Bug Jack Barron

2

Pretty good curve you got there, Vince, you smart-ass wop, Jack Barron thought, watching his image on the outside studio monitor become image of new model Chevy.

The moment he was off the air Barron was up on the edge of his chair, thumbing the intercom button on the number one vidphone, “Fun and games tonight, eh, paisan?”

Behind the thick glass of the control-booth window, he saw Vince Gelardi smile, smugly cynical, then Vince’s voice filled the small spare studio: “Want Bennie Howards in the hotseat slot?”

“Who else?” Jack Barron answered, repositioning himself in the chair. “With Teddy Hennering number two, and Luke Greene in the safety slot.” Barron thumbed off the intercom, read “60 seconds” flashing across the bulb grid of the promptboard, and poured his attention into the brief pause.

Smart-ass Vince putting through a six-week dud like that Johnson (but every so often a dud becomes a potato even live one like tonight). Professional spade calls in every damn week new ethnic sob story and probably never got past the first monkey-block screen before. But add the latest dumb beef, against Foundation this time, to Freezer debate on the Hill, and you got a real hot potato (… you shade, you got Forever made… Wonder if Malcolm Shabazz & Co are spreading that one?) Too hot to handle with Howards’ two tame schmucks sitting on the good old FCC. Can’t afford to make waves in that league for one lousy show, and Vince should’ve known that, it’s his job, that’s what I’ve got him running the monkey block for.

But shit, Barron thought, as the promptboard flashed “30 seconds,” Vince did know it but got to give him credit, he saw beyond it, saw that Howards wouldn’t be pissed because the Foundation’ll freeze any Negro got $50,000 in liquid assets (liquid’s the kicker; liquid, not rotting old house not decaying trucks—liquid cash bonds negotiable securities negotiable power). Foundation’s got enough trouble with Republicans, SJC, Shabazz & Co, without buying race trouble. Foundation cares about only one color—green money color, crazy bastard Howards’ not that far ’round the bend. Yeah, Vince saw it all, saw Rufus W. Johnson full of it, saw whole country’s tongues hanging out, slavering over the Freezer Debate, saw good hot show but safe from tigers, with Howards, happy to get free publicity with his big chestnuts in the Congressional fire, saw formula for next forty minutes: Howards squirming a bit in the hotseat, enough to make sparks without making waves because on the race thing (about the only thing) Foundation’s in the clear. Everyone makes points—Howards pushes his Freezer Bill, the Great Unwashed gets Jack Barron in top fun-and-games form, I look like champ and just flesh wounds, no one gets hurt enough to try to hurt back. Good old Vince knows how to walk that line!

“Open line to Rockies’ Freezer” flashed across the prompt board, then, “Greene on line, Teddy H?” then, “On Air,” and Barron saw his face and shoulders on the big monitor below the promptboard, saw image of Rufus W. Johnson gray on gray in the lower lefthand corner of the monitor and on the number one vidphone screen; hard, prim, good-looking, tough piece of ass-secretary on number two vidphone, and we’re off and running at Hialeah, thought Jack Barron.

“Okay, Mr Johnson (you silly fucker you),” Jack Barron said. “We’re back on the air. You’re plugged into me, plugged into the whole United States and all hundred million of us, plugged right into a direct vidphone line to the headquarters of the Foundation for Human Immortality, the Rocky Mountain Freezer Complex outside Boulder, Colorado. We’re gonna find out whether the Foundation’s pushing postmortem segregation, right here right now no time-delay live from the man himself, the President and Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Human Immortality, the Barnum of the Bodysnatchers, your friend and mine, Mr Benedict Howards.”

Barron made the connection on his number two vidphone, saw the hard-looking (like to get into that) secretary chick’s image appear under him (ideal position) in lower right on the monitor, gave her a dangerous pussycat (claws behind velvet) smile and said, “This is Jack Barron calling Mr Benedict Howards. A hundred million Americans are digging that gorgeous face of yours right now, baby, but what they really want to see is Bennie Howards. So let’s have the bossman.” Barron shrugged, grinned. “Sorry about that. But don’t worry, baby, you can leave your very own private phone number with my boy Vince Gelardi.” (Who knows?)

