The Complete Roderick

by John Sladek

  ‘Make yourself comfy, Roderick. Why don’t you take a bath and a slug of bourbon and say we take it from there?’

  ‘No but wait, wait. I don’t drink, and I don’t need baths. And it’s kind of you, Ida, but I don’t think I could take it from there either.’

  ‘I’ve heard that before,’ she said, plumping a cushion. ‘But you’d be surprised what you can do when you get in the mood.’

  Roderick sat down and let the Persian rub its head against his shins. ‘Look, maybe I’d better explain: I’m a robot.’

  ‘Yeah? That’s what all these crazy kids say, nowadays.’ After pouring herself a drink, she sat next to him. ‘I thought you had more sense, Rod.’

  ‘No, I mean a real robot. I’m full of wires and stuff. Honest.’

  Ida tasted her drink and frowned. ‘Sure, kid. Anything you want. Only I hope robots don’t like beating up on women or nothing like that. I’m not so good at that scene.’

  ‘Beating up on – I thought they only did that in the movies! No, heck Ida, I didn’t mean I want anything special, anything freaky. I meant I don’t like anything at all.’

  ‘Okay but if you did like something, what would it be?’

  ‘I don’t know, something like – well, like love. I guess.’

  ‘Roderick, there has to be a first time for everybody. And I’m a pretty good teacher, if I say so myself. There ain’t much I haven’t seen, done, had done to me, smelled, tasted, dressed up as, sat on or listened to. I could tell you some stories – only they might scare you off.’

  He said nothing while she had two more drinks and fiddled with the tassels on a cushion.

  ‘Well, for instance some guys get turned on by just a fabric, rubber or leather or silk or even cotton. One guy had to be hanged in a telephone booth while a woman wearing yellow cotton gloves – me – pounded on the door. Another guy used to wear cotton long johns with the flap down, and I had to pretend to be scared while he whipped me with a piece of cotton string, I had to call him King Cotton. Then there was the gingham guy. He would sit at the kitchen table just like in the ads and I would come in wearing nothing but a gingham apron to pour milk on his cereal Then he’d listen to it, while yours truly got under the table to make him snap, crackle and pop. That’s to mention only cotton.’

  She went on to describe strange rituals called golden showers, dog shows, thundermug brunches, Leslie Fiedler croquet; scenes involving coffins, chains, ice sculpture, lecterns, skates, trusses, apricot jam, the recorded cries of whales, pool tables, confetti, door chimes, Worcestershire sauce, early photos of Stalin, voodoo dolls, thimbles, mukluks, croziers, castanets, documentary films on the cement industry, whoopee cushions.

  ‘… and I knew this FBI special agent, boy was he ever special. We always started off me whipping him with a towel from the Moscow YWCA while he sings about Notre Dame marching on to victory, then another girl comes in – we’re in the bathroom – and handcuffs him to the faucets and washes his mouth out with soap while he studies pictures of Whitaker Chambers and Jean-Paul Sartre. Then I had to barge in wearing a J. Edgar Hoover mask and release him but only so’s we could put him under a hot light and I ask him to name all the state capitals while she dusts off his cock for fingerprints. Then at the last minute a third girl rushes in and hands him a writ of habeas corpus. Boy, we earned our money in them days. And we always had to be careful with that guy’s face because he’d always just finished getting a face-lift. So listen, kid, you ain’t got no problem I can’t handle unless maybe you like boys.’ She put a hand on his leg and slid it towards his crotch. ‘Tell me all about your problem, Rod. You got a wooden leg here, that it? You shy?’

  Roderick stood up. ‘Maybe if I just undressed and showed you –?’

  She nodded. ‘I won’t be shocked. I – holy cow!’

  Roderick stepped out of his dropped trousers and then took off his shirt. ‘See, I am a little different.’

  ‘Different, I’ll say. Turn around, will you? Jeez, no asshole either. And you, what’s that in your belly button, looks like an electric socket or –’

  ‘It is an electric socket. It’s how I recharge. Like I said, Ida, I’m a real robot.’

  ‘I believe you, I believe you.’ She poured another drink and gulped it down. ‘So there’s nothing I can do for you?’

  ‘If I could stay overnight and charge my batteries, I guess that’s all.’

