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InterText Vol 03 No 06
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InterText Vol. 3, No. 6 / November-December 1993
================================================
Contents
FirstText: I Ought (Not) To Be in Pictures ...... Jason Snell
Short Fiction
Sanford's Calico_.......................... Andrew J. Solberg_
Newtopia_......................................... Aaron Lyon_
Cube_........................................... Patrick Hurh_
Manna_.......................................... D.C. Bradley_
Sooner or Later_.................................. Eric Skjei_
The Burdens of Love_.......................... Chris Kmotorka_
....................................................................
Editor Assistant Editor
Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
jsnell@etext.org gaduncan@halcyon.com
....................................................................
Send subscription requests, story submissions,
and correspondence to intertext@etext.org
....................................................................
InterText Vol. 3, No. 6. InterText (ISSN 1071-7676) is published
electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this
magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold
(either by itself or as part of a collection) and the entire
text of the issue remains intact. Copyright 1993, 1994 Jason
Snell. Individual stories Copyright 1993 by their original
authors.
....................................................................
FirstText: I Ought (Not) To Be in Pictures by Jason Snell
============================================================
So I get this piece of electronic mail the other day from a
friend of mine in Los Angeles, someone I know from back in
college at UC San Diego. The mail essentially said: "I opened my
December issue of _MacUser_ magazine, the one that just came in
the mail, and found a picture of you staring back at me!"
Then I got mail from someone else, this one a person in Illinois
on an electronic mailing list I subscribe and contribute to. The
message was the same. Slowly, the recognition is trickling in.
Yes, that's right. A picture of me is probably sitting, right
now, in most big bookstores around the United States. For anyone
to see. If my picture hadn't been appearing in the PostScript
edition of _InterText_ from the very beginning, I'd be even more
startled.
How did this begin? As I've said in previous _FirstText_
columns, my job this summer was as an intern at a computer
magazine in the Bay Area. That magazine was _MacUser_, and I had
a great time writing and researching stories there. In fact, I'm
still writing freelance stories that will be appearing in future
issues.
Right before I left, two events conspired to bring me -- and
_InterText_ -- to the pages of _MacUser_. First off, I was asked
to write a sidebar about using PostScript to distribute
publications. Then the editors wanted to use a cover from
_InterText_ as an example, which is why the Dec. 1993 issue of
_MacUser_ includes the cover of Vol. 3, No. 3 of _InterText_ on
page 165.
Second, the magazine's managing editor decided to write her
column about the magazine's interns. So before we left, she
interviewed us and arranged to have our pictures taken. As a
result, my image -- in living color, a little different from how
it appears in the black- and-white pages of _InterText_ -- is on
page 8 of that same issue.
The up side of all this is that hopefully our exposure in
_MacUser_ will bring _InterText_ some new readers, which is the
best part of publicity.
The down side? I write _another_ column about free publicity for
_InterText_, something I've done plenty of already. Which brings
my discussion of _MacUser_, my articles for them, and my photo
to a close.
If I could pick _two_ things that I think I've heard too much
about (other than my columns about more exposure for _InterText_
and my photo), they're hypertext and new ways of getting
information on the Internet.
I've heard for far too long about hypertext's amazing uses, and
how it will be a revolutionary concept as technology advances.
And for the most part I was skeptical. At the same time, I've
read a million different articles about the Internet and the
different and neat ways you can get information. First it's the
net itself, then it's transferring files via the FTP protocol.
Then it's using gopher. Then making a search using WAIS. How
about MUDs and IRC? (Parenthetical note on the Thesis Saga: My
thesis is definitely about the addictive possibilities of such
items as MUDs, IRC, Bolo, XTrek and the like. If you've used any
of these a lot, or know someone who has, send me some mail. I'd
like to interview you.) And, of course, the World-Wide Web --
which has the advantage of being both a new method of getting
information _and_ a hypertext-based system.
Well, this past month I finally got direct Internet access,
instead of having to dial up a UNIX system and entering all of
my commands through the command line interface. As a result,
I've finally gotten to explore some of the Internet resources I
really couldn't have explored easily from my limited vantage
point.
The first night I played with the connection, I spent hours
using a program called NCSA Mosaic, which connected me to that
same World- Wide Web. And I must say I was impressed --
instantly there were graphics appearing on my screen, sections
of text I could click on which would take me to whole other
areas of the Internet.
Not too long after, with a little encouragement from Joe
Germuska at Northwestern University, I had turned out a
prototype _InterText_ archive on the World-Wide Web, complete
with an _InterText_ author index with links to the issues of
_InterText_ that appear on gopher.
Not to bore you too much with technology, but the bottom line
here is that the magazine is now accessible to the people who
use Mosaic and other programs to use the World-Wide Web. And as
technology advances, _fully-formatted_ issues of _InterText_ may
also be available on-line. We'll just have to see. No matter
what, this is a whole new way for people to access _InterText_.
If you're able to access the World-Wide Web (ask a system
administrator if you don't know how; the key is that you pretty
much have to have a _direct_ Internet connection), check it out.
In Web parlance, our "home page" is located at
file://network.ucsd.edu/intertext/other_formats/HTML/ITtoc.html.
That's all I have to say for this column, the last I'll write
for 1993. It's hard to believe the time has passed, but as I
said back in January, 1993 was definitely for a limited time
only. And now that time has gone.
Enjoy this issue's stories -- lots of science fiction, but also
a couple stories very much grounded in reality and the present.
They should all be entertaining.
See you in 1994.
Sanford's Calico by Andrew J. Solberg
========================================
...................................................................
* Pet lovers understand that getting a new animal can be a
crapshoot -- you might end up with a great animal, but you might
get a dud. Of course, a dud may not be the worst-case
scenario... *
...................................................................
Sanford and I both work at the local lab; he's a computer jock
and I do research in microelectronics. We rarely cross paths in
the office, but we've remained close since college. For
instance, every Friday we make a point of going to Garvey's Pub
to drink and talk.
It was on one such expedition that we spoke of Sanford's calico.
He had gotten the cat recently, apparently from an animal
shelter in Phoenix. He had paid for the papers and shots out of
his own pocket, and though the cost was only a fraction of that
one might pay in a pet store, it put a serious dent in his
paycheck. Sanford claimed not to mind, however, as the calico
was delightful company and easy to care for.
It was an outdoor cat, according to my friend, and it preferred
stalking about under the hedges of his backyard to loafing on a
sofa all day. Sanford would let it outside in the morning when
he went to work, and when he returned it would be standing by
the door, meowing amiably and ready for a good scratching. The
eternal bachelor, Sanford found this very pleasant.
It seems the calico (Sanford, eccentric as always, refused to
give the beast a name) was something of a hunter. More often
than not, Sanford pulled into the driveway only to find a mouse
or small bird lying dead and bloodied on the front stair --
presumably as a gift for him. Sanford decided that, for all its
barbarism, this little ritual was incredibly cute and he would
reward the purring kitty with a tin of sardines for its trouble.
Did I mention how strange Sanford is? I should have.
At any rate, the calico, being as subject to Pavlovian dynamics
as any other creature, accelerated its campaign against the
local fauna (and occasionally flora) in hopes of receiving its
just piscine desserts every day. This stratagem seemed to work
well -- the cat got its fish, and Sanford got a regular supply
of deceased delicacies on his walk. Sanford found this to be a
scream, and was considering keeping a kind of scrapbook of the
calico's "trophies." He thought nothing of the rapid depredation
of the local wildlife population.
As a kind of afterthought, Sanford mentioned that on the
previous morning the calico had dragged in a mutant mouse. It
looked perfectly normal in every respect, except that its tail
was scaled like a lizard's, and blue.
The following Monday Sanford did not come to work. He was also
not there on Tuesday, and the word came down the pipeline that
he was AWOL. When he didn't show on Wednesday, I decided to
check up on him.
That evening I pulled my rebuilt Catalina into Sanford's drive
and parked it. The house looked like a sepulcher: shades drawn,
no lights, papers piling on the lawn. It looked like Sanford had
just pulled up roots and left. However, if you knew Sanford like
I know Sanford, you would know that Sanford never leaves home
without putting a tailor's mannequin in the window, presumably
to ward off really stupid and myopic burglars. I climbed to the
front door and rang the bell.
I had barely released the button when the door opened a crack. A
moment later it was flung full open, and Sanford was dragging me
inside. "In! Quick!" he hissed, and slammed the door.
Sanford looked terrible. He had huge, dark circles under his
eyes, and the stain on his lips told me he had taken up
chain-smoking again. His T-shirt had mustard stains on it, and
he wasn't wearing anything else. In short, he looked like a body
found in a ditch, and I told him so. He seemed not to hear me.
"Anybody see you? Anybody follow you here?" His eyes glittered
at me in the near-darkness. I shook my head. He looked relieved.
"Jesus. You don't know what I've been through, man..." He looked
like he was going to collapse. I ushered him into his own living
room and made room on a recliner by clearing away a stack of
newspapers. I knew where everything was in his kitchen, so I
fixed him some coffee and a sandwich and tried to make him
comfortable.
He looked a lot better after eating something. I pushed some
comic books off the sofa and sat down to watch him. He took a
long pull at the coffee and sat back heavily into the
comfortable chair. "Sheez..." he breathed, closing his eyes.
At that moment there came a noise at the back door. It was a
grating sound, of something rough being dragged across something
metal. Claws on the screen door -- oh! The calico. "Shall I let
it in?" I asked, rising from my seat. I stopped when I saw the
look of horror on Sanford's face.
"No! Don't! The cat... who _knows_ what it's gotten into? It's
not safe, man! Don't let it in!" It poured out in a rush of
panic. I got him some more coffee and tried to calm him down.
When he seemed a bit less jumpy, I asked him to tell me what
this was all about. He looked at me with the unwilling stare of
a man forced to relive his worst nightmare.
"They're in the freezer."
There were three things in the freezer. One was a pound of
ground chuck roast that had been there long enough to be harder
than a brick. The other two were not hamburgers. They were
sealed in zip- lock baggies.
The first contained a bird. It was the size and shape of a
sparrow, but its feathers were all colors of the rainbow. Its
beak was curved slightly like a finch's, and it had eight talons
on each claw. Its tongue, protruding slightly, would have been
six inches long if extended fully. It was clearly not a local
bird.
The remaining specimen was beyond "not local." It was not
terrestrial.
It was the size of a large rat. It looked something like a wolf
spider, but stretched to the length of a shoe. It had thick
tannish bristles with spots, like a leopard's. At the end of its
body was a vicious-looking stinger. Its grasping palps were
tipped with what can only be described as three fingers and an
opposing thumb.
Both creatures were severely mauled. There was no question that
the calico, fearless feline hunter, had been on one hell of a
safari.
"Where'd they come from? What are they?" Sanford wanted to know.
I couldn't help him. But the calico could.
"Oh, no," said Sanford, backing up. "I'm not letting that cat
back in here."
The cat chewed noisily on its Tender Vittles. Sanford looked
strung out as an addict, and he sucked on his cigarettes like
they were full of gold dust. We watched the cat eat, and waited.
Eventually the calico finished, burped, and curled up on the
carpet to sleep as if nothing had happened.
Sanford and I exchanged glances.
We watched the cat all through the night.
The next morning Sanford gingerly fed the cat some sardines. It
mewed happily as the can opener ran, and gobbled the fish down
as soon as they were under its nose. Then we let it out into the
yard.
It seemed to have a standard routine of yard traversal: it would
sniff every plant and pebble in turn, as if conducting an
inventory. Then it would hunker down in the shade under the
bushes and lie in wait for prey. There in the shadows, it looked
like a little tiger. We watched it carefully from the bathroom
window with a pair of binoculars.
Over the next few hours, the calico made several attempts to bag
a cardinal which was trying to hunt up grubs on the ground. The
cat would dash out from cover, a blur of color, but the cardinal
would swoop out of danger just in time. The hunter would then
pretend indifference, and would saunter casually back to its
hiding place, as if preparing for a lazy afternoon nap. Fifteen
minutes later, it would try again, with similarly poor results.
