Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 (60 page)

The traffic on La Brea moved by us silently, like a movie with the sound
turned off. But, oddly enough, I could hear the hum and click of the
traffic lights as they changed. I realized I was still stupidly holding my
badge in my hand and put it away. I forced myself to look at him again.

"Will you please come down to the station with me …" My voice
cracked. Come on, Rankin, get hold of yourself! "It's purely a routine
matter."

"What do you want?"

It was only four words, but I realized I'd never heard one of them speak.
How can you describe music to a deaf person? Any actor in the world would
trade his prick for that voice. My own words stopped, and we looked at
each other. Get your shit together! You're acting like some poor fairy
who's just been propositioned by Robert Redford.

"I can make … this official if you refuse to cooperate." His
shoulders sagged slightly. He nodded.

He followed me to the Dart without protest. I had been a little worried
because I wasn't in uniform and wasn't in a squad car, but he didn't seem
to notice. I had my revolver handy when I handcuffed him to the door
handle, but he sat slumped in the seat looking at nothing.

I took the Hollywood Freeway to the Pasadena Freeway. I was going down
Colorado Boulevard when he said, "Why are you doing this to me?"

I glanced at him, but he was still looking at nothing. I almost turned the
car around. I wish I had, but I didn't.

He didn't say anything else as I got on the Foothill Freeway and headed
east through the San Gabriel Valley. It was almost dawn when I pulled off
the pavement winding up Mt. Baldy. I opened the gate to the gravel road
down the canyon. I drove through and put on the padlock I had brought with
me. I drove up the canyon a couple of miles until the road ended at a
cabin. It belonged to a director friend of mine who was on location in
Jamaica and would be for several months. He'd let me use it before.
Besides, what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

I had to break a window to get in, but that could be fixed. I'd brought a
pane of glass and a cutter. I turned on the electricity at the meter box
and took him in. I took the chain I had brought, handcuffed one end to his
ankle and the other end around the commode. Now he could use the bathroom
and the bed, but the chain wasn't long enough to reach the bedroom door or
the window. He didn't complain through any of this. He acted as if he
didn't even know I was there.

I unloaded the car, put on a pot of coffee, scrambled some eggs, and tried
to get him to eat something but he wouldn't. I finished eating, unpacked
my clothes, took a shower in the other bathroom and went to sleep in the
other bedroom.

He still wouldn't eat when I woke up. I took another shower and shaved. I
moved a chair just out of the limit of the chain—he hadn't given me
any trouble, but I wasn't taking chances—and sat down to watch him.

He was still sitting on the side of the bed, where he'd been when I put on
the chain, his magnificent body relaxed and his beautiful face calm. His
cheeks were as smooth as ever. I knew for sure he didn't have to shave.
His hands were folded in his lap and his eyes seemed to be on them. For
two hours he didn't move except for gentle breathing. I didn't realize so
much time had passed until the room began to get dark.

I turned on the lights and went to him, holding out my hand. "Give me your
wallet." He acted as if he hadn't heard me. "Give me your wallet," I said
again, louder.

He looked up at me then, puzzlement in his eyes. "I don't have one."

"Stand up," I said. He hesitated for a moment, then stood. I went over him
quickly. He was telling the truth. He had no wallet; nothing but empty
pockets.

I returned to my chair and sat, watching him. He stood where I had left
him, stood as calmly as he had sat. "How many of you are there?" I said.
He didn't seem to hear. "Look, we might as well get a few things straight.
You're gonna tell me everything I want to know. We can do it easy or we
can do it hard. It's up to you."

He stood for a moment in the same position, then looked at me. "I don't
know." His voice still made the hair on my arms stand up.

"You must have some idea. A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? A million?"
He shook his head. Maybe he wasn't going to let it be easy after all. I
let it go; there was plenty of time. "I can fix you something to eat if
you want. I'm not trying to starve you to death. Aren't you hungry?" He
said nothing.

"Look! It won't do any good to go on a hunger strike. Not one damn bit of
good!" No response. I used my buddy voice. "You can have anything you
want. Just name it."

He looked at me quickly. "I want to leave."

