The Man Who Japed Page 4

Next to the thin citizen a short, fat, red-haired man smoking a cigar spoke irritably up. “It was kids, that’s all. A bunch of crazy kids with nothing else to do.”

  The thin citizen laughed harshly. “That’s what they want you to think. Sure, a harmless prank. I’ll tell you something: the people that did this mean to overthrow Morec. They won’t rest until every scrap, of morality and decency has been trampled into the ground. They want to see fornication and neon signs and dope come back. They want to see waste and rapacity rule sovereign, and vainglorious man writhe in the sinkpit of his own greed.”

  “It was kids,” the short fat man repeated. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

  “The wrath of Almighty God will roll up the heavens like a scroll,” the thin citizen was telling him, as Allen walked off. “The atheists and fornicators will lie bloody in the streets, and the evil will be burned from men’s hearts by the sacred fire.”

  By herself, hands in the pockets of her coat, a girl watched Allen as he walked aimlessly along the path. He approached her, hesitated, and then said: “What happened?”

  The girl was dark-haired, deep-chested, with smooth, tanned skin that glowed faintly in the half-light of the Park. When she spoke her voice was controlled and without uncertainty. “This morning they found the statue to be quite different. Didn’t you read about it? There was an account in the newspaper.”

  “I read about it,” he said. The girl was up on a rise of grass, and he joined her.

  There, in the shadows below them, were the remnants of the statue, damaged in a cunning way. The image of bronzed plastic had been caught unguarded; in the night it had been asleep. Standing here now he could take an objective view; he could detach himself from the event and see it as an outsider, as a person—like these persons—coming by accident, and wondering.

  Across the gravel were large ugly drops of red. It was the enamel from the art department of his Agency. But he could suppose the apocalyptic quality of it; he could imagine what these people imagined.

  The trail of red was blood, the statue’s blood. Up from the wet, loose-packed soil of the Park had crept its enemy; the enemy had taken told and bitten through its carotid artery. The statue had bled all over its own legs and feet; it had gushed red slimy blood and died.

  He, standing with the girl, knew it was dead. He could feel the emptiness behind the wooden box; the blood had run out leaving a hollow container. It seemed now as if the statue had tried to defend itself. But it had lost, and no quick-freeze would save it. The statue was dead forever.

  “How long have you been here?” the girl asked.

  “Just a couple of minutes,” he said.

  “I was here this morning. I saw it on my way to work.”

  Then he realized, she had seen it before the box was erected. “What did they do to it?” he asked, earnestly eager to find out. “Could you tell?”

  The girl said: “Don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not scared.” He was puzzled.

  “You are. But it’s all right.” She laughed. “Now they’ll have to take it down. They can’t repair it.”

  “You’re glad,” he said, awed.

  The girl’s eyes filled with light, a rocking amusement. “We should celebrate. Have ourselves a ball.” Then her eyes faded. “If he can get away with it, whoever he was, whoever did it. Let’s get out of here—okay? Come on.”

  She led him across the grass to the sidewalk and the lane beyond. Hands in her pockets, she walked rapidly along, and he followed. The night air was chilly and sharp, and, gradually, it cleared from his mind the mystical dream-like presence of the Park.

  “I’m glad to get out of there,” he murmured finally.

  With an uneasy toss of her head the girl said: “It’s easy to go in there, hard to get out.”

  “You felt it?”

  “Of course. It wasn’t so bad this morning, when I walked by. The sun was shining; it was daylight. But tonight—” She shivered. “I was there an hour before you came and woke me up. Just standing, looking at it. In a trance.”

  “What got me,” he said, “were those drops. They looked like blood.”

  “Just paint,” she answered matter-of-factly. Reaching into her coat she brought out a folded newspaper. “Want to read? A common fast-drying enamel, used by a lot of offices. Nothing mysterious about it.”

  “They haven’t caught anybody,” he said, still feeling some of the unnatural detachment. But it was departing.

  “Surprising how easily a person can do this and get away. Why not? Nobody guards the Park; nobody actually saw him.”

  “What’s your theory?”

