Glory Lane

by Alan Dean Foster

  Glory Lane

  Alan Dean Foster

  There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke

  Herman Melville

  Moby Dick, chapter XCIII

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  1

  It was always slow in Albuquerque on Tuesday nights, but tonight was worse than usual. Man, it was dead, Seeth Ransom fumed. He couldn’t even find a stray cat to kick around. So he was forced to fall back on the old standby of giving passing motorists the finger and smirking as they pretended not to notice, speeding up slightly as they hur­ried on past, their eyes fixed unswervingly to the road ahead. The pleasure this provided was decidedly muted, but it was better than nothing. At least the world was compelled to take notice of him.

  Still, there was no denying the night was dull enough to bore a turtle.

  He checked the watch he wore high up on his forearm so that his friends wouldn’t know he had the slightest interest in what time it was. A little past nine. He consid­ered returning to the apartment, just giving up on the night and crashing ‘til tomorrow. Trouble was, the day would be more boring than the night. Besides which, the place was probably full to overflowing by now. The bed, couch, and kitchen table would be occupied. The Hole filled up fast. If you showed too late you had your choice of sleeping standing up or lying down on top of somebody else.

  Seeth wasn’t into that. He was pumped, full of adrena­line and suppressed energy and in no mood to close his eyes, even temporarily. Hyperactive, his high school coun­selors had called him. They’d called him other things as well. Seeth had responded in kind, with the result that he and his alma mater had parted company prior to his gradu­ation. That Seethless ceremony had taken place a year ago. He told himself he wasn’t missing anything. Street life was an education unto itself. Hanging out was an art. When you needed money you worked the odd job. When food or drink or the occasional recreational pharmaceutical was required, you shared with trusted friends.

  The only real problem was the boredom—long stretches of nothing to do, nowhere to go. During such times he occasionally wondered if just maybe he might have screwed up his life.

  No, no chance, he told himself firmly.

  He thought about hitching out to Indian Petroglyph Park on the northwest side of town. It was a kick to scratch modern obscenities in the soft sandstone alongside the ancient drawings. The straights called it defacement and wailed and screamed. What the hell was the difference between what he did and what the Indians had done? Probably some of those little stick figures, crudely colored and inscribed, were just as obscene as the marks he and his friends made. A thousand years from now some other dumb archeologists would find Seeth Ransom’s initials, and Piggie’s, and Delia’s, and prize them for the tie they presented to the bad ol’ twentieth century. The thought made him smile and smiling made him feel a little better.

  By now the streets were pretty empty, the city’s solid citizens having retired to a soporific evening of contem­plating the idiot box, voluntarily incurring the self-imposed death-state known as Prime Time without realizing it was a contradiction in terms. Couch potatoes hell, Seeth mused. The analogy was insulting to tubers.

  Not much open now, either. All the malls and most of the markets were closed. All that stayed active through the Albuquerque night were 7-Elevens, K-Stores, and the oc­casional gas station.

  He wandered over to the Shamrock station where Jean worked as a cashier and they chatted for a while. That was all they could do, since it was forbidden for her to unlock the office door for anyone after eight o’clock. That wouldn’t have stopped Jean. She went her own way just like Seeth, but with all the people coming and going, the tourists trickling steadily off 1-40, she didn’t want to take the risk no matter how hard he pleaded. She needed the job. So he yelled at her and she yelled back, and with that acri­monious farewell ringing in his ears he had continued on his way.

  There was always something doing around the Univer­sity of New Mexico. Several pizza parlors and a club or two never closed. But he didn’t have money to spare for pizza and he sure as hell wasn’t interested in crashing any of the clubs. They played nothing but homogenized pap and their squeaky-clean patrons wore cotton shirts and shoes with laces. Nor did they offer the opportunity to pick up girls. Sorority sisters and pretty things deep into husband-searching tended to view him as something that had crawled up from beneath the sewers or invaded from another planet.

