"Marilyn wasn't like the others, Yorke. You're too young to remember it all. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that remembers. The only one who knows it could have been different. It was October 1960. That was an election year. Richard M. Nixon…"
"I remember him. Trickydick."
"Yeah. He was running against a bird called John F. Kennedy. A Democrat…"
"What's a Democrat?"
"Hard to tell, Yorke. Anyway, Kennedy was a real golden boy, way ahead in the polls. A hero from the Second War. A cinch to win the election. There was a real good feeling in the country. We'd lived through the first Cold War and put up with Dwight D. Boring Eisenhower, and here was this kid coming along saying that things could change. He was like the Elvis of politics…"
"Who?"
"I was forgetting. Never mind. Jack Kennedy had a pretty wife, Jackie. Old money. She was in all the papers. Women copied her hats. Back then, everybody wore hats. In October 1960, a few weeks before the election, Jackie Kennedy opened the wrong door and scanned the freakin' future President of these United States in bed with Marilyn Monroe."
"Sheesh."
"Yeah. And they weren't playing midnight Pinochle. It was in the papers for what seemed like years. People fought in the streets about it. I'm serious. The Kennedys were Catholics and the Pope had a big down on divorce back then, not like the new man in Rome, Georgi. But Jackie sued Jack's ass. He took a beating in the court and a bigger one at the polls. The country let itself in for eight years of Richard Milhous Criminal. Remember that scam with the orbital death-rays that wouldn't work? And the way we stayed out of Indochina and let the Chinese walk in? Trickydick was like the first real wrong 'un in the White House. Since then, we've not had a winner."
Sometimes Quincannon had these talking spells. Like a lot of old-timers, he remembered things having been better. That was sumpstuff; the Quince just remembered when he wasn't old and fat and tired, and assumed the rest of the world had , been feeling good too.
"I voted for North, and I'm proud of it," Yorke said. "It was important to keep the Right Wingers out of the White House."
Quincannon laughed. Yorke thought he might be missing the joke. His Premier tasted bitter. Maybe Dr Nick was right, and he should switch to mild-tasting Snouts.
"Remember the others, boy. Two terms' worth of Barry Goldwater, one and a half of Spiro Agnew, and a single for that lousy actor. If they were executin' any of them for havin' a brain, they'd be fryin' an innocent man. Now we've got a busted officer with sweaty palms and a used-weapons dealer's eyes. All he can do is kiss ass for the multinats and go on freakin' teevee gameshows so's he can lower taxes nobody pays anyway. I've a feeling Jack Kennedy might have done something for this goddamned country. And Marilyn started the rot. Without her, things would've been…maybe not better, but different."
II
The noonday sun was a circle of white hot iron, burning a hole in the blue canopy of the sky. Heat fell on his face like driving rain, hammering his frozen-open eyes. Slowly, his brain cooked.
Brother Claude Bukowski Hooper would die soon. He hoped. The Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots had downed him on the blacktop, then driven over him a bunch of times. Instead of knees, he had treadmarks.
Black scraps circled on high. Carrion birds, waiting for the spark to go so they could get their grits. Something with dark ragged wings dipped across his field of vision, flapping towards Brother Lennart.
As he breathed. Brother Claude felt the ends of snapped bones stabbing inside. He was too broken, crushed or squashed to fix. He'd hoped they'd zotz him outright, but here he was left in merciless sun, congealing into roadkill.
His fluid self seeped through sun-cracks in the road. The hardtop vibrated minimally. A ve-hickle, many klicks off. His nervous system fused with the Interstate. After death, perhaps he would see out of cats' eyes. Everybody knows, in a second life, we all come back sooner or later, the Josephite hymn went, as anything from a pussycat to a man-eating alligator… His senses would spread throughout the country, north to Alaska, Down Mexico Way.
If only Brother Claude could sleep now…
Loss of blood would probably get him, or else suffocation. It was almost impossible to draw breath into his collapsed windsacks. That was how Jesus died on the cross. As a kid, snoozing through scripture shows on the educational teevee that was all the cable Mama could afford, he hadn't thought much about what being crucified was like.
The Romans pierced Our Lord's hands and feet, just as the 'bots had zero-zilched Brother Claude's arms and legs. The idea was: exhaustion set in and you just sort of collapsed inside, lungs constricted flat by your ribs. He hadn't learned that from educational teevee – "yes, Davey," a fundamentalist cartoon dog might tell an audience surrogate, "it took three days for Our Pal Jesus to die in hideous agony" – but from his tour with the Knights of the White Magnolia. Whenever the Knights found a houngan, they crucified the conjure man and watched him fade to black. After a while, it got mighty tedious.
Elder Seth said that as thou sowed, so should thou reap. Brother Claude had never exactly crucified anyone, but he'd stood about uselessly like the sportsfans who voted for Barabbas while gentlefolk were nail-gunned to garage walls.
Fancy-shmancy bio-implants and replacement doodads of the sort manufactured and licensed by the almighty GenTech Corporation could do zero for him, even if he could have afforded that kind of repair work. Not that he approved of mad scientist stuff.
The Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots were cyborgs. Ashamed of their remaining humanity, they wore black all-over suits with cut-away patches to show off sparkling plastic or metal. Some must be more machine than flesh.
The 'bots had a roadblock in the middle of nowhere. A digital display sign on their largest RV read stop, pay toll. The resettlers' convoy had no way around, and little enough goods to hand over. So little that the 'bots were irritated enough to cut out a couple of the Brethren and enjoy a bout of mindless ultra-violence.
As he stomped Brother Lennart with seven-league feet, the hulking panzerboy they called Pinocchiocchio sang "I've Got No Strings to Hold Me Up or Tie Me Down". He did a puppet-like dance of strange grace, reminding Brother Claude of the British series – Thunderbirds, Stingray, The Forsyte Saga – that filled out the educational channels.
Something winged was tugging Brother Claude's boot, rolling the foot both ways. He couldn't feel anything that far down, and he couldn't lift his head to shoo the ugly bird away.
Before they drove on, one of the 'bots had knelt tenderly by him and spilled a little water into his mouth. He tasted his own blood in the drink.
"Are you alright, bro?" The kneeling water-dispenser asked, concern dripping from every syllable.
Brother Claude had tried to smile, tried to make the woman (if woman she was) feel better. She wore a black tutu, fluffed out to show long, shinily PVC-skinned legs.
"Snazz," she said, black against the sun. As she stood, the 'bot hummed to herself:
"When a gal's an empty kettle,
She should be on her mettle
Yet I'm torn apaaaa-art…"
Brother Claude remembered The Wizard of Oz. His MRA Troop had been shown the film, a scratchy video dupe from some striated celluloid print, blown up and projected on an off-white sheet. Tatum O'Neal as Dorothy, Lee Majors as the Tin Man, Frank Zappa as the Wizard.
Satisfied, the 'bot kicked him again, jamming the point of her pump into his ribs, breaking a few more bones.
"Just because I'm presumin'