Asaro, Catherine - Izzy and the father of terror
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file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20doc...atherine%20Asaro%20-%20Izzy%20and%20the%20father%20of%20terror.txt
Eliot Fintushel: Izzy and the Father of
Terror
First appeared in Asimov's Science
Fiction, July 1997. Nominated for Best
Novella.
------------------------------------------
He who feels punctured
Must once have been a bubble.
–Lao Tze (trans. Witter Bynner)
ONE
1. A Hole in My Mind
I was thumbing through New Mexico with
nothing, headed nowhere, when I fell in
with a shaman named Shaman who pricked a
hole in my mind. A little prick it was,
but everything gushed in through it, and
everything spilled out. Suddenly, I could
not tell the difference between myself and
others or between my body and the rest of
the world.
"Don’t be afraid, Mel," Shaman said. I was
very afraid. We were sitting inside a long
canvas tent, the communal kitchen of the
Space People. All the other Space People
were asleep. They had picked me up outside
of Albuquerque and driven me out onto the
desert to their little spread. Because
Shaman liked me, they had picked me up.
Even though there were Chicanos in those
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days who hated hippies, who conned their
way into communes and shot them up, and I
am as dark-skinned and small as a Mexican,
they had picked me up.
It was dark in the tent. Flaps open, stars
filled the big triangles at either end;
feeble candlelight unsealed the night
between us, loud with cicadas and dead
souls crying. There was a votive candle in
a shot glass on the dirt floor. Rococo
shadows angled and sprawled across chairs,
long table, canvas, and ourselves.
"You’ve broken me." The words jumped where
my bones should be. Something in me arched
and bristled like a frightened cat. Were
the words mine?
Shaman took them for mine. "I’m you," he
said. Incomprehensible. "Relax."
I left that place. I left the Space People
sleeping. I left Shaman with his kit of
tropes that killed or cured or pricked
your mind and left you to bleed to death
or to drown in the world’s blood, bleeding
into you through a tiny hole. The last
thing I saw there was the candle flame
reflected in Shaman’s eyes, two little
flames dwindling as I stumbled out into
the desert, out into stars and the cries
of cicadas and dead souls, which might
have been my tongue, my voice, my limbs,
or my self, since Shaman had pricked a
hole in my mind.
2. Talk with a Joshua Tree
I had a talk in the dark with a Joshua
tree. I said, "Everything’s okay. I have a
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mother in New York. I have brothers and a
sister. My father left us, but he’s still
in my mind. In there, I can see the faces
of all the people in my life, I know the
names of everything, and no one on Earth
would disbelieve me." The Joshua tree was
unconvinced. I couldn’t remember my
mother’s face. I stood there, out of sight
of any highway, lost to the Space People,
stars in my skin. Someone had just spoken.
It might have been the Joshua tree. It
might have been the sand.
3. Izzy
Finally, tears gushed. I was sitting on a
curb by the highway before dawn. I was
dawn, not quite risen over a small, dark
man on a desert highway. I was a pool of
tears splash-fed by a biped above my
gutter. I was a tremble, a sob, a cicada,
a dead soul listening in. I don’t know
what I was. I was a car coming, high beam
illumining tear-slicked face, driver
coming in earshot of moaning figure, alone
in the desert, in the dark.
The car stopped a few yards past me, then
purred back. The passenger door flung
open, and a man leaned out, balding,
single-browed, a skinny man with a nasal
accent: "Get in, Jack. We ain’t got all
day."
I smelled jasmine, sweet and piercing.
Inside, beneath a red tassel hanging from
the rearview, a small soapstone elephant
was lit by the map light above the dash.
My tusks curled into the tangle of
threads. I had many arms. In my hands were
medicine bottles, knives, diamonds,
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skulls, crushed demons, and snakes. A
naked woman scissored me.
I was sitting in Ganesha’s lap. My legs
embraced the elephant’s hips. My heels
massaged his buttocks. My nipples rubbed
his chest. I smiled, but held my lips
enticingly distant. The Indian behind the
wheel stroked my back.
Or perhaps I was from Pakistan. I was
irritated at Izzy. I, the driver, said,
"If I had wanted like this, I would have
stayed at my motel, Izzy. Do we have to
pick up everybody?"
