Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Ray Bradbury - "The Sound of Thunder"

There is something about Ray Bradbury that defies reality; 
he challenges Time as a concept...and does things 
that somehow...become true in ways that we dream and see through movies--like Jurrasic Park. 
Suppose...you COULD find a dinosaur because 
you were a hunter, but it was hunting you too?
You might hear..."The Sound of Thunder."

And that's the Cause-and-Effect composition query: can just a butterfly make a global difference in time? (The answer is yes, by the way. Even by fluttering its wings, but more so by its very existence as a species.)
So this is the point: how much does "follow directions!" really matter in the Prehistoric World of C/E? Can the consequences be THAT real? Why can't the desire for destruction have a happy ending? Isn't it fair?
=======================
The sign on the wall seemed to quaver under a film of sliding warm water, Eckels felt his eyelids blink over his stare, and the sign burned in this momentary darkness:
TIME SAFARI, INC.
SAFARIS TO ANY YEAR IN THE PAST. YOU NAME THE ANIMAL.
WE TAKE YOU THERE. YOU SHOOT IT.

A warm phlegm gathered in Eckels' throat; he swallowed and pushed it down. The muscles around his mouth formed a smile as he put his hand slowly out upon the air, and in that hand waved a check for ten thousand dollars to the man behind the desk.
   "Does this safari guarantee I come back alive?"
      "We guarantee nothing," said the official, "except the dinosaurs." He turned. "This is Mr. Travis, your Safari Guide in the Past. He'll tell you what and where to shoot.  If he says no shooting, no shooting. If you disobey instructions, there's a stiff penalty of another ten thousand dollars, plus possible government action, on your return."
      Eckels glanced across the vast office at a mass and tangle, a snaking and humming of wires and steel boxes, at an aurora that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue. There was a sound like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time, all the years and all the parchment calendars, all the hours piled high and set aflame.
   
A touch of the hand and this burning would, on the instant,   beautifully reverse itself. Eckels remembered the wording in the advertisements to the letter. Out of chars and ashes, out of dust and coals, like golden salamanders, the old years, the green years, might leap; roses sweeten the air, white hair turn Irish-black, wrinkles vanish; all, everything fly back to seed, flee death, rush down to their beginnings, suns rise in western skies and set in glorious easts, moons eat themselves opposite to the custom, all and everything cupping one in another like Chinese boxes, rabbits in hats, all and everything returning to the fresh death, the seed death, the green death, to the time before the beginning.  A touch of a hand might do it, the merest touch of a hand.
      "Hell and damn," Eckels breathed, the light of the Machine on his thin face. "A real Time Machine." He shook his head. "Makes you think. If the election had gone badly yesterday, I might be here now running away from the results. Thank God Keith won. He'll make a fine President of the United States."
    
 "Yes," said the man behind the desk. "We’re lucky. If Deutscher had gotten in, we'd have the worst kind of dictatorship. There's an anti-everything man for you, a militarist, anti-Christ, anti-human, anti-intellectual. People called us up, you know, joking but not joking. Said if Deutscher became President they wanted to go live in 1492. Of course it's not our business to conduct Escapes, but to form Safaris. Anyway, Keith's President now. All you got to worry about is…"
     "Shooting my dinosaur," Eckels finished it for him.
"A Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Thunder Lizard, the damnedest monster in history. Sign this release. Anything happens to you, we're not responsible. Those dinosaurs are hungry." 
   
Eckels flushed angrily. "Trying to scare me!?"
      "Frankly, yes. We don't want anyone going who'll panic at the first shot. Six Safari leaders were killed last year, and a dozen hunters. We're here to give you the damnedest thrill a real hunter ever asked for. Traveling you back sixty million years to bag the biggest damned game in all Time.  Your personal check's still there. Tear it up."
    
Mr. Eckels looked at the check for a long time. His fingers twitched.
     "Good luck," said the man behind the desk. "Mr. Travis, he's all yours."
     They moved silently across the room, taking their guns with them, toward the Machine, toward the silver metal and the roaring light.
     First a day and then a night and then a day and then a night,   then it was  day-night-day-night-day.  A week, a month, a year, a decade! A.D. 2055. A.D. zoic). 1999! 1957! Gone! The Machine roared.
    
They put on their oxygen helmets and tested the intercoms. Eckels swayed on the padded seat, his face pale, his jaws stiff. He felt the trembling in his arms and he looked down and found his hands tight on the new rifle. There were four other men in the Machine. Travis, the Safari Leader, his assistant, Lesperance, and two other hunters, Billings and Kramer. They sat looking at each other, and the years blazed around them.
     "Can these guns get a dinosaur cold?" Eckels felt his mouth saying.
     "If you hit them right," said Travis on the helmet radio. "Some dinosaurs have two brains, one in the head, another far down the spinal column. We stay away from those. That's stretching luck. Put your first two shots into the eyes, if you can, blind them, and go back into the brain."
     The Machine howled. Time was a film run backward. Suns fled and ten million moons fled after them. "Good God," said Eckels. "Every hunter that ever lived would envy us today. This makes Africa seem like Illinois."
    
The Machine slowed; its scream fell to a murmur. The Machine stopped. The sun stopped in the sky.
     The fog that had enveloped the Machine blew away and they were in an old time, a very old time indeed, three hunters and two Safari Heads with their blue metal guns across their knees.
     "Christ isn't born yet," said Travis. "Moses has not gone to the mountain to talk with God. The Pyramids are still in the earth, waiting to be cut out and put up. Remember that, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, none of them exists." The men nodded.

     "That," Mr. Travis pointed, "is the jungle of sixty million two thousand and fifty-five years before President Keith." He indicated a metal path that struck off into green wilderness, over steaming swamp, among giant ferns and palms.
"And that," he said, "is the Path, laid by Time Safari for your use. It floats six inches above the earth. Doesn't touch so much as one grass blade, flower, or tree. It's an anti- gravity metal. Its purpose is to keep you from touching this world of the past in any way. Stay on the Path. Don't go off it. I repeat. Don't go off. For any reason! If you fall off, there's a penalty. And don't shoot any animal we don't okay."
     "Why?" asked Eckels.
They sat in the ancient wilderness. Far birds' cries blew on a wind, and the smell of tar and an old salt sea, moist grasses, and flowers the colour of blood.
    
“We don't want to change the Future. We don't belong here in the Past. The government doesn't like us here. We have to pay big graft to keep our franchise. A Time Machine is damn finicky business. Not knowing it, we might kill an important animal, a small bird, a roach, a flower even, thus destroying an important link in a growing species."
     "That's not clear," said Eckels.
"All right," Travis continued, "say we accidentally kill one mouse here. That means all the future families of this one particular mouse are destroyed, right?"
     "Right."
"And all the families of the families of that one mouse! With a stamp of your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a billion possible mice"
     "So they're dead," said Eckels. "So what?"

"So what?" Travis snorted quietly. "Well, what about the foxes that'll need those mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes, a lion starves. For want of a lion, all manner of insects, vultures, infinite billions of life forms are thrown into chaos and destruction. Eventually it all boils down to this: fifty-nine million years later, a cave man, one of a dozen on the entire world, goes hunting wild boar or saber-tooth tiger for food. But you, friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one single mouse. So the cave man starves. And the cave man, please note, is not just any expendable man, no. He is an entire future nation. From his loins would have sprung ten sons. From their loins one hundred sons, and thus onward to a civilization. Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of life. It is comparable to slaying some of Adam's grandchildren. The stomp of your foot, on one mouse, could start an earthquake, the effects of which could shake our earth and destinies down through Time, to their very foundations. With the death of that one cave man, a billion others yet unborn are throttled in the womb. Perhaps Rome never rises on its seven hills. Perhaps Europe is forever a dark forest, and only Asia waxes healthy and teeming. Step on a mouse and you crush the Pyramids. Step on a mouse and you leave your print, like a Grand Canyon, across Eternity. Queen Elizabeth might never be born, Washington might not cross the Delaware, there might never be a United States at all. So be careful. Stay on the Path, Never step off!"
    
 "I see," said Eckels. "Then it wouldn't pay for us even to touch the grass?"
     "Correct. Crushing certain plants could add up infinitesimally. A little error here would multiply in sixty million years, all out of proportion. Of course maybe our theory is wrong.   Maybe Time can't be changed by us. Or maybe it can be changed only in little subtle ways. A dead mouse here makes an insect imbalance there, a population disproportion later, a bad harvest further on, a depression, mass starvation, and, finally, a change in social temperament in far-flung countries. Something much more subtle, like that. Perhaps only a soft breath, a whisper, a hair, pollen on the air, such a slight, slight change that unless you looked close you wouldn't see it. Who knows? Who really can say he knows? We don't know. We're guessing. But until we do know for certain whether our messing around in Time can make a big roar or a little rustle in history, we're being damned careful. This Machine, this Path, your clothing and bodies, were sterilized, as you know, before the journey. We wear these oxygen helmets so we can't introduce our bacteria into an ancient atmosphere."
     "How do we know which animals to shoot?"
"They're marked with red paint," said Travis. "Today, before our journey, we sent Lesperance here back with the Machine. He came to this particular era and followed certain animals."
     "Studying them?"
"Right," said Lesperance. "I track them through their entire existence, noting which of them lives longest. Very few. How many times they mate. Not often. Life's short. When I find one that's going to die when a tree falls on him, or one that drowns in a tar pit, I note the exact hour, minute, and second. I shoot a paint bomb. It leaves a red patch on his hide. We can't miss it. Then I correlate our arrival in the Past so that we meet -the Monster not more than two minutes before he would have died anyway. This way, we kill only animals with no future, that are never going to mate again. You see how careful we are?"

