The Man in the Tree (32 page)

"If you want the organization to grow, you're going to have to pick out
leaders right away, and help them set up the local chapter or whatever."
"What does the local chapter do? If it holds meetings when Gene's not
there, you can't have the healing every time."
"They could take applications for the next time he
is
there."
"What about having films of Gene healing? That would be the next best
thing."
"Yes, and videotapes for TV."
"You need somebody to speak at meetings, and they have to know what
to say."
"There should be a manual for heads of chapters."
"Not only that, I think we need a training course. You need the manual,
and you've got to train the people who train people."
"Dinners and picnics."
"Little envelopes for donations."
"We have to think of ways to encourage recruiting. Announce the number
of new members every meeting, and tell who signed them up."
"Give them special badges or something for recruiting ten people or more."
"Put their names on a big bulletin board."
"About publicity -- we should arrange for all the interviews we can get,
naturally. And I think Gene should write a book."
"Thanks a lot," said Gene.
"Well, I think so. And, I'm looking ahead now, there ought to be some
TV specials, and maybe a weekly newspaper column."
The discussion came back to "Gene's dollars."
"I think we should use paper money instead of coins. Otherwise it's a
bottleneck. You've got to get a wax model made, then dies, and you've got
to find a manufacturer, and we're going to need
billions
of them. Paper
is quicker, cheaper, you can get more run off whenever you need them. It
doesn't have to look like real money -- it shouldn't, in fact."
"It ought to be a little bigger than real money, so people don't get
them mixed up."
"You could have little folders for them, so you could pull one out
whenever you want it."
"It shouldn't look like any foreign currency, either. Make it an unusual
color, pink, for example."
"How's this? I was thinking about the printing costs. Put a portrait of
Gene on the front, and all the stuff we were talking about, and then on
the back, divide it up into spaces for signatures. Everybody who gets
one signs it before they pass it on, and when. you get one that's full,
you can turn it in for ten more."
Eventually Gene called a halt, and Margaret read the list of suggestions
aloud. There were murmurs of agreement for some of them, silence or rude
noises for others.
"Gene, how big an organization are we talking about here -- I mean how
many professionals? I think we ought to see what we're getting into."
Linck said, "I have been making a list as we went along. I can't
tell you numbers of people, but perhaps it will help if we just see
how many sections there are. We need first of all a planning section
-- we need economists, demographers, and God knows what to draw a
master plan for at least the first five years. We need an executive
section. A personnel section, to find and recruit the people we need. A
training section. Then there is housing: someone has to find office
space and arrange for leases and so on. Legal section, probably quite
large. Publicity section, that will be very important. Transportation
and liaison. At some point we will probably need a political section,
with lobbyists in Washington and in other countries. Security. Public
relations. Procurement. Accounting. That is thirteen sections so far,
and probably there are others I have forgotten."
"Translation," said Margaret.
"Yes, a very good point. That would come under the heading of an
information section, I think, but we will also need interpreters."
"Let's talk about some of the legal problems," Cliff Guthrie said. "Is
this going to be a not-for-profit corporation, or what? Do you want to
incorporate it as a church, for the tax advantages?"
"Not a church," Gene said. "There are one or two things I won't do,
and one is to let anybody put a halo on my head."
"Then probably it has to be a scientific and educational corporation, but
I.R.S. doesn't like to hand out that designation. Then there's another
thing. A non-profit corporation can't engage in political activity of
any kind. That means lobbying is out."
"Here's something we haven't talked about. The organization has to have
a name -- what are we going to call it?"
"Maybe an acronym, something with the initials G.E.N.E.?"
"General Exodus of Nuclear Energy."
"Why not just something descriptive like, A World at Peace?"
"Peace is a good word, but a lot of people are using it."
"There are some other words we can't use either, like Crusade. Popular.
People's."
"How about 'A World for Mankind'? Then you could have a great logo,
with the 'W' and the' M.'"
"What happened to womankind?"
"I like the idea of getting 'World' into it, and I like the M. World
of Miracles."
