The Child Buyer

by Hersey John.

  Tuesday, October 29

  kwitzia amabilis, and his wayfaringtree, Viburnum lantana, and—

  Senator SKYPACK. Now look here.

  BARRY RUDD. For a moment I was seized by fear, and I wanted to run into the back room and enfold myself in that strange voluminous flesh in there, but just then the bathroom door creaked, and Susan tiptoed out and came and knelt beside me at my window. She had stopped crying, but when she settled herself beside me she loudly snuffled. I gripped my flashlight, and I whispered, Til bean you/ The noise outside seemed unbearably loud now. There they came! I could see them off to the right. First there were three or four motorcycles, then a small truck, then a car, and some guys on bikes. The machines were moving slowly, and the motorcycles' headlights flashed from side to side as the riders kept their balance on the pavement. Susan put her hand in mine; she was shaking like a passenger in a rickety auto. The first machines had stopped, and I heard a voice shout over the roar, 'Is that it?' And an answer, 'Sure, that's the house. Them fake bricks and the chimney out the side. That's it!' The convoy halted, and the riders dismounted and pushed their machines to the Zimmers' side of the street and leaned them on their stands. The truck parked a little down the street to the left. The motors and lights were being cut off. I could see about a dozen figures milling around the truck. High-school kids, they looked to be. They all seemed to be talking in undertones. One of them stepped a few paces toward the house and shouted to the others, 'Christ, lights all out. What if the old bag ain't home? What the hell fun's an empty house?' I was surprised at how easily I could hear every word; I knew how thin the walls were, but I still was surprised. I knew Momma must have been able to hear in the back room, too, because now I heard her mutter, 'What they'll call a person!' She let out a kind of growl. Another boy called out that maybe she was in bed, and still another shouted, 'You gonna get in it with her? What I

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  hear, she's got room for three-four of you, bub!" Because of my reading in Ellis, Curtis, Wharton, and others, I understood, of course, exactly what he meant, and I could picture it, and it gave me a queer and violent feeling I'd never had in my life before, to picture my own mother—but just then Momma let out a roar which, I swear, shook the pots in the kitchen: 'You just try to come in here and climb in the bed with Maudie Rudd, you knee-pants sophomore hoor-mongers. I'll give you a dose you didn't look for/ There was a second of silence, then the first boy shouted in mock-elegant tones, 'Lah-de-dah. The lady of the house is expecting guests!' At that the boys all started whooping and yodeling and making siren noises and laughing and screaming in falsetto voices like old maids. They swarmed around the truck and picked off it all sorts of things to make noises with— pans and wooden spoons, horns and megaphones, a drum, a watchman's rattle, a whistle, and a frightfully sour old trumpet which I saw flashing in the moonlight as one of the hoods played ridiculous taps. All the time Momma was swearing and Sue was giving out little miserable chirping squeaks like those of a fledgling bird. Two of the boys approached the house with a ladder and went in the alley alongside the house, and I could hear the scrape and thump of the ladder against the side wall, and then I heard a metallic banging at the tin chimney of our stove, and Momma shrieked out, 'If there's property damage, I'll skin your backsides one and all!' But there was such a clatter and whooping that I'm sure her challenge was lost on our assailants. A boy went into the alley with a bucket, and soon I heard a hissing and splashing as whatever had been in the bucket was thrown down the hot chimney pipe and ran into the kitchen stove, putting out the fire there. Soon the house was filled with a steam that had an overpoweringly foul smell on it. 'Skunks! Skunks! Skunks!' Momma shrieked. The trumpet blew a signal, and suddenly the noise all stopped, except for Momma's furious

