Charles Beaumont: Selected Stories (4 page)

A PLACE OF MEETING
by Charles Beaumont
It swept down from the mountains, a loose, crystal-smelling wind, an autumn chill of moving wetness. Down from the mountains and into the town, where it set the dead trees hissing and the signboards creaking. And it even went into the church, because the bell was ringing and there was no one to ring the bell.
The people in the yard stopped their talk and listened to the rusty music. Big Jim Kroner listened too. Then he cleared his throat and clapped his hands- thick hands, calloused and work-dirtied.
"All right," he said loudly. "All right, let's settle down now." He walked out from the group and turned. "Who's got the list?"
"Got it right here, Jim," a woman said, coming forward with a loose-leaf folder.
"All present?"
"Everybody except that there German, Mr. Grunin-Grunger-"
Kroner smiled; he made a megaphone of his hands. "Gruninger-Bartold Gruninger?"
A small man with a mustache called out excitedly, "Ja, ja! ... s'war schwer den Friedhof zu finden,"
"All right. That's all we wanted to know, whether you was here or not," Kroner studied the pages carefully. Then he reached into the pocket of his overalls and withdrew a stub of pencil and put the tip in his mouth.
"Now, before we start off," he said to the group, "I want you to know is there anybody here that's got a question or anything to ask?" He looked over the crowd of silent faces. "Anybody don't know who I am? No?"
Then came another wind, mountain-scattered and fast: it billowed dresses, set damp hair moving; it pushed over pewter vases, and smashed dead roses and hydrangeas to swirling dust against the gritty tombstones. Its clean rain smell was gone now, though, for it had passed over the fields with the odors of rotting life.
Kroner made a check mark in the notebook, "Anderson," he shouted. "Edward L."
A man in overalls like Kroner's stepped forward.
"Andy, you covered Skagit valley, Snohomish and King counties, as well as Seattle and the rest?"
"Yes, sir."
"What you got to report?"
"They're all dead," Anderson said.
"You looked everywhere? You was real careful?"
"Yes, sir. Ain't nobody alive in the whole state."
Kroner nodded and made another check mark. "That's all, Andy. Next: Avakian, Katina."
A woman in a wool skirt and gray blouse walked up from the back, waving her arms. She started to speak.
Kroner tapped his stick. "Listen here for a second, folks," he said. "For those that don't know how to talk English, you know what this is all about-so when I ask my question, you nod up-and-down for yes (like this) and sideways (like this) for no. Makes it a lot easier for those of us as don't remember too good. All right?"
There were murmurings and whispered consultations and for a little while the yard was full of noise. The woman called Avakian kept nodding.
"Fine," Kroner said. "Now, Miss Avakian. You covered what?    Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria. Did you-find-an-ybody a-live?"
The woman stopped nodding. "No," she said. "No, no."
Kroner checked the name. "Let's see here, Boleslavsky, Peter. You can go on back now, Miss Avakian."
A man in bright city clothes walked briskly to the tree clearing. "Yes, sir," he said.
"What have you got for us?"
The man shrugged. "Well, I tell you; I went over New York with a fine-tooth comb. Then I hit Brooklyn and Jersey. Nothin', man. Nothin' nowhere."
"He is right," a dark-faced woman said in a tremulous voice. "I was there too. Only the dead in the streets, all over, all over the city; in the cars I looked even, in the offices. Everywhere is people dead."
"Chavez, Pietro. Baja California."
"All dead, senor chief,"
"Ciodo, Ruggiero. Capri."
The man from Capri shook his head violently.
"Denman, Charlotte. Southern United States." "Dead as doornails…" "Elgar, Davis S…" "Ferrazio, Ignatz…" "Goldfarb, Bernard…" "Halpern…" "Ives… Kranek… O'Brian…"
The names exploded in the pale evening air like deep gunshots; there was much head-shaking, many people saying, "No. No."
At last Kroner stopped marking. He closed the notebook and spread his big workman's hands. He saw the round eyes, the trembling mouths, the young faces; he saw all the frightened people.
