Time Travelers Strictly Cash

by Spider Robinson

  “Now: about why you’re Atlases. Atlas isn’t just a giant. He’s the very worst kind of giant. The one to avoid at all costs. Because he’s got the weight of the whole world on his shoulders. And he wants you to take it over for him as soon as you’re big enough.” Suddenly, finally, the grin was gone. “Well stuff you, Atlas! You’re not even cured yet, are you? You’re still looking for a Nice Young Kid Who Wants To Make Something Of Himself, you want a god damned volunteer! You’re suddenly-childless, and you’re so fucking lonely you tell each other you’ll settle for anything just to have a kid around the house again. But in your secret hearts you can’t help hoping you’ll find one with some ambition, can you?”

  He sat back. He was done. “Well,” he said in a different voice, knowing the answer, “how’d I do?” and he began eating peanuts.

  Teddy and Freddy were speechless for a long time. The blood had drained from both their faces; garish bar lighting made them look like wax mannequins, save that Teddy was swaying slightly from side to side. Her hand crushed Freddy’s hand; neither noticed.

  It was Teddy who found her voice first, and to her horror it trembled, and would not stop trembling. “You did very damned well. Two insignificant errors. It was going to be Swahili Immersion after the Japanese. Not French.”

  “And…?”

  “Our mutual occupation. You bracketed it, but no direct hit.”

  “So? All right, surprise me.”

  “We’re cops.”

  It was Davy’s turn to be speechless. He recovered faster. “Pigs.”

  Teddy could not get the quaver out of her voice. “Davy, how do you feel when some Atlas calls you ‘punk,’ or ‘kid,’ or ‘baby’?”

  Davy’s eyes flashed.

  The quaver was lengthening its period. Soon she would be speaking in sing-song ululation, and shortly after that (she knew) she would lose the power to form words and simply weep. She pressed on.

  “Well, that’s how we feel when some punk kid baby calls us ‘pigs’.”

  He raised his eyebrows, looked impressed for the first time. “Good shot. Fair is fair. Except that you chose to be pigs.”

  “Not at first. We were drafted at the same time, worked together in a black and white. After the Troubles when our hitch was up we got married and went career.”

  “Huh. Either of you ever work Juvenile?”

  Teddy nodded. “I had a year. Freddy three.”

  Davy looked thoughtful. “So. Sometimes Juvie cops are all right. Sometimes they get to see things most Atlases don’t. And hick cops aren’t as bad as New York cops, I guess.” He nodded. “Okay, I grant you the provisional status of human beings. Let’s deal. I’ve got no eyes for anything lengthy right at the moment, but I could flash on, say, a weekend in the country or two. If we’re compatible, I like your place and all, maybe we could talk something a little more substantial—maybe. So what’s your offer?”

  Teddy groped for words. “Offer?”

  “What terms are you offering? We might as well start with your resumés and stuff, that’ll give us parameters.”

  She stared.

  “Oh, my God,” he said, “don’t tell me you came here looking for something permanent? On a first date? Oh, you people are the Schwartzchild Limit!” He began to laugh. “I’ll bet your own contract with each other is permanent. Not even ten-year-renewable.” When that sank home he laughed even harder. “Unbelievable!” He stopped laughing suddenly. “Oh Momma, you have a lot to learn. Now how about those resumés?”

  “Shut up,” Freddy said quietly.

  Davy stared at him. “What did you say?”

  “Shut up. You may not call her that.”

  Teddy stared as well.

  Freddy’s voice did not rise in volume, but suddenly there was steel in it. “You just granted us the provisional status of human beings. We do not reciprocate. You are cruel, and we would not inflict you on our town, much less our home. You can go now.”

  The enormity of the affront left Davy momentarily at a loss for words, but he soon found some. “How’d you like to wake up in the alley with a broken face, old man? You read the house-rules, your badges are shit in here. All I have to do is poke you right in the eye, and let the bouncers do the rest.”

  Freddy had the habit of sitting slouched low, curled in on himself. He sat up straight now, and for the first time Davy realized that the man topped one hundred and eighty-five centimeters and massed well over ninety kilos. Freddy’s shoulders seemed to have swollen, and his eyes were burning with a cold fire. Teddy stared at him round-eyed, not knowing him. Suddenly it registered on Davy that both of her hands were now visible on the table, and that neither of Freddy’s were.

  “They’ll put us in the same Emergency Room,” Freddy said dreamily. “You’re a lot younger than I am. But I’m still faster. Leave this table.”

  Shortly Davy realized that his face was blank with shock, and hastily hung a sneer on it. “Hah.” He got to his feet. “My pleasure.” Standing beside them he was nearly at eye-level. “Just another couple of dumb Atlases.” He left.

  Freddy turned to his wife, found her gaping at him. The fire went out in him; he slumped again in his chair, and finished off his beer. “Stay here, darling,” he said, his voice soft again. “I’ll get us another round.”

  Her eyes followed him as he walked to the bar.

  Pop had two more beers waiting for him. “Thanks for the munchies, Pop. And the wink.”

  “My pleasure,” Pop said, smiling.

  “Can I buy you a drink, Pop?”

  The old man’s smile broadened. “Thank you.” He punched himself up an apricot sour. “You’re well shut of that one. Little vampire.”

  Freddy’s eye was caught by graffiti crudely spray-painted on a nearby wall. It said: “TAKE OUT YOUR OWN FUCKIN GARBAGE.” On the opposite wall a neater hand had thoughtfully misquoted, “HOW SHARPER THAN A SERPENT’S TOOTH IS A THANKLESS CHILD.”

  “Why is it that the word ‘another’ is the crudest word in the language, Pop?”

  “How d’ya mean?”

