Harlan Ellison - Spider Kiss

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by Harlan Ellison NOTICE: This ebook is licensed to the original purchaser

only. Duplication or distribution to any person via email, floppy disk,

network, print out, or any other means is a violation of International

This notice overrides the Adobe Reader permissions which are erroneous. This

book cannot be legally lent or given to others. This ebook is displayed

using 100% recycled electrons. Distributed by Fictionwise.com Spider Kiss

by Harlan Ellison 3 Author's Note This is a work of fiction. It is

intended, however, to convey a reasonably accurate impression of a segment of

contemporary life as it existed during the period 1950-1960; a segment of

show business based on the reality of the time. To convey a feeling of

verisimilitude, I have employed the names of real persons, places,

organizations, and events. Any such use, however, is intended strictly for

story-value, and it should be understood that any part they play in this

fiction is a product of literary license employing figures whose public

images are clearly in the public domain, and in no way implies any actual

participation in reality. Of the fictional characters, woven from the whole

cloth of the imagination, there may be those who seem to have counterparts in

real life. Anyone attempting to .rip aside the masks. to discern the .real.

people underneath, should be advised they’re wasting their time. Stag

Preston and all the others are composites, a chunk from here, a hand movement

from there, a mannerism from somewhere else. He is many people and he is no

one: he is a symbol, if you have to have labels. I have tried to tag a type.

Types have no names. Or, to quote from Mark Twain: .Persons attempting to

find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted: persons attempting to

find a moral in it will be banished: persons attempting to find a plot in it

will be shot.. It is a fable; who can be offended by a fable? Harlan Ellison

Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 4 For the fifth time around, This one is

dedicated to the Lady who knew it ain't as easy as it looks. For my ex-wife

BILLIE, with affection and respect. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 5 One

First there was only the empty golden circle of the hot spot, blazing

against the silk curtains. That, and in another vein, the animal murmuring of

the audience, mostly teen-age girls with tight sweaters and mouths

open-crammed by gum. For what seemed the longest time that was the portrait:

cut from primordial materials in an expectant arena. There was a tension so

intense it could be felt as warmth on the neck, uncontrollable twitches in

the lips and eyes, the nervous shifting of small hands from nowhere to

nowhere. The curtains gave a vagrant rustle and from three parts of the

orchestra and four parts of the balcony came piercing, wind-up-a-chimney

shrieks of pleasure and torment. Behind the velvet ropes, overflow crowds

pressed body on body to get a neck-straining view of the stage. Just those

purple and yellow draperies, the golden coin of the spotlight beam. The

scene was laid with a simple, but forceful, altogether impressive sense of

dramatics. In the pit, the orchestra began warming its sounds, and the

jungle murmur of the anxious crowd rose a decibel. There would be no Master

of Ceremonies to start festivities, no prefatory acts.the Tumbling Turellos;

Wally French & Sadie, the educated dachshund; Ivor Harrig with mime and

merriment; The DeLaney Sisters.there would only be that golden spotlight, a

blast of sound, and the curtains would part. This was one man’s show, as it

had been one man’s Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 6 show for two weeks.

This was The Palace, and it had been invaded. Two weeks before they had made

The Palace alter all its precedents. The screaming, feral teen-age girls with

their eyes like wine-soaked jewels, their mouths hungry, their adolescent

bodies rigged and trussed erotically. They had booed and hissed the other

acts from the stage before they could gain a hearing. They had stamped and

clamored so outrageously, the booker and stage manager had decided.in the

absence of the manager.to cut straight through to the feature attraction, the

draw-card that had brought an audience rivaled only by the gates of Garland,

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Belafonte and in days past, Martin & Lewis. They had set the other acts

aside, hoping this demonstration was only an opening day phenomenon. But it

had been two weeks, with SRO at every performance, and the other acts had

been paid off, told a profusion of sorrys, and the headliner had lengthened

his stint to fill the space. He seemed, in fact, suffused with an inner

electricity that allowed him to perform for hours without fatigue. The Palace

had regretfully acquiesced ... they had been conquered, and knew it. Now,

as the golden moon-face contracted, centering at the overlapping folds of the

curtains, the orchestra burst into song. A peculiar song; as though barely

adaptable to full brass and strings, it was a repetitive melody, underslung

with a constant mechanical piano-drum beat, simple and even nagging.

Immature but demanding, infectious. The audience exploded. Spider Kiss by

Harlan Ellison 7 Screams burst from every corner of the theatre, and in the

first twenty-seven rows of the orchestra, girls leaped from seats as though

spastic, lanceted with emotional fire. A senseless, building fury consumed

The Palace and beat at the walls, reverberated out onto Seventh Avenue. The

love affair was about to be consummated.again. The curtains withdrew

smoothly, the golden circle of light fell liquidly to the stage, hung in the

black mouth of no scenery, no cyclorama, nothing, and the orchestra beat to a

crescendoing final riff. Silence... The hushed intake of a thousand, three

thousand, too many thousand breaths... The muscle-straining expectancy as

bodies pressed upward toward the empty space soon to be filled... The

spotlight snapped off... Darkness... Then back to life and he was there! If

the insanity that had ruled seventy-six seconds before was great, what was

now loosed could only be called Armageddon. Seats clanged up against the

backs of chairs, a Perdition’s chorus of screams, wails, shrieks, moans and

obscenities crashed and thundered like the waves on the Cliff at Entretat.

