Terraplane (23 page)

With thumb and finger he stroked his chin, pressed upper teeth
into his lower lip, looked wallways as he spoke. "As foreseen," he
said.

The front door's slam shot us ready and full; only as we looked,
and saw Doc walking through, did we loose our tenses.

"Least somebody here's awake," he said, quietly, so as not to
wake. "Looked like it was siesta time around here."

"We were dialoguing," said Jake, walking past into the front.
"Excuse."

"You tell her?" Doc whispered, nearing. Fly's whine settled in
my ear; I swatted it away, grateful not to have snared it.

"Told Jake," I said.

"I hear you," Doc said, sighing.

"I was offguarded," I said. "Once recovered I'll have no trouble.
Mayhap we can figure something-"

From beneath his arm he slipped me what I'd seen as a sci-fi
mag the night past; what evidenced at prolonged view as Popular Mechanics. "Bill wrote the cover article. You can get an idea what I
mean."

THE WORLD OF 1960, the banner printed thereupon read, overlaying a garish rendition of unlikely cityscape limned in primaries,
drawn with blockline sketch. The painting's centerpiece showed a
cluster of concrete roads rolling between trimmed trees; no traffic
evidenced upon the roads but one or two buglike vehicles. Around
the skyscrapers' tops, flylike, buzzed copters and blimps.

"Look through there. See how accurate his predictions are."
I thumbed the pages, keen to know what the future would bring
my father, or the man who might possibly be my father in this
world. In 1960 he would ride atom-powered one-man helicopters
to the office, where he worked twenty hours a week; his home's
furniture could be washed with blasts from a water hose; the
weather within the dome covering his city could be adjusted as
desired. Daily applications of pesticides would preserve his food
forever; to clean his suit he would only have to walk in the rain.
Only the highest art was transmitted through television's unyielding stare. As ever, a combination of laughter and tears proved the
only response.

"Did a pretty good job, don't you think?" Doc asked.

"Not at all."

"He must have gotten some things right-"

"Nothing. "

"Well," said Doc. "Still, the changes must be unimaginable."

"Your world is more similar to ours than guessed," I said. "We're
more accomplished at what we do. That's all."

"I'd think they'd have at least outlawed war by your time," he
said. "Way they're always talking about it, though you couldn't
hardly think so these days. Were you in a peacekeeping army?"

"Hardly," I said, "and I knew fourteen separate police actions."

"Doesn't ever'one live in better houses and apartments?" he
asked. "Like those towers on the cover there-"

"Such as these pictured?" I asked. "You know what comes from
such projects?" He shook his head; I motioned towards Jake, sitting
next to sleeping Oktobriana, in the front room.

"But look at you," he said. "No one grows old-"

"Most don't live long enough." Doc showed a pensive look,
went to the refrigerator-icebox-and took out a bottle of milk,
popping off its paper top.

I don't know, Luther," he said, pouring a glassful. "You're
probably just used to it all. See miracles ever' day, don't even
realize it."

Miracles, yes, all God's wonders. The poison ocean rising higher
each year, the thin air ashine with the sun's cancerous rays, the
earth sodden with the blood of the billions killed upon it. The
sound of orphans at play in the littered, rotting streets, born alone
to die alone. The love that lasts and lasts and then fades as you look
on. There were too many miracles in my modern age. "In Wanda's
paper was mention of previous Martian reports," I said. "Was a joke
inferred?"

"Oh," Doc laughed. "Last Halloween Orson Welles did this
radio play about Martians invading the earth. Made it sound like a
news broadcast. Scared the shit out of a lot of fools over in Jersey.
That's probably what they was talking about."

"Undoubted. "

"I guess in your time you talk to Martians regularly," said Doc,
delusion again clouding his brain. "What're they like?" he asked,
eyes shining with the hope of the hopeless.

"Mars is a lifelorn planet," I said. "Beautiful in physical form as
photos evidence but free of sentient nature."

