Both Good and Evil

[The lobby of a nursing home. An elderly man, JACK LARSEN, is seated at a table in mid-stage Old folks of both sexes, some leaning on canes and walkers, others on wheelchairs pushed by attendants in medical garb, enter and exit the stage. Presently a man in his early twenties bearing a backpack, CLIFF MAYNARD, enters and approaches Larsen's table. Larsen signals Maynard to join him. Maynard pulls up a chair and takes a seat across the table from Larsen.}

LARSEN: I gather you are the grad student assigned to interview me for the research project on ageing.

MAYNARD: Yes, Sir. Cliff Maynard. And you must be Mr. Larsen, the resident who volunteered to be interviewed. [Extending his hand to Larsen] Pleased to meet you, Mr. Larsen.

LARSEN: [Giving Maynard�s hand a hardy shake.] Please to meet you, Cliff. But please dispense with the �Sir.� and the �Mr. Larsen� No need to remind me how of old I am. Just call my by my first name, Jack.

MAYNARD: O.K., Jack it is. That's what I�ll call you.

[From his backpack Maynard takes out a tape recorder and shows it to Larsen]

MAYNARD: O,K with you if I record?

LARSEN: Please, go right ahead.

[Maynard turns on the recorder, sets it on the table and, speaking into to it, starts the interview]

MAYNARD: The Whispering Pines nursing home. Research project on ageing. Interview with resident, Jack Larson, age 71. Interviewer, Clifton Maynard, M.A. candidate, Woodston University Sociology Department. Tuesday, May 7, 2008.

LARSEN: So, I take I'mto offer myself as an example of ageing,

MAYNARD: Yes, Sir . . . I mean, Jack.

LARSEN: Well, if you want a demonstration of not just ageing, but hearty ageing, accompany me to the staff workout room and watch me put some of the young attendants there to shame. None of them have come close to my parallel bar dip record. Twenty-two full reps.

MAYNARD: Wow! The last time I tried that exercise the best I could manage was seven sloppy reps. [Then stroking his hand in mock pain]. But no need to demonstrate. I could tell by that hand shake you gave me that you are no weakling.

LARSEN: Not bad for a 71-year-old geezer, I guess.

MAYNARD: No, not bad at all.

LARSEN: The only reason I moved into the assisted living facility here at the Whispering Pines is that I'm gradually losing my sight. The result of an old injury. I can still see some, but it won�t be long now before I�m totally blind.

MAYNARD: I'm sorry to hear that.

LARSEN: Nothing I can do but play the hand that God, or fate, or whatever you wish to call it, handed me.

MAYNARD: And how, if you don't mind me asking, did you sustain that injury?

LARSEN: In a mugging. I made the mistake of leaving my wallet home, and the muggers, kids not much younger than you, felt cheated and attacked me with a bat. Left me for dead.

MAYNARD: But you survived, that's what counts.

LARSEN: Yes, I survived, and since then had many other interesting experiences. When you have lived as long as I have, you�re bound to have done and seen a lot, both good and bad.

MAYNARD: Like what, for example.

LARSEN: Well, the one set of experiences I's like to discuss first in our interview were my hands-on charitable works.

MAYNARD: Hands-on? Please explain.

LARSEN: [Leaning back in his chair for a moment and sighing, gathering his thoughts] Well, rather than giving of my time and money to church and charitable organizations, as it's conventionally done, I got personally involved in the lives of the people I helped.

MAYNARD: Interesting. But wouldn't it have been be more convenient, and effective, to do it through groups equipped to deliver that kind of service?

LARSEN: What makes you think that it would?

MAYNARD: Well, it seems to me that by working alone in your community you couldn't have reached that many needy people. But by contributing to a large charitable organization, you would have joined forces with many other givers and helped hundreds throughout the world. Doesn't that make sense?

LARSEN: No.

MAYNARD: No? Why not?

LARSEN: Because, to begin with, much of the money contributed would go to cover the salaries, pensions and benefits of the people running the organization. As much as one-fourth, provided they are honest, and some, regrettably are not.

