The Simulacra by Philip K. Dick

The news posted on The Abraham Lincoln’s communal bulletin board that Duncan & Millar had been chosen by the talent scout to perform at the White House astounded Edgar Stone; he read the announcement again and again, searching for the joker in it and wondering how the little nervous, cringing man had managed to do it.

There’s been cheating, Stone said to himself. Just as I passed him on his relpol tests … he’s got somebody else to falsify a few results for him along the talent line. He himself had heard the jugs; he had been present at that programme, and Duncan & Miller, Classical Jugs, simply were not that good. They were good, admittedly … but intuitively he knew that more was involved.

Deep inside him he experienced anger, a resentment that he had ever falsified Duncan’s test-score. I put him on the road to success, Stone realized; I saved him. And now he’s on his way to the White House, out of here entirely.

No wonder Ian Duncan had done so poorly on his relpol test. He had been busy practising on his jug, obviously; Duncan had no time for the commonplace realities which the rest of humanity had to cope with. It must be terrific to be an artist, Stone thought with bitterness. You’re exempt from all the rules and responsibilities; you can do just as you like.

He sure made a fool out of me, Stone said to himself.

Striding rapidly down the second-floor hall, Stone arrived at the office of the building skypilot; he rang the bell and the door opened, showing him the sight of the skypilot deep in work at his desk, his face wrinkled with fatigue. ‘Uh, father,’ Stone said, ‘I’d like to confess. Can you spare a few minutes? It’s very urgently on my mind, my sins I mean.’

Rubbing his forehead, Patrick Doyle nodded. ‘Jeez,’ he murmured. ‘It either rains or it pours; I’ve had ten presidents in today so far, using the confessionator. Go ahead.’

He pointed wearily to the alcove which opened on to his office. ‘Sit down and plug yourself in. I’ll be listening while I fill out these 4-10 forms from Berlin.’

Filled with righteous indignation, his hands trembling, Edgar Stone attached the electrodes of the confessionator to the correct spots of his scalp, and then, picking up the microphone, began to confess. The tapedrums of the machine turned slowly as he spoke. ‘Moved by a false type pity,’ he said, ‘I infracted a rule of this building. But mainly I am concerned not with the act itself but with the motives behind it; the act is merely the outgrowth of a false attitude towards my fellow residents. This individual, my neighbour Mr Ian Duncan, did poorly on his recent relpol test and I foresaw him being evicted from The Abraham Lincoln. I identified with him because subconsciously I regard myself as a failure, both as a resident of this building and as a man, so I falsified his score to indicate that he had passed. Obviously a new relpol test will have to be given to Mr Ian Duncan and the one which I scored will have to be marked void.’ He eyed the skypilot, but there was no evident reaction.

That will take care of Duncan and his Classic Jug, Stone said to himself.

By now the confessionator had analysed his confession; it popped a card out, and Doyle rose to his feet to receive it.

After a long, careful scrutiny he glanced keenly up. ‘Mr Stone,’ he said, ‘the view expressed here is that your confession is no confession. What do you really have on your mind? Go back and begin all over; you haven’t probed down deeply enough and brought up the genuine material And I suggest you start out by confessing that you misconfessed consciously and deliberately.’

‘No such thing,’ Stone said, or rather tried to say; his voice had gone out on him, numbed by dismay. ‘P-perhaps I could discuss this with you informally, sir. I did falsify Ian Duncan’s test score; that’s a fact. Now, perhaps my motives for doing it — ‘

Doyle interrupted. ‘Aren’t you jealous of Duncan now? What with his success with the jug, White House-wards?’

There was silence.

‘This — could be,’ Stone rasped in admission at last. ‘But it doesn’t change the fact that by all rights Ian Duncan shouldn’t be living here; he should be evicted, my motives notwithstanding. Look it up in the Communal Apartment building Code. I know there’s a section covering a situation such as this.’

‘But you can’t get out of here,’ the skypilot persisted, ‘without confessing; you must satisfy the machine. You’re attempting to force eviction of a neighbour to satisfy your own emotional, psychological needs. Confess that, and then perhaps we can discuss the Code ruling as it pertains to Duncan.’

Stone groaned and once more attached the intricate system of electrodes to his scalp. ‘All right,’ he grated. ‘I hate Ian Duncan because he’s artistically gifted and I’m not. I’m willing to be examined by a twelve-resident jury of my neighbours to see what the penalty for my sin is; but I insist that Duncan be given another relpol test! I won’t give up on this — he has no right to be dwelling here amongst us. It’s morally and legally wrong.’

‘At least you’re being honest, now,’ Doyle said.

‘Actually,’ Stone said, ‘I enjoy jug band playing; I liked their little act, the other night. But I have to behave in a manner which I believe to be in the public interest.’

The confessionator, it seemed to him, snorted in derision as it popped a second card. But perhaps it was only his imagination.

‘You’re just getting yourself deeper and deeper,’ Doyle said, reading the card. ‘Look at this.’ He grimly passed the card to Stone. ‘Your mind is a riot of confused, ambivalent motives. When was the last time you confessed?’

Flushing, Stone mumbled, ‘I think — last August. Pape Jones was the skypilot then. Yes, it must have been August.’

Actually, it had been early July.

‘A lot of work will have to be done with you,’ Doyle said, lighting a cigarillo and leaning back in his chair.

The opening number on their White House programme they had decided after much discussion and hot argument, would be the Bach ‘Chaconne in D.’ Al had always liked it, despite the difficulties involved, the double-stopping and all. Even thinking about the Chaconne made Ian Duncan nervous.

He wished, now that it had at last been decided, that he had held out for the much simpler ‘Fifty Unaccompanied Cello Suite.’ But too late now. Al had sent the information to the White House A & R secretary, Mr Harold Slezak.

Al said, ‘Don’t for heaven’s sake worry; you’ve got the number two jug in this. Do you mind being second jug to me?’

‘No,’ Ian said. It was a relief, actually; Al had the far more difficult part.

Outside the perimeter of Jalopy Jungle Number three the papoola moved, crisscrossing the sidewalk in its gliding, quiet pursuit of a sales prospect. It was only ten in the morning, and no one worth collaring had come along, as yet.

Today the lot had been set up in the hilly section of Oakland, California, among the winding, tree-shrouded streets of the better residential section. Across from the lot, Ian could see The Joe Louis, a peculiarly-shaped but striking apartment building of a thousand units, mostly occupied by very well-to-do Negroes. The building, in the morning sun, appeared especially neat and cared for. A guard, with badge and gun, patrolled the entrance, stopping anyone who did not live there from entering.

‘Slezak has to okay the programme,’ Al reminded him.

‘Maybe Nicole won’t want to hear the Chaconne; she’s got very specialized tastes and they’re changing all the time.’

In his mind Ian saw Nicole propped up in her enormous bed, in her pink, frilly robe, her breakfast on a tray beside her as she scanned the programme schedules presented to her for her approval. Already she’s heard about us, he thought.

She knows of our existence.

In that case, we really do exist. Like a child that has to have its mother watching what it does, we’re brought into being, validated consensually, by Nicole’s gaze.

And when she takes her eye off us, he thought, then what? What happens to us afterwards? Do we disintegrate, sink back into oblivion? Back, he thought, into random, unformed atoms. Where we came from, the world of nonbeing, The world we’ve been in all our lives, up until now.

‘And,’ Al said, ‘she may ask us for an encore. She may even request a particular favourite. I’ve researched it, and it seems she sometimes asks to hear Schumann’s “The Happy Farmer.” Got that in mind? We’d better work “The Happy Farmer” up, just in case.’ He blew a few toots on his jug, thoughtfully.

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