FSF, May 2008

by Spilogale Authors

  They sat in their garden by a singing fountain, Firooz and his brother. Haider stroked the flank of his dog and said, “Long ago, Firooz, I told you I was no jinni or ifrit, but a creature of earth like yourself. But unlike, as well. Beneficent and compassionate God made many worlds, interleaved like the pages of a great book. Some lie as close to another as any two surahs of the Holy Qur'an, others as distant as the beginning from the end. In some, things that are impossible here are commonplace; in others, everything we take for granted is entirely unknown. There are worlds that contain no miracles at all, worlds where a new miracle is born every morning. The earth from which God molded my ancestors, brother, lies in another world. It is time, I think, for my dog and me to go home."

  "Haider?” Firooz gripped his brother's hand to prevent him from rising.

  "I believe there is only one Paradise, Firooz. We shall meet again in not too long. Let me go, brother.” Tender, he kissed the back of Firooz's hand and raised it to touch his own forehead. “I cannot love you less, here or elsewhere."

  "I should die before you!” Firooz closed his eyes, desolate.

  "It is not to death I am going. Give my blessing and my love to my sons.” Gentle, he removed his fingers from Firooz's hand, kissed his brow. When his brother opened his eyes again, dog and man were gone as if they had never set foot on the earth of Firooz's world. The elder brother wept, and then, as he must, went on living until he died.

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  Thrilling Wonder Stories by Albert E. Cowdrey

  Albert Cowdrey's affection for genre magazines has made itself evident before, most notably in “Twilight States” (July 2005). But never before have we encountered anything like what happened with this story. Between his sending us this and our publishing it now, the title magazine has been returned to life! The new editor of Thrilling Wonder Stories, Winston Engle, most likely is unaware of Mr. Cowdrey's story. Indeed, he probably thinks he acted of his own volition.

  But if we see new stories from Mr. Cowdrey with titles like Galaxy, Argosy, or Super-Science, well, don't be surprised at what ensues.

  He came from someplace else—anybody could see that. Even Farley himself.

  That first morning of summer vacation, with Tommy already outside bellowing, “FAARR!” and wanting to play, Farley turned aside on his way to the front door. Papa was at work selling encyclopedias and Mama had gone shopping, so Farley seized the opportunity to slip into their bedroom.

  In the brown shadows, behind the closed drapes, with only the mirror on Mama's vanity glimmering, he threw himself facedown on her side of the double bed and in a kind of intoxication inhaled her scent, a compound of flesh and perspiration, vanishing cream and Chanel No. 5. He could walk into a room where she'd been and detect it in the air. Somehow, he felt, the scent was Mama herself, and it stirred him in some unsayable way.

  Tommy shouted again. With a last sniff, Farley jumped up and turned to go. His shadowy form was caught in the round vanity mirror, and he paused long enough to stare at his face. Oh yeah, he thought, somebody did a job on poor old Papa.

  Farley's olive skin and long sharp nose and big ears with the lobes welded to his jaws were nothing like the pale reddish man who slept beside Mama. When Farley was little, he'd believed he was Papa's son. No longer. Papa was just the sitter. Farley's father was a man from ... Mars.

  He smiled, half believing it. Thrilling Wonder Stories, his favorite reading, was full of Martians and some of them looked remarkably like Farley. Now, arching his brows, making his eyes glare, he twisted his lips and made his evil face.

  "Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh,” he chuckled, raising his long-fingered hands like pitchforks. If people knew who his real father was! If people only knew! Then they'd be ascared....

  From outside came “FARRRRRRRRRR!” again, and he dropped the game of evil like a rejected toy, slammed through the front door and sprang into midair off the end of the porch. It was summer and Farley was twelve and he could only spare so much time wondering who—or even what—his real father was.

  * * * *

  He and Tommy set out for the canal, gossiping.

  "Mama and Papa had another fight last night,” Farley confided. “He didn't sell enough encyclopedias to be Salesman of the Month."

  "Your folks fight a lot, don't they, Far?"

  "Don't yours?"

  "Sometimes,” Tommy said cautiously. “Not too much."

