THE FEELIES Page 14

  Ralph's train of self-pity was interrupted by a physical annoyance. For the second time that week, the moving walkway had broken down. It was typical. The only money that got spent in this city got spent on the rich. All the poor people got was cheap shit that broke down, if it ever worked at all. Ralph started the long trek down the tunnel to the boarding point.

  As he walked, his mind grasshoppered from one cause of resentment to another. Sam, the job, he couldn't help it. It wasn't his fault that he wasn't Philip Marlowe or Mike Hammer, or Bernstein and Woodward. Sure it would be great to get at Combined Media. He would like to be a hero, to smash the structure and show everyone its corrupt, disgusting inside. It wasn't his fault he didn't have friends in the police department, or work on a fearless, fact-finding TV show. He was just a drunk in a dead end, union nonjob who was frightened of the ride home at night. Nobody could expect him to overturn the system.

  He turned the corner and saw the CRAC squad down the block: City Riot And Combat. There must have been a baby riot or radical wilding for them to be out. The presence of a couple of fire trucks and the smell of smoke in the air seemed to confirm that. He started cautiously down the block. The CRAC squad members were spread out over the street. It was doubtful that those paramilitary supercops would let him through to take his usual route to his building. In places like Lincoln Avenue, the regular PD behaved like an occupying army. The CRAC squads were more like alien invaders, vicious and violent, who moved in and crushed disturbance with an iron fist and not even the public relations nicety of a velvet glove. CRAC men were built for business. Every one of them was well over six feet tall, anonymous, and threatening in dark blue coveralls, full-body flak jackets, and paler blue, bone-dome helmets with built-in radios. The majority carried over-and-under M20s that were capable of firing tear gas and concussion grenades, although a few had street sweepers, heavy, rapid-fire shotguns that were more than capable of doing exactly what their name implied. The CRAC team's faces were hidden behind gas masks, which not only added to their air of invaders from space but also protected them from recognition when the inevitable charges of police brutality were raised after one of their actions. Something bad had definitely gone down. Sal's Pizza was a burned-out ruin; Ralph could see four bodies lying on the street. A teenage girl huddled on the sidewalk would not stop screaming. An officer went over to her. He hit her once, a quick jab with the butt of his weapon, and she was immediately silent. Ralph didn't even speculate how the trouble had started. Such sudden flares of violence could come out of nowhere-a word or a gesture, and the next moment there would be slaughter. Automatic weapons were common in these areas; even the kids carried them.

  "Hey, you! Get out of here!"

  The voice was muffled by the gas mask, but Ralph had no doubt that the cop's gesture was aimed at him. He pointed down the street in a single attempt to maintain a shred of dignity. "I live right down there."

  "I don't give a damn where you live. Get the hell off the street."

  Ralph knew it was pointless to protest. As he turned, he remembered the Vietnam movie that he had seen a few days earlier on the late show when he had been up with insomnia. What was that phrase they had used? Winning the hearts and minds of the population?

  FRANCIS XAVIER BARSTOW WENT INTO A feelie once a year. It was the shortest one available, just six hours. He had to save all year to be able to afford it. Of course, he'd have liked to have actually experienced it on Easter weekend, but that wasn't possible. There were extra charges for his particular feelie if you had it on Easter weekend.

  Francis Xavier Barstow had been through the same feelie so many times that he almost knew it by heart. The yelling of the crowd, the smell of the primitive city, the chafing of the rough, homespun robe, the pain of the whip cuts across his back, and, above all, the weight of the huge, wooden cross that bowed his shoulders.

  He knew that a lot of people thought he was crazy. His neighbors and the people he worked with all thought he was a religious fanatic. He found some consolation in telling himself that they would think that about anyone who still tried to worship a god. Religion played no big part in this soulless age.

  Sometimes he worried about his annual adventure in the feelie. He knew he was supposed to live in the image of Christ. Sometimes he wasn't too sure that it was right to seek the help of a lot of electronic gadgetry.

