Kalifornia (3 page)

Clarry was a smiler: he rarely quit grinning unless something
awful had happened. Now his face looked as gray as old cloth. He was chewing on
his vitamin-fortified tobaccorish rope at an alarming rate, unspooling hanks of
it from his deep vest pocket.

“Poppy, I don’t know how to say this. There . . . there
was some mistake.”

“Oh my God. The baby.” She started past him, but he caught her by
the elbow.

“Where you going?”

She spun about to face him. “What do you mean? Where is she? I
want to see her.”

He shook his head. “Poppy, when you tossed her
 . . . 
where
did she go?”

She felt herself collapsing inwardly. Everything coming apart.
Alone. The wires carried none of this; no one could share the fear she felt,
the growing panic. What was happening?

“What do you mean?” she asked. “I dropped her in the wagon, right
on the padding.”

Clarry shook his head. “It wasn’t our wagon, Poppy. I told you
there’d be coordination problems in this crowd.
Our
wagon got stuck in traffic half a block away. No one knows where
the other one came from—or where it went.”

Clarry caught her to keep her from falling.

“Hold on now, babe. It’s gonna be tan, totally tan. We’ll find
her.”

“You lost her?” she whispered.

He sighed, drawing her into the street, toward the studio van. A
pack of mangy Lassies—street dogs,
macho canes
—trotted
past, sniffing obscenely in her direction.

“Do you remember what kind of wagon it was?” Clarry asked. “What
was in it? Who was driving?”

“It was just like we rehearsed. You recorded everything! Play it
back!”

“Settle down. I wondered if you had any other impressions.” He
shook his head. “I’m sorry. No one knew what happened till our wagon showed up
empty.”

“You better find her, Clarry.”

He gnawed on his rope ferociously, hardly stopping to spit the
chewed bits and brown juice. He gulped and swallowed before speaking.

“How hard can it be with those eyes of hers? If we can’t find the
wagon tonight, we’ll advertise—we’ll go global. She can’t slip through the net,
Poppy. We’ll offer a reward, how about that?”

She nodded, but she was hardly listening. A ransom was more like
it.

“I never wanted her involved in this.”

“Come on, Poppy, tune it down, we’ve been over this. There’s no
danger to the kid. She’s safe, I swear it.”

“I didn’t want her in the recordings. I’ve got the stuff to draw
an audience by myself. But you had to have one more tawdry gimmick. You had to
have my baby!”

“Look, we’re getting her, it won’t take an hour.”

“If you lose her, Clarry . . . Goddamn you.”
She stopped in the middle of the street and covered her face. “I want my baby
back!”

“Sh, sh, now, baby. You’re making yourself pale. Hey, Poppy, look
who’s coming! Isn’t that Cornelius? The seal from your old show?”

She turned around, searching the crowd for the familiar face.

Yes. Here he came, in his customary pinstripe suit and liquid tie.
Black fur neatly oiled, long whiskers combed, pointed teeth polished and
gleaming. The usual scent of sushi and Old Spice attended him.

“Good evening, Miss Figueroa.”

“Cornelius,” she whispered, putting her hands on his shoulders.
“What are you doing here?”

“Your father sent me to inquire if you and Calafia would like to
attend a birthday party. To celebrate her birth as well as the state’s
bicentennial.”

“My daughter.” She started to back away, but Clarry caught her
from behind.

“Hey,” Clarry said. “We haven’t met. I’m Poppy’s wire-man.”

Cornelius bowed slightly. “Clarence Starko, how do you do? I’ve
enjoyed the series so far . . .  in the flat versions.”

“You’re not wired? Oh, sealie, you’re missing most of the show.”

“I was never wired, not even for the Figueroas,” Cornelius
replied. “I don’t suppose anyone missed my point of view, there being so few
seals in the audience.” He turned to Poppy again. “The delivery went without
trouble, I take it?”

She started to shake her head. “Cornelius . . .”

“What is it, miss? You look frightened.”

“She’s fine,” Clarry said. “Just a bit burned from her busy—”

“Leave us alone, Clarry.”

“I’m telling you, Poppy, an hour, two hours at the most. Don’t
turn all pale over this.”

“Clarry, just leave us alone.”

She waited until he was gone, then took Cornelius by the elbow and
led him down the street.

“The baby’s missing, Cornelius. Missing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I can’t go anywhere tonight. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do.
I have to stay here and look for her. Maybe she’s somewhere nearby. Maybe it
was all an accident. I can’t believe it. I don’t know what to do.”

“Missing?” Cornelius said.

She couldn’t answer him. An accident. What else could it be? Why
was she afraid it might be something more sinister? What if someone had
kidnapped her baby?

