Riders of the Purple Wage

by Philip José Farmer

  On the right hand is a hatrack with a sign: HANG YOUR HEAD HERE. A double pun by Grandpa, who always carries a joke too far for most people. If Grandpa goes beyond the bounds of verbal good taste, his great-great-grandson has overshot the moon in his paintings. Thirty of his latest have been revealed, including the last three of his Dog Series: Dog Star, Dog Would, and Dog Tiered. Ruskinson and his disciples are threatening to throw up. Luscus and his flock praise, but they’re restrained. Luscus has told them to wait until he talks to young Winnegan before they go all-out. The fido men are busy shooting and interviewing both and trying to provoke a quarrel.

  The main room of the building is a huge hemisphere with a bright ceiling which runs through the complete spectrum every nine minutes. The floor is a giant chessboard, and in the center of each square is a face, each of a great in the various arts. Michelangelo, Mozart, Balzac, Zeuxis, Beethoven, Li Po, Twain, Dostoyevsky, Farmisto, Mbuzi, Cupel, Krishnagurti, etc. Ten squares are left faceless so that future generations may add their own nominees for immortality.

  The lower part of the wall is painted with murals depicting significant events in the lives of the artists. Against the curving wall are nine stages, one for each of the Muses. On a console above each stage is a giant statue of the presiding goddess. They are naked and have overripe figures: huge-breasted, broad-hipped, sturdy-legged, as if the sculptor thought of them as Earth goddesses, not refined intellectual types.

  The faces are basically structured like the smooth placid faces of classical Greek statues, but they have an unsettling expression around the mouths and eyes. The lips are smiling but seem ready to break into a snarl. The eyes are deep and menacing, DON’T SELL ME OUT, they say. IF YOU DO…

  A transparent plastic hemisphere extends over each stage and has acoustic properties which keep people who are not beneath the shell from hearing the sounds emanating from the stage and vice versa.

  Chib makes his way through the noisy crowd towards the stage of Polyhymnia, the Muse who includes painting in her province. He passes the stage on which Benedictine is standing and pouring her lead heart out in an alchemy of golden notes. She sees Chib and manages somehow to glare at him and at the same time to keep smiling at her audience. Chib ignores her but observes that she has replaced the dress ripped in the tavern. He sees also the many policemen stationed around the building. The crowd does not seem in an explosive mood. Indeed, it seems happy, if boisterous. But the police know how deceptive this can be. One spark…

  Chib goes by the stage of Calliope, where Omar Runic is extemporizing. He comes to Polyhymnia’s, nods at Rex Luscus, who waves at him, and sets his painting on the stage. It is titled The Massacre of the Innocents (subtitle: Dog in the Manger).

  The painting depicts a stable.

  The stable is a grotto with curiously shaped stalactites. The light that breaks—or fractures—through the cave is Chib’s red. It penetrates every object, doubles its strength, and then rays out jaggedly. The viewer, moving from side to side to get a complete look, can actually see the many levels of light as he moves, and thus he catches glimpses of the figures under the exterior figures.

  The cows, sheep, and horses are in stalls at the end of the cave. Some are looking with horror at Mary and the infant. Others have their mouths open, evidently trying to warn Mary. Chib has used the legend that the animals in the manger were able to talk to each other the night Christ was born.

  Joseph, a tired old man, so slumped he seems back-boneless, is in a corner. He wears two horns, but each has a halo, so it’s all right.

  Mary’s back is to the bed of straw on which the infant is supposed to be. From a trapdoor in the floor of the cave, a man is reaching to place a huge egg on the straw bed. He is in a cave beneath the cave and is dressed in modern clothes, has a boozy expression, and, like Joseph, slumps as if invertebrate. Behind him a grossly fat woman, looking remarkably like Chib’s mother, has the baby, which the man passed on to her before putting the foundling egg on the straw bed.

  The baby has an exquisitely beautiful face and is suffused with a white glow from his halo. The woman has removed the halo from his head and is using the sharp edge to butcher the baby.

