The Year's Best Science Fiction 10 - [Anthology]
Page 22
“Sign here,” the Insur man told Erl. “Let’s see, it’s down to 2000 isn’t it? There’s such a mob in town, or I’d have found you when the odds were better. The premium’s—let’s see—I’ll write a receipt.”
“Did you get Steve Barclay?” Erl asked him.
“He’s having a rough time, but I’ll get him in a minute,” the man said.
“They ought to give more clues at this stage,” Erl said. “It’s sadistic to drag it out.”
“Well, they have to give us time to get around, for one thing. You wouldn’t want to miss on your Insur, would you? Anyway, it’s more exciting.”
“I suppose so,” said Erl. The screens were showing crowd scenes from various parts of the city. It was certainly exciting, and these shots created much indecision among the people around Erl. Even he felt it. Some of the candidates on the screens made his pulse jump with certainty.
But, after all, he was employed to sell suits. “What about you, madam?” he asked a fat woman with green glasses. “What size is your husband?”
“Insignificant, honey. You got anything for an insignificant man?” she said, and the crowd laughed.
Erl persisted. He took a suit from the rack, and held it in front of her. “It’s in the new style. You wouldn’t know it’s the same man.”
“I should buy him a new suit?” the fat woman said. “Honey, if I win today, I’ll buy me a whole new husband. Then for sure he won’t be the same man.” She was about to go on, but something on the screens caught everyone’s attention.
It was Hip with an Invig Sudden Death jackpot. That meant there would be another contest in the afternoon, running right up to the other channel’s night show, “You Bet Your Life.”
“Here it is, then!” Hip cried. “Are you in Central Stores? Because our man is. Don’t make any mistakes now, remember all the clues—and don’t forget the penalties. There are fifteen possibles in Central Stores—and please, good people, don’t wreck the joint.”
Fifteen? Erl fought his way to a counter, and jumped onto it, trying to sight Steve. But Steve was in a bigger crowd than Erl. There were only the two of them on that floor. People were fighting to hold Erl’s legs, hitting and pushing and shouting at one another. They pulled him down into the mass of gaping faces with, he was sure, Melanie’s among them.
“He’s in suits,” they screeched, taking it from Hip Jones. Erl fought his way upright, shouting, “There’s two of us.”
Then he saw that Steve had got onto a counter, with a heavy steel coat-hanger in his hand. He was threatening them with it, and none had a right to touch Steve until he was named, if it were to be he.
The crowd was growing every moment. Steve made a wild jump over the nearest heads, and the crowd opened to let him fall on his feet. He was big, and the hanger was heavy. He ran to the big windows, with all of them surging after him, and he smashed the glass with one blow and climbed through, or started to, but they got him and pulled him back, cutting him badly. He still had the hanger, and flailed around with it, sending them back. Nearly everyone thought it was Steve because Steve thought so, but a few dozen diehards clung to Erl.
“I’m going to tell you which one in suits,” Hip cried on the screen. “But wait for it, good people. Don’t make any hasty mistakes, the penalties are terrible if you do.”
Erl braced himself, and Hip cried, “It’s the big fellow, Steve Barclay.”
Then there were terrible screams.
Erl read next day that Steve took three with him, and hurt many more. That was silly. The game was necessary, a scientific outlet, everyone knew that. And if it was your turn, just too bad. The fat woman with the green glasses won the £100,000. No one bothered to find out whether she bought a new husband. There was another contest and another winner in the afternoon.
But in the store, bruised and bleeding, Erl was not quite so philosophical in the heat of the moment. He shook off the last of those around him and looked for Melanie.
When he saw her he went to her and took her handbag and opened it and looked inside. Of course it contained her I.C.B.Y. contest knife with her name and number engraved in gold.
“Wouldn’t the Insur have been enough for you?” he asked her.
“Dear, it wouldn’t have meant anything. You know it wouldn’t have.”
He handed the bag back to her and said, “Christ, what have they done to us?”
“There’s no need to be blasphemous,” Melanie said.
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* * * *
I think it is of particular significance that “It Could Be You” was written by an Australian newsman, and that it first appeared in the United States in the pages of Short Story International.
I had somehow thought (or hoped?) that the terrifying—and terrifyingly recognizable—trends projected here were an exclusively American version of the world’s agony. I don’t know if I find more reassurance or despair in the author’s account of the sources of his story:
“(1) An Australian television show in which people’s misfortunes were paraded before audiences of grim, grey old ladies. ... (2) The fact that eleven million Australians support no less than twenty-five Government-run lotteries a week, tickets costing from a half dollar to about seven dollars each, with prizes from $12,000 to $200,000. ... (3) People whose disregard for a death or two a day has long been conditioned by the road accident toll, which was around 2,000 dead and 60,000 injured in the early 1960’s.”