Around 12:30 the calico slipped through surveillance.
"Where'd it go?" Sanford asked. I took the glasses, but the cat
was not in the yard. I berated him for letting it get away
without seeing which fence it had jumped, but he insisted that
it has simply disappeared. Naturally, I didn't believe him.
"Alright then, Mr. Know-It-Fucking-All," he blustered. "_You_
track the little bastard tomorrow." That gave me an idea.
That evening the calico left a gift on the stairs.
Owls don't have fangs, do they?
The next day saw a repeat of the previous ritual, with one
exception. The technology level of calico-tracking had advanced
a century or so.
We had fitted a small signal emitter, courtesy of the lab and
its generous after-hours policy, to the cat's collar. We had
also borrowed an oscilloscope, a receiver, an amplifier, a
multiband gain unit, several i/o boards, and the most advanced
terminal from my division. Sanford's bathroom looked like
Arecibo, and we could have heard a spider piss if it didn't put
the seat up. Ah, modern science.
The cat went through its standard motions of local hunting, the
results matching well with the previous day's foray. It bumbled
around the yard until almost three in the afternoon before
vanishing.
We peered at the screen. One second ago, the cat had been
licking its paws in the middle of the lawn. The next moment it
was simply not there. The computer confirmed what we thought we
had hallucinated: the cat had made an instantaneous translation
out of the range of our equipment.
Well, not quite instantaneous. A rigorous analysis of the
shifting of the signal wavelengths showed that, at the moment of
transmission loss, the calico had been receding at a rate just
under the speed of light.
The calico did not return that day. However, Sanford and I were
awakened just after midnight by the familiar scraping at the
door screen, and we admitted the wayward cat. It bore with it a
small creature, something like a cross between a parakeet and an
opossum. It was thoroughly mauled, and quite dead. Further
investigation showed that its left ear was pierced with a ring.
The ring held a series of round metallic tags with bizarre
spidery markings.
It took two pots of coffee to calm Sanford down.
Sanford got rid of the cat. I don't know how, or where it wound
up, and I'm sure I don't want to know. Science is good for lots
of things, but there are some mysteries that don't bear looking
into.
I live in Melbourne now, designing printed circuit boards. It's
kind of dreary work, but it's a long way away from Arizona.
I figure when the aliens come to find the predator that has been
hauling off their pets, this is the _last_ place they'll look.
Andrew J. Solberg (caz@owlnet.rice.edu)
------------------------------------------
Andrew J. Solberg is a construction contractor in Houston,
Texas, The Land That Culture Forgot. He got hooked on electronic
media in college but stubbornly refused to drop it for more
adult pursuits such as bowling or grumbling. He enjoys writing
as well as playing bridge, listening to live music, and tromping
around the United States. One day he hopes to revert to a life
of violence and savagery.
Newtopia by Aaron Lyon
=========================
...................................................................
* The dirty, dystopian future of cyberpunk writers is so popular
now. But if the future ends up looking more like
_Leave it to Beaver_ than _Neuromancer_, should we consider
ourselves lucky or cursed? *
...................................................................
"Next!"
Jeez. Finally. As I enter the white room alone, three short,
uniformed men display practiced grins, gleaming straight teeth
framed by dark, oily skin. My luggage has preceded me, and lies
apparently unopened on the plastic table -- the only furniture.
Two video cameras glare ostentatiously from the eaves like Poe's
ravens.
"Anything to declare?" One agent opens my suitcase and deftly
upends the contents on the table. The next employs a metal
detector like a kitchen tool, stirring my egg white socks and
flipping my sausages. A similar metal detector was needed to
eliminate the threat of the brass rivets on my 501's when I
wasn't able to pass the walk- thru test a second time.
"Are you taking any prescription medications?" Another agent
devours my overnight bag, snorting my talc, drinking my shampoo,
chewing my aspirin, and gnawing my hairbrush. Finally, sniffing
my Speed Stick and giving my shaving cream Indian rug burn in an
attempt to unscrew either end, he turns his attention to his
clipboard.
"Please turn your pockets inside out." The third agent seems
especially interested in my pens, taking them apart and flexing
the springs suspiciously. I find nothing at all in my pockets,
having already emptied them before the metal detector and EPD
scan, and having vacuumed them carefully before this trip.
EPD (Emotional Photograph Detectography) is an emerging science
wherein a selection of emotional elementals, the basic
components of all emotions, are measured. Some of the more
elusive emotional components exist for mere nanoseconds, and can
only be detected using EPD. The resulting measurements are then
interpreted as a concrete report of the subject's psychic
personality. For example, violent criminals should show
exaggerated hatred and pain elementals, while the ideal, bovine
citizen displays a healthy mix of happiness, sadness, and fear.
The EPD scan had encouraged me with its accurate reading of my
normally cool emotional complexion. EPD, despised in the West
but employed in Newtopia, leaves much to be desired in a psychic
evaluator for one simple reason: criminals are commonly more
together than straight folk. But I had needed the recommendation
-- my long hair is a serious warning sign to these people. This
fact is duly noted on several pages of my passport in large red
letters: "S.H.I.T." (Suspected Hippie In Transit.)
Notice the way my hands shake when I tell you this. A typically
heavy storm thrashes the hotel windows rhythmically with its
wrinkled fingers. I'm on the 60th floor of this 72-floor steel
and glass monster, slowly getting sick from the motion -- the
hotel is a giant pine branch stuck in the old tar of a derelict
rolling gas station. My makeshift pendulum, a pencil suspended
from the lamp by a complimentary piece of thread, nervously
etches a widening oval on hotel stationery. Huge, horizontal
claws of lightening, no longer shy to be seen by my bloodshot
eyes, scratch the paint off my retinas, leaving the white of
true power etched into my vision.
I'm jet-lag wired. My watch delivers its one-liner with a
straight face, "Sixteen thirty-three."
"Stop, you're killin' me!" I chuckle rhythmically, like a
woodpecker finding lunch. My gaze turns to the bathroom and I
stop giggling abruptly.
A flash of lightening lasts mere nanoseconds, but this one turns
from white to yellow as it lights up the shower curtain like a
Las Vegas night. I whip around, jaw snapping into place a bit
late, and gape. I've seen plenty of esses blow in the past, but
this one flares into a screaming white magnesium celebration of
the universe and my small brain. Hallelujah! The red neon tubes
explode, exhaling their precious cargo like an ejaculation. Tiny
bits of burning sign dive off toward the street below in a
shower of sparks like space flotsam entering the atmosphere. The
skin on my chest tingles with electricity.
The storm is eerily over and the building rests, perhaps
sleeping, exhausted from its dance in the primal rain.
"Sixteen thirty-two?" I check my watch again. Then my stomach
checks in with me, hunger overpowering my nausea. I find the
thought of a food-finding mission risky, but room service is
downright inhospitable.
" 'Adventure' is my middle name," I say as I grab my card key
and sunglasses.
Outside the hotel, the hot, thick air presses against my face
like a wet blanket. The jungle doesn't stop at the city limits
like a timid forest creature, but spills out of cement troughs
throughout the city. Youths on motor scooters choke the streets,
buzzing from mall to mall with their T-shirts on backward.
Police adorn every corner, shouting nonsense over cellular
phones, 9mm handguns and black batons painfully visible. Three
million people slap the sidewalk with floppy sandals -- a
percussive symphony in the heavy air.
A stocky blond man emerges backwards from a doorway in an office
building. His soiled cotton slacks and sweat-stained shirt
distinguish him from the throng as much as his fair complexion
and relative stature. The stubble on this rube's cheeks is days
old. An irate woman, a madam with white pancake and rouge,
follows him out onto the sidewalk, ranting incoherently. A tan
micro-van screeches to a halt in the middle of the street,
pig-tail radio antennae wagging, halting traffic in both
directions. The front and back doors pop open and steady streams
of small, uniformed men pour impossibly from the tiny vehicle,
like circus clowns. A captain, adorned with gold buttons and
megaphone, becomes ringmaster of this grotesque circus, as the
acrobatic constables perform fearless feats of brutality,
quickly subduing the golden-maned lion. More cops rush
needlessly to the scene from adjacent corners, knuckles white on
their batons.
"Bad foreigner! Get in van!" shouts the ringmaster. "Everything
OK now. Nothing to look at. Everybody scram!"
"Baby crocodile crawled out of the sewer yesterday, damned if it
didn't bite my landlady!" says a nonplussed pedestrian,
continuing his broken stride.
"Don't say. Good things come in small packages. Remember that
guy with 93 outstanding parking tickets? Just got nipped for 36
grand and three visits!"
"Ouch, ouch!"
"Smile when you say that."
Newtopia employs corporal punishment to achieve its rigid social
order. Miscreants and nogoodniks are dealt with swiftly and
effectively according to a graduated scale of evil-doing.
Jaywalking, spitting, and littering bring a quick five hundred
dollar fine, as does the use of a public toilet without flushing
afterwards. More serious crimes are punished by fining and
beating the guilty individual. Tampering with a telephone on the
subway, peeing in an elevator, and bad-mouthing a police officer
all result in a fine and a beating. Counterfeiting results in a
$10,000 fine and five beatings.
A beating is an organized affair, in which an appointment is
made for the sentenced offender to appear at an office, rather
like a visit to the dentist. Appointments are rarely missed, due
to the ten- fold nature of escalating punishments. Paperwork is
required to officiate the event, "Please sign here and here in
triplicate...and here..." Awaiting the soon-to-be-reformed
criminal are two police officers and a government doctor in an
examination room, completely bare of furniture except for a
small stainless steel table on which sits a clipboard and a
medical bag. The penitent citizen is checked for sobriety,
directed to strip down to his/her underwear, and advised to
assume a stance of attention in the center of the room.
The two officers proceed to administer the beating, which I will
describe sparingly, using no scathing adjectives or graphic
similies.
Using weathered bamboo canes three feet long, both officers
brutally deliver slicing blows from far overhead, like
lumberjacks chopping wood. The hapless recipient generally falls
quickly to the linoleum floor, but the beating continues
relentlessly. The two officers trade blows like Chinese slaves
building an American railroad. Each blow raises a discoloring
welt or breaks the skin, and crimson tears flow from the shallow
wounds. The antidoctor, assigned to prevent death from excessive
abuse, determines the merciful end of the beating when the
victim is suitably reprimanded. After a few minutes, most
citizens walk out under their own power.
If the criminal has been sentenced to more than one beating, an
interval of time is prescribed between beatings for the wounds
to heal. Some persons convicted of multiple crimes are suffered
to endure the lesser punishments, i.e. beatings, before the
ultimate penalty, namely, hanging to death. Smugglers, pushers,
and users are all sentenced to death, as are all perpetrators of
violent crimes. Participants in shootouts with police are never
tried -- anyone stupid enough to point a gun at a cop is
immediately shot to death.
Allow me to state the obvious: cops in Newtopia engender no
small amount of respect. All males are required to serve a
two-year term in the service of their country when they are 18.
It's no wonder most elect to become police officers. What comes
around, goes around.
Subversive behavior is not tolerated. Dissenting opinion and
left- wing blasphemy are not tolerated. Anyone caught voicing
such revolutionary rhetoric disappears. "The Government is
all-powerful, my son, and Thou Shalt Not Mess Wid It."
All news of any kind, that is, newspapers and TV news, is
carefully censored by the state. Editorials do not exist.
Late-night TV stations run the following spots: A figure in
silhouette is shown standing, noose around neck. Next to the
figure is displayed a name and a crime. Trapdoor opens, figure
falls against taut rope, struggles for a moment, then swings
silently.
McDonald's sprouts everywhere like a shit-eating fungus. The
thought of a Big Mac turns my guts, but the food park in the
broad alley attracts me like a dump attracts seagulls -- a
pungent smell on the air miles away. Ramshackle shops offer
steamed rice, noodles, and a variety of animal parts. The flat
eyes of whole, dead fish flick towards me in my peripheral
vision, but stay put when I stare at them. I order noodles and
fish by pointing and begin to eat.
