Yarn

by Jon Armstrong

  As I got closer, it actually became easier to swim through the bodies because most of the others were pushing themselves under the lip of the clear stage and pointing their lenses up. And just as I reached the edge of the long glass stairwell, close enough to smell the rubber and asbestos of the guard's safety jackets and the red-hot of their curved blades, she started down.

  Her steps were shaky and clumsy. And up close, I could see the depth and opaqueness of her theatrical make-up, her horsehair-thick lashes, and the way her lipstick was drawn beyond her natural lips. In person, she seemed small, artificial, and awkward.

  As she came to the bottom of the steps, I squatted, and when she neared, reached between the legs of one of the guards toward her skirt. The infinity chiffon was the softest thing I had ever felt. It was like fresh corn silk and distant whispers and I touched it a split second longer than I might have just to experience its excruciatingly tender hand. I couldn't see my fingers in the haze of the fabric, but found one of the micro-denier yarns, cut it and yanked it. Next, I dropped to the floor and twisted away just as the thick arms of one of the guards twitched. He smashed his scimitar blade a foot deep into the carbon-cement floor right next to my ear.

  Standing, I turned and pushed my way through the worshipping throng, my heart pounding.

  SEATTLEHAMA: THE VOLCANO-POWERED SEX AND SHOPPING CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

  I looked up at the city of Seattlehama every day of my nineteen years in the slubs. The mile-tall circle of buildings- constructed atop Mount Rainier-was often just barely visible in the ginger haze of the morning sunlight. During the days, as I worked in the corn, the towers split the yellowed sky and tore long holes in cloudbanks. And at night, I would often sneak out and stand in the dark of the fields and the dilapidated and unlit houses where slubbers slept dozens per room and watch as the sky faded to charcoal and purple and the curves and spikes of the towers gleamed like the frozen flames of an enormous rocket ship heading straight into the heavens.

  Years later I would learn that the ring of skyscrapers of Seattlehama were not like the tall buildings of other cities. Instead of glass-covered boxes, these were built of woven ceramic. Up close they were covered with fabriclike patterns. Not only was each strong and flexible in ways that older buildings weren't, but the city was built around a mile-wide atrium with the circle of buildings all linked in such a way that supported and was supported by all the others. I've heard it said that half the city's towers could be removed in an instant and the rest would barely sway.

  For my first six months inside Seattlehama working for Withor, I lived near the bottom, just a few floors above the simmering pools of the lava that was drawn from Mt. Rainier to power the city's massive turbines. The place was known as the slubber slum, where several hundred brandclanners lived in a dozen dim sleeping and eating cafés. Most of the men worked below with the toxic biofilms that held back the lava, replaced valves on the steam turbines, or fixed the pipes and made repairs on the dark undercarriage of the city. My cleaning and errand-running job with a textile jobber was unusual, and I never mentioned it to the men who returned from the day filthy and bleeding.

  In many ways the ghetto was worse than the slubs. There was no view, no sky, no sweet scent of the ripening corn tassels in the fall. It was filthy and uncomfortable. The food was awful. And worst of all, the slubber transplants grew angry, fidgety, unsettled, and unpredictable.

  "Watch it, soy boy!" someone would shout.

  "You're a corn smut!" another would reply.

  Each night it was always the corn-eaters versus the soybeans versus the potatoes, all crops of the major brandclans. Soon someone would throw a punch or a kick and a melee would rage until men in purple satin came in and beat everyone with their long electric sticks. And every few days someone died at their job, or was bashed over the head by the satins, or just didn't wake up. The next day a new man from below was brought up to fill his place.

  But the instant I had handed over the pale, almost weightless and invisible yarn from the chiffon puff from Tinyko's skirt, everything changed for me.

  "Excellent condition," said Withor as he examined it under his magnitron. He cackled brittlely. "I have three more orders for yarn plucked from the sad asses of our city's blessed corporate celebrities." He glared at me. "You will snatch them as quickly as possible."

  While I thrilled at the idea of taking more yarn, I knew I was being used. "What do I get?"

