JC: William Redman Carter Part 2: Hermit Chapter 9 By Lazlo Zalezac Copyright (C) Lazlo Zalezac, 2006 The squick of a white board marker flying across the white board filled the air. William looked up and watched Lucy work through the equations on the board; her hand moving at almost a blur. She stepped back for a second and then dived in for another round of simplifications. Her hips swung from side to side as she worked her magic on the mathematics. With her entire body participating, her long hair started swaying in a most seductive manner. William was entranced. Frowning, Lucy stepped back from the board and said, “Hmm, I’m going to have to think about this some more.” “What are you trying to do?” William asked. “I’m trying to find a transformation that simplifies that collection of equations you call a theory,” Lucy said tapping her lower lip with her index finger. Shaking his head, he said, “It doesn’t look any simpler to me.” “Of course not! I haven’t found the right transformation yet,” Lucy said giving him a dirty look. “Hey don’t get made at me,” William said holding up his hands palm out towards Lucy. “I can’t work miracles with the mess,” Lucy said. “That’s okay,” William said. “It’s going to take some time to find the right one.” “Great,” William said with a smile. The smile caught Lucy’s attention. She frowned trying to figure out why he was smiling. When nothing came to mind, she asked, “Why is that great?” “I like watching you work,” William answered. Lucy rolled her eyes and turned back to face the whiteboard. She said, “Well, I’m going to busy here for a while.” “Okay,” William said sitting back in his chair. He folded his arms across his chest and watched Lucy return to work. --- “She’s here,” Barbara said from the door of William’s office. “Who’s here?” William asked. “The woman interviewing to be your research assistant,” Barbara answered still not used to having to tell William what was happening. “I’ll get Lucy and we’ll meet you in the conference room,” William said. Hoping that he wouldn’t get upset, Barbara said, “She’s already in the conference room. We’re waiting for you.” William saved his document and watched the screen of his computer. The little icon signifying that it was working flashed on the screen. The seconds ticked by while he waited for the icon to disappear. About the time he had become convinced that the program was stuck in some sort of infinite loop, it went away and he relaxed. Looking over at the door, he asked, “Why does it seem to take forever to save my files?” “How big is it?” “Only two hundred pages,” William answered. The program he was using to write his book had become increasing slower with each page of text that he had added. It seemed to him that another dozen pages and the program would become unusable. “It can’t handle documents that big. You need to get a better word processor,” Barbara said with a frown. “What do you mean? Everyone uses this word processor,” William said. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but it isn’t a very good one. It’s meant for small reports, short papers, and letters. It isn’t intended to produce books,” Barbara said. “That’s stupid,” William said. He held up a book produced by the company that wrote the word processor and said, “Their book is more than two hundred pages in length.” “They don’t use their product to produce their books,” Barbara replied with a smile. “Remind me to remove the CEO from that company,” William said throwing the book onto the table in disgust. “I don’t think that will be possible. He’s the one who started it.” “Alright. I guess I have to find a new program to use while I write my book,” William said. He decided that he would break his book into individual chapters instead of trying to do it all within a single file. It would make it more difficult to search for text, generate indexes, and to create a table of contents. Barbara said, “That’ll be the first thing that your new research assistant can do for you. She can find a better word processor and then import your book files into it.” “Well, we better hire her soon because I can’t tolerate more delays,” William said standing up. Looking at Barbara, he said, “I’m sure that I don’t even need to interview her. I’m positive that she’ll be outstanding. You’ve never let me down.” “The last one was a Chinese spy,” Barbara said. “So what? The CIA hasn’t verified what Daddy Ed discovered. There’s no way that you could have discovered that all by yourself.” “Well, I’m sure that Vera isn’t a spy for the Chinese government.” “Why?” “She’s not Chinese,” Barbara answered. She wasn’t going to mention that her mother had known the Vera’s mother. She smiled and led the way to the conference room. --- The page he had been editing the day before now looked like a page out of a book. The difference was almost as striking as night and day. Surprised, he said, “Wow, this looks like a real book.” “It’s a typesetting program that is used by a number of publishers. You can control everything about the way each page is laid out,” Vera said. Her fingers ran across the keyboard with practiced ease. She was still breaking the huge file into chapters for the new program. William watched Vera work. After