"But if you came back this morning in Time," said Eckels eagerly, "you must've bumped into us, our Safari. How did it turn out? Was it successful? Did all of us get through--alive?"
Travis and Lesperance gave each other a look.
     "That'd be a paradox," said the latter. "Time doesn't permit that sort of mess a man meeting himself. When such occasions threaten, Time steps aside. Like an airplane hitting an air pocket. You felt the Machine jump just before we stopped? That was us passing ourselves on the way back to the Future. We saw nothing. There's no way of telling if this expedition was a success, if we got our monster, or whether all of us meaning you, Mr. Eckels, got out alive."
     Eckels smiled palely.
"Cut that," said Travis sharply. "Everyone on his feet!" They were ready to leave the Machine.

The jungle was high and the jungle was broad and the jungle was the entire world forever and forever. Sounds like music and sounds like flying tents filled the sky, and those were pterodactyls soaring with cavernous grey wings, gigantic bats out of a delirium and a night fever. Eckels, balanced on the narrow Path, aimed his rifle playfully. "Stop that!" said Travis. "Don't even aim for fun, damn it! If your gun should go off…"

Eckels flushed. "Where's our Tyrannosaurus?"
Lesperance checked his wrist watch. "Up ahead. We’ll bisect his trail in sixty seconds. Look for the red paint, for Christ's sake. Don't shoot till we give the word. Stay on the Path. Stay on the path!”
     They moved forward in the wind of morning.

"Strange," murmured Eckels. "Up ahead, sixty million years, Election Day over. Keith made President. Everyone celebrating. And here we are, a million years lost, and they don't exist. The things we worried about for months, a life-time, not even born or thought about yet."
     "Safety catches off, everyone!" ordered Travis. "You, first shot, Eckels. Second, Billings. Third, Kramer."
     "I've hunted tiger, wild boar, buffalo, elephant, but Jesus, this is it," said Eckels. "I'm shaking like a kid."
     "Ah," said Travis. Everyone stopped.
Travis raised his hand. "Ahead," he whispered. "In the mist. There he is. There's His Royal Majesty now."
     The jungle was wide and full of twitterings, rustlings, murmurs, and sighs. Suddenly it all ceased, as if someone had shut a door. Silence.
     A sound of thunder.

Out of the mist, one hundred yards away, came Tyrannosaurus Rex.
     "Jesus God," whispered Eckels. "Shit!"
It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs. It lowered thirty feet above half of the trees, a great evil god, folding its delicate watchmaker's claws close to its oily reptilian chest. Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of muscle, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior, Each thigh was a ton of meat, ivory, and steel mesh. And from the great breathing cage of the upper body those two delicate arms dangled out front, arms with hands which might pick up and examine men like toys, while the snake neck coiled. And the head itself, a ton of sculptured stone, lifted easily upon the sky. Its mouth gaped, exposing a fence of teeth like daggers. Its eyes rolled, ostrich eggs, empty of all expression save hunger. It closed its mouth in a death grin. It ran, its pelvic bones crushing aside trees and bushes, its taloned feet clawing damp earth, leaving prints six inches deep wherever it settled its weight. It ran with a gliding ballet step, far too poised and balanced for its ten tons. It moved into a sunlit arena warily, its beautiful reptile hands feeling the air.
     "My God!" Eckels twitched his mouth. "It could reach up and grab the moon."
"Shit." Travis jerked angrily. "He hasn't seen us yet."
     "It   can't   be   killed." Eckels   pronounced   this   verdict quietly, as if there could be no argument. He had weighed the evidence and this was his considered opinion. The rifle in his hands seemed a cap gun. "We were fools to come. This is impossible."
     "Shut up!" hissed Travis.
     "Nightmare."
"Turn around," commanded Travis. "Walk quietly to the Machine. We'll remit one-half your fee."
     "I didn't realize it would be this big," said Eckels. 
"I miscalculated, that's all. And now I want out."
    "It sees us!"
"There's the red paint on its chest!"

The Thunder Lizard raised itself. Its armoured flesh glittered like a thousand green coins. The coins, crusted with slime, steamed. In the slime, tiny insects wriggled, so that the entire body seemed to twitch and undulate, even while the monster itself did not move. It exhaled. The stink of raw flesh blew down the wilderness.
     "Get me out of here," said Eckels. "It was never like this before, I was always sure I'd come through alive, I had good guides, good safaris, and safety. This time, I figured wrong. I've met my match and admit it. This is too much for me to get hold of."
     "Don't run," said Lesperance. "Turn around. Hide in the Machine."
     "Yes." Eckels seemed to be numb. He looked at his feet as if trying to make them move. He gave a grunt of helplessness.
 "Eckels!" He took a few steps, blinking, shuffling.
    "Not that way!"

The Monster, at the first motion, lunged forward with a terrible scream. It covered one hundred yards in four seconds. The rifles jerked up and blazed fire. A windstorm from the beast's mouth engulfed them in the stench of slime and old blood. The Monster roared, teeth glittering with sun.
     Eckels, not looking back, walked blindly to the edge of the Path, his gun limp in his arms, stepped off the Path, and walked, not knowing it, in the jungle. His feet sank into green moss. His legs moved him, and he felt alone and remote from the events behind.
     The rifles cracked again. Their sound was lost in shriek and lizard thunder. The great lever of the reptile's tail swung up, lashed sideways. Trees exploded in clouds of leaf and branch. The Monster twitched its jeweller's hands down to fondle at the men, to twist them in half, to crush them like berries, to cram them into its teeth and its screaming throat. Its boulder-stone eyes leveled with the men.
     They saw themselves mirrored. They fired at the metallic eyelids and the blazing black iris.

     Like a stone idol, like a mountain avalanche, Tyrannosaurs fell. Thundering, it clutched trees, pulled them with it.   It   wrenched   and   tore   the   metal   Path,   The   men   flung themselves back and away. The body hit, ten tons of cold flesh and stone. The guns fired. The Monster lashed its armoured tail, twitched its snake jaws, and lay still. A fount of blood spurted from its throat. Somewhere inside, a sac of fluids burst. Sickening gushes drenched the hunters. They stood, red and glistening.
     The thunder faded.
The jungle was silent. After the avalanche, a green peace. After the nightmare, morning.

     Billings and Kramer sat on the pathway and threw up. Travis and Lesperance stood with smoking rifles, cursing steadily.
     In the Time Machine, on his face, Eckels lay shivering. He had found his way back to the Path, climbed into the Machine.
Travis came walking, glanced at Eckels, took cotton gauze from a metal box, and returned to the others, who were sitting on the Path.
     "Clean up."
They wiped the blood from their helmets. They began to curse too. The Monster lay, a hill of solid flesh. Within, you could hear the sighs and murmurs as the furthest chambers of it died, the organs malfunctioning, liquids running a final instant from pocket to sac to spleen, everything shutting off, closing up forever. It was like standing by a wrecked locomotive or a steam shovel at quitting time, all valves being released or levered tight. Bones cracked; the tonnage of its own flesh, off balance, dead weight, snapped the delicate forearms, caught underneath. The meat settled, quivering.
     Another cracking sound. Overhead, a gigantic tree branch broke from its heavy mooring, fell. It crashed upon the dead beast with finality.
"There." Lesperance checked his watch. "Right on time. That's the giant tree that was scheduled to fall and kill this animal originally." He glanced at the two hunters. "You want the trophy picture?"
     "What?"
"We can't take a trophy back to the Future. The body has to stay right here where it would have died originally, so the insects, birds, and bacteria can get at it, as they were intended to. Everything in balance. The body stays. But we can take a picture of you standing near it."
     The two men tried to think, but gave up, shaking their heads.

