Player Piano (Utopia 14)

Chapter Nineteen

DOCTOR PAUL PROTEUS, for want of a blow severe enough to knock him off the course dictated by the circumstances of his birth and training, arrived uneventfully at the day when it was time for men whose development was not yet complete to go to the Meadows.

The crisis was coming, he knew, when he would have to quit or turn informer, but its approach was unreal, and, lacking a decisive plan for meeting it, he forced a false tranquillity on himself - a vague notion that everything would come out all right in the end, the way it always had for him.

The big passenger plane, after an hour in the air, circled over the shore, where the pine forest met the waters at the source of the St. Lawrence. The plane dropped lower, and the landing strip in the forest could be seen, and then the cluster of log lodges and dining hall and shuffleboard courts and tennis courts and badminton courts and softball diamonds and swings and slides and bingo pavilion of the Mainland, the camp for women and children. And jutting into the river was a long dock and three white yachts, the port of embarkation for men going to the island called the Meadows.

"I guess this is just about goodbye," said Paul to Anita, as the plane came to a stop.

"You look wonderful," said Anita, straightening his blue captain's shirt for him. "And what team is going to win?"

"Blue," said Paul. "Gott mit uns."

"Now, I'm going to be working on Mom here, while -"

"Ladies over here!" boomed the public address system. "Men will assemble over on the dock. Leave your luggage where it is. It will be in your cabins when you arrive."

"Goodbye, darling," said Anita.

"Goodbye, Anita."

"I love you, Paul."

"I love you, Anita."

"Come on," said Shepherd, who had arrived on the same plane. "Let's get going. I'm anxious to see just how hot this Blue Team is."

"Blue Team, eh?" said Baer. "Worried about the Blue Team, are you, eh? Eh? White. White's the one to look out for, boy." He stretched out his white shirt for them to admire. "See? See? That's the shirt to look out for. See? Aha, aha -"

"Where's Doctor Kroner?" said Shepherd.

"Went up yesterday," said Paul. "He's among the official greeters, so he's already on the island." He waved once more to Anita, who was going down a gravel path toward the Mainland's buildings with a dozen other women, Katharine Finch and Mom Kroner among them, and a handful of children. All day, planes would be bringing more.

Anita sidled up to Mom and took her fat arm.

Concealed loudspeakers in the virgin forest burst into song:

The song died in a clatter in the loudspeaker, a cough, and then a command: "Men with classification numbers from zero to one hundred will please board the Queen of the Meadows; those with numbers from one hundred to two hundred and fifty will board the Meadow Lark; those with numbers above two hundred and fifty will get on the Spirit of the Meadows."

Paul, Shepherd, Baer, and the rest of the contingent from the Albany-Troy-Schenectady-Ilium area walked out onto the dock where earlier arrivals were waiting. All put on dark glasses, which they would wear during the next two weeks to protect their eyes from the unrelenting glare of the summer sun on the river, and on the whitewashed buildings, white gravel paths, white beach, and white cement courts of the Meadows.

"Green's going to win!" shouted Shepherd.

"You tell 'em, Cap!"

Everyone shouted and sang, the marine engines burbled and roared, and the three yachts shot toward the island in V-formation.

Squinting through spray, Paul watched the Meadows come closer and closer, hot, bleached, and sanitary. The white serpent stretching the island's length could now be seen as a row of white cubes, the insulated cement-block structures called, in Meadows parlance dating back to more primitive facilities, tents. The amphitheater on the island's northernmost tip looked like a dinner plate, and the sports area around it was a geometric patchwork of every imaginable kind of court. Whitewashed rocks everywhere framed the paths and gar -

The air quaked with a sharp, painful crash. And another. Another. "Blam!"

Rockets from the island were exploding overhead. In another minute the three yachts were rumbling and fuming into their slips, and the band was playing "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The bandmaster held up his baton, and the bandsmen paused significantly. "Vuuuuzzzzzzip!" went a rocket. "Kablooooom!"

