The Year of the Jackpot (2 page)

The final section of the story summarizes the post-Jackpot fallout—literal and figurative. Breen sees light at the end of the tunnel, as humanity—in accordance with the implacable cycles of history—is destined to emerge from chaos. But then he makes one final discovery: our inanimate universe is in thrall to its own cycles, and one such involves the Sun. As Breen and Meade huddle together, the sun goes nova, ending any chance of rebirth for mankind. It is this ultimate apocalypse, of course, that removes any possibility of inserting the tale directly into the “Future History” continuum. Nonetheless, its portrait of a world on the verge of a nervous breakdown remains relevant to Heinlein’s timeline.

Heinlein is frequently mischaracterized as some kind of blindly optimistic yea-sayer, ignorant and dismissive of the complexities and tragedies of human existence. It’s true that the majority of his fiction portrays homo sapiens as too mean to kill, often noble and destined for long survival and even greatness. But he was not without his streak of nihilism and despair and cynicism. Stories such as “—All You Zombies—”; “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag”; and “Goldfish Bowl” are nightmarish in the extreme.

Mention of “Goldfish Bowl” brings us to the name of Charles Fort, fabled compiler of odd data, and coiner of bizarre theories. Published ten years before “Jackpot,” “Goldfish Bowl” is decidedly Fortean, reflecting that eccentric’s momentary flush of popularity within the field. Yet even a decade later, Heinlein could be seen nodding in the fellow’s direction, and Forteanism remains a subterranean stream in the genre.

A literary character who also possibly contributed to Potiphar Breen’s depiction is, I believe, Johnny “Genius” Jones, a comic book creation by Heinlein’s talented peer, Alfred Bester. Genius Jones’s only “superpower” was his savant’s intellect that could sift through memorized information to create new knowledge and discern new patterns in the universe. The resemblance to Breen’s skills is manifest, and we can credit Bester and Heinlein with the joint creation of “data mining,” that very twenty-first-century cyberpunk concern. If, as William Gibson famously stated, “Information wants to be free,” then Genius Jones and Potiphar Breen are two of its earliest liberators.

It is very interesting to note that Heinlein generously gives away his core conceit—that humanity’s history is dictated by inexorable cycles—within the first few pages of the story. This is a bold and typical move for the Grand Master. Lesser writers could hoard ideas: for instance, “Jackpot” could have been rewritten as a protracted science fiction mystery, with the revelation about our species coming as the climax. But Heinlein was all about second-, third- and
nth
-order repercussions from an original conceit. Gone are the simple pre-Campbellian first-order-magnitude tales, which never again would seem sufficient.

The brief utopian marriage enjoyed by Meade and Breen—and it is such, despite civilization falling apart around them—is typical of Heinlein’s notion of Adam and Eve’s self-sufficiency. Given a woman who can field-dress a deer and a man who can lay down his scientific journals and chop a winter’s worth of firewood, the rest of the race can go to hell—or at least be included out of the picture until society resumes sane functioning. And if the proudly independent pair must die—as they also do in Heinlein’s “Gulf”—then they go out proudly and together.

Ten years after “Jackpot,”
Galaxy
would publish Fritz Leiber’s “The Creature from Cleveland Depths,” a story about a world going mad in its own fashion that resonates with Heinlein’s earlier piece.

From Leiber:

“We lived through the Everybody-Six-Feet-Underground-by-Christmas campaign and the Robot Watchdog craze, when you got your left foot half chewed off. We lived through the Venomous Bats and Indoctrinated Saboteur Rats and the Hypnotized Monkey Paratrooper scares. We lived through the Voice of Safety and Anti-Communist Somno-Instruction and Rightest Pills and Jet-Propelled Vigilantes. We lived through the Cold-Out, when you weren’t supposed to turn on a toaster for fear its heat would be a target for prowl missiles and when people with fevers were unpopular.”

Leiber’s more satirical tone and the hopeful outcome of his scenario counterpoint Heinlein’s post-WWII vision of a world tearing itself apart through “lemming-like” behavior. An additional fifty years of global survival after Leiber, despite our current plethora of problems, gives further hope. Either we have begun to come through Heinlein’s “Crazy Years” intact—or we are merely so inured to madness that we can no longer recognize the reality of such prophets of doom as Heinlein became for the duration of this shattering novella.