  tirade in the living room. The hoods all ran back to their truck and put down the things they had had and picked up some boxes and baskets and ranged along the street in front of the house. 'No windows yet/ a voice called out. A mournful blast came from the trumpet, and the boys began to pelt the house with things that made soft, squooshy noises when they hit. Tou can come back and paint this house tomorrow/ Momma shouted, 'you damned little schoolboy crab lice, you!' She was in a frenzy, and I could hear the heavy crashes of her feet as she ran back and forth in the other room. Soon the pelting stopped; the attackers apparently ran out of that sort of ammunition. 'By God/ Momma said, 'it's time for cops/ She ran with thudding steps to the telephone, which hangs on the wall by the back door; she must have reached for it over the barricading sofa. I heard her click the receiver once, then again, then rapidly many times. 'What a moment for the damnable telephone machine to go dead!' she shouted. I said, They probably used that ladder to cut the wires on the side of the house/ 'Ah, that's right/ Momma said. 'You're one of this younger generation, Barry, you'd know what these devilish young new-type bastards have thought up in their modernistic dirty minds/ Momma had come to the door of the kitchen, and she saw Susan, whom she had set to guard the bathroom. 'What are you doing in this room?' she screamed at poor Susan, and then she wailed, 'Oh, it don't matter, it don't matter/ and she went back into the living room and began to sob. A sentence she blabbered out hit me like a splash of scalding water. 'Barry! Barry! You've seen me the way I really am/ I saw the swarm of boys convene again at the truck, and this time each one came away with a baseball bat. I could hear some of them run into the alley beside the house, and some along it to the back, so they had us surrounded on three sides. 'What now? What now?' Momma said between groans and sobs, as she evidently saw boys appearing in the back yard. The boys

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  in front got down on hands and knees and crept toward the house. I became very frightened, and I dragged Sue back to the wall of the room away from the street. Momma was weeping and moaning, 'Paul oh Paul oh Paul, I need you, Paul, Paul!' Then the trumpet blew a fanfare, like one when a king appears in a movie. With that the boys began their whooping again, and they leaped up, and with the baseball bats they smashed in every window on the ground floor of the house, all at once. Now Momma shrieked as if she'd been stabbed, and Sue began to cry again. The boys were laughing and shouting through the open windows, and they continued to pound at whatever glass remained in the sashes. I could feel cold air rushing across the floor and swirling in the room. I heard the hoods talking about coming in the house. 'Come on/ one of them shouted. 'All together!' 'No, no, no/ Momma cried. 'Stay out of here. I'll sell the boy. They can have the boy. Just stay out, for the love of God, stay out/ And she rocked off in a torrent of sobs. But some of the boys climbed in, anyway. Sue and I—we cringed against the wall. Where the hell's the light switch?' one of the voices asked. Then, 'Shut up!' a sharp voice shouted, and there was an immediate silence. In the distance a siren could be heard—the Zimmers told us later they'd heard the racket and called the police. Excited voices cried, 'Am-scray!' 'Cheese it!' 'Jiggers!' The mob began to pour out the windows faster than they had come in. 'I'll sell him, I'll sell him, I'll sell him/ Momma was shouting over and over in the kitchen. Suddenly I felt I couldn't stand any more of it, and I got to my feet and ran to the window where I'd been kneeling, and I jumped out, and I began to run, I didn't know where to, just to get away. The siren was wailing not far away, and down the road a searchlight was swinging its beam here and there. Motorcycle engines were starting up. The pick-up careened forward and swerved around in a U-turn and barely missed me as it hurtled along River Street in the di-

  rection away from the approaching police car. I was running blindly, as fast as I could. Another siren was coming. I was dimly aware of the first police car stopping and its doors flying open. Another searchlight was sweeping the street, and I could hear a third siren in the distance. I felt as if I couldn't run any further. I stumbled and fell face down; dust got in my lungs; I lay coughing and panting, and I shivered in the dreadful cold. Then a big hand was on my shoulder, and a flashlight was in my face, and a deep voice was saying, 'Wel
l, well, well, here's the littlest rat of all. Why, this one's practically a mouse/ I could still hear Momma bellowing, 'I'll sell him, I'll sell him, I'll sell him,' back at the house.

  Senator MANSFIELD. There, now, sonny, there's no need to cry.

  Senator SKYPACK. He better stand down. Get him off there, Aaron.

  Senator MANSFIELD. All right, sonny. That's right, Mr. Broad-bent. That's better.

  Senator SKYPACK. I can't stand to see a kid blubber like that.

  Senator MANSFIELD. What next, Mr. Broadbent?

  Mr. BROADBENT. The child buyer. Call Mr. Wissey Jones, please.

  Senator MANSFIELD. Take the witness chair, please, Mr. Jones.

