Player Piano

by Kurt Vonnegut

  "You know it isn't up to me, Bud," said Paul. "I haven't got any real say about who's taken on."

  "He knows that," said Katharine. "But he has to start somewhere, and we thought maybe you'd know of some opening, or who to see."

  "Oh, it makes me sore," said Paul. "Whatever got into them to give you a Petroleum Industries assignment, anyway? You should be in design."

  "Got no aptitude for it," said Bud. "Tests proved that."

  That would be on his illfated card, too. All his aptitude-test grades were on it--irrevocably, immutable, and the card knew best. "But you do design," said Paul. "And you do it with a damn sight more imagination than the prima donnas in the Lab." The Lab was the National Research and Development Laboratory, which, was actually a war-born conglomeration of all the country's research and development facilities under a single headquarters. "You're not even paid to design, and still you do a better job of it than they do. That telemetering arrangement for the pipeline, your car, and now this monster that runs the depot--"

  "But the test says no," said Bud.

  "So the machines say no," said Katharine.

  "So that's that," said Bud. "Ah guess."

  "You might see Kroner," said Paul.

  "Ah tried, and didn't get past his secretary. Ah told her Ah was after a job, and she called up Personnel. They ran mah card through the machines while she held the phone; and then she hung up, and looked sad, and said Kroner had meetings all month."

  "Maybe your university can help," said Paul. "Maybe the grading machine needed new tubes when it went over your development aptitude test." He spoke without conviction. Bud was beyond help. As an old old joke had it, the machines had all the cards.

  "Ah've written, asking them to check my grades again. No matter what Ah say, Ah get the same thing back." He threw a piece of graph paper on Katharine's desk. "Theah. Ah've written three letters, and gotten three of these back."

  "Uh-huh," said Paul, looking at the familiar graph with distaste. It was a so-called Achievement and Aptitude Profile, and every college graduate got one along with his sheepskin. And the sheepskin was nothing, and the graph was everything. When time for graduation came, a machine took a student's grades and other performances and integrated them into one graph--the profile. Here Bud's graph was high for theory, there low for administration, here low for creativity, and so on, up and down across the page to the last quality--personality. In mysterious, unnamed units of measure, each graduate was credited with having a high, medium, or low personality. Bud, Paul saw, was a strong medium, as the expression went, personality-wise. When the graduate was taken into the economy, all his peaks and valleys were translated into perforations on his personnel card.

  "Well, thanks anyway," said Bud suddenly, gathering up his papers, as though embarrassed at having been so weak as to bother anyone with his troubles.

  "Something will turn up," said Paul. He paused at his office door. "How are you fixed for money?"

  "They're keepin' me on a few more months, until all the new equipment gets installed. And Ah've got the award from the suggestion system."

  "Well, thank God you got something out of it. How much?"

  "Five hundred. It's the biggest one this year."

  "Congratulations. Is that on your card?"

  Bud held the rectangle of cardboard up to the window and squinted at the nicks and perforations. "Think thet little devil raht there's it."

  "That's for your smallpox vaccination," said Katharine, looking over his shoulder. "I've got one of those."

  "No, the little triangle next to thet one."

  Katharine's phone rang. "Yes?" She turned to Paul. "A Doctor Finnerty is at the gate and wants in."

  "If it's just to shoot the bull, tell him to wait until late this afternoon."

  "He says he wants to see the plant, not you."

  "All right; let him in."

  "They're shorthanded at the gate," said Katharine. "One of the guards is down with flu. What'll they do about an escort for him?"

  The few visitors that did get admitted to the Ilium Works were taken about by guides, who only incidentally pointed out the wonders of the place. The guides were armed, and their main job was to see that no one got close enough to vital controls to knock them out. The system was a holdover from the war, and from the postwar riot period, but it still made sense. Every so often, antisabotage laws notwithstanding, someone got it into his head to jimmy something. It hadn't happened in Ilium for years, but Paul had heard reports from other works--reports of a visitor with a crude bomb in a briefcase in Syracuse; of an old lady in Buffalo stepping from a group of sightseers to jam her umbrella into some vital clockwork.... Things like that still happened, and Kroner had stipulated that visitors to plants should be watched every second. The saboteurs had come from every walk of life--including, in at least one hushed-up instance, the brass. As Kroner had said, you never could tell who was going to try it next.

