“You seen a factsheet lately?” asked the man.
“No,” said Stevie. “Haven’t seen one in days. I got tired of the whole thing. Nowwho’s at it?”
The old man looked at him quickly, then turned back to the road. “Nobody. Nothing new.” Stevie glanced at the man now, studying his face curiously. Nothing new.
After a while the man asked him for some bullets.
“I didn’t think that you had a gun,” said Stevie.
“Yeah. I got a .38 in the glove compartment. I keep it there, well, I’m less likely to use it.”
“A .38? Well, these shells wouldn’t do you any good, anyhow. Besides, I don’t really want to give them up yet.”
The man looked at him again. He licked his lips, appearing to make some decision. He took his eyes off the road for a moment and lunged across the seat in a dive for one of the loaded pistols. Stevie slammed the edge of his hand into the older man’s throat. The man choked and collapsed on the seat. Stevie switched off the engine and steered the car to the side of the road, where he opened the door and dumped the still body.
Before he started the car again, Stevie opened the glove compartment. There was an unloaded revolver and a crumpled factsheet. Stevie tossed the gun to the ground by the old man. He smoothed out the wrinkled paper. The youth of the world, it proclaimed, had declared war on everyone over the age of thirty years.
* * * *
“How you coming with that factsheet?”
The thin man in the green workshirt stopped typing and looked up. “I don’t know. It’s hard making out your crummy handwriting. Maybe another fifteen minutes. Are they getting restless out there?”
The man in the jacket gulped down some of his lukewarm coffee. “Yeah. I was going to make an announcement, but what the hell. Let ‘em wait. They had their vote, they know what’s coming. Just finish that factsheet. I want to get it run off and put up before them goddamn Artists beat us to it.”
“Look, Larry, them queers’ll never think of it in the first place. Calm down.”
The man in the workshirt typed in silence for a while. Larry walked around the cold meeting hall, pushing chairs back in place and chewing his cigar nervously. When the stencil was finished, the man in the workshirt pulled it out of the typewriter and handed it to Larry. “All right,” he said, “there it is. Maybe you better go read it to them first. They been waiting out there for a couple of hours now.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Larry. He zipped up his green jacket and waited for the man in the workshirt to get his coat. He turned off the lights and locked the door to the hall. Outside was a huge crowd of men, all white and all well into middle age. They cheered when Larry and the other man came out. Larry held up his hands for quiet.
“All right, listen up,” he said. “We got our factsheet here. Before we go and have it run off, I’m going to let you hear it. It says just like what we voted for, so you all should be pretty satisfied.”
He read the factsheet, stopping every now and then to wait through the applause and cheers of the men. He looked out at the crowd. They’re all brawny veteran-types, he thought. That’s what we are: we’re Veterans. We been through it all. We’re the ones who know what’s going on. We’re the Producers.
The factsheet explained, in simple language unlike the bitter diatribes of other groups, that the laborers— the Producers—of the world had gotten fed up with doing all the work while a large portion of the population—the goddamn queer Artists—did nothing but eat up all the fruits of honest nine to five work. Artists contributed nothing, and wasted large amounts of our precious resources. It was simple logic to see that the food, clothing, shelter, money and recreational facilities that were diverted from the Producers’ use was as good as thrown into the garbage. The Producers worked harder and harder, and got back less and less. Well then, what could you expect to happen? Everything was bound to get worse for everybody.
The men cheered. It was about time that they got rid of the parasites. No one complained when you burned off a leech. And no one could complain when you stuffed out the leechlike elements of normal, organized, Productive society.
Larry finished reading the sheet and asked for questions and comments. Several men started talking, but Larry ignored them and went on speaking himself.
“Now, this doesn’t mean,” he said, “that we gotta get everybody that doesn’t work regular hours like we do. You see that some of the people are hard to tell whether they’re Producers like us, or just lousy addict Artists. Like the people that make TV. We can use them. But we have to be careful, because there’s a lot of Artists around who are trying to make us think that they’re really Producers. Just remember: if you can use it, it’s not Art.”
The crowd cheered again, and then it began to break up. Some of the men stood around arguing. One of the small groups of Producers that was slowly walking to the parking lot was deeply involved in debating the boundaries separating Artists and Producers.
“I mean, where are we going to stop?” said one. “I don’t like the way this divisioning is going. Pretty soon there won’t be any groups left to belong to. We’ll all be locked up in our homes, afraid to see anybody at all.”
“It’s not doing us any good,” agreed another. “If you go out and get what you want, I mean, take something from a store or something, why, everybody knows you got it when you bring it home. Then you’re the target. I got less now than when this all started.”
A third man watched the first two grimly. He pulled out a factsheet of his own from the pocket of his jacket. “That’s commie talk,” he said. “You’re missing the point of the whole thing. Let me ask you a question. Are you right- or left-handed?”
The first man looked up from the factsheet, puzzled. “I don’t see that it makes any difference. I mean, I’m basically left-handed, but I write with my right hand.”
The third man stared angrily, in disbelief.
Bang.
