The Müller-Fokker Effect

by John Sladek

  The cop who spotted the pair screamed ‘Get ’em! Get those goddamned protesters!’

  The first of the five cops grabbed Spot and dragged him away. ‘Impersonating an officer, eh, kid? You oughta get life for this.’

  The other four closed in on Wise Bream.

  ‘I’m gonna kill this bastard pervert, Charlie! Did you see him? Pissing on a kid!’

  ‘Pissing nothing, he was tryna get the kid to suck him off.’

  They sprayed Mace in his eyes and then took turns kicking at the offending organ.

  ‘I’m too pooped to keep this up, Sarge, whadya say we just shoot him?’

  ‘Oh no. I wanna see this fucker get the chair. Pissing on the uniform!’

  They handcuffed him. Two of them stuck a nightstick between his wrists and holding opposite ends of it dragged him away.

  ‘Hold it.’ The cop called Charlie leaned over the unconscious prisoner, nose to nose with him. ‘You’re under arrest,’ he said. ‘I have to warn you that anything you say can be used against you, that you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, that you’re entitled to counsel, and that if you can’t afford a lawyer, the District of Columbia will pay for one.’

  Laughing and nudging each other, they dragged him on toward the detention camp.

  Bert the copilot had timed in on local newscasts. He was no longer interested at all in Marilyn Temblor, not after seeing the way she gave herself to that Commie spy. Disgusting! Worst of all, it hadn’t worked. The bastard kept them all covered all during it, and afterward he just zipped up his pants, adjusted his cummerbund, and said, ‘On to Cuba, gentlemen.’

  ‘We’re not going anywhere,’ said Hal. ‘We’ve got about ten minutes’ fuel. It’s too late to even try for an airport now. I’m taking her down.

  ‘I’ll be damned!’ Bert adjusted the earphones. ‘The President’s missing!’

  ‘…. was to have taken off by helicopter from the roof of Blair House and proceeded directly to the submarine Scampi. But the Scampi reports they have not yet arrived. “We did see one helicopter pass by us about two miles north and head on out to sea,” says the skipper, “but I can’t see why they didn’t signal us on the radio, if it was them” ’

  ‘Forget about that crap!’ Hal shoved his copilot. ‘We’ve got to crash-land this mother, and now’

  Sister Maria said the words; while Sister Mary Jane shoved the syringe, full of water, up the pregnant woman’s dress. The rest of the passengers crowded around offering advice.

  ‘Not that way, sister, you’ll give her an enema.’

  ‘I thought a baptism had to have the same one saying the words…’

  ‘She’s just squirting it up the front of her dress…’

  ‘What’s that coming out—mud?’

  The hump of ‘pregnancy’ shifted slightly. Ash and water poured out over the floor, and, a moment later, a silver urn, stamped with the Stagman symbol, slipped down out of the front of her dress and rolled away.

  A stewardess, naked but for her uniform cap, ran through, announcing an emergency landing. ‘Will everyone please fasten their seatbelts?’

  ‘I’m dreaming,’ said someone. ‘This probably has something to say to me, some personal symbolism. Wait’ll I tell Feinwelt!’

  Ignoring him, Feinwelt led the group in singing to keep up their spirits. Christmas carols—the only songs he knew—worked their magic as the plane went into a dive and the silver urn clattered on forward.

  ‘Oh what fun it is to ride…’

  ‘Use the goddamned radar, Bert! I can’t see how the hell high up we are.’

  ‘Screw you. Everybody gives me orders around here. If you’re such a hotshot pilot, you land the plane.’

  The figures ahead cast long morning shadows: trees, tents, motionless men…from the passengers he heard

  Don we now our gay apparel…

  as the men and trees fled past at incredible speed, too fast for a landing, too fast…

  Among the motionless, listening figures of quaint soldiers stood a giant bedroom slipper. Above it, the giant face of Weimarauner arranged itself in the appropriate expression, ironic surprise.

  The detention center on the Mall was a rectangle of snarled barb-wire. It was said the guards would let you talk to the prisoners across this barrier, for a price.

  ‘Affirmative,’ said a guard whom Mac Hines approached. ‘The price is a grand a minute.’

  ‘A thousand dollars a minute? Isn’t that a little steep?’