A girl began to cry. She sank to the damp ground, and covered her face and made these crying sounds. An elderly man put his hand on her head, The elderly man looked sad. But not afraid. Only the young ones seemed afraid,
"Settle down now," Kroner said firmly. "Settle on down. Now, listen to me, I'm going to ask you all the same question one more time, because we got to be sure." He waited for them to grow quiet. "All right. This here is all of us, everyone. \Ve've covered all the spots. Did anybody here find one single solitary sign of life?"
The people were silent. The wind had died again, so there was no sound at all. Across the corroded wire fence the gray meadows lay strewn with the carcasses of cows and horses and, in one of the fields, sheep. No flies buzzed near the dead animals; there were no maggots burrowing. No vultures; the sky was clean of birds. And in all the untended rolling hills of grass and weeds which had once sung and pulsed with a million voices, in all the land there was only this immense stillness now, still as years, still as the unheard motion of the stars.
Kroner watched the people. The young woman in the gay print dress; the tall African with his bright paint and cultivated scars; the fierce-looking Swede looking not so fierce now in this graying twilight. He watched all the tall and short and old and young people from all over the world, pressed together now, a vast silent polyglot in this country meeting place, this always lonely and long-deserted spot-deserted even before the gas bombs and the disease and the flying pestilences that had covered the earth in three days and three nights. Deserted. Forgotten.
"Talk to us, Jim," the woman who had handed him the notebook said. She was new,
Kroner put the list inside his big overalls pocket.
"Tell us," someone else said. "How shall we be nourished? What will we do?"
"The world's all dead," a child moaned. "Dead as dead, the whole world…" .
"Todo el mund-"
"Monsieur Kroner, Monsieur Kroner, what will we do?"
Kroner smiled, "Do?" He looked up through the still-hanging poison cloud, the dun blanket, up to where the moon was now risen in full coldness. His voice was steady, but it lacked life. "What some of us have done before," he said. "We'll go back and wait. It ain't the first time. It ain't the last."
A little fat bald man with old eyes sighed and began to waver in the October dusk. The outline of his form wavered and disappeared in the shadows under the trees where the moonlight did not reach. Others followed him as Kroner talked.
"Same thing we'll do again and likely keep on doing. We'll go back and-sleep. And we'll wait. Then it'll start all over again and folks'll build their cities-new folks with new blood-and then we'll wake up. Maybe a long time yet. But it ain't so bad; it's quiet, and time passes." He lifted a small girl of fifteen or sixteen with pale cheeks and red lips. "Come on, now! Why, just think of the appetite you'll have all built up!"
The girl smiled. Kroner faced the crowd and waved his hands, large hands, rough from the stone of midnight pyramids and the feel of muskets, boil-speckled from night hours in packing plants and trucking lines; broken by the impact of a tomahawk and machine-gun bullet; but white where the dirt was not caked, and bloodless. Old hands, old beyond years.
As he waved, the wind came limping back from the mountains. It blew the heavy iron bell high in the steepled white barn, and set the signboards creaking, and lifted ancient dusts and hissed again through the dead trees.
Kroner watched the air turn black. He listened to it fill with the flappings and the flutterings and the squeakings. He waited; then he stopped waving and sighed and began to walk.
He walked to a place of vines and heavy brush. Here he paused for a moment and looked out at the silent place of high dark grass, of hidden huddled tombs, of scrolls and stone-frozen children stained silver in the night's wet darkness; at the crosses he did not look. The people were gone, the place was empty.
Kroner kicked away the foliage. Then he got into the coffin and closed the lid.
Soon he was asleep.
Introduction to
THE DEVIL, YOU SAY?
by Howard Browne
In 1951, as the then editor of the Ziff-Davis Fiction Group, I bought "The Devil, You Say?"-Charles Beaumont's first story sale. This obviously made me the first to recognize his unique talents as a writer.
Not true. As I recall, TDYS came into our editorial offices via the "slush pile," i.e. the daily raft of unsolicited submissions to the several fiction magazines the company published at the time, It was the staff's job to go through the pile in the unlikely chance of coming across something we could use.
