by Ray Bradbury
“Forty?” I cried, and drank my gin to straighten my logic. “You’re really forty? And all those years … how?”
“How did I get into this line of work?” said the babe. “You do not get; you are, as we say, born in. It’s been nine hours a night, no Sundays off, no time clocks, no paychecks, and mostly dust and lint fresh paid out of the pockets of the rambling rich.”
“But I still don’t understand,” I said, gesturing to his size, his shape, his complexion.
“Nor will I, ever,” said McGillahee’s Brat. “Am I a midget born to the blight? Some kind of dwarf shaped by glands? Or did someone warn me to play it safe, stay small?”
“That could hardly—”
“Couldn’t it! It could! Listen. A thousand times I heard it, and a thousand times more my father came home from his beggary route and I remember him jabbing his finger in my crib, pointing at me, and saying, ‘Brat, whatever you do, don’t grow, not a muscle, not a hair! The Real Thing’s out there; the World. You hear me, Brat? Dublin’s beyond, and Ireland on top of that, and England hard-assed above us all. It’s not worth the consideration, the bother, the planning, the growing up to try and make do, so listen here. Brat, we’ll stunt your growth with stories, with truth, with warnings and predictions, we’ll wean you on gin and smoke you with Spanish cigarettes until you’re a cured Irish ham, pink, sweet, and small—small, do you hear, Brat? I did not want you in this world. But now you’re in it, lie low, don’t walk, creep; don’t talk, wail; don’t work, loll; and when the world is too much for you, Brat, give it back your opinion: wet yourself! Here, Brat, here’s your evening poteen; fire it down. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse wait by the Liffey. Would you see their like? Hang on. Here we go!’
“And out we’d duck for the evening round, my dad banging a banjo, with me at his feet holding the cup, or him doing a tap dance, me under one arm, the musical instrument under the other, both making discord.
“Then, home late, we’d lie four in a bed, a crop of failed potatoes, discards of an ancient famine.
“And sometimes in the midst of the night, for lack of something to do, my father would jump out of bed in the cold and run outdoors and fist his knuckles at the sky—I remember, I remember, I heard, I saw—daring God to lay hands on him, for so help him, Jesus, if he could lay hands on God, there would be torn feathers, ripped beards, lights put out, and the grand theater of Creation shut tight for Eternity! Do ya hear, God, ya dumb clod with your perpetual rainclouds turning their black behinds on me, do ya care!?
“For answer the sky wept, and my mother did the same all night, all night.
“And the next morn out I’d go again, this time in her arms, and back and forth between the two, day on day, and her grieving for the million dead from the famine of ’51 and him saying good-bye to the four million who sailed off to Boston …
“Then one night Dad vanished too. Perhaps he sailed off on some mad boat like the rest, to forget us all. I forgive him. The poor beast was wild with hunger and nutty for want of something to give us and no giving.
“So then my mother simply washed away in her own tears, dissolved, you might say, like a sugar-crystal saint, and was gone before the morning fog rolled back, and the grass took her, and my sister, aged twelve, overnight grew tall, but I, me, oh, me? I grew small. Each decided, you see, long before that, of course, on going his or her way.
“But then part of my decision happened early on. I knew—I swear I did!—the quality of my own thespian performance!
“I heard it from every decent beggar in Dublin when I was nine days old. ‘What a beggar’s babe that is!’ they cried.
“And my mother, standing outside the Abbey Theatre in the rain when I was twenty and thirty days old, and the actors and directors coming out tuning their ears to my Gaelic laments, they said I should be signed up and trained! So the stage would have been mine with size, but size never came. And there’s no brat’s roles in Shakespeare. Puck, maybe; what else? So meanwhile at forty days and fifty nights after being born my performance made hackles rise and beggars yammer to borrow my hide, flesh, soul, and voice for an hour here, an hour there. The old lady rented me out by the half day when she was sick abed. And not a one bought and bundled me off did not return with praise. ‘My God,’ they cried, ‘his yell would suck money from the Pope’s poor box!’