* * * *
YANG and YIN: Male and female. Hot and cold. Mass and energy. Smooth and crunchy. Odd and even. Sun and moon. Silence and noise. Space and time. Slave and master. Fast and slow. Large and small. Land and sea. Good and evil. On and off. Black and white. Strong and weak. Regular and filter king. Young and old. Light and shade. Fire and ice. Sickness and health. Hard and soft. Life and death.
If there is a plot, shouldn’t you know about it?
* * * *
One more hour.
Millions of people hid in their holes, waiting out the last minutes of the wars. Hardly anyone was out on the streets yet. No one shouted their drunken celebrations that little bit ahead of schedule. In the night darkness Stevie could still hear the ragged crackings of guns in the distance. Some suckers getting it only an hour from homefree.
The time passed. Warily, people came out into the fresher air, still hiding themselves in shadows, not used yet to walking in the open. Guns of the enthusiasts popped; they would never get a chance like this again, and there were only fifteen minutes left. Forty-second Street chromium knives found their lodgings in unprotected Gotham throats and shoulders.
Times Square was still empty when Stevie arrived. Decomposing corpses sprawled in front of the record and porno shops. A few shadowy forms moved across the streets, far away down the sidewalk.
The big ball was poised. Stevie watched it, bored, with murderers cringing around him. The huge lighted New Year’s globe was ready to drop, waiting only for midnight and for the kissing New Year’s VJ-Day crowds. There was Stevie, who didn’t care, and the looters, disappointed in the smoked-out, gunfire black, looted stores.
It said it right up there: 11:55. Five more minutes. Stevie pushed himself back into a doorway, knowing that it would be humiliating to get it with only five minutes left. From the vague screams around him he knew that some were still finding it.
People were running by now. The square was filling up. 11:58 and the ball was justhanging there: the sudden well of people drew rapid rifle-fire
, but the crowd still grew. There was the beginning of a murmur, just the hint of the war-is-over madness. Stevie sent himself into the stream, giving himself up to the release and relief.
11:59. . . . The ball seemed . . . to tip . . . and fell! 12:00! The chant grew stronger, the New York chant, the smugness returned in all its sordid might. “We’re Number One! We’re Number One!” The cold breezes drove the shouting through the unlit streets, carrying it on top of the burnt and fecal smells. It would be a long time before what was left would be made livable, but We’re Number One! There were still sporadic shots, but these were the usual New York Town killers, doing the undeclared and time-honored violence that goes unnoticed.
We’re Number One!
Stevie found himself screaming in spite of himself. He was standing next to a tall, sweating black. Stevie grinned; the black grinned. Stevie stuck out his hand. “Shake!” he said. “We’re Number One!”
“We’re Number One!” said the black. “I mean, it’s us! We gotta settle all this down, but, I mean, what’s left isours! No more fighting!”
Stevie looked at him, realizing for the first time the meaning of their situation. “Right you are,” he said with a catch in his voice. “Right you are, Brother.”
“Excuse me.”
Stevie and the black turned to see a strangely dressed woman. The costume completely hid any clue to the person’s identity, but the voice was very definitely feminine. The woman wore a long, loose robe decorated fancifully with flowers and butterflies. Artificial gems had been stuck on, and the whole thing trimmed with cheap, dimestore “gold-and-silver” piping. The woman’s head was entirely hidden by a large, bowl-shaped woven helmet, and from within it her voice echoed excitedly.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Now that the preliminary skirmishes are over, don’t you think we should get on with it?”
“With what?” asked the black.
“The Last War, the final one. The war against ourselves. It’s senseless to keep avoiding it, now.”
“What do you mean?” asked Stevie.
The woman touched Stevie’s chest. “There. Your guilt. Your frustration. You don’t really feel any better, do you? I mean, women don’t really hate men; they hate their own weaknesses. People don’t really hate other people for their religion or race. It’s just that seeing someone different than you makes you feel a little insecure in your own belief. What you hate is your own doubt, and you project the hatred onto the other man.”
“She’s right!” said the black. “You know, I wouldn’t mind it half so much if they’d hate me because of me; but nobody ever took the trouble.”
“That’s what’s so frustrating,” she said. “If anyone’s ever going to hate the realyou, you know who it’ll have to be.”
“You’re from that Kindness Cult, aren’t you?” the black said softly.
“Shinsetsu,” she said. “Yes.”
“You want us to meditate or something?” asked Stevie. The woman dug into a large basket that she carried on her arm. She handed each of them a plump cellophane package filled with a colorless fluid.
“No,” said the black as he took his package. “Kerosene.”
Stevie held his bag of kerosene uncertainly, and looked around the square. There were others dressed in the Shinsetsu manner, and they were all talking to groups that had formed around them.
“Declare war on myself?” Stevie said doubtfully. “Do I have to publish a factsheet first?” No one answered him. People nearby were moving closer so they could hear the Shinsetsu woman. She continued to hand out the packages as she spoke.
Stevie slipped away, trying to get crosstown, out of the congested square. When he reached a side street he looked back: already the crowd was dotted with scores of little fires, like scattered piles of burning leaves in the backyards of his childhood.
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Universe 1 - [Anthology] Page 22
