Virtual Unrealities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester

by Alfred Bester

“Scout’s honor, Eddie.”

  “You been sniffin’ ether again.” Eddie tsk-tsked. “Shame on you. Why don’t you practice what you preach?” The early morning traffic was beginning to litter the streets. Eddie started the ambulance siren and raised his voice to a conversational howl. “I thought you M.D.’s was writin’ books to stop people from dreamin’. Psycho stuff. Ain’t you kinda double-crossin’ your profession?”

  “Do you ever dream, Ed?”

  “Every night.”

  “Do you dream real?”

  “Do I! The broads! Like, wow!”

  “So real you can’t tell whether it happened or not?”

  “Who knows whether anything really happens, Doc.” Eddie swung the heavy ambulance into Broad and thread-needled up to the Grove intersection. “Oh, man! Will you look at that red carpet?”

  There was a skewed truck and a doughnut of people clustered around the front bumper staring at a scarlet puddle. A slender, pasty man with thinning hair was exhorting the public irritably. “All right, folks, move along. Move along. This ain’t a sideshow. Ain’t you got something better to do this morning? Why get the creeps? Go buy breakfast or something.”

  Granville shoved through the crowd, swinging his bag like a truncheon to clear a path. “I’m Doctor Granville. County Hospital. Who’s in charge here?”

  The pasty man looked at him with bleary blue eyes. “I am, Doc. The name is Simmons. Detective Division. Was passing when it happened and took over. Here’s your patient; what’s left of him.”

  Granville knelt alongside the broken body. The face was pressed into the asphalt, strangely smiling. Black hair shot with grey. The features of a dissipated Caesar. The body terribly crushed.

  Granville shot a look at Simmons. “Why in hell is he grinning? It’s like his one joy in life was to get himself smashed by a truck. Take me two hours to list the damage done.”

  “Name is Coven, Sidney A. Address in his wallet, 910 South Street.”

  “Coven,” Granville murmured. “But of course.” Then aloud, “Nothing I can do for Sidney A. He’s unadulterated DOA. Mashed like a pancake and loving it. Going to hold the driver?”

  Simmons looked perplexed. “I don’t know. He tells a story you ought to hear.” The detective called, “Casey! Over here.”

  A lumbering man with a broad tonsure detached himself from the truck’s front suspension and trudged up to them. His eyes showed panic. He croaked, “It’s like I said, Cap. All you got to do is look at my record. I been drivin’ three hundred forty-seven thousand miles and no accident. I never—”

  Simmons snapped, “Save it. This ain’t no grand jury.”

  “So help me, Cap—”

  “Sergeant.”

  “Sure. Sure. Sergeant.”

  “Tell the story to the Doc.”

  The driver’s eyes swiveled to Granville, desperately avoiding the dead body and the crimson rug. “Jeez, Doc, I been drivin’ three hundred and forty-seven thousand miles and no accid—”

  “Just tell him what happened.”

  “Well, I’m comin’ down Broad, see. I got five hundred gallons of Grade A, two fifty of cream, and—”

  “Never mind the inventory.”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” Casey took a breath. “So like I was sayin’ I’m doin’ about forty and I see this guy walkin’ down Broad on my side. The right-hand sidewalk. Get it?”

  Granville closed his bag and stood up, “Coven?”

  “The dead guy.”

  “He’s Coven, the Doc says,” Simmons interjected. “Go ahead.”

  “So this Coven waves to me I should pull over. He’s an official-looking guy so I figure it’s a sneak pinch. I pull over to the curb and slow down and I’m just gonna give him an argument when Voom.”

  “Voom?”

  “He takes a dive right under my front wheels.”

  Granville stared at the driver uncertainly and then turned to Simmons. “Is the story straight?”

  The driver jerked back. “So help me …”

  “There’s witnesses,” Simmons said. “It’s straight.”

  “Then it’s suicide.”

  “I don’t think so,” the driver mumbled. “I think he was off his rocker.”

  “Why? How?”

  “He yelled something crazy when he took the dive.”

  “Yelled what?”

  “About astronomy.”

  “Astronomy?”

  “He said the stars weren’t going to get him.”

