Letter from an Ex-Con (I & II)
MARGOLIS, RICHARD J.
States of the Union LETTER FROM AN EX-CON (I & II) BY RICHARD J. MARGOLIS There are no people who do not, in the depths of their being, want the same things that Consciousness III wants. There is...
...Good...
...Appointment schmointment," the Doctor said, "when you get the urge our heads will merge...
...Is that good...
...But of course you know the rest, since in a way you authored it...
...Why I took it into my head to go to work that day I'll never understand...
...I didn't have to come here any more...
...What kind of growth...
...My beard is cut to the regulation shape, forming a modest peace sign at the adam's apple, and my hair would most assuredly be shoulder-length were it not for the fact that I am quite bald...
...My friend, in the evolutionary con game, Con III is the last word...
...it must have been millions...
...From the New Yorker version of Charles A. Reich's The Greening of America Dear Professor Reich: I write to you from my penthouse cell at the Miami Hilton where, as you may recall, the National T-Group placed me after I foolishly rejected Consciousness III...
...Then he read aloud from the good book: ". . .and the change to Consciousness III is not, as far as anybody knows, reversible...
...Professor Reich, I know that in Consciousness III money isn't supposed to mean much...
...And suddenly I understood --or thought I did...
...Well, I shouldered my way through the simpering multitudes till I got to the bank...
...Policemen were hugging hippies...
...These provisions included: A bill eliminating from the Pledge of Allegiance the words "God," "flag" and "The United States of America...
...What Consciousness III represents in the long-range terms of human evolution," you had written, "is the beginning of the development of new capacities in man...
...I telephoned Dr...
...Everything, as it turned out, but me, still here at the Hilton...
...I thanked Dr...
...I am, I assure you, a sincere repentant, not the callow bank clerk or the stubborn heretic of yesteryear...
...Looking back on those thrill-packed, bloodless days of The Great Evolution, I see clearly that everything happened precisely as you predicted...
...There is no need even to fight the machine, for technology can be made a servant of man when Consciousness III creates a new society...
...Evolution's not wasting any time," I remember saying to myself...
...That, of course, was 24 years ago...
...A growth in understanding maybe...
...What's the buzz...
...I asked the Doctor...
...In Con II you became an Organization Man, a buttoned-down ibmer...
...There was that huge room, The Well, with its desks and adding machines, where I had punched and totaled, totaled and punched, day after day for nineteen and a half years...
...con III delivered to all states except Mississippi...
...I've been having these awful sensibility pangs," I answered...
...A proposal for a new annual holiday, Encounter Group Day, during which Americans would form a gigantic circle and embrace their neighbor's left foot...
...An Omnibus Resolution of Censure repealing all previous laws, leaders and events...
...That's right," I said, admiring his acumen...
...As you know, Miami has been virtually abandoned ever since the Jefferson Airplane branded it a heresy...
...I stood in the middle of the room staring at the machines and listening to the celebrating crowd outside...
...Exactly," I said...
...and businessmen were dying their blue chips green...
...In Consciousness III," you continued, "we can see not a superficial moralistic improvement but a growth of understanding, sensibility, and the capacity for love...
...Certainly nobody else went to work, then or since...
...Congratulations...
...It's the best...
...And if you help me get out of here, I'll split it with you...
...I opened the vault and wallowed in all that money...
...I forget how much I stole...
...Young for the session and tried to pay him the usual $40 but he turned it down, saying, pointedly, "In Consciousness III, everything's free...
...In short, were I released today, I could merge instantly into any of the 12 million Do-Your-Own-Thing communes which grace America...
...Peace, A Hopeful Ex-Con (I & II...
...But I had some credits and debits to finish, so I dutifully took the train in...
...I went straight to his office on Park Avenue...
...How true, how true...
...The whole place was empty except for me...
...and I noticed, as I boarded the 5:27 homeward, that Grand Central Station had turned the color of pond scum...
...construction workers were donning felt fedoras...
...he asked...
...And I'm afraid I'm developing a growth or two...
...Of course not," he said...
...Oddly enough, when the change came, I did not understand that something was right with me...
...Those sudden sharp pangs of sensibility I kept feeling, that peculiar green tinge around my jowls--what did this all signify...
...It was all over...
...New York was a spring festival...
...In Con I, as Professor Reich tells us, you were just a greedy, God-fearing rustic, a diamond-in-the-rough...
...And also perhaps a growth in your love-capacity...
...It was, as my wife remarked that morning, a damn fine beginning...
...There is no need, then, for any group of people in America to fight any other, for they are all fellow sufferers--businessmen, policemen, construction workers...
...Therefore, I take up pen in hopes that you might be persuaded to intercede for me with the authorities--if, indeed, we still have authorities--and ask them to commute my sentence...
...How far away that now seems, that dreary bc III Era...
...There is never a cure for paradise...
...By the next morning the whole blessed process--the greening of America from stem to stern--had been completed...
...and while it has been pleasant here watching the eternal tides, it has also been lonely...
...Now here you are in Con III, a bundle of sensibilities...
...But I'm here to tell you: It does, it does...
...Outside on Park Avenue a hint of mint hung in the air...
...Professor Reich, I must be honest: It sounded terrible...
...stennis livid The story said that Congress had passed, and sent to the Green House for the President's signature, a raft of emergency measures designed to ease the transition from Con II to Con III...
...Is there a cure...
...Young for an appointment...
...I read all about it in the New York Times: senators consent to greening...
...Young--I vividly recall--was sitting cross-legged on the floor strumming a 12-string guitar...
...Speaking in long-range terms," said the Doctor, "I'd say you've reached Consciousness III...
...And while the machines were clicking and clacking away (what a beautiful noise...
...Once a person reaches Consciousness III, there is no returning to an earlier consciousness...
...I asked...
...I suppose it was then that I started running up and down the aisles turning on all the machines...
Vol. 54 • January 1971 • No. 2
