Goldbeater had never become an exile, never turned his back on Church or Country. He lived all his life right where he was planted, and he flourished like the Green Bay Tree. More than that, he wrote in the grand tradition. He was in the noble line of Lodowick Barry (ah, Lodowick's great play Ram Alley!), of Dian Boucicault, of Standish O'Grady.
“He is a finer romanticist than Carleton, than Le Fanu, than Banim, than Gerald Griffin,” Cris Benedetti had once lectured a class about Goldbeater. “For sheer narration he is the superior of Samuel Lover and Charles Lever.”
(“Carrock, love her and leave her,” Austro had said then. Austro sometimes sat in on Cris Benedetti's classes.)
“I tell you that he was and is a better ballad-maker than Gavin Duffy or D'Arcy McGee!” Benedetti had concluded that lecture in a ringing voice: and he, or Goldbeater, had received a ringing ovation for it. Benedetti had half a dozen slim volumes of the prose and verse of Clement Goldbeater and these he donated to the Goldbeater Guild at the university. He also had one of the rare copies of the extraordinary Enniscorthy Chronicle, the finest novel of the first quarter of the twentieth century. This Cris kept for himself: but the more apt members of the Goldbeater Guild were sometimes allowed to browse through it for a few moments.
“Never mind, some year soon it will be reissued,” Cris would say. “It is a crime that it has not been as yet.”
Goldbeater had lived a fantastic life without traveling a dozen miles from his home. In his old age he had become a little crotchety. He disdained photographers and interviewers, which is why there were few late pictures and almost no late information on him. He walked the green lanes of his own county, swinging his blackthorn stick. He was white of whisker and hair, 'tis said, and reedy of voice. But he was still the literary lion pre-eminent of the century. And now he was coming to our own city, the Athens of mid-America.
The Unicorn had been publishing, from an unknown source, a few new drawings of Clement Goldbeater in every issue for the last three or four years. And for the last year, the pictures had flowed from the talented pencil of Austro: the oddity here was that it was impossible that Austro should ever have seen or known Goldbeater. Austro was the Australopithecine houseboy of Barnaby Sheen.
“I suppose that I had better put the eccentric old Irishman up at my place,” the same Barnaby Sheen said the next day. “All the rest of you live in various species of sordid shambles.” “And your place is not a shambles?” Harry O'Donovan asked in his high voice.
“Mine is a shambles with class,” Barnaby said. “It is a spacious and comfortable shambles, and not sordid. It is the sort of place an eccentric old Irishman would enjoy.” That was true.
“Austro, go with Cris and the Guild kids to meet the old man, and be sure to bring him here,” Barnaby instructed.
“Carrock,” said Austro. “I bring the old crock.”
There was Austro, there was Cris Benedetti (after all, it was his car that they went in), there were three members of the Goldbeater Guild who went to the airport to pick up the great Clement Goldbeater.
One of the Guild members was Roy Mega, the young electronics genius who had known Loretta Sheen and Mary Mondo (Violet Lonsdale) in their normal lives. Roy had been a reader of the plastic stuff of the Putty Dwarf before he became interested in Goldbeater. But Roy was an independent thinker.
“I believe that what we will find here is a literary lion without literary content,” he said, “without any content at all. The Putty Dwarf showed us how easily a non-person can operate. I believe that the great Clement is another non-person.”
“How can you say that?” the other two Guild members gasped. But they were there now: and there he was!
Clement Goldbeater (there was no mistaking him; there was no doubt whatsoever as to his identity) was on the first flight, the Braniff International that arrived at noon. He came out with a grumble and a growl, a magnificent white-maned lion carrying a little mealbhog, or satchel, and swinging his blackthorn stick. Then he saw Austro and he broke into a beautiful twinkling grin.
“Ah, it's an Irish lad they've sent to meet me!” he near lilted the words. “A boy, a garsun, a bioranach! Welcome me, lad!”
“Carrock!” Austro cried happily. “Cead mile failte.” How did Austro, who stumbled and staggered through the simplest English sentence, have intuitive knowledge of Irish? Oh, it's the primordial language of the world: all primitives know it.
