When Feep had unfolded this slightly incredible saga there had been a curious glint in his eye. I saw it now, as I mentioned his fortune.
“Fortune?” he murmured. “Friend, I have adventures in the last annum that will make your blood run from zero below. I have experiences that will make icebergs out of your corpuscles. Doubtless you wish to catch the details?”
“No,” I grated.
“Well, if you insist—” said Lefty Feep.
* * * *
At first I think I am lucky last year when I do not run into pneumonia. Then something worse happens to me—I run into Gorilla Gabface.
Gorilla Gabface, I believe I mention before, is quite a lusty shout in the old rackets, and he and I are what you might call unfriendly enemies for many the year. We are always making sociable wagers on such matters as who will win the pennant, or what bank will be held up next; and such matters of sporting interest.
Gorilla hangs out in a pool room night and day, in fact I never know him to leave this cue casino in all his unnatural life. I even state the fact that he would not stick his neck out the door if there was a ten-pound cheese on the sidewalk. And this should be quite a temptation, because he is a rat.
So I am quite naturally confused when I see him this night walking down the old stem. He is bouncing along like a bad check, and almost runs me off the sidewalk.
What crooked parole board lets you j out? I naturally inquire.
He blinks at me and sticks out his paw. I do not take it, because there is a ring on my own hand which I value.
“I am on my way to the bowling alleys,” he cracks.
I just stare. “Bowling alleys? I never hear you are a sports-lover.”
He gives a laugh. “There is a lot those big floppy ears of yours never hear, Feep. But it may interest you to know that I am now manager and owner of none other than Yank Albino, the world’s champion pin-punisher. Tonight we are holding an exhibition match with Ed Knight, and I am on my way down to take charge of the box office receipts.” He laughs, and several persons look around to see if a hyena is loose. “I am making myself some pin money, you might say.”
What I might say I say under my breath. It grieves me extremely to see this Gorilla muscling in on something like the bowling-game, which is a line I am personally fond of. I figure it a nice clean sport, and do not approve of putting Vaseline on bowling balls, or plugging up the finger-holes with cork, or otherwise bollixing the works. But if Gorilla Gabface is operating, it will sooner or later be too bad for the bowling game. How he gets hold of a champion like Yank Albino I do not figure out. So I ask him.
“Simple,” he says. “Albino owes me a number of yards on a little bet, so I take over his contract and he will work it out. Right now I am figuring a few neat deals. You know,” he says, “the bowling game is so clean it hurts me to look at it. Give me a few months with this champion and I will put over so many angles that it will take a cross-eyed accountant ten years to untangle the mess.” And he laughs again, causing several people to run home and hide under their beds.
But I do not say anything, and when he asks me if I want to come along and place my peepers on the exhibition matches, I make with the feet to the bowling alleys and take a seat.
This Yank Albino is indeed a sweet bowler, and when I grab a place in the crowd watching I am soon exhibiting my pleasure by uttering such sounds as “Wow!” and “Atta baby!”
All at once I hear a voice at my side contradicting me in such a manner as “Boo! Take him away! He stinks!”
This more than surprises me, particularly since the voice comes out of the mouth of a very pretty ginch. This ginch is just a little thing with long 18-karat hair, but she has a very loud voice, and she keeps up with her “Boo! Throw him out!” even when I stare at her. So naturally, I inquire, “Why, ginch, do you make like a censor? Is it the bowling, or do you have a grudge against Yank Albino?”
She gives me a stare and then she starts to bawl. “Boo hoo!” she yammers. “Yank Albino is my fiancé. Boo hoo!”
Naturally I do not catch, and tell her so. If Yank Albino is her fiancé she should be happy to scramble with such a champion instead of hollering out in public that he is a menace to the nose.
“You do not understand,” she tells me. “I don’t want people to like Yank’s bowling. Because if he becomes unpopular, then maybe his manager will break his contract. I want this to happen, because I know his manager is no better than a thug, and he has got Yank tied up on account of debts and is making some crooked plans for him. I tell Yank this, but he won’t believe me, and he refuses to bowl badly. I don’t know what to do.”
“Leave it to me,” I advise. “I have a few ideas I wish to talk over with Mr. Gabface.”
She gives a little jump. “Oh, you know Yank’s manager, too?” she asks. I wink.
“I know him like a book,” I tell her. “Even better, because I am not acquainted with any books except racing. I think I have me an idea which will make you happy and me money.”
“What is it?” she pipes, cheering up a little and giving me a smile that would go good in advertising love-seats anywhere.
“I think I can find a bowler to beat your Yank Albino,” I say. “In fact I will wager with Gorilla that I find such a character. Then when he beats Yank I will win the bet and Gorilla will get mad and release his contract.”
“You are crazy,” sobs the ginch. “Nobody can beat my Yank.”
I smile.
* * * *
Then I run down to the box office and catch Gorilla Gabface. I tell him what I tell the ginch or at least part of it—that I am willing to lay a grand on a bowling match against Yank Albino if I can provide another champion.
