The Secret of Life

by Rudy Rucker

  Conrad sat back up, feeling good and high now, everything yellow, everything jellied. “How expensive? For a ...key ?”

  “You have money?” Chuckie looked really interested.

  “I’m selling Bulber’s XKE for six thousand dollars. I could afford two or three thousand dollars for a kilogram of Gold. I’d kind of like to turn on the whole campus, you know?”

  “That sounds evil and alien to me,” put in Ace. “Like Freddie Whitman. Maybe Whitman was from a saucer, too.” Ace didn’t really approve of drugs, though he tended to take them whenever he got a chance.

  “What I was thinking,” went on Conrad, “was that I should get a key, and roll up thousands of joints, and then hand them out at Collection next month.” Collection was a college-wide assembly that took place on Thursday mornings at ten. Attendance was mandatory. There was always a period of silence, and then someone would talk for an hour. “You’re big in Student Council, Platter; don’t you think you could get me invited to speak?”

  “I like it,” said Platter. “Grass Is a Gas, by our own Professor Bulber.”

  “It could work,” said Chuckie, still thinking about the kilo of Gold. “Just give it a more serious title.

  Experimental Mysticism? How long do you think you can keep up your cover, Conrad?”

  “Well, if you guys will ...”

  “We’ll each just tellone person ,” suggested Ace.

  “Hey,please! ”

  “It’s hopeless, Conrad,” said Chuckie. “You know how ...incestuous Swarthmore is.”

  “I hate that expression,” said Platter. “Cheeksy Moon is always saying that.”

  “Who’s Cheeksy Moon?” asked Conrad.

  “Cheeksy Moon and Titsy Jiggle,” explained Ace. “That’s what we call these two new girls who’ve been hanging around with us. Cheeksy’s from France, and Titsy is from California.”

  “Those are their real names?”

  “No, Conrad, those are names we made up. Their real names are Madelaine Dupont and Sissy Taylor. They’re sophomores. You’ve seen them.”

  “Oh, yeah ... yeah. Let’s ask them to come over to Mr. Bulber’s house for a big drug party!”

  “On Crum Ledge?” said Chuckie incredulously. “In a professor’s home?”

  “It’s Conrad’s house,” said Ace. “And he’s really Mr. Bulber anyway.”

  There was a knock on the locked door.

  “Oh, shit,” said Chuckie, crouching over the hookah.

  The knocking quickly turned to steady pounding. “Open up, it’s da cops!”

  “That’s Tuskman,” Ace said, and opened the door.

  “Hi! Am I in time for da beer?”

  Izzy wasn’t going to Swarthmore this year—he was living with his girlfriend in an apartment in the Village. For Art. But he’d decided to hitch down for this, the first big fall weekend. For Beer. When Chuckie explained that the man who looked like Mr. Bulber was really Conrad in disguise, Izzy insisted that he’d known right away. “From da eyes. I didn’t wanna say nothing.” “We’re going to have a big party at Mr. Bulber’s house tonight,” Conrad told him. “I’ve been living there and selling off his stuff.”

  “I like it,” said Izzy. “I like it. Tomorrow—get dis—tomorrow we’ll have ayard sale .”

  Chapter 26:

  Friday, September 9, 1966 The new girls were beautiful. Madelaine had straight ash-blonde hair, a lisping French accent, and creamy white skin. Her face was broad—almost Tartar—and her jeans were swollen and tight. Cheeksy Moon. Sissy had long, smooth dark hair, huge breasts, and a cute puppyish face. She laughed in infectious guffaws, and she liked to dance. Titsy Jiggle.

  They were excited to attend a dope party at a professor’s house, with all the cool senior boys there as well: Ace, Izzy, Chuckie, and Platter. Of course there were other guests, too—word spread fast on the small Swarthmore campus. Cheeksy and Titsy brought a bunch of friends, and there were all Conrad’s old friends, too—Ace’s ex-girlfriend Mary Toledo, Southern and sexily unwashed; Bobby Glassman, the speed-freak phil-major captain of Swarthmore’s football team; Zeiss Pappas, the worldly Greek exchange student; Stu Mankiewicz, who spent most of his time playing pool; Betsy Bell, with her big smile and straight Texas nose—dozens of people, really, and everyone ready to party.

