Constanza shuddered, drew the shawl around her. The heater was on, the car a furnace gathering fumes from the engine core and expelling them through the flaps near her legs, but she was cold in a way heat could not reach, cold in a way that was not to be touched. As cold as any city in the ashes of their long fire. Frank was giggling now, singing a little against the bland noises that came from the radio, mumbling about fires and lyres and sires tuning the dire night, breaths and deaths and quests from the city, and it occurred to Constanza, possibly for the first time, that this was the principal difference between Frank and herself: He loved his work. She was the more competent, possibly even the one who had better reasons, but Frank wallowed in the implication, in the fire, in every lush and splendid exercise of conflagration. He would sing all through it; even if the devastation were to claim him he would go smiling as long as he were the focus, if he could take the credit. But for Constanza it would be different; pieces of her would be extinguished, and she could not keep from feeling a trace of pity. “Do you ever think about it?” she said.
He looked up from the wheel, the car wavering on the descent.
“Think about what?”
“Watch your driving. Concentrate on the road.”
He shut off the radio. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t have an accident. Not with what we’re carrying.”
His eyes were wide and bewildered. “I don’t understand,” he said. “You talked to me, I didn’t say a word. I’m watching the road, you’re the one who’s talking —”
“Oh, all right,” she said, “you’re right, you’re right, just watch the road, don’t get us into trouble, don’t put us into a girder, we’ll blow up everything north of Harlem, and we’ll never be able to get out of it alive. They’ll never understand —”
Frank sighed, a deep, confused sigh, and Constanza faded, drew further into herself on the seat. He was right, of course; she was the one who was acting in a silly and misdirected fashion. The one who was falling apart. Frank was doing fine, in control, the car gliding neatly into the merge lane and then at a steady and controlled burst was taking the center on the sparse midnight roadway, moving up to sixty. Local streets would be easier, less exposure there. At the end, assuming they got to the water, ignition and upheaval would be routine. Frank was right; she should shut up. The cold clawed at her suddenly. “I’m cold’” she said. “Give us some heat!”
Frank reached out, moved a switch. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“San Francisco went okay, didn’t it? We thought we were goners on the Golden Gate when the cops picked us up, but it was just a routine check and we were free. Chicago was beautiful; nobody thought it would go that easy. We’re doing fine, Countess, it’ll work just as well here.”
“It’s too big. It’s New York, it’s —”
“It’s just another place,” Frank said. “They’re all the same, it’s just a matter of numbers. Abilene, Corpus Christi, Schroon Lake, the training camps, those were just a body count. Chicago and San Francisco were the same, only bigger. All of them are the same: sinners in heat, snakes in darkness, the Devil’s legions. There are just more of them here.”
“It all happens so fast. “ She was talking wildly. She knew it. They had warned her of this, too, the possibility of panicky upheaval, her tendency toward hysteria. That was why they had teamed her with Frank: Frank was a steady guy, his eye was on the sparrow, he was a solid citizen, steady with his hands and with the fuses. “Chicago went in ten seconds. It was there. Boom! It wasn’t there. It took so little—”
“And the same here. Set the fuses, wire the incendiaries, go, go, go! It’s all the fire, Countess.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said. They were coming up on the Ninety-sixth Street exit, only a couple of miles to go now. No traffic at all in the density and the damp; it was as if on this midnight the roadway had been laid out for them. Maybe it had. Frank’s hands were steady, his eyes were fixed on some tunnel of perception, his white sleeves billowed in the heavy gusts from the heater. The Dodge hit a bump, and she heard the thin clang from the trunk, the equipment rolling loose, reminding them. “So many people,” she said. “Seven million.”
“Ten million,” Frank said with satisfaction. “Ten million sinners. Ten million heathens, celebrants of the darkness; ten million who have known corruption and are unacquainted with grief. But we’ll change that. We’ll change that — “
“It’s too much. What are we doing?”
“Don’t forget the little towns, too,” Frank said, “or that trial run at Schroon Lake, Oh, boy, we’ve come a long way.”
