The Best From Fantasy & Science Fiction Part 22

Barry nodded.

"Then that's one form of oppression right there. Children?"

Barry shook his head.

"Do you live with your wife?"

"Not lately. And even when we were together, we never talked to each other, except to say practical things like 'When is your program going to be over?' Some people just aren't that interested in talking.

Debra certainly isn't. That's why-" (He couldn't resist the chance to explain his earlier failures.) "-I did so poorly on my earlier exams. a.s.suming I did get a low score last time, which isn't certain since the results were erased. But a.s.suming that I did, that's the reason. I never got any practice. The basic day-to-day conversational experiences most people have with their spouses never happened in my case."

Marvin Kolodny frowned-an ingratiating, boyish frown. "Are you sure you're being entirely honest with yourself, Barry? Few people are completely willing to talk about something. We've all got hobbyhorses. What was your wife interested in? Couldn't you have talked about that?"

"In religion, mostly. But she didn't care to talk about it, unless you agreed with her."

"Have you tried to agree with her?"

"Well, you see, Dr. Kolodny, what she believes is that the end of the world is about to happen. Next February. That's where she's gone DOW-to Arizona, to wait for it. This is the third time she's taken off."

"Not an easy woman to discourage, by the sound of it."

"I think she really wants the world to end. And, also, she does like Arizona."

"Have you considered a divorce?" Marvin Kolodny asked.

"No, absolutely not. We're still basically in love. After all, most married couples end up not saying much to each other. Isn't that so? Even before Debra got religious, we weren't in the habit of talking to each other. To tell the truth, Dr. Kolodny, I've never been much of a talker. I think I was put off it by the compulsory talk we had to do in high school."

"That's perfectly natural. I hated compulsory talk myself, though I must admit I was good at it. What about your job, Barry? Doesn't that give you opportunities to develop communication skills?"

"I don't communicate with the public directly. Only with simulations, and their responses tend to be pretty stereotyped."

"Well, there's no doubt that you have a definite communications problem. But I think it's a problem you can lick! I'll tell you what, Barry: officially, I shouldn't tell you this myself, but I'm giving you a score of 65." He held up his hand to forestall an effusion. "Now, let me explain how that breaks down. You do very well in most categories-Affect, Awareness of Others, Relevance, Voice Production, et cetera, but where you do fall down is in Notional Content and Originality. There you could do better."

"Originality has always been my Waterloo," Barry admitted. "I just don't seem to be able to come upwith my own ideas. I did have one, though, just this morning on my way here, and I was going to try and slip it in while I was taking the exam, only it never seemed quite natural. Have you ever noticed that you never see baby pigeons? All the pigeons you see out on the street are the same size-full-grown. But where _do they come from? Where are the little pigeons? Are they hidden somewhere?" He stopped short, feeling ashamed of his idea. Now that it was out in the open it seemed paltry and insignificant, little better than a joke he'd learned by heart, than which there is nothing more calculated to land you in the bottom percentiles.

Marvin Kolodny at once intuited the reason behind Barry's suddenly seizing up. He was in the business, after all, of understanding unspoken meanings and evaluating them precisely. He smiled a sympathetic, mature smile.

"Ideas . . ." he said, in a slow, deliberate manner, as though each word had to be weighed on a scale before it was put into the sentence. ". . . aren't. . . things. Ideas-the most authentic ideas-are the natural, effortless result of any vital relations.h.i.+p. Ideas are what happen when people connect with each other creatively."

Barry nodded.

"Do you mind my giving you some honest advice, Barry?"

"Not at all, Dr. Kolodny. I'd be grateful."

"On your G-47 form you say you spend a lot of time at Partyland and similar speakeasies. I realize that's where you did get your first endors.e.m.e.nt, but really, don't you think you're wasting your time in mat sort of place? It's a tourist trap!"

"I'm aware of that," Barry said, smarting under the rebuke.

"You're not going to meet anyone there but temps and various people who are out to fleece temps.

With rare exceptions."