“And outside the cathedral one Sunday morn, an American cardinal was riven to the spot by the yowl I gave when I saw his fancy skirt and bright cloth. Said he: ‘That cry is the first cry of Christ at his birth, mixed with the dire yell of Lucifer churned out of Heaven, and spilled in fiery muck down the landslide slops of Hell!’
“That’s what the dear cardinal said. Me, eh? Christ and the devil in one lump, the gabble screaming out my mouth half lost, half found—can you top that?”
“I cannot,” I said.
“Then, later on, many years further, there was this old wise church bishop. The first time, he spied me, took a quick look, and … winked! Then grabbed my scabby fist and tucked the pound note in and gave it a squeeze and another wink, and him gone. I always figured, whenever we passed, he had my number, but I never winked back. I played it dumb. And there was always a good pound in it for me, and him proud of my not giving in and letting him know that I knew that he knew.
“Of all the thousands who’ve gone by in the grand ta-ta, he was the only one ever looked me right in the eye, save you! The rest were all too embarrassed by life to so much as gaze as they paid out the dole.
“Well, I mean now, what with that bishop, and the Abbey Players, and the other beggars advising me to go with my own natural self and talent and the genius busy in my baby fat, all that must have turned my head.
“Added to which, my having the famines tolled in my ears, and not a day passed we did not see a funeral go by or watch the unemployed march up and down in strikes … well, don’t you see? Battered by rains and storms of people and knowing so much, I must have been driven down, driven back, don’t you think?
“You cannot starve a babe and have a man; or do miracles run different than of old?
“My mind, with all the drear stuff dripped in my ears, was it likely to want to run around free in all that guile and sin and being put upon by natural nature and unnatural man? No. No! I just wanted my little cubby, and since I was long out of that, and no squeezing back, I just squinched myself small against the rains. I flaunted the torments.
“And do you know? I won.”
You did, Brat, I thought. You did.
“Well, I guess that’s my story,” said the small creature there perched on a chair in the empty saloon bar.
He looked at me for the first time since he had begun his tale.
The woman who was his sister, but seemed his gray mother, now dared to lift her gaze also.
“Do,” I said, “do the people of Dublin know about you?”
“Some,” the babe said. “And envy me. And hate me, I guess, for getting off easy from God and his plagues and fates.”
“Do the police know?”
“Who would tell them?”
There was a long pause.
Rain beat on the windows.
Somewhere a door hinge shrieked like a soul in torment as someone went out and someone else came in.
Silence.
“Not me,” I said.
“Ah, Christ, Christ …”
And tears rolled down the sister’s cheeks.
And tears rolled down the sooty strange face of the babe.
Both of them let the tears go, did not try to wipe them off, and at last they stopped, and they drank up the rest of their gin and sat a moment, and then I said: “The best hotel in town is the Royal Hibernian—the best for beggars, that is.”
“True,” they said.
“And for fear of meeting me, you’ve kept away from the richest territory?”
“We have.”
“The night’s young,” I said. “There’s a flight of rich ones coming in from S
hannon just before midnight.”
I stood up. “If you’ll let … I’ll be happy to walk you there now.”
“The saints’ calendar is full,” said the woman, “but somehow we’ll find room for you.”
Then I walked the woman McGillahee and her brat back through the rain toward the Royal Hibernian Hotel, and we talked along the way of the mobs of people coming in from the airport just before twelve, drinking and registering at that late hour, that fine hour for begging and, with the cold rain and all, not to be missed.
I carried the babe for some part of the way because she looked tired, and when we got in sight of the hotel, I handed him back, saying:
“Is this the first time, ever?”
“We was found out by a tourist? Aye,” said the babe. “You have an otter’s eye.”
“I’m a writer.”
“Nail me to the Cross,” said he. “I might have known! You won’t …”
“No,” I said. “I won’t write a single word about this, about you, for another thirty years or more.”
“Mum’s the word?”
