Collected Stories

by Lewis Shiner

  A saucer perched on narrow stilts over the sand. Landon had never been so close to one before. Its sheer size was overwhelming, at least a hundred feet in diameter. The entire surface glowed with a milky light.

  Five men on motorcycles circled the saucer. They wore long hair and sleeveless denim jackets, their faces sunburned and expressionless. As Landon watched they wrestled their machines over the same rutted circles in the sand, again and again.

  The riders ignored Landon as he walked toward the single abandoned motorcycle parked under the edge of the saucer. He climbed a flight of stairs into the underside of the ship, holding his gun like a talisman in front of him. The ladder opened into a small corridor, and Landon found himself in a curving passageway that followed the outside wall. The roar of the motorcycles and the high-pitched whine had both faded once he was inside and now he could hear the muffled tones of a human voice.

  The luminous wall to his left suddenly gave out and Landon looked into the control room of the saucer. The walls were covered with cryptic designs and the air smelled like mushrooms. In the center of the floor was a raised platform; two figures were struggling behind it. Landon ran around the platform and pulled Byron off the alien creature, pinning his arms behind his back. Byron fought him for a full two minutes, the power of his anger seemingly endless. At last his strength gave out and Landon tied the kid’s arms with his own jacket.

  The gnarled alien watched the process with black, expressionless eyes. Landon caught himself staring at the creature, reminded of a crumbling sandstone sculpture. He forced himself to look away and wrestled Byron out of the saucer.

  The other riders were still circling. The pitch of the saucer’s whine climbed threateningly and Landon sensed it was about to explode. Byron struggled free, shrugged out of the jacket, and ran for his motorcycle.

  “Leave it,” Landon shouted, unable even to hear himself. It was hopeless. He ran for the shelter of the nearest dune. He got over it and slid down the far side on hands and knees. He burrowed into the loose sand and faced away from the saucer, coughing and gasping for air. In the last moment before the explosion he saw Byron’s motorcycle silhouetted against the sky. It shot over the crest of the dune and tumbled gently into the sand at Landon’s feet, throwing the kid harmlessly to one side.

  Another motorcycle followed, and was caught in midair by the full force of the blast. There was an instant of total light, then absolute darkness. When Landon was able to open his eyes again, there was no trace of the machine or the rider.

  He pulled Byron into a fireman’s carry, wondering if they had been hopelessly irradiated. It made little difference. The boy made a few weak gestures of resistance, then collapsed across Landon’s shoulders.

  “Why?” Byron shouted, slamming a beer bottle into the wall. “What’s stopping me? Who makes these rules that I’m breaking? The saucer men, that can’t even talk? The police, that are too scared shitless to do anything? The fucking executives in their little toy cars? Tell me!”

  The kid’s anger seemed to have been building over the months, steadily, inexorably, since they’d first found him in the decaying café.

  Three sullen girls sat on the floor near him, paying no attention to Landon at all. One chewed gum, another patiently put her hair in a high pony tail. “It’s me,” Landon said. “You’re putting my life on the line when you push things so hard. Mine and Kristen’s both.”

  “If you can’t take the pressure,” Byron said, his voice suddenly quiet, “maybe you’re just too old.”

  Landon got up from the bed and pulled on his trousers. Kristen dozed in a narrow band of sunlight, relaxed now, an arm behind her head, displaying the muscles of her ribcage.

  Landon slipped on his stained white shirt, combed through his thinning hair with water from a pan in the bathroom. Then, almost as an afterthought, he buckled on his holstered gun.

  The fading sunlight drew him outside. A mosquito sang past his ear and he idly waved it away. He took a pint of whiskey out of the car and stretched out on a lounge chair by the pool. Strange columnar mosses grew in the dark water, the beginnings of a new evolutionary cycle. Landon drank, shifting as one of the frayed vinyl straps gave way under his weight. The warmth of the whiskey met the heat of the sun somewhere in his abdomen and radiated away into space. A single bird whistled in the distance.

  Gradually he became aware of a new sound, close to the scream of a saucer, but more prolonged. It grew into a siren, and Landon turned his head to see a police car moving toward him from the north.

