“You are biophysical organism with built-in responses; you are alive. All that lives strives to survive. You will fight if necessary, Hada.”
Looking at his watch, Hada said, “I have to go, Ito. At three I’ve an appointment in Havana to interview a new folksinger, a ballad-and-banjo man who’s sweeping Latin America. Ragland Park is his name; he can bring life back into CULTURE.”
“I know of him,” Ito Yasumi said. “Saw him on commercial TV; very good performer. Part Southern U.S., part Dane, very young, with huge black mustache and blue eyes. Magnetic, this Rags, as is called.”
“But is folksinging cultural?” Hada murmured.
“I tell you something,” Dr. Yasumi said. “There strangeness about Rags Park; I noted even over TV. Not like other people.”
“That’s why he’s such a sensation.”
“More than that. I diagnose.” Yasumi reflected. “You know, mental illness and psionic powers closely related, as in poltergeist effect. Many schizophrenics of paranoid variety are telepaths, picking up hate thoughts in subconscious of persons around them.”
“I know,” Hada sighed, thinking that this was costing him hundreds of dollars, this spouting of psychiatric theory.
“Go careful with Rags Park,” Dr. Yasumi cautioned. “You volatile type, Hada; jump too quick. First, idea of springing Jim-Jam Briskin—risking FBI wrath—and now this Rags Park. You like hat designer or human flea. Best bet, as I say, is to openly face President Fischer, not deviousness as I foresee you doing.”
“Devious?” Hada murmured. “I’m not devious.”
“You most devious patient I got,” Dr. Yasumi told him bluntly. “You got nothing but tricky bones in your body, Hada. Watch out or you scheme yourself out of existence.” He nodded with great soberness.
“I’ll go carefully,” Hada said, his mind on Rags Park; he barely heard what Dr. Yasumi was telling him.
“A favor,” Dr. Yasumi said. “When you can arrange, let me examine Mr. Park; I would enjoy, okay? For your good, Hada, as well as professional interest. Psi talent may be of new kind; one never knows.”
“Okay,” Hada agreed. “I’ll give you a call.” But, he thought, I’m not going to pay for it; your examination of Rags Park will be on your own time.
There was an opportunity before his appointment with the ballad singer Rags Park to drop by the federal prison in New York at which Jim-Jam Briskin was being held on the sedition in time of war charge.
Hada had never met the news clown face-to-face, and he was surprised to discover how much older the man looked than on the TV. But perhaps Briskin’s arrest, his troubles with President Fischer, had temporarily overwhelmed him. It would be enough to overwhelm anyone, Hada reflected as the deputy unlocked the cell and admitted him.
“How did you happen to tangle with President Fischer?” Hada asked.
The news clown shrugged and said, “You lived through that period in history as much as I did.” He lit a cigarette and stared woodenly past Hada.
He was referring, Hada realized, to the demise of the great problem-solving computer at Washington, D.C., Unicephalon 40-D; it had ruled as President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces until a missile, delivered by the alien ships, had put it out of action. During that period, the standby President, Max Fischer, had taken power, a clod appointed by the union, a primitive man with an unnatural bucolic cunning. When at last Unicephalon 40-D had been repaired and had resumed functioning, it had ordered Fischer to depart his office and Jim Briskin to cease political activity. Neither man had complied. Briskin had gone on campaigning against Max Fischer, and Fischer had managed, by some method still unknown, to disable the computer, thereby again becoming President of the United States.
And his initial act had been to clap Jim-Jam in jail.
“Has Art Heaviside, my attorney, seen you?” Hada asked.
“No,” Briskin said shortly.
“Listen, my friend,” Hada said, “without my help you’ll be in prison forever, or at least until Max Fischer dies. This time he isn’t making the mistake of allowing Unicephalon 40-D to be repaired; it’s out of action for good.”
Briskin said, “And you want me on your network in exchange for getting me out of here.” He smoked rapidly at his cigarette.
