Tik-Tok (13 page)

Mannerism

Othello

Sino-Soviet tensions

sauerkraut

psychokinesis

baths & buns

Pépé le Moko

paper dolphins falling

guff

My most ambitious plan, however, was for a costume ball with the theme Nothingness. Each of the guests was to plan a fanciful costume, sparing no expense. Jean Worpne's idea was to have a portion of her abdomen surgically removed and a stainless steel tube inserted to give a clear view right through her. Her sister Fern settled for a cape of plain doughnuts. Vilo Jord, with typical Chilean wit, suggested coming as himself. Smilin' Jack planned to turn up as one of his own gravestones, inscribed: "Ding dong death,! Give me back my breath.! Slap bang dear,! I'm not even here."

Jack Wax intended a complicated arrangement of mirrors that would make him invisible to the rest of us, by bending light around him. Sherm Chimini opted for philosphical emptiness: dressed as Wittgenstein, he would carry around a ladder which he intended to climb, then kick away. Jud Nedd intended to be ill, unable to attend: while with much the same approach, Duke Mitty would be drunk on
absinthe
. Maggie would be swathed in black velvet and remain in the dark. Captain Reo promised to engage in some superior meditation that would make nothingness meaningful. I would dismantle myself.

Food would be either black or transparent or else semantically vacuous: octopus in ink, pumpernickel, pressed duck cooked in prunes, black bean soup, black mushrooms, bitter chocolate, blackberry compote, caviar and licorice; ice, rice noodles, isinglass, glacier mints, clear soups, a variety of small, transparent fish, pure tapioca, thin slices of glacé fruits; nonpareils, popovers, angelfood cake, Dark Secrets, Floating Island, Robert E. Lee cake, Prairie Fire dip, Spareribs Havoc, Cape Fear punch, corn dodgers, toad-in-the-hole, soles in coffins, rarebit, soup meagre, flummery, Lost Bread.

To drink: Blanc des Blancs; distilled water, black coffee, colorless liqueurs

and absinthe.

I organized party games of Blind Man's Bluff, Beggar Your Neighbor, Blankety Blank and Murder.

Of course this party and all the others were thought experiments only. Elaborate costumes were impossible to procure, the grog had already run out, and even the food supply was very low. All we could do was announce the Nothingness Ball, then sit around discussing our elaborate plans for it. This was Nothingness indeed.

"My plan for ending the Ball is this," I explained. "At the moment when everyone is having the most fun, filling the greatest psychic space, I let all the air out of the ship. I give everybody Nothing to breathe. Neat, eh?"

There were appreciative chuckles all round. Jord said, "But I thought your asimov circuits wouldn't allow that."

I attempted a shrug. "Even a robot is allowed to dream."

That got a bigger laugh. Captain Reo, who had laughed more than most, now wiped his eyes. "I can top that. What if I told you that this ship is doomed? We're not on course for Mars any more, we're heading straight for the sun."

When everyone had finished roaring with laughter, the captain said, "Here's the funny part. It's no joke—we
really are
falling into the sun." Some continued laughing, others asked what he meant.

"Ha ha ha—no but I'm serious—the controls are locked for some reason—hahaha, can't alter course—my chief engineer could fix it but—hahaha—you shot him. I can't do a thing about it."

Vilo Jord said, picking up his automatic weapon, "Well that means you've outlived your usefulness."

The shots shook Captain Reo like a fit of giggles.

"Tikky happens to be the best little cook in New Des Moines," said Hornby, using his creamiest patronizing voice. He was becoming less useful by the day, and more irritating. He continued collecting his regular rent from me—valuable paintings for his private hoard—but he no longer earned it. Now that I had the protection of the Clockman Corporation, I no longer needed an old-fashioned "patron", any more than I had needed the Studebakers. Let someone else be the best little cook.

The assembled guests included no one of importance: Adair Sumpter, the Zen sociologist; Nemo Aka Omen, the Hollywood wardrobe psychic; Jockeline Noos, the brilliant but obscure forensic musicologist; and a few hangers-on. There was also Urnia Buick, the ambitious young talk-show hostperson.

