by Rudy Rucker
Well, I’ve got a new power now, which is that I can change my face. That’s how I escaped in Louisville,I turned into Mr. Bulber . My physics teacher, the one who hated me so much, Professor Charles V.
Bulber, Ph.D.? Do you like older men? With pincers and feelers and a squid-bunch of tentacles under each arm? Genitals of the Universe, Part IX. No, really, I have to stop this or you won’t come see me, and if you don’t come see me, dear Audrey, I willeach arm? Genitals of the Universe, Part IX. No, really, I have to stop this or you won’t come see me, and if you don’t come see me, dear Audrey, I will .
I think it’s your lips I miss the most, or maybe the way you giggle. And your shiny brown eyes, and the way you stick your neck out tocrane . My new Bulber-body isn’t too bad-looking—I’m thirty-two, I have dark hair, I have all my teeth, I’m single, I ...
“All right, Conrad,” I can hear you saying. “What have you done with thereal Mr. Bulber?”
Mr. Bulber is inFrance , Audrey, he’s on sabbatical. His replacement here at the college was going to house-sit for him, but I, the pseudo-Bulber, showed up and told the guy to get fucked, I’d decided not to stay in France, I just wanted to spend the year lying around my house drinking and taking drugs. The replacement flipped, and the Chairman came by to see me—I played it cool and just said I was working on some new ideas and they should leave me alone. It’s my sabbatical, right? I can do what I want.
Meanwhile, I forward all Mr. Bulber’s mail to him in Montpelier, the way the house sitter was supposed to, and I’ve been getting money by selling Bulber-things off. Sooner or later my cover here’ll blow, but for now it’s a wiggy scene. Except for one thing: no Audrey. Audrey, Audrey, Audrey. You smell good, you know? All over.
What I’m really thinking, Audrey, is that you should just move in here with me. Mr. Bulber’s house overlooks the Crum, it’s nice and comfortable, he has a stereo—shitty classical records, but I’m getting some new ones—and I’m planning to sell his car next month. It’s a 1965 XKE—the poor guy’s big self-indulgence, I guess—I already checked at the dealer’s and they say it’s worth $6,000 as is! It was up on blocks in his garage, but I’ve got it running ... dig it, I’m going to meet you atJFK in anXKE if you’ll give me the flight number. Then you move in with me, we sell the car, and we live off the money all fall. Talk about a good provider!
I’m really serious about this, Audrey—I’d hoped to marry you next June—and still want to, if things work out. But I’ve got a bad feeling that my days here on Earth are numbered. No one means as much to me as you do, baby, and I want to spend all the time I have left withyou .
“Why are you so morbid, Conrad? Why do you say your days are numbered?”
Another voice heard from. A high voice, a sweet voice. The problem is this: The flame-people think I’ve fucked up. The idea was supposed to be that I come down here and find out about people and, yes, find out about The Secret of Life, and then someday I’d go back to the flying saucer and report. The whole thing was supposed to behush-hush . But—as you must know by now—this guy Mr. Skelton got a film of me shrinking, and the flame-people picked up the TV broadcast of it, and I happened to be holding a kind of homing crystal, and the flamers sent a scout ship down to pick me up, etc., etc.
Right now things are cool because I got rid of the crystal and changed my face. (Third Chinese brother, dig, firstflying , thenshrinking , thenchanging . It’s all built-in, no matter what the flamers think of me.) But sooner or later the PIG is going to catch up with me, and put me on live TV, and my fiery brethren are going to UFO down here and snatch my ass ... unless they figure out a way to locate me evenbefore the PIG does, in which case I get snatched even sooner. I look at the sky a lot, as you can imagine.
God. I could write you all night. I’m working on a nice bottle of Moselle from the Bulber wine cellar
(quite thebon vivant , aren’t we, Charles?), and looking out over the Crum—I have WIBG on, they’re playing a lot of Motown tonight. Ah, Audrey, isn’t life strange? I need someone torap with.
