Vonnegut, Kurt – Player Piano

CHAPTER EIGHT

PAUL breakfasted alone, while Anita and Finnerty, in widely separated beds, slept late after a busy evening. He had difficulty starting his Plymouth and finally realized that it was out of gas. There had been almost a half-tank the afternoon before. Finnerty, then, had gone for a long ride in it after they’d left him alone on the bed and gone to the Country Club without him. Paul rummaged about the glove compartment for a siphon hose, and found it. He paused, sensing that something was missing. He stuck his hand into the glove compartment again and felt around inside. The old pistol was gone. He looked on the floor and searched behind the seat cushion without finding it. Perhaps some urchin had taken it while he’d been in Homestead after the whisky. He’d have to tell the police about it right away, and there’d be all sorts of forms to fill out. He tried to think of a lie that would get him out of accusations of negligence and not get anybody else in trouble. He dipped the siphon hose into the station wagon’s tank, sucked and spat, and plunged the other end of the hose into the Plymouth’s empty tank. As he waited for the slow transfer to take place, he stepped out of the garage and into a warm patch of sunlight. The bathroom window above clattered open, and he looked up to see Finnerty staring at himself in the medicine-cabinet mirror. Finnerty didn’t notice Paul. He had a bent cigarette in his mouth, and there it remained while he washed his face with a cursory and random dabbing motion. The ash on the cigarette grew longer and longer, and, incredibly, longer, until the coal was almost at his lips. He removed the cigarette from his mouth, and the long ash fell. Finnerty flipped the butt in the direction of the toilet, replaced it with another, and proceeded to shave. And the ash grew longer and longer. He leaned close to the mirror, and the ash broke against it. He pressed a pimple between his thumb and forefinger, seemingly without results. Still squinting in the mirror at the reddened spot, he groped for a towel with one hand, seized one without looking at it, and swept Anita’s stockings from the towel rack and into the bathtub. Finnerty, his toilet complete, said something to his reflection, grimaced, and made his exit. Paul returned to the garage, coiled the siphon hose in the glove compartment, and drove off. The car was hesitating again – catching and slowing, catching and slowing. At any rate, it took his mind momentarily from the inconvenient matter of the missing pistol. On the long grade past the golf course, the engine seemed to be hitting on no more than three cylinders, and a squad from the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps, putting in a spruce windbreak to the north of the clubhouse, turned to watch the car’s enervated struggle with gravity. “Hey! Headlamp’s busted,” called one of the men. Paul nodded and smiled his thanks. The car faltered, and came to a stop, just short of the summit. Paul set his emergency brake and got out. He lifted the hood and tested various connections. Tools being laid against the side of the car made a clattering noise, and a half-dozen Reeks and Wrecks stuck their heads under the hood with his. “It’s his plugs,” said a small, bright-eyed, Italian-looking man. “Aaaaaaah, in a pig’s ass it’s his plugs,” said a tall, ruddy-faced man, the oldest of the group. “Lemme show you where the real trouble is. Here, that wrench, that’s the ticket.” He went to work on the fuel pump, soon had the top off of it. He pointed to the gasket beneath the cap. “There,” he said soberly, like an instructor in surgery, “there’s your trouble. Sucking air. I knew that the minute I heard you coming a mile off.” “Well,” said Paul, “guess I’d better call somebody to come and get it. Probably take a week to order a new gasket.” “Five minutes,” said the tall man. He took off his hat and, with an expression of satisfaction, ripped out the sweatband. He took a penknife from his pocket, laid the cap of the fuel pump over the sweatband, and cut out a leather disk just the right size. Then he cut out the disk’s center, dropped the new gasket in place, and put the pump back together. The others watched eagerly, handed him tools, or offered to hand him tools, and tried to get into the operation wherever they could. One man scraped the green and white crystals from a battery connection. Another one went around tightening the valve caps on the tires. “Now try her!” said the tall man. Paul stepped on the starter, the motor caught, roared fast and slow without a miss as he pumped the accelerator. He looked up to see the profound satisfaction, the uplift of creativity, in the faces of the Reeks and Wrecks. Paul took out his billfold and handed two fives to the tall man. “One’ll do,” he said. He folded it carefully and tucked it into the breast pocket of his blue workshirt. He smiled sardonically. “First money I’ve earned in five years. I oughta frame that one, eh?” He looked closely at Paul, for the first time aware of the man and not his motor. “Seems like I know you from somewhere. What’s your