Kalifornia

by Marc Laidlaw

  Ah, the healthy wailing of a baby girl. The Official Crone’s old nipples ached and itched a little. Dry memories. She hadn’t heard the sound in many years. The Daughters bore no children, having no contact with men—Goddess forbid!

  The baby had worked her way down among the sacks, but after some exertion the crone retrieved her. She screamed vigorously, waving her tiny fists more fiercely than any tot in the old woman’s memory. Cooing, she pressed the child to her breast, wishing her eyes were better, wishing (for once) that the night were not so dark. The buildings were so tall and congested that light rarely carried from brighter parts of the Frange. She couldn’t make out more than the plainest fact of eyes, nose, and mouth. The High Priestess had promised that the girl would have orange eyes, but there was no evidence of that in this darkness. Still, this had to be the babe they sought.

  The swaddling was loose; the child now kicked free of it. The crone set her down on a sack of cereal, bent painfully to retrieve the cloth, and, when she stood up, screamed.

  Somewhere nearby, fireworks had exploded. Their light danced over the ruined towers, bits of it bouncing down to these drear depths. In the fitful flashes, unmistakably, the Official Crone beheld a child’s dangling pee . . . pee . . . penis?

  Penis?

  It was a male. . . .

  Her heart nearly stopped beating, but her thoughts moved so quickly that they tugged her blood along out of necessity.

  The child’s masculinity was a disaster. It meant she had somehow stolen the wrong child. A changeling. She would suffer the cosmic wrath of Mother Kali, not to mention the more painful and immediate anger of Kali’s High Priestess.

  But worse than this to the Official Crone was the knowledge that she had touched the . . . the male. Her fingers had very nearly brushed that, that, that, that thing, that terrible item of sickening masculine flesh! All this was forbidden. More than forbidden, it was disgusting, it revolted her. She had lain with men once, long before Kali called her. She’d had a husband and even male children, but that was long ages behind her now. To think that somehow a male member had risen out of nowhere and practically fallen into her lap—it filled her with horror. The Official Crone didn’t know where to turn.

  First, half out of her senses, she threw the soiled swaddlings over the child to spare herself the sight of his tiny pizzle in case of another fireworks flare. She didn’t know whether to scrape the boy into the street and leave him there, or simply shove him back deeper into the wagon and pretend she’d never looked, leaving all hard decisions to the High Priestess. True, that would mean desecrating the temple, but at least she could hold to her story. She had fulfilled her mission to the best of her ability. How was she supposed to know that the wrong child would fall from the fire escape?

  But if she ditched the child and came back empty-handed, she would have no excuse. The High Priestess would think her a doddering, blind old fool, and say her infirmity made her imagine a penis in place of the pristine apricot folds of the female gender. The Official Crone knew a penis when she saw one, but what if the High Priestess didn’t believe her? It just wouldn’t do to insist on detailed knowledge of such a blasphemous object!

  That decided her. She would do no more and no less than the High Priestess had directed. If she ended up with the wrong child, so be it.

  It wasn’t her fault. None of it. It was an honest accident. How many infants were tossed from fire escapes at midnight on the state bicentennial?

  She clambered back into the seat, trying to keep her mind off the thing that squalled behind her. Once the station wagon started moving again, the baby would slip down among the sacks; that would explain why its swaddling had come undone.

  She wasn’t going to risk impurity by touching it again.

  With a fresh, impatient eye, she examined the pile of loose rocks and cement that blocked her way. She decided that ultimately nothing would carry her through better than a burst of honest speed. And if the child tumbled overboard, well . . .

  Accidents will happen.

  ***

  While the bicentennial was of great concern to many Californians (particularly those on the payroll), such temporal matters fell far below the notice of the Holy City’s sacred squatters. Festivities couldn’t offer the escape from care they sought. Governors had come and gone with hardly an impact on the precinct, except when their policies had plunged it even farther into poverty. A President of the United States had inspected the region more than forty years ago and declared it a disaster area, uninhabitable, worthy of federal assistance—had there been any spare change in the Union coffers. But money there was none, and the aid never came, and eventually even the toughest of the poor found good reason to leave. Life was hard enough elsewhere. Why suffer unnecessarily?

