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The president has a rich dream life. It soaks through his skin like a rich soup and arranges the wrinkles in his "sober" business suit.
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Someone threw another bottle. Ayn picked up a big piece of it and took a healthy bite.
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The Great Wall of Mexico
by John Sladek
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1. Washington Crossing the Yangtze
His predecessor had kept tape recorders running in every room, catching his "thoughts" as he paced. But then his predecessor, Rogers, had always been a flamboyant action-man leader, the first Secret Service agent to be elevated to the position he guarded with his profile. His career spanned a few headlines:
GBM SAVED FROM SHOOTING
HERO BODYGUARD TO RUN FOR SENATE
SEN. ROGERS WILL RUN
ROGERS WINS!
ROGERS ASSASSINATED
Before the assassin could confess, the police station at which he was held blew up, along with a fair piece of Mason City surrounding it. The FBI found the cause to be a gas leak of an unusual type. On succeeding to the office of Great Seal, our man promoted the investigating agent, K. Homer Bissell, to bureau chief.
Our man kept his thoughts on specially printed forms:
| Presidential Notes |
PN/1/1776 |
| President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
| Date: . . . . . . . . . . . . . ., 199. . . . |
General
Subject:
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Committee/
Commission/
Cabinet Referral:
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Presidential
Remarks:
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There were also memoranda, agenda, briefs and résumés always stacked on top of the elegant polished* desk. The Great Seal liked to be well supplied with business at hand. It enabled him to expedite and finalize things with obvious efficiency at any time, ready to deal with work and get it out of the way before he relaxed, working hard to play even harder, making his guiding principle Throughput.
MEMO: From the President
I do not tolerate noisy press conferences. If possible, the next press conference should be arranged to maximize silence.
I, the State, further do not like science fiction cops. If it is really necessary for them to wear those helmets, plastic visors, tunics, gauntlets, and jump boots, will they please keep out of my sight.
"I can see how this is going to build up into something," Filcup warns. "Remember when he didn't like certain news analysts? My God, remember when he didn't like brown eggs?"
Karl Wax brought up the subject of uniforms at the Tuesday meeting of Special Advisers. His "birthday cake" suggestion was voted down ("We have to make a pleasing offering to the President, but this is ridiculous. Anyway, a naked guard is just the kind of thing that could backfire. We all know how He feels about nakedness."), and Dan Foyle gained the upper hand with "a uniform of evening clothes, slightly modified in some distinctive manner—anyone who's seen Turhan Bey and Susanna Foster in The Climax will know what I mean. This has been a long and bloody war—though not pointless or without compensations—and He sorely needs a little formal relaxation."
Agenda for Wednesday
Commission stamps to commemorate Walt Disney, Louisa May Alcott, Ty Cobb; provisionally Billy Mitchell, Ralph Nader. Check figs on Indochina: Gen. H. claims 2,250 megatons reqd for reconditioning, Op. Orpheus. Check position on Tanzania vis-à-vis South African bloc. Could recredit our reputation in Brazil, renew Arab franchise.
Presentation of award from Mothers of American Insurrection (blue suit). Read speech of Q's for decontamination efforts, constitutional loopholes. Lunch with leading blacks. Press conference on Martha's blood clot. Important: P.M. conference with Bissell, psychologists, police reps on physical/mental reconciliation of disaffiliatees, dealing with radical element.
While Tichner and Groeb arrange his urgent memos, he runs over the morning mail résumé, made up as a composite letter:
Dear Mr. President:
While 47% of me would like to congratulate you on your courageous stand on the Chile question, 21% of me also wonders if you've lived up to our expectations regarding … and though 17% of me disagrees, a massive 36% thinks you handled the Moral Pollution bill wisely, and for the rest, I can't make up my mind.
Sincere good wishes,
Your friend,
J.Q. Public
Suggested Uniforms for White House Police
Brocade, knee breeks, and periwigs
Minutemen, "dressed for Sunday"
Student Prince
Uncle Sam
Henry Clay gaiters, panamas
Christy's Minstrels
Custer's cavalry
Commodore Perry
Rough Riders
The Climax
Mysterious Island
Dickensian ragamuffins (struck off, replaced by "Leopard tuxes and light-up bow ties")
Texas A & M
Diamond Horseshoe
Each Night I Die
Zoot blues
Nice neat business
The GS follows no suggestions, however. For a time, while he reads a digested condensation of the life of FDR, the palace guards are persuaded to imitate that eminence. Bang seven-thirty every morning the guardroom doors slide back and out rolls a parade of large-jawed men in gleaming wheelchairs, champing their cigarette holders and assuring the president that he has nothing to fear but fear itself. And even that phase is preferable, they all agree, to his Peter Stuyvesant period.
