The General Zapped an Angel

by Howard Fast

  There has been a great deal of discussion, pro and con, concerning sex on the screen; and even though the puritanical elements have considerable power, the decision was always made to continue with sex discoveries. I felt that this was because the puritans enjoyed them even more than the others; and also I might add that sex films play an important role in the reproductive activities that serve to perpetuate our society. I certainly enjoy those rare evenings, and this time I felt sorry for Kiley.

  I must say that I was rather kind to him the following day. I went out of my way to compliment him on his inventories of the candy, and he in turn took me into his machine shop, which I praised highly. He was constructing a sort of lathe, which, as he explained, would enable him to reproduce elements of the vending machines.

  “And do you know, Mr. President, sir,” he said eagerly, “I think I could use the same machine to make a key.”

  “Kiley!” I said.

  “Yes, sir—I know how you feel about keys.”

  “Not how I feel, Kiley. It’s how the world feels.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kiley said very seriously. “I know that. I am ready to accept how the world feels. I mean I don’t want you to feel that I’m a radical or anything of that sort—”

  “I don’t, Kiley. Rest assured that if I did, I never would have appointed you to the Committee. You are very young to be a member of the Committee, Kiley.”

  “I know that, sir.”

  “But I had confidence in you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I had confidence in your stability, your judgment.”

  “Thank you, Dorey. I’m very flattered that you took such an interest in me.”

  “But above all, I want you to consider me as a friend.”

  “Oh, I do,” Kiley said earnestly.

  “Then as a friend, Kiley, I must ask you to give up this delusion about keys.”

  “Do you consider it harmful, sir—I mean to think about it or plan to make one?”

  “To make something that doesn’t exist?”

  “But people do. I mean they make something that doesn’t exist.”

  “Not keys, Kiley.”

  “Sir?”

  “Why must you argue with me, Kiley? Some of the wisest men in our society have gone into this question of keys. There are no keys. There never were. There never will be.”

  Kiley stared at me, his honest, boyish eyes wide open.

  “Yes, Kiley. I want you to promise me something.”

  “Sir?”

  “That you will never mention this matter of keys again. Forget it. Put it out of your mind. There is no such thing as a key. There never was. There never will be.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good lad.” I squeezed his shoulder affectionately—to show him that I bore no ill will toward him. “Now I want you to get to work on those vending machines. You have no idea how much the people miss hot chocolate. Especially the older folks. It appears to be one of few consolations of old age.”

  “I will.”

  “When might you have them?”

  “Two weeks—three at the very most.”

  “Good. Excellent. But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and I want you to take this evening off. The projectionist is showing a very rare and special piece called Little Caesar, which dates back to the time when organized hoodlums challenged city government. It is restricted to those who are in government today or have served in government in the past.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kiley answered enthusiastically.

  It was Kiley’s very quality of being outgoing and enthusiastic that threw me off the track. It was difficult to think of anyone with his spontaneous quality as being a creature of duplicity, but there is no other label for his subsequent actions; and five days later the whole thing exploded in my face.

  Schecter came to me with it. “Dorey,” he said grimly, “the devil’s at work.”

  “Oh?”

  “You know I am not prone to exaggeration.”

  “I know that.”

  “Well, I saw Kiley enter his shop today.”

  “What’s so unusual about that?”

  “I wanted a word with him.”

  “So?”

  “I followed him. I opened the door to his office and entered. He wasn’t there.”

  “Perhaps he left before you got there.”

  “I told you I saw him enter his shop. I watched the door to his shop—the door that opens into the lobby. I saw him go in. I never took my eyes off that door until I opened it. No one came out of his shop. No one.”

  “Then he was in there,” I said calmly.

  “Damnit, Dorey—am I an idiot? The room was empty.”

  “How could it have been empty? You said you never took your eyes off the door.”

  “Exactly. Still it was empty.”

  “All right,” I sighed. “Suppose we both look into this. There are no devils, no keys, no miracles—I made all that very clear to Kiley, so suppose we just look into this.”

  “Good,” Schecter agreed, his jaw set firmly. “Good.”

  He led the way into the lobby, and as we reached there, he signaled for a squad of ushers to follow us. When we reached the door to Kiley’s workshop, I said to Schecter:

  “Really, do we need them?”

  “Alertness is the first rule of military practice! They’re ushers, Dorey! This is their place, their duty! Man for man, I will match them against any dirty little subversive that ever lived!”

  “Oh, come on now, Schecter—we’re not going to call Kiley a subversive.”

  “If the name fits—”

  “There’s no indication that it fits or that Kiley did anything wrong. Let’s have a look.”

  I opened the door to the workshop. I had not been inside the place in days, but Kiley’s lathe was finished, and on his worktable were the bright new pieces for the vending machine. Kiley himself was not there.

  “Well?” Schecter demanded.

  I went out into the lobby and said to the ushers: “Did Kiley come through the lobby during the past hour?”

  They shook their heads.

  I went back into the workshop and closed the door behind me. Standing there now, alone with Schecter, I allowed my eyes to wander over the place again and again. It was a small room and there was no place to hide, no nook, no corner, no cranny.

