The Complete Roderick

by John Sladek

  Angelic voices from somewhere sang feelingly of chestnuts roasting by an open fire. Of course vendors of hot chestnuts, with their open fires and blue smoke, had long since been banished from this pollution-fighting city. But imported marrons glacés might help to keep the season bright, a flickering electronic sign reminded shoppers; the angelic voices too were for sale, recorded at a prestigious boys’ penitentiary.

  ‘… don’t want to make a mistake like last year, God! Sally cried all day and wouldn’t eat her dinner just because I gave her that mistletoe she asked Santa for, how did I know she meant Missile Tow, some kind of video war game …’

  ‘These kids! My Sandra asked for eight TV sets so she could watch all her favourites at the same time she said, can you beat that for a four-year-old?’

  A man came down the escalator talking and gesticulating to no one – or rather to Mission Control, for it was Luke Draeger. Roderick stood up and waved to him. Luke followed invisible commands, executing a few smart drill manoeuvres on his way over.

  ‘Rickwood, glad you could make it.’

  ‘But why did we have to meet here?’

  ‘Orders.’

  ‘From Mission Control?’

  ‘Affirmative, Rickwood.’

  There passed several minutes of silence.

  ‘Well, Luke, was there anything special you had to see me about?’

  ‘Nope. Just to wish you a Merry Christmas. I’m, uh, going away, did you know that?’

  ‘Oh. Well, Merry Christmas, Luke.’

  ‘Everyone ought to go away at Christmas, even if it’s only to see your family.’

  ‘That’s right. Your three kids.’

  Luke fidgeted with his scarf and looked at the giant Christmas tree in the centre of the Mall. ‘No, well, they’re spending it with their mother, as always. No I’m – I was thinking of going to Ohio to see this faith blacksmith we’ve been hearing so much about.’

  ‘I never heard of him.’

  ‘I figured anybody who can actually shoe a horse without touching it, well he just has to have some answers. Only –’

  Two Santa Clauses had sat down on the next bench; their conversation could be heard when the angelic choir stopped.

  ‘… the little red ones is Anxifran, or maybe Phenodrax, and the big green ones is Epiphan, they’re beautiful, just like Hypodone …’

  ‘… Calamital and Equapace, but you got any Fenrisol, I’m out …’

  ‘Try Evenquil. Or here, try an Enactil. I couldn’t get through the day without 50 milligrams …’

  The tree lights flashed in programmed patterns, now forming clusters, now starbursts and spinning coils, now visual advertisements and simple slogans.

  ‘You’re not going to Ohio, then?’

  Luke sat back. ‘Negative. I’m going to a place in the Himalayas.’

  Roderick said, ‘I didn’t know you could afford it. I mean, what with Hackme Demolition keeping us all laid off like this –’

  Luke grinned. ‘My way is paid. See, my name lends just that much prestige to the organization. Maybe you’ve heard of them: the Divine Brotherhood of Transcending Awarenesses of Inner Global Light. Most people just call us the Saffron Peril.’

  ‘Them? You’re joining them?’

  ‘Affirmative. I’m going straight to the HQ, a place where Eternal Consciousness flows like champagne. I’ll be there, wearing all orangey-yellow, meditating, really connecting with – whatever there is. Up there in the mountains at the top of the world – something has to happen. I can see it already, the blossoming of cosmic consciousness.’ Luke was silent for a moment. ‘Trouble is, I always see everybody’s point of view. So I’ll also be wondering if it isn’t all a bunch of crap. Oh well, Merry Christmas.’

  Mr Multifid had a warm handshake. He was a plump, genial-looking man who would have looked out-of-place in crisp business clothes or a hard-edge office. Instead he wore hounds-tooth and corduroy in shades of brown, a sloppy hand-knit tie, a khaki shirt; and his office had no desk, only a pair of captains’ chairs, a fake fireplace, and panelled walls hung with ship prints and barometers.

  ‘Take a pew, Mr Wood – mind if I start calling you Rod right away? And you can call me Gene, okay? Now let me see …’

  He studied the pink card Roderick had filled out in the outer office. ‘Where did you hear about our service, Rod?’

  ‘I was working at a demolition site down the street, and I just happened to see your sign: Multifid Marriage Counselling, Singles Welcome.’

