Splintered loyalty, p.6
Ficiton Complete, page 6
Unfortunately, in those days of tight money (when isn’t money tight?) one disclosure did not a trip West make. I remember feeling restless for several weeks before a couple more came in from other Electronics inventors, and I was able to justify the trip. By then it was April, skunk cabbage was poking up green in the winter-naked woods, and our Eastern climate had become almost bearable.
Miss Lee, my secretary, knows my preferences. She always books me into a San Francisco hotel, where I arrive in late afternoon, too late to do any business, and can enjoy dinner at the Wharf, watching the sun set beyond the Golden Gate. On the Johnnie Wong occasion, for some reason or other—maybe she was sick, or on vacation—I was booked into a motel in Palo Alto, not far from Electronics. I don’t remember why I didn’t get it changed, particularly as my flight brought me in too late to get any work done that day. I had my rental car, and, after checking in at the motel, toyed with the idea of driving up to eat in San Francisco, but then it came on to rain, and I didn’t. Instead, I found a local restaurant. Ate there. Noticed in the entrance a poster for an art exhibition at the Town Hall. Drove over to the Town Hall, to see if the local artists had anything to show me.
It was an amateur show, nothing particularly exciting, might just as well have been back home, or in any other modest sized American town. There was only one outstanding picture. And that one really caught my attention.
In those days Jeffrey Grieves, one corner of the triangle I’ve mentioned, was president of Electronics Division. He was famous wherever the Corporate grapevine whispered, not so much for any attribute of his own, but for those of his remarkable secretary, Jo Lauanui, the second corner.
Jo was a friend of mine, to the extent that an already middle-aged patent attorney is permitted to be friendly with a golden complexioned young Hawaiian girl with smoky brown eyes. Influenced by Michener’s Hawaii, I always called her “Joelani,” which set her smiling eyes dancing.
(I should note, in defense against vulgar individuals who might suspect me of ulterior motives, that if Joelani had been a hard-faced Caucasian with warts and a rasping tongue, as are some of those who fit her job description. I’d still have tried to make a friend of her. Secretaries are a good source of information, and in a great corporation you never know what you may need to know in order to protect your ass.)
What our relationship amounted to, Joelani would put out daughterly pheromones, and I’d respond with fatherly ones. I’d heard wicked stories about her on the grapevine, which I ignored. The real target of all that gossip was, in any case, Grieves, her boss, who’d broken one of the unwritten rules—HIGH LEVEL PEOPLE IN G.B.I. DO NOT SURROUND THEMSELVES WITH BEAUTIFUL SUBORDINATES. I respected, even enjoyed, Joelani, but it was from an appropriate distance. We got along pretty well.
Back to the Palo Alto Town Hall art exhibition. The picture I discovered there at the center of it had a bright red first prize rosette attached to it. It was a portrait, in oils, of my respected friend, Joelani. Full length. Large—almost life size. Full frontal nude.
It was a magnificent piece of work. I’m no connoisseur of art, but its quality took my breath away. The artist had caught the exact golden hue of her skin, the perfect form of her, the innocence of her smiling eyes, which, nevertheless, had a secret power in them—something of Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess?—I’d not noticed in the live girl herself. The painted girl had her arms outstretched, inviting embraces. If at that moment she’d suddenly come to life, I would have fallen right into them.
As it was, I stood staring for two or three minutes before I saw she was standing over some sort of apparatus which, when I looked closer, I recognized as a silicon crystal pulling furnace. It occurred to me then that she wasn’t really in an embracing posture. She was blessing the furnace.
I looked a bit closer, and discovered the painting had a title. GODDESS OF THE CZOCKROLSKI PROCESS. The artist, obviously someone technically knowledgeable, had created a goddess all right. He’d signed his name just below one of her naked feet. Johnnie Wong.
