Can & Can'tankerous

by Harlan Ellison

  Boudreau removed the little paper hat, scratched at his hair for a moment, sighed, and said, “Rhadamanthus carries a grudge.”

  Colman stared dumbly Zeus had three sons. One of them was Rhadamanthus, originally a judge in the afterlife, assigned the venue of the Elysian plain, which was considered a very nice neighborhood. But sometime between Homer and Virgil, flame-haired Rhadamanthus got reassigned to Tartarus, listed in all the auto club triptychs as Hell. Strict judge of the dead. No sin goes unpunished. From which the word “rhadamanthine” bespeaks inflexibility.

  “What did you do to honk him off?”

  “I went with Bearden instead of Bob Lemon in the first game of the series against the Boston Braves. We lost one to nothing. Apparently he had a wad down on the game.”

  A slim black man, quite young, wearing a saffron robe and cardboard garrison cap, came out of the back. Lou aimed a thumb at him. “Larry Doby, left fielder. First Negro to play in the American League.” Doby smiled, gave a little salute, and said to Colman, “Figure it out yet?”

  Colman shook his head.

  “Well, good luck.” Then, in Latin, he added, “Difficilia quae pulchra.” Colman had no idea what that meant, but Doby seemed to wish him well with the words. He said thank you.

  Lou pointed toward the rear. “That’s our drive-thru attendant, Joe Gordon, great second baseman. Third baseman Ken Keltner on the grill with our catcher, Jim Hegan; Bob Feller’s working maintenance just till his arm gets right again, but Lemon and Steve Gromek’ll be handling the night shift. And our fry guy is none other than the legendary Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige…hey, Satch, say hello to the new kid!”

  Lifting the metal lattice basket out of the deep fryer filled with sizzling vegetable oil, Satchel Paige knocked the basket half-full of potatoes against the edge of the tub to shake away excess drippings, and grinned hugely at Colman. “You see mine up there?” he said, cocking his head toward the signage of wise sayings. Colman nodded and smiled back.

  “Well,” said Lou Boudreau, saffron-robed counterman shortstop manager of the 1948 World Series champion Cleveland Indians, who had apparently really pissed off Rhadamanthus, “are you ready to order?”

  Time had run out. Colman knew this was it. Whatever he said next would be either the gate pass or the bum’s rush. He considered the choices on the menu, trying to pick one that spoke to his gut. It had to be one of them.

  His mind raced. It had to be one of them.

  He paused. It was the moment of the cortical-thalamic pause. Why did it have to be one of them?

  Life wasn’t a fountain.

  There was only one thing to say to God, if one were at the Gate. At the Core, the Nexus, the Center, the Eternal Portal. Only one thing that made sense, whether this was God or just a minimum-wage, part-time employee. Colman straightened, unfurrowed his brow, and spoke the only words that would provide entrance if one were confronting God. He said to Lou Boudreau:

  “Let me talk to the Head Jew.”

  The peppy little shortstop grinned and nodded and said, “May I super-size that for you?”

  AFTERWORD

  Before Michael Chabon and Dave Eggars bought this story for McSweeney’s, I honored a longstanding request for a submission from Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope All-Story by sending “Goodbye To All That.” It was scheduled soon to be published in the Wesleyan University Press original anthology Envisioning the Future, edited by Prof. Marleen Barr, but the First Periodical Rights were free, and I liked “Goodbye…” so much I thought it would fit right into the “Utopia” issue of Zoetrope. Synchronicity.

  So I sent it off to the managing editor, Justine Cook, a lovely and gracious woman who had steadily nuhdzed me for a story for almost a year. Well, she only loved it, she told me, and she wanted it, and she was going to submit it to the “staff of editors,” she told me, who made group decisions about what went into the magazine. I confess my blood ran cold when I learned that the Sanhedrin of Zoetrope All-Story was something like thirteen young white women, most of whom had graduated from the Seven Sisters universities. It is nearly impossible to get thirteen Jews to agree on anything, much less thirteen shiksas.

  But I bided my time for several weeks till her call.