MAYNARD: But even if they take their cu--after all, they can't all be working for free--the other three-fourths, millions of dollars, would reach needy.

[Larsen gets up and does some bending and arm-swinging exercises. Maynard turns off the recorder, waits for Larsen to sit back down, then turns it on again.]

LARSEN: Tell me, Cliff, have you ever heard of Roberto Clemente?

MAYNARD: The Hall of Fame baseball player? Yes, I heard about Clemente, from my father, he's a baseball buff from way back.

LARSEN: Well, one of those interesting experiences of mine I was alluding to was a four year stint as a catcher in the Minor Leagues, Triple A. Once we played in an exhibition game against Clemente's team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. The guy was nothing less than phenomenal.

MAYNARD: That's exactly what my father said. He saw him play a number of times when he lived in Pittsburgh. .

LARSEN: And do you know how Clemente died?

MAYNARD: In an airplane crash, I believe.

LARSEN: Yes, at age 38, at the peak of his career.

MAYNARD: Calls to mind a poem I once read in an English class, about an athlete dying young.

LARSEN: Must be the one By A. E. Houseman. [Gesturing histrionically} �Smart lad to slip betimes away/ From fields where glory does not stay/And early though the laurel grows/It withers quicker than the rose.�

MAYNARD: Yes, that�s the poem. I'm impressed that you can quote it. You must have done quite a lot of reading in your lifetime.

LARSEN: I have, some, though now, because of my failing eyesight, I can only listen to books on tape. But back to the subject of charitable giving.

MAYNARD: O.K.

LARSEN: Do you know the circumstances surrounding Clemente's death?

MAYNARD: No, that I don't know.

LARSEN: Well, there had been a major earthquake in Nicaragua, and Clemente, ever the humanitarian, collected several tons of supplies for the victims. But suspecting, with good reason, that the supplies would be stolen by Nicaraguan officials, he decided to deliver them personally in a charter airplane.

MAYNARD: And the plane crashed.

LAERSEN: Yes, it was overloaded. No sooner had it taken off, than it crashed into the ocean, off the coast of his native Puerto Rico, on December 31, 1972.

MAYNARD: So, what are you trying to tell me, that reaching too far beyond our immediate surroundings to help the needy is a waste if time?

LARSEN: Yes, and counterproductive as well. The food and supplies acquired by charitable organizations to ship abroad with the money left over after the staff take their cut, is usually confiscated at the port of entry and resold by the henchmen of the dictator in power. The proceeds are then used to finance their lavish lifestyle, or invest in arms to further oppress the people.

MAYNARD: Come now, Jack. Surely you are exaggerating. Charitable organizations can�t be that gullible or foreign governments that evil.

LARSEN: Think, Cliff. Why do suppose that despite the billions collected and doled out abroad by charitable institutions every year, poverty around the world is as bad, or even worse, than ever?

MAYNARD: Admittedly, you may be right. But we have to keep trying. I, for one, am a religious skeptic, but there are things in the Bible that make a lot of sense, and when Jesus says: "When you give a feast, invite the poor, the cripple, the lame and the blind," the words ring true to me.

LARSEN: In what book of the Bible is that passage?

MAYNARD: Why, in the New Testament, of course, That was Jesus speaking.

LARSEN: I know, but, specifically, in what book of the New Testament?

MAYNARD: I don't know. To be truthful, I don't know the Bible that well. That quote I recall from a Sunday school class when I was a ten. For some reason, it stuck with me.

LARSEN: Well, that passage is from Luke 16. Verse 13, to be exact. And the person Jesus was talking to was a wealthy man who invited only the well-to-do acquaintances like himself, people so cloyed, that they tended to turn down the invitation, The gesture was wasted on them.

[Maynard gazes at Jack in amazement. Jack again gets up and goes through his callisthenic routine. Maynard turns off the recorder and waits for Jack to return to his seat before turning it back on.]

