The Boy Who Invented the Bubble Gun

by Paul Gallico

  Buried in the vast complex of the Pentagon Building, the photograph of Richard Milhous Nixon, captured in a moment of presidential nobility, was looking down from the wall of the conference room where Major-General Thomas H. Horgan was presiding over a meeting numbering two generals, three colonels, several CIA men and a pair from the FBI. Horgan was engaged in chewing out Colonel John Sisson, and at that moment was saying, “Jesus Christ, John, you sure screwed this one up. What the hell was it that son of a bitch photographed anyway?”

  Sisson was a man not easily cowed, but it was the absurdity of it all, rather than the battery of angry looks fired at him from all around the long table, that was throwing him, and he replied inanely, “Well, er—I—er—I guess it was a Bubble Gun.”

  Horgan’s voice rose, “What? Bubblegum? What the hell are you talking about? For chrissakes, speak clearly!”

  Sisson stammered, “I didn’t say b-b-bubblegum,” and suddenly found himself ridiculously wafted back to the bus and the little boy who also stammered sitting by his side. “I said a Bubble Gun. A pistol that shot bubbles.”

  Horgan’s voice went up another decibel, “That shot what? Oh, my God, what the hell did it look like? You said there was a diagram? Well, what kind of a diagram?”

  Sisson tried to think back what it had looked like, but if his life had depended upon it he could not have reproduced it at that moment and he had to blurt out, “Well, sir, I never really paid too much attention to it. There was something about a washer in the wrong place. You know, it was just a kid bothering me and then before I knew it . . .”

  General Horgan completed the sentence for him. “. . . the stupid bastard photographed it, and made the American Army look like a pack of goddamn fools.”

  A general with one star less, but from a different department, now sought to come to the rescue of the unhappy Sisson. He said to Horgan, “Now wait a minute, Tom, maybe it isn’t so bad. Okay, the Russians put a set of phony rocket plans in our hands. You were smart enough to spot them. We organize a set of phony plans of our own to show them we want them to cut out the kidding so we can both stop wasting our time on a lot of crap. So, what’s the difference as long as they get the message?”

  Horgan refused to be mollified, and still furious, snarled, “The difference is a goddamn foul-up and we don’t know where the hell we’re at. Besides which, we’ve been saving up that Russian pigeon, Allon, for years until we wanted to use him and now we’ve got him to blow his cover for nothing.” He pointed his finger at Sisson, “Listen, I don’t give a goddamn how you do it or where you get it from, but I want to see that diagram before tomorrow. I want to know just what the hell they’ve got.”

  The other general who had spoken up asked, “What became of the kid, John?”

  Sisson replied miserably, “I don’t know. He just disappeared. Haven’t you been reading the papers?” He felt put upon and needed a scapegoat, and turned to the FBI men. “Listen, can’t you guys find a boy whose description has been broadcast all over the country? And I thought you were supposed to stop that thing from leaving the country.”

  One of the FBI men said, “The hell we were. That was a CIA job. And the child isn’t a kidnapping case. That’s for the local fuzz.”

  One of the CIA men retorted angrily, “Listen, lay off us. I suppose you trigger-happy bastards would have shot up that Mexican airport. For chrissakes.”

  The second general said, “Oh, cut it out. It’s one of those things. Look, let’s go back and get the whole thing from the beginning again and maybe we can see some daylight. John, you say you had Allon nicely hooked and set up, but when was it exactly this kid braced you? He wouldn’t have been in cahoots with Allon, would he?”

  “Oh for godssakes, no. A ten year old?” Sisson continued, “All I can tell you is that . . .” And here again he launched into his story, racking his brain to try to remember every scrap that might bear upon the subject or give a clue. The men around the table listened silently. A glance of one of the CIA men drifted to the portrait photograph of the president and a stab of light upon the sheet of glass over it gave him the impression momentarily of an eyebrow having gone up.

  The steel and glass mountain of the United States Department of Commerce building completed the obliteration of the world of fantasy in which Julian had been voyaging and jolted him into the terror of reality.

