Miss Pinch was standing there. She was dressed, most unlike her, in an organdy dress. She had laid out a black suit, the kind they bury people in on this planet. The old Jew must have been a storekeeper with foresight for including the outfit in my wardrobe.
Like an automaton, I got dressed. Somewhere far off I heard a crackle: it sounded like gunfire in volley, just like the final grave salute. Miss Pinch said it was just Candy opening and closing the fridge. I didn’t believe her.
We went outside. A rental car, a Datsun, stood at the curb. Miss Pinch got behind the wheel. Candy came out wearing a black cape. I hadn’t seen Miss Pinch put it on but she was wearing a black cape, too.
“Oh, we’re all too solemn for a wedding day,” said Candy and turned on the car radio. It was playing that dying song again.
Miss Pinch drove with expertise and speed. She seemed to know exactly where she was going and apparently had been there before. We tooled along on expressways and soon were out of all skyscrapers and cluttered streets and on the Merritt Parkway.
I had the distinct impression I was being taken for a ride. But a Datsun isn’t a long, black limousine: it bobs and buckets about. I was reassured, as the jolting kept me informed that I was still alive.
“Where are we going?” I said timidly from the back seat.
They didn’t answer.
An hour and a half out of New York, we were looking for a parking spot. The signs said we were in
Hartford
Connecticut
Population 819,432½
The Home of Colt
Patent Firearms
Now I knew why we had come there. I was going to be shot.
In no time at all we were marching into the city hall, following signs which said Danger Ahead and Marriage. It was no solace to be told the Danger Ahead signs referred to the traffic department. I knew what they referred to. A bunch of frightened men and gleeful women were standing in a queue.
In a quiet, deadly voice, Miss Pinch said, “All arrangements were done beforehand by a private detective.”
“I thought private detectives came after marriage,” I said.
“Be quiet. All papers are in order. All you have to do is say yes.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Not here, you dummy. When we get in front of the clerk.”
The line of couples sped forward at an alarming rate.
Candy and Miss Pinch took off their black cloaks. Candy was dressed in a wedding gown! Miss Pinch was dressed as a bridesmaid.
With the suddenness of a natural cataclysm we were at the counter. A gray-headed clerk did not look up. Miss Pinch shoved the papers under his nose.
I looked for a direction to run.
There was none.
The clerk said, “DoyouCandyLicoricetakethismantobeyourawfulweddedhusband?”
“Yes,” Candy said.
“DoyouSultanBeytakethiswomantobeyourawfulweddedwife?”
A sharp instrument in the hands of Pinch prodded me. “Ow!” I said.
The clerk raised a gavel and brought it down on the desk with a sharp rap. He said in his rapid slur of a voice, “BythepowersinvestedinmebytheStateofConnecticutIherebysentenceyoutomarriage. Signthebook. Paythecashier.”
Candy signed. Miss Pinch had my wrist clutched. Everything looked faint and faraway. I scribbled something.
Two witnesses who seemed to be on regular duty signed the book. Stamping machines banged. Copy machines roared.
Miss Pinch snapped her pocketbook shut.
We were out on the street.
They got in the Datsun.
“Turn your back,” said Candy.
“And don’t try to run away,” said Pinch.
There was a scrambling in the Datsun.
“Get in,” said Miss Pinch.
I turned around. The girls, right there in the parking lot with everybody looking except me, had swapped dresses.
Miss Pinch, now in the wedding gown, drove grimly north.
Something was bothering me. I could not pinpoint what it was. There had been something just a bit odd about that ceremony.
We drove for thirty-five miles. A sign said we were in
Springfield
Massachusetts
Population 167,500⅔
Another one said:
United States Armory
Small Arms
Home of the
Springfield and Garand Rifles
Now I was very certain I would be shot.
Shortly we were standing before a counter in the city hall. My vision was kind of blurred but I could have sworn it was the same man that had been in Hartford and I wondered how he could have made the trip faster than we did. But Datsuns are not very fast cars.
Miss Pinch in her wedding dress, although holding a bouquet, yet had a lock on my arm.
The clerk said,
“DoyouAdoraPinchtakethismantobeyourawfulweddedhusband?
DoyouSultanBeytakethiswomantobeyourawfulweddedwife? Signthebook. Paythecashier. Next.”
Somebody was pushing my hand to sign. All of a sudden I saw what I was writing:
Sultan Bey!
I was not writing “Inkswitch”! I was writing the name I really bore on Earth!
“Wait!” I screamed.
How could this be? Pinch didn’t know that name. She thought my name was Inkswitch.
The clerk and everybody was looking.
“That’s the wrong name!” I screamed.
They stared at me.
“He thought he was in Boston,” said Pinch.
They all laughed.
With the sharp ends of the bouquet wires penetrating the flesh of my side, I was gotten back on the street.
