Shuteye for the Timebroker

by Paul Di Filippo

  If from the mature plant emerged a five-year-old, would its mental development parallel its physical? How would the poor thing, even granting certain inborn knowledge, be the equal of its human peers, who had interacted with the world on a daily basis? Was there some way, Florence wondered, that she could help her son (for so she already thought of the mandrake) catch up to its peers?

  Why not, Florence thought, try reading aloud to it?

  And so began a most unusual course of prenatal care. Each day, Florence would sit beside the plant and read her favorite books to it. At first, it seemed to exhibit no response to the tutelage. But in June, when the plant was three feet tall, it began to sway gently whenever the climax of a story was reached. Florence was sure her reading was having some good effect.

  And on that long-awaited day when Florence awoke to find the outer leaves of the plant fallen away and her naked son standing with closed eyes, still attached by his soles to his stalk, she received confirmation that her efforts had not been misdirected.

  As Florence crouched near her son, his eyes opened and he said, “Call me Billy Budd.”

  So she did.

  * * *

  The knife pierced the table just inches from Billy’s hand—which had been reaching for a dish of scrambled eggs—and vibrated in place like a tuning fork. Billy hastily withdrew his offending member and mumbled his apologies. What had he been thinking of, trying to serve himself before the Skandik twins? This unsettling affair of the stranger, with his talk of movies, combined with Billy’s normal anxiousness about his special project, must be disordering his thoughts more than he realized.

  It was the morning after the day the stranger—Freddie Cordovan, was it?—had made his apparently aimless peregrinations through the town. Billy sat at the communal breakfast table in Eva’s Boarding House. He had called this generally amiable residence home ever since his mother had died and he had sold her property so as to raise the money to go into the nursery business. The ancestral homestead had meant little to Billy, since he really preferred the open air to any dwelling, and in any case the ramshackle shack was on the point of almost total collapse.

  Eva’s Boarding House was a large Victorian structure not far from the seaside. Its interior was as immaculate as its exterior was weather- beaten and flaking. The individual rooms Eva Breakstone let out to her tenants (whom she tended to regard as irresponsible children, no matter how old) were high-ceilinged repositories of massive pieces of old furniture bearing bric-a-brac as a whale hosts barnacles.

  The sunny dining room, with its lace curtains, sideboards, and long oak table, was the center of the house. Here the inhabitants met for two meals a day, over which Eva presided like the matriarch of an exceedingly heterogeneous family.

  Thin as a spar, blue-eyed and gray-haired, her skin like leather— from years spent in Montana on a ranch—Eva sat at the head of the cloth-covered table. She had witnessed the assault on Billy and had been ready to step in to settle it. But as it played itself out without her intervention, she said nothing.

  The twins Billy had inadvertently run afoul of were Gunnar and Gothard Skandik. They were identical trollish brothers with flaming red hair and beards. One day they had shown up in Blackwood Beach, rusty picks over their brawny shoulders, and demanded of the first passerby, “Where we dig?” They had been directed to the limestone quarry outside of town, where they had been employed ever since, having displaced two bulldozers and a steam shovel. Naturally, their work required that they stoke themselves like furnaces at breakfast, and woe betide those who dared serve themselves before the Skandik brothers took their share.

  At the proper time, Billy filled his own plate with eggs, home fries, toast, and ham. (Billy had once tried living on a diet of sunlight and water. Although it was possible for him to subsist on such ethereal food, such a diet reduced his thoughts to an arboreal slowness, and he much preferred normal human fare.) He ate rather absentmindedly this morning, not paying much attention to the talk of his fellow diners. His mind was busy with his own problems.

  Toward the end of the meal, as people were shuffling about before departing, a stray phrase seeped into Billy’s awareness and made him take notice.

  “—at the town meeting.”

  Billy looked up from his half-eaten food. The speaker was Max Myrtlewood, a tall fellow with a paunch that testified to the allure of Eva’s cooking, who washed dishes at Emmett’s Roadhouse.

  Billy caught Myrtlewood’s attention and asked, “What’s this about a town meeting, Max?”

