Bug Jack Barron

by Norman Spinrad

  “Jack’ll be down any minute,” Greene said, “but you’ve got it ass-forward, Deke, the problem isn’t selling you on Jack, but selling Jack on running. Try and remember that when he gets here.”

  “What is this shit?” Kaplan said with ill-concealed jealousy. “Running Jack for President’s crazy enough, and playing footsie with that (he pointed the Kool at Morris, ostentatiously wrinkled his nose, but Morris, pro all the way, put him down the way you put down Woody the best, by ignoring him), makes it lunacy in spades, and now you’re telling us that that goddamned phony’s gotta be treated like some fucking virgin prima donna?”

  “Let’s get right down to the uglies,” Greene said, “so we don’t end up washing our dirty linen when Jack’s here. President or no President, you and Deke have one very good reason to play ball with me, and Governor Morris already knows who that reason is…”

  “Russ Deacon,” Masterson said as if it were a dirty word.

  Kaplan grimaced. And Greene thought, yeah, poor old Russ gotta be the boy that gets the shaft. Deke and Russ been at each other’s throats since they been in Congress over whether the State S.J.C. Chairman should be black or white, Deke’s boy or Russ’s, whether Harlem or the Village should run the New York S.J.C. show, and up till now, with all our New York shade money men in Russ’s corner, Deke hasn’t had a prayer of throwing Russ out, and, oh, how he knows it.

  “That’s right, our soul-brother, Representative Russell Deacon,” Greene said. “Now you know I got nothing personal against Russ at all, but I want Barron for President, and the two of you, added to what I’ve already got lined up, can swing all the votes I need on the National Council, so if I gotta deliver Russ’s head on a silver platter to get ’em, it’s Deacon for dessert.”

  “I’m listening,” said Kaplan. “But how do you expect to get Deacon out of my way?”

  “I can’t,” said Greene. “That’s just the point: I can’t, but Jack Barron can. Look, Woody, Deacon’s got the Village, and the way things are set up now, that means the New York S.J.C. You got Strip City, and except for some noise from the Bay, that means the California S.J.C. A Mexican stand-off. But with Deacon out of the way you’d be the Grand High Poobah of Hip, just like you always wanted. You’d control all the East Coast hippy action and California besides.”

  “What’s the point?” said Masterson. “This is a broken record. Why knife each other in front of the good Governor of California?”

  Greene smiled as Morris sat there silently with amused contempt on his broad face. Which is cool, Greene thought.

  “Okay, in words of one syllable,” Greene said. “The three of us want three different things. If we play ball with each other, we all get ’em. Deke, with Woody in control of the Village S.J.C. instead of Deacon, the New York S.J.C.’d be your baby ’cause he’s off in Strip City running that show, and with a black state S.J.C., that cuts the floor right out from under Malcolm Shabazz and his back-to-Africa phonies been bugging you in the bargain. You can afford Woody as hippy-faction leader ’cause he’s three thousand miles away and he’s got no eyes to run New York, better him than Deacon, right? And Woody, it’s no skin off your teeth to have Deke run New York so long as there’s only one Grand High Poobah of the Hippies. And me, well, you know how thick I am with Jack, he wins, I’m the black power behind the Shade house throne. (Morris smirked. That’s cool, Greene thought, let him.) So those are the stakes. Now, ask yourself, fellas, guess who’s a bigger magic name in the Village than Russell Deacon?”

  “Jack Barron…” Kaplan said slowly. “In his own half-assed way…”

  “Yeah, but you’re looking at the other half of his ass,” Greene said, smiling smugly. “Jack couldn’t care less about party politics, in the infighting I’d just work his head. And our friend Governor Morris couldn’t care less about what goes on inside the S.J.C. So it’d be no sweat to use Jack to squeeze out Deacon, once he’s the titular head of a coalition. Dig?”

  Masterson smiled. “You got a point,” he said. “Okay, let’s say I’m with you, provided Barron convinces me he’ll play ball.”

  “That’s where I’m at too,” Kaplan said. “Hey…you don’t think Jack could actually win?”

  Watch it! Greene thought. This is the kicker. They know who’d be running the S.J.C. if Jack actually won; play dumb, let ’em think you’re just a kamikaze schmuck they’re getting the best of. “Who knows?” he said. “I think it’s worth a try, with the Republicans on our team…Sure, it’s still a long shot, but it’s the best chance us chilluns will ever have. We gotta try it, way I see it, isn’t that right, Morris?”

