The Collection

by Fredric Brown

  "You blur," I said.

  He held up his glass and looked through it at the electric light. It was empty. The glass, not the electric light. He said, "You blur."

  "Who?"

  He didn't answer. He seemed to be swinging, chair and all, in an arc about a yard long. It made me dizzy to look at him, so I closed my eyes, but that was worse so I opened them again.

  I said, "A story?"

  "Sure."

  "I got to write a story," I said, "but why should I? I mean, why not let Yehudi do it?"

  I went over and put on the headband. No extraneous remarks this time, I told myself. Stick to the point.

  "Write a story," I said.

  I nodded. Nothing happened.

  But then I remembered that, as far as I was supposed to know, nothing was supposed to happen. I walked over to the typewriter desk and looked.

  There was a white sheet and a yellow sheet in the typewriter, with a carbon between them. The page was about half filled with typing and then down at the bottom were two words by themselves. I couldn't read them. I took my glasses off and still I couldn't, so I put them back on and put my face down within inches of the typewriter and concentrated. The words were "The End."

  I looked over alongside the typewriter and there was a neat, but small pile of typed sheets, alternate white and yellow.

  It was wonderful. I'd written a story. If my subconscious mind had anything on the ball, it might be the best story I'd ever written.

  Too bad I wasn't quite in shape to read it. I'd have to see an optometrist about new glasses. Or something.

  "Charlie," I said, "I wrote a story."

  'When?"

  "Just now."

  "I didn't see you."

  "I blurred," I said. "But you weren't looking."

  I was back sitting on the bed. I don't remember getting there.

  "Charlie," I said, "it's wonderful."

  "What's wonderful?"

  "Everything. Life. Birdies in the trees. Pretzels. A story in less than a second! One second a week I have to work from now on. No more school, no more books, no more teacher's sassy looks! Charlie, it's wonderful!"

  He seemed to wake up. He said, "Hank, you're just beginning to see the possibilities. They're almost endless, for any profession. Almost anything."

  "Except," I said sadly, "Lili St. Cyr and Esther Williams.""You've got a one-track mind."

  "Two-track," I said. "I'd settle for either. Charlie, are you positive—"

  Wearily, "Yes." Or that was what he meant to say; it came out "Mesh."

  "Charlie," I said. "You've been drinking. Care if I try?"

  "Shoot yourself."

  "Huh? Oh, you mean suit yourself. O.K., then I'll—"

  "Thass what I shaid," Charlie said. "Suit yourshelf."

  "You did not."

  "What did I shay, then?"

  I said, "You shaid—I mean said: `Shoot yourself.'"

  Even Jove nods.

  Only Jove doesn't wear a headband like the one I still had on. Or maybe, come to think of it, he does. It would explain a lot of things.

  I must have nodded, because there was the sound of a shot. I let out a yell and jumped up, and Charlie jumped up too. He looked sober.

  He said, "Hank, you had that thing on. Are you—?"

  I was looking down at myself and there wasn't any blood on the front of my shirt. Nor any pain anywhere. Nor anything. I quit shaking. I looked at Charlie; he wasn't shot either. I said, "But who—? What—?"

  "Hank," he said. "That shot wasn't in this room at all. It was outside, in the hallway, or on the stair."

  "On the stair?"Something prickled at the back of my mind. What about a stair? I saw a man upon the stair, a little man who was not there. He was not there again today. Gee, I wish he'd go away.

  "Charlie," I said. "It was Yehudi! He shot himself because I said `shoot yourself' and the pendulum swung. You were wrong about it being an—an automatonic autosuggestive whatzit. It was Yehudi doing it all the time. It was—"

  "Shut up," he said.

  But he went over and opened the door and I followed him and we went out in the hallway.

  There was a decided smell of burnt powder. It seemed to come from about halfway up the stairs because it got stronger as we neared that point.

  "Nobody there," Charlie said, shakily.

  In an awed voice I said, "He was not there again today. Gee, I wish—"

  "Shut up," said Charlie sharply.

  We went back into my room.

