The Müller-Fokker Effect

by John Sladek

  ‘No use hiding anything from me now, love.’

  Bradd was doing deep knee-bends on the table. Through a tear in the back of his underpants projected the handle of a wooden spoon, rising and falling with each squat like a pump handle. Chocolate cake batter ran down his leg.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t you remember anything? Wow!’ He went on with the squats, breathing explosively. ‘Best piece of aspic I ever…’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘…all over the place. Don’t you even remember the electric mixer bit? Or what you put in the malt can so we could make the thickest malt ever slurped? No? How about that fresh hot donut bit? You know, when I burned myself and you put cocoa butter on it for me? Haha, and you with that lamb chop…’

  He went on and on, detailing every little kitchen game, and exposing each half-remembered dream as a reality.

  ‘You bastard!’

  ‘I admit it,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But that’s the way I am, so what can I do?’

  ‘I’ll bet you wished you could have tried me frozen, too.’ She found her clothes and started dressing. ‘I wish I were dead.’

  ‘Now that’s another handy thing about freezing, Bette. It takes care of all those nasty suicide feelings without the actual muss and fuss of…’

  ‘ALL RIGHT! All right, I’ll go in the damned freezer. I’ll go in right now—where is it?’

  ‘Not here yet. The freezer plan man doesn’t come around till tomorrow afternoon. Say, keed, why don’t you take the day off tomorrow, just come in about three for the freeze.’

  ‘I’m going away,’ she whispered. ‘About as far as I can get from you, until tomorrow.’

  ‘Good idea. Why don’t you…’

  ‘Why don’t you go and—never mind, you already have.’

  A man needed time to think, and a place. Sun, nature, solitude, a coke. Glen fled the Bitch Goddess in the morning.

  She was getting to everybody: the frigid women, the unwilling women, the women who were only too willing, oddly enough. Even Myra was probably influenced. They conspired to keep him impotent, all of them. There was the photographer who’d locked him out of the studio while they were shooting Miss Monthly; the taxi driver who feigned ignorance about where to go for a good time; even the older kids back at school, hiding away with their exciting ‘Comics—the kind men like’ and never giving him a glimpse.

  He’d tried—he’d really tried to fight the world of censors. When he was eleven, Glen had visited a friend who showed him the pictures in a ‘sexology’ book. Frightening diagrams with obscure names. Sectional views of man and of woman as split kidney bean. Facts of life? He turned from them, nauseated.

  The literary method was no better. From books he built up an exciting but disappointingly vague picture—the thing was a kind of rose with snatching teeth, a labyrinth, a cavern, a V, a cleft, a single glistening eye.…For another twenty-odd years he had worked at the problem, without once actually looking at that eye.

  And now it was time to quit. He packed a few things and crept out of the apartment at dawn, walking softly so as not to disturb the smashed, ripped remains of Bertha Venus, He drove to the lodge at Dull Lake.

  Glen’s timer, which was also a tiny refrigerator just big enough for two martinis, warned him to turn over. He took the sun on every part of his body except the top of his head, covered by a Stagman antler hat. Lying face up in cool wet sand, he moved his arms and legs to make an angel. The sun worked its magic on his hangover and its other, levitational magic.

  The worst self-recriminations melted away. Nearly forty years old, never had a piece of ass, tried to rape secretary, failed, mother dies on him, Utopi hat looks like a doggie novelty, psychiatrist is queer—all unimportant here and now. He rolled over, punctuating the angel.

  As Glen was about to reach for the sun lotion a flash of light stopped him. Across the lake something dazzled in a clump of trees. He dug out the binoculars and looked again.

  There was a car parked there, almost hidden by shrubbery. A spy? Were they even here? He scanned the beach frantically.

  A woman stood waist-deep in the water, her naked back squared to him as if posing for a Stagman calendar. She walked out of the water and out of focus. A tune, some tune was playing in Glen’s head. He fiddled helplessly with the range adjustment; she had already turned toward him before he found her again. Rotating the little wheel, he turned her from a puzzle of light and shadow into a naked woman drying herself.

