Player Piano

by Kurt Vonnegut

  Kroner, too, kept alive the notion that Paul could be expected to follow in his father's footsteps. This faith of Kroner's had had a lot to do with Paul's getting to be manager of Ilium; and now that faith might get him the managership of Pittsburgh. When Paul thought about his effortless rise in the hierarchy, he sometimes, as now, felt sheepish, like a charlatan. He could handle his assignments all right, but he didn't have what his father had, what Kroner had, what Shepherd had, what so many had: the sense of spiritual importance in what they were doing; the ability to be moved emotionally, almost like a lover, by the great omnipresent and omniscient spook, the corporate personality. In short, Paul missed what made his father aggressive and great: the capacity to really give a damn.

  "What are you going to do about Shepherd?" said Anita.

  Paul started to curl up again. "Do? I've already done it. Nothing."

  "If somebody doesn't clip his wings, he's going right over everybody's heads one of these days."

  "Welcome to."

  "You don't mean that."

  "I mean I want to sleep."

  Her bedsprings creaked as she lay down once more. She shifted her weight about restlessly for several minutes. "You know, it's a funny thing," she said.

  "Hmmmm?"

  "I've always noticed that when Shepherd turned his face a certain way, he looked an awful lot like somebody else. And it wasn't until tonight that I figured out who it was."

  "Mmmm."

  "When you see him at just the right angle, he's the spitting image of your father."

  7

  PRIVATE FIRST CLASS ELMO C. HACKETTS, JR., approached the Shah of Bratpuhr, Doctor Ewing J. Halyard, of the State Department, Khashdrahr Miasma, their interpreter, General of the Armies Milford S. Bromley, General William K. Corbett, camp commander, Major General Earl Pruitt, division commander, and their aides.

  Private First Class Hacketts was in the middle of the First Squad of the Second Platoon of B Company of the First Battalion of the 427th Regiment of the 107th Infantry Division of the Ninth Corps of the Twelfth Army, and he stayed right there, and put his left foot down every time the drummer hit the bass drum.

  "Dee-veesh-ee-own--" cried the Division Commander through a loudspeaker.

  "Reg-ee-ment--" bawled four regimental commanders.

  " 'Tal-ee-own--" cried twelve battalion commanders.

  "Cump-neee--" shouted thirty-six company commanders.

  "Batt-reeee--" shouted twelve battery commanders.

  "P'toon--" muttered a hundred and ninety-two platoon commanders.

  "Hacketts," said Private First Class Hacketts to himself.

  "Halt!"

  And Hacketts did, hut, two.

  "Ri-yut--" said the loudspeaker.

  "Right, right, right, right, right, right ..." echoed two hundred and fifty-six voices.

  "Right," said Private First Class Hacketts to himself.

  "Fay-yuss!"

  Hacketts faced right, hut, two. And he stared into the small, bright eyes of the Shah of Bratpuhr, spiritual leader of 6,000,000 people somewhere else.

  The Shah bowed slightly from the waist.

  Hacketts did not bow back because he wasn't supposed to and he wasn't going to do a goddamn thing he wasn't supposed to do and he had only twenty-three more years to go on his hitch and then he was through with the Army and the hell with it, and in twenty-three years if some sonofabitching colonel or lieutenant or general came up to him and said, "Salute me," or "Pick up that butt," or "Shine your shoes," or something like that he'd say, "Kiss my ass, sonny," and whip out the old discharge and spit in his eye and walk away laughing like crazy because his twenty-five years was up and all he had to do was hang around with the old gang in Hooker's in Evansville and wait for the old pension check and to hell with you buddy because I don't have to take no crap from nobody no more because I'm through and--

  The Shah clapped his hands delightedly and continued to stare at Private First Class Hacketts, who was a huge, healthy man. "Niki Takaru!" he cried, exhaling a strong effluvium of Sumklish.

  "No Takaru!" said Doctor Halyard. "Sol-dee-yers."

  "No Takaru?" said the Shah in puzzlement.

  "What's he say?" said General of the Armies Bromley.