"Exactly, Sarvaduhka," One-brow shot back.
"That’s who this piece of merchandise is:
everybody! Ain’t you, Jack?"
I pulled my sleeve across my face to erase
the tears. The car, a warm shell of light,
seemed heaven, but I couldn’t find where
to say yes from. When I tried to speak,
the car door groaned instead. It closed. I
was inside, in front, squeezed between the
door and the man with one long eyebrow.
"How did you know?" I tried to say;
instead, the sun rose.
4. Relic Background Radiation
Sarvaduhka pressed a button, and there was
the United States of America: news, music,
tractor pull ads?"SUNDAYYYYYY!"?static,
evangelist patter, a song by Johnny
Abilene . . .
There’s a splash across the southern sky
Named "I love you-oo!"
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And I know just what a big man
Ought to do-yodelayhee-do.
I’m sorry I left you somewhere in the
blue-boo-hoo-hoo
With your mama singing lullabies to
baby-boo . . .
. . . used automobiles, paid political
announcements, weather reports . . .
"Wait a damn minute," Izzy said. "Turn it
back to the Haymakers, Duke. I wanna hear
that song."
"Haymakers, Izzy?"
"Gimme that." He pushed Sarvaduhka’s hand
away and manned the radio dial himself. I
felt as if someone were reaming my navel.
The smears of sound as the needle skimmed
the tuner scale were gurgles of cud
surging up my throat. Finally he found it.
There were the slightly off-key notes and
bad mixing that signal a live performance:
I’m gonna bring you right back some day.
Though you may be far away,
I can always pull a little stunt
That the folks call "epoché"
"Epoché?" Sarvaduhka took his eyes off the
road?me, a flat, black triangle long as
the desert, wide as the squareback here,
beetling to a point out there, and dotted
with my Bott’s dot vertebrae?to frown at
Izzy. "Did the Haymaker say epoché, Izzy?"
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"Shut up! I gotta hear this."
Take a long lost dad’s advice:
Though yore mama’s Guldang nice,
Save a little bit of love for
yodelodelayhee-me!
Just then Izzy’s beeper went off. I’d
never seen one before. I don’t think
anyone had at that time. But Izzy’s was
beeping. "Not good," he said. He pulled it
out of his belt, then held it up close.
"Four degrees Kelvin. Shit. It’s up a
whole degree. He’s actually tried it."
"Tried what?"
"Epoché, for crissakes. What have we been
talking about?salami? Sarvaduhka, who’s
President?"
"McCarthy. Why?"
"McCarthy? Still? What color is the
American flag?"
"Red, white, and yellow."
"Unchanged. Okay. This wasn’t the big one.
He didn’t manage it. And Mel’s still here
beside us. Okay. Good. We got time.
Johnny’s out looking, and we’re in the
pink. I’m taking a nap."
"Wait. What is four degrees that was three
before?"
"Relic background radiation, Savvy. I
never told you this? It’s like a pilot
light. It flares up when somebody does an
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epoché. It didn’t work though. I’m taking
a nap." Brooking no protest, Izzy turned
off the radio and scooted down in his
seat.
"I am driving with a mad man, and still no
female action."
5. The Temporary
Thoughts smoked from my skin.
"Is he a werewolf, Izzy?" Sarvaduhka
whispered.
Izzy said, "Let me snooze."
I squeezed Mel’s eyes shut to keep from
slashing too brutally the delicate inner
membrane, with my light. Rising open-armed
before Sarvaduhka’s VW Squareback heading
east out of Albuquerque, I bathed them,
squinting in the munificence and splendor,
till Izzy yanked down the visors.
"Snooze, he wants to snooze!" Sarvaduhka
said. "Snooze, Izzy, but when do I get my
female action? Everything you want to do,
we do. Now we have the boy and you are
satisfied. But I still have no female
action. I never should have left my
videos." He pinched a cone of incense from
a slot under the ashtray, stuffed it into
a compartment in Ganesha’s back, and lit
it clumsily with a cheap butane lighter.
Smoke spouted from Ganesha’s trunk.
"You horny bastard," Izzy grumbled,
"didn’t I tell you, you get some nooky in
Memphis? We gotta finish with the kid
first, but I’m too tired now. I gotta cop
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some Z’s, Sergeant Ducky. Can you clam
it?"
