Orbit 7 - [Anthology] Read online

  Things moved quickly as they settled into the Hashbury groove. They rented the former prep room of the now defunct Dimlawn Funeral Home, Amaryllis taking great pride in adapting the various prep tables and gurnies to their more homely uses. Other couples and groups occupied other rooms in the same building and there was a great camaraderie among the Dimlawn Group, as they called themselves. To celebrate the Modes’ arrival, a hashish punch was made in a left-behind embalming pump, and the party later delighted a busload of conventioning Seventh Day Adventists by weaving down the street wearing decayed wreaths and crying “We are ready.”

  There was no longer any need for the Swap Club, although it took the Modes some time to adjust to the different hygienic habits of the Dimlawners. Amaryllis, in fact, came down with a good case, and gave it to Harley so he could go for penicillin, an act which some of the Dimlawners considered a cop-out.

  They bought a more appropriate wardrobe, Harley finally finding a use for some of the junk he’d bought on a family vacation to Cherokee, and a new car. It was a beauty, an authentic 1948 Citroën Saloon Car, used by the Vichy High Command and still showing bullet holes inflicted by the Free French. Or so the topless Indian maiden salesgirl atHonest Fuzzy Lipschits’ Old West Auto Mart and Art Gallery told them. Fuzzy, it seemed, had seen the handwriting on the wall for tacos and had bought this agency. Then he had moved on, selling his name to a smaller entrepreneur named Albert Schweitzer (no relation), who now owned the business. Anyway, it was a beautiful car and life among the Dimlawners was, for a while, sweet.

  Then, slowly, something began to grow between them again. Somehow, despite all their efforts, they could not quite fit into the Dimlawn world. For one thing, everyone knew the Modes had money. The profit on the house, plus a sizeable pension refund from the Highway Maintenance Department, made quite a bundle. And since there was little to spend it on that would not appear middle class to the Dimlawners, it sat in the Hashbury National Bank drawing five percent. Then, at the worst possible time, Amaryllis discovered, hidden in the coffin crate that was Harley’s armoire, his stash of Max Rafferty campaign literature.

  He knew he should have destroyed it, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to do it. A woman had given it to him on the street, and he had carelessly stuffed it into his serape. Once, while Amaryllis was attending her night course in the Kama Sutra, he had taken it out and read it with the same guilty thrill he used to get from the nude primitives in National Geographic. But then he had put it back and forgotten about it until the terrible discovery.

  They both recognized it as a crisis. But it wouldn’t do to have it out where the Dimlawners would hear. So they went to Fuzzy’s Nitty Gritty City, Soul Food Restaurant and Rare Chinchilla Ranch, the town’s latest rage. From a waitress, nude except for body paint and graffiti, they ordered Chitterlings Amandine, Grits with Garlic Butter, and Ripple Wine. Amaryllis seemed willing to set the crisis aside until they had eaten. Finally, moving a watermelon seed pensively on her plate, she spoke:

  “Harley, what are we going to do? It’s all wrong.”

  “I won’t do it again, baby, I promise I won’t.”

  “But you know you will, Harley. We both know you will. And you know why you will, Harley, my love, you know why? Because you’re still square as a fucking brick.”

  Harley sat shattered as the accusation rang in his ears.

  “Still square,” echoed a voice nearby, not Amaryllis’, and slowly Lamont Cranston materialized. He was shaking his head like a patient mother. “I can see,” he said in an injured tone, “that getting you people with it is going to be in the nature of a fantastic hassle. But I am willing to do so by laying this on you: that your hangup is that you are married to each other and liberation depends on your like getting a divorce.”

  “A divorce,” said Harley, half rising. “Now just a minute you goddamn creep. If you—”

  “Harley,” said Amaryllis softly, with that mystical look again, “he’s right.”

  “Oh, God,” said Harley, and took a belt of Ripple.

