Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut [80]
"So what’re you going to do next?"
Fred looked surprised. "Do? What is there to do but report it in some suitable journal?"
Without a preliminary knock, the front door burst open and Lew Harrison, florid and panting, swept into the room and removed his great polo coat with a bullfighterlike flourish. "You’re cutting him in on it, too?" he demanded, pointing at me.
Fred blinked at him. "In on what?"
"The millions," Lew said. "The billions."
"Wonderful," Fred said. "What are you talking about?"
"The noise from the stars!" Lew said "They love it. It drives ’em nuts. Didja see the papers?" He sobered for an instant. "It was the noise that did it, wasn’t it, Doc?"
"We think so," Fred said. He looked worried. "How, exactly, do you propose we get our hands on these millions or billions?"
"Real estate!" Lew said raptly. " ’Lew,’ I said to myself, ’Lew, how can you cash in on this gimmick if you can’t get a monopoly on the universe? And, Lew,’ I asked myself, ’how can you sell the stuff when anybody can get it free while you’re broadcasting it?’ "
"Maybe it’s the kind of thing that shouldn’t be cashed in on," I suggested. "I mean, we don’t know a great deal about—"
"Is happiness bad?" Lew interrupted.
"No," I admitted.
"Okay, and what we’d do with this stuff from the stars is make people happy. Now I suppose you’re going to tell me that’s bad?"
"People ought to be happy," Fred said.
"Okay, okay," Lew said loftily. "That’s what we’re going to do for the people. And the way the people can show their gratitude is in real estate." He looked out the window. "Good—a barn. We can start right there. We set up a transmitter in the barn, run a line out to your antenna, Doc, and we’ve got a real estate development."
"Sorry," Fred said. "I don’t follow you. This place wouldn’t do for a development. The roads are poor, no bus service or shopping center, the view is lousy and the ground is full of rocks."
Lew nudged Fred several times with his elbow. "Doc, Doc, Doc—sure it’s got drawbacks, but with that transmitter in the barn, you can give them the most precious thing in all creation—happiness." "
"Euphoria Heights," I said.
"That’s great!" said Lew. "I’d get the prospects, Doc, and you’d sit up there in the barn with your hand on the switch. Once a prospect set foot on Euphoria Heights, and you shot the happiness to him, there’s nothing he wouldn’t pay for a lot. "
"Every house a home, as long as the power doesn’t fail," I said.
"Then," Lew said, his eyes shining, "when we sell all the lots here, we move the transmitter and start another development. Maybe we’d get a fleet of transmitters going." He snapped his fingers. "Sure! Mount ’em on wheels."
"I somehow don’t think the police would think highly of us," Fred said.
"Okay, so when they come to investigate, you throw the old switch and give them a jolt of happiness.". He shrugged. "Hell, I might even get bighearted and let them have a corner lot."
"No," Fred said quietly. "If I ever joined a church, I couldn’t face the minister."
"So we give him a jolt," Lew said brightly.
"No," Fred said. "Sorry."
"Okay," Lew said, rising and pacing the floor. "I was prepared for that. I’ve got an alternative, and this one’s strictly legitimate. We’ll make a little amplifier with a transmitter and an aerial on it. Shouldn’t cost over fifty bucks to make, so we’d price it in the range of the common man—five hundred bucks, say. We make arrangements with the phone company to pipe signals from your antenna right into the homes of people with these sets. The sets take the signal from the phone line, amplify it, and broadcast it through the houses to make everybody in them happy. See? Instead of turning on the radio or television, everybody’s going to want to turn on the happiness. No casts, no stage sets, no expensive cameras—no nothing but that hiss."
"We could call it the euphoriaphone," I suggested, "or ’euphio’ for short."
"That’s great, that’s great!" Lew said. "What do you say, Doc?"
"I don’t know." Fred looked worried. "This sort of thing is out of