Player Piano (8 page)

“Your husband and his doctor have known for months what I told Kroner and Baer. He isn’t in any shape to be trusted with a foot-treadle sewing machine, let alone Pittsburgh.” He was warming up now, getting his spirit back, and perhaps seeing the possibilities of having their voices carry into the dining room.

Paul seized them both by their arms and propelled them into the bar and in view of the dinner party. All were looking questioningly in their direction. Paul, Anita, and Shepherd smiled, and crossed the bar to the dining room, arm in arm.

“Under the weather?” said Kroner to Shepherd kindly.

“Yessir. Scallops for lunch did it, I think.”

Kroner nodded sympathetically and turned to the waiter. “Could the boy have milk toast, do you suppose?” Kroner was willing to go to any lengths to preserve harmony in his family, to give a man in a tight spot a way out. For the rest of the evening, Paul supposed, Kroner would be keeping alive—as with the milk toast now—the polite fiction of Shepherd’s illness.

After coffee and a liqueur, Paul gave a brief talk on the integration of the Ilium Works with other industry under the National Manufacturing Council fourteen years before. And then he went into the more general subject of what he called the Second Industrial Revolution. He read the talk, rather, taking pains to look up from his manuscript at regular intervals. It was, as he had told Katharine Finch in the office that afternoon, old stuff—a progress report, a reaffirmation of faith in what they were doing and had done with industry. Machines were doing America’s work far better than Americans had ever done it. There were better goods for more
people at less cost, and who could deny that that was magnificent and gratifying? It was what everyone said when he had to make a talk.

At one point, Kroner raised his big hand and asked if he might make a comment. “Just to sort of underline what you’re saying, Paul, I’d like to point out something I thought was rather interesting. One horsepower equals about twenty-two manpower—
big
manpower. If you convert the horsepower of one of the bigger steel-mill motors into terms of manpower, you’ll find that the motor does more work than the entire slave population of the United States at the time of the Civil War could do—and do it twenty-four hours a day.” He smiled beatifically. Kroner was the rock, the fountainhead of faith and pride for all in the Eastern Division.

“That
is
an interesting figure,” said Paul, searching for his place in the manuscript. “And that, of course, simply applies to the First Industrial Revolution, where machines devalued muscle work. The second revolution, the one we’re now completing, is a little tougher to express in terms of work saved. If there were some measure like horsepower in which we could express annoyance or boredom that people used to experience in routine jobs—but there isn’t.”

“You can measure rejects, I’m here to tell you,” said Baer, “and the darnedest, stupidest mistakes imaginable. The waste, the stoppages, the lemons! You can express it in dollars all right, dollars that went into bad workmanship.”

“Yes,” said Paul, “but I was thinking of it from the worker’s point of view. The two industrial revolutions eliminated two kinds of drudgery, and I was looking for some way of estimating just how much the second revolution had relieved men of.”

“I work,” said Baer. Everyone laughed.

“The others—across the river,” said Paul.

“They never did work,” said Kroner, and again everyone laughed.

“And they’re reproducing like rabbits,” said Anita.

“Somebody telling dirty jokes about rabbits reproducing?” said Finnerty, standing in the doorway. He swayed slightly, and his breathing was shallow. He had evidently found the whiskey. “Which one was it? Where the little girl rabbit went into the rabbit hardware store, and the clerk—”

Kroner was on his feet. “Well, Finnerty—how are you, my boy?” He summoned the waiter. “You’re just in time for coffee, my boy—a big cup of black coffee.” He put his huge arm around Finnerty and steered him to the place that Anita had had cleared. Finnerty picked up the place card of the engineer next to him, squinted at it, then at the man. “Where’s
my
goddamn place card?”

“Give him his place card, for heaven’s sakes,” said Anita.

Paul took it from his pocket, smoothed it out, and set it before Finnerty. Finnerty nodded, and fell into a morose silence.

“We were just talking about the Second Industrial Revolution,” said Kroner, as though nothing were amiss. “Paul was talking about how there is no real measure of the kind of drudgery it has eliminated. I think the story can be told in terms of a curve, perhaps—as most stories can be presented most clearly.”

“Not the one about the little girl rabbit in the rabbit hardware store,” said Finnerty.