  TESTIMONY OF MR. WISSEY JONES, OF UNITED LYMPHOMILLOID CORPORATION

  Mr. BROADBENT. You have been accused, sir, by a witness before this committee, of having planned and organized the gang attack on the Rudd home of Tuesday evening last. Do you admit to having done so?

  Mr. JONES. 'Accuse'? 'Admit'? My dear Mr. Broadbent, you use words that suggest something reprehensible. I feel no guilt

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  about this little job of work. In fact, I'm rather proud of it.

  Mr. BROADBENT. You did, then, devise this attack and set it up?

  Mr. JONES. Even the word 'attack' seems to me an overstatement of the case. Trank' sounds better to me. It was a business prank, by which I mean, it was not an idle joke.

  Mr. BROADBENT. Would you give us an account of your part in the incident, please, sir?

  Mr. JONES. I turned over to you yesterday, and you read out loud to the committee, Mr. Broadbent, a telegram from the prex of U. Lympho expressing extreme urgency about getting my purchases of specimens completed. I will tell you that even before that wire arrived I had felt sharply the pressure of time. I was a man in a hurry. You will say fifty years—the expected duration of U. Lympho's Mystery—is a long time, two thirds of a man's life span, more or less. But, as you know, we live in a cutthroat world. What appears as sweetness and light in your common television commercial of a consumer product often masks a background of ruthless competitive infighting. The gift-wrapped brickbat. Polite legal belly-slitting. Banditry dressed in a tux. The more so with projects like ours. A prospect of perfectly enormous profits is involved here. We don't intend to lose out. That is why these extended hearings-Mr. BROADBENT. How was the attack, or prank, connected with what you're saying?

  Mr. JONES. In this way. By Monday a week ago, the day before the prank, I had already spent four full days of work in Pequot, and I didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Usually it takes me only two or at most three days to conclude these deals, because, you see, your upper-middle-class families, where the high-I.Q. children mostly show up, need money much more desperately than poor families, such as the Rudds, do.

  Senator MANSFIELD. How's that again?

  Mr. JONES. Money is commonly thought of as a medium of

  exchange, as a means of storing value, but in my work I think of it as a habit-forming drug. The more you've had, the more you need. For the addicted a large dose produces an ecstasy that is short-lived. Withdrawal, or even the threat of it, causes intense physical pain. Among those who are hooked I have no trouble at all extracting children in return for a jolt of the stuff. But people like the Rudds are often deeply afraid of heroin, morphine, cash, and other forms of dope, without really knowing how afraid of them they are.

  Senator MANSFIELD. But I thought you told us that Mr. Rudd was eager to sell.

  Mr. JONES. He didn't care about the money. He wanted the so-called luxury items. He knew deep down that it would be fatal to be rich, but to appear to be rich for a short time would be no more dangerous than having a sweet dream.

  Mr. BROADBENT. So what did you do?

  Mr. JONES. As you know, I had Cleary under my thumb, and I put him to work. My hunch—and I think it's proving to have been correct—was that my most important impediment was Mrs. Rudd, that if I could bring her around, the boy would follow, sooner or later. He might rationalize his decision, but when you came right down to it, you'd find it was a case of his being cleated to an apron string as strong as a tugboat's hawser. Cleary provided the clue. He told me about his first interview with Mrs. Rudd, when he was in fact arguing against the sale of Barry; he told me about Mrs. Rudd's confession of having spent her whole life trying to escape what she considered coarseness in herself, and how Barry had become the main prop in her charade. The first victim of fear is affectation; scared people can't hide their true natures, even from themselves. So the problem was: how to frighten Mrs. Rudd, but good; show her she hadn't escaped her basic self, and never would, Barry or no Barry. Cleary found out for me that Mr. Rudd goes bowling on Tuesday

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  nights, and that would give us an opportunity to work on her without his support. I then devised the idea of an orgy of de-structiveness on the part of some teen-agers—fun for the kids and hay for me. I asked Cleary who was Pequot's Mr. Fix-It. Every town has at least one: the guy who knows all the angles, the Republican who's thick as sin with the Democratic Town Committee, the man who can get it for you, who can squash tickets, knows the Chief. Paul Ellithorp, Cleary said. So I sent Cleary to him, to make the first approach, to put me in touch with the headquarters of the junior defacing element.

