Player Piano Read Online Free PDF Page B

immediate and unflagging success.
    He caught the bartender’s eye at last. When the bartender saw Paul, he dropped his role of high-handed supervisor of morals and settler of arguments and became an obsequious host, like the bartender at the Country Club. Paul was afraid for a moment that he’d been recognized. But when the bartender failed to call him by name, he supposed that only his class had been recognized.
    There were a few men in Homestead—like this bartender, the police and firemen, professional athletes, cab drivers, specially skilled artisans—who hadn’t been displaced by machines. They lived among those who had been displaced, but they were aloof and often rude and overbearing with the mass. They felt a camaraderie with the engineers and managers across the river, a feeling that wasn’t, incidentally, reciprocated. The general feeling across the river was that these persons weren’t too bright to be replaced by machines; they were simply in activities where machines weren’t economical. In short, their feelings of superiority were unjustified.
    Now, the bartender had sensed that Paul was a personage, and he made a show of letting everyone else go to hell while he gave service to Paul. The others noticed, and turned to stare at the privileged newcomer.
    Paul ordered the bottle of Irish in a quiet voice, and tried to become inconspicuous by bending over and petting the aged collie. The dog barked, and its owner turned on his barstool to confront Paul. The old man was as toothless as the dog. Paul’s first impression was of red gums and huge hands—as though everything were sapped of color and strength but these.
    “He wouldn’t hurt nobody,” said the old man apologetically. “Just kind of edgy about being old and blind, and never sure of what’s going on, is all.” He ran his big hands along the dog’s fat sides. “He’s a good old dog.” He looked thoughtfully at Paul. “Say, I bet I know you.”
    Paul looked anxiously after the bartender, who had disappeared into the cellar after the whisky. “Really? I’ve been in here once or twice before.”
    “No, not here,” said the old man loudly. “The plant, the plant. You’re young Doctor Proteus.”
    A lot of people heard, and those closest to the two studied Paul with disturbing candor, and fell silent in order to hear whatever was being said.
    The old man was apparently quite deaf, for his voice was erratically loud, then soft. “Don’t recognize my face, Doctor?” He wasn’t mocking, he was frankly admiring, and proud that he could prove himself on speaking terms with this distinguished man.
    Paul colored. “I can’t say I remember. The old welding shop, was it?”
    The old man swept his hand over his face deprecatingly. “Aaaah, not enough left of the old face for my best friend to recognize,” he said good-humoredly. He thrust out his hands, palms up. “But look at those, Doctor. Good as ever, and there’s not two like them anywhere. You said so yourself.”
    “Hertz,” said Paul. “You’re Rudy Hertz.”
    Rudy laughed, and looked about the room triumphantly, as though to say, “See, by God, Rudy Hertz does know Doctor Proteus, and Proteus knows Hertz! How many of you can say that?”
    “And this is the dog you were telling me about—ten, fifteen years ago?”
    “Son of the dog, Doctor.” He laughed. “I wasn’t no pup then, though, was I?”
    “You were a damn fine machinist, Rudy.”
    “I say so myself. Knowing that, knowing smart men like you say that about Rudy, that means a lot. It’s about all I got, you know, Doctor? That and the dog.” Rudy shook the arm of the man next to him, a short, heavy, seemingly soft man, middle-aged, with a homely, round face. His eyes were magnifiedand fogged by extremely thick glasses. “Hear what Doctor Proteus here said about me?” Rudy gestured at Paul. “Smartest man in Ilium says that about Rudy. Maybe he’s the smartest man in the country.”
    Paul wished to God the