The secretary stared through the smile like a lemur, her telephone-operator voice said, “Mr Howards is in his private plane flying to Canada for a hunting and fishing vacation and cannot be reached. May I connect you with our Financial Director, Mr De Silva. Or our—”

“This is Jack Barron calling Benedict Howards,” Barron interrupted (what goes here?). “Of Bug Jack Barron. You do own a television set, don’t you? I have on the line a Mr Rufus W. Johnson who’s mighty bugged at the Foundation, and I’m bugged, and so are a hundred million Americans, and we all want to talk to Bennie Howards, not some flunky. So I suggest you move that pretty thing of yours and get him on the line muy pronto, or I’ll just have to bat the breeze about Mr Johnson’s public charge that the Foundation refuses to freeze Negroes with some cats who see things a little differently from the way the Foundation sees ’em, dig?”

“I’m sorry. Mr Barron, Mr Howards is hundreds of miles from the nearest vidphone,” the secretary said. “Mr De Silva, or Dr Bruce, or Mr Yarborough are all inintimate contact with the details of Foundation operation and would be happy to answer any questions.”

Set spiel, thought Jack Barron. Chick doesn’t know which end’s up (like to demonstrate), parroting Howards’ bullshit, is all. Show the bastard what happens when he tries to hide from me. Horrible example, Mr Howards. In instantaneous gestalt the rest of the show spread itself out before him: grill Howards’ flunky (Yarborough is the biggest foot-in-mouth man), second commercial, riff with Luke, third commercial, then ten minutes with Teddy Hennering to ease up a bit, then go out and get laid.

“Okay,” Barron said, turning his smile into a vulpine leer. “If that’s the way Bennie wants to play it, that’s the way he’ll have it. Get me John Yarborough.” He crossed his legs, signaling Gelardi to cut the secretary’s image off the monitor, and the screen split evenly between Barron and Johnson as Barron tapped the button under his left foot twice. Barron smiled crookedly as he stared dead on at the camera, purposefully building himself up into the galloping nasties, and said, “I hope Bennie Howards catches himself a big one, eh? And I’m sure all hundred million of you out there, who Mr Benedict Howards is too busy to talk to, wish him loads of luck too—and don’t you know, out there, that he’s gonna need it.”

Barron saw the promptboard flash “Open Lines to Luke, Teddy.” Yessir, he thought, show that goddamned Howards it doesn’t pay to mickey mouse me—and really give ’em a show tonight.

“Well, Mr Johnson, we’re about to do a little hunting on our own,” he said. “Let Mr Howards shoot himself a moose, and we’ll shoot ourselves the truth.”

“Who’s this Yarborough?” asked Rufus W. Johnson.

“John Yarborough is Public Relations Director for the Foundation,” Barron answered. “We’re the public, and we’re gonna see what we can get him to like relate.” Barren’s number two vidphone showed a sallow balding man. Barron foot-signaled, and the left side of the monitor screen was shared by Johnson (top) Yarborough (bottom), Barron looming twice their size to the right, living-color Big Daddy. “And here’s Mr John Yarborough now.

“Mr Yarborough, this is Jack Barron calling, and I’d like you to meet Mr Rufus W. Johnson. Mr Johnson, to belabor the obvious, is a Negro. He claims that the Foundation refused him a Freeze Contract. (Play that non sequitur gambit, Jack, baby.) A hundred million Americans would like to know if that’s true. They’d like to know why the Foundation for Human Immortality, with a Public Charter as a tax-exempt foundation, refused an American citizen his chance at immortality just because that citizen happens to be a Negro.” (Have you stopped beating your wife yet, Mr Yarborough?)

“I’m sure there must be some misunderstanding that we can easily clear up,” Yarborough said smoothly. “As you know—”

“I don’t know anything, Mr Yarborough,” Barron cut in. “Nothing but what people tell me. I don’t even believe the baloney I see on television. I know what Mr Johnson told me, though, and a hundred million Americans know it too. Mr Johnson, did you apply for a Freeze Contract?”

“I did, Jack.”

“Did you agree to assign all your assets to the Foundation upon your clinical death?”

“You know I did.”

