Bug Jack Barron

by Norman Spinrad

  Gelardi shot him a funny, scared look, then a wan grin, and went to the phones as the promptboard flashed “30 Seconds.”

  As he waited, Barron stared at the gray-green glass face of the monitor. With his guts so damn empty—a musty cavern haunted by unreal ghosts—there was something hypnotic about it; he felt the vacuum within reach out for the waiting vacuum in the cathode-ray tube, meet, merge, form a reality-to-reality tunnel across the nonspace of the studio, as if there were nothing real in the whole Universe but himself and that screen and the circuit connecting them. Even the network that logic said connected him with a hundred million other screen-realities didn’t seem to exist. Just him and the tube.

  The monitor screen came to living-color life, a phosphor-dot image straight to the backs of his eyes: his own name “BUG JACK BARRON” in red Yankee-go-home letters, with the barroom voice behind it.

  “Bugged?”

  Then the montage of anger-sounds, and the voice again:

  “Then go bug Jack Barron!”

  And then he was staring at his own face, a living-color mirror-reality that moved when he moved, the eyes shadowed, the mouth grim and heavy. He backed off a bit from what he felt, saw the face on the screen become less tense, less savage, responding to his mind like a remote-controlled puppet.

  As they rolled the first Acapulco Golds commercial he pulled himself away from that vertiginous rapport with the screen, saw that the promptboard said “Howards on Line”—and it was like a nerve in his own body reporting back on the readiness of his fist. Indeed, it was hard for him to feel the interface of his own body—his consciousness seemed as much in the promptboard and the monitor as in his own flesh. He was the room, was the studio set-up, the monkey block-control-booth-studio gestalt. It was part of him, and he of it.

  And everything else—memories of Sara, slug-things inside him, all he had ever been—was locked away, reflex-encapsulated, unreal. Though he felt the mechanism activating and knew it for what it was—electric-circuit anesthesia—he was grateful for it, knowing that his gut wouldn’t have to feel what was going to happen, living-color kick-’em-in-the-ass image-Jack Barron was back in the catbird-seat and knew what to do.

  His face was back on the monitor screen. “This is Bug Jack Barron,” he said, feeling the flesh of his mouth move, seeing it duplicated in the image before him, cell by phosphor-dot-image cell, “and tonight we’re gonna do a show that’s a little different. You’ve been bugging me out there for years, folks, using me as your voice to get to the vips. Well this is worm-turning night, folks, tonight we play the old switcheroo. Tonight I’m bugged, tonight it’s my gripe, tonight I’m out for blood on my own.”

  And in a weird leap of perspective, he seemed to be moving the image-lips on the screen directly, a brain-to-phosphor-dot electronic-flash reflex-arc circuit, as he said: “Tonight Jack Baron bugs himself.”

  He made the face on the screen an unreadable devil-mask (let Bennie sweat, don’t tip him off till he’s too far in, blow his mind naked on camera!), said: “Tonight we’re gonna find out a few things about cryogenic Freezing that nobody knows. Seems like we haven’t been able to do two shows in a row without mentioning the Foundation for Human Immortality lately, and those of you out there who think it’s just a coincidence got a few shocks coming. Lot of people got a few shocks coming. So stick around for the fun and games—you’re gonna see how the old fur flies when Jack Barron bugs himself.”

  Lowering his head to shadow his eyes, he caught kinesthop flashes off the backdrop, turning the image on the screen sly and threatening as he said: “And we won’t wait to get down to the nitty gritty either, friends. I’ve got Mr. Benedict Howards right on the line.”

  Signaling Vince to give him three-quarters screen, he made the connection on the number one vidphone and Benedict Howards’ face appeared in the lower lefthand corner of the monitor screen, a pale gray on gray vidphone phantom, enveloped by Barron’s living-color hyperreal image. You’re on my turf tonight, Bennie, he thought, and so am I, all the way this time, and you’re gonna get a flash of what paranoia can really be…

  “This is Bug Jack Barron, Mr. Howards, and tonight we’re going all the way for the straight poop on…(he purposefully paused, smirked a private, threatening smile, watched Howards freeze in terror, then threw him the change-up, fat, hanging curve)…the Freezer Utility Bill.”