"I know, I know. But I don't know where else to go."

"Why not try this place?" Marvin Kolodny handed Barry a printed card, which read: INTENSITY FIVE.

A New Experience in Interpersonal Intimacy 5 Barrow Street New York 10014 Members Only "I'll certainly try it," Barry promised. "But how do I get to be a member?"

"Tell them Marvin sent you."

And that was all there was to it-he had pa.s.sed his exam with a score just five points short of the crucial eighth percentile. Which was a tremendous accomplishment but also rather frustrating in a way, since it meant he'd come that close to not having to bother scouting out two more endors.e.m.e.nts. Still, with another three months in which to continue his quest and an introduction to Intensity Five, Barry had every reason to be optimistic.

"Thank you, Dr. Kolodny," Barry said, lingering in the doorway of the cubicle. "Thanks terrifically."

"That's all right, Barry. Just doing my job."

"You know ... I wish ... Of course, I know it's not permissible, you being an examiner and all... but I wish I knew yon in a personal way. Truly. You're a very heavy individual."

Thank you, Barry. I know you mean that, and I'm flattered Well, then-" He took his pipe from his mouth and lifted it in a kind of salute. "So long. And Merry Christmas."

Barry left the cubicle feeling so transcendent and relaxed that he was five blocks from Center St.

before he remembered that he'd neglected to have his license revalidated at Window 28. As he beaded back to the Federal Communications Building, his senses seemed to register all the ordinary details of the city's streets with an unnatural, hyped clarity: the smell of sauerkraut steaming up from a hot dog cart, the glint of the noon sun on the mica mixed into the paving blocks of the sidewalk, the various shapes and colors of the pigeons, the very pigeons, perhaps, that had inspired his so-called idea earlier that day. But.i.t was true, what he'd said. All the pigeons were the same size.

A block south of the Federal Communications Building, he looked up, and there strung out under the cornice of the building was the motto, which he had never noticed before, of the Federal Communications Agency: PLANNED FREEDOM IS THE.

ROAD TO LASTING.

PROGRESS.

So simple, so direct, and yet when you thought about it, almost impossible to understand, Barrow St being right in the middle of one of the city's worst slums, Barry had been prepared (he'd thought) for a lesser degree of stateliness and bon ton than that achieved by Partyland, but even so the dismal actuality of Intensity Five went beyond anything he could have imagined. A cavernous one-room bas.e.m.e.nt apartment with bare walls, crackly linoleum over a concrete floor, and radiators that hissed and gurgled ominously without generating a great deal of heat The furniture consisted of metal folding chairs, most of them folded and stacked, a refreshment stand that sold orange juice and coffee, and a great many freestanding, brimful metal ashtrays. Having already forked out twenty-five dollars upstairs as his members.h.i.+p fee, Barry felt as though he'd been had, but since the outlay was nonrefundable, he decided to give the place the benefit of his doubt and loiter awhile.

He had been loitering, alone and melancholy, for the better part of an hour, eavesdropping to his right on a conversation about somebody's drastic need to develop a more effective persona and to his left on a discussion of the morality of our involvement in Mexico, when a black woman in a white nylon jumpsuit and a very good imitation calf-length mink swept into the room, took a quick survey of those present, and sat down, unbelievably, by him!

Quick as a light switch he could feel his throat go dry and his face tighten into a smile of rigid insincerity. He blushed, he trembled, be fainted dead away, but only metaphorically.

"I'm Columbine Brown," she said, as though that offered an explanation.

Did she expect him to recognize her? She was beautiful enough, certainly, to have been someone he ought to recognize, but if he had seen her on TV, he didn't remember. In a way she seemed almost too beautiful to be a noted personality, since there is usually something a little idiosyncratic about each of them, so they can be told apart. Columbine Brown was beautiful in the manner not of a celebrity but of a deluxe (but not customized) sports car.

"I'm Barry Riordan," he managed to bring out, tardily.

"Let's put our cards on the table, shall we, Mr. Riordan? I am a Permanent Card holder. What are you?"

