(1961) The Chapman Report Read online

  When Boynton had gone down in flames, in the experimental jet, crashing and disintegrating on the baking desert near Victorville, Metzgar (and he not alone) refused to accept this evidence of his idol’s mortality. To keep him alive, forever living in the dreams of others, Metzgar conceived of the biography. Promising a renowned Manhattan publisher a guaranteed purchase of five thousand copies in advance (to be distributed among customers and Air Force personnel), Metzgar made the book a reality. Then he cast about for the proper writer. He wanted no word juggler who would intrude his own personality into this testament to greatness. He wanted merely a human conveyor belt to take the product, package it, and pass it on to the public. Screening writers that he had bought and used, he recalled

  James Scoville. He remembered that Scoville had produced several competent articles about Radcone, and since he remembered Scoville’s work and not his face or personality, he knew that he was the man. He brought Scoville in from his beach home in Venice (once, delivering some old letters, Kathleen had visited the flimsy little house and found it pitifully underfurnished and inadequate, and had been uncomfortable in the presence of the writer’s wife, a gaunt, witchlike girl in gypsy clothes), and then Metzgar offered Scoville the assignment. He was to have three thousand dollars from the publisher, and three thousand more from Metzgar.

  Dazzled by the largest sum he had ever known, Scoville listened to Metzgar’s briefing and was prepared to write as Metzgar pleased. There was left only the formality of Kathleen’s co-operation. Everything in her resisted it, but in the end, she knew that Metzgar -and the million like him-must have their monument. Two weeks of evenings before a tape recorder, along with letters and clippings, gave the writer all that he needed from Kathleen. Now he was writing like the furies, and if all went well, he would soon be able to remove wife and self to a more commodious tract bungalow in San Fernando Valley. Kathleen liked Scoville. Perhaps because he was hardly a man.

  “Maybe next time we can work longer,” she said regretfully. “It’s just that our club-our women here-are going to be interviewed by Dr. George G. Chapman, and I’m on the committee to let them know.”

  Scoville lifted his head, his eyes blinking. His face betrayed minor horror. “Dr. Chapman? You mean he’s going to interview you?”

  “Why, yes, of course-all of us,” said Kathleen, somewhat taken aback. “But you can’t!” he blurted. Kathleen was completely at a loss. “Why not?” “It’s not right. You’re not just anybody. You’re-well, you were married to Boynton Ballard. It’s not-it wouldn’t be proper to tell some stranger your private life with him!’ He mouthed him as he might Yahveh.

  Kathleen stared at Scoville and understood at once. He, too, like Metzgar, like the faceless public, had a hungry need to believe in Someone. Authentic heroes were few, because they usually lived too long. A German, Goethe probably, had once said, “Every hero becomes a bore at last,” and it was true. But to be a hero and be snuffed out at the peak of burning, this promised immortality. And, somehow, because she had been hero’s chattel, Kathleen must be preserved by the cult, buried in the tomb with him, sanctified. Willing or not, his purity and virtue, and the quality that was more than merely mortal, must continue to reside in her. And so she perceived Scoville’s pain. If she disclosed to a stranger the animal habits of the hero, the mean details of fornication, she profaned a sacred memory by showing that he had been like ordinary men, with base needs and weaknesses of the flesh.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Scoville, head pulled in and bent, busily examining his blank yellow paper. She wondered what he would think if he even faintly conceived what was really in her head. For she was thinking of that slate-gray, late afternoon, sixteen months ago, when man had died and hero had been born.

  She had wept, of course, and fleetingly felt leaden sorrow. But if there were a scale upon which to weigh emotion, the sorrow was no heavier than she felt at the death of a distant Hungarian in an embattled street, a Peruvian in a faraway train wreck, a child found lifeless in a Bel-Air swimming pool. The sorrow had been that which grieved over the human condition; the unfairness of the life-promise that held out so much alive and then withdrew it so quickly. This was her sorrow, and this only. But as for the man, the one whose name and child she bore, the tears she had shed were not tears of love but tears of relief. Who would understand that?