  ANYONE CAN PATENT AN INVENTION had been the smooth, seductive headline in his Popular Mechanics magazine, which had seduced him into that first step in attaining that goal.

  But he wasn’t “anyone,” that anonymous genius whose rights to the protection of his invention were defined and protected by law. He was Julian West, age nine and a half, fifth grade, Elias P. Johnson Preparatory School, San Diego, California, with a messy, worked-over diagram in one pocket and a slightly dubiously performing Bubble Gun in the other. San Diego was a million miles away and here was Washington to which somehow he had got himself transported, and behind these sets of revolving doors which were kept in a constant twirl by people pushing in and out was—well, was whatever it was that happened to an invention that enabled one to call it “patented”.

  Julian got out of the cab and stood on the sidewalk facing the building, for a moment thrust back once more into the world of giants and giantism. Children, in the make-believe in which most of them live, adjust themselves to an outsized world, but every so often they find themselves a race of Lilliputians dwarfed by a planet peopled with Brobdingnagians more overwhelming and terrifying than ever imagined by Swift. Everything looms over the child. His parents, his teachers, chairs, tables, lamps. Until he meets with his playmates his looks are always upwards. Everything peers down at him. If he could not see himself equipped with Excalibur or a ray-gun, how could he survive in a world of perpetual optical menace? The bus ride from beginning to end had been a fairytale. How was anyone to understand the feelings of a small boy faced with his first real plunge into the terrors of an uncaring adult world far removed from every shelter and every security he had ever known?

  But in a curious way Meech Morrow did, not so much because of the fact that he had children of his own but rather because of the figure that Julian cut. Looking at the back of the boy not quite four feet tall from the soles of his sneakers to the top of his carroty hair, paper suitcase in his hand, one sock up and one sock down, the head tilted just slightly backwards as though not wishing or even daring to look as high as to the top of the building, he penetrated to Morrow’s heart in the absurdity of his project and his fearful loneliness. Whether the whole thing was a make-up or the child actually believed he had created something which was patentable, the pathos of the moment was almost unbearable. Besides which there was something niggling at the back of Morrow’s mind, from the first moment of shock when he had wanted to say hello as though to someone he had recognized. Where had he seen him before? Whatever, Morrow knew that to abandon him was unthinkable and so he said, “I’ll wait for you.”

  Julian, startled, turned and plunged his hand into his pocket. He said, “Aw gee, I forgot for a minute but I wasn’t going to go away without paying you, honest.”

  Morrow said, “I know you weren’t, sonny, but I better stay. You can pay me when you come out. Maybe you’ll be needing another ride somewhere. I’ll stop the clock.”

  Julian said, “Aw, you got work to do,” but some of the fear had been drained out of him. He was no longer completely alone. Somebody was standing by.

  Morrow laughed and said, “That’s all right, kid. Maybe I’m just curious what goes on inside there. Nobody ever told me. You go ahead and tell ’em about your invention and I’ll be here when you come out.”

  Comfort and courage flowed back into Julian again as he thought to himself Frank Marhall would have done that, too. He said, “Okay, thanks. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll hurry up.” And he marched steadfastly across the intervening pavement and was whirled within by the revolving door.

  Meech Morrow watched him go and then
turned to the well at the side of the driver’s seat where he kept his city maps, log book, reading matter, old newspapers and scrabbled until he found what he was looking for, a two-day-old newspaper. He opened it to page three, read the story there once again, looked at the photograph and began a chuckle that grew into a laugh. “Well, Goddamn,” he said to himself. “Ain’t that something. Mr. Herman,” and repeated, “Well Goddamn,” and then added, “Ain’t that some kid.”

  In the office of Peabody and Wilson, Drafting Engineers and Patent Consultants, a young man, using a reversed pen as a pointer was smiling at a photocopy of a diagram laid on the table before him.

  He said, “That’s amusing. How come you thought of that?”

  Frank Marshall said, “My kid brother had a water pistol. He gave it to me to fix when it busted and when I took it apart I thought maybe, you know, like bubbles through those rings.”

  The draftsman nodded and said, “Uh huh,” and then pointing with his pen, said, “Which line here? The heavy or the light one?”

