Complete Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by Robert Abernathy

  “But it all seems sort of silly,” said Junior stubbornly. “I’d rather just keep moving around, and not have to do all that figuring. And the ocean’s full of things I haven’t seen yet. I don’t want to grow down!”

  Mater paled with shock. Pater gave his spawn a scalding, scandalized look. “You’ll learn! You can’t beat Biology,” he said thickly, creditably keeping his voice down. “Junior, you may go!”

  Junior bobbled off, and Pater admonished Mater sternly, “We must have patience, my dear! All children pass through these larval stages. . . .”

  “Yes, dear,” sighed Mater.

  AT LONG last, Junior seemed to have resigned himself to making the best of it.

  With considerable exertions, hampered by his increasing bottom-heaviness, he was fetching loads of stones, seaweed and other debris to a spot downslope, and there laboring over what promised to be a fairly ambitious cairn. Judging by what they could see of it, his homesite might even prove a credit to the colony (so went Pater’s thoughts) and attract a mate who would be a good catch (thus Mater mused).

  Junior was still to be seen at times along the reef in company with his free-swimming friends among the other polyps, at some of whom his parents had always looked askance, fearing they were by no means well-bred. In fact, there was strong suspicion that some of them—waifs from the disreputable Shallows district in the hazardous reaches just below the tide-mark—had never been bred at all, but were products of budding, a practice frowned on in polite society.

  However, Junior’s appearance and rate of locomotion made it clear he would soon be done with juvenile follies. As Pater repeated with satisfaction—you can’t beat Biology; as one becomes more and more bottle-shaped, the romantic illusions of youth must inevitably perish.

  “I always knew there was sound stuff in the youngster,” declared Pater expansively.

  “At least he won’t be able to go around with those ragamuffins much longer,” breathed Mater thankfully.

  “What does the young fool think he’s doing, fiddling round with soapstone?” grumbled Pater, peering critically through the green to try to make out the details of Junior’s building. “Doesn’t he know it’s apt to slip its place in a year or two?”

  “Look, dear,” hissed Mater acidly, “isn’t that the little polyp who was so rude once?. . . I wish she wouldn’t keep watching Junior like that. Our northwest neighbor heard positively that she’s the child of an only parent!”

  “Never mind.” Pater turned to reassure her. “Once Junior is properly rooted, his self-respect will cause him to keep riffraff at a distance. It’s a matter of Psychology, my dear; the vertical position makes all the difference in one’s thinking.”

  THE great day arrived. Laboriously Junior put a few finishing touches to his construction—which, so far as could be seen from a distance, had turned out decent-looking enough, though it was rather questionably original in design: lower and flatter than was customary.

  With one more look at his handiwork, Junior turned bottom-end-down and sank wearily onto the finished site. After a minute, he paddled experimentally, but flailing tentacles failed to lift him. He was already rooted, and growing more solidly so by the moment.

  “Congratulations!” cried the neighbors. Pater and Mater bowed this way and that in acknowledgment. Mater waved a condescending tentacle to the three maiden aunts.

  “I told you so!” said Pater triumphantly.

  “Yes, dear. . . .” said Mater meekly.

  Suddenly there were outcries of alarm from the dwellers down-reef. A wave of dismay swept audibly through all the nearer part of the colony. Pater and Mater looked around, and froze.

  Junior had begun paddling again, but this time in a most peculiar manner—with a rotary twist and sidewise scoop which looked awkward, but which he performed so deftly that he must have practiced it. Fixed upright as he was now on the platform he had built, he looked for all the world as if he were trying to swim sidewise.

  “He’s gone mad!” squeaked Mater.

  “I . . .” gulped Pater, “I’m afraid not.”

  At least, they saw, there was method in Junior’s actions. He went on paddling in the same fashion and now he, and his platform with him, were farther away than they had been, and growing more remote as they stared.

  PARTS of the homesite that was not a homesite revolved in some way incomprehensible to eyes that had never seen the like. And the whole affair trundled along, rocking at bumps in the sandy bottom, and squeaking painfully; nevertheless, it moved.

