Enjoy

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ENJOY, ENJOY
by Frederik Pohl
Terry Carr is one of the true gentlemen of the science- fiction field. Editors have trouble being beloved;
what they do cuts too close to the writers' bones for comfort. I do not believe there is an editor in the
world who some writer, somewhere, does not wish dead. On those grounds I feel sure that there must
therefore be some people who hate Terry Carr, but I've never met one. Perhaps the reason is that he has
never been in charge of a major magazine or boss of a large book publishing company; he has put in his
editorial time as editorial consultant, anthologist, assistant to other editors, proprietor of a special line of
his own within a larger group, and these are not the exposed mountaintops where the ravaging lightnings
strike. However, they are good places for someone to be whose biggest interest is in finding and
showcasing bright new talent. That's something Terry does extremely well. Devotees still fondly
remember the Carr "Ace Special series of a decade and a half ago, when Terry took his chances on such
unknowns as Ursula K. LeGuin, Joanna Russ, R. A. Lafferty, and a lot of others whose subsequent
careers show how good an editor he really is. So when Terry Carr asks me for something, I try to
deliver; and when he told me he was putting together a new anthology of original stories called
Fellowship of the Stars,
I was pleased to offer him this one-and delighted when he accepted it.
Booze, broads, big cars, the finest of food, waterbeds filled with vintage champagne. Those were some
of the things that went with Tud Cowpersmith's job. The way he got the job was by going to a party
inJacksonHeights . The way he happened to be at the party was that he had no choice.
It wasn't a bad party, for a loft inJacksonHeights . It wasn't a bad loft. The windows at one end looked
out on the tracks of the IRT el, but they had been painted over with acrylics to look like stained glass.
Every twenty minutes you got a noise like some very large person stumbling by with garbage-can lids for
shoes, but except for that the el might as well not have been there. Anyway, at that end of the loft the
stereo speakers stood four feet high on the floor, so the noise didn't matter all that much. You couldn't
possibly talk at that end. Cowpersmith wanted, eventually, to talk, as soon as the person he wanted to
talk to showed up, so he drifted to the other end.
There the noise was more or less bearable, and there the windows were still clear. They were even
clean. He could see through them down on a sort of communal garden, three or four backyards for three
or four different old apartment buildings thrown together: a tiny round plastic swimming pool, now iced
over with leaves and boughs frozen into it; bare trees that probably had looked very nice in the summer.
To get to the windows at that end you had to thread your way through a sort of indoor jungle, potted
plants presumably carried in from the garden for the cold weather. And there, on a chrome-rimmed,
chrome-legged kitchen table, the host and hostess were rolling joints. They greeted Cowpersmith- "Want
a hit?
"Thanks.
-but the pot did not ease him. He was looking for somebody. That was the reason he was there.
The person he was looking for was namedMurray .Murray was an old, old.., friend? Something like
that. What he basically was was somebody who owed Cowpersmith fifty dollars, from a time when fifty
hadn't seemed like an awful lot. Cowpersmith had heard, the day before, thatMurray was in town, and
tracked him down to a hotel on Central Park South.
After some deliberation he had telephonedMurray . He really hated doing it. He needed the fifty, but in
his view the odds against getting it were so bad that he didn't like the risk of investing a dime in a phone
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 call. The dime was, after all, real money. There was no way to flash a revoked American Express card at
the phone booth, as he had done with the last two restaurants and the airline that had brought him back
from Chicago, where the last of his bankroll had melted away. But the odds had paid off!Murray was in,
and obliging- "What fifty?
"Well, don't you remember, you met that Canadian girl-
"Oh, Christ, sure. Was it only fifty? Must be some interest due by now, Tud. Tell you what-
-and the way it worked out they were to meet at this party, and Cowpersmith would collect not fifty but
a hundred dollars.
That required some decision making, too, because there was the investment for a subway token to be
considered. ButMurray had sounded prosperous enough for a gamble. Only noMurray . Cowpersmith
took another hit from a girl wearing batik bellbottoms and a halter top and glared around the room.
Through the roar of Alice Cooper he realized she was talking to him.
"What?
"I said, is your name Ted?
"Tud.
"Turd?
"Tud Cowpersmith, he yelled over the androgynous rock. "It's a family name, Tudsbury.
