by John Sladek
‘That will do.’ She tore up his drawing. ‘As usual, Roger, you disappoint me.’
‘Hey, can I ask you about this here reader? It looks kinda hard and –’
‘That will do, I said.’
Ms Beek looked as though she’d been weeping. Miss Borden, patting her arm, spoke to Captain Fest.
‘Do you really have to barge in here? I was just in the middle of a counselling sess –’
‘I’m sorry ma’am, but the damnedest thing, my binoculars are missing.’
‘Stolen?’
‘Presume so. Had ’em locked up in my desk with a few, ah, personal papers, went out in the hall to have a word with Goun, came back to find it ransacked. Everything gone. Naturally nobody in the class saw anything.’ He passed a hand through his grey crewcut.
Miss Borden looked at a stain on his sleeve. ‘Is that blood? You weren’t attacked?’
‘That? No, it’s nothing. Just interrogating one of the kids about the theft, he slipped and fell, that’s all.’
‘I see. And you were talking to Mr Goun when the robbery occurred?’
‘Wanted to see if he’s interested in joining a male teachers’ drill team, I’m trying to form a crack –’
‘Why male? Because I’m sure Miz Beek here would like –’
‘With all due respect ma’am, problem of different heights, different strides – anyway he was busy talking to that handicapped kid, Wood, wonder if maybe he doesn’t take an unhealthy interest there, always following the kid around the corridors, talking to him in corners –’
‘That’s, I asked him to assess the boy.’
‘Whew! That’s a relief, thought for a moment there … I mean you can’t be too careful about fraternization – oops, sorry Miz Beek, forgot you were here, did I –?’
‘Captain why don’t you go and fill out a form S3, so that I can get Ogilvy to work on your binoculars?’
When he’d gone she patted Ms Beek’s arm again. ‘There now, he didn’t upset you did he? Because we’ve all forgotten about that little incident, haven’t we?’
‘… forgotten …’
‘Yes I know you’re having a little trouble remembering the number of your classroom, but I just know you’ll soon be back in the swim.’
At recess, Mr Goun was waiting for him again. He was always lurking somewhere, the droopy red moustache (normally pointing to 4:37) jumping to 3:42 in a rigid smile. He always asked the same questions: did Roderick’s parents work? Did they fight a lot? Did he blame them for his handicap? What did he dream of?
Roderick made up a dream or two that put the moustache to 5:32 (and the eyebrows to 12:55).
Today they stood by the trophy case. Roderick was just saying, ‘… then there was this big decigeon tree, with instead of apples hanging on there was skulls …’ when a big hand grabbed his arm.
‘Good work, Goun, we got him this time.’ Captain Fest gave the robot a shake. ‘Here’s the trophy case, busted open and empty, and here’s the culprit. You see any of his accomplices?’
‘No look, I don’t think Roger here could’ve –’
‘No? Just look at him, guilt written all over that tin face. Let me get him alone for a minute, I’ll find out where they hid the swag. Told Miss Borden this would happen but does she listen? No, and Ogilvy our so-called security man, always off somewhere pulling his pudding …’
‘Maybe we’d better just take him to the office, Fest, straighten out this whole, I’m sure there’s some mistake.’
‘And this little bastard made it. Okay you, MARCH!’
Mr Fest gripped his arm all the way to the office, where Miss Borden told them all to sit down and get calm.
‘Now Roger,’ she said, staring down into the glass depths of his eyes. ‘I want the truth. Have you seen our school trophies?’
‘Trophies?’ he said. ‘You mean like a thing with a little silver statue of a basketball player, seven inches high and made in Hong Kong? And a disc about four inches across, that says 3rd place state spelling contest 1961? And a gold football for the all-county champs 1974?’
‘Yes, have you seen them?’
‘Nope.’
‘Ma’am you just let me get him alone for a coupla minutes –’
Goun said, ‘Give him a chance, maybe he saw them in the case?’
Roderick shook his head. ‘Nope, I never saw them at all.’
Miss Borden’s colour scheme of buff and blue was momentarily spoiled by bright spots of colour in her pale buff cheeks. ‘Young man, this is serious! If you don’t come clean with us, you’ll have to talk to the sheriff. Reform school, is that what you want?’
‘Wants the buckle end of a belt laid across his backside if you ask me. Suppose he didn’t see my binocs, either!’
