"Mary Asher Short Stories"

                     Love, Death, and Money

                         Copyright 1986

                    by  Bill  S.  Scarborough

     No one really knows the source of the "werewolf legend."  
All that Camilla Smith knew was that she had been known to have 
nightmares in which she dreamed that she was some sort of 
prowling animal, and that she may wake up to learn that she is 
known to sleepwalk.
     Camilla's doctors estimated that a portion of her primeval 
instincts were surfacing in her dreams and sleepwalking, but that 
nothing would ever come of it other than an occasional stumble in 
the dark.  Not so easily convinced was her local evangelical 
crowd.  Her little cottage in her little home town became the 
target of exorcisms and derision.  For her, the obvious choice 
was to move to an apartment near Megatron University in the big 
city of Megatropolis.
     "What brings you here to Megatropolis?"  Mary Asher added to 
her list of questions.  (Mary's job as personnel worker often 
called upon her to conduct initial job interviews.  At the 
Regional Office of the State Welfare Commission, the top brass 
considered a prime job specification that of being able to fit 
in.)
     Camilla hesitated, then recited, "I want to broaden my 
horizon.  The little town I lived in just did not have all the 
cultural opportunities.  Living as I do now, near Megatron 
University, there is so much that is going on."
     Mary distrusted small-town white people almost as badly as 
she patronized black people.  However, Camilla had stumbled on 
just the right words to make it past Mary's desk.
     Tamara Jefferson, head of the Computer Room, made clear her 
position: "Are you going to bring any secular humanist religion?"
     "I'm not sure what you mean," Camilla quietly noted.  "I do 
believe in God and Jesus, but I believe 'the rain falls on the 
just and the unjust alike,' and that Jesus told us, 'This is my 
commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.' "  
Camilla held back inside of her a certain fear mixed with a 
little bit of anger.  She knew enough to know that Tamara's line 
of questioning was forbidden fruit, but she dared not risk her 
chance for a job in Megatropolis.
     Tamara, born of one of the most lily-white conservative 
families in Megatropolis, thought over Camilla's application and 
interview.  The Welfare Commission seemed to acquire people 
Tamara thought of as oddballs.  Mary Asher plainly and directly 
rejected the Christian gospel Tamara loved so well.  Aubrey 
Divaneh had a male chauvinist side that would offend Archie 
Bunker.  Rachel Laurel had turned out to have done time for 
lesbian sex.  Pansy Sentien filled her work area with quotations 
from The Buddha.  What could be wrong with this one, Tamara 
reflected, as she continued,  "Are you going to school?"
     "Well, not right now," Camilla mildly replied.  "Since I 
have just arrived here, it is a little early to think about 
school."  She was groping for innocuous answers.
     Camilla passed Tamara's questioning, which weighed more than 
the score on the programmer's test.  She found herself an 
understudy to Diane Harris, who was known around the office as a 
quiet and soft-spoken worker.  (Diane Harris was quadriplegic 
with cerebral palsy.  Her disorder caused many people to have 
difficulty with her spoken words.  Camilla, though, was ever so 
glad to have someone with whom she could identify, even if she 
could never get around to telling Diane about her own 
disability.)
     In due time, Camilla came to meet the husbands of Diane and 
Tamara.  Particularly Diane's husband George Harris.  Camilla 
visited George and Diane occasionally.  "Why of all things!" 
Camilla exclaimed to Diane one day,  "Here at your home, you talk 
a blue streak.  Why don't you let it out in the office?"
     "Xxxx xxxxxxxxx xx xxx xxxxx xxxxxx xxxx," Camilla heard 
Diane blabber away, as if Diane could care less if Camilla could 
make out the words.
     "Those bigmouths at the office don't care," translated 
George.  "They want me to be their good little poster child.  But 
if I am asked to carry somebody's load a mile, I will carry it 
two miles.  Some days, I am ready to blow up when I leave that 
office.  Look at Tamara Jefferson.  She brags about what a good 
Christian she is.  Maybe her brand of Christianity is right, but 
she shouldn't pat me on the head.  You've seen it-- right in 
front of everybody-- she pats me on the head.  Makes me think of 
Judas kissing Jesus."
