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

by R. A. Lafferty

  “You've got to get out of here, cnaufer,” Chartel hissed at the little man again and again. “Who are you and how did you get here? Off with you now, cathexis, you're fouling up the act.” But the little man avoided Chartel who would have killed him in all sincerity.

  Finally Chartel in his despair closed the box loudly, then opened it again and brought Veronica out of it. But that didn't get rid of the little tramp. He was still cavorting about the stage and he was good. Listen, he was dressed in old black pants and a torn undershirt and one suspender and he walked about the stage. Then he had on a red sweater and a burglar's cap and black glasses. He still walked about the stage and suddenly he was splendid in evening clothes and monocle. Nobody had done that before.

  He became Joe College; he became the man in the charcoal-tan suit; he became an old rowdy-dow on the loose with pearl-gray vest and yellow gloves. Then he became a hobo again—but of a different and worse vesture than before.

  “Go away, cistugurium,” Veronica whispered angrily, “please go away. You're not supposed to be in the act. Who are you anyhow?”

  Nobody else had ever completely changed his garb six times in a minute and a half while hobbling about the stage with his hands in his pockets. Nobody else transmuted his shoes from brown to black as he walked in them. The expression of the little man was pathetic and many eyes misted as they watched him.

  Then, before the act had begun to drag, the little man wobbled over and fell flat on his face in the box. Zambesi-Chartel closed it and stood poised over it in an intensity of fear and hope. Then he opened the box again. The little man was gone.

  Zambesi-Chartel took the box apart board by board and he left it apart. Well, it had been a good act, with an added element. But Charles (the Great Zambesi) Chartel didn't know how he had done it this time — or if he was the one who did it. The trick had always been to make Veronica disappear and appear; there sure hadn't been any little clown in the act before.

  “Damn that cressanges anyhow,” Chartel grumbled. He was puzzled. He knew that little man — and yet he didn't.

  Later that night at the Pepperpot some of the people ate and talked. There were Chartel himself and Veronica; there was Captain Carter who had the trained bears; there were the three Lemon sisters, Dolly, Molly, and Polly. Then another one was with them — for the little man was sitting there and sniffling. He hadn't been there before and he hadn't come in. “Shall I order for you, claud?” Molly Lemon asked solicitously.

  But a filled plate was already there and the little man began to eat. He grinned and he grimaced. He was wearing horn-rim glasses and then he was wearing pince-nez. He had a grin that came shyly as though he were trying it out for the first time.

  “clarence is so cute,” said Dolly Lemon. “We will adopt him into our act if Chartel doesn't want him.”

  There was an empty five-cigar carton on the table. The little man picked it up and it was full. Well, Chartel could duplicate that; probably you could yourself, but it would take prop and preparation. The little man pulled a stogie from the carton, puffed on it and it was lit. This also could be done; there are few tricks that cannot be duplicated.

  “If you are joining the act, cletus, and it seems as though you are,” said Chartel wondering, “you will have to clean up a little.”

  “Must I really?” asked curt but he obliged at once. He had become as immaculate a dandy as anyone ever saw. “Captain Carter,” he said, “I see from your pocket bulge that you are a drinking man. I ask you to share it with us.”

  “It's empty an hour since,” Captain Carter muttered sadly.

  “It wasn't always empty,” said cylix, the little man. “Let me see if I can restore it.”

  “The last time a magician filled an empty whisky bottle for me — and it was none other than old Zambesi-Chartel here — the stuff was not potable. It was the most horrendous rock dew ever distilled.”

  “This will be potable,” said celiter — and the bottle filled.

  Its content was gloriously potable. It put new life into the party and all of them, except Chartel-Zambesi, had a wonderful time. And if you don't think you can have fun with a reanimated bottle of whisky and Veronica and the three Lemon sisters you must have a different and more staid definition of fun.

