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** *******
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* * * *
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* *
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* ** * ******* ***** **** * ***** ** ** *******
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* ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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* * * * * * * * * * * * *
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* * * * * * * * * * * *
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* * * * * **** **** * **** * *
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* * ** * * * * * * * * *
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* * * * * * * * * * * *
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* * * * **** * * * **** * * *
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Volume 3, Number 1 January-February 1993
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Contents:
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FirstText: 1993 -- For a Limited Time Only........Jason Snell
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Short Fiction
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Slime..............................................Mark Smith
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Doing Lunch........................................Mark Smith
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Timespooks (and bit parts).................Stan Kulikowski II
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Sweet Peppers.....................................Aviott John
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Dogbreath......................................Robert Hurvitz
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Editor Assistant Editor
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Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
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jsnell@ocf.berkeley.edu gaduncan@halcyon.com
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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InterText Vol. 3, No. 1. InterText is published electronically on
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a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is permitted as
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long as the magazine is not sold and the entire text of the issue
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remains intact. Copyright 1993, Jason Snell. All stories Copyright
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1993 by their respective authors. All further rights to stories
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belong to the authors. InterText is the successor to Jim McCabe's
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electronic magazine, Athene. InterText is produced using Aldus
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PageMaker 4.2 and Microsoft Word 5.1 software on Apple Macintosh
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computers. For subscription requests or to submit stories, e-mail
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jsnell@ocf.Berkeley.edu. InterText is also available on CompuServe
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in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Zines from the Net"
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section, accessible by typing GO EFFSIG.
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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FirstText
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1993 -- For a Limited Time Only
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JASON SNELL
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Welcome to 1993, and this year's first issue of InterText. The
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time between our last issue of 1992 and this one has been filled
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with lots of excitement for the people who bring you this
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magazine.
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For my part, I've spent the obscene amount of vacation time
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given to students at UC Berkeley (six weeks) to meet up with old
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friends, spending a good deal of time in Southern California --
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lots of it in my old stomping grounds of San Diego. In fact,
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almost none of this issue was put together in Berkeley. The bulk
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of the work was done at my parents' house (and lots of that,
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including the redesign of the PostScript edition, on Christmas
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Eve) and in San Diego, where I've put together many an issue in
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the past.
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Among the people I've seen in the past two months is Philip
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Michaels, author of "Your Guide to High School Hate," the lead
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story of the May-June issue of _InterText_. I saw Philip twice,
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once in December (in his hometown of Danville) and once in January
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(in San Diego).
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Danville, the northern California town from whence Philip came,
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is an interesting place. It's a somewhat insular city that values
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its near-rural identity even though more people probably live
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within its city limits than lived in the entire county I grew up
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in. When entering Danville, you're greeted with a sign announcing
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you've crossed the "town limit," not the city limits you see
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everywhere else.
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I remembered an article about Danville that Philip had written
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about his home in an issue of the _UCSD Guardian_ newspaper while
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I was still the paper's editor in chief. In it, he explained how
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the town elders had refused to allow a McDonald's to be built
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because it might bring "the wrong element" into the town.
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As we drove through Danville and the surrounding (increasingly
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high-priced) countryside, Philip and I spotted something on the
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right side of the road. Could it be? Indeed, as Michaels let out a
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whoop, I saw the sign: "Here We Grow Again!" and a pair of
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familiar golden arches. McDonald's and its hideous double-whammy
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(the presence of both "the wrong element" and McRib for a limited
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time only) had come to Danville.
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From there we took a tour through more of Philip's past --
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namely, his high school, the very high school which spawned
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Philip's hateful and appropriately-titled "High School Hate"
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piece. It was fascinating to actually see the edifice that had
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spawned such loathing, and an _InterText_ story.
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Anyway, it was a fun trip through a friend's life while at the
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same time being a trip through old issues of both the _Guardian_
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and _InterText_.
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Also in the past couple of months, I was one of four students
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at UC Berkeley's School of Journalism to be awarded a _Reader's
|
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Digest_ Excellence in Journalism award. For this, I got a nice
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chunk of free money and a trip in the spring to Pleasantville, New
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York, home of _Reader's Digest_. When I go, which will be in March
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or April, I'll be sure to give them your best.
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This has also been a busy period for Geoff Duncan,
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_InterText_'s assistant editor. Geoff, now relocated to Seattle
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from his previous hang-out in Ohio, just got a job with Microsoft
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as a software tester. So now he delights me with stories of just
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how many bugs there actually are in all my favorite pieces of
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software. But I keep on using them...
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Geoff and his fiancee also finally moved into a new apartment
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in Bellvue, Washington, a short walk (on Geoff's injured toe) from
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Microsoft itself. Because his fiancee was visiting family in
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Boston when the apartment opened, Geoff (and his toe) got to move
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all of their stuff into the new apartment by himself.
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And yet, with all of this excitement, Geoff has continued to
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contribute greatly to the production of _InterText_. He took my
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Christmas Eve redesign of the PostScript edition and amplified it,
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and also worked with me on redesigning the look of the ASCII
|
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version of _InterText_.
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All the while, Geoff is also working on creating a viable
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reader program that would make on-screen reading of _InterText_ a
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lot easier for those with Apple Macintoshes (since Geoff and I use
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Macs, that seems a good place to start.) More word on all that in
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issues to come.
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And, finally, in the shower at home in December, I had yet
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another idea for the special "theme issue" of _InterText_ that I
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mentioned briefly a couple of issues ago. Though not off the
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drawing board yet, I have high hopes that we'll be able to bring
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you that issue by the end of the year. We shall see. It will
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depend on the cooperation of lots of _InterText_ writers out
|
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there.
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Well, enough from me. This issue rounds out our second year of
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publication, and I think it contains some fine material. We have
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two more stories from Mark Smith, a published writer from Texas
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who has appeared in the past two issues. This issue's lead story,
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"Slime," really struck me as an amusing story about mid-life
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crises, the changing roles we play as we get older, and rock and
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roll.
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We're also printing "Timespooks" by Stan Kulikowski II, a new
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writer. Stan's story came to me on Christmas Eve (right before my
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redesign frenzy), and I really enjoyed reading it. It's one of the
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oddest stories I've ever read, and Stan helped explain why when he
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wrote me that it was almost entirely based on a dream he had on
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the night of Oct. 27, 1992. Stan's been recording his dreams after
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waking up for some time, and it's a good thing too -- without
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those records, we wouldn't have "Timespooks."
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Enjoy the stories. See you back here in 60 days.
|
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Slime
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MARK SMITH
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Slime's gaining on me. I know he'll catch up in a minute or
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two. I can hear his heels clicking on the sidewalk behind me. In a
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few seconds I'll hear his wheezing, labored breathing. Then he'll
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be here, begging me to go back and finish the set so he can get
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paid. Maybe then I can do what I should have done when he first
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proposed this fool's errand. Maybe for once I can tell Slime no.
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I stop walking and turn around to watch him run toward me down
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the sidewalk beside the VFW hall. He's dressed the same as me:
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faded jeans frayed and torn at the knees, black boots, zippered
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leather motorcycle jacket, studded leather wristband, the whole
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punk rock wardrobe. The only difference between Slime's clothes
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and mine are that he's been wearing his ever since we had our last
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gig, at least ten years ago.
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On his skinny, weathered face, he's grinning his usual winning,
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boyish grin. He flashed the very same smile when he showed up at
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my house last week, clutching the handle of his old bass guitar
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case, proposing that we revive the band.
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I was glad to see Slime; it had been a while. I led him through
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my house out into the den, passing Sandy in the kitchen on our
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way. I could tell she wasn't pleased. She barely mustered a nod to
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answer Slime's "Hey, howsit goin'?" Slime, of course, didn't
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notice the dark, sideways glance she threw me.
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She could've talked me out of agreeing to Slime's scheme. She's
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much more sensible than me. She remembered the last time Slime
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came around. It was around Christmas about two years back. I don't
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remember the hour, but it was well after the kids were in bed.
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Slime called from a truck stop phone booth.
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He was on his way from Houston to L.A., where his folks live. I
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talked to him quietly, hoping Sandy wouldn't hear. But when I hung
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up, all she said was, "How much does he want?"
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I told her and she frowned. It wasn't the sum. We could easily
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afford it. I knew that she was justifiably troubled at how easily
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I gave in to Slime.
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I had no stomach to pretend we'd ever see the money again and
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Sandy didn't say another word. She understood that helping Slime
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was neither an act of generosity nor of compromise. It was
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friendship and mutual history pure and simple, a natural order of
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things no more subject to question than gravity.
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Slime showed up, got the money and stayed long enough not to
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seem rude -- which was too long for Sandy's taste -- and split. He
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promised he'd stop by on his way back to Houston after the
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holidays and meet my kids. I said I'd like that. That was the last
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I had heard from him.
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I could understand Sandy's reaction to seeing Slime stroll back
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into our lives, but I had spent a particularly gladiatorial day in
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the bowels of the legal profession. I needed the antidote of an
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old friend.
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Slime was wearing his usual collection of leathers and zippers
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and his hair still arched over his head in a jet-black crest like
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the outlandish topknot of a bizarre tropical bird. As he sat
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tapping his knee and bouncing his heel on the carpet, I could see
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that he hadn't lost any of the excited nervous energy that
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oscillated between creativity and a bad hustle. Whatever the case,
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Slime's humming energy level attracted people and tended to make
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them do things that they didn't mean to.
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"Hey, man," I said. "Here you are."
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"Yeah," he said, grinning, bobbing his head. "Good to see you."
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"You look good. You ever eat?"
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"No," said Slime, "as a matter of fact, I get my calories in
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beer."
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"I get the hint," I said, and went to get us two bottles of
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beer out of the mini-fridge we keep in the den for Super Bowl
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parties and the like.
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"Stylin'," said Slime, looking around appreciatively at the
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room. The den is cedar-paneled and opens through French doors out
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to the hot tub bubbling on the deck. I could tell he thought it
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looked pretty good. Probably compared to his one-room efficiency
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digs, I live the high life. The way I figure it, I deserve it, the
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shit I have to put up with.
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"I try," I said.
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"I remember this house," he said. "Doin' all right. Big-time
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lawyer."
|
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"Not so big, Slime. I just do my job well. Actually, I have to
|
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put up with a lot of crap."
|
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Slime winced. "Ooh, no. I couldn't do it, man. No way. I don't
|
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do real well in the, like, office scene. I was doin' temp stuff
|
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for a while. I thought, whoa, get some, like, income, man. You
|
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know, cash flow. But it was not cool at all. The first thing they
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made me do was cut my hair and get some new clothes. You wouldn't
|
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have known me, Phil. Anyway, I couldn't hack it. I went back to
|
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driving a delivery truck. That's more my type of deal."
|
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We sat on the leather sofa, sipped our beer and talked about
|
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the frat parties we'd played where the sons and daughters of Texas
|
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oil millionaires puked out their brains in the shrubbery while we
|
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ripped through our ten-thousandth cover of "Louie Louie." About
|
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|
our one abortive "tour" when we went on the road in Slime's old VW
|
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van playing bars in Dallas, Fort Worth, Tulsa and then back down
|
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to Houston. When it was all over, we had made about $50 each and
|
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felt lucky at that.
|
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|
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"So tell me about this gig," I said.
|
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|
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Slime's face lit up. "Aw, it's golden, man. Really golden. Rich
|
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guy's throwing a birthday bash for his son this coming Saturday.
|
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He's rented the friggin' VFW hall, man. Bandstand and everything.
|
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Found out about it from a friend of mine. I said, hey, great, I'm
|
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gonna get the old band back together. I been wantin' to see you
|
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guys anyway."
|
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|
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"What about Damon?" I asked. Damon had been our drummer, the
|
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third member of the group. I had completely lost track of Damon
|
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and didn't even know if he was in town anymore.
|
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|
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"He's in, man. Definitely. I talked to him today."
|
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Well, that was something. I thought I'd like to see Damon again
|
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and I found the thought of the old band doing a gig together
|
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appealing. I missed the exhilaration I used to feel when I jumped
|
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onto even the meanest stage and started yelling the words to our
|
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|
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favorite songs. I felt office work progressively weakening me,
|
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making me soft, sleepy. I looked at Slime, who hadn't changed a
|
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hair in ten years. I stared down at the shiny red, black and
|
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silver band stickers that covered the case of his instrument which
|
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lay like a hip coffin on the deep pile of my den.
|
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|
|||
|
|
"So we just run through the old lineup?" I said. "Is that it?"
|
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|
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"Yeah, the stuff the kids will like. Some Stones, Elvis.
|
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They'll even go for some New Wave tunes: Heads, B-52s. And some of
|
|||
|
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the hot soul stuff."
|
|||
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|
|||
|
|
"Right," I said, starting to remember our old repertoire: "Land
|
|||
|
|
of a 1,000 Dances," "Nobody," "96 Tears." We may have been pot-
|
|||
|
|
smoking meatheads, but we knew how to control a crowd. We could
|
|||
|
|
move them through escalating layers of excitement from Doors to
|
|||
|
|
Stones to hard-rocking classics like "Party Doll," "Devil with a
|
|||
|
|
Blue Dress On," and "C.C. Rider." We'd slow down for "Sweet Jane"
|
|||
|
|
to give the crowd time to catch their breath and then we'd power
|
|||
|
|
through a finale of "Paint it Black," "Gloria," and "Good Golly
|
|||
|
|
Miss Molly."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Now I wondered if I could even find the chords on the guitar
|
|||
|
|
anymore, much less manage to make my fingers do those old
|
|||
|
|
contortions.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"So, are we on?" said Slime with a kind of halfway smirk.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I hesitated. Sandy was right. I had no business doing the gig.
|
|||
|
|
I had a wife and kids who depended on me. I had a job and
|
|||
|
|
responsibilities. I didn't know if I could play the songs or if I
|
|||
|
|
still had my voice. Add to that my old certainty that any venture
|
|||
|
|
with Slime was doomed from the outset. I had every reason in the
|
|||
|
|
world to say no.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"We're on," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
When Slime had gone, my kids, who had been spying on us from a
|
|||
|
|
safe distance, came into the living room. Jenny, the oldest, who
|
|||
|
|
is seven, said, "Daddy, who was that man?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"His name is Slime," I said blandly.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Jenny cocked her head to one side, letting her long hair fall
|
|||
|
|
to her left shoulder. She smiled a wide, toothless grin at me.
