Tomorrow’s World

Chapter 9

The sun was high, and the network of metallic ribbons stretching across the sky reflected shimmering pinpoints of light. The blinds in Brant’s office were tilted, allowing the sunlight to splash into the room, covering his desk top. Van basked in the sunlight, feeling comfortable and warm. When the buzzer on his desk sounded, he reached for it idly, clicked down the toggle, and drawled, “Yes?”

“Dino Pelazi to see you, Van.”

Van blinked. “Who?” he asked Lizbeth.

“Dino Pelazi, Van.”

“The Ree? The critic? The... the Ree?”

“The same.”

“Well.” He grinned. “Well. Give me ten minutes, then show him in.”

He cleared off his desk, leaving the top as shining and flawless as a mountain lake. Then he walked around the office and straightened the magazines and paperbacks. He closed the top of the bar, straightened a stereoscopic of a nude on the wall, and tilted the blinds so that the sun was strong behind him. He went to the closet, rubbed on some alcojel, combed his hair, and scrutinized himself in the door mirror. He pulled his breeches higher on his waist, saw that his boots carried a high polish, sucked in his stomach, and then walked back to his desk. He was tempted to face the windows, presenting his back to the entrance door and his guest, the way Pelazi had done that day at the courthouse. He reasoned that this would be childish, tilted his head instead so that the sunlight hit his profile.

The door slid open in a few moments, and he heard Liz announce, “Mr. Pelazi, sir.”

There was the shuffle of feet into the room, and then he heard the swish of Liz’s skirts, and the whisper of the door as it slid shut behind her. He did not look up. He was remembering that day at the courthouse, and he was savoring this brief period of rudeness. He kept looking through the blinds for a few moments, and then he turned casually.

Pelazi had stopped in the center of the room.

He was not at all what Van had pictured. Having seen only his back and his hair previous to this, Van had expected a somewhat older man. This man was young, and tallish, with a carefully trimmed black beard. His hair was white, just as Van remembered it, and Van imagined he resented the natural processes which had unwittingly given him the two-tone Vike effect. He wore a severely tailored black suit that was a shade lighter than his ebony beard. His collar was high and tight, his tie thin. His shoes were black and highly polished. He had a straight, strong nose that sliced down the middle of his face like a cleaver. His lips were drawn together in a tight line beneath that nose, carefully concealing his teeth. His eyes could tell stories, but they were short of material at the moment.

“Mr. Pelazi,” Van said, mockingly cordial. “I’m honored.”

Pelazi took a quick step forward, then stopped with his heels together, his Homburg clenched in both hands, his cane looped over his right arm. “I’ll make my visit brief and to the point, Mr. Branoski,” he said. His voice was deep and resonant, the way it had been the first time they met. Van found himself staring into the depths of the Ree’s eyes.

“Mr. Brant,” he corrected.

Pelazi smiled mirthlessly. “If you prefer.”

“I prefer.”

“Very well. I have compiled a list of alleged literary agents who are today soliciting the majority of smut on the market. You, unfortunately, are one of the chief purveyors. I’ve been systematically eliminating these men, starting at the top and working my way to the bottom.”

“Eliminating? Are you referring to the Belly Statute? Can’t we let that wait until the court...”

“I am not referring to 431. My elimination has been solely on a visit basis. I’ve come to ask something of you, Mr. Branos... Mr. Brant.”

“And what’s that?”

“May I sit down?”

“Please do.”

“Thank you.” Pelazi moved to the chair opposite Van’s desk. He sat down, carefully raising his trousers to protect their crease. He put his Homburg on one arm of the chair, leaned forward, and rested both hands on the head of his cane. His fingers were thin and strong, Van noticed.

“Now then. You’re a businessman, so I shan’t mince words. I’ve come to ask that you discontinue the submission of manuscripts to: a, the magazines, b, the paperbacks, c, the stereoscopic, the three dimensional, and the sensory mediums.”

“You missed one,” Brant said drily.

“Did I indeed?”

