Rock On (36 page)

Hawk shrugged. “Maggie’s disappeared. Nothing to scream about.”

“I hope she’ll be back in time for the show.”

“The local police are hunting for her. Anyway, she’s got the implants; if she can move she’ll be onstage. Never doubt it.” He hurried away.

The final checks were being run, and the first concertgoers beginning to straggle in, when Maggie finally appeared. Uniformed men held each arm; she looked sober and angry. Cynthia took charge, dismissed the police, and took Maggie to the trailer that served as a dressing room.

Wolf watched from a distance, decided he could be of no use. He ambled about the Commons aimlessly, watching the crowd grow. The people coming in found places to sit, took them, and waited. There was little talk among them, and what there was was quiet. They were dressed brightly, but not in their best. Some carried wine jugs or blankets.

They were an odd crew. They did not look each other in the eye; their mouths were grim, their faces without expression. Their speech was low, but with an undercurrent of tension. Wolf wandered among them, eavesdropping, listening to fragments of their talk.

“Said that her child was going to . . . ”

“ . . . needed that. Nobody needed that.”

“Couldn’t have paid it away . . . ”

“ . . . tasted odd, so I didn’t . . . ”

“Had to tear down three blocks . . . ”

“ . . . blood.”

Wolf became increasingly uneasy. There was something about their expressions, their tones of voice. He bumped into Hawk, who tried to hurry past.

“Hawk, there is something very wrong happening.”

Hawk’s face twisted. He gestured toward the light tower. “No time,” he said, “the show’s beginning. I’ve got to be at my station.” Wolf hesitated, then followed the man up the ladders of the light tower.

All of the Commons was visible from the tower. The ground was thick with people, hordes of ant-specks against the brown of trampled earth. Not a child among them, and that felt wrong too. A gold-and-purple sunset smeared itself three-quarters of the way around the horizon.

Hawk flicked lights on and off, one by one, referring to a sheet of paper he held in one hand. Sometimes he cursed and respliced wires. Wolf waited. A light breeze ruffled his hair, though there was no hint of wind below.

“This is a sick country,” Hawk said. He slipped a headset on, played a red spot on the stage, let it wink out. “You there, Patrick? The kliegs go on in two.” He ran a check on all the locals manning lights, addressing them by name. “Average life span is something like forty-two—if you get out of the delivery room alive. The birth-rate has to be very high to keep the population from dwindling away to nothing.” He brought up all the red and blue spots. The stage was bathed in purple light. The canvas above looked black in contrast. An obscure figure strolled to the center mike.

“Hit it, Patrick.” A bright pool of light illuminated the emcee. He coughed, went into his spiel. His voice boomed over the crowd, relayed away from the stage by a series of amps with timed delay synchronization with the further amplification. The crowd moved sluggishly about the foot of the tower, set in motion by latecomers straggling in. “So the question you should ask yourself is why the government is wasting its resources on a goddamned show.”

“All right,” Wolf said. “Why?” He was very tense, very still. The breeze swept away his sweat, and he wished he had brought along a jacket. He might need one later.

“Because their wizards said to—the damn social engineers and their machines,” Hawk answered. “Watch the crowd.”

“ . . .
Janis!
” the loudspeakers boomed. And Maggie was onstage, rapping away, handling the microphone suggestively, obviously at the peak of her form. The crowd exploded into applause. Offerings of flowers were thrown through the air. Bottles of liquor were passed hand over hand and deposited on the stage.

From above it could not be seen how the previous month had taken its toll on Maggie. The lines on her face, the waxy skin, were hidden by the colored light. The kliegs bounced off her sequined dress dazzlingly.

Halfway through her second song, Maggie came to an instrumental break and squinted out at the audience. “Hey, what the fuck’s the matter with you guys? Why ain’t you
dancing
?” At her cue, scattered couples rose to their feet. “Ready on the kliegs,” Hawk murmured into his headset. “Three, four, and five on the police.” Bright lights pinpointed three widely separated parts of the audience, where uniformed men were struggling with dancers. A single klieg stayed on Maggie, who pointed an imperious finger at one struggling group and shrieked, “Why are you trying to stop them from dancing? I want them to dance. I
command
them to dance!”

