Strange Wine

by Harlan Ellison

  I is for ICE CRAWLER

  When the exit from the polar icecap was sealed by nukes and thermite, a few of them managed to escape. They were tracked by land and by air, but their thick white skins concealed them from all but chance discovery. With the end of the supply of good skins, the fashion died quickly and the return of stripped corduroy-and-velour soon followed. Those that had escaped found channels in the permafrost and tried to return to their land. They had never known violence, it had come to them slowly, only as a desperate last measure; and only a few had learned the lesson well enough to crawl back to their blasted domain. The hunting parties that had come after them had slaughtered thousands before there was the slightest retaliation. At first they had believed the warm people from the light had come to establish relations. But when their piping language fell on deaf ears, and the harpoons were thrown, they knew they had been discovered to their ultimate undoing. Those who survived crawled back and ate out burrows for their dead. Then they slithered away from that place to a deeper level and began to breed. They would teach their children what they had learned. And perhaps one day they would wear fashionable skins…in four or five different colors.

  J is for JABBERWOCK

  India conceals many secrets. In the Hindu Kush there is a monastery far back in the low mountains where a sect of monks worship the last Jabberwock. It is a fearsome creature: much smaller than one would expect from reading Alice. It has bat wings whose membranes between the struts are tattered and torn. It is morbidly bloody in color and covered with bristly fur from its shoulders to its buttocks. It resembles a bat-eared, winged jackal with incredibly sharp teeth and one good eye. The other eye has two pupils and is a most malevolent thing to behold. Its claws can tear rock, and it screams constantly. The monks are the holiest of holy men. They have tried to mate the Jabberwock to preserve its presence in their midst. They have mated it with a pig and produced a thing that can neither walk nor see. They have mated it with a camel and the offspring was born dead but would not decay. They mated it with swans, with ibis, with auks, and with jackals. The monks keep the children of these unions in glass cages, but they seldom go to look. They mated it with a young girl, a virgin stolen from a small village. The girl died but the child still lives. They must change the soft cloth in the bottom of its nest three times a day. It sweats blood. The holy monks hope they will be able to find a mate for the Jabberwock before another hundred years passes. What they do not know is that the Jabberwock has sentience, it is a thinking, feeling creature for all its awesome menace. What they do not know is what the Jabberwock thinks, what it wishes. The Jabberwock wishes it were dead.

  K is for KENGHIS KHAN

  He was a very nice person. History has no record of him. There is a moral in that, somewhere.

  L is for LOUP-GAROU

  Had śaša parents come to America from Ireland or Sweden or even Poland, he would not have realized that the woman next door was a werewolf. But they had come from Ostrava, in Czechoslovakia, and he recognized the shape of the nostrils, the hair in the palms of her hands when she loaned him a cup of nondairy creamer, the definitive S-curve of the spine as she walked to hang her laundry. So he was ready. He had bought a thirty-ought-six hunting rifle and he had melted down enough twenty-five-cent pieces to make his own silver bullets. And the night of the full moon, when the madness was upon her, and she burst through the kitchen window in a snarling strike of fangs and fur, he was ready for her. Calmly, with full presence, and murmuring the names of the very best saints, he emptied the rifle into her. Later, the coroner was unable to describe the condition of śaša body on a single form sheet. The coin of the United States of America, notably the twenty-five-cent piece, the quarter, has less than one percent pure silver in it. Times change, but legends do not.

  M is for MUU-MUU

  One should always wear one if one has more than six or seven arms.