  "Said they're a fine bunch of slaves," said Halyard. He turned to the Shah again and waggled his finger at the small, dark man. "No Takaru. No, no, no."

  Khashdrahr seemed baffled, too, and offered Halyard no help in clarifying the point.

  "Sim koula Takaru, akka sahn salet?" said the Shah to Khashdrahr.

  Khashdrahr shrugged and looked questioningly at Halyard. "Shah says, if these not slaves, how you get them to do what they do?"

  "Patriotism," said General of the Armies Bromley sternly. "Patriotism, damn it."

  "Love of country," said Halyard.

  Khashdrahr told the Shah, and the Shah nodded slightly, but his look of puzzlement did not disappear. "Sidi ba--" he said tentatively.

  "Eh?" said Corbett.

  "Even so--" translated Khashdrahr, and he looked as doubtful as the Shah.

  "Lay-eft--" shouted the loudspeaker.

  "Left, left, left, left, left, left ..."

  "Left," said Hacketts to himself.

  And Hacketts thought of how he was going to be left alone in the barracks this week end when everybody else was out on pass because of what happened in inspection that morning after he'd mopped and squeegeed the floor and washed the windows by his bunk and tightened up his blankets and made sure the tooth-paste tube was to the left of the shaving-cream tube and the tube caps both pointed away from the aisle and that the cuffs on his rolled-up socks pointed up in his footlocker and that his mess kit and mess cup and mess spoon and mess fork and mess knife and canteen were shining and that his wooden rifle was waxed and its simulated metalwork blackened and his shoes shined and that the extra pair under his bunk were laced to the top and tied and that the clothes on his hangers went: two shirts, O.D.; two pants, O.D.; three shirts, khaki; three pants, khaki; two shirts, herringbone twill; two pants, herringbone twill; field jacket; dress blouse, O.D.; raincoat, O.D.; and that all the pockets were empty and buttoned and then the inspecting officer came through and said, "Hey soldier, your fly's open and no pass for you," and--

  "Fay-yuss."

  "Hut, two," said Hacketts.

  "For'd--"

  "For'd, for'd, for'd, for'd, for'd for'd ..."

  "For'd," said Hacketts to himself.

  And Hacketts wondered where the hell he'd go in the next twenty-three years and thought it'd be a relief to get the hell out of the States for a while and go occupy someplace else and maybe be somebody in some of those countries instead of a bum with no money looking for an easy lay and not getting it in his own country or not getting a good lay anyway but still a pretty good lay compared to no lay at all but anyway there was more to living than laying and he'd like a little glory by God and there might be laying and glory overseas and while there wasn't any shooting and wasn't going to be none either probably for a good long while still you got a real gun and bullets and there was a little glory in that and sure as hell it was more grownup than marching up and down with a wooden one and he'd sure like a little rank too but he knew what his I.Q. was and everybody else did too and especially the machines so that was that for twenty-three more years unless one of the machines burned out a tube and misread his card and sent him to O.C.S. and that happened now and then and there was old Mulcahy who got ahold of his card and doctored it with an icepick so the machines would think he was qualified for a big promotion but he got restricted to barracks instead for having clap twenty-six times and then transferred to the band as a trombone player when he couldn't even whistle "Hot Cross Buns" and anyway it was better than the frigging Reeks and Wrecks any day and no big worries and a nice-looking suit only the pants ought to have zippers and in only twenty-three more years he could go up to some sonofabitching general or colonel or something and say, "Kiss my--"

  "Harch!" />
  "Boom!" went the bass drum, and down came Hacketts' left foot, and off he went in the midst of the vast, tractable human avalanche.

  "Takaru," said the Shah to Khashdrahr above the din.

  Khashdrahr nodded and smiled agreement. "Takaru."

  "What the hell am I supposed to do?" said Halyard unhappily to General of the Armies Bromley. "This guy thinks of everything he sees in terms of his own country, and his own country must be a Goddamn mess."

  "Amerikka vagga bouna, ni houri manko Salim da vagga dinko," said the Shah.

  "What's eating him now?" said Halyard impatiently.

  "He say Americans have changed almost everything on earth," said Khashdrahr, "but it would be easier to move the Himalayas than to change the Army."