"A temp."

"It's fair to a.s.sume then that you're here to find an endors.e.m.e.nt."

He began to protest. She stopped him with just one omniscient and devastating glance. He nodded.

"Unfortunately, I have used up my quota. However"-she held up a single perfect finger-"it's almost the New Year. If you're not in a desperate hurry . . . "

"Oh, I've got till March."

"I'm not promising anything, you understand. Unless we hit it off. If we do, then fine, you have my endors.e.m.e.nt. Fair enough?"

"It's a deal."

"You feel you can trust me?" She lowered her eyes and tried to look wicked and temptress-like, but it was not in the nature of her kind of beauty to do so.

"Anywhere," he replied. "Implicitly."

"Good." As though of its own volition her coat slipped off her shoulders onto the back of the folding chair. She turned her head sideways and addressed the old woman behind the refreshment counter.

"Evelyn, how about an orange juice." She looked at him. He nodded. "Make it two."

Then, as though they'd been waiting for these preliminaries to be concluded, tears sprang to her eyes.A tremor of heartfelt emotion colored her lovely contralto voice as she said, "Oh Jesus, what am I going to do? I can't take any more! I am just so ... so G.o.dd.a.m.ned wretched! I'd like to kill myself. No, that isn't true. I'm confused, Larry. But I know one thing-I am an angry woman and I'm going to start fighting back!"

It would have been inconsiderate to break in upon such testimony by mentioning that his name was not, in fact, Larry. What difference does one letter make, after all?

"Have you ever been to the Miss America Pageant on 42nd St.?" she asked him, drying her eyes.

"I can't say I have. I always mean to, but you know how it is. It's the same with the Statue of Liberty.

It's always there, so you never get around to it"

"I'm Miss Georgia."

"No kidding!"

"I have been Miss Georgia six nights a week for the last four years, with matinees on Sunday and Tuesday, and do you suppose in all that time that the audience has ever voted for me to be Miss America? Ever?"

"I would certainly vote for you."

"Never once," she went on fiercely, ignoring his supportiveness. "It's always Miss Ma.s.sachusetts, or Miss Ohio, who can't do any-tiling but play a d.a.m.n jew's-harp, if you'll excuse my language, or Miss Oregon, who still can't remember the blocking for Lovely to Look At, which she has been dancing since before 7 graduated from high school. There's no one in the whole d.a.m.n line-up who hasn't been crowned once. Except me."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"I am a good singer. I can tap dance like a house on fire. My balcony scene would break your heart.

And I can say objectively that I've got better legs than anyone except, possibly, Miss Wyoming."

"But you've never been Miss America," Barry said sympathetically.

"What do you think that feels like, here?" She grabbed a handful of white nylon in the general area of her heart.

"I honestly don't know, Miss . . ." (He'd forgotten her last name.) ". . . Georgia."

"At Intensity Five I'm just plain Columbine, honey. The same as you're just Larry. And not knowing isn't much of an answer. Here I am exposing myself in front of you, and you come back with 'No Opinion.' I don't buy that."

"Well, to be completely candid, Columbine, it's hard for me to imagine your feeling anything but terrific. To be Miss Georgia and have such a lot of talent-isn't that enough? I would have thought you'd be very happy."

Columbine bit her lip, furrowed her brow, and evidenced, in general, a sudden change of heart.

"G.o.d, Larry-you're right! I've been kidding myself: the pageant isn't my problem-it's my excuse. My problem"-her voice dropped, her eyes avoided his-"is timeless and well-known. I fell in love with the wrong man for me. And now it's too late. Would you like to hear a long story, Larry? A long and very unhappy story?"

"Sure. That's what Fm here for, isn't it?"

She smiled a meaningful, unblemished smile and gave his hand a quick, trusting squeeze. "You know, Larry-you're an all-right guy."