  "Oh, what the hell, let Finnerty in without an escort," said Paul. "He's a special case--an old Ilium man."

  "The directive said no exceptions," said Katharine. She knew all of the directives--and there were thousands of them--cold.

  "Let him roam."

  "Yessir."

  Bud Calhoun watched the interchange with far more interest than it merited, Paul thought. It was as though they had been putting on an absorbing drama. When Katharine hung up she mistook his gaze for adoration and returned it warmly.

  "Six minutes," said Bud.

  "Six minutes for what?" said Katharine.

  "Six minutes foah nothin'," said Bud. "It took thet long to get a man in through the gate."

  "Well?"

  "Three of you tied up for six minutes--you two and the guard. Eighteen man minutes in all. Hell, it cost over two bucks to let him in. How many people come to the gate a year?"

  "Ten a day, maybe," said Paul.

  "Twenty-seven hundred and fifty-eight a year," said Katharine.

  "And you pass on each one?"

  "Katharine usually does," said Paul. "That's the biggest part of her job."

  "At a dollah a head, thet's twenty-seven hundred dollahs a year," said Bud reproachfully. He pointed at Katharine. "This is ridiculous! If policy is iron-clad, why not let a machine make the decisions? Policy isn't thinkin', it's a reflex. You could even build a gadget with an exception for Finnerty and still get away foah less than a hundred dollahs."

  "There are all sorts of special decisions I have to make," said Katharine defensively. "I mean, all sorts of things come up that require more than routine thought--more than any old machine could do."

  Bud wasn't listening. He held his palms apart, marking the size of the box being born in his imagination. "Either a visitor is a nonentity, a friend, an employee, small brass, or big brass. The guard presses one of five buttons in the top row on the box. See it? Either the visitor is sight-seein', inspectin', makin' a personal call, or here on business. The guard pushes one of four buttons in thet row. The machine has two lights, a red one for no, and a green one for yes. Whatever the policy is, bingo!--the lights tell him what to do."

  "Or we could tack a memo about policy on the guard-house wall," said Paul.

  Bud looked startled. "Yes," he said slowly, "you could do thet." It was clear he thought it was a pretty drab man who would think much of that solution.

  "I'm mad," said Katharine, her voice small. "You have no right to go around saying a machine can do what I do."

  "Aw, now honey--there wasn't anything personal in it."

  She was crying now, and Paul slipped into his office and shut the door.

  "Your wife's on the phone," said Katharine brokenly on the intercom set.

  "All right. Yes, Anita?"

  "Have you heard from Kroner?"

  "No. I'll let you know if I do."

  "I hope he had a good time last night."

  "He did--or firmly believes he did."

  "Is Finnerty there?"

  "In the plant somewhe
re."

  "You should see the bathroom."

  "I saw it in the making."

  "He had four cigarettes going, and forgot about every one of them. One on top of the medicine cabinet, one on the window sill, one on the top of the John, and one on the toothbrush rack. I couldn't eat my breakfast. He's got to go."

  "I'll tell him."

  "What are you going to tell Kroner?"

  "I don't know yet. I don't know what he's going to say."

  "Pretend I'm Kroner and I've just said, sort of casually, 'Well, Paul, the Pittsburgh spot is still open.' Then what do you say?"

  This was the game she never tired of--one that took every bit of Paul's patience to play. She was forever casting herself as a person of influence and making Paul play dialogues with her. There would then be a critique, in which his responses were analyzed, edited, and polished by her. No real dialogues ever came close to her phantasies, which served chiefly to show how primitive a notion she had of men of affairs and of how business was done.

  "Go on," she prodded.

  "Pittsburgh, eh?" said Paul. "Holy smokes! Wow!"

  "No, now, I'm serious," she said firmly. "What will you say?"