For some time I stayed there in the presence of the goddess, enjoying every detail of her. If she’d been for sale, I’d surely have bought her. Then—and this probably had something to do with Johnnie Wong’s invention disclosure—it occurred to me that a man who had that picture hanging in his house would be in much the same position, though deprived of a different kind of nourishment, as Tantalus, the Greek geezer who was stuck up to his neck in water under fruit trees. The one who couldn’t reach, with his lips, the water to drink, nor, with his hands, the fruit to eat. Tantalized.
Then I was sort of pleased I couldn’t buy her.
A guard came over to tell me the exhibition was due to close. Would I please head towards the exit? I headed for the exit, went back to my motel, and dreamed.
Next morning, I was at Electronics, alert and lively, before eight o’clock. I won’t admit to being influenced by the painting I’d seen the previous evening, arriving so early, but I won’t deny that I might have been. Unconsciously, of course. Reception—the plump girl at the desk knew me well enough—sent me right up to Grieves’s office. Surprise, surprise! Grieves hadn’t come in yet, and Joelani was alone at her desk in the outer office.
Joelani motioned me to take a seat in one of the plush armchairs provided for visitors, yellow upholstery, I remember, and went on reading a document she was holding. This was unusual. Usually she had a wide-mouthed grin of welcome, a few polite words, and a pretty, girlish wriggle for me when I called her Joelani. This time, none of that.
I’m afraid I was a rude patent attorney. I plonked myself down on the chair, and sat staring at her, thinking what a finer thing this real-life goddess is even than that magnificent painting. She seemed nervous, fretful, as she turned the pages of the document in her hand. I wondered if I could do anything to help, was about to offer, when the telephone rang. She answered it, whispered into it a few velvety syllables, turned to me, and said: “Mr. Grieves will be late. Would you care, he asks, to meet with your inventors, and see him later?”
“Surely.”
She murmured into the telephone again, cradled it, looked at me. I fancied I saw flash in her eyes that Pele strength I’d detected in her portrait, but if I did, it was gone in an instant.
I reached into my briefcase, which I had open. Brought out the disclosures I was there to work on. Conveniently, Johnnie Wong’s was on top. I decided to visit him first. Put the rest back in the briefcase.
I stood. I asked Joelani for directions to Dr. Wong’s laboratory. (Johnnie had a Ph.D.)
“Certainly, Mr. Mason.” She blushed as she spoke. Words lack power to describe the beauty of that rich, rosy color flowing across her perfect features. It was a real privilege to be permitted to see it. Just the same, I wondered why it happened. I’d never thought of her as the blushing type. Anything to do with her portrait? Was it, perhaps, unauthorized? Did she think I’d put out a message on the Corporate grapevine, describing it? Surely she knew I’d never do that!
That was the kind of middle-aged confusion that raced through my mind, under Miss Lauanui’s mesmerizing influence, as that young lady reached into a desk drawer and brought out a sketch of Electronic Division’s lay-out. Her hand definitely trembled as, still blushing, she traced the path I had to take to Johnnie Wong’s laboratory.
I left my briefcase with her in her office. It was only as I walked away that I realized that her portrait had nothing to do with her blushing. She could have no idea I’d seen it.
Johnnie Wong I found alone in a cubby hole filled with chemical apparatus, a few power supplies, and such, annexed to the main R. and D. lab. He was trim, lean, average height, with that Western smile on his Chinese features which you only see on third- or fourth-generation Chinese Americans. Age maybe twenty-six. Nonconformist. Instead of the regulation corporate white shirt, he wore a California style thing in red plaid, with frills. No tie. His straight black hair was uncommonly long.
I introduced myself. Told him why I was there. He said he already knew. Miss Lauanui (if there was any overtone of feeling in the way he said her name, I didn’t catch it) had called down. He suggested we go sit in his office, but then changed his mind. “The equipment’s set up right here. Why don’t I just show you how the invention works?”
To that, I agreed readily enough.
