Be Nice

  BE NICE

  by David Portlock

  Cover art by John Radosta

  Copyright © 2017 David Portlock

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  To Alice and Anne

  CHAPTER ONE

  Wallis laughed and pushed the hog to 127 mph. As he glanced back over his shoulder, he pulled his mask out of his jacket pocket.

  The Protect-and-Serve squad car hummed as its velocity increased to 115. The Protect-and-Serve officer behind the wheel maintained a grim expression. Speeding in a residential neighborhood was a serious offense—especially late at night.

  Wallis Barber turned onto a street of dark living pods. He careened into his driveway, whipped his phat hog around, and faced the squad car as it braked in front of him.

  A shock wand in hand, the Protect-and-Serve officer jumped from his car eager to make an arrest.

  Wallis pulled on his mask: a black ski mask with two eye holes and a slim mouth slot. The phrase “Be Nice” was stitched across the forehead with bright red and yellow yarn.

  Surprised, the Protect-and-Serve officer deactivated his shock wand. He took a step forward, offered his hand to Wallis, and said, “Congrats, Wallis. I had no idea you signed on.”

  Wallis shook the Protect-and-Serve officer’s hand and reddened it with blood.

  The Protect-and-Serve officer grinned and wiped the blood on his pant leg. “So, I guess it was you, John Tom, and the others down at the java shop?”

  Wallis proudly stuck out his chest and replied, “You knows it, officer.”

  The Protect-and-Serve officer removed his patrol cap and stuffed it under his armpit. “Just keep up the good work out here, son. You, John Tom, and the rest, you keep stompin’ ‘em good.” With a wink, he strolled down the driveway to his squad car.

  Wallis raised his fist and shouted, “BE NICE!”

  The Protect-and-Serve officer gave a crisp salute and backed out to the street.

  Wallis entered his living pod and shut and locked the door behind him. Living Pod Number Twelve had been his home for the past seventeen years. It had thick shag carpeting, a 150-inch flat screen TV, soft oval walls, long tan drapes, and off-white, comfortable furnishings.

  An hour later, in his bedroom, Wallis stepped out of the shower. He dried off and tied a towel around his waist. He stared at himself in the full-length bathroom mirror behind the door and marveled at his youthful physique. He smiled broadly, impressed by his rows of perfect white teeth. He ran his hands through his jet-black, wavy hair and coolly smoothed it back.

  Wallis dropped into a lounge chair at his work desk. He had set up his speakdeck before going out, just in case he returned home drunk.

  He hit the SPK button on the deck and watched as the mic light turned green.

  He put his mouth up to it and said, “Hi. Wallis David Barber here. Santa Monica, Cali-for-nie-ay. And I, uh…I just turned seventeen, seventeen this very day!” He smiled and sang, “Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, I’m seventeen today, and I’ve gotta do this shit cuz they told me to!” He laughed, burped, and continued. “So, yeah, uh…they told me I was in this morning!” He cheered, pumping his fists. “And I got the BE NICE stitchin’ all sewn in tight too!” He stood from his desk and placed his right hand over his heart. “The black mask is the depths of outer space: all that matters. The yellow is the sun: the giver of all life. The red is the blood: the blood of the us, the all, the chosen few.” He sat and leaned toward the mic. “So, anyway, back to biz-ness. Let’s see, where do I start? Well, I woke up pretty early this morning, I had me some tasty bee-day grub, chatted with the biologicals, went to school, and then to the Be Nice meeting. Oh, eff this. I know what you really wanna hear. So, listen. We picked up a flit right after the meeting. The word was these Be Nicers from New Venice had spotted these two golden oldie haters down at our local java shop. So me and Janey Typermass, we put on our Be Nice masks and took off on my hog. John Tom, Pete and Becky Tensil, and Abe Robinson, they beat us down there in John Tom’s big time H-mobile. After about 25 minutes or so, this oldie Afreak shows up. This oldie Afreak, she was maybe 75—fat, real black, and supah evil looking—didn’t see us hiding in the dark over by the corner table. So this Afreak goes to work: she starts servin’ up the java and the donut holes and the cake and the lemon wedges. I say eff these oldies that beat the life expecs. Too old to stand the W Line, so they end up in the java shops—real lazy on their meds, as well. So we peeped this Afreak up close, real close. And I swear, whenever a white person stepped to her for service, she sure as eff gave them the stinky eye. And then this old, white Klanny, he shows up. He was dressed all old an’ shit—no damn fashion sense. And, don’t you know it, the Klanny gets crazy mad and calls the Afreak the N-word, and the Afreak, she goes and says somethin’ terrible about Euro people. So me, John Tom, Janey, Pete, Becky, and Abe, we went to work. Aw, buddy, you shoulda seen that Afreak and Klanny’s faces when we said they were both guilty of Race Crime. John Tom, he laid that old Klanny flat out. Becky and Abe, they stomped him down and bloodied him good, messed up their shiny, new, black trooper boots with skin and bad teeth. Me, Janey, and Pete, we took off on the Afreak. She tried to argue the Race Crime with us, so Janey bashed her head in. It was so, so epic even the customers cheered. Then Pete says that we should put the Afreak and the Klanny side-by-side and take a pic. Post it up on Flit, Bleep, Pace, and Jack; let everybody know that the Santa Monica Be Nice kids ain’t no effin’ joke. And, yeah, that’s just what we did!”

