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

by R. A. Lafferty

  “We don't seem to at the moment, Miss Mallow. We are trying to trace the peregrinations of a coffee cup.”

  “I peregrinate quite a few of them back and forth every day.”

  “But you didn't see one going by itself, did you?”

  “No, I don't believe I did.”

  “Let's go over that booth again. And you, Miss Mallow, can help us.”

  The booth had a swivel stool in it, not too high, not too low.

  “Miss Mallow, I wonder if you would sit on that stool for an experiment.”

  “All right. What is the experiment?”

  “Just to see what a girl looks like sitting on that stool. These booths look small, but there's quite a bit of room in them, is there not?”

  “Oh yes, they're comfortable enough.”

  “When you use your booth do you keep the back door closed?”

  “Not if it's warm, and it's always warm.”

  “Thank you, Miss Mallow.”

  Lieutenant Withers and Captain Johns went back to the station house.

  Chester Barnweller was brought in for further questioning. “Chester, why did you say that you weren't acquainted with the dead girl?”

  “There's something wrong with that. I don't remember saying I didn't know her, and I don't remember saying I did know her. I'm not sure it's the same girl. I went to school with a Peggy Smith once though.”

  “Yes, you did. To high school, right in this town, for four years, and the termination of it less than two years ago. Should you not recognize a classmate after less than two years?”

  “Certainly. But there's something wrong with it all. The dead girl at the morgue is the girl I went to high school with, yes. That's clear. But it couldn't have been her in the booth! Yet there was something familiar about her voice, familiar and yet wrong. Mr. Johns, there was something not right when she sold me the tickets.”

  “Yes, I believe there was something wrong already, Chester.”

  Captain Johns retired to his office and thought about it. It was along towards late night, and every night he read scripture for at least five minutes. He took the book from the bottom drawer of his desk and opened it. And with a vague curiosity he turned to Two Kings Twelve Three.

  But it was odd that it did not say what Lieutenant Withers had said that it said. It did not mention the high places, nor the people who sacrifice and burn incense there.

  But the things that were written there and in the following verses were of sudden interest. It was about the poor man robbed of his one cherished possession by a rich man who had countless possessions. It was a passage to awaken revenge, and apparently it had done so. “But if it reads that way now, why did it read differently before? I have nearly missed the kernel of the nut because of this. Lieutenant Withers is a fine man within his limits. But, dammit, he is not even Irish! And when you have said that about a man, what worse words could you say about him? The book he used must have been that of our separated brethren. Two Kings they would call Two Samuel. And Four Kings is what they would call Two Kings.”

  Then he put the Book away and went back to work, calling for Beth Jenson to be brought in again. “Damn the time. Get her!”

  “Miss Jenson, why did you say that you hadn't a boyfriend?” “I haven't.”

  “What is Ori?”

  “He is my lamb that has been lost to me.”

  “How?”

  “To Peggy Smith. She didn't even need him. She had a flock of full-horned rams. She had all the boyfriends she could manage. And I had only one, a less-than-one, and him a brainless lamb without enough sense to come in out of a high wind. Nobody else ever had a care for him. He needed me, he could never make it by himself, and I always looked out for him. She shouldn't have tried to take him. She didn't need him at all. I asked her not to do it, but she said she was only being nice to him. But her niceness has a quicksand quality. Anyone caught in it will never be free.”

  “ ‘The rich man had exceeding many sheep and oxen… but the poor man had nothing at all but one little ewe lamb which he had brought up and nourished and which had grown up in his house… the rich man spared to take his own sheep and oxen… but took the poor man's ewe lamb.’ Was that it, Miss Johnson? But haven't you got the sexes reversed?”

  “It doesn't matter. He was my lamb, all that I had, and she stole him.”

  Lieutenant Withers came in and said that Chester Barnweller had further information. And Chester was at his heels with it.

  “Oh, she's here, she's here!” Chester cried out when he saw Beth Janson. “I had already gone to bed, Captain Johns, and then it came to me like a lightning bolt what was wrong. She had been there at the morgue, looking at dead Peggy Smith the same time my girl and I were there. The girl who sold me the tickets wasn't Peggy Smith, Captain. She was the girl sitting right there. I'm sure of it now. Yet her voice was enough like Peggy's to puzzle me.”

