Pearson

I noticed Pearson several times within the past year or so, though never spoke with him but once, recently. You know how it is; one is aware of someone — passing acquaintances for years. so to speak — then one day perhaps by accident a conversation ensues, and the relationship changes, perhaps deepens into a friendship, perhaps not.

That’s the way it was with Pearson. I’d seen him occasionally at a distance in the places I frequent over coffee, at the ball field. while jogging — perhaps at work, though I’m not sure. He always seemed pensive, a kind of citoyen du monde, with a touch of the stoic about him. The kind of fellow I might like to cultivate sometime, I had thought.

We happened to speak. as I said, only recently, during coffee one late summer morning. As usual I was busy over my journal. wrestling over some curious incident I can’t remember now, when he sat down opposite me at my table.

Engrossed as I was, and as quietly as he had approached. I scarcely noticed him at first. When I did reach the end of a line of thought and glanced up, I was surprised to find him there, smiling and shuffling a bit awkwardly, as one often does when forced to an occupied table uninvited.

“Rather crowded this morning: you don’t mind?” he asked meekly.

“No, certainly.” I replied with a sympathetic sweep of the hand. Normally a bit squeamish at the presence of another when lost in thought, I felt no hesitation at the company of one I had come to regard as a likely kindred spirit, and extended my hand without reserve.

“Pearson. Walter Pearson,” he greeted. “Are you a writer?”

Always a question to put me on my guard due to my vexing lack of publication. I replied, “No, not really. I’m a teacher.”

There was more solid ground there; I had a decade’s experience.

The usual follow-up questions came, of course. “Oh really? And what is your subject? Where do you teach? I see. Nice campus,” etc.

I delivered the usual follow-up answers almost automatically, having had plenty of practice. annoyed at the same time by how one’s identity is always linked to one’s career, as if that were the be-all and the end-all of one’s entire being. It hints of one’s income, interests, background. education, mode of existence — in short, one’s life. Tell a person what you do; he will tell you what you are, what you have been, and what you are ever likely to be. Your job is your life, I thought

“At least your public life,” Pearson said.

“What?” I asked, startled.

“Oh, sorry — a nasty habit of mine, speaking out of context,” he laughed. “I mean you teach, of course, but wish also to be a writer — your public and private identities, so to speak.”

“Well, yes, I guess you could say so.” I agreed, “but you haven’t told me what line you’re in.”

Walter’s seeming to know me better than I knew myself was a little alarming.

“Me? Oh, this and that — not a lot, actually.” he fudged.

“A man of independent means, eh?”

“Somewhat, somewhat Many interests, you see.”

I nodded, but did not see, thinking at the same time how often one affirms what is not seen, let alone understood, in polite conversation, and again, how he appeared to grasp my ideas even as I thought them.

“Well then, tell me,” he leaned back. “what do you consider your most important goals?”

The question ripped through my armor like a mortar shell. I’d had some trouble framing them myself recently, and was unprepared. I reached deep inside, through mazes of rationales, excuses, civilities and flippancies, and reflexively shot back with my only weapon: an honest answer.

“I really didn’t know,” I said. That seemed unsatisfactory to me, so I added, “I suppose I would like to become an author.”

“I see. And how would you define author?”

“Someone whose writings are widely read, I suppose.”

“So all writers aren’t necessarily authors, then?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Hmm. But you said earlier you wished at least to be a writer. Now would you define that?”

A pretty waitress brushed by my shoulder before I could answer, nearly spilling some coffee from a pot “Oops,” she laughed. “Almost —.“ I smiled.

“Why, a writer is one who writes, I suppose. How would you define it?”

Walter was also distracted. He looked at me then followed the waitress with his eyes as she laughed with another group nearby. Then he pressed forward with a strange look on his face.

“Why don’t you quit kidding yourself?” he scoffed. ‘You’re not serious about writing. Get off your ass and do something with your life! You only live once, you know.”

I nearly fell off my chair! Where was the easygoing, shy, pensive air of a moment before? I wondered.

“Well, er, Walter, I —"

“Who the hell’s Walter?” he snarled.

“1 thought you said your name was —"

“Ed, Ed’s the name, pal. That’s what I mean; if you can’t even remember a simple thing like a guy’s name for five minutes, how the hell can you expect to write books? No, you’re a teacher alright — full of facts and figures but no imagination to do a damned thing with all of it. Course I hope you’ll pardon my bluntness.”

Walter — Ed — whoever sat opposite me had changed completely and inexplicably before my eyes. Good grief! I thought. I’d seen The Three Faces of Eve and read of other split personalities, but this was the first time I’d witnessed anything like it first hand.

“That’s alright. I appreciate frankness,” I lied.

“No you don’t, you’re scared to death of it That’s why you keep building those ridiculous little sand castles in your notebook there. Know what your problem is?”

“What?” I replied weakly, sensing that he would tell me in any case.

‘You think you’re an intellectual, but you’re not”

Another mortar shell fired, another wall exploded into rubble around me.

“But I never claimed — ,“ I began to object.

“Know what you need? A good dose of reality. Why don’t you and I go out barhopping tonight — maybe pick up a little action besides," he leered. "Say, I know this great topless bar down in —

“Now see here. friend!” I flushed. “Ed, Walter, or whatever your name is —“

“More coffee, fellows?” the waitress returned.

I saw the interruption as a chance to regain my composure, but succeeded only partially when she finished warming our cups and left.

