Bug Jack Barron

by Norman Spinrad

  Copyright © 1969 by Norman Spinrad.

  Published by arrangement with the author.

  A somewhat abridged version of this novel

  appeared in NEW WORLDS magazine,

  issues 178 through 183.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

  reproduced or transmitted in any form or

  by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

  photocopying, recording, or by any information storage

  and retrieval system, without permission in writing

  from the Publisher.

  All the characters and events portrayed

  in this story are fictitious.

  Published in the United States of America in 1969

  by Walker and Company, a division of the

  Walker Publishing Company, Inc.

  Published simultaneously in Canada by

  The Ryerson Press, Toronto.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 69-16094

  Printed in the United States of America

  A softcover edition of BUG JACK BARRON

  is published by Avon Books, a division of

  The Hearst Corporation.

  Dedicated, in gratitude, to:

  MICHAEL MOORCOCK

  and to

  THE MILFORD MAFIA

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  EPILOGUE

  1

  “Split boys, will you?” drawled Lukas Greene, waving his black hand (and for that nasty little moment, for some reason, thinking of it as black) at the two men (perversely seeing them for the tired moment as niggers) in the Mississippi State Police (coon to the right) and Mississippi National Guard (schvug to the left) uniforms.

  “Yessur, Governor Greene,” the two men said in unison. (And Greene’s ear, caught in what he could outside viewpoint see as the dumb mindless masochistic moment, heard it as “Yassah Massah.”)

  “Tote dat barge,” Governor Greene said to the door when it had closed behind them. What the hell’s wrong with me today, Greene thought irritably. That damned Shabazz. That dumb trouble-making nig—

  There was that word again, and that was where the whole thing was at. Malcolm Shabazz, Prophet of the United Black Muslim Movement, Chairman of the National Council of Black Nationalist Leaders, Recipient of the Mao Peace Prize, and Kingfish of the Mystic Knights of the Sea was neither more nor less than a nigger. He was everything the shades saw when they heard the word nigger: Peking-loving ignorant dick-dragging black-oozing ape-like savage. And that cunning son of a bitch Malcolm knew it and played on it, making himself a focus of mad white hate, the purposeful prime target of garbage-throwing screaming Wallacite loonies, feeding on the hate, growing on it, absorbing it, saying to the shades, “I’m a big black mother, and I hate your fucking guts, and China is the Future, and my dick is bigger than yours, you shade bastard, and there are twenty million bucks like me in this country, a billion in People’s China and four billion in the world who hate you like I hate you, die you shade mother!”

  As the Bohemian Boil-Sucker observed to the chick who farted in his face. Greene thought, it’s people like you, Malcolm, who make this job disgusting.

  Greene swiveled in his chair, and stared at the little TV perched on the desk across from the in-out basket. Instinctively he reached for the pack of Acapulco Golds sitting on the pristine desk top, then thought better of it. Much as he needed a good lungful of pot at this moment on this day, it was not a smart move for anyone who was where anything was at to be under the influence of anything on a Wednesday night. He glanced surreptitiously at the dead screen of his vidphone. The screen might very well come alive during the next hour with the sardonically smiling face of good old Jack Barron.

  “Jack Barron,” Lukas Greene sighed aloud. Jack Barron. Even a friend couldn’t afford to be stoned if he got a public call from Jack. Not in front of a hundred million people he couldn’t.

  But then it had never paid, even in the old Jack-and-Sara days, to give an edge to Jack Barron. What’s-his-name—whoever remembers anymore?—made the mistake of letting Jack guest on his Birch grill for one night, and Jack grew all over him like a fucking fungus.

  And then—no more what’s-his-name. Just a camera, a couple vidphones, and good old Jack Barron.

  If only…Greene thought, the same old familiar Wednesday night “if only” thought…if only Jack were still one of us. With Jack on our side the S.J.C. would have a fighting chance to break through and beat the Pretender. If only…

  If only Jack weren’t such a cop-out. If only he had kept some of what we all seemed to lose in the ’70s. But what had Jack said (and oh, was he right; and don’t I know it!), “Luke,” Jack Barron had said, and Greene remembered every word Jack could always stick a phrase in your head like a Bester mnemonic jingle, “it sure is a bad moment when you decide to sell out. But a worse moment, the worst moment in the world is when you decide to sell out and nobody’s buying.”