  "Last night Mama got into the Jim Beam,” said Farley. “She was really hot."

  The fighting used to bother him until he realized that Papa wasn't his father. Now he could look on from the sidelines and tell himself he enjoyed the show.

  "Who won?"

  "Oh, Mama always wins. At least she gets in the first word, the middle word, and the last word."

  "What does your Papa do?"

  "He takes it."

  The neighborhood lay baking in the hot sun—Cape Cods and Spanish-style houses and Sears Roebuck houses and diminutive Taras for junior executives who liked to think they were living in the Old South instead of the new one. All the windows and doors stood open in the summer heat, and the sounds of radio soap operas mingled with Nat King Cole's cane-syrup voice singing, Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa?

  The lawns were cushioned in deep green turf and decorated with grinning elves and silver reflecting globes. Farley and Tommy bent and stared into one globe to watch their faces balloon out and their noses stretch. Farley's was so long anyway that Tommy called him “Elephant Nose” and they had a brief fight, rolling over and over in the hot dry grass.

  Farley won, of course, sitting on Tommy and threatening him with his big-knuckled fists until he took back what he'd said. Farley won most of his fights; at school he'd almost been expelled for giving another boy a savage beating. A teacher had called him “a goddamn psycho."

  But this wasn't a serious fight—lucky for Tommy.

  The houses dwindled and vanished at the edge of the marshes, where a drainage canal with sloping concrete sides divided the tame from the wild. The boys walked down the slope with one leg bent and one leg straight until they reached the man-high tunnel of a storm drain. The marsh, the canal, and the drain were their playground; every attempt to lure them to official New Orleans Recreation Department sites met instant rejection.

  A year ago, Far had tried scaring Tommy by telling him that an alligator lived in the tunnel, eating rats to stay alive. But Tommy had seen the alligators at the Audubon Zoo and they were anything but scary, lying in their pool like a pile of huge jackstraws, inert as logs and dirty as laundry.

  So Far changed the tunnel beast to a monster with lots of fangs and a smell like rotten eggs. Its name was Garmusk.

  Since then Garmusk had come and gone, depending on their moods. Sometimes even Far believed that something lived in the tunnel; at other times, it was just a joke between them. Today Garmusk returned when they found a dead dog lying beside the canal.

  "Tonight, Garmusk, you know? He'll come out the tunnel and eat it,” Farley proclaimed.

  "Wow,” said Tommy uneasily. “I guess you must know him pretty good if you know what he likes to eat."

  "If you were all the time eating rats, wouldn't you like a nice dog for a change? I would,” said Far, putting on his evil face, and Tommy produced a nervous giggle.

  The storm drain was half-dark, cool and damp, the bottom shaped like a shallow V where a little stream of water always trickled, even on days as hot and dry as this one. Their voices waking echoes, they walked until the sunshine faded behind them and they could see, incredibly far off, like a dim star, the tiny light that marked the other exit on Elysian Fields Avenue.

  They were talking about maybe, this time, going the whole distance when they heard a rustle, a soft splash, and a scraping sound on the concrete.

  "GARMUSK!” Far yelled and the echoes resounded and they turned and ran wildly for the entrance.

  Tommy actually outran Farley for once, popping out of the storm drain
into the hot breathless sunlight a good four steps ahead of him. Panting, dripping sweat, they sank down on the hot concrete. Tommy, a slight narrow-chested boy with arms and legs like sticks, took a long time getting his breath.

  "We better bring the dog into the tunnel for him to eat,” said Farley. “Feed him up, soze he don't grab us next time."

  While Tommy watched uneasily, Far picked up the dog, finding it still pretty fresh, and laid it just inside like a sacrifice. By now he'd recovered his courage, and he stood peering down the tunnel while his big hands wrestled each other, in a way he had when he was excited.

  "We got to find more things for Garmusk,” he said. “We got to feed him or he might come out and eat somebody."

  Tommy thought privately that they should call the cops, but he didn't dare say so. Far's whole body was tense and quivering, like a high-tension wire stroked by wind.

  "I wonder what else we can give him,” he muttered. “Think about it, Tommy. I'll think about it, too."

