The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty

by R. A. Lafferty

  “Yes, sometimes it will do that.”

  Then he went out into the town, cleaner than he had been in many days, and he walked to the hall of the Commendation and Award. Here he watched all the great men arrive in private cars and taxis: Ergodic Eimer, August Angstrom, Vladimir Vor. He watched them and thought of what he would say to them, and then he realized that he had forgotten his English. “I remember Sir or Madam as the Case May Be. I remember Dog, that is the first word I ever learned, but what will I say to them about a dog? I remember house and horse and apple and fish. Oh, now I remember the entire language. But what if I forget it again? Would it not be an odd speech if I could only say apple and fish and house and dog? I would be shamed.”

  He wished he were rich and could dress in fine white like the streetsweepers, or in black leather like the newsboy on the corner. He saw Edward Edelsteim and Christopher Cronin enter and he cowed on the street and knew that he would never be able to talk to those great men.

  A fine gentleman came out and walked directly to him. “You are the great Professor Foulcault-Oeg? I would have known you anywhere. True greatness shines from you. Our city is honored tonight. Come inside and we will go to a little room apart, for I see that you will have to compose yourself first. I am Graf-Doktor Hercule Bienville-Stravroguine.”

  Why he ever said he was the Graf-Doktor is a mystery, because he was Willy McGilly and the other was just a name that he made up that minute. Within they went to a small room behind the cloak room. But here, in spite of the smooth kindness of the gracious gentleman, Aloys knew that he would never be able to compose himself. He was an épouvantail, a pugalo, a clown, a ragamuffin. He looked at the nineteen-point outline of the address he was to give. He shuddered and quaked, he gobbled like a turkey. He sniffled and he wiped his nose on his sleeve. He was terrified that the climax of his life's work should find him too craven to accept it. And he discovered that he had forgotten his English again.

  “I remember bread and butter, but I don't know which one goes on top. I know pencil and penknife and bed, but I have entirely forgotten the word for maternal uncle. I remember plow, but what in the world will I say to all those great men about a plow? I pray that this cup may pass from me.”

  Then he disintegrated completely in one abject mass of terror.

  Several minutes went by.

  But when he emerged from that room he was a different man entirely. Erect, alive, intense, queerly handsome, and now in formal attire, he mounted with the sure grace of a panther to the speaker's platform. Once only he glanced at the nineteen-point outline of his address. As there is no point in keeping it a secret, it was as follows:

  1. Cepheid and Cerium — How long is a Yardstick?

  2. Double Trouble — Is Ours a Binary Universe?

  3. Cerebrum and Cortex — The Mathematics of Melancholia.

  4. Microphysics and Megacyclic Polyneums.

  5. Ego, No, Hemeis — The Personality of the Subconscious.

  6. Linear Convexity and Lateral Intransigence.

  7. Betelgeuse Betrayed — The Myth of Magnitude.

  8. Mu-Meson, the Secret of the Metamorphosis.

  9. Theogony and Tremor — The Mathematics of Seismology.

  10. Planck's Constant and Agnesi's Variable.

  11. Diencephalon and Di-Gamma — Unconscionable Thoughts About Consciousness.

  12. Inverse Squares and the Quintesimal Radicals.

  13. The Chain of Error in the Linear-B Translation — Or Where the Cretans Really Came From.

  14. Cybernetics — Or a Brain for Every Man.

  15. Ogive and Volute — Thoughts of Celestial Curvature.

  16. Conic Sections — Small Pieces of Infinity.

  17. Eschatology — Medium Thoughts About the End.

  18. Hypolarity and Cosmic Hysterisis.

  19. The Invisible Quadratic — or This Is All Simpler Than You Think.

  You will immediately see the beauty of this skeleton, and yet to flesh it would not be the work of an ordinary man.

  He glanced over it with a sure smile of complete confidence. Then he spoke softly to the master of ceremonies in a queer whisper with a rumble in it that could be heard throughout the Hall.

