CONEJO POR LUNCHAY

by

Eliot Fintushel

 

"The Great Way is not difficult for those without preferences."

                                                                                                                        --Seng Ts'an (7th C.)

 

 

t was stinking hot.  I reached into my buffed pigskin side harness for the Smith and Wesson 411 a second too late--the red dot on my chest was cripplingly if not lethally placed--when the video was interrupted by an investigator from Control.  I completed my draw and fired anyway, spattering static across the investigator's jaw.

"We'd like a word with you Mr. Hole."

"Howell.  A sec," I said.  The lawn sprinklers had just gone on.  They were on schedule, but it was raining cathodes and diodes.  I wanted to blink out the dick and bring up the watering menu . . .

("Bring up!"  Don't you love that expression?  Once, on a cruise ship, in choppy water, a British lady, green in the face, brushes past me on the way to the head, and she says, "Excuse me. I have to bring up.")

 . . . but he wouldn't let me.  Screw him.  I ran outside to look for the manual shut-off.  Cesar was in the doorway, hunched under his cowboy hat.  He was trying to tell me something, but I waved him off.

Where was that valve?  I ran around the perimeter of the lawn, prying up green iron cover plates and getting it from above and below.  I wedged my head into impossible crawl spaces, looking for pipes among the startled rats.

Then I remembered Daisy.  I skidaddled back to the yard and scrambled through the bushes in her little fenced-off area until I found her.  She must have been in heat, or else the rain freaked her.  She actually growled at me--Rabbits growl!--and nipped my fingers when I picked her up.  That I slipped and slammed my butt on the slick grass was, by that time, the least of my worries.

Cesar was walking toward me from the house.

"Where's the shut-off?" I said.

He smiled and thrust some kind of note toward me.

"The shut-off!" I yelled, as if making it louder would make it more comprehensible.

"Conejo por lunchay?" he joked, in his hybrid Spanglish. Fourteen years in Anglo-conquered California and too proud to disenchant himself of Spanish--the nerve!  Rabbit for lunch?

"Right!" I said.  I'd heard it before.  I had better get back to the investigator.  I launched past Cesar back toward the door, when The Terror spotted me.  He was wearing his ratty grey slicker; he was still among the breakers off the coast of Maine--his mind never made it to the West Coast.

"Upping the ante, are we?"  He was talking about my weapon. I had neglected to remove my weapon.  It was still in the holster on my side.

"For God's sake, it's for a video game.  Give me a break, will you?"

"I've got my eye on you," The Terror said.  "Keep your grass clippings the hell off my lawn.  By the way, I'm reporting you to the conservation authorities about those sprinklers."

"Do that," I said.

"Patron!" Cesar called after me.  Boss!  He was still trying to shove his soggy note in my face.

"Later, Cesar," I said.  I took Daisy inside and slammed the door shut.  It had cooled off a little, I noticed.

The terminal was bleeping at a crazy-making pitch.  Without dropping Daisy, I punched down the volume.  Control's man was rolling his eyes.  So what?  On the message line under his Adam's apple, there was something coming in from my wife, Selma.  She was at an old phone booth somewhere, trying to get through.  I could still override Control on the type-in, so I asked my wife, key stroke by key stroke, lovingly, what the deuce she was bothering me about now.

"T-H-E-Y  W-O-N-'-T  A-C-C-E-P-T  M-Y  C-R-E-D-I-T  A-T  T‑H-E  L-U-G-G-A-G-E  S-T-O-R-E," she 'said.'

I 'said,' "T-r-y  y-o-u-r  g-o-o-d  l-o-o-k-s.  I-'-m  b‑u‑s-y."

She must have slammed the old phone down pretty hard for the screen to say "K-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k!" but there was another message queued up right behind her:

 

          Y-O-U  D-O-N-'-T  N-E-E-D  A  C-O-P-P-E-R

     P-E-N-N-Y  T-O  I-N-V-E-S-T  B-I-G-T-I-M-E  I-N

     S-T-R-A-T-E-G-I-C  M-E-T-A-L-S,  M-R-.