     Camilla couldn't resist asking George how he related to the 
strong personality Diane presented at home.  " 'An intelligent 
wife,' " he quoted," 'is a gift from the Lord.' "
     One day, George came to the office with an especially big 
smile on his face.  He held Diane's hand for a moment longer than 
usual, and the two smiled at each other in such a way that even 
the "girls" from the "keypunch" room noticed it.  He turned to 
Camilla, with his hand in Diane's, beaming, "Diane is pregnant.  
We are getting that spare bedroom ready."
     Tamara immediately rushed to congratulate them.  "How lucky 
you are!  How did you do it in your condition?"
     Even Diane couldn't keep from wincing over that one.  George 
recovered the fumble, quipping, "We do it the old-fashioned way.  
We earn it."
     "What a sweet thing for the two of you.  Will it be 
paraplegic or what?  I mean, you know, well, you do think about 
that, don't you?"  Tamara continued, little noting that she was 
treading on dangerous ground.  "Frank and I want to have a little 
one ourselves.  We want to preserve our family blood lines.  We 
come from the best of families, you know.  Besides, we need more 
Christians in the world, and raising a Christian is better than 
making a Christian."
     By that time, Mary Asher had walked over to the Computer 
Room.  "I think I know exactly how you feel.  It is so much 
happiness to know how much potential you have.  Just like when I 
write a paper for school.  I really think I can be a Mark Twain 
or an O Henry, if only I apply myself hard enough."
     Camilla couldn't keep the silence, whispering,  "Diane is 
going to have a baby.  It means more to her than a paper."
     "Oh, relax," Mary replied.  "I know what you mean.  I was 
pregnant about a month ago."
     Diane and George stopped smiling as they looked over to Mary 
with amazement.  They knew instantly what Mary was talking about, 
but they simply were not ready for Mary's news.
     "It's murder!" snapped Tamara,  "It is cold-blooded murder 
one!"
     "Oh, come on, you had your appendix out," Mary remarked. 
"Any decent lab can make a carbon copy of you out of it.  Just 
like a growth in the uterus."
     "That's not the same, "  Tamara retorted.  "You killed a 
baby.  A real human being with a real soul.  Don't you have any 
feeling about it?"
     Center stage had come to Mary. Once again, she found Tamara 
difficult to deal with as she began to narrate, "Well, at first, 
I had this feeling like I should be holding a baby in my arms.  
Held my cat a few times.  My doctor told me this was perfectly 
normal."
     "There ought to be a law about you,"  complained Tamara.  
"You have no more feeling about taking human life than you have 
about eating a candy bar.  Maybe less if you're on a diet."
     "Hold it, girls," interrupted Aubrey Divaneh, the Manager of 
Operations.  "We don't need a grievance here."  Aubrey had 
stepped over when he saw Mary and Tamara close to each other.  
They had argued on company time before, and he did not want them 
to have it out again.
     Aubrey was less than optimistic when, about a month later, 
Tamara herself turned in a pregnancy form.  "That Diane Harris," 
noted Aubrey,  "has helpers and social workers.  She gets 
neighbors to pitch in, and besides, she is just a programmer.  
Tamara, we in the Welfare Commission in the evaluation phase of 
auditing jobs.  You may be entitled to the classification of 
Systems Analyst.  But we can't be having you take off every time 
you got a sick kid, and we were looking at making you an exempt 
employee.  I know how you feel about kids and babies and such, 
but we here at the Commission have our work to do."
     Tamara had always prided herself on how well she was doing.  
With only a high school diploma and a computer literacy program, 
she had become boss of the Computer Room.  Her ambition also made 
her run for and get the office of shop steward in the Federation 
of Public Workers.  Indeed, she had validated much of her very 
life by her salary and offices.  Any challenge to her claim to 
personal perfection-- or that of her theology-- was met with the 
recitation, "I have had four raises and two promotions."  Now, 
her most supreme ambitions in life were in conflict with one 
another.
