“How do you people know all our names?” Laughter-Lynn asked again.
“Oh, you people have been in the funny papers of the Port Saint Mary Banner for the last three days,” Mary MacWattin said. “You have been some of the best funny-paper characters ever to appear in the Banner. We like Solomon the Talking Belly-Button the best.”
“We want to know what we can do about the sorry situation of the world,” said the political opposition in Port Saint Mary, the lowering Gregory O’Growley. “The world is dying of anemia, you know, for lack of input. The world-input has been very low since the midnight before the one just past, and it is slated to go even lower today. The world will die in either a day or a week or a month if its input can’t be restored.”
“Is that your assessment of the situation, O’Growley?” Mary Brandy asked.
“Oh, he’s right, Mary Brandy,” Mayor Haggerty of Port Erin chimed in. “All the scientists are saying so. The world is doomed unless it can find new input to revivify its bloodstream.”
“Well, why did you wash in the ocean, Leonardo?” Solomon Izzersted the talking belly-button demanded hotly.
“Because I was dirty,” Prince Leonardo the Golden Panther gave the answer. His voice, if it had come from anybody except the Prince, would have to be described as furtive.
“Is your conscience bothering you, Leonardo?” Solomon Izzersted asked.
“Yes, hyper-active and over-voiced belly-button, it is,” Prince Leonardo snarled. “That’s what a conscience is for.”
There were three huge kettles of Old Cow Stew bubbling on the shore. It would be a gala breakfast. You don’t have Old Cow Stew every day.
A jolly-boat with only one man in it pulled into shore, but whether it came from Ireland or Scotland or England nobody knew. The lone man from the jolly-boat came to Mary Brandy Manx.
“We have heard that the Atrox Giant is dead, of course,” he said. “And we have word just this morning that the Hsiang Giant died in his sleep during the night. Now the Illacrove Giant, whom I serve, says that he is weary and wishes to die also as soon as he can get a replacement. He said to ask whether you would be his replacement.”
“Oh, I don’t know anything at all about the gianting business,” Mary Brandy said. “I wouldn’t know how to replace a scribbling giant.”
“The Illacrove Giant said that you would say that. He said to tell you that you were the only possible person. He said to tell you to think about it. Oh, here is the Dublin Morning Docket. It has several pieces in it by leading Irish Scientists about the dire situation of the world. The world is dying, you know, from diminished input.”
“Thank you,” Mary Brandy said. “The regular boat that usually brings the Dublin Morning Docket won’t be here for three hours yet.”
“My jolly boat is very fast,” the lone man said. “And you really are the only possible person for the job.” He got into his jolly-boat and sped across the bumpy ocean without touching oar to water at all.
Two mules pulled a skid with the Port Erin giant kettle of Old Cow Stew up beside the Port Saint Mary kettle of Old Cow Stew. Then two other mules pulled a skid with the Castletown kettle of Old Cow Stew up on the other side of the Port Saint Mary kettle. And then the two sets of mules nickered and gnashed their teeth at each other, but they were kept a short distance apart. There was eternal enmity between the two black mules of Port Erin and the two white mules of Castletown. Port Saint Mary itself hadn’t any mules.
The people of the three towns began to fill their bowls from the three stew kettles. They liked to eat together, all three towns of them, now and then.
“There are three articles by three leading Irish scientists in the Dublin Docket this morning,” Mary Brandy Manx called out to everybody. “All of them are about the present situation of the world sickening because of the declining input, or else just sickening for the sheer perversity of it. I will read the article by renowned scientist Hennessee out loud. Then Mayor Haggerty of Port Erin will read the article by renowned scientist Delany out loud. Then Mayor McEnglish of Castletown will read the article by renowned scientist Monroney out loud. Listen everybody!”
This is the article by Mr. Hennessee from the Dublin Docket that Mary Brandy Manx read out loud:
“‘The World is being strangled to death by lack of input. It’s as simple as that. It’s an unscientific assessment, and the only reason for giving it is that it’s a true assessment. One danger in these direful days is that the people will turn to unscientific remedies. There is talk now that every town and city should strangle a scape-goat (whether it is a goat or a cat or a dog) so that the strangulation will go out of the world and into the scape-goat. I suggest that the towns and cities of the world should not do this today nor tomorrow either. But if the world is still worse strangled by the day after tomorrow, then it is a remedy to be considered, unsuccessful though it will likely be.