  “Well,” she said, kicking a bit of rock ahead of her. “Somebody was bitter about losing his lease. Or somebody was expressing a subconscious resentment of Morec. Fighting back against the burden the system imposes.”

  “Exactly what was done to the statue?”

  “The paper didn’t print the details. It’s probably safer to play a thing like this down. You’ve seen the statue; you’re familiar with the Buetello conception of Streiter. The traditional militant stance: one hand extended, one leg forward as if he were going into battle. Head up nobly. Deeply thoughtful expression.”

  “Looking into the future,” Allen murmured.

  “That’s right.” The girl slowed down, spun on her heel and peered at the dark pavement. “The criminal, or japer, or whatever he is, painted the statue red. You know that; you saw the drops. He sloshed it with stripes, painted the hair red, too. And—” She smiled brightly. “Well, frankly, he severed the head, somehow. With a power cutting tool, evidently. Removed the head and placed it in the outstretched hand.”

  “I see,” Allen said, listening intently.

  “Then,” the girl continued, in a quiet monotone, “the individual applied a high-temperature pack to the forward leg—the right leg. The statue is a poured thermoplastic. When the leg became flexible, the culprit reshaped its position. Major Streiter now appears to be holding his head in his hand, ready to kick it far into the park. Quite original, and quite embarrassing.”

  After an interval Allen said: “Under the circumstances you can’t blame them for nailing a box around it.”

  “They had to. But a number of people saw it before they put the box up. The first thing they did was get the Cohorts of Major Streiter over; they must have thought something else was going to happen. When I went by, there were all those sullen-looking young men in their brown uniforms, a ring of them around the statue. But you could see anyhow. Then, sometime during the day, they put up the box.” She added: “You see, people laughed. Even the Cohorts. They couldn’t help it. They snickered, and then it got away from them. I was so sorry for those young men…they hated to laugh so.”

  Now the two of them had reached a lighted intersection. The girl halted. On her face was an expression of concern. She gazed up at him intently, studying him, her eyes large.

  “You’re in a terrible state,” she said. “And it’s my fault.”

  “No,” he answered. “My own fault.”

  Her hand pressed against his arm. “What’s wrong?”

  With irony he said: “Job worries.”

  “Oh.” She nodded. But she still held onto his arm with her tight fingers. “Well, do you have a wife?”

  “A very sweet one.”

  “Does she help you?”

  “She worries even more than I. Right now she’s home taking pills. She has a fabulous collection.”

  The girl said: “Do you want help?”

  “I do,” he answered, and was not surprised at his own candor. “Very much.”

  “That’s what I thought.” The girl began to walk on, and he went along. She seemed to be weighing various possibilities. “These days,” she said, “it’s hard to get help. You’re not supposed to want help. I can give you an address. If I do, will you use it?”

  “That’s impossible to say.”

  “Will you try to use it?”

  “I’ve never
asked for help in my life,” Allen said. “I can’t say what I’d do.”

  “Here it is,” the girl said. She handed him a slip of folded paper. “Put it away in your wallet. Don’t look at it—just put it away until you want to use it. Then get it out.”

  He put it away, and she watched fixedly.

  “All right,” she said, satisfied. “Good night.”

  “You’re leaving?” He wasn’t surprised; it seemed perfectly natural.

  “I’ll see you again. I’ve seen you before.” She dwindled in the darkness of the side lane. “Good night, Mr. Purcell. Take care of yourself.”

  Sometime later, after the girl was completely gone, he realized that she had been standing there in the Park waiting for him. Waiting, because she knew he would show up.

  6

  The next day Allen had still not given Mrs. Frost an answer. The directorship of T-M was empty, with Mavis out and nobody in. The huge trust rolled along on momentum; and, he supposed, minor bureaucrats along the line continued to stamp forms and fill out papers. The monster lived, but not as it should.

  Wondering how long he had to decide he phoned the Committee building and asked for Mrs. Frost.