  He capped the bottle of whiskey and sat up, thinking of Kristen, vulnerable in the motel room. As he got to his feet he saw Byron leaning against the door to his cabin. He wore a black T-shirt, leather jacket, and jeans, his glasses hanging from one hand. A huge reefer dangled from his lips. He wore the Peacemaker strapped low on his leg, and his eyes were wary and exhausted.

  Landon felt the pull of destiny, a movement of forces in planes perpendicular to his own. The approaching car, the tense, expectant figure of Byron, the murky pool at his feet, all seemed part of a ritual, a tension in the universe that had to be worked out.

  The lower limb of the sun touched the ocean and the world turned red. Light from the police car streaked the evening as two men got out, carrying lever action rifles. Their khaki uniforms glowed ruddy gold in the dying sunlight.

  Finally one of the cops said, “Put your guns in the dirt.” Landon held himself perfectly still.

  Suddenly one of Byron’s girls walked out the motel room. The contours of her body were clearly visible through her sweatshirt, contemptuous of the law, threatening civilization.

  “Hold it,” one of the cops said.

  The girl knelt by the pool, dipping one hand in the fecund water. “Fuck you,” she said, not looking up.

  The cop raised his rifle, working the lever in short, nervous spasms. “Halt, I said!” His anguished voice reminded Landon of Byron. The girl ignored him, watching the spreading ripples.

  The bullet took her in the head, scattering fragments of her skull and whitish brain tissue over the pool. Landon, only a few feet away, stared at her gushing blood in horrid fascination. He pulled out his pistol in a kind of daze and turned to see Byron with his Peacemaker already out. The kid opened up, cocking the pistol with the flat of his left hand as fast as he fired. The two cops seemed to wait for the shots to tear into them, spinning with the heavy impacts, dust splashing up over them as they hit the ground.

  Kristen stood in the open door of her room, wearing a threadbare white cotton shift, still unbuttoned. Her lips formed an unspoken question, then she went back inside. Landon heard the sound of drawers opening and shutting, the rustle of clothes.

  Byron spat the stub of his reefer into the dirt and picked up his glasses from where he’d let them fall. He turned the collar of his jacket up, rolling his shoulders in a protective gesture. As he got into his sports car he held Landon’s eyes for a long moment. Then he roared off onto the highway, his tires grazing the head of one of the dead policemen.

  Landon left the girl’s body by the pool and began loading his things into the Pontiac.

  A few days later, swinging south toward Yuma, they passed by the old motel. Hundreds of people, most in their early teens, wandered through the ruins, their faces full of confusion and the gathering darkness.

  On the last day of September Landon rode into town with Kristen for supplies. He waited in the car as the daylight faded, his feet propped up on the dashboard. Coughing gently, he closed his eyes and listened to the crickets and the evening breeze in the palms. The crunch of gravel startled him and he looked up to see what must have been fifty grey-suited executives surrounding him.

  The fear that finally came over him was the result of the failure of his imagination. It had not begun to prepare him for what he saw. The men stood with easy authority, their meekness and submission gone without a trace. They carried heavy weapons that Landon had never seen before, intricate masses of tubing and
plastic that conjured death and burning.

  One of them stepped forward. He was empty handed, authoritative. “Where’s the kid?” he said.

  Landon shrugged. “We haven’t seen him for a week.” Kristen came out onto the sidewalk and Landon watched the fear and puzzlement spread over her face.

  Another gray-suited figure pushed his way through the crowd and addressed the empty-handed man. “We’ve searched the town, J.L. He’s not here,”

  J.L. nodded and looked at Landon. “Where would he have gone?”

  “Anywhere,” Landon said, struggling for equilibrium. “No place.”

  The man turned to Kristen, still standing in the doorway. “What about you?”

  Kristen stared back, wordless, hostile.

  Another man pushed through. “They’ve located him, J.L. He’s driving a sports car up the coast, towards New Elay. Some foreign job, silver, with numbers on the side.”

  “Green’s outfit is up there. Have them take him before he gets to town. It shouldn’t be hard, in this light. And tell him to make it look like an accident. It’ll save trouble in the long run.”