     They let themselves be led along the metal Path. They sank wearily into the Machine cushions. They gazed back at the ruined Monster, the stagnating mound, where already strange reptilian birds and golden insects were busy at the steaming armour.
     A sound on the floor of the Time Machine stiffened them. Eckels sat there, shivering. "I'm sorry," he said at last.
     "Get up!" cried Travis.
Eckels got up.
     "Go out on that Path alone," said Travis. He had his rifle pointed. "You're not coming back in the Machine. We're leaving you here!"
     Lesperance seized Travis' arm. "Wait"
"Stay out of this!" Travis shook his hand away. "This son of a bitch nearly killed us. But it isn't that so much. Hell, no. It's his shoes Look at them! He ran off the Path. My God, that ruins us--Christ knows how much we'll forfeit. Tens of thousands of dollars of insurance We guarantee no one leaves the Path. He left it. Oh, the damn fool! I'll have to report to the government. They might revoke our license to travel. God knows what he's done to Time, to History!" "Take it easy, all he did was kick up some dirt."
     "How do we know?" cried Travis. "We don't know anything! It's all a damn mystery! Get out there, Eckels!"
     Eckels fumbled his shirt. "Ill pay anything. A hundred thousand dollars!"
     Travis glared at Eckels' chequebook and spat. "Go out there. The Monster's next to the Path. Stick your arms up to your elbows in his mouth. Then you can come back with us."
      "That's unreasonable!"
"The Monster’s dead, you yellow bastard. The bullets! The bullets can't be left behind. They don't belong in the Past; they might change something. Here's my knife. Dig them out!"

     The jungle was alive again, full of the old tremorings and bird cries. Eckels turned slowly to regard that primeval garbage dump, that hill of nightmares and terror. After a long time, like a sleepwalker, he shuffled out along the Path. He returned, shuddering, five minutes later, his arms soaked and red to the elbows. He held out his hands. Each held a number of steel bullets. Then he fell. He lay where he fell, not moving.
      "You didn't have to make him do that," said Lesperance.
     "Didn't I? It's too early to tell." Travis nudged the still body. "He'll live. Next time he won't go hunting game like this. Okay." He jerked his thumb wearily at Lesperance. "Switch on. Let's go home."
1492. 1776. 1812.
They cleaned their hands and faces. They changed their caking shirts and pants. Eckels was up and around again, not speaking. Travis glared at him for a full ten minutes.
     "Don't look at me," cried Eckels. "I haven't done anything." "Who can tell?"
 "Just ran off the Path, that's all, a little mud on my shoes what do you want me to get down and pray?"
"We might need it. I'm warning you, Eckels, I might kill you yet. I've got my gun ready."
     "I'm innocent. I've done nothing!" 
1999. 2000. 2055.
    
The Machine stopped. "Get out," said Travis.
The room was there as they had left it. But not the same as they had left it. The same man sat behind the same desk. But the same man did not quite sit behind the same desk. Travis looked around swiftly. "Everything okay here?" he snapped.
    "Fine. Welcome home!"
Travis did not relax. He seemed to be looking at the very atoms of the air itself, at the way the sun poured through the one high window.
     "Okay, Eckels, get out. Don't ever come back." Eckels could not move.
"You heard me," said Travis. "What're you staring at?" Eckels stood smelling of the air, and there was a thing to the air, a chemical taint so subtle, so slight, that only a faint cry of his subliminal senses warned him it was there. Thecolours, white, grey, blue, orange, in the wall, in the furniture, in the sky beyond the window, were...were....

     And there was a feel. His flesh twitched. His hands twitched. He stood drinking the oddness with the pores of his body. Somewhere, someone must have been screaming one of those whistles that only a dog can hear. His body screamed silence in return. Beyond this room, beyond this wall, beyond this man who was not quite the same man seated at this desk that was not quite the same desk...lay an entire world of streets and people. What sort of world it was now, there was no telling. He could feel them moving there, beyond the walls, almost, like so many chess pieces blown in a dry wind....

But the immediate thing was the sign painted on the office wall, the same sign he had read earlier today on first entering. Somehow, the sign had changed:
TYME SEFARI INC.
SEFARIS TU ANY YEEH EN THE PAST. YU NAIM THE ANIMALL.
WEE TAEK YOU THAIR. YU SHOOT ITT.

Eckels felt himself tall into a chair. He fumbled crazily at the thick slime on his boots. He held up a clod of dirt, trembling. "No, it can't be. Not a little thing like that. No!" Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful, and very dead. "Not a little thing like that! Not a butterfly!" cried Eckels.
     It fell to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small thing that could upset balances and knock down a line of small dominoes and then big dominoes and then gigantic dominoes, all down the years across Time.  Eckels' mind whirled.   It couldn't change things. Killing one butterfly couldn't be that important! Could it?
     His face was cold. His mouth trembled, asking: "Who won the presidential election yesterday?"

The man behind the desk laughed. "You joking? You know damn well. Deutscher, of course! Who else? Not that damn weakling Keith. We got an iron man now, a man with guts, by God!" The official stopped. "What's wrong?"

     Eckels moaned. He dropped to his knees. He scrabbled at the golden butterfly with shaking fingers. "Can't we," he pleaded to the world, to himself, to the officials, to the Machine, "can't we take it back, can't we make it alive again? Can't we start over? Can't we?"

     He did not move. Eyes shut, he waited, shivering. He heard Travis breathe loud in the room; he heard Travis shift his rifle, click the safety catch, and raise the weapon. There was a sound of thunder.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Mr. Lupescu is here from the Milky Way

A lot of things exist in the galaxy that we don't even know about--and sometimes, when people deliberately mislead and hurt others, those things have a way of finding their way back to Earth to settle issues with their own sort of "payment." And presto! once again, we are back in the Land of Cause and Effect--and our Personal Motivations can and will make all the difference for the choices we make--and the results we receive. All is fair in love--and all in love is fair, even when jealousy and desire are temptations not to pursue. 

Alan, also known as "Mr. Lupescu," didn't care about anything but quenching his temptations. Nor did he think an imaginary being named Gorgo was real and it would come to get him from far away--but that's what happens when someone tries to hurt a little boy with lies--and murder.

Mr. Lupescu
by Anthony Boucher

The teacups rattled, and flames flickered over the logs.
“Alan, I do wish you could do something about Bobby.”
    “Isn’t that rather Robert’s place?”
“Oh you know Robert. He’s so busy doing good in nice abstract ways with committees in them.”
      “And headlines.”
“He can’t be bothered with things like Mr. Lupescu. After all, Bobby’s only his son.”
      “And yours, Marjorie.”
“And mine. But things like this take a man, Alan.”
 

The room was warm and peaceful; Alan stretched his long legs by the fire and felt domestic. Marjorie was soothing even when she fretted. The firelight did things to her hair and the curve of her blouse.
     A small whirlwind entered at high velocity and stopped only when Marjorie said, “Bob-by! Say hello nicely to Uncle Alan.”

Bobby said hello and stood tentatively on one foot.
“Alan…” Marjorie prompted.
Alan sat up straight and tried to look paternal. “Well, Bobby,” he said.
      “And where are you off to in such a hurry?”
“See Mr. Lupescu ‘f course. He usually comes afternoons.”
      “Your mother’s been telling me about Mr. Lupescu. He must be quite a person.”
“Oh gee I’ll say he is, Uncle Alan. He’s got a great big red nose and red gloves and red eyes—not like when you’ve been crying but really red like yours’re brown—and little red wings that twitch only he can’t fly with them cause they’re ruddermentary he says. And he talks like—oh gee I can’t do it, but he’s swell, he is.”


     “Lupescu’s a funny name for a fairy godfather, isn’t it, Bobby?”
“Why? Mr. Lupescu always says why do all the fairies have to be Irish because it takes all kinds, doesn’t it?”
      

       “Alan!” Marjorie said. “I don’t see that you’re doing a bit of good. You talk to him seriously like that and you simply make him think it is serious.  And you do know better, don’t you, Bobby? You’re just joking with us.”
“Joking? About Mr. Lupescu?”
       “Marjorie, you don’t—Listen, Bobby. Your mother didn’t mean to insult you or Mr. Lupescu. She just doesn’t believe in what she’s never seen, and you can’t blame her. Now, supposing you took her and me out in the garden and we could all see Mr. Lupescu. Wouldn’t that be fun?”


     “Uh-uh.” Bobby shook his head gravely. “Not for Mr. Lupescu. He doesn’t like people. Only little boys. And he says if I ever bring people to see him, then he’ll let Gorgo get me. G’bye now.” And the whirlwind departed.
   

Marjorie sighed. “At least thank heavens for Gorgo. I never can get a very clear picture out of Bobby, but he says Mr. Lupescu tells the most terrible things about him. And if there’s any trouble about vegetables or brushing teeth, all I have to say is Gorgo and hey presto!”

Alan rose. “I don’t think you need worry, Marjorie. Mr. Lupescu seems to do more good than harm, and an active imagination is no curse to a child.”
      “You haven’t lived with Mr. Lupescu.”
“To live in a house like this, I’d chance it,” Alan laughed. “But please forgive me now—back to the cottage and the typewriter… Seriously, why don’t you ask Robert to talk with him?”

     Marjorie spread her hands helplessly.
“I know. I’m always the one to assume responsibilities. And yet you married Robert.”


Marjorie laughed. “I don’t know. Somehow there’s something about Robert…” Her vague gesture happened to include the original Degas over the fireplace, the sterling tea service, and even the liveried footman who came in at that moment to clear away.
 