  Marshall said quickly, “The light one, where I corrected it in pencil. See, this bag was too close to the nozzle and . . .”

  “Yeah, sure. Have you got a model?”

  For the first time, Marshall felt an anxiety. Could he have got the gun away from Julian too?

  He asked, “Do I have to have one?”

  “Not really. They’d prefer it if you had, but your diagram is clear and you could put the model in later.”

  Marshall asked, “How long will it take? I’m in a hurry.”

  The draftsman smiled and said, “They always are,” and then chewing the end of the pen, “Not too long. The Patent Office closes at five. We could do it by four. In the meantime you could be filling out all the rest of the forms. By the way, you know the filing fee is sixty-five bucks?”

  Marshall said, “Uh huh. And what about your drawing?”

  “Half a C.”

  Marshall nodded and said, “That’s okay,” and thought of the hole this would make in his remaining capital. But if he got his patent . . . He asked, “You couldn’t make it by 3.30 could you?”

  The draftsman said, “I’ll try.” They were always in a hurry, these inventors, even with the craziest ideas, always terrified that someone might get in ahead of them.

  C H A P T E R

  1 4

  It was after a wait of some twenty minutes that Morrow saw Julian emerge, or rather erupt from the revolving door as someone in haste behind him practically catapulted him out. He saw that the boy was clutching pamphlets, folders and forms and as he recovered himself and slowly approached the cab Morrow said, “Well, Mr. Julian, how did you make out?” and was immediately sorry that he had done so, that is to say, called him by his right name for to the already dazed expression on Julian’s face now was added terror.

  For an instant he thought the boy was going to turn and run, and Julian, his false identity so easily pierced, for a moment had actually been minded to do so. Then he remembered that he had not paid the cab man and remained on the pavement, a picture of abject misery and fright, clutching his sheaves of bumph.

  Meech Morrow reached over and opened the front door of the cab on the other side from the driver’s seat. He said, “You just come and sit here alongside me and we’ll have a little chat. You got nothing to be afraid of with Meech Morrow.”

  Julian got in and Morrow closed the door. The driver said, “You’re the boy I read about in the paper, but we’ll forget about that. Did you sure enough have an invention? What happened in there? They give you the runaround?”

  Julian shook his head slowly and said, “No, I guess not. They were busy. A man asked if I’d researched it and if I hadn’t I ought to.” He was looking up at Morrow but his eyes were turned inward to the bureaucratic turmoil through which he had been whirled with the short shrift that a small boy with a much folded and dirtied diagram might expect.

  Passing through those revolving doors he had gone from fantasy to a nightmare of instructions, “Go there,” “Do this,” “Room 428,” “Second door on the left,” “Can’t talk to you now, sonny, I’m too busy,” “Here, take this home, read it and come back with your father.”

  Julian tried to tell some of it to Morrow. He said, “It’s gotta be on some kind of special paper with special kinds of instruments and I have to take it to a patent attorney. What’s a patent attorney?”

  Morrow said with a faint note of contempt in his voice, one people often have when speaking of the legal profession, “Lawyers. I guess maybe there’s a lot of legal stuff about getting a patent.”

  Julian was shifting the pamphlets unhappily on his lap and remembering. He said, “Indian ink only. Why does it have to be with ink made by Indians?”

  Morrow said, “Not Indian. India. I guess maybe it doesn’t smudge or rub out.”

  Julian said, “A man told me that all drawings had to be made with drafting instruments.”

  Morrow reached over and took one of the pamphlets and thumbed through it and said, “Oh boy. ‘Written document of petition,’ ‘Oath of declaration,’ ‘Drawing on pure white paper of the thickness corresponding to two- or three-ply Bristol board,’—Brother, they don’t make it easy.”

  A man stuck his head inside the cab window and asked, “This cab free?”

  Morrow replied respectfully, “No sir, I’m afraid not,” flipped on his ignition and drove off a way before stopping and saying to Julian, “Maybe you better get in the back seat and then nobody will ask me.”

