Alien Nation #5 - Slag Like Me

by Barry B. Longyear

  You could tell that Suzie had been warned by her parents against talking to strangers, and that’s sound advice for children in the weirdo-sicko capital of the world. However, when the teachers are too busy doing paperwork or taking their breaks, and her classmates are punching the snot out of her, and her parents can’t do anything but tell her to try harder to “fit in,” to whom is little Suzie supposed to talk? Is it any wonder that a kid eventually breaks down and talks to the next kind voice he or she hears? Do you really want to know why so many children are missing, or why addiction, suicide, and murder among preteens keeps climbing?

  There is a whole universe of ignorance, pain, suffering, and humiliation behind those schoolhouse walls, and behind the walls of every school in the city and across the face of the planet. I had neither the time nor the ability to lift up the edge on this particular scab. Modern cosmetic surgery notwithstanding, I am considerably past the time when I can impersonate a sixth-grader. Moreover, just about that time an LAPD black-and-white pulled up behind me (you remember: “To serve and protect”) and two officers got out, slipping their batons into their belts.

  Does anyone know why everyone else in the world calls them nightsticks, cudgels, billy clubs, bludgeons, truncheons, yea, even war clubs, but the LAPD insists on calling them batons? I suppose it’s an attempt at evoking the image of a sixteen-year-old twirler leading the Pimple Park Flag Corps during a high school halftime show. An object is not what it is; it’s what we call it.

  Anyway, the cops told Suzie to scat back to class, they upped me against the fence, and while Harry ground my face into the chain link, Waldo cuffed my hands behind me. In a second I was in the back of the black-and-white while Waldo climbed in next to me to explain some of the burdens of the judicial system in the city and county of Los Angeles.

  L.A. and its environs are awash with perverts, dealers, gang bangers, killers, and scum of every stripe and description. For every one that is arrested, the system can’t even see fifteen. Of those who are arrested, maybe one out of eight actually goes to trial. Of those who go to trial, maybe one out of four is actually found guilty of something. And of those found guilty, maybe one out of seven actually gets to serve some time. There’s not much time to serve, in addition, because the penalties are too light and the jails too crowded.

  The officer would’ve had my wholehearted agreement, except for him punctuating his allocution every clause by thrusting the end of his baton into my gut and thwacking my underarms, it took my entire concentration to produce the appropriate reactions. The thwack under the arm is the Tenct answer to getting kicked in the groin, you see. Curious, isn’t it? That is the only fact about Tencts that every human seems to know.

  When I had been beaten almost senseless, the unit rolled for a while, then the black-and-white pulled over. I was dumped out of the cruiser into a gutter and advised to go forth and sin no more. Waldo reclaimed the passenger seat, and the black-and-white drove off, carrying its pair of blue knights forth to do battle once more with the powers of multicolored darkness and evil.

  Two members of the Nightshade, a Chayville Tenct gang, picked me out of the gutter and took me to the home of a gang member’s mother where I was cleaned up and a doctor called. Under normal circumstances, a member of the Nightshade would as soon kill you or rob you as notice your existence. Perhaps that is what Waldo and Harry were counting on by dumping me on Eagle Street. Tencts killing Tencts and who cares?

  Curiously enough, they couldn’t have picked a better place or mode of transportation. By punching the poo out of me and jettisoning me in L.A. on Nightshade turf, Waldo and Harry (“them”) made me part of the Nightshade “us.” Better credentials simply were not to be had.

  I called the officers Harry and Waldo because they aren’t villains, either. They didn’t see a constitutionally protected being exercising his right to free speech on a public right-of-way. In the midst of riots, murders, gang rapes, arsons, kidnappings, robberies, spouse batterings, child molestings, and a city rotting to death from addiction (and that’s right, Goober, alcohol is a drug), Harry and Waldo simply couldn’t take the time out from all their paperwork, court appearances, riding the streets, stakeouts, union meetings, and risking their lives to dispose of a suspected Tenct child molester by the book.

