by John Sladek
‘But, Charlie, we are upstairs. This is the penthouse.’
‘I guess he’s gone,’ Glen said, shrugging. ‘That guy was looking for you all evening.’
‘Well, I’ll get going.’ Donagon shook hands with his host and with the veteran of Anzio, and with a long-toothed man Glen introduced as his psychiatrist, Dr Feinwelt.
‘Whazzis?’ The businessman called Charlie, still seated on the floor, held up a black object, ‘HEY! Some guy lost his leatha mustache!’
As Donagon left, he heard someone say, ‘Wasn’t that Truman Capote?’
‘Are you kidding? Anybody who wears French cuffs that big couldn’t be anybody.’
Part 1: An Experiment
One
They say your heart is dacron
And you just caint love nohow
But darlin I know…
It was a false day. Drizzle and the amplified, reedy heartbreak of a country-western singer drifted over the parking lot. There were tear-streaks on the mistproof windshields, pools of tears on the uneven plasphalt, and (in case everyone hadn’t got the message) a wet, melodious wind to blast the faces of several hundred National Arsenamid employees. The message, straight from the hearts of industrial psychologists, was: ‘What a hell of a day! Great to get inside, where it’s warm, and dry, and the Melodiak’s playing a light, bouncy tune like “Sunshine Balloon”.’
One man in a seam-split raincoat did not get the message; he walked slowly, ignored the rain, and even tried whistling along with ‘Cold Old Dacron Heart’. He was looking at the factory, too. All the others had averted their false morning faces from the rain, but not Bob Shairp.
He was looking at the factory for almost the last time—and seeing it for the first.
It looked exactly what it was, a service factory for the great food/missile corporation. A long, white building without character, neither ugly nor interesting.
No, today it was a ship, lying at anchor by the edge of the parking lot, with light streaming from every porthole. A voyage a day, for almost two years…and today the last. It was going on without him.
The whistle blew. Bob hurried in to the security office. The walls were maize over raw sienna this morning. On a sunny day they would go azure over dark green. As the soft saxophones of Melodiak greeted him (‘fill up that sun-shine ba-LLOON with hap-pi-ness’), Bob fumbled for his identity card.
‘Must be in the coat I usually wear,’ he said. The guard did not return his smile. ‘But you know me, anyway.’
‘Yeah, I know you, Shairp. Losing your card on your last day here! Just what in hell do you think you’re gonna walk off with—a few plans, maybe?’
Bob smiled to see if he was kidding. The guard turned his back on it. ‘All right, get the hell in there and stop wasting my time.’
Bob was a technical writer with a BA in English and a general understanding of engineering practice. He was not actually allowed to write anything, though he worked closely with a writing computer.
Many of National Arsenamid’s products resembled one another, and their repair manuals and parts lists differed only in details. Drawings and test routines were fed to the computer, which revised old manuals to fit new items. Bob made minor corrections in the computer’s prose.
A block of prose would appear on the screen before him:
Disassembly of half-speed prism carrier (5A1). Remove mtg screws (5A1A), carrier cover (5A1B) and gasket (5A1C). Discard gasket. Using lifting tool UA-10, lift and remove prism assembly (5A1D). Adjust prism assembly aside for testing.
He would work the keyboard to change ‘adjust’ to ‘set’, a new block of prose would appear, and so on. As the training film had explained: ‘ You are the key. You understand nuances of English which the computer cannot. So you see, we can never really eliminate the human element.’
Yet today, for reasons no one quite understood, Bob was being replaced. They were sending him to Mud Flats, Nebraska, to be retrained, then to one of their fifty-four other plants.
National Arsenamid was still masquerading as a food processor. But only five plants still made Perp and other breakfast delicacies. Only eleven more made up the home kitchen of an invisible lady named Bette Cooke. The rest: were under defense contracts.
Bob had no objection to working for defense. In fact he worried now and then about the Chinese getting ahead in the Second Front missile race. They were said to be working on an orbiting missile platform, as a third-strike capability (meaning something still up their sleeves after China and the US had wiped each other out, twice over).