  Wallis switched off the deck. His eyes were red and irritated. He dropped his towel on the floor, made a nasally dive-bombing sound, and flopped on his bed. He looked around his bedroom and settled on the black ski mask with the red and yellow BE NICE stitching on the forehead, draped over a chair. He then looked at the sky blue walls and up to the black ceiling. He thought, that should be a ceiling with a whole lot of those glow-in-the-dark stars on it.

  He stared at his stylish clothes, wrinkled and unwashed, hanging in the closet. He owned Friss tees, Tojomi wrap-around sweaters, several pairs of Wrecker Wear jeans, a dark navy blue pea coat with silver epaulets on the shoulders, and six pairs of war boots with black laces: black like the night sky.

  Wallis rolled over and looked at his work desk. His Heroes Unlimited action figures were perfectly lined up: Blazer Blane, Rock Quarryman, Super Doll, and a variety of others. His comic book collection was neatly boxed, boarded, and bagged next to them. The Fearsome Falandrom No.1, CGC value 9.2, was on top. His schoolbooks and supplies were stacked pyramid-like in the middle of the desk—the bigger books on the bottom, the smaller books on top—three drawing pens and a box of colored pencils to their right.

  Wallis glanced at the sky blue walls a second time and noticed several light blue rectangles. There were posters hanging there the other day: lots of hot, sexy chicks, musicians, fast cars and fast hogs—childish bullshit.

  Wallis switched off his desk bulb. He would hang his new Be Nice posters, as soon as he woke, in the morning.

  Mary Barber placed three plates of chocolate cake on the breakfast table. She set silverware, napkins, and Wallis’s favorite Heroes Unlimited mug next to them. She adjusted her blonde hair, swept a curl behind her ear, and moved to the stove. She grabbed OJ, milk, and a half-eaten chocolate cake off of the counter next to it. She put her haul on the kitchen table and hit the
intercom button.

  “Morning, you sweet thing,” her husband, Brent, said, as he entered a second later.

  “Morning, lover,” she replied, kissing him on the cheek.

  Brent Barber zipped his green tracksuit jacket, hiding his middle-age bulge, and picked up his newspad. “He awake?”

  Mary checked the watch implant on her wrist. “It’s just about eleven.”

  “Well, I sure hope last night went okay.”

  Mary closed her eyes and crossed her fingers.

  After getting dressed in his green Wrecker jeans and black and white-striped Tojomi sweater, Wallis unlocked a drawer on his work desk and took out a leather portfolio. He unzipped it and opened to the pages inside. There were black and white and color sketches of the dozens of superheroes he’d thought up: muscular men and women with detailed costume designs in action poses alongside a litany of supervillains.

