The Complete Roderick

by John Sladek

  ‘Suicide. I don’t see the point of it.’ A v-shaped smile in the shadow by the desk. ‘Why take a last step? Why not go on living – if only to see what happens next?’

  Allbright’s laugh made him cough, then sneeze. ‘Life as a soap opera, eh? A never-ending series of episodes in Dorinda’s Destiny? Trouble is, life isn’t as real as TV, not any more. We’ve traded away our reality. We have no past, no future, no minds, no souls.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Mr Allbright.’

  ‘The past, that’s just Scarlett O’Hara in a taffeta-hung bed and Washington throwing a dollar across the Potomac – or the Delaware – all people remember is the dollar, all else is mist and plastic dinosaurs. The past is five minutes ago, it’s what happened before the last commercial.

  ‘The future now, that’s just space wars, white plastic rockets against black, Terra versus Ratstar. Names don’t matter, what matters is the violence. The future has to be galactic annihilation, 1984 for a million years, a spaceboot grinding an alien face forever. Nobody believes in the future anyway, except maybe a few crank science-fiction writers or maybe the people who want to freeze other people into peopie-sicles and store them – for a price. And imagine that, asking ice to pay for itself. Yet one more ingenious way to package and market the future.

  ‘So what’s left? The mind? Not even a ghost in a machine any more. Now the mind is just something you improve by reading condensed books and listening to distilled records, everybody now knows the mind has secret powers and you can write off to California to unlock, get rich through safe hypnosis in your spare time. The soul? That’s now just one more brand of saleable music, money seems to make everything more real, doesn’t it? Money is more alive than we are. No wonder kids have started calling themselves robots, they know what’s expected of them. It’s a robot world.’

  ‘A robot world?’

  ‘Sure, any decent machine can get in on the ground floor, work its way up, become President – one or two made it already. A robot has plenty of native advantages to start with: never wastes time, no personal problems, never picks nose in public. Winning combination there.’

  Roderick opened his eyes. ‘What makes you think a robot would want to get ahead? Couldn’t it just enjoy being alive?’

  ‘Let me read you something, friend.’ Allbright took down a slim volume and read aloud:

  ‘“Jack keeps one hour. The policeman develops all pages. Some sister is offended. Jack’s nurse offended all reasons. A few fat pilots warded off more vegetables.” They call that computer poetry. Poetry? I wonder. Sounds like something Swift cooked up at the Academy of Lagodo, just keep flipping through the combinations and watching nothing much come up. Does this computer know it’s writing poetry, and not just figuring a payroll or firing off a missile?’

  Roderick opened his mouth to reply, but no reply came. Allbright picked up his heavy briefcase and shuffled to the door. ‘I mean to say, if that stuff is poetry, then sex with a vibrator must be love.’

  The door closed behind him, then opened immediately, letting in a slice of light, piano chords, and a stumbling couple.

  ‘Oh! Excuse me!’ Judi Mazzini let out a yelp of laughter as she steered the man in dark glasses, turning him around and leading him out as though he were blind.

  Mrs McBabbitt lived high in a glass tower by the river. Roderick had not kissed her in the taxi and he did not kiss her in the elevator.

  ‘Come on in, Roddy, have a drink or something.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll come in but I – nice apartment.’ There was a bowl of yellow roses on a round table, and next to it, a picture of Mr Kratt. ‘But who, this can’t be Mr McBabbitt, this –’

  ‘No, an old friend, an old friend. He well stays here sometimes. You might as well know he pays for this place, he kind of owns me. I never usually bring anybody here, only I don’t know, tonight I just felt – anyway, you’re different. You don’t really want anything, do you?’

  ‘Well I – well I –’

  ‘I don’t mean you’re like queer, you just seem to not want anything. You seem like – chaste.’

  ‘Ha. What er happened to Mr McBabbitt, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘Him? Oh, he’s Doctor McBabbitt, he was my plastic surgeon. Or you could say I was his showcase. He tried out everything on me, damn near everything. All those years, all those years …’

  ‘Pain,’ said Roderick softly.

  ‘Pain, oh sure, not that that mattered so much. People put up with pain at the dentist, it all depends on what you want out of life, I wanted beauty. All I ever wanted was beauty, so I married him. I picked him because he was the best. Very best.’