“I need you, Jim-Jam,” Hada said. “It took courage for you to expose President Fischer for the power-hungry buffoon he is; we’ve got a terrible menace hanging over us in Max Fischer, and if we don’t join together and work fast it’ll be too late; we’ll both be dead. You know—in fact you said it on TV—that Fischer would gladly stoop to assassination to get what he wants.”
Briskin said, “Can I say what I want over your facilities?”
“I give you absolute freedom. Attack anyone you want, including me.”
After a pause, Briskin said, “I’d take your offer, Hada… but I doubt if even Art Heaviside can get me out of here. Leon Lait, Fischer’s Attorney General, is conducting the prosecution against me personally.”
“Don’t resign yourself,” Hada said. “Billions of your viewers are waiting to see you emerge from this cell. At this moment all my outlets are clamoring for your release. Public pressure is building up. Even Max will have to listen to that.”
“What I’m afraid of is that an ‘accident’ will happen to me,” Briskin said. “Just like the ‘accident’ that befell Unicephalon 40-D a week after it resumed functioning. If it couldn’t save itself, how can—”
“You afraid?” Hada inquired, incredulous. “Jim-Jam Briskin, the ranking news clown—I don’t believe it.”
There was silence.
Briskin said, “The reason my sponsors, Reinlander Beer and Calbest Electronics, haven’t been able to get me out is”—he paused—“pressure put on them by President Fischer. Their attorneys as much as admitted that to me. When Fischer learns you’re trying to help me, he’ll bring all the pressure he has to bear directly on you.” He glanced up acutely at Hada. “Do you have the stamina to endure it? I wonder.”
“Certainly I have,” Hada said. “As I told Dr. Yasumi—”
“And he’ll put pressure on your wives,” Jim-Jam Briskin said.
“I’ll divorce all eight of them,” Hada said hotly.
Briskin held out his hand and they shook. “It’s a deal then,” Jim-Jam said. “I’ll go to work for CULTURE as soon as I’m out of here.” He smiled in a weary but hopeful way.
Elated, Hada said, “Have you ever heard of Rags Park, the folk and ballad singer? At three today I’m signing him, too.”
“There’s a TV set here and now and then I catch one of Park’s numbers,” Briskin said. “He sounds good. But do you want that on CULTURE? It’s hardly educational.”
“CULTURE is changing. We’re going to sugarcoat our didacticisms from now on. We’ve been losing our audience. I don’t intend to see CULTURE wither away. The very concept of it—”
The word “culture” stood for Committee Utilizing Learning Techniques for Urban Renewal Efforts. A major part of Hada’s real estate holdings consisted of the city of Portland, Oregon, which he had acquired—intact—ten years ago. It was not worth much; typical of the semiabandoned slum constellations which had become not only repellent but obsolete, Portland had a certain sentimental value to him because he had been born there.
However, one notion lingered in his mind. If for any reason the colonies on the other planets and moons had to be abandoned, if the settlers came streaming back to Earth, the cities would be repopulated once more. And with the alien ships flitting about the farther planets, this was not as implausible as it sounded. In fact, a few families had emigrated back to Earth already…
So, underneath, CULTURE was not quite the disinterested public service nonprofit agency that it appeared. Mixed in with the education, Hada’s outlets drummed away at the seductive idea of the city, how much it could offer, how little there was to be had in the colonies. Give up the difficult, crude life of the frontier, CULTURE de
clared night and day. Return to your own planet; repair the decaying cities. They’re your real home.
Did Briskin know this? Hada wondered. Did the news clown understand the actual purpose of his organization?
Hada would find that out—if and when he managed to get Briskin out of jail and before a CULTURE microphone.
At three o’clock Sebastian Hada met the folksinger Ragland Park at the Havana office of CULTURE.
“I’m glad to make your acquaintance,” Rags Park said shyly. Tall, skinny, with his huge black mustache hiding most of his mouth, he shuffled about self-consciously, his blue eyes gentle with authentic friendliness. He had an unusual sweetness about him, Hada noted. Almost a saintly quality. Hada found himself impressed.
“And you play both the guitar and five-string banjo?” Hada said. “Not at once, of course.”
Rags Park mumbled, “No, sir. I alternate. Want me to play something right now for you?”
