by John Sladek
‘Nobody ever proved a thing. Damn it, bub, when you run a growth company, you gotta take chances, okay maybe we made one mistake but that’s all in the past. Forget the damn past, forget it.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘We belong to the future.’ Mr Kratt’s cigar had gone out. He threw it away, got up from his desk and walked to the window.
‘The future, yes sir.’ Frankliln watched Kratt standing there in silence, heavy hands clenched behind him, heavy shoulders hunched against the sky.
‘Look, we need this robot gimmick now. Get Sunshine or get somebody.’
Ben Franklin looked down on the city, etched in grey stone and black glass, a gleaming future to which he wanted to belong.
‘Sonnenschein, initial D?’ asked the hospital receptionist.
‘Yes. I’m his son, Roderick.’
‘I’m sorry, our records show he has no immediate family.’
*
‘That waiter looks just like Lyle, you remember Lyle? Only he hasn’t got Lyle’s birthmark …’
‘Oh, speaking of plastic surgery, guess what Barb paid for her new chest? You’d think it was gold instead of whatsit, silicon …’
‘Darling, it’s not silicon, it’s silicone.’
‘Yeah but what do you think she paid for her silly cones?’
The voices from the alcoves rose and fell, striving to be heard above the drone of taped music, the noises of feeding animals, other voices from other alcoves.
‘Basically I’m a Manichean myself …’
‘Manic? I wouldn’t call you manic, you’re more …’
‘… Libran basically, I took her to see …’
‘… a puppet government, okay, but whose puppet, that’s what I want to know. Take …’
‘… The Reagan Expressway through Hilldale only there was this accident at the Dalecrest exit, we hadda go all the way down to …’
‘Prague? Terrible, just terrible, my phlebitis acted up all week, maybe I should get me some dacron veins or …’
‘Spaghetti, didn’t the Chinese invent that?’
‘… a sage pillow for spirit dreams – but hey, isn’t that Sandy? Over there with the Labrador.’
‘I thought Sandy was a Labrador – oh you mean Sandy Mann, no they’re on vacation in Prague or someplace …’
‘… Ruritania, I can’t even find it on a map
‘… basically Libran until we went and had her spayed …’
‘Now everybody thinks the Japanese invented transistors just like everybody used to think the Chinese invented the abacus, and even if spaghetti isn’t Western …’
‘That looks just like Sandy …’
‘That sure looks like Lyle …’
The waiter who looked like Lyle moved smoothly through the dining room, serving dog and master with the same polite, mindless devotion. Roderick seemed a perfect minion. He was able to balance a heavy tray while a Sealyham urinated on his foot; to smile at the owner of a pit-bull that was trying to shred his hand; to take down details of a large, complicated order while a toy poodle tried to mount his ankle.
Beneath the smooth surface Roderick dreamt of violence. There would be like this big gangster with all these bodyguards, and Roderick would have to kill each of them in a different way like maybe an exploding rice-flail or a duel on skates with chain-saws and like maybe strangle all their guard dogs and like maybe … hundreds of corpses, oceans of blood, until he would shoot it out with Mr Big, put a blue hole in his forehead and watch him crumple slowly, a look of surprise on his face as he becomes dead, very dead … until Roderick was victorious and alone.
Roderick was not victorious, just alone. He watched the dogs and their owners moving with assurance in their own world, where a Chihuahua and a St Bernard would recognize each other as dogs, a Republican optometrist and a Trotskyist dope dealer speak the same language. No one recognized Roderick or spoke to him as anything but ‘waiter’.
There were conversations of which he understood hardly a word:
‘Well I’m doing Rolfing now, but I was heavy into oneness training.’
‘Connections, I know. I had this gestalt thing to work through with my family, you know? And –’
‘Yeah how is Jaynice, anyway?’
‘She’s more in touch with herself now only – I don’t know, maybe familying just isn’t her mind-set.’
‘Too many tight synapses, I felt just like that after Transactioning, I kept noticing my own tight synapses. I’m gonna try Science of Mind training next, or haptics maybe, you gotta try something …’
‘Nodally it’s probably all oned together anyway.’