  And how do you answer that? Greene thought. How do you answer that, when you’ve parlayed a picket sign, a big mouth, and a black skin into the Governor’s Mansion in Evers, Mississippi? How do you answer Jack, you black shade you white nigger you?

  Lukas Greene laughed a bitter little laugh. The name of the show had to be an inside joke, a real inside joke, inside Jack’s hairy little head, is all…

  Because (since he had waved bye-bye to Sara) who in hell could really…bug Jack Barron?

  Not a night to be alone, Sara Westerfeld unwittingly found herself thinking under the sardonic blind gaze of the dead glass eye of the portable TV which suddenly seemed to have infiltrated itself into her consciousness in her living room, where Don and Linda and Mike and the Wolfman stood unknowing guard against loneliness-ghosts of Wednesday nights past, and she against her will realized (and realized against her will that she always realized) that it had been a long time (don’t think of the exact date; you know the exact date; don’t think of it) since she had spent a Wednesday night with fewer than three people around her.

  Better to play games with Don Sime (will I—won’t I—is tonight the night—or will I ever?) than to sit alone the way I maybe want to, with the dead glass eye daring me to turn it on. Better still just to sit here and dig the Wolfman rapping with half an ear and let the broken record of his harmless talking-just-to-hear-himself-talk bullshit turn off my mind, turn off memory, and let me drift in the droning not-really-Wednesday now…

  “Dig, so I say, man, why ain’t there a check for me?” the Wolfman was saying, pulling at his scraggly muttonchops. “I’m a human being, ain’t I?”

  “Know what the fucker says?” the Wolfman whined with a great display of wounded dignity Sara could not tell was put on or not. “Says, ‘Jim, you’re too young for Social Security, too old for A.I.D., and you ain’t never worked ten weeks in a row to qualify for Unemployment. In fact you are a bum in hip clothing, is what you are.’”

  The Wolfman paused. And now Sara saw a strange thing happen to his face as the supercilious mood left it—revealed as superciliousness by its passing—and she saw what the others in the pseudo-Japanese room also saw, that for once the Wolfman was grotesquely pitiably earnest.

  “What kind of shit is that,” the Wolf
man asked stridently, and the joint he was holding slid from his fingers and fell unheeded, burning the black-lacquered coffee table.

  “Screw it, will you, Wolfman, and pick up that Pall Mall you dropped on the table,” Don said, trying to act like the Defender of Hearth and Home in front of Sara, make his dumb little points with her in her own apartment.

  “Screw yourself, Sime,” the Wolfman said. “I’m talking about like real injustice. People like you, people like me—”

  “Aw—” Don began, and the moment stood still for Sara, knowing what he was going to say, the three words, the exact cynical intonation, having been flayed by those words dozens of times a week for years, wincing, dying a little each time she heard those three last words, knowing that Don Sime would now never ball her, not with a billion screaming Chinese holding her down, not ever. Sooner would she make it with a gila monster or Benedict Howards than give herself to a man who said those three words on a Wednesday night between 8 and 9 p.m., and by the little death induce the grand mal déjà vu, images of his face on the television screen carefully tousled over his face on the long-ago blue-flowered pillow carelessly neat his beard blue and stubbly…

  Don Sime, unheeding (and, she saw, an unheeding, rotten swine by his thoughtless reflex reaction), nevertheless said the three magic words, the outsider’s inside expression that shriveled to death for an instant the insides of Sara.

  “Aw,” said Don Sime, “bug Jack Barron.”

  Cool was the night breeze in Benedict Howards’ throat as he lay easily in the crisp white sheets of the hospital bed, snug and safe in the monolithic citadel that was the Rocky Mountain Freezer Complex. Out beyond the half-strength heat-curtain opening on to the balcony (they had screamed when he demanded to feel the breeze when he came out of it, and they told him it seemed to have worked, but no half-ass gaggle of quacks was going to give any lip to Benedict Howards) the mountains were vague shapes in the heavy darkness, and the stars were washed out by the muzzy twilight glow from the busy lights of the Freezer Complex, his Complex, all of it now, and…

  Forever?

