YOU CAN NEVER GO HOME AGAIN
By Peter Butterworth
Published by Peter Butterworth
Copyright 2011/ This edition 2015 Peter Butterworth
ISBN – 9781458183392
Website: butterworththewriter.com
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Contents
Part 1
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Part II
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part III
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part IV
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part V
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
The End
Essay:
Ideology versus Scientific Ethics
Other Books by Peter Butterworth
About the Author
YOU CAN NEVER GO HOME AGAIN
PART I
CHAPTER ONE
Dr. Jonathan Prezlee walked along the ramping tunnel to board the Australian Airlines flight 716 bound for San Francisco. He was still enjoying the perfect weather of Oahu and wasn’t paying any attention to his surroundings. He loved the weather of Hawaii, “it’s like a drug. It just makes you feel better. It’s tangible. It caresses your skin” he would tell any and all who hadn’t visited the islands.
And happy was he to be flying in the morning, as he’ll arrive in the good weather of the San Francisco/ Bay Area in the early afternoon. He was wool gathering as his mother had been wont to admonish him and wasn’t paying attention to where he was going.
As he entered the plane through the open hatch he started to turn to the right. He had always turned to the right. This time the stewardess, or flight attendant he tried to remember, stopped him and waved him to the left. The first class seats. He was confused for a second then remembered he had allowed himself to be bumped and have a layover in Honolulu which was no hardship and was rewarded with seating in first class.
First class! And he smiled widely. He had to say it, “this way to the first class seats?” and the best looking stewardess, right, flight attendant, smiled a smile she had smiled thousands of times though Jonathan was oblivious to it. She directed him to the first class compartment. Yes, the first class section. Life was wonderful.
Jonathan took the window seat. There was plenty of empty seats and the one next to him was unoccupied so he had choices which was a very nice option to have. But he’d stay next to the window. Maybe later in the flight the stewardess, flight attendant, would sit next to him and flirt. Hey, one never knew.
He was amazed at the amount of room he had. The seat, in first class, was huge. Okay, maybe huge was a bit overstated but only slightly an overstatement. In comparison to regular class he could only think huge. He could actually see leftover seat on either side of his hips. He had copious, could that be correct, abundant, no perhaps plentiful room for his legs. He had almost too much elbow room. He hadn’t a chair in his flat with this much room.
And, Prezlee was not a small man. Though the smallest on any basketball court he had played on after the age of fifteen he was still taller than most other people at six foot one and a solid two hundred and five pounds.
He had to be solid for his line of work. He was a geologist. A field geologist. Not some bozo who had a desk and spent all day poring over maps. No. He was out in the dirt. He wandered. He explored. He camped out and slept on the ground even if he didn’t have to. “Good for your back” he would explain. Perhaps it was.
He sort of noticed the other passengers in the first class section though he sort of didn’t. Ah, five hours in first class. Maybe there would be a head wind and he could enjoy the comfort for five and a half hours.
A complimentary glass of champagne? Why certainly and he hoped he hadn’t seemed too much like a rube as he smiled with, he trusted, only a modicum of brief confusion.
Jonathan settled into the seat, the first class seat and considered what he would do to first pass the time. He had the letter from the dean of natural sciences at the University of Hawaii-Manoa offering him a position in the department. A full professorship.
Although he loved Hawaii he had spent enough time in the islands to understand there wasn’t the intellectual life there that interested him. The cinemas only played the five top grossing Hollywood films which bored him and hardly any Broadway shows were performed there. And when they came to town it was nearly impossible to get a ticket.
One had to be very sociable in Hawaii. You had to enjoy to ‘talk story.’ You spent a lot of time with friends.
Yet, he did particularly like the idea of never having to make appointments to see friends and socialize. Hawaii was like the east coast where he had grown up. Very similar in that respect. You just drove over and visited.
And, if your friend wasn’t home you went to see another friend or maybe before you could do this some friends would drop by. This was life in the islands. “Bruddah, no need phone.” Just a “howzit, brah?” and life in paradise continued on as waves eternal caressed its shores.
Although Jonathan really cared for his friends he also had a solitary nature to some extent and loved to hike or just wander around alone. The Ko’olau’s were a nice hike but the hikes in California, especially in the Sierras were the best. He did miss the hikes in Yosemite. This thought triggered a painful memory and wondered if he was still persona non grata there.
He frowned as this unwanted memory emerged. Why hold onto a theory just because one was told to? Facts were facts and you don’t change the facts to fit the theory you change the theory to fit the facts. And the theory didn’t fit the facts; the phenomena of nature as it were. The conclusion seemed inescapable to him and yet he was alone in his conclusion as far as he could tell.
