The Seventh Science Fiction Megapack
Page 72
He laughed maliciously, and strode quickly out of sight.
* * * *
And so the abused budding mystic was left alone, as he desired it.
“Goethe was right,” he thought to himself; “men are all too predominantly wont to scorn what they do not understand. Goethe himself illustrated the tendency very well.
“There are so many things that cannot be understood by the ordinary intellectual-emotional-sensible mind, no matter how clever it may be, or how brilliant and vigorous, and broad and deep and strong. It lacks too much: it is not self-existent, and self-sustaining. And the things that it cannot understand are the only things of real, undying importance.
“May I soon find my teacher,” he continued, “and be properly trained.”
He stood up, restlessly. His last day among the artists was tumbling piecemeal upon him. Was it Shakespeare that the theatrical group had been performing? Yes, King Lear! Such magnificent art, and so futile. He paced about sadly, trying to remember a certain line—yes, this was it:
Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
Ripeness is all.
And that’s true, too, he sighed with old Gloucester. And surely he was ripe now, if he was ever going to be. He was balanced in the midst of his various tendencies, and one-pointed for a great drive, a penetration to the depths. He would know himself truly, as infinitely more than that which comes and goes, and shines but briefly in the darkness.
He stood listening, and gazing into the distance. Yes! The call was clear now, and there would be no further stopping along the way. He strode out strongly, and cut due east, heading for the really high mountains, and the farther shore.
DAWSON DID IT, by C.J. Henderson
Bill Dawson was the best friend I ever had. I guess I should get something straight right here—I’m not the next Shakespeare, or Hemingway, or Tupen Dere and I know it. The only reason I decided to tell this story is because I owe Bill, and this is the only way I could figure to pay him back.
Bill and I met in the Company School—Second Level MOS—management off-spring. I looked over to his seat and saw him—rough, sandy hair, those thin arms, and that stupid good luck charm—completely ignoring the day’s lesson, the vid-com, everything, to read a copy of Batman.
I had never seen a real comic book until that moment. Bill’s Dad had gotten it along with a few thousand others from Bill’s grandfather who’d been a boy when they’d stopped producing comics back around the turn of the century. When the com-light was aimed toward Glory Daver I reached over and tapped his attention. When he turned around I gave him a look that said I would give the Earth, moon, and my left arm to see one of his comics. When the com’s next blind spot came around, he passed one over. I still remember it—The Amazing Spider-Man #20…first appearance of the Scorpion. It was great. Just like our friendship.
Even at that age, you could tell how we were going to turn out. Bill was seven, one year younger than me but already at my level. He was small compared to level one kids, and a runt in level two. Everyone called him Dawson the Dwarf, but he never seemed to care. He could probably have skipped a few more levels and been Out/There four or five years early, but he always leveled with me.
I guess you could say I got Bill into my crowd and made sure he stayed there. He introduced me to Stan Lee and Robert E. Howard, de Maupassant and Kipling. I zeroed his sights on to Muslimgauze, Windshield, the Fergum Beta Quartet and Green Ivory. Daws read and I listened to tunes and we just shared. He would come to my games and I’d play harder just to hear him whoop. He would read me a story he wrote and I’d play him a run I’d jotted in my tuner. He’d buy me a burger and I’d take him Freewayin’. And that, I guess, is how the whole thing got started.
We weren’t steel curtained at the time or anything—we’d just cruise, looking for wrecks, fights to watch…the usual. No one challenged us—we were clearly in/transit…Voyeurs. We could wait for our day.
Bill’s Dad told us stories about the old days when the freeways had still been open and safe, back before anyone had armor. Once the decay forced most long-distance traffic into the clouds, the highways between cities were patrolled with less rigor. That meant motorists were left to solve their differences by themselves, when they weren’t being preyed on by rovers. Fenderbender slug-ups would go on for thirty miles.
Pretty soon, those who had to drive the interstates were taking along a weapon or two—or three. After that came the year when both Ford and BMW decided that Smith & Wesson didn’t deserve all the bucks, and we all started getting the most exotic factory extras in decades.
