Fielding's Choice

Fielding's Choice

The office faced north and in the good winter light, Marshall Fielding studied a photograph mounted on the wall behind the desk. The picture depicted a starving, naked boy who had leaned forward on his haunches while behind him a vulture squatted on the ground waiting for him to die.

“It’s by a South African photojournalist named Kevin Carter,” Elliot Kastner, Marshall’s father’s attorney said as he entered the room. He carried a small briefcase and was fastidiously dressed.

“I know,” Marshall said. “Carter killed himself the year after he took the photograph.” He turned and eyeballed Elliot. “He got too close to what Conrad - through Colonel Kurtz – referred to as ‘the horror’. ​

“Do you say that because you are Black or because life is in fact horrible?” Elliot said.

“It’s a matter of ethics,” Marshall said. “I mean, should the moment have been made public? Did being photographed send the subjects into further trauma? Was the photojournalist who took the picture the least obtrusive distance possible? And finally, was he acting with compassion and sensitivity?”

“And, your verdict?” Elliot said.

“I blame it all on Capitalism,” Marshall said.

“Won’t you have a seat?” Elliot said. Marshall did as he was asked, sitting across the desk from him. “I suppose we should get right to your father’s will, shouldn’t we,” Elliot said. He withdrew a sheaf of papers and began flipping through them, adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses to facilitate the process. “I’m afraid to say this, Marshall,” he said momentarily, “but in lieu of the facts I must inform you that your father’s estate is bankrupt.”

“You’re kidding me,” Marshall said. He felt gobsmacked by the news. “Do you know how many patents were issued under my father’s name during his tenure at Bell Labs?”

“I do, but keep in mind your father was an employee at the facility. He worked under contract for a salaried fee, nothing more. As such neither himself nor his estate have legal grounds to claim monetary compensation for his discoveries, let alone ownership. His inventions are the sole property of Cyleron now,” Elliot said.

“Fantastic,” Marshall said. “So, how am I supposed to bail my sister out if there’s no money in my father’s estate?”

“I’m not sure,” Elliot said. “Can you return to screenwriting for an income?”

“Hollywood doesn’t want old men like me gumming up the works,” Marshall said. He sighed and lowered his head, whispering the word “Capitalism” to himself.

Elliot stood and abruptly walked around to Marshall’s side of the desk.

“I want you to do something for me," he said. "I want you to visit my step-father out in Princeton.”

“Why?” Marshall said.

“Because he has something for you – a little black book. I suspect it has something to do with your father and his work at Bell Labs.” Marshall stood. He appeared dejected. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t very helpful today, was I,” Elliot said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“May I ask you a personal question,” Elliot said. “It’s about your film Written Round Nero?”

“Sure, what would you like to know?” Marshall said.

“The French actress who co-starred in the film with you. Whatever happened to her?”

“No one knows.”

“Honestly?” Marshall shook his head.

“She was an actress I met at a Hollywood party who subsequently disappeared into the bowels of Marseille after Written Round Nero was completed. She was never seen or heard from again, so it’s hard to say what exactly happened to her. Presumably, she died from an overdose.”

  “How very tragic,” Elliot said.

“Hollywood is a mean place. You’re only as good as your last project.”

“Is that also because of Capitalism?” Elliot said.

“It is if you ask me,” Marshall said.  

                                                *                 *                *

The following afternoon Marshall drove to Princeton Township in his father’s Accord. The sky was a perfect color blue, the high cirrus clouds shimmering above him conjuring images of Native American men and women who, upon dying, deliberately isolated themselves from their tribesmen, wandering off into the forest to die by themselves. The amount of internal strength such an act took – Marshall really couldn’t calibrate where it came from, nor how anyone could die alone like that – but felt that in some small way the beautiful skies that descended on New Jersey every fall might have helped ease their passage into the beyond. “God skies” he called them, and with good reason.

He pulled off the main road onto a slender gravel one that cut through acres of heavily forested land, the good, strong sunlight winking on and off as he passed through stands of birch and oak trees, eventually passing by a group of outbuildings before entering a serpentine-like driveway that circled around a stand of Italian poplars leading to the portico of the Danner estate.

Marshall climbed out of the car, noting that despite its retrograde condition, the Italianate mansion was pale with pride, a living, breathing reminder of a time when the Danner clan dwelt in splendor.

He sauntered across the flagstone pathway leading up to the front door and rang the doorbell, a powdery, grayish colored moon lingering in the sky behind him. Although early morning still the house appeared to be severely under lit.

He waited for at least a minute before a maidservant answered the door, her smile cellophane etched in epoxy.

“May I help you?” she said.

"Hi. I'm Marshall Fielding. My father was Mr. Daner's partner when they worked a Bell Labs. May I see Mr. Danner, please?"

“Of course,” the maidservant said. “He's out back by the pool. Shall I get him for you? ”

“Kind of cool for the pool,” Marshall said.

“I know, but he likes it bracing.”

