He practically lived on the city sidewalks sunup to sundown, absorbing all the teenage talk, both serious and joking, mimicking the postures and gestures of the homeless young men who, like him, had nowhere else to be. They gathered near bus stops but never got on any buses, huddled under store awnings when it rained but never went in to buy anything, waved to the cabbies they knew by name but never paid for a ride. He enjoyed it all immensely.
Missing two teeth—one above, one below—the boy rarely smiled, and he spoke with his lips drawn tight to hide his assumed shame. Head craning, his eyes would dart from one pimply or stubbled face to another as the teens tried to outdo each other with stories of their unlikely exploits and their elaborate plans for the future.
After a while they rarely acknowledged him, except to chide him for not being in school like he should be even though not one of them had made it through school either.
“You know something, bud?” one of the teens told him one drizzling day as they crowded together under a bus stop shelter. “You didn’t just fall through the cracks, somebody pushed you.”
They all laughed, including him.
“Yeah,” said another, not to be outdone. “You know what your real problem is, Miguel?”
Lips barely moving, expression earnest: “No, sir.”
“The real problem is, you don’t know that you’re poor.”
They all laughed again, but the boy wasn’t sure why. He didn’t feel poor at all.
At night he took refuge with his father in one of the church shelters if they weren’t full, and if his father wasn’t drunk and loud. Otherwise, he slept in the park in a hiding place he kept secret from everyone, especially his father, who always demanded whatever money the boy had panhandled from passersby that day. His father would always spend the money on himself, for meals, liquor, lady friends. His mother, who he saw less frequently, was away in court-ordered rehab for heroin abuse. When he was a few years younger, Miguel had thought her precious heroin helped turn her into some kind of heroine since the words were so close, that his mother’s addiction was actually something to be proud of. But the sad, quiet faces of everyone he used to boast to about her finally told him she was not. Now he just told people she was sick and hoped someday she would get better so they could be a family again and let it go at that.
But at the moment, as it drizzled and the wind blew and all the traffic and somber people streamed by in a great rush to get where they were going, the boy never felt happier to be a part of the lively group who were a fixture in the neighborhood. The people in a rush came and went, unhappy visitors at best, but it was as if being one of the homeless young men he was meant to belong here, as if he owned the very best part of the city.
****
Dorning left the bank after depositing the professor’s check. Once again the funds were just enough to continue his experiments for a few more months, and then he would have to ask the professor to sign another check. Some people might consider his experiments ethically questionable, he knew, yet at least they could never accuse him of embezzlement or fleecing the professor of his life’s savings. Every penny went for research, and the part-time teaching position he had at the local community college went to keep body and soul together.
A wife and family were totally out of the question. Even friends were impossible to keep; his research was his one true love and friend.
He sighed, turning off the highway towards the ramshackle district of the city where his modest house was. He could only wish his one true love and friend didn’t have so many nagging little problems—and one enormous problem as the professor had so pointedly reminded him that morning.
The recipient.
He gripped the steering wheel tighter as he headed straight through the center of town.
Of course he had mulled it over from the beginning. Without a recipient, the entire project was meaningless. Yet where to find one was a looming problem he knew he would have to resolve, and soon. The professor’s health had declined noticeably in the past few months, and he might have to be prepared to work quickly at any time.
The real stickler, he knew, was it had to be someone young. All his experiments clearly demonstrated juvenile subjects would achieve the best results of permanent memory transfer. Not toddlers, not older teens, but somewhere right in between. And what parent would ever give permission to let his or her ten-year-old be a guinea pig for an unproven experiment?
As he pondered the unfortunate answer to the question, he slowed down as traffic approached some bottleneck he couldn’t see up ahead.
Regrettably, in order to obtain a suitable subject, he knew he might have to embrace questionable methods again, like the ones he used to obtain the smuggled primates. It bothered him a little not to be straightforward and follow all the regulations, but after years of steady progress no one could be allowed to deny him or the professor the right to succeed.
Having gone on so long, the project demanded to be carried through now to its ultimate conclusion no matter what was required. It had become much bigger than him, or anyone.
Dorning braked as traffic slowed to a crawl.