  He knew the truth of it, of course. What they both despised and envied was his individuality, his readiness to express himself freely and openly when they were cramped and constrained by society. Screw ‘em. He didn’t need that kind of company.

  He turned a corner. A police cruiser was coming down the boulevard toward him. It slowed. Though he kept his gaze on the street ahead he could sense the cops’ eyes following him. He kept his hands outside his pockets where they could be seen. After a few minutes the patrol car accelerated slightly and left him in its wake.

  The Albuquerque cops were what you could call half-cool. They let you know they were around and what your place was and that they could find you if they needed to, but as a rule they weren’t into heavy-duty hassling. Albu­querque was just big enough, just cosmopolitan enough to barely tolerate Seeth and his friends, though the cops would come down on you hard and fast if you so much as parked ten minutes too long in a thirty-minute zone.

  Where he really belonged was L.A. or New York. Not out here in the vast, stinking, conservative American heart­land. Trouble was you couldn’t pick up the bucks for relocation and cross-country airfare doing odd jobs at min­imum wage. The good low-paying jobs were all taken by Hispanics. Not that Seeth blamed them. Most of them had wives and kids and dreams that would never be fulfilled. You could always try hitching, but he’d probably end up run down by some berserk redneck trucker. Bus fare was as bad as airfare. He was stuck.

  He passed the big Diamond’s department store and eyed the huge plate-glass windows longingly. The police cruiser might still be hanging around. It was a neat old building, rich with granite and concrete decoration. They’d probably replace it with a parking lot some time next year.

  Checking himself out in the reflective window, he had to admit, as would anyone with an eye for fashion, that he looked his usual slick self. Black jacket dripping zippers, a few tastefully slung chromed chains, the black-and-white striped pants he’d had to get by mail order since you didn’t find stuff like that on the rack at Sears, neatly set off by the lightning bolt earring dangling from his left earlobe. Above that was the Maltese cross ear bracelet, carefully shaved skin, and his three-inch Mohawk haircut. A little traditional, but a lot easier to maintain than those damn spikes.

  Running fingers across the bald left side of his skull, he felt the beginnings of bristle. Time to shave again, he told himself. For all that, lookin’ pretty good. A little black eye makeup and complementary lipstick would have really sharpened him up, but he didn’t see the point in going all out just for a casual nocturnal stroll. The parallel red stripes he had painted on his neck and that ran from beneath his right ear to under his jacket collar were an original touch of his own. They were purely symbolic. He could have made them look a lot more like real blood, but then he would have had to deal with questions from the straights on the street.

  He considered walking over to the university anyway. What stopped him was the possibility of encountering a couple o
f all-American frat types, jocks who’d enjoy noth­ing more than beating the crap out of a wayward punk. Though Seeth could take care of himself, he was only five-six and barely into three figures poundage-wise. There was the blade he concealed in his special pants-leg pocket, but if he actually had to stick somebody he’d be as bad off as if he just let himself get beaten up. The cops weren’t likely to buy a claim of self-defense if his tormentor turned out to be, say, a star lineman on the football team.

  His real destination was coming into view, but the excitement it prompted quickly gave way to disappoint­ment and then anger. He recognized one of those leaning up against the club doorway. Despite his arching, gravity-defying hairdo and artfully torn vest, Mangle still looked like a nerd. The kid was trying hard to fit in, but he didn’t really have the spirit or the energy to make like a true anarchist. Mangle’s real name was Michael Liverwort, or something like that.

  The kid saw him and Seeth acknowledged the glance with a nod. There were a couple of girls hanging around and one other guy. The girls were both overweight, though the brunette would have been pretty if she’d dropped forty or fifty pounds. The sign over the door said

  FISH HOOK

  The door was covered with grafitti, much of it gross and obscene, some of it violent. Next to the handle someone had plastered a bumper sticker that screamed NUKE THE YUPPIES. He ignored the others and spoke to Mangle.

