The Avram Davidson Treasury

by Avram Davidson

  Did the old Patroon learn how to cast the always at least semisacred tobacco into a not very flourishing fire and cry Skah-ootch?

  Useless to ask. Useless even to wonder.

  And, just as no young and handsome and famously-De Brooks-grinning distant cousin had ever appeared to invite poor Theo to tennis and tea, just so no unknown figure had ever appeared out of the dusk to hand him the map and the key to the traveling-chest made of cedar and black bull’s-hide.

  And the years rolled on and he had rolled on with them, explaining endlessly to anyone who would listen why their family needed that extra protection which only the Special Indemnity Policy offered; and to collect the rents for Miss Whittier and a few other ancients who still thought that he went annually to Parkill Ridge or Muskrat Sump for Thanksgiving Dinner to be made privy to the secrets of America’s almost-royal family. Whereas actually he went over to his mother’s folks, where he was loudly and cheerfully greeted as Pres-i-dent-De-Brooks! (once: then the annual joke was over), and cheerfully squeezed into a place at the crowded table where the only political philosophy expressed was that fingers were made before forks; and lavishly poured many glasses of whatever beer the Pucklemans were currently contracted to deliver

  Once, out of the mists, an elderly man in a high-crowned fedora such as Warren G. Harding might have worn at the Convention of 1912 (the sweat-band was very sweaty, though; even its sweat-stains) and a once-elegant suit with matching vest—that is, the spots on it matched those on the jacket and pants—had visited TDD in his office. The visitor glanced carefully at him, glanced carefully at the two framed photographs, made him a ponderous nod. “Yep!” said he. “You’re a De Brooks for sure!” His faded blue eyes had a sort of film over them and there were little traces of yellow gum at the corners and his complexion was as grey as his suit.

  “I…am…a Hammerson! Augustus Hammerson, Minister of Marine under John Adams? [Was this the face to launch a thousand ships and—] Great-uncle, four times removed, in the di-rect line!” And he leaned back, awaiting the effect. “Can call me Gus,” he said.

  “Gus,” said Theo, obediently. And, after a moment, added, “Well. well. well.”

  “Wrong side of the tracks!” exclaimed his visitor, suddenly and bitterly. “Won’t even give me the time of day!—Suppose it’s sort of the same with you, I guess,” he concluded, in a not-quite questioning tone. “All of those fancydancy De Brookses, hand in glove with the Big Bankers, hey.”

  Theo said, slowly, “Well…”

  And Gus Hammerson, after expressing his own grievances, which were many, went on to invite TDD to attend an informal get-together of a group of Real Americans interested in purifying the political system and restoring things the way they used to be and the way they ought to be: “‘No Irish need apply,’” said he. And gave another ponderous nod. “Apply our united strength,” said he. “Get some of those good political plums for ourselves!” said he. And, after some more such talk, asked TDD if he had a cigar, then borrowed a dollar to get one, then took his leave, still nodding deeply.

  TDD, after a lifetime of ungratified hopes and increasingly entrenched disappointments, was no longer really sure of what he really wanted. But he was sure that it was not to become a part of a would-be cabal of unpensioned former railroad telegraphers, retired secretaries of down at the heel institutions, bankrupted salesmen of the bonds of obscure municipalities: seeking to revive the ghost of the Know Nothings and secure for themselves a share of the openings for U.S. vice-consulates and inspectorates of intestate properties, to which their descents from militia officers of the War of 1812 obviously entitled them. He opened his office door to let a little air in, and wrote the dollar off as charity.

  —Was that how he seemed to others? he wondered—and the wondering of it gave him a very sharp pain whenever he thought about it: and, after that, he thought about it often.

