Dark Benediction

They shook hands. Thornier stood with his arms folded, haughtily inspecting a bug that crawled across the frond of a potted palm, and waiting for a chance to ask D’Uccia for the keys to the truck. He felt the theater manager’s triumphant gaze, but gave no indication that he heard.

“We can do the job for you all right, Mr. D’Uccia. Cut your worries in half. And that’ll cut your doctor bills in half, too, like you say. Yes, sir! A man in your position gets ground down with just plain human inefficiency—other people’s inefficiency. You’ll never have to worry about that, once you get the building autojanitored, no sir!”

“T’ank you kindly.”

“Thank you, Mr. D’Uccia, and I’ll see you later this afternoon.”

The salesman left.

“Well, bom?” D’Uccia grunted to the janitor.

“The keys to the truck. Miss Ferne wants a pickup from the depot.”

D’Uccia tossed them to him. “You hear what the man say? Letsa machines do alla work, hah? Always you wantsa day off. O.K., you takka da day off, ever’day pretty soon. Nice for you, hah, ragazzo?”

Thornier turned away quickly to avoid displaying the surge of unwanted anger. “Be back in an hour,” he grunted, and hurried away on his errand, his jaw working in sullen resentment. Why wait around for two humiliating weeks? Why not just walk out? Let D’Uccia do his own chores until the autojan was installed. He’d never be able to get another job around the theater anyhow, so D’Uccia’s reaction wouldn’t matter.

I’ll walk out now, he thought—and immediately knew that he wouldn’t. It was hard to explain to himself, but when he thought of the final moment when he would be free to look for a decent job and a comfortable living—he felt a twinge of fear that was hard to understand.

The janitor’s job had paid him only enough to keep him alive in a fourth floor room where he cooked his own meager meals and wrote memoirs of the old days, but it had kept him close to the lingering remnants of something he loved.

“Theater,” they called it. Not the theater—as it was to the scalper’s victim, the matinee housewife, or the awestruck hick—but just “theater.” It wasn’t a place, wasn’t a business, wasn’t the name of an art. “Theater” was a condition of the human heart and soul. Jade Ferne was theater. So was Ian Feria. So was Mela, poor kid, before her deal with Smithfield. Some had it, others didn’t. In the old days, the ones that didn’t have it soon got out. But the ones that had it, still had it, even after the theater was gobbled up by technological change. And they hung around. Some of them, like Jade and Ian and Mela, adapted to the change, profited by the prostitution of the stage, and developed ulcers and a guilty conscience. Still, they were theater, and because they were, he, Thornier, hung around, too, scrubbing the floors they walked on, and feeling somehow that he was still in theater. Now he was leaving. And now he felt the old bitterness boiling up inside again. The bitterness had been chronic and passive, and now it threatened to become active and acute.

If I could only give them one last performance! he thought. One last great role.

But that thought led to the fantasy-plan for revenge, the plan that came to him often as he wandered about the empty theater. Revenge was no good. And the plan was only a daydream. And yet—he wasn’t going to get another chance.

He set his jaw grimly and drove on to the Smithfield depot.

The depot clerk had hauled the crated mannequin to the fore, and it was waiting for Thornier when he entered the stockroom. He rolled it out from the wall on a dolly, and the janitor helped him wrestle the coffin-sized packing case onto the counter.

“Don’t take it to the truck yet,” the clerk grunted around the fat stub of a cigar. “It ain’t a new doll, and you gotta sign a release.”

“What kind of a release?”

“Liability for malfunction. If the doll breaks down during the show, you can’t sue Smithfield. It’s standard prack for used-doll rentals.”

“Why didn’t they send a new one, then?”

“Discontinued production on this model. You want it, you take a used one, and sign the release.”

“Suppose I don’t sign?”

“No siggy, no dolly.”

“Oh.” He thought for a moment. Obviously, the clerk had mistaken him for production personnel. His signature wouldn’t mean anything—but it was getting late, and Jade was rushed. Since the release wouldn’t be valid anyhow he reached for the form.

“Wait,” said the clerk. “You better look at what you’re signing for.” He reached for a wrecking claw and slipped it under a metal binding strap. The strap broke with a screechy snap. “It’s been overhauled,” the clerk continued. “New solenoid fluid injected, new cosmetic job. Nothing really wrong. A few fatigue spots in the padding, and one toe missing. But you oughta have a look, anyhow.”