At the time Lila Shaffer-a gifted young woman with an unerring ability to separate the occasional grain of wheat from all that chaff-was associate editor of both Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures.
As I recall, she plunked the Beaumont story on the desk in front of me, said something like, "This is the best thing I've come across in I don't know how long. You've got to read it. Right now!", and sat down.
I said, "Since you put it that way," and began reading.
After the first four or five pages, 1 looked up at her, said, "You know damned well I don't like stories that open with someone saying 'Let me tell you what happened to me a while back.' Lacks immediacy."
"Read," she said.
I read the rest of it, handed her the pages, said, "Who is this guy?"
She said, "I don't know. I never heard of him before."
"Send a check," I said. "And a letter saying we want first crack at anything else he Writes,"
Unfortunately nothing came of it. Playboy and Rogue paid better rates than we did.
A few years later I was brought to Hollywood to write for motion pictures and television. Shortly after I got there, I met Charles Beaumont and told him the whole story.
I'm not sure he believed me, but he laughed and bought me a drink. And we raised our glasses in a toast. To Lila Shaffer.
THE DEVIL, YOU SAY?
by Charles Beaumont
It was two o'clock in the morning when I decided that my attendance at a meeting of the International Newspapermen's Society for the Prevention of Thirst was a matter of moral necessity. This noble Brotherhood, steeped in tradition and by now as immortal as the institution of the public press, has always been a haven, a refuge and an inspiration to weary souls in the newspaper profession. Its gatherings at Ada's Bar & Grill-Open 24 Hours A Day-have made more than a few dismiss their woes for a while.
I had just covered a terrifically drab story which depended nine tenths upon the typewriter for its effect, and both brain and throat had grown quite dry in consequence. The extra block and a half over to Ada's was a completely natural detour.
As usual at this time of day, the only customers were newspapermen.
Joe Barnes of the Herald was there, also Mary Kepner and Frank Monteverdi of the Express. Warren Jackson, the Globe's drama critic, sat musing over a cigar, and Mack Sargent, who got paid for being the New's sports man, seemed to be fascinated by improvising multiple beer rings on the table cloth.
The only one I was surprised to see was Dick Lewis, a featured columnist for the Express who'd lately hit the syndicates. He usually didn't drop in to Ada's more than two or three times a month, and then he never added much to the conversation.
Not that he wasn't likable. As a matter of fact, Dick always put a certain color into the get-togethers, by reason of being such a clam. It gave him a secretive or "MysteryMan" appearance, and that's always stimulating to gabfests which occasionally verge towards the monotonous.
He sat in one of the corner booths, looking as though he didn't give a damn about anything. A little different this time, a little lower at the mouth. Having looked into mirrors many times myself, I'd come to recognize the old half-closed eyelids that didn't result from mere tiredness. Dick sat there considering his half-empty stein and stifling only a small percentage of burps. Clearly he had been there some time and had considered a great many such half-empty stems.
I drew up a chair, tossed off an all-inclusive nod of greeting and listened for a few seconds to Frank's story of how he had scooped everybody in the city on the Lusitania disaster, only to get knocked senseless by an automobile ten seconds before he could get to a phone. The story died in the mid-section, and we all sat for a half hour or so quaffing cool ones, hiccoughing and apologizing.
One of the wonderful things about beer is that a little bit, sipped with the proper speed, can give one the courage to do and say things one would ordinarily not have the courage to even dream of doing and saying. I had absorbed, presto, sufficient of the miracle drug by the time the clock got to three AM., to do something I guess I'd wanted to do in the back of my mind for a long time. My voice was loud and clear and charged with insinuation. Everybody looked up.
"Dammit, Lewis," I said, pointing directly at him, "in order to be a member in good standing of this Society, you've just got to say something interesting. A guy simply doesn't look as inscrutable as you do without having something on his mind. You've listened to our stories. Now how about one of your own?"
"Yeah," joined Monteverdi, "Ed's right. You might call it your dues."
Jackson looked pleased and put in: "See here, Lewis, you're a newsman, aren't you? Surely you have one halfway diverting story." "If it's personal," I said, "so much the better. I mean, after all, we're a Brotherhood here."