  “Yes. I know it, Chester. Thank you.”

  “It was me all right,” said Beth Jenson. “I mimic Peggy. And we mimic best the things that we hate.”

  “But how were you in her booth, Beth?”

  “I just was. I told her yesterday to leave my lamb alone and not to take him away from me. I told her that he was my only one and that she had plenty. But she just smiled and told me again that she was just being nice to him. Do you know what burnt sugar smells like? That's the way she was. She had everything, and she took what was mine.”

  “Let's bring it up till today, Beth.”

  “Today I told her again. I argued with her when I brought her coffee this afternoon. Then I decided to kill her. I wrote the note so she would know I was killing her for stealing my lamb, or so that somebody would find it and know that I did it and why. I knew she had the little pistol in her booth. Johnny Olds had told her that she couldn't shoot on the beach, but he never mentioned her not shooting on the pier. She shot at gulls from her booth, but it never made much noise and nobody hardly knew it. At a hundred feet or so it would just sting a gull and make it squawk. So I came to her for a showdown.

  “She sold tickets to two little girls and said ‘Than-Q’, and I came to the back of her booth. She sold tickets to a lady and her little girl and said ‘Than-Q’. Then she swiveled around on her stool to talk to me and I gave her the note. She knew her Bible and she recognized the passage. ‘Oh, Beth, don't be difficult,’ she said, ‘I won't hurt the little goof.’ I picked up her pistol from the ledge there and shot her.

  “And that is when this nice boy and his girl came up before I could get away. So I slipped in front and sold them the tickets and said ‘Than-Q’ just the way Peggy always said it.”

  “And where was the just-shot Peggy Smith while you were doing this? Why didn't they see her?”

  “I was sitting on her lap. That was the only way to hide her. Then, still before I could leave, the man with the little boy came to the ticket window. But I couldn't get in front of her again. It was too late. He saw her dead, but he didn't see me crunched down behind. When he turned to give the eye to the beach policeman Johnny Olds, I dropped the little pistol into Beth's coffee cup and went back to my own booth. I said this afternoon that it was seven steps, but it's only five when you hurry.”

  “And nobody noticed you?”

  “Of course not. What was there to notice? We are part of the scenery and nobody can tell us apart. I shot her from the back of the booth, but I shot her in the forehead because she was swiveled around. And I dropped the little pistol in her coffee cup.”

  “And then how did you dispose of the cup with the pistol in it?”

  “When Johnny Olds came and said that nobody could leave the area for a while, I gave him the cup with the pistol in it and asked him to drop it off at Salt Water Sam's on the way to the police phone. And he did it. But nobody noticed what was in the cup.”

  “And seeing you will see but not perceive.”

  “What, Captain Johns?”

  “Isaias Six Nine.”

  The 9
9th Cubicle

  Simpson Coldturkey owned three little buildings in a row in the 900 block of West Dudley Street. If he had only one of them rented, he was on the edge of starvation. If he had two of them rented, he was at the break-even point. And if (as it seldom happened) he had all three of them rented, he was rich, but just barely. Now, for a little while at least, he was just barely rich, for he had rented his third building to new tenants, had collected three months rent for it in advance; and the tenants were moving in right now. This third building was the one furthest west, on the corner of Dudley Street and South Random Road, the largest of the buildings. He sometimes rented it for an arcade. It was the place above which Simpson had his own living quarters, in that cockeyed, foreshortened second story. The name of the business of the new tenants was Mood Manipulators Unlimited. They had already hung the sign that said ‘Do Business with us and be Moody all the Time’.

  “I hadn't better inquire too closely as to the true nature of their business,” Simpson told himself. “Every time I do that, I turn up with another empty building.”

  The new tenants seemed to be flamboyant but pleasant young people most of the time (their names were Jane Casual, Avram Sundog, and Harold Grunion), but now and then they showed aberrant moodiness themselves. Their stock in trade was a hundred or so cubicles (about the size of telephone booths), about the size to hold a person standing or sitting.

