Norman Spinrad - Bug Jack Barron

“Well, would you believe a Presidential nomination?” Barron said, still not quite able to bring himself to use the whole silly schtick seriously. “You know how tight I’ve always been with the SJC, Founding Father and all that crap; well, when Luke Greene saw me dig my spurs into you he figured I could use the show to build myself up as The Hero of the People at your expense, and run for President on the SJC ticket next year. And without my giving him the go-ahead he nosed around, and now he tells me he really can deliver the Social Justice nomination.” Hold the last ace for the showdown, he told himself. Let Bennie walk into it with his jaw.

“So that’s what you mean by a Presidential nomination,” Howards said, smiling easily. “The SJC nomination and a first-class plane ticket just might get you to Washington with a good tail-wind, and you know it. I don’t get it, Barron, you’re not dumb enough to throw away a free Freezer over a chance to lose your show and make a public joke of yourself. That’s not even a decent bluff. You’re slipping, Barron, you’re slipping.”

Barron smiled. This is it, he thought. Now I knock you right on your ass, Howards. “You know, Bennie,” he said, “that’s just about what I told Luke at the time. (He saw Howards relax some more and plunged straight through the hole in the line.) Yeah, I told him kamikaze’s not the name of my game… but, of course, that was before Greg Morris offered me the Republican nomination.”

Howards started, went a trifle pale. “That’s a lie,” he said, but without too much conviction. “You a Republican? With your background? Who they supposed to run on the ticket with you, Joe Stalin? You’ve gotta be stoned to think I’d believe that.”

Barron pushed his vidphone across the desk. “You don’t have to believe anything,” he said. “Call Greene. Call Morris. You’re a big boy, Bennie; I’m surprised no one’s told you the facts of life yet. Add it up. The Republicans have been sliding down the drain since Herbert Hoover, they’re desperate, they’ve gotta win, and, as Morris so flatteringly indicated, they’d run on Adolph Hitler if that’s what a victory would take. The only Chinaman’s chance they have of winning is on a fusion ticket with the SJC, and the only man they can run who could get the SJC nomination is yours truly, Jack Barron.”

“Ridiculous,” Howards said, his voice thin and unconvincing. “The Republicans and the SJC hate each other worse than either of ’em hate the Democrats. They don’t agree on anything. They could never get in bed together.”

“Ah, but they do agree on one thing,” Barron said. “They agree on you. They’re both against the Freezer Utility Bill and the Foundation for Human Immortality—and there’s your fusion platform. They don’t run me against the Pretender or any stooge you may still be able to ram down the Democrats’ throat. I run against you, Howards. I use Bug Jack Barron to hang you around the Democratic candidate’s neck like a rotten albatross stinking from coast to coast, and I run against that. Get the picture? Win or lose, the Foundation gets cut to pieces in the process. And win or lose, it’d mean you couldn’t muscle me off the air because even though the Republicans can’t deliver votes anymore, most of the fat cats in the country are still behind ’em. Pressure my sponsors, and the GOP can line up ten others. Republican-type bread still controls two out of four networks, still has as much leverage with the FCC as you do.”

“It’s… it’s absurd,” Howards said weakly. “You could never win. The Democrats can’t lose, and you know it.”

“You’re probably right,” Barron agreed. “But that’s not the point; I’ve got no eyes to be President. Point is, in a campaign like that you lose no matter who wins. By the time I’m finished working on you, you’ll stink so bad the Democratic candidate—even if he is your stooge—will have to jump up and down on your bleeding bod to win. And who really knows…? Tom Dewey was a sure winner in ’48…”

“You’re turning my stomach,” said Howards. “A Commie cretin like you even thinking about being President…”

Barron shrugged it off. “So do your patriotic duty, and save your own skin while you’re at it. I don’t have eyes for the White House. Buy me. I’m sitting here, waiting to be bought. My cards are all on the table. Let’s see what your hole card is. And it better be good, ’cause if you don’t come clean now you won’t have another chance.”

Barron felt the moment hanging high and cool in thin air between them like the Continental Divide; like being high on Big Stuff, he thought as he studied the gears meshing, tumblers falling into place behind Howards’ cold rodent eyes. He’s bought it, he thought, or anyway he’s not laughing it off, shit the whole schtick’s real. Look at the cat measuring me, measuring himself against me, measuring fifty billion bucks life-and-death power against nothing but a fancy pyramid of bullshit, and, baby, you got him going, got your hot little hands around his throat. How’s it feel, Bennie, to finally meet a cat who looks like he’s your size?

What the fuck, Barron suddenly realized, it’s no shuck, I am his size—smarter, trickier, thinking circles around him. Jack Barren’s anyone’s size. Who’s a better man—Luke, Morris, Teddy, Howards…? Just bigger muscles, is all, you really be afraid of any of ’em in a fair fight? Just men like you, is all, and probably not even as well hung. Crazy to imagine myself as President. Know damn well the job’s too big… but maybe it’s too big for anyone, and deep inside anyone who’s ever looked across that Rubicon’s gotta think he’s getting flippy. It’s all a game of bluff, money, power, President—life is all—and who wrote that book but good old Jack Barren? Anybody’s got the openers can play to win in any game. Is that what Sara sees?

He almost half-hoped that Howards would call him, tell him to get stuffed, push him off the cliff into unknown waters; felt like a power-junkie sitting on top the Mother Lode, the Last Big High sitting in his spike, and who knows how it would come out, who really knows? Whee, he thought, brat-wise, that hole card of yours had better be good, Bennie!

“Look at me, Barren,” Howards finally said. “What do you see?”

“Let’s not get into…” Barren began to snap back, then stopped when he saw the strange, strange manic-junkie look creeping like a plague into Howards’ glistening eyes.

“Yeah, Barren,” Howards said, smiling a mirthless reptile smile. “Take a good look. You see a man in his fifties, in pretty good shape, right? Take another look ten years from now, twenty, a century, a million years from now, and you know what you’ll see? You’ll see a man in his fifties, in pretty good shape is what you’ll see. A decade from now, a century from now, a thousand years from now—forever, Barren, forever.

“I’m not just a man now, I’m something more. You said it yourself, four billion dollars a year is a lot of money to spend on immortality research without getting results. Well, my boys finally got results, and you’re looking right at ’em. I’m immortal, Barren, immortal!. You know what that means? I’ll never get older. I’ll never die. Can you feel it? Can you taste it? To wake up every morning and smell the air and know you’ll be smelling it every morning for the next million years… maybe forever. Dumb joke the doctors made—they won’t know if I’ll live forever till I’ve lived forever. No data, see? But Benedict Howards is gonna give ’em their data, gonna live forever, forever… You see what you’re up against, Barren? An immortal—like a god! Think I’d let anything stand between me and that? Would you?”