  A few, however, ventured into the urban no-man’s-land and found it to their liking—spiritual cousins of the hermits who wandered into deserts to live on locusts, into arctic wastes to subsist on lichen and flavored ice, or off to the weightless asteroid colonies, where a dedicated man could simper and suffer self-righteously while his bones slowly softened and imploded for want of gravity.

  The forgotten city’s new inhabitants were pioneers of decay who found in the tangled ruins of once-modern cities enough meaningful symbols to propel their souls beyond the reach of gravity. Atop slumps of slag from which NO VACANCY signs protruded, fire-eyed, speed-eating monks divined Zen prophecies whose meaningless runes they scribbled in spray-can poetry on gray, smog-eaten walls. These were the first temples and the first rites of the new visionaries.

  Next, of course, came followers. Some were orthodox ruin-skulkers, professional jackals who prowled the shadows in search of the occasional senile citizen or mendicant monk so deep in satori that he couldn’t be bothered to protect himself. Prides and packs of juveniles, beasts warring for territory, tore up streets that the priests had hoped to make their own. In such an atmosphere, religion could not help but flourish.

  Eventually the gangs themselves were initiated into the mysteries of this new Eleusis, brought in as guardians of the fallen temples. Outside officers of the law found ever fewer reasons to enter the inner city. The defending angels kept the avenues dark and ruinous, inculcating the mood most helpful for a zealous pursuit of salvation. One could not tread these streets without acknowledging the flesh’s vulnerability, the meager meaning of mere existence. Savage spiritual predators contributed to such insights. The gangs defended those who sat on girders high in broken buildings, staring at sun and moon till blindness stunned them and they fell. On occasion, the gangs were even said to roam beyond the sacred city’s bounds searching for acolytes, offering a bloody baptism to those whom fate tossed into their filthy-pure hands.

  None of these defenders disturbed the Official Crone’s wagon, having watched it come and go night after night. She in turn accepted them, and tried not to dwell on the fact that some were men. Men did have their uses, she supposed. Life was all balance, all compromise. Only death, black mercy, was totality, a perfect bargain sealed.

  At last, just ahead, she saw the black temple of her sect. Some Holy City residents made their homes in ancient condominiums, blasted supermarkets, laundromats, car parks, banks, and bowling alleys. But the Daughters of Kali had found themselves an actual church, of uncertain denomination but clearly intended for worship. Above the entrance was a wide marquee on which the Daughters had arranged the name of their goddess in black plastic letters, COMING SOON: KALI! A small booth stood below the great sign, from which the priests of old had declaimed to passersby and plucked acolytes from among the unwary. The doors were mere metal frames, empty when the Daughters inherited the temple, although they had since filled the frames with dark, translucent scenes in stained plastic. The crone had joined the temple several years before, when the High Priestess first opened its doors. Before that, she had served Kali in other ways, less knowingly.

  She drew up in an alley alongside the church and rapped the secret code on the dark
rear door. It opened creakingly, pulled back by a black-cowled Daughter who greeted the elder with a respectful curtsy.

  “Get the High Priestess,” the Official Crone said. “The errand is done.”

  “But it’s nearly time for mass,” the younger protested.

  “Tell her now, before it starts. She needs to know.”

  The young Daughter scurried away, leaving the Official Crone to take her post. It was closer to dawn than she had thought. Inside the temple, Daughters scurried to finish their tasks before sunrise and the night’s last ceremonies.

  The tattered rows of temple seats were full of worshipers. Their shadows leaped on the painted walls where bits of dirty gilt glimmered, caught in the light of a hundred votive candles that burned in alcoves around the room as well as on the wide stage at the low end of the slanting floor. High in the wall opposite the stage was a tiny, square window, the fane of the inmost mysteries, where burned the most sacred flame of all.

