by John Domini
“A computer?” Garrison was squinting, trying to figure an angle. “My neighborhood, what people want is a video camera.”
“Okay, a video camera. A video camera or a computer, it’s the same phenomenon.” Warnings were going off in his head: You’re having too much fun with this. “The same, sure. Whether a person’s on camera or on the computer screen—in either case, they’re becoming part of the media. In either case, it’s not, ah, it’s not trained professionals gathering data and then putting what they select before the public.”
“What they select,” the guard said. “What they select, yeah, that’s all it is.”
“But not any more, Garrison. That’s not what’s happening with the new technology.” Kit wasn’t a cowboy, no—he liked to talk, and never more than when he had a worthwhile insight. “Now what’s starting to happen is, the public selects and produces its own news. Alternative press, it’s everywhere. It’s call-in radio, roundtable talk TV. And pretty soon everybody’s going to have a computer, and you can bet they’re going to be talking to each other too.
“Computer to computer, Garrison. Everybody’s going to have one, everybody’s going to put their story on it. One big electronic medium, and everybody’s going to be part of it.”
Off the Central Artery, the guard had picked up speed. As Kit waited for a response, the man actually beat a yellow light.
“Personal is all over the media, Garrison,” he said quietly. He flexed his thigh against his Nutshell Library. “It’s the future.”
“Viddich. Fuck you.”
Kit snorted.
“Fuck you. Really. That Grand Jury, those guys, they don’t care about your theories, Viddich. Computers and the media, who gives a fuck?”
Hardball was good, Kit figured. If the last round was hardball, that would get him ready for Leo.
“Don’t care what you did back in Minnesota, either.”
“Aw, Garrison. I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”
“You could have drunk all the blood west of the Mississippi, man. Not going to mean a thing. If you don’t have any friends in that Grand Jury, they’ll rip your balls out and hang ‘em up to dry.”
“Generally speaking,” Kit said, “people don’t try to frighten other people unless they’re frightened themselves.”
“Whoa. Viddich, myself, I’ll tell you. You ask me, I’d like to see your balls hung up to dry.”
Garrison whipped around a pothole fast enough to make the cab rock. “You know I hate to say this, Viddich. I hate to keep trying to help a bright-boy asshole like you. But our friends, man, they can still be your friends. Still.”
Kit’s turn to heave a sigh.
“You hear me, bright boy? Spite of all your bullshit, they can still be there for you. Our friends.”
“Like Forbes Croftall?”
“Fuck you.” Garrison braked hard. Kit rocked in his seat—was he bracing for a punch?—and discovered that they’d reached the site. The MTA work in progress. Outside the tinted cab window, across a flagged-off strip of waterfront cobblestones, there ranged head-high plywood walls. Support 4x4’s had been set close together, and between them ran a second layer of protection, crosshatched steel fencing. Razor wire wound along the top, shivering in the harbor winds.
“Why do I bother?” the guard was saying. “I told you, I told you—but nobody can tell a bright boy like you.”
Kit counted only two view holes in the plywood. The rest of the wall had been angrily grafitti’d, blood red, ripe black, and scraps of greasy sandwich wrappings fluttered from under the fence. Pedestrians hustled past with eyes averted. All the site needed was a skull-and-crossbones.
Garrison grabbed his arm. “Hey. Dicksuck.”
His grip hurt, but Kit didn’t try to pull free. Hardball. “Garrison,” he said. “Think about it. These friends of yours, they don’t care about you.”
The guard had grown older again, under his cap.
“You notice,” Kit said, “they didn’t send anybody higher up to come and get—”
“Harvard. Fucking rich-boy faggot Harvard.” He yanked up Kit’s bicep, the arm flopped from the elbow. “You think that impresses me? Think that scares me? Viddich, you couldn’t even begin to get what I’ve got. You couldn’t even dream about it. For starters I’ve got this truck here, can you dig it? I’ve got it free and clear.”
With his free hand Garrison smacked the steering wheel. In the thing’s leather sheathing one of the lace-holes popped.
“Let go of me, Garrison.”