And that started it. Pretty soon we were all glaring at poor Dick, looking resentful and defiant.
He then surprised us. He threw down the last of his drink, ordered three more, stared us each in the face one by one and said:
"Okay. All right. You're all just drunk enough to listen without calling for the boys in white, though you'll still think I'm the damndest liar in the state. All right, I admit it. I do have something on my mind. Something you won't believe worth beans. And let me tell you something else. I'm quitting this screwball racket, so I don't care what you think."
He drained another stein-full.
"I'm going to tell you why as of tomorrow I start looking for some nice quiet job in a boiler factory. Or maybe as a missionary."
And this is the story Dick Lewis told that night. He was either mightily drunk or crazy as a coot, because you could tell he believed every word he said.
I'm not sure about any of it, myself. All I know for certain is that he actually did quit the game just as he said he would, and since that night I haven't even heard his name.
When my father died he left me a hundred and twenty-two dollars, his collection of plastic-coated insects and complete ownership of the Danville Daily Courier. He'd owned and edited the Courier for fifty-five years and although it never made any money for him, he loved it with all his heart. I sometimes used to think that it was the most precious thing in life to him. For whenever there wasn't any news-which was all the time-he'd pour out his inner thoughts, his history, his whole soul into the columns. It was a lot more than just a small town newspaper to Dad: it was his life.
I cut my first teeth on the old hand press and spent most of my time in the office and back room. Pop used to say to me, "You weren't born, lad, you appeared one day out of a bottle of printer's ink." Corny, but I must have believed him, because I grew up loving it all.
What we lived on those days was a mystery to me. Not enough issues of the Courier were sold even to pay for the paper stock. Nobody bought it because there was never anything to read of any interest-aside from Dad's personal column, which was understandably limited in its appeal. For similar reasons, no one ever advertised. He couldn't afford any of the press services or syndicates, and Danville wasn't homebody enough a town to give much of a darn how Mrs. Piddle's milk cows were coming along.
I don't even know how he managed to pay the few hands around the place. But Dad didn't seem to worry, so I never gave the low circulation figures a great deal of thought.
That is, I didn't until it was my turn to take over.
After the first month I began to think about it a lot. I remember sitting in the office alone one night, wondering just how the hell Dad ever did it. And I don't mind saying, I cussed his hide for not ever telling me. He was a queer old duck and maybe this was meant as a test or something.
If so, I had flunked out on the first round.
I sat there staring dumbly at the expense account and wondering, in a half-stupid way, how such a pretty color as red ever got mixed up with so black a thing as being broke.
I wondered what earthly good a newspaper was to Danville. It was a town unusual only because of its concentrated monotony: nothing ever happened. Which is news just once, not once a day. Everybody was happy, nobody was starving; everlasting duties were tended to with a complete lack of reluctance. If every place in the world had been like Danville, old Heraclitus wouldn't have been given a second thought. It hadn't had so much as a drunken brawl since 1800.
So I figured it all out that night. I'd take the sheets of paper in front of me and pitch them into the waste basket. Within an hour I'd call up everyone who worked with me, including the delivery boys, and tell them that the Danville Daily Courier had seen its day. Those people with subscriptions, I thought, would have to try to find me. I had about ten dollars left and owed twenty times that in rent and credit.
I suppose you just don't decide to close up business and actually close it up-right down to firing all the help-in an hour's time. But that's what I was going to do. I didn't take anything into consideration except the fact that I had to go somewhere and get a job quick, or I'd end being the first person in Danville's history to die of starvation. So I figured to lock up the office, go home and get my things together and leave the next afternoon for some nearby city.
I knew that if I didn't act that fast, if I stayed and tried to sell the office and the house, I'd never get out of Danville. You don't carry out flash decisions if you wait around to weigh their consequences. You've got to act. So that's what I started to do.
But I didn't get far. About the time I had it all nicely resolved and justified, I was scared out of my shoes by a polite sort of cough, right next to me. It was after midnight and subconsciously I realized that this was neither the time nor the place for polite coughs-at least ones I didn't make. Especially since I hadn't heard anyone come in.
