Isaac Asimov's SF-Lite

by Gardner R. Dozois

  “Daddy hates tofu. Says it looks like someone threw up and tried again.”

  “He’s got a point.”

  “What’s it like where you come from, Oral. I mean where you lived before.”

  “You said you been to Fort Worth.”

  “Once when I was little.”

  “It doesn’t look like that at all. Except out past Eighth Avenue by the tracks. Looks a little like that on a good day.”

  Maggie did fine in school after Jimmy Gerder left her alone. He cocked his head funny and walked with a limp. His folks finally sent him to Spokane to study forest conservation. By the time she reached sixteen Maggie began to make friends. She was surprised to be chosen for the Sidewinderettes, the third finest pep squad in the state. She joined the Drama Club and started writing plays of her own. She was filling out nicely and gave Uncle Ned a wide berth.

  They were still dirt poor, but Uncle Ned and Aunt Grace attended several funerals a year. Two cousins died in Orlando not far from Disneyland, a car mishap in which both were killed outright. A nephew was mutilated beyond recognition in San Francisco, victim of a tuna-canning machine gone berserk. A new family tragedy could be expected around April, and again in late October when the weather got nice. Maggie was no longer taken in. She knew people died year round. They died in places like Cincinnati and Topeka where no one wanted to go. What Aunt Grace and Uncle Ned were doing was having fun. There wasn’t much question about that. Maggie didn’t like it but there was nothing she could do about it, either.

  When Maggie was eighteen her play “Blue Sun Rising” was chosen for the senior drama presentation. It was a rousing success. Drama critic Harcourt Playce from San Angelo, Texas, told Maggie she showed promise as a writer. He gave her his personal card and the name of a Broadway theatrical producer in New York. The play was about a man who was searching for the true meaning of life on a world “very much like our own,” as the program put it. There was no night at all on this world. A blue sun was always in the sky. Maggie wanted to ask Oral but was sure the principal wouldn’t let him in.

  Aunt Grace died a week after graduation. Maggie found her watching reruns of “M.A.S.H.” She secretly wrote a specialist in Dallas. Told him what had happened to her mother and Aunt Grace. The specialist answered in time and said there might be genetic dysfunction. They were making great strides in the field. He advised her to avoid any shows in syndication.

  Life with Uncle Ned wasn’t easy. With Aunt Grace gone he no longer practiced restraint of any kind. Liquor came out of the nail bin at the store, and found its way to the kitchen. Girl and scientist magazines were displayed quite openly with National Geographic. Maggie began to jump when she heard a sound. There was a good chance Uncle Ned was there. Standing still too long was a mistake.

  “You’re going to have to stop that,” said Maggie. “I mean it, Uncle Ned. I won’t put up with it at all.”

  “You ought to get into gymnastics,” said Uncle Ned. “I could work with you. Fix up bars and stuff out back. I know a lot more about it than you might think.”

  Maggie looked at Uncle Ned as if she were seeing him for the first time. His gaze was focused somewhere south of Houston. There seemed to be an electrical short in his face. His skin was the color of chuck roast hit with a hammer.

  “I’m going to go,” said Maggie. “I’m getting out of here.”

  “On what?” said Uncle Ned.

  “I don’t care on what, I’m just going. You try to stop me you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

  “You haven’t got busfare to the bathroom.”

  “Then I’ll walk.”

  “You do and you’ll get raped and thrown in a ditch.”

  “I can get that first part here. I’ll worry about the ditch when I come to it.”

  “Don’t expect any help from me. I haven’t got two dimes to rub together.”

  “You will,” said Maggie. “Some cousin’ll get himself hacked up in a sawmill in Las Vegas.”

  “Now that’s plain ignorant,” said Uncle Ned. “Especially for a high-school graduate. There isn’t a lot of timber in Nevada. That’s something you ought to know.”

  “Goodbye, Uncle Ned.”

