Dr. Marsteller Chapter 6
6
She wore a
purple jacket and green pants and performed perfect S-turns down through the
slush. The temperature was in the
40s. It was one of the last few days to
ski before everything melted beyond recognition of a ski slope. The only snow left sat like white rivers on a
few of the trails where they had made snow the entire year. The rest of the hill could have been in the
middle of the summer. But this was the
nature of late season skiing. Dr.
Marsteller and his wife always tried to make it up at least once a month from
December to March. Their March trip had
crept into April due to both being busy with work. She swooshed to a stop in front of him
spraying some slush on his pants and laughing, reminding him why he loved
her. The glitter of the snow like 1970s
bowling bowls whirling in the sun.
-You hungry? asked Dr. Marsteller.
-One more run.
-All right.
They made their way over to one of the
few lifts working. It was called the
Glamourstar. They slowed down as they
entered the ropes sectioning apart the lines.
The 23 year old who was working at the lift for the winter after college
as a way to enjoy life a year or two more before getting an office job took his
hand held scanner and scanned the bar code on their passes in the plastic
window of their coats. He then said
‘thank you’ in a European accent. They
shuffled their skis onto the platform as the mechanized lift turned the chairs
on rollers to head back up the hill. The
platform was carpeted and usually covered with snow during the height of the
season so they could slide up to the red line to stand and wait for the
chair. They had to shuffle on the carpet
like someone with new skis trying them on their living room. A beginner in the group ahead of them
struggled. This act of getting on the
chair is one of the most frightening tasks for a beginner. Only a couple seconds to get into position
and sit down on a moving object that is going to take you 2000 feet up above a
mountain. It can be a little freaky. When the chair zoomed underneath them another
young European slowed it down with his hand briefly and they plopped their
butts down and the lift took them up to the top.
As the lift rose, smoke lilted above the
group on the chair in front of them. The
beginner said, ‘I think I like skiing’ as he inhaled and Dr. Marsteller and his
wife could smell the weed. The smell
always reminded Dr. Marsteller of tinfoil because the tincture of its taste and
a friend he knew in graduate school who grew it with elaborate lighting in a
closet wallpapered with tinfoil. He
smiled at his wife and she smiled back.
-Reminds me of writing my dissertation
she said.
-You’ve smoked since then, haven’t you?
said Dr. Marsteller.
-Yeah, but I did a lot that year I was
writing my dissertation.
-Yeah Nichola, I remember that.
-You would never smoke with me, you goof,
worried about your mental faculties while working on your projects.
-Well, biology is a little different than
history.
-Yeah, I suppose, she said rolling her
eyes.
-I wasn’t a spring chicken even 20 years
ago.
-That’s for sure, his wife nudged him in
the ribs. She was 18 years younger than
him.
-You think Jack has yet?
-Smoked?
-Yeah.
-Oh, I
don’t know, maybe, he sighed. God I hope
not.
Thinking
about whether or not his 14-year-old son has smoked marijuana was certainly not
something he felt deserved his consideration.
-I don’t think he has, she said.
-Why’s that? He asked.
-He’s just not the type.
-What type is that?
-Well, first of all, he’s too young, and
he doesn’t run with a crowd that would do that kind of thing.
-Yeah, he isn’t a bad kid.
-He’s kind of a loner – but we’re lucky
with him.
Dr. Marsteller thought about the
statement on whether they were lucky. He
felt Jack was a rather normal kid with a decent sense of humor. He was well adjusted when all things were
considered. But they weren’t really
active parents. He supposed this lack of
concern for your children is why so many people he knew in academia had such
fucked up kids. Most of them were drunk
or on drugs offering nothing to anyone and taking everything from everyone. On the other hand, maybe they felt like they
couldn’t live up to their parent’s expectations. Maybe their parents were so egocentric they
thought they were incredibly smart so by definition their kids were smart
through heredity. But Dr. Marsteller knew
dumb parents could have smart kids and smart parents could have dumb kids, so
maybe they were just dumb. Or maybe
smart enough to realize they were dumb and decided the only way to get around
the expectations of their parents was to act messed up in the head. Or maybe they were smart but didn’t want the
lives their parents expected of them.
Maybe their family was well off so they didn’t have to worry about
making their own way in the world; they could just sit back and wait for
inheritance. So maybe not pushing them
was the answer. He certainly felt like
he didn’t push Jack enough. But other
academics didn’t seem to be pushing their kids either - at least superficially. His parents pushed him when he was growing
up, but he was not from a wealthy family.
It seemed it was possible for him to attain something greater than his
parents. Maybe if you’re not pressured you end up like your parents. Maybe if I wasn’t pressured I’d still be in
my hometown working at the factory where my dad worked. And maybe I should be.