  Not very many months after that Old Miss Whittier died, leaving him—surprisingly—a $1,000 Liberty Bond. Her nephew and niece, it was very plain, deeply begrudged him this trifle; but, inasmuch as Miss Whittier’s will had specified that if any of the heirs contested the will, such contestants were to receive the sum of $25 each and nothing more, decided to let him carry it away as spoil. As then, one hoped they neither of them broke a leg in their haste, sold all the Whittier properties to a syndicate with offices in Zurich and Hong Kong. The syndics sent TDD a nicely-worded letter expressing appreciation for his long services, for which their plans however…

  Having lost his apartment in Miss Whittier’s West Elm building, and not feeling quite ripe for yet another major move, Theobald Delafont De Brooks sold some of the furniture, gave some away to an eleemosynary organization whose bands had, now and then, briefly brightened his boyhood; and moved a very few items (such as, for example, a folding screen and an army cot and some blankets and sheets) into his office. He considered that what he would henceforth save on house rent would, if he were lucky, outweigh the increasing costs of dry-cleaning and finished shirts, and so on. It also came to pass that a morning meal consisting of a little orange juice and a little vodka not only cost less than a heavy greasy breakfast however traditional (and what had tradition ever done for Theobald Delafont De Brooks?) but that he felt rather better afterwards. Slowly going over these matters in his mind one night as preparation for unfolding the cot, he gazed—as one engaged in a religious ritual which no longer greatly attached him but which was very much a part of his routine—at the large framed oval photographs: President Theobald De Brooks, the Hero of the Pampas War; President Grosvenor Delafont De Brooks, who presided over the nation during more perilous times (happy era! whose major enemy was Spain!)—

  —came a knocking at the door—

  “Come in!”

  No one could have looked less like a raven than the decent-looking, tired-looking woman who entered, a woman of about the same age as Theo. Woman who at once saw the photographs, at once recognized them. Was at once impressed. Then, “Am I talking to Mr. De Brooks?”

  “You certainly are.” Well…he certainly was. Wasn’t she? The woman (really, he thought of her as “the lady”) looked at him carefully. Her face, somewhat faded, but fairly pleasant, asked a very over-familiar question. “Shirt-tail cousins,” said Theo. Didn’t feel like rest of the routine at all, at all. “What can I do for you, Mrs.—?” (Had to be Mrs., she wore a wedding ring and was not of the generation to be a Ms.)

  “Thatcher. Ella Thatcher. Widow of Bob—Robert Thatcher—I married my cousin, didn’t even get to change my last name.” (How brief, the dry, wry smile, anticipating the oh God how foreseeable remark which she must have heard a hundred thousand times: and weary of it as he of the one which he—). They shook hands. “Mr. De Brooks, have you ever heard of… Thatcher’s Storage?” Her manner was a bit embarrassed, a bit defiant, a bit irresolute, and…though rather less…a bit hopeful.

  TDD was not very used to women (and certainly not respectable women) calling on him late at night; he was just a bit embarrassed, certainly more than a bit puzzled; politeness won, however. “That-cher’s… Storage…? Yes! Browning Street! Isn’t that—”

  Ella Thatcher laughed briefly. “You’ve seen that old sign, the one painted on the side of the old Odeon Building by the railroad tracks. Why, that advertisement, it’s been there since the Year of One! My goodness! We moved, the firm moved, as a matter of fact, in 1930. To 635 Oldham.” She seemed rather pleased: however obsolete the sign, it had at least—

  “Well, Mrs. Thatcher. I’ll be glad to sell you some insurance, or—” He would be glad. He would be surprised, too.

  Ella Thatcher again gave her short laugh. “We’re going out of business. Did you ever hear of Mullet River, Florida? Just a wide place in the road, the town, can’t even call it a town. I own a couple of little bungalows there, and that’s where I’m going, just as soon as I wind things up here. Got my social security, going to catch and sell bait. Bob taught me how to load a hook and hold a net wh
en we were just kids. I have a book about a hundred ways to cook fish…”

  “Sounds great.” It did.

  “Yes? Do you think so? Well, I think so, too. The place is just too far from the nearest fire hydrant, I couldn’t get insurance…come on down, then, I’ll rent you the bungalow out behind for almost nothing, just for the company. It’s on, oh, a sort of canal. Quiet.”

  Quietly, “‘Why are you going out of business, Mrs. Thatcher?”

