Emperor of Gondwanaland (32 page)

But his lonely penis is now safe. Behind the sturdy zipper of his best pants. Donned this morning back home, several hundred miles northward. With a white shirt and camphor-smelling wool jacket suitable for meeting editors. And agents. And his bosom pal Malachi Stiltjack. That rich bastard. And also an ensemble entitling one to enter fine restaurants. For expense-account meals. Moreover and finally, pride-enhancing when encountering with unfeigned glee any of one’s public. Adoring public. Who should chance to recognize one from dustjacket photos. However unlikely. Granted his small and undemonstrative readership. Which, one must forever believe, is always just on the verge of growing exponentially.

The problem of washing one’s hands. When bums barricade the sinks. Corso hesitates, shifting his soft modern satchel from hand to socially unsanctioned postmicturating hand. When one of the mendicants departs. Leaving the taps running. So that one does not even have to touch them. Saving one from contact with numerous New York-mutated germs too vile to mention.

At the sink. Satchel secured between pincering knees. Pumping some opalescent soap the shade of cheap rose wine into a palm. Lathering up. While one’s elflock-bearded, multishirted neighbor to the right is balanced on one bare foot. The other unshod appendage embasined. Caked absolutely black with street grime. Causing Corso to flinch inwardly. But his initial reaction is mild. Compared to the emotions that flood him as the foot comes clean. For the foot is not human. By any stretch of even Corso’s trained imagination.

Putrid water runnels down the trap. Depriving the scrubbed foot, like a fish stick denuded of crust, of its concealing coating. Revealing something that looks like an ostrich’s appendage. Hard yellow-ringed bony digits. Terminating in claws. That could disembowel one with a kick. And a spur above the ankle. Also potentially lethal.

Falling back from the sink. Dripping soapy water on one’s best pants. Knock-knee’d as one strives valiantly to prevent the satchel from dropping to the contaminated floor. And now the bum with the avian foot taking umbrage. At such evident revulsion. So ungentlemanly expressed.

“Hey, dude, what’s your problem?”

Corso seeking suitable words for a polite response. But unable to link any placatory syllables together in his confusion. So as finally to mutter bluntly only, “Your foot.”

The bum regarding his elevated foot, sunk still below Corso’s new line of sight in the fount. So recently laved of its dirt disguise. To reveal the underlying otherness. “Okay, so it ain’t pretty. But Jesus, you’d think I was some kinda alien, way you jumped.”

Which of course is the exact dilemma. Only it is no longer. A dilemma.

For the homeless stranger has removed his foot from its bath. And now the instrument of Corso’s disconcertment is revealed to be fully anthropomorphic. Scabbed, cracked, and horny-nailed, yes. But otherwise unremarkable.

Corso recovers. As well as possible. “I am exceedingly sorry. Please accept this donation toward the future care and refreshment of your foot.”

Corso tenders a five-dollar bill. Retrieved from pants pocket. The retrieval having somewhat dried at least one hand. In a manner most unbecoming to his best pants. Which now exhibit a damp stain. Much too close to the groin.

“Gee thanks pal.”

“Think nothing of it.”

Paper towels from the dispenser complete Corso’s ablutions. Although some slight stickiness of soap remains. Not wholly rinsed in the confusion. He turns to depart. Cannot resist one last backward glance. And sees the bum re-donning a tattered sock. Which piece of clothing features a hole strategically placed. To allow a spur to protrude.

Corso shakes his head. He should have expected some visitation of this nature. For this is not the first time reality has played the deceitful trull with him.

And when he’s asked again

what his problem is

he will lay all blame

squarely yet perhaps unfairly

on his profession

of science fiction.

Twenty years now. Two decades of writing science fiction. And before that, naturally. Two prior decades. Of reading it. Subsisting in youth on an exclusive diet. Of pulp adventures. Sophisticated extrapolations. Space operas, dystopias, and technological fantasies. Millions of words that shaped his worldview. Ineluctably. Like so many hands molding raw clay into an awkward shape. And baked him. In a kiln fueled with paraliterature. So that ever afterwards no other kind of fiction would make any real impress. On the pottery of his mind.

