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

by R. A. Lafferty

  Three eminent scientists were gathered in an untidy suite that looked as though it belonged to a drunken sultan. “This transcends the metaphysical. It impinges on the quantum continuum. In some way it obsoletes Boff,” said Dr. Velikof Vonk.

  “The contingence of the intransigence is the most mystifying aspect,” said Arpad Arkbaranan.

  “Yes,” said Willy McGilly. “Who would have thought that you could do it with a beer can and two pieces of cardboard? When I was a boy I used an oatmeal box and red crayola.”

  “I do not always follow you,” said Dr. Vonk. “I wish you would speak plainer.”

  So far no human had been injured or disappeared — except for a little blood on the pate of Ozzie Murphy, on the lobes of Conchita when her gaudy earrings disappeared from her very ears, a clipped flinger or so when a house vanished as the front doorknob was touched, a lost toe when a neighborhood boy kicked a can and the can was not; probably not more than a pint of blood and three or four ounces of flesh all together.

  Now, however, Mr. Buckle the grocery man disappeared before witnesses. This was serious.

  Some mean-looking investigators from downtown came out to the Willoughbys. The meanest-looking one was the mayor. In happier days he had not been a mean man, but the terror had now reigned for seven days.

  “There have been ugly rumors,” said one of the mean investigators, “that link certain events to this household. Do any of you know anything about them?”

  “I started most of them,” said Clarissa. “But I didn't consider them ugly. Cryptic, rather. But if you want to get to the bottom of this just ask me a question.”

  “Did you make those things disappear?” asked the investigator.

  “That isn't the question,” said Clarissa.

  “Do you know where they have gone?” asked the investigator.

  “That isn't the question either,” said Clarissa.

  “Can you make them come back?”

  “Why, of course I can. Anybody can. Can't you?”

  “I cannot. If you can, please do so at once.”

  “I need some stuff. Get me a gold watch and a hammer. Then go down to the drug store and get me this list of chemicals. And I need a yard of black velvet and a pound of rock candy.”

  “Shall we?” asked one of the investigators.

  “Yes,” said the mayor. “It's our only hope. Get her anything she wants.”

  And it was all assembled.

  “Why does she get all the attention?” asked Clarence. “I was the one who made all the things disappear. How does she know how to get them back?”

  “I knew it!” cried Clarissa with hate. “I knew he was the one that did it. He read in my diary how to make a disappearer. If I was his mother I'd whip him for reading his little sister's diary. That's what happens when things like that fall into irresponsible hands.”

  She poised the hammer over the mayor's gold watch, now on the floor.

  “I have to wait a few seconds. This can't be hurried. It'll only be a little while.”

  The second hand swept around to the point that was preordained for it before the world began. Clarissa suddenly brought down the hammer with all her force on the beautiful gold watch.

  “That's all,” she said. “Your troubles are over. See, there is Blanche Manners' cat on the sidewalk just where she was seven days ago.”

  And the cat was back.

  “Now let's go down to the Plugged Nickel and watch the fireplugs come back.”

  They had only a few minutes to wait. It came from nowhere and clanged into the street like a sign and a witness.

  “Now I predict,” said Clarissa, “that every single object will return exactly seven days from the time of its disappearance.”

  The seven-day terror had ended. The objects began to reappear.

  “How,” asked the mayor, “did you know they would come back in seven days?”

  “Because it was a seven-day disappearer that Clarence made. I also know how to make a nine-day, a thirteen-day, a twenty-seven day, and an eleven-year disappearer. I was going to make a thirteen-year one, but for that you have to color the ends with the blood from a little boy's heart, and Cyril cried every time I tried to make a good cut.”

  “You really know how to make all of these?”

  “Yes. But I shudder if the knowledge should ever come into unauthorized hands.”

  “I shudder, too, Clarissa. But tell me, why did you want the chemicals?

  “For my chemistry set.”

  “And the black velvet?”

  “For doll dresses.”

  “And the pound of rock candy?”