“Mum.”
We were a hundred feet from the hotel steps.
“I must shut up here,” said Brat, lying there in his old sister’s arms, fresh as peppermint candy from the gin, round-eyed, wild-haired, swathed in dirty linens and wools, small fists gently gesticulant. “We’ve a rule, Molly and me, no chat while at work. Grab ahold.”
I grabbed the small fist, the little fingers. It was like holding a sea anemone.
“God bless you,” he said.
“And God,” I said, “take care of you.”
“Ah,” said the babe, “in another year we’ll have enough saved for the New York boat.”
“We will,” she said.
“And no more begging, and no more being the dirty babe crying by night in the storms, but some decent work in the open, do you know, do you see, will you light a candle to that?”
“It’s lit.” I squeezed his hand.
“Go on ahead.”
“I’m gone,” I said.
And walked quickly to the front of the hotel, where airport taxis were starting to arrive.
Behind, I heard the woman trot forward, I saw her arms lift, with the Holy Child held out in the rain.
“If there’s mercy in you!” she cried. “Pity …!”
And heard the coins ring in the cup and heard the sour babe wailing, and more cars coming and the woman crying Mercy and Thanks and Pity and God Bless and Praise Him, and wiping tears from my own eyes, feeling eighteen inches tall, somehow made it up the high steps and into the hotel and to bed, where rains fell cold on the rattled windows all the night and where, in the dawn, when I woke and looked out, the street was empty save for the steady-falling storm …
Chapter 24
The incredible news came by cable.
The National Institute of Arts and Letters was proud to award me a special prize in literature and a cash stipend of five thousand dollars. Would I please appear in New York City on May 24 to receive the Award, the plaudits, and the check?
Would I?!
My God, I thought. At last! God! For years people have called me Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon. People have said no rockets would ever be built. People have claimed we won’t go to Mars or the Moon. But now, maybe someone will call me by my right name.
I took the news with me out to a late breakfast at Courtown. Late breakfast, hell, all of the breakfasts were late. It was ten thirty by the time I got there with the cable folded in my pocket. I walked in on Ricki and John and Jake Vickers over their eggs, bacon, and biscuits. Jake was over visiting, helping John figure out Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King for a film up ahead. John must have smelled the cable in my shirt, for he studied my face as I regrouped my omelette on my plate and made faces on the eggs with ketchup.
“Well, if that doesn’t look like the cougar that ate the boa constrictor, head and tail. Cough it up, kid.”
“Naw,” I said, pleased.
“Come on, son, tell!”
I took the cable from my shirt and tossed it across the table.
John read it thoughtfully and then handed it over to Jake.
“Well, now, if I won’t be damned. We’ve got a bloody genius under the roof.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Nor would I, kid. A figure of speech. Did you read that, Jake?”
“Sure did.” Jake passed the cable to Ricki, with a look of stunned surprise. “God! You write literature, do you?”
“For Dime Detective and Weird Tales,” I said, to take the edge off everyone’s attention.
“Read that out loud, Ricki,” said John.
“You already read it.” Ricki laughed and ran around the table to give me a hug. “Congratulations!”
She stood by my side and read the cable out loud. That was a mistake. John hadn’t really intended for her to do so. He went back to cutting his ham and buttering his toast. “Now, now, kid,” he said, gazing at his food, “you made up your mind, just what you’re gong to do with all that money?”
“Do?”
“Yes. Do. Spend. How do you figure to get rid of that astounding sum, O Son of Jules Verne?”
“I don’t know,” I said, flushed with joy, glad for their attention. “I’ve only had the cable for about three hours. I’ll talk it over with Maggie. We’ve been in our new tract house three years. Some of the rooms still don’t have furniture. And I work out in the garage where we don’t have a car, so I have an old Sears Roebuck sixty-dollar desk. Maybe I’ll buy me more bookcase space. Maybe a set of golf clubs for my dad, who’s never had a decent set in his life—”
“Jesus, God, what a list!” shouted Huston.