“Yes. We’re still submitting material to the live shows.”

Pelazi coughed politely. “We’ll ignore the legitimate theatre in our discussion. I rather imagine you’re not selling them a great deal of material.”

“Especially since the ruckus over the benefit started.” Van smiled. “In other words, Mr. Pelazi, you’d like me to go out of business.”

Pelazi smiled in return. “I did not suggest that.”

“But your statement was heavily loaded with that implication, I would say. Wouldn’t you?”

“I’ll leave the interpretation to your own fertile mind. Do you agree to my proposal?”

The two men made a somewhat ludicrous picture. They sat there with their mouths curled into smiles, but Van’s hands were clenched on the arms of his chair, and Pelazi’s fingers worked nervously on the head of his cane. They stared at each other, grinning, and then the

smile disappeared from Van’s face. He leaned forward abruptly and said, “Don’t be popped, father.”

“Sir?”

“Your proposal is absurd.”

“Oh?”

“You’re asking me to slit my own throat.”

“Precisely.”

“And you expect me to agree to it?”

The smile was gone from Pelazi’s face now. “Suicide is sometimes a more pleasant prospect than execution.”

“Don’t tickle me, Pelazi. The Vikes are firmly rooted; it’ll take more than a threat from you to kick us out.”

“I know that. We now possess the means to destroy you and your ilk, Mr. Brant. Believe me, we are fully prepared; mine is not an empty threat.”

“No, huh? How do you propose to back it up? With bad reviews?” He snorted contemptuously. “Or are you counting on your big trial? Is that your ace in the hole? Hell, Pelazi, I’m not even sure you’ll win, and even if you did...”

“I am not counting on the trial,” Pelazi said softly.

“Whatever you’re counting on, you’re pouring into a seive. Grow up, father, the people are wise.”

“Are they?”

“They are. They are that. Finally, after all these years, they’re wise. Oh so wise, father. They know just what they want, and we’re giving it to them.”

“But is it what they want?”

“I’ve no time for philosophy; and I don’t want to chop psych with you, either. You know what they want as well as I do.”

Pelazi pursed his lips and said nothing. His hands were firm on the head of his cane. Van took his silence for assent.

“It used to be the other way around, Pelazi. The little man was the slob, wallowing in filth, breeding kids he didn’t want, dreaming of adventure he never had and never would have. The paperbacks took a hold then, and the little man began to wake up. He recognized convention for what it really was: a petty disguise of polite society, a subterfuge designed to keep the little man’s feet firmly on the ground, to keep his head from out of the clouds.”

“I’m really not terribly interested in...”

“And at the same time, the body magicians were at work. Wear a Juno bra and you won’t be flat-chested. Use Vitagro on your hair, and you’ll be dazzling. Don’t smell. Use Sosoap. While the paperbacks extolled the merits of vicarious adventure, the advertising industry emphasized clothes, cosmetics, luxuries the little man could never afford, trips to Bermuda, beauty aids, automobiles, dreams. And sex reared its lovely breast. The paperbacks featured busty broads on their covers in full color, a vicarious thrill for a quarter, the thin part of a dollar. Television joined the parade, for free this time, and if you couldn’t see a chick’s navel on Channel thirty, you switched to twenty-nine. The movies clung to their stupid censorship rulings until they realized they were losing out in the big race. They relaxed then, and the results were amazing. Improved three dimensional processes took hold, giving more reality to the vicarious pleasure. And the people liked it. The people loved it. The people...”

“All of which...”

“All of which illustrates a point. Joe Sucker began to understand an important truth. It had been there all along, starting maybe with the now defunct comic books, working its way up through the pulp magazines, through the now extinct hardcover novels, into the pabacks, into television, the movies, the stereos, and right down the line. Now he knew. The make-believe was better than the reality!

