by Ian Watson
“I just love furry animals,” said Nance, stroking her hands luxuriously down her thighs in anticipation.
“I love animals, too,” I said. “I love eating them.”
“Well, citizens, let’s have some footage from yesterday before we turn to the murky old international scene, eh? And what was yesterday? It was Wino Day, with all the drunks and lushes out abusing sober people—”
We didn’t pay a lot of attention to the film footage, since we were busy with our Urfs.
“… and the good old Social Tension Rating is computed down to 400 overnight—”
“Hey,” said Nance, “it hasn’t been that low since Anti-Nigra Day.”
I pushed my empty Urf aside and made the familiar motion of a couple of parted fingers to my lips. Nance nodded, so I fetched the pack of cigarettes; you could hardly read the brand name any longer for the health warnings. I stuck a token in the wall slot to switch off the apartment’s smoke alarms for the next fifteen minutes, and we lit up. There were only another four cigarettes left in the pack, so we wouldn’t be lighting another couple. Sure, we had half a carton each stashed away, but we were hoping to save three packs each for Smoking Day. At twenty dollars a pack—and that was with the tax deductions for registered Smokers—you tended to go easy.
Nance puffed hers right down to the filter, crushed this out, and rose dramatically.
“Now,” she announced, and marched to her wardrobe, dropping her towel negligently on the floor behind her. I picked it up and hung it on a chair back. This was all part of the ritual.
Of course, most of the days we weren’t registered for we didn’t bother about too much. Not to the extent of going out of our way to do anything.
Some we did. Veg Day, for instance, when all the Vegetarians picnicked on the grass in the park (like Herbivores, right), and bust into decent licensed Carnivore restaurants demanding algae soup and nut cutlets. We’d hoot and jeer then.
And Doggy Day, too, when all the proud owners let their pets off the leash to defecate anywhere. Nance always worked herself into a froth about that. She would run up to dog owners whose Fido had just dropped a load in the playpit in the park and scream in their faces, “Do you realize a child’s hands could touch that, and it’d go blind?” That was her favourite gambit. Usually they’d scream back that this was nothing compared to what they did on Anti-Kid Day. A lot that worried Nance, with me being Anti-Kid myself. But generally she got a good verbal fight going, and that made the doggy-walkers happy, too, as they thought they were offending her. All very therapeutic.
But days like Gerry Day we sort of ignored; and a lot of old folks often stayed indoors, too, though you did get the odd pack of militant grandmas and grandpas tripping you with their walking sticks and hauling youngsters out of the seats on the bus, and such.
And Yid Day, too. Why should I bother sticking on a swastika badge and chanting “Judenraus!” till I was hoarse outside some kosher butcher’s window, so that he could rush outside brandishing his Star of David at me, bellowing, “Oy Vey!”?
And I felt that some of the days were a bit, well, puny; though I guess those who registered for them, and those whom they rubbed up the wrong way, felt otherwise. Obesity Day, Sci-Fi Day. Who cared?
Nance looked stunning in her mink jacket, leopard-skin hat and real leather skirt and boots. She’d decided against the lambskin muff in favour of the kidskin gloves, trimmed with zebra; and against the ocelot stole in favour of a gorgeous red fox-fur draped round her shoulders with the head (with black glass button eyes) hanging down one side and the bushy tail the other. It really blended with her hair. She’d scrapped the idea of the tiger tail, too. In her right hand she swung a crocodile-skin bag. Perfection. She was dandy.
I wore my ordinary denims, of course.
And out we went: along to the elevator, down to the lobby with its jungle of Swiss cheese plants, and through the auto-security checkout into the street. Clancy Avenue, actually. You know, six blocks north of Jefferson Park, and the zoo, ten blocks west of downtown.
“Where’ll we go, then, Nance?”
“You know, Benny.”
“Zoo?”
She nodded intently.
Of course. As usual. The zoo. Where better to parade her costume? People who loved animals—au naturel, as the Macrobiotics mob say—would be flocking to the zoo, ready to take offence.
Still, first we had to get there. And certain adventures happened en route. (Damn all this French. Long live the English language, pure and unpolluted.)
