Melancholy Elephants

by Spider Robinson

  By now I am figuring the angles, and I am more excited than somewhat. This is a machine such as a guy could get very rich with, and I am a guy such as likes the idea of being very rich. “Does it work backwards? Can I go back to yesterday, or last week?”

  “Hell, no!” he says, or anyway that is what the things he says come down to. “Oh, it can be done,” he says, “but I never have the guts to do it, and in fact only a dope will try it. Why—” His voice gets real quiet and solemn, like a funeral. “—you might make a pair of ducks.”

  I can make no sense of this, but he says it like it is something to be very, very afraid of, and I figure he ought to know. But I decide it does not matter, because I figure going to tomorrow is plenty good enough for me. I point my Roscoe at the Doc. “Prove to me that this machine does like you say.”

  “Give me your watch,” he says, and I do so. “See?” he says. “It is just now exactly five minutes to midnight, am I right?” I look at the watch and he is perfectly right. He puts the watch on the floor of the phone booth. “How long do you figure it is before your associate comes back with the dolly?”

  “Well,” I tell him, “figuring he has a pint in his pants pocket, and he knows we are in no special hurry, maybe it takes him another five minutes.”

  “Okay,” he says. “So I set the machine for two minutes.” He fiddles with some dials and things on the outside of the phone booth, and pushes a button. The light goes way down, like when a guy gets it at Sing Sing, and even before it comes back up I see that the phone booth isn’t there anymore. The big wire ends in a plug; the socket for it is gone. It scares me so much I almost scrag the Doc by accident—and now that I think of it, it is a better thing all the way around if I do, at that—but the slug misses him clean. Since I have the silencer on, it is six-to-one that Little Isadore never even hears the shot.

  Then I just watch the Doc blink for two minutes, and finally—pop!—the phone booth is back again. My watch is still in it, and the watch is still ticking, but it says that it is still five minutes of midnight. The machine works.

  “Say,” I tell the Doc, “this is okay. Can you set this thing to go and then come right back again?”

  “Certainly,” he says. “Watch.” He fiddles with it again, and this time when he pushes the button the light and the phone booth both kind of…flicker, like a movie. “See?” he says. “It just goes into tomorrow, stays there an hour, and comes right back to the instant it leaves.”

  My head hurts when I try to think about this. “Okay,” I said, “here is what you do. You set that thing to take me into the future. I want to see what the world looks like when the Depression is over, so you better send me a long way. Say, fifty years—they ought to have the country back on its feet by then. Have the phone booth go to 1980, stay there for a whole day, and then come right back to here. You can do this?”

  “It’s a cinch,” he says, blinking up a storm, and he does like I say. “There. Just push that button and off she goes.”

  “Can’t I make it work from inside?”

  “Certainly,” he says, and shows me another button on the inside. “I am planning to experiment with people,” he says, “instead of just objects and wop pigs, when you boys guzzle my joint. In fact I will do it already, except I decide I should patent the phone booth first, and I bring the idea to that gonif Goldfobber, which I now regret.”

  (Actually he does not call it a phone booth, any more than he uses any of the regular words I am putting in his mouth. What he calls it is—give me a minute—a Chronic Lodge Misplacer, I think he says.)

  “What happens to the wop pigs?” I ask him, beginning to get a little nervous.

  “Not a thing,” he says. “They come back perfectly copacetic and in the pink, and in fact there they are now.” And he points, and sure enough over in the corner is a bunch of cages full of little wop pigs, and I am relieved to see that they look happy, and there are no empty cages. “Well,” he says, “what do you say? I make you rich and you do not make me dead; you cannot get a better deal than that.”

  “Sure I can,” I say, and his eyelids commence to flutter so fast I can feel the breeze a clear six feet away. The right eye seems to blink faster than the left, so that is the eye I shoot him in. Then I go out and scrag Little Isadore, and I meet Spanish John on the landing where he is communing with his pint and scrag him too, and then I put him on the dolly and carry him upstairs and stretch him out next to Little Isadore. It make me no little sad to see them lying there, because they are my friends a long time, but I cannot help but think how fortunate it is that it is me Doc Twitchell tells his secret to, because otherwise I will be laying there stiff and one of my friends will be standing around feeling sad, and I do not wish a friend of mine to have this sorrow.