After the anthem came a cheery kaleidoscope of "Pack Up Your Troubles," "I Want a Girl," "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," "Working on the Railroad."

The new arrivals scrambled over the decks to catch the hands extended from the wharf by a rank of older men, most of whom were fat, gray, and balding. These were the Grand Old Men -the district managers, the regional managers, the associate vice-presidents and assistant vice-presidents and vice-presidents of the Eastern and Middle-Western divisions.

"Welcome aboard!" was the greeting, and always had been. "Welcome aboard!"

Paul saw that Kroner was reserving his big hand and welcome for him, and he picked his way across the deck until he reached the hand, took it, and stepped to the wharf.

"Good to have you aboard, Paul."

"Thank you, sir. It's good to be aboard." A number of the other older men paused in their greetings to look in friendly fashion at the bright young son of their departed wartime leader.

"Report to the Ad Building for registration, then check into your tents to make sure your luggage is there," said the public address system. "Get to know your tentmate, then lunch."

With the band leading them, the new arrivals swung along the gravel walk to the Administration Building.

Across the building's entrance was a banner declaring: "The Blue Team Welcomes You to the Meadows."

There were cries of good-natured outrage, and human pyramids were built in a twinkling, with the top men clawing down the infuriating message.

A young member of the Blue Team slapped Paul on the back. "What an idea, Cap'n!" he crowed. "Boy, that really showed 'em who's got the wide-awake outfit. And we'll go on showing these guys, too."

"Yep," said Paul, "you bet. That's the spirit." Apparently this was the youngster's first visit to the Meadows. In this state of nature he didn't know that the banner was the work of a special committee whose sole mission was to stir up team rivalry. There would be more such goads at every turn.

Inside the door was a green placard: "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Don't Wear Green Shirts!"

Shepherd whooped delightedly, brandished the placard overhead, and in the next second was thrown to the floor by a wave of Blues, Whites, and Reds.

"No rough-housing indoors!" said the loudspeaker sharply. "You know the rules. No roughhousing indoors. Save your ginger for the playing field. After registration, report to your tents, get to know your buddies, and be back for lunch in fifteen minutes."

Paul arrived at his tent ahead of his as yet unknown buddy. The two of them, according to the foreword in the Song Book, would develop a sort of common-law brotherhood as a result of their having shared so much beauty, excitement, and deep emotion together.

The chill of the air-conditioned room made him feel dizzy. Coming out of this flicker of vertigo, Paul's eyes focused on a dinner-plate-size badge on the pillow of his bunk. "Dr. Paul Proteus, Wks. Mgr., Ilium, N. Y.," it said. And, below this, "Call Me Paul or Pay Me $5." The second part of the legend was on every badge. The only man who was not to be called by his first name at the Meadows was the Old Man himself, the successor of Paul's father, Doctor Francis Eldgrin Gelhorne. He, National Industrial, Commercial, Communications, Foodstuffs, and Resource Director, was damn well Doctor Gelhorne, sir, at any hour of the night or day, and anywhere he went.

And then Paul saw the badge on his buddy's pillow: "Dr. Frederick Garth, Wks. Mgr., Buffalo, N. Y. Call Me Fred or Pay Me $5."

Paul sat down on the edge of his bed and struggled against the uneasy perplexity the sight of Garth's badge had precipitated. He had known many men, Shepherd for instance, who were forever seeing omens and worrying about them - omens in a superior's handshake, in the misspelling of a name in an official document, in the seating arrangement of a banquet table, in a superior's asking for or offering a cigarette, in the tone of . . . Paul's career, until recent weeks, had been graceful and easy all the way, and he'd found omen analysis dull, profitless. For him the omens were all good - or had been until now. Now, he, too, was growing aware of possibly malevolent spooks, revealing themselves in oblique ways.

Was it chance or ignorance or some subtle plot that had put him in the same cell with Garth, the other candidate for Pittsburgh? And why had Shepherd been made a captain, when the honor was reserved for those who were going high and far indeed? And why. . . . Manfully, Paul turned his thoughts into other channels, superficially, at least, and managed to laugh like a man who didn't give a damn about the system any more.

