Ray Bradbury. Bug

Даниил Серебряный
                Ray Bradbury
                http://blogs.myspace.com/mysteryal

                Bug
                1996

     Looking  back  now, I can't remember a time when Bug wasn't dancing. Bug is
short  for  jitterbug  and, of course, those were the days in the late thirties,
our  final  days in high school and our first days out in the vast world looking
for  work  that  didn't  exist  when  jitterbugging  was all the rage. And I can
remember  Bug  (his  real  name  was Bert Bagley, which shortens to Bug nicely),
during a jazz-band blast at our final aud-call for our high school senior class,
suddenly  leaping  up  to  dance  with an invisible partner in the middle of the
front aisle of the auditorium. That brought the house down. You never heard such
a roar or such applause. The bandleader, stricken with Bug's oblivious joy, gave
an  encore  and Bug did the same and we all exploded. After that the band played
"Thanks  for the Memory" and we all sang it, with tears pouring down our cheeks.
Nobody in all the years after could forget: Bug dancing in the aisle, eyes shut,
hands out to grasp his invisible girlfriend, his legs not connected to his body,
just his heart, all over the place. When it was over, nobody, not even the band,
wanted to leave. We just stood there in the world Bug had made, hating to go out
into that other world that was waiting for us.
     It  was  about  a  year later when Bug saw me on the street and stopped his
roadster  and  said  come  on  along to my place for a hot dog and a Coke, and I
jumped in and we drove over with the top down and the wind really hitting us and
Bug  talking  and  talking at the top of his lungs, about life and the times and
what  he  wanted to show me in his front parlor-front parlor, hell, dining room,
kitchen, and bedroom.
     What was it he wanted me to see?
     Trophies.  Big  ones, little ones, solid gold and silver and brass trophies
with his name on them. Dance trophies. I mean they were everywhere, on the floor
by his bed, on the kitchen sink, in the bathroom, but in the parlor, especially,
they had settled like a locust plague. There were so many of them on the mantel,
and  in  bookcases  instead of books, and on the floor, you had to wade through,
kicking  some over as you went. They totaled, he said, tilting his head back and
counting  inside  his  eyelids,  to about three hundred and twenty prizes, which
means grabbing onto a trophy almost every night in the past year.
     "All this," I gasped, "just since we left high school?"
     "Ain't I the cat's pajamas?" Bug cried.
     "You're  the whole darned department store! Who was your partner, all those
nights?"
     "Not  partner,  partners,"  Bug  corrected.  "Three hundred, give or take a
dozen, different women on three hundred different nights."
     "Where  do  you find three hundred women, all talented, all good enough, to
win prizes?"
     "They  weren't  talented  or  all  good,"  said Bug, glancing around at his
collection.  "They  were  just  ordinary,  good,  every-night dancers. I won the
prizes.  I  made  them  good.  And when we got Out there dancing, we cleared the
floor.
     Everyone  else stopped, to watch us there out in the middle of nowhere, and
we never stopped."
     He  paused,  blushed, and shook his head. "Sorry about that. Didn't mean to
brag."
     But he wasn't bragging. I could see. He was just telling the truth.
     "You  want  to know how this all started?" said Bug, handing over a hot dog
and a Coke.
     "Don't tell me," I said. "I  _know."_
      "How could you?" said Bug, looking me over.
     "The  last  aud-call  at  L.A.  High,  I  think they played 'Thanks for the
Memory,' but just before that-"
     " 'Roll Out the Barrel'-"
     "-'the  Barrel,'  yes,  and  there  you  were in front of God and everyone,
jumping."
     "I never stopped," said Bug, eyes shut, back in those
     years. "Never," he said, "stopped."
     "You got your life all made," I said.
     "Unless," said Bug, "something  _happens."_
      What happened was, of course, the war.
     Looking  back, I remember that in that last year in school, sap that I was,
I  made  up  a  list  of my one hundred and sixty-five  _best_  friends. Can you
imagine  that?  One  hundred and sixty-five, count 'em, best  _friends!_  It's a
good  thing  I never showed that list to anyone. I would have been hooted out of
school.
     Anyway,  the  war  came  and  went and took with it a couple dozen of those
listed  friends  and  the rest just disappeared into holes in the ground or went
east  or  wound  up  in  Malibu  or Fort Lauderdale. Bug was on that list, but I
didn't  figure  out I didn't really  _know_  him until half a lifetime later. By
that  time I was down to half a dozen pals or women I might turn to if I needed,
and  it  was  then,  walking  down Hollywood Boulevard one Saturday afternoon, I
heard someone call:
     "How about a hot dog and a Coke?"