She reached up close to his ear-she was not more than five feet tall-and shouted, "If you're a friend of
Murray's he's looking for you. He allowed her to lead him around the buttress of the stairwell, for the first
time noticing that her armpits were unshaven, the hair on her head stuck out in tiny, tied witch curls, and
she was quite pretty.
And there wasMurray , knotting his wild red eyebrows hospitably. "Hey, Tud. Looking great, man!
Long time.
"You're looking fine too, said Cowpersmith, although it wasn't really true.Murray looked a little bit fine
and a lot prosperous; the medallion that hung over his raw-silk shirt was clearly gold, and he wore a very
expensive- looking, though ugly, thick wristwatch. The thing was he also looked about fifteen years older
than he had eighteen months before. They sat in two facing armchairs, one a broken lounger, the other so
overstuffed that the stuffing was curling out of it. The girl sat cross-legged between them on the floor,
andMurray idly played with her tied curls.
Cooper had changed to the New York Queens and somebody had turned the volume down, or else the
shelter of the stairwell did the same thing for them. Cowpersmith got several words of whatMurray was
saying.
"Ajob? Cowpersmith repeated. "What kind of ajob?
"The finest fucking job in all the world, saidMurray , and laughed and laughed, poking the girl's shoulder.
When he had calmed down, he said, "What do you work for, Tud?
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 Cowpersmith said angrily, "God,
you
know. I worked for the advertising agency until they took cigarette
ads off TV, then I was with the oil company until-
"No, no. For what
purpose.
Cowpersmith shrugged. "Money?
"Sure, but what do you do with the money?
"Pay bills? he guessed.
"No, no, damn it!
After
you do all the lousy stuff like that. What do you do with the
extra
money? Like
when you were still pulling down twenty-five K at the agency and everything was on the expense account
anyway?
"Oh, sure. It had been so long ago Cowpersmith had almost forgotten. "Fun. Good food. Plays. Girls.
Cars-
"Right on, criedMurray , "and that's what everyone else works for, too. Everybody but me! That's what
my job
is.
I don't have to work
for
those things, because I work at them. I don't imagine you're going to
believe this, Tud, but it's true, he added as an afterthought.
Cowpersmith looked down at the girl and swallowed hard. A dismal vision flashed through his mind, of
the five crumpled twenties in his pocket turning out to be joke money that, turned over, might say
April
Fool
or, held for ten minutes, might evaporate their ink, leaving bare paper and ruin. "I don't have any
idea of what you're talking about, he said toMurray , but still looking at the girl.
"You think I'm stoned,Murray said accurately.
"Well-
"I don't blame you. Look. Well, let's see. Shirley, he said, half laughing, "how do we explain this? Try it
this way, he went on, not waiting for her help, "suppose you had all the money in the world. Suppose you
had more money than you even wanted, right?
"I follow you. I mean, as a theoretical thing.
"And then suppose you had like an accident. Crashbang; you're in a car accident or a piano falls on you.
Quadriplegic. Can't have any fun anymore. Got that?
"Bad scene, said Cowpersinith, nodding.
"All right, but even though you can~t do much yourself anymore, there's a way you can have
some
fun
vicariously. Like you're not going toIbiza yourself, but you're seeing slides of it, or something. You can't
get the kicks a normal person can, but you can get something, maybe not much but better than nothing,
out of what other people do. Now, in that position, Tud, what would you do?
"Kill myself.
"No you wouldn't, for Christ's sake. You'd hire other people to have fun for you. And then with this
process- he patted the ugly thing that looked like a wristwatch, but Cowpersmith now realized was not-
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 you can play back their fun, and maybe it isn't much, but it's all the jollies you can ever get. Right,
Shirley?
She shook her head and said sweetly. "Shit.
"Well, anyway, it's
something
like that. I guess. It's kind of secret, I think probably because it's
someone like Howard Hughes or maybe one of the Roekefellers that's involved. They won't say. But the
job's for real, Tud. All I have to do is have all the fun I can. They pick up the tab, it all goes on the credit
card, and they get the bill, and they pay it. As long as I wear this thing, that's all I have to do. And every
Friday, besides all that, five hundred in cash.
There was a pause while Bette Midler flowed over and around them from the speakers and
Cowpersmith looked from the girl to his friend, waiting for the joke part. At last he said, "But
nobody
gets a job like that.
"Wrong, friend," said Shirley. "You did. Just now. If you want it. I'll take you there tomorrow morning.
