Player Piano (13 page)

“The first number’s for Protestant minister. What’s the second, that SS thing?” said Finnerty.

“Social scientist,” said Lasher. “The 55 designates an anthropologist with a master’s degree.”

“And what does an anthropologist do these days?” said Paul.

“Same thing a supernumerary minister does—becomes a public charge, a bore, or possibly a rum-dum, or a bureaucrat.” He looked back and forth between Paul and Finnerty. “You, I know, Doctor Proteus. And you?”

“Finnerty, Edward Francis Finnerty, Ph.D., one-time EC-002.”

“There’s a collector’s item—a double-o-two number!” said Lasher. “I’ve known several single-o men, but never a double-o. I guess you’re the highest classification I ever had friendly words with. If the Pope set up shop in this country, he’d be only one notch up—in the R-numbers of course. He’d be an R-001. I heard somewhere that the number was being held for him, over the objections of Episcopal bishops who want R-001 themselves. Delicate business.”

“They could give him a negative number,” said Paul.

“That the Episcopalians would go along with. My glass is empty.”

“What was this business about the people across the river being the opposition?” said Paul. “You think they do the Devil’s work, do you?”

“That’s pretty strong. I will say you’ve shown up what thin stuff clergymen were peddling, most of them. When I had a congregation before the war, I used to tell them that the life of their spirit in relation to God was the biggest thing in their lives, and that their part in the economy was nothing by comparison. Now, you people have engineered them out of their part in the economy, in the market place, and they’re finding out—most of them—that what’s left is just about zero. A good bit short of enough, anyway. My glass is empty.”

Lasher sighed. “What do you expect?” he said. “For generations they’ve been built up to worship competition and the market, productivity and economic usefulness, and the envy of their fellow men—and boom! it’s all yanked out from under them. They can’t participate, can’t be useful any
more. Their whole culture’s been shot to hell. My glass is empty.”

“I just had it filled again,” said Finnerty.

“Oh, so you did.” Lasher sipped thoughtfully. “These displaced people need something, and the clergy can’t give it to them—or it’s impossible for them to take what the clergy offers. The clergy says it’s enough, and so does the Bible. The people say it isn’t enough, and I suspect they’re right.”

“If they were so fond of the old system, how come they were so cantankerous about their jobs when they had them?” said Paul.

“Oh, this business we’ve got now—it’s been going on for a long time now, not just since the last war. Maybe the actual jobs weren’t being taken from the people, but the sense of participation, the sense of importance was. Go to the library sometime and take a look at magazines and newspapers clear back as far as World War II. Even then there was a lot of talk about know-how winning the war of production—
know-how
, not people, not the
mediocre
people running most of the machines. And the hell of it was that it was pretty much true. Even then, half the people or more didn’t understand much about the machines they worked at or the things they were making. They were participating in the economy all right, but not in a way that was very satisfying to the ego. And then there was all this let’s-not-shoot-Father-Christmas advertising.”

“How’s that?” said Paul.

“You know—those ads about the American system, meaning managers and engineers, that made America great. When you finished one, you’d think the managers and engineers had given America everything: forests, rivers, minerals, mountains, oil—the works.

“Strange business,” said Lasher. “This crusading spirit of the managers and engineers, the idea of designing and manufacturing and distributing being sort of a holy war: all that
folklore was cooked up by public relations and advertising men hired by managers and engineers to make big business popular in the old days, which it certainly wasn’t in the beginning. Now, the engineers and managers believe with all their hearts the glorious things their forebears hired people to say about them. Yesterday’s snow job becomes today’s sermon.”

“Well,” said Paul, “you’ll have to admit they did some pretty wonderful things during the war.”

“Of course!” said Lasher. “What they did for the war effort really was something like crusading; but”—he shrugged—“so was what everybody else did for the war effort. Everybody behaved wonderfully. Even I.”

“You keep giving the managers and engineers a bad time,” said Paul. “What about the scientists? It seems to me that—”

“Outside the discussion,” said Lasher impatiently. “They simply add to knowledge. It isn’t knowledge that’s making trouble, but the uses it’s put to.”

Finnerty shook his head admiringly. “So what’s the answer right now?”