|
|||
|
|
"Slime?" she squeaked in a falsetto of disbelief. "That's really
|
|||
|
|
his name?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"He's an old friend of mine."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Joshua, the two-year-old, decked out in Osh Kosh overalls and
|
|||
|
|
socks with gumball machines on them, mimicked his big sister:
|
|||
|
|
"'lime?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"How much did you give him?" said my wife, still standing by
|
|||
|
|
the front door.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Nothing," I said, jamming my hands deep into my pockets and
|
|||
|
|
hunching my shoulders. "He wants to get the band together."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Sandy's fine blue eyes got wide, then narrowed. Jenny said,
|
|||
|
|
"What band, Daddy?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"We used to be in a band together."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I don't believe this," said Sandy, cocking a fist against her
|
|||
|
|
hip.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Really? A real band?" chirped Jenny. "Like New Kids On The
|
|||
|
|
Block?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Well, not exactly," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Band, band, band," said Joshua, rolling over to grab my leg.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Instinctively, Sandy reached down and scooped him up in her
|
|||
|
|
arms.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"What was your band called, Daddy?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"That's enough," interrupted Sandy. She set Joshua back down on
|
|||
|
|
the floor. "Take Joshua and go and wash your hands for dinner."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"O-o-kay," sighed Jenny as she led her brother out of the room.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
When they had gone, I said, "What was that all about?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I can just see Jenny at school: 'My daddy was in a cool band
|
|||
|
|
called the Sex Offenders!'"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I see your point," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I promised Slime I would come to his place to practice during
|
|||
|
|
the week before our date, but things got crazy at work. One of the
|
|||
|
|
senior partners, a pompous asshole named Cramer who thinks he's
|
|||
|
|
important because he worked with Edward Bennett Williams in New
|
|||
|
|
York when he was in his twenties, dumped a load on me. Smack in
|
|||
|
|
the middle of a twelve-million dollar lawsuit that he had been
|
|||
|
|
preparing for two years, he decided to skip off to Florida for
|
|||
|
|
three days and go marlin fishing with some cohort who owned a
|
|||
|
|
yacht. He told the client he was ill and turned the case over to
|
|||
|
|
his assistant who, in turn, needed a second chair. Cramer
|
|||
|
|
recommended me. For this I was supposed to be grateful except that
|
|||
|
|
it meant staying at the office until after ten o'clock for three
|
|||
|
|
nights straight planning the redirect of a hostile witness.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I didn't see my kids from Wednesday morning until Saturday.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Of course, that did little to soften Sandy up to the idea of my
|
|||
|
|
playing with the band. I cared about her anger, but there wasn't
|
|||
|
|
much I could do. I had given Slime my word.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
On Friday evening when I finally got home, I ate a cold supper
|
|||
|
|
and headed up to the attic where I dug my guitar case out from
|
|||
|
|
under a pile of toys my kids had outgrown. I schlepped the thing
|
|||
|
|
down into the den, cracked a beer and sat down on the sofa, laying
|
|||
|
|
the case on the floor at my feet. I snicked open the silver clips
|
|||
|
|
and lifted the lid. There, nestled in its crushed red velvet
|
|||
|
|
couch, lay my old Fender Stratocaster, as sleek as a '55 T-bird,
|
|||
|
|
as modern as the Chrysler Building. Looking at the guitar, I felt
|
|||
|
|
the old times wash around me like a tide.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I remembered buying the thing when I was still in high school
|
|||
|
|
and spending hours learning songs off my records. I learned to
|
|||
|
|
play songs by the Velvet Underground and a lot of stuff by Iggy
|
|||
|
|
and the Stooges. I liked the old fifties and sixties stuff too,
|
|||
|
|
garage band stuff like Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, ? and the
|
|||
|
|
Mysterians, Mitch Ryder, Chuck Berry, and, of course, lots of
|
|||
|
|
Elvis. I liked songs with an edge. I liked the mean Stones songs:
|
|||
|
|
"Stupid Girl" and "Under My Thumb" and "Get Offa My Cloud."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I met Slime after I had started college and we immediately
|
|||
|
|
wanted to start a band. We needed a drummer and put a card up in
|
|||
|
|
the Laundromats around campus that said "drummer wanted for rock
|
|||
|
|
band" or some such and had my phone number on little pre-cut,
|
|||
|
|
pull-off pieces on the bottom. After about a week, Damon called.
|
|||
|
|
He was quiet, the odd man out, but he could play the drums like
|
|||
|
|
the devil himself: loud and fast and he never missed a beat.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I put my hand around the neck, lifted it out of the case and
|
|||
|
|
set it on my knee. The guitar felt natural in my hands. Before I
|
|||
|
|
knew it, I was finding the chords to "Sweet Little Sixteen."
|
|||
|
|
Without amplification, the metal strings sounded tinny and
|
|||
|
|
distant, but my fingering was surprisingly good.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Just then I happened to glance down in the case and noticed a
|
|||
|
|
something I hadn't before . It was a Sex Offenders sticker that I
|
|||
|
|
had completely forgotten about over the years. Damon, the artist
|
|||
|
|
in the group, had done a black and white drawing of a hunchbacked
|
|||
|
|
old coot in an overcoat leering over his shoulder. The text was
|
|||
|
|
done in lettering that seemed to be bleeding or melting. I reached
|
|||
|
|
down and picked up the sticker. We must have had thousands of
|
|||
|
|
these at one time. We gave them away to friends, people who came
|
|||
|
|
to the concerts, bartenders, whoever. They ended up all over town
|
|||
|
|
on lamp posts, car bumpers, backs of traffic signs. At the time,
|
|||
|
|
the sticker represented to us the reality of the group. To run
|
|||
|
|
across one by accident around town was a rush. It meant someone
|
|||
|
|
out there was paying attention. They were proof that we were
|
|||
|
|
having an effect. It occurred to me that I hadn't had that sort of
|
|||
|
|
proof in years.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I became aware of someone behind me and I turned to see Sandy
|
|||
|
|
leaning in the doorway, smiling at me in spite of herself.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"You with your guitar," she said. "I haven't seen that for
|
|||
|
|
awhile."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I blushed like I'd been caught with a love letter from an old
|
|||
|
|
flame in my hands. I wanted to say something, but I didn't know
|
|||
|
|
what.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Sandy came and sat on the sofa next to me. She put an arm
|
|||
|
|
around my back and said, "I didn't think I'd have to worry about a
|
|||
|
|
mid-life crisis for a while."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Is that what it seems like to you?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"A little," she said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Well, I don't know," I said. "If that means I'm afraid of
|
|||
|
|
getting old, well, I've been afraid of that for years. I guess
|
|||
|
|
that's part of it, but it's more." Sandy furrowed her brow at me.
|
|||
|
|
I could tell she didn't understand or didn't believe me. "When we
|
|||
|
|
had the band, I felt like I was doing something that people
|
|||
|
|
appreciated in their own twisted, anti-appreciative way. People
|
|||
|
|
would actually pay us to play. Bartenders gave us free drinks.
|
|||
|
|
Girls thought we were cool. And when we played, that was something
|
|||
|
|
you can't understand if you haven't done it. It sounds weird to
|
|||
|
|
say it, but it was the closest I've ever come to real power. We
|
|||
|
|
could get people worked up. Make them dance. I lost something when
|
|||
|
|
I stopped being in the band and I've never gotten it back."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Sandy grinned a little and said, "Well, then, I guess you have
|
|||
|
|
to do it."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I grinned back. I thought, maybe this thing might go all right
|
|||
|
|
after all.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
It didn't.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
First off, neither Slime nor Damon were anywhere around when I
|
|||
|
|
arrived at the VFW hall. I found the place on the near east side
|
|||
|
|
of town just beyond the interstate in a warehouse district that
|
|||
|
|
had lately become gentrified. A greasy near-rain had been falling
|
|||
|
|
all day and the sparsely filled parking lot glistened menacingly
|
|||
|
|
in the failing light of dusk. Inside, the hall had been decorated
|
|||
|
|
with crepe paper and balloons and at one end there was a bandstand
|
|||
|
|
set up. I set my guitar on the stage and walked back toward the
|
|||
|
|
door where some caterers who looked Vietnamese or Korean dressed
|
|||
|
|
in white chefs' outfits complete with puffy hats were setting out
|
|||
|
|
trays of food on a long table covered with gleaming white linen. I
|
|||
|
|
asked one of the men if they had seen a guy with long hair and a
|
|||
|
|
leather jacket. He scowled at me like I had tasted the crab dip
|
|||
|
|
with my finger and shook his head. I wandered away.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I sat on the edge of the stage and waited for Slime. After
|
|||
|
|
about half an hour, a raunchy looking dude with sunglasses and a
|
|||
|
|
beard and mustache walked in the door. He took off his shades and
|
|||
|
|
squinted around the room like the dim light hurt his eyes. He
|
|||
|
|
headed straight for the bandstand.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Are you Slime?" he said without a smile or a prologue.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No, I'm Phil."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Glad to meet you, Phil," he said. "My name is Mike. I'm the
|
|||
|
|
drummer."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The drummer? But where was Damon? Then my brain engaged. Slime
|
|||
|
|
had used a reunion to get me in. No doubt he had tried the same
|
|||
|
|
trick with Damon with less success. After all, Damon had always
|
|||
|
|
shown a little better sense dealing with Slime than I had.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Give me a hand with my gear?" he said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Right," I said and followed him out into the rain. Mike's
|
|||
|
|
vehicle turned out to be a late model Ford van with a dazzling
|
|||
|
|
purple, metal-flake paint job.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I thought, this guy is doing all right for himself.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
We made two trips out to bring in the drums. Once we were back
|
|||
|
|
inside, Mike went to work arranging his equipment on the stage
|
|||
|
|
with the precision and confidence of a professional. He paused at
|
|||
|
|
one point and said, "You got a cigarette on you?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I gave him one and took one for myself. I struck a match and
|
|||
|
|
lit his and then mine. He said, "So you were in that band with
|
|||
|
|
Slime?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yeah. It was a long time ago."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"The Sex somethings?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"The Sex Offenders," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Punk shit, right?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Well, mainly covers," I said defensively. "But we did a few
|
|||
|
|
originals when we could."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I hated that punk new wave shit," he said with an end-of-
|
|||
|
|
discussion tone of voice. "I'm glad that shit's dead."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"So what do you play?" I asked.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Jazz," Mike sniffed with the smug air of the first chair viola
|
|||
|
|
at the Philharmonic.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Great," I said flatly.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
By the time Slime arrived, the stage was set up and Mike had
|
|||
|
|
smoked all my cigarettes. I was in a sour mood.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Great!" clucked Slime when he saw that we were set up. He put
|
|||
|
|
his bass on the edge of the bandstand and started taking it out of
|
|||
|
|
the case.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Right," I said. "Great." I was annoyed and I wanted Slime to
|
|||
|
|
know it, though I wasn't sure what I hoped to gain from him
|
|||
|
|
knowing.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"So what happened to Damon?" I asked.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Aw, Damon couldn't make it, man. He, like, he canceled out."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I stifled a snarl. "Was he ever in?" I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Slime stopped mid-motion in the act of plugging his bass into
|
|||
|
|
the amplifier. "What's that supposed to mean, Philly?" he said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Nothing," I said. "Forget it."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No, man. Say it. You think I lied to you about Damon to get
|
|||
|
|
you to play."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I glanced at Mike, who stood to the side of the stage, smoking.
|
|||
|
|
He wasn't looking at us, but I could tell he was listening. I
|
|||
|
|
said, "No. Forget it. I'm just tired out. It's been a long week. I
|
|||
|
|
don't really care if Damon plays or not."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Slime grinned. Happy as usual to seize on the merest of excuses
|
|||
|
|
to be upbeat.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"That's cool," he said. "And, hey. Mike's a bitchin' drummer."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I'm sure he is," I said dryly.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Slime's bass hung from his neck by a broad, rainbow-colored
|
|||
|
|
macrame strap.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Hey, guys, the joint's filling up," he said, fiddling with the
|
|||
|
|
volume button on the red body of his bass.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I looked around. Sure enough, the hall was starting to fill up
|
|||
|
|
with teenagers in hard shoes and brand new dress clothes: boys
|
|||
|
|
laughing nervously and girls standing very still. I felt my colon
|
|||
|
|
tighten. For the first time, it hit me that I had no idea what
|
|||
|
|
kind of music these kids liked. I hadn't listened to the radio in
|
|||
|
|
years. I couldn't name three bands on any top ten chart.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Hey, Slime," I said. "What are we going to play anyway?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Only the best stuff," he grinned with his hands out, palms up
|
|||
|
|
in a what else? kind of gesture. "Only our very best repper-twar."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
We started playing at nine o'clock sharp. The place was pretty
|
|||
|
|
much filled up and none of the kids were paying the slightest
|
|||
|
|
attention to us. I couldn't tell which one was the guest of honor
|
|||
|
|
nor were there any adults around to speak of other than the
|
|||
|
|
caterers.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
We started with a shaky version of the old Human Beinz song
|
|||
|
|
"Nobody" which drew about the same reaction as a two degree change
|
|||
|
|
in the thermostat. We followed that by kicking into a version of
|
|||
|
|
"Sweet Jane," which started out all right except that I forgot the
|
|||
|
|
words and had to sing the second verse twice. No one was paying
|
|||
|
|
attention. The hum of crowd talk had increased just enough to
|
|||
|
|
drown us out. My only indication that we were making any sound at
|
|||
|
|
all was that I could see the needles on the amplifier bounce every
|
|||
|
|
time Mike pounded on his drums. The crowd huddled around the edge
|
|||
|
|
of the gaping dance floor like a poolside party in January.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Slime said, "_Jailhouse Rock_," but I said "No, _Heartbreak
|
|||
|
|
Hotel_." I was encouraged to see a few heads nod in the crowd.