And suddenly, the world had a brand new sport.
* * * *
The only good thing to come out of the year 2052 was the merger of Chevrolet and Volkswagen, and their opening product, the CVW Firefox. It came with standard .45 guns front and aft, German armor and glass, the most beautiful 738 cubes Chevy had ever produced, ’phalt dusters, double rear sausage and steering grips with touch control.
I’d worked three summers to save up for mine. It’d been Dead Bubble Fergeson’s. With his kids moved out, he and his wife only needed a neighborhood scattler, so he moved to dump the DoubleF, unloading it directly into my outstretched arms.
Bill was with me the day we made transfer…it was a Saturday. I remember. I had dumped every credit I had into my Dad’s account and he had gifted me his card to use for the day. I handed it to Fergeson who thumbed out his threeG and handed it back.
I was shaking. Three klids for a CVW only four years old. Four clean years. Fergeson had bought it for inner-city protection. It was perfect—eat-off-the-carb clean. It was a jewel and it was mine. In the door pocket, the standard factory issue .357 still sat with its original ammunition. Fergeson had taken good care of his car, and good care not to get himself compromised in a situation where he would have to use what he had.
“Well,” he said, his mouth pulling into a crooked smile, “I’ve driven with you; you know your way around a DoubleF, your Dad says ‘al’reet’ and I did wheel your wad so…I guess these are yours.”
He held out the keys. I went to take them, but before I could make contact he dropped them on the floor…on purpose. I didn’t want to start anything, so I bent to pick them up…and he stepped on them. By then I was getting annoyed.
“Are you gettin’ mad?” he asked. “Good and boiled? Feelin’ the wet fear cakin’ on your back?”
I looked at him, wondering what kind of dust such an old guy might be toggling that early on a Saturday morning when his arms shot out like pistons. He caught me out flat and stupid. I bounced off the back wall of his garage. While I pulled myself together, he sneered,
“Punksnot little wank—fargo for you, drag ass. You ain’t got the max to push ten for morning, let alone lunch.”
I wanted to kill him. If his hands came up again I was ready to launch on the old bastard. They didn’t. Instead, he knelt down and picked up the keys, saying,
“Yeah, right, ‘Dead Bubble’ knows the talk. I had an Agitator before ‘freewaying’ was a word. I know the roads and how to tame ’em. Over on that wall—see the clip from Burning Chrome? That’s a picture of me on top.” Bill was staring at it, shaking his head.
“He’s right,” my life-long pal was whispering with a kind of awe stuck in his voice. “Look—look at the stars on the side—blues and oranges. And a yellow—And it has to measure 300 millimeters.”
Bill was right. They were stupefying scalps to display. Fergeson agreed.
“Yeah,” he told us. “I was kingshit supreme. And nobody could make a touch on me, either—not ’til my cement skull got me in up past my nostrils. I got nudged off the road at 180 and they took me outta the bric-a-brac with a torch.”
Fergeson pulled his shirt up. I’m sure the reactions we made to the ugly, sick dead colors scarred across his stomach were just what he was looking for. Bill grabbed at his good luck charm and I gritted my teeth to force them to
stay closed.
“Ain’t pretty,” said Fergeson as he rolled his shirt back down. “I know. But I did all this to make a point. Now, you listen to me, any fatnose can push you around like I just did. Anyone. But, if you let ’em make you mad—you lose. Remember that. You got mad here, but you didn’t let me dander you. Good. When you get challenged, that means you got someone who’s lookin’ for trouble. And that’s always good.” Fergeson pulled a trio of malts from a small fridge there in the garage. Throwing each of us one, he explained,
“Anyone lookin’ for trouble is point down already and easy to take down. You can arf-arf any monkey-gland who tries to get you—just don’t go lookin’ for trouble. Cruise when you want, paddle up and down alla 87 if you want—just don’t nudge any nests. Let them come to you. Believe me. They will. But if you get in the habit of diggin’ people’s graves for ’em, you’re gonna put the wrong person in one some day.” He stared me sharp in the eye and asked,
“Understand?” When I told him I did, he smiled and said, “That’s good, Gene. Real good.”
