Ray Bradbury. The Machineries of Joy

                Ray Bradbury
                http://blogs.myspace.com/mysteryal

                The Machineries of Joy
                1960

     Father  Brian  delayed going below to breakfast because he thought he heard
Father Vittorini down there, laughing. Vittorini, as usual, was dining alone. So
who was there to laugh with, or at?
     Us, thought Fathez Brian, that's who.
     He listened again.
     Across  the hall Father Kelly too was hiding, or meditating, rather, in his
room.
     They  never let Vittorini finish breakfast, no, they always managed to join
him  as  he  chewed  his  last bit of toast. Otherwise they could not have borne
their guilt through the day.
     Still,  that  was  laughter,  was it not, belowstairs? Father Vittorini had
ferreted  out  something  in the morning Times. Or, worse, had he stayed up half
the  night  with  the unholy ghost, that television set which stood in the entry
like an unwelcome guest, one foot in whimsy, the other in the doldrums? And, his
mind  bleached  by  the electronic beast, was Vittorini now planning some bright
fine  new  devilment,  the  cogs  wheeling  in  his  soundless  mind, seated and
deliberately  fasting,  hoping  to  lure  them  down curious at the sound of his
Italian humours?
     "Ah,  God."  Father  Brian sighed and fingered the envelope he had prepared
the  previous night. He had tucked it in his coat as a protective measure should
he decide to hand it to Pastor Sheldon. Would Father Vittorini detect it through
the cloth with his quick dark X-ray vision?
     Father  Brian  pressed his hand firmly along his lapel to squash any merest
outline of his request for transferral to another parish.
     "Here goes."
     And, breathing a prayer. Father Brian went downstairs.
     "Ah, Father Brian?"
     Vittorini looked up from his still full cereal bowl. The brute had not even
so much as sugared his corn flakes yet.
     Father Brian felt as if he had stepped into an empty elevator shaft.
     Impulsively  he  put  out a hand to save himself. It touched the top of the
television  set.  The  set  was  warm. He could not help saying, "Did you have a
seance here last night?"
     "I sat up with the set, yes."
     "Sat  up  is  right."  snorted Father Brian. "One does sit up, doesn't one,
with  the  sick,  or  the  dead? I used to be handy with the ouija board myself.
There  was  more  brains in that." He turned from the electrical moron to survey
Vittorini.  "And  did  you  hear  far  cries and banshee wails from, what is it?
Canaveral?"
     "They called off the shot at three A.M."
     "And you here now, looking daisy-fresh." Father Brian advanced, shaking his
head. "What's true is not always what's fair."
     Vittorini  now  vigorously  doused  his  flakes with milk. "But you. Father
Brian, you look as if you made the grand tour of Hell during the night."
     Fortunately,  at  this point Father Kelly entered. He froze when he too saw
how little along Vittorini was with his fortifiers. He muttered to both priests,
seated himself, and glanced over at the perturbed Father Brian.
     "True, William, you look half gone. Insomnia?"
     "A touch."
     Father  Kelly  eyed both men, his head to one side. "What goes on here? Did
something happen while I was out last night?"
     "We  had  a  small  discussion,"  said  Father Brian, toying with the dread
flakes of corn.
     "Small  discussion!"  said  Father  Vittorini.  He  might have laughed, but
caught  himself  and  said  simply,  "The Irish priest is worried by the Italian
Pope."
     "Now, Father Vittorini," said Kelly,
     "Let him run on," said Father Brian.
     "Thank  you  for your permission," said Vittorini, very politely and with a
friendly  nod.  "II Papa is a constant source of reverent irritation to at least
some if not all of the Irish clergy. Why not a pope named Nolan? Why not a green
instead  of a red hat? Why not, for that matter, move Saint Peter's Cathedral to
Cork or Dublin, come the twenty-fifth century?"
     "I hope nobody said that," said Father Kelly.
     "I  am an angry man," said Father Brian. "In my anger I might have inferred
it."
     "Angry, why? And inferred for what reason?"
     "Did  you  hear  what  he  just said about the twenty-fifth century?" asked
Father  Brian.  "Well,  it's when Rash Gordon and Buck Rogers fly in through the
baptistry transom that yours truly hunts for the exits."
     Father Kelly sighed. "Ah, God, is it that joke again?"