  ‘Right.’ Mr Multifid made a note on the card. ‘Normally my secretary takes care of this, this background stuff. But she’s off today. Seeing her analyst. Now where are we? You’re not married? No? Engaged? And not divorced? Well then, are you gay? No? Any, any peculiarities you feel like talking about?’

  ‘I’m a robot,’ said Roderick. ‘I’m not really sure I want to marry anyone, just maybe have a – have some kind of relationship, does that sound peculiar?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Go on. Do, do “robots” have sex?’

  ‘I’ve only had one what you might call sexual encounter, I mean that was complete – what I could call a mechasm – and that was with a woman who got nothing out of it at all, unless maybe the satisfaction of solving a puzzle. And see I’m not physically exactly –’

  The phone rang. ‘Multifid Marriage – oh it’s you, look, I can’t talk now, Julia, I’m with a client … No of course it’s not Sandy, she’s seeing her analyst today … What do you mean, protest too much? You’re not starting that again. Look … look, I’ve got to go, I – you what? Christ! Look you promised me last time you’d call me first, we’d talk it over, talk it out, this is just blackmail, isn’t it? You haven’t really done anything, you’re just calling for help – you have? Christ! Okay, okay I’m on my way.’

  He hung up, scowling at the phone as though it had betrayed him. ‘Well Rod, I’ve got to go home, little family emergency. Why don’t you just use the tape recorder there and give me a rundown of your problem, we’ll discuss it when I get back, okay?’

  ‘Sure. I hope – everything’s all right.’

  With a kind of choked laugh, Mr Multifid left. After a few minutes there was a timid tap at the door and a middle-aged woman tiptoed in, offering her pink card.

  ‘Mr Multifid?’

  ‘No, I’m Roderick Wood. Mr Multifid had to go home. Family emergency.’

  ‘I know what that is,’ she said, sitting down. ‘I know what that is, all right. And I’ve just gotta talk to somebody.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I remember a few things about my early childhood. I know Mama was very good to me, even though I wasn’t the boy she wanted. I know when I was still crawling, she bought me a little bucket and scrub-brush and taught me how to do the floors. I learned to walk by clearing the table. And toilet training, I remember that too: scrubbing and shining that toilet.

  ‘I never had a doll, but then my little brother Glen came along and I got to feed him and change him, bathe him and wash all his diapers. Of course I had to do all this between my regular chores.

  ‘I didn’t do so well at school, because I had to take time off for like spring cleaning. In the evenings after cooking supper and doing dishes and the ironing, there wasn’t much time left for studying before I set out the breakfast things. Also I wanted to save my eyes for the mending. Mama was good about it, when she saw my grades weren’t so great she let me off doing the shopping after school. I made up the extra work on weekends.

  ‘Just the same, I started getting envious of my older brother Ken. He got to play football while I was shining everybody’s shoes. He got to dress up like a cowboy while I was washing clothes. He had pillow fights, I made beds. I know it must sound silly now, but I really resented that. Maybe that’s where I went wrong!’

  Roderick felt he ought to say something. ‘How do you know you went wrong at all?’

  ‘Oh you mean I always was wrong? I never thought of that – I was wrong from the start,
eh?’

  ‘I meant maybe you were right all along.’ Roderick sighed. ‘Maybe you should be talking to somebody professional, I’m nobody, I’m just –’

  ‘You have to listen. Somebody has to listen.’

  ‘Sure, go on. Oh, uh, you didn’t mention your father so far. Was he around?’

  ‘He was at sea for years and years. When I was twelve he came home drunk and sort of raped me. See it was a Saturday and so I had worked all day doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, dusting, scrubbing and waxing. Every-body else went out for the evening and I finished the supper dishes and then just fell into bed. When I woke up he was climbing on top of me. He told me if I screamed he’d tell Mama that he’d seen me sweep dirt under the carpet. I didn’t know who he was, and I was scared, so I said nothing.