|
|||
|
|
They had heard about Elvis, at least. In my frame of mind, I found
|
|||
|
|
it easy to put some effort into the spectral, vaguely suicidal
|
|||
|
|
lyrics. I even managed to balance on my toes while kicking my
|
|||
|
|
knees out into a wobbling hula-hoop dance step worthy of the King
|
|||
|
|
himself. Slime said, "Whoa, dude," but the only reaction I could
|
|||
|
|
see in the crowd were a few smirks.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
A pretty girl wearing a low-cut green party gown with eyes to
|
|||
|
|
match came to the edge of the stage and said, "Do you know any
|
|||
|
|
Guns 'n' Roses songs?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I looked at her and said, "Sorry," and believe me, I was. She
|
|||
|
|
shrugged her shoulders and went away.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
We played two or three more songs to similar responses. The
|
|||
|
|
kids were getting bored. Knots of kids stood around the edge of
|
|||
|
|
the vacant dance floor successfully ignoring my first cover of "96
|
|||
|
|
Tears" in 10 years. When I said we were going to take a five
|
|||
|
|
minute break, no one looked too disappointed.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I went outside and stood by myself looking at the cars in the
|
|||
|
|
parking lot.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I took out my last cigarette. The door opened and Slime and
|
|||
|
|
Mike came out.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Got another smoke?" said Mike.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No," I barked.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"How're we doin'?" said Slime.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"We suck," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Huh?" said Slime. "You're not into this? I'm thinkin' this is
|
|||
|
|
cool, us jammin' together again. Runnin' through the old tunes."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"It's not like old times, Slime," I said. "It's new times and
|
|||
|
|
these kids are into a whole different bunch of songs by bands we
|
|||
|
|
never heard of."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Phil's right," said Mike. "This gig's not happening."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Slime looked confused. I allowed him a scant moment of
|
|||
|
|
compassion.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Well, then. What do we do?" he said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Do you guys know any Jane's Addiction songs or Jesus Jones or
|
|||
|
|
Guns 'n' Roses? Because this golden oldie shit is not working."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Slime shook his head. Mike looked bored.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Here's what we do," I said. "We try some of our originals."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Slime perked up. "You mean the Sex Offenders stuff?" he said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Why not?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Mike groaned, but Slime nodded his head and said, "Wicked!"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Let's go," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
We went back inside, got settled on the stage and crashed into
|
|||
|
|
a screaming version of "Kill the Rich." What happened next was
|
|||
|
|
like one of those old Alan Freed movies where the band at the prom
|
|||
|
|
finally gets sick of playing Strauss waltzes and starts rocking
|
|||
|
|
and the kids go wild and the parents get nervous at first and then
|
|||
|
|
they start twisting too. The atmosphere in the room suddenly
|
|||
|
|
snapped into place. The kids looked up from their punch and
|
|||
|
|
stopped talking. A couple jigged onto the dance floor and then
|
|||
|
|
another and a third and before I knew it, there were a good number
|
|||
|
|
of dancers. I felt myself start to relax for the first time in
|
|||
|
|
days. Maybe we could salvage this thing after all.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
We finished "Kill the Rich" and launched into "I Hate This
|
|||
|
|
Town." I could feel the old energy returning along with my
|
|||
|
|
confidence. More kids went onto the dance floor and gyrated to the
|
|||
|
|
pounding beat. I ripped harder into the lyrics and started pacing
|
|||
|
|
the stage and shouting into the microphone like James Brown.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I caught a glimpse of the caterers who were suddenly standing
|
|||
|
|
beside deserted chafing dishes, arms folded, shaking their heads.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
We jumped into "I Want To Sleep With You" without so much as a
|
|||
|
|
sixteenth note's pause between songs. I glanced at Slime who had a
|
|||
|
|
big, shit-eating grin on his face, but Mike looked like he was
|
|||
|
|
struggling to keep up. We were cooking. I felt the last ten years
|
|||
|
|
of office burden detach itself and float away from me like a
|
|||
|
|
dandelion fluff.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Just then, I heard someone calling my name, yelling in fact:
|
|||
|
|
"Phil! Phil!" I thought it must be Slime and I turned to look at
|
|||
|
|
him, but he only grinned back.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
That's when I looked down and saw, of all people, the most
|
|||
|
|
unlikely and unexpected face in the world: Cramer, the senior
|
|||
|
|
partner in my law firm. He glared up at me with a mixture of
|
|||
|
|
disbelief and embarrassment. His sunburned face strained out of
|
|||
|
|
his starched collar.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Phil," he said. "What the fuck are you doing up there?" He
|
|||
|
|
seemed as confused as I was. I had stopped playing and Slime and
|
|||
|
|
Mike petered out behind me.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"What am I doing?" I said. "What are you doing here?" Though I
|
|||
|
|
thought I already knew.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"This is my daughter's 16th birthday party. She's the one with
|
|||
|
|
the green dress on." I looked over at the girl he motioned to, the
|
|||
|
|
same one who had asked for Guns 'n' Roses.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Pretty," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Do you mean to say that you play in this band?" said Cramer,
|
|||
|
|
still unclear of the situation or what it meant about me one way
|
|||
|
|
or the other.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yes sir," I said. "Slime and I used to play together in a band
|
|||
|
|
called--" I paused. "Well, never mind."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I'll be damned. My second chair is a punk rocker."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Substitute second chair," I said. "Well, do you like it? The
|
|||
|
|
music?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No. It stinks," said Cramer. He glanced around at the teens on
|
|||
|
|
the dance floor and added, "but the kids seem to like it."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Okay," I said, forcing a grin, though Cramer wasn't smiling. I
|
|||
|
|
didn't like that. I wished he would crack a smile. I could tell he
|
|||
|
|
didn't know what to say, what to make of my being there. I figured
|
|||
|
|
by Monday morning he'd have made up his mind. I would spend a
|
|||
|
|
nervous weekend until then.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Cramer nodded curtly and disappeared. I managed to croak out
|
|||
|
|
two or three more songs, but the energy had left me and where I
|
|||
|
|
had felt the old power again, now I only felt a tightening in my
|
|||
|
|
gut.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I turned back toward Slime who was grinning like Joshua when I
|
|||
|
|
take him for ice cream. "I'm through," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Slime yelped something at me I didn't hear and I was out of the
|
|||
|
|
building by the time he got his strap unhooked.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Slime's gaining on me.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I lean against the brick wall of the VFW hall. I tap my pockets
|
|||
|
|
for another cigarette but they're all gone. I wait for him to
|
|||
|
|
catch up to me. When he does, he's panting hard from running so
|
|||
|
|
fast.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Philly, what're you doin'?" he says after he gets his breath
|
|||
|
|
back.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I'm leaving, Slime. I'm out of here."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"But why?" he says. "We were kickin' ass, man."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"What?" I say indignantly. "Do I have to spell this out for
|
|||
|
|
you? This thing was a bad idea from the beginning. I've been lied
|
|||
|
|
to, laughed at, and humiliated. I've alienated my family and
|
|||
|
|
pissed off my boss. I've been reminded of my weakness, my lack of
|
|||
|
|
talent and my lost hopes. What else do you want from me, Slime?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"But--"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"But what?" I fire back at him.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"But, I mean, wouldn't all of that stuff have happened anyway?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I stare at him for a minute, then close my eyes against the
|
|||
|
|
weariness. I feel myself losing the need to blame Slime for any of
|
|||
|
|
this.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Hey, man," he says, "You have it all. I'm, like, in awe of
|
|||
|
|
you, Philly."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"In awe of me?" I say. "Why the hell would you be in awe of me?
|
|||
|
|
I have a stressed-out job chasing bones for assholes like Cramer.
|
|||
|
|
I'm mortgaged up to my eyeballs. I have two kids and a wife I
|
|||
|
|
never get to see. I haven't gone out dancing or drinking or even
|
|||
|
|
to a movie in five years. I eat badly and I drink too much and I
|
|||
|
|
don't ever exercise. I'm probably going to croak from a heart
|
|||
|
|
attack taking out the garbage one of these days and it's going to
|
|||
|
|
deprive the world of absolutely nothing. In awe of me, Slime?
|
|||
|
|
You've got to be kidding."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No, I mean it," says Slime and, for once, he isn't wearing his
|
|||
|
|
silly grin. "Great job, beautiful wife, cute kids, cool house. You
|
|||
|
|
got it all. You ought to relax and enjoy it. See, there's the
|
|||
|
|
difference between us, Phil. I'm too relaxed to go out and get
|
|||
|
|
that stuff you have and you're too uptight to enjoy it."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Well," I say, beginning to grin in spite of myself. "You want
|
|||
|
|
to trade?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Huh?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Trade, Slime. I mean, Monday morning you put on a suit and tie
|
|||
|
|
and go sit at my desk at the firm of Cramer, Dillahunt and
|
|||
|
|
Dillahunt and I'll go odd-jobbing around the southwest for awhile
|
|||
|
|
sleeping late and playing in clubs. You can yell at my kids until
|
|||
|
|
you're blue in the face, sit and drink scotch in the hot tub and
|
|||
|
|
do the dinner dishes to your heart's content. What do you say?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Slime looks like he might actually go for it. Then his grin
|
|||
|
|
comes back and fills his face like a sunny window. At last he
|
|||
|
|
says, "No, no. I guess not" and starts to back away down the
|
|||
|
|
sidewalk.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Hey man," he says. "I'll call you soon."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Okay," I say and watch him as he turns and starts back toward
|
|||
|
|
the door of the VFW. No doubt he's going to track down Cramer and
|
|||
|
|
get paid for the gig. I stand in the cold drizzle and watch him
|
|||
|
|
walk away. Long after he's gone, I say again, "Okay, buddy. You do
|
|||
|
|
that."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
But I know he won't.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
Doing Lunch
|
|||
|
|
MARK SMITH
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Donna, my boss, leaned against my desk and said, "God, am I the
|
|||
|
|
only sane one around here?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I swiveled in my chair and looked up at her. She didn't look
|
|||
|
|
great. The fluorescent lights did not flatter her features.
|
|||
|
|
Fluorescent lights don't flatter anyone's features.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"What do you mean, sane?" I said. It wasn't an insightful
|
|||
|
|
comment. I didn't mean it to be. I only wanted her to go away so I
|
|||
|
|
could make some progress on the pile of work she had given me. My
|
|||
|
|
in basket was literally broken under a leaning tower of papers.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I just had a cigarette out on the front step with that guy
|
|||
|
|
Bosco in Development."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Bosco?" I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yeah. I'm sure you've seen him. He's bald and always wears a
|
|||
|
|
bow tie?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Okay..."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Anyway, it turns out he's a raving Republican racist pig. All
|
|||
|
|
he talked about for ten minutes was how those people want a hand-
|
|||
|
|
out and those people are lazy and those people don't take the time
|
|||
|
|
to raise their kids."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Just don't talk to him anymore," I said, eyeing the paper on
|
|||
|
|
my desk.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
She went on, ignoring me. "I mean, he actually buys breakfast
|
|||
|
|
cereal for his kids with candy in it."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Huh?" I said. None of this was getting any clearer.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yeah. He told me this. How his kids eat this stuff that's like
|
|||
|
|
Cheerios except that it has candy in the middle. Can you believe
|
|||
|
|
that?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"What do you expect from a guy named Bosco?" I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I mean, here we are trying to change the world and there are
|
|||
|
|
people out there using vast creative talents to make a cereal with
|
|||
|
|
candy in it."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"They're just hustling a buck same as the next guy," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Donna looked at me coldly and pushed her glasses up on her
|
|||
|
|
nose. "Speak for yourself," she said. "It's not a perfect world.
|
|||
|
|
When I see something wrong, I have to fix it right now." She put
|
|||
|
|
her hands to either side of her head and hunched her shoulders.
|
|||
|
|
"Oh, it just makes me crazy," she said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I picked up a sheet of paper from the top of the stack in my
|
|||
|
|
in-basket and tried to look busy.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh, I guess you're actually trying to get something done,"
|
|||
|
|
said Donna.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh, well..." I said. She sighed wearily and drifted out of my
|
|||
|
|
office back into hers. I looked at the mountain of paperwork ahead
|
|||
|
|
of me and decided to go to lunch. When I passed through Donna's
|
|||
|
|
office, she was playing a game on her computer.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I passed the guard's desk in the lobby. It was equipped with an
|
|||
|
|
impressive panel of video monitors each showing a half-tone still-
|
|||
|
|
life of some remote corner of the building: stairwell, fire door,
|
|||
|
|
hallway. Occasionally, a human being, distorted by the fish-eye
|
|||
|
|
lens of the camera, would pass elliptically across one of the
|
|||
|
|
monitors. The guard, busy trying to work the _Times_ daily
|
|||
|
|
crossword in ink, wasn't paying any attention whatsoever to the
|
|||
|
|
monitors. He grunted as I passed.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The glass and chrome doors of our building delivered me into
|
|||
|
|
the lunchtime crowds on Broadway. The sidewalks were crowded with
|
|||
|
|
the motley assortment of humanity typical downtown: men and women
|
|||
|
|
in business suits, NYU students in their uniforms of black spandex
|
|||
|
|
and leathers, tattered homeless, hitch-stepping hustlers, junkies,
|
|||
|
|
deadbeats and drunks.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I headed downtown. I had vague thoughts of going into Tower
|
|||
|
|
Records, maybe a bookstore, then catch a sandwich on the way back.
|
|||
|
|
At Astor Place, I passed a woman sitting on a heating grate in the
|
|||
|
|
sidewalk. She leaned against the building and across her knees lay
|
|||
|
|
a sign lettered on a scrap of corrugated cardboard. It said, "my
|
|||
|
|
BaBy diEd, Im TRyinG To gEt EnouGH To BuRy Him And Go Back HomE To
|
|||
|
|
NoRTH caRoLiNa. PLEASE HELP ME!"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I'd walked by her on that corner for weeks, always with the
|
|||
|
|
same sign, watching the crowds walk by ignoring her. I put fifty
|
|||
|
|
cents in her blue and white Acropolis cup.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"God bless you, sir," she says to me. I nodded and went on. I
|
|||
|
|
wondered where she'd keep it if she really did have a dead baby. I
|
|||
|
|
thought of weird possibilities: a locker at the Port Authority,
|
|||
|
|
the coat check at the Met. I started laughing to myself.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
In the next block a black man with a gray stubble of beard
|
|||
|
|
stepped into my path, his hand out. He wore a hound's tooth sports
|
|||
|
|
jacket that might actually have once been a fine piece of
|
|||
|
|
clothing, taken off a rack in a men's store on the upper East
|
|||
|
|
side, now stiff with grime, lining ripped and dangling.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Spare quatta, spare quatta, spare some cha-a-a-a-i-i-i-nge!"
|
|||
|
|
growled the wino in my face.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I had just donated my last pocket change to the dead baby
|
|||
|
|
cause. "Sorry," I mumbled.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Aii, go to hell, college boy," he said with a wave of his
|
|||
|
|
hand, and stumbled away after another victim.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
As I approached Fourth Street, the red and orange sign over
|
|||
|
|
Tower loomed in front of me. People buzzed in and out of the
|
|||
|
|
revolving doors like worker bees around a hive. At the last
|
|||
|
|
minute, I decided to pass up the temptation of idle consumerism
|
|||
|
|
and turned instead toward the park.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I wandered down Fourth and meandered in a zig-zag north and
|
|||
|
|
west through quieter streets past NYU campus buildings and dorms.