"Let's keep this simple. Remember whatever we pick has to be translated
into a lot of languages -- you don't want any ambiguities."
"The World Movement."
"Sounds like a giant laxative."
"One World would be perfect, but that's been done."
"As far as the initials are concerned, they've got to be different in
every language anyhow, so let's not get hung up on them."
Wilcox suggested a committee to look into the question of names; Gene
promptly appointed him the head of it, and then said, "Let's break for
lunch. Afterward, I'd like to spend the rest of the afternoon talking
to you in the library, one at a time -- or if two or three of you want
to come together, that's all right." He got up and left the room.
The others got up more slowly. As they straggled out, Stan Salomon said,
"Do you realize that when we went in there it was just a game, and when
we left we were committed?"
Gene's place was still vacant at lunch.
"You know, it is possible, what he is talking about," said Coomaraswami.
"It really is possible. It took about a century for the Islamic movement
to spread through North Africa and Spain, and it took a lot of fighting
also, but imagine what Mohammed could have done if he had been able to
go around the world on jet planes, and preach by television. It is very
much easier now to persuade a lot of people very quickly. And if you
tell them something sensible that they want to hear, and you also can
demonstrate a kind of supernatural ability, then you sort of get them
both ways, because you are giving them something practical, and also
something transcendental. I am willing to believe that he can do it. The
only question in my mind is, will it be a good thing or a bad thing?"
"How could it be a bad thing?"
"Well, I have a picture in my mind of the world Gene wants -- fewer
people, not so many big cities. And I think it may be a world in which
it is not possible to do physics."
"Come in, Mike."
Wilcox sat down and crossed his legs nervously. Gene was in his outsize
black leather armchair; between them was a table with a coffeepot, cups,
sugar.
"Coffee?"
"No, thanks. You know, all this has more or less knocked my pins out
from under me. I mean, all my life I've been going on the assumption
that magic is a highly specialized form of deception. Now I have to get
used to the idea that there really is a sort of magic."
"There isn't anything magical about it," Gene said.
"Well, if you say not. Anyhow, I'm curious about something. What's your
limit, I mean in size? Could you make an elephant appear, for instance?"
"No. I think the limit is somewhere around my own size, and I haven't
even got very close to that. Why do you mention elephants?"
"Just something that crossed my mind. I'd like to talk about these
meetings of yours. Stop me if I speak out of turn. I suppose you've
never spoken in public before? Are you nervy about it?"
"Yes, a little."
"How long will your speech run?"
"About an hour."
"Pardon me, but that's not enough. When people come to a meeting, or
the theater or whatever, they expect to be entertained or jawed at for
two hours, more or less."
"I don't think I can make it last that long."
"No, that's what I'm getting at. There's got to be something else to
fill up the evening, and my idea is to use magic. I can get some really
spectacular illusions from New York if you say the word. An hour of magic,
an hour of lecture -- do the healing, and there you are."
"What sort of illusions?"
"The famous glass box on wheels, for one. I take it money is no object?"
"Right."
"Well, I know a man who will rent us one if we make him an offer he can't
refuse. I can get his stage crew as well. It will pack the customers in,
I promise you."
Gene said, "Mike, I'm grateful, but if we use fake magic, won't people
think I'm a fake too?"
"Not with the healing. We could make a point of that, in fact -- the
contrast. Anyhow, it's quite likely that some people will call you a fake,
whatever you do. The point is, the people who're seen you won't believe
that, and people who haven't seen you will come because they're curious."
"Come in, Cliff. Coffee?"
"No, thanks."
"Cliff, there's one good reason why this can't be a church. I want to
thank you for that suggestion; I know you were thinking of what's best
for me and putting aside your own religious feelings. But we can't do
that, because a church can only grow at the expense of other churches. We
can't get three billion people in ten years that way. This has to be a
movement that anybody can belong to, Christian, Jew, Moslem, whatever."
"That's right. I wasn't thinking."
"And I hope I can say what I have to say without tearing down anybody's
religious beliefs. If you catch me doing that, tell me."
"I will. But I'll tell you one thing."
"Yes?"
