Fun House (18 page)
Authors: Benjamin Appel
Before that remorseless logical Voice that was mine by proxy, Gladys gave up. She ran naked out of the room. I wanted to call after the poor woman. But then I shrugged. She would be no problem to anybody who might see her in the hotel — the Mayflower it was — or downstairs on Connecticut Avenue.
People would think that she was merely exercising her privileges and rights under the 28th Amendment.
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Elaborate establishments featuring the alcoholic customs of the past. They included forest groves where the customers wore animal skins and drank mead like the ancient Teutons; palaces where they wore togas and guzzled like the Romans, etc. As Bangani (Barnum F.) sneeringly described their purpose: ‘You Drink, Don’t Think.’
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The R-Treatment of Rejuvenation was awarded every year during the annual debate on the Budget, by vote of Congress, to those three Americans who had served their country with the greatest distinction during the preceding fiscal year. The R-Treatment increased the life span to two hundred years approximately. Its recipients never aged but always seemed to be a permanent forty. This accounts for the unusually youthful eyes and voice of the M.E. Bangani I knew — for when Bangani (Barnum F.) had been surgically altered he had insisted on retaining his eyes and voice.
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A wingless motorless air projectile, more advanced than the atomic-powered planes. Its source of power was a reversal of the gravitational field.
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This area was mostly a belt of happiness factories, as they called them, where an endless variety of goods and gadgets were made.
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A rose-colored liquor guaranteed to produce pleasant animal hallucinations.
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Latin for fly death but a misnomer. The muscamortis attracted and killed mosquitoes.
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The Republic of Northern Kanada, as distinguished from Canada, had seceded from the mother country following a dispute over the division of profits from its famous Eskimo Elysium.
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The famous Albert Einstein formula for the equality of mass energy.
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Photo-Electric cells were no longer visible as had been the case even fifty years ago.
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An anti-laughter gas opposite in effect to laughing gas. Sold under the trade name SA or Serious Atmosphere and because of its color known as The Blues.
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Thank Univac — an expression used by the atheistic personnel in New City. Univac, one of the first of the Think Machines, in a sense was the creator of the later advanced Models.
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I learned later that the escalator was a superior type of Brain-Confessor, tapping not only our minds but also our stomachs.
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In New City, all bureaucrats, scientists and technicians had mechanized or as they boasted ‘Americanized’ their names.
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My hands were not burned or blistered. CH or Cold Heat, a physical self-neutralizing psychological thought-wave. It had been transmitted from the ankles into my brain.
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The liquore had been mixed with NAF or No After Effects, used by various drunkards who for various reasons wished to forego hallucination etc.
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The war between the States over the issue that in retrospect can be seen clearly as the ill-conceived concept of the South to perpetrate the use of human beings as machines.
I
BEGAN
the historic day of July 1st in the best spirits. No man could have been happier or prouder when, at eleven o’clock sharp, Bangani (Barnum F.) and I stood in the great hall where, only yesterday, Her Excellency the Minister of Police Affairs had given me a new sense of dedication.
It was the same cathedral-like hall, but in an instant, it was very different. Before us a curtain of light arose from the black and white chessboard floor, a curtain that reached to the ceiling two hundred feet above our heads, a dazzling curtain that changed constantly from red to white to green to orange. It reminded me of the mushroom cloud at Paris-in-Miami, but here the wild distorted colors had the strangest effect on both Bangani (Barnum F.) and myself. We stood there in a silence punctuated only by the beating of the magicientist’s R-Treatment, aluminum heart. He glanced at me and I nodded as if to say: It’s Them. His lips shaped the word:
Vindicated
, and his burning eyes, those youthful and original eyes of his, shone in the wrinkled face of Dr. Bangani. Then, the great hall filled with music:
‘Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word …’
It was startling to hear that snatch of music at that moment, and then I was grateful as no man has ever been grateful to a woman. That bit of music was my music, Our music, a reminder from Her Excellency not to be fearful. Almost immediately, two couches lifted up out of the chessboard floor and I really began to feel at home. With a sigh I stretched out on one of the couches. “Relax,” I said to Bangani (Barnum F.).
“Silence!’ A Voice thundered from behind that flickering wild curtain of light, and I realized as I should have done before, that the light was pouring out of Their Eyes! The Eyes of the Court. “We have come to a decision!” the Voice continued. “You, Barnum Fly, another human being driven by the classic formula
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P=S have been convinced by Crockett Smith to appeal to this Court for a pardon for your criminal acts. We have considered the precedents in your case, and above all the precedents of power. It has always been the opinion of the Court of Problems that human affairs are too risky to be conducted by human beings. You, Barnum Fly, using the formula
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A-A=AP have managed with the aid of the illegal St. Ewagiow conspiracy to obtain the A-I-D. Then, after eliminating your allies ?-A, you have achieved a position of absolute power or AP, where the very existence of society was endangered. This Court rules that in exchange for the A-I-D you cannot be refused your requests. Barnum Fly, you are hereby approved by this lower Court after due consultation with the Supreme Court of Supreme Thought as Assistant Secretary of Pleasure, Fun and Miscellaneous Hobbies. Assistant Secretary you are hereby ordered arrested!”
