Player Piano

by Kurt Vonnegut

  "Doctor," said the man, desperately now, with no tinge of baiting, "isn't there something the boy could do at the Works? He's awfully clever with his hands. He's got a kind of instinct with machines. Give him one he's never seen before, and in ten minutes he'll have it apart and back together again. He loves that kind of work. Isn't there someplace in the plant--?"

  "He's got to have a graduate degree," said Paul. He reddened. "That's policy, and I didn't make it. Sometimes we get Reconstruction and Reclamation people over to help put in big machines or do a heavy repair job, but not very often. Maybe he could open a repair shop."

  The man exhaled, slumped dejectedly. "Repair shop," he sighed. "Repair shop, he says. How many repair shops you think Ilium can support, eh? Repair shop, sure! I was going to open one when I got laid off. So was Joe, so was Sam, so was Alf. We're all clever with our hands, so we'll all open repair shops. One repairman for every broken article in Ilium. Meanwhile, our wives clean up as dressmakers--one dressmaker for every woman in town."

  Rudy Hertz had apparently missed all the talk and was still celebrating in his mind the happy reunion with his great and good friend, Doctor Paul Proteus. "Music," said Rudy grandly. "Let's have music!" He reached over Paul's shoulder and popped a nickel into the player piano.

  Paul stepped away from the box. Machinery whirred importantly for a few seconds, and then the piano started clanging away at "Alexander's Ragtime Band" liked cracked carillons. Mercifully, conversation was all but impossible. Mercifully, the bartender emerged from the basement and handed Paul a dusty bottle over the old heads.

  Paul turned to leave, and a powerful hand closed on his upper arm. Rudy, his expansive host, held him.

  "I played this song in your honor, Doctor," shouted Rudy above the racket. "Wait till it's over." Rudy acted as though the antique instrument were the newest of all wonders, and he excitedly pointed out identifiable musical patterns in the bobbing keys--trills, spectacular runs up the keyboard, and the slow, methodical rise and fall of keys in the bass. "See--see them two go up and down, Doctor! Just the way the feller hit 'em. Look at 'em go!"

  The music stopped abruptly, with the air of having delivered exactly five cents worth of joy. Rudy still shouted. "Makes you feel kind of creepy, don't it, Doctor, watching them keys go up and down? You can almost see a ghost sitting there playing his heart out."

  Paul twisted free and hurried out to his car.

  4

  "DARLING, YOU LOOK as though you've seen a ghost," said Anita. She was already dressed for the party at the Country Club, already dominating a distinguished company she had yet to join.

  As she handed Paul his cocktail, he felt somehow inadequate, bumbling, in the presence of her beautiful assurance. Only things that might please or interest her came to mind--all else submerged. It wasn't a conscious act of his mind, but a reflex, a natural response to her presence. It annoyed him that the feeling should be automatic, because he fancied himself in the image of his father, and, in this situation, his father would have been completely in charge--taking the first, last, and best lines for himself.

  The expression "armed to the teeth" occurred to Paul as he looked at her over his glass. With an austere dark gown that left her tanned shoulders and throat bare, a single bit of jewelry on her finger, and very light make-up, Anita had successfully combined the weapons of sex, taste, and an aura of masculine competence.

  She quieted, and turned away under his stare. Inadvertently, he'd gained the upper hand. He had somehow communicated the thought that had bobbed up in his thoughts unexpectedly: that her strength and poise were no more than a mirror image of his own importance, an image of the power and self-satisfaction the manager of the Ilium Works could have, if he wanted it. In a fleeting second she became a helpless, bluffing little girl in his thoughts, and he was able to feel real tenderness toward her.

  "Good drink, sweetheart," he said. "Finnerty upstairs?"

  "I sent him on over to the club. Kroner and Baer got there early, and I sent Finnerty over to keep them company while you get dressed."

  "How does he look?"

  "How did Finnerty always look? Awful. I swear he was wearing the same baggy suit he wore when he said goodbye to us seven years ago. And I'll swear it hasn't been cleaned since then, either. I tried to get him to wear your old tuxedo, and he wouldn't hear of it. Went right over the way he was. I suppose a stiff shirt would have been worse in a way. It would have showed how dirty his neck is."

