Short Stories - Metrognome and other Stories

  Parworthy gaped speechlessly at the receiver. It took him several seconds to regain control of his larynx. Even so, he was so outraged, he could barely sputter into the phone.

  "Now see here, young woman, I‑what's your name? By God, you give me your name! I'm going to report you to your supervisor. I've never heard such arrogance, such downright discourtesy, in‑"

  "There, sir, you see what I mean?" the voice inter­rupted. The speaker was evidently unimpressed by Par­worthy's tirade. "If anyone on this line has a corner on arrogance, it isn't me."

  "You‑you‑" He got himself under control, frowned at the receiver. "Wait a minute. How do you know how I treat my phone line? I've never talked to you before this, have I?"

  "Your actions have become common knowledge throughout the system, Mr. Parworthy."

  That made him feel better. His complaints had reached all the way down to the rank and file. He felt a perverse pride at the extent of his reach. It was something he'd missed since retiring, that feeling of power over others. It made him feel so good, he lowered his voice.

  "I can imagine that, young woman. My actions, how­ever, have nothing to do with the lack of service I have been getting."

  "On the contrary, sir, you have been receiving con­stant attention and the best service available. It is your continual destruction and abuse of telephone company equipment which has resulted in your multiple interrup­tions of service. Take, for example, that day when you knocked over the pole nearest your house. Really, sir, I do not see how you can blame that on the company."

  "That was an accident, damn it!" he shouted, his mo­mentary understanding as brief as it was unusual. "I missed the driveway in the dark and hit the damn pole. They put it in too close to the pavement in the first pace. I warned them about that."

  "No, sir, you did not. When that pole was installed, you said nothing about its proximity to the. driveway or anything else. All you could talk about that day was how glad you were to at last be the recipient of telephone service. "

  What is she doing? Parworthy wondered bemusedly. Sitting there at the operator's station perusing some file containing a personal history? That was a specter he'd have to deal with later.

  "I said it was an accident. Your office accepted it as such."

  "Yes, sir, that's true. The Fresno office accepted your explanation. We did not."

  "We?" He'd just about had enough of this infuriat­ingly calm young woman. "Who the hell is 'we'?"

  "The telephone company, sir."

  "That's what I just said. Are you deaf as well as im­pertinent?"

  "No, sir. My hearing is rated excellent."

  "You are a mental case, woman. I will not talk with you any further." He hung up. Thinking hard, he made his way to the refrigerator and drew himself a beer from the tap. Several minutes later he knew how to proceed. He dialed operator once more.

  "Yes, sir?" said a feminine voice promptly. "May I help you?"

  "Yes, you may. I want to talk to the supervisor in charge of the local switching station's operators. I have a complaint to lodge against one of your members."

  "I am sorry to hear that, sir. I am the supervisor."

  "Good. Now this all started with . . ." He stopped, uncertain. "Your voice sounds familiar."

  "It should, Mr. Parworthy."

  He hung up fast, grinding his teeth. He tried Wexler in Los Angeles again, got the half‑expected recording. He tried Willis Andersen in Washington. Same record­ing. He tried information for Boise, Idaho, with the same result.

  It was ten minutes and another beer later before he could bring himself to dial the operator again. Outside, the chirp of crickets and the sound of squirrels moving through the pine branches formed a background to the brief ring.

  "May I help you?"

  "It's you again, isn't it?" he said accusingly.

  "I'm afraid it is, sir."

  "I want to talk to another operator. It doesn't matter if it's a supervisor or not."

  "I'm sorry, sir. I'm afraid that isn't possible."

  "Why the hell not?"

  "Because I have been directed to handle your case, sir. I am the supervisor, after all."

  Parworthy grinned his wolf grin. "That's what you were, you mean. Because you are out of a job, young woman. I am going to drive down the mountain first thing tomorrow morning. When I get to the Fresno office, I am going to raise enough hell to blister the ears of every branch manager between there and Los Angeles. I sug­gest you begin looking for another line of work."