‘Look,” I continued in a lower voice, “I’m a teacher, and I deal with others all day. I came in here for a cup of coffee and a few minutes’ leisure. I’m not interested In discussing my private affairs with someone I just met So if you don’t mind--.”

Pearson lowered his cup and listened, but something profoundly new in his expression and manner silenced me.

“Yes, of course,” he said calmly. “Quite wrong of me to pry. I simply observed you in a quality I wanted to encourage. I’m sure you’re a man of character and many talents.”

I was baffled, appeased, and somewhat flattered, but most of all, amazed. Yet another person — the third in a matter of minutes — sat before me.

“Forget it, it’s nothing,” I shuffled. “I probably shouldn’t be so sensitive. You’re right; I spend far too much time introspectively, writing about my own life instead of trying to write something of interest to others.”

He nodded. “Have you done much writing in your academic field?”

“Well, Ed, I must say that I’ve written a few articles and begun a text, but —“

“Please,” he interrupted, “just call me Frank. All my friends do.”

He said it matter-of-factly, with an easy wave of the hand. I gulped my coffee and nearly choked, looking up with watering eyes, more confused than ever. Walter. Ed, Frank — who was this aberrant creature? I wondered.

Then I was seized by genuine fear. Was he dangerous? I was playing with something I couldn’t begin to understand. Did I dare continue? Were there other identities lurking behind that deceptively sincere, open face? I thought about leaving, but perhaps that would anger him. What should I do?

Pearson — if Pearson he was — seemed stable enough for the moment, but how could I predict when he might switch again? And what triggered these changes, I wondered? If there were signs. I’d obviously missed them completely. Still, he appeared harmless enough in any identity I’d seen, though I knew I didn’t care to deal with ‘Ed” again soon.

“Good,” he said. “That might be a good way to combine your interests. Perhaps you should do more in that way.”

“I beg pardon,” I said.

“Writing in your field, I mean.”

“Oh. Yes. I often think so, too.”

“After all,” he continued, “you put in a great deal of training and effort, and have quite a bit of experience, as you say. You must have quite a lot to express.

“That’s true.”

“And if you have a flair for writing as well — that is, if it’s not too difficult —“

“No, I’ve never had a problem turning out academic papers,” I said. “I did dozens of them for my doctorate, and enjoyed writing my dissertation — always thought about doing more, but somehow never got around to it. once the pressure was off.”

“For course requirements, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

“Were your papers well-received?”

“Yes, quite well, in fact I was rather proud of them for the most part”

“Well, then, perhaps that’s the answer,” he grew enthusiastic.

“Yes, perhaps it is,” I pondered. Surprisingly, there was real merit in what he said.

“You need to firm up your identity as a scholar and teacher, and concentrate on what you know best,” he encouraged.

“I’ll have to admit, it makes sense.”

“Of course. It makes good sense, and in time perhaps you’ll become a leader in your field. Be asked to lecture elsewhere as well, or even get into educational television —“

”Now do you mean that--?”

“Like that Ascent of Man fellow — Bronowski, is it?”

“Oh, yes, superb series,” I agreed.

“Of course. Or Kenneth Clark’s Civilization, or this Cosmos series — Sagan, I believe?”

I laughed. “You’re talking about a caliber beyond me,” I said, though flattered by the comparisons.

“I don’t think so, not at all,” he insisted. ‘They were all teachers initially, weren’t they? Merely had an extra flair for writing, a way of expressing their subjects in ways that others could appreciate. Am I right?”

“You know, you have a point there,” I said.” ‘Popularizers’, they’re sometimes called. Good money there too, I’ll bet”

“Oh yes. I’m sure of it,” Pearson said, sitting back confidently as I fantasized the attractive, not impossible dream he had laid before me, this odd yet fascinating man of many men. I realized that he had, for all his strangeness, given me more grist for my mental mill than I’d found elsewhere in a long while, at the very least I turned the idea over. Yes. I thought, rather a sensible notion, actually.

I was almost convinced that he had pointed the way. Almost ready to devote my energies to a real commitment, almost convinced that here, at last was a self-identity without any ambiguities or conflicts of focus, when suddenly it hit me like a bomb: Pearson is mad! I’m about to redirect my entire life on the advice of a madman! Am I as crazy as he is?

This idea threw me into total confusion. In my mind’s eye I envisioned a huge jigsaw puzzle composed of a myriad of smaller puzzles in various stages of completion — not one picture, but many; some clear, some vague; some concrete, some very abstract’ some well-lighted, some nearly lost in darkness; but all incomplete and dependent upon all the others at once — a colossal collage of images. I looked to its height and breadth but could see no edges. standing so close to the whole that I could at one time see only this part or that never the entirety. I tried to imagine stepping back, to better survey it but in doing so the whole advanced an equal space, as if drawn to me, somehow inseparably. All this, in a matter of seconds.

Transfixed and befuddled, I slowly remembered where I was, and found myself staring into my coffee. Slowly I looked up at Pearson, scanning the mystery of his eyes. I saw only my own reflection.

He stared in turn at me as if scanning mine, curiously, equally bewildered.

My God, I thought, is he changing again?

What seemed an eternal suspended moment passed. He appeared for the first time almost blank, devoid of any real being, perhaps trapped. I guessed, between or among the identities he had projected, or perhaps dozens of others which lurked somewhere within him. I waited, somewhat fearfully, for another personality to emerge, yet nothing changed. His very breathing seemed stopped.

Then, as quietly as he had come, he rose and left without a word.