"Pohl, Frederick - The Way It Was" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)By Frederik Pohl Version 1.0
This is the third kiss of death story in this volume.
This one I was maneuvered into by that secret master
of us all, Harlan Ellison. He called me up one day to
tell me there was a new magazine to be published by
Bob Guccione-not Omni; it was long before Omni-
whose editor, he said, was slavering to have a short
article on the future written by me. Well, short articles
on the future I sneeze out at the slightest request, and
the money was good; when the editor called a little
later, I told her I'd be glad to do it. We talked a little bit
about subject matter, and I sat down to write it. I was
typing happily along when the phone rang again. Had
I understood, she wanted to know, that by "piece' she
meant fiction piece-specifically, not an article but a
short story? I had not. I wouldn't have started on the
thing if I had. Still, in the course of thinking about the
themes I wanted to touch on in the article I had dreamed
up what seemed to me a brand-new aspect of a long considered
subject. So I said, all right, I'll do a story.. . and
did.. and then, what do you know, the new magazine
died stillborn. The story languished in Bob Guccione's
files for a year or two until he started another new
magazine. This one was called Viva, and my story
appeared in its first issue. But this time the Pharaoh's
curse had not yet finished its work. Viva's first issue
was also its last, and this time I had slain not one but
two magazines with a single story.
This is the way it was with Stan and Evanie: they
fell in love. When Stan came out of the waking-up room
at Blue Balls, Evanie was there, pretty and new on the
job and a little flustered, to give him his check and see
that everything was all right. One thing led to another.
An hour later they were lying in the long grass at the foot
of a waterfall, gently stoned, skin bare on the warm, soft
turf, listening to Rorschach Rock while sweet bunnies and
gentle chipmunks peered at them from the edges of the
lawn.
It was like the first time for both of them, only better,
because they each knew every move the other was going
to make and leapt to meet each other; there was never
skin softer or smoother than Evanie's, never a breast as
firm. Stan stayed hard inside her for fifty-four minutes,
never impatient, bringing her with joy through gasps and
shudders until both of them had had it all and they lay
spent and contented among the violets. It was like the
first time, because it was always like the first time; and,
as always, the first they knew that it was over was when
the waterfall stopped and the bunnies froze in midhop.
"Oh," said Evanie drowsily, "shit. She sat up and
leaned away from him, scratching the inside of her thigh.
"I guess I better get back to work, Sam.
"Stan.
"It was really nice, though, Stan.
"Yeah. Now that the breezes had stopped, too, Stan
became aware of the way they smelled. In the city outside
this room he would never have noticed it, but after the
perfumed flowers it was a bring-down, and now that the
soft sunlight was off, the lawn was only CelloTurf again
and it itched.
The next couple was already waiting in the entry room.
Stan and Evanie nodded to them and pushed their checks
into the locker slots. As they got dressed Stan said, "I'd
really like to do this again some time.
"Zip me up, will you?
"No, I mean it, Evanie.
She patted his shoulder absently and pushed the door
open. They walked out into the city, and the heat and the
stink smote them. Behind them the liquid-crystal sign
glowed its message:
Harry's Place
30 Studsy Sex Spectaculars 30
The colors flowed into Super-Stud embracing the tenderest
blond beauty who ever lived, with waving palms dissolving
into mirrored walls behind them.
"Thanks, Stan. I'll see you.
He put out his hand to stop her. "I seriously mean I
want to do it again, Evanie.
"But it's so expensive!
"I've got a thousand dollars a week, he said proudly.
"I can afford it now, what the hell?
She was suddenly blinded with tears. "And how do
you get it'? she sobbed. No! Let go of my arm, Stan.
I've got to go.
He called after her, sweet little rump jouncing under
the hem of the work-mini as she hurried away. but she
didn't look back. Perplexed-and, he realized, hungry-
he pushed his way through the crowded hall to a fast-
food. "Fuck her," he said to the cashier as he pushed his
credit card into its slot, but it was only a money machine
and did not reply.
Two hours later he was still sitting at the same table
in the fast-food, but he had switched from food to drink.
"I don't have to eat in a joint like this, he told the man
across from him. The man had been sitting there for ten
minutes, nursing a cup of imitation coffee and eying Stan's
collection of empty glasses. He brightened up.
"Yeah. I could tell that by looking at you. You're used
to better places, right, Mac?
"I damn am.
"You can always tell somebody with, you know, some
kind of status. It's the way you sit there, even.
"Right, said Stan. "Want a drink?
The man looked at the flickering digits on the wall
clock. "Well, he said, "I really ought to be getting
along- Which was doubtful; he was Welfare from clipped
head to fabric shoes, nothing to do but wait for Thursday
(payday), just the way Stan had been most of his life.
Stan's face must have showed what he was thinking; the
man said quickly, "Still, I wouldn't mind a beer.
Stan pushed his card into the cashier and read out the
total glumly; after the beer, the readout showed he had
$766.22 left in his account. Harry's Place wasn't cheap.
"I just came from Harry's, he said. "You ever been
there? Nice little screwery, if the company's right.
"I bet she was, huh?
"You won that bet. Prettiest little thing you ever saw.
I met her at... I met her where we both work.
"I had a job, the man said enviously. "What kind of
work do you do'?
"Parts. What about your job?
"Well, it was in personal service. I worked up in the
penthouse areas when I was younger. Sort of general
handyman. I used to go to places like Harry's all the time.