Everyone, following Kroner’s example, ignored him. “If we plot man hours worked against the number of vacuum tubes in use, the man hours worked drop as the tubes increase.”

“Like rabbits,” said Finnerty.

Kroner smiled. “As you say, like rabbits. Incidentally, Paul, another interesting sidelight your father probably told you about is how people didn’t pay much attention to this, as you call it, Second Industrial Revolution for quite some time. Atomic energy was hogging the headlines, and everybody talked as though peacetime uses of atomic energy were going
to remake the world. The Atomic Age, that was the big thing to look forward to. Remember, Baer? And meanwhile, the tubes increased like rabbits.”

“And dope addiction, alcoholism, and suicide went up proportionately,” said Finnerty.

“Ed!” said Anita.

“That was the war,” said Kroner soberly. “It happens after every war.”

“And organized vice and divorce and juvenile delinquency, all parallel the growth of the use of vacuum tubes,” said Finnerty.

“Oh, come on, Ed,” said Paul, “you can’t prove a logical connection between those factors.”

“If there’s the slightest connection, it’s worth thinking about,” said Finnerty.

“I’m sure there isn’t enough connection for us to be concerned with here,” said Kroner severely.

“Or enough imagination or honesty,” said Finnerty.

“Oh, honestly! What are you talking about?” said Anita. She wadded her napkin nervously. “Come on—shall we leave this gloomy place and have the checker championship?”

The response was sighs and grateful nods all around the table. With little regret, Paul laid the remainder of his speech aside. The party, save for Finnerty, swept into the club’s game room, where a checkerboard had already been set up, and where a battery of floor lamps ringed the table on which it rested, immaculate and glaring.

The four challengers trotted ahead, held a hurried conference, and three of them went to the checkroom. The fourth, Fred Berringer, sat down at the board and grinned mysteriously.

Paul took the chair opposite. “Play much?” he said.

“A little, a little.”

“Let’s see, Fred, you’re from Minnesota, aren’t you? Is
the Minnesota checker championship by any chance at stake, Fred?”

“Sorry, I’ve got the club championship to win, and nothing to lose.”

“You’re going to lose, going to lose,” said Baer. “They all do, all do, all of them do, eh Paul? All lose to you.”

“Modesty forbids that I answer,” said Paul. “My record speaks for itself.” He permitted himself a mild sort of elation over his invincibility. There would be some bizarre twist to tonight’s game, judging from the activity in the checkroom, but he wasn’t worried.

“Make way for Checker Charley! Make way for Checker Charley!” shouted Berringer’s seconds from the foyer.

The crowd in the gameroom parted, and the three rolled in a man-high box that was shrouded in a bedsheet and grumbled along on casters.

“There’s a man in there?” said Kroner.

“A brain, a brain,” said Berringer triumphantly. “Checker Charley, world’s champion checker player, and looking for new planets to conquer.” He grabbed a corner of the bedsheet, and unveiled Charley—a gray steel box with a checkerboard painted on its front panel. In each square that could be occupied by a checkerpiece were a red and a green jewel, each with a lamp behind it.

“Pleased to meet you, Charley,” said Paul, trying to smile. When he realized what was going on, he felt himself reddening and getting a little mad. His first inclination was to walk the hell out.

Baer had the back of the box open. “Oh, oh, my, yes indeed,” he said. “Look, look, look, and that goes over to there—and oh! Ha! Oh, my, I believe it’s even got a memory. Isn’t that what the tape’s for, boys, huh? Memory? Tape memory?”

“Yessir,” said Berringer uncertainly. “I guess so.”

“You built this?” said Kroner incredulously.

“Nossir,” said Berringer, “my father. His hobby.”

“Berringer, Berringer, Berringer,” said Baer, frowning.

“You know—
Dave
Berringer; this is Dave’s boy,” said Kroner.

“Oh!” Baer looked at Checker Charley with new admiration. “By George, no wonder, no wonder, no wonder.” Fred’s father, one of the top computing-machine men in the country, had built it.

Paul slouched in his chair resignedly and waited for the comedy to begin. He looked at young Berringer’s dull, complacent face, and was sure that the youngster didn’t know much more about the machine than its external switches and signals.

Finnerty strolled in from the dining room, eating from a plate he held at chin level. He set his plate atop the cabinet and stuck his head into the back, alongside Baer’s. “Any money on this?” he said.

