The Very Best of Barry N Malzberg

by Barry N. Malzberg

  They will leave him alone and he will have miles of glistening underground corridor to explore should he ever become bored. Millions of dollars have been spent over the years on this shelter; it is packed with devices to amuse. His old films are there, a screening room, light and speed and sound.

  It may be possible, he thinks, to come to terms with the key questions of his life underground. In these dozens of years he has not had much time for contemplation, the kind of pondering in which a man must engage as he nears the end of his days. It had been his hope before politics intervened to use time to read and think but neither the Senate nor the White House were places where a man could come to terms with philosophy. Among the questions that he would consider in the deeps, Anderson supposed, were: the true weight of his marriage, the sense of his career, the influence of having been a fantasy figure upon his own inner life (could fantasy figures have fantasies themselves?) and the question as to whether being a wish fulfillment figure had made him capable of wishes. A lot had to do with the acting, of course: you took direction, first from your agent, then the scriptwriter and producer, then the director himself; you were always following someone’s conception of what you should be and why and you tend to be measured as an actor in how well you came up to others’ expectations. But that could be dangerous because all of his life he had been working for the others.

  Could that be the reason for Bitters? So that even here, at the pinnacle, he would have someone to work for?

  Well, goddamn it, maybe it was time that he did something for himself, looked for his own goals and desires. Struck out.

  But that left another hard question: if you played it their way for almost three quarters of your life, doing what they wanted you to do to their satisfaction, could it be said at the end of this that you had anything inside independent of them? Did he have any goals and desires? Or was it just a matter of being a people pleaser, a box office winner? He would give this some thought too while he prowled the corridors and networks of the gleaming underground city. He would not let possibilities of the slightest substance whisk by.

  Anderson sees himself on the rim of the underground city.

  He has left quarters early, before the full fluorescence that in the controlled, timeless environment would be “day”; in the controlled seventy-six-degree temperature pouring from the canisters he walks in golfer’s clothing past the tightly closed cubicles of his sleeping brethren, past the darkened cafeteria and recreation quarters, the closed library, past the exercise courts and into the deeper network. The tunnels fan here like flowers, open up like tumors, the lighting spurts uncontrolled reds and purple. Determinedly, Anderson walks through this, wallowing in the silence, fixated on his goal, which is the great, gray space into which the tunnels feed and where the network ends. The space is framed by a high wall which dwindles into the fading light; in the wall are carved the letters and numerals which cryptographically instruct the engineers on how to maintain. Anderson has access to the codes but will never study them. Senseless. Technology has always mystified although he has enjoyed its benefits no less than any other American. It made him a fortune, put him in power.

  Now, on the stone floor into which the tunnels empty, Anderson stands, faces the wall and in the gray light deduces the sense of this greatest adventure of his life. Not two weeks ago he was the President in the country at the height of power; now he may be President but he lives with two hundred others underground and for all he knows the rest of his constituency is dead. Communications with the outside do not exist. Communication links with other shelters were planned but do not work. For all Anderson knows he may be with the last on earth but he does not want to deal with this complexity. The reality, the sheer weight of his present environment involves and amazes; for now they are all he needs to know of circumstance. He stands looking at the wall.

  “Position,” Bitters says. He has followed him all the way out here. “You know what to do.”

  Anderson knows what to do. He has always known; that is his strength and curse. “Only one more chance,” Bitters says.

  “And Tom?”

  “Right,” Bitters says. “For Tom.”

  For Tom, then. He always knew that it would be this way, didn’t he? It would come to this. Anderson crouches. Position.

  “Now,” Bitters says. His face is obdurate, magnificent in the stricken light. “Now.”

  Now. Fourth and one on the ten-yard line, thirty-six seconds left on the stadium clock, no time-outs, game hanging in the balance. Anderson perches over the center, his eyes filled with alertness, his chest heaving with the excitement of it all, the lacerating cold turning warm inside, each exhalation truly a burst of fire.

  As Between Generations

  I RUN my father. For months, years, I have wanted to do this; now I cannot stand it any longer and I push him through the streets of the town, waving the whip, screaming at him. His senile legs patter, his ancient mouth drools, he is pulling the cart to the best of his effort, he moans, could I please not hit him so often and so hard. But I am remorseless; I cannot bear any longer the culmination of all the things that he has done to me and now at last I am seeking retribution. It is not very nice of me but it is the custom.

  People line the streets as I run him. It is not an unusual event. On a fine Sunday such as this, maybe ten or twenty sons or daughters will run their fathers, through the clear dry light of morning and into the dank afternoon but for the moment I am the only one; the others, perhaps, waiting until I have finished as a gesture of respect After all, I have been so patient for so long. I deserve full attention, without competing interests.

  The route is one mile long, down the main street and although I am not performing the major exertions, I am puffing when we are barely halfway through, probably with emotion and short-breathed as well because of the things I have been screaming at him.