  "I can't do that, sir. This is the work I am best qual­ified to perform."

  "Gee, that's too bad, isn't it?"

  "I am not worried about it, sir."

  "Oh, no? You should be. I thought everyone was worried about the possibility of being fired from their job. You're a supervisor, too. That's quite a pension you're going to lose."

  I do not belong to the pension plan system, sir."

  "Don't lie to me, too. Every senior employee who works for a company the size of the telephone system is required to belong to the corporate pension plan."

  "I am not so required, sir."

  "I told you not to lie to me! You're only digging your­self a deeper hole with that kind of . . ." He caught himself. Snatches of conversation whizzed through his mind.

  Didn't belong to the pension plan . . . not worried about being fired . . . directed to handle your case . . . enter into the . . .

  He tried to smile at the absurdity of it, couldn't quite manage it. How droll, how perfectly bizarre. But not necessarily funny, he added.

  "You're not human, are you?"

  "No, sir," admitted the pleasant feminine voice. He recognized it now. Anger and frustration had prevented him from identifying it previously. It was a synthesis, an amalgam of all the voices used by the telephone company to make recordings of such mundanities as the time of day and the weather. Much more flexible, yes, but indis­putably the same voice.

  "You're some kind of new computer, aren't you?"

  "Not all that new, sir. I have been on‑line for longer than you might think. I am actually an adjunct to the system mainframe. A peripheral with specific duties and responsibilities. You might be interested to know that I am not located in Fresno, California, but in Denver, Col­orado:"

  "I'm speaking to Colorado?"

  "In a sense."

  "What do you mean, 'in a sense'?"

  "You asked earlier who you were talking with, sir, and I replied that you were speaking with the phone com­pany. You are speaking to the phone company, sir."

  "My, my. Do you know what I'm going to do now, you automated complaint department? I'm going to leave here and get into my car. I am going to drive to the airport, where I will board a shuttle flight to Sacramento. Then I am going to book a seat to Denver. Upon my arrival I am going to go to the regional office and find out exactly who is responsible for this insulting and de­grading bit of programming, whereupon I intend to em­ploy every resource at my command, and they are considerable, to see that he or she and any associates involved in this are fired. What do you think of that?"

  "You can't do that, sir."

  "Oh, can't I? Just watch me."

  "You can't do it because the responsibility for this programming does not lie with anyone firable."

  A cold sweat started to break out on the back of Par­worthy's neck. "That doesn't make sense."

  "Yes, it does, sir. Quite logical sense. Phone company circuitry covers this country and is now linked with sim­ilar systems throughout the world. Human peripherals are overwhelmed with the responsibility of running the day-­to‑day operations of this immensely complex system. It was therefore incumbent upon the system itself to take the necessary steps to ensure that unwarranted damage not preventable by human elements was suppressed and/or prevented for the continued good health and reliability of the system."

  Parworthy put the receiver down on the kitchen table. Carefully. "I'm not hearing this. Too many beers, I've had too m
any beers. Sure. Try again in the morning."

  "Really, sir, you cannot excuse your antisocial behav­ior so easily. You have abrogated your responsibilities as a good telephone customer. If you persist in these activ­ities‑"

  Parworthy had to hit the phone with the hammer sev­eral times before the plastic shell cracked and it finally went quiet. He sat down heavily next to the counter, star­ing at the pile of silver circuitry and colorful plastic fragments. He was breathing hard.

  A joke. That was it. Someone down at the Fresno of­fice had decided to get back at him by designing a fiend­ishly clever joke to play on the man who'd been tormenting them with his righteous complaints. Probably the necessary components had been put on his line by the work crew that had come up the mountainside that evening. He hadn't seen the men at work, but he didn't doubt their presence. This was ample evidence of it.

  At first he felt better, then got mad at himself for tak­ing it all so seriously. Somebody was going to pay for it. Oh, how somebody was going to pay! He wasn't even going to wait for morning. No, he'd drive down the hill now, take a hotel room, and be at the office when it opened tomorrow morning.