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said to Scoville at last. “Now what were the questions you wanted to ask?”

  THEY BRACED THEMSELVES against the lurching of the train as it scraped around a curve, and then, as it seemed to shake itself straight again and pick up speed beneath them, the iron wheels clacking rhythmically on the rails, they relaxed once more.

  They had been proofing the results of the week of sampling in East St. Louis, and now they were nearing the end of a five-minute recess, smoking in silence, making sporadic, inconsequential comments, waiting to resume.

  Paul Radford sucked noisily at his straight-stemmed pipe, then realized the tobacco was burned out, and began to empty the white ash into the wall tray. “Do you really think Los Angeles will wrap it up?” he asked.

  Across the way, Dr. George G. Chapman looked up from the sheaf of papers in his hand. “I don’t know for sure, Paul. Probably. We had a wire from that woman-Mrs. Waterton-president of the … the …” He tried to remember. There had been so many.

  “The Briars’ Women’s Association,” said Dr. Horace Van Duesen.

  Dr. Chapman nodded. “Yes, that’s it; she promised a hundred per cent turnout.”

  “It never works out that way,” said Cass Miller sourly.

  Dr. Chapman frowned. “It might. But let’s say we get seven per cent response-I think we’ve been averaging close to that well, that would be sufficient. We can cancel the optional engagement in San Francisco. We can just call it quits on the interviews and settle down to the paper work.” He forced a smile. “I guess you boys would like that?”

  There was no response. Paul Radford slowly rubbed the warm bowl of his pipe. Horace Van Duesen removed his horn-rimmed spectacles, held them up to the light, put them on again. Cass Miller chewed steadily at his gum, staring down at the worn carpeting.

  Dr. Chapman sighed. “All right,” he said, running a hand across his flat, slick gray hair, “all right, let’s get back to the proofing.”

  For a moment longer, his eyes held on the three younger men cramped in the gray and green train bedroom that smelled, of the now familiar smell of paint and metal. He could see the boredom and inattention on their faces, but he determinedly ignored this and, once more, bent his eyes closely to the typed manuscript in his hand. It was difficult focusing on the figures in the dim yellow overhead train light.

  “Now, then, we’ve incorporated the East St. Louis sampling. That means-according to what I have here-we’ve interviewed 3,107 women to date.” He glanced at Paul, as he usually did. “Correct?”

  “Correct,” repeated Paul, consulting the yellow pages in his hand. To Paul’s right, Cass and Horace also looked fixedly at the papers in their laps and tiredly nodded their agreement.

  “All right,” said Dr. Chapman. “Now, let’s check this carefully. It’ll save us a good deal of drudgery when we get home.” He shifted slightly in his chair, brought the manuscript closer to his face, and began to read aloud in a low, uncritical monotone. “Question.’ Do you feel any sexual desire at the sight of the male genitalia? Answer. Fourteen per cent feel strong desire, thirty-nine per cent feel a slight desire, six per cent say it depends on the entire physique of the man, forty-one per cent feel nothing at all.” Dr. Chapman lifted his head, pleased. “Significant,” he said. “Especially when you recollect our figures on male response to female nudity in the bachelor survey. Paul, make a note on that. I want to draw the analogy when I write the final report.”

  Paul nodded, and dutifully jotted a sentence in the margin of his paper, even though twice before in the last month he had been requested to record the very same notatio
n. Doing so, he wondered if Dr. Chapman was as tired as he, and Horace, and Cass. It was unlike him to be forgetful and repetitious. Perhaps the fourteen months of almost uninterrupted traveling, interviewing, recording, proofing, were taking their toll.

  Dr. Chapman was reading silently ahead. “Interesting,” he mused, “how close these East St. Louis figures are to the national average.”

  “I think it’s obvious women are the same everywhere,” said Cass.

  Horace turned to Cass. “How do you account for those lopsided percentages in Connecticut and Pennsylvania?”

  “It wasn’t a regional divergence,” said Cass. “Those women chased more because their husbands were commuting-and they had too much money and nothing else to do. It was social and economic.”