They hit it off wonderfully then, all going to Barnaby Sheen's for tay (as Clement called it). Once there, Clement Goldbeater twinkled the finest hazel eyes ever seen out from under the shaggiest brows, and he growled pleasantly and talked with flowing gusto. Only once, and that was near the start of it, was there a slight misunderstanding.
“The tay, Austro lad, the tay,” the old man complained, “you've forgotten to lace it.” And Austro, understanding intuitively, though he had not heard the phrase before, sloshed whisky into Clement's cup to correct the oversight.
“Why, I had hardly noticed the two young ladies present,” Clement said then, “the two who were not at the airport. Loretta and Mary, are ye not? And I see that it's taibhsiuil girls that you are.” (That meant ghostly girls, but how could Clement have known about them?)
“What do you consider your greatest poem, Mr. Goldbeater?” asked a young female member of the Goldbeater Guild.
“Ah, there are so many of them that would have to be called wonderful,” the old man said. “But my real favorite is the limerick that goes:
“There was a young lady from Kleetus
Who showered ball-players with geetus.
She consorted with these,
And presently she's
Afflicted with athletes' fetus.”
The old man Clement gave it in a fine voice.
“Stop this nonsense,” Cris Benedetti suddenly howled. “There is no such man as this here present. I made him up and he doesn't exist otherwise.”
This wild outburst shocked not only Austro and Loretta and Mary Mondo and the kids of the Goldbeater Guild. It also shocked Harry O'Donovan and George Drakos and Barnaby Sheen and myself who were also present at the tay. Cris had popped his stopper; there wasn't much doubt of that.
“God made me up,” Clement Goldbeater said with a sort of roguish dignity. “You're in His image, but weakly so. You did not make me up, man.”
“There is nothing here,” Cris sputtered and pointed at Clement.
“A non-person,” Roy Mega helped him out. Roy was one of the kids who had tumbled to it. Cris had been wrong in saying that none of them had.
“He's a non-person, a nothing, a sick joke of my own making,” Cris insisted with passion. “There was never any such person as Clement Goldbeater. I made him up to illustrate that few persons ever read the works they talk about. And a half dozen other teachers around the country who also sponsor little magazines joined me in the hoax. Then the kids got up a fund to finance Goldbeater's visit to us. There was no harm in that, I thought. It was funny, and the money could later be used for some worthy cause. But they really sent the money. And he answered and he came. But it's impossible, he can't be here! There isn't any Clement Goldbeater, and there aren't any Goldbeater writings.”
“But you do have Goldbeater writings on your shelf, Cris,” I broke into the thing. “I've seen them, and I've looked through them a little.”
“No, no! Bookbinding and printing are hobbies of mine.” Cris said. “It was no trick to rip off the covers and title page of a few turn-of-the-century books, and to make Clement Goldbeater covers and title-pages to go with them. But this man can't be here. And if he is, he never wrote anything.”
“You deny that I am Clement S. Goldbeater of the suburb of Clontarf in holy Ireland?” Clement demanded angrily. “Never wrote anything! You deny that I write a monthly half-column in the Clontarf Monthly Miscellany?”
Clement S. Goldbeater was the angriest man I had ever seen until then.
But he held the title for only short
seconds.
Then an even angrier man burst through the door. And he looked mightily like Clement.
“Why were the funds not sent to me by cable?” the newcomer demanded. “Why did I have to dig up the jug in my own pear orchard for my own money to come, and I almost miss my plane on account of it? Why was I not met at the airport? Why did I have to learn by devious means in which house the Goldbeater Guild was met?”
Then the face of the new old man softened, and he grinned widely.
“Ah, there's an honest Irish boy here at least!” he cried, and he clapped Austro on both shoulders with his great hands. “Ah, you be a lad, a buachaill, a macaomh. The pug and the mug on you! I'd know you for Irish anywhere by them. Welcome me, lad!”
“Carrock,” said Austro happily. “Ta failte romhat.”