Hands reached fervently, feverishly, beseechingly upward. Girls bit their

fists as their eyes started from their heads. Girls spread their hands

against their breasts and clutched them with terrible hunger. Girls fell back

into their seats, reduced to tears, reduced to jelly, reduced to emotional

orgasms of terrifying intensity. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 8 While he

stood quietly, almost humbly, watching. His name was intoned, extolled, cast

out, drawn in, repeated, repeated repeated repeated till it became a chant of

such erotic power it seemed to draw all light and sound to it. A vortex of

emotionalism. With him at its center, both exploding and imploding waves of

animal hunger. He was of them, yet not of them. With them, yet above them.

He stood tall and slim, his legs apart, accentuating the narrowness of his

hips, his broad shoulders, the lean desperation of his face, the auburn shock

of hair, so meticulously combed with its cavalier forelock drooping onto his

forehead. A guardian of unnamed treasures. Then he began to play. His hands

moved over the frets of the guitar slung across his chest, and a guttural,

sensuous syncopation fought with the noise of the crowd ... fought ... lost

momentarily ... lost again ... crowd swell ... then began to mount in

insistence ... till the crowd went under slowly slowly ... till he was

singing high and loud and with a mounting joy that caught even the

self-drugged adolescents who had not come to listen, merely to worship. His

song was a pointless thing; filled with pastel inanities; don’t ever leave me

because I’ve got a sad dog heart that’ll follow you where’er you go, no,

don’t leave me .cause my sad dog heart cries just for you for you, ju-ust

fo-o-o-or you... But there was a subtext to the song. Something dark and

roiling, an oil stain on a wet street, a rainbow of dark colors that moved

almost as though alive, verging into colors that Spider Kiss by Harlan

Ellison 9 had no names, disturbing colors for which there were only

psychiatric parallels. Green is the dead baby image... The running line of

what could be sensed but not heard was ominous, threatening, sensuously

compelling in ways that spoke to skin and nerve-ends. It was like the moment

one receives the biopsy report. It was like the feeble sound an unwatered

plant makes in the instant before all reserve moisture dries from the tap

root and the green turns to brown. It was like the sigh of anguish from the

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victim of voodoo at the instant the final pin is jammed into the ju-ju doll

half a continent away. It was like the cry of a mother brought to see the

tiny, crushed form lying beneath the blanket on a busy intersection. It was

like the kiss of a spider. And the great animal that was his audience, his

vacuous, demanding, insensate, vicious audience, purred. Ripples of

contentment washed the crowd. Almost mystically the surface of mass hysteria

was smoothed, quieted, molded by his singing into a glossy plane of attention

and silence. Girls who had been facially and bodily contorted by his

appearance, who had thrown themselves forward in a spasm of adoration, now

settled back demurely, seated and attentive. He went on, singing, gently

strumming the guitar, making idle movements of foot and hip and head.yet

nothing overly suggestive, nothing that would rouse the sleeping beast out

there. His movements, his voice, the chords he chose to pull from his

guitar.all combined to lull the herd. His performance was as much a casting

of hypnotic trances as it was a demonstration of musical ability. Like some

advanced breed of snake charmer he piped at them, and their eyes Spider

Kiss by Harlan Ellison 10 became glassy, their limbs limp; they stared and

absorbed and wanted, but were silent, all waiting. And he could sing.

Granted his material was that semiobscene and witless conglomerate of

rhythmics known as rockabilly.half thump-thump of rock’n’roll, half twang and

formalized beat of hillbilly.he moved his people with it. His voice was low

and strong, sure on the subterranean notes that bespoke passion, winging on

the sharp, high notes demanding gentleness. His was a good voice, free from

affectation, based solidly in the sounds of the delta, the back hills, the

wanderlusts of the people. It came through. And they listened. Until he was

sure he had wrung everything from the song; then he finished. A soft rise to

a lingering C-sharp, held till it was flensed clean, and a final chord. Then

silence. A quickphrased reporter from Time had once compared the hushed

silence following the song to the silence when Lincoln completed his

Gettysburg Address. Compared it and found it wanting, diseased, laughable,

sexually stimulating, dangerous. Nonetheless, there it was. A long instant

without time or tempo. Deepest silence. The silence of a limestone cave, the

silence of deafness, the silence of the floor of the Maracot Deep. No one

spoke, no one screamed, and if there was a girl in that audience who

breathed.she did it selfconsciously, inadvertently, quietly. It lasted a

score of heartbeats, while he stood in the spotlight, head down, wasted,

empty, humble. Then the holocaust broke once more. Spider Kiss by Harlan

Ellison 11 The realization that they had actually felt honest emotion burst

upon the constantly self-conscious teen-agers, and they quickly covered their

embarrassment with the protective cloak of crowd behavior. They screamed.