‘… yeah …’
‘… yeah, synergy is. Isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. Oh waiter? We’re ready to order here.’
He would take this order and move on to an alcove where two women, having spread paper napkins on the table between them, opened their jewelled pillboxes and set out arrays of coloured pills as though arranging beads for a barter, which, in a sense they were.
‘Oh is that pink one Thanidorm or Toxidol?’
‘That’s Yegrin. Oh you mean this bitty pink one, that’s Zombutal, beautiful, you want one?’
‘Thanks, kid, now let’s see what I got here to trade, these green ones are Valsed, the light green are Quasipoise, and the green two-tone are I forget, either Jitavert or Robutyl. The red must be Normadorms.’
‘Is that like Penserons?’
‘Only stronger, you want a couple? Or hey I got these terrific mood flatteners called what is it? Parasol? Here this yellow one. Or is that Invidon? Sometimes I get so mixed up …’
‘… me too … I need something …’ Well-manicured nails the colour of Bing cherries selected a capsule of the same colour and carried it to lips of the same colour. ‘A Eulepton.’
‘Was that a Eulepton? I thought it was a Barbidol … I get so mixed up …’
‘Me too …’
Then to the kitchen where Mr Danton would twist his arm and threaten him, then back with a heavy tray to meet another territorial Sealyham, another angry pit-bull.
‘Is it Sue Jane that’s married to Ronnie now? I get so mixed up talking about Sue and her pals, all those divorces and all …’
‘Well, it really boils down to three men and three women, and they been married in every possible legal way to each other, eight weddings in all. And none of them married anybody else …’
‘You take Clarence now, he was his first wife’s first husband, his second wife’s second, and his third wife’s third!’
‘That’s nothing. Vern’s third wife’s third husband’s third wife is the same person as his second wife’s second husband’s second wife, how do you like that?’
‘… divorced the sister of … and right away married Mary Sue, who was single. But his ex bounced back just as fast, she married the guy who’d just split up with …’
‘Sure sure but what I want to know is, who was Sue Ellen’s third husband?’
Roderick, leaning over to polish the table, murmured what he thought was the answer.*
The people at the table looked at him. ‘You know them or something?’
‘No, I just wanted to help. I –’
‘Nobody invited you to butt in, asshole,’ said the owner of a Yorkie now devouring a bowl of goose liver.
‘But I just thought – if everything you all said was true –’
‘You calling us liars?’
‘No I – sorry, I’m sorry.’ He backed away, stepping on a coil of dogshit, tripping over a leash as he fled the dining room. He wished everyone sliced thin and fed to to their own pets who would in turn crumple slowly with looks of surprise as he shot them dead, very dead … no one would miss the human species or the canine either, least of all Roderick the victorious.
An hour later, a woman smiled at him and told him he was a sweet boy. That changed everything: he cancelled the extermination of two species and decided to go dancing instead. But first another t
ry at University Hospital.
‘Daniel Sonnenschein,’ he said to the receptionist. ‘I’m his stepson, and I demand to see him.’
‘Certainly, sir. Just take a seat.’
Two hours later, Roderick was told that visiting hours were over for the day. A pair of security cops did the telling, and showed him how to get out of the building.
IV
The figure performed its purpose admirably. Keeping perfect time and step, and holding its little partner tight clasped in an unyielding embrace, it revolved steadily, pouring forth at the same time a constant flow of squeaky conversation, broken by brief intervals of grinding silence.
Jerome K. Jerome, The Dancing Partner
The Escorial Ballroom was a large gloomy place where a few tired-looking couples leaned together, shuffling slowly around the floor to The Tennessee Waltz. The three white-haired musicians chatted and drank as they played, and the drummer was eating his lunch with one hand. The dancers seemed not much younger or more interested in anything: the men wore old suits and sideburns, the women wore flared dresses, heavy makeup and large earrings.
While Roderick was standing at the edge of the dark dance floor trying to figure out what to do next, he felt a little bump at the rear of his crotch. He turned to see a plump woman with heavy makeup and large earrings. She was examining her thumbnail and frowning.