  “Was in the paper this morning,” said Myrtlewood. “Musselwhite’s called one for noon today.” Milo Mussel white held the post of town coordinator for Blackwood Beach. “Topic’s gonna be this movie business, and what’s to be done about it. Hear that stranger’s gonna give his side of the story, ’fore we vote on anything.”

  “Thanks,” Billy said. “I’ll be there.”

  Myrtlewood smiled somewhat suggestively. “Well, don’t get so busy with your project up at Mowbray’s that you forget.”

  Billy’s tinted blood suffused his face, causing him to blush verdantly. Damn it, that was the trouble with living in such a small town. Everyone knew all your business. This was the first time anyone had mentioned it aloud to him, though, and he felt suddenly like a pervert of some sort, just for finally yielding to his natural urges.

  The room had cleared before Billy could compose himself sufficiently to make a retort, and so he got to his feet with words bottled frustratingly up inside him and headed out.

  The gibe had made Billy more concerned than ever about his prize plant. He realized that with all the excitement yesterday, he had made only one visit to it, in the evening. On the spur of the moment, he determined to delay opening his shop and visit the month-old growth first thing.

  Out on the brick sidewalk, Billy sniffed the delightful spring air. May was such a lovely month! Billy’s pulse quickened with the aura of vegetable entities resurging after the trauma of winter. He inhaled deeply, savoring the loamy green fragrance of the cool air.

  Billy’s sensitive nostrils detected a slight tinge of something rotten in the air. Irrationally, he attributed it at first to the presence of the Film Bureau man, until he remembered the whale. Looking in the direction of the hidden beach, Billy shook his head. Something was going to have to be done about that. Perhaps he would bring it up at the town meeting.

  Setting out for the old Mowbray house, Billy tried to ignore the disturbing component of the gentle May breezes.

  At the shabby fence surrounding the deserted manse, Billy paused. The forlorn old house looked different today, as if Freddie Cordovan’s exclamation “This is it!” had somehow invested the mundane structure with new significance whose full extent was not yet apparent. What could have so excited Cordovan about this house? Billy wondered, gazing at the many-gabled roofline of the building. Something tugged at the back of his mind, but refused to fully present itself.

  Giving up on the puzzle, Billy went through the sagging gate, across the weedy yard, and straight to a spot in the rear where the fence had completely fallen down. Here a path led away into the bordering woods. Moving down the faint trail, Billy recalled how he had first found this special site.

  The whole thing had started when Billy decided he wanted a mate.

  Billy had always known of his origin. His mother had been quite frank with him, and waking up sentient and attached to a root had been indisputable confirmation of her story. When Billy, in his maturity, some years after his mother had died at the fine age of 112, had felt certain natural stirrings, he had known just what catalogue to turn to, to purchase the seed that would eventually, he hoped, become his bride.

  But there was one seemingly insurmountable problem. The mandrake subspecies had a certain development cycle that thwarted Billy’s plans. Planted in early April, the mandrake (or should that be womandrake?) plant would grow until late June or early July, whereupon it would open and give forth a child. Billy did
n’t want a child; he wanted an equal. He didn’t care to spend a dozen or so years raising someone who in the end he would probably come to regard more as a daughter than a bride.

  Studying the catalogue description, he read the sentence about forcing, and grew hopeful that here was a solution. Writing to Thompson and Morgan, he begged them for information regarding the methods involved. He received this reply:

  Dear Mr. Budd:

  We are happy to hear from one of our products and learn that your life has been so successful. We regret the passing of your mother, who was an esteemed customer, but take comfort in the length of her life.

  As for your question concerning the forcing of mandragora, we are unfortunately unable to aid you. The information we have on the process is so fragmentary and contradictory that we hesitate to impart it to you, lest we cause your mandrake to be born with a malformation of some sort. We are afraid that we must leave you to your own devices in this matter. Be sure to inform us of any successes so we may help others in your situation.

