Eye to Eye: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective Read Online Free PDF Page A

house many years
later from a lifetime accumulation of book royalties and other
unneeded earnings. Ditto, with regard to the art collection, though
a substantial number of the objects came as gifts from friends and
"disciples" who knew of his passion for art and could not pass up a
good buy on his behalf.
    And I guess the guy had a
bunch of admirers. According to Jennifer Harrel, the man was
practically a saint. "There is no way," she told me, "to even begin
to calculate the impact Isaac has had on the advancement of
science. Not so much that he's such a great scientist, though he's
certainly no slouch in that department, but because he is such a
tremendous person. His influence on several generations of students
and young scientists is simply incalculable."
    Seems that he had a habit of taking on not
only the educational thirsts of young aspirants but very often
their physical sustenance, as well.
    "He fed the multitudes," is the way Jen put
it.
    Jen, yeah. We had progressed way beyond the
formalities of rank even before we quit the bubbly waters of the
Jacuzzi. Have you ever made love with a total stranger and noticed
how easily and quickly postures and pretenses evaporate between
delightfully polarized bodies? It's true. Sexual intimacy is the
quickest route to absolute honesty. We should all think about that,
maybe, while we take another look at our social institutions and
wonder if we've gone about things all wrong. Maybe our politicians
and business leaders should shake cocks instead of hands—and, you
know, just don't be intimidated by all the talk of latent
homosexuality; let it all hang out for awhile and see where it
takes us. You know, like, "Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Jones, and
what great tits you've got"— "Thank you, Mr. Smith; while you were
admiring my tits, I was noticing the exciting bulge in your
pants."
    That's honesty, see. Cuts through all the
phoney baloney and puts human relationships on a candid footing, at
least. A suffering world weeps for candor.
    Anyway, yes, we had
progressed to first names and total intimacy then on to pet names
and intimate frenzy; after all that, what's a little candor? I told
Jen the whole dissolute story of my life, including the bit about
being conceived on the backseat of an automobile—wherefrom came the
"family name"—great-grandpappy was an admiral, you see, an Ashton
of the South Carolina line; and "son of a gun" is an ancient naval
term denoting illegitimate children conceived under the guns of the
old sailing vessels in the days when women went down to the sea in
ships as well as men, and, or course, things have always been the
same between the sexes; there were a lot of sons of guns in those
days. My own mother, never at a loss for wit, thought of me as a
"son of the Ford" and that's the way it went on my birth
certificate. Jen thought it a charming story and idly wondered how
many sons of telescopes and Bunsen burners were being born in these
days of sexual equality, then went totally candid and related to me
her "first orgasm with a man," experienced in the shadow of the
200-inch telescope at Mt. Palomar.
    "Astronomy is primarily a nighttime science,
you know," she added. "And the atmosphere for sexual seduction is
just darned near-perfect."
    So much, I was thinking, for hallowed halls,
but not for long, because her little story, I guess, stirred both
of us again and we sort of abandoned everything else for another go
at pure physical candor.
    An hour or so later, while we lay in
blissfully exhausted contemplation of the city lights spread before
us like a lush carpet of sparkling jewels, Jen found the minimal
articulation required to tell me about Mary Ann Cunningham. "There
is a connection," she said in a whispery voice. "I didn't know her
personally. Not sure I actually saw her, before today. But I knew
that she came to Isaac about six months ago and told him she was
dropping all her classes for awhile, maybe forever. She was
pregnant. One of those chance