  “The saucers,” Landon said.

  “What?” J.L. said.

  Landon pointed to the weapons, the communicators. “You made a deal. You sold out the rest of the human race so you could keep on going the way you were. That’s why your buildings and your cars never get hit by the saucers. Because you sold the rest of us out and now they let you run things. What did you give them? Women and young boys? Gasoline? Grey flannel suits?”

  One of the junior executives reached over and slapped Landon across the mouth. J.L. shook his head and the man stepped back. “Get out of here,” J.L. said. “We’re through with you.”

  Kristen said, “You’re letting us go?”

  “Do you think,” J.L. said, “that we couldn’t have taken you any time we wanted? That if we want you again we won’t be able to find you? We don’t care about you. It’s the kid that’s dangerous. You’re just a part of the scenery. Just part of California.”

  “California’s gone,” Landon said, tasting blood. “It’s on the bottom of the ocean.”

  For the first time Landon saw a hint of emotion in the man. “No,” he said. “Not as long as we have a use for it. As long as there’s a coast, there’ll be a California.”

  “The king is dead,” Landon said. “Long live the king.”

  He was talking to the sunset. The men were gone and Kristen sat on the hood of the car, smoking and looking out to sea.

  From somewhere beyond the ragged palm trees came the screaming of sea birds.

  Sticks

  He had a 12” Sony black-and-white, tuned to MTV, that sat on a chair at the end of the bed. He could barely hear it over the fan in the window. He sat in the middle of the bed because of the sag, drumming along absently to Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love.”

  The sticks were Regal Tip 5Bs. They were thinner than 2Bs—marching band sticks—but almost as long. Over the years Stan had moved farther out over the ends. Now the butts of the sticks fit into the heels of his palms, about an inch up from the wrist. He flipped the right stick away when the phone rang.

  “Stan, dude!” a voice said. “You want to work tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, probably. What have you got, Darryl? You don’t sound right.”

  “Does the name Keven Stacey mean anything to you?”

  “Wait a minute.” Stan switched the phone to his other ear. “Did you say Keven Stacey? As in Foolsgold, Keven Stacey? She’s going to record at CSR?”

  “You heard me.” Stan could see Darryl sitting in the control room, feet up on the console, wearing double-knit slacks and a T-shirt, sweat coming up on his balding forehead.

  “This is some kind of bullshit, right? She’s coming in for a jingle or a PSA.”

  “No bullshit, Stanley. She’s cutting a track for a solo album she’s going to pitch to Warner’s. Not a demo, but a real, honest-to-Christ track. Probably a single. Now if you’re not interested, there’s plenty of other drummers in LA...”

  “I’m interested. I just don’t understand why she wants to fuck with a rinky-dink studio like yours. No offense.”

  “Don’t harsh me, bud. She’s hot. She’s got a song and she wants to put it in the can. Everybody else is booked. You try to get into Record One or Sunset Sound. Not for six months you won’t get in. Even if you’re Keven Stacey. You listening, Stan?” He heard Darryl hitting the phone on the edge of the console. “That’s the Big Time, dude. Knocking on your door.”

  Just the night before, Stan had watched Foolsgold in concert on HBO. Everybody knew the story. Keven used to fuck the guitar player and they broke up. It was ugly and they spread it all over the Goldrush album. It was soap opera on vinyl and the public ate it up.

  Stan too.

  The set was blue-lit and smoky, so hot that the drummer looked like he’d been watered down with a garden hose. Every time the lead player snapped his head back the sweat flew off like spray from a breaking wave.

  Keven stood in the middle of the stage, holding a thin white jacket around her shoulders like there was a chill in the air. When she sang she held on to the mike stand with both hands, swaying a little as the music thundered over her. Her eyes didn’t go with the rest of her face, the teased yellow hair, fine as fiberglass, the thin model’s nose, the carefully painted mouth. The eyes were murky and brown and looked like they were connected to brains and a sense of humor. And something else, passion and something more. A kind of conviction. It made Stan believe every word she sang.