Well, then, our sins are not exclusively our own; but neither is our sense of sin—nor our awareness of danger. And increasingly, there is evidence that neither “they” nor “we” any longer expect to resolve our problems inside the cultural or political isolation of those national sovereignties which have become ruinously overspecialized in today’s world—not because the outlook or behavior of national governments is narrower or more provincial than it used to be (quite the (opposite) but because technology and communications have so altered global realities that the very concept of “national sovereignty” is now too narrow, localized, overspecialized.
I think there is a growing awareness of the true decadence of, not just political, but social, cultural, and (rather more obviously) literary, artistic, and scientific customs and usages as well. If our awareness of decadence itself is subjective (and perhaps intuitive), it is reassuring to find indications that we reach just as instinctively for what is viable and (in the purest sense of the word) virtuous.
Among the most congenial of these portents has been the appearance of a magazine like Short Story International. I find myself equally pleased that the publishers of this new venture have put it in the hands of an editor of fine literary discernment and that they have put on the cover, by way of a symbol, a picture of Telstar.
* * * *
A BENEFACTOR OF HUMANITY
James T. Farrell
The other day Ignatius Bulganov Worthington peacefully and happily became non est. Known as Worthy Worthington, he was a great man, a great American, and a great benefactor of mankind. He died a billionaire five times over and was buried with many honors and mourned by all men. The flags of the city and nation hung at half-mast; the President issued a eulogy of regret; Congress held a memorial session and disbanded for the day; the National Association of Manufacturers sent a floral wreath, as did three kings, six dukes, two dictators, over two thousand police chiefs and every book, magazine and newspaper published in the world, including the Soviet Union, Madagascar, Borneo, and Pleasantville, New York.
The funeral services were attended by thousands: These were described on a national radio hookup, televised around the world, and Worthy Worthington machines ground out newspaper obsequies, testimonials, regrets, eulogies, laments and obituary notices which were nationally and almost universally described as worthy of the great Worthington.
Not a child lives in America who hasn’t heard of the great name of this now deceased greatness. His life, his example, and his contribution to the wealth, security, pea
ce of mind and happiness of this country and of mankind can never be praised too much, valued too highly, or forgotten. As long as mankind inhabits this planet the worthy name of Worthington will be remembered, reverenced, and revered.
Young Ignatius Bulganov went to a little red country schoolhouse hard by a Baptist church in the land where the tall corn grows the tallest. He was not a promising pupil. He couldn’t read; he did not know how to write; and every time he added up a sum, his addition was different from that of his teacher and from the Stone Mills Arithmetic, which was used as a textbook. He was known as the dunce. He never was graduated.
Unarmed, unprepared, but eager, he set out for the great city of New York and there began the story of his great career and of his achievements and contributions. He got a job as a stock boy in a publishing house. Proud of his job, he did it well. He got to love books. He liked the covers on them, the smell of them. He liked to pile them on shelves and then to unpile them. He liked to lift them and to look at them in piles on the stockroom floor and the shelves. He liked to wrap them up and to unwrap them. He liked to do everything he could with them, except read them.
He lived alone at the Young Men’s Christian Association and every night he dreamed about books. He made shelves for his room and filled these with books. Every night he looked at his books, touched them, felt them, counted them, and rearranged them. His fellow inmates of the Y.M.C.A. gave him the nickname of “the Book Lover,” and he was proud of that. In later years, when he had become great, rich, famous and honored, this was remembered and a book was even published under the title of “Worthy Worthington, the Book Lover.”
But just as he loved books, he hated authors. Every time he saw an author, he remembered how as a boy in a little red country schoolhouse hard by a Baptist church in the land where the tall corn is tallest, he used to be switched, birched, and in plain language, whipped, because of his inability to read books. Some author had written those sentences that he had been lambasted for because he couldn’t read them.
But when he worked as a stock boy for a publishing house in New York, he came to see authors and in a sense to know them. The girls in the office all liked the authors and not him. And being normal and healthy, he wanted the girls to like him. The girls sometimes swooned about the masculine authors who came to the office, but they only called him Ignatz. And then, he soon learned that authors were not like he was. They didn’t live at the Y.M.C.A. They were always causing trouble and getting into trouble.
One author got his boss, the owner of the firm, arrested because of a book he wrote. Another author was always getting drunk. And if an author wasn’t getting drunk or causing the police to hand a warrant to the boss, then he was getting divorced. The authors who came to the office just weren’t like Ignatius Bulganov or like the people he had known in the land where the tall corn is tall corn. They were always coming and going and never staying put and they disrupted the whole work of the office. So more and more, I.B. disliked authors.
And he came to understand and learn that other people didn’t particularly like them, either. He heard complaints in the office about this author and that one. The girls complained. The editors complained. The owners of the firm yelled bloody murder about them. The wives of the owners complained. And the business manager, the bookkeeper and the salesmen didn’t merely complain—they screamed.