  She pulled the neck of her dress lower, looked at herself in a mirror, and raised it slightly again--a delicate compromise. "Honestly," she said, talking to Paul's image in the mirror, "I'm crazy about that man--you know I am. But he just looks awful all the time. I mean, after all, a man in his position, and not even clean."

  Paul smiled and shook his head. It was true. Finnerty had always been shockingly lax about his grooming, and some of his more fastidious supervisors in the old days had found it hard to believe that a man could be so staggeringly competent, and at the same time so unsanitary-looking. Occasionally, the tall, gaunt Irishman would surprise everyone--usually between long stretches of work--by showing up with his cheeks gleaming like wax apples, and with new shoes, socks, shirt, tie, and suit, and, presumably, underwear. Engineers' and managers' wives would make a big fuss over him, to show him that such care of himself was important and rewarding; and they declared that he was really the handsomest thing in the Ilium industrial fold. Quite possibly he was, in a coarse, weathered way: grotesquely handsome, like Abe Lincoln, but with a predatory, defiant cast to his eyes rather than the sadness of Lincoln's. After Finnerty's periodic outbursts of cleanliness and freshness, the wives would watch with increasing distress as he wore the entire celebrated outfit day in and day out, until the sands and soot and grease of time had filled every seam and pore.

  And Finnerty had other unsavory aspects. Into the resolutely monogamous and Eagle Scout-like society of engineers and managers, Finnerty often brought women he'd picked up in Homestead a half-hour before. When it came time, after supper, to play games, Finnerty and the girl would generally take a highball in either hand and wander off to the shrub-walled first tee, if it was warm, or out to his car, if it was cold.

  His car--in the old days, anyway--had been more disreputable than Paul's was today. In this direction, at least--the most innocuous direction, socially--Paul had imitated his friend. Finnerty had claimed that his love of books and records and good whisky kept him too broke to buy a car and clothes commensurate with his position in life. Paul had computed the value of Finnerty's record, book, and bottle collections and concluded that the Irishman would still have plenty left for even two new cars. It was then that Paul began to suspect that Finnerty's way of life wasn't as irrational as it seemed; that it was, in fact, a studied and elaborate insult to the managers and engineers of Ilium, and to their immaculate wives.

  Why Finnerty had seen fit to offend these gentle people was never clear to Paul, who supposed the aggressiveness, like most aggressiveness, dated back to some childhood muddle. The only intimation as to what that childhood had been like had come not from Finnerty but from Kroner, who took a breeder's interest in his engineers' bloodlines. Kroner had once remarked, confidingly and with a show of sympathy, that Finnerty was a mutant, born of poor and stupid parents. The only insight Finnerty had ever permitted Paul was in a moment of deep depression, during a crushing hangover, when he'd sighed and said he'd never felt he belonged anywhere.

  Paul wondered about his own deep drives as he realized how much pleasure he was getting from recollections of Finnerty's socially destructive, undisciplined antics. Paul indulged himself in the wistful sensation of feeling that he, Paul, might be content, if only--and let the thought stop there, as though he knew vaguely what lay beyond. He didn't.

  Paul envied Finnerty's mind, for Finnerty could be anything he wanted to be, and be brilliant at it. Whatever the times might have called for, Finnerty would have been among the best. If this had been t
he age of music, Finnerty would have been, and in fact was, a top-flight pianist--or he might have been an architect or physician or writer. With inhuman intuition, Finnerty could sense the basic principles and motives of almost any human work, not just engineering.

  Paul could have been only what he was, he thought. As he filled his glass again, he supposed that he could only have come to this moment, this living room, into the presence of Anita.

  It was an appalling thought, to be so well-integrated into the machinery of society and history as to be able to move in only one plane, and along one line. Finnerty's arrival was disturbing, for it brought to the surface the doubt that life should be that way. Paul had been thinking of hiring a psychiatrist to make him docile, content with his lot, amiable to all. But now, here was Finnerty, pushing him in the other direction. Finnerty had seemed to see something in Paul he hadn't seen in the others, something he'd liked--possibly a rebellious streak that Paul was only now beginning to suspect. For some reason Finnerty had made Paul his only friend.