“No,” Constanza said. The word seemed to have been dragged from some reservoir of unconsciousness, spoken out of herself. “No, I can’t go through with this. We have to stop. This isn’t San Francisco or Chicago.”
“It’s the biggest town of all, Countess. That’s why.”
“Frank,” she said, “let’s give it up. Get off at Ninety-sixth Street and turn it around. We’ll go back. Tell them it’s all my fault. I’ll tell them. Get someone else. I’ll take all the blame. I must—”
“Calm down. You’re going to be all right. You’ve been fine until now. It’s no big deal —” She put her hand on his wrist. Warm but unyielding, steel under the sleeve, the white on white. “There’s a parking area at Ninety-sixth Street,” she said, “remember?”
“I remember everything.”
“Pull it in there. Pull it in there, and stop the engine. I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you what you want, Frank, if you’ll just bring it to a stop.”
His hand twitched. “You’re a sinner, too. You’re asking me to sin. You’re offering me your flesh for their flesh.” His voice cracked on the second flesh, “I can’t. I won’t.”
“Don’t you want to? Don’t you want to touch me, really touch me? You know you do, the lies they tell, the things they gave us to do, that’s just to keep you from knowing what you really want, what you really need—”
He was jumping and quivering under her touch, the car swaying, but the car was slowing, too, as they came up on the Ninety-sixth Street sign, and she could tell; yes, she could tell. She had him now. She had him. “Forget the fuses,” she said, “forget the bombs, forget the bodies just this once, just think of me, of what you’re going to do soon —”
“What will we tell them?”
“We don’t have to tell them anything,” she said with a shocking sense of discovery. “We can stay. We can just live here, like the rest of the sinners. Find our way. Trade weapons for food. We’ll be free, no one will find us, they won’t want to find us, the committee, they’ll just get replacements. But that will take time, the training takes a long time, and in the meanwhile —”
Trembling, trembling everywhere, Frank guided the Dodge into the rest area, the brakes quivering, the frame shaking, the incendiaries bouncing. “Meanwhile, we’ll be sinners. We’ll join them in the nakedness of their captivity —”
She reached out with her free left hand, stroked his inner thigh. “Yes, the nakedness of their captivity.” The car pitched, Frank braked, foliage grabbed them, they were against the trees. The car bumped, sagged. The engine rumbled. Constanza reached out, cut the ignition, reached to clasp his cheeks and draw him upon her.
His tongue was moist, desperate. “But why?” he whispered, as the engine ticced to silence, as she came over him fully as the sounds and the force of her own desperation overtook.
“Why are you doing this for the sinners? What do you care?”
“Because,” she said, placing his left hand on her breast, “because they cannot discern their right hand from their left, the sinners,” showing him what she could do with her right hand and her left. “Nor can their cattle.”
“Book of Jonah,” Frank said, heaving on her. “Final verse.”
“Also much cattle,” she corrected herself.
They were well beyond words, well beyond thought when, furious but paralyzed by shock, the archangels so came upon them.
To Mark the Times We Had
THE scene is the stage of a theater of indeterminate age and location; it is dimly lit. An ACTOR is speaking; somewhere to his left, the PRODUCER sits listening.
ACTOR. I shall do such things — I know not what they are — but they shall be the terror of the earth.
DIRECTOR. No good.
ACTOR (After a pause). Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh should thaw, melt, resolve itself —
DIRECTOR Doesn’t work. Cut it.
ACTOR (Angrily). Our revels now are ended, and these, our players—
DIRECTOR. Say, thanks a lot. We’ll be in touch now.
ACTOR (Frantic). Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. We shall never fear to negotiate, but we shall never negotiate from fear. Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.
DIRECTOR (Thoughtfully). Do you do more of that?