  No villains.

  People, that was the lesson of the ’92 riots: dozens dead and there are no villains, only victims. And, Goober, if you buy that, I’ve got a trunk full of “Daryl Gates for Mayor” bumper stickers you won’t be able to pass up.

  As part of my training for this project, I spent some time learning what I was able in a school called a rama vo, which is Tenctonese for garden of wisdom. The vo is an association of men and women, mostly elderly, who meet to pass on their wisdom to those who are teachable. The Elders, both human and Tenct, have a view of the world forged by understanding that wisdom is seeing things for what they are and accepting that it is so. I picked up a few things there. Such as:

  Rule #1. Acts have consequences.

  Rule #2. Those who act are responsible for the consequences of their acts (either that, or they should be locked up and put away in a high-security institution until such time as they are responsible).

  Rule #3. No one’s tale of prestige, power, influence, legal exemption, poverty, injury, or woe invalidates either Rule #1 or Rule #2.

  Hence, despite disadvantaged upbringings, alcoholic homes, fears of the strange and unknown, and mostly because it serves some universal sick need to torture the odd person out, here are the names of the gang members who beat up little Suzie almost every school day: Bradley sixth-graders Ricky Gallegos and Anita Wicker, and seventh grader Randy Cook.

  In addition, despite disadvantaged upbringings, alcoholic homes, fears of the strange and unknown, and a really lousy slice of life’s occupational pie, here are the names of the gang members who beat me up and dumped me in the gutter like a bag of garbage: Officer Michael Hong, Badge 27127, and Officer Jason Kent, Badge 26871, LAPD.

  (Notice to lawyers: pant though you will at the possible libel litigation this column might represent, be advised that everything described herein is on videotape and has been thoroughly documented and witnessed. Ta ta.)

  C H A P T E R 5

  THAT NIGHT MATT looked into his bathroom mirror and studied the features one local news broadcaster had once referred to as “early world-weary infant.” Maybe the cheeks were too chubby, the eyes too open, the effect a little too cute. Perhaps there were crow’s-feet and a semipermanent scowl. A little scar here and there; keepsakes of a dozen years chasing down the bad guys while trying to stay out from under bureaucrats, pogues, and paper wizards. It was his face, though, and although he didn’t particularly like it, he was used to it. He touched his brow and drew the fingers of his right hand down the line of his chin.

  What would that face look like as a Tenctonese? His eyebrows went up. “The question is,” he said to the image in the looking glass, “what will everyone else’s face look like once this face looks like a Tenctonese?”

  That was the question. Every gaze that touched him, whether Newcomer or human, would convey to the one doing the gazing, certain things—certain false things—simply because of how Matt looked. If the observer were human, it would be assumed that Matt Sikes was gullible, although unfairly intelligent and physically strong. Sexually he would be regarded as being equipped with a dream machine and no idea how to use it. Of course he would also have to have a stupid, degrading immigration name.

  Dick Short.

  Jay Byrd.

  Cookie Baker.

  Tim Barr.

  Cole Frost.

  Tipper Kanu.

  Peter Jerkmeov.

  If the observer were Tenct, however, what?

  Matt frowned as he admitted to himself that he had absolutely no idea how a Tenct would look upon another Tenct. Fellow former slave? The Tencts could all count on having certain things in common. A certain humility. A certain camaraderie, like sold
iers who have shared combat. Cons who have done the same bad time in the same bad place. A common rage. To impersonate a Tenct would take a world of gall to keep from feeling like the worst kind of fraud. Matt’s time paired up with George had convinced him that, except for a few bizarre interludes, Tencts think the same way humans think. But even humans don’t all think alike. He seemed insane to himself at times. How could he judge the mental machinery of another human, much less a Tenct?

