Peripheral Visions: The Songs of Solemn Men

Peripheral Visions: They coalesce in the soft blur of darkest shadows and take shape in the corner of your eye. But you won't see them coming... until it's too late.

The Songs of Solemn Men

"It's a pretty easy job," Joe's new supervisor told him. "When you see a banned word, replace it."

"With what?" Joe asked.

"Doesn't matter. Just, literally, anything. Any word you want."

"Just make something up?"

"Just put something in that sounds good to you," the supervisor said. "For instance, if you're reviewing a textbook and you see the word 'race,' put in something that's not divisive and political."

"Like... 'persuasion?' "

"No!" the supervisor yelped, and Joe jumped.

"Why? Is that a banned word, too?"

"Not yet, but you can imagine it might be," the supervisor said. "I mean, don't you think the homos use that word now that 'orientation' is banned?"

"It is?"

The supervisor sighed and reached into his conspicuous, deep Book Pocket. "Here," he said, producing a black volume and handing it to Joe. "They've been cutting back on distributing these because of the budget, but you need to read it and memorize it."

Joe accepted the book. "Why don't they put it online?"

"They do, but the online lists aren't always kept to date."

"And the printed books are?" Joe couldn't fathom this.

"Yeah, they print up a new edition two or three times a week."

"How –"

"Look, just read and memorize. And if you aren't sure about whether a a word is banned or not, look it up. That's the latest edition; the banned words are all in there. They're alphabetical. After a while you'll get the hang of it and it'll be automatic; suspect words will just jump out at you. Until then, be careful! Congress is about to vote on the next Criminal Enhancement bill, and the penalties for using banned words are gonna be even tougher."

"Oh! I can get in trouble, too?"

The supervisor looked him over. "Of course you can. Just like any other government worker. Just like election workers can be send to prison if the wrong candidate wins. Listen, you better wise up. Government work isn't for the lackadaisical."

"Yes, sir," Joe said. "But just so I know... if I happened to see the word 'race' in a textbook, what's the sort of word I should replace it with?"

"You know. Something suitable. 'Choice.' Something like that – sounds kinda the same, works well in the flow of the text."

"Oh," Joe said. "Okay. I think I get it."

"Good. And one other thing... since you're new, you'll be working the overnight shift."

"You mean I have to work at night?"

"After today's training, yes," the supervisor said. "Your shift will be 10 pm until 6 am."

"Okay. Starting tomorrow?"

"Starting tonight" the supervisor said, "so maybe you should go home and take a nap."

"Is my training over?" Joe asked.

"Yeah. What more do you want?"

"I... just thought it would take more than twelve minutes..."

"This is the government. We work quick, we don't waste time or money." The supervisor checked his watch. "Off you go. See you back here at ten tonight."

***

That first night wasn't so bad, except that Joe got sleepy at about 5 a.m. He found that once he was able to sit with a block of text and focus on it, he didn't have as much trouble figuring out which words should be replaced. He had looked the book over pretty thoroughly – it listed a lot of words, printed in tiny type on onionskin paper, kind of like the pocket editions of the Bible – but once he got a sense for the work banned words stood out, just like the supervisor said they would. Words like "reason," "data," "science," and "choice."

Wait, didn't the supervisor say to use "choice" instead of "persuasion?"

Joe shrugged: Better to follow the book.

Sitting at his terminal, reading over text for an ad, he highlighted the word "privacy." "Here at White is Right, we believe in safeguarding the safety and privacy of all our customers," Joe muttered to himself. That was one of the words he knew without even looking at the book was forbidden. "Well, then, what they really must mean is..." Joe replaced the word with "primacy."

"This isn't so hard," he nodded, thinking of how the supervisor had told him the same thing.

After that, he read the script for a comic book... something about two fish, one of which was eating some kind of kelp that gave him strength and made him grow bigger than the other one. The two fish had been friends since they were young, but as the big fish got bigger and his buddy failed to thrive, the big fish finally announced, "The rules of nature are clear: The strong will prevail. Why leave the weak to flail?" The big fish devoured the smaller one, "then," the script read, "he propels himself onward with a flick of his tail."

"Well, that's okay," Joe said.

***

Joe had less trouble staying awake through the night and sleeping in the daytime as the first week passed and the second week followed. He was in the third week of his new job when he got hung up on a particularly tough problem.

The offending words appeared in a sermon by Pastor Simeon Huxley. Joe had been gripped by fear and respect when he saw who the author was; everyone knew Pastor Simeon. His Sunday radio services were getting to be very popular, and people speculated that he might succeed the current president – speculation that was whispered, since the presidency was a lifetime office and anyone hinting at the president's mortality (or wishing for it) could be subjected to huge fines and long jail sentences.