  “The stars!”

  “Yeah.”

  Granville could not choke back the impulse to recite: Twinkle, twinkle, little star. He deliberately dropped his bag then stooped to pick it up. He could feel himself blushing like a child.

  Simmons said, “I ask you, Doc. Is that a magilla? Does it sound crazy or don’t it?”

  “I don’t know.” Granville tried to grin. “It sounds crazy all right, only it just occurred to me that maybe Coven isn’t your lunatic. Maybe it’s me.”

  They parted on that note of confusion.

  At two-thirty he finally caught Gardner in the busy corridor outside Maternity. The redheaded intern carried six Erlenmeyer flasks with the deftness of a variety artist. He had had no lunch and was acerbic.

  “Well, well, well. The dreamy kid in the flesh. How’d you do this morning, Doctor? Did the corpse interpret your nightmare or did you get Eddie to read your palm?”

  Granville gave him a dogged look with his spaniel eyes. “Come into the stockroom a minute, Gardner. I want to ask you something.”

  “Make it snappy. I’ve got two dozen blood-sugars waiting.”

  The stockroom door swung shut. The room was silent and gloomy. In a corner an autoclave muttered sinister secrets.

  “Listen, Gardner …” Granville hesitated and rubbed a hand up the back of his neck into his seal-brown hair. There was an interminable wait.

  Exasperated, Gardner said, “You wanted to ask me something. So ask. Is this about home, career, ambition, fighting with my sister?”

  “No.”

  “Sure? Jinny’s got a redheaded temper. I remember you two fighting over the engagement ring. Wow!”

  “It isn’t anything like that. Will you listen for a minute?”

  “Avidly, when you’re ready to talk.”

  “It’s about the dream I had this morning.”

  “Oh, for the love of—”

  “I told you about me hanging between two spaces and the goldfish that were competing to enlist me on their rival teams. The honcho of one team was named Starr.”

  “As in telly-a-scope.”

  “Be serious. Starr and his little friends were worried frantic about someone named Coven.”

  “Guy who got mashed under the truck?”

  “Yes.”

  “So?”

  “Coven deliberately jumped under the truck.”

  “Suicide?”

  “Maybe, but dig this. Just as he took the dive he yelled something about Starr not getting him. Then he was smashed.”

  “End of story?”

  “It’s got me rattled, Gardner. I was dreaming those two names when it happened. Maybe they were fighting over me. I could be the him Starr wasn’t supposed to get. What do you think?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “I’m asking.”

  “The marriage is off.”

  “Can’t you ever be serious?”

  “But I am.” Gardner rattled the Erlenmeyers alarmingly. “You think I’d let my ever-lovin’ sister marry a schizoid? You should lay there and bleed.”

  “I am already.”

  “Go back to school, Doc. Remember about dreams? They take a fraction of a second. A sleeping man can hear a door slam and dream an entire episode that culminates in that door slam.”

  “All right. So maybe I heard you mention Coven’s name on the phone. But what about Starr? When the truck driver told me what Coven yelled, I knew I’d been dreaming about him.” Granville shook his head dazedly. “W
hat right does a complete stranger have to intrude on me like that?”

  “Fatigue, brother, fatigue. The tired mind gets frazzled. You hear something for the first time and you could swear you’re remembering it. But it’s really only fatigue doing a con job on you.”

  “No.” Granville turned away. “It isn’t as simple as that.”

  “You want it the other way? The dream way?” Gardner put the flasks down carefully and flipped up a cigarette. “You want to believe those two characters were actually fighting to enlist you, somewhere in the wild blue yonder?”

  “That’s how I remember it.”

  Gardner lit the cigarette and shoved it into Granville’s mouth. “So to win this contest, Coven walks out of your head into a truck. Great. Just the kind of level thinking the AM A is trying to foster.”

  “Well what do you want me to think?”

  “That you’ve been on duty seventy-two hours, which is enough to make anyone’s mind play tricks. That Jinny is supposed to pick her ever-lovin’ brother up in half an hour and take him driving. That you’re going instead.”

  Forty minutes later, Granville sat in the passenger seat of Jinny’s car.

