And Yet Again

A lot of people around the building began to look at Zack in an odd way, and then they would look away quickly, a little embarrassed, if they thought he noticed them. It wasn't that none of them was a churchgoer. Many were, and they understood giving money to charity and giving to church relief projects and things like that. Some of them had even fasted, as they called it, skipping a meal on a special day and giving the money for a special project in the church connected with the famine. And a couple of them even had a special sort of piggy bank on the dinette table. At dinnertime everybody would put in a coin. And when these banks were full they were going to take them down to the church on a special Sunday, and all of the money would go to send wheat and rice to the famine-stricken areas of the world. They understood things like that. But none of them had sold or given away all of his or her clothes except for one complete outfit (and a pair of pajamas, as Zack explained somewhat sheepishly later on). And so they had the feeling that Zack was doing something they didn't really understand all that well.
The next solid piece of information was dug out by Hilary Whittaker, who was a real health nut and blunt mannered as well. When he knew that Tom Houston had broken the ice, he watched for a good chance to ask Zack right out what he actually was eating. Zack told him it was mostly beans and rice and potatoes (but he didn't know how to make anything you could really call lunch, to put in a bag). When Hilary asked him how much, Zack told him what he generally had in the morning and the evening. Hilary had his little book of calorie counts and protein content and things like that, and he added it quickly. Then something happened to his face, and he added it again. He got the same answer, and he knew how thin Zack was getting, and he didn't add it a third time. Instead he said, "Do you know what you're doing, you idiot? That's below the starvation level! If you go on like that you'll actually starve to death. Actually starve, do you hear?"
Zack said yes, he knew. He'd gotten some books from the public library and added up the figures just as Hilary had. "But," he went on, "do you know that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the world, maybe millions, who don't eat any more than this day in and day out? I read somewhere that there are ten thousand dying of starvation every week. I'm probably the only person you've ever seen who was starving, but I've read that in Calcutta they pick up the bodies every morning on the streets. Starving to death isn't all that strange, you know. It happens every day."
And Hilary opened his mouth and shut it and walked away. He could talk your ear off if he got going about health, but he didn't know what to say to somebody who knew he was starving himself and went right on doing it.
John Pencewaite, in the personnel division, wasn't at a loss like that. He had a master's degree in counseling from the University of Michigan and had been a high school counselor (not an academic counselor, he sometimes made a point of explaining) before he came here to work. He did not send for Zack until he did his own homework - looked up Zack's personnel file, talked to a couple of people, thought out some alternative moves.
"That fellow Baumkletterer is a good worker, damn productive," he told the Assistant Director. "We've made an investment in him, recruiting him, training him, carrying him along the ropes. There's no sense letting him go down the drain without a fight. I know something about these religious types. They're not all hopeless."
When he talked about Zack he always called him "Baumkletterer," but when Zack came to his office he tried to get him on a first name basis right away, jollied him up a little, and eased into the topic at hand.
"I can't tell you, Zack, how proud all of us are to have someone like you working here. What you've been doing in your own quiet way has really got a lot of us thinking about what's really worthwhile in life, you know."
And he went on like that for a while, gradually suggesting that he was concerned, just a little, that a person might go overboard on something like this, all with the best will in the world. And then he started casually throwing out the figures he had worked up. What they showed was that if the most affluent nations would just cut down on their standard of living a bit, there would be enough for everyone. It wouldn’t even have to be a drastic cut - just things like eating less meat, not using synthetic fertilizers on lawns and golf courses, driving smaller cars. They could still have a comfortable standard of living, a good life, and there would be enough for everyone. And he suggested that if Zack were to cut down his own consumption just that much then he would be doing his fair share.
Zack didn't say anything right away. He was a little doubtful about some of the figures, and he wondered if Mr. Pencewaite wasn't just making some of them up. But he really didn't know. And then it occurred to him that the figures and the whole line of thought that was being suggested were just irrelevant to him.
And so he said that maybe Mr. Pencewaite was right, and he hoped that the affluent nations and the people in them would cut back on their consumption in that way. But he really couldn't see how that had much to do with him. For it seemed to him just about as plain as anything could be that people generally weren't cutting back like that, and so there in fact wasn't enough for the poorest people in the world and it didn't look as though there would be. And he believed he had to choose his own actions according to the actual conditions in the world, not according to the way the world would be better if everyone did something better.
In the actual world there were thousands upon thousands of people whose daily diet was below the starvation level, who wore the one and only set of clothes they had day in and day out and nights too, and so on. That was the world in which he had to act and to justify his acts. And if he was to love those people as he loved himself he didn't see how he could justify keeping more food and clothing for himself than they had for themselves. He couldn't see that he had any more right to a good dinner or an extra pair of pants than they had. So far as he could see, if he loved them as he loved himself he would share equally with them, and that was what he was trying to do, as much as he could.
Mr. Pencewaite had taken too many courses in counseling to get into an argument with Zack. He didn't even openly acknowledge the clash of ideas. He just slid over to his first back-up plan. He'd been wondering, he said, if there wasn't some way in which Zack's concern, and his real vision in these things, couldn't be communicated more widely in the company and the community. "Just for example," he said, looking up at the ceiling for inspiration, "maybe the cafeteria could start serving a No-Meat Special. Good nourishing food, but no meat. It would be low-cost, too, and if people wanted to contribute the money they saved then I'm sure the company would take care of passing it along to a UN agency for world relief."
He went on to explain that of course they would want Zack's advice and leadership in setting up any program like this and in getting it across to all levels in the company.
"Or I'm sure I could get you on the program for one of the Rotary Club meetings," he went on. "That would give you a real opening into the whole business and professional community around here. With your enthusiasm and your presentation there's no telling how big this thing could get. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Mayor get City Hall behind some sort of consciousness-raising projects across this whole city. And of course all of us want to have you in on it all the way because of the thought you've given to these things and your real concern for what's happening."
Mr. Pencewaite went on in that way for a while, and Zack said that well, sure, he'd be glad to help in any of those things if Mr. Pencewaite thought they would do any good. But inside he couldn't get up any enthusiasm for what was being suggested as his part in them. He really wasn't much of a public relations type and he didn't know anything special about how you organized a citywide project of this sort, and he couldn't see how he could give the Mayor any worthwhile advice about that.
Mr. Pencewaite could sense that lack of enthusiasm, too. He judged that even if he did get Zack involved in some such project it wouldn't put an end to the primary thing he was doing. So he sort of tapered off, and they left what the next step would be, rather vague, and Zack went back to his desk.
As soon as Zack left his office, Mr. Pencewaite picked up the phone and called Zack's pastor. The Rev. Frank Westman appreciated Mr. Pencewaite's call. He explained that he had a fairly large congregation and naturally he couldn't know what was happening to every member all the time. Since Zack was a bachelor and lived alone, there was probably no one to notice something like this quickly. But it did sound serious, and he would try to talk to Zack soon.