  Yes, the Cultural Council of Coppola Critics, each one the very incarnation of Calliope, adored the story. Yes, they wanted very much to publish it. Yes, they would pay a larger fee if I would sign the Zoetrope contract giving them first option on the film/tv rights. But first, if I didn’t mind a conference call with two or three others, would I mind answering a couple of questions about the story? Blood runs cold; but I agreed to do my best to unsnarl their skein.

  The first question: “Mr. Ellison, is this story supposed to be, like, funny?”

  I replied that I did indeed hope the telling of the tale would bring a chuckle or two, particularly the part about the yak; and the menu listing. “Uh-huh,” she said.

  The second question, from another woman: “Why did you put the Cleveland Indians in this story? Does it have reference to some archetypal image?”

  I replied that I put the 1948 Indians in the story because I was very fond of the 1948 Indians. “I see,” she said.

  The third question, from yet another Calliope: “What is this story supposed to be? How are we to think of it?”

  I replied exactly thus: “Well, let me see. If, say, James Hilton had written, instead of Lost Horizon, say, Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros…it would be this story. Or, no, wait; let me put it this way. If, instead of having written The Razor’s Edge, Somerset Maugham had written, for instance, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot…it would be this story.”

  There was silence. A trio of silence.

  “It’s absurdist,” I said, struggling for rapprochement. “Dickens, as written by Donald Westlake.”

  “Who is Donald Westlake?” one of them asked.

  Oh, dear, I thought.

  But then yet came The Final Question: “Can you tell us what the punchline means?”

  I paused only a nanoinstant. “It means, uh, nothing,” I said. “It is what it is. The ultimate punchline. It stands alone.”

  They were trigonally taciturn. That went on for a while. Then I sighed, because I really did like Ms. Cook, and I knew she was trying to do me a solid, and I felt sorry for her, as well as for the other young women. And I said, “You’re not Jewish, are you?” I meant no disrespect. Truly.

  And they asked, with only a smidge of ’tude, “Why would you ask that?” And I asked it again, politely; and they all three averred that they were not, to be sure, of a Semitic persuasion. So I said, “I’m afraid I can’t let you publish my story.” Goodness, what a lot of air bubbles and fumfuh’ing.

  “Why not?!?”

  “Because you don’t understand it, and I’m afraid you never will, and it’s somehow wrong to sell a story as close to the heart as this one is, to even nice people who just don’t get it. So I’d appreciate it if you’d just send it back, and I’ll try to write something else for you another time.”

  The letter from Justine Cook that accompanied return of the manuscript began like this: “Dear Harlan, As I hope you realize, I am disappointed not to have ‘Goodbye To All That’ in our Utopia issue. Unfortunately, I was not only constrained in the end by our contract…but you would have had to revise your story, and I know that you do not accept editing of your work.” Etcetera. Nice letter, actually. Wanted another story as quickly as I could offer one. (She was wrong about me rejecting editorial suggestion out of hand, however. All I require is that the editor be smarter and more knowledgeable than I. At least about the story in question.)

  As it turns out, it isn’t a matter of Jewishness or Gentileness. Because Silverberg didn’t get it, either, and Gene Wolfe laughed his ass off.

  It is, I suspect, a matter of being a little loopy in the head. People who think “a sense of humor” and “wit” are the same thing, probably won’t like it. People who never heard the old joke that ends, “Li
fe isn’t a fountain?” also will scratch their heads. I am not, repeat not, saying with some arrogant elitist hubris that people who don’t like this story are any less beautiful, cogent, well-dressed, righteous, or intellectually expansive than those who do. All I’m saying is that this is a great short story, written by a humble journeyman on the road to the mountaintop whereat resides Kafka, Borges, Dali, Daniel Manus Pinkwater, and Antonin Artaud.

  The rest is up to you. I’m watching.

  By the next day, I was in intensive care.

  It’s now nine weeks later.