  ‘Mama was pretty good about it when I told her I was pregnant, even if she did say she wished she’d drowned me when I was born. But she managed to fix it for me to marry a boy named Fred. I sewed my wedding dress quickly, baked the cake and so on, and pretty soon Fred and I were set up in our own little trailer, very easy to clean. True Fred did beat me up a lot, and he drank a lot and ran around with other women which is how he brought home the case of VD. It would have been okay but he also didn’t work so I had to have these eight cleaning jobs to feed me and the kids and buy Fred his booze and the cigarettes he liked to put out on me. One day I was so tired I forgot to flinch and Fred got so mad he went and told all my employers I had had VD and they fired me …’

  The woman’s story went on and on, cataloguing years of thankless work, suffering and humiliation: raped, she found herself accused by the police of prostitution; going to the doctor with a headache leads to a double mastectomy followed by a hysterectomy – the headache remains; a moment of absent-mindedness at the supermarket leads to a shoplifting conviction. ‘My twin sons grew up hating my guts for only giving them a second-hand football and no colour TV; they were so full of hate they became lawyers. Fred ran off with a cocktail waitress and finally burned her to death, but the boys defended him and he got a suspended sentence; I guess I should be proud of my boys. Anyway, here I am fifty years old, my life doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Do you think I need a lobotomy?’

  ‘I wouldn’t rush into anything,’ Roderick said. ‘Talk it over with someone like Mr Multifid.’

  ‘Talk?’ she said, as she tip-toed to the door. ‘What good is talk?’

  A young couple named Ferguson came in as soon as she’d left. Roderick explained to them that he was only a client himself, that the counsellor was out.

  Mr Ferguson stood up to leave.

  ‘Oh sure, leave,’ said Mrs Ferguson. ‘Any excuse to leave.’

  ‘I’m not gonna be the one to leave,’ said Mr F.

  The Fergusons sat glaring at one another in silence for an hour, then left together.

  Next came a young man with an irritating nervous laugh, who called himself Norm.

  ‘Gene’s out, huh? Well it doesn’t matter much, I just stopped by on the chance that he might be here and might have a spare minute to see me. Thing is I need to kind of build up some confidence. Because I’m going to this, this party, uh-uh-uh! So what I need is this real confident manner so I can pick up a girl and score, you know? What I need are a few snappy lines, you know, like opening gambits and subtle ploys and sophisticated tricks that girls always fall for, right up to a fool-proof closing line that makes them, like, fall right into bed then and there – what I need is this I guess complete guaranteed seduction technique, uh-uh-uh!’

  Roderick said, ‘I can’t give you any real advice, but I’ll tell you one thing, not many girls I bet want to fall into bed with a guy who keeps laughing like that, it sounds like whooping cough. If I were you I’d try to drop the laugh.’

  ‘Hey great! I bet you could give me lots of hints like that, huh? Hey, could you come along to this party and sort of, sort of advise me?’

  XI

  The houses on this street had elaborate Christmas decorations – Santas in sleighs, giant Rudolphs or angels – outlined in lights or sometimes floodlit. There were giant conifers dripping with diamond lights.

  ‘Always drive through this way,’ Norm said. ‘It takes longer but I like to see the lights.’

  They came to a dark stretch, where the snowbanks alongside the road were high and there were no houses. Norm pulled over and stopped the car. ‘Uh-uh-uh, those lights always remind me of pocket calculators, you know?’

  ‘Yes, but why are we stopping here?’

  ‘I uh want you to do me a favour, Rod.’ Norm held up a pocket calculator. ‘Just a little favour.’

  ‘Look, what is this?’

  Norm was holding an automatic in his other hand. ‘Just a goddamned favour, you son of a bitch – you can’t get out of the car on account of the snowbank anyway, so take the fucking calculator!’

  Roderick took it. ‘What now?’

  ‘Now you just punch the numbers I give you and let me see the display.’

  ‘What, like this?’ Roderick punched 12345 and held up the calculator. The red digits glowed like cigarettes. Roderick was afraid of dying.

  ‘No no no! Hold it so it’s upside down for me. Okay now the first number is 58008, you got that?’

  Roderick punched it. ‘I see, it’s spelling out words for you.’

  Norm ordered him to spell out in turn: SOIL, SISSIES, SOB, SOLOS, LOSSES, BOSS, BOOHOO, LOOSE, HOLE, LIBEL, BOILS, BLOJOBS, BOOBIES and finally OHOHOH.