  On the strength of his promised kilo, Conrad got Platter to break out a secret stash of Gold that he’d gotten from his sister. Betsy Bell rolled her own cigarettes and carried a little sack of Bull Durham with paper; Conrad prevailed on her to roll up all of Platter’s dope. It made about fifteen big joints. Conrad pocketed them, and circulated around the Bulber living room, turning people on.

  What a great song, thought Conrad.This was worth coming to Earth for. He’d been drinking beer all evening along with the weed, and the room was merging into a single bright pattern. The music spun on, and people left him pretty much alone—no one wanted to talk to Mr. Bulber. Now the record was Tomorrow Never Knows , one of George’s intense Indian tunes, with John’s crazed karma lyrics. The elliptical words seemed to explain everything.

  Just then, one of the younger boys who’d come in with Madelaine approached Conrad. “Do you have any more marijuana, Mr. Bulber?” The kid had a snotty edge to his voice—you could tell he didn’t think it was too cool for a teacher to be acting like this.

  “Not for you,” said Conrad, feeling a twinge of sudden dope-anger. “I don’t even know your name, and you’re trying to bring me down. Dipshit.”

  “You are really messed-up,” exclaimed the kid. He had symmetrical features and shoulder-length brown hair. “You had me in Physics I-II last year, Mr. Bulber. I’m Cal Benner, remember? You gave me a B, but I should have gotten an A. Don’t you think you could get in trouble smoking pot with students?”

  Benner smirked at Conrad unpleasantly.

  “I’m already in more trouble than you’d ever believe, dipshit. I’m Conrad Bunger. Why don’t you get out of here? I didn’t invite you.”

  “You’re just a middle-aged guy trying to get your hands on some sophomore girls,” snapped Benner.

  “It’s sickening.”

  A fresh wave of dope hit Conrad’s brain about then. He looked at the angry face in front of him. What were they arguing about? About who he was? Fuck it.

  “Hang ten,” Conrad said and stomped off to the kitchen for another beer.

  Platter and Ace were in there talking to Mary Toledo and Sissy Taylor. Conrad threw his arm around Sissy, who gave one of her goony guffaws.

  “Can you teach me physics, Mr. Bulber?”

  “I’m not Mr. Bulber,” said Conrad, hoping to convince someone. “I’m Conrad Bunger.”

  “Wasn’t that too much this summer?” exclaimed Mary, not believing him. “I always knew Conrad was weird, but when I saw him waving that light-sword on TV ...”

  “And shrinking,” put in Sissy. “I never got to meet him last year. What was he like? Did you know him, Mr. Bulber?”

  “Call me Charlie,” sighed Conrad, opening a beer. “Yes, I knew Bunger. He was a very poor student.”

  “All he cared about was getting drunk and talking about the secret of life,” said Ace, smiling wickedly.

  “Basically he was a stupid pig.”

  “Maybe they chose a defective one to send down,” suggested Ace. “Or maybe they had to like lobotomize him to bring him down to human level. I felt that way this summer, working at the paper mill ...”

  Conrad got a pint of whiskey out of Bulber’s cupboard and took it out on the back steps. This party wasn’t fun; he wasn’t a member of the group anymore. He’d never really fit in here again. Where was Audrey?

  Stoned and drinking on the steps there, staring out into the woods with the noise of the party washing out, Conrad felt very lonely. Time passed. He felt himself fading and reeled back into the kitchen. “Hey, Weston, let’s get some more dope. Where’s Chuckie?”

  The party ground on into the wee hours, and Conrad got more and more fucked-up
. After a while it wasn’t like he was running his body anymore; it was, rather, like he waswatching himself do things .

  Terrible things.

  Finally he passed out, and then it was daytime.

  “A nightmare of madness and evil,” groaned Conrad. “How can I do this to myself, how can I pretend there’s anything positive about alcohol and drugs? And those poor girls ... why did I have to act like that?”

  “If you think I’m going to feel sorry for you, you’re crazy. That’s just part of the payoff for you, the big guilt-and-apology session. You acted like a real pig last night, and I’d rather not have to hear about it today.” Ace was grinding black pepper into a big glass of beer with tomato juice. “You want one of these, Conrad?”

  “I do, but I don’t. What time is it?”

  “A little after noon. You know Izzy wants to come over and have a yard sale this afternoon? He wants to sell all Mr. Bulber’s clothes and books and dishes.”