Then came the adolescent dream. Forgotten circumstances of its birth. Lost in the mists of his SF-besotted youth. But quickly becoming an omnipresent urge. To write what he loved. Despite no one’s inviting him to do so. In fact, barring the gates. With shotguns cradled across the chests of the genre guardians. The hard years of apprenticeship. Hundreds of thousands of words. Laboriously composed. Read and rejected. By hardhearted editors. Who emitted the mustard gas of their dreadful intelligence. To paraphrase Ginsberg. And proving Corso Fairfield could quote. From someone other than Asimov, Bradbury, or Clarke. The ABC’s of the genre. Superseded by newer names, surely. Yet still talismanic to ignorant outsiders.

Improvement by micro-degrees. Understanding himself better. And what made a story. Tools honed. Finally his first sale. Ecstasy soon replaced by despair. At the realization of how hard this path was going to be. Yet not relenting. Further sales. To better markets. Then a book contract. For a novel titled
Cosmocopia
. Which allowed him to leave the day job. Managing an independent bookstore-cum-Bavarian beer garden. Named with dire whimsy. Chapter and Wurst.

And Jenny so supportive throughout. Married straight out of college. Ever faithful. Rejoicing in his eventual success. Even attending various conventions. Unlike most SF spouses. Who would all rather undergo tracheotomies with spoons. Than meet the odd-shaped and weirdly intelligent readers whose necessary and even lovable support underpinned the books. Not to mention encountering disgruntled and jaded peers. Deep in their cups. Looking up from below the liquor with the hapless expressions of drowning victims.

And a future that seemed to stretch ahead fairly brightly, albeit labor-intensively. Until Corso’s recent blockage. Due to massive failure of suspension of authorial disbelief. In one’s own conceptions. And vision. And even chosen medium. And the advance for the overdue project already long spent. On septic-tank replacement, a trip to Bermuda, and a new transmission. Putting some of Corso’s unearned future royalties for
The Black-Hole Gun
directly into the pockets of the treacherous Jack Spanner. Who had been eagerly present to rescue Jenny when she jumped the Federation Starship
Corso Fairfield
. When it was beset by the mind-parasites of Dementia VII.

The first hallucination occurred at the supermarket. A watermelon developed a face. A jolly face, but nonetheless unnerving. And began talking to Corso. Who failed to heed the import of the melon’s speech. So fixated was he on the way that parallel rows of black seeds formed the teeth in the pulpy mouth. Doubtless the melon had had much to say. Words that might have given Corso some guidance. During future outbreaks.

Needless to say, Corso did not share this vision with Jenny. But subsequent manifestations proved less easy to conceal. Since Jenny was present. Staring in shock. As Corso attempted to open a door that wasn’t there. In the sidewalk. In front of the local multiplex theater. On a busy Saturday night. And other peculiar delusions at other times as well. Until she reached her breaking point. And fled.

Corso felt curiously unfearful of these eruptions. Of surrealism. And dire whimsy. Granted, they were momentarily shocking at times. When he was taken by surprise. His mind elsewhere. As with the bird-foot man. But once engaged with each new derangement, for however long it persisted, Corso felt a decided sense of liberation. From duties and expectation. From his own persona. From consensus reality.

And what more

after all

did any reader

of science fiction

demand.

The offices of
Ruslan’s Science Fiction Magazine
. Low-rent quarters on lower Broadway, parsimoniously leased by the parent corporation. Klackto Press. And shared with the publishing chain’s stable- mates.
Fishbreeder’s Monthly, Acrostic Fiend’s Friend, Tatting Journal
. One receptionist for all the wildly incompatible magazines. A bored young woman with a scatter of freckles. Across acres of exposed cleavage. Avista that stirs Corso’s penis in its hermitage. But like any solitary’s spasm, the moment inevitably passes without relief.

“Um, Corso Fairfield for Sharon Walpole. She’s expecting me.”

“Hold on a minute please. I’m right in the middle of printing.”