  N is for NEMOTROPIN

  Irl and Onkadj were the last to enter the Tunnel of Final Darkness. The competition had been more fierce this Contest than any nemotropin could remember. The gladiators had fallen, spears in their thoracic vitals, mandibles shattered, eye-stalks ripped out, claws sliced off…until only Irl and Onkadj had survived. Now they were closed off in the Tunnel to decide which of them would have to suffer the penalty. The Contest among the nemotropin was the only way they had to rid themselves of undesirables. And as the nemotropin were universally judged the most evil, warlike race in the galaxy, the level of undesirability was a marvel even to the most vicious brigands and hellspawned marauders. They were forced to produce everything they needed for their existence; no other planet or confederation of planets would undertake to trade with them. They were staked off-limits and permitted to breed and kill and live as best they could. But they could not leave their nameless world. With one exception. Thousands of years before, a mission from the Heart Stars Federation had come to their world and had tried to civilize the nemotropin. Just before the missionaries had been slaughtered and masticated, they had been granted the right to send one of the nemotropin offworld. The mission had no way of knowing that time and ritual would alter this grant as an excuse for the nemotropin to weed out those even too despicable for existence in a society of killers and reavers. The nemotropin were at least sane enough never to reveal the nature of their awful duplicity. And so, periodically, they would hold the Contest, and the worst of their number would slaughter and slay and attack each other till only one was left standing. And he would be sent to the shape-changing satellite the Federation maintained, and would be sent to the pilgrim world where he could do no more harm among the nemotropin. And so Irl and Onkadj went into the Tunnel of Final Darkness with their shell shields covering the soft vulnerable spot beneath which rested the gliomas of their brains. Irl wielded a pair of cutters and a brace of poison bags was strapped to his right side, protecting his wounds from earlier battles. Should Onkadj strike in that area, the bags would spurt poison and kill the attacker. Onkadj was the younger of the combatants, and without peer in use of the broiler spear. Helmeted, their hooves coated with retardant to keep them from slipping on the mossy stones of the Tunnel, they faced each other and the final combat began. It raged for three days and three nights, and on the morning of the fourth day, Onkadj emerged without one of his four arms, but carrying Irl’s lower mandible. He was sent to the shape-changing satellite, made malleable, altered into the form of the superior indigenous life form of the host planet, and sent away. On the host planet, Onkadj did quite well. It was a very different world than that of the nemotropin, and Onkadj functioned well in the body. He became a prominent figure. There is an explanation for Attila, for Haman, for Cortez, for Cesare Borgia, for Christie and Specht and Manson and Nixon. For Torquemada. But only the nemotropin know the explanation. And they smile as best they can with bloody mandibles.

  O is for OUROBOROS

  Banished from the Earth, the great worm coiled ever so tightly and went to sleep. One day he will awake. The moon will writhe.

  P is for POLTERGEIST

  Essentially very well-coordinated. Very few people remember, because of the Black Sox scandal, but in 1919 the Chicago White Sox carried a pitcher named Fred Morris who won thirty games; pitched seven perfect no-hit, no-run games; struck out twenty-five batters in one contest; and replaced every divot in the outfield without moving from home plate. He played only one season; his heart was broken when Shoeless Joe Jackson turned up a creep, and he inexplicably vanished from whence he came. He was a poltergeist with a whole lot of love for the sport. Hardly anyone today remembers Fred Morris.

  Q is for QUETZALCOATL

  He did not come from space. He was not an alien. He did not build Toltec or even Aztec pyramids as landing beacons for flying saucers. His most obvious bad habit was a rather nasty appetite for freshly excised, still-pulsing hearts. It is not true what they say about Quetzalcoatl and the virgins. Take it or leave it.

  R is for ROQ

  The flying city of
Detroit (it’s up there) was in the midst of its Founder’s Day celebration when the great golden roq came to feed. It settled down over the Caliph’s Dome (where the roller derby semifinals were in progress) and thrust its ebony beak through the formed plastic and steel girdering. It dipped again and again, bringing up masses of writhing spectators (and blocker “Rumpy” Johansson), their screams feeding into the p.a. system and causing an overload. The great bird’s appetite could hardly be satisfied with a few sports fans, however. It rose on enormous, beating pinions, its pink tongue vibrating and its shriek of joy shattering all the facets of the Esso Tetrahedron. The roq’s shadow swam across the gigantic flying metropolis as the bird dove on the Servitor Factory. What could have made it seek out such an inedible attraction no one in Detroit (or even Bombay, floating over there a little way off) could ever say. But it settled and began to eat the entire plant, robot parts and all. And when it had finished consuming the Factory, and the millions of individual bits of incipient robot, it slaked its thirst in the Crystal Falls for the better part of a day. And when, hours later, it fell (crushing a whole lot of stuff), and it died, the residents of Detroit were stunned and waxed extremely wroth. The great golden roq of the sky had rusted itself to death and the meat wasn’t worth a damn thing, not even for hot-dog casings.

