“This is a disater, you shithead! One of them coons kills a kid of mine, and I’ll tear you apart myself, Jack Sawicki!”
“Hey, stay together, Celie,” Paulie Cenverno said. Somebody muttered “Bitch.” The door opened and Annie came in, her, holding Lizzie’s hand. The stomps at the foodbelt were still shouting and shoving.
The terminal said, “Please hold. Linking with District Supervisor Samuelson’s mobile unit.” A minute later the holo appeared, not life-sized like on the HT, but a tiny, eight-inch-high Samuelson seated at his desk and dressed in a blue uniform. He looked, him, about forty, but of course with donkey genemods you can’t never tell. He had thick gray hair and big shoulders and crinkly blue eyes — handsome, like all of them. A few people shuffled their feet, them. If voters don’t watch the donkey channels, then the only people they ever see not dressed in jacks are Samuelson’s techs at the warehouse distrib twice a week. Once a week, now.
Suddenly I wondered, me, if that was Samuelson. Maybe the holo was just a tape. Maybe the real Samuelson was someplace dressed up for a party, or in jacks — if donkeys ever wore jacks, them — or even naked, him, taking a shit. It was weird to think about.
“Yes, Mayor Sawicki?” Samuelson said. “How can I serve you, sir?”
“There’s at least four rabid raccoons in East Oleanta, Supervisor. Maybe more. The area monitor picked them up, it, before it broke. We seen the coons, right in town. They’re dangerous. I told you, me, two weeks ago that the game warden ’bot broke.”
Samuelson said, “Game warden duties have been franchised to the Sellica Corporation. I notified them, sir, as soon as you notified me.”
But Jack wasn’t taking any of that shit. Like I said, me, he was a good mayor. “We don’t care, us, who’s supposed to do the job! It’s your responsibility that it gets done, Supervisor. That’s why we elected you, us.”
Samuelson didn’t change expression. That’s when I decided, me, that he was a tape. “I’m sorry, mayor, you’re quite right. It is my responsibility. I’ll take care of it right away, sir.”
“That’s what you said two weeks ago. When the warden first broke, it.”
“Yes, sir. Funding has been — yes, you’re quite right, sir. I am sorry. It won’t be neglected again, sir.”
People nodded at each other: damn right. Behind me Paulie Cenverno muttered, “Got to be firm, us, with donkeys. Remind ’em who pays the votes.”
Jack said, “Thank you, Supervisor. And one more thing—”
“Hey!” a stomp screamed at the other end of the cafe, “The foodbelt stopped, it!”
Dead silence fell.
The holo of Samuelson said sharply, “What is it? What’s the problem?” For a minute he almost sounded, him, like a person.
The stomp screamed again, “Fucking thing just stopped, it! Ate my meal chip and stopped! The food cubbies don’t open, them!” He yanked at all the plasticlear cubby doors, and none budged, but of course they don’t never budge, them, unless you put your chip in the slot. The stomp slammed on them with his club, and that didn’t help neither. Plasticlear don’t break.
Jack ran, him, across the cafe, his belly bouncing under his red jacks. He stuck his own meal chip into the slot and pressed a cubby button. The chip disappeared, it, and the cubby didn’t open. Jack ran back to the terminal.
“It’s broke, Supervisor. The goddamn foodbelt’s broke, it — eating chips and not giving out no food. You got to do something real quick. This can’t go no two weeks!”
“Of course not, Mayor. As you know, the cafe isn’t part of my taxes — it’s funded and maintained by Congresswoman Land. But I’ll notify her myself, immediately, and a technician will be there from Albany within the hour. Nobody will starve within an hour, Mayor Sawicki. Keep your constituents calm, sir.”
Celie Kane shrilled, “Fixed like the warden ’bot, you mean? If my kids go hungry even a day, you mule bastard—”
“Shut up,” Paulie Cenverno told her, murderously low. Paulie don’t like to see donkeys abused to their faces. He says, him, that they got feelings too.
“Within one hour,” Jack said. “Thank you for your help, Supervisor. Dialogue over.”
“Dialogue over,” Samuelson said. He smiled at us, him, the same smile like on his election holos, chin up and crinkly eyes bright. The holo pushed a button on his desk. The picture disappeared. But something must of gone wrong because the voice didn’t disappear, it, only it sounded all different. Samuelson still, but no Samuelson we never seen or heard campaigning, us: “Christ — what next! These morons and imbeciles — I’m tempted to just — oh!” The terminal yelped and went dead.
A woman at a far table screamed. The stomp with the biggest wooden club had grabbed her food, him, and was eating it. Jack and Paulie and Norm Frazier charged over, them, and jumped the kid. His buddies jumped back. Tables crashed over and people started running. Somebody had just changed HT channels, and a scooter race in Alabama roared by, life-size. I grabbed Annie and Lizzie and shoved them to the door. “Get out! Get out!”
Outside, the Y-lights made Main Street bright as day. I could feel my heart banging but I didn’t slow up, me. Angry people got no sense. Anything could happen. I panted, me, alongside Annie, she running with those big breasts bouncing, Lizzie running quick and quiet as a deer.
In Annie’s apartment on Jay Street I collapsed, me, on a sofa. It wasn’t none too comfortable, not like sofas I remembered from when I was young, the soft ones you kept around long enough to take the shape of a person’s body.
But on the other hand, plastisynth don’t never get vermin.
Lizzie said, her eyes bright, “Do you think a donkey will come, them, to fix the foodbelt in an hour?”
I gasped, “Lizzie… hush, you.”
“But what if in an hour no donkey don’t come to—”
Annie said, “You be quiet, Lizzie, or you’ll wish them donkeys will come to fix you! Billy, you better stay here, you, for tonight. No telling what them fools at the cafe might do.”
She brought me a blanket, one of those she’d embroidered, her, with bright yarns from the warehouse. More embroideries hung on the wall, woven with bits of pop can the young girls make jewelry out of, with torn-up jacks, with any other bright thing Annie could find. All the Jay Street apartments look alike. They was all built at the same time about ten years ago, when some senator came up from way behind and needed a big campaign boost. Small rooms, foamcast walls, plastisynth furniture from a warehouse distrib, but Annie’s is one of the few that looks to me like a home.
Annie made Lizzie go to bed. Then she came, her, and sat on a chair close by my sofa.
“Billy — did you see, you, that woman in the cafe?”
“What woman?” It was nice, her sitting so close.
“The one standing, her, off by the back wall. Wearing green jacks. She don’t live, her, in East Oleanta.”
“So?” I snuggled under Annie’s pretty blanket. We get travelers sometimes, us, though not as many as we used to, now that the gravrail don’t work so regular. Meal chips are good anyplace in the state, they come from United States senators, and it didn’t used to be hard to get an interstate exchange chip. Maybe it still ain’t. I don’t travel much.