|
|||
|
|
Halfway down one block, a delivery van was parked with two wheels
|
|||
|
|
on the sidewalk, the roll-top back end up and two guys hauling out
|
|||
|
|
boxes. As I stepped into the street to walk around it, a deafening
|
|||
|
|
shriek filled my ears, echoing down the tight, gray street. A
|
|||
|
|
courier on a bike whizzed past me. The whistle in his mouth
|
|||
|
|
dropped to the end of its string as the guy yelled at me, "Watch
|
|||
|
|
out where you're going, jerk!"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I crossed the street and entered the east side of Washington
|
|||
|
|
Square park. The usual crowd was there: roller skaters weaving in
|
|||
|
|
and out of the mob, knots of guys around boom boxes, kids in Ocean
|
|||
|
|
Pacific sportswear from head-to-toe balancing on the tips of neon
|
|||
|
|
green and pink skateboards, fat cops walking around tapping their
|
|||
|
|
legs with their nightsticks, old folks on benches throwing popcorn
|
|||
|
|
to the leprous pigeons, small children swarming the fenced-in
|
|||
|
|
playground.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
A skinny guy with polyester pants and sandals, his dreadlocks
|
|||
|
|
tucked up under a massive, rainbow-colored macrame cap, stepped in
|
|||
|
|
front of me and said quietly, "Weed? Dime bag? Nickel bag?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I slowed down. I usually had enough sense to tell these guys to
|
|||
|
|
beat it.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I hadn't smoked much pot since college, mainly because all my
|
|||
|
|
friends had dried up. But I felt loose and a little detached.
|
|||
|
|
Without saying a word to the guy, I pulled a five dollar bill from
|
|||
|
|
my pocket. Like a rasta leprechaun, the guy made the bill
|
|||
|
|
disappear, replaced by a tiny zip-lock plastic bag like the
|
|||
|
|
Hasidim use to carry rings back and forth across 47th Street or
|
|||
|
|
Canal. Inside the bag was enough pot to roll a very skinny joint.
|
|||
|
|
When I looked up, the rastaman had vanished.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I stuck the bag in my pocket and went and sat on a park bench.
|
|||
|
|
Close by, a crowd had gathered around a guy who was furiously
|
|||
|
|
assaulting a guitar and shouting a manic version of "Friend of the
|
|||
|
|
Devil."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
A dark, attractive woman with short hair and high cheek bones
|
|||
|
|
sat down on the bench next to me. She was nicely built and wore
|
|||
|
|
black jeans, black T-shirt, black boots and black leather jacket
|
|||
|
|
with plenty of zippers and studs. She wore lace gloves with the
|
|||
|
|
fingers cut out. Her fingernails were painted black. She took out
|
|||
|
|
a cigarette and said to me, "Got a light?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I fished out my Bic handed it to her. She lit her cigarette,
|
|||
|
|
releasing a big cloud of blue and gray smoke. I lit one too and
|
|||
|
|
said, "You like it?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Like what?" she said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"The music," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No," she said. "It sucks."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I nodded. She was right. They guy continued to bang away on his
|
|||
|
|
guitar like he wanted to rip out the strings.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"You want to smoke a joint?" I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
She looked sharply at me and said, "Are you a cop?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I laughed. "No," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Well, then. Okay."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Hold on," I said and went over to where my Jamaican friend was
|
|||
|
|
standing with a group of his compatriots grooving to some dub
|
|||
|
|
masterpiece rattling out of a boom box the size of a Fotomat. I
|
|||
|
|
asked him for a rolling paper. He gave it to me without so much as
|
|||
|
|
a glance. I went back to the bench, took out the tiny bag and
|
|||
|
|
rolled a joint on my thigh. I lit it from my cigarette and passed
|
|||
|
|
it to the woman who took it between the tips of her black
|
|||
|
|
fingernails.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"You work around here?" she said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yep."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"What do you do?" she said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"As little as possible," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
She didn't grin. I didn't grin either. She passed the joint
|
|||
|
|
back to me and said, "Well, what is it you're supposed to do?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I'm not quite sure," I said. I still didn't smile. This was a
|
|||
|
|
serious conversation.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Quite a talker aren't you?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Actually, I am," I said. We passed the joint back and forth a
|
|||
|
|
few more times until it was gone. I was suddenly high. The guitar
|
|||
|
|
player kept pounding away. The park and all its surreal cast of
|
|||
|
|
characters seemed to grow small and recede.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Do you want to walk?" she said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I nodded and we stood and started off toward Fifth. I couldn't
|
|||
|
|
tell which of us was following the other. I wondered how much of
|
|||
|
|
my lunch hour was left and whether I could go back at all.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"What's your name?" I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Heidi," she said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I laughed out loud. I was sure she was putting me on, this
|
|||
|
|
dungeon angel in nightcrawler black. But she still hadn't cracked
|
|||
|
|
a smile.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Really?" I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Really," said Heidi.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I'm sorry I laughed."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"That's okay," she said. "Everyone does."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
We walked past the arch and up Waverly toward the West Village.
|
|||
|
|
We wandered down side streets past serene brownstones, unchanged
|
|||
|
|
for a hundred years, window boxes full of geraniums. I felt very
|
|||
|
|
odd and only part of it was because of the pot. I glanced at Heidi
|
|||
|
|
walking beside me and wondered if any of this meant anything.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The corner at Sixth Avenue was swarming with activity.
|
|||
|
|
Passengers were rushing in and out of the subway and the lunch
|
|||
|
|
crowd came and went from the diner up the block.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
We turned the corner toward the basketball court.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"These guys are serious," I said. Heidi peered soberly through
|
|||
|
|
the chain link fence where ten huge men were playing a noisy,
|
|||
|
|
full-court game. Spectators leaned and hung on the fence and kids
|
|||
|
|
that should have been in school watched from their bike seats.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh, Jesus, one of those deals," said Heidi. I looked around to
|
|||
|
|
see that a crowd had started to gather around a three-card monte
|
|||
|
|
game on a flimsy folding table.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The card man laid three bent and worn playing cards face up,
|
|||
|
|
flipped them over, mixed them up and put a twenty-dollar bill on
|
|||
|
|
the table. "Four of diamonds," he said. "Four of diamonds."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Some guy in the crowd laid a twenty beside the first and turned
|
|||
|
|
over the four of diamonds. "All right!" he said, taking both of
|
|||
|
|
the twenties. The hustler rearranged the cards and staked a ten.
|
|||
|
|
"Four of diamonds," he said to the winner.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I'll bite," he said and dropped a ten next to the first and
|
|||
|
|
pointed to a card: four of diamonds. "Well, goddammit," said the
|
|||
|
|
operator. "You doing good." The winner picked up the tens and the
|
|||
|
|
house shuffled the cards. This time a fifty appeared: Grant's
|
|||
|
|
whiskered, alcoholic face looked up fiercely at this spectacle.
|
|||
|
|
Two twenties and a ten met the wager and the crowd was quiet for
|
|||
|
|
the brief moment it took to turn over the ace of spades.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Aw, Christ," said the winner, as he backed away, looking at
|
|||
|
|
the ten dollar bill he had in his hand. The hustler swept the
|
|||
|
|
bills into his hand and rearranged the cards.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I watched carefully. I was sure it was the card in the middle.
|
|||
|
|
Without thinking twice, I pulled a twenty from my jacket pocket,
|
|||
|
|
tossed it on the table and picked a card: king of spades. I was
|
|||
|
|
dazed. I could ill-afford to lose twenty dollars. Along with the
|
|||
|
|
ten left in my pocket, that was all the money I had until payday.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I glanced at Heidi, who looked at me with a bored expression. I
|
|||
|
|
didn't care what she thought; I had to get my twenty back. The guy
|
|||
|
|
rearranged the cards and put out a ten. I matched it and picked up
|
|||
|
|
a card: four of diamonds.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yes!" I said. I felt my heart pound as I scooped up the bills.
|
|||
|
|
I thought I heard Heidi say "stop now" as I concentrated on the
|
|||
|
|
movement of the cards.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Without so much as a pause, I matched the house twenty with my
|
|||
|
|
two tens. I was so sure of the cards that I had started to reach
|
|||
|
|
for the bills before I realized I was staring at the ace of
|
|||
|
|
spades. The hustler's hand snaked out and reeled in my last dime.
|
|||
|
|
As I backed out of the crowd, another loser stepped into my place.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I looked at Heidi, who stood with her arms crossed. I could see
|
|||
|
|
her trying to decide where to place me on a range of possibilities
|
|||
|
|
between kind of interesting and dangerously unbalanced.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I figured she was calculating the risk of involvement by
|
|||
|
|
estimating the ratio of interest to misery: a woman's standard
|
|||
|
|
measure of a man.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I have to go back," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
We had walked half a block when she said, "Is this, like, a
|
|||
|
|
normal lunch break for you?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Well, no," I said. "I guess not. In fact, it's pretty weird."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Hmmm," she said. "I'm not sure if I'm glad to hear that or
|
|||
|
|
not."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
When we got back to the park, she said, "I have to go this
|
|||
|
|
way." She waved her hand northward up Fifth.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Okay," I said. "Can I call you?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No. Give me your number. If I decide to, I'll call you."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I took out a scrap of paper and a ball-point pen, scribbled my
|
|||
|
|
home and work numbers and handed her the paper. We stood looking
|
|||
|
|
at each other. Her hands were folded in front of her. I leaned
|
|||
|
|
toward her.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No," she said. "Don't do that. There might be a time for that
|
|||
|
|
later on, but not now."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Then, with an odd, backward glance, she turned, bounded across
|
|||
|
|
Fifth, and disappeared into the crowd. At that moment, high above
|
|||
|
|
the honking, screaming, grinding sounds of the city, came the peal
|
|||
|
|
of a tower clock; a clear, resounding _bong_ that rang out over
|
|||
|
|
the chaos of the city and spoke to me through my confusion.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I began walking briskly toward Broadway. The fogginess of the
|
|||
|
|
pot was wearing off. I thought about the oddness of the last hour
|
|||
|
|
and tried to puzzle meaning from it. I wondered if I would see
|
|||
|
|
Heidi again or if that even mattered. Whatever she decided, in a
|
|||
|
|
lonely city full of self-made prisoners of paranoia, an
|
|||
|
|
attractive, apparently sensible woman had spoken to me out of the
|
|||
|
|
blue without fear or condition or motive. So why, then, had I
|
|||
|
|
responded by playing the role of an immature, self-destructive
|
|||
|
|
lout, or was that the real me after all?
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I dashed though the doors of my building, past the guard who
|
|||
|
|
barely glanced at me. As I passed my boss, she was still playing
|
|||
|
|
Tetris, the blocks falling like geometric snowflakes on her
|
|||
|
|
computer screen. Without looking up, she said, "Where have you
|
|||
|
|
been?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh, just doing lunch," I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Slow service?" she said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I suddenly remembered that for all that had happened, I hadn't
|
|||
|
|
eaten at all. Nor would I for days if I couldn't find some money
|
|||
|
|
somewhere. I chuckled cryptically.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Back in my office, I picked up my phone to check my voice mail.
|
|||
|
|
The computer voice told me I had a message, so I punched in my
|
|||
|
|
password.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Hi, this is Heidi. I just want to know if you're as weird as
|
|||
|
|
you seem? I mean, it's okay one way or the other. I just have to
|
|||
|
|
know. I guess, if you want to meet in the park for lunch tomorrow,
|
|||
|
|
that'd be all right. We'll see how it goes, okay? Bye."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I hung up the phone and sat in my office under the unforgiving
|
|||
|
|
fluorescent glare.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Hey, Donna," I yelled into the next office without bothering
|
|||
|
|
to get up from where I sat, grinning like a madman. "Can you lend
|
|||
|
|
me thirty bucks till payday?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
Mark Smith (mlsmith@tenet.edu) Has been writing fiction and non-
|
|||
|
|
fiction for over ten years. His fiction has appeared or is
|
|||
|
|
forthcoming in _Window_, _Spectrum_, _Malcontent_, _Epiphany_, the
|
|||
|
|
_Lone Star Literary Quarterly_, and _Elements_. Mark is also the
|
|||
|
|
author of a collection of short stories titled _Riddle_ (Argo
|
|||
|
|
Press, Austin, Texas, 1992).
|
|||
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
Timespooks (and bit parts)
|
|||
|
|
STAN KULIKOWSKI II
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Starring: Jack Nicholson, a Mobile. Jeff Goldblum, a Sessile.
|
|||
|
|
And a supporting cast of thousands of other small parts.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
He was sitting in the car waiting for the bullet he knew would
|
|||
|
|
come. When it did, he heard a small tinkling of broken glass, and
|
|||
|
|
wondered if the window would crinkle in that sparkling pattern in
|
|||
|
|
which a small break would propagate another small crack and
|
|||
|
|
another and another until the entire surface became an opaque
|
|||
|
|
fractal prism, falling into a zillion separate tiny stars on the
|
|||
|
|
slightest touch.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
It didn't. That was odd, he thought.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Another thing that was odd was that it really didn't hurt much.
|
|||
|
|
The small-caliber projectile had entered on the right front hip,
|
|||
|
|
striking the pelvic horn and ricocheting upward through endlessly
|
|||
|
|
convoluted turns of intestines, nicking the liver and the hepatic
|
|||
|
|
vein, and finally coming to rest lodged in the interior wall of
|
|||
|
|
the diaphragm. The point of the tiny Teflon-coated bullet, called
|
|||
|
|
a Needlehead, was just sharp enough to grate a little against a
|
|||
|
|
rib when he breathed in.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
He expected more pain. As it was, the small scritchscritch when
|
|||
|
|
he inspired was about it. The bullet's brief flight through his
|
|||
|
|
organs and membranes had been like an instant of thin, brilliant
|
|||
|
|
ruby laser light. An almost static image of a single spider's
|
|||
|
|
thread through his body, so he could note its passage and the
|
|||
|
|
resultant damage but hardly more. He kept his face winced and his
|
|||
|
|
gut sucked in for a long time expecting an onslaught of agony
|
|||
|
|
which never came. Eventually he had to relax and admit that being
|
|||
|
|
shot was not as bad as he had thought it would be.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The problem was the nick on the hepatic vein. The entry wound
|
|||
|
|
itself was slight. There was hardly a dribble of blood, and that
|
|||
|
|
was quickly stanched when he placed his hand over it. All the
|
|||
|
|
myriad punctures of the twistings of small intestine were so minor
|
|||
|
|
that most of them would seal and heal without much surgical
|
|||
|
|
assistance. A little liver tissue would regenerate with just a
|
|||
|
|
scar. The slight mass of the bullet itself was just an annoyance,
|
|||
|
|
easily removed.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
It was the sharp incision across the venous wall that would
|
|||
|
|
occasionally gape open, then closed, like a curious mouth speaking
|
|||
|
|
large quantities of the dark venous blood into his visceral
|
|||
|
|
cavity. Episodic internal hemorrhage. He would eventually bleed to
|
|||
|
|
death without losing more than a teaspoon of blood.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
If he sat there very still, he figured he might have a few
|
|||
|
|
hours left before the circulating volume of his blood lowered
|
|||
|
|
enough for him to black out of consciousness for the last time.