  "Sit down," Charlie said. "We got to figure this out. You said, `Shoot yourself,' and either nodded or swayed forward. But you didn't shoot yourself. The shot came from—" He shook his head, trying to clear it.

  "Let's have some coffee," he suggested. "Some hot, black coffee. Have you got— Hey, you're still wearing that headband. Get us some, but for Heaven's sake be careful."

  I said, "Bring us two cups of hot black coffee." And I nodded, but it didn't work. Somehow I'd known it wouldn't.

  Charlie grabbed the band off my head. He put it on and tried it himself.

  I said, "Yehudi's dead. He shot himself. That thing's no good anymore. So I'll make the coffee."

  I put the kettle on the hot plate. "Charlie," I said, "look, suppose it was Yehudi doing that stuff. Well, how do you know what his limitations were? Look, maybe he could have brought us Lili—"

  "Shut up," said Charlie. "I'm trying to think."

  I shut up and let him think.

  And by the time I had the coffee made, I realized how silly I'd been talking.

  I brought the coffee. By that time, Charlie had the lid off the pillbox affair and was examining its innards. I could see the little pendulum that worked the switch, and a lot of wires.

  He said, "Idon't understand it. There's nothing broken."

  "Maybe the battery," I suggested.

  I got out my flashlight and we used its bulb to test the little dry cell. The bulb burned brightly.

  "Idon't understand it," Charlie said.

  Then I suggested, "Let's start from the beginning, Charlie. It did work. It got us stuff for drinks. It mixed one pair of drinks. It— Say—"

  "Iwas just thinking of that," Charlie said. 'When you said, `Blow me down,' and bent over to pick up the drink, what happened?"

  "A current of air. It blew me down, Charlie, literally. How could I have done that myself? And notice the difference in pronouns. I said, `Blow me down,' then but later I said, `Shoot yourself.' If I'd said, `Shoot me,' why maybe—"

  There was that prickle down my spine again.

  Charlie looked dazed. He said, "But I worked it out on scientific principles, Hank. It wasn't just an accident. I couldn't be wrong. You mean you think that—It's utterly silly!"

  I'd been thinking just that, again. But differently. "Look," I said, "let's concede that your apparatus set up a field that had an effect upon the brain, but just for argument let's assume you misunderstood the nature of the field. Suppose it enabled you to project a thought. And you were thinking about Yehudi; you must have been because you jokingly called it the Yehudi principle, and so Yehudi—"

  "That's silly," said Charlie.

  "Give me a better one.

  He went over to the hot plate for another cup of coffee.

  And I remembered something then, and went over to the typewriter table. I picked up the story, shuffling the pages as I picked them up so the first page would come out on top, and I started to read.

  I heard Charlie's voice say, "Is it a good story, Hank?" I said, "G-g-g-g-g-g—"

  Charlie took a look at my face and sprinted across the room to read over my shoulder. I handed him the first page. The title on it was THE YEHUDI PRINCIPLE.

  The story started:

  "Iam going crazy.

  "Charlie Swann is going crazy, too. Maybe more than I am, because it was his dingbat. I mean, he made it and he thought he knew what it was and how it worked."

  As I read page after page I handed them to
Charlie and he read them too. Yes, it was this story. The story you're reading right now, including this part of it that I'm telling right now. Written before the last part of it happened.

  Charlie was sitting down when he finished, and so was I. He looked at me and I looked at him.

  He opened his mouth a few times and closed it again twice before he could get anything out. Finally he said, "T-time, Hank. It had something to do with time too. It wrote in advance just what—Hank, I'll make it work again. I got to. It's something big. It's—"

  "It's colossal," I said. "But it'll never work again. Yehudi's dead. He shot himself upon the stair."

  "You're crazy," said Charlie.

  "Not yet," I told him. I looked down at the manuscript he'd handed back to me and read:

  "Iam going crazy."

  I am going crazy.