  “You know what I think of you and your kind, Greene,” Morris said, “and you know how fond I am of Barron. But it’s either Barron or some Democratic stooge Benedict Howards picks. With the Foundation against him, Teddy the Pretender hasn’t got a real chance. Call it a truce, gentlemen, till we kick the Democrats out. After that, I’m sure the…best party will win.”

  “That’s the nitty gritty,” Greene said. “That’s why we need Barron, just his running would shake things up, win or lose, bust up that Democratic-Foundation cabal if nothing else. But for chrissakes, remember Jack’s playing Reluctant Dragon, and where his head’s at it just could be real. Play it cool when he gets here—and remember, we’ve got to sell him.”

  Well that’s it, Greene thought, all set up and waiting; waiting for fucking Jack who started it all in that attic, and now the chickens come home to roost.

  Greene tasted twin pangs in the heavy waiting silence: bitterness and hope. Whatever happened now, it would be the climax of his whole career, the moment of truth; he had ridden the S.J.C. as far as he could go.

  Far as any nigger can go, he thought. Hand-pick your own shade front-man, your own bosom-buddy, shade buddy, of course. Jack wins, you’re President-by-proxy; Jack’s lost the taste for nitty-gritty politics. A nice clean shade candidate-image to front for me, is all. Not like you’re using him, man, you don’t have to, he doesn’t want to get his…lily white hands dirty, and anyway, he is on our side; Founding Father and all that bullshit. He wins, he’ll only be too glad to suck up the glory and let me do the dirty work.

  President-by-proxy, black power behind the lily-white throne—face it, you nigger you, that’s precisely as far as any black man can go. And wouldn’t you know it’d all depend on convincing some cat like Jack Barron’s got it all for the taking he oughta take it? Way the world is, number one nigger in the country still gotta make it riding the back of some shade. Even a “Black Shade.” (Ain’t that one a bitch!) All riding on what crazy Jack does in the next few minutes.

  And don’t put yourself on, man, even you could never tell which way Jack Barron’s head would go.

  So we’re gonna do that schtick again, Jack Barron thought as he entered the conference room and recognized the three men seated around the table with Luke, recognized who they were, what they were, where they were at, and what they wanted from him. Bugged at Luke though he was, some instinct told him to cool it, play with their minds, now that the whole crazy Presidential schtick was a potential component in the electric circuit of power-confrontation, along with bought children immortality-power of life against death, power of Brackett Count estimated hundred million people, that he was beginning to wire around Benedict Howards. And the easiest cats to use are cats think they’re using you.

  Before Luke could go into his spiel, Barron crossed the room in three long strides, sticking an Acapulco Gold in his mouth as he moved, lit it as he sat down on the edge of the table beside Luke’s chair, smiled his best number one brat-smile, blew a cloud of sweet uptighting pot-smoke in the general direction of Gregory Morris, and with heavy knowing cynicism said: “Gee, fellas, a surprise party just for little old me? I forgot it was my birthday. On the other hand, who knows, maybe I threw this little…Electoral College smoker for you?” And he shot a quick knowing look at Luke for the benefit of the others.

  Luke’s face went totally blank for a second,
Masterson went tense, and that psychopathic prick Woody Kaplan almost laughed as he clocked his late arch-enemy Gregory Morris half-rolling his eyes as if to say “Fucking smart-ass Jack Barron,” and Barron knew that he had pulled the rug out from under Luke, from under whatever this grotesque cabal had been hatching, that he was now in the good old upper-right screen quadrant catbird-seat, was now his show all the way, strictly show biz all the way, and these cats got no more on the ball in the flesh than on the vidphone.

  “Shall we skip the traditional bullshit, gentlemen, and get right down to the nitty gritty?” Barron said. “You’re here to sell me on running for President on an S.J.C.-Republican coalition ticket; I know it, and now you know I know, so just make your pitch without waltzing me around the block, ’cause it’s been a hard day’s night.”

  Poor fucking Luke! Barron thought as he sensed Greene’s head trying to catch up to his. And he clocked Governor Gregory Morris of California, Mayor Sherwood Kaplan of Strip City, U.S. Representative Deke Masterson, so-called movers and shapers, all completely off-balance, not knowing what was coming off next, and it came to him in a laughing flash just what a total shuck the whole Great Man bag was.