‘Or my book!’
The interrogation went on for an hour before Miss Borden called the sheriff. ‘Be right over,’ she said, putting the receiver down. ‘He’s watching some game show on TV. God I hate all this! Getting the juvenile authorities in on it, we’ll all end up spending hours filling out forms – please, Roger! Please confess!’
‘But I never saw them trophies.’
‘Jesus Christ, if you never saw them trophies how do you know exactly what they look like, even the engraving, even –?’
‘Oh, easy.’ Roderick laid a shiny little lump of metal on the desk. ‘I found this by the trophy case when I was talking to Mr Goun just now. It must of broken off one of them trophies, and see? It’s a foot wearing a basketball shoe. And it looks like silver, and if you look real close you can see it says Made in Hong Kong. And the statue must be about seven inches high, right?’
Goun nodded. ‘He did pick up something while we were talking.’
‘Okay,’ said Fest. ‘But how about the rest? The spelling medal for instance? You saw the engraving –’
‘Nope. What I saw was one of the kids in Mrs Dorano’s class this morning when we were drawing trees, one of the kids hid something under their drawing, only it came out on the paper when they rubbed a crayon over it. 3rd Place, State Spelling Contest, 1961.’
‘Which kid?’ said Fest.
‘Ask Miss Dorano which kid. I don’t fink.’
‘Okay how about a full-size gold football, you don’t tell me you never saw that?’
‘Nope, never did. But in the creative activities area there’s a picture on the wall of this football team with a banner, 1974 All-County Champs. And a guy in front is holding this gold-coloured thing looks like a football only shiny. So I figured –’
Miss Borden said, ‘Jesus Christ,’ and reached for the phone.
Chauncey and Billy were beating up some littler kid. Chauncey had the kid’s hair in both hands and was using it to bash his head against the kerb. Billy stood by, kicking at the kid’s feet.
‘Hey come on, Rick, let’s get this guy!’
‘Nope. It ain’t hero-ic, picking on a littler kid. Only villains do stuff like that.’
‘Piss on you then, this is fun!’
Roderick decided the really hero-ic thing to do would be to stop them. ‘Okay, stop you guys.’
‘Piss on – ow!’
Roderick shoved Chauncey hard, pushing him over sideways.
‘Ow, Christ I skint my knee!’ Chauncey started to cry. ‘You fuckin’ bully!’
‘Look, I’m sorry Chaunce, I –’ He forgot what he was about to say, for at that moment Billy smashed a brick into his eye.
‘Hey, look, you put his eye out, boy are you gonna get it, hey …’
‘I’m gettin’ the fuck outa here …’
‘Me too, wait up …’
When the vision in his remaining eye cleared, Roderick was alone with the littler kid, who had a bloody nose.
‘Are you a robot or what?’
‘That’s right, I’m Roderick the robot. You okay?’
‘Yeah, thanks. My name’s Nat. I thought they was gonna kill me or something. Boy, they’d be sorry if they did. They wouldn’t have Nat to kic
k around any more.’ Nat smiled at him. ‘Hey, you know what?’
‘What?’ Roderick knew the next line: You saved my life, pal He waited for it.
‘You look pretty fuckin’ dumb with one eye, you know?’
X
The mechanical clown creaked with senile laughter, every wave of creaks setting up sympathetic waves of nostalgia within Ben Franklin. It reminded him of all the carnivals of his childhood, the candy floss and aluminium ID bracelets engraved by shaky hands, the recorded calliope music fighting the recorded superlaughs from the Hall of Mirrors, the afternoons spent cranking away at a tiny crane ingeniously arranged to avoid gold cigarette-lighters and seize in its clamshell a single grain of popcorn.
Corn, that was the soul of it, and probably the soul of Mr Kratt too. Why else should an important businessman maintain his headquarters in a dirty little trailer in the midst of all this? Corny sentiment. Stuff of the common man, of Goodall Wetts III and God is Good Business, stuff of which fortunes are made. And what was wrong with it? Hadn’t it been said by Abraham Lincoln (if not by a bearded robot in Disneyland) that God must have loved the common man, because He made him so common? Don’t knock, Ben warned himself. For Christ’s sake, boost.
