Free Cyberpunk by Pat Cadigan Page A

“But, you didn’t really live in that room—” I began. I wondered whether in fact his memory had slipped back to an earlier time, to that other family of which he’d sworn he’d never speak. Perhaps Pansy Foorcum had merged in his mind with an unnamed sister in another house, long ago. The difficulty, of course, was that it was equally likely that in his confusion he’d conflated Crab House Days with Crab Sex Dorm. That short-lived reality show had been notoriously lavish in its use of crab-point-of-view camera placements.
    The creature appeared not to hear me. He carried on muttering about Pansy’s sexual theatrics, reproducing what he’d supposedly overheard through the wall, playing both voices aloud as if performing a Punch and Judy show—a private litany aired, it seemed to me, for reasons having nothing to do with our interview. At last he reached a pitch and then quit abruptly, his words replaced with the high whining sound he’d treated me to earlier, and then with the distinct yawn. “Keep that in mind next time you see her begging for money for African famine relief,” he concluded. “She’s probably got nothing on under her Florence Nightingale costume, either. That dame gets her jollies from pity.”
    I opted to chalk the crab’s freewheeling animus up to show-business envy, at the prestige accorded to the sole performer who’d shaken the career curse of the franchise. “What’s in the cards for you?” I asked, not wishing to hear more. “Is this a firm retirement? Do you long to reconnect with your audience?”
    “I get calls every day, believe you me.” The crab stirred a claw, his minor rather than major, which still lay un-moving. He ratcheted the smaller pincers wide and turned them toward his face, as if miming a telephone receiver.
    “I’m sure you do.”
    “I’m telling you, some of the pitches I’ve heard. Crazy stuff. Hoo-wee. I had some rappers out here the other day. Everything nowadays is gangsta, gangsta, gangsta. Those guys are revitalizing show business, if you ask me. But I don’t really see a place for myself in the mix.”
    “So, you’ll rest on your laurels,” I suggested.
    “What fucking laurels? You see one goddamn laurel around here? If you do, it probably blew over from the next yard. Hah. Sorry, I just hate that word— laurels.”
    “I only wondered if you’re content not to practice your art.”
    “Listen, I’m keeping busy.” The crab withdrew and shuttered his claw now, seeming to grow reflective.
    “I didn’t mean anything—”
    “I know you didn’t, kid.”
    “You’ve got nothing to prove to anyone,” I said softly.
    “Don’t patronize me.”
    I fell to silence. The crab shifted, sighed, rattled. The day had turned, too, clouds deflecting the high bleaching sun, and announcing themselves as gray mountains in the oscillating mirror of the pool.
    “Look, Lehman. You want a scoop? I’m hatching a major comeback. You can be the first. I’m saying major major. You understand? When this thing blows, there’ll be no keeping a lid on it, I promise you.”
    “A premise for a show?”
    “Big show, of sorts.”
    “Please.”
    “Follow me. I’d tell you to walk this way , only you’ve heard that one before.”
    Startlingly, the crab was on the go. He moved awfully fast for a being that had seemed wrought in rusted ironwork a moment before. Clicking his way off the tile-work, he slid across the grass, past me, and toward the left side of the house. The lawn dipped to a basement door there, portal to a half-submerged, windowless lower level with the appearance of a garage or workshop, perhaps. I stood, stuffed my pad and ballpoint into my pants pocket, and hurried to join him.
    “Go ahead, open the door,” he said.
    I tried the handle, which turned easily, and pushed the door inside. The darkness was enough that from the brightness of the day I couldn’t make anything out, within. I stepped back, uncertain.
    Crab House Days had, of