Except his old body. That was out at Cliff’s junkyard with all the dead cars and rusty washing-machines. The first warm day he’d walked out and looked at it, thinking That was me, was it? Or was it? Looking into the empty eye-holes until Cliff hobbled out of his trailer to say Get lost, beat it.
‘Stop fidgeting.’
‘Yes, Father.’ He stared out of the window at an apple tree, just now looking like a still picture of a snowstorm. Father Warren sitting there waiting for him to say something, heck all he could think of was how things wear out, break down and get thrown away — people too. Pa going out in that snowstorm just to get him a lousy arm or something…
‘Well, Roderick? Do you agree with me when I say, “Man is made to serve only God, but the robot is made to serve only man”?’
‘At mass you serve God up on a plate, does that mea—’
‘DON’T try to be facetious. Either you agree or you don’t, that’s logic.’
‘It sure is, Father, only…’
‘Only what? Only what?’ The hands made an agitated gesture, and Roderick noticed that one wore a small bandaid.
‘Only didn’t they used to say the same thing about women, how they were made to serve men as men sewed God?’
‘Think we’re getting off the subject here –
‘No but I mean heck they don’t say it much any more. See, Father, I just wanted to know if this saying is true or just… just a saying. Like maybe in a few years we could have Robots’ Liberation or anyway robots could say “Why should we do all the work, running around waiting on people?” And maybe this saying won’t seem so true, Father?’
The priest sighed. ‘Look, this is very simple. Women have free will. Robots don’t — by definition. So there’s no—’
‘Yeah but anyway, Father, you said Made to Serve, does that mean a robot’s real purpose like, or just what the guy who made it thinks? Because there’s a difference, see, Pa says. Pa says there was this guy No Bell invented dynamite and he thought it would stop wars, that’s what he made it for only the real purpose—’
‘Off the subject again, Roderick. What’s all this about Women’s Lib and dynamite, Roderick? Try. Try to be logical.’
‘Yeah, Father, but robots, heck, who knows why they’re made, why we’re made, could be anything. Could be even the people that make them don’t know why, maybe they’re lonely. Maybe they just get tired of being boss over everything, maybe they just want to be — extinck.’
‘What? What are you—?’
‘And the only way is to make up somebody better, to take over? Huh, Father?’
Dr Jane Hannah picked up peanuts one at a time, whispered to each one and popped it into her mouth.
Lyle Tate put down his brush. ‘Jesus I wish you’d stop that! How can I work with that… it’s like having somebody saying a rosary all the time, I can’t… Jesus can’t you talk or something?’
‘What about? You and your head?’
‘Someone mention me?’ Allbright called from the far end of the loft.
‘Jesus!’ said Lyle, putting down his brush again. ‘What are you doing here? Look Allbright I haven’t got any money, I—’
‘Take it easy, I’m okay. Look.’ And when he came close enough for the cold North light to reach his face and clothes, they saw that he’d changed. The beard and hair were trimmed, the face unexpectedly clean, the lapels of his new suit bore expensive stitching. Even Dr Hannah sat up and stared.
‘What happened,’ she said, ‘to the winter garment of repentance? And where the hell have you been this last month?’
‘Selling a poem,’ he said, tweaking the knees of his trousers as he sat down. ‘In a way.’
‘Selling a poem my ass.’ Lyle turned away and went back to work on the head.
‘That too. Well you know how I was, just after ex-mas? Thought I’d hit bottom there — you know, when I put my head in the ov—’
‘You phoney son of a bitch, suppose you didn’t know it was a fridge, every move calculated, every—’
‘Yeah okay I’m a sonofabitch, fine. Only how was I supposed to know goddamn Rogers and his ultra-modern kitchen, okay don’t believe me. But I tell you, I first I tried to get into his freezer, you know? Thought I’d just go to suleep as they say, only it was all full of pork, legs of—’
‘So what happened?’ Hannah asked. ‘Hospital?’
‘Yup, and what do you know, they cured me. All these goddamn lugubrious head-shrinkers got busy and — shrank my head! Now I’m a hell of a nice little guy, no more bad habits.’
‘That’s a relief,’ said Lyle. ‘If it’s true.’ He began mixing a blue, dabbing it on his wrist.
‘See it all came to me one day, as they say. You know how I used to go around quoting Burroughs, how the C-charged brain was like a pinball machine… what are you doing? Looks like, what is that woad you got there? Old Hannah converted you to some—’
‘He’s trying to match his veins,’ she said. ‘What about your Edgar Burroughs machine?’
‘Eh? Not Edgar, Bill. As in billing machine. See, his grandfather was it, invented the adding — anyway listen, it all came to me, junkies are just machines. Garbage in, garbage out, that’s what they say in the trade. Junk in, junk out.’
Lyle paused again. ‘You know, I think I liked you better when were — better before.’
Allbright unexpectedly laughed. The others exchanged a look.
‘No but listen, junkies really are machines. So I wrote a little poem about it. Now listen to this last line: “Addiction is only addition. Plus C”’
Hannah looked embarrassed. Lyle fought back a sudden impulse to be tactful. ‘Jesus, Allbright, that’s terrible.’
‘Yeah, ain’t it?’ Allbright laughed again. ‘See I’m cured of poetry, too. Cured of, of Allbright. They hooked me up to the old machine in there and gave me the pure juice, everything in, everything… hell I walked around for a few days feeling like Volta, in the comics remember? My right hand attracts — bzzzzt. My left h—’
‘O God,’ said Hannah, turning away. Lyle continued working, while he tried to find something to say. He wheeled the head around to compare the vein on the opposite temple, for symmetry.
Allbright too seemed at a loss for words. He turned to Hannah, grinning. ‘Edgar Rice Burroughs, for Christ’s sake. Bet you haven’t read him either.’
The old woman blinked at the peanut her hand had raised automatically, and put it down. ‘The, er, The Adding Machine?’ she said. ‘I saw that performed back in—’
‘That’s Elmer Rice, for Christ’s sake. You’re supposed to be teaching Comparative Lit., compared to what for Christ’s sake? You never read any English or American stuff in your life, did you? Come on, did you?’
‘You haven’t told us where the money came from,’ she said.
‘Oh that. Well. While I was in the nut hatchery I met this old pal of mine, knew him back in high school, seen him around campus a few times, but here he was, a fellow nut. This guy used to be a computer freak, coupla wires got crossed somewhere and here he was, playing Chinese checkers with himself. With one goddamn marble.’
Lyle had stopped painting. The North light fell on his port-wine birthmark.
‘Anyway he wasn’t so crazy, you know? He told me all about a neat little trick you can play on these bank terminals—’