Selections

by Theodore Sturgeon

  The frequency of this act, you will be very interested to know, was every twenty-eight days, give or take a couple. He could sense it like an animal, and probably the same way. Like other things in his extraordinary manuscript, this too was hidden in plain sight. Didn't he say something about knowing before she did that she was pregnant, because she never kept track but he did?

  Do we add this, Doctor-Sergeant Outerbridge, to other data on insanity and the moon?

  Well, that's my story... and Sergeant, since this is a personal letter and not exactly a report, permit me a personal comment. I'll be formal enough to state first that my opinions must be regarded as opinions... I'm not a doctor. I'm a caseworker, a nurse, and a woman.

  As all such, then, let me congratulate you. I deeply admire you and the way you handled this case, and I hope someday to meet you and shake your hand.

  I think that George is one of the most tragic creatures I have ever heard of. I don't doubt that be will wind up in a learned paper or even in a book. I would like to be as sure that he will wind up a free, well man, perhaps in his own cornfield with his Anna. I don't know, of course, how you plan to treat him; but somehow there is no doubt in me as to if you will treat him. If there is anything I can do to help, please call on me. Please. It would be an honor to work with you and a triumph to succeed.

  Please let me submit something to you (perhaps too simple; perhaps, because of factors I couldn't possibly know about, something after all nonsensical; perhaps something you've already thought of yourself and discarded): All three of the qualifications I mentioned above--the caseworker, the nurse, the woman--speak at once when I suggest that George is not a sexual psychopath at all, and therefore could not be expected to respond to any known treatment in that area. You yourself presented as a sort of trial hypothesis that emotionally he is arrested at the lowest levels of infancy, and that the true grotesquerie in the case lies in the unusual fact that he is quite fully developed in all other particulars. I think that was extraordinarily astute of you. I am well aware that modern psychiatry recognizes earlier and earlier indices of sexual activity and sexual differentiation. There was in Victorian times a widely accepted belief that until the age of ten all children, unless tainted by environment, were "innocent," a word which meant sexless angels. Yet it seems to me that this differentiation must have a beginning point and it is not at birth. It may be that sexual awareness of some sort goes back earlier than this point of differentiation, but I feel that it too does not go back as far as birth. If this is so, then there is a period in infancy when the child is, emotionally speaking, neither male nor female nor sexual entity, but simply a human infant (with all the demanding, insensate, "insane" demands you describe). I don't know if anyone has ever thought of this, but can one reasonably suppose that a girl infant demands the breast any less because she is a girl?... I know I'm being wildly intuitive and "female" in bringing this up, but I can't get it out of my head that you will find George's emotional quantum cowering in that area.

  Colonel Williams made a pleasantry in one of his "O-R" notes to you, and very amusing it was; it was in reference to George's drawings of pear-shaped animals, and his jocular conclusion was that they were mammary symbols. After laughing I began to think about them, and I recalled that George had also drawn a man and a woman with the same configuration. And I remembered, too, that George drew the woman's breasts with a single careless zigzag (i. e. not important) but at the same time went back and drew the nipples with great care. He always drew navels, as if he regarded as incomplete any rounded shape which did not have a terminal orifice of some kind.

  So it occurred to me that his oh-so-humorous little sketches were possibly life as he sees life--living beings as his infantile emotional consciousness wishes they were and believes they are. Rabbits and squirrels and little boys and old watchmen--each one is a mamma, full of warm sustaining fluid. The entire organism is the manimary, and he feels this with such devotion that he even bypasses with zigzag the true breasts (though he cannot overlook the nipples) and in preference makes the whole female body a mammry object; this aside from, apart from, and utterly discounting the fact that it is female!

  This hypothesis then leads one to the surprising conclusion that in his (perfect word!) periodic aggressive erotic act with Anna, he was sexlessly performing an asexual function upon organ or object the sex of which was as unimportant as the gender of a bottle.