What Bob didn’t like was secret work. He enjoyed coming home, flopping on the couch, and saying, ‘Boy! You know what that crazy computer came up with today? Marge, you should have seen it…’
And what could he tell her today? That the computer didn’t need him anymore?
Marge was not sympathetic.
‘Retraining pay is next to nothing, Bob! And Spot counted on getting into a military school—really, you couldn’t have picked a worse time.’
‘I,’ he began, and lifted an admonishing finger from his glass. What was so admonishing about that finger? Looked pretty much like all the rest. He put it back and studied the fingers all together. Making white circles on the glass. Or it on them. The drink in the glass was called a pajama. Four parts…no, five parts gin…
‘You what?’
‘I had nothing to do with it. For one reason or another, they’re replacing me, that’s all. I’m being moved on. What are you up to, anyway?’
Marge sat on the carpet, surrounded by a sprawl of magazines. Her right hand twiddled a pencil, her left held an open copy of Luxurious Home. The first letter of the title was hidden by her fingers, offering Bob a silent pun.
‘I’m doing a test: “Does Your Mate Measure Up?” It says—just a minute—it says that you have a lot of artistic ability, and you could really go places, but that you’re inclined to fritter away your time on frivolous projects. What you want in a wife is a mother, because you tend to shirk responsibilities.’
‘Oh, that’s good, that’s good! I’ll bet I have to be careful around the fifteenth, because something enters the house of something else, and though fifteen and seven are good numbers—aw, what’s the use?’
He decided to see what Spot was working on, on the teaching machine.
‘Watch, Spot.’ Bob pushed open the door with his foot and came in juggling eggs. ‘Got it up to four, now, and…’
The boy had fallen asleep at his homework. One thin arm lay crooked around the teaching machine, which was still trying to get him to answer something about the gold standard. His pajamas were black, and cut to resemble some kind of uniform complete with false pockets, belts and plastic medals
As Spot stirred, cuddling the machine closer, his father saw what kind of uniform it was. The red brassard turned to show a white circle and a hooked cross…
Bob put him to bed and then cleaned up the eggs from the floor.
‘Grow up, Bob! It doesn’t mean anything to him. All the kids have them. On account of that German TV program.’
‘Leutnant Krieger? You let him watch that crap? Christ, no wonder he worships the SS.’
Without answering, Marge opened her recipe file and began sorting cards.
‘So that’s what this “military school” thing is all about! All the kids do it, he says. It’s harmless, you say. And in twenty years, when they start up new concentration camps…’
For God’s sake! You haven’t even watched the program, so how can you judge it? It isn’t so bad, really. This Leutnant Krieger’s not really an SS man at all. He’s working to assassinate Hitler. So you see, when he beats up a Jew, it’s only part of his cover story. And when he…’
‘I get it. The best of both worlds, right? That’s just the way the Nazis worked in the first place. “This isn’t really me doing this medical experiment, it’s Destiny working through me. It’s Blood and Destiny, and besides, it’s orders.” What’s the use, nobody�
��s listening.’
Marge snapped the file box shut. ‘Oh, we’re all against you, is that it? Listen, you know what they say about aggression. He needs permissible outlets. Isn’t it better to let him get it out of his system now?’
‘Or into his system, maybe?’
‘Listen, you. If anybody in this family turns Spot into a little Nazi, it’ll be you! You, with all your petty restrictions and rules. Who wanted to keep him away from TV altogether? Who wouldn’t let him box? Oh, damn you?’
She began to cry over a fistful of Japanese recipes. Later, after they had made love, she whispered, ‘There was something I meant to tell you tonight, only I’ve forgotten.’
‘Mm?’
‘Oh yes. The window peeper.’
‘N.’
‘One of the neighbors saw someone lurking around our windows last night.’
Bob sat up and turned on the light. ‘And I’m going away tomorrow? Why in hell didn’t you say something? Who saw him?’
She hesitated, chewing a thumbnail. ‘Don’t laugh, but it was Mrs Fellstus.’