  Mrs. Thatcher sighed. “Well, people just don’t store things the way they used to. And…seems like the government, and the Unions, they are just making it harder and harder for a body to stay in business. Taxes, my God, the taxes! And…then…the place’s got about seventeen mortgages on it, and my brother-in-law, he owns sixteen of them. You know how long we’ve been in business, Mr. De Brooks? No… I suppose not… I sort of thought, you being a real old family, you might have heard something. Well, the fact is, we don’t know how long we’ve been in business! A lot of those old records, they were burned up, about the time of the Civil War. That’s when the last Mr. Simkins, he married…his daughter married…my great-grandfather, he was named Robert Thatcher, too. Before that,” her voice had taken on a slight singsong rhythm, and TDD formed the notion that perhaps Mrs. Thatcher had recited this history many times. “…before thaaat, it was called The Great Repository. How’s that for a name, The Great Repository? Anyway, to come to the point. Cleaning out the place, way down in the sub-basement, I come across this great big box—”

  “A box?” TDD’s heart gave a sudden thump.

  “Great big box. My hunch, you know if you’ve been in the same business all your life, you sort of get hunches sometimes about things, and my hunch, is that inside the box there’s maybe another box. Or something. And, on the box, it’s painted with the word, the name, I mean…”

  “De Brooks.”

  The two of them had spoken the word simultaneously. They chuckled. Then stopped. Was there, very suddenly, a slight but definite drop in the temperature?

  “See, maybe you do know something about it. And besides the name there’s a number, but the number doesn’t mean anything—Well: maybe it meant something to Simkins, and maybe it meant something to The Great Repository. But it doesn’t mean a thing to Thatcher’s. I mean, it-is-old…the box.”

  TDD nodded. “And you want to clear it out…and close up, I see.”

  Mrs. Thatcher, speaking with rather more confidence, said that she had written to every De Brooks in the book. Maybe because it was because she had no more letterheads and didn’t see any reason to get anymore and had just written in ink on plain paper and used just plain envelopes… “Or maybe they just thought I was trying to rook them, I don’t know. But, do you know what? Not one of them answered. Not a single one.”

  “I believe you,” Theo said, with great sincerity.

  “I never wrote you, Mr. De Brooks, because you, you’re in a different phone book, here. Just, tonight, thinking it over, I did remember that I did once see your name when I was driving past. So…well…so… Here I am.”

  Very quietly, Theobald Delafont De Brooks asked, “What’s the bill?”

  Ella Thatcher took a piece of paper from her purse, started to look at it, started to speak, then looked at it again, and then read aloud, “Three thousand, five hundred and thirty-five dollars and thirty-five cents.” And she looked at TDD, slightly diffident, slightly embarrassed, slightly defiant, and withal: somewhat hopeful.

  It flashed across TDD’s mind that, on something which had been in storage so long that no one knew how long it had been in storage, and the very records of which had been burned over a hundred years ago that the bill as announced could represent nothing but a pious hope; he said, “Will you take a $1,000 Liberty Bond in full settlement?” Surprise and delight moved across Ella Thatcher’s face, and so, in a second, did a slight shadow.

  “—that will cover moving it over here…and we won’t need to mention a thing to your brother-in-law—”

  In an instant they were shaking hands.

  In twenty minutes they were in a bar for which dim, drab, sleazy were inadequate qualifiers. “Red.” (Mrs. Thatcher speaking.) “Red. Want to help us move a box?”

  “Gimme twenny dollars,” said Red, “and I’ll move the Moon.”

  The warehouse truck was old, it was, for a truck still in service, very old. But it, with the dolly, Red, Ella Thatcher, and TDD, made no hard task of transportation. By midnight they had moved it into TDD’s office. Red received his $20, was gone, leaving only the thought of a thirst for beer.

  “Does that do it?” asked Mrs. Thatcher.

  “That does it,” said TDD. He opened his (mostly-empty) old safe, removed the manila envelope, slid the bond out for swift inspection, handed it over.

  “Lots of luck,” said Ella.

  “Lots of luck,” said TDD.

  And yet she did not move to go. He made no move to hasten her, eager though he was to be at work on the crate.

  “Well …” she said. Gave her purse a nervous pat, as though perhaps a bit afraid she might lose it. “Well …” she said, again. “Honestly, I should have told you honestly before…although I did come across the thing just a month or so ago, well, I had heard of it before. Bob mentioned it. My father and my uncle and their father mentioned it. And I’ll tell you what they called it.” She stopped suddenly. He had felt his face change. She had seen it change.

  “The spook box,” he said.

  Everybody has read of someone’s jaw dropping. Hers now dropped.