Stud farms, casinos, travel-I've been skiing, two or three
times. He knocked back the rest of his beer and pushed
the empty container absentmindedly into the middle of
the table. "Yeah, you can have a pretty good life, when
you have a job. What kind of parts do you mean?
"All different ones. The forget-it shots were wearing
off, the selective proteins that numbed the sense of boredom
and made everything seem fresh and exciting, even
sex, and Stan was rapidly tiring of his company. Funnily,
he wasn't tiring of Evanie. In his not particularly adventurous
life she was probably the five- or six-hundredth
girl he'd screwed, and the fourth or fifth he had taken to
Harry's, after he found out how to get a thousand dollars
a week for practically nothing, but there was something
about her that stuck in his mind. No, not in his mind; he
could feel a crawling between his thighs when he thought
of her, even with the forget-it wearing off and being in
this crummy joint.
The Welfare man saw his next free beer wriggling off
the hook. "Let me tell you what it's like, up in the high-
rent district, he said. "You know they've got swimming
pools bigger than this whole restaurant, water so clean
you'd think it was perfume? Dances, with live orchestras?
"I heard.
"It isn't the same, just hearing it or seeing it on the
tube; you have to be there. Friend, the happiest days of
my life were when I was up there. The women wore
clothes that lit up, and turned peekaboo, and just hugged
their little butts like skin. Just to look at them was enough!
Almost enough. And half of them were just begging to
get balled by the hired help, beds you wouldn't believe,
all the grass and fine wine you could handle-
"You talked me into it, Stan said cruelly. "I think I'll
head up there for a visit now.
It wasn't exactly a lie, he told himself. He really could
go up there, at least long enough to spend the rest of his
thousand dollars in one of the restaurants looking out into
the clouds over the ocean; and maybe he would.
* * *
Plenty of money in the balance, nothing to do Stan
wandered through the midlevel streets of the city, reminding
himself that anything he saw he could buy if he
wanted to. This was all Welfare country; not a soul in
sight that had had a dime in capital or a dollar's pay in
ten years. He wasted a few dollars in a game parlor.
bought himself a new wristlet because it looked like something
Evanie would appreciate. stopped to buy some popsoy to give to
a couple of nice-looking, hungry-looking
kids but decided against it-you never knew when they
might threaten to call the fuzz for molesting them if you
didn't pay off. That wasn't his style; all he wanted to
molest was a pretty lady. There was plenty of that around.
too, and he cased the available material carefully without
seeing anything that took his fancy.
What took his fancy was Evanie.
But what was the use of that, when she let him spend
two and a half big bills in Harry's Place and then took off
without even saying she'd see him again? Most girls appreciated
that kind of thing a little more. That was half
the best part of it, not just the fucking but taking her to
a place your average working man couldn't afford more
than twice a year and your Welfare stiff couldn't get inside
the door of.
He found he was near an observation gallery, and
pushed his card into the admissions turnstile-five dollars
to look out the window!-and strolled out. Even there it
was crowded, mostly couples and cops, the couples to
make out in some place other than their dormitories and
the cops to keep them from it.
He stood looking over Lower New York Bay through
the smoggy clouds, without seeing much that interested
him. The high walls of Jersey City were lighting up as it
got dark, and far out past Sandy Hook he could see the
lights of the offshore oil condominiums, It was the third
time he had been there in three days. and it wasn't worth
it. It was only worth it when you couldn't afford it; the
reality was a waste of time.
All the things they used to talk about in the dorms,
they were true enough. Having a job wasn't just getting
a paycheck. Having a job was a thing to organize your
life around. It was something to do. Having a job was
thirty-two hours a week when you felt it mattered, some
way or another, whether you were in one place or some
different place.
Having ajob was a lot better than being in parts, even
though the pay there was all you could want.
Shortly before the end of the shift he went up to the
Blue Balls office. The sign didn't say that, the sign said:
Associated Medical Services
but everyone knew it by the other name. Usually he didn't
like to hang around there, but apart from being where he
got his money, it was also where Evanie worked. The
trouble with that was that he hadn't caught her last name.
Stan walked in through the door as though he had never
been there before, and a receptionist smiled and said,
"Good evening, sir. One of our account executives will
be with you right away.
"I just wanted to ask you-
"Yes, sir. It's company policy that our account executives
give out all information. Here you are, Mr. Medway is ready to see you.
Pale, slim Mr. Medwav in a sober scarlet jacket, smiling at the
door, was waving him in. "Welcome to
TransParts, sir. Please sit down. Would you care for a
drink? Coffee? A Coke?
"I just wanted to ask you something.
"Certainly, sir! But before that, let me congratulate
you on your civic spirit. Whatever you decide-and remember,
TransParts will not attempt to influence your
decision in any way-just the fact that you came here
shows that you are an extraordinary person. Well. Let
me tell you a little about us. TransParts supplies all of the
surgical facilities in the Greater New York area with organs for
transplant. Under Title Seven, Federal Statute
683, we are authorized to accept and process whole-body
donations from any competent adult, and to reward the
donor to the extent of fifty thousand dollars-assuming,
of course, that the donor meets our rather rigid physical
standards. But looking at you, sir, you seem the picture
of health!
"That wasn't what-
"No outright sale, eh? twinkled Mr. Medway, stroking his
lightly graying sideburns. "I don't blame you for
that! Well, I think I know what you would like. We can
offer you one thousand dollars for what is, essentially, a
fifty-to-one chance that you will walk out of this office
with everything you had when you came in, plus our
cheek for a thousand deposited direct to your credit account.
