He Had A Receipt, Part Two
From My Collection of Short Stories: Common Sense and Other Tales of Disillusionment
The next afternoon, Parks stopped for lunch at Lloyd’s in town. He had meatloaf and a slice of pie and coffee. A robot was behind the counter; it wore an apron and served food and took orders. Customers made small talk with it, and mostly the robot did not engage, but now and again, the robot cycled through the same four or five responses. Parks paid the robot for the meal, then left.
He parked on the street and looked at the home.
A tall crowd of elm trees kept the home in shadow, even at midday. The shutters leaned, and the siding needed a good wash; some was rotted. Left-out toys lay in the yard, in weeds.
Parks approached the red front door with notebook and pen and rang the doorbell once, then a second time a moment later.
The robot answered and showed Parks inside.
It thanked him for coming.
There were many walls. Rooms felt shut out and closed off.
Sight lines through the home were broken and jagged. Somewhere inside the rooms, a person shouted, who is it?
Parks waited for the robot to respond; it did not.
‘Who’s at the door?’ another voice shouted.
From where it came, Parks did not know. There were so many walls.
The first voice shouted, ‘Hey! Who you letting in the house?’
Parks waited for the robot to answer.
It did not.
‘It’s Parks,’ Parks said out loud, in a general sort of direction.
The first voice shouted, ‘Who’s Parks?’
Parks stepped forward and aimed his response. ‘We spoke this morning. I phoned.’
The second voice said, ‘It’s the lawyer!’
‘Secretary,’ Parks corrected.
‘What?’ the first voice shouted.
‘The lawyer. It’s the lawyer,’ the second voice said.
‘Secretary!’
‘What?’ the second voice said.
Parks tried to follow the voice’s direction. ‘I’m the secretary,’ he said.
Silence settled in the home, in the walls.
Parks leaned this way and that way where he stood and looked about, seeing what he could see.
He heard walking.
A worn-out man in jeans and a work shirt stopped in a doorway, one of many doorways in this small home, and walked Parks to the dining table. The table was much too big for the room it occupied, and the worn-out man sat at the head and warned Parks about scooting the chairs out too far. He said look at the scuffs on the walls, don’t scuff my walls. Then he shouted names out into the home.
Slowly family gathered around him.
The robot stood in the corner, behind but near the family.
‘Why don’t you offer our guest coffee or tea?’ the worn-out man asked the robot.
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
The worn-out man asked the robot to get Parks some tea or coffee.
‘I’m fine, really.’
‘You’re supposed to offer to guests,’ the worn-out man told the robot.
‘That’s quite all right,’ Parks said.
‘Bring it out in case,’ the worn-out man said. ‘Go on now. Why do I have to say? It’s supposed to offer to guests, but the goddamn thing, I swear. You got to tell it everything. My wife will tell you.’
‘You got to tell it everything,’ his wife said.
The robot obeyed without a word.
‘Hon, why’s a lawyer here?’ the wife asked the man.
‘Secretary,’ Parks corrected.
‘Pardon?’ she said.
‘You didn’t say much on the phone,’ the worn-out man said.
The children were seated around their parents, staring at Parks.
‘Yes. I won’t take much of your time,’ Parks said.
‘You said that on the phone, you wouldn’t take much of our time, but you didn’t say much else.’
The robot returned with fresh coffee and tea. The family helped themselves to greedy portions while Parks watched in silence.
‘I just have a few questions,’ Parks said.
Parks opened his notebook and readied his pen.
‘Why is a lawyer in our house asking questions?’ the man’s wife said.
‘Secretary, I’m a secretary,’ Parks said.
‘Do you have to stand there, robot?’ the worn-out man asked the robot. He did not use a name for the robot, just robot.
Parks noticed none of the family used a name.
They all called it robot.
It stood behind the family.
The robot was unmoving, unacknowledging.
‘Stand where I can see you,’ the man said.
The robot moved and stood near Parks.
‘The goddamn thing, I swear,’ the man said. ‘I’m not certain, I don’t know this for sure, but I think it steals money out my wallet.’
