A Touch of the Creature

by Charles Beaumont

  This was the end of the remembering. Now he would have to face the question, form it, spell it out and not run from it.

  He longed for a cigarette.

  If only he’d transferred his desires, forgotten about Wanderer’s Shoes and The Holy Fountain and the other moving, important stories that lay lodged within himself, begging pitifully for release. If he’d forgotten them and found happiness in what he now had—others hungered for what was his. Why couldn’t he have adjusted? Della had done so nicely. . .

  And why had it hit him so strongly at the party—the party in his honor—so that he was driven to it? The whole commissary full of friends, new friends, the beautiful star Suzan glancing at him with dark, inviting eyes, everybody wishing him well . . .

  The first novel of the distinguished young American short story writer, Paul Anderson, is without question one of the most important documents of this, or any other, generation. The prose is clean and deceptively simple, but in its eminent readability, one never loses sight of the tremendously profound message which underlies every sentence. What Hemingway was to another demand, Anderson is to . . .

  That he’d not betrayed, not, at least, the thought. Its place was hard and lasting, but small as a plant and as easily injured.

  He knew the price of what he really wanted, the test that must decide it, and he thought of failing. So much to be learned, so much more to be unlearned; and alone, quite alone, for Della would not go back, not now; for Della did not exist anymore.

  The wind grew stronger and the water began an irregular movement: occasionally it would slosh at the sides, then recede. Suddenly, as the moon shone in the absence of clouds, Paul could look into the water down through the depths to the waver­ing floor of the pool.

  The dwarf sprang from nowhere. And spoke distinctly, with greater insistence and greater insouciance. Paul shuddered as the shadowy dream-creature hopped behind the wire fence.

  Paul shook his head violently; the wind caught at his hair. “No!” he said. “No!”

  Water had always terrified him: he became hysterical even when his ears touched water. He couldn’t swim. And Della was sleeping soundly—and there was the test, the thing he’d feared and fought and now could not escape.

  In comparison, sang the emptiness where the dwarf had been, this is a small thing; but it will give you your answer.

  The cords in his neck tightened and his muscles quivered; he tried to move, but could not. Images whirled before him.

  He’d had the feeling once before, when he was a child and lived in a small town. Every time a train was announced, he would run to the depot and would wait there until the rumbling black speck appeared, spitting sparks and dirty smoke, hurtling with great speed along the dull tracks, growing larger and larger, blowing and screaming like a crazed elephant. He’d had the feeling then: To wait until the train had roared almost parallel with him, then to hurl himself across the tracks! How he’d fought that urge, bit his dry tongue, never really knowing what he’d do until, in an eternal second, the train had coughed quiet and then strained off again.

  He walked from the pool, back to the French window and into the bedroom. Della lay on her stomach, with her face mashed grotesquely on the pillow. She breathed regularly.

  He walked past his wife to the end of the room and stopped at the crib; and felt the knots in his temples about to burst.

  The infant was curled with its legs drawn under and its face to one side. The fine hair was golden in the shaded light.

  Paul felt suddenly weak, and he was afraid that he might tremble and waken the child. But steadily he scooped it into his hands, slowly and with calculated movements. It did not stir when finally he had it in his arms; and he let the held breath escape his lips in a long stream.

  Della squirmed and half-lifted her arm, then dropped it back to the bed. There was a slight noise, but then a great quiet once more.

  He went out of the bedroom and back to the cement walk. The air was cold: he lifted the skirt of his robe and gently placed it around the child in his arms.

  He heard the dwarf rustling and mumbling, and bent to unlatch the door of the fence. He thought of water rushing into his ears and covering his eyes, the cold water of the pool, how it would part greedily and receive its helpless victim—and then close again. How its placid shimmering greenness would mock and invite him, afterwards.

  If I lack this courage, he thought, how could I hope for the other? And a thin voice echoed him.

