Damon Knight - Orbit 21

Frank was thinking about the Cross. Hanging by nails through the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet in front of an avid audience. Moaning occasionally, hearing answering moans from out beyond the footlights; gasps from the spectators as he moved his body sensually in a vain attempt to find a less painful position. He relaxed his left leg, unconsciously adopting the slouch he remembered from mediaeval paintings of Christ on the Cross. The Cross. Rough pine, splinters, wood-smell . . .

Up ahead at the end of the alley the stage door opened and a man wearing denim emerged. A pair of sunglasses was pushed up on his forehead. Accompanying him was an earnest young girl with a harelip, carrying a clipboard. The man in denim nodded at her.

“Actress—rough handling and intercourse with animals,” she called out.

There was a short silence, then the woman with the fur coat stepped forward, looking defiantly ahead, her cigarette held carelessly between two fingers of an extravagantly dramatic right hand. The denim-clad man glanced at her and said, “Hired.”

His assistant ticked her list and called out, “Actor—severe beating.” Several men stepped forward, including the hopeful bruised one. The director studied them and chose a short, stocky man with an impassive face. Frank watched the bruised man as others were chosen for “severe beating—broken limbs” and “homosexual acts—severe beating,” and saw his pulpy face fall into dejection. He went up to the director, pulled his sleeve, and said urgently, “Listen, I can do a novelty torture, always goes down well, got my own gear, really unusual . . .” but he was ignored.

“Actor—severance of right hand,” called out the harelipped assistant. The bruised man hesitated, then stepped forward. No one joined him. The director looked at him for a long time. Then he yawned and said, “Hired.” The little man sagged. It was not clear whether he was weak with happiness or with shock.

“Crucifixion,” called the girl, “minimum one hour.”

Frank stepped forward, feeling a cut above these primitive masochists. Twenty others stepped forward with him.

He hid his surprise, but his pride suffered. He had thought he would be the only one, the only one with enough subtlety to handle the exquisite pain of crucifixion.

The director studied the applicants for some time, his gaze moving impassively over Frank’s expression of studied boredom. He chose a tall emaciated man with straggly hair. Frank felt humiliated that he had put himself up for hire and been refused. An evening’s martyrdom was something he would have liked . . . someone ... to feel responsible for.

But he did not leave, stayed instead to listen to the calls for subjects for flogging, branding, partial flaying. He felt a mounting excitement as the end of the list was neared.

“Star part,” called the girl, “death by hanging.”

There was complete silence in the alley. Traffic-noise drifted in from Shaftesbury Avenue. A pigeon coorooed from its perch on the wall above them. The girl cleared her throat.

“Star part—death by hanging.”

Frank stepped forward.

“Hired,” said the director.

At a small booth just inside the stage door the actors and actresses were registered and made to sign formal contracts for the temporary use of their bodies. Numbers appropriate to their parts in the show were stamped on the backs of their hands in violet ink. The old man in the booth stamped Frank’s hand much harder than was necessary and refused to look at him. Frank was not asked to sign.

In the theatre basement they sat on long benches in the communal dressing room. Moisture dripped down the brown-painted walls. A conical enamel lamp shade swayed gently in the breeze from a street-level ventilator. Some were in a state of barely-suppressed excitement, others apparently impassive. They did not look at each other.

Frank felt euphoric. He was not thinking about the reasons he was here, but he could feel excitement building in his chest. At this time he would normally have been at home, sitting up in bed watching television, steadily smoking ready-rolled joints. He put the palms of his hands together and clasped them between his knees, saw that his legs were shaking, began to hum tunelessly to himself.

A fat man entered the dressing room. He was wearing white trousers and a white t-shirt with sweat stains at the armpits.

“Will you please all go along the corridor to the wardrobe room at the end,” he said. “Those of you who need costumes will be fitted and those of you who have lines to say will be given crib-sheets and any necessary instruction. Refreshments are available at the kiosk near the stage door, but do please be back here thirty minutes before showtime.”

They began to shuffle out. As Frank passed him, the fat man gently grasped his elbow and said, “Please step into my office, will you?”

Frank followed him through dingy corridors, fascinated by the multidirectional movements of his fleshy body. They entered a large, comfortably furnished room. Thick rugs covered the parquet floor; there were potted plants in a large free-standing box. On the wall were objects Frank did not recognise.

“Ah, yes,” said the fat man, “those are relics from a less literal age than ours. The small plastic sacs are blood capsules—a small explosive charge discharged their contents when a blank cartridge was fired. The knife above them is spring-loaded—it was used to stab without harming the actor. In the box are plastic scars and wounds, madman’s foam made from egg-white, tears of water in plastic vials fitted with easy eye-applicators. There was a certain amount of artifice in pain in those days.” He looked directly at Frank. “The leather harness to your left was used to simulate hanging,” he said, waiting for his response with slightly amused curiosity. When there was none, he continued: “The actor would strap it on beneath his clothing and the noose was unobtrusively fixed to that small hook at the back there. Swing for days in that thing without coming to any harm.”

Frank heard someone walk rapidly along the corridor past the room, saying, “—and now the bloody Spanish Mare’s got a broken leg...”

“Sit down,” said the fat man. He gestured to a chair upholstered in green velvet. Frank sat down and crossed his legs, rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and clasped his hands over his stomach. He was starting to feel more himself. Here was someone he could react to, someone to whom he could justify his actions, or choose to leave ignorant. Amused condescension appealed to him at that moment, and so he raised his left eyebrow and allowed a faint smile to ever so faintly twist the lines of his mouth.

“Never been in this line of work before, have you?” said the fat man. He smiled momentarily. “Won’t get a chance to be in it again, that’s for certain. Still . . . you’ll have your . . . moment of glory . . .”

Frank was trying to think of something to say that would instantly convince the fat man that the choice of death before an audience was an existential decision meaningful only to him, which automatically excluded puny sarcasm on the part of others, but nothing came. He cranked his smile up a centimeter or so and attempted to look inscrutable.

“Sure you wouldn’t like to tell me about your, er, reasons? Might as well not indulge in games at this late stage ... if you want to tell, get it off your chest . . . you won’t get a chance later . . . no one’ll be interested. . . .”

Reasons? Frank smiled to himself. The fat man was just like the commuters who came to see his shows: laughably sure of himself, never realising just how small was the circle his power illuminated. His patronizing attitude was not insulting. Only amusing. How could he ever understand, anyway, that the “reasons” were not apparent even to Frank, that his act was like that of the quiz contestant who presses the buzzer as soon as the question is finished, hoping that the answer will occur to him before the cameras close in on his face? Unless . . . this was not an unusual attitude. Perhaps it was more common than any other . . , his stomach went cold as he felt his uniqueness threatened. He realized that he had not spoken for six days. He decided that it would be bad luck to break the silence now. He was funny like that.