by John Sladek
‘Oughta be locked up,’ said Dr Smith, washing his hands. ‘Adopting a robot –’
‘Well to cut a long story, that’s what it was. A little gadget like a robot only looks more like a bitty tank. Kind of a let-down, thought maybe somebody was shipping a kid to them or, anyway, while I was waiting, that’s when it happened. Ma had this plate of chocolate-chip cookies setting there. I just sort of helped myself and that’s when my bridge –’
‘What, nutshells or –?’
‘Hee hee, no that’s the funny thing. Nuts and bolts! Them cookies was just chock full of nuts and bolts! I swear!’
‘You oughta sue ’em. They oughta be locked –’
‘My own fault, hee hee, I mean Ma never told me to dig in – nuts and bolts! Thought I’d seen everything, but nuts and –’
*
The first day was one problem after another. The boy (or girl, Ma insisted) had been chirping away to itself inside the box, but once they brought it out it shut up for the rest of the day. Oh, it might make a sort of frightened whimper, say when they showed it the chess-board, or say when Pa took it in the workshop and tried to get it interested in hammering.
Finally they put it to bed, Ma told it a story and they plugged it in for its evening recharge and tiptoed downstairs.
‘There’s some instructions in the box,’ Ma said. ‘Maybe we need to read up on him (or her). Maybe we’ve been going at this all wrong.’
‘He’s in bad shape, I know that.’
‘Or she is.’
‘Dents in his head, scotch tape around his neck – and his treads are all full of dirt. Think I’ll fix him up tomorrow.’
They spread the instructions on the dining table and tried to read them. After some time Pa started working his jaw, settling his teeth the way he always did when he was perplexed.
‘You’re tired,’ she suggested.
‘All this stuff about buses and data highways, contented addresses is it? Makes it sound like a traffic report.’ He looked up. ‘Awful quiet in here.’
‘Listen, what counts is that little Roderick or Roderica is ours, our own child.’
‘Fine, only what do we know about children? Here everybody in town’s been calling us Ma and Pa for years, bet most of ’em don’t even remember it’s short for Paul and Mary, that we never had a child. Do you think –?’
‘No more thinking tonight, okay?’
‘No but do you think we’re doing the right thing here? Maybe we’re too old for adopting a –’
‘Too old! Why the Queen of Spain was adopted by fairies fifty thousand years older than the world!’
‘That a fact.’
Upstairs, Roderick began to scream.
Suffering Cats, the numbers were after him, barbed 1 and hooked 2 and 3 clattering its pincers before 4’s fork and 5’s terrible sickle with 6 the noose swinging around for 9 beyond the deadly hammer and the handcuff … ‘That’s right, Rod, will you keep all the money you’ve won so far or move up to the Hundred-Dollar Questions? Fine, pick a number from 1 to 10, you picked 3 so here goes: Alamagordo is in New Mexico, right? And the Alhambra is in Spain, right? Now, for one hundred dollars, tell me: Just how did you kill Hank?’
‘That’s easy. Alcatraz is a former island prison, Al Capone is a former gangster, why is everybody looking at me like that? It was self-defence, you all saw him go for his gun first, I mean when he missed me with his 7 (I guess I was just lucky that one didn’t have my number on it) and his head was right there in reach I guess I just automatically pasted him with this wrench youda done the same, everybody’s got a right to protect his own property – I was just protecting Hank’s property, judge.’
Without even waiting to hear how he’d made his getaway (climbing into a crate and nailing down the lid from inside) the judge ordered him hanged by the neck until dead, dead, dead, 3 times 6 maybe but still ends up as nothing, the dot o in the middle of the screen o when they turn you off by remote control in the middle of the most important message of your life: ‘Where is that Roderick? Where is that dad-blamed Roderick?’
IV
‘Heads,’ said Pa, ‘are wonderful things. Nobody should be without one.’ He brought down the hammer on Roderick’s head, with a sound that carried out of the garage and over to Dr Smith’s house, where the pink hands of the dentist made a convulsive movement and changed TV channels.
Roderick stood on Pa’s work-bench, watching the old man bash dents into smoothness. ‘My head gets dents.’