  Paul walked steadily to the edge of the pool. The infant opened its eyes and closed them and made a tiny sound.

  Straining, to keep from trembling, he let the robe fall back and held out his arms, so that the child was suspended directly above the water of the deep end. The weight increased and he felt his muscles failing: hot wet flames blinded him as the dwarf, and millions of dwarf-creatures, pressed forward, clutching the child he held, pulling, tugging.

  All the sounds of the infinitesimal night things seemed to stop and there was only the whisper of the water as it sloshed against the sides of the pool; and the wind from the hills, damp and sickly.

  Paul reeled once and took one step forward, then the tears broke from his eyes and he pulled the baby back to his chest. He held it there tightly and it cried out when he turned, finally, and stumbled to the bedroom. Controlling himself, he put his small son back into the crib and watched until sleep returned and the settling movements had stopped.

  He looked out one time only at the pool, which was now turning grey with the sun; at the empty hills and the sky of old clouds: once he looked.

  In a little while the dancing colors faded into iron black and he dreamed a faint distant dream.

  He stood in a large square room, which was bare and littered with the debris of many years: years of undisturbed dust lay upon the debris. But the room was not quiet. It was filled with a wild rustling and pinched cries; there were sharp sounds too, from time to time.

  In his dream, Paul saw two windows in the room, side by side. One was open, and wind set the ragged lace curtains undulating: the other window was closed, puttied, nailed, and dust lay caked over the seams.

  Suddenly the room became alive. The sounds took shape and he saw many doves, spotless, fragile. The doves were fighting frantically for escape.

  Before the dream closed into fitful darkness, Paul heard and saw the wild white birds flying again and again at the closed window, hurling their bodies at the grimy glass, some falling to the floor, some merely crying and fluttering their wings.

  But all avoiding the open window.

  Fallen Star

  The road to Palm Springs, which is Hollywood’s Heaven, passes through a grey purgatory of food stands (AVOCADOS NINE 4 $1.00!), freak shows (SEE THE MONSTERS OF THE DESERT! UNBELIEVABLE! CAMERAS WELCOME!) and the ugliest, saddest mountain in the world. Usually I hurry by that mountain. This time I stopped. In the hot sunlight I stopped and stared at the heaped-high tower of rusted metal, at the countless mangled, crushed and forgotten skeletons of what had once been cars. Each part of that eroding hill had been a bright possession, once: new paint, new smell, new feel. Well, what do you think of her? I almost heard the voices, there in the silent desert noon. Say, now, that’s really something! . . . Gonna take her to the Springs and let her out! . . . Be careful! Then, still standing in the shadow of that metal mountain, I began to hear the frightened-woman screech of brakes, the swirl of headlights—Jesus!—and the muffled thunder of the cars, which had been aimed a dozen years before, colliding.

  Mostly, though, I thought: There’d be no mountain here if things stayed young, if things stayed new.

  I realize, now, why I stopped; I didn’t then. Annoyed, I climbed into my young, new Porsche Speedster and took off. The furnace-blast of air, beloved by Southern Californians, made my head ache. The sun blinded me. Why had I been singled out, I wondered, for this job? Why not Jim Gaskins, who loved writing profiles, who delighted in asking impudent questions of vapid actresses?

/>   You’ll see, my editor had said.

  But, I had told him, I don’t even own a television set! I don’t know a damn thing about it.

  That’s why I’m sending you.

  You’re crazy! What’ll I say?

  You won’t say anything. You’ll listen.

  Look, goddamnit, I write fiction. I may have a contract with your magazine, but that doesn’t mean you can—

  Shut up. Ruby Nelson is the biggest thing in show business. The most popular actress in the world today. She lives in Palm Springs. That’s all you need to know. Go get me a story.

  But—

  But, but, but. Ralph had done me so many favors, I couldn’t turn him down. However, it was true: TV was a world unknown to me. I wasn’t angry because of any feeling of superiority; it was simply that I was frightened. Most fiction writers are that way.

