To Make a Long Story Short

The Counter Council

DEAR MISS THOMPSON,

Remember when you said, “Your days of quiet learning are over. From this day on, people will see you, watch you, and listen to you learn. Your work and your grades will be entered and compiled in a computer, which will sort out the brightest, most intelligent of you for leadership, first in your class, then in your community, and ultimately in your country, and perhaps the world. The rest of you will be shown how to follow and be good strong citizens and classmates.” I’m sure you remember. It was recited to every third grade class you taught from that year forward.

It didn’t take long for the crème de la crème to emerge. Paul, the artist. Terry, the politician, Kevin, the intelligentsia. Pam, Miss Personality. They became our first and lasting student council. Now, two decades later, these are the leaders of the community and the country. The rest of us, perhaps as intelligent, but not nearly as socially acceptable, have been trained over the years to follow, unquestioningly as good strong classmates and citizens.

Almost unquestioningly.

Today, I want to tell you about the counter council. You told our parents at the time that we were a strong group of friends, bound together by religious ties and a common code of ethics. Translated, that meant the misfits of the class. Not dumb, mind you, just on the outside of anything significant.

Brian, always big, but with a mind for science and language. Wayne, poor family and not too good with his hygiene, but a mathematical whiz and a reading level that put his vocabulary out of the reach of his peers. Liz, Irish freckles and red hair, good looks, and a temper, with an imagination to match her height as the tallest person in the class. Nathan, an idealogue already, with thoughts that were a little frightening to his contemporaries even then. The perfect counter-match for the council.

We played together, went to church together, rode the same school bus, and in the maple grove out back of my place, sat in our circle learning each other and life in ways our classmates never imagined. Only recently have I learned how to express and analyze what occurred during that and following years.

We were alarmed in our way, that all our grades and work would be put on a computer for future reference. Mind you, only the four of us in the class were into in science fiction so deeply that we could put together a scenario that would frighten ourselves. So, while the rest of the class was competing for that precious designation as leaders, the four of us were consciously sabotaging our own records.

Keep in mind that we were some of the most pacifistic students you have ever had. So, our deviance from the norms was not brought to the computer’s attention by acts of violence. We learned early that those who came up for corrections and discipline were the troublemakers, but only if they attacked the elite.

Brian and I were riding our bikes out on Elder Road, home from Wayne’s house, when a pack of the troublemakers came by and pushed us off our bikes. Then they gathered around and jeered at us as we sat in tears, picking the stones out of our knees and elbows. They got away with that behavior to a certain extent, as long as it was the outcasts that they attacked and not the elite. Of course, some of them had a difficult time restraining themselves and have been imprisoned. For our part, it moved our classification category to “victims.” Later in life, the same computers would re-classify us as “survivors.”

Well, what evolved in the woods during fair weather, or the barn out back of Brian’s house in foul weather, was a certain type of symbol language that only the four of us understood. You came by Brian’s desk one day and made him stand in a corner for doodling in class and not paying attention. I looked at those ‘doodles,’ and could read the notes for a science fiction story that he finally managed to publish before we graduated from high school.

Another trait that was common among us was our nearly unreadable handwriting. Brian was left-handed so he had a good excuse for bad handwriting. The others of us weathered many storms of displeasure.

Mr. Graves made me write on graph paper with one letter in each square. Part of the difficulty was that our symbols crept into what we wrote. Many of them looked similar to letters of the English alphabet, but that “felt better” to us.

When I started writing novels, my character J. Wesley Allen became conversant in our symbol language. He was the first to start explaining things.

Among the four of us, the symbols had their own look, sound, and image. We talked to each other in the woods in nods of our heads, shrugs, gestures; creating entire environments for our stories and games, changing the woods into new planets, foreign countries, and spacecraft.

Why do you suppose that when I went back to that woodlot as an adult, did they seem so small and so near to the highway and ‘civilization?’ I guess I’d gotten bigger.

Well, I just thought you should know that the counter council still survives, even though we never meet each other anymore. Brian is an industrial chemist and writes science fiction stories that have been published far and wide. I’m sure his next book will contain some of the discoveries he has alluded to in the past. It will be called ‘fiction,’ but we’ll know how to interpret the symbols.

Wayne is hopping trains cross-country and dropping in and out of society like a poltergeist. I haven’t seen him since high school, but I frequently stop and stare at trains passing. Twice, in two different states, I have picked up books fallen from passing trains, and have read marked passages with a familiar symbol translation. He keeps track, without being watched.

Liz is teaching a college English class and raising two children I have more than occasionally wished were my own.

And me. I created J. Wesley Allen so I would have someone intelligent to quote. His books of philosophy continue to be out of reach for most people, but have had a covert impact on our growing counterculture. The novels in which he plays such an important role have been published and provide entertainment for an isolated segment of the population. Afraid I will never become a New York Times Bestseller.

Of course, we aren’t the only ones. We’re just representative of hundreds—maybe thousands—of people who operate below the surface of polite society. Some attract a modicum of attention, but most simply do our best to improve this world that has been sold to the electrons in artificial intelligence computers.

Some government agency rented an apartment next to mine to keep track of my coming and going. In redecorating my apartment, I found the major locations of their surveillance equipment. Happy to keep them busy. When my piano was delivered, the transmitter they had planted in it was shaken loose, but I replaced it and checked to be sure the wires were connected. I’m a good sport about it, but I see a day in the near future when I’ll join Wayne as a nomad, though I have no appetite for trains. Perhaps a nice travel trailer and truck.

I don’t know if you are still alive or not—it’s been such a long time since third grade. I thought, however, that it was only just to implicate you by writing to you. You, after all, were instrumental in getting the counter council formed. We thank you.

Still staying out of the mainstream,

Nathan

❮ Crazy? Modified Anarchy ❯

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