“‘It is the business of science to answer the question What?, but it is not the business of science to answer the questions How? and Why? The detailed what of the world’s condition is this:
“‘There has been a clear decrease in local gravity (gravity was once thought to be a universal), and in the magnetic field of the world, and in the coriolis force of the world. There has been a clear decline in the rate of influx of radiocarbon to the earth system, influx of meteoric dust from space, influx of juvenile water to the oceans, influx of magma from mantle to form crust, efflux of Helium-4 into the atmosphere, erosion of sediment from the continents, leaching of sodium, chlorine and calcium from the continents, influx of carbonate, sulfate and uranium to the ocean, efflux of oil from traps by fluid pressure, formation of radiogenic lead by neutron capture, formation of radiogenic strontium by neutron capture, decay of natural remnant paleomagnetism, decay of C-14 in pre-Cambrian wood, decay of uranium with initial ‘radiogenic’ lead, decay of potassium with entrapped argon, and this is all within a twenty-four hour period as caught by routine instrument scan. There’s been a decrease in the bonding of the earth’s pelt. I could go on and on.
“‘There has been a clear decline in the rate of decay of natural plutonium, decay of short-period comets, influx of small particles to the sun, accumulation of dust on the moon, deceleration of earth by tidal friction, accumulation of calcareous ooze on the sea floor, influx of sodium, nickel, magnesium, silicon, potassium, copper, gold, silver, mercury, lead, tin, aluminum, lithium, titanium, chromium, and twelve other metals into the ocean by rivers. And this is only a very few ways in which the inanimate materials and forces of the world are being slowed down, strangled down, by the dearth of creative input into the world.
“‘As to the way the functions of animate things of the world are being slowed down, that is even more direful. We can only hope that the dawning day, Friday, will be less direful than was the day just passed, Thursday. Anyone with an intelligence above that of followers of alchemy, astrology, or evolution knows that something must be done, immediately, Friday. But what?’”
This is an article by Mr. Delaney in the Dublin Docket that the Mayor of Port Erin read out loud to the citizens of the three towns as they breakfasted on Old Cow Stew.
“‘The world is being strangled to death by the lack of input. It’s as simple as that. The silliest (but at the same time the only) explanation for the world being in such straits is that the input, till the last day or two, was funneled by a group of mythological creatures (Seven Scribbling Giants), and that now it is failing. The silliest (but at the same time the only) seriously proposed remedy so far, is that we should provide surrogate mythological figures (neo-scribbling giants, perhaps) to begin generating input again.
“‘It has been stated (falsely) that it is the business of science to get answers to the static question What?, but this is not correct. It is the business of science to answer the kinetic question: What seems to be going on anyhow? This requires science carefully to analyze the several subjective wrappers that enclose every what in the world. If the
subjective wrapper is a mythological one, why should we take exception to it? If a giant named Atrox Fabulinus and six fellow giants are felt to have been writing the world heretofore, then let us at least examine the Atrox legend.
“‘Atrox Fabulinus was a fifth century Irish Giant who sailed with pirates in his youth. He was captured by Roman-Goths in a salt-water scuffle off the coast of Spain, and he was handed on from slave market to slave market. Then a Pannonian Gothic Kinglet (Flavius Placidius Valentinianus) sent out his seneschal to buy two specified slaves for him, the sweetest-tempered giant who could be found, and the most imaginative scribe who could be found. The seneschal was surprised to find, at the very first slave-market, not only a giant who could write, but also one who was both sweet-tempered and outstandingly imaginative. The Gothic Kinglet was delighted, and he told Atrox to sit down and write the history of the world. ‘It has already been done several times,’ Atrox said. ‘I didn’t know that,’ the Kinglet answered, ‘the history of the world from its beginning until doomsday has already been written?’ ‘Not so,’ Atrox admitted, ‘only from the beginning of the world until now.’ ‘Then sit down and write the history of the world from now until doomsday,’ the Kinglet said, ‘and how long will it take you?’ ‘Till doomsday,’ Atrox answered. So then the world began to receive futuristic input. And now it cannot get along without it.