  The Shah was waving goodbye to the departing troops. "Dibo, Takaru, dibo."

  8

  PAUL BREAKFASTED ALONE, while Anita and Finnerty, in widely separated beds, slept late after a busy evening.

  He had difficulty starting his Plymouth and finally realized that it was out of gas. There had been almost a half-tank the afternoon before. Finnerty, then, had gone for a long ride in it after they'd left him alone on the bed and gone to the Country Club without him.

  Paul rummaged about the glove compartment for a siphon hose, and found it. He paused, sensing that something was missing. He stuck his hand into the glove compartment again and felt around inside. The old pistol was gone. He looked on the floor and searched behind the seat cushion without finding it. Perhaps some urchin had taken it while he'd been in Homestead after the whisky. He'd have to tell the police about it right away, and there'd be all sorts of forms to fill out. He tried to think of a lie that would get him out of accusations of negligence and not get anybody else in trouble.

  He dipped the siphon hose into the station wagon's tank, sucked and spat, and plunged the other end of the hose into the Plymouth's empty tank. As he waited for the slow transfer to take place, he stepped out of the garage and into a warm patch of sunlight.

  The bathroom window above clattered open, and he looked up to see Finnerty staring at himself in the medicine-cabinet mirror. Finnerty didn't notice Paul. He had a bent cigarette in his mouth, and there it remained while he washed his face with a cursory and random dabbing motion. The ash on the cigarette grew longer and longer, and, incredibly, longer, until the coal was almost at his lips. He removed the cigarette from his mouth, and the long ash fell. Finnerty flipped the butt in the direction of the toilet, replaced it with another, and proceeded to shave. And the ash grew longer and longer. He leaned close to the mirror, and the ash broke against it. He pressed a pimple between his thumb and forefinger, seemingly without results. Still squinting in the mirror at the reddened spot, he groped for a towel with one hand, seized one without looking at it, and swept Anita's stockings from the towel rack and into the bathtub. Finnerty, his toilet complete, said something to his reflection, grimaced, and made his exit.

  Paul returned to the garage, coiled the siphon hose in the glove compartment, and drove off. The car was hesitating again--catching and slowing, catching and slowing. At any rate, it took his mind momentarily from the inconvenient matter of the missing pistol. On the long grade past the golf course, the engine seemed to be hitting on no more than three cylinders, and a squad from the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps, putting in a spruce windbreak to the north of the clubhouse, turned to watch the car's enervated struggle with gravity.

  "Hey! Headlamp's busted," called one of the men.

  Paul nodded and smiled his thanks. The car faltered, and came to a stop, just short of the summit. Paul set his emergency brake and got out. He lifted the hood and tested various connections. Tools being laid against the side of the car made a clattering noise, and a half-dozen Reeks and Wrecks stuck their heads under the hood with his.

  "It's his plugs," said a small, bright-eyed, Italian-looking man.

  "Aaaaaaah, in a pig's ass it's his plugs," said a tall, ruddy-faced man, the oldest of the group. "Lemme show you where the real trouble is. Here, that wrench, that's the ticket." He went to work on the fuel pump, soon had the top off of it. He pointed to the gasket beneath the cap. "There," he said soberly, like an instructor in surgery, "there's your trouble. Sucking air. I knew that the minute I heard you coming a mile off."

  "Well," said Paul, "guess I'd better call somebody to come and get it. Probably take a week to order a new gasket."

  "Five minutes," said the tall man. He took off his hat and, with an expression of satisfaction, ripped out the sweatband. He took a penknife from his pocket, laid the cap of the fuel pump over the sweatband, and cut out a leather disk just the right size. Then he cut out the disk's center, dropped the new gasket in place, and put the pump back together. The others watched eagerly, handed him tools, or offered to hand him tools, and tried to get into the operation wherever they could. One man scraped the green and white crystals from a battery connection. Another one went around tightening the valve caps on the tires.

  "Now try her!" said the tall man.

  Paul stepped on the starter, the motor caught, roared fast and slow without a miss as he pumped the accelerator. He looked up to see the profound satisfaction, the uplift of creativity, in the faces of the Reeks and Wrecks.