  “Come on, you son of a bitch,” I bellow as we pass Third Street, “take that and that and that,” and slash him deeply, watching the blood run in aged streaks down the dull surfaces of his back. He is 78 years old. “That’s for the time you wouldn’t let me go with you to park the car!” I say, slashing him, “the time you said that I should stay with Mother in the restaurant because it was mans work. And that’s for the time when you cut my allowance, you cocksucker, cut me down to 75 because you said you didn’t like my associations. My associations, damn you!” I shriek and bring the whip down fully, “when you have not known for thirty years the quality of my inner life, the quality of my dreams, the very rubric of my existence. You dared to say that to me!” He pants and increases his pace.

  The crowd cheers thinly as we stumble by and once again I bring down the whip, urging him to greater and greater speed. “Remember when I was necking with Doris in our living room and you came in in your pajamas, you old son of a bitch, and told me to grow up! Remember that! I never forgot that, you evil old man,” I say, clouting him once again, “and for all the times when you did it to Mother when she was tired and sick and distracted, for all the times you laid your hands on her and carried her away I give you this,” and slash him the hardest one yet, a streak of pain that makes the blood dance and I hear his high whining moan. Oh it is wonderful, wonderful, the music of his blood, the singing of his cries, the harmony of his pain, the fullness of my release and it all seems to blend together: sun, street, clouds, cart, whip, memory, loss and retribution as we go winding through the path of the city toward the climactic events that surely lie ahead.

  II

  I am driving my son. I have waited for this for thirty-six years, now at last my time has come, the loathsome spawn. He screams in agony in the cart behind me, moaning and sobbing as the whip joggles in his hand, his humiliation visible to all of those who have come to see us. Many fathers have driven their sons in this town: now it is my turn. It has been too long, too long. I can barely control shouting my release to the sun.

  It was raining a little while ago but now it is clear. Everyone ca
n see us; his torment, his guilt, his horror, his effort—and it is time, time that all of this happened because I could not have borne it any longer. He cries in rage behind me as the whip once again harmlessly grazes my flesh. “That’s for you, you whelp,” I murmur, “that’s for the time when you called me an old fart right in front of your mother because I wouldn’t let you go out in the rain. Because I wouldn’t let you go to your disgusting movies.”

  Behind me, the cart sways and I know he is near unbalancing. “Good, good,” I shriek back at him, “take it, choke on it. That’s for the time you borrowed fifty dollars from me at college and said you only needed it for a week and then squandered the whole thing on pinballs and asked for more and never said thank you. That’s for the time you broke in on your mother and me when you were seven years old, broke in on us at four in the morning and my lead full and heavy within me and you came in to say you couldn’t sleep. Take it, take it you bastard!” and fling these words back to him, back to his teeth, knowing that behind me he has been impaled upon the sword of his humiliation, the very bleakness of his history, consuming him as he moans, crouches, tries to drive himself beyond guilt and mumbles in the clutches of his vulnerability. Oh I deserve it, I deserve it. It is high time.

  Alongside, the crowd cheers. They wave at me, tip their hats, smile, teeth glinting in the sun. They share with me the power of the destruction I have brought upon him and I smile back at them, lift a hand, tilt an eyebrow, urge my legs to greater haste so that behind me the graceless sway of the cart, quickening, will toss him to the bloodless stones themselves and tear him, ungracious heart to spent limb and leave him empty, rolling, a darkening husk upon the pavement, waiting, waiting then in the night for the dogs of the prairies to come in from the South and scenting his imminent bones, tear out the very core of him.

  Death to the Keeper

  PIPER: The disastrous consequences of George Stone’s live (?) appearance on the INVESTIGATIONS show of October 31 are, of course, very much on my mind at the present time. I can find little excuse or explanation for the catastrophic events which have followed so rapidly upon its heels: the gatherings which the press so helpfully informs us are “riots,” the general upheavals in the national “consciousness” and that climactic; if ill-planned, assault upon the person of our Head of State last week. No American more than I, William Piper, deplores these events; no American is more repelled by their implications. It was truly said that we are a land of barbaric impulses; our ancestors were savages and our means consequently dramatic, this is to say, theatrical.

  But at the point at which I, William Piper, become implicated in these events, implicated to the degree that responsibility is placed upon my shoulders, at the point at which I am held responsible for these disasters simply because I permitted the renowned and retired actor George Stone, for private and sentimental reasons, to utilize the format of our INVESTIGATIONS show to act out a dramatic rite which was the product of his sheer lunacy; it is at that point, as I say, that I must disclaim. I disclaim totally.

  How was I to know? In the first place, I had not seen or dealt with George Stone for the past 14 years and, following his reputation as it curved and ascended through the media, thought him merely to be a talented actor, superbly talented that is to say, whose appearance on our show would function to divert our audience and to educate them well, that joint outcome to which INVESTIGATIONS, from the beginning was dedicated. In the second place, although I was aware that Stone had gone into a “retirement” — somewhere around the time of the assassination, I did not connect the two, nor did I realize that Stone had, gone completely insane. If I had, I certainly would have never had him on my production, and you can be sure of that.