  He thought back to the scene in the squad room that afternoon between Dobbs, the gang banger, and the uniformed cop. Matt had an idea how “whites” generalized about “blacks,” but how do “blacks” generalize about other “blacks”? He smiled as he realized that even in his thoughts he placed quotes around certain racial labels indicating that they really don’t refer to anything real. That had to do with Buck Francisco and his experiences attending a rama vo for the past year. Buck was smart, frighteningly so, to Matt. It was as though life were an insane game Matt had been born into and no one had been issued a rule book. Somehow young Buck seemed to have acquired a copy.

  There was something George’s son, Buck, had said that evening when Matt was at his partner’s home for dinner. As around most dinner tables in southern California that night, there was a fight over Ellison Robb and his column. The Francisco’s daughter, Emily, had been complaining angrily about related racist incidents that had happened to her at school, Emily’s mother, Susan Francisco, was attempting to “understand” them all away, and George was staunchly deploring both racism and Ellison Robb’s methods. The youngest Francisco, Vessna, had been crying loudly in reaction to the tension around the table, yet Buck was calmly eating his dinner.

  “Buck,” said his father, attempting to enlist support for his side, “don’t you agree that Robb’s childish refusal to reveal anything about himself is at the least provocative if not inflammatory? Not only that, it borders on being fraudulent. Isn’t he denying what he is by keeping this information from the readers?”

  “No, Dad. I disagree.”

  “What?” The look on George’s face at that moment reminded Matt of his own father’s face the day he told the brutal alcoholic he intended to become a police officer. Although many years later he had gone on to join the LAPD, the ten-year-old Matt had been cowed into silence by his father’s wrath. Buck, however, seemed to believe that he could disagree with his parents without betraying them or starting a world war. Radical stuff.

  Buck put down his fork, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and gathered a thought or two. “I disagree, Dad. Ellison Robb isn’t denying what he is. He’s attempting to prevent what he is from being sabotaged and submerged by what some others might choose him to be if he revealed these things about himself.”

  That brought silence to the table. George leaned back in his chair, a frown on his face, a defensive edge in his voice. “I’m not choosing him to be anything. In fact I want to know who he is. At least if he’s a he. Is that unreasonable?”

  Buck smiled as he shrugged. “I don’t know what ‘reasonable’ or ‘unreasonable’ mean, Dad. What I do know is male or female is just sex; some plumbing and hormones along with some arbitrarily assigned roles and assumed attitudes. Male or female isn’t who or what Ellison Robb is. Robb doesn’t want to reveal his sex because then his column would forever after be regarded as having either a female or male slant.”

  “Isn’t that valid?” asked Susan.

  “I don’t think Ellison Robb thinks so. The only slant he wants his column to be perceived as having is an Ellison Robb slant. It’s the thing that’s at the core of why he’s doing what he’s doing in ‘Slag Like Me’.”

  Matt frowned as he leaned across the table. “This is the stuff they’ve been teaching you at the rama vo?”

  “All they teach at the vo, Matt, is how to see things for what they are and accept that it is so. It’s what things are perceived as being that Robb is shaking up.” He looked at his father. “Some Christians, for example, wear their emblems in full view because they wish to be identified with that belief. It’s a uniform that says ‘This is what I am,’ although the real meaning of it is ‘This is what I believe,’ or perhaps ‘This is what I want you to believe that I believe.’ Perhaps it just means ‘I belong.’ It’s the same with any political, religious, or cultural uniform. In most cases, as with a cross, a yarmulke, a turban, colors, a swastika, long hair, a badge, or a suit and tie, they’re things with which the individual chooses to adorn himself to identify with a particular group, idea, obligation, or belief.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Matt. “It’s not like you can see him wearing a cross in his column.”

  “You could if he revealed the information,” said Susan. “Would that change how you read the column?”

  “I don’t think so,” Matt answered. He frowned and pondered for a moment. Then he nodded. “Okay, it would if I found out he was a shove-it-down-your-throat Jesus jammer or a Moonie.”

  “Or a Celinist,” quipped Emily.

  He thought for a long moment and then nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay. It would color how I read his words.”