The sound rose up again, a cyclonic twisting outward, reaching even those

beyond the sight of the stage (where the most demonstrative always

clustered), sweeping all sanity before it. Carrying its incoherent message of

attack and depravity with it like a crimson banner. The noise lasted only

until he struck the first four notes of the next song. Then ... the

somnambulistic state once more. He sang. Sang for the better part of an hour

and a half, ranging widely in interpretation, though restricted by

arrangement and subject matter and the idiom of his music. His songs were

the tormented and feeble pleadings of the confused teen-ager for

understanding in a time when understanding is the one commodity that cannot

be found pre-packed in aluminum foil. His songs were not honest, nor were

they particularly meaningful, but they mirrored the frustrations of that

alien community known as the teens. There was identification, if nothing

else. The lean boy with the auburn hair, gently moving his hips in rhythm to

his own music, unaided by the full string orchestra in the pit, unaided by

the lush trappings of The Palace, was spellbinding the third largest audience

in the theatre’s history. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 12 Here he was,

a twenty-two-year-old singer with a faint Kentucky accent, dictator of

emotions to a horde of worshipful post-adolescents. Humble, handsome, heroic

in fact. He did nothing but sing, step about the stage with little relation

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to terpsichory, and strum a Gibson guitar with steel strings. Yet he ruled.

Unquestionably, his was a magnetism not easily denied. His singing was clear

and strong, and he reached. He held them. Tightly, passionately, expertly.

Stag Preston was doing the one thing in this world he could do in public.

From the wings he was being watched by a pair of dark eyes. The man slouched

against the flats, a cigarette dangling from a corner of his mouth, burning

but forgotten. He was easily as slim as the singer, but there was lacking the

wiry command inherent in every line and muscle of Stag Preston’s body.

Rather, this man was quick-looking. Almost feral. His eyes were set back

under thin but dark eyebrows, and he watched the entire scene. He was shorter

than Preston, no more than five feet seven, and his clothes hung on him with

good style, unlike the clinging form of Preston’s flamboyantly fitted garb.

Sheldon Morgenstern, publicity man, ace flak-merchant of the Stem, bodyguard

and handmaiden to the hottest talent in the game, inveterate chainsmoker and

decrier of the human soul, stood silently watching his meal ticket. There

was a singular lack of expression on his tanned, planed face. But his eyes,

though dark, were a-swim with flickers of emotion. Spider Kiss by Harlan

Ellison 13 The ash lengthened on his cigarette, as he drew deeply, split

among its gray folds and dropped, dusting his jacket front. He swiped at the

debris absently. The cigarette burned on, unnoticed. Sing, kid, he thought.

Yeah, sing. Behind him, the many nameless busymen who always infest

backstages stood silently, listening to Stag Preston. Though their

expressions were not those of the girls out front, still they were being

reached, they were being held by this boy in his modern jester’s motley. It

was that way with anyone who listened to Stag Preston. He was that peculiar

phenomenon, the natural talent. He was uniquely Stag Preston, with no touches

of Sinatra or Presley or Darin in him. He was an electric thing on a stage, a

commanding personality that instantly communicated itself. That was

one-tenth the reason he had become the most valuable musical property in the

business, inside four years. Just one-tenth. Four years. Shelly Morgenstern

lipped the butt from his mouth and ground it underheel, shaking another from

the pack without conscious effort. He lit it and the brief lighter flame made

the stage manager wince: smoking was prohibited in the wings, so close to

the highly flammable scenery. But this was his PR man, and godlings could

ignore mere mortal rules. Four years. Shelly Morgenstern stared at the

tilted, arched body as it made a one-step, two-step in slightest beat to the

guitar’s music. Stag Preston had it, all right. There was no question about

it. He was Destiny’s Tot. Up from nowhere, with a Spider Kiss by Harlan

Ellison 14 handful of doubloons. Nothing to sell save that which no one

else had to sell. A voice, a manner, a look, a pair of hands that could

innocently warp forth innocuous backgrounds to subtle oral pornography. That

was all he had, yet when those components were joined and bathed by a

spotlight, or trapped and grooved on an LP ... he was more. Henri de

Toulouse-Lautrec had once said, .One should never meet the artist; the work

is always so much better than the creator.. That, Shelly Morgenstern mused,

was more true of Stag Preston than it had ever been of anyone. Four years.

