Bugs by John Sladek Read Free Book Online

was conducted by a fat policewoman of monumental calm. He drove the car around a tiny artificial cityscape laid out with stop signs, one-way streets, and traffic signals. He turned, backed up, parked.
    ‘Congratulations,’ said the policewoman, writing. ‘Try to practise your parallel parking a little more.’ She looked as though she hated getting out of the very comfortable seat, but she did so, after handing him a slip of paper. ‘You can drive on this until your licence arrives.’
    Honesty was waiting for him with a newspaper. ‘I figured you for a hundred-dollar car,’ she said. ‘So I circled a few ads for you.’ Seeing his hesitation, she added: ‘If you haven’t got it, I’ll loan you.’
    ‘Thanks. When my first cheque comes –’
    ‘Yeah, yeah. Now, pick an ad.’
    As he drove the suburban freeways, the bright sky seemed to expand, opening out in all directions to the distant horizons of shopping-malls, health clubs, car-washes, golf-courses, dental offices. He felt he was borne aloft by this capable woman who would bathe him and button him into his jammies, and read him a story.
    She would not advise him about a car, however. ‘Look, a hundred-dollar clunker is not going to be perfect,’ she said. ‘You have to take your own chances. I don’t want to get the blame if there’s anything wrong with it.’
    It didn’t take him long to choose a big yellow Yank car. Though it had a few slight defects – the lower parts of it had rusted through as though dipped in acid, the floor was missing in spots, the pedals wobbled and threatened to fall off into the street (which he could see rushing past beneath his feet), and the door would sometimes fly open when he turned a corner – nevertheless, it was here, it was his: a dream chariot, a bride of the freeways, an icon of American mythology! Fred was in control of it! He would christen it ‘The Dream of Surf’.
    Honesty wrote a cheque for $100 and said goodbye. ‘Gotta get my mom’s car back before she wakes up.’
    As she drove away, he shouted: ‘I’ll pay you back. How do I get in touch with you?’ But with the tinted windows up and the air-conditioning running she missed his half-hearted offer.
    When Fred got the car home, he began to notice a few more flaws. The clutch sang. The right front wheel was damaged, so that it leaned at a funny angle when it stopped, and wobbled wildly at any speed. The brakes were spongy. One window was stuck, the other was missing its crank. Unless used carefully, internal door-handles tended to come off in the hand. The radio emitted a crackling hum but no other sound. He was not sure whether or not this was caused by the coathanger being used for an aerial. One of the tail lights had been smashed in and crudely repaired; a redplastic toy (half a ray gun) had been taped over the bulb. Maybe he would christen the car ‘Decline and Fall’.
    On Monday he drove it all the way to work, leaving a trail of blue smoke. Newer cars seemed to give him a wide berth along the road as though shunning a leper. Their drivers were probably afraid the wobbly wheel would detach itself and smash about randomly, a loose cannon roaming the gun-deck. However, Fred chose to imagine that the cars themselves were afraid of catching rust and decay.
    Pratt had put a DO NOT DISTURB sign on his office door and was keeping it closed, presumably all day.
    Fred asked Carl Honks for some work.
    ‘Didn’t Mel get you squared away? Christ. I think that dumb bastard is burning out.’
    ‘“Burning out”?’
    ‘Yeah, the dumb bastard.’
    Honks took tobacco from a lacquered box and packed his pipe, but did not light up.
    ‘I’ve seen a lot of dumb bastards burn out. They all start out like Mel.’ He squinted through nonexistent pipesmoke.
    ‘You take a guy that gets too serious about a project, can’t leave it alone, you know? At the end of every day he has just one more little bug to chase, one more little thing to do, so he stays a few