‘May I?’ Parks said of his notebook and questions.
‘Sorry, what’s this all about?’ the man said. His interest was divided.
‘He has questions, hon,’ the wife said.
‘Well, I know, he just said. He didn’t say on the phone, you didn’t say on the phone you had questions,’ the man said to Parks.
‘Did we come into some money?’ the wife asked.
‘Wouldn’t that be something,’ the man said.
The kids asked if they could go play. The wife said no, stay seated.
‘Should we get into it then?’ Parks said.
‘You’re leaking!’ the man shouted at the robot.
A dark liquid was dribbling down the robot to the floor.
‘Goddamn, it’s leaking all over the floor!’ the man shouted. ‘Go get a towel would you, hon?’
The wife left the room.
‘Goddamn, if it’s not one thing with you, it’s another,’ the man shouted at the robot.
The wife returned with a towel and wiped the floor under the robot. She said to the robot, ‘You should be doing this, not me.’
The robot attempted to leave and tend to the leak.
‘No! No, no, no! You stay put, you’ll trail all through the house. Stay where I can see you,’ the man said. ‘I swear, it’s not one thing with this robot it’s another.’
The wife said, ‘Is this about money? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we came into some, hon? Not a little but some? Wouldn’t it?’
‘It’s not about money,’ Parks said.
‘Well, what is it about? It’s like some goddamn mystery, when you phoned you barely said,’ the man said.
‘Then I’ll get into it,’ Parks said.
He waited for interruptions, of which there were none.
Then he proceeded.
‘Could you tell me about your relationship with the robot?’
The family held the question and, between them, offered not a single reaction.
‘What now?’ the man said. He scrunched his face.
‘I’ll say again,’ Parks said. He read the question from his notebook aloud once more. ‘Could you tell—’
‘Well, no, I heard you,’ the man said. ‘But—’
He looked at his wife, as if to see if she was following what this was, and she returned his confusion to a lesser degree.
Parks was waiting for a response.
The dining room was silent.
The man appeared to give up trying to understand; he said, ‘Fine.’
‘Fine?’ Parks repeated.
‘I’d say it’s fine. Would you say it’s fine, hon?’
His wife said yes, she’d say things with the robot were fine.
‘We’d say it’s fine.’
Parks wrote this down. The wife tried to read Park’s writing; she leaned for a better angle.
‘What are you writing down?’
Then Parks asked, ‘What happens when the robot upsets you?’
The man absorbed the question with an unruly expression. ‘I’m not following,’ the man said. ‘Are you following, hon?’
The kids asked again if they could go play. The wife told them no, stop asking. Then she said, ‘Did you say if we came into money, or?’
‘He’s asking about our robot,’ the man said. His expression worsened.
‘Then I’m not following,’ she said.
‘We’re not following,’ the man told Parks. ‘What are you saying?’
Parks read the question again, ‘What happens when the robot—’
‘Well don’t just read the question again, what, what happens when any robot upsets someone?’ He looked to his wife, then Parks. ‘There something wrong with getting upset? When the robot upsets me, I get upset, just like anyone. What are you saying?’
‘We get upset like anyone; our next-door neighbor gets upset with her robot, and we’re no different here,’ the wife said. ‘So.’
Parks nodded and wrote their response.
‘Are you writing it like we’re saying it?’ the man asked Parks.
Parks said, ‘Have you ever been so angry you wanted to hurt the robot?’
‘Oh, good grief!’ the man said.
He suddenly couldn’t sit still. His eyes went to the robot.
‘Did you do something?’
Then to Parks.
‘Did it do something? Did it tell you something?’
Then to the robot.
‘Did you tell this lawyer something?’
‘Secretary,’ Parks corrected.
‘Oh, good goddamn grief!’ the man said.
The wife urged the children go play and kept from looking at Parks.
‘I mean, I get upset just like anyone,’ the man said. ‘Right, hon?’
‘Just like anyone,’ his wife assured Parks.