An old boy who must have been crowding ninety stood in front of the desk, staring at me. And I stared right back. He was dressed in the sporty style of the eighteen nineties, with whiskers all over his face and a little black derby which canted jauntily over his left eye.
"Mr. Lewis?" he said, hopping on the side of the desk and taking off his white gloves, finger by finger. "Mr. Richard Lewis?"
"Yes, that's right" is what I said.
"The son of Elmer Lewis?"
I nodded, and I'll bet my mouth was wide open. He took out a big cigar and lit it.
"If I may be so rude," I finally managed to get out, "who the hell are you and how did you get in here?"
His eyes twinkled and immediately I was sorry for having been so abrupt. I don't know why, but I added, "After all, y'know, it's pretty late."
The old geezer just sat there smiling and puffing smoke into the air.
"Did you want to see me about something, Mr.-"
"Call me Jones, my boy, call me Jones. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have some business with you. Y'see, I knew your father quite well once upon a time-might say he and I were very close friends. Business partners too, you might say. Yes. Business partners. Tell me, Richard, did you ever know your father to be unhappy?"
It was an odd conversation, but Mr. Jones was far too friendly and ingratiating to get anything but courtesy out of me. I answered him honestly.
"No, Dad was always about the happiest person I've ever seen. Except when Mother died, of course."
Jones shifted and waved his cane in the air.
"Of course, of course. But aside from that. Did he have any grievances about life, any particular concern over the fact that his newspaper was never very, shall we say, successful? In a word, Richard, was your father content to the day he died?"
"Yes, I'd say he was. At least I never heard him complain. Dad never wanted anything but a chance to putter around the office, write his column and collect bugs."
At this he whacked the desk and grinned until all I could see was teeth. "Ah, that's very good, m'boy, very good. Times haven't been like they were in the old days. I'd begun to wonder if I was as good as I made out to be. Why, do you know that Elmer was my first customer since that time Dan'l Webster made such a fool of me! Oh, that was rich. You've got to hand it to those New Hampshire lawyers, you've just got to hand it to them."
He sat chuckling and puffing out smoke, and, looking squarely at the situation, I began to get a very uncomfortable sensation along the back of my spine.
"Your dad wasn't any slouch, though, let me tell you, Dick. That part of the deal is over. He got what he wanted out his life on Earth and now he's-what's that wonderful little expression somebody started a few centuries ago?-oh yes, he's paying the fiddler. But things were almost as bad then as they are now, I mean as far as signed, paid-up contracts go. Oh, I tell you, you humans are getting altogether too shrewd for your own good. What with wars and crime and politicians and the like, I scarcely have anything to do these days. No fun in merely shoveling 'em in."
A long, gassy sigh.
"Yes sir, Elmer was on to me all right. He played his cards mighty clever. Included you, Dick m'boy. So all I have to do is make you happy and, well then, the deal's closed."
By this time I felt pretty much like jumping out the window, but shot nerves or not, I was able to say:
"Look, Grandpa, I don't know what in hell you're talking about. I'm in no mood for this sort of thing and don't particularly care to be. If you were a friend of Pop's I'm glad to see you and all that, but if you came here for hospitality I'm afraid you're out of luck. I'm leaving town tomorrow. If you'd like, I'll walk you to a nice clean hotel."
"Ah," he said, pushing me back into my chair with his cane, "you don't understand. Lad, I've not had much practice lately and may be a trifle on the rusty side, but you must give me my dues. Let me see-if I remember correctely, the monthly cash stipend was not included and therefore was not passed on to you."
"Look-"
"The hundred and fifty a month your father got, I mean. I see you know nothing of it. Cautious one, Elmer. Take it easy, son, take it easy. Your troubles are over."
This was too much. I got up and almost shouted at him.
"I've got enough troubles already, without a loony old bird like you busting in on me. Do we take you to a hotel, or do you start traveling?"
He just sat there and laughed like a jackass, poking me with his cane and flicking cigar ashes all over the floor.
"Dick m'boy, it's a pity you don't want out of life what your father did. In a way, that would have simplified things. As it is, I'm going to have to get out the old bag of tricks and go to work. Answer one more question and you may go your way."