  "In a way, I wish Finnerty'd picked another day," said Anita. "It raises all sorts of problems. Baer's supposed to be on my left, and Kroner on my right; but now, with a member of the National Industrial Planning Board blowing in unexpectedly, I'm not sure who goes where. Is Ed Finnerty bigger brass than Kroner and Baer?" she asked incredulously.

  "Look in the Organization Directory, if you want," said Paul. "I think you'll find the N.I.P.B. is listed ahead of the regional people--but it's more brain trust than brass. Finnerty won't care. He'll probably eat with the help."

  "If he sets foot in the kitchen, the Board of Health will throw him in jail." She laughed uneasily. It was evident that she found it trying to be a good sport about Finnerty, to pretend that his eccentricities were amusing. She changed the subject. "Tell me about today."

  "Nothing about today. One more, like all the rest."

  "You got the whisky?"

  "Yes. I had to go across the river to get it."

  "Was it such an awful ordeal?" she chided. She couldn't understand why he hated to run errands into Homestead, and teased him about it. "Was it so awful?" she said again, bordering on baby talk, as though he were a lazy little boy coaxed into doing a small favor for his mother.

  "Pretty bad."

  "Really?" She was surprised. "Nothing violent, I hope."

  "No. Everybody was very polite, in fact. One of the pensioners recognized me from the old days and threw an impromptu party for me."

  "Well, that sounds like downright fun."

  "Does, doesn't it? His name is Rudy Hertz." Without describing his own reactions, he told her what had happened. He found himself watching her closely, experimenting.

  "And that upset you?" She laughed. "You are a sensitive darling, aren't you? You tell me you've been through a nightmare, and nothing happened at all."

  "They hate me."

  "They proved they loved and admired you. And, what's more, they should."

  "The man with the thick glasses as much as said his son's life wasn't worth living on account of me."

  "You said that. He didn't. And I won't have you saying ridiculous things like that. Do you get some sort of pleasure out of making things up to feel guilty about? If his son isn't bright enough for anything but the Reeks and Wrecks or the Army, is that your fault?"

  "No; but if it hadn't been for men like me, he might have a machine in the plant--"

  "Is he starving?"

  "Of course not. Nobody starves."

  "And he's got a place to live and warm clothes. He has what he'd have if he were running a stupid machine, swearing at it, making mistakes, striking every year, fighting with the foreman, coming in with hangovers."

  "You're right, you're right." He held up his hands. "Of course you're right. It's just a hell of a time to be alive, is all--just this goddamn messy business of people having to get used to new ideas. And people just don't, that's all. I wish this were a hundred years from now, with everybody used to the change."

  "You're tired. I'm going to tell Kroner you need a month off."

  "I'll tell him, if I feel like it."

  "I wasn't trying to run your life, darling. But you never ask for anything."

  "Let me do the asking, if you don't mind."

  "I don't. I promise you I don't mind at all."

  "Did you lay my things out?"

  "On your bed," she said primly. She'd been hurt. "Tuxedo, shirt, socks, studs, cuff links, and a new tie."

  "New tie?"

  "Dubonnet."

  "Dubonnet! For Christ's sake."

  "Kroner and Baer are wearing dubonnet ties."

  "And is my underwear like theirs?"

  "I'm sure I didn't notice."

  "I'm wearing a black tie."

  "Pittsburgh, darling--remember? You said you wanted to go there."

  "Hi ho, dubonnet." He climbed the stairs to their bedroom, stripping off his coat and shirt as he went.

  "Ed!" Finnerty was stretched out on Anita's bed.

  "So there you are," said Finnerty. He pointed at the tuxedo laid out on Paul's bed. "I thought this was you. I've been talking to it for half an hour."

  "Anita said you'd gone to the club."

  "Anita expelled me out the front door, so I came in the back and up here."

  "Well, I'm glad you did. How are things?"

  "Worse than ever, but there's hope."

  "Fine," said Paul, laughing uncertainly. "Married?"

  "Never. Shut the door."