After the mail, his condensed news digest:
Wednesday, February 12th
PRESIDENT SIGNS CONTROVERSIAL DUCK BILL
Conservation leaders praise forward-thinking leader. President disclaims, says only small step forward, but "little strokes fell great oaks."
President To Announce New Peace Plan
President's Wife Feared Ill
Cabinet Changes?
He was vaguely aware that the real press hardly ever mentioned him; these items had been gleaned from the Rood City Post, the Oslo (Nevada) Times and the Budget Junction O'erseer. He knew the press laughed at him for his sincerity, for his supposed vanity, for the way he conducted the war. They crucified him if he looked solemn, and when he smiled there were unkind remarks about his woodenness. The press! What did they know? Let them go on calling him an unsaleable commodity, a snap, an empty suit. They would one day look the ape!
Not a Gem
During morning coffee, he felt like a visit to the Reagan Room, but curbed it (PRESIDENT MASTERS OWN CONDITION). There was still the award ceremony (The confounded press! More pix with eyes closed, mouth open) and the luncheon with its precarious handshakes. And first of all there was Operation Orpheus and fat, freckled General Hare.
"We call it Orpheus, sir, because there's no turning back. We thought of calling it Operation Lot, but people might get it confused with Operation Sandlot, our talent-recruiting program, and with Operation Big Sandy. Operation Sodom was even worse. So we—"
"Get to the point, Hare. Where do you get this figure of 2,250 megatons?"
The general set down his coffee cup carelessly, so that the cookie fell from its saucer perch. Disorder. Reagan Room. Operation. Or Free Us. The music of the nukebox means a dance with China. I'd like to get you. On a slow boat. China, angina, regina, vagina.
"Let's see now." General Hare jotted figures on the edge of a soggy paper napkin. "We have North Zone, South Zone, Countries Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog …"
Slow bull to china.
"That makes 1,939,424 square kilometers, and that comes out to only 749 megatons. Allowing a 300 percent margin for error, we get 2,250 megatons, say 150 warheads. We wouldn't hardly miss it."
"Haha! Oh, excuse me, General, I just thought of something. What kind of—ha—boat would a slow boat to China be? Eh? Eh?"
"I don't exactly get you, sir. You mean—?"
"It's a riddle, man! Just tell me the answer to that, and I may give you the green light on one of these operations."
"Mr. President! I—"
"Give up? Give up?"
There was some argument about whether the general had actually given up before the president told him the answer. To placate him, it finally became necessary to okay Operation Big Sandy, both phases.
A Lexicon of Governmental Report Terms
alienatee: person not sympathetic to the government
bugs: demonstrators (hence swatting a swarm: riot control)
dealienation: brainwashing
decontamination: shock therapy used in dealienation
disaffiliate: anarchist
maverick: businessman who defects to radical side
opinion analyst: police agent
rationalizing an increment: stopping a demonstration
reconciliation: interrogation with extreme force
rodeo: suspect roundup and intensive reconciliation
social therapist: interrogator
technicality: prisoner
Souplines
The president has a rich dream life. It soaks through his skin like a rich soup and arranges the wrinkles in his "sober" business suit. Examination of the seat of the president's business pants reveals inmost desires, claims psychologist. A relief map of Indochina, perhaps.
His dreams boil up in projects, plans, operations, advisory committee schemes. His dreaming eye is on the donut, says aide. Operation Big Sandy, for instance. It may seem crazy to wall off Mexico (phase one), but there you are. "It's so crazy," says General Hare, "it just might work. Or not."
The lunch with leading blacks goes even worse than he'd feared. The press conference is cancelled and he disappears for half an hour into the Reagan Room. Later, before he goes to meet concerned psychologists and policemen, he checks his chin for lines of sin.
Major Operation
Operation Big Sandy was born on the littered conference table of the Great Seal's team of "creative" advisers. Karl and Dan were cuffing and folding maps to rearrange the world. Filcup sought truth in the depths of black coffee.
"A door-to-door instant welfare program? Let me call it Streetheart."
"A national idea bank—"
"Yes, but unemployment."
"Unemployment, sure, but Social Security deficits."
Filcup held up an atlas. "Think of the United States as a sheep or cow, marked into cuts of meat."
"The United Steaks?"
"Don't laugh, it's the body politic. About to be invaded by hostile germs, coming up the anus from Mexico—"
"Now just hold on a minute!" Texas Dan Foyle demanded that Filcup apologize.
"What we need is antiseptic. Make the Rio Grande radioactive. Build a wall," he continued.
"A wall to write on!" Karl said. "A challenge for our painters."
"Sell off advertising space."
Dan cracked his knuckles with unrestrained excitement. "This could be great for the old folks. Give them something to look at, a new interest in life. You realize that there are over a hundred retirement ranches in that area, and that more than half our retired folks live within a hundred miles of Mexico."