line?” Something made Paul want to be someone other than who he was. “Got a little grocery store,” he said. “Need a guy who’s handy with his hands?” “Not just now. Things are pretty slow.” The man was scrawling something on a piece of paper. He held the paper against the hood, and twice punched his pencil through the paper as the pencil crossed a crack. “Here – here’s my name. If you’ve got machines, I’m the guy that can keep them going. Put in eight years in the works as a millwright before the war, and anything I don’t know, I pick up fast.” He handed the paper to Paul. “Where you going to put it?” Paul slipped the paper under the transparent window in his billfold, over his driver’s license. “There – right on top.” He shook the man’s hand and nodded to the others. “Thanks.” The motor took hold with assurance and swept Paul over the hilltop and up to the gate of the Ilium Works. A watchman waved from his pillbox, a buzzer sounded, and the iron, high-spiked gate swung open. He came now to the solid inner door, honked, and looked expectantly at a thin slit in the masonry, behind which another guard sat. The door rumbled upward, and Paul drove up to his office building. He went up the steps two at a time – his only exercise – and unlocked two outer doors that led him into Katharine’s office, and beyond that, his own. Katharine hardly looked up when he came in. She seemed lost in melancholy, and, on the other side of the room, on the couch that was virtually his, Bud Calhoun was staring at the floor. “Can I help?” said Paul. Katharine sighed. “Bud wants a job.” “Bud wants a job? He’s got the fourth-highest-paid job in Ilium now. I couldn’t equal what he gets for running the depot. Bud, you’re crazy. When I was your age, I didn’t make half -” “Ah want a job,” said Bud. “Any job.” “Trying to scare the National Petroleum Council into giving you a raise? Sure, Bud, I’ll make you an offer better than what you’re getting, but you’ve got to promise not to take me up on it.” “Ah haven’t got a job any more,” said Bud. “Canned.” Paul was amazed. “Really? What on earth for? Moral turpitude? What about the gadget you invented for -” “Thet’s it,” said Bud with an eerie mixture of pride and remorse. “Works. Does a fine job.” He smiled sheepishly. “Does it a whole lot better than Ah did it.” “It runs the whole operation?” “Yup. Some gadget.” “And so you’re out of a job.” “Seventy-two of us are out of jobs,” said Bud. He slumped even lower in the couch. “Ouah job classification has been eliminated. Poof.” He snapped his fingers. Paul could see the personnel manager pecking out Bud’s job code number on a keyboard, and seconds later having the machine deal him seventy-two cards bearing the names of those who did what Bud did for a living – what Bud’s machine now did better. Now, personnel machines all over the country would be reset so as no longer to recognize the job as one suited for men. The combination of holes and nicks that Bud had been to personnel machines would no longer be acceptable. If it were to be slipped into a machine, it would come popping right back out. “They don’t need P-128’s any more,” said Bud bleakly, “and nothing’s open above or below. Ah’d take a cut, and go back to P-129 or even P-130, but it’s no dice. Everything’s full up.” “Got any other numbers, Bud?” said Paul. “The only P-numbers we’re authorized are -” Katharine had the Manual open before her. She’d already looked the numbers up. “P-225 and P-226 – lubrication engineers,” she said. “And Doctor Rosenau’s got both of those.” “That’s right, he does,” said Paul. Bud was in a baffling mess, and Paul didn’t see how he could help him. The machines knew the Ilium Works had its one allotted lubrication engineer, and they wouldn’t tolerate a second. If Bud were recorded as a lubrication engineer and introduced into the machines, they’d throw him right out again. As Kroner often said, eternal vigilance was the price of efficiency. And the machines tirelessly riffled through their decks again and again and again in search of foot draggers, free riders, and misfits. “You know it isn’t up to me, Bud,” said Paul. “I haven’t got any real say about who’s taken on.” “He knows that,” said Katharine. “But he has to start somewhere, and we thought maybe you’d know of some opening, or who to see.” “Oh, it makes me sore,” said Paul. “Whatever got into them to give you a Petroleum Industries assignment, anyway? You should be in design.” “Got no aptitude for it,” said Bud. “Tests proved that.” That would be on his ill-fated card, too. All his aptitude-test grades were on it – irrevocably, immutable, and the card knew best. “But you do design,” said Paul. “And you do it with a damn sight more imagination than the prima donnas in the Lab.” The Lab was the National Research and Development Laboratory, which was actually a war-born conglomeration of all the country’s research and development facilities under a single headquarters. “You’re not even paid to design, and still you do a better job of it than they do. That telemetering arrangement for the pipeline, your car, and now this monster that runs the depot -” “But the