  “It’s about time I got you to myself,” she said.

  “You’re like a black widow spider,” Granville said comfortably. “They eat their husbands.”

  “No I’m not. I’m … like a snapshot album, waiting for pictures to be pasted in. I don’t care about your past. To hell with the past … but I’ve got the future all marked out. Picture of Chuck’s first baby … picture of Chuck’s twenty-first baby …”

  “Hey, lady! Have a heart.”

  “Your babies. Not mine. I’ll be more restrained. Picture of Chuck reading research paper to medical convention.”

  “Am I bald?”

  “Not yet. You are when you receive the Humphrey Hickenlooper Memorial Award.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. I just know you’re going to get some kind of award. That’s the fun, darling … knowing and waiting for it to come true. I think the nicest thing about falling in love is that you get somebody else’s dreams to wish for too.”

  “Dreams. Say …” Granville straightened up. “I’d almost forgotten. Listen, Jinny …”

  “Which reminds me, Charles. I’ve been thinking.”

  “When you say ‘Charles’ it means you’ve been planning.”

  “I have. For the snapshot album. We’re going to be poor after we’re married.”

  “All doctors are. It’s traditional.” Granville nodded complacently. “You set up practice and starve and everybody mocks you while you search for the cure for hangnails. ‘Mad Granville!’ they mock. ‘Thinks he can do the impossible. Cure hangnails! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha—’”

  “So I decided to get a job to help us … and I tried … and I did.” Jinny looked apologetic. “I got a job today.”

  “Hey.”

  “I bet you get that Hickenlooper award for hangnails.”

  “Don’t duck like that. What’s all this about a job?”

  “It’s wonderful,” Jinny said with conviction. “Afternoons only. From one to six. It pays thirty-five dollars. I do research.”

  “What kind of research?”

  “Statistical … on floods and fires and wrecks and so on.”

  “For what person or persons?”

  “An awfully nice man. Very respectable, Chuck. A Mr. Coven.”

  “Mr. What?”

  “Coven. He—” Jinny stared at him. “What’s happened to your face, honey? It’s all lopsided.”

  “Never mind my face.” Granville took a breath and composed himself. “What’s Coven’s full name?”

  “Sidney Albert.”

  “Address?”

  “Nine-ten South Street.” Jinny looked interested and curious. “Do you know anything about—”

  “What time today did you get the job?”

  “If this is a new game, Charles—”

  “Please, Jinny. Just answer the question.”

  “I got the job this morning.”

  “What time?”

  “Around eleven o’clock.”

  “From Coven himself? Personally? You spoke to him?”

  “Why yes.” She smiled perplexedly. “But he isn’t the one with the broken shoelaces, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  “Drive back to town, Jinny.”

  “What is it, Chuck? What’s the matter?”

  He said slowly and seriously: “Sidney Coven of 910 South Street was crushed to death under a truck five hours before you spoke to him.”

  Nine-ten South Street was a half block of two-story taxpayers. Three of the stores were joined to a single entrance. Their windows were painted jet black halfway up. A tall man could peer over the black border and see a thousand square feet of open floor cluttered with desks, files, and typists. It looked like an insurance office. Bold gold letters on the black windows read: NATIONAL STATISTICS .

  Jinny parked the car and said: “I still think you’re crazy.”

  “Don’t try to argue,” Granville answered. “We haven’t come to an issue yet. That’s why we’re here.”

  Jinny shrugged. “There isn’t any issue.”

  “It says here. Let’s button it up before I go in and make a fool of myself. What’d your Coven look like?”

  “Well …” Jinny was being patient. “A big man … large head … grizzled hair … kind of dissipated face.”

  “Like a Roman?”

  “Could be.”

  “Could also be my Coven.”

  “Nonsense. It’s a relative.”

  “You keep telling yourself, and a mite too hard, Virginia.” Granville looked at her keenly. “You’re lying about something. I can tell. What is it?”

  “Don’t be silly, Charles.”

  “Yes you are. Any other time you’re a sucker for a mystery. Wild horses couldn’t tear you away from the scent. Now you’re trying to brush it off. Why? What’s got you scared?”

  “I’m not, Charles.”