  “I am here. I will begin. There is no need for any further introduction. It will be late by the time I finish.”

  For the next three and a half hours he held that intelligent audience completely spellbound, enchanted. They followed, or seemed to follow, his lightning flashes of metaphor illumining the craggy chasms of his vasty subjects. They thrilled to the magnetic power of his voice, urbane yet untamed, with its polyglot phrasing and its bare touch of accent so strange as to be baffling; ancient surely and European, and yet from a land beyond the pale. And they quivered with interior pleasure at the glorious unfolding in climax after climax of these before only half-glimpsed vistas.

  Here was the world of mystery revealed in all its wildness, and it obeyed and stood still, and he named its name. The nebula and the conch lay down together, and the ultra-galaxies equated themselves with the zeta mesons. Like the rich householder, he brought from his store treasures old and new, and nothing like them had ever been seen or heard before.

  At one point Professor Timiryaseff cried out in bafflement and incomprehension, and Doctor Ergodic Eimer buried his face in his hands, for even these most erudite men could not glimpse all the shattering profundity revealed by the fantastic speaker.

  And when it was over they were delighted that so much had been made known to them like a great free gift. They had the crown without the cross, and the odd little genius had filled them all with a rich glow.

  The rest was perfunctory: commendations and testimonials from all the great men. The trophy, heavy and rich but not flashy, worth the lifetime salary of a professor of mathematics, was accepted almost carelessly. And then the cup was passed quietly, which is to say the tall cool glasses went around as the men lingered and talked with hushed pleasure.

  “Gin,” said the astonishing orator. “It is the drink of the bums and impoverished scholars, and I am both. Yes, anything at all with it.”

  Then he spoke to Maecenas, who was at his side, the patron who was footing the bill for all this gracious extravagance.

  “The check I have never cashed, having been much in movement since I have received it. And as to me it is a large amount, though perhaps not to others, and as you yourself have signed it, I wonder if you would cash it for me now.”

  “At once,” said Maecenas, “at once. Ten minutes and we shall have the sum here. Ah, you have endorsed it with a formula! Who but the Professor Aloys Foulcault-Oeg could be so droll? Look, he has endorsed it with a formula.”

  “Look, look, let us copy. Why, this is marvelous. It takes us even beyond his great speech of tonight. The implications of it!”

  “Oh, the implications!” they said as they copied it off, and the implications rang in their heads like bells of the future.

  Now it has suddenly become very late, and the elated little man with the gold and gemmed trophy under one arm and the packet of bank notes in his pocket disappeared as by magic.

  Maecenas went to his villa in the province, which is to say Long Island. And all the Professors, Doctors, and erudite gentlemen went to their homes and lodgings.

  But later, and after the excitement had worn off, none of them understood a thing about it at all, not even those who had comprehended part of it before the talk. And this was odd.

  They'd been spooked.

  Professor Aloys Foulcault-Oeg was not seen again; or, if seen, he was not known, for hardly anyone would have known his face. In fact, when he had painfully released the bonds by which he had been tied in the little room behind the back room, and had removed the shackles from his ankles, he did not pause at all. Not for many blocks did he even remove the gag from his mouth, not realizing in his confusion what it was that obstructed his speech and breathing. But when he got it out it was a pleasant relief. A kind gentleman took him in ha
nd, the second to do so that night. He was bundled into a kind of taxi and driven to a mysterious quarter called Wreckville. And deep inside a secret building he was given a bath and a bowl of hot soup. And later he gathered with others at the festive board.

  Here Willy McGilly was king. As he worked his way into his cups, with the gold trophy in front of him, he expounded and elucidated.

  “I was wonderful. I held them in the palm of my hand. Was I not wonderful, Oeg?”

  “I could not hear all, for I was on the floor of the little room. But from what I could hear, yes, you were wonderful.”

  It wasn't supposed that Aloys made that speech, was it? It was stated that when he came out of that room he was a different man entirely. Nobody but Willy McGilly would give a talk like that.