Wong’s invention comprised a means of creating pictures by anodizing tantalum. Tantalum is a rare metal, dark, almost purplish in color, heavy, given its name because it is so tantalizing when you try to dissolve it in acid or any other solvent. The chief industrial application of the metal—and we use a lot of it—is to make capacitors, little store-houses for electrons, which-crop up in nearly every electronic circuit. Its oxide, which can easily be formed on the metal’s surface by making it the anode of a cell, and passing a current, has remarkable dielectric properties, hence the capacitor application. By now, most capacitors are made of porous tantalum slugs pressed from powder, but back then there was a lot of interest in using rolled tantalum foil—it’s a very ductile metal.
So much for the background. Wong was working on capacitor foil. When the foil is anodized, thin films of oxide formed on the surface display a remarkable range of metallic colors—in fact, the entire color spectrum—by light interference effects. Any particular color can be produced by selection of the correct anodizing voltage. The oxide films are stable and permanent. Unless mechanically damaged, it is possible they’ll last for millions of years.
The formation of anodized films was the basis of Johnnie Wong’s patent disclosure. and was not new. having been known to those who work in the field for a very long time. His invention was to apply the phenomenon to produce works of art. He first coated the tantalum with an impervious barrier—“Most anything will do,” he said, “I’ve even used butter”—on which he scratched part of the design he wanted to create, starting with the areas to be colored by the highest voltage. Anodize. Scratch some more. Anodize at the next lowest voltage. And so forth.
“I like best of all to do it pixel by pixel, so to speak,” he told me, “with a fine probe under a microscope. You get beautiful Impressionist effects.” As he talked, he scratched a rough profile of yours truly on one of his prepared sheets of tantalum. “You can work with an infinite range of colors. A difference of 0.01 in the anodizing voltage can give a detectable change of color in some parts of the spectrum. And I don’t know what other color medium is likely to last for millions of years.”
Then he adonized my profile. Made me a brilliant scarlet, washed off the barrier layer, and gave me an emerald green background. He held it up, said: “Pretty, pretty. Not great art. but to create great art the artist has to suffer. I’m told. It’s good enough to give you the idea of the thing.” He handed me the tantalum sheet. I still have it stored away somewhere in my attic. Will have to dig it out. Must be worth a lot of money.
After that, we went to his office, and went over the disclosure line by line. He hadn’t missed a thing. I was sure his invention was patentable. Unless we drew a real grouchy examiner on a day of personal catastrophe, I didn’t doubt the application would sail right through the patent office.
When we were done, I congratulated Johnnie Wong, and wondered if I should say anything concerning that other artistic endeavor of his I’d seen.
Luckily, while a foolish remark was on the tip of my tongue, his telephone rang. It was Joelani, to say Mr. Grieves had arrived. Would I come up?
Again, Johnnie showed no particular reaction that I could see to this contact with his Czockrolski Process Goddess. Perhaps in his art as in his technical work, he was a true professional, free of personal involvement. I gathered my papers together, and left with an extremely good impression of the young man.
Grieves was in Joelani’s area waiting for me. He had bushy eyebrows and a bulging forehead. Probably his eyebrows weren’t really in bristling motion, but I sensed a lot of tension between him and his secretary the moment I came in. Joelani was saying something, stopped as soon as she saw me, and gave me a half smile that was almost a frown. Her eyes flashed again as she passed me the briefcase I’d left with her.
Grieves glared at her, growled something unintelligible, stomped to his open office door and gestured for me to get inside there in a hurry. Why did I get the impression, somehow, that he was a bit afraid of her? I bustled into his spacious quarters. He didn’t offer to shake my hand, invite me to take a seat, or anything. Just went around behind his enormous desk, and flopped into his executive’s chair.
Fortunately I’m pretty used to division presidents and their tantrums. I’m not afraid of them, even though, since they pay the bills, they have the final say-so concerning what I do and don’t do. On my own initiative, I pulled up a chair, settled myself, and met his eye across the desk.
“This Wong disclosure,” he said. “I hear you’ve been wasting time on it. I want that one scrapped. Forget it ever came up.”
