[a story]
Paul McGarrish felt no nostalgia as he looked across the campus, only the general bemusement that filled most of his life. It bemused him, for instance, that he was worth seven billion dollars (by Forbesian count), even though he had never felt any desire for large sums of money. He bought things, of course – lots of things – but most times ended up giving them away.
The bluestone of the main campus walkway had been replaced by octagonal tiles, some kind of asphalt amalgam. Much better. The bluestone, heralded as virtually indestructible when installed, had spalled and shattered. The new material could easily be replaced, tile by tile, if necessary.
Jaunty little flower beds languored under the trees where walkways met. The grass, that in his day could be made to grow only in leprous patches, was lush and assertive. Fewer aged trees, alas, yet the whole was one of the most attractive urban settings for higher education in the country.
Maybe he should not commit this action (less action really, than solidified intent). It might be considered mean. But it was something quite different, something like his incomprehensible accumulation of lucre. He needed to see it through so that it might tell him something.
He strode comfortably, hands in pockets, as he always did, up the path to the administrative offices and through the newly installed ornate wooden doors (removing one hand from his pocket to navigate the latch).
Inside, he turned to the president’s office and introduced himself to the secretary. The president herself would not be available to see him, he knew; one reason that he had chosen today to “drop by.” Short, thin and image-conscious, the secretary made him feel himself closeted with something infectious.
The assistant who ushered him into her office was young, blonde, with stunning grey eyes at once intense and non-committal. No woman on campus, undergraduate, graduate, faculty or staff, had looked like this when he had attended. Or perhaps he was simply more aware today. Seven billion dollars provides ample time for becoming aware, if one is so inclined.
“Well,” she said, after showing him to the obvious seat, “we’re so glad you could make it. Did you come by private jet?”
“There’s no landing strip on campus,” McGarrish replied. “It would be impractical and possibly dangerous.”
“Ha ha,” she mock laughed. “Sorry, that was just… I find it difficult to start conversations with Really Important People. I tend to say stupid things. Forgive me.”
McGarrish rose. “You are formally forgiven.” He extended his hand to her and they shook. Her hand was narrow, finely boned, with exquisite skin. Ah!
McGarrish sat down.
“I understand you had a gift in mind?” said Grey-Eyed Athena.
“I did, and I still do. A large gift.”
“Well, that will certainly… That’s very… I’m delighted. The president will be delighted too.” Her eyes almost spoke in time to her halting speech.
McGarrish smiled. “Good lord, you have no idea how delightful it is to have someone become admittedly, bumblingly confused. Half my day is spent with toadies whose prime object is to convince me they know exactly what they’re doing when they haven’t the faintest idea. Bully for you!”
The grey eyes turned momentarily candid. “I’ve never actually heard anyone say ‘bully’ that way before.”
“Don’t think I have either. You are the most relaxing person.”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“I can see that, which is why you are so relaxing. All right, should we talk about details? It’s an unrestricted gift, except for one relatively small condition. Big, big dollars. Goodness, now you’re going to see that I don’t now what I’m doing either.”
“But you must.”
McGarrish chewed his lip and thought that over. “No, I don’t think so. Details.”
“All right.” Grey-Eyed Athena drew a yellow lined tablet closer to her and picked up a battered pencil, probably chewed on.
“I propose to donate a flat sum of one billion dollars.”
“Oooh, that’s… unparalleled. My goodness!”
“Isn’t it? I’ve never heard of anything like it myself, except for Ted Turner, and that was to the United Nations. This is to a single collegiate institution. It could be used to fatten up the endowment, or institute new programs or, ummm, well, God knows what else? Money, money, money.” His misplaced grin returned, broader.
“Well… unrestricted? Or… or almost unrestricted?”
“Yeah, just a weensy part of the total set off for a particular project, no more than, I’d think, about twenty-five million. Well, inflation, all right, say fifty million. That leaves…”
“Nine hundred and fifty million.”
“Not confused about math?”
“Women aren’t supposed to be. These days. And never were. Now, this fifty million, how is it restricted?” A sudden confidence solidified in her face, bringing out another level of beauty. Ah! Ah!
“It’s for a building, it doesn’t much matter what the building’s used for, I’d think research might be best, but I’d leave that to… the trustees, the board of trustees. The location is important though. Crucial.”
“You don’t want to tear this building down, do you?”
“For you? In a minute. But in general terms. No. My – I say my, but it won’t be named for me – the building must be a minimum of seven stories tall and face Wigand Street.”
“That’s quite crowded.”
“Oh, tear down a few things and it won’t make a difference. Pretty ugly bunch. Tear down that new mall, what a monstrosity. Hmmm, this could go beyond fifty million. There’d still be plenty left.”
“Can I get you some coffee?”
“You certainly can, you’re highly competent, whether you always realize it. But I hate coffee. Do you have any tea?”
“Oh dear, I’m not sure. I’ll look.”
“Take your time. Most places have forgotten it exists. I’ll even take Tetley. No silly herbal swill, though.”
She moved from the room with aching grace, and McGarrish moved with a shamble to the window. From there the campus exuded even more of a rightness about it, a sense of now, of time held in abeyance for four years so matriculants could experience a level of comfortable ease – interspersed occasionally with all-night madness – that they might never know again. Except for the business students, who would notice none of it.
Seven billion dollars “earned” through business and investment that mystified him still. Why come here to fight, if that’s what it was? What was he fighting against?
Athena returned with a teabag, which she held by the tag. “Ta da! Tetley.”
