I saw Dr. Redding in his office. I said, very uncomfortable, “Dr. Redding, I sort of have to ask you for a favor.” I don’t know why I started out that way. I knew even as I said it that it would mislead.
“Do you?” Very dry, very reserved.
“It’s about a friend of mine, Dave Schlachter. He’s in your Negro History class.”
“Yes?”
“Well, I know Dave’s probably getting a good grade from you, he always works hard –.”
He waited me out, giving no clues. I couldn’t tell if he even knew who Dave was. It was a large class.
“Dr. Redding, we – a couple of his friends – we’re asking his professors to give him a passing grade without his having to take finals, so he can graduate.”
“And why are you doing that?”
“He’s in the hospital.” I didn’t know Dr. Redding. He was an old man, and I had only had him for the one course. I wasn’t about to give him any clues either. I said it as flatly as I could. “He isn’t going to be able to take finals. He has a brain tumor. The doctors say they can’t remove it. “
Dr. Redding seemed to be filled with indignation. “Do you mean to tell me there is a 21-year-old boy in the hospital with a brain tumor, and nobody can do anything about it?”
I couldn’t relate to his reaction. It felt as if he were blaming me. Besides, Dave was 22. “That’s about it,” I said, imitating what I imagined Dennis would say. It felt good to act hardened, tough.
I tried it with Dr. Sachar, too. I went up to him just as his class ended – it wasn’t a class I was taking – and asked if I could speak to him. He knew me, naturally. I had taken three of his courses. But he was still Sachar, brilliant, impatient, not very approachable. I began in the same blunt, inappropriate way, saying I needed a favor. Like Dr. Redding, he stepped back, all but physically, waiting to hear the newest excuse for unacceptable work. But then he may have realized that I was not in any of his courses that semester, because I saw, or thought I saw, wariness change to guarded curiosity.
In a few words I told him about Dave’s situation. “So we’re trying to get him through his courses so he can get his degree,” I said.
“This type of request should come through his parents, I should think,” he said. Probably he was just thinking aloud, but I thought he was turning me down on a technicality. I shrugged impatiently and turned on my heel, something I would never have done ordinarily. I was a very well-mannered middle-class boy who had been taught to be polite to his elders.
Before I could take a step, Dr. Sachar said, “Just a minute, Mr. DeMarco. Tell me a few things about your friend. What hospital he is in, for a start. Where his parents are staying.” I still thought he was concerning himself with technicalities, but he had seen through the bravado to the pain.
“They say they don’t know how long,” I argued at supper that Friday. “How do we know it isn’t going to be 20 years?”
Dennis shrugged, skeptical, taciturn, depressed. He started to say something, changed his mind. He picked at the chicken on his plate. Andrews said, “Certainly I hope you’re right. I hope it’s fifty years! But I don’t see any realistic way we can nudge the scales. I wish I could. I hope you can convince me.”
I turned to Bill. “You certainly ought to know what I’m talking about. You know what Cayce said, mind is the builder.” Fiercely: “Let’s put our minds to building!” I could see that they weren’t merely unconvinced. They were embarrassed. “So maybe it won’t work. How do we know, if we don’t try? If the four of us put our minds to it, and we can get David to put his mind to it, do you mean to tell me that anybody can know for sure that we can’t do it? Isn’t it worth a try?”
Dennis still didn’t have anything to say. Bill cleared his throat. “After what we’ve seen this year, or I should say what you’ve seen, since I’ve been mostly providing the entertainment, I’d say we don’t know very much about what is possible and what isn’t.” He was talking about our summer’s experiments with hypnotism, where he had repeatedly come up with what seemed to be tales of past lives. “I mean, you were there. We all were. We have the sessions on tape.”
“Yes,” Dennis said, “We know the sessions happened, but what we don’t know is what they mean.”
“That’s my point. Nobody can say. We just don’t know enough.”
Andrews said, laughing, that his grandmother had always said you can do anything you set your mind to, “but I’m not sure this is the kind of thing she was talking about.” In a conciliatory way, “Still, you read about people dying when they want to and not a moment before. I suppose you could look at this as a special case of the will to live.”
I said, “I was talking to Dave this afternoon, and I put it to him that maybe it all comes down to how hard he’s willing to fight.” I had waited until his parents were out of the room, getting an early supper. “He said, that under the circumstances, he was in no position to care who prayed for him, even him. ” I tried to carry Dave’s humorous intent, but somehow it only emphasized the odds against him. “Anyway,” I said, it’s worth a try. Isn’t it worth a try?”