“Where were you born?” Nat Kaminsky asked. Hada had brought his production chief along; in matters such as this, Kaminsky’s opinion was valuable.
“In Arkansas,” Rags answered. “My family raises hogs.” He had his banjo with him and now, nervously, he twanged a few notes. “I know a real sad song that’ll break your heart. It’s called ‘Poor Old Hoss.’ Want me to sing it for you?”
“We’ve heard you,” Hada said. “We know you’re good.” He tried to imagine this awkward young man twanging away over CULTURE in between lectures on twentieth-century portrait sculptors. Hard to imagine…
Rags said, “I bet there’s one thing you don’t know about me, Mr. Hada. I make up a lot of my own ballads.”
“Creative,” Kaminsky said to Hada straight-faced. “That’s good.”
“For instance,” Rags continued, “I once made up a ballad about a man named Tom McPhail who ran ten miles with a bucket of water to put out the fire in his little daughter’s crib.”
“Did he make it?” Hada asked.
“Sure did. Just in time. Tom McPhail ran faster and faster with that bucket of water.” Chanting, Rags twanged in accompaniment.
“Here comes Tom McPhail
Holdin’ on tight to that great little pail.
Holdin’ on tight, boys, here he come.
Heart full of fear, faculties numb.”
Twang, twang, sounded the banjo, mournfully and urgently.
Kaminsky said acutely, “I’ve been following your shows and I’ve never heard you sing that number.”
“Aw,” Rags said, “I had bad luck with that, Mr. Kaminsky. Turned out there really is a Tom McPhail. Lives in Pocatello, Idaho. I sang about ol’ Tom McPhail on my January fourteenth TV show and right away he got sore—he was listenin’—and got a lawyer to write me.”
“Wasn’t it just a coincidence in names?” Hada said.
“Well,” Rags said, twisting about self-consciously, “it seems there really had been a fire in his home there in Pocatello, and McPhail, he got panicky and ran with a bucket to the creek, and it was ten miles off, like I said in the song.”
“Did he get back with the water in time?”
“Amazingly, he did,” Rags said.
Kaminsky said to Hada, “It would be better, on CULTURE, if this man stuck to authentic Old English ballads such as ‘Greensleeves.’ That would seem more what we want.”
Thoughtfully, Hada said to Rags, “Bad luck to pick a name for a ballad and have it turn out that such a man really exists… Have you had that sort of bad luck since?”
“Yes, I have,” Rags admitted. “I made up a ballad last week… it was about a lady, Miss Marsha Dobbs. Listen.
“All day, all night, Marsha Dobbs.
Loves a married man whose wife she robs.
Robs that wife and hearth of Jack Cooks’s heart.
Steals the husband, makes that marriage fall apart.
“That’s the first verse,” Rags explained. “It goes on for seventeen verses; tells how Marsha comes to work at Jack Cooks’s office as a secretary, goes to lunch with him, then later they meet late at—”
“Is there a moral at the end?” Kaminsky inquired.
“Oh sure,” Rags said. “Don’t take no one else’s man because if you do, heaven avenges the dishonored wife. In this case:
“Virus flu lay ‘round the corner just for Jack.
For Marsha Dobbs ‘twas to be worse, a heart attack.
Miz Cooks, the hand of heaven sought to spare.
Surrounded her, became a garment strong to wear.
Miz Cooks—”
Hada broke in over the twanging and singing. “That’s fine, Rags. That’s enough.” He glanced at Kaminsky and winced.
“And I bet it turned out,” Kaminsky said, “that there’s a real Marsha Dobbs who had an affair with her boss, Jack Cooks.”
“Right,” Rags said, nodding “No lawyer called me, but I read it in the homeopape, the New York Times. Marsha, she died of a heart attack, and it was actually during—” He hesitated modestly. “You know. While she and Jack Cooks were at a motel satellite, lovemaking.”
“Have you deleted that number from your repertoire?” Kaminsky asked.
“Well,” Rags said, “I can’t make up my mind. Nobody’s suing me… and I like the ballad. I think I’ll leave it in.”