The sounds of commerce break apart like someone singing through
the blades of a moving fan. Thin yellow and orange spots
blinking little neon lamps. Throbbing stroboscopic flash scene.
My camera works at twelve frames per second. Now, only four
frames every second. Step forward. Flash. Fumble bowl. Flash.
Bowl crashes to street, chopsticks chasing madly after. Flash.
Next step forward lands on noodles. Flash. I'm somehow happy to
be earthward bound as my feet then my legs become egg noodle.
Three Russians with five cars full of TVs, radios, VCRs, furs,
blank tapes, and pornography search docks for a homeward-bound
ferry for hire.
I wake up in a hotel room with a bad hangover and a pulsing ache
in my side. I discover a wound there carefully sewn with black
thread -- twenty-three stitches. Here's the routine: hooker
snares white- faced John dupe, fucks him in prearranged hotel
room. Antidoctor joins femme fatale after John gets all squashed
on dope from doctored booze. Antidoc, he remove excess baggage
from Johnny's inventory. Kidney and pancreas sell well on black
market. Antidoc, he patch John Boy up nice: "Get yer hands offa
me! I'm a wholesaler, not a murderer!"
A smooth, circular pool set in the center of the room stirs
restlessly under my gaze. Glass water on top protects gossamer
cloud below. Iridescent cream color cloud swirls when disturbed,
flipping clear opals flashing green orange red blue sparks.
Swells and ripples of opal chips cascade away from droplets of
sweat falling off my nose.
The opals fall crystalline, tinkling, echoing. More sounds come
from every corner. My mother calls my name clearly. A trumpet
plays a raceway overture. Bells and whistles are interrupted by
a radio news report. "Thirty-one degrees at twenty-three twenty.
Humidity a low 97. Rainfall totals two-point-seven
centimeters..." All these sounds from my memory coming clearly,
yet projected on an auditory movie screen. I summon more sounds
by name -- earthen blocks thudding together, rusty old roller
skate wheels spinning, clips from a million unrecorded
symphonies composed in my head. Each sound is as clear and
unprocessed as spring water, and on tap for instant playback in
this auditory theater.
"I'll be damned if it doesn't look like a free-flowing parking
garage," Zan confides.
Allow me to describe this amazing structure. Each level
undulates like a sine wave, exactly one cycle from east to west
extremes of the building. A second wave, exactly out of phase
with the other, sits adjacent to the first, so that the two
waves share a common point exactly in the center of the entire
structure. By traversing from one wave to the next via one of
the aforementioned nodes, the intrepid parking garage spelunker
can achieve the uppermost bounds of this Sinusoidal Time Antenna
(STA).
Each wave segment is frozen in time -- anchored in the stream,
if you will. Time is frozen, and we move freely through it. An
artificial light source provides the illumination here. Photons
cannot travel in the STA, so imaginary light is used. Each
quadrant of each wave bears an identifying scheme of colors,
applied to the white enamel supports. You cannot get lost; out
is always down, and up is always out.
We arrive at the focus of the STA on the top level. The red and
green markers on the top floor create turbulence at the antinode
where we stand. We are looking for the boat with a hand-held EPD
scanner. Newtopia stretches out before us, playing at
three-quarter speed.
"I think I've got it pegged in this frame, but it's bein'
bitchy," glowers Mike, his eyes searching the harbor below,
ninety berths wide.
"Play it again, and I'll watch the right half."
The night colors bleed into each other as Mike subtly shifts his
weight and posture. Then the waterfront resolves itself and
resumes three-quarter action.
"I think... by the Hilton," I say, holding the scanner at arm's
length. A pale, blue-white globe winks furtively from the
river's shore -- it could be the moonlight. No, it's growing
brighter as the scanner pulls it in.
"Aahhh yyyesssss," soothes Mike, exing his map, "Mister Tung."
We exit the parking garage on foot, as we entered, at two twenty
in the morning, Newtime.
The docks are cool and quiet. My sweat evaporates in the breeze,
leaving my skin sticky. We stand staring at the fishing boat in
berth 32. The rickety vessel bobs gently, partially revealing a
magic word just under the waterline, written in green slime. A
weathered brown hand pulls the cabin's curtain aside
soundlessly, fingernails yellow and cracked at the edges. Long
white threads grow erratically from Mr. Tung's chin. A small
blue bow tidies the braided whiskers. The rest of the man's body
and face, save the unmistakably Asian eyes, is that of a swarthy
forty-year-old, utterly covered in tattoos. A fat drop of rain
glances off my cheek, startling me. Mr. Tung disappears and we
step aboard.
"They suggested I direct my question to you."
Inside the tiny cabin, the walls are unexpectedly bare. A bunk
and a wooden desk are lit by a small incandescent bulb in the
ceiling. Mike nearly crawls in after me, and sits on the bed
rather than standing with his neck crooked. Mr. Tung sits on a
crate at the desk and motions, "Sit on the bed," clearly. My
eyes follow his pictorial arm as it swings by, leaving a trail
of runes like an Egyptian cartouche. Rain drums on the roof
rhythmically.
Tung addresses his desk, "Everyone gets to ask a question.
Everyone gets to ask one question. You have never asked a
question."
"No..." I blither uselessly.
"Ask."
"I... I don't know the words."
"Ahhhh," Tung's eyes swing to mine. "You do have a question!"
"I... don't..."
"You don't have to tell me any words." His face calms.
"I don't?"
Tung just stares at me. My brain goes nowhere, stupidly echoing,
"I don't?" over and over. The air in the room begins to vibrate
with the rain drops hitting the ceiling like a thousand tiny
cops beating winos.
"Okay, then try to tell me your question in words," Tung says,
shifting in his seat so his knees point at mine.
"There's-- something --" Something making it hard for me to
think -- a horrible buzzing vibration in the air. Acid electric
taste of ground aluminum in the back of my head. Pale blue-white
light sucks the red from the walls, leaving a thin black-light
sheen. Mike is asleep on the bunk behind me. The boat begins to
pitch on the rising ocean water.
"Don't fear! Tell me!" Tung grabs my shoulders. I can see his
bright eyes peering through an increasingly opaque neon cloud
around me. The rocking cabin makes me queasy, and I want to go
to sleep.
Tung notices my fluttering eyes and shakes me. "Don't sleep. Pay
attention."
The storm drones loudly, evenly, monotonously. The room
continues fading, except for Tung's clear eyes, like the
Cheshire Cat. These eyes, animated with concern, appear warm
against an increasingly freezing background.
"You see!" Tung shakes me gently. "Tell me!"
"There's-- Your eyes-- "
"Yes!"
"They're-- " The room swims. I grip the edge of the bunk for
dear life. I must focus! His eyes are--
"Red!" I shout.
"Yessssssssss," Tung hisses, spinning around and jerking open
his desk drawer. His hand plunges in and removes two cylindrical
sticks and a black glass bottle. Turning back to face me, he
notices my pale, sweaty skin. "Quick, remove your shirt!"
The effort pushes me over the edge, and as I fumble with my
shirt I wretch convulsively, hitting my forehead on the
wastebasket Tung holds in front of me. The room is again lit by
the weak ceiling bulb.
"Lie down now." Tung helps me straighten out on my back next to
Mike, his usually awesome snoring dwarfed by the storm, and my
nausea passes.
"You now know the answer to your question. I will write it for
you. You must never forget. Hold this."
Tung places the black bottle in my hand and dips the pointed end
of one stick into the ink. Placing the heel of his hand on my
chest over my heart, he holds the stick poised, dripping indigo.
My eyes widen, and I imagine him tacking me to the bed like a
vampire.
Instead, he taps the sharpened stick sharply with the other,
pricking my chest with the point. A brilliant flash of
blue-white lightening blinds me momentarily. Thunder cracks
clearly like a series of two-by-fours. Now I get the point. He's
tattooing me! Small beads of crimson blood rise through the
black ink, warm and red like the deepest sunset.
"Red!" Tung sings, and he is finished.
We are ushered out to the dock so fast I hardly remember moving.
My shirt in my hand, I can see the rune on my chest, wet and
shining black in the moonlight.
Tung stands in the doorway of the cabin, as if waiting for me to
meet his eyes. "_Aka_. It means 'red' in Japanese," he says,
disappearing into the cabin.
"You got the answer?" asks Mike, still groggy and blinking.
"I'm sure I did," I say. "But I'm not sure I understand it
completely."
Aaron Lyon (alyon@netcom.com)
--------------------------------
Aaron Lyon is a 26-year-old graphic designer who will finish his
B.A. in art from San Jose State University this December. Aaron
is dangerously addicted to music, and is a guitarist, vocalist,
writer, husband and father-to-be. He would like to thank all
those whose experiences he has abused, and acknowledge William
H. Burroughs for his influence. _Newtopia_ is an excerpt from
_Two Tone Tangle_, a fictional autobiography based on the life
of painter Hieronymus Bosch. While many passages contain real
names and events, it does not purport to be factual.
Cube by Patrick Hurh
=======================
...................................................................
* Software makes a poor surrogate parent. And a sibling who buys
that software? Almost as bad. *
...................................................................
By the time they got back to the apartment block it was dark.
Horza slouched against the wall of the elevator while Dorcas ran
his tape through the slit of the control panel. With an audible
click, a button halfway up the panel lit up. The number on its
surface was unreadable. The elevator car jerked upwards and
began its ascent.
Dorcas turned and looked at his brother. Horza's haggard face
was pointed at the floor, his eyes glazed over. His hands went
through the pockets of his oversize trench coat and paused as
his right hand dipped into the left waistpocket. It reappeared
with a long, thin blank piece of paper. Horza stretched it out
in front of him, looking at the entire length.
"Damn."
"There's something left on the other side..." Dorcas didn't
finish as Horza flipped the paper over with a snap and located a
single blue derm. He peeled it off, looked at Dorcas and made an
offering gesture to his younger brother.
"No thanks, man."
Horza carefully rubbed the decal along his jugular.
"You know, you should have taken that before the funeral. Maybe
you would have stayed awake."
"I was stricken with grief," Horza intoned without emotion.
"Well, I wasn't. Still ain't stricken either."
As if on cue, the elevator gave an unusual sigh and rumbled into
silence.
"What the fuck?" Horza growled. His eyes were wide and his face
flushed; the derm was taking effect.
"Elevator stopped," Dorcas answered.
"No shit, bro. Run your tape through again."
The fluorolamps overhead flickered and then faded to about a
quarter of their earlier brightness. Dorcas looked at Horza. "It
won't work without any power."
"Just try it."
"_You_ try it!" Dorcas flung his card at Horza.
Horza groped in the dim lighting. He found the card and swiped
it through the reader.
Nothing.
He tried again with the same effect.
"Give it back, Horza. It's just a brownout. Be thankful we're
not at the bottom of the shaft by now."
Horza tried the tape twice more and then lifted the card to
inspect it more closely. "This thing's all beat up, man -- you
gotta take care of your shit, Dor. It's like you don't care
where you live no more."
"My card ain't the problem. There's a power brown and the lift
won't move 'til there's juice to lift it."
"Well, what are we supposed to do, just sit here?" Horza tried
the card again. Nothing.
"Give me my tape back."
"Maybe I should hang on to it 'til you learn some more
responsibility. Or maybe I'll set a curfew lock on it, now that
I'm your guardian."
"Yeah? And who'd show you how to run the fuckin' credit tape, or
the automatons, or your fuckin' g-friend's chastity belt?"
"Or the fuckin' elevator!" Horza bellowed and held the card out
to Dorcas -- and snatched it back as Dorcas reached for it. He
held it, taunting, two feet over Dor's head.