  Paul took out his billfold and handed two fives to the tall man.

  "One'll do," he said. He folded it carefully and tucked it into the breast pocket of his blue workshirt. He smiled sardonically. "First money I've earned in five years. I oughta frame that one, eh?" He looked closely at Paul, for the first time aware of the man and not his motor. "Seems like I know you from somewhere. What's your line?"

  Something made Paul want to be someone other than who he was. "Got a little grocery store," he said.

  "Need a guy who's handy with his hands?"

  "Not just now. Things are pretty slow."

  The man was scrawling something on a piece of paper. He held the paper against the hood, and twice punched his pencil through the paper as the pencil crossed a crack. "Here--here's my name. If you've got machines, I'm the guy that can keep them going. Put in eight years in the works as a millwright before the war, and anything I don't know, I pick up fast." He handed the paper to Paul. "Where you going to put it?"

  Paul slipped the paper under the transparent window in his billfold, over his driver's license. "There--right on top." He shook the man's hand and nodded to the others. "Thanks."

  The motor took hold with assurance and swept Paul over the hilltop and up to the gate of the Ilium Works. A watchman waved from his pillbox, a buzzer sounded, and the iron, high-spiked gate swung open. He came now to the solid inner door, honked, and looked expectantly at a thin slit in the masonry, behind which another guard sat. The door rumbled upward, and Paul drove up to his office building.

  He went up the steps two at a time--his only exercise--and unlocked two outer doors that led him into Katharine's office, and beyond that, his own.

  Katharine hardly looked up when he came in. She seemed lost in melancholy, and, on the other side of the room, on the couch that was virtually his, Bud Calhoun was staring at the floor.

  "Can I help?" said Paul.

  Katharine sighed. "Bud wants a job."

  "Bud wants a job? He's got the fourth-highest-paid job in Ilium now. I couldn't equal what he gets for running the depot. Bud, you're crazy. When I was your age, I didn't make half--"

  "Ah want a job," said Bud. "Any job."

  "Trying to scare the National Petroleum Council into giving you a raise? Sure, Bud, I'll make you an offer better than what you're getting, but you've got to promise not to take me up on it."

  "Ah haven't got a job any more," said Bud. "Canned."

  Paul was amazed. "Really? What on earth for? Moral turpitude? What about the gadget you invented for--"

  "Thet's it," said Bud with an eerie mixture of pride and remorse. "Works. Does a fine job." He smiled sheepishly. "Does it a whole lot better than Ah did it."

  "It run
s the whole operation?"

  "Yup. Some gadget."

  "And so you're out of a job."

  "Seventy-two of us are out of jobs," said Bud. He slumped even lower in the couch. "Ouah job classification has been eliminated. Poof." He snapped his fingers.

  Paul could see the personnel manager pecking out Bud's job code number on a keyboard, and seconds later having the machine deal him seventy-two cards bearing the names of those who did what Bud did for a living--what Bud's machine now did better. Now, personnel machines all over the country would be reset so as no longer to recognize the job as one suited for men. The combination of holes and nicks that Bud had been to personnel machines would no longer be acceptable. If it were to be slipped into a machine, it would come popping right back out.

  "They don't need P-128's any more," said Bud bleakly, "and nothing's open above or below. Ah'd take a cut, and go back to P-129 or even P-130, but it's no dice. Everything's full up."

  "Got any other numbers, Bud?" said Paul. "The only P-numbers we're authorized are--"

  Katharine had the Manual open before her. She'd already looked the numbers up. "P-225 and P-226--lubrication engineers," she said. "And Doctor Rosenau's got both of those."

  "That's right, he does," said Paul. Bud was in a baffling mess, and Paul didn't see how he could help him. The machines knew the Ilium Works had its one allotted lubrication engineer, and they wouldn't tolerate a second. If Bud were recorded as a lubrication engineer and introduced into the machines, they'd throw him right out again.

  As Kroner often said, eternal vigilance was the price of efficiency. And the machines tirelessly riffled through their decks again and again and again in search of foot draggers, free riders, and misfits.