  * * * *

  That night at dinner Mama glared at Papa while Olivia, the colored cook, served them. Barely five feet tall, she radiated fury from her small body without saying a word.

  The weather did nothing to cool her off. Usually the days were tropical this time of year, with heavy rain falling sometime between two and four in the afternoon. But no rain had fallen today or for weeks past. The heat accumulated in everything, in bricks and walks and slate roofs and even in the hinges of doors. As Olivia washed the dishes, Farley saw sweat stains spreading across her back.

  When she was gone he tensed, expecting a fight. But all evening Mama and Papa gave each other the silent treatment. When he kissed them goodnight, they were both real sweet to him to underline their dislike of each other.

  The night was stifling. Farley tried to read a story in Thrilling Wonder Stories, but the heat of the lamp was too much and he turned it off voluntarily, not even waiting to be yelled at. He lay on his bed, wearing three-button drawers and sweating from every pore.

  Sounds of combat began to rise from the bedroom next door. Listening intently, he found out at last what the trouble was. Another promotion Papa hadn't gotten. Pretty soon Mama began to scream at him.

  "Your problem is they know you too well!” she yelled. “They know what you're worth! Nothing!"

  "Now wait a minute, Honey."

  "You think I'm gonna sit on my goddamn ass all my life and wait for you?"

  "Hold it down in there!” Farley shouted, producing dead silence.

  When she said words like goddamn and ass he knew she'd been into the Jim Beam again. At times like that she totally forgot that he was in here, an innocent child, listening. Tomorrow she would apologize—not to Papa, of course: to Farley. He already knew how she'd stroke his head and say:

  "Honey, I'm so sorry you had to hear all that bad language. I don't know what gets into me sometimes. You know, your Papa and I really do love each other."

  Two truths, one lie. She was sorry, and when she was mad she did say things she wouldn't say otherwise. The rest was false. The only people Mama really loved were Farley and the man from Mars.

  He had no sense of falling asleep, yet woke bathed in sweat. The breathless night had the after-twelve feeling. A little fice dog in the yard next door, an irritating animal named Cissy, was barking as she did all night, every night in hot weather.

  Farley got up and padded into the kitchen and got himself a glass and poured water and a shot of Jim into it. Then he went to the window and looked out. The metallic light of a perfect summer moon covered the back yard and the neighbors’ rooftops. The shadows were profoundly black, and he wondered how shadows looked on Mars, with the sun so far away and the air so thin and the big brilliant stars of deep space glittering in the black water of the Grand Canal.

  Meanwhile Cissy barked and barked and barked.

  "Shut up, goddamn it!” he shouted, and she paused exactly two barks before resuming.

  He swallowed the whiskey, gagged briefly, then washed the glass and went back to bed and stretched out. His head swam. The heat was worse than before. Sweat was running from his eyebrows into the sockets of his eyes. A puddle was gathering in the hollow over his breastbone and another in his bellybutton. He felt squishy between the toes. He was sweating in the crack of his butt.

  Tomorrow he definitely would start campaigning for his own electric fan. Meantime he stared at the dark ceiling and tried to imagine he was Garmusk, lying all alone and cool in his quiet tunnel deep underground.

  Gradually he began to feel better, as if his blood were chilling inside him, and he fell asleep, not waking until eight-thirty on his damp bed with sunlight that was bright yellow like drawn butter falling across him, and the sounds of Olivia rattling china in the kitchen.

  * * * *

  This day was a scorcher too. Farley put in his plea for the fan when Mama was in the middle of her apology for the fight last night, and she said yes without pausing for breath.

  He really loved her, sitting there at the breakfast table in a blue cotton wrapper and being nice to him. Her body was smaller than his, and he stared entranced at her heart-shaped smooth face and her huge dark eyes.

  No wonder the man from Mars had been attracted, had wanted to talk to her, had sat next to her somewhere, sometime, touching her hand and telling her about his planet, the red cliffs and the red desert, the canals and the blue and purple trees bending over them.

  Farley couldn't believe that two such people had done what drawings in the boys’ toilet at school claimed that married people did to each other. He decided while buttering his toast that Martians just thought their wives and girlfriends pregnant. A lot better than the Earth way, in his opinion.