  It took maybe nine minutes to pack. She took “Blue Sun Rising” and a number two pencil. Left her Sidewinderette pep jacket and took a sensible cloth coat. It was the tail end of summer in Texas, but New York looked cold on “Cagney and Lacey.” She searched for something to steal. There were pawn shops all over New York. People stole for a living and sold the loot to buy scag and pot and ludes and whatever they could find to shoot up. There was no reason you couldn’t buy food just as well. In the back of her aunt’s closet she found a plastic beaded purse with eight dollars and thirty cents. Two sticks of Dentyne gum. Downstairs, Uncle Ned was watching the French National Girls’ Field Hockey Finals. Maggie was stopped at the front door.

  “It was me poured kerosene on your magazines,” she said. “I thawed all the meat out too.”

  “I know it,” said Uncle Ned. He didn’t turn around. A girl named Nicole blocked a goal.

  Hitchhiking was a frightening experience. She felt alone and vulnerable on the interstate. Oral’s protective device was fastened securely about her waist. But what if it didn’t work? What if she’d used it up with Jimmy Gerder? A man who sold prosthetic devices picked her up almost at once. His name was Sebert Lewis and he offered to send her to modeling school in Lubbock. He had helped several girls begin promising careers. Many were now in national magazines.

  When Sebert stopped for gas, Maggie got out and ran. There were trucks everywhere. A chrome-black eighteen-wheeler city. They towered over Maggie on every side. In a moment she was lost. Some of the trucks were silent. Others rumbled deep and blinked red and yellow lights. There was no one about. She spotted a cafe through the dark. The drivers were likely all inside. It seemed like the middle of the night. French fries reached her on a light diesel breeze.

  “I don’t know what to do next!” she said aloud, determined not to cry. A big red truck stood by itself. A nice chrome bulldog on the front. It wouldn’t hurt to rest and maybe hide from Sebert Lewis. She wrapped her coat around her and used her suitcase for a pillow. In a moment she was asleep. Only a short time later, a face looked directly into hers.

  “Oh, Lord,” said Maggie, “don’t you dare do whatever it is you’re thinking.”

  “Little lady, I’m not thinking on anything at all,” the man said.

  “Well all right then. If you mean it.”

  He was big, about as big a man as Maggie had ever seen. Dark brown eyes nearly lost in a face like a kindly pie. “You better be glad I’m a bug on maintenance,” he said. “If I’d of took off you lyin’ there under the tire I’d a squashed you flatter’n a dog on the road to Amarillo. You got a name, have you?”

  “I’m Maggie McKenna from Marble Creek.”

  “You running away?”

  “I’m going to New York City to write plays.”

  “You got folks back home?”

  “My mother’s dead and my father disappeared under strange circumstances. I’m a high school graduate and a member of the Sidewinderettes. They don’t take just everybody wants to get in. If you’re thinking about calling Uncle Ned you just forget it.”

  “Not my place to say what you ought to do. I’m Billy C. Mace. How’d you get to here?”

  “A man named Sebert Lewis picked me up. Said he’d put me through modeling school in Lubbock.”

  “Lord Jesus!” said Billy Mace. “Come on, get in. Nothing’s going to happen to you now.”

  Riding in the cab of an eighteen-wheeler wasn’t anything at all like a ’72 Ford. You towered over the road and could see everything for miles. Cars got out of the way. Billy talked to E other truckers on the road. His CB handle was Boomer Billy.

  He let Maggie talk to Black Buddy and Queen Louise and Stoker Fish. The truck seemed invulnerable. Nothing could possibly reach her. The road hummed miles below. There was even a (pla
ce to sleep behind the driver. Billy guessed she was hungry, and before they left the stop he got cheeseburgers and onion rings to go. Billy kept plenty of Fritos and Hershey bars with almonds in the truck, and had Dr Peppers iced in a cooler. Maggie went to sleep listening to Waylon Jennings tapes. When she woke it was morning. Billy said they’d be in Tulsa in a minute.

  “I’ve never been out of the state,” said Maggie. “And here I | am already in Oklahoma.”

  Billy pulled into a truck stop for breakfast. And then to another for lunch. He measured the distance in meals. “Two-hundred miles to lunch,” he’d tell Maggie, or “a hundred-seventy to i supper.”

  Maggie read him “Blue Sun Rising” while he drove.

  “I don’t know a lot about plays,” said Billy when she was through, “but I don’t see how that sucker can miss. That third act’s adoozie.”

  “It needs a little work.”

