How We Got In Town and Out Again
by Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Lethem is the best-selling author of The Fortress of Solitude, Motherless Brooklyn, and several other novels, his most recent being You Don't Love Me Yet. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, won the William L. Crawford Award, the Locus Award, and was a finalist for the Nebula Award. Lethem has published more than sixty short stories, in a diverse range of markets, from The New Yorker and McSweeney's to F&SF and Asimov's; his first collection, The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye, won the World Fantasy Award. In 2005, he was presented with the MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant for his contributions to literature.
"How We Got In Town and Out Again" is one of a sequence of stories by Lethem railing against virtual reality technologies. In an interview in Science Fiction Studies, Lethem said, "I didn't set out . . .to write a series of stories . . .examining my own resistance to that technology. But living in San Francisco during the years of an intense kind of utopian ideological boom in virtual reality and computer technologies, I felt an instinctive need to represent my own skepticism about claims that were being made that seemed to me na?ve. . . .And so I found these resistance stories coming out of me."
Combine that with Lethem's research into 1930s dance marathons, and you've got this story.
When we first saw somebody near the mall Gloria and I looked around for sticks. We were going to rob them if they were few enough. The mall was about five miles out of the town we were headed for, so nobody would know. But when we got closer Gloria saw their vans and said they were scapers. I didn't know what that was, but she told me.
It was summer. Two days before this Gloria and I had broken out of a pack of people that had food but we couldn't stand their religious chanting anymore. We hadn't eaten since then.
"So what do we do?" I said.
"You let me talk," said Gloria.
"You think we could get into town with them?"
"Better than that," she said. "Just keep quiet."
I dropped the piece of pipe I'd found and we walked in across the parking lot. This mall was long past being good for finding food anymore but the scapers were taking out folding chairs from a store and strapping them on top of their vans. There were four men and one woman.
"Hey," said Gloria.
Two guys were just lugs and they ignored us and kept lugging. The woman was sitting in the front of the van. She was smoking a cigarette.
The other two guys turned. This was Kromer and Fearing, but I didn't know their names yet.
"Beat it," said Kromer. He was a tall squinty guy with a gold tooth. He was kind of worn but the tooth said he'd never lost a fight or slept in a flop. "We're busy," he said.
He was being reasonable. If you weren't in a town you were nowhere. Why talk to someone you met nowhere?
But the other guy smiled at Gloria. He had a thin face and a little mustache. "Who are you?" he said. He didn't look at me.
"I know what you guys do," Gloria said. "I was in one before."
"Oh?" said the guy, still smiling.
"You're going to need contestants," she said.
"She's a fast one," this guy said to the other guy. I'm Fearing," he said to Gloria.
"Fearing what?" said Gloria.
"Just Fearing."
"Well, I'm just Gloria."
"That's fine," said Fearing. "This is Tommy Kromer. We run this thing. What's your little friend's name?"
"I can say my own name," I said. "I'm Lewis."
"Are you from the lovely town up ahead?"
"Nope," said Gloria. "We're headed there."
"Getting in exactly how?" said Fearing.
"Anyhow," said Gloria, like it was an answer. "With you, now."
"That's assuming something pretty quick."
"Or we could go and say how you ripped off the last town and they sent us to warn about you," said Gloria.
"Fast," said Fearing again, grinning, and Kromer shook his head. They didn't look too worried.
"You ought to want me along," said Gloria. "I'm an attraction."
"Can't hurt," said Fearing.
Kromer shrugged, and said, "Skinny, for an attraction."
"Sure, I'm skinny," she said. "That's why me and Lewis ought to get something to eat."
Fearing stared at her. Kromer was back to the van with the other guys.
"Or if you can't feed us—" started Gloria.
"Hold it, sweetheart. No more threats."
"We need a meal."
"We'll eat something when we get in." Fearing said. "You and Lewis can get a meal if you're both planning to enter."
"Sure," she said. "We're gonna enter—right, Lewis?"
I knew to say right.
The town militia came out to meet the vans, of course. But they seemed to know the scapers were coming, and after Fearing talked to them for a couple of minutes they opened up the doors and had a quick look then waved us through. Gloria and I were in the back of a van with a bunch of equipment and one of the lugs, named Ed. Kromer drove. Fearing drove the van with the woman in it. The other lug drove the last one alone.