  “All right, boys,” said Dr. Chapman quickly, “let’s not start analyzing-“

  “I saw the advance sheet on The Briars,” continued Cass. “With that income level, I’ll lay two to one that we are approaching the land of the round heels.”

  Horace held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, Mother Shipton.”

  “I don’t like that kind of talk,” Dr. Chapman said firmly” to Cass. “We’re scientists, not schoolboys.” Cass bit his lip and was silent.

  Dr. Chapman regarded him quietly a moment, and then relented slightly. “We’re all overtired. I know that. Exhaustion creates impatience, and impatience makes objectivity go out the window. We’ve got to watch it. We’re not to permit ourselves snap judgments and unproved generalities. We’re in pursuit of facts-facts and nothing more-and I want you to remember that for the next two weeks.”

  Paul wondered how Cass was taking this. He glanced at him. Cass’s mouth was curled in a set smile that wasn’t a smile. “Sorry, teacher,” he said at last.

  Dr. Chapman snorted and returned to the digits before him. “Where were we?”

  Paul hastily answered. “Question. Do you feel any sexual desire at the sight of the male genitalia? Answer. Et cetera, et cetera.” “Do our figures jibe on that one?” asked Dr. Chapman. “Perfect with me,” said Paul. He looked at the other two. Both Horace and Cass nodded.

  “Let’s go on,” said Dr. Chapman. His stubby finger found his place on the page before him. He read aloud. “Question. Does observation of the unclothed male in that photograph of a nudist camp arouse you? Answer. Ten per cent are strongly aroused, twenty-seven per cent only somewhat, and sixty-three per cent not at all.” He lifted his head toward Paul. “Correct?” “Correct,” said Paul. Horace straightened, pulling his shoulders back to work loose

  his stiff muscles. “You know,” he said to Dr. Chapman, “that category keeps giving me more trouble than any other one. So often the answers are not clear cut.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Dr. Chapman.

  “Well, I can give you a dozen illustrations. Do you want me to go into one?”

  “If it’s pertinent,” said Dr. Chapman.

  “When we were in Chicago last month, I asked one sample if the art photographs or paintings of nude males I showed her aroused her. Well, this woman-she must have been about thirty-five-she said that nude art never affected her one way or the other, except one statue in the Art Institute-an ancient nude Greek. Whenever she looked at it, she said, she had to go home and have her husband.”

  “I should think that would indicate sufficient reaction to stimuli,” said Dr. Chapman. “How did you record the answer?”

  “Well, I wanted to be certain that some personal association didn’t make this statue an exceptional thing. I kept cross-checking, as we went along, with other questions. At last, I found out that when she was-sixteen, I think-she used to keep a magazine cut-out in a drawer, under her clothes, some male Olympic swimmer in abbreviated trunks. Whenever she took it out and looked at it, she would follow with masturbation. But besides that. and the statue, no other photograph or art work ever aroused her. It makes it difficult to obtain a decisive-“

  “I would have classified her in the ‘strongly aroused’ group.”

  “Yes, I did. But it’s often difficult-“

  “Naturally,” said Dr. Chapman. “We’re dealing as much with grays as blacks and whites. Human emotions don’t seem to measure out mathematically’-but they can, with experience and intelligence applied by the interviewer.” He tugged at his right ear lobe thoughtfully. “We’re not infallible. The critic and layman want us to be, but we’re not. Some error has to creep in as long as women will distort because of defensive exaggeration, involuntary emotional blocks, or prudish deceit. However, Horace, I believe our system of repeated double-check questions, especially the psychological ones-those, as well as consideration of the subject’s entire attitude and response, are safeguards enough. In grave doubt, you still have recourse to the Double Poll. After all, in the Double Poll, we have the benefit of the forty years Dr. Julian Gleed devoted to analyzing married couples separately and setting up for us a statistical basis for discrepancy or percentage of probable error. His papers are a gold mine. Too often, we neglect them. Anyway, by now, Horace, I’m sure you know when an interview is utterly hopeless and must be discarded.”

  “Certainly,” said Horace quickly.

  “Then, that’s enough. Occasional indecision about recording a reply will not affect the whole.”