First we hailed a cab, but that didn’t work out. The first couple of drivers pulled over and foul-mouthed Nance, then zoomed off, burning rubber and leaving us in a cloud of fumes; which takes some doing with exhaust-emission filters fitted, but they managed it. Though not before Nance treated them to some choice invective of her own.
So we set off to walk the six blocks. Next thing, as we were passing a Gay Veganburger bar, out popped a shaven-headed Buddhist monk in saffron robes and rope sandals. He was thumping a little drum; and like an Ancient Mariner, he homed in. He stank of patchouli.
“I pray for their souls,” he wailed, tagging along with us, “that they are at peace.”
“Whose souls? Ours?” said I. Some people tended to talk about you in the third person if they didn’t want any direct interpersonal interaction but still felt bound to make an observation.
“The souls of all the slaughtered beasts.” And he chanted on, in Sanskrit or Tibetan or something, noisily banging that drum near our ears.
“You can bet they’re at peace,’ shouted Nance. “Which is more than I can say of anyone in your vicinity, you clown! What are you, the answer to dandruff?”
I frowned. This wasn’t quite high-class stuff, such as I expected of Nance. I think the monk had thrown her a bit; and that wouldn’t do at all.
“Om, om, om, on,” he droned composedly, accompanying us.
Oh, yes, I got it now. The monk was laying his own public nuisance on us even though it wasn’t Hare Krishna Day. He was latching on to us. And he was upstaging Nance. But she couldn’t really say so, not herself. So I said it for her.
“Push off, buster. You’re poaching. I’ll file a complaint. I will, too! You’ll be deregistered.”
That got rid of him, but not as satisfactorily as if Nance had lipped him off herself. She looked a mite resentful, but cheered up when a doggy-walker steered her couple of leashed, muzzled poodles in our path, and at the same time a doting mother swung her twin buggy of brats to block us. Of course the first woman was impeded not only by her poodles but also by her sack: containing canine excrement shovel, plastic bags, and sterilizing spray cans—and the mother by a bag of veg unbalancing the buggy. So they would be a pushover.
At the sight of Nance’s furs and leather, the doggy-walker went white-lipped.
“You … demon woman!” she shrilled. “God bless all living creatures.” As though Nance had sacrificed that fox to Satan and drunk the animal’s blood.
“Well, these ones are dead—”
But Nance hardly had a chance to get in with her riposte when both poodles leaped up at the buggy and slobbered through their muzzles all over the toddlers.
“Toxicara virus!” the incensed mother cried in horror, like some plague victim ringing her bell and shouting, “Unclean!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” exclaimed the doggy-walker. Quickly she whipped a spray can out of her sack. “Close your eyes, little darlings,” she cooed, and promptly squirted their faces and hands. And of course the brats began to scream. Immediately Nance announced loudly to all and sundry, “Just listen to that noise! It’s bursting my eardrums. I declare, it must be ninety decibels.” The mother naturally had to clap a hand (two hands actually) over their little mouths; and their faces went bright red—and with both her hands off, the buggy tipped backward, spilling artichokes and chicory along the sidewalk. Excitedly the poodles began leaping again. Oh, it was precious. Laughing triumphantly and flicking her
fox fur about, Nance steered deftly between this Scylla and Charybdis.
And then after that … but you don’t want me gabbing on about every little encounter on the way. You want to hear about the zoo. That’s where you’d expect the real collisions on a day like this. The real catharsis, as the old Greeks used to say. The true satisfaction: to know you were doing your bit toward a sane society.
That’s the whole point of it, after all. Think of society as a roomful of balloons. They’re all trying to inflate at the same time in a finite space. So each balloon is trying to squash its neighbours flat. And of course if one balloon expands too much, it goes pop. That’s messy. It costs, to clean up. But balloons like to expand; it’s their nature. So what do you do? You build in special days for certain classes of balloon to expand, and special days for other classes to be squeezed. Usually both at the same time. And the psych-pollsters watch over it all with their Social Tension Ratings. Simple.
That’s called an analogy.
Though maybe it isn’t the right one.
Anyway … the zoo.