He thought back on that beautiful spring day in Yosemite. A day remembered quite clearly though nearly fifteen years has elapsed. He had been waiting for his girlfriend, a stroller or maybe an ambler, though definitely not a hiker.
He waited near one of the Valley ranger stations as a crowd of tourists approached for the usual talk by one of the park rangers. He had been admiring El Capitan and not paying any attention to the others when he heard the female ranger say that the creation of the granite face which is named El Capitan took thousands of years.
He couldn’t help himself. He just blurted out, “you’ve got to be kidding?” It was this type of impulsive remark which cost him a measure of endearment with not so few of his professors.
The female ranger took the binoculars away from her eyes and glared at him for a second. Well, actually two and a half seconds but said nothing and was prepared to continue with the lecture when one of the tou
rists commented, “what do you mean by that?”
Jonathan may have remained silent, okay, probably he would have remained quiet for a few seconds only but when the park ranger, and not all that bad looking either, snorted and said, “he doesn’t mean anything by it” the gauntlet was thrown down.
“So miss ranger you don’t accept science?”
She turned to him and he could see her name above her breast pocket was Sarah. She cocked her head and her eyebrows furled. “Huh?”
“If you don’t accept erosion as part of science…?”
“What are you talking about?” She was a little short with this retort but he decided not to notice.
“Erosion. You cannot accept erosion and still maintain that this granite face took thousands of years to look as it does.”
She looked at him as if he was speaking Greek. In a sense he was. Although she was intuitively uncomfortable with the potential he was intimating she decided she could not let this pass.
“Explain yourself.” He was more than happy to.
“There are few truisms in life but one is that any surface, especially one with sharp edges, will through erosion - wind, rain, heat and cold, etc. - will become rounded.”
“Yes, of course, everyone knows that.” Miss ranger couldn’t help it. She smirked.
“Then perhaps, ah, Sarah, you have really bad eyesight.”
She knitted her eyebrows and frowned just a little. The other park ranger had now joined the group and was listening to this conversation though he had not been following it. He was there to be supportive. It was his co as in co-worker, co-ranger, co-government GS something or other who was possibly under attack. His pose of eager anticipation was there for all to see. Ready to jump in when needed.
After a few silent seconds she rose to the bait.
“My eyesight is just fine. And I have the binocs.”
“Then Sarah,” she wasn’t as attractive when she was angry, “could you look through your binocs and spot an edge near the bottom?”
She waited for a few moments then placed the binoculars to her eyes muttering, “I’ll humor you.”
“Yes, I see a particularly long edge near the scree. It’s very,” with emphasis, “very sharp. As to be expected.”
“Now look at an edge near the top.”
This she did. And visibly started. She again looked to the edge near the bottom and just as quickly brought the binoculars to the edge near the summit. Up to the top of El Capitan. Down to the bottom of the granite edifice.
“Well, that doesn’t make…that can’t be.” She moved the binoculars from top to bottom. The other park ranger asked to use the binoculars. Asked in a nice but firm way; he didn’t want to have Sarah lose face. But he really wanted to put this stranger in his place.
The male park ranger, the name of Thomas was on his left breast, looked at the top of El Capitan then brought the binoculars to the bottom. He mimicked what Sarah had done, going from the top then to the bottom hardly more than a few seconds at each sighting.
Finally, one of the tourists couldn’t contain himself and asked what they were seeing. Jonathan turned to him.
“They are seeing it for the first time I imagine. That is, there is no more roundedness to the edges at the top than there is to the edges near the bottom. The same sharpness in the edges appears. If he looked to the middle of El Capitan he would see the same sharp features.” Thomas focused the binoculars in the middle of El Capitan.
“Damn” he said after awhile.
“But what does it mean?” asked the bold tourist.
“It means that the face of El Capitan, the full face we’re looking at, was created at the same time.”
“Ah,” said Thomas the ranger. “It was the glacier which caused this.”
“Really?!!”
“Yes, really!!” Thomas with irritation handed back the binoculars to Sarah.
“Then why, pray tell, do these sharp edges go in every direction? And why, again pray tell, are there sharp edges? No matter how fast, or slow a glacier would move the sheer mass, pressure and friction would eliminate any edge. Lateral abrasion would be visible only. Answer me that!”
Thomas was clearly upset. “Better minds than mine have figured this out so though I cannot tell you exactly what you should know, you are wrong.” And with that he stormed away leaving Sarah holding the proverbial bag.
She looked at Jonathan and told him he was wrong and to go away. Thomas returned from the ranger’s station and took a Polaroid photo of him.
“The facts speak for themselves. And why are you so mad?”