  After another, very large drink, Ida said, ‘A robot. Does that mean you got no feelings at all?’

  ‘I’ve got some feelings.’ He thought about it. ‘It’s just that I can’t do much about them.’

  ‘It’s a challenge, all right.’ Ida seemed to be talking to herself. ‘A real challenge. Okay you recharge tonight, I’ll get some shuteye. In the morning when I’m soberer, I’ll think about this problem of yours some more. See, the way I look at it, nobody with feelings oughta go around not being able to let ’em out, all frustrated and ornery. Okay, so what if you got no ordinary sex equipment – sex is all in the mind anyway.’

  Someone had said that before to Roderick, long before. Pa Wood, was it? (But Pa was always saying things: sex is all in the head. History is a bunk on which I am trying to awaken …)

  ‘Machines,’ said Indica Dinks, ‘are only human, after all.’

  The audience laughed, then applauded.

  The host, Mel Mason, said, ‘I love it! I don’t understand it, but I love it!’ After more applause, he said, ‘But seriously now, Indica, isn’t this Machines Lib idea just a little – wacky? I mean, do you really expect everybody to just turn their machines loose? I’d hate to be in the front yard when somebody liberates a big power mower!’

  Indica smiled just enough to show she recognized the joke, but did not join in the audience laughter. When it had abated, she said quietly, ‘We don’t expect people to stop using their machines, of course not. We just want people to understand the machines they use, to understand and respect them. If you don’t have respect for your own car, your own home computer, how can you have any respect for yourself?’

  ‘Well, that’s a very interesting point, Indica, we can know a man by the gadgets he keeps.’

  She cut off the hesitant laughter. ‘Yes, by the machines he keeps and by how he keeps them. Mel, machines aren’t just extensions of man, that’s all part of the old master-slave routine, the terrible power game we used to play, all of us. But I think we’re moving on into a new era, as machines get smarter and smarter. They may go on working for us, but not as slaves. As employees. As I say in my new book, THE NUTS AND BOLTS ON MACHINES LIB, machines are beings in their own right. And if we don’t give them their freedom, one of these days, they’ll take it.’

  ‘Well, you’ve given us big food for thought there, Indica, thanks very much. Stick around folks, later we’ll be talking to lots more exciting people: a sculptor who wants us all to get plastered, the President’s astrologer, the most beautiful private eye in Hollywood, and the exiled Shah of Ruritania, you saw it all first on the Mel Mason Afternoon Show …’

  Roderick watched the pictures of an armpit, then dancing cornflakes, then a shirt destroyed by lightning. Indica Dinks had been his first mother, long ago … in another life … he could hardly remember. Indica painting her toenails red. A green plant in a pot. Hank and Indica. An exercise machine. A TV cartoon called Suffering Cats …

  He went back in the kitchen where Ida was fixing her face for evening. They had spent the whole day talking, trying things; Ida had heard his life history and how he functioned. But nothing had transpired.

  ‘Okay, so you saw your old stepmother on TV, that upset you at all? Turn you on?’

  ‘Nope. I hardly remember Indica, all I did as a kid was watch TV, how could I be upset? How could I get turned on?’

  ‘That’s the big question, Rod. How can you get turned on? Do I remind you of your stepmother? I mean I’m older, kind of motherly. And my name, Ida, that’s a lot like Indica.’

  He slumped down in hi
s chair. The afternoon sun slanted in through the window and reflected from Ida’s compact mirror into his eyes. Squinting against it, he said: ‘Everything’s like something and everybody’s like somebody, that doesn’t mean much. Like all TV programmes have a car crash in the first five minutes, what does that mean? Gee, Ida, I guess all your hard work goes for nothing, you been swell but what’s the poi – the poi – the –the—’

  ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said after a moment. ‘Just the light, the way it flashes in one eye and then the other. It’s real distracting. Real – nice.’

  ‘Aha! Turns you on? Like this?’

  ‘Not so wild. More regular. Like a truth table. Say if left was true and right was false – like this.’ He took her eyebrow pencil and wrote on the kitchen table:

  L L

  L R

  R L

  R R

  She tried it again, and Roderick began to relax and enjoy relaxing. ‘Maybe a longer sequence,’ he murmured. Just then the sun was eclipsed by a tall building, the Kratwel Tower.