“That is a frightening question,” said Lasher, “and also my favorite rationalization for drinking. This is my last drink, incidentally; I don’t like being drunk. I drink because I’m scared—just a little scared, so I don’t have to drink much. Things, gentlemen, are ripe for a phony Messiah, and when he comes, it’s sure to be a bloody business.”

“Messiah?”

“Sooner or later someone’s going to catch the imagination of these people with some new magic. At the bottom of it will be a promise of regaining the feeling of participation, the feeling of being needed on earth—hell,
dignity.
The police are bright enough to look for people like that, and lock them up under the antisabotage laws. But sooner or later someone’s going to keep out of their sight long enough to organize a following.”

Paul had been watching his expression closely, and decided
that, far from being in horror of the impending uprising, Lasher was rather taken by the idea. “And then what?” said Paul. He picked up his glass and rattled the ice cubes against his teeth. He’d finished his second drink and wanted another.

Lasher shrugged. “Oh, hell—prophecy’s a thankless business, and history has a way of showing us what, in retrospect, are very logical solutions to awful messes.”

“Prophesy anyway,” said Finnerty.

“Well—I think it’s a grave mistake to put on public record everyone’s I.Q. I think the first thing the revolutionaries would want to do is knock off everybody with an I.Q. over 110, say. If I were on your side of the river, I’d have the I.Q. books closed and the bridges mined.”

“Then the 100’s would go after the 110’s, the 90’s after the 100’s, and so on,” said Finnerty.

“Maybe. Something like that. Things are certainly set up for a class war based on conveniently established lines of demarkation. And I must say that the basic assumption of the present setup is a grade-A incitement to violence: the smarter you are, the better you are. Used to be that the richer you were, the better you were. Either one is, you’ll admit, pretty tough for the have-not’s to take. The criterion of brains is better than the one of money, but”—he held his thumb and forefinger about a sixteenth of an inch apart—“about
that
much better.”

“It’s about as rigid a hierarchy as you can get,” said Finnerty. “How’s somebody going to up his I.Q.?”

“Exactly,” said Lasher. “And it’s built on more than just brain power—it’s built on special kinds of brain power. Not only must a person be bright, he must be bright in certain approved, useful directions: basically, management or engineering.”

“Or marry someone who’s bright,” said Finnerty.

“Sex can still batter down all sorts of social structures—you’re right,” Lasher agreed.

“Big tits will get you in anywhere,” said Finnerty.

“Well, it’s comforting to know that something hasn’t changed in centuries, isn’t it?” Lasher smiled.

There was a mild commotion at the bar, and Lasher leaned out of the booth to see what was going on. “Hey,” he called, “Luke Lubbock—come over here.”

Luke, the serious old man who had borne the elephant tusk at the head of the parade, came over from the bar, gulping his beer as he came, and looking nervously at the clock. He was perspiring and short of breath, like a man who’d been running. He had a large parcel wrapped in brown paper under his arm.

Paul welcomed the opportunity to study Luke’s magnificent costume more closely. Like a stage set, it was designed to impress at a distance. Nearness showed that the splendor was a fraud of cheap cloth, colored glass, and radiator paint. At his waist was a jeweled poniard, basically plywood, with an owl on its hilt. Counterfeit rubies as big as robin’s eggs, mounted in golden sunbursts, were hung at random on the front of his lavender blouse. About the cuffs of his blouse and jade-green pantaloons were circlets of tiny bells, and—again—perched at the upturned tips of his golden slippers were a pair of miniature owls.

“Luke, you look wonderful,” said Lasher.

Luke’s eyes flashed agreement, but he was an important man, in too much of a hurry to respond to flattery. “It’s too much, too much,” he said. “Now I got to change so’s I can march with the Parmesans. They’re waiting up the street, and I got to change, and some damn fool’s locked hisself in the can, so I got no place to change.” He looked around quickly. “Would you let me do it in the booth, and kind of screen me?”

“You bet,” said Finnerty.

They let Luke squirm into the shadows of the booth, and Paul found himself keeping a playful, leering lookout for women.

Muttering, Luke started to disrobe. He dropped his belt and poniard on the table, where they struck with an impressive thump. The glittering heap grew and grew, until, from a distance, it might have looked good enough to be at the end of a rainbow.