  He'd asked the priest, but the priest hadn't been much help. He was one of the new kinds of priest, all psychology and social conscience. He told Francis Xavier that there was no harm in the feelie, but Francis Xavier had suspected that the priest didn't think there was much good in it either.

  Francis Xavier knew in his heart that he was right. They had invented the feelies, and the least he could do was use them to get closer to his god. It was better than all those other people who wanted to be samurai killers, prostitutes, and perverted Roman emperors.

  Sometimes he felt that he was bracketed with those people. He didn't like the way the receptionist women looked at him when he went in to book his feelie time. He got the impression that he was seen as some sort of sexual weirdo, a masochist or something.

  This time there seemed to be something a little different about the experience. What was left of his conscious mind couldn't quite get a grip on what exactly had changed. Somehow everything was a trifle more intense. The colors were brighter and appeared to shimmer. The pain was much more severe than he remembered. In previous experiences, it had been a tolerable background. In this one, it was almost more than he could stand.

  The part of his mind that was still Francis Xavier Bar-stow pretty much knew the sequence of the crucifixion program by heart. He was coming up to the part where he stubbed his toe and stumbled under the weight of the cross.

  Just like every time before, he found himself staring down at his dirty sandaled feet. There were flecks of dried blood. The ground was dry and cracked. Each footstep produced small puffs of dust. Then a small green lizard scuttled from under a rock. As far as he could sluggishly remember, that had never happened before.

  Francis Xavier wasn't about to ponder on the significance of these changed details. In the middle of a feelie, it wasn't possible to ponder on anything. The greater part of his consciousness was too busy being Jesus Christ on the home stretch to Calvary.

  He could see the small rock coming up. There was nothing he could do to avoid it. His foot hit it and…

  Pain, flashing burning jagged colors swamped the desert landscape and the brown faces that pressed in on him. A scream like ripping steel blotted out all other sounds. There was nothing else but stabs of red, orange, and yellow, rolling sweeps of purple split by white forked lightning, and the unbearable pain.

  Then it stopped, just as suddenly as it had started. He also found that he was more than a dozen yards farther up the road. It was like a sudden jump in a film. Something was wrong. A much greater part of him was now detached from the Christ personality.

  The things around him were also changed. The visual images seemed washed out, insubstantial, almost transparent. The sound was fuzzy and muffled. There was enough of Francis Xavier Barstow outside of the feelie to know that something was wrong. There wasn't enough of him to know what to do. He felt he ought to scream or thrash about. There ought to be an alarm, a button he could push or a lever he could pull. Instead he just kept plodding toward the Place of the Skull, until the pain started again.

  If anything, it was worse than the first time. The colors and the noise were even more violent. The detached part of his mind wasn't detached enough not to suffer. It felt as though a blowtorch was being run lovingly over every nerve ending in his body. He was convinced he was about to die.

  Then it stopped again. The color and noise vanished as though it had never existed. There had been another jump. He was lying spread on the cross. Two Roman soldiers knelt beside him. There was something reassuring about the burnished bronze, well-polished leather, and coarse red fabric of the uniforms. Francis Xavier had a
sked for their forgiveness so many times that they almost felt like friends. He even knew their faces. One had a deep brown, earthy face with a broad flattened nose like an ex-boxer. The other's was thinner, more sensitive… But it wasn't. He wasn't the same. He had a ridiculous false mustache and eyebrows. A fat cigar was clenched between his teeth. The absurd eyebrows were jerked rapidly up and down. The face split into an insane grin.

  "Would you mind crossing your feet? We've only got three nails!"

  SAM LET HIMSELF INTO HIS MINUSCULE room. Max the black and white cat was lying curled up on the bed with his tail draped around the tip of his nose. He woke up, yawned, and then got to his feet stretching languidly. He padded toward Sam, flexing his claws and digging them into the covers. Sam sat down on the bed. The cat butted his upper arm. Sam smiled and patted him.

  "Hi, Max, how you been?"

  The cat yowled.

  "Hungry, huh?"

  The cat yowled again. Sam picked him up.

  "You better keep the noise down, or we'll both be in trouble."

  He tried to pet the cat, but Max squirmed out of his arms. Still yowling, he ran to the small alcove the landlord liked to call a kitchenette, and then back to Sam.