  They sat together on the sofa, leaning together stiffly as she wept.

  ‘Oh this is stupid, stupid, I’ve got nothing to cry about. He was the very best, he still is. I mean he had style. He didn’t get all his ideas from movie stars and strippers, he used to look at paintings a lot too, Old Masters and that. Like one guy, I think it was Corpeggio, anyway he painted this beautiful woman and when some French prince got hold of it he took a knife and cut the painting all to pieces. Only somebody secretly got them all and put it back together, all but the head. They had to paint a new head. You know, Dr McBabbitt liked his work because he got to be both people, you know? The painter and the guy with the knife. You know?’

  She jumped to her feet and smoothed the black velvet. ‘I feel lots better now. You want a coffee or anything before you leave?’

  XII

  America come alive!

  Grab on to a brand new day!

  ‘– Good morning, Mr and Ms America, I’m Jeb Goodhart –’

  ‘– and I’m Brie Wittgenstein, bringing you the early news update –’

  ‘Good God, what? What’s it?’ Indica fought for consciousness, for some clue to this booming, blustering confusion in which giant orange faces grinned and bellowed at her from across a room of the wrong shape. She seemed to be ten feet from the floor, and there was a large spider on her pillow.

  ‘– says it’s the most severe quake in Ruritania since nineteen –

  Dr Tarr’s head appeared from under her bed. ‘Morning! Sleep all right?’

  ‘What? Yes I but I just what I – bunk beds? Where are we?’ ‘Ha ha, don’t you remember? This is my old frat house, Digamma Upsilon Nu.’

  ‘Your old, why should I remember your old – ?’

  ‘No, but don’t you remember the snowbank? We skidded into a big snowbank? And I went for help while you stayed in the car?’

  ‘I remember you telling me not to go to sleep.’ The spider on her pillow became a contact lens, glued in place by a false eyelash. She rescued it. ‘That pissed me off, because I’d already taken my two Dormistran, how could I stay awake?’

  ‘Yes well see we turned out to be only a mile from my old frat house here, whereas almost sixteen miles to my place with god knows what damage to the front end of my – wait a minute, you took sleeping pills? On the way to my place? If you I mean thought it was going to be that bad, why bother coming? I mean –’

  ‘Hey kids, does your Mom buy you Flavoreenos? My Mom does and I really love her, because Flavoreenos are corn-style flakes in 26 delicious flavours! Have you tried cherry cola? Chili dog? Chocolate sardine parfait? Mmmm, I get a new flavour every morning, because my Mom loves me and I love Flavoreenos!’

  ‘Okay okay maybe I was a little nervous but anyway here we are in bunk beds does it matter? And do we need that TV on with all that, that wall projection kids with orange hair eight feet tall eating blue goop Jesus Jack I don’t feel so well.’

  ‘Just um trying to catch the weather, new antifreeze account I –’

  There was a knock at the door. Tarr answered it to a burly young man with a flat nose. ‘Brother Tarr? I’m supposed to give you your bill here. Uh, here.’

  ‘What’s this? Looks more like somebody’s bill for a week at the Waldorf – wait a minute, what’s this item here, fifty bucks for snow, what’s th
at supposed to –’

  ‘Bathtub fulla snow, Brother Tarr. Just like you ordered. We filled it while you was asleep.’

  Just like I – wait now, hold on – fellas, no, hold on –’

  Three other burly young men came in, seized Tarr and carried him struggling into the bathroom. After a few shrieks and shouts, a dozen guffaws, the boys came out, blew kisses to Indica and left. A minute later, Tarr came out grinning, naked, towelling himself. ‘Ha ha, damn it, I forgot what great jokers the brothers can be.’

  ‘Yeah very amusing.’ She turned to the TV.

  ‘– Bimibian police claim the schoolgirls were throwing stones, and say it was only in self-defence that officers opened fire with automatic weapons and raked the classrooms. No death figures have been released yet, but unofficial estimates –

  When she and Tarr were dressed, Flat Nose came back with a genuine bill. ‘And we didn’t charge nothing for towing your car, Brother Tarr. Because you’re a good sport.’

  Tarr grinned and opened his chequebook. Indica said, ‘You boys like gags, do you?’