  “But all good things must end,” said Captain Carter when the small hours were half grown. “All good things do not have to end,” said cajetan, the little man, who had been enjoying himself on Polly Lemon's lap. “The world shriveled when your thought was first put into words. Good things can go on forever, except that — now and then — they must be temporarily adjourned. As long as we understand that partings are only temporary.”

  “Oh, we understand that, cuiller,” said the three Lemon sisters. So they temporarily adjourned the party.

  But later — and this was after the sun itself was up — Chartel and cyprian were finally alone.

  “We will have to have an explanation,” said Chartel. “Who are you?”

  “You have no idea, Charles? Did you not take me out of the box? I thought you would know. Did you not call me up?”

  “I doubt I did. Do not try to hoax an old hoaxer. Where did you come from that first time? The stage was not trapped and you were not intruded with my knowledge.”

  “Was I not? You told the audience how it was done. You said you called me up out of the Ocean.”

  “That is my patter — but it doesn't apply to you. Dammit, ching-chi, where'd you get the Chinese robes and grow that little beard so fast? And how do you make them both change colors so neat? No, chawan, I never called any such fish as you out of the Ocean.”

  “In that case I will leave, since I am here through a misunderstanding.”

  “Stay a bit, cyfaill. In my patter that is the way I make the girl disappear. How could it make you appear?”

  “Charles, I've heard you explain the principle dozens of times. I was not in the box. But in a little while I would be in the box. So we adjust the box to a near moment in the future and I am in the box.”

  “There's a lacuna in your logic, clunis,” Chartel said. “Hey, how can you turn into a Hottentot so easily? And not into a real Hottentot either, coya — but into what I would call an old burlesque-stage idea of a Hottentot.”

  “You always did have a good imagination, Charles,” said chabiari. He took up an empty glass, shook it, and it was filled again.

  “You're my master there, cosmos,” said Chartel. “I couldn't duplicate that without props and you've done it three times. How?”

  “By our own theory that we worked out so long ago, Charles. I shift it only a little in time and it is done. Anything that has once been full can be filled again by taking it back to the time of its plenitude.”

  “chester, you have a patter that won't quit. But, if it worked — the idea would be a good one.”

  “It does work, Charles. I thought we knew that. We have used it so long.”

  “You talk and talk, collard,” said Chartel. “But I still do not know how you can change your whole appearance so easily and often.”

  “Why, Charles, we are protean,” said coilon. “That is the sort of man we are.”

  It was later the same day that Finnerty, the manager of the show, spoke to Chartel about the little man. “Your brother from the old country has put new life into the act,” he said. “Keep him in it. We haven't mentioned money — and I am seldom the one to bring up the subject — but we can settle on a figure. Will it be payable to him or to you?”

  “It will be payable to me,” said Charles (the Great Zambesi) Chartel. Confused he was, but he always knew the top and bottom side of a dollar. Finnerty and Chartel settled on a figure.

  “You have been taken for my brother from the old country,” Chartel told colin a bit later, “and I can see why. I wondered whom you reminded me of. Oh, stop turning into a rooster. If you were shaved and combed — say, that was quick, contumace! the resemblance would be, is, even closer. You do look like me; you are an e
xtremely handsome man. But I did not know that I had a brother, compuesto, and I do not know what country the old country is — since I was born on Elm Street in Springfield.” “Perhaps ‘brother’ is a euphemism for something even closer, Charles; and the ‘old country’ may have a special meaning for us. Is it not the name for what is on the other side of your ‘Ocean’ ?”

  “columkill, you are as phony as — well, metaphor fails me — you are as phony as myself,” said Charles Chartel.

  Sometimes the little man was frightening in his wild actions. There wasn't a mean bone in him, and he was almost universally liked. But he did act on impulse.

  For him, to think was to act. It was good that everybody liked him; if they hadn't they'd have hanged him high.

  And always he would multiply things. Chartel begged for his secret.

  “We could be rich, cogsworth, really rich,” Chartel would plead.