  “You see, baby,” she went on, “it’s been our problem all along really. Do you remember how our neighbors were shocked when we introduced ourselves as Mr. and Mrs.? How do you think I’ve felt all these times, at all those parties with people eyeballing us like some freaks?”

  “But I’ve let you do anything—”

  “It’s not what you do, it’s how you feel when you do it. Don’t you see we can’t be really free until we’ve shaken this? Can’t you see that Cranston here is right?”

  But Cranston was not there. He had disappeared, along with Harley’s last hope. The next morning they were on the road for Las Vegas.

  The place to go, Amaryllis learned, was Lipschits’ Hitch and Ditch, Mud Wedding and Divorce Parlor and Jai Alai Fronton. Rumor was that Warhol himself had married or divorced there only last week, using Fuzzy’s specialty, Marriage a la Mud. The Modes, of course, would have the special too.

  Fuzzy’s famous Mud Wedding required the couples being joined or parted to roll nude in a gigantic mud bath before the ceremony, thereby adding a sense of mystery to the personality of one’s partner. It was remarkable how many divorced couples immediately remarried and vice versa, a trend of which Fuzzy heartily approved. Harley, of course, was more than willing to pay for two ceremonies to have his Amaryllis. He loved her, muddy or no, and wanted to be married to her, even if it was a hangup. But she was adamant, and when they walked away from Fuzzy’s that day, still muddy in a place or two, they were just plain Harley and Amaryllis.

  Harley had to admit it had done something good for them. Amaryllis was as amorous as he had ever seen her. She could hardly wait until he found a half-hour parking space and joined her in the back seat, that beautiful back seat which still seemed to echo the “Marseillaise.” Afterwards, they wandered in a daze, until they had lost all the money they brought from the Hashbury National in slot machines, and until the old dissatisfaction had come to live with them again.

  They found themselves driving the Citroën aimlessly through the back streets of Vegas, until finally they came to a lot full of motorcycles. Even at three in the morning, the neon flashed above it, identifying it as L & C’s Machine Scene, Exclusive Agents for the Libidomobile. The Libidomobile, it turned out, was a bike which was not only tuned for performance, but for satisfying sexual vibrations. They traded the Citroën even.

  By the time Harley hit the first red light, he knew Amaryllis had finally found her thing. He looked back at her, bouncing there, with mixed feelings. She had found her thing, and that was fine, but now what about him? What was he supposed to do?

  “Honey,” he said softly, “where should we go now?”

  “I don’t care, Harley, Mexico, Alaska, Tibet, Sweden, just get this mother moving!”

  And so they rode, neither sure where the desert road would take them. He could feel her arms tighten around him now and then with amazing strength, but otherwise he was alone. Left to himself, something inside Harley snapped. The mind he had disciplined so long now fantasized out of control. He dreamed of addressing the Republican Convention. “My friends,” he would say, “I give you a man . . .” He saw himself aboard a slim white yacht, drinking all the martinis he had ever wanted. He played golf with Paul Harvey, corresponded with William F. Buckley, Jr., mowed his own yard with a riding mower. He read the Wall Street Journal and called his broker. He wandered deliciously through a country club of the mind. As he dreamed, the tears drained from the sides of his goggles and were whipped away by the wind.

  Neither of them saw the black limousine pass them in the night. Nor, of course, were they aware of the conversation taking place within, between Mr. Fenton (Fuzzy) Lipschits and his partner. “Tell me, sweetheart,” said Fuzzy as he handed the man a drink from the custom bar, “what do the Shadow know new?”

  <>

  * * * *

  In the Queue

  by Keith Laumer

  The old man fell just as
Farn Hestler’s power wheel was passing his Place in Line, on his way back from the Comfort Station. Hestler, braking, stared down at the twisted face, a mask of soft, pale leather in which the mouth writhed as if trying to tear itself free of the dying body. Then he jumped from the wheel, bent over the victim. Quick as he was, a lean woman with fingers like gnarled roots was before him, clutching at the old man’s fleshless shoulders.