  Chib has a deep knowledge of anatomy, since he has dissected many corpses while getting his Ph.D. in art at Beverly Hills U. The body of the infant is not unnaturally elongated, as so many of Chib’s figures are. It is more than photographic; it seems to be an actual baby. Its viscera is unraveled through a large bloody hole.

  The onlookers are struck in their viscera as if this were not a painting but a real infant, slashed and disemboweled, found on their doorsteps as they left home.

  The egg has a semitransparent shell. In its murky yolk floats a hideous little devil, horns, hooves, tail. Its blurred features resemble a combination of Henry Ford’s and Uncle Sam’s. When the viewers shift to one side or the other, the faces of others appear: prominents in the development of modern society.

  The window is crowded with wild animals that have come to adore but have stayed to scream soundlessly in horror. The beasts in the foreground are those that have been exterminated by man or survive only in zoos and natural preserves. The dodo, the blue whale, the passenger pigeon, the quagga, the gorilla, orangutan, polar bear, cougar, lion, tiger, grizzly bear, California condor, kangaroo, wombat, rhinoceros, bald eagle.

  Behind them are other animals and, on a hill, the dark crouching shapes of the Tasmanian aborigine and Haitian Indian.

  “What is your considered opinion of this rather remarkable painting, Doctor Luscus?” a fido interviewer asks.

  Luscus smiles and says, “I’ll have a considered judgment in a few minutes. Perhaps you’d better talk to Doctor Ruskinson first. He seems to have made up his mind at once. Fools and angels, you know.”

  Ruskinson’s red face and scream of fury are transmitted over the fido.

  “The shit heard around the world!” Chib says loudly.

  “INSULT! SPITTLE! PLASTIC DUNG! A BLOW IN THE FACE OF ART AND A KICK IN THE BUTT FOR HUMANITY! INSULT! INSULT!”

  “Why is it such an insult, Doctor Ruskinson?” the fido man says. “Because it mocks the Christian faith, and also the Panamorite faith? It doesn’t seem to me it does that. It seems to me that Winnegan is trying to say that men have perverted Christianity, maybe all religions, all ideals, for their own greedy self-destructive purposes, that man is basically a killer and a perverter. At least, that’s what I get out of it, although of course I’m only a simple layman, and…”

  “Let the critics make the analysis, young man!” Ruskinson snaps. “Do you have a double Ph.D., one in psychiatry and one in art? Have you been certified as a critic by the government?

  “Winnegan, who has no talent whatsoever, let alone this genius that various self-deluded blowhards prate about, this abomination from Beverly Hills, presents his junk—actually a mishmash which has attracted attention solely because of a new technique that any electronic technician could invent—I am enraged that a mere gimmick, a trifling novelty, cannot only fool certain sectors of the public but highly educated and federally certified critics such as Doctor Luscus here—although there will always be scholarly asses who bray so loudly, pompously, and obscurely that…”

  “Isn’t it true,” the fido man says, “that many painters we now call great, Van Gogh for one, were condemned or ignored by their contemporary critics? And…”

  The fido man, skilled in provoking anger for the benefit of his viewers, pauses. Ruskinson swells, his head a bloodvessel just before aneurysm.

  “I’m no ignorant layman!” he screams. “I can’t help it that there have been Luscuses in the past! I know what I’m talking about! Winnegan is only a micrometeorite in the heaven of Art, not fit to shine the shoes of the great luminaries of painting. His reputation has been pumped up by a certain clique so it can shine in the reflected glory, the hyenas, biting the hand that feeds them, like mad dogs…”

  “Aren’t you mixing your metaphors a little bit?”
the fido man says.

  Luscus takes Chib’s hand tenderly and draws him to one side where they’re out of fido range.

  “Darling Chib,” he coos, “now is the time to declare yourself. You know how vastly I love you, not only as an artist but for yourself. It must be impossible for you to resist any longer the deeply sympathetic vibrations that leap unhindered between us. God, if you only knew how I dreamed of you, my glorious godlike Chib, with…”

  “If you think I’m going to say yes just because you have the power to make or break my reputation, to deny me the grant, you’re wrong,” Chib says. He jerks his hand away.