“Who is he?” asks Gabface. “Albino already beats every bowler in all leagues.”
“My man is called the Masked Marvel”, I tell him.
“You are making a bad bet,” chuckles Goldfarb.
I dig into my pocket. “Here is the alphabet for you—one G that says my Masked Marvel will beat Yank Albino in an exhibition match, any date after April 30th.”
“Why after April 30th?” he asks.
“I got to go get him,” I answer. “He lives outside the city. Way outside.”
“How about May 1st?” says Gabface. “We got a date open.”
“Pretty quick, but it’s ok with me,” I agree.
Gabface takes the money and laughs again. “I still say that no human being can beat Yank Albino,” he gurgles.
I answer, but under my breath. “I didn’t say he would be a human being,” I whisper.
* * * *
Drunk and early on the morning of April 30th, I slip out of my pajamas and into a Manhattan. I grab me a flask and make for the car, heading up the Hudson valley and cutting west.
From time to time I take a slug from the flask, because I am looking forward to a tough time.
Pretty soon I am in Catskill country, on my fourth side road and my fifth drink. I am climbing up, and I figure I might as well be as high as the scenery.
The old bus clunks along pretty steady, but I am doing the shivering. Particularly when I get off on the last side road, which is so deserted there aren’t even any hot-dog stands.
I am driving all alone up steep hills covered with trees so they look like a bunch of Smith Brothers’ faces without a shave. To make the resemblance complete, it is so quiet you can hear a cough drop.
Then it isn’t so quiet any more. Far off in the distance there is a low, rumbling sound — like Gorilla Gabface makes after a heavy meal.
I climb higher, it gets darker, and the noise is louder. In spite of myself I begin making like a goose with the flesh. Here I am, all alone in the Catskills, without any weapon but my flask.
By the time I rise over the top of the
highest hill, the rumbling is strictly from thunder. A minute later I know I have arrived. Because there is the sign on the rocks at the end of the deserted road.
ANNUAL PICNIC
The Diminutive Society of the Catskill Mountains
I am back with the dwarfs I meet last year, and, sure enough, up ahead is the open-air bowling alley I build for them. The rumbling comes from inside, so I park the car and go over.
This takes some time, because my feet want to go the other way. You see, I do not wish to remember my last meeting with these half-pints, when they slip me the old double cross and I wake up twenty years too late for the current World Series.
But I have my scheme to make a thousand government etchings of old George Washington, and I know what I must do.
So I do it. I walk inside.
There on the alleys are about twenty of these extremely small fry that call themselves The Diminutive Society of the Catskill Mountains, although, what they really are are dwarfs. Some of them are bowling and the rest are glassing around a beer barrel.
I almost run out again when I see the beer, because it is this stuff that knocks me out for the long count last time. But I take a deep breath and go up to them.
“Hello slobs, what you hear from the mob?” I ask politely.
The whole crew looks up. They have to look up to see me, because they are only three feet tall, and besides most of them have beards growing right into their eyes.
“Why it’s Squire Feep!” cackles the head shorty, who I remember from before. “Back to visit us again!”
* * * *
They get very excited and start dancing around me like I was a Maypole. Some of them are thanking me for the bowling alley, and the head shorty tells me that the new alleys work very good, and that they are using a couple field-mice for pinboys.
“Have a drink,” says the head shorty, holding out a tankard.
But this time I play smart. “Not on your life,” I tell him. “This is the stuff that ripped Van Winkle. Me, I am sticking to my little flask this trip. I just drop in to see how you boys are getting along.”
Well, they do not seem offended, but get back to bowling again, and I take a couple turns at the alley myself.
It is a regulation alley, you understand—I send up a gang to build it myself, because the dwarfs only come out once a year on April 30th, and there is nothing around on other days to make the workmen suspicious. The dwarfs always go in for lawn bowling and ninepins before, but I am glad to see that they understand the new alley very well.
I keep my eye particularly on the head shorty. He is a little guy, like the others, and he has a long white beard that hangs down to his knees, but this does not interfere with his bowling. This personality just runs up one strike after another, even though he stands wrong and his arms are so long I am afraid he bruises his knuckles because they scrape along the alley. But he strikes and drinks and drinks and strikes, and I know I have found what I was looking for.
I sit tight, and after a while the dwarfs get tight. They spend more time around their beer barrel than they do on the alley, and pretty soon I signal the head shorty to come over and sit down with me.
“I wish to ask you a few questions, shrimp,” I inform him. So he leaves the beer barrel polka and sits on my lap, confidential like.
“Now, my little Charlie McCarthy, I got a proposition for you. How would you like to make some money?” I say. He just blinks.
“Big money,” I tell him. “A fortune.”
“What is money?” he asks.
“Cash. Dollars. Hay. Mazuma. Laughing lettuce.”
“Squire Feep, you jest.”
“I just what?” Then I catch on. This midget is so far back in the woods he does not even know what money is. So I explain. Then he shakes his head. His beard bobs around like a dust mop.