  Still standing after all these years…

  INTRODUCTORY NOTE:

  HE WHO GREW UP READING

  SHERLOCK HOLMES

  “He Who Grew Up Reading Sherlock Holmes,” is—I think—an important story. I think it may not be the best story I’ve ever written. People always ask about my favorite story. I say, “It’s Moby-Dick. I was at the peak of my power when I wrote Moby-Dick; however, I really was good when I did Wuthering Heights.”

  What’s my favorite story? How the fuck do I know? Whatever I’m working on at the moment.

  HE WHO GREW UP READING

  SHERLOCK HOLMES

  A bad thing had happened. No, a “Bad Thing” had happened. A man in Fremont, Nebraska cheated an honest old lady, and no one seemed able to make him retract his deed to set things right. It went on helplessly for the old lady for more than forty years. Then, one day, she told a friend. Now I will tell you a story. Or a true anecdote. For those who wish this to be “a story I never wrote,” have at it; for those who choose to believe that I am recounting a Real Life Anecdote, I’m down with that, equally: your choice.

  Once upon a time, not so long ago…

  A man in an 8th floor apartment in New York City lay in his bed, asleep. The telephone beside him rang. It was a standard 20th Century instrument, not a hand-held device. It was very late at night, almost morning, but the sun had not yet risen over the decoupage skyline of Manhattan. The telephone rang again.

  He reached across from under the sheet and picked up the phone. A deep male voice at the other end said, very slowly and distinctly, “Are you awake?”

  “Huh?”

  “Are you awake enough to hear me?”

  “Whuh? Whozizz?”

  “Are your bedroom windows open…or shut?”

  “Whuh?”

  “Look at the curtains!”

  “Whuh…whaddaya…”

  “Sit up and look at the curtains. Are they moving?”

  “I…uh…”

  “Look!”

  The man’s three-room apartment was on an airshaft in mid-Manhattan. It was in the fall, and cold. The windows in his bedroom were tightly closed to shutter out the noises from the lower apartments and the street below. The curtains were drawn. He slumped up slightly, and looked at the curtain nearest him. It was swaying slightly. There was no breeze.

  He said nothing into the phone. Silence came across the wire to him. Dark silence.

  A man, more a shadow, stepped out from behind the swaying curtain and moved toward the man in the bed. There was just enough light in the room for the man holding the phone in his hand to see that the man in black was holding a large raw potato, with a double-edged razor blade protruding from its end. He was wearing gloves, and at the end of the gloves, at the wrists, just slightly outstanding, the man in the bed could see the slippery shine of thin plastic food-service gloves. The man in black came to the bed, stood over the half-risen sleeper, and reached for the phone. Keeping the slicing-edge of the razor blade well close to the neck of the man imbedded against the pillow, he took the receiver with his free hand.

  From across the line: “Just say yes or no.”

  “Yes, okay.”

  “Is he sitting up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can he see you…and whatever you have at his throat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Give him back the phone. Do nothing till I tell you otherwise.”

  “Okay.” He handed the receiver back to the man quivering beneath the razor blade. The eyes of the man below were wide and wet.

  Across the line: “Do you believe he’s serious?”

  “Huh?”

  “All I want from you is yes or no.”

  “Who’re…”

  “Give him the phone.” Pause. Again: “Give him the phone!”

  The frightened man handed back the instrument.

  “I’ve told him to say yes or no. If he says anything else, any filler, any kind of uh-huh-wha…can you cut him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not seriously, the first time. Let him see his own blood. Make it where he can suck it and taste it.” The man in black said nothing, but handed the receiver back, laying it tight to the other man’s ear. “Now,” came the motionless voice out of nowhere, “are you convinced he’s serious and can do you harm? Yes or no?”

  “Listen, whoever the hell you are…”

  The potato swept down across the back of the man’s hand, from little finger to thumb. Blood began to ooze in a neat, slim line, but long, almost five inches. He dropped the phone on the bed, blood made an outline on the top sheet. He whined. It may have been the sound of a stray dog sideswiped by a taxi in the street far below, faint but plangent. The man with the razor-in-a-potato reached toward the pale white throbbing throat and nodded at the dropped phone. All else was silence.

  Sucking on his knuckles, he lifted the instrument with a trembling, slightly-bleeding hand; and he listened. Intently.