  The tune wound up to a silent scream as he saw who she was. Then Bette dropped the towel and stretched her arms towards the sun. Glen saw what he had never dreamed existed, and everything else stopped dead. Mental transmission went off the air.

  No rose, no eye, no cavern, no labyrinth of mystery—nothing but a patch of dirty hair!

  ‘Like an armpit! Ugh!’ It picked up his limbs and threw him into the lake; without movement he pushed back water and flung himself toward her. Across the quiet lake.

  Marge finished dressing and climbed back in the car. There wasn’t time to see Spot before she went back to the city. But then why had she ever imagined Spot wanted to see her?

  She drove off with the radio up too loud to hear the shot.

  The two hunters dragged Glen into the boat. He lay in the bottom, bleeding and thrashing around, while they argued.

  ‘How was I sposta know it was some nut in a…’

  ‘Yeah, but shooting at a swimming deer anyway, for Christ sake, that’s about the dumbest…’

  ‘Wait. Listen, he’s tryina tell us something.’

  Through his strangled breathing Glen sang the tune that just wouldn’t leave him alone. ‘A pretty girl,’ he gasped, ‘is like a me…lo…dy…’ They took the body to the game warden, who passed it on to the county coroner.

  Sixteen

  A speck floated on the desert heat.

  ‘May be a god,’ said Seldom From. The others squinted at it.

  ‘May be a new car,’ said Three Dollars and Twenty Cents. ‘That we could use. A new god, no.’

  ‘Don’t blaspheme!’ Seldom From spat, and the scorched earth sucked it down. ‘You want things to get worse for the Utopi?’

  Three Dollars and Twenty Cents sighed, and quoted the proverb: ‘What could be possibly worse than being a Utopi?’

  That was on Wednesday. By Friday the speck was close enough to identify as a human figure crawling on all fours. Some of the younger men, those under sixty, offered to go out and help him.

  ‘No,’ said Seldom From. ‘If it is a god, it doesn’t need any help from us. This may be some kind of test.’

  The young men grumbled respectfully. It was always the same with them, thought Seldom. Any excuse to leave the reservation, to go gallivanting off in the exciting and dangerous world outside. But what did these kids know of the world outside? It was full of temptations. It led them to forget their special place. It led them to forget that all white men despised all Indians, and all other Indians despised the Utopi.

  Sunday morning the new god arrived. He was nearly naked except for a few scraps of what had once been a business suit and half a pair of glasses frames on which clung four or five sparkling stones. Besides suffering from sun and thirst, he was covered with welts and bruises—the kind arrested persons, all over the world, are known to acquire at police stations, by falling down stairs. Some of his teeth were missing and one eye completely closed. The other, bright blue, stared without seeing.

  ‘Some god,’ said Three Dollars and Twenty Cents.

  They gave the stranger a little water, bathed him and put him to bed. Then Seldom From called a council of the elders.

  Fake Sky opened the council in the traditional manner, by singing the tribal history to date.

  Long have we waited for a god

  Long have the Utopi waited for a god

  Others have their gods:

  The Ute have a god, the Piute have a god, the Hopi…

  When
he had finished a list of all the tribes who had gods, and who therefore were entitled to fight wars, till the land, dig gold, hold splendid human sacrifices, etc., he recounted the creation of the Utopi.

  The Creator made all the world and all the animals and all the people.

  Then the Creator decided to clean out his cesspool.

  Rather than waste the stuff, he created the Utopi.

  ‘Last-created’ are we, and despised.

  ‘Last-created’ are we, and neither corn nor oil wells shall be ours.

  In the summer of One Crooked Foot [1884] we thought the gods had come to us when we looked upon white men.

  We were mistaken there, they were scalp-hunters.

  They murdered many of us.

  But this is the fate of the ‘last-created’.

  This is the fate of the Utopi.

  Later the government put us on a reservation in Dead Drunk Mesa, the place they called ‘Bob’s Water’.