“Are you crazy?” said Paul.

“Anything you say, boy; anything you say,” said Berringer. He laid his fat billfold on the table.

The other three youngsters had plugged a cord from Checker Charley into an outlet in the baseboard; and now, as they flicked switches on and off, the box hummed and clicked, and lights on the front panel winked off and on.

Paul stood. “I concede,” he said. He patted the box. “Congratulations, Charles, you’re a better man than I am. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new club champion.” He started out toward the bar.

“Darling,” said Anita, catching his sleeve. “Oh, come on now, that isn’t like you.”

“I can’t win against the damn thing. It can’t make a mistake.”

“You can at least play against it.”

“And prove what?”

“Come on, Paul,” said Finnerty, “I’ve looked Charley
over, and he doesn’t look so all-fired bright to me. I’ve got fifty dollars on you with Goldilocks here, and I’ll cover anybody else who thinks Checker Charley’s got a chance.”

Eagerly, Shepherd slapped down three twenties. Finnerty covered him.

“Bet the sun won’t rise tomorrow,” said Paul.

“Play,” said Finnerty.

Paul settled into his chair again. Dispiritedly, he pushed a checkerpiece forward. One of the youngsters closed a switch, and a light blinked on, indicating Paul’s move on Checker Charley’s bosom, and another light went on, indicating the perfect countermove for Berringer.

Berringer smiled and did what the machine told him to do. He lit a cigarette and patted the pile of currency beside him.

Paul moved again. A switch was closed, and the lights twinkled appropriately. And so it went for several moves.

To Paul’s surprise, he took one of Berringer’s pieces without, as far as he could see, laying himself open to any sort of disaster. And then he took another piece, and another. He shook his head in puzzlement and respect. The machine apparently took a long-range view of the game, with a grand strategy not yet evident. Checker Charley, as though confirming his thoughts, made an ominous hissing noise, which grew in volume as the game progressed.

“As of now, I am offering odds of three to one against Checker Charley,” said Finnerty. Berringer and Shepherd both took him up on it for another twenty apiece.

Paul exchanged one man for three.

“Say—now wait just a minute,” said Berringer.

“Wait for what?” said Finnerty.

“Something’s wrong.”

“You and Checker Charley are being beaten is all. Somebody always wins, and somebody always loses,” said Finnerty. “That’s the way it goes.”

“Sure, but if Checker Charley was working right he couldn’t lose.” Berringer arose unsteadily. “Listen, we’d better call this thing off while we find out what’s wrong.” He tapped the front panel experimentally. “Jesus Christ, he’s hot as a frying pan!”

“Finish the game, Junior. I want to know who’s champ,” said Finnerty.

“Don’tcha see!” said Berringer furiously. “It isn’t working right.” He looked pleadingly around the room.

“Your move,” said Paul.

Berringer looked helplessly at the lights, slid a man forward.

Paul took two more of Berringer’s pieces and made his own piece a king. “This must be the trickiest booby trap in history,” he laughed. He was enjoying himself immensely.

“Any minute now, Checker Charley’s going to see his opening, and then it’s going to be bye-bye championship,” said Finnerty. “Hop, hop, hop, hoppity hop. Curtains, Paul.”

“Calculus is a wonderful thing,” said Paul. He sniffed. The air was getting heavy with a smell like burning paint, and his eyes were beginning to smart.

One of Berringer’s seconds jerked open the back of the box, and smoke, colored a poisonous green by the glare from within, poured into the room.

“Fire!” cried Baer.

A waiter came running with a fire extinguisher and sent a jet of fluid into Checker Charley’s entrails. Steam billowed up as the jet fizzed and sputtered on the glowing parts.

The lights on Charley’s steel bosom were skittering about the board wildly now, playing a demoniacal and swift game according to rules only the machine could understand. All the lights went on at once, a hum swelled louder and louder, until it sounded like a thunderous organ note, and suddenly died. One by one, the little lamps winked out, like a village going to sleep.

“Oh my, my, oh my,” murmured Baer.

“Fred, I’m so sorry,” said Anita. She looked reproachfully at Paul.

The engineers crowded around Checker Charley, and those in the front rank probed through the ashes, melted tubes, and blackened wires. Tragedy was in every face. Something beautiful had died.