The procedure? Simplicity itself. We bring you to
a very comfortable room and present you with a tray
containing fifty sealed bottles of a very fine liqueur. Each
of them has something added. Forty-nine of them contain
a mild sleeping potion; you fall asleep; eight hours later
you wake up, you walk out. The fiftieth-well, sir, that's
the gamble, eh? And you can come back and repeat this
process every week if you like. Think of that! A guaranteed
income, a thousand dollars a week for life! Why,
we have clients who have been living off the fat of the
land for years! if you'll let me have your credit card, for
identification purposes-
It was easier to do it than to argue. Stan handed it
over, while Mr. Medway babbled on. "I'm sure you know,
sir, that TransParts is officially licensed by the Federal
government. We operate under the most rigid inspection
possible. If you fear that there might be some-what shall
I say? tinkering'?-with the odds, let me tell you that our
license would be pulled in a minute. We wouldn't dare!
No, it's a fair draw and-
He stopped, staring at the card reader.
He looked up at Stan, his expression ugly. "What the
fuck, man? You're already on our books!
"I know that.
"Then what the hell are you doing here?
"I just wanted to ask you a question.
"Ask!
"There's a girl, said Stan. "Her name's Evanie.
I.. . wanted to get in touch with her. She works here.
Mr. Medway stared at him for a minute, then laughed.
He tossed Stan's credit card back and punched a combination on his
desk top. "Yeah, he said, reading. "She's
in Post-Session Care, right? She's just about to go off
duty. You can probably catch her at the employees' entrance.
The most astonishing thing about Evanie was, she still
looked good. A little depressed, but good. When she caught
sight of Stan her face flickered into a smile, then became
sadder than ever.
"Hi, Evanie.
"Hey, Stan.
He put his hand on her shoulder, then pulled her to
him and kissed her deep and long. He didn't let go, and
she smiled up at him. "Don't you ever wear out, Stan?
"I'm the picture of health. Want to do something,
Evanie? We could go back and try out one of the other
rooms at Harry's.
"Stan, it's crazy to waste your money like that.
"Why is it crazy? That's what I get it for, to spend it.
If I run out, I go back and get some more.
"Maybe you get some more. Maybe you never come
out again, and next week some guy on the two-hundredand-fiftieth
floor's wearing your balls.
He winced and backed away, and saw that she was
near tears again. "Oh, Stan, I hate to think of you in
there.
"Why me? You work there!
"That's different, I know I'll be coming out at the end
of the day. You-do you know what they do to you in
there, when you lose, I mean?
"For Christ's sake, Evanie, of course I know. It's an
organ bank. if I lose . . if I lose that's the last I know,
right? I just don't wake up the next morning. And they
take me apart and heal sick people with my parts, heart
here, lungs there, anywhere somebody needs a transplant.
What's wrong with that'? He knew he was repeating what
the account executive had been saying, all the while he
was signing up, but he went on anyway. "My life might
save, I don't know, ten or twenty other lives, and that's
a fair rate of exchange. And meanwhile I'm off Welfare!
I've got a few dollars in my pocket, I can live like a human
being-
"Stan, she said, "hold still.
"What are you doing? She had taken something out
of her purse, was clipping it to his tunic.
"That's my ID badge, it'll get you past if they don't
look at it too closely. Me they know. I'm going to show
you what Blue Balls looks like from the inside.
He didn't have the heart for Harry's Place. But neither
of them wanted to go back to their dorms, so they wound
up in a cramped but not awful hotel room, rented, to the
desk clerk's surprise, for the whole night. It had a good-
sized bed, if nothing else. At first Stan didn't have the
heart for sex, either, or even for talking, but after a while
in the gentle dark with Evanie warm and tender beside
him, his spirits rose. They screwed and drowsed, whispered and
explored each other, and drowsed again.
And when it was nearly time to get up and get out
Evanie said, "Stan, I really like you, and you turn me on
better than anybody else I ever knew.
"Me, too, Evanie. I wouldn't have believed it. Even
here, without the sets, without the forget-it, it's as good
as Harry's Place with anybody else.
"Don't say that, Stan, you didn't let me finish. It's no
good, Stan. I'm not going to see you again.
Fist to the solar plexus, when he hadn't been expecting
an attack. He got his breath. "Evanie, that doesn't make
sense.
"To me it makes sense. Every dollar you spend, it's a
piece of your body. What did it cost you for the night, a
hundred dollars? That brings you a hundred dollars closer
to the time you go back to Blue Balls and take your chances
again. I can't stand that, Stan, it'll drive me up the wall
if I let it.
"I'm willing to take the chance.
"I'm not! Stan, don't you remember what Ijust showed
you? The used-up stiffs with nothing left? You want to
be like that? One leg, a head without the eyes or ears,
plastic tubing where your gut used to be, pumping along
on a heart-lung machine until somebody decides there's
not enough left of you to sell and they pull the plug?
Stan winced; he had been devoting a lot of his attention
that whole night to trying to forget all that. "They weren't
all like that, he protested. "Some of them looked just
fine! Like they were only asleep.
"Asleep! Yeah, they keep some going-rare blood
types, they just keep them on the machine to make blood
to sell, for a while anyway. But they're not asleep. When
you do it to a frog you call it 'pithing'; the brain's disconnected,
there's nothing there but a vegetable. And
even so, you didn't look too close, because they take off
all the spare parts they can anyway. What's a blood factory need with a weenie, Stan? But some old guy'll pay plenty of money for it. You think I like it when
I feel you inside me like that, thinking that same thing might be in
me some other time but with some other guy on the other
end of it?
