by Rod Serling
He carefully butted out the cigar on the sidewalk, scraped off the ashes, and deposited it in his pocket. He started off with a wave of his hand.
“See ya around, buddy boy,” he called over his shoulder.
“Hey!” Harvey yelled.
Grimbley stopped and turned to him. Harvey pointed to the car.
“Any suggestions?”
Grimbley looked thoughtful for a moment. “Suggestions? Yeah, maybe one. Why don’t ya hang yourself!” Then he turned and walked off.
Harvey leaned against the model A, staring down at his feet, feeling the weight of his depression like sandbags on his shoulders. He took a slow, rather aimless walk over to the shack. He had barely entered the small room when Irving appeared at the door.
He entered silently and picked up a paintbrush from a bucket in the corner. He held it up.
“I came back for this.”
Harvey nodded numbly and sat down at his desk.
“It belongs to me,” Irving said defensively.
Harvey shrugged again and looked at him blankly. “I’m happy for you.” He turned in the swivel chair and looked out the window. “I’m like Dante in the inferno,” he announced rhetorically. “I’m absolutely like that fella Dante—doomed, damned...bankrupt!”
He turned again in the chair to face Irving. “Booby...One man! One clod! One absolute idiot who’s got a thing for a pig-in-the-poke! Or one guy whose tellin’ the truth all the time might do some good!
Irving—is there no such patsy in this city? In this country?” Irving stared at him, totally without sympathy.
“You’re askin’ me? You got a helluva nerve! Askin’ me about patsies! After I’ve slaved and worked and broke my back and told lies for ya! You got a helluva nerve even sittin’ there talkin’ to me! My old man says you’re a son of a bitch! And ya know somethin’, Hennicutt?”
At this point, Irving slammed his small fist down on the desk. “My old man is right!”
Once again he pounded on the desk for emphasis, and it was then that Harvey noticed the newspaper lying there. He reached over and pulled it to him, turning it so that he could read the headlines. He stared at it for a long moment, then put it down and started to drum his fingers on the desk.
“And, furthermore,” Irving’s voice squealed, “my old man says that for two cents he’d come over here and give you such a hit in the head you’d never forget it! And, besides that—my sister’s husband is goin’ to law school at night and I’ve got every intention of talkin’ this whole thing over with him and maybe suing you for contributing to the delinquency of a minor!”
Harvey’s head was bent low over the paper. He gave no sign of hearing Irving’s soliloquy, much less being moved by it.
Irving slammed his bony little fist on the desk top again.
“when I think...When I think of the terrible things you had me do—like sellin’ that 1928 hearse and saw it was Babe Ruth’s town car!”
He shook his head at the enormity of his past transgressions, but still Harvey Hennicutt kept his eyes fastened on the paper. His lips moved soundlessly as he read something in it, and then, very slowly, he looked up into Irving’s face.
“Why not?” he whispered. “I ask ya, Irving, why not?”
Irving thrust out a belligerent pointed jaw. “Why not what?”
Harvey slapped the newspaper. “Why not sell it to him?”
“Never mind him,” Irving screeched out. “What about my rights? What about my severance pay? What about my seniority?”
Harvey had the phone book in his hand and was riffling through the pages. He looked up briefly at Irving.
“Irving, booby...I am about to strike a blow for democracy! I don’t know how I’m goin’ to—but I’m goin’ to. You and me, booby,” he said, looking down at the phone book. “You and me. This moment is goin’ down in history right alongside of Washington crossing the Delaware, the invasion of Normandy, and the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment!”
Irving gaped at him. “What?” he inquired in a soft voice.
“Exactly!” Harvey said. “And you are there!”
He grabbed the phone and pulled it toward him. He started to dial a number, and at the same time looked up at Irving.
“You run out and dust off that Packard—the one with the sawdust in the wheel bearings.”
“Check, boss,” Irving said, as he turned smartly and headed for the door.
