There Won't Be War

The Rocky Python Christmas Video Show Frederik Pohl

On the screen of the television set the blank gray brightens to robin ‘s-egg blue. We see the spires of a fairytale castle, with fluffy little clouds behind them. They are growing as we zoom in. The scene looks very much like the opening of a Disneyland special, and to make it even more so a zitzy stream of glittering comet dust darts in from the RIGHT. It turns into a Peter Pan figure who looks a lot like Jane Fonda. She hovers like a hummingbird, waving a wand at us. We zoom in for a closeup,

JANE:

Hello. I’m not Peter Pan. I grew up. It was the world that didn’t.

Now that we get a better look at Jane, she isn‘t nearly as much like Peter Pan as she is like Barbarella. She’s wearing a Buck Rogers kind of spacesuit which leaves her head and face free.

JANE:

I’m what you’d call a forensic anthropologist now.

She zips away rapidly REAR and comes back escorting the skyline, which, as it approaches, changes from fairy tale to Everytown. The castles are actually church spires—Methodist, Baptist, Congregationalist, R. C. Jane reaches down with her wand and touches one of the spires, and the zitzy fairy dust becomes snow. We are looking at a New England town in winter. It could well be Thornton Wilder's Our Town.

JANE:

What I’m trying to do is show whose fault it was. I mean, I already know whose. It was yours, all of yours. You fuckers. But I want to nail it down so there’s no argument.

Sound of caroling comes up: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. The camera comes down and looks through open church doors on the congregation. Jane comes to rest on the steps of the church, looking inside for a moment before she turns back to us.

JANE:

Take Christmas. I mean, take Christmas—please. Listen to this guy.

The caroling has stopped and the minister, who looks like Robert Morley, is offering a prayer.

MINISTER:

And at this time of rejoicing, Lord, we ask of Thee a special care for our sons and brothers who now battle in Thy service in far-off lands. Save them from harm.

Let their valiant sacrifice be rewarded with the destruction of those who set themselves against Thee and our sacred cause, we beseech Thee in Thy holy name.

Jane shakes her head.

JANE:

How do you like that guy? Oh, you know, some ways Christmas must have been a lot of fun in the old days, right? Giving presents and all? Celebrating the passing of the winter solstice and the lengthening of the days? Remembering the birthday of this Prince of Peace fellow, and everybody saying they were going to love everybody? I mean, love everybody except those other guys.

The congregation rises and begins to come out into the winter day. Two boys start a snowball fight. Their mothers, flustered but laughing, call to them to stop it, but the boys go on.

JANE:

So why’d you always have to go and screw it up? I mean, do you think we like having to wear these Goddamned suits?

One of the snowballs catches Jane behind the ear and knocks her sprawling. She looks up, resigned.

JANE:

It couldVe been worse. It couldVe been a hand grenade. You know, a lot of the time it was. Why, I remember a time, a war or two ago—

She stops to think, rubbing her ear. Then she shakes her head, wincing.

JANE:

No, that one wasn’t a hand grenade. It was a soldier, and he got me with the butt of his gun. Tell you about it another time, but first I want you to meet some friends of mine.

She pushes away the backdrop that is the New England town scene, which has frozen into inaction, and reveals that the set of a TV game show is already in place behind it. On this set we see eight young men, all in uniform, though the uniforms aren’t the same. Jane strips out of her spacesuit and is revealed in the tails and tights of a girl tapdancer. She puts on a top hat; her wand has become a circus ringmaster’s whip. Music up; she flourishes the whip and speaks.

JANE:

Welcome to our version of “The Dating Game!”

She points to the man in the first position. He is wearing the uniform of a British soldier of the 1914 war; his head is bandaged, and his helmet is perched on top of the bandage.

JANE:

Bachelor Number One, will you tell us why you’re here?

BACHELOR NUMBER ONE:

I ain’t no bachelor, miss. Got a wife an* two kiddies back ’ome, least I fink I do, if the Zeppelins ’aven’t got ’em yet.

JANE:

That isn’t what I asked you, is it?

BACHELOR NUMBER ONE:

Oh, you mean why, like. Why I’m here, you mean. I s’pose it’s the syme as all these other blokes, I expect. Coz we’re dead?

JANE:

Because you had that real big date, right. That’s the All New, Everybody Plays Dating Game, you see? And now, all you studs, please tell us where you met your date.

She gestures to them, and one by one they respond:

BACHELOR NUMBER ONE:

Wipers it was, miss.

BACHELOR NUMBER TWO:

(He wears a GI uniform from World War Two. He is missing an arm.)

They told us we were supposed to take this mountain. I think they said it was named Monte Cassino.

BACHELOR NUMBER THREE:

(He wears a Union infantry uniform from the Civil War. He is black and resembles Eddie Murphy.)

Near Petersburg, ma’am. Dey blowed up de mine an’ we went in, an’ den dey started shootin’ down at us.

BACHELOR NUMBER FOUR:

(He wears a Red Army uniform, though it is in rags. He is skeletally thin.)

Lake Ladoga, the siege of Leningrad. I fell through the ice and froze.

