It was a change from having been Eldridge Cleaver.
“Being Eldridge Cleaver isn’t easy,” Jonathan Relevant reflected.
“It probably isn’t easy for Eldridge Cleaver to be Eldridge Cleaver either!” the Relevant alter ego reminded him.
“I don’t know how you managed it, sir, but I am ex- tremely glad to see you.” Chancellor Hardlign greeted him.
“I trust you weren’t put through too great an ordeal by the black students.”
“Not at all,” Jonathan Relevant assured him. “As a matter of fact, they’ve asked me to discuss these demands with you.” He handed the chancellor the stapled type- sheets.
“If you’ll excuse me-—” Chancellor Hardlign waved Jonathan Relevant to a chair, and then sat back down at his desk to read the demands. He muttered comments as he went down the list.
“Can’t put the statue back like that; it’s obscene!”
“I believe a satisfactory compromise might be worked out on that particular point,” Jonathan Relevant told him carefully.
“Umm . . . ‘Lowering of Admission Standards to Increase Enrollment of Educationally Deprived Minorities.’ No! Can’t do that without lowering curriculum requirements, and then our diplomas would be worthless! . . . Ha! If they only knew how I’ve been going with my hat in my hand to various foundations and alumni to get money for a Negro scholarship fund! . . . More black teachers? Where do we find them? . . . Oh, no! Living quarters restricted to blacks is reverse discrimination! Harnell can’t be associated with such a policy!”
“How many all-white fraternities do you have?” Jonathan Relevant asked in a reasonable voice. “How many houses restricted to white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants?”
“But the Jewish students have a fraternity and sorority of their own. And the Catholics—”
“Exactly. Why not the blacks?”
“Well, we’re trying to do away with that sort of thing,” Hardlign replied weakly. Quickly, he went on to the next point. “Afro-American Study Department. That’s been in the works for three years.” His eyes met those of Jonathan Relevant and he looked down again quickly. “ ‘Replacement of Textbooks having References Derogatory to Minority Groups.’ Umm. Well . . . oh, now, this one is ridiculous! I have no control over university expansion into the ghettto. It’s a matter of Harnell’s real-estate investments. And the trustees aren’t going to brook interference from students in that area. . . . I suppose we can recognize the Afro-American Society’s right to represent black students if enough black students want them to. . . . Total amnesty. Out of the question! That would be accepting anarchy! They can’t expect to hold me prisoner like this and—”
“They’re firm on that point,” Jonathan Relevant told him. “Look at it their way. It’s self-preservation. If you grant it before outside authorities are drawn into the situation, then it’s strictly a matter of university discipline. Be forgiving and you may be able to end this protest. Otherwise, amnesty will become the issue and you’ll have half the student body clamoring for it. The main objective is to stop it before it escalates. Isn’t that right?”
Chancellor Hardlign’s answer was drowned out by a sudden roar from outside the building. “FREE THE CHANCELLOR! WE WANT HARDLIGN! FREE THE CHANCELLOR! WE WANT HARDLIGN!” The shouting maintained volume and settled into a steady chant.
Chancellor Hardlign crossed to the window and Jonathan Relevant followed behind him. Below them, on the quad outside the building, there was a group of about thirty athletes and perhaps twenty boys in fraternity jackets. The Harnell coach and the captain of the football team were leading the chanting. A dozen of the athletes had carried a trampoline from the gymnasium to the Administration Building, and now they were setting it up under the chancellor’s office windows. A cheer went up from the crowd when Chancellor Hardlign appeared.
The coach signal the crowd to be quiet. Then he spoke through a megaphone. “Chancellor Hardlign, we’re here because we believe in Harnell! We believe in you! And we believe in the democratic process! We want you to know we’re with you a hundred percent in keeping obscenity from the Harnell campus!”
Another cheer went up. When it subsided, the coach continued, “And we’re not going to let those commie jigs hold you prisoner!”
Jonathan Relevant’s groan of dismay was lost in the roar of approval from the crowd.
“My boys are going to hold this trampoline so you and your friend can leap to safety,” the coach blithely in- formed the chancellor. “Now there’s nothing to worry about. You two gents just lock arms and jump. Once you’re out of there, Chancellor, we’re going to liberate this building and bring those anarchists to justice!”
“I don’t think—” The chancellor looked down at the trampoline and stiffened with apprehension.
“Beware forced savings!” More Relevant lore.
“Excuse me, sir.” The coach spoke with urgency. “I’d advise you not to think about it. The more you think, the harder it is to jump. Don’t look down. We’ll catch you. Trust us.”
“Beware manufacturing trust!”
“Now,” the coach instructed them briskly. “Just lock arms. That’s it. Now the two of you step up on the sill. Good. Good. Now remember to keep your bodies loose. The looser you are, the less you’ll bounce. Just remember to check your fall and keep your balance.”
“Beware checks and balances!“
“Now just close your eyes and jump!”
Arm in arm, Chancellor Hardlign and Jonathan Relevant stepped off the windowsill. It was at that instant that a second crowd appeared at the nearby gates to the univer-sity grounds and charged the rescuers. This second throng consisted of about forty very tough-looking ghetto blacks. Jonathan Relevant went limp just before they hit the trampoline. But his terror of the leap made Chancellor Hardlign stiffen like a steel rod. Because of this, when they hit, the two of them were propelled back upward with great force. Instead of checking their fall, they bounced higher.
“Beware the check that bounces!”
They passed the chancellor’s office window and rose above the roof of the building before they started to descend again. At the peak of the ascent, Jonathan Relevant opened his eyes. He looked down at the free-for-all developing on the ground far below.
The whites were getting the worst of it. The black-ghetto fighters launched groin kicks with the precision of a troupe of ballet dancers. Their teeth dug into white ears and held on with bulldog tenacity. Clubs drummed on crew-cut skulls and the whites fell away before an onslaught of rocks and broken bottles. None of the college boys had ever been in this kind of fight before.
From high up, the Relevant perspective took on an odd focus. It was as if he was viewing the scene through a microscope. The grassy quad was a smear on the slide, a microcosm of the living organism which was the Earth, the world. And the battlers were virulent germs swarming over it and destroying the grass, its life-force.
“That’s what mankind is!” Jonathan Relevant nodded to himself as he and Chancellor Hardlign hurtled downward toward the trampoline once again. “Mankind is a disease! The population explosion is measle germs propagating! War is chicken pox, foreign bacteria attacking healthy cells! Big business is the common-cold baccillus polluting the organism’s environment—air, sea, vegetation -—and you have to feed a cold, which leads to conspicuous consumption! Yep! Man is a virus on the face of the earth, a parasite who leaves boils and pimples and scabs behind to attest his symbiotic nature! Yep! Man is a virus!"