The Sirens of Titan: Chapter 2: Cheers in the Wirehouse Summary & Analysis

Constant gets out of the limousine and into a helicopter in order to prevent anyone following him. Even the chauffeur and helicopter pilot don’t know his true identity. The chauffeur asks if Constant was afraid of the crowd, and Constant replies he wasn’t, trying to channel Rumfoord’s aristocratic dignity. The chauffeur says someone or something must be watching over Constant, and Constant suddenly realizes this is true. However, at this moment he panics. He recalls that Rumfoord’s prophecy ended with Constant on Titan, and realizes that this means that he is probably going to die on Titan. When Constant gets into the helicopter, he is so distracted by his own horror that he forgets the fake name he gave to the pilot.

Fifty-nine days later, Rumfoord materializes again. In the meantime, a great deal happens. Constant sells his holdings in Galactic Spacecraft in order to sever any possible connection between himself and Mars, and buys stock in MoonMist Tobacco instead. He writes writing insulting letters to Beatrice on the official stationary of his company, Magnum Opus, Inc. As a result, Beatrice purchases cyanide to drink if she ever finds herself in proximity to Constant. The stock market crashes, and Beatrice loses everything, including the Newport estate. Meanwhile, in Hollywood, Malachi throws a party that lasts 56 days. 

 A solar watch repairman based in Boston named Martin Koradubian falsely claims to be the bearded individual invited to witness Rumfoord’s last materialization. He sells his story to a magazine for $3,000, claiming that Rumfoord told him about what would happen in the year 10 million C.E. Having once again materialized, Rumfoord sits in “Skip’s Museum” reading the magazine article and laughing. Beatrice sits with him, and Rumfoord observes that it is naively optimistic to assume that humans will be alive in 10 million years’ time. Suddenly, Beatrice leaps up and begins destroying the objects in the “museum,” throwing them on the floor.

Beatrice screams that Rumfoord should just read her mind, but he replies that when he tries to do so, he only gets “static.” Meanwhile, in Hollywood, Constant drunkenly sleeps in his pool, which only has about an inch of water in it. Debris from the party is lying everywhere, making the pool look like “a punchbowl in hell.” A blonde woman comes out of the house, speaking to someone on the phone. On seeing that Constant is awake she hands the phone to him, saying it’s Ransom K. Fern, the president of “that company [Constant] own[s]”—meaning Magnum Opus. The woman says that Fern is quitting because Constant is “broke.” 

Back in Newport, the Rumfoords’ butler is summoned by the sound of Beatrice’s scream. Beatrice accuses Rumfoord of being “not nearly as omniscient as you pretend to be.” She yells that Rumfoord should have warned her about the stock market crash, but Rumfoord indicates that it wouldn’t have helped for her to know. Returning to the magazine, Rumfoord reads an ad for MoonMist Cigarettes, which features the three “sirens of Titan” from the photograph Rumfoord showed Constant. Rumfoord explains to Beatrice that even if he told her everything that was going to happen, it wouldn’t help, because she’d still have to “take the roller-coaster ride.”

Beatrice asks if there is any way she can avoid her fate with Constant, and Rumfoord says that there isn’t. Beatrice requests to at least hear how it will happen, and Rumfoord agrees to tell her. He explains that the President of the United States is currently announcing the multibillion dollar inauguration of a “New Age of Space” to tackle unemployment. The Whale will be renamed The Rumfoord and be sent to Mars. Beatrice and Constant will go to inspect the spaceship before its departure, and accidentally be sent to Mars in it. The narrator quotes from the President’s speech, in which he claims that worrying too much about the chrono-synclastic infundibula prevents “progerse.”

Meanwhile, in Hollywood, the blonde woman informs Constant of what happened at the end of his party, of which he has no recollection. The woman says that he forced everyone to leave. Constant had tried to become so intoxicated that it would be impossible for him to travel into space. The blonde woman then relays that Constant burst into tears and described his unhappy childhood, claiming that his mother was a “whore” but that he was proud to be her son. Then he called himself a whore. He gave all the attendees at the party an oil well, and claimed that the blonde woman was the only person he could trust.

Constant then claimed that everyone was waiting for him to fall asleep so they could put him in a spaceship and send him to Mars. At this point he forced everyone but the blonde woman to leave. Constant and the woman travelled to Mexico to get married, and now she is furious because she’s discovered he doesn’t have any money left. The woman claims that she had an even worse childhood than Constant—her mother was a whore, too, and her father abandoned them, but unlike Constant’s family, hers were poor.

In Newport, Beatrice tells Rumfoord a story about when her father bought her tickets to ride a rollercoaster, and she refused to get on because “it looked silly and dirty and dangerous.” She believes that this is the correct attitude to have toward rollercoasters. Rumfoord tells her that with Constant, she will experience true love for the first time, and that she should be excited about it. As Rumfoord speaks, he begins to disappear. Kazak runs into the room and disappears along with him.