BACHELOR NUMBER FIVE:

(He is Oriental, small, wearing what looks like black pajamas. They are completely burned away on one side, and his flesh is blistered.)

I was carrying rocket grenades down the Trail when the napalm came.

BACHELOR NUMBER SIX:

(He wears the fur-collared flying suit of a U. S. Navy pilot, vintage of 1954. He is also badly burned.)

I was shot down north of the Yalu. I landed all right, but the plane was burning and when I tried to get out they shot at me.

BACHELOR NUMBER SEVEN:

(He wears the uniform of one of Napoleon’s hussars. He is seated with Bachelor Number Eight at a common desk.)

I too froze in Russia. It was on the way back from Moscow, very cold, and we had no food.

BACHELOR NUMBER EIGHT:

(In Wehrmacht uniform. He is blind.) And I also froze, kind lady. It was more than one hundred thirty years later, but it was in almost the same spot as the Frenchie.

JANE:

Thanks, guys. (To audience.)

We could Ve had lots more—hey, we could’ve had millions, all the way from Thermopylae to Grenada, only you know what it is when you have to stay under budget. And, listen, not just soldiers. Women, children, old people—remember Hiroshima? Or the time they wiped out the Catharists in France? “Kill them all,” the Catholic general told his troops, “God will know which are His own.” And I’m not even talking about, like, say, the Mongols, or that all-time goldy oldy, the Second Punic War.

(She scratches her crotch reminiscently,)

Then there were all the other little things that went along with the war for the civilians. You know what I mean?

You have to use your imagination a little bit here, folks—remember I told you about the budget? So we couldn’t bring you all the starved children and all like that, and I have to play all the civilian women myself. So there was this soldier; he came into the cellar where I was hiding and there I was. He got me right behind the ear with the butt of his rifle and he was already opening his pants ....

Jane turns away and walks toward the wings, lost in thought,

BACHELOR NUMBER EIGHT:

(Indignantly,) That must have been an Ivan. We German soldiers do not rape.

BACHELOR NUMBER FOUR:

No, you just bayonet babies.

BACHELOR NUMBER EIGHT:

A damnable lie! I personally bayonetted no babies.

The youngest I killed had no less than fifteen years, absolutely, I am almost sure.

Jane isn‘t listening. She has begun strutting across the stage, top hat, tails and cane on her shoulder; she is doing aerobic exercises, and is paying no attention to the eight “bachelors.“

BACHELOR NUMBER ONE:

Miss? Beggin’ yer pardon, miss? We’ve got a kind of an argle-bargle here.

JANE:

(She stops at the wing RIGHT, and looks at them, irritated.)

Oh, shut up, okay? It doesn’t matter which of you it was, does it? I mean, after he stuck me with that thing he stuck me with his other thing so I died anyway. Anyway, you probably all got off on it.

BACHELOR NUMBER TWO:

(Also indignant.) Hey, lady, that’s a load of crap. We never done nothing like that.

JANE:

What, never?

BACHELOR NUMBER TWO:

You bet your pretty little bottom, never. General Mark Clark would’ve crucified us. Anyway, the Eye-tie broads was giving it away.

JANE:

For a can of Spam, you mean?

(She looks at him thoughtfully, then grins and turns to the wings. She pulls an army cot out onto the stage and sits on the edge of it. She pats the cot.)

So what do you think, GI Joe? Remember, I don’t want your Spam and I’m not interested in you. But you’ve got your gun. I couldn’t stop you, could I?

BACHELOR NUMBER TWO: (Dangerously.) What’re you trying to prove, lady?

JANE:

What do you think? A heroic fighting man has a right to a little R&R, hasn’t he? If you mean to sin, why wait to begin? I can’t stop you. Anyway, if you’ve killed my kids and blown up my house, what’s a little gang-bang?

BACHELOR NUMBER TWO:

You’re really asking for it! (He starts toward her, grimly horny. Then he stops in consternation, feels his groin, shakes his head. He looks at her angrily.)

Hell, lady, you really take the starch out of a fellow.

JANE:

(Sympathetically.) Testosterone running a little low? I guess you haven’t killed anybody lately, that it?

All eight of the bachelors are muttering as Jane pushes the cot back into the wings.

BACHELOR NUMBER TWO:

You make us sound like a bunch of animals! We were soldiers. I got a Silver Star. If I’d been an officer I bet it would Ye been the Medal of Honor!

BACHELOR NUMBER SEVEN:

The Emperor himself shook my hand!

BACHELOR NUMBER FIVE:

It was the shells we carried that made our comrades in the South able to throw off the imperialist yoke!

BACHELOR NUMBER FOUR:

Even when we were starving, we fought!

BACHELOR NUMBER FIVE:

We done what dey tole us to do, ma’am. We was supposed to break right through to Richmond, an’ we dang near done it, too. We would’ve, iffen de generals hadda got some more troops into de Crater ‘fore we was all kilt ourselfs.

JANE:

Oh, gosh, nobody said you weren’t all brave. I mean, not counting if you pooped your pants sometimes, right? But you went right on and did the job you were supposed to do. The thing is, what were you so brave about!

