The Boy Who Invented the Bubble Gun

by Paul Gallico

  “We’re on a tour,” she said, handing them to Sheriff Casper.

  He gave the passports a cursory glance and handed them back. “Well, now that’s jes’ fine and allow me to say that you are mighty welcome to our country.”

  “Course you ladies wouldn’t be packin’ any shootin’ irons.” Deputy Williams said this not as a question but more like a statement of something highly obvious, but just as the sheriff and Williams were about to turn way, they caught a glance of alarm exchanged between the two sisters.

  The sheriff altered his deputy’s statement to a question. “No offence, ladies, but I guess we got to ask you like everybody else. Are you carryin’ any lethal weapons?”

  Prudence and Vera exchanged another look, this time of complete panic.

  Vera turned to her sister and said, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to, Pru.”

  Slowly, and looking up into Sheriff Casper’s face with a mixture of fright and sheepishness, Prudence opened her huge reticule and extracted therefrom, held by the muzzle with great distaste and anxiety, an enormous British Army revolver of about 1892 vintage.

  Deputy Williams took it from her. “Goshamighty, what do you call that?” He handed the gun to Sheriff Casper.

  Casper examined the gun and read off the maker’s mark, “Webley, Mark III Army Issue, 1890,” and then addressed Prudence, “Is it loaded, ma’am?”

  Prudence looked terrified. “I don’t know.”

  Sheriff Casper worked an ejector on the gun and five huge brass cartridges clinked into his hand.

  Prudence gave a little shriek of alarm. “Oh, dear, is that what they look like?”

  Sheriff Casper asked, “Ma’am, where’d y’all git a thing like this?”

  Vera replied, “Our grandfather carried it in the Crimean War.”

  Prudence said, “Boer War, Vera, not Crimean.”

  “Grandfather always said it was the Crimean War,” Vera protested.

  “Come, Vera, you know grandfather was always a little dotty. It couldn’t have been the Crimean. He was only a baby then.”

  “Oh, dear, I get so confused about our wars,” Vera sighed, and then brightly and rather sweetly she said to Sheriff Casper, “We’ve had so many, you know.”

  Sheriff Casper returned to the point. “Well, now whatever do you ladies want to be carryin’ a thing like this fer?”

  Prudence replied, “You see, we were coming to America for the first time and the colonel had warned us, well, you know, the dangers, and we thought we’d better . . .”

  Sheriff Casper, in dead earnestness, said, “Why, ma’am, you don’t need nuthin’ like that over here. You’re jes’ as safe as you would be in yer own home. This is a peace-lovin’ country.”

  He was moved by the emotion of his speech so that his hatful of assorted artillery rattled gently.

  Sheriff Casper handed the weapon back to Prudence with the cartridges separate. “I wouldn’t put them shells back in there if I was you, ma’am. If that old gun went off, it’d likely blow out the side of a house.”

  The sheriff and his deputy turned and started back up the aisle. When they reched the front of the bus, Sheriff Casper picked up the driver’s microphone and addressed the passengers. “Well, folks my deputy here will return yer personal property now, and that’s about all and we want to apologize for holdin’ you up this way and we’re glad to be able to cause you no further trouble everybody bein’ properly identified as bein’ innocent citizens. Happy trip, folks.”

  Deputy Williams arrived at the front of the bus, having returned all the weapons to their owners, and the two sheriffs left.

  Marshall wiped the sweat from his forehead and said under his breath, “Son of a bitch, those two nutty old bags.”

  Julian eyed him and said, “W-w-what happened?”

  Marshall turned upon him irritably, “Didn’t I tell you to cut out the goddamn stammer?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Well, then say it right.”

  Julian did. “What happened?” Then he added, “Are you scared again?”

  Marshall said, “No, I’m not and stop asking that. When I am, I’ll let you know. But it wouldn’t have been funny if those cops had been after us, would it?”

  “But, what were they . . . ?” And then, as an afterthought, “Why did you tell them my name was Herman?”