  "Will you shut up, Max? When are you going to realize you're against the rules?"

  Sam climbed reluctantly to his feet, still trying to hush the cat. Max danced around his feet, alternately yelling and purring loudly. Sam opened a small wall cupboard with a cracked glass door and took out a pack of Kitty Krunch. He filled a small plastic bowl. The bowl was red and bore the legend "Present from Rio de Janeiro." Sam couldn't remember where the bowl had come from. He had certainly never been to Rio. He set the bowl down in front of the cat. Max threw himself, single-mindedly, into the task of eating. It was the high point of his day.

  Sam went back to the bed and sat down. He watched the cat. In between mouthfuls, it would pause to purr joyfully. Cats, in fact pets of all kinds, were totally outlawed from all cheap-lease rooms. The rules had been made some ten years before, when an urban rabies scare had started City Hall on a vast antipet drive. The campaign had not worked, but the rules remained. Max was Sam's single, but continuous, act of rebellion.

  Sam worried about Max. The cat had been with Sam for almost three years. Nobody had said a word about Max, but still Sam worried. As well as his sole act of rebellion, the cat was also his main source of companionship. Sometimes Sam wondered how he would survive without Max.

  When those thoughts started, he would take a Serenax. The room was drab and as clean as it was possible to make a cheap-lease, where the war against roaches alone was a full-time occupation. The yellowing walls didn't bother Sam. He found them kind of restful. It actually was not hard to keep the room neat. Sam didn't have very much. Aside from the bed, two chairs, a small table, a built-in wall TV, and a selection of cooking utensils, there was just a small nest of shelves that held the meager mementoes of a life of very limited expectations. There was a blue plastic lunch box from an ancient TV show called "The Galaxy Rangers" that Sam had watched as a child, a Michael Jackson funeral mug, a glow-in-the-dark figurine of Batman with one arm missing, a group of lead spacemen, a neat row of books, and a framed black-and-white photograph of May Marsh, the star of "Penal Colony." He really didn't know why he kept that picture. He didn't actually like "Penal Colony."

  Sam wondered if he should fix himself a meal. Somehow he couldn't be bothered. He had taken too many pills already. He just didn't have the motivation. Instead, he went to the same cupboard that held the Kitty Krunch and took down a jar of cookies. The cat looked up at him. Max had a keen interest in anything to do with food. Sam looked at him sadly.

  "I only saw her once today, the girl in the vault, the one I told you about."

  He munched absently on a cookie, carrying the jar with him as he went back to the bed.

  "I have to go and see her when Ralph's off drinking, otherwise he gives me a hard time."

  The cat sat down and began to wash himself.

  "It's difficult with Ralph. I mean, he's my partner, and I like him, but when he drinks, he can get real mean. I tell myself it ain't his fault, but it still ain't easy. I like to look at the girl."

  The cat was totally involved in its toilet. Max always did a thorough job.

  "I sure hope nothing happens to her."

  Sam started on another cookie. As he chewed, he stared at the cat.

  "You're just not interested, are you?"

  Sam reached out and turned on the TV. One of the consolations of a cheap-lease was the way almost everything could be reached from the bed.

  The screen came to life. It was channel 45, "Earth News." It was in the middle of an item about a subway riot. Sam was glad he didn't use the subway. It was worth the extra fare to take the monorail and know he was fairly safe. On the subway, anything could happen.

  The picture on the screen seemed to be proving Sam's point. It was shaky and hand held. It showed a seven-man CRAC squad clubbing a subway car full of fighting passengers into some semblance of order. The commentary mentioned Lincoln Avenue station.

  "I hope Ralph wasn't involved."

  Sam flipped the channel. On 48 someone was getting his head kicked in an ancient western. Sam turned off the set. He didn't like violence.

  He reached for the bookshelf. Sam was reading two books at the moment. One was The House at Pooh Corner, the other was Moby Dick. Sam didn't feel like dealing with Herman Melville, so he picked up Pooh Corner. He opened the book, took out a marker, and settled back to read. The cat climbed on his chest and rolled onto the open book. Sam smiled and poked the cat in the stomach.