Shelly Morgenstern watched as Stag Preston finished his final number. There

would be no curtain call. Stag would announce a .little private show. around

back in the alley under his dressing room window, and the stampede would

start out of the theatre. That, they had found, was the only way to cleanse

the theatre of its prepared-to-stay-aneternity- with-peanut-butter-sandwiches

horde. The turnover had been slow till they had employed the old Martin-Lewis

dodge to empty the theatre. How they followed him; they loved him; how they

ached to touch his lean, hardrock body. It was sick, Shelly was certain of

that, all arguments about Vallee and Sinatra and Valentino be damned. It was

sick, and four years before, he had been steering for a poker game. Just

that long ago he had been a hungry kid with too much moxie, too much hair,

and no place to go. Four years. Shelly Morgenstern corrected himself. That

wasn’t so, no place to go. The kid would have made it somehow; he had

Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 15 been too hungry, too anxious, too much

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on the grab to ever settle for a fink’s life in Louisville. If it hadn’t been

Colonel Jack Freeport and Shelly Morgenstern, he would have done it another

way. Yet it was phenomenal the way he had clawed his way up; even Jack

Freeport.a tooth and nail career money-maker.had been amazed at the drive and

verve with which the kid had pushed himself in so short a time. Amazed, a

little frightened, but altogether impressed. Four years. Shelly Morgenstern

stared at the advancing face of Stag Preston as it came offstage. One of the

.gopher. flunkies waited with outstretched arm, presenting the ceremonial

towel. The towel into which Stag Preston would wipe all that semi-holy Stag

Preston sweat ... which could easily be sold for twenty dollars to any of the

screeching, drunk-withadoration infants now jamming into the alley. The god

sweated, yeah, it was true. But all the better. Don’t put him completely out

of reach. Put him just a handhold away, with the characteristic humbleness of

all the new teen-aged idols. A god, yet a man. Stag Preston stopped directly

in front of Shelly Morgenstern, his face buried in the towel. When he pulled

it away the dark, penetrating eyes stared directly into the shorter man’s

face. It was a good face, Stag Preston’s face, though under the eyes and in

the cruel set of mouth, the Stygian darknesses under the cheeks, there was

the hint of something too mature, too desperate. Now, as Stag shoved the

towel under his shirt, wiping his moist armpit, the change would take place.

Watch the Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 16 remarkable, magical

transformation, folks, Shelly thought. Watch as Sheldon Morgenstern, whose

father was a cantor and whose mother had wanted her son to become a CPA,

subtly undergoes a sea-change from publicity man for the great Stag Preston

to pimp for the great, horny Stag Preston. Watch closely, folks, the

degradation is faster than the eye. .Shelly.... Here it comes. .See one,

Stag?. The smile. The Motion Picture/Look/Life/Teen Magazinefamous smile

guaranteed to contain 100% unadulterated sex appeal combined with bullshit.

The smile, and, .A cutie, Shel. A little redhead down front with a ponytail.

She’s got a sign says Stag Preston We Love You. Can’t miss her. She’ll be out

in the alley. G’wan and round her up for me, how’s about, Shel.. There was

no question in it; it was an order, despite the lisping, gentle Kentucky

voice. Sure, Stag. .Sure, Stag.. Stag Preston made his way to the dressing

room, and Sheldon Morgenstern made his way to the stage door. He paused to

dump the old cigarette, light a fresh one, and open the huge metal door.

There they were. Growling, clamoring, straining for a sight of God on Earth.

He watched them with the pitying scrutiny of a compassionate butcher, and

found the little redhead. Stag had a good eye, there was no taking that away

from him. She was too large in the chest for a kid her age, and the hair was

a bit too brassy, but that was invariably the way Stag liked them. Spider

Kiss by Harlan Ellison 17 He moved out into the crowd, reached her and

tapped her shoulder. .Miss?. The wide, green eyes turned up to him,

registered nothing. .Miss, Stag would like to meet you.. He said it with no

feeling, with, in fact, a definite absence of inflection in hopes she might

be scared off. But they never were. Any of them. Her breath went in like a

train through a tunnel, fast and sharp and leaving emptiness behind it.

.Stag? Me?. He nodded. No encouragement, no deterrent. She said something to

a girl beside her, a fat girl with pimples (why did the best-looking ones

always come with their comparison-friends, so they looked that much better?),

and gave her the Stag Preston We Love You sign. Then she turned, with Roman

candles in her eyes, and followed Shelly Morgenstern into the theatre. Four

years, he thought. Four years, and how did it all start? Was it that request

from the Kentucky State Fair for Colonel Jack Freeport to judge the talent

contest? Had it started then, when they’d met Stag in Louisville? Or did it

go further back, much further back to the days when Shelly had been trying to

break away from the orthodox enslavement of his home, when he had discovered

he could no longer believe in the terrible God of his father, and worshipped

more easily at the heavenly throne of Success (and Money is his profit)? Did

it go back to Jack Freeport, who needed more, more, more of everything ... to

rebuild a name that had been shattered as far back as the burning of Atlanta?

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Had it begun with hungers, or with simple supply-anddemand? Spider Kiss by

Harlan Ellison 18 He knew how it had started. And as he walked the little

redhead into the lion’s mouth, he thought about it ... about the four years.

Well tell it, then. Tell it, but make it quick. We’ve still got three shows

to do. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 19 Two Great White Father and the

ferret. That was how they looked from the corner of the eye, in that

side-of-sight glance hurriedly thrown by people at airports. First came the

big man in the white linen suit. He paused at the head of the aluminum

stairs, mopping his desert brow with a monogrammed handkerchief. Even as his

hand came away from his face, the armpits of his white-on-white shirt

darkened through with perspiration. Almost maliciously, he turned his face up

to the sun, and the Louisville heat greeted him inhospitably. .Cursed

state,. he muttered, .always said it should have been plowed under by God..