  Flat Nose grinned. ‘We pull some perdy good ones around here, like last year we made up a guy and we enrolled him in a lotta classes, whole buncha stuff. We even took exams for him, he got a B average, perdy good, huh?’ His laughter sounded like a child’s imitation of a machinegun, as he left with his cheque.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Indica. ‘Nothing changes around the U, I’ve been away from it years now, same asshole kids still here pulling the same asshole stunts, hanging toilet seats on the Student Union tower – why don’t we get out of here?’

  He looked at the TV. ‘Guess I missed the weather –’

  ‘Good news for kids in Topeka, Kansas, where the Santa Claus strike is over –

  ‘And just in time, Brie, with five more shopping days till Christmas. And in a New Jersey divorce court a judge has just awarded a couple joint custody of their Christmas tree – wonder who gets to change the bulbs …’

  Within minutes they had exchanged the dazzle of orange faces for the dazzle of sun on snow, the boom of TV for the roar of radio.

  … keep your de-entures gri-ipping tight

  Eat in heavenly peace

  Eat in heavenly peace

  ‘I called the office,’ said Tarr. ‘But Judi my sec isn’t in yet. So I can drop you anywhere, plenty of time.’ The car sped through outlying fragments of the campus, past book-stores and sweatshirt boutiques, past the new Life Sciences building with its imposing sculpture of a clam. ‘I’ll have to chew her ass out good, though, being this late.’

  ‘But Jack, wasn’t she at the party last night? Maybe the poor girl just overslept.’

  ‘So? Of course I still expect her to turn up on time, and normally she’s very conscientious too, that’s why this leaves me in a bind, I wanted to finish mapping out this Middle East campaign with her before we run into Christmas.’

  Dent-a-poise has the answer for you

  Confidence with what-ev-er you chew

  Eat in heavenly …

  ‘Market forecasting, isn’t that kind of crystal ball stuff?’ she asked. The car was leaving University environs and entering a neighbourhood of cheap bars, pawnshops, fast food and barricaded liquor stores.

  ‘Crystal ball, hmm, you could say that. In fact, we use psychic data right along with more conventional info, you’d be surprised how well they correlate. Not long ago we had an account, a well-known company who wanted to open up a chain of taco stands in the University area. Or was it pizza-burgers? Anyway, what they wanted was an optimal set of locations. So we took a map of the campus, held a pendulum over it, and just assessed the strength of the swing.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Nope. There were four strong-swing areas – and these turned out to be the four ideal locations! You could call that good guesswork – but was it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said, amused. ‘To me, psychic stuff is just all in the mind.’

  ‘Yes yes, of course, nothing wrong with healthy scepticism and I myself – LOOK OUT! DAMN YOU!’ He hit the brakes as a ragged figure in a torn storm-coat danced across the street in front of them. The car slid on glare ice a few feet, hit the man gently and had no apparent effect; for he too slid, flailing his arms until he could regain his dancing pace and make it to the kerb. There he removed a glove and gave them the finger.

  ‘Damn these derelicts, every Christmas they swarm down here, makes you wish the city would just bring in exterminators, put out I don’t know maybe bottles of poison wine in paper bags –’

  ‘But Jack, look! Look, isn’t that Allbright, he was at the party.’

  ‘And here he is in his own environ – what are you doing?’

  Before the car could move again she had the window down and was waving. ‘Allbright! Hey! You need a ride anywhere?’

  The gaunt figure paused, Z-bent to peer at them, then danced over. ‘And a Merry Christmas to you, good lady, and to your good gentleman, God bless you for your true Christian spirit as you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, ride the pedestrian ‘

  ‘Just get in the car and shut up,’ Tarr said. ‘Allbright the damn light’s changing.’

  Allbright squeezed in beside Indica, letting his arm hang out the open window. ‘Where we going, kids?’

  ‘Just shut up.’

  ‘Maybe if you tell us where you want to be dropped …’ Indica suggested.

  ‘Oh, a place over on Jogues Boulevard, place called Larry’s Grill. Jogues Boulevard, ever notice how the Jesuits had their way with this town? Xavier Avenue, Loyola Street and so on, makes you wonder –’

  ‘You look terrible,’ said Indica. ‘Dirt in your beard, dried it looks like blood down the side of your face –’

  ‘Makes you wonder about Larry’s Grill itself, eh?’

