Anyway, Lucky's mother baked a birthday cake and invited all his friends to a party. I'm the only one who came. I'm Alvin Pauley Booker, Lucky's best friend -- well, it seems like I'm Lucky's only friend. Anyway, afterwards, Lucky and I walked along the railroad tracks and Lucky said to me, "Paul, school's gonna start soon, and I've made a resolution."
"I know, Lucky, the same resolution you've made since you were twelve. You're gonna get a big, black, V-12 Jaguar."
"Well, yeah, Paul, someday. I know I won't get one for a while. I don't even have a driver's license. No, I have a more important, more reasonable goal."
"What's that?"
"No matter what it takes, I'm gonna get laid."
I nearly choked. Or laughed. I didn't say anything. What could I say? The most unpopular kid in school, he's gonna get some girl to... nah, never happen. Of course, I didn't count on the fact that Lucky was also the smartest kid I ever knew.
School starts. You know how girls carry their books tucked under their tits, and guys carry their books under one arm? Well, Lucky, most the time he carries his books like in front. Seems like all he has to do is look at a girl, and there's this embarrassing bulge. So, how's Lucky going to get to know some girls? He tried his best, must have tried to make conversation with every girl in the junior class, but none of them would have anything to do with him. That's not too hard to understand. I mean, what decent girl is going to stand there in public and chat with a guy whose belt buckle is pushing up past his navel? Well, maybe some guys could get a way with it, but not Lucky. Lucky isn't tall, dark, and handsome. He's short, dark, and hairy, like all over his body, and he has big brow ridges that make him look like a Neanderthal Man. He doesn't dress very well, which is partly because he's poor and partly because he's a nerd. He and his mother, they live over the feed store, next to the tracks, and they get food stamps, and his clothes come from thrift shops. But even if he dressed like me, there isn't a girl in the school would want to be seen with him. Nerdly dweeb doesn't do him justice. Weirdo loner would-be pervert troglodyte is the impression he gives. Lives in another world. He isn't into sports, doesn't even like rock music. He's into electronics.
My father's president of the bank. He's got this thing about how his son is going to be a great scientist. Every day after school, I've got to hit the books and do my homework first, before I can go out. Father says I can do anything I want in my spare time, as long as I get all A's. I can go to any college I choose, as long as it's Cal Tech or MIT. Anything I want, if it's electronic, I can have it. Mom says to lighten up, but Father has the last word at our house. Father likes to have Lucky come over and fool around with my computers and stuff, says Lucky is a good influence on me.
So, anyway, Lucky strikes out with all the girls in our class, the juniors, and he systematically tries to talk with every girl in the sophomore class. That's harder than you'd think, because the word goes out what he's doing, and they avoid him like the plague. No girl in her right mind wants to be seen talking to Lucky. It's like the end of November by the time he ticks off the last one, Brenda Zendorra, on his list of the sophomore girls. Does Lucky get discouraged? Right away, he starts in on the freshmen. One day he grabs my arm and he says, like he'd just won the state lottery, "Paul! I got a date for tonight, Sherry Rognatho!"
"Hot shit, Lucky! She's got bazongas like melons, even if she is only fourteen."
"Sixteen, she repeated fifth grade."
"Well, congratulations. Let me know how you make out." Even I don't want to be seen talking to Lucky, though he's a nice enough guy, if you get to know him. But I've got my own social life to think about.
That night, about eleven, eleven thirty, I hear this rapping on my window. I've got this room that father calls my laboratory, a play room, really, out in the north wing of the house. Anyway, I open the window and Lucky's voice calls out, "Paul, throw me some pants."
"Whada ya mean?"
"Throw me some pants. I need to borrow a pair of pants."
So I toss him a pair of jeans, and he comes in, the waist hitched up and the legs rolled up, because he's about six inches shorter than I am. He's got no shirt, no shoes, and he's really shivering with the cold. So I give him a shirt and a sweater and some old Reeboks. "Thanks," he says, "I'll return 'em as soon as I can."
"Don't bother. I won't miss 'em. Just tell me what happened."
"Well," he explains, "I got done at the feed store. Had to unload a boxcar of starter chow, and after supper, all clean and dressed up, I went over to Sherry's house. We sat for a while on the porch, you know, talking, and then she says how would I like to go for a walk in the woods, down by the stream. So we go, and she's like walking real close, bumping up against me with those tits of hers, and I'm trying to keep from creaming my pants, and she's got this shopping bag with her. We get to this little clearing, and she pulls out a blanket and spreads it on the grass. It's dark, but the moon is out, and I'm thinking, wow, this is it!" He paused a second, kind of embarrassed.
"So? What happened next?"
"She says, 'If you show me yours, I'll show you mine,' and she starts to unbutton her blouse, slow and teasing like. She's wearing this black lace bra. Well, by the time she gets her blouse off, I'm down to my socks. And then..."
