by Max Shulman
“‘It should look good,’ said the waiter. ‘It spends every afternoon on the beach. That’s the manager.’
“How we laughed at that!
“‘Oh, just bring me some otter haunches and a bottle of white wine,’ I said carelessly.
“After the waiter brought my dinner, I ate quickly. I was in a hurry to get to the part where I lighted the cigarette. As soon as I finished the haunches and the wine, I put a cigarette between my lips. Slowly, deliberately, I lifted the lighter to the level of the cigarette. I pressed the cunning mechanism and a long flame shot forth. I inserted the tip of the cigarette and puffed languorously. Then, holding the lighter by its base so that all of it was visible, I lowered it slowly to my pocket.
“As soon as the lighter was back in my pocket, I felt a faint tap on my shoulder. I looked up. A woman in a cloth-of-gold evening gown was standing beside me. Her hand was clutching a small sequined bag that bulged suspiciously. On one finger she had a signet ring, engraved with the same curious symbol that was on the lighter. Her face was pale as chalk; even her eyes were pale. She was biting her lower lip steadily, oblivious of a trickle of blood that ran out of the corner of her mouth.
“‘I couldn’t help noticing your lighter,’ she said in a flat, toneless voice. ‘May I see it?’
“‘Of course,’ I said cordially. ‘Sit down, ma’am.’
“With a breathed thank-you she sat and examined the lighter.
“‘Say,’ I said. ‘this isn’t yours, is it? I found—’
“‘No!’ she cried in terror. ‘No!’
“Then she leaned closer to me, her lips scarcely three inches from my ear. ‘Hochartig is here,’ she whispered. ‘I had to tell you.’
“She rose and left silently.
“I shrugged and lighted another cigarette.
“The waiter suddenly appeared beside me. ‘Don’t try to leave,’ he said. ‘He’s seen you.’ The waiter moved on.
“A short, swarthy man with a ring in his nose approached my table. He was dressed in impeccable evening clothes but, oddly enough, he was barefoot. His face was smiling except for his hard blue eyes. ‘What’s the good word?’ he said to me.
“‘Save your money?’ I replied genially.
“He sat down. He called the waiter over. ‘Two rum collins with lime,’ he said. ‘And buy yourself one.’
“‘NO!’ cried the waiter, his face screwing up in horror. ‘NO!’
“‘You got it right,’ said the man.
“The waiter left, but not in the direction of the bar.
“‘Nice place,’ I said conversationally.
“‘When the flax hits the tracks get your sacks,’ said the man.
“I continued. ‘Of course their prices aren’t exactly what you would call cheap, but when you come to a place like this, you got to expect. After all, overhead, things like that, it adds up.’
“The man frowned. He tugged at the ring in his nose for a moment and then he said, ‘The wren met the hen in the glen.’
“‘Well,’ I said, ‘I guess I’ll be moving along. Reveille tomorrow, you know. Heigh-ho, for a soldier’s life.’ I looked around for the waiter.
“‘It’s mine,’ said the man, putting his hand over my check. ‘The pig did a jig for a fig,’ he added.
“‘Much obliged, friend,’ I said.
“I walked toward the door. Two flat-faced, loose-hung Eurasians fell in beside me. As we reached the door, each dealt me a precise blow on the temple. I toppled down a flight of stairs leading to the street. The two Eurasians came slowly after me.
“‘Quickly. In the car,’ said the pale woman who had spoken to me upstairs. With surprising strength she lifted me from the sidewalk and pushed me in the open door of a black sedan parked by the curb with motor running.
“The two Eurasians broke into a run. They reached the sidewalk just as the car was pulling out. With swift, familiar gestures they pulled revolvers from shoulder holsters and fired at the disappearing car, heedless of a near-by policeman who stood with arms akimbo, his very posture, if they had noticed, spelling disapproval.
“I settled back in the deep cushions of the car. ‘Sure looks like the 1942 model,’ I said to the driver.
“He did not answer but drove intently on. He drove smoothly through the business district and then turned into a trunk highway leading out of the city. He increased his speed as he left the city’s traffic behind.
“‘Where are we going, friend?’ I asked.