  The polyps watching from the reef swam out and frolicked after Junior, watching his contrivance go and chattering eager questions, while their parents bawled at them to keep away from that.

  The three maiden aunts shrieked faintly and swooned in one another’s tentacles. The colony was shaken as it had not been since the tidal wave.

  “COME BACK!” thundered Pater. “You CAN’T do that!”

  “Come back!” shrilled Mater. “You can’t do that!”

  “Come back!” gabbled the neighbors. “You can’t do that!”

  But Junior was past listening to reason. Junior was on wheels.

  THE YEAR 2000

  For this our first issue of the new year 1956, Mr. Abernathy contributes a brief tale recommended for reading on New Year’s morning . . . and for keeping in mind through this and every year.

  NEW YEAR’S MORNING DAWNED crisp and clear. The sun climbed and shone bright, and in answer to its hint of warmth, the city’s central heating plant awoke with a hushed roar. Warm tides flowed along every street, melting away the frost, that overnight had been allowed to give the air a healthy winter tang.

  Outside the chill glass of the bedroom windows, a clatter and chirrup of children with new sleds went past, on their way to the deep-frozen park for sliding and snowmen.

  Joseph Bloak pushed open one eye, then another. He thought, fuzzily but not unhappily that it must have been quite a party last night. It ought to have been quite a party—seeing in not only a new year, but a new century and a new millennium. The year 2000!

  (Hadn’t some drunk kept mournfully insisting that they were jumping the gun, that the millennium didn’t officially arrive until January 1, 2001? But the horns and paper hats had drowned him out.)

  The cybernetic electric blanket sensed Joe’s mood wavering between sloth and will power. Helpfully, it switched itself off and remarked cheerfully, “Time to get up, Joe!”

  “O-kay,” grumbled Joe Bloak. Running his hands over his close-cropped hair (trimmed and lotioned as usual during the night by the automatic barber built into the head of his bed), he padded to the rejuvenator compartment. He pressed the button, and stood motionless for exactly 30 seconds while, with a hushed roar, the electronic scanner sorted out and discarded all the wornout, devitalized molecules in his body, replacing them accurately with fresh molecules from its inexhaustible molecule bank.

  A new man, Joe Bloak strode into the breakfast nook just as the toast popped up and his svelte, curvesome wife, wearing a filmy negligee, looked up and greeted him sweetly, “Hi, honey. Want to see the paper?”

  “Sure ’nough,” grunted Joe, relaxing into a chair which slithered hastily into the shape best suited to his spinal curvature. He glanced “over the headlines, while the toaster buttered his toast just right and the coffee urn played a muted mambo and poured his cup full of fragrant brew piped steaming from Brazil.

  “Looks pretty good,” Joe nodded in satisfaction at the morning paper. The banner head frisked blackly across the page: GOV’T ANNOUNCES BALANCED BUDGET! Under the Washington dateline it said that, in view of the Country’s overpowering prosperity, Congress had just passed legislation repealing all taxes, retroactively and with time and a half for overtime; and that the President had proclaimed the forthcoming consolidation of all administrative agencies in a single Department of Public Euphoria.

  Other front-page items stated that SCIENCE FINDS CURE FOR COMMON cold, that the Air Force had unveiled
a new plane which could exceed the speed of rumor, and that Joe Bloak had been promoted to Assistant Manager with a 100% increase in salary.

  A last-minute dispatch from Moscow reported that at 3:31 A.M., EST, the Soviet regime had achieved Communism and withered away, exactly as Karl Marx had predicted.

  “And oh yes, dear!” exclaimed Joe’s wife vivaciously. “The new car just came. It’s the new zero zero model.”

  “Well,” said Joe, “let’s see it.”

  The end wall rolled up, and the new ’00 model glided in with an awesome glitter and a hushed roar. It was almost as long as a Western movie epic and had more horsepower. Its robotronic transmission possessed a rated IQ of 210 at 4000 RPM and could do the family laundry sparkling-white in detergent foam in exactly thirty seconds. Its optional equipment included thermonuclear tail-lights guaranteed to work under water; solid chrome-plated windshield wrapped twice round and tied in a handsome bow; jet-assisted accelerator pedal; and pushbutton pilot ejector.

