Bradbury, Ray - SSC 10 (8 page)

Finn
For a doll house, then?

The Salesman
No,
to decorate the palace of man's mind!

He opens up the case and puts forth a single item on the counter.

Finn
{confounded)
That's
it?

The Salesman
{proudly)
That's
it! Fine hand-painted bone porcelain.

Finn

Don't
look like much to me.
{Moving around front)
Furniture,
you say.

He stops. He approaches the little object slowly, peering at it.
It is about eight inches long and three inches
high. There is a
single word on it, a
word in white letters on a black background.

{Spelling out loud) T
...
H
...
it says . . . I and N and
K. THINK/
Is
that all?

The Salesman
I'm
inclined to say it's everything!

Finn
{half-suspicious)
What
does it
mean?

The Salesman
Just
what it says, friend. Think.
Think. THINK!

the salesman's
voice grows in timbre and volume each time
he says the word. Then he subsides and sips his
Guinness.

Finn
{uneasily)

Ye-
ess
, I see what you're getting at. But what do you do with
a bit of furniture like that? To what purpose is it?

The Salesman
To what purpose?
God save me!

Before
finn
can stop him, he is
around the bar and placing the
little
sign on top of a Guinness barrel.

There!
Now, pretend you're your own best customer, and I'm
yourself, the bartender. You got your drink in your
hand.

He nudges the drink.
Finn
takes
and holds the glass.
You sip your
drink.
finn
sips.

You raise your eyes
      

FINN
raises his eyes.
And what do you see?

Finn
"Think"?

The Salesman
Right!
You drink some more.

finn
drinks.

You
stare at that little sign . . . and . . . first thing you know
. . . you're . . .

Finn
Thinking!

The Salesman
Ah,
now you got the sun up. You're standing in the light!

Finn
(sips,
stares; sips, stares)
Ah
...
ah
...
yes
...
I see.

The Salesman
I
know
you
do!

finn
looks at
the man with fresh admiration.

Finn
You
be
a kind of
intellectual, then?

The Salesman
I—
er
—
knocked
at the door of
Trinity
College
!

Finn

What
stopped your plunging through?

the salesman
refills
both glasses, playing bartender with a fine
air.

The Salesman

Well,
I shaped it up in my mind.
Hoolihan
, I said to
myself, why
put off helping others
half your life? Why not start this day?
How? I said. Well, I said, what's mainly wrong with the world?
What? I said. No one stops to think any more, I
said. And for
lack of stopping to
think, what happens?

Finn
(leaning
toward him)
A great lot, one
supposes.

The Salesman

Wars,
famines, depressions, murderous impulses, bad livers,
short breaths, unwanted children, and marriages
best kept running on whisky for fear of seeing the true aspect!

Finn
(enchanted)
Say that again.

The Salesman
If
you don't mind, I'll let the echoes die.

Finn

Right!
That's a beautiful thing there, the little bit of porcelain
and that single word. Already I feel a popping in
my ears, like
I'm on a mountain! It's
amazing how full of thoughts I suddenly
am.

The Salesman

Think
what it'll do for your customers, then, and the brand of
talk they'll spray at one another! In one hour, in
this room, the
humidity will rise ten
points!

Finn
All I do is leave it set right there, eh?

The Salesman
Right there.
Nothing to wind, nothing to grease or oil, nothing
to get out
of whack.
A simple
machine it is,
and'll
make men's
minds
"GO"!

Finn
I'll take
one! Wait! You
are
selling them, aren't you?

The Salesman
Not exactly.
You can rent this for just ten shillings a month!

Finn
That's
dear!

The Salesman

If
it raises your business twenty shillings a month, you're still ten
ahead!

Finn
{amazed)
Will it
do
that?

The Salesman

Who
can deny thinking men blow off steam, and what makes
steam? Water! And what is beer and ale and stout
but mostly
water?

Finn
You've gone
below the surface, I see.

The Salesman

Study
pays. Try it. If it
don't
work out after four weeks,
I'll buy the damn thing off you at half-price or—
er
—thereabouts;
you'll
be little out of pocket!