  Marshall wondered what it would be like if he really had a kid brother like Julian. Were all kids like that? He supposed so. He probably had been himself. His sense of humour reasserted itself and he replied, “I once had a parrot by that name. He could talk your head off. What happened was that those two biddies thought we were hijackers and told the driver.”

  Julian said, “Hijackers! Say, gee, that would be fun.” He whipped his Bubble Gun from its holster and pressed it against Marshall’s side. “I ain’t aimin’ to hurt anybody long as you stay nice and quiet in your seat, but I wouldn’t like this thing to go off because it sure makes a powerful hole. Driver, turn around, we ain’t goin’ to Washington. We’re going to . . . What was the name of that place in Mexico?”

  The Coote sisters, anxious to mollify the pair opposite for their error, had been gazing over and listening.

  Prudence said, “Oh, isn’t he sweet!” and gave her most winning smile.

  Marshall threw a poisonous look in return, muttered, “Oh for chrissakes,” pulled his ten-gallon hat down over his eyes and slumped low in his seat again. Unaccountably, and from far out in left field, he suddenly found himself wondering how the chess game on Bus 396 was getting on. Beneath him the tires droned their way to Washington.

  In a secret engineering laboratory somewhere in Moscow a burly Russian engineer high up in the Party hierarchy, achieved the completion of the object on which he was working alone and under heavy guard. It took five passes and passwords to get through five locked doors to reach him. Himself a rocket designer and arms expert, on this he had worked alone, since not even technicians were allowed in to handle the lathes, welding equipment and precision tools.

  The technician hefted the finished object in his hand, sighed and laid it down on the workbench before him. A red light flashed on to a panel high up on the wall opposite which meant that someone from the outside had begun the long routine of penetrating the laboratory. It would be someone properly identified. Nevertheless, the man, as a precaution, threw a cloth over the object and waited. It took fifteen minutes for the visitor to pass all the challenges and enter. He wore the insignia of an army colonel on the epaulettes of his grey greatcoat and the peak of his cap, but the engineer recognized him as a character of dual pursuits, holding even higher rank in the branch of Soviet counterespionage.

  The expert said, “Comrade Veznin.”

  The officer said, “Comrade Vosnevsky,” and then added, “Have you completed it?”

  “Yes.”

  He removed the cloth from the object.

  The colonel picked it up, opened and examined it. Then he gave Vosnevsky a long, hard stare. The latter, who was valuable enough and sufficiently high in the Party not to care, returned the look.

  C H A P T E R

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  They had crossed the Continental Divide, and the snowy peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Range were visible behind them in the distance, and Marshall explained it to Julian as a kind of knife edge sharply dividing rainfall so that the drops falling on one side would run off eastwards while those dropping a few inches away would head west and wind up in the Pacific Ocean or the Gulf of California.

  At least that was the way Marshall saw it graphically and explained it to Julian, who took it as gospel and thought of himself as being perched upon the topmost spine of the ridge in the winter time with a sled, trying to make up his mind whether he would slide down to the east or to the west.

  Marshall illuminated the boredom of the endless plains and wheatfields of Kansas with the saga of “Bleeding Kansas,” remembered from his high school history days when, himself a westerner, born in Abile
ne, he had understood something of the bloody convulsions that had shaken that state. Through his eyes Julian saw northerners, southerners, soldiers, rebels, pioneers in covered wagons, outlaws and gunslingers.

  Marshall never talked down to Julian or lectured or attempted to impress him, probably because actually he was talking more to himself than the boy and trying to revive some of his own lost faith.

  He had gone from high school into the army in a mood half of adventurous recklessness, half from conviction, to train to become both an accomplished killer as well as an avoider of death. He had served his tour in Vietnam to return to a headless, mindless, embittered country, a large part of whose people had looked upon him as a fool and a sucker to the point where he had stripped his insignia from his jacket and kept his mouth shut about his service. But the defeatism of his country and his countrymen and their almost total cynicism had infected him. He had returned with a stake of some three thousand dollars in pay as well as a tribute to his skill as a crapshooter and had criss-crossed a number of states looking not so much for work as for any road to quick and easy money that was not criminal. The university dream was gone. The GI Bill or anything to do with the army filled him with disgust. It was too late. Somewhere there must be a main chance and as he roved and searched his capital dwindled away. He had taken jobs here and there but none of them offered any future. Then someone had said Washington was the place. If you got to know the right people, the pickings could be astronomical. He didn’t quite believe this but it did seem that a guy who knew his way around a bit could do himself some good. Hence, his destination.