“Did those assets exceed $50,000?”

“Sixty or seventy grand, easy,” said Rufus W. Johnson.

“And were you refused a Freeze Contract, Mr Johnson?”

“I sure was.”

Barron paused, grimaced, lowered his head to catch reflected ominous flashes from the backdrop off the shiny desk-arm in his eyes. “And you are a Negro, I notice, aren’t you, Mr Johnson? Now, Mr Yarborough, you were saying something about a misunderstanding—something that can be easily cleared up? Suppose you explain the hard facts. Suppose you explain to the American people why Mr Johnson was refused a Freeze Contract.”

Start digging out from under, Dad, Barron thought as he tapped his right foot-button three times, calling for a commercial in three minutes (just a few shovelfuls so I can throw on more).

“But it is all quite simple, Mr Barron,” Yarborough said, voice and face dead earnest, put visually in the dock, as Gelardi cut out Johnson’s image, left Yarborough tiny black and white, surrounded on three sides, all but engulfed by close-up (backdrop darkness shadows swirling behind) of Jack Barron.

“The basic long-range goal of the Foundation is to support research that will lead to a time when all men will live forever. This requires money, a great deal of money. And the more money we have to spend on research, the sooner that day will arrive. The Foundation for Human Immortality has only one source of capital: its National Freezer Program. The bodies of a limited number of Americans are frozen and preserved in liquid helium upon clinical death so that they may be revived when research, Foundation research, provides the answers to—”

“Aw, we know all this bull!” exclaimed Rufus W. Johnson (still off-screen). “You freeze fat cats, shade fat cats, that is, and while they’re on ice you get all their money and stocks and whatever they have, and they don’t get it back till they’re alive again, if they ever are. That’s cool, I mean, you can’t take it with you, might as well gamble, got nothing to lose but a fancy funeral.” (Keeping his face somber and glowering, Barron let the unseen voice rave on and waited for the pounce-moment.) “Okay, that’s what you’re selling, that’s what Rufus W. Johnson is buying. Only you ain’t selling to no nig—”

“Watch it, Mr Johnson!” Barron cut in, and Vince, thinking along with him, cut Johnson’s audio as the promptboard flashed “2 Minutes.” “You see, Mr Yarborough, Mr Johnson is overwrought and with good reason. He’s got a house that cost him $15,000 and $5,000 in the bank, and over $50,000 in trucks, and I’m no Einstein, but by my reckoning, $50,000 plus $20,000 is more than $50,000. Is it not true that the minimum net worth that’s supposed to be assigned to the Foundation upon clinical death in order for the Foundation to issue a Freeze Contract is $50,000?”

“That’s right, Mr Barron. But, you see, the $50,000 must be in liquid—”

“Please, just answer the questions for a moment,” Barron cut in loudly. Don’t let him explain, keep him bogey-man, he thought, noting wryly that Vince had granted the gray-on-gray image of Yarborough three-quarters of the screen, pale, unreal Goliath versus full-color David effect. “It all seems simple to me. $50,000 is supposed to buy any American a Freeze. Mr Johnson offered you his total net worth, which exceeds $50,000. Mr Johnson is an American citizen. Mr Johnson was refused a Freeze Contract. Mr Johnson is a Negro. What conclusion can you expect the American people to draw? Facts are facts.”

“But race has nothing to do with it!” Yarborough answered shrilly, and Barron frowned publicly, and grinned inwardly as he saw Yarborough finally blow his cool. “The $50,000 must be in liquid assets—cash, stocks, negotiable property. Any man, regardless of race, who has $50,000 in liquid—”

Barron crossed his legs, signal to cut Yarborough off the air, as the promptboard flashed “60 seconds,” said, “And, of course, we all know it’s the Foundation that decides whether a man’s assets are… liquid enough. Makes it nice and cozy, eh, folks? The Foundation doesn’t want to freeze a man, just tells him his assets are ‘frozen’, no pun intended. Wonder how many Negroes have frozen assets, and how many have frozen bodies? Well, maybe we can find out from a man who’s got some strong opinions about the current proposal in Congress to grant this—shall we say whimsical!—outfit that calls itself the Foundation for Human Immortality a monopoly on all cryogenic freezing in the United States—the Social Justice Governor of Mississippi, Lukas Greene. So hang on, folks, and hang on, Mr Johnson. We’ll be talking to the Governor of your home state right after this attempt to—unfreeze your pocketbooks by our sponsor.”