  COME AND GO MAD

  I

  He had known it, somehow, when he had awakened that morning. I to knew it more surely now, staring out of the editorial room window into the early afternoon sunlight slanting down among the buildings to cast a pattern of light and shadow. He knew that soon, perhaps even today, something important was going to happen. Whether good or bad he did not know, but he darkly suspected. And with reason; there are few good things that may unexpectedly happen to a man, things, that is, of lasting importance. Disaster can strike from innumerable directions, in amazingly diverse ways.

  A voice said, "Hey, Mr. Vine," and he turned away from the window, slowly. That in itself was strange for it was not his manner to move slowly; he was a small, volatile man, almost cat-like in the quickness of his reactions and his movements.

  But this time something made him turn slowly from the window, almost as though he never again expected to see that chiaroscuro of an early afternoon.

  He said, "Hi, Red."

  The freckled copy boy said, "His Nibs wants to see ya.”

  "Now?"

  "Naw. Atcher convenience. Sometime next week, maybe. If yer busy, give him an apperntment." He put his fist against Red's chin and shoved, and the copy boy staggerd back in assumed distress.

  He got up out of his chair and went over to the water cooler. He pressed his thumb on the button and water gurgled into the paper cup.

  Harry Wheeler sauntered over and said, "Hiya, Nappy. What's up? Going on the carpet?"

  He said, "Sure, for a raise."

  He drank and crumpled the cup, tossing it into the waste basket. He went over to the door marked Private and went through it.

  Walter J. Candler, the managing editor, looked up from the work on his desk and said affably, "Sit down, Vine. Be with you in a moment," and then looked down again.

  He slid into the chair opposite Candler, worried a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lighted it. He studied the back of the sheet of paper of which the managing editor was reading the front. There wasn't anything on the back of it.

  The M. E. put the paper down and looked at him. "Vine, I've got a screwy one. You're good on screwy ones."

  He grinned slowly at the M. E. He said, "If that's a compliment, thanks."

  "It's a compliment, all right. You've done some pretty tough things for us. This one's different. I've never yet asked a reporter to do anything I wouldn't do myself. I wouldn't do this, so I'm not asking you to."

  The M. E. picked up the paper he'd been reading and then put it down again without even looking at it. "Ever hear of Ellsworth Joyce Randolph?"

  "Head of the asylum? Hell yes, I've met him. Casually."

  "How'd he impress you?"

  He was aware that the managing editor was staring at him intently, that it wasn't too casual a question. He parried. "What do you mean: In what way? You mean is he a good Joe, is he a good politician, has he got a good bedside manner for a psychiatrist, or what?"

  "I mean, how sane do you think he is?"

  He looked at Candler and Candler wasn't kidding. Candler was strictly deadpan.

  He began to laugh, and then he stopped laughing. He leaned forward across Candler's desk. "Ellsworth Joyce Randolph," he said. "You're talking about Ellsworth Joyce Randolph?"

  Candler nodded. "Dr. Randolph was in here this morning. He told a rather strange story. He didn't want me to print it. He did want me to check on it, to send our best man to check on it. He said if we found it was true we could print it in hundred and twenty line type in red ink." Candler grinned wryly. "We could, at that."

  He stumped out his cigarette and studied Candler's face. "But the story itself is so screwy you're not sure whether Dr. Randolph himself might be insane?"

  "Exactly."

  "And what's tough about the assignment?"

  "The doc says a reporter could get the story only from the inside."

  "You mean, go in as a guard or something?" Candler said, "Something."

  "Oh."

  He got up out of the chair and walked over to the window, stood with his back to the managing editor, looking out. The sun had moved hardly at all. Yet the shadow pattern in the streets looked different, obscurely different. The shadow pattern inside himself was different, too. This, he knew, was what had been going to happen. He turned around. He said, "No, Hell no."

  Candler shrugged imperceptibly. "Don't blame you. I haven't even asked you to. I wouldn't do it myself."

  He asked, "What does Ellsworth Joyce Randolph think is going on inside his nuthouse? It must be something pretty screwy if it made you wonder whether Randolph himself is sane."

  "I can't tell you that, Vine. Promised him I wouldn't, whether or not you took the assignment."