—Paul Di Filippo

A
t first Potiphar Breen did not notice the girl who was undressing.

She was standing at a bus stop only ten feet away. He was indoors, but that would not have kept him from noticing; he was seated in a drugstore booth adjacent to the bus stop; there was nothing between Potiphar and the young lady but plate glass and an occasional pedestrian.

Nevertheless he did not look up when she began to peel. Propped up in front of him was a Los Angeles
Times
; beside it, still unopened, were the
Herald-Express
and the
Daily News.
He was scanning the newspaper carefully, but the headline stories got only a passing glance.

He noted the maximum and minimum temperatures in Brownsville, Texas, and entered them in a neat black notebook. He did the same with the closing prices of three blue chips and two dogs on the New York Exchange, as well as the total number of shares.

He then began a rapid sifting of minor news stories, from time to time entering briefs of them in his little book.

The items he recorded seemed randomly unrelated—among them a publicity release in which Miss National Cottage Cheese Week announced that she intended to marry and have twelve children by a man who could prove that he had been a lifelong vegetarian, a circumstantial but wildly unlikely Flying Saucer report, and a call for prayers for rain throughout Southern California.

Potiphar had just written down the names and addresses of three residents of Watts, California, who had been miraculously healed at a tent meeting of the God-is-All First Truth Brethren by the Reverend Dickie Bottomley, the eight-year-old evangelist, and was preparing to tackle the
Herald-Express
, when he glanced over his reading glasses and saw the amateur ecdysiast on the street corner outside.

He stood up, placed his glasses in their case, folded the newspapers and put them carefully in his right coat pocket, counted out the exact amount of his check and added fifteen per cent. He then took his raincoat from a hook, placed it over his arm, and went outside.

B
y now the girl was practically down to the buff. It seemed to Potiphar Breen that she had quite a lot of buff, yet she had not pulled much of a house. The corner newsboy had stopped hawking his disasters and was grinning at her, and a mixed pair of transvestites who were apparently waiting for the bus had their eyes on her. None of the passers-by stopped. They glanced at her, and then, with the self-conscious indifference to the unusual of the true Southern Californian, they went on their various ways.

The transvestites were frankly staring. The male member of the team wore a frilly feminine blouse, but his skirt was a conservative Scottish kilt. His female companion wore a business suit and Homburg hat; she stared with lively interest.

As Breen approached, the girl hung a scrap of nylon on the bus stop bench, then reached for her shoes. A police officer, looking hot and unhappy, crossed with the lights and came up to them.

“Okay,” he said in a tired voice, “that’ll be all, lady. Get them duds back on and clear out of here.”

The female transvestite took a cigar out of her mouth. “Just what business is it of yours, officer?” she asked.

The cop turned to her. “Keep out of this!” He ran his eyes over her getup, and that of her companion. “I ought to run both of you in, too.”

The transvestite raised her eyebrows. “Arrest us for being clothed, arrest her for not being. I think I’m going to like this.” She turned to the girl, who was standing still and saying nothing, as if she were puzzled by what was going on. “I’m a lawyer, dear.” She pulled a card from her vest pocket. “If this uniformed Neanderthal persists in annoying you, I’ll be delighted to handle him.”

The man in kilts said, “Grace! Please!”

She shook him off. “Quiet, Norman. This is our business.” She went on to the policeman, “Well? Call the wagon. In the meantime, my client will answer no questions.”

The official looked unhappy enough to cry and his face was getting dangerously red. Breen quietly stepped forward and slipped his raincoat around the shoulders of the girl.

She looked startled and spoke for the first time. “Uh—thanks.” She pulled the coat about her, cape fashion.

The female attorney glanced at Breen then back to the cop. “Well, officer? Ready to arrest us?”

He shoved his face close to hers. “I ain’t going to give you the satisfaction!” He sighed and added, “Thanks, Mr. Breen. You know this lady?”

“I’ll take care of her. You can forget it, Kawonski.”

“I sure hope so. If she’s with you, I’ll do just that. But get her out of here, Mr. Breen—please!”

The lawyer interrupted. “Just a moment. You’re interfering with my client.”