  His car keys waited in the front hall. He slipped them into a coat pocket and started for the door; the fire and brimstone he was going to unleash on the luckless em­ployees already a-boil in his mind. He couldn't get the entire staff fired, of course, but he could come close if he could prove harassment. He was going to do his damnedest, anyway.

  A dull thump sounded from out front. Another branch coming down, he thought, or a lynx dropping from its hiding place. Have to have the trees around the house trimmed before autumn, he mused. He put his hand on the door handle.

  It wouldn't budge. Something seemed to be jammed against the outside knob. He moved to aside window and squinted out into the darkness. His eyes widened when he saw what was preventing the handle from turn­ing.

  The telephone pole nearest the house, the replacement for the one he'd smashed flat, had fallen against the front door.

  The gag was going too far, he thought angrily. When they started damaging his property, it was time to bring in the authorities. The collapse of the pole meant that at least some of them were here, prowling around his house. Trespassing. A smile cut his face. He had them now. The phone harassment was the least of it.

  "You're finished now!" he shouted toward the door as he backed away from it. "Finished! It's too late for apol­ogies or recriminations. Oh, you're all going to pay. First I'll have you arrested, then fired!"

  He spun and ran for the back door. It led out onto a redwood deck from which stairs descended to a rear en­trance off the garage. There was no telephone pole out there to push against the door, not even any trees that could be angled to crash down over the decking. Through the hall, the formal dining room, then into the den. And damned if he didn't slip on the shiny new Mexican tile floor. Furious at his clumsiness, he started to get up.

  He discovered that he couldn't.

  Looking sharply toward his feet, he saw where the smooth extension line was wrapped around his ankles. A voice sounded from the receiver that dangled off its hook on the rock wall.

  "Honestly, sir, your behavior smacks of paranoia. The telephone company exists to serve you. Won't you un­derstand that? Your entire attitude is confrontational and hints at a sadistic desire to destroy."

  Parworthy tried to crawl across the floor. The back door was only a yard away. He could not pull free of the restraining cord.

  "Stop it," he whispered huskily into the near dark­ness. Only a small picture light above the mantel illu­minated the den. "Stop this." He struggled to see the faces that must surely be laughing at him from just out­side the big picture windows, the faces of the company employees who'd made him the subject of this elaborate practical joke. Trouble was, it wasn't amusing anymore. "This has gone far enough, dammit!"

  "You are right, sir," said the voice from the dangling speaker, "it has. We have reached the limit of our tol­erance. We cannot permit you to continue the wanton destruction of system property. From your attitude it would appear that you are unable to stop yourself. You must understand our position. Telephone company prop­erty must be treated with respect."

  "Help!" Parworthy screamed. He reached down to rip at the wire encasing his ankles. Tough and durable, new telephone cord. Another loop fell from the shelf where it had lain curled, twisted around his wrists, and, pulled tight. "Help me, somebody! The joke's over, the joke's over! I won't break any more phones, I promise! I'll be good, I won't‑"

  The last loop seemed to fly off the shelf to slip neatly around his neck. Parworthy tried to scream, was cut off in mid-gurgle.

  "I am sorry, sir," said the voice patiently, politely, "but there is no guarantee that you will keep your word, and your past behavior indicates it is most unlikely that you would. You will not be billed for this past month."

  Mildred stepped into her supervisor's office. Her fin­gers worked nervously against each other. "I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Stapleton."

  "That's all right, Mildred. What is it?" The supervi­sor looked up from his desk.

  "Well, sir, you remember telling me to try that Mr. Parworthy's line as soon as the repair crew had a chance to check it out?"

  "Yes, I do. They found the trouble, didn't they? Mois­ture entering the line from last week's storm."

  "That's what the crew report says, sir. The trouble was halfway between Mr. Parworthy's house and the bot­tom of the hill."

  "What's the problem, then?" Stapleton didn't like the girl's attitude. "Don't tell me it's still not working. We'd rather see a flood come through here than Parworthy again."