  “But we are already rich, Charles. Nobody has ever had such a rich and perfected personality as we have. You still do not appreciate the greatness of our trick, Charles, though we thought about it for years before we were able to do it. It's the noblest illusion of them all. Now we are citizens of an abounding world and everything in it is ours. That is to be rich.”

  “consuelo, you are a bleeding doctrinaire. I did not ask for a lecture. I only ask that you show me how to make a hundred dollars grow where one grew before. I say that is to be rich.”

  “I've shown you a hundred times, Charles, and you look for more than is in it. You take a thin old wallet that once knew fatness. You restore it to its old state, empty it and restore it again, and so you accumulate. But why do you want money?”

  “It is just that I have a passion for collecting it, courlis.”

  “Collecting we can understand, but the true collector will have no desire for duplicates. Understandably we might want a bill of each size — a one, a five, a ten, a fifty — but we avoid that which once we prized — the ten-thousand dollar bill. The avid people have spoiled it for us. But you have not the true collector's spirit, Charles.”

  “I have the true money-collector's spirit, clendon. Why cannot I duplicate your feats in this?”

  “The only reason I can figure, Charles, is that you're just too duck-knuckled dumb — and it hurts me to say that about one of ourselves.”

  But Zambesi-Chartel got a new set of ideas when he saw the trick that cormorant did with an old hat. It was at a rummage sale at which charleroi looked in out of curiosity — he was curious about everything. “What a pixie must have worn this!” he exclaimed. “What a pixie!”

  c held the hat in his hands. And then he held the head in his hands. It was something like a pixie head and it was attached to the body of a young lady. cisailles kissed the young lady uncommonly about the temporal regions and pressed her to his sternum — for to him impulse was the same as action. And she squealed.

  “Not that I mind—but you did startle me,” she chimed. “Who are you? Who, may I ask, am I? And how in pigeon-toed perdition did I get here?”

  “You are a pixie, young lady,” said clough, “and as such you are likely to turn up anywhere. I had your hat, so what more natural than that I should call you up to fill it.”

  “I am only a part-time pixie, cartier, but I am a full-time housewife. Supper will burn. How do I get back?”

  “You already are,” said callimachus. And she was. Or at least she was no longer there.

  And that was the beginning of the trouble; not for c, not for the young pixie lady, but it was the beginning of the trouble for Charles (Great Zambesi) Chartel.

  Charles knew how it was done now. One cannot continue doing a basic trick in the presence of such a sharpy as Charles Chartel without his learning it. And once he had learned how it was done there was no stopping him.

  Charles Chartel was not a bad man underneath, but on the surface he was a rotter. The natural complement of healthy greed that is in every man began to burgeon unnaturally in him. The hard core of meanness spread through his whole being. The arrogance of the rooster became that of the tyrant and envy and revenge burned in him with sulphurous fire.

  Chartel now had the key to total wealth, a key that would not only unlock all doors for him, but lock them against others. He set out to get control of the show. To do this he had to break Finnerty, the owner-manager, and buy him out after breaking him.

  Business had been good and every night Finnerty had a full cash box. But before a thing is full, it is half full. And before that, it is a quarter full. Every night, just as Finnerty went to count the take, Zambesi-Chartel would play a trick on that box. And it would be only a quarter full. That was not enough to cover expenses.

  Finnerty had never been a saving man. He had always trod the narrow green edge between solvency and disaster. And in two weeks he was broke.

  Finnerty sold the show and the bookings to Chartel for ten thousand dollars. It made a nice wad in his pocket when he walked away from the show that was no longer his.

  But the meanness was running like a tide in Chartel and he wouldn't let it go at that. He emptied the wallet of Finnerty again, taking it back ten minutes in time. Finnerty felt a certain lightness, and he knew what it was. But he kept on walking.

  “It's lucky he left me with my pants,” said Finn, “if he has. I'm afraid to look down.”

