Strange Days: Fabulous Journeys With Gardner Dozois

by Gardner R. Dozois

  On his way out, Sven passed a sallow, rat-faced man with pockmarked skin and a scruffy beard, a bag thrown over his shoulder.

  They eyed each other warily, uneasily, as they passed on the pier. They didn’t speak.

  I wonder what he brings them? Sven thought.

  Community

  Introduction to Community

  I’ve always thought of Gardner Dozois as sort of the Alexander Woollcott of science fiction. (In case the name doesn’t mean anything to you, Alexander Woollcott was the roundest of the Algonquin Round Table set, that literary lunch, liquor, and smart-remarks group which included Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, and Robert Benchley.) Woollcott contributed his share of the smart remarks—he’s the one who said, “All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening”—and loved parties, laughed loudly, and generally lived large.

  All of which could describe Gardner, whose own round table at Nebula banquets and science fiction conventions is always the one in stitches. (I once laughed so hard while having dinner with Gardner that I snorted a piece of lettuce up my nose and nearly did myself permanent damage) and he is known for causing befuddled waiters to quit mid-meal. Gardner’s famous for regaling fans and fellow writers with hilarious (and unrepeatable) stories and slush-pile samples, and he’s the Grand Master of the smart remark. When I was asked onstage what my story, “Even the Queen” was about (it’s about menstruation), Gardner shouted from the audience, “Tell them it’s a period piece!”

  But that’s not all he has in common with Woollcott. Like the rest of the Algonquin Round Table, Alexander Woollcott was a talented writer. He was a respected drama critic, known for his incisive wit and his serious biographies and essays, but, like Gardner, his Falstaffian merry-funster image often overshadowed and sometimes obliterated his work, and I’d guess that more people see Gardner as someone who tells ribald stories and sticks cheese doodles up his nose than as the fine writer and editor he also is.

  Gardner’s Hugo-winning editing of Asimov’s and The Year’s Best Science Fiction collections are the finest in the field, and his book about James Tiptree, Jr. is a classic in the field. His knowledge of science fiction and his love of the field both run very deep, and I’m not exaggerating when I say he cares more about science fiction than anyone I know.

  He is also a gifted writer, the author of Geodesic Dreams and the Nebula Award-winning “The Peacemaker,” and one of my favorite science-fiction writers. He’s especially gifted at writing spare, simply written short stories which turn out not to have been so simple after all. Like his Nebula Award-winning story, “Morning Child.” And the story that follows.

  Like all of Gardner’s work, “Community” is a deceptively straightforward tale of familiar things like pickup trucks and golf clubs and doughnuts. And community standards. It’s subtle and serious and much more than it appears to be at first glance, like Gardner himself.

  This story is particularly pertinent in these days of noise-control ordinances and neighborhood covenants and zero tolerance for playground dodgeball, Harry Potter books, nine-year-olds who bring Swiss army knives to school, and anything remotely resembling individuality.

  Gardner is not the first science fiction author to have tackled the issue of society versus personal freedom—Orwell’s 1984 springs to mind, and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”—but none of them have captured so perfectly the combination of convinced virtue and common thuggery which characterizes all of society’s interventionists, no matter what their title. Or the disquieting fact that we sometimes find ourselves acting just like them.

  Connie Willis

  Community

  About ten P.M., I go out front and borrow my husband’s pick-up truck. Henry stays behind watching TV, of course. He has a bad leg, and besides, he has no stomach for this sort of work. Which is okay. The Lord made different kinds of people for different kinds of work, I guess, and I’m content to do what it’s been put in front of my hand to do, and not worry about whether other people have been called to do the same thing or not.