  "What's the matter, don't you want me to read?"

  The cat waved its legs in the air and tried to bite him.

  "Maybe you want to watch television?"

  WANDA-JEAN SAT UP IN THE HUGE BED. She felt a little dizzy. She had drunk too much, earlier in the evening. Over on the other side of the bed, Bobby Priest was fast asleep.

  She looked over at him. In repose, he was very different from the character she had come to know on the studio floor. Without the surface layer of fast-talking energy, he looked weak, vulnerable, almost petulant, more like a spoiled little boy than the big TV star.

  Beneath the drunkenness, Wanda-Jean felt empty and far from satisfied. In bed, he was a long way from a superstar.

  The whole evening had been an awful disappointment. Wanda-Jean had imagined he would take her to one of the city's most exclusive restaurants or nightclubs. She had picked out a luxurious white evening gown from the wardrobe that the network had given her when she started on the Dreamroad.

  To her amazement Priest had shown up in a faded but well-tailored work suit. He announced that they were going to Old Town.

  "Old Town?"

  Priest had grinned. "Sure, what's wrong with Old Town?''

  "Nothing, but…"

  "I go over to Old Town a lot. It's one of the few places in town where either you don't get recognized, or the ones who do ain't interested."

  Wanda-Jean wasn't too happy about his plan. She had rather wanted to be recognized, particularly with Bobby Priest.

  Old Town was, strictly speaking, part of the twilight area. Unlike Lincoln Avenue, which had just been left to decay, Old Town had been cosmeticized into a rather cutesy bohemian neighborhood. It was where poets, painters, and musicians lived side by side with trendy executives who filled their apartments with bric-a-brac from the fifties and sixties and pretended they were nonconformist and artistic.

  Wanda-Jean had looked down at her dress with an expression of horror. "I can't go to Old Town dressed like this."

  Bobby Priest had laughed. "You can go to Old Town dressed any way you want to."

  "With you done up like a truck driver?"

  "We'll make a very striking couple, and anyway, there isn't time for you to get changed all over again."

  Still protesting, Wanda-Jean had been hustled into the lift and down to the waiting car.
They drove across the city, alone with just the chauffeur and bodyguard.

  Bobby had been right about two things. Nobody had seemed to recognize them, and nobody took much notice of Wanda-Jean's overelaborate dress, although she had still spent most of the evening feeling slightly ridiculous.

  One mercy was that the place they went to was very dark, almost dark enough to forget about the bodyguard who sat like a squat, broad-shouldered boulder at the next table.

  When you got down to basics, the place was a small, nondescript cellar. The walls were probably damp but, mercifully, hidden in the gloom. The decor was a loving, if grubby, re-creation of the beatnik era. The furniture was mismatched. The crowning glory of each table was a red and white checked tablecloth and a candle stuck in a wax-encrusted Chianti bottle. These were the only source of light, except for a couple of spotlights that were trained on a small stage.

  For maybe the first hour, all Wanda-Jean could think of was why Bobby Priest had brought her to a place like this. The tables were crammed with an assortment of standard weirdos. Some were so far into the part that they sported long lank hair and beards, or black and white existentialist makeup-what was the name of the chick who started the whole thing? Juliette something?

  The food wasn't all that bad. It had a loose base in Italian cooking. Wanda-Jean suspected that it was loaded down with illegal flavorings, and maybe other illegal ingredients, as well.

  With just about anybody else Wanda-Jean would have come right out and demanded he explain what he thought he was doing bringing her to a cruddy place like this. With Bobby Priest, she just didn't feel able to.

  It was made doubly difficult by the fact that somebody seemed to have hit the man's off button. The stream of patter appeared to have totally dried. He sat in silence, pushing food into his mouth with a kind of mechanical enthusiasm. Every now and then he'd pause and tap his fork in time to the resident jazz trio. Conversation was zero. Wanda-Jean had become angry and confused. First of all he'd brought her up to this dump in Old Town, and then he treated her as if she wasn't even there.