His buddy walked in, gray at the temples, tired, pale, and kind. Fred Garth wanted desperately to be liked by everyone, and had achieved a sort of social limbo, affecting no one very much one way or the other. He had risen because of this quality rather than in spite of it. Time and time again two powerful personalities, backed by impressive factions, had aspired for the same job. And the top brass, fearing a split if they chose one faction's man over the other, had named Garth as an inoffensive compromise candidate. There was a feeling, general enough not to be branded sour grapes, that Garth was all but over his head in the big assignments compromise politics had handed him. Now, though he was only in his early fifties, he seemed terribly old - willing, goodhearted, but apologetically weak, used up.

"Doctor Proteus! I mean Paul." Garth shook his head, laughed as though he'd done a comical thing, and offered a five-dollar bill to Paul.

"Forget it, Doctor Garth," said Paul, and handed it back to him. "I mean Fred. How are you?"

"Fine, fine. Can't complain. How's the wife and children?"

"All fine, fine, thanks."

Garth blushed. "Oh say, I'm sorry."

"About what?"

"I mean, that was silly of me, asking about your children when you haven't got any."

"Silly of me not to have any."

"Maybe, maybe. It's a trial, though, watching your kids grow up, wondering if they've got what it takes, seeing 'em just about killing themselves before the General Classification Tests, then waiting for the grades -" The sentence ended in a sigh. "I've just gone through that GCT business with my oldest, Brud, and I've got to live through the whole nightmare twice more still, with Alice and little Ewing."

"How'd Brud make out?"

"Hmmm? Oh - how'd he make out? His heart's in the right place. He wants to do well, and he boned up harder for the tests than any kid in the neighborhood. He does the best he can."

"Oh - I see."

"Well, he's going to get another crack at the tests - different ones, of course. He was under the weather when he took them the first time - tail end of some virus business. He didn't miss by much, and the Appeal Board made a special ruling. He gets his second chance tomorrow, and we'll have the grades around suppertime."

"He'll make it this time," said Paul.

Garth shook his head. "You'd think they'd give a kid something for trying, wouldn't you? God, you oughta see the little guy plugging away."

"Nice day," said Paul, changing the distressing subject.

Garth looked out of the window abstractedly. "It is, isn't it. God smiles on the Meadows."

"Probably did before we occupied it."

"I didn't make that up."

"Make what up?"

"About God smiling. That's from Doctor Gelhorne, of course. Remember? He said that last year on the closing day."

"Yep." Doctor Gelhorne said so many memorable things, it was hard for a person to stow them all away in his treasure house of souvenirs.

"Lunch!" said the loudspeakers. "Lunch! Remember the rule: get to know somebody new at each meal. Have your buddy on one side, but a stranger on the other. Lunch! Lunch!" Irrelevantly, the speakers blared "Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning." Paul and Garth and five hundred other pairs walked across the parade ground to the dining hall.

As the crowd bore Paul and his buddy through the swinging screen doors, Kroner caught his arm and drew him to one side. Garth, like the good buddy he wanted to be, stepped out of line and waited.

"Tomorrow night," said Kroner. "The big meeting is tomorrow night - after the keynote play and bonfire."

"Fine."

"I told you the Old Man himself is coming. It's going to be that important. You're going to be that important. I don't quite know what's up, but I've a hunch it's going to be the biggest thing in your career."

"Gosh."

"Don't worry. With the blood you've got in your veins, you've got more than what it'll take to do the job - whatever it is."

"Thanks."

Paul got back in line with Garth. "He certainly likes you, doesn't he?" said Garth.

"Old friend of my father's. Said it was good to have me aboard."

"Oh." Garth looked a little embarrassed. Paul's bald lie had pointed up for the first time their competitive situation. He let the lie pass. Shepherd would have hounded Paul, and, more subtly, Kroner, until he'd learned every word that had passed between them.

