Life has always been stressful. Even when our ancestors were hunting and gathering, there was pressure to bring home the bacon or the berries or something else to eat. But modern life, we are constantly told by sociologists and psychologists, is much more stressful than life even a century ago.
The people in “Criticality” have to deal with another kind of pressure, but as Frederik Pohl has illustrated in numberless stories, people are adaptable. The dictum Judge not lest you be judged has been thrown out the window in the intriguing New York of “Criticality,” a story published in 1984.
In this world, judging—or more properly, rating things—is what it’s all about, from the neatness of someone’s clothing … to the performance of the president. While such a system might seem petty, to the people in the story, it matters more than you can imagine.
The night I met Arne Kastle the computer dating service had turned up a tall blonde named Marian for me. We flipped a coin to decide who decided where to go. I won. That is, I got the privilege of making the decision. I know there are some people who would look at that a different way. They would figure that if you don’t make the decision you aren’t to blame if it turns out bad, so that winning that toss is actually a kind of loss. I don’t agree. As I see it, you look better if you’re the one that takes the initiative. Anyway, I had made my mind up ahead of time that I would choose going to the Tom-a-Hawk Inn in Coney Island, and I’d been there often enough before to feel pretty sure it would score high with her. I was at least partly right. “That’s a good nine for originality,” she conceded, tapping her lower lip thoughtfully. “But I don’t know about convenience. I’d say only a three.”
“It’s a long trip,” I agreed and added that she was close to losing a point for grooming since she had smudged her lipstick. That was risky. It’s the sort of thing that can antagonize them, but I knew I was a certain ten for grooming anyway. I’d spent an hour with the hair blower and the cuticle sticks and everything else, and if she tried to downrate me on any of that she’d just make a fool of herself.
So, feeling satisfied with the way the opening gambits had gone. I handed her through the turnstiles and we took the long train ride through Brooklyn. Apart from the bothersome showing of papers at the checkpoints at the tunnel and Fort Hamilton Parkway it was a pleasant enough journey. Computer dating doesn’t really let you know a person. We passed the time enjoyably exploring each other. When we came aboveground and the noise level dropped I took my box off my shoulder. “Would you like a
little music?” I asked, turning it on. As the first sounds came through I pursed my lips, then nodded. “It’s Mahler’s First Symphony, of course. I’ve always thought it was a little overblown, but some of the themes are lovely—or perhaps you don’t care for the late romantics?” She had put “classical music” on her database for the service, and it had taken only a few minutes with the program guides to memorize the listings for that evening. But Marian had been into the guides, too.
“That’s Mehta conducting, isn’t it?” she said deprecatingly. “He never understood Mahler, did he? But you can’t deny the Philharmonic has a first-rate wind section.” She closed her eyes for a moment, satisfied with the way she had performed so far, and I studied her carefully. Her figure was good—eight, at least—and she had thrown her shoulders back cleverly to make the most of it. I thought her eyes a bit too close together, but had to admit she had made an effort to widen them with eye shadow. Annoyingly, I couldn’t identify her perfume. It was certainly not one of the standard reliables that always call for a five or a six; she’d taken a chance with something offbeat—rather tropical and jungly; if it didn’t become tiresome over the evening I would have to give it perhaps a nine. “On the other hand, Wilbert,” she said without opening her eyes, “the Cardinals are in town. The game ought to be starting about the time this symphony’s over—shall we switch stations then?” That was a nice try, since I had listed “sports” for the dating service—but actually I was more into football and ice hockey. I let it slide, though, and when we got to the end of the line and the conductor came through with the
Won’t You Tell Us How You Enjoyed Your Ride?
folders, I was charmed to see that she handed hers over to me to fill out along with my own. The computer service doesn’t list “docility” in its after-date checklist, but I consider it an important constituent of the “good personality?” entry, so she had earned at least four points there already.
The peacekeeping forces at the Coney Island station don’t worry much about young couples on a Saturday night. They waved us through with hardly a glance at our papers. There was a cab right there, and in a moment we were at our hotel.