Dorcas rolled his eyes. "I'm tellin' ya, my tape had nothing to
do with this shit!" He jumped for the card and, in the process,
jammed the top of his head into Horza's nose. Horza groaned and
fell to the floor, still clutching the tape card in his upraised
hand.
Dorcas rubbed the top of his head and lunged again for the tape.
He reached Horza's lifted wrist and grabbed it as Horza
scrambled backward, pushing with his legs. Dor crawled on top of
Horza and twisted the card away. He stuffed it in his pants
pocket and backed off to the other side of the elevator.
Suddenly Horza leapt to his feet and charged. Dorcas yelped and
defensively surrounded his face with his arms, elbows pointed at
his older brother.
No blow came. Instead, Dorcas heard Horza kick the elevator
doors. Once hard, then again more softly.
"Fuckin' thing."
Dorcas lowered himself to sit on the floor, knees raised before
him, and stared at the opposite wall. Horza continued to tap his
foot against the sealed doors and dab at his nose with the
sleeve from his overcoat.
Silence attempted to fill the confined space, thwarted only by
Horza's sporadic pacing. Only a few minutes had passed, yet
Horza acted as if he'd been preparing to say something for a
couple of hours.
"You know the small inheritance we got now?"
"Yeah."
"I spent it on the funeral."
Silence filled the elevator again.
"What do you mean you spent it on the funeral?" Dorcas had
thought that the cremation was part of the insurance settlement.
"It's not like we came away with anything from all this." The
thing that had kept him going throughout the day was knowing he
could spend his share of the money on a cheap deck... maybe
start doing something he liked for a change.
Horza read the disappointment in his brother's voice. He
nervously fingered a lighter in his pocket and struggled with
his next sentence. "I... I'm sorry about Mom and I know you had
plans for the money. So did I. But I wanted to do what was
right. The man in the parlor said it would be like still having
Mom around. And I didn't know what... what I could do. I don't
know how to be a guardian. Your guardian." Horza anxiously
pulled a cubic package from the folds of his coat.
Dorcas looked at it and then at Horza's face. He couldn't see
his eyes in the dim elevator light. "Horza, you didn't... a ROM
cube? Come on, that costs a fortune. Can't you take it back?"
"Dor, this is what's best for us, man. I don't know how to be a
mother. I can't be a mother. I got my whole life ahead of me.
I've... spoken to it, I mean her, and it's totally like she's
right there! Take a look at it at least. You're too young to
have a mother like me." As if in emphasis, Horza tossed the cube
in Dorcas's lap and turned to hit the door again, this time with
open palms.
Dorcas looked at the wrapped cube. He saw the elevator's dim
fluorolamps reflected in the shrink-wrap. Along one of the
square, five-inch-long sides was printed Mom's name with a poem
below it in smaller lettering. Dorcas couldn't read the poem in
the light.
He looked at Horza, who now seemed more interested in another
scrap of paper he had fished from his pockets. He looked back
down at the cube. He hadn't even touched it yet, but it seemed
foreign in his lap and he could feel the coldness of it through
his jeans. Horza may not feel like a mother, Dorcas thought, but
he sure was a mother fucker. This thing in his lap cost not only
his inheritance but probably half their rent for the next five
years. Because of this thing in his lap, he'd have to find a job
because Horza sure as hell won't.
Dorcas held up the cube with both hands and tried to read the
poem. Only it wasn't a poem. More like instructions, English
instructions, badly translated from Japanese. He scraped at the
shrink wrapping with his middle finger until a nick in his
fingernail scratched it open. The plastic unraveled. He flipped
the cube over, staring at its blank surfaces. In the dimness,
Dorcas could just make out the glimmer of a display beneath the
glossy sides.
"The switch is hidden on the bottom," Horza said.
"Yeah, I see it." Dorcas jumped at Horza's words and felt
embarrassed to realize that Horza, although trying to appear
uninterested, was watching Dorcas fumble with the cube.
Horza turned back to the elevator control console and began to
inspect the useless buttons. He traced his fingers around them
and was genuinely surprised when they depressed with his touch.
He never knew that they were actually buttons. He began to push
all the buttons rapidly. "Damn fucking thing."
Dorcas did his best to ignore Horza as the cube turned on. All
six of its sides came to life with a quick flash followed by a
lasting greenish glow that emanated from the six surfaces. He
turned his back on the rest of the elevator and leaned against
one wall, facing into a corner. His short legs were doubled up
with his toes pressed up against the floor molding.
He flipped the cube so one side was facing up at his eyes. His
mother, with a blank stare on her face, peered back at him. Her
brown hair hung in lanky rivulets from the top of her head.
Wrinkles surrounded her smile as she seemed to recognize him.
"Dorcas! It's about time someone picked up the phone. I've been
sitting in this room forever."
Dorcas flipped the cube so another side faced him. This time his
mother looked up at him with a younger face. Scorn was evidenced
by her frown and furrowed brow.
"Dorcas... You stay here and talk to me before I page your
father at work. If you run off again I'll -- "
He flipped the cube again. This time he saw a young woman with
her hair bobbed short and a silver-polychromatic film blouse
peeking up from the bottom edge of the cube.
"Son? Is that you?"
Dorcas frowned and looked up at Horza, who still seemed
entranced with the spent piece of derm paper. "Yeah, Mom. It's
me."
"You look so old..."
"Well you shoulda seen yourself today, Ma. You didn't look so
hot in that jar."
"Jar?"
Dorcas flipped the cube again and saw his mother as he had last
seen her, eyes sunken and surrounded by bright blue eyeliner,
skin baked into an orange glow. He stared at the image. She
didn't stare back. Her eyes seemed glazed over and focused on
something beyond the screen of the cube.
"Mom?" Dorcas said softly. He looked up at Horza. He was pushing
buttons again.
"Mom?! Can't you hear me?"
Recognition wandered its way across his mother's face. "Dor? Is
that you? What are you doing in my simstim? I thought you were
at school today."
"Mom, I went to your funeral today. It was kinda rainy out and
the pastor said we'd all be better off underground."
"What? I can't hear you! Listen, can you come back in a few
minutes? We'll talk then. We'll have a good talk."
"Mom, you lost it, didn't you?"
"I'll talk to you later, son. This is important."
"You lost your _life._"
Dorcas flipped back to the first face he had seen. He had about
three seconds before it became animated. He looked at the
sadness ingrained in the face floating in the cube and realized
that some of the lines he saw there he had helped place and
still others he had erased.
"Dor? Stay here a minute. I'm kind of confused. Did the simstim
just end? I thought I was in the middle of... Something must
have gone wrong. Why are you calling me from school?" The
puzzled look on her face stirred guilt in Dorcas, rooted in his
self-indulgent thoughts at the funeral.
"Dorcas? Are you in trouble again? Look, I know it's not your
favorite school, but it really is for the best. We can't afford
to send you to the public school. At least this way you can
please your father by paying for school as you go. And you're
learning good responsibility too. Just think what your father
would say if he caught you in your brother's footsteps. He's got
enough problems with the Feds as it is. Anyway I'll be home in a
few hours and we can do a networked simstim together, if you're
up for it. Your teacher said that the new Alamo series was
pretty good. I'll let you be Davy Crockett. What do you say?"
"Sounds great, Mom." Dorcas flipped the cube again.
Her face filled the side of the cube. The edges could hardly
contain the smile she grinned at him.
"Kimopolous, Dorcas," she beamed.
"Mom?"
"Yes, sort of." His mother's face pulled away from the screen.
Dorcas saw bright orange skin, without a trace of an errant open
pore, recede from his magnified gaze. The face was surrounded by
curly, shiny dark hair and accented with sharply angled red
lipstick. The eyes shining at him blinked in slow motion as the
glare from the cube flickered and her silver blouse rose into
view. "Although I don't have the memory access that is stored in
the other cube faces, I do operate on the same simplistic neural
network that was modeled after the sample from your mother's
last simstim log. And although I don't have access to most of
her memories, this cube face... Me, I have a lot of room for
memory storage. I will be the one who, over the coming years of
comfort and enjoyment, will be able to interact with you on a
moment to moment basis. At least that's what the brochure says."
"You mean you'll be my mother?" Dorcas looked over at Horza
slumped against the opposite wall. He looked like he was asleep,
but Dorcas couldn't be sure. The small scrap of derm he had
applied probably wasn't enough to keep him riding high for more
than a few minutes.
"I'll be more of a mother than he will," replied the cube.
Dorcas looked back at the thing in his hands. The animated face
was straining to look beyond the edge of its box. She turned her
gaze back to Dorcas.
"Is that your brother?" The cube clicked for a moment. "Horza?"
"Yeah, that's him. Don't you even know what he looks like?"
"I told you my memories of your mother's past are minimal. I'm
basically the amalgam of your mother's neural pathways."
"My mother never used words like that."
"Well, maybe there's an improvement."
Dorcas fingered the edges of the cube. The thing didn't really
act like his mom. He tried to think of something to piss it off.
"What's on your mind, Dorcas?"
"Fuck you, you fuckin' machine."
The screen flickered quickly.
"Ooh boy, that really hurts me, dumb fuck." The computer
generated image widened her eyes and pursed her lips in mock
surprise then flicked back to its earlier appearance. "Listen
Dorcas, I may not know much about you or our life together
before, but I do think like your mom. And right now you're
getting on my tits. Why don't you try and care about something?
Doesn't it matter that I'm dead?"
"What matters is that you -- this clicking box in my lap -- took
away the only damn thing I could have enjoyed from my Mom dyin'!
And, yeah you're dead, but you never were alive!"
"Well pardon me for being an expensive fuckin' machine! I've got
feelings too. It takes a hard personality to deal with the likes
of you... son."
"I don't need to be dealt with!"
"Well, what do you need?"
Dorcas stared at the cube. "Not what you've got."
"Now you listen here, young man," the face retorted. "I've got
more going for me than you think. If you think I'm going to take
that kind of back talk from you, I'll..."
"You'll what, Mom?" It rolled off Dor's tongue with a smile.
"Scream at me 'til your batteries run out?"
Dorcas flipped the cube quickly before she could respond.
Dorcas rotated the cube until he found the youngest face, the
face that he recognized as his mother but didn't remember from
his past. Before the face became animated he studied its bright
cheerful glow. His mother looked about twenty-five or younger,
and very excited.
"Dorcas? Is that you?" Her surprise at seeing him seemed as
genuine as before. "You look so old."
"Yeah, its me."
"This is so cool. How old are you? Thirteen? Fourteen?"
"Twelve."
"Wow, you look even older than that."
"Thanks, I guess." Dorcas tried to think of something to say.
"Uhh... how old am I where, uh, you are?"
His young mother seemed preoccupied with looking at him. Her
gaze was so excited and intense it made Dorcas nervous. She
blinked and piped up suddenly, "Hey, do you have a girlfriend
yet?" She gave him a sly smile. "I bet you do."
"Mom," Dorcas pronounced the word as two whiny syllables. "Where
are you? Where am I in that thing?" He gestured into the screen.
"Isn't it great?" His mother turned to motion at the space
behind her. "All this stuff... and it really isn't real!" Dorcas
couldn't see anything but a white haze where she was gesturing.
She continued talking excitedly, "Uncle George gave me one of
those simstim upgrades for my birthday! Now I don't have to just
sit there and watch, I can interact 'cause they got my brain
code or something in the stim machine! Isn't it so cool?"
"It's okay, Mom. But you use the thing a lot."
"What? No, I just got this stuff. It just came today. Uncle
George says you're just a construct of what you'd look like in a
few years. Wow! Twelve years old, huh?"
"Mom..." She didn't hear him because she had turned and seemed
to be talking to someone else. Should he tell her that she that
was the construct?
"Mom?" Now she was twirling around in the white mist, her silver
pantaloons whipping around her legs. "Mom!"
She stopped twirling and looked at him. She looked faintly
surprised. "Oh! I didn't know you were still there. You can go
now. I don't need you anymore."
"Mom, you don't understand. You're the construct. You're the one
who is floating around in this box." He shook the box.
