The Star-Spangled Future

by Norman Spinrad

  I nod. “We’ve got to watch our health now,” I say. “We’re not as young as we used to be.”

  Hand in hand, our old bones creaking, we begin the march down from the Sierra Maestra, we descend from our mountain fastness to parade into the cities below.

  Introduction to

  A Thing of Beauty

  A funny thing happened while I was living in London.

  In the depths of the bare-ass Arizona desert, a hind developer was trying to move something nailed Lake Havasu City, a housing development in the grim and featureless wastes. The only geographic feature of notice at Lake Havasu City was the man-made lake constructed for it to be named after.

  The British announce that they’re demolishing London Bridge to build a new modern span across the Thames at the site and that London Bridge was therefore far sale to the highest bidder.

  Well now, our good buddy in Arizona figures that London Bridge would look mighty impressive spanning Lake Havasu, that massive monumental stone work, those twin fortress-like towers that make it look like the drawbridge of a giant’s castle, would give Lake Havasu an instant patina of English class and move those subdivisions. Worth $5 million as the purchase of instant karma, right?

  Which is what the turkey paid for his build-a-London-Bridge kit. Sight unseen, except for images on millions of picture postcards. The British crated the stones, labeled them like a paint-by-the-numbers set, cashed the check, and shipped the lot to Arizona, laughing their asses off all the while.

  Why, you ask, were our British cousins laughing?

  The land developer found out when he assembled what he had bought at Lake Havasu City.

  London Bridge, right, certified genuine? As in “London Bridge is falling down?” Two great stone battlements outlined in medieval majesty against the desert sky? Class stuff, like Big Ben and the Tower of London, right?

  Wrong.

  That’s not London Bridge, dummy!

  That’s Tower Bridge.

  London Bridge is a flat featureless stone pontoon bridge, the medieval equivalent of a freeway span.

  And that is what spans glorious Lake Havasu, shimmering in the heat waves as the spiritual ensign of fair Lake Havasu City.

  A Thing of Beauty

  “There’s a gentleman by the name of Mr. Shiburo Ito to see you,” my intercom said. “He is interested in the purchase of an historic artifact of some significance.”

  While I waited for him to enter my private office, I had computcentral display his specs on the screen discreetly built into the back of my desk. My Mr. Ito was none other than Ito of Ito Freight Boosters of Osaka; there was no need to purchase a readout from Dun & Bradstreet’s private banks. If Shiburo Ito of Ito Boosters wrote a check for anything short of the national debt, it could be relied upon not to bounce.

  The slight, balding man who glided into my office wore a red silk kimono with a richly brocaded black obi, Mendocino needlepoint by the look of it. No doubt, back in the miasmic smog of Osaka he bonged the peons with the latest skins from Savile Row. Everything about him was just so; he purchased confidently on that razor-edge between class and ostentation that only the Japanese can handle with such grace, and then only when they have millions of hard yen to back them up, Mr. Ito would be no sucker. He would want whatever he wanted for precise reasons all his own, and he would not be budgable from the center of his desires. The typical heavyweight Japanese businessman, a prime example of the breed that’s pushed us out of the center of the international arena.

  Mr. Ito bowed almost imperceptibly as he handed me his card. I countered by merely bobbing my head in his direction and remaining seated. These face and posture games may seem ridiculous, but you can’t do business with the Japanese without playing them.

  As he took a seat before me, Ito drew a black cylinder from the sleeve of his kimono and, ceremoniously placed it on the desk before me.

  “I have been given to understand that you are a connoisseur of Fillmore posters of the early-to-mid-1960s period, Mr. Harris,” he said. “The repute of your collection has penetrated even to the environs of Osaka and Kyoto, where I make my habitation. Please permit me to make this minor addition. The thought that a contribution of mine may repose in such illustrious surroundings will afford me much pleasure and place me forever in your debt.”

  My hands trembled as I unwrapped the poster. With his financial resources, Ito’s polite little gift could be almost anything but disappointing. My daddy loved to brag about the old expense-account days when American businessmen ran things, but you had to admit that the fringe benefits of business Japanese-style had plenty to recommend them.

