a min — yeah and move him on to the Midway, real attraction there, best investment I ever — reminds me, any word yet on that lease-back arrangement with Bugleboy, the warehouses? No? Gotta complete that before we move on this computer edibles package, did I tell you we managed to bust the contract of this guy Hare, got him coming over to head up research in Katrat Fun Foods, he—’
‘Yes sir, but isn’t he the guy who—?’
‘Sure, well of course he’s only nominal head, don’t want research costs mounting up on us do we? No, real head is this new guy Franklin, real ideas man we managed to grab off some hayseed univers — but see with Hare we get his patented process for etching microcircuits right on peanut brittle, be right in there in the fun food vanguard, bub, few technical wrinkles to iron out first but I mean there we are with fifteen warehouses full of peanuts, get this moving sky’s the lim — what was that?’
The little figure in the fibreglass turban had made a kind of moaning sound. Now he said, ‘I wanta go home.’
Mr Kratt squatted down and inclined his big neckless head. ‘Aren’t you happy here, little robot? Look, you’re a big success, main attraction almost, everybody after you—’
‘Yeah, but I get nightmares.’
‘Ha! No, really?’ Kratt winked at his assistant. ‘Not something you ate, is it?’
‘I keep seeing their faces, the busted people.’
‘The, the what?’
‘The customers, the ones you call the marks. They’re all busted, Mr Kratt, sometimes even their faces are all busted up — I just wanta go home, that’s all.’
‘Well you can’t. So just get that idea out of your little memory chip, comprende? This is your new home, so you better get used to it.’ He stood up. ‘Come on, bub, can’t waste any more time yakking with a goddamn robot doesn’t even know how to be grateful, whole point in changing this show over to machines was we could get rid of all the whining and bullshit, pay’s not good enough, food’s not good enough, homesick, lovesick,’ he whirled on Roderick and stuck out a thick finger. ‘You know what your trouble is? You know?’
‘Basically I guess I’m too sympathetic, people use me. I need to be more hard-hearted…’
‘Come on, bub, wasting our time. Wanta nail down this Bugleboy deal, see, what we got now is a new concept in fun foods, two things kids really like are eating junk and playing with talk-back toys, put the two together and you get the edible talk-back, start maybe with a Gingerbread Boy, kid gets tired of yakking with it and — chomp! See? Get our boy Franklin right to work on that one just as soon…’
Outside the tent stood a long line of silent people: young men with old faces, old women in burst shoes, old men in greasy hats, young women with pierced ears. At the front was a man holding a newspaper upside-down, apparently reading. He watched the two men leave, then slipped inside to feed Rodini the Lucky Robot with quarters. Now he was safe, now he could lower his paper to expose a face without a jaw.
‘Basically you’re…’
Not all of them gave him nightmares, but what he couldn’t understand was why there should be any miserable marks at all among his four hundred daily visitors. Television had never prepared him for their stories of loneliness, horror, guilt, confusion, sickness, dread. Almost none of his visitors came close to televised truth: here were no pop stars, kindly country doctors, top fashion designers, executives with drink problems, zany flight attendants, sneering crooks, tough but fair cops, devoted night-nurses, cynical reporters, hell-for-leather Marines, dedicated scientists, big-hearted B-girls, ageing actors, cute orphans, smart lawyers — none of the ordinary decent network folks he’d come to know and almost like.
Instead there was the man with no jaw, wondering if maybe he couldn’t get him a girl if only he had a real fast car with full accessories. The drunken wife-beater who wanted to quit (drinking and beating) but even more wanted to go way out West where it wouldn’t matter so much. The personable young man who kept sniffing his armpits and re-applying deodorant, and whose ambition was to steal a hydrogen bomb and drop it on some black people. The failed suicide who dreamed of a big win at Las Vegas…
And the line shuffled past. The worst of it was the mechanical laughing clown, going night and day right in their faces, just the way it did in all the movies where somebody got killed by the merry-go-round or on top of the Ferris wheel or in the dark behind a tent that clown was always there with the chipped white paint on its face, rocking back and laughing in their faces…
And Roderick dreamed of them.
They were numbers, then they were letters, then words, then broken bits of voices. If he could only sort them out, all of them, into some kind of pattern… but it was always just beyond (beyond (beyond…
God call him up every time jackpot lousy blade heavy split up when epileptic .38 motel room burn movie son of a bitch says kids no kill t-shirt no freak doc car plant porno bastard mother his own last time he last time she exit blood candy store how would you like a beat on him epileptic rapist son of a bitch yells sewer beach relationship stinks this relationship masectomy needless needles boss no good yell fuel injection nightwork treats treats me like shit .38 bike overtime blackjack ass passes no sweat pills bustup back together ten grand belt buckle slipped disc park it goodies medication no nice kids his own mother God fight City Hall wino drive-in abortion hit taste bike
‘Basically you’re too kind. People—’
‘Son, don’t you know me?’
He peered at the man, noticing he had a jawbone, not like anybody who loaned out his jawbone for killing Phyllis Teens… ‘Pa! Pa?’
‘Hear that? He knows me. Come on son, we’ll go home.’
The hard-looking man behind him spoke. ‘Not just yet, Mr Wood. Few formalities.’ He spoke into a radio. ‘That’s it, fellas. Make the pinch.’ Then to Pa, ‘We’ll have to go over to this Kratt’s office here. I want your, er, kid to identify him.’
Roderick’s quarter ran out. He awoke in Mr Kratt’s office, once again standing on the desk.
‘…tragic mistake, gentlemen, tragic. This just can’t be a living child, I mean look at him. Been here six, seven weeks and never ate a crumb of food, never had a drink of water, how can you call him alive? Of course I bought it him in good faith as a machine, got a receipt somewhere, no idea it was even stolen goods let alone a — are you sure?’
The hard-looking man said, ‘How about this, Mr Wood? This a kid or a robot?’
‘Well I like to think of him as my foster son, he seems almost—’
‘Jesus Christ, what kind of answer is that? Maybe I better ask the — entity — itself here.’
Roderick was just blacking out when the hard man fed in a handful of change. ‘Now just tell me what the fucking hell you are, kid.’
‘My name is — is Roderick Wood.’
‘My boy,’ said Pa. ‘You see, Agent Wcz, just what I—’
‘I’m a — a robot and I live at 614 Sycamore 641 is it? 416, no, I live at—’
The man turned his hard stare on Pa. ‘A fucking robot! We set up this whole operation to catch a kidnapper and now you admit—’
‘I’m awful sorr—’
‘Yeah sure. Only that just voids our arrest here.’
Mr Kratt’s V-brows shot up and down. ‘I’m free then?’
‘For the time being. We’ll be keeping an eye on you, Kratt.’
Roderick’s money ran out again. He awoke in a car with Agent Wcz and Pa — and Ma!
‘Penny for your thoughts, son,’ she said.
‘I was thinking about anding,’ he said. ‘How much is one and one and one?’
‘Three.’
‘Three? But I keep getting four. Like on Mr Kratt’s desk there was one pin and one paper clip and one rubber band. And that makes two shiny things and two loopy things, and everybody knows two and two makes—’
‘Can that noise,’ said Agent Wcz.
Pa said, ‘Agent Wcz, I really am awful sorry we wasted your time, the FBI’s time. Hmm, unusual name, Wcz. You know, I think I knew an FBI Agent Wcz back in the fifties. Any relation? Your dad, mayb — ow!’ Agent Wcz turned white, then red, but said nothing.