  Sincerely,

  Thompson and Morgan

  Enc: one (1) seed packet

  Billy’s despair grew upon his receiving this reply. The fat mandrake seed sat unplanted on a shelf in the greenhouse, and Billy took to walking in the woods for long stretches, seeking consolation amid the wild growths. One day, he came upon a patch of ground, not far from the Mowbray house, which was covered in the wildest profusion of tangled greenery Billy had ever seen. So luxuriant was the mass of plants that Billy was moved to take a sample of soil from the plot. This he sent to the state university for testing. While he awaited the results, he enquired among the older citizens of Blackwood Beach to see if they had any information regarding the strange soil. After much futile questioning, he finally found out that the small plot had once held the cauldron wherein the wizard Mowbray had boiled his potions. The cauldron, like Mowbray, had been fatally cracked, invariably leaking its contents out, permeating the soil with an unpredictable mix of potions, apparently still active at this late date.

  The results came back from the university soon after Billy learned this. They were simple and direct.

  Mr. Budd:

  The soil you sent us cannot exist. Please do not send us any more. We are still trying to find a cage big enough for the lab rat that accidentally ingested some.

  Billy made up his mind then and there. When April came, he laboriously cleared the ground and planted his seed.

  Now, walking down the path he had worn over that time, he fervently hoped that he had done the right thing.

  The path debouched into a small clearing. At the center was Billy’s pride and joy.

  Surrounded by a shoulder-high gated fence of wood and chicken wire, the womandrake plant stretched as high as Billy’s waist. It looked sleek and healthy, and Billy felt happy. Its dark outer leaves were wrapped protectively around its hidden core, at which Billy had not dared yet peek. (His own nurturing plant had taken three months to get this big.) That recent freak April snowstorm—called “poor man’s fertilizer” by some—seemed to have agreed with the womandrake.

  From the back pocket of his jeans, Billy took an ever-present paperback. Billy’s taste in literature derived from his mother’s prenatal tutoring. But whereas her favorite author had been Melville, Billy, as he matured, came to prefer Hawthorne. Currently, he was reading The House of the Seven Gables aloud to his charge, as he sought to educate her for the life she would face when she awoke.

  Settling himself down on a stump that served conveniently as a chair, Billy began to read, picking up where he had left off the night before. The plant seemed to quiver noticeably as Billy spoke.

  “Possessing very distinctive traits of their own, they nevertheless took the general characteristics of the little community in which they dwelt; a town noted for its frugal, discreet, well-ordered, and home-loving inhabitants, as well as for the somewhat confined scope of its sympathies; but in which, be it said, there are odder individuals, and, now and then, stranger occurrences, than one meets with almost anywhere else.”

  * * *

  The town hall of Blackwood Beach was a Gothic structure of rough-cut stones, with a square tower at one corner that gave a splendid view of the Atlantic to the east. Town coordinator Musselwhite had his office on the top floor of the tower, where, so it was said, he spent a good portion of each day gazing with faint nostalgia at the ever- changing sea.

  Now, however, Musselwhite sat at a table on a dais, at the front of a big room filled with wooden folding chairs. The chairs were occupied by a good portion of the population of the town, including Billy, who had shown up early and claimed a front-row seat. People stood at the back, in a whispering crowd, although there were a few seats still untaken. These empty chairs, however, formed a protective zone around the chilling figure of Welcome Goodnight, the towns capricious mage, who had surprised everyone by showing up.

  Billy regarded the town coordinator. The man appeared nervous, swallowing raw smelts at intervals from the bowl beside him and occasionally twining his moist webbed fingers together. (The Musselwhite family had interbred at some distant time with the fish-god who dwelt beneath Big Egg, the lonely, sea-girded rock out in the bay.) The source of Musselwhite’s nervousness sat beside him.

  Freddie Cordovan wore a new outfit generically similar to yesterday’s. His unlit cigar remained caught between the mangle of his teeth. He appeared confident, despite facing a strange and hostile audience.