Paul felt real warmth for Garth. "Come on, buddy, let's find a couple of strangers."

"It's going to be tough. We've been around a long time, Paul."

"Look for some apple-cheeked youngster fresh out of school."

"There's one."

"Berringer!" said Paul, amazed. When the machines had made a list of Ilium men eligible for the Meadows, Berringer's card had stayed in its slot. He was the last man in the whole Works who deserved an invitation. Yet, here he was.

Berringer seemed to know what was going through Paul's head, and he returned Paul's gaze with an insolent smile.

Baer stepped between them. "Forgot, forgot - supposed to tell you," he said. "Berringer, about Berringer. Kroner said to tell you, and I forgot, forgot."

"How the hell did he get up here?"

"Kroner brought him up. Last minute thing, see? Hmm? Kroner thought it'd break his father's heart if the boy wasn't asked, and after what happened to Checker Charley and all."

"There goes the merit system," said Paul.

Baer nodded. "Yep - there it goes, there it goes, all right." He shrugged and raised his eyebrows quizzically. "Zip zip, out the window."

Paul reflected that Baer was possibly the most just, reasonable, and candid person he'd ever known - remarkably machine-like in that the only problems he interested himself in were those brought to him, and in that he went to work on all problems with equal energy and interest, insensitive to quality and scale.

Paul glanced once more at Berringer, saw his luncheon companion was Shepherd and that his shirt was green, and forgot about him.

He and Garth finally found a pair of very young strangers with two empty seats between them, and sat down.

The redheaded youngster next to Paul looked at his badge. "Oh, Doctor Proteus. I've heard of you. How are you, sir?"

"Paul, not Doctor. Fine, how are you - " he studied his companion's badge "Doctor Edmund L. Harrison, of the Ithaca Works?"

"Get to know the man next to you," said the loudspeaker. "Don't talk to anyone you know."

"Married?" said Paul.

"That's what you're here for, to get to know new people, to broaden your horizons," said the loudspeaker.

"Nossir, I'm en -"

"The more contacts you make here at the Meadows," said the loudspeaker, "the more smoothly industry will function, co-operationwise."

"I'm engaged," said Doctor Harrison.

"An Ithaca girl?"

"Two seats right over here, gentlemen - over in the corner. Right over there. Let's get our seats quickly, because there's a full program, and everybody wants to get down to knowing everybody else," said the loudspeaker.

"Nossir," said Doctor Harrison. "Atlanta." He looked at Paul's badge again. "Aren't you the son of -"

"Now that we're all seated and getting to know one another, how about a little song to pull us all together?" said the loudspeaker.

"Yes, he was my father," said Paul.

"Turn to page twenty-eight of the Song Book," said the loudspeaker. "Twenty-eight, twenty-eight!"

"He was quite a man," said Harrison.

"Yes," said Paul.

" 'Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie!' " shouted the loudspeaker. "Find it? Twenty-eight! All right, now, let's go!"

The band at the far end of the hall, amplified to the din of an elephant charge, smashed and hewed at the tune as though in a holy war against silence. It was impossible even to be cordial to oneself in the midst of the uproar. Paul's stomach knotted and his tastebuds went dead, and the delicious, expensive food went down his gullet like boiled horsemeat and hominy grits.

"Paul, Paul, Paul, oh Paul!" shouted Baer from across the table. "Paul!"

"What?"

"That's you - you they're calling for; they're calling for you!"

"Don't tell me the captain of the Blue Team is such a coward he ran out at the last minute," the loudspeaker was saying sarcastically. "Come on! Where's that Blue captain?"

Paul stood, and held up his hand. "Here," he said in a voice inaudible even to himself.

Cheers and boos greeted him, in a proportion of one to three. He was pelted by wadded paper napkins and maraschino cherries from the tops of salads.

"Well," said the loudspeaker tauntingly, "let's hear your song."