He had considered looking overseas many times. Perhaps South America, perhaps Eastern Europe or Russia, where child welfare seemed not to be such a high priority. Race didn’t matter, but gender might, as his experiments hinted. So a foreign boy would be best. But the expense and risk—not to mention the time away from his research—made that impractical. Certainly there were poor children in America as well, but again his time right now was better spent in the lab perfecting his groundbreaking techniques before addressing the questions of who and how and from where, all without involving the narrow-minded authorities who would never understand this was far above any of their petty regulations or that it would benefit society immensely in the long run.
Traffic stopped.
Dorning sighed, tempted to beep the horn. Then he saw the problem; there was a fender-bender at the intersection up ahead, and a group of unruly-looking teenagers were taking advantage of the opportunity to beg drivers for handouts.
He shook his head, more in pity than anger. He had driven by them nearly every day for months but, until now, had been lucky not to be approached.
“Hooligans,” he whispered as they came nearer to his car. “Go back to school where you belong.”
A tall, skinny teen tapped on his window. He rolled down the window just a crack.
“Hey man, how about it. Help a poor boy out?”
The other young men gathered round now, too. One youngster in particular caught Dorning’s attention. The boy seemed much too young to be a part of the rough-looking crowd, Dorning thought, yet apparently he was.
The doctor sighed as he pulled out his wallet. It was a small price to pay to be done with them and get home; he was hungry and had yet to prepare for tonight’s class.
He grabbed three dollars and pushed them out the barely open window. “Here. It’s for him.”
“What?” The lanky teen pulled on the bills.
Dorning didn’t let go. “Him. Over there.” The doctor nodded towards the shortest of them, standing forlornly in the back. “He looks like he could use it the most.”
The teen hesitated, then let go. “Yeah, I guess so.” He glanced behind him. “Hey Miguel, come get your money.”
His sad expression oddly unaffected, the boy came forward and took the three bills.
“Thank you.” The boy’s mouth barely opened.
“You’re welcome. Now if you don’t mind, I have a class tonight. Unlike all of you.”
But the gang had already moved on to the car behind him. In his rearview mirror, Dorning saw the woman driver ignore the boys with more than a hint of fear in her eyes, windows rolled up tight.
Dorning laughed to himself, and then it was his turn at last to steer around the two crumpled cars and their loud, arguing drivers.
****
“Time is up, ladies and gentlemen. Pens and pencils down, please, and pass your papers to the front.”
The class collectively murmured in dismay as the quizzes made their way forward to Dorning’s waiting hands.
Dorning put the stack of papers aside, stood before the two dozen slouching students and held up a hefty textbook. “All right, we have seven minutes left. Quiet now. Let’s consider what Darwin and his rival Herbert Spencer had to say about natural selection. This assumes, of course, you read the assignment last night. I imagine I’ll find out who did or didn’t when I grade the quizzes. Any volunteers to get us started?”
No one moved or spoke. The industrial-looking fan in the corner quietly churned the warm, humid air.
Dorning flipped through the book. He hadn’t really expected anyone to respond. This was not exactly the most enthusiastic class he had ever taught; not one of them was a biology or even a science major.
As he hunted for the passage he wanted to read, he spoke to break the languid spell the summer evening had cast over the students.
“Well, what more should I expect from those here just to fulfill their science requirement for graduation? Physics is filled with too much esoteric math, and the chemicals in chemistry stink and stain your clothes. I guess that means biology is the one true savior of the liberal arts student, isn’t it?”
There was a smattering of nervous laughs.
A slouching, sizable young man tentatively raised his hand. Dorning was stunned.
“Jacob! Well, there truly is a first time for everything. Go right ahead.” He lowered the textbook, curious as to what the young man finally had to say.
Jacob struggled to sit up straight as his classmates looked at him with curiosity, too, all of them alert now. The young man’s chair squealed in protest under the strain.
“Doctor Dorning, I read the section about survival of the fittest and think none of it applies to modern humans. At least, I hope not.”
Dorning raised an eyebrow. “Really? Do elaborate.”
He closed the book and sat down on a corner of the teacher’s desk behind him, intrigued by this sudden interest from a student barely passing his course.
The young man grimaced as if unsure how to comply. “Well, humans aren’t strictly animals, are we? We can reason and solve problems. It’s not just the strongest that survive; it’s the smartest. Even a physically weak person can be very successful if he’s smart.”
Dorning rubbed his chin, pretending to be deep in thought. “Hmm. I see. So what you’re really saying is being smart is also an advantage. Is that correct? If so, it seems to me that agrees perfectly with what Darwin had to say. Brains or brawn, either way you can win out over others, can’t you?”