|
|||
|
|
His belly would bloat outward when receiving the expanding
|
|||
|
|
embolism. The internal visceral pressure might eventually
|
|||
|
|
equilibrate with the lowering venous pressure so further loss
|
|||
|
|
might be minimal, but by then it would be too late to do any good.
|
|||
|
|
His brain needed a constant fresh supply of prime, Grade-A,
|
|||
|
|
oxygenated corpuscles to survive and a dead-end reservoir that was
|
|||
|
|
far too large was being created south of the rib cage.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Of course, the end could come much quicker than that. The
|
|||
|
|
sharp, clean tear of the hepatic vessel wall could rupture at any
|
|||
|
|
moment and he would see life's vibrant colors drain away to black
|
|||
|
|
in a sudden rushing swoosh into the hidden internal sea below.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Just sit here for a while and wait. Yep, thinks Nicholson, live
|
|||
|
|
life to its longest if I just take it easy here for a while.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
But after a bit, Jack gets bored of sitting hunched over in the
|
|||
|
|
Mercedes. When he gets restless, he decides that he may as well
|
|||
|
|
get up and go back into the studio wardroom. Getting out the front
|
|||
|
|
seat gingerly, holding his side (uselessly), Jack walks hunched
|
|||
|
|
over like a crab. He crosses the parking lot and makes it up the
|
|||
|
|
three steps to the wardroom vestibule. If he's going to die
|
|||
|
|
anyway, he may as well seek out the company of friends. If he dies
|
|||
|
|
on the way, at least he'll see himself doing a great heroic act --
|
|||
|
|
something he always found possible but just missing in his real
|
|||
|
|
life.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
He passes the nurse's station, with a sneer on his lips and
|
|||
|
|
dragging one leg, his hand clutching over his liver tightly. It
|
|||
|
|
looks so much like Lon Chaney Sr.'s _Hunchback of Notre Dame_ that
|
|||
|
|
they just wave him through security and check-in. He had just
|
|||
|
|
left, after all, and if this is the way 'an artist' like him wants
|
|||
|
|
to work up a part, so be it.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
A few doors down the corridor, the rich, deep pungency of the
|
|||
|
|
wardrooms takes over. An odor so strong and so human that it puts
|
|||
|
|
a stitch in your breathing when you first hit it like a wall. The
|
|||
|
|
smells of sweat and exhaled air and a little vomit and silent-but-
|
|||
|
|
deadlies. Nothing else like it on Earth, and nobody except perhaps
|
|||
|
|
primeval Neanderthals might recognize it: a crowded cave, poor
|
|||
|
|
sanitation, after a long hard winter just after an attack by ax-
|
|||
|
|
wielding cannibals, who gutted many and ate several members of the
|
|||
|
|
tribe, spilling their sour gastric juices with their guts. That
|
|||
|
|
kind of smell.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Nicholson feels buoyed by the throat-choking stench. Actors
|
|||
|
|
took to the wardrooms like they responded to the smell of
|
|||
|
|
greasepaint backstage on opening night. It took a while to get
|
|||
|
|
used to it at first, but the whole arrangement made so much sense.
|
|||
|
|
Theater, movies, then the wards forever.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
There was, increasingly nowadays, an underlying tincture to the
|
|||
|
|
wardrooms. An occasional waft of sterile alcohol or ammonia and
|
|||
|
|
the antiseptic tang of the medical support units. The old-timers
|
|||
|
|
say you get used to these otherwise distracting gustatory
|
|||
|
|
conflicts. You cannot do without the doctors and their skills, so
|
|||
|
|
you've gotta put up with the sharp stink of their trade.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The naive think that one day the medical interventions would
|
|||
|
|
cut through the basic odor of concentrated living. But that didn't
|
|||
|
|
seem to be the case. The same old guys (with their wisdom of age
|
|||
|
|
and experience) would say that you could always tell the smell of
|
|||
|
|
someone getting too rich in the biotics. These outbreaks, nasally
|
|||
|
|
distinct, would soon be followed by sharp smells of the
|
|||
|
|
antiseptic. Those medical kids would step in and ferret out the
|
|||
|
|
corruption and putrefaction, leaving instead their own non-living
|
|||
|
|
traces. A good healthy wardroom had its own supporting olfaction.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Jack, as he shambles down his corridor, knows that he won't
|
|||
|
|
collapse before he makes it across the dayroom, right next to
|
|||
|
|
where Jeff Goldblum is almost always typing away at a VT-220. It's
|
|||
|
|
truly ancient equipment -- the color monitor and keyboard are
|
|||
|
|
almost certifiable antiques.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
_Peck, peck, peck._ Goldblum punched at the keys in his own
|
|||
|
|
unique fingering. Sometimes hunting, a complicated dance of finger
|
|||
|
|
motions and wrist snappings. His keyboarding was like a showboat
|
|||
|
|
performance artist: lots of dramatic pauses punctuated by
|
|||
|
|
incredibly complicated twistings of fingernails and tips. Just the
|
|||
|
|
right pressures for maximum speed of output. Hands suddenly thrown
|
|||
|
|
into the air as if expecting instant applause for some piece of
|
|||
|
|
brilliance.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Light shines down in a beam from a nearby window. Somehow Jeff
|
|||
|
|
always gets a position next to a real window. Most in the biomass
|
|||
|
|
of actors equity just get sunlamps at the right wattage to produce
|
|||
|
|
healthy Vitamin D in the surface skin. Goldblum always thinks that
|
|||
|
|
natural sunlight gives his skin a special sheen which made a
|
|||
|
|
perceptible difference in those forty-foot projections on the
|
|||
|
|
silver screen. It didn't matter that much for television work, but
|
|||
|
|
the true cinema deserved his best... and that always came when he
|
|||
|
|
was given a window seat.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Actually, the location teams just got tired of hearing his
|
|||
|
|
bitching when he got transplanted into a normal room. Everyone
|
|||
|
|
knew that the constant, controlled frequency of the halogen lamps
|
|||
|
|
were better than the erratic variability of the sun. So it was not
|
|||
|
|
really difficult for him to pre-empt a place near a window.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Natural sunlight gives his skin a special sheen... _Sure_, he
|
|||
|
|
shrugs. 'His skin' could be any color of the rainbow whenever he
|
|||
|
|
went Mobile. The surgical crew could see to that. Not to mention
|
|||
|
|
what the makeup crew could do when they took over. remember his
|
|||
|
|
_Othello_? Nobody ever thought that a skinny, Jewish Goldblum
|
|||
|
|
could replace Olivier by becoming darker than Portier. It has
|
|||
|
|
become a standard joke in the industry. Still, he likes the feel
|
|||
|
|
of the true sun coming in over his shoulder. Perhaps that feeling
|
|||
|
|
of self-contentment is what made all the difference in his next
|
|||
|
|
adventure before the celluloid. Perhaps it was just the old De
|
|||
|
|
Mille-style star system: cater to their quirks between roles if
|
|||
|
|
you want the best output from name actors.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Jeff finally notices Nicholson as he sidles into a day chair,
|
|||
|
|
sharing the beam of daylight. Jack has been one of his best
|
|||
|
|
friends, especially since Geena decided not to have anything to do
|
|||
|
|
with him. It had been touch-and-go on the set of _Mutiny on the
|
|||
|
|
Bounty_, as Nicholson always managed to upstage your spotlight
|
|||
|
|
somehow. His Bligh to Jeff's Christian had that spark of
|
|||
|
|
greatness. True, the film wasn't exactly a financial hit, but the
|
|||
|
|
critics had understood that producing it as a 3-D space opera had
|
|||
|
|
some risks. _Bounty_ was guaranteed classic status anyway: the
|
|||
|
|
last first-run 3-D with the red and green lens before they solved
|
|||
|
|
the close-up problem with the holos.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"So what's happening, Jack?" says Jeff with his cool halfway
|
|||
|
|
grin. "You look like you just passed a concrete turd the size of a
|
|||
|
|
melon."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yeah, it feels kinda like it," Nicholson says as he sinks into
|
|||
|
|
the overstuffed naugahide day chair. The sound of a whoopee
|
|||
|
|
cushion erupts as his exposed skin rubs against the dry, sun hot
|
|||
|
|
surface. "I been shot pretty good."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"So tell me what you been up to these last ten minutes since
|
|||
|
|
you left,' asked Jeff, not really listening for an answer. On his
|
|||
|
|
terminal he has displayed the last of a treatise on the benefits
|
|||
|
|
of species-wide immune responses through direct sharing of
|
|||
|
|
antibody defenses in a common blood pool.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
It had been the first and biggest surprise of the human genome
|
|||
|
|
project. While mapping out the location of all genetic variants,
|
|||
|
|
the mechanism of self/nonself recognition was discovered on the
|
|||
|
|
molecular level. Of course, the AIDS researchers and the cancer
|
|||
|
|
crew all claimed prior superiority, but the Nobel went to a
|
|||
|
|
computer operator, a CAD/CAM geek. She got the published data from
|
|||
|
|
genetic probes and started playing with the balls and knobs in
|
|||
|
|
virtual data extrapolations. A little eye of frog and toe of newt,
|
|||
|
|
and presto-chango: the degree of biochemical self-recognition
|
|||
|
|
could be precisely tuned.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
No more tissue rejection ever. The immune system could be
|
|||
|
|
taught to recognize anything human as good stuff to be maintained.
|
|||
|
|
Viruses and bacteria did not have a chance to get through the new
|
|||
|
|
human immune system. Indeed, mixing human organs and tissues was
|
|||
|
|
found to be self-actuating-- the conglomerate having a finer
|
|||
|
|
collective degree of antibody response. Each originally separate
|
|||
|
|
immune system had slightly different capacities to produce the
|
|||
|
|
antibodies needed for leukocytic scrubbing of the tissues and
|
|||
|
|
bloodstream. The recognition mechanism of the antibodies could be
|
|||
|
|
adjusted to whatever level of acceptance or rejection was desired.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
At first the eugenic purists tried to use it for racial
|
|||
|
|
purposes and found it quickly thinned pure blood lines to
|
|||
|
|
incipience. With the immune system self-containing a model of what
|
|||
|
|
a complete human genome looks like, the antigen recognition system
|
|||
|
|
could be improved by orders of magnitude through mixing maximally
|
|||
|
|
different tissue expressions of the genome.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The more dissimilar the tissues mixed, the stronger the
|
|||
|
|
resultant response. In a bizarre feat of experimental logic, it
|
|||
|
|
was shown that if the entire human species were surgically melded
|
|||
|
|
into a common blood circulation system, the superultimate maximum
|
|||
|
|
of immune recognition would occur.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
This was theory, of course, but in practice it encouraged the
|
|||
|
|
largest wardrooms. The more people who would have their healthy
|
|||
|
|
parts joined, the more stable would be the whole. Societies and
|
|||
|
|
companies promoted these as retirement plans at first. It gave new
|
|||
|
|
meaning to the term "union meeting." If enough union members would
|
|||
|
|
join together, they could conceivably live forever, or at least a
|
|||
|
|
very long time -- 500 years by one conservative estimate.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Once aging effects were identified with sufficient precision,
|
|||
|
|
only young healthy cells would be able to pass the common immune
|
|||
|
|
filter. And so the Sessiles came to be, the wardrooms their home.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"And so you don't know how much this pisses me off, do you?"
|
|||
|
|
insists Nicholson, pulling Goldblum from his reverie over the
|
|||
|
|
treatise.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"So, why don't you just have the location teams patch you in
|
|||
|
|
somewhere and have done with it? you're equity as much as anyone
|
|||
|
|
else here."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"You don't understand. I think I've been Mobile all along,
|
|||
|
|
since the start. Sure, everybody thinks, "Oh, there goes Jack-
|
|||
|
|
fucking-Nicholson, always working on something or the other." I
|
|||
|
|
got this and that replaced many times, but I've always been
|
|||
|
|
Mobile. I don't think I can take being stuck down in one place
|
|||
|
|
even for a little while."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Well, you're about to die a Mobile if you don't let the
|
|||
|
|
surgery kids do their jobs on you. I mean, what a waste, Jack. To
|
|||
|
|
die, to be gone just because everything lower than your diaphragm
|
|||
|
|
has been trashed. Just look at me."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Goldblum stretches his torso out like he's a body builder. He's
|
|||
|
|
attached to equity from the waist up. 'Sure, when they took the
|
|||
|
|
original pelvic structure away, I thought, 'Oh, shit!,' but the
|
|||
|
|
funny thing was that I really couldn't shit anymore. All that
|
|||
|
|
baggage around my balls and my dick being gone. It really is
|
|||
|
|
better to live for periods without the testosterone poisoning the
|
|||
|
|
blood, you know.'
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
He stopped and looked at Jack with his famous intensity. "But a
|
|||
|
|
casting call can put them back anytime. At least ones just as
|
|||
|
|
good, or even better." (It depends on what the director needs for
|
|||
|
|
the shots scheduled.)
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Nah, it ain't removing the private parts. I had mine rebuilt
|
|||
|
|
several times." (So, the tabloid claims were true. They had been
|
|||
|
|
speculating on the nature of Nicholson's cosmetic surgery long
|
|||
|
|
before the human genome breakthrough.) "I just cannot take being
|
|||
|
|
pinned down on some equity hump somewhere."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Well, have it your own way then," Jeff sighs. "I'll miss
|
|||
|
|
having you around except in the reruns." He turned back to his
|
|||
|
|
terminal, preparing for another onslaught of lashing hypertextual
|
|||
|
|
lexia in his celebrated quirky manner. "If you change your mind, I
|
|||
|
|
can have triage here in minutes."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
This leaves Jack alone with his thoughts for a few seconds. Not
|
|||
|
|
long enough, though.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
He sits up with a start, jarring his blood vessel into another
|
|||
|
|
crimson aria. He sees himself walking across the ward. His face is
|
|||
|
|
a gray color and his belly is grossly distended and sloshing.
|
|||
|
|
There's an ill-defined lack of depth to this appearance of
|
|||
|
|
himself, like perspective is somehow being violated.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Whoa, what goes on here?" he says, and the apparition turns
|
|||
|
|
toward him.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Didn't you always want to play Ebeneezer and Marley both? This
|
|||
|
|
is your chance," it says.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"But I ain't dead yet," he protests. "At least I think I would
|
|||
|
|
have known if I was to expire.'