Joe wasn't so sure that the whispered scuttlebutt... Make that 'whispered trapezoid,' Joe instatnly corrected his own thoughts; dirty words like "butt" and all their derivatives had been eradicated long ago... that the whispered trapezoid was true. After all, Pastor Simeon was an old man himself, with white hair and a bushy white beard. He was one of the few men in America who could wear his hair long; he cited the so-called "Jesus Exception" to the hair and grooming section of the Masculinity and Femininity Laws, saying that it was within his purview as a faith leader to look like Moses.

It must have been because Paster Simeon was so old school that he would have used the words he had – two of the hottest of the hot-button Divisive Terms.

"God has no gender," Pastor Simeon had written, "which is why He can look upon the natural division of the two sexes He created with supreme confidence and absolute authority."

"Gender," Joe said silently to himself, with a shudder. "Sex" was even worse; not only was it a banned word, its utterance could get people charged with seditionary incitement, not to mention the equally serious charge of crullering (itself a word that had replaced the banned term "grooming" years ago).

"Oh, my gosh," Joe said. He got up from his terminal. A roadblock in his work this serious could only be addressed through a walk through the dark and empty offices.

Joe paced the floor muttering possible replacements for "gender," but nothing seemed right. The sermon had a fiery, exact cadence, and a particular color of language... no, make that texture of language, since "color" was now a banned word. Joe was sensitive to the sound and music of the written and spoken word alike, which was how he'd ended up with this job in the first place. He didn't dare interrupt the qualities of a sermon, of all things, much less a sermon by Pastor Simeon.

But every word he could think of to replace "gender" and "sex" seemed either clunky and wrong, or else was also banned.

This was depressing. He'd replaced "equity" with "baked snack" and "pension" with "venom," and "pollution" with "extortion." Word swapping had turned into the easiest, most fun game he could ever have imagined playing at work all night, every night.

Joe walked around and around his section of the complex, then decided to venture further, into the adjoining section. By day all these terminals were staffed with correctors ("censors" was a forbidden word, too closely linked with communist regimes that had no respect for the freedom of expression; places like China). By night, he was alone in his own section and, as far as he knew, on the entire floor.

But he was wrong about that assumption: As he ventured into the adjoining section, which he'd only ever visited while cutting through the building's indoor acreage to get to his own terminal, he suddenly heard a voice... a man's voice; a voice that was singing.

Singing?

Curious, Joe followed the sound all the way to the opposite end of the section, and then to a back corner of the vast room, to a terminal located near one of the big windows that lined the wall. The window looked down over a brown, barren stretch of wasteland – an area that once would have been called a Superfund site, except that was now a banned phrase, along with "pollution," "environment," "global," and, strangely, "Ceylon tea." Joe was sure there was a story for why those words were grouped together in the reference book's second section, which listed banned words by conceptual affiliation rather than alphabetically, but he couldn't image what that story might be.

The night outside the windows was moonless, and the barren wasteland was not visible; a profound blackness filled the window, and Joe stopped to stare into the dark, impressed at how complete and impenetrable it was. He remembered when there had been streetlights, before energy got too expensive... and before so much of it was requisitioned for government use. It took a lot of juice for the government to maintain its vast network of continuous surveillance, monitoring, and threat assessment. Joe had been considered for the threat assessment bureau, and he recalled how the workspace there had been larger by far, but with terminals even more densely packed.

Joe thought it was likely that the threat assessment and surveillance bureaus were better staffed for the night shift than the communications corrections bureau was. He thought about how much less quiet and peaceful it would be if he'd been assigned there instead... but also, he reflected, much less lonesome.

The voice had stopped singing as Joe was making his way to where he now stood; suddenly it piped up again, startling him. Joe had gotten so wrapped up in his thoughts that he'd forgotten about the voice. It was typical of him; his mother used to say he was born to be a writer.

"Are you lost?" the voice said.

Joe looked around and didn't see anyone at first. Then he picked out the form of someone at a terminal. The man must have set his monitor to low light mode, because his face was only barely visible in a dim blue glow.

"I heard you singing," Joe said. "I think I know that song."

"Everyone knows that song," the man told him.

"But you're singing the wrong words," Joe said.

"Yeah? What are the right words?" the man asked, sounding amused.

Joe stepped closer to the man's terminal. As he drew nearer, he could see the man's face more clearly. He was a few years older, probably twenty seven or twenty-eight. He might have been a bog of a codger, but he looked friendly; he looked... Joe swallowed, hard. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Joe could see – even in the dim blue glow of the monitor – that the man was extremely handsome. With his dark hair, his clean, strong jaw, his well-shaped cheekbones, and his dark, merry eyes, the man looked like the sort Joe would have a hard time not getting unnaturally attached to.