  “Well, when he’s alone with himself a man may get real honest and acknowledge—and accept—that he is a fool. But nobody wants to be ‘just’ another fool. ‘Another couple of dumb Atlases,’ he called us, and of all the things he said that hurt the most.”

  “Here now—easy! Here, use this here bar rag. Be right back.” While Freddy wiped his eyes, the old man quickly filled a tray of orders for the waiter. By the time he returned Freddy was under control and had begun repairing his makeup with a hand mirror. “See here,” Pop said, “if you’re hip deep in used food, well, maybe you could climb out. But if you see a whole other bunch of people hip deep too, then the chances of you becoming the rare one to climb out seem to go down drastic. But you see, that’s a kind of optical illusion. All those others don’t affect your odds atall. What matters is how bad you want to get up out of the shit, and what purchase you can find for your feet.”

  Freddy took a sip of his new beer, and sighed. “Thanks, Pop. I think you’re into something.”

  “Sure. Don’t let that kid throw you. Did he tell you his parents divorced him? Mental cruelty, by the Jesus.”

  Freddy blinked, then roared with laughter.

  “Now take that beer on back to your wife, she’s looking kind o’ shell-shocked. Oh, and I would recommend the redhead over in the corner, the funny-looking boy with the holes in his shoes. He’s worth getting to know better, he’s got some stuff.”

  Freddy stared at him, then raised his glass and drank deep. “Thanks again, Pop.”

  “Any time, son,” the old man said easily, and went off to punch up two scotches and a chocolate ice cream soda.

  Concerning “Serpents’ Teeth”:

  This is the Age of the Minority Group. Women’s rights, Indians’ rights, writers’ rights, left-handed people’s rights (motto: “Left is right; right is wrong.”)—name a group and you’ll find it lobbying for its legal and societal rights. W
hat more logical minority group than minors?

  It has been shown that a minority group need not even have the franchise to achieve its aims (women’s suffrage, ex-cons’ rights, wetbacks, etc.), although it helps. All you really need are the sympathies of enough liberals who do have the vote, and you’re in. My own experience has been that liberals tend to have few or no children, while conservatives tend to have a lot. (There’s nothing like having a bunch of kids to make you conservative, I guess.) So perhaps Kid’s Lib will make the great strides postulated by this story.

  But even if it doesn’t, the issues raised by “Serpents’ Teeth” remain.

  It is, at this writing, my most recent story. It reflects some of the ambiguity I feel about being a parent, about having become somehow my own Natural Enemy of old. Jeanne and I have a five-year-old, Luanna Mountainborne, and we often wonder what our daughter is going to come up with that will shock us as badly as we shocked our parents. (It’ll have to be a pip; we’re hard to shock. Ritual murder? Senior Prom suicide pacts? Celibacy?) In the meantime, Luanna has reached the age/stage where she’s getting feisty, constantly challenging our authority, working hard to define and expand the limits of what she can get away with. This is as it should be, and delights me—but it forces me to constantly re-evaluate those limits myself, and then enforce them, and frankly limit-enforcer is not a role I enjoy a whole lot. Especially when the limits are so hard to pin down fairly.

  Luanna feels she is old enough to cross the street by herself. I disagree. In case of a tie, I win. But why? Why does my opinion control? Is it because of my extensive experience with children crossing streets? Hell, no—this is the first time I ever considered the matter. I have no data to offer, no observations to cite. I’ve never known a kid who was killed crossing a street—how do I know what a kid-who-is-too-young-to-cross-the-street looks or acts like? I’m frankly guessing—and my guess controls her freedom of action.

  It has to be that way: a wrong guess could be fatal, and it will be many years before Luanna has any conception of what “fatal” means. But how many years? At what age is she allowed to make her own mistakes, even if it kills her? (If she reaches breeding age without ever having had a chance to demonstrate survival-fitness or -unfitness, does that improve the gene-pool or harm it?) At what age do Jeanne and I change from absolute (hopefully benevolent) despots to advisors—and who decides? Society? It seems to me that my authority over my child is both necessary and inevitable—but that is what tyrants always say. It sure didn’t seem fair to me when I was a kid.

  Whenever I expressed this resentment, my father offered a simple solution, the same one rotten husbands offer oppressed wives: if you don’t like it here, leave. Of course, this was a bad joke and we both knew it. Like those unhappy wives before feminism got going, I could not leave; there existed no societal means which would allow me to survive as an unattached child; I could not work, own property, obtain credit or in any way supply my own needs. The child’s second-class status is a result of his or her utter dependence on elders.

  So I stayed. And now—at the vantage point of age thirty-one—I see that it was a good deal, the best I’ve ever gotten. In exchange for absolutely minimal cooperation and politeness my father and mother gave me a solid upbringing, wise counsel, constant financial and emotional support, and advantages and opportunities which they as children could never have dreamed of.

  But at seventeen I was convinced I was being ripped off, and yearned for my emancipation.

  As long as kids have no choice, no genuine alternative, perhaps they will always be sharper than serpents’ teeth. And yet now I’m honestly glad I didn’t have that choice. I’d have knocked up some twelve-year-old and today I’d be working nights in a gas station to meet the alimony and child-support, dreaming of going back to junior high school some day.

  I don’t welcome Kids’ Lib, the way I yearned for it when I was a kid.

  But I suspect something like it is coming…and if you’re not careful, you could find yourself in the Lookover Lounge some day.

  Thanks, Dad. Thanks, Mom. I’m just beginning to understand how much I owe you.

  I think I even understand that the debt reads: “Pay to the order of Luanna Mountainborne Robinson.” Isn’t that right?

  I’ll try to make the payments.

  As for the rest of you; perhaps I’ll see you at Callahan’s Place!