“Free and clear, dicksuck. I’m not just talking a quadrophonic eight-track and a CB. I’m talking fucking four on the floor with enough power to hire out as a snowplow, and I even got the commercial license and insurance. All mine, I told you. All free and fucking clear.”
“Let go. Your boss is waiting for me.”
“Whoa, to-ugh guy. Hard co-re. You know what else I got, smart boy? Got two shotguns. Two excellent guns, right there behind your fucking head. Right there on a rack behind the curtain and Harvard here never even knew about it.”
Kit went on letting his arm hang, keeping his look unimpressed. He wasn’t about to turn his head.
“Plus my old man and me, we got six acres on a lake in New Hampshire. Six acres with fishing year-round. Any trouble comes after me, man, I’m up to my lake. Any of your college boy bullshit comes my way, I’m in my truck and I’m gone. I’m gone. Six acres. Plus my guns and my truck. That’s what I got, man, and that you don’t fuck with. You and your fucking rich boy Indian blood on the face bullshit, whoa—that bullshit means about as much to me as your computers in space sci-fi media bullshit. You just want to keep the woods beautiful for nutty faggot rich boys like yourself.
“What you got, Viddich, it don’t even touch what I got. Don’t even touch it, any of your bullshit. You ask me, the cash for this truck was the best money I ever made in my life.”
Cash, sure. Bribery was strictly a cash business.
“I got my truck, dicksuck. Got my truck and my guns and my place. You think you can get away from this shit, this city that’s falling right down into the shit? Think Harvard’ll save you? Harvard ain’t going to worry about some head case like you. You’re nobody. No friends. This newspaper of yours, you can roll it up tight and stick it up your ass for the good it’ll do you when this city goes down into the shit. Roll it tight and stick it up your ass. That’s your paper. That’s all you got. Me, I got my truck and my guns and my place. You—fuck you. You and this niggerdick up the ass you call a city. Fuck you! Fuck you all!”
*
Any time you want to tell a tourist, my basement boys and girls, take a look when our Scandie pseudo comes into The T. The T, you know the place. Uhh-nder the boardwalk, down by the se-ee-ee-ahhh (heavy breathing, get it?). Under the boardwalk and under construction: that’s The T. The club wants to be plywood partitions and steel fencing forever. Plenty of graffiti, plenty of leakage in the overhead pipes. Like dancing in the Elsinore dungeons, hey Scandie?
The T—that’s our scene, my hard cores. I’m a siren for our scene, remember, the voice of leathers and plastics everywhere. And The T, see, is about imitation. It’s an imitation wreck. And imitation, see, is our hard core. Our scene’s home sweet home.
Though, in our case, it’s not so sweet. It’s more like out ow! out. Yeah, that’s imitation, punk style—out ow! out.
Zia see, my homeys. A Movement dinosaur like this David Bowie clown—no, clone; the word is clone—he doesn’t even realize he’s a clone. He comes down into The T, down the entrance ramps and over the coffer dams, and he’s checking for Building Code violations. He’s inspecting the plumbing (what there is of it). The battle for truth goes on (and yawn). The Bastille must be taken every day.
Not in our scene, my sluts and greasers. I mean, the boy’s been bumping into me day after day for a week, he should’ve figured it out by now. In our scene we build our own Bastille. An imitation—“dig it.” Our times, they are a mimicki
ng. Our counterculture apes the authority culture, looking for something we can wear on an earring. Something The Man doesn’t want to see on an earring, check—something that pokes fun at his worst secrets.
And now another visit from the angels on my shoulders.
Cue: (that slut) Why, if it isn’t the hard-nosed muckraker.
Ayy: There’s leakage. Definite leakage. And the expressway’s right overhead.
Cue: Here and everywhere, big boy. Here and right up into the castle of the King.
Ayy: The expressway, thousands of cars a day. Any leakage down here will undermine the supports.
Cue: Frightens you, doesn’t it? Something you never wanted to see on an earring.
Ayy: I’m serious. This isn’t an earring.
Cue: Don’t be so sure, man. Leakage, seepage—it’s everywhere. Everybody’s got a closet.