"Oh, hell, Evanie-
"At least you're a man, she said morosely. "You see
those pregnant women in the shops? They're making babies for somebody.
Of course, they don't feel anything,
because they're pithed, too. But I feel. I look at them and
think about myself being there, after somebody has reached
way up inside me with a light pipe and a flexible forceps
and pulled out my own ovum and thrown it away and
stuck in some other woman's ovum. And then they fertilize it
with sperm from her husband or her boy friend
or whoever- She pushed her pillow up and sat higher,
looking down at him. "If you're the customer it's okay.
You get the baby and you don't have to pay off in morning
sickness or looking funny. Just in money. Daddy turns in
a sperm sample, Mom picks out a nice-looking breeder
female from the photograph album-of course, the picture
shows her the way she used to be, not the way she
is now. A couple quick squirts on the day shift and nine
months later the hulk on the heart-lung machine squeezes
out Junior for you.
"Evanie-
"So I can't take it, Stan. If we had some real money,
you know, enough for six months or so. . . if you had a
job. . . But that's not the way it is. My job won't keep us
both, it barely keeps me off Welfare. I don't want to go
back to living on the fortieth floor.
"I don't want you to do that.
"And I know you can't get a job. Stan, I'm not blaming
you. I'm just telling you what I can take, and this is past
it.
"How did you get the job, Evanie?
"I laid the right people, what did you think?
"Oh. He scratched uncomfortably. "Do you suppose
I-
"Who are you going to screw, Mr. Medway? Any of
the account execs, male or female? They don't need you,
Stan. No offense. You're a real great guy, you know I
think you are. But that was just luck, and a section chief
who liked young chicks, and it won't happen again in a
million years. Those guys in the upper brackets at Blue
Balls, they don't just get salaries, they get a commission-
for keeping you on the hook, Stan, for making sure you
come in and take your bottle of fluid every week. They
go to school for that, psychology, salesmanship; once
they've got the degree they're set for life, and they can
buy whatever they want. Even you, if they wanted you
bad enough, a lot cheaper than putting you on the payroll.
So this is it, Stan. I hope I never see you again, especially
at work.
He kept the room an extra day, the hell with the expense,
and got a decent sleep, and followed it up with a
shower, clean clothes from the slot machines, and the
best meal he could find that didn't take more than half an
hour to eat. Half an hour was as long as he was sure his
courage would hold out; and then he took the transit elevator
up to the Blue Balls office. "I want to talk to
Medway, he told the receptionist.
"Mr. Medway? I'm afraid he's with a client just now,
but one of our other account executives...
"Medway. Tell him he's got a live one.
When Mr. Medway appeared, it took him a moment
to recognize Stan. "Oh, the one who was looking for the
girl. Didn't she work out? You want to pick another?
"No, Mr. Medway, I want to make a deal. I want to
take twenty bottles, one after another. I walk out of here
with twenty thousand dollars or you get to keep the bod.
Medway sank back behind his desk, thumbs in his
armpits, looking at Stan. "You're a real gambler, he said
admiringly. "But you can't do that. It'd kill you. Twenty
is an overdose.
"I'll take that chance, Medway. I want the money. I
want to take it and he hesitated "...all right, I want
to take it and go to school and train for your job. I want
real money, Medway.
"Wow, said Medway softly. "I have to say I admire
your spirit. Well, you can't do it the way you say, but
TransParts is willing to roll the dice with any of its clients,
any stakes, just so it's a fair shot. How about this. You
get your choice of two bottles. One puts you to sleep for
the night, the other. . . that's a fifty-fifty chance, and what
you get if you win is twenty-five thousand dollars. Or if
you're really hot, you can take the long shot. The same
fifty bottles as always. Only this time only one of them
is just a sleeping pill. All the other forty-nine are too-bad-
Charlie. That's a forty-nine-to-one shot, according to the
arithmetic, but TransParts is willing to absorb the difference,
so if you win that one, you walk away with fifty
thou. You can even get a hundred to one if you want it,
or a thousand. You name it. We'll set it up, just so the
arithmetic works out.
A thousand to one! My God, a million dollars! But to
have only one chance in a thousand of surviving. If I
take the twenty-five, he said.
"Good bet, nodded Medway. "When?
"Right now.
Medway punched a combination into his desk top and
stood up. "Come on, they'll have it ready for you by the
time we get there. And so they did, the standard room
with its single bed and vase of flowers, and on the sideboard the little tray of bottles; but this time there were
only two on it.
You could spend the whole night arguing which is which,
Stan thought grayly, and reached out for the nearer. He
flipped off the top and drank it down. "Might as well get
a good night's sleep, he said, turning toward the bed.
"So long, Medway.
He didn't look around as the account executive went
out, and so he didn't see that someone had come in, until
she said, "I really liked you, Stan. I mean it.
He turned around, feet tingling in his pants legs.
"Evanie!
"Go ahead, Stan, get into bed. You'll be feeling it in
a minute.
"I know. And he was, the same warm whirling that
he had felt every other time. That was good. But not really
good, he thought, the killer dose would feel the same going
down, he just wouldn't ever wake up. He tried a pleasantry.
"I thought maybe you were coming to... to. .
The words got harder and harder to get out, but she
knew what he meant. "Not this time, sweetie, she said,
drawing the cover over him. I just came in because I
wanted to tell you two things. By Frederik Pohl Version 1.0
This is the third kiss of death story in this volume.