  “Only once in my life did I give a better speech,” said Willy. “It was the same speech, but it was newer then. That was in Little Dogie, New Mexico, and I was selling a snake-oil derivative whose secret I yet cannot reveal. But I was good tonight and some of them cried. And now what will you do, Oeg? Do you know what we are?”

  “Moshennekov.”

  “Why, so we are!”

  “Schwindlern.”

  “The very word.”

  “Lowlife con men. And the world you live on is not the one you were born on. I will join you if I may.”

  “Oeg, you have a talent for going to the core of the apple.”

  For when a man (however unlikely a man) shows real talent, then the Wreckville bunch have to recruit him. They cannot have uncontrolled talent running loose in the commonalty of mankind.

  Seven-Day Terror

  “Is there anything you want to make disappear?” Clarence Willoughby asked his mother. “A sink full of dishes is all I can think of. How will you do it?”

  “I just built a disappearer. All you do is cut the other end out of a beer can. Then you take two pieces of red cardboard with peepholes in the middle and fit them in the ends. You look through the peepholes and blink. Whatever you look at will disappear.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I don't know if I can make them come back. We'd better try it on something else. Dishes cost money.”

  As always, Myra Willoughby had to admire the wisdom of her nine-year-old son. She would not have had such foresight herself. He always did. “You can try it on Blanche Manners' cat outside there. Nobody will care if it disappears except Blanche Manners.”

  “All right.”

  He put the disappearer to his eye and blinked. The cat disappeared from the sidewalk outside.

  His mother was interested. “I wonder how it works. Do you know how it works?”

  “Yes. You take a beer can with both ends cut out and put in two pieces of cardboard. Then you blink.”

  “Never mind. Take it outside and play with it. You hadn't better make anything disappear in here till I think about this.”

  But when he had gone his mother was oddly disturbed.

  “I wonder if I have a precocious child. Why, there's lots of grown people who wouldn't know how to make a disappearer that would work. I wonder if Blanche Manners will miss her cat very much?”

  Clarence went down to the Plugged Nickel, a pot house on the corner.

  “Do you have anything you want to make disappear, Nokomis?”

  “Only my paunch.”

  “If I make it disappear it'll leave a hole in you and you'll bleed to death.”

  “That's right, I would. Why don't you try it on the fireplug outside?”

  This in a way was one of the happiest afternoons ever in the neighborhood. The children came from blocks around to play in the flooded streets and gutters, and if some of them drowned (and we don't say that they did drown) in the flood (and brother! it was a flood), why you have to expect things like that. The fire engines (whoever heard of calling fire engines to put out a flood?) were apparatus-deep in water. The policemen and ambulance men wandered around wet and bewildered.

  “Resuscitator, resuscitator, anybody wanna resuscitator,” chanted Clarissa Willoughby.

  “Oh, shut up,” said the ambulance attendants.

  Nokomis, the bar man in the Plugged Nickel, called Clarence inside.

  “I don't believe, just for the moment, I'd tell anyone what happened to that fireplug.”

  “I won't tell if you won't tell,” said Clarence.

  Officer Comstock was suspicious. “There's only seven possible explanations: one of the seven Willoughby kids did it. I dunno how. It'd take a bulldozer to do it, and then there'd be something left of the plug. But however they did it, one of them did it.”

  Officer Comstock had a talent for getting near the truth of dark matters. This is why he was walking a beat out here in the boondocks instead of sitting in a chair downtown.

  “Clarissa!” said Officer Comstock in a voice like thunder.

  “Resuscitator, resuscitator, anybody wanna resuscitator?” chanted Clarissa

  “Do you know what happened to that fireplug?” asked Officer C.

  “I have an uncanny suspicion. As yet it is no more than that. When I am better informed I will advise you.”

  Clarissa was eight years old and much given to uncanny suspicions.

  “Clementine, Harold, Corinne, Jimmy, Cyril,” he asked the five younger Willoughby children. “Do you know what happened to that fireplug?”

