I admitted to him that I am no great admirer of the present director, Arnie Beaumont, whose little confections I find scarcely transcend the category of random noise.
Lieutenant Tracy took all this down, and I went on to explain to him that the MOM is still not technically part of Wainscott, however complex and intertwined the affiliation has become over the years, particularly between the university and the Genetics Lab. For complete union to occur, the Board of Governors would have to dissolve itself by unanimous vote, and even then it would be possible to challenge the matter in court. I said I had spelled out my objections to the consolidation in several memoranda to Dr. Commer and to the Board itself, pointing out the clause in the Rules of Governance enabling the RecordingSecretary “from time to time and in an appropriate manner [to] inform and advise the Board relative to matters he [the Recording Secretary] deems important to the sound operation of the museum.” I told Lieutenant Tracy that I had been very frank, in a cordial way, of course, with the late Dean Fessing regarding my views. And I believe I had more than a little influence on his. I showed Lieutenant Tracy the dean’s Interim Status Report to the Select Committee on Consolidation, which, while citing continuing concern for the financial situation at the MOM, especially its growing reliance on the institute founded by Onoyoko Pharmaceuticals, also indicated that a way should be considered to maintain, and I quote, “the unique character of the museum, which makes it a place attractive to scholars and public alike.” Those are, in fact, my own words.
The officer appeared to contemplate all this for a moment before asking who, besides myself, in what he called “the museum complex” might not want the university to take over.
To answer that I had to explain how the Genetics Lab and the Primate Pavilion were really only affiliated institutions of the MOM, that is, theoretically under the Board of Governors but in reality constituting a kind of academic free zone between the university and the museum.
The lieutenant lifted his chin just a fraction, and I thought I could detect a glint of significance in the steely, noncommittal blue of his eyes. “What do you mean by ‘academic free zone’?”
“Well, for instance,” I replied, “many of the researchers in both the lab and the pavilion are Wainscott faculty. But when it comes to fund-raising, say, or benefits, bonuses, patent rights, they use their extramural affiliation to do pretty much what they want to. Quite aside from that, the resulting budgetary process is skewed, I’m told, beyond the reach of chaos theory. It’s the real reason, I think, the university wants to take us over. And frankly, sir, they are more than welcome to both of the other institutions, but themuseum,
qua
museum, cannot be absorbed without a unanimous vote by the Board, as I’ve said.”
Lieutenant Tracy took a moment to record all this before asking me several probing questions about Cornelius Chard and just how “active” he was in promoting cannibalism.
I began my response by trying to disabuse the officer of any correlation between what an academic advocates and what an academic practices. Wainscott, I said, abounds with the usual gaggle of tenured radicals for whom rhetoric of one sort or another constitutes a reality all its own. As perhaps it does. But I’m not sure I entirely convinced him that while Professor Chard might think it wise for some hypothetical population to eat its dead, he would probably never really consider the consumption of human flesh himself. I don’t know what it was, perhaps the lieutenant’s silence and the way he lifted one eyebrow, but I felt a shiver of suspicion myself about Corny Chard. The man has never seemed entirely stable. He’s certainly been known to test the limits of what might be called acceptable eccentricity.
As the lieutenant scribbled diligently, I