Norman Spinrad - Bug Jack Barron

“Someday all men will live forever through the Foundation for Human Immortality,” said Barron.

“What?” Howards grunted, his eyes snapping back into sharp focus like a man called back from a trance.

“Just quoting a Foundation slogan,” Barron said. “Isn’t that where it’s really at? I mean all that bread spent on Freezing is money down a rathole unless it really leads to immortality, right? Some old coot signs over fifty thou so you can revive him a hundred years later so he can die again of old age in a year or two, that doesn’t make much sense to me. The Freezer Program is a way to preserve a few people who die now so they can have immortality in the future, whenever you lick that one. I mean young cats like me, the country in general, main stake we’ve got in letting the Foundation do business is like that slogan of yours about all people living forever someday through the Foundation for Human Immortality, right? So either you’re going hot-and-heavy on immortality research, or the whole thing’s just a con. You follow me, Mr Howards?”

“Wh… wh… why, of course we are!” Howards stammered, and his eyes went reptile-uptight cold. “It’s called ‘The Foundation for Human Immortality,’ not ‘The Freezing Foundation,’ after all. Immortality is our goal and we’re spending billions on it, and in fact…”

Howards hesitated as the promptboard flashed “2 Minutes.” That hit a nerve, all right, Barron thought, but which nerve? Seemed like he was on the edge of blowing something he didn’t want to… 120 seconds to try to find out what.

“Well, it seems to me,” said Barren, “that with you having tax-exempt status and by your own admission spending billions on immortality research and some of that bread being indirectly public money, you owe the American people a progress report. Just how is all this expensive research going?”

Howards shot him a look of pure poison. Lay off! his eyes screamed. “Foundation scientists are following many paths to immortality,” Howards said slowly. (He must be watching the clock too, Barron realized.) “Some, of course, are more promising than others… Nevertheless, we feel that all possibilities should be explored…”

Barron tapped his left foot-button three times, and Vince gave him three-quarters of the screen, with Howards in the inquisition slot again, as the promptboard flashed “90 Seconds.” “How about some specifics?” he asked. “Tell us what the most promising line of research seems to be, and how far along you are.”

“I don’t think it would be right to raise any false hopes this early,” Howards said blandly, but Barren’s teeth sensed something tense?—fearful?—threatening?—behind it. “Discussing specifics would be a mistake at this time…” But false hopes are your stock in trade, Barron thought. Why don’t you want to give a nice sales spiel, Bennie…? Unless…

“You mean to tell me you’ve spent all those billions and you’re right back where you started?” Barron snapped in a tone of cynical disbelief. “That can only mean one of two things: the so-called scientists you’ve got working for you are all quacks or idiots, or… or the money you’ve got budgeted for immortality research is going for something else—like pushing your Freezer Bill through Congress, like backing political campaigns…”

“That’s a lie!” Howards shrieked, and suddenly he seemed back in that strange trance state. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! (The promptboard flashed “30 Seconds.”) Progress is being made. More progress than anyone drea—” Howards shuddered, as if he had suddenly found himself blowing his cool, caught himself short.

Barron foot-signaled Gelardi to give him the full screen wind-up. Something’s going on here, he thought. Something bigger than… bigger than…? Anyway, too big to thrash out on the air. Good timing, as usual.

“Well that’s about it, folks,” he said, “we’re out of time. Been quite an hour, eh? And if this whole thing’s still bugging you, then next Wednesday night you just pick up that vidphone and dial Area Code 212, 969-6969, and we’ll be off to the races again with another hour of Bug Jack Barron.”

And they were rolling the wrap-up commercial, and he was off the air.

“He wants to—”

“No!” Jack Barron said evenly as Gelardi’s voice spoke over the intercom circuit. “I don’t talk to Howards now for no reasons under no conditions.”

Gelardi made hair-pulling motions behind the glass wall of the control booth. “I’ve never heard any of your victims this pissed,” he said. “You’ve gotta get this fruitcake off the line before he melts every circuit in the joint. Such language!”

Barron felt the old talked-out satisfying fatigue come over him as he got up out of the hotseat and thought, as usual, about going somewhere and picking up a chick and fucking her brains—and then, like a new burst of energy, he remembered. Them days is gone forever! Home to Sara, and Sara there! Changes, changes, and good ones for a change this time round.

“Come on, Jack, for chrissakes, cool Howards already!” Gelardi whined.

Who the fuck wants him cooled? Barron thought. Something happened during those last few minutes, I hit something real tender, and he almost spilled some mighty important beans—and not because he kept his cool. Let him stew a while. I want him hot and raving when we get down to nitty-gritty—and no witnesses, Vince, baby.

“Give him my home phone number,” Barron said. “If that doesn’t cool him, tell him to fuck off. In fact why don’t you give him my number and tell him to fuck off anyway? Tell him… tell him Mohammed can damn well come to the mountain.”

“But man, all we need is Howards—”

“Let me do the worrying, Vince, Boy. Wonder Jack Barren’s still in the catbird-seat.”

As vip Bennie Howards will soon find out.

Jack… Jack, maybe I never understood, Sara Westerfeld thought as she stood on the breakfast deck overlooking the penthouse living room, listening to the May shower rattle against the skylight facets and to the faint hum of the elevator rising to the entrance foyer. How long’s it been like this! she wondered. This sure wasn’t what he was doing with Bug Jack Barron when he threw me out… or when I left him. Maybe he’s been right all along, maybe I did leave him by copping-out, refusing to dig where his head was really at?

As she heard the elevator door open, his footsteps down the hall, the pressure of his being moving like a shock wave down the narrow passage, impinging on unknown kinesthetic senses, Sara felt on the edge of a new-style awareness of man-woman contrast that cut far deeper than what was revealed when pants came down.

Power’s a man’s bag, she realized. Any chick that digs power, really feels where it’s at, almost always turns out to be some kind of dyke in the end. Power’s somehow cock-connected; woman’s hung-up on power, she’s hungup on not having a cock, understands power only if she’s thinking like someone who does. Power’s even got its own man-style time-sense: man can wait, scheme, plan years-ahead-guile-waiting games, accumulate power on the sly, then use it for good—if the man’s good deep inside like Jack—like a good fuck good cat can bring a frigid chick along, cooling himself, holding back when he has to, until he’s finally got her ready to come. Man kind of love, man kind of delayed-timing thinking, calculated quanta of emotion and only when the time’s right, and not like woman needs to feel everything totally the moment it happens—good, evil, love, hate, prick inside her. Like a man digs fucking a woman, woman digs being fucked. Is that all that came between us, Jack? Me thinking like an always-now woman, you thinking future time man-thoughts?