“‘Why am I, the renowned Daniel Delany, top scientist and scholar, jabbering such nonsense as this in print? For this reason: When we wade into the treacherous waters of reality, science serves us remarkably well at first. When we wade out where the waters of survival are ankle-deep, science is our staunch friend. When we wade out where the waters of survival are more than arse-deep, forget your science! Latch onto something more aerated, something with more flotation to it. And we are suddenly, without knowing how it happened, chin-deep in the waters of survival, and the cross-currents are quite tricky. We must find New Giants, or we must drown.’”
“In all truth, that Daniel Delany was never really a top scientist,” Leo Parisi said.
This is the article by Mr. Monroney in the Dublin Docket that Mayor McEnglish of Castletown read out loud to the citizens of the three towns as they breakfasted on Old Cow Stew.
“‘There comes a time now, in what is perhaps the last week of our world, when the most courageous thing we can do is Do Nothing. When the whole world has turned irrational, when it puts its hands to its throat and turns blue in the face and croaks that it is suffocating, it is hard to find the courage to Do Nothing. But when the world has found itself in a situation that is so irrational that no rational act is possible, then we must refrain from any act at all lest we contribute to a further irrationality. The world will barely live until the end of this week unless something is done, such is the general scientific opinion here. Ah, but if something is done, it may not even endure that long. In this horrifying emergency, I can only advise, as a scientist and man-of-letters: Be brave, be hopeful, and Do Nothing.’”
“The entire attitude of the Dublin Docket is rather discouraging,” Leo Parisi said. “Could we not get other opinions elsewhere?”
“After all, the Dublin Docket is only one paper, and an Irish one at that,” Solomon Izzersted said. “I wonder what the Broken Arrow Daily Ledger has to say this day?”
“The Broken Arrow Daily Ledger Overseas Edition will not arrive here till several hours after noon, Solomon,” Mary Brandy said.
John Barkley Towntower, the other ego of Solomon Izzersted, said a strange thing that day. “I know that this is my death-day,” he said, “and I’m concerned about you, Solomon. Do you suppose that there is any way that you can survive without me?”
“Yes, I can survive without you, John,” the strange belly-button Solomon said. “It’s true that without you I’ll be only half of the greatest advocacy mathematician in the world, but in other ways I will be a total and free-moving man. Ah, John Barkley, it being the case that this really is your death-day, I’ll want you to sign a few papers before you die. Is there a lawyer here?”
“Myself,” said Gregory O’Growley who was the Political Opposition to Mary Brandy Manx in Port Saint Mary. “Come to my office, gentleman or gentlemen as the case may be, and we will draw up and sign and register any document that your fancy turns to.” So John Barkely Towntower signed everything over to his appendage Solomon Izzersted.
“Atrox, in his outline, didn’t come with you, did he, Jane Chantal?” Mary Brandy asked her. “What happened to his outline?”
“I left it with Audrey. She’s going to bury it in the Giant’s Grave at Evenrood Manor, back in East Sussex. It wasn’t really viable, you know.”
“Janie, how old are you now, and what is your full name, now that you are using such words as viable?” Mary Brandy asked her.
“I am Jane Chantal Ardri and I am sixteen years old, going on seventeen. And I am almost well.”
Men came to Mary Brandy Manx’s Mayor’s Residence in Port Saint Mary late that afternoon with alarming news. “There is a horrible double murder going on right now,” they said. “The hell-cat Leonardo the Great has murdered the man John Barkley Towntower, and now he is murdering the belly-button Solomon Izzersted also. You can see it all right out of your window there. Mary Brandy Manx, Madam the Mayor.”
“God and Mary help us! Is no one there? Can nothing be done?” Mary Brandy cried out in alarm.
“As you see if you look out the window, Mary Brandy, almost everybody in the town is there, and they are doing almost everything about it. They have the new rope from the gallows around the neck of the hell-cat Leonardo and they are strangling him to make him drop Solomon out of his mouth. Now, as you see, they have the rope over the sheave of the gallows-head and are hanging the hell-cat by the neck with the new rope. And still he will not let Solomon out of his mouth.”
