散文:Zeritsky's Law

It is often said that cats have nine lives, that they are lucky enough to escape from danger again and again. Here is a science fiction tale about how one such lucky escape by a cat led to a discovery that was able to change the course of people's lives. The problems stemming from the discovery also make interesting reading.

ZERITSKY'S LAW

Ann Griffith

Somebody someday will make a study of the influence of animals on history. Among them, Mrs. Graham's cat should certainly be included in any such study. It has now been definitely established that the experiences of this cat led to the idea of quick-frozen people, which, in turn, led to the passage of Zeritsky's Law.

We must go back to the files of the Los Angeles newspapers for 1950 to find the story. In brief, a Mrs. Fred C. Graham missed her pet cat on the same day that she put a good deal of food down in her home deep-freeze unit. She suspected no connection between the two events. The cat was not to be found until six days later, when its owner went to fetch something from the deepfreeze. Much as she loved her pet, we may imagine that she was more horror-than grief-stricken at her discovery. She lifted the little ice-encased body out of the deep--freeze and set it on the floor. Then she managed to run as far as the next door neighbor's house before fainting.

Mrs. Graham became hysterical 1 after she was revived, and it was several hours before she could be quieted enough to persuade anybody that she hadn't made up the whole thing. She prevailed upon her neighbor to go back to the house with her. In front of the deep-freeze they found a small pool of water, and a wet cat, busily licking itself. The neighbor subsequently told reporters that the cat was concentrating its licking on one of its hind 2 legs, where some ice still remained, so that she, for one, believed the story.

A follow-up dispatch, published a week later, reported that the cat was unharmed by the adventure. Further, Mrs. Graham was quoted as saying that the cat had had a large meal just before its disappearance 3; that as soon after its rescue as it had dried itself off, it took a long nap, precisely 4 as it always did after a meal; and that it was not hungry again until evening. It was clear from the accounts that the life processes had been stopped dead in their tracks, and bad, after defrosting, resumed at exactly the point where they left off.

Perhaps it is unfair to pull all the responsibility on one luckless cat. Had such a thing happened anywhere else in the country, it would have been talked about, believed by a few, disbelieved by most, and forgotten. But it happened in Los Angeles. There, and probably only there, the event was anything but forgotten; the principles it revealed became the basis of a hugely successful business.

How shall we regard the Zeritsky Brothers? As archvillains or pioneers? In support of the latter view, it must be admitted that the spirit of inquiry 5 and the willingness to risk the unknown were indisputably theirs. However, their pioneering -- if we agree to call it that -- was, equally indisputably, bound up with the quest for a fast buck 6.

Some of their first clients paid as high as $15,000 for the initial freezing, and the exorbitant 7 rate of $1,000 per year as a storage charge. The Zeritsky Brothers owned and managed one of the largest quick-freezing plants in the world, and it was their claim that converting the freezing equipment and storage facilities to accommodate humans was extremely expensive, hence the high rates.

When the early clients who paid these rates were defrosted years later, and found other clients receiving the same services for as little as $3,000, they threatened a row and the Zeritskys made substantial refunds 8. By that time they could easily afford it, and since any publicity 9 about their enterprise was unwelcome to them, all refunds were made without a whimper. $3,000 became the standard rate, with $100 per year the storage charge, and no charge for defrosting.

The Zeritskys were businessmen, first and last. Anyone who had the fee could put himself away for whatever period of time he wished, and no questions asked, The ironclad rule was that full payment had to be made in advance.

Criminals were the first to apply for quick-freezing, and formed the mainstay of the Zeritskys' business through the years. What more easy than to rob, hide the loot (except for that all-important advance payment), present yourself to the Zeritskys and remain in their admirable chambers 10 for five or ten years, emerge to find the hue 11 and cry long since died down and the crime forgotten, recover your haul and live out your life in luxury?

Due to the shady character of most of their patrons, the Zeritskys kept all records by a system of numbers. Name never appeared on the books, and anonymity 12 was guaranteed.