  “Looks pretty good,” admitted Joe slowly. Somehow he was becoming uneasy, Maybe it looked too good.

  “Hurry, darling!” cried Joe’s constantly more voluptuous wife, efficiently tuning the TV. “We’re just in time not to miss anything!”

  The children filed into the room and sat quietly in a row, all neatly scrubbed and combed by automatic machinery.

  The lifesize screen lit up in gorgeous color and portrayed a distinguished gentleman with silvery hair and a deep, heart-warming voice.

  “Flash! my friends,” throbbed the newscaster, leaning forward from his pulpit with a radiant smile. “Good news! Informed sources state definitely that the Second Coming will take place at 3:31 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, on a nationwide hookup. Keep tuned to this station! Yea, verily, my friends, I say unto you, flash!”

  “Oh, hell,” snarled Joe Bloak. “I knew all along I was dreaming.”

  Still a fresh news bulletin popped frantically up out of the toaster. FLYING SAUCERS LAND ALL OVER! it shouted. Outer space emissaries notify UN that Planet Earth has been admitted to Galactic Empire with full membership privileges, retroactively and with time and a half for overtime. . . .

  “Nuts!” said Joe.

  He pushed open one eye, then another. He thought fuzzily that, anyway, it had been quite a dream.

  “Time to get up, Joe,” rasped his sagging, slattern wife. She squatted by the drafty cave-mouth, poking the smoldering fire. Joe sat up, flinging aside stiffened and shedding animal skins. Smoke made him cough and glower. His wife scratched herself and stolidly poked the fire.

  The children shivered by the fire. Joe glanced sourly at them, their vacant looks and all too familiar deformities. That youngest, whose sex they’d never been able to determine, did nothing but slobber. Might as well . . .

  “Happy New Year, Joe,” his wife said rustily.

  “Happy—what?” snarled Joe, running fingers through his frowsy hair. In his head the dream melted, dripped and flowed away into crevices of his brain where coarse shapes of reality couldn’t crowd after it. In the darkness there the dream nestled in the company of other past visions, boyhood memories and fancies of long ago, indistinguishable now that the world they belonged to might have been a dream itself. . . . Joe’s consciousness was busy resenting the twinges of his rheumatism and the glum knowledge that if they were going to eat today he’d have to tramp through the freezing snow to make the rounds of his rabbit traps.

  “Today’s another year,” said Joe’s wife, with a glance at the tally-marks she scratched on the stone wall for no practical reason Joe could see. “It’s the year 2000, Joe.”

  “Ah, go on,” said Joe. “Since when?”

  GRANDMA’S LIE SOAP

  Grandma’s soap was a miracle of miracles under the stars. If you don’t believe it—just try lying to the flying saucer folk.

  To free Truth from its wrappings with the sparkling irony and engaging insight of a prophetic pen was the self-appointed task of Robert Abernathy in this remarkable story. He’s succeeded so well that we’ll never see a frail old woman hobbling down a country lane or a cake of homemade soap without bracing ourselves against the collapse of our world and the coming of the millennium.

  OF COURSE you’ll believe this story. Everybody will. The funny thing is that it could be a lie . . .

  To make that point clearer: A little while ago I happened to be at a gathering of literary amateurs and critics, one of those sprawling aimless affairs where people mill around with drinks in their hands, congealing in little clusters to talk or listen to somebody talk.

  I listened. I heard a serious bespectacled young man discourse not unintelligently on Proust, and I heard a plump gentleman make some safe, sound comments on Faulkner.

  Nobody disagreed with them. Nobody argued. Nobody even said, “But—”

  I can remember when arguments were the order of the day.

  After I’d had a little more of it than I could stand, I spoke up. “Say what you like about those scribblers,” I declared firmly, “none of them can hold a candle to Wolf.”

  Thomas?” someone asked—not with the air of being about to contradict me, but merely as one sincerely, infuriatingly desiring instruction.