     B-E-N-J-A-M-I-N  H-O-L-E . . .

 

Howell!  It's Howell!  I can't stand it when they do that.  I negged it out.  There were other messages waiting behind that one, but by that time the investigator didn't seem such an inferior alternative, so I emptied Daisy's poop from my left hand, shifted her onto my shoulder, wiped the rain off my face, let my Intelligent Agent take the messages, and opened a line with the dick.

("Opened a line!"  There's another one.  It's like "opened an artery!"  That's what I always think of.  Blood pouring out of the vidscreen, pooling at my feet, rising, filling the living room, swallowing me up.  Funny thought.  Words get me.)

"We'd like a word with you, Mr. Hole."

"It's Howell," I said.  "Are you sure you want me?"

"Right.  Howell, I mean.  Benjamin Howell--correct?"

"Yeah.  Look, this isn't a convenient time."

"Mr. Howell, this is the time slot reserved for these inquiries, or it would be if you hadn't gone off for fifteen minutes just now."

"Was it fifteen minutes?  That goddam Terror!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Terror.  I'm sorry.  I mean my neighbor, Jack Terry.  He drives me nuts.  He made me late.  I didn't mean to put you out. Look, maybe you could do something about him?"

"Is that a pistol you're wearing, Mr. Hole?"

"Howell.  It's just for a vidgame, sir."

"Could you please take a moment and disable it?"

"It's disabled.  I mean, it doesn't shoot anything."

"Please disable the weapon now, Mr. Hole."

I hate that.  So I check the safety that keeps the firing pin from the hammer, and then I check the firing pin safety to see that it can't move without the trigger being pulled, and I check the magazine disconnect that takes the whole damn firing mechanism out of play in the first place, because I'm only using the thing for a game, which any idiot can see.  Then I aim it at the screen and say, "Bang, you're dead, heh, heh!"

"Very funny, Mr. Hole," he said.  Let that pass.  "Do you know you could be fined or imprisoned for doing what you just did?"

 

ctually, I did know that.  It's a stupid law.  The guy who killed those cops that way, it would never happen again in a jillion years.  It was a case of the Intelligent Agent (Don't get me started on that expression!) in the receiving side of the dicks' terminal making a very bad call.  It was their own gizmo that zapped the cops, not the shooter's Colt King.  Thing is, the shooter wanted to take the credit--a crazy.  They couldn't throw a gizmo into the slammer, an Intelligent Agent, for crissakes, so they boot Mr. Colt King--somebody has to pay.  Still, if you ask me, somewhere, there's a gizmo yokking its bolts off over the whole affair.

Or maybe the Intelligent Agent was right!  Maybe the cops wanted to buy the farm, and it was correctly executing their subconscious intention.  Which brings me to the matter of my dysfunctional fiduciary.  Or no, it doesn't.  I don't want to think about it.  Excuse me--the investigator is getting impatient for my response . . .

 

'm extremely sorry.  I guess it was a bad joke."

"A very bad joke.  What's that on your shoulder?  Could you step into focus, please?"

"It's a rabbit."  I had thought I was in focus.  The robo‑mechanism must have changed the lens angle.  I stepped forward a little.

"Good.  Stop there.  Cute little fellow."

"Daisy."

"Very cute.  Dutch rabbit?"

"Yes.  My daughter's."

"Mr. Hole,"--I heard the watering system switch to the next set of sprinklers as the deluge abated between clouds--"you have some traffic infractions you haven't responded to."

"That's impossible," I said.

"Why is that?"

"I'm just not that kind of a guy."

My partner was bleeping me on the message line, overriding the Intelligent Agent.  I hate that.  "B-E-N-N-Y,  Y-O-U  C‑R‑E‑E-P,
R-O-T  I-N  H-E-L-L . . . "

I closed out on the copper for a minute and typed in: "W‑h‑a-t-'-s  e-a-t-i-n-g  y-o-u  n-o-w-?"