     Tamara's husband Frank sold real estate.  He learned the 
fast deal and the procedure called "flipping."  Between himself 
and about a score of others, a dozen to fifteen corporations 
floated.  Land would be bought from a farmer near a suburb of 
Megatropolis, usually in a going-out-of-business sale.  The 
property would be exchanged between three or four of the 
corporations before one of the corporations-- the one holding the 
notes on many deals-- would go bankrupt.  Under the law in such a 
deal, the farmer gets nothing and the corporate shareholders get 
a lot of easy money and no liability.  Many real estate buyers, 
usually young couples seeking their first homes, were also 
clipped.
     To Frank, the options were simple.  "Look here, Tamara.  I 
am a Christian and you are a Christian.  We give to our church 
and the '700 Club.'  That is good stewardship.  If we have this 
one, we will be burying our one talent.  After you are a Systems 
Analyst, we can bring even more Christians into the world."
     Most of the workers at the Welfare Commission were enrolled 
in a health maintenance organization.  Not so Diane Harris, who 
had been attached to specialists with whom she was afraid she 
would part.  This meant she was enrolled in the SpiffCare 
Insurance Company.  Although SpiffCare, the state's regular 
insurance provider, was under contract to pay to any proper 
vendor, its representatives liked to steer patients into 
Kouhouris General Hospital.
     "Let me get this straight," asked Dr. Abraham Jones III.  
"You are looking into whether the patient  can have a normal 
delivery.  Thousands of women with cerebral palsy have perfectly 
normal deliveries.  I don't see what you are getting to."
     "Dr. Jones, we are looking at the possibilities," replied 
Rod Pool, the chairman of the board of the Kouhouris Corporation.  
"Our service is to ordinary citizens.  We send all the 
freeloaders to Megatropolis General.  The rich prefer St. 
Bartholomew's.  The more we spend on one case, the less we serve 
the regular people who come here.  Whatever we do, we must look 
after our stockholders.  The stockholders keep this hospital open 
and the free enterprise system working.  There is a risk-- I know 
you say it is a small one-- that her tab will be fifty or a 
hundred thousand or more.  We are not sure she should impose that 
kind of risk."
     "Diane Harris most definitely does not want an abortion,"  
Dr. Jones complained.  "It is against her religion and nature."
     "The board of directors considered these things in a special 
meeting last week," Rod continued.  "That's why are asking for a 
court order from Judge Clandon.  Don't worry, it will hold up on 
appeal.  It is just like the ones we get for Christian Scientists 
and Jehovah's Witnesses.  Oh, by the way, all the doctors in the 
case are under a gag order.  We don't think anyone will be helped 
by any press.  You understand that, don't you?"
     Dr. Abraham Jones was the third in a father-to-son 
succession of doctors.  He had been brought up to respect the 
old-fashioned country-doctor ways of his forbears, but he always 
honored respect for the law.  His own lawyer filed a brief, but 
Dr. Jones could only keep silent.  Unless, of course, he were to 
risk a term in jail.  His first move was to talk to George 
Harris.
     "How could a Christian nation allow such a thing?" George 
shouted.  "Why won't they let me see Diane?  Are they going to 
make it a secret until it is too late?"  All that George could 
think of was the smiles and the joy in Diane's face and heart-- 
happiness known to mothers-to-be everywhere-- and the heartbreak 
she would have to endure.
     Nobody told Diane Harris about the fate that was due for her 
and her little one.  She thought she was in Kouhouris General for 
routine testing.  George's absence was excused, to her knowledge, 
by something about sanitation.  She knew chapters from the Book 
of Psalms which she recited from memory, little noting that the 
nurses took them for childish babbling.
     That very night, Tamara Jefferson had checked into St. 
Bartholomew's Hospital.  "I believe that life is sacred," she 
told the nurses, "but I want to make sure to have a perfect 
baby."  Tamara insisted upon her right-to-life political stance.  
However, she asked her doctor for a complete battery of tests.  