Mr. Lupescu was pretty wonderful that afternoon, all right. He had a little kind of an itch like in his wings and they kept twitching all the time.  Stardust, he said. It tickles. Got it up in the Milky Way. Friend of mine has a wagon route up there.

Mr. Lupescu had lots of friends, and they all did something you wouldn’t ever think of, not in a squillion years. That’s why he didn’t like people, because people don’t do things you can tell stories about. They just work or keep house or are mothers or something.
 

But one of Mr. Lupescu’s friends, now, was captain of a ship, only it went in time, and Mr. Lupescu took trips with him and came back and told you all about what was happening this very minute five hundred years ago.  And another of the friends was a radio engineer, only he could tune in on all the kingdoms of faery and Mr. Lupescu would squiggle up his red nose and twist it like a dial and make noises like all the kingdoms of faery coming in on the set. 

And then there was Gorgo, only he wasn’t a friend—not exactly; not even to Mr. Lupescu.


They’d been playing for a couple of weeks—only it must’ve been really hours, cause Mamselle hadn’t yelled about supper yet, but Mr. Lupescu says Time is funny—when Mr. Lupescu screwed up his red eyes and said, “Bobby, let’s go in the house.”


     “But there’s people in the house, and you don’t-”
“I know I don’t like people. That’s why we’re going in the house. Come on, Bobby, or I’ll-”


So what could you do when you didn’t even want to hear him say Gorgo’s name?  He went into Father’s study through the French window, and it was a strict rule that nobody ever went into Father’s study, but rules weren’t for Mr. Lupescu.


Father was on the telephone telling somebody he’d try to be at a luncheon but there was a committee meeting that same morning but he’d see. While he was talking, Mr. Lupescu went over to a table and opened a drawer and took something out.  When Father hung up, he saw Bobby first and started to be very mad. He said, “Young man, you’ve been trouble enough to your Mother and me with all your stories about your red-winged Mr. Lupescu, and now if you’re to start bursting in-”


You have to be polite and introduce people. “Father, this is Mr. Lupescu. And see, he does too have red wings.”  Mr. Lupescu held out the gun he’d taken from the drawer and shot Father once right through the forehead. It made a little clean hole in front and a big messy hole in back. Father fell down and was dead.   


“Now, Bobby,” Mr. Lupescu said, “a lot of people are going to come here and ask you a lot of questions. And if you don’t tell the truth about exactly what happened, I’ll send Gorgo to fetch you.”


Then Mr. Lupescu was gone through the French window.



* * * *

“It’s a curious case, Lieutenant,” the medical examiner said. “It’s fortunate I’ve dabbled a bit in psychiatry; I can at least give you a lead until you get the experts in. The child’s statement that his fairy godfather shot his father is obviously a simple flight mechanism, susceptible of two interpretations:
     (A), the father shot himself; the child was so horrified by the sight that he refused to accept it and invented this explanation. (B), the child shot the father, let us say by accident, and shifted the blame to his imaginary scapegoat. (B) has, of course, its more sinister implications: if the child had resented his father and created an ideal substitute, he might make the substitute destroy the reality… But there’s the solution to your eyewitness testimony; which alternative is true, Lieutenant, I leave up to your researches into motive and the evidence of ballistics and fingerprints. The angle of the wound jibes with either.”



* * * *

The man with the red nose and eyes and gloves and wings walked down the back lane to the cottage. As soon as he got inside, he took off his coat and removed the wings and the mechanism of strings and rubber that made them twitch. He laid them on top of the ready pile of kindling and lit the fire.

When it was well started, he added the gloves. Then he took off the nose, kneaded the putty until the red of its outside vanished into the neutral brown of the mass, jammed it into a crack in the wall, and smoothed it over. Then he took the red-irised contact lenses out of his brown eyes and went into the kitchen, found a hammer, pounded them to powder, and washed the powder down the sink.


Alan started to pour himself a drink and found, to his pleased surprise, that he didn’t especially need one. But he did feel tired. He could lie down and recapitulate it all, from the invention of Mr. Lupescu (and Gorgo and the man with the Milky Way route) to today’s success and on into the future when Marjorie—pliant, trusting Marjorie—would be more desirable than ever as Robert’s widow and heir. And Bobby would need a man to look after him. 


Alan went into the bedroom. Several years passed by in the few seconds it took him to recognize what was waiting on the bed, but then, Time is funny.


Alan said nothing.
“Mr. Lupescu, I presume?” said Gorgo.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

The Handler - The Flawed Perfect Man

Ah. Eye candy. Of COURSE we love people for their looks, their personality, and their charm. So what's wrong with desire, sex appeal, and charisma? Nothing--except that it can show us the shallowness of our own souls--and no one likes to look in his or her own mirror and see what no one else does about our character. How do our friends, the Personal Motivators, reflect the standards of the people in this story, and what does it say about the REAL faces that they hide from others?

He's bigger than most men: stands at least head and shoulders above the others, and he has the size too. Women love him--and he's loaded with charm. And he's so perfect that he can't be real.
He's not: he has a Handler.

THE HANDLER
by Damon Knight

When the big man came in, there was a movement in the room like a lot of bird dogs pointing. Piano player quits pounding, the two singing drunks shut up, all the beautiful people with cocktails in their hands stop talking and laughing.

"Pete!" the nearest women shrilled, and he walked straight into the room, arms around two girls, hugging them tight. "How's my sweetheart? Susy, you look good enough to eat, but I had it for lunch. George, you pirate"--he let go both girls, grabbed a bald blushing little man and thumped him on the arm- "you were great, sweetheart, I mean it, really great. Now HEAR THIS!" he shouted, over all the voices that were clamoring Pete this, Pete that.

Somebody put a martini in his hand and he stood holding it, bronzed and tall in his dinner jacket, teeth gleaming white as his shirt cuffs. "We had a show!" he told them.

A shriek of agreement went up, a babble of did we have a show my God Pete listen a show!

He held up his hand. "It was a good show!"
Another shriek and babble.

"The sponsor kinda liked it--he just signed for another one in the fall!"

A shriek, a roar, people clapping, jumping up and down. The big man tried to say something else, but gave up, grinning, while men and woman crowded up to him. They were all trying to shake his hand, talk in his ear, put their arms around him.

"I love ya all!" he shouted. "Now what do you say, let's live a little!"

The murmuring started again as people sorted themselves out. There was a clinking from the bar. "Jesus, Pete," a skinny pop-eyed little guy was saying, crouching in adoration, "when you dropped that fishbowl I thought I'd pee myself, honest to God."

The big man let out a bark of happy laughter. "Yeah, I can still see the look on your face. And the fish, flopping all over the stage. So what can I do, I get down there on my knees-" The big man did so, bending over and staring at imaginary fish on the floor. "And I say, 'Well, fellows, back to the drawing board!' "

Screams of laughter as the big man stood up. The party was arranging itself around him in arcs of concentric circles, with people in the back standing on sofas and the piano bench so they could see.  Somebody yelled, "Sing the goldfish song, Pete!"

Shouts of approval, please-do-Pete, the goldfish song.

"Okay, okay." Grinning, the big man sat on the arm of a chair and raised his glass. "And a vun, and a doo - vere's de moosic?" A scuffle at the piano bench. Somebody banged out a few chords. The big man made a comic face and sang, "Ohhh . . . how I wish ... I was a little fish . . . and when I want some quail ... I'd flap my little tail."

Laughter, the girls laughing louder than anybody and their red mouths farther open. One flushed blonde had her hand on the big man's knee, and another was sitting close behind him.
  
    "But seriously-" the big man shouted. More laughter.

"No, seriously," he said, in a vibrant voice as the room quieted, "I want to tell you in all seriousness I couldn't have done it alone. And incidentally I see we have some foreigners, litvaks and other members of the press here tonight, so I want to introduce all the important people. First of all, George here, the three-fingered band leader--and there isn't a guy in the world could have done what he did this afternoon--George, I love ya." He hugged the blushing little bald man.

"Next my real sweetheart, Ruthie, where are ya. Honey, you were the greatest, really perfect--I mean it, baby--." He kissed a dark girl in a red dress who cried a little and hid her face on his broad shoulder. "And Frank." He reached down and grabbed the skinny pop-eyed guy by the sleeve. "What can I tell you? A sweetheart?" The skinny guy was blinking, all choked up; the big man thumped him on the back. "Sol and Ernie and Mack, my writers, Shakespeare should have been so lucky." One by one, they came up to shake the big man's hand as he called their names; the women kissed him and cried. "My stand-in," the big man was calling out, and "my caddy," and "now," he said, as the room quieted a little, people flushed and sore-throated with enthusiasm, "I want you to meet my handler."

The room fell silent. The big man looked thoughtful and startled, as if he had had a sudden pain. Then he stopped moving. He sat without breathing or blinking his eyes. After a moment there was a jerky motion behind him. The girl who was sitting on the arm of the chair got up and moved away. The big man's dinner jacket split open in the back, and a little man climbed out. He had a perspiring brown face under a shock of black hair. He was a very small man, almost a dwarf, stoop-shouldered and round-backed in a sweaty brown singlet and shorts. He climbed out of the cavity in the big man's body, and closed the dinner jacket carefully. The big man sat motionless and his face was doughy.