“He did not answer. He drove straight ahead for perhaps ten miles, then turned into a macadam road branching off the highway.
“‘Macadam was named after its inventor, a Scot named McAdam,’ I said.
“When he did not answer that, I took my Soldiers’ Guide to the Hawaiian Islands out of my pocket and soon became engrossed in its simply written, copiously illustrated text.
“In about a half hour the driver turned off on a twisting dirt road. Soon we came to a large walled estate. He drove through an opened wrought-iron gate onto a graveled driveway. Four hooded figures stood on the driveway singing a Gregorian chant. The driver stopped and got out of the car. The four hooded figures took me out of the back seat, staked me to the ground in a supine position, and kicked me for twenty minutes. Then they took me into the house and left me in a hall hung with expensive tapestries.
“‘Anybody home?’ I called.
“‘Come right in,’ boomed a voice from a lighted doorway about twenty feet down the hall. I went into a tastefully furnished den. Sitting at a card table were the pale woman I had seen at the Royal Hawaiian and a tall, lean man in a red toupee, the toupee made more obvious by being on backward. They were playing Authors. The pale woman left as I came in, first casting me a meaningful glance.
“The man in the red toupee approached me and with a quick downward lunge clapped manacles around my ankles. ‘There’s a fox in a box at the docks,’ he said.
“‘This place must have cost you a nice piece of change,’ I said. ‘Of course, I suppose when you get out of the city, real-estate values are a little cheaper.’
“The man in the red toupee put a poker into the fireplace. He held it until its end glowed red. ‘I’ll give you one more chance,’ he said. ‘A bear ate a pear at the fair.’
“‘It’s that way around New York,’ I pointed out. ‘Lots of people build homes out on Long Island. It’s so much cheaper than in town.’
“The man lifted the poker. Suddenly the door burst open and in came the man with the ring in his nose and the two Eurasians.
“‘Hochartig!’ gasped the man in the red toupee. “Hochartig replied with a burst from a sub-machine gun he carried under his arm.
“‘This is it,’ said the man in the red toupee, and died.
“Hochartig turned to me. He was wearing shoes now, high button shoes. “Don’t you think that a mink needs a drink?’ he said.
“‘What did you have to go and do that for?’ I asked, pointing at the corpse in the red toupee.
“Hochartig gritted his teeth. ‘A cat caught a rat in his hat,’ he said, and then he motioned the Eurasians toward me.
“‘Oh no, you don’t,’ came a voice from above us.
“We all looked up. There in the chandelier was the pale woman. She held a vial of colorless liquid in her hand. ‘I’ve got enough nitroglycerin in this vial to blow us all to kingdom come.’
“‘You’re bluffing,’ said Hochartig.
“‘You know me better than that. I’ll give you three seconds to get out of here, or else I’ll let this go. One, two—’
“The Eurasians tugged nervously on Hochartig’s sleeves. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘we’ll go. But you haven’t seen the last of us.’
“‘Yes,’ she said sadly. ‘I know.’
“They left. The woman tossed me the vial of nitroglycerin and then leaped lightly down from the chandelier. ‘A spot of brandy?’ she said to me.
“‘That would be nice,’ I replied.
&n
bsp; “She poured me a glass of brandy. I raised it and drank it down. The room started to spin, I was on the floor, then oblivion.
“It was dawn when I came to. I was on the beach near an old abandoned pier. Not a soul was about. I moved without hesitation. I rose to my feet and walked quickly to the end of the old pier. I took the cigarette lighter out of my pocket and flung it out over the water, as far as I could. I watched the ripples shimmer as the lighter sank. Then the water was quiet again.
“‘There,’ I said, dusting my palms together, ‘I’m better off without the God-damn thing.’”
chapter sixteen
“I know what we’ve been doing wrong,” said Alaric.
“What?”
“It’s so obvious that I’m embarrassed to admit it. It’s been staring us in the face all along.”
“What?”
“A blind man could have seen it.”
“What?”
“This: in all our thinking about the postwar world, we’ve ignored intellectual progress. We’ve been thinking only of material things—new inventions, new improvements, new techniques. We haven’t given a thought to the force behind all these advances—the great intellectual awakening of America.
