Chapter 5 Contraband

Julia cooked stuffed pork chops with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and apple-sauce. I brought a bottle of California Chardonnay, inexpensive but at least barrel fermented. Her little house lacked a formal dining room so we ate on the patio, where she set up a card table with a red-checked tablecloth and candle. The June air was crisp.

"Harold called," Julia said, after we sat. "You've been spending time with him and I'm so grateful."

Her genuine gratitude made me a little uneasy: my time with Harold had a dual motive.

I told Julia about my research at the library and about the test I'd given Smith. Today was Adam Smith's birthday, I added.

Julia thanked me, then frowned. "I worry about the toll on Harold." She looked at me. "And you, too. I know this interrupts your work."

I veiled my guilt with a smile and shook my head. "I'd like to blame my inertia on Harold, but I can't. I've got my own dissertation demons."

She looked at me silently. I couldn't tell whether it was approval or hesitation that I read there.

"Does your anthropology," I asked, changing the subject, "help your art? What about that candomblé business?"

"It's part of both professions to observe and discern," she replied. "Candomblé helps me focus on essence, not form."

"Helps you see the inner person?"

She studied me. "Inside you, for example?"

"Well, sure." I nodded, embarrassed.

She held my palm and pretended to examine lines. She was playing with me. "Let's see," she mused, "I'd say you're an attractive man. An intelligent over-achiever. Hmm ... likely never pleased with yourself. Your work's a refuge: you're so focused there's little room for, well, anything..." Her voice trailed off.

This was interesting. "What else do you see?"

Color rose in her cheeks. "Oh, I don't see anything, Rich," she said, releasing my hand. "Let's talk about something else. A toast—to Adam Smith!"

After dinner I asked to see her garden, and we strolled to a pair of apple trees she'd planted. The light was dim and I wanted to embrace her, or, at least reach for her hand. I stopped myself.

We'd been this close once before. Then I'd run from it. Just a year ago, near this very spot, I was drawn to Julia's warmth and beauty, her intelligence, her art. It was our fourth date, and we'd seen a movie and returned for a glass of wine and to laugh about the comedy. We knew each other pretty well, at least on the surface, and well enough that the strong draw between us needed some resolution. One of us had to give a sign, make a commitment—leap forward toward something deep and rich in promise—or fall backward to security and control. For most people, I suppose the choice would be easy. There seemed no doubt in her mind. But for me, uncertainty reigned. If such a thing is possible, I was liking Julia too much, drawn into depths over my head. It wasn't being with a woman that frightened me—I'd joked my way into my share of happy, short term, romances. Rather, I felt claustrophobic, realizing that a deeper relationship was in store, one requiring far more emotional intimacy. I rationalized my hesitation by enumerating how attachment led to entanglement, and how I liked my freedom to do as I pleased, especially if the alternative risked pain.

So, I'd pulled back, with the ready excuse of a dissertation hanging over my head; it provided a face-saving obstacle. Still, I felt every bit the fool I was. My insides tonight were once again twisted in a knot. But this time ... I resolved to keep to the first path. Julia had her back to me, lifting her hand to examine a spider that floated onto an apple leaf. I put my hand on her shoulder. She surprised me, turning to face me. She took my hand and held it. Then she gently placed it by my side.

She turned away. Somewhere I heard the soft lift and fall of night wings, an owl swooping. Finally, she said, "I didn't invite you here to stir up the past. I just wanted to thank you for helping Harold, that's all. I'm sorry, Rich."

She struggled with this answer, and after another silence, she turned back, and for a second I was encouraged. Then she said, "You know, maybe this wasn't such a good idea—my asking you to help Harold, given our past. I don't want to be the reason you're seeing him. But you're the only economist I know." She looked past my shoulder, at the sliver of a moon, or the stars. I don't know. I was caught by the reflection of light in Julia's eyes; she wasn't looking at me because I'd been measured and fallen short.

The breeze was cool and should've been a comfort. I wrestled with a dozen things to say, but found nothing that didn't sound like a glib defense.

She laughed. "Come on. Let's enjoy the wine."

* * *

"Lunch at the Faculty Club, all right?" I asked Harold on the phone a week later. It had been a month since his last paycheck and he was a charity-case now. Julia and others made him casseroles, and the Reverend helped him apply for temporary disability. The Faculty Club was convenient, subsidized, and half-empty this time of year.

"I asked a couple of colleagues to join us," I said vaguely, not wanting to tell him the whole truth, that I was embarrassed to introduce this Smith-spirit to fellow economists. Instead, I'd substituted two left-leaners from related disciplines, holdovers from Cold War battles fought in developing nations. With their classical Marxist training they could smell a rat. Would this Smith-monologue hold-up under harsher scrutiny?

"One other thing," I emphasized, "I'll introduce you as Dr. Smythe, a retired professor. Today you're Dr. Smythe."