Stunned, I watched the Assistant Secretary jump to his feet from the couch, his black and purple cape fluttering behind him. “Arrest me, my Masters!” he shouted. “Arrest me! I’ll be vindicated! The A-I-D will be my vindication! Long live the St. Ewagiow! Long live Merlin and Einstein! For King and Sussex!”
He had gone crazy, veering from split to split — the splits of the deceased magicientist M. E. Bangani. He stood there, shaking his fist at that giant curtain of light, the
Eyes
of that treacherous Machine known as the Court of Problems.
“Your threats against society are futile,” the Voice of what was probably the Chief Justice thundered again. “We know where your fellow conspirator is hiding
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and before he can detonate the A-I-D we will seize — ”
I no longer was listening. If Bangani (Barnum F.) had gone noisily crazy, it could be said that at that moment, I’d gone silently crazy. For it was plain as plain could be that, to use a Reservation expression, I’d been sold down the river by Her Excellency. All That Thing had wanted was the safe delivery of Bangani (Barnum F.). What hurt the most was that I, a police officer myself, had let myself be tricked by the cheap promise of another Police Officer.
They didn’t hold me. I was free. It was a beaten man who returned to L. and O. Headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. But when I reported to Commissioner Sonata, his reaction — he had always belonged to the Anti-Think Machine faction — had its effect on me. “We’ll appeal to the President. This plan of the Court makes sense but it’s risky.”
The plan, as we discovered, was to liquidate the Professor’s hiding place before he could detonate the A-I-D. But as the Commissioner argued, nobody really knew whether such liquidification — a tidal wave was to be the instrument of justice — would accomplish its purpose.
All that day of July 1st a debate raged in the highest Government circles, human and Non-Human, while the populace innocently went about its business, or more accurately its pleasure. Over in New City, the biggest brains (all Non-Human) had analyzed every bit of data on the subject of atomic and hydrogen explosions, beginning with the first two primitive ?-Bombs of 1945 used in the war with Japan, through the subsequent testings in the Pacific and Siberia. Their conclusion was that the Court of Problems plan was absolutely safe. This was disputed by the President and several of his Cabinet members. The next day, on July 2nd, the deadlock was referred to the Supreme Court of Supreme Thought in session on the moon. A final decision was received at 10:14
P.M
. The Rulers had handed down a judgment, the formula
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P=P which meant that It favored both contending parties.
Commissioner Sonata and the L. and O. organization were empowered to arrest the professor Fleischkopf and to seize the A-I-D. But within a fixed time limit, by 11
P.M
. of July 3rd, 2039. If unsuccessful, promptly at one minute before midnight of July 3rd, 2039, the liquidification of the professor’s hiding place would be ordered.
“We’ll do the best we can, Crockett,” the Commissioner said to me in his office. “And please stop looking at your damned watch.”
“I can’t help it,” I groaned. “Why did They have to arrest him? Why didn’t They wait?
“You were too successful,” he sighed, and with a sad smile said; “You know the saying we have, ‘Nothing succeeds like success in arousing the hate of the failures.’ Crockett, we still can succeed, but only if we use our heads, our human heads. The instructions to arrest the professor are ridiculous! We must negotiate. Negotiate! I want you to negotiate with him. If he surrenders the A-I-D, we’ll appeal to the President. We’ll give Barnum Fly everything we promised. The Rulers are too rigid, Crockett. Thank God, we’re men!”
Again, slowly, oh so slowly, I began to feel a little hopeful. I felt a new respect for the Commissioner. And when I thought of how I had been duped by Her Excellency, I was ashamed. For who was the man prepared to step into the Commissioner’s shoes? Tempted by the R-Treatment? By power?
“Now to work, Crockett. We know that the professor has gone to Russoplayo
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. Russoplayo for your information is a completely decontrolled playland, unlike Atomic Park for example. Only one other playland equals it for violence, and that’s Racketland in Chicago. At Russoplayo, players play at revolution at their own risk. Lethal weapons are forbidden but everything else goes. Political assassination, by hand or foot, is permitted. It’s a dangerous place. Every second Sunday, L. and O. officers enter to remove and bury the corpses …”
I was listening intently as if my life depended on it. And it did, my life, his life, everybody’s life.
Finally the Commissioner got up from his desk and wished me good luck. There were tears in his eyes. Neither of us could speak as we shook hands.
The time was exactly 11.19
P.M.
of July 2nd, 2039. Less than twenty-four hours remained to negotiate with the Professor.
I wasn’t surprised to see Gladys when I entered my private cabin on a Russoplayo Double-Jette.
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She was apparently one of the Commissioner’s most trusted operatives, but when she introduced herself as Comrade Ekaterina Ustipopoff, I could only stare at her solemn face.
“Don’t play games with me, Gladys,” I said moodily. “I’m glad to see you. I was a fool the other day, but no games, darling.” I tapped my pocket where I had put my wrist watch. “There’s my watch. I don’t dare look at the time any more.”
“You are mistaken, Comrade. I am Comrade Ekaterina Ustipopoff,” she answered.
