“The majority of the coteries, however, have beliefs very similar to the group you belong to, Smith. This is the belief that the world is ruled by a hidden-hand group of men who may be known by such and such marks, that these men plot against the world, and that their plot against the world is about to succeed; they maintain that it's absolutely necessary that their warnings be hearkened to and acted upon. You're really a variant of the world-is-ending societies.”
“What if one of our groups is right, Doctor?”
“Why then, the plot against the world would succeed, since your warnings are most certainly not going to be acted upon.”
“Do you really believe I'm insane, Doctor Decker?”
“Yes, on one point you are, Smith. One point of insanity is about par for the never-quite-normal human race. I actually believe that it's a healthy sign for a man to be clearly insane on one clear point; it gives him balance and otherwise keeps him sane. The normally insane have a point of eccentricity that's minor, private, and of no threat. That's where you go past it, Smith. In an involved society the eccentricity must be a minor one. It must not annoy or harm your neighbors. And it plainly must not lead you to vicious slander of persons in high places. Yours has led you to that.”
“Then you don't believe it possible that the world is being plotted again?”
“Likely it is, Smith, and in thousands of plots. The world is a fine apple and we all want a bite. But I don't believe in an effective plot any more than I believe that the white oak tree is a man-eater.”
“What's the very latest thing here in group belief?” Fred Foley asked.
“Your own was of yesterday and the day before, Smith. There's a new one today. It's the belief in a new disease. This is a death-wave to come and be characterized first by nasal itching, then by a tiredness and certain irritability, later by drowsiness, and eventually by death.”
“That sounds like the normal life story to me, Doctor.”
“Yes, but this is all to take place within five hours, according to the addicts. And according to them it's caused by germs carried by gossamer, or by drifting fluff from cottonwood trees (but there aren't any of them here, and this isn't the season for them to cotton), or more probably by a drifting medium similar in appearance to these but which may come from outer space. The warners give very clear and detailed description of the disease, considering that it hasn't yet appeared.”
“Five hours isn't a lot of warning, but for what it's worth I may as well take it,” said Foley-Smith. “My own nose itches. That should mean that I'll be dead by dark.”
“You have a delusion of your own, Smith, yet you can joke about the delusions of others. Oh that damn drifting stuff, like spider silk, it's been settling on me all day! Wonder what it is? But there is real terror among the addicts, Smith, and it begins to spread. We've had to isolate those of the cult.”
“I wasn't joking about it, Doctor,” Fred Foley-Smith said. “I believe that a complex of sudden and fatal diseases is part of the ordeal in store for us. And it does itch, Doctor. And I'm a little tired and could become irritable.”
“I wouldn't worry about it, Smith. You aren't the sort to panic, though you may be the sort to cause panic. Nasal itching can be brought about by suggestion easier than almost any other phenomenon. But it's curious that the members of this group (we haven't been able to establish any previous relationship among them at all) should all come up with this odd notion at one time. And they've all come up with it violently, calling out loud in the streets for massive efforts to destroy the floating cosmic stuff.
“But it's just as curious about your own and similar groups. I've tried very diligently to discover how it all comes about. It's part of my business to discover how these things come about. Do you have any idea how they might happen? I'm asking you, Smith, because you might be able to give me a lead. You aren't the most intelligent of your group, but you're the most open, the most communicative.”
“I don't know about the other groups, Doctor. But with my own group I know exactly how it happened.”
“Then tell me, Smith. I've been studying it for years.”
“It's as though an elephant were standing in the middle of the street, Doctor. One man sees it and announces it. Then another man sees it (and there's been no previous relationship between the two men at all) and the second man likewise announces it. And a third man sees it (and he's a total stranger to the other two men) and he announces it in his own way. So the three are locked up in the strong house for believing that they see it. The reason that they all believe they see the elephant at the same time is that the elephant is there at the same time.”
“To follow your analogy, if there is one, Smith, why can't the keepers see the elephant too?”