I laughed. "Anything but that."

He looked back at his hands. "I would like to bathe."

"Sure. Go ahead."

He moved his foot; the chain rattled. I dug the key out of my pocket and
pitched it to him. "Unlock the cuff and throw the key back." I picked up
the revolver. He unlocked the chain and tossed me the key. He started for
the bathroom.

"Wait!" My heart was beating too hard. "Undress in here and leave the
clothes." My mouth was dry and I swallowed. He took off his shirt and hung
it on the back of the chair. He took off the shoes and socks and the pants
and jockey shorts. His back was toward me, but it wasn't modesty. He just
happened to be standing that way. Michelangelo, you bumbling incompetent!
If you could see this, you'd take a hammer to all those misshapen pieces
of rock you spent so much time on.

He took a step toward the bathroom. I made a croaking sound in my throat.
I tried again.

"Stop!" He stopped. "Turn around." He turned. I felt the blood singing in
my ears. I don't know how long I looked at him. He stood
unselfconsciously, totally unconcerned by my staring or his own nakedness.
There wasn't a blemish on him. Light reddish-gold hair was scattered on
his arms, legs, and chest. You could hardly see it until it caught the
light. There was a darker, thicker patch of pubic hair, and he was
uncircumcised. He wasn't as large as me, or as small as Cunningham. Either
way would have been wrong, out of proportion, a staggering flaw. My own
that I'd always been so proud of—it seemed now gross and mutilated.
I felt the pressure of it and realized I had a hardon.

The gun was pointing at him. What would he look like with a bullet there?
Nothing between those perfect thighs but blood. Would he writhe screaming?
Would that inhumanly placid face show human agony? "Get out of here," I
said.

While he showered, I put the clothes in a grocery sack and stuck them in
the closet of my bedroom. When he came out of the bathroom, he looked at
the empty chair, then at me.

"You won't need them. Put the cuff back on." He sat in the chair, snapped
the cuff around his ankle. I could take it only for an hour. I got my
bathrobe and tossed it to him. He put it on, but only because I told him
to. It didn't seem to matter to him one way or the other.

I wondered if he had ever smiled. What would those perfect lips look like
with a big, happy grin on them? I could feel goosebumps popping out on my
arms.

For three weeks I watched him do nothing. He sat in the chair and
sometimes lay on the bed, but I never saw him sleep. I watched him and
asked questions, but the only things I learned for sure were: he didn't
eat or use the toilet. He ignored me except when I forced him to answer a
question. And the answers were usually meaningless.

Some days neither of us said a word. I would just watch his face and never
tire of it, the way you never tire of looking at a perfect piece of art.
Then, suddenly, it would be night again. He bathed every day, but I never
let him remove the robe until he was in the bathroom. I didn't want to go
through that again.

Sometimes I would force him to speak—not because I expected to learn
anything, but because I wanted to hear his voice again. I was trying to
find out what he did when he wasn't siren-chasing. I said something inane
like: "Why aren't you in the movies? You wouldn't even need talent; with
your looks you could make a fortune. The movies or television would eat
you up."

He turned his head toward me. "My looks?"

"Don't you know how beautiful you are?"

"I'm ugly." His fantastic voice colored the words with subtle shades of
despair. "Everything is ugly."

I studied him closely. I think he believed what he said. "Don't you want
to be rich? Don't you want the luxuries of life?"

"There's no point."

"Why not?"

"We're here such a short time. There's no point in gathering possessions.
There's no point in anything. And there's not enough time."

"Not enough time?"

He had drifted off in a reverie. "A very short time—but it seems
like forever." Impatience, hope, futility, expectation, anticipation; the
voice showed it all.

"But how do you pass the time? What do you do?"

I think he sighed. "We wait," he said. "We wait."

"What are you waiting for?" I yelled in exasperation. He didn't answer. I
knew better than to continue with a frontal attack. I backed up and
started in at a different angle. "You said, 'We wait.' Are the others like
you?"

"Yes."

A thought occurred to me. "Do they know you're here?"

"Yes."

"Why don't they try to rescue you?"

"They're afraid."

"Afraid? Of me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You're dangerous."