  “Well, sir, are you satisfied?” Schecter demanded.

  “I’ll let you know when I’m satisfied, Schecter.”

  He allowed himself a slight smile of satisfaction, and I went to the other door and tried it.

  “That’s a locked door, Dorey,” Schecter informed me.

  “I know bloody damn well that it’s a locked door.”

  “Well, I just thought—”

  “I don’t give two damns what you thought, Schecter. Let’s get out of here.”

  Schecter paraded out of the room into the lobby where the ushers were waiting, and I followed him, closing the door behind me. At that moment I heard a sound inside the shop, and I said to Schecter, “You wait out here. I’m going back in there.”

  I turned and opened the door of Kiley’s shop again, slipped through, and closed it behind me before Schecter could squirm around and see what I was up to. Kiley was inside the shop now, grinning with delight and excitement, holding a small piece of shining metal in his hand.

  “Kiley,” I cried, “where the hell were you?”

  “Outside.”

  “What do you mean, outside?”

  “Through that door.” He pointed to the locked door.

  “What? Are you crazy? That’s a locked door. No one goes through a locked door!”

  “I did.”

  I held up my hand and pointed a shaking finger at him. “Kiley, have you gone off your nut? Have you lost your mind? You’re talking crazy. You’re talking so goddamn crazy even I won’t be able to protect you. You talk about going through a locked door. A locked door is locked. No one goes through it.�
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  “I unlocked it,” Kiley said, almost squealing with delight.

  “You unlocked it,” I said with cold, deliberate scorn. “Only the greatest minds of our time have given their attention to locked doors and have proved that they can never be unlocked—but you unlocked it, all by yourself.”

  “And with a key!” Kiley cried. “You said I couldn’t make a key, but I did. Here it is.” He held up the little piece of metal, coming toward me and offering it to me.

  “Keep your distance! Keep that damn thing away from me! I told you there is no such thing as a key!”

  “But here it is—here it is, Dorey. Believe me, I unlocked the door and I went outside—” He turned and pointed toward the locked door. “Out there, through the locked door. My God almighty, Kiley, out there the sun is shining in such a blaze of golden glory that the mind can’t conceive it, and there’s green grass and green trees and tall buildings, and people—thousands and thousands of people, real people who wear bright-colored clothes and the sun splashes down over them, and the girls have long, bare legs and brown and yellow and black hair, and they’re real, Dorey, real! Not like those shadows that the projectionist shows us on the big screen. Do you think his discoveries are real or even discoveries? They’re not. They’re shadows, lies, illusions—but outside that door the world is real—”

  “Enough!” I screamed at him. “God damn you, enough!”

  I flung open the door to the lobby and yelled, “Schecter! Schecter—get here on the double with your damn ushers!”

  Schecter and the ushers poured into the little room, grabbing Kiley and overwhelming him. Kiley didn’t struggle; he just stared at me in astonishment and with such hurt surprise that I said:

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Schecter, let go of him.”

  “What?”

  “I said leave him alone and get your damned ushers out of here—now.”

  “Didn’t you just call me?”

  “You give me a pain in the ass, Schecter. Get out of here and take your ushers with you.”

  Aggrieved, scowling, looking hate at Kiley and me, Schecter led the ushers out of the room; and then I turned tiredly to Kiley and said:

  “You certainly do louse things up, don’t you? Here I go out on a limb to make you the youngest committeeman ever, and what do I get in return? A raving lunatic, that’s what I get in return.”

  “Dorey, I’m not a raving lunatic.”

  “Then what in hell are you?”

  “I went outside. I saw—”

  “Shut up.”

  Kiley clenched his lips, and I said to him, “Kiley, let me make this clear. No one opens a locked door. There are no keys, and you did not go outside.”

  “Then what is this?” he demanded, holding up the bit of metal he had in his hand.

  “A bit of metal. Nothing. There are no keys. There is no outside.”

  “Oh, Dorey, I went outside.”

  “You know what?” I said to him. “I’ll tell you what, Kiley. You did not go out. You went nowhere. Now if you can get that through your head—if you can only admit that this whole thing of yours is a lie and an invention, well, then, maybe we can work something out. Maybe. Maybe not. But maybe.”

  “My God, Dorey, do you know what you’re asking me to do?”

  “To stop lying.”

  “You were in this room before?” Kiley demanded.

  “Yes.”

  “Schecter too.”

  “Damnit, yes! So what?”

  “Was I here? That’s what I’m getting at, Dorey. Was I here?”

  “No!” I almost shouted.

  “Then where was I?”

  “How the hell do I know where you were?”

  “All right,” Kiley said. “All right, Dorey. Then give me a chance. That’s all I’m asking for. Let me open that locked door. I worked it out, and I made this key. I got it right here in my hand.” He held it up for me to see. “Let me use it, Dorey. Let me open the door. Let me take you out there.”

  “No!”

  “Why?”

  “Because there is no such thing as a key and because you can’t open a locked door.”

  “Then I will—” And he whirled and started toward the locked door.