  And watched Howards’ face melt to jello, every tense muscle relaxing in flaccid momentary relief, leaving Bennie wide-open for the primrose path schtick, he’ll think I’m playing ball till I pull the reversal, and he’ll be stuck before he can hang up the phone.

  “Good,” Howards said awkwardly. “It’s about time all this crap about the Foundation for Human Immortality was cleared up.”

  Barron smiled, tapped his left foot-button twice, and Vince gave Howards half screen. “Don’t worry about that, Mr. Howards,” he said. “By the end of the show it’ll all be…cleared up.” And again Howards tensed as he picked up on the emphasis of the last words. Sweat, you bastard, sweat, Barron thought. And it’s only beginning…

  “So let’s talk about this Freezer Utility Bill,” Barron said, saw that once again he was putting Howards through changes—tension-release-tension-release, bounce him back and forth like a ping pong ball. “Now basically, this bill would grant the Foundation for Human Immortality a Freezing Monopoly, right? No other outfit could legally Freeze corpses, the Foundation would have the whole field to itself…a law unto itself…”

  “Hardly,” Howards said, picking up on the cue they had arranged in Colorado. “Cryogenic Freezing would become a public utility like the phone system or electric power—a monopoly, sure, because some services just have to be monopolies to function, but a monopoly strictly regulated by the Federal Government in the public interest.” Beautiful, just like you think we arranged, Bennie—but now it’s time for another change of pace.

  “Well now that sounds pretty reasonable to me, don’t you think so out there?” Barron said, and Howards’ image on the screen smiled an inside I-got-you-bought smile across at his image. Barron made the electronic puppet-mask smile an earnest-flunkie smile back, and for a weird moment he felt his consciousness slur over to the screen, and it was almost as if he were facing Howards flesh-to-flesh.

  “Don’t see how anyone could object to that,” Barron said. “But it seems to me you could say that real simple-like. So why’s your bill in so much trouble, Mr. Howards, why all the static in Congress? Know what I think your trouble is, Mr. Howards?”

  “Suppose you tell me, Barron,” Howards said guardedly. Yeah, that seemed like a harmless lead-in, Bennie, but you know it wasn’t in your little script. And he foot-signaled Vince to give him a commercial in five minutes. Timing here had to be just right.

  “Why, I think it’s just screwed-up semantics, is all,” Barron said, so sweetly innocent that Howards knew he was being sarcastic, and fear crept into his image-eyes, but it was all too subtle, inside stuff, for the audience to pick up on it yet, Barron knew. Which abruptly reminded him that there was a hundred-million Brackett Count audience digging the whole scene, out there on the other side of the screen.

  “What do you mean by that?” Howards snapped, and Barron recognized it as a slipping of control.

  He smiled blandly. “Your bill’s in trouble ’cause it’s badly written, is all. So long and complicated for something that’s supposed to be so straightforward and simple…all those funny little clauses, twisty and turny like a snake. Pretty hard to figure out what it all means.”

  He pulled a blank sheaf of paper out of a pocket. (The old Joe McCarthy schtick.) “Tell you what,” he said, waving the papers across the monitor screen at Howards’ now-uptight image, “why don’t we clear it all up right now, straight from the horse’s mouth, you can explain the confusing parts to a hundred million Americans right now, Mr. Howards, and who knows, then maybe your simple little bill’ll go right through. Soon as we hack away all the confusing underbrush, d
ig?”

  He put a razor in the last word, signaled to Vince to give him three-quarters screen, and zingo, Howards was a scared little twerp cowering below him in the hotseat. He suddenly realized that to the hundred million people on the other side of the screen, what they saw there was reality, reality that was realer than real because a whole country was sharing the direct sensory experience; it was history taking place right before their eyes, albeit non-event history that existed only on the screen. A strange chill went through him as for the first time he got a full gut-reality flash of the unprecedented power wielded by his image on the screen.

  And like an internal neural time-sense circuit, the promptboard told him: “4 Minutes.”