“I thought I would be married in the name of Inkswitch!” I wailed.
“You’ve got a crooked streak in you,” said Pinch. “If you wanted us to think your Fed cover name was your real name, you shouldn’t babble some outlandish tongue that could be Turkish in your sleep and you shouldn’t leave your most-used passport and birth certificate around. For convenience, we will continue to call you Inkswitch. But don’t try to pull something like that again! You’re very legally married, Sultan Bey.”
Something inside me snapped. I began to babble. I heard myself saying, “My real name is Jettero Heller.”
“Nonsense,” said Candy, laughing. “Next you’ll be telling us you’re that other name you scream in your sleep, ‘Officer Gris.’”
“No, Sultan Bey,” said Mrs. Bey née Pinch. “Make up your mind to it. You are our lawfully wedded husband, for better or for worse, and even though you aren’t much, we’ll have to get used to it and so will you. Become accustomed to the fact that you are now probably the most married man on the entire eastern seaboard. The knots are irrevocably tied. Let’s have some hamburgers and go home.”
PART FORTY-EIGHT
Chapter 5
In the early dusk of spring, we drew up at last before the apartment which I had left, only that dawn, a free man.
We went inside. A new surprise had been readied. Already shocked, I had not been prepared to behold anything else new.
The whole place was garlanded. The symbols of Aphrodite—doves, swans, myrtle, pomegranate, clamshells and sea foam—had had added to them arches of orange blossoms.
And there were two new people there: a girl named Curly with brown eyes and brown hair, a not bad-looking thirty in a combat jacket; the other, a very pale willowy thing with a pretty face and soft lips named Sippy, dressed in absolutely transparent gauze.
They had “The Wedding March” going on the record player and they showered us with rice and did a rather mincing dance and kissed everybody, crying, “Happy weddings to you!”
It was disconcerting. What were they doing there?
I was tired after the long drive and showing signs of strain. I edged over to Mrs. Bey née Pinch. “Give me my money now,” I said.
“Oh my, dear husband,” Mrs. Bey née Pinch said. “There’s cake and other things.”
>
“Here,” said Sippy, holding out a glass, “try some of this champagne.”
Ex-Pinch and the late Miss Licorice, now Mrs. Candy Bey, had their capes off. Curly rolled out a wedding cake on a tea trolley. With elaborate gestures quite like a sexual approach, she gesticulated with a knife.
She put my hand on the hilt. She put Candy’s on mine. She put Mrs. Bey née Pinch’s fingers gripping ours and all three of us cut the wedding cake. It had TWO brides on it! The man, at the very first thrust of the knife, fell over. An omen?
Then they played some pop music and everybody ate cake and danced with one another. I was thirsty and drank quite a bit of champagne. The cake kept sticking in my throat and I kept having to wash it down.
Inevitably, they broke out the marijuana. The joints circulated. Blue smoke began to haze the air. It didn’t help my throat a bit.
They were getting quite drunk and stoned. Curly did an impersonation of Rockecenter at his last personnel inspection, making sure that Sippy was still a virgin, and when Curly produced a limp dishrag, for some reason it sent them all rolling on the floor with glee, holding their sides.
I took another drag on the joint I was smoking and frowned. I didn’t get it. But then, I philosophized, drunks will guffaw at anything, especially when they’re high on pot.
Gaily laughing, quite giddy, Candy rummaged in the record cabinet, told Curly and Sippy the joke and then played “Sweet Little Woman, Please Marry Me.” It was torture to listen to.
I pulled Mrs. Bey née Pinch to the side. I said, “Miss Pinch, give me my money now.”
“Adora,” she said, drunkenly. “You must learn to call me Adora now, dear husband. I am no longer Miss Pinch.”
“Whatever your name is,” I said. “Give me my money now.”
“Oh, dear husband,” she said. “A marriage isn’t legal unless it is consummated. Don’t you want to consummate the marriage?”
“No,” I said.
“Aha!” cried Mrs. Bey née Pinch, and I saw she had become more than a little tipsy. “Trying to give yourself a legal out, are you?” She thrust her face into mine. “You know very well that a marriage that isn’t consummated can be annulled.” She turned, “Hey, you girls, listen to this (bleep)! He’s trying to give himself legal grounds to cancel out his marriages!”
Four faces, close to, glared at me.
“No, no!” I cried, quite frightened. “You told me that if you had sex you might miscarry!”
“You think I didn’t think of that?” snarled Mrs. Bey née Pinch. “I knew you’d try to weasel out! We’ve got two virgins here, just for the purpose of consummation!”
“Wait a minute,” I begged, “this is crazy!”
“Now he’s trying to annul it by accusing us of insanity!” shouted Mrs. Bey née Pinch.
Candy shook her head. “The courts won’t uphold that, dear husband,” she hiccupped.