I said, "All right, make it snappy, Pop. I'm getting tired of this game."

"Am I right in assuming that your principal unhappiness lies in the fact that your newspaper is not selling as you would like it to, and that this is due to the categorical fact that nothing newsworthy ever takes place in this town?"
"Yeah, that's right on the button. Now-"
"Very well, Dick. That's what I wanted to know. I advise you to go home now and get a good night's sleep."
"Exactly what I plan to do. It's been charming, Mr. Jones. I don't mind saying I think you're a nosy galoot with squirrels in the head. Anyway, do you want to go to a hotel?"
He jumped down off the desk and started to walk with me toward the front door.
"No thank you, Richard lad; I have much work to do. I tell you, stop worrying. Things are going to be rosy for you and, if you watch your step, you'll have no fiddler to pay. And now, good night."
Jones then dug me in the ribs with his cane and strode off, whistling "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight."
He was headed straight for the Little Creek bridge, which gradually opened off into flap pastures and a few farm houses. Nothing lay beyond that except the graveyard.
I suppose he didn't know where he was going, but I was too confused and tired to care much. When I looked again there wasn't hide nor hair of Mr. Jones.
He was promptly forgotten. Almost, anyway. When you're broke and owe everybody in town, you're able to forget just about anything. Except, of course, that you're broke and owe everybody in town.
I locked up the office and started for home. The fire and fury were gone: I couldn't get up the gall to phone everyone and do all the things I'd planned to do.
So, miserable as a wet dog, I trudged a few blocks to the house, smoked a half dozen cigarettes and went to bed, hoping I'd have the guts to get on the train the next day.
I woke up early feeling like a fish left out in the sun too long. It was six o'clock and, like always at this time, I wished that I had a wife or a mistress to get me a big breakfast. Instead I hobbled downstairs and knew exactly what Mother Hubbard felt like. I fixed a lousy cup of coffee and sat down to a glorious dish of corn flakes. I knew that train was mighty far away and that in a little while I'd go to the office, reach in the filler box and help set up another stinking issue of the Daily Courier. Then would come the creditors and the long line of bushwa. Even the corn flakes tasted rancid.
Then I heard a distinct thud against the front door. It struck me as being odd, because there had never before been any thuds at that particular front door, which made precisely that sound.
I opened it, looked around and finally at my feet. There, folded magnificently and encircled with a piece of string, was a newspaper.
Since the Courier was the only paper Danville had ever known, and since I never read the thing anyway, it all looked very peculiar. Besides, none of my delivery boys ever folded in such a neat, professional manner.
There wasn't anybody in sight, but I noticed, before I picked it up, that there was a paper on the doorstep of every house and store around. Then people started coming out and noticing the bundles, so I gathered it up and went back inside. Maybe I scratched my head. I know I felt like it.
There was a little card attached to the string. It read:
COMPLIMENTARY ISSUE
If You Desire To Begin Or Rebegin Your Subscription, Send
Checks Or Cash To The Office Of The Danville Daily Courier.
Rates Are Listed Conveniently Within.
That was a laugh, but I didn't. Something was screwy somewhere. In the first place, there weren't supposed to be any morning deliveries. I, Ernie Meyer and Fred Scarborough (my staff) started the edition around eight o'clock, and it didn't get delivered until six that night. Also, since no one was in the office after I left and nothing whatsoever had been done on the next days issue-let alone the fancy printing on that card, which could have been done only on a large press-well, I got an awfully queer feeling in the pit of my stomach.
When I opened up the paper I about yelled out loud. It looked like the biggest, most expensive highfalutin' city paper ever put together. The legend still read Danville Daily Courier, but I'd have felt better if it had said the Tribune.