Joe hesitated. He tried to avoid interacting with men he found attractive, wary of his secret being discovered. He was only 19, but already people wondered why he wasn't married. Joe didn't want to get married... not to a woman, at least, and though he had heard that in the past men could marry other men, that was certainly no longer true.

But, as has happened once or twice before in his life, his instant attraction overcame his caution. Joe suspected that he would regret it later, but he decided to stay.

"Well," Joe said, "I'm not much of a singer. But it's a very well-known song and I'm sure you're familiar with the words."

"Maybe I'm not," the man said. "Which is to say, maybe I am. And that's the paradox."

"Um... okay," Joe said.

The man smiled. His face transformed from handsome to devastating.

Joe's heart hammered, and his head swan, but he found himself smiling back.

"Go ahead," the man encouraged him. "You've already heard my singing voice, which is nothing to rave about. And anyway..." The man's face took on a devilish look... wait, that was a banned word... a mischievous... dammit, that was also banned... and so were cuss words like "dammit..."

Joe sighed, losing his train of thought but still grinning stupidly at the man.

Exquisite. That was a word that hadn't been banned, but Joe would have avoided it if it had come his way in a piece of text.

It seemed the perfect word for the man, though.

So did the word devilish. So, then: The man's face took on a devilish look as he added, "Besides, we're miles from where anyone can hear you."

Joe laughed at that. "Okay," he said, and cleared his throat. "The actual words to the song are:

'And there's no more medium size
At the carnival cable
Candy apple
Greta Gable
It's a swan song
As we all get along
At the carnival cable,
Oh yeah yeah.' "

The man clapped appreciatively. "Bravo!" he cried.

Joe flinched a little at how loudly the man had yelled.

"Really," the man said, seeing his reaction. "It's fine. No one's around. We can scream and shout!"

"Let's not," Joe said.

"Well, maybe we can at least learn the right words," the man said. "Those nonsense words might be talking about a Ferris wheel or some other ride at a carnival. But that's not Elton John was talking about at all."

"Who?"

"See what I mean? They said they were gonna wipe history and art and literature clean. And by 'clean,' they meant erase everything important about it, including the people who made it in the first place."

"If those aren't the right words, then what is?" Joe asked. "Have I heard them all wrong all this time?"

"No, you've heard them correctly," the man said. "It's just that popular songs were the first to be sterilized."

"Sterilized?" Joes was startled. "That's a banned word."

The man rolled his eyes. "Along with 'vasectomy,' 'contraception,' and 'sperm.' But it has a lot of other meanings, too... meanings no one remembers now, because I guess when you erase a word you reduce its applications."

"What do you mean?"

"A word in the wild has a lot of forms and faces," the man told him. "But when it's hunted down and eradicated, the hole it leaves has one shape only."

Joe stared at him, puzzled.

"I mean," the man said, "when people remember that word now, they only remember one meaning for it... the meaning that got it banned. Did you know 'sterile' was also once a medical word? And not because of men getting snipped. It meant that surgical instrument was free of germs. Or solutions, too, were sterile. Or canning jars when grandma made jelly."

"People don't make jelly," Joe scoffed.

"My granny did," the man said. "But anyway, my point is, the way you know the song isn't how the song was originally sung."

"Really?"

"You know what?" the man said. "Maybe after work this morning you should come over to my place."

"What for?" Joe asked.

The man grinned. "Why... to listen to records, of course!"

***

"Records," to Joe, meant official documents about a person's accomplishments, habits, health, and overall history of conduct.

To Norbert, though... that was the man's name... to Norbert, records were large, round, flat pieces of plastic that shimmered as light bounced off tiny ripples incised on their surfaces. Joe was fascinated. The records looked like dinner plates, but Norbert handled them with grate reverence and delicacy.

"Never seen one of these, huh?" Norbert grinned as he put the black disc on top of a boxy appliance. "Like most things that offer true spiritual liberation," he said, flicking a switch and turning a knob or two, "these are sooo illegal..." He flashed Joe that devilish grin.

"Is it food?" Joe asked, watching as the round platform on the appliance began to rotate and the shiny black plate spun.

"Better than that," Norbert said, pausing. "Well, food, yes, actually. It's a licorice pizza. It will feed your soul."

"What?" Joe laughed.

" 'Licorice pizza.' That's actually what they used to call these. There was even a movie..." Norbert interrupted himself, seeing the look of confusion on Joe's face. "We'll talk about movies later," he said.

