“American Artistic Handcrafts,” Frink said. He never went into fashionable, expensive stores such as that. Few Americans did; it was the Japanese who had the money to buy from such places.
“You know what retailers like that are selling?” McCarthy said. “And getting a fortune for? Those goddam silver belt buckles from New Mexico that the Indians make. Those goddam tourist trash pieces, all alike. Supposedly native art.”
For a long time Frink regarded McCarthy. “I know what else they sell,” he said finally. “And so do you.”
“Yes,” McCarthy said.
They both knew—because they had both been directly involved, and for a long time.
W-M Corporation’s stated legal business consisted in turning out wrought-iron staircases, railings, fireplaces, and ornaments for new apartment buildings, all on a mass basis, from standard designs. For a new forty-unit building the same piece would be executed forty times in a row. Ostensibly, W-M Corporation was an iron foundry. But in addition, it maintained another business from which its real profits were derived.
Using an elaborate variety of tools, materials, and machines, W-M Corporation turned out a constant flow of forgeries of pre-war American artifacts. These forgeries were cautiously but expertly fed into the wholesale art object market, to join the genuine objects collected throughout the continent. As in the stamp and coin business, no one could possibly estimate the percentage of forgeries in circulation. And no one—especially the dealers and the collectors themselves—wanted to.
When Frink had quit, there lay half-finished on his bench a Colt revolver of the Frontier period; he had made the molds himself, done the casting, and had been busy handsmoothing the pieces. There was an unlimited market for small arms of the American Civil War and Frontier period; W-M Corporation could sell all that Frink could turn out. It was his specialty.
Walking slowly over to his bench, Frink picked up the still-rough and burred ramrod of the revolver. Another three days and the gun would be finished. Yes, he thought, it was good work. An expert could have told the difference . . . but the Japanese collectors weren’t authorities in – the proper sense, had no standards or tests by which to judge.
In fact, as far as he knew, it had never occurred to them to ask themselves if the so-called historic art objects for sale in West Coast shops were genuine. Perhaps someday they would . . . and then the bubble would burst, the market would collapse even for the authentic pieces. A Gresham’ ‘S Law: the fakes would undermine the value of the real. And that no doubt was the motive for the failure to investigate; after all, everyone was happy. The factories, here and there in the various cities, which turned out the-pieces, they made their profits. The wholesalers passed them on, and the dealers displayed and advertised them. The collectors shelled out their money and carried their purchases happily home, to impress their associates, friends, and mistresses.
Like postwar boodle paper money, it was fine until questioned. Nobody was hurt—until the day of reckoning. And then everyone, equally, would be ruined. But meanwhile, nobody talked about it, even the men who earned their living turning out the forgeries; they shut their own minds to what they made, kept their attention on the mere technical problems.
“How long since you tried to do original designing?” McCarthy asked.
Frink shrugged. “Years. I can copy accurately as hell. But—“
“You know what I think? I think you’ve picked up the Nazi idea that Jews can’t create. That they can only imitate and sell. Middlemen.” He fixed his merciless scrutiny on Frink.
“Maybe so,” Frink said.
“Try it. Do some original designs. Or work directly on the metal. Play around. Like a kid plays.”
“No,” Frink said.
“You have no faith,” McCarthy said. “You’ve completely lost faith in yourself—right? Too bad. Because I know you could do it.” He walked away from the workbench.
It is too bad, Frink thought. But nevertheless it’s the truth. It’s a fact. I can’t get faith or enthusiasm by willing it. Deciding to.
That McCarthy, he thought, is a damn good shop foreman. He has the knack of needling a man, getting him to put out his best efforts, to do his utmost in spite of himself. He’s a natural leader; he almost inspired me, for a moment, there. But—McCarthy had gone off, now; the effort had failed.
Too bad I don’t have my copy of the oracle here, Frink thought. I could consult it on this; take the issue to it for its five thousand years of wisdom. And then he recalled that there was copy of the I Ching in the lounge of the business office of W-M Corporation. So he made his way from the work area, along the corridor, hurriedly through the business office to the lounge. –
Seated in one of the chrome and plastic lounge chairs, he wrote his question out on the back of an envelope: “Should I attempt to go into the creative private business outlined to me just now?” And then he began throwing the coins.
The bottom line was a Seven, and so was the second and then the third. The bottom trigam in Ch’ien, he realized. That sounded good; Ch’ien was the creative. Then line Four, an eight. Yin. And line Five, also eight, a yin line. Good lord, he thought excitedly; one more yin line and I’ve got Hexagram Eleven, T’ai, Peace. Very favorable judgment. Or—his hands trembled as he rattled the coins. A yang line and hence Hexagram Twenty-six, Ta Ch’u, the Taming Power of the Great. Both have favorable judgments, and it has to be one or the other. He threw the three coins.
Yin. A six. It was Peace.
Opening the book, he read the judgment.
PEACE. The small departs.
The great approaches.
Good fortune. Success.
So I ought to do as Ed McCarthy says. Open my little business. Now the six at the top, my one moving line. He turned the page. What was the text? He could not recall; probably favorable because the hexagram itself was so favorable. Union of heaven and earth—but the first and last lines were outside the hexagram always, so possibly the six at the top . . .
His eyes picked out the line, read it in a flash.
The wall falls back into the moat.
Use no army now.
Make your commands known within your own town.
Perseverance brings humiliation.
My busted back! he exclaimed, horrified. And the commentary.
The change alluded to in the middle of the hexagram has begun to take place. The wall of the town sinks back into the moat from which it was dug. The hour of doom is at hand.
It was, beyond doubt, one of the most dismal lines in the entire book, of more than three thousand lines. And yet the judgment of the hexagram was good.
Which was he supposed to follow?
And how could they be so different? It had never happened to him before, good fortune and doom mixed together in the Dracle’s prophecy; what a weird fate, as if the oracle had scraped the bottom of the barrel, tossed up every sort of rag, bone, and turd of the dark, then reversed itself and poured in the light like a cook gone barmy. I must have pressed two buttons at once, he decided; jammed the works and got this schlimazl’s eye view of reality. Just for a second—forEunately. Didn’t last.
Hell, he thought, it has to be one or the other; it can’t be both. You can’t have good fortune and doom simultaneously.
Or . . . can you?
The jewelry business will bring good fortune; the judgment refers to that. But the line, the goddam line; it refers to something deeper, some future catastrophe probably not even connected with the jewelry business. Some evil fate that’s in store for me anyhow.
War! he thought. Third World War! All frigging two billion of us killed, our civilization wiped out. Hydrogen bombs falling like hail.
Oy gewalt! he thought. What’s happening? Did I start it in jnotion? Or is someone else tinkering, someone I don’t even know? Or—the whole lot of us. It’s the fault of those physicists and that synchronicity theory, every particle being connected with every other; you can’t fart without changing the balance in the universe. It makes living a funny joke with nobody around to laugh. I open a book and get a report on future events that even God would like to file and forget. And who am I? The wrong person; I can tell you that.
I should take my tools, get my motors from McCarthy, open my shop, start my piddling business, go on despite the horrible line. Be working, creating in my own way right up to the end, living as best I can, as actively as possible, until the wall falls back into the moat for all of us, all mankind. That’s what the oracle is telling me. Fate will poleax us eventually anyhow, but I have my job in the meantime; I must use my mind, my hands.