  He tasted Forever in the pine breeze that blew in from the mountains and from New York and Dallas and Los Angeles and Vegas and all the places where lesser men scurried for crumbs bug-like in the light; tasted Forever, lying calmed and warmed against the breeze by postoperative weakness in the sheets that he owned in the Complex he owned in the country where Senators and Governors and the President called him Mr. Howards…

  Tasted Forever in the memory of Palacci’s smug grin as he had said, “We know that it’s taken, Mr. Howards, and we know that it should work. Forever, Mr. Howards? Forever is a long time. We can’t know that it’s forever till it’s been forever, now, can we, Mr. Howards? Five centuries, a millenium…who knows? Maybe you’ll have to settle for a million years. Think that will do, Mr. Howards?”

  And Howards had smiled and allowed the doctor his dumb little death-joke, allowed it, when he had broken bigger men for less because what the hell you couldn’t nurse every little dumb grudge like that for a million years, now, could you? Had to take the long view, get rid of excess baggage.

  Forever? Howards thought. Really, this time I could smell it on the doctors’ sweat, see it in their fat little bonus smiles. The bastards think they’ve done it this time. Thought they’d done it before. But this time I can taste it, I can feel it; I hurt in the right places.

  Forever…Push it back forever, Howards thought. Fading black circle of light, big-eyed night nurses, daytime bitch with her plastic professional cheeriness back in the other sheets in the other hospital in the other year tube, wormlike, up his nose down his throat, in his guts, membranes clinging and sticking to polyethelene like a slug on a rock, with each shallow breath an effort not to choke, not to reach up with whatever left rip-gagging tube from nose-throat rip blood-drip needle from left arm, glucose solution from right; die clean like a man, clean like boyhood Panhandle plains, clear-cut knife-edge between life and death, not this pissing away of life juices in plastic, in glass, in tubes and retches enemas catheters needles nurses faded faggoty vases of flowers…

  But the circle of black light contracting, son of a bitch, no fading black circle of light snuffs out Benedict Howards! Buy the bastard, bluff him, con him, kill him! No dumb-ass wheel flipping off goddam Limey limousine gives lip to Benedict Howards. Hate the bastard, fight him, burn him out, buy him, bluff him, con him, kill him, open up the circle of black light…wider, wider. Hate tubes hate nurses hate needles sheets flowers. Show ’em! Show ’em all they don’t kill Benedict Howards.

  “No one kills Benedict Howards!” Howards found himself mouthing the words, the breeze now cold, warm weakness now gone, fight reflexes pounding his arteries, light cold sweat on his cheeks.

  With a shudder Howards wrenched himself out of it. This was another hospital another year; life poured into him, sewn into him, nurtured in Deep Sleep, not leaking out in tubes and bottles. Yes, yes, you’re in control now. Paid your dues. No man should have to die twice, no man twice watching life leak away youth leak away blood leak away all leak away muscle turn to flab, balls to shriveled prunes, limbs to broomhandles, not Benedict Howards. Push it back, push it back for a million years. Push it back—forever.

  Howards sighed, felt glands relaxing, gave himself over again to the pleasant, healthy warm weakness, knowing what it meant, warmth pushing back the cold, light opening the fading black circle, holding it open, pushing it open—forever.

  Always a fight, thought Benedict Howards. Fight from Texas Panhandle to oil-money-power Dallas, Houston, L.A., New York, where it all was action open oil leases land stocks electronics NASA, Lyndon Senators Governors, toadies…Mr. Howards. Fight from quiet dry plains to quiet air-cooled arenas of power, quiet air-cooled women with skin untouched by sun by wind by armpit-sweat…

  Fight from tube up nose down throat fading black circle to Foundation for Human Immortality, bodies frozen in liquid helium, voting assets liquid assets frozen with them in quiet dry helium-cooled vaults of power Foundation power my power money-power fear-power immortality power—power of life against death against fading black circle.

