That apparently had just been for exercise, or for practice, for once that was done, the last page I had written of my novel appeared on the screen, and then the words began to proceed without me.
The word processor had clearly learned to write my stuff, just as I would have written it, only better.
Great! No more work. The word processor wrote it under my name and wrote with my style, given a certain amount of improvement. I could just let it go, pick up the surprised reviews from my critics telling the world how I had improved, and watch the royalties pour in.
That’s all right as far as it goes, but I’m not America’s most prolific writer for no reason. I happen to love to write. That happens to be all that I want to do.
Now if my word processor does my writing, what do I do with the rest of my life?
Kid Brother
It was a great shock to me when our application for a second child was refused. We had really expected to get the license.
I’m a respectable citizen; pillar of the community; all that kind of stuff. I was a little old, maybe.
Josie-my wife-may have been past her best childbearing years. So what? We know other people worse off than us, older, trashy in character, who-Well, never mind.
We had one son, Charlie, and we really wanted another child. Boy or girl, it didn’t matter. Of course, if there was something wrong with Charlie, if he developed some illness, maybe then we could license a second child. Or maybe not. And if we did get the license, they would probably take care of Charlie as a defective. You know what I mean; I don’t have to say it.
The trouble was we were late getting started, and that was Josie’s fault. She had irregular periods and you never knew when to get her, if you know what I mean. And we couldn’t get any medical help, either. How could we? The clinics said if we couldn’t have children without help, that was great for the world. It’s patriotic, or something, to be childless.
But we fooled them and had a child after all. Charlie.
When Charlie was eight months old, we started applying for a second child. We wanted them pretty close in age. Was that so much to ask? Even if we were getting a little old for it? What kind of a world do we live in, anyway. No matter how much the population drops, they say it has to drop further, and if life gets easier and people live longer, it has to drop still further.
They won’t be satisfied till they wipe out humanity alto-
Well, look! I’ll tell this just the way I want to. If you want the story, officer, you’ll have to take it my way. What can you do to me? I really don’t much care if I live or die. Would you in my position?
— Look, it’s no use arguing. I’ll tell it my way, or I’ll shut up and you can do your worst. You understand?
— Well then, okay.
As it turned out, we didn’t have to worry about Charlie being sickly, or anything like that. He grew like a bear, or one of those other animals that used to hang around in the woods and places like that in the old days. He came of good stock. You could see that. So why couldn’t we have had another child?
That’s what I want to know.
Intelligent? You bet. Strong. Knew what he wanted. Ideal boy. When I think of it, I could-I could-Oh, well.
You should have seen him with the other kids as he was growing up. A natural leader. Always had his way. Always had the other children in the neighborhood doing what he wanted. He knew what he wanted and what he wanted was always right. That was the thing.
Josie didn’t like it, though. She said he was spoiled. In fact, she said I spoiled him. I don’t know what she was talking about. I was the making of him.
He was two years ahead of his age in strength and in brains. I could see that. And if the other children got out of line, sometimes he would have to show them who was boss.
Josie thought he was getting to be a bully. She said he had no friends; all the children were afraid of him.
So what! A leader doesn’t want friends. He wants people to respect him, and if they get out of line, they better fear him. Charlie was coming along all right. Sure, the other children stayed away mostly. That was their parents’ fault; and they’re just a bunch of milksops. Once they get one child, and know they won’t have any more, they start hovering over him or her like they were the family jewels, and rare jewels, too. You smother them if you do that. They become useless-worthless.
There was this guy Stevenson down the block. He had two girls, both pitiful things, giggling and empty-headed. How did he come to get two, I ask you? He knew somebody, maybe. A little money passed from hand to hand. Why not, he’s got more money than he admits, too. Naturally. That accounts for it.
You’d think with two, he could afford to risk one, but no-
— That’s all right. I’ll get to the point, when I get to the point. If you push, you’ll get nothing and we’ll let it go straight to the court. See if I care.
These other parents, they didn’t want their babies hurt. Don’t play with the Janowitz boy, they would say. I never heard them say so but I’m sure that’s what they said. Well, who needed them? I was planning for Charlie to go to college eventually, so he could take courses in microelectronics or in spatial dynamics, or that kind of stuff. And economics and business, too, so he would know how to get money and power out of his know-how. That’s the way I saw it. I wanted him on top of the heap.
But Josie kept talking about Charlie not having friends and Charlie growing up alone, and like that. All the time. It was like living in an echo chamber. And then, one day, she came to me and said, “Why don’t we get Charlie a kid brother?”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “You’re past menopause so what do we do? Call in the stork? Look under cabbage leaves?”
I could have divorced her, you know. Married a young chick. After all, I wasn’t past menopause. But I was-loyal. Fat lot of good that did me. Besides, if I had divorced her, she would mostly have kept
Charlie, so what good would that have done me?
So I just made that comment about the stork.
She said, “I’m not talking about a biological child. I’m saying we can get a robot to be Charlie’s brother.”
I never expected to hear anything like that, you can bet. I’m not a robot-type guy. My parents never had one. I never had one. As far as I’m concerned, every robot means one less human, and we’re just watching the world being turned over to them. Just one more way of wiping out humanity, if you ask me.
So I said to Josie, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Really,” said Josie, all very earnest. “It’s a new model. It’s just designed to be friendly and pals for children. Nothing fancy, so they aren’t expensive, and they do fill a need. With more and more people having only one child, there is a real value in supplying that one child with siblings.”
“That may be true of other children. Not Charlie,” I said.
“Yes, Charlie, especially. He’s never going to find out how to deal with people this way. He’s growing up alone, really alone. He won’t come to understand the give and take of life.”
“He’s not going to give. He’s a taker. He’ll take power and he’ll take position, and he’ll tell people what to do. And he’ll have children of his own and maybe even three.”
You may be too young to feel this yet, officer, but if you have only one child, you’ll eventually discover you’ll still have a chance at another one when your child has a child. I had high hopes for Charlie. Before I died, I was sure I would see another child, maybe even two or three. They might be Charlie’s but as far as our lives would overlap, I was going to make them mine, too.
But all Josie could think about was a robot. Life became another kind of echo chamber. She priced them out. She figured out the down payment. She looked into the possibility of renting one for a year on a kind of approval. She was willing to use her own nest egg that her folks had left her to pay for it, and things like that. And you know how it is, in the end you have to keep peace in the family.