Thomas went back to the ranger’s station and tacked up Jonathan’s photo on the bulletin board just beside the door. He wrote underneath it, do not talk to or engage this person (Jonathan noticed that Thomas the ranger wrote person not man). He hates science.
Jonathan was himself becoming heated and wouldn’t back down, “I’m using science to prove your conclusion incorrect. I am a scientist in a PhD program if you must know. The facts are undeniable and the facts are scientific and science supports my content…”
“Where is your school?”
“What?”
“Where do you go to school?”
“What has that got to do with…?”
“Is it some mail order school?”
“What?” Jonathan was indignant. “No, it’s USF in San Fran.”
“Then I’ll have a talk with them.” And with that Thomas stormed into the ranger’s station.
Jonathan turned to engage Sarah but miss ranger had taken the tourists on the walk. He saw Jenny, the girl he had been dating for three months, another USF student, finishing her masters in business standing in the modest clearing. She had her arms folded across her chest, and a very nice chest it was, and was shaking her head.
As he walked off the porch and approached her she said to him, “must you get in an argument everywhere we go?”
Jonathan started to explain that these park rangers thought they were using science when, in fact, they were not. And that, in fact, he was being the scientist. But before he could finish she turned and began walking toward Mirror Lake. He frowned then shrugged and caught up with her.
The relationship didn’t last the week. When he returned to class ten days later he was given a talk by the head of the geology department. Well, threatened rather than talked to. In no uncertain terms was he to continue with this line of reasoning nor could he bring it up in any of his classes. His doctorate would be in jeopardy he was made to understand.
Jonathan briefly considered changing his doctoral theses to study this phenomena of vigorous anti-science by scientists but he was maybe a year away (of diligent work for which he was not famous for) from finishing. And he had promised his dying mother that he would get his Ph.D. He was the first in his family to even attend college.
Yet that chat with the dean had scared him. Not that it changed the way he thought. But it made him realize a thing called power and how he was at the mercy of others. This shocked him. To be shackled, to be forced to conform to something that’s incorrect irked him. And, there was nothing he could do about it and this knowledge grieved him as well.
Even if he was incorrect the subject should be debated but no one was willing to do this. This didn’t make much sense to his underlying idealism but it was something he never forgot.
Just thinking about it now irritated him and put him in a less-than-happy mood. So, he looked out the window as the plane was gaining altitude and about to enter the cloud cover. His unconscious frown immediately turned to a smile. He was watching a shooting star. Went right through the clouds!
It was a long, burning shooting star. ‘I’ve never seen one that impressive.’ He promptly forgot Yosemite.
Before he could dwell on it he saw another one though the chunk of space rock wasn’t as large and didn’t burn for as long. The plane was entering the cloud.
Jonathan gasped. A huge chunk of space rock came hurtling by.
“Stewardess?” He almost yelled. He was getting nervous but she came before he could call out to her again. Her name was Bonny.
“I’m a flight attendant. How may I help you?”
“Will you tell the captain I think we’re in some trouble here. Why hasn’t he changed course?” The plane was still in the clouds.
She looked at him with a smile she has used thousands of times. Jonathan didn’t seem to notice. She was good at her job. “I’m sure the captain knows what he’s doing.” She patted Jonathan on his shoulder.
She started to turn away when Jonathan said, “owp” or something to that effect as another good-sized meteor passed by the airplane with the white cloud showing the burning redness of the small meteor.
Bonny had turned with his exclamation and watched the burning rock pass out of sight. She looked out the window with an increasing sense of apprehension. She looked at Jonathan yet was still undecided although she was picking up his anxiety.
“If one of the big ones hits us we’re going down. What’s the captain doing having lunch? Tell him something is wrong here. Please. We should not be seeing this many meteors of this size.”
Another burning ball of space rock shot past the plane. It was small but ominous.
“Really, something isn’t right here. The annual meteor showers aren’t for months and they are not this big. I think…well, we could be heading into a swarm.” Jonathan was insistent and nervous and was having a hard time explaining his thoughts in a dignified manner. The more Bonny hesitated the more difficult he had being calm.
Jonathan could barely contain himself. Everyone in the first class section was now aware of something occurring and becoming gradually aware of the meteors flying past them. The increased frequency of the small meteors was now noticeable.
Bonny went forward to the cockpit.
After a few moments which seemed like an hour an increasingly anxious first class passenger named Prezlee was asked to attend the captain in the cockpit. He went as quickly as he could and would have run if it had been possible.
The captain, a very clean-shaven man about fifty and looked every bit his age, calmly asked Jonathan to take a seat in the cramped cockpit. The captain, his nametag read Schollander, was the embodiment of calm though he was tapping the screens above him. Jonathan could hear the navigator calling Honolulu.