He spoke with a thick Georgia accent, a touch of nobility, a touch of

arrogance. He was big in small ways. His face was almost leonine, with a

snowy nimbus of hair capping his massive head splendidly. His hands were

blocky, yet had a suppleness suggestive of fine Swiss watchmaking or brain

surgery. He stood momentarily, staring from bleached-out eyes.the image of

Great White Father.framed against the open port of the big Eastern Convair

440; he surveyed the crowd jammed against the fence. With a satisfied tone

he called back over his shoulder, .Wharton sent no one, Shelly. I don’t see

any badges from the fair.. Then he deplaned from the twin-engine Silver

Falcon. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 20 Behind him, squinting, the wiry

Palm Beach-suited ferret shied from the gagging humidity. It was not so much

the olive coloring of his lean, hard face as the diamond-intensity of his

black eyes that gave the impression of stealth ... deviousness ...

attentiveness. He cursed softly, a Manhattan twang, and gripped the strap of

the thin, cabretta-grain attaché case more tightly. It did not swing idly

from his left hand. Shelly Morgenstern hurried after the older man. Almost

before they had passed the hurricane fence with its strict admonition of

GASOLINE FUMES NO SMOKING DANGER! the younger man had forked a cigarette

from his lapel pocket and had wedged it between his lips, firm in a corner of

his thin-lipped mouth. Even inside the terminal building of Standiford Field

the heat was monstrous. The big man stopped abruptly and leaned against the

wall. He mopped at the perspiration on his jowls. .Shelly,. he said

snappishly, .give me one of those cursed tablets.. The ferret jammed the

attaché case between his feet and fumbled a small plastic vial from a jacket

pocket. Unsnapping the lid he tumbled a pale blue tablet onto his palm, and

extended it to the older man. .Water fountain up the line, Colonel,. Shelly

said, jerking his head in the direction. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 21

Laboring under his bulk.not fat, just girth.Colonel Jack Freeport (Savannah,

New York, Cannes and London) made it briskly to the fountain, popped the

tablet onto his tongue and washed it down with irregular gulps of water,

managing to avoid spilling on his jacket. .I’ll see to the bags,. Freeport

said, straightening. .You call George Wharton at the State Fair Headquarters,

and under no circumstances are we to be bothered by their sending some

incompetent down to drive us. I want to get cleaned up and rested from that

cursed plane ride, without having to meet anyone.. He waved an imperious hand

in the direction of the phone booths. Then he moved off toward the baggage

claiming area. Shelly stared after the imposing figure of Jack Freeport,

and the muscles along his lean jaw jumped. For an instant he felt like a

toady. He had felt that way before. He disliked the feeling intensely. Then

remembrances of debts, his unpaid balance on the Mercedes-Benz, what it cost

to maintain Carlene ... and the twenty thousand a year Freeport paid him ...

came back to him and he struck off for the phones. He dropped the attaché

inside the booth, against the wall, and slid onto the seat. From a list of

numbers in his wallet he dialed a downtown Louisville exchange, and waited.

Traffic moved past the booth in both directions. When the dial tone broke

and the husky feminine voice said, .Kentucky State Fair Headquarters,. he was

not quite prepared, and for an instant fumbled his silence. .George Wharton,

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please,. he said finally. .Whom shall I say is calling?. Spider Kiss by

Harlan Ellison 22 .Colonel Jack Freeport.. There was a soft, furry click

and silence at the end of the line. Shelly flicked ash from the dwindling

cigarette in his mouth, without removing the butt from between his lips.

Another click and a voice said, .Jack! When the hell’d you get in, boy?.

.This is Sheldon Morgenstern for Colonel Freeport, Mr. Wharton. We’re at

Standiford.. Wharton blustered forward with his interruption: .I’ll have a

car right out there for you, fella, just hold on a min.. He turned away from

the mouthpiece and shrieked at someone, .Teddy! Teddy, get your coat on and

take the Buick. Freeport’s at Stan.. Shelly cut him off with a loud, .Hold

it, Mr. Wharton.. George Wharton came back to the receiver from the Land of

Speedy Activity. .No trouble, no trouble at all, Mr. Morgenstern. Have a car

out there in fifteen minutes. We’ve got a bunch of hangers-on around here,

anyhow. They don’t do a damned thing all day but mooch from petty cash. Let

me send someone out for you.. Shelly was adamant. .Don’t bother, Mr.

Wharton. Colonel Freeport is a little tired from the flight and wants to go

directly to his hotel. Where have you booked us?. .The Brown, but.. .We’ll

take a cab to the Brown, then. The Colonel will give you a ring from the room

when he’s settled. Is there anything on for tonight?. Wharton sounded

unhappy, but answered, .Just a dinner, but that isn’t until nine or

nine-thirty. Say are you sure.. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 23 Shelly

felt the conversation had exhausted its meager limitations and said, .All

right, then, Mr. Wharton, we’ll call you as soon as we’ve gotten settled.