  Then I go back to the phone booth.

  I figure the deal for a cinch. I will go to 1980, and I will go to the Public Library. They got books in there that are records of all the pony-races ever run, and naturally I know where they keep these books since I often have recourse to them in the course of business. I will burgle the joint and heist such books as relate to races from 1930 to 1980, which certainly cannot take me more than a day, and then I will come back to 1930 and find out what it is like to be a millionaire.

  So I step into the phone booth and push the button.

  All of a sudden it is very dark, and the lights do not come back up, so I figure I maybe blow a fuse, or some such. I step out of the phone booth and light a match, and I almost drop it. The whole room is completely different. Mostly what it is, is empty. The Doc’s body is gone, and so are all the gizmos and gadgets and such, and even the cages full of little wop pigs.

  The match goes out, and I think about it, and now I think about it, of course it figures that a joint does not look the same after fifty years, and especially not if you croak the guy who owns it. It does not seem like anybody owns this joint for a long time, and I figure that for a piece of luck, all things considered.

  Until I light the second match and notice the other thing that is missing.

  The big wire.

  Well, hell, I say to myself, of course it will not still be around after fifty years. So while I am out guzzling the track records I will guzzle a bunch of big wire from a wire place, and a plug as well…

  Except the light switch does not work when I try it, and it looks like there is no electric in the apartment now, because I keep finding little home-made candles in all the rooms, all burned down. There is nothing else in the joint but junk, and there is no water in the crapper or the faucets, and I commence to get the idea that this building is abandoned. So now I must get the electric turned back on, as well as heist the track records and the wire. Except I do not see how I will get the electric turned on, as I do not happen to be holding any potatoes at the moment, and in fact what I am is broke. To heist potatoes and track records and wire and get the electric turned on, all in one day, is a pretty full day, even for a tough guy such as myself.

  But if this is what I must do to be the richest guy in the world, then I will take a crack at it. So I leave, and you know what? Harlem is all full of smokes these days. Oh, you hear about this? Yeah, I guess you will at that. Anyways, not only is Harlem all over smokes, but these are very hostile smokes, such as I never see before. I run into one on the landing, and I show him the equalizer to clear him out of my way, and what does he do but say something about my ma and then haul out an equalizer of his own. It is only good fortune that I escape the shame of being croaked by a smoke, and this shakes me up no little. I pass some other smokes in the street outside, and they all act unfriendly too. One of them tries to tell me I am a Hunkie, which I cannot figure until I see he wears black cheaters and probably is blind. Except he is by no means blind, because he outs with a shiv as long as my foot and tries to put a couple new vents in my suit, and I am forced to break his face.

  This brings a whole bunch of smokes, all hollering and carrying on in smoke, and some in spic, and I deci
de I will leave Harlem for the time being. I run pretty good and build up a good lead, but then I blow it when I decide to steal a heap. I get it hot-wired okay but the shift is all funny and I cannot find the clutch anyplace. So I leave the heap just before these ten dozen yelling smokes catch up, and a few blocks later I find a taxi waiting at a red light and jump in. The jockey starts to give me a hard time, but I show him the Roscoe and tell him to take me where the white people live, and toots wheat, so he shuts up and drives, without putting on the meter even. I try to see how he drives with no clutch, but I cannot see his feet, and besides he never seems to use the shift at all.

  While he drives the short I look around. Harlem does not seem to be a class neighbourhood anymore, naturally, what with all the smokes living in it, and in fact it is nothing but a dump. Doc Twitchell’s building is by no means the only one abandoned. But when we get downtown I see that things are not much better there. Oh, there are some awful fancy big new buildings here and there, but there are also a great many buildings just as broken down as the ones up in Harlem. I see many more winos and rumdums and hopheads on the street than I remember, and furthermore there is garbage all over the place in big piles. So I tell the jockey to pull up and buy a paper, and what do you know? I do not go far enough forward in time, because it seems the Depression is still going on, and nobody is looking to see it get any better. I cannot figure this, because I ask the jockey and he tells me the president after Hoover is a Democrat, and furthermore who is it but the governor of New York, Frank Roosevelt. So I guess you never know.