  Their sales literature had such pitches as ‘Try our blue-bird blue: be happy as a blue-bird’ or ‘Have a go at our rotten-red: there is no fun like getting red-headed mad’ or ‘Use our copperhead-copper special: terrify your friends: be venomous’.

  “How does your mood manipulator work?” Simpson asked the tenant Harold Grunion.

  “We use atomized, ionized particles of fractured sunlight of certain colors trapped in droplets of glycerine-ice, droplets about a hundredth of a millimeter in diameter. The resonance of the trapped, minute color comes through as a mood, always one mood selected out of a whole orchestra of moods.”

  “It sounds a little bit like pseudo-science to me,” Simpson Coldturkey said.

  “Yes, doesn't it!” the tenant Harold Grunion agreed. “But it works. Try it and see.”

  “Are you people dope-peddlers?” Simpson asked tenant Jane Casual. “I realize that it's illegal to discriminate against dope-peddlers in renting, but I was just wondering.”

  “Call us the Poor Peoples' Dope-Peddlers,” Jane Casual said. “We escrow (is that the right word?) all chemical or organic dope. It has priced itself out of the market. But our angstrom-effect dope (it sets up counterpoints between the angstrom wavelengths of the various colors and the wavelengths of the various mood-frequencies in people) is almost as cheap as sunlight, and that is exactly what it is composed of. And it will effect every possible mood to every possible intensity.”

  “That's almost an infinite number of effects,” Simpson Coldturkey said.

  “Well, I exaggerate. It will effect ninety-nine different moods in nine intensities each. Ah, we are going to reduce even that a little bit now, by one ninety-ninth as a matter of fact. The ninety-ninth mood is a little bit too dangerous.”

  “That sounds like a crock of offal,” Simpson said doubtfully.

  “Try it and see,” tenant Jane Casual told him. “The ninety-ninth mood, the Garish Orange Mood, is entirely too dangerous. And I want to ask you a favor about that. I wonder whether, while my two partners are out, I might store the Garish Orange Cubicle itself somewhere up in that cockeyed foreshortened second story where you live. And I want you to swear that you will never tell either of my partners, nor anybody at all, that you have it, that you have ever heard of it. And I will put myself into deep forgetfulness of the matter when it is done.”

  “All right,” said Simpson Coldturkey.

  The Mood Manipulators Unlimited had such cubicles as ‘Green-Eyed Monster Green, the Envious-Mood Color’ and ‘Passion Purple Number Twenty-Seven: you only think you've been aroused before’. “They sound a little bit nutty,” Simpson told tenant Avram Sundog.

  “Try them and see,” Avram said. “In particular try out ‘Nutty-Brown: Meet the Squirrel inside Yourself’. That's a good mood to get started on, Mr. Coldturkey. Oh, I'd like to ask a favor of you.

  “We've decided to withdraw our ninety-ninth mood cubicle, Garish Orange. We were tired of having to skip out of town because of it. Jane Casual has had it put in a place unknown to either Harold Grunion or myself. The place is also unknown to Jane Casual now. We supreme masters of moods have a trick of forgetting things, burying the memory of them so deeply that it can only be retrieved by triple hypnosis (with three different practitioners from three different continents). But even if a person should find the Garish Orange Cubicle, he wouldn't be able to use it. It takes two keys. One of them is in the custody of Harold Grunion and the other one is in my custody. Here is my key. Keep it and never even think of it again. And I will perform deep amnesia and forget completely what I have done with it.”

  “All right,” Simpson Coldturkey said.

  Simpson began to try the cubicles a little bit. He started with ‘Gandy-Dancer Gray: the Mood that makes Mousy People quit feeling Dull’ and it worked. He tried the ‘Gaudy Green Cubicle: it's fun to be the Damnest Show-off in the Universe’, and it was fun. He tried the ‘Lurking Lavender Cubicle: all the Sneaky Pleasures of Sneakery’, and he reveled in being a sneak. He tried the ‘Faithful Cerulean Cubicle: Experience True Love Forever, for an hour’, and he did indeed experience true love forever for an hour.