“This guy doesn’t know his law,” said Curly.
“No, no,” I cried, distractedly. “I’m not trying to get out of anything. I just want my money.”
“Oh,” said Sippy, in blear-eyed shock. “Did he just marry you girls for your money?”
“And how will THAT look in the newspapers?” cried Mrs. Bey née Pinch.
“He trifled with their affections,” slurred Curly. “A monster!”
A vision of Crobe’s cellological freaks went spinning around my head. “I’ve had enough of monsters!” I shouted.
“Call us monsters, will you?” shouted Mrs. Bey née Pinch. “You CREEP!” And she threw a glass of champagne in my face.
“No, no,” I cried, spluttering. “This is all a misunderstanding!”
“Oh, yeah?” said Mrs. Bey née Pinch. “Well, do you admit you’re married or don’t you?”
She looked so ferocious, reeling there, that I got down on my knees, clasped my hands before my face and said, “Please, please. Please believe me. I admit, so help me Gods and hope to die, that I am married!”
“Good,” said Mrs. Bey née Pinch. “You heard him, girls. He knows now he is thoroughly married. Drink up so we can get on with this ‘consummation’!”
The champagne gurgled into mugs, overspilling.
The four of them stood and raised their drinks which clinked together in an apex of arms.
“To a happy married life!” cried Mrs. Bey née Pinch.
They guzzled down the whole of their mugs, glug, glug, glug, glug!
They threw their glasses at me!
I ducked amidst the splintering crash.
When I dared to look up from the floor where I had been protecting my head, I was hit by Curly’s combat jacket.
A pair of pants went sailing past my hair.
A shoe hit me.
I crawled under the sofa for better protection.
Another version of the wedding march was booming out:
Here comes the bride,
Fit to be tied.
To how many boyfriends,
Has this chick spread wide?
Here comes the groom,
A relic from a tomb,
All the guests are laughing
As he meets his doom.
I dared to peek out.
I could see the bottom of the bed.
Feet were twisting and turning, four pairs.
“Oh, you darling!” came Candy’s voice.
“What’s going on?” I pleaded, staring. “I’m the husband!”
“Beat it, buster,” came the drunken voice of Mrs. Bey née Pinch. “This ish OUR conshummation, not yoursh!”
A champagne bottle exploded in a cascade of fizz.
I stared at the bed. A voice floated to me, “Kiss me, kiss me, KISS ME!”
Another champagne bottle exploded all by itself.
The foam flooded across the ravaged cake. The fallen bridegroom twisted over on his side and then sank from view in the froth, feet first.
It dimly occurred to me that something, I could not figure what, had pushed these girls back toward lesbianism. Possibly it was a hangover of psychiatric conditioning. I knew I hadn’t had anything to do with it.
Something was troubling me. I somehow didn’t feel that my marriages had been consummated. I felt more like a fifth wheel.
I went to my lonely room and fell into a sleep raped with nightmares in which I was Heller pretending to be that clerk in the city halls who traveled about so miraculously marrying everybody. Soltan Gris was in the coffin that Heller the clerk kept using for a marriage ceremony desk. The Manco devil even got married to Lombar Hisst while Rockecenter, in gales of laughter, stood in as best man.
But what really woke me up sweating was when a Manco devil stepped out of the coffin and pointed a finger at the middle of my forehead. He—or was it a she?—said, “Ask yourself. Is this all happening to you because you did it to Heller?”
I knew right then, as I stared into the spinning darkness, that things were going to get WORSE!
PART FORTY-EIGHT
Chapter 6
Never drink alcohol and take dope at the same time.
The result can be near fatal, as I found out when I awoke to another terrible day.
I heard Mrs. Pinch Bey and Mrs. Candy Bey preparing to go to work. I crawled out just in time to catch Adora before she went out the door.
“The money,” I croaked.
Her eyes, as she glanced at me, told me how awful I must look standing there with the cold air on my naked flesh. “We can’t be late for work after playing hooky yesterday,” she said. “There’s no time to go into it now.” She dived a hand into her purse and drew out a few dollar bills. She tossed them on the floor. “Just so you don’t go robbing banks. We’ll take the other up this evening.” She was gone.
Nervously, I stared after her. Then I picked the seven dollars off the floor and went back to my room.
A cold shower did not do the least good. I found some aspirin. I took it. It made me feel fuzzy. Then I began to feel drunk all over again: they say cha
mpagne does that when you drink water the morning after. I shouldn’t have taken the aspirin with water.
I couldn’t lie down. I was too spinny and jittery.
I turned on the viewers. Crobe was puttering around a laboratory, doing something with a snake. The Countess Krak’s was blank: that was good news for me, it meant she wasn’t within two hundred miles. Heller was sitting looking at an untouched breakfast: at least I had him worried sick.
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