Hope you’re watching this, Howards, you schmuck you, Barron thought as they rolled the commercial. See what happens when you mickey mouse Jack Barron! He thumbed the intercom button, said: “Let me have a couple private moments on the line with Luke.”

“Hey what you want from this po’ black boy, you big bad shade you?” Lukas Greene (one eye on the Acapulco Golds commercial, the other on the vidphone image of Jack Barron) said. “Isn’t shafting Bennie Howards enough for one night? Gotta pick on us Crusaders for Social Justice too?”

“Relax, Lothar,” Jack Barron said. “This is you-and-me-stomping-the-Foundation night. This time good old Jack Barron’s playing ball with you, dig?”

Well, that’s a relief, provided I can trust Jack, Greene thought. But what’s all this race-flak with the Foundation? “Dig,” said Greene. “But we both know Bennie’d freeze Chairman Wang himself, if the cat coughed up the bread, let alone some poor buck. Why the knife? You comin’ home to the SJC, Claude?”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Jack Barron told him. “I’m just showing Howards what happens to a vip thinks he can be out to Jack Barron. Observe and learn, Amos, case you ever decide to be away from your vidphone some Wednesday night. But, cool it; we’re about to go on the air again.”

Same goddamn Jack Barron, Greene thought as Barron made with the introduction. (’… Governor of Mississippi and leading national figure in the Social Justice Coalition…’) Sell his mother for three points in the ratings, Howards could be eating babies raw and it’d be no sweat, no heat, too much power for the ball-less wonder, but don’t answer that phone and you get the knife, Bennie boy. (’… your constituent has charged…’) Okay, we play Jack’s game tonight, both shaft Howards maybe help kill the Freezer Utility Bill, and so what if Jack has asshole reasons.

“… and it is well-known that the Foundation has been refused permission to build a freezer in Mississippi, Governor Greene,” Jack was saying. “Is this because the Mississippi Social Justice Coalition suspects, as Mr Johnson charges, that the Foundation discriminates against Negroes?”

Well, here goes nothing, thought Greene. Let’s see how much SJC flak he lets me get away with. “Leaving aside the racial question for a moment, Mr Barron,” Greene said into his vidphone, noting that Generous Jack was granting him half the TV screen at the moment, angular black face sharply handsome in black and white, “we would not permit the Foundation to build a Freezer in Mississippi if Mr Howards and every single one of his employees were as black as the proverbial ace of spades. The Social Justice Coalition stands firmly for a free Public Freezer Policy. We believe that no individual, corporation, or so-called nonprofit foundation should have the right to decide who will have a chance to live again and who will not. We believe that all freezers should be publicly owned and financed, and that the choice of who is to be Frozen and who is not should be determined by the drawing of lots. We believe—”

“Your position on the Freezer Utility Bill versus the Public Freezer proposal is all too well known,” Jack Barron interrupted dryly, and Greene’s TV screen now showed him scrunched down in the lower lefthand corner (gentle reminder as to who was running things from old Berkeley buddy Jack Barron).

“What’s bugging Mr Johnson, what’s bugging me, what’s bugging a hundred million viewers tonight is not the theoretical question of private versus public Freezing, but the practical question: does the Foundation discriminate against Negroes? Is Benedict Howards abusing his economic and social power?”

Old college try, thought Greene. “That’s what I was getting at, Mr Barron,” he said, deliberately great-man-testy. “When a private company or foundation acquires the enormous power that the Foundation for Human Immortality has, abuses of one kind or another become inevitable. Should the Foundation succeed in getting its Utility Bill through Congress, and should the President sign it, this life-and-death power will be written into law, backed by the Federal Government, and at that point the Foundation can discriminate against Negroes, Republicans, sha—er, Caucasians or anyone else who refuses to play Howards’ game with impunity. That’s why—”

“Please, Governor Greene,” Jack Barron said with a put-on jaded grimace. “We’re all on the side of the angels. But you know the equal-time laws as well as I do, and you can’t make political speeches on this show.” Jack paused and smiled a just-for-him for-chrissakes-Luke smile, Greene saw. “I’d ruin this groovy sportjac if I got canceled and had to go out and dig ditches. The question is, is the Foundation now discriminating against Negroes?”