  But when I got the gift open, it took a real effort not to lose points by whistling out loud. For what I was holding was nothing less than a mint example of the very first Grateful Dead poster in subtle black and gray, a super-rare item, not available for any amount of sheer purchasing power. I dared not inquire as to how Mr. Ito had acquired it. We simply shared a long, silent moment contemplating the poster, its beauty and historicity transcending whatever questionable events might have transpired to bring us together in its presence.

  How could I not like Mr. Ito now? Who can say that the Japanese occupy their present international position by economic might alone?

  “I hope I may be afforded the opportunity to please your sensibilities as you have pleased mine, Mr. Ito,” I finally said. That was the way to phrase it; you didn’t thank them for a gift like this, and you brought them around to business as obliquely as possible.

  Ito suddenly became obviously embarrassed, even furtive. “Forgive me my boldness, Mr. Harris, but I have hopes that you may be able to assist me in resolving a domestic matter of some delicacy.”

  “A domestic matter?”

  “Just so. I realize that this is an embarrassing intrusion, but you are obviously a man of refinement and infinite discretion, so if you will forgive my forwardness…”

  His composure seemed to totally evaporate, as if he was going to ask me to pimp for some disgusting perversion he had. I had the feeling that the power had suddenly taken a quantum jump in my direction, that a large financial opportunity was about to present itself.

  “Please feel free, Mr. Ito…”

  Ito smiled nervously. “My wife comes from a family of extreme artistic attainment,” he said. “In fact, both her parents have attained the exalted status of National Cultural Treasures, a distinction of which they never tire of reminding rue. While I have achieved a large measure of financial success in the freight booster enterprise, they regard me as nikulturi, a mere merchant, severely lacking in aesthetic refinement as compared to their own illustrious selves. You understand the situation, Mr. Harris?”

  I nodded as sympathetically as I could. These Japs certainly have a genius for making life difficult for themselves! Here was a major Japanese industrialist shrinking into low posture at the very thought of his sponging in-laws, who he could probably buy and sell out of petty cash. At the same time, he was obviously out to cream the sons-of-bitches in some crazy way that would only make sense to a Japanese. Seems to me the Japanese are better at running the world than they are at running their lives.

  “Mr. Harris, I wish to acquire a major American artifact for the gardens of my Kyoto estate. Frankly, it must be of sufficient magnitude so as to remind the parents of my wife of my success in the material realm every time they should chance to gaze upon it, and I shall display it in a manner which will assure that they gaze upon it often. But, of course, it must be of sufficient beauty and historicity so as to prove to them that my taste is no less elevated than their own. Thus shall I gain respect in their eyes and reestablish tranquility in my household. I have been given to understand that you are a valued councillor in such matters, and I am eager to inspect whatever such objects you may deem appropriate.”

  So that was it! He wanted to buy something big enough to bong the minds of his artsy-fartsy relatives, but he really didn’t trust his own taste; he wanted me t
o show him something he would want to see. And he was swimming like a goldfish in a sea of yen! I could hardly believe my good luck. How much could I take him for?

  “Ah… what size artifact did you have in mind, Mr. Ito?” I asked as casually as I could.

  “I wish to acquire a major piece of American monumental architecture so that I may convert the gardens of my estate into a shrine to its beauty and historicity. Therefore, a piece of classical proportions is required. Of course, it must be worthy of enshrinement; otherwise, an embarrassing loss of esteem will surely ensue.”

  “Of course.”

  This was not going to be just another Howard Johnson I or gas-station sale; even something like an old Hilton or the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame I unloaded last year was thinking too small. In his own way, Ito was telling me that price was no object—the sky was the limit. This was the dream of a lifetime! A sucker with a bottomless bank account placing himself trustingly in my tender hands!

  “Should it please you, Mr. Ito,” I said, “we can inspect several possibilities here in New York immediately. My jumper is on the roof.”

