In the world at large (Lia skims the various sections of this mornings’s Atlanta Constitution), normal means that Argentina and Great Britain are about to go to war over the ownership of the Falkland Islands: a Gilbert-and-Sullivan donnybrook here at the dawn of the moonbase era. Amazing.
Elsewhere, martial law has entered its fourth month in Poland. Afghani opponents of the Soviet puppets in Kabul continue to snipe at their oppressors. In Iran, the resourceful son of the late Reza Pahlavi has crushed a new coup attempt by Islamic fundamentalists. Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, Joel Hinckley, Jr, is pleading “not guilty by reason of insanity” to a federal charge of trying to assassinate President Nixon in 1981.
“Joel,” Lia murmurs, “you’re doomed.”
Four other people have tried to kill the President since 1975: Squeaky Fromme; an ineptly Americulturated North Vietnamese by the name of Mai That; Sarah Jane Moore; and a member of the Beach Boys angered by the four-concert-a-year limit placed on rock groups by an arbitrary postwar extension of the Pop Performance Licensing Act of 1971. All these would-be assassins paid for their effrontery by sitting down in electric chairs, and Lia has little doubt that Joel Hinckley, Jr (who allegedly shot at King Richard to impress the female lead of a popular TV series about congressional pages called Right This Way, Mister Dailey) is also going to fry.
If only the government would let me work with failed assassins, Lia tells herself, I could make a half-decent living.
As for Cal, he has been intently rereading his Dickiana. Since talking with Squeeze, he had averaged a novel a night, beginning with The Doctor in High Dudgeon, going on to Do Androids Dream of Electric Veeps?, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, and No-Knock Nocturne, and concluding with They Scan Us Darkly, Don’t They? and The Dream Impeachment of Harper Mocton.
This last novel has spoken to Cal with especial force, and last night, as they lay in bed with Viking sprawled on a nearby rug, he kept reading sections of it to her aloud, repeatedly interrupting her already fitful attention to a piece in the Journal of Clinical Psychology on the symptomatology of paranoia.
At one point, Cal said, “Listen, Dick’s set up an alternative history in which an evil president by the name of Harper Mocton—another Nixon figure—works his will on the American people by an institutionalized form of mind control. Every household has either a TV or a microcomputer with a video display terminal and—”
“Wait a minute. That’s a freedom we don’t have. TV, yes, but in the early ’70s, Congress made it unlawful for individuals to own computers without an exemption to the Computer Licensing Act.”
“I know that, Lia. What I’m trying to—”
“You almost have to be a defense contractor or an executive in a big steel firm to win an exemption. I couldn’t get a computer in Colorado, and I’m not going to get one here in Dixie, either. The licensing procedures are unfair. You have to do volume business to qualify. Your work has to ‘increase American prestige’ or ‘redound to the benefit of national security’. Blah blah blah.”
“Look, I know all that,” Cal replied impatiently. “Nixon had Congress place a ban on microcomputers—home computers, Dick calls them in The Dream Impeachment— because he was afraid they’d give private citizens, particularly those with a high-tech background, easy access to top-secret info. He was scared. Back then, he didn’t want us to have microcomputers because of the war; now he doesn’t want us to have ‘em for fear the resulting info explosion will light up all the filthy little rats’ nests he and his cohorts have pieced together during their thirteen years in power.”
Lia tapped the photocopied manuscript in Cal’s hands. “Isn’t Dick’s evil Harper Mocton afraid of the same sorts of thing?”
“Nope. In this book, Mocton uses people’s TV sets and computer screens to overpower them with propaganda. He controls every arm of broadcasting—”
“Bingo.”
“—and he’s always using the networks and the national computer link to tell everyone how lucky they are that he’s their jefe, a method of mind control that Mocton’s perfected.”
“So he has no trouble getting reelected every four years?”
“He has no trouble getting reelected every day, Lia. There’s a computer referendum on his administration every evening during the news. All the people watching key into their consoles a Yes or a No. The results are instantly toted by the Great National Computer in the Mocton White House on Maui. Ninety percent of the people vote Yes. The ones who vote No are visited by thugs similar to our No-Knocks. The dissidents are either reeducated or declared crazy, and Mocton’s reign goes on and on.”