  “What’s the deal?”

  “Closed,” the younger boy told him mournfully.

  “I can see that, pinhead. Why?”

  The brunette spoke up. She sounded eager for another human contact. “Over there, on the front. Check it out. A real bummer.”

  Seeth studied the notice that had been stuck near the en­trance. He’d always been a fast reader if not an enthusiastic one. The notice was from the Albuquerque Department of Health.

  “Roaches.” Mangle was trying to be helpful. “In the kitchen.”

  “So what’s the big deal? So you get a roach in your burger.”

  The other girl made gagging noises while her friend giggled. Seeth couldn’t stand giggling. They’re playacting, he thought. They’ve no business here. Slumming. Mangle might be a pitiable case, but at least his heart was in the right place.

  “So why didn’t they just close the kitchen? Why shut down the whole club?”

  Mangle spread long, skinny arms. “Hey, how should I know, man? When I got here they were chasing everybody out. I thought maybe there was a riot or something going on, but no such luck.”

  No such luck, Seeth mused. Not in Albuquerque. No­body wanted to get thrown in jail in Albuquerque. Not with a bunch of wetbacks. The local straights found punks outrageous, but the poor Mexicans from across the border simply thought their appearance was hilarious. Better to get beat up than laughed at.

  “It’s no big deal,” Mangle told him. “They’ll be open again by the weekend. Nollie told me so. They just have to do some spraying in the kitchen.”

  “They ought to spray the whole building while they’re at it. Get us some privacy.” The girls giggled like mad. The brunette winked at him. Maybe he’d been too harsh on them too fast.

  Then he caught a glimpse of their feet. Feet were dead giveaways for slummers. Both wore designer shoes. They were scuffed and muddy, but it was obvious they hadn’t been picked up at Goodwill or the Salvation Army. His opinion of them fell back to zero.

  Wasn’t this the pits? Where the hell was he supposed to go now? Usually the Fish Hook opened at nine and stayed open until three or until the owners felt like closing up. It wasn’t exactly Greenwich Village or Melrose. There was petrified gum lining the underside of every table, lumpy memorials to the days when the Hook had been a college club. But you could buy a fatburger cheap and this was where the local bands hung out. The real bands. You came for the camaraderie and the music anyway, not the food.

  He looked around. The street was completely deserted, though the mindless traffic lights continued their winking regimen for nonexistent drivers. On-off, on and off, just like his parents and his teachers. Life by rote. He hated stop lights.

  “So, hey, you wanna do something?” Mangle put a possessive arm around one of the girls. “Get laid?” The girl giggled. If she giggled one more time, Seeth knew, he was going to punch her out. He had to get away. He shook his head sharply, staring at the street.

  “I don’t know how you do it, man.” There was admira­tion in Mangle’s voice. “I’ve seen you walking at five in the morning and you look like you just got up.”

  “It’s just energy,” Seeth replied absently. “I’ve al­ways had a lot of energy. Sleeping’s the pits. You don’t see anything, you don’t experience anything. It’s like death.”

  “Wow.” The brunette stared at him out of wide eyes. “That’s heavy!”

  “ ‘Heavy’?” Seeth turned away in disgust and strode up the street.

  Mangle called out hopefully, “Hey where you goin’, Seeth?”

  “To blow up a supermarket.”

  “Can we come?” shouted one of the girls.

  He just shook his head and gritted his teeth. He had to get out of this town! New York, yeah, or even L.A. Los Angeles was closer anyway. That’s where he belonged. For the first time all night something made him feel good. You could bounce from club to club to club without seeing the same band twice. Find people who’d hire you without looking like they were going to throw up. Pay you some honest bucks so long as you did your job and wouldn’t hassle you no matter what you looked like. Nobody com­ing down on you because of your hair. Even the cops wouldn’t look twice at you. You could exist as an indepen­dent human being.