The last person I’ve been able to speak openly with was last week, August 6, a girl called Dee Decca, my old high-school girlfriend. (It’s not the same with her as with youat all , so don’t worry.) Actually, I couldn’t really talk to Dee too well, once she realized I was an alien—she was toocouldn’t really talk to Dee too well, once she realized I was an alien—she was too . But I know you won’t be like that, Audrey, you’ve seen me shrink, you’ve seen me fly—I just hope you don’t think I’m too ugly now. Maybe you remember what Mr. Bulber looks like ... I’ve stopped slicking down my/his hair, anyway. All the Swarthmore faculty and staff I run into think, “Charlie Bulber’s gone crazy. He’s acting like one of thosehipniks .”
The perfection of this con is that all of Bulber’s mail passes through my hands. I mean, it’s me (in the role of house sitter) who’s supposed to forward things to him; and he’s sending his mail back through me in bundles to save money. The only fuck-up will be if at some point he writes directly to somebody here.
Even if that happens, I can say, “Well, I wrote you before I came back to America, I didn’t like it over in France.” And probably, for the first few months, anyway, he isn’t going to feel that much like writing anyone over here. I hope.
My real flash of genius in this whole thing was toremember that Bulber is in fact on sabbatical this year.
Some of the assholes in my Mechanics and Wave Motion course gave him a going-away party last spring. Ginger-ale-and-ice-cream punch, Tom Lehrer records, a French-English dictionary ... you get the picture. The whole sordid scene of degenerative douchedom. Kids these days.
It’s going to be weird if any of those students try to talk to me. Classes here start Sept. 7. At least I don’t have to teach any courses. I bought aSchaum’s Outline Series on Physics to brush up with, just in case.
You’re probably wondering why I’m hanging around Swarthmore, anyway. I mean, really, it would be safer to head out to California or something. But, I don’t know, I want to see my old buddies some more—Ace, and Platter, and Tuskman, and Chuckie—I want to see them, and do some unbelievable prank on the college administration before I split.
But most of all, I’m looking forward to some peaceful weeks here atChateau Bulber with my darling darling Audrey Hayes. A.H. Ah. Do you fuck? Do you still know how? You can put a bag over my solemn potato-head if you must. Or a pair of yoursoiled lacy underwear . Or ...
All right, all right, I’ll stop. What else. Let me just get another bottle of wine and reread this and ...
“Baby Love” on the radio. The wonderful inevitability of the chord progressions—you remember how at the end ofNausea , he hears a jazz song and it makes everything right? The secret of life. It’s when you’re just plugged-in, you know, it just happens. I miss you, Baby Love.
Do you think your parents will be very angry when you drop out of Columbia grad school and move in with “Professor Bulber”? Don’t answer that, don’t even think about it. Just do it. Write me your arrival time; I’ll be there to whisk you away to a life of vice and criminal flight.
It’s only ten o’clock—I guess I can fill up one last sheet of paper. Do you mind reading this? Do you think I’m too weird? That article inTime was unbelievable, the quotes they got from all the authority figures who knew me when I was little in Louisville. Brother Hershey (assistant principal at St. X) was the worst. I mean, usually, when there’s amass-murderer —like that guy Charles Whitman in Texas—all his old teachers say, “Oh, he was such a nice boy, very quiet, never made any trouble.” And here’s Brother Hershey saying, “I remember Conrad Bunger very well. Bright, but troubled. He wanted to be smarter than he really was. By the end of senior year, we were just waiting for him to graduate and leave.” And everybody felt that way about me, it turns out. The head preacher at St. John’s—I never realized he knew it was me that used to steal the wine. And Dr. Sinclair, and then that phony shithead Dean Potts putting in his two ce
nts’ worth ... ah, never mind. In a way, I’m proud of it—you know how I always try to seem tough and cool. But in another way, it really hurts, to see them all turn on me like that just because I’m from a flying saucer.
I really don’t know what to do next, Audrey. Tell me when you’re coming, and I’ll pick you up, and you’ll come down here for a weekend at least. I do want to do some kind of trip on the straights’ heads here, but after that we can split to wherever you like. I’m pretty sure I can change my face again if I have to ... it’s like the other powers, it just works when it’s life-or-death. Some of the newspaper articles I’ve seen make me kind of nervous. All this xenophobia bullshit, you know. Like given the right circumstances, I could get myself torn apart limb from limb. And if it’s not on live TV, the flame-people wouldn’t know to come save me. All this is assuming the saucer is still around—maybe they gave up and left for another solar system.