  The grubby little towns fell back. The crippled palm trees disappeared. Soon I was in the desert, and this was frightening, too. Because suddenly you look from your speeding car, which only a couple of hours ago was creeping with the flux of Los Angeles traffic, and you see desolation. Emptiness. You see a bush-pocked plain of tan and gray, bone-dry, board-dry, dry past the help of rain; a sprinkle of ancient stones; and beyond, the purple mountains, false, unreal, like flats of papier-maché. And you think the old cliche, if you’re like me: that all this was before you were, will be when you are gone. And who the hell would want to be reminded?

  Not out of the desolation, then, but into the city that had been an Indian village: carved, as they say, out of the wilderness. Palm Canyon Road. On either side, motels. Each with a swimming pool. Each with TV. EL MIRADOR, THE DRIFTING SANDS, TRANQUILLA, DESERT PARADISE.

  The shops. The real estate buildings. The great finned Cadillacs. The Hawaiian-shirted businessmen and their bikinied loves.

  Civilization.

  I drove into a Standard Station and asked where 10789 Mira Vista was. The station attendant told me, and the perspiration started, then.

  The house was one of those low sprawling “desert-ranch” homes, painted yellow. The flat roof was covered with rocks. I parked my car at the curb and forced myself to wonder specifically what I would say. Ralph had given me no warning. I’d had a chance to see only a portion of one of Ruby Nelson’s films, and I knew that she was a beautiful girl and a good actress. I didn’t know anything else about her.

  The door opened before I was halfway across the sidewalk. I heard the sort of voice that pushes up through dirty filters:

  “You’re late.”

  A woman stood at the doorway, swaying slightly. She looked attractive at first, clad in a bright yellow sweater and tight black shorts, red hair loose around her shoulders, legs firm and naked. There was a martini glass in one hand and a cigarette in a long cigarette holder in the other. Then I got a little closer.

  In Southern California, all women are beautiful—from a distance. You see them sweep by in their Thunderbirds, sunlight glinting on their nutbrown shoulders, and you chase them. If you’re lucky, you don’t catch up. Because they’re usually disappointing. The wind flicks back their deep raven hair and instead of the frost-lipped pouting beauty you expected, there’s a middle-­aged woman with warts.

  This woman was more than a disappointment. As I came close to her, the girl I saw from thirty yards vanished. In her place was a female of perhaps fifty, Indian-tan but also Indian-wrinkled. Her eyelids were puffed and red, and the eyes beneath were moist, focusing, searching, squinting against the powerful sun.

  “I said, ‘you’re late!’ ” The kind of voice that comes of twenty years of day-time drinking; no music, no expression; just a group of vibrations spiraling into inaudible squeaks at anything over bass.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know there was a definite time.”

  “My ass you didn’t.” She took a swallow of the martini. “Well, what are you waiting for? Payment in advance?”

  She turned and walked back into the house. After a moment, I followed. The interior was what they call Chinese-Modern, a lot of black furniture with gold striping, bamboo chairs, a white rug.

  “What the hell are you looking at?”

  Her body was almost obscene; it had the firmness and the curves of youth. But there was nothing youthful about her. The shapely, muscular legs did not prepare you for the loose-fleshed arms, the flame-tipped claws, the seamed and ravaged battleground of a face.

  “Are you Ruby Nelson?” I asked.

  “No, Shirley Temple,” she said, grinning, showing fine white caps. Then the grin disappeared. She put the empty glass down on a coffee table, walked over and pressed her body against mine. The smell of alcohol was overpowering. I stepped back. She slapped me, hard.

  “Get out of here,” she said.

  I started for the door. Then I turned and saw her standing in the middle of the rug. Her face was red.

  “Wait,” she said.

  She strode to the door and locked it, then she pulled the blinds together. The room went dark. She walked to the mahogany bar, took out a bottle of Beefeaters gin and filled two glasses. One of the glasses she gave to me, and drained the other.