  Still, some help is necessary—some loads are too heavy for a body to carry all by herself. Fortunately, there are others in town who feel the same way I do. I pick up Sam first, as usual, and although he seems to take up every square inch of the front seat with his bulk, jamming me against the driver’s-side door, we somehow manage to squeeze Fred in next to him a few blocks later, again as always. They nod politely and say “Evening, Martha,” and I nod back; good manners never hurt. I’d prefer that Fred sat in back, actually, as his breath is so bad that you can smell it even when his face is turned away from you, but an unspoken tradition has sprung up that the older men ride in the front, the young men in the back, and putting up with Fred’s halitosis is a small enough price to pay for his help in these matters. We stop again in front of the Ciniplex on the edge of town, which is closed down now, of course, along with most of the rest of the mall, and pick up Josh and Alan and Arnie. They climb into the back of the pick-up truck, and we’re off.

  The town never was very big, and it stopped growing awhile back. Within a few minutes, we’re out among the farms, with the cows blinking at us in the darkness as we rush past, and then the road turns from blacktop to weathered macadam to gravel as we begin to climb up into the hills. There’s a fat yellow moon overhead, and you can hear water rushing over rock somewhere, hidden by the trees. The night is cold and still; by morning, there’ll be a frost.

  We have two Interventions lined up, and I’ve decided to do both of them tonight while I have the boys out anyway, two with one blow, as it were. I figure we’ll get the minor one out of the way first, as a warm-up, because the major one is going to be difficult.

  Actually, the minor one is unpleasant enough itself in its own way, but we handle it with a minimum of fuss. The old woman refuses to open her door, of course, but it’s made of cheap wood, and although the expensive lock holds, the door panels themselves shred like paper. Once inside, the old woman rushes at us brandishing what I at first think is the stereotypical broom old ladies always used to use to shoo unwelcome intruders away in the movies, but which turns out instead to be a somewhat more practical 9-iron from her dead husband’s old golf bag. Sam takes it away from her easily, and then holds her swaddled firmly in his arms like a shriveled old child while we begin.

  She has twenty-five cats packed into this tiny house! No wonder the neighbors have been complaining! The smell of cat is overwhelming, and the furry little creatures are everywhere, twining around our ankles and mewling as we get ourselves ready. Josh has brought some heavy gloves, and Alan has his old Louisville Slugger with Reggie Jackson’s autograph on it, and so it doesn’t really take long to pop them, although we have to chase the last few down, and even pull one down off a curtain, where it’s clinging with all its claws and howling in dismay. Josh wrings its neck. Perhaps a few of them escape through the broken front door and run off into the night, but the idea is not to kill cats for the sake of killing cats, or because it’s fun, but to abolish a nuisance that has become intolerable for everyone, even for the old lady herself if she’d admit it, and that we certainly accomplish, whether a few individual cats escape or not. Of course, some of them may come back later—but then, so will we.

  The old woman shrieks at us constantly as we work, like a saw going through sheet tin, but surely somewhere deep inside even she must be secretly glad to have the burden of caring for all these animals lifted off her. It’s a decision she would have made for herself if she had the strength of will to do so—now we’ve done it for her. On the way out, we find several cartons of cigarettes, which we confiscate. I admonish her—we’ve had trouble with her on these grounds before—and tell her that everything we’re doing, all the trouble we’re going to, is for her own good, nothing in it for us, it’s all for her benefit, but she’s grown sulky and refuses to respond. You rarely get gratitude during an Intervention, I’ve learned, however well-deserved it is, and no matter how much
good it ultimately does for the people you’re Intervening for; unfair, but that’s the way it is.

  Back into the truck. The boys are loosened-up and whooping and feeling fine—now for the night’s more difficult work.

  We drive further up the hill, the spruce and the firs bulking like ghosts in the sweeping headlights, here and there a silver birch gleaming like bone in the forest. At a bullet-riddled highway sign, we turn off onto a narrow farm lane that winds up and over a hill, and then down into a shallow valley that contains a small farmhouse and a couple of dilapidated, disused outbuildings; we get a quick glimpse of them, and then the trees close in tight around us again.

