Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut [26]
The detail in the furnishings of Room 223 that interested young Malachi so was a photograph of himself It was a photograph of himself at the age of three—a photograph of a sweet, pleasant, game little boy on an ocean beach.
It was thumbtacked to the wall.
It was the only picture in the room.
Old Noel saw young Malachi looking at the picture, and was confused and embarrassed by the whole thing about fathers and sons. He ransacked his mind for something good to say, and found almost nothing.
"My father gave me only two pieces of advice," he said, "and only one of them has stood the test of time. They were: ’Don’t touch your principal,’ and ’Keep the liquor bottle out of the bedroom.’ " His embarrassment and confusion were now too great to be borne. "Good-by," he said abruptly.
"Good-by?" said young Malachi, startled. He moved toward the door.
"Keep the liquor bottle out of the bedroom," said the old man, and he turned his back.
"Yes, sir, I will," said young Malachi. "Good-by, sir," he said, and he left.
That was the first and last time that Malachi Constant ever saw his father.
His father lived for five more years, and the Bible never played him false.
Noel Constant died just as he reached the end of this sentence: "And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also."
His last investment was in Sonnyboy Oil at 17¼.
The son took over where the father had left off, though Malachi Constant did not move into Room 223 in the Wilburhampton.
And, for five years, the luck of the son was as sensational as the luck of the father had been.
And now, suddenly, Magnum Opus lay in ruins.
There in his office, with the floating furniture and the grass carpet, Malachi Constant still could not believe that his luck had run out.
"Nothing left?" he said faintly. He managed to smile at Ransom K. Fern. "Come on, guy—I mean there’s got to be something left."
"I thought so, too, at ten o’clock this morning," said Fern. "I was congratulating myself on having buttressed Magnum Opus against any conceivable blow. We were weathering the depression quite nicely—yes, and your mistakes, too.
"And then, at ten-fifteen, I was visited by a lawyer who was apparently at your party last night. You, apparently, were giving away oil wells last night, and the lawyer was thoughtful enough to draw up documents which, if signed by you, would be binding. They were signed by you. You gave away five hundred and thirty-one producing oil wells last night, which wiped out Fandango Petroleum.
"At eleven," said Fern, "the President of the United States announced that Galactic Spacecraft, which we had sold, was receiving a three-billion contract for the New Age of Space.
"At eleven-thirty," said Fern, "I was given a copy of The Journal of the American Medical Association, which was marked by our public relations director, ’FYI.’ These three letters, as you would know if you had ever spent any time in your office, mean ’for your information.’ I turned to the page referred to, and learned, for my information, that MoonMist Cigarettes were not a cause but the principal cause of sterility in both sexes wherever MoonMist cigarettes were sold. This fact was discovered not by human beings but by a computing machine. Whenever data about cigarette smoking was fed into it, the machine grew tremendously excited, and no one could figure out why. The machine was obviously trying to tell its operators something. It did everything it could to express itself, and finally managed to get its operators to ask it the right questions.
"The right questions had to do with the relationship of MoonMist Cigarettes to human reproduction. The relationship was this:
"People who smoked MoonMist Cigarettes couldn’t have children, even if they wanted them," said Fern.
"Doubtless," said