Chapter 5
Scot enlists

Monsters of the Id

Susan snuggled close to Scot.  He held the popcorn.  She selected one kernel at a time and ate it delicately.  The endless commercials played on the drive-in theater screen providing time for them to get comfortable for the main feature.
“I hope they show a Roadrunner cartoon tonight,” Scot said.  “I know the cartoons always have the same general theme and result, but I never get tired of them as long has they have slightly different locations, and the weapons of destruction vary a little.  They remind me of life with its monotonous repetitions just like going to school or work day after day and following the same routine.  The difference is that the coyote dies, is reborn before our eyes, picks himself up only to repeat the same mistakes, seeking the unobtainable goal.  He is so obsessed with his futile endeavors that he doesn’t have time to think of how pointless it all is.  I wrote a theme paper for English class saying just that.  I got an A and the teacher enjoyed it so much, she had me get up in front of the class and read it.
“Humans repeatedly seem to make the same mistakes,” he continued.  “The monarchs, kings or other rulers say war is necessary because someone threatens the people or wants something they have, and the peasants or serfs rally around some slogan the monarch invents.  The more the slogan rhymes or alliterates, the more the peasants’ brains tell them it must be true.  Every time, most citizens of the kingdom willingly get into a uniform and march off to war only to find out the king got it all wrong or, more often, blatantly deceived them for another goal that benefited the monarch, not the peasant.  Meanwhile, there are horrific losses of life and property.  Everyone talks about how awful it was, waits a few years then sends their children off to another useless, senseless war.
“Sorry for the digression,” he apologized.  “I was proud of that paper.  I’m beginning to see things from another perspective.  Are there any scholars who have  addressed what’s behind that type of behavior?”
Among her many talents, Susan had a photographic memory.  Her high intelligence was intimidating to most young men, including Scot, so she had less dates and more time to read and accumulate more information to intimidate more men.  She quickly learned that in a patriarchal world the woman must hide any higher intelligence.  When Scot read something very interesting, he memorized a statement or question for the next time he was with Susan.  Rarely did he have a topic with which she was unfamiliar.  Her favorite subject was psychology.
“Have your parents been together all your life?”  Susan asked.
“Of course.  Isn’t that true for all parents?” Scot replied never having considered it could be any other way.  “Everyone I know has had the same parents all their lives.  I guess in the big cities divorce is common.  Why do you ask?"
“Just curious,” she responded.  “I’ve been reading psychology books about broken families.  It seems to cause hardship for everyone.  Why would they do it?”
“You should read exciting books,” Scot advised paternalistically.  After all he was one full year older than she was.  “You should gear your intelligence toward cures for diseases.  Face it.  You are very gifted in intelligence.  Your intelligence borders on heights only white males like Einstein and Newton could achieve,” he said in a clumsy attempt at flattery.
Susan failed to see the compliment in the statement.  Scot didn’t exactly stand out in the intellectual arena, so she didn’t consider him qualified to make that judgement.  She moved to the far side of the seat as close to the door as she could get.  A long period of silent treatment followed.  Scot feared raising the subject to find out what offended her after the previous statement backfired so badly.
Not until Intermission did Susan move away from the door, but not as far as to touch her date.
“A few comparative psychologists have studied behavior common in humans and animals or insects,” Susan began abruptly.  “Ants have large, complex societies.  They break down into three groups: worker ants, soldier ants and the queen and her attendants.  The sole objective of the colony is to protect and preserve the queen and allow her to reproduce and nourish her young.  The lives of all other colony members are expendable.  That instinct seems to exist in humans also.  The difference is that human colony, or herd, leaders tell the subordinates that they have value.  Then they proceed with the notion that peasants, employees etc., are disposable, of no more value than a rodent.
“Do you know of any animal that abandons its offspring before they are able to function on their own, or do only humans do that?”
“Will we ever rise above those instincts?”  Scot pondered philosophically ignoring the abandoned babies question.
“After a few thousand more years of evolution, possibly,” she answered.  “We must overcome highly ingrained behaviors.  We are hardwired to keep the tribe together for safety, reproduction, preservation and perpetuation.”
“It seems that there is as much internal fighting as external,” Scot stated.  “Why is that?”
“Apparently the tribe or herd needs purging from time to time,” Susan elaborated, still slowly eating her popcorn.   “The purging weeds out the weak, deformed and misfits.  If the genes are unfit for the current environment, those members shouldn’t be perpetuating themselves, consuming resources and becoming a burden on or detrimental to the group. They dilute the strength of the herd.  Jane Goodall noticed intra-species conflicts that were as brutal as inter-species conflicts.  She called it ‘pseudo-speciation.’  Among humans, heresies can result in conflicts more brutal than those with completely different nations, languages or religions.  Look at European religious wars for example.