  We go fast down the lane, bouncing on the ruts, the rear end of the truck fishtailing slightly on the gravel, the bushes and trees on either side scratching against the windows. Just before we break into the clearing, I shut the headlights off. The house looms up ahead. There’s a light on in the front room of the house, and another upstairs.

  I kill the engine, and we glide to a stop in front of the house. I send Josh and Arnie around the back, because I’m sure the boy will light out for the high timber as soon as he sees us coming; Fred and Alan and Sam and I take the front.

  As soon as the truck doors slam, the lights go out in the front room, but it’s too late for that. The front door isn’t even locked, not that it would have done any good if it was. Fred and Sam and Alan go in fast, and there’s the usual confusion, shouting, a woman’s scream, furniture breaking and being knocked over, something ceramic shattering, a dish or a vase. It only takes a minute. When a light comes back on inside, I go in.

  The table lamp has fallen on the floor, and somebody has switched it on where it lies, giving me mostly a view of shuffling feet and a broken wooden chair. I pick the lamp up, making shadows swing and scurry across the room, and put it back on the table. Everything’s quiet, for the moment. You can hear harsh breathing, and smell the sharp odor of sweat, and Fred’s breath, heavy with garlic, that reaches out all the way across the room like a thin rotten lance.

  Alan and Fred have their guns on Mary’s husband; his hair is disheveled, there’s a cut on his lip and a bruise over his eye, but he’s standing quietly. Sam is standing behind Mary, with his big hands clamped over her arms; she’s struggling against his grip in a way that’s going to leave big purple bruises tomorrow, but when she sees me, she stops.

  “Good evening, Mary,” I say. She says nothing, just stares at me, but people do tend to forget their manners in times of stress, you have to expect that.

  The man is staring at me too, and even in the uncertain light cast by the one table lamp, I can see the blood draining out of his face, leaving it white and haggard. The guilty always know their guilt right away, of course, and feel it in their hearts. We can see it, in his face.

  Mary’s face is pale too, but there are two bright spots of red on her checks, and her lips are set tight. I can see that she’s going to make this hard, even though we’re doing it for her. That’s often the way it is; you just have to learn to accept it.

  “This is an official Intervention,” I say to Mary, “sanctioned by the local Chapter and by the town council, under the local-standards ordinances of 2006. As an ordained Preacher of the Reformed Church, I have the right to—”

  “Preacher!” Mary says, and then laughs harshly. “I went to fifth grade with you, Martha Gibbs!” As though this signifies somehow.

  There’s a commotion out back, more yelling and smashing, and then Josh and Arnie come in from the kitchen with the boy, frog-marching him along. Josh’s got one of the kid’s arms twisted way up behind his back. “He made a break for it, Martha, just like you said he would. But we got him!” Josh is grinning widely, showing what seems like too many teeth to fit into an ordinary mouth, and his face is sweaty and happy. He gives the kid’s arm an extra yank for emphasis, and the boy makes a half-smothered yelp. I frown at Josh, and he eases up on the kid’s arm a little. Sometimes I think that Josh enjoys all this a bit too much. I suppose it’s natural for a healthy young man to enjoy the chasing and catching part, the struggle and the fighting; that’s in the blood. But the point of all this isn’t punishment or retribution, or even just getting rid of undesirable elements who could pollute the rest of the town, although that’s a part of it—the point is redemption. To wipe the slate clean and let someone start again. To do for them what they can’t do for themselves, even though many of them secretly want to. The redemption part is what Josh sometimes loses sight of, I think.

  The boy starts shouting. “You f—ing”—I won’t reproduce what he actually says—“freaks! Why don’t you mind your own business? Why don’t you leave us alone?” I could tell him that the health of every individual in town is our business, that that’s what a community is all about, that we care not only about his moral corruption spreading to others but most sincerely about the state of his own soul—but I can see that there’s no point. Not even thirteen yet, and the kid’s already quite a piece of work, wearing a black leather jacket and a grungy T-shirt with an obscene slogan on it, hair unkempt and much too long, two or three rings in his nose, more in his ear. I know without even bothering to look that his room is full of Heavy Metal posters and satanic books and CDs—not that possessing these things is strictly illegal yet, but they are a good indication of the extent of the corruption that’s set in, the rot that’s spread through the boy’s system. Maybe such things don’t actually cause the disease itself, as some would argue, but they’re certainly a symptom that shows that disease has set in.