     Father  Brian  felt the blood bum his cheeks, but fought to send it back to
cooler regions of his body.
     "Joke?  It's  off  and beyond that. For a month now it's Canaveral this and
trajectories  and  astronauts  that.  You'd think it was Fourth of July, he's up
half  each  night  with  the rockets. I mean, now, what kind of life is it, from
midnight on, carousing about the entryway with that Medusa machine which freezes
your  intellect  if  ever  you stare at it? I cannot sleep for feeling the whole
rectory will blast off any minute."
     "Yes, yes," said Father Kelly. "But what's all this about the Pope?"
     "Not  the  new one, the one before the last," said Brian wearily. "Show him
the clipping. Father Vittorini."
     Vittorini hesitated.
     "Show it," insisted Brian, firmly.
     Father  Vittorini  brought  forth  a small press clipping and put it on the
table.
     Upside  down,  even.  Father  Brian  could read the bad news: "POPE BLESSES
ASSAULTON SPACE."
     Father  Kelly  reached  one  finger  out  to touch the cutting gingerly. He
intoned the news story half aloud, underlining each word with his fingernail:
     CASTEL  GANDOLFO, ITALY, SEPT. 20. - Pope Pius XII gave his bles sing today
to mankind's efforts to conquer space.
     The  Pontiff  told  delegates to the International Astro-nautical Congress,
"God  has  no  intention  of  setting  a  limit to the efforts of man to conquer
space."
     The  400  delegates  to the 22-nation congress were received by the Pope at
his summer residence here.
     "This  Astronautic Congress has become one of great importance at this time
of  man's  exploration  of  outer  space," the Pope said. "It should concern all
humanity....  Man  has to make the effort to put himself in new orientation with
God and his universe."

    
     Father Kelly's voice trailed off.
     "When did this story appear?"
     "In 1956".
     "That long back?" Father Kelly laid the thing down. "I didn't read it."
     "It  seems,"  said  Father  Brian,  "you  and I, Father, don't read much of
anything."
     "Anyone could overlook it," said Kelly. "It's a teeny-weeny article."
     "With  a  very  large  idea in it," added Father Vittorini, his good humour
prevailing.
     "The point is -"
     "The  point  is," said 'Vittorini, "when first I spoke of this piece, grave
doubts were cast on my veracity. Now we see I have cleaved close by the truth."
     "Sure,"  said  Father Brian quickly, "but as our poet William Blake put it,
'A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.' "
     "Yes."  Vittorini  relaxed  further  into his amiability. "And didn't Blake
also write

    
    

     He who doubts from what he sees,
      Will ne'er believe, do what you please.
      If the Sun and Moon should doubt
      They'd immediately go out.

    
     "Most appropriate," added the Italian priest, "for the Space Age."
     Father Brian stared at the outrageous man.
     "I'll thank you not to quote our Blake at us."
     "Your  Blake?" said the slender pale man with the softly glowing dark hair.
"Strange, I'd always thought him English."
     "The poetry of Blake," said Father Brian, "was always a great comfort to my
mother. It was she told me there was Irish blood on his maternal side."
     "I  will  graciously  accept that," said Father Vittorini. "But back to the
newspaper  story.  Now  that  we've  found  it,  it seems a good time to do some
research on Pius the Twelfth's encyclical."
     Father  Brian's  wariness, which was a second set of nerves under his skin,
prickled alert.
     "What encyclical is that?"
     "Why, the one on space travel."
     "He didn't do than"
     "He did."
     "On space travel, a special encyclical?"
     "A special one."
     Both  Irish  priests were near onto being flung back in their chairs by the
blast.
     Father  Vittorini  made  the  picky  motions  of  a man cleaning up after a
detonation,  finding  lint  on  his  coat sleeve, a crumb or two of toast on the
tablecloth.
     "Wasn't  it enough," said Brian, in a dying voice, "he shook hands with the
astronaut  bunch  and  told them well done and all that, but he had to go on and
write at length about it?"
     "It  was not enough," said Father Vittorini. "He wished, I hear, to comment
further  on  the  problems  of life on other worlds, and its effect on Christian
thinking."
     Each of these words, precisely spoken, drove the two other men farther back
in their chairs.
     "You hear?" said Father Brian. "You haven't read it yourself yet?"