  After a moment it was back in place.

  “‘Well, I’ve heard the expression, too. But I…we…never knew what it meant,” he said. “What does It—?”

  She had somewhat recovered. He saw her swallow. But she did not ask for a glass of water, or even if she might sit down. She was game. “Well, it was an old family story. I mean, old. It was a…‘now you see it and now you don’t’ sort of thing. Every now and then it would turn up. By the time it would take for someone to go and tell about it, by the time someone would come back, it was…well…gone. As though it had some kind of a hex on it.”

  Theo said, “Maybe he had cheated the pow-whaw man on a bale of furs, or something. Or maybe his father had. They didn’t get rich buying dear and selling cheap, that’s for sure. Well. Guess we’ll never know.”

  She agreed that, probably, they never would. “But when I saw it and touched it myself, I knew that if there really had been a hex! on it, the hex was really off it now. Woman’s intuition; I really have to go.” And she really went.

  Sometimes dreams come true. Among the (few) things which TDD had brought with him in his latest move was the old toolbox, its last remembered use being the dismantling of a hen-house: “It smells, is ‘why,’” said Mrs. Delafont James De Brooks, nee Puckelman. The box was far more well-built than the hen-house had been, and it must have taken him an hour to get it open, his heart beating, beating, beating. How many years? Over three hundred years. What did he have to show for it? A lifetime of unrealized hopes. And many sly tricks, most of which never worked. How was he going to handle the matter? Some of the gold coins he would sell in Boston. Some he would sell in New York. Some in Philadelphia. Some in Baltimore. No dumping. And then he would catch a plane. Where to, a plane? Jamaica… Barbados… Curacao…and… Ella…?

  He never doubted for a minute what, exactly, was inside the box.

  He was right.

  Mrs. Thatcher was right, too.

  The story of how the traveling-chest made of cedar-wood and black bull’s-hide got packed into a snug box and how it found its way into The Great Repository and what had happened to the poor Old Patriot Patroon and why it had lain abandoned for almost two centuries would never, certainly, now be known. And as for the rich De Brookses, screw the rich De Brookses. They had had their chance. Chances.

  And maybe the pow-whaw man taught the Patriot Patroon the hex.

  The chest was easier to break into than
the heavy outer box had been. The black bull’s-hide crumbled easily. The cedar was sturdy, but the builders had not built it precisely snug, and the crowbar fitted between the gaps. Theo felt a slight difficulty in breathing; there was fortunately a bottle kept in case of emergencies; as he sipped, these words came into and ran through his mind: Seventy-five silver Pieces of Eight Royals, and the rest all in gold: gold escudos, golden guineas, golden louis, gold doubloons: every one of the rightful heritage of Theodore Delafont De Brooks.

  And sometimes they don’t.

  The treasure chest of the Patriot Patroon contained not a brass farthing nor a pewter shilling nor two copper pence, and certainly neither silver nor gold. Witnesses had seen that it had once been packed with metal money. But Wouter Cornelius De Brooks had not been called the Patriot patroon for nothing; it was not in word alone that he had supported the Continental Congress: he had trusted in its currency as well; and sometime during that mysteriously missing month he had exchanged every single piece of hard money for paper money, and the fruits of this exchange filled the chest. How unpatriotic, then, how cruel, on the part of whoever it was who had first used the phrase, Not worth a continental.

  The Continental Congress had been gallant.

  But it had not stuck around to pay.

  The ancient, the august, the almost-noble house of De Brooks, for reasons which Theobald Delafont had never known and would never know, had smitten him, innocent as he was, more than one blow: and this one more and greatest blow, it had waited more than two hundred years to smite.

  The greatest.

  But the last. Had he, though, been entirely innocent? Had he not wasted his life on a dead claim to a dead name? Was there not, waiting in the chest, one message of great worth? Lay thy burden down, it seemed to say. It had to say something, didn’t it? He spent another while neatly dividing the old paper money into two equal portions, and in neatly wrapping and addressing them. One to Muskrat Sump. And one to Parkill Ridge. And in the upper left-hand corner of each he wrote, Wouter Cornelius De Brooks. It was morning by now, the post office would soon be open. And…then …? Mullet River was so small that he could not even find it on the map in the Atlas.