  Paul observed that whenever any one of them questioned the method, as they had more frequently done in recent months than earlier, Dr. Chapman would make his reassuring little speech. Curiously, it was always effective. There was about Dr. Chapman an air, a quality, a Messianic authority that made what they were doing seem right and important. Paul supposed that Mohammed must have projected this in defending the Koran, and Joseph Smith in presenting the Book of Mormon. For all their trials and problems, Paul knew that his own faith in their mission, in Dr. Chapman’s method, stood unshaken. He knew that Horace felt that way, too; Cass, alone, was possibly the only potential apostate. Possibly. One could never be sure of the true feelings that pulsated in Cass’s complex nervous system.

  Dr. Chapman had resumed the proofing. Paul focused his attention on the paper in his hand. Dr. Chapman’s head was low over the manuscript as he droned the questions, answers, percentages. Does observation of those three still photographs of romantic scenes from recent movies and legitimate plays excite you or fire your imagination? Yes, strongly, six per cent. Only somewhat, twenty-four per cent. Not at all, seventy per cent. Does examination of the male physical-culture magazine you have just been leafing through make you wish your husband was another type of man? Yes, definitely, fifteen per cent. In some ways, thirty-two per cent. Not at all, fifty-three per cent. For those of you who replied that you wished your husband was in some ways a different type, please define in what ways you would like him different? Taller, more athletic, forty-seven per cent. More intelligent and understanding, twenty-four per cent. Gentler, fifteen per cent. More authoritative or masculine, thirteen per cent. Does the sex scene you have just read from the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence, the scene among “the dense fir-trees,” erotically stimulate you in any way? Yes, strongly, thirty per cent. Only somewhat, twenty-one per cent. Not at all, forty-nine per cent.

  Although his hand continued to move his pencil down the page,

  Paul’s mind was inattentive, and it wandered. He stared at the top of Dr. Chapman’s head. Casually he wondered, as he had numerous times before, about Dr. Chapman’s personal sex life. Usually, he tried not to wonder. It was an act of lese-majeste. The-Queen-has-no-legs, he told himself, was the only proper note. But the nagging curiosity persisted. Paul knew, of course, that somewhere among the thousands of discarded questionnaires in the rented storage safes of the Father Marquette National Bank in the town of Reardon, there was one that revealed Dr. Chapman’s sex history. Who had questioned Dr. Chapman? Who, indeed. Who created God? Who analyzed Freud? In the beginning, there was the creator. God created God; Freud analyzed Freud; and Dr. Chapman had questioned himself.
/>   The project had its testament and books of revelation, and even its Genesis. By now, Paul could recite it by heart. Six years ago, six years and two months to be exact, Dr. George G. Chapman had been a fifty-one-year-old professor of Primate Biology at Reardon College in southern Wisconsin. Except for a paper on the mating habits of the lemur and the marmoset, he was a scholastic nonentity. His income was a comfortable $11,440 a year. He roomed, off campus, with a younger sister who was in awe of him, with her husband, who engaged him in chess when not wearied by dentistry and golf, and with three young nephews, who regarded him as joint father.

  Once, in dim memory, there had been a Mrs. Chapman. George G. Chapman had been a senior at Northwestern University when he had met her at a fraternity dance and married her. She had been the well-educated daughter of a prosperous publisher of technical books in Chicago. After the wedding, the couple had spent their brief honeymoon in Key West and Havana. (The only photograph that Paul had ever seen of her, the one reproduced so often in magazines, had been taken in Havana. The enlarged snapshot was encased behind glass in a brown leather frame on Dr. Chapman’s office desk. It revealed a tall girl in a shapeless, knee-‘length dress of the period. Her broad brow, high-boned cheeks, thin nose, and wide mouth gave the impression of one good-natured and amused. The camera had caught her squinting into the lens, because the hot and glaring Cuban sun was in her face. Across her long legs, in a faded spidery scrawl, she had written: “To the brains in the family. Love, Lucy.” The glass covering the picture, the last time Paul had seen it, was dusty.)