  “Most gracious of you to interrupt your most busy schedule on my behalf, Mr. Harris. I would be delighted.”

  I lifted the jumper off the roof, floated her to a thousand feet, then took a Mach one point five jump south over the decayed concrete jungles at the tip of Manhattan, The curve brought us back to float about a mile north of Bedloe’s Island. I took her down to three hundred and brought her in toward the Statue of Liberty at a slow drift, losing altitude imperceptibly as we crept up on the Headless Lady, so that by the time we were just offshore we were right down on the deck. It was a nice touch to make the goods look more impressive—manipulating the perspectives so that the huge, green, headless statue, with its patina of firebomb soot, seemed to rise up out of the bay like a ruined colossus as we floated toward it.

  Mr. Ito betrayed no sign of emotion. He stared straight ahead out of the bubble without so much as a word or a flicker of gesture.

  “As you are no doubt aware, this is the famous Statue of Liberty,” I said. “Like most such artifacts, it is available to any buyer who will display it with proper dignity. Of course, I would have no trouble convincing the Bureau of National Antiquities that your intentions are exemplary in this regard.”

  I set the autopilot to circle the island at fifty yards offshore so that Ito could get a fully rounded view and see how well the statue would look from any angle, how eminently suitable it was for enshrinement. But he still sat there with less expression on his face than the average C-grade servitor.

  “You can see that nothing has been touched since the insurrectionists blew the statue’s head off,” I said, trying to drum up his interest with a pitch. “Thus the statue has picked up yet another level of historical significance to enhance its’ already formidable venerability. Originally a gift from France, it has historical significance as an emblem of kinship between the American and French revolutions. Situated as it is in the mouth of New York Harbor, it became a symbol of America itself to generations of immigrants. And the damage the insurrectionists did only serves as a reminder of how lucky we were to come through that mess as lightly as we did. Also, it adds a certain melancholy atmosphere, don’t you think? Emotion, intrinsic beauty, and historicity combined in one elegant piece of monumental statuary. And the asking price is a good deal less than you might suppose.”

  Mr. Ito seemed embarrassed when he finally spoke, “I trust you will forgive my saying so, Mr, Harris, since the emotion is engendered by the highest regard for the noble past of your great nation, but I find this particular artifact somewhat depressing.”

  “How so, Mr. Ito?”

  The jumper completed a circle of the Statue of Liberty and began another as Mr. Ito lowered his eyes and stared at the oily waters of the bay as he answered.

  “The symbolism of this broken statue is quite saddening, representing as it does a decline from your nation’s past greatness. For me to enshrine such an artifact in Kyoto would be an ignoble act, an insult to the memory of your nation’s greatness. It would be a statement of overweening pride.”

  Can you beat that? He was offended because he felt that displaying the statue in Japan would be insulting the United States, and, therefore, I was implying he was nikulturi by offering it to him. All that the damned thing was to any American was one more piece of old junk left over from the glory days that the Japanese, who were nuts for such rubbish, might be persuaded to pay through the nose for the dubious privilege of carting away. These Japs could drive you crazy—who else could you offend by suggesting they do something that they thought would offend you, but you thought was just fine in the first place?

  “I hope I haven’t offended you, Mr. Ito,” I blurted out. I could have bitten my tongue off the moment I said it, because it was exactly the wrong thing to say. I had offended him, and it was only further offense to put him in a position where politeness demanded that he deny it.

  “I’m sure that could not have been further from your intention, Mr. Harris,” Ito said with convincing sincerity. “A pang of sadness at the perishability of greatness, nothing more. In fact, as such, the experience might be said to be healthful to the soul. But making such an artifact a permanent part of one’s surroundings would be more than I could bear.”

  Was this his true feeling, or just smooth Japanese politeness? Who could tell what these people really felt? Sometimes I think they don’t even know what they feel themselves. But, at any rate, I had to show him something that would change his mood, and fast. Hmmmm…

  “Tell me, Mr. Ito, are you fond of baseball?”