Jacob looked embarrassed then resigned. “I just meant we’re better than animals, higher up. We’re not savages anymore. We’re civilized, we follow rules. We have charities and help each other in times of crisis. Animals aren’t so altri—altrus—
“Altruistic?” Dorning suggested.
“Yeah, that’s it!” Jacob looked triumphant.
Dorning opened his mouth to argue how few truly altruistic acts had been recorded throughout human history but then remembered the meager handout he had given to the homeless boy just a few short hours earlier.
He spoke more softly. “When we can afford to be altruistic, sometimes we are. But when conditions call for it, we can be very self-centered indeed, kindness be damned. Being self-centered isn’t always such a bad thing, you know. Sometimes it’s essential for survival. That’s the lesson from Darwin.”
“Yes, Doctor, but don’t we go to great lengths to help others survive sometimes, even if that means we have to make a lot of personal sacrifices or risk breaking the rules? That’s certainly altruistic.” Jacob replied.
Dorning immediately thought of his experiment and the professor, took a sharp inward breath in surprise at the relevance of the young man’s words. “Yes, Jacob. It most certainly is.”
He stared into the distance, his desire to argue with the student gone.
A young woman squirmed in her chair then finally raised her hand. “But you can’t justify breaking rules or stepping on other people just to save your neck or the neck of someone you happen to like.”
“Justify it? To whom, Cynthia? Many of our greatest leaders and heroes often did whatever it took to achieve goals that ultimately benefited humanity, even if at the time it meant having to step on other people.” He paused. “Or perhaps just . . . merely inconvenience them.”
The young woman firmly shook her head. “I’m sorry Doctor, but I don’t buy it. Look what happened to the Native Americans. White European settlers with their brains and brawn treated them like cattle to advance ‘civilization.’ I don’t consider those people my heroes.”
“Oh, but you miss what the doctor is really saying,” Jacob said. He turned around to face the young woman. The chair squealed again. “I remember when my grandfather was dying. I would have done anything to save him if I could—anything. If we didn’t think and act that way, try to help each other as best we know how, we really would be savages, now wouldn’t we?”
The young woman frowned but didn’t respond.
Dorning secretly grinned, then glanced at the clock. Time was up. “That’s all for today, ladies and gentlemen. See you Monday.”
The class shuffled to its feet.
“And thank you, Jacob, for your interesting observations. I thoroughly enjoyed your remarks. Let’s have more of those in the future, shall we?”
Jacob nodded pleasantly as he lumbered by.
Dorning noticed the young woman who disagreed with him was waiting to say something as the rest of the class quickly departed.
“Yes, Cynthia?” Dorning stuffed the students’ quizzes into his briefcase and closed it. “You wish to continue the argument? Go right ahead. I won’t flunk you for speaking your mind. You of all people should know that by now.”
Emboldened, the young woman stepped forward. “I still disagree, Doctor. The ends don’t justify the means. Just because we personally benefit from something illegal or immoral someone did years ago still doesn’t make it right, even if it was done on our behalf.” She folded her arms defiantly.
Dorning stared at the young woman with faint disdain. “Noble sentiments. But the truth of the matter is that civilization has benefited tremendously from not-so-nice events throughout history and there’s no reason to suspect that won’t continue to happen. Besides, many of those people who were ‘stepped on,’ as you put it, are ultimately revered by people such as yourself precisely because of the sacrifices they had to make for society—yes, often unwillingly.”
Cynthia glowered in silence.
Dorning smiled. “Cynthia. These are very complex issues you and I aren’t going to resolve standing here after class. There are exceptions to every rule, times when laws should be closely observed and times they should be thrown out the proverbial window. And there have been plenty of bad laws and unfair regulations that no one should ever have to follow, as I’m sure you’re aware. That’s just the way life is.”
The young woman dropped her gaze then slowly lowered her arms. “Well . . . maybe you’re right.”
Dorning laughed. “Of course I’m right! Now go and have a nice weekend. I’m glad you’re taking this course so seriously. That’s more than I can say about some of your fellow students.”
Cynthia grinned as she picked up her books to leave. “See you Monday, Doctor.” She hurried from the room.
Buoyant now, Dorning followed the young woman out into the balmy, inviting night, reassured he was planning to do absolutely the right thing not only for Percival but for the good of all humanity. He found the thought profoundly comforting, his determination to do what must be done only further strengthened.