We arrived at the gates, and got in with only a few hisses and whistles. No one was actively picketing; not at the gates.
“Polar bears, Nance?”
“No, cats. The Big Cats.”
There were quite a few Monitor Cops about, as you’d expect on Skin Day at a venue where some fine skins are in residence (as yet still filled with bodies); and one of these promptly made a beeline for us. I thought this was distinctly fussy of him, but then he was obviously a rookie—fresh-faced and young.
“Morning, Ma’am. May I see your registration card?”
“Hey,” I said, “do you think she’d be all dolled up like this if she weren’t kosher?”
The rookie eyed me. “You got your days mixed up?”
“It’s OK, Benny.” Nance pulled her card from the crocodile bag.
The rookie scrutinized it for quite a while, as if he had some literacy problem, while we fretted and chafed at the bit. Finally he handed it back, and stared contemptuously up and down Nance’s attire from head to foot. You’ve heard of people’s lips curling? Never seen it before, myself; but his lip curled. He said nothing; but still I wasn’t taking that.
“Hey, you got something personal about skins? Because if so, you oughtn’t to be on duty today.”
At this the rookie’s Adam’s apple bobbed a few times as though he had something stuck in his craw.
“C’mon, Nance.” And we walked off. Past the spider monkeys and along by the cockatoos. I couldn’t decide whether the encounter was a plus or not.
“Feather boas,” murmured Nance, slightly distressed—though off at a tangent to the probable cause. “Bird of paradise hats…”
I chuckled. “And a morpho butterfly pinned in your buttonhole? Those don’t go with fox and mink and leather.”
“Suppose not.”
“Nance, you’re fabulous today. That guy wasn’t offing your taste.”
“You sure?”
“Cross my heart. Let’s get along”—and I nudged her—“to the catwalk.” And we both burst out laughing, and linked arms and stepped out down Penguin Terrace.
Down by the tiger compound, there was an Animal Lib picket, because naturally it was their day, too, in a way. In an inverted “squeeze” way. A couple of placards waved lamely, protesting at how all the beasts were imprisoned; and as part of the act, they had a home-made bamboo cage with a guy in it dressed in a business suit, looking puzzled and occasionally shaking the bamboo bars, though not too strenuously in case they fell apart. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT? read a sign on top. But it was all lacklustre, till Nance swanked up. Then they really gave tongue.
A fat young woman with greasy hair waddled forth. She jabbed a chubby finger at Nance’s fox fur.
“I wanna buy that,” she said furiously, brandishing a few moth-eaten dollar bills. “I wanna buy it and burn it.”
“Do you, now?” said Nance. “With so much insulation, you feel cold? You got the wrong day, baby: you want Obesity Day.”
“You must think you’re pretty ugly youself, lady,” a thin man called out, “needing to drape yourself in that lot before you dare show your face.”
“Go play with a tiger, Androcles,” retorted Nance.
“I ought to have worn the tail,” she whispered.
“I got a real Bengal tiger’s tail at home,” she proclaimed aloud. “Shot it myself, on Safari. Trouble was, I used an elephant gun by mistake so I blew the skin to pieces. But I kept the tail. And the cubs. I had one of them stuffed, and I used the other as a nightdress case.” (All lies, of course. The closest Nance had been to India was a restaurant.) “That’s real cuddly in bed.”
“Bitch!” screamed the fat woman.
This was all shaping up quite well, and I noticed a Monitor idling near by, nodding his head as if racking up points while keeping a note that there weren’t any fouls, such as actual assault and violence. We’d gathered ourselves a sizeable audience, too.
But just then … all eyes sort of drifted away from Nance.
For this incredible dude came strolling along.
A leopard: he was a leopard! By which I don’t mean that he was wearing leopard-skin clothes. Oh, no, he was wearing an actual leopard—or at least it looked that way. But maybe it was two leopards cunningly joined together. I didn’t think, even if you stretched it, a single leopard could fit so tall a man (though maybe I was wrong). And was he tall. Six six, like a basketball ace. And black. He wore that leopard as if it were his own skin. He had clawed pads on his feet; and his hands were clawed paws. And the head! His own head was squeezed inside the leopard head, which was split open with the upper row of teeth creasing his brow and the lower row his chin. And a leopard tail jutted out ramrod-stiff behind him.
