Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 (55 page)

Chips and dip, salami and cheese on the coffee table under the Saran Wrap
(risky, but a great ploy—"It's just to remind us, man"—and
he
could get away with it). The new
Barb,
an old copy of
Crawdaddy
and especially Tuesday's issue of the
Times.
The one with the
photograph showing him clutching his STUDENTS FOR FREEDOM sign just before
the pigs waded in. The photographer had caught him just right—nobody
could look at it without feeling for him—but he liked the caption
even better.
"Youth in anguish."
Youthful innocence, the hope of
tomorrow (all summed up in himself) being crushed by the fascist state.
What was the name of the kid who had really been hit? The ugly kid with
glasses? He couldn't remember, but it really didn't matter.

And then the front-door buzzer was blasting away and he straightened up,
smoothed the wrinkles from his toga, and let The Smile flood his face like
light from the morning sun.

By ten o'clock, the party was going full blast, the stereo blaring,
couples sprawling out on the rugs and couches, people rapping in little
groups, a few huddling in corners, turning on—only God knew who had
brought what, but there were a lot of glazed looks floating around.
Politically, it was pretty well balanced. A few old-line activists, but
mostly second echelon, all of whom had seen the
Times
and really
fell out when he flashed on them. Some over-thirties, but that only made
for contrast, so what the hell.

And then a chick was plastered up against him and it took him a second to
place her. How long had it been since he had done a number with Sue?
Jesus, she had been forgettable. He wondered who she had come with; he
sure as hell hadn't invited her.

"It's a great party, Jeff, really great," she breathed, and he felt like
telling her to go brush her teeth. There was a brief lull in the music and
for a moment, the background noises came crashing through—cubes
tinkling in glasses, a chick giggling, some kid coughing, who hadn't been
able to hold in the smoke, the overloud talking of people not yet adjusted
to the sudden silence.

There had been a sticky moment earlier in the evening, when an older type
had shown up, with a guitar yet; there was nothing for it but to accompany
the square on a battered twelve-string Jeff kept hidden in the closet,
then do a solo number before flashing a smile and saying, "This is a
party, not a performance," and turning the stereo back on. Mr. Guitar Man
was pretty well out of it by then and was now sitting on the big, beat-up
couch by the window, staring moodily out at the night.

"… been so long," Sue was saying, trying to sock it in. He was only
half aware of her; all he wanted to do was get away, get a drink and rap
with the little blonde in the living room who had been so awed by him
earlier.

Accusingly: "You're not listening!"

Oh, God …
He peeled her hand off his shoulder and felt her
stiffen. The light from the kitchen was pale, but he could make out the
faint veins pulsing in her neck and the fine network of lines starting to
firm up around her eyes. "I'm sorry, Sue, you were saying something?"
Messy bit, but if he didn't let her know the score, somebody else would—you
get to be twenty-five, man, you're a stone drag. Then he had pulled loose,
mumbling a bland "'Scuse, Sue, gotta fill my cup," and she fled past him
into the living room, to fold up on the couch next to Mr. Guitar Man.
Maybe they deserved each other, he thought.
American Gothic,
up to
date.

And then he had refilled his paper cup from the jug of rosé on the
coffee table and the party was picking up again and it was great, just
great.

"Gee, Mr. Beall, I saw your picture in the
Times
with the pig
clubbing you."

A freshman, the warm wine sweat glistening on his smooth cheeks—Jeff
had seen him hanging around the edges of the sit-in at the Poly Sci
lecture hall. "It didn't hurt—the pigs are all queer, they don't hit
too hard."

"It must've been a really inside trip," the kid said sympathetically, then
drifted off, while Jeff frowned after him and wondered uneasily just what
the hell the kid had meant to say, and reflected, but only for a moment,
how great it would be to be seventeen again. Then he started sipping at
the wine and let the conversation in the room close over him like soapy
water over dishes in a sink.