This one I was maneuvered into by that secret master
of us all, Harlan Ellison. He called me up one day to
tell me there was a new magazine to be published by
Bob Guccione-not Omni; it was long before Omni-
whose editor, he said, was slavering to have a short
article on the future written by me. Well, short articles
on the future I sneeze out at the slightest request, and
the money was good; when the editor called a little
later, I told her I'd be glad to do it. We talked a little bit
about subject matter, and I sat down to write it. I was
typing happily along when the phone rang again. Had
I understood, she wanted to know, that by "piece' she
meant fiction piece-specifically, not an article but a
short story? I had not. I wouldn't have started on the
thing if I had. Still, in the course of thinking about the
themes I wanted to touch on in the article I had dreamed
up what seemed to me a brand-new aspect of a long considered
subject. So I said, all right, I'll do a story.. . and
did.. and then, what do you know, the new magazine
died stillborn. The story languished in Bob Guccione's
files for a year or two until he started another new
magazine. This one was called Viva, and my story
appeared in its first issue. But this time the Pharaoh's
curse had not yet finished its work. Viva's first issue
was also its last, and this time I had slain not one but
two magazines with a single story.
This is the way it was with Stan and Evanie: they
fell in love. When Stan came out of the waking-up room
at Blue Balls, Evanie was there, pretty and new on the
job and a little flustered, to give him his check and see
that everything was all right. One thing led to another.
An hour later they were lying in the long grass at the foot
of a waterfall, gently stoned, skin bare on the warm, soft
turf, listening to Rorschach Rock while sweet bunnies and
gentle chipmunks peered at them from the edges of the
lawn.
It was like the first time for both of them, only better,
because they each knew every move the other was going
to make and leapt to meet each other; there was never
skin softer or smoother than Evanie's, never a breast as
firm. Stan stayed hard inside her for fifty-four minutes,
never impatient, bringing her with joy through gasps and
shudders until both of them had had it all and they lay
spent and contented among the violets. It was like the
first time, because it was always like the first time; and,
as always, the first they knew that it was over was when
the waterfall stopped and the bunnies froze in midhop.
"Oh," said Evanie drowsily, "shit. She sat up and
leaned away from him, scratching the inside of her thigh.
"I guess I better get back to work, Sam.
"Stan.
"It was really nice, though, Stan.
"Yeah. Now that the breezes had stopped, too, Stan
became aware of the way they smelled. In the city outside
this room he would never have noticed it, but after the
perfumed flowers it was a bring-down, and now that the
soft sunlight was off, the lawn was only CelloTurf again
and it itched.
The next couple was already waiting in the entry room.
Stan and Evanie nodded to them and pushed their checks
into the locker slots. As they got dressed Stan said, "I'd
really like to do this again some time.
"Zip me up, will you?
"No, I mean it, Evanie.
She patted his shoulder absently and pushed the door
open. They walked out into the city, and the heat and the
stink smote them. Behind them the liquid-crystal sign
glowed its message:
Harry's Place
30 Studsy Sex Spectaculars 30
The colors flowed into Super-Stud embracing the tenderest
blond beauty who ever lived, with waving palms dissolving
into mirrored walls behind them.
"Thanks, Stan. I'll see you.
He put out his hand to stop her. "I seriously mean I
want to do it again, Evanie.
"But it's so expensive!
"I've got a thousand dollars a week, he said proudly.
"I can afford it now, what the hell?
She was suddenly blinded with tears. "And how do
you get it'? she sobbed. No! Let go of my arm, Stan.
I've got to go.
He called after her, sweet little rump jouncing under
the hem of the work-mini as she hurried away. but she
didn't look back. Perplexed-and, he realized, hungry-
he pushed his way through the crowded hall to a fast-
food. "Fuck her," he said to the cashier as he pushed his
credit card into its slot, but it was only a money machine
and did not reply.
Two hours later he was still sitting at the same table
in the fast-food, but he had switched from food to drink.
"I don't have to eat in a joint like this, he told the man
across from him. The man had been sitting there for ten
minutes, nursing a cup of imitation coffee and eying Stan's
collection of empty glasses. He brightened up.
"Yeah. I could tell that by looking at you. You're used
to better places, right, Mac?
"I damn am.
"You can always tell somebody with, you know, some
kind of status. It's the way you sit there, even.
"Right, said Stan. "Want a drink?
The man looked at the flickering digits on the wall
clock. "Well, he said, "I really ought to be getting
along- Which was doubtful; he was Welfare from clipped
head to fabric shoes, nothing to do but wait for Thursday
(payday), just the way Stan had been most of his life.
Stan's face must have showed what he was thinking; the
man said quickly, "Still, I wouldn't mind a beer.
Stan pushed his card into the cashier and read out the
total glumly; after the beer, the readout showed he had
$766.22 left in his account. Harry's Place wasn't cheap.
"I just came from Harry's, he said. "You ever been
there? Nice little screwery, if the company's right.
"I bet she was, huh?
"You won that bet. Prettiest little thing you ever saw.
I met her at... I met her where we both work.
"I had a job, the man said enviously. "What kind of
work do you do'?
"Parts. What about your job?
"Well, it was in personal service. I worked up in the
penthouse areas when I was younger. Sort of general
handyman. I used to go to places like Harry's all the time.