Thanks a lot. Goodbye.. He dropped the receiver without waiting for a reply.

Freeport was already leaving the baggage area, the suitcases going on before

under the arms of a red cap. He turned as Shelly approached, and a

questioning expression bent his features. .What did he say?. he asked.

Shelly lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the one before and answered,

.He wanted to send out a car; I told him we wanted to make it on our own..

Freeport snorted. .They’d take us down to the Headquarters and before I’d

even gotten a bath.some Momma would have her little Agnes tapping and bawling

at me. These cursed talent contests are all the same. Where are we staying,

the Brown?. Shelly nodded. .At least we’ll have good rooms. No money in

this, but I suppose it’s good relations. Any plans for Louisville, Colonel?.

Freeport pursed his lips, shrugged the question away. .Well, Shelly, we’ll

see, we’ll see.. They followed the red cap to the line of waiting cabs and

settled themselves for the ride into Louisville. .The Brown,. Shelly advised

the hackie. When the bags were loaded, they pulled away, and he settled down,

closing his dark eyes. Freeport continued to squint, even in the absence of

sunlight. He mopped at his face and neck constantly, with nervous, spastic

motions. .Cursed state,. he muttered once. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison

24 Shelly considered what Freeport had told him about this untimely,

uncomfortable trip to Louisville. The taxi, weaving down the expressway, was

so close Shelly felt as though he was knotted into a bag, and the cab smelled

faintly of urine. It added to the ease of contemplating what Jack Freeport

had said about misplaced loyalties. Because of the lack of foresight of his

parents, some fiftythree years before, of having resided in Cadiz, Kentucky,

on the day of his birth, Freeport was.at least technically.a native son.

Despite the fact that the family had been recouping drastic financial losses

and had moved back to Savannah three months after Freeport’s birth, the

Kentucky State Fair committee had still seen fit to call on him to judge

their abominable talent show. After all, thought Shelly, first comes Sol

Hurok, and then comes my big twenty thousand dollar a year meal ticket,

Colonel Jack Freeport. Savannah, New York, Cannes and London. Amen. So we

are in Louisville, Kentucky. Shelly dropped the thoughts like pigeon

excretion. Navel of the nation. And we are preparing to judge a Talent Show

(cast of thousands ... all nonentities). While back in New York that damned

jazz show needs a shot of digitalis, in Chicago the poetry readings are

drawing about as well as a Sunday picnic at Buchenwald, and in L.A. the

Go-Kart races are about as popular as an acrobat in a polio ward. Spider

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Kiss by Harlan Ellison 25 Everything was dying on the vine. And here we sit

warm and cuddly on the same vine, in Louisville. Say one for me, Agnes,

we'll all be in the soup line tomorrow. .But well-dressed,. he murmured under

his breath. .What was that, Shelly?. Freeport turned from the view outside

the taxi. .Nothing, Colonel. Nothing at all,. he answered, without opening

his eyes. Not a damned thing, Massah. Beyond the cab, the red loam of a

housing project-inprogress swept past like a raw, naked wound in the arid

flesh of the land. As they pulled into the center of town, Shelly sat up in

the seat, and tried to shrug some composure.lost during the flight and this

heat-assault since the airport.into his wilted frame. It didn’t do much good.

It was no use; he resigned himself to a weekend of heat, boredom and

too-sweet martinis. Fourth and Broadway. The Brown Hotel. The bags were

carried by an old man whose black pants had two distinctive attributes: a red

stripe down each leg, and several hundred thousand wrinkles. A butter stain

adorned the uniform tie. Colonel Jack Freeport marched through the lobby,

signed in with a maximum of notice while Shelly limply autographed a

check-in card, and made the sanctity of his suite without undue delay. Once

in the air-conditioned sanity of his room. separated from Freeport’s by a

sitting room of unparalleled dinginess.Shelly stripped off his jacket, shirt

and tie, threw Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 26 them across the bed, and

bare-chested, crucified himself before the cool air ducts of the big Fedders.

.Shelly,. the call came from Freeport’s room, .let me have the attaché

case.. The flak-man ran a hand through his dark hair and retrieved the

leather case from where he had dumped it on a big Morris chair. He carried it

through the sitting room and into Freeport’s bedroom. The Colonel was

stripped to fancy nylon shorts, dark socks and shoes, the garters tightly

clinging to thick, hairy legs. Shelly was once more.as always.startled by the

hardmuscled, trim condition of Freeport’s big body. .Fetch me those papers

on the key clubs, will you, Shelly?. He said it over his shoulder as he

lifted the big three-suiter onto the bed and unsnapped it. .I think you’d

better call Morrie in New York, Colonel, and find out how he did with MCA,.