  A cloud came over the happy little family that was the show. Veronica felt herself abused and it wasn't imagination. The three Lemon sisters shivered to the chill of a harsh master. So did Carucchi the singer, and Captain Carter and his bears. And c, the little man who was the unwitting cause of it all, took to staying out of the way of the rampaging Chartel. For Zambesi-Chartel was now avid for praise, for money, for all manner of meanness. He accumulated coin by every variation of the new trick he had learned. He robbed by it, he burgled the easy way. It is an awful and sickening thing to see a good man grow rich and respected.

  “But underneath he isn't a bad man at all,” Veronica moaned. “Really he isn't.”

  “No, underneath he is a fine man,” said c, the little man of impulse. “Who should know better than I?”

  “Why, what do you mean, chadwick dear?” Veronica asked him.

  “The same as you. Charles is only bad on the surface. Underneath he's a fine fellow.”

  Well, that may have been. But on the surface, Zambesi-Chartel sure did get rough. He demeaned the dignity of his fellow humans and made them eat dirt by the ton. He went on adrenalin drunks and thrived on the hatred in his own bloodstream. He became a martinet, a propagandist for the Hoop act. He registered Democrat. He switched from perfectos to panatelas and from honest whisky sours to perfidious martinis. He developed a snigger and horselaugh that wilted pigweeds. “Oh, chiot,” said Veronica, “we must do something to save him from himself. We are all involved with him.”

  “Who should know better than I?” conchylatus asked sadly.

  Chartel began to drink tea. He started to call a napkin a serviette and to omit every single syllable in “extraordinary.” He switched allegiance from the noble National League to the sniveling American. He defrauded his laborers of their wages, he used scent, he ate vegetarian lunches, he read Walter Lippmann posthumously, he switched from Gumbo Hair Oil to Brilliantine. Once a character begins to deteriorate it goes all the way and in every detail.

  Chartel had the Green Sickness, the inordinate love of money. He obtained the stuff, first by all means fair and foul, then by foul means only. But obtain it he did and it made a sniveling devil out of him.

  “But the man underneath isn't bad at all,” Veronica insisted.

  “Who should know better than I?” caoine said.

  The Grand Canyon began with a prairie dog burrow and once it was started there was no stopping it. The downfall of Zambesi-Chartel began over a nickel and then the whole apparatus came down: his wealth, real and phantom—his reputation—the whole blamed complex of the man.

  It started with a fistfight he had with a blind n
ewsdealer over a nickel. It ended with Chartel in jail, indicted, despised, shamed, despondent.

  Moreover, public feeling was strongly against him.

  Chartel was up on more than twenty counts of theft and pilfering and the nickel stolen from the blind man was by no means the least of them. He was up on a dozen counts of wage fraud. He was charged with multiplex pickpocketing “by device not understood.” They had him on faked bill of sale, dishonest conveyance, simple and compounded larceny, possession of stolen goods, barratry.

  “Looks like we have you on everything but chicken-stealing,” the judge said at the hearing.

  “We have him on that, too,” said the bailiff. “Five counts of it.”

  “You would gag a gannet and make a buzzard belch,” said the judge. “I'd crop your ears if that law still obtained. And if we can find a capital offense in all this offensiveness I'll have your head. It is hard to believe that you were once human.”

  Chartel was shamed and sick of heart and felt himself friendless. That night he attempted to hang himself in his cell. The attempt failed for reasons that are not clear but not for any lack of effort on his part. It is worthy of note that the only persons who ever attempt to take their own lives are rather serious persons.

  “We will have to go to him at once, cristophe,” said Veronica. “We must show him that we still love him. He'd sicken a jackal the way he's behaving, but he isn't really like that. The man underneath —”

  “Hush, Veronica, you embarrass me when you talk like that,” said ciabhach. “I know what a prince is the man underneath.”

  Little c went to visit the Great Zambesi-Chartel in his cell. “It is time we had a talk,” he said. “No, no, it's too late for talk,” said Charles Chartel.

  “You have disgraced us both, Charles,” said celach. “It goes very deeply when it touches me.”