She looked confused and then brightened perceptibly. "Ahh... No,
you're wrong, Dor. I just put you to bed fifteen minutes ago.
You were only eleven months old then and you'll be eleven months
old when I jack out."
"Then jack out, Mom. I bet you can't, 'cause I've got the
controls on this side of the cube."
His mother frowned and looked around her quickly. "Well, I hate
to jack out now, but I guess I can get back in right away. Uncle
George bought me a full year's subscription!"
"Uncle George," Dorcas said under his breath, "can suck my
cock."
His mother's face looked preoccupied for a few seconds and then
she was gone. The screen of the cube flickered from black to
static and then back to the mists of before.
Superimposed over the mists was his mother's young face looking
surprised. "Dorcas, is that you?" She narrowed her brows. "You
look so old..."
Dorcas flipped the cube...
...and found himself looking into the glassy stare of the oldest
construct. From the youngest to the oldest.
Dorcas waited for the face to animate, then realized that the
face was animated except it didn't happen to be moving.
"Mom!" The right corner of her mouth twitched. "Mom!" he yelled
again. It reminded him of the countless times he had roused her
from her dreaming before. This cube face at least seemed to
accurately mimic his mother.
"Mother!" This time her eyes focused on his for a moment.
"Dorcas?" she mumbled. "Not now, I'm in the middle of
something." She started to slip away again.
"Mom?"
"What?"
Dorcas paused as he tried to think of something to say. "Can I
go out to play?"
The orange face of his mother contemplated the question for all
of a second. "Okay," she said without emotion.
Dorcas turned the cube over to the bottom face. Next to the
power switch was a recessed receptacle that held the small fuel
cell. Dorcas pried his fingers behind the cell and pulled.
The cube flashed brightly from all of its sides and then dimmed
to a faint glow. Its afterimage radiance was just visible in the
darkened elevator.
Dorcas stood with the cube in his left hand and the battery in
his right. He let the cube drop to the floor and pocketed the
battery. The cube bounced once and came to rest leaning against
the elevator wall.
His brother was indeed asleep, hunched over in the corner.
Dorcas looked at the ceiling of the elevator and then back down
at his brother.
"Nothing like a little cooperation," he whispered and then
stepped on the huddled form of Horza and launched himself at the
ceiling. His hands lifted the drop ceiling panels as he rose and
he grabbed onto the supporting cross members.
"What the hell?" Horza cried as he awoke.
Dorcas quickly pulled himself up into the overhead crawl space
and swung his legs out of the way of Horza's groping hands. Once
secured in his position, Dorcas found the emergency hatch handle
next to his head and pulled it open. Elevator tag had never come
in so handy.
Horza yelled from below, "Where do you think you're going?"
Dorcas clambered out onto the top of the elevator and smiled.
"Out to play." He slammed the hatch closed behind him.
Inside the elevator, Horza spun around and spied the cube lying
against the wall. The afterimage glow had dwindled into small
white circular spots at the center of each cube face. He bent
down and picked it up. If he looked at the cube real close, he
imagined he could see the tiny image of his mother's face
peering out of each one of its shining white dots.
Patrick Hurh (hurh@admail.fnal.gov)
-------------------------------------
Patrick Hurh is a mechanical design engineer who designs
prototype high energy particle beam diagnostic devices for Fermi
National Accelerator Laboratory, located in Batavia, Illinois.
He writes science fiction in his spare time.
Manna by D.C. Bradley
========================
...................................................................
* What is charity? Some would simply define it as "giving of
yourself." But that phrase has _lots_ of meanings... *
...................................................................
I seen this show once about how them rich guys on A level live.
Most folks I know ain't never been higher than E. I guess I been
on D level once, but that don't count much since my leg was
busted and I couldn't hardly see with the pain and all. Harry
says he's got better upper class morals or something like that
than the rest of us, because his dad was raised on C level -- he
_says_. (I don't hardly believe half of what Harry says all the
time.) Roge says upper class shit don't mean nothing down here.
Roge sees things straight.
Me and him are right-hand pals. We've known each other since
before Roge's ma got put in the freezer. That was on H level
where we was raised. We done most everything together and ain't
hardly ever had a fight.
That's why we both joined the Anarchs. We didn't want to end up
getting froze 'cept maybe if we went together. I guess Roge gets
kind of scared some times about the freezer, after what they
done to his ma. That's the only time when he don't see so
straight.
Today we went to the Anarchs meeting like we done every week
since we joined up. Merlin (he's the boss) calls us the faggot
twins, 'cause neither of us never goes nowhere without the
other. I think he's joking, since Roge is blacker'n lights-out
and I'm white as junkies' pus. Maybe I got a little black in me
but it don't show. I can't hardly tell most times when Merlin is
joking. He's got that scar down the side of his face and around
his eye. Half his mouth don't never smile and the other half
only does when he's mad.
"So, what you cookin' for us today, Boss
?" That's Harry. He
can't keep his mouth shut more'n five minutes. Roge says Harry
is all con. He ain't told the truth yet since he was plopped out
on the floor from his poor old ma. "Any revolutions brewing? No,
then how about we just go raid the junkie shop down the rail
shaft? That's a good old standby."
"Shut your stinking hole, Harry," Roge says. "We want any shit
from you, we can unplug your fucking skull and let it drain into
the rotting piss gutter."
"Amazing," Harry gibes. "A muscle head gets a few neurons and
there's no telling what he'll do next. If I didn't hear a
complete sentence coming out of this ape I'd have said it was
junkieshit -- "
"Cut out the crap, you two." Merlin isn't smiling, but he's just
a little pissed off. He stands up at the end of the table. "You
morons were supposed to be scouting level K this past week. I
want reports from each of you." We all look down at the table. I
trace somebody's name that was carved in it with a knife.
"Halverson, you've been real quiet over there. Would you care to
give that rusty trap of yours a couple flaps?" Hal is big and he
don't have much to say most of the time. He doesn't look at us,
but keeps staring at the table.
"Block one, there ain't much there -- same with two and three.
Four got burnt, so there's some loot'n there, but most of it's
already been done." He closes his big jaw, so we all know he's
said his fill and don't bother him for more.
"Anybody check out five or six?" Merlin asks. He knows Sam's the
one that done it, but he never talks straight to Sam.
She don't talk to him neither but scuffs with her foot in the
dust and says in her husky voice, "Passed through Block two on
the way. Kid I talked to says they got a remote hookup to the
Network restricted channels. Says it came from -- "
"I want to hear about five and six, not the goddamn sight seeing
tour on the way there." Merlin turns and talks to the gutted
wall. "Halverson's done block two anyway. If he says there's
nothing worth pick'n, then we ain't gonna bother to try."
Sam kicks harder with her foot, but stays cool. "Six's got a
couple junkie shops -- that's it. Five was getting fumigated.
Maybe we could get in. I don't know."
"How 'bout the twins?" Merlin says as if he hadn't even heard
Sam. "Did you clowns take a stroll through seven to ten?" Roge
and I look at each other in that crap-in-the-pants surprised
way. I should've known we had more than two blocks. We only done
seven and eight.
Roge jumps in real quick. "Seven's got a back-room pawn shop.
Alex and me seen some of their stuff. A few power packs, and a
stash of them old police slugs was the best of the lot. They had
a couple muscles to protect the place, but no arms we could see.
Eight was a dud, and hell, so were nine and ten."
I can feel Merlin's eyes burning holes in my head. I'm thinking
real fast and just sort of blurt out, "Nine's got that Magic
Man." I never was a fast thinker. Why the hell did I have to
open my big mouth?
"What kind of junkie pus are you trying to feed us, Alex?" Sam
gets on my case, 'cause she's still sore about Merlin cuttin'
into her.
"N -- nothing. I'm just stupid I guess." I wish they would leave
me be, but Merlin leans towards me with his red scar all puffed
out.
"Tell us about the Magic Man, Alex." He talks real sweet and
makes me nervous all over.
"Lady says he, uh, he can do magic stuff." They're all staring
at me. "I mean, he takes care of poor folk and -- " Merlin's
scar is getting redder and redder. "She says so -- lots of 'em
seen it, late at night." I'm surprised, because Harry comes to
my rescue and saves me from getting my ass kicked.
"Ass for brains has it all screwed up as usual, but if you would
allow me to interpret you'll see he ain't junkieshitting." Harry
makes a big show of fixin' his chair just right before he
begins. "This guy showed up a couple of weeks back. No one knew
him from the next psychotic pus head, but he hides out on the K
level like he was born there or something. He's got some kind of
gizmo that he brings out at night. Like this dung head was
saying, the piss-poor sods from all over K crawl over to Block
Nine to get food and medicine -- at least that's what they say
they got."
"What's the machine look like?" Merlin's eyes are like slits. I
shiver just looking at him.
"They didn't say much that made sense. Old man told me the Magic
Man puts dead cats and rats and stuff in there and it comes out
like bread. He showed me some."
Merlin whirls around and starts pacing up and down, kicking the
trash all over the place. The scar seems like it's crawling all
over his face and might jump right off. Finally he comes back to
the table. "We're gonna get it," he says real cool.
"What is it?" Roge asks.
"What you need to know for, muscle head?" But he goes on anyway.
"It's a food distiller. High-tech shit they was working on in
the military when I -- " He stops suddenly and his eyes turn
mean. "Hell, I ain't gonna sit here all night explaining to a
couple of faggot twins. Go get some beauty sleep for your fat
asses, 'cause we got work to do -- tonight."
Roge and me leave the Anarchs' den and just walk around for a
while. We go to our favorite hangout down by the busted water
main. When we was kids it tore open between H and I levels and
filled up somebody's basement before it stopped. No one never
saw so much water . It ain't near as high now. We like to throw
scraps in and watch 'em sink through the green gunk on top.
I ask Roge what he thinks about the Magic Man. He says he's
never seen no magic before that wasn't faked somehow. "But
what's the difference?" he says, and I just know he's right.
Roge sees things straight. We sit for a while, and then I speak
up again. What about them poor folks? I ask. They can't hardly
get enough to eat down there on level K, and we're gonna take
away the food whatchamacallit. It sort of bothers me down in my
gut. Merlin always said I was a softie. Roge don't say much for
a while. "It ain't right to steal from poor folks," he finally
says. He don't like it neither. "Most everyone's poor sometime
or other and no one likes it any better'n the next guy."
We sit for a while longer, throwing junk into the slimy water.
Sometimes bubbles come up from where the trash sank. I can't
hardly describe it, but the way them bubbles rise up so happy
like and then get all weighed down by the mush and burst. It
makes me sad sometimes. I guess Merlin is right; I am a softie.
Me and Roge stand up after a long time. We walk back to our room
and choke down a few food pills. They don't taste like much, but
there ain't anything else around to eat. "What do you think
Merlin's gonna do with the food gizmo?" I ask Roge. He don't
know.
"Maybe he'll sell it, or maybe we'll have to catch cats and
stuff so we can eat out of it." That's all Roge can think of. I
can't figure nothing better than Roge.
We lie around on the floor and try to find something on the
Network screen. They got lots of shows about how to live the
right way, so you don't get hauled off to the freezer. Seems
like there are more of them now then there used to be. It don't
do no good, though, 'cause just as many people get froze as
before. I wonder if them folks on A level watch these shows.
Roge says the uppers don't go to the freezer, so they don't
gotta learn to live right. He's probably seein' it straight like
usual.
When it says it's time for lights-out on the Network, we go back
to the Anarch's den. The hallways are only half lit. We have to
walk real quiet so no one don't jump out and mug us. Most times,
mugs don't go after big guys like us out of respect, but this is
I level, where you can't trust no one.
We get to the den all right. The other Anarchs are there except
Sam, but she comes in after us.
"Break the shock bars out, you muscle heads, and stop slouchin'
around like a bunch of freezer burns." We do what Merlin tells
us. Roge kisses his stick and slaps it against his leg.