ACTOR. Oh, yes. Lots more. We will land a man on the moon. Think of me as the man who accompanied Mrs. Kennedy to Paris. I thought I’d give my brother a little legal experience before he applies for a job. I—
DIRECTOR. Well, it’s something we can work with. (Pause) Oh, all right. What the hell, we’ll give it a try. (Goes offstage. returns with top hat, cane, hands them to ACTOR. Presidential seal lowered as backdrop.) Good luck.
ACTOR, Uh, before we start this, shouldn’t there be a contract?
DIRECTOR. Later, later.
ACTOR. But Equity—
DIRECTOR (Fiercely). Screw the union; do you want the job or don’t you?
ACTOR (After a pause, reluctantly). I want the job. (Puts on top hat, twirls cane.) We all want the job. I was trained in classics, though.
DIRECTOR. Then shut up and do the job (Exits)
ACTOR. But just a moment. (Silence. ACTOR starts offstage to pursue DIRECTOR, then shakes head stops, returns to center stage. Fixed spot hammers him into place.) Damn it anyway.
OFFSTAGE FEMALE VOICE. Ready?
OFFSTAGE MALE VOICE. Ready as I ever will be.
OFFSTAGE FEMALE VOICE. All right, then (Pause). You can’t say the city of Dallas doesn’t love you now, Mr. President (Sound of shot).
ACTOR. God damn it. I should have known (Clutches throat). Damn open calls! (Second shot; blackout)
What I Did to Blunt the Alien Invasion
1. I talked to them. “Be reasonable.” I said, “Consider the conditions here. Consider the nature of our circumstances. We are struggling toward a kind of equivocal democracy, equivocal poise, equivocal justice: Marx’s alienation effect is only an intermediary stage on the road to Nirvana.” And so on and so forth. A modicum of learning, a flutter of pedantry, even some scatology now and then to show the great comic vision which, ultimately, underlies the human condition. They nodded solemnly but did not make their position clear.
2. Carried the word to the President, to Congress, to the press as best I could. Not only through letters to the editor, not only through the vox populi sections of the newspaper and by phone calls to the district office of our congressman, but through the great common network of our evolving democracy, the talk shows, “Alien invasion,” I said. “Creatures from the far Centauris, from the proximate Centauris coming in disguise to infiltrate our customs, our cities, the interstices of cur lives, disguised as fellow citizens, dogs, horses, houseplants. Against their cunning we must be unavailing, nonetheless I think you are entitled to know. The full story.” Also small notices in the classified sections of the local daily, not much but all I can afford, all THOSE WHO ARE OF THE ALIEN INVASION PLEASE CALL (my number) or write post OFFICE BOX (my post office box). I did what I could, certainly, to bring alertness to the populace. My modest funds, my lack of true credibility, all of these were very much against me; but nonetheless, within limits, I tried.
3. Discussed the issue with Susan. I made no attempt to hide my distress or my growing awareness that perhaps between the loathsome, threatening presence of the alienness and all of those circumstances which are our democratic way of life, I stood alone. “I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me, George,” she said. “If the aliens are coming, why are you the only one who knows this? The rest of us haven’t heard a word.” “I don’t know,” I said. “How can I possibly know?” There is, after all, only so much of an accounting one may give, and yet the woman is endlessly demanding. “Perhaps the rest of the population is narcoticized or drugged,” said. “Perhaps it is only for me to carry the tale.” And so on and so forth. Even within the context of a difficult living situation, a situation built, I think, up’ on my need to reach out to Susan, to humor her, to treat her as if she were a sensible, rational woman and not the raving, neurotic pain that I know her to be… even within that context, I tried to be ultimately reasonable. “You can see why I’m somewhat preoccupied,” I said. “You can understand now why you may find me somehow abstracted on various occasions. I’m trying to work out a plan to blunt the alien invasion. This takes all of my mental powers.” She laughed and laughed and it was at this point in our dialogues, usually although not exclusively, that she would begin to hurl objects at me. I do not wish to discuss this any further. Of the true and mordant nature of our relationship, of the dark and tumbling necessity of our connection, I will inform in another context. At this time we are dealing with the public rather than the private (and hence irrelevant) consequences of our activity
4. Remonstrated with myself. Had genuine agonies of conscience, cris de coeur in the deep insertion of the night. “Perhaps it is a delusion,” I was driven so far by the insensible Susan as to admit. “Perhaps there are no aliens, let alone an imminent invasion; I have concocted all of this out of heavy drugs, phantasms, and the need to establish some aura of personal significance. But no, no, this cannot possibly be; the corporeal reality of the aliens has been proven over and again, and I have no reason whatsoever to fantasize.” I am of course compressing this internal monologue significantly while at the same time preserving its essence. It is of the essence which I am speaking now. “No, I have examined the issue wholly and profoundly and I know that it is only I who can sound the warning,” I concluded. Would conclude these remonstrances and heaving internal monologues composed of equal parts self-revulsion and determination. “It is not internal disintegration but objective necessity. That necessity can be proven by the very conditions in which we find ourselves. The times bespeak invasion,” Well, don’t they? How much doubt can there be about the nature of dislocation?
