Other Worlds, Better Lives, A Howard Waldrop Reader Selected Long Fiction 1989-2003

by Howard Waldrop

  Wolfe was looking once more at the darkened horizon aft.

  “She’s a great ship,” he said.

  “He’s a great ship. Him,” said Jerry. “That’s left over from the German zeps. They called them that, for obvious reasons. Half the crew on the Ti and his brother ships are old U.S. Navy men. Took them a long time to get used to it; Navy still calls their airships her. Most of the new U.S.I. Airship Service people are trained in Germany, so it comes naturally to them. Still, there’s just about a fight about it every week. President Scott, or the Congress Committee or somebody’s going to have to make an official declaration, once and for all, is it him or her?”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Wolfe.

  Jerry looked around. “I didn’t either, till I signed on the Ti. You know, Mr. Wolfe, there’s one thing—”

  Wolfe thought he knew what was coming. He’d heard it a thousand times since the operation, so it must have happened a million before then. There’s one thing I always wanted to be—a writer, only I don’t use words so good. But I’ve got this idea worth a million bucks. I’ll tell it to you, and you write it up and we’ll split the money fifty-fifty, right down the middle. Wolfe steeled himself, ready to make the usual polite denial, explain how with him, anyway, the ideas had to come from within, be driven by his experiences, his need to tell the story.

  “—I bet you get tired of,” said Jerry, “is people always coming up to you telling you they got an idea that’ll make a million bucks, if only you’ll write it up, they’ll split the money with you.”

  Wolfe laughed nervously. Was this some new kind of preamble?

  “Does that happen a lot, or am I just imagining it?” asked the social director.

  “Way too much,” said Wolfe, looking down at the official name tag on his blue suit coat. “Aren’t you one of those people who wants to be a writer?”

  “Me? Heck no!” said Jerry. “Give up a life of adventure and dames, flying all over the world, free drinks in the only official arm of the U.S. where it’s legal to serve ’em? Give that up to sit in some crummy dump in the Bronx, collecting the Social, staring at a wall while the rats gnaw your feet, trying to think of something to write for Swell Stories? No thanks!”

  Wolfe laughed again.

  “Not that that’s what you do, Mr. Wolfe,” said Jerry. “I thought O, Lost was a really great first novel.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “There’s anything I can do for you on this trip, just let me know. Office is always open—I’m not there, just leave a message on the corkboard. It’s really very nice to meet you.” They shook hands again, and he was gone back toward the salon.

  After watching the darkness and the stars a little longer, Wolfe went back that way too.

  It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie

  Fats took another swallow of gin.

  He saw that the big guy who’d been watching from the bar was gone again. He seemed familiar somehow. But Fats had looked at a million faces in his time.

  He ran his fingers over the keys, went plink-plonk at the end.

  “I don’t know about you,” he said to the band, “but I ain’t making this trip for my health, no, no.” He made another rude noise with the keyboard. “I’m on my way to England, Ole Blighty, right now. Gonna make some records over there for Victorola. Only they don’t call it that. Over there, it’s His Master’s Voice. From Nipper. I knew Nipper when he was just a pup. Why, I knew Nipper when he was so little he was listenin’ to two tin cans with a string tied between ’em, instead of a phonograph. That’s the truth!

  “Gonna record with that Frenchman Grapply. Grape-Elly. I seen him bend a fiddle inside out once, had to play the music backwards so it would come out right. He can play better with his feet than Yehudi can with his teeth. I saw them do it myself. I’m also gonna record some music in a cathedral.”

  He began a slow melodious tinkling on the piano that wouldn’t quite become a recognizable tune.

  “Then I’ll be coming back to good ol’ New York City, U. S. of A. Incorporated. Me and my men will be closing out the New York World’s Fair this year—well, we’ll be closing it down completely, ’cause when we’re done, it’s through with.”

  The drummer hit his snare.