Kawonski said, “Shut up, you! You heard Mr. Breen—she’s with him. Right, Mr. Breen?”

“Well—yes. I’m a friend. I’ll take care of her.”

The transvestite said suspiciously, “I didn’t hear
her
say that.”

Her companion said, “Grace! There’s our bus.”

“And I didn’t hear her say she was your client,” the cop retorted. “You look like a—” his words were drowned out by the bus brakes—“and besides that, if you don’t climb on that bus and get off my territory, I’ll… I’ll…”

“You’ll what?”

“Grace! We’ll miss our bus.”

“Just a moment, Norman. Dear, is this man really a friend of yours? Are you with him?”

The girl looked uncertainly at Breen, then said in a low voice, “Uh, yes. He is. I am.”

“Well…” The lawyer’s companion pulled at her arm. She shoved her card into Breen’s hand and got on the bus. It pulled away.

Breen pocketed the card.

K
awonski wiped his forehead. “Why did you do it, lady?” he said peevishly.

The girl looked puzzled. “I—I don’t know.”

“You hear that, Mr. Breen? That’s what they all say. And if you pull ’em in, there’s six more the next day. The Chief said—” He sighed. “The Chief said—well, if I had arrested her like that female shyster wanted me to, I’d be out at a Hundred and Ninety-sixth and Ploughed Ground tomorrow morning, thinking about retirement. So get her out of here, will you?”

The girl said, “But—”

“No ‘buts’, lady. Just be glad a real gentleman like Mr. Breen is willing to help you.” He gathered up her clothes, handed them to her. When she reached for them, she again exposed an uncustomary amount of skin. Kawonski hastily gave the clothing to Breen instead, who crowded them into his coat pockets.

She let Breen lead her to where his car was parked, got in and tucked the raincoat around her so that she was rather more dressed than a girl usually is. She looked at him.

She saw a medium-sized and undistinguished man who was slipping down the wrong side of thirty-five and looked older. His eyes had that mild and slightly naked look of the habitual spectacles-wearer who is not at the moment with glasses. His hair was gray at the temples and thin on top. His herringbone suit, black shoes, white shirt, and neat tie smacked more of the East than of California.

He saw a face which he classified as “pretty” and “wholesome” rather than “beautiful” and “glamorous.” It was topped by a healthy mop of light brown hair. He set her age at twenty-five, give or take eighteen months. He smiled gently, climbed in without speaking and started his car.

He turned up Doheny Drive and east on Sunset. Near La Cienega, he slowed down. “Feeling better?”

“Uh, I guess so Mr.—Breen?”

“Call me Potiphar. What’s your name? Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Me? I’m—I’m Meade Barstow.”

“Thank you, Meade. Where do you want to go? Home?”

“I suppose so. Oh, my, no. I can’t go home like
this
.” She clutched the coat tightly to her.

“Parents?”

“No. My landlady. She’d be shocked to death.”

“Where, then?”

She thought. “Maybe we could stop at a filling station and I could sneak into the ladies’ room.”

“Maybe. See here, Meade—my house is six blocks from here and has a garage entrance. You could get inside without being seen.”

She stared. “You don’t
look
like a wolf!”

“Oh, but I am! The worst sort.” He whistled and gnashed his teeth. “See? But Wednesday is my day off.”

She looked at him and dimpled. “Oh, well! I’d rather wrestle with you than with Mrs. Megeath. Let’s go.”

H
e turned up into the hills. His bachelor diggings were one of the many little frame houses clinging like fungus to the brown slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains. The garage was notched into this hill; the house sat on it.

He drove in, cut the ignition, and led her up a teetery inside stairway into the living room.

“In there,” he said, pointing. “Help yourself.” He pulled her clothes out of his coat pockets and handed them to her.

She blushed and took them, disappeared into his bedroom. He heard her turn the key in the lock. He settled down in his easy chair, took out his notebook, and started with the
Herald-Express
.

He was finishing the
Daily News
and had added several notes to his collection when she came out. Her hair was neatly rolled; her face was restored; she had brushed most of the wrinkles out of her skirt. Her sweater was neither too tight nor deep cut, but it was pleasantly filled. She reminded him of well water and farm breakfasts.