"Ole Stinger," he says. I use to call mine Tickle, but it
busted. Harry says I always bust things since I'm so dumb, but I
always took care of Tickle. Anyway, now I got an old one that
ain't so good anymore.
"Dammit, who's got my glow hat?" Sam growls. She looks all
around and then at me. "You got my hat again?" I shake my head,
but she comes over and looks at mine. "Alex, what kind of pus
you got for brains? It don't even fit on your big greaseball
head. You got mine."
Roge cracks a big smile. "I think she likes ya, Alex." I just
spit on the floor and go find my glow hat. I can't never get
them damn hats straight.
"We're going soon as you fag twins get your butts off the
burner." Merlin sounds real edgy tonight. We grab our stuff and
head for the rail shaft. The lifts don't work at night and you
got to have a special pass for each level anyway.
The shaft ain't got no lightin' so we switch our glow hats on.
Them junkies got a shop a little ways in, but they don't give us
no hassle tonight. We just walk on by till we get to the duct.
The duct is this big hole in the floor with a ladder stickin'
out. We climb down. Hal goes first, since he's so big, to scare
any mugs away.
While I climb down, this question keeps saying itself in my head
until I finally can't hold it in and ask it out loud. "How we
gonna get that food whatchamathinger back up to the den? Maybe
it's real big."
"How do we always get our loot back up?" Harry says right below
me. "You muscle heads lug it back up. We got ropes and all the
other shit you big bastards need. Just leave the thinks to us
and everything will be slick as junkiepiss." I look down and
step on his fingers. He cusses at me until Merlin tells him to
shut up.
It's a long climb down to K. We have to take a couple side
tunnels and I'm glad Merlin's with us, 'cause I'd get lost in
the dark like this. Finally Hal stops up ahead and says we got
down to K all right. There ain't nobody around that I can see.
That's good, 'cause some of 'em down here've got that rash from
the fumigation. You can catch it from 'em if you ain't lucky.
Merlin says we're in Block Two. That means we got to walk all
the way to Nine, so we get moving. Some of the hallways down
here ain't even lit at all. My ma told me once about how this
used to be A level. There weren't no others above it. I figure
that means the uppers used to live down here. That must have
been a long time ago. It's mostly gutted now.
Finally we get to Nine and start lookin' around for the Magic
Man. It doesn't take long before we see a crowd of people ahead
in one of them empty lots. We sneak up in the dark hallway with
our glow hats turned off. I can see the food gizmo in the middle
of the room. People are lined up beside it. Some of 'em have
dead cats and sacks of trash just like Harry said.
The Magic Man is standing there puttin' stuff in one side and
handin' out white chunks from the other. He ain't very tall or
tough lookin' and he don't have no weapon that I can see. He
just looks like the rest or them poor folks: sort of stooped
over and dressed in scraps of insulation that got ripped off the
walls a long time ago.
Merlin pushes us forward and yells, "Don't nobody move and you
won't get hurt." We all run in shouting and waving our shock
bars like we're crazy. I want to stop and think, but there ain't
no time. Maybe if I wasn't so dumb, I could figure things
faster, but there just ain't enough time. The poor folks all
freeze and crouch on the ground like they probably done a
hundred times before. The Magic Man, he never even looks at us.
He just keeps putting dead cats and garbage into his food gizmo.
Hall gets there first and his bar just nicks the Magic Man when
he swings it around. The little Man springs back from the shock.
I see his face then, except it's not a man it's a woman. She's
got this real sad look when she sees into my eyes, like she
wants to cry, but she doesn't. I'm moving forward real slow but
fast at the same time and I know I can't stop.
She's real quick, which surprises me. One second she is standing
there lookin in my eyes; the next moment she's jumped up and
into the food gizmo where all the dead cats went. I holler real
loud and reach for her, but she's gone.
Merlin yells at us to bring the gizmo to him, but I don't care
if he gets so mad he smiles till his face splits in two. I just
stand there and say real calm like, "What we gonna do, Roge?"
He looks around at all them poor people and lowers Stinger. "We
gotta feed that Magic Man out to all these piss poor folks," he
says. I knew Roge would see things straight like he always done.
It's just what she would've wanted.
And so that's what we done.
D.C. Bradley (dbradley@hmc.edu)
---------------------------------
D.C. Bradley is a sophomore physics major at Harvey Mudd College
in Claremont, California. He spends his time playing with neural
nets and cruising the Internet. He looks forward to spending
time with his family in Wisconsin.
Sooner or Later by Eric Skjei
================================
...................................................................
* At some point, we all walk into and out of another's life:
sometimes with a ceremony, sometimes without even a nod. But
what defines our path: its beginning or its end? *
...................................................................
First the tire blew out. Then his tongue began to bleed. It all
happened at the same time. He heard the muffled thump and the
clatter of the hubcap skipping away, felt the puff of air and
the new wobble, and became aware of that familiar salty-metallic
taste.
"_Cafard_, as the French say." The renowned author was droning
away on the radio. "A sort of weariness of the spirit." The word
brought to mind the morning at the cafe when she first literally
let her hair down for him, transforming herself from contained
professor of romance languages into sexual creature, then
telling him about the dream she had had the night before about
his eyes. It was an invitation, and he had happily accepted it
for the next seven years.
At the sound of the flat tire the two women in the van next to
him craned in a startled way. Their van slowed abruptly. He did
nothing, just kept driving, the seat gyrating beneath him. His
blessed mind chimed in. _Sure, why stop? It's pouring. You'll_
_just get all wet._ In the rear view mirror, he could see the two
women peering at him incredulously as their van dropped behind
him. _Why bother? Who cares? You don't, that's obvious. So ruin_
_your rims._
He pushed his tongue against his teeth, exploring the sore, then
looked in the rear view mirror. There it was, a thin red
vertical crack at the very tip. _It's the dry weather. Your_
_hands, lips, and even your heels for Christ's sake are always_
_getting dry and cracked._
He thought about his meeting that morning with Dr. K. Slowly
turning the pages of the wedding album, the doctor had listened
attentively to him. "A Buddhist wedding," repeated the doctor
tonelessly. An embryonic hope had started in his breast. Then
the doctor handed the thick volume back to him, saying, "So, why
are you showing me this?" Disappointment replaced the hope.
_So don't go back._
Now the album lay on the seat next to him, bouncing to the car's
awful thump. He thought back to the wedding, the golf jokes
beforehand, the ritualistic ceremony with the seven objects --
what were they again? -- a conch shell, a flower, a flame, a
something, a something. Bowing to the Regent. Trying to put the
ring on her finger. That took some effort. The room was
sweltering and her finger was swollen. She still had the
designer dress, but never wore it.
His own ring was in his desk drawer now, not on his finger.
_They weren't wedding rings anyway, they were engagement rings._
Gold with a green jade crescent across the top.
_Kind of like lime Life Savers._ From the jeweler at the foot of
Grant Street. Often admired, envied too, by all her friends and
sometimes also her lovers, even here in the Midwest, where it
still was _de rigueur_ to wear diamonds.
He returned to the present. _You're going to ruin your rims._
_You're getting careless._ He pondered that for a minute.
_You could care less. C'mon, stop and change the damned tire._
_You even have some of that canned stuff in the glove_
_compartment. Remember? For flat tires. You bought it from those_
_handicapped people who are always calling to sell you light_
_bulbs. So they would leave you alone. Why not use that?_
He sighed, aimed toward the shoulder and slowly bumped to a
halt. In the sudden silence, the car sat idling obediently,
waiting for his command, stupidly unaware of its predicament.
_Whither thou go, eh?_ Not anymore. _She's gone already, and I'm_
_not going anywhere._ Austin. Heat and humidity. _I hope they're_
_miserable._
He turned the engine off and sat in the ruins of his life. Cars
whizzed wetly by. He reached down to the lever beside the seat
and let the back recline. If he could sleep, he thought, he
would. Then when it stopped raining, he would get out and change
the tire.
He closed his eyes. In the silences between passing cars, he
could hear the loud ticking of the dashboard clock. After a
while, he sat up and examined the tip of his tongue again. There
it was, the same hairline crack. It had stopped bleeding, but it
still hurt.
He turned on the radio and got a burst of static. Underneath the
noise, he could faintly hear the author going on in his plummy
voice, saying something about morality and _perestroika._ He
thought he heard a hard "t" in the word "often."
_Hypercorrection._ Quel bozo. _And his latest book isn't even_
_that good._
He turned the radio off. _That antenna needs work. Every time_
_you go through the car wash, it wags back and forth like a_
_semaphore. One of these days it's just going to snap right off._
Headlights appeared in the mirror. They rapidly grew bigger and
brighter, then stopped right behind him, filling the interior of
the car with a harsh blazing glare. _No light bar silhouette, no_
_flashing red and blue lights. Where are your insurance and_
_registration? In the glove compartment?_ A horn honked. He sat,
unmoving. It honked again. He grunted, opened the door and
stepped out into the rain.
It was the van with the two women, the one that had been in the
lane next to him when the tire blew out. He bent down next to
the driver's door. She cracked her window and rolled it down an
inch.
"We thought you might want us to call a tow truck," she shouted.
"We almost didn't come back, but then we thought we should.
Nobody helps anybody these days." He was getting drenched and it
looked like she would just keep on talking so he interrupted
her.
"Thanks," he said, grinning tensely. "I think I'll just wait
until the rain stops, then fix it myself." She looked at him for
a moment, then turned to her companion. They had a quick
conference, then she turned back to him. "Get in. We'll drive
you to the gas station. We trust you," she tittered anxiously.
"We can't just leave you here."
He nodded. She twisted in her seat and reached back to unlock
the door. _Why not just leave him alone? He doesn't want your_
_help._ He climbed in and sat down. The windows were foggy.
"...and this is MaryJo," said the driver. She had told him her
name first but he hadn't caught it and didn't want to ask her to
repeat herself. He thought it might be something like "Michael."
Her companion smiled and nodded. They were in their 40s or 50s,
dressed alike, with identical well-trimmed gray hair.
_Dykes? Nuns? Both?_
"From around here?" prompted the driver.
"Larkspur," he said. "You?" he added in a polite afterthought.
They nodded, but said nothing.
The driver turned on her blinker and began to pull out onto the
highway. A small alarm went off in his head. "Wait a sec. Forgot
something," he muttered. He scrambled out and went to his car,
then came running back clutching the wedding album under his
jacket. They waited until he had slammed the door again, then
moved out onto the asphalt.
"Wedding album," he said, by way of explanation.
"Oh," cried MaryJo. "Just married?"
"Just divorced," he replied.
There was a pause. "Oh," she said tonelessly.
He began to flip through the pages. There they were, he and his
in-laws, getting ready for the reception. Planting flowers all
over the backyard, setting up tables, eating pizza. There they
were, his brother-in-law and the dark beauty of a wife he
divorced a year or two later, leaving her and their four kids
for his pushy business partner. There was his friend from
Phoenix and his wife, now his ex- wife. There was another one of
his friends, already divorced at the time of the wedding, the
one who had just survived a heart attack, the one who delighted
in telling the story about how the hospital scared his daughter
half to death the morning she brought him in with severe angina
by asking what religion he was. There was his wife's German
grandmother, whose 90th birthday celebration, produced by his
relentlessly positive father-in-law and immortalized on video by
his equally relentless brother-in-law, he had suffered through
not long ago. She was dead now, and a sweeter little old lady
had never blessed the face of the earth, despite her
disconcerting way of dropping a casually vicious reference to
"kikes" into the middle of her interminable stories about her
youth in Chicago. And there was the so-called Regent of the
Tibetan Buddhist sect his wife belonged to, the one who had been
too preoccupied with his official duties to inform his male
lovers that he was HIV-positive. And there was his wife, looking
remarkably young and happy. And there she was again, and again,
and again.
"It was a Buddhist wedding," he remarked, apropos of nothing,
into the loud silence in the car. "She was a Buddhist. Is a
Buddhist."