MAYNARD: Don't tell me you�ve memorized the whole Bible.

LARSEN: No, can�t say that I have. But I keep coming back to it. Though I'm a religious skeptic like you, more of an agnostic, really, I find much wisdom and good advice in that old book.

MAYNARD: Then how would you interpret that quote from Luke? The way I see it Jesus is commanding us to reach out to our fellow man, to humanity in general.

LARSEN: If you read the whole chapter, the parable of the rich man and the leper Lazarus, you'll see that Jesus wasn�t suggesting anything of the sort.

MAYNARD: Then what was he suggesting?

LARSEN: This: That the leper and the poor, the cripple, the lame and the blind he was referring to were not faceless people in the next town or, much less, in some other part of the world. They were neighbors of the rich man, persons he could get to know and relate to individually.

MAYNARD: But how is helping a close neighbor morally more uplifting than contributing to the wellbeing of a stranger? What if the stranger is in worse way than the neighbor?

LARSEN: O.K., let me approach the subject from a more personal angle. Tell me, do you give money to charity?

MAYNARD: Well, as I grad student on a fellowship I'm on a pretty tight budge, but I do give what I can.

LARSEN: How much and how often?

MAYNARD: Oh, about fifty or sixty dollars, once a year. Around Christmas time.

LARSEN: And I suppose that makes you feel good.

MAYNARD: Yes, knowing that I did something good makes me feel good.

LARSEN: And that good feeling, how long it last? All year? A month?

MAYNARD: No, of course, not. Eventually I forget about it.

LARSEN: And how about the recipients of your charity, a starving family, say, in some famine-stricken country? How long do you think they would benefit from it? Assuming that some of your money reaches them.

MAYNARD: I would have no way of knowing.

LARSEN: Well, according to my research, I'd say that your contribution, at best, might help that family survive for maybe another week.

MAYNARD: But I wouldn�t be the only one giving. There would be many other givers, some contributing much more than I could.

LARSEN: True, but for every one those giver there would be scores of starving families.

MAYNARD: I'd like to see those stats.

LARSEN: Drop by tomorrow and I'll show them to you.

MAYNARD: Still, I would find them hard to believe.

LARSEN: The numbers don't lie. Your well-intentioned giving might make you feel good inside, appease your social conscience for a while, but you would only be prolonging that family's misery.

MAYNARD: Are you saying, then, that we should just let those poor people die?

LARSEN: No, the point I'm trying to make is that there's a better way, as prescribed in the Bible.

MAYNARD: So, we're back to your interpretation of Luke 16.

LARSEN: Think about it. When you help a close neighbor in need you bond with him. Emotionally, spiritually, he becomes like part of your family. The good feeling you experience in helping him would be lasting , real, and so would be his gratitude.

MAYNARD: But Jack, the average person of limited means, a grad student like me, could not to support a needy neighbor not even for a day or two,

LARSEN: True. But once you get directly involved with the neighbor, your inner light will shine for all to see, as the Bible puts it--Mathew 5:16--and others will follow your example. The charity you started with your limited means will irradiate outward from little you to your community, to the nation, and on to the rest of humankind. That, clearly, was what Jesus intended.

MAYNARD: Makes sense, I suppose, idealistically speaking, but I doubt it would work in the real world.

LARSEN: For a good illustration of how it might work, read the "Book of Ruth," the most beautiful story in the Bible, and in all of literature, in fact.

[Larsen signals Maynard to turn off the recoder and falls silent. Maynard gazes at Larsen for a long moment before speaking.]

MAYNARD: Jack, I can see by the expression your on your face that there's more you want to tell me.

LARSEN: Yes, I was leading up to that.

MAYNARD: O.K. I'm listening. What's it?

LARSEN: Evil.

MAYNARD: Evil?

LARSEN: Yes, evil, Satan, the Devil, whatever you want to call it. You see, helping your neighbor is not sufficient. You must also confront the evil that stands in the way.

MAYNARD: I see. And how do you suggest we do that? Crime, war, injustice has been with us since God created mankind.