"If I had a choice between you and the Baptist Church, I'd follow you."
"What's the matter, Cliff? What happened?"
Guthrie had a curious look on his face. "He touched me on the forehead,"
he said.
"Coffee, Piet?"
"Yes, please." Linck sat down, took out a cigar, and settled himself
comfortably. "There are some practical details that I want to discuss
with you, and then I have a frivolous question."
"Good."
"Practical things first. You realize that you are going to need a large
number of professional people of very high caliber. The best place to
recruit them would be New York. If you wish, I'll go there and talk to
some headhunters, do some preliminary interviews."
"Yes, Piet. Thank you."
Linck waved his cigar. "I have nothing else to do. I have to go back to
Amsterdam for a week or so in July or August, otherwise I am free. Now
for the frivolous question. Frivolous is not the right word, perhaps,
but it is just something I'm curious about. Don't answer if you would
rather not. Have you ever had what people call a religious experience?"
"Funny you should ask," Gene said. "Years ago, When I left home, something
did happen. I was eleven at the time. Out in eastern Oregon one night I
hitched a ride with an old man who got suspicious of me and left me off
on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. It was getting late, and it was
cold. I didn't know where I was. I started walking down that road and I
came to a forest. It wasn't like any other forest I've ever seen. Tall
pines and little twisted junipers, spaced pretty widely apart, growing
in white sand. That place scared me, it was so quiet. There wasn't a
sound, no insects, no birds, nothing. Then it began to rain, and in a
funny way that made it easier to take, because of the sound. I walked
into the forest a little way, out of sight of the road, and lay down
curled up around the trunk of one of those trees, and went to sleep there.
"Sometime just after dawn I woke up and the rain had stopped, the place
was deathly still again. And then -- this is the hard part. I don't
know how to explain it. I felt, I sensed, that there was somebody up
there, and then I heard a voice. Not a voice, but a -- I don't know
what. Telling me something. It was a word, or maybe a number -- some
number too big to grasp. Just the one thing, the big voice that wasn't
a voice. And I heard what it said, and I couldn't understand it. Not
because the voice wasn't speaking clearly, but because my head was too
small for what it was saying."
He shifted in his chair. "That was all. I started walking again, and got
to another road, hitched another ride, and I wound up in San Francisco."
"And you've never gone back there?"
"No. I don't know if it would be worse if I went back and it happened
again, or if it didn't -- if nothing happened. I know where that place
is -- I looked it up later. It's called the Lost Forest, in eastern
Oregon. It's a place that shouldn't be there, because those are Ponderosa
pines, growing in sand, in a place that never gets more than about six
inches of rainfall a year."
"And you still don't know what the voice was trying to say to you?"
"I know. But I don't know what it is that I know. My head still isn't
big enough."
"Irma, I've got to talk to you."
"Come in the pantry, honey. What is it, did he touch you on the forehead
too?"
"Yes, but that's not it. He told me he's going to need a personal
secretary, and an appointments secretary, and a press secretary, and
at least two office managers, one for here and one for downtown, and he
asked me to choose."
Irma cocked an ironic eyebrow at her. "You want me to guess?"
Margaret picked up a cocktail napkin and began to shred it. "Irma,
I know I should have said I wanted to be an office manager. But then
somebody else would have been with him all the time."
"I understand," Irma said~ "Isn't it hell?"
Chapter Twenty-six
From the St. Petersburg Times:
"An Evening of Magic and Mystery," presented Friday through Sunday
at the Sherman Theatre, is a puzzling mixture of entertainment and
propaganda.
At the Friday performance, stage illusions, offered by a magician
who called himself the Astounding Willy, dominated the earlier part
of the evening. Ghostly heads floated out over the audience, there
were showers of rose petals, and many things appeared and vanished,
including cards, coins, pigeons, and the magician himself.
As a climax of this part of the evening, the Astounding Willy stepped
into a large glass box on wheels, which was then covered with a drape
by his assistants. When the drape was removed, Willy had disappeared,
and in his place was Gene Anderson, eight feet six inches tall, billed
as "The World's Tallest Man."