  ‘I knew it! I knew it was no good!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Ida. ‘We can use an electric light – no? Okay then maybe a sunlamp?’

  ‘No! No, just forget about it, forget—’

  ‘Wait. There’s one place in town where the sun will be up for at least an hour, the big hill in Beauregard Park. Come on, I’ll finish fixing my face in the taxi.’

  The taxi dropped them at the foot of the hill, and they hurried up it, Ida carrying her shoes to keep them nice. When they reached the top they were facing a sheet of burning gold.

  ‘Look at that sky, Rod! Just look!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Roderick grabbed her purse and pawed through it looking for her compact. Powder spilled as he fumbled it out and thrust it into her hand. ‘Come on, come on.’

  They sat on the warm grass and Ida, following the truth tables he’d scribbled in the taxi, gave him:

  ‘Just let yourself go,’ she said soothingly. ‘Go on, go on.’

  ‘I’m … afraid I’ll drain my battery …’

  ‘Don’t worry about anything, just let it all go, lover. Let it all go. Let go.’

  Roderick had never felt anything like this strange, pleasant numbness that was engulfing him. His mind seemed to be thrusting and thrusting at some barrier, then pushing deeper into warm darkness, layer after deep layer until it reached the golden fire explosion.

  He drowsed, then, only half-aware of Ida’s leaving for her evening at the Escorial. When he awoke it was getting dark. There was a kleenex beside him with a note in eyebrow pencil: ‘Told you so! Love, I.’

  Christ, what had he done? Used her, that’s what, used Ida like a kleenex or a mirror, to rub his own disgusting mind against the world and take crude pleasure from the friction. His first friend, his first real friend. Now he knew he could never face her again. Hadn’t even told her how nice she looked. Hadn’t even stopped a second to look at the sky, her sky, pure gold like Ida herself. No, he was just a – an animal automaton, a cheap clockwork gimmick to wind up and run down. He was despicable.

  Roderick flung away the tissue and started walking down the hill. Halfway down, the path was blocked by a man carrying a sign:

  !TNEPER

  There seemed to be no way around the man, so Roderick stopped.

  ‘Brother.

  ‘Okay. Mind if I get past?’

  ‘Brother, a moment. Stop and reflect. Stop and reflect. Have you read my sign?’

  ‘Yes but—’

  ‘Notice anything unusual about it?’

  ‘No. Except that it’s written backwards. Now can I –’

  ‘In mirror writing, brother.’

  Something about the man’s emphasis made Roderick shudder. He looked into the wild eyes. ‘You, uh, saw me up on the hill?’

  ‘With the lady, yes. Playing with a mirror. Ah, how little ye know, for ye stood on the path to paradise, and took not a step.’

  It seemed certain that the man knew his terrible secret, but Roderick had to be sure. ‘Can you explain that?’

  ‘Come to our meeting tomorrow night.’ The man pressed a tract into his hand. ‘The address is on the back. Come all ye faithful!’

  Was the man mocking him? He stood aside, and as Roderick passed, said, ‘All will be made clear. St Paul said, “We see as in a glass, darkly, but then face to face.” Reflect on his words, brother. Reflect!’

  Roderick managed to murmur thanks and take the tract home. There he found he could only read it by holding it up to a mirror.

  REFLECT AND REPENT

  Have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately?

  Oh, not just to comb your hair, but to see

  yourself. Look now. Do you like what you see?

  The decay of the flesh, the marks of age, even

  the ravages of sin?

  Roderick saw the ravages of sin, and read on. The tract explained that all Nature was made symmetrical by God, and for a hidden purpose: Mirrors contained the whole of the world outside, showing (if darkly) the truth. No one can hide the truth from his mirror, any more than the mirror can hide his lies from him.

  Have you ever thought, that when you look at your

  reflection in mirror, your reflection is looking

  at you?

