Very soon he would lose that first fortune of the evening. The secret of Basil Bagelbaker is that he enjoyed losing money spectacularly after he was full of it to the bursting point.
· · · · ·
A thoughtful man named Maxwell Mouser had just produced a work of actinic philosophy. It took him seven minutes to write it. To write works of philosophy one used the flexible outlines and the idea indexes; one set the activator for such a wordage in each subsection; an adept would use the paradox feed-in, and the striking analogy blender; one calibrated the particular-slant and the personality-signature. It had to come out a good work, for excellence had become the automatic minimum for such productions.
“I will scatter a few nuts on the frosting,” said Maxwell, and he pushed the lever for that. This sifted handfuls of words like chthonic and heuristic and prozymeides through the thing so that nobody could doubt it was a work of philosophy.
Maxwell Mouser sent the work out to publishers, and received it back each time in about three minutes. An analysis of it and reason for rejection was always given—mostly that the thing had been done before and better. Maxwell received it back ten times in thirty minutes, and was discouraged. Then there was a break.
Ladion’s work had become a hit within the last ten minutes, and it was now recognized that Mouser’s monograph was both an answer and a supplement to it. It was accepted and published in less than a minute after this break. The reviews of the first five minutes were cautious ones; then real enthusiasm was shown. This was truly one of the greatest works of philosophy to appear during the early and medium hours of the night. There were those who said it might be one of the enduring works and even have a hold-over appeal to the Dawners the next morning.
Naturally Maxwell became very rich, and naturally Ildefonsa came to see him about midnight. Being a revolutionary philosopher, Maxwell thought that they might make some free arrangement, but Ildefonsa insisted it must be marriage. So Maxwell divorced Judy Mouser in Small Claims Court and went off with Ildefonsa.
This Judy herself, though not so beautiful as Ildefonsa, was the fastest taker in the City. She only wanted the men of the moment for a moment, and she was always there before even Ildefonsa. Ildefonsa believed that she took the men away from Judy; Judy said that Ildy had her leavings and nothing else.
“I had him first,” Judy would always mock as she raced through Small Claims Court.
“Oh that damned Urchin!” Ildefonsa would moan. “She wears my very hair before I do.”
· · · · ·
Maxwell Mouser and Ildefonsa Impala went honeymooning to Musicbox Mountain, a resort. It was wonderful. The peaks were done with green snow by Dunbar and Fittle. (Back at Money Market, Basil Bagelbaker was putting together his third and greatest fortune of the night, which might surpass in magnitude even his fourth fortune of the Thursday before.) The chalets were Switzier than the real Swiss and had live goats in every room. (And Stanley Skuldugger was emerging as the top actor-imago of the middle hours of the night.) The popular drink for that middle part of the night was Glotzenglubber, Eve Cheese and Rhine wine over pink ice. (And back in the city, the leading Nyctalops were taking their midnight break at the Toppers’ Club.)
Of course it was wonderful, as were all of Ildefonsa’s— But she had never been really up on philosophy, so she had scheduled only the special thirty-five minute honeymoon. She looked at the trend indicator to be sure. She found that her current husband had been obsoleted, and his opus was now referred to sneeringly as Mouser’s Mouse. They went back to the city and were divorced in Small Claims Court.
The membership of the Toppers’ Club varied. Success was the requisite of membership. Basil Bagelbaker might be accepted as a member, elevated to the presidency and expelled from it as a dirty pauper from three to six times a night. But only important persons could belong to it, or those enjoying brief moments of importance.
“I believe I will sleep during the Dawner period in the morning,” Overcall said. “I may go up to this new place Koimopolis for an hour of it. They’re said to be good. Where will you sleep, Basil?”
“Flop-house.”
“I believe I will sleep an hour by the Midian Method,” said Burnbanner. “They have a fine new clinic. And perhaps I’ll sleep an hour by the Prasenka Process, and an hour by the Dormidio.”
“Crackle has been sleeping an hour every period by the natural method,” said Overcall.
“I did that for a half hour not long since,” said Burnbanner. “I believe an hour is too long to give it. Have you tried the natural method, Basil?”
“Always. Natural method and a bottle of red-eye.”
· · · · ·
Stanley Skuldugger had become the most meteoric actor-imago for a week. Naturally he became very rich, and Ildefonsa Impala went to see him about 3 A.M.
“I had him first!” rang the mocking voice of Judy Skuldugger as she skipped through her divorce in Small Claims Court. And Ildefonsa and Stanley-boy went off honeymooning. It is always fun to finish up a period with an actor-imago who is the hottest property in the business. There is something so adolescent and boorish about them.
Besides, there was the publicity, and Ildefonsa liked that. The rumor-mills ground. Would it last ten minutes? Thirty? An hour? Would it be one of those rare Nyctalops marriages that lasted through the rest of the night and into the daylight off-hours? Would it even last into the next night as some had been known to do?
Actually it lasted nearly forty minutes, which was almost to the end of the period.