“It can’t go on forever. The book’s title is a giveaway.”
“No, it doesn’t. What happens is, a computer genius—a kind of Middle American Einstein working in secret in Van Luna, Kansas, a guy by the name of Eric Gipp—taps into the Great National Computer and programs it to include with each broadcast from the Oval Office a subliminal message. This message is flashed at the viewer over and over again at speeds too great for the human eye to fix. It says, MOCTON IS A LIAR. DREAM HIM TO JUSTICE TONIGHT. Almost everyone in the country subconsciously registers it and tries to obey its cryptic suggestion.”
“So your computer-genius hero is brainwashing everybody, too?”
“Well, there’s some moral ambiguity here, Lia, but Dick shows that people obey Gipp’s hidden message because they subconsciously recognize its truth. They want to regain control of their lives by obeying a command that holds out that promise.”
“Tricky stuff, Cal. These folks are going to regain control of their lives by adopting somebody else’s view of reality?”
Cal’s forehead wrinkled in irritation. “Look, you can either adopt a false view of reality or one that’s more or less in tune with things as they actually are.”
“How are things, actually?” She gave him a perky smile.
“Hey, don’t be cute. Aren’t you in a line that weighs people’s mental health by how well or poorly their perceptions of the world conform to some objective standard of reality? Well, in this book, Mocton’s presentation of the world and his exalted place in it is a lie, and Gipp’s subliminal computer message is an antidote. If the population’s been turned into a bunch of zombies, you first have to plan an attack that’ll reverse things and dezombify ‘em. You fight fire with fire.”
“ ‘Dezombify’ ?”
“Damn it, Lia!”
“Okay, okay. Calm down. What happens next?”
“Listen, I’ll read you a passage.” And he let the photocopy fall open on his lap and read to her aloud.
Two hundred million Americans, children and adults alike, began to dream Harper Mocton to justice. Some of these Americans dreamt that the President met a physical comeuppance exactly suited to a wrong that he had either committed or commanded. If he had maimed someone, he was himself maimed. If he had killed someone or ordered a murder, he was himself murdered. Whatever physical harm Mocton was known to have caused, he himself suffered.
Some Americans dreamt that Harper Mocton was caged in slime and sunk in a federal prison. Others dreamt him staked out on an ant hill in the middle of the Great Plains, his flesh peeling from his brow like ancient red wallpaper. A few dreamt Mocton was chained to a man-sized rock in the asteroid belt, and still others imagined that cosmic justice had funneled him into a black hole beyond Pluto’s orbit and that the awesome gravitational forces of this hole would fling the evil man into a dimension of pain and darkness unknown to any other living creature.
“That’s some pretty sadistic dreamers old Harper’s got angry at him there,” Lia said.
“Hang on. That’s not all.”
“There’s more? Dick fetches Mocton back from oblivion at the bottom of a black hole?”
“He hasn’t really been zapped to the bottom of a black hole, Lia. That’s only what some folks dream happens to him after they start obeying Eric Gipp’s computer message.”
“Oh. Go on.”
But most Americans dreamt that no bodily punishment could ever humble this latter-day scourge as well as strong reminders that they were finally taking off their blinders and seeing him for what he was. A manipulator, not a magician, an opportunist not a benefactor. They knew that he would regard his own murder, or any truly colorful punishment, as one more addition to the legend of Harper Mocton. And they knew that he would not be able to stand any punishment that undercut this grandiose legend. And so many of those heeding Gipp’s summons to dream Mocton to justice dreamt situations in which he publicly humiliated himself.
Eventually, by sheer weight of numbers, these dreams began to come true. Mocton could not resist them. He would go on television to speak, and the first words out of his mouth would be a confession of wrongdoing: “In my maiden race for office, I accused my opponent of child molestation. I actually paid kids to step forward and vilify him.” Or: “You may be the suckers who elected me, but I’ve always thought you a contemptible crowd of pricks, cunts, faggots, and feebs, altogether undeserving of the leadership I’m busting my ass to provide.”