“What do I want with money?” he asks. “I do not visit the face of the earth save once a year, on April 30th. And then it is only to bowl and drink, as is our ancient custom.”
“That’s just the point,” I tell him. “You can make a lot of money bowling the way you do. And then you won’t have to live in a hole in the ground. You can live in a swell dump in town. You can visit the Stork Club. Why, you can even go to a barber! A clean shave will make a new man out of you.
“Besides, I never do figure out why you dwarfs are not around except on this one day, April 30th. Can’t you live above ground the rest of the year? Or do you just figure rents are too high?”
“No,” he tells me. “I can live above ground. But it’s so much nicer down below. All that nice dirt to dig and eat.”
“You sound like a columnist,” I tell him. “But seriously now, how about coming back to town and bowling for me? I’ll manage you and we’ll clean up. I’ve arranged a little exhibition match for you tomorrow night. All you got to do is get up and sling a few balls.”
“Tomorrow night? Never!” squeaks Shorty. “I tell you, we of the Catskills must not bowl save on one day alone. If we transgress, dire things transpire.”
“Cut the double talk,” I tell him. “This is your big chance.”
“I must refuse, Squire Feep,” Shorty pipes. And he wriggles off my knee.
* * * *
So there I sit, thinking about my lost G. There is nothing to do but pull out my flask.
I do. And then the idea hits me.
Why not? That’s what the head shorty does to me the last time I visit him. Turn about is fair play. I drink his beer and pass out. What if he drinks my whiskey?
No sooner said than drunk. I amble over to the keg. The dwarfs are singing now in voices that would not please Walt Disney, but I do not mind. I just stand there and tug at my flask, making happy faces. And sure enough, pretty soon the head shorty sees me and his eyes begin glowing. “What are you drinking, Squire Feep?” he asks me.
“Just a little beer of my own,” I tell him. “Have a slug?”
He takes one. Pretty soon his nose begins glowing.
“Methinks it powerful strong,” he tells me.
“Have another.”
He does. We sit down in the corner and I let him play spin the bottle.
Meanwhile, outside it is getting dark. The dwarfs begin bowling again, and the rumbling gets louder and louder, drowning out the way my little shorty pal is burping.
Then I see the dwarfs looking over their shoulders at the sunset, and they begin scurrying out of the bowling alley pretty quick. I know they are going back to their caves on the inside of the hill. It is all over.
It is all over with the head shorty, too. Because he is lying under the seat. I cover him with my coat and nobody notices he is missing. The dwarfs say goodnight, and leave.
So I sit there alone in the twilight with the empty flask. It is very quiet now on the mountain. In fact I hear only one sound, like a dive bomber calling its mate.
It is the head dwarf, snoring under my seat.
“Come on,” I whisper, carrying him out the door and into the car. “Little man, you’ll have a busy day.”
* * * *
It is a very busy day indeed, that 1st of May. When the dwarf wakes up in my room about lunch time I can see, that he does not want any.
“Where am I?” he groans.
“In my dump, pal,” I inform him.
“Why is my beard in my mouth?” he asks.
“There is no beard in your mouth. What you have is merely a slight hangover.” I do not tell him that I Mickey Finnish him, but he can guess.
“It is another day!” he squawks, climbing out of the bureau drawer which I park him in for a bed the night before. “Squire Feep, you are a false friend! Now I am stranded on upper earth for a year! ”
“Calm down,” I advise. “It isn’t going to hurt you
any. A little fresh air and sunshine will do you good.”
“Fresh air!” he squeaks. “Sunshine? Never!” He begins to dance up and down, tearing at his beard. “Take me back to my cave!”
“You’ve got a bowling match tonight,” I tell him. “And there’ll be lots of nice beer, too.”
“I’m hungry. I want some dirt!” he yells.
“How about some nice scrambled eggs?”
“Fie upon eggs! Bring me some nourishing dirt—I need humus!”
Well what can I do but humor him? So I go downstairs and borrow a vacuum cleaner and let my small feathered friend get at the bag. For dessert he finishes up with a little pocket fuzz I’ find in my overcoat.
“Fine,” he says. “Now, Squire Feep, if you’ll take me back to the mountains, I can get along very well for the next 364 days until the Diminutive Society comes out again.”
“Not on your life,” I remind him. “You’re going to bowl tonight. Not only that,” I say, pulling out a little black mask, “but you’re going to wear this over your puss because you are now the Masked Marvel.”
“Never, never, never!” says the dwarf. “My name is Timothy.”
“I will call you Tiny Tim for short, then. But you are still the Masked Marvel and you bowl tonight.”
This does not please Tiny Tim at all. I am none too pleased myself, because the doorbell rings and I have to answer it.
There is the little blonde ginch who is engaged to Yank Albino.
“Oh Mr. Feep!” she says. “I’m so worried, I had to stop by and see if everything is all set for tonight.”
“It is,” I tell her. “In fact, I have the Masked Marvel right here with me now.”
The Fantasy MEGAPACK ® Page 18