Stud farms, casinos, travel-I've been skiing, two or three
times. He knocked back the rest of his beer and pushed
the empty container absentmindedly into the middle of
the table. "Yeah, you can have a pretty good life, when
you have a job. What kind of parts do you mean?
"All different ones. The forget-it shots were wearing
off, the selective proteins that numbed the sense of boredom
and made everything seem fresh and exciting, even
sex, and Stan was rapidly tiring of his company. Funnily,
he wasn't tiring of Evanie. In his not particularly adventurous
life she was probably the five- or six-hundredth
girl he'd screwed, and the fourth or fifth he had taken to
Harry's, after he found out how to get a thousand dollars
a week for practically nothing, but there was something
about her that stuck in his mind. No, not in his mind; he
could feel a crawling between his thighs when he thought
of her, even with the forget-it wearing off and being in
this crummy joint.
The Welfare man saw his next free beer wriggling off
the hook. "Let me tell you what it's like, up in the high-
rent district, he said. "You know they've got swimming
pools bigger than this whole restaurant, water so clean
you'd think it was perfume? Dances, with live orchestras?
"I heard.
"It isn't the same, just hearing it or seeing it on the
tube; you have to be there. Friend, the happiest days of
my life were when I was up there. The women wore
clothes that lit up, and turned peekaboo, and just hugged
their little butts like skin. Just to look at them was enough!
Almost enough. And half of them were just begging to
get balled by the hired help, beds you wouldn't believe,
all the grass and fine wine you could handle-
"You talked me into it, Stan said cruelly. "I think I'll
head up there for a visit now.
It wasn't exactly a lie, he told himself. He really could
go up there, at least long enough to spend the rest of his
thousand dollars in one of the restaurants looking out into
the clouds over the ocean; and maybe he would.
* * *
Plenty of money in the balance, nothing to do Stan
wandered through the midlevel streets of the city, reminding
himself that anything he saw he could buy if he
wanted to. This was all Welfare country; not a soul in
sight that had had a dime in capital or a dollar's pay in
ten years. He wasted a few dollars in a game parlor.
bought himself a new wristlet because it looked like something
Evanie would appreciate. stopped to buy some popsoy to give to
a couple of nice-looking, hungry-looking
kids but decided against it-you never knew when they
might threaten to call the fuzz for molesting them if you
didn't pay off. That wasn't his style; all he wanted to
molest was a pretty lady. There was plenty of that around.
too, and he cased the available material carefully without
seeing anything that took his fancy.
What took his fancy was Evanie.
But what was the use of that, when she let him spend
two and a half big bills in Harry's Place and then took off
without even saying she'd see him again? Most girls appreciated
that kind of thing a little more. That was half
the best part of it, not just the fucking but taking her to
a place your average working man couldn't afford more
than twice a year and your Welfare stiff couldn't get inside
the door of.
He found he was near an observation gallery, and
pushed his card into the admissions turnstile-five dollars
to look out the window!-and strolled out. Even there it
was crowded, mostly couples and cops, the couples to
make out in some place other than their dormitories and
the cops to keep them from it.
He stood looking over Lower New York Bay through
the smoggy clouds, without seeing much that interested
him. The high walls of Jersey City were lighting up as it
got dark, and far out past Sandy Hook he could see the
lights of the offshore oil condominiums, It was the third
time he had been there in three days. and it wasn't worth
it. It was only worth it when you couldn't afford it; the
reality was a waste of time.
All the things they used to talk about in the dorms,
they were true enough. Having a job wasn't just getting
a paycheck. Having a job was a thing to organize your
life around. It was something to do. Having a job was
thirty-two hours a week when you felt it mattered, some
way or another, whether you were in one place or some
different place.
Having ajob was a lot better than being in parts, even
though the pay there was all you could want.
Shortly before the end of the shift he went up to the
Blue Balls office. The sign didn't say that, the sign said:
Associated Medical Services
but everyone knew it by the other name. Usually he didn't
like to hang around there, but apart from being where he
got his money, it was also where Evanie worked. The
trouble with that was that he hadn't caught her last name.
Stan walked in through the door as though he had never
been there before, and a receptionist smiled and said,
"Good evening, sir. One of our account executives will
be with you right away.
"I just wanted to ask you-
"Yes, sir. It's company policy that our account executives
give out all information. Here you are, Mr. Medway is ready to see you.
Pale, slim Mr. Medwav in a sober scarlet jacket, smiling at the
door, was waving him in. "Welcome to
TransParts, sir. Please sit down. Would you care for a
drink? Coffee? A Coke?
"I just wanted to ask you something.
"Certainly, sir! But before that, let me congratulate
you on your civic spirit. Whatever you decide-and remember,
TransParts will not attempt to influence your
decision in any way-just the fact that you came here
shows that you are an extraordinary person. Well. Let
me tell you a little about us. TransParts supplies all of the
surgical facilities in the Greater New York area with organs for
transplant. Under Title Seven, Federal Statute
683, we are authorized to accept and process whole-body
donations from any competent adult, and to reward the
donor to the extent of fifty thousand dollars-assuming,
of course, that the donor meets our rather rigid physical
standards. But looking at you, sir, you seem the picture
of health!
"That wasn't what-
"No outright sale, eh? twinkled Mr. Medway, stroking his
lightly graying sideburns. "I don't blame you for
that! Well, I think I know what you would like. We can
offer you one thousand dollars for what is, essentially, a
fifty-to-one chance that you will walk out of this office
with everything you had when you came in, plus our
cheek for a thousand deposited direct to your credit account.
