Sixty days and counting - Kim Stanley Robinson [134]
He said this to Fedpage and Fedpage snorted. “Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.”
Bill Murray, trying to help a stricken homeless guy. Yet another truth from that movie so full of them; if you really wanted to help other people you would have to devote years of your life to learning how.
He tried to express this to Fedpage, just to pass the time congealing around them. Fedpage nodded as he listened to the stricken man’s stertorous breathing. “Maybe it’s just sleep apnea we got here. What a great fucking movie. Me and Zeno were arguing about how many years that day had to go on for Bill Murray. I said it couldn’t be less than ten years, because of the piano lessons and the med school and the, you know,” and he was off on a long list of all of the character’s accomplishments and how many hours it would take to learn these skills, and how much time he had had for them in any given version of the repeated day. “Also, when you think about it, if Bill Murray can do different things every day, and get a different response from the people around him, just how exactly is that different from any ordinary day? It ain’t any different, that’s what! Other people don’t remember what you did the day before, they don’t give a shit, they’ve got their own day to deal with! So in essence we’re all living our own Groundhog Day, right? Every day is always just the same fucking day.”
“You should be a Buddhist,” Frank said. “You should talk to my Buddhist friends.”
“Yeah right. I don’t go in for that hippie shit.”
“It’s not hippie shit.”
“Yeah it is. How would you know.”
“I talk to them is how I know. I lived with them.”
“Oh. Well. That explains it then. But it also proves my point about them being hippies. I mean you don’t just live with people, do you.”
All while the old man cradled between them gasped, or did not gasp. Eventually the rescue team arrived, and under a blistering critique from Fedpage they got the old guy out to their ambulance. There Fedpage tried to grill them on the paperwork the operation would require of all involved, but the meds waved him away and drove off.
Talking to Fedpage was like talking to Rudra Cakrin. Frank knew some strange people. Some of these people had problems.
None more so, for instance, than the blond woman from the park. Frank saw her again, one evening at Site 21 when some of them were there, and he said “Hi,” and sat down next to her to ask how she was doing.
“Oh—day eighteen,” she said, with a wry look.
Frank said, “Well. Eighteen’s better than none.”
“That’s true.”
“But, you know, after all this time, I still don’t think we’ve ever been introduced. I’m Frank Vanderwal.” He stuck out a hand, which she took and shook daintily, with her fingertips.
“Deirdre. Nice to meetcha, ha ha.”
“Yeah, the bros aren’t much on introductions. Hey Deirdre—any sign of Chessman?”
“No, I ain’t seen him. I’m sure he’s moved.”
And on from there. She was happy to talk. Lots happened when you were homeless. It was starting to get cold again. She was staying at the UDC shelter again. The whole gang had spent most of the summer there, or over at the feral camp in Klingle Park. Lots of people were going feral in Northwest—hundreds—it made it safer in some ways, more dangerous in others. It could be fun; it could be too fun.
“Have you ever looked into that house on Linnean?”
“Yeah, I think I know the one you mean. Bunch of kids. They don’t want old drunk ladies there.”
“Oh I don’t know. They seemed friendly to me. All kinds of people. I think you’d be fine with them.”
“I don’t know. They drink a lot.”
“Who doesn’t?” Frank said, which made her laugh her nicotine laugh. “Well, maybe one of those church outreach groups,” he added, “if that’s what you’re looking for. There wouldn’t be any