hiring her, she had immediately gone out and purchased a program at one of the office supply places that carried high-end software. That morning, she had installed it and started importing his file into the program. After just a few hours, she had his manuscript looking like a million dollars. “Won’t it be difficult to write the material when I have to worry about how to format the page?” “You don’t have to format each page until you are done with the first draft. I just did that on the first couple of chapters to see what it would look like,” Vera answered looking up at him. She turned back to the screen and looked at the figure. Frowning, she said, “You’re going to have to get those figures done professionally. I’m sure that we can pick up a graphic artist who will take your hand drawn pictures and turn out publication quality images.” “I guess I need to talk to Barbara,” William said. “I’ll handle that,” Vera said. She pushed her chair away from the desk and said, “You can get to work now. I’ll load the early files and start formatting the chapters you have finished.” “Won’t my working on this interfere with you?” William asked. “No. This program has version control built into it. We can’t edit the same file at the same time, but I can work on one of them while you are working on another,” Vera answered. Lucy turned around from the whiteboard and watched Vera. The two women were a study in contrasts despite being the same height. Vera was extremely skinny with short black hair. Lucy was softer with long brown hair that was nearly to the middle of her back. Vera’s movements were sharp, almost staccato in their tempo. Lucy’s movements were graceful and flowing. Perhaps as a result of those differences, Lucy found that she liked Vera. Lucy recognized that Vera confused William. The woman had never smiled at him; not even during the interview. The expression on her face when dealing with him was always very serious and business-like. She watched the puzzled expression on his face as he watched Vera leave the room. “She’s good.” “I suppose so,” William said shaking his head. He wondered if he was going to be able to work with her. “You know she’s good.” “Okay. She’s just not very friendly,” William said turning to look at Lucy. The smile on her face was a startling contrast to Vera’s typical expression. --- The Hugger kicked up a plume of dust as it traveled down the dirt road. Ken looked over at William and said, “I imagine that you’re wondering why we are going this way. We put up a cattle guard between your place and the reservation. It cuts almost twenty minutes off the drive to the school.” “Why did we put up a cattle guard?” William asked wondering when he had lost track of what was happening on his place. “With so many of the men who work on the ranch living on the reservation we thought it would be a good idea. It cuts the commute time significantly for many of the men. It’s really nice with Tim going to school on the reservation,” Ken said. “How long does it take to get him to school?” William asked. He hadn’t even given any thought to that. “Forty minutes,” Ken answered. William realized that he should have known that since they had left an hour before he was supposed to be in the classroom. He asked, “So you are spending almost three hours a day taking him to school and then picking him up?” “No. He drives himself to school,” Ken answered with a grin. “Isn’t he too young?” “This is private property and the school is on reservation land. The reservation decided that kids could drive so long as they avoided roads with real traffic. He’s only allowed to drive on your place and the dirt roads on the reservation. He can’t drive on regular roads,” Ken answered. “That’s good thinking.” “It wasn’t our idea. When we enrolled him in the school, the administrator there suggested it. It seems that a lot of the kids on the reservation do the same thing. Most of them live thirty minutes to an hour away from the school. He took a driving course at the school over the summer and got a permit that is valid only on the reservation,” Ken said. “I wasn’t aware that they did that. In fact, I wasn’t aware that they could even do that,” William said. He imagined that it would allow a lot of the kids to make it to school that would have had difficulties in other circumstances. “They’ve been renegotiating some of the freedoms on the reservation with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They’ve decided that some of the protections that have been placed on the young are preventing them from maturing. As a result, they relaxed some of those limitations and are forcing the kids to accept a little responsibility for their actions.” “How do you feel about that?” William asked. He could imagine that Lisa would be pretty upset if something bad happened to Tim. “I like it. He’s doing stuff that I did as a kid growing up. Back in Pennsylvania he wouldn’t be able to do a lot of things for a couple of years.” “Like what?” William asked. “Well, like driving. They upped the minimum driving age from sixteen to seventeen after I got my regular driver’s license. A lot of us who grew up in the country had agricultural licenses that allowed us to drive at fourteen. We