Well, that’s where it’s at, Greene thought. I want to make points on Howards, all I can do is to help make it look like he’s playing the Wallacite game, Jack’s hobbyhorse for the night, and we both know he’s not that loopy. But those hundred million voters Jack mentions every other sentence maybe don’t, maybe can bug enough Congressmen to get them to vote the other way, kill Howards’ bill if we make the right waves. So, Bennie Howards, yo’ is a big, bad nigger-hating shade fo’ the duration, sorry about that, chief.

“Well,” Greene replied, “the record shows that although Negroes are roughly twenty per cent of the population, less than two per cent of the bodies in the Foundation’s Freezers are Negroes…”

“And the Foundation has never explained this discrepancy?” Jack asked, and gave Greene back full half-screen for playing ball.

You know the reason you sly shade mother, Greene thought. How many of us in the good old US of A buzz off worth fifty thou? Foundation don’t discriminate more than everyone else. Why should it be different when a black man dies than when he’s alive—“You a shade, you got forever made, but if you’re black, when you go you don’t come back.” Even though Malcolm planted that one don’t stop it from being gut-truth, shade-buddy Jack. Foundation’s cleaner than GM, unions, bossman vip bastards—only color Howards digs is green-money color—but gotta squash the mother like a bug any way you can…

“Never heard of one,” Greene said, “I mean, what can they say, those are the figures in black and white (he smiled wanly)—sorry about that. Even if there’s no conscious racial bias, the Foundation, set up as it is on the basis of who can pay, must in fact discriminate because everyone knows that the average income of a black man in this country is about half that of the average white. The Foundation, by its very existence, helps perpetuate the inferior position of the Negro—even beyond the grave. In fact it’s getting so’s a gravestone instead of a Freeze’s gonna become a black thing, like nappy hair, before too long.

“I’m not accusing any man of anything. But I do accuse the society—and the Foundation swings an awful lot of weight in the society. And if Howards isn’t exercising the social responsibility that should go with social power… well, then, he’s copping-out. And we both know, Mr Barron (sickly-sweet smile for cop-out Jack), that a cop-out’s just as guilty as the Wallacites and Withers’ that his irresponsible indifference allows to flourish.” Two points on Howards, Greene thought, and two points on you, Jack.

Jack Barron smiled what Greene recognized as his words-in-your-mouth smile. And sure enough, he saw that Jack had now given him three quarters of the screen. Prols see Luke Greene while hearing words of Jack Barron schtick and why don’t you use that sly shade brain of yours for something that counts, you cop-out you.

“Then what you’re saying in essence, Governor Greene,” Jack said, in what Greene recognized as the sum-up-kiss-good-bye-here-comes-the-commercial pounce, “is that the very character of the Foundation for Human Immortality itself creates a de facto policy of racial discrimination, whether this is official Foundation policy or not, right? That whether Mr Johnson was refused a Freeze Contract because he was a Negro, or whether his assets are actually insufficient by Foundation standards, those very financial standards arbitrarily set by Mr Benedict Howards himself are actually a form of built-in racial discrimination? That—”

“One hundred per cent right!” Lukas Greene said loudly. (You may get the last word, but you don’t put it in this black boy’s mouth, Jack!) “So far as you’ve gone (and fence-sitting Jack cuts me down to quarter screen but lets me babble got extra brains where his balls should be). But not only discrimination against Negroes. The existence of a private, high-priced Freezing Company discriminates against black men, white men, the poor, the indigent, six million unemployed and twenty million under-employed Americans. It places a dollar value on immortality, on human life, as if Saint Peter suddenly put up a toll booth in front of those Pearly Gates. What right does anyone have to look into a man’s finances and say, ‘You, sir, may have life eternal. But you, you pauper, when you die, you die forever’? Every American—”

Abruptly, Greene saw that his face and voice were no longer on the air. His TV screen was now filled with a close-up of earnest-lipped, sly-eyed Jack Barron. (Oh, well, thought Greene, at least we made some points.)

