interesting linguistic phenomenon.
At first Ulric had been taken in by Brad’s homespun talk, too, even though it didn’t seem to match his sophisticated abilities on the computer. Then one day he had gotten up early and caught Brad working on a program called Project Sally.
“I’m gonna be the president of Mowen Chemical in two shakes of a sheep’s tail,” Brad had said. “This little dingclinker is my master plan. What do you think of it?”
What Ulric thought of it could not he expressed in words. It outlined a plan for getting close to Sally Mowen and impressing her father based almost entirely on the seduction and abandonment of young women in key positions at Mowen Chemical. Three-quarters of the way down he had seen Lynn’s name.
“What if Mr. Mowen gets hold of this program?” Ulric had said finally.
“Not a look-in chance that that’d happen. I got this program locked up tighter than a hog’s eye. And if anybody else tried to copy it, they’d be sorrier than a coon romancin’ a polecat.”
Since then Ulric had put in six requests for an apartment, all of which had been turned down “due to restrictive areal housing availability” which Ulric supposed meant there weren’t any empty apartments in Chugwater. All of the turndowns were initialed by Mr. Mowen’s secretary, and there were moments when Ulric thought that Mr. Mowen knew about Project Sally after all and had hired Ulric to keep Brad away from his daughter.
“According to my program, it’s time to go to work on Sally,” Brad said now “Tomorrow at this press conference. I’m enough of a rumbustigator with this waste emissions project to dazzlefy Old Man Mowen. Sally’s going to be there. I got my fiancee Gail in publicity to invite her.”
“I’m going to be there, too,” Ulric said belligerently
“Now, that’s right lucky,” Brad said. “You can do a little honeyfuggling for me. Work on old Sally while I give Pappy Mowen the glad hand. Do you know what she looks like?”
“I have no intention of honeyfuggling Sally Mowen for you,” Ulric said, and wondered again where Brad managed to pick up all these slang expressions. He had caught Brad watching Judy Canova movies on TV a couple of times, but some of these words weren’t even in Menoken. He probably had a computer program that generated them. “In fact, I intend to tell her you’re engaged to more than one person already.”
“Boy, you’re sure wadgetty,” Brad said. “And you know why? Because you don’t have a gal of your own. Tell you what, you pick out one of mine, and I’ll give her to you. How about Sue?”
Ulric walked over to the window. “I don’t want her,” he said.
“I bet you don’t even know which one she is,” Brad said.
I don’t, Ulric thought. They all sound exactly alike. They use interface as a verb and support as an adjective. One of them had called for Brad and when Ulric told her he was over at Research, she had said, “Sorry. My wetware’s nonfunctional this morning.” Ulric felt as if he were living in a foreign country.
“What difference does it make?” Ulric said angrily. “Not one of them speaks English, which is probably why they’re all dumb enough to think they’re engaged to you.”
“How about if I get you a gal who speaks English and you honeyfuggle Sally Mowen for me?” Brad said. He turned to the terminal and began typing furiously “What exactly do you want?”
Ulric clenched his fists and looked out the window. The dead cottonwood under the window had a kite or something caught in its branches. He debated climbing down the tree and walking over to Mr. Mowen’s office to demand an apartment.
“Makes no never mind,” Brad said when he didn’t answer. “I’ve heard you oratin’ often enough on the subject.” He typed a minute more and hit the print button. “There,” he said.
Ulric turned around.
Brad read from the monitor, “‘Wanted: Young woman who can generate enthusiasm for the Queen’s English, needs to use correct grammar and syntax, no gobbledy-gook, no slang, respect for the language. Signed, Ulric Henry.’ What do you think of that? It’s the spittin’ image of the way you talk.”
“I can find my own ‘gals,’” Ulric said. He yanked the sheet of paper as it was still coming out of the printer, ripping over half the sheet in a long ragged diagonal. Now it read, Wanted: Young woman who can generate language. Ulric H.”
“I’ll swop you horses,” Brad said. “If this don’t rope you in a nice little filly, I’ll give you Lynn when she gets back. It’ll cheer her up, after getting her name taken off the project and all. What do you think of that?”
Ulric put the scrap of paper down carefully on the table, trying to resist the impulse to wad it up and cram it down Brad’s throat. He slammed the window up. There was a sudden burst of chilly wind, and the paper on the table balanced uneasily and then drifted onto the windowsill.
“What if Lynn misses her plane in Cheyenne?” Ulric said. “What if she comes back here and runs into one of your other fiancees?”
“No chance on the map,” Brad said cheerfully “I got me a program for that, too.” He tore the rest of the paper out of the printer and wadded it up. “Two of my fiancees come callin’ at the same time, they have to come up in the elevators, and there’s only two of them. They work on the same signals, so I made me up a program that stops the elevators between floors if my security code gets read in more than once in an hour. It makes an override beep go off on my terminal, too, so’s I can soft-shoe the first gal down the back stairs.” He stood up. “I gotta go over to Research and check on the waste emissions project again. You better find yourself a gal right quick. You’re givin’ me the flit-flats with all this unfriendly talk.”
He grabbed his coat off the back of the chair and went out. He slammed the door, perhaps because he had the flit-flats, and the resultant breeze hit the scrap of paper on the windowsill and sailed it neatly out the window.
“Flit-flats,” Ulric mumbled to himself, and tried to call Mowen’s office. The line was busy.
Sally Mowen called her father as soon as she got home. “Hi, Janice,” she said. “Is Dad there?”
“He just left,” Janice said. “But I have a feeling he might stop by Research. He’s worried about the new stratospheric waste emissions project.”
“I’ll walk over and meet him.”
“Your father said to tell you there’s a press conference tomorrow at eleven. Are you at your terminal?”
“Yes,” Sally said, and flicked the power on.
“I’ll send the press releases for you so you’ll know what’s going on.”
Sally was going to say that she had already received an invitation to the press conference and the accompanying PR material from someone named Gail, but changed her mind when she saw what was being printed out on the printer. “You didn’t send me the press releases,” she said. “You sent me a bio on somebody named Ulric Henry. Who’s he?”
“I did?” Janice said, sounding flustered. “I’ll try it again.”
Sally held up the tail of the printout sheet as it came rolling out of the computer. “Now I’ve got a picture of him.” The picture showed a dark-haired young man with an expression somewhere between dismay and displeasure. I’ll bet someone just told him she thought they could have a viable relationship, Sally thought. “Who is he?”
Janice sighed, a quick, flustered kind of sigh. “I didn’t mean to send that to you. He’s the company linguist. I think your father invited him to the press conference to write press releases.”
I thought the press releases were already done and you were sending them to me, Sally thought, but she said, “When did my father hire a linguist?”
“Last summer,” Janice said, sounding even more flustered. “How’s school?”
“Fine,” Sally said. “And no, I’m not getting married. I’m not even having a viable relationship, whatever that is.”
“Your mother called today. She’s in Cheyenne at a NOW rally,” Janice said, which sounded like a non sequitur, but wasn’t. With a mother like Sally’s, it was no wonder her father worried himself sick over who Sally might marry. Sometimes Sally worried, too. Viable relationship.
“How did Charlotte sound?” Sally said. “No, wait. I already know. Look, don’t worry about the press conference stuff. I already know all about it. Gail somebody in publicity sent me an invitation. That’s why I came home for Thanksgiving a day early.”
“She did?” Janice said. “Your father didn’t mention it. He probably forgot. He’s been a little worried about this