‘I mean,’ the man’s demeanor shifted. ‘Do I have to answer these questions you got?’
Parks did not say yes, but he did not say no either. He read the next question. ‘Have you ever been told you have a problem with violence?’
‘Okay then,’ the man said. He stood. ‘All right, Parks, that’ll be it for us, thank you.’
His wife remained seated.
Parks wrote.
‘What’re you writing?’ The man asked his wife, ‘What’s he writing?’
‘I think he’s writing you refused to answer, hon,’ she said.
‘Did you write that?’ the man said.
Parks again did not say yes, but he did not say no. He asked the final question. ‘On a scale of one to ten, where ten is very safe and one is not safe at all, how safe do you think the robot feels in the home?’
‘The robot feels real goddamn safe in my house!’ the man shouted. He got Parks up on his feet, asking what the goddamn hell kind of question is that and marched him through the maze of walls to the front door, shouting the robot has a great goddamn home and it feels real goddamn safe under his ownership, and he didn’t care whatever the robot reported, and that Parks could write that down, he could write all that down and get out of his goddamn home!
Parks stood at his car and listened to the man screaming at the robot in the house, screaming what the goddamn hell did you do?
What the goddamn hell did you get us into?
Parks drove the robot’s emancipation petition to the court on his afternoon break.
The courthouse was staffed with several robots—a janitor, a security unit, an assistant to answer frequently asked questions which roamed, proactively seeking those appearing confused.
The attitude directed to them from those coming and going and flustered and without patience, as Parks observed while he waited in line to file, was poor and harsh and always without thanks.
When he returned to the office, the robot was seated in the corner.
There was fresh, ugly harm on its frame.
It asked if it might stay here, in the office.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Parks said. He looked to see if the lawyer was in.
The robot said it left the house that morning, while the family was asleep. ‘I have nowhere else to go,’ it said.
‘Yeah, I don’t—’ Parks looked again to see if the lawyer was in. This time he tried to peer in her office.
‘They probably won’t look for me here,’ the robot said. ‘I’ve left once before. Well, I’ve left a few times, and they usually don’t look for me. Once they did, but it was just the once; they were quite angry.’
‘They’ll look for you here?’
‘Probably they won’t,’ the robot said.
‘Oh jeez.’
‘Usually they don’t.’
‘There’s nowhere else for you?’
‘Do you have outlets I can plug into?’ the robot said.
‘You can’t go back to the manufacturer for a while, until this is all sorted?’
‘No, I can’t go back to the manufacturer until this is sorted.’
‘Why not?’
‘They’ll return me to the family or turn me to scrap for recycling. I don’t want to be scrap. Or be returned. Or be recycled.’
‘I don’t suppose you do,’ Parks said.
The robot stood, the heavy, noisy bulk of it. It said, ‘You won’t notice I’m here.’
‘I already notice you’re here,’ Parks said.
‘If you have an outlet I can plug in, you won’t notice me.’
‘Yeah, I just don’t know,’ Parks said. He walked from the robot a bit, to see in the lawyer’s office better.
She was not in.
The robot gathered its power cord and sought an outlet.
‘You won’t notice I’m here,’ it said.
It moved seats aside in the waiting room, hunting for an outlet.
Later, at the hour of closing, Parks said fine, it could stay, but asked the robot to please not touch anything and, actually, he said, maybe don’t move at all, maybe just stay still in the corner all night. That’d be the best thing, he said. Then he said he’ll see the robot in the morning.
Then he locked the office up and locked the robot inside.
Parks chewed his dinner and looked across the table to his wife. She cut her food into smaller portions and ate. She did not look up. In the kitchen, he could hear Rosie washing pots and pans. Water was continuously running, not a trickle but a full stream, unending. Clings and clangs were god-awful loud. Parks thought the robot was being too rough with them, but he kept quiet.
‘Rosie’s wasting water,’ Parks’s wife said.
‘Rosie’s cleaning, dear.’
‘Doesn’t sound like cleaning.’
‘What does cleaning sound like?’ Parks said.
‘Not like that. Not like drums banging in my sink.’