  His eyes lit up like satellite beacons and the heavy mood evaporated in the warm, almost childish, glow of his sudden smile. “Ah, yes!” he said. “I retain a box at Osaka Stadium, though I must confess I secretly retain a partiality for the Giants. How strange it is that this profound game has so declined in the country of its origin.”

  “Perhaps. But that very fact has placed something on the market which I’m sure you’ll find most congenial. Shall we go?”

  “By all means,” Mr. Ito said. “I find our present environs somewhat overbearing.”

  I floated the jumper to five hundred feet and programmed a Mach two point five jump curve to the north that quickly put the great hunk of moldering, dirty copper far behind. It’s amazing how much sickening emotion the Japanese are able to attach to almost any piece of old junk. Our old junk at that, as if Japan didn’t have enough useless old clutter of its own. But I certainly shouldn’t complain about if, it makes me a pretty good living. Everyone knows the old saying about a fool and his money.

  The jumper’s trajectory put us at float over (he confluence of the Harlem and East rivers at a thousand feet. Without dropping any lower, I whipped the jumper northeast over the Bronx at three hundred miles per hour. This area had been covered by tenements before the insurrection, and had been thoroughly razed by firebombs, high explosives, and napalm. No one had ever found an economic reason for clearing away the miles of rubble, and now the scarred earth and ruined buildings were covered with tall grass, poison sumac, tangled scrub growth, and scattered thickets of trees which might merge to form a forest in another generation or two. Because of the crazy, jagged, overgrown topography, this land was utterly useless, and no one lived here except some pathetic remnants of old hippie tribes that kept to themselves and weren’t worth hunting down. Their occasional huts and patchwork tents were the only signs of human habitation in the area. This was really depressing territory and I wanted to get Mr. Ito over it high and fast.

  Fortunately, we didn’t have far to go, and, in a couple of minutes, I had the jumper floating at five hundred feet over our objective, the only really intact structure in the area. Mr, Ito’s stone face lit up with such boyish pleasure that I knew I had it made; I had figured right when I figured he couldn’t resist something like this.

  “So!” he cried in delight. “Yankee Stadium!
”

  The ancient ballpark had come through the insurrection with nothing worse than some atmospheric blackening and cratering of its concrete exterior walls. Everything around it had been pretty well demolished except for a short section of old elevated subway line which still stood beside it, a soft, rusty-red skeleton covered with vines and moss. The surrounding ruins were thoroughly overgrown, huge piles of rubble, truncated buildings, rusted-out tanks, forming tangled manmade jungled foothills around the high point of the stadium, which itself had creepers and vines growing all over it, partially blending it into the wild, overgrown landscape.

  The Bureau of National Antiquities had circled the stadium with a high, electrified, barbed-wire fence to keep out the hippies who roamed the badlands. A lone guard armed with a Japanese-made sheer patrolled the fence in endless circles at fifteen feet on a one-man skimmer. I brought the jumper down to fifty feet and orbited the stadium five times, giving the enthralled Ito a good, long, contemplative look at how lovely it would look as the centerpiece of his gardens instead of hidden away in these crummy rains. The guard waved to us each time our paths crossed—must be a lonely, boring job out here with nothing but old junk and crazy wandering hippies for company.

  “May we go inside?” Ito said in absolutely reverent tones. Man, was he hooked! He glowed like a little kid about to inherit a candy store.

  “Certainly, Mr. Ito,” I said, taking the jumper out of its circling pattern and floating it gently up over the lip of the old ballpark, putting it on hover at roof-level over what had once been short center field, Very slowly, I brought the jumper down toward the tangle of tall grass, shrubbery, and occasional stunted trees that covered what had once been the playing field.

  It was like descending into some immense, ruined, roofless cathedral. As we dropped, the cavernous triple-decked grandstands—rotted wooden seats rich with moss and fungi, great overhanging rafters concealing flocks of chattering birds in their deep, glowering shadows—rose to encircle the jumper in a weird, lost grandeur.