Rolltown. Mack Reynolds

said to Bat, “Could I talk to you a minute?” His tone indicated that he meant alone.

      “Sure, why not?” Bat said, coming to his feet. “Let’s go over to my place. See you later, Di.”

      “Right on.” Di looked at Ferd. “Don’t forget. You were coming over for supper.”

      He grinned his shy, overgrown-boy grin. “Do I look crazy? You’re the best cook in town.”

      “Flattery will get you nowheres, laddy buck. Besides, at best you could say I’m the nearest thing to a cook in town. Cooking is an art, a lost art, and doesn’t even exist anymore in an art colony.”

      Bat and Ferd started to the former’s mobile home, sauntering along easily. It was the time of day Bat liked best in the mobile art colony. Two of the younger set, known to be considering marriage, went by slowly, hand in hand. The boy had a blanket over one arm. They were probably strolling down to the river bank for a quick roll in the hay, Bat figured. They had been consummating their marriage—before marriage—for some time now. Off in the distance, a guitar, poorly played, was starting up a folk song. The kids were beginning to emerge from their homes; a ball game was shaping up. There weren’t many children in New Woodstock, about a hundred, but their presence added a needed something, even in an art colony.

      They passed Bette and Bea, two models who shared a small mobile home. Bette was taking strenuous exercises. She had formerly been a dancer and made a policy of keeping herself in trim. She had one of the most beautiful complexions Bat had ever seen, being a somewhat light sepia. She was also noted for putting out for any man who asked her to lie down.

      Bat said to Ferd, in the way of make-conversation, “Getting any work done?”

      Ferd said, virtuously, “Some people might work from sun to sun, but a writer’s work is never done.”

      Bat looked at him from the side of his eyes. “Oh? You don’t seem to be wearing yourself to a frazzle.”

      “I’m working right this very minute,” Ferd said, in put-on protest. “One of these days I’ll do an article about you. How’s this for a title: Last of the Neighborhood Cops?”

      “It’ll never sell. Besides, the word cop is antiquated. They call us pigs, these days. Do you place much of your stuff, Ferd?”

      “Some. Not enough to negate my NIT, but some. That’s one advantage of NIT, I suppose. Gives somebody who’s trying to break into the arts the opportunity to survive while he’s learning the tools of his trade.”

      “No more starving in garrets, eh?” Bat snorted. “I wonder if that starving in garrets didn’t have its values so far as the development of art was concerned. It eliminated those who didn’t have the necessary push, the gumption, the belief in himself.”

      Ferd looked over at him. “You sound slightly sour.”

      Bat shook his head. “Not really. But that’s what Di and I were just talking about; NIT, the Meritocracy, the elimination of just about everybody from contributing in society.”

      They had reached his vehicle and Bat Hardin opened the door and allowed Ferd Zogbaum to precede him.

      The Hardin mobile home consisted of a fairly large living room, a mini-kitchen, a bath and a bedroom. In the tradition of house trailers, since their inception, everything was compactly efficient; refrigerator, automatic bar, electronic stove, TV screen, tucked away here and there with a minimum expenditure of space.

      Ferd slumped into an easy chair and Bat went over to the bar. “What’ll you have?” he said.

      “I don’t know. What have you got it set up for?”

      “Not much, actually. I’m not particularly fancy about my grog. There’s pseudo-whiskey, gin, rum, brandy, vermouth, both dry and sweet, tequila, now that we’re in Mexico, and the usual mixers.”

      “It’s been a hot day. How about a Cuba Libra?”

      “Sounds good to me,” Bat said, dialing the rum and coke and a dash of lime juice. He paused a brief moment, then opened the compartment and brought forth two long, chilled plastic glasses. He handed one to Ferd and took a chair himself.

      Ferd took up the conversation where they had dropped it. “So what’s wrong with the Meritocracy?”

      “There’s no room for anybody except those with a lot of merit,” Bat said wryly.

      Ferd sipped his drink and thought about it. “That’s not my beef. What it’s done is eliminated the democratic ethic.”

      “Don’t say that near any professional propagandist, or he’ll wash your mouth out with soap.”

      “One dollar, one vote,” Ferd said. “Some democracy.”

      “One earned dollar, one vote,” Bat amended, working at his own drink. “It does make a difference. Dividends, rents, pension income, income from a trust; none of them count. The slogan is pragmatism. The theory is, the most useful members of society have the most voice in running it.”

      “Yeah, that’s the slogan. And the majority of the citizenry is disenfranchised.”

      “So when was it different?”

      Ferd looked at him and scowled. “How do you mean?”

      “Listen, we seem to get into the habit of thinking in labels. Democracy is a label. So far as I’m concerned it’s a great idea but there’s been precious little of it since primitive times when government was based on the clan and there were few enough people in a society so that all could participate. But take a look at democracy come down through the ages. The great example always given us is the Golden Age of Greece and particularly Athens. But who voted so democratically? The male citizens of Athens. And for every citizen there was a flock of slaves who had no say at all, no matter how intelligent, no matter how productive a member of society. Or bring it down more recently. Did you labor under the illusion that when George Washington’s army won their revolution that they were allowed to vote in the new society? They did if they had enough property. Otherwise, they were disenfranchised. Right on down to modern times, it wasn’t one man, one vote; there were various ways to keep one whale of a percentage of the population from having their full say. The United States is usually used as an example of all-out democracy, but the slaves weren’t freed until 1863, and women weren’t given the vote until after the First World War.”

      Ferd said, a bit on the dogged side, “I get the feeling that you’re just arguing for the sake of it, that you don’t really disagree with me. You’re not any more eligible to vote than I am.”

      Bat chortled and finished his drink. “Man, they had us when they rang the NIT in on us. Obviously, most citizens who had to be subsidized in their income by the State were second-rate citizens. When it started, the so-called floor under everybody’s income was at $3,500, the poverty level at that time. Everybody poor enough to have to take the Negative Income Tax was so damn anxious to get it that they’d put up with anything. When the Constitution was rewritten, to fit it in with post-industrial society, there were few to put up a howl about one-dollar-one-vote. They wanted that dole, that security. So now we’ve got it.”

      Ferd said, “Yeah, and about ten percent of the population have the vote and of those about three percent, the real ranking members of the Meritocracy, control enough votes to swing any election.”

      “Well, and isn’t the government more efficient and less corrupt than ever before?”

      Ferd laughed, a note of deprecation there. “How would I know? It is according to them but they’re the ones who control the mass media, the libraries, the schools and all the other means of spreading the good word about themselves. I don’t like dictatorship, even a benevolent dictatorship. It’s up to the dictators to decide what’s benevolent.”

      Bat was getting tired of the subject. He said, “Another drink?”

      “No, I guess not.”