“The war, Asa, for all its evils, removed the shackles from the American mind. The realization that the world was a single community dispelled the mystery of far-off lands. Americans found that all men were their neighbors. Now they want to know more about their neighbors—their cultures, their civilizations, their philosophies, their histories. At the same time Americans want to know more about themselves—how they are different from their neighbors, how they are alike. And finally, Americans, awakened to the fact that humanity is one family, want to know more about humanity as humanity, want to know more about men as individuals—the hopes, the dreams, the drives that motivate mankind.
“Asa, more than they want plastics, more than they want helicopters, more than they want single-unit kitchens, Americans want knowledge.”
“Of course,” I said. “A blind man could have seen it.”
“Our next business, Asa, is going to be more than a business; it will be a mission. We are going to bring knowledge to Americans who hunger for knowledge.”
“Goody,” I said.
“In our larger cities it is not difficult for the people to find knowledge. There are well-stocked bookstores and libraries; there are frequent lectures and forums. But in rural communities these blessings do not exist. We,” said Alaric, “will leap into the breach. We will fill the gap.”
“Exciting,” I whispered.
“We will buy a trailer and fill it with books and hitch it to the back of your car. We will go into the hinterlands of America—a library on wheels. The peasants will greet us gratefully, for we bring them the commodity they want above all things—knowledge. How their eyes will light when they see our cargo of fine books! Timidly they will press money on us, fearful lest we refuse to sell them their hearts’ desire. And if we charge four bucks for a three-buck book, them yokels will never know the difference.”
“Carrying the torch of learning to the benighted,” I breathed. “Glorious!”
“Say, that’s good, Asa. ‘The Torch of Learning Mobile Culture Emporium.’ Sensational! I’ll have a big neon torch made and put on top of the trailer—red, green, blue, and yellow. We’ll knock their stupid eyes out.”
“I can see them now,” I said, “sitting far into the night filling the thirsty fibers of their souls with knowledge, reading our books by the flickering light of the R.E.A.”
The first stop of the Torch of Learning Mobile Culture Emporium did not go as planned.
“Alaric,” I said as we drove away, “I don’t like to criticize, but frankly I was not pleased with what happened.”
“Oh, Asa, you know how farmers’ daughters are.”
“Yes,” I mused, thinking of Lodestone. Patient, patient Lodestone. Was she still waiting for me? Yes, I thought, she was. She was still waiting. Still waiting in the same spot, as a matter of fact. All through the war she had waited for me on that spot, just as she had waited on that spot while I spent a year at the University of Minnesota. Come to think of it, I had never seen her anywhere else. Patient, patient Lodestone.
“Yes,” I said to Alaric, “I know how farmers’ daughters are, but somehow a culture emporium doesn’t seem the right place. I hope you won’t do that any more.”
“O.K., Asa. From now on it’s strictly business. Here, pull into this farm. This looks like a likely place—clean and modern and prosperous-looking.”
I pulled in and parked. The farm wife came out in a tidy house dress. Alaric went into his sales talk. The farm wife listened politely until he had finished. Then she said, “Sorry, boys. You’re too late.”
“Somebody has called on you before?” asked Alaric.
“Well, not exactly,” she answered. “But since the war ended I’ve been getting mail every day from new book clubs—the Book of the Fortnight, the Book of the Week, the A. and P. Book Club, the Fuller Brush Book Club, the Epworth League Book Club, the A.T. and T. Book Club, the U.S. Post Office Book Club—hundreds of new book clubs.
“And each new club offered me more for my money. As more and more clubs sprang up, the books got cheaper and the premiums got bigger. But I waited. I bided my time and yesterday it finally happened. I got a letter from a new club where you don’t have to buy any books at all. They’re all premiums.
“Sorry, boys, but you see how it is.”
“This isn’t so good,” I said when we were back on the highway.
“We’re not licked yet,” said Alaric. “We’ll go where the book clubs don’t reach—up forgotten side roads where there is no mail delivery. Here, look. Over here. See this little dirt road? Let’s try that.”