"Sentient?" he repeated, sounding the phrase. "Nobody lives
there?" I shook my head. He looked to have discovered that his
Christmas presents were lifted along with the tree and all its jewels.
I hadn't wished to grinch him so. "There life anywhere else?"

"Only here," I said-and there, certainly, in our world, among
our doppelgangers. "Therefore earthlife seems all the more-"
Horrible? Doomed? Superfluous?

"Precious," Doc reflected. "That's so."

That, too. Oktobriana's slipped away as we watched.

"INTERACT'ION'S FEASIBLED HERE?" I ASKED, DISCERNING
through blue smoke none but pale faces gathered stage-near. Our
people, dark but for Jake, loaded the rear, housed themselves
barside, at intervals drifted through the smog to reappear up front,
delivering drinks, rising from the white dough like raisins in batter.

"Feasibled," Doc repeated. "Bastards always take the best seats.
But money talks, man. 'F'ry getting into one of their joints sometime, see how far you get."

Abyssinia contained as main room a coffin-shaped space with
decapitatory ceiling; the illumination therein but grudgingly
allowed sight. No coordinated decor systems showed: unframed
posters covered walls, booth seats showed several years' slashes; not
even the barstools matched. Two African masks of evident years
and simple beauty hung above the bar, and I wondered from whose
grandparents they had been inherited.

"Still alive," Jake said, hushvoiced.

"So the tracker reads-"

"Not Skurry," he corrected. "Him." His eyes fastened upon one
of the newer posters, one announcing a concert past: FROM SPIRI-
'T'UALS TO SWING/CARNEGIE HALL DEC 23 1938. In the midst of
that night's performers, this night's: ROBER'T' JOHNSON. "You went?"
he asked Doc, who smiled.

"Wouldn't have minded," he said. "But Carnegie Hall's whites
only. They tried to get it fixed for that one thing and they couldn't
even do that."

Jake, not noticing Doe's tone, stared stageways, blanked as if
already lost within music.

"There's so many here," I said, looking over Caucasians' finehaired heads, slicked and dyed and balding. "I'd think they'd
barely hear rumor of such through the static."

"Depends on who's playing," said Doc. "They always pour in to
pay their blues-dues when these boys come up from the Delta.
Ever'day I was growing up I heard the blues. Played pretty, played
rough. Almost hear the blues in the air down there." He laughed.
"Depressin' shit, Luther. Give me Basie any day of the week."

Jake's lack of attention to all but the empty stage concerned,
though for the mo there could be no removing his stare from where
it fixed. His anticipation seemed more powerful even than that of a
child awaiting Christmas, when the child has already inferred that
the gift most desired is certain to be delivered.

"These people ride up here in their taxis, in their big fine cars,
slum around up here all night long, drinking. Ever watch white
people drink? I don't mean no offense, Jake-" Jake, unlistening,
bore none. "They sip. They keep sipping till the whole bottle's
gone. Then they upchuck all over the goddamn floor. Better that
than when they start singing along, though."

"They're lyric-familiar?"

"Some of 'em. Man, you never heard anything so pitiful."

"What brings them in?"

"I can't tell how these people's minds work," he said, edging
barways. "Ask Jake. Hey, Jess, down this way," he shouted to the
bartender. Jess stepped down, drying a mug with three quick twists
of rag, his hands twicesized over mine; his face was networked with
scars whose web resembled a railroad yard. Between chipped teeth
he flattened a green cigar's unlit stub.

"A sidecar, Doc?" he asked, unracking a glass. "What your guests
want?"

"Give 'em beer. Any preference?" We preferred none; estimated
it best to follow leads. "Trommer's White Label']] do." With metal tool Jess uncapped two long-necked brown bottles, poured one into
a glass, then asked Jake: "Want yours in a teacup?" One of the
inward-bent caps lay bartopped. Jake, looking up, retrieved it,
poised it upon his thumbs, lay two fingers atop. With quick motion
he thumbed the cap inside out, splitting its cork liner; flicked it
barways.

"A glass," he said. Jess poured.

