âin another day or so. Why donât you come with me? Iâm working with a crazy sort of project. There would be room for you. I know the supervisor pretty well and I could speak to him.â
âDoing what?â I asked. âMaybe it would be something that I couldnât do.â
âI donât know,â said Alf, âif I can explain it very logically. âItâs a research projectâa thinking project. You sit in a booth and think.â
âThink?â
âYeah. It sounds crazy, doesnât it? But itâs not the way it sounds. You sit down in a booth and you get a card that has a question or a problem printed on it. Then you think about that problem and youâre supposed to think out loud, sort of talking to yourself, sometimes arguing with yourself. Youâre self-conscious to start with, but you get over that. The booth is soundproofed and no one can see or hear you. I suppose there is a recorder of some sort to take down what you say, but if there is, itâs not in sight.â
âAnd they pay you for this?â
âRather well,â said Alf. âA man can get along.â
âBut what is it for?â I asked.
âWe donât know,â said Alf. âNot that we havenât asked. But thatâs the one condition of the jobâthat you donât know what itâs all about. Itâs an experiment of some sort, Iâd guess. I imagine that itâs financed by a university or some research outfit. We are told that if we knew what was going on it might influence the way we are thinking. A man might unconsciously pattern his thinking to fit the purpose of the research.â
âAnd the results?â I asked.
âWe arenât told results. Each thinker must have a certain kind of pattern and if you knew that pattern it might influence you. You might try to conform to your own personal pattern, to be consistent, or perhaps thereâd be a tendency to break out of it. If you donât know the results, you canât guess at the pattern and there is then no danger.â
A truck went by in the street outside and its rumble was loud in the quietness of the tavern. And after it went past, there was a fly buzzing on the ceiling. The people up in front apparently had leftâat least, they werenât talking any more. I looked around for Stiffy Grant and he wasnât there. I recalled now that I had not seen him and that was funny, for Iâd just given him the dollar.
âWhere is this place?â I asked.
âMississippi. Greenbriar, Mississippi. Itâs just a little place. Come to think of it, itâs a lot like Millville. Just a little village, quiet and dusty and hot. My God, how hot it is. But the project center is air conditioned. It isnât had in there.â
âA little town,â I said. âFunny that thereâd be a place like that in a little town.â
âCamouflage,â said Alf. âThey want to keep it quiet. Weâre asked not to talk about it. And how could you hide it better than in a little place like that? No one would ever think thereâd be a project of that sort in a stuck-off village.â
âBut you were a stranger â¦â
âSure, and thatâs how I got the job. They didnât want too many local people. All of them would have a tendency to think pretty much alike. They were glad to get someone from out of town. There are quite a lot of out-of-towners in the project.â
âAnd before that?â
âBefore that? Oh, yes, I see. Before that there was everything. I floated, bummed around. Never stayed too long in any spot. A job for a few weeks here, then a job for a few weeks a little farther on. I guess you could say I drifted. Worked on a concrete gang for a while, washed dishes for a while when the cash ran out and there was nothing else to do. Was a gardener on a big estate down in Louisville for a month or two. Picked