Hands gripped Paul and hoisted him into the air, and he was borne down the aisle toward the bandstand by a flying wedge of blue-shirted men. They dumped him on the bandstand and formed a cordon about him. The master of ceremonies, a fat, red old man with breasts like a woman's sticking through his wet T-shirt, thrust a Song Book into his hands. The band blasted out the fight song of the Blue Team.

"Oh you Blue Team, you tried and true team," said Paul. His voice came back at him, strange and frightening, amplified electronically to fierce defiance and determination. "There are no teams as good as you!"

At this point he was completely drowned out by the stamping of feet, whistles, catcalls, and the clank of spoons on glasses. The master of ceremonies, delighted with the high spirits he was evoking, handed Paul a blue banner to wave. No sooner were Paul's hands on the staff than he saw the ranks of his protectors split wide open. Berringer, his head lowered, his thick legs driving, charged him.

In the scuffle, Paul swung at the informality-maddened Berringer, missed, and was knocked, hors de combat, off the bandstand and halfway through the kitchen doors.

"Please! Please!" the loudspeaker was pleading. "There are very few rules at the Meadows, but the few that there are must be observed! Get back to your seat, now, you in the green shirt. There's to be no rough stuff indoors. Do you understand?"

Laughter was general.

"One more outburst like this one, and you'll be asked to leave the island!"

Kind hands picked up Paul, and he found himself looking into the grave, dull face of Luke Lubbock, the perennial joiner, who wore a busboy's uniform. One of the cooks, who had been watching with disdain, turned away quickly when Paul looked at him, and disappeared into the big meat locker.

As Paul's teammates carried him back to his seat, he realized fleetingly, as a fragment of a nightmare, that the cook had been Alfy, the master of silent television.

"Now, now," said the loudspeaker. "No more rough stuff, or we'll have to call off the rest of the fun. Now, where's the captain of the White Team?"

When the fun was over, Paul and Doctor Harrison of Ithaca walked out together.

"You have ten minutes of free time until the memorial service," said the loudspeaker. "Ten minutes to make new contacts before the memorial service."

"Nice meeting you, sir," said Doctor Harrison.

"I enj -"

"My wild Irish rose," howled the loudspeaker, "the sweetest flow'r that grows -" The refrain ended in a clatter. "Your attention, please. The Program Committee has just informed me that we're running seven minutes behind schedule, so would you please form up at the Oak right away, please. The memorial service will take place right away."

A reverent hush settled like smog over the perspiring crowd that had dispersed over the shuffleboard courts and around the ping-pong tables near the dining hall. Now they began to form about the Oak, the official symbol for the entire national organization. Its image was on every letterhead, and, stitched in a rectangle of white silk, its image snapped in the breeze, just below the American Flag on the parade-ground mast.

The youngsters imitated the oldsters' uniform stances of piety: eyes fixed on the lower branches of the magnificent old tree, hands folded before their genitals.

"White's going to win!" cried a short, thin youngster with big teeth.

The older men looked at him with sadness, with melancholy rebuke. Now was not the time for such horseplay. Now was almost the only time that was not the time. The youngster's outburst of infinite bad taste would poison his next two weeks, and probably his career. He had in an instant become "the boy who yelled at memorial service." That described him, and nobody would care to investigate him any further. Now, if he turned out to be a spectacular athlete . . . No. His flaccid physique and pale skin indicated that this avenue to forgiveness was closed to him.

Paul looked at him sympathetically, and recalled similar bad starts from the past. The man would be terribly lonely, turn to a career of surly drinking, and never be invited again.

The only sounds now were the rustling of leaves and the fluttering of the flags, and now and then the clatter of dishes and silverware from the dining hall.

A harried-looking photographer ran in front of the group, dropped to one knee, fired a flashbulb, and ran away again.

"Vuuuuzzzzzip!" went a rocket. "Kabloooom!" A parachuted American Flag was flung from the bomb to drift lazily to the river.

Kroner detached himself from the crowd and walked soberly to the thick tree trunk. He turned and looked down at his hands thoughtfully. His first words were so soft, so choked with emotion, that few heard them. He inhaled deeply, threw back his shoulders, raised his eyes, and gathered strength to say them again.