The procedure? Simplicity itself. We bring you to
a very comfortable room and present you with a tray
containing fifty sealed bottles of a very fine liqueur. Each
of them has something added. Forty-nine of them contain
a mild sleeping potion; you fall asleep; eight hours later
you wake up, you walk out. The fiftieth-well, sir, that's
the gamble, eh? And you can come back and repeat this
process every week if you like. Think of that! A guaranteed
income, a thousand dollars a week for life! Why,
we have clients who have been living off the fat of the
land for years! if you'll let me have your credit card, for
identification purposes-
It was easier to do it than to argue. Stan handed it
over, while Mr. Medway babbled on. "I'm sure you know,
sir, that TransParts is officially licensed by the Federal
government. We operate under the most rigid inspection
possible. If you fear that there might be some-what shall
I say? tinkering'?-with the odds, let me tell you that our
license would be pulled in a minute. We wouldn't dare!
No, it's a fair draw and-
He stopped, staring at the card reader.
He looked up at Stan, his expression ugly. "What the
fuck, man? You're already on our books!
"I know that.
"Then what the hell are you doing here?
"I just wanted to ask you a question.
"Ask!
"There's a girl, said Stan. "Her name's Evanie.
I.. . wanted to get in touch with her. She works here.
Mr. Medway stared at him for a minute, then laughed.
He tossed Stan's credit card back and punched a combination on his
desk top. "Yeah, he said, reading. "She's
in Post-Session Care, right? She's just about to go off
duty. You can probably catch her at the employees' entrance.
The most astonishing thing about Evanie was, she still
looked good. A little depressed, but good. When she caught
sight of Stan her face flickered into a smile, then became
sadder than ever.
"Hi, Evanie.
"Hey, Stan.
He put his hand on her shoulder, then pulled her to
him and kissed her deep and long. He didn't let go, and
she smiled up at him. "Don't you ever wear out, Stan?
"I'm the picture of health. Want to do something,
Evanie? We could go back and try out one of the other
rooms at Harry's.
"Stan, it's crazy to waste your money like that.
"Why is it crazy? That's what I get it for, to spend it.
If I run out, I go back and get some more.
"Maybe you get some more. Maybe you never come
out again, and next week some guy on the two-hundredand-fiftieth
floor's wearing your balls.
He winced and backed away, and saw that she was
near tears again. "Oh, Stan, I hate to think of you in
there.
"Why me? You work there!
"That's different, I know I'll be coming out at the end
of the day. You-do you know what they do to you in
there, when you lose, I mean?
"For Christ's sake, Evanie, of course I know. It's an
organ bank. if I lose . . if I lose that's the last I know,
right? I just don't wake up the next morning. And they
take me apart and heal sick people with my parts, heart
here, lungs there, anywhere somebody needs a transplant.
What's wrong with that'? He knew he was repeating what
the account executive had been saying, all the while he
was signing up, but he went on anyway. "My life might
save, I don't know, ten or twenty other lives, and that's
a fair rate of exchange. And meanwhile I'm off Welfare!
I've got a few dollars in my pocket, I can live like a human
being-
"Stan, she said, "hold still.
"What are you doing? She had taken something out
of her purse, was clipping it to his tunic.
"That's my ID badge, it'll get you past if they don't
look at it too closely. Me they know. I'm going to show
you what Blue Balls looks like from the inside.
He didn't have the heart for Harry's Place. But neither
of them wanted to go back to their dorms, so they wound
up in a cramped but not awful hotel room, rented, to the
desk clerk's surprise, for the whole night. It had a good-
sized bed, if nothing else. At first Stan didn't have the
heart for sex, either, or even for talking, but after a while
in the gentle dark with Evanie warm and tender beside
him, his spirits rose. They screwed and drowsed, whispered and
explored each other, and drowsed again.
And when it was nearly time to get up and get out
Evanie said, "Stan, I really like you, and you turn me on
better than anybody else I ever knew.
"Me, too, Evanie. I wouldn't have believed it. Even
here, without the sets, without the forget-it, it's as good
as Harry's Place with anybody else.
"Don't say that, Stan, you didn't let me finish. It's no
good, Stan. I'm not going to see you again.
Fist to the solar plexus, when he hadn't been expecting
an attack. He got his breath. "Evanie, that doesn't make
sense.
"To me it makes sense. Every dollar you spend, it's a
piece of your body. What did it cost you for the night, a
hundred dollars? That brings you a hundred dollars closer
to the time you go back to Blue Balls and take your chances
again. I can't stand that, Stan, it'll drive me up the wall
if I let it.
"I'm willing to take the chance.
"I'm not! Stan, don't you remember what Ijust showed
you? The used-up stiffs with nothing left? You want to
be like that? One leg, a head without the eyes or ears,
plastic tubing where your gut used to be, pumping along
on a heart-lung machine until somebody decides there's
not enough left of you to sell and they pull the plug?
Stan winced; he had been devoting a lot of his attention
that whole night to trying to forget all that. "They weren't
all like that, he protested. "Some of them looked just
fine! Like they were only asleep.
"Asleep! Yeah, they keep some going-rare blood
types, they just keep them on the machine to make blood
to sell, for a while anyway. But they're not asleep. When
you do it to a frog you call it 'pithing'; the brain's disconnected,
there's nothing there but a vegetable. And
even so, you didn't look too close, because they take off
all the spare parts they can anyway. What's a blood factory need with a weenie, Stan? But some old guy'll pay plenty of money for it. You think I like it when
I feel you inside me like that, thinking that same thing might be in
me some other time but with some other guy on the other
end of it?