  (I wonder if I could have spoken to Anna so convincingly of "acts of love" if I had thought this out at the time!)

  And in the area of symbolism also is something I derived from George's startling dictum about how to tell the cowboy hero from the cowboy villain. (And that amazingly perspicacious young man is right!!) Heroes get shot in the chest. (Breast?) Villians get shot in the stomach. Query: Is it more than coincidence that his father and the watchman, whom he identified with the father, were cut in the chest, while the boy, whom he identified with the fetus which had displaced him with Anna, was cut in the navel?

  Oh my goodness, look what I've done; I meant to give you the news and congratulate you and go to bed; the window is getting pink around the edges, the fog is gone, and my plane leaves in an hour. Sergeant, Doctor, Sir Philip--whatever you're called: thanks; it has been a pleasure to talk to you.

  Cordially,

  Lucy Quigley

  XIII

  A letter...

  Sir Philip's Bughouse O-R

  Praecox, Cal. May 8

  Dear Al:

  I enclose the enclosed, a monumental missive from your Lucy Quigley, who is, as you in one way or another said, some chick. What does she look like?

  I send it because I think you will enjoy it, although it contains reportorial information which I know you have in her formal report and therefore don't need, and some heady compliments addressed to me which you will feel I should have modestly kept to myself.

  And in all seriousness, I want you to think over her hypothesis about the non-sexual, or should I say presexual, nature of George's disorder. I'm in a neither-confirm-nor-deny mood about it at the moment, but it excites me and I'd like to echo when it bounces off you.

  You'll be happy to know that I obeyed your orders of about five months back and got some sleep, about fourteen consecutive hours' worth, and that since then I have worked for forty consecutive hours cleaning up all the work which the sleep and my preoccupation with George caused to pile up. So everything is normal again. I've only seen George once in that time--I happened to be candling the head of a strait-jacketed neighbor on his corridor--and all I did was chat. One interchange you'll be interested in: I told him that I would respect his wish not to discuss his specific conduct with Anna, and the contents of the airmail letter which fused this bomb; I assured him further that I was about to ask him a question which he need not answer. I then asked him why he did not want to discuss these things.

  Well, our George sat on the edge of his cot and scratched his handsome yellow head, and at length gave me a diffident smile and said, "I just wouldn't want you to think I was queer."

  What's new with you?

  Phil

  Palace of Pathology O-R

  New Rosis, Ore. May 10

  Dear Phil:

  Have read and reread Lucy's letter and return it herewith. You're quite right: she's some chick. Or was I the one said that? All right; I'm right: she's some chick. As to what she looks like, you can see for yourself. She's arriving here tomorrow and we'll grab a chopper and buzz down your way for dinner. Okay?

  As to an opinion on her hypothesis, you will please excuse me, dear friend, but I have none, and if I had I wouldn't tell you. Please always regard me as being something like an airline ticket agent. I know how they come and go and I fix it for people to ride; but don't ask me how the new-fangled things work. So no opinion. As to clause 2 above, wherein I depose and say I wouldn't give you an opinion if I had one, leave me state here and now that I think you're a great man.

  A clever man. A good man in
several senses. But from time to time I get these uneasy feelings. Every time I express opinions to you it turns out three months from now that I have ordered you to do this or permitted you to do that, and what's more you can prove it.

  I have two pieces of news for you. One is that when I arrive I shall give you a little box with some costume jewelry in it, like silver bars, and a paper with a message suitable for framing, like a commission, and a paymaster's voucher retroactive to your 25th birthday. You can, if you are able, square it with your own conscience that under false colors you have been endearing yourself to George as a sergeant while actually an officer the whole time.

  My other piece of news has to do with the late Major Manson, may his shade be reading over your shoulder to catch this my heart-felt apology. (Remember when I called him moo-headed and concluded that he had slapped a "psychosis unclassified: violent" on George solely because George had punched him in the nose?) Well, after his honorable deceasement, our efficient Army separated his personal effects from government issue and sent the former to his survivor, a daughter. She quite understandably let some time go by before she tackled the job of sorting his things. Among his papers was an unmailed air-letter form. I enclose it, and I think no one need wonder why that mail censor was intrigued enough to bring it to the major, nor why the major sent for George.