"Buddhist," said MaryJo cautiously. "We know some Buddhists,
don't we?"
The driver nodded and glared out into the rain. "...perfectly
honest, I don't much care for them. That one that's always going
on about the wheel of dharma?"
MaryJo didn't seem to have heard. At length she said, "Karma,
not dharma. That one?"
"Samsara," he interjected, sounding a little harsher than he
intended. "Samsara is the one that is usually compared to a
wheel." He pushed his tongue against his teeth, finding the sore
place again.
_Yeah, you could use a wheel right about now_. He remembered
Thomas the sculptor and his cement wheel, back in his student
days in Berkeley. _Yeah, even a cement one_. Then he thought of
John and the cement coffee table they had made at the beach,
casting it into a hole in the sand, then muscling it into John's
pickup when it had cured. They drove back to the house they
shared with their girlfriends, both of whom were named Margaret.
They backed the truck up to the front door and rolled it
straight into the living room. It was so heavy it made the floor
sag. There it sat until the party with the keg, the one where he
got so drunk he went for a ride with someone he barely knew to
East Oakland, where he wandered around, in and out of black
people's houses, for most of the evening. Finally someone called
a cab for him and back he rode to the party. _In fact, that was_
_the time you woke up in the middle of the night, screwing John's_
_Margaret, a split second before you both came, just as your_
_Margaret walked in the one door of the bedroom and right out the_
_other_. Out of the house, in fact. Out of his life.
What a ride. From stupor to drunken consciousness to orgasm to
guilt and terror in less than a second. The only thing he had
experienced that was remotely like it was the time he fainted in
his mother-in-law's hospital room.
"I just need to hang another bag of blood," the nurse had said.
And then they had stood there, him, his wife and his
sister-in-law, morbidly fascinated by the slow descent of the
red fluid down the IV line into Marian's arm. He remembered
deciding he needed to sit down. The next thing he knew, he was
coming out of blackness with a halo of anxious faces above him,
that same nurse in the center, raising her hand to slap him
again.
"Interesting," he had mumbled. "You were snoring," his wife had
snapped. What he remembered most of all was the feeling of
enormous peace and pleasure, not shock or pain. _If that's what_
_death is like, it's not so bad_. And that's what he kept telling
himself while he rode to the memorial service a month or so
later, the small, heavy cardboard box holding Marian's remains
on his lap.
"What kind of work do you do?" asked MaryJo. Beside her, Michael
oversteered, both hands clamped on the wheel, making constant
small corrective motions.
He didn't tell them he was an artist. Instead he told them about
the small company he owned, selling and servicing industrial
fire extinguishers. They made polite noises. "Today is payday,"
he said. "And the payroll's back in the car. The boys at the
plant will be getting pretty upset when I don't show up with
their checks." MaryJo grunted and lit a cigarette.
The van slowed and veered toward the shoulder. Ahead in the murk
he could see an old station wagon with a mottled paint job
parked alongside the road. They stopped in front of it and
honked. A young woman carrying a baby climbed out and ran up to
them. "Oh, thank you," she gasped opening the door and
clambering in beside him. "I thought I was stranded for sure."
_Georgia, maybe. Or Tennessee. Definitely not a Texas accent._
She was thin and blond, and her hair was very fine and straight.
She was also incredibly young.
The baby began to fuss. She casually switched it to her other
arm, unbuttoned her blouse and held it to her breast. "This is
Gabriel," she said proudly. The baby continued to squirm,
sucking furiously. "I'm Alcie."
"What's wrong with your car?" he asked, watching the baby
wriggle.
She frowned at him, then said, "What's wrong with your tongue?"
He stared at her. "Did I say something wrong?" He turned to the
window and stuck out his tongue. The red fissure was plainly
visible. The man driving the car next to them shot him a
disgusted look. The kids in the back stuck out their tongues at
him.
Alcie was saying something to him. "I don't know. It just up and
quit. My husband always used to fix it for me, but he's gone."
_Kentucky_? He looked at her hand. No wedding ring.
The album was open on his lap. There were the three couples
drinking sake before the ceremony. "That's my wife," he said.
"My ex-wife."
"She looks drunk," said the girl.
Then there was the picture of them all kneeling, no shoes on.
"It started late," he said to her, feeling a sudden serenity
sweep over him. "I told my friends to come at least an hour
late, but they came on time." _And had to sit there and sweat,_
_the poor bastards._
Then there were the pictures of the Regent striking the gong,
pictures of his wife offering the Regent a cup of tea, pictures
of her bowing, hands together, before the Regent, while the
Regent watched her, head inclined, peering up at her from under
his eyebrows. At that time the Regent had been plump. Now he was
much thinner.
The baby gurgled. She turned him over and patted him
mechanically, blankly watching while he slowly turned the pages
of the album. After a while, she spoke to him. "Does that mean
that you're a Buddhist too?"
He shook his head. "No."
"An interfaith marriage," said Michael, a dismissive note in her
voice.
"Not really," he replied. "I don't have any faith at all."
Alcie looked at him obliquely. "Well, one thing I know for a
fact is that faithless marriages don't work either."
He couldn't disagree and didn't want to explain. The car windows
were steamy and the air seemed unbearably close. He closed the
album and stared out the window. The car sailed on through the
wet gloom.
The two women in the front seat exchanged a few soft words, and
MaryJo briefly consulted a map. They all sat that way, in rich,
exhausted silence, until the car nosed toward an exit. "Here we
are," Michael said, as the car came to a stop next to a tilting
dumpster. He got out, stretched, and headed toward the office,
leaving the album behind.
"Say," called Alice. "You forgot something." He ignored her and
kept on walking, pushing his tongue against his teeth to feel
the sore place.
Eric Skjei (75270.1221@compuserve.com)
-----------------------------------------
Eric Skjei is a senior writer at Autodesk in Marin County,
California. He lives in Stinson Beach with his laptop and his
kayak.
The Burdens of Love Chris Kmotorka
=====================================
...................................................................
* Some people prop themselves on a moral high ground, passing
judgment until the Lord elects to contradict them. Other people,
well... they do what they gotta do. *
...................................................................
"Goddamn it, Gary," I said as I saw the news flash. I said it
softly, silently even, to myself like a mother at her wit's end.
Except I'm not his mother, I'm his wife. I sometimes wonder if
there's a difference; sometimes I wonder if there should be.
I've been sitting here on the couch watching TV for an hour now,
waiting for the six o'clock news. I always watch the news, but a
few minutes ago they came on and said they're going to have a
story about a bank robbery that happened really close to where
we live, only about a mile or two to the southeast, depending on
how it is you go, from where I'm sitting right now. There's
going to be this story, but all they've done so far is describe
this guy as being tall, six-one or six-two, thick, collar-length
blonde hair and a mustache, late twenties, early thirties.
Nothing real particular, your typical northern Michigan weekend
bank robber type. I've always had a weakness for that kind of
guy: a little bit of trouble, nothing too dangerous, just enough
to keep things interesting. I guess it's not so surprising then
that Gary and I have been together for so long. He's exactly
like that in the looks department. It's close to three years
now, married almost half that -- sixteen months. But now I
wonder what's going to happen to us.
We've been through a lot, Gary and me. Not all of it so good
you'd tell your friends and family about it, but we've had good
times and we've never done anything to hurt anyone else. Not on
purpose anyway. At any rate, you can't even call it _real_ bank
robbery. Just one drive through, two counter spots, and an ATM.
Small time even as bank branches go. Whoever did it had an easy
time of it. But robbing banks is big time, no matter how small
the bank, how small the chunk of change you get. And you almost
_always_ get caught.
After the news we're supposed to go out to eat and then to the
Fireplace Inn for a few drinks. They have a great country band
out there on the weekends. We're celebrating. Gary helped my
brother with a sheet rock job and we finally have a little bit
of spending money. Things have been pretty tight since the money
from the house ran out. I was beginning to think we were going
to have another fire, and I could tell that Gary was thinking
the same thing, saving all the extra papers from the _Journal_
route that he runs Sunday mornings and all. That may sound kind
of strange, but it's happened before. We lost everything we
owned that wasn't with us in the car. I have to admit that
wasn't much, but even the little things add up when you have to
start from scratch. It's not like we doused the house in gas and
lit a match or anything.
What we did was, we started stacking up old newspapers in front
of the furnace, and we let the lint build up in the dryer.
Little things that add up, you might say. That was when we were
living in Saginaw, a couple of months after we were married.
Gary had lost his job working the oil rigs and things were
looking kind of bleak. I was really sad when he lost that job.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't because of the money, although it
was pretty rough being without it all of a sudden like that. I
was sad for romantic reasons. We had our wedding ceremony in a
clearing in the middle of a cornfield beside an operational rig.
We had wanted to have it up on a platform tower, but we couldn't
get the preacher -- Deaconess, really; Sister LaTicia Wallace --
to climb up there. So we had to settle for the pump in the
cornfield. But I'll never forget it. I'll always have a soft
spot for oil derricks.
We were clear across town visiting Gary's mom and dad when we
heard about the fire. We rushed back home, fast as we could, but
when we got there the fire department had already put it out and
there wasn't much left of it but a big wet pile of stinking,
steaming wood. The smell of smoke and ruin was in everything,
you couldn't miss the finality of it all. We moved into a
trailer on Gary's parents' lot and waited for the new house to
be built, brand spanking new and owned free and clear thanks to
the glories of a healthy insurance policy. Insurance is the one
thing Gary and I have always seemed to agree on. I may get a
couple of months behind on my utilities, dodging the shutoff
notices and recorded messages and all, but my insurance premiums
are always paid on time. That's because Gary lost a house once
before. Which means an accident here could stir up a lot of
trouble and questions from the insurance companies, what with
two fires in less than a year and another one only a few years
before that. Especially since the insurance was in my name on
our last place and it's the same here. They'd start screaming
arson so fast, whether they had any evidence or not, which they
wouldn't. There can't be evidence of arson if we didn't set the
fire.
So anyway, the news finally comes on and the anchor is
describing this guy and asking for anyone with any information
regarding the robber to call the station to let them know, and
then they go to a commercial. For a second I get this scared
feeling and look towards the bedroom, but I put it out of my
mind soon enough because I doubt they'll get any calls. I don't
see too many of us rushing out to inconvenience ourselves over
some small time crime that will get us little more than a court
appearance. Traverse may not be a really big city, yet, but it's
definitely a place where people are smart enough to know that
it's better to wait for _Missing/Reward_ or
_America's Most Wanted_, or one of those shows, because at least
then you know you're going to get something out of the deal. I
watch them both; I'm waiting for a crime that I know something
about, but I suppose the chances of that are pretty darn slim.
Basically, the community ethic/goodwill thing just doesn't cut
it anymore. It's too easy to get hurt doing that trip.
I had an uncle, Uncle Ryan, who got killed doing the good deed
activity. Uncle Ryan was a traveling salesman. Bathroom
fixtures. He was twisting his way through the mountains of
southeastern Kentucky when he got killed. There are these signs
down there, all throughout the mountains that say
_Fallen Rock Zone_. They used to have signs that said
_Watch For Falling Rocks_, except you never see any rocks
actually falling, and people were spending more time looking for
the damn things to fall than they were looking at the road. I
guess that's why they made the change. Anyway, Uncle Ryan
actually saw a rock in the road. Now, just because people don't
actually see the rocks fall doesn't mean that they don't. There
are rocks the size of Yugos and all sorts of smaller boulders
all along the sides of the roads. It's just that you don't see
these things _in_ the road. Well, Uncle Ryan sees this rock and
his first inclination is that someone is going to get hurt with
that rock being in the other lane like that and there being a
blind curve right there and no real way for oncoming traffic to
see the rock, so Uncle Ryan pulls his car off to the side of the
road as far as he can and he gets out. He walks over, bends
down, grabs hold of the rock and starts to lift it. He had
enough time to get halfway up with it when a huge coal hauler
came hurtling around that blind curve Uncle Ryan was so
concerned about and hit him dead center on the grill. Four days
later we had a closed casket ceremony and to this day I'm
convinced that it simply doesn't pay to go out of your way to
help someone else if there's nothing in it for you. That may be
a hard thing to say, but I tend to think that these are hard
times.
