“When you’re Alone in the World—” I sighed. “Frankly, Mr. Walker, I feel the Party might give me a Sense of Purpose of my own.” I told him the world was dangerously drifting. Internationalist delusions. Losing touch with the Eternal Verities. Skepticism rampant. Speaking as a skeptic myself, wonder if it could ramp? Think maybe it could.
“Yes indeed,” said Mr. Walker kindly, and pumped me for autobiography. I let it be dragged out that I was from Maine widower, no children. Used to be a Republican of course. Not now, by God. They were Reactionary: didn’t understand the inevitability of taking steps in Asia. No Sense of Purpose. I was good and cross about the Republicans.
“They’re on the way out,” Walker quoted. “Don’t give ’em a thought. Have you wondered why we call it the Organic Unity Party?” He didn’t wait to hear. “Here’s something confidential, Mr. Meisel. You notice the word ‘unity’ has one inconvenience. Can’t call ourselves Unionists or Unitarians — heh-heh. Nor Organists for that matter. The word, Mr. Meisel, is Organite. Something the Leader gave us only a few days ago, so it isn’t in the literature yet, but I’m sure you get the point. Soon it will be on everyone’s tongue. On the tongues of our enemies too, who will make fun of it.” He pointed ten manicured fingers at me. “Let them! We profit by that too.” That was the only moment when true masochistic fanaticism peeked from behind the mask of this soft athlete. “Now! Why Organic? Because it’s the only word that expresses the Nature of Society and the Basic Needs of Man! Society is a Unitary Organism. Now! What must any unitary organism have? Simple, isn’t it? Means of locomotion. Means of satisfying hunger, of reproducing. Sense organs. Certainly a unitary nervous system. Now! What, for instance, is Society’s means of satisfying hunger?” Under his busy hands, his desk leaked pamphlets and throwaways till my pockets were full.
“Agriculture and its workers,” I said, having seen some of the pamphlets and memorized the patter for these ideas, ideas so old and stale that human beings had begun to be hypnotized or repelled by them at least five thousand years ago.
“And what is the nervous system of Society?”
“Well naow, that right there, that bothers me some, frankly. Everybody wants to be part of the nervous system, seems as though.”
“No, friend, there you’re wrong — you don’t mind my saying it? Not everybody. The man in the street, Mr. Meisel, wants to be ruled. Don’t forget, Democracy must be defined as the greatest good for the greatest number. Ask yourself, sir, how many people know what’s good for ’em? The man in the street, Mr. Meisel, is in need of Enlightened Re-education. He must find, understand, and accept his appropriate place in the Organism. Or accept without understanding, sometimes. Now! Who’s to tell him? Who can, except an elite body of the well informed, the natural rulers, in other words the nervous system of Society?”
I attempted to look as if I’d just thought of something bright and shiny. “Seems as though that’s where the Organic Unity Party might come in.” I had let the cigar go out, so that the forty-eight dollar nude could flip her lid again. I puffed, looking so pleased with myself that I am still queasy at the memory. Walker was pleased too. Nor was I mistaken about the glimmer of contempt I saw in him, swiftly hidden as a weasel peeping over a rock pile.
“You put it very well, Mr. Meisel.”
“Doesn’t the Forward Labor Party have kind of a similar idear?”
That may have been a slip, a question slightly too intelligent for Old Man Meisel. Walker grew more watchful. He said quietly: “They have several good ideas. Better understanding of Society than the old parties. They see, same as we do, where the greatest danger is.”
I tightened my tough old Martian neck, to make a flush appear in my well-made cheeks. “I guess you mean those damn Federalists?”
It was the right noise. I think he was reassured. He said, still softly: “Worst traitors to America since the Civil War. Yes, of course…. Have you had any connection with Forward Labor, Mr. Meisel?”
“Oh no.” So far as I can tell, Drozma, he was reassured.
He made up his mind. “Like you to have a talk with Keller.
Wonderful guy, you’ll like him. If you have any doubts about what we’re doing, what we stand for, he can clear them up better than me.” Studying me sidelong as if I were a work of art, he boomed into the telephone: “Bill? How’s it?” My throat was cold. This was what I came for. Bill Keller. Billy Kell…. I strained my wicked Martian hearing, but the voice at the other end was only a wiry squeak. “Uh-huh, Bill…. Like you to meet him when you get a bit of time.” Code, I guessed, for “allow time to check on the sucker.” Presently Walker covered the mouthpiece to ask me affectionately: “Going to be free this afternoon, latish?” I was free.
He was easing me to the door. He didn’t put an arm over my shoulder because I am three inches taller; he did everything else to make me feel like the Grand Old Man of the Kennebec. “Confidentially, Bill Keller is very high up. Don’t misunderstand — just as democratic as you and me. But you see, a Leader like Joe Max, all his responsibilities, worries, he can’t give as much time to everyone as he’d like. Has to rely on a chosen few.” Walker showed me crossed fingers. “Bill Keller is right up There!” He patted my back. Old Man Meisel marched out, squaring his shoulders with a Sense of Purpose.
I didn’t think they had anyone tailing me; didn’t care much. They had my address and could smell around if they chose. I wandered all morning. Had lunch I forget where and wound up at Central Park Zoo. That March day was like a little girl fresh out of her bath, cool, sweet, ready for mischief. I could respond to it now. We’re almost human, Drozma: if you can’t find the one you love maybe an enemy is the next best.
The bears were restless with spring. An old cinnamon patrolled the front of his enclosure in neurotic pacing, ten steps left, swing of the head, ten right, talking dolorously to himself. The only other watcher at the moment was a brown-faced boy who acknowledged my presence after a while with a bothered inquiry: “What he moaning about?”
“Doesn’t like being in a cage, specially this time of year.”
“Would you turn him loose, mister? If you could?”
“No — too fond of my own skin.”
“Bet he’d chaw us plenty. Wouldn’t he?”
“Uh-huh. Couldn’t blame him.”
“Naw?”
“It was people like us who put him in there.”
“Yeah. Gee!” He strolled off, frowning at it.
It was past four when I returned to the Organic Unity offices. The lounge was crowded. Walker was busy. I sat for a quarter hour watching the coming and going of Organites. Sad, strained, introverted faces, many of them; others had the power-hungry look. Several were shabby, several prosperous. Only one clear common denominator: they all wanted something. And between a little chap with a placating smirk who probably sought a job sealing envelopes, and a lean paranoid with some brand-new design for the universe, I couldn’t find a great deal to choose.
Walker at last escorted me down complex lanes between desks to an office in the rear. Big. They measure rank as Mussolini did, by the amount of carpet between door and desk. When that door opened…
Drozma, the Martian scent was thick enough to slice.
Yet I would have known him without it, that heavy figure looming like Il Duce. He had altered his face only in the direction of maturity. Thicker cheeks; a practiced, half-genial scowl. He waited impressively before rising to greet us. An underling certainly — there’s no doubt in my mind that the grimly human Joseph Max is the fount of authority — nevertheless William Keller was bloated with power and loving it.