Immediately upon reading the double-inch headlines, I sat down and started to sweat. There, in black, bold letters were the words:
MAYOR'S WIFE GIVES BIRTH
TO BABY HIPPOPOTAMUS
And underneath:
At three A.M. this morning, Mayor and Mrs. Fletcher Lindquist were very much startled to find themselves the parents of a healthy, 15 pound baby hippo. Most surprising is the fact that nowhere in the lineage of either the Mayor or his wife is there record of a hippopotamus strain. Mrs. Lindquist's great-grandfather, reports show, was a raving lunatic from the age of twenty-three to the time of his death, fifty years later, but it is biologically unsound to assume that such ancestral proclivities would necessarily introduce into later generations so unusual a result.
Therefore, Danville's enterprising, precedent-setting Mayor Lindquist may be said to have proved his first campaign promise, to wit, "I will make many changes!"
Continued on page 15
I don't have to recount what I did or thought at all this. I merely sat there and numbly turned to page fifteen.
Displaying his usual cool and well-studied philosophy, the Mayor announced that, in view of the fact that the Lindquists' expected baby was to have been called either Edgar Bernhardt or Louisa Ann, and inasmuch as the hippopotamus was male in sex, the name Edgar Bernhardt would be employed as planned.
When queried, the Mayor said simply, "I do not propose that our son be victim to unjudicious slander and stigmatic probings. Edgar will lead a healthy, normal life." He added brusquely: "I have great plans for the boy!"
Both Mrs. Lindquist and the attending physician, Dr. Forrest Peterson, refrained from comment, although Dr. Peterson was observed in a corner from time to time, mumbling and striking his forehead.
I turned back to the front page, feeling not at all well. There, 3 inches by 5 inches was a photograph of Mrs. Fletcher Lindquist, holding in her arms (honest to God!) a pint-sized hippopotamus.
I flipped feverishly to the second sheet, and saw:
FARMER BURL ILLING COMPLAINS
OF MYSTERIOUS APPEARANCE
OF DRAGONS IN BACK YARD.
And then I threw the damn paper as far as I could and began pinching myself. It only hurt; I didn't wake up. I closed my eyes and looked again, but there it was, right where I'd heaved it.
I suppose I should have, but I didn't for a moment get the idea I was nuts. A real live newspaper had been delivered at my door. I owned the only newspaper in town and called it the Danville Daily Courier. This paper was also called the Danville Daily Courier. I hadn't put together an issue since the day before. This one was dated today. The only worthwhile news my paper had ever turned out was a weather report. This one had stuff that would cause the Associated Press to drop its teeth.
Somebody, I concluded, was nuts.
And then I slowly remembered Mr. Jones. That screwy Mr. Jones, that loony old bird-brain.
He'd broken into the office after I'd left and somehow put together this fantastic issue. Where he got the photograph I didn't know, but that didn't bother me. It was the only answer. Sure-who else would have done such a thing? Thought he'd help me by making up a lot of tall tales and peddling them to everyone in town.
I got sore as hell. So this was how he was going to "help" me! If he'd been there at the moment I would have broken every bone in his scrawny old body. My God, I thought, how'll I get out of this? What would I say when the Mayor and Illing and Lord knows how many others got wind of it?
Dark thoughts of me, connected to a long rail, coated from head to toe with a lot of tar and lot of feathers, floated clearly before my eyes. Or me at the stake, with hungry flames lapping up… Who could blame them? Some big time magazine or tabloid would get a copy-they'd never miss a story like this. And then Danville would be the laughing stock of the nation, maybe of the world. At the very best, I'd be sued blue.
I took one last look at that paper on the floor and lit out for the office. I was going to tear that old jerk limb from limb-I was going to make some real news.
Halfway there the figure of Fred Scarborough rushed by me a mile a minute. He didn't even turn around. I started to call, but then Ernie Meyer came vaulting down the street. I tried to dodge, but the next thing I knew Ernie and I were sitting on top of each other. In his eyes was an insane look of fear and confusion.
"Ernie," I said, "what the devil's the matter with you? Has this town gone crazy or have I?"
"Don't know about that, Mr. Lewis," he panted, "but I'm headin' for the hills."
He got up and started to take off again. I grabbed him and shook him till his teeth rattled.
"What is the matter with you? Where's everybody running? Is there a fire?"