‘Jesus, try to give somebody a friendly goose and you run into – what you got there, iron underpants?’
‘I’m sorry, are you hurt?’
‘Busted nail. Oh well, I could’ve done it opening a can of sardines, and I don’t even like sardines. You dancing?’
‘Well I, I’m not sure, I –’
She seized him. ‘You’re dancing.’
She had a deep, pleasant laugh, blonde hair going dark at the roots, and her name was Ida. She didn’t seem to mind that Roderick couldn’t dance at all.
‘Don’t worry, kid, you’ll pick it up. None of you young kids know anything about slow dancing.’
‘Well no I don’t – oops. Sorry.’
‘It’s okay. I guess you came here for the Auks, they come on later.’
‘The Auks?’
She looked him over. ‘If you never heard of the Auks, you must be older than you look. Or else, Roderick, you haven’t been around much.’
‘No I guess I – oops. Sorry.’
‘You been in the slammer, kid?’
‘Jail? Not lately I mean no, I –’
She squeezed at his shoulder. ‘Never mind, lover, it don’t matter to me. Tell me your hard-luck story if you want, or tell me nothing, all the same to me. But you got slammer written all over you, that pale, pasty look, that weird short haircut, the kinda lost look you got, like you’re afraid you’re gonna make some wrong move and end up back inside.’ She looked serious for a moment. ‘Hey you fixed all right for bread? Because if you’re broke, I can let you have a coupla bucks till you get a job.’
Roderick was so astonished that he tripped and nearly fell. ‘Sorry! Do you mean you would lend money to a perfect stranger?’
She grinned. ‘Nobody’s perfect. A good stranger’ll do.’
‘I’ll be damned. Well well.’ After a few moments he said, ‘Well I don’t, but thanks. Thanks a lot, Ida.’
The dance ended. Ida started fiddling with her earring. ‘On the other hand if you’re flush, you might buy a girl a beer. You might even buy me a beer.’
Roderick was delighted to rush her to the bar and order one beer. The bartender looked from him to Ida. ‘I’m sure the lady would prefer a champagne cocktail,’ he said.
‘Beer,’ said Ida. ‘Just now the lady prefers a beer, Murray.’
The bartender winked. ‘Sorry, Ida, I didn’t know you was with a friend. One beer, coming up.’
Roderick, watching her drink it, thought, friend.
‘You don’t drink?’
‘I can’t,’ he said.
‘Don’t tell me, the stomach. I seen it all before, the way them places ruin a guy’s stomach. Half the guys get out they can’t eat or drink. Other half can’t sleep. Most of ’em can’t screw worth a damn.’ She sighed. ‘But what do you expect, you can’t lock a guy up like an animal and then expect him to come out still human. Take you, for instance. You don’t feel very human, do you?’
‘You really understand me, Ida.’
The deep laugh. ‘Lover, that’s my job. Which reminds me, I better circulate. Thanks for the beer.’ She stood up, adding, ‘Don’t forget, if you need a favour. I’m always around this joint.’
She drifted away. Later Roderick noticed her talking to a battered-looking man in a bowling shirt. She was drinking a champagne cocktail. Then he lost sight of her because the place was filling up with a new crowd, mostly young people dressed in white.
The white seemed to be a kind of uniform for both boys and girls, some of whom had bleached white hair and white makeup Roderick began to feel out of place in his old hand-me-down suit.
The lunching trio left and three young men in white began setting up some complex equipment. Roderick drifted over to the bandstand to watch.
‘Jeez,’ said one, ‘didn’t anybody check out the co-inverter? The Peabody drift is over 178 how can I patch anything in to that? Barry, you check that out?’
‘Yeah it was okay. Wasn’t it, Gary, you was there.’
‘Was I? Yeah well in that case okay, what’s the problem? Just patch it in, Larry.’
‘Like hell I will, you wanna blow the whole psychofugal synch box?’
