Gene Wolfe - Free Live Free

Perhaps that was what the script had called for. It was the wrong movie, and now though he had bought his ticket only a minute ago, it was nearly at an end. The lights would go up, and he would walk out of the theater with the rest of the audience. To what streets?

Then he realized he was thinking about death, his own death, that his mind was circling his death like the roaring old airplane circling the city, climbing, climbing, never quite ready to admit where it was. Why had he always thought of death as dark? Why not a flash of light, an end to the pictures on the dirty, sagging screen of his eyes? When Cliff, that son of a bitch, had sapped him, he had seen flashes of light, had seen the stars, not the dark.

I’ll get up now, he thought. Go out like I was going to buy a candy bar, hide in the john. I wonder if the fire exits are locked? Maybe those go right to the stars without your having to go through the other thing. The lobby. They’re not supposed to lock the fire exits, but sometimes they do, wrap chains around the handles, padlock them.

Christ, look at me. I’m supposed to be a tough guy; and look at me, I’m scared to death, my palms are wet. Only nobody ever really thought I was a tough guy but me. Maybe Candy. Because I’m so God-damned little, but little doesn’t have a thing to do with tough. I wonder what Cliff thought, that son of a bitch. Wait till I get hold of him; I’ll teach him what to think.

I wonder whatever happened to the clown, and was he gay? I think so, maybe he was, he was the kind of guy who gets hurt so much by women when he’s still young that something breaks inside him, and he goes gay. Comes out, that’s what they call it. He comes out and gets all those broads off his back, off his back forever—no wonder he’s gay. I’d be gay too. Gets AIDS and dies.

Wait till I get my hands on Kip, that rich bitch. I’ll kill her. You know what did it to me? It was Candy, first of all. A tramp, sure she was, I knew the minute I saw her in old Free’s front room, but she kind of liked me, she kind of went for me, I know she did.

And I kind of went for her.

And so I thought, hell, I don’t have to go my whole life paying for it, and even if I pay her for it, it’s better I should pay somebody who kind of likes me, kind of keep the thing in the family, as the family used to say.

Then I met Sandy, and she kind of liked me too, and she was an inch or so shorter than I am. Hell, an inch easy if we took off our shoes. And she kind of went for me. She didn’t want to show it because she was on that career trip, but she did. Hell, we could have danced together, maybe if I ever get down alive we will. She was cute too.

And then I met Kip, and oh, Jesus, it was like I could see the best part of all, like right at the end where Linda Loring calls Robert Mitchum from Paris just before the credits roll. Only they didn’t. Jesus, wait till I get my hands on her, I’ll beat her, I’ll tear her clothes off, I’ll strip her naked. But, Jesus, if she ever kissed me and said, “Jim, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I’d pick her up and hug her and kiss her, and we’d go out and do—

Something. Something wonderful. Have a drink, or go stand on the bridge and look at the river, drive up into the hills in my convertible and look down at the city. Because if Kip ever told me she was sorry, I’d have a convertible.

“I hope she’s okay,” Barnes said.

“Sure she’s okay,” Stubb told him, pressing his hands together so Barnes would not see them shake. “Why shouldn’t she be okay? We’re the ones that aren’t okay.”

“I think maybe she’s passed out again. Maybe you ought to take that cigarette away from her,” Barnes said.

“Oh, you mean Candy.” Stubb pulled the cigarette from her fingers. He had finished his own and ground it out on the metal floor. There were still a few puffs left of hers.

The young man in the flight jacket said, “How about lighting me, sir?” He had his pack of Camels out again. It still did not look quite right.

Stubb handed him the butt. “I got to go,” he said.

“There’s a thing in back,” the young man told him.

He walked back toward the blue light. His ears were popping, and the slanting, shaking floor made it hard to walk. After a moment, he realized what the rubber funnel and hose were for. A sniff brought a faint odor, with the smell of oil and a thinning cold.

He stood facing the funnel, his back toward the front of the plane, and examined the match folder. It was black, printed in white: a stork in a top hat on both sides, one leg separating the words STORK CLUB. Much smaller lettering on the fold gave the address—3 East 53rd Street, N.Y.C. No zip.

He did not know Candy was behind him until she tapped him on the shoulder. “Is there any water back here, Jim?”

He dropped the match folder into his pocket. “Haven’t seen any.”

“The guy said there was.”

“Maybe he was putting you on. He’s probably dead by now anyway. What the hell would he know about water?” He could not bite back the words.

“I’m really—there it is.”

It was a sheet-metal container with a spigot. A clamp beside it held an aluminum cup with a folding handle. He filled the cup for her, and she emptied it, a few drops furrowing what remained of the powder on her cheeks. “I’m thirsty as hell,” she said. “I guess a lot of that stuff was salty.”

He motioned toward the water can.

“Yeah, do it again. I didn’t want to say this, but I’m a little sicky too. You know? I’ll go back up front if you want me to.” She drank again.

“It’s all right,” he said.

“Hold my hand, will you, Jim? You know that was the best meal I ever had in my life. I want to keep it down.”

“It was the knock on the head. They sapped me too, and I damn near chucked myself.”

“And my ass is sore. Why should my ass be sore?”

“Search me.”

“Anyway, I want to puke, but I know if I do, in twenty minutes I’ll be so hungry I’ll be sucking my fingers.”

“They cheated,” Stubb told her.

“What does that mean, Jim?”

“All of us got what we wanted, and we couldn’t handle it. Except you—you could have handled it, if only they hadn’t sapped you. It’s no fun, getting it on the head.”

“Everybody got what they were after?”

“Yeah.”

“Madame Serpentina?”

“She won’t talk much, but I think a rap with God. Except it turned out he wasn’t the real McCoy, and she bought it.”

“Oh, wow!”

Stubb braced himself against the motion of the plane. “You’re always asking me what I mean, so what the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Most of us wouldn’t even want it. I always figured I’d have to talk to Him when I, you know, went upstairs. I haven’t been looking forward to it much.”

“You’ll charm the pants off God.”

“Jim, I don’t think he wears any.”

“Then you’ve got it knocked. Anyway, what about Mary Magdalene? He went for her big. I bet you’re nicer than she was.”

“Who’s that?”

“A girl like you.”

“You’re stringing me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“How would you know anyway? You go to church?”

“When I was a kid, my folks made me go to parochial school. We used to talk about it—just us kids. We thought that was really a thrill, because there weren’t so many X-rated movies around then.”

“When was that, Jim?”

“Let’s see. Twenty, twenty-five years ago, I guess.”

“Not you. God and Mary Whatshername.”

“Oh, them. Two thousand years.”

“That long, and people are still talking.”

“God gets a lot of press.”

“Uh huh. What about Ozzie? Did he get what he was after too?”