I'd never gotten into a town in a van before, but I'd only gotten in two times before this anyway. The first time by myself, just by creeping in, the second because Gloria went with a militia guy.
Towns weren't so great anyway. Maybe this would be different.
We drove a few blocks and a guy flagged Fearing down. He came up to the window of the van and they talked, then went back to his car, waving at Kromer on his way. Then we followed him.
"What's that about?" said Gloria.
"Gilmartin's the advance man." said Kromer. "I thought you knew everything,"
Gloria didn't talk. I said, "What's an advance man?"
"Gets us a place, and the juice we need," said Kromer. "Softens the town up. Gets people excited."
It was getting dark. I was pretty hungry, but I didn't say anything. Gilmartin's car led us to this big building shaped like a boathouse only it wasn't near any water. Kromer said it used to be a bowling alley.
The lugs started moving stuff and Kromer made me help. The building was dusty and empty inside, and some of the lights didn't work. Kromer said just to get things inside for now. He drove away one of the vans and came back and we unloaded a bunch of little cots that Gilmartin the advance man had rented, so I had an idea where I was going to be sleeping. Apart from that it was stuff for the contest. Computer cables and plastic spacesuits, and loads of televisions.
Fearing took Gloria and they came back with food, fried chicken and potato salad, and we all ate. I couldn't stop going back for more but nobody said anything. Then I went to sleep on a cot. No one was talking to me. Gloria wasn't sleeping on a cot. I think she was with Fearing.
Gilmartin the advance man had really done his work. The town was sniffing around first thing in the morning. Fearing was out talking to them when I woke up. "Registration begins at noon, not a minute sooner," he was saying. "Beat the lines and stick around. We'll be serving coffee. Be warned, only the fit need apply—our doctor will be examining you, and he's never been fooled once. It's Darwinian logic, people. The future is for the strong. The meek will have to inherit the here and now."
Inside, Ed and the other guy were setting up the gear. They had about thirty of those wired-up plastic suits stretched out in the middle of the place, and so tangled up with cable and little wires that they were like husks of fly bodies in a spiderweb.
Under each of the suits was a light metal frame, sort of like a bicycle with a seat but no wheels, but with a headrest too. Around the web they were setting up the televisions in an arc facing the seats. The suits each had a number on the back, and the televisions had numbers on top that matched.
When Gloria turned up she didn't say anything to me but she handed me some donuts and coffee.
"This is just the start," she said, when she saw my eyes get big. "We're in for three squares a day as long as this thing lasts. As long as we last, anyway."
We sat and ate outside where we could listen to Fearing. He went on and on. Some people were lined up like he said. I didn't blame them since Fearing was such a talker. Others listened and just got nervous or excited and went away, but I could tell they were coming back later, at least to watch. When we finished the donuts Fearing came over and told us to get on line too.
"We don't have to," said Gloria.
"Yes, you do," said Fearing.
On line we met Lane. She said she was twenty like Gloria but she looked younger. She could have been sixteen, like me.
"You ever do this before?" asked Gloria.
Lane shook her head. "You?"
"Sure," said Gloria. "You ever been out of this town?"
"A couple of times," said Lane. "When I was a kid. I'd like to now."
"Why?"
"I broke up with my boyfriend."
Gloria stuck out her lip, and said, "But you're scared to leave town, so you're doing this instead."
Lane shrugged.
I liked her, but Gloria didn't.
The doctor turned out to be Gilmartin the advance man. I don't think he was a real doctor, but he listened to my heart. Nobody ever did that before, and it gave me a good feeling.
Registration was a joke, though. It was for show. They asked a lot of questions but they only sent a couple of women and one guy away, Gloria said for being too old. Everyone else was okay, despite how some of them looked pretty hungry, just like me and Gloria. This was a hungry town. Later I figured out that's part of why Fearing and Kromer picked it. You'd think they'd want to go where the money was, but you'd be wrong.
After registration they told us to get lost for the afternoon. Everything started at eight o'clock.
We walked around downtown but almost all the shops were closed. All the good stuff was in the shopping center and you had to show a town ID card to get in and me and Gloria didn't have those.
So, like Gloria always says, we killed time since time was what we had.