Thomas M. Disch by Understanding Human Behavior

Author:Understanding Human Behavior [Behavior, Understanding Human]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-12-13T15:44:48+00:00

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In the middle of November the company re-assigned him to the central office in downtown Denver, where he was assistant Traffic Manager for the entire Rocky Mountain division. Nothing in his work at the convenience center had seemed to point in this direction, but as soon as he scanned the programs involved it was all there in his head and fingers, lingering on like the immutable melody of 1 + 1 = 2.

The one element of the job that wasn’t second nature was the increased human contact, which went on, some days, nonstop. Hi there, Dick, what do you think of this and what do you think of that, did you see the game last night, what’s your opinion of the crisis, and would you please speak to Lloyd about the time he’s spending in the john. Lloyd, when spoken to, insisted he worked just as hard in the john as in the office, and said he’d cut down his time on the stool as soon as they allowed him to smoke at his desk. This seemed reasonable to Richard but not to the manager, who started to scream at him, calling him a zombie and a zeroid, and said he was fired. Instead, to nobody’s great surprise, it was the manager who got the axe. So, after just two weeks of grooming, Richard was the new Traffic Manager, with an office all his own with its own view of other gigantic office buildings and a staff of thirty-two, if you counted temps and part-timers.

To celebrate he went out and had the famous hundred-dollar dinner at the Old Millionaire Steak Ranch with Lloyd, now the assistant Traffic Manager, with not his own office but at least a steel partition on one side of his desk and the right, thereby, to carcinogenate his lungs from punch-in to punch-out. Lloyd, it turned out, after a second Old Millionaire martini, lived up at New Focus and was one of the original members of the Boulder branch of the cult.

“No kidding,” said Richard, reverently slicing into his sirloin. “That’s fascinating. So why are you working here in the city? You can’t commute to New Focus. Not this time of year.”

“Money, why else. Half my salary, maybe more now, goes into the Corporation. We can’t live for free, and there sure as hell isn’t any money to be earned building a damned pyramid.”

“So why do you build pyramids?”

“Come on, Dick. You know I can’t answer that.”

“I don’t mean you as a group. I mean you personally. You must have some kind of reason for what you’re doing.”

Lloyd sighed long-sufferingly. “Listen, you’ve been up there, you’ve seen us cutting the blocks and fitting them in place. What’s to explain? The beauty of the thing is that no one asks anyone else why we’re doing what we’re doing. Ever. That’s Rule Number One. Remember that if you ever think of joining.”

“Okay, then tell me this — why would I want to join?”

“Dick, you’re hopeless. What

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