He chose red typeface--very effective, when you're in the mood: "L-A-S-T  T-I-M-E  Y-O-U  C-U-T  M-E  O-U-T  O-F  A  D‑E‑A‑L,
B-I-G-S-H-O-T!  M-E-S-S-A-G-E  F-R-O-M  A-T-T-O-R-N-E-Y  F-O-L-L-O-W-S."

"J-e-s-u-s,  E-d . . . "  I had no idea what he was talking about.  I consult with him on everything, and we share it all fifty-fifty.  I am not that kind of a guy.

"F-R-O-M  N-O-W  O-N,  B-I-G-S-H-O-T,  Y-O-U-R  I-A  C-A-N  T-A-L-K  T-O  M-Y  I-A.  S-A-Y-O-N-A-R-A."

Cesar was rapping on the sliding glass door out back.

 

 remember when I got fitted for my Intelligent Agent.  In my heart, all the various unpleasantnesses despite, I am a guy who loves gadgets.  The tech folk actually came to my home with their boxes and bags.  Who makes house calls these days?  I was ecstatic.  I did the psychological tests--multiple choice, on‑screen--and two and a half hours of preference indices mucho con gusto; they already had my marketing profile for the past five or six years from Meistercharge and Minnecred.  They made me grip a ball of dental putty, the way they do, to fit me for my joyous, and they lubed the stick up good, like the gearbox on a Mazurati.

"Holy jeez, did you actually order a tank?"

". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a buffalo?"

". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a half ton of creosote?"

". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . six burial sites?"

". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . an egg and olive on kimmel?"

--So said Selma, on and on.  She didn't get it.  They weren't actual transactions.  The IA was just getting fitted those first seven weeks, like a very high class mood ring, getting used to my personality and preferences, so it could eventually take over and relieve me of the tiresome and superfluous task of being an adult human being.  Now, here is the

 

WARNING!!

 

on the last screen of the installation disk:

 

Vijnana Electronics Corporation advises users

of the Personal Intelligent Agent Vol. II Version

3-A to periodically review decisions made by PIA to

insure that they continue to reflect the

preferences of the user.  Vijnana Electronics

Corporation takes no responsibility for any harm

resulting from the misuse of this product either

intentionally or through user negligence.

NOW.....

ENJOY YOUR CAREFREE WORLD OF PIA!

 

Yeah, right!  I can't even periodically floss my teeth. What's the point of an IA in the first place if you have to ride herd over the thing?  That's what I say.  They just print those disclaimers to cover their ass for the long shots.  But Cesar is knocking . . .

 

ater, Cesar!  Mas tarde!  Occupado!"  My partner Ed has obviously left his brains in Deluth.  Daisy is eating my shirt collar.  The house is starting to feel chilly.  The screen is flashing.

"I'm sorry, Officer.  Something demanded my attention."

"Mr. Hole, for your own records, please record the segment beginning when I say 'now.'"  I hate that.  " . . . . . . Now!"  I grabbed the joyous and turned on the short-term recorder.  "Mr. Benjamin Hole, your presence is required on Tuesday morning, March 22, at the Healdsburg Municipal Traffic Court to face charges stemming from the avoidance and/or the willful failure to appear before the court or to respond to . . . "

"Jesus, can't my IA take care of this?"

"Mr. Hole, there is something wrong with your IA."

He started to fade off.  Just before his image was completely gone, while he could still hear me a little, I said, "Howell.  It's Howell, . . . you cretin."  Imagine that twenty-four dot per square inch flatfoot thinking there was a problem with my Intelligent Agent!  I just about brought up, thinking about it.

But there he was--the hit man in the natty blue suit who had been dogging me for weeks.  "Hey you," I said.

"You talking to me?"

"Yeah.  I want a word with you, fella."

"Yeah?  What word is that?"

