Selections

by Theodore Sturgeon

  Got to write to Al.

  Cuckoo Cavern O-R

  Glandular, Ore. April 16

  Well, Phil!

  If you say I told you so I'll punch you right in the--on the other hand I haven't the heart. I'll say it for you; you told me so; you told me and told me. And God, when I think of the pressure I put on you: throw the bum out, I said. Give him to the waiting world, I said.

  In all seriousness, congratulations, Philip. You did a superb job at wicked odds, and for as much as I was in your way I apologize.

  I've contacted Lucy Quigley. Ever meet her? She was for a long time with the Regional Red Cross. She's on her own and available for a little job for us, and is willing, damned able, and almost ready.

  I've asked her to go down to George's home town and root around in the newspaper files for information about that watchman's death.

  If any. Now don't get mad, Phil; but you know better than I that this could be a fantasy. If there was such a death, and if it checks with what he says, it's a feather in your cap, of course. If there was no such death, or if it doesn't check out according to George's description, then it's something he heard about and appropriated. So hold your breath, kid; this is the big checkout.

  Meanwhile she's going to interview Anna too. She's capable as all git-out, as I've said, and tactful and kind, as well. She'll be leaving in a couple of days, so if there's anything you want asked of anyone in the area, or checked up on, fire it up here.

  You know what you are, you're a detective, that's what.

  Al

  A response:

  Base Hospital #2 O-R

  Smithton Township, Cal. April 18

  (I don't feel funny this afternoon.)

  Dear Al:

  A little weary and shook up as I write this: I think the enclosure will explain why. It was fascinating to do and I never want to do it again. My warmest regards and thanks to Miss Quigley; tell her I will be waiting, like the cat that ate the cheese and sat down by the mousehole, with baited breath.

  yrs.

  Phil Enclosure:

  Therapy, April 16.

  (Light trance induced at the outset. Achieved without resistance and rapidly.)

  Q: Quite comfortable, George?

  A: Oh yeh.

  Q: Feel good this morning?

  A: Mm.

  Q: Remember what I once said about this work we're doing, it's like bricks, and the more we get and lay, the sooner we'll be finished?

  A: I never forgot that.

  Q: Well, George, this is going to be it. This will be the biggest load of bricks so far. What I hope for when we are through is to know you so well that anything else we do will be clear and straight and easy, right to the end of the road. That means out of here for you.

  A: I hear you.

  Q: You know the story of your life you wrote. You said it had in it everything you can remember.

  A: It does.

  Q: You know now you can remember things you didn't even know you had forgotten.

  A: Oh gosh yes. My plate.

  Q: That's right. Well, I have your story here and there're a couple of holes in it. You'll plug 'em for me, won't you?

  A: If I can.

  Q: No matter what?

  A: Mm-hm.

  Q: When did you start drinking blood?

  A: --.

  Q: George?

  A: --.

  Q: (Quietly and as kindly as possible.) Ah, George, George. Do you know that I understand how you feel? That I know what I have just done to you?... That was your big secret, wasn't it, George? You told yourself that somehow, if anyone ever found out it would be the end of you. You kept that secret like keeping a life. And now it's out. And you're so scared you don't know what to do... But you're not dying. This isn't the end of the world. That secret has dragged you down so much that... well, someday you'll know. Someday you'll know. You'll know when. you get up there, how far down you've been dragged. But you can't know until you get up higher than you are... Now you are getting mad, hey George? Go ahead if you want to. It's a little like the major who had your letter, isn't it? But you know who you were mad at then, you were mad at old George because you thought you'd let your secret slip out. You didn't really; and George, the letter's lost. Nobody has ever seen it but the major and one censor and they got killed, George... And you didn't tell anyone this time either. I guessed it, and then I started figuring, and it added up. But I'll bet there's nobody else in the world could've guessed it. You didn't tell. You didn't tell. Get mad if you want but don't get mad at George. (Long pause. Finding, filling pipe. Lighting.) Now let me tell you something about secrets. There were some people a while back used to hang on to money, bury it, worry about it, even shoot people who accidentally came near it. And it was Confederate money the whole time! They forgot what it was, even. Hiding it was more important than what it was.