LARSEN: Yes, and for a good reason.

MAYNARD: You're losing me, Jack.

LARSEN: It's really very simple. Think. All things are defined by their opposites. Had we no notion of small, rough, cold, old, we would have no way of determining whether something is large, smooth, hot or new.

MAYNARD: O.K., I follow you thus far.

LARSEN: So likewise, if there were no such thing as cruelty, hatred, greed, bigotry, then kindness, love, generosity, and tolerance would be meaningless.

MAYNARD: In other words, without evil, there would no such thing as good. Is that what you're saying?

LARSEN: Precisely, the conflict between good and evil is at the heart of all moral issues.

MAYNARD: Therefore?

LARSEN: Therefore, in order to do good, to help and to love your neighbor as the Bible prescribes, to let your light shine, you must, at the same time. fight evil, the inequities of that real world you alluded to. In a word, you cannot know Jesus if you cower before Satan.

MAYNARD: I see. But tell me, how do you, Jack Larsen, a senior citizen in a nursing home, deal with such a weighty moral issue? Or you are you just talking theoretically?

LARSEN: No,not at all. I mentioned earlier the story of my stint as a baseball player and how it shaped my views on charitable giving. Now let me recount other experiences and how these led me to wage my private battle against evil.

MAYNARD: O,K., recount, I'm listening.

LARSEN: But first I should warn you that this new twist might shock you. So, do you still want to hear it?

MAYNARD: Yes, now you've piqued my curiosity. Consider me your captive audience.
[Maynard turns on the recorder. Larsen leans toward the recorder and, his voice waxing sad, speaks into it ]

LARSEN: Well, at age 27 I married an angel of a woman and was blessed with a beautiful baby girl. Three years later we went on a bus tour of a national park and the bus collided with a trailer truck. My wife and daughter were killed instantly, but I survived without a scratch.

MAYNARD: How tragic that must have been for you!

LARSEN: Yes, unbearably tragic. After their death I sold my home-improvement business and went on year-long cross country hike, hoping to leave my grief behind, maybe remarry and start a new family, but I couldn't. To this day I've remained single, and celibate.

MAYNARD: You took your loss a lot harder than most men would.

LARSEN: Yes, and what made it especially hard to take was that I could have easily prevented the accident, had it not been for my moral cowardice.

MAYNARD: Your moral cowardice?

LARSEN: Yes. The accident was caused by an escaped convict, armed with pistol who intended to hijack the bus and hold the passengers hostage. He tried to wrest the wheel from the driver, the driver resisted, lost control, and the bus crashed into the oncoming truck.

MAYNARD: But why do you say you could've avoided the accident? Whywould you hold yourself responsible?

LARSEN: Because I saw the evil in the man's eyes when he boarded the bus, sensed what he was up to when he got up from his seat and approached the driver. The pistol was still in his pocket, I could have easily subdued him, but didn't. Surprise, fascination, fear held me back. Maybe I was expecting, hoping that someone else in the bus, an off-duty cop, maybe, would stop him.

MAYNARD: You were too hard on yourself, Jack. You had never experienced a situation like that. You weren't s trained police officer or a soldier. You couldn�t possibly have known how to react on the spur of the moment.

LARSEN: All I know is that by time I summoned the guts to react, it was too late. My wife and baby girl were already dead.

MAYNARD: So, what did you do next?

LARSEN: On a number of occasions during that soul-searching cross-country hike, I came close to committing suicide. But then, as in an epiphany, I discovered the healing power of doing good on the one hand and battling evil on the other, both at the same time.

MAYNARD: And that helped you overcome your grief and guilt?

LARSEN: No, not overcome. Sublimate. As I said, I never married again. What I did, was start up another home-improvement business, earn lots of money, and use my wealth to help my needy neighbors and mete out justice, both on a personal level, as I explained.

MAYNARD: The part about helping your neighbor you was clear enough, but the part about meting out justice needs more explaining.