  He hardened that image to a mask of inquisitor-iron, yet spoke blandly, innocently, creating a gestalt of impending dread in the contrast. “Now lessee…this bill would set up a five-member regulating commission, appointed and holding office at ‘the pleasure of the President’. That’s a funny set-up, isn’t it? Seems like the commission would be totally controlled by the President if he could hire and fire commissioners whenever he pleased…”

  “Freezing’s a very delicate problem,” Howards said defensively, like a boy caught with his hand in the old cookie jar. “If the commissioners had fixed terms, they might make mistakes that couldn’t be corrected for years. And in this case, time means human life.”

  “And, of course, the Foundation for Human Immortality is very concerned with…human life,” Barron said as the promptboard flashed “3 Minutes.” “Now there’s another bit of funny language in here. The part that gives the Freezing Commission full power to ‘regulate, oversee, and pass on the appropriateness of all current operations of the Foundation for Human Immortality and any further operations in the area of life-extension as the Foundation may in the future undertake.’ If you translate that into English, it seems to mean that the commission would operate independent of Congress, in effect making its own law in the area of…life-extension.”

  “Well…ah, doesn’t that answer your first question?” Howards said shrewdly, trying to tread water. “Congress just moves too slowly. Say…say we developed an immortality treatment; it could be years before Congress approved it, and in the meantime people would be dying who didn’t have to die. A commission could act at once. Sure, that’s a lot of power to entrust to appointed officials—and that’s why the President must be able to hire and fire commissioners at will, to keep the commission responsive to…public opinion. It may seem complicated, but it’s all very necessary.”

  It sure as shit is, Barron thought. That’s where the whole schmear’s at—the bill’s a license for the Foundation to do anything, so long as the President plays ball. And Bennie figures on owning the next President, and he can do it too, and if not this time, then the next time round. One thing he’s got plenty of is time. Gets his bill through, and his flunky in the White House, he can have…killing children made legal somehow, or have his tame commission insist he’s not doing it. Time to show the fucker the razor inside.

  “In other words, Howards, you and the President’ll run the whole show. The Foundation will control all freezing and…life extension, and only the President, comes nitty gritty, can tell you what you can and can’t do.”

  Howards’ image glared at him like a rat in a trap, and the paranoia within began to leak out through his eyes.

  “The President…” Howards practically gibbered, “what’s wrong with that? Don’t you—”

  “I wonder if it’s smart to trust all that to one man, even the President,” Barron said as the promptboard flashed “2 Minutes.” “I mean, one man, even a President, could be bought. With all your money, and maybe…something more?”

  “You’re crazy, Barron!” Howards shrieked, blowing all cool, his eyes becoming really rabid. “You’re slandering the President of the United States!”

  “Who, me?” said Barron, signaling Vince to cut Howards’ audio, and give Howards three-quarters screen. “Why, I’m a regular pussycat, I wouldn’t slander anyone. I’m talking about a hypothetical President in a hypothetical situation, so all I gotta worry about is a hypothetical lawsuit, right?” Howards’ face was a mute backdrop of paranoia surrounding his on the monitor screen.

  “So let’s just take a farfetched blue-sky hypothetical situation,” he said, foot-signaling to Vince to give Howards full screen. “Let’s say the Foundation for Human Immortality finally develops an immortality treatment…”

  A feral twitch of pure terror spasmed Howards’ face for the hundred-million Brackett Count audience to see, as Barron called for full screen for himself and the promptboard flashed “90 Seconds.”

  “Let’s say our little story takes place after the next Presidential election, and let’s just say the President is the Foundation’s man, without naming names. That sound so impossible to you out there, I mean, the Foundation has only fifty billion bucks to work with, and if they have immortality to peddle…well, that’d make a mighty fancy bribe…”

  His face on the screen burned dots of living-color phosphor into him in a feedback of power; he felt the direct satellite-network connection with the backs of a hundred million brains, all of them hanging on his words, sucking up image from that glass tit, and knowing that he was about to say something dangerously big. Yessiree, folks, step right up and see the Greatest Show on Earth, see the peep-show of history in the making, live, no time-delay, and how’s that for show biz?