     Bug, I thought without turning. And that's who it was, standing on the Walk
of  Stars  with his feet planted on Mary Pickford and Ricardo Cortez just behind
and  Jimmy  Stewart  just  ahead.  Bug  had  taken off some hair and put on some
weight, but it  _was_  Bug and I was overjoyed, perhaps too much, and showed it,
for  he  seemed  embarrassed  at my enthusiasm. I saw then that his suit was not
half  new  enough and his shirt frayed, but his tie was neatly tied and he shook
my  hand  off and we popped into a place where we stood and had that hot dog and
that Coke.
     "Still going to be the world's greatest writer?" said Bug.
     "Working at it," I said.
     "You'll  get  there,"  said  Bug  and  smiled, meaning it. "You were always
good."
     "So were you," I said.
     That  seemed  to pain him slightly, for he stopped chewing for a moment and
took a swig of Coke. "Yes, sir," he said. "I surely  _was."_
       "God," I said, "I can still remember the day I saw all those trophies for
the first time. What a family! Whatever-?"
     Before I could finish asking, he gave the answer.
     "Put  'em  in storage, some. Some wound up with my first wife. Goodwill got
the rest."
     "I'm sorry," I said, and truly was.
     Bug looked at me steadily. "How come  _you're_  sorry?"
     "Hell,  I  dunno,"  I  said.  "It's just, they seemed such a part of you. I
haven't  thought of you often the last few years or so, to be honest, but when I
do,  there  you are knee-deep in all those cups and mugs in your front room, out
in the kitchen, hell, in your  _garage!"_
      "I'll be damned," said Bug. "What a memory you got."
     We finished our Cokes and it was almost time to go. I couldn't help myself,
even seeing that Bug had fleshed himself out over the years.
     "When-" I started to say, and stopped.
     "When what?" said Bug.
     "When," I said with difficulty, "when was the last time you danced?"
     "Years," said Bug.
     "But how long ago?"
     "Ten years. Fifteen. Maybe twenty. Yeah, twenty. I don't dance anymore."
     "I don't believe that. Bug not dance? Nuts."
     "Truth.  Gave my fancy night-out shoes to the Goodwill, too. Can't dance in
your socks."
     _"Can,_  and barefoot, too!"
     Bug  had to laugh at that. "You're really something. Well, it's been nice."
He started edging toward the door. "Take care, genius-"
     "Not so fast." I walked him out into the light and he was looking both ways
as  if  there  were heavy traffic. "You know one thing I never saw and wanted to
see? You bragged about it, said you took three hundred ordinary girls out on the
dance  floor and turned them into Ginger Rogers inside three minutes. But I only
saw you once at that aud-call in '38, so I don't believe you."
     "What?" said Bug. "You saw the trophies!"
     "You could have had those made up," I pursued, looking at his wrinkled suit
and  frayed  shirt cuffs. "Anyone can go in a trophy shop and buy a cup and have
his name put on it!"
     "You think I did that?" cried Bug.
     "I think that, yes!"
     Bug  glanced  out  in  the street and back at me and back in the street and
back to me, trying to decide which way to run or push or shout.
     "What's got into you?" said Bug. "Why're you talking like that?"
     "God,  I  don't  know," I admitted. "It's just, we might not meet again and
I'll  never  have the chance, or you to prove it. I'd like, after all this time,
to see what you talked about. I'd love to see you dance again, Bug."
     "Naw," said Bug. "I've forgotten how."
     "Don't hand me that. You may have forgotten, but the rest of you knows how.
Bet  you  could  go down to the Ambassador Hotel this afternoon, they still have
tea  dances  there,  and  clear  the floor, just like you said. After you're out
there nobody else dances, they all stop and look at you and her just like thirty
years ago."
     "No," said Bug, backing away but coming back. "No, no."
     "Pick a stranger, any girl, any woman, out of the crowd, lead her out, hold
her in your arms and just skim her around as if you were on ice and dream her to
Paradise."
     "If you write like that, you'll never sell," said Bug.
     "Bet you, Bug."
     "I don't bet."
     "All right, then. Bet you you can't. Bet you, By God, that you've lost your
stuff!"
     "Now, hold on," said Bug.
     "I mean it. Lost your stuff forever, for good. Bet you. Wanna bet?"
     Bug's eyes took on a peculiar shine and his face was flushed. "How much?"
     "Fifty bucks!"
     "I don't have-"
     "Thirty bucks, then. Twenty! You can afford to lose that,  _can't_  you?"
     "Who says I'd lose, dammit?"
     _"I_  say. Twenty. Is it a deal?"
