Player Piano (37 page)

“For Cornell!” said McCloud.

“Damn right!” said Purdy, leaning back, satisfied.

Buck Young, tall, massive, shy, appeared in the doorway
and looked around the room. Doctor Roseberry stood and waved, and left Purdy and McCloud to join him at the door.

“Bucky boy!”

“Doc.” Buck seemed somewhat ashamed to be seen with the coach, and looked hopefully at a vacant booth. He was behaving as though he were keeping an appointment with a dope peddler, and, in a way, Doctor Roseberry reflected cheerfully, he was.

“Buck, I’m not going to waste any words, because there isn’t much time. This offer won’t be open many more days. Maybe it’ll be off tomorrow. It’s all up to the alumni,” he lied.

“Uh-huh,” said Buck.

“I’m prepared to offer you thirty thousand, Buck, six hundred a week, all year round, startin’ tomorrow. What do you say?”

Young’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He cleared his throat. “Every week?” he asked faintly.

“That’s how much we think of you, boy. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“And I could study, too? You’d give me time off for classes and study?”

Roseberry frowned. “Well—there’s some pretty stiff rulings about that. You can’t play college football,
and
go to school. They tried that once, and you know what a silly mess that was.”

Buck ran his blunt fingers through his hair. “Golly, I dunno. That’s a lot of money, but my family’d be awful surprised and disappointed. I mean—”

“I’m not askin’ it for me, Buck! Think of your schoolmates. You want them to lose a game this year?”

“No,” he murmured.

“Thirty-five grand, Buck.”

“Jesus, I—”

“I have heard every word you’ve said,” said a young redhead thickly. He wasn’t drinking benedictine and Pluto
water, but sloshed instead a puddle of whisky and water on the table as he sat down by Buck, facing Doctor Roseberry, uninvited. Beneath his open-necked shirt the red of a Meadows T-shirt showed plainly. “Heard it all,” he said, and he laid his hand on Buck’s shoulder gravely. “Here you are at a crossroads, my boy. You’re lucky. Not many crossroads left for people. Nothing but one-way streets with cliffs on both sides.”

“Who the hell are you?” said Doctor Roseberry irritably.

“Doctor,
Doctor
, mind you, Edmond L. Harrison of the Ithaca Works. Call me Ed, or pay me five dollars.”

“Let’s get away from this lush,” said Doctor Roseberry.

Harrison banged on the table with his fist. “Hear me out!” He appealed to Buck, whose exit he blocked. “The eminent Doctor Roseberry represents one road, and I the other. I am you, if you continue on your present course, five years from now.”

His eyes were half closed, and after the fashion of benign drunks he seemed on the verge of tears, so powerfully was he compelled to love and help others. “If you are good,” he said, “and if you are thoughtful, a fractured pelvis on the gridiron will pain you less than a life of engineering and management. In that life, believe me, the thoughtful, the sensitive, those who can recognize the ridiculous, die a thousand deaths.”

Doctor Roseberry leaned back and folded his hands across his flat, hard belly. If he’d thought of it, he would have hired a professional actor to do what Doctor Harrison was doing for nothing. “How do you mean?” he asked helpfully.

“The best man I knew at the Meadows—”

“The
Meadows?”
said Buck in awe.

“The Meadows,” said Harrison, “where the men at the head of the procession of civilization demonstrate in private that they are ten-year-olds at heart, that they haven’t the vaguest notion of what they’re doing to the world.”

“They’re opening new doors at the head of the procession!” said Buck hotly, shocked by the blunt, near-sabotage talk, and now fighting it, like the good citizen he was. He’d learned the resounding phrase about opening doors in a freshman orientation program, at which a Doctor Kroner had been the impressive chief speaker.

“Slamming doors in everybody’s face,” said Harrison. “That’s what they’re doing.”

“Keep your voice down,” warned Doctor Roseberry.

“I don’t care,” said Harrison stridently, “not after what they did to the only grownup there. They gave Proteus the sack, that’s what they did.”

“Proteus has been dead for years,” said Buck, sure Harrison was a fake.

“His son, his son, Paul,” said Harrison. “So let me say, my boy, go out and make your money on the gridiron, with blood and sweat and sinew. There’s honor and glory in that—a little, anyway—and you’ll never hate yourself. But keep the hell away from the head of the procession, where you’ll get it in the neck if you can’t get a lump in your throat over the ups and downs of a bunch of factories.” He attempted to rise, failed once, made it the next time. “And now, goodbye.”

“Where are you going?” said Doctor Roseberry. “Stick around, stick around.”

“Where? First to shut off that part of the Ithaca works for which I am responsible, and then to an island, perhaps, a cabin in the north woods, a shack in the Everglades.”

“And do what?” said Buck, baffled.

“Do?” said Harrison. “Do? That’s just it, my boy. All of the doors have been closed. There’s nothing to do but to find a womb suitable for an adult, and crawl into it. One without machines would suit me particularly.”

“What have you got against machines?” said Buck.

“They’re slaves.”

“Well, what the heck,” said Buck. “I mean, they aren’t people. They don’t suffer. They don’t mind working.”

“No. But they compete with people.”

“That’s a pretty good thing, isn’t it—considering what a sloppy job most people do of anything?”

“Anybody that competes with slaves becomes a slave,” said Harrison thickly, and he left.

A dark man, dressed like a student, but much older-looking, set down his untouched benedictine and Pluto water on the bar, studied the faces of Roseberry and Young as though memorizing them, and followed Harrison out of the building.