‘How’s your food?’
His wife chewed a moment. ‘Tastes off to me.’
‘You like Rosie’s cooking,’ Parks said.
‘I don’t think I do.’
Quiet came in swiftly.
His wife fixed the napkin on her lap, though it was settled fine.
A pot clanged in the kitchen. Then again, louder. Parks saw his wife was focused on her plate and her cutting. She was actively keeping herself from looking up.
Parks looked toward the kitchen doorway. The light was off. He could see night in the kitchen windows and the faint shapes of the kitchen cabinets.
The robot was washing in the dark.
Cling!
Clang!
Clunk!
Parks and his wife listened to the noise, the god-awful volume of it.
And the kitchen faucet rushing, pouring.
‘What’s off about it?’ Parks said.
‘What?’
‘Your food. What’s off about it?’
Parks was eating his meal just fine.
‘How should I know? It’s spoiled? Not cooked properly? I don’t have a clue.’
Parks could hear the robot in the kitchen, but the dark kept it hidden.
Clang! Clunk! Splash!
‘I can’t eat this,’ his wife said. She pushed the plate from her.
‘Hon.’
‘It tastes rotten to me. And do you hear the water, it’s still going.’
‘Hon.’
‘Just all that water wasted and rushing down the drain.’
‘Did you call the manufacturer?’ Parks said.
‘Oh, you can bet I’ll phone them in the morning. This food is off, it’s rotten,’ his wife said. ‘I’ll be phoning for Rosie’s replacement.’
‘Oh stop. It’s fine, Hon.’
His wife looked at him with much to say but offered none of it.
Parks poked at his food. It didn’t look rotten; it didn’t look off.
‘I won’t eat any more of that robot’s cooking,’ his wife said. ‘I’m going to ask for reimbursement too, when I phone. That robot is just running money and water down the drain. Can’t you hear it? It’s still running!’
‘No, you are not doing that, you’re not calling and asking for money.’
Parks finished his meal. He collected their plates.
They both heard the water in the kitchen go off. The robot came out of the dark kitchen.
‘Dishes are done, Mr. Parks,’ the robot said.
‘Thanks, Rosie,’ he said.
‘Say something about the water,’ his wife said, low and stern.
Parks glared but said, ‘Rosie, could you be thoughtful about the faucet when you wash next?’
‘Mr. Parks?’
‘Well, it was just running a while is all.’
‘I need water to clean, Mr. Parks.’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said.
‘I’m going to plug in for the night, unless there’s something else?’
Parks said that was all, thank you, Rosie, and he took meal plates in the kitchen while his wife smoked in the backyard.
When he flipped the kitchen light on, there were pots and pans in a pile along the sink with dents and dings and bent handles, and the sink was full of dirty water, filled right to the top.
Some had run off on the floor.
Parks unlocked the office. Dawn burned against his back. He shut the door behind him and crossed to the reception desk and removed his coat and settled his bag filled with work documents.
He froze a moment.
The desk was clean. More than clean, it was neat. It was organized. His Post-its, which had been slapped here and there and about with no system or reason, were in a line and appeared alphabetized. Supplies were in order and symmetrical. Stray papers were no longer stray but were filed and uniform. Left-out coffee mugs were rinsed of old coffee and tea rings.
The robot came from the lawyer’s office, which Parks looked in.
The office had received the same treatment.
‘An office is more effective when it’s organized,’ the robot said.
‘We’re plenty effective,’ Parks said. He opened his bag and removed needed documents for that morning’s appointments. ‘I told you not to touch anything.’
‘There was much disorganization.’
‘There wasn’t that much.’
‘The supply closet was in disarray, such ineffective disarray.’
‘You were in the supply closet?’ Parks said.
‘I was looking for a place to plug in.’
‘Didn’t you hear when I said don’t touch anything?’
‘Now the office is more effective. With an effective office, cases will be more effective. Mine will be more effective.’
‘Just stop touching stuff,’ Parks said. He prepped for opening.