“You're not real,” Cris Benedetti protested, in panic at the doubling of his anomalies. “You have not a name; you've breathed not a breath; you've written not a line.”
“You deny that I am Clement T. Goldbeater of the suburb of Howth in holy Ireland?” the new old man demanded angrily. “Written not a line! You deny that I write a monthly half-column in the Howth Monthly Herald? Ah, but I see that my ne'er-do-well cousin Clement S. is here before me. That explains much,” Clement T. said. “He has stolen my money and my honors and preceded me here. He has received the blessing before me, and the mess of pottage as well.”
“That's better than a pot of message,” Mary Mondo conveyed.
“Why, there are two young deamhan ladies here present,” Clement T. said in soft wonder. (He meant two young ghostly ladies, but how could Clement T. have known what they were?)
“These two old men are nothings,” Cris Benedetti was raving. “One is nothing, and the other one is a reflection of the nothing. I tell you that I made the thing up, and then it twinned or cousined on me. But they are not alive. They have no life in them.”
“What is life?” Mary Mondo asked like jesting Pilate.
“Quiet, witch!” Cris gave her an angry order. The two cousins, Clement S. Goldbeater and Clement T. Goldbeater, had now begun to beat each other with their blackthorn sticks.
“I'll show you that there's no substance to them. I'll show you that they're nothing but hot air,” Cris shouted to everybody, and he waded into the middle of the blackthorn-swinging fight.
He was cracked and whacked solidly by both of the Clements. He staggered out of the dispute with bloody head and hunched shoulders.
“Whatever is it that has put such ruddy knobs on your noggin, Cris?” Barnaby Sheen asked pleasantly. “Was it hot air?”
“Yes, hot air. My own originally,” Cris snuffled humbly. He was bleeding blood, and perhaps he was crying tears. And the blackthorns were lashing and slashing.
Austro was drawing furiously in his drawing tablet, getting it all down. The two old men were battling as only old Irishmen can battle.
“Give me a couple of pages from your tablet, Austro,” Roy Mega begged. “I can hardly wait to get started on the lead story for the next Unicorn. It's going to be some issue!”
The whole room seemed full of swinging blackthorn canes.
Austro gave Roy Mega some pages.
“Carrock,” Austro said. “Going to be one crocky issue.”
The Hellaceous Rocket of Harry O'Donovan
Four pieces needed in this plan
To make the flaming rocket man:
A mask, a pitch, a brain to whiz it;
The fourth — well, what the Devil is it?
—Eco-Log
Harry O'Donovan had made an apparatus. Being political, he had made a political apparatus: and the essential of this was that it should look and walk and talk like a man. Harry had made such conglomerates before, and with some success. Now he had in his hands the pieces that looked like total success.
“There are only three pieces needed,” he said with his usual floridity. “The mask or front-man, the pitch or phrase-maker and image-maker, and the brain. These should not be combined in one person: each has its own narrow role, and they must be kept separate. Each must have its fundamental simplicity, but the combination will be complex. Three things only, and I believe that I have them all at hand.”
“You are wrong,” Barnaby Sheen told him. “A successful political apparatus, a successful political animal, is always a quaternity, a four-way thing. The fourth element will be there, or the thing will not succeed.”
“Oh sure, four-square and all that, stability's quite necessary,” Harry agreed. “The fourth element, which must remain hidden, is the brain behind the brain; in this case myself.”
“The fourth element does not bring stability,” Barnaby contradicted. “Stability is already there, there is nothing more stable than a three-legged stool. The fourth element turns the stable apparatus into a wobbly skyrocket. It soars in a fiery arc, and then it falls as a cinder. I don't see why the fourth element is necessary; I don't say that it is necessary: I say that it will be there, sooner or later, every time.”
Cris Benedetti who was present growled in a hoarse voice, and he was usually a soft-spoken man. He growled something that sounded very like “The devil with the fourth element!”
“But if it works,” Harry said, “it will not be an ordinary thing. It will be like a flaming rocket that people will remember forever.”