test says no,” said Bud. “So the machines say no,” said Katharine. “So that’s that,” said Bud. “Ah guess.” “You might see Kroner,” said Paul. “Ah tried, and didn’t get past his secretary. Ah told her Ah was after a job, and she called up Personnel. They ran mah card through the machines while she held the phone; and then she hung up, and looked sad, and said Kroner had meetings all month.” “Maybe your university can help,” said Paul. “Maybe the grading machine needed new tubes when it went over your development aptitude test.” He spoke without conviction. Bud was beyond help. As an old old joke had it, the machines had all the cards. “Ah’ve written, asking them to check my grades again. No matter what Ah say, Ah get the same thing back.” He threw a piece of graph paper on Katharine’s desk. “Theah. Ah’ve written three letters, and gotten three of these back.” “Uh-huh,” said Paul, looking at the familiar graph with distaste. It was a so-called Achievement and Aptitude Profile, and every college graduate got one along with his sheepskin. And the sheepskin was nothing, and the graph was everything. When time for graduation came, a machine took a student’s grades and other performances and integrated them into one graph – the profile. Here Bud’s graph was high for theory, there low for administration, here low for creativity, and so on, up and down across the page to the last quality – personality. In mysterious, unnamed units of measure, each graduate was credited with having a high, medium, or low personality. Bud, Paul saw, was a strong medium, as the expression went, personality-wise. When the graduate was taken into the economy, all his peaks and valleys were translated into perforations on his personnel card. “Well, thanks anyway,” said Bud suddenly, gathering up his papers, as though embarrassed at having been so weak as to bother anyone with his troubles. “Something will turn up,” said Paul. He paused at his office door. “How are you fixed for money?” “They’re keepin’ me on a few more months, until all the new equipment gets installed. And Ah’ve got the award from the suggestion system.” “Well, thank God you got something out of it. How much?” “Five hundred. It’s the biggest one this year.” “Congratulations. Is that on your card?” Bud held the rectangle of cardboard up to the window and squinted at the nicks and perforations. “Think thet little devil raht there’s it.” “That’s for your smallpox vaccination,” said Katharine, looking over his shoulder. “I’ve got one of those.” “No, the little triangle next to thet one.” Katharine’s phone rang. “Yes?” She turned to Paul. “A Doctor Finnerty is at the gate and wants in.” “If it’s just to shoot the bull, tell him to wait until late this afternoon.” “He says he wants to see the plant, not you.” “All right; let him in.” “They’re shorthanded at the gate,” said Katharine. “One of the guards is down with flu. What’ll they do about an escort for him?” The few visitors that did get admitted to the Ilium Works were taken about by guides, who only incidentally pointed out the wonders of the place. The guides were armed, and their main job was to see that no one got close enough to vital controls to knock them out. The system was a holdover from the war, and from the postwar riot period, but it still made sense. Every so often, antisabotage laws notwithstanding, someone got it into his head to jimmy something. It hadn’t happened in Ilium for years, but Paul had heard reports from other works – reports of a visitor with a crude bomb in a briefcase in Syracuse; of an old lady in Buffalo stepping from a group of sightseers to jam her umbrella into some vital clockwork. . . . Things like that still happened, and Kroner had stipulated that visitors to plants should be watched every second. The saboteurs had come from every walk of life – including, in at least one hushed-up instance, the brass. As Kroner had said, you never could tell who was going to try it next. “Oh, what the hell, let Finnerty in without an escort,” said Paul. “He’s a special case – an old Ilium man.” “The directive said no exceptions,” said Katharine. She knew all of the directives – and there were thousands of them – cold. “Let him roam.” “Yessir.” Bud Calhoun watched the interchange with far more interest than it merited, Paul thought. It was as though they had been putting on an absorbing drama. When Katharine hung up she mistook his gaze for adoration and returned it warmly. “Six minutes,” said Bud. “Six minutes for what?” said Katharine. “Six minutes foah nothin’,” said Bud. “It took thet long to get a man in through the gate.” “Well?” “Three of you tied up for six minutes – you two and the guard. Eighteen man minutes in all. Hell, it cost over two bucks to let him in. How many people come to the gate a year?” “Ten a day, maybe,” said Paul. “Twenty-seven hundred and fifty-eight a year,” said Katharine. “And you pass on each one?” “Katharine usually does,” said Paul. “That’s the biggest part of her job.” “At a dollah a head, thet’s twenty-seven hundred dollahs a year,” said Bud reproachfully. He pointed at Katharine. “This is ridiculous! If policy is