  Your secret is like that. It got to be part of you, you were hiding it even when you didn't know you were. That's why you found it so hard to talk to people, you were afraid it would slip out... Well it's out now, George, and nobody's going to hurt you about it. What we're going to do is find out why you like to drink blood. Not if you do. And do you know what good it's going to do to find that out? It's so you will know why. Helping you find out, I'll get to know too, but I know lots of things. I'm a doctor. I keep things to myself. I wouldn't use it to hurt you... I'm going to make you tell you why you drink blood. Then once you understand about it, you and I together are going to pick up all the pieces and make a new life for you. Are you asleep?

  A: No.

  Q: This is a whole lot to take in all at once, isn't it A: Mmm.

  Q: Well, let's get to work. Here I have your story that you wrote. Don't open your eyes. Just take it easy. Lie quiet, quiet, quiet. Let it get dark inside your eyes. Ride the dark like a big mattress, George. Let yourself sink down into the dark, down deeper, deeper, deeper. Don't sleep. Just lie there in the warm dark. Everything's easy, easy. You hear me, you can talk, easy, easy, easy... About the hunting. You wrote a whole lot about the hunting but you never even once said you drank the blood of the animals you killed. You--.

  A: Anyam!

  Q: What?

  A: It means Mother.

  Q: Go on.

  A: That's all.

  Q: (Pause.) You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but why did you say that just then?

  A: You asked me.

  Q: I did?

  A: When I started.

  Q: Oh. Oh. Drinking blood. Mother. Mother?

  A: She all the time said that. She said it right up to the time she died, I was so big and all... ah you drank the very blood out of me, she said when she felt bad... Well I didn't mean to.

  Q: Sure you didn't. Aw, George, that was just what they call a figure of speech, like "as the crow flies," you don't really expect a crow to be there flying. There are no horses in horseradish.

  A: No, my old man told me I really did. She nursed me when I was born, when she got some sort of trouble and her breasts got to bleeding she wouldn't stop. She said it was her duty, she near died of it. She did die of it finally.

  Q: (Performing what he derided in others as the Psychiatrist's Pounce; heroically, however, eliminating the A-ha! that goes with it.) You think you're responsible for that!

  A: No I don't and it wouldn't make no difference, it was what she wanted, she said that and said it. She look down her nose at strong healthy mothers. She said they didn't give much. Not like her. She liked to think about that and talk about it. If she was alive today to see what happened she would be happy she died of it.

  Q: You seem to have understood her very well.

  A: She all the time talked about it.

  Q: When did you start getting blood outside?

  A: --.

  Q: George?

  A: I'm thinkin'.

  Q: Take your time.

  A: ...(Trace of anxiety.) You want to know the very first time. What if I can't remember what it was?<
br />
  Q: It doesn't matter exactly the first time. Were you very small?

  A: I guess so 'cause I can't remember it. I remember the cat...

  Q: Want to tell about it?

  A: ...kittens. It had little kittens. They was sucking on the cat I must've been pretty small. Maybe three, four. I thought I could too. I wanted it. I remember I wanted it.

  Q: ...What happened?

  A: I tried to, the cat scratched me in the face. I had this piece of auto leaf spring in my hand, I don't know how, I hit out and killed the cat dead right there. Then it couldn't stop me. But somehow it was the blood I was eating when he...

  Q: Go on. You said, when he.

  A: ...The old man. He come up behind me hit me with his fist middle of the back. (Vaguely moves shoulders on cot.) By God I can still remember how my head snapped all the way back I seen his face upside down it was like getting struck by lightning.

  Q: What did he say?