  “Kiley!” My voice hit him like a whiplash. I meant it to. He hesitated, and I snapped at him. “Kiley—take one more step and I call Schecter and his ushers.”

  He turned to me, pleading, “Why? Why?”

  “Because there is no outside, Kiley. Because you’re a twisted, pathological personality. Now, for the last time, Kiley—will you admit that you are fantasying?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’ll have to come with me to the projectionist, Kiley. Will you come willingly, or must I call Schecter?”

  “Oh, God, Dorey, won’t you let me open that damn door—just a crack—just so you could see the blaze of sunshine?”

  “No.”

  “Please—must I get down on my knees, Dorey?”

  “No. Now is it the ushers, or do you come peacefully?”

  “I’ll go with you, Dorey,” Kiley said, defeated now, his shoulders hanging, the light gone from his eyes.

  Somehow, word had gotten around, and there were people in the lobby who watched silently as we came through. Kiley was well liked, and only Schecter and his ushers regarded him with hate. I took Kiley into the theater and through it to the stairs. It was children’s time, and today that meant a series of twelve Bugs Bunny cartoons. The children were clapping and cheering, and as we passed by the back row, Kiley said:

  “Why can’t you think of how it would be for them outside, Dorey?”

  “Still on that. What will you say to the projectionist?”

  “The truth.”

  “Yes. He’ll appreciate that.”

  We were outside the projectionist’s booth now, far up above the second balcony. No one ever entered the booth. Instead, you pressed a button and then spoke into a speaking tube.

  “I’m terribly busy now, Dorey—putting together a whole new part of the world, you know, the Fitzgerald travelogues. Thus we have not only discoveries but explorations. So if it could wait?”

  “I am afraid not, Projectionist.”

  “Urgent?”

  “Yes, Projectionist.”

  “If you might hint at the nature of the emergency, Dorey?”

  “It’s young Kiley.”

  “Your committeeman?”

  “Yes, Projectionist. He claims to have opened a locked door.”

  “Of course you have told him that locked doors can never be opened—that this is the way God made the world?”

  “I told him.”

  “Dear me. Well, go to my office. You have him with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he docile?”

  “He won’t give us any trouble, Projectionist.”

  “Good. Go to my office and wait there for me, Dorey.”

  “Yes, Projectionist.”

  I took Kiley to his office then. The projectionist’s office was on the same level as the projection booth, but at the far end of the theater. We went in and sat in the leather armchairs, and while we were waiting there an usher came up with popcorn and frozen ice-cream balls and hot coffee. He would have brought the projectionist his supper now, and the projectionist had sent down for additional food for Kiley and myself. That was so like the projectionist, gentle and considerate of all the needs of others.

  “Are you afraid?” I asked Kiley. After all, he was only a kid, and it was to be expected that he would be afraid.

  “No. Well, maybe a little.”

  “You mustn’t be. It’s in the hands of the projectionist now.”

  “What will he do to me, Dorey?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever he does, it will be the right thing. You can count on the projectionist for that. He’s very wise. When he makes a decision, it’s a just decision, believe me.”

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  “No guessing, Kile
y. Rest assured. If you will only get these damn fantasies out of your head.”

  Then the projectionist entered, and we both rose to our feet in respect. He nodded pleasantly and told us to be seated. He walked around to the back of his big desk and sat down in a big swivel chair, the kind that judges use on the bench.

  “So this is young Kiley,” he said amiably. “Fine-looking lad. I knew your father, Kiley. Good man—yes, indeed. And your grandfather. Good people, good family.” And then to me, “What seems to be the trouble, Dorey?”

  “I would prefer that Kiley told you himself.”

  “Do that, Kiley,” the projectionist said.

  “Yes, Projectionist.” Kiley’s voice trembled slightly, but that was not unusual when people first met the projectionist. “You see, Dorey let me set up a small machine shop in that unused room off the lobby. I made a lathe to cut out some new parts for the vending machines. There was a locked door in the room, and I thought I might make a key on the lathe and open the locked door—”

  “I’m sure you didn’t consider that,” the projectionist interrupted. “You know that locked doors can never be opened. That’s the nature of the world, the way God made it.”

  “I thought that if I made a key, Projectionist—”

  “A key? Poor Kiley. There are no keys, no dragons, no unicorns, no magicians. God has ordered His world in the best of possible ways. Myths are for children.”

  “But I made the key and opened the door and went out into the world, Projectionist.”

  “Don’t excite yourself, Kiley.”

  “But you must listen to me and believe me.”

  “Ah, yes. We do believe you, Kiley. Of course we do.”

  “Then you do! You do believe me.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And you know that everything in here is of shadows—without any meaning or substance, and all that is real and beautiful is outside?”

  “Yes, Kiley.”

  “And what will we do?” Kiley asked with great excitement. “Will we go out of here? Have we been waiting only for a time, a moment—as if for God to reach down and touch us and open our eyes? Then there would be some meaning in our own life, wouldn’t there? In my life? Oh, I never dreamed to be such an instrument. Thank you, Projectionist, thank you, thank you.”