“Jesus,” Lia said. “I can’t imagine an elected official talking like that.”
“Of course you can’t,” Cal said. “Which is why it’s funny.”
“Funny? You think it’s funny? A president admitting that he falsely accused someone? A president calling us dirty names?”
“Sure. And so do you. It’s just that it’s funny in a really dreadful way you’re afraid might be true.”
“Cal, you’re—”
“Listen, Lia darlin’. Listen.”
Mocton could not believe that he was saying such things aloud. First, because they showed him to be such a monster; second, because they were either true on their face or painfully true to his hidden feelings. He could avoid these damaging revelations, he found, only if he refused to speak over the airways or in public; and soon, to prevent self-incrimination, he made the sad decision to confine himself to the White House.
Meanwhile, Gipp continued to afflict the TV and video-display screens of the nation with the subliminal legend, MOCTON IS A LIAR. DREAM HIM TO JUSTICE. And everyone oppressed by Mocton continued to dream his downfall. Hundreds of millions of dreams left an impress on reality, and Mocton could feel them warping his reign toward its end, knocking entire days, weeks, and months off the otherwise fixed span of his presidency.
Finally, Mocton resolved to make a last attempt to confront the nation and save his reputation. Terrified that he would betray himself again, he studied his notes, tested his voice, and found that he felt pretty good. Maybe I’m going to beat this thing, he thought. As soon as the TV camera’s red light came on, however, he opened his mouth and vented a meaningless barrage of cartoonish duck sounds: “Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.”
Here, Cal stopped reading. He said that the novel went on to show how Gipp and a coalition of dreamers make Mocton answer for his crimes at a Senate trial. This trial “actually” takes place only in the minds of the participants. Although a good dream for those upholding justice, it is a nightmare for Harper Mocton.
At the end, Eric Gipp, acting prosecutor at the dream trial, points a finger at Mocton, “Your punishment is this: Bereft of your office, you go forth to harvest the contempt of your victims. That’s all, but because your victims are almost beyond number, it may be more than enough.”
After the dream impeachment, Mocton loses his first computer referendum. Pretty soon, he’s wandering the continental mainland, carrying a begging bowl. Many people take pity on him and give him something, but every contribution so greatly chastens him that by the final paragraph of Dick’s novel, he is only a ghost drifting across the landscape, his substance utterly depleted by the charity of people whom he expected to spit upon and revile him.
“Ah,” said Lia. “An allegory.”
“All Dick’s unpublished novels are allegories. But this one mirrors our situation so closely that it’s almost a kind of lens through which to look at our own time and decide what to do.”
“Right. We dream Richard Nixon out of office.”
“Lia, read your goddamn article. It’s not a patch on what I’m reading, but maybe it’ll keep you from talking crap.”
“Stop patronizing me. Nobody dreams a bad president’s demise.”
“Look, dreaming in Harper Mocton is symbolic of joint action—cooperative action. Don’t be such an all-fired literalist.”
“But, Cal, our situation and Dick’s don’t mirror each other. Nixon’s popular. Most Americans don’t want to boot—to dream him—out of office. You may, but you’re an atypical case.”
And so they argued the extent to which President Nixon could count on grass-roots support. Lia held that he rivaled Franklin Roosevelt at the height of his popularity, while Cal contended that five assassination attempts in eight years proved that a reservoir of ill feeling lay at the bottom of the national mood. Lia replied that assassins were not reliable gauges of popular opinion—they were slaves to private psychoses, just as Cal had become a slave to his pathological hatred of the President. This analysis prompted Cal to turn away from her and finish Harper Mocton without reading any further passages aloud.
Lia, in self-defense, focused her attention on the article in the Journal of Clinical Psychology.
“Dr. Bonner,” Shawanda’s voice said, “you’ve got a visitor.”
“Kai?”