BACHELOR NUMBER ONE:

It was the Huns, miss. They was doin’ awful fings in Belgium.

BACHELOR NUMBER SEVEN: For the Emperor!

BACHELOR NUMBER THREE:

Dey whupped us, ma’am, when we was slaves. Freedom! An’ we kilt dem back.

BACHELOR NUMBER EIGHT: For the Aryan race!

BACHELOR NUMBER FOUR:

For the Soviet motherland!

JANE:

(As the bachelors are all speaking at once.) Boys, boys! Let’s kind of hold it down, okay?

(She looks at Bachelor Number Six.) What about you, Ensign? Don’t you have anything to say?

BACHELOR NUMBER SIX:

(Grinning.)

Seems to me you’re doing all the talking, hon. Me, I’m just a fly-boy. Drop a couple five-hundred pounders, shoot up a column of trucks, back on the ship for a malted milk and the night movie—except for that damn MIG. I bet it was a Russky pilot that got me. No damn slopey could’ve flown like that.

I know what you’re saying, though. I was always glad I was a carrier pilot. We didn’t get into that real lousy stuff they did on the ground. So don’t talk to me about rape and looting and all that—I wasn’t anywhere near it. I was in the air, and we had a nice clean war.

JANE:

Do you suppose they felt the same way in the Enola Gay?

BACHELOR NUMBER SIX:

Now, wait a minute, honey! You've got the wrong guy here. I never dropped any atomic bombs!

JANE:

They didn’t give you any atomic bombs to drop, did they?

BACHELOR NUMBER SIX:

Damn right they didn’t, and you know why? Because the U. S. of A. decided not to use the Bomb then! We could’ve, easily enough! We had ’em! Plenty of them. Only we held them back for humanitarian reasons.

JANE:

And maybe also, a little, because they were scared that the Russians had them too?

(Bachelor Number Six shrugs and looks away, losing interest.)

And then everybody had them, remember? England and France, and India and China, and Brazil and South Africa and Israel and Pakistan—And people said that was really okay, because that was MAD, the Mutal Assured Deterrent, the thing that would keep anybody from ever using one, because everybody knew that nobody could possibly win a nuclear war?

They were wrong about one of those things, remember? But they were right enough about the other. Nobody won.

Here, take a look. Give me a hand, will you?

She goes behind the desks and pulls out a new backdrop, puffing with the effort. Bachelors Numbers Six and One help her, then go back to their places. All the others crane their necks to see.

We are now looking at the New England town again, only it has been nuked. All the church spires are broken and burned out. A few people are moving about in the dirty, ash-tainted snow. We see that some are children in rags, looking hungry, freezing in the cold weather. A few adults look obviously sick. One or two figures seem more energetic; they are shepherding the others to a waiting “ambulance”—it is someone*s large sleigh, pulled by a swaybacked old horse.

Jane takes off her hat and gathers up the tails of her coat to tuck into the waistband of her tights.

JANE:

The trouble was, the deterrent didn’t deter everybody.

She picks up a TV remote controller from the floor, aims it at the screen and flicks from scene to scene. We see New York, Tokyo, Moscow, Beijing, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Tel Aviv, San Francisco, Capetown, Paris, Rome, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Singapore, Mexico City, St. Louis, Cairo, Stockholm. They are all in ruins. Jane is talking while she changes channels.

JANE:

It only took one to start it, you know. Then everybody got together to finish it.

BACHELOR NUMBER TWO:

(He is bewildered and angry.) Hey, it wasn’t supposed to happen that way! They was supposed to make sure there wasn’t any more wars!

BACHELOR NUMBER ONE:

They said the same about mine, too, miss.

JANE:

Well, what the hell, one out of a million isn’t bad, is it? Because this time they were right.

BACHELOR NUMBER SEVEN:

(He is incredulous, but dares to be hopeful.) Pardon, mamselle, is it that peace is here at last?

JANE:

You bet, sweetie. Only it’s a little late for you guys, isn’t it? I mean, being all dead and like that.

(She comes over to them and pats the nearest one on the shoulder—insistently.)

So really, now, you better all just lie down again, okay? Go ahead. That’s the way ....

Grumbling, all eight bachelors get up and tip their desks down onto the floor When they do so, we see that each of the desks is actually a plain pine coffin. The eight men reluctantly climb in, one after another, each one putting the lid on for the one before him.

Jane, grunting, lifts the last lid in place to cover Bachelor Number Eight. Then she begins putting her suit back on. Now we see that it isn’t really a spacesuit. It’s an anti-radiation suit, and it is spotted and stained with long use.

JANE:

(Bowing to audience.) Well, Merry Christmas to you all, and good will to men, and peace on Earth. Really. I mean, this is the war that finally meant it.

(She gazes at the screen, then flicks the remote controller and the screen goes blank. All is black. The only thing we see is Jane herself, alone and brightly lit on the empty stage. She puts on her helmet, but before she closes it she adds:)

There aren’t enough of us left for anything else.