The midservant turned to fetch her employer but Marshall stopped her.

“Please, let me surprise him,” Marshall said.

“As you wish,” the maidservant said. She opened the front door then led Marshall down a lengthy hallway to a matching set of French doors, opening them and then ushering him onto a flagstone patio.

Micky sat on a Mies van der Rohe lounge chair, his legs wrapped in a hand-knit shawl, a Smartphone in his left hand, which was raised as he peered through what appeared to be a powerful zoom lens he had fitted onto the phone, and which he had aimed at the moon showing chalk-white in the early morning sky.

He looked up as Marshall approached him.

“Young man?” he said.

Marshall nodded at the phone and what appeared to be a small laser nestled in his right hand.

“May I ask what the laser’s for?” Marshall said.

“Watch and I’ll show you,” Micky said. He peered through the zoom lens at the moon’s surface and then fired a shot from the laser. Satisfied, he leaned back and handed Marshall the phone. “Now watch,” he said.

Marshall raised the lens to his eye and looking through it saw a plume of moon dust leap into the air. The sight impressed him, and he laughed despite himself.

“Not a bad way to pass the time, eh?” Micky said. He smiled as Marshall handed the phone back to him, “Now, if you’ll spare me the suspense and tell me who you are, I would appreciate it,” Micky said.

“Marshall Fielding,” Marshall said and paused.

“Julius Fielding’s son?” Micky said.

“The one and only.” Micky contemplated him for a moment.

“Tell me something,” he said. “Do you regret not having followed in your father’s footsteps?” Marshall frowned and shook his head.

“I like toying with ideas, and enjoy even more writing about them, which seems paramount to my condition. So, no, I don’t regret it,” he said.

Micky set the laser down his piercing blue eyes boring holes into Marshall’s brown ones.

“May I ask why you came here?” he said.

“Your son urged me to. He said you had something to show me – a notebook, as I recall.”

“Yes, of course. It belonged to your father.” Micky pressed a button on the lounge chair, causing the maidservant to reappear. “Follow me, please,” he said.

Marshall fell in behind him, following him into a study that sat opposite the living room. He watched as Micky withdrew a Moleskin Leatherette notebook, the pages inside of it 5.7 by 8.4 inches. Micky’s eyes glazed with tears as he handed it to him.

“He was a brilliant man, your father. Everything he ever worked on or dreamed of creating is in that book,” Micky said, “including his chip.”

“His chip?” Marshall said. Micky nodded.

“You’ll find it toward the center.”

Marshall laid the book on a nearby table and gently turned the cover over. He opened the book near the middle, and there found a complex diagram involving helical, molecular strands, some of them shaped like interconnected honeycombs. The diagram spanned two side-by-side pages and was drawn in purple ink.

“It’s a design for an organic computer chip,” Micky said.

“Creating what – and does this tie into Feynman’s idea that there is plenty of room at the bottom regarding technological advances?” Marshall said.

“Yes, it does,” Micky said. “You see, organic machines of every conceivable nature will be manufactured once the organic chip goes into production, and its creator will become richer than anyone could ever imagine.”

Marshall pondered something for a moment.

“You know what I think? I think my father staged his own death as a way of promoting his formula’s ‘unethical’ properties, since by being ‘dead’ he cannot be prosecuted for any disasters the chip might incur."

“But how do you know he is not dead, Marshall? Besides, the formula was something he devised outside of our work together at Bell Labs, so he and he alone owns the rights to it, or I should say you and you alone own the rights to it, now that he is gone,” Micky said.

“All right, so tell me, is my father alive or is he dead?” Micky sighed.

“I imagine if I pitted you against a Great White, say, with nothing more than a butter knife to defend yourself, you would carve him into tiny little steaks for me.”

“I can handle myself, if that’s what you mean,” Marshall said. “The question is, what are you willing to do to repatriate my sorrow?”

For reply, Micky wheeled himself over to a bureau and withdrew $20,000 in cash from one of its drawers.

“Your father left you this. He left you this so that you can patent his organic chip and then use the money you make from it however you see fit. Just one thing: what will you do with so much money?”

“Live,” Marshall said. “And quite well, I would imagine.”

Micky paused and smiled to himself.

“Your father asked me to tell you something, so bear with me: if the money you make off the chip is used to fund charitable organizations, you could then assist millions of disadvantaged people, thereby mirroring Einstein's belief that the highest cause of any one person is to act in the service of others, a belief your father wholeheartedly subscribed to,” Micky said.

“So, what, I should be like Rockefeller and go handing out dimes?” Marshall said.

“No, you can deal direct, no committees, just you and your heart to guide you to whomever might need your assistance.”

“I’ll be that rich?”

“You’ll be the richest person that ever lived,” Micky said. “What do you say?”

“I say we better get started on that chip,” Marshall said. “Times are tough and we have a lot of saving to do.”

"Capitalism," Micky said and then winked at Marshall.