  Stan finished his Dr. Pepper and went into Studio B. The rest of Darryl’s first-string house band was already there, working out their nerves in a quiet, strangely frenzied jam. Stan had turned over his drums to Dr. Jackson Sax, one of the more underrated reed players in the city and a decent amateur on a trap set. Jackson’s trademark was a dark suit and a pork-pie hat that made him look like a cross between a preacher and a plain-clothes cop. Stan was one of the few people he ever talked to. Nobody knew if he was crazy or just cultivating an image.

  Stan himself liked to keep it simple. He was wearing a new pair of Lee Riders and a long-sleeved white shirt. The shirt set off the dark skin and straight black hair he’d inherited from his half-breed Comanche father. He had two new pairs of Regal Tip 5Bs in his back pocket and white Converse All-Stars on his feet, the better to grip the pedals.

  The drums were set up in a kind of elevated garden gazebo against one wall. There were boom mikes on all sides and a wooden rail across the front. If they had to they could move in wheeled walls of acoustical tile and isolate him completely from the mix. Stan leaned with his right foot up against the back wall.

  There was some action in the control booth and the music staggered and died. Gregg Rosen had showed up so now everybody was looking for Keven. Rosen was her producer and also her boyfriend, if you paid attention to the gossip. Which Stan did. The glass in the booth was tinted and there was a lot of glare, but Stan could make out a Motley Crue T-shirt, purple jams, and glasses on a gold chain. Rosen’s hair was crewcut on top and long enough at the sides to hit his shoulders.

  They each gave Rosen some preliminary levels and then cooked for a couple of minutes. Rosen came out on the floor and moved a couple of microphones. Darryl got on the intercom from the control room and told them to shut up for a minute. He played back what he’d just taped and WhiteBread Walker, the albino keyboard player, started playing fills against the tape.

  “Sounds okay,” Rosen said.

  “Uh, listen,” Stan said. “I think the hi-hat’s overmodulating.”

  Rosen stared at him for a good five seconds. The tape ran out and the studio got very quiet. Finally Rosen circled one finger in the air for a replay. The tape ran and then Darryl came on the speakers, “Uh, Gregg, I think the top end is, uh, breaking up a little on that hi-hat.”

  “Well, fix the fucking thing,” Rosen said.

  He walked out. As soon as the soundpr
oof door closed there were a few low whistles and some applause. Stan leaned over until his cheek rested against the cool plastic skin of his riding tom. He could feel all the dents his sticks had left in it. Wonderful, he thought. We haven’t even started and I’ve already pissed off the top producer in LA.

  When Rosen came back, Keven was with him.

  Jorge Martin, the 15-year-old boy wonder, fiddled with the tailpiece on his Kramer. WhiteBread pretended to hear something wrong with the high E on his electric piano. Art, the bass player, cleaned his glasses. Stan just went ahead and stared at her, but tried to make it a nice kind of stare.

  She was small. He’d known that, but the fluorescent lights made her seem terribly fragile. She wore high heeled boots, jeans rolled up tight at the cuffs, a fringe jacket and a white ribbed tank top. She looked around at the setup, nodding, working on her lower lip with her teeth. Finally her eyes met Stan’s, just for a second. The rest of the room went out of focus. Stan tried to smile back at her and ended up looking down at his snare. He had a folded-up piece of newspaper duct-taped off to one side of the head to kill overtones. The tape was coming loose. He smoothed the tape with his thumbnail until he was sure she wasn’t looking at him any more and he could breathe again.

  “The song is called ‘Sticks,’” she said. She stood in front of WhiteBread’s Fender Rhodes, her hands jammed nervously into her jacket pockets. “I don’t have a demo or anything. Sorry. But it’s pretty simple. Basically what I want is a real African sound, lots of drums, lots of backing vocals, chanting, all like that. Okay. Well, this is what it sounds like.”

  She started playing. Stan was disarmed by her shyness. On the other hand she was not kidding around with the piano. She had both hands on the keys and she pumped out a driving rhythm with a solid hook. She started singing. Suddenly she wasn’t a skinny, shy little blonde any more. She was Keven Stacey. Everybody in the room knew it.