  “Tell them me, Millicent Dredgewicke Klunt,” she was shrilling into the vacant face. “Oh, if you only knew what I’ve been through, how I deserve the help—”

  Hestler sent her reeling with a deft shove of his foot. He knelt beside the old man, lifted his head.

  “Vultures,” he said. “Greedy, snapping at a man. Now, I care. And you were getting so close to the Head of the Line. The tales you could tell, I’ll bet. An Old-timer. Not like these Line, er, jumpers,” he diverted the obscenity. “I say a man deserves a little dignity at a moment like this—”

  “Wasting your time, Jack,” a meaty voice said. Hestler glanced up into the hippopotamine features of the man he always thought of as Twentieth Back. “The old coot’s dead.”

  Hestler shook the corpse. “Tell them Argall Y. Hestler!” he yelled into the dead ear. “Argall, that’s A-R-G-A-L-L—”

  “Break it up,” the brassy voice of a Line Policeman sliced through the babble. “You, get back.” A sharp prod lent urgency to the command. Hestler rose reluctantly, his eyes on the waxy face slackening into an expression of horrified astonishment.

  “Ghoul,” the lean woman he had kicked snarled. “Line—!” She mouthed the unmentionable word.

  “I wasn’t thinking of myself,” Hestler countered hotly. “But my boy Argall, through no fault of his own—”

  “All right, quiet!” the cop snarled. He jerked a thumb at the dead man. “This guy make any disposition?”

  “Yes!” the lean woman cried. “He said, to Millicent Dredgewicke Klunt, that’s M-I-L—”

  “She’s lying,” Hestler cut in. “I happened to catch the name Argall Hestler—right, sir?” He looked brightly at a slack-jawed lad who was staring down at the corpse.

  The boy swallowed and looked Hestler in the face.

  “Hell, he never said a word,” he said, and spat, just missing Hestler’s shoe.

  “Died intestate,” the cop intoned, and wrote a note in his book. He gestured and a clean-up squad moved in, lifted the corpse onto a cart, covered it, trundled it away.

  “Close it up,” the cop ordered.

  “Intestate,” somebody grumbled. “Crap!”

  “A rotten shame. The slot goes back to the government. Nobody profits. Goddamn!” the fat man who had spoken looked around at the others. “In a case like this we ought to get together, have some equitable plan worked out and agreed to in advance—”

  “Hey,” the slack-jawed boy said. “That’s conspiracy!”

  “I meant to suggest nothing illegal.” The fat man faded back to his Place in Line. As if by common consent, the small crowd dissipated, sliding into their Places with deft footwork. Hestler shrugged and remounted his wheel, put-putted forward, aware of the envious eyes that followed him. He passed the same backs he always passed, some standing, some sitting on canvas camp stools under sun-faded umbrellas, here and there a nylon queuebana, high and square, some shabby, some ornate, owned by the more fortunate. Like himself: he was a lucky man, he had never been a Standee, sweating the line exposed to the sun and prying eyes.

  It was a bright afternoon. The sun shone down on the vast concrete ramp across which the Line snaked from a point lost in distance across the plain. Ahead—not far ahead now, and getting closer every day—was the blank white wall perforated only by the Window, the terminal point of the Line. Hestler slowed as he approached the Hestler queuebana; his mouth went dry as he saw how close it was to the Head of the Line now. One, two, three, four slots back! Ye Gods, that meant six people had been processed in the past twelve hours—an unprecedented number. And it meant—Hestler caught his breath—he might reach the Window himself, this shift. For a moment, he felt a panicky urge to flee, to trade places with First Back, and then with Second, work his way back to a safe distance, give himself a chance to think about it, get ready . . .

  “Say, Farn.” The head of his proxy, Cousin Galpert, poked from the curtains of the three foot square, five foot high nylon-walled queuebana. “Guess what? I moved up a spot while you were gone.”

  Hestler folded the wheel and leaned it against the weathered cloth. He waited until Galpert had emerged, then surreptitiously twitched the curtains wide open. The place always smelled fudgy and stale after his cousin had spent half an hour in it while he was away for his Comfort Break.