  “No, Howling,” I retorted with flamboyant irony. “Do you mean to say you never heard of Howling Wolf, the genius of the North Woods, the greatest author of all time? The one writer who grasped the human soul in all its depth, breadth, and angular momentum? Who painted Life in its true colors on a canvas vast as all Nature, with a non-union brush? Who sounded every note of emotional experience, and rang all the bells in belles lettres? Who—”

  I ran out of breath, paused, and added, “Of course, unfortunately all of Wolf’s mighty works were written in his native language, which happened to be Chinook Trade Jargon, and they’ve never been translated. So if you don’t know the Jargon . . .”

  At my age I should have known better. Naturally, every word I uttered was gospel but all I got back were earnest requests for more information about the great Wolf. To explain that I’d just been kidding—that I say such things experimentally and to keep in practice as one of the few remaining liars in a truthful world—would have been worse than useless. It would have been cruelty to talking animals.

  I mumbled, “Pardon me,” to all the nice, candid, inquisitive, credulous faces. I grabbed my hat and pulled it over my eyes, and ducked out. Not that I imagined I’d get away from the consequences. I could already envisage how the ripples would spread. For a long while to come I’d get inquiries in the mail from literary clubs, collectors, compilers of biographical dictionaries. Probably there’d be a Howling Wolf Commemorative Society organized, and if I told them he was buried at the bottom of the Chicago Drainage Canal, they’d go and strew posies there.

  But this is not the story of Howling Wolf. It is the story of Grandma’s lie soap.

  When I first remember Grandma, back when I was one of the numerous grandchildren—my brothers, sisters, and assorted cousins who overran the old hill-country farm during vacations—she was already a dried-up little old lady who couldn’t have weighed ninety pounds, with a brown, wrinkled face and intolerant black eyes.

  She ruled the farm with an iron hand and my two taciturn uncles, who did the heavy work, moved silently about, tending to chores, crops, and stock in obedience to her orders. The farm thrived, too. Even in bad years, when other people’s corn was stunted and wells ran dry, nothing of the sort befell Grandma.

  Sometimes—though I didn’t know this until I was older—the neighbors muttered, and insisted, obviously out of envy, there was something queer about Grandma. Queerness they detected, I suppose, in her fondness for cats—which most of the country people tolerated without affection—and in her long walks in the woods by herself, gathering plants that she dried and kept in unlabeled jars.

  Too, a tradition had it that back in England in the seventeenth century one of her female ancestors had been accused of bewitching cattle by the celebrated w
itchfinder, Mr. Samson Broadforks, who fell ill shortly afterward of an ailment believed to be foot-and-mouth disease. Be that as it may, the ancestor in question emigrated to America around that time.

  But we children, of course, saw nothing odd about our Grandma. Childishly, we assumed that everybody had a grandmother who kept a piece of lie soap on the high shelf over the washstand.

  This was a chunk of strong brown soap, like all the rest of the boiled-fat products that Grandma made in the old iron wash-kettle after hog-killing. But it wasn’t ordinary soap. It was made separately and privately, from some of the herbs that Grandma had in her jars, from a recipe she kept in her head and nowhere else.

  Because, you see, another thing about Grandma was that she couldn’t abide being lied to. Not, I’m sure, out of any abstract devotion to Truth, but simply because the idea of anyone fooling her made her furious. If somebody tried it, and that somebody was one of her own grandchildren, she knew what to do . . .

  For instance, I can still vividly recall the time when my city cousin Richard first came visiting on the farm. This Richard was a pale, supercilious brat who lived in New York City. As soon as he made sure that no one else on the farm had been similarly blessed, he sized us up for yokels and set about overawing us with the marvels of the metropolis.

  Grandma, busy round the kitchen range, listened silently for a while. But we who knew her well could see the storm warnings going up—the tightening lips and the dangerous gleam in her eye. Richard didn’t see anything, naturally. He finished describing the George Washington Bridge and went on to the skyscrapers.

  That did it. Grandma slammed a skillet down and fastened a harpy grip on Richard’s collar. “Come along, young man,” she said grimly. “You needn’t think you can pull my leg!”

  And she wagged him off to the washstand, the rest of us trailing after in delighted horror.

  “Oliver—” Grandma addressed me, because I was already a gangling thirteen then—“Reach me down the lie soap!”