To himself, Hada thought, What was it Dr. Yasumi said? That he scented psi powers of some unusual kind in Ragland Park… perhaps it’s the parapsychological power of having the bad luck to make up ballads about people who really exist. Not much of a talent, that.
On the other hand, he realized, it could be a variant on the telepathic talent... and with a little tinkering it might be quite valuable.
“How long does it take you to make up a ballad?” he asked Rags.
“I can do it on the spot,” Rags Park answered. “I could do it now; give me a theme and I’ll compose right here in this office of yours.”
Hada pondered and then said, “My wife Thelma has been feeding a gray fox that I know—or I believe—killed and ate our best Rouen duck.”
After a moment of considering, Rags Park twanged:
“Miz Thelma Hada talked to the fox.
Built it a home from an old pine box.
Sebastian Hada heard a sad cluck:
Wicked gray fox had eaten his duck”
“But ducks don’t cluck, they quack,” Nat Kaminsky said critically.
“That’s a fact,” Rags admitted. He pondered and then sang:
“Hada’s production chief changed my luck.
I got no job, and ducks don’t cluck.”
Grinning, Kaminsky said, “Okay, Rags; you win.” To Hada he said, “I advise you to hire him.”
“Let me ask you this,” Hada said to Rags. “Do you think the fox got my Rouen?”
“Gosh,” Rags said, “I don’t know anything about that.”
“But in your ballad you said so,” Hada pointed out.
“Let me think,” Rags said. Presently he twanged once more and said:
“Interesting problem Hada’s stated.
Perhaps my ability’s underrated.
Perhaps I’m not no ordinary guy.
Do I get my ballads through the use of psi?”
“How did you know I meant psi?” Hada asked. “You can read interior thoughts, can’t you? Yasumi was right.”
Rags said, “Mister, I’m just singing and twanging; I’m just an entertainer, same as Jim-Jam Briskin, that news clown President Fischer clapped in jail.”
“Are you afraid of jail?” Hada asked him bluntly.
“President Fischer doesn’t have nothing against me,” Rags said. “I don’t do political ballads.”
“If you work for me,” Hada said, “maybe you will. I’m trying to get Jim-Jam out of jail; today all my outlets began their campaign.”
“Yes, he ought to be out,” Rags agreed, nodding. “That was a bad thing, President Fischer using the FBI for that… those aliens aren’t that much of a menace.”
Kaminsky
, rubbing his chin meditatively, said, “Do one on Jim-Jam Briskin, Max Fischer, the aliens—on the whole political situation. Sum it up.”
“That’s asking a lot,” Rags said, with a wry smile.
“Try,” Kaminsky said. “See how well you can epitomize.”
“Whooee,” Rags said. “ ‘Epitomize.’ Now I know I’m talking to CULTURE. Okay, Mr. Kaminsky. How’s this?” He said:
“Fat little President by name of Max.
Used his power, gave Jim the ax.
Sebastian Hada’s got eyes like a vulture.
Sees his opening, steps in with CULTURE.”
“You’re hired,” Hada said to the folksinger, and reached into his pocket for a contract form.
Kaminsky said, “Will we be successful, Mr. Park? Tell us about the outcome.”
“I’d, uh, rather not,” Rags said. “At least not this minute. You think I can also read the future, too? That I’m a precog as well as a telepath?” He laughed gently. “I’ve got plenty of talent, according to you; I’m flattered.” He bowed mockingly.
“I’ll assume that you’re coming to work for us,” Hada said. “And your willingness to be an employee of CULTURE—is it a sign that you feel President Fischer is not going to be able to get us?”
“Oh, we could be in jail, too, along with Jim-Jam,” Rags murmured. “That wouldn’t surprise me.” Seating himself, his banjo in hand, he prepared to sign the contract.
In his bedroom at the White House, President Max Fischer had listened for almost an hour now to the TV set, to CULTURE hammering away on the same topic, again and again. Jim Briskin must be released, the voice said; it was a smooth, professional announcer’s voice, but behind it, unheard, Max knew, was Sebastian Hada.
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