It had been a slow Tuesday night. A few hundred new products had run their course on the markets. There had been a score of dramatic hits, three-minute and five-minute capsule dramas, and several of the six-minute long-play affairs. Night Street Nine—a solidly sordid offering—seemed to be in as the drama of the night unless there should be a late hit.
Hundred-storied buildings had been erected, occupied, obsoleted, and demolished again to make room for more contemporary structures. Only the mediocre would use a building that had been left over from the Day-Flies or the Dawners, or even the Nyctalops of the night before. The city was rebuilt pretty completely at least three times during an eight-hour period.
The Period drew near its end. Basil Bagelbaker, the richest man in the world, the reigning president of the Toppers’ Club, was enjoying himself with his cronies. His fourth fortune of the night was a paper pyramid that had risen to incredible heights; but Basil laughed to himself as he savored the manipulation it was founded on.
· · · · ·
Three ushers of the Toppers’ Club came in with firm step.
“Get out of here, you dirty bum!” they told Basil savagely. They tore the tycoon’s toga off him and then tossed him his seedy panhandler’s rags with a three-man sneer.
“All gone?” Basil asked. “I gave it another five minutes.”
“All gone,” said a messenger from Money Market. “Nine billion gone in five minutes, and it really pulled some others down with it.”
“Pitch the busted bum out!” howled Overcall and Burnbanner and the other cronies. “Wait, Basil,” said Overcall. “Turn in the President’s Crosier before we kick you downstairs. After all, you’ll have it several times again tomorrow night.”
The Period was over. The Nyctalops drifted off to sleep clinics or leisure-hour hideouts to pass their ebb time. The Auroreans, the Dawners, took over the vital stuff.
Now you would see some action! Those Dawners really made fast decisions. You wouldn’t catch them wasting a full minute setting up a business.
A sleepy panhandler met Ildefonsa Impala on the way.
“Preserve us this morning, Ildy,” he said, “and will you marry me the coming night?”
“Likely I will, Basil,” she told him. “Did you marry Judy during the night past?”
“I’m not sure. Could you let me have two dollars, Ildy?”
“Out of the question. I believe a Judy Bagelbaker was named one of the ten best-
dressed women during the frou-frou fashion period about two o’clock. Why do you need two dollars?”
“A dollar for a bed and a dollar for red-eye. After all, I sent you two million out of my second.”
“I keep my two sorts of accounts separate. Here’s a dollar, Basil. Now be off! I can’t be seen talking to a dirty panhandler.”
“Thank you, Ildy. I’ll get the red-eye and sleep in an alley. Preserve us this morning.”
Bagelbaker shuffled off whistling “Slow Tuesday Night.”
And already the Dawners had set Wednesday morning to jumping.
* * * *
Insofar as anything about R. A. Lafferty is typical of anything (including Lafferty), “Slow Tuesday Night” is typical of his work: offbeat, deceptively light-humored, deeply involved, mocking-but-loving symbolism-that-is-not-quite-satire.
By this year’s standards, Lafferty is not a new writer: He has been publishing for five or six years now and has appeared in this collection before (“Seven Day Terror” in the 8th Annual). But I did tend to think of him as one of the “bright young writers”—a group that would include, for instance, Thomas Disch, Roger Zelazny, Robert Rohrer, Norman Kagan—all well under thirty. And I think I rather visualized one of the literary-magazine/s-f straddlers—someone way-in with the way-outs everywhere.
Three years ago, he offered no information about himself. This time, under persuasion, he quoted what he had sent to one of the magazines:
If I had an interesting biography, I wouldn’t be writing s-f and fantasy for surrogate interest. I am, not necessarily in that order, fifty years old, a bachelor, an electrical engineer, a fat man.
And continues: I’m a year older now, but nothing else needs changing. I was born in Iowa, and moved to Perry, Oklahoma, when I was four years old. . . . I’ve lived most of my life in Tulsa, with a year in Oklahoma City, a year in DC, four and a half years in the army in W.W. 2—Texas, North Carolina, Florida, California, Australia, New Guinea, Morotai, Philippines.
. . . Education is only high school, a few University of Tulsa night courses, I.C.S. engineering courses, linguaphone, etc. . . . Have worked most of my years for electrical jobbers, mostly as buyer and contractor price-quotation man. ... I am an amateur linguist, astronomer and biologist; an independent by political registration, a Catholic of the conservative or out-of-season variety. . . .
<
* * * *
Alex Kirs is also a bachelor, and was first published about six years ago—but there the resemblance ends. He is, he says, in his early thirties: . . . sociable, hospitable, and lazy . . . reasonably muscular, bald, wear glasses . . . live in New York, hare traveled extensively throughout the states. I am a shoestring sportsman: hunting, fishing, skindiving, archery, etc., a stylish horseman, a competition sailor, an indefatigable hobbyist, and a motorcycle enthusiast [Stretchy shoestring—j.m.]. . . . / live in a clutter of sports equipment with my cat, Madame Nhu. . . .
Apparently, he also does, or did, go to the movies.
