The Smart Guys Marching Society
I'd made the popcorn, as always, but at least
Fred brought the beers.
"Can't be a meeting of the Smart Guys Marching
Society without some brewskis," he said, letting the bottles rattle noisily
as he dropped the bag on my new coffee table.
"Hey, watch it!" I lunged for the bowl of cheese
whirls, now perched precariously at table's edge.
Bill, munching peanuts, reached past my hand for
the framed photo. "You got it framed!" he said--or, rather, mumbled. A
lone peanut escaped his mouth, bounced off the throw rug, and scurried
under the sofa.
"It's a goddam feeding frenzy around here." I was
crouched by the sofa, reaching under for the peanut. All I came up with
was a fistful of dustballs.
Bill looked at Fred, smirking. "Is he a good boy
or what?"
"I happen to like a clean house," I said,
wiping my hand with a napkin.
"Lemme see the picture," Fred was saying,
craning to see over Bill's shoulder. It was the Polaroid we'd taken with
the auto shutter last week of the four of us--me, Bill, Fred, and Mark.
Not a pretty sight. We looked like the chorus of a musical called Forty-Something:
assorted beards, glasses, and receding hairlines, in sneakers, shorts and
one particularly vivid Hawaiian shirt.
"Whew," Fred said, wincing at our smiling, casual
poses. "It's a good thing we're smart."
"That's open to debate," Mark growled, coming in
the porch door, laden with grocery bags. His dark glasses, dark hair, and
military-stiff bearing--a legacy of his career as an Intelligence officer
turned journalist--were softened as always for me by his willingness to
drop a few actual bucks for some real eats.
"My favorite Smart Guy!" Bill exclaimed, bouncing
up to take bags from Mark. "Cold cuts, slaw...now we're in business."
"Look, are we here to eat or talk?" Fred looked
concerned. A lawyer by trade, but philosopher by avocation, he rarely let
our monthly discussions stray from what he liked to call "the big issues"--life,
death, truth, etc. The usual suspects. He stroked his neat beard thoughtfully.
"today we're doing Middle East policy, right?"
"I hope not," Bill said, settling back on the sofa.
He had the trim, wiry frame of a marathon runner, which in fact he was.
"I brought a great Atlantic Monthly article about health care."
He pulled copies of the magazine article from his
back pocket, passed them around. A long-time actor and theater director,
he had a tendency to try to control the flow and content of our discussions.
With little success, I might add.
"What happened to the Middle East?" Fred complained.
Mark shrugged. "Don't look at me. I was nowhere
near there all week."
"Ha. Ha." Bill nodded toward the pages in our hands.
"We're doin' health care."
As a psychotherapist, with years of experience
handling conflicts, I decided it was time to apply my professional skills
to the impasse.
"We'll flip a coin," I said, doing do. Unfortunately,
it bounced off the table and, with a perversity I'd swear was deliberate,
rolled under the sofa.
Mark looked glum. "It's gonna be a long afternoon."
Let me explain. The Smart Guys Marching Society
began as an impromptu bull session a couple of years before, when the four
of us (and our wives and kids) were barbequeing in my backyard.
It was a typical Southern California day, the smog
doing a slow dissolve over the Hollywood Hills. Lazy Sunday conversation
turned to impassioned debate, the four of us guys huddled around the smoking
grill. Women and children were scattered about, doing real life, while
we grappled with such pragmatic concerns as Roman military strategy, foreign
aid, and the merits of certain dead film directors.
"Can you believe these guys?" Bill ranted
to his wife, throwing up his hands. "They think Sturges is overrated!"
She stared back at him, unblinking.
We decided to make it a formal event, every Sunday
afternoon. Stag. We didn't plan it that way--our wives simply had the good
sense not to want to come.
"I have better things to do," Mark's wife reportedly
told him.
"Like what?"
"Like...anything." Case closed.
Anyway that's how the whole thing started.
Every Sunday afternoon (excepting holidays, kids' birthdays, and visits
from in-laws) the four of us--therapist, actor, journalist, and lawyer--met
in my game room to scarf down munchies, trade insults, and debate the issues
of the day.
This particular afternoon, however, would take
a decidedly different turn, one that would change our lives, and the course
of the Smart Guys, forever...
The conversation had somehow drifted away from
the Middle East, health care reform, and other such rhetorical stalwart
to various tales of unexplained phenomena.
"But that's just my point, " Fred was saying, pretty
exasperated by now. "We know from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle that
the observed is changed by the observer."
