Damon Knight - Orbit 15

We got off on the wrong foot right from the start. “This isn’t fit work for a fellow,” I said, and he took offense.

“It’s what I like to do, and who says one job is for a man while another isn’t?”

Plunging through the crowds, I went back to my own side of the street and figured to stay there. Tension I could do without. This man had a burr up his tail because he had a few pimples. How dumb could you get?

“You going to vote today?” he yelled at me the next morning. It was early and the sidewalks were empty.

“Nope.”

Approaching the curb, he stood with his hands on his hips and scowled. “Why?”

“For what purpose should I do a dumb thing like that? You think votes make any difference? It’s a con game, and I don’t intend to add to the farce.”

“What kind of government would we have if everyone felt that way?”

“Same kind we already got,” I said.

That was all we had to say to each other that day. Toward evening, he washed up in the outdoor sink and walked away toward the voting booths. I had to laugh behind my hand. With his ass tucked in and his shoulders shoved up in the air, he looked like a stubborn little chicken. For sure, he knew I was watching him, and, for sure, his face was the color of raw mutton. One funny fellow. Except there was something sad about seeing him outlined against the dirty buildings. One leg forward, then the other leg, and his arms didn’t swing too much, and he kept moving farther away from me, and for some reason I continued watching until long after he was out of sight. Lydon. I should find out his last name.

Permilia came by the next day. “What kind of men are you attracted to?” I said to her, and she gave me an odd look. “Of course, it’s none of my business,” I said. “I know people don’t like personal questions. Only I never see you with your boyfriend. In fact, I never see any couples anywhere. Can’t figure it out. Everybody is banging their head off, but I wonder where they’re doing it.”

“You’re feeling smutty today,” she said. “Could the gonads be stirring at last?”

“There are too many things I don’t understand, is all. Used to be it didn’t bother me, but now, well, what kind of world do we live in? I never been anywhere since Conditioning Center, other than in the orphanage. Been to fifth grade, like most people, and once in a while I take a bus to the Rally Field and listen to the election baloney, but that’s hardly any experience.”

“You’re asking the wrong person, love. I never been anywhere, either.”

“Don’t you ever get curious about what’s out of sight?”

“Only when I get desperate,” said Permilia, and laughed.

Since I couldn’t think of a response to that, I changed the subject. “Did you vote?”

“Sure.”

“Who for?”

This time she merely smiled. “Sydney Lummet.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Dammit, Vega, when are you going to grow up?”

“Why didn’t you vote for Sebastian?”

“That virgin.”

This was a subject I was interested in. “Lummet has something wrong with him. I mean, he’s weird. I saw him once on tv, and that was too often. Let me tell you about it. First thing that happened after the screen lighted up was a close shot of his hands; nothing but his hands. He had colored noodles strung on them like Christmas ornaments. Next thing that showed was his teeth, growing big as saws, and then the next thing you knew, he started eating those damned noodles off his fingers, one at a time. Never witnessed anything like it in my life. If that business draws votes for him, I’ll eat my hat.”

Keeping a straight face, Permilia said, “Vega, you’re the dearest friend I have. You’re so innocent and stupid and sweet. Why don’t you lay off subjects you don’t understand? If you don’t like Sydney Lummet, vote for Sebastian or don’t vote at all.”

She started to walk away, and I called after her. “Were you ever innocent and stupid and sweet?”

She whirled and gave me an angry stare. Suddenly her face softened, crumpled. My surprise increased as I watched her eyes glisten with quick tears. Then she hurried away from me so fast she almost ran. I lost sight of her as she shouldered her way into the crowds.

That scene made me brood for a solid week. Somehow I had hurt Permilia, and I wanted to punish myself for having done it. More, I wanted to know how and why it had happened.

I had some words with Lydon. “My name is Vega, not that you’re all that interested, but since we work close together, I’m not about to go on yelling, ‘Hey, you.’ “

One leg to hold him up, red face, stammering; the man was bright but he was also dumb. “I wondered what it was.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Wasn’t wondering that much.” His fingers rambled up to his face and worried a pimple.

“Don’t do that,” I said. “Your hands are filthy from cleaning stalls and you shouldn’t be pawing your face with them. If you stopped doing—”

“Why don’t you mind your own business?”

“It’s obvious you can’t stand me, but I may as well tell you I couldn’t care less. It’s only that we work almost side by side—”

“I didn’t mean to say it.”

“In that case, I want to ask you a question; about older women. You think maybe their nerves go with age? I have this friend—”

“I don’t know anything about women.”

“Aren’t men pretty much the same?”

He got redder by the second. “I can’t answer that.”

“Why not?”

“I just told you. I don’t know anything about women.”

“Then I’ll change the subject. Take these stalls. Why do you figure so many people use them? My clientele are regular as clockwork; two, three times a day most of them come by, and some more often than that. I can’t figure out the attraction, can you?”

Lydon stiffened up like a board. When he left me and stalked into his resting booth, he was more statue than human. I tried to get another glimpse of him, but some people walked by and blocked him from my view.

I knew. He was embarrassed about sex. Shy. Set me to wondering how old he was. He hadn’t any beard to speak of, but then his hair wasn’t too dark, which may have accounted for that. Probably he was my age. Two dunderheads.

Slept terribly that night, dreamed of a skeleton that had no flesh on it except in a crazy place. It kept following me around and I kept telling it to go away and leave me alone because I was dead as a doornail in the beef department. The skeleton laughed, and when I looked at its teeth I recognized it as Sydney Lummet. Instead of ordinary equipment between his legs, he had colored noodles.

The next day, Lydon brought me an eggbeater. “It’s a present.”

“What for?”

“Know you don’t have one. They’re dear on the market.”

“And eggs aren’t even on the market,” I said.

He spoke very seriously. “You never know when one will turn up.”

He went back to his side of the street, and I spent the morning alternately smiling and frowning. Permilia came by to use a stall, but she didn’t speak to me.

Finished with my cleaning, I sat and snatched glimpses of Lydon between passersby. It was uncanny, but each day he seemed to be growing better-looking. How could that be? I heard first impressions were the only true ones, and when I first laid eyes on Lydon he was a grubby little mutt. Today he was no worse-looking than any of the fancy fellows who used my stalls.

Couldn’t watch him in the afternoon because he sat on the curb and watched me. That pleased me. I passed time by examining the hands of my customers. The women preferred heavy jewelry; the men liked crepe streamers or thin chains that dangled free or were wrapped around the fingers. One fellow, a kook, had a thing about handcuffs. Once a day, every day, he came bursting through the mobs, stopped at the first stall, burst into tears, unlocked the cuffs on his wrists and darted inside.