Shelly said. Freeport nodded without turning around. .Good idea. Get him for

me.. Shelly shook his head feebly, in resignation, and picked up the

receiver. After an interminable wait: .I want to call long distance,

operator, New York City, MUrray Hill 2-4368, person-toperson to Mr. Morrie

Needleman.. When the call went through, a bored, .Yeah, this is Needleman,

go ahead,. at the other end greeted him. .Morrie? Shelly in Louisville. The

Colonel wants to speak to you.. He handed the receiver to Freeport, who

continued brushing his hair with one hand while he fastened the instrument

to his head with the other. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 27 .Hello,

Needleman? Did MCA come through for us?. The eternally-weary voice of Morrie

Needleman, entrepreneur second-grade, raced down the wire ... slowly.

.Yessir, but they asked for more for Satch so I met .em halfway.. Freeport

scowled. .You went beyond your authority, Needleman. How much more?.

.Another three yards, Colonel. That was as low as they’d show.. He paused a

moment, seeing his job fly South for the duration. .I tried to do better’n

that, Colonel, but they had us over a barrel. We’d already announced

Armstrong; papers, radio, billboards.. Colonel Jack Freeport scowled more

intensely. .Well, hmmhmm. All right, Needleman. No real harm done, I suppose.

We’ll make it up at the box office.. He handed the phone back to Shelly.

Morgenstern took over as though he were merely a surrogate for the older

man. .Morrie? Shelly again. Listen, baby, sit on the damned concert till the

sonofabitch’s SRO. So meanwhile, how’s everything else? What d’ya hear from

L.A.?. The faint rustle of paper came from the New York end of the line,

and Needleman’s absorbed, .Ummm,. filtered down with it. Finally, as though

he had been consulting briefs, Needleman said, .I’m going to call Buddy

Halpern out there and get him to pull off a stunt. Maybe soup up one of them

Go-Karts and drag the L.A. cops down the main stem. Get the papers on it,

and we might have the in we need.. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 28

.Wild, baby,. Shelly said blithely, .keep us posted. We’ll be back by Sunday

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night the latest.. Needleman’s lazy voice lost its business edge. .Anything

shakin. down there?. With a disgruntled grunt Shelly replied, .Sure, sure.

The whole damned town’s a bacchanalian orgy. At least I’ll be catching up on

my sleep. So long.. A reply, and he hung up. As he turned, Freeport said

softly, .Mark it down to let Needleman go, Shelly.. That easy. Five years

with Freeport, and mark it down to let him go. It was always that easy with

the Colonel. I'll mark it, Boss Man. I know the Bible says you're a jealous

people. .Yes, sir,. he said. While Freeport pored over the proposed plans

for a nationwide chain of key clubs to be leased by major sports figures

under their names (but run through Freeport’s holding company, with gigantic

kickbacks to Freeport’s syndicate), Shelly returned to his room, visions of

showers dancing in his head. He tried not to think of Needleman and his

wife’s breast cancer. The shower was cold and sharp and good, and when he

had toweled himself pink (like a baby shrimp, he amused himself), he

returned to his room, the towel around his waist. He surveyed himself in the

full-length mirror, ignoring the slight protuberant bulge of his stomach, and

struck a wholly ineffectual Muscle Beach attitude. .I can do the Mr. America

bit with either arm,. he told his reflection, pressing first one fist to his

temple, then the other, while maintaining a ferocious expression. Spider

Kiss by Harlan Ellison 29 .Shelly, come in here, please,. Freeport called.

Sighing, he hastened to do as he was bid, thinking: But Mistah Lincoln done

tole us we was free. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 30 Three For the

better part of four and one half hours, a superlatively-trained corps of

yawn-makers had dispensed boredom by means of platitude, homey homily,

grandiose visions of Kentucky futures, and soggy reminiscence. The

testimonial dinner had been a walloping success. Shelly Morgenstern

contemplated killing himself. There had to be easier ways to go. Boredom was

such a slow, despicable demise. .Oh, God, oh for a barrel of absinthe and

free passage to dissolution,. he burbled into the toosweet martini.

.Bartender, give me another fruit punch.. He indicated the martini glass.

When the bartender brought the refill, Shelly stared at his bald head for a

long instant and refrained from saying: Your head, sir, is shining in my

eyes. That's pretty damned cornball, Morgenstern, he chided himself. I

know, he snapped the reply, but I'm not nearly drunk enough to be quick and

clever. Oh, God, this town! .Where’s the action tonight, fella?. he asked the

passing bartender. The man paused on his way to the orange squeezer and

assayed the questioner. .What are you looking for?. Shelly shrugged. He was

too tired for wenching. Maybe a good cool game of cards. He relayed his

desire. The bartender said, .Wait a minute.. He moved up to the other end of

the bar, took out a pad and pencil, and jotted Spider Kiss by Harlan

Ellison 31 down a quick address. He came back, handed it to Shelly and

said, .Ask for Luther. He’ll know what’s on tonight.. Shelly thanked him,

paid for the drinks, and slid off the barstool. The note said: Dixie Hotel,

5th and Broadway. Louisville at night was a combination of Coney Island at

ten PM and deepest Brooklyn at five in the morning. A short stretch of naked

neon insensibly wiggling.and then silence. The centerstripe rolled up like a

long tongue. The fleshpots, and the closed shops. He walked quite steadily,

waiting for the right recognition symbol to be tripped in his head. Ding!