The little man got down, wetting his lips nervously. Hello, Fred, a few people said. "Hello," Fred called, waving his hand. He was about forty, with a big nose and big soft brown eyes. His voice was cracked and uncertain. "Well, we sure put on a show, didn't we?"

Sure did, Fred, they said politely. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. "Hot in there," he explained, with an apologetic grin. Yes, I guess it must be Fred, they said. People around the outskirts of the crowd were beginning to turn away, form conversational groups; the hum of talk rose higher. "Say, Tim, I wonder if I could have something to drink," the little man said. "I don't like to leave him--you know--" He gestured toward the silent big man.

"Sure, Fred, what'll it be?"

   "Oh--you know--a glass of beer?"

Tim brought him a beer in a pilsener glass and he drank it thirstily, his brown eyes darting nervously from side to side. A lot of people were sitting down now; one or two were at the door leaving.

"Well," the little man said to a passing girl, "Ruthie, that was quite a moment there, when the fishbowl busted, wasn't it?"

"Huh? Excuse me, honey. I didn't hear you." She bent nearer.

    "Oh well, it don't matter. Nothing."

She patted him on the shoulder once, and took her hand away. "Well, excuse me, sweetie, I have to catch Robbins before he leaves." She went on toward the door.

The little man put his beer glass down and sat, twisting his knobby hands together. The bald man and the pop-eyed man were the only ones still sitting near him. An anxious smile flickered on his lips; he glanced at one face, then another. "Well," he began, "that's one show under our belts, huh, fellows, but I guess we got to start, you know, thinking about... "

"Listen, Fred," said the bald man seriously, leaning forward to touch him on the wrist, "why don't you get back inside?"

The little man looked at him for a moment with sad hound-dog eyes, then ducked his head, embarrassed. He stood up uncertainly, swallowed and said, "Well--"

He climbed up on the chair behind the big man, opened the back of the dinner jacket and put his legs in one at a time. A few people were watching him, unsmiling. "Thought I'd take it easy a while," he said weakly, "but I guess--" He reached in and gripped something with both hands, then swung himself inside. His brown, uncertain face disappeared.

The big man blinked suddenly and stood up. "Well, hey there," he called, "what's a matter with this party anyway? Let's see some life, some action--" Faces were lighting up around him. People began to move in closer. "What I mean, let me hear that beat!"

The big man began clapping his hands rhythmically. The piano took it up. Other people began to clap. "What I mean, are we alive here or just waiting for the wagon to pick us up? How's that again, can't hear you!" A roar of pleasure as he cupped his hand to his ear. "Well, come on, let me hear it!" A louder roar.  Pete, Pete; a gabble of voices. "I got nothing against Fred," said the bald man earnestly in the middle of the noise. "I mean for a square he's a nice guy." "Know what you mean," said the pop-eyed man, "I mean like he doesn't mean it."
 
"Sure," said the bald man, "but, Jesus, that sweaty undershirt and all ..." Then they both burst out laughing as the big man made a comic face, tongue lolling, eyes crossed. Pete, Pete, Pete; the room was really jumping; it was a great party, and everything was all right far into the night.

The END.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

The Pi Man - A science fiction shocker

Let me first apologize if the following story alarms or upsets you; that's not my initial intention.  However, that's exactly why it's here--in a way--because this is the short story of a man whose life revolves around not being..."comfortable."  You might say he feels a bit unbalanced, but he really is quite extraordinary.  He's sort of a...human gyroscope.

So, in the realm of Cause and Effect choices...this is a different story--because our protagonist (the lead character) really has...no choices at all--at least, none that he can control. Alas, poor man. And the effects of his bizarre and bewildering (even to himself) decisions are quite strange. What WOULD you say about his Personal Motivations and how they play and jerk the marionette strings of his life? Are they fair? Are they reasonable, especially when your life is one long vast...sequence of non-repeating cause-and-effect patterns that never ends? 
I came across this story in a remarkable book called Star Light, Star Bright by Alfred Bester.  He was an exceptional Hugo Award winner (for best science fiction short story) for many years--and this one really caught my attention.  In particular, when I saw the performance by Russell Crowe in the movie A Brilliant Mind, it instantly reminded me of this story.

In fact, when I saw the movie, I was very upset:  I knew what John Nash, the man whose life was being told, was about: I know what that feels like to be sensitive to patterns!  And I knew this partially from reading this story and relating to it!!

Again, let me caution anyone who has a delicate sense of being made uncomfortable by the way that reading can play tricks on the imagination:  this story may prove to be a bit unnerving.
Shall I say therefore that the language may not be polite?
And I apologize also for some of the swearing within, but I didn't write this.

THE PI MAN by Alfred Bester

How to say? How to write? When sometimes I can be fluent,
even polished, and then, reculer pour mieux sauter, patterns take hold of me.

Push. 
Compel.

Sometimes


I                              I                                 I
              am                                           am                                             am
3.14159 +
from           from           from
        this                         or                                 that
 space                                space                                space
Other times not

I have no control, but I try anyway.
I wake up wondering who, what, when, where, why?
Confusion result of biological compensator born into my
body which I hate. Yes, birds and beasts have biological clock built in, and so navigate home from a thousand miles away. I have biological compensator, equalizer, responder to unknown stresses and strains.   I relate, compensate, make and shape patterns, adjust rhythms, like a gridiron pendulum in a clock, but this is an unknown clock, and I do not know what time it keeps.  Nevertheless I must. I am force. Have no control over self, speech, love, fate. Only to compensate.

Quae nocent docent. Translation follows: Things that injure
teach. I am injured and have hurt many. What have we learned?
However. I wake up the morning of the biggest hurt of all
wondering which house. Wealth, you understand. Damme! Mews cottage in London, villa in Rome, penthouse in New York, rancho in California. I awake. I look. Ah! Layout familiar. Thus:

Foyer

        Bedroom


        Bath

T

        Bath

E

        Living Room

R

        Kitchen



R                                        E                        

                                                 
       Dressing Room   

A     Bedroom                  C
  
So. I am in penthouse in New York, but that
bath-bath-back-to-back. Pfui! All rhythm wrong. Pattern painful.
Why have I never noticed before? Or is this sudden awareness
result of phenomenon elsewhere? I telephone to janitor-mans
downstairs. At that moment I lose my American-English. Damn
nuisance. I’m compelled to speak a compost of tongues, and I
never know which will be forced on me next.

Pronto. Ecco mi. Signore Marko. Miscusi tanto—”
Pfui! Hang up. Hate the garbage I must sometimes speak and
write. This I now write during period of AmerEng lucidity,
otherwise would look like goulash. While I wait for return of
communication, I shower body, teeth, hairs, shave face, dry
everything, and try again. Voilà! Ye Englishe, she come. Back to
invention of Mr. A.G. Bell and call janitor again.

“Good morning, Mr. Lundgren. This is Peter Marko. Guy in
the penthouse. Right. Mr. Lundgren, be my personal rabbi and get some workmen up here this morning. I want those two baths converted into one. No, I mean it. I’ll leave five thousand dollars on top of the icebox. Yes? Thanks, Mr. Lundgren.”

Wanted to wear grey flannel this morning but compelled to
put on sharkskin. Damnation! Black Power has peculiar side
effects. Went to spare bedroom (see diagram) and unlocked door which was installed by the Eagle Safe Company—Since
1904—Bank Vault Equipment—Fireproof Files and Ledger Trays—Combinations changed. I went in.

Everything broadcasting beautifully, up and down the
electromagnetic spectrum. Radio waves down to 1,000 meters,
ultraviolet up into the hard X-rays and the 100 Kev (one hundred thousand electron volts) gamma radiation. All interrupters innn-tt-errrr-up-ppp-t-ingggg at random. I’m jamming the voice of the universe at least within this home, and I’m at peace. Dear God!  To know even a moment of peace!

So. I take subway to office in Wall Street. Limousine more
convenient but chauffeur too dangerous. Might become friendly,
and I don’t dare have friends anymore. Best of all, the morning
subway is jam-packed, mass-packed, no patterns to adjust, no
shiftings and compensations required. Peace.

In subway car I catch a glimpse of an eye, narrow, bleak, grey,
the property of an anonymous man who conveys the conviction
that you’ve never seen him before and will never see him again. But I picked up that glance and it tripped an alarm in the back of my mind. He knew it. He saw the flash in my eyes before I could turn away. So I was being tailed again. Who, this time? U.S.A.? U.S.S.R? Interpol? Skip-Tracers, Inc.?

I drifted out of the subway with the crowd at City Hall and
gave them a false trail to the Woolworth Building in case they were operating double-tails. The whole theory of the hunters and the hunted is not to avoid being tailed, no one can escape that; the thing to do is give them so many false leads to follow up that they become overextended. Then they may be forced to abandon you.  They have a man-hour budget; just so many men for just so many operations.

