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

by R. A. Lafferty

  But now we all drank their water, we thought their thoughts (thoughts? some of their ghouly notions were enough to rot the flesh off your bones), and now we became indistinguishable from them.

  The stuff that now came out of that enlarged well of the Collective Unconscious was too strong for many persons. It proved too stark for the stylish Irene Komohana, for instance, and for a few million persons like her.

  “Glug, gloug, glaaach!” she retched (she even retched with style, Irene did, and yet she had already begun to lose that style). “I can't drink this stuff, I can't dream this stuff, I can't think this stuff or act it out. It's wild, it's vile, it has no style at all. I'd rather die!”

  And Irene did die soon after this, of a blundering and noncreative accident. And the enlarged ambient got to her at the last and denied her the circumstance of even dying in style.

  “Better die than ratify!” some of the militant and refusing people declared (sloganing had come onto evil days with the great thirst and the extinction of wit). “We will not partake!” And they didn't. These several million persons, for a protest, died gallantly but clumsily.

  That was the end of elitism and of real class on Earth. All the people drank out of the common pot thereafter, and all became common, and unhinged and undirected, and a little bit trashy. You think it was common before? Now it was really common! “Oh, if only I could have a mind of my own!” people sometimes lamented.

  Footnote (aw, naw, not a footnote; it's a twenty-seven-mile-up-in-the-air note): This trenchant and illuminating discovery and reconstruction in the archaeology of the mind was presented — as a convention — as a future account, as something that was to happen in the year 1999 of the present era. Actually it happened in the year 1999 in an era that prevailed a long time ago, an earlier cyclical correspondence to our own era. It is the true account of how things became so raunchy down in the well of the world and how ourselves became so raunchy. We haven't any particular wells or fountains of our own. We draw it all from the same unsanitary and common pool.

  Puddle On The Floor

  1

  Petronilla heard two different giggles in the den. These had to come from two different boys, for they were going on at the same time. Oh, she'd catch them now! She hurried to pounce on the situation. And the phone rang just as she opened the den door. And the doorbell rang. They always rang just when she was about to— A fast look through the door showed another boy in the den with Gregory, that dirty slinky little boy she'd almost seen so many times before. But the phone jangled with rising anger, and the doorbell absolutely boomed.

  “Yes, yes,” she told the phone. “Anemia, is it? The doctor is sure? I never heard of a cat getting anemia before. Patsy, I've got somebody at the front door, and I'm about to catch Greg in something rotten at the same time. I'll call you back.”

  “Yes, yes,” she told the opened front door then. “Yes, Hermione. Anemia, is it? That's what Patsy Pettegolezzo's cat's got too. Oh, Hermione, I'm just about to have a row with Greg. Go on through to the kitchen. The coffee's on and the cinnamon rolls are in the warming oven.”

  Now, now, had Petronilla let the situation escape her? No, she had not. She still heard the second voice and the second giggle in the den, and the only way out of the den was that one door. The boys had it closed again, of course, but she could hear two of them inside. And then—

  “Quick, quick, go, go, she's come back already,” little Greg screamed inside as Petronilla's hand was on the knob. She threw the door wide open, and her son Greg was alone inside, absolutely alone. She knew every place in that den that was big enough to hide a little boy, and she knew that the door she held in her hand was the only way out. There had been another little boy in the room. He hadn't come out. And he wasn't in there now.

  “Who was with you just now in the den, Greg?” she asked with her smooth-shoed voice.

  “There wasn't anybody with me. I talk to myself and I practice two voices.”

  “But I saw the other boy, Greg. And then the phone and the door both rang. And I heard him in here just before I opened the door this time. Talk in two voices, do you? Let me hear you do it now!”

  “I can't do it now, mama. Only sometimes.”

  “Why do you lie to me, Greg?”

  “Believe me, mama, sometimes you get in holes and lying's the only way out.”

  “And does it get you out of the holes, Greg?”

  “It helps, mama.”

  “Oh, Greg! Another puddle on the floor! Why do you do it? You're a big boy six years old.”

  “It isn't what you think it is, mama.”

  “Greg, I am going to have to have answers to a few questions right now.”

  “What are they?”

  “Who is the little boy who was with you, the little boy who appears and disappears?”

  “What's the other questions?”

  “Why and how do you make puddles on the floor? Your pants are never wet. This is either very deliberate of you, or it is something else entirely.”

  “It's something else entirely, mama. What's the other questions?”

  “What got all the cats in the neighborhood? And the dogs and the birds? And the hamsters and the rabbits and the turtles? What is it that's getting all the pets, and what is it doing with them?”

  “Nothing's been getting them right lately, mama.”

  “That's because they were all got. And the new ones that the people have been buying now, no, they haven't been disappearing, but they've been getting sick. What could give anemia to Patsy Pettegolezzo's cat and to Hermione Greygoose's too?”

  “Strega O'Conner is giving the cats anemia now, I guess. She's spreading it around and not taking all of it from any of them, so it won't kill them.”