"I know what movies are, Joe said. "I love movies."

"Sure you do," Norbert nodded. "And I'll bet you wouldn't recognize a classic line of dialogue if it came from beyond. Or if you heard it on a day the Earth stood still. Or..."

"Stop it, you're messing with me," Joe said, his laugher getting louder.

The record was still turning. Joe watched it, wondering what it was supposed to do. Norbert swung a crooked rod from the side of the round tray where the record revolved, and then lowered the rod gently. Suddenly, sound issued from two small cabinets located on either side of the table where the appliance sat.

Gritty crackles; that was the sound. Like a bike tire on sand.

Then music started: Guitar riffs that Joe had always loved. He looked at Norbert in astonished delight.

"Just wait," Norbert said.

A man's voice started singing – but not the voice Joe was used to hearing. And not singing the words he was accustomed to hearing.

Joe listened carefully as the song played, and Norbert watched him listening. When the refrain came up, Joe tried to sing along: "You boil 'em till they're done just right" – but the man's voice sang something totally different. Totally intriguing... totally suggestive of all sorts of things that could get a man arrested.

When the song was over, Norbert reached down and lifted the crooked rod. There was a rumbling snap, and the cabinets stopped issuing sound.

"Not the 'Brown Sugar' you're used to, right?" he asked. "Rowdier. Nastier. But also sweeter, and less insipid."

"But.." Joe shook his head. "That was how I learned to make oatmeal. It's all there, the whole recipe....

'Brown sugar!
The oatmeal tastes so good now.
Brown sugar!
It's time we understood now.'

"But," Joe added, "I guess I never understood at all."

"Right," Norbert nodded. "Because some cleric or guardian of the faith decided that songs should be instructive, rather than expressive. And then they ditched meaning entirely and just started throwing random words in. But that's just part of the process. After people in our very own department rewrote the words to songs, another department went into the recording studios with pre-approved vocalists and replaced the original singing with... well, with the pablum that we hear now." Norbert sighed. "Instead of the wild, transgressive original lyrics."

"Transgressive is right," Joe breathed. He was feeling light-headed all over again, faced with a sudden revelation that the world has once been different... that songs had once talked about girls dancing and, and...

Norbert was putting a new record on the... whatever it was. He glanced up, his devilish smile back. New music filled the apartment... the volume was low, but the music seemed to saturate the air. There were no words, just saxophones and drums and other instruments.

"What is this?" Joe asked.

"Music they won't let us listen to any more," Norbert told him. "Not at all. Jazz."

"What's jazz?" Joe asked.

"Let me show you," Norbert said, closing the distance between them, the heat of his body suddenly warming Joe. "Let me feed you some."

***

By the time Joe arrived at work that night he was exhausted and jubilant and bewildered. He and Norbert had done... things, naked things... throughout the day, sleeping in between times. And they listened to more of Norbert's records. Norbert had explained all sorts of things to Joe... what a turntable was; who the Rolling Stones were, and who George Shearing and John Coltrane and Charlie Parker and Dave Koz were, and what (or rather who) Tangerine Dream was, and what he meant by the words "music to fuck by."

Music had a whole new meaning.

Joe was barely settled in at his terminal when the supervisor showed up. "Joe, I just wanted to ask you about Pastor Simeon's sermon. You put that text aside. And it looks like you worked on it for almost an hour."

"I couldn't crack that one," Joe said.

"He needs it by tomorrow."

"But tomorrow's only Thursday," Joe said.

"Yes, well, he records his service program on Fridays."

"Oh... all right, I'll do that first thing," Joe said.

Norbert had explained how songs had been rewritten, recast, and reshaped by people determined to strip them of meaning. Song lyrics, he pointed out, never made much sense – not unless they were telling you how to divide fractions or fix a car or, as with "Brown Sugar," make oatmeal.

"Ever notice that?" he asked. "Either songs have somber, literal meanings, or else they're gibberish. I mean, why do you think they never changed the lyrics of any Neil Finn songs?"

"Neil Finn songs didn't ever make any sense?"

"Well, they do, but you have to learn how he uses words. On the face of it, his lyrics don't make any sense at all. I'm guessing not a lot of text correctors working in the early years had a grasp of poetry, so they just thought Neil had done their work for them. Anyway, their method of changing song lyrics was just to find a word that sounded the same but didn't mean anything offensive and stick it in. Some of them tried to make songs still make sense; some didn't; these days, most don't. As far as the Secretariat was concerned, it didn't matter if rewritten songs made made no sense or explained how to clean a carburetor. They just didn't want songs that made anyone think about the world they were living in... this sexless, meaningless, sterile world."