  Dig: four cats in a smoke-filled room with star of television and groin-kneeing Jack Barron got the power to run me for President they say the word and Bennie Howards can buy the whole lot of ’em out of petty cash, and Bennie’s nothing but a prick with fifty billion dollars I can think immelmanns around with my head tied behind my back. Thing is, it’s all show biz, is all, politics is nothing more than show biz with no class, and these high-powered vips are men just like me, only a little dumber. All a game of Bug Jack Barron and even without a promptboard, they don’t have a chance ’cause they’re dead serious and I’m playing it strictly for show.

  Kaplan, maybe because of the envy-thing that went way, way back, recovered first. “Haven’t changed at all, have you, Jack? But don’t kid yourself, the game’s not the same. This is for all the marbles.”

  “All your marbles, maybe,” Barron said, “but not all mine, and you better believe it, all of you, ’cause you’re just wasting your time thinking I’ll jump through hoops and say ‘Yes, Massah’ just for the chance to be your front-man. You got your fish to fry and I got mine. We can use the same fire, that’s groovy, but otherwise—later.”

  “All right, so we’ll play by your rules,” Masterson said. “Let’s lay it right on the line. I don’t know what you want, but what I want is Russ Deacon’s head on a pike. And Woody wants the same. You can deliver that, we got enough votes on the National Council to put you over.”

  So that’s it, Barron thought, yeah, it figures, poor Russ. Yeah, poor old Russ who’d be here playing the same dirty game, Luke thought he held the right cards. It ain’t power that corrupts, it’s the changes you put your head through getting it. Woody, Masterson, Morris, Luke, Howards—five different bags, but it don’t matter, because the same monkey’s working all five heads. Power-junkies, is all.

  Barron took a deep drag on the Acapulco Gold. “You mean to tell me you’re not really a band of patriots gathered together in Holy Council to pick a Moses to lead the Children of Israel out of the Wilderness? Come on, fellas, don’t destroy my innocent, childlike illusions.”

  “Before you get so high you start to gibber,” Morris said, speaking like the wise old toad for the first time, “maybe you should just shut your big mouth for a change and listen. I couldn’t care less about the crap that goes on inside the S.J.C.—it’s got all the charm and grace of a Chinese Communist Party Central Committee meeting—and it really doesn’t matter that you’re a neo-Bolshevik punk, because I think we really understand each other, Barron. We don’t like each other, but what counts is that we’ve got common enemies, like Benedict Howards, or, who knows, maybe even Teddy the Pretender. We’re wasting our time trying to con each other. You interested in making a deal, or not?”

  Something to be said for a cat who’s a swine and doesn’t care who knows it, Barron thought. Better an unself-conscious G.O.P. Fat Cat than these three fucking cop-out Heroes of the Underdog. And to think that the S.J.C. was my baby! How’s that for a case for legalized abortion?

  “Sure, I’m interested in making a deal,” he said. “Question is, what kind of a deal? What’s in it for you, and what’s in it for me?”

  “You sure going through changes, aren’t you, Jack?” Luke said, trying to regain control. “So, as long as you seem to be playing Boss Tweed tonight, let’s just riff it out in words of one syllable. We can all walk out of here with an agreement that you’ll be the coalition candidate for President on a common anti-Howards platform if you can convince Deke and Woody to throw in. Morris and I and all the southern votes on the National Council are already committed and the Republican vips are ready to go along the moment they’re guaranteed an S.J.C. nomination. Woody and Deke will throw in, if they’re assured that Jack Barron, as head of the S.J.C. national ticket, will put the screws on Russ Deacon. That’s the nitty gritty, Claude—you willing to let us use your fan club in the Village against Deacon, you can be President of the United States.”

  “With you as Vice-President,” Barron said on sudden impulse, clocking Morris blanching at the thought of a Baby Bolshevik nigger on his precious Republican ticket. (Better see just how far you’ll go, Morris.) “What’s about it, Morris, are you that hot for my bod? I don’t even think about running without Luke on both tickets. Will you ram that down your party’s throat?”

  “Hey, wait a minute—” Luke began.

  “Cool it!” Barron snapped. “You got me into this, Luke, and I’m dragging you in after me whether you like it or not. What about it, Morris, you still in the game?”

  “If I accept Greene,” Morris said, fingering his cigar, “that means we get to pick the Secretaries of State, Defense, Transportation, Labor and Commerce, a majority on the F.T.C., the N.L.R.B. and the F.C.C. when appointments come up, the first two vacancies on the Supreme Court, the head of the Bureau of the Budget, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Attorney-General, and no questions asked. Ask your S.J.C. friends if they’re still in the game.”