  Julian did as he was told and once in the back of the cab relapsed into that helpless feeling of nightmare from which he was trying to wake up and could not.

  Morrow looked back and said, “Okay, what do we do now?”

  As Morrow watched, Julian drew his diagram from his pocket and unfolded it. He regarded it for a moment and then said, “I haven’t got any special kind of paper.” Something had fluttered to the floor, a piece of white pasteboard. Julian picked it up and Morrow was surprised at the sudden change of expression that came over the boy’s face. Julian handed him the card and said, “Could we go there?”

  Morrow looked at the name and address and whistled with astonishment. He asked, “You know him, boy?”

  Julian nodded. “He helped me with what was wrong with my invention. I mean, on the bus. He said if I got into any kind of trouble . . .”

  Morrow said, “Kid, I’d say you sure got some muscle there. Want to go see him?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Morrow said, “No charge for the waiting time. Like I said, it’s strictly business. That’s a four dollar trip. Okay?”

  Julian nodded.

  Morrow said, “We go.” The cab pulled back into the stream of traffic.

  Julian’s invasion of the Pentagon Building was a classic of its kind. The two marine guards at the front portal didn’t see him at all because they weren’t looking for a small boy, holding a card in one hand, to march stolidly and unquestioningly between them and breach the main entrance. He had been decanted from Morrow’s cab, but had left his suitcase behind, for when he had reached for his money to pay, Morrow had said simply, “Skip it, kid. I better be here when you come out and see what’s next.” Morrow had figured the boy for a maximum of probably five minutes before he would be ejected. No pass, no credentials, nothing but the personal card of a colonel in ordnance, address, an office telephone number and scribbled initials.

  The lobby of the Pentagon presented the most efficient and complicated security check that could be devised by a nervous soldiery. There were counters, barriers, sergeants behind desks, marine guards, military police and a smattering of officers.

  Julian approached the nearest desk, behind which sat a naval petty officer with six gold hash marks down his sleeve and two rows of ribbons.

  He asked, “Please, sir, where can I find Colonel Sisson?”

  The petty officer said, “Who’s he?”

  Julian showed him the card. The petty officer studied it
and said, “Over there, sonny. Ask him, and indicated a corner of the lobby where everyone was khaki-clad.

  Julian took his card to a sergeant at a desk and said again, “Please, sir, where can I find Colonel Sisson?”

  The sergeant called over to another, “Hey, Joe, where’s a Colonel John Sisson?”

  Joe said, “I think he’s ordnance. Hey Bill, what wing is ordnance in?”

  Like a shuttlecock the name of Sisson was batted to and fro until it reached a corporal who was standing in front of a huge directory. He called back, “South-west wing, corridor G. Second floor, room 934. Colonel John G. Sisson. That right?”

  The okays were wafted back by the same route. By the time they reached the desk of the original inquirer, the sergeant, Julian was no longer there.

  He said, “Now, what the hell? Where did the kid go?” And then, as an important piece of brass with lanyards, shiny boots and an overloaded briefcase, interrogated him, he forgot about Julian. The two guards at the inner entrance, seeing the boy leave the desk with the sergeant apparently satisfied, made no attempt to stop him. And thereafter, Julian, with the wing, the corridor, the floor and the room number firmly embedded in his mind, proceeded to penetrate the innermost recesses of the most protected building in the world.

  A guard asked, “Have you got a pass?” Julian showed him the colonel’s card. The guard said, “Okay.”

  Another Cerberus asked the same question. Julian showed the card. The MP said, “That’s no good. You’ve gotta have a pass.”

  Julian said, “The sergeant said it was okay.”

  “Which sergeant?”

  “The one at the desk.”

  “Who? Billings? The fat guy?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Okay, go ahead.”

  The third was more adamant. “Nix, sonny. Nobody gets through here without a badge. Who sent you? How’d you get this far?”

  Julian said, “But, Colonel Sisson’s my . . .” He was going to say “friend,” but a marine at the inner portal impatiently finished it for him, grouching, “Oh, for Pete’s sake. I wish the brass would let us know when their kids are coming. Go ahead and see your daddy, but don’t say I let you through.”