Cyberpunk

by Victoria Blake

  rimmed glasses, his clothes were casual but new, like the protesters’ down

  on the Mall. He had money. Lee snarled as the sharp-faced stranger

  approached him.

  097

  KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

  “What you doing here?”

  “Sitting!” The man was startled, nervous. “Just sitting in a park!”

  “This ain’t no park, man. This is our front yard. You see any front yard

  to these apartment buildings here? No. This here is our front yard, and we

  don’t like people just coming into it and sitting down anywhere!”

  The man stood and walked away, looked back once, his expression angry and

  frightened. The other man sitting on the park benches looked at Lee curiously.

  Two days later he was nearly out of money. He walked over to Connecticut

  Avenue, where his old friend Victor played harmonica for coins when he

  couldn’t find other work. Today he was there, belting out “Amazing Grace.”

  He cut it off when he saw Lee. “Robbie! What’s happening?”

  “Not much. You?”

  Victor gestured at his empty hat, on the sidewalk before him. “You see it.

  Don’t even have seed coin for the cap, man.”

  “So you ain’t been getting any gardening work lately?”

  “No, no. Not lately. I do all right here, though. People still pay for music,

  man, some of them. Music’s the angle.” He looked at Lee, face twisted up

  against the sun. They had worked together for the park service, in times past.

  Every morning through the summers they had gone out and run the truck

  down the streets, stopping at every tree to hoist each other up in slings. The

  one hoisted had to stand out from truck or branches like an acrobat, moving

  around to cut off every branch below twelve feet, and it took careful handling

  of the chain saw to avoid chopping into legs and such. Those were good

  times. But now the park service was gone, and Victor gazed at Lee with a

  stoic squint, sitting behind an empty hat.

  “Do you ever look up at the trees anymore, Robbie?”

  “Not much.”

  “I do. They’re growing wild, man! Growing like fucking weeds! Every

  summer they go like crazy. Pretty soon people are gonna have to drive their

  cars through the branches. The streets’ll be tunnels. And with half the

  buildings in this area falling down . . . I like the idea that the forest is taking this city back again. Running over it like kudzu, till maybe it just be forest

  again at last.”

  098

  DOWN AND OUT IN THE YEAR 2000

  • • •

  That evening Lee and Debra ate tortillas and refries, purchased with the last

  of their money. Debra had a restless night, and her temperature stayed high.

  Rochelle’s forehead wrinkled as she watched her.

  Lee decided he would have to harvest a couple of the biggest plants

  prematurely. He could dry them over the hot plate and be in business by the

  following day.

  The next afternoon he walked east into no-man’s-land, right at twilight.

  Big thunderheads loomed to the east, lit by the sun, but it had not rained

  that day and the muggy heat was like an invisible blanket, choking each

  breath with moisture. Lee came to his abandoned building, looked around.

  Again the complete stillness of an empty city. He recalled Ramon’s tales of

  the people who lived forever in the no-man’s-land, channeling rain into

  basement pools, growing vegetables in empty lots, and existing entirely on

  their own with no need for money . . .

  He entered the building, ascended the stairs, climbed the beam, struggled

  sweating up to the fourth floor and through the hole into his room.

  The plants were gone.

  “Wha . . .” He kneeled, feeling like he had been punched in the stomach.

  The plastic pots were knocked over, and fans of soil lay spread over the old

  wood flooring.

  Sick with anxiety he hurried downstairs and jogged north to his second

  hideaway. Sweat spilled into his eyes and they stung fiercely. He lost his

  breath and had to walk. Climbing the tree was a struggle.

  The second crop was gone too.

  Now he was stunned, shocked almost beyond thought. Someone must have

  followed him . . . It was nearly dark, and the mottled sky lowered over him,

  empty but somehow, now, watchful. He descended the tree and ran south

  again, catching his breath in a sort of sobbing. It was dark by the time he

  reached 16th and Caroline, and he made his way up the busted stairs using a

  cigarette for illumination. Once on the fourth floor the lighter revealed

  broken pots, dirt strewn everywhere, the young plants gone. That small they

  hadn’t been worth anything. Even the aluminum-foil rain funnels on his

  plastic jugs had been ripped up and thrown around.

  099

  KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

  He sat down, soaking wet with sweat, and leaned back against the scored,

  moldy wall. Leaned his head back and looked up at the orange-white clouds,

  lit by the city.

  After a while he stumbled downstairs to the first floor and stood on the

  filthy concrete, among the shadows and the discarded bottles. He went and

  picked up a whiskey bottle, sniffed it. Going from bottle to bottle he poured

  whatever drops remained in them into the whiskey bottle. When he was

  done he had a finger or so of liquor, which he downed in one long pull. He

  coughed. Threw the bottle against the wall. Picked up each bottle and

  threw it against the wall. Then he went outside and sat on the curb, and

  watched the traffic pass by.

