The Complete Roderick

‘I was just wondering if my whole life would flash before me,’ Roderick muttered. ‘I mean my whole life. Because if it did, there’d have to be a moment when I relived the present moment, wouldn’t there? When I started reliving my whole life again? And in that life I’d get to the same moment, and start reliving—’

‘Just shut up, will you?’ said the marigolds. ‘Why make this any tougher than it is? Just relax.’

‘Relax?’ Dr De’Ath chortled. ‘I’ve got a migraine now, on top of everything else, this yahoo wants me to relax.’

‘All set,’ the tartan called out.

Dr De’Ath said, ‘Look Rod, how about you going first? See I’d like to try a little gargle first — oh I know it sounds silly, but I really hate to die without at least trying to clear up this sore throat of mine — okay?’

‘Okay.’ Roderick stepped forward and turned to face the lights. Someone slipped a noose over his head. He saw a pillowcase printed with sea-horses, read the tag on its hem: hand-hot wash, drip-dry, do not spin. Will this be my last memory? No, better to try thinking of something interesting, how about the paradox of the unexpected hanging?

A judge tells a man he’ll be hanged one day next week, but not on any day he’s expecting it. The man reasons that he cannot be hanged on the Saturday, since he’d certainly expect it if he survived the other six days. So the hanging had to happen between Sunday and Friday. But then it couldn’t be Friday, either, by the same reasoning. That left Sunday till Thursday, only in that case Thursday too was out. And so on, until he eliminated every day but Sunday. So he expected to be hanged on Sunday. So he couldn’t be hanged on Sunday. So he couldn’t be hanged at all!

Roderick felt pain in his neck as he was hoisted aloft. Looking down, he could see the whole miserable little crowd of pillow-heads, the parked cars beyond them, and further. There was Ma, lurking in the background and biting his nails. There was the limousine that had been parked up at the factory, now it was stopping in a shadow while the chauffeur got out and — what was he doing — taking pictures.

The pain got sharper, and Roderick thought he heard a rivet shearing in his neck. Better finish:

…couldn’t be hanged at all! So the man thought, being perfectly logical. So he wasn’t expecting it the day they hanged him…

‘Jus’ one more picture, boss?’ said the chauffeur. ‘Cause I know the kids would love to see—’

‘Get back in the car. Now!’ Ben Franklin pushed the snoring weight of Mr Kratt off his shoulder and leaned forward. ‘If you don’t get back behind that wheel right now, I’ll have you fired.’

The chauffeur shrugged, folded his camera and climbed in. ‘’Kay, take it easy. Maybe you seen a lot of lynchin’s, I ain’t.’

Ben looked at the sleeping figure. It had stopped snoring and was now muttering, ‘Pleassssure. Pleassssure.’

‘Just start the car and drive.’

‘You crazy? Through that buncha—’

‘Then turn around and drive the other way, let’s just get out of here.’

‘Yeah but like I said we can’t go nowhere this way, like I said when we come off at the wrong exit — didn’t I tell you it was the wrong exit? — all we can do now is stay on this here highway 811 until we hit the old Interstate and then cut back—’

‘All right, just — just a minute, let me think.’

‘Some thinker,’ said the chauffeur, lighting a hand-rolled cigarette. ‘Look buddy we’re stuck here, why doncha just sit back and watch the show?’

‘Show? Is that all it is to you, a show? You don’t care do you, people committing murder — like that? It’s just something on TV, that it?’

‘Look, no offence, manner of speakin’, okay? Okay? I’m entitled to my opinion too, you know, it’s a free fuckin’ country.’

‘All right, all—’

‘Just because I work for a livin’ don’t mean I’m shit, okay?’

‘All right!’

‘Okay, just wanted to get that straight.’ The chauffeur twitched his shoulders, shrugging off any yoke of oppression Ben might care to impose, and sat forward: a free man in a free country, watching a free show.

Ben reached for the phone, hesitated, gnawed his knuckles for a while, and finally tried waking Mr Kratt.

‘Wha? Whoza?’

‘There’s a lynching going on, sir. Right over there. Shouldn’t we — call the highway patrol?’

‘Outa your head, bub. Word gets out I’m nosing around down here we’ll have every yak-head in the State tryina buy in on this land deal. Jesus, might as well take a full-page ad in the paper, announce a gold rush — use your head, for Christ’s—’ and he was asleep again.

Ben looked away from the execution into darkness. Toys. A show. Revenge of the common man upon the common object, wasn’t that it? Because it wouldn’t do, it had never done, to think of the object of their cruelty as fully human. So the effigy created by Albertus Magnus (smashed down by Aquinas) turns up as Friar Bacon’s talking head (to be smashed by a servant) and again as the automaton of Descartes (‘ma fille Francine’, flung into the sea by yet another fearful soul) even while dummies of Guido Fawkes began to burn in the streets of London for the pleasure of children. Common children, always more ready than even their parents to punish the presumption of a servant.

Well yes, he might work that up into an article, why not? The Common Man and His Image? ‘Fascination with clockwork in the 17th cent. coincides with idea of commonwealth, all part of same big movement,’ he wrote, turning the notebook to the light. ‘Clock explained all, from Newton’s heaven to Malynes’s laws of economics — Huygens creating clockwork artisans for the King of France even while (after?) Mechanic Philosophers promoted a new democratic religion among the living artisans. Groups naming themselves by function — Quakers, Shakers, Ranters, Diggers, Levellers — as though describing their work within the great timepiece.’ What was the point of all this? What was it?

‘Christ, said the chauffeur. ‘Christ! Looka that.’

‘Shut up, will you?’

‘Who you tellin’ to shut up, listen fuckhead, I—’

‘Sorry. Sorry.’ Revolution, that was the point. ‘Jacquard loom working a genuine revolution behind the scenes — Mme DeF. — In 1791 (?) Godwin wrote: “A servant who –“’ What was the quote? While he waited for it, the chauffeur said:

‘Hey look, uh, Mr Frankelin, I think we got trouble with the right rear tyre, hey?’ ‘What?’

‘Right rear tyre, I think it’s down. Your side, you mind gettin’ out and look at it?’

Still frowning at the notebook he climbed out.

‘Have a nice night, Mr Frankelin.’

‘What? Oh — hey what—?’

And he hardly heard the screams (‘God! His head come off!’) so intent was he suddenly on the sound of the automatic door-closer, the click of the automatic lock, the sight of the chauffeur giving him the finger as the limousine glided away into the night.

XXV

Yet the old myth dies hard. We are still tempted to argue that if the clown’s antics exhibit carefulness, judgement, wit, and appreciation of the moods of his spectators, there must be occurring in the clown’s head a counterpart performance to that which is taking place on the sawdust. If he is thinking what he is doing, there must be occurring behind his painted face a cognitive shadow-operation which we do not witness, tallying with, and controlling, the bodily contortions which we do witness.