Harvey Hennicutt was functioning again. Irving could hear the great man’s voice on the telephone. It rang with some of the old assurance, the verve, and the grandeur of the man who had once actually sold a Mack truck to a midget along with a written guarantee that the midget would grow an inch and a quarter each year just by stretching to reach the pedals.
It was eight in the morning when a long, sleek black limousine pulled into Harvey Hennicutt’s used-car lot. Harvey, hearing it stop, left the shack and went over to it. He noticed immediately that it was driven by a chauffeur who had a build like Mickey Hargitay.
There was a huddled figure in the back seat who sat motionless with his coat collar hiding his face, but the front door opened and out stepped a dapper little man with a face like a chicken hawk. He gave Harvey a no-nonsense nod, looked around at the various cars, with a raised eyebrow, then pointed to the model A.
“This is the car, I presume?”
Harvey nodded. “That’s the baby.”
“Baby?”
“It’s an American expression,” Harvey explained. “We call everything ‘baby.”‘
He looked over the little man’s shoulder at the black limousine. “That’s not a bad-lookin’ baby you’re drivin’. You’re not thinkin’ of trading that in, are you?”
The little man shook his head decisively. “I am interested only in this so-called model A you described on the telephone.”
Harvey smiled at him. Then he winked, and jammed an elbow into the little man’s rib cage.
“Got to ya, didn’t I?”
He jerked a thumb in the direction of the model A. “Wouldn’t that be a blast. You take that car back to your country, tell ‘em that this is a sample of what the capitalists drive?” Again he rammed an elbow into the little man’s side. “That’s worth six points, ain’t it?”
The little man dusted off his coat, moved a step back, and surveyed Harvey, half with horror and half with a curious, clinical interest.
“Precisely what we choose to do with the automobile,” he said tersely, “is our business, so long as we agree on the terms. You said that the automobile was three hundred dollars?”
Harvey noted that the little man was already reaching into his coat for a wallet.
“Three hundred dollars,” Harvey explained hurriedly, “is for the car without the extras.”
He felt his eyeballs swell as the little man dug into the wallet and started to extract bills.
“The hubcaps are extra—that’s twenty bucks. The hand crank— not that you’ll probably need it—that I’ll practically give away for twelve.”
His practiced eye was a gimlet microscope as he looked over at the model A.
“That special window glass—” He felt the truth rising up in him and heard himself say at this point, ‘.It ain’t unbreakable, I mean.”
“Not unbreakable?” the little man inquired.
“It breaks, is what I mean,” Harvey explained, and then deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, he wordlessly pulled out several papers, spread them out on the hood of an incredibly aged Jordan 8.
“Now if you’ll just sign here,” Harvey said, whipping out a pen. “That’s the transfer of ownership, title, and memorandum of sale. Each one is in triplicate and I put an X where you gotta sign each one.”
The little man collected the papers and carried them over to the black limousine. He tapped on the rear window and a large, pudgy hand came out to take the papers. It disappeared with them into the dark confines of the rear seat. There was a muffled inquiry in a strange lang
uage. The little man turned, called out to Harvey.
“My—my ‘employer’ would like to know if a guarantee comes with this automobile.”
Again, Harvey had that ice-cold feeling. It had come—that moment of truth again. He smiled weakly. Coughed. Blew his nose. Hummed a short selection from Guys and Dolls. Looked wildly over his shoulder to see if he could find Irving and change the subject. But the question hung over him like Damocles’ sword, and all of his ritual, he knew very well, was simply a delaying rearguard action. He had to make his stand—and make it he did.
“The car’s haunted,” he said, in a hollow, muffled voice.
The little man looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Haunted?” he inquired.
Harvey unloaded his caution in one fell swoop. “Haunted it is,” he said. “Real haunted. I mean, it’s like...it’s like haunted! And that’s somethin’ you can’t say about any other car you’ve ever seen!”
Harvey’s voice went on, buoyed up by truth, propelled out by honesty, and given a lyrical quality by his sheer desperation.