LARSEN: [Poining to the recorder] Again I ask you, Are you sure you want to hear it? It might shock you.

MAYNARD: Yes, Jack, I want to hear it, the full story, [Nudging the recorder closer to Jack] That's why I'm here.

LARSEN: Well, then, I'll tell you. Recall those muggers who gave me the head injury that has gradually rendered me blind?

MAYNARD: Yes, because you had left your wallet home,

LARSEN: Well, now all three are dead.

MAYNARD: Dead? And how did they die?

LARSEN: I killed them all.

MAYNARD: You . . . you killed three men?

LARSEN: Yes, each one separately, and with a baseball bat. The same weapon they used on me.

[Maynard gapes at Larsen in disbelief, while Larsen, seemingly amused by Maynard�s reaction, squints back at him.]

MAYNARD: But, Jack. I don't understand. What�s so morally uplifting about vengeance? By murdering those three kids you became a murderer yourself.

LARSEN : No, it wasn't vengeance as such. I purposely waited five years for my anger to subside, and give myself time to sublimate the killings as acts of righteous justice. In other words, it was not those kids, now men, I wanted to kill, but the evil in them.

MAYNARD: But going back to your fixation with Jesus, didn�t he preach that we should turn the other cheek?

LARSEN: That precept, too, has been misconstrued.

MAYNARD: Please explain, Jack?

LARSEN: Well, If some store clerk snaps at you because he had a bad day and you overlook it, that�s turning the other cheek the way Jesus meant it. But if you kowtow to a bully because you are afraid of him or, worse, if you see an innocent person being abused by a thug and do nothing about it, that�s rank cowardice, a hard thing to live with.

MAYNARD: Which brings us back to your inaction on the bus.

LARSEN: Yes. The loss of my wife and baby and the guilt I endured because of it was infinitely more devastating than any physical harm that the thug could have done to me if had jumped when I had the chance.

MAYNARD: But I'm sure that Jesus would have understtod and forgiven you.

LARSEN: No, the Jesus that drove the money traders out of the temple, with a whip no less, would not have stood idly by. Had he been on that bus, he would have stopped the thug, bodily. Are you familiar with that Jesus story?

MAYNARD: Yes, I've heard of it.

LARSEN: It's in all four of the Gospels.

MAYNARD: And after you killed the three muggers . . .

LARSEN: Execute would be the right word it.

MAYNARD: So after you executed them, were you finally at peace with yourself?

LARSEN: No, of course not. For the same reason that I reached out regularly to my neighbors in need, knowing that others would follow my example and spread goodness beyond the community, I had to go on eliminating the evil that stood in the way, The two activities, one open, the other covert, went hand in hand. Flip sides of the same moral coin.

MAYNARD: But why go through the risk of tracking down criminals. Wouldn't it better to let the police and the legal system deal with them?

LARSEN: The police? The legal system? You�ve go to be kidding. Did you know that 85% of violent criminals are acquitted on some legal technicality? And if they are juveniles, few ever see the inside of a prison.

MAYNARD: But still, some convictions are better than none.

LARSEN: My approach is much neater and efficient. No cops, no lawyers, no false acquittals, no cost to the taxpayers.

MAYNARD: I assume that you check the background of those slated for execution very carefully. From what you tell me, you don't strike me as the kind of executioner who would risk executing an innocent person.

LARSEN: Yes, I vetted my targets very, very carefully. Anyone with some redeeming moral features, however slight, even a love for a pet, I spared.

MAYNARD: So, how many people you killed, I mean, executed thus far, if you don't mind my asking.?

LARSEN: Since I started forty years ago, counting the three muggers, twenty-two.

MAYNARD: Wow! That's quite a record.

LARSEN: But now I'm retired. I can't very well stalk what I can't see. [Then gesturing histrionically]"When I consider how my light is spent." "That's from a poem by John Milton.

MAYNARD: The English poet?

LARSEN: You surprise me, Cliff. You're better educated than I though at first.