“Because they, you, are too stubborn to look out the window, Doctor. Because they believe it's impossible for an elephant to be standing in the street.”
“Then the facts of your delusion are really that obvious to you, Smith?”
“The facts of the case are really that obvious to me, Doctor. I finally saw the whole conspiracy standing as plain as an elephant in the street: also the conspiracy was admitted to me in great detail by one of the princes of the conspiracy.”
“Bad, Smith, very bad.”
“If one of the inmates should come to you right now, Doctor, and tell you that it was raining outside, you'd say ‘Bad, very bad,’ and make damning marks on his record.”
“That's probably true. It's an automatic response with me. I do wish you'd get over this, though, Smith. You're a likable young man.”
“Why was the name Smith hung onto me, Doctor? And Julius? There hasn't been a Julius in our family since two generations before Adam. Why wasn't I committed under my own name?”
“You were. Your own name is Julius Smith. You were wandering and amnesiac when picked up, and you were proclaiming that men long dead had returned to plague the world. We solved your identity by routine methods, and we hope you'll soon remember your own past life. That would be an important step to your cure.”
“Are you in on this cover job, Doctor Decker?”
“No, I'm not in on any cover job, Smith. I'm not at all related to the political angle of this place, though there is one. I accept the data that's passed on to me and I work sincerely with the patients on the basis of it.”
“But my name isn't Smith.”
“Oh well, neither is mine. And stop rubbing your nose. If this keeps on it will become a national pastime. I believe it will really be a disappointment to you if you don't die tonight from this nonexistent new disease. Damn that drifting fluff anyhow! It's everywhere. You'd go through with it, I know, Smith, just to prove that one of the alarm groups was right.”
Doctor Decker had been rubbing his own nose, and Foley-Smith left him then.
The disease was not imaginary. It had appeared. So had half a dozen other new diseases. Though still unrecognized, this nonexistent disease had already gone into its second and third stages with many that day; and by nightfall about thirty persons in the capital city would have died quietly of it.
And then the first tremor of the hysteria would come.
It was a curious day. Things were shaping up, just as the clouds were shaping and tumbling overhead. It was a warm day for the season, but the sign of chill had appeared on the edge of those clouds. Familiar things looked unfamiliar. Unfamiliar things looked familiar. The ice cream man looked familiar.
The ice cream man, selling ice cream bars to the inmates through the iron fence, was Leo Joe Larker. But wasn't Leo Joe Larker still an inmate of the Bug? No he wasn't. He had escaped that very morning, they said, and he would be recaptured within an hour, they said. And nobody else should try the thing, to break out into the world from the safe place where they were understood.
Well, why didn't they recapture Leo Joe then, since he was right outside the Bug? Since they were looking for him everywhere? They didn't capture him because they didn't recognize him. He did not
look anything like what he had looked like inside the Bug. He was a different man entirely in appearance; he had been several such different men; only Freddy Foley could recognize him. And Leo Joe had turned into an ice cream man to pass a message to Fred Foley. Why had he not given him the message when he was inside, when they could talk freely? He had not because that would not have been grotesque enough for him. Freddy did not know what the words or details of the message would be, and yet he already knew their meaning. It was “Goof gloriously, Freddy. Goof gloriously again. It is required that one man should goof gloriously for the people.”
Leo Joe Larker was humming the old tune What Kind of Fool Am I? when Freddy Foley came up to him on the other side of the fence.
“You, Leo Joe, or I?” Foley asked him.
“You, Foley, you're the fool. Little Freddy Foley who can see in the dark and was trapped like a coney in broad daylight. Even a coney has a hole or a rockpile he can get to. He isn't taken in the open as easy as that.”
“Little Leo Joe, the man who changes faces and never gets a very good one. What are you doing with an ice cream pokey?” (But this Leo Joe wasn't a clown. He had told Foley. “If they can kill you, I can kill you worse. Whatever they tell you to do, don't do it. Whatever they tell you not to do, do it.” This was Leo Joe Larker who had perhaps raised a man from the dead when he was only a boy.)
