Carnegie on trial

Over the next few weeks, I (Jenny Trevino, IVAN Library’s Librarian) will be posting a series of short stories I wrote for my former employer’s Writing Club. In this one, I had the idea of making Andrew Carnegie answer for his sins. Reading through it, now, it seems more than a bit heavy-handed, but we were only given about twenty minutes for these prompts (I think this one was “involve a time machine”)...

Carnegie on trial

It should have been a quiet Sunday.

He knew he wasn’t dreaming because he was already awake when it happened, up and out of bed and dealing with a wet sock from having stepped into a teacup he had left on the floor the night before. That wouldn’t have happened in a dream. Now he stood in his nightshirt and bare feet upon what seemed to be a very low-pile carpet, which covered the entire floor.

Many things about the room around him were familiar. Despite the strangeness of the light fixture and the inscrutable black square on the dresser, the bland furnishings and overflowing suitcase suggested they were in a hotel.

“Mr. Carnegie, hi.”

A young woman approached him. Her attire was so immodest that he could barely look at her, but she seemed unashamed. She held a small slab of black glass, attached by a black wire to a humming box decorated with blinking lights. She laid this aside and offered her hand.

“I am Madison Michaelson. Welcome to the year 2020, and the American Library Association conference. Would you mind putting these on?” She passed him a set of bright orange pyjamas.

Before he could stammer out a response, there was a knock at the door. Madison smiled at him reassuringly, then went to answer it. A second young lady entered the room. She took one look at him and began laughing hysterically.

“Ashley, you have got to relax. Take care of Mr Carnegie while i go and get Mr. Dewey.”

“Melvil Dewey?” Carnegie interrupted.

“See, I told you they knew each other. Everything is fine! Get him dressed while i do this.”

She picked up the device and began tapping its surface. Carnegie was looking at Ashley when Madison disappeared. Ashley gave a little scream and once again dissolved in giggles. She seemed to be several years younger than Madison, and Carnegie feared she might have slipped her tether, as it were. He began edging toward the door.

“WAIT!” She shouted, holding up a hand. “Get back here and get dressed, Mister. This will all be over in just a couple of hours and we can both move on with our lives, ok?”

“American Library Association, did she say?”

“Yes, the Annual Conference. Madison is determined to make Mover and Shaker this year.”

“This year. The year 2020.”

“Yes, we brought you here with our time machine. We’ll, my sister’s time machine. We made it in the makerspace.”

“And where is your sister now?”

“Remember Shakespeare?”

“Of course.”

“Not for long! She became obsessed with the authorship question and it looks like she busted him. The entire 822.33 section has disappeared.”

“What?”

Ashley and Carnegie turned back toward Madison, now flanked on her left by a very confused Melvil Dewey.

“Get away from her, you pervert!” Carnegie spit at Dewey.

Ashley laughed again while Madison slapped her temple.

“Dang, I should have picked Carnegie up in 1901. He’s right, though, Ashley. Be careful around that one.”

She turned to address the men.

“Look, ya’ll don’t have to like each other for this to work. Just go out there and be your usual selves and everything will be awesome.”

“Out where?”

“Down to our session. We’re having a mock trial. You’re the defendants.”

“He’s the pervert! I didn’t do anything! I was on your side!”

“Oh you’re not charged with the same thing he is. You’re charged with sabotage.”

“Of what?”

“Your own legacy, that’s what, and with it half of the rhetoric we need to save our jobs.“

“What is your job?”

“Public library director!”

“I’m sorry, did you say director?” Dewey guffawed.

“Shut up, perv. Put your scrubs on.”

The two men began dressing.

“Can you tell me a little more about what you mean, my dear?”

“Save it, buddy, you’ll have plenty of time to defend yourself once we get down there. Ashley, where’s our bailiff?”

“He’s meeting us down there.”

“How are we supposed to get through the lobby escorting two guys in convict clothes?”

“Pretend it's 2013 and they’re cosplaying a gender-flipped Alex and Piper?”

“That could work. Ok lets go.”

Carnegie could hardly believe his eyes as they made their way down to the auditorium. It was indeed 2020. People of all races chatted amongst themselves in the common areas, while many more hugged the walls, tapping the little slabs of glass that Madison had used to operate the time machine. That blasted Dewey was openly leering, and slowed their progress with his repeated attempts to greet the multitudes of young ladies that filled the corridors.

When they reached the auditorium, they were met by a dozen or so juveniles, around Ashley’s age. They greeted Carnegie and Dewey with stunned silence. Finally one of them spoke.

“Whoa. These look like the real guys.”

“They’re just actors, hannah. Aidan found them through his agent.”

“Is Aidan coming?”

“Not to this, but he’ll be at the reception tonight.”

“We’re not 21 though.”

“Be cool and I’ll say you are.”

“Really??”

“Yes, now get into character, prosecutor.”

Madison got everyone into their places, and the mock trial commenced. Mr. Dewey was dispensed with quite quickly, with the help of Carnegie, who insisted on acting as witness. Madison actually kind of liked the old dude, but Mover and Shaker was on the line. Hannah was doing great, but Ashley was indisputably overstimulated. Madison gently grabbed her elbow and delicately wrestled her backstage.

“Ashley, sweetie, are you ok?”

“It’s just,” Ashley started, then burst into tears.

“I miss my sister!” she wailed. “This is wrong! We never should have done this. We should be helping her right now!”

“Ashley, we do not have time for this.”

“How can you put some award hardly anyone’s heard of over the entire works of Shakespeare?”

“Who?”

“See! You let Shakespeare disappear! How can you not see that we should be in Early Modern England right now, cleaning this up? Emma is clearly in over her head.”

“I told, you-- we’ll go tomorrow. I’m going to call Aidan to come and pick you up and take you on a nice long tour of Chicago.”

“You’re just trying to keep me away from the device! You’re a psychopath,” Ashley whispered, through gritted teeth.

“I prefer creative.”

“You’re a thief!”

“I’m not a thief, I’m just really good at acquiring things that aren’t mine.”

Fortunately, Aidan was in the vicinity, as he depended on Uber for income, despite having the number eight hot adult alternative single. She was back out front in time for the prosecution’s examination of Carnegie. Ashley was still going strong.

“Did you or did you not say the following: ‘in America, anyone with access to books and the desire to learn could educate him- or herself and be successful,’ and “it was from my own early experience that I decided there was no use to which money could be applied so productive of good to boys and girls who have good within them and ability and ambition to develop it, as the founding of a public library in a community?’”

“I did.”

“And did you refer to the public library as ‘a ladder upon which [people] can only ascend by doing the climbing themselves.’”

“Again, yes, i did say those things and i stand by them.”

“What about people who don’t want to climb? What about people without the desire to learn? What about people with good in them but no ambition to develop it? How can you be so callous?”

“You can’t help people who won’t help themselves.”

“What if it’s not their fault they won’t help themselves?”

“I am sure sometimes it isn’t, but how do you drink for that horse, even if you bring him water in a dipper?”

“Don’t you understand how harmful that rhetoric is?”

“I’m, sorry, what rhetoric?”

“The myth of the deserving poor! Everyone should be deserving!” Ashley screeched, about to lose it completely.

”Young lady, your problem is not with Andrew Carnegie. It’s with meritocracy.”

“Yes!” Hannah shouted. “It is!

“Well then, let’s put meritocracy on trial. I’ll be a witness for the defense.”

“Yes!” Madison squealed.

So that’s what they did.

Carnegie’s footstone with coins left by visitors