“Yum yum. We should be able to wrap this up pretty quickly. I’d invite you out to lunch afterwards, but that would by a form of noblesse oblige. It’s rotten for rich, balding men to inflict themselves on the young and beautiful simply because they can.” He held up his hand. “Don’t reply, I’m musing out loud. That’s one of the few blessings of being exceedingly rich that I do take advantage of. You know, if I weren’t rich… I’d be poor, but probably in a straitjacket.”
She frowned. “Why do you think that? There’s nothing crazy in being honest. Is there?”
“Damned if I know.”
She shifted her gaze to the yellow tablet. “So the building is the single restriction?”
“Yes. There’s a secondary restriction associated with the building, but the rest of the money is unencumbered. It’s just a big pile of dough, like Scrooge McDuck’s.”
“Umm? Oh, yes, somebody showed me one of those once. The comic. What’s the secondary restriction?”
McGarrish pulled up from a slouch and sat straight in his chair. “On a sign four feet in height directly above the front door, in letters not less than eighteen inches tall, the name must read ‘The Great Big Motherfucking Building.'”
The grey eyes flew wide and took on exuberant life. They expressed alarm, shock, vacillation, then, suddenly, humor. Athena snurfed a giggle into her hand that widened into a titter that rolled into a burbling guffaw. As this huge laugh enveloped her slim frame, McGarrish leaned back, head pointed almost toward the ceiling, and joined in. Their laughter swept on like a rollercoaster down its incline, careening around the breathtaking curves and into successive humps of lessening comedy.
Oh, what a lovely hell of a racket.
“Boy, you caught me on that one. Whoo! Oh goodness. Do you really have a, pooHA! name for the building? You don’t want to name it after yourself?’
“I do. I don’t. I have a name, but not mine.”
“What is it?”
“The Great Big Motherfucking Building.”
“It wasn’t a joke.” The flame in the grey eyes extinguished.
“Oh, it is a joke. I guess you’d call it a joke. It’s not a joke about what the name will be, but naming it that – you think that’s what the name is? A joke?”
“I wasn’t trying to–“
“No, no. I’m not accusing you of anything, I just want your opinion. You think something like that would be a joke? Well, people would laugh at it, but that doesn’t prove anything. They laugh at an injured dog. It’s funny, certainly. But why am I doing it?”
“You don’t know?”
“I woke up one morning in my damned goose-down bed which is too soft to be comfortable and the thought popped right into my head. That’s how I’ve made my billions, thoughts popping into my head from nowhere, so I felt I should act on it. But it could have been an entirely incorrect thought, the work of the devil. Blast – people don’t say that either, do they – I’ve just gotten tired of my motives, if they even are motives, always staying in hiding. Who am I anyway? Have you seen me around anywhere?” He swiveled his head to check the corners of the room.
“I’ll get the straitjacket.”
Again, in smaller measure, their combined laughter swooped through hills and valleys.
“You’re not offended by this?” McGarrish asked.
“Just puzzled. It’s an awfully… aggressive thing to do, and you don’t look aggressive.”
“Gentle as a lamb, as they say. That’s what I mean – I don’t know why. But I’m dead serious. Serious in that sense.”
“An unalterable condition.”
“Yuh, yuh. Exactly.”
“They won’t do it.”
“You think that’s it? That’s what the test is?”
“Well… it would be if I were doing it.” And the grey eyes swept over him like cats in heat.
“I… don’t think… that’s it. Something else. I almost saw it when I was looking out the window there.” He pointed. “It’s larger than that. Hairier.”
“A grizzly thought.”
“Good lord, you know, if I’d met you when I was younger… But I have to get going, find where I parked my jet.”
Athena stood and held out her hand. “I’ll convey your wonderful offer to the president.”
“One billion dollars. Oh yes, oh yes. By the way, if you were still in college, would you take classes in The Great Big Motherfucking Building?”
“I’d consider it an honor.”
“Perhaps if we changed the name of the entire university…”
“That would be asking a bit too much. Even from you.”
“Two billions dollars?”
“I’d think about it. I’d think about that… long and hard.”
Outside, the students moved between classes with casual aplomb, their crossings and tangential meetings reinforcing the geometry of the walkways. Perhaps that was all there was to it, a human geometry that could produce billions or a crude joke with equal, unthinking ease.
The Great Big Motherfucking Building would never be built, or if it was it would last only until his death, when it would be defaced, effaced. Its memory, like his, would become a footnote slowly obliterated by time, while Grey-Eyed Athena grew old.
The end
* * *
Pie-plate volume elucidation
Following up on how Linda can determine the diameter needed to create a one-half-standard-volume ceramic pie plate.
the evenly slanted side wall of the standard pie plate has
an upper diameter of 9”
a lower diameter of 7”
so, an average diameter of 8”
[sorry how the equations below look; I don’t have a math program on my computer, so doing my best in Word]
with volume equal to πr2h, and substituting x for r in the new volume, we get
πx2h = 1/2 πr2h
since π and h are constants on both sides of the equation, they cancel out, leaving us with
x2 = 1/2 r2 = 16/2 = 8
thus
x = sq. root of 8 = 2.8 [rounded]
using x as the new radius,
new diameter = 2.8 x 2 = 5.6 inches
Linda has a neat program, known and comprehensible only to potters, which also allows for the thickness of the clay wall and shrinkage of the clay in drying. For this problem, it comes up with a wet diameter of:
5.75 inches, or, in mathematical terms, “pretty damned close.”
You may wonder why I have wasted your time and mine on this idiot side issue. I certainly do.
Well, kinda fun, in a lame-ass way.
lickhaven 