“Is there anything I can do, miss? Have you called the police?
Your father will want to help.”

“I haven’t done anything yet. I just found out.”

A sudden eruption of barking and growling interrupted her.
Cornelius jerked around, startled by the sound. A Lassie rushed toward them,
unrestrained, fangs bared, saliva dripping all down his shirt. It was Kai, the
dog who’d nearly strangled her.

“Kai, what’s—”

He struck her aside, leaping at Cornelius, teeth snapping at the
sealman’s neck. Poppy screamed for help, so loud that every head in the crowd
turned. People converged on them, trying to pull the humanimals apart.
Cornelius lay where he had fallen while several strong men hauled Kai off. The
seal’s suit was in shreds.

“I only want an autograph!” the dog snarled. “He’s my favorite fur
star!”

Clarry Starko reappeared from the crowd. “Shit. That Kai’s crazy.
He’s a mad dog.”

They stared as the transgenic Lassie was led away, still snarling.
Blood speckled the faces and hands of the men who’d collared him. Poppy knelt
beside Cornelius. His snout was badly gashed, his clothes in ruins, but he
managed to smile and sit up.

“Dogs are always chasing me,” he said.

Clarry whistled. “We may have to put that teegee down.”

Cornelius stiffened, leaped to his feet. “He didn’t ask for the
life you gave him. And now you mean to snatch it away?”

“Hey, it wasn’t my idea turning animals into people. No offense, I’m
all for animal rights, but I don’t think it was good for either party.”

Cornelius gave Starko a cold stare, which warmed only slightly for
Poppy. “I’ll tell your father you can’t make it. Please call him when you can.”

“I will.” She stood up on tiptoes to kiss him on the snout. “Get
some healant on that.”

He bowed his farewell and wove away through the crowd. Several
people approached him hesitantly for an autograph, but he passed without
acknowledging them.

“Don’t worry about the baby,” Clarry said around his baccorish.
“We’ll have her safe and sound.”

“She’s not gonna be in any more shows.”

Clarry wanted to dispute this, but the night’s events had proved
her fears real enough. He only shrugged.

“You’ve got
me,”
she
said. “It’s my show, and that should be enough. I won’t have my baby subjected
to this kind of life.”

He shrugged, spreading his hands. “Tan, Poppy, totally tan. It was
just such an irresistible idea, you know? The bicentennial. The birth. A chase
scene . . .”

“A kidnapping.”

“Whoa, now. What’s that? Don’t go saying stuff like that. This isn’t
a crime. This is a bit of bad luck.”

“You mean there just happened to be an identical station wagon in
the place of the studio wagon? And it just happened to be under the fire escape
when I dropped my baby? That was bad, but it sure wasn’t luck.”

He looked embarrassed. “Well . . .”

“I don’t think it was an accident, Clarry. But just in case it
was, you’d better keep looking. Meanwhile, I’m calling the police.”

“Not yet, Poppy. What if she comes back?”

She smiled, though her thoughts were bleak. “She’s twenty minutes
old, Clarry. You think she’s gonna walk to us? No, I’m calling the police. You
should be glad, though. It’s free publicity.”

S01E02.
 
Seascraper
 
Soirée

Prone on his warm squishy Jell-O-bed futon, Sandy Figueroa filled
his lungs with tasty, resinous redweed primo, inhaled and kept inhaling, gulped
a little bit more, lungs cramping now, like a pearl diver filling his chest
before a particularly deep and difficult plunge. Then, lying back, releasing
the hookah’s filter tip, he closed his eyes and let his body channels switch
at random.

Getting zee’d to ride the wires was his favorite indoor pastime,
and he rarely did one without the other. The live-wire frequencies modulated in
accord with his thoughts, which, after the deep drag, had turned totally
chaotic. Half a thousand channels flipped through him in half a second, none
quite in synk with his mood. He waited for something to grab him.

Most of the broadcasts were garbage, a polluted ether of
advertising and you-are-there game shows. Bad media lurked in his polynerves
like an Alzheimer’s prion, waiting to crystallize. He lost a little control
and a bit more discrimination when he was zoned. That was part of the fun, but
it made for a hairy ride. The redweed put an edge on his mood, making it easier
for the freak shows to grab him. Now, for instance, he was snared by—
Bugs!

Jessie Christo! They crawled from his pores, tickled his feet,
cast off his nails like manhole covers and scurried for the shelter of his face
and genitals. He didn’t know whether to cover his nose or his crotch. In a
panic, he tried to change channels, but his fright mired him in the signal,
making it virtually impossible for him to tune anything else. There was no
waking from this nightmare until it had run its course.

This was no horror show; they didn’t grip so ruthlessly. This was
a commercial.