  “Yes sir,” a recorded voice answered. “Secretary Frost is in conference. You may state a thirty-second message which will be transcribed for her attention. Thank you. Zeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

  “Mrs. Frost,” Allen said, “there are a number of considerations involved, as I mentioned to you yesterday. Heading an Agency gives me a certain independence. You pointed out that my only customer is Telemedia, so that for all practical purposes I’m working for Telemedia. You also pointed out that as Director of Telemedia I would have more, not less, independence.”

  He paused, wondering how to go on.

  “On the other hand,” he said, and then the thirty seconds was up. He waited as the mechanism at the other end repeated its rigamarole, and then continued. “My Agency, after all, was built up by my own hands. I’m free to alter it. I have complete control. T-M, on the other hand, is impersonal. Nobody can really dictate to it. T-M is like a glacier.”

  That sounded terrible to him, but once on the tape it couldn’t be unspoken. He finished up:

  “Mrs. Frost, I’m afraid I’ll have to have time to think it over. I’m sorry, because I realize this puts you in an unpleasant position. But I’m afraid the delay unavoidable is. I’ll try to have my answer within a week, and please don’t think I’m stalling. I’m sincerely floundering. This is Allen Purcell.”

  Ringing off, he sat back and brooded.

  Here, in his office, the statue of Major Streiter seemed distant and unconvincing. He had one problem only: the job problem. Either he stayed with his Agency or he went upstairs to T-M. Put that way his dilemma sounded simple. He got out a coin and rolled it across the surface of his desk. If necessary he could leave the decision to chance.

  The door opened and Doris, his secretary, entered. “Good morning,” she said brightly. “Fred Luddy wants a letter of recommendation from you. We made out his check. Two weeks, plus what was owed.” She seated herself across from him, pad and pencil ready. “Do you want to dictate a letter?”

  “That’s hard to say.” He wanted to, because he liked Luddy and he hoped to see him get a halfway decent job. But at the same time he felt silly writing a letter of recommendation for a man he had fired as disloyal and dishonest, Morecly speaking. “Maybe I’ll have to think about that, too.”

  Doris arose. “I’ll tell him you’re too busy. You’ll have to see about it later.”

  Relieved, he let her go with that story. No decision seemed possible right now, on any topic. Small or large, his problems revolved on an olympian level; they couldn’t be hauled down to earth.

  At least the police hadn’t traced him. He was reasonably sure that Mrs. Birmingham’s juvenile lacked information on the Park episode. Tomorrow, at nine A.M., he’d find out. But he wasn’t worried. The idea of police barging in to arrest and deport him was absurd. His real worry was the job—and himself.

  He had told the girl he needed help, and he did. Not because he had japed the statue, but because he had japed it without understanding why. Odd that the brain could function on its own, without acquainting him with its purposes, its reasons. But the brain was an organ, like the spleen, heart, kidneys. And they went about their private activities. So why not the brain? Reasoned out that way, the bizarre quality evaporated.

  But he still had to find out what was happening.

  Reaching into his wallet he got out the slip of paper. On it, in a woman’s neat hand, were four words.

  Health Resort

  Gretchen Malparto.

  So the girl’s name was Gretchen. And, as he had inferred, she was roaming around in the night soliciting for the Mental Health Resort, in violation of law.

  The Health Resort, the last refuge for deserters and misfits, had reached out and put its hand on his shoulder.

  He felt weak. He felt very morbid and shaky, as if he were running a fever: a low current of somewhat moist energy that could not be shaken off.

  “Mr. Purcell,” Doris’ voice came through the open door. “There’s a return call in for you. The phone is taking it right now.”

  “Okay, Doris,” he said. With effort he roused himself from his thoughts and reached to snap on the phone. The tape obligingly skipped back and restarted itself, spewing the recorded call.

  “Ten-o-five. Click. Zeeeeeeeeeeeee! Mr. Purcell.” Now a smooth, urbane female voice appeared. With further pessimism he recognized it. “This is Mrs. Sue Frost, answering your call of earlier this morning. I’m sorry I was not in when you called, Mr. Purcell.” A pause. “I am fully sympathetic with your situation. I can easily understand the position you’re in.” Another pause, this one somewhat longer. “Of course, Mr. Purcell, you surely must realize that the offer of the directorship was predicated on the assumption that you were available for the job.”