“Thank you, Governor Greene,” said Jack Barron. “We sure know what’s bugging you now. And you’ve given us all food for thought. And speaking of food, it’s that time again for a few words from them that pay for my groceries. But hang on, America, ’cause we’ll be right back with the other side in the hotseat—Senator Theodore Hennering, coauthor of the Hennering-Bernstein Freezer Utility Bill, who’s on record as thinking that the Foundation for Human Immortality’s just fine and dandy as it is, and would like to see the Foundation granted a legal monopoly. We’ll try to see where the good Senator’s head is at, after this word from our sponsor.”

Hey, Greene thought excitedly as a Chevy commercial came on, if he knifes Hennering on the bill that could be it! Jack could cut Hopeful Henny to dog meat he wanted to, shift ten votes in the Senate, or thirty in the House and the bill’s dead.

“What in hell you trying to do, Luke?” Jack Barron’s vidphone image said. “Screw me good with the FCC? Howards’s got two commissioners in his hip pocket; we both know that.”

“I’m trying to kill the Freezer Utility Bill, and we both know that too, Percy,” Greene told him. “You the cat decided to knife Bennie, remember? And you can do it, Jack. You can kill the bill right now by slaughtering Teddy Hennering. Nail him to the wall, man, and put in a few extra spikes for me.”

“Nail him to the wall?” Jack Barron shouted. “You’re out of your gourd, Rastus! I want Howards to bleed a little, teach him a lesson, but not in the gut, Kingfish, just a couple of flesh wounds. Howards can murder me if I hit him too hard where he lives. I gotta play pussycat with Hennering, let him make up some points the Foundation’s lost, or I’m in goddamned politics. Better I should get a dose of clap than a dose of that.”

“Don’t you ever remember what you were, Jack?” Greene sighed.

“Every time my gut rumbles, man.”

“Win one, lose one, eh, Jack? Back then you had balls but no power. Now you got power and no—”

“Screw you, Luke,” said Jack Barron. “You got your nice little bag down there in coon country, let me keep mine.”

“Fuck you too, Jack,” Greene said, breaking the vidphone connection. Fuck you, Jack Barron good old Jack Barron, what in hell happened to the good old Berkeley-Jack-and-Sara Montgomery Meridian sign-waving, caring, black shade committed Jack Barron?

Greene sighed, knowing what happened… what happened to all no-more-war nigger-loving peace-loving happy got nothing need nothing love-truth-and-beauty against the night Baby Bolshevik Galahads. Years happened, hunger happened, Lyndon happened, and one day, age-thirty happened, no more kids, time-to-get-ours happened and them that could, went and got.

Jack got Bug Jack Barron (losing Sara, poor-couldn’t-cut-it good-heart good fuck Peter Pan living relic of what we all lost making it all a silly-ass-lie Sara), and you got this gig in Evers, Mississippi, you white nigger you. Schmuck you are to think anyone could bring it all back, bring back youth truth don’t give a shit close to the bloody happy balling days when we knew we could do it all if only we had the power. Now we got the power, I got the power, Jack got the power, and to get it he paid our balls, is all.

Who are you to expect Jack to play hero, lay it on the line, lose it all for some dumb dream? Would you, man, would you?

I would if I could, thought Lukas Greene, was I white and it could matter. And, masochistically, he left the TV set on, sat back to watch and hope in the man who could matter, if he got it back, the man playing his cop-out game with Howards’ stooge Hennering—good old Jack Barron.

Cop-out, eh, Kingfish? thought Jack Barron as he waited for the commercial to end. Just trying to get me to blow my cool, eat dumb bastard Hennering on the half-shelf, fry your fish, Luke, while Howards gets blood in his eyes for my scalp—kill Freezer Bill all right, but among the fatalities TV career kick-’em-in-the-ass Jack Barron. Or do you still really believe in the old Berkeley truth-justice-bravery damn-the-torpedoes days bull kamikaze attack? Schmuck either way, Lothar. No one hands hari-kiri knife to Jack Barron. Paid my dues many long years ago name of my game’s no longer Don Quixote.