"This one."  I was about to give it to him when I heard a car horn in the driveway.  Paper mail.  I put Daisy in her cage--she didn't quite draw blood this time when she scratched--swept the turds off my shoulder, nixed the hit man, waved to Cesar (still smiling at the glass door) and ran out to the driveway in the pouring rain.

"Certified," the mail person said from her dry jeep interior.  "Sign here."  I signed.  "You ought to get those sprinklers fixed."

I tucked the envelope under my shirt as the jeep tore up the edge of the lawn and drenched me with puddle mud.  It was time for breakfast, I was thinking.  It was time to get something right.  I went in and stripped, toweling myself down with Selma's apron.  I tossed the envelope onto my TO DO pile with the others and wrapped a dishtowel around my middle, just for Cesar, who was still smiling at the back door.  It was freezing cold inside, but that could wait.

The refrigerator was empty.  There was one cracker in the cabinet, and it had green mold on it.  The groceries that my IA routinely ordered had not come, dammit.  Don't tell Selma, I beg you.  She never wanted me to take grocery shopping away from her, but, between you and me, PIA does it better.

"Your bill is past due, Hole.  Your IA did not take care of it."  That's what the grocer said.  I negged him out with a yank of the joyous and brought up Selma's car set.  She negged me.  I went to literal and typed in, "L-e-t  m-e  o-n,  S-e-l-m-a.  N-o  f-o-o-d  i-n  h-o-u-s-e."

Selma let me through.  She was driving somewhere on the interstate, it looked like, and little Jennie was buckled in beside her.  "Starve, you crud.  I'm leaving you."

I drew.  I got her left shoulder, in pixels anyway.  Jennie dodged and started crying.  Selma scowled at me.  "You jerk.  Go bugger PIA."  She negged.  I guessed I'd have to take care of Daisy; maybe there was a way of hooking her up to the IA.

I brought up my investment portfolio to check if Selma had rifled through it.  That was one of the best things about PIA. PIA was a whiz at investments.

Well, I was sixty thousand dollars in debt and my mortgage was being called in by the bank--it looked like I'd have to go back to selling encyclopedias--but the pounding wasn't a migraine; it was Cesar being slammed against the glass door by The Terror, who had him by the collar and was brandishing a plumber's helper.  Let them work it out.  The piano movers were knocking at the front.

 

ait a minute.  "Mortgage"--there's another interesting word.  Let the movers knock for a minute.  You can often avoid overreacting to sudden bad news by paying attention to the words it comes in--that's what I do.  "Benjamin, listen to me, will you, not my goddam words," is what Selma would say, whose baloney I don't have to take any more.  Her loss!

So consider "mortgage," I was saying.  The "gage" part is just the same as in "engage"; it's Old French for a pledge or promise.  "Mort" of course, means dead.

There you have it--the sunny side of my street.

 

ou must have the wrong address," I told the mover.

"Mr. Hole?"

"That's me."--Let it pass--"But I don't know about any piano."

He looks down at the invoice.  Big guy.  Fifth grade education.  Tattoos.  Reading the invoice:  "Grand piano.  Hole. No--Howell!  Your name is Howell."

"Right."

"Okay, boys . . . "

My dish towel is starting to slide.  I lack an authoritative voice.  Large objects are coming in my direction.  I hear funny scratching noises in Daisy's cage, but I have to ignore them because Cesar and The Terror are falling in through the back door, and glass is flying everywhere.

The moving man says, "You should get your sprinklers fixed."  He presses the invoice into my hand and tramps out.  "Is it always this cold in here?" he says.  Slam.

Maybe I could order out for breakfast.

 

n my old word processor, which, for sentimental reasons, I still liked to use from time to time, a SEARCH, once initiated, can't be interrupted.  You don't have to press ENTER or EXEC or anything like that--just SEARCH--and it won't listen to CANCEL either.  The machine just keeps combing through data until it comes up with the letter combo you probably typed in by mistake, and you have to just sit there and watch till it decides it's done, or you turn off the whole gizmo and crank her up again.