I should have listened to him.
* * * *
Bill and I spent the next two weeks working on the DoubleF. Nobody in R.M. Nixon Memorial had anything like her even before we started and we knew none of them had even dreamed of the animal we had up our sleeves. Bill wasn’t key for the kind of work we were doing, but he grunted out his share. We would pop a bender each in the morning and head for Dad’s garage where she waited for us.
On the last day of the overhaul, we entered to find a set of twin trunks—both armed with heatseekers—still in their crates…a present from Freida Cummings. Her old man was loaded, Freida was loaded, all the Goddamned Cummings were loaded. No complaint intended, though. Sometimes a rich girlfriend is a pleasant thing to have.
We stripped down the dings and dents, reinforced, sealed sanded and painted. Fergeson’s oil had been fair clean—we changed it anyway. We dropped the plugs (which were foul) and the points (which were fair). We replaced three hoses, two side strips, and then we attacked the trunk. The trunkers went in with two bits of trouble—not at all bad. We knew they would work if we targeted a lock and that was all we cared.
When we finally got down to the finishing touches, nineteen days had gone by. I remember the sun was overhead. I was laying in the shade of Dad’s tree watching Bill. Shirt sleeves rolled, he sat on the hood working down from the windshield, handpainting the bathead which the dark knight detective had sported on his car in all those old comics. On my hood. On the hood of my DoubleF. My CVW Firefox. Mine.
I was sipping from a can of soda. I’d of preferred a malt, of course, but Dad said there was such a thing as neighborhood image. Strange man, Dad, but I wasn’t complaining. He let me have my DoubleF. He had to be great.
“Hey, Gene,” Bill called. “The second coat of fireproof will be dry tonight. There’s a great double at the El Rancho Pull’em’up.
Frame Up 99 and the remake of that old Cerisini flicker Night Ice. What’ya say?”
I hated to say what I had to, but everybody juggles. So I tossed the first ball into the air, hoping I could catch it.
“Well, to be level with ya, Mr. Cranston,” I guess I should’ve said that everyone else called him ‘dwarf.’ I never did, not even behind his back. Straight line. “I promised Freida that after I was done haulin’ her over that I’d spend the night with her. I mean, she popped for the trunkers, and I haven’t seen her for nineteen nights. And, if we must review the awful facts…” I cupped a whisper,
“She did give me the last 350 I needed. If Dad ever tumbled to that bit of news he’d stomp my teeth into dandruff.”
“Yeah,” answered Bill, patting the left trunker release catch, “I guess you owe her one.” He smiled wide and then threw his rag at me. Charging, he dabbed at my head with his paint brush, shouting, “But they’d best beware us on the main run tomorrow night, eh, Mr. Wayne?”
Truly, Mr. Grayson.”
We were both laughing and throwing grass at each other. We tossed each other around, and we laughed when I fell on my soda can, and when I painted a moustache on him, and when I tripped over my own two feet. And we laughed and I knew neither of us believed it and I knew he was crying on the inside and he knew I felt like shit and neither of us said a word about it to the other. Good friends are like that.
I picked Freida up after dark. She had been waiting a long time, according to the way she told time, for the first ride in the DoubleF. I hate to drive up to her house. I mean, neither of our families had to live in city apartments—just like Bill’s, our folks all had the credits to have a real home outside if they were up to the risk. The difference was, while Mr. Dawson and Dad were both reasonable important out at Cal Daw, Mr. Cummings owned it.
Freida’s brother was not around. Always an improvement. Freida was a girl with everything—curling, blondish hair, the perfect size and shape, deep blue eyes, and the disposition of a wet cat that didn’t know who had emptied the bucket on her. She knew she was beautiful and thought everything in the world was hers to do with as she pleased. Trouble was, since the red-hot musician who was the quarterback for the home team was the most prestigious steady to have, she had him. I never had any say in the matter. Sure, I did the brag to Bill and the rest of the guys that I would dump her when I was done with her. I’ve told bigger lies in my time, too. Just never stupider ones.