  Piper is not an anarchist. Piper does not believe in sedition. While INVESTIGATIONS, product of my mind and spirit, came into being out of my deepest belief that the Republic had no answers because it was no longer asking questions, the program was always handled in a constructive spirit; and it was not our purpose to bring about that mindless disintegration which, more and more, I see in the web of our country during these troubled days. That is why I feel the network had no right to cancel our presentation summarily, and without even giving us a chance to defend ourselves in the arena of the public spirit.

  And the recent remarks of our own President when he chose to say during a live press conference, which no doubt was witnessed by some seventy millions, that the present national calamity could be ascribed wholly to the irresponsibilities of “self-seeking entrepreneurs who permit the media to be used for any purposes which will sell them sufficient packages of cigarettes,” were wholly unfortunate and, to a lesser man, would have been provocative. Not only is Piper no self-seeker, Piper has nothing whatever to do with the sale of cigarettes. We sold spot times to the network; what they did with their commercials was their business. I have not smoked for 17 years, and had no knowledge or concern with what products the network had discussed during our two-minute breaks, being far too busy setting my guests at ease, and preparing to voyage even deeper into the arena of the human heart.

  “Self-seeking entrepreneurs” indeed! The very moment the announcement of the thwarted attempt to enter the White House and kill our beloved President was flashed upon the networks, I prepared a statement urging the nation to be calm, and repeating the facts of Stone’s insanity. It was I, William Piper, who in the wake of the hurried and inaccurate reports as to the size and true intentions of the invading forces, called a press conference and there offered my services to the Administration in whatever capacity they would have me. Is this the performance of a seditionist?

  But there, has been no peace. Ever since Stone’s spectacular public, plunge some seven weeks ago, ever since his convulsions and death (now, blame me; say that I gave him poison) it has been Piper, Piper, Piper. Had Stone lived, the accusation would have gone where It belonged: on his curved, slightly sloping shoulders, and he would have had much to answer, crazy or not. But because of his unfortunate· demise, everything explodes upon the “entrepreneur” who happened to be merely helpless witness to convulsion. Is this fair?

  But it is not the purpose of this introduction to be self-pitying or declamatory. Piper spits at such gestures; Piper transcends them. It is only, as it were, to set the stage for the revelations which follow; such revelations speaking for themselves and which publication will fully and finally rid Piper of this incipient curse. Thanks to the production skill and merchandising genius of Standard Books, Incorporated, I have been assured that this small publication will receive the widest distribution imaginable, being fully covered for foreign rights in all countries of the Western world (that is about all that one can expect) and with a fair chance of subsidiary, that is stage and motion picture rights, being taken up as well. The dissemination of this volume will serve, once and for all, to perish all doubts of Piper’s patriotism and, as well, will free him, I am sure, of that threatened business for sedition which is now working itself laboriously (but successfully) through the network of the appellate division. They don’t have any kind of case; my lawyer assures me they have no case at all.

  Let me explain the background of this.

  In the aftermath of that INVESTIGATIONS segment during which George Stone, once a renowned actor, attempted to reenact the assassination of our martyred President and ended by dying before the cameras; in the aftermath of that it was necessary, of course, for his environs to be searched, his personal effects placed under government security, and the whole history of his psychosis, needless to say, to be traced. Because the performance occurred on those very premises where Stone had spent the last years of his tragic life, and due to my own heroic efforts to have these premises secured, government and military authorities were able to make a total inventory at once. Billboards were seized, posters, newspapers, political works, magazines, personal paraphernalia of all kinds, stray bits of food secreted within hidden places of the wall, and so on. Also found was the journal which follows.<
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  This journal, kept by the actor during the week immediately preceding his appearance on the INVESTIGATIONS program proves, beyond the shadow of any man’s doubt, that the actor was completely insane, that his appearance was plotted with the cunning of the insane for the sole purpose of assaulting the precarious balance of the Republic, and that William Piper and INVESTIGATIONS were, from the start, little more than the instruments through which George Stone plotted insurrection. Why then, you ask, was this journal not immediately released to the public, thereby relieving all innocent parties of responsibility and halting, before they began, so many of these dread events?

  There is no answer to that. Our Government refuses to speak. Indeed it has not, to this day, acknowledged the existence of such a journal, stating over and again through its mouthpieces that the actor “left no effects.”

  The Government is monolithic; the Government is imponderable. Nevertheless, and due to these most recent events, the Government, mother of us all, must be protected from itself. A carbon copy of this journal, hidden in the flushbox of Stone’s ancient toilet, was found by employees of INVESTIGATIONS during a post-mortem examination of the premises three weeks ago, and immediately placed into Piper’s hands. Piper, in turn, hastens to release it to the widest possible audience.

  Let me make this clear again: this journal will prove without shadow of doubt that Stone was insane and perpetrated a massive hoax through the persona of the late President, and that all of us were ignorant and gloomy pawns he moved through the patterns of his destiny. There is no way to sufficiently emphasize that point. It will recur.