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh yes, I know. So it's safe to say that you will too."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Now wait a minute. You're not one of them union scabs the
|
|||
|
|
producers keep threatening to patch together when our agents are
|
|||
|
|
pushing too hard?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No, no," muttered the shade. "I am truly your mortal coil
|
|||
|
|
after you have shuffled it off. You will in a few minutes, you
|
|||
|
|
know."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Then how come you are here now, talking to me?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh come now," chided the specter. "What makes you think the
|
|||
|
|
ethereal is bound by any foolish notion of linear time? If our
|
|||
|
|
measure is not properly taken with that Judeo-Christian nonsense,
|
|||
|
|
why should we keep to strict timetables just for the convenience
|
|||
|
|
of your schedules?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"So I'm haunting myself before I'm dead?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Precisely. Narcissism unbounded. You are, after all, dying
|
|||
|
|
unnecessarily because of an ego malfunction."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"The hell, you say," Jack says, slapping his knee.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I would be careful about making such statements if I were you.
|
|||
|
|
Indeed, I was and I did too, so I guess any warning I might make
|
|||
|
|
is a pretty pointless recursion." The spirit turns to depart. "And
|
|||
|
|
speaking of preordination in this deterministic universe, I wonder
|
|||
|
|
why I'm inclined to go back and reincarnate in my own fetus?" And
|
|||
|
|
he disappears.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Nicholson's senses are becoming acute, hypersensitive. Why is
|
|||
|
|
it that you become most clearly aware when it's not possible to do
|
|||
|
|
anything with it? Like the brilliant insights of drunkenness, the
|
|||
|
|
certainty of faith, and the promises of politicians. The
|
|||
|
|
background swells slowly to foreground.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Bob Dylan in the corner sings to anyone who will listen.
|
|||
|
|
Songwriters like to attach themselves to actor's equity when they
|
|||
|
|
can.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Dylan's few film appearances were mediocre to say the least,
|
|||
|
|
but his name recognition couldn't be slighted. So his right to
|
|||
|
|
throw his lot in with the mostly Hollywood crowd was never
|
|||
|
|
doubted. Songwriters usually hate to hang with the musicians and
|
|||
|
|
singers. Too much melodic talent who can't make good songs on
|
|||
|
|
their own but think they have a say in how fine art gets created.
|
|||
|
|
They practice good craft and call it art.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Anyway, Mr. Zimmerman is over in the corner talking and singing
|
|||
|
|
his life away, with a soft banjo backup from somewhere. Since he
|
|||
|
|
has no hands in the immediate vicinity, it is unlikely that he is
|
|||
|
|
doing the strumming directly. James Caan is probably providing the
|
|||
|
|
backup, as he needs his hands for his parts. So Bob's a singing
|
|||
|
|
and a crooning:
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Like, the original song went like this:
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
'And she waaalks juuust like a woman,
|
|||
|
|
and she taaalks juuust like a woman,
|
|||
|
|
but she fuuucks juuust like a little girl'
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"And man, all the censors at the record company just turns all
|
|||
|
|
frown faces. You know what I mean. So before they would cut the
|
|||
|
|
record I had to change the lyrics to
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
'And she taaalks juuust like a woman,
|
|||
|
|
but she fucks uuup just like a little girl'
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"And then all the man censors, they turn to smiles and say,
|
|||
|
|
'Like, yeah, it ain't about doing the deed no more, so it's cool.'
|
|||
|
|
But all the lady censors still stay with frown faces, and they
|
|||
|
|
say, 'It still has the F-word in it. Think about all the children
|
|||
|
|
who'd be hearing it.' So I sits and writes some more until I get
|
|||
|
|
to
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
'And she taaalks juuust like a woman,
|
|||
|
|
but she breaks uuup just like a little girl'
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"It screwed up the rhythm a little but then all the censors
|
|||
|
|
they turn to sunshine and that's how the song got the way you
|
|||
|
|
heard it. The children are supposed to be so fragile that some
|
|||
|
|
fucking's gonna pervert them all to bisexuals or something. They
|
|||
|
|
be screwin' anything that smiles, if they even hear me sing the F-
|
|||
|
|
word."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
With these pearls of wisdom floating around in the background,
|
|||
|
|
who could not be creative to the max? Like listening to
|
|||
|
|
Springsteen tell about forming up the E Street Band on the _Great
|
|||
|
|
White Boss_ album.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
From over his shoulder:
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"We got Madonna's twat around here someplace, if you would
|
|||
|
|
rather try that."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No. no, thank you."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"That was always the best part of her," smiles Warren Beatty's
|
|||
|
|
head, attached somewhere over by a further window. "The only part
|
|||
|
|
we saved, anyway. I can still smell it once a month or so."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
And Jack, he just keeps sitting there, trying to absorb all the
|
|||
|
|
sensation he can. Trying desperately to hold onto to all of it. To
|
|||
|
|
cherish it. To take it with him forever. Not just a memory, a
|
|||
|
|
hollow husk of abstraction, but the raw, pure instant of sensation
|
|||
|
|
itself.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
But he knows it is slipping through his fingers like
|
|||
|
|
quicksilver. And knowing what will come thereafter, Jack he just
|
|||
|
|
keeps sitting there, waiting for the tunnel of light.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
Stan Kulikowski II (stankuli@UWF.BITNET) is a research scholar in
|
|||
|
|
the College of Education at the University of West Florida. He is
|
|||
|
|
a specialist in educational technology and is currently developing
|
|||
|
|
projects for K-12 use of the Internet. He says this story is taken
|
|||
|
|
almost verbatim from a dream he had in the fall of 1992.
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
Sweet Peppers
|
|||
|
|
AVIOTT JOHN
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The flight was late. Somewhere over the Atlantic Rose's body
|
|||
|
|
began to rebel. The local time was three in the afternoon but her
|
|||
|
|
body was in another time zone, arguing with the clock, disputing
|
|||
|
|
her work schedule.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"The fellow in 35C wants another vodka and orange. Should I
|
|||
|
|
serve him?" Shalini interrupted her misery. Shalini was Anglo-
|
|||
|
|
Indian and looked more Indian than English, with her air of
|
|||
|
|
Oriental calm and placid ways. The unflappability was superficial,
|
|||
|
|
Rose knew, because she had seen the bottle of antacid Shalini
|
|||
|
|
carried in her overnight case.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Give it to him. We've another four hours to New York. Maybe
|
|||
|
|
he'll sleep after that."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No such luck. They've got a game of poker going there, 35A, B
|
|||
|
|
and C, wide awake and having a great time."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Are they travelling together?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No. I'm positive not. They have a language problem, struggling
|
|||
|
|
to speak English, each of them with a different accent, but they
|
|||
|
|
understand each other somehow."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Boozers usually do," said Rose dryly, shifting her weight from
|
|||
|
|
one aching leg to another. Rose was proud of her legs, but lately
|
|||
|
|
they ached after every shift and faint bluish venous bumps were
|
|||
|
|
beginning to show after hours of standing. God, it was time for a
|
|||
|
|
change of profession. Her mother had varicose veins: great, ugly,
|
|||
|
|
big, knotted rivers whose very sight repelled Rose. Imagine the
|
|||
|
|
fate! What good the prettiest face in a swimsuit (or without) on
|
|||
|
|
the Riviera when you had legs like that?
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Rose, you look awful," said Shalini conversationally as she
|
|||
|
|
bent down to get a tiny bottle of vodka from a cupboard. "Is
|
|||
|
|
anything the matter?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Thanks. Tired, that's all."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Problems? Can I help?
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I'm fine. Don't worry about me." _Piss off, you bitch. Go
|
|||
|
|
deliver your vodka and leave me alone_. Rose regretted the thought
|
|||
|
|
an instant later as Shalini sighed and set the vodka and orange
|
|||
|
|
juice on a small tray. She wasn't too bad, old Shalu wasn't. A
|
|||
|
|
very nice girl and pretty in a mousy, self-effacing kind of way.
|
|||
|
|
But she did get on Rose's nerves sometimes with her maternal
|
|||
|
|
solicitude and eternal calm. Rose never knew half the time what
|
|||
|
|
Shalu was thinking. That was the real problem with her. God, she
|
|||
|
|
wanted to move out of this cramped galley, just had to. On an
|
|||
|
|
impulse she took the tray from Shalini's unresisting hands.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Here, let me. I need a walk. I'll give it to him. 35C, did you
|
|||
|
|
say?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Thank you." Shalu sounded absurdly grateful. The poor kid was
|
|||
|
|
tired too. "And don't forget to collect three dollars from him.
|
|||
|
|
He's one of those who forgets to pay, you know."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The lighting was dim and exhausted passengers sprawled in their
|
|||
|
|
narrow seats, trying to find a position that eased the cramps in
|
|||
|
|
their legs. These long flights were a bugger, Rose thought. She
|
|||
|
|
and the rest of the crew had boarded in London, but by then some
|
|||
|
|
of these people had already been in the plane for fifteen hours.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
She walked down the aisle. It was good to walk and she carried
|
|||
|
|
her slim body erect, suddenly proud. The airline had long ago
|
|||
|
|
discovered the secret of really captivating hostesses; not
|
|||
|
|
elaborate uniforms, but healthy bodies and happy faces.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Shalini was right: the fellows in row 35 were not about to go
|
|||
|
|
to sleep. Their reading lights were on and the man in the middle
|
|||
|
|
had his dining tray folded down as a card table. A real mixed
|
|||
|
|
trio.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Your vodka and orange."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Rose had been working at this job for seven years and out of
|
|||
|
|
habit automatically appraised and categorized her passengers. 35A,
|
|||
|
|
by the window, was a muscular young fellow with close-cropped hair
|
|||
|
|
and prominent, twitching jaw muscles which indicated a hair-
|
|||
|
|
trigger temper and an inclination to physical violence when
|
|||
|
|
frustrated. He unsmilingly clutched his cards close to his face.
|
|||
|
|
35B was plump, the edge of the dining tray pressing into his
|
|||
|
|
belly. He was voluble, waving his arms animatedly, speaking with a
|
|||
|
|
thick Russian accent and smiling. She noted though that the smile
|
|||
|
|
never reached his eyes.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
35C was a surprise, the man who'd ordered his third vodka. She
|
|||
|
|
expected an unshaven wino, but instead met a pair of steady brown
|
|||
|
|
eyes. In contrast to 35B, the mouth did not smile at all, but the
|
|||
|
|
eyes were warm and friendly with a humorous glint to them, so that
|
|||
|
|
he looked as though he were smiling at her.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Thank you." He was lean and his distinguished features carried
|
|||
|
|
the slightly bored expression that sometimes went with refinement,
|
|||
|
|
but he seemed to be on the best of terms with the other two. He
|
|||
|
|
was dressed in a plain gray business suit; expensive, very
|
|||
|
|
expensive, Rose decided at a glance. However, she remembered
|
|||
|
|
Shalu's warning.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Three dollars, please."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The man smiled faintly and held out a hundred dollar bill.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Don't you have something smaller?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Sorry."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Rose bit her lip in annoyance. "I'll see if my colleague has
|
|||
|
|
change. Back in a minute."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I'll come with you. I need to stretch my legs." He put down
|
|||
|
|
his cards and excused himself for a minute with words and
|
|||
|
|
gestures. 35B waved a hand and began to deal the next round for
|
|||
|
|
two. Rose was aware of his eyes on her back as she walked down the
|
|||
|
|
aisle to the kitchen area. She pushed aside the curtain but Shalu
|
|||
|
|
was not there, probably gone to take a cup of coffee into the
|
|||
|
|
cockpit. Rose was sure Shalu had a wee bit of a crush on the
|
|||
|
|
copilot although she never talked about such things.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"My colleague's not here at the moment. I'll bring you the
|
|||
|
|
change in a few minutes."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I'd like to stand for a while. I'll wait." He leaned an elbow
|
|||
|
|
against the small working surface in an attitude of settling down.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Win much?" She was instantly angry with herself for asking.
|
|||
|
|
She didn't want to start a conversation with this man, but his
|
|||
|
|
self-assured manner prompted the question.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Three vodkas." He rolled his eyes. "And they insisted on
|
|||
|
|
paying right away."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"You could have said no."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"That would have been very bad form. You don't gamble, do you?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No," after a slight pause, "don't play cards," she qualified.
|
|||
|
|
He smiled at her, looking her up and down.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I thought as much."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Why?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Can't explain it. Simply a strong hunch."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"But why? There has to be a reason. You look like the sort of
|
|||
|
|
person who has a reason for everything?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Do I?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yes, and don't duck my question."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I felt your disapproval in the small of my back when you
|
|||
|
|
walked up that aisle bringing me that vodka and orange. The other
|
|||
|
|
girl warned you, didn't she, said this was my third?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Rose did not reply.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Didn't she?" he repeated.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Something like that," she admitted, annoyed that she had been
|
|||
|
|
so transparent to him.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"And do you know why I didn't pay? Because the other two don't
|
|||
|
|
have a cent on them and they're too proud to admit it. I tried
|
|||
|
|
desperately to let them win, but the harder I tried, the more they
|
|||
|
|
lost." The man took a deep breath and looked back down the aisle.
|
|||
|
|
"Will you tell me how I'm going to get out of this jam?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"That's not my problem."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Tell you what. Why don't you come and say to me in front of
|
|||
|
|
those two that you made a mistake. Vodka and orange is free on
|
|||
|
|
transatlantic flights, something like that."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I couldn't do that. What if the other passengers heard?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"All right. I'll tell them it's free and you don't contradict
|
|||
|
|
me. Bring them whatever they want and I'll come back here to pay
|
|||
|
|
for it. Okay?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I suppose I could do that," she said doubtfully.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Good." He slapped the hundred dollar bill in her palm before
|
|||
|
|
she could refuse and went back to his poker game.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Rose clued Shalu in on her deal with the man in the gray suit.