  Wallis carefully removed one of the pictures of a superhero with an “M” emblazoned across his chest: The Mighty Morphon. Wallis looked at his Be Nice posters arranged on the floor and held Morphon up to one of the pale blue spots on the wall. He stepped back, thinking to himself, So why can’t I hang up some of my heroes instead?

  Wallis zipped the portfolio closed and placed it back in his work desk. He locked the desk, pocketed the gold key, and collected his schoolbooks. He blew a kiss to his Super Doll action figure, rubbing her left nipple for luck, and ran out of the bedroom. He ambled down the shag-carpeted hallway and jumped to the bottom of the stairs. As he marched into the kitchen, he snatched his selli off the family photo shelf.

  Wallis took a seat at the kitchen table. “What it be like, errybody?”

  “Well, hello there, big man,” his father answered.

  “And a glorious morning to you, my one and only,” his mother cooed.

  Wallis eyed his plate. “Damn, woman. You know I love me some birthday cake for breakfast.”

  His mother blushed, both hands curled against her cheeks.

  His father smiled. “So did you have fun last night?”

  Wallis stuffed a hunk of cake in his mouth and washed it down with a gulp of milk. “Oh, you knows it.”

  “Son, we are so, so proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Pop.”

  “And we’re very glad that you and your friends had so much fun.”

  Wallis’s mother chimed in, “That’s what it’s all about. Having fun. And did you know when your father and I were your age—”

  Brent loudly cleared his throat.

  “Oh jeezles, I’m sorry,” Mary said.

  Brent gave her a stern look.

  Mary smacked herself on the forehead, went to a cupboard above the dishwasher, took out a bottle of pink pills, downed a few, and returned to the table. “So what are you doing today at school?”

  Wallis licked chocolate icing off his plate. “I’ll prolly chill in artsy. Get my drawings on. But, before that, us older kids, we got the Be Nice lectures with ice-ass Mr. Beams.”

  “Well, let’s just hope you learn something, Mr. Seventeen.”

  “You know me, Moms. I’m ice.”

  “And don’t forget, I invited Janey and her mother to have dinner this weekend.”

  “I already got it locked and logged.”

  Brent remarked, “I gassed up the hog early this morning. You’re welcome.”

  Wallis pressed his wrist implant and caught the time. “Okay, folks, I’m gone.”

  “You do good today,” Mary said. “And if you find any haters out there; you stomp the crap out of them!”

  “Anyone gets out of line, anyone wants to clackity clack nonsense with you, you show them what’s what!” Brent followed up.

  Wallis slid on his rose-colored driving shades and viewed the sunny streets and peddie walks of Santa Monica, California. He gunned the throttle and pushed the hog up to 100; it was black, chrome, fast, and a bad-ass piece of machinery.

  Santa Monica was mostly a seaside town. It was a community of living pods, businesses, big shopping malls, and parking structures built around the Thirty-Third Street Promenade. The Promenade was the main thoroughfare: the main street that led to the Pacific Ocean. Beyond the Promenade was Water Town, but no one ever went to Water Town unless they were on a paddleboat tour. The only things in Water Town were dead office buildings and sea life.

  Wallis took the hog to 110 and rocketed down Arizona Avenue. Lots of people were out: swells of humanity dressed in the latest fashions crowded on the peddie walks. What an ice-ass sight, Wallis thought. Everyone out this morning, everyone together, happy, with no troubles and no worries. Black people, white people, brown people, yellow people, one or two red people, and the occasional misfit toy: little people, the handicapped, the mentally challenged, everyone had big smiles on their faces.

  Wallis regarded the cars and hogs that zipped in and out around him. The same rainbow of humanity was packed inside small electric cars and trucks or rode free on the backs of their hogs. Most people worked their newspads and let their steercomps drive for them, but Wallis pushed his hog to 125—he liked being in control, no auto driver needed, eff that.

  Wallis rode down the right side of the road, close to the curb, and watched the living pods breeze past. They were nestled together like colorful eggs in an Easter basket.