  Suddenly that high flame snuffed out. Three Daughters hurried over the stage, extinguishing votive candles, plunging the entire sanctum into darkness.

  I’m too late, thought the Official Crone.

  The morning mass began.

  A light brighter than any flame sprang from the shrine’s high window, cleaving the dark air, casting its radiance on the screen of dingy pearl above the stage. The Daughters cupped their hands together, beginning to moan. For a moment the light was too hot to bear; they squinted, not daring to turn away. Then, mercifully, a bit of shadow obtruded, softening the glare.

  Black fingers fluttered across the white field. A sinuous black arm eclipsed the screen.

  Now appeared the head, shoulders, and arms of a dancing woman. Her whole body followed. Snakelike she writhed against the screen, blacker than the night sky, banishing the hated sunlike glare. Once again the temple sank into blackness, but this was deeper, darker, richer than the puny shadows that had come before. This was the blackness of Kali, whose very name meant black.

  The Official Crone’s eyes rolled up in her skull. She sank to her knees. She was not the only one in rapture as narcotic smoke poured from the ventilation shafts and whistles wailed in the hollow heights.

  “Kali!” they whispered. “Kali-ma!”

  “Daughters!” cried the High Priestess, her voice falling all around them. “Daughters, the age of the sun is coming to an end. Tonight is Kali’s time. The governments tumble, the nations will crumble. Tonight, even this decadent land of poppies and lotus-eaters has felt the force and cunning of Her wrath. While California sings and laughs, her golden hair is gripped in the black fist of the Goddess!”

  “Kali-Kali-Kali-ma!”

  Shadows crept like inky smoke into the convolutions of the Official Crone’s brain, rooting out her secrets and her sins, feeding on her shame. They poked and prodded till she knew she must vomit out her guilt. Still she held her tongue, choking down the bile of her blasphemy.

  “Truly, Daughters, the long night is falling. Kali’s age is upon us. We live in the center of the storm, in Kali’s eye. Our mother will preserve us when she brings the black balm of total annihilation.”

  “Kali spare me!” the Official Crone shrieked, unable to bear any longer the raking of black claws. “I have sinned! I have touched a man!”

  Silence.

  At her words, even the High Priestess fell silent. The darkness felt more ordinary now, though it remained ominous. A few candles sprang to life and the mother flame was rekindled in the high window of the most holy fane.

  The Official Crone began to tear at her hair, begging silently for mercy. Oh, how the Goddess would punish her. Now she might never die. She would live forever beneath a searing noonday sun, in a California of chrome and plastic, enduring the smiles of young men with skin of bronze.

  Suddenly the High Priestess, appearing out of nowhere, clutched her shoulder and dragged her to her feet.

  “How have you sinned, old woman? Did you fail in your mission? Why didn’t you come to me directly? How did you fail? When did you get back? What man distracted you? Can’t we trust you on your own anymore, or are you determined to disgrace this temple with your vile hag-lust?”

  “Please, please,” the Official Crone gasped. “In the wagon, it was there I touched. Oh, forgive me, Kali. Forgive me, Priestess.”

  The High Priestess shoved her through the door, into the alley. “Stop your wailing. The pain you feel is nothing compared to what will come as your punishment.”

  The wagon sat silent in the alley. The child made no sound. Perhaps he had bounced out after all. Would that make the High Priestess any more merciful? Allow the Official Crone to doubt it.

  “A man, you said. Where?”

  The crone pointed with a trembling finger. The High Priestess and two Daughters advanced to the wagon, while others—fierce guardians—held the elderly woman erect. The High Priestess began to sort through the sacks. Finally she found what she sought, and let out a bitter laugh.

  “A man, you said?”

  “A male, Priestess! I meant a male! I did as you asked, everything went perfectly, the other wagon was delayed, the child fell from the sky—but still, still, this is what came to us. I didn’t mean to look, but how could I avoid . . . it?”

  A commotion spread through the Daughters. Some cast their eyes fearfully to the sky, but thankfully there was no flush of dawn between the corroded towers.