  “Thank you, thank you. Any of you people out there come to N.Y.C., come on out and give us a listen. We’ll be playing at the big Bandhouse there, for your dancing pleasure. To find us, just follow the fire trucks. I might even play the Mighty Wurlitzer organ for the Aquacade. While you’re there, you might want to take in the fair, too.”

  Another drum roll.

  “You can watch me on the new tele-vision there. Hey, you hear they got a robot-man there, the Electro-Man or something like that? He can talk. He can even play little tunes and stuff. I can hear his repertoire now: ‘Junkyard Blues,’ ‘Will You Love Me When I’m Oiled and Grey?,’ and ‘Nobody Loves You When You’re Rusty and Brown.’ Maybe I can get him to sit in with the band.

  “We could play duets. Can’t be any worse than some of the stuff me and Andreamentano Razafinkierfo—or, as he’s better known to the American Society of Composers, Artists and Performers—Andy Razaf and me used to do. He used to say his playing was too mechanical, so working with Electro-Man’ll be just like playing with Andy!”

  Another snare drum shot, ending in a cow bell.

  “Thank you. Okay, let’s play something. Try to follow along, boys,” he said to the Band in the Stars. “It gets too much for you, just lay down and take off your coats.”

  He counted off slow, then went into an easy melody with his right hand. After a couple of bars the band joined in, one and two at the time. “That’s right, that’s it,” said Fats.

  He sang “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie.”

  As he did so, he watched the big lunk come back in, knock back a drink, order another, pick it up and leave.

  Either he don’t like me, thought Fats, or the live experience of Victor’s Cheerful Little Earful is too much for him.

  Hold Tight (Want Some Seafood Mama)

  The song, which had once had a powerful effect on Wolfe, now had another.

  Intellectually, he remembered what it meant in the old days. Now, it no longer connected emotionally with anything in him, and that realization made him take his drink out of the ballroom, through the companion-way, where the promenade, cabin and lower deck corridors met. His first impulse had been to go back to the reading and writing salon, but instead he went down the spiral aluminum staircase to the lower deck lounge area.

  Most of the lower deck was the remainder of the cabins, two more observation areas, and farther back, crew’s quarters and mess, and the freight and baggage compartments. He would see it all tomorrow; he knew this from the brochure they’d given him when he’d booked on the flight.

  It was much quieter here. A few people sat about on the light but comfortably padded chairs and the settees. Most of the passengers were smoking, something impossible on the old dirigibles, before the Panhandle find of helium in Texas, and the other one in South Africa.

  Two men sat at one of the only two cocktail tables—the other was occupied by a pukka-sahib type, and Wolfe could do without that right now.

  One of the men at the table looked up—it was the R.A.F. sergeant he had seen writing earlier, the one with the sandy hair and blue eyes. Now he was in civilian clothing, khaki shirt, light wool pants—no vest, coat or tie. The other was a tall thin man with a large nose, receding hairline, dressed in a grey suit and vest, with a black tie.

  The taller man said something to the other, then motioned Wolfe over. He carried his drink over to them.

  “H—hello,” said Wolfe, sticking out his hand.

  “Join us, please?” asked the taller man. “My name’s Norway. this is Sergeant Ross.”

  “Su
rely,” said Wolfe. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Norway. Sergeant. I’m an American.”

  “Who doesn’t know that, Mr. Wolfe?” asked the sergeant. “How’s the music up there?”

  “It’s great!” said Wolfe, loosening his tie. “Too good. I had to get away for a few minutes, get some air. I—I’ve seen him before, long time ago. He was great then, too.” He came to a stop, aware that he was sounding like a child who’d just seen his first puppet show.

  “Perhaps we’ll go listen soon, eh Ross?” asked Norway. The sergeant nodded.

  “I suppose I’ll just have to put on a coat,” he said to Norway; then to Wolfe, “Do relax.”