  “Not as I see it it don’t. You might want to rein in the Earth Mother symbolism a little, but that’s just a layman’s suggestion.”

  “You may be right,” said Maggie.

  She already knew Billy was well read. There was a shelf of books over the bunk. All the writers’ names were John. John Gunther. John Milton. John D. McDonald.

  “John’s my daddy’s name, God rest him,” said Billy. “A man named John tells you something you can take it for a fact.”

  She told him about Uncle Ned and Aunt Grace. She didn't mention Oral Blue as they had not discussed the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. Billy was livid about her experience with Sebert Lewis.

  “Lord Jesus himself was looking after you,” he said. “No offense meant, but a girl pretty as you is just road bait, Maggie. That modeling studio thing is likely a front. I expect this Sebert’s a Red agent and into hard astrology on the side. Probably under deep cover for some time. I imagine there’s a network of such places spread right across the country. Sebert and his cohorts cruise the roads for candidates like yourself. Couple of days in a little room and you’re hopeless on drugs, ready to do unspeakable acts of every kind. There’s a possibility of dogs. You wake up in bed with some greaser with a beard gets military aid from this godless administration. That’s where your tax dollar goes. I don’t want to scare you but you come real close to a bad end.”

  “I guess I don’t know much do I?” said Maggie. “I feel awful dumb.”

  “You learn quick enough when you drive the big rigs. There’s things go on you wouldn’t believe. The Russians got the news media eatin’ out of their hands. I could give you names you’d recognize at once if I was to say ’em. There are biological agents in everything you eat. Those lines and numbers they got on the back of everything you buy? What that is is a code. If you’re not in the KGB or the Catholic Church you can’t read it. Don’t eat anything that’s got three sixes. That’s the sign of the beast. I wish to God I had control of my appetite. I can feel things jabbing away inside. White bread and tomatoes are pretty safe. And food isn’t the only way they got you. TV’s likely the worst. I can’t tell you the danger of watching the tube.”

  “I already know about that,” said Maggie.

  Billy Mace had it all arranged. As good as any travel agent could do. He left her with a Choctaw driver named Henry Black Bear in St. Louis. Henry took her to Muncie, Indiana. Gave her over to a skeletal black man named Quincy Pride. Quincy’s CB handle was “Ghost.” He taught her the names of every Blues singer who had lived in New Orleans at any time. He played their tapes in order of appearance. At Pittsburgh she transferred to Tony D. Velotta, a handsome Italian with curly hair. Maggie thought he was the image of John Travolta.

  And then very early in the morning, she woke to the bright sun in her eyes and crawled down from the bunk and Tony pointed and said, “Hey, there it is, kid. We’re here.”

  Maggie could scarcely believe her eyes. The skyline exploded like needles in the sun. A lonely saxophone wailed offstage. She could see the trees blossom in Central Park. Smell the hotdogs cooking at the zoo. They were still in New Jersey, but they were close.

  “Lordy,” said Maggie, “it looks near as real as a movie.”

  As they sliced through upper Manhattan, Tony pointed out the sights. Not that there was an awful lot to see. He tried to explain the Bronx and Brooklyn and Queens, drawing a map with his finger on the dash. Maggie was thoroughly confused, and too excited to really care.

  “So what are you going to do now? Where you going to stay?”

  “I don’t know,” said Maggie. “I guess I’ll find a hotel or something.”

  “How much money you got, you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Eight dollars and thirty cents. Now I know that’s not a lot. I may have to look for work. It could take some time before I get my play produced.”

  “Holy Mother,” said Tony. “You’d better stay with us.”

  “Now I couldn’t do that. I’ll be just fine.”

  “Right. For six, maybe eight minutes, tops.”

  The Velottas lived in Brooklyn. It might as well have been Mars as far as Maggie was concerned. There were eight people in the family. Tony and his wife Carla and little Tony who was two. Tony’s father and mother, two younger brothers and a sister. They took in Maggie at once. They said she talked funny. They loved her. Carla gave her dresses. There was always plenty to eat. The Velottas had never heard of peanut butter. Maggie ate things called manicotti and veal piccata. Carla made spaghetti that didn’t come out of a can. Nothing was like it was at Aunt Grace’s and Uncle Ned’s. The family was constantly in motion. Talking and running from one end of the house to the other.

