Variation on a Theme, Book 6
Copyright© 2024 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 129: Ethical Considerations
Tuesday, April 22, 1986
Today was, by and large, a quiet day. Tomorrow would be crazier simply because we had to turn in our class requests.
I did get some feedback that things might become a tiny bit crazy, anyway. We had four football players turning up in various classes. The standout for me was Kip Corrington, who was taking the Poly Sci class Jas and I were taking. Apparently, ‘Democratic Theory’ had enough crossover with Philosophy that it would work in his degree plan. That meant we would have someone whose name I’d known before I went to A&M — and not because I knew them — in a study group.
He wasn’t necessarily ‘destined for great things,’ but enough. One more contact in a world full of them.
Amusingly, both Cal and Andy were trying to get into our Technical Writing session. If that worked out, it would be the first time I’d been in a class with them in years. We would have to schedule meetings around the football practice schedule. Not that Technical Writing required the same sort of study group as many classes, but there would be things to go over. More importantly, peer reviews of each other’s writing would matter.
I had some sympathy for the professor. We might be one of the stronger groups to ever sign up for the same class session. That was good, but it also probably meant trouble, if perhaps of the good kind.
Another letter from Sting’s office arrived. This one contained a phone number to order VIP tickets, complete with a code that would let us purchase them at the usual price. Unexpectedly (though perhaps we should have expected it), it also gave us a booking code at the Grand Hyatt New York. It wasn’t especially close to Giants Stadium, but maybe it was a good fit for the celebrities that would be attending (and performing) at the concert. We would certainly be fine with it, anyway.
It wasn’t entirely clear to any of us if we would be staying in a section of the hotel where the celebrities were staying, but it seemed possible that we were. If true, that would be somewhat hilarious and also pretty amazing.
Cammie and Mel were still on the fence about going, but were edging closer to it. So were Laura and Jess, as far as I knew.
Jas and Paige also got letters. They were from the bank and confirmed that they were approved for cards. Those should appear in the mail in the next few days.
They exchanged high-fives, then hugs.
Mel was taking notes. She didn’t have a card yet, but was planning on getting one soon. Her case was more complicated because she didn’t have the bank balances Jas or Paige had. At the same time, though, she was an officer in Camel, and Camel was doing great financially. That should matter. Hopefully, anyway.
Paige and I wound up putting off her night for a while. There wasn’t a schedule, and we agreed that maybe she should surprise me rather than vice versa. Or maybe not. At this point, whatever we did would be something of a surprise, I thought.
Wednesday, April 23, 1986
In a relatively rare bit of continuity, the system for submitting class requests was the same as last semester’s. However, there were signs up announcing an all-new system next fall. It might actually be better. There would apparently be an option to submit class requests by phone via an automated system. I would happily do that. Unless it turned out to be impossible to get through, anyway.
We waited through the inevitable lines, which weren’t that bad, and submitted our requests. As before, it would be a while before we found out if we’d gotten the sections we wanted, but doing everything a semester offset from the ‘official’ pattern continued to be working in our favor. There might be fewer sections offered for the courses we wanted, but they also weren’t in nearly as much demand.
We talked some about PROMISE later in the day. Prom season started this weekend. Angie and Paige were free from PROMISE duties on Friday night, while Cammie and Mel were ‘on call’ but might not have to do much. All of them were supposed to be available on Saturday.
The next two weekends were the big ones, and all four of them needed to be available all four nights. PROMISE was a much bigger organization now, but the four of them were people who Anne and Natalie trusted to speak to anyone about anything. That wasn’t always true of some of the other volunteers. Knowing what not to say is very important when talking to the media, for instance!
Apparently, CBS was going to have a local reporter film Anne and Natalie on the night of the third. The guess was that perhaps five or ten seconds of it would actually be used. Still, it would fit right into the ‘60 Minutes’ story, I imagined.
We had an interesting split in meetings tonight. Angie and Mel were off to GSS, but neither Paige nor Cammie were joining them. All four agreed that the extra two votes might not matter.
Instead, they were joining me, Darla, Lindsay, Claire, and a bunch of the Business Brigade at an interesting meeting the Philosophy Club was hosting. The title was ‘Business Ethics: Morals or Money’. That was near and dear to all of our hearts, and Angie wanted feedback from it.