Law enforcement agents, looking for fugitives 13 from justice, found no way to break down this system, nor any law which they could interpret as making it illegal to quick-freeze. Perhaps the truth is that they did not search too diligently 14 for a law that could be made to apply. As long as the Zeritskys kept things quiet and did not advertise or attract public attention, they could safely continue their bizarre business.

City officials of Los Angeles, and particularly members of the police force, enjoyed a period of unparalleled prosperity. Lawyers and other experts who thought they were on the track of legal means by which to liquidate 15 the Zeritsky empire found themselves suddenly able to buy a ranch 16 or a yacht or both, and retire forever from the arduous 17 task of earning a living.

Even with a goodly part of the population of Los Angeles as permanent pensioners 18, the Zeritsky fortune grew to incredible proportions. By the time the Zeritsky Brothers died and left the business to their sons, it was a gold mine, and an inexhaustible one at that.

Next to criminals, the majority of people who applied 19 for quick-freezing seem to have been husbands or wives caught in insupportable marital 20 situations. Their experiences were subsequently written up in the confession 21 magazines. It was usually the husband who fled to Los Angeles and incarcerated 22 himself for an appropriate number of years, at the end of which time his unamiable spouse 23 would have died or made other arrangements. If we can believe the magazines, this scheme worked out very well in most cases.

The sins of the fathers may be visited on the sons, but how often we see repeated the old familiar pattern of the sons destroying the lifework of the fathers! The Zeritsky Brothers were fanatically meticulous 24. They supervised every detail of their operations, and kept their records with an elaborate system of checks and doublechecks. They were shrewd enough to realize that complete dependability was essential to their business. A satisfied Zeritsky client was a silent client. One dissatisfied client would be enough to blow the business apart.

The sons, in their greed, over-expanded to the point where they could not, even among the four of them, personally supervise each and every detail. A fatal mistake was bound to occur sooner or later. When it did, the victim broadcast his grievance 25 to the world.

The story appeared in a national magazine, every copy of which was sold an hour after it appeared on the stands. Under the title They Put the Freeze on Me! John A. Monahan told his tragic 26 tale. At the age of 37, he had fallen desperately 27 in love with a girl of 16. She was immature 28 and frivolous 29 and wanted to "play around" a little more before she settled down.

"She told me," he wrote, "to come back in five years, and that stared me thinking. In five year I'd be 42, and what would a girl of 21 want with a man twice as old as her?"

John Monahan moved in circles where the work of the Zeritskys was well known. Not only did he see an opportunity of being still only 37 when his darling reached 21, but he foresaw a painless way of passing the years which he must endure without her. Accordingly, he presented himself for the deep-freeze, paid his $3000 and the $500 storage charge in advance, and left, he claimed, "written instructions to let me out in five years, so there'd he no mistakes."

Nobody knows how the slip happened, but somehow John A. Monahan, or rather the number assigned to him, was entered on the books for 25 years instead of five years. Upon being defrosted, and discovering that a quarter of a century had elapsed, his rage was awesome 30. Along with everything else, his love for his sweetheart had been perfectly 31 preserved, but she had given up waiting for him and was a happy mother of two boys and six girls.

Monahan's accusation 32 that the Zeritskys had "ruined his life" may be taken with a grain of salt. He was still a young man, and the rumor 33 that he got a hundred thousand for the magazine rights to his story was true.

As most readers are aware, what has come to be known as "Zeritsky's law" was passed by Congress and signed by the President three days after Monahan's story broke.

Seventy-five years after Mrs. Graham's cat feel into the freezer, it became he law of the land that the mandatory 34 penalty for anyone applying quick-freezing methods to any living thing, human or animal, was death. Also, all quick-frozen people were to be defrosted immediately.

Los Angeles papers reported that beginning on the day Monahan's story appeared, men by the thousands poured into the city. They continued to come, choking every available means of transport, for the next two days -- until, that is, Zerisky's Law went through.

When we consider the date, and remember that due to the gravity of the international situation, a bill had just been passed drafting all men from 16 to 60, we realize why Congress had to act.

The Zeritskys, of course, were among the first to be taken. Because of their experience, they were put in charge of a military warehouse 35 for dehydrated foods, and warned not to get any ideas for a new business.