"That's who I am," Mishkin said. "Who are you?"
"I am a bill collector disguised as a tree," said the bill collector disguised as a tree.
"For Chrissakes," Mishkin said. "Did you follow me all the way to Harmonia?"
"Indeed, I did. It's rather a curious story. Mr Oppenheimer, head of the Ne Plus Ultra Collection Agency for which I work, got an inspiration while stoned on acid at his local Tai Chi Chuan class. It suddenly occurred to Oppenheimer that the essence of life lies in completions, and a man can only judge his life in reference to the thoroughness with which he has played his life role. Hitherto, Oppenheimer had been an easygoing fellow who followed the usual practice of collecting the easily collectable debts and making a few ominous noises on the difficult ones, but ultimately saying to hell with them. Then Oppenheimer achieved his satori. To hell with mediocrity, he decided, if I'm head of a bill-collecting agency, then I'm going to make an ethic and a goal out of bill collecting.
The world may very well never understand me; but perhaps future generations will be able to judge the terrible purity of my motives.
"And so Oppenheimer embarked upon the poignant and quixotic course that will probably bankrupt him within a year. He called all of us collectors into the Ready Room.
"Gentlemen," he said, "this time we're going to get it all together. To hell with half measures! Our goal now is 100 per cent enforceability, and let the paranoia fall where it may. Go after those debts be they one dollar or a million. Go to San Sebastian or Samoa or Sambal V, if need be, and don't worry about the costs. We're following a principle now, and principles are always impractical. Boys, we're overthrowing the reality principle. So get out there and collect all of those debts and groove on completions."
"His speech is definitely late 1960s," said the robot. "Whereas this is the year 2138, or thereabouts. Somebody is conning somebody."
"Fuck off," snarled the author.
"That was the call to arms," the bill collector disguised as a tree said. "And that is why I am in Harmonia, Mr Mishkin. I have come here, as the result of one man's vision, to collect your debts regardless of time, trouble, and expense."
"I still can't believe this," Mishkin said.
"And, yet, there it is. I have a consolidation statement here for everything, Mr Mishkin.
Would you care to pay without fuss, or do you want me to get nasty?"
"What debts are you talking about?" Mishkin asked.
"To begin with, there is the matter of your back taxes, Federal, State, and City. Didn't quite get around to paying them last year, did you, Mr Mishkin?"
"It was a tough year."
"You owe eight thousand seven hundred and fifty-three dollars and fifty-one cents to your Uncle Sammy. Then there is the matter of child support. Sorta passed up on that for a year or so, didn't you, Mishkin? Well, it's a neat four-figure bundle that you owe to poor, abandoned Marcia and little Zelda. Marcia has a new boyfriend, by the way, and little Zelda just flunked out of the Little Red School House. Marcia asked me to tell you that she is well, having the best time of her life, and wants every cent you owe her, right now, or she'll have you into The Tombs so fast it'll make your teeth spin. She adds that, through psychoanalysis, she finally has the ego strength to tell you that you were always a lousy lay and that everybody breaks up when she relates how diffidently you tried to pursue perversions."
"That sounds like Marcia," Mishkin said.
"Next, you owe Marty Bargenfield a thousand dollars. He's your best friend, in case you don't remember. Or he was. I mean, he still feels the same, but you've unaccountably cooled off. One might even say that you are avoiding him. Yet, his only crime was to loan you money in a moment of need when you were breaking up with Marcia and had to buy an abortion for Monique."
"How is Monique?" Mishkin asked.
"She's doing very nicely without you. She is back in Paris, working as a salesgirl in Galeries Lafayette. She still treasures the eighty-cent string of wooden beads that was your only present to her during a tumultuous four-month romance that you have described as "the most moving of my life"."
"I was broke," Mishkin said. "And, anyhow, she always said she hated gifts."
"But you knew better, hey, Mishkie? Never mind, I am not standing in judgement over you. The fact that your conduct, judged by any system of ethics you care to name, makes me want to puke is entirely a personal matter with me and need not concern you at all. Now we come to the Bauhaus Drugstore, at 31 Barrow Street, run by fat, friendly Charlie Ducks, who sold you Dexamyl spansules, Dexadrine tablets, Librium, Carbitol, Nembutal, Seconal, Doriden, and so on, in astonishing quantities during your drug years, all of them on the basis of one non-refillable prescription for phenobarbital — who continued to do so until two years ago when the heat got too hot and he went back to selling Excedrin and lipsticks, and whom you ripped off for one hundred and eighty-six dollars."
"He cleaned up on me," Mishkin said. "He charged me double for everything."
"You always knew that. Did you ever complain about it?"
"Anyhow, I'm going to pay him as soon as I have some money."
"But there's never enough money for last year's drugs, eh, Mish? We've all been down that road, baby; but it is loathsome, isn't it?"
"I can explain everything," Mishkin said. "I have a statement that I would like to read into the record. The facts are capable of various interpretations. I only need a moment to pull my self together."
The robot extruded an axe from his left hand. He stepped forward and briskly chopped down the bill collector, who perished miserably.
"But I was just about to explain," Mishkin said.
"Never explain anything," the robot told him. "Avoid bummers. Don't go on other people's trips."
"What is my trip?" Mishkin asked.
"That would be telling," said the robot.
31. Using Phenomena for Fun
Enjoy a visit to the phenomenal world!
Have a human experience — the most fascinating of all experiences.
Now you, too, can experience carnal love, unjustified rage, bad faith. You, too, can know boredom, ennui, angst, accidie.
Thrill to the experience of your «life» slowly draining away! Feel the inevitable «death», which you «know» to be a plunge into pure "nothingness".
Live a life of contradictions! Have a wife and lust for other women; possess them and never know satisfaction.
Have children — and feel anxiety, love, hate.
Learn how to be concerned about possessions! Worry about your job; identify yourself with what you own.
Feel cowardice!
Derange your senses with drugs!
Live the waking sleep of mortality, lit with uneasy flashes of "something else".
Experience the poignancy of wanting a "better life", and striving for it, and never achieving it.
Be swayed by external and internal stimuli. Be a passive receptor who is acted upon by forces beyond his control.
Have convictions, beliefs, likes and dislikes — for no rational reason!
Feel the intoxication of faith! Thrill to the passion of religion! Apply now!
No Angels under the age of 20,000 years will be allowed into the phenomenal world without written permission from God.
32
"Don't take any more of that dream medicine," the Life Systems Total Support Mechanism told Mishkin. "Use me, instead. I am good, useful, beautiful, docile. And you never have to worry about my breaking down and ceasing to function."