could drive farm equipment on roads, including trucks. That didn’t mean that we were out racing or anything like that, but we could drive a tractor or a truck loaded down with hay. There were also hardship licenses that allowed a person who was fifteen to drive to home, school, work, and the store. “We didn’t have bus service, so most of my classmates had hardship licenses to get to and from school. Our parents were busy milking cows, running their businesses, and other things. They didn’t have the time or money to interrupt their lives to drive us to school. The responsibility for getting to school fell on us,” Ken answered. “What else were you allowed to do as a kid that isn’t allowed today?” Ken thought for a second and then said, “Work. I started earning money when I was about nine or ten years old. I’d stop by the stores along Main Street on my way home from school and sweep up the floors for a couple dollars a week per store. I spent about an hour and a half a day doing it. It was no big deal. No one felt that I was being exploited or anything. I was earning money to buy a bicycle. “It isn’t even the law that is preventing some of these kids from working. A lot of chains have employment rules that prevent them from hiring kids under seventeen. As more of the smaller stores go out of business, where are the kids supposed to go for a job? I don’t know. Tim wanted to be a paperboy and they wouldn’t hire him because he was too young. “Even if the chain does allow them to hire younger kids, they say that kids can’t work after seven in the evening on a school night. When is a kid supposed to work? The earliest they can get to work is around four on school days. If they have to leave by seven, then they only get three hours. The store closes two hours after they have to head home. Why should a store hire someone who can’t work until closing?” Considering the unusual nature of his childhood, William felt a little like a hypocrite when he asked, “Didn’t you feel like your childhood was stolen from you?” Shaking his head, Ken answered, “My childhood was just like everyone else’s. What was there to miss? I went to school, played ball with the other kids, worked when there was work that had to be done, and went to church with the family on Sundays.” William said, “You mentioned that the reservation was changing things?” “Yes. Kids are allowed to drive to and from school along the dirt roads. The way they figure it is that they’ve got miles on each side of the road to stop before they hit something. A lot of the kids have started working after school in the local businesses. They’ve changed the school system from age tracked to knowledge tracked.” William interrupted, “Excuse me. What was that about changing the school system?” “This summer they changed the entire way that the school system functions. Rather than putting kids into classes based on their age, they put the kids into classes based on what they know. There can be kids of three different ages in the same classes, but they all have the same aptitude for the material,” Ken said. “I’m going to have to talk to the Council of Elders about these changes,” William said. It bothered him that such a significant change had managed to get past him without noticing it. Then it dawned on him that he’d been hiding from the world for three months. Ken looked over at William and said, “Before you go off half cocked, I’ve got to tell you that Lisa and I are real pleased about those changes. Tim is a year ahead in English, right on in History and Science, and a year behind in Math. His grades are better and he’s learning the material this year with much greater ease than last year. He may the oldest person in his math class, but he’s the youngest person in his English class. Being in a class that is the right level for him and getting a good grade in it is a whole lot better than getting the lowest grade in his class.” “I’m just concerned about making too many changes all at once,” William said. Ken snorted and said, “They are just rolling back the clock a little on most things. Shoot, most of the stuff they are trying was how things were done fifteen years ago.” --- The high school was a modern looking sprawl of buildings spread across ten acres of land. The primary building, the gymnasium, and the football stadium had been constructed in the sixties, but the four surrounding buildings had been built within the past five years. The parking lot was huge and filled with cars that spanned two decades of manufacturing. Inside the math and science building, William followed one of the seniors to his class room. This was his second time inside a high school. His experience in Ohio had not prepared him for this particular school. Rather than a mad rush to get from one class to another, the students here moved at a more sedate pace and with a lot less noise than in Ohio. The student stopped in front of a door and said, “This is your classroom, Talks with Animals.” “Thank you, Desert Wind,” William said looking inside. There were already a dozen students in the room waiting for him. The students were busy talking to each other about matters important to students everywhere. “Do you need anything?” the young man asked unable to believe that Talks With Animals was actually teaching in his school. He wished that he had signed up for the Home Economics course and regretted his words to the effect that he didn’t want to learn how to cook. “I’m fine,” William answered. