Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut [95]
Flammer laughed. "In my naïve, idealistic youth, Potter, I sold ads to feed stores, gathered gossip, set type, and wrote editorials that were going to save the world, by God."
David smiled admiringly. "What a circus, eh?"
"Circus?" said Flammer. "Freak show, maybe. It’s a good way to grow up fast. Took me about six months to find out I was killing myself for peanuts, that a little guy couldn’t even save a village three blocks long, and that the world wasn’t worth saving anyway. So I started looking out for Number One. Sold out to a chain, came down here, and here I am."
The telephone rang. "Yes?" said Flammer sweetly. "Puhbliss-itee." His benign smile faded. "No. You’re kidding, aren’t you? Where? Really—this is no gag? All right, all right. Lord! What a time for this to happen. I haven’t got anybody here, and I can’t get away on account of the goddam boy scouts." He hung up. "Potter—you’ve got your first assignment. There’s a deer loose in the Works!"
"Deer?"
"Don’t know how he got in, but he’s in. Plumber went to fix a drinking fountain out at the softball diamond across from Building 217, and flushed a deer out from under the bleachers. Now they got him cornered up around the metallurgy lab." He stood and hammered on his desk. "Murder! The story will go all over the country, Potter. Talk about human interest. Front page! Of all the times for Al Tappin to be out at the Ashtabula Works, taking pictures of a new viscometer they cooked up out there! All right—I’ll call up a hack photographer downtown, Potter, and get him to meet you out by the metallurgy lab. You get the story and see that he gets the right shots. Okay?"
He led David into the hallway. "Just go back the way you came, turn left instead of right at fractional horsepower motors, cut through hydraulic engineering, catch bus eleven on Avenue 9, and it’ll take you right there. After you get the story and pictures, we’ll get them cleared by the law division, the plant security officer, our department head and buildings and grounds, and shoot them right out. Now get going. That deer isn’t on the payroll—he isn’t going to wait for you. Come to work today—tomorrow your work will be on every front page in the country, if we can get it approved. The name of the photographer you’re going to meet is McGarvey. Got it? You’re in the big time now, Potter. We’ll all be watching." He shut the door behind David.
David found himself trotting down the hall, down a stairway, and into an alley, brushing roughly past persons in a race against time. Many turned to watch the purposeful young man with admiration.
On and on he strode, his mind seething with information: Flammer, Building 31; deer, metallurgy lab; photographer, Al Tappin. No. Al Tappin in Ashtabula. Flenny the hack photographer. No. McCammer. No. McCammer is new supervisor. Fifty-six per cent eagle scouts. Deer by viscometer laboratory. No. Viscometer in Ashtabula. Call Danner, new supervisor, and get instructions right. Three weeks’ vacation after fifteen years. Danner not new supervisor. Anyway, new supervisor in Building 319. No. Fanner in Building 39981983319.
David stopped, blocked by a grimy window at the end of a blind alley. All he knew was that he’d never been there before, that his memory had blown a gasket, and that the deer was not on the payroll. The air in the alley was thick with tango music and the stench of scorched insulation. David scrubbed away some of the crust on the window with his handkerchief, praying for a glimpse of something that made sense.
Inside were ranks of women at benches, rocking their heads in time to the music, and dipping soldering irons into great nests of colored wires that crept past them on endless belts.