Paul relaxed his vigil for an instant to glance at Luke, and he was shocked at the transformation. The man was in his underwear now, ragged and drab, and none-too-clean. And Luke had somehow shrunk and saddened and was knobbed and scarred and scrawny. He was subdued now, talking not at all, and meeting no one’s eyes. Almost desperately, hungrily, he ripped open the brown parcel and took from it a pale-blue uniform, encrusted with gold embroidery and piped in scarlet. He pulled on the trousers and black boots, and the jacket with its ponderous epaulets. Luke was growing again, getting his color back, and as he strapped on his saber he was talkative again—important and strong. He bundled up his other costume in the brown paper, left the parcel with the bartender, and rushed into the street, waving naked steel.

A whistle blew, and the Parmesans fell in behind him, to be led to glorious exploits in a dreamworld those on the sidewalk could only speculate about.

“Harmless magic: good, old-fashioned bunkum,” laughed Lasher. “Talk about your hierarchies: Luke, with an I.Q. of about 80, has titles that’d make Charlemagne sound like a cook’s helper. But that sort of business wears thin pretty quick for everybody but a few Luke Lubbocks. The lodge turnover is terrific.” He stood. “No more for me, thanks.” He rapped on the table. “But someday, gentlemen, someone is going to give them something to sink their teeth in—probably you, and maybe me.”

“We’ll give them something to sink their teeth in?” said Paul. He noticed he was getting somewhat thick of speech.

“You’ll be what they’ll get to sink their teeth in.” Lasher laid his hand on Paul’s shoulder. “One more thing: I
want to be sure you understand that men really
do
worry about what there is for their sons to live for; and some sons
do
hang themselves.”

“And this is as old as life itself,” said Paul.

“Well?” said Lasher.

“Well, it’s too bad. I’m certainly not overjoyed about it.”

“You figure to be the new Messiah?” said Finnerty.

“Sometimes I think I’d like to be—if only in self-defense. Also, it’d be a swell way to get rich. Trouble is, I can be sold or unsold on anything too easily. I enjoy being talked into something. Pretty shaky outlook for a Messiah. Besides, who ever heard of a short, fat, middle-aged Messiah with bad eyesight? And I haven’t got that common touch. Frankly, the masses give me a pain in the tail, and I guess I show it.” He made clucking sounds with his tongue. “I’m going to get myself a uniform, so I’ll know what I think and stand for.”

“Or two—like Luke Lubbock,” said Paul.

“All right, two. But that’s the absolute maximum any self-respecting human being ought to permit himself.” He sipped from Paul’s highball. “Well, good night.”

“Have another,” said Finnerty.

“No—I mean it. I don’t like getting tight.”

“All right. I want to see you again, anyway. Where can I find you?”

“Here, most likely.” He wrote an address on a paper napkin. “Or try here.” He looked closely at Finnerty. “You know, wash your face, and you might do real well as a Messiah.”

Finnerty looked startled, and didn’t laugh.

Lasher picked up a hard-boiled egg at the bar, crackled its shell by rolling it along the keyboard of the player piano, and walked out into the evening.

“Magnificent, wasn’t he?” said Finnerty raptly. His gaze returned reluctantly from the door to Paul. Paul saw his eyes
take on a glaze of ennui, of letdown, and he knew that Finnerty had found a new friend who made Paul look very pale indeed.

“Your orders, gentlemen?” said a short, dark waitress, with a hard, trim figure. She looked at the television screen while waiting for them to reply. The sound never seemed to be turned on, only the video. An anxious young man in a long sports coat jiggled up and down on the screen, and blew through a saxophone.

The saloon was filling up, and many of the flamboyantly and enigmatically costumed marchers had come in for refreshment, giving the place an atmosphere of international unrest and intrigue.

One small young man in mufti, with immensely wise and large eyes, leaned back against the table in Paul’s and Ed’s booth and watched the television screen with what seemed to be more than routine interest. He turned casually to Paul. “What you think he’s playing?”

“Beg pardon?”

“The guy on television—what’s the name of the song?”

“I can’t hear it.”

“I know,” he said impatiently, “that’s the
point.
Guess from just seeing.”