The Shottle Bop!
I was on Sixth Avenue at the time, trying to find some-thing in a five-and-dime that Ginny might like. She couldn't touch anything I brought her but she enjoyed things she could look at picture books and such.
By getting her a little book of photographs of trains since the "De Witt Clinton," and asking her which of them was like ones she had seen, I found out approximately how long it was she'd been there. Nearly eighteen years. Anyway, I got my bright idea and headed for Tenth Avenue and the Shottle Bop. I'd ask that old man he'd tell me.
At the corner of Ninth Avenue I bumped into Happy Sam Healy and Fred Bellew. Fred was good people, but I never had much use for Happy Sam. He went for shaggy hats and lapelled vests, and he had patent-leather hair and too much collar-ad good looks. I was in a hurry and didn't want to talk to anyone, but Sam grabbed me by the arm.
"Slow down, mug, slow down! Long time no see. Where you bound in such a hurry?"
"Going over to Tenth to see a man about you."
Sam quit grinning and Fred walked over.
"Why can't you guys quit knocking each other?" he asked quietly. If it weren't for Fred, Sam and I would have crossed bows even more than we did, which was still altogether too much.
"I'll always speak civilly to a human being," I said.
"Sam's different."
Sam said, "Don't set yourself up, chum. I'm cutting some ice with a certain party that froze you out."
"If you say exactly what you mean, I'll probably rap you for it,"
I flared. Fred pushed hastily between us.
"I'll see you later, Sam," he said. He pushed me with some difficulty away from the scene. Sam stood staring after us for a minute and then put his hands in his pockets, shrugged, grinned, and went jauntily his own way.
"Aw, why do you always stand in front of that heel when I want to scrape him off the sidewalk?" I complained.
"Calm down, you big lug," Fred grinned. "That bantam wants trouble with you because of Audrey. If you mess him up, he'll go running to her about it, and you'll be really out."
"I am already, so what?" He glanced at me. "That's up to you." Then, seeing my face, he said quickly, "O.K., don't tell me. It's none of my business. I know. How've you been?"
I was quiet for a while, walking along. Fred was a darn good egg. You could tell a guy like that practically anything. Finally, I said, "I'm looking for a job, Fred."
He nodded. "Thought you would. Doing what?" Anybody else, knowing me, would have hooted and howled. "Well, I…" Oh, what the hell, I thought, I'll tell him. If he thinks I'm nuts, he won't say so to anyone but me. Old Fred didn't look like much, with his sandy hair and his rimless specs and those stooped shoulders that too much book reading gave him, but he had sense.
"I was walking down Tenth," I began.
By the time I had come to the part about the ghost of the kid in my room, we had reached Tenth Avenue in the late Twenties, and turned south. I wasn't paying much attention to where we were, to tell you the truth, and that's why what happened did happen. Before I had a chance to wind up with the question that was bothering me “I have it . . . what will I do with it?"
Fred broke in with "Hey! Where is this place of yours?"
"Why between Nineteenth and Twentieth," I said.
"Holy smoke we're at Eighteenth! We walked right past it!" Fred grinned and swung around. We went back up the avenue with our eyes peeled, and not a sign of the Shottle Bop did we see. For the first time a doubtful look crept onto Fred's bland face. He said: "You wouldn't kid me, would you, lug?"
"I tell you " I began. Then I saw a penny lying on the sidewalk.
I bent to pick it up, and heard him say, "Hey! There it is! Come on."
"Ah! I knew it was on this block!" I said, and turned toward Fred.
Or where Fred had been.
Facing me was a blank wall. The whole side of the block was void of people. There was no sign of a shop or of Fred Bellew. I stood there for a full two minutes not even daring to think. Then I walked downtown toward Twentieth, and then uptown to Twenty-first. Then I did it again. No shop. No Bellew. I stood frothing on the uptown corner. What had that guy done; hopped a passing truck or sunk into the ground or vanished into the shop? Yeah; and no shop there! A wise guy after all. I trod the beat once more with the same results. Then I headed for home. I hadn't gone twenty feet when I heard the pound of someone running, and Fred came panting up and caught my shoulder. We both yelped at once "Hey! Where've you been?"
