Riders of The Purple Wage - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The story revolves around the relationship between a young artist, who has taken the name Chibiabos Elgreco Winnegan, and the man he calls "Grandpa Winnegan" (actually his mother's great-great-grandfather), who hides inside the apartments that "Chib" shares with his mother in the community of Ellay. Grandpa is in hiding from the government, and most people think of him as having pulled off some huge swindle in the past. In fact, he was a successful businessman whose workers were highly paid and very content, much more so than the average recipient of the "purple wage". The resentment which this caused motivated the "gummint" to close down his business, whereupon he managed to steal twenty billion dollars, which has never been found, and (apparently) die. A Federal Agent calling himself "Falco Accipiter" has resolved to hunt down the money at all costs, and is harassing Chib.

Throughout the narrative we are treated to extracts from Grandpa's "unpublished manuscript", "Private Ejaculations". In these writings, he describes society and muses on human foibles. He seems particularly fond of James Joyce, and this is a clue to the story's resolution.

Chib is preparing for a new art show. He needs to win a grant to continue painting, otherwise he will have to take forced migration and live in another society. Governments practice this to prevent populations becoming insular. Chib's own community is host to forcibly migrated Arabs, who belong to the strict Wahabi sect of Islam. Chib wants to woo the daughter of one of these families, much to the disgust of her relatives.

Standing between Chib and the grant is the one-eyed critic Rex Luscus, who took his name from "Inter caecos regnat luscus", better known as "In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is King". The price of Rex's approval, which will make Chib famous, is sexual favors. Chib's art is controversial. He depicts religious scenes using a three-dimensional technique which presents different views, some of which are blasphemous comments on religion and humanity.

Like most young people, Chib and his friends enjoy rebellion for its own sake. They pretend to plot terrorist attacks when they know they are under surveillance. Such talk is so common that the listening authorities treat it with contempt. The police are laughable by 20th century standards. Dressed in fur like characters from The Wizard of Oz they use electric tricycles no faster than golf carts, which nonetheless are equipped with sirens "to warn the bad guys they are coming". They have shock-sticks and guns which fire "choke-gas pellets".

Chib's exhibition dissolves into violence as his friend Omar Runic declaims an improvised poem in tribute to Chib's latest work. This is also common, particularly as the "fido" reporters are always keen to stir up trouble, and the artists hate the critics. One artist, a science fiction writer named Huga Wells-Erb Heinsturbury, starts the riot by attacking a reporter from Time magazine, now a government-run news agency which has kept the attitudes of the original corporation, including a deep hatred of science fiction. Chib smashes his painting, a blasphemous Nativity scene, into Rex Luscus's stomach. Suddenly he receives a message from Grandpa. Falco Accipiter has broken into the apartment and found his hiding place.

Grandpa is dead by the time Chib reaches home. He apparently died of shock. In his hand is the last of his "Private Ejaculations". A devout Catholic himself, according to this last note he comforts himself in an atheist world with the thought that profound hatred of religion means that people still believe God exists, otherwise they would not hate him so.

Chib and his mother attend a reverse funeral, where the coffin which supposedly contained Grandpa's body is dug up. As it is opened, there is an explosion, which scatters the stolen billions into the air and sends up a banner announcing "Winnegan's Fake!". Grandpa has cocked a final snook at the gummint from beyond the grave.

Chib is handed a note by a man acting for Grandpa's estate. The note simply says that Chib must abandon Ellay, leave his mother, and break free so he can paint from love, not out of hatred.