  "Darling, I'm busy now."

  "All right; you think it over and call me back. You know what I think you should say?"

  "I'll call you back."

  "All right. Goodbye. I love you."

  "I love you, Anita. Goodbye."

  "Doctor Shepherd is on the phone," said Katharine.

  Paul picked up the now moist instrument again. "What's the matter now, Shep?"

  "There's an unauthorized man in Building 57! Get the guards down here."

  "Is it Finnerty?"

  "An unauthorized man," said Shepherd stubbornly.

  "All right. Is it an unauthorized Finnerty?"

  "Yes--but that's beside the point. It makes no difference what his name is. He's roaming around without an escort, and you know how Kroner feels about that."

  "I gave him permission. I know he's down there."

  "You're putting me in a sweet spot."

  "I don't get you."

  "I mean I'm responsible for these buildings, and now you're telling me to ignore very specific orders from Kroner. Am I supposed to be left holding the bag if word gets out?"

  "Look, just forget it. It's all right. I'll take the responsibility."

  "In other words, you order me to let Finnerty go through unescorted."

  "Yes--that's it. I order you."

  "O.K., I just wanted to make sure I had it straight. Berringer wondered about it, too, so I had him listen in."

  "Berringer?" said Paul.

  "Yeah!" said Berringer.

  "Just keep this under your hat is all."

  "You're the boss," said Berringer flatly.

  "All squared away now, Shepherd?" said Paul.

  "I guess. And are we to understand that you've authorized him to make drawings, too?"

  "Drawings?"

  "Layouts."

  At this point Paul realized that his judgment had been pushed into the background by more emotional matters, but he decided it was too late to do anything about it gracefully. "Let him do what he wants. He may come up with some useful ideas. All right?"

  "You're the boss," said Shepherd. "Isn't that right, Berringer?"

  "He's the boss," said Berringer.

  "I'm the boss," said Paul, and he let the telephone clatter into its cradle.

  Bud Calhoun was still trying to patch things up with Katharine in the next office. His voice had become wheedling and penetrating. Paul could understand snatches of it.

  "As far as thet goes," Bud was saying, "it wouldn't be much of a trick to replace him with a gadget." Paul had a good idea where Bud's stubby index finger was pointing.

  9

  FINNERTY APPARENTLY FOUND plenty to entertain himself with in the Ilium Works. He didn't appear in Paul's office until late in the afternoon. When he did arrive, Katharine Finch gave a small cry of surprise. He'd let himself in through two locked doors with keys he'd presumably failed to turn in when he left the plant for Washington years before.

  Paul's door was ajar, and he heard the conversation.

  "Don't go for your rod, lady. The name's Finnerty."

  Katharine did have a gun somewhere in her desk, though no ammunition. That secretaries should be armed was a regulation held over from the old days, too; one Kroner thought well enough of to revive in a directive.

  "You're not authorized to have those keys," she said coldly.

  "Have you been crying?" said Finnerty.

  "I'll see if Doctor Proteus can see you."

  "What is there to cry about? See--none of the red lights are on, no buzzers going off, so all's well with the world."

  "Send him in, Katharine," called Paul.

  Finnerty walked in and sat on the edge of Paul's desk. "What's the matter with Miss Policy out there?"

  "Broken engagement. What's on your mind?"

  "Thought we'd have a couple of drinks--if you feel like listening."

  "All right. Let me call Anita and tell her we'll be late for supper."

  Katharine got Anita on the line, and Paul told his wife what he was up to.

  "Have you thought out what you'd say to Kroner if he told you Pittsburgh was still open?"

  "No--it's been a hell of a day."

  "Well, I've been thinking about it, and--"

  "Anita, I've got to go."

  "All right. I love you."

  "I love you, Anita. Goodbye." He looked up at Finnerty. "O.K., let's go." He felt somehow conspiratorial, and got a small lift from the feeling. Being with Finnerty had often had that effect. Finnerty had an air of mysteriousness about him, an implication that he knew of worlds unsuspected by anyone else--a man of unexplained absences and shadowy friends. Actually, Finnerty let Paul in on very little that was surprising, and only gave him the illusion of sharing in mysteries--if, indeed, there were any. The illusion was enough. It filled a need in Paul's life, and he went gladly for a drink with the odd man.

