Mack Reynolds - Equality - In the Year 2000

Both Leete and Edith were frowning at him.

“I fail to see your point,” the academician said.

Julian took a breath. “It would seem that in any socioeconomic system there are what can only be described as instinctive revolutionists. I’m not talking about the Hitlers, the Mussolinis, the Francos, I mean the idealistically motivated—whether they are right or wrong in their beliefs. Karl Marx was neither a villain nor a fool, but he was a lifelong revolutionist. Do you have any equivalent today?”

Leete slumped back in his chair. “Why… why, I don’t know. I suppose that possibly we have. I wouldn’t agree with them, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t admit their right to disagree with our present social system.”

Julian wryly misquoted, “I thoroughly disagree with what you have to say, and would defend with my life your right to say it.”

Edith asked, “What are you leading up to, Jule?”

He shook his head, then motioned to the doctor to follow him.

Leete, mystified, let his guest lead him to the bathroom. There, Julian turned on both the shower and the faucet in the lavatory.

He whispered, “Keep your voice low.”

The doctor stared at him, but nodded.

Julian whispered, “Do you know what a bug is?”

“A bug?”

“A device that can be put into your home, or in your phone screen, to listen in on everything you say.”

Leete was still gawking at him. “You mean like in that Watergate scandal way back?” he whispered.

“Never heard of it,” Julian whispered. “Must have happened after I went into stasis.”

“Why, yes, but we haven’t had anything like that for—”

“As you say, but could some of them be left over, here or there, or would there be plans on how to make them in the International Data Banks?”

Leete nodded dumbly. “Everything is in the data banks.”

“Okay. Are there plans there to make a mop?”

“What’s a mop?”

“An electronic device utilized to detect bugs.”

They were both still whispering over the sound of the rushing water. “Why, I suppose so.”

Next, Julian asked, “Do you have a friend who could get the plans out of the data banks and have a mop made secretly?”

“I suppose any of my friends who have hobby electronic shops in their basements or wherever could do it, particularly if the things go back over thirty years. It should be child’s play for a modern electronic tinkerer.”

“Somebody you could absolutely trust to secrecy?”

Leete thought, then nodded.

“All right. Get at it immediately,” Julian snapped. “Now, one other thing. Are you connected with the government in any way?”

“How did you know? I am associated with a committee which is working upon suggestions for reforming our present civil branch of the government. As you know, our present system is dual, one pertaining to economic matters, production and distribution, and the other to civic matters, the equivalent of what the government was in the old days. Under the revised constitution—”

“Okay, okay,” Julian interrupted. “Let’s go back to the living room. Don’t say anything, anything at all about this to anyone. Not even Martha or Edith.”

The doctor gaped at him all over again, but nodded agreement.

When the two men reentered the room Edith looked at them questioningly. “What have you two been up to?”

“I’ll never tell,” Julian said, doing his best to leer.

The doctor went over to the phone screen.

Julian said hurriedly, “Who are you going to call?”

“Why, that friend I just told you about.”

Julian shook his head. “Go and see him.”

Leete looked mildly surprised, but then nodded. “I see,” he said.

“Yes. And keep obviously what is in mind, in mind,” Julian insisted, and then added somewhat wearily, “I am from an age when we were conscious of these things.”

“What in heaven are you two talking about?” Edith demanded.

“A dirty joke,” Julian said.

“What is a dirty joke?”

He looked at her in exasperation. “See here,” he said. “Ever since I came out of stasis, you’ve been telling me we don’t have this any more, you don’t have banks, you don’t have cities in the sense we had them a third of a century ago. You don’t have wars, and you don’t have jails. You don’t have newspapers and you don’t have schools in the sense that we did. You don’t even have stores. But now I am calling a halt. Don’t tell me you don’t tell dirty stories any more!”

Doctor Leete was chuckling. He said, “You know, it’s been so long that I’d just about forgotten. Dirty stories were simply stories usually based on taboos such as sex, or excretion, and usually involving taboo words. Do away with the taboos and the institution disappears.”

Edith was mystified. “What’s a taboo word?”

Julian was looking from one to the other. He had been in stasis for something like ten years before Edith had even been born.

The academician laughed again. “I doubt if any explanation would make sense to you. When I was a lad, I could say ‘pee’, if I meant urinate, but if I said ‘piss,’ I was spanked.”

Julian chimed in, “I was allowed to say ‘heck,’ but if I said ‘hell,’ I was punished, although the word was used in the same way. Some parents were even more strict. Their children could say ‘Gad,’ but not ‘God.’ ‘Goddamnit’ came out ‘gaddarnit.’ ’”

“What has all this got to do with dirty jokes, whatever they are?”

Julian sighed. “Let me think of an example. Okay. An American was telling an Englishman a poem:

“The Englishman returned to London and told it to a friend:

The doctor laughed mildly but Edith merely looked at Julian and said, “That’s a dirty story?”

“Well, yes.”

“A joke?”

“Yes.”

“What’s funny about it?”

Julian closed his eyes in pain. “It’s like your father was telling you: it’s based on a taboo word. So the Englishman by suggesting it, though not actually saying it, made the joke funny.”

Edith looked at her father. “What dirty word?”

Her father cleared his throat. “ ‘Cunt.’ In Middle English it was cunte , originally derived from the Latin cunnus , and meaning vagina. It was one of the taboo words.”

“Why not simply say vagina?”

He said, “I give up. I knew very well I wasn’t going to be able to explain dirty jokes. In fact, I’m not sure I understand why I ever thought they were funny. Good-bye. I’m off to see someone on a suggestion of Julian’s that I’m not sure I understand either.” He left, shaking his head.

Edith asked Julian, “Do you know any more dirty jokes?”

“No,” he said definitely, sitting down across from her. He brought his notes from his side pocket.

“What do you have there?” she said.