"Ann W. Griffith - Captive Audience" - читать интересную книгу автора (Griffith Ann W)

ANN WARREN GRIFFITH

Captive Audience

Ann Warren Griffith was one of the neglected female pioneers of fantasy and science fiction, largely because her output was small. This story is her finest and was immediately recognized as an important work at the time of its publication in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in the early fifties, but it seems to have been mostly forgotten since then.

It is a disturbing story, both because of its implications and because much of what it warned against has already happened. All of us are victims of the "admass culture," our senses constantly enticed or affronted by the sights and sounds from Madison Avenue. Ms. Griffith presents a society in which government has surrendered to the interests of corporate capitalism, a society in which the Master Ventriloquism Corporation of America pulls the strings on human puppets.

Mavis Bascom read the letter hastily and passed it across the breakfast table to her husband, Fred, who read the first paragraph and exclaimed, "She'll be here this afternoon!" but neither Mavis nor the two children heard him because the cereal box was going "Boom! Boom!" so loudly.

Presently it stopped and the bread said urgently, "One good slice deserves another! How about another slice all around, eh, Mother?" Mavis put four slices into the toaster, and then there was a brief silence. Fred wanted to discuss the impending visit, but his daughter Kitty got in ahead of him, saying,

"Mom, it's my turn to choose the next cereal, and this shot-from-a-cannon stuff is almost gone. Will you take me to the store this afternoon?"
"Yes, dear, of course. I must admit I'll be glad when this box is gone. 'Boom, boom, boom,' that's all it ever says. And some of the others have such nice songs and jingles. I don't see why ever you picked it, Billy."

Billy was about to answer when his father's cigarette package interrupted, "Yes sir, time to light up a Chesterfield! Time to enjoy that first mild, satisfying smoke of the day."
Fred lit a cigarette and said angrily, "Mavis, you know I don't like you to say such things in front of the children. It's a perfectly good commercial, and when you cast reflections on one, you're undermining all of them. I won't have you confusing these kids!"
"I'm sorry, Fred," was all Mavis had time to answer, because the salt box began a long and technically very interesting talk on iodization.

Since Fred had to leave for the office before the talk was over, he telephoned back to Mavis about her grandmother's visit. "Mavis," he said, "she can't stay with us! You'll have to get her out just as soon as possible. "

"All right, Fred. I don't think she'll stay very long anyway. You know she doesn't like visiting us any more than you like having her. "
"Well, the quicker she goes the better. If anybody down here finds out about her I'll be washed up with MV the same day!"
"Yes, Fred, I know. I'll do the best I can."

Fred had been with the Master Ventriloquism Corporation of America for fifteen years. His work bad been exceptional in every respect and, unless word leaked out about Mavis's grandmother, he could expect to remain with it for the rest of his life. He had enjoyed every step of the way from office boy to his present position as Assistant Vice-President in Charge of Sales, though he sometimes wished he could have gone into the technical end of it.

Fascinating, those huge batteries of machines pouring out their messages to the American people. It seemed to him almost miraculous, the way the commercials were broadcast into thin air and picked up by the tiny discs embedded in the bottle or can or box or whatever wrapping contained the product, but he knew it involved some sort of electronic process that he couldn't understand. Such an incredibly complex process, yet unfailingly accurate!

He had never heard of the machines making a mistake; never, for instance, had they thrown a shoe polish commercial so that it came out of a hair tonic bottle. Intrigued though he was by the mechanical intricacies of Master Ventriloquism, however, he had no head for that sort of thing, and was content to make his contribution in the sales end.

And quite a contribution it was. Already in the two short years since his promotion to Assistant Vice-President he had signed up two of the toughest clients that had ever been brought into the MV camp. First had been the telephone company, now one of the fattest accounts on the Corporation's books. They had held out against MV for years, until he, Fred, hit upon the idea that sold them-a simple message to come from every telephone, at fifteen-minute intervals throughout the MV broadcasting day, reminding people to look in the directory before dialing information. After the telephone company coup, Fred became known around the Corporation as a man to watch. He hadn't rest6d on his laurels.

He had, if anything, topped his telephone performance. MV had pretty much given up hope of selling its services to the dignified, the conservative New York Times. But Fred went ahead and did it. He'd kept the details a secret from Mavis. She'd see it for the first time tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning! Damn! Grandmother would be here. You could bet she'd make some crack and spoil the whole thing. Fred honestly didn't know if he would have gone ahead and married Mavis if he'd known about her grandmother.

For the sad fact of the matter was that Grandmother had never adjusted to MV. She was the only person he and Mavis knew who still longed for the "good old days," as she called them, the days before MV, and she yapped about them ad nauseam. She and her "A man's home is his castle--if he'd heard her say it once he'd heard her say it 500 times. Unfortunately, it wasn't just that Grandmother was a boring old fool who refused to keep up with the times.

The sadder fact of the matter was that she had broken the law, and today was finishing a five-year prison term. Did any other man here at MV have such a cross to bear?
Again and again he and Mavis had warned Grandmother that her advanced years would not keep her from being clapped into jail, and they hadn't. She'd gone absolutely wild on the day the Supreme Court had handed down the Earplug Decision.

It was the climax of a long and terribly costly fight by the MV Corporation. The sale of earplugs had grown rapidly during the years MV was expanding, and just at a peak period, when MV had over 3000 accounts, National Earplug Associates, Inc. had boldly staged a country-wide campaign advertising earplugs as the last defense against MV.

The success of the campaign was such that the Master Ventriloquism Corporation found itself losing hundreds of accounts. MV sued immediately and the case dragged

through the courts for years. Judges had a hard time making up their minds. Some sections of the press twaddled about "captive audiences. " The MV Corporation felt reasonably certain that the Supreme Court justices were sensible men, but with its very existence at stake there was nerve-racking suspense until the decision was made. National Earplug Associates, Inc. was found guilty of Restraint of Advertising, and earplugs were declared unconstitutional.

Grandmother, who was visiting Fred and Mavis at the time, hit the ceiling. She exhausted herself and them with her tirades, and swore that never never never would she give up her earplugs.

MV's representatives in Washington soon were able to get Congress to put teeth into the Supreme Court's decision, and eventually, just as Fred and Mavis predicted, Grandmother joined the ridiculous band who went to jail for violating the law prohibiting the use or possession of earplugs.