  A: He didn't say nothing. He just said to quit it.

  Q: I bet you can remember exactly what he said.

  A: Now how could I? I was only a... well wait a minute. (Long pause. Then, in amazed tone:) He hollered out, DON'T LET ME EVER CATCH YOU DOING A T'ING LAK DOT. Just like that.

  Q: When... So he didn't tell you not to do it.

  A: Now what else?

  Q: I said, he did not tell you not to drink blood. He said not to get caught at it. It's not the same thing at all.

  A: It means the same thing.

  Q: Think it over. I'll wait.

  A: Jesus.

  Q: George, I read in an old book--a book written maybe a hundred and fifty years ago--a story about a boy and his big brother and they stopped for the night at an inn. And there was an old man sitting by the fire and they got talking to him, and the old man said something--I don't remember what, and it doesn't matter--something very wise. And just as he said it the big brother hauled off and knocked the little boy clear across the inn.

  A: What for?

  Q: He said he wanted the kid to remember for the rest of his life what the old wise man said. So that's been known for a long time. You remember times like that, you remember them all the way down deep. Also you remember everything else about it as well. I bet every time you get the taste of blood in your mouth there's a big loud something, somewhere, yelling don't let me catch you.

  A: Especially cats... I don't like the taste.

  Q: Know why?

  A: By God I do.

  Q: Now we know everything but why you like to drink blood.

  A: I just like it.

  Q: Any other reason?

  A: No... Except sometimes I think it makes me near my mother. Don't you laugh at me.

  Q: I never did yet, George, and I never will... You know one thing that comes through to me when I read this story of yours is that there are iimes when you have to have blood and times when you can take it or leave it alone and times when you can go up to two years and never even think of it.

  A: That's so, I guess.

  Q: Well, what makes that?

  A: I dunno.

  Q: Let's have a look. Here--no: here. Hm. Times you did without were your first two years at the school and your first two or so years at your aunt's farm.

  A: And in the Army.

  Q: Yes, in the Army. Except--well, never mind that now. Now let's see times you had to hunt animals. The third year at the school, right? And overseas.

  A: Anna got sick. Woo.

  Q: A bad one, hm?

  A: Woo.

  Q: Well, let's look at the school one. Because nothing changed on the surface, did it? You went right on doing the same things in the same place. What happened?

  A: After two years? The old man died.

  Q: And that made you suddenly want blood?

  A: I dunno. I just--did, is all.

  Q: Maybe because with him gone you wanted that feeling of being closer to your mother?

  A: That could be. It don't sound right somehow. Or it was part of it but only a little part.

  Q: And nothing else happened to you around that time?

  A: Mm-mm. Nup.

  Q: Well, let's go on to--

  A: Wait... Maybe this... (A long pause.) I tell you, after the old man died everything was way different. Like when I would get out I would have him to go back to. He wasn't nothing to me, but there wasn't nothing else. There sure was not one single thing in that dump of a town to go back to. With him gone I was like lost.

  Q: Then whenever you felt sort of lost, that's when you wanted blood.

  A: You get hot in the stomach.

  Q: It happened when Anna got sick and when your father died and when you got shipped overseas.

  A: And a whole lot at home with old man, him drinking. And when Uncle Jim beat up on me that time with the skunk and told me don't come back don't come back.

  Q: So there you go, George: did you ever know before that your desire for blood came from outside you, by the things that happened to you, and not from inside really at all?

  A: No I never.

  Q: And now you know when you get that hot stomach you can take care of it some other way than killing something to get its blood. You know that something's making you feel lost, and if you go fix that, you won't need the blood. Not ever.

  A: And I always thought I needed it and I was the only one.

  Q: You've just been looking at the wrong end of the thing. There may not be many who have to drink blood, but there are millions--billions, even, who feel what you feel that makes you drink blood.

  A: I don't get you.

