Inside John Barth
Page 1
Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note: This e-text was produced from Galaxy Magazine,June, 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that theU.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
INSIDE JOHN BARTH
By WILLIAM W. STUART
Every man wants to see a Garden of Eden. John Barthagreed with his whole heart--he knew that he'd rathersee than be one!
Illustrated by DILLON
I
Take a fellow, reasonably young, personable enough, health perfect.Suppose he has all the money he can reasonably, or even unreasonably,use. He is successful in a number of different fields of work in whichhe is interested. Certainly he has security. Women? Well, maybe not anywoman in the world he might want. But still, a very nice, choiceselection of a number of the very finest physical specimens. Thefinest--and no acute case of puritanism to inhibit his enjoyment.
Take all that. Then add to it the positive assurance of continuingyouth and vigor, with a solid life expectancy of from 175 to 200 moreyears. Impossible? Well--just suppose it were all true of someone. Aman like that, a man with all those things going for him, you'd figurehe would be the happiest man in the world.
Wouldn't you?
Sure. A man with all that would have to be the happiest--unless he wascrazy. Right? But me, Johnny Barth, I had it.
I had all of it, just like that. I sure wasn't the happiest man in theworld though. And I know I wasn't crazy either. The thing about me was,I wasn't a man. Not exactly.
I was a colony.
Really. A colony. A settlement. A new but flourishing culture, youmight say. Oh, I had the look of a man, and the mind and the nerves andthe feel of a man too. All the normal parts and equipment. But all ofit existed--and was beautifully kept up, I'll say that--primarily as alocale, not a man.
I was, as I said before, a colony.
Sometimes I used to wonder how New England really felt about thePilgrims. If you think that sounds silly--perhaps one of these days youwon't.
The beginning was some ten years back, on a hunting trip the autumnafter I got out of college. That was just before I started working, asfar off the bottom as I could talk myself, which was the personneloffice in my Uncle John's dry cleaning chain in the city.
That wasn't too bad. But I was number four man in the office, so itcould have been better, too. Uncle John was a bachelor, which meant hehad no daughter I could marry. Anyway, she would have been my cousin.But next best, I figured, was to be on good personal terms with the oldbull.
This wasn't too hard. Apart from expecting rising young executives torise and start work no later than 8:30 a.m., Uncle John was more orless all right. Humor him? Well, every fall he liked to go hunting. Sowhen he asked me to go hunting with him up in the Great Sentries, Iknew I was getting along pretty well. I went hunting.
The trip was nothing very much. We camped up in the hills. We drank areasonably good bourbon. We hunted--if that's the word for it. Me, I'ddone my hitch in the Army. I know what a gun is--and respect it. UncleJohn provided our hunting excitement by turning out to be one of thetrigger-happy types. His score was two cows, a goat, a couple of otherhunters, one possible deer--and unnumbered shrubs and bushes shot _at_.Luckily he was such a lousy shot that the safest things in themountains were his targets.
Well, no matter. I tried to stay in the second safest place, which wasdirectly behind him. So it was a nice enough trip with no casualties,right up to the last night.
We were all set to pack out in the morning when it happened. Maybe youread about the thing at the time. It got a light-hearted play in thepapers, the way those things do. "A one in a billion accident," theycalled it.
We were lounging by the campfire after supper and a few good snorts.Uncle John was entertaining himself with a review of some of hisnearer, more thrilling misses. I, to tell the truth, was sort of dozingoff.
Then, all of a sudden, there was a bright flash of blue-green light anda loud sort of a "zoop-zing" sound. And a sharp, stinging sensation inmy thighs.
I hollered. I jumped to my feet. I looked down, and my pants werepeppered with about a dozen little holes like buckshot. I didn't haveto drop my pants to know my legs were too. I could feel it. And bloodstarted to ooze.