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and stepped into the classroom. The noise in the room turned to complete silence. Finally, one of the young women at the front of the room asked, “Are you looking for someone, Talks with Animals?” “This is Home Economics, isn’t it?” William answered. “Yes.” “I’m the instructor,” William said with a smile. The reaction of the class was one of shock. The kids looked from one to the other unable to believe what they had heard. It took a few minutes for the class to settle down. Glancing at the clock, William saw that it was past time for the class to start. Walking to the front of the class, he turned and asked, “You’ve just gotten a part time job at a burger burner making seven dollars an hour. You work twenty hours a week and get paid every other week. Would anyone like to tell me how much money you will get when you cash your paycheck?” One of the girls raised her hand and, once William called upon her, answered, “Two hundred and eighty dollars.” “Does everyone agree with that?” William asked. Everyone nodded their heads. William smiled and said, “Well, all of you are wrong.” The girl who answered said, “Wait a minute. Two weeks at twenty hours a week is forty hours. You said that we made seven dollars an hour. Forty times seven is two hundred and eighty.” “That’s right, but that’s not how much money you will get when you cash your paycheck,” William said. “Why not?” “We’ll cover that in the next class,” William answered with a smile. He noticed half of the students sat back in their chairs with frowns on their faces. They wanted the answer now. Instead of giving them what they wanted, he said, “John’s gross pay is forty thousand dollars and Joe’s gross pay is sixty thousand dollars. How much more money does Joe actually get to spend than John?” “That’s easy. Joe makes twenty thousand dollars more than John, so he gets to spend twenty thousand dollars more,” said Patrick, one of the two young men in the class. The two young men were friends and had signed up for the course thinking that the home economics class was a perfect way to get closer to the girls on campus. “Once again, your mathematics is perfect, but your answer is wrong,” William said. The rest of the class sat back in their chairs with frowns. “How can my math be perfect, but my answer wrong?” Patrick asked feeling like William was making fun of them. “We’ll answer that question in class tomorrow, too,” William answered. It was obvious that the class was not happy with his answer. He asked, “Does anyone in here know their credit rating?” The students stared at William wondering what he was talking about. None of them had any credit, so it sounded like a trick question. Looking around, he asked, “Does any one know what the Fanny Mae Foundation does?” Dead silence settled on the room while William waited for an answer. Finally, Jack said, “Isn’t that a porno story written a couple hundred years ago?” One of the girls rolled her eyes and said, “You’re thinking of Fanny Hill and it is not a pornographic story. It is erotic literature.” “Sorry,” Jack answered somewhat defensively. He asked, “Do you know what a Fanny Mae Foundation is?” “I don’t know,” she answered giving him a dirty look. Raising his hands out to his sides to indicate that he was just guessing, Patrick said, “It is underwear for a woman with a big butt.” About half of the class laughed at the obvious joke. Chuckling at the thought of sharing that particular description of the Fanny Mae Foundation with Lucy, William said, “Good guess, but not quite the right answer. We’ll learn about that when we are ready to talk about buying a home.” “It’s going to be years before any of us are ready to buy a home,” one of the girls said. There was getting out of high school, graduating college, getting married, and finding a job that came before buying a house. “You might be right, but I assure you that you’ll need to start working towards that goal as soon as possible. This class is about home economics. It isn’t about cooking or sewing. It is about the economics of living your life, earning money, spending money, buying a house, and preparing for retirement. We’ll talk about major financial decisions you’ll have to make about things like insurance, investments, real estate, and the stock market. We’ll cover how government regulations, corporate policies, and civil law can affect the quality of life.” One of the girls raised her hand and asked, “Are you telling us that there’s no cooking in this class?” “That’s exactly what I’m saying. We will not be cooking or sewing. I will not give you any household tips on how to clean difficult stains,” William answered. The two young men at the back of the room looked particularly pleased to hear that. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all week,” she said with a great big grin. The truth was that she wasn’t in the class because she wanted to be there. She added, “My mom is going to be so pissed.”