I think life is like that, don't you?

There goes the world, above the firmament and below the firmament, just like Newton & company said, turning, clicking, beveling, pendulating; once wound by the Creator, no intervention allowed!  No deus ex machina!  Wind, water and Uncle Joe, every card in everybody's hand straight out of that first deal!

God: "Did I do that?  That's not what I had in mind at all!"  God's hand on the joyous for a nanosec, twenty billion years ago, then quits!  The world as God's IA.  Good luck!

So I am beginning to think maybe I have a little problem with my Intelligent Agent.  Seems like seven weeks is long enough for an IA to get to know its host.  Seems like it to me.  But then, there's that WARNING!! about reviewing the personal preferences alignment.

Consider pi, I beg you.  Looks like there aren't any zeros there in pi, doesn't it?  Ten places, twenty places, thirty places, thirty-one places past the dot, all the way out to the ten million trillion trillionths' place--not a zed in the lot.  Looks like a pretty safe bet.  Then whammo!  Right there in the hundred million trillion trillionths' place, a zero!  Whaddaya know!  Just because it didn't rain yesterday and yesterday and yesterday . . . doesn't mean it's dry today!

I think I may have a problem with my IA.  What do you think?

 

efore I tried to separate Cesar and The Terror, I gave the screen a sharp rap to break the sheet of ice that had formed across it, in case there was something important going on there. The only image onscreen was a black disk, nearly the size of the screen itself, with a silver ring around it--somebody's logo, I figured.  I turned to address the fracas, when the thing fired.  A thundering electrostatic blast sizzled my shoulder and burned a few floor boards before frying The Terror's grey slicker.

So, anyway, my alarm system was working.  The Terror receded from my domicile and seethed back to his own property line posthaste.  The house was warming up very quickly; the heating ducts in the mop boards were steaming where water from the sprinklers had pelted them through the broken door.

Cesar, unscathed, picked himself up off the floor and strode over to me, El Patron, The Boss, with the soaked, crumpled note in his paw. He was still smiling.  Couldn't he smell the smoke coming up through the floor boards?  That wasn't from the security blast; that was the heating system on supercharge.  I decided to stay right there and go down with the house.

"Get out while you can," I told Cesar.  The flames didn't seem to bother him.

"Un hombre oficial come to Cesar,"--taking off his hat, wiping his wet brow on his wet sleeve--"give me noticia in garajo.  Para usted, Patron."  For you, Boss!

I took the note from Cesar.  It was printed on a standard form from one of the services that convey computer-transmitted messages; sometimes the sender desires human contact at the receiving end.  The messenger boy thought Cesar was Mr. Hole.  The message was for me.  It was from my Intelligent Agent:

 

       DON'T BE DIFFICULT.  THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT.

 

"What I want?" I screamed.  "What I want?"  Cesar lowered his head.  I turned to the vidscreen, which was blank, azure blue.  "What do I want?  What the hell do I want?"

Quite suddenly, the vidscreen was playing "The Ride of the Valkyries" from Wagner's "Gotterdammerung" as an announcement melody for what turned out to be the delivery, on the printer, of two airplane tickets.  Also, Daisy overturned her cage, an ill-placed hook sprang loose, and bunny leapt into my face.  I looked between her ears at the tickets--Nassau, one-way.

"Can you cook rabbit?" I asked Cesar.  I was already spitting rabbit fur.  "We gotta eat something before we hit the airport."  He swept aside the shards of glass with his fancy cowboy boots and started to assemble a barbecue right there on the charred floor boards.  I went to find some clothes in a part of the house not yet damaged by fire.

 

s the billboards in Miami say, "It's better in the Bahamas."  Cesar is teaching me how to fish.  He is a tolerable boss, if you have to have one.  He doesn't let me call him Patron, just amigo.  And fishing is okay.  There's time, see?  You can think about pi to thirty-two places.  It rains; it shines.  And when you land one--wham!--there's lunch, real lunch.