The Solomon Text

[Steve Caldas]

 

The day Paul Boudreaux feared would never come was here at last. “D-day.” Dissertation defense. The last agonizing step in his long and arduous quest toward obtaining the highest prize in academia, the much-coveted Doctor of Philosophy. The PH fuckin’D.

            Paul, the only Louisianan in the turn-of-the-century New York University conference room, squirmed uncomfortably on the hard wooden chair across the table from the five-person committee arrayed like a firing squad in front of him. He was struggling to answer the tricky question just hurled at him by crusty Professor Jim Langley. “Gangly Langley,” as the doctoral students referred to the chair of the history department behind his back, had placed Paul on his long shit-list almost from day one. Langley had never forgiven him for choosing David Goldenberg, instead of himself, to be Paul’s primary advisor. Langley was extremely jealous of Goldenberg, the precocious assistant professor five years out of Harvard who now anchored the other end of the committee.

             It was a hot July afternoon at the end of the summer semester and the air conditioner had just cut out for no apparent reason. Paul took a sip from his cold-brewed coffee and swallowed with difficulty, making a vulgar noise in the quiet room.

            “Well, uh, Doctor Langley,” he began tentatively, “we know that St. Thomas Aquinas didn’t believe the soul entered the body of a baby until it was forty days old.”

            “Baby boy,” Goldenberg gently interjected from the other end of the table.  “Recall that Aquinas didn’t think girls got a soul until they were eighty days old,” he winked encouragingly at Paul.

            “Yes, uh, exactly right. Thanks for that clarification, Dr. Goldenberg,” Paul said, happy to have at least one academic in his corner. “So, since he held these beliefs about the soul,” Paul continued, “I have to conclude that St. Thomas would probably not have considered the fetus a ‘person’ per se. Still, Professor Langley, I’m open to hearing your point of view on this issue.”

            The lanky full professor shot Paul an incredulous look over the top of his glasses.

            “I believe you’re the one who’s defending his dissertation here today, and if it’s not too much trouble, I was hoping you’d answer the questions. Not ask them,” Langley fired back.

            Paul felt the pressure in his chest as if fingers were being jabbed deep into his solar plexus. He could have used a couple of Rolaids chased with half a bottle of Jack Daniels.

            “Well uh, OK, of course. More to the point, given all that we know about St. Thomas Aquinas and the context of his times. . .” Paul tried to speak in a measured tone, “. . . I’m inclined to believe that he would NOT have considered abortion a sin.”

            “And you’re sure about that?” Langley pressed.

            “Uh, well, uh, yes, for all the reasons I just stated,” Paul said, trying to maintain his composure. “If he believed that the soul hadn’t yet infused the fetus during a woman’s pregnancy, then Aquinas probably considered the developing fetus nothing more than organic tissue.”

“But Saint Aquinas wrote about the magnificence and perfect order of the universe. Did he not? And of God’s highest creation, mankind!” Langley boomed. “Tell me, how could he have ever felt that it was justifiable to voluntarily terminate a life that he himself believed that God had created and pre-ordained?”

Paul had no answer—because there was none.

            The French professor on the committee loudly cleared her throat. “God,” she began, “assuming there even IS one, created womankind too, non?” she stated wryly. “And we’d like to hope that she gave her the same rights bestowed upon the privileged white men who wrote all this diatribe in the first place.”

            Goldenberg chuckled at her comment, but Langley ignored the snarky remark and plowed on.

            “You’re a Catholic, Paul?”

            Paul looked at Langley warily. “Uh, well, I believe you’re aware that I was once a novitiate for the . . .”

            “So, in other words you were a Catholic, but now find it fashionable to bash the Church and its historical and philosophical foundations. Didn’t anyone teach you that in this profession you’re supposed to be objective? Apparently not,” he answered his own question with a brief, damning glance at Goldenberg on the other end of the table.

            “Jim, you’ve made some good points,” Goldenberg broke in delicately, trying to take some pressure off his grad student who’d begun to visibly sweat, “but I’m not sure exactly how your question relates directly to Paul’s dissertation topic.”

            Langley leaned forward and silently regarded Goldenberg with thinly disguised contempt.

“I’m certain you think it does,” Goldenberg hastened to add, “but perhaps you could make the connection a little clearer for him.”

            “Dr. GOLDENBERG,” Langley carefully enunciated each syllable of the younger history professor’s name. “Perhaps you haven’t served on enough dissertation defenses to realize this yet, but these culminating experiences are also designed to determine the ability of the candidate to think on his feet. And if Mr. Boudreaux has to fall back on a politically correct position rather than think independently on his own, then maybe he shouldn’t be given our university’s highest award. I, for one,” he pressed a bony index finger into his chest, “intend to ensure that Ph.D.’s from this university are not dispensed like so many sheets of toilet paper . . . if that’s OK with you, sir.”

[Aida Zilbergleyt]

what happened next? want to continue reading!

[Steve Caldas]

Hi Aida...thank you for the encouraging words. I hope you do indeed get to read the whole PUBLISHED novel one day. Likewise, I hope you're own work is progressing well. See you in Manhattan soon!