  It was okay to think about Easter, just to think about it.

  Wallis inspected the rose-tinted masses going to and fro wondered, So, who was who exactly? And what did all of these people do in their pods when Be Nice wasn’t watching or listening in? Were they haters? Were they criminals? Were some of them maybe religious freaks? Wallis remembered the one time he heard this golden oldie had stepped outside his pod during…what was it? Some religious, Jewbrew nonsense, Passover? The oldie had on one of those silly beanies; the dumb shit had forgotten to take it off. He was going to the store when two Be Nice Hollywood girls saw him. They beat the living shit out of him on the street corner, and even pissed in his face.

  Janey Typermass rushed out of the shower and almost tripped. She caught herself on the shower door, but painfully stubbed her baby toe.

  “Mother-I fucked you!” she barked.

  Wincing, she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She fluffed her Afro puffs, puckered her full lips, removed her towel, and examined her small but firm breasts.

  There was a knock at the door followed by a female voice, “You okay?”

  Janey yelled back, “I’m all good!”

  “I thought I heard you scream.”

  “I just stubbed my wee-wee-wee.”

  “Okay, c’mon, breakfast is ready.”

  “I want Fruity Fruits, toast, and milk.”

  “But I made you waffles and bacon.”

  Janey rolled her eyes. “Just dump it in the cold box, and I’ll have it for dinner!”

  Janey squeezed into her black Wrecker skin tights and her silver wife-beater and glanced at herself in the mirror across the bedroom. “Got-damn, yes,” she said. “You are def one foine-ass Afreak.”

  She took her selli off her work desk, snapped a picture of herself, and posted it on Jack, Bleep, and Pace. Eff Flit, that site was getting to be for little kids. She went over to her canopy bed and pressed the MKE button. A whirling of rotors and electric arms and the bed was made. She picked up her designer originals off the floor and threw them over a chair. She laughed when she picked up her Be Nice mask and war boots. The boots still had golden oldie Afreak blood on the laces from the java shop.

  Janey looked at the drawings on her walls. She loved her charcoal sketches of outer space: of all the planets, stars, suns, supernovae, and creepy black holes. Outer space was a seriously unforgiving place, and she liked that. There was no oxygen? Too bad. It was too cold? Eff you. It was what it was and it was all there was.

  She put her finger on a drawin
g of the Milky Way and smeared a fuzzy black line down the center.

  In the kitchen, her mother served breakfast. Fruity Fruit Fruits, a carton of milk, and a stack of toast were set at the side of a puppy bowl; the puppy’s name was Pooper. Janey poured a mound of cereal into the bowl and drowned it in milk. Her mother, Irene, took a seat at the table and picked at a large plate of waffles and bacon. Irene was in her mid-forties, full figured, and wearing the house moo-moo that she always wore. The big gold hoops she had in her ears pulled her earlobes down, stretching them out.

  “Are you packed yet?” she asked Janey.

  “The field trip’s not ‘til this Monday,” Janey said.

  “You and that Barber boy, you two gonna bed down together?”

  “No, Mom. He’s just my man, so I’m gonna bed with somebody else.”

  “Well, I heard you start the Be Nice lectures today. Is that right? And you got Mr. Beams?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Mr. B. Senior? Y’know, he taught me? And, good Lord, girl, did we all love that man.”

  Janey shot a look across the table.

  “Child, I’m in my own living pod. I can think and say whatever I—”

  “You need to go take your meds.”

  “I’ll take them before work.”

  “Woman, if I come back, and you’re still clackin’ on like some dumb-ass Christ-ee…”

  “Girl, this is my pod! I can do whatever I want in my pod!”

  Janey placed her right hand over her heart. “The black mask is the depths of outer space: all that matters. The yellow is the sun: the giver of all life. The red is the blood: the blood of the us, the all, the chosen few.”

  “Girl, you know, back in my day—”

  “What?”

  Irene rested her eyes on her waffles and bacon.

  Wallis’s hog blared a retro space funk tune from the driveway.