  “We were just talking about your country, about the Technocrats. Do you have any idea what’s next?” asked Norway.

  Wolfe stammered. “I’m the last person to ask about anything political. For the first four years of the Depression, all I did was write. I came up for a breather around 1935, then got back to writing and traveling around for another three years. Then I got pretty sick, I’m just now getting on my feet again. So, sorry, I can’t help you very much that way.”

  “Well,” said Norway, “I don’t think your case is much different than most Americans.”

  Wolfe laughed. “It did seem like it happened overnight, I guess. Sort of like the Magna Carta with you people.”

  Sergeant Ross laughed. “I suppose so. But that wasn’t in a democracy, with a constitution.”

  “People will do lots of screwy things when they’re hungry,” said Wolfe. “I try to steer clear of politics with other Americans. Saves a lot of wear and tear on my fists. Like I said, I haven’t paid much attention to politics since the ’32 elections.”

  “That was—Long and Scott?—wasn’t it? I was over there while that was going on,” said Norway. “Seemed like a lot of consternation after—what’s his name, governor, poliomyelitus . . . Roosevelt—choked on that ham sandwich—”

  “It was a chicken bone, I think,” said Wolfe.

  “—chicken bone just before the convention.”

  “Whoever was nominated was going to beat Hoover,” said Wolfe. “So it was Long, and he chose Scott for veep, not because he was a Technocrat, but because he was a Yankee.”

  “Then Scott brought in all his Technocratic colleagues. I met most of them back in ’33,” said Norway. “I never thought it had a chance of working.”

  “Well, I don’t think it would have, if Long hadn’t been killed, and Scott took over. And the people hadn’t voted for the Twentieth and Twenty-First Amendments.”

  “Well, you certainly needed the first of those. You got back your 3.2 beer.”

  “All of America was drunk on 3.2 beer that day,” said Wolfe. “That’s one thing I do remember. You had to ask not to have it if you went to a restaurant. Scott himself said, ‘a little beer is good for America.’”

  “He also said, ‘a sober America is a working America,’” said Norway.

  “Spoken like a true engineer,” said Ross.

  The tall man looked at him.

  Wolfe saw there was an intensity about Ross that he could almost feel, like this conversation was the most important thing in the world. He’d met people like that before, but usually going along with the intensity was a heaping helping of ego. Wolfe didn’t feel that from this man.

  “Uh, what do you do, Mr. Norway, are you some kind of engineer?”

  Norway laughed. “Well, yes. Aeronautical engineering.”

  “Why, you must feel right at home!” said Wolfe, pointing all around them.

  Ross laughed very hard.

  Wolfe blinked. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No,” said Ross. “You said something very funny. Norway built this airship. And all its sis—” Norway looked at Ross “—brother ships. Did the designs, top to bottom.”

  “Really?” asked Wolfe.

  “I helped,” said the Engineer. “The U.S. Incorporated Airship Service called in a very many British and German consultants.”

  “Don’t be quite so modest, Neville,” said Sergeant Ross.

  “You mustn’t forget, I also helped with the 101,” said Norway, a little sourly.

  There was a small pause. Wolfe remembered the disaster headlines from many years ago.

  “Those were the old days. Things were different then. Hydrogen, for instance,” said the sergeant.

  “Hydrogen had nothing—”

  Well, Mr. Ross,” asked Wolfe, “what brings you halfway around the world, and on an American airship? If I’m not prying?”

  “I assure you, I couldn’t afford this trip on my non-commissioned officer’s pay,” he said, smiling. He looked away.

  “Since he’s too modest to tell you, I will,” said Norway. “Sergeant Ross is being flown back to England to be a technical advisor on a motion picture.”

  “Really? What’s it about? Flying? The Great War?”

  Ross looked very embarrassed.

  “It’s about Lawrence,” said Norway, looking at Wolfe, who creased his brow. “T.E.? Of Arabia?”