FINN
is still grudging.

Hold
on, let me sweeten the deal.

He pulls forth three more objects and sets them up on the bar.

Rent
one, you get them all!

finn
stares.

Finn
(reading)
STOP! CONSIDER! THINK! DO!

The Salesman
Ain't
that a fine quartet?

Finn
Explain
them to me!

The Salesman

Well,
before you can
THINK,
you got to
CONSIDER
what you
want to think about, right?

Finn
(nods)
The
fog parts.

The Salesman

After
you consider what to
think and think it,
thinking's
no good,
is it, if you don't
DO?

Finn

By
God, you're right. You might as well arrange a flower bouquet
and throw it in the River
Liffey
as think and not
do.
But you've
not
explained the first—

The Salesman

The
first is
most
important! You must
STOP
whatever else you're
doing, scratching your ear and notching your belt
or whatever,
mustn't you, in order to
CONSIDER THINKING
and
DOING?

Finn

That's
it, bull's-eye on! I'll take the lot!

finn
gestures
frantically, for he is still "customer" outside the
bar, while behind the bar is
the salesman.

Ring
up
No Sale
and take out ten shillings before I regain my
sanity!

the salesman
is
to the register like a shot. Bang! A bell rings,
the red
NO
SALE
sign jumps up.

The Salesman
How
about another?

Finn
Don't mind
if I do!

the salesman
pours
for both. They hoist them.

The Salesman
To the Brave New World of this
afternoon!

Finn
So soon?

The Salesman

You'll
note the difference within hours. To thought-provocation,
to the pub called
Heeber
Finn's,
to the Oracle at
Delphi
in a
way, to this cavern of philosophers—

Finn
Tavern of philosophers—that has a ring to it.

The Salesman
Cavern.

Finn
(nettled)

Cavern's
what I said!
A cavern brimming over with philosophers,
eh?

The Wife
(walking through)
Philosophers?
Is that the same as hoboes?

She is gone.

The Salesman
Who
was that?

Finn
(eyes shut)
1 dread to
tell you.

The Salesman
(nods
understanding^)
(Recovers briskly)
To Finn's then, where people stop!
consider
!
think
!
and
do!

Finn
I'll drink
to
those
damn things, any day.

They drink.

The Salesman
(walking)
Well, I'll be off!

Finn
(worried)
You
won't sell any more of these in the village, now?

The Salesman

Nor in the next.
I like to drop one stone in the pond and watch
the lovely ripples—
spread! (He illustrates)

Finn
(awed)
Your
father was a poet.

The Salesman
(eyebrows
up)
Uncanny! You guessed it! Good
day!

Finn

And
a fine one to
you,
Hoolihan
!
hoolihan
exits.

The Salesman
(singing)
"In life, in strife,
With
maid, or wife
It's
the
thinking,
Not the drinking,
Makes it . . .
Go!"

He is gone.

Now
finn,
alone, exhales with pleasure. He
mops off each of
the little ceramic
signs, exhales on them, shines them again
—
then, like a painter, looks about at the empty bar, looking left,
left center, center, right center, right.

Finn
(to
himself)
Now where is best for
each . . . ? Well . . .

He snatches one and places it
jar over at stage right. The sign
reads
STOP!

When
they come in the door they should see this right off!

What's
next? Well, when their little eyes move on over along, the
next thing they should see is
CONSIDER,
right?
Right!

He places
CONSIDER
right
center.
New let's think where to
put
THINK.

He picks
THINK
up,
deliberates,
puts
it back down on top the
Guinness
tap-barrel.

Right
where he had it is best! And last of all,
DO
should go over by the door
on the other side, so people, on the way out, will
do
things.
Right?
I think it is!

He locates
DO
where he
has said he'd put it and stands back
again to survey his tasks finished.

At which point his
wife
happens
through. He flinches as if
he had
expected her to throw scalding water on him and makes
elaborately casual attempts to look calm,
collected, and not
guilty of putting
out hard money for strange devices.