  “We’re getting close to the Head,” Galpert said excitedly, handing over the lockbox that contained the Papers. “I have a feeling—” He broke off as sharp voices were suddenly raised a few Spaces behind. A small, pale-haired man with bulging blue eyes was attempting to force himself into Line between Third Back and Fifth Back.

  “Say, isn’t that Four Back?” Hestler asked.

  “You don’t understand,” the little man was whimpering. “I had to go answer an unscheduled call of nature . . . ” His weak eyes fixed on Fifth Back, a large, coarse-featured man in a loud shirt and sunglasses. “You said you’d watch my Place . . . !”

  “So whattaya think ya got a Comfort Break for, ya bum! Beat it!”

  Lots of people were shouting at the little man now:

  “Line-ine-ucker-bucker—Line bucker, Line bucker . . . ”

  The little man fell back, covering his ears. The obscene chant gained in volume as other voices took it up.

  “But it’s my Place,” the evictee wailed. “Father left it to me when he died, you all remember him . . . ” His voice was drowned in the uproar.

  “Serves him right,” Galpert said, embarrassed by the chant. “A man with no more regard for his inheritance than to walk off and leave it . . . ”

  They watched the former Fourth Back turn and flee, his hands still over his ears.

  After Galpert left on the wheel, Hestler aired the queuebana for another ten minutes, standing stony-faced, arms folded, staring at the back of One Up. His father had told him some stories about One Up, back in the old days, when they’d both been young fellows, near the end of the Line. Seemed he’d been quite a cutup in those days, always joking around with the women close to him in Line, offering to trade Places for a certain consideration. You didn’t see many signs of that now: just a dumpy old man in burst-out shoe-leather, sweating out the Line. But he himself was lucky, Hestler reflected. He’d taken over from Father when the latter had had his stroke, a twenty-one thousand two hundred and ninety-four slot jump. Not many young fellows did that well. Not that he was all that young, he’d put in his time in the Line, it wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve the break.

  And now, in a few hours maybe, he’d hit the Head of the Line. He touched the lockbox that contained the old man’s Papers—and of course his own, and Cluster’s and the kids’—everything. In a few hours, if the Line kept moving, he could relax, retire, let the kids, with their own Places in Line, carry on. Let them do as well as their dad had done, making Head of the Line at under forty-five!

  Inside his queuebana it was hot, airless. Hestler pulled off his coat and squatted in the crouch-hammock—not the most comfortable position in the world, maybe, but in full compliance with the Q-law requirement that at least one foot be on the ground at all times, and the head higher than the waist. Hestler remembered an incident years before, when some poor devil without a queuebana had gone to sleep standing up. He’d stood with his eyes closed and his knees bent, and slowly sunk down to a squat; then bobbed slowly up and blinked and went back to sleep. Up and down, they’d watched him for an hour before he finally let his head drop lower than his belt. They’d pitched him out of Line then, and closed ranks. Ah, there’d been some wild times in the queue in the old days, not like now. There was too much at stake
now, this near the Head. No time for horseplay.

  Just before dusk, the Line moved up. Three to go! Hestler’s heart thumped.

  It was dark when he heard the voice whisper: “Four Up!”

  Hestler jerked wide awake. He blinked, wondering if he’d dreamed the urgent tone.

  “Four Up!” the voice hissed again. Hestler twitched the curtain open, saw nothing, pulled his head back in. Then he saw the pale, pinched face, the bulging eyes of Four Back, peering through the vent slot at the rear of the tent.

  “You have to help me,” the little man said. “You saw what happened, you can make a deposition that I was cheated, that—”

  “Look here, what are you doing out of Line?” Hestler cut in. “I know you’re on-shift, why aren’t you holding down a new slot?”

  “I . . . I couldn’t face it,” Four Back said brokenly. “My wife, my children—they’re all counting on me.”

  “You should have thought of that sooner.”