  Mama began dressing to go shopping on Canal Street, and a few minutes later Tommy began yelling outside. Hastily, Farley disposed of his breakfast, attired himself in a pair of khaki shorts and his stinkiest old Keds,and shot out the door.

  When the boys reached the storm drain, the dog had vanished. Farley was starry-eyed. He had never really believed that anything this wonderful could actually happen.

  "How'd it TASTE??” he shouted into the darkness, starting a clamor of echoes.

  Tommy stared uneasily down the tunnel. Clearly, he was ready to run and wished that Farley wouldn't make so much noise.

  "I hope the dog was enough for him,” he whispered.

  "He'll get hungry again soon. What can we bring him next?"

  They decided on some wieners from Tommy's refrigerator, and they fetched them and put them exactly where the dog had been. Then they followed the canal to Lake Pontchartrain and went swimming off the seawall, just removing their Keds and jumping in, and afterward letting the fierce sun dry them.

  When they returned in the afternoon to check on the wieners, they were lying where they had been before, only covered with ants.

  "Damn,” said Farley. “Goddamn. Shit. I can't sit on my ass all day and wait for him to eat."

  Tommy was impressed by the cussing and tried gamely to keep up. “Goddamn it to hell,” he said. “We wasted those wienies. Ma will want to know what happened to them, too."

  "Tell her you had ‘em for lunch. Garmusk don't like hot dogs, just cold dogs."

  "So what do we get him, Far?"

  Farley turned his odd, slanted dark eyes on Tommy and almost told him the idea that had just come to him, but then didn't. Tommy wasn't up to big stuff. Tommy was a drip.

  That night Farley's new fan was buzzing and rotating on his dresser. It didn't help as much as he had expected. The passing current of wind made him feel chilly and rubbery where it swept over him, but he stayed hot everywhere else. Cissy barked and Farley listened until past midnight, thinking of his idea. Then, prosaically, he fell asleep.

  "What we need is rain,” Olivia sighed next morning. But the sky was hard and blue, a steel bowl with the sun burning in it like a blinding flash of light on water.

  Farley went swimming again with Tommy. The water
was thick and green and warm, and unseen fish slid past them with a rasp of scales and nibbled their toes. Swimming felt so good that they stayed too long and came home looking scorched. That night Mama rubbed Farley with Noxema while he writhed because she was hurting him.

  "Oh, Honey, I'm sorry. This is a real sunburn."

  His face, shoulders, ears, chest, back, and both legs were cooked about to medium rare. There was no possible way to lie in bed without hurting. The fan felt wonderful wherever it touched him, but the burn stung with special vengeance after the wind passed by.

  By midnight, Farley was in a mood. At one o'clock he crept to the fence and called softly to Cissy, but she backed off, barking.

  Next day his burn kept him home. His well-thumbed library of Thrilling Wonder Stories made the morning pass; he sat hunched on a footstool so as not to put his back against anything, turning the dry rustling pages, letting loose the imprisoned robots and rocket ships, the violet beams of the death rays.

  At one point Mama hurried through on her way to Canal Street. She was in a great rush, hardly said good-bye, and she forgot her gloves, though she thought that going to Canal Street without gloves was practically the same as going to church without a hat.

  The rest of the day passed slowly. Olivia fixed him lunch. In the afternoon he turned on the big Philco radio and listened to soap operas—Young Widder Brown, Portia Faces Life, One Man's Family—until four-thirty when his own programs started coming on: The Lone Ranger, Inner Sanctum Mysteries.

  Mama returned from shopping, and glared at Papa over dinner. The silence was grim, the heat intense. Later on, after a couple of belts of whiskey, she cornered Papa and started screaming at him, paying no attention to Far at all.

  "Your stomach's so flat because you spend your life crawling on it!” she bawled.

  When she kept on screaming, Farley went outside and looked up into the hot blue dusk, hearing at the edge of his mind bats squeaking as they hunted. Venus burned steadily in the west; he couldn't find the red eye of Mars, but he knew it was there. He searched for it in the growing dark, while his hands wrestled each other.