  ‘You look like you wouldn’t: miss it too bad. Besides, it isn’t for me. It all goes to my favorite charity. Make out your check to the Red Cross.’

  ‘All right. Good way to run a charity drive, at that. But why the Red Cross?’

  ‘I don’t know…they’ve been pretty darn nice to us guys here in no-man’s land. I mean, they kept the coffee and donuts coming right on through the thick of the fighting…and at rock-bottom prices, too!’

  In the end, Mac managed to ransom Spot altogether out of the place, though he had to take Spot’s friend, too. The friend was a great hulking moron who alternately mumbled incomprehensible statements and wet his pants. From a return ticket in his pocket they identified him as ‘W. Bream’, so it was only natural to call him Willy.

  ‘I’ll tell you a secret, Spot,’ said Mac as they climbed into the limousine. ‘That big bundle in the corner there is your Mom. She’s frozen now, but when she thaws out, I’m going to marry her! Won’t that be splendid?’

  Spot concentrated on a blister on his thumb and said nothing.

  Fouts awoke to a noisy kiddie show and realized it was Saturday morning. He started on the candy bars, a bite of this, a bite of that, mixing and melting peppermint cream, smooth fudge and crunchy peanuts, bittersweet and milk chocolate, slick marshmallow, toasted almonds, crisp coconut, honeyed toffee and dark caramel so sweet it hurt going down. ‘I’m unhappy,’ he thought, ‘and alone.’ But it was an abstract idea, unrelated to the pure sugar joy of living. A bite of this, a bite of that…and after awhile he began to laugh along with Bill the Cat and Mary the Canary.

  ‘If we’re gonna do it, Amy, we better do it quick,’ Grover whispered. They sat in the basement of the building, huddled together on an old mattress where, for an hour, they had been discussing the pros and cons of assassination. Obviously the man deserved it—but was it wrong?

  ‘All we gotta do is set the fuse—takes half an hour—and scram out of here. I don’t see what the problem is!’

  ‘Maybe if we…went with him…’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh Grover, I’m old. I’ve had my life, such as it was. And maybe it wouldn’t be murder so much if we…didn’t scram out of here.’

  Grover thought it over. ‘Okey-dokey, Amy. We’ll do it your way. Who wants to live in a Red Chinese America anyhow?’

  He set the fuse and they sat back in the darkness, leaning together without deliberately touching.

  ‘What time is it?’

  His radium dial flashed. ‘We got twenty minutes.’

  When his hand descended again, it rested on her knee. A moment later it moved up a little; and again.

  ‘Grover! What are you doing?’

  ‘Sshh, Amy,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘Amy, you can’t refuse a dying man’s request.’

  ‘But I thought…you didn’t want to.’

  ‘I can’t, usually. This time it’s different.’

  They ripped off each other’s clothing and began, moving over each other smoothly and gracefully as if it were the most natural thing in the world—which to Grover’s way of thinking, it was not.

  Upstairs there was a news flash.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States is dead. The wreckage of his helicopter Little Beaver has been found. There are no visible survivors, and a denture has been picked up which the President’s dentist identified as the President’s denture, with indentations indicating dental…’

  The blast actually d
rove them into the concrete below, but it seemed to be lifting and opening them, so that they never knew whether death or ecstasy suddenly spilled the universe into their upright souls.

  The firemen found them long after they found Fouts (headless, hanging out of the TV set as if he’d been trying to get into the picture) under a heap of shattered boxes and their contents: great mounds of nylon and bright silk and lace, sparkling sequins, taffeta petticoats, ribbons and rhinestones and rouge.

  Twenty-Four

  ‘But you did say you’d do anything if your husband were restored to you.’ Mac drummed on his desk blotter.

  The figure in the blanket sneezed. Mac took it for a nod.

  ‘Well then, I’m going to return him to you. In perfect condition. You can have say two weeks for a second honeymoon, and then I’d like for you to divorce him and marry me. I—er—love you—Marge.’

  The figure made a sound very like a sarcastic, snorting laugh. ‘This is fairy-tale crap. If you thawed me out just to torment me, Mr Hines…’

  ‘Then you don’t believe I can restore your husband!’ Mac pressed a button. ‘Send in Dr Müller-Fokker, please.’