"Bill come around yet?" Doc asked.

Jess shook his head, passing Jake's filled glass gently towards him.
"Motherfucker's usually first one here come Saturday night.
Haven't seen hide or hair of him. His momma drug his ass to
temple, maybe."

"Maybe. " Maybe not. The wooden wall clock's skeletal hands
showed eight-forty; Doc expected an eight o'clock curtain, but then
so had the club's audience. They could wait; our minutes passed
into minutes lost. Thirst burned my throat; beer it might have been,
but I drank, at once hearthappy I had. If the best bread was liquid it
would have borne such a taste, sweet with yeast, its head dense
enough to slice, not at all resembling our day's bitter water.

"You've heard of Robert Johnson before, Jake?" Doc asked,
gesturing towards the awaiting stage. "He's no Cab Calloway. Don't
see how he's so well known in your day."

"He's not," said Jake. "Only the most aware see the glory. Long
years past I first filled ear with his song. During a weekend at the
Old Man's old house. Those hearing as intended to hear know-"
Jake paused, waved his hands before him as if seeking unseen prey.
"It makes it easier, somehow. No explanation holds." Removing his
pocket-player, he set it, planning to tape.

Doc laughed. "Way you all talk sometimes breaks me up. Hell,
Jake, you must know ever'thing he did by heart."

"Knew it already," said Jake, seeming exhausted by his speech's
worded emotions. "Didn't realize."

A dapper man stepped onstage, held up his hands as if to slow a
charge.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "there's a slight delay but don't
worry. Mister Johnson'll be out to play for you shortly. Please be
patient with us."

"Who's he?" I asked.

"That's Vernon," said Doc. "Wanda's second cousin. He runs the
club. We all own the building. Went in together ten years ago, just
before the Crash. Laid down cash money. Even if it gets ten times
worse'n it is, and they're always saying it might, nobody's gonna
toss my ass into the street. Now if one of my tenants doesn't come
across after a while, they'll get the deep six, but-"

"You never threw any of those deadbeats out in your life,"
laughed Jess. "Makes Wanda do it. "

Doc ignored, continued. "I handle the apartments. Vernon runs
the club. Break about even at worst and most of the time we
do better than that. If the building's full and there's a good
run of performers down here, well then we're eating high on the
hog-"

"We hope you're enjoying Harlem as much as we enjoy having
you," Vernon insisted, straight-faced. Jess turned his head away,
held a laugh.

"Enjoy havin' 'em stuck on the end of my blade-"

"Grin and bear it, Jess," said Doc. "Come on."

"Mister Johnson will be out any moment now," said Vernon.

"He'd better be," one especially ivory member of the audience
shouted back. "These damned shows never start on time." His
mate, a young woman, wore her coiffed blondness curled beneath
her veiled hat; with white-gloved hand she swung a half-meterlength cigarette holder as if to brand. When she voiced, her words
rebounded off the silence that always settles at inopportune
moment, so that embarrassment resulting may be total.

"We coulda stayed at the Rainbow Room," she whined, her tone
rich with nose. "Oh, no. Moneybags here has to haul us up to
Harlem for some damned coon show-"

As Vernon stepped away her voice faded with audience's rising
murmur; additional commentary went gratefully unheard, at least
by us.

"Oughta smoke the bitch," said Jess, lowvoiced.

"Beats the devil," said Doc. "They haul themselves up here and
once they get settled they don't do nothing but beef. It's too
crowded. Too hot. Food's no good. Gimme a clean glass-"

"What they expect?" Jess said. "You're right, though. They haul
up a lotta green."

"They do."

"They can cry all they want long as they stick around long
enough to spend it."

"What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Anyway, see, Wanda and me, we
lived in shitholes first ten years we lived up here," Doc continued.
"Down in San Juan Hill. West Sixty-second. When I got out of the
army they'd just put Prohibition into law Best damn thing ever
happened to us. See, Wanda knew Vernon of course, he'd come up
a few years earlier, and Cedric'd been in my regiment-"