The light went off and Bob dragged the blankets toward his side of the bed.
Don’t you want to hear about it?’
For answer, he twitched away more of the blankets.
The Thursday meetings of the Jess Hurch Society had dwindled, dwindled. No one seemed to care about fighting Communism any more, and Grover attributed this to Lack of Moral Fiber and to Red propaganda.
‘They control the press, the radio, television,’ he said to the two people in the hall. ‘Wall Street, which they revile unceasingly, is really their tool. My own bank today refused us a loan to keep die fight going. So now I’m going to ask all of you to be generous…’
One of the two snorted, murmured something about a con game, and left. That left only Amy Birdsall (Sec. and Treas.). Grover Minus (Pres.) climbed down off the dais, set the American flag back in its holder, and sat down next to her. Amy lay down her pencil and applauded wildly until he shushed her. Then the room was silent, except for the creak of their folding chairs, as two old bodies shifted and shifted, searching for comfortable positions.
‘I give up, Amy. The cumminisks have won.’
She looked shocked. ‘Grover! How can you say such a thing! Why only yesterday…’
‘No, no. We’re too old for this kind of thing. My arm’s too bad to run the printing press. How can we warn the world, the two of us against millions of cumminisk spies? Better for you to go back to your bible and your Billy Whatsisname. Me, I’ll—I’ve got a few friends in that Florida retirement home we talked about. Thought I might drop down and—and see. Just see.’
Amy started weeping, pushing up her bifocals to scrub away the tears. ‘The only thing I ever believed in,’ she whimpered. ‘Besides God Almighty. I’d carry on by myself, but what can I do? I’m only a weak woman.’
For all her eighty years, Amy was stronger than Grover. She had once been a Rockette, and prided herself on still being able to kick off a man’s hat—if men still wore hats. But Grover was desperate to comfort her, all the same.
‘All right,’ he said, patting her hand. ‘All right, kid, the Jess Hurchists will go forward. But underground. No more pamphleteering, no more speeches. We’ll just spy them out, and turn over everything we learn to the FBI.’
The original Jess Hurch (1842-1887) was a cowpoke, miner, farmer and grain merchant. He was also a gambler, pimp, drunk and petty swindler. Yet his was a life redeemed at the last moment, and, in the town of Medicine Dumps, California, Jess paid his debts.
He was celebrating something by shooting out store windows and store owners along Main Street when he noticed a crowd collecting by the railway station. The governor of the state was about to campaign for re-election from the rear platform of his special train. Jess just naturally found a good spot in the front of the crowd.
It was a hot day. The speech was long. The governor invited everyone to sit down. Jess hunkered down on a rail and dozed off.
Midway through his speech, the governor asked if anyone wanted government by guess and by golly. Jess awoke, thought someone had called upon him to say a few words, and jumped up.
The swarthy man seated right behind him picked that moment to shoot the governor.
Though somewhat startled at being sprayed with brains and blood, the governor was unhurt. The citizenry sighed with relief at Jess’s departure. Then they strung up the wrong man. Then they shot up the town, good-naturedly.
The actual assassin was found hiding in a cracker barrel, and they finished off the day with a second necktie party. The swarthy little man’s last words were ‘Long live Anarchy!’ Thus it came to be that Jess Hurch transcended his own nature (the coroner reported him rotten with two kinds of VD) and joined the roundup of history—American’s first martyr to Anarchy, better known as Communism.
Seventy years later the Jess Hurch Society began. Grover Minus was especially pleased to carry on this particular name. As he demonstrated to his friends, ‘Jess Hurchist’ was an anagram relating the movement directly to Christianity.
Jess would have liked that. ‘Jesus H. Christ’ was his favorite ejaculation.
Mrs Fellstus sat in her accustomed place by the window, peering at the world through a slit she’d cut in the curtain.
‘He’s there again!’ she cried. There was no answer from the study, so she wheeled herself in, to make sure the doctor heard. ‘The window peeper’s there again tonight! Dean, you’re not listening.’
