THE FEELIES

As his own booze haze wore off, it left behind a nagging depression, the kind of depression where every problem, big or small, becomes insurmountable. He brooded for a minute or so on how Sam didn't like him. He meant to be pleasant to Sam, but, always, it ended up with him picking on the guy. He had even left Sam standing on the street that night. He had walked off without saying so much as "Good night" or "See you later."

Ralph's depressions had a habit of jumping from subject to subject. From Sam he moved on to the stiffs who were dying. Ralph had been brought up on the old TV late shows, the fearless private eyes who stumbled across a telltale clue to corruption in high places, or the courageous reporters who brought down governments. They had always fought their way through against all the odds; they stripped away the facade and showed the world the rotten side of the big and powerful.

Ralph's train of self-pity was interrupted by a physical a

As he walked, his mind grasshoppered from one cause of resentment to another. Sam, the job, he couldn't help it. It wasn't his fault that he wasn't Philip Marlowe or Mike Hammer, or Bernstein and Woodward. Sure it would be great to get at Combined Media. He would like to be a hero, to smash the structure and show everyone its corrupt, disgusting inside. It wasn't his fault he didn't have friends in the police department, or work on a fearless, fact-finding TV show. He was just a drunk in a dead end, union nonjob who was frightened of the ride home at night. Nobody could expect him to overturn the system.

He turned the corner and saw the CRAC squad down the block: City Riot And Combat. There must have been a baby riot or radical wilding for them to be out. The presence of a couple of fire trucks and the smell of smoke in the air seemed to confirm that. He started cautiously down the block. The CRAC squad members were spread out over the street. It was doubtful that those paramilitary supercops would let him through to take his usual route to his building. In places like Lincoln Avenue, the regular PD behaved like an occupying army. The CRAC squads were more like alien invaders, vicious and violent, who moved in and crushed disturbance with an iron fist and not even the public relations nicety of a velvet glove. CRAC men were built for business. Every one of them was well over six feet tall, anonymous, and threatening in dark blue coveralls, full-body flak jackets, and paler blue, bone-dome helmets with built-in radios. The majority carried over-and-under M20s that were capable of firing tear gas and concussion grenades, although a few had street sweepers, heavy, rapid-fire shotguns that were more than capable of doing exactly what their name implied. The CRAC team's faces were hidden behind gas masks, which not only added to their air of invaders from space but also protected them from recognition when the inevitable charges of police brutality were raised after one of their actions. Something bad had definitely gone down. Sal's Pizza was a burned-out ruin; Ralph could see four bodies lying on the street. A teenage girl huddled on the sidewalk would not stop screaming. An officer went over to her. He hit her once, a quick jab with the butt of his weapon, and she was immediately silent. Ralph didn't even speculate how the trouble had started. Such sudden flares of violence could come out of nowhere-a word or a gesture, and the next moment there would be slaughter. Automatic weapons were common in these areas; even the kids carried them.

"Hey, you! Get out of here!"

The voice was muffled by the gas mask, but Ralph had no doubt that the cop's gesture was aimed at him. He pointed down the street in a single attempt to maintain a shred of dignity. "I live right down there."

"I don't give a damn where you live. Get the hell off the street."

Ralph knew it was pointless to protest. As he turned, he remembered the Vietnam movie that he had seen a few days earlier on the late show when he had been up with insomnia. What was that phrase they had used? Wi

FRANCIS XAVIER BARSTOW WENT INTO A feelie once a year. It was the shortest one available, just six hours. He had to save all year to be able to afford it. Of course, he'd have liked to have actually experienced it on Easter weekend, but that wasn't possible. There were extra charges for his particular feelie if you had it on Easter weekend.

Francis Xavier Barstow had been through the same feelie so many times that he almost knew it by heart. The yelling of the crowd, the smell of the primitive city, the chafing of the rough, homespun robe, the pain of the whip cuts across his back, and, above all, the weight of the huge, wooden cross that bowed his shoulders.

He knew that a lot of people thought he was crazy. His neighbors and the people he worked with all thought he was a religious fanatic. He found some consolation in telling himself that they would think that about anyone who still tried to worship a god. Religion played no big part in this soulless age.

Sometimes he worried about his a

He'd asked the priest, but the priest hadn't been much help. He was one of the new kinds of priest, all psychology and social conscience. He told Francis Xavier that there was no harm in the feelie, but Francis Xavier had suspected that the priest didn't think there was much good in it either.

Francis Xavier knew in his heart that he was right. They had invented the feelies, and the least he could do was use them to get closer to his god. It was better than all those other people who wanted to be samurai killers, prostitutes, and perverted Roman emperors.

Sometimes he felt that he was bracketed with those people. He didn't like the way the receptionist women looked at him when he went in to book his feelie time. He got the impression that he was seen as some sort of sexual weirdo, a masochist or something.

This time there seemed to be something a little different about the experience. What was left of his conscious mind couldn't quite get a grip on what exactly had changed. Somehow everything was a trifle more intense. The colors were brighter and appeared to shimmer. The pain was much more severe than he remembered. In previous experiences, it had been a tolerable background. In this one, it was almost more than he could stand.

The part of his mind that was still Francis Xavier Bar-stow pretty much knew the sequence of the crucifixion program by heart. He was coming up to the part where he stubbed his toe and stumbled under the weight of the cross.

Just like every time before, he found himself staring down at his dirty sandaled feet. There were flecks of dried blood. The ground was dry and cracked. Each footstep produced small puffs of dust. Then a small green lizard scuttled from under a rock. As far as he could sluggishly remember, that had never happened before.

Francis Xavier wasn't about to ponder on the significance of these changed details. In the middle of a feelie, it wasn't possible to ponder on anything. The greater part of his consciousness was too busy being Jesus Christ on the home stretch to Calvary.

He could see the small rock coming up. There was nothing he could do to avoid it. His foot hit it and…

Pain, flashing burning jagged colors swamped the desert landscape and the brown faces that pressed in on him. A scream like ripping steel blotted out all other sounds. There was nothing else but stabs of red, orange, and yellow, rolling sweeps of purple split by white forked lightning, and the unbearable pain.