“Let’s go out in the lobby, where we can talk,” said Roseberry, as a cycle of songs began.

“Cheer, cheer, here we are again,” cried the young voices, and Young and Roseberry moved into the lobby.

“Well?” said Doctor Roseberry.

“Doctor Roseberry, I believe?”

Roseberry looked up at the intruder, a sandy-mustached gentleman, in a violet shirt, matching boutonniere, and a gay waistcoat contrasting with his dark suit. “Yes?”

“My name is Halyard, E. J., of the State Department. And these gentlemen here are the Shah of Bratpuhr, and his interpreter, Khashdrahr Miasma. We were just leaving for the president’s house, and I happened to spot you.”

“Charmed,” said Doctor Roseberry.

“Brahous brahouna, bouna saki,”
said the Shah, bowing slightly.

Halyard laughed nervously. “Guess we have a little business tomorrow morning, eh?”

“Oh,” said Roseberry,
“you’re
the one—the one for the phys. ed. finals.”

“Yes, yes indeed. Haven’t had a cigarette in two weeks. Will it take long?”

“No, I don’t think so. Fifteen minutes ought to do the trick.”

“Oh? That short a time, eh? Well, well.” The tennis shoes and shorts he’d bought that afternoon wouldn’t get much wear in that time.

“Oh, ’scuse me, gents,” said Roseberry. “This here’s Buck Young. Student just now.”

“Lakki-ti Takaru?”
the Shah asked Buck.

“ ‘Like it here?’ ” translated Khashdrahr.

“Yessir. Very much, sir, your highness.”

“A lot different from my day,” said Halyard. “By gosh, we had to get up every morning bright and early, climb the hill in all kinds of weather, and sit there and listen to some of the dullest lectures you ever heard of. And, of course, some poor fish would have to get up in front of us and talk every day of the week, and chances are he wasn’t much of a speaker, and anyway no showman.”

“Yes, the professional actors and the television circuits are a big improvement, sir,” said Buck.

“And the exams!” said Halyard. “Pretty cute, you know, punching out the answers, and then finding out right off if you passed or flunked. Boy, believe me, we used to have to write our arms off, and then we’d have to wait weeks for a prof to grade the exams. And plenty of times they made bad mistakes on the grades.”

“Yessir,” said Buck politely.

“Well, I’ll see one of your assistants tomorrow, eh?” said Halyard to Roseberry.

“I intend I should give you the tests personal,” said Roseberry.

“Well! I guess
that’s
an honor, with the season just beginning.”

“Sure,” said Roseberry. He reached into his breast pocket and produced the letter and the memo. He handed the letter to Halyard. “Here’s something you should oughta read before you come.”

“Fine, thanks.” Halyard took it, supposing it was a list of the things he would have to do. He smiled warmly at Roseberry, who had given every indication that Halyard would be given an exceedingly simple and short series of tests. A mere fifteen minutes, he’d said. That would do it.

Halyard glanced at the letter, and couldn’t imagine what it was all about at first. It was addressed to the president of Cornell, Doctor Albert Herpers, not to him. Moreover, the date on it indicated that it was five years old.

Dear Doctor Herpers: he read—

The letter went on to describe the bacchanal that followed, with particular emphasis on the crudities of Roseberry’s behavior—

“Oh,” said Halyard, his poise gone, suddenly looking ridiculous in the clothes that had been high fashion a moment before. “Saw this, did you?”

“Doctor Herpers thought I’d be interested.”

A sickly grin framed Halyard’s white teeth. “Long time ago, wasn’t it, Doctor? Seems like a hundred years.”

“Like yesterday.”

“Ha ha. Lot of water under the dam since those days, eh?”

The Shah looked questioningly at Khashdrahr for an explanation of what made Halyard so gray suddenly. Khashdrahr shrugged.

“Over
the dam,” said Buck Young, filling the grim void in the conversation. “Or under the
bridge.”

“Yes. Quite so,” said Halyard hollowly. “Well, best we should go. See you in the morning.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Doctor Roseberry turned back to Buck Young, as Halyard, his face somber, shepherded the Shah and Khashdrahr into the Ithaca night. The Shah was sneezing violently.

“Well, kid,” said Roseberry. “What say to thirty-five grand? Yes or no?”

“I—”

“Thirty-six.”

“Yes,” whispered Buck. “Hell yes.”

When the two went back into The Dutch to drink to the deal, Purdy and McCloud were still talking gloomily in their dark corner.

“Sure,” said Purdy, “Roseberry’s a tough guy to work for, but thank God you ain’t workin’ for Harvard.”

McCloud nodded. “Yeah, work there, and ’ey won’t letch wear nothin’ but dark-gray flannels in the winter, and seersucker in the summer.”

They both shuddered, and furtively refilled their glasses from a half-case hidden under the table.

“Wit’ out shoulders,” said Purdy.

D
OCTOR
P
AUL
P
ROTEUS
, to all practical purposes Mr. Paul Proteus, dreamed of nothing but pleasant things under the benign drug, and spoke simultaneously, without reflection but truthfully, on whatever subject was brought to his attention. The talking he did, the answering of questions, went on as though it were being done by a person hired to represent him, while Paul personally gave his attention to entertaining phantasmagoria within the privacy of his closed eyelids.

“Did you really get fired, or was it a pretense?” said the voice.

“Pretense. Supposed to get into the Ghost Shirt Society and find out what they’re up to. Only I quit, and they don’t know that, yet.” Paul chuckled.

And in his dream, Paul danced powerfully, gracefully, to the hectic rhythms of the
Building 58 Suite.