  Buck leaned back in his chair and frowned as he searched for some phrases. “Matt, there are other things, things that are taken as outside emblems, that are not generally considered matters of choice.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, except for the application of some fairly extreme measures, there is little choice regarding one’s species, sex, height, eye shape, skin color, nose shape, and so on. Yet most persons, when they see a bald spotted head, a large pair of mammary glands, almond-shaped eyes, or a dark brown skin color, accredit to the individual reams of prefabricated beliefs, values, intentions, capabilities, and deficiencies that may or may not have anything whatever to do with that individual. Remember the Latvian black gay midget bikers Robb wrote about as a tongue-in-cheek example of a narrow agenda? The point is that there are many who believe that if they are not Latvian, black, gay, midget, or a biker, they can legitimately pass off as weird, strange, different, slanted, or generally untrue whatever uncomfortable thing that might be said by a Latvian black gay midget biker.”

  Susan nodded and faced George. “It’s true, dear. If Ellison Robb revealed herself to be female, many men and many women would pass off what she said as fuzzy-headed, impractical, unrealistic, rabid, or foolish; the wacko feminist slant; PMS with a vote. A good many of them would, too.”

  “If he’s a grown-up,” interjected Emily, “the kids wouldn’t have to pay any attention because he’s petrified and from yesterday. And if he’s a kid, none of the grown-ups would listen because they think he’s stupid.”

  “You’re a kid,” said Matt. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

  Emily’s eyes yellowed slightly from embarrassment. “Oh, okay. But you know a lot of grown-ups wouldn’t pay any attention to anything a kid says, and that’s the truth.” She looked at her mother. “How many times have you said to me, ‘You’ll grow out of that,’ when you don’t want to take what I feel seriously. You say it to Dad, too. ‘She’s young. She’ll outgrow that.’ ‘She’s going through a phase.’ ” She faced her father. “I bet if you learned that Ellison Robb is twelve or fifteen years old, you’d be saying the same thing about him. I think it’s a way of throwing away what he has to say without dealing with it.”

  “I think she’s right,” said Buck.

  George looked from Buck to his daughter and studied her for a moment. He closed his eyes and nodded. “You’re right, Emily. You’re absolutely right.”

  In his room later that night, Matt tugged at the problem:

  Who is a person?

  What is an individual?

  What is true courage?

  George had once told Matt about the Krakor, the mythological Tenctonese Godzilla, half devil, half dragon, the eternal monster. Somehow, in a past no one could remember, the legend began among slave mothers to frighten their children away from the ship’s power decks, which were thought to
be dangerous. The Krakor walks, the beast flies, there’s no stopping it if you set foot in its forbidden land. Somehow Matt Sikes felt as though he were entering the beast’s lair.

  Matt pulled his mind back to the present and frowned as he heard a key rattling in the lock. The sound was followed by Cathy’s voice. “Matt? I’m home.”

  He turned away from the mirror and stood in the bedroom’s doorway. Cathy was closing the door to the apartment, and for just a moment her spotted baldness—her alienness—jarred him. He knew a great deal about the person beyond the physical form or once thought he did. But all one ever knows about another is from what the person says and does, and everyone, Tenct and human both, can lie and trick, and from the best of motives. At the top of the list of noble motives was true love, despite the truth that true love cannot survive a lie, which means I’m in big trouble, thought Matt. He hardly ever let anyone know how he really felt about anything.

  Cathy turned from the door and saw Matt. Her full lips broke immediately into a smile that immediately faded as she caught the expression on his face. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Matt answered.

  “Fine,” she repeated. “Does fine still stand for ‘Frustrated, Insane, Neurotic, and Emotional’?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “That time you came back from that Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting. You heard someone there say that ‘fine’ in response to the question ‘How are you?’ means ‘Frustrated, Insane, Neurotic, and Emotional.’ In other words, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ ”

  “Look, Cath, all it means to me is that I’m doing fine; okay, marvy, hunky-dory.”

  “Maybe you should tell your face.”