  ‘And your clothes. Allbright you look –’

  ‘Terrible, I know. That’s why you snubbed me last night, eh?’

  Indica opened her mouth to frame a denial, but already Allbright had changed the subject again. ‘Moxon’s got a damn good library, you know?’

  ‘And you’ve been ripping him off?’

  ‘Only a few books, just to get me what I need … I even found something there published by his namesake. Nineteenth-century publisher called Moxon too, published Keats.’

  ‘No kidding.’ She stifled a yawn.

  ‘Part of a series, Moxon’s Miniature Poets, nice image there, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley … Ought to be right in your line, Indica.’

  ‘Poetry? No, I –’

  ‘First time I heard you were liberating the machines I thought of that old stock cartoon, you know: man on a street corner winding up lots of little men and setting them free to walk away – million gags based on that image, wouldn’t you say?’

  Indica sat up a little. ‘My work is no gag, buster.’

  ‘Course not, no, just thinking of Moxon, Moxon’s Miniature Poets, little windup Keats, windup Coleridge. Little windup Shelley faints, fails, falls upon the tiny thorns of life, bleeds … fine early example of miniaturization there …’

  She looked at him. ‘You’re kind of a fine early example yourself. Of verbal masturbation.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, somebody’s got to wind somebody up, now and then. Even if there’s no love, tiny Wordsworth can still talk of little nameless unremembered acts of kindness, if not of love … What do we all have? What, detergents being kind to hands? Love with a vibrator? Poetry from a damn computer?’

  Tarr made a face. ‘What are you on, Allbright? Why don’t you just shut up, we’ll drop you at your bar and you can ramble on with all the other –’

  ‘Forgetting my manners, haven’t congratulated Indica on her new book. What did Time say? Called you an exponent of the germane gear, didn’t they? A Joan of arc-welding? Congratulations.’

  ‘Look, I don’t need heavy irony,’ she said. ‘You always –’

  ‘No irony intended, the reviewers think it’s new and gimmicky, that’s
all you need nowadays. After all, the book industry doesn’t ask if a book is good or if it says anything important. The industry asks only is it new? Because they might have to slot it in between selections like In Praise of Teddy Bears and The Hidden Language of Tour Handwriting and The Dieter’s Guide to Weight Loss after Sex, and God know how much other ephemeral whole forests being felled to print a book on how to sit in your seat on a commercial air flight, how to get over the death of a pet, you think people who publish that care about any book, any idea? Wait, wait –’ He fumbled in a pocket and came up with a tiny ruled notebook.

  It’s a beautiful morning,’ Tarr said. ‘Why don’t you just shut up and enjoy it?’

  ‘He’s got a point though, Jack. I mean I know I’m probably being ripped off by my publishers, who are they? They’re just some subsidiary of a conglomerate, what do they care about machines?’

  ‘Or people?’ Allbright suggested, thumbing dog-eared pages. ‘I just jotted down a few titles, books the reviewers can really get their teeth into, if any: Garbo. a long-awaited biography; The Politics of Pregnancy, well maybe; Railways of Ruritania to grace any coffee table alongside The Yeti and I – the ad says “a close encounter that became a night of primal love”; here’s The Real Garbo; Marxism and Menstruation, why not; then there’s Frogs: Their Wonderful Wisdom, Follies and Foibles, Mysterious Powers, Strange Encounters, Private Lives, Symbolism and Meaning, serious rival there for the Teddy Bear book; then there’s Pornography, Psychedelics and Technology, yup; and Paedophilia: A Radical Case and finally Sons of Sam Spade. Hard to imagine* a newer collection of novelties than that, right?’

  Tarr said, ‘Sounds a little bit like sour grapes there, Allbright. I notice the people who sneer most at success are usually unsuccessful.’

  ‘That’s goddamned profound, Tarr. And in my case, true!’

  After they dropped Allbright, Dr Tarr got out his pipe and sucked at it madly as he drove. ‘Jesus,’ he said through clenched teeth, ‘you try to forget some things for a while, along comes some Allbright to remind you. They never leave you alone.’