Why Do Birds

CHAPTER 5

The information clerk in the main data room of the New York Public Library looked up from his reader to see a young man in a funny hat standing there. "Yes, sir?"

"Say, can you tell me where to find the phone books?"

"Phone books? For what year?"

The young man looked puzzled. "Well, the current one."

"I don't understand you. The last telephone book published in New York was in nineteen ninety-seven."

"Well, how do you look up a number, then?"

"Use one of the terminals."

The young man looked around at the booths that lined all four walls. "You mean one of those things over there?"

"Yes. Haven't you ever used one before?"

"No."

"Well, it's quite easy. What number did you want to look up?"

"Yallow and Moore. They're architects."

The clerk tapped keys on his console. "The number is 788-8456. Did you want the address?"

"Yeah, please."

"Two oh seven Park Avenue."

The young man took a pad from the desk and wrote it down, but he still looked puzzled. " Listen, if I want to make a phone call do I have to come here?"

"No. Why do you think that?"

"Because I asked in a drugstore in the bus station, and they said try the library."

"Try the library for what?"

"Phone books."

"We don't use phone books anymore."

"So where do you make phone calls?"

"Use any terminal."

The young man looked around again. "Those things over there, right?"

" Right."

"So if I want to make a phone call, I have to come here?"

"Why would you have to come here?"

"To use the terminal."

"These are no different from any other terminals."

"Forget it," said the young man. "Judas Priest." He turned and walked out.

Four dudes in plastic Levi's and watch caps, with dirty sneakers on their feets, saw the young man entering the uptown pedestrian stream on Park. He looked like a yoke, wore a mask but it was hanging crooked; he had a funny suit on and a hat.

They followed him halfway to the comer, then crowded him into an alcove in front of a boarded-up jewelry store. The pedestrian stream moved past them. Rong said, "Hey, dads, you got any crappo?" He let the pilgrim see the knife.

"I don't know what you mean." The yoke's eyes looked scared, but not enough.

''I mean, do you have any currency, any coin of the realm, any hundred-dollar bills, any five-hundred-dollar bills, do you know what I'm explaining about now? Do you understand my meaning?"

"Oh, money. Yes, I sure do. How much do you want?"

"Well, how much do you have? That's the question I'm asking you. Give the leather, and we'll see how much we want. "

The yoke got his leather out, handed it over. Rong pulled the bills and flipped them. "Well, by sheer amazing coincidence, this is just about what we want right here. Thank you, pilgrim."

"You're welcome." The yoke stuck out his hand. "No hard feelings?"

"No, none on our part whatsoever." Rong pressed the flesh, felt a funny cold sting in his finger. He dropped the leather on the sidewalk and turned away, followed by the other three, but he never took two steps before he begun to feel sort of weird. He swung around. The yoke was just straightening up with the leather in his hand.

"Hey, pilgrim," Rong said, "I don't want to rob you. Was you counting on this crappo for any reason?"

Elvis nudged him in the elbow. "What the matter with you?" Rong shook him off and walked toward the pilgrim. "Do you need some of this crappo? How much do you think you need?"

"Well, I gave you six hundred there, right? Suppose we split it, and then I'll stand you guys a beer or something."

"Sounds all right to me, " said Rong. He peeled off half the bills and handed them over. Elvis was poking him again. "You crazy?" he whispered.

"Listen, this man is my friend," said Rong. "Shake hands with my friend." But Elvis backed off, and so did the other two. "Give us our havvies and we'll zoom," Elvis said. "I'm not running with no crazy man."

"Bug your havvies, then. Go zoom, see if I give a puke." He had his knife out again. After a minute Elvis said, "Come on, he's crazy." They high-stepped away with their hands in their pockets.

The pilgrim watched them go. "Listen," he said. "I'm sorry if I got you in trouble with your friends."

"No trouble, man, and no friends neither. What they call you?"

"Ed. Ed Stone."

"I'm Rong. Give me five." The young man reached for his wallet again.

"No, man, I mean press the flesh."

"Oh." They shook hands. "How do you spell that, w-r-o-n-g?"

"Wrong! " He laughed. "I spell it with an R, but you're right, I'm Rong. My mama named me Wright, but I knew that was wrong, do you catch my drift?"

"I guess so. Well, how about that beer?"

"I hear that suggestion. Will you kindly follow me?"

Rong led him around the comer to Tony's; they went through the airlock into the warm room and pulled their masks down. The holo over the bar was tuned to a sumo wrestling match.

"Hello, Rong," said the bartender. "What'll it be?"

"Shot and a half for me and my friend. Dick, this here is my friend Ed."

"Glad to know you, Dick," said Stone. He reached across the bar and shook hands. The bartender, with a goofy smile, poured two beers and two shots. "Where you from, Ed?"

"Harrisburg, but I've been in a spaceship since nineteen thirty-one."

"Is that right?" A customer at the other end of the bar rapped with his glass, and the bartender reluctantly went away.

"First one with this hand today, " said Rong, raising his shot glass. He poured the liquor down, then sipped from the beer.

Stone took a drink of his beer but did not touch the shot glass. "Hey, Rong, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, man."

''Well, is this the only thing you can do to make a living - rob people?"

"What you want me to do, be a college professor?"

"There's no jobs, huh?"

"No jobs, no school that's worth puke, no nothing. You live where I live, you can rob people or you can deal, or sell your pussy. I don't hurt nobody unless they do something stupid, you understand?"

"How long has it been like this?"

"Been this way forever, man. You really been in a spaceship, huh?"

"Yeah."

"All right, now I want to tell you something for your own personal good. I don't give a flying puke where you come from, you are not suppose to walk around in a outfit like that, you know what I mean? Elvis and them, if they see you one more time they going to cut you, and if they don't some other puker will. Listen to what I'm telling you."

"I'm listening, but I've got to wear this suit. It's kind of a trademark.''

"It is? It is, huh? Well, that's a problem." He drank half his beer and gestured to the bartender with two fingers.

Dick came over and poured another shot for Rong. Stone put his hand over his untouched glass. "Hey," said Dick, "what was it like in that spaceship?"

"Never mind spaceship," said Rong, "we got some heavy thinking here. Like, how is this man going to walk around in those clothes and not get hisself killed?"

The bartender's brow wrinkled. "Why can't you change your clothes?" he asked Stone.

"I could, but then people might not believe I'm from nineteen thirty-one."

"Oh, I get it. Uh-huh. All right, how's this? Say you walk over to Fourth and buy yourself a raincoat like the winos wear. Nobody mugs a wino, am I right? Lie it down in the street, let a couple cars run over it. The hat you can put in your pocket. Then when you go in an office, you take the raincoat off and put the hat on. What do you think, Rong?"

"Yeah, you got it. I don't know about that haircut, though. Maybe better to keep the hat on. Hey, Ed, you going to drink that shot?"

"No, I have to stay sober for when I talk to the architects."

"Well, no use letting it go to waste."