“The girl’s behind wiggling on the motion picture screen was a hundred times better and a thousand times more effective than his own wife’s in the shabby, dubious comfort of his own home. The colorful characters of the dream world — the people with names like Drew and Allison and Mark and Cynthia — were having a hell of a lot more fun than the little man was. In real life, a fist fight was a messy thing of blood and gore; in the dream world, it was an honorable culmination to a challenge. In real life, the pure maiden was extolled as the acme of perfection. In the dream world, if a chick didn’t hop into bed after five minutes of casual conversation, she was a Mongolian idiot. ‘Hey!’ Joe Sucker yelled, ‘where have I been all my life?’ He woke up, finally, and the waking was a tremendously powerful thing.”

“The awakening was the doom of society,” Pelazi said.

“No, Mr. Pelazi. It put the little man right where he’d always wanted to be. He changed his name from Joe Sucker to Joel Standish. He forgot about the disappointing realities all around him and concentrated on the pure vicarious aspect of living. He began to enjoy himself for the first time because now his entire world was a make-believe one. He conveniently disposed of the reality, which no longer served any concrete purpose in his life. He was a sucker reborn, and he clasped hands with millions of other suckers, and began having one hell of a good time. Drugs, which had already taken a strong illegal foothold, became as common as cigarettes. Eventually, as you know, they became legal, which was a damned smart move. Marriage took a back seat, treated as the shoddy thing it was, the invention of some fools who wanted to carefully conceal what is basically a somewhat disgusting animal impulse. Archaicism was replaced by new thoughts, new language, new dreams. Society was revitalized. It still is...”

“Decadent! It is decadent!” Pelazi shouted.

“Only for a Realist. For the Vike, there is pure escape. It does things better for him, with no strain and no pain. Three cheers for it, I say.”

Pelazi’s face seemed ready to erupt. It turned a deep red, and then modulated the chromatic scale until it reached its normal shade again. “Your answer,” he mumbled. “Your... your answer to my proposal?”

“You just had it, Pelazi. I say stuff your proposal. Stuff it up your nose like a peanut!”

“You will continue with your submissions? In spite of...”

“I damn well will.”

Pelazi rose, stiffly. “Thanks for the history lesson, Mr. Branoski. I appreciated it.” He turned brusquely and started for the door, stopping halfway across the carpet. “You’ll remember that you were warned? You will remember that?”

“Sure, I’ll remember.”

“We’ll do everything in our power to crush you now, Mr. Branoski. You and the others. We’ve started already, and we won’t stop until we’ve won. The Vicarion Movement is finished, believe me.”

Van didn’t answer. Pelazi seemed ready to say something else. He opened his mouth, and then shook his head when he saw the grin on Van’s face.

Quickly, he turned on his heel and walked out.

Brant should be here, Dino Pelazi thought. Brant should see the Ree in his natural habitat. Brant should be here.

He had thought of the Vike ever since leaving his office. He could not get Brant out of his mind. Even now, surrounded by Rees, in the secure comfort of a Ree home, listening to Ree conversation, he could not get Brant out of his mind.

Perhaps I’m going Vike, Pelazi thought. Wouldn’t Schultz love that? Wouldn’t Schultz exult in saying, ‘I suspected Dino of tendencies all along.’?

A good Realist, Schultz. If there is such a thing as a good Realist. Now come, come, Dino, there are good Realists. You are a good Realist, aren’t you? Am I? And Schultz?

Why, surely Schultz is a good Realist. Why, he’d been a Realist from away back in the old days. It was Schultz who’d organized picket lines whenever a doubtfully moral movie showed at one of the alleged art theatres. It was not important that Schultz had been two-timing his wife at the same time. It was not important that Schultz was indulging with that little blonde — what was her name — during the period in which he carried signs stating, “This motion picture advocates adultery!” That was not important. What is important? Pelazi wondered.

Surely, the Vikes are wrong. They can’t be right, no they cannot, because they are so obviously wrong. But are we right? And just what the hell, in essence, is the Realist philosophy — or have we allowed it to become so damned clouded over the years that we honestly cannot say any more?

Is it, Do as I say, but not as I do?

No, that’s making a mockery of the whole thing, and the Realist cause is certainly not a mockery. Or is it?