  “You are.” He gripped her arm and looked at her intensely. “I’m not fooling with this, Virginia. You’ve got to go along with me. Understand?”

  “But it’s so silly …”

  “Not to me. I like answers. I want one from you now. What are you holding out? What are you afraid to tell me?”

  “It isn’t anything; but …” Jinny’s assurance began to waver. “As a matter of fact my Coven was sick. He … well, he was lying on a couch in his office when I saw him … covered with a robe. I thought he was an invalid. He talked … He talked sickly …” She tried to laugh. “But it can’t mean anything, Chuck. It’s too ridiculous.”

  “Invalid! That’s a hot one.” Granville pushed open the door. “All right. Maybe I’m crazy. At least let me find out. You wait for me, Jinny. Either they’ll throw me out … or lead me out.”

  He slammed the door of the roadster, walked across the sidewalk and opened the half-black glass door numbered 910. He stepped in and looked around uncertainly. There was a crisp background of typewriters and telephones that was subtly reassuring. Close to the entrance, a switchboard girl was languidly plugging phone jacks. She spoke in a nasal whine:

  “National, good afternoon,” A pause. “I’m sorry Mr. Sunderland is in Belgium. Will there be any message?”

  In the next pause Granville began: “Excuse me, I’d like to—”

  “Just a minute, please.” The girl turned and called over her shoulder: “Gertrude, wire Mr. Sunderland the death reports are not acceptable.”

  Granville was startled. Gertrude, very dark and heavily stacked, nodded, finished typing a line, then leaned back interestingly to the desk behind her and made a note.

  The telephone girl gave Granville her attention. “Can I be of assistance, sir?”

  “Well, I …” Granville tried to be businesslike. “I’m from County Hospital and I’m checking on an accident. Is this office run by a Sidney Coven?”
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  “There is a Mr. Coven associated with National Statistics, sir.”

  “I see. Well, the fact is …” Granville took the plunge. “My name is Granville and I’d like to—”

  The dark Gertrude shot up from her chair like a scalded cat. “Oh yes, Dr. Granville.” She stepped forward brightly. “This way, please. Mr. Coven is expecting you.”

  Granville stared at her. “Expecting me?”

  “Yes, Dr. Granville.” Gertrude gave his arm the friendliest pressure. “Right this way.”

  “Don’t you know he died this morning?”

  She smiled blankly. “This way, please.”

  Granville permitted himself to be led across the open floor, arguing feebly. “There must be some mistake. Coven can’t expect me. I never made an appoint—” He dropped it and re-sorted his confusion. “He can’t expect anyone. Not my Sidney Albert. Who’s yours? A son or a nephew or something?”

  “Through this aisle, Dr. Granville.”

  “Now wait. Let’s make sense. You don’t expect me to—”

  With relief Gertrude interrupted: “Here’s Mr. Sharpe, our office manager.” A short, abrupt man with a woodpecker face jumped up from his desk and shot a hand toward Granville. Gertrude said: “Mr. Sharpe, this is Dr. Granville. The four o’clock appointment with Mr. Coven.”

  Sharpe clutched Granville’s hand. “Yes, yes, yes, of course. So glad to meet you, Doctor. Truly a pleasure. I’ve heard about you. One of the coming young physicians, eh? Ah-ah!” Mr. Sharpe twinkled roguishly. “No modesty, now. This way, sir. Right this way.”

  He pulled Granville toward a walnut door set flush in the rear wall. “Let me thank you and congratulate you for your promptness, Doctor. The keeping of appointments seems to be a lost art today. People are shockingly careless.”

  “Just a minute, Mr. Sharpe …”

  “The whole theory of efficient office management,” Mr. Sharpe peeked brightly, “is based on …”

  “Will you listen to me? I am not prompt. I do not have an appointment. I cannot see Sidney Coven.”

  “… is founded on promptness, accuracy, and a thorough respect for time.” Sharpe rapped once on the walnut door and thrust it open. He called: “Dr. Granville is here, Mr. Coven,” and stepped back.

  From the interior a sick voice called: “Good afternoon, Dr. Granville. Do come in. That will be all, Sharpe.”