At noon I pulled up to Harold's small, box of a house. Undisciplined stalks of grass waved in the breeze. His old car was lifted onto blocks and three rolled newspapers were scattered about the lawn. I picked them up and deposited them on the porch. Harold was wiping his hands on a rag when he got to the screen door, a cigarette hanging from his lips. His bloodshot eyes squinted into the sunlight. Julia warned me that channeling was draining him, but I wasn't quite prepared: Harold looked depressingly shabby, his shirt missing a button, exposing a ragged tee shirt, and his pants smeared with grass stains. Dropping the cigarette to the ground, Harold slid into the car. Lunacy or not, I couldn't help but feel sorry for the man.

After a few blocks I looked over again. His eyes were open and he was sitting up straight.

"Richard, have you an apology to make?" The voice was not Harold's, but Smith's.

The quick change of characters unnerved me, and I almost ran a light as I peered over at him. Passing over the leather-bound volume of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, I recounted my vain search to disprove him. "Looks like the second time the book's been checked out," I said. "Last time was 1923."

He grinned. "Bicentennial of my birth!"

I didn't mention the uncut pages; no author needs to know the worst.

The campus bustled with landscapers, painters, and carpenters on several construction sites, but I had no trouble finding a parking spot in front of the Faculty Club. Joining us inside were Dr. Carol Norton, a sociologist, and Dr. Wayne Brown, a professor of International Relations. Neither of them found Harold's casual, and not terribly clean, attire remarkable: a professor's other-worldliness is simply taken for granted. After introductions and a few pleasantries, we made our way to a table. It was summer, with no classes, so we ordered drinks with the meal: wine for Carol and Wayne, beer for me, and scotch for Smith.

"Didn't know you touched the stuff," I said.

"My dear mother was a devout Presbyterian," Smith responded. "Nonetheless, I've always supported free markets in spirits. I myself acquired a fondness for French wine, some might say too great a fondness." He laughed. "But I feel curiously like having something from home today."

We smiled politely and in that moment I glimpsed a nightmarish vision: Susan Mitchell, of the Samuelson Prize Committee, was entering the Faculty Club with Burgy Burgess! The Samuelson Committee interviewed the colleagues of finalists, but God help me—not Burgy—the prankster himself, the nemesis of anyone with ambition. This was an improbable encounter, and I wanted to dissolve into my seat. Too late! I was spotted. We waved and exchanged smiles. Unsettled, I turned back to my guests.

Wayne sipped his wine, then said to Smith: "Rich tells us you left academia to become a government bureaucrat."

Smith nodded. "True, I was a Commissioner of Customs."

"Rather a step-down, wasn't it," Carol said. "I mean, Rich warned us you were libertarian—laissez faire and all that—and then you became a tax collector. How perfectly ironic. I imagine pensions don't cover much these days."

"Good heavens, I didn't do it for the money! I gave away most of what I made." Smith sipped his single malt. He looked down at the clothes he wore and seemed to notice them for the first time. "Pshaw!" he gasped in surprise. "My dress today is as shabby as the day I became Customs Commissioner!" He let out a belly laugh. "You see, I owned a closet-full of fancy clothes, but they were smuggled imports. I didn't know it until I saw the official list. I had to burn my contraband to set an example. Goes to show how futile trade prohibitions are in practice."

"Don't we know it," Carol agreed. "We've tried to keep out drugs without success."

"There was nothing shameful about customs work, mind you," Smith explained, "we desperately need good civil servants. Truth is, the job was interesting, and even challenging. Every government needs the revenue from modest duties."

Smith glanced at me reprovingly. "Contrary to the impression our Richard might have given you, I never aligned myself with any utopian fantasy like laissez faire. I'm far too practical for such extremes. For Heaven's sake, I never once even used the term."

I gave a nervous start, though neither Carol nor Wayne were equipped to grasp what he'd said the way I could. "But your ideas on government weren't that far from that, were they?"

"It's true," Smith said, "no government promotes the happiness of mankind as much as the general wisdom and virtue in society itself." He lifted his tumbler, then went on, "All government is but an imperfect remedy for the deficiency of these. But having said that—a system of commerce can't work its best without some limited government, just as it can't work its best without moral foundations in society. I've been trying to explain that to Richard for several weeks now."

I glanced over my shoulder to the far table where Mitchell and Burgy were deep in conversation. Burgy had drops of bread crumbs on his beard. Good. I hoped he was making a fool of himself.

"I didn't think capitalism had a moral element," Carol was saying, grinning to let us know she had little regard for capitalism or its high priests—economists.

Wayne chimed in. "You don't have to be Marxist to wonder about that. The IMF bail-out in Asia shows once again the system is rigged." He looked around to make sure he held our attention. "Big business expects a government rescue package whenever things go wrong, but listen how they scream if you ask them to give up some of their gains when things go right! We socialize the risks, they privatize the benefits!"