  It just keeps getting worse. I have the jockey take me to the Library, only the Library is not where I left it, and in fact it is a whole new building altogether. I can see that even if I get into this joint, I cannot find where they now keep the track records in the dark, and I have no flashlight, so there is nothing for it but to do a daylight heist in the morning. And it figures I cannot get the electric turned on or the wire until sun-up, either. So I figure all I can do now is scare up some potatoes for operating expenses. Only I decide to scare up a drink first, as I am all of a sudden very very thirsty. So I take the jockey’s potatoes and tell him to take me to Lindy’s. Only he never hears of Lindy’s or of Good-Time Charlie’s, or the Bohemian Club, or any other deadfall I name, not even the Stork Club. So I tell him I wish a drink, and he hauls me off and brings me to this place all full of bright lights and guys wearing dolls’ clothes, and where they wish two bobs for a drink of scotch which is nothing but a shot. In fact, it is in my mind to shoot the jockey for this, except for some reason he is gone when I come out, even though I tell him to wait.

  I walk a couple of blocks, figuring to guzzle a few pedestrians, but my luck is terrible, as half of them are broke and the other half shoot back, and one of them actually has the brass to pick my pocket while I am shaking him down and take the rest of the jockey’s potatoes, so now I am broke again.

  It goes like that all night. I can tell you all manner of stories, like what happens when I go over to Central Park to get a little shut-eye, and what a dump Times Square turns into, but you probably hear all this already and besides I see that you are tired, so I will make a long story short.

  So when the Library opens up the next day, I go in and ask this old doll about the track records, and she says they do not have these books anymore. She says they have the information I wish but it is not in books anymore. I know this will sound nutty, but I make her say it twice, very slow: the information is on her crow film. So I ask her to give me some of her crow film, and she does, and what is it but a little tiny thing like a roll of caps, or maybe like a little reel for a movie that is two minutes long, and for all I know nowadays crows do watch such films in this town. She puts it in a machine and it makes words on a screen, like a newsreel, only it does not move unless you make it. I have her get the crow film with the right horse records on it, and I watch how she works it until I figure I can do it myself. So now I must steal not only the drawer full of crow film but the machine to read it, and I am not sure it will fit in the phone booth with me.

  But I figure I will cross that bridge when I get to Brooklyn, and I thank the old doll and watch where she puts the drawer full of crow film back, and I go try to price the wire I need. You will not think there can be more than one kind of wire as big around as a shotgun barrel, but it turns out there are several dozen such kinds, and I do not know which kind I want. But I figure I will come back that night after closing and borrow a dozen kinds and try them all.

  Then I shake down a necktie salesman for some change and call the electrics, and they tell me that to turn on the electric in that building, for even one night, they have to have a security deposit of no less than two hundred potatoes. This two yards must be in cash, and furthermore there are fire inspectors to be greased, and so forth, and it will take at least a week.

  By this time I am commencing to get somewhat discouraged, and in fact I am downright unhappy. That night I go back up to Harlem, with some trivial difficulty, and I sit in that phone booth from eleven-thirty to twelve-thirty, just in case it will still go home without the electric, and it does not. I figure the Doc slips it to me pretty good, and in fact it is a dirty shame I cannot croak him twice, or even three times.

  So I figure I am stuck here, and am not apt to become a rich guy after all, and in fact it is time to do a little second-storey work and build up my poke. So I bust your joint, and I wish to know how come, if the Depression is still around, movies get so cheap that you can show talkies in your own joint, with colours yet, and furthermore you can leave them running while you take the air. Also where is the projector?