  “Mary,” I say, “I’ve known you for many years now. You’re a friend, or you were, before you let your life get set on a wrong track. You’re a good woman at heart, I know, but the weeds have grown up around your life, and there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s nothing you can do to fix the mistakes you’ve made. You may not even admit to yourself that they are mistakes. But friends don’t let friends live like that. We’re here to help you fix your life, to clear away the weeds, to help you get yourself back on the right track—”

  Mary starts screaming and fighting then, but although she’s a tall, strong woman, she’s as nothing compared to Sam, and she can’t break free of him, although she does put up enough of a struggle that—reluctantly, because Sam’s a gentle soul—he has to twist her arm up behind her back in order to get her to stop. I won’t repeat what she calls me. It hurts me to hear her say those things about me, but I know that it’s not really Mary talking, but rather the corruption that has taken over her life. People say the same kind of awful things when they’re being forced to quit hard drugs cold-turkey, I hear, cursing the very people who are going out of their way to help them. Until the poison has been totally removed from their systems, people cling to it. They don’t know any better, and you have to forgive them for what they say and do while they’re in the state they’re in. And you have to have the strength to make them change, whether they want to or not, whether they fight you or not. No one likes the taste of strong bitter medicine, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t good for them to take it.

  When Mary’s quiet again, panting with pain, her face having gone sick and sallow, I read the charges. Her husband is cheating on her, the whole town knows that, and not for the first time, either. He’s a drinker, too, and spends most of his paycheck and far too much of his time down at Murphy’s Tavern. Probably he beats her when he gets home; it wouldn’t surprise me. The boy’s on drugs, of course, and, blood running true, is also a drinker, having two DUIs against him already. He’s also been brought up once on vandalism charges. They’ve tried to talk to him at church, but it’s been more than a year since he’s attended Sunday classes, or even regular services. The husband, of course, has never gone at all.

  I give them the blessing then, the forgiveness and absolution of the Lord, which is more than they deserve, really, but the Lord is generous, and will take everyone who is sent to Him, whether they go willingly or not. The boy is spewing a steady strea
m of obscenities at us now, vile things, but his voice is wobbly and squeaky-high with fright. The man has gone glazed and slack, the way some of them do. Mary, her face ashen, is pleading with me in a low, urgent voice, don’t do this, Martha, please, don’t do this, please don’t please don’t, but I harden my heart against her words. This is for her own good, something that needs to be done that she doesn’t have the strength of will to do herself.

  There’s an odd moment of silence then. You can hear the wind sighing down through the spruce trees on the hill, hear the whine of a truck passing on the distant highway. The husband straightens himself with a curious kind of dignity, tugging his clothes into place. He looks at Mary and quietly says, “I love you, Mary,” and a pang goes through my heart, because I know he really does mean it, in his own way, not that that makes any difference now. I have a moment of weakness then, my resolve almost wavering, but I steel myself against misguided sympathy. True kindness is to do what must be done, quickly and efficiently, however difficult it might be, however much pain it may cost you personally to do it. A short-term kindness is often a misservice in the long run.

  I nod at Fred, and he steps forward, puts his revolver behind the husband’s ear, and caps him neatly. The husband goes limp as a sack of laundry and drops without a sound, but Mary screams as though her heart is being ripped out. The boy makes a break for it, and there’s a confused struggle, more furniture being knocked over and smashed. Josh is forced to use his boot knife, and there’s blood everywhere before it’s over, which annoys me—I find mess and disorder distasteful, and prefer doing this sort of thing with as little fuss and disturbance as possible, certainly not with blood sprayed all over everything, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way, no matter how hard you try.