‘We could run on 19th-channel syntonics, just until –’
‘Oh listen to the expert, will ya? You hearing this Gary, our boy here thinks he can play it all by ear, he’s the big electronics expert all of a sudden. Only he don’t know how to check out the equipment, a simple drift-check and he –’
Roderick said, ‘Maybe I can help.’
Larry threw up his hands. ‘Why not? Let everybody be a damn expert, why not?’
‘Well you see I couldn’t help noticing you’ve got a Pressler-Joad co-inverter there, if it’s one of the early models A300 through A329 you can make it into an obvolute paraverter with harmony-split interfeed, see? All you do is take off the back – hand me that screwdriver, will you Larry? – and then you just change this pink wire and this green wire around. Now you got full refractal phonation with no drift, see?’
‘Hey you know you’re right? Great!’ said Larry.
‘Hey thanks man,’ said Barry.
‘Yeah man, thanks. Listen here’s a pass, anyplace we play, you get in free, okay?’ said Gary.
As soon as Roderick got down from the platform, a girl grabbed his arm. ‘Hey you know them, personally? You a friend of the Auks?’
‘Well no, not exactly.’
The girl wore white, her hair was bleached, and her eyes decorated with gold crow’s feet. Her earrings were tiny integrated circuits, also in gold.
‘God, I really like them, I think they’re real other-world, you know?’
‘Other-world.’
‘Who do you like best, Larry, Barry or Gary?’
‘I’m not uh sure – who do you like best?’
‘Oh, Barry. I mean when he gr-rinds that synthesizer, I just – ohhh!’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Oh?’
‘He was my favourite back when there were the original six, even back then, before Harry and Cary and Jerry dropped out.’
‘Oh.’ Roderick was spared further conversation by the other-world Auks. One of them (they all three looked alike to Roderick) grabbed a microphone and growled into it:
‘Okay now, robots! Let’s do that raunchy robot!’
Roderick quickly got out of the way of the dancers, who were doing an odd, jerky walk. Now he began to understand the uniforms and makeup: they were imitating some fictional robots.
The music was traditional rock, though generated by a complex of electronic instruments. Every now and then, one of the Auks would seize a microphone and g
rowl a few words:
Do the raunchy robot
Do the raunchy robot
Do the raunchy robot roll!
Lady dressed in white
Gimme some light
I am in a deep black hole.
Roderick found it too loud, too cheerless. But he politely remained standing in front of the giant speakers throughout the rest of the set. The girl who liked Barry best seemed to be dancing at Roderick, or at least keeping an eye on him as she jerk-walked through numbers like ‘R.U.R. My Baby’ and the Palindromic tune ‘Ratstar’.
At the end of the set, when Roderick started making his way towards the exit, the girl followed. She was still walking like someone with spine damage, and her face was expressionless. When a white-haired boy tried to stop her, she pointed to Roderick, saying:
‘I … am … under … his command … I … obey!’
‘Now look,’ Roderick said, to the circle of white-haired boys who were closing in on him. ‘Now look, I don’t know what this is all ab –’
Someone screamed, and he saw a folding chair coming at his head. He ducked, and suddenly fists and feet were after him, driving him into the floor. He fell, took a kick under the nose and rolled away into another kick.
Then he wasn’t the centre of it any more. Youths were chopping and kicking each other as though a mass tantrum had spread through the crowd. Roderick saw blood on white shirts, faces twisted with rage, folded chairs spinning through the air. Then someone grabbed his collar and dragged him through the forest of struggling legs to the exit.
‘Ida!’
‘Outside, kid, quick.’ They raced across the dark parking lot, hailed a taxi and were away from it, safe.
‘Jeez, Ida, thanks. Thanks a lot.’
‘You need taking care of,’ she said. ‘But then don’t we all?’
It was not the worst of times. It was not the best of times.
V
The tone arm hesitated as though judging distance, made the leap and lowered safely on twelve-string guitar music. Leadbelly sang:
Funniest thing I ever seen
Tomcat sittin’ on a sewin’ machine
There was a cat in Ida’s cramped little apartment, a fat Persian that blinked and yawned until she shooed it off the sofa, but there was no room for a sewing machine.