  “I wonder whether you would do me a favor, Mr. Coldturkey?” Harold Grunion asked Simpson. “We have decided to retire our most controversial cubicle, the Garish Orange Mood Cubicle. Jane Casual has placed the cubicle itself in the most unlikely place she could think of, and has put herself into deep amnesia about the matter so that only under triple hypnosis would she be able to recall the place. And there is nothing more bothersome or more expensive than triple hypnosis. Avram Sundog has delivered his key to the cubicle to the most unlikely person he could think of, and has likewise put himself into deep amnesia about the matter. Here is the other key to the cubicle (it takes two keys to put the cubicle into operation). I want you to take it, and more or less forget that you have it. Never mention it to anybody, never even think about it. And I myself will be in total forgetfulness about it.”

  “All right,” said Simpson Coldturkey.

  “Why don't you try our ‘Ogres Orange Mood Cubicle’, Mr. Coldturkey,” Jane Casual said to landlord Simpson one day. “It has the motto ‘Turn into a real Ogre: Kill People, Kill People!’ You are a meek man, but every meek man has a tiger or an ogre penned up in his heart. It will be so much fun for you to release your ‘Beast Within’.” “I suspect that in my case the tiger or ogre would be a meek tiger or ogre also,” Simpson said.

  “Maybe not. Our mood cubicles work magic. Try it, try it.”

  Then Jane Casual went to let out a customer who had just taken advantage of the ‘Generosity Green Cubicle: Release the Wonderful, Free-Handed Person inside Yourself’. The use of the Generosity Green Cubicle was always free of charge, but it always put the customer into such a generous state of mind that he often insisted on paying double or triple the amount of his outstanding bill.

  Simpson Coldturkey tried the ‘Basking Brown Cubicle: Laziness as a Luxury Experience’ and he liked it. He tried the ‘Sadistic Saffron Cubicle’ and he began to suffer a monstrous and exciting change of personality. Then he entered the ‘Ogres Orange Cubicle’ and he turned into an ogre. He killed people, killed people, several of them. “This is the most exciting thing that ever happened to me,” he squealed with delight. “For this I was born. Oh, the tall, steep pleasure of it!”

  He went on a rampage. He killed four people. Then he went to his living quarters and slept the clock around.

  When he woke again, the horrifying pleasure still held him in its grip.

  “It was wonderful, wonderful,” he overflowed t
o Jane Casual. “I feel that my life is almost complete now. Now I will just go to the police and confess to the police for the murders, and then I will be punished: that will be the final aspect of the high pleasure.”

  “You just plain stay away from the police, Mr. Coldturkey,” Jane Casual told him. “Are you a dummy or something? You'd better go in and relax in the ‘Pink Panther Cubicle’ or in the old faithful ‘Blue-Bird Blue Cubicle: be Happy as a Blue-Bird’.”

  “But I'm already as happy as a tiger or a bloody ogre or a fulfilled murderer. Why would I want to go back to the weak stuff?”

  “Oh, Mr. Coldturkey, all the people that you kill in the ‘Ogres Orange Mood Cubicle’ are simulated people, not real. We get them from 'True Simulations Industries'. They're cheaper than you'd think. True Simulations Industries gathers them up again, and with no more than minor overhauls they are ready to be used again. The police would think you were crazy if you reported killing simulations.”

  “Oh no, that broke the bubble, Jane Casual!” Simpson Coldturkey cried out. “That let me down all the way. I wanted them to be real. I knew they were real. I have to have them be real! Isn't there a Manipulated Mood Cubicle where one kills real people?”

  “No. There used to be one, but now it's unobtainable. We've discontinued it. It was the ‘Garish Orange Cubicle’, the controversial ninety-ninth cubicle. Oh yes, it would put people into such a wild and bloody and wonderful ecstasy that they were able to rush right out and kill real people, lots of them. And the cubicle abetted them in it, arranged the weapons and all the wonderful encounters.”

  “That's what I want to experience! That's what I want now! Real live mass murders, the Tiger and the Ogre in me released! It will put the cap-stone on my life.”

  “No. It's impossible, Mr. Coldturkey,” Jane Casual said. “That's been withdrawn. Go in and try the ‘Kelly Green Cubicle’ or the ‘Euphoric Yellow Cubicle’ or the ‘Magic Magenta Cubicle’. You have no idea how many wonderful moods there are that you can enjoy.”