‘All the same, heads are wonderful things. Do you know, you can get almost anything into a head. You can think about a house in Chicago – though no one ever did – and at the same time you can think about thinking about that house. “Here I am,” your head says, “thinking a thought about a house. And thinking a thought about a thought, and so on.” And even while your head thinks that, you see, it’s giving the old thought-handle another turn … dents, eh? Dents. Yes, well you know the way we take out a dent? We put one in the other side. We dent the dent. Then if it still ain’t smooth, we dent that dent too, and so on. Seems like so much of life is just denting the dents in the dents …’
He stopped hammering and sat down. ‘Not so young any more, Roderick. You can only dent so many dents and the metal gets tired, you know that? People get tired just the same, hammering away, trying to smooth out the world you might say. Well no, you wouldn’t say that, but I might.’
The room was full of Mayflies this morning. Roderick watched one land on Pa’s hand and sit quietly until Pa picked it up and held it to the light. ‘Too tired, see? This one won’t make it.’
He moved it close to Roderick’s eyes. ‘Wings like little lenses, see? Like for reading fine print. Funny thing about these Mayflies, they only live about a day, but they have thousands and thousands of children. See, they have children inside them when they’re born. And those children have other children inside them, and –’
‘And so on?’
‘Good boy.’
While Pa rested, Roderick thought about Mayflies, thought about thinking about Mayflies. The radio was advising them to fill up that shoeshine balloon, but he hardly noticed.
‘It’s like half-ies,’ he said finally.
‘Like what, son?’
‘A game I play sometimes. In the dark. You take half of it, and then half of a half, and then half of the half of the half and and and, and so on. To see how close you get to nothing. To zilch. To Maggie’s drawers.’
Pa smiled. ‘Don’t let Ma hear you using words like that. She don’t care much for TV talk, zilch and all.’
‘So I don’t,’ said Ma, coming in through a cloud of Mayflies. ‘I don’t even like the expression TV, tedious voice, truncated vision, turning the whole blessed world into morons, teleological void – My! Look at all the wingèd green fairies in here!’
Ma showed him how to paint, or at least she showed him the paper and the colours and told him stories while he tried them out. Roderick worked away to the story of the cigarette girl who loved a bullfighter:
‘Once she’d been a real girl, you see, but a wicked magician turned her into tobacco and Sir Walter Raleigh took her back to Spain. She languished four hundred years in a deep dark dungeon while her lover searched all over Louisiana …’
He produced a small purple square in the middle of the great white sheet of paper. His second painting was the same, but smaller.
‘Minimalist, eh? Interesting, but hmmm. … I think you need to look at other people’s work a little, now where was I? Oh yes, every night he knelt before her picture and asked the gods to help find her. And the kneeling made his knee wear out, so he had to keep this banjo on it all the time, there’s another song about that too …’
Windows were better than TV. There was always something going on. At first he’d been afraid to sit by the back window because of the dangerous plants, friggin’ violets in pots that might break any minute and anyway looked like hairy tarantulas.
But all the windows ha
d action: the mailman bringing bills, a car breaking down and getting a tow from the white truck (C-L-E-M-’-S spelled Clem’s Body Shop), old Violetta Stubbs walking her cat, Dr Smith swearing at his wife as he ran out and jumped in his blue car, a dog peeing on a maple tree, (trees make W-O-O-D which is just like Ma’s and Pa’s name but not like would you like to hear the story of Zadig the engineer?), and one day a big deal when the sheriff and two men from the County Hell Department came to take away the big toilet and Ma called them Phyllis Teens and Pa said would they like to take away the bill for that skullchair too, and Ma cried and said what was wrong with a bird-bath for rooks anyway, and Pa shouted and Dr Smith came out and laughed and Pa shouted at him too and said he’d like to kill a hundred Phyllis Teens if somebody would give him a dentist’s jawbone.
But the best part of windows was that you could go right outside and be in the picture yourself.
‘Sure it’s okay,’ said Pa. ‘The kid knows his name and address, he knows he must not go out in the street. Why not?’