  “He can get fucked. I did enough for you guys last night.” Conrad looked around the ruined bachelor quarters. Vomit on the rugs, some of the chairs broken, cans and bottles everywhere ... “Do you think everyone knows I’m Conrad Bunger now? The cops are looking for me, you know, and so are the flame-people. I’ve got half a mind to just get in the XKE and—”

  “You gave the keys to Chuckie,” said Ace. “Don’t you remember? You told him to go sell it and use the money for dope.”

  “He can’t sell it without me there to sign the papers over.”

  “You already signed the papers. He made you do it before he’d give you the rest of his ounce. You wanted to impress Sissy Taylor how—”

  “All right, all right. I remember. Do you still do cross-country running, Ace?”

  “Sure.”

  “Take me on a nice run down through the woods.”

  “Two. Just enough to air my head out.”

  Conrad put on an old pair of Mr. Bulber’s sneakers. They locked up the house and walked down to the dormitory so Ace could get his special shoes. He’d been on the cross-country team his first three years, though now he just ran for fun.

  It was another sunny day, with big bright leaves beginning to drop. The path through the Crum was smooth and sandy; Ace set a nice, easy pace; and before long, Conrad started feeling good again.

  Although the Bulber-body’s joints ached a bit, it seemed to have stronger legs than the Bunger-model had. The stupid Bulber-face had put everyone off last night, but at least Audrey still liked him. Good thing she hadn’t been here. Aaauugh. Here he was, with who knew how much time left, wasting his energy on a stupid-ass party to impress some sophomore girls. He’d probably screwed up his cover, too. He was going to have to leave before Bulber came back from his trip—why not just leave right now?

  They sloped up out of the woods and onto a dirt road that led among factories and warehouses. Since it was Saturday, no one was about; the junked machinery and the great brick-and-metal buildings seemed like relics of an unknown civilization. The road looped back into the Crum—water and leaves. Running like this, Conrad could, oddly enough, forget his body entirely. At some point the pain always grew so great that the brain simply put the body on automatic. The run ended with a final charge up a steep path up to Crum Ledge and Mr. Bulber’s house. There was a telegram sticking out of the mailbox. Audrey?

  Conrad tore it open; it took a minute to grasp what it said.

  M. MARK HZA234444898

  US CONSULATE DGW22891

  PARIS

  FRANCE SEPTEMBER 16, 1966

  CHARLES VENN BULBER LOST IN AVALANCHE ON MONT BLANC STOP BODY UNRETRIEVABLE STOP

  ADVISE DISPOSITION OF EFFECTS STOP

  Just then Chuckie and Izzy pulled up in Chuckie’s car. “Hey, Conrad,” yelled Izzy. “Ready for da yard sale?”

  “Where’s my XKE, Chuckie?”

  “I ... sold it. Turned out the guy wouldn’t pay six thou after all. I could only get three-five. But we’ve been into Philly, and I got your kilo. It’s in this shopping bag with your change. You get eighteen hundred back.”

  “No,” said Conrad waving his hand weakly. “Wait.” He couldn’t catch his breath. If Bulber was never coming back at all, and all the mail was going through this address ... then there was no reason that Conrad couldn’t just move into the Bulber rolepermanently here and ...

  “Unlock da door, Conrad,” yelled Tuskman, tugging at the knob as if to tear it off. “I been puttin’ up signs and I wanta get all the furniture out before—”

  “Goddamn you,” husked Conrad, as loud as he could manage. “Shut the fuck up! And don’t call me Conrad anymore. I’m Charles Bulber, you hear me; I’m Professor Charles Bulber, and I want you off my goddamn fucking property!”

  “Dat’s no way for a professah to talk,” chided Izzy.

  “Cool it,” said Ace, who’d just finished reading the telegram for himself. “Conrad just got some weird news.”

  After a while, Chuckie and Izzy left, and Ace helped Conrad into the house. He fixed them a couple of beer-with-tomato-juices while Conrad rolled a jay. Ace had thought to get the shopping bag from Chuckie. Soon Conrad’s spirits rose.

  “Actually—it’s a gift from God, Ace. With Bulber dead, I could move in here for good—hell, I could pick up enough physics by next year—and then I could marry Audrey, and have kids with her, and be safe from the cops and saucers forever. But I had to fuck it up before I even started. Last night I told about ten people I wasn’t really Bulber; I was trying to impress those girls and ...”