“No, ma’am. It’s—”
But the door to the office opened, and Grace Rinehart—Lia recognized her at once—strolled in from the waiting area and began an unabashed assessment of the little room’s decor. Lia’s first thought was that it couldn’t possibly measure up to Miss Rinehart’s patrician standards; anxious, she rose to greet her visitor. Cal had said that this woman might drop in, and today Lia was finding that her husband was an uncannily accurate prophet.
“Very nice,” Grace Rinehart said. “Plants always cheer a room, and the way you’ve arranged those old black-and-white photographs of your family—it is your family, isn’t it?—well, that’s a homey touch that ought to calm even the jumpiest client.”
“Thank you,” Lia said. “Won’t you sit down?” She indicated the lounger.
“Oh, no. Not there. I’d rather have a straight-backed chair, please. That’s for contortionists.”
Shawanda brought in the requested chair, and Miss Rinehart sat down. She was wearing a navy-blue dress with white polka dots, a bright red scarf, navy pumps, and a white jacket with navy piping on the hem, pockets, and sleeves. Her hat—selected, Lia thought, by the wardrobe mistress of a movie company specializing in bravura remakes of World War II films noirs— was a pillbox number with the hint of a black veil depending from the front. The veil scarcely touched Miss Rinehart’s forehead, but its shadow laid a spider’s web on her brow. Shawanda gave Lia a looky-what-we’ve-got-us-here expression and then retreated dutifully to the outer office.
“You know who I am?”
“Yes, ma’am, I believe I do.”
“Please don’t call me ma’am. I prefer Grace, or Miss Grace, or something equally informal.”
“All right.” But what you really want, Lia thought, is a title that helps you think of yourself as ever-youthful, ever desirable, and ever happy. Informality has little to do with it. But never mind. It must be hard having to compete with celluloid images of the person that you once were but clearly are no longer…
“Are you and your secretary discreet enough—mature enough—to keep my dealings with you to yourselves?”
“Certainly.” Just give us that chance, Lia prayed.
“Would you object to taking me on as a client?”
“Of course not.” But if you could hear my heart pounding, Lia thought, would you think me strong enough to do the job?
Lia and the actress stared at each other appraisingly, and the psychologist began to wonder why Grace Rinehart, whom patriotic wits liked to apostophize as the Liberty Belle, would show up in Warm Springs looking
for help from a no-name practitioner when she could easily afford the services of any high-powered shrink in the world, from a Viennese Freudian to a Manhattan pharmacotherapist. That she had materialized in Lia’s office was a small miracle, not one quite so inexplicable and alarming as Kai’s appearance a week earlier, yet still one extraordinary enough to provoke disbelief and suspicion. Lia rose from her place behind her desk and began to pace the hardwood floor at a small distance from her would-be client. Her would-be celebrity client.
“Miss Rinehart, what do you want me to try to do for you and why have you chosen me to try to do it?”
“For God’s sake, didn’t I ask you to call me by my first name? If you can’t meet that little request, Dr. Bonner, maybe you’re—”
“Call me Lia.”
“—maybe you’re—” The actress stopped. It dawned on her what had just happened. She laughed. “I was going to say that if you couldn’t even get my name right, maybe you’re not the one I need to help me at all.”
“Maybe not.” Lia resumed pacing. “But, Grace, I still don’t understand what you want me to do. Or why you want me to do it.”
“Why do people ever go to head doctors? To have their heads screwed back on straight, I suppose. And why you? Well, I met your husband not too long ago, and you’re relatively near, and I’m tired of spilling my guts to bearded men in turtleneck sweaters. They’re far more interested in my bank-book and the unholy myth of my on-screen/offscreen Sex Life—capital S, capital L— than in my self-doubts and my recurring depressions. So I thought that maybe, just maybe, a woman from a similar background would find it easier to cut through all the Tinsel Town tinsel and empathize with me in a way that the shrinks in turtlenecks never quite manage. Which is why I’m here. Please take me on without trumpeting the news all up and down the front and back sides of Pine Mountain.”
“Ensuring confidentiality is a rule of my profession.”
“Of course it is, Lia. Of course it is.”
Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas Page 17