  That was really why he’d gone punk and dropped out. It wasn’t even for the music, though that was part of the whole scene. It was because after some painful introspec­tion he’d discovered he really was antisocial. Sure, you could be antisocial in jeans and Nikes, but that marked you as a bum instead of a true rebel. Besides, he really liked the way he looked—and the way it outraged the straights.

  All his life he’d been ignored, overlooked, teased. No­body overlooked him now, nobody ignored him. Except his parents, but then they’d always ignored him. No loss there. He was himself, his own man, a distinct individual. That was what mattered. To stand out, to make a physical statement, to be able to linger on a street corner with your whole being screaming I am not of the crowd, I am not of the herd!

  As he debated what to do next, he found himself angling toward the university. He’d just about decided to give up, to go back to the Hole and crash, hoping tomorrow would be better, when he found himself passing the Apache Bowlarama. It was dominated by a huge, ugly neon sign that depicted a stereotyped Indian bowling. Every few seconds the Indian would release a neon ball that would move five feet before knocking over a trio of neon cacti.

  What the hell, he thought, smiling to himself. The parking lot was still pretty full and he was desperate. Some kind of league night. Be a shot to watch the reactions when he sauntered in. Wouldn’t be as dangerous as the university. No linemen in here. Just ex-linemen carrying an extra twenty years and thirty pounds of beer flab. He could dance circles around them. Maybe he could get a few of them chasing him around the snack bar and, if he was lucky, the police would be called. They’d calm his would-be attackers and he could grin at them and watch their complexions darken.

  “Why were you chasing that boy, Mr. Johnson?”

  “Because—because, I mean, officer, just look at him!”

  And Seeth would stand there running a hand through his mohawk and grinning while the cop patiently said, “I know, but that’s not a crime, Mr. Johnson.”

  “Yeah, but,” the fat guy would stutter, “it oughta be.” Meanwhile, his buddies would be yelling at him because he’d be holding up the game and they’d get home late and their wives would yell at them.

  Right, funtime. He crossed the street and made his way through the parking lot, which was full of pickups and ten-year-old sedans. N
obody challenged him either there or at the door.

  The muzak almost drove him back outside. And they thought his kind of music was intolerable! He steeled himself and kept going.

  There were a couple of leagues running simultaneously, one for men and another for women. The combined activ­ity on the thirty-six lanes made a racket that sounded like the kamikazes at Iwo Jima.

  He paused to consider the cacophony thoughtfully. When you thought about it, bowling was nothing more than sublimated destruction. When he and his buddies smashed a car window or busted a few bottles in the park, they called it vandalism. Whereas here, in this temple of vio­lence, hour after hour, day after day, the good citizens delighted in heaving fifteen pounds of hardened plastic at innocent, immobile targets. The fact that the pins didn’t shatter in no way mitigated the delight the bowlers experi­enced at knocking down something that couldn’t fight back.

  Invent bowling pins that screamed and bled, he thought, and you’d make a fortune.

  The steady din was easy to handle, but the music was actually painful. Merle Haggard was braying from the speakers now. Any minute Seeth expected to hear Johnny Cash or Hank Williams, Jr. or even the Judds. He’d seen a picture of the Judds once. Mama was pretty foxy. Give her some safety pins, warpaint and a decent hairdo and she could play the Hook.

  He gravitated to the snack bar. The single attendant was close to his own age and pretty good looking. While he walked he jingled his chains and tried to make himself as conspicuous as possible. It didn’t take much for heads to begin turning. When they thought he wasn’t looking they made faces and whispered. He was enjoying himself immensely.

  What was really riotous was that they thought he was funny-looking. This from middle-aged housewives in tight green pants and beehive hairdos. The first eighteen lanes were ladies league. From where he looked down on them it was like watching the debris from a wrecked eighteen-wheeler full of potatoes spilling across the road. He could sense if not actually hear the “Oh my dears” and “Would you look at mats.”