He had rough going to reach Leo. The site was no more than a vast steep-walled pit. Echoes of the overhead traffic never faded, ringing in the heaps of waiting metal, the corrugated steel and copper pipes. Underfoot, plywood walkways wobbled on the boggy floor. When hardhats came by they always carried cable or tools, and these were bulky guys anyway, heavy-muscled in parka vests and jean jackets. Kit had to stand aside. He was aware again of his Nutshell Library. That was bad luck, that he hadn’t been able to get rid of the thing. Having it out with Leo face to face—and on his turf—felt questionable enough to begin with.
Ayy: This isn’t an earring. This is the Central Artery.
Cue: This is The T, sweet butt. Only thing it’s good for is to dance.
Ayy: Aw, is this a joke to you? A party? I’m trying to change the world.
Cue: Yeah, and the only way to do it is to dance. Come out and dance! Come out and confront your filthiest closet selves.
Ayy: (pulls Percodan from pocket, frowns at label)
Cue: Come out even if it hurts. Come out especially if it hurts! Out, ow, out!
Ayy: But if this is all just a big club, if nothing’s going to change .
Cue: Oh, things will change, smart boy. Imitation is the sincerest form of anarchy.
Ayy: What am I doing here? What?
Kit found his man at the far end of the site. Leo stood with three or four workers, against a pit wall that appeared different somehow, set back. Hatless like Kit, he might have been out for a night of disco; his still-thick Italian hair was slicked back and his overcoat was a flashy black and white check, knee-length and double-breasted. Not that Leo wasn’t one of the boys, here. As the old crew chief spoke, the workers around him moved in synch. They rocked, they shrugged. Their chests were thrust up, their knees locked back.
At the entrance Kit had only needed to mention Leo’s name. If he were here as a reporter, he couldn’t have found better access. If he were here as a reporter.
“Kit, kid.”
Kit took in the familiar mask, the satchelmouth.
“I guess Garrison found you,” Leo said.
Kit looked past him, checking the set-back wall behind him.
“You two talk?”
Kit compared the wall to the floor. A border of corrugated steel rippled up at the floor’s edge, another cofferdam close by the feet of Leo and his friends. Beyond this border the site dropped away again. A second, smaller area had been dug out, still lower. Kit couldn’t see into it, but the drop-off looked to run nearly the entire way along this side of the site.
“Hey. Kit, kid—you with us?”
“That’s the dig, isn’t it?” Kit asked. “The dig, where the archaeologists work.”
“What, down there? You interested in that stuff?”
“That’s where they’ve found the, the artifacts?”
“Invaluable artifacts.” Leo shook his head. “So invaluable those Harvard wise guys didn’t even come in today.” He shared a look with the men beside him, shaking his big head. Kit too, though in his case he was shaking off a flashback to Garrison’s raging: Fucking rich-boy faggot Harvard.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
Leo’s smile showed some tongue. Kit couldn’t believe how he’d sounded, breathless, desperate.
“It won’t take long,” he went on. “I’ve, I’ve got other appointments.”
“Sure, Kit. You’re a busy man, sure. There’s been a lot going on over at your place.”
Jab, twist. Again Kit recalled Garrison, the secrets he’d known, the things Zia must have let slip to her Pop. Maybe Kit should have taken a break after he’d wrestled free of the guard. A walk in the sea air. But now Leo was shrugging again, nodding again, and with a flat gaze he let the hardhats know he and Kit needed some privacy.
Cue: Out, ow, out! Imitation is the sincerest form of anarchy.
Ayy: (no longer with us) Yet I’ve seen this before. I’ve seen it, smelled it.
Cue: Got sex on the brain? The sexual revolution, is that your ‘70s hang-up? Come out and get into Human Sexual Response!
Ayy: I’ve seen graffiti like this before. I’ve smelled cold iron and standing water.
(He’s still got that bizarro sidekick, “C. Garrison.” The ghost in the uni, the prison guard. Briefly it flickers beside him.)
Cue: (unimpressed) Sure, bring the cops. Cops, senators, presidents—hey, Watergate was a ’70s thing too. Come on and dance with Oedipus: the King is a motherfucker!
Ayy: Then there’s the sea so close. (Garrison disappears) The muck at my boots, the wind in my face.