  “Don’t worry, Conrad, I covered for you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I told everyone I was Conrad Bunger, too. And so did Izzy and Chuckie and Platter—that’s going to be like the big campus joke this week: ‘I’m really Conrad Bunger.’ You know: ‘Bird lives!’ ‘James Dean is disfigured and in hiding!’ All those people last night thought you were just a silly middle-aged guy pathetically imitating us students. ‘I am Conrad Bunger,’ indeed. Have you looked in a mirror lately, Dr.

  Bulber?”

  “Oh, Ace.”

  “I know, you don’t deserve a friend like me. What are you going to do with all this Acapulco Gold?” The bagful of mixed money and marijuana had spilled out onto the kitchen floor. Big bills, big buds, gold and green.

  “I’m sure as hell not going to hand it out at Collection. I mean, then I’d have to change my face again, and who knows if I could find another niche as perfect as this. I’ll stay away from the students, and start learning science. I really always wanted to be a physicist anyway. I guess I’ll freeze the dope. Or why don’t I divide it in five, and each of us takes one section, and in return you guys really really forget about this whole thing.”

  “It might work. But why don’t you want to go back to the saucer, Conrad? Isn’t it fun out there?”

  “I ... I really don’t know. I don’t remember that much about it. You know the story. They set me down here when I was ten, with fake memories, and it all came out more or less by accident. I only really saw another flame-person once ... that was the one who tried to get me in the graveyard. He seemed OK; when we touched it was like talking. But I could pick up a real feeling of envy off him. Life on Earth is a lot more interesting than being an energy-pattern in a flying saucer. I’m kind of in a position like a conscripted sailor who jumps ship to live on a tropical island. Or like a spy who defects and begins to believe in his cover.”

  “But what about back on the homeworld? Maybe it’s real nice there. Do you know where it is?”

  “No. I don’t even know whatkind of world it is. Your guess is as good as mine.” Conrad was moving around the kitchen now, straightening up. “I’ll tell you why I want to stay here. It’s simple. I want to stay on Earth because I’m in love with Audrey Hayes. That’s the secret of life, man. Love. I want to live out a normal human life here; I want to live a nice long life with Audrey. Maybe she’ll marry me and move into this house!”

  “Far-out!
And I thought you were going to hand it all out at Collection.”

  “No, no,” said Conrad quickly. “I’ve decided to go for the long haul. Low-profile. I don’t need to talk to Collection at all.”

  “But listen! I was just at the Student Council meeting. After that big party last night, everyone wants you to speak. We scheduled you for September 22, and the college already approved it! You can talk on the secret of life!”

  Chapter 27:

  Sunday, September 18, 1966 Conrad kept to himself for the next week and a half. Giving a speech on the secret of life was something he’d always wanted to do—and he hoped to be ready for it. Dee’s simple summation, “All is One,”

  seemed like the core of it, but the problem was that sometimes the phrase was ... just empty words.

  “All is One,” Conrad would repeat to himself, jogging along the route that Ace had showed him through the Crum. Sometimes it would click, and sometimes it wouldn’t.

  Odd things kept happening at Mr. Bulber’s house. Sometimes Conrad would come back, and it would look as if someone had been there, moving things around. Paranoia or truth? Other days, there’d be a car with strangers parked across the street. Scary, but what could he do? Nothing except hope that, when the heavy shit came down, he’d have another power up his sleeve. Meanwhile, Conrad kept on thinking, thinking about the secret of life.

  He got a lot of books out of the Swarthmore library: Einstein’s essays, Wittgenstein’sTractatus , good oldNausea , and Kerouac and Suzuki and Eddington and Daumal. There was still so much to learn. He’d really wasted his three years here so far—he didn’t know much of anything, and the books were hard to understand. They were just marks on paper. Most days, hungry for reality, he’d wander off into the Crum woods.

  He’d go down the hill behind Bulber’s, say, and smoke a joint and sit there, staring at bugs on a rock.

  The bugs were alive, people were alive, the flamers were alive—butwhat was it all for? When he was high enough, he thought he knew; he’d have that fine merged feeling he’d had that day with Dee, and everything would fit together.