MAYNARD: [Dismissing the backhanded compliment with a hand gesture] But tell me, Jack. How did you manage to avoid getting caught?

LARSEN: Simple: Except for the three muggers, the thugs I targeted had never wronged me personally, so the police had no reason to come looking for me.

MAYNARD: I see. It was the evil in the man not the man himself that you targeted,

LARSEN: Precisely. And because the thugs I trageted had so many enemies, thugs like themselves, any one of them would have been a prime suspect.

MAYNARD: And I suppose that since your targets were no pillars of society, the police wasn't going to waste too much manpower investigating their murders.

LARSEN: That too. Also, I changed my modus operandi with each execution, using different weapons, to avoid revealing a tell-tale pattern.

MAYNARD: O.K., then, on to the next question: I can see how the helping-the-needy part of you mission would be effective, but the execution part of it, how did you know that it was working. What proof did you have?

LARSEN: Do you remember, two years ago it was, the story of the vigilante in North Carolina who finished off his victims with a signature shot to the left eye?

MAYNARD: Yes, I remembered reading about him. A sensational story. Made national headlines. They guy was much like you, a resident in a nursing home, pretending to be crippled, to avoid suspicion, but in fact was in top physical shape. His accomplice and enabler, his wife, pretended to be an Alzheimer�s patient,

LARSEN: Yes, and also like me, he targeted only unregenerate crooks and conmen.

MAYNARD: And a couple of sadistic college professors to boot, if I recall,

LARSEN: Well, this man, Fred Mills, and others like us, assumed screen names and surreptitiously we kept in touch with one another via the Internet. Whether they influenced me or I them, is irrelevant. The important thing was that we all were on the same page.

MAYNARD: So you beleive that your do-good, fight-evil fraternty has taken root.

LARSEN: Yes, I�m sure of it. Last I heard Mills and his wife, Helena, were living in Italy under assumed names and still are very active. As are the others in our group. The only one out of the loop is me, due to my gathering blindness.

MAYNARD: And how do I know that you�re not faking your blindness, like Mills faked his handicap, to avoid suspicion?

LARSEN: No, my blindness is for real. Fred and Helena Mills, they were gamester. Both former actors. They enjoyed toying with the cops, leaving them catch-me-if-you-can clues, staying a short step ahead of them. Me, I was different. My game was avoiding the cops, not taunting them. Otherwise, though, we were of one mind.

MAYNARD: [Turning off the recorder] You know, Jack, this interview turned out to be more like a work of fiction. A best-selling novelist couldn�t have come up with a more imaginative story.

LARSEN: Yet it�s all true. Every word of it.

MAYNARD: I believe you. My problem now is how am I going to write it up it as an academically-correct research paper.

LARSEN: You couldn't. The mention of the executions alone would make it impossible. Besides, I don't think you would betray my trust.

MAYNARD: So what do you suggest I do?

LARSEN: I suggest you scrap it.

MAYNARD: Scrap it? The whole interview?

LARSEN: Yes, at first, when I volunteered to be interviewed, I intended to talk only about my exercise, diet and study regimen. Banal stuff. That would have been appropriate material for a research paper on aging. But this thing about good and evil, that you'll have to scrap.

MAYNARD: You're right. I can't use it.

LARSEN: But that's no reason for you to go home empty handed.

[A bespectacled resident trudging on a walker enters the lobby, takes a seat at another table, and begins reading a book. Larsen squints and points to the man with his chin.]

LARSEN: See that fellow reading a book? That's Joe Ackley, a former investment banker. Made millions a year in his heyday. He has a room next to mine in Assisted Living. If you�d like, I could get you an interview with him. He'd appreciate the company. No one ever comes to visit him.

[Maynard puts the recorder away in his backpack and gets up to leave.]

MAYNARD: Today, I can�t, Jack. But maybe tomorrow, or next week. I�ll call you and let you know,

LARSEN: It was a pleasure meeting you, Cliff.

MAYNARD: Same here, Jack, Take care.

[They shake hands, and Maynard exits the lobby.]