‘That’s right, Mother, I’m not listening. I’m trying to read an article in this journal.’
‘But the window peeper…’
‘Mother.’ Dr Fellstus tucked a huge, flat thumb in his Journal of Kennel Psychiatry and turned to face her. ‘We’ve been over this so many times, haven’t we? Isn’t it really just another case of the Communist in the Basement?’
‘No! Dean…’
‘Let me assure you, Mother, we are very, very safe here. Since you are no longer a Jess Hurchist, you need no longer fear the “great conspiracy”. There is no one outside, no window peeper, no one at all.’
‘Just come and look at him, Dean. Just once.’
‘Mother, remember the time you read somewhere the phrase “a chink in his armor”? And how afterward you kept imagining Red Chinese clanking up the stairs—remember that?’
‘Please, Dean. Just look.’
Very (sighing) well, Dr Fellstus walked into the living room, whipped back the curtain, and saw his own surprised expression. The handlebar mustache needed a trim.
‘Nothing and no one. Why don’t you watch a little TV, Mother? I believe they’re showing Billy Koch tonight, preaching from Porklink Stadium.’
There was no edge to his voice; nevertheless it was an order. Mrs Fellstus switched on the set, and the veterinarian returned to his journal.
The easy assumptions of this particular article rankled. Dr Fellstus, like its author, specialized in nervous diseases of the collie. He did not like to see this kind of over-emphasis on Oedipal matters, at the expense of common sense.
The ‘Lassie’ image, the feminization of this rough Scottish sheep dog, may have made no small contribution to the popular, sentimentalist view of the collie. Owners erroneously attributing to their pets a passive, meek, fastidious nature may find instead their pets are vigorous and headstrong. They may react to this discovery by covert rejection, or by trying to force Laddie or Bruce into a womanly rôle. They may lock him up, curtail his barking, even expect him to perform distaff duties like slipper-fetching. Thus the collie’s worst puppy-hood fears, those of castration by an angry sire, are seen to be…
‘Heal this child, O Lord!’ cried the TV set.
‘Angry sire indeed!’ said Dr Fellstus, pulling at his untrimmed mustache. ‘And not a damned word about early weaning!’
‘…could have sworn…’ said his mother’s lips. ‘A man…in a long gray overcoat…walking stick…’
There really was a
man in a gray overcoat, and he did use a gold-headed walking stick. His name was MacCormick Hines, and he was not ‘window peeping’, but checking out the truth about reality, the truth he’d come upon twenty years before.
The truth was that reality was televised.
Tonight, for example, Mr Hines watched a soap opera called The Shairp Family. Others might tune in on television by turning a knob. He tuned in by telling his chauffeur to stop the car and wait while he took a little constitutional, by creeping up to the screen and peering in.
The advantage of televised reality was that one could tune out any ghosts of unpleasantness. Mr Hines was able to believe that he was not one of the richest men in the world, only ‘comfortable’. He was able to believe that his corporation, National Arsenamid, made only fine cereals to build healthy kids, and nothing at all like anthrax, smallpox and typhus. And finally he was able to believe that everything he owned was his by dint of hard, honest work.
Whenever one of the bright young men who handled his investments tried to tell him how rich he was, Mr Hines would shout him down:
‘If I have a few comforts, by Gum I’ve earned them! Application, that’s what it took. Application of the seat of my pants to the seat of a chair. Putting on my thinking cap, giving the old gray matter a good workout. I sleep four hours a night, and I don’t waste a golden hour, a diamond minute of the rest! Time is money.
‘Better wear out than rust out. A little hard work never hurt anybody! All it takes is a little Yankee ingenuity, a little “can do”. I don’t believe in the word “can’t”. It takes gumption, and grit, and stick-to-itiveness, and a lot of plain, hard, honest-to-God elbow grease!
‘Use the brains God gave you! Dream awhile and scheme awhile, but keep your feet planted on terra firma and PLUG!’
Then, with the young man shouted out of the room, he could go back to his gentle dreams.