  “How did you ever get to be mayor of this town if you have to ask questions like that? What do you think I wanted the rock candy for?”

  “One last question,” said the mayor. “Why did you smash my gold watch with the hammer?”

  “Oh,” said Clarissa, “that was for dramatic effect.”

  Other Side of the Moon

  Johnny O'Conner got off at the same corner every night. Everyone got off at the same corner every night. The old joker with the face like an egg, the noble-nosed Nabob, the stylish old girl who looked like a lady lawyer, all got off at Rambush Street. The wacky Dude who looked like a barber, the nice, plain, blonde girl, the little man who reminded you of an onion, all got off at Scottsboro. And Pauline Potter, fat George Gregoff, the antiseptic Gentleman with a contempt of the world, and Johnny O'Conner himself, always got off at Terhune. This was invariable. Other people got off at other places, but always at the same places. When Johnny got off, he always ducked into the Loco Club, had a Vodka Collins, then walked the half-block home. Sheila was waiting, and supper was ready in about twelve minutes.

  But one night a week ago it had been different. The bus stopped at Scottsboro. The wacky Dude who looked like a barber, the little man who reminded you of an onion, both got off. But the nice, plain, blonde girl just sat there.

  “Scottsboro, Miss,” said the driver.

  “Thank you,” said the plain blonde girl, but she just sat there.

  “You always get off at Scottsboro, Miss,” said the driver.

  “Not tonight,” said the girl.

  So the bus went on, but everybody was uneasy from the incident. The normal order of the world had fallen apart.

  Then tonight it happened again. At Scottsboro the wacky Dude and the man who reminded you of an onion got off. And the plain blonde girl said, “not tonight.” This was not so startling as the first time it happened, but it did set Johnny O'Conner wondering. It was not as though the old joker with the face like an egg, the noble-nosed nabob, or the stylish old girl who looked like a lady-lawyer had not got off at Rambush. It was not as though Pauline Potter, fat George Gregoff, and the antiseptic gentleman with the contempt of the world were not even now getting off at Terhune.

  “Terhune,” said the driver. “You always get off at Terhune, Mr. O'Conner.”

  “Not tonight,” said Johnny. This statement startled him. He had not known he was going to say that. He had not known he would ride beyond his own corner. But the bus went on and Johnny did not even know where it was going. He had lived in a house for a year and had never even been to the next street.

  “Urbana,” said the driver. And here there descended from the bus some of those creatures who before had seemed to have no habitation or true place in the world. The moon-faced man who always carried the Sporting News, the heavy smiling lady who was a picture of placidity, the pale vacuous youth who combined duck-tail and sideburns on one head, the shop-girl with the red hat and the shop-girl with the green hat got off here. And also the nice, plain, blonde girl, who when the world was normal, used to descend at Scottsboro. And Johnny O'Conner to his own amazement got off here, too.

  Urbana was not too different from Terhune, although of course in a different world. Instead of the Loco Club there was the Krazy Kat Club Number Two. Johnny went in with only an instant's wonder as to the location of Krazy Kat Number One.
He had a Cuba Libra. Then he walked the half-block back to his house. He had never seen his house from this side before. It was like seeing the other side of the moon. And on that other side of the moon the paint had started to crack above one window, and the screen had begun to tear.

  “Where have you been?” asked Sheila. “I was frantic.”

  “How could you be frantic? I am home at the same time as always. Or within forty-five seconds of it.”

  “But you didn't get off at Terhune Street.”

  “How do you know I didn't?”

  “Pauline Potter told me, and so did George Gregoff, and Mr. Sebastian.”

  “Who's he?”

  She made motions with her hands, and he knew that Mr. Sebastian was the antiseptic gentleman with a contempt of the world. But Sheila was not finished.

  “Where did you go? They all said you stayed right on the bus and rode right past your house. Why did you do it? You never did that before.”

  “Honey, I just rode one block down and then walked back the half-block from the other way.”

  “But why did you do it? What did you do down there?”