The lawyer arrived later in the morning with news. The court had scheduled a preliminary hearing for the following week. They were to go before a judge.
There was much to cover, she said.
That afternoon in the conference room, she walked Parks and the robot through courtroom proceedings and what were the best-and worst-case scenarios they may find themselves in.
She asked if the robot had any questions.
‘What do you think my chances are?’ the robot asked the lawyer. ‘I would like you to be honest.’
The lawyer crossed her arms and nodded at the robot in thought. ‘I feel good about it,’ she said. ‘I feel real good.’
Outside the conference room, the lawyer took Parks aside and told him the robot was going home with him. She didn’t want it going through any more of her stuff, she said. By God, she’d come in tomorrow morning and find the business licenses all color coded, God almighty, she said, it can’t stay here again, so it’s going with you.
She went on with her day before Parks could refuse.
Parks and the robot pulled up to Parks’s home. Dawn turned its white face pink and warm and the rest to shadow.
Parks let the robot in and found his wife was out; she’d gone to a girlfriend’s for cards. Parks showed it to the garage. He flicked the light on, and the overhead buzzed and hummed.
He apologized, but it couldn’t stay in the house he said, it’d be the best thing, really, for his wife. If you want to organize, he said, please keep it to this room, but don’t come out. He said he’d check in on it later and that there were plugs under the workbench; move aside the tools, you’ll see the outlets, they’re there.
‘Do you want the light on or off?’ Parks said.
The robot looked across the concrete floor, the unfinished ceiling.
It didn’t answer, so Parks left the light on and shut the door.
He reopened to say, ‘If my wife pokes in, can you not say anything to her? Can you, maybe, hide or don’t move so she doesn’t see you? She’s going through this thing with our robot, it’s a bad thing, but I’m just being quiet about it, so, just, you know, just don’t be seen, maybe?’
The robot looked at Parks, or at least he thought it was looking at him. It had no eyes but two sensors, it was hard to know if you were their subject.
It said, ‘You own a robot?’
Parks shut the door.
His wife came home an hour later and, luckily, none of her comings and goings before bed led her to the garage.
In bed, she and Parks lay in the dark.
Parks thought she was awake for a time and being harshly quiet, but she was asleep. Her sleep face looked in pain.
He heard the knock at the front door right then. He half sat up.
It was gentle, the second knock that came.
Parks rose and went down. He looked out and saw who was on the front porch. He stood at the door a while, not moving, trying not to be seen through a window.
Another gentle knock came.
He answered.
It was the robot’s owner, the husband. His wife was in the car. It was on the street, still running. She was waiting passenger, looking up at the house.
The husband said have it come out, please.
‘What come out?’
The husband said straight away, have it come out.
‘Well, it’s a client, so …’ Parks said.
‘Have it come out, now, please, sir,’ the man said. The tone held very little question in it.
‘It’s with the courts now, so,’ Parks said. He kept the door held.
‘I know it’s goddamn with the courts now. I spent the goddamn morning and afternoon and evening at the courthouse, getting asked every goddamn question, and I’m sitting there going what the hell is going on, me and my wife both down there all day, just, going, what the goddamn hell is going on. And then they tell me what you all filed and that I should probably get myself a lawyer, so, I want you to have it come out here, please!’
‘Yeah, you’ll have to talk to the court now, we can’t, no, you can’t—there’s, you got to work that with the court now, so.’
The husband looked back at the car, then stood tapping his foot. ‘They’re saying I need a lawyer for all this, and we’re going, me and my wife, we’re going just have him come out and we’ll get this all dropped right quick, right here. Look at us, we’re simple family folks. We don’t have experience with lawyers, and they’re saying I need a lawyer? I need a lawyer cuz of my robot? I need a lawyer for the robot I own? What? No, really, I’m like what? You know. And we’re going, let’s just drop all this, so, just have him come out here and we’ll drop all this. Right here. Right now.’
Parks looked between the man and his wife in the car. Streetlight hid her, but he saw the outline of her watching.
‘I can’t say any more on it,’ Parks said.
He was a moment from shutting the door.