  They crossed the Mississippi at its confluence with the Missouri at St. Louis. Marshall made it an event for Julian as well as for himself for he was remembering his Mark Twain as he looked upon the broad, yellow, sluggish, swirling waters, and he had once made a short trip on that river in an old stern-wheeler and so could picture for Julian the days of the river gamblers and double-barrelled derringers fired under tables when an ace too many made its appearance.

  To Julian, the hours, the days and the nights of rolling across the country were as close to heaven as any small boy had the right to expect. He had earned the friendship, respect and companionship of an adult who treated him like a man. He had lived through the maddest kind of story-book adventure in which he had played a real-life part as a hero, though curiously that incident left less impression upon his memory than the joys of the trip and the equality of his footing with Marshall.

  For they lived during that time as men on the loose and far away from the supervision of women or anyone else. They washed when they were able and it was convenient, or didn’t, and abused their stomachs at all hours of the morning, noon or night with dubious frankfurters, double hamburgers as well as other kinds of burgers, greasy French fries, stale sandwiches, candy bars, ice-cream cones, all washed down with every variety of cola, orange, grapefruit or cherry drink, milk, tea and coffee. Even in that short time Julian blossomed and filled out. It was sheer bliss.

  And yet, for Marshall, all the time what he knew he would do when the opportunity presented itself was at the back of his mind, him hating it, despising himself and yet uncontrollably certain. He wasn’t even sure whether it had anything to do with his attitude towards the boy and the trouble he took with him. Julian appealed to him, had even touched him, because he was a “nothing” child with a one track mind and a dreamer with the courage to attempt to grasp the dream.

  “Nothing” to Marshall’s way of thinking was complimentary and not derogatory, for Julian had very few of the irritating traits of the small boy. He wasn’t a smart alec or a know-it-all, he wasn’t fresh or too prying and could take no or shut up for an answer. His obvious coddling by his mother and, if it was true, neglect by his father, had endowed him with an appealing innocence that led him to accept what came simply as a part of things, either as they were or as they seemed to be, and whatever gap there was between the two he filled in with his fantasy. And besides which there was the worship he bestowed upon Marshall with every look and gesture and the complete faith as evinced by the instantaneous cure of his stammer.

  This worship, this love—Marshall’s corrupt mind fled from these words as though they themselves were corruption—they were extremely painful for him to contemplate, painful to the point where they could not be entertained and had to be pushed back and altered to the state where they were no longer connected with what he intended to do. His plan had now simply become an automatism waiting upon the moment, and his impatience was growing, as two-thirds of the distance across the continent had been covered.

  Oddly enough, while the plan had germinated far, far back, Marshall could hardly remember the day or the time that Julian had returned to his seat clutching his diagram and reporting that the colonel had said it would work, after which, of course, there had been the graphic demonstration. It had been the episode of the silly Coote sisters that had crystallized the necessity for early action.

  It was while he was being frisked by the sheriff that he realized the danger not only to his own safety and freedom in connection with this crazy caper, but also of the immediate jeopardy of losing his chance for the big stake. But for the thickheadedness of the sheriff and his deputy and the fact that they had been alerted to look for an armed hijacker and not a fugitive boy, it could have been disastrous.

  And so when at last the opportunity did present itself the automatism which had lain dormant at the back of Marshall’s mind took over. One moment he had been glancing down at Julian with an expression of mingled affection and compassion as he wondered what his father was really like and how much of a fool the man could be, and the next his look was one of all the cunning that had been superimposed upon his nature.