Corso sits perforce. Resting his satchel across his damp lap. In case of renewed lust attack. As the woman dances her enameled fingertips noisily across her keyboard. Generating finally some activity in the printer beside her. Corso painfully reminded of his own vain attempts recently to coerce output magically from his own printer. The buffers of which hold not the unborn chapters of
The Black-Hole Gun
. But only pain.

Picking up the phone. Reaching Sharon Walpole. Humiliatingly, from the receptionist: “What did you say your name was.” Name conveyed to receptionist again and thence to Walpole. Grudging admittance secured.

Through a busy bullpen of interns and editorial assistants and graphic designers. Photos of loved ones on the desks. Free donuts by the coffee urn. Happy chatter. All workers earning a regular paycheck. With regular health-coverage deductions, unthinkingly groused over. Yet so willingly would they be assumed by Corso. In exchange for some stability.

The view from Walpole’s cluttered corner office. A wooden rooftop water tank. A ghost sign for Nehi soda. A sliver of one stalwart tower of the Brooklyn Bridge. Walpole behind her desk. Hugo Awards on a shelf behind her. Trim and blonde. Dressed in a mustard-colored pantsuit. Chunky gold necklace and earrings and bracelets. Fixing Corso with a beam of bright-eyed welcome. Behind which is the message, don’t waste my time.

“Corso, it’s always a pleasure.” Air kisses. Floral-vanilla scent of perfume. “What brings you into the city.”

“Oh, mainly meeting with my editor at Butte Books.”

“That would be Roger Wankel.”

“Yes, Wankel.” Inwardly, Corso winces. At the memory. Of the recent reaming out endured over the phone. As Wankel screamed about missed deadlines. And penalties incurred at the printing plant. Which would accrue to Corso’s accounts. If not literally, then karmically.

“And of course I need to touch base with my agent.”

“Clive Multrum.”

“Still, yes. And it’s very likely I’ll have dinner with Malachi.”

No need for a last name. Since everyone in science fiction knew Malachi Stiltjack. Fixture on the best-seller lists. And at many conventions. And on a number of committees. Of the Science Fiction Writers of America. And PEN. Not to mention adjudging many awards. Or making media appearances. As SF’s unofficial ambassador to the mundane world. To discuss cloning. Or the Internet. Or virtual sex. And by God, where did he find the time to write.

Walpole positively frisking at the mention of Stiltjack. Disconcertingly girlish timbre to her voice now. “Oh please give Malachi my best. Ask him when he’ll have something new for us. We haven’t seen anything from him since he had the cover story two whole months ago.”

“Ah, certainly, Sharon. Two whole months. Imagine.” Corso’s last appearance in
Ruslan’s
so long ago the millennium has since rolled over. “Happy to act as go-between, ha-ha. Which actually brings me to the reason for my visit. I was hoping you might take something from me.”

Walpole begins fidgeting with a bracelet on her left wrist. “Well, of course we’re always happy to look at any story of yours, Corso. After all, our readers are still talking about ‘The Cambrian Exodus.’ But I didn’t think you were currently working at shorter lengths. Do you have the manuscript with you.”

“Ah, but that’s the rub. I don’t. Damnable oversight. Dashing from the house to catch my train. In fact, the story’s only just begun. It’s a winner, though. I’m certain of it.” Corso’s fugitive mind has blanked on the impressive title he earlier prepared to woo Walpole. Now he has to fashion one out of thin air. He looks desperately out the window. “‘The Towers— The Towers of Nehilyn.’”

Walpole spins one bracelet on her left wrist. Evident excess of impatience. Corso finds it hard to focus. On her unsympathetic face. The golden motion around her wrist is seductive. The bracelet a blur of uncanny energy. He feels the beginning of a fugue. Onset of one of his science-fictional hallucinations. But the prospect of visiting an unreal world is seductive. More enticing than this humiliating begging ritual.

Walpole speaking schoolmarmishly. “Well, you know we hardly ever commission anything, or buy from an outline. You do have an outline to show me at least, don’t you.”