  In the dim, distant corner of Mac’s office a door opened. Beaming, a short, fat man in a sports shirt rushed across the noiseless carpet and seized Mac’s hand. Marge, peering from the folds of the blanket, thought the little man was going to kiss the hand.

  ‘Hines, you old scoundrel, what devilments are you embarked upon this time? No, no, don’t tell me. Mine not to reason why, mine but to reason and accept my fee. Is this the unfortunate wife?’

  ‘This is Mrs Shairp. Tell her, Doctor, how you plan to recover her late husband.’

  ‘First let me say that I was uncontrollable, madam, when I learned of your sadness.’

  Marge scrutinized his round face. ‘You were supposed to have defected to Russia—anyway, you don’t look like the picture in the newspaper.’

  ‘Excellent memory!’ Dr Müller-Fokker laughed Saint Nick fashion, holding his stomach and making a show of enjoying the joke of her excellent memory. ‘I shaved off the beard, and the pince-nez have given way to the modern contact lenses. My defection was a sham; I have actually been working for the CIA. And during my stay in Havana, I also put on a few weights and obtained the sun tan. My real purpose there…but enough of me. Let me tell you how we shall raise your beloved Lazarus:

  ‘As you by now know, Mac has kindly collected all the pertinent tapes. I have examined them and am satisfied the restoration can be done. The first step is to locate the DNA code upon the tapes. With this we prepare a virus, with which the specimen can be infected.’

  ‘Specimen?’

  ‘Some volunteer. I had in mind your son’s friend…’ He gestured out the window to where Spot and Willy were sailing a paper boat at the edge of Mac’s private lake. ‘The idiot is the correct size and general build—a little tall, perhaps…’

  ‘Stop it! You’re making me sick! How can you stand there and talk of murdering…’

  ‘Not murder. Not murdering, madam. We prepare in advance a tape of the volunteer. And at the first opportunity…’

  ‘A game of musical bodies? No thanks.’ Marge stood up suddenly, tripped in her blanket and fell. The two men gently helped her back to her chair.

  ‘Hear him out, Marge, will you?’

  ‘We infect the specimen with your husband’s virus and then “let Nature take His course”. We kill the virus when the proper physical state is achieved. There will be minor imperfections, some surgery…and I am afraid your husband will always have severe dandruff…but otherwise it remains only to do the forced brain growth…’

  ‘Please stop it!’

  ‘No, you do not understand. I mean like a lovely hothouse flower. We force the electrical…’

  Marge fulfilled her promise to be sick.

  She left without making any further promises. Mac called up dozens of times, but the phone was off the hook. Next day he sent a telegram:

  YOU OWE IT TO YOUR HUSBAND. MY CONDITIONS ARE THE ONLY ONES UNDER WHICH YOU WILL EVER SEE HIM ALIVE. IT WOULDN’T BE SO BAD WITH ME, YOU KNOW. ILL DIE SOON AND YOULL BE A RICH WIDOW. I KNOW IM THE VILLAIN IN THIS FAIRY TALE BUT I CANT HELP IT. PLEASE REPLY IMMEDIATELY. OFFER EXPIRES MIDNIGHT. LOVE MAC.

  A week later, she replied:

  CONDITIONS AGREED TO BUT ONE CONDITION OF MY OWN. VOLUNTEER MUST BE MR BRADD. QUOTE LOVE UNQUOTE MARGE.

  Twenty-Five: The Door

  ………. announcement: Death plan. Trick Him into allowing me to be crucified as a sacrifice to Him; the realization that I’m His only son and heir will kill him. His heart.

  Still fixed in my chair still crucified by my own teaching forefinger I run down the solidifying labyrinth, at each intersection another last act of another stale Passion play. The crown of horns explodes in the back of my head.

  WHOMS [enters from stage right, hangs deerstalker on fender to dry, strikes posture]: If any man has free will at any particular instant, and assuming he has the physical means to do so, that man can at that instant commit any crime at all. Agreed?

  WHATSON [nods]: Yes.

  WHOMS [paces excitedly a peculiar labyrinth pattern in the carpet]: Then if there is at least one crime which some man cannot commit, at that instant he cannot be said to have free will. Finally, you could not tonight, genial physician, kill and dissect one of your patients, and therefore tonight at least you do not have free will. And that is but one example. There must be, for every man and for all time, some one criminal action which he cannot bring himself to do, and which therefore impedes his free will. I intend to prove that no man has ever had free will at all!