In those years, Ignatius was happy. He had enough to eat, a clean room to sleep in, and books to count and feel, touch, lift, pack, wrap, and distribute on shelves. He had no ambitions and would have been content with his job except for authors. They became worse and worse.
One day he overheard two of the girls talking. An author had just come in with the manuscript of a book and it had to be published. Business was bad, and the girls said that this book was going to lose money.
“Why are authors?” one of them asked.
This question struck Ignatz Bulganov’s mind.
Over and over again that night in his room in the Y.M.C.A. he fondled his books and asked himself the question: “Why are authors?”
The next morning, as he was taking his cold shower, he asked himself why couldn’t there be books, without authors.
Here was food for thought. And he nourished his higher faculties on this food.
That day at work, he idly went to a desk where there was an adding machine. He punched numbers on the machine and pulled out slips of paper. And there were numbers all added up correctly. He remembered how he had never been able to do anything like that in the little red school-house. Just think of it, he had been whammed and whipped because he had not been able to add. And look at that machine. It added and never made a mistake.
Thus, Ignatius Bulganov Worthington acquired even more rich and highly nutritious food for thought.
Soon afterwards I.B.W. went to the free night school, a youth seeking knowledge and opportunity. He had digested his rich nutritious food for thought and something had happened to him. He had become ambitious.
Well, the rest of the story is familiar to every schoolboy. Ignatius studied machines, machinery, arithmetic, statistics, engineering, and draftsmanship. And he worked on machines. And he invented the machine that revolutionized the life of mankind. He invented the Worthy Worthington Writing Machine. People thought him crazy. He was laughed at and jeered. But he triumphed. Just as once he had been able to add correctly by pushing buttons on an adding machine, so now he could write a book by pushing buttons on a Worthy Worthington.
Of course, the first years were hard, and it took time for him to get his machine accepted. But he had perseverance and stick-to-itiveness. So, his machine was introduced into publishing houses, magazine offices, and newspaper editorial rooms. One machine, working an eight-hour day, could shed four books. And none of the books was gloomy. The policeman could read them without making an arrest and this saved the taxpayer’s money, because the police were no longer needed to seize books, and to arrest booksellers, authors, and publishers. The clergymen were grateful because they no longer had to write sermons about immoral books and could speak from the pulpit of God and Goodness.
And of course the publishers were happy. They had to take no authors to lunch, and they had to pay no royalties except a very small one to Ignatius Bulganov for the use of one of his Worthy Worthingtons. Their machines never erred and never produced an immoral or sad book. They whirred out works of joy and hope at a cost of ten cents a copy. Books became the cheapest commodity on the market. There was a tremendous boom in books. The publishers became millionaires. The nation became inspired. Joy and goodness reigned as though in the celestial spheres. And there were no more authors to cause trouble, to disillusion people, to lose money on bad books. The authors all went mad or became useful citizens. And Worthy Worthington married the girl who asked the question:
“Why are authors?”
He lived to a ripe age, left a fortune and a legacy of sunshine after him and was eternally revered for having found a means to eliminate authors and to enrich the material and spiritual life of his country and his times. His remains lie in a marble tomb ten feet high, and on the door of this tomb, these words are graven.
here lies worthy worthington
in
eternal repose
remembered
honored
loved
by
his grateful countrymen
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* * * *
. . . And speaking of overspecialization, I have not yet made reference to The Categories.
“Science fiction” has about the same utility as a label, by now, as “beatnik” does. To the majority of readers, both words describe something exotic, ultramodern, oddball, egghead, and probably unwashed. To the respective and only slightly overlapping in-groups, the labels have a proud, bold, modern feel, full of truth, beauty, and the Keatsian assurance of “all ye know, and all ye need to know.”
Certainly, to the “outsider” majority, and sometimes even to the
“ins,” both words are definable more in terms of costume than anything else . . . unless the something else is status. No one calls Picasso a “beatnik,” and it is not just the absence of beard that sets him apart from other wearers of sandals and turtlenecks.
Most publishers use “categories” to determine costume—or “packaging,” as the trade calls it. Science fiction, like fantasy, crime, suspense, Westerns, doctor and nurse stories, sex, love, war, is a “category.” And then there are “novels”—the non-category category, where subject does not matter, because either the book or the author is considered serious or literary or popular. (1984 and The Disappearance were serious books; The Lord of the Flies and Brave New World were literary; Fail Safe and Earth Abides popular; More Than Human and A Canticle for Liebowitz were science fiction: the latter in spite— or perhaps because?—of the publisher’s overfervent denials.)
I don’t mean it is impossible for an author to step out of his “category.” Just almost impossible. And sometimes it is as hard to break into the ghetto as out of it—