  Fight from dry empty Panhandle-seared women lying in wrecked car blood trickling from mouth pain inside fading black circle, to this moment, the first moment of Forever.

  Yeah, always a fight, thought Benedict Howards. Fight to escape, get, live. And now the big fight, fight to keep it all: money power, young fine-skinned women, Foundation, whole goddamned country, Senators, Governors, President, air-cooled places of power, Mr. Howards. Forever, Mr. Howards, forever.

  Howards looked out the heat-curtained window, saw the busy lights of the Freezer Complex, Complexes in Colorado, New York, Cicero, Los Angeles, Oakland, Washington…Washington Monument, White House, the Capital, where they lay in wait, men against him, against his citadel against Foundation against Freezer Utility Bill against forever, men on the side of the fading black circle…

  Little more than a year, thought Benedict Howards. Little more than a year till Democratic Convention—destroy Teddy the Pretender, Hennering for President, Foundation man, my man my country, Senators, Governors…President, Mr. Howards. Month, two months, and they vote on the Utility Bill, win vote with money-power fear-power of life against death—then let the bastards find out how! Let ’em choose then. Sell out to life to Foundation to forever—or give themselves to the fading black circle. Power of life against death, and what senator, Governor, President chooses death, Mr. Howards?

  Howards’ eyes fell on the wall clock: 9:57, Mountain Time. Reflexively, his attention shifted to the tiny dormant screen of the vidphone (Mr. Howards is not to be disturbed by anyone for anything tonight, not even Jack Barron) on the bedside table next to the small TV set. His stomach tightened with fear of the unknown, the random, exposure.

  Just reflex action, Howards thought. Wednesday-night conditioned response. Nothing more. Jack Barron can’t get to me tonight. Strict orders, lines of retre
at, back-up men. (“Mr. Howards is on his yacht in the Gulf is in plane to Las Vegas duck hunting fishing in Canada, can’t be found, a hundred miles from the nearest vidphone, Mr. Barron. Mr. De Silva, Dr. Bruce, Mr. Yarborough will be happy to speak with you, Mr. Barron. Fully authorized to speak for the Foundation, actually in more intimate contact with details than Mr. Howards, Mr. Barron. Mr. De Silva, Dr. Bruce, Mr. Yarborough will tell you anything you want to know, Mr. Barron.”) Jack Barron could not, would not be permitted to bug him on this first night of forever.

  Just a dancing bear anyway, Benedict Howards told himself. Jack Barron, a bone to the masses the reliefers loafers, acid-dope-hux-freaks Mexes niggers. Useful valve on the pressure-cooker. Image of power on a hundred million screens, image not reality, not money-power, fear-power, life-against-death power Senators, Governors, President, Mr. Howards.

  Walking tightrope between networks, sponsors, masses, F.C.C. (two commissioners in Foundation’s pocket) Jack Barron. Bread-and-circus gladiator, with paper-sword image of power, Bullshit Jack Barron.

  Nevertheless, Benedict Howards reached out, turned on the TV set, waited stomach-knotted, through color images of Dodges, network emblem, Coke bottles dancing, plastic piece of ass starlet smoking Kools Supreme, station emblem, waited frowning tense in the cool night breeze, knowing others waited, bellies rumbling with his in quiet air-cooled vaults of power in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Washington waiting for three words (scarlet on midnight-blue background) to begin the hour’s ordeal of waiting, glancing at dead vidphones, pustules of Harlem, Watts, Mississippi, Strip City, Village niggers, loafers, losers randomly popping—a hundred million cretins, hunched forward, smelling for blood, blue venous blood from circles of power:

  “BUG JACK BARRON.”

  “BUG JACK BARRON”—red letters (purposefully crude imitation of traditional “Yankee Go Home” sign scrawled on walls in Mexico, Cuba, Cairo, Bangkok, Paris) against flat dark-blue background.

  Off-camera gruff barroom voice over shouts: “Bugged?”