  It was 1.30 in the morning and they were approaching Pittsburgh. A difference in the music of the tires caused by a change in the roadbed awakened Marshall and through the window he could see the glow of Pittsburgh’s furnaces daubing the ceiling of the night sky with pale orange. That was when Marshall looked upon Julian curled up with his head on his Buffalo Bill jacket sound asleep in the seat next to him. It had induced his sympathy and affection until he saw an edge of the diagram of the Bubble Gun showing from the pocket of Julian’s coat, far enough from the sleeping boy’s head for the chance to remove it.

  The bus driver’s voice boomed loudly over the loudspeaker, “Coming into Pittsburgh, folks. Forty-five minutes break for refreshments if you want any or a wash-up, but keep an eye on the time and don’t miss the bus. Departure 2.35 a.m.”

  All through the noisy announcement which brought the other passengers astir Marshall kept his eye on Julian but the boy never moved. He threw a glance across to the only two who might have observed his actions, but the Coote sisters were already moving down the aisle. They always disembarked no matter where or how brief the stop. Then, with infinite care and patience so that there was not so much as a whisper of a rustle from the sheet of paper, Marshall drew the diagram of the Bubble Gun from Julian’s pocket and put it in his own. Pittsburgh was a major metropolis. What he needed would surely be available there at the terminal.

  But first he had to slip out of his seat without waking Julian. He had hung back to let all the others disembark first and to see whether the effect of their bustle as well as the traffic sounds and the night noises from without would disturb Julian. But the boy had only shifted his position slightly and thereafter was dead to the world.

  The coin-operated photocopier was situated next to a stamp vending machine which at that time of the morning was not being greatly patronized. Marshall watched the area and for a good ten minutes no one touched either of the machines. The Coote sisters were not in sight. He thought they were probably accepting the bus driver’s invitation to wash-up, nor did he see any of the other passengers from their bus. Even at that early hour there was much movement through the terminal. Marshall went over to the copying machine. He knew exactly what he had to do and how to do it.


  Taking the diagram of the Bubble Gun from his pocket, he flattened it out, then producing an envelope he carefully tore a white square from the back and wrote upon it. He placed this on the diagram and drew a heavy border on the square, saw that it was properly positioned, slid the diagram into the slot, inserted his quarter and waited the few seconds it took the machine to hiss and grumble, perform its function and deliver him his photocopy. He plucked it forth and examined it with satisfaction and invested two more coins for additional copies. He then retrieved the original diagram and removed the piece of envelope-back, which he shredded into tiny bits and dropped into a refuse basket. He pocketed Julian’s drawing and once more carefully examined the photocopy. Where in the lower right-hand corner it had once read, BUBBLE GUN, INVENTED BY JULIAN WEST, 137 FLORAL HEIGHTS, SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, APRIL 15, 1975, it now read, TOY BUBBLE GUN, INVENTED BY FRANK MARSHALL, 39 ORCHARD ST, ABILENE, TEXAS, APRIL 3, 1973. The border he had drawn about this legend had blended perfectly and completely concealed the fact that a new address and inventor had been superimposed.

  Just for luck, in case someone passing by might have recognized him, Marshall moved over to the stamp machine and played it for a couple of quarters, and what he thought of when the stamps began to issue was a jackpot and a never-ending cascade of money tumbling from a one-armed bandit.

  From then on Marshall found himself involved in the most dangerous moments. The photocopies stowed away in an inside pocket, and that much successfully accomplished without being seen, he could move freely about the waiting-room. But what if Julian woke in the meantime? How to get the paper back into his pocket again unobserved? Go back now, or wait for general boarding?

  You learned under fire to figure the odds, play them and stick to them. The sooner he got back to the bus before the passengers began piling on, the better. He would, or he wouldn’t, find Julian awake and sitting up perhaps, not yet aware that his diagram had been abstracted, but the odds read that with all still quiet in the bus he ought not to have awakened. But to Marshall’s surprise, he found that now that he had done it and there was no longer that automatism to regulate his conduct he was badly shaken, nervous and frightened.