"Look, Mr. Lewis, I worked for your dad. It was a quiet life and I got paid regular. Elmer was a little odd, but that didn't bother me none, because I got paid regular, see. But things is happening at the office now that I don't have to put up with. 'cause, Mr. Lewis, I don't get paid at all. And when an old man dressed like my grandfather starts a lot of brand new presses running all by himself and, on top of that, chases me and Fred out with a pitchfork, well, Mr. Lewis, I'm quittin'. I resign. Goodbye, Mr. Lewis. Things like this just ain't ever happened in Danville before."
Ernie departed in a hurry, and I got madder at Mr. Jones.
When I opened the door to the office, I wished I was either in bed or had a drink. All the old hand-setters and presses were gone. Instead there was a huge, funny looking machine, popping and smoking and depositing freshly folded newspapers into a big bin. Mr. Jones, with his derby still on his head, sat at my desk pounding furiously at the typewriter and chuckling like a lunatic. He ripped a sheet out and started to insert another, when he saw me.
"Ah, Dick m'boy! How are you this morning? I must say, you don't look very well. Sit down, won't you. I'll be finished in a second."
Back he went to his writing. All I could do was sit down and open and close my mouth.
"Well," he said, taking the sheets and poking them through a little slot in the machine. "Well, there's tomorrow's edition, all-how does it go?-all put to bed. They'll go wild over that. Just think, Reverend Piltzer's daughter was found tonight with a smoking pistol in her hand, still standing over the body of her-"
I woke up.
"Jones!"
"Of course, it's not front page stuff. Makes nice filler for page eight, though."
"Jones!"
"Yes, m'boy?"
"I'm going to kill you. So help me, I'm going to murder you right now! Do you realize what you've done? Oh Lord, don't you know that half the people in Danville are going to shoot me, burn me, sue me and ride me out on a rail? Don't you-but they won't. No sir. I'll tell them everything. And you're going to stick right here to back me up. All of the-"
"Why, what's the matter, Dick? Aren't you happy? Look at all the news your paper is getting."
"Hap-Happy? You completely ruin me and ask if I'm happy! Go bar the door, Jones; they'll be here any second."
He looked hurt and scratched the end of his nose with his cane.
"I don't quite understand, Richard. Who will be here? Out of town reporters?"
I nodded weakly, too sick to talk.
"Oh no, they won't arrive until tomorrow. You see, they're just getting this morning's issue. Why are you so distraught? Ah, I know what will cheer you up. Take a look at the mail box."
I don't know why, but that's what I did. I knew the mail wasn't supposed to arrive until later, and vaguely I wanted to ask what had happened to all the old equipment. But I just went over and looked at the mail box, like Mr. Jones suggested. I opened the first letter. Three dollars dropped out. Letter number two another three bucks. Automatically I opened letter after letter, until the floor was covered with currency. Then I imagined I looked up piteously at Mr. J.
"Subscriptions, m'boy, subscriptions. I hurried the delivery a bit, so you'd be pleased. But that's just a start. Wait'll tomorrow, Dick. This office will be knee-deep in money!"
At this point I finally did begin to think I was crazy.
"What is all this about, Jones? Please tell me, or call the little white wagon. Am I going soggy in the brain?"
"Come, come! Not a bit of it! I've merely fulfilled my promise. Last night you told me that you were unhappy because the Courier wasn't selling. Now, as you can see, it is selling. And not only in Danville. No sir, the whole world will want subscriptions to your paper, Richard, before I'm through."
"But you don't understand, Jones. You just can't make up a lot of news and expect to get by with it. It's been tried a hundred different times. People are going to catch on. And you and me, we're going to be jailed sure as the devil. Do you see now what you've done?"
He looked at me quizzically and burst out laughing.
"Why, Dick, you don't understand yet, do you! Come now, surely you're not such a dunce. Tell me, exactly what do you think?"
"Merely that an old man stepped into my life last night and that my life has been a nightmare ever since."
"But beyond that. Who am I and why am I here?"
"Oh, I don't know, Mr. Jones. You're probably just a friend of Dad's and thought you could help me out by this crazy scheme. I can't even get angry with you anymore. Things were going to hell without you-maybe I can get a job on the prison newspaper."