I was terrified. A slug in the kill
jar?the sting of jasmine like carbon
tetrachloride?I curled away from Izzy’s
body, my skin electric with loathing. He
yawned and stretched. His arm looped
across my shoulders. His head lolled
against my chin. The feel of that clammy
bald spot. I tried to be the sun, huge,
distant, omnipotent.
Through the hole in my mind images
stuttered: Mayan priest pederasts;
surgeons, masked and gloved, their hands
in my bowels; Shaman shaking and shaking
his head; the Space People, the desert, my
father?Run! "Please let me out," I said,
one of me.
"Shit!" said Izzy. "I forgot this
happens." He stopped the hole with his
finger.
How did you do that? He didn’t hear me.
"Savvy, stop the car," said Izzy One-brow.
Sarvaduhka groaned and pulled onto the
shoulder. "We get no rest until he’s
cauterized."
I felt as if I were being buried alive.
The sudden constriction, even though it
produced a more normal-sized, more
workable mind, was suffocating. Izzy
amputated the world. As soon as the car
stopped, he pushed open the door and
shoved me out. He fell out on top of me,
wrestled me down. "Sarvaduhka!" he
shouted. "Help me."
"Is this legal?" the Indian said. I heard
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his door open, then slam shut. He was
pressing me down. I was scrambling and
wheezing after something like breath or
like my name, or else I was trying to
cough it up. My name, too small for me,
was wedged in my windpipe. Izzy was
butterfly-bandaging Shaman’s hole. Or
plugging it. Or welding it. Or sewing it
closed.
"This is just a temporary," he said.
I coughed up my name. "I’m Mel Bellow!" I
said, astonished, I who had been the sun,
the sky, Ganesha’s shakti, wind-blown
sand.
"We know who the hell you are," Izzy said.
"You left home the day after the US pulled
out of Vietnam and President McCarthy
ended the draft, May 6, 1970, right?
Happens to be one of my bench marks. No
more sitting by the mailbox chewing on
your lottery number, right, Mel? Slam goes
the door. Up goes the thumb. Izzovision,
case you’re wondering."
"Izzy, be civil. He is traumatized,"
Sarvaduhka clucked.
"Sure," said Izzy. Now I could see he was
sweating, exhausted, still straddling me
on all fours. His sweat fell into my eyes
and made me blink. I knew which one of us
I was! He said, "I’m Izzy. This guy here
is Mr. Sarvaduhka, the motel mogul. We’re
pleased to make your acquaintance. Now
let’s haul ass back into the vehicle,
because we got a lot of miles to cover
before we hit the launch site, and the
Duke is hot for nooky."
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6. Certain Responsibilities Accrue
"My name is Izzy Molson," he told me over
watery coffee from a machine at a rest
stop outside Amarillo. Sarvaduhka was
looking at magazines. "Some people think
I’m psychic, other people think I’m
psycho, but I’m here to tell you that I’m
just an ordinary Joe with his ear to the
ground. I’m currently employed at the
Gibson plant in Lockport, New York,
setting up tool machines, which I got
because I lied about my medical history,
which you would too if you had a back like
mine, and I’d appreciate it in
consideration of which, if you didn’t
wrestle me quite so vicious next time I do
you a favor."
"Sorry." I sipped my coffee slowly, just
to feel the warmth spread, like dye
staining the part of my world that was me.
"Forget it. Anyways, I happen to be able
to see inside things, like your noggin for
example, past, present, and future,
regardless of distance?sometimes. Certain
responsibilities accrue. Which is why I am
spending half of this vacation, which I
only get two weeks of at my present level
of seniority at Gibson, and my next
vacation also, when it comes up, on you.
Gawd, I guess there’s no limit to how bad
you can make a cup of goddamned coffee."
He wrinkled his nose and swallowed the
rest of it at a gulp. Then he squashed the
Styrofoam and threw it down with a shiver.
"Spending your vacations on me? What’s
going on? A guy did something to my mind .
. ."
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分类：外语学习
价格：5.9玖币
属性：85 页
大小：129.74KB
格式：PDF
时间：2024-12-24
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