  Mr. BROADBENT. You mean some high-school hoods?

  Mr. JONES. I don't know exactly what you mean by that term. As a matter of fact, I asked for two or three boys, to be ringleaders, from good families, boys who'd had a sound record of breakage, ill manners, and rebelliousness. Sons of men who believe in firm discipline for the younger generation but not necessarily for themselves. Cleary set up an appointment for me with some boys who were just the thing, delightfully surly, in Ellithorp's office, and we had a grand time. It was like planning games for a party, all that capering with noise-makers and baseball bats and buckets of slops—like Blind Man's Buff, Bop the Boodle, Sardines. Joys of innocent childhood, discussed by my blackguard boys, of course, with terrifying frowns and disenchanted grunts.

  Mr. BROADBENT. Yes, sir, we've heard about that conversation.

  Mr. JONES. You have? From whom?

  Mr. BROADBENT. From a boy who overheard you in the back of the store. A chum of Barry's, Charles Perkonian.

  Mr. JONES. So that accounts for it!

  Mr. BROADBENT. Accounts for what?

  Mr. JONES. Did this child warn the Rudds?

  Mr. BROADBENT. He did.

  Mr. JONES. That explains Mrs. Rudd's recovery. At the end of

  Tuesday, October 2$

  the attack she gave in—shouted over and over that she'd sell. But by the next morning she'd hardened up again. It must have been the lack of surprise that gave her a chance to become resistant to a certain extent. As to flu from a vaccine. Did she know I was behind it?

  Mr. BROADBENT. Yes, she did.

  Mr. JONES. Ah, well, there you are. That's how mischief climbs on mischief's back—the human tongue and ear come into play. I think the most merciful phase of our experiment with the specimens at United Lymphomilloid is the tying off of the senses. What serenity! What undisturbed virtue!

  Mr. BROADBENT. Please go on with your story. Did you pay the high-school boys?

  Mr. JONES. Heavens, no. The chance to destroy for a purpose was more than enough reward for them. After I finished making plans with them in the drugstore, Ellithorp came through with a brilliant suggestion. Why not call on Mrs. Rudd in the morning and give her a deadline—say seven o'clock in the evening, one hour before the gang was scheduled to arrive—for surrendering? This would lend added force to her alarm and shock at eight. I've always been astonished at how eager people have been to help me in my procurement work; I'm sure there's some secret here for the future of collective human effort, but I haven't quite figured out what it is. Anyway, we went; Ellithorp, who's a creditor of the Rudds', went along with me.

  Senator SKYPACK. Jones, I have to call a halt he
re and congratulate you. I sure do admire a practical man.

  Mr. JONES. Well, I thank you. I try not to be a fool.

  Mr. BROADBENT. Sir, on the occasion of your first appearance before us, one of our committee, I believe it was Senator Sky-pack, asked about your collapsible motorcycle, and whether you personally took part in this attack, or prank> as you call it. At that time you denied any—

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  Senator SKYPACK. I wouldn't want to resurrect an old question like that, Broadbent.

  Mr. JONES. The Senator succeeds in not being a fool, where I only try! . . . Don't take offense, Mr. Broadbent, I didn't mean to suggest that you re a fool. That was intended as humor.

  Mr. BROADBENT. I understand perfectly. Did you take part in the attack, sir?

  Mr. JONES. No, I did not. I leave specialized work to specialists. An office boy would have a right to be offended if I sharpened my own pencils—it's something he can do better than I.

  Senator MANSFIELD. Have you ever staged an assault like this before, to help parents to make up their minds?

  Mr. JONES. I rather pride myself on varying my approach to meet the unique requirements of each situation.

  Senator MANSFIELD. But you have no compunction about what your mob did—about the cost to the Rudds of those windows, for instance?

  Mr. JONES. I've offered the Rudds enough money for a lifetime of broken windows.

  Senator MANSFIELD. You'd do it again if you had to?

  Mr. JONES. Certainly. All's fair in love, war, and free enterprise. Only I'll tell you one thing: Another time I'd make sure a sneaky boy wasn't eavesdropping.