  “Now. Listen carefully. If you say anything but yes or no, if you alibi or try to drift in anything but a direct, straight answer, I have told him to get a thick towel, jam it into your mouth so no one will hear you scream as he slices you up slowly. And your brother Billy. And your mother. Do you understand?”

  He began to say, “…uh…” The potato moved slightly. “Yes,” he said quickly, in a husky voice, “yes. Yes, I understand.”

  The level, determined voice off in the distance said, “Very nice. Now we can get down to it.”

  The man in the bed, with morning light now glinting through the curtains and shining off the razor blade poised quivering near his throat said, “Yes.”

  “You hold a painting by a nearly-forgotten pulp magazine artist named Robert Gibson Jones…” The voice paused, but the man beneath the razor-blade knew it was merely a lub-dub, a caesura, a space in which, if he said the no or I don’t know what you’re talking about or it’s at my cousin’s house in Queens or I sold it years ago or I don’t know who bought it or any other lie, his body would be opened like a lobster and he would lie in his own entrails, holding his still-beating heart in his fingertipless hands. Throat cut ear to ear. Immediately.

  He said nothing, and in a moment the voice at the other end continued, “You have been offered three purchase prices by four bidders. Each of them is eminently fair. You will take the middle bid, take the painting in perfect condition, and sell it this morning. Is that clear?”

  The man holding the phone, whose blood was now pulsing onto the bedspread, said nothing. The voice from Out There commanded, “Give the phone to…” He held the instrument out to the dark figure poised above him. The potato-blade man took the phone and listened for a few seconds. Then he leaned close enough to the other so the man snugged in his pillow could see only the slightly less-black line where the knit watch-cap covering the potato-man’s head gave evidence he had eyes. No color discernible. “Is that clear?” Then he said into the phone, “Says he understands,” and he listened for a few more moments. There was moisture at the temples of one of the men in the bedroom. The connection was severed; the razor blade sliced through the cord of the telephone receiver; the man in the bed was swiping at the back of his left hand, sucking up the slim tracery of blood. The figure all in black said, “Now close your eyes and don’t open them till I tell you to.”

  When the bleeding man finally opened his eyes, a minute or two after total silence, even
though he thought he’d heard a bump of the apartment door to the hall closing…he was alone.

  An haute couture newsletter editor on le Rue Montaigne dans le huite arrondissement, greatly hacked-off at her third Editorial Secretary, demanded an appearance, en masse, of all her “verticals,” the 21st Century Big Business electronic word for “serfs,” “minions,” “toadies,” “go-fors,” “vassals,” “water-carriers,” “servants.” Slanguage today. She fired five of them. The wind blew insanely near the northern summit of Mt. Erebus in Antarctica.

  Within the hour, one of two thin-leather driving gloves, black in color, had been weighted with stones from the East River and sealed with a piece of stray wire from a gutter, and had been tossed far out into the Hudson. Another glove, same color, filled with marbles from a gimcrack store on Madison Avenue, sealed with duct tape, went into the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. Items were dropped in dumpsters in New Jersey; a pair of common, everyday, available-everywhere disposable gloves used by food-handlers were shredded, along with five heads of cabbage, in an In-Sink-Erater in a private home in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. One of a pair of undistinguished off-brand sneakers was thrown from a car on the New Jersey Turnpike into the mucky deep sedge forty feet from the roadway. The other piece of footwear was buried two feet under a garbage dump in Saranac Lake, A day and a half later. But quickly.

  But only three hours and twenty-one minutes after the closing of a door in mid-Manhattan, a man in an 8th floor apartment called a woman in McLean, Virginia, who said, “It’s a little early to be calling so unexpectedly after what you said last time we talked, don’t you think?” The conversation went on for almost forty minutes, with many question marks hindering its progress to an inevitable conclusion. Finally, the woman said, “It’s a deal. But you know you can never hang it or display it, is that okay with you?” The man said he understood, and they agreed at what time to meet on the third stairwell of the Flatiron Building to exchange butcher-paper-wrapped parcels.