because this course is not just about the definitions of that choice-it's about the experience of it. Most of you aren't going to like it. Too bad. But this isn't about what you like. What you like or don't like is not a valid basis for choice in the world. You're going to learn that in here."

That's how he started out.

It went downhill from there-or uphill, depending on your perspective.

Whitlaw never entered the room until everybody was seated and settled. He said it was our responsibility to run the class-after all, he already knew the material; this class was for us.

He always began the same way. When he judged we were ready, he entered-and he always entered speaking: "All right, who wants to start? Who wants to define freedom?" And we were off

One of the girls offered, "It's the right to do what you want, isn't it?"

"Too simple," he countered. "I want to rip off all your clothes and have mad passionate intercourse with you, right here on the floor." He said it deadpan, staring her right in the face. The girl gasped; the class laughed embarrassedly; she blushed. "What keeps me from doing it?" Whitlaw asked. "Anyone?"

"The law," someone called. "You'd be arrested." More laughter.

"Then I'm not completely free, am I?"

"Uh, well ... freedom is the right to do whatever you want as long as you don't infringe on the rights of others."

"Sounds good to me-but how do I determine what those rights are? I want to practice building atomic bombs in my back yard. Why can't I?"

"You'd be endangering others."

"Who says?"

"Well, if I were your neighbor, I wouldn't like it."

"Why are you so touchy? I haven't had one go off yet."

"But there's always the chance. We have to protect ourselves."

"Aha!" said Whitlaw, pushing back his white hair and advancing on the unfortunate student. "But now you're infringing on my rights when you say I can't build my own A-bombs."

"Sir, you're being ridiculous now. Everybody knows you can't build an A-bomb in your back yard."

"Oh? I don't know that. In fact, I could build one if I had access to the materials and enough time and money. The,principles are well known. You're just betting that I don't have the determination to carry it through."