  ‘God sees dog,’ Roderick joked, and almost at once wondered whether his reflection would find this so funny. What if this mirror stuff was true? He read on:

  The eyes are the mirrors of the soul, the tract explained. St Paul speaks of mirror-seeing. Reflection is highly prized in all religions. The God of the ancient Hebrews was YAWAY, a name readable in a mirror. Didn’t all this add up to something? Surely the incredible symmetry of all Nature was no accident, but part of a plan, a manifestation of God. The left side of every creature was exactly like the right side – yet different. Scientists were now convinced that the right and left sides of one human brain were as different as two individuals – one musical and linguistic, the other spatial and mathematical. All magnets had both North and South poles, as did the Earth and all planets. Electrical charge could be plus or minus, people could be male or female, all time itself was either past or future. Didn’t all this symmetry add up to a glimpse of the DIVINE PLAN?

  It did, said the tract. God wanted us to preach his gospel not only among ourselves, but to those of His creatures trapped on the Other Side – to the people within mirrors. Incredible as this might at first sound, there was evidence of this DIVINE PLAN everywhere: in Nature, in the Bible, and especially within ourselves. Only if the gospel were carried into looking-glass land, could we be sure of turning the message of the world (‘EVIL’) into the message of the mirror (‘LIVE!’)

  This tract was printed by the Church of Christ Symmetrical. All strangers, and their reflections, were welcome.

  ‘We should be honoured, he decided to pay us a visit. Welcome!’ Mr Danton grabbed Roderick’s ear and banged his head against the wall, then kneed him. ‘I mean, excuse me all to hell, we forgot to put out the red carpet. Only we didn’t know what day you was finally gonna show up for work, did we?’

  ‘No sir.’

  Mr Danton knocked Roderick to the floor and was just picking up a cleaver when the alley door opened and a patrolman came in.

  ‘Is the manager here?’

  ‘I’m the proprietor, officer. Can I help you?’ Danton laid down the cleaver. The cop stared at it for a moment, pushing back his cap as though perplexed. He kept one hand on his gun.

  ‘We found a lady’s leg in your garbage can back there. You want to explain it?’

  ‘A lady’s leg? A lady’s leg?’ said Mr Danton, as though his place often disposed of all other kinds of human legs. ‘Naw, we don’t know nothing about that.’

  ‘You wanna explain what you intended doing with that cleaver, then?’

  ‘That? Oh, I was just kidding around with my dishwasher here. Tryin’a scare him a little, haw haw haw. Hell I treat the
kid like my own son, how does he repay me? Comes in late, don’t come in at all. Never no apology or nothing.’

  The cop straightened his cap. ‘Kids these days! They don’t know the meaning of punctuality, respect, duty, clean hearts.’

  Roderick said, ‘About this leg –’

  ‘Well if none of you did it, I guess it might turn out to be another unsolved case. I could call it the case of the lucky legs. Only one though: case of the lucky leg sounds wrong, you know?’

  Roderick said, ‘Officer, I might be able to help.’

  ‘Yeah? You wanna confess?’ The cop winked at his old pal Danton. ‘Your son here wants to confess!’

  ‘No I – I think I saw somebody drop something in that garbage can. In our garbage can. The day before yesterday it was.’

  The patrolman squinted at him. ‘You mean you think you saw them or you think they dropped it?’

  ‘I did see him, and he did drop it. It was wrapped in a newspaper.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Whatever it was he dropped.’

  ‘Oh now you’re sure he dropped it? You wasn’t so sure before. Okay.’ The cop opened his notebook. ‘Okay, suppose you describe this guy that maybe didn’t drop anything wrapped in a newspaper.’

  Roderick described the man as having gold hair, a pockmarked complexion and gold-rimmed sunglasses. He’d worn a casual terry shirt in an easy-care polyester blend, a rib-knit V-neck with cuffs and bottom band. The body of the shirt was terry in a sculpted design. It was light rust in colour, size: medium. He’d also worn s-t-r-e-t-c-h woven twill slacks in an outstanding blend of Celanese Fortrel R polyester for long wear and cotton for comfort. These were in straight-leg styling with an elastic waistband to help prevent waistband rollover, slant front pockets, two set-in back pockets, the left one with a button-through flap. These were khaki tan, size 34 regular with about a 34 inch inseam. They probably featured hook-and-eye front closure, nylon zipper, and seven belt loops fitting belts up to I inches wide. Roderick couldn’t be sure about the belt loops, because of the jacket.