  Barron cocked his head at Luke, was not surprised but wished he could’ve been as Greene said, “You’re faded,” and Masterson and Kaplan nodded in instantly-calculated agreement. Politics! Politicians! Where’s the difference between my boys and Morris? Junkies’d sell their own mothers to a Saudi Arabian slaver, you wave the shit under their noses hard enough…

  “What about Deacon?” Masterson asked coldly.

  “What the fuck do I care about Deacon,” Barron answered with measured cavalierness. “You want a candidate, right, not another politician. You’re up to your ears in politicians, and they’re all losers. You just want me to front for you, right? So I let you cats handle the politics, you want to use my name against Deacon, that’s cool, but don’t expect me to do your dirty work for you.”

  “Gentlemen,” Luke said with a big shit-eating smile, “I think we’re in business. Now the question would seem to be how and when we announce our—”

  “Not so fast,” Barron said. “Now that we’ve all gotten together on what I can do for you, the question before us is what are you gonna do for me?”

  “You flipped?” Luke said. “We’re gonna make you President of the United States!”

  “You’ll excuse me if I don’t go into ecstasy,” Barron said dryly. “But for openers, you’re just gonna make me a Presidential candidate, is all, and just between us chickens, I don’t think I have a Chinaman’s chance of winning. I don’t think anyone except Bennie Howards’ handpicked Democrat has a prayer, not unless Teddy pulls off a bona fide miracle at the Convention. And if Teddy gets the nomination, we’ve had it. There’s no way to tie him to Howards, because the only way he can get the nomination is over Bennie’s dead body. But even that’s not the main point. I don’t have eyes for running, and I have even less eyes for being President. I find the whole thing a king-sized dra
g, fellas. Believe it or not, I’m in a bigger game elsewhere, and the only reason I’d consider running is because I need your backing in that game, Morris. I need you to keep Bennie Howards off my back. That’s my price.”

  “Just what’s this ‘bigger game’ you’re talking about?” Morris said, and his eyes betrayed him, betrayed smug assurance that he could certainly control a Jack Barron who didn’t even want to be President in the first place, and isn’t that cool? And Luke and the boys were getting the same happy look.

  “That’s none of your business at the moment,” Barron said. “It’s all still up in the air right now. If I end up not needing your muscle, wild horses couldn’t get me to run, and if I do need you, don’t worry, the whole country will know why. It’s all riding on the next show. Let’s just say that if I get into a war with Howards, I want your fat cats to see to it that I don’t hurt for sponsors, that Bennie can’t lean hard enough on the network to make ’em drop me, and that the F.C.C. situation will likewise be cooled.

  “You see the only reason I’d run is if I need you to save my ass, because I don’t think I’d win, and that means I gotta make sure I don’t blow Bug Jack Barron. I want insurance because, ladies and gentlemen, whether you dig it or not, that show is where I’m at, where I want to be at, and I don’t intend to blow it for no one or nothing. That’s show biz, boys.”

  “Show biz!” Luke snapped. “We’re talking about the Presidency of the United States, and you come on with show biz!”

  Barron smiled wolfishly. “I was in your shoes, I’d be mighty happy to hear me talk that way,” he said. (Might as well lay it right on the line, spell it out in black and white for these pricks.) “I mean, why are you so hot for my bod in the first place? Because I’m show biz, is all. Dig: being President and running for President are two entirely different bags. Cats who would be best at being President lay turkey eggs as candidates. Or am I wrong, and did Stevenson beat Eisenhower? You know I’m right, or Morris anyway wouldn’t touch me with a fork. I don’t have eyes for being President, and I don’t have any qualifications either, that’s politics, which is just not my bag. How groovy for you guys if you should happen to elect me—it’d all be your show after Election Day, and you can fight it out among your own sweet selves who runs it, far as I’m concerned it’s horseshit either way. But if I need that G.O.P. muscle to keep me in show biz, I’d hold my nose and be the best fucking candidate you could get from central casting, and you better believe it. Running for office in the good old U.S.A. is show biz all the way. Remember Ike? Remember Reagan? Remember JFK? Don’t know show biz, boys, whether you know it or not, it’s your stock in trade. Well, what about it, Morris, you back my play if I back yours?”