     "You're throwing your money away."
     "No, I'm a sure winner, because you can't dance worth shoats and shinola!"
     "Where's your money?" cried Bug, incensed now.
     "Here!"
     "Where's your car!?"
     "I don't own a car. Never learned to drive. Where's yours?"
     "Sold  it!  Jesus,  no  cars.  How do we get to the tea dance!?" We got. We
grabbed  a  cab and I paid and, before Bug could relent, dragged him through the
hotel  lobby and into the ballroom. It was a nice summer afternoon, so nice that
the  room  was filled with mostly middle-aged men and their wives, a few younger
ones  with  their  girlfriends,  and  some kids out of college who looked out of
place, embarrassed by the mostly old-folks music out of another time. We got the
last  table and when Bug opened his mouth for one last protest, I put a straw in
it and helped him nurse a marguerita.
     "Why are you  _doing_  this?" he protested again.
     "Because  you  were  just  one  of one hundred sixty-five close friends!" I
said.
     "We were never friends," said Bug.
     "Well,  today,  anyway.  There's  'Moonlight  Serenade.' Always liked that,
never danced myself, clumsy fool. On your feet, Bug!"
     He was on his feet, swaying.
     "Who  do  you  pick?"  I  said.  "You  cut in on a couple? Or there's a few
wallflowers over there, a tableful of women. I dare you to pick the least likely
and give her lessons, yes?"
     That  did  it. Casting me a glance of the purest scorn, he charged off half
into  the  pretty teatime dresses and immaculate men, searching around until his
eyes  lit  on a table where a woman of indeterminate age sat, hands folded, face
thin  and  sickly  pale, half hidden under a wide-brimmed hat, looking as if she
were waiting for someone who never came.
     _That_  one, I thought.
     Bug  glanced from her to me. I nodded. And in a moment he was bowing at her
table and a conversation ensued. It seemed she didn't dance, didn't know  _how_
to dance, didn't  _want_  to dance. Ah, yes, he seemed to be saying. Ah,  _no,_
she  seemed to reply. Bug turned, holding her hand, and gave me a long stare and
a wink. Then, without looking at her, he raised her by her hand and arm and out,
with a seamless glide, onto the floor.
     What  can I say, how can I tell? Bug, long ago, had never bragged, but only
told  the  truth. Once he got hold of a girl, she was weightless. By the time he
had  whisked  and  whirled and glided her once around the floor, she almost took
off, it seemed he had to hold her down, she was pure gossamer, the closest thing
to  a  hummingbird held in the hand so you cannot feel its weight but only sense
its  heartbeat  sounding  to  your  touch, and there she went out and around and
back,  with  Bug  guiding  and  moving,  enticing  and retreating, and not fifty
anymore,  no,  but  eighteen,  his body remembering what his mind thought it had
long forgotten, for his body was free of the earth now, too. He carried himself,
as he carried her, with that careless insouciance of a lover who knows what will
happen in the next hour and the night soon following.
     And it happened, just like he said. Within a minute, a minute and a half at
most,  the  dance  floor cleared. As Bug and his stranger lady whirled by with a
glance,  every  couple on the floor stood still. The bandleader almost forgot to
keep time with his baton, and the members of the orchestra, in a similar trance,
leaned forward over their instruments to see Bug and his new love whirl and turn
without touching the floor.
     When  the  "Serenade"  ended,  there  was a moment of stillness and then an
explosion  of  applause.  Bug  pretended it was all for the lady, and helped her
curtsy  and  took her to her table, where she sat, eyes shut, not believing what
had  happened. By that time Bug was on the floor again, with one of the wives he
borrowed  from  the nearest table. This time, no one even went out on the floor.
Bug  and the borrowed wife filled it around and around, and this time even Bug's
eyes were shut.
     I  got up and put twenty dollars on the table where he might find it. After
all, he  _had_  won the bet, hadn't he?
     Why  had  I  done  it?  Well, I couldn't very well have left him out in the
middle of the high school auditorium aisle dancing  _alone,_  could I?
     On my way out I looked back. Bug saw me and waved, his eyes as brimmed full
as mine. Someone passing whispered, "Hey, come on,  _look it_  this guy!"
     God, I thought, he'll be dancing all night.
     Me, I could only walk.
     And  I  went  out  and walked until I was fifty again and the sun was going
down and the low June fog was coming in early over old Los Angeles.
     That  night,  just before going to sleep, I wished that in the morning when
Bug woke up he would find the floor around his bed covered with trophies.
     Or  at  the  very  least  he  would turn and find a quiet and understanding
trophy with her head on his pillow, near enough to touch.