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I'm trying to track down a science fiction story I read in the mid-to-late 1980s. It's been stuck in my mind for years, and I'd really appreciate your help!

Here's what I remember:

The story centers on a character who appears to be an alcoholic, wandering through town, causing trouble, and getting drunk everywhere. People in the community point at this person and use them as a cautionary example for their children, saying things like, "Don’t be like this."

At some point, the character is kicked or falls to the ground, and it's revealed that they're actually an android. The twist is that these androids are intentionally created to behave badly in public as "reference actors" or moral examples, helping to reinforce societal norms by showing others what not to do.

I read this story in the mid-to-late 1980s. I believe it might have been written by Sheckley, but not sure.

Does this ring a bell for anyone? If you have any leads, I'd be incredibly grateful!

Thanks in advance for your help!

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1 Answer 1

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Is this "Horrible Example" by Clifford D. Simak...? It was first published in the March 1961 edition of Analog.

The protagonist, Tobias, plays the role of an unemployed drunkard, who routinely staggers through the streets of the small town he lives on the outskirts of, making a spectacle of himself. In reality, he's secretly a human-like robot contracted by the Society for the Advancement and Betterment of the Human Race to serve as the town's 'horrible example,' a daily reminder to the human townsfolk of what not to be.

His robotic nature is never revealed to the townsfolk, however, he does jeopardise his image as an irredeemable good-for-nothing when he witnesses a car crash as he's walking home one evening and feels compelled to pull the occupants from the burning wreckage just before it explodes.

A relevant excerpt:

He was the town's disgrace. He was its people's social cross. He was their public shame. He was the horrible example. And he was unique, for there never was more than one of him in any little town - there simply wasn't room for more than one like him.

[...]

For there could be no more than one human derelict in any single village - through some strange social law there was never room for more than one of them. Old Bill or Old Charlie or Old Tobe - the pity of the people, regarded with a mingled sentiment of tolerance and disgust. And just as surely as there could not be more than one of them, there always was that one.
But take a robot, a Class One humanoid robot that under ordinary scrutiny would pass as a human being - take that robot and make him the village bum or the village idiot and you beat that social law. And it was perfectly all right for a manlike robot to be the village bum. Because in making him the bum, you spared the village a truly human bum, you spared the human race one blot against itself, you forced that potential human bum, edged out by the robot, to be acceptable. Not too good a citizen, perhaps, but at least marginally respectable.
To be a drunken bum was terrible for a human, but it was all right for a robot. Because robots had no souls. Robots didn't count.
And the most horrible thing about it, Tobias told himself, was that you must stay in character - you must not step out of it except for that little moment, such as now, when you were absolutely sure no one could be watching.

The story was also published within The Civilisation Game and Other Stories (1997), which is available to read at the Internet Archive.

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