  “Oh!” said Wolfe. “Did you serve with him?”

  “I knew Lawrence in Palestine. Before the war. But the man I knew then was only slightly the one the film is being made about.”

  “But they still wanted you as technical advisor?”

  “Yes. I told them that, but they insisted. I had studied all the man’s writings, intimately. I think it was that they wanted.” He struck a match against his thumbnail, watched it burn for a few seconds, put it out. “It’s going to be a very strange film. Not as strange as it would be if they could find out one-tenth of the truth about him. But still, very strange indeed, if you view his life as a whole.” The sergeant looked back down at his drink.

  The ghost of a tune came down the stairwell. Wolfe thought at first it was one song, then it sounded like another.

  Wolfe finished his bourbon and Coke.

  “Well,” he said, rising, “I’d better get another drink. Can I bring you something? No? This is some spectacular airship, Mr. Norway,” he said, stamping his foot against the deck. “And I hope the film goes well for you, Sergeant. I’m sure we’ll see each other again—I don’t leave till we get to Germany. Come on up and hear the music or you’ll be sorry you missed it.”

  Wolfe went up the circular stairs. As he rose, he looked through the aluminum trusses with the octagons cut out of them that formed the railing, saw that Ross and Norway were talking quietly again, as if he had never been there.

  He was at the observation windows again. There was only a night full of stars out there. The interior lights had been dimmed to help the seeing, if there had been anything to watch. They were still running, according to the little ship they moved every hour on the world map beside the bulletin board, down the South China Sea before making the right turn that would take them to Karachi, India, the next stop on the Ticonderoga’s around-the-world flight. It had started in New Jersey and would end there. New Jersey—Akron—Ft. Worth (for helium)—San Francisco—Honolulu—Ichinomaya—Karachi—Cairo—Trevino—Friedrichshaffen—Paris—London—New Jersey. Wolfe would be leaving in Germany. He was going to see his German publisher. Now that Germany was back on Zone Time, money, which had been locked up during the years before the Army revolted against Chancellor Hitler after the Sudetenland Debacle, was again flowing in and out of the country. Wolfe was to pick up his royalties from the last two books, and was to meet a translator, Hesse, who had done the last book there, supposedly a very good job indeed. Then he would meet Thea again, and they would have six weeks together in Germany and France, ending up at the Oktoberfest in Munich.

  Wolfe lit another cigarette, and as he did so he realized with a start that it was exactly two years to the day since he’d awakened in the bed at Johns Hopkins, after the
tubercule had been taken out of his brain. He reached back and rubbed the scarred place on his head.

  Two women’s voices drifted over from the promenade, then one of them laughed at something.

  He felt a small moment of dizziness. It was him, not the airship. He still occasionally had them. He reached his hand out to the aluminum railing past the window louvers, and the world came calm again.

  At times like this, Wolfe truly felt something was wrong. Not wrong with him—the doctors reassured him on that—but with everything else. The times. The world. His present life. Like there was something fundamentally wrong with the whole business of living.

  He’d felt it that evening two years ago in the hospital, when he’d first come to some of his senses. He’d remembered nothing of the weeks of delirium beforehand. They told him it had been six raving weeks since he had caught the cold that led to the flu that opened the old tubercular lesion. That he had been in Seattle. They might as well have told him that he was from Mars.

  He had had the same dislocated feeling many times in the past two years. He talked to the psychiatrist friend of Dr. Dandy, the man who’d operated on him. The psychiatrist told him that it was a fairly common side affect of operations on the brain that entailed any memory loss of one kind or another, and that the feeling should go away with the return of memory. But it hadn’t, not yet.

  It had been his books and his older manuscripts that reinforced the feeling in him. He had read them all, sometimes again and again, in the past twenty-four months. Most of them were intensely personal writings, books about a writer writing books about a writer. When his memory had begun to return, he recalled some of the true incidents which had been transmogrified into the fiction.