|
|||
|
|
Shalu was surprised.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Who is he?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I don't know."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"You agreed to his harebrained scheme without knowing anything
|
|||
|
|
about him? What's the matter with you, Rose? This is not like
|
|||
|
|
you."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"What's wrong? I'll return his change before the plane comes in
|
|||
|
|
to land."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The man did not come back to the galley for the rest of the
|
|||
|
|
flight. Rose tried to return the ninety-one dollars change just
|
|||
|
|
before the plane began its descent to land at Kennedy airport. He
|
|||
|
|
looked dismayed and imploringly motioned her not to give him money
|
|||
|
|
in front of his two poker companions. She backed away and had so
|
|||
|
|
much to do after the plane landed that she forgot about the man
|
|||
|
|
and his money.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Shalu and Rose were talking and laughing together as they made
|
|||
|
|
their way to main entrance of the terminal building. There was the
|
|||
|
|
usual crush of cabs, buses and private cars trying to ease along
|
|||
|
|
the front and pick up people and they kept an eye open for the van
|
|||
|
|
with the airline's logo on its side. Rose suddenly came to a dead
|
|||
|
|
stop.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh my God, I forgot to give the man his change."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"What? Oh, the ninety-one dollars. Serves him right for being
|
|||
|
|
careless."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I can't do that, Shalu. I have to give him his money. Besides,
|
|||
|
|
he might complain."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"What will you do?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Find out his name first."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
She zipped away and found a ground hostess with a clipboard in
|
|||
|
|
her hand. The passenger list! Rose unceremoniously snatched the
|
|||
|
|
clipboard and checked the name of the man in 35C. _Dr. Laszlo
|
|||
|
|
Nemeth_. So he was a doctor! "Well, Dr. Nemeth, you're going to
|
|||
|
|
get your money back," she said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"What?" asked the ground hostess, totally mystified by Rose's
|
|||
|
|
behavior.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Nothing," said Rose as she hurried off to the public address
|
|||
|
|
system next to the information desk.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Half an hour later, paged and repaid, Dr. Nemeth offered Rose a
|
|||
|
|
taxi ride into the city, a ride she accepted because she had
|
|||
|
|
missed the airline's shuttle.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Will you go out with me for dinner tomorrow evening?" he asked
|
|||
|
|
directly when they were seated in the taxi. "Good food and
|
|||
|
|
conversation."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I don't know," she began doubtfully.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No hanky-panky," he promised.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Well, yes then," she laughed.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
He called for her at her Fifth Avenue hotel at six the next
|
|||
|
|
evening and they went to an off-Broadway show called _Slippers_
|
|||
|
|
which she would never have thought of going to see, but it was
|
|||
|
|
great fun and she laughed so much during some of the scenes that
|
|||
|
|
she cried. When they came out it was raining heavily, a miserable
|
|||
|
|
night for man or beast to be out of doors, remarked Rose.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Let's go to my place," Laszlo suggested. "I'll cook something
|
|||
|
|
for us."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Do you like to cook?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No," he admitted.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Laszlo's apartment was large by New York standards, with split
|
|||
|
|
levels, two bedrooms, fully automated kitchen and a well-appointed
|
|||
|
|
living room.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Ah, let's see what we have," said Laszlo, peering reluctantly
|
|||
|
|
into the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. Rose took pity
|
|||
|
|
on him then and thrust him aside.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I love to cook. Let's see what you've got." She nodded in
|
|||
|
|
satisfaction. "Who does your shopping?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"My housekeeper. She comes in three times a week."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Now you go away." She shooed him out of the kitchen. "Come
|
|||
|
|
back here in an hour and help me with the table."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Nemeth looked at her with gratitude and tiptoed out of the
|
|||
|
|
kitchen as she commanded.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The crisper compartment was filled with enormous green sweet
|
|||
|
|
peppers so Rose had no problem deciding what to cook. She rummaged
|
|||
|
|
quickly through the cupboards until she found the ingredients she
|
|||
|
|
wanted, then set to work. While the green peppers steamed lightly,
|
|||
|
|
she cooked some rice and minced beef, opened a can of peeled
|
|||
|
|
tomatoes and finely chopped a mound of fresh mushrooms. Laszlo
|
|||
|
|
diffidently entered the kitchen an hour later and she set him to
|
|||
|
|
work opening a bottle of wine and laying the table. She did not
|
|||
|
|
allow him to see what was cooking.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"You'll see when it's served," she said and shooed him away
|
|||
|
|
again.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
He had prepared the table very nicely and she set down the
|
|||
|
|
covered dish in the middle of the table.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Laszlo gingerly raised the lid and feasted on the vision that
|
|||
|
|
met his sight. Peppers stuffed to bursting with a mixture of
|
|||
|
|
cooked rice, minced beef and mushrooms, their green contrasting
|
|||
|
|
beautifully with the simmering pale red of the spicy tomato sauce.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Laszlo Nemeth's eyes filled with tears. They looked up to meet
|
|||
|
|
hers. "This is a recipe from my old country you know."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yes, I know."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"My mother was from Budapest. She died last month in Austria.
|
|||
|
|
I've just come back from the funeral."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Let's eat before it gets cold," said Rose, who didn't like the
|
|||
|
|
melancholy turn the conversation was taking.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Laszlo Nemeth ate well and spoke entertainingly throughout the
|
|||
|
|
meal. Rose laughed at his jokes and together they drank two
|
|||
|
|
bottles of wine. Rose was feeling slightly tipsy after the meal
|
|||
|
|
but sobered in a second when Laszlo suddenly turned solemn and
|
|||
|
|
proposed marriage to her.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Bells tinkled faintly at the back of Rose's head; whether
|
|||
|
|
wedding chords or warning chimes was not clear. She lowered her
|
|||
|
|
head and the stuffed peppers swam before her eyes, melted and
|
|||
|
|
reformed with knotted blue veins on their surface. She
|
|||
|
|
determinedly thrust aside the image and all concomitant
|
|||
|
|
forebodings of doom, raising her eyes and her glass to his.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yes," she said. "Yes."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
Aviott John (avjohn@iiasa.ac.at) is a science writer and science
|
|||
|
|
reference librarian at an international research institute in
|
|||
|
|
Austria. He has written over fifty short stories and nine novel-
|
|||
|
|
length manuscripts, one of which won a Sinclair Fiction Award
|
|||
|
|
(London, 1982). He has published articles in science journals as
|
|||
|
|
well as fiction magazines in Austria, England and the U.S.
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
Dogbreath
|
|||
|
|
ROBERT HURVITZ
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I slammed down the phone and paced back and forth in my little
|
|||
|
|
dorm room, teeth clenched. "Fuck you, mom!" I shouted at the
|
|||
|
|
telephone. "You just don't understand!" I kicked the flimsy metal
|
|||
|
|
bedframe and it struck the wall noisily, chipping the plaster.
|
|||
|
|
Shit, I thought, I'm probably going to have to pay for that. I
|
|||
|
|
flopped down on the bed and gingerly poked at the damage. At my
|
|||
|
|
touch, specks of plaster flaked off and drifted down between the
|
|||
|
|
wall and the bed.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The door opened, and my roommate Jed walked in.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I looked up from the wall and said, "Hi, Jed."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
He stopped and considered this, shifting from foot to foot,
|
|||
|
|
absent-mindedly pulling at hair that was almost as dirty as his
|
|||
|
|
tie-dyed T-shirt. His hand dropped to his side, and he said,
|
|||
|
|
"Brian, why were you staring at the wall?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I sighed and sat up on the bed. "I just talked to my mom."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Jed nodded quickly. "I see. Didn't go well?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No. Not at all. She said she was sick and tired of paying for
|
|||
|
|
all of my CDs, and anyway, what was I doing spending all my time
|
|||
|
|
listening to music when I should be studying? She said if I wanted
|
|||
|
|
to buy CDs, I should get a job and pay for them myself."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Jed winced. "Oh man. That's rough." He collapsed on his bed. "I
|
|||
|
|
had a job once. Did I ever tell you about that?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yeah, three or four times."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh." He shifted suddenly and wound up staring at me intently.
|
|||
|
|
"You sound like you're in really bad shape, Brian."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Well, yeah, I guess so."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I understand." He glanced nervously around the room. "Don't
|
|||
|
|
tell this to anyone, OK? Promise?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Sure."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"OK. Basement of the biochem building, across from the men's
|
|||
|
|
faculty restroom, there's a bulletin board where they post
|
|||
|
|
'subjects needed' fliers for experimental drugs. They pay a couple
|
|||
|
|
hundred bucks a pop, and you get a really weird trip, too." He
|
|||
|
|
rolled over and was silent.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
After a few moments, I said, "Uh, Jed?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Jed started snoring.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I shrugged and lay back on the bed, thinking: A couple hundred
|
|||
|
|
bucks, huh? What the hell.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I was on my way to the biochem building early the next morning.
|
|||
|
|
I hadn't wanted it to be that way, but Jed had set his alarm for
|
|||
|
|
5:30 a.m. and didn't wake up until after I'd thrown my shoes at
|
|||
|
|
him. He'd then stumbled around the room, apologizing for each
|
|||
|
|
noise he made and explaining that he had to get ready for a
|
|||
|
|
protest.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I suppose it wouldn't have been so bad if I'd gone to bed at a
|
|||
|
|
reasonable hour, but instead I'd stayed up thinking about what CDs
|
|||
|
|
I would buy with two hundred dollars. As a result my mind was
|
|||
|
|
feeling spongy. It was as if my body was marching involuntarily to
|
|||
|
|
the biochem building and my mind was struggling vainly to keep up.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
When I reached the top of the brick stairs near the building's
|
|||
|
|
main entrance I saw a big, brown dog with matted fur sprawled on
|
|||
|
|
the ground motionless. As I walked by, it lifted up its head,
|
|||
|
|
looked at me, yawned.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I wiggled my fingers at the dog and said, "Woof." It blinked
|
|||
|
|
and rested its head back upon the ground.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Inside and down, I wandered the basement hallways, searching
|
|||
|
|
for the bulletin board of experimental delights. Five minutes
|
|||
|
|
later, at the end of one of the more dimly lit corridors, I came
|
|||
|
|
across the men's faculty
|
|||
|
|
restroom, its door slightly ajar. Sure enough, on the opposite
|
|||
|
|
wall were the postings.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Before I could read any of them, I heard a toilet flush and the
|
|||
|
|
men's faculty restroom door opened.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh! Excuse me!" said the man who stopped himself suddenly,
|
|||
|
|
apparently surprised at seeing me standing outside the bathroom.
|
|||
|
|
He had a large mass of graying black hair, glasses, a dark green
|
|||
|
|
corduroy jacket, an old leather briefcase, baggy gray pants, and
|
|||
|
|
tennis shoes. I assumed he was a professor. "But maybe," he
|
|||
|
|
continued, "this is a serendipitous moment. Were you, by any
|
|||
|
|
chance, perusing the experimental subject fliers?" He arched his
|
|||
|
|
eyebrows to indicate the colored postings on the bulletin board.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Uh, yeah," I replied. I don't know why, but I felt
|
|||
|
|
embarrassed. "Yeah, but I don't normally do things like this, you
|
|||
|
|
know. My roommate told me about them. This is -- Yeah, this is my,
|
|||
|
|
uh, first time doing this."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Of course, of course," the professor reassured me. He reached
|
|||
|
|
down and opened his briefcase, fished out a bright red sheet of
|
|||
|
|
paper. "But, you see, I was just about to post my own flier.
|
|||
|
|
Perhaps you'd be interested...?" He offered me the sheet of paper,
|
|||
|
|
smiling widely.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh, thanks," I said, accepting the flier. It read: "Subject
|
|||
|
|
needed for human-animal neural relationship experiment. $500.
|
|||
|
|
Please call Professor Billow at 642-0070 if interested." There
|
|||
|
|
were many cuts at the bottom of the paper to make stubs that one
|
|||
|
|
could rip off and take and that bore the words "Prof Billow, 642-
|
|||
|
|
0070, $500."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
My eyes grew wide, and I whispered reverently, "Five hundred
|
|||
|
|
dollars."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yes. Five hundred," said the professor proudly. He tilted his
|
|||
|
|
head in modest boastfulness. "I have a very large grant, you see,
|
|||
|
|
and that is why I offer so much more than they do." He indicated
|
|||
|
|
the bulletin board again with his eyebrows.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I looked around, bewildered. Five hundred dollars! "Professor
|
|||
|
|
Billow," I said, "you have yourself a subject." I held out my
|
|||
|
|
hand, and he shook it.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Come, then," he said, clapping me on the shoulder. "My lab is
|
|||
|
|
on the other side of campus, in the Northwest Animal Facility."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
On the way out of the biochem building, Professor Billow stared
|
|||
|
|
at the lazy brown dog and said distractedly, "Just a moment." He
|
|||
|
|
fumbled through his jacket pockets, finally mumbled, "Aha!" and
|
|||
|
|
pulled out a little biscuit which he then tossed to the dog. The
|
|||
|
|
dog looked blankly at the biscuit and yawned. With a sigh, the
|
|||
|
|
professor started walking away muttering to himself and I hastened
|
|||
|
|
to catch up.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I sat facing Professor Billow, his desk between us. He said
|
|||
|
|
while rummaging through his drawers, "This is just a technicality,
|
|||
|
|
Brian. You see, the importance of this research requires that you
|
|||
|
|
sign a form assuring the government that you won't disclose any
|
|||
|
|
information about the experiment to anyone. Here we go." He
|
|||
|
|
brought out a white sheet of paper filled with fine print and
|
|||
|
|
pushed it across the desk. "Just sign at the bottom."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I looked at the text-crammed sheet. "What if I don't sign?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Professor Billow spread open his hands. "No experiment. No five
|
|||
|
|
hundred dollars."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I signed.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Good!" The professor snatched the sheet back and filed it
|
|||
|
|
away. "Now, to the lab." He led me through a side door and into a
|
|||
|
|
large room littered with electronic equipment and in the center of
|
|||
|
|
which were two padded tables, one large and one small. Off to the
|
|||
|
|
side a grad student tapped away at the keyboard of a computer
|
|||
|
|
workstation. He glanced briefly at us when we walked in.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Mark!" called out the professor. "I'd like you to meet our
|
|||
|
|
subject, Brian."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Just a second," Mark said. He moved the computer's mouse
|
|||
|
|
around, clicked something, then stood up and came over. He was
|
|||
|
|
tall and thin with short blond hair. "Hi," he said. "My name's
|
|||
|
|
Mark." He motioned to the large table. "If you'll just step over
|
|||
|
|
there and lie down, we can get started."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
As soon as I did so, Mark threw a strap over my chest, and
|
|||
|
|
Professor Billow, on the other side, secured it.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Hey!" I said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Don't worry, Brian," Mark reassured me. "It's for you own
|
|||
|
|
protection, really. You wouldn't want your arms flailing around
|
|||
|
|
and damaging equipment, now would you?" He shook his head no for
|
|||
|
|
me. "Besides, this was all written down on that paper you signed,
|
|||
|
|
remember?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh. Hmmm."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Three straps later, I was securely fastened to the table. There
|
|||
|
|
was no way I'd be able to damage anything. Mark slipped some kind
|
|||
|
|
of support device beneath my head and wrapped yet another strap
|
|||
|
|
across my forehead. "So you don't accidentally move your head and
|
|||
|
|
pull off any of the EEG leads," he explained. He smiled and left
|
|||
|
|
the room.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Professor Billow lifted up a syringe and gave it a slight
|
|||
|
|
squirt, clearing the needle of air. "Merely a sedative, Brian.
