Mack Reynolds: Rolltown

Ferd slumped into an easy chair and Bat went over to the bar. “What’ll you have?” he said.

“I don’t know. What have you got it set up for?”

“Not much, actually. I’m not particularly fancy about my grog. There’s pseudo-whiskey, gin, rum, brandy, vermouth, both dry and sweet, tequila, now that we’re in Mexico, and the usual mixers.”

“It’s been a hot day. How about a Cuba Libra?”

“Sounds good to me,” Bat said, dialing the rum and coke and a dash of lime juice. He paused a brief moment, then opened the compartment and brought forth two long, chilled plastic glasses. He handed one to Ferd and took a chair himself.

Ferd took up the conversation where they had dropped it. “So what’s wrong with the Meritocracy?”

“There’s no room for anybody except those with a lot of merit,” Bat said wryly.

Ferd sipped his drink and thought about it. “That’s not my beef. What it’s done is eliminated the democratic ethic.”

“Don’t say that near any professional propagandist, or he’ll wash your mouth out with soap.”

“One dollar, one vote,” Ferd said. “Some democracy.”

“One earned dollar, one vote,” Bat amended, working at his own drink. “It does make a difference. Dividends, rents, pension income, income from a trust; none of them count. The slogan is pragmatism. The theory is, the most useful members of society have the most voice in running it.”

“Yeah, that’s the slogan. And the majority of the citizenry is disenfranchised.”

“So when was it different?”

Ferd looked at him and scowled. “How do you mean?”

“Listen, we seem to get into the habit of thinking in labels. Democracy is a label. So far as I’m concerned it’s a great idea but there’s been precious little of it since primitive times when government was based on the clan and there were few enough people in a society so that all could participate. But take a look at democracy come down through the ages. The great example always given us is the Golden Age of Greece and particularly Athens. But who voted so democratically? The male citizens of Athens. And for every citizen there was a flock of slaves who had no say at all, no matter how intelligent, no matter how productive a member of society. Or bring it down more recently. Did you labor under the illusion that when George Washington’s army won their revolution that they were allowed to vote in the new society? They did if they had enough property. Otherwise, they were disenfranchised. Right on down to modern times, it wasn’t one man, one vote; there were various ways to keep one whale of a percentage of the population from having their full say. The United States is usually used as an example of all-out democracy, but the slaves weren’t freed until 1863, and women weren’t given the vote until after the First World War.”

Ferd said, a bit on the dogged side, “I get the feeling that you’re just arguing for the sake of it, that you don’t really disagree with me. You’re not any more eligible to vote than I am.”

Bat chortled and finished his drink. “Man, they had us when they rang the NIT in on us. Obviously, most citizens who had to be subsidized in their income by the State were second-rate citizens. When it started, the so-called floor under everybody’s income was at $3,500, the poverty level at that time. Everybody poor enough to have to take the Negative Income Tax was so damn anxious to get it that they’d put up with anything. When the Constitution was rewritten, to fit it in with post-industrial society, there were few to put up a howl about one-dollar-one-vote. They wanted that dole, that security. So now we’ve got it.”

Ferd said, “Yeah, and about ten percent of the population have the vote and of those about three percent, the real ranking members of the Meritocracy, control enough votes to swing any election.”

“Well, and isn’t the government more efficient and less corrupt than ever before?”

Ferd laughed, a note of deprecation there. “How would I know? It is according to them but they’re the ones who control the mass media, the libraries, the schools and all the other means of spreading the good word about themselves. I don’t like dictatorship, even a benevolent dictatorship. It’s up to the dictators to decide what’s benevolent.”

Bat was getting tired of the subject. He said, “Another drink?”

“No, I guess not.”

Bat said, “What was it that you wanted to see me about, Ferd?”

The other’s face worked unhappily for a moment before he answered. He said, “I don’t know exactly how to put it, but Bat, something’s wrong.”

Bat took him in.

Ferd said, “I can’t exactly put my finger on it. It’s kind of intuitive. But, for one thing, where are the local people?”

“How do you mean?” Bat said, scowling.

He had run into this intuitive feeling of Ferd Zogbaum’s before. The other hadn’t been with New Woodstock very long but on two occasions he had come up with this intuitive feeling, or whatever it was, and had been astonishingly accurate. That time, for instance, in Colorado when they had parked in an almost dry river bed, strung out along the side of the trickling stream. Ferd, frowning unhappily, as he was frowning now, had suddenly snapped “A cloud burst,” although there wasn’t much in the way of clouds in the sky. He had been proven right. They had barely gotten the town out of the river bed before the flood was upon them. Two of the mobile homes had been lost, though happily the occupants survived.

Now Ferd said stubbornly, “The last time I was in Mexico, about five years ago, the locals used to hang around the site when a group of American homes came through. Some were there just to gawk, but some had souvenirs and such to sell. Where are they this time?”

Bat scowled again. “Damned if I know. Possibly so many Americans have been coming through that we’re no longer a novelty.”

Ferd shook his head. “That wouldn’t apply to peddlers, or beggars. It especially wouldn’t apply to kids. Kids never get tired of gaping at strangers and different ways of doing things.”

Bat thought about it, biting his lower lip. He said slowly, “Did you notice at the border this morning a, well, kind of a sullen quality about some of the authorities?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. We had all of our papers, permission to enter and all, but I got a distinct feeling that most of them hated to see us pass.”

Bat said suddenly, “Look, what do you say we go into town this evening after we eat? Take a look around.”

Ferd came to his feet, pulled out his pocket phone and dialed the time. “Okay,” he said. “I’ve got to get back over to Di’s now.”

“Pick me up here when you’re through,” Bat said. “I’ll have to whomp up my own supper, you lucky jazzer.”

Ferd grinned at him. “Virtue is its own reward,” he said mockingly.

“And where’ll it get you? In the end?” Bat growled back.

After Ferd Zogbaum had gone, Bat went back into his mini-kitchen, opened the refrigerator-freezer and scowled in at the purchases he had made earlier. He wasn’t particularly hungry after the heat of the day.

In honor of their first stop in Mexico, he brought forth a container-dish of chili con carne and placed it in the electronic heater and gloomily watched as the container top melted, becoming part of the prepared contents.

The chili con carne heated but the dish remained at room temperature and Bat took the food over to the small table in the living room. From a cabinet he brought forth a set of utensils, some crackers and another plastic of beer and sat down to eat. He wasn’t going to need the knife with this meal so he ate it along with the chili.