“I'm not Leo Joe. I'm no one you ever saw before. The ice cream pokey gives me certain vantage points.”
“So does this Bug give me,” said Freddy.
“Just exactly what good can you do on that side of the fence, Foley?”
“I'm not sure.”
Leo Joe Larker sold a French lime bar to one of the inmates, and a strawberry revel bar to another one. Then a keeper was coming to the fence to chase him away.
“Here's a grape sherbet bar for you, Foley,” said Leo Joe. “Digest it well.”
“I'd rather have a French lime.”
“I'm telling you not to get cute. Take it. And digest it.”
Freddy Foley took the grape sherbet bar, thrust it quickly into his pocket, and disassociated himself from Larker. The guard came and chased the ice cream man away, to the whimpering of inmates who were coming with their allowances in their hands.
This was ridiculous, to be trapped with a melting sherbet bar in the pocket, to know that it contained a message, and to know that it was all grotesque. How low and laughable must a man be brought before he is born again? This was ignominy beyond even death and burial.
And immediately there was a summons for Foley. Grown now very suspicious, he was sure that his short rendezvous with Larker had somehow been discovered and reported, and he was embarrassed as to what to do with the melting grape sherbet bar in his pocket It wasn't a dignified place to carry it. It was cold there, but he didn't want it to get warm. And suspecting that there was more to it than grape sherbet, he didn't want to throw it away. Still less did he want to have it in his pocket if he was subject to any sort of interview.
It was Bedelia Bencher and her father, and Fred Foley was allowed to visit with them, though guards and attendants were present.
“Poor little sour pickle,” said Biddy. “Have they treated you all right?” That Biddy and the eyes of her! Landscapes, hellscapes, monsterscapes painted on her eyeballs, and she laughing all the while.
“With every care of my body, Biddy, and none at all of my soul,” Freddy said.
“Just what is this nonsense, Foley?” Mr. Bencher asked sharply. His name was Richard but nobody ever called him anything but mister. But he was looking at Foley on two levels and understanding quite a bit.
“Part of the nonsense, Mr. Bencher, is that I'm Smith and not Foley,” Freddy said.
“You persist in that, Freddy? We very nearly didn't find you under the name of Smith. But Biddy was certain you were here, and she wouldn't leave town without you. You do remember us, don't you?”
“Remember you? Certainly. I'm not crazy. It's the people here who are crazy.”
“And what was your name when you knew us back home?”
“My name has been Fred Foley all my life except for the first two hours when it hung in the balance between Fred and Ronald. I've never been sure I got the best of that deal.”
“Then why the Smith now? I'm trying to ask you clear questions,” said Mr. Bencher. But Bencher was reading Foley while he played this game with the guards. Perhaps he had even read the message in the sherbet bar.
“I'm trying to give some clear answers, Mr. Bencher,” Freddy said. “I don't know why the Smith now.”
“You mean that you don't know why you told the authorities your name was Smith?”
“No, Mr. Bencher, I mean that I don't know why the authorities told me my name was Smith. I guess they've tried to hide me here.”
“Freddy, it's in your record that you insisted your name was Julius Smith,” Mr. Bencher said evenly, “and that you don't know any Fred Foley nor remember ever being such a person.”
But really Mr. Bencher was talking all of this for the benefit of the long-eared attendants and guards. His eyes were saying other things.
“Papa, don't press him so hard,” said Biddy. “He's sick.” But what were the landscapes on her eyeballs saying? There was lots of evil laughter still there, and perhaps a little concern.
“Mr. Bencher, if that's in the record, then it's in the record wrong,” Freddy said. “There's some dirty work here. Get me out of this place, will you? You have influence.”
“Freddy, what's that leaking out of your pocket?” Biddy asked.
“A sherbet bar, Biddy. A grape sherbet bar.”
