John MacDonald - Trojan Horse Laugh

DIVERT YOUR PSYCHE ADJUST YOUR ID JOIN THE CROWD AND GROOVE YOURSELF, KID.

“Like honey on a slow fire,” Joe Morgan said in a mildly nauseated tone. “Where’ll earth they get babes with those voices?”

Sadie Barnum, beside him on the front seat of Joe’s vast and asthmatic monster of an automobile, grinned in the darkness, crooned low in a throat, singing an almost perfect imitation of the radio commercial. “...and groove yourself, kid.”

“Oh, no!” said Joe. “No!”

The car was in the park above the city, nuzzling the stone wait cheek and jowl with the newer and shinier models on either side. The commercial had originally come from the radio in the car on their left.

Below them, the lights of the city of Daylon made it a very nice looking night indeed.

“You could turn my overpowering love to hate, Barnum,” Joe said. “Let us get back to what we came for.” He reached for her.

Sadie, her jaw set, fended him off deftly. She had turned so that the dim light touched her face. It was a small, alert, vital face, some of the force of it stolen by eyes that were big and sea-gray and an invitation to drown quietly.

“Now that the subject has been brought up, Joseph,” she said firmly, “we will dwell on it apace.”

Joe skimped grimly behind the wheel. He was a longheaded citizen, a crisp black crew-cut peppered with premature gray, a limp and lazy body which he threw into chairs in the manner of someone tossing a wet towel, which body, during war years, he had tossed out of various and sundry aircraft.

“Go dwell,” he said.

She held up a small hand, counting firmly on her fingers. “One — Daylon is a test city for Happiness, Incorporated. Thus the price is reasonable. Two — it doesn’t hurt a bit. Marg told me that. Three — you are a moody cuss and I expect to marry you the next time you ask me and you’re going to be rugged to live with unless we get adjusted.” Her voice began to quaver. “Besides, I think you’re just being... oh, stuffy and narrow-minded about the whole thing.”

Joe sighed. He had heard it before. And always before he had managed to change the subject before he was pinned down. But something in Sadie’s tone made him realize that this time it wasn’t going to be quite as simple.

He collected his forces, turned in the seat, took her small hands in his and said: “Honey, maybe you have the idea that Joseph Morgan, reporter for the News, likes to think of himself as a rugged individualist. Maybe you think it’s a pose with me. Look, Barnum, I’m Joe Morgan and I’m the guy you happen to love. At least I think you do. I’m not a conformist and it isn’t a pose. I don’t run around in the same mad little circles as other people because I’m not sold on the idea that what they’re after is a good thing.”

In a small voice she said: “But they’re after happiness, and security, and a home, and kids. Is that bad?”

“By itself, no. But what happens to their heads? Nobody talks any more. Nobody thinks. All those things are fine if you can get them without losing intellectual self-respect. Why do you think I drive this crate instead of a new one? Just because I won’t play pally-cake with the people I’m supposed to play patty-cake with. When I want to be amused, I don’t have to go to the movies or turn on the TV or go see a floor show. I’m the unmechanized man, baby. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s no pose.”

“But Joe, darling what’s that got to do with going and taking the shots?”

“Everything, I don’t want any needles stuck in me to make me joyous. I don’t want my emotional cycle analyzed and adjusted to match everybody else’s cycle. I want to be my own man, all the way.”

“You don’t let that attitude creep into the feature stories you’ve been writing about Happiness, Incorporated.”

“Because I’m a conscientious hack, baby. I make the little words do what I want them to do.”

“But, Joe—”

His tone softened. He said; “Sadie, if we both went and got adjusted, we’d never know how much of our happiness together was due to a gent with a needle and a mess of charts, and how much was due to Sadie and Joe. Let’s make our own music, without outside help.”

She came into his arms, her lips close to his car. “That’s the first argument that’s made any sense, Joseph,” she said.

In a very few moments all thoughts of Happiness, Incorporated fled from the minds of Joe and Sadie. But, even as they were fleeing, Joe thought, a trifle darkly, of Dr. August Lewsto and the field crew he had brought to Day Ion. There was something odd about Lewsto, vaguely unsavory, vaguely disquieting.

There was a great deal of money behind Happiness, Incorporated. They had arrived three months before and it was a newsworthy item that Daylon had been selected as the test city.

Joe Morgan had been assigned the task of gathering the data for the first story. Lewsto had received him in the hotel suite with all courtesy, Lewsto was a gaunt man in his early fifties with hollow eyes, thin, nervous hands and a habit of smiling broadly at nothing at all.

“Of course, of course. Do sit down, Mr.—”

“Morgan. Of the News. Maybe you can give me the dope on this happiness you expect to peddle. It sounds like a tough thing to do.”

Lewsto smiled broadly. “Not at all, Mr. Morgan. Our procedure has been tested and approved by the foremost medical associations. It is a bit difficult to explain it to the layman.”

“You can try me, Doc.”

“Everyone, Mr. Morgan, has an emotional cycle. The period between the peaks varies with the individual, as does the degree of inclination and declination. Call this cycle the emotional rhythm of the individual. This chart shows you the emotional cycles of each individual in a family of four. Note how the mother’s cycle is of ten days’ duration, a very short cycle, and also note how the peak in each case is so high as to be almost psychotic. In the depths of depression she is often close to suicidal. A very difficult home life for the family.”

“I imagine.”

“This basic life rhythm is the product, Mr. Morgan, of the secretions of the glands and variations in the intensity of the electrical- impulses within the brain itself. Now look at this chart. This shows the same family after adjustment. We have not eliminated the cycle. We have flattened the woman’s cycle, made the man’s a bit more intense, and adjusted the cycles of the two children. Now this family can plan ahead. They know that during each thirty-day period they will feel increasingly better for twenty days. Then there will be five days of warm joy, and a five day decline, not too abrupt, to the starting point. They will feel good together, mildly depressed at the same time. They can plan holidays accordingly and they can always judge the mood of the other members of the family by their own mood.”

“I suppose you have to get the glands and the electricity in line, eh?”

“Quite right. We chart the cycle of each person by a method which, I am afraid, must be kept secret. Then, for each individual, we prepare an injection designed to stimulate certain endocrinological manifestations, and suppress others. After thirty days a booster shot is necessary.”

“How big a staff do you have?”

“I brought forty persons with me. More will be employed locally. Certain equipment is being shipped to me and I am negotiating to rent a building on Caroline Street.”

“You are going to advertise?”