Smith sipped his drink, then said patiently, "I've always said people would try to abuse the market system for their personal gain. After all, I spent most of my life pointing out the consequences of governments granting absurd monopolies and privileges to the favored few. All the more reason for me to say," he eyed each of us in turn, "economic freedom cannot well survive without morals, especially at the top."

Wayne nodded. "Communists and fascists agree on the need for strict morals. Mao Zedung attacked the moral evils in China: during the Cultural Revolution children even turned in their parents."

Smith took a long look at Wayne. "Surely you miss my point," he said. "Society needs an internalized base of morality."

"Come on," Carol said harshly, "the Berlin Wall is down, communism is dead, and you're worried about the survival of free markets?" Carol looked around the table incredulously. "Except for the Red Brigades, the Shining Path, and a few other wacko terrorists, like those ... those ... 'People Over Profit.'"

I looked at her, a line tightening on my forehead.

"Haven't you read the papers?" Carol pulled a newspaper from her briefcase and spread it on the table. The headline blared: "Assassination Foiled: Russian Envoy to U.N. Targeted." The subheading read: "POP group claims responsibility for bombing."

"POP?"

Wayne raised an eyebrow. "Where've you been the last year, Rich?"

I smiled wanly. "Trying to get this dissertation monkey off my back."

A glow came onto Wayne's face. "Well, everyone else has heard of 'People Over Profit.' They came on the radar three years ago in Germany, protesting the IMF's neoliberal economic policies the way Greenpeace protests whaling." Wayne glared at Carol. "They're no wackier than others fighting for justice—after all, most American colonists didn't support our Revolution until after it'd been won. Same's true here."

Carol continued: "Anyway, six months ago POP escalated from passive resistance to acts of destruction. Now they've upped the ante to murder."

The main course arrived and Smith seemed relieved to cut into his lamb chops and chew pensively. Then he put down his fork. "I am worried about the endurance of liberty," he said. "It's not a long-lived concept, not in historical terms. The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, no less than the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers. Neither are, nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind—but do you expect them to stop trying?"

"You're giving new weight to the phrase 'dismal science,'" I said, drawing a laugh from Wayne and Carol.

"See here," Smith went on, "institutions don't survive simply because they work, and even work well! Institutions reflect the circumstances of society, and they survive because they're defended by an underlying fabric of moral support. America may allegedly be structured upon Montesquieu's separation of powers, but Montesquieu cautioned that the spirit of a republic is virtue."

"Civic consciousness," Carol interjected.

"Isn't it logical," Smith said, picking up his fork, "that both democracy and free markets arose in the eighteenth century when leaders were infused with Enlightenment ideals? The concept of the "individual" was layered with notions of mutual rights, responsibilities, and duties. Moral precepts acknowledged not only the dignity of individuals, but their social interconnectedness. Society would crumble into nothing if mankind were not generally impressed with a reverence for moral rules."

"Markets and democracy have never been stronger," I said.

A bead of perspiration formed on Smith's forehead. Fatigue made him forceful, as if every breath counted. "Markets are spurred by the base elements of human nature," he said. "You balance these with benevolence and justice to form a civilized society." Smith raised his voice. "But what if the moral checks to conduct are cast aside? Will people support the institution of free markets if greed runs rampant? If impersonal logic and rationality become shields to justify every unjust outcome?"

"How can logic undercut anything but superstition?" I steamed.

Two shadows fell over our table and I groaned inside.

"Is this a good time to say hello?" Susan Mitchell's voice rang out from behind. I rose to make introductions, faltering when I got to the "retired professor, Dr. Smythe."

Burgy, my colleague in name but never in spirit, did a double-take, started to say something, then stopped. He inspected Smith as if with x-rays. In that awkward silence, Susan Mitchell beamed, "Dr. Smythe, we're all impressed with Rich—a Samuelson Prize finalist. Are you familiar with his work?"

Smith worked his mouth around, hesitating. "Since you're here, I'm sure it must be good."

Burgy pressed him. "You've no opinion of your own?"

Smith glanced at me hard. He shrugged. "Like much modern work, his writing fails to address the big picture. He spins intricate theories from his own insides, elegant and logical equations from absurd and untested assumptions. Some might say it's just blackboard scribbling, little to do with the world."

"I've always said economists navel-gaze," Wayne said.

I sunk my head while the others' mouths fell open. Smith seemed oblivious, going on, "Oh, I dare say there are a few economists today who read, fewer still who read history. Francis Bacon, the father of science, said it best, he did: Be like bees, go to nature for your raw materials. Study the human animal in his natural environment—in society, I say."

"Here here," Carol nodded. "Sociologists have said that all along."

"Exactly why economics and sociology parted company a hundred years ago," I muttered. "Too much buzzing and no theory."