“But why, Freddy? Why do you carry it melting in your pocket?”
“Where else?”
“Do you often carry them there, honey?”
“Quite often. All the time, Biddy.”
Freddy felt that he had slipped with them, and he had no idea how to recoup. He was compelled not only to goof gloriously but to goof grovelingly. Something had hold of his mind and it would force him into this insanity role. But Freddy did not want an attendant to get that sherbet bar, though he hated to look like a total fool when the possibility of his really being a total fool was under discussion.
“Well, take it out and throw it away, Freddy,” Biddy was saying, “and then let me clean you up.”
“No, Biddy. I couldn't possibly throw it away. I'll just keep it there. I could never find a better place for it, and it keeps me cool.”
“Ah, Foley, I have been trying to get to the bottom of this,” said Bencher. “I heard a little from Biddy of the crazy jag of a story that you seemed to be on. I thought it was just something you told her to put her off and that you were working on something confidential that couldn't be discussed prematurely. Biddy thought so too. But now I find you actually have been trying to prove that five-hundred-year-dead men have come back alive and are meddling with our lives. Is that true?”
“Yes sir. It's quite true that they've come back. I have most convincing evidence, which somehow doesn't convince anybody. If I could persuade you of it, Mr. Bencher, then you might have more weight than I at getting the warning taken seriously.”
“Foley, I always liked you. I felt rather safe for Biddy when she became attached to you. I still feel safe for her with you in that way. But, Freddy, you're quite sick.
“I believe I'm the only one here who isn't.”
“I'll see that you get everything you need,” said Bencher.
“I need out,” Freddy Foley insisted.
“No, not that, Freddy,” Bencher said. “You're in no state to be out.”
“Please let me throw that melted bar away, Freddy,” Biddy begged. “It isn't nice to have it in your pocket”
“No, I'll keep the bar there, Biddy. I feel somehow that it contains the key to the whole world difficulty. Besides, I like it there.”
Biddy began to cry. Or did she? There was a lot of suppressed hilarity behind that crying, but with ey
es like hers who could tell?
“Oh, Freddy,” she said, “you never knew how much I liked you. We never did anything but kid. Oh, Freddy, I hope you get well.”
“Then you think I'm sick too?”
“Oh, Freddy!”
“You really should take that mess out of his pocket,” Bencher said to an attendant.
“It might upset him,” said the man. “They become attached to things and notions. It could set him back. Besides, they get fresh-laundered clothes tomorrow.”
“Goodbye, Foley,” said Bencher, “and if there's anything at all you want — ”
“I want out.”
“God willing, and soon, as quickly as you're well,” said Bencher.
“Be real good, honey,” said Biddy, “and you'll never know how much.”
“But you don't believe in me?”
“Oh, Freddy!”
The Benchers went away and left Fred Foley-Smith there with the attendants. He felt like a fool with the melted sherbet running down his leg and his pants, and his girl not believing in him, and gone. And the world about to be taken over and frustrated by the returnees.
And yet he had been brought strangely up to date by the pictures painted on Bedelia's eyeballs. They changed, you know, they changed. And they conveyed messages.
Loras (who was alien), Croll (who was patrick), and a man called Boneface by all, came up to Fred Foley when he was ready to inspect the lavender decay that was the sherbet bar.
“You're standing in the way, Foley-Smith,” Boneface said. “There's two shows going on and we can't watch either of them with you standing in the way.”
Oh! Michael Fountain was dictating lectures again this day. And James Bauer and Arouet Manion were still locked in death ordeal. The men wanted to watch these shows, but they were not yet adept enough to watch them apart from Foley. He had brushed the weave. They had only brushed him.
The highly refined Michael Fountain seemed a little shriveled today in his ultra-refinement. There was not as much to him as there had once been, or it had turned inward on him. His fine voice had become a little cracked and thin, his fine features a little masklike and amateurish. But had his fine words changed?
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