Where did it begin? You’re a Realist, Dino, and Brant was able to tell you just where the Vikes began. Where did the Realist begin? In Salem days, with the witchcraft trials? (Heavens, that far back?) In the beginnings of state laws governing the sexual practices of state citizens? Or the Ku Klux Klan — the burning of a cross — the whipping of an adulteress? In the committees to banish books? And, oh, did the paperbacks take out full page ads in counterattack! In the committees advocating censorship of motion pictures? And, oh, did some producers fight these committees right up to the Supreme Court! Where then?

For we have tried to censor movies and books, oh yes, we have. And did we hope to accomplish anything by such censorship? Did we really feel that a blackballed book or a picketed movie would really discourage, let us say, adultery? And conversely, did we feel a suggestive novel would truly be suggestive to someone whose moral code, whose principles of behavior had already been established? Is that what we believed?

Did we believe that smoking was a vile thing, did we reluctantly, oh so reluctantly, finally allow women to appear on cigarette advertisements — but did we still cling in the meantime to the outdated notion of a female smoker on the streets being something akin to a streetwalker? Did we condemn the drinking habit, even the social drinking habit, did we — the Realists — do that? And while we ranted and raved about these minor, petty, social ills, what did we do about some of the real menaces? Did we really believe the books and movies were causing the widespread use of narcotics? Could we really have believed that? Did we hope to convince ourselves that the delinquency bred and nurtured in our city schools was a result of the printed word? This was a real disease, but we chose to sue the transit companies, instead, because they carried placards discussing the avoidance and conquest of syphillis.

I think we lost sight of the forest, Pelazi thought. I honestly believe we were incapable of separating the crap from the cream. I honestly believe we donned a Puritan hat, and we refused to take off that hat; we stuffed everything into that hat, good and bad alike, mistaking artistry for smut, mistaking honest reporting for dishonest distortion.

We wore our clothing to our throats, pretending our women did not own breasts, casually ignoring the brassiere ads which denied the nonexistence of breasts, and which offered remedies and hidden treasures for those unendowed.

We denied stimulation, and at the same time we propagated like rabbits. We tried to tell everyone that two people mating in a piece of literature was a disgusting thing. We didn’t stop to explain away the fact that two people (who did or did not read the literature in question, it didn’t matter) would undoubtedly hop into bed that night and mate anyway, without the convenient literary double space and the clichéd “Afterwards.”

We denied what was. We denied what was, and the Vikes went us one better. We denied what was by refusing to permit representation of it, while secretly admitting it existed. The Vikes denied what was by allowing the representation to replace the reality. They...

“Because smut is smut,” a young man was saying, “and there are no two ways about it. I read a book the other night, one on the Spit List. Well, I’m telling you...”

“Where’d you get a Spit List book?” the hostess asked. She was an attractive woman, and her breasts were molded firmly within the confines of her rigid brassiere and her throat-hugging dress.

“I picked it up,” the young man said.

“And did it stimulate you?” the hostess asked archly.

“Stimulate? That’s putting it mildly. I threw Marge into bed, and wouldn’t let her get up for a week.”

“Oh, David,” Marge protested.

“And I think I’d have had enough left over for you, Betty,” the young man said to his hostess.

“I’ll try you sometime,” Betty answered archly.

The gathering laughed. Pelazi did not laugh with them. The marriage jokes, he was thinking. When, exactly, in a marriage, does the sex joke begin? Attend any gathering of Rees who’ve been married for — oh, let’s say three years at the most — and the marriage jokes will crop up as a matter of course.

Why was it that the crux of the Ree marriage had become a success or lack of success in bed? And could the Ree really be serious about something if he constantly joked about it?

Always the jokes, but always with the half-seriousness behind them, a generation whispering behind its hand in an attempt to cover up its disappointment. A Ree marriage, at best, was disillusionment. A termination of the courtship, a dutiful resignation to the nuptial couch, a boredom born of repetition.