I figured, of course, that Uncle John had finally shot me and I at oncelooked on the bright side. I would be a cinch for a fast promotion tovice president. But Uncle John swore he hadn't been near a gun. So weguessed some other hunter must have done it, seen what he had done andthen prudently ducked. At least no one stepped forward.
It was a moonlight night. With Uncle John helping me we made it the twoand a half miles back down the trail to Poxville, where we'd left ourcar and stuff. We routed out the only doctor in the area, old DocGrandy.
He grumbled, "Hell, boy, a few little hunks o' buckshot like that andyou make such a holler. I see a dozen twice's bad as this ever' season.Ought to make you wait till office hours. Well--hike yourself up on thetable there. I'll flip 'em out for you."
Which he proceeded to do. If it was a joke to him, it sure wasn't tome, even if they weren't in very deep. Finally he was done. He stoodthere clucking like an old hen with no family but a brass doorknob.Something didn't seem quite right to him.
Uncle John gave me a good belt of the bourbon he'd been thoughtfulenough to pack along.
"What was it you say hit you, boy?" Doc Grandy wanted to know, reachingabsently for the bottle.
"Buckshot, I suppose. What was it you just hacked out of me?"
"Hah!" He passed the bottle back to Uncle John. "Not like any buckshotI ever saw. Little balls, or shells of metallic stuff all right. Butnot lead. Peculiar. M-mph. You know what, boy?"
"You're mighty liberal with the iodine, I know that. What else?"
"You say you saw a big flash of light. Come to think on it, I saw astreak of light up the mountainside about that same time. I was outon the porch. You know, boy, I believe you got something to feelright set up about. I believe you been hit by a meteor. If itweren't--ha-ha--pieces of one of them flying saucers you readabout."
Well, I didn't feel so set up about it, then or ever. But it did turnout he was right.
Doc Grandy got a science professor from Eastern State Teachers Collegethere in Poxville to come look. He agreed that they were meteorfragments. The two of them phoned it in to the city papers during aslow week and, all in all, it was a big thing. To them. To me it wasnothing much but a pain in the rear.
The meteor, interviewed scientists were quoted as saying, must havealmost burned up coming through the atmosphere, and disintegrated justbefore it hit me. Otherwise I'd have been killed. The Poxvilleprofessor got very long-winded about the peculiar shape and compositionof the pieces, and finally carried off all but one for the collegemuseum. Most likely they're still there. One I kept as a souvenir,which was silly. It wasn't a thing I wanted to remember--or, as I foundlater, would ever be able to forget. Anyway, I lost it.
All right. That was that and, except for a lingering need to sit onvery soft cushions, the end of it. I thought. We went back to town.
Uncle John felt almost as guilty about the whole thing as if he hadshot me himself and, in November, when he found about old BertWinginheimer interviewing girl applicants for checker jobs at home inhis apartment, I got a nice promotion.
Working my way up, I was a happy, successful businessman.
And then, not all at once but gradually, a lot of little thingsdeveloped into problems. They weren't really problems either, exactly.They were puzzles. Nothing big but--well, it was like I was sort ofbeing made to do, or not do, certain things. Like being pushed in onedirection or another. And not necessarily the direction I personally
would have picked. Like----
Well, one thing was shaving.
I always had used an ordinary safety razor--nicked myself not more thanaverage. It seemed OK to me. Never cared too much for electric razors;it didn't seem to me they shaved as close. But--I took to using anelectric razor now, because I had to.
One workday morning I dragged myself to the bathroom of my bachelorapartment to wash and shave. Getting started in the morning was never apleasure to me. But this time seemed somehow tougher than usual. Ilathered my face and put a fresh blade in my old razor.
For some reason, I could barely force myself to start. "Come on, Johnnyboy!" I told myself. "Let's go!" I made myself take a first stroke withthe razor. Man! It burned like fire. I started another stroke and theburning came before the razor even touched my face. I had to give up. Iwent down to the office without a shave.
That was no good, of course, so at the coffee