The Tom-a-Hawk is an old hotel, but it was completely refurbished by the Apache Nation’s hotel chain when they took it over. It advertises the fastest check-ins in the business. If you and your date are not on your way to your room within seven minutes after reaching the registration counter you get a pretty little feathered hatchet, which is supposed to be exchangeable for two complimentary Bloated Marys in the rooftop bar. Our time was just over five minutes. No hatchet. But we were in plenty of time for the Happy Hour.
The room was a six for size of bed, a nine for the view over the Atlantic, but only about a four for elegance. The furniture had not all been replaced by the Apache Nation. Marian disappeared into the bathroom to freshen her makeup, and while she was gone I rumpled the bed so the night maid would think we had been in it. When Marian came out she glanced approvingly at the bed, smiled and took my arm, turning me so that we faced the wall mirror. “I think we’ll do, Wilbert,” she said, studying our reflection. I was less sure. Marian was quite tall and blond. Very good-looking, really, but she was so fair that she made my light brown hair and medium complexion seem rather sallow. I was surprised that she had said that and, as we made our way up to the Sachem’s Nest on the top floor, I was thinking Marian would not, after all, score very high for empathy. But then, while we were waiting for the hostess to seat us, she snuggled right up to me, slouching a little so that she could look up into my face. It was an endearing touch. A lot of dates are far more interested in their own appearance than in making their escort look good. For that, a ten.
Then, as we were going to our table, a soldier in the uniform of the peace-keeping force lurched while stepping from the moving outer rim to the stationary inner core and bumped right into Marian. Although I did not yet know his name, it was Arne Kastle. “’Scuse me, lady,” he said, with an admiring look. “I guess I’m not used to this high-tech stuff, eh?” And ten minutes later, when I happened to glance behind me, there he was, staring at her.
A “Bloated Mary” turns out to be a kind of vanilla milkshake with grain alcohol added. It is passed under a broiler to give it a sort of baked-Alaska top, then served in a scooped out corncob. (They call it a “maize” cob.) It is a pretty small drink for the money—perhaps because their punctuality isn’t all that reliable, so they keep the freebies small. The purchased ones are no bigger. One round of Bloated Marys went fast, and it was while I was looking for the waitress to order another that I saw the soldier again.
I had chosen three good topics of conversation—childhood memories; sports; and dream vacations—but one of the things I always score high on is going with the flow. I changed the subject without a hitch. “They’re SasPeace,” I told her. “I watched them parade at the changing of the guard yesterday on television. They were very colorful, although the Ghurkas marched better. The Saskatchewan detachment will be here for six months, then they’ll be relieved by one of the other occupying powers—”
“Wilbert,” she said gently, “I know all that.” A head-on confrontation! A very risky maneuver, so early in a date, but she carried it off marvelously. “I think they look funny in those soldier suits,” she laughed. “Don’t you suppose they envy you
terribly?
”
Actually they did look funny, because the Ghurkas they relieved averaged about five feet four and the new troops hadn’t yet been given a new issue of uniforms. I decided to overlook it. Besides, we were coming around to some interesting views as the bar turned. “Look,” I said. “That lighted bridge—it’s the Verrazzano. Isn’t it pretty? And just beyond it you can see in the distance the skyline of Manhattan.”
“And on this side,” she said, “is that sandy-haired Canadian soldier. He’s coming over here, Wilbert.”
Indeed he was. His eyes were on Marian, but he spoke to me. “Sir,” he said, “do you mind if I ask the lady for a dance?”
That could have been a really tricky situation. A lot of dates would have handled it badly. Marian was very good. She simply looked at me to see how I felt, read my expression correctly and gave a slight nod. “What’s your name?” I asked the soldier.
“Arne Kastle, sir.”
“Marian, may I present Arne? Arne, Marian. Have a nice dance.” I watched them step back onto the dance floor with a certain feeling of pride; I’d at least matched Marian’s cool handling of the incident!