"… the synthetics are really a bummer …"

"… trustees are out to kill the third world …"

"… sure, but Dylan copped out, man …"

"… soul food, that's an issue …"

"Fuck the establishment," Jeff said amiably to nobody in particular, then
ducked into the kitchen for a refill on the salami. The blonde was in a
corner with a short-haired squeaky-clean wearing a Nehru jacket and beads—the
poor slob had been stuck with hand-me-downs. He was also very stoned and
the chick looked like she badly needed rescuing.

He picked up a couple of plates of lunch meat and said, "Hey, chickie, how
about a hand?" and she slipped away and flashed him a grateful smile. She
was maybe seventeen, with waist-long hair and green eyes—she
definitely
made the other chicks at the party look like old hags.

"Look, man, she came with me, she's mine!"

The Level, Reserved look, eyes slightly narrowed. "You some sort of
reactionary, man? You don't own
any
body!" And then he had shoved
the chick into the living room and he was dumping the plates onto the
table. Somebody offered him a joint and he took a toke and passed the
roach on to the girl. Always take a puff for social standing, but never
get stoned; too easy to let down the old guard.

The girl was looking up at him big-eyed and he nodded to himself; she was
the
one, all right. "Thanks," she said. There was just the right
amount of quiver in her voice and he gave her the Sincere look and said,
"The means of production belong to the state," which wasn't a bad line at
all.

She sucked on the joint, coughed, then held her breath for a long moment.
After she let it out, she nodded toward the stereo and said, "The All for
One are really boss."

"Womb to Tomb," he couldn't help correcting. "On
Walkin'.
WSAN
played it this morning; tomorrow it'll be all over the country."

She shook her head and looked serious. "Sounds like but isn't—the
lead cimbalom's a friend of mine," and just for a second the world slipped
sideways, because he suddenly wasn't sure.

Then he was off again, flashing her The Smile and squeezing her hand,
saying, "Don't go home early—in fact, don't go home," and he knew
she wouldn't.

There was an angry murmur rising above the background mumble, like smoke
over burning brush. A little knot of Maoists had lined up against the
Progressive Leftists, and somebody shouted over to him. "What do you
think, Jeff?" and they were respectfully silent and that was more like it.

"You work with the pigs," he said automatically, "you're just playing into
the hands of the establishment." A buzz of approval and the confrontation
splintered a dozen different ways, then a rock number came up on the
stereo and the heavy beat rolled over the room like a tide.

"Sharp," a voice said.

Old, middle-thirties, balding. Maybe a professor crashing the party to
score on a chick. "It's the all-purpose answer," Jeff said easily.

"I'm Jenkins, Asian Studies. Saw the picture of you in the
Times.
"

A nod. Wait him out, see what he wants.

Jenkins studied him thoughtfully for a second, then cleared his throat and
said, "After class, I run the Free Tutorial Studies. We need tutors for
the ghetto freshman—I saw you at the F.T.S. rally last week and
thought you might like to help out."

There was no end to the freaky things people wanted you to do. "Sorry,
man, that's not my bag," he said coldly and started to move away. The
blonde was back in a corner with the Nehru jacket and it was time to break
it up.

Jenkins smiled faintly down at his drink. "Not much press coverage, no
guarantee you'll get your picture in the paper."

Why, the condescending old fart; you'd think he had never run into
that
one before!
Jeff whirled.

"Heavy, old man! Look,
you
sit in,
you
carry the signs,
you
get clubbed! Think anybody's going to cry for
you?
Get laid, will
you! I do my thing, you do yours!" Holier than thou, bull
shit.

The mumble of the party again, somebody being sick in the john, the click
of the lock on the bedroom door, a chick crying in the kitchen and
somebody laughing hysterically in the living room, the sour smell of smoke
and wine and too many people. Christ, he hadn't invited half that number—a
few more cigarette burns on the windowsill and spreading puddles on the
faded rug slowly seeping into the wool, the sweet smell of pot and he was
getting a contact high and …

Somebody was clutching at him and doing the heavy-breathing bit. "Want to
… see you alone, Jeff."

Old women, dogs, and Ann Polanski loved him. Yesterday's radical, the
professional student, working for a PhD in sociology and she'd get it
about the time of the Second Coming. Drunk out of her mind and probably
feeling very sorry for herself because, at thirty, she was the last of the
vestal virgins; love me, love my guilt complex, and who wanted that kind
of package deal?

