She's in good hands, I said to myself. Probably there isn't a human being in North America more qualified to give Pris what she wants out of life.
The article was titled BIG LEAGUE AWARDS GOLD BASEBALL TO LITTLE LEAGUERS, Pris being "big league," now. A further study of it told me that Mr. Sam K. Barrows had paid for the uniforms of the Little League club expected to win the gold baseball--needless to say, Barrows was providing the gold baseball--and on their backs appeared the words:
BARROWS ORGANIZATION
On the front, of course, appeared the name of their team, whatever area or school it was the boys came from.
I had no doubt that she was very happy. After all Jayne Mansfield had begun by being Miss Straight Spine, picked by the chiropractors of America back in the 'fifties; that had been her first publicity break. She had been one of those health food addicts in those days.
So look what may lie ahead for Pris, I said to myself. First she hands out a gold baseball to a kids' ballteam and from there she goes rapidly to the top. Maybe Barrows can get a spread of nude shots of her into _Life_; it's not out of the question, they do have their nude spread each week. That way her fame would be great. All she would have to do is take off her clothes in public, before an expert color photographer, instead of merely in private before the eyes of Sam K. Barrows. Then she can briefly marry President Mendoza. He's been married, what is it, forty-one times already, sometimes for no longer than a week. Or at least get invited to one of the stag gatherings at the White House or out on the high seas in the Presidential yacht, or for a weekend at the President's luxurious vacation satellite. Especially those stag gatherings; the girls who are invited to perform there are never the same again--their fame is assured and all sorts of careers are open to them, especially in the entertainment field. For if President Mendoza wants them, every man in the U.S. wants them, too, because as everybody knows the President of the United States has incredibly high taste as well as having the first choice of-- I was driving myself insane with these thoughts.
How long will it take? I wondered. Weeks? Months? Can he do this right away or does it take a lot of time?
A week later, while browsing through the TV guide, I discovered Pris listed in the weekly show sponsored by Barrows' dogfood company. According to the ad and the listing she played the girl in a knife-throwing act; flaming knives were thrown at her while she danced the Lunar Fling wearing one of the new transparent bathing suits. The scene had been shot in Sweden, such a bathing suit still being illegal at beaches in the United States.
I did not show the listing to Maury, but he came across it on his own anyhow. A day before the program he called me over to his place and showed me the listing. In the magazine there was a small shot of Pris, too, just her head and shoulders. It had, however, been taken in such a way as to indicate that she wore nothing at all. We both gazed at it with ferocity and despair. And yet, she certainly looked happy. Probably she was.
Behind her in the picture one could see green hills and water. The natural, healthy wonders of Earth. And against that this laughing black-haired slender girl, full of life and excitement and vitality. Full of--the future.
The future belongs to her, I realized as I examined the picture. Whether she appears nude on a goat-hair, vegetabledye rug in _Life_ or becomes the President's mistress for a weekend or dances madly, naked from the waist up, while flaming knives are hurled at her during a kiddies' TV program--she is still real, still beautiful and wonderful, like the hills and the ocean, and no one can destroy that or spoil that, however angry and wretched they feel. What do Maury and I have? What can we offer her? Only something moldy. Something that reeks--not of tomorrow--but of yesterday, the past. Of age, sorrow, and old death.
"Buddy," I said to Maury, "I think I'm going to Seattle." He said nothing; he continued reading the text in the TV guide.
"I frankly don't care anymore about simulacra," I said. "I'm sorry to say it but it's the truth; I just want to go to Seattle and see how she is. Maybe afterward--"
"You won't come back. Either of you."
"Maybe we will."
"Want to bet?"
I bet him ten bucks. That was all I could do; there was no use making him a promise which I probably could not--and would not--keep.
"It'll wreck R & R ASSOCIATES," Maury said.
"Maybe so, but I still have to go."
That night I began packing my clothes. I made a reservation on a TWA Boeing 900 rocket flight for Seattle; it left the following morning at ten-forty. Now there was no stopping me; I did not even bother to telephone Maury and tell him anything more. Why waste my time? He could do nothing. Could I? That remained to be seen.
My Service .45 was too large, so instead of it I packed a smaller pistol, a .38, wrapped in a towel with a box of shells. I had never been much of a shot but I could hit another human being within the confines of an ordinary-sized room, and possibly across the space of a public hall such as a nightclub or theater. And if worst came to worst I could use it on myself; surely I could hit that--my own head.
There being nothing else to do until the next morning I settled down with a copy of _Marjorie Morningstar_ which Maury had loaned me. It was his own, and quite possibly it was the identical copy which Pris had read years ago. By reading it I hoped to get more of an insight into Pris; I was not reading it for pleasure.
The next morning I rose early, shaved and washed, ate a light breakfast, and started for Boise and the airfield.
13
If you wonder what San Francisco would have looked like had there been no earthquake and fire, you can find out by going to Seattle. It's an old seaport town built on hills, with windy, canyon type streets; nothing is modern except the public library, and in the slum part you'll see cobblestone and red brick, like parts of Pocatello, Idaho. The slums extend for miles and are rat-infested. In the center of Seattle there is a prosperous genuine city-like shopping area built near one or two great old hotels such as the Olympus. The wind blows in from Canada, and when the Boeing 900 sets down at the Sea-Tac Airfield you catch a glimpse of the mountains of origin. They're frightening.
I took a limousine into Seattle proper from the airport, since it cost only five dollars. The lady driver crept at snail's pace through traffic for miles until at last we had reached the Olympus Hotel. It's much like any good big-city hotel, with its arcade of shops below ground level; it has all services which a hotel must have, and the service is excellent. There're several dining rooms; in fact you're in a dark, yellow-lit world of your own at a big city hotel, a world made up of carpets and ancient varnished wood, people well-dressed and always talking, corridors and elevators, plus maids cleaning constantly.
In my room I turned on the wired music in preference to the TV set, peeped out the window at the street far below, adjusted the ventilation and the heat, took off my shoes and padded kbout on the wall-to-wall carpeting, then opened my suitcase and began to unpack. Only an hour ago I had been in Boise; now here I was on the West Coast almost at the Canadian border. It beat driving. I had gone from one large city directly to another without having to endure the countryside in between. Nothing could have pleased me more.
You can tell a good hotel by the fact that when you have any sort of room service the hotel employee when he enters never looks at you. He looks down, through and beyond you; you stay invisible, which is what you want, even if you're in your shorts or naked. The employee comes in very quietly, leaves your pressed shirt or your tray of food or newspaper or drink; you hand him the money, he makes a murmuring thank you noise, and he goes. It is almost Japanese, the way they don't stare. You feel as if no one had been in your room ever, even the previous guest; it is absolutely yours, even when you meet up with cleaning women in the hall outside. They-- the hotel people--have such absolute respect for your privacy it's uncanny. Of course when it's time to settle up at the desk at the end, you pay for all that. It costs you fifty dollars instead of twenty. But don't ever let anyone tell you it isn't worth it. A person on the brink of a psychotic breakdown could be restored by a few days in an authentic first-class hotel, with its twenty-four-hour room service and shops; believe me.