‘Yes of course. A boy or girl needs fresh air and sun – though there are a few ferocious dogs in town. But of course he must. Of course.’
But from the back yard, Roderick could see their anxious faces peering at him through the friggin’ violets. They watched him rake a stick along the ground, stop to examine a petrified dog turd, dig a tiny hole (which he tried to make square) and squint at the sun through a shard of bottle-glass.
After a few days of this, they finally relaxed and let him go unwatched. Unwatched. he relaxed and played.
Pa had told him about this Achilles and this tortoise, a story worth trying out. He was Achilles and a stone was the tortoise:
‘Okay you’re a hundred feet ahead of me when we start the race, only I run ten times as fast as you. Okay now I’ve gone the hundred feet and catched up, only – there – you’ve moved on ten more feet. Okay now I go ten you go one. Okay now I go one and you go a tenth. Okay now I –’
‘Whatcha doing?’
A small person was following behind him, stopping when he stopped. ‘It’s a game. Like half-ies, only –’
‘Whatcher name?’
‘I’m Roderick Wood. I live at 614 Sycamore Avenue, but I’m not lost.’
‘Ha ha, I’m not lost neither. I’m Judy Smith.’
‘Hello.’
‘Hi. You look dumb to me.’
‘I’m not dumb.’
‘Hahaha, you are so. You’re a dumb dummy and your Pa works at a dumb dummy factory. You don’t know nothing.’
‘I know everything. Almost.’ He thought. ‘I know how to play jess.’
‘Chest, that’s nothing. Can you play hopscotch? Bet you can’t even hop.’ She demonstrated.
‘You’re right, I can’t hop.’ His arms sagged.
‘So you’re nothing but a dumb dummy.’
‘Guess I am.’
‘You don’t know nothing.’
He brightened. ‘Nobody knows nothing. Because there ain’t no such thing as nothing. Just half-ies and half-ies …’
‘Let’s play something. Chest maybe. You show me your chest and I’ll show you mine. Like doctors.’
‘Okay I’ll get a board and some pieces –’
‘Naw, come on. I’ll show you.’ She seized his claw and dragged him around the corner of a hedge. ‘Okay, now you be the microelectronic life-support system and I’ll be the chief neurosurgeon …’
When Judy got tired of doctors Roderick went off to explore the rest of the block. On one corner there was a gas station with interesting rainbows in the puddles and men who chased you away.
On another corner there was The Gifte Shoppe, run by Miss Violetta Stubbs. She sold greetings for all occasions, 30 pictures of the President, plates with gold edges saying NEWER, NEBR, THE BIGGEST LITTLE TOWN IN THE MIDWEST, little glass gazelles, hand-lettered cards like those in Pa’s workshop, paper doilies, magnetic pens you could stick to the dashboard of your car, silk scarves (NEWER, NEBR., THE BIGGEST etc.) and lots of other stuff, but when she found out you weren’t buying anything she chased you away. On another corner there was a house with a fence and a big dog inside, and on the last corner there was a mailbox and a man standing on one leg.
‘I can stand on one leg longer than you,’ said the man.
‘Sure. I ain’t got no legs.’
‘Oh yeah.’ The man scratched his head (this made him fall over). ‘I can stand on the other leg even longer.’
Roderick extended a claw. ‘My name’s Roderick Wood.’
‘Hi. I’m Louie. They call me Louie Honk-Honk.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m funny in the head I guess. I don’t know. If I knew, maybe I wouldn’t be funny. Hey, sit down why don’t you?’
Roderick said, ‘I can’t sit down.’
‘Can’t sit down! No legs! Heck and darn – I suppose you ain’t got any candy, either?’
‘Nope. Never use it.’
‘Better for your teeth, huh?’
‘No teeth either.’
Louie’s bad teeth showed in the gaping mouth. ‘No teeth! Wow! You’re worser off than me!’
‘But I’m not funny in the head – hey look, I’m sorry. Don’t cry, hey.’
Louie smiled through his tears. ‘Boy I’d like to show ’em! You know what I’d like to do? I’d like to go over to Howdy Doody Lake – you never been there? It’s nice – and I’d pick some flowers and throw them in, see? Then I’d throw some kid in!’