It turned out to be ‘fun enough.’ There weren’t any big insights, and people said the things I expected them to say, which amounted to ‘play nice but win,’ a slogan I associated with Michael Dell (but that I thought my Michael had yet to actually say, though maybe he had).
It’s easy to say that. I’d been taught it in yearly corporate trainings again and again over my career. It can be harder to do it. When there’s a big win out there — right there! — and all you have to do is bend one little rule just a bit to get it, maybe you bend it. If you do, you get praise and admiration. If you don’t... well, you didn’t ‘win,’ did you? No one’s patting you on the back for following the rules. They might not even know the reason you didn’t win was because of the rules.
Repeat that enough times, and you turn into someone who believes the rules only apply to other people. Or you think rules are for suckers, or for losers. It’s a slippery slope, and too many people slide right down it.
People like us might be more prone to it. I was very good at convincing myself that a little bending of the rules was just fine, after all. So was Angie. We’d done it before, and we would undoubtedly do it again. We just had to avoid doing it when it mattered. Bending Mom’s rules, or school rules, was one thing. Bending the law was entirely different.
Not that we hadn’t bent the law, but I wasn’t about to get too worked up about underage gambling. Or underage alcohol, for that matter. We had scrupulously followed the law on sex, at least, though not the law our parents might have wanted to lay down.
And that line of thinking got me off onto some other thoughts. Eventually, I wound up pretty distracted, which maybe meant it was good that the meeting itself was merely ‘fun enough’ and not something I needed to focus on.
Jas and I had some things to talk about. Not big ones, perhaps, but ... maybe they were.
When we got back, I let Jas know I had some things for later. I’m pretty sure I avoided making it the dreaded ‘we need to talk.’
Angie and Mel arrived just after we did. The big news was that Angie was, indeed, next year’s GSS president. The surprise (if it was a surprise — it surprised me, anyway) was that John was the vice president. I hadn’t known he was active at that level, but Angie was gung-ho about it, so that was good enough for me.
She didn’t plan to change anything, and was mostly hoping for a quiet year where they’d build on this year’s successes. Baker v Wade would likely hit in the middle of the summer and be a non-issue either way when classes picked back up. We knew of no other major gay rights issues to hit in the next year. I thought Reagan’s AIDS Advisory Council was probably a 1987 thing, but that was going to be at least a bit different, no matter what.
Baker v Wade might affect the 1986 elections, though. I could see some right-leaning candidates taking a ‘we need a constitutionally valid sodomy law!’ stance in state races, and we might even get some of that in federal ones. On the other hand, I could see some saying, ‘No, we need to obey the Supreme Court.’
It was already too late, in some ways. But this wasn’t likely a pivotal election at either the state or federal level. 1988 was going to be a much bigger deal nationally, obviously.
Once we headed off to bed, Jas threw her shirt at me, then said, “So. ‘We need to talk,’ eh?”
“I didn’t mean to do that,” I said.
She giggled and nodded, continuing to undress.
“You didn’t. It was just too good to pass up!”
“Good!” I said, starting to undress as well. “We can pick it up once we’re in bed. Nothing urgent.”
“I’m good with that!”
Once we were in bed and snuggling, Jas said, “Okay! Topic! Go!”
“So...” I said. “This is ... well, it started with some pondering during the meeting.”
“Which was about business ethics, right?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “And this isn’t a business thing. It’s more ... I started thinking about how likely I am to bend the rules. In business, I think that’s a bad thing, and we really shouldn’t do it. But, then, I started thinking ‘Well, I certainly bent some rules about underage sex.’ Not laws — we were always legal — but rules. And we’re bending the law about alcohol plenty enough.”
She nodded.
“Good points. But those don’t hurt anyone. Well, they do if you get drunk and fail your classes or wreck your car, but ... you know.”
“See, that’s where I started. But then I started thinking about our conversation ... um, a week ago or so. A bit more.”
She wrinkled her nose cutely, then said, “Andrew?”
“Yeah, that one. It juxtaposed with something we talked about way before that.”
“Not following, yet.”
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