I had sand in my shoes. I was hungry. I stepped through a tangle of crumpled paper, greasy cardboard plates, broken pop bottles. A small dog rushed up and nipped at my ankles, yapping hysterically.
“You see?” murmured the Professor. “Here are your normal people.”
“All right,” I said. “I don’t particularly care for them. But that doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t prove they’ll fall for a line of phony advice about their lives and futures.”
The wind sent a dirty newspaper flying against my leg. I bent down and pushed it away, glimpsing the red letters of the headline: SEX MANIAC SOUGHT IN HATCHET SLAYING.
“Perhaps this will help to make you understand,” Professor Hermann told me. We turned onto the midway again.
Fluorescence and incandescence blinded me. My lungs gulped in popcorn oil, lard, the reek of frying meat, the stink of decayed fruit, and a rancid stench composed of tobacco, sweat, cheap perfume and whiskey.
Banners swirled all around me—before me, behind me, on either side, overhead. CONGRESS OF FREAKS. FLEA CIRCUS. ARCADE. EATS. FUN HOUSE. LEARN YOUR FUTURE. THREE SHOTS FOR A DIME. PLAY THE WINNERS. MAN-EATERS. RED-HOTS. A dozen jukeboxes blared and boomed, a merry-go-round seethed; against this background rose the whirling, rattling, clanking and grinding of the Whip, the Dodger, the plane rides and the roller-coaster. The sharp crack of rifles echoed from the shooting gallery. Barkers shouted in command, and amplifying systems carried their exhortations, roars, and raucous bawls of invitation. From the rides overhead I heard screams, shrieks, wails, and high, hysterical laughter.
“Close your eyes,” said the Professor. “Don’t look at them. I won’t even ask you to look at them. Just listen. And what do you hear?”
I closed my eyes and stood there, jostled by the crowd.
The harsh music suggested bands, and the boom-boom beat was a marching tempo. I thought of war. Yes, war—with rifle-shots and shouted orders. Grinding machinery: tanks, planes and armored cars, artillery wheeling up for action. And over that, the screams. The screams of the wounded and the dying. The screams of the killers, boring for blood with their bayonets.
Then the Professor was whispering again. “Normal people,” he told me. “Normal world. They’re out for entertainment tonight. Forgetting their troubles. Having fun, as they call it.
“Having fun! Look at them! Paying money to be locked in cages and whirled through the air upside down. Bolting themselves into cars that lurch and sway until their stomachs turn inside out and the blood churns in their stupid brains. Standing up in roller-coasters and risking death to attract attention. That’s all it is, you know. The shouting, the laughing, the posturing and screaming—it’s a cry of ‘Look at me! Look how brave I am, how important! See what I’m doing, I’m having a good time!’ And watch them smash into each other with the cars when they can, watch the play of sadism and masochism that passes for amusement.
“This is an amusement park, my friend. People come here to find what they want out of life—entertainment. They put their pennies into the peepshow slots because they want to do so. They know they’re being swindled and they love it. They love the lies, the phoniness, the cheats. They know the freak shows are fakes. They know the spielers are conning them about stepping up and winning the electric clocks. They don’t believe in our friend seero the mystic, but they pay their money and go inside because they want to be fooled.
“It’s not a new concept. Your showman, Barnum, said it long ago—and it was known and spoken of in ancient Egypt. But it is a truth that survives, for the desire for self-delusion never dies.
“People long for escape. Some of them pay their pennies to find it here. Others are able and willing to pay fortunes for something a little more convincing. For the sort of escape we will give them. These are the ones we shall rule. The seekers.”
“Suckers,” I said.
“The seeker is always a sucker,” said Professor Hermann.
Six
I showed up at the Professor’s office the next morning. Somehow I’d never pictured him in a downtown office. But there was the sign on the door in neat, discreet lettering:
OTTO HERMANN, PH.D.
PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSULTANT
The waiting room was cool and dark, well-furnished without the flash of Larry Rickert’s fake modern layout. The receptionist’s desk stood right out in the open. Behind it sat a plump, middle-aged brunette wearing a loose white smock and a tight red smile. She smiled up at me and her words filtered through a thick accent.
“You would be Mr. Haines?”
“I would.”
“The Professor is expecting you. Please to enter.”
I pleased to enter. Bookcases lined the walls of the private office. There was a red leather couch in the corner and a row of filing cabinets beside it. The Professor sat in a chair at the side of his desk. He was wearing the same black suit, or a reasonable facsimile. When I entered, he reached for the intercom.
“Miss Bauer—I do not wish to be disturbed.”
He glanced at his watch. Then his gaze ricocheted to me.
“You are late.”
“Sorry. I overslept. Yesterday took a lot out of me, I guess.”
“You are rested now?”
I nodded.
“Good. Then we can proceed to business.” He opened a drawer of his desk and drew out a thick sheaf of legal-bond typing paper.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Your book, of course. The one you wrote.”
I stared at the title page and read:
Y - O - U
by
Judson Roberts
“Take it and read it,” he said. “Memorize it. After all, you’re Judson Roberts, you know.”
“I didn’t know.” I riffled the pages and sat back. “What’s it all about?”
“Did you ever read Dale Carnegie? Walter Pitkin? Stuart Chase? They’re all in here. And Doctor Frank Crane and Elbert Hubbard, too. Also Madame Blavatsky, Mrs. Eddy, and a little bit of Thorstein Veblen. And of course, Herr Freud and Jung, and Aldous Huxley and Philip Wylie and Ouspensky and Spengler. A little bit of everyone. But with revisions and improvements, of course.”
“Did you actually write it?”
“No. Rogers wrote it. You remember, the little man with the mustache, at the seance. He has talent, when controlled. I commissioned him to start the book a year ago, when I began to plan all this.”
“What’s the point?”
“Perfectly obvious. Now that I’ve found my Judson Roberts, the book will be published. I can arrange for printing and for distribution. Rogers can set up a direct-mail campaign and we will sell it ourselves. It’s good for ten, twenty years. A small, steady income—though that’s not important in itself. But a published book is needed to establish Judson Roberts as an authority. That is most desirable. By the way, I’ve already sent your name in for a course and a diploma.”
“Diploma?”
“You’re going to be a Doctor of Psychology, just as I am. There’s a correspondence school in the East. Fifty dollars gets you a degree, and no questions asked. What are you grinning about?”
“It just struck me funny. All of a sudden I’m a Doctor of Psychology and the author of a book.”
“There’s nothing funny about that. It’s window dressing. And speaking of window dressing—”
The Professor rose and surveyed me critically. “Watch your posture. Your shoulders aren’t squared, you have a tendency to slouch. And you slump when you sit in a chair. We’ll correct that. You’ll need a wardrobe, of course, but that will come later. Hold your head a trifle higher and emphasize your height. You gain a certain advantage when people have to look up to you during a conversation. You might experiment with a different hairstyle. Those sideburns are all right for a cheap salesman, but I want more dignity. But enough of that for now. We have other work to do.”