She ordered them, "I want to make sure mine doesn't have cerebral 
palsy."  Her requests were impossible, for there are some 600 
pre-natal tests which each have mortality rates of about one 
percent, none of which detect cerebral palsy.  
     One of the nuns at St. Bartholomew's asked of people like 
Tamara, though not to their faces, "If they're against abortion, 
why do they have these tests?  Do they think we don't know what 
happens to the babies who fail in the testing?"
     Dr. Jones sent George into the hospital cafeteria with 
orders to get a bite to eat.  A reporter for Radio K-Zero, Sam 
Rogers, saw  in George a certain erratic movement.  He had no 
idea why George did not seem quite right, but he suspected, 
wrongly of course, drugs or alcohol.  "This could be worth a 
light feature," he thought.  Sam turned on the mobile radio so as 
to put George on live.  Little did he know what a story George 
was to give him.
     The law firm handling the Diane Harris case was well known 
to Judge Clandon.  A number of its top attorneys were part of the 
political and social matrix that put Clandon in office.  With 
modern campaign finances being what they are,  their access to 
political monies could not be ignored.  Furthermore, the case law 
seemed quite firm.  With a severe disability involved, this was 
obviously a therapeutic abortion.  The cases on religious beliefs 
seemed also quite airtight.  The Supreme Court's rejection of the 
"Baby Doe Rule" canceled any effective claim under the 
Rehabilitation Act of 1973.  Only one case stood between Diane's 
baby and destruction: Roe vs. Wade.  Could he really construe and 
apply the pro-abortion decision to protect life?
     Camilla Smith was not allowed into the maternity floor as 
was George.  She paced the floor in a waiting-room near the lobby 
until she fell asleep.  On this of all nights, she jumped out of 
her padded lounge-chair, asleep but erect, growling like an 
animal of the night.  In her reversion to primitive instincts, 
she tripped off a fire alarm and caused the police to be 
summoned.  The assistant chief of police, who suspected a bombing 
attempt, ordered an immediate evacuation.
     Two small groups, each looking upon each other with 
distrust, stood outside Kouhouris General the following morning.
     "I am from the Free Will Baptist Church," called out the 
Rev. John Matherston,  "Are you here for Diane Harris?"
     Mary Asher never got along with Rev. Matherston, a leader in 
the Pro-Life Council of Megatropolis.  His fire-and-brimstone 
ways offended her, and his rejection of right-to-choice struck 
her as narrow-minded.  However, the radio reports about the 
impending abortion of Diane Harris' baby brought Mary to the 
hospital gate also.  "We are here to protect her right of free 
choice," she announced.  "It is for every woman to control her 
own body."
     The two groups did not truly have a meeting of the minds.  
They looked at each other suspiciously even as they shared a 
common petition.   Each told the reporters their relief at Judge 
Clandon's decision:  Diane was to be cared for at 
St. Bartholomew's Hospital and given every chance to have her 
baby.
     There is no known genetic component to cerebral palsy.  To 
their great joy and to no one's surprise, George and Diane later 
brought home from St. Bartholomew's a perfect and beautiful 
little girl.  They named her Amanda, which means "worthy to be 
loved."
     In like fashion, Frank and Tamara brought home a boy, whom 
they called Solomon, hoping he would one day learn the wisdom 
which so far eluded them.
     Camilla Smith found herself a home at the Regional Office of 
the State Welfare Commission.  Once assured that her lycanthropy 
was just a minor birth defect, the other employees came to accept 
her as a regular just as they learned to accept Diane. Camilla 
spent many evenings and weekends, times she came to treasure, 
babysitting for Amanda and Solomon.
     (Here we close on this story of love, death, and money, but 
also a story about life.  Thanks to help from Camilla and from 
the man Camilla later married, Solomon Jefferson learned both 
wisdom and integrity, values he could never have learned from his 
parents.  Amanda Harris grew up used to Diane's speech, and she 
came to learn several languages and become a foreign missionary.  
There was no perfection in any of these lives; nor was there true 
evil.  Only as trustees for God and all humanity could any of 
them escape the pain that comes with love of money.)