“Sigmund Freud wrote about that behavior.  He called it ‘Narcissism of small differences.‘  It’s most notable in children teasing other children who act, appear, speak or dress slightly differently than the accepted norm.  It appears to be embedded in them when they are born.  Most adults have been taught to suppress any thoughts about those differences.  However, the instinct still is there and can be cultivated and unleashed easily.  Racism is one of the common manifestations in adults.  Until recently, it was believed widely in the U.S. and around much of the world that Negroes, Indians, Asians and other minorities were naturally inferior physically and especially mentally.”
“If that’s not true, why has there never been a Negro Einstein or Plato?” Scot challenged her.
“My theory is that they have been denied access to education,” Susan responded.   “Also, living in Africa requires less resourcefulness to survive.  Food is more readily available the year round.  Europeans, on the other hand, had long winters and had to invent ways to survive in hostile, cold weather conditions.  There’s a reason humans are believed to have originated in Africa.
“I believe I can identify our most basic instincts.  Once I do it, I can compare behaviors of people in Africa to those in other parts of the world and determine if there are any distinguishable differences.  Do we have a blueprint in our minds that guides us through life?  Do we have templates that we use for different situations?  Are those blueprints inherited?  Are some races inherently more mean and brutal than others?”
“How could you possibly do that?” Scot asked.
“I have this idea I want to research for a paper in some advanced class or seminar.  It’s a major research idea, so I want to start working on it now.  I am doing surveys of people’s first memories.  I hope that will provide a clue into what is most important to us.  What were your earliest memories?”
The question caught Scot by surprise.  The past has passed.  He always looked ahead.
“Fortunately, my parents moved several times during my pre-school years,” Scot said after several minutes considering the question.   “So I can place those first memories at specific locations within a narrow timeline.  What’s your idea?”
“I think we can gather first memories and determine patterns that will give us insights into the innate aspirations or reservations of our sub-conscience at the earliest time and determine if a template or blueprint exists.  This would address the question of inheriting acquired knowledge.  The Russian geneticist Lysenko claimed that happens.  The theory reinforces Marxist theory, so it was ridiculed by Western geneticists.  My idea will try to penetrate the consciousness of a child to determine what type of events are most memorable by what registers first in the long-term memory.  My teacher believes our minds are predisposed and programmed to register certain experiences, but he doesn’t have plans to research it as far as I know.”
“You must promise never to reveal me or any family member,” he demanded.
“It’s sealed in my vault,” Susan responded.
“My very first memories involved my parents.  Then there was the dogs and the Out House incident.  After that, the memory burned most deeply in my mind was the blackbird slaughter.”
“I don’t want any animal memories.  That would be a separate course of inquiry,” Susan interjected.  “The one that involved your parents is exactly what I’m looking for.”
Scot was uneasy that she seemed to take her promise lightly, but decided to relate the incident anyway.  “I had to have been three based on where this happened. It’s the only memory I have of a large, two-story, brick house we lived in.  My father’s family had an intense fear of two-story buildings.  I never found out why.  Someone must have been in a major fire, I assumed.  Anyway, we lived there for a very short time, probably less than one year.
“I was playing upstairs when I heard someone groaning.  It sounded like my mother.  I followed the sound.  It led to the bathroom.  I slowly opened the door and saw my father on top of my mother.  I became enraged and rushed in to stop him.  I began beating on him.  He yelled at me to get out.   Rather than being grateful for coming to her aid, my mother also began shouting loudly and sharply for me to get out of the bathroom.  I had the most powerful feeling of betrayal.  She had to say it several times before I finally obeyed and left, deeply confused.  I felt as if both had ganged up against me.  I ran to the farthest corner of the house and tried to hide from them in case they wanted to take me somewhere and abandon me.  Needless to say, only years later did I realize what had happened.”
Susan was giddy with excitement.  This appeared to be the ideal incident for her study.  “If we have a mental blueprint, our first memories should be incidents that radically clash with the blueprint,” she reasoned.  “Can you recall any other deep feelings you had besides abandonment and betrayal?”
“It seemed as if I was hiding forever,” Scot continued, “but my mother finally found me and scolded me for opening closed doors.  Then she became very friendly and protective again.   She never tried to explain what had happened in the bathroom.”
Scot’s mind was unable to stay on cerebral subjects very long.  Here he was alone with a desirable young lady.  She had just said that procreation is one of the highest instincts if not the highest.  Everything is channeled toward that end.  While procreating was the last thing he wanted, going through the motions of procreation was uppermost on his mind, as it was with nearly all young men his age.  That was a blueprint instinct without a doubt.  No one had to tell children how, or to have sex.  They knew naturally, as did all creatures.
The intellectual phase had had its time.  Time to move on to the physical.  Susan still was about a foot away, but he could feel the warmth generated by her body.  Her skirt was shorter than anything he had seen her wear before.  It barely covered her knees.  The calves of her legs flowed as if they had been designed by an aeronautical engineer.  Scot wondered if those designs primarily served a functional purpose or a provocative roll.  If procreation was the ultimate goal of life, the latter had to be the primary objective.  She wore no socks for the first time since they started dating.  The thick, white bobby sox were gone.  Her fine-boned ankles looked like they had been polished.  While Scot was unaware of it at the time, even living with four sisters, shorter skirts required much more time to prepare for social life.  The legs had to be shaved.  That was a time consuming task.  It could be a bloody task if it wasn’t done carefully.