Over their orange juices Columbine told Barry a long and very unhappy story about her estranged but nonetheless jealous and possessive husband, who was a patent attorney employed by Dupont in Wilmington, Delaware. Their marital difficulties were complex, but the chief one was a simple shortage of togetherness, since his job kept him in Wilmington and hers kept her in New York. Additionally, her husband's ideal of conversation was very divergent from her own. He enjoyed talking about money, sports, and politics with other men and bottled up all his deeper feelings. She was introspective, outgoing, and warmhearted.

"It would be all right for a while," she recalled. "But the pressure would build until I had to go out and find someone to talk to. It is a basic human need, after all. Perhaps the basic need. I had no choice."

"And then he'd find out, I suppose," said Barry.She nodded. "And go berserk. It was awful. No one can live that way."

Barry thought that in many ways her problems bore a resemblance to his, at least insofar as they both had to look for intellectual companions.h.i.+p outside the bonds of marriage. But when he began to elaborate upon this insight and draw some interesting parallels between his experience and hers, Columbine became impatient. She did not come right out and tell him that he was in breach of contract, but that was definitely the message conveyed by her glazed inattention. Responsive to her needs, he resisted the impulse to make any further contributions of his own and sat back and did his level best to be a good listener and nothing more.

When Columbine had finally run the gamut of all her feelings, which included fear, anger, joy, pain, and an abiding and entirely unreasoning sense of dread, she thanked him, gave him her address and phone number, and said to get hi touch in January for his endors.e.m.e.nt Jubilation, he thought. Bingo. Hallelujah.

But not quite. He still had to get one more endors.e.m.e.nt But now it seemed possible, likely, even inevitable. A matter, merely, of making the effort and reaping the reward.

Dame Fortune had become so well-disposed to him that he got his third endors.e.m.e.nt (though in point of hard fact, his second) the very next night. The fated encounter took place at Morone's One-Stop Shopping, a mom-and-pop mini-grocery on Sixth Ave. right next to the International Supermarket.

Although Morone's charged more for most items, Barry preferred shopping there because it offered such a limited and unchallenging range of choices (cold meats, canned goods, beer, Nabisco cookies) that he never felt intimidated and ashamed of his selections at the check-out counter. He hated to cook, but was that any reason he should be made to feel inadequate? Morone's was made to order for people like Barry, of which there are great numbers.

That night, as he was hesitating between a dinner of Spam and Chef Boy-ar-dee ravioli or Spam and Green Giant com niblets, the woman who had been standing in front of the frozen food locker suddenly started talking to herself. The Morones looked at each other in alarm. Neither of them were licensed talkers, which was a further attraction of their store, since one's exchanges with them were limited to such basic permissible amenities as "How are you," "Take care," and giving out prices.

What the woman was saying was of a character to suggest that she had just that minute gone crazy.

"The pain," she explained calmly to the ice cream section of the freezer, "only comes on when I do this."

She stooped closer to the ice cream and winced. "But then it's pure h.e.l.l. I want to cut my leg off, have a lobotomy, anything to make it stop. Yet I know the problem isn't in my leg at all. It's in my back. Here."

She touched the small of her back. "A kind of short circuit Worse than bending over is twisting sideways.

Even turning my head can set it off. Sometimes, when I'm alone, I'll start crying just at the thought of it, at knowing I've become so d.a.m.ned superannuated." She sighed. "Well, it happens to everyone, and I suppose it could be worse. There's no use complaining. Life goes on, as they say."

Having come round to a sensible, accepting att.i.tude, she turned from the freezer to witness the effect of her outburst on the Morones, who looked elsewhere, and on Barry, who couldn't resist meeting her eyes head-on. Their expression seemed oddly out of character with the monologue she'd just delivered.

They were piercing (as against vulnerable) steely-gray eyes that stared defiance from a face all sags and wrinkles. Without the contradiction of such eyes, her face would have seemed ruined and hopeless; with them, she looked just like an ancient centurion in a movie about the Roman Empire.

She grimaced. "No need to panic. It's not an emergency. I'm licensed."

Barry proffered his most harmless smile. "I wasn't even thinking of that."

She didn't smile back. "Then what were you thinking?"