  There was a moment of silence, during which Norm sat doubled over behind the steering wheel. Then he sat up and said, ‘Okay thanks. I’m sorry I pulled a gun on you, I just got worried you wouldn’t do it. A lotta people laugh when I ask them.’ He started the car. ‘I’ll drop you off wherever …’

  ‘What about this party you wanted to score at?’

  ‘Well there is a party. In the suburbs, you really want to go?’

  As they drove on, Roderick asked Norm how he had developed his curious hobby.

  ‘Hobby’ I guess it is. Well I guess it all started when I was about ten. Dad gave me this pocket calculator, you know? And I really liked it. I um had fun just multiplying two times two, stuff like that. I mean calculating gave me this special feeling.’

  ‘What feeling?’

  ‘Okay, okay, it gave me a hard-on, calculating gave me a hard-on. I was only ten, didn’t hardly know – okay maybe I did know but it didn’t seem so wrong. I mean I just kept the thing in my pants pocket and um worked out a few things in secret now and then. I used to pretend it was the real thing.’

  ‘A woman, Norm?’

  ‘No, a computer. Maybe an IBM 360, boy what a figure –’

  ‘What happened then?’

  Norm stopped for a red light. A drunken man was feeling his way across the street, trying to get into one car, then another, shouting at their occupants.

  ‘Well, Dad caught me once. He said I’d go blind and lose strength from all the calculating, but I didn’t care. I had to go on adding, subtracting … even when we played sandlot baseball I had to stop all the time and work out my batting average. And pretty soon I stopped playing any games at all, I just, you know?

  ‘So then when I was about fifteen I started hanging out in the crummy part of town, I started running errands for this bookie. And he had this, well this older computer, she’d been through a lot of weird programs, stuff I’d never dreamed of I mean she really taught me a lot. I learned so much I figured I was cured, you know? When we broke up I figured I was burnt out and cured.

  ‘So I went away to college, got along okay only I couldn’t help noticing computers. Like the freshman registration computer, she was big. Dumb, but really big, you know? Meanwhile I met this really nice girl, a real girl, and we got engaged. We were gonna marry after graduation.

  ‘Graduation night there was a big party and I got real drunk, and somehow we all ended up at this computer dating agency. So the others are standing there filling out forms and giggling, a
nd the girl behind the counter goes out of the room for something – and there I am, face to face with a big beautiful machine! In about one second flat I’m over that counter and all over her.’

  ‘How did you feel, Norm?’

  ‘Good at first, and then – disgusted. Couldn’t wait to pay my money and get out of there. Goes without saying my engagement was off, all my friends aghast – but I knew then I was hooked, I knew I’d be back! And I was, again and again, until they had to call the cops to get rid of me. Then I started hanging around electronics stores – you ever notice how they always have them on the same streets with sex stores and porno palaces and massage parlours? Ever notice that? The cops would pick me up routinely about once a week. Most of the time they just took me home to Dad.’

  ‘You didn’t go to jail?’

  ‘No, because Dad offered to send me for some therapy. We um tried aversion. I went to this guy Dr George. He would show me a picture of a big Univac say, or hand me a magnetic card, or a reel of tape or something, and at the same time he’d give me this electric shock. Trouble is, you can get to like a jolt of current now and then, you can get a special feeling there too.’

  Roderick decided to say nothing of his own identity as a cybernetic machine running on electricity.

  At the next traffic light they stopped. A group of children trooped across the street, with two adults in charge. Roderick noticed that the little boys had crepe paper beards and the little girls carried stiff styrofoam wings.

  ‘Norm, I notice you don’t mention your mother much.’

  ‘Mother?’ Norm frowned. ‘What do you mean, exactly?’

  ‘Well you had a mother, didn’t you?’

  ‘Jesus, whose life are we supposed to be talking about, anyway? I mean excuse me, but I thought it was mine. Excuse me all to hell.’

  ‘I just meant, most people have mothers.’

  Norm’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel, as the car shot forward. ‘Oh sure. Most people. I suppose most people can’t buy a computer magazine without blushing. I suppose most people feel all the time like calling up a computer on the phone and inputting dirty data, real dirty data. Oh sure, most people!’