son?’
‘I don’t know, but like I can’t pledge allegiance because I ain’t got no heart, any heart, and this Tin Woodman in Oz can’t marry this girl too because for the same reason. And in this other Oz story there’s this Tin Soldier without a heart too, and in this
‘Slow down, slow down. Been thinking myself about what you need. It’s not a heart, it’s legs. This is no good, you staying in every time it snows like this.’ Pa got his coat off and rolled up his sleeves carefully. ‘Anyway, I gotta try something, rig some—’
‘Pa were you ever in Oz?’
‘Nope. Why?’
‘Well because I worked out here, P is the letter after O, and A is the letter after Z, so I thought maybe somehow you changed it — and then you got this box I seen it somewhere it says Tin Soldier on it, so I just—’
‘Tin—? Tin
‘Yeah but it melts down just like — anyway your name is Wood, you can’t… Wood, that must mean
Pa stared at him and started to grin. ‘Well I’ll be God damned! Codes and secret — at your age! Well, doesn’t that just take me back, must be years since I dazzled my own brains with — Hah!’
‘Yeah well there’s more. See, I worked out where this Oz must be, because see at school I learned Pennsylvania is PA and New York is NY see Oz goes right in between,’ and he sketched it on the wooden work- bench:
‘See, there must be this place between New York and Pennsylvania this Oz-zone. I thought maybe I oughta go there because I’m the tin Wood boy because I could see this Wizard—’
‘But there isn’t any wizard.’
Roderick thought for a moment. ‘Okay, then I could see this Mr Baum that wrote the story, I looked up his name and it means Wood too, boy, you can’t tell me all that doesn’t mean nothing, anything!’
Pa made sure he was not holding a soldering iron before scratching his head. ‘Well, son you see if you look hard enough, you can prove just about anything. Now take this L. Frank Baum, okay his last name means tree, just about the same as Wood, so what? What about the rest of his name. Frank could mean French, does that mean your Oz is in France?’
‘Yeah but it could mean
‘But stories are never honest, are they? That’s the point. Anyway the man’s first name is Lyman.’
‘Lie-man? Aw gee, no fooling? Then it’s just nothing!’
‘Wouldn’t say that, son, thinking is a good way to spend your time even if—’ But the little machine had already buzzed out of the room. Pa could hear the whine of its motors all through the house, rising above the sound of Ma’s voice on the telephone.
‘Well I just figured with all the money we paid on that policy there’d be more… Yes, I said we’d take it, yes just send the cheque straight to the Frobisher Custom Electronic Specialties Company of Omaha, yes all of it… No,
Old folks were real hard to get along with sometimes. Like they were all the time talking about money, getting out all these bills and spreading them over the dining-table just to look at them while they talked about money. What was he supposed to do all day? Sit around looking at their dumb wedding picture — it sure was Ma and Pa all right, but they must of changed a whole lot since then — or just listen to them talking about bills for electronic stuff and the adoption and Pa’s cough, and for all the special materials Ma needed for this ideal head, that wasn’t going to be no more use than the little legs Pa was making.
‘Go on, try ’em out, son.’
‘It feels pretty high, what if I fall over?’
He hated the little legs, all they were good for was stumping around in the snow until his battery went flat. But Pa was proud of them, and you had to humour old folks.
Roderick wore the new legs when Ma took him along to see Mr Swann.
‘My, haven’t we grown, heh heh, just take a seat there kid, read your comics while Mrs W. and I get down to business. Now Mrs W. you may recall I said this wouldn’t be easy, and it won’t be. Not much hope of finding a precedent, you see, not in the legal adoption of an artifactual, um, person.’
‘Sorry!’ Roderick’s feet made a loud clattering sound as he got down from his chair. ‘Sorry!’ He stumped over to the window.
‘In fact it er can’t really be considered a person at all, a person in law I mean, not as things stand. Better to just establish a trust, call it a pet and leave everything in the hands of trustees, funds delegated to the ah care and feeding and so on. But no, I see that doesn’t appeal to you, heh heh, we country attorneys get pretty good at reading faces, see the pet idea upsets you, right?’
The Christmas decorations were up all along Main Street. In fact they had been up since September and would remain until January 2, when the Easter stuff went up. People bustled back and forth across the street, loading their cars with presents and holly and squashed-down trees and cases of bottles. If Roderick put his head to the pane he could hear music.
‘So even if you don’t like the trust arrangement now, keep your options open, Mrs W., keep it in the back of your mind because my guess is in the long run it’ll be the cheapest, most direct way. Of course the first thing there would be to establish ownership, right? You need your bill of sale or your deed of gift, otherwise the real beneficiary of the trust might turn out to be anyone who could establish prior ownership, prior to your possession through say loan or rental, they would of course be entitled to all monies accruing to their rightful property including any or all interest devolving upon it, from any trust or estate.’
‘See you’re still not too stuck on the idea, so just let me point out to you a few of the substantial tax benefits, such as depreciation under the Class Life Asset Depreciation Range System, assuming Roddy here was put into service after January I, 1971 which of course it was, I can see by just looking that this is an expensive piece of machinery that — No, okay, right, I’ll stop trying to sell you on that idea.’
The cars were all caked with dried mud, the people all looked squashed down and, for all the bustle, no one was smiling.
‘Well the easiest way to make Roddy a person in law is to just incorporate it — him, I mean — under the laws of maybe the Virgin Islands, that way no need to go into his antecedents not in the Virgin — but no, I see you’re thinking of going all out and trying to prove it in court, that Roddy is albeit artifactual — a ward of court? Sure but first there’s this really tricky — this unprecedented — it’s like this: we can argue that its, his inventors began with a living body person in law and that it then underwent extensive replacements. Only one precedent there, case of a knife without a blade which had no handle if you know what I mean.’