  S is for SOLIFIDIAN THE SORCERER

  I was an invited guest at the elegant fund-raising party where Solifidian performed his miracles. I’d received the engraved invitation to the party several weeks earlier, but had not planned to RSVP because I knew they’d be hitting us up for contributions to the political war chest of a city councilman whose position on rapid transit I considered really fucked. But Penny Goldman called first, and tried to embarrass me into coming, and when that didn’t work Leslie Parrish called and said it had been so long since she’d seen me, why didn’t I stop being a poop, and just come to the party; and I wanted to see Leslie again, so I went. It was held at Larry Niven’s new home out in Tarzana, and Larry and Marilyn had really outdone themselves in setting up the buffet and hiring the caterers to erect the big party tent on the grounds out back. The minute I came through the door, a committee worker for the councilman handed me a pledge card, which I promptly folded and put in my side jacket pocket. I’d probably give the slob some bucks, but I’d make damned sure I spent a few minutes telling him if he didn’t get off his ass and start formulating plans for a new rapid transit district in Los Angeles he was going to find himself facing a new committee…one I’d form to beat his backside at election time. So I wandered around and made smalltalk with people I knew, and tried to corner Leslie, who was buzzing around doing organizational things; and finally the entertainment started in the tent. George Carlin and Richard Pryor took turns ruining my mind, and then they got together and did an ad lib routine in tandem, which had to be the funniest thing since Jack Lemmon delivered the line “Leslie the Great escaped with a chicken!?!” in The Great Race. Then there was a break while Tom Hensley got set up with the Roto-Rooter Good Time Christmas Band, and I saw Solifidian for the first time. He looked just like Mandrake the Magician. He was about seven feet tall and as thin as a Watergate alibi; he had one of those hairline mustaches that always made me think of Simon Legree in a stage production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin; and he had the slimmest, whitest, most beautiful hands I’d ever seen. Brain surgeon fingers with polished nails. He wore a tux with tails, and a top hat. If I’d owned a diner, I’d have hired him on the spot as a sandwich-board man. And after Tom’s band had blown everyone away, Solifidian was introduced by “the Candidate” himself, and the sorcerer–because that was what he clearly was–asked the audience to tell him their most secret desires. Nothing big, just something that was personally important to each person. At first no one would speak up, but finally a woman said, “I have a very painful, difficult period every month. Can you do anything about that?” Everyone was startled, and a little embarrassed, but when I realized it was Georgina Voss I smiled; she’d say anything. But Solifidian didn’t seem to think it was outrageous, and he pointed a long white finger at her and said, “I think you’ll find it all better now.” Querulously, Georgina looked at him, and then a big smile came over her face, and she stood up and said, “Oh, my God!” and, laughing like a loon, she rushed off into Larry’s house, presumably to the bathroom, to check herself. But no one in the crowd doubted that Solifidian had rearranged her parts so she wasn’t in pain. Then I heard a man’s voice say, “I can’t get a decent shave. My beard is like barbed wire and my skin is like a baby’s instep,” and I suddenly recognized the voice as my own. “When I even use an electric razor I cut myself and get ingrown hairs and then I look like a forty-two-year-old kid with acne. Can you take care of that, sir?” Solifidian nodded, pointed a finger at me and, as everyone gasped in awe (and not a little horror), every follicle on my face wormed its way out of my skin, carrying with it the root and whatever it is that makes the hair grow back. It all fell on my jacket, and I brushed it off, and rubbed my jaw, and I was as smooth as if I’d just come from the barber at the Plaza Hotel in New York. I led the applause. There was more, much more. He performed a dozen similar miracles in the space of mere minutes. He gave one woman a sensational nose job, made a talent agent’s penis larger, cured one guy’s color blindness, gave Bill Rotsler back the sense of smell, and restored hair to the bald pate of the Candidate. He was amazing, this miracle worker. Never saw anything like it. He was in the middle of performing a vasectomy on Marty Shapiro when a stout woman wearing an improbable hat came stalking into the midst of the crowd. She stood there staring at him, this miracle worker, with her chubby hands on her hips until he was finished. And when he looked around to see who was next and he saw her, his face fell. “So this is where you are, you asshole,” she snarled. He began to fumfuh and wave his hands around helplessly. “Harry Solifidian, get your lazy ass in gear! There’s work to be done at the house, and no time for you to be fooling around with these schmucks! Now come on!” He looked sheepish, this miracle worker, but he followed her docilely. They walked through the crowd, which parted for them without a murmur, and in a moment they were gone. And that was that. And I never saw him again. But, you know, to this day I’m always amazed at the magic hold some men have over some women…and the magic hold some women have over some men.