“Ankles, wrists and necks once were considered erogenous,” Scot blurted out of the blue.  “In the Middle East, women must cover all body parts when they’re out in public.  Apparently it was believed that the sight of female skin could drive men wild, and they might not be able to restrain themselves from sexually molesting the woman.  Of course that made the women responsible for any sexual attack that resulted.  There still are primitive men here who believe that. Rulers often espouse restriction of rights as some high-minded moral benefit, but that is the least of their goals.
“My uncles told me one of their favorite past times when they were young was sitting on a bench of a village store on Friday and Saturday evenings and watching women cross the street hiking their long dresses to avert dragging them in the dirt or mud.  Most streets were dirt back then.  A rare few would be brick.  If there were mud puddles, the women lifted their skirts even higher.  If the watchers were lucky, they could catch a glimpse of flesh.  Apparently that was very provocative back then.”
“I wonder if the right to vote, enacted in 1920, made women feel empowered to determine how they would dress,” Susan speculated.  “The Roaring Twenties and the Flapper Girls resulted from the rebellion that usually follows a major war.  War casualties mean less men available, and none for many young women.   Women must resort to daring tactics to compete for the attention of the remaining young men.   A change in attire and behavior would be the most expedient course.  That would explain why human females are the flashy sex while among animals, especially birds, the female is the drab sex.”
“Today, women commonly expose ankles, wrists and necks, and it goes largely unnoticed.  I guess that would have driven my uncles crazy if a young lady in today’s fashions crossed their paths,” Scot speculated.  “There seems to be a constant challenge to expose more skin and find more flashy clothes.  It must end somehow.  There is a finite amount of skin.  Maybe women will be forced to stop wars to prevent depletion of the man supply.  Or, they could bring back the harem custom.  That was the reasoning behind polygamy in the Muslim Religion.  There were so few men due to constant warfare in the area.  Women were not allowed to work outside the home.  There were many widows with no one to care for them.”
“Your must be reading a lot since you have so much spare time now,” Susan said finally after playing along with the cerebral questions that sometimes came up on their intimate dates.  Usually she had to spar with hands that seemed to be everywhere, not unusual words culled for the first time from some obscure book read during the past week.  “Is there something bothering you?  Why are you suddenly questioning motives for going to war?  Two world wars taught us the futility of armed conflicts.  Only a fool would advocate war now, and only imbeciles would fight in them.”
“Say ‘hi’ to an imbecile.  I enlisted in the Air Force,” Scot said, with a soft but, hopefully,  audible tremor in his voice.  “I wake up each day and ask myself if I really did it.  I’ve never traveled far.  I wouldn’t have visited any other states if the proximity of West Virginia and Pennsylvania didn’t make them nearly impossible to avoid.   The first thing the Air Force will do is send me to Texas.  I am required to go by plane unless I can prove I can travel more cheaply some other way.  I’ve never been in a plane before.  Everything seemed like peaches and cream when the recruiter described them.  Now I’m realizing there is a baking process necessary to produce sweet desserts.  The baking process is much longer than the consuming process.  I feel more and more fear as the departure date gets closer.
“One thing I don’t fear is that the U.S. will get into another war.  After World War I, World War II and the Korean War, I feel confident that our representatives will not permit a war unless we are attacked and foreign soldiers are on our soil.”
Susan was speechless.  She never imagined Scot would take such a drastic step.  That was not his nature.  He was not adventurous.  She knew he couldn’t afford to go to college, but there were many factories in the area with good jobs.  A man could live an adequate life.  He just had to be patient and wait for the opportunity to open up.  She felt tears uncontrollably welling up in her eyes.
“The recruiter made me realize that I was being selfish,” Scot confessed.  “We were sitting there shooting the bull.  A big flag covered most of the wall behind his desk.  The recruiter’s uniform, shiny medals and rank stripes, so neat and clean, made me want to look like that and get that respect.  The recruiter said his office had reached its quota for the month, so he wasn’t interested in recruiting anyone.  He really enjoyed talking to bright, young men like Oliver and me, he said.
“You know, Susan, we live in the greatest nation the world has ever known, and a lot of people sacrificed everything to make this nation possible.  I decided it was my turn to put my life on the line in repayment for everything I had been blessed with.  The recruiter mentioned this might be the only opportunity I would ever have to repay the bounty that has been given to me by this nation.  So, Oliver and I talked him into pulling some strings and getting us enlisted.  He made a couple phone calls, and worked out a way to get us in.
“And the icing on the cake!  Get this!  They have a ‘Buddy Plan.’  That means Oliver and I will be together for the next four years.  We will train together.  We will have the same job.  We will be assigned to the same bases.  We will be an inseparable team.”