iron-clad, why not let a machine make the decisions? Policy isn’t thinkin’, it’s a reflex. You could even build a gadget with an exception for Finnerty and still get away foah less than a hundred dollahs.” “There are all sorts of special decisions I have to make,” said Katharine defensively. “I mean, all sorts of things come up that require more than routine thought – more than any old machine could do.” Bud wasn’t listening. He held his palms apart, marking the size of the box being born in his imagination. “Either a visitor is a nonentity, a friend, an employee, small brass, or big brass. The guard presses one of five buttons in the top row on the box. See it? Either the visitor is sight-seein’, inspectin’, makin’ a personal call, or here on business. The guard pushes one of four buttons in thet row. The machine has two lights, a red one for no, and a green one for yes. Whatever the policy is, bingo! – the lights tell him what to do.” “Or we could tack a memo about policy on the guardhouse wall,” said Paul. Bud looked startled. “Yes,” he said slowly, “you could do thet.” It was clear he thought it was a pretty drab man who would think much of that solution. “I’m mad,” said Katharine, her voice small. “You have no right to go around saying a machine can do what I do.” “Aw, now honey – there wasn’t anything personal in it.” She was crying now, and Paul slipped into his office and shut the door. “Your wife’s on the phone,” said Katharine brokenly on the intercom set. “All right. Yes, Anita?” “Have you heard from Kroner?” “No. I’ll let you know if I do.” “I hope he had a good time last night.” “He did – or firmly believes he did.” “Is Finnerty there?” “In the plant somewhere.” “You should see the bathroom.” “I saw it in the making.” “He had four cigarettes going, and forgot about every one of them. One on top of the medicine cabinet, one on the window sill, one on the top of the john, and one on the toothbrush rack. I couldn’t eat my breakfast. He’s got to go.” “I’ll tell him.” “What are you going to tell Kroner?” “I don’t know yet. I don’t know what he’s going to say.” “Pretend I’m Kroner and I’ve just said, sort of casually, ‘Well, Paul, the Pittsburgh spot is still open.’ Then what do you say?” This was the game she never tired of – one that took every bit of Paul’s patience to play. She was forever casting herself as a person of influence and making Paul play dialogues with her. There would then be a critique, in which his responses were analyzed, edited, and polished by her. No real dialogues ever came close to her phantasies, which served chiefly to show how primitive a notion she had of men of affairs and of how business was done. “Go on,” she prodded. “Pittsburgh, eh?” said Paul. “Holy smokes! Wow!” “No, now, I’m serious,” she said firmly. “What will you say?” “Darling, I’m busy now.” “All right; you think it over and call me back. You know what I think you should say?” “I’ll call you back.” “All right. Goodbye. I love you.” “I love you, Anita. Goodbye.” “Doctor Shepherd is on the phone,” said Katharine. Paul picked up the now moist instrument again. “What’s the matter now, Shep?” “There’s an unauthorized man in Building 57! Get the guards down here.” “Is it Finnerty?” “An unauthorized man,” said Shepherd stubbornly. “All right. Is it an unauthorized Finnerty?” “Yes – but that’s beside the point. It makes no difference what his name is. He’s roaming around without an escort, and you know how Kroner feels about that.” “I gave him permission. I know he’s down there.” “You’re putting me in a sweet spot.” “I don’t get you.” “I mean I’m responsible for these buildings, and now you’re telling me to ignore very specific orders from Kroner. Am I supposed to be left holding the bag if word gets out?” “Look, just forget it. It’s all right. I’ll take the responsibility.” “In other words, you order me to let Finnerty go through unescorted.” “Yes – that’s it. I order you.” “O.K., I just wanted to make sure I had it straight. Berringer wondered about it, too, so I had him listen in.” “Berringer?” said Paul. “Yeah!” said Berringer. “Just keep this under your hat is all.” “You’re the boss,” said Berringer flatly. “All squared away now, Shepherd?” said Paul. “I guess. And are we to understand that you’ve authorized him to make drawings, too?” “Drawings?” “Layouts.” At this point Paul realized that his judgment had been pushed into the background by more emotional matters, but he decided it was too late to do anything about it gracefully. “Let him do what he wants. He may come up with some useful ideas. All right?” “You’re the boss,” said Shepherd. “Isn’t that right, Berringer?” “He’s the boss,” said Berringer. “I’m the boss,” said Paul, and he let the telephone clatter into its cradle. Bud Calhoun was still trying to patch things up with Katharine in the next office. His voice had become wheedling and penetrating. Paul could understand snatches of it. “As far as thet goes,” Bud was saying, “it wouldn’t be much of a trick to replace him with a gadget.” Paul had a good idea where Bud’s stubby index finger was pointing.

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