  “Strega O'Conner gives me the willies, but how could she give anemia to cats?”

  “Is that one of the questions, mama?”

  “No, not right now it isn't. But it probably will be.”

  “What's the rest of the questions then? I'm in kind of a hurry.”

  “Don't tell me that you're in a hurry, little boy. But another question is how is it possible for one six-year-old boy to eat so much bran for breakfast? There's been thirteen boxes already this week, and this is only Wednesday. What do you do with all of it?”

  “What's the other questions, mama?”

  “That's enough of them for right now. Oh, I wish your father were still alive. He'd get to the bottom of this.”

  “I bet he wouldn't. He was never very good at getting anything out of me.”

  “All right, let's have some answers, young man.”

  Both the phone and the door began to ring, loudly and with great determination. Petronilla Ashling started to answer them. And then she stopped suddenly and turned back to her son.

  “Greg, make the phone and the door both stop ringing, right now!”

  “How could I make them stop ringing? I never heard of such a thing.”

  “You made them start ringing. You did! And you made them ring the other time too.”

  “Yes, I did. But I can't make them stop.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there really is somebody on the phone. And there really is somebody at the door. There was somebody on them the other time too, wasn't there?”

  “Yes. But how do you make them ring whenever you want to and have real people there when I answer them?”

  “I don't know how I do it, mama. But I can tell you that they won't stop ringing till you answer them now. It makes me nervous when you let them ring like that.”

  “There's a lot of things making me nervous around here lately,” Petronilla told her son. She answered the phone. She told the real person who was on it to wait a minute. She answered the door. And between these two calls she was involved for fifteen minutes. She heard Greg go outdoors. She heard that little girl Strega O'Conner across the street singing a jump-rope rhyme:

  “This is the puddle, shallow and gray.

  A ge
ntleman drowned in it today.”

  Petronilla Ashling wrung her hands and puzzled her head. That little girl Strega drove her up walls with her chants, but how could the chants give cats anemia? And how could they do things much more suspicious? Petronilla had her front-door caller talking to her telephone caller now (they were friends), and she heard that they were talking about their cats and dogs having anemia.

  Petronilla thought about sick cats now, and she recalled that the problem of the previous week had been the catnapper stealing and killing all the cats and other pets of the neighborhood. She thought about the puddles of water on the floor and about the empty bran boxes in the kitchen. How was it possible for Greg to eat as many as five one-pound boxes of wheat bran for breakfast and she not be able to see him eat any of them? How was it possible for him to eat all that and still be so skinny?

  “If his father was still alive I'd push the problems off on him,” Petronilla said. “How can he make the phone and the door both ring whenever he wants to distract me from questioning him? And how can he make there to be real people there when I answer? Oh, which end of this horrible mess will I start with? Where will I catch hold of it? I will catch hold of that other little boy by the ears or the neck—that's where I'll catch hold of it. I will use the dirtiest trick in the world.”

  Entrapment is the dirtiest trick in the world. Petronilla would set a trap, and she would watch and wait. She had been afraid to ask Greg about the peanut butter jars full of blood (it looked like blood). She had asked him more intermediate questions, but this one would have to be asked in some form. It would be the bait for the trap. Whenever Greg was out of jars of blood, then he was also out of the other little boy. And whenever he had a jar or two of the chocolate-cherry-colored stew, then that dirty and slinky little boy would appear again very soon. But where did that blood come from?

  Oh, that little Strega O'Conner was singing another jumprope rhyme across the street. (“If I were her mother I'd knock her heads together,” Petronilla said.) And the rhyme, as all of Strega's, was very loud:

  “Cat in the catchy-bag, thud, thud, thud!

  Come get the freshy stuff, blood, blood, blood.”

  So, then, was little Strega O'Conner trafficking in blood? Was that the answer to it?

  In less than half an hour Strega O'Conner came over to the Ashlings bringing some cookies that her mother had made. She brought them and nothing else. Petronilla never took her eyes off of that child. Strega came over four more times that day, and she didn't bring any blood into the house. Was all this an illusion?

  “Oh, if my husband were still alive, what would he do about these problems?” Petronilla moaned. “He'd guffaw his silly head off at them, that's what he'd do.”

  Petronilla even dreamed about it that night. She dreamed that Strega O'Conner slipped into the house during the night with three peanut butter jars full of blood. And Petronilla woke in the early morning to a thudding sound. It was the paper boy throwing the morning paper on the porch. Then Petronilla was out of bed like a taking-off bird and to the window. She knew that somebody had made the paper boy thud the paper just at that moment to disguise another sound, the sound of a door closing. And there was Strega, who had just slipped out of the Ashling house in the early morning and was going across to her own house. Petronilla went to her son's bedside, and there on his night stand were three peanut butter jars full of what might very well be blood.