  In Dead Drunk Mesa not much doing.

  A little corn, some grass.

  Such is the fate of the ‘last-created’.

  In twenty summers the drought began.

  It lasted forty-two summers [until 1952].

  Then came the cloudburst.

  The cloudburst was radioactive.

  Such is the fate of the Utopi.

  Last summer the government moved us from Dead Drunk Mesa.

  Their god needed the land for his bible.

  Now we live under the great rock called Devil’s Parasol.

  We welcome its cool shade.

  But our corn can have neither sun nor rain under here.

  Such is our fate.

  The government gives us C-rations.

  But the C-rations give us the trots.

  Such can only be our fate.

  Now we have a god.

  He looks like an ex-con.

  Probably he will die, and they will blame us.

  Probably he will wake up and accuse us of some great crime.

  Probably he will wake up and kill us.

  Probably he has bubonic plague.

  Probably he is wanted somewhere and we are already in trouble with the law.

  Probably he will steal our only tractor.

  It does not work anyway.

  Such must be our fate.

  ‘What are we going to do about this god?’ asked Seldom From, who was council leader.

  Three-Twenty shrugged. ‘I don’t think that’s a valid question. I mean, the question are there gods or not just doesn’t have any meaning for me. Not any more.’

  ‘How can you talk like that? With our god lying sick right next door—maybe dying!’

  Three Dollars and Twenty Cents, always a troublemaker, had done it again. To preserve his dignity, he tried to veer the conversation off: ‘Let’s face it, Seld, gods are just smart men. What we need is a front. A solid tourist trade. We need to get where the action is. Send me to, say, New York, why don’t you? I’ll guarantee you a real return on your tourist trade investment dollar. You can start a pottery, a blanket shop, maybe an air-conditioned restaurant with souvenirs out by the candy counter…’

  ‘Smart men? Smart men ? You think all gods were “smart men”, eh? I guess Coolidge was just a “smart man”?’

  Three-Twenty hooted. ‘Here we go! Just because when you were a kid you saw Coolidge wearing a war bonnet, you think he was something special to Indians, do you? Tell me this—did you ever see Coolidge dressed up in a Utopi hat? No. And I’ll tell you why. The Utopi hat is ridiculous, that’s why. It’s a stupid-looking hat! We don’t even make it ourselves, like self-respecting Indians. Oh no, we have to buy it from a plaster novelty company. So who wants to buy one from us, when they can cut out the middle man?’

  Fake Sky objected. ‘Glen Dale bought one.’

  ‘Yes, and we’ll see how much damned luck it brings him! Listen, Seld, why don’t you step down and let some younger man take over leading the council? Like me, for instance.’

  It was a difficult moment for the old leader. He was ninety-two summers old, while Three Dollars and Twenty Cents was just turned seventy. The truth was that Seldom could not think of any reason not to abdicate and let this impetuous young man take over.

  ‘Let’s get down to business,’ said Someone Else. ‘We haven’t named our god yet. We can’t go around calling him just “God”, not if we take him into town. Especially if he’s tied up.’

  ‘Why tie him up?’ Fake Sky was slow to catch on.

  ‘Just how long do you think he’ll hang around here if we don’t tie him up?’

  After a day of discussion, they settled on the name ‘Wise Bream’ as both dignified enough for a god and simple enough to disguise his divinity.

  Wise Bream took his captivity lightly. His first message to the Utopi was ‘She bears each cross patiently.’

  His second message was ‘Many fish to eat.’

  Three-Twenty scoffed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? There are many fish to eat? Many people must fish to eat? Many fish are going to eat? It doesn’t make sense.’

  Seldom From explained that gods often talked what seemed like nonsense, in order to make their meaning clearer. Wise Bream’s utterances seemed to bear this out. He said ‘Some hand over the fish can fly,’ for which Three detected several meanings, and not ten days later one of the women cut her hand opening a sardine can!

  Seldom From needed no further proof. The hut where their imprisoned god lay was immediately decorated with signs by Fake Sky, who copied them faithfully from G. Mallery’s Picture-Writing of the American Indians.