     "No, but I intend -"
     "You  intend everything and mean worse. Sometimes, Father Vittorini, you do
not talk, and I hate to say this, like a priest of the Mother Church at all."
     "I  talk,"  replied  Vittorini,  "like an Italian priest somehow caught and
trying  to  preserve  surface  tension treading an ecclesiastical bog where I am
outnumbered  by a great herd of clerics named Shaughnessy and Nulty and Flannery
that  mill  and  stampede  like caribou or bison every time I so much as whisper
'papal bull.' "
     "There  is no doubt in my mind" - and here Father Brian squinted off in the
general  direction  of  the  Vatican, itself - "that it was you, if you could've
been  there,  might've  put  the  Holy  Father  up  to  this  whole space-travel
monkeyshines."
     "I?"
     "You!  It's you, is it not, certainly not us, that lugs in the magazines by
the  carload  with  the  rocket  ships  on the shiny covers and the filthy green
monsters  with  six eyes and seventeen gadgets chasing after half-draped females
on  some  moon  or  other? You I hear late nights doing the countdowns from ten,
nine,  eight  on  down to one, in tandem with the beast TV, so we lie aching for
the  dread concussions to knock the fillings from our teeth. Between one Italian
here  and  another  at  Castel  Gondolfo,  may God forgive me, you've managed to
depress the entire Irish clergy?"
     "Peace," said Father Kelly at last, "both of you."
     "And  peace  it  is,  one  way or another I'll have it," said Father Brian,
taking the envelope from his pocket.
     "Put that away," said Father Kelly, sensing what must be in the envelope.
     "Please give this to Pastor Sheldon for me."
     Father  Brian  rose  heavily and peered about to find the door and some way
out of' the room. He was suddenly gone.
     "Now see what you've done!'" said Father Kelly.
     Father  Vittorini,  truly  shocked,  had  stopped eating. "But, Father, all
along  I  thought it was an amiable squabble, with him putting on and me putting
on, him playing it loud and me soft."
     "Well, you've played it too long, and the blasted fun turned serious." said
Kelly. "Ah, you don't know William like I do. You've really torn him."
     "I'll do my best to mend -"
     "You'll  mend  the  seat  of your pants! Get out of the way, this is my job
now."  Father  Kelly  grabbed  the  envelope off the table and held it up to the
light, "The X-ray of a poor man's soul. Ah, God."
     He  hurried  upstairs.  "Father  Brian?" he called. He slowed. "Father?" He
tapped at the door. "William?"
     In  the  breakfast  room,  alone once more. Father Vittorini remembered the
last  few  flakes  in  his mouth. They now had no taste. It took him a long slow
while to get them down.

    
     It  was  only  after  lunch  that Father Kelly cornered Father Brian in the
dreary little garden behind the rectory and handed back the envelope.
     "Willy, I want you to tear this up. I won't have you quitting in the middle
of the game. How long has all this gone on between you two?"
     Father  Brian  sighed  and  held  but did not rip the envelope. "It sort of
crept upon us. It was me at first spelling the Irish writers and him pronouncing
the  Italian  operas.  Then  me  describing  the Book of Kells in Dublin and him
touring  me  through  the  Renaissance.  Thank  God for small favours, he didn't
discover  the  papal  encyclical  on the blasted space travelling sooner, or I'd
have  transferred  myself  to a monkery where the fathers keep silence as a vow.
But  even  there,  I fear, he'd follow and count down the Canaveral blastoffs in
sign language. What a Devil's advocate that man would make!"
     "Father!"
     "I'll  do  penance for that later. It's just this dark otter, this seal, he
frolics  with  Church  dogma  as if it was a candy-striped bouncy ball. It's all
very  well  to  have  seals  cavorting,  but  I say don't mix them with the true
fanatics,  such  as you and me! Excuse the pride. Father, but there does seem to
be  a  variation  on  the  true theme every time you get them piccolo players in
amongst us harpers, and don't you agree?"
     "What  an  enigma,  Will. We of the Church should be examples for others on
how to get along."
     "Has anyone told Father Vittorini that? Let's face it, the Italians are the
Rotary of the Church. You couldn't have trusted one of them to stay sober during
the Last Supper."
     "I wonder if we Irish could?" mused Father Kelly.