  "You're a slubber! You should be happy just to be in our glorious shopping city, away from the retched squalor of that corn all around."

  I stared at him unhappily.

  "What you do is trivial. Trivial and trifling. I could certainly do it all myself-and much better-if I so chose." His right hand fiddled with the pins on his black-and-white-striped tie. He flit his hand in the air. "Keep that suit and tie."

  While I loved my first suit, I shook my head. "The yarns I take are worth more."

  "You're a corn slubber! You're a fly! You're a lint caught in the ass crack of another lint! And you don't tell me what something is worth. You don't negotiate with me! You don't even beg. You take my orders and you carry them out and you are glad."

  I worried that I had gone too far. In the beginning I had been impressed with Withor as I had with everything in the city. And while I now secretly hated him, what he said was true. Below my suit, minus my yarn ripping, I was a slubber. I was lucky to be away from the drudgery, the labor, and the politics of life in the corn.

  "Fine!" he sighed. "I'll give you point one percent of net." From a drawer he pulled out a small rubbery purple card and tossed it at me. "And with that you can purchase all the trinkets and trash you can… well… you can afford. All of Seattlehama takes MasterCut."

  At the end of the day, I was heading down the familiar stairs that led to the slubber ghetto when I stopped, and fished the card from my pocket. The purple surface was tacky and shiny, and if I tilted it back and forth, I could see a t'up inside it wearing a strange stringy shirt that cut lines across the neck, shoulders, and swollen chest. Below, I heard someone shout, "Soy boy, play with your tiny toy!"

  Someone else yelled, "You're corn rot!"

  Tucking the card into a pocket, I adjusted my lapels, tightened the knot in my tie, and turned to the city proper. I wasn't a slubber anymore. I had a fashion job collecting valuable yarn. And most of all I had a purple MasterCut!

  The first thing I did was head to a store called The Highly Profitable Epicurean Frosting Franchise not far from Withor's office and order a Chocoa 99.71%. I had seen dozens of t'ups walking around gleefully stuffing themselves with the stuff. The sticky brown paste came piled high in a double-D bra cup and was served with a long ivory spoon. It was a dozen times sweeter than M-Bunny cola and like nothing I had eaten before. After just one spoonful, the sugar and butterfat coated my mouth. After three, a buzzing nervousness trembled my fingers and my stomach was filled with lead. I dumped the rest in a noisy and blinking entertrash basket.

  Still, the joy of holding up my MasterCut-as I had seen Withor do when purchasing notions for the office-and having the t'up behind the crystal counter nod and then hand over the frosting confirmed everything I wanted that day.

  Down another hallway I found the cloth stores. Inside it seemed a rainbow of everything I had ever wanted to see, touch, feel. I found black cloth so black it didn't seem to exist. I saw colors so bright they hurt my eyes. I saw wools, polys, cottons, rayotts, pricons, flaxes, silks, bamboos, and metals. I smelled cashmere, flax, ramie, abaca, basalt, and camel. I marveled at the crispness of the satellite silks; the springiness of the spandicotts, the softness of the French puff-flannels. I inhaled the starch in the taffeta. I rubbed crepe on crepe and enjoyed the sandy grit.

  From there, I found a thread and yarn store and laughed out loud at the thousands of colors, sizes, twists, weights, sheens, lusters, plies. This was more than I had dreamed of. This was more than I had ever imagined. I read a sign that said: 46,231 more shades of
red available by special order.

  In another store I found fashion machines: acoustic jacquards, card punches, loom beams, air-jets, deweavers, flash seamers, water-knitters, flux steamers. Standing before a Control R&H projectile loom, I traced my eyes as yarn might travel along spool holders, through weft tensioners, across conveyor wedges, up and over shedding boxes, through eyeholes, down to spindles, the tooth blocks, guide scissors, and out of the heddles through the wormwheels.

  I ran a hand over the smooth brushed finish, the marbled gray paint, and solid brass fittings of an A-Max insta-seamer. Turning, I found a clearing and five feet from me, a t'up stood on a knitting machine that resembled a ski trainer with two long hand poles and foot levers. The t'up pushed one pole to the right and spun the other. A set of floating hooks knit blue yarn into a pair of shorts in midair. I wasn't sure how it worked exactly, but decided that the left pole steered the knitting hooks and the other controlled the number of loops.