Behind the door stenciled
E.T.C. Import-Export Co., Ltd.
there was nothing more than a suite of
offices sparsely occupied and eccentrically furnished. Hardly furnished at all, you might say. There was
nobody at the reception desk, which Shirley walked right past, and no papers on the desk of the one
man anywhere visible. "I've got a live one for you, Mr. Morris, Shirley sang out. "Friend ofMurray 's.
Mr. Morris looked like a printing salesman, about fifty, plump, studying Cowpersmith over half glasses.
"Good producer, he agreed reluctantly. "All right, you're hired. And he counted out five hundred dollars
in bills of various sizes and pushed them across the desk to Cowpersmith.
Cowpersmith picked up the money, feeling instantly stoned. "Is that all there is to it?
"No! Not for me, I've got all the paperwork now, your credit card, keeping records-
"I mean, like, don't you want me to fill out an application form?
"Certainly not. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a wristwatch-shaped thing. Cowpersmith
could not see all of the inside of the drawer from his angle, but he was nearly sure there was nothing else
in it. He handed it to Cowpersmith and said, "Once you put it on it won't come off by itself, but we'll
unlock it any time you want to quit. That's all. Go have fun. By which, he added, "I don't actually mean
screwing, because we've got plenty of records of that already.
"What then? asked Cowpersmith, disconcerted.
"Hell, man! Up to you. Water skiing, skin diving, breaking the bank atMonte Carlo . What do you
dream about, when things look bad'? You do dream, don't you?
"Well, sure, but- Cowpersmith hesitated, thinking. "I always wanted to eat at La Tour d'Argent. And,
uh, there's this crazy poison fish they have inJapan-
"Sounds good, the man said without enthusiasm. "I'll have your card delivered to you at your hotel
tomorrow.
"Yes, but wait a minute. What's the catch'?
Page 4
 "No catch, Tud, said Shirley, annoyed. "Jesus, what does it take to convince you?
"Nothing like this ever happened to me before. There has to be something wrong with it.
"No there doesn't, said Mr. Morris, "and I have to get busy on your card.
Cowpersmith found himself standing up. "No, wait, he said. "How-how long does the job last?
Shrug. "Until you get bored, I guess.
"Then what?
"Then you turn in your recordings. And you take your last week's pay and go look for another job.
"Recordings? Cowpersmith looked down at his wrist, where, without thinking about it, he had clasped
on the metal object. is this a tape recorder?
"I'm not into that part of it, Mr. Morris said. "I only know my job, and I've just done it. Good-by.
And that was all she wrote. At Shirley's urging, Cowpersrnith checked into a small but very nice hotel on
theUpper East Side , went to a massage parlor, ice-skated atRockefellerCenter , and met Shirley for a
late drink in a Greek bar inChelsea . "Good start, she said. "Now you're on your own. Got any plans?
"Well, he said experimenta~ly, "I think I can still make the Mardi Gras inRio . And I heard about a safari
tour toKenya-
"Travel, huh. Why not'? She finished her drink. "Well, we'll keep in touch--
"No, take it easy, he said. "I don't understand some things.
"There isn't any reason for you to understand. Just enioy.
"I tried to callMurray , but he's gone off somewhere-
And yoa're going too, right? Look, she said, "you're going to ask some probably very important
questions, to you, but all I know's my own job
"Which is?
"-which is none of your business. Go enjoy. When Mr. Morris wants to he in touch with you he'll be in
touch with you. No. Don't ask how he'll find you. He'll find you. And so good night.
And so, for eight dynamite months, Tud Cowpersmith enioyed. He did everything he had ever wanted to
do. He made the carnival inRio and discovered hearts-of-palm soup in a restaurant overlooking the
Copacabana beach. He rode a hydrofoil aroundLeningrad and toured the Hermitage, bloated on fresh
caviar. Gypsy violins inSoho , pounded abalone on Fisherman's Wharf, a nude-encounter weekend atBig
Sur , high-stakes gambling inMacao . First-class stewardesses on half a dozen airlines began to recognize
him, in half a dozen languages. Shirley turned up once, in his suite at the George Cinq, but only to tell him
he was doing fine. Another time he thought he sawMurray pushing a scooter at theCopenhagen airport,
but he was going one way andMurray another, and there was no way for Cowpersmith to get off the
moving person carrier to catch him. He took up motorcycle racing and tried to enjoy listening to the
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