Cue: (more serious, trying to reach him) The Talking Heads, that’s our scene. Scandie see? The Talking Heads borrow the greatest authority in the authority culture, the very definition of reality.
Ayy: The sea, the wind …
Cue: The Talking Heads toy with the darkest secret of all, the emptiness that shadows The Man—the fear that whatever the muckraker rakes is no big deal, whatever the believer believes in is merest rhinestone.
Ayy: I’ve been here before. I have.
Cue: (giving up, singing) Cellars by starlight, something in the air .
*
Leo said nothing till his friends on the crew looked like figures on a distant TV. Kit couldn’t make out faces.
“Whew,” the old man began. “If I’d had my head on straight, I’d’ve done this inside.”
He’d gone right into his act, fixing up a fat Brando smile as he pulled together his checked lapels. An act, but it worked: for the first time in a while Kit noticed the cold. The wind here whistled along the lower site’s dam, high-pitched enough to be heard through the traffic.
Or you could hear it if you were off by yourself like this. Just you and the crooked money man.
“Kit, come on.” Leo’s expression turned smutty. “You’re looking at me like I’m one of those wise guys from the Human Sexual Response.”
“I need to talk to you.”
He touched his neck. Shamed again by his voice, blinking across the cluttered pit, he noticed the surrounding factories. Sweatshops from the turn of the century, they loomed on three sides. Blunt places, efficient.
“Anyway,” Leo was saying, “I got what you want.”
“I don’t want it any more.”
“He-ey.” Leo kept his head down, fishing under his coat for a pants pocket. “Kit, at least wait’ll you see it.”
“I don’t want it, that’s what I came to tell you, I can’t take it. You can’t trick me into taking it.”
Leo brought out the cash, a thick fold in a money clip. A Nutshell Library of his own.
“You can’t trick me, Leo. I know what’s going on. After this I’m going right over to the office to explain.”
“Trick you? Kit, kid, lighten up.” Leo waggled the clip beside his broad face. “You call this a trick?”
Leo had the fistful of hardpacked cash, and all Kit had was this flyaway rush of words. “It’s—I call it a mistake, Leo. It’s the same mistake I made just last week, the same all over. I have to figure out why it happened.”
“What? What are you talking about? K
it, you don’t mind my saying so, you’re sounding kind of nutty these days.”
Kit frowned. “Garrison already tried that one, Leo.”
“Garrison, ayy. Guy like that, Kit, you’re lucky we got him to talk to you at all. He had his way, he’d rip you open and pull you out from inside.”
Still the old man smiled, holding the cash in one relaxed hand. All Kit could think was—we.
“But it’s not just a gorilla like him, says you’re sounding nutty. You should’ve heard my daughter last night. She needed some money, you should’ve heard her talking.”
To Kit, even the site’s TV-sized workmen seemed part of that we. They seemed there just to whisper about him.
“She was counting on that next paycheck, Kit. You’re no friend of hers, man. No friend of that girl.”
She needed the paycheck? But Kit had told her … “She asked you for money, Leo?”
“Yeah, she asked. What, that surprise you?”
Kit shook his head, or tried to. Just what were they talking about? Garrison, Zia?
“Kit, come on. What’s your big news?” Now Leo held the cash at his belly. “What, you expect some kind of wrestlemania here? Let it all hang out? Hey, I’ll let it all hang out.”
“Leo, I, I told you …”
“You want to know how my daughter fits into this, Kit? ‘Zia,’ huh. Hey, I didn’t set that girl up down there just so she could write about her faggot friends.”
In the surrounding factories, glare filled the windows. The winter sun in Boston: it hurt the eyes but gave no heat.
“I told that girl myself, Kit. Last night I told her. She was all excited about Esquire, I said, ‘I don’t give a shit about you and your sick faggot friends.’ I mean, her brothers, they listen to me. They understand how a man does business.”
Kit straightened his spine. “Leo, they’re not the only ones. Your sons.”
“Oh yeah? Kit, you think you know about my business?”
“I know about Sea Level, what it means for you. It’s about cash, isn’t it, Leo. A cash business, that’s what you wanted. And not for taking down to Surinam either.”