I said, "What was the idea of ducking out like that? Man, you must've covered a hundred yards in about six seconds to get away from me while I picked up a penny off the side-walk!"
"Duck out nothing!" said Bellow, angrier than I'd ever seen him. "I saw the store and went in. I thought you were right behind me. I look around and you're outside, staring at the shop like it was something you didn't believe. Then you walk off. Meanwhile the little guy in the store tries to sell me some of his goods. I stall him off, still looking for you. You walk past two or three times, looking in the window. I call you; you don't bat an eyelash. I tell the little guy: 'Hold on, I'll be back in a second with my friend there.' He rears back on his heels and laughs like a maniac and waves me out. Come on, dope. Let's go back. That old man really has something there. I'd say I was in the market for some of that stuff of his!"
"O.K., O.K.," I said. "But Fred, I'll swear I didn't see the place. Come on then; lead me to it. I must be going really screwball."
"Seems like," said Fred. So we went back, and there was no shop at all. Not a sign of one. And then and there we had one pip of an argument.
He said I'd lied about it in the first place, and I said, well, why did he give me that song-and-dance about his seeing it, and he said it was some kind of a joke I'd pulled on him; and then we both said, "Oh yeah?" a couple of times and began to throw punches. I broke his glasses for him. He had them in his pocket and fell down on them. I wound up minus a very good friend and without my question answered what was I going to do with this "talent?" I was talking to Ginny one afternoon about this and that when a human leg, from the knee down, complete and puffy, drifted between us. I recoiled in horror, but Ginny pushed it gently with one hand. It bent under the touch, and started toward the window, which was open a little at the bottom. The leg floated toward the crack and was sucked through like a cloud of cigarette smoke, reforming again on the other side. It bumbled against the pane for a moment and then ballooned away.
"My gosh!" I breathed.
"What was that?" Ginny laughed.
"Oh, just one of the Things that's all 'e time flying around. Did it scare you? I used to be scared, but I saw so many of them that I don't care anymore, so's they don't light on me."
"But what in the name of all that's disgusting are they?"
"Parts." Ginny was all childish savoir-faire. "Parts of what?"
"People, silly. It's some kind of a game, I think. You see, if someone gets hurt and loses something a finger or an ear or something, why, the ear the inside part of it, I mean, like me being the inside of the 'me' they carried out of here it goes back to where the person who owned it lived last. Then it goes back to the place before that, and so on. It doesn't go very fast. Then when something happens to a whole person, the `inside' part comes looking for the rest of itself. It picks up bit after bit Look!" She put out a filmy forefinger and thumb and nipped a flake of gossamer out of the air. I leaned over and looked closely; it was a small section of semitransparent human skin, ridged and whorled.
"Somebody must have cut his finger," said Ginny matter-of-factly, "while he was living in this room. When something happens to, um, you…see! He'll be back for it!"
"Good heavens!" I said. "Does this happen to everyone?"
"I dunno. Some people have to stay where they are like me. But I guess if you haven't done nothing to deserve bein' kept in one place, you have to come all around pickin' up what you lost." I'd thought of more pleasant things in my time.
&n
bsp; For several days I'd noticed a gray ghost hovering up and down the block. He was always on the street, never inside. He whimpered constantly. He was or had been a little inoffensive man of the bowler hat and starched collar type. He paid no attention to me none of them did, for I was apparently invisible to them. But I saw him so often that pretty soon I realized that I'd miss him if he went away. I decided I'd chat with him the next time I saw him. I left the house one morning and stood around for a few minutes in front of the brownstone steps. Sure enough, pressing through the flotsam of my new, weird coexistent world, came the slim figure of the wraith I had noticed, his rabbit face screwed up, his eyes deep and sad, and his swallowtail coat and striped waistcoat immaculate.
I stepped up behind him and said, "Hi!"