  He decided that some of his old teammates from Charlie’s Baseball Club

  must have followed him around and discovered his spots, which would

  explain why they had looked at him so funny the other day. He went over

  to check it out immediately. But when he got there he found the place

  closed, shut down, a big new padlock on the door.

  “What happened?” he asked one of the men hanging out on the corner,

  someone from this year’s team.

  “They busted Charlie this morning. Got him for selling speed, first thing

  this morning. Now the club be gone for good, and the team too.”

  When he got back to the apartment building it was late, after midnight.

  He went to Rochelle’s door and tapped lightly.

  “Who is it?”

  “Lee.” Rochelle opened the door and looked out. Lee explained what

  had happened. “Can I borrow a can of soup for Debra for tonight? I’ll get

  it back to you.”

  “Okay. But I want one back soon, you hear?”

  Back in his room Debra was awake. "Where you been, Lee?” she asked

  weakly. “I was worried about you.”

  He sat down at the hot plate, exhausted.

  “I’m hungry.”

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  DOWN AND OUT IN THE YEAR 2000

  “That’s a good sign. Some cream of mushroom soup, coming right up.”

  He began to cook, feeling dizzy and sick. When Debra finished eating he

  had to force the remaining soup down him.

  Clearly, he realized, someone he knew had ripped him off—one of his

  neighbors, or a park acquaintance. They must have guessed his source of

  weed, then followed him as he made his rounds. Someone he knew. One of

  h
is friends.

  Early the next day he fished a newspaper out of a trashcan and looked

  through the short column of want ads for dishwashing work and the like.

  There was a busboy job at the Dupont Hotel and he walked over and asked

  about it. The man turned him away after a single look: “Sorry, man, we

  looking for people who can walk out into the restaurant, you know.”

  Staring in one of the big silvered windows as he walked up New Hampshire,

  Lee saw what the man saw: his hair was spiked out everywhere as if he

  would be a Rasta in five or ten years, his clothes were torn and dirty, his

  eyes wild . . . With a deep stab of fear he realized he was too poor to be able to get any job—beyond the point where he could turn it around.

  He walked the shimmery black streets, checking phone booths for

  change. He walked down to M Street and over to 12th, stopping in at all

  the grills and little Asian restaurants; he went up to Pill Park and tried to

  get some of his old buddies to front him, he kept looking in pay phones and

  puzzling through blown scraps of newspaper, desperately hoping that one

  of them might list a job for him . . . and with each foot-sore step the fear

  spiked up in him like the pain lancing up his legs, until it soared into a

  thoughtless panic. Around noon he got so shaky and sick-feeling he had to

  stop, and despite his fear he slept flat on his back in Dupont Circle Park

  through the hottest hours of the day.

  In the late afternoon he picked it up again, wandering almost aimlessly.

  He stuck his fingers in every phone booth for blocks around, but other

  fingers had been there before his. The change boxes of the old farecard

  machines in the Metro would have yielded more, but with the subway

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  KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

  system closed, all those holes into the earth were gated off, and slowly

  filling with trash. Nothing but big trash pits.

  Back at Dupont Circle he tried a pay phone coin return and got a dime.

  “Yeah,” he said aloud; that got him over a dollar. He looked up and saw

  that a man had stopped to watch him: one of the fucking lawyers, in

  loosened tie and long-sleeved shirt and slacks and leather shoes, staring at

  him open-mouthed as his group and its bodyguard crossed the street. Lee

  held up the coin between thumb and forefinger and glared at the man,

  trying to impress on him the reality of a dime.

  He stopped at the Vietnamese market. “Huang, can I buy some soup from

  you and pay you tomorrow?”

  The old man shook his head sadly. “I can’t do that, Robbie. I do that

  even once, and—” he wiggled his hands—“the whole house come down.

  You know that.”

  “Yeah. Listen, what can I get for—” He pulled the day’s change from his

  pocket and counted it again. “A dollar ten.”

  Huang shrugged. “Candy bar? No?” He studied Lee. “Potatoes. Here,

  two potatoes from the back. Dollar ten.”

  “I didn’t think you had any potatoes.”

  “Keep them for family, you see. But I sell these to you.”

  “Thanks, Huang.” Lee took the potatoes and left. There was a trash

  Dumpster behind the store; he considered it, opened it, looked in. There

  was a half-eaten hot dog—but the stench overwhelmed him, and he

  remembered the poisonous taste of the discarded liquor he had punished

  himself with. He let the lid of the Dumpster slam down and went home.

  After the potatoes were boiled and mashed and Debra was fed, he went to

  the bathroom and showered until someone hammered on the door. Back

  in his room he still felt hot, and he had trouble catching his breath. Debra

  rolled from side to side, moaning. Sometimes he was sure she was getting

  sicker, and at the thought his fear spiked up and through him again; he got

  so scared he couldn’t breathe at all . . . “I’m hungry, Lee. Can’t I have

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  DOWN AND OUT IN THE YEAR 2000

  nothing more to eat?”

  “Tomorrow, Deb, tomorrow. We ain’t got nothing now.”

