What? I never told the fire drill story? It goes back to when I was a little boy -- a terrified first grader. Back then I always did exactly as told. On the one hand, I was too scared of the consequences to try otherwise; on the other I was taught to believe in the system.

And so it was on a typical cloudy weekday that the school conducted a fire drill, something we’d done so many times before. The bells clanged and we filed out of our classroom into the hallway and to the stairs. As I reached the stairhead I heard the booming voice of the other first-grade teacher: she stood arms-crossed and mannish in her early-70s pants-suit, glaring from the bottom landing, yelling at the students who marched down toward her:

“No running!" she bellowed impatiently. "Walk! Don’t run!”

And so I walked: very carefully, fully in her view, stepping down onto each stair tread deliberately, gently -- walking, not running.
And her eyes followed me. And she put her hands on her hips. With indignation she spoke:

“Oh, and look at Mr. Mastandrea, just strolling down the stairs like nothing’s going on.” I may have thought she was complimenting me until she leaned into my face and roared: “C’mon! Move it!”

Terrorized anew, I broke into a gallop that took me out the main door and onto the gloomy Brooklyn sidewalk, running as fast as I dared to run. Yes, running.

And I was much confused... I’d done what I’d been told... as usual... as required. And yet... and yet.

I clung to my belief in the system for several more years, despite that first flicker of insight -- that vague skepticism that would haunt me for years. I was not quite ready to admit it, but even then I had sufficient evidence to suspect, if not actually conclude, that the system was indeed fundamentally flawed.

Everything that followed was merely confirmation of that suspicion.