"Oh, hell, Evanie-
"At least you're a man, she said morosely. "You see
those pregnant women in the shops? They're making babies for somebody.
Of course, they don't feel anything,
because they're pithed, too. But I feel. I look at them and
think about myself being there, after somebody has reached
way up inside me with a light pipe and a flexible forceps
and pulled out my own ovum and thrown it away and
stuck in some other woman's ovum. And then they fertilize it
with sperm from her husband or her boy friend
or whoever- She pushed her pillow up and sat higher,
looking down at him. "If you're the customer it's okay.
You get the baby and you don't have to pay off in morning
sickness or looking funny. Just in money. Daddy turns in
a sperm sample, Mom picks out a nice-looking breeder
female from the photograph album-of course, the picture
shows her the way she used to be, not the way she
is now. A couple quick squirts on the day shift and nine
months later the hulk on the heart-lung machine squeezes
out Junior for you.
"Evanie-
"So I can't take it, Stan. If we had some real money,
you know, enough for six months or so. . . if you had a
job. . . But that's not the way it is. My job won't keep us
both, it barely keeps me off Welfare. I don't want to go
back to living on the fortieth floor.
"I don't want you to do that.
"And I know you can't get a job. Stan, I'm not blaming
you. I'm just telling you what I can take, and this is past
it.
"How did you get the job, Evanie?
"I laid the right people, what did you think?
"Oh. He scratched uncomfortably. "Do you suppose
I-
"Who are you going to screw, Mr. Medway? Any of
the account execs, male or female? They don't need you,
Stan. No offense. You're a real great guy, you know I
think you are. But that was just luck, and a section chief
who liked young chicks, and it won't happen again in a
million years. Those guys in the upper brackets at Blue
Balls, they don't just get salaries, they get a commission-
for keeping you on the hook, Stan, for making sure you
come in and take your bottle of fluid every week. They
go to school for that, psychology, salesmanship; once
they've got the degree they're set for life, and they can
buy whatever they want. Even you, if they wanted you
bad enough, a lot cheaper than putting you on the payroll.
So this is it, Stan. I hope I never see you again, especially
at work.
He kept the room an extra day, the hell with the expense,
and got a decent sleep, and followed it up with a
shower, clean clothes from the slot machines, and the
best meal he could find that didn't take more than half an
hour to eat. Half an hour was as long as he was sure his
courage would hold out; and then he took the transit elevator
up to the Blue Balls office. "I want to talk to
Medway, he told the receptionist.
"Mr. Medway? I'm afraid he's with a client just now,
but one of our other account executives...
"Medway. Tell him he's got a live one.
When Mr. Medway appeared, it took him a moment
to recognize Stan. "Oh, the one who was looking for the
girl. Didn't she work out? You want to pick another?
"No, Mr. Medway, I want to make a deal. I want to
take twenty bottles, one after another. I walk out of here
with twenty thousand dollars or you get to keep the bod.
Medway sank back behind his desk, thumbs in his
armpits, looking at Stan. "You're a real gambler, he said
admiringly. "But you can't do that. It'd kill you. Twenty
is an overdose.
"I'll take that chance, Medway. I want the money. I
want to take it and he hesitated "...all right, I want
to take it and go to school and train for your job. I want
real money, Medway.
"Wow, said Medway softly. "I have to say I admire
your spirit. Well, you can't do it the way you say, but
TransParts is willing to roll the dice with any of its clients,
any stakes, just so it's a fair shot. How about this. You
get your choice of two bottles. One puts you to sleep for
the night, the other. . . that's a fifty-fifty chance, and what
you get if you win is twenty-five thousand dollars. Or if
you're really hot, you can take the long shot. The same
fifty bottles as always. Only this time only one of them
is just a sleeping pill. All the other forty-nine are too-bad-
Charlie. That's a forty-nine-to-one shot, according to the
arithmetic, but TransParts is willing to absorb the difference,
so if you win that one, you walk away with fifty
thou. You can even get a hundred to one if you want it,
or a thousand. You name it. We'll set it up, just so the
arithmetic works out.
A thousand to one! My God, a million dollars! But to
have only one chance in a thousand of surviving. If I
take the twenty-five, he said.
"Good bet, nodded Medway. "When?
"Right now.
Medway punched a combination into his desk top and
stood up. "Come on, they'll have it ready for you by the
time we get there. And so they did, the standard room
with its single bed and vase of flowers, and on the sideboard the little tray of bottles; but this time there were
only two on it.
You could spend the whole night arguing which is which,
Stan thought grayly, and reached out for the nearer. He
flipped off the top and drank it down. "Might as well get
a good night's sleep, he said, turning toward the bed.
"So long, Medway.
He didn't look around as the account executive went
out, and so he didn't see that someone had come in, until
she said, "I really liked you, Stan. I mean it.
He turned around, feet tingling in his pants legs.
"Evanie!
"Go ahead, Stan, get into bed. You'll be feeling it in
a minute.
"I know. And he was, the same warm whirling that
he had felt every other time. That was good. But not really
good, he thought, the killer dose would feel the same going
down, he just wouldn't ever wake up. He tried a pleasantry.
"I thought maybe you were coming to... to. .
The words got harder and harder to get out, but she
knew what he meant. "Not this time, sweetie, she said,
drawing the cover over him. I just came in because I
wanted to tell you two things. |
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