I should have known where she’d want to go.
“Where else?” she told me. “The Pull’em’up.”
“Ahh, what do you want to go there for?”
“Because,” she told me flatly, “this is the biggest night of the week. Because everyone we know will be there and I want them to see me in this.”
As she ran her hand over the blazing red of the DoubleF’s door, I had to at least give her points for honesty. After we were inside, she continued to run her hands over the car, the door, the dash, my leg, as if we were all one object. Maybe to here we were.
* * * *
I knew it would happen. Bill spotted the DoubleF and zeroed us. Of course, it’s not like I wasn’t glad to see him. We gabbed for awhile—him in the back seat, me turned halfway around in the front. After the shorts and previews and tunies and such, Bill cut back to Larber’s car. Larber was an okay guy a couple points under our level, but his go-bucket was strictly a stock, in-city four-wheel asshauler. He was always good for a ride, though, so Bill had gotten him to drag out his Tonka, and here they were. Bill and I said a few, “Goodbye, Mr. Richards,” “Goodbye, Mr. Grims” and left it at that. Freida, unfortunately, was not happy to leave it at that.
“Why do you let that creep hang around you all the time?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“The Dwarf. Why do you have to hang every corner with him? Everyone talks. He’s so fanned. And that idiot comic book drool you both flag. It’s so roachy. Honestly.”
“Look, we’re friends. We’ve always been friends, and we’re always going to be friends. Why can’t you accept that? You like this car, right? You like toopin’ around in it, right? Well, if it hadn’t been for Bill—the only other guy who knows bee’s balls about real cars in this comm-cen—I’d still be under her tightening gun braces by myself. So, why don’t you just lay-front on this shit—Fan me?”
She didn’t. Fan me? She hadn’t the faintest inkling of a breeze. All she could think to say was,
“My brother knows cars. He could’ve helped you.”
“Your monkey-gland of a brother couldn’t change his mind let alone lay out the centrifugal on a compressor map. Besides, if you can’t tumble to why I wouldn’t want him touching this car, then you don’t know shit about me.”
I was reaching for the doorhandle when she touched me. Her hand was back on my leg, circling and grabbing and teasing. She was good at it. I stopped moving which, well—of course—had been her intention. She moved closer, her elbow on the seat, her lips against my shirt. I knew what was coming.
Her head jerked up, knocking against the steering column—hard—which I must admit made me smile. I told her I wasn’t in the mood and that I was going for something to eat. The door locked behind me just as she started screaming. Walking away, I found myself sinking into confusion. I wanted her. I wanted to hit something. She wanted me to dump Bill and I didn’t want to. I wanted them both in my life and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t have what I wanted.
I kicked at a can by the concession palace, but it wasn’t enough. I smashed open the door, but that didn’t make me feel much better. I only felt angrier because it hadn’t bled or screamed—just opened. I walked inside angry and bitter and looking for trouble. I found Wyck Cummings. Close enough.
He was at the drink/vend, deciding between RumCoke and Rolling Rock. I yelled a hello out to Larber loud enough so Wyck would know I was in the palace. I edged in through the others at the counter to place an order. There was no fear in turning your back on Wyck. He was a shrimp, a puny, a featherdog. I knew there was nothing to worry about from him. I was stupid.
Before I could tumble to why everyone to both sides was suddenly making room for me, my face shot upward while my knees buckled and my eyes closed. I fell to the floor, my fingers finding blood on the back of my head after I hit. My nose caught petro-steam fumes. My eyes saw a piece of rail pipe and a greasy glove, both attached to the hand of Filbert Kerchecker. Not good.
I had just been sapped by the brick-hardest lapcruncher in the city comm. The look on Wyck’s face told me whose credits had paid for the attack. The look on Kerchecker’s mug let me know he hadn’t earned all his credits yet.