He started violently and would have run away, I'm sure, if he'd known where my voice was coming from. "Take it easy, pal," I said. "I won't hurt you."
"Who are you?"
"You wouldn't know if I told you," I said. "Now stop shivering and tell me about yourself."
He mopped his ghostly face with a ghostly handkerchief, and then began fumbling nervously with a gold toothpick.
"My word," he said. "No one's talked to me for years. I'm not quite myself, you see."
"I see," I said. "Well, take it easy. I just happen to've noticed you wandering around here lately. I got curious. You looking for somebody?"
"Oh, no," he said. Now that he had a chance to talk about his troubles, he forgot to be afraid of this mysterious voice from nowhere that had accosted him. "I'm looking for my home."
"Hm-m-m," I said. "Been looking a long time?"
"Oh, yes." His nose twitched. "I left for work one morning a long time ago, and when I got off the ferry at Battery Place I stopped for a moment to watch the work on that newfangled elevated railroad they were building down there. All of a sudden there was a loud noise my goodness! It was terrible and the next thing I knew I was standing back from the curb and looking at a man who looked just like me! A girder had fallen, and my word!" He mopped his face again. "Since then I have been looking and looking. I can't seem to find anyone who knows where I might have lived, and I don't understand all the things I see floating around me, and I never thought I'd see the day when grass would grow on lower Broadway oh, it's terrible." He began to cry. I felt sorry for him. I could easily see what had happened. The shock was so great that even his ghost had amnesia! Poor little egg until he was whole, he could find no rest. The thing interested me. Would a ghost react to the usual cures for amnesia? If so, then what would happen to him? "You say you got off a ferryboat?"
"Yes."
"Then you must have lived on the Island . . . Staten Island, over there across the bay!"
"You really think so?" He stared through me, puzzled and hopeful.
"Why sure! Say, how'd you like me to take you over there? Maybe we could find your house."
"Oh, that would be splendid! But oh, my, what will my wife say?" I grinned.
"She might want to know where you've been. Anyway, she'll be glad to have you back, I imagine. Come on; let's get going!"
I gave him a shove in the direction of the subway and strolled down behind him. Once in a while I got a stare from a passerby for walking with one hand out in front of me and talking into thin air. It didn't bother me very much. My companion, though, was very self-conscious about it, for the inhabitants of his world screeched and giggled when they saw him doing practically the same thing. Of all humans, only I was invisible to them, and the little ghost in the bowler hat blushed from embarrassment until I thought he'd burst. We hopped a subway it was a new experience for him, I gathered and went down to South Ferry. The subway system in New York is a very unpleasant place to one gifted as I was. Everything that enjoys lurking in the dark hangs out there, and there is quite a crop of dismembered human remains. After this day I took the bus. We got a ferry without waiting. The little gray ghost got a real kick out of the trip. He asked me about the ships in the harbor and their flags, and marveled at the dearth of sailing vessels. He tsk, tsked at the Statue of Liberty; the last time he had seen it, he said, was while it still had its original brassy gold color, before it got its patina. By this I placed him in the late '70s; he must have been looking for his home for over sixty years! We landed at the Island, and from there I gave him his head.
At the top of Fort Hill he suddenly said, "My name is John Quigg. I live at 45 Fourth Avenue!"
I've never seen anyone quite so delighted as he was by the discovery. And from then on it was easy. He turned left, and then right, and then left again, straight down for two blocks and again right. I noticed he didn't that the street was marked "Winter Avenue." I remembered vaguely that the streets in this section had been numbered years ago.
He trotted briskly up the hill and then suddenly stopped and turned vaguely. "I say, are you still with me?"
"Still here," I said.
"I'm all right now. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this. Is there anything I could do for you?"
I considered. "Hardly. We're of different times, you know. Things change."
He looked, a little pathetically, at the new apartment house on the corner and nodded. "I think I know what happened to me," he said softly. "But I guess it's all right. . . . I made a will, and the kids were grown." He sighed. "But if it hadn't been for you I'd still be wandering around Manhattan. Let's see ah; come with me!"