  Q: Everyone on earth feels lonely sometimes, lost sometimes. Just the way you do. Everybody has his own way of handling it, just as you had a way.

  A: I always thought I was the only one.

  Q: Don't think it any more... Hey, here's another hole in your story. You say here you broke into the funeral home the night they laid your mother out there. What for?

  A: What'd I write? To say good-bye.

  Q: "To say good-bye to her in his own way," is what you wrote. What is your own way of saying good-bye?

  A: (After a long pause.) She always said it was for me.

  Q: (Carefully.) Tell me what it was like in there.

  A: Well it wasn't no fancy place, not in that town. Just a big workroom kind of place, shelves and sinks and like that, and she was on a long table with a sheet over her and her face. They taken all the blood out of her. I seen them do it at night through the window-blind in the back a hole. It was in a bottle on the floor.

  Q: And you--

  A: She always said that's what it was for. And in a way it made us be like part of each other forever, don't you laugh at me.

  Q: I'm not laughing... All right, George. We'll go on... Here's something. You mention a quarry on the other side of town where there were big frogs.

  A: Sometimes frogs are good, like on a real hot day, like for a change. They are cold you know. Especially if you scare 'em off where they're sunning and they dive down deep and hide. They can stay down ten, fifteen minutes and when they come up they're real cold. Only thing is the biggest frog you ever saw isn't but a mouthful's worth. A frog can't see you if you don't move. You wait where you chase 'em, they will come right back practically into your hand if you know how to sit still.

  Q: You know you're a regular nature guide, George. I never met a man who knew so much about small game hunting.

  A: Well I studied at it.

  Q: Oh yes--here's that part you wrote about sex. You have a very good head on you, George. A lot of people who are supposed to be smarter than you and me put together haven't figured the thing out as neatly as you did. But tell me something--is Anna the only girl you ever had?

  A: Uh-huh.

  Q: Look, you won't mind telling me. When you and Anna--

  A: Phil, I don't want to get you mad--

  Q: Go ahead. What were you--

  A: What's that you--

  Q: (Laughs.) Now don't everybody talk at o
nce. What did you say?

  A: Phil, don't ask me about Anna and me, how we do it, all right?

  Q: If it's important to you not to talk about it, we won't.

  A: Well thanks. I got to tell you, I been sort of holding off talking all this time because I wanted us to get past that Q: Anything like that on your mind, speak up right at the beginning. I'm here to work with you, not on you.

  A: Well all right, there is one more thing, now that you mention it.

  Q: Shoot.

  A: That letter I wrote Anna, that started all this trouble. I don't want you to ask me nothing about it.

  Q: (Swears, but silently.) Of course not, if you don't want me to.

  A: (Lies back expansively, heaves a deep breath.) Well all right Now anything goes.

  Q: All right. Then quit bouncing around and relax all over again. Close your eyes and make it black, and sink into the black and drift in it. Don't sleep. You can hear me very well. You can talk very well. Relax all over. Toes. Ankles. Fingers. One Two Three Four Five. How do you feel?

  A: (Peacefully.) Swell.

  Q: I'm looking through your story again for holes. I see what you mean, George. It is all here, once you know how to read it. Here's the whole thing about the watchman, and I didn't even see it the first time I read it.

  A: (Peacefully.) That was after the fight with Uncle Jim.

  Q: Of course you didn't go into much detail... still, it's there. You like human blood?

  A: The best I ever had was human blood. But it wasn't that ol' bum.

  Q: (Hesitates.) Well, we'll come to it, I imagine. Oh, here's something. About the beaver lodge.

  A: Yeah and the kid tripped my deadfall.

  Q: You don't say much here about what happened. Wasn't he hurt?

  A: Oh, his leg was mashed some. It didn't bother him after I got there.

  Q: You get him out all right?

  A: I got him out all right. I beat hell out of him. I wrote it there, it was like he was that damn baby made Anna sick and I could finally hit out at it.