The Simulacra Read Online Free PDF Page B

who have dismally failed, either in their private lives—as I have—or in business or in their social ascent from
Be
to
Ge.
    Chic and I, Sons of Job, Vince Strikerock thought eerily. In bizarre uniform, parading down the street. Being jeered at. And yet believing—in what? In ultimate victory? In Goltz, who looks like a movie version of a
Rattenfänger,
a ratcatcher? He cringed from the notion; it frightened him.
    And still the idea remained lodged in his mind.
    In his apartment on the top floor of The Abraham Lincoln Apartments, thin, balding Chic Strikerock, Vince’s older brother, awoke and peered nearsightedly at the clock to see if one could manage to remain in bed a bit longer. But the excuse was not valid; the clock read eight-fifteen. Time to get up . . . a news machine, noisily vending its wares outside the building, had awakened him, fortunately. And then Chic discovered to his shock that someone was in bed with him; he opened his eyes fully and made himself rigid as he inspected the covered outline of what he saw at once, from the tumble of brown hair, was a young woman, and one familiar (that was a relief—or was it?) to him. Julie! His sister-in-law, his brother Vince’s wife. Good grief. Chic sat up.
    Let’s see, he said to himself, rapidly. Last night—what did go on here after All Souls, anyhow? Julie appeared, didn’t she, distraught, with one suitcase and two coats and telling a disjointed story which boiled down to a simple fact, at last; she had broken up with Vince legally; she no longer had any official relationship to him and was free to come and go as she pleased. So here she was. Why? That part he couldn’t remember; he had always liked Julie but—it did not explain this; what she had done concerned her own secret, inner world of values and attitudes, not his, not anything that was objective,
real.
    Anyhow, here Julie was, still sound asleep, too, here physically but withdrawn into herself, curled up, retracted mollusk-like, which was just as well, because for him it all seemed—incestuous, despite the clarity of the law in this variety of matter. She, to him, was more like family. He had never looked in her direction. But last night, after a few drinks—that was it; he could not drink any more. Or rather he could, and when he did he underwent a rapid change for what at the time seemed like the better; he became outgoing, adventurous, extroverted, instead of morose and taciturn. But here was a consequence. Look what he had gotten involved in, here.
    And yet on a very deep, private level he didn’t object as much as all that. It was a compliment to him, her showing up here.
    But it would be awkward, the next time he ran into Vince checking everyone’s ID at the front door. Because Vince would want to discuss it on a profound, meaningful, somber basis, with much intellectual hot air wasted in analyzing basic motives. What was Julie’s
real
purpose for leaving him and moving in here? Why? Ontological questions, such as Aristotle would have appreciated, teleological issues having to do with what they had once called “final causes.” Vince was out of step with the times; this had all become null and void.
    I better call my boss, Chic decided, and tell him—ask him if—I can be late today. Should settle this with Julie; what’s up, and so forth. How long is she staying and is she going to help pay expenses. Basic unphilosophical questions of practical nature.
    He fixed coffee in the kitchen, sat sipping, in his pajamas.
    Turning on the phone he punched his boss’s number, Maury Frauenzimmer; the screen turned pale gray, then white, then cloudy as an out-of-focus portion of Maury’s anatomy formed. Maury was shaving. “Yeah, Chic?”
    “Hey,” Chic said, and heard it sound forth proudly. “I got a girl here, Maury, so I’ll be late.”
    It was male-to-male business. Did not matter who the girl was; no need to go into that. Maury did not bother to ask; he showed on his face the