  “Come on.”

  She pulled me to the vast black couch. Then she lay down in what should have been a seductive pose and unbuttoned her sweater.

  “They’re still good,” she said.

  I didn’t move. I could only sit there, staring at her.

  She clutched my hands and pressed them to her bosom. “Still good,” she said. “Not so old. Laddie, please. Don’t look at me. Take me. Laddie, please.”

  Her eyes were closed now.

  I took my hands away. She cried, “For God’s sake, what am I paying you for?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “There’s a mistake. My name’s Kelly. I was sent here to interview you.”

  “Interview—” She began to laugh. It reached a sort of choked hysteria, and stopped. “Well, you got more than you expected, didn’t you?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I’m new at this sort of thing.”

  “So am I,” she said.

  “Maybe I better leave.”

  “No. I don’t want to be alone now, Mr. Kelly. You’ll be safe.”

  She rose from the couch and opened the drapes.

  “Palm Springs,” she said, “is full of whores. Young men. They rent their bodies to lonely old women. Isn’t that disgusting?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Oh, it is. I never tried it before. I’m not so old, Mr. Kelly, listen; but I am lonely. Dear God, yes! I am lonely.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of her,” she said. “Because of that filthy miserable little bitch.”

  “Who?”

  She looked at me, then went into the bedroom and came back with a photograph. “Her.”

  The photograph showed a sweet young girl with the air of the twenties about her, a beautiful girl, large-eyed, supple, dark against white tennis briefs, so innocent, so very worldly.

  “You really don’t know?”

  I shook my head.

  “All right,” she said. “Have another drink. I’ll tell you about it.”

  The End Product

  Joseph MacElroy had been with the Company more years than anyone could remember. He did his work competently and without brilliance, arrived promptly at nine in the morning and straightened up his desk never earlier than five twenty-nine. He was a very old man and so little inclined towards conversation that he never did have a friend in the office, though there was no one who disliked him. He was never known to smile.

  As a matter of fact, so much of an institution had he become that the office manager, Mr. Harry Zullock, was deeply shocked to discover old “Mac’s” first mistake. It was a small one, a few cents off in an adding machine tape, but even so it could not have been more surprising had it been more serious. Because it had simply never occurred to anyone that Mac could make an error.

  Of course, nothing wa
s said to him about it.

  But then came the second mistake, requiring much time to remedy, and then the third. And it was decided that Mac should be reprimanded.

  “Mac,” the manager said one day, “you’ve been with us a long time and, speaking for myself, you’ve done your work well. But lately you’ve been slipping up—” here the mistakes were explained—“and I wish you’d keep a closer eye on those figures.”

  Mac looked up and said that he couldn’t understand how they had happened and that he’d be more careful in the future.

  The surprise in the old man’s face was the first emotion that Mr. Zullock had ever noticed, and it affected him strongly. He went home that night and thought about it.

  And he thought about it more and more over the following month and a half, as old Mac’s work got progressively worse. There was no sign of sloppiness or lack of initiative: it was simply that errors were being made.

  Which made the situation frightful. Because Mr. Zullock, for all his authoritative power, began somehow to feel a little afraid of Mac. And although he had never before felt hesitant about becoming severe with an erring employee, still it seemed almost sacrilegious to continue reprimanding the old man. To consider relieving him of the position was a thought which had entered Mr. Zullock’s mind but which was hasty in its withdrawal.

  Clearly a crisis was at hand. And for one unused to crises, such a thing can be unnerving.

  At ten o’clock one morning Mr. Zullock looked up from his sight drafts and frowned, because he couldn’t concentrate. His office force was a very good one and he knew it and it disturbed him mightily to find any constant note of inefficiency. It was a failing in responsibility.

  He looked about the small office.

  There was Anne, talking on the telephone to some friend. She made personal calls, but she did her work well so it didn’t matter.