  WHATSON [opens catch on his doctor bag and pulls out a string of meaty objects]: Not quite so elementary as all that, my dear Whoms.

  WHOMS [examines objects while picking nose distractedly with one chemical-stained forefinger]:* These are…?

  WHATSON: The uteri of six of my former patients.

  WHOMS: Good Lord! Jack the Rip! Then it was Barbara and not Bocardo who—then you must be…

  WHATSON: Mad? Or God. Correct—that is, I am equipped with free will. Not one action of mine can be predicted with any degree of certainty whatever, Whoms. Surely that is what we’ve always meant by free will—by God—the unknowable, unpredictable, irrational, pointless, silly side of the universe.

  [Curtain. On the curtain is depicted an incomplete and distorted table of the elements, the cells of which are also cartoon panels. The cartoons are detailed drawings of the entire play, and of all members of the audience and their reactions. The members of the audience are by coincidence all the people I have known in my life. Upon the curtain are projected a set of maps and views of Cafe Island. After a figure in silver tights and a flowing turquoise cape comes out and lectures at length upon the sacramental meaning of my life, the curtain rises again on a desert island scene. I am looking at a naked footprint.]

  FRIDAY [sneaking up behind me]: That’s your own, you know. I don’t run around barefoot. Too much bloody hookworm about. [He wears neat summer suit, slim shoes, panama. I am of course naked]. You uncolored folk have your own childish preferences, of course. Well, I hope this exile has taught you a lesson, eh?

  ME: Thass right, boss. Lemme go back and work in dem cotton feels. Thass where mah heart is turnin’—evah!

  FRIDAY [as background changes]: And the gold mines?

  ME: That is right with me, baas.

  FRIDAY [as background changes]: And the oil fields, cur?

  ME: Effendi!

  FRIDAY [as background changes]: How about the stables, the kennels, the boiler rooms, the ham kitchens, the transistor factories, the coal orchards, the peanut distilleries, the jello dying vats, the suntan oil refineries?

  ME: Bwana! Sahib! Colonel! Massa! Sir! Gummint fella! Kimo sabe! Chief! Lord! Anything-san!

  GASPING MESSENGER [running in, gasping]: Mr Friday…sir…the whites…they’re…they’re revolting! [Dies].

  FRIDAY: Yes,
but what news?

  [BLACKOUT]

  Mack and Mike, in baggy pants and huge bowties, stumble on stage and go into long extemporaneous and meaningless routine. Unfunny throughout. Audience roars. A typical line:

  MIKE [boffs him with rolled-up newspaper]: But seriously now, are we on tape? Is all this on tape, or is it real?

  MACK: Yes, absolutely [pause for laugh].

  MIKE [boffs—if that is the word for it—Mack again]: Yes, but which?

  MACK: Is a tape reel? Is it in a real state, or the real estate of the mind? Is it aped? If bits of information in formation form real states of mind, for real, a stated news format may form new statements: ‘If God bit man, that is not news, but obits. If man bit dog, that is newsreel. If newsman in mental state orbits, reels, reeling off in format information, good news, God knows.’ Hound of heaven tapers into newshound in the reely real bit.

  [Mike pummels him to appreciative roars. End of blackout, curtain rises on man in deck chair, picking nose, watching televised self as boy receives First Holy Communion. From time to time a steward comes past to give the man a newspaper (all references to the U----- S----- of A------ have been cut out) or the news that his son is dead].

  STEWARD : Your son is dead, sir.

  MAN: Yes, yes, I know, the old Oedipus switchback thing. Now I’m free to marry his mother.

  [On TV I kneel, close my eyes, put out my tongue for God. Old fat palsied Father O’C. makes few passes over the gold cup, comes up with a tiny dead hollyhock seed. Is this my body? The Word is on the tip of my tongue.

  But not quite yet. First the doctor gets in there with a tongue depressor, the dentist has to do a little work while I’m strapped into the chair, the Customs man wants to see what kind of dope I’m carrying in a hollow tooth, behind them come cops, linguists, orthodontists, eye-ear-nose-and-throat specialists, spelunkers, crowds of the curious and other cops to hold them back…]

  MAN [switching it off with a yawn]: Wonder how things are getting along in old—Armorica is it?