"Then what?"
"Then her brother, Rambo Rognatho, and three other football players jumped me."
"Oh, God!" I said, and he dropped his pants. From his navel to his knees, they had spray painted him blue, bright blue, quick drying enamel.
Of course, it was all over school the next day. Coach wouldn't excuse Lucky from suiting up for gym, and there it is, for the whole world to see. Sticking out of his bright red shorts are two hairy blue thighs, and the paint in his hair makes 'em look like rotting blue cactus, a real gross-out. Belly laughs all round, even the coach. All the girls, even the seniors, wanted to hear all about it from Sherry. For a day, Sherry was the most popular girl in the school, and she ate that right up. Rambo and his buddies bragged a lot about what they had done, and they probably added a bit they hadn't done. Real proud of themselves, the barbarians.
Lucky tried every paint remover he could find, but he couldn't find one which would remove paint without removing skin, too. He found his clothes the next day, weighted down with stones in the creek, and it only took a week or so to get the paint off. Everyone in school, except me, was making fun of Lucky, calling him "Blue Boy" and worse. Even the freshman girls would turn their backs when he was near, that or sneer and make some snotty remark. After that, Lucky changed his plan.
Christmas was coming up. "What do you want for Christmas?" I said.
"I wanna get laid."
"Yeah, and what else? I can't buy you a Jaguar, either."
"I wanna get laid."
"Come on, Lucky! What can I get you for Christmas?"
"Read my lips," he says. "I...Want...To...Get...Laid."
Well, to make a long story short, I gave him fifty dollars and told him to take it down to the truck stop and spend it as he saw fit. I didn't see him for a couple of days.
"So, did you get laid?"
"Screwed, not laid. I saw this woman hanging around the truck stop. Net stockings, mini skirt. You know what I mean."
"Go on, go on."
"She says, 'Is there anything I can do for you?' I say, 'What can you do for fifty dollars?' She says, 'What did you have in mind?' I say, 'Look, Lady, I want to get laid in the worst way. What can I buy for fifty dollars?'"
"Well? What did she say?"
"She said, 'You're under arrest, punk, for soliciting prostitution. I'm a policewoman.' She handcuffed me and took me down to the County Building, and they called my mother. The judge told them to drop the charges after they found out I'm only sixteen, but they told me I'd better stay away from the truck stop, and Mom's really pissed. Here's your fifty dollars back."
"Keep it," I said.
Now my mom says, if I'm going to be a scientist, I should be a biologist and do something for mankind. I mean, physicists do something for mankind, too, but she's funny that way, always bringing up Hiroshima. She buys me some white rats for Christmas and suggests I do something scientific with them.
One night, Lucky comes over and asks what I'm doing. I told him I had put electrodes on George, and I was doing Fourier transforms on the nerve signals I picked up when he was doing various things. Like, when he's hungry, you get one pattern, and when he's trying to run a maze, you get a bunch of other patterns, and when Gloria or Glinda is in a receptive mood, you get a real distinctive signal spectrum.
"Is this some kind of science fair project?" asks Lucky.
"No, they don't let you do projects on live animals. This is just to please my mom." Pretty soon, Lucky gets into this thing, too, and we have a lot of fun, experimenting. Well, didn't I say that Lucky was the smartest kid in school?
Lucky gets this idea that if a certain behavior results in a certain electrical pattern, then maybe, if you could induce that electrical pattern in the rat's nervous system, he would duplicate the behavior pattern. "How could you do that?" I asked.
"Microwaves."
"Yeah, sure."
Next day, Lucky shows up with this old microwave oven that he found at the dump. He takes it all apart, puts it back together, and hooks it up with my computer. We needed some extra parts, but Father bought them, no questions asked. Comes the day of the big test, we put George in the microwave, turn on the digital synthesizer, and then the oven control. George goes crazy, and we stop the test.
"It works!" yells Lucky.
"Come on. You'ld go crazy too, if someone was cooking you in a microwave oven."
"OK, we'll experiment some more."
To make a long story short, Lucky gets all the details worked out. Pretty soon we've got it so that, any time we want, we can put George and Gloria in the oven, turn on the equipment, and they'll go at it hot and heavy. Doesn't matter if they were asleep. As soon as we turn it on, instant passion. They keep it up until they drop, if we don't switch off, which we do, because I don't believe in cruelty to animals. Lucky says it isn't cruel; they enjoy it, but I say anything to excess has got to be painful, even that. "OK," I say, "You have proven your point, Lucky. What do we do next?"
"I gotta get laid," he says. "Here's the plan."
I said to Father, "Father, you know that old satellite dish we replaced last year?"
"Yes, Alvin," he says, looking up from Barron's.
"Can I have it for an electronic experiment?"