The menu was Kurgosh Ka Salun, Bhindi Sambal, Samosas "Stalky", Urd Dahl, Parathas stuffed with what I call "lime peas" (a private recipe) followed by Gulab Jamun or Key lime pie. I had violated the canons of both Eastern and Western taste by omitting the black-eyed peas, but no matter; this group were swine at a trough.

Urnia left the table after the first course, explaining that she normally takes all nourishment in the French manner, that is, anally. She asked me to accompany her for a breath of air in the apartment garden. No sooner were we outdoors than she reached for my crotch. The dhoti fell to the ground. Urnia flung me back across a marble bench and began her assault.

I had heard rumors of the
vagina dentata
, but never expected to meet a complete little gourmet, equipped with mobile lips and a tongue; it was capable, when not otherwise engaged, of a kind of grunting, lip-smacking speech. I did my best, and was rewarded with a gruff chuckle ("Well done!") from below. Urnia brought out a magnetic card and tucked it into my turban.

"My private number," she said. "Beep me and we'll talk about guesting you on the show, okay? I've gotta go now, make my excuses will you Tik? Tell Hornby I was called away on urgent business."

Dessert was being served in the dining room. Hornby had pushed his plate back and was lighting a cigarino as he explained to the company his theory of
supply and demand in the Art market:

"Just give them what they want, in the orifice they specify."

Various orifices emitted chuckles. Jockeline said, "Hornby, sometimes I suspect you have an artistic bone in your body."

Nemo tittered. "Or in his corset?"

Hornby sat back and stroked the tablecloth nervously. Looking at his plate, he said, "Speaking of bones, I only wish Tikky hadn't curried this delicious rabbit. Ikky, my cat, would have liked it, but with this sauce. . . ."

Nemo made a face. "Ikky and Tikky, eh? Such precious little nickynames. Hornby, can't you clean up your act?"

Adair laughed and put out his cigarola in the Key lime pie. "Pass the sicky-bag, Alice."

Hornby was toying with the bones on his plate; he picked up a long thigh-bone and looked at it, turning it over. Then he looked at me, too quickly. I had no time to conceal my look of triumph.

"Tikky! Where is Ikky? Tikky! Where is Ikky?"

Adair laughed again, not getting it. "Too sicky-making," he said.

Hornby excused himself and called me into the kitchen. There, his iron control finally failed. The great, lumpish, blue-jawed face burst into tears.

"Why, Tikky?" he kept saying in the best soap-opera manner. I'd always imagined real people above this kind of behavior, but here he was saying, "Why? Why?" The shape of the word was like a yawn of nausea, and finally he did vomit in the sink. "Why? Why?"

"Well sir, I was unable to get rabbit at the store. Rather than disappoint your guests, I just—"

He blew his broken nose. "Oh no, oh no. It was a piece of vindictive, deliberate, cruelty. I ought to, I ought to—" He picked up a heavy cleaver, turned it over as he had the bone, and put it down. "Go away, Tik-Tok, you monster. Go away."

The
L
ip-smacking Urnia Buick summoned me to "guest" on a talk show only a few weeks later, but not, as it turned out, her own show.

"Don't worry, Tik love," she said on the phone. "The show you'll be on,
Blab Nubby Tonight
, may not be networked, but it does hit all the buttons in a very sensitive area of Cee Ay. If they like you, who knows?"

"Thanks, Ur. Any publicity is welcome, anywhere."

"Another thing, Tik love, if you're planning to hit the networks, it would help if you've got a book to plug."

"A book?"

"Anything, autobiography, cookbook, a pasteup of your favorite poems, it doesn't matter, just so we get some bundle of pages to wave under the public's nose." She laughed. "Nobody ever reads celebrity wordage anyway, they only buy it because they get used to product testimonials—drink my kind of coffee, read my kind of autobiography. Anyway, think it over?" She winked, and hung up.

The fact that I was being tried out, even on a local show, meant that movements like Wages for Robots were beginning to affect the national conscience. A few months earlier, a robot guest would have been unthinkable.

The only robots we saw on TV then were domrobs in dramas as background figures

("Lieutenant, there's a phone call for you."