  Luscus’ good eye glares. He says, “Do you find me repulsive? Surely it can’t be on moral grounds…”

  “It’s the principle of the thing,” Chib says. “Even if I were in love with you, which I’m not, I wouldn’t let you make love to me. I want to be judged on my merit alone, that only. Come to think of it, I don’t give a damn about anybody’s judgment. I don’t want to hear praise or blame from you or anybody. Look at my paintings and talk to each other, you jackals. But don’t try to make me agree with your little images of me.”

  THE ONLY GOOD CRITIC IS A DEAD CRITIC

  Omar Runic has left his dais and now stands before Chib’s paintings. He places one hand on his naked left chest, on which is tattooed the face of Herman Melville, Homer occupying the other place of honor on his right breast. He shouts loudly, his black eyes like furnace doors blown out by explosion. As has happened before, he is seized with inspiration derived from Chib’s paintings.

  “Call me Ahab, not Ishmael.

  For I have hooked the Leviathan.

  I am the wild ass’s colt born to a man.

  Lo, my eye has seen it all!

  My bosom is like wine that has no vent.

  I am a sea with doors, but the doors are stuck.

  Watch out! The skin will burst; the doors will break.

  “You are Nimrod, I say to my friend, Chib.

  And now is the hour when God says to his angels,

  If this is what he can do as a beginning, then

  Nothing is impossible for him.

  He will be blowing his horn before

  The ramparts of Heaven and shouting for

  The Moon as hostage, the Virgin as wife,

  And demanding a cut on the profits

  From the Great Whore of Babylon.”

  “Stop that son of a bitch!” the Festival Director shouts. “He’ll cause a riot like he did last year!”

  The bolgani begin to move in. Chib watches Luscus, who is talking to the fido man. Chib can’t hear Luscus, but he’s sure Luscus is not saying complimentary things about him.

  “Melville wrote of me long before I was born.

  I’m the man who wants to comprehend

  The Universe but comprehend on my terms.

  I am Ahab whose hate must pierce, shatter,

  All impediment of Time, Space, or Subject

  Mortality and hurl my fierce

  Incandescence into the Womb of Creation,

  Disturbing in its Lair whatever Force or

  Unknown Thing-in-Itself crouches there,

  Remote, removed, unrevealed.”

  The Director gestures at the police to remove Runic. Ruskinson is still shouting, although the cameras are pointing at Runic or Luscus. One of the Young Radishes, Huga Wells-Erb Heinsturbury, the science-fiction authoress, is shaking with hysteria generated by Runic’s voice and with a lust for revenge. She is sneaking up on a Time fido man. Time has long ago ceased to be a magazine, since there are no magazines, but became a government-supported communications bureau. Time is an example of Uncle Sam’s left-hand, right-hand, hands-off policy of providing communications bureaus with all they need and at the same time permitting the bureau executives to determine the bureau policies. Thus, government provision and free speech are united. This is fine, in theory, anyway.

  Time has preserved several of its original policies, that is, truth and objectivity must be sacrificed for the sake of a witticism and science-fiction must be put down. Time has sneered at every one of Heinsturbury’s works, and so she is out to get some personal satisfaction for the hurt caused by the unfair reviews.

  “Quid nunc? Cui bono?

  Time? Space? Substance? Accident?

  When you die—Hell? Nirvana?

  Nothing is nothing to think about.

  The canons of philosophy boom.

  Their projectiles are duds.

  The ammo heaps of theology blow up,

  Set off by the saboteur Reason.

  “Call me Ephraim, for I was halted

  At the Ford of God and could not tongue

  The sibilance to let me pass.

  Well, I can’t pronounce shibboleth,

  But I can say shit!”

  Huga Wells-Erb Heinsturbury kicks the Time fido man in the balls. He throws up his hands, and the football-shaped, football-sized camera sails from his hands and strikes a youth on the head. The youth is a Young Radish, Ludwig Euterpe Mahlzart. He is smoldering with rage because of the damnation of his tone poem, Jetting The Stuff Of Future Hells, and the camera is the extra fuel needed to make him blaze up uncontrollably. He punches the chief musical critic in his fat belly.