"Of course you can, Alvin," he says, "as long as you don't do anything illegal. I mean, don't interfere with aircraft navigation or anything like that." Then he goes back to his reading.
Our house is in the better section of town, actually a mile or so out of town, ten acres on Stephen's hill. We've got a stable for Mom's horse, Blackie, and from the stable roof you can see most of town, the school, a number of farms. We put the dish up on the stable roof. Lucky said, "Let's test it on Blackie."
"No way, Lucky. If you do anything to that horse, Mom will never forgive me."
"OK," says Lucky, "there's lots of other experimental subjects around. With this kind of antenna aperture, we should have a fairly directional beam, good for a couple miles."
There's this dairy farm, down in the valley. Lucky points the dish at some cows and flicks the switch. Then he turns it off, real fast. I've nearly fallen off the stable roof, with the biggest, hardest... you get the idea.
"Backlobes," says Lucky.
"The hell, you say. Gawd, it feels like I've been kneed in the crotch."
"Now you know how I feel most the time. You get turned on, really lusting, and then, if you don't get your rocks off, they complain to your brain with pain."
"Yeah, yeah. So what went wrong?"
"Nothing went wrong. I just forgot that, no matter how directional the antenna seems, there are always sidelobes and backlobes in the antenna power pattern. Sine X over X pattern. So a little power up close, you know, diffraction from the edge of the dish, is as strong as a lot of power, the main beam, at a distance. We have to build ourselves a Faraday cage. Oh, and your parents aren't home, are they?"
"No. What's that got to do with it?"
He gives me this condescending look and says, "Pauley, you don't want a little baby brother or sister, do you?"
"Oh, no. I see what you mean. So what do we have to do?" He never calls me Pauley, unless it's a put-down.
We spent the rest of the evening running a remote control cable from the stable roof to my lab. And later we put window screen and aluminum foil all over the walls and windows, grounding it to the lavatory pipes. We just leave some peepholes so we can see outside.
My mother is a bit distressed when she sees it, but I tell her it's really necessary, to prevent harm to the rats. "Well," she says, "I hate to think what it will cost to repaper those walls, but I wouldn't have you hurt poor, dumb animals for anything, My Dear. You be careful, now."
So finally there's this beautiful spring day. Blackie is out in the pasture, down the hill and not in line with the dish. Mom is at the mall in Springfield, and Dad is down at the farm equipment dealer's, looking at a new mower. We climb up and make sure the dish is aimed at the cows. Then we take our places at the peepholes and turn it on. Next thing you know, the bull has jumped the electrified fence and the farmer is waving and cursing. Lucky turned it off.
"It works," he says.
"Could be coincidence."
"We'll try it again." Old Parson Svenson is out puttering in his garden, 70 years old if he's a day. Mrs. Svenson is planting some tomatoes; it's spring by now. Lucky aims the dish, races back to the lab., and turns it on. Next thing you know, old Parson Svenson is headed for his wife, and she's brushing the dirt off her hands and headed for him, and they talk a second and head for the house, holding hands. "Does that convince you?" says Lucky.
"Yeah," I say, "we've got to be careful with this. I don't think we ought to play around any more. Jeez, a man that age, you could give him a heart attack. Better switch off."
"Well, now we've got them started, we've got to leave it on for a while," says Lucky, compassionately. "It'd be a shame to disappoint them by pulling the plug before they get satisfied." After a while, I can't stand it any longer, thinking about that old parson and his wife, probably behaving just like George and Gloria, ready to die of exhaustion. I switch it off.
"Lucky, we might have killed them!"
"What a way to go, though. Well, back to the roof," he says cheerfully.
"No, Lucky, enough is enough. Don't be cruel."
"You forget, Paul, I gotta get laid." Lucky aims the dish at Sherry Rognathos' house.
"Hold on, Lucky," I say, "you know what happened last time."
"Yeah, Paul, and revenge will be sweet."
I don't know how I got talked into it. That night, Lucky calls up Sherry. "Hi, Sherry, it's me, Lucky."
"Yeah? So what?"
"I think, Sherry, that you have the hots for me."
"You gotta be crazy, Lucky. Didn't you learn your lesson last time? That was no accident my brother was there."
"Oh, I know that, Sherry, but I know that just talking to me makes you horny." He flips the on switch. "Don't deny it. I'll bet you're feeling sexy right now, just hearing my voice. No other guy in school can hot you up like I can, can he? You want my bod."
There's a pause. I've got the speaker on, so I hear it all. "You're right, Lucky, your voice does put me in the mood. Would you like to come over?"
"I'll be right over," he says, hanging up. "Paul, don't turn it off, unless you see my signal." He grabs a flashlight. "Three long flashes means turn it off."
I kept an eye on Sherry's house. Couldn't see much in the dark, but after a while, I see three long flashes from her porch and I turn it off. A few minutes later, Lucky is back at the lab, out of breath and holding his crotch.
