Evelyn Blau popped up behind the fourth figure. This one bore an uncanny and obviously deliberate likeness to RuthClaire’s Adam. Said Evelyn distinctly, “Homo habilis.” The helium-filled balloon in front of this cutout’s face rose to a height of six or seven feet.
A black man in painter’s coveralls—a young artist with a studio at Abraxas—stepped from behind the final cutout. He said, “Homo erectus.” The balloon belonging to this creature, the tallest and most human-looking of the lot, floated upward a foot higher than the habiline’s, and the black man strolled to the stage’s apron, looked out, spread his arms, and haughtily said, “Homo sapiens sapiens.” Man the wise the wise: the culmination of God’s evolutionary game plan.
From the pocket of his coveralls, this man took a pellet pistol, an act that prompted Bilker Moody to reach for the shoulder harness under his coat, but RuthClaire patted his wrist and shook her head. Meanwhile, the performance artist with the pellet gun turned toward the cutouts, aimed his weapon, and, squeezing off a shot, popped the balloon belonging to A. afarensis. The cutout’s human attendant rolled it off-stage. Then the nonchalant black man popped the balloons of the remaining hominid cutouts, giving the person behind each figure just enough time to push it into the wings before firing at the next balloon. When he finished, he pocketed his weapon, walked to the Homo erectus cutout, and, like a hotdog vendor pushing a cart in Manhattan, guided the last of the extinct hominids into the wings.
Blackout.
A bewildered silence gripped everyone in Sinusoid Disturbances. Someone—a football player from Tech?—shouted, “What the fuckin’ hell was that supposed to mean?” Others at their tables began to boo, a din that swept tidally from one end of the club to the other. Some of the art students near us, though, were on their feet applauding and shouting, “Bravo! Bravo!”
Bitsy Vardeman averted a donnybrook by spinning Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family,” a hit even before Adam’s appearance at Paradise Farm. Many in the audience clapped their hands, sang along, and boogied around their tables.
The lights in the club came up full, and all five members of the Blau Blau Rebellion were revealed on stage, each one clutching a bouquet of ten or fifteen lighter-than-air balloons. David, Evelyn, and their fellows handed the balloons to various people in the crowd, beckoning folks toward the stage or ambling out the runway to make the transfer. T. P. stood up in RuthClaire’s lap, his arm stretched out for a balloon. Pam Sorrells, I saw, was coming down the runway toward us, Sister Sledge continuing to chant the lyrics of their repetitive anthem and dozens upon dozens of people now surging forward to intercept Pam.
“Remember,” she cried over the music, “don’t take one unless you believe—”
“Believe what?” a male student shouted.
“Unless you believe you’re immortal! And if you take one, don’t let it pop!”
“Why the hell not?” shouted the same young man, who had cleared a path to the end of the runway.
Pam replied, “Because if you let it pop, you’ll die.”
“Oh, come off it.”
“This is your soul. If you let it pop, you’ll die within three days.”
“Bullshit!”
David Blau came to the end of the runway, lifted his cluster of balloons, and told the entire bistro, “It isn’t bullshit. Whoever accepts one of these, but fails to care for it and lets it pop, well, you’ll blow away on the wind as if you never existed.”
The theatricality of this speech did not deprive it of effect—just the opposite. It clearly frightened some of those who had come forward for balloons. David had uttered a formula, and that formula produced the desired result: an explosion of superstitious doubt in people who ordinarily took pride in their hardnosed pragmatism. Even I found myself believing David’s weird formula. Some folks backed away, others shoved forward to replace the faint-hearted. T. P. had no doubt. He wanted a balloon.
“Hunh,” he said, almost toppling from RuthClaire’s arms. “Hunh, hunh, hunh!”
“Go get him one,” Caroline Hanna urged me.
Pam Sorrells had just about given out all her balloons, while the black man who had shot out the bobbing souls of the cardboard hominids was distributing his dwindling supply on the runway’s opposite side.
“That’s okay,” RuthClaire said. “Bilker’ll get him a balloon.”
“No, ma’am. I got other work.”
“I’ll do it, then,” Caroline said.
“You’ll get an elbow in the lip,” I warned her.
Almost miraculously, a punkette with a cottony white scalp lock and no eyebrows appeared at our table. A frail creature in a vest lacing across her midriff, she extended her arms to T. P., who went to her as if she were an old and trusted friend. RuthClaire gave the kid to the newcomer as much to relieve the pressure on her arms as to humor T. P. “I’ll get him a b’loon,” the girl growled, screwing up one eye to look at my godson at such close range. “Friend a mine round there’s got one awready. He don’ want it. I’ll give it to your nipper. Be rat back.” She sounded as if she had a mouthful of cornmeal. Half stupefied by surprise, half grateful to her for calming the baby, we watched as she backed away to fetch the “b’loon” from her friend. She scarcely seemed to move her feet.
Then Bilker awoke: “Hey, wait a minute!”
“I think it’s okay,” RuthClaire said. “She seemed familiar. She’ll get Paulie a balloon and bring him back in a better temper.”
“I’d better go after her,” Bilker said.
Something in me was belatedly alerted to the situation’s queerness. “Look, Bilker, you stay with RuthClaire and Caroline. I’ll go after her.”
“What’s the matter?” Caroline grabbed my arm. Patrons near the end of the runway engulfed the white-haired girl, and the balloons floating above the crowd were no more useful as markers than clouds.
“I think I know her,” I said, shaking free. “That’s what’s wrong.” I plunged past Bilker, rebounded off a Tech student heading for the stage, squirmed through a gap, and, my heart pounding mightily, sidled around the end of the runway. Spotlights continued to rake the club’s interior, and behind me RuthClaire cried in anguish, “Paulie!”
Beyond the runway, I broke into an open area, but T. P. and his abductress had already vanished. They might have taken any of four or five different routes, but I headed for the nearest exit, a heavy door to the far left of the stage. I slammed its push bar, opening it on the intimidating whirr and rumble of the expressway. An automobile was heading down the hill past the front of the club, but it was hard to believe the punkette had trotted through the alley and climbed into that vehicle so quickly. I ducked back inside Sinusoid Disturbances, and the door wheezed shut on its pneumatic retards.
Bilker was at my side. “She got away?”
My helpless look said all he needed to know.
“Shit!” he said. “It’s a kidnapping, a goddamn kidnapping.”
“Maybe not. This place is crazy. She could turn up again in a couple of minutes.”
“Yeah,” said Bilker. “And the Rooskies could unilaterally disarm tomorrow.” His hand inside his coat, he scanned the crowd for one face in a shifting mosaic of faces. “Friggin’ donkey brain.”
“If I’m a donkey brain, you’re its butt. You let RuthClaire hand the kid over.”
Bilker looked at me with malevolent contempt. “Who said I was talkin’ about you?” Someone had kidnapped Tiny Paul, and we were at loggerheads over a matter of no consequence. Even Bilker understood that. He grabbed my arm and dragged me back to the table where RuthClaire and Caroline were waiting. T. P. might be lost (for the time being, if not for good), but he had no intention of compounding his failure by letting someone else abduct RuthClaire.