"Dangerous?"

"Yes. They would do anything to prevent premature interruption of the
cycle."

I started to ask what the hell he was talking about, but I knew it
wouldn't do any good. "How am I dangerous?"

"You can see us."

"Do you know why I can see you?"

"No."

"Am I the only one?"

"The only one we know of now."

"Now?"

"It's happened before."

I changed directions again. "Are you afraid of me?"

"Yes."

"Why? I haven't hurt you."

"There is danger that you will interrupt the cycle."

"Why did you come with me so passively?"

"I couldn't believe you would do this to me." Again subtle shadings of
accusation, hopelessness, and sadness in the beautiful voice. He turned
his head to look at me. For an instant, the barest instant, I felt like a
real son of a bitch. Then he looked away. He sat on the side of the bed,
my bathrobe too big for him, the chain snaking into the bathroom.

Don't get the idea that he had become an unexpected chatterbox. That
conversation is a distillation of three weeks' questions and silences.

About a week later, I went during the night to check on him. I hadn't been
sleeping very well. My mind was full of wild, impossible speculations. I
won't go into them, but they consisted of men from Mars and other equally
incredible flights of fancy. I started to put on my bathrobe but
remembered he was wearing it. I tiptoed down the hall stark naked hoping
to catch him doing something—doing anything.

The door to his room was always left open. I looked in cautiously. I
couldn't see him anywhere. I turned on the light. He was pressed against
the outside wall of the room, my bathrobe crumpled at his feet. His arms
were outstretched to bring as much of him against the wall as possible. He
didn't seem to notice me, but then, he never did. I went to him and saw
his face, the side of it flat against the wall. It was no longer
expressionless. It was filled with the most overpowering hopelessness I
had ever seen. I felt my throat constrict.

"What's wrong?" I whispered.

He didn't answer for a moment—not because he was ignoring me as he
usually did, but because he was preoccupied. Then he said, very softly, in
a voice caressed by a cold, bleak wind: "The small creatures in the
forest; their deaths are so tiny and insignificant. There's hardly any
life energy at all."

Then he really was aware of me. I saw him retreat until the eyes and face
were neutral. I bellowed and slapped him as hard as I could. I remembered
them standing around the wrecks. He fell to his knees, the crimson print
of my hand on his face. I pulled him up by his armpits and looked into his
empty face.

"Stop hiding from me!" I screamed and slapped him again. He slumped
against me and my arms were around him, holding him up. Our naked bodies
were together, exciting me. The blood rushed to my groin and my erection
was painful. He was there, in the eyes, not completely, but there. I put
my mouth over his. He neither drew away nor responded, but his bruised
lips were sweet and I didn't want to stop.

I had been looking at his placid face for a month. I knew he was capable
of emotion if he would let it show. He hadn't uttered a sound or responded
in any way to physical blows. He had to have a breaking point somewhere. I
pushed him onto the bed on his stomach. The chain rattled. I rammed into
him, trying to hurt him. He was tight, very tight. It must have been
painful, but he didn't cry out or even moan. It had been a long time since
the last time—a month—too long. It only took a dozen strokes,
my pelvis pounding against the flawless flesh of his buttocks, before I
came. I shouldn't have waited so long. It burned.

I lay on him for a moment, then reached and pulled his face around. It was
vacant. I withdrew, still hard. I pulled him into a sitting position
facing me. That beautiful face. That beautiful, bland, bruised face. I put
my hands on either side of it.

"Don't hide from me. It doesn't do any good. I can see you. I can see
you!" He swam to the surface and looked at me. "Did you enjoy it? Did you
even feel it?"

"Yes."

"Did it feel good? Did it hurt?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you groan? Why didn't you scream? Why didn't you beg me to
stop? Why don't you get mad? Why don't you curse me? What's inside you?" I
put my hand on his breast and felt the hard nipple against my palm. "Do
you have a heart? I can feel something in there. Is it a heart? What would
I find if I got a knife and slit you open? Do you have sexual feelings at
all?" I grabbed his penis and squeezed. It was soft but firm. "Has it ever
been hard? You don't piss with it. What do you use it for?"