Help me, Rhonda!
Look, burn this letter after you read it, I mean it. And send me (“Charles Bulber”) the flight info at 23
Crum Ledge, Swarthmore PA 19084. Hurry, Audrey, I miss you and I need you.
Here’s a kiss: X.
And a fuck: F.
I love you, Conrad
Chapter 25:
Friday, September 9, 1966 After Audrey left, Conrad got a couple of bottles of wine and walked down to the Mary Lyons dorms.
It was Friday, five in the afternoon. Ace would be drinking in his room—the room he’d planned to share with Conrad. God willing, there’d be grass as well—Conrad hadn’t had a chance to get high since back in Louisville with Dee.
It was a nice walk, not too far, the mellow September sun sliding down, and a tang of cool winter in the air. Conrad had the wine in a paper bag; he was wearing jeans and a Swarthmore T-shirt in a mock-Bulberesque attempt to look like “one of the guys.” He figured to run a real number on Ace’s head.
As long as Audrey had been here—a week, a week of bliss—Conrad had lain low. Audrey didn’t want people to see her shacking up with someone over thirty—there were still plenty of people around Swarthmore who would have recognized her. So mainly they’d gone into Philly, or hung around Bulber’s pad talking and making love. It had felt like being married, having their own little house; every morning they made scrambled eggs together; every night they drank German white wine and fucked. Daytimes they might go to the Philly zoo, or the art museum—it had been paradise.
But Audrey didn’t want to miss the start of classes at Columbia; and Conrad could see her point. He was, after all, on the FBI’s Top-Ten Wanted List—yes, he and Audrey had actually seen the actual photo in the actual post office.Felony burglary and immigration violation . Audrey loved Conrad as much as ever—more—but they could both see the possibility of real bad shit coming down, and there was no reason for her to throw her life away. The hope was that things would somehow work out and they’d get married in June as planned.
So now Conrad was on the loose, and all his pals were back, and it was time to push the whole trip another notch further. Before leaving Crum Ledge, Conrad had carefully combed his hair into the same cocky little Vitalis pompadour that had always infuriated him so much on Bulber. Humming slightly, he walked up the ML dormitory staircase and knocked on Ace Weston’s door.
“It’s Mr. Bulber.” A hard grin covered Conrad’s face.
“Who?”
“Professor Bulber. I want to talk to you about your application for Kutztown State.”
“What?”Ace’s voice was high in bewilderment. The lock rattled, and then Ace cracked open the door to peer out. Dope fumes swirled.
“Hello, Ace, I know this may not be the best moment for an old fuddy-duddy like myself to be butting in this way, but, hey, man, could you get a brother high?”
Ace’s bloodshot eye stared out through the crack for what seemed a very long time.
“You look like a hermit crab,” offered Conrad. “Come on, Weston, let me in, I won’t bite. I brought wine.” He clinked his two bottles invitingly.
“Uh ... sure.” Ace opened the door and Conrad stepped on in. Platter was there, and Chuckie Golem, too. They had a hookah in the corner; Chuckie was trying to stand in front of the hookah so Mr. Bulber wouldn’t see it.
“Don’t worry about the illegal narcotics, boys,” said Conrad. “And feel free to tell it as it is. We have a lot to learn from your generation. You should just think of me as one of your friends; you see, I’m on sabbatical this year.”
“Yeah,” said Chuckie tensely. “That’s what I heard. You were supposed to go to France, and you’re just hanging around here instead?”
“That’s right,” said Conrad, brushing past Chuckie to kneel by the hookah. “Who’s your connection?”
At some point here, Platter had gotten hysterical with laughter. He lay slouched back across Ace’s bed, shaking in stoned ecstasy.
“What’s the matter with this fellow?” demanded Conrad, giving Platter’s upper thigh a slow, intimate pinch. “Ron Platek, isn’t it? Anybody got a match? And you ought to recharge the bowl while you’re at it, men. I’m ready to really do my own thing. Do you have any good records, Weston, besides those shitty old blues tracks you always made me listen to? Who wants a blow job?”
The three boys looked at Conrad with pale anxious faces. They’d been stoned when he got there, and now it had all gotten too unreal too fast.