The commercial ended and the too-fiftyish, too-true-blue, too-1930s-FDR-handsome loser face of Senator Theodore Hennering (D-Ill.) split the screen even with Jack Barron. Looks like he’s holding in a year’s worth of cream-rubber-chicken-plastic-peas fart, Barron thought. To think this dum-dum has eyes for the White House. Teddy and his ghosts’ll eat him alive… Make nice, Jack, baby, he warned himself grimly.

“I hope I may make the assumption that you’ve been watching the show tonight, Senator Hennering,” Barron said, giving little fey false-modest, watch-yourself-Teddy-boy smile.

“Uh, yes, uh, Mr Barron. Most interesting, uh, quite fascinating,” Hennering said hesitatingly in his fruity-hearty voice. Jeez, thought Barron, I gotta feed this lox his lines too? He looks like who-did-it-and-ran tonight.

“Well, then, I’m sure that after hearing Governor Greene you have a few things you’d like to tell the American people, Senator, seeing as you’re the cosponsor of the Freezer Utility Bill which would grant the Foundation a Freezing Monopoly. I mean, Mr Johnson and Governor Greene have made some pretty serious charges against the Foundation…?”

“I… uh… cannot speak for the Foundation for Human Immortality,” Hennering said, his eyes peculiarly and uncharacteristically furtive. “I will say that I do not believe that the Foundation practices racial discrimination. My… uh… record on Civil Rights, I think, speaks for itself and I would… er… dissociate myself immediately from any individual, organization, or cause that would perpetuate racial… ah… policies.”

Shit, the old blimp looks like he’s scared stiff, Barron thought. What gives? He saw that Gelardi had wisely cut down the now ashen face of Hennering to a quarter-screen inset. I could cut him up and feed him to the fishes and wouldn’t Luke love that, Barron thought with reflexive combativeness. Watch yourself, man, you’ve got too many knives in Bennie Howards’ back as it is…

“You are cosponsor of the Freezer Utility Bill?” Barron asked, straining to be gentle. “You do still support the bill? You do still feel it will pass?”

“I’m against discussing the chances of pending legislation,” Hennering said, fingering his collar.

Mo-ther! Barron thought. He looks like he’s ready to croak. I’ve got to get this boob to say some nice things about Bennie Howards or I’ll have the Foundation all over me. Lead the creep by the nose, Jack, baby.

“Well, since you are one of the authors of the bill, surely you can tell us why you believe that the Foundation for Human Immortality should be the only organization permitted to Freeze bodies in this country?”

“Why…ah, yes, Mr Barron. It’s a matter of responsibility, responsibility to… uh… those in the Freezers and to the general public. The Foundation must be kept financially sound so that they can continue to care for the Frozen bodies, and continue their… uh… immortality research so that the promise of eternal life that cryogenic Freezing holds will not become a… cruel deception… cruel deception… (Hennering’s mind seemed to wander; he caught himself, grimaced, continued.) The Foundation stipulates that all income not required to maintain the Freezers will go into research while the… ah… fly-by-night outfits that attempt to compete with it do not.

“Safety for those in the Freezers, financial soundness, the ability to channel large sums of money into immortality research, those are the reasons why I believed… uh, believe that the Foundation for Human Immortality must have a Freezer Monopoly. It is fitting, sound moral and economic policy that those in the Freezers pay for their upkeep and for the research that will eventually revive them. Yes… uh, that’s why I sponsored the bill.”

“Wouldn’t a Federal Freezer Program do the same thing?” Barren shot back unthinkingly, wincing even as the words left his mouth. (Cool it, man, cool it!)

“Ah… I suppose so,” Hennering said. “But… ah… the cost, yes, the cost. To duplicate the Foundation facilities or buy them out would cost the taxpayers billions, and more billions on research. Not practical fiscally, you see. The Soviet Union and China have no Freezer programs at all because only in a free enterprise system can the cost be borne.”

You forgot God, motherhood, and apple pie, Barren thought. Is this cretin in some kind of shock? I knew he was dumb, but not this dumb. Howards has him in his hip pocket—this is Bennie’s Presidential candidate. Howards must be chewing the rug by now. And son of a bitch Luke must be having an orgasm. Gotta do something to cool it; I need Bennie Howards on my back like an extra anus.