  “All right, then,” she said. “The little boy will come again this morning, though I'm afraid to make the connection between the blood and his coming. I will make a big stir around. I will say that I'm going to be doing the washing in the basement. And I will set the washing noises to going there. But I will not be in the basement. I will be watching, watching, watching by my trap. But first, before I get Greg up and get him his breakfast, before I set the washer to going, I will do two other things.”

  Petronilla Ashling disconnected her phone from the phone jack. And she disconnected her doorbell at the push button at the front door.

  She called Greg to get up, and he mumbled something behind the closed door of his room. She opened that door suddenly. The jars of blood were no longer on the little night stand. He had hidden them somewhere. Greg was pretending to be still half asleep, but he was only pretending.

  Petronilla tried to catch her son Greg at it at breakfast. He was always too fast for her. She would look away for a moment, and a box of bran would be clear empty. She would look away for another moment, and another box of bran would be done away with.

  “How can you eat so much bran, Greg?” she asked. But with the fifth box of it she saw what happened. Greg had a catchybag of his own, and that's where he put the bran. He wasn't eating any of it. Petronilla pretended not to have seen this, and she went down to the basement as soon as breakfast was over. And then she crept up again and listened at the door of the den, where Greg had shut himself up.

  She heard his giggle. She heard another little boy's giggle. She put her hand on the knob of the door and—

  “Petronilla, your phone isn't working!” Patsy Pettegolezzo called from the window.

  “Petronilla, your doorbell isn't working!” Hermione Greygoose called from the front door.

  “Oh, perish you, kind neighbors!” Petronilla exploded, and she refused to be diverted. She swung the den door open. She grabbed that strange little boy by an ear and by the back of his neck and she dragged him out of there.

  “Mama, the phone's ringing and the doorbell's ringing!” Gregory cried. But they weren't, or they weren't ringing very much. Even Greg could not make disconnected bells ring clearly or with authority.

  Petronilla dragged that dirty, slinky little boy out of the house, jerking him by arm and shoulder now and whacking him on the seat of the pants at every step. And yet she couldn't say what he was guilty of.

  “That's mean, mama, he hasn't done anything,” Greg was calling and following along behind. And that slinky little boy dragged his feet and tried to hold onto things to keep from being dragged along.

  Then (horror!) Petronilla pulled an arm clear off the little boy. In a moment she was flushed with confusion and fear. And Strega O'Conner across the street was jumping rope and singing a jumprope rhyme:

  “This is the boy who got his wish.

  We'll eat him alive in a porridge dish.”

  The little boy was crying and beginning to cave in.

  “You'd better go now, Eugene,” Gregory said. I'll get you back here again in a couple of days.”

  “All right,” the strange little boy said. He collapsed still more. Petronilla tried to straighten him up. The other arm and part of the shoulder came off him, and both Patsy and Hermione were watching it all. The head fell off the little boy and rolled on the sidewalk there. And several more people were watching now.

  “Oh, I've never had it like this before,” Petronilla moaned. “I could just perish from confusion!”

  But it was the strange little boy who perished. He disintegrated. He melted clear down. And there was nothing left of him but a puddle of water on the sidewalk. And all of those busy-bee people were closing in to see what it was all about.

  “Brazen it out, mama,” Gregory whispered. “That's what I always do when I'm caught with it.”

  “What little boy?” Petronilla asked innocently when people began to question her.

  “What little boy?” Gregory Ashling asked them all.

  “What little boy?” Strega O'Conner asked, coming from across the street and still jumping rope. Strega was as brazen as a six-year-old girl could be. And, after some draggy and embarrassing moments, the busy people went away jabbering.

  But when they were alone together Greg complained to his mother about her conduct.

  “He melts when you scare him or when you're rough with him,” Greg said. “I don't know whether you know it, but that's the third time this week that you've made him melt. And then you blame me for using so much bran!”

  “Ah, I
don't seem able to go on with these weird things any longer,” Petronilla snuffled. “What we will have to do, Gregory, is get a new father for you. Then he can be responsible for these things.”

  “I don't want a new father,” Gregory protested. “I don't like any of the men that you like.”

  “You will like this one, Gregory,” Petronilla said, “or it will be your own fault. You can have him just the way you want him.”

  2

  “Yes, that is what I mean, Gregory,” Petronilla said to her son. “You can select every quality you want in your father. You can make him just the way that you want him to be, or at least I think that you can. I trust your judgment and your taste. I will abide by your decision. I know the things that you have been making, and I know that you can make a grown man.” “It sure will take a lot of bran, mama. It takes a lot for even a little boy.”

  “The sky is the limit as far as bran is concerned,” Petronilla said. “However much bran it takes, we will get it.”

  “And it sure will take a lot of blood. I'm scared of it. I never made anybody except little boys before.”

  “As to the blood, make whatever arrangements are necessary with Strega O'Conner, dear. If she needs more peanut butter jars to put it in, then we will get more for her. If she needs more blood than she can get from the cats and dogs around here, then we will get her a hog or a cow or something with a lot of blood in it. Now you be thinking very hard about just what you want in a father. Make him as nearly perfect as you can.”