“No blow jobs?” rapped out Conrad. “Then let’s start on the drugs.”
“Look,” said Ace, stepping forward with his face set tight. “You can just get out of here, faggot. We don’t need—”
“Relax,” said Conrad, smiling. “I’m really your old roomie, Conrad Bunger.”
Ace didn’t smile. “We don’t need this, Mr. Bulber. We don’t need you coming down here to try to act like one of us. We don’t want to see you around, understand?” Ace grabbed his arm—hard—and began propelling him toward the door. “Conrad hated your guts, you know that, man? You think it’s time you got hip ... well, we don’t give a shit. You come back here and we’llkill you, Bulber, you—”
They stared at him openmouthed.
“That’s right,” continued Conrad. “I changed my face to Mr. Bulber’s to get away from the cops. I did it so I could come up here and impersonate Bulber, who is indeed on sabbatical in France; I did it so I could see you guys again.”
Ace finally smiled and gave his dry chuckle.Eh-eh-eh . “Well, let’s charge up the hookah. Are you really from a flying saucer, Conrad?”
“Sure he is,” said Platter. “I read it inTime . Conrad.” He stood up and gave his old friend a hug. “Mr.
Bulber.”Haw-nnh-haw-nnh. “It’s perfect. The thing about the blow-job was perfect. ‘Tell it as it is.’ ”
Haw-nnh-haw-nnh. “Oh, Conrad.”
“You blew our minds,” said Chuckie, giving one of his rare smiles. He got out a film can of grass and recharged the hookah. “The ... uh ...feds are in town. What’s scary is that they aren’t asking questions. They’re just ... fucking ...hanging around. ”
“I’m not going to be here too long,” said Conrad. “I want to do one big prank on the college before I fade.”
“Aprank ,” said Ace thoughtfully.
“Give them a teaching,”amplified Conrad. Just breathing in the room’s air, he already felt high. “I got that phrase from an article inTime , it was in the same issue as the articles about me. You know the Bhagween ? The fat kid with the big cult-following in Chicago? It seems there was an IRS guy who infiltrated the organization, and the Bhagween finds out. Bhagween takes his head disciple aside and says,
‘Hey, you know that IRS guy—give him a teaching.’ So the head disciple goes to the IRS guy and smiles and says, ‘You are now prepared to receive truth.’ So, OK, they go in a hotel kitchen, and the head disciple stands behind the IRS guy and hits him on the head with a hammer. And in the same issue ofTime , right, Potts gives a quote like I’m a follower of the Bhagween!”
“ ‘Although Conrad Bunger may indeed have been an extraterrestrial,’ ” recited Chuckie, “ ‘I think it is also appropriate to view him as a confused young victim of the madness of our times.’ ” He fired up the hookah and handed Conrad the mouthpiece. “Careful ... the water cools it off, and it’s easy to inhale too much.”
“Motherfaaarf’ck’nout.” Conrad drew in a big, show-off breath and succumbed to a coughing fit. No matter how hard he coughed, the tickle in his throat wouldn’t go away. The rhythm of the cough filled all his body; he was on the floor now, still coughing, coughing for dear life. Finally the spasm passed, and Conrad opened his watering eyes to see his three friends standing over him, conversing in hushed tones.
“A flying saucer, hey, Pig?” asked Ace.
“The real thing,” wheezed Conrad. “What happened there?”
“I think you’re tricking us.” Ace made his mouth a thin line and shook his head. His blond hair was shoulder-length this year; he kept it out of his eyes with a leather shoelace worn like a headband. He looked vaguely like an Indian. “You tricking us, man.”
“I’m not Mr. Bulber, if that’s what you think.”
“I’m not Ace Weston,” said Ace. “I’m John F. Kennedy.”
“Oh, come on,” said Platter. “It’s not Conrad’s fault that Golem has this shitty green weed.”
“If it’s shit, Platek, you don’t have to smoke it.”
“I had some real Acapulco Gold out at my sister’s in California this summer,” said Platter, his lips thickening in emphasis. “I hadone puff and I couldn’t get out of my chair.”
“I know where to get Gold,” said Chuckie, pushing up his glasses. “But it’s too expensive.”