  Huga, not the Time man, is screaming with pain. Her bare toes have struck the hard plastic armor with which the Time man, recipient of many such a kick, protects his genitals. Huga hops around on one foot while holding the injured foot in her hands. She twirls into a girl, and there is a chain effect. A man falls against the Time man, who is stooping over to pick up his camera.

  “Ahaaa!” Huga screams and tears off the Time man’s helmet and straddles him and beats him over the head with the optical end of the camera. Since the solid-state camera is still working, it is sending to billions of viewers some very intriguing, if dizzying, pictures. Blood obscures one side of the picture, but not so much that the viewers are wholly cheated. And then they get another novel shot as the camera flies into the air again, turning over and over.

  A bolgan has shoved his shock-stick against her back, causing her to stiffen and propel the camera in a high arc behind her. Huga’s current lover grapples with the bolgan; they roll on the floor; a Westwood juvenile picks up the shock-stick and has a fine time goosing the adults around him until a local youth jumps him.

  “Riots are the opium of the people,” the police chief groans. He calls in all units and puts in a call to the chief of police of Westwood, who is, however, having his own troubles.

  Runic beats his breast and howls.

  “Sir, I exist! And don’t tell me,

  As you did Crane, that that creates

  No obligation in you towards me.

  I am a man; I am unique.

  I’ve thrown the Bread out the window,

  Pissed in the Wine, pulled the plug

  From the bottom of the Ark, cut the Tree

  For firewood, and if there were a Holy

  Ghost, I’d goose him.

  But I know that it all does not mean

  A God damned thing.

  That nothing means nothing,

  That is is is and not-is not is is-not

  That a rose is a rose is a

  That we are here and will not be

  And that is all we can know!”

  Ruskinson sees Chib coming towards him, squawks, and tries to escape. Chib seizes the canvas of Dogmas from a Dog and batters Ruskinson over the head with it. Luscus protests in horror, not because of the damage done to Ruskinson but because the painting might be damaged. Chib turns around and batters Luscus in the stomach with the oval’s edge.

  “The earth lurches like a ship going down,

  Its back almost broken by the flood of

  Excrement from the heavens and the deeps,

  What God in His terrible munificence

  Has granted on hearing Ahab cry,

  Bullshit! Bullshit!

  “I weep to think that this is Man

&nbs
p; And this his end. But wait!

  On the crest of the flood, a three-master

  Of antique shape. The Flying Dutchman!

  And Ahab is astride a ship’s deck once more.

  Laugh, you Fates, and mock, you Norns!

  For I am Ahab and I am Man,

  And though 1 cannot break a hole

  through the wall of What Seems

  To grab a handful of What Is,

  Yet, I will keep on punching.

  And I and my crew will not give up,

  Though the timbers split beneath our feet

  And we sink to become indistinguishable

  From the general excrement.

  “For a moment that will burn on the

  Eye of God forever, Ahab stands

  Outlined against the blaze of Orion,

  Fist clenched, a bloody phallus,

  Like Zeus exhibiting the trophy of

  The unmanning of his father Cronus.

  And then he and his crew and ship

  Dip and hurtle headlong over

  The edge of the world.

  And from what I hear, they are still

  F

  a

  l

  l

  i

  n

  g”

  Chib is shocked into a quivering mass by a jolt from a bolgan’s electrical riot stick. While he is recovering, he hears his Grandpa’s voice issuing from the transceiver in his hat.

  “Chib, come quick! Accipiter has broken in and is trying to get through the door of my room!”

  Chib gets up and fights and shoves his way to the exit. When he arrives, panting, at his home he finds that the door to Grandpa’s room has been opened. The IRB men and electronic technicians are standing in the hallway. Chib bursts into Grandpa’s room. Accipiter is standing in its middle and is quivering and pale. Nervous stone. He sees Chib and shrinks back, saying, “It wasn’t my fault. I had to break in. It was the only way I could find out for sure. It wasn’t my fault; I didn’t touch him.”