  Skip lunch. That's an order. You and Lucy and I are going to eat up a storm.

  'la. vista, Al

  Enclosure: An unmailed air letter form. It bears the soldier's serial number, an APO post office address, and the designation of a combat unit. It is signed. The body of the letter, in toto, follows:

  Dear Anna:

  I miss you very much.

  I wish I had some of your blood.

  Close the file. You've read it all.

  You are sitting in the lake of light from Dr. Outerbridge's desk lamp. It has grown late. But sit a while; you will not be interrupted by the fictional psychiatrist, who after all exists only for you, The Reader.

  So place your hands on the bland smooth face of the closed file folders, and close your eyes, and quietly think.

  Since this is and must be fiction, what would please you?

  Dr. Outerbridge found Lucy Quigley absolutely charming, and in due course she became Mrs. Dr. Outerbridge. They worked famously together and achieved togetherness and fame. Does that make you happy?

  George was turned over to a Veteran's Administration facility and his arrested emotional persona was attacked with narcoynthesis, reserpine, electric shock and an understanding analyst, and in three years and five months he was discharged as cured. He married Anna, inherited his aunt's farm, and they live quietly near the woods and each other. He has learned to love children. Okay?

  Or if the idea of such as George still offends you, why it's the easiest thing in the world to have therapy fail and we'll wall him up forever. Or he could get killed in a prison riot, or escape and be brought down by police bullets. Would you like him shot in the chest? Or in the belly? You would? Why that: what is he to you?

  But you'd better put the folder back and clear out. If Dr. Outerbridge suddenly returns you'll have to admit he's real, and then all of this is. And that wouldn't do, would it?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Theodore Sturgeon was born as Edward Hamilton Waldo on February 26, 1918, in Staten Island, New York, USA. His name was legally changed to Theodore Sturgeon—not a pseudonym—at age eleven after his mother's divorce and remarriage to William Dicky ("Argyll") Sturgeon.

  He sold his first story in 1938 to the McClure Syndicate, which bought much of his early (non-fantastic) work; his first genre appearance was "Ether Breather" in Astounding Science Fiction a year later. At first he wrote mainly short stories, primarily for genre magazines such as Astounding and Unknown, but also for general-interest publications such as Argosy Magazine. He used the pen name "E. Waldo Hunter" when two of his stories ran in the same issue of Astounding. A few of his early stories were signed "Theodore H. Sturgeon."

  Sturgeon ghost-wrote an Ellery Queen mystery novel, The Player on the Other Side (Random House, 1963). This novel gained critical praise from critic H.R.F. Keating, who "had almost finished writing Crime and Mystery: the 100 Best Books, in which I had included The Player on the Other Side ... placing the book squarely in the Queen canon" when he learned that it had been written by Sturgeon. Similarly, "William DeAndrea, author and ... winner of Mystery Writers of America awards, selecting his ten favorite mystery novels for the magazine Armchair Detective, picked The Player on the Other Side as one of them. He said: 'This book changed my life ... and made a raving mystery fan (and therefore ultimately a mystery writer) out of me. ... The book must be 'one of the most skillful pastiches in the history of literature. An amazing piece of work, whomever did it'."