"Damsel in distress in the kitchen and all that rot," he said, trying to
edge past. "Be right back."

She hung onto him and licked her lips and tried to get the words out
without slurring them, and when they finally came, they were like pearls
strung on a string. "Just want to say … magnificent party." She
closed her eyes and for a panicky moment he was afraid she was going to
vomit down his toga. Then she was fishing a damp strand of hair out of her
eyes and trying hard to focus on him. "Don't know … how you do it,
Jeff," she said, closing her eyes again. "Goddamn generations … two
years apart now … can't figure out the right attitudes from one day
to the nex'—next … changes, everything changes so fast
… got to be a real phony to keep up with them."

He could feel the heat at the back of his neck. Overage and twenty pounds
overweight and she wouldn't get her PhD, not in a million years, and
she
was putting
him
down. "Ever think about it?" she asked, suddenly
wistful.

"I don't think," he said lightly. And then she was holding onto him again
and it wasn't for support and he could feel his skin crawl—hot and
sweaty and the monthly smell. He forced himself to hold her gently for a
moment and nuzzle her neck, and when she was blinking with sudden hope, he
murmured, "I would like to help you, Ann, I really would, but it would be
like balling my own mother."

"You're a stinking son of a bitch," she said calmly.

Then he was back in the living room again and Ann was fading into the
background, like roses on old wallpaper, and the noises and the heat in
the room were smothering him and he could feel himself start to drown in
his own party.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the huge old couch by
the window. Mr. Guitar Man, toying with a drink in which the ice had long
since melted; Sue, sitting next to him, looking thirty-five instead of
twenty-five, starting to shrivel right before his eyes; Jenkins beside
her, his face a remote mask; and Ann at the far end, eyes closed, probably
passed out. All of them with that odd, frightening, glazed look about
them, like wax dummies in a museum.

He shivered, then was caught up in the party once more. He was the guy who
made it tick, who made it go, the one who was with it. He was the mirror
of people who wanted to check how the mustache lay, how the toga fit,
whether the smile was right and the attitude was "in." He was the hero,
the star, the winner, to be chaired through the marketplace.

He could feel his ego expanding and filling the room like Styrofoam, and
he knew he was getting
very
stoned, but it felt good, good, good—the
music was as sharp as diamonds and the food was ambrosia and everybody
… everybody loved him.

It was two in the morning when, suddenly, above the roar of the party, he
heard the door buzzer and instinctively knew it wasn't the police and,
just as instinctively, that whoever it was shouldn't be let in. Then there
was laughter and shouting in the hallway and a pounding on the door and
the party around him froze—it was like watching a film where they
end up on a single frame and hold it. Dancing, laughing, shouting and then
sudden silence and the living room was filled with plaster statues.

Somebody stepped to the door and he wanted to shout
Don't let them in!
and then the door was open and the laughing crowd outside tumbled in like
a bushel of leaves driven by the wind. They pulled at his party like so
many human magnets and the movement in the room started to quicken and,
within seconds, the party was roaring again.

Jeff didn't know any of them.

He was standing in a corner all alone, with the party swirling about him
but never touching him, like waves breaking around a rock, and then
somebody was standing in front of him. "So you're Jeffrey." He hated the
full name and he hated the tone of condescension.

The stranger was dressed in black and had a drooping black mustache, like
an old-time cowboy villain, and something within Jeff whispered
That's
sharp,
and he was wearing a FREE LEONARD button and who the hell was
Leonard, anyway?

"Name's Lee," the stranger said in a deep bass voice, and Jeff guessed
that he had really worked at it to pitch it that low, and then he was
fingering Jeff's toga and the people around them were suddenly silent and
tense and the stranger said, "Too bad it spots so easily," and somebody
laughed and Jeff couldn't think of anything to say, and then a chick he
didn't know came up and said, "I saw your picture in the
Times—
you
looked cute," and a lot more people laughed and then they all drifted away
and Jeff caught himself staring down at the wine in his paper cup and
noting that the cube he had dropped in to cool it had almost melted.