5. Rendered pictures of the aliens for talk show hosts or congresspersons who might want physical evidence. Using Crayola™ and perspective drawing, rendered them as they had appeared in my hallway on that fateful afternoon in June of 199 — when all of this began. Eight-feet aliens with thin lips and square shoulders, the aspect of soccer goalies or perhaps a new breed of astronauts, all of them with intense, winking blue eyes and highly concupiscent genitalia of the requisite kinds. Whiskers and cilia, representative balloons to display their dialogue, which came in only slightly fractured English with what seemed to be a cockney accent. “Are you serious?” Susan said, seeing a cache of these drawings one night, looking as she so often looked in places which were none of her business. “What are these things, what has happened to you?” Pointed at the representations of genitalia and with crooked forefinger made an inexplicable but wholly repellent gesture. “This is too much for me,” she said. “It’s one thing to have a living arrangement, strictly business and all that and another, quite another to realize that you are living with a homeboy lunatic.” And further statements of a kind which cannot be paraphrased and need not be included in this otherwise true bill. The pictures, faithful reproductions of the aliens as they appeared to me on that doomed late Saturday, the cones and slants of dim summer light infiltrating the walls of this tenement, have been carefully pr
eserved and are available at any time for inspection and further consideration,
6. Tried in the absence of any fair response from congresspersons, call-in hosts, covivant, or the corrupt, self-serving press to take the issue directly to the streets. “They are already among us,” I said, “eight-feet caterpillars with purple genitalia masquerading as people and they have so clouded our minds with dangerous drugs and global corruption that we do not notice, we think it is merely part of urban decay. When several hundred thousand of them, a critical number, have infiltrated the populace, they will have reached a kind of Heisenbergian mass and through use of the uncertainty effect will topple entropy itself. Oh, we must be alert, we must be alert, we must be aware!” I pointed out, gesturing somewhat floridly (but in a controlled and geometric fashion) in the park on that and other difficult evenings and I would like to say that I drew a crowd and some enlightened response but due to the very dreadful and imminent conditions created in part by the aliens themselves, I am afraid that I was unable |o elicit the kind of response which was deserved under the circumstances. Tried then in the presence of few and the absence of many to make the situation entirely clear but, met only by welling indifference and at last the tanks and brutalities of the guardians, was able to shout no more.
7. Tried to consider all parts of the issue, all phases, and alternatives. “Perhaps I am fantasizing,” I told them when they had called me in for further investigation, “but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t true, that they aren’t here, it just means that I have no hard evidence, that I cannot produce them. Not that I am fantasizing, you understand, although I wilt make that stipulation for the purposes of argumentation. I have a serious mission, this is serious business, we are talking about the alienation effect,’’ but their faces were bleak and implacable; oh, I know something of bleakness and implacability, it must truly be conceded, although it is not these qualities alone which will suffice when they come tunneling through our streets, using their massive weaponry, dismembering our civilization.
The Very Best of Barry N Malzberg Page 20