City Hall traffic was out of sync, as it generally is, so I had to
limp to compensate. Took elevator up to tenth floor of bldg. As I
was starting down the stairs, I was suddenly seized by something from out there, something bad. I began to cry, but no help. An elderly clerk emerge from office wearing alpaca coat, gold spectacles, badge on lapel identify: N.N. Chapin.
“Not him,” I plead with nowhere. “Nice mans.

Not N.N. Chapin, please.”

But I am force. Approach. Two blows, neck and gut. Down
he go, writhing. I trample spectacles and smash watch. Then I’m permitted to go downstairs again. It was ten-thirty. I was late.

Damn! Took taxi to 99 Wall Street. Drivers pattern smelled honest; big black man, quiet and assured. Tipped him fifty dollars. He raise eyebrows. Sealed one thousand in envelope (secretly) and sent driver back to bldg. to find and give to N.N. Chapin on tenth floor.  Did not enclose note: “From your unknown admirer.”

Routine morning’s work in office. I am in arbitrage, which is
simultaneous buying and selling of moneys in different markets to profit from unequal price. Try to follow simple example: Pound sterling is selling for $2.79H in London. Rupee is selling for $2.79 in New York. One rupee buys one pound in Burma. See where the arbitrage lies? I buy one rupee for $2.79 in New York, buy one pound for rupee in Burma, sell pound for $2.79H in London, and I have made H cent on the transaction. Multiply by $100,000, and I have made $250 on the transaction. Enormous capital required.  But this is only crude example of arbitrage; actually the buying and selling must follow intricate patterns and have perfect timing. Money markets are jumpy today. Big Boards are hectic. Gold fluctuating. I am behind at eleven-thirty, but the patterns put me ahead $57,075.94 by half-past noon, Daylight Saving Time. 57075 makes a nice pattern but that 94¢! Iych! Ugly.

Symmetry above all else. Alas, only 24¢ hard money in my pockets.  Called secretary, borrowed 70¢ from her, and threw sum total out window. Felt better as I watched it scatter in space, but then I caught her looking at me with delight. Very dangerous. Fired girl on the spot.

“But why, Mr. Marko? Why?” she asked, trying not to cry.
Darling little thing. Pale-faced and saucy, but not so saucy now.

“Because you’re beginning to like me.”

     “What’s the harm in that?”

“When I hired you, I warned you not to like me.”

“I thought you were putting me on.”

     “I wasn’t. Out you go.”

“But why?”

“Because I’m beginning to like you.”

“Is this some new kind of pass?”

    “God forbid!”

“Well you don’t have to worry,” she flared. “I despise you.”

“Good. Then I can go to bed with you.”

She turned crimson and opened her mouth to denounce me,
the while her eyes twinkled at the corners. A darling girl, whatever her name was. I could not endanger her. I gave her three weeks’ salary for a bonus and threw her out. Punkt. Next secretary would be a man, married, misanthropic, murderous; a man who could hate me.

So, lunch. Went to nicely balanced restaurant. All chairs filled
by patrons. Even pattern. No need for me to compensate and
adjust. Also, they give me usual single corner table which does not need guest to balance. Ordered nicely patterned luncheon:

Martini Martini
Croque M’sieur
Roquefort
Salad
Coffee

But so much cream being consumed in restaurant that I had
to compensate by drinking my coffee black, which I dislike.
However, still a soothing pattern.
x2 1 x 1 41 5 prime number. Excuse, please. Sometimes I’m in
control and see what compensating must be done…
tick-tock-tick-tock, good old gridiron pendulum… other times is
force on me from God knows where or why or how or even if
there is a God. Then I must do what I’m compelled to do, blindly, without motivation, speaking the gibberish I speak and think, sometimes hating it like what I do to poor mans Mr. Chapin.

Anyway, the equation breaks down when x 5 40.
The afternoon was quiet. For a moment I thought I might be
forced to leave for Rome (Italy) but whatever it was adjusted
without needing my two ($0,02) cents. ASPCA finally caught up
with me for beating my dog to death, but I’d contributed $5,000.00 to their shelter. Got off with a shaking of heads. Wrote a few graffiti on posters, saved a small boy from a clobbering in a street rumble at a cost of sharkskin jacket. Drat! Slugged a maladroit driver who was subjecting his lovely Aston-Martin to cruel and unusual punishment. He was, how they say, “grabbing a handful of second.”

In the evening to ballet to relax with all the beautiful
Balanchine patterns; balanced, peaceful, soothing. Then I take a
deep breath, quash my nausea, and force myself to go to The Raunch , the West Village creepsville. I hate The Raunch, but I need a woman and I must go where I hate. That fair-haired girl I fired, so full of mischief and making eyes at me. So, poisson d’avril, I advance myself to The Raunch.

Chaos. Blackness. Cacophony. My vibes shriek. 25 Watt bulbs.
Ballads of Protest. Against L. wall sit young men, with pubic
beards, playing chess. Badly. Exempli gratia:


1 P—Q4 Kt—KB 3
2 Kt—Q2 P—K4
3 PXP Kt—Kt5
4 P—KR3 Kt—K6

If White takes the knight, Black forces mate with Q—R5ch. I
didn’t wait to see what the road-company Capablancas would do
next.  Against R. wall is bar, serving beer and cheap wine mostly.  There are girls with brown paper bags containing toilet articles. They are looking for a pad for the night. All wear tight jeans and are naked under loose sweaters. I think of Herrick (1591–1674):



Next, when I lift mine eyes and see / That brave vibration each way free /Oh, how that glittering taketh me!
 I pick out the one who glitters the most. I talk. She insult. I
insult back and buy hard drinks. She drink my drinks and snarl and hate, but helpless. Her name is Bunny and she has no pad for tonight. I do not let myself sympathize. She is a dyke; she does not bathe, her thinking patterns are jangles. I hate her and she’s safe; no harm can come to her. So I maneuvered her out of Sink City and took her home to seduce by mutual contempt, and in the living room sat the slender little paleface secretary, recently fired for her own good.


She sat there in my penthouse, now minus one (1) bathroom,
and with $1,997.00 change on top of the refrigerator. Oi! Throw
$6.00 into kitchen Dispos-All (a Federal offense) and am soothed by the lovely 1991 remaining. She sat there, wearing a pastel thing, her skin gleaming rose-red from embarrassment, also red for danger. Her saucy face was very tight from the daring thing she thought she was doing. Gott bewahre! I like that.



I
Now
write
foll-
owing
piece
of the
s             P
t                  a
 o         in           r
 r                          i
y                              s

Address: 49bis Avenue Hoche, Paris, 8eme, France

Forced to go there by what happened in the U.N., you
understand. It needed extreme compensation and adjustment.
Almost, for a moment, I thought I would have to attack the
conductor of the Opéra Comique, but fate was kind and let me off with nothing worse than indecent exposure, and I was able to square it by founding a scholarship at the Sorbonne. Didn’t
someone suggest that fate was the square root of minus one?


Anyway, back in New York it is my turn to denounce the
paleface but suddenly my AmerEng is replaced by a dialect out of a B-picture about a white remittance man and a blind native girl on a South Sea island who find redemption together while she plays the ukulele and sings gems from Lawrence Welk’s Greatest Hits.


“Oh-so,” I say. “Me-fella be ve’y happy ask why you-fella
invade ‘long my apa’tment, ‘cept me’ now speak pidgin. Ve’y
emba’ss ‘long me.”


“I bribed Mr. Lundgren,” she blurted. “I told him you needed
important papers from the office.”


The dyke turned on her heel and bounced out, her brave
vibration each way free. I caught up with her in front of the
elevator, put $101 into her hand, and tried to apologize. She hated me more so I did a naughty thing to her vibration and returned to the living room.


“What’s she got?” the paleface asked.


My English returned. “What’s your name?”


    “Good Lord! I’ve been working in your office for two months
and you don’t know my name? You really don’t?”


“No.”


“I’m Jemmy Thomas.”


“Beat it, Jemmy Thomas.”


     “So that’s why you always called me ‘Miss Uh.’ You’re
Russian?”


   “Half.”


“What’s the other half?”
     

     “None of your business. What are you doing here? When I
fire them they stay fired. What d’you want from me?”
     

“You,” she said, blushing fiery.

     “Will you for God’s sake get the hell out of here.”
 

“What did she have that I don’t?” paleface demanded. Then
her face crinkled. “Don’t? Doesn’t? I’m going to Bennington.
They’re strong on aggression but weak on grammar.”


“What d’you mean, you’re going to Bennington?”


    “Why, it’s a college. I thought everybody knew.”


“But going?”


“Oh. I’m in my junior year. They drive you out with whips to
acquire practical experience in your field. You ought to know that.  Your office manager—I suppose you don’t know her name,
either.”


     “Ethel M. Blatt.”


“Yes. Miss Blatt took it all down before you interviewed me.”


   “What’s your field?”


     “It used to be economics. Now it’s you. How old are you?”


“One hundred and one.”