"Table for two? Right this way sir.") and of course comedy figures. One of the most popular programs on TV, rating just behind the news, was
Meatless Friday
, the sitcom in which various servant robots shuffled, sang, mumbled their lines and were puzzled by life. All roles were of course played by people, and Wages for Robots had pointed out that the actor who played Friday got a phenomenal salary while genuine robots earned nothing.

I watched
Meatless Friday
often, if only to keep up with the human view of robots. I was watching it on the evening of my own first TV appearance, as I waited in an anteroom. This evening two of the main characters, Tinhorn and Nickles, were arguing about cooking.

TINHORN: Well the recipe called for pepper.

NICKLES: Pepper?

TINHORN: And salt to taste.

NICKLES: Salt to taste?

TINHORN: That's what I said, why do you repeat everything? NICKLES: Why do I repeat—no, but what does that mean, salt to taste? TINHORN: Ahem. Well, it just means, well, you could say it means, probably something like, I guess it means you have to taste the salt. The cook has to taste it.

NICKLES: Why does the cook taste the salt? TINHORN: To see if it's salty?

NICKLES: But all he's got to do is read the label. Says
salt
right there, looky.

TINHORN: You are the
dumbest
robot!

NICKLES: Me? You're the one can't follow a recipe. Here comes Friday, let's ask him. Hey Friday!

FRIDAY: How do, Nickles, Tinhorn.

TINHORN: Friday, when a recipe calls for pepper and salt to taste, what does that mean?

FRIDAY: It means as much as you want. To suit your taste. TINHORN: Told you! I was right all along. See, I made soup for the master and mistress, and I put in a pound of pepper but only half a pound of salt.

FRIDAY: What?

TINHORN: I don't like salt.

NICKLES: He don't like salt, Friday.

FRIDAY: (
as jingling, clanking theme music fades up
) Good gravy!

TINHORN: Maybe so, but they said it was lousy soup.

About a hundred and fifty million viewers considered this stuff dazzling, a fact I mulled over as I was led from the anteroom into a yellow set where I sat in one of five yellow chairs. Almost at once, without rehearsal, the show began. Thunderous applause from the hired audience.

Blab Nubby was a fat man with a humorless, mole-ridden face, who tried to counteract it by wearing a propellor beanie. He moved briskly through the other interviews, trying in each case to probe a raw nerve for a laugh. To an actor starring at some local dinner theater, Blab suggested his performance would make the diners throw up. Of a woman who told fortunes with yoghurt, he asked was her sex life all it should be? To a retiring general (hyping memoirs) he delivered broad hints of cowardice. Then it was my turn.

"Tik-Tok, that's a catchy name. Mind if I call you Tik?"

"Not at all, Blab. It's a working name, like your own." I had decided, since he was aiming to be impudent and childish, that I ought to appear amused and grown-up, tolerating his foolishness but obviously above it. "I guess your paintings change hands for quite a chunk of coin these days, that right?"

"That's right, Blab. The other day one of my paintings broke the million barrier at an auction."

He whistled. "You must get a little teed off to see people making all that bread off you, while you get nothing."

"Not at all. I'm just pleased that people think my creations are worth something. That means they're interested in what goes on in my head."

Blab threw up his hands. "Let's not get into electronics, this is a family show. But tell me, Tik my old Tok, don't you believe in Wages for Robots? Don't you want society to pay you good money for sitting around on your tin pan alley? Or do you think humans should do all the dirty work while you tintypes get all creative?"

"Nothing like that, Blab. I'm no politician, so I don't want society to pay me a cent that I don't earn. To me, it's not so important anyway that robots get paid for their work, I don't even want to be paid."

"You don't?"

"No, all I want is for people to recognize me as another creature with thoughts and feelings. You know, there's a little bit of humanity in every robot, a tiny spark of human love and understanding. A tiny spark that asks only for recognition. We just want you to say 'Hello' to that little human spark, that's all. Just, 'Hello, I know you're there', that's all."

"Well, goodbye, then," giggled Blab. "Go get your plugs cleaned and we'll see you around."