I'm waiting till after the news to wake Gary up. He's sleeping
in the other room. I should wake him up and make him watch the
news with me, see what he says, but I need time to think. And he
needs his rest, though how he can sleep I'll never know. He
picked up a quarter pound of weed from my brother-in-law who
lives just down the road on the street behind ours. The dope's
mainly to sell, of course, but we usually skim off half an ounce
or so. Once it's all divided up, no one notices. Still, I have
to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't take too much. I
have to keep reminding him that it's an investment. You have to
be responsible where investments are concerned. Sometimes I
think love is a lot like baby-sitting. But that's okay. Love
should be a burden. I've always thought that, at least for as
long as I've felt I know what love is.
My mom knew real love. Love was never easy for her. I mean,
maybe at one time it was, but not that I can remember. My dad
had Multiple Sclerosis, and it was hard on mother the last few
years of his life. He had gone virtually blind and was in a
wheelchair; he used to say over and over, "I ain't a baby, I can
do it." He said it about everything we tried to do for him, but,
of course, he couldn't. He'd wear himself out trying, and then
sit there quiet with his eyes all wet looking while Mom or one
of us kids helped him out. He had been a policeman and had
always been active. The MS didn't really start affecting him
till he was in his early thirties. My brother and sister and I
were all very young. By the time I was ten or eleven, it seemed
like he had always been in that wheelchair. His speech got to be
real difficult to understand as well. He'd get upset over it. I
can't blame him, now. I hate having to repeat myself, and my
speech is perfectly clear. Mom had to take care of him like he
was a child. And with three little kids running around on top of
it all, it was hard on her. That's how I know what love is all
about, how it has to be a burden to be real.
When I first met Gary I was working at a country bar called The
Roundup, a little north of Thompsonville. He was up fishing
along the Platte River and had been driving around looking for a
place to get a steak and have a few beers. The Roundup is about
the most perfect place around for that sort of thing. Anyway, I
was serving him, and I guess I must have been pretty obvious,
bending over and letting him have a peek or two at the goods,
and other tricks I still haven't been able to stop using since I
did a little time as a prostitute. Down in Detroit. I left that
all behind. It's been practically fifteen years now since I got
out of that life.
It's weird when I think back on it. It hurts, too. Sometimes I
want to cry over it, like a black secret I'm always trying to
hide from the rest of the world. I didn't do it for long, but it
was too long just the same. I don't even know how it happened. I
mean, I do, but I have a hard time believing I ever did it. I
was in the Navy. I had a good job working as a missile mechanic,
which I also can't believe I ever did. I only joined to get my
GED and because I couldn't find a job. Anyway, one night I went
out with a guy I met at a bar and we got to partying. I was gone
the whole weekend, went AWOL, and I was afraid to go back. I
couldn't call home. I needed money and it seemed like an easy
enough way of getting some. Next thing I knew I was dishonorably
discharged and sitting on a bus back to Michigan. I went right
back to it in Detroit. I got into all sorts of other bad things,
too, including smack. As far as I know there's still an
outstanding warrant for my arrest there. For loitering of all
things. That's what they bust you for when they can't get you on
anything else.
I suppose I'd still be there today if it hadn't been for my
brother. He drove down from Traverse City to find me, and when
he did he grabbed me and forced me to go home with him. I guess
it was kidnapping, really. I hated him for it at the time, but
now I'm grateful. I went through withdrawal at home. My mother's
new husband wouldn't let her take me to the hospital. He was
afraid of what everyone would think if they found out. All I did
was cry and hurt, and scream at them. I couldn't keep my food
down. Every part of me hurt so bad, all I wanted was to die --
but I didn't. I suppose that if Jerry hadn't come down there for
me I probably _would_ be dead now. As it is, my insides were so
screwed up that I'll never be able to have children. I had to
have a hysterectomy. That hurts me a lot now that I'm married
and all. I told Gary it was a congenital thing. He doesn't know
about my old life -- all six months of it. I don't know what I'd
do if he ever found out. I guess that's just another part of my
burden.
Gary's been really good for me. The idea of having someone to
take care of has straightened me out a lot. I've done my share
of time in the Grand Traverse County Jail since I've been up
here. I've been busted for everything from passing phony checks
and writing bogus prescriptions to dealing. Gary knows most of
that; it's not as if he has a spotless record himself. You can't
keep everything a secret. Keeping everything inside will only
drive you crazy. I've managed to stay out of trouble since I
started seeing Gary, though. I guess it has a lot to do with
being so busy taking care of him. I haven't had the time, or the
need, to do anything wrong. At least, not until Gary lost his
job. That's when we started back into dealing. We only sell pot,
though. If I had to go in front of the judge again for speed or
acid, I don't think I'd get off as easily as I have before. It's
not that I think selling pot is wrong. I don't. A little weed
never hurt anybody. There are studies that proved that. The
thing I feel sort of guilty about is how we got the money to buy
our first stash. We didn't rob a bank or anything like that, but
in a way it was kind of worse. What we did was take a bunch of
stuff from my mom's house and sell it. That's not something I'm
very proud of. It was mostly camping gear and tools that had
belonged to my father, stuff that was going to just sit there
until it rotted. I tried to make myself feel better by telling
myself that, but then all I saw was my father in that wheelchair
before he died, all shriveled and depressed by all of the things
he could no longer do, and I could see why my mother held on to
it all and I just felt worse about it. She needed the memory and
I took it away from her.
When Gary and I started going out it was pretty obvious that he
needed me. He's a lousy housekeeper and he can't cook, either.
He lived on McDonald's and Burger King and pizza. I moved to
Saginaw to live with him after only two weekends together. I put
his house in order and started buying his clothes for him. I
even cut his hair. I had taken a mail-order cosmetology course
after I dropped out of high school and I think I'm still pretty
good at it, even though I've never actually worked in a salon,
or anything. I had to take over paying the bills, too. Gary made
good money working the oil fields, but he had no idea how to
manage it. Everything was past due. By the time we decided to
get married we were living a life I never thought I would ever
have. Once you've done some of the things I've done, you almost
give up dreaming of the normal life. You kind of give up on
love, too. But when I met Gary, I knew right then that it was
possible. And it was.
When Gary came in a couple of hours ago with all that money, I
couldn't believe it. I didn't think the work he was doing with
Jerry was going to be finished til next week, and that was when
he was supposed to get paid. But like Gary said, Jerry realized
how much we needed the money and paid him in advance. Gary
walked in with a fifth of Jack Daniels from the corner store and
a grocery sack with that quarter pound in it. At first I was
kind of angry, money being as tight as it is, that Gary would be
so irresponsible. But we haven't been out in a long time and
it's good to let loose once in a while. We've always liked to
kick back and have a drink and watch TV. And the thought of
going out to dinner and then dancing to a good band sounded real
nice, so I went pretty easy on him. Sometimes I swear he's just
a kid.
I keep saying to myself that the proof of true love is in
bearing the burden, but I have to admit that sometimes I have my
doubts. Sometimes I think that Gary could have a decent job if
he wanted; he's just too lazy to go out and get one. I know he
was offered a job on a disposal truck, but he's too proud to
allow himself to be called a garbage man. I don't know what the
big deal is; garbage men get paid really well as far as I know.
But after losing his job in the oil fields, there's nothing else
he wants to do. He loved working the rigs. We've talked about
moving out to California, or Alaska, so Gary could work the
offshore rigs, thirty days on, thirty days off, but it hardly
ever gets any further than talk. It seems that every time we get
started, we tell our families, start selling off stuff, and the
whole thing just falls through. I don't know if I'd like it
anyway. I love Gary and all that, but thirty days without him at
a time doesn't seem reasonable at all. How am I supposed to take
care of him when he's out there on the ocean in some tower
hundreds of feet in the air? Guys get killed out there all of
the time. I guess that's why they get paid so much. Not having
him around would be like some kind of part-time love, an
occasional demand. I'm afraid that somewhere along the line
while Gary was gone I'd end up drifting right back into the dead
end life I thought I'd escaped.
Lately I've been wondering if maybe we shouldn't take what we
can get in the back of the Camaro and just slip out of here some
night without telling anyone, without doing anything to jinx it.
Skip out on the landlord, cancel our renter's policy and wind
off down the road. Listening to the news about bank robbers
practically in my own back yard is making me think that that's
exactly what we should be doing. We could go to Florida, if not
out west. It would be warm; I can feel the winter wind picking
up around here lately. It won't be long before the windows are
frosted over in the mornings and the leaves will be turning
brown and falling. The changes happen so quickly and so suddenly
that you can't help but think in terms of time passing away
before your eyes.
When the news comes back on with the complete details of the
robbery, something beyond the vague description and the request
for information, I'm up from the couch and fixing myself a
drink. Jack Daniels and orange Slice. I prefer kahlua and cream,
or tequila, but we finished both the night before. There's a
tiny little bit of kahlua in the bottom of the bottle, and I'm
saving that to put on top of my ice cream after the bar. I take
a deep swallow of the drink and as an afterthought I fill the
glass back up with more whiskey. I'm trying to listen to the
story and pick up the living room at the same time. Gary's
jacket is draped over my arm and I'm sitting on the edge of the
couch, listening and sipping at my drink, which is now too
strong to take big drinks from.
Apparently this guy just walked into the Interlochen branch of
the Old Kent bank early this afternoon and gave the teller a
note that said he had a gun and wanted all the money. A real
creative sort. There's no mention if he actually showed a gun or
not, so he probably didn't. Those tellers can be such airheads.
You wouldn't catch me handing over money to a small town geek
with a note. Not unless I could figure out a way to pocket some
for myself, that is. But I don't think I have to worry about
ever being in that situation. With my record I doubt that I
would be hired as a bank teller.
The guy took off on foot across the field behind the bank to the
northwest. He was dressed in jeans and had on a tan waist-length
jacket and a maroon baseball cap. I look back towards our
bedroom and wonder if I shouldn't lock all the doors and latch
the windows. I laugh at the thought despite everything going
through my head because I'm having a hard time telling myself
there's no need to lock anybody out -- Gary's already in. This
isn't exactly the kind of place a dangerous criminal would hole
up anyway; and I know for a fact I could handle the type that
might. No, the only reason anyone would come here is because
they live here, or maybe to read a meter or collect for a bill.
Other than that, it doesn't hold a lot of promise.
I shut the television off and stand there for a second trying to
decide whether I should wake Gary up now or let him sleep a
little longer while I get ready to go. I guess I'll let him
sleep, that way he won't be in my way. He's pretty much a pain
when he's in the bathroom with me. It's almost impossible to put
on mascara and curl my lashes while he's trying to squeeze his
head around me to get at the sink to brush his teeth. I'll get
myself ready and then wake up Gary. That way he can sit on the
toilet as long as he wants and I can sit back and relax with
another drink.
Standing at the closet I hold up Gary's jacket and inspect it
before I put it on a hanger. It's getting a bit worn. Now that
we have a little bit of money, maybe it's time I bought Gary a
new jacket. Rather than hang it in the closet I roll the jacket
up tight, carry it into the kitchen and shove it down into the
trash. We'll go to the mall before dinner and find Gary a nice
new jacket. Maybe one with some color to it, something not so
drab. It's time for a change, I think. A good, lightweight,
bright jacket, and maybe I'll give him a fresh haircut. Kind of
a new beginning. Because the way I see it, we may be heading
west sooner than I had thought.
Chris Kmotorka (ckmotorka@pimacc.pima.edu)
--------------------------------------------
Chris Kmotorka earned his MFA at Western Michigan University in
June, 1993. He is currently teaching writing at Pima Community
College in Tucson, Arizona. He is 30 years old, married, and has
two daughters, ages 9 and 11.
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