  Sturgeon wrote the screenplays for the Star Trek episodes "Shore Leave" (1966) and "Amok Time" (1967, later published as a "Fotonovel" in 1978). The latter is known for his invention of the “pon farr”, the Vulcan mating ritual, the first use of the sentence "Live long and prosper" and the first use of the Vulcan hand symbol. Sturgeon is also sometimes credited as having deliberately put homosexual subtext in his work, like the back rub scene in "Shore Leave". Sturgeon also wrote several episodes of Star Trek that were never produced. One of these was notable for having first introduced the “Prime Directive”. He also wrote an episode of the Saturday morning show Land of the Lost, "The Pylon Express", in 1975. Two of Sturgeon's stories were adapted for The New Twilight Zone. One, "A Saucer of Loneliness", was broadcast in 1986 and was dedicated to his memory. Another short story, "Yesterday was Monday", was the inspiration for the The New Twilight Zone episode A Matter of Minutes. His 1944 novella "Killdozer!" was the inspiration for the 1970s made-for-TV movie, Marvel comic book, and alternative rock band of the same name.

  Sturgeon is well-known among readers of classic science-fiction anthologies. At the height of his popularity in the 1950s he was the most anthologized author alive and much respected by critics. John Clute wrote in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: "His influence upon writers like Harlan Ellison and Samuel R. Delany was seminal, and in his life and work he was a powerful and generally liberating influence in post-WWII US sf". He, though, is not much known among the general public and won comparatively few awards (though it must be noted that his best work was published before the establishment and consolidation of the leading genre awards, while his later production was scarcer and weaker. He was listed as a primary influence of the much more famous Ray Bradbury. Kurt Vonnegut based his character Kilgore Trout on Theodore Sturgeon.

  Sturgeon lived for several years in Springfield, Oregon. He died on May 8, 1985, of lung fibrosis, at Sacred Heart General Hospital in the neighboring city of Eugene.

  NOTABLE AUTHORS INFLUENCED BY STURGEON

  BRIAN ALDISS

  Theodore Sturgeon was a tremendously complicated human being, as well as one of the truly great writers of science fiction. Brian Aldiss offers a glimpse at one of Sturgeon's facets, as reported in Cheap Truth.

  Sturgeon? The name was magnetic. There it was, perpetually cropping up attached to the stories I most admired. Sturgeon: quite an ordinary Anglo-American word among exotics like A. E. Van Vogt, Isaac Asimov, Heinlein, Simak, and Kuttner. Yet - spikey, finny, ODD. And it was not his original name. Theodore Hamilton Sturgeon was born Edward Hamilton Waldo. To the usual boring undeserving parents. That was on Staten Island, the year the first World War ended.

  So there were two of him, as there are of many a good writer. A bright side, a dark side -- much like our old SF image of Mercury, remember, so much more interesting than banal reality. He had a mercurial temperament.

  The bright side was the side everyone loved. There was something so damned nice, charming, open, empathic, and ELUSIVE about Ted that women flocked to him. Men too. Maybe he was at the mercy of his own fey sexuality. If so, he was quizzical about it, as about everything. One of his more cutesy titles put it admirably: "I
f All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?" Not if it was Sturgeon, said a too-witty friend.

  He played his guitar. He sang. He shone. He spoke of his philosophy of love.

  Ted honestly brought people happiness. If he was funny, it was a genuine humor which sprang from seeing the world aslant. A true SF talent. Everyone recognized his strange quality -- "faunlike," some nut dubbed it; faunlike he certainly looked. Inexplicable, really.

  Unsympathetic stepfather, unsatisfactory adolescence. Funny jobs, and "Ether Breather" out in ASTOUNDING in 1939. So to an even funnier job, science fiction writer. It's flirting with disaster.

  I could not believe those early stories: curious subject matter, bizarre resolutions, glowing style. And about sexuality. You could hardly believe your luck when one of Ted's stories went singing through your head.

  "It," with Cartier illustrations, in UNKNOWN. Terrifying. "Derm Fool." Madness. The magnificent "Microcosmic God," read and re-read. "Killdozer," appearing after a long silence. There were to be other silences. "Baby is Three:" again the sense of utter incredibility with complete conviction, zinging across a reader's synapses. By a miracle, the blown-up version, "More Than Human," was no disappointment either. This was Sturgeon's caviar dish. Better even than "Venus Plus X," with its outré sexuality in a hermaphrodite utopia.