  "Is there somewhere I can reach you?" said Katharine.

  "No, I'm afraid not," said Paul. He planned to go to the Country Club, where he could be reached easily enough. But, on an impulse, he indulged his appetite for secretiveness.

  Finnerty had come over in Paul's station wagon. They left it at the Works and took Paul's old car.

  "Across the bridge," said Finnerty.

  "I thought we'd go to the club."

  "This is Thursday, isn't it? Do the civic managers still have their big dinner there on Thursdays?"

  The civic managers were the career administrators who ran the city. They lived on the same side of the river as the managers and engineers of the Ilium Works, but the contact between the two groups was little more than perfunctory and, traditionally, suspicious. The schism, like so many things, dated back to the war, when the economy had, for efficiency's sake, become monolithic. The question had arisen: who was to run it, the bureaucrats, the heads of business and industry, or the military? Business and bureaucracy had stuck together long enough to overwhelm the military and had since then worked side by side, abusively and suspiciously, but, like Kroner and Baer, each unable to do a whole job without the other.

  "Not much changes in Ilium," said Paul. "The civic managers will be there all right. But if we get over there this early, we can get a booth in the bar."

  "I'd rather share a bed in a leprosarium."

  "All right; over the bridge it is. Let me put on something more comfortable." Paul stopped his car just short of the bridge, and traded his coat for the jacket in the trunk.

  "I wondered if you still did that. That's even the same jacket, isn't it?"

  "Habit."

  "What would a psychiatrist say about it?"

  "He'd say it was a swat at my old man, who never went anywhere without a Homburg and a double-breasted suit."

  "Think he was a bastard?"

  "How do I know what my father
was? The editor of Who's Who knows about as much as I do. The guy was hardly ever home."

  They were driving through Homestead now. Paul suddenly snapped his fingers in recollection and turned down a side street. "I've got to stop by police headquarters for a minute. Mind waiting?"

  "What's the trouble?"

  "Almost slipped my mind. Somebody swiped the gun from the glove compartment, or it fell out, or something."

  "Keep driving."

  "It'll just take a minute, I hope."

  "I took it."

  "You? Why?"

  "Had an idea I might want to shoot myself." He said it matter-of-factly. "Even had the barrel in my mouth for a while, and the hammer back--for maybe ten minutes."

  "Where is it now?"

  "Bottom of the Iroquois somewhere." He licked his lips. "Tasted oil and metal all through dinner. Turn left."

  Paul had learned to listen with outward calm when Finnerty spoke of his morbid moments. When he was with Finnerty he liked to pretend that he shared the man's fantastic and alternately brilliant or black inner thoughts--almost as though he were discontent with his own relative tranquility. Finnerty had spoken dispassionately of suicide often; but, seemingly, he did it because he got pleasure from savoring the idea. If he'd felt driven to kill himself, he would have been dead long ago.

  "You think I'm insane?" said Finnerty. Apparently he wanted more of a reaction than Paul had given him.

  "You're still in touch. I guess that's the test."

  "Barely--barely."

  "A psychiatrist could help. There's a good man in Albany."

  Finnerty shook his head. "He'd pull me back into the center, and I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." He nodded. "Big, undreamed-of things--the people on the edge see them first." He laid his hand on Paul's shoulder, and Paul fought a reflex that suddenly made him want to get as far away as possible. "Here's the place we want," said Finnerty. "Park here."

  They had circled several blocks and were back at the head of the bridge, by the same saloon Paul had visited for the whisky. Paul, with uncomfortable memories of the place, wanted to go somewhere else, but Finnerty was already out of the car and on his way in.

  Gratefully, Paul saw that the street and saloon were almost deserted, so there was a good chance he wouldn't see any of the people who'd watched his confusion the day before. No hydrants were going, but from far away, from the direction of Edison Park, came faint band music--a clue as to where everyone might be.