And yet he could not help following a critical line elsewhere. Noticing the irony of a white-faced robot clown whose make-up could be traced through real clowns back to Grimaldi – who wore it in La Statue Blanche where he played a man impersonating an automaton (each turn of the crank produced a new expression). Robot imitates man imitating man playing man impersonating robot: but the tangle of associations would not leave him there. For clowns were playing The White Statue in the streets of London in Mayhew’s time, in the 1840 slum streets, alongside Punch and Judy, marionettes and real clockwork dolls, amid the sounds of hurdy-gurdy and barrel-organ, mechanized street theatre for the new industrial age, where almost the only recognizable features of the past were starving beggars and burning Guys.
Death everywhere, white-faced on every corner, turned into sentiment at home and comedy in the streets: the marionettes always included a Bluebeard and a skeleton; the shadow-puppet man tells how a mob overturned his van and burned it (with his assistant inside); Punch and Judy must always have the hanging in the last act:
Jack Ketch: Now, Mr Punch you are going to be executed by the British and Foreign laws of this and other countries, and you are to be hanged by the neck until you are dead – dead – dead.
Punch: What, am I to die three times?
He was still scowling at the decrepit clown when Mr Kratt’s thick hand clapped his shoulder. ‘Guess you seen enough here, let’s get back to town. We can take a look at that stock list on the way.’ The V of eyebrows descended on tiny black eyes. ‘Hey, something wrong?’
‘Uh, no sir. No sir. I was just wondering why you still keep your headquarters here? I mean you could easily afford permanent offices instead of this, I mean a tent show after all –’
‘Like to keep on the move, see? Like the gipsies.’
‘Nostalgia, I guessed as much, nost –’
‘Nostalgia hell, saves me five figures in state taxes, not to mention depreciation and all the substantial advantages of running a cash business …’
Roderick didn’t see much from the bus window. His eye on that side was out, and if he tried turning his head to look out with the other eye, something funny happened to his hand which began to twitch open and closed. Seeing the scared look of the woman in the seat in front of him, Ma made Roderick sit still and read his robot book.
It was the story of an iron man who falls apart and puts himself together again – boy this Hughes guy didn’t know the first thing about robots, here they were going two hundred miles to the city for one crummy eye – but Roderick liked the idea of an iron man who goes around scaring people and then turns into a big hero.
In the back of the book he found a blank page where he could work out some alphabet stuff:
‘What does it mean?’ Ma asked, as the bus left the smooth highway to start bucking its way through broken streets.
‘Nothing I guess. Stories. I mean nobody really falls apart and puts themself together again – do they?’
Ma thought the question over, while behind him Roderick heard someone say, ‘… like teeth only … dank wish … the Omaha disaster we decided … a peep in Coventry, was it?’
‘Sure sure sure sure sure.’
Ma continued to think while the bus pulled into a greasy terminal, and the driver ordered them to ‘debark’.
The city at first seemed to fall apart without putting itself together: Roderick saw tall glass buildings falling over on him, people pushing each other along the sidewalk, cars honking and revving their engines while waiting to move an inch forward, six abreast, towards the bleeping traffic lights where people pushed each other past the walls of black garbage bags and out on to the street. A yellow taxi pulled up next to him and a man with blood running down his forehead and nose jumped out and ran inside a shoe store, elbowing aside a woman whose little dog made a dash to the end of its tether trying to bite the kid who was being chased out of a narrow doorway marked MASSAGE THERAPY; the dog twisted and snapped instead at the crowd of little wind-up dolls a man with dirty fingers was setting in motion on the sidewalk where they tottered in circles and fell over, looking much like the man with a bottle in a paper bag who sprawled next to an alley where two boys were dividing the contents of a woman’s purse. They were ignored by the man wearing sandwich-boards (FOLLOW ME TO JUNIOR’S DISCOUNT CAMERAS) who entered the alley (no one following), flipped up his forward board and began urinating on a wall beneath a poster, VOTE J. L. (‘CHIP’) SNYDER FOR LAW & ORDER, a duplicate of the sign Roderick saw a moment later on a wall behind the hot-dog stand where a man of a thousand pimples reached for his hot-dog with one hand and for the crotch of the boy next to him with the other, this being a thin kid engrossed in a photograph which he then dropped – ‘Jeez, whaddya –?’ and Roderick looked down at the picture of a dismembered woman as Ma dragged him past the thin kid, who wore a jacket marked JUNKERS S.A.C. almost the same neon orange as a sign BURGER BELLE in the window where the top half of a black man could be seen frying grey meat and – whenever he noticed anyone looking at him – spitting into the top half of each roll. Hardly anyone but Roderick did look, any more than they looked at the transparent plastic box of newspapers (headline: ARMY MOM COOKS BABY IN M’WAVE OVEN, EATS IT) which someone was trying to break open, next to a video pay-phone on a post, under whose plastic canopy a woman in wrinkled stockings leaned, weeping and pleading with the face on the tiny screen, which seemed to have hair as bright and green as the sweater on the little dog held back now from a puddle of vomit by a smiling woman in a tiny silk skirt no larger than a cummerbund who called out to the sailor lurching towards the door of SUGAR’S SAUNA past two figures leaning together in so friendly a fashion that the knife held by one at the other’s throat seemed a mistake (as the victim kept insisting it was), past the JOYS OF JESUS mission towards the amusement arcade, a place of flashing coloured lights, bells, buzzers and bleeps under the defective sign TEST YOUR SK*LL flickering next to an empty store plastered with SNYDER FOR LAW & ORDER and a poster advertising STREET MUSIC overwritten with hundreds of obscure slogans all beginning SUCK. This was next to a novelty shop featuring dribble glasses, rubber pencils, loaded dice, a talking crucifix, marked cards, plastic snot, a fake finger (hideously injured), itching powder, cayenne candy and a ‘Sacred Heart lighter – REALLY WORKS – useful and devotional – Butane extra’. Ma dragged him on, past a larger-than-life photo of two naked women embracing under the legend THIS WEEK ONLY TRIPLE ADULT SEXATION: DOLLS OF DEVIL’S ISLAND – ‘Brutally frank’; ‘Sexplicit revealing confession’ – I WAS A SAUNA BITCH; ‘Inside bare facts of Hitler’s mad nuns’ – ANGELS WITH DIRTY HABITS and the long line of tired old men before the ticket-office nearly as long as the similar line across the street before the Unemployment Office where a policeman sprang o
n one of the grey figures, knocked it to the sidewalk, and began beating it with his truncheon, while shoppers pushed their way past this as they had pushed past a man with missing fingers trying to play a harmonica, on their way from FURNITURE WAREHOUSE to DENIM INIQUITY ignoring the bright neon of MARV´S SEX DISCOUNTS above a bewildering array of objects identifiable only by fluorescent signs (Condom’s Slashed, Vibey’s Reduced; Manacles Cut; See Our Selection of Custom Rubber & Leather Unclaimed Specialties) signs all but obscuring the next place where a feeble neon sign proclaimed from behind heavy iron grilles, NO CREDIT LIQUORS. Before it a machine like a kind of automatic pogo-stick pulled its operator along as it tore at the street, holding up a line of bleating cars including a limousine flying Ruritanian flags, a panel truck shaped like a turkey and labelled GOBBLE KING, a sound truck whose message echoed (‘… law and order … sick of bleeding hearts … man with guts … man with experi … an with integrity … n with the know-how to turn this city into the kind of … to grope up in, to grow up in …’) through the sounds of car horns, bleeps, bells, buzzers, the Brandenburg Concerto, laughing, screaming, moaning, the hammering of the street-ripper, coins going into a telephone, replays clacking on a pinball machine, revving engines and a singing clutch, the thunder of an invisible plane overhead shaking the glass walls of the tipping buildings, rock music fighting jazz fighting country western over the loudest horn of all, on a yellow taxi with blood down the door.
‘Well ma’am, your lucky day, we got just one in stock. Not exactly the same colour but – well the fact is, we had this stockroom fire last week, pretty well cleaned us out. Yup, your lucky day. My partner bought it too, he was back there takin’ inventory see, and it looks like he was smoking or something, so. So here I am, half a ton of assorted high-grade hardware up in smoke along with the only guy who knows how to design and build it. I was just supposed to be the money man, only now I can’t even pay the rent on this crummy little store unless I sell off our plant. Yup, your lucky day. This one’s a demo, let you have it half price, okay? You want me to fit it for you now? Just takes a second, even I know how to – there, how’s that look? Okay that’s thirty-eight no nineteen hundred plus tax plus city tax, comes to twenty-two oh six eighty-five, cash I hope?’