With a roar, half the audience were on their feet. “Shut down three. Hold four and five to the count of three, then off. One—Two—Three! Good.” The police faded away, lost among the dancers.

“That was prearranged,” Wolf said. Hawk didn’t so much as glance at him.

“It’s part of the legend. You, Wolf, over to your right.” Wolf looked where Hawk was pointing, saw a few couples at the edge of the crowd slip from the light into the deeper shadows.

“What am I seeing?”

“Just the beginning.” Hawk bent over his control board.

By slow degrees the audience became drunk and then rowdy. As the concert wore on, an ugly, excited mood grew. Sitting far above it all, Wolf could still feel the hysteria grow, as well as see it. Women shed chadors and danced atop them, not fully dressed. Men ripped free of their coveralls. Here and there, spotted through the crowd, couples made love. Hawk directed lights onto a few, held them briefly; in most cases the couples went on, unheeding.

Small fights broke out, and were quelled by police. Bits of trash were gathered up and set ablaze, so that small fires dotted the landscape. Wisps of smoke floated up. Hawk played colored spots on the crowd. By the time darkness was total, the lights and the bestial noise of the revelers combined to create the feel of a witches’ Sabbath.

“Pretty nasty down there,” Hawk observed. “And all most deliberately engineered by government wizards.”

“But there is no true feeling involved,” Wolf objected. “It is nothing but animal lust. No—no involvement.”

“Yeah.” Onstage, Maggie was building herself up into a frenzy. And yet her blues were brilliant—she had never been better. “Not so much different from the other concerts. The only difference is that tonight nobody waits until they go home.”

“Your government can’t believe that enough births will result from this night to make a difference.”

“Not tonight, no. But all these people will have memories to keep them warm over the winter.” Then he spat over the edge of the platform. “Ahhh, why should I spout their lies for them? It’s just bread and circuses is all, just a goddamned release for the masses.”

Maggie howled with delight. “Whee-ew, man! I’m gettin’ horny just looking at you. Yeah, baby, get it on, that’s right!” She was strutting up and down the stage, a creature of boundless energy, while the band filled the night with music, fast and urgent.

“Love it!” She stuck her tongue out at the audience and received howls of approval. She lifted her Southern Comfort bottle, took a gigantic swig, her hips bouncing to music. More howls. She caressed the neck of the bottle with her tongue.

“Yeah! Makes me horny as sin, ’deed it does. Ya know,” she paused a beat, then continued, “that’s something I can really understand, man. ’Cause I’m just a horny little hippie chick myself. Yeah.” Wolf suddenly realized that she was competing against the audience itself for its attention, that she was going to try to outdo everybody present.

Maggie stroked her hand down the front of her dress, lingering between her breasts, then between her legs. She shook her hair back from her eyes, the personification of animal lust. “I mean, shit. I mean, hippie chicks don’t even wear no underwear.” More ribald howls of applause. “Don’t believe me, do ya?”

Wolf stared, was unable to look away as Maggie slowly spread her legs wide and squatted, giving the audience a good look up her skirt. Her frog face leered, and it was an ugly, lustful thing. She lowered a hand to the stage behind her for support, and beckoned. “Come to Momma,” she crooned.

It was like knocking the chocks out from a dam. There was an instant of absolute stillness, and then the crowd roared and surged forward. An ocean of humanity converged on the stage, smashing through the police lines, climbing up on the wooden platform. Wolf had a brief glimpse of Maggie trying to struggle to her feet, before she was overrun. There was a dazed, disbelieving expression on her face.

“Mother of Sin,” Wolf whispered. He stared at the mindless, evil mob below. They were in furious motion, straining, forcing each other in great swirling eddies. He waited for the stage to collapse, but it did not. The audience kept climbing atop it, pushing one another off its edge, and it did not collapse. It would have been a mercy if it had.

A hand waved above the crowd, clutching something that sparkled. Wolf could not make it out at first. Then another hand waved a glittering rag, and then another, and he realized that these were shreds of Maggie’s dress.

Wolf wrapped his arms around a support to keep from falling into the horror below. The howling of the crowd was a single chaotic noise; he squeezed his eyes shut, vainly trying to fend it off. “Right on cue,” Hawk muttered. “Right on goddamned cue.” He cut off all the lights, and placed a hand on Wolf’s shoulder.