"So--?" Bill said.
"So, that explains unexplained phenomena. We cocreate
reality, see? Research indicates that the more you believe in ghosts, for
example, the greater the likelihood that you'll encounter one."
"Geez, I don't know." Mark shrugged. "I believe
in intelligent debate, and in all the years I've come here I haven't encountered
it yet."
Fred gave him a look. "The salient factor is that
reality, or what we call reality, is codetermined by both observer and
observed. Subject and object, if you prefer."
"Reality is reality, dammit." Mark folded his arms.
Bill gnawed a fingernail reflectively. "Does this
have anything to do with Jung?"
I perked up. "That depends. Why?"
"I have this friend. An actor. I directed him last
year at the Taper. George is a real fitness buff, hits the gym every day.
And he's noticed a strange phenomenon, and is making a hobby of compiling
other people's experiences, to see if there's a pattern at work."
"Since when do actors care about other people?"
Mark said, opening another beer.
"Ignore him," I said. "What phenomenon?"
Bill went on: ""George said he notices that when
he goes to his locker in the gym's locker room, even if it appears totally
deserted, the moment another guy shows up, it turns out this other guy's
locker is right next to his."
"Coincidence," Mark said.
Bill shook his head. "George has made a study of
this. No matter what part of the locker room--I mean, he'll just pick a
locker at random--and four times out of five somebody's stuff is in the
next one. With all these other lockers around."
"That is strange," I admitted.
"He's asked lots of other people, and they've
had the same experience. It's like there's some kind of primal, unconscious
need to bond or something.
I nodded. "That's why you mentioned Jung...Maybe
you're referring to his concept of synchronicity."
"Oh, yeah...like when you're thinking of someone,
and the phone rings and it's that person on the line."
"Or," I said, "perhaps the locker-room phenomenon
is caused by some mechanism in the collective unconscious toward merging,
or community..."
Fred stared at a corn chip as though it held the
secrets of the universe. "I'm thinking now in terms of quantum physics.
The tendency of subatomic particles, even at vast distances, to resonate
at similar vibratory frequencies." He popped the corn chip into his mouth.
"I mean at that level, everything--you, me, this table--is just a collection
of vibratory frequencies, out of which comes form."
"Yeah," I agreed. "That place where Buddhism and
physics meet. Emptiness rising into form, manifesting reality."
Bill's eyes were glazing over. "I'm sorry I brought
it up." He rose, stretched. "We gettin' low on onion dip?"
"In the fridge," I said.
Before Bill could take another step, however, a
tub of onion dip came sailing out of the kitchen. He caught it reflexively.
We all whirled around, stunned.
"I couldn't help but overhear," the newcomer said
brightly. "Thought I'd save you a trip."
It was my wife's Uncle Isaac, his bearlike figure
filling out his workman's overalls. A retired contractor (a jack of all
trades, he'd called himself), he was staying with us for a few weeks. I'd
almost forgotten about him.
"Uncle Isaac," I said, "let me introduce you around."
He shook hands vigorously with each of the guys, his pale eyes gleaming.
Then he stood back a bit, stroking his thick muttonchop sideburns with
a crooked finger.
My wife explained to me once that calling him "Uncle"
was a courtesy; there was such a convoluted tangle of branches on her family
tree that nobody was really sure how (or even if) Isaac was actually related.
It seemed as though he'd just always been...family.
"How long have you been in the kitchen" I asked.
"You shoulda come on in."
"I didn't want to interrupt. Pretty deep-dish stuff
you boys talk. Like college professors."
Fred shrugged. "You should've been here last week.
We mostly sat around debating which Sports Illustrated swimsuit
issue had the best cover."
"You're welcome to join us," Bill offered, then
glanced ruefully at the coffee table. "I think there's half a sandwich
left, and some Cheez Whiz."
"A tempting offer, but I had a big lunch. I just
came back from a constitutional around the neighborhood." Isaac settled
into the corner armchair. A lamp table beside it was stacked with books
he'd brought along. Mostly sci-fi paperbacks. Asimov. Heinlein. Silverberg.
The classics. "If you don't mind, I'll just listen in. Please don't take
offense if I doze off."
"No problem. Kind of a weekly occurrence around
here." Bill carved a groove in the onion dip with a potato chip. "Now,
where were we?"
"We were talking about reality," Fred said. "Or
Jung. Or locker rooms."
It was then that I first noticed that Mark was
sitting somewhat pensively. He hadn't said a word in some time.
dennis@dennispalumbo.com