  Everyone yelled at each other and laughed. Maggie tasted wine for the first time. She’d never seen a wine bottle out of a paper sack. Everyone worked in the Velotta family bakery. Maggie helped out, carrying trays of pastry to the oven.

  Tony stayed a week and went back on the road. Maggie talked to Carla one evening after little Tony was in bed.

  “I’ve got to go see my producer,” she said. “You all have been wonderful to me but I can’t live off you forever. The sooner I get ‘Blue Sun Rising’ on Broadway the better.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Carla. She looked patient and resigned. The whole family conferred on directions. An intricate map was drawn. Likely locations of muggers and addicts were marked with an ‘x.’

  “Don’t talk to anyone,” said Tony’s mother. She crossed herself and gave Maggie a medal. “Especially don’t talk to blacks and Puerto Ricans. Or Jews or people with slanty eyes or turbans. No turbans! Avoid men with Nazi haircuts and blue eyes. Anyone with blue eyes.”

  “Watch out for men in business suits and ties,” said Papa Velotta. “They carry little black cases. Like women’s purses only flat. There’s supposed to be business inside but there’s not. It’s dope is what it is. Everybody knows what’s going on.”

  “Don’t talk to anyone on skates with orange hair,” said Carla.

  “A Baptist with funny eyes will give you a pamphlet,” said Papa. “Don’t take it. Watch out for white socks.”

  “I’ll try to remember everything,” said Maggie.

  “I’ll light a candle,” said Mama Velotta.

  Maggie called Marty Wilde, the Broadway producer. Wilde said she had a nice voice and he liked to encourage regional talent. He would see her at three that afternoon.

  “What’s the name of this play?” he wanted to know.

  “ ‘Blue Sun Rising,’ ” said Maggie.

  “Jesus, I like it. You don’t have an agent or anything do you?”

  “I just got in town,” said Maggie.

  “Good. I like to work with people direct.”

  Her first impression was right. Manhattan was as real as any cop show she’d ever seen. It was all there. The sounds, the smells, the people of many lands. There was a picture show on nearly every block. Everything was the same, everything was different. The city changed before her eyes. A man lying in the street. A kid tying celery to a cat. A woman dre
ssed like a magazine cover, getting out of a cab. She watched the woman a long time. Maybe she’ll come to see my play, Maggie thought. She looks like a woman who’d see a play.

  Marty Wilde had a small office in a tall building. The building was nice outside. Inside, the halls were narrow. There was bathroom tile on the floors. A girl with carrot hair said Mr. Wilde would see her, and knocked on the wall. Marty came out at once.

  “Maggie McKenna from Marble Creek, Texas,” he said. “That’s who you are. Maggie McKenna who wrote ‘Blue Sun Rising.’ Hey, get in here right now.”

  Marty ushered her in and offered a chair. The office was bigger than a closet and had faded brown pictures on the wall. Maggie realized these were Broadway greats, people she would likely meet later. There was very little light. The window looked out on a window. Black men in Kung Fu suits kicked at the air. There were piles of plays in the room. Plays spilling over tables and chairs and onto the floor. This sight left Maggie depressed. If there were that many plays in New York, they might never get around to “Blue Sun Rising.”

  Marty Wilde took her play and set it aside. He perched on the edge of his desk. “So tell me about Maggie McKenna. I can read an author like a page. I can see your play right on your face. A character sits down stage right. The phone rings. I can see that.”

  “That’s amazing,” said Maggie. Marty Wilde seemed worn to a nub. A turkey neck stuck out of his shirt. His eyes slept in little hammocks. “There’s not much to tell about me. I think my play’s good, Mr. Wilde. If it needs any changes I’m willing to do the work.”

  “Every play needs work. You take your Neil Simon or your Chekhov. A hit doesn’t jump out of the typewriter and hop up on the stage.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “You better believe it. Who’s this guy give you my name?”

  “Harcourt Playce, he works on the San Angelo paper.”

  “Short little man with a club foot. Wears a Mexican peso on a chain. Sure I remember.”

  This didn’t sound like Mr. Playce but Maggie didn’t want to interrupt.

  “You say you haven’t got an agent.”