  She fell into an uneasy sleep. Lee sat on his mattress and stared out the

  window. White-orange clouds sat overhead, unmoving. He felt a bit dizzy,

  even feverish, as if he was coming down with whatever Debra had. He

  remembered how poor he had felt even back when he had had his crops to

  sell, when each month ended with such a desperate push to make rent.

  But now . . . He sat and watched the shadowy figure of Debra, the walls,

  the hot plate and utensils in the corner, the clouds out the window.

  Nothing changed. It was only an hour or two before dawn when he fell

  asleep, still sitting against the wall.

  Next day he battled fever to seek out potato money from the pay phones

  and the gutters, but he only had thirty-five cents when he had to quit. He

  drank as much water as he could hold, slept in the park, and then went to

  see Victor.

  “Vic, let me borrow your harmonica tonight.”

  Victor’s face squinted with distress. “I can’t, Robbie. I need it myself. You

  know—” pleading with him to understand.

  “I know,” Lee said, staring off into space. He tried to think. The two

  friends looked at each other.

  “Hey, man, you can use my kazoo.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, man, I got a good kazoo here, I mean a big metal one with a good

  buzz to it. It sounds kind of like a harmonica, and it’s easier to play it. You just hum notes.” Lee tried it. “No, hum, man. Hum in it.”

  Lee tried again, and the kazoo buzzed a long crazy note.

  “See? Hum a tune, now.”

  Lee hummed around for a bit.

  “And then you can practice on my harmonica till you get good on it, and

  get your own. You ain’t going to make anything with a harmonica till you

  can play it, anyway.”

  “But this—” Lee said, looking at the kazoo.

  Victor shrugged. “Worth a try.”

  103

  KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

  Lee nodded. “Yeah.” He clapped Victor on the shoulder, squeezed it.

  Pointed at Victor’s sign, which said, He’s a musician! “You think that

  helps?”

  Victor shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “Okay. I’m going to get far enough away so’s I don’t cut into your business.”

  “You do that. Come back and tell me how you do.”

  “I will.”

  So Lee walked south to Connecticut and M, where the sidewalks were wide

  and there were lots of banks and restaurants. It was just after sunset, the heat as oppressive as at midday. He had a piece of cardboard taken from a trash

  can, and now he tore it straight, took his ballpoint from his pocket, and

  copied Delmont’s message. PLEASE HELP—HUNGRY. He had always

  admired its economy, how it cut right to the main point.

  But when he got to what appeared to be a good corner, he couldn’t make

  himself sit down. He stood there, started to leave, returned. He pounded his

  fist against his thigh, stared about wildly, walked to the curb, and sat on it to think things over.

  Finally he stepped to a bank pillar mid-sidewalk and leaned back against it.

  He put the sign against the pillar face out, and put his old baseball cap upside-down on the ground in front of him. Put his thirty-five cents in it as seed


  money. He took the kazoo from his pocket, fingered it. “Goddamn it,” he said

  at the sidewalk between clenched teeth. “If you’re going to make me live this

  way, you’re going to have to pay for it.” And he started to play.

  He blew so hard that the kazoo squealed, and his face puffed up till it hurt.

  “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” blasted into all the passing faces, louder

  and louder.

  When he had blown his fury out he stopped to consider it. He wasn’t going

  to make any money that way. The loose-ties and the career women in dresses

  and running shoes were staring at him and moving out toward the curb as

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  DOWN AND OUT IN THE YEAR 2000

  they passed, huddling closer together in their little flocks as their bodyguards got between him and them. No money in that.

  He took a deep breath, started again. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” It really

  was like singing. And what a song. How you could put your heart into that

  one, your whole body. Just like singing.

  One of the flocks had paused off to the side; they had a red light to wait

  for. It was as he had observed with Delmont: the lawyers looked right

  through beggars, they didn’t want to think about them. He played louder,

  and one young man glanced over briefly. Sharp face, wire-rims—with a

  start Lee recognized the man as the one he had harassed out of Fish Park a

  couple days before. The guy wouldn’t look at Lee directly, and so he didn’t

  recognize him back. Maybe he wouldn’t have anyway. But he was hearing

  the kazoo. He turned to his companions, student types gathered to the

  lawyer flock for the temporary protection of the bodyguard. He said

  something to them—“I love street music,” or something like that—and

  took a dollar from his pocket. He hurried over and put the folded bill in

  Lee’s baseball cap, without looking up at Lee. The walk light came on, they

  all scurried away. Lee played on.

  That night after feeding Debra her potato, and eating two himself, he washed

  the pot in the bathroom sink, and then took a can of mushroom soup up to

  Rochelle, who gave him a big smile.

  Walking down the stairs he beeped the kazoo, listening to the stairwell’s

  echoes. Ramon passed him and grinned. “Just call you Robinson Caruso,” he

  said, and cackled.

  “Yeah.”

  Lee returned to his room. He and Debra talked for a while, and then she