Курт Воннегут - Player Piano (Utopia 14)

"Don't miss any good times on my account," said Wanda. "I get along just fine by myself."

There was a series of sharp taps on the picture window, and the Hagstrohms looked up to see the Shah of Bratpuhr rattling his ringed fingers against the glass. He had just returned from the pavilion to the limousine, which had been left in front of the Hagstrohm's M-17 home.

" Brahouna! " cried the Shah cheerfully. He waved. " Brahouna, Takaru. "

" 'Live!' " translated Krashdrahr.

WHEN Wednesday came, Paul stopped by his farm early in the morning and gave Mr. Haycox his instructions. Mr. Haycox made it clear that he wasn't a parlor maid.

Reluctantly, Paul gave Mr. Haycox to understand that he could do the job or clear out, and that the job had better be well done. It was that important to Paul that everything be perfect for the delicate transformation of Anita.

"You think you can just go around buying anybody to do anything you damn please," said Mr. Haycox. "Well, you're mistaken this time, Doctor. You can take your doctor's degree, and -"

"I don't want to fire you."

"Then don't!"

"For the last time, as a favor to me - "

"Why didn't you say so in the first place?"

"Say what?"

" 'As a favor -' "

"All right; as a favor -"

"As a favor, just this once," said Mr. Haycox. "I'm no parlor maid, but I try to be a good friend."

"Thanks."

"Nothing at all. Don't mention it."

During the day, Anita called Paul to ask what she was to wear.

"Old clothes."

"A barn dance?"

"Not quite, but close. Dress as though it were."

"Paul, with the Meadows so close and all, do you think we should be going out and tearing around?"

"The Meadows isn't a funeral."

"It could be, Paul."

"Just for tonight, let's forget the Meadows. Tonight it's going to be just Paul and Anita, and to hell with everybody else."

"That's very easy to say, Paul. It's a sweet idea and everything, but -"

"But what?" he asked irritably.

"Well, I don't know; I don't want to nag, but it does seem to me that you're being awfully slap-happy about the Meadows, about the Blue Team."

"What should I be doing?"

"Shouldn't you be training or something? I mean, shouldn't you be getting lots of sleep and eating the right foods and jogging around a little after work? And cutting down on cigarettes, maybe?"

"What?"

"You've got to be in shape if the Blue Team's going to win."

Paul laughed.

"Now listen, Paul, you needn't laugh. Shepherd says he's seen careers made and broken by how men made out as team captains at the Meadows. Shepherd's given up smoking completely."

"You can tell him I've taken up hashish to speed up my reaction time. His fast ball will look like a toy balloon blowing over home plate. We are going out tonight."

"All right," she said gloomily. "All right."

"I love you, Anita."

"I love you, Paul."

And she was ready when he got home, not as Ilium's Lady of the Manor but as a trim, kittenish girl in denim trousers rolled above her knees. She wore one of Paul's shirts, with its tails knotted below her breasts, white sneakers, and a red bandana about her neck.

"Is this right?"

"Perfect."

"Paul - I don't understand what's going on. I called up the Country Club, and they don't know about any barn dance. And neither do the clubs in Albany, Troy, or Schenectady." Anita, Paul knew, hated surprises, couldn't bear not to be on top of every situation.

"This is a private one," said Paul. "Just for the two of us. You'll see when the time comes."

"I want to know now."

"Where are our anniversary martinis?" The table where the pitcher and glasses awaited him every night was bare.

"You're on the wagon until after the Meadows."

"Don't be ridiculous! Everybody is going to be drinking for two weeks up there."

"Not the captains. Shepherd says they can't afford to drink."

"That shows how much he knows. The drinks are on the house."

Paul mixed martinis, drank more than his usual ration, and changed into a suit of stiff, crackling denim overalls he'd bought in Homestead that afternoon. He was sorry to see that Anita was getting no pleasure from the suspense he'd built up. Instead of happy anticipation, she showed signs of suspicion.

"Ready?" he said brightly.

"Yes - I suppose."

They walked in silence to the garage. With a grand gesture, Paul held the car door open.

"Oh, Paul, not the old car."

"There's a reason."

"There couldn't be a reason good enough to get me in that thing."

"Please, Anita - you'll see soon enough why we've got to take this one."

She got in and sat on the edge of the seat, trying to come in contact with the car as little as possible. "Honestly! I mean really!"

They rode like strangers. On the long grade by the golf course, however, she unbent a trifle. In the beams of the headlights was a pale and hairy man in green shorts, green socks, and a green shirt with the word "Captain" written across it. The man was jogging along the shoulder of the road, now and then breaking his pace to pirouette and shadowbox, then picking up his jogging again.

Paul blasted Shepherd with his automobile horn, and was delighted to see him bound across the ditch to get out of his way.

Anita rolled down her window and cheered.

The captain of the Green Team waved, his face twisted by exertion.

Paul pressed the throttle to the floor, laying down a cloud of burned oil and carbon monoxide.

"That man's got a lot of get up and go," said Anita.

"He fills me full of lie down and die," said Paul.

They were passing the battlements of the Ilium Works now, and one of the guards, recognizing Paul's car from his pillbox, waggled his fifty-caliber machine gun in friendly fashion.

Anita, who had been getting more and more restless, made as though to grab the wheel. "Paul! Where are you going? Are you crazy?"

He brushed her hand away, smiled, and kept on going across the bridge into Homestead.

The bridge was blocked again by Reeks and Wrecks who were painting yellow lines to mark traffic lanes. Paul looked at his watch. They had ten more minutes until time for, as the expression went, knocking off work. Paul wondered if Bud Calhoun had thought up this project. Like most of the R&R projects, it was, to Paul at least, ironic. The fourlane bridge had, before the war, been jammed with the cars of workers going to and from the Ilium Works. Four lanes had been nothing like enough, and a driver stayed within his lane or got the side of his car ground off. Now, at any time of day, a driver could swerve from one side of the bridge to the other with perhaps one chance in ten thousand of hitting another vehicle.

Paul came to a stop. Three men were painting, twelve were directing traffic, and another twelve were resting. Slowly, they opened a lane.

"Hey, Mac, your headlamp's busted."

"Thanks," said Paul.

Anita slid across the seat to get close to him, and he saw that she was scared stiff. "Paul - this is awful. Take me home."

Paul smiled patiently and drove into Homestead. The hydrant in front of the saloon by the end of the bridge was going again, and he had to park down the block. The same dirty boy was making paper boats for the amusement of the crowd. Leaning against a building and smoking nervously was a seedy old man who looked familiar to Paul. Then Paul realized that the man was Luke Lubbock, the indefatigable joiner, who was lost in the limbo of mufti, waiting for the next parade or meeting to start. With mixed emotions he looked around for Lasher and Finnerty, but saw no sign of them. Very probably they were in the saloon's dark, rearmost booth, agreeing on everything.