  Three others stood watching. One wore a white suit and held a thick, jewel-encrusted cane. The second wore all black, but here and there on his jacket were small live, wiggling white worms that had been woven into the fabric. The third, in a camel hair suit, had what I later learned was a giraffe mask over his head.

  The knitting t'up pulled the right handle to the side. Now a thicker band was formed around the top of the shorts. A moment later, the t'up pulled the right stick far back, pushed on the right footpad, and the machine stopped.

  "Artistic zeal!" said the man in white. "Flamboyance and bravery!"

  "Best britches for bitches!" enthused the giraffe. "May I?"

  Using a pair of connected needles, the t'up took the shorts from the machine, seemed to knot it, and handed the shorts to Giraffe.

  Curious, I stepped forward. "What is this?" The four of them turned and looked at me with varied amounts of confusion and disdain.

  "This," intoned the man in white, "is the Stanton-Bell Texknitter 222. It's the top-of-the-line artesian, topsumer, craftgasmic, model with the skivvé form." He blinked several times. "Welcome to my fashion motor boutique. Call me Archibald. Are you… um… are you a knitter?"

  My confidence faded. "No. But I think I saw how it works."

  "You have fine taste, good consumer, sir, but I wouldn't suggest starting on a stand-up Tex-knitter. We have desktop models for socks, collars, and wrist bands for crafters in all sorts of pleasant and complimentary colors."

  Meanwhile, Giraffe was tugging the shorts on over his pants. Only they weren't just shorts, but the front had three pouches: one long and two smaller ones for a root and two nodes-that's what slubbers called genitals. And his root was eleven inches long.

  "I am the corporate executive slut of my dreams!" said Giraffe, shaking his hips back and forth. "Watch my fantasy grow!" They all laughed.

  Meanwhile, I was studying the t'up who had been on the knitter: the shape of the eyes, the smoothness of the neck, and the contours of the body. She was definitely not a man.

  When she wiggled her hips, the long root tube on her identical shorts flopped back and forth. She said something about scratchy yarn and while they laughed again, I stepped backward. If someone had inspected the tag at the back of my neck that instant, it would have read: 50% confusion 30% fright 20% arousal.

  In the slubber ghetto the main topic of conversation, besides which crop was best, was about the existence, features, meaning, and anatomy of Seattlehama women, or what we called reds.

  I was born into the M-Bunny brandclan and we were the planters of corn. Our special crop dominated the hills around Seattlehama. To the south, L. Segu, the soybean clan, was stronger. And while we had our differences, we had several things in common. For one thing the slubs were filled with men and nothing but men. Men planted the crops, tended them, harvested them, processed them, made them into all sorts of things, ate them, and recycled them. Men cleared old roads, tore up old parking lots, razed useless buildings, and planted more corn.

  But once a year, a few men who worked the hardest, praised the crop the most, and recycled everything they could were rewarded with the opportunity to have a son. They boarded one of the buses and traveled to headquarters. They wore different B-shirts there and ate something called krissmascake. They thought that it was those cakes that made their roots hard. And when that happened, a red would come and would lay down with them.

  Ordinarily, no one in the slubs had erections. The only exceptions were those who traveled to headquarters, those who were debranded, and those few who, for some reason, had just gone corn rot. If a rep caught you with a hard root, it was said you would be immediately debranded or just recycled, but I never saw it happen.

  It wasn't until years later that I understood that those B-shirts and shorts we wore muted our tempers, our anger, and mostly our libido.

  I don't know if she sensed the surging of my heart, but the t'up turned and addressed me. "Shopper…" Her eyes darted over my Teardop suit. "From what finger of the glove have you come?"

  I didn't understand finger of the glove, but feared it had something to do with the slubs. "No," I told her. "I'm… um… I'm just here looking."

  "Adrift," she announced to the others. "Adrift in the currents of commerce and unfamiliar with the loft and ply of fashion." Her glossy red lips pinched off what seemed like a growing smile. "Shopper, have you never envisioned skivvé?"