  The mechanism jumped to its next thirty-second segment.

  “Ten-o-six. Click. Zeeeeeeeeeeeee! To go on.” Mrs. Frost cleared her throat. “It strikes us that a week is rather a long time, in view of the difficult status of Telemedia. There is no acting Director, since, as you’re aware, Mr. Mavis has already resigned. We hesitate to request a postponement of that resignation, but perhaps it will be necessary. Our suggestion is that you take until Saturday at the latest to decide. Understand, we’re fully sympathetic with your situation, and we don’t wish to rush you. But Telemedia is a vital trust, and it would be in the public interest that your decision come as quickly as possible. I’ll expect to hear from you, then.”

  Click, the mechanism went. The rest of the tape was blank.

  From the tone of Mrs. Frost’s message Allen inferred that he had got an official statement of the Committee’s position. He could imagine the tape being played back at an inquiry. It was for the record, and then some. Four point five days, he thought. Four point five days to decide what he was and what he ought to be.

  Picking up the phone, he started to dial, then changed his mind. Calling from the Agency was too risky. Instead, he left the office.

  “Going out again, Mr. Purcell?” Doris asked, at her own desk.

  “I’ll be back shortly. Going over to the commissary for some supplies.” He tapped his coat pocket. “Things Janet asked me to pick up.”

  As soon as he was out of the Mogentlock Building he stepped into a public phone booth. Staring vacantly, he dialed.

  “Mental Health Resort,” a bureaucratic, but friendly voice answered in his ear.

  “Is there a Gretchen Malparto there?”

  Time passed. “Miss Malparto has left the Resort temporarily. Would you like to speak to Doctor Malparto?”

  Obscurely nettled, Allen said: “Her husband?”

  “Doctor Malparto is Miss Malparto’s brother. Who is calling, please?”

  “I want an appointment,” Allen said. “Business problems.”

  “Yes sir
.” The rustle of papers. “Your name, sir?”

  He hesitated and then invented. “I’ll be in under the name Coates.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Coates.” There was no further questioning on that point. “Would tomorrow at nine A.M. be satisfactory?”

  He started to agree, and then remembered the block meeting. “Better make it Thursday.”

  “Thursday at nine,” the girl said briskly. “With Doctor Malparto. Thank you very much for calling.”

  Feeling a little better, Allen returned to the Agency.

  7

  In the highly moral society of 2114 A.D., the weekly block meetings operated on the stagger system. Wardens from surrounding housing units were able to sit at each, forming a board of which the indigenous warden was chairman. Since Mrs. Birmingham was the warden in the Purcells’ block, she, of the assembled middle-aged ladies, occupied the raised seat. Her compatriots, in flowered silk dresses, filled chairs on each side of her across the platform.

  “I hate this room,” Janet said, pausing at the door.

  Allen did, too. Down here on the first level of the housing unit, in this one large chamber, all the local Leagues, Committees, Clubs, Boards, Associations, and Orders met. The room smelled of stale sunlight, dust, and the infinite layers of paperwork that had piled up over the years. Here, official nosing and snooping originated. In this room a man’s business was everybody’s business. Centuries of Christian, confessional culminated when the block assembled to explore its members’ souls.

  As always, there were more people than space. Many had to stand, and they filled the corners and aisles. The air conditioning system moaned and reshuffled the cloud of smoke. Allen was always puzzled by the smoke, since nobody seemed to have a cigarette and smoking was forbidden. But there it was. Perhaps it, like the shadow of purifying fire, was an accumulation from the past.

  His attention fixed itself on the pack of juveniles. They were here, the earwig-like sleuths. Each juvenile was a foot and a half long. The species scuttled close to the ground—or up vertical surfaces—at ferocious speed, and they noticed everything. These juveniles were inactive. The wardens had unlocked the metal hulls and dug out the report tapes. The juveniles remained inert during the meeting, and then they were put back into service.