  “There was a man around yesterday. I bet he took it,” said Clementine.

  “I don't even remember a fireplug there. I think you're making a fuss about nothing,” said Harold.

  “City hall's going to hear about this,” said Corinne.

  “Pretty dommed sure,” said Jimmy, “but I won't tell.”

  “Cyril!” cried Officer Comstock in a terrible voice. Not a terrifying voice, a terrible voice. He felt terrible now.

  “Great green bananas,” said Cyril, “I'm only three years old. I don't see how it's even my responsibility.”

  “Clarence,” said Officer Comstock.

  Clarence gulped.

  “Do you know where the fireplug went?”

  Clarence brightened. “No, sir. I don't know where it went.”

  A bunch of smart alecs from the water department came out and shut off the water for a few blocks around and put some kind of cap on in place of the fireplug. “This sure is going to be a funny-sounding report,” said one of them.

  Officer Comstock walked away discouraged. “Don't bother me, Miss Manners,” he said. “I don't know where to look for your cat. I don't even know where to look for a fireplug.”

  “I have an idea,” said Clarissa, “that when you find the cat you will find the fireplug in the same place. As yet it's only an idea.”

  Ozzie Murphy wore a little hat on top of his head. Clarence pointed his weapon and winked. The hat was no longer there, but a little trickle of blood was running down the pate.

  “I don't believe I'd play with that any more,” said Nokomis.

  “Who's playing?” said Clarence. “This is for real.”

  This was the beginning of the seven-day terror in the heretofore obscure neighborhood. Trees disappeared from the parks; lamp posts were as though they had never been; Wally Waldorf drove home, got out, slammed the door of his car, and there was no car. As George Mullendorf came up the walk to his house his dog Pete ran to meet him and took a flying leap to his arms. The dog left the sidewalk but something happened; the dog was gone and only a bark lingered for a moment in the puzzled air.

  But the worst were the fireplugs. The second plug was installed the morning after the disappearance of the first. In eight minutes it was gone and the flood waters returned. Another one was in by twelve o'clock. Within three minutes it had vanished. The next morning fireplug number four was installed.

  The water commissioner was there, the city engineer was there, the chief of police was there with a riot squad, the president of the Parent-Teachers Association was there, the president of the university was there, the mayor was there, three gentlemen of the FBI, a ne
wsreel photographer, eminent scientists and a crowd of honest citizens.

  “Let's see it disappear now,” said the city engineer.

  “Let's see it disappear now,” said the police chief.

  “Let's see it disa— it did, didn't it?” said one of the eminent scientists.

  And it was gone and everybody was very wet.

  “At least I have the picture sequence of the year,” said the photographer. But his camera and apparatus disappeared from the midst of them.

  “Shut off the water and cap it,” said the commissioner. “And don't put in another plug yet. That was the last plug in the warehouse.”

  “This is too big for me,” said the mayor. “I wonder that Tass doesn't have it yet.”

  “Tass has it,” said a little round man. “I am Tass.”

  “If all of you gentlemen will come into the Plugged Nickel,” said Nokomis, “and try one of our new Fire Hydrant Highballs you will all be happier. These are made of good corn whiskey, brown sugar, and hydrant water from this very gutter. You can be the first to drink them.”

  Business was phenomenal at the Plugged Nickel, for it was in front of its very doors that the fireplugs disappeared in floods of gushing water.

  “I know a way we can get rich,” said Clarissa several days later to her father, Tom Willoughby. “Everybody says there going to sell their houses for nothing and move out of the neighborhood. Go get a lot of money and buy them all. Then you can sell them again and get rich.”

  “I wouldn't buy them for a dollar each. Three of them have disappeared already, and all the families but us have their furniture moved out in their front yards. There might be nothing but vacant lots in the morning.”

  “Good, then buy the vacant lots. And you can be ready when the houses come back.”

  “Come back? Are the houses going to come back? Do you know anything about this, young lady?”

  “I have a suspicion verging on a certainty. As of now I can say no more.”