  “Not a man,” said the High Priestess, chuckling. “Not even a male, dear old Crone, though I see how you made such a mistake with your bad eyes.”

  “A mistake?” the Official Crone said hopefully.

  The babe began to bawl. The High Priestess tore away the swaddling and raised the child aloft. In the pale light falling from inside the temple, the Official Crone saw once again the thing that had terrified her in the streets.

  But now, in steadier illumination, she saw where she had made her mistake.

  The child possessed female genitalia, a hairless cleft, a tiny mound. All this and something more: not a penis, but very like one.

  “Do you see, old woman?” The High Priestess shook the baby. “Do you see what you mistook for masculinity? It’s nothing to be afraid of. In fact, it’s a triumph. This is the child I sent you for; no other comes so specially equipped.”

  The Official Crone could scarcely take her eyes off the tiny wisp of . . . well, not flesh exactly. It looked more like plastic cable, shiny and clean, ending not in an irrational foreskin-covered glans, but in a reasonable metal tip. A simple prong.

  The High Priestess’s laughter echoed from the buildings. Far away, one could hear an unwitting answer in the revels of the Franchise.

  The Official Crone let out a sigh and sank to the street.

  “Yes, old woman, you have served Kali well.” The High Priestess signaled to the other Daughters. “Let her have the reward Kali promised. The Black Needle—Kali’s blessing.”

  The Official Crone let out a cry of relief and delight. The Daughters crowded around, helping her to her feet, excitedly proclaiming, “Isn’t it wonderful? Kali’s blessing! Tonight you die!”

  “Oh!” she cried. “Thank the Goddess!”

  “Have a nice death,” the High Priestess bid her. “You well deserve it.”

  While others took the Official Crone to her reward, the High Priestess remained behind. She held the child close to her cheek, inhaling the sharp scents of night that clung to the warm, damp flesh. She smelled sulfur, gunpowder, the brassy taint of human fear. Not the child’s fear, no, but the fear of others who had touched her during the night.

  Her own mother must have feared her.

  The High Priestess gazed at the night sky, a black maelstrom of smoke.

  “Kali is your mother now,” she whispered.

  The baby gave a startled cry.

  “Yes, Daughter, we are all her children. But for you she has reserved something special, something quite unique.”

  The child quieted, staring at the High
Priestess with deep golden eyes. The girl was more beautiful than she had imagined. Her eyes glowed like the sun. But this sun would bring an end to the other.

  “In honor of this night, we have a special name for you. Yes, Daughter. Henceforth, you shall be known as Kalifornia.”

  PART TWO

  S01E04. Revolt of the Wage Slaves

  Alfredo Figueroa stood at his sea-level window, thumbs hitched in suspenders that never stopped chafing, looking out at a distant figure with long, sun-bleached hair who seemed to be standing on the waves. Sandy had found something to amuse himself in the corporation: he surfed the break that peeled off a corner of the seascraper. Alfredo, on the other hand, never took a moment’s pleasure from the business. He’d thought working would distract him from grief, but it had proved an added burden. Thoughts of Marjorie never went away. They couldn’t be papered over, not even by a bureaucracy.

  He’d given the corporate world its chance to heal him, to return all the favors he’d done for commerce when, as America’s favorite father, he’d lived the life of a walking, talking sponsor. Three years, and no improvement. What’s worse—for the public—since the Figueroas there had been no family with a fraction of their appeal. It was as if the audience itself had lost a mother and seen its family fractured. Which was true enough. Most members of the audience had never had a real coherent family of their own, certainly nothing with the clear and stable lineaments of the Figueroas.

  We were a force for stability, he thought with more than a little pride. We were always there for folks; with all our problems, they could count on us. Our wires were their moral fiber. And then . . . we let them down. We wimped out. Ran away. Skedaddled. No wonder I’ve been sick with myself ever since. At a time when they needed us the most, we abandoned them, ignoring the fact that our problems had become their problems. It really wasn’t fair to tear our support away from them like that.