"What happened?" I say.
"I got to her house. It was dark. I rang the bell. No answer. I rang some more and pounded on the door. Oh, God, I needed it in the worst way. Thought my pants would rip open. Finally, her mother answers the door, all dishevelled, sweaty, in a throw-on robe, and she yells at me to go away. I ask where Sherry is, and her mother tells me she's locked herself in the bathroom and slams the door in my face. That's when I signalled you. Jeez," he says, holding his crotch, "I thought I was going to explode!"
"Lucky," I said, "let's call it off. This could be dangerous."
"Paul," he says, squinting at me like Clint Eastwood used to do in those old movies, "I'm gonna get laid!"
Next night, he calls up Sherry again, and I'm listening in. "Sherry," he says, "you can't resist me. Meet me at ten, in the woods, where we went before, and I'll really turn you on. You know I can."
"OK, Lucky," she says, "in the woods in half an hour. I'll bring a blanket."
Lucky aims the dish and then he sets out for the woods behind Sherry's house. After a while, just about ten, I see two short flashes, and I flip on the switch. The dish, of course, is pointed at the woods. Ten fifteen, and Lucky is back, panting. "Switch it off!," he yells.
"What happenned?"
"I get to the spot and guess what?"
"Tell me, dammit! Was Sherry there?"
"Yeah, and Rambo and his buddies. They must have overheard my call. They all had their pants down around their ankles and... Oh, God! What have we done?"
"Jeez. Did they see you? Did you get away?"
"Yeah. I can run faster with my pants on than they can with their pants around their ankles. It was a close thing though. I dropped the flashlight, so I couldn't signal you to turn it off. Oh, God, I was sure I was going to get it in the ass. Poor Sherry! Four of 'em, with that thing on fifteen, twenty minutes."
I don't know what happened next, but I like to think they probably deserved it. Sherry and Rambo and the other three didn't come back to school, and rumor had it that the juvenile authorities were involved, but of course they keep those things secret, with minors, you know.
About a week later, two men in dark suits, FBI or Secret Service or something, paid a visit to Father at the bank, and then they interrogated me. I told them the whole thing. Father was pissed. He smashed up the dish with an ax and said I could damn well go to the State University and major in basket weaving. I told those guys it wasn't really my fault. I didn't even understand all the circuits Lucky had come up with. I just asked Father for the parts, and Father bought them, no questions asked. Boy, was Father pissed when I said that.
Well, nothing more came of it. Father said Lucky is persona non grata around our house. I haven't seen much of him. Some more men in dark suits showed up and interviewed Lucky for a long time. Like, Lucky didn't come to school, either, except the last day. The last day of school, the Principal announced how proud he was. "One of our students," he said, "Lucifer Larkin, has brought great credit to our school. He has been offered, and has accepted, a special appointment with an agency of The United States Government, effective immediately, a whole year before high school graduation. Let's have a round of applause for our star pupil, Lucifer Larkin." Everyone clapped, but not very enthusiastically, except for me. Lucky left town right after that, and I haven't seen him. I still don't know if he ever got laid.
Funny thing, though, yesterday on the cable news channel. Father and I were watching, and they had live coverage of the riots and stuff down in Latin America. There was that bleached blonde anchorwoman, Devora Stein, reporting live from a balcony over the entrance of the American Embassy in Santa Placida. The camera pans across the city. Outside the embassy, in the plaza, there's this huge crowd. They estimated twenty thousand, and the crowd is yelling and chanting and waving banners. The cameras zoom in on the banners. "Yankee go home." "CIA get out." "No more military advisors." "Make love, not war." Then another wide angle view of the thousands of demonstrators. Off in the distance, I thought I saw a black Jaguar, with a radar or something on the roof. Couldn't really tell, just got a glimpse.
Devora Stein is there on camera, in a close-up, saying, "The crowd is getting unruly. A military attache' from the embassy has advised us to go inside, as there may be violence. They are afraid the crowd will riot and rush the embassy." In the background, out from behind a "Make love, not war" banner, a bottle comes flying toward the camera. The crowd surges against the closed gates and the fence around the embassy. They've got clubs and crowbars and machetes and torches, and the fence starts to sag and fall over. Real scary situation.
Then the camera kind of pans down until it's just staring at the floor, and we hear Devora Stein's voice, real excited, like breathless: "The crowd's mood has suddenly changed. They're... Oh, oh goodness! They're... I can't believe it! They're... Men and women, they're... Oh, I can't go on!"
For just a second, there was a glimpse of Devora Stein, writhing on the floor with some man. The screen went blank, and the Atlanta Central newsman came on and said they seemed to be having technical difficulties and would report more when they could. Meanwhile, the stock market was up two points.
I don't know, but I'll bet Lusty Lucky Larkin is going to have some bang-up career in Government.
[END]