Metrophage

Metrophage
Richard Kadrey

You may read these files, copy, distribute them, or print them out and make them into little hats. You may do anything you like with them as long as you do not change them in any way or receive money for them.
I've put METROPHAGE and HORSE LATITUDES into free distribution on the Net, but I retain all copyrights to the works.
If you have any problems or comments on the works or their distribution, you can email me at: [email protected]
And remember, if you charge anyone money for these files you are the nothing but ambulatory puke, and I hope a passing jet drops a 15 pound radar magnet on your hard drive.
Richard Kadrey
May 1995
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METROPHAGE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ONLINE EDITION
METROPHAGE was my first novel. It came out in the U.S. in 1988, and was gone faster than bearclaws at a cop convention. Since it was first published, METROPHAGE has been reprinted in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Hebrew. Surprisingly, we're still selling rights in various countries around the world.
The protagonist of METROPHAGE is Jonny Qabbala, a drug dealer in his early 20s. When I wrote the book, I denied hugely that it was in any way autobiographical. This was, of course, a stinking lie.
Aside from the fact I've never shot anyone or used cobra venom as a recreational drug, METROPHAGE is a distillation of everything I'd done, seen, read, heard or thought about up until the time I wrote it, and is as purely autobiographical as anything I'm ever likely to write. Which isn't to say you should read the book literally. Some of what happens in METROPHAGE is straight reportage, and while some of the events in the book happened to me, some of them happened to friends. The things you think are the obvious truths probably aren't. The most ridiculous and unbelievable things are quite possibly true.
Plus, the book is full of lies. It's a work of fiction. I made up a lot of it. Yet it remains the psychological story of my life up into my mid-twenties. This is not meant to dazzle anyone with my accomplishments. If you read the book, you'll quickly discover an unflattering truth: Jonny Qabbala is a jerk. He's not evil or stupid or even a bad guy, he's just young and clueless. Jonny finds it difficult to act decisively or take a stand, and when he does either, he's usually wrong. Even when I was writing the book, when I was closer to Jonny's age and temperament, I frequently wanted to crack his skull with the collected works of Iggy Pop (which is another bit of trivia: Iggy is in the book, but I won't tell you what character he plays; if you've ever seen Iggy perform, you'll know).
Time passes, though, and I no longer want to slap Jonny around. I'm not so far from Jonny that I can see him as my offspring, but I can easily imagine him as a kid brother. As such, I can forgive him a lot of his faults because as lame as he is, he's usually trying to do the right thing.
The ending of METROPHAGE is deliberately open. A lot of people have assumed that I intended to write a sequel. The truth is, I never even considered it. However, I can't help but feel a certain responsibility for Jonny, since I sort of left him in the middle of downtown Nowhere. In order to settle Jonny's fate in my own mind, I've written him into several stories and into one abandoned novel. In the end, I took him out of all of them (and it doesn't get much worse than ending up on the cutting room floor of a book that doesn't even exist). Still, he tries to weasel his way into each book I write, and I always try to find room for him. Sooner or later, he'll land in one of them. I just hope I don't find him behind the counter of some asteroid belt McDonald's asking, You want fries with that?"
Richard Kadrey San Francisco, May 1995
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METROPHAGE
by Richard Kadrey
Now I lay me down to sleep
I hear the sirens in the street
All my dreams are made of chrome
I have no way to get back home
--Tom Waits

ONE:
The Petrified City
A crip by the name of Easy Money ran the HoloWhores down at a place called Carnaby's Pit. At least he had been running them the last time Jonny Qabbala, drug dealer, ex-Committee for Public Health bounty hunter, and self-confessed loser, had paid him a visit. Jonny was hoping that Easy was still working the Pit. He had a present for him from a dead friend.
The ugly and untimely murder of Raquin, the chemist, had left an empty spot in the pit of Jonny's stomach. Not just because Raquin