“Austro tells me that they made rockets when he was a boy back home living in a cave,” Barnaby said. “They would capture marsh gas in tightly-woven palm-leaf sacks. They would attach a sack to a spear with fletching and head. They would set the spear afire, and then they would set the gas afire. And it would soar brilliantly. Many things are very old.
“Austro used to say that he was born in a cave that he helped his father excavate,” Barnaby told it. “And, for a long time, all American politicians were born in log cabins which they had helped their fathers build. This gave the image of humble beginnings, combined with initiative and extreme youth.”
“I like the cave variation of it,” Harry said. “I may be able to work it in one of these times.”
Because he had selected, for political advantage, a self-effacing role for himself; we were always inclined to set Harry O'Donovan a little below his real worth. But Harry with his high-pitched voice had never been out of place as one of the men who knew everything. In the field of electronics, he went far beyond that self-proclaimed electronics genius Barnaby Sheen. In medicine and biology, he was at least the peer of Doctor George Drakos. In literature and esoterica, he owned at least as many vineyards as did Cris Benedetti. He was a political genius—that was acknowledged by everyone; and he was a psychological genius, which is almost the same thing. But it is sometimes forgotten that he was also a mechanical genius almost without equal in our generation. And at para-mathematics, para-mechanics, para-biology, para-psychology, para-electronics, para-politics—who could stand on his level? Building a political animal took a lot of talents, and Harry O'Donovan had them. He was beginning to build a new political animal now.
He was talking to a young fellow of powerful and striking appearance:
“You were born in a sod house along Coyote Trail, David,” Harry was saying. “I would like very much to make it a cave, but we haven't come quite that far yet. Maybe it will be a cave the next time. You were born in that sod house, do you understand that, David?”
“No. I was born on Twelfth Street right here in Tulsa,” the young man said. “Coyote Trail is out west of Sand Springs. It's twelve miles from where I was born. And there isn't enough sod out there to build a sod house. It's all rock and up and down hills. Now, here's a beauty that no man in his right mind could turn down.”
“I am not here to buy a car, David,” Harry O'Donovan said patiently.
The young man, the contemplated mask or front-man, of a political animal, was a used-car salesman on used-car row. Nevertheless, he had the appearance and the voice. He could be used, but he needed whatever instruction could be poured into him.
“Never talk in your own words, David,” Harry told him. “Somebody else will fix up the words for you to say. Ah, you'll be perfect for the part, perfect.”
This used-car salesman who was being selected for front-man was named David Concourse.
“Your name won't have to be changed,” Harry O'Donovan said. “It's good enough.”
“Why should my name be changed, friend?” Big David asked. “Now this car, friend, purrs like a workhorse. It cruises like a hummingbird. It has a reciprocal motor and astatic shocks. At $590.00 we should be investigated by the federal government for undermining prices. I always say there's nothing like a Dodge to take you there and bring you back.”
“It's a Ford, David,” Harry said, “but I'm not shopping for a car today. I'm shopping for something else and I think I've found it. I'll likely be back.”
“Better hurry, friend,” said the personable salesman. “These red-hot bargains go awful fast.”
“The bargain I've found should still be here tomorrow,” Harry said. “I'll be back.”
“Wonderful, wonderful, friend,” the big young man said, “and which one is it?”
“You,” Harry said. He believed that he had found his front-man or mask: huge, handsome, still plastic and formable, earthy, outgoing, personable, with a likeable boom in his voice; and not a brain in his head. He would serve.
And Harry had already about decided on his pitch and now he went to see him. The pitch was named Ennis Hardhandle. He wrote sports and other things for the North Town Star. He wrote patter for the supper-club entertainers. He wrote material for a variety of politicians. He was good with words, and he was smart and young. But he was black, he was scrawny, and he had a tendency to break up in the middle of his own most solemn phrases. He didn't take his own talents seriously enough, he was unorganized; he threw away stuff that could be marketed, and he did not concentrate his energies. But he was better than anyone else around, and he knew what Harry O'Donovan was after when Harry first looked him up.
The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty Page 161
