I nodded. “All right. You have satisfied my curiosity as to your way of thinking. Thank you.”
His brows fell into a frown and he studied my face.
“Since you may be my adviser for a long while,” I said, “I wanted to know something of your attitude. Now I do.”
He chuckled. “You are bluffing.”
I shrugged. “If you’ll just sign my card, I’ll be on my way.”
“I do not have to see that card,” he said slowly, “to know that I will not be your adviser for a long while. This is it, Cassidy, an end to your flippancy.”
I withdrew the card and extended it. He ignored it and continued. “And with your demoralizing effect here at the university, I cannot help but wonder how your uncle would feel if he knew how his wishes were being thwarted. He-“
“I’ll ask him when he comes around,” I said. “But when I saw him last month he wasn’t exactly turning over.”
“Beg pardon? I didn’t quite … ”
“Uncle Albert was one of the fortunate ones in the Bide-A-Wee scandal. About a year ago. Remember?”
He shook his head slowly. “I’m afraid not. I thought your uncle was dead. In fact, he has to be. If the will … ”
“It’s a delicate philosophical point,” I said. “Legally, he’s dead all right. But he had himself frozen and stored at Bide-A-Wee-one of those cryonic outfits. The proprietors proved somewhat less than scrupulous, however, and the authorities had him moved to a different establishment along with the other survivors.”
“Survivors?”
“I suppose that’s the best word. Bide-A-Wee had over five hundred customers on their books, but they actually only had around fifty on ice. Made a tremendous profit that way.”
“I don’t understand. What became of the others?”
“Their better components wound up in gray-market organ banks. That was another area where Bide-A-Wee turned a handsome profit.”
“I do seem to remember hearing about it now. But what did they do with the … remains?”
“One of the partners also owned a funeral establishment. He just disposed of things in the course of that employment.”
“Oh. Well … Wait a minute. What did they do if someone came around and wanted to view a frozen friend or relative?”
“They switched nameplates. One frozen body seen through a frosted panel looks pretty much like any other-sort of like a popsicle in cellophane. Anyway, Uncle Albert was one of the ones they kept for show. He always was lucky.”
“How did they finally get tripped up?”
“Tax evasion. They got greedy.”
“I see. Then your uncle actually could show up for an accounting one day?”
“There is always that possibility. Of course, there have been very few successful revivals.”
“The possibility doesn’t trouble you?”
“I deal with things as they arise. So far. Uncle Albert hasn’t.”
“Along with the university and your uncle’s wishes, I feel obliged to point out that you are doing violence in another place as well.”
I looked all around the room. Under my chair, even.
“I give up,” I said.
“Yourself.”
“Myself?”
“Yourself. By accepting the easy economic security of the situation, you are yielding to inertia. You are ruining your chances of ever really amounting to anything. You are growing in your dronehood.”
“Dronehood?”
“Dronehood. Hanging around and not doing anything.”
“So you are really acting in my best interests if you succeed in kicking me out, huh?”
“Precisely.”
“I hate to tell you, but history is full of people like you. We tend to judge them harshly.”
“History?”
“Not the department. The phenomenon.”
He sighed and shook his head. He accepted my card, leaned back, puffed on his pipe, began to study what I had written.
I wondered whether he really believed he was doing me a favor by trying to destroy my way of life. Probably.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “There’s a mistake here.”
“No mistake.”
“The hours are wrong.”
“No. I need twelve and there are twelve.”
“I’m not disputing that, but-“
“Six hours, personal project, interdisciplinary, for art history credit, on site, Australia in my case.”
“You know it should really be anthropology. But that would complete a major. But that’s not what I’m-“