Suddenly, a cooling aerosol spray covered him from head to foot. A
purple-brown cloud of lilacs and chocolate dissolved the chittering little
monsters an instant before they reached his face or pubes. Iridescent wings,
scaly carapaces, manifold eyes, and quivering antennae—all vanished, leaving
him limp and grateful for the spray, whatever it was.

“Doctor McNguyen’s Soothing Antipsychotic,”
whispered a sexy voice in, curiously, only one ear.
“Now in aerosol cans.”

Sandy
was too drained to tune another channel. He
stayed on the line, letting the peaceful feeling and comforting scents fade.
The wires carried him straight into a regular wire show.

“Look at Sandy,”
someone said, and
immediately he felt his diaphragm convulsing with canned laughter. It was a
disorienting sensation. His older sister Poppy stared at him, one hand over her
mouth, suppressing her own unforced laughter. If he let go of his identity, he
would slide over into her point of view. And it was tempting, since his body
was wrapped python-tight and getting tighter. This was as bad as the bugs. He
was starting to suffocate. Despite this, his father stood at Poppy’s shoulder,
observing him with an expression that edged on hilarity.

“Where’d you two come from?” Sandy tried to ask. But his mouth
wasn’t quite in his control.

Instead he heard himself say,
“How
do I get out of this?”

More laughter. His ribs ached when he resisted it, but they ached
even more from the splintering grip surrounding them. As he struggled, the
pressure altered slightly, becoming less violent but still threatening in its
way: it was as if his clothes were beginning to pulsate, especially around his
groin. Clasping and relaxing, like an exploring hand.

This was all starting to seem familiar.

A flicker. His identity wavered and he became someone else—someone
taller, heavier, with a deeper voice. Someone who was saying,
“Sandy, what are we going to do with you?”

He was his father.

Oh no. As the redweed rush passed, he realized what was going on.

Reruns.

For some dark reason, he had tumbled into the twenty-four-hour
Figueroa channel.

From his father’s POV he saw himself quite clearly, tangled in a
contraption of Playtex, leather straps, and chrome manacles. He looked about
fifteen years old, so this episode of the “Figueroa Show” dated from about five
years back. He couldn’t remember making it, but he’d spent most of those days
zipatoned on weirder drugs than redwood marijuana. By age twelve he’d needed a
dose of ET to get out on the right side of bed; then he’d sprinkle his cereal
with MMSG for more paisley visions with every crunchy bite; by noon he’d be
totally brain-soaked from sipping ESP-3 and TAB-synth; and he would only taper
onto mild, relaxing weed or BeastMaster around midnight, to get to sleep. None
of his internal stimulation carried through the wires, of course; in this way,
drugs supplied him with the nearest thing to privacy that a wire star could
purchase.

His baby sister Miranda toddled into the rerun room, bawling her
head off when she saw Sandy caught in the straps.
“Daddy,
Daddy, make him stop! He’s wrecking my sex toys!”

Sandy
couldn’t bear a return to his own wretched POV.
He watched his younger self fumble with the straps for a moment longer, then
drop his hands in exasperation.
“I give up,”
that Sandy said, his adolescent voice still brittle.
“I thought it was a Chinese
puzzle-suit
.”

A warm hand fell on his father’s shoulder, and a warmer voice
said,
“He certainly takes after you, Alfredo.”

Sandy
, startled by the voice, slipped back into his
tangled, gawky point of view. From this vantage, which fit him about as well as
a child’s neoprene wet suit, he saw his mother for the first time in years.

“Mom
. . .”/“Mom . . .”

Both of them spoke, Sandy-then and Sandy-now. She came forward
carrying the key to the manacles. His eyes brimmed with tears as she knelt to
release him. Her own eyes were dark brown, for she was the only Figueroa to
have shunned the orange iridic implants.

“Mom,” he murmured. “Mommy . . .”

He couldn’t take any more. The initial zee’d confusion passed,
leaving him enough control to detune. He jerked himself free of the broadcast
and lay breathing heavily. Every now and then, his inhalations caught on the
ragged edges of a sob.

Mom. Seeing her alive again was the crudest sort of torture,
worse than being devoured by insects. No spray can of psychic balm could heal
that pain.

He couldn’t bear to ride the wires again tonight, though there
were a million other shows that might have cheered him. He didn’t want false
cheer right now. If he’d really wanted that, he wouldn’t be sitting alone in
his apartment, smoking dope and riding the wires while the rest of California celebrated its two-hundredth birthday.

He checked the antique Kit-Kat clock above the futon, next to the
old signed photograph of Danny Bonaduce. Rhinestone eyes and a switching fur
tail—the clock’s, not Danny’s—told him it was well past midnight.