The alternative was bachelorhood, the endless round of conquests, the game being played in monotonous succession. Until the final surrender, and then what was there? Hadn’t the preparation been more interesting than the act itself? By God, if only the Ree was in reality what the Vike pictured him to be.

No, the Ree was a strange breed, a conventional contradiction of statements, denying on one hand, plying on the other. Like a man in the arms of a harlot, protesting to his wife he is only playing poker with the boys.

Why couldn’t I have told this to Brant, Pelazi wondered. Instead, I behaved like a tongue-tied fool, a Freshman fumbling with a three minute speech in a college course.

Pelazi cursed his awkwardness, cursed the Vikes because they always made him feel inefficient and bumbling in their sleek, streamlined presence.

This Brant had been a typical Vike, proud, assured — so certain he was doing the right thing. Pelazi had spent hours checking into his background, had gone to the interview fully prepared with the facts. The case history had read like that of a million Vikes in the city, except — of course — that Brant was a success. Most Vikes lived from day to day, substituting the vague shadows of a drug-infested world for the real experience of living. The real experience. We know the bed, and even that we do not know too well. It is the only luxury we permit ourselves, that and our sterile legitimate stage. Luxury, hell! The bed is our opiate! But discounting Brant’s success, the picture was the same.

VAN BRANT, born John Albert Branoski, twenty-seven years old.

FATHER: tailor. Deceased.

MOTHER: housewife. Deceased.

BROTHERS: Arthur Branoski, fourteen years senior. Heroin addict before legalization of drugs. Died of tetanus, allegedly contracted from infected syringe, or bad shipment of drug.

HISTORY? Parents divorced when Brant was sixteen. At seventeen, Vike Movement attracted him. Left home shortly after father went off with another woman. (Was the old man a Ree? Pelazi wondered.) Mother died when Brant was eighteen; he had contributed to her support until then.

Began writing under the name Van Brant, finally changed it officially at age twenty. Free-lanced for two years longer, working mostly for the paperbacks, doing occasional stereoscopic stints. Started literary agency at age twenty-two. Drug-addict, of course. Morphine.

And Pelazi had known all this, had come to the man’s office prepared to show him the wisdom of quick capitulation. He had not known exactly how he would bring the surrender about. He could certainly not reveal his hand. The trial business, oh yes, but nothing more. But he’d been certain of success, certain he could sway the man, enlist his cooperation.

Instead, the man had stifled him completely. A man with nothing more than a grammar school education, Brant’s speech had been fluid and unhesitant. He knew the history of the Vike Movement the way he knew the back of his checkbook. He reeled it off, and there was no doubt that he believed every word he spouted.

And Pelazi had sat there... He could have said... He could have said...

The things one “could have said.” The countless self-kickings afterwards. Afterwards, when it’s too late. The brilliant repartee, the biting remark, the caustic comment, the telling point in a vacillating argument.

But there had been no argument. There had been only Brant the professor, and Pelazi the student. And why had he childishly insisted on calling the other man Branoski? It was too late now. The moment was gone, and with it the opportunity. Oh God, he thought. Couldn’t I have done the right thing? Wouldn’t it have been just as easy to have done the right thing? Or is it possible to discuss sanity with a madman? Can one discuss logic with someone who illogical? Could I have said, Branoski, Brant, this is all wrong. This is desperately wrong. Can’t you see, my friend? Can’t you see that this is all sham, that the way to fight life is not to escape it but to face it? Can’t you see that all this is temporary, that the ultimate disillusionment will be the shattering of your carefully constructed dream? And when that happens, then what? Who will pick up the shattered, scattered pieces of the dream?

Will it be your Vikes, my friend? No, because they are sick. Yes, Brant, they are terribly sick, and more sick because they do not even recognize the symptoms of their ailment. Who then? Will it be the Realists? Will it be they who gather up the broken shards? And here, here I would have clasped hands with the man, and our eyes would have spoken of the future — if only I had done it correctly.

No, Brant. Not the Realists. Because we, too, you see, are sick.