“Lemme tell ya somethin’, buddy,” he said, walking over to the little man to poke him with a forefinger. “A lot of these cars are real gone. I mean long gone. And some of ‘em are absolute first-rate bonafide lemons. I got some I keep behind the shack, camouflaged, because they’re the old busteroo’s!”
He whirled around and pointed dramatically toward the model A. “But that car—that model A—That car is absolutely haunted. I guarantee it. It is like absolutely haunted!”
The interpreter, or whoever he was, turned and said a few words into the back seat of the car, and, after a moment, was handed some papers by the person sitting there. He passed these over to Harvey.
“Here you are,” he said. “All signed.” He looked at the model A over Harvey’s shoulder. “Now, I presume the car has petrol?” he inquired.
“Petrol?” Harvey made a face. “You mean like—like—”
“Gasoline,” the little man interrupted. “Does it have a full tank of gasoline?”
“She’s loaded up,” Harvey said. “You can just drive ‘er away, buddy.”
Tine little man nodded, satisfied, motioned to the chauffeur, who got out of the limousine. Harvey turned, kicked his heels together in the air, and then waltzed back over to the shack like some ponderous ballet dancer. He took the four steps. in one leap, slammed his way into the room, grabbed Irving by the ears, and planted a big wet kiss on his forehead. He held out the papers, and studied them. For the first time in days he felt an incredible lightness of mind and body, as if he had just been removed from a concrete cast.
Irving was both frightened and impressed as he looked out through the open door at the black limousine departing.
“You know what that is, boss? That’s what they call a Zis. It’s Russian.”
Harvey kicked over a wastebasket with sheer animal joy. “That’s what she is,” he said. “Irving, booby,” he gushed, as he leaped up on the desk upsetting an inkwell and a basket of papers, “this is very likely the happiest day of my life!”
Irving was not listening to him anymore. He was staring, wide-eyed, out the door as the model A chugged past him.
“Boss,” Irving whispered, “boss, you sold it!” He turned to stare at Harvey, then slowly his eyes lowered to the newspaper, still on the desk. The headline read, “Khrushchev visiting UN.”
“Khrushchev.” Irving barely got it out. “Nikita Khrushchev.”
He took a hesitant step toward the desk, where Harvey stood like some offbeat god in a pool of ink and torn papers. Irving looked up at him with awe and reverence.
“That’s who you sold the car to, wasn’t it, boss? Nikita Khrushchev.”
Harvey held out the registration papers in his hand and pointed to a signature. “Irving, booby,” he announced senatorially, “from this second on, when that old lard-head starts to walk on his lower lip—it comes out like the truth!”
“Boss,” Irving whispered, feeling himself in the presence of some kind of deity, “boss...how the hell did ya do it?”
Harvey lowered the papers and placed them on the desk well away from the pool of ink. He thought for a moment and then spoke.
“Acumen, Irving,” he finally said, in a gentle voice. “Stick-to-it-iveness. Will. Determination. Perseverance. Patriotism. Unselfishness. Resolve.” He lit a cigar. “And also the fact that if I had to tell the truth one more time, I’d’ve had to commit suicide!”
He took the cigar out of his mouth and surveyed it at arm’s length. “Know what I told ‘em, Irv? I told ‘em it’d be a real blast to take the raunchiest-lookin’ puddle jumper ever to come out of Detroit, take it back to the USSR and put it on display. Propaganda! That was the pitch. Show all of them walking Muscovites just what the average American drives—or at least what Nikita would like ‘em to believe we drive.”
Irving’s face looked drawn and his eyes narrowed slightly.
“Boss,” he said, “that ain’t patriotic.”
Harvey beamed at him from his Mount Olympus of righteousness and holy zeal.
“Irving,” he said patiently, “that’s what I told ‘em they could do with the car, but that isn’t what they’re gonna be able to do with it. When Fatty starts that kind of pitch, it isn’t gonna come out that way—”
He chuckled softly, got down off the desk, reached for the phone, studied it a moment, then started to dial a number.