  When Harry the Horse finishes telling me this story, and I finish telling him about television, I get out the old nosepaint and we have a few, and in fact we have more than a few, although Harry the Horse says he once makes better booze in a trash can, and as a matter of fact I know this to be true. A little while after the bottle is empty an idea comes to me, and I say to Harry the Horse like this:

  “Harry, you are welcome to stay at my joint as long as you wish, naturally, because you are always aces with me. But if you still wish to go back to 1930 and be a rich guy, I think I can fix it.”

  “It is too late,” he says. “The Doc sets the phone booth to go home after twenty-four hours, and it does not, so I am stuck here even if I get the electric and the wire and the crow film machine, which I figure is about a twenty-to-one shot.”

  “Harry,” I tell him, “you will naturally not know this, but nowadays almost all the clocks in this man’s town are on electric, and if you pull out the plug, the clock stops. So I figure if we plug the phone booth back in, twenty-four hours after that it goes home, with you inside, and maybe also this crow film machine.”

  Harry thinks this over, and starts to cheer up. “This appeals to me no little,” he says, “with or without the crow film machine. I like 1930 better.”

  I decide maybe Harry the Horse is not so dumb, at that.

  “But can you fix the rest?” he asks.

  “I think I can.”

  So I call up my friend Toomey the electrician, who everybody calls Socket. He is a little agitated at being woke up at five bells in the morning, but I tell him there is a couple of guys here that wish to sell a dozen lids of Hawaiian pot for thirty bobs a lid, and he says, “On my way,” and hangs up.

  Harry the Horse wishes this translated. “Well,” I explain, “Prohibition is over since a little after I see you last—”

  Harry is greatly surprised to hear this. “What do the coppers do for a living?”

  “Well, there is this pot, which is nothing but muggles, only it is now as illegal as booze used to be. And right now in this man’s town there are maybe six million citizens as are apt to pay sixty bobs for an ounce of this muggles, and thirty is a very good price.”

  Harry the Horse shakes his head at this, and just then the bell rings and it is none other than Socket, all out of breath. He is a young guy, but a very goo
d electrician, and in fact he wires my joint for me when I get the air condition, and for a young guy he knows the way things are. He is very aggravated when he finds that there is no Hawaiian muggles, and in fact he turns and starts to leave. But when he puts his hand out to the doorknob he finds a shiv pinning his sleeve to the door so that he cannot reach the knob, and when he looks around he sees Harry the Horse deciding where to put the next one, so Socket decides he does not wish to reach the knob after all, and says as much.

  So we explain the story to Socket, which uses up my last bottle of sauce, and he says he is willing to look the proposition over. When we hit the street I wonder how we are going to get up to Harlem, because I am not anxious to take the subway. But right off we find a hack who is so thoughtless as to park where he cannot make a quick getaway, so when Harry the Horse sticks his John Roscoe in the window of the short there is nothing the jockey can do except get out and give us his short. A few blocks away we change plates, and then we pick up Socket’s tools and electric stuff from his joint and head up Broadway at a hell of a clip, and we are in Harlem in no time, or maybe less.

  We get into the building with no trouble, and Socket even manages to cop a lid of Mexican muggles from a little skinny smoke we find in the lobby, before we chase the smoke out. Socket puffs up on this muggles while he checks out the electric room in the basement, and likes what he sees in the electric room. “I can power this building for a few days,” he tells us. “Alarms will go off downtown, and sooner or later an inspector comes to see what the hell, but with the red tape and all, it has to be a good two or three days before he gets here.” He goes ahead and does this, and then he takes a light bulb out of his pouch and puts it in the wall, and it works. He puts away his flashlight and pokes around the basement, and what does he find but a real old hunk of wire, as big around as a shotgun barrel and in every respect such as Harry the Horse describes it, except for the cobwebs. In fact, Socket says he figures it is the original wire, which is tossed down in the basement and forgotten by whoever rents Doc Twitchell’s apartment after he croaks. This is water on the wheel of Harry the Horse, who now begins to think maybe his luck is back with him, and to like Socket besides. Harry is very anxious for this to work, because a few minutes before he is obliged to plug a rat the size of a Doberman, and Harry the Horse is thoroughly disgusted with 1980 for letting rats into a class neighbourhood like Harlem, smokes or no smokes.