     "We'd wait until it was over, at least."
     "Well, now, are we priests or barbers? Do we stand here splitting hairs, or
do we shave Vittorini close with his own razor? William, have you no plan?"
     "Perhaps to call in a Baptist to mediate."
     "Be off with your Baptist! Have you researched the encyclical?"
     "The encyclical?"
     "Have you let grass grow since breakfast between your toes? You have! Let's
read  that  space-travel  edict! Memorize it, get it pat, then counterattack the
rocket  man  in  his  own  territory!  This  way, to the library. What is it the
youngsters cry these days? Five, four, three, two, one, blast off?"
     "Or the rough equivalent."
     "Well, say the rough equivalent, then, man. And follow me!"

    
     They met Pastor Sheldon, going into the library as he was coming out.
     "It's  no use," said the pastor, smiling, as he examined the fever in their
faces. "You won't find it in there."
     "Won't  find  what  in  there?"  Father Brian saw the pastor looking at the
letter  which was still glued to his fingers, and hid it away, fast. "Won't find
what, sir?"
     "A  rocket  ship  is  a  trifle too large for our small quarters," said the
pastor in a poor try at the enigmatic.
     "Has the Italian bent your ear, then?" cried Father Kelly in dismay.
     "No,  but  echoes  have  a way of ricocheting about the place. I came to do
some checking myself."
     "Then," gasped Brian with relief, "you're on our side?"
     Pastor  Sheldon's  eyes  became  somewhat  sad.  "Is  there a side to this,
Fathers?"
     They  all moved into the little library room, where Father Brian and Father
Kelly sat uncomfortably on the edges of the hard chairs. Pastor Sheldon remained
standing, watchful of their discomfort.
     "Now. Why are you afraid of Father Vittorini?"
     "Afraid?" Father Brian seemed surprised at the word and cried softly, "It's
more like angry."
     "One  leads  to the other," admitted Kelly. He continued, "You see. Pastor,
it's  mostly  a  small town in Tuscany shunting stones at Meynooth, which is, as
you know, a few miles out from Dublin."
     "I'm Irish," said the pastor, patiently.
     "So  you  are.  Pastor,  and all the more reason we can't figure your great
calm in this disaster," said Father Brian.
     "I'm California Irish," said the pastor.
     He  let  this sink in. When it had gone to the bottom, Father Brian groaned
miserably. "Ah. We forgot."
     And  he  looked  at  the  pastor  and  saw  there  the recent dark, the tan
complexion  of  one  who  walked with his face like a sunflower to the sky, even
here  in  Chicago,  taking  what  little  light and heat he could to sustain his
colour  and  being.  Here stood a man with the figure, still, of a badminton and
tennis  player  under  his  tunic,  and with the firm lean hands of the handball
expert.  In the pulpit, by the look of his arms moving in the air, you could see
him swimming under warm California skies.
     Father Kelly let forth one sound of laughter.
     "Oh,  the  gentle  ironies,  the  simple  fates.  Father Brian, here is our
Baptist!"
     "Baptist?" asked Pastor Sheldon.
     "No  offence. Pastor, but we were off to find a mediator, and here you are,
an Irishman from California, who has known the wintry blows of Illinois so short
a  time,  you've still the look of rolled lawns and January sunburn. We, we were
born  and raised as lumps in Cork and Kilcock, Pastor. Twenty years in Hollywood
would  not  thaw us out. And now, well, they do say, don't they, that California
is much..." here he paused, "like Italy?"
     "I see where you're driving," mumbled Father Brian.
     Pastor Sheldon nodded, his face both warm and gently sad. "My blood is like
your  own.  But  the  climate I was shaped in is like Rome's. So you see. Father
Brian, when I asked are there any sides, I spoke from my heart."
     "Irish yet not Irish," mourned Father Brian. "Almost but not quite Italian.
Oh, the world's played tricks with our flesh."
     "Only if we let it, William, Patrick."
     Both men started a bit at the sound of their Christian names.
     "You still haven't answered: Why are you afraid?"
     Father  Brian  watched his hands rumble like two bewildered wrestlers for a
moment.  "Why,  it's because just when we get things settled on Earth, just when
it  looks  like  victory's  in  sight, the Church on a good footing, along comes
Father Vittorini-"
     "Forgive  me.  Father,"  said the pastor. "Along comes reality. Along comes
space,  time,  entropy,  progress,  along  come a million things, always. Father
Vittorini didn't invent space travel."