  “I went into the Krazy Kat Club Number Two and had one drink, all that I ever had.”

  “You went into a strange bar? Don't you know that men can get into trouble in a strange bar? What did you drink?”

  “I had a Cuba Libra.”

  “Why did you do that? Only gamblers and seamen ever drink them. You aren't going to run away to sea, are you?”

  “I hadn't given it a thought. But it might not be a bad idea.”

  “Why do you say that? Are you really going to leave me?”

  “Sheila, honey, that was only a joke.”

  “Why do you do that? You never made a joke before. I just don't know what to make of you.”

  And even then it wasn't over. At supper she kept it up.

  “Promise me, Johnny, that you won't ever do a thing like that again.”

  “But I didn't do anything. Only rode one block past my stop and walked half-a-block back home.”

  “And went into a strange bar where there's no telling what might happen to you. Promise me you will never go there again. I have a reason. Promise me.”

  “I solemnly promise,” said Johnny O'Conner, “that I will never again go to the Krazy Kat Club Number Two. But if I ever come to that Number One Kat look out.”

  “There you go, making a joke again. I just don't know what has come over you.”

  The next night Johnny was in a wayward mood. It wasn't just that he had an unreasonable wife. Generally, he enjoyed his unreasonable wife. But a little bee was buzzing in his bonnet. He had had a glimpse over the top of his rut and he wondered what was in the world beyond. He had an almost overpowering compulsion to get off at Manderville where the untidy old duffer and the two young girls always got off. He barely mastered himself at Nassau, and as he passed Oswego it was with the gravest uneasiness. Then he decided in his mind, and he watched the plain blonde girl. If she goes past her stop I will go past mine, he thought. At Patrick, the bald-headed coot with hair in his ears and the frazzled cigar in the front of his face got out, and that was as it should be. At Quarles their party was diminished by Laughing Boy, by Dapper Dan, by the Sniffler, and by a person who may or may not have been Tug-Boat Annie.

  At Rambush it was egg-face, nabob, and lady-lawyer, and the world was rolling tolerably in its groove. But the end was not yet. For at Scottsboro the wacky Dude and the little man who was cousin of the onion got off, and the plain blonde girl did not. This is it, thought Johnny O'Conner. I'll go past mine, too. I may go two blocks past and see what Vandalia is like. I may go all the way to the end of the world or the end of the alphabet, whichever one comes first. For Johnny was in a reckless mood.

  At Terhune he endured the insulting sniff of Pauline Potter, the glowering of fat George Gregoff, the withering contempt of the antiseptic gentleman, now know as Mr. Sebastian. Johnny stared ahead and remained on the bus. The nice, plain, blonde girl got off again at Urbana, and Johnny got off there, too. The blonde girl went into the Krazy Kat club Number Two and Johnny broke his promise to his wife and went in also. He ordered a Sazarac to see what it was like and gazed with new eyes at a new world.

  “I'm glad you came this evening,” the bar-maid told the nice, plain, blonde girl. “You're the only one of my old friends who ever get this far out. This is a mean afternoon. I'm glad to see someone nice.”

  “Is it mean out here? I thought after the places you worked this would be a breeze.”

  “Girl, I have one screw-ball worse than anything I ever had downtown. That woman makes me ashamed. She has three different dates here every afternoon. The first one is with that fat, old bumbler. The way they carry on in a booth I told them today I'd have to call the cops if they didn't tone it down. They both always get sloppy drunk, and when he leaves he always gives her money. As soon as he's gone, there's another one comes in that looks like a tough boy out of an old George Raft movie. This time she gives the money to him and they put on a little show that sure wouldn't get past the censors. It's real purple stuff those two put on. And when he's pretty drunk he goes. And in about twenty minutes her third date comes in. They each drink three fast ones. Then they get in his car and are gone for an hour. When they come back, they each have three more fast ones. He leaves then and she staggers back to one of the booths and goes to sleep.”

  “How does she get away with it?”