“Irving,” he said, over his shoulder to the boy standing there like a pilgrim seeing a miracle performed. “Irving, run out there and close the hood on the Essex—and if anybody should come within ten feet of it, you lasso ‘em. Tell ‘em that that car was formerly owned by a lady embalmer who won it at a raffle at a DAR convention in Boston, but it was only used once a year as a float in Fourth of July parades.”
Irving’s eyes shone with almost tearful respect and admiration.
“Right, boss,” he choked. “I’ll attend to it.”
He turned and went outside, as Harvey heard the operator’s voice on the phone.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, chewing on the cigar. “I think I’ll probably need Information....That’s correct. . . . Ya see, what I had in mind was that if an American citizen had somethin’ real important in the way of news...I mean...if it affected the policy of the United States...what I mean is—if from now on, everything that fat boy over there said was the absolute truth—well, what I’d really like to know is...Can you get me through to Jack Kennedy?”
Then he sat back, chewing happily on his cigar, as outside the noise of Irving’s pounding down the hood of the aged Essex came over the quiet lot like a clarion call to arms.
Harvey Hennicutt, as he tells it, was eminently satisfied.
The Shelter
Outside it was a summer night. Broad-leaved oaks and maples caught the lights of the old stately houses that flanked the street. A breeze carried with it the eight o’clock noises of television westerns, kids asking for glasses of water, and the discordant tinkle of a piano.
In Dr. Stockton’s house, the meal had been eaten, and his wife, Grace, was bringing in the birthday cake. The people at the table rose, applauded, whistled—and somebody began singing “Happy Birthday to You,” and then they all joined in.
Bill Stockton blushed, put his head down, held up his hand in protest, but down deep he felt incredibly happy.
Marty Weiss, a small, dark, intense little guy who ran a shoe store on Court Street, got to his feet and shouted out:
“Speech, Doc. Let’s have a speech!”
Bill Stockton blushed again. “Lay off me, will ya—you crazy people. A surprise party is all my heart can take. You want to lose your friendly family physician?”
There was laughter, and then Jerry Harlowe—a big, tall man, who had gone to college with Bill—stood up and held out his glass.
“Before he blows out the candles,” Harlowe announced pontifically, “I should like to propose a toast, since no birthday celebration i
s complete without a traditional after-dinner address.”
Martha Harlowe gave him a Bronx cheer and Marty’s wife, Rebecca, tried to pull him down by the back of his coat. Harlowe leaned over and gave her a big wet kiss and they all shrieked with laughter. Then he held up his glass again, waved off Grace’s protest that first her husband should blow out the candles, and addressed the group.
“And now to get down to the business at hand—that of honoring one Dr. William Stockton, who’s grown one year older and who will admit to being over twenty-one.” Again they all laughed, and Grace leaned over to hug her husband.
Harlowe turned toward Bill Stockton and smiled, and there was something in the smile that made them all become quiet.
“We got this little surprise party together, Bill,” he said, “it’s a very small reminder to you that on this particular street, and in this particular town, you’re a very beloved guy. There isn’t one of us in this room who hasn’t put in a frantic phone call to you in the middle of the night with a sick kid or a major medical crisis that turns out to be indigestion. And you’d come out with that antique medical bag of yours, one eye closed and half asleep, but without even a moment’s hesitation. And while things like this never appear on a bill under ‘services rendered,’ you made a lot of hem beat easier, and you’ve eased more pain than I’d ever like to feel.”
He grinned, then winked at the people who were listening so intently.
“And there also isn’t one of us in this room,” he continued, “who hasn’t owed you a whopping bill for a lot of months, and I expect there are plenty of us on this street who owe you one now.”
There was laughter at this. And Marty Weiss banged on his glass with a fork.
“What about his hammering at all hours of the night?” he called out. “That’s another thing we owe him for.”
Jerry Harlowe joined in the laughter, then held up his hands.