Surfing the Gnarl by Rudy Rucker Page A

prophet at 1801 Eye Street. I eye I … I’m out of money and I’d rather not have to … uh … leave my room. You send me money for … uh … food and I’ll give God your name. Dope’s rail, too.”
    Phil ran that on random numbers for two days with no success. Denny came down into deep hunger. Involuntary detox. If his dad had left much more money, Denny might have died, holed up in that room. Good old Dad. Denny trembled out into the street and got a job working counter in a Greek coffee shop called the KoDo. It was okay; there was plenty of food, and he didn’t have to watch Phil panhandling.
    As Denny’s strength and sanity came back, he remembered sex. But he didn’t know any girls. He took Phil off panhandling and put him onto propositioning numbers in the young working-girl neighborhoods.
    â€œHi, are you a woman? I’m Phil, sleek robot for a whippy young man who’s ready to get under. Make a guess and he’ll mess. Leave your number and state your need; he’s fuff-looking and into sleaze.”
    This message worked surprisingly well. The day after he started it up, Denny came home to find four enthusiastic responses stored on Phil’s chips. Two of the responses seemed to be from men, and one of the women’s voice sounded old …
really old.
The fourth response was from “Silke.”
    â€œHi, desperado, this is Silke. I like your machine. Call me.”
    Phil had Silke’s number stored, of course, so Denny called her right up. Feeling shy, he talked through Phil, using the machine as voder to make his voice sound weird. After all, Phil was the one who knew her.
    â€Hello?” Cute, eager, practical, strange.
    â€œSilke? This is Phil. Denny’s talking through me. You want to interface?”
    â€œLike where?”
    â€œMy room?”
    â€œIs it small? It sounds like your room is small. I like small rooms.”
    â€œYou got it. 1801 Eye Street, Denny’ll be in front of the building.”
    â€œWhat do you look like, Denny?”
    â€œTall, thin, teeth when I grin, which is lots. My hair’s peroxide blond on top. I’ll wear my X-shirt.”
    â€œMe too. See you in an hour.”
    Denny put on his X-shirt—a T-shirt with a big silk screen picture of his genitalia—and raced down to the KoDo to beg Spiros, the boss, for an advance on his wages.
    â€œPlease, Spiros, I got a date.”
    The shop was almost empty, and Spiros was sitting at the counter watching a pay-vid porno show on his pocket TV. He glanced over at Denny, all decked out in his X-shirt, and pulled two fifties out of his pocket.
    â€œLet me know how she come.”
    Denny spent one fifty on two Fiesta food-packs and some wine: the other fifty went for a capsule of snap-crystals from a street vendor. He was back in front of his rooming-house in plenty of time. Ten minutes, and there came Silke, with a great big pink crotch-shot printed onto her T-shirt. She looked giga good.
    For the first instant they stood looking at each other’s X-shirts, and then they shook hands.
    â€œI’m Denny Blevins. I got some food and wine and snap here, if you want to go up.” Denny was indeed talland thin, and toothy when he grinned. His mouth was very wide. His hair was long and dark in back, and short and blond on top. He wore red rhinestone earrings, his semierect X-shirt, tight black plastic pants, and fake leopard fur shoes. His arms were muscular and veiny, and he moved them a lot when he talked.
    â€œGo up and get under,” smiled Silke. She was medium height, and wore her straw-like black hair in a bouffant. She had fine, hard features. She’d appliqued pictures of monster eyes to her eyelids, and she wore white dayglo lipstick. Beneath her sopping wet X-shirt image, she wore a tight, silvered jumpsuit with cutouts. On her feet she had roller skates with lights in the wheels.
    â€œOxo,” said