She was certainly dressed for the part, in a flaming red skirt and a white blouse embroidered in gold with the face of Karl Marx
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over her heart. On her head she wore what seemed to be the cap of a locomotive engineer.
“Play away,” I said wearily. “Author, police agent and now an Ekaterina. I thought you were getting a little tired of all these games? Never mind what I thought. I want to apologize, Gladys — ”
“I am Comrade Ekaterina!” she said, glaring at me with those blue eyes that were so much like my dear wife’s. I wondered if she really knew who she was, or if any of them in the Funhouse knew. They were all bundles of sensations, not identities. Then I thought, who was I to be critical?
“Comrade,” I said, taking out my wrist watch. “We came aboard at midnight which I believe is the conspiratorial hour. It is now eight minutes past midnight of July 3rd. Comrade, time is running out on both of us.”
She ignored these remarks. Opening a red leather case, she removed a brand-new Talko-Typo. It reminded me of the one she had destroyed and suddenly I felt a deep emotion for this woman. “Gladys when I think of what we’ve been through together — ”
She had seated herself in front of the Talko-Typo, and when she didn’t answer me, I said. “Still on my autobiography, darling?”
“No,” she corrected me. “Your political credo.”
What was there to say? I searched the walls for the taps that I knew from past experience should be there. They were. But in keeping with the atmosphere, the drinks were all of Russian origin. Vodka, B-and-B or brandied borscht, etc. I tried a vodka while she began to work. After a few minutes she read my political credo to me. It explained why the great investigator Crockett Smith had finally subscribed to the philosophy of Marx and Engel.
I lit a U-Latu cigar, drank a second vodka, and as she read on, my confessions began to seem more plausible. I recalled a parting gift of the Commissioner’s, a copy of the National Dictionary of Pocket Humor. I fetched it and read off one of recommended quips called for by the circumstances, “Marx and Engel, the one true guide to the perplexed, the vexed and undersexed.”
“Humor, the opiate of the people!” she retorted.
I lifted my glass of vodka. “To you Comrade Ekaterina.”
“You stupid agent of the bourgeoisie. Capitalist seducer!”
“Me, a seducer?” I asked with a smile.
“Love under capitalism!” she declaimed. “You pretended to love the woman Gladys Ellsberg, but have you inquired about her fate?”
“It’s certainly been tied up with my own. It only seems like yesterday when I went into my cabin on that Tourist-Liner, and there you were in that roenfoam bra. Gladys, maybe I sound sentimental, but I believe I love you — ”
“Love!” she shouted. “The exploitation of the weaker sex by the stronger.”
“My God, Gladys, don’t tell me you take this game seriously?”
“Look at you!” she sneered. “Bourgeois fop in that hideous suit of megaton blue!”
I glanced at my suit and then at Gladys E. — Ekaterina Ustipopoff’s flaming red skirt and cap of a locomotive engineer.
“You heartless fop. Not one question about the woman Gladys Ellsberg.”
“What happened to Gladys Ellsberg?” I humored her.
“P.A. Permanent amnesia. Your bourgeois police brought her to Chicago and turned her loose on State Street in the busiest hour.”
This sounded so much like a sly reminder of Barnum’s P.A. whom he had imported to Washington from Bangani Castle that I was positive the Comrade was playing games. “Maybe the woman Gladys Ellsberg is in a bourgeois institution writing books?” I said with a smile.
“Shut up, you heartless lackey!”
I gave up trying to understand Gladys-Ekaterina although lately I had had plenty of experience with split personalities. I stared into my glass of vodka and then took a long drink.
“Drunken lackey.”
What with the vodka and the U-Latu I was smoking, I laughed and suggested that we play a little game of our own while there was time. ((Forgive me, dear wife. I plead guilty. But remember Gladys E. looked like you, and the thought that maybe this was my last day on earth was demoralizing. Yes, I know that if I had been on the Reservation I would have waited for doom, steadfast and with head unbowed — ”Like a Texan” as we say. But I was in the Funhouse, bound for Russoplayo, a split man like everybody else.)
“Filthy seducer!” she raged. “Immoral jackal.”
“ ‘A jackal of all trades,’ ” I said after consulting my pocket dictionary, “and a whoremaster of none!” I burst into laughter.
She sneered and returned to her Talko-Typo. After a few minutes she read: “In this hour of world crisis, I, Crockett Smith, have made my decision. To die if necessary on the soil of the proletariat.”
I tossed her a kiss. She glanced about her quickly, and then put her finger on her lips. I stared at this sudden switch from comrade into police agent. She pointed at the door, motioning me to follow her. I did so. Out in the passageway, from the cabin next door they were singing revolutionary songs. Gladys-Ekaterina led me to a narrow door smaller than the other. She opened it, and I staggered inside after her — the vodka had finally caught up with me. She shut the door and whispered. “Now we can talk freely, darling.”
I blinked at laundry stacked on the shelves. “Where are we?”
“In the linen room. Don’t you understand? Everything in our cabin is recorded. The Voice-Seismo
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, darling.” She flung her arms around my neck and kissed me so passionately her locomotive cap fell from her head. “You’re such a fool! You and Your Excellency, the Minister of Tapes.”