Happy birthday, California. From me and Danny.

The faded picture had been his father’s—
“Hey,
Alf! Roll with the punches! Danny B
!”—but even over the gulf of
years, Sandy felt a spiritual kinship there. They were sitcom brothers,
separated by nearly a century, but still, without “The Partridge Family,” would
there have been a “Figueroa Show”?

It was hard for you, too, wasn’t it, Danny boy? Hard when the
lights shut off and the wires went dead and everybody thought of you forever in
that frozen zone of rerun adolescence. You were out raising hell and divorcing
that Japanese babe and teaching karate, and people meeting you years later
(even the cops taking your DNA prints, I suppose) would do a double take and
say, “Hey, you’re that brat from ‘The Partridge Family’!”
Was,
you
asshole. I was that brat.

Yeah, Danny. Like me. I’ll never get older than seventeen. Except
in real life, of course—but what does that count for?

He got up and raised the bamboo blinds a fraction of an inch to
peer out the window. By day, he would have had a view of fields, tractors, and
towering redwood-marijuana hybrids, a dense forest of mighty, smokable trees.
Tonight he saw lights in the field, heard music and laughter. The mulch hands
and trimmers sure knew how to party. They banged out odd, percussive rhythms on
steel drums and played their band saws like dangerous kazoos.

It was stupid of him to sit here all night when his employees
were out there having a good time. They would think him pale indeed if he didn’t
put in an appearance.

So, out the door and down the creaky stairs he went. From the
porch, the smell of pine, pot, and fresh-trampled earth was invigorating. He
watched the workers dancing outside their long, low quondos, whooping and
hollering, leaping high. Rather than break the festive mood, he sank down on
the porch of the two-story shack he called home, and simply watched. It was
like gazing at another planet. No matter how dirty he got, no matter that he
dressed in blues and grew his hair long and snarly and talked in a weird
patois, he just never fit in with the regular folk. He was ever and always the
wire-show star, intimately known to all—the most private moments of his youth
soaked up by strangers whose lives would forever be a mystery to him. No one understood
why he’d given up S/R status. What sender/receiver would choose to become a
receive-only like everybody else? They couldn’t comprehend why he wanted to be
one of them, a plain RO, after tasting the luxury life of the world’s most
popular broadcast family.

But people knew only what the wires told them, and the wires were
polynerves, not real ones. What the audience perceived as pleasure, Sandy had experienced as hollow and meaningless. His whole live life had been a string of
situations dreamed up by a board of “creative consultants” and then enlarged
upon and improvised by his family. He had dreamed of an existence where things
simply
happened,
without contrivance; where
he could ride the waves and do only what had to be done, or what he felt like
doing, and never again need go looking for “situations.” A lazy life, if necessary.
A life of lying around, getting zipped, tuning in whatever stupid shows were
on the wires—and never, ever sending again. The
wonderful
life
of a simple RO.

He had wanted to retire as early as possible, but his parents
wouldn’t consent. He’d intended, as soon as he turned eighteen, to pull out
and leave his family to fend for themselves.

He never had to wait that long.

When he was seventeen . . .

Oh, Mom.

He didn’t want to think about it. Not now. It didn’t bear
considering at the best of times, let alone tonight, when the sound of laughter
and music already had him feeling depressed.

He had wanted the show to end, sure. But not that way. Not on the
moon.

Well, he had patched together a life for himself, like the rest of
them. Poppy had her spin-off and was welcome to it. Dad was in big business,
though Sandy couldn’t feature him as the executive type. That had been more Mom’s
style; she’d been the real pusher in the family, the ambitious one who cut the
hard deals with the network execs. No wonder without her they’d lost the heart
to carry on.

In a way, Sandy was happy now—as happy as he could hope to be
owning a ranch that ran itself and living off the proceeds. And his royalties.

His main problem these days was boredom. Too much time on his
hands: time to think, to surf, to twist, to zero in, to ride the wires, to
deepen his tan. He owned the plantation, but didn’t exactly run it. He wouldn’t
have known where to begin. He lived on the edge of the farm, communed with the
workers, attended board meetings, and accepted his dividends. The rest of the
time he rode either the wires or the icy waves of the rock-gnarled NoCal coast.

Such was life without creative consultants and situation mongers.
Ten years, half his life, had been planned out for him: he still wasn’t sure
how to invent meaningful routines of his own. His younger sibs, Mir and Ferdi,
were even more lost, having been born when the show was well underway, raised in
the context of a wirecast routine; even before they went S/R with wires of
their own, everything they had known was an artifice, a contrivance, though
they didn’t know it. Still didn’t, in fact. For them, certain borders had never
been properly drawn.