     "No,  but  he  makes  a  good  thing  of it. With him 'everything begins in
mysticism  and  ends  in politics.' Well, no matter. I'll stash my shillelagh if
he'll put away his rockets."
     "No,  let's  leave  them out in the open," replied the pastor. "Best not to
hide  violence  or special forms of travel. Best to work with them. Why don't we
climb in that rocket, Father, and learn from it?"
     "Learn  what?  That  most  of  the things we've taught in the past on Earth
don't  fit  out  there on Mars or Venus or wherever in hell Vittorini would push
us?  Drive  Adam  and  Eve out of some new Garden, on Jupiter, with our very own
rocket  fires?  Or worse, find there's no Eden, no Adam, no Eve, no damned Apple
nor Serpent, no Fall, no Original Sin, no Annunciation, no Birth, no Son, you go
on  with  the  list, no nothing at all! on one blasted world tailing another? Is
that what we must learn. Pastor?"
     "If  need  be,  yes,"  said  Pastor Sheldon. "It's the Lord's space and the
Lord's  worlds in space, Father. We must not try to take our cathedrals with us,
when  all  we  need  is  an overnight case. The Church can be packed in a box no
larger  than  is needed for the articles of the Mass, as much as these hands can
carry.  Allow  Father  Vittorini this, the people of the southern climes learned
long  ago  to  build  in wax which melts and takes its shape in harmony with the
motion and need of man. William, William, if you insist on building in hard ice,
it will shatter when we break the sound barrier or melt and leave you nothing in
the fire of the rocket blast."
     "That,"  said  Father  Brian,  "is  a  hard  thing to learn at fifty years.
Pastor."
     "But  learn,  I  know you will," said the pastor, touching his shoulder. "I
set you a task: to make peace with the Italian priest. Find some way tonight for
a  meeting  of  minds. Sweat at it. Father. And, first off, since our library is
meager,  hunt  for  and  find  the  space  encyclical, so we'll know what we' re
yelling about."
     A moment later the pastor was gone.
     Father  Brian  listened  to  the  dying sound of those swift feet - as if a
white  ball  were flying high in the sweet blue air and the pastor were hurrying
in for a fine volley.
     "Irish but not Irish," he said. "Almost but not quite Italian. And now what
are we, Patrick?"
     "I begin to wonder," was the reply.
     And  they  went  away  to a larger library wherein might be hid the grander
thoughts of a Pope on a bigger space.

    
     A  long  while  after  supper that night, in fact almost at bedtime. Father
Kelly,  sent  on  his  mission,  moved  about  the  rectory tapping on doors and
whispering.
     Shortly  before  ten  o'clock,  Father  Vittorini  came down the stairs and
gasped with surprise.
     Father  Brian,  at  the  unused fireplace, warming himself at the small gas
heater which stood on the hearth, did not turn for a moment.
     A  space had been cleared and the brute television set moved forward into a
circle  of  four chairs, amongst which stood two small taborettes on which stood
two bottles and four glasses. Father Brian had done it all, allowing Kelly to do
nothing. Now he turned, for Kelly and Pastor Sheldon were arriving.
     The  pastor  stood  in  the  entryway and surveyed the room. "Splendid." He
paused  and added, "I think. Let me see now..." He read the label on one bottle.
"Father Vittorini is to sit here."
     "By the Irish Moss?" asked Vittorini.
     "The same," said Father Brian.
     Vittorini, much pleased, sat.
     "And  the rest of us will sit by the Lachryma Christi, I take it?" said the
pastor.'
     "An Italian drink. Pastor."
     "I think I've heard of it," said the pastor, and sat.
     "Here." Father Brian hurried over and, without looking at Vittorini, poured
his glass a good way up with the Moss. "An Irish transfusion."
     "Allow  me."  Vittorini  nodded  his thanks and arose, in turn, to pour the
others'  drinks.  "The tears of Christ and the sunlight of Italy," he said. "And
now, before we drink, I have something to say."
     The others waited, looking at him.
     "The papal encyclical on space travel," he said at last, "does not exist."
     "We discovered that," said Kelly, "a few hours ago."