  At last Musselwhite seemed to realize that the entrance of anyone else was impossible, and that he had better call the meeting to order. Standing up, he banged his gavel and said, “This emergency meeting of the township of Blackwood Beach is hereby convened. Our only order of business today is the proposal put to us by Mr. Cordovan, of the State Film Bureau. I now turn over the floor to Mr. Cordovan, who will explain the exact nature of the proposal.”

  Musselwhite sat and Cordovan stood. The heavy-set outsider regarded the assembled Blackwooders like a confident lawyer about to deliver what he knew was a potent summation to a credulous jury.

  “Friends,” Cordovan said. “Your state government wants to help you.”

  A burst of derisive laughter filled the room. Unfazed, Cordovan continued.

  “My agency has the job of scouting out possible locations for filming, and convincing studios to come to our state, rather than another. As you mighta guessed, your town has qualified as such a site. Now, the money these people inject into the economy is not to be believed! You people are going to be floating in dollars pretty soon.”

  “Who says we’re going to let these Hollywood types in?” someone shouted.

  Cordovan’s good-natured mask slipped a trifle, and his voice grew sullen. “Listen, you people are a part of this state, and owe the government this favor.”

  “The state never does anything for us!” another heckler yelled.

  Cordovan lifted up his meaty hands. “We can change that,” he soothed. “Whadda ya need? Ya need some roads paved?”

  People were silent, as they recalled the bone-jar ring, rutted stretch of Middenheap Mile, and envisioned it macadam-smooth.

  Cordovan saw that he had them leaning toward him. He played a trump card. “What about that whale that beached himself and died last week? You’d like him removed, wouldn’t you? Well, we can get the Coast Guard in here tomorrow, and haul him away.”

  Billy, who hadn’t been swayed by the promise of paved roads, found this offer as tantalizing as the rest of his fellows seemed to. Still, he felt put upon by this stranger. Why was he coming here and disrupting everything? And what connection did the Mowbray house have with all of this?

  Without intending to, Billy got to his feet. All attention focused on him, and he felt his mouth grow dry.

  “The state should be doing these things for us anyway,” Billy managed to say. “Why do we have to let ourselves be taken over like this?”

  Murmurs of agreement rose up, and Cordovan fixed a baleful
look on Billy.

  “Don’t get riled, folks. You’re not seeing it like it is. Maybe the state has slighted you some—but you’ve turned your backs on us, too. Now we need each other—just for a little while. It’s inevitable, and temporary. So let’s try to work out a mutually beneficial arrangement. Now you, son, seem to worry about being taken over. Suppose we appoint you as official liaison between the town and the film company? You’d be responsible for making sure that no one oversteps their proper place. Smooth everything out, like. All for a good salary. How’s that sound?”

  Billy was taken aback, and couldn’t say anything. The crowd made grateful noises, as the burden of watching out for their interests seemed to be falling on someone else. Pretty soon, shouts of “Yeah, let Billy handle it!” filled the hall.

  Cordovan smiled craftily, and Billy got mad. “Wait one darn minute,” Billy shouted. “We haven’t settled anything yet. We don’t even know what this film’s all about.”

  The room quieted, and Cordovan spoke.

  “This is the best part, folks. I’m not bringing you a two-bit PBS special. No, we’re talking the most famous director in the world, with a thirty-million-dollar extravaganza! We’re talking Luke Landisberg, people! And how’s this for stars?

  “Ol’ Patton himself, George C. Coates, as Judge Pyncheon.”

  Billy flinched at this revelation of one character’s name. Could it possibly be true—?

  “One of the prettiest babes in films, Natasha Kaprinski, as Phoebe Pyncheon. A real classy old gal, Dame Peggy Shabby cough, as Hepzibah Pyncheon. For comic relief, Murray Roydack, as Holgrave the daguerreotypist. And last but not least, Walter Matthew as Clifford Pyncheon.

  “Yes, I can see by your faces that you recognize the tale, like the literate types you are. But you can’t possibly envision the shoot-’em-up, special-effects, rollicking good-time version Landisberg has in mind. Folks, you’ve never known this Hellhouse of Seven Gables before! And you’ve got the perfect house for it—that old Mowbray place.”