  Weeks went by, and they consulted their oracle often. A scribe was set by to take down every word,* and the emotional, if not the actual, wealth of the Utopi increased a thousandfold.

  One night Three Dollars and Twenty Cents crept into the sacred house and wakened the god.

  ‘I’ve lost my faith, Wise Bream,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t really believe in you. But all the same, I’m a gambler. I’ll take a chance with you if you’ll help me. Tell me, Wise, how do I get where the action is?’

  ‘One can.’

  ‘Is that all you’ve got to say? One can? Even that’s ambiguous. Can’t you just tell me something straight out? Some real truth? Anything at all.’

  The god sighed and sat up. Clasping one knee with his manacled hands, he delivered, without interruption, the sermon known as the One Hundred Twenty-Eight Ways,† which Heavenly cops had rudely interrupted before. Three-Twenty listened hard.

  ‘Still diff’ring wits think this: If Christ is shift’d within virgin by spirit djinn, if Christ is bircht, if fixt with pins till stiff (& ‘tis writ): still: stiffs’ limbs shift & lift nil in grim kist, nil in sky. Kill’d is kill’d.

  ‘Some say he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, rose from the dead on the third day, and ascended into Heaven, but deny that he was actually buried.

  ‘Same soy has we plated ban the Hostly Go, miroculously barn of the Viry Margin, sundered uffer Pilius Pontate, cried on the calve of dossary, rain ago’s in thrawn dees, bunt tho dink hair bummied, thor at flea hew up to fizz heather’s haven.

  ‘Den there thare ose tho whay ses yo tything evercept exat the has wurried ban at the hose rom fre thead.

  ‘So me vest ate dint heir raccoun tsar eluctance ton our is halls even event soft hiss tory: The yown the reap pears a see din gout of the do vein torn aryan dab a by I nth I shy men O torn Ypres tat edits elf. Sod id Hebe are very singles trip eat pi late sex pert handy ester rib bled I vined eat hon across. O fan yen tomb men tan yes cape men tan yarrow zoo ming to ward heave never yon eh as tens to deny…’

  ‘There’s the answer/ the old Indian thought. ‘I’ll put this baby on a soap box in say Washington or New York. Let him jabber at the crowds. Ten cents a listen…’

  Seventeen

  There was jazz by the Morris Nonette, pop rock by the Root Beer of Eternal Darkness, and gospel singi
ng by a choir from the Church of Christ, Bachelor. In the living room the guests, their drinking arms jammed firmly against their chests, jostled in a tight, frantic Brownian movement.

  A silver urn, stamped with the Stagman emblem (a deer wearing a four-in-hand tie), stood on the mantel under the partly-restored Bertha Venus. Drew Moody was doing his best to ignore the urn and its contents and interest people in the painting and its executor.

  Elsewhere Dr Fellstus watched a Xerox engineer do funny imitations, and elsewhere Deef John Holler sat as always alone. In one corner a large group had turned its back on Glen’s ‘funeral farewell’ party to stare at Wes Davis. This was difficult enough, for even in his new wig (an immense d.a. with a love curl) he stood only five-four.

  In the den a quartette of peculiar soldiers had gathered around the harpsichord to sing barbershop. Their bizarre uniforms were all different; the only evidence that they all belonged to the same outfit was the pink plastic barrette each wore above his right ear.

  One wore lederhosen, short socks with loud garters, a striped t-shirt with a large round hole disclosing the jewel in his navel, all topped off with a Guardia Civil bicorn hat. He carried a lorgnette. The second wore candy-striped puttees, velveteen codpiece, feather boa and fireman’s helmet, and he carried a conducting baton. The third wore a rope for a belt, a frock coat too small to hide his dicky and false cuffs, an opera hat and wide yellow shoes, and carried a long cigarette holder with a candy substitute in it. The fourth wore only a lap-lap, a padded bra (worn backwards), a huge ruff and a mortarboard, and carried a licorice whip.