  “She says she has her husband trained. Has him so deep in a rut he can't see over the top and never will catch on. But she's smart. She's never so drunk that the little clock inside her head doesn't work. She hears that five-thirty bus when it squeaks to a stop down at Terhune. Then she jumps up, calls me a couple of dirty names just to keep in practice, and goes out the back door and down the alley to her house. She's always there when her husband gets home. We had some tramps downtown but we never had any as bad as Sheila O'Conner.”

  Johnny O'Conner shook and spilled his chaser. He had left his rut and now he could not go back to it. All he could do was go to the end of the alphabet or the end of the world. He had seen his home from the other side. He had seen the other side of the moon. And he was appalled.

  The Day of the Glacier

  The Fifth or Zurichthal glaciation of the Pleistocene began on the morning of April 1, 1962, on a Sunday about nine o'clock by eastern time. This was about twenty-five hours earlier than Doctor Ergodic Eimer had calculated; it threw him into panic, as his preparations were not entirely completed. Lesser persons had been thrown into a panic nearly an hour before by a series of lesser events. And yet on an ordinary day they would have been of major magnitude.

  It was that the thirty-three ICBM launching buses of the United States and Canada had been destroyed simultaneously. Full details were not immediately available, and now due to subsequent catastrophes they are lost forever.

  Radio and TV news flashes tried to give a warning and fragmentary details, but on every channel and frequency the same cool voice would always cut in: “This is an April Fools Day simulated news broadcast. Do not be alarmed. This program is fictional.”

  Congress had been in session for three months, and the new Peace Faction was completely dominant. As is known to all who are acquainted with Mergendal's Law of Parliamentary Subversion, in all of the once free countries that had succumbed to the Controlled Statists (now thirty-seven) it was subsequently discovered that twenty percent of the elected had clandestinely been working for the Controlled Statists all along; that sixty percent had no true principles or basis of belief of any sort and no practical aim except to be on the winning side, and that a final twenty percent were to some degree die-hards, more or less devoted to the old way.

  Incidentally, at this moment the latter percent had virtually ceased to exist. A series of nearly one hundred mysterious early morning murders in Washington, Chevy Chase, Silver Spring, New York and other not-too-widely scattered locations had done for most of them
. This was not widely known even now, several hours later; although curiously the accounts of several of their deaths were in the Metropolitan papers before they happened. In the case of one, at least, it did not happen at all; he had forewarning and was miles away at the time of the attempt. It had been unseasonably warm and dry for six weeks, for which reason nearly everyone except Doctor Ergodic Eimer and his cronies were surprised by the sudden chill and quick heavy snow.

  They were in feverish preparation, having to telescope many hours of work into one. When they got to the airport, three inches of snow had already fallen, and it was as though it had only begun. They left quickly in three chartered planes, the last ever to leave there.

  In the great cities of the Eastern Seaboard, only a little over five inches of snow fell in the first hour; but in the second hour more than seventeen. Many people of the nation seeing the fantastic accumulation simply went to bed for the day. And millions of them stayed there till they died; there was no way out.

  America died that week except for a few lingering communities on the Gulf of California, and the lower Mexican deserts, and the snow dusted Indies. Europe died, and most of Asia, and the southern continents froze from the bottom up. Melbourne and Sydney and Port Elizabeth were buried, as well as Buenos Aires; and even Rio right on the tropic had seven feet of snow.

  “The last time it happened,” said Doctor Eimer, “the Padiwire Valley was a good place. We know this from our previous studies and our preparatory expedition there last year.” “Who would have thought,” asked Professor Schubert, “that an ice age could have come so suddenly?”

  “Apparently only myself,” replied the good doctor. “I told everybody worth telling but had very little response for my trouble. It isn't as though we haven't had four very recent ones to study. It isn't as though it weren't written plainly in the rocks for everyone to see. Though I must say,” he continued as he shivered in his great coat, “that this was a mighty short inter-glacial — actually less than twenty thousand years of what we might call really nice weather.”