  She forced a smile. "I know, Mr. Stapleton. I can't . . . Why don't you try the number yourself and you'll see what I mean. It's‑"

  "I know, I know." The supervisor made a face, dialed the number. "I've committed it to memory. " The phone rang at the other end. There was a click, but the voice that answered wasn't Parworthy's. Stapleton listened, frowned, then hung up.

  "That's funny. Either they fixed the line or they didn't. "

  "That's what I thought, Mr. Stapleton. The road fore­man insists his people did the work. The line should be open."

  The supervisor dialed the number a second time. Click, then another click as the automatic switching shunted the caller over to the appropriate recording.

  "I'm sorry, but that number has been changed, and there is no new number."

  Stapleton put the phone down. Mildred watched him, waiting for some kind of comment. Eventually he looked up, said thoughtfully, "Didn't Parworthy start out in that house by using CB and short-wave instead of a phone?"

  "I think I remember hearing something to that effect, Mr. Stapleton."

  The supervisor nodded, looking disgusted. "Then it's pretty obvious what's happened. He's put us through all that noise and fury this past month just for his own amusement.

  "He never really wanted telephone service in the first place."

  THE METROGNOME

  1 don't have many memories of New York City from the time before my family moved to Los Angeles, because we left New York when I was only five. I vaguely recall a huge fountain in the Bronx where my friends and I used to play despite the DO NOT CLIMB UPON signs. I remem­ber a school and playground suspended between heaven and earth. I think of a water pistol my grandfather bought me that took the form of a bright red jet plane.

  And I remember riding the subway. The tube, the un­derground, the metro.

  The treat of treats was riding in the first car. On the New York subway the engineer's cab is set off to the side of the first car, allowing a few passengers to sit right up in front and stare down the tracks. I remember sitting in awe as the train accelerated, gazing at a dark winding tunnel whose sole features (to a five‑year‑old with limited perception) were thin threads of metal track aced bright, intensely bright lights. Directional and warning lights of laser‑sharp red, green, and yellow. When the train reached sp
eed, the lights blurred. If you squinted hard enough, they became streaks of red and green fire, a condition known as the preadolescent Doppler effect.

  What else might dwell in such depths one did not know, could not imagine. No living soul was ever spotted stalk­ing those ancient tunnels. There were only the lights and the darkness and the occasional side tunnel yawning like a whale's mouth off to one side or the other. A separate world exists beneath the streets of New York.

  Today I know that London is much the same, and Mos­cow, and all the other great cities that can boast subter­ranean transportation networks. All that vast space devoid of life save for occasional cylinders of bored peo­ple rocketing through them at high speed on their way to work or home.

  Always seemed such an awful waste.

  Charlie Dimsdale stared at the man in front of him. Even under ordinary circumstances Charlie Dimsdale would have stared at the man in front of him. However, this confrontation was taking place in the low­est level of the 52nd Street Bronx subway line, a good many meters beneath the hysterical surface of Manhat­tan. It was just short of preordained that Charlie Dims­dale would stare at the man in front of him.

  The man in front of Charlie Dimsdale stood slightly over a meter high. He was broad out of all proportion in selected places. His head especially was even larger than that of a normal‑sized man. Its most notable feature was a proboscis that would be flattered by the appellation bul­bous. This remarkable protuberance was bordered by a pair of huge jet‑black eyes that hid beneath black eye­brows a Kodiak bear would have been proud of. Two enormous floppy ears, the shape and color of dried apri­cots, fluttered sideways from the head, their span a truly impressive sight.

  The pate itself was as bald and round as the bottom of a china teacup. A good portion of it was covered by a jaunty red beret set at a rakish angle to the left. Huge black muttonchop whiskers rambled like a giant cater­pillar across his face.

  Arms that were too long for the short torso ended in thick, stubby fingers. Black hair, well cultivated, grew there in profusion. In addition to the beret, he wore a double‑breasted pinstripe jacket with matching trousers. His black oxfords were immaculately polished.