I still had the Wong file in my hand, waved it at him, hoping I’d be seen as intimidating. “Jeffrey,” I said (we’re all friends in G.B.I.—always use first names), “you know I can’t do that. Once a disclosure reaches my office, as the policies spell out pretty clearly, we have to investigate. If it’s patentable, we either have to file, or we have to tell the inventor we’re not filing, and let the rights revert to him. That’s not only policy. In judges’ decisions lately, it’s come pretty close to being the law.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want you doing a damn thing for that upstart young whippersnapper. Besides, he’s been doing all this stuff on company time, quite without any authorization. God knows how much he’s cost us.”
“Not much, I should think. I went down and saw what he’s doing. It’s a clever idea, one of those inventions that might lead anywhere.”
“Are you arguing with me, Wally Mason?” His voice threatened, his bulging forehead sort of bubbled as angry shadows rolled over it.
“Not at all, Jeffrey Grieves. Just telling you what the facts are.”
He glared at me, took a couple of deep breaths, and forced himself to calm down. “Anyway, Wally,” he said, “that’s one damn patent I will not approve to be filed. I’m within my rights there, right?”
“Oh, certainly. Shall we go through the other disclosures, see where we stand with them?”
There were no problems with the other disclosures, all of which, by the way, ultimately ended up as patents. We didn’t take long. When we were through, Grieves called on his intercom to get Joelani to bring in some coffee. She didn’t respond, was obviously not at her desk. “Damned insubordinate women, think they run the place, and everybody’s life.” Grieves said. A peculiar remark, coming from a divisional president. I was going to say the beautiful ones can get away with anything, but thought better of it.
I visited the other inventors, completed my business, and went back to Grieves’s office to bid him farewell. Joelani was again not at her desk. Before I left Grieves, I tried tentatively to bring up the Wong disclosure again. My head was bitten off.
Metaphorically decapitated, I got my car and drove rather hurriedly up to the airport and caught an early flight home, not realizing that these many years later I’d be obliged to feel guilty for not working harder on Grieves.
In due time, I notified Wong officially that we were not going to patent his invention, and that the rights therefore reverted to him. The rest, as they say, is history. He parlayed his new art form, which he christened tantagraphs, into an international reputation and several tens of millions of dollars—maybe by now hundreds of millions.
The story of his success has been written up in dozens of magazines. It is straightforward. A young man with an idea and a lot of talent, who quit a boring engineering job to create masterpieces. Nothing subtle about it. Either by design or through indolence, the journalists missed the subtleties.
I should have missed them, too, had it not been for whispered rumors transmitted along the Corporate grapevine. Even so, I only picked up bits of the story. More tantalization.
Some weeks after my visit to Electronics, the grapevine announced that Johnnie Wong had resigned. There was a suggestion he’d been fired for insubordination, but I checked and he had legitimately resigned. I wasn’t surprised, wished him luck under my breath, and. busy with other matters, thought no more of it.
The next grapevine item of interest stated that a secretary at Electronics, Jo Lauanui, was suing her boss for sexual harassment. That is the kind of news that only the grapevine carries. Our Corporate masters will go to extreme lengths to suppress such gossip, and protect the pure images of their higher executives.
Though the sexual harassment story seemed authentic, I tended, on the whole, to discount it. I remembered the Tantalus feeling I’d felt when I was examining the Joelani painting, thought how Jeffrey Grieves must have suffered, day by day, in the presence not of mere daubs on canvas, but of the flesh and blood woman. An indiscretion committed by a man subjected to that level of frustration could be understood, if not forgiven.
Grieves kept his job, so I don’t suppose the case came to court. If it was settled out of court, as the grapevine said, I never heard the terms of the settlement. It was certainly true that the next time I had occasion to call Grieves’s office, the secretarial voice that answered my call was not Joelani’s.
The grapevine burped and glitched some more. Johnnie Wong, it said, had become a starving artist. Jo Lauanui had not only moved in with him in his studio—if you could call the tar-paper shack in which they lived a studio—but was supporting him on her settlement from Jeffrey Grieves. And, a malicious addendum which at the time I totally rejected, was controlling and directing his life.
From then on, the grapevine had nothing more to say concerning Johnnie Wong.