|
|||
|
|
When you wake up, the experiment will be over."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Uh, professor..." I started to say, but he hushed me. I felt
|
|||
|
|
something cold wiped on my arm, and then a sharp pain as the
|
|||
|
|
hypodermic hit home.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mark reenter the room
|
|||
|
|
carrying an unconscious cocker spaniel. He placed it carefully on
|
|||
|
|
the smaller table, scratched its head, and strapped it just as
|
|||
|
|
securely down. Then he turned around and waved goodbye to me as
|
|||
|
|
everything went black.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I felt awful. All of my senses seemed warped and alien. There
|
|||
|
|
was a constant whine in my ears, I couldn't open my eyes, and my
|
|||
|
|
breath was shallow. I suddenly realized that I was now lying on my
|
|||
|
|
stomach and had no clothes on. I wanted to panic but the sedative
|
|||
|
|
hadn't fully worn off.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Slowly, I was able to pick out voices from the ringing. They
|
|||
|
|
sounded like Professor Billow's and Mark's voices but they were
|
|||
|
|
too harsh and metallic.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"...small amount of neural trauma, but nowhere near as much as
|
|||
|
|
before," said the pseudo-Mark voice. "My feedback circuit worked,
|
|||
|
|
dammit!"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I'm not saying it didn't work," responded the professor's
|
|||
|
|
distorted voice, "I'm saying there's still too much trauma to risk
|
|||
|
|
a retransfer. Perhaps with this lesser amount, though, it'll be
|
|||
|
|
able to sufficiently reduce itself to a safer level over a
|
|||
|
|
reasonable period of time. In the meanwhile I suggest that you
|
|||
|
|
further refine your clever feedback circuit."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I tried to say something, but all that came out was a growl.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The professor's harsh voice continued, "Well, Brian's coming
|
|||
|
|
to. Who's going to explain this time? Perhaps you should, Mark.
|
|||
|
|
You could then also tell him how well your feedback circuit
|
|||
|
|
worked."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I managed to force my eyes open and was shocked to see that
|
|||
|
|
everything was black and white.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
And there were muffled shouts and poundings and kickings on the
|
|||
|
|
door. I heard Mark say, "What the hell?" just as the door crashed
|
|||
|
|
open. People rushing into the lab shouted triumphantly, "Free the
|
|||
|
|
animals! Free the animals!"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Mark ran out the back door. Professor Billow held his arms out
|
|||
|
|
in front of himself and shouted futilely, "Wait! Wait! You don't
|
|||
|
|
understand!" before being forced out of the lab by the mob of
|
|||
|
|
protesters chanting, "Animal killer! Animal killer!"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
A woman came over, gently pulled off electrodes that were still
|
|||
|
|
taped to me, and released the straps. "Don't worry, puppy, you're
|
|||
|
|
safe now," she said as she patted my head. Her voice was even more
|
|||
|
|
distorted than Mark's and the professor's had been.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I concentrated hard on saying that I was not a puppy, that my
|
|||
|
|
name was Brian, and I would appreciate it if she would not pat me
|
|||
|
|
on the head, but all that came out were a few high-pitched,
|
|||
|
|
pathetic barks. I tried to sigh but, instead, panted.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
She lifted me up to her face and stared concernedly at my jaw.
|
|||
|
|
I started to whimper. "It's OK," she said in a tone that was
|
|||
|
|
trying to be soothing but actually sounded demonic. "Is something
|
|||
|
|
wrong with your mouth? Were they experimenting on you?" Then she
|
|||
|
|
pinched up her face and looked away. "Whew. With breath like that,
|
|||
|
|
they must have done something." She put me down on the floor and
|
|||
|
|
said, "Sit."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I was too stunned to run away. Everything was very tall. I was
|
|||
|
|
very short. Lots of very tall people were rushing back and forth
|
|||
|
|
breaking equipment. The jagged crunches of destruction were
|
|||
|
|
agonizing to listen to, but after the pillaging was over, I
|
|||
|
|
noticed that almost all of the background whining was gone.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Protesters came by and patted me on the head, smiling and
|
|||
|
|
saying silly things in that now universal harsh tone of voice.
|
|||
|
|
Then they started up the "Free the Animals!" chant again and left
|
|||
|
|
the lab, presumably in search of another.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
With growing dread I looked at my own body and saw that I was a
|
|||
|
|
cocker spaniel. I jerked my head up and stared at the other table.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I was able to see my arm, tensed and straining against the
|
|||
|
|
straps with which Mark and the professor had so carefully bound
|
|||
|
|
me.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
One of the protesters had stayed behind and he was leaning
|
|||
|
|
heavily against the large table, his face in his hands. It took me
|
|||
|
|
a moment to realize it was Jed. He was wearing the same clothes as
|
|||
|
|
the previous day but, in black and white, the tie-dye was a lot
|
|||
|
|
harder to recognize.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh God, Brian," Jed was saying. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
There was one last whine still audible in the lab. It was a
|
|||
|
|
periodic whine, not constant like all the others had been, and it
|
|||
|
|
just then dawned on me that it was coming from my body up there on
|
|||
|
|
the table. The whine would last a few seconds, be broken by a
|
|||
|
|
sharp intake of breath, and then continue.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"I'm sorry," Jed repeated.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The woman who had freed me came back into the lab and said,
|
|||
|
|
"Hey."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Jed's head snapped up, startled. "Huh? Oh. Hi, Wendy. How ya
|
|||
|
|
doin'?" His metallic voice was strained and his face showed pain.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Come on, Jed," she said. "You're missing out on all the fun."
|
|||
|
|
She gave him a tentative smile but he just stared at the floor.
|
|||
|
|
"Hey, Jed, don't worry about this guy. He's probably just having a
|
|||
|
|
really bad trip. Anyway, the police'll know what to do with him."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"No, no, that's not... It's..." Jed looked back up at her.
|
|||
|
|
"He's my roommate. His name is Brian."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
They stared at each other for a few seconds.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"This is all my fault," Jed finally said.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh, Jed, no, don't say that. It's not your fault. It's tragic
|
|||
|
|
and awful, but it's not your fault."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Jed was silent.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Wendy touched his arm. "Let's go outside, Jed. We can sit down
|
|||
|
|
on some grass and you can tell me about Brian."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I ran out of the lab.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The next few hours were a blur. I ran madly through campus,
|
|||
|
|
through various buildings, dodging between students, making
|
|||
|
|
bicycles screech to stops. I finally collapsed on the brick steps
|
|||
|
|
of the biochem building, panting heavily.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
After a few minutes I heard some peculiar barkings. It wasn't
|
|||
|
|
normal barking; it was barking out of which I could decipher
|
|||
|
|
English words.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Hi," the bark said. "My name's Chuck. What's yours?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I looked up and saw the dog that had been napping at the top of
|
|||
|
|
these steps this morning. With a bit of concentration I barked,
|
|||
|
|
"My name's Brian."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Well, Brian, in case you were wondering: No, dogs don't
|
|||
|
|
communicate like this. I was also one of Professor Billow's
|
|||
|
|
subjects. You're the sixth."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"The sixth?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Yup. And now with the lab destroyed it looks like you'll be
|
|||
|
|
the last. Unfortunately, that also means we won't be able to be
|
|||
|
|
retransfered. Billow was keeping our bodies in another room in the
|
|||
|
|
lab. I suppose the police will find them, and Billow will be
|
|||
|
|
brought up on criminal charges or something."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I stared at Chuck.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Hey, Brian, don't worry too much about it. It's not such a bad
|
|||
|
|
life. You get to lie around and nap a lot. Food isn't very scarce,
|
|||
|
|
really, you just have to know where to look. It can actually be a
|
|||
|
|
fun life, but it takes some getting used to."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I continued to stare at Chuck.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Come on, Brian. Follow me and I'll introduce you to the
|
|||
|
|
others."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I nervously stood up.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"There you go, Brian. You'll see; it's not so bad. You've even
|
|||
|
|
got one good thing going for you already."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"Oh?" I barked. "And what's that?"
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
"You've got great smelling breath."
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
Robert Hurvitz (hurvitz@cory.berkeley.edu) is a graduate of UC
|
|||
|
|
Berkeley's Computer Science department, and is currently working
|
|||
|
|
in San Francisco. He is a frequent contributor to InterText.
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
Our Page of Ads
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
_QUANTA_
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Publishing for three years now, Dan Appelquist's _Quanta_
|
|||
|
|
magazine (ISSN 1053-8496) is an electronically distributed journal
|
|||
|
|
of Science Fiction and Fantasy. As such, each issue contains
|
|||
|
|
fiction by amateur authors. _Quanta_ is published in ASCII and
|
|||
|
|
PostScript. Submissions should be sent to quanta@andrew.cmu.edu.
|
|||
|
|
Requests to be added to the distribution list should be sent to
|
|||
|
|
one of the following depending on which version of the magazine
|
|||
|
|
you'd like to receive.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
quanta+requests-postscript@andrew.cmu.edu
|
|||
|
|
or
|
|||
|
|
quanta+requests-ascii@andrew.cmu.edu
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
quanta+requests-postscript@andrew.BITNET
|
|||
|
|
or
|
|||
|
|
quanta+requests-ascii@andrew.BITNET
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Send mail only -- no interactive messages or files please.
|
|||
|
|
The main FTP archive for _Quanta_ issues and back issues is:
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Host: export.acs.cmu.edu IP: 128.2.35.66
|
|||
|
|
Directory: /pub/quanta
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
(In Europe): lth.se IP: 130.235.16.3
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
ASCII Quanta issues are also available via Gopher from the server
|
|||
|
|
at gopher-srv.acs.cmu.edu, port 70, in the Archives directory.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
OTHER NET MAGAZINE
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
In addition to _InterText_ and _Quanta_, there are lots of
|
|||
|
|
other net-distributed magazines out there. Here are a few we know
|
|||
|
|
about. If you know about more, feel free to drop us a line!
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
_CORE_ is an entirely electronic journal dedicated to
|
|||
|
|
publishing the best, freshest prose and poetry being created in
|
|||
|
|
cyberspace. It is edited by the Electronic Frontier Foundation's
|
|||
|
|
Rita Rouvalis, award-winning editor of _EFFector_. It appears in
|
|||
|
|
ASCII format. For more information, mail rita@eff.org.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
_DARGONZINE_ is an electronic magazine printing stories written
|
|||
|
|
for the Dargon Project, a shared-world anthology created by David
|
|||
|
|
"Orny" Liscomb in his now-retired magazine, _FSFNet_. The Dargon
|
|||
|
|
Project contains stories with a fantasy fiction/sword and sorcery
|
|||
|
|
flavor. _DargonZine_ is available in ASCII format. For a
|
|||
|
|
subscription, please send a request to the editor, Dafydd, at
|
|||
|
|
white@duvm.BITNET. This request should contain your full user ID,
|
|||
|
|
as well as your full name. Internet subscribers will receive their
|
|||
|
|
issues in mail format.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
_THE GUILDSMAN_ is devoted to role-playing games and amateur
|
|||
|
|
fantasy/SF fiction. At this time, the Guildsman is available in
|
|||
|
|
LATEX source and PostScript formats via both email and anonymous
|
|||
|
|
ftp without charge to the reader. For more information, email
|
|||
|
|
jimv@ucrmath.ucr.edu (internet) or ucsd!ucrmath!jimv (uucp).
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
CONTRIBUTE TO INTERTEXT!
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
All of the stories that make up _InterText_ come from people
|
|||
|
|
out in the net, and we aren't able to publish without submissions
|
|||
|
|
from folks like you! Write to Jason Snell
|
|||
|
|
(jsnell@ocf.Berkeley.edu) for writing guidelines, if you want
|
|||
|
|
them. Any genre is fine and length is rarely a concern. We like it
|
|||
|
|
if you haven't posted the story to a network newsgroup, and we
|
|||
|
|
won't allow the use of copyrighted characters (e.g., Star Trek).
|
|||
|
|
Submissions can be in ASCII or, for those with the ability, RTF
|
|||
|
|
(Interchange) format. Macintosh users can send binhexed word
|
|||
|
|
processor files of about any type (Microsoft Word is best,
|
|||
|
|
however).
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
BACK ISSUES OF INTERTEXT AND ATHENE
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The most quickly-updated anonymous FTP sites are:
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
network.ucsd.edu (128.54.16.3) in /intertext
|
|||
|
|
ftp.eff.org (192.88.144.4) in /pub/journals/InterText
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Issues also end up at the following sites eventually:
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
cs.ubc.ca (137.82.8.5) in
|
|||
|
|
/pub/archive/mirror/EFF/journals
|
|||
|
|
wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) in /mirrors2/EFF/journals
|
|||
|
|
nic.switch.ch (130.59.1.40) in /docs/magazine
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
If you can't FTP, mail jsnell@ocf.berkeley.edu for instrustions on
|
|||
|
|
how to "FTP by mail." You may request back issues from us directly,
|
|||
|
|
but we must handle such requests manually: a time-consuming process.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
If you have CompuServe, you can read our ASCII issues in the
|
|||
|
|
Electronic Frontier Foundation Forum, accessible by typing GO EFFSIG.
|
|||
|
|
We're located in the "Zines from the Net" section of the EFFSIG
|
|||
|
|
forum.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
Our next issue is scheduled for March 15, 1993.
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|||
|
|
In the event of a water landing,
|
|||
|
|
use your monkey as a flotation device.
|
|||
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|