“Oh, come on. Thirty? They say at Bennington that ten years
is the right difference between men and women because we mature quicker. Are you married?”


“I have wives in London, Paris, and Rome. What is this
catechism?” 


“Well, I’m trying to get something going.”


“I can see that, but does it have to be me?”


“I know it sounds like a notion.” She lowered her eyes, and
without the highlight of their blue, her pale face was almost
invisible. “And I suppose women are always throwing themselves at you.” 


“It’s my untold wealth.”


“What are you, blasé or something? I mean, I know I’m not
staggering, but I’m not exactly repulsive.”


     “You’re lovely.”


“They why don’t you come near me?”


     “I’m trying to protect you.”


“I can protect me when the time comes. I’m a Black Belt.”


“The time is now, Jemmy Thompson.”


“Thomas.”


“Walk, not run, to the nearest exit, Jemmy Thomas.”


     “The least you could do is offend me the way you did that
hustler in front of the elevator.”


“You snooped?”


“Sure I snooped. You didn’t expect me to sit here on my
hands, did you? I’ve got my man to protect.”


I had to laugh. This spunky little thing march in, roll up her
sleeves and set to work on me. A wonder she didn’t have a pot
roast waiting in the oven and herself waiting in the bed.


       “Your man?” I ask.


“It happens,” she said in a low voice. “I never believed it, but
it happens. You fall in and out of love and affairs, and each time
you think it’s real and forever. And then you meet somebody and it isn’t a question of love anymore. You just know that he’s your man, and you’re stuck with him, whether you like it or not.” 

   
She burst out angrily. “I’m stuck, dammit! Stuck! D’you think I’m enjoying this?”

She looked at me through the storm; violet eyes full of youth
and determination and tenderness and fear. I could see she, too, was being forced and was angry and afraid. And I knew how lonely I was, never daring to make friends, to love, to share. I could fall into those violet eyes and never come up. I looked at the clock. 2:30  A.M. Sometimes quiet at this hour. Perhaps my AmerEng would stay with me a while longer.


“You’re being compelled, Jemmy,” I said. “I know all about
that. Something inside you, something you don’t understand, made you take your dignity in both hands and come after me. You don’t like it, you don’t want to, you’ve never begged in your life, but you had to. Yes?”


She nodded.


“Then you can understand a little about me. I’m compelled,
too.”


“Who is she?”


“No, no. Not forced to beg from a woman; compelled to hurt
people.”


“What people?”


“Any people; sometimes strangers, and that’s bad, other times
people I love, and that’s not to be endured. So now I no longer
dare love. I must protect people from myself.”


“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you some kind
of psychotic monster?”


     “Yes, played by Lon Chaney, Jr.” 


“If you can joke about it, you can’t be all that sick. Have you
seen a shrink?” 


“No. I don’t have to. I know what’s compelling me.” 


I looked at the clock again. Still a quiet time. Please God the English would stay with me a while longer. I took off my jacket and shirt. “I’m going to shock you,” I said, and showed her my back, crosshatched with scars.
She gasped.

 “Self-inflicted,” I told her. “Because I permitted myself to
like a man and become friendly with him. This is the price I paid,
and I was lucky that he didn’t have to. Now wait here.”


I went into the master bedroom where my heart’s shame was
embalmed in a silver case hidden in the right-hand drawer of my
desk. I brought it to the living room. Jemmy watched me with great eyes.


“Five years ago a girl fell in love with me,” I told her. “A girl
like you. I was lonely then, as always, so instead of protecting her from me, I indulged myself and tried to love her back. Now I want to show you the price she paid. You’ll loathe me for this, but I must show you. Maybe it’ll save you from—”


I broke off. A flash had caught my eye—the flash of lights
going on in a building down the street; not just a few windows, a lot. I put on my jacket, went out on the terrace, and watched. All the illuminated windows in the building three down from me went out. Five-second eclipse. On again. It happened in the building two down and then the one next door. The girl came to my side and took my arm. She trembled slightly.


“What is it?” she asked. “What’s the matter? You look so
grim.”


     “It’s the Geneva caper,” I said. “Wait.”


The lights in my apartment went out for five seconds and
then came on again.


“They’ve located me the way I was nailed in Geneva,” I told
her.


     “They? Located?”


“They’ve spotted my jamming by d/f.”


     “What jamming?”


“The full electromagnetic spectrum.”


“What’s dee eff?” 


“Radio direction-finder. They used it to get the bearing of my
jamming. Then they turned off the current in each building in the area, building by building, until the broadcast stopped. Now they’ve pinpointed me. They know I’m in this house, but they don’t know which apartment yet. I’ve still got time. So. Good night, Jemmy.  You’re hired again. Tell Ethel Blatt I won’t be in for a while. I wish I could kiss you good-bye, but safer not.”


She clamped her arms around my neck and gave me an
honest kiss. I tried to push her away.


She clung like The Old Man of the Sea. “You’re a spy,” she
said. “I’ll go to the chair with you.”


    “I wish to heaven I only was a spy. Good-bye, my love.
Remember me.”


A great mistake letting that slip. It happen, I think, because
my speech slip, too. Suddenly forced to talk jumble again. As I run out, the little paleface kick off her sandals so she can run, too. She is alongside me going down the fire stairs to the garage in the basement. I hit her to stop, and swear Swahili at her. She hit back and swear gutter, all the time laughing and crying. I love her for it, so she is doomed. I will ruin her like all the rest.


We get into car and drive fast. I am making for 59th Street
bridge to get off Manhattan Island and head east. I own plane in
Babylon, Long Island, which is kept ready for this sort of
awkwardness.


J’y suis, J’y reste is not my motto,” I tell Jemmy Thomas,
whose French is as uncertain as her grammar, an endearing
weakness. “Once Scotland Yard trapped me with a letter. I was
receiving special mail care of General Delivery. They mailed me a red envelope, spotted me when I picked it up, and followed me to No. 13 Mayfair Mews, London W.1., Telephone, Mayfair 7711. Red for danger. Is the rest of you as invisible as your face?”


“I’m not invisible,” she said, indignant, running hands
through her streaky fair hair. “I tan in the summer. What is all this chase and escape? Why do you talk so funny and act so peculiar? In the office I thought it was because you’re a crazy Russian. Half crazy Russian. Are you sure you’re not a spy?”


     “Only positive.”


“It’s too bad. A Commie 007 would be utter blissikins.”


     “Yes, I know. You see yourself being seduced with vodka and
caviar.”


“Are you a being from another world who came here on a
UFO?”


     “Would that scare you?”


“Only if it meant we couldn’t make the scene.”

 
     “We couldn’t anyway. All the serious side of me is
concentrated on my career. I want to conquer the earth for my
robot masters.”


“I’m only interested in conquering you.”


     “I am not and have never been a creature from another world. I can show you my passport to prove it.”


“Then what are you?”


    “A compensator.”


“A what?”


“A compensator. Like a clock pendulum. Do you know
dictionary of Messrs Funk & Wagnalls? Edited by Frank H.
Vizetelly, Litt.D, LL.D.? I quote: One who or that which
compensates, as a device for neutralizing the influence of local
attraction upon a compass needle, or an automatic apparatus for
equalizing— Damn!”


Litt.D. Frank H. Vizetelly does not use that word. It is my
own because roadblock now faces me on 59th Street bridge. I
should have anticipated. Should have sensed patterns, but too
swept up with this inviting girl. Probably there are roadblocks on all exits leading out of this $24 island. Could drive off bridge, but maybe Bennington College has also neglected to teach Jemmy Thomas how to swim. So. Stop car. Surrender.


Kamerad,” I pronounce. “Who you? John Birch?”


Gentlemans say no.


      “White Supremes of the World, Inc.?”


No again. I feel better. Always nasty when captured by lunatic
fringers.


“U.S.S.R.?” 


He stare, then speak. “Special Agent Hildebrand. FBI,” and
flash his identification which no one can read in this light. I take
his word and embrace him in gratitude. FBI is safe. He recoil and wonder if I am fag. I don’t care. I kiss Jemmy Thomas, and she open mouth under mine to mutter, “Admit nothing. Deny everything. I’ve got a lawyer.”


I own thirteen lawyers, and two of them can make any court
tremble, but no need to call them. This will be standard
cross-examination; I know from past experience. So let them haul me off to Foley Square with Jemmy. They separate us. I am taken to Inquisition Room.


 Brilliant lights; the shadows arranged just so; the chairs placed
just so; mirror on wall probably one-way window with observers
outside; I’ve been through this so often before. The anonymous
man from the subway this morning is questioning me. We
exchange glances of recognition. His name is R. Sawyer. The
questions come.


“Name?”


      “Peter Marko.”

“Born?”


     “Lee’s Hill, Virginia.”


“Never heard of it.”


    “It’s a very small town, about thirty miles north of Roanoke.
Most maps ignore it.”


“You’re Russian?”


     “Half, by descent.”


“Father Russian?”


     “Yes. Eugene Alexis Markolevsky.”