I swung off onto a tortuous, rutted cowpath. The trailer leaped and lurched and bounded behind us. For six miles we tossed like a man in a fever dream. Once we had to get out and hack away some underbrush. There were two streams that had to be forded. Luckily I knew how to build temporary bridges from my war experiences which Alaric wouldn’t let me talk about.
At last we were rewarded. We saw a farmhouse—weather-beaten, ramshackle, and sagging, but definitely inhabited.
“After a trip like this,” said Alaric, “we don’t want to miss. We’ll both work on this customer. You give her the main spiel and I’ll fill in the details. Lay it on thick.”
I stopped the car, got out, and tipped my hat to the farm wife, who was staring dully at me from a broken-down porch, twelve grown children with their thumbs in their mouths peering from behind her.
“Madam,” I said, “we have come to relieve your ignorance.”
“That’s it, Asa,” said Alaric. “Flatter ’em first. Now sock it to her.”
I said, “In the Torch of Learning Mobile Culture Emporium we have the answers to the millions of questions that are racing through your newly awakened mind.”
“I’ll switch on the torch,” said Alaric. “That’ll get ’em.”
“Grope no more, my lady,” I said. “Whatever it is you want to know about this broad earth or, more particularly, about its inhabitants, you will find the answer in the Torch of Learning Mobile Culture Emporium.”
Alaric threw the switch and the torch blinked red, green, yellow, and blue. The twelve children started to scream in utter terror.
“Don’t be frightened, children,” Alaric laughed. “It’s only an electric light.”
They all fell to the floor in convulsions.
“Better turn it off, mister,” said the farm wife. “One of ’em swallowed his tongue last time.”
Alaric switched off the torch and the children’s screams subsided to a steady sobbing.
“Is history your particular interest?” I said. “If so, we have the Beards, Swain, Carlyle, Duruy, Froude, Bulwer-Lytton, Prescott, von Ranke, Tacitus, Robinson, de Laboulaye, St. Bede, Livy, de Barros, Breasted, and, of course, many others.”
&n
bsp; One of the children, a huge, adenoidal fellow, came out from behind his mother.
“Hello, big boy,” grinned Alaric. “What’s your name? Eh? What’s the matter? Can’t you talk?”
“Naw, he can’t,” said the farm wife. “That’s the one who swallowed his tongue.”
“Perhaps you’re curious about philosophy,” I said. “We have Aristotle, Schopenhauer, Spinoza, Hume, Locke, Kant, Berkeley, Albertus Magnus, von Fichte, James, Royce, Anaxagoras, Dewey, Santayana, and, of course, many others.”
Two spavined, hirsute girls came out from behind the farm wife.
“I bet you’re twins,” said Alaric friendlily.
“Naw, they ain’t,” said the farm wife. “Born four months apart. Doctor said he never seed the like of it.”
“Some,” I said, “favor anthropology. If you are such a one, we have Deniker, Mead, Hrdlička, Lombroso, Schliemann, Champollion-Figeac, Bertillon, Curtius, and, of course, many others.”
Four hulking anthropoids stepped forward.
“What fine boys!” exclaimed Alaric. “Do you go to school?”
“Naw, they don’t,” said their mother. “A football scout tried to take ’em to the university last fall but they got out of the cage.”
“It was just chicken wire,” they giggled.
“Perhaps psychology is your dish,” I said. “If so, we have Freud, Jung, Adler, Levin, Kwalwasser, Dykema, Good-enough, Baldwin, Hall, Hering, Skinner, and, of course, many others.”
Three microcephalic girls emerged.
“Well, well, well,” said Alaric. “I’ll bet you three are going to be movie stars when you grow up.”
“Naw, they ain’t,” said the farm wife. “They’re spoken for—Johns Hopkins.”
“Maybe geography is your forte,” I said. “We have Hakluyt, Harrison, Anson, Behring, Dompier, Bougainville, Baffin, Frobisher, Kropotkin, and, of course, many others.”
Two popeyed boys lumbered forth.
“Well, well,” smiled Alaric. “Now we have the whole family.”
“Naw, it ain’t,” said the mother. “They’s six more. A woman named Margaret Sanger has got ’em on exhibit.”