Filcup seemed convulsed by a private joke. "Wait till I tell you the rest, Dan. There's something in this for the old folks, all right, in phase two. But for now, we'll not only sell space to advertisers, we'll build gas stations, highways, concessions. A view of the wall. A view over it. Visit the gun emplacements. Amazing plastic replicas of the Grand Canyon, the Great Wall of China, the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem! It'll take up the slack in Mexican tourism, giving our vacationers a new place to go. And of course it'll be a sop for unemployment."
"The Great Wall!" They toasted it in cold coffee.
· · · · ·
2. Technicalities
At Fort Nixon Retraining Center
Dr. Veck was explaining the routine to the new man, Lane. "I know youngsters like you are chock-full of theory, itching to try everything out," he said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Fort Nixon is just the place for it. The normal routine isn't too irksome because most of ours are politicals, as you know. Not much trouble except security—they will try to escape—but I'm afraid they make dull cases."
He slid open a panel depicting the death of Actaeon (or some other deer) to show, through the back of a one-way glass, a dozen retrainees at work on handicrafts. "As you see, dull."
"Oh, I don't know. Who's the old-timer over in the corner? The one doing leather work."
"Old Hank? He's pretty well beyond treatment. I'll show you his record sometime. Looks as if he's making another bridle. He's made three already, one white, one red, and one black. This one seems to be beige. Of course he has no idea what he'll do with them. In fact, he told me he knows nothing at all about horses. Poor old Hank!"
Oblivious to their concern, Hank was kicking a water pipe under his bench, tapping out a message to his one friend.
"The government apparently has contingency plans to use some of our people for a work camp. Some construction project. I'd guess it's either another retirement ranch or else a dam on the Rio Grande. But of course they never tell us anything, We only have to deal with the extra security that will mean."
"Do you have many escapes?" asked Dr. Lane.
"We always catch them. And then we give them a taste of the random room. Little invention of my own. The occupant doesn't know what will happen to him, or when—all he knows is that it will be unpleasant. At perfectly random intervals he gets cold water, hot water, shock, strobe lights, whistles, drones, a shower of shit, whispers, heat, cold, and so on. Life in the ordinary ward seems pretty good to them after that. They're grateful for a secure, comfortable routine, and escape is—well—remote."
"Ah, yes, I noticed your paper on it in Political Psychopath, though I didn't have a chance to read it yet. Sounds interesting."
Dr. Veck acknowledged this half compliment with half a smile. "Your praxis was at Mount Burris, was it not?" He found his hair hurt, and his breath had to be forced.
"Yes, but not with politicals. I worked mainly with the children of malcontents. Primary adjustments, corporation workshop. Tame stuff compared to political deviation, which has always been my first love. Are you all right, Doctor?"
"Ah, it's nothing. I experience these symptoms, shortness of breath and so on, whenever I leave my office for any length of time. What say we go up to my office now, and I'll show you some typical case histories."
Entering Veck's office, the two men were arrested by a throbbing desert sunset. Dr. Lane sighed. Breaking off in the middle of a discussion of pattern attrition, he murmured:
"Who captains haughty Nature in her flaming hair
Can ne'er rest slothy whilst some lesser groom—"
"What was that?" Veck snapped the blinds shut and turned up the decent office light.
"Nothing, really. I wrote it for a class in Environmental Humanities."
"Good for you! We social engineers can use a smattering of culture around the place. Gives us new perspective on our problems. Like this one, for instance." He threw a dusty folder on the desk. "Mr. C. was a Communist, and he liked being a Communist. We tried damned near everything. Finally we learned that a fellow party member had seduced C.'s wife. We simply told him about this, allowed him to escape, and bingo!"
"Bingo?"
"By killing the seducer, C. proved that he thought of his wife as a piece of property. It was the first beachhead of capitalism in his commie brain. With our help he became vitally interested in other possessions, in getting and spending. His socialism fell away like an old scab. Today C. is a Baptist minister and a Rotarian."
"Amazing!"
"Or take this case, Mr. von J. Von J. was a malcontent, a hater of authority. Arrested for vandalism, jaywalking, nonpayment of taxes, contempt of court. Here we used aversive methods to great effect. The first step was to teach him self-discipline. We made him hold his urine twenty hours at a time, memorize chapters of Norman Vincent Peale, and so on. Now, I am given to understand, von J. is more than a model citizen; he does some work for the FBI.
"Mr. B. was an anarchist. We placed him in a controlled work situation. Among those who worked around him we removed everyone of competence and replaced them with indecisive idiots. They looked to B. for guidance; he became a straw boss, then a real boss. We rewarded his responsibility with more pay and privileges. He became a trusty.
"Naturally he escaped. On his return, B. learned that R., one of the idiot workers who had worshipped him, had, left on his own, committed suicide.
"In this way B. was brought to see that running away doesn't bring libert
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