  T is for TROGLODYTE

  They live under the city dump and they can eat almost anything except plastic containers. If it weren’t for the troglodytes, we’d be tuchis-deep in garbage. There is a whole lot to be said for returnable glass bottles.

  U is for UPHIR

  Demon chemist and doctor, well-versed in knowledge of medicinal herbs, responsible for the health of demons, official apothecary and surgeon to the Court of Satan, Uphir recently had a rather unpleasant experience. Semiazas, chief of the fallen angels with Azazel (no need to go into the subject of office politics), came down with a serious charley horse in his tail. Uphir was called in, diagnosed the problem, and applied the traditional incantations and a poultice of mole paws and liverwort. Just to be on the safe side, he gave Semiazas a shot of penicillin. How was he to know the demon was allergic to mole paws. An unlovely reaction, made even worse by the penicillin. Without volition, Semiazas began to make it snow in Hell. Instantly, hundreds of thousands of foolish promises, idle boasts, dire threats, and contracts Satan had made containing the phrase “It’ll be a cold day in Hell” (on which he never thought he’d have to deliver) came true. Uphir was punished by being submerged to his nose in a lake of monkey vomit, while a squad of imps raced motorboats around him, making waves. California is not the only place where it’s difficult to get malpractice insurance.

  V is for VORWALAKA

  Count Carlo Szipesti, a vorwalaka, a vampire, having long since grown weary of stalking alleyways and suffering the vicissitudes of finding meals in the streets, hied himself to a commune in upstate New York where, with his beard, his accent, and his peculiar nocturnal habits, he fit right in with the young people w
ho had joined together for a return to the land. For the Count, it was a guaranteed fountain of good, healthy blood. The young people in the commune were very big on bean sprouts and hulled sunflower seeds. They were all tanned from working in the fields and the blood ran hot and vibrant in their veins. When the Count was found dead, the coroner’s inquest did not reveal that he had been a creature of darkness, one of the dread vampires of the old country; what it did reveal was that he had died from infectious hepatitis. As the Journal of the American Medical Association has often pointed out, health is inextricably involved with morality.

  W is for WAND of JACOB

  Alfred Jacobi, seventy-two years old and nearly blind, was accosted at one o’clock in the morning on the Sheridan Square station platform of the IRT subway. His grandchildren, Emily and Foster and Hersch, had been yelling at Alfred for years: “Why do you go out walking in this awful city late at night? Crazy old man, you’ll be mugged, killed. What’s the matter with you?” But Alfred Jacobi had lived in New York for sixty of his seventy-two years, and he believed in the God of his forefathers, and–miraculously it seemed–he had never suffered even a moment’s unpleasantness in the streets. Even though New York had become a prowling ground for the most detestable human predators urban America had ever produced, Alfred Jacobi was able to walk where he wished, even in Central Park at midnight, kene hora, tapping his way gently with his specially carved cane, painted white to indicate he could not see. But neither the cane nor his age deterred the gang of young toughs with cans of spray paint who paused in their systematic defacement of white tile walls and poster advertisements to attack the old man. They came at him in a bunch, and he extended his cane, and there was a bright flash of light. And Alfred Jacobi was alone on the platform once more. The Wand of Jacob, the stick which preceded the magic wand, that forces spirits to appear or repulses them as did Moses’ rod, his Wand of Jacob was still fully charged. If one ventures down onto the Sheridan Square platform of the IRT, one can see a most marvelous example of native artwork. It is a frieze, apparently rendered by an unsung urban Michelangelo in spray paint, in many colors, extremely lifelike, of a gang of young men, screaming in horror. It’s a refreshing break from all the obscenities and self-advertisements for CHICO 116 one finds in the New York subway system.