  The man in the giraffe masked said, "That's Python Duck Weapon's Celebrity Executive Officer, Kira Shibui."

  "I am Tane Cedar," I told her. My heart was beating hard and my palms were moist. "You knit syrup." I had inadvertently used a slubber word. "I mean… great!"

  Her right eyebrow rose with curious skepticism. "A small but curled wood shaving of praise." She eyed the others. Worm Jacket giggled. Giraffe nodded.

  They were laughing at me. "I am also interested in yarn and knitting."

  "If you desire, Kira," offered the storeowner, "I'll ask him to leave."

  She held up a gloved hand. "Allow him to linger." She narrowed her eyes. "Those who harbor hearts that beat not with the liquids of the pedestrian, but with twists of the fiber… we must always show honor." She squared her shoulders and stared at me intently. "I am a saleswarrior for Python Duck… in the glorious skivvé battles amid the grand foundation war." When she inhaled, her breasts were squashed inside her rather stiff-looking outfit. I didn't know how to describe it at the time, but it was like a sailor suit in shiny orange decorated with several large bows. The flared skirt was so short it didn't cover her underwear. The neckline was low, and around her neck rested a wide collar. Her boots and gloves were the same orange. She peered at me. "You must know the glory, dear mislaid shopper."

  I didn't know what she was asking, but was glad to have her gaze on me.

  Her red lips tightened. "Then know this citizen of credit: we of Python Duck are fighting against the keepers of the dark, the wearers of the empty, and the besmirchers of the cloth. We freed ourselves to oppose the awful howl of the gathering void that is Casper Union!" She screamed the last two words.

  "Casper Union? What's that?"

  My question seemed to please her. She turned to the others. "And thus with his genuine confusion, I have freed him from the realm of the counterfeit and the spy."

  "Oh, well done, Kira!" said the man in the worm jacket.

  "Brilliant!" Giraffe bobbed his head in a nod. "I didn't even think that he might be an enemy spying on us!"

  "Now we know," said Kira, raising her voice, "that he is simply from the dim and the dark bones of fashion." She turned and gazed at me with warmth and sympathy. "Someone should mental him in the ways of the lapel, the seam, and the blessed undergarment."

  I knew she was making fun of me, but it didn't matter. "I want to learn."

  "Then let me unfold one sleeve of the truth: Casper Union is the skivvé maker that cares not for anything but the lack of their own make." She held up a fist. "They are stealing the glory… No! They are tarnishing anything t
hat was ever coated with even the thinnest skin of commerce and pride." Pointing a finger at me, she said, "New friend of our sex and shopping city, you must study fashion and its wars. Come to my flagship: Python Duck on level 609 in the Velour Building and behold the fine art and craft of men's fantasy skivvé."

  "Best britches for bitches!" said Giraffe.

  "We are desperate for fashion passion!" she continued. "And we are desperate for cutting and needling." She turned her face toward the others. "We need the commanding and the strong and the vigorous to help wage the terror upon those with shallow and muddy puddles of soul."

  "Muddy puddles of soul!" whispered the man in the worm jacket, nudging the giraffe.

  Returning her attention to me, she asked, "Do you, shopper Tane Cedar, with a proud and curious interest in knit-do you have the formidable vision? Do you have clarity of duty? And most of all, do you have the valor to test the capricious needles of destiny?"

  Worm Jacket and Giraffe and even the storeowner turned to me. My eyes leapt from Kira to the others and back again. I swallowed and said, "Yes?" hoping that was the right answer.

  "Kira Shibui, Celebrity Executive Officer of Python Duck Men's Fantasy Skivvé!" boomed the storeowner. "Visionary knitter, designer, and warTalker extraordinaire. She truly warms the new Stanton-Bell Tex-knitter 222!" He ran a hand along the top of the machine. "I will have this sent to your flagship tonight!"

  Worm Jacket and Giraffe began talking excitedly as the storeowner rambled on with numbers and jargon. Meanwhile, Kira's eyes lingered on mine.