  “Let’s say…purely for the sake of argument, of course,” Barron said slowly as the promptboard flashed “60 Seconds,” “that our hypothetical immortality treatment involves a little kicker, though. Let’s say…well, everyone knows what a dirty mind I have, so let’s just say it involves some kind of organ transplant technique which makes the recipient immortal, but, unfortunately, kills the donor. Very tricky and expensive, dig, because somehow they gotta get victims. In other words, to make one winner immortal, the Foundation’s gotta kill one loser. I believe the legal profession has a technical term for that…I think they call it murder.”

  Just enough time to set Bennie up, Barron thought as the promptboard flashed “30 Seconds.” He let a ray of the hate he felt inside him play on his image, a flash to a hundred-million Brackett Count slobs that maybe it all wasn’t just hot air.

  “Now see where that’s at? Just a hypothetical situation, folks,” he said, sneering his image-lips slightly, giving the word “hypothetical” a sardonic intonation. “But hypothetically, if the Freezer Bill is passed as it stands, if the Foundation for Human Immortality can elect itself a President, and if they had a hypothetical immortality treatment that involved murder, then hypothetically the Foundation for Human Immortality could damn well commit murder and get away with it…”

  He paused, filled three full seconds of air time with dead silence, till he was damn sure all of ’em would know exactly what he was saying (and a special dig for Bennie Howards):

  “Hypothetically…” he drawled, and the word was just a shade off being a bald accusation. “Of course, the Foundation’s hot to get the bill passed, and that’s not hypothetical, and a lot of people who should know say there was hanky-panky between the Foundation and a certain potential Presidential candidate who died under…questionable circumstances, and that’s not hypothetical, and one and one have been known to add up to two. And we’ll see just how hypothetical the rest of it is—if Mr. Benedict Howards has the guts to stay on the line—after this word from our unquestionably non-hypothetical sponsor.”

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Vince Gelardi said over the intercom circuit the moment they had the commercial rolling, his face tense and drawn, but a kind of manic elation that Barron could sense peeked through it. “The phones are going crazy, and Howards is gibbering, I mean literally gibbering, man! Stuff about killing you, and eviscerated niggers, and black circles…makes no sense. He’s flipped, he’s all the way ’round the bend, Jack. Christ knows what he’ll say if we put him back on the air.”<
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  Caught up in the smell of combat, Barron found himself saying, with the old Bug Jack Barron relish: “This is not Bug Jesus H., Vince, it’s Bug Jack Barron, and Christ doesn’t have to know what Howards is gonna say so long as I do, dig? Keep him on the line, and feed him right to me as soon as we’re back on the air.”

  Vince winced through the control-booth glass as the promptboard flashed “60 Seconds,” said nervously: “You’re right on the edge as it is. You let a lunatic babble on the air, a lunatic like Bennie Howards, who knows where half the bodies in the country are buried, and we could have a lawsuit that—”

  “It’s my show,” Barron said sharply. “But…maybe you got a point. (Can I keep Howards from doing me in, really pull it off?) Tell you what, when I’m talking, give me three-quarters screen and kill Howards’ audio. When I throw the ball to Bennie, give him three-quarters, let him rave for a couple seconds, then quick-cut back to me at three-quarters and kill his audio again. We play it back and forth like that, and he won’t be able to get more than a couple words in edgewise, dig?”

  “Ah, that’s the dirty old Jack Barron we all know and love,” Gelardi said as the promptboard flashed “30 Seconds.”

  As the last seconds of the Chevy commercial rolled on the monitor screen, Jack Barron got another flash of the total power he wielded over that screen, the power of an artificial phosphor-dot pattern that went straight from his mind through the satellite-network circuit to a hundred million brains, the power of a reality-illusion that wasn’t even real. Life and death, he thought, just Bennie and me, and the poor bastard doesn’t have a prayer. No matter how high the cards he holds in reality are, he still wouldn’t have a chance on my turf, ’cause on those hundred million screens, he says only what I let him say, he is only what I let him be, it’s my reality, it’s like he was stuck inside my head.

  And he finally understood fully where Luke and Morris were at. It didn’t matter that he would be a joke as President, what the flesh and blood man in the studio is doesn’t matter at all—the only thing that matters is what a hundred million schmucks see on the screen, that’s what’s really real, image is all, because when it comes to what’s happening in That Big World Out There, image is all the poor fuckers ever get to see.