“Come on. Our job is done here.”

Wolf twisted to face Hawk. The act of opening his eyes brought on a wave of vertigo, and he slumped to the platform floor, still clutching the support desperately. He wanted to vomit, and couldn’t. “It’s—they—Hawk, did you see it? Did you see what they did? Why didn’t someone—?” He choked on his words.

“Don’t ask me,” Hawk said bitterly. “I just play the part of Judas Iscariot in this little drama.” He tugged at Wolf’s shoulders. “Let’s go, pilgrim. We’ve got to go down now.” Wolf slowly weaned himself of the support, allowed himself to be coaxed down from the tower.

There were men in black uniforms at the foot of the tower. One of them addressed Hawk. “Is this the African national?” Then, to Wolf: “Please come with us, sir. We have orders to see you safely to your hostel.”

Tears flooded Wolf’s eyes, and he could not see the crowd, the Commons, the men before him. He allowed himself to be led away, as helpless and as trusting as a small child.

In the morning, Wolf lay in bed staring at the ceiling. A fly buzzed somewhere in the room, and he did not look for it. In the streets iron-wheeled carts rumbled by, and children chanted a counting out game.

After a time he rose, dressed, and washed his face. He went to the hostel’s dining room for breakfast.

There, finishing off a piece of toast, was DiStephano.

“Good morning, Mr. Mbikana. I was beginning to think I’d have to send for you.” He gestured to a chair. Wolf looked about, took it. There were at least three of the political police seated nearby.

DiStephano removed some documents from his jacket pocket handed them to Wolf. “Signed, sealed, and delivered. We made some minor changes in the terms, but nothing your superiors will object to.” He placed the last corner of toast in the side of his mouth. “I’d say this was a rather bright beginning to your professional career.”

“Thank you,” Wolf said automatically. He glanced at the documents, could make no sense of them, dropped them in his lap.

“If you’re interested, the
African Genesis
leaves port tomorrow morning. I’ve made arrangements that a berth be ready for you, should you care to take it. Of course, there will be another passenger ship in three weeks if you wish to see more of our country.

“No,” Wolf said hastily. Then, because that seemed rude, “I’m most anxious to see my home again. I’ve been away far too long.”

DiStephano dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a napkin, let it fall to the tablecloth. “Then that’s that.” He started to rise.

“Wait,” Wolf said. “Mr. DiStephano, I . . . I would very much like an explanation.”

DiStephano sat back down. He did not pretend not to understand the request. “The first thing you must know,” he said, “is that Ms. Horowitz was not our first Janis Joplin.”

“No,” Wolf said.

“Nor the second.”

Wolf looked up.

“She was the twenty-third, not counting the original. The show is sponsored every year, always ending in Boston on the equinox. So far, it has always ended in the same fashion.”

Wolf wondered if he should try to stab the man with a fork, if he should rise up and attempt to strangle him. There should be rage, he knew. He felt nothing. “Because of the brain implants.”

“No. You must believe me when I say that I wish she had lived. The implants helped her keep in character, nothing more. It’s true that she did not recall the previous women who played the part of Janis. But her death was not planned. It’s simply something that—happens.”

“Every year.”

“Yes. Every year Janis offers herself to the crowd. And every year they tear her apart. A sane woman would not make the offer; a sane people would not respond in that fashion. I’ll know that my country is on the road to recovery come the day that Janis lives to make a second tour.” He paused. “Or the day we can’t find a woman willing to play the role, knowing how it ends.”

Wolf tried to think. His head felt dull and heavy. He heard the words, and he could not guess whether they made sense or not. “One last question,” he said. “Why me?”

DiStephano rose. “One day you may return to our nation,” he said. “Or perhaps not. But you will certainly rise to a responsible position within the Southwest Africa Trade Company. Your decisions will affect our economy.” Four men in uniform also rose from their chairs. “When that happens, I want you to understand one thing about your land:
We have nothing to lose.
Good day, and a long life to you, sir.”

DiStephano’s guards followed him out.

It was evening. Wolf’s ship rode in Boston harbor, waiting to carry him home. Away from this magic nightmare land, with its ghosts and walking dead. He stared at it and he could not make it real; he had lost all capacity for belief.