Player Piano

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

“Less waste, much better products, cheaper products with automatic control.” “Aha!”

In New York City, for instance, there were many skills difficult or uneconomical to mechanize, and the advances hadn’t liberated as high a percentage of people from production.

“Kuppo!”

“Shah says, ‘Communism.’ ”

“No Kuppo!”

“The government does not own the machines. They simply tax that part of industry’s income that once went into labor, and redistribute it. Industry is privately owned and managed, and co-ordinated—to prevent the wa...

industry, not pol...

this average man, there is no equivalent in our language,

The little man, not brilliant but a good-hearted, plain, ordinary, everyday kind of person.”

“Aha,” said the Shah, nodding, “Takaru.” “What did he say?” “Takaru,” said Khashdrahr. “Slave.”

“Ahhhhh,” said the Shah. “Ci-ti-zen.” He grinned happily. “Takaru—citizen. Citizen—Takaru.”

Halyard’s ulcer gave him a twinge,

had grown in size and authority over the

years of his career as an interpreter of America to provincial and ignorant notables from the...

DOCTOR PAUL PROTEUS, the man with the highest income in Ilium, drove his cheap and old Plymouth across the bridge to Homestead.

These were members of the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps, in their own estimate the “Reeks and Wrecks.” Those who couldn’t compete economically with machines had their choice, if they had no source of income, of the Army or the Reconstruction

and Reclamation Corps.

Paul worked his way through the crowd, which was continuous with the clientele of the saloon, and got to within one rank of the bar. His back was against an old player piano.

this bartender, the police and firemen, professional athletes, cab drivers, specially skilled artisans—who hadn’t been displaced by machines.

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.

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.”

“You were a damn fine machinist, Rudy.”

incapable of remembering or understanding what had followed his retirement…. But these others, these men in their thirties, forties, and fifties—they knew.

these others who stared now, they remembered. They had been the rioters, the smashers of machines. There was no threat of violence in their looks now, but there was resentment,

Paul,

folded his arms and leaned

against the keyboard of the player piano. In the silence of the saloon, a faint discord came from the piano, hummed to nothingness.

he’s got to decide what he’s going to do with his life, Doctor: what’s it going to be, the Army or the Reeks and Wrecks?” “I suppose there’s a lot to be said for both,” said Paul

“Let’s have music!” He reached over Paul’s shoulder and popped a nickel into the player piano.

the piano started clanging away at “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”

Rudy acted as though the antique instrument were the newest of all wonders, and he excitedly pointed out identifiable

musical patterns in the bobbing keys—trills, spectacular runs up the keyboard, and the slow, methodical rise and fall of keys in the bass.

The music stopped abruptly, with the air of having delivered exactly five cents worth of joy.

watching them keys go up and down? You can almost see a ghost sitting there playing his heart out.”

“DARLING, YOU LOOK as though you’ve seen a ghost,” said Anita.

As she handed Paul his cocktail, he felt somehow inadequate, bumbling, in the presence of her beautiful assurance. Only things that might please or interest her came to mind—all else submerged.

Anita had successfully combined the weapons of sex, taste, and an aura of masculine competence.

bobbed up in his thoughts unexpectedly: that her strength and poise were no more than a mirror image of his own importance, an image of the power and self-satisfaction the manager of the Ilium Works could have,

she became a helpless, bluffing little girl

he was able to feel real tendernes...

Paul began to suspect that Finnerty’s way of life wasn’t as irrational as it seemed; that it was, in fact, a studied and elaborate insult to the managers and engineers of Ilium, and to their immaculate wives.

never clear to Paul, who supposed the aggressiveness, like most aggressiveness, dated back to some childhood muddle.

The only insight Finnerty had ever permitted Paul

he’d sighed and said he’d never felt he belonged anywhere.

It was an appalling thought, to be so well-integrated into the machinery of society and history as to be able to move in only one plane, and along one line.

Finnerty had seemed to see something in Paul he hadn’t seen in the others, something he’d liked—possibly a rebellious streak that Paul was only now beginning to suspect.

“No; but if it hadn’t been for men like me, he might have a machine in the plant—” “Is he starving?” “Of course not. Nobody starves.” “And he’s got a place to live and warm clothes.

Finnerty was stretched out on Anita’s bed. “So there you are,” said Finnerty. He pointed at the tuxedo laid out on Paul’s bed. “I thought this was you. I’ve been talking to it for half an hour.”

How are things?” “Worse than ever, but there’s hope.”

I looked around me and found out I couldn’t face anything about the system any more. I walked out, and here I am.”