“Get a haircut,” said a thick voice behind Conrad. “Love it or leave.” It was Platter. Despite occasional spats, he and Conrad were still roomies and best friends. Platter did all his studying in the science library.
He said it was more boring that way.
“Orbit,” said Platter, smacking his lips and stroking his beard. “Uff, uff.”
“Orbit, man.”
In the last year or two, it seemed like society had begun to turn against people Conrad and Platter’s age.
Growing up, they’d been America’s Finest, but now all of a sudden they were spoiled brats, Spock-raised squallers, no-good ingrates. Even though nothing had changed. Politicians were picking up on it, and the funnies, too. Platter’s “Orbit, man, uff, uff” routine was from a villainous young longhair now playing inLittle Orphan Annie . Rex Morgan was on the trail of a college LSD guru.Li’l Abner ... in the old days it had beenfunny ... but now the strip was always about Joanie Phonie (Joan Baez), and S.W.I.N.E. (Students Wildly INdignant about Everything). Conrad had never liked people telling him what to think—but if you had to choose between radicals and uptight old people, there was no contest. If only he could get hold of some drugs!
“You want to go eat?” asked Platter.
“Sure. That Bulber is such an asshole.”
“Why? He expects you to do homework? Take tests? Go to lab? What a Nazi!”
“Aw, I was telling him this really good idea I have, and he started dumping all over me.”
“What kind of idea?” asked Platter, beginning to smile. He’d had experience with Conrad’s “good ideas”
before.
Conrad hesitated. Even though they’d roomed together for three years now, he still hadn’t ever told Platter that he could fly. Ace and Audrey were the only ones who knew—and Ace never mentioned it.
Actually, Ace had been so drunk the time Conrad saved him that maybe he’d forgotten the whole thing.
The picture of Conrad and Audrey flying off the Eiffel Tower had been widely publicized—it had even been on TV—but no one knew who it had been, or what had really happened.
“Can you keep a secret, Platter?”
“Like a tomb.” They were walking across the campus now. It was the start of December, raining a little, beginning to get dark. “Let me guess. You’ve discovered a new member of the pion family. Fella name of Ed Pion, with a half-life of two picoseconds. A real degenerate particle, Ed is, here today and gone ...”
“This is serious, fucktooth. I can fly. I can levitate.”
Platter’s gasping laugh started up.Haw-nnh-haw-nnh. “Sure you can, Conrad. And that fascist swine Bulber doesn’t believe you.”Haw-nnh-haw-nnh. “He thinks you’re a weirdo. Just because you have long hair!”
Conrad had to laugh along, but he was more than a little disappointed. If only there was some way to convince Platter he was serious. The only time he could be sure of flying was when his life was in danger... .
So be it. The two boys were just walking up to the curb of a street that cut through the campus. A heavy delivery truck was chugging toward them. With a well-timed spring, Conrad flung himself in front of the truck, expecting his mind to come up with the usual last-minute life-saving flight. But something even stranger happened. Conrad was lying there in the street. Platter was yelling, and the skidding truck was only inches away.Fly , Conrad was thinking,I know I can do it.
All at once, lying there, Conrad realized that he was not going to be able to fly. Something about having his and Audrey’s picture in the paper had finished the power off. Was this, then, some kind of suicide attempt? The truck’s left tire, moving slowly as in a dream, bore down on Conrad’s face. The low-hanging bumper was about to touch his hip. The right tire was already nudging his foot. There was only one way out:Get small! Shrink! It happened. For the time it took the truck to pass, Conrad shrank down to a length of two inches. His clothes shrank with him. Tiny in the road, he got to his feet and gaped up at the truck’s underside—a moving sky of angry machinery. As soon as the truck had skidded past, Conrad got big and took off running. Platter caught up with him at the dining hall. “Jesus, Conrad. What happened back there? You trying to kill yourself? The tires barely missed you! You needhelp , old roomie. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and find a grinning corpse in the other bed.” “Where’s Ace? We gotta talk to Ace.”
“He’s in there eating supper, Conrad. What’s the matter with you?”
They found Ace eating alone in a corner of the dining hall. Ace was in one of his antisocial phases these days. He frowned impatiently when Conrad and Platter set their trays down on his little two-person table.
“No room,” snapped Ace.
“Tell Platter,” said Conrad, dragging over an extra chair. “Tell him that I used to be able to fly. The time you fell off the roof?” Ace cut a small piece of Swiss steak and chewed it for a while. He peppered his salad and ate some.
“You said not to talk about it,” he said finally, squeezing lemon into his tea.
“But it’s true, isn’t it? Iflew .”
“It seemed that way,” shrugged Ace. “We were pretty hammered.”
“You know what Bunger did just now?” interrupted Platter. “He threw himself under a fucking truck.”
Ace was on his dessert now, vanilla pudding. “Did he fly to safety?” He didn’t bother to look up.
“Ishrank ,” said Conrad triumphantly. “I stood up under the truck and it just drove over. I was the size of a thumb!” Platter groaned and Ace began to laugh.Eh-eh-eh. “You’re all right, Pig, you really are.”Eh-eh-eh. “You want to get some beer?”
“Well ... I guess so.”
“What about Mechanics and Wave Motion?” protested Platter. “What about Audrey?”
“Uh ... no,” said Conrad. “Tell us about it.”
“The Big Woof?” said Platter. “What kind of place was this, Weston?”
“It was a diner up in Massachusetts. I worked there the summer after high school. All the customers were idiots; I mean who but an idiot would eat food from a place called the Big Woof? One of these guys would come in, sit at the counter, and say, ‘Put me on a dog, Chief.’ I’d look over and snap back,
‘You wouldn’t fit.’ A lot of laughs. The boss was kind of pitiful. Ned. Ned’s daughter was, like, a real slut. Lots of makeup, always with a different guy, and fucking all of them. Ned tried not to think about it.