Norman Spinrad - Bug Jack Barron

But the moment he stepped out on to the ramp in the cool morning air, flashbulbs began to blind him and the motely crowd began what was patently a carefully-rehearsed chant:

“Bug Jack Barron! Bug Jack Barron! Bug Jack Barron!”

Squinting against the intermittent scintillance of the flashbulbs, Barron could now make out the signs the crowd was waving—full color posters of himself with the kinesthop-under-black-wash background he used on the show screaming “Bug Jack Barron” in red slash lettering; black and white photos of himself with “Jack Barron” in white letters across the bottom; white placards with oval featureless white head-outlines wearing opaque black sunglasses and no lettering at all he couldn’t figure out.

“Bug Jack Barron! Bug Jack Barron! Bug Jack Barron!”

As he trotted down the ramp he saw Luke waiting for him at the bottom in a gaggle of flunkies. Luke wore a big button in each lapel—and he was also wearing shades. All his flunkies were wearing shades too, dark shades, black—

“She- yit ,” Barron groaned as he reached the bottom of the ramp. Black Shades. The Black Shade! That slick motherfucker!

“Welcome to the New Mississippi,” Luke said with a great shit-eating smirk as Barron stood nose to nose with him in a sea of flashbulbs, read the buttons on each label: “Bug Jack Barron” in red letters over blue kinesthop pattern (so that’s where those buttons in the Village came from after all) in the left lapel, and in the right, the black on white head-outline wearing black glasses, but this time with the legend “The Black Shade.”

“You mother—”

“Cool it, man, You’re on the air,” Luke whispered as he reached into a pocket, pulled out a pair of… black shades, and before Barron could make a move to stop him, jammed the sunglasses on his head, grinned, draped an arm over his shoulders as flashbulbs popped like manic fireflies and hot TV lights bathed the whole silly scene. And the crowd, on cue, began to chant: “The Black Shade! The Black Shade!”

Then someone shoved a microphone between him and Luke, and Barron felt forced to smile back, mumble, “I’m glad to be here’; had the urge to kick Luke smack in the balls. Smart-ass black bastard! Why did I tell him in advance I was coming, should’ve snuck into this loonie bin wearing a goddamn false beard. This crap’ll be spread all over the country, and I can’t stop it, friends like these, who needs enemies?

And now Luke was making a goddamned speech, his arm still draped around Barron’s shoulders: “It’s not often we see a shade down here we can welcome as a true brother, the black man in this country doesn’t have many white brothers. But this cat standing here with me’s not really a white man even if he is a shade. He’s a Founding Father of the Social Justice Coalition, paid his dues in the most dangerous battles of the Civil Rights Movement, my oldest and closest personal friend, the man everyone in America, black or white, looks to every Wednesday night to give a voice to those who have no voice, a friend to those who have no friend, a real soul brother. He’s not black, but he’s not white either; he’s a zebra—black with white stripes, white with black stripes, you pays your money, and you takes your choice. Fellow Mississippians, The Black Shade— Jack Barron!”

“Show biz all the way, eh Luke?” Barron muttered, sotto voce.

Greene kicked his ankle. “Come on, schmuck, don’t screw me up,” he whispered under the ragged roar of the crowd. “When’s the last time you got an intro like that! Make nice, Claude, come on, don’t make us both look like idiots. You can kick me in the belly later.”

Now what? Barron wondered. Tell ’em all to get stuffed, cool all this crap once and for all before it gets started? But he felt the old-friend weight of Luke’s arm across his shoulders (Can’t knife my old buddy even if he deserves it. Some buddy you are, Luke), looked out over the crowd, pale black ghost-shapes through the dark glasses, saw mouths open for real yelling for every pain of being dirt-poor-black in white man’s country, saw déjà vu crowds in Meridian, Selma, a hundred sullen Southern towns yelling in anguish surrounded by rednecks dogs cops prods hoses, Luke behind him, Sara’s worshipful eyes on him in streets of danger, remembered the warmth of close to the blood Baby Bolshevik black and white together and all that jazz, marches, laying his life on the line every time he opened his mouth, felt the heat coming off this big-league real live Governor’s arm around his shoulders crowd so thick you could cut it, crying anguish, chanting put-on Madison Avenue hope, sold-out black losers, always sold out, conned, cheated, used, fed to the fishes, and whatever fetid game Luke’s playing with all this… shit they really mean it, not a game to these poor fuckers, it’s the real nitty-gritty, and how can I give ’em one more kick in the balls when even Luke’s using ’em?

“The Black Shade! The Black Shade!”

“Thank you… thank you,” Barron said into the mike some black hand was holding under his chin, heard his voice in tinny reverberation, hidden behind his shades like a TV screen interface shield, almost like a session of Bug Jack Barron.

“Don’t really know what to say. I never expected anything like this (giving Luke a real hard kick on his smart-ass ankle), and I don’t really understand it. I mean, I’m not a candidate for anything, like certain other cats got their arm around my shoulder.”

He flashed his best one-of-the-boys smile. “All I can really say is that all those signs saying ‘Jack Barron, the Black Shade’ is the nicest thing anyone ever said about me. Even if it’s not really true, it’s something to live up to, not just for me, but for the whole country. That’s where it should be at, everywhere in the United States—black shades and white Negroes, Americans, all of us, is all, and none of us, black or white, should ever even have to think about it. That’s the America we all want, and I guess a black shade is what you’re stuck with till we get it, until this country has grown up enough to become a zebra—and I hate to contradict the Governor here, but that’s a nocolor animal with black and white stripes.”

“Snap them galluses!” Luke whispered into his ear as the crowd broke into cheers. “Still the same old Jack Barron underneath all that mung. Knew I could count on you.”

Son of a bitch, Barron thought, should’ve told ’em all where it’s really at. Should’ve told ’em how they were being used, how you using me to play with their heads, Luke. Yeah (he admitted sourly to himself as the crowd continued to cheer, waving signs flashing flashbulbs kinesthop buttons national TV coverage hot white spotlight on the sound of his name on desperate lips getting to him, turning him on in spite of himself, turning on Berkeley Baby Bolshevik Jack-and-Sara other crowds other times memories of blood rushing behind his ears, the sound of his voice made flesh—and won’t this hype the ratings), and use them on my head, too.

“You can count on me to give you a good, swift, on-camera boot in the testes, you don’t get me out of here and do it fast,” Barron said tautly, half-aware (admit it, man, it does get to you) he was also threatening himself.

Luke laughed an infuriating knowing laugh, like two buddies meeting again on the street outside after a trip to a low-class whorehouse. His arm still resting on Barren’s shoulder, he led him to the limousine whistling “Hail to the Chief” in hideous off-key, shaking his head from side to side.