Farmer, Philip Jose Dayworld 01 Dayworld

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bucko. I can hardly wait."
Waiting was easy for her despite what she had said. Unconscious people did not fret and fume or get
nervous. And, though he would not be stoned every day until next Friday, he would be someone else and
so not thinking about her. New Era society did have its disadvantages, but it also had many benefits.
Check and balance; tit for tat; give and take; loss and profit.
Though the strips had not shown a chess move since Tuesday, Repp still felt disappointed that there
was none today. He thought of Yankev Gril -Jimmy Cricket-and felt keen regret that their game had had
to be dropped. Where was Gril now? Still playing in Washington Square Park? In jail? Stoned and
awaiting trial? Or convicted and permanently stoned?
His other messages concerned business. The most important was a reminder that he was a guest on
the ILL Show. He should be in the studio at 7:30, and he would be on at 8:00 sharp.
No immer had tried to get into contact with him via strip or in person. That omission was, he
supposed, good news.
21.
At the end of the workday, Repp taxied home. After working out on a gym set, he showered and then
ate a light supper. He arrived at the Thirteen-Principles Towers Building at exactly 7:25 P.M. and was in
the studio at 7:30. Here he was made comfortable by the secretary of the host of the ILL Show, Ras
Irving Lenin Lundquist. During coffee, he read the strip display that described the guest list and the topics
and suggested a few witty remarks he might like to make.
At 8:40, Repp left the studio. He was satisfied with his performance, though several of Lundquist's
remarks had stung him. It was good publicity to be seen on the ILL Show, hosted by the self-styled Gray
Monk of the Mind. Lundquist avoided the showy and flamboyant and went for the serious and the
intellectual. Instead of dazzling stage scenes and a startling and flashy costume, the studio room was
modeled like the host's idea of a medieval monk's cell. Clad in a gray robe, he sat on a chair behind a
desk on a platform that was a foot higher than the guests' chairs. Lundquist was thus able to give the
impression that he was the inquisitor-general of Spain and that his guests were on trial. During the nasty
questions and comments he hurled at Repp, Repp made the studio audience laugh. He asked Lundquist
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when he was bringing in the rack and the iron maiden. Because the ILL Show audience was composed
mostly
of the better-educated or those who thought they were, Repp could be assured that it understood the
references. That was one of the reasons Repp had exposed himself to the barbs and insults. Another was
that he hoped to give as good as or better than he got. Also, it was well known that Lundquist, no matter
how he seemed to despise his guests, invited only those he thought had somehow managed to get at least
in the neighborhood of his intellectual eminence.
Lundquist attacked Repp on the premise that his character was insecure and shaky.
"You seem to be hung up on role-changing and shapeshifting, Ras Repp. I need enumerate only a
few of your movies, which reflect this obsession, this compulsion, which, in turn, reflects the basic core of
your being. Or perhaps I should say, reflects the lack of stable identity. There are, for instance, The
Count of Monte Cristo, The Odyssey, Proteus at Miami, Helen of Troy, and Custer and Crazy Horse:
Two Parallels That Met.
"All these have to do with disguises, hallucinations, or illusions about identity, or changing of shapes
and, hence, change of identity or a seeming change. Curiously enough, you are best known as the man
who writes the best Westerns. In fact, as the man who resurrected the Western drama, which had been
dead for a thousand years. Some say, better dead.
"Yet those works which have attracted the attention and even the blessing of some art critics have not
been Westerns. Except, of course, for your Custer and Crazy Horse. And that is a most curious
Western. Custer and Crazy Horse both get the idea that they'll go to a medicine man, get shape-changing
powers from the medicine man, adopt each other's shapes, and lead their enemies to their deaths. Of
course, neither knows that the other is doing this. Thus, Custer-as-Crazy Horse kills Crazy
Horse-as-Custer, and then, unable to change his shape, is killed by whites."
Lundquist smiled his infamous smile, which had been likened to, among other things, a vagina with
teeth.
"I have it from a reliable source that your current work-inprogress, Dillinger Didn't Die, is based on a
remarkably similar idea. In fact, your protagonist, the ancient bank robber, escapes from the FBI, the
organics of the twentieth century, by magically turning into a woman. He does this by getting his moll, I
mean, his woman lover, Billie Frechette, an Indian of the Wisconsin Menominee tribe, to take him to the
tabu abode of Wabosso, the Great White Hare, the Menominee Trickster. This creature of ancient
Indian legend and folk tale gives Dillinger the power to turn into a woman at an appropriate time.
"And so, when the FBI starts closing in, Dillinger gets Jimmy Lawrence, a petty crook whose days
are numbered because of his heart trouble, to pose as him. Then Dillinger becomes Ann Sage, a Chicago
madam of a Chicago whorehouse, and has the real Ann Sage kidnaped by friends and taken to Canada.
Then, if my informant is correct, Dillinger-as-Ann-Sage goes to the Biograph Theater with
Lawrence-as-Dillinger after telling the FBI that they'll be there. The pseudo-Dillinger is shot and killed by
the FBI. Dillinger-as-Ann-Sage walks away from the execution."
Lundquist sneered, and the studio audience laughed loudly.
"In other words, your protagonist takes the identity of a woman, becomes a woman. I understand
that you are planning a sequel, Guns and Gonads . .
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Lundquist sneered again, and the audience laughed even more loudly.
". .. in which Dillinger has great difficulty with the social, economic, and emotional identity of a
woman. Eventually, he adapts, and he even comes to like being a woman. He, she, rather, marries, has
children, and then goes back to a life of crime as a female whose gang is composed of her sons and their
gunmolls. She has quite a colorful, if violent, career under the
name of Ma Barker but is finally killed, her guns blazing in a final but futile gesture of defiance, by the
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