But Prince Leonardo did drop Solomon Izzersted out of his mouth when the members of the party of Twelve were still a hundred yards from the gallows. And when they got to the gallows, Leonardo the Panther was rigid in death, hanging by the neck.
But Solomon Izzersted was not dead. He was hopping, lively and in good voice. When separated from John Barkley Towntower, Solomon Izzersted, on his own at last, was about the size of a baseball, and two-thirds of that was head. He had arms and legs, both quite short. He had everything he needed.
“At last, at last I’m free!” he chortled. “I loved John Barkley, of course, though he was pretty tedious. But in any case he couldn’t have lived after Leonardo had bitten the whole stomach out of him. Now I am all brains and bounce! Like a flea, I can jump more than twenty times my own height. I can jump as high as the head of any of you and I can holler louder than the loudest of you!”
Oh pavor, grainc, horror! Leonard the Cat had bitten the whole and entire stomach out of John Barkley Towntower to get Solomon, that noisy growth on John Barkley’s belly. John Barkley Towntower had always been a rather quiet and unaggressive man, centered around his own mathematical genius, and in all other things dominated by the brash Solomon-thing that grew out of him. John Barkley himself had never done a mean thing in his life. And now he was dead.
“How could Leonardo have done such a thing?” Perpetua Parisi asked in white anger. “He was my cousin. Have I hell-cats for cousins? What was he anyhow?”
“Look, look!” Caesar Oceano cried. “He was my partner in so many things, but I never realized what a Strange Cargo he was. Look, look! He changes quite quickly, even in death, when he changes.”
For the person hanging from the gallows-gibbet was no longer the Golden Panther. It was a man, a strange man, a young, handsome, fair, smiling (even in death), incredibly urbane man, bright of feature, open of soul to all appearances, and covered with blood.
“He killed Atrox, he killed Roderick Outreach (but that was no great loss), and I believe that he killed Jane Chantal, but not forever. It was out of his power to kill Jane forever.” Leo Parisi was saying. “But I believe that he did kill her.
Atrox was puzzled and frustrated over that episode. He was angry with her, but he truly didn’t remember killing her. And the smiling strange man would do his disappearances by reverting instantly to his Leonardo the Panther form in the confusion. Leonardo had blood on him at the Evenrood Manor in East Sussex and we thought that Myrtle the housemaid had sloshed Sussex Blood Pudding on him. Leonardo had blood on him this morning, and he went in the darkness and washed himself in the ocean.”
“Every Group of Twelve has its Judas,” Denis Lollardy said, “except that Leonardo stood a little bit outside of our strict count of twelve. And he had the Mark of Cain on him.”
“The black bar on his forehead, you mean?” Hieronymous Talking-Crow asked.
“No, no, the very opposite of that. I mean the golden mark everywhere except that one place on his brow. He was a black panther on his brow. He was a black panther with the golden Mark of Cain all over him. How many bad men have been spared because they bore the beautiful golden Mark of Cain! Then the Lord gave Cain a mark so that no one finding him should kill him. If the mark had been a black blotch instead of a golden mantle, the people would have killed all of them seven times over.”
“Should we cut him down?” Hilary Ardri asked.
“No, never!” swore McEnglish the Mayor of Castletown. “The murders were performed within the precincts of Castletown, on that deserted strip of shore as it was. And the pennant of Castletown flies on the gallows in symbol of Castletown justice.”
“No, never!” swore Haggerty the Mayor of Port Erin, “not till the end of the world or the end of the week, whichever one comes first. He will be a good show in these latter days. Be patient and watch.”
“Oh, he changes back into his panther form, slowly, slowly,” Denis Lollardy realized it.
“Yes, and then he will change slowly, slowly into the young, handsome, fair, smiling-even-in-death, incredibly urbane, bright of feature, open of soul, covered with blood man. Sometimes he will change slowly from one form to another, and sometimes he will change instantly. Night and day he will hang there and change, until the end of the week or the world.”
East of Laughter Page 14