  Paul closed it. "How's the Washington job?"

  "I've quit."

  "Really? Something bigger yet?"

  "I think so, or I wouldn't have quit."

  "Where?"

  "No place. No job at all."

  "Not enough pay, or worn out, or what?"

  "Sick of it," he said slowly. "The pay was fantastically good, ridiculously good--paid like a television queen with a forty-inch bust. But when I got this year's invitation to the Meadows, Paul, something snapped. I realized I couldn't face another session up there. And then I looked around me and found out I couldn't face anything about the system any more. I walked out, and here I am."

  Paul's invitation to the Meadows was carelessly displayed by Anita in the front-hall mirror, where no one could fail to notice it. The Meadows was a flat, grassy island in the St. Lawrence, in Chippewa Bay, where the most important men, and the most promising men ("Those whose development within the organization is not yet complete," said the Handbook) in the Eastern and Middle-Western Divisions spent a week each summer in an orgy of morale building--through team athletics, group sings, bonfires and skyrockets, bawdy entertainment, free whisky and cigars; and through plays, put on by professional actors, which pleasantly but unmistakably made clear the nature of good deportment within the system, and the shape of firm resolves for the challenging year ahead.

  Finnerty took a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket, offered one bent at almost a right angle. Paul straightened it out, his fingers unsteady. "Got the shakes?" said Finnerty.

  "I'm chief speaker tonight."

  "Oh?" He seemed disappointed. "Then you don't ordinarily have the shakes these days? What's the occasion?"

  "Thirteen years ago today, the Ilium Works was placed under the National Manufacturing Council."

  "Like every other plant in the country."

  "Ilium was a little earlier than most." The union of the country's manufacturing facilities under one council had taken place not long after Finnerty, Paul, and Shepherd came to work in Ilium. It had been done because of the war. Similar councils had been formed for the transportation, raw materials, food, and communications industries, and over them all had been Paul's father. The system had so cut waste and duplication that it was preserved after the war, and was, in fact, often cited as one of the few concrete benefits of the war.

  "Does that make you happy, that this has been going on thirteen years?"

  "It calls for comment, anyway. I'm going to keep it factua
l. It isn't going to be like Kroner's evangelism."

  Finnerty fell silent, apparently uninterested in pursuing the subject. "Funny," he said at last, "I thought you'd be pretty close to the edge by now. That's why I came here."

  Paul twisted his face as he struggled to get his collar button moored. "Well, you weren't completely wrong. There's talk of my chatting with a psychiatrist."

  "So you are in rough shape. Wonderful! Let's get out of this damn party. We've got to talk."

  The bedroom door opened, and Anita looked in from the hall. "Oh! Ed. Who's with Baer and Kroner?"

  "Kroner's with Baer, Baer's with Kroner," said Finnerty. "Close the door, please, Anita."

  "It's time to go to the club."

  "It's time for you to go to the club," said Finnerty. "Paul and I'll be along later."

  "We're going together, and now, Ed. We're ten minutes late as it is. And I won't be bullied by you. I refuse." She smiled unconvincingly.

  "Let's go," said Paul.

  "Anita," said Finnerty, "if you don't show more respect for men's privacy, I'll design a machine that's everything you are, and does show respect."

  She colored. "I can't say I find you screamingly funny."

  "Stainless steel," said Finnerty. "Stainless steel, covered with sponge rubber, and heated electrically to 98.6 degrees."

  "Now, look--" said Paul.

  "And blushes at will," said Finnerty.

  "And I could make a man like you out of a burlap bag filled with mud," said Anita. "Anybody who tries to touch you comes away dirty!" She slammed the door, and Paul listened to her heels clicking down the staircase.

  "Now, why in hell did you do that?" said Paul. "Do you mind telling me?"

  Finnerty lay motionless on the bed, staring at the ceiling. "I don't know," he said slowly, "but I'm not sorry. Go on with her."

  "What are your plans?"

  "Go on!" He said it as though Paul had suddenly intruded just as he was giving form to an important, difficult thought.

  "There's Irish whisky for you in a brown bag in the front hall," said Paul, and he left Finnerty lying there.