“Changed his name legally?”


    “Shortened it when he became a citizen.”


“Mother?”


     “Vera Broadhurst. English.”


“You were raised in Lee’s Hill?”


     “Until ten. Then Chicago.”


“Father’s occupation?”


    “Teacher.”


“Yours, financier?”


     “Arbitrageur. Buying and selling money on the open market.”
“Known assets from identified bank deposits, three million
dollars.”


“Only in the States. Counting overseas deposits and
investments, closer to seventeen million.”


R. Sawyer shook his head, bewildered. “Marko, what the hell
are you up to? I’ll level with you. At first we thought espionage, but with your kind of money— What are you broadcasting from your apartment? We can’t break the code.”


“There is no code, only randomness so I can get a little peace
and some sleep.” 


     “Only what?”

“Random jamming. I do it in all my homes. Listen, I’ve been
through this so often before, and it’s difficult for people to
understand unless I explain it my own way. Will you let me try?”


   “Go ahead.” 


Sawyer was grim. “You better make it good. We can check everything you give us.”

I take a breath. Always the same problem. The reality is so
strange that I have to use simile and metaphor. But it was 4:00
A.M. and maybe the jumble wouldn’t interrupt my speech for a
while. “Do you like to dance?”


     “What the hell…”


“Be patient. I’m trying to explain. You like to dance?”


      “I used to.”


“What’s the pleasure of dancing? It’s people making rhythms
together; patterns, designs, balances. Yes?”
 

“So?”

“And parades. Masses of men and music making patterns.
Team sports, also. Action patterns. Yes?”


    “Marko, if you think I’m going to—”


“Just listen, Sawyer. Here’s the point. I’m sensitive to patterns
on a big scale; bigger than dancing or parades, more than the
rhythms of day and night, the seasons, the glacial epochs.”


Sawyer stared. I nodded.


“Oh yes, people respond to the 2/2 of the diurnal-nocturnal rhythms, the 4/4 of the seasons, the great terra-epochs. They don’t know it, but they do. That’s why they haves leep-problems, moon-madness, sun-hunger, weather-sensitivity. I respond to these local things, too, but also to gigantic patterns, influences from infinity.”

       “Are you some kind of nut?”


“Certainly. Of course. I respond to the patterns of the entire
galaxy, maybe universe; sight and sound; and the unseen and
unheard. I’m moved by the patterns of people, individually and
demographically: hostility, generosity, selfishness, charity, cruelties and kindnesses, groupings and whole cultures. And I’m compelled to respond and compensate.”


“How a nut like you ever made seventeen mill— How do you
compensate?”


“If a child hurts itself, the mother responds with a kiss. That’s
compensation. Agreed? If a man beats a horse you beat him. You  boo a bad fight. You cheer a good game. You’re a cop,  Sawyer.  Don’t the victim and murderer seek each other to fulfill their pattern?”


      “Maybe in the past; not today. What’s this got to do with your broadcasts?”


“Multiply that compensation by infinity and you have me. I
must kiss and kick. I’m driven. I must compensate in a pattern I
can’t see or understand. Sometimes I’m compelled to do
extravagant things, other times I’m forced to do insane things: talk gibberish, go to strange places, perform abominable acts, behave like a lunatic.”


     “What abominable acts?”


“Fifth amendment.”


      “But what about those broadcasts?”


“We’re flooded with wave emissions and particles, sometimes
in patterns, sometimes garbled. I feel them all and respond to them the way a marionette jerks on strings. I try to neutralize them by jamming, so I broadcast at random to get a little peace.”


     “Marko, I swear you’re crazy.”


“Yes, I am, but you won’t be able to get me committed. It’s
been tried before. I’ve even tried myself. It never works. The big design won’t permit it. I don’t know why, but the big design wants me to go on as a Pi Man.”


     “What the hell are you talking about? What kind of pie?”


“Not pee-eye-ee-man. Pee-eye-man. Pi. Sixteenth letter in the
Greek alphabet. It’s the relation of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. 3.14159+. The series goes on into infinity. It’s
transcendental and can never be resolved into a finite pattern. They call extrasensory perception Psi. I call extrapattern perception Pi.  All right?”


He glared at me, threw my dossier down, sighed, and slumped
into a chair. That made the grouping wrong, so I had to shift.

He cocked an eye at me. 

     “Pi Man,” I apologized.

“All right,” he said at last. “We can’t hold you.”


     “They all try but they never can.”


“Who try?”


     “Governments, police, counterintelligence, politicals, lunatic
fringe, religious sects… They track me down, hoping they can nail me or use me. They can’t. I’m part of something much bigger. I think we all are, only I’m the first to be aware of it.” 


“Are you claiming you’re a superman?”


     “Good God! No! I’m a damned man… a tortured man,
because some of the patterns I must adjust to are outworld
rhythms like nothing we ever experience on earth… 29/51…
108/303… tempi like that, alien, terrifying, agony to live with.”


He took another deep breath. “Off the record, what’s this
about abominable acts?”


     “That’s why I can’t have friends or let myself fall in love.
Sometimes the patterns turn so ugly that I have to make frightful sacrifices to restore the design. I must destroy something I love.”


“This is sacrifice?”


    “Isn’t it the only meaning of sacrifice, Sawyer? You give up
what’s dearest to you.”


“Who to?”

 
“The Gods, The Fates, The Big Pattern that’s controlling me.
From where? I don’t know. It’s too big a universe to comprehend, but I have to beat its tempo with my actions and reactions, emotions and senses, to make the patterns come out even, balanced in some way that I don’t understand. The pressures that whipsaw

me
back and
and turn
forth me
and into
back the
and transcendental
forth 3.141591
and maybe I talk too much to R. Sawyer and the
patterns pronounce: 

PI MAN, IT IS NOT PERMITTED.

So. There is darkness and silence.


“The other arm now,” Jemmy said firmly. “Lift.”


I am on my bed, me. Thinking upheaved again. Half (H) into
pyjamas; other half (H) being wrestled by paleface girl. I lift. She yank. Pyjamas now on, and it’s my turn to blush. They raise me prudish in Lee’s Hill.


     “Pot roast done?” I ask.


“What?”


     “What happened?”


“You pooped out. Keeled over. You’re not so cool.”


     “How much do you know?”


“Everything. I was on the other side of that mirror thing. Mr.
Sawyer had to let you go. Mr. Lundgren helped lug you up to the
apartment. He thinks you’re stoned. How much should I give
him?”


     “Cinque lire. No. Parla Italiano, gentile signorina?”


“Are you asking me do I speak Italian? No.”


     “Entschuldigen, Sie, bitte. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?


“Is this your patterns again?”


I nod.


     “Can’t you stop?”


After stopovers in Greece and Portugal, Ye Englische finally
returns to me. “Can you stop breathing, Jemmy?”


     “Is it like that, Peter? Truly?”


“Yes.”


“When you do something… something bad… do you know
why? Do you know exactly what it is somewhere that makes you do it?”


     “Sometimes yes. Other times no. All I know is that I’m
compelled to respond.”


     “Then you’re just the tool of the universe.”


    “I think we all are. Continuum creatures. The only difference
is, I’m more sensitive to the galactic patterns and respond violently.  So why don’t you get the hell out of here, Jemmy Thomas?”


“I’m still stuck,” she said.


     “You can’t be. Not after what you heard.”

 
“Yes, I am. You don’t have to marry me.”


Now the biggest hurt of all.

I have to be honest. I have to ask,
“Where’s the silver case?”


A long pause. “Down the incinerator.”


     “Do you… Do you know what was in it?”
 

   “I know what was in it.”

     “And you’re still here?”


“It was monstrous what you did. Monstrous!” Her face
suddenly streaked with mascara. She was crying. “Where is she
now?” 


     “I don’t know. The checks go out every quarter to a
numbered account in Switzerland. I don’t want to know. How
much can the heart endure?”


     “I think I’m going to find out, Peter.”


“Please don’t find out.” I make one last effort to save her. “I
love you, paleface, and you know what that can mean. When the
patterns turn cruel, you may be the sacrifice.”


    “Love creates patterns, too.” She kissed me. Her lips were
parched, her skin was icy, she was afraid and hurting, but her heart beat strong with love and hope. “Nothing can crunch us now. Believe me.”


“I don’t know what to believe anymore. We’re part of a world
that’s beyond knowing. What if it turns out to be too big for love?”


     “All right,” she said composedly. “We won’t be dogs in the
manger. If love is a little thing and has to end, then let it end. Let all little things like love and honor and mercy and laughter end, if there’s a bigger design beyond.”


“But what’s bigger? What’s beyond? I’ve asked that for years.
Never an answer. Never a clue.”


    “Of course. If we’re too small to survive, how can we know?
Move over.”


Then she is in bed with me, the tips of her body like frost
while the rest of her is hot and evoking, and there is such a
consuming burst of passion that for the first time I can forget
myself, forget everything, abandon everything, and the last thing I think is: God damn the world. God damn the universe. God damn GGG-o-ddddddd.