By the time she came back they were getting ready to give out the door prizes and discount coupons. I forgot all about Arne Kastle in the excitement. When it was over and Marian and I had won a two-for-one shore dinner in the Tom-a-Hawk Inn’s Lobster Lounge on the Boardwalk, I happened to glance toward his table. All four of the Canadian soldiers were gone.
I wasn’t surprised. The peacekeeping forces have no authority in extraterritorial enclaves like the Tom-a-Hawk hotels or their rival Saudi chain. They only come in off-duty hours, to eye the tourists. I commented to Marian, “I guess they’ve gone back to their barracks.”
She looked up from where she was counting our prizes, discount certificates for the souvenir shops and beauty salon and rolls of complimentary coins for the dollar slot machines in the casino. “Who?” she asked.
“The SasPeace soldiers. They’re gone. How was he, by the way?”
She leaned back, tapping one of the discount certificates against her teeth. “Oh—overall, maybe a seven. Not much makeout. He held me nicely while we danced, not too tight, not too loose, and he chatted me up pretty well. But he didn’t ask for my phone number.” I only smiled, although I was surprised—a seven? Sounded like a marginal five or six to me. “Anyway,” she said, “the two-for-one shore dinner is only good if we get there in the next thirty minutes, and the dollars have to be played tonight—shouldn’t we get going?”
By then I knew I had lucked in. As I rose and helped her with her chair I was confident that this weekend was going to be special.
Indeed it was. I found my companion inventive and responsive and physically very enjoyable. She was quite beautiful, with her suntanned skin and fair complexion, almost like one of those bikinied Scandinavian tourists who throng our beaches. By the time we were on the return train Sunday night I knew I would have to put this weekend well up in the top ten for the whole year. When she shyly handed me her
How Did I Rate With You?
card as our train dipped into the tunnel for Manhattan I had no hesitation in awarding her four tens, and nothing below a six in any category. I almost thought of making a private date with her for some other weekend. However, that would have verged on a commitment and I knew neither of us wanted that. So I said good night to her at the Twenty-third Street station, just where we had met, regretting—but accepting—the fact that we would probably never see each other again.
Of course, I never thought I’d see Arne Kastle again, either, and I was surely wrong about that.
He turned up in my apartment when it was full of police, and at first I didn’t notice him—what was one more uniform among many? Then I perceived that his was Peacekeeper green instead of police blue, and then I placed the face. “Oh,” I said, “you’re the soldier. How did you find me?”
“I checked your registration at the hotel,” he said, glancing around. The police were spreading fingerprint powder and making notes and calling back to the precinct on their hand radios. “It looks like I came at a bad time.”
“I’ve been burgled,” I explained, smiling. “They got through four door locks and an electric alarm system, slick as a whistle. You really have to hand it to them.”
He looked at me doubtfully. “I could come back another time,” he offered.
“Ah, no,” I said. “They don’t need me here anymore—I’ve told them everything I know. And the burglars got my TV, my stereo, my telephone machine, my exercise bike—I guess they’ve taken everything worth stealing already, so there’s nothing left to worry about. Let’s go down to the corner for a beer.”
When we were seated at the bar he came out with it. “That girl you were with, eh? Marian? Is she your wife or anything?”
“Of course not, Arne. Just a date.”
For some reason he didn’t seem to like the sound of that, but he said stubbornly, “I’d like to see her again.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know how to find her, that’s why not.”
“I see,” I said, studying him over the rim of my glass. For some reason I felt drawn to the fellow. He was naive and obviously uncomfortable in the situation, but determined. He was not a handsome man—too short and squat, and his eyes squinted a little. Still, there are lots of men with features no better than his who rate a seven or even an eight on personality. Not, in his case, on grooming. He had received a new issue of uniform since the weekend at Coney Island, so at least his wrists didn’t stick out of the sleeves. He didn’t wear the uniform well, though, and he’d tied his tie in a hard knot stuck up under one corner of his collar. “All you have to do, Arne,” I said obligingly, “is call up the computer dating service and ask for her.”