He then
thought about whether or not his intelligence was biological. Had he inherited his ability? This is under the assumption that I’m smart,
he thought. Maybe achieving everything I
did in life was because of the way they raised me. It was all a bunch of jumping through hoops
and bullshit anyway, he thought. I don’t
even know if I want that for Jack. As
long as he can make a comfortable living and not hate life. He thought about Mrs. Viscane and her warped
sense of reality and he thought maybe none of it mattered. What crazed lunatic influenced her to become
that? Or is the person themselves the
only one that is accountable for who they are?
Mrs.
Viscane needs me to tell her that I’ve found something. This is why she is pushing me so hard. Would she get this if she took her money
elsewhere? No. She certainly wouldn’t. And he thought about what he was doing and
whether it was wrong. He thought about
Stanley Milgram’s experiments. 65% of
people would take orders from an experimenter to shock another person until
they had surpassed the voltage that could kill the person. And they would be aware they were surpassing
voltage that could be fatal. And they could see the person through a glass
window while he was suffering. Yet they
would still do it because the experimenter ordered them to continue.
In reality,
the person being shocked was an actor, so he wasn’t really in pain. But the fact the shocker would continue doing
it thinking he could kill the other man just because they were told to do it
demonstrated to Dr. Marsteller that most of us are weak people who would do
anything authority tells us to. We are
simply attack dogs or lap dogs depending on who owns us. The impetus for the experiment was a Nazi
saying at the Nuremberg trails that he was just ‘following orders.’
This
happens throughout the world every day.
People do things they are told to do, but don’t want to do all the
time. But who’s the one doing the
instructing? The Mrs. Viscane’s of the
world?
Am I just
‘following orders’ thought Dr. Marsteller.
No. I would be fine if I let her
take her money elsewhere. But she
wouldn’t find anything elsewhere. No one
else is going to be able to discover what she wants. The valid research I do is incredibly important
as it’s laying the groundwork for the future.
I may only publish results which say what doesn’t lead to immortal life,
but the scientific community needs to know what doesn’t work before they can
discover what may work. Appeasing her
gives me the funding to continue my important work even if it briefly comprises
my integrity. Frankly, everyone I know
in science publishes bullshit. They
force their postdocs or graduate students to do the research and the graduate
students and postdocs warp their research to fit their advisor’s ideas just
like the people giving shocks in Milgrim’s experiments. The professor never questions that their
graduate students always come to the same conclusions after the experiments. If the experiments don’t turn out how the
professor expects, the student must retry them until they get them to
work. The students appease them so they
can graduate. The professor can separate
themselves from it like a general telling his troops to kill. The general didn’t do the killing so he feels
he’s ethically okay and the troops feel they were ordered to kill so they feel
they are morally okay.
But I
coddled my graduate students too long, thought Dr. Marsteller. I let them be too autonomous with their ideas
because we’ve had no funding worries and didn’t have to compete. We haven’t had to craft exciting results to
get funding. So now I have someone like
Alexandria who I can’t force do the research.
That is my own fault. I can’t
expect to tame a wild animal in a day.
-What are
you thinking about Sylvester? Asked his wife jarring him out of his thoughts.
-I have to
tell you something.
-What’s
that? she asked, sliding towards him and putting her arm around him – knowing
from his tone it was serious.
-We just
had an incredible breakthrough in the lab.
-Really?
-Yes, we had some mice live for 10
years. They normally only live for 2
years.
-Oh SLY!
She shrieked hugging him while the stoned skiers turned around dully to
see why someone would expel such a piercing shout. She didn’t question him. She knew if her husband said something, he
wasn’t joking around.
-Come on, don’t go nuts on me, he said as
she kissed his cheeks repeatedly.
He smiled
and his stomach warmed like a dog’s as it’s being scratched behind the ears.
-You did it!
-Well, we have to do some other studies
to confirm…
-Yeah, but think about what it will
mean. Did you tell Mrs. Viscane yet!?
-Yes.
-She must have went crazy.
Dr. Marsteller chuckled and thought about
the irony.
-She definitely went crazy.
-How did you not tell me!? She asked, knowing very well how he kept work
away from home.
-Well, we had to make certain, he said,
responding how he knew he should.
The lift reached the apex and descended
to a landing, they put the safety bar up, pulled their poles out from
underneath their thighs and dismounted the chair, skiing off the landing and
avoiding the beginner who had wiped out in front of them. When they swooshed to a stop, his wife kissed
him again and tore off down the Flying Dutchman.
-Race you to the bottom! She yelled over
her shoulder.
This originally appeared in Dr. Marsteller