In the brief moment before Kroner spoke again, Paul looked about himself. His eyes met those of Shepherd and Berringer, and what passed between them was tender and sweet. The crowd had miraculously become a sort of homogenized pudding. It was impossible to tell where one ego left off and the next began.

"It is our custom," said Kroner; "it is the custom here at the Meadows - our custom, our Meadows - to meet here under our tree, our symbol of strong roots, trunk, and branches, our symbol of courage, integrity, perseverance, beauty. It is our custom to meet here to remember our departed friends and co-workers."

And now he forgot the crowd, and talked to the fat cumulus clouds scudding over the blue sky. "Since last we met, Doctor Ernest S. Bassett has left our world for his reward in a better one. Ernie, as you all know, was -"

The photographer ran out, flashed a bulb in Kroner's face, and disappeared again.

"Ernie was manager of the Philadelphia Works for five years, of the Pittsburgh Works for seven. He was my friend; he was our friend: a great American, a great engineer, a great manager, a great pioneer at the head of the procession of civilization, opening new, undreamed-of doors to better things, for better living, for more people, at less cost."

Now and then brokenly, Kroner told of Ernie Bassett as a young engineer, and he traced his career from works to works.

"He gave himself unstintingly engineeringwise, managershipwise, personalitywise, Americanwise, and -" Kroner paused to look impressively from face to face. Again he talked to the clouds - "heartwise."

A man stepped from the crowd to hand Kroner a long white box. Kroner opened it slowly and studied it thoughtfully before showing its contents to anyone else. At last he reached in and unfurled a blue and white pennant, the Armed Forces "E" that Bassett had won during the war as manager of the Philadelphia Works.

A muted bugle played taps.

Kroner knelt at the foot of the tree and placed Ernie Bassett's pennant there.

The photographer dashed up, got the picture, and dashed away.

"Vuuuuzzzzzip! Kablooom!"

A male choir, concealed in the shrubbery, sang ever so softly - to the tune of "Love's Sweet Song":

"A minute of silence in unspoken prayer for departed friends," said the loudspeaker. All through the minute of silence, Paul was aware of a snuffling in the background. Someone's dam of reserve had broken under the impact of the ceremony - someone who must have been awfully close to Bassett. There were tears standing in many eyes, and here and there teeth were sunk in unstable lips, but nowhere could Paul see the sobber. Suddenly he spotted him, not in the crowd, but in the dining hall. Luke Lubbock, a pile of dirty dishes in his arms, had been completely carried away. Big, honest tears for the manager of the Pittsburgh Works flooded his cheeks. Rather roughly, the headwaiter hustled him away from the screen door.

"Vuuuuzzzzzip! Kablooooom!"

The band exploded into "The Stars and Stripes Forever," and Kroner was half led from the tree by other oldsters who had known Bassett well. The crowd dispersed.

Paul looked longingly at the doors of the saloon, which was located in a separate white building. He tested the doors to make sure they were really locked, and of course they were. The saloon never opened until the cocktail hour, after the games.

"Your attention!" said the loudspeaker. "Your attention, please. The program for the rest of the day:

"In ten minutes the teams will meet at their captains' tents for assignments to various sports. Formal competition will not begin until tomorrow morning. After assignment, relax, get to know your buddy, don't hang around with the same old crowd.

"Cocktails at five-thirty. Supper at six-thirty. Now - attention to this change: the keynote play and bonfire will not take place tonight. Will not. They will take place tomorrow night, and there will be a group sing tonight in the amphitheater instead. Taps at midnight.

"Team captains, team captains - will you please report to your tents."

Without much hope, Paul rattled the saloon doors, thinking he might be able to talk a floor sweeper inside into getting him a little something.

"I've just been informed," said the loudspeaker, "I've just been informed that the captain of the Blue Team is not in his tent. Doctor Paul Proteus; Doctor Paul . . ."