     "Forgive me. Fathers," said Vittorini. "I am like the fisherman on the bank
who,  seeing  fish,  throws  out more bait. I suspected, all along, there was no
encyclical.  But  every  time  it  was  brought lip, about town, I heard so many
priests  from  Dublin deny it existed, I came to think it must They would not go
check  the  item,  for  they  feared  it  existed.  I would not, in my pride, do
research,  for I feared it did not exist. So Roman pride or Cork pride, it's all
the  same.  I  shall go on retreat soon and be silent for a week. Pastor, and do
penance."
     "Good,  Father, good." Pastor Sheldon rose. "Now I've a small announcement.
A  new  priest  arrives  here  next  month.  I've thought long on it. The man is
Italian, born and raised in Montreal."
     Vittorini closed one eye and tried to picture this man to himself.
     "If  the  Church  must be all things to all people," said the pastor, "I am
intrigued  with  the  thought of hot blood raised in a cold climate, as this new
Italian was, even as I find it fascinating to consider myself, cold blood raised
in  California.  We've  needed another Italian here to shake things up, and this
Latin  looks  to  be the sort will shake even Father Vittorini. Now will someone
offer a toast?"
     "May  I,  Pastor?"  Father  Vittorini  rose again, smiling gently, his eyes
darkly  aglow,  looking  at  this  one  and now that of the three. He raised his
glass.  "Somewhere  did  Blake not speak of the Machineries of Joy? That is, did
not  God  promote  environments,  then intimidate those Natures by provoking the
existence of flesh, toy men and women, such as are we all? And thus happily sent
forth, at our best, with good grace and fine wit, on calm noons, in fair climes,
are we not God's Machineries of Joy?"
     "If  Blake  said  that,"  said  Father Brian, "I take it all back. He never
lived in Dublin!"
     All laughed together.
     Vittorini drank the Irish Moss and was duly speechless.
     The  others  drank  the Italian wine and grew mellow, and in his mellowness
Father  Brian  cried softly, "Vittorini, now, will you, unholy as it is, tune on
the ghost?"
     "Channel Nine?"
     "Nine it is!"
     And  while  Vittorini  dialed  the knobs Father Brian mused over his drink,
"Did Blake realty say that?"
     "The  fact  is.  Father,"  said  Vittorini, bent to the phantoms coming and
going on the screen, "he might have, if he'd lived today. I wrote it down myself
tonight."
     All  watched  the  Italian  with  some awe. Then the TV gave a hum and came
clear, showing a rocket, a long way off, getting ready.
     "The  machineries  of  joy," said Father Brian. "Is that one of them you're
tuning in? And is that another sitting there, the rocket on its stand?"
     "It  could  be,  tonight," murmured Vittorini. "If the thing goes up, and a
man in it, all around the world, and him still alive, and us with him, though we
just sit here. That would be joyful indeed."
     The  rocket was getting ready, and Father Brian shut his eyes for a moment.
Forgive  me,  Jesus,  he  thought,  forgive  an  old man his prides, and forgive
Vittorini his spites, and help me to understand what I see here tonight, and let
me stay awake if need be, in good humour, until dawn, and let the thing go well,
going up and coming down, and think of the man in that contraption, Jesus, think
of  and  be  with  him. And help me. God, when the summer is young, for, sure as
fate  on Fourth of July evening there will be Vittorini and the kids from around
the block, on the rectory lawn, lighting skyrockets. All them there watching the
sky,  like  the  mom  of  the  Redemption,  and  help me, O Lord, to be as those
children before the great night of time and void where you abide. And help me to
walk  forward. Lord, to light the next rocket Independence Night, and stand with
the Latin father, my face suffused with that same look of the delighted child in
the face of the burning glories you put near our hand and bid us savour.
     He opened his eyes.
     Voices  from  far  Canaveral were crying in a wind of time. Strange phantom
powers loomed upon the screen. He was drinking the last of the wine when someone
touched his elbow gently.
     "Father," said Vittorini, near. "Fasten your seat belt."
     "I will," said Father Brian. "I will. And many thanks."
     He sat back in his chair. He closed his eyes. He waited for the thunder. He
waited for the fire. He waited for the concussion and the voice that would teach
a silly, a strange, a wild and miraculous thing:
     How to count back, ever backward... to zero.