The sign was a bilious green. DIXIE HOTEL.ROOMS. He pushed through the

revolving door, finding himself in one of those B-movie sleazy lobbies cut

from the same cheap pattern. Brass lamps with hanging beaded pull-chains,

sofas that gave off small puffs of dust when sat upon, a long oak table from

some esoteric period covered with copies of The Farmer's Weekly, Look from

seven months before and three battered copies of Radio-TV Mirror. The three

Radio-TV Mirrors had subscription stickers on their covers. One of them had

been left out in the rain; it was wrinkled. .Room, buddy?. The voice drifted

to Shelly from behind the high plywood counter. He turned and saw the top of

a balding head. Stepping closer, the head-top became only the top of a head

that topped a shrunken, yellowed body barely in the same species with

Morgenstern. .Where can I find.uh.. he consulted the slip of paper, .somebody

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named Luther?. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 32 .Luther?. The room clerk

sighed resignedly. .Wait a minute.. He reached across with a foot and jabbed

a red button on the board. .He’ll be right down.. The little man continued

to stare at Shelly from dark eyes with yellow rings under them. .Is my monkey

bothering you?. Shelly asked. .What?. .The one on my back.. The clerk

looked disgusted. .Comedian,. he mumbled. Shelly lit a cigarette, staring at

those obscure places in every room that seldom command attention: the

juncture of ceiling and wall, ornate filigree along the upper walls, worn

spots on the seedy rug. I should have gone with Freeport to that business

conference. Couldn't have been any worse than this. The elevator sighed open,

and a tall, thin kid with too much hair came out. He wore a faded blue

bellhop’s uniform, and the most monumentally bored expression Shelly had ever

encountered. The boy walked to the check-in desk. .George-O,. he said, and

the balding dwarf jerked a thumb at Shelly. .He asked for ya,. George-O said.

The boy turned to stare at Shelly. His eyes narrowed. Morgenstern could see

the question process-server? in the gleam of them. .Yeah, you want me,

Mistuh?. The accent was a flat Kentucky modulation. Neither cultivated nor

overly rough on the ear. But there was the sound of I’ve-been-around in it.

Shelly dumped ash on the rug. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 33

.Bartender over at The Brown told me I might find some action here; told me

to ask for Luther. You Luther?. The boy nodded. .What .chu aftuh, Mistuh?.

The way he said it was very much like rolling out a brochure. With listings

under J for junk, B for broads, Q for queers and G for shuffle them. .I heard

there might be some poker hereabouts,. Shelly said. Luther studied the man

before him with casual carefulness. Then, reassuring himself by means of

those nebulous signs and auras known to the hungry ones on the fringes, he

nodded. .Yessuh, big man, we got a little game goin’.. Shelly made a

negligent motion with his hand. .Lead the way, son.. Luther shied at the

word .son. and his dark eyes narrowed. .Stakes goin. five, ten, twenny-five,

big man, you figuh you can stand the action?. Shelly dropped the butt on the

rug and ground it in with his heel. .You figure on making your steering money

talking me to death in this lobby?. The bellboy turned and re-entered the

elevator. Shelly followed him, watching the swaggering, self-contained way

the boy walked. Loose. He had indeed been around. There was something hard,

something coolly dangerous about Luther. The elevator door closed and the

machine started up. Then Luther flicked out the lights. .Hey! What the hell

is this?. Shelly backed into a corner, seeing himself being rolled by a

teen-ager. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 34 Luther’s soft voice came out

of the darkness. .Stay loose, big man. This’s just so’s you don’t know what

floor you’re on. We don’t want no trouble from The Man.. The elevator whined

to a stop (How did he know when they’d reached the correct floor, Shelly

wondered?), and Luther reached out through the opened door, and clicked

another switch. The hall went dark beyond the elevator car: .C’mawn, big

man,. Luther said, taking Shelly by the arm. A sharp fear clutched Shelly

Morgenstern as the boy hustled him down the hall. This could be the easiest

sucker trap in the world. Pow! We never saw no New York bigmouth, Officuh;

he musta got rolled someplace else. Musta been seven other guys, Officuh. We

all clean around heah. Oh, this could be so sweet a set-up. Luther reached a

door and rapped on it three times, quickly, waited, then twice again, slowly.

The door opened, and Shelly knew he was all right. The card-players. smoke

was thick enough to butter on bread. He fished a five out of his pocket;

Luther took it. He entered the room, Luther falling in behind, and saw the

big green-topped poker table, surrounded by six men, three of whom wore

expensive suits. This was no rigged roll set-up in any case. The game might

or might not be fixed ... that was another matter. It would take some careful

scrutiny. .Stay loose, big man,. Luther said, and elbowed past, opening a

side door and disappearing beyond. A florid-faced man with a tie too thin for

his fat, too bright for his pink eyelet shirt, got up from the table and

extended a hand to Shelly. .Name’s Walter Swatt,. he said jovially, .do

Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 35 me a favor and don’t make any cracks

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