  "You mean-even if I took the job I still wouldn't know what I was looking for?"

  "That's right. You'd be prejudiced. You wouldn't be objective. You'd be looking for something, and you might think you found it whether it was there or not. Or you might be so prejudiced against finding it that you'd refuse to recognize it if it bit you in the leg."

  He strode from the window over to the desk and banged his fist down on it.

  He said, "God damn it, Candler, why me? You know what happened to me three years ago."

  "Sure. Amnesia."

  "Sure, amnesia. Just like that. But I haven't kept it any secret that I never got over that amnesia. I'm thirty years old-or am I? My memory goes back three years. Do you know what it feels like to have a blank wall in your memory only three years back?

  "Oh sure, I know what's on the other side of that wall. I know because everybody tells me. I know I started here as a copy boy ten years ago. I know where I was born and when and I know my parents are both dead. I know what they look like-because I've seen their pictures. I know I didn't have a wife and kids, because everybody who knew me told me I didn't. Get that part everybody who knew me, not everybody I knew. I didn't know anybody.

  "Sure, I've done all right since then. After I got out of the hospital-and I don't even remember the accident that put me there-I did all right back here because I still knew how to write news stories, even though I had to learn everybody's name all over again. I wasn't any worse off than a new reporter starting cold on a paper in a strange city. And everybody was as helpful as hell."

  Candler raised a placating hand to stem the tide. He said, "Okay, Nappy. You said no, and that's enough. I don't see what all that's got to do with this story, but all you had to do was say' no. So forget about it."

  The tenseness hadn't gone out of him. He said, "You don't see what that's got to do with the story? You ask-or, all right, you don't ask, you suggest-that I get myself certified as a madman, go into an asylum as a patient.

  When-how much confidence does anyone have in his own mind when he can't remember going to school, can't remember the first time he met any of the people he works with every day, can't remember starting on the job he works at, can't remember anything back of three years before?"

  Abruptly he struck the desk again with his fist, and then looked foolish about it. He said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get wound up about it like that."

  Can
dler said, "Sit down."

  "The answer's still no."

  "Sit down, anyway."

  He sat down and fumbled a cigarette out of his pocket, got it lighted.

  Candler said, "I didn't even mean to mention it, but I've got to now. Now that you talked that way. I didn't know you felt like that about your amnesia. I thought that was water under the bridge.

  "Listen, when Dr. Randolph asked me what reporter we had that could best cover it, I told him about you. What your background was. He remembered meeting you, too, incidentally. But he hadn't known you'd had amnesia."

  "Is that why you suggested me?"

  "Skip that till I make my point. He said that while you were there, he'd be glad to try one of the newer, milder forms of shock treatment on you, and that it might restore your lost memories. He said it would be worth trying."

  "He didn't say it would work."

  "He said it might; that it wouldn't do any harm."

  He stubbed out the cigarette from which he'd taken only three drags. He glared at Candler. He didn't have to say what was in his mind; the managing editor could read it.

  Candler said, "Calm down, boy. Remember I didn't bring it up until you yourself started in on how much that memory-wall bothered you. I wasn't saving it for ammunition. I mentioned it only out of fairness to you, after the way you talked."

  "Fairness!"

  Candler shrugged. "You said no. I accepted it. Then you started raving at me and put me in a spot where I had to mention something I'd hardly thought of at the time. Forget it. How's that graft story coming? Any new leads?"

  "You going to put someone else on the asylum story?"

  "No. You're the logical one for it."

  "'What is the story? It must be pretty woolly if it makes you wonder if Dr. Randolph is sane. Does he think his patients ought to trade places with his doctors, or what?"

  He laughed. "Sure, you can't tell me. That's really beautiful double bait. Curiosity-and hope of knocking down that wall. So what's the rest of it? If I say yes instead of no, how long will I be there, under what circumstances? What chance have I got of getting out again? How do I get in?"

  Candler said slowly, "Vine, I'm not sure any more I want you to try it. Let's skip the whole thing."