I glanced up, thinking he was praising me. Instead, I saw that he had collapsed back in his chair in a misery of concern for my future.
“Jake, did you just hear?”
“Yep,” said Jake.
Hold on, I thought. Wait—
“Isn’t that the damnedest dumbest list you ever heard? My God,” cried John, “you are a great writer of science fiction, are you not? And a fine and superb writer of fantasy and the imagination?”
“I try,” I said.
“Try! My God,” said John, “use your head! All of sudden you’ve got moola, money, cash! You’re not going to put that stuff in the bank and let it rot there, are you?”
“I had imagined—”
“Hell, you didn’t imagine anything!”
Ricki had been standing beside me during all this. Now I felt her fingers clutch the back of my neck, urging will power and strength. Then, sure that her act had been unseen, she marched back to her place at the head of the table, to douse her bacon with ketchup.
“Well, it sure looks like you’re going to have to leave the investment of your Grand Prize Award to people who know how to live, which means Jake and me. Don’t you agree, Vickers?” said John.
Jake nodded and gave me a big wink.
“Son, we’ll put our minds to it,” said John. “We really will. Okay, Jake? And by sunset today, we’ll have found a way for you to invest … how much was it—?”
“Five thousand dollars,” I said, weakly.
“Five thousand smackeroos! How much would you figure, Jake, we could earn for Flash Gordon’s bastard brother here?”
“Twenty thousand, maybe …” said Jake, his mouth full.
“Let’s figure fifteen to be fair. Let’s not get greedy.” John lay back like a scarecrow in his chair. “The main thing is, you can’t let money sit. It rots. Right after breakfast, kid, first thing we do, the three of us, is find a way for you to get really rich this week, no waiting, no delays!”
“I—”
“Shut up and eat your mush,” smiled John.
We ate in silence for a time, everyone casting glances at everyone else. John watching me, Jake watching John, me watching both of them, and Ricki, in the odd moment, giving me a brave nod to hold fast and fight fair in the mi
dst of foul.
John watched me stir my food into a slow maelstrom and push it back. Then he changed the subject completely.
“What sort of reading do you do, kid?”
“Shaw. Shakespeare. Poe. Hawthorne. The Song of Songs which is Solomon’s, the Old Testament. Faulkner. Steinbeck—”
“Uh, huh,” said John, lighting a cigarillo. He sipped his coffee. “I see.”
And at last, he dropped the other riding boot.
“Havelock Ellis?” he said.
“Sex?” I said.
“Well, now, he’s not all sex and ten yards wide,” said John, casually. “You got any opinions on same?”
“What has this to do with the prize I just got?”
“Patience, son. Not a thing. It’s just, Jake and I, well, we’ve read up. There’s this Kinsey report a few years back. Read it?”
“My wife sold copies in the bookstore where I met her.”
“Do tell! Well, what about all that homosexual stuff in there, kid? I find that rather interesting, don’t you?”
“Well,” I said.
“I mean,” said John, gesturing for more coffee and waiting for Ricki to refill the cups, “there’s not a man or boy or old man on earth that hasn’t at one time hankered for another man. Right, Jake?”
“That’s common knowledge,” said Jake.
Ricki was staring at us all and twitching her mouth and sliding her eyes at me to run, get away.
“I mean isn’t it just plain human nature, with all the love in us,” said Huston, “that we fall in love with the football coach or the track star or the best debater in the class? Girls fall in love with their badminton lady instructors or some dance teacher. Right, Ricki?”
Ricki refused to reply and looked ready to bound up and leap out of the room.
“Sometimes confession is good for the soul. I don’t mind telling you,” said John, stirring his coffee and looking deep into the cup, “when I was sixteen, there was this runner in my high school— my God, he could do anything, high jump, pole vault, hundred yards, four forty, cross-country, you name it. Beautiful boy. How could I not just think he was the greatest set of cat’s pajamas in the world? And, Jake, fess up, now. Same thing happen to you?”