‘Didn’t I see that in this movie, Louie?’
‘Yeah I seen it too. Boy, they wouldn’t think I’m funny then. Only I wouldn’t drownd the kid, I’d pull ’em out again. Because if you drownd somebody that’s murder. They get detectives after you.’ Louie picked his nose, tasted the result. ‘Sometimes I think they got detectives after me anyways.’
‘How come? Did you drownd somebody?’
‘No! Never did! Never did! Only oncet I seen these two men in front of my house, sitting in this truck, see? Just sitting there, all day. All day long.’
‘I wonder why?’
‘I don’t know.’ After trying the other nostril, Louie said, ‘I wish I was real rich. Real rich. Then I’d pay these detectives to find out stuff for me. To find out – everything. Like what it says in books. And, and how come I’m funny in the head – everything. Ev-er-y-thing!’
That evening Ma and Pa sat at the dining-table, elbow-deep in quadruplicate forms.
‘I didn’t know adoption could be such a tricky business, Mary. Swann says it could take years, too, without no birth-certificate and with the –’
‘Listen to this: “Item 54. Gross readjusted excludable income not including net excludable tax adjustments included in item 51a” – what in the world do they mean, including the excludable?’
‘Money’s gonna be a problem too, already cashed my life insurance to pay Swann’s retainer – somebody’s at the door.’
The screen door cracked open and two men stumbled in: Sheriff Benson and Dr Smith. They seemed to be arguing.
‘Now Doc, hold on, you had no right to bust down that door, hold on just hold on.’
‘Getthatmthrfkn – Leggo, leggo!’
Pa said, ‘What is this? You know we never lock that door –’
Dr Smith shook a mottled pink fist.
The sheriff spoke: ‘Half outa his mind, Pa, I’m real sorry about that. Seems he thinks your little uh robot’s been assaulting on his girl Judy.’
‘Roderick? He’s upstairs in the land of recharge – in bed I mean. What do you mean, assaulted?’
Dr Smith grabbed his shirt-front. ‘What the fuck do you think I mean? That fucking dirty-filthy machine was out in your back yard this afternoon, playing slimy sex-games with my daughter! Bring him down here! Now! I want the sheriff to see that thing smashed into a million cock-sucking pieces!’
The sheriff separated them and forced Smith into a chair. ‘Now sit there and shut up till I find out what happened.’
/> ‘I know what happened, Judy told me what hap –’
‘Button it, Doc.’ Sheriff Benson was a gaunt, weary-looking man with rotten teeth. He sucked them to punctuate sentences.
‘Well we got the report this afternoon. Miz Violetta Stubbs seen what happened from her back porch and called me. I’da been out here sooner only – hey, you know they got a new game show on, Channel 58, this one gal won a Rolls-Royce you know all she had to do –’
‘Get to the point!’ Dr Smith kneaded his fists together.
‘– just name six vegetables, simple, huh? Anyways like I say Miz Violetta seen your little robot and his little Judy playing it looked like doctors. Soooo … wonder if I might have a word with the little uh, okay?’
‘I’ll get him,’ said Ma. ‘Only keep that maniac away from him.’ She went to the stairs and paused. ‘Or her,’ she said.
Benson sucked his teeth. Just what I was thinking. You know, Doc, this case – there ain’t no precedent. I mean, if this robot was a live girl I know you wouldn’t care two hoots, if it was a live boy I guess we could settle it without much fuss too. But this robot ain’t got a sex – has it?’
‘Don’t try to cover up for them, Benny, goddamnit I know what I know. That thing –’
‘Sit down, Doc. Now looky here, this thing’s no bigger than a good-sized breadbox – reminds me of a game show where they – no, but look at him. Doc? You want me to prefer assault charges against that bitty thing?’
Ma carried him down. ‘Is it morning? Is hello, Sheriff, did you bring back our toilet?’
‘Set him on the table here Ma, now listen uh son, I want to ask you a coupla questions, you know what the truth is?’
‘Sure like in truth tables, like if you ask me three questions I could answer them eight different wa –’