“Ohmygosh,” said Nance.
The ace flexed his claws and snarled, showing his own ivories within that larger frame of leopard teeth, like a mouth within a mouth.
I could see a zipper up the front of the leopard, but that didn’t diminish anything.
“Hi there,” he said to Nance, acknowledging a fellow skin buff, while the Animal Libbers generally cowered away, appalled beyond appal (to put it poetically). He poised on the balls of his padded feet, leaning slightly forward.
“Skins and Smokes,” he said.
“Smokes and Rain Forests,” she replied.
“Wow-ee!” exclaimed this dude. “Jaguars and Jivaro.”
“Shrunken heads and orchids!”
“El Dorado and anacondas!”
“Lianas and hummingbirds!”
“I didn’t know that any leopards came from South America,’ I butted in.
But they ignored me, enchanted. They didn’t care. Or maybe this dude just hadn’t been able to lay hands on a jaguar or two. Or maybe this was his ancestral tribal costume from Africa, though he really hankered to roam rain forests, not savannas. …
“Piranhas and rubber trees,” he said.
“Sloths and amethysts!” And Nance reached to stroke his fur. Most sensuously. Now I knew that it was her day; but even so.
“Hey,” said I.
Right then the Animal Libbers rallied. “Slaying and flaying!” they began raving. “Blood and bludgeoning! Slaughtering and torturing!” And the guy in the business suit capered and gibbered behind the bamboo bars.
“Let’s split,” suggested the leopard dude to Nance.
She winked, “Macaws and chewing gum, eh?”
“Tapir and bananas.” He draped a leopard’s paw across her shoulder.
“Hey!” I repeated, over the din. And Nance just looked at me as if I were a stranger.
No, not quite a stranger. Not yet. “Amazon swordtails and—?” she inquired.
I racked my brains. But I couldn’t think. I couldn’t talk this mystic language.
“And?” she prompted.
I shook my head. Then had second thoughts. “And Inca gold?”
“Oh, man,” said the leopa
rd derisively. “We’ve had El Dorado.” And he drew Nance away with him. And away Nance went.
Since, of course I (in my denims) was nothing to take offence at, the hubbub subsided. Forlorn, I stood in a pool of silence, watching that spotted beast with the long stiff tail lead my lady off, the two of them still exchanging phrases in secret code. Like a pair of spies who had come together at long last and successfully matched the torn halves of a dollar bill.
*
So that’s the story of how I lost my Nance on Skin Day.
For a time I thought of registering as Skins myself, to try to win her back. But frankly, I couldn’t see myself in furs. Anyway, it wasn’t really the Skins that had lost her to me. It was the Rain Forests. And no again: it wasn’t really even the Rain Forests.
It was that dialogue they had fallen into so snappily—just like two halves of the same person who had been hunting for each other ever since the world began.
And I wasn’t Nance’s other half. He was. She had known this immediately. Instinctively.
It’s as if by slicing up the year into special days of obsession, for the social good, people, too, have been sliced up in the process. Sliced up, shortly to be recombined. Like DNA. (That’s an analogy.) The slicing-up time is coming to an end; the time of recombination is just around the corner.
The day before yesterday, I spied an encounter in the street that sent a shiver down my spine.
Between a young Puerto Rican lad and a middle-aged middle-class white woman. (It was Abortion Day, by the way.) He stepped right in her path and said, “Peyote and peace pipes.”
And she replied, “Teepees and tomahawks.”
“Buffalo and adobes!”
“Sitting Bull and moccasins!”
“Wampum and totem poles!”
And they strolled on together arm in arm, sweet as you please.
Then yesterday (which was Porn Day) I noted a skinny girl in biker gear rush up to a crew-cut military type and hail him with, ‘Legions and aqueducts!”
To which he replied, quick as can be, “Orgies and togas.”
So that’s the way it is. Or will be within another few months. The whole country is shaking itself out, and folding itself a different way.