* * * *
BETTER THAN EVER
ALEX KIRS
Joe and Monica went to the Movie. Like everyone else, they were gone for a month. Clinton met them at Noordberg’s Thursday party—the one you went to get out of going to the one on Saturday—and treated them to an et tu stare.
“Welcome back to the real world,” he said.
“Clint, don’t be like that,” Monica said. Clinton saw that she had been aged by the experience. To his certain knowledge—compounded of a five years’ acquaintanceship, a thousand bits of awed gossip, and some eerily inappropriate newspaper headlines—her tawny eyes had looked out over the ruins of one of the most creepily disastrous love affairs imaginable, with the same expression of mild discomfort with which she might announce a headache. You looked at the eyes now and thought: This girl has suffered. He felt like telling her unpleasantly, You have too much makeup on; go wash your face.
“Clint’s still deepening his rut,” Joe said. Clinton smiled.
“And soon I will disappear from sight in it, hmmn?” Joe’s face was even worse; all the old, familiar tics had been ironed out. If a souvenir balloon, subsiding into wrinkles week by week on the mantel, had had a bit of fresh air valved into it, it would have inspired much the same feeling; it looked nice, yes, but how long would it last? Clinton stared coldly at their faces; that the change had been predictable made it no easier to stomach. The women came out haggard and viciously serene; the men, looking calm and dedicated and noble.
“Clint, why don’t you give in?” Monica said. “You’re getting bitter, and there’s nothing so useless as a bitter nonconformist.”
“So now I’m a nonconformist?” he asked her, pleasantly. “And bitter as well. Why is it I seem to remember a time— excuse me, it was so terribly long ago—when we all agreed it was a matter of individual choice?” He thought, If she says, “We have come to our senses, now,” I will bite my fist. And then he thought, Maybe I really mean it. But even Monica occasionally knew which arguments could be counted on to kick her in the shins.
“Oh, you’re impossible,” she said. And then, to Joe, “And it would have meant so much to him, too.” Joe tousled her hair, looking noble. Clinton felt himself in the position of a kitten playing with a ball of wool; it was interesting, and lots of fun, and so he continued playing. . . . Perhaps, if he played long enough, he would find himself disentangled, able to let go.
“Would it, now?” he said. “You tempt me; why not tell me all about it?”
“It was the greatest experience of my life,” she said.
“You should be ashamed to say things like that about your life,” he said, suddenly tired. In the background, amid couches that looked like coffee-tables and coffee-tables that looked like couches—it made no difference at all on which you sat—Noordberg was cozying up to Janet. Noordberg was short and plump, with little, stupid eyes; he could not smile, or light a cigarette, or say hello without looking sinister. He had the manners of an octopus, and a heart of gold. Janet had the sort of politeness that dealt with sex fiends as if they were somebody’s grandfather; grandfathers, so treated, could not believe their luck and coyly turned their faces away for a moment, growing tusks.
There was no reason to stay any longer; Clinton pointed with his chin, and Joe and Monica turned to look. “What is that theme they play,” Clinton murmured, “when the cavalry comes over the hill? Excuse me; good night.” He drifted away into the throng; a sociologist, tracing with a dull spoon the course of his progress, would have discovered a beautiful graph; Non-involvement at the Perimeters of Small Groups. Coming up behind Janet, he put his nose possessively in her hair. She turned her good, delicate, un-pretty face to his; was it possible there was relief in her eyes? He thought, Oh, she really loves me.
“Time to go, pet,” he said fondly. “We have a date, remember?” Yes, she loved him; between showing consideration for him, or for Noordberg, there was no need for decision at all. Rising, she smiled.
“Such a nice party, Mr. Noordberg,” she said. “Good night.”
“Good night, Noodle. See you,” Clinton said. Noordberg told them good night and how much he had enjoyed having them; possibly his heart was broken, but he just looked sinister. Joe and Monica—and several others—waved faintly as they went out the door.
Later, in the dark, his arms in their habit around her as she listened through his skin to his slowing heart, he blew a strand of her hair from his lips and said: “Joe and Monica are back. Did you talk to them?”
“Yes. You?” she said. He nodded.
“Same old story,” he said. “You know, I’m getting very tired of being Above All That, but it’s still true; I just don’t see lopping a month off my life—I have a life, you know— watching some goddamn movie. If only they didn’t come out looking so noble, smelling at every pore of having been through a transmogrifying experience.” He removed an arm from her, groped, found cigarettes and lit up. He breathed a cloud of smoke out int
o the dark, carefully aiming it away from her hair.
“You know what Monica said to me?” he asked. “She said, ‘It was the greatest experience of my life.’ My God, if I had had a life like Monica’s, I would be sitting on a mountain wearing a yellow robe, shuddering whenever a man came within fifty miles.”
“Clinty, Monica’s not very bright. You should be kinder to her.” And then, reflectively, “Not exactly a movie; they all tell us that. Somehow I get the impression it isn’t anything like a movie at all.”
The Year's Best Science Fiction 11 - [Anthology] Page 39
