John Gardner - October Light

Sally Abbott started to say something — something about ghosts — then thought better of it.

The minister turned from the door, hands still clasped behind him, and set off in the direction of the head of the stairs, then abruptly spun around and came marching back — Lewis Hicks seemed startled — strode past Sally Abbott’s door, then spun around again, heading back toward the stairtop, pacing like a tiger. “What,” he asked rhetorically, and dramatically raised his right hand, wagging his fingers, “—What are the real morals to be drawn from the study of evolution? What does it teach us, that is to say, with regard to social oppression and, in particular, the role of women?”

At this, Lewis Hicks let the hand that held the scraper drop to his side, turned halfway around, and merely stared.

The minister, ignoring him, nodded thoughtfully, as if someone else had asked the question. “Good question,” he said, and continued to pace. “First off,” he said, “let it be understood that natural selection is still a vital force in human evolution. Natural selection by differential mortality is as important as ever, perhaps more important than it ever was before. Let us consider the dramatic recent history of the red man, the white man, and the black.”

While the minister was speaking, warming to his subject more and more, DeWitt Thomas came up the stairs, heading for the bathroom. The minister paid no attention to him, busily pacing and lecturing to the door. DeWitt grinned, nodded in Lewis Hicks’ direction, rubbed the side of his nose — a habitual gesture — and went in and closed the bathroom door behind him.

“When the white man came to America,” Lane Walker said, “natural selection very nearly wiped out the Indian. No North American Indian liver had ever had to deal with alcohol. Wine, beer, cider, mead, pulque, sake, whiskey — they’d been known for hundreds and hundreds of years over most of this planet, and though they’re deadly poisons, a panchromatic race of men- had evolved that could take in the pleasures of alcohol and survive. Not so the Indian! His liver and brain went into lunes and shudders, and if he was lucky enough to handle the thing physiologically, he didn’t know what to do with it behaviorally. The Vanishing American vanished with his whiskey in one hand and his rifle in the other, and because of the whiskey, neither hand knew what the other was doing — to paraphrase Scripture — and so down he went tail over tincup! Check your history books. It wasn’t the United States Cavalry that beat the almighty Apache, it was the supply wagon! Firewater!

“God moves, however, in strange ways. The dying red man got his revenge: with one of the hands that didn’t know what it was doing, he gave the white man tobacco!” The bathroom door opened just as the minister was reaching it in his pacing, and Lane Walker jumped back, bowed absentmindedly in DeWitt’s direction, pivoted, and paced back toward Lewis Hicks. DeWitt — tall, stoop-shouldered — moved to the head of the stairs but then, instead of going down, stood with his hand on the newel post, a wide, shy grin on his red-headed, freckled face, and listened.

“American Indians”—the minister shook his finger—“had been smoking tobacco for hundreds of years. They’d developed the lungs, the body chemistry, and the social institutions to handle it. The white man, on the other hand — also the black and the Asiatic — having no such defenses, was to find (as he still finds) his race decimated by lung cancer, heart disease, and heaven knows what. One might compare, though I will not, what happens when the opiates, hash, etcetera, — relatively harmless in the Orient — begin to be popular with young Americans. Those who have the security, wisdom, and strength to resist these poisons against which their bodies are defenseless — whether by rejecting the various drugs completely or by using them only sparingly —those are the people who will change the world in the most direct way possible: they will control one whole current in the gene pool.”

He paused, both in his speech and in his pacing, and drew himself up. “Now take the most interesting genetic case of all, the black!”

“More interesting than the Chicano?” Rafe Hernandez cried in mock horror, coming up the stairs.

“You are late,” Lane Walker said, raising his hand like a traffic policeman, “and like all late-comers you have no rights, so I bid you peace.”

The priest touched his chest with his fingertips in protest and made his eyes large. “I was here before Columbus!”

“In that case you are allowed one right,” Lane Walker said, bowing. “You may go piss.”

The priest smiled happily, bowed from the waist and went, in comic haste, into the bathroom.

“Why Reverend!” Sally Abbott said, more surprised, from the sound of it, than offended.

“We were speaking,” he pressed on, blushing, “of the black.” He broke in on himself, leaning toward the door: “These are serious matters, you understand. This is no trifling circus entertainment I make you privy to. We were speaking of the morals to be drawn from science, one of the most serious of human investigations, second only, I might say, to Queen Theology. I must ask you to please pay attention.” Without turning, he pointed at the bathroom door behind which Father Hernandez was emptying his stream into the toilet. “Sh!” Lane Walker commanded sternly, but the noise went on.

“The black,” he began, then paused, looking up at the ceiling, hunting for his place. Lewis Hicks looked up too, then down again.

Then, remembering, the minister continued, “One of the most striking things about the blacks, genetically, is the sickle cell. In times past, as you know, one-quarter of the whole black race died of sickle-cell anemia, one-quarter possessed no sickle cells and, in central Africa, died of malaria, and one-half were perfectly healthy and carried on the breed. Expensive, in terms of human lives; but it worked. But what happens, we may ask, when the threat of malaria is ended — as in fact it has, since doctors can now treat it?” He paused, leaning toward the door as if for an answer. “Exactly!” he cried, pretending to have gotten one, and again began pacing. “The so-called ‘bad gene’ begins to vanish. In a few short generations — think of it — the black race has begun to lose its odd, no longer useful but still-sometimes-deadly gene. Useless adaptations, in short, tend to die, though they never disappear completely — an important point, and one we will return to.

“But consider further. There is hope among scientists at the present time that sickle-cell anemia may soon be overcome, just as we’ve found medical cures for other heritable diseases or shortcomings. Diabetics, that is to say, can now live a normal life with the help of insulin; nearsighted people can be helped by glasses; the deaf can use hearing aids. Natural selection, in other words, has been ‘switched off’ once again by our invention of tools. What is the moral to be drawn from this odd fact?” He stared straight at Lewis. It was almost as if he were pointing. “Let us make sure we understand this odd fact. With every tool we invent, from the wheel to Vitamin C extract, we avoid bodily evolution. The more perfect the Buckminster Fuller dome, the more securely antique its occupant.”

Lewis picked at his moustache and looked guilty. At the opposite end of the hallway the bathroom door opened and the priest stuck his head out, seeing if the coast was clear. He stepped out, checked his fly, shot his cuffs, then stood waiting, smiling, palms together as if for prayer. No one even noticed.

“The moral, brothers and sisters,” said the minister — he was now so involved in the thought he was shaping that he was unaware even that Estelle Parks was being helped up the stairs by Virginia Hicks and Dr. Phelps (“What’s this?” Estelle was saying, “we’ve been missing something! Why, he’s giving a sermon!” and her eyes lit up)—“The moral is that that which was once advanced may prove primitive, and that which was once primitive may suddenly prove advanced, or in the words of that great religious poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘Nature is never spent.’ We, the most primitive of apes, have proved conquerors of our specialized betters. With our wonderful way of evading the issue — our swollen brains and gift for using tools, and our anachronistic nastiness — we lock them up in zoos and put plates in their heads for our amusement and edification! — Never underestimate, by the way, the importance of nastiness to our progress so far. If intelligence and gentleness were the chief criteria, the planet would be ruled by whales!