Norman Spinrad - Bug Jack Barron

Barron pauses, and almost laughs the old inside-joke laugh as he says the next words with the old endearing bad-boy shrug: “I’m afraid you’re gonna have to wait some more to get your licks folks—till after this word from our palpitating sponsor.”

Epilogue

Never… never… never kill me, Barren! No no no no one kills Benedict Howards, Your Honor! Buy you, Your Honor, kill you own you with the power of life against death, Your Honor… make you immortal, Your Honor… Barren’s on the side of the fading black circle, Your Honor… I’m innocent, on the side of life, Your Honor… No one kills Benedict Howards, Your Honor! No one! Young and strong and healthy soft-skinned women in air-cooled circles of power Los Angeles, Dallas, Vegas, New York, Washington, forever, Your Honor…

Benedict Howards paced the small room endlessly; planning, scheming, mumbling threats to himself. It was a pretty bare room, not quite what he was accustomed to, but not really very much like a prison cell either. Yeah, he thought, maybe those goddamn lawyers knew what they were doing after all.

“My client is obviously mentally incapable of standing trial at this time.”

See, Barren, even you couldn’t do it! Nobody can do it, nobody kills Benedict Howards! Young and strong and healthy for the next million years! Forever! No electric chair, no prison, just a nice public sanitarium commitment until those goddamn expensive lawyers figure out a way to get me off scott-free. And they will, they said they would, promised me they would! They got all the time in the world to get me off, got a million years (’… paranoid delusions…’), got enough time to breed me lawyers (’… semi-hallucinatory state…’), yeah, breed whole new races of the bastards (’… incapable of standing trial… is to be confined in a hospital for the criminally insane until such time as he may be deemed mentally competent to stand trial…’), controlled mutation whole new races of purebred lawyers can kill that murder indictment and then I can get out of here, when it’s safe.

Benedict Howards insane! What a joke! Joke on Jack Barren, Senators, Congressmen, President, Your Honor. You prick, Your Honor, I didn’t even have to buy you, Your Honor, you could’ve lived forever, Your Honor, but you cretin you, you did just what my lawyers wanted you to, put me here where the fading-black-circle electric chair can’t get at me, never get at me, while my lawyers hold it back, push it back, keep it back for a million years.

All they gotta do is quash that murder indictment, and the next day I walk right out of here, ’cause I’m not crazy, Benedict Howards is the sanest man in the world, saner than a man, better than a man, immortal like a god…

Howards paced the room, thinking: I paid good money for worse rooms than this in cold dry Panhandle days when I couldn’t afford better, not a bad deal, the dumb sap government pays the rent on this joint while I sit it out, while they quash the indictment… Then I can stop faking it and get myself declared sane again, easiest thing in the world, ’cause I’m the sanest man in the world… nobody’s ever been as sane as me…

Yeah, not such a bad room, pretty good view, the bed isn’t bad, and they even bring me my meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner in bed any time I want it. Even got… even got… even got…

Howards froze. Mustn’t think about it! Can’t think about it! Think about it, and it turns itself on! Barren! That fucker Barren, he can turn it on from the inside, the bastard! Any time he wants to he can turn it on from the inside, any time I forget not to think about it, he can turn it on… from in inside… don’t think about it… don’t…

But Benedict Howards knew that it was too late. He had thought about it, about the television set built into the wall, high up where he couldn’t get at it, couldn’t smash the leering smart-ass fading black circle of Jack Barren watching him, always watching him, immortal just like me, be there forever, always watching! Watching! Watching! Watching!

He found his eyes moving upward to watch the face on the television screen; he had to watch, had to stay on guard, that fucker Barron was always watching him! And Barren’s immortal, I made him immortal, can’t get rid of him, and he’s on the side of the fading black circle, gotta watch him, don’t dare turn my back…

Benedict Howards shook his fist at the television screen, the screen they had sworn they were cutting out of the hospital circuit the first time he had tried to climb the wall to smash it. But they lied! They lied!

“Damn you, Barron! I’ll get you, kill you, buy you! You hear that, Barron, I own you! Own you down to your toes!”

But the smirking phosphorescent face burning itself from the glass screen into the back of his eyes said nothing, just smiled that damn smart-ass smile, the deep, shadowed eye-hollows black, black, black, shimmering, circling, face of the fading black circle closing in, fading circle of death…

Howards staggered backward, felt the edge of the bed cut into the small of his back, fell backward on to it, feeling tube up nose down throat choking him his life leaking away in phosphor-dot plastic bottles, and Jack Barren’s face laughing smart-ass doctors nurses fading black circle life leaking away tube up nose down throat forever…

“Nooooooooo!” Howards screamed and screamed and screamed. “I’m dying I’m dying I’m dying…”

Footsteps outside, the man with the needle again, needle of sleep, of blackness, needle of dreams of the fading black circle closing in, darkness closing in, face of Jack Barron, life leaking away forever… forever…

“I’m not crazy!” Howards screamed. “I’m not! I’m not! I’m dying… I don’t wanna die, don’t wanna, don’t wanna… Don’t let it kill me! Don’t let him kill me!”

Lukas Greene pushed the vidphone across his desk, rubbed his eyes. Malcolm running too, he thought. What’s that make, four… or five? Everybody wants to get into the act! As the Chinese like to say when the shit hits the fan, “We are living in interesting times.”

Hard to figure what’s gonna spring next. When Jack torpedoed Howards all the shit in the country hit the fan. Teddy the Pretender locking up the “regular” Democratic nomination, if there is such a thing any more… And the old “Foundation Democrats” read out of the party and running their own candidate… Democrats jumping to the SJC… maverick Republicans bolting the coalition and running their independence candidate… now Malcolm Shabazz running, and even old Withers making noises again. Still, with Jack on an SJC-Republican coalition ticket we probably have the inside track.

But it’s sure become a bookie’s nightmare! Yeah, we’re living in interesting times. But at least we got as much chance as anyone to come out on top when the Great Unwashed finally puts Humpty-Dumpty together again.

Greene sighed. President Jack Barron, he thought, and Vice-President Lukas Greene… Well, stop crying, you nigger you, you knew that was the way it had to be. Jack up front, and you number two shit-color brown, black is more like it, maybe get to go as far as any nigger can.

The Black Shade, oh, what a laugh, you white nigger you, as if there could be a black shade any more than there could be a white nigger! Who knows, Greene thought, maybe that’s why I started that one in the first place. If there really could be a black shade, then maybe there could somehow be a white nigger… in a White House, someday, somehow… Can’t kid yourself now, baby, this is nitty-gritty time, and if the SJC finally gets its President, it’s gonna be Jack, not you, white, not black.

Come on, he told himself, snap out of it, man! Remember why you got into this racket in the first place, you felt it in your belly then. Remember how it was? Only lost that gut-feel when you got your little piece of the action. Well, that’s over now, it’s a whole new hand of cards, and who knows, maybe now we got some aces.