He suddenly broke into a run. I followed as quickly as I could. Almost at the top of the hill was a huge old shingled house, with a silly cupola and a complete lack of paint. It was dirty and it was tumble-down, and at the sight of it the little fellow's face twisted sadly. He gulped and turned through a gap in the hedge and down beside the house. Casting about in the long grass, he spotted a boulder sunk deep into the turf.
"This is it," he said. "Just you dig under that. There is no mention of it in my will, except a small fund to keep paying the box rent. Yes, a safety-deposit box, and the key and an authorization are under that stone. I hid it" he giggled, "from my wife one night, and never did get a chance to tell her. You can have whatever's any good to you."
He turned to the house, squared his shoulders, and marched in the side door, which banged open for him in a convenient gust of wind. I listened for a moment and then smiled at the tirade that burst forth. Old Quigg was catching real hell from his wife, who'd sat waiting for over sixty years for him! It was a bitter stream of invective, but well, she must have loved him. She couldn't leave the place until she was complete, if Ginny's theory was correct, and she wasn't really complete until her husband came home! It tickled me. They'd be all right now! I found an old pinchbar in the drive and attacked the ground around the stone. It took quite a while and made my hands bleed, but after a while I pried the stone up and was able to scrabble around under it. Sure enough, there was an oiled silk pouch under there. I caught it up and carefully unwrapped the strings around it.
Inside was a key and letter addressed to a New York bank, designating only "Bearer" and authorizing use of the key. I laughed aloud. Little old meek and mild John Quigg, I'd bet, had set aside some "mad money." With a layout like that, a man could take a powder without leaving a single sign. The son-of-a-gun! I would never know just what it was he had up his sleeve, but I'll bet there was a woman in the case. Even fixed it up with his will! Ah, well I should kick! It didn't take me long to get over to the bank. I had a little trouble getting into the vaults, because it took quite a while to look up the box in the old records. But I finally cleared the red tape, and found myself the proud possessor of just under eight thousand bucks in small bills and not a yellowback among 'em! Well from then on I was pretty well set. What did I do? Well, first I bought clothes, and then I started out to cut ice for myself. I clubbed around a bit and got to know a lot of people, and the more I knew the more I realized what a lot of superstitious dopes they were. I couldn't blame anyone for skirting a ladder under which crouched a genuine basilisk, of course, but what the h
eck not one in a thousand have beasts under them! Anyway, my question was answered.
I dropped two grand on an elegant office with drapes and dim indirect lighting, and I got a phone installed and a little quiet sign on the door Psychic Consultant. And, boy, I did all right.
My customers were mostly upper crust, because I came high. It was generally no trouble to get contact with people's dead relatives, which was usually what they wanted. Most ghosts are crazy to get in contact with this world anyway. That's one of the reasons that almost anyone can become a medium of sorts if he tries hard enough; Lord knows that it doesn't take much to contact the average ghost. Some, of course, were not available. If a man leads a pretty square life, and kicks off leaving no loose ends, he gets clear. I never did find out where these clear spirits went to. All I knew was that they weren't to be contacted. But the vast majority of people have to go back and tie up those loose ends after they die righting a little wrong here, helping someone they've hindered, cleaning up a bit of dirty work. That's where luck itself comes from, I do believe. You don't get something for nothing. If you get a nice break, it's been arranged that way by someone who did you dirt in the past, or someone who did wrong to your father or your grandfather or your great uncle Julius. Everything evens up in the long run, and until it does, some poor damned soul is wandering around the earth trying to do something about it.
Half of humanity is walking around crabbing about its tough breaks. If you and you and you only knew what dozens of powers were begging for the chance to help you if you'll let them! And if you let them, you'll help clear up the mess they've made of their lives here, and free them to go wherever it is they go when they're cleaned up. Next time you're in a jam, go away somewhere by yourself and open your mind to these folks. They'll cut in and guide you all right, if you can drop your smugness and your mistaken confidence in your own judgment. I had a couple of ghostly stooges to run errands for me.
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