Trojan Horse Laugh

II

WHERE’D YOU GET THAT EMOTIONAL BINGE? IT’S AS OUT OF STYLE AS A RUSTY HINGE. WIPE THAT FROWN OFF YOUR SULKY BROW — WITH A TEN DOLLAR BILL GET ADJUSTED NOW!

Main Street. It just happens to be Daylon. It could be anybody’s main street. Warm May sun, sweating cops implementing the street lights at the busiest corners. A rash of panel delivery trucks, housewives cruising looking for a place wide enough in which to park, music blaring from a radio store.

Three blocks from the very center of the city another cop has been detailed to keep the line orderly in front of number thirty-four, Caroline Street. It is a small budding, and across the front of it is a huge sign — “HAPPINESS, INCORPORATED”.

The line moves slowly toward the doorway. Inside, it is rapidly and efficiently split into the appropriate groups. Those who are arriving for the first time pay at the desk on the right, receive their number. There are a hundred thousand people in Daylon. The new numbers being issued are in the eleven thousand series.

Those whose cycles have been charted, are shunted up the stairs to where a small vial awaits, bearing their number. A smaller group files toward the back of the building for the essential booster shots.

A plump little man sulks in line, herded along by his wife who looks oddly like a clipper ship under a full head of sail.

She says, “And you listen to me, Henry. After nineteen years of put-ting up with your childish moods this is one time when you are going to—”

Her voice goes on and on. Henry pouts and moves slowly with the crowd. He tells himself that no shot in the arm is going to make his life any more enjoyable. Not with the free-wheeling virago he has endured for these many years.

The policeman on the beat is sweating but he smiles fondly at the line. Fastened to the lapel of his uniform is a tiny bronze button with an interlocked II and I. Happiness, Incorporated. The bronze button is issued with the booster shot.

Back to the main drag. A diaper delivery truck tangles fenders with a bread truck. Both drivers are at fault. They climb out, and, through force of habit, walk stiff-legged toward each other, one eye on the damage. They both wear the little bronze button. They smile at each other.

“No harm done, I guess. Anyway, not much.”

“Same here. Hey, you’re one of the happiness boys, too.”

“Yeah, I got herded into it by the wife.”

“Me too, and I’m not sorry. Gives everything a glow, sort of.”

They stand and measure each other. The cycle is on the upswing. Each day is better than the last. The peak is approaching. It is but three days away.

“Look, let’s roll these heaps around the corner and grab a quick beer?”

Main Street in May. A small, ruffian child, pressed too closely in a department store, unleashes a boot that bounces smartly off the shin of an elderly matron.

The matron winces, smiles placidly at the child’s mother, limps away.

The mother grabs the infant by the ear. “You’re lucky she was one of the adjusted ones, Homer. I’m going to take you home and belt you a few, and then I’m going to take you and your father down and get both of you adjusted.”

Main Street with a small difference. People smile warmly at strangers. There is a hint of laughter in the air, a hint of expectancy. The little bronze buttons catch the sun. The unadjusted stare bleakly at the smiles, at the little buttons, and wonder what has happened to everybody. They begin to feel as though they were left out of something.

Joe Morgan walks dourly along the street, rigidly suppressing an urge to glare at every smile.

A man hurrying out of a doorway runs solidly into him. Joe, caught off balance, sits down smartly. He is hauled to his feet, brushed off. His hand is pumped up and down by the stranger,

“Whyn’t yah look where you’re running?” Joe asks.

“Fella, I’m sorry. I was just plain clumsy. Say, can I buy you a drink? Or can I take you anywhere? My car’s right around the corner.”

Joe squints at the little bronze button, says, “Skip it,” walks down the street.

Joe is unhappy. The managing editor, proudly sporting a little bronze button, has set up a permanent department called, “The Progress of Happiness,” and he has assigned Joe Morgan to run it. Joe is out tracking down progress.

He stands across the street and glares at the long line waiting to be processed. He is torn by doubts, wonders vaguely whether he ought to join the line and be adjusted. But he cannot permit such a violation of his right of privacy.

He goes into the offices assigned to Miss Pardette.

Miss Pardette was busy. Joe Morgan sat near her desk, cocked his head to one side and listened carefully to the music she seemed to carry around with her. He couldn’t help thinking of Alice Pardette as wasted talent. All she would have to do in any floor show would be to walk across the floor. In the proper costume she would make strong men clutch the tablecloth and signal for another drink. The vitality of her seemed to press against the dark suit she wore like a torrential river held taut by a new dam.

At last she looked up. Joe said: “What’s new on delirium today, kitten?”

“I find your attitude offensive,” she said. The words were prim and proper. The tone was husky gold, a warm wrapping for hidden caress.

Joe smiled brightly. “I find happiness offensive. So we’re even. What can I put in the paper, Mona Lisa?”

She shuffled the papers on her desk. “I have just compiled a report on the first month of operation of the Quinby Candy Company since the last of their employees received the booster shot. You will have to clear this report with Mr. Quinby before publishing it. He reports a six point three percent drop in absenteeism, a two percent drop in pilferage, an eleven percent drop in tardiness. Total production was up eight point eight percent over the preceding month, with a drop in rejections and spoilage and consequent increase in estimated net profit from the yearly average of four point six percent to five point three percent. The fee to adjust his workers was two thousand three hundred four dollars. It is Mr. Quinby’s estimate that he recovered this initial cost in the first two weeks of operation.”

“How nice for him,” Joe said, glancing at the figures he had scribbled in his notebook. He said: “How did a dish like you get into this racket?”

“Dr. Lewsto employed me.”

“I mean in the statistics game.”

She gave him a long, steady look. “Mr. Morgan, I have found that figures are one of the few things in life you can depend upon.”

“I thought you could depend on the kind of happiness that you people sell.” He looked at the bronze button she wore.

She followed the direction of his glance, looked down at the button. She said: “I’m afraid I’m not entitled to wear this. Dr. Lewsto insisted that it would be better for morale for me to wear it. But a statistician must maintain a rigidly objective attitude. To become adjusted might prejudice that altitude.”

“How about Lewsto? He wears one.”

“It is the same thing with him. The backers felt that, as administrator, he should refrain from becoming adjusted.”

“Just like the restaurant owner who goes out to lunch?”

He saw her first smile. It rang like hidden silver bells. “Something like that, Mr. Morgan.”

He sighed. “Well, how far are we as of today?”

“New patients are in the eleven thousand series. Fifty-nine hundred totally adjusted.”

“Where are those fifty-nine hundred on the chart?”

She stood up, took a pointer and touched it to the big chart on the wall behind her. “Right hero. In three days they will be at the peak. They will remain at the peak for five days, then five days of regression before they begin the climb back up again.”

Joe said softly: “It gives me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. AU those people being pushed through an emotional cycle like cattle being herded down the runways in Chicago.”

“You’d change your attitude if you would submit to adjustment.”

Joe stood up and stretched. “Exactly what I’m afraid of, friend. Morgan, the Unadjusted. That’s me.”

At the door he turned and waved, at her. But she was studying reports and she did not look up.