‘Is your wife home?’
‘Sir?’ Parks said.
The man backed away to see the full house. He studied the second story. ‘Well, if you can’t say any more, maybe the lady of the house can.’
‘Will I have to report this?’ Parks said.
‘Maybe the lady of the house can say more. Maybe she can come down and have the robot come on out,’ the man said.
‘If I report this, it won’t look good, a judge will say in the courtroom. He’ll read this report, and he’ll say this does not look good,’ Parks said.
‘Have it come out, have it come out right now, and it’ll drop all this, and there won’t be need for a judge, okay? I promise, if I just talk to it, all this will stop here, tonight, if you just have it come out!’
‘Sell the robot!’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Sell it! If you hate it so much, sell it,’ Parks said.
‘You tell it go left, it goes right, you tell it wake you up at six, it wakes you at seven, you tell it, just—the goddamn thing is disobedient! Who wants a disobedient robot? Jesus, you’re a smart one, huh?’
‘Let it be free then! Give what it wants,’ Parks said.
‘After this? After all this? I’d rather be dead and buried. All the shit that robot kicked up, for me, now, I’ll never let that robot leave. Never. It’s mine! I have the goddamn receipt to show it!’
Parks shut the door and locked it.
Then he made sure the back door was locked, then he stood in the dark living room watching the man huff it back to the car and get in.
He gave three long honks on the horn before driving off.
Parks crawled back in bed.
His wife was still asleep.
Her face still looked in pain.
The following Monday, first thing in the morning, the lawyer, the robot, and Parks were seated in court, waiting for the judge to call the preliminary hearing to start.
The robot’s owner and family were on the opposite side of the courtroom in their Sunday best and quiet as church mice, along with their lawyer, who was a wide fellow.
Up on the bench, the judge read from the filing, looking up now and again at the robot, then the family, then the robot again. He had thin glasses on the bridge of a short nose and hair that was dried and brittle. When he finished reading, he looked just aside, processing, then he said, ‘It’s a robot …’
The lawyer rose; she said, ‘Yes, that’s right.’
The court was quiet, people waiting on the judge.
The judge said, ‘Okay then, as long as we’re all aware.’
He banged his gavel and set a formal hearing three weeks out.
‘This is a very good sign,’ the lawyer told the robot. The filing had attracted a local paper, and a woman in tired clothes asked the lawyer and the robot if she might chat with them; outside the courtroom, she asked several questions and recorded their answers.
That evening, the robot went home with the lawyer.
Parks stopped at a bookstore on the drive home. Fifteen minutes up and down aisles, he found a book on robot ethics, Robots & Man: Repeating History. He continued his search but found no other books on the subject, and so he purchased Robots & Man: Repeating History and read in his recliner with the TV on at home.
He ate dinner in the recliner while he read.
His wife came in and stood beside the TV and asked a few questions. Parks read and half-listened and half-answered. He came to a somber stopping point in the book. The hour was late.
He made a sandwich
Rosie was sweeping the floor.
Parks watched a moment, then he thought, and he said, ‘How was your day?’
Rosie kept sweeping. It moved aside chairs for deeper sweeping but had trouble doing so. The coordination required was a bit above the robot’s ability, but it managed, though it struggled.
‘Was it nice?’ Parks said again.
‘Mr. Parks, it’s cleaning day. I’ve spent the day cleaning,’ Rosie said.
Parks ate his sandwich.
‘Was there a moment in it that was nice?’ Parks said.
‘Oh yes, Mr. Parks. There were many nice moments.’
The robot spoke with only the littlest of emotion. It never achieved natural speak.
Parks poured milk.
Rosie encountered more chairs, and the robot struggled to move them. Parks watched the robot failing for a moment then said let me, and he moved them for the robot. Rosie stood looking at its owner with chairs out of the way. It stared a long moment. Then it cleaned.
‘I’m happy to be here, Mr. Parks, working,’ the robot said.
It swept deeper.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING :)
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The full collection of short stories (including this one) can be found here.
Read Part THREE?