“Then you contend, Senator Hennering, that the Foundation for Human Immortality performs an essential service, a service which simply could not be provided by any other organization, including the Federal Government?” Barren asked as the promptboard flashed “3 minutes,” frantically signaling for Gelardi to give Hennering three-quarters of the screen, my words in his mouth (even if he does look like a week-dead codfish) schtick.

“Uh… yes,” said Hennering fuzzily. (His head’s farther from here than the Mars Expedition, thought Barron.) “I think it’s fair to say that without the Foundation there would simply be no Freezer program in the United States of any scope or stability. Already well over a million people have a chance at immortality who would otherwise be… uh… decomposed and buried and dead and gone forever thanks to the Foundation. Uh… of course, there are millions dying each year who cannot be accommodated, who are dead for all time… But… uh… don’t you think that it’s better for some people to have some chance at living again, even if it means that most people in the foreseeable future won’t, than for every American to die permanently until all can be Frozen, the way the Public Freezer people would have it…? Don’t you think that’s reasonable, Mr Barron…? Don’t you…?”

The last was almost a whine, a piteous plea for some kind of absolution. What the hell’s got into Hennering? wondered Jack Barron. The SJC couldn’t have got to him—or could they? He’s not only scared shitless, he’s wallowing in guilt. Why do these things have to happen to me? He keeps this up, and Howards’ll stomp me with high-heeled hobnailed jackboots!

“It sounds reasonable, when you state it so cogently,” Barron replied. (At least as coherent as the Gettysburg Address backwards in Albanian, anyway.) “Quite obviously, everyone can’t be Frozen. The question is, is the basis upon which the Foundation chooses who will be Frozen fair or not? Is it free from racial—”

“Fair?” Hennering practically shrieked as the promptboard flashed “2 minutes.” “Fair? Look, of course it can’t be fair! What’s fair about death? Some men can live forever and others die and are gone forever, and there can’t be anything fair about that. The nation is attacked, and some men are drafted to fight and die while others stay home and make money off it. That’s not a fair choice either. But it has to be made, because if it isn’t then the whole country goes under. Life isn’t fair. If you try to be fair to everyone, then everyone dies and no one lives—that’s being strictly fair, but it’s also being crazy… Should we turn back the clock and make it that way again…? Does that make sense to you, Mr Barron?”

Barron reeled for a moment. The man’s flipping, he thought. He’s in shock, what’s he babbling about? Ask the fucker a simple question he can say a simple no to and cool things and get back Sartre existential nausea why can’t he puke his being and nothingness on some shrink? He saw the promptboard flash “60 seconds.” Christ, just a minute to cool it!

“The point’s well taken,” Barron said, “but the question at hand’s not all that philosophical, Senator. Does the Foundation for Human Immortality avoid Freezing financially qualified Negroes?”

“Negroes?” Hennering muttered; then, like a fuzzy picture suddenly clicking back into focus, he became earnest, firm, authoritative. “Of course not. The Foundation isn’t interested in a client’s race—couldn’t care less. One thing about the Foundation that America can be sure of is that it does not practice racial discrimination. I stand behind that statement with my thirty-year record on Civil Rights, a record that some men may have equaled but that no man has bettered. The Foundation is color-blind.” Hennering’s eyes seemed to go vague again. “If that’s what you mean by fair…” he said. “But—”

Barron crossed his legs as the promptboard flashed “30 seconds,” and his face filled the entire screen. Enough of that shit, Teddy-boy, you finally spat it out, saved the bacon, balanced show for God, Motherhood, and the FCC (not to mention Bennie Howards) can put their switchblades back in their pockets, tell the rest to your shrink.

“Thank you, Senator Hennering,” Barron said. “Well, America, you’ve heard all sides of it, and now you’ve got to make up your own minds, not me or the Governor, or the Senator can do that for you. Take it from there, folks, and plug yourself in next Wednesday night for a new disaster, history made, no time-delay live before your eyes, history made by you and for you every week of the year when you… Bug Jack Barron.”