Strange Wine (7 page)

“I…I once wrote a bunch of stories about gremlins,” Noah said, the words choked and as mushy as boiled squash.

“That’s why we’ve been watching you, Mr. Raymond.”

“Wuh-wuh-watching muh-muh–”

“Yes, watching
you
.”

Charlie made the bratting sound again. It reminded Noah of unhealthy bowel movements, a kind of aural Toltec Two-Step, vocalizing Montezuma’s Revenge.

“We’ve been on to you for ten years; ever since you wrote ‘An Agile Little Mind.’ For a human, it wasn’t a half-bad attempt at understanding us.”

“There isn’t much historical data available on guh-guh-gremlins,” Noah said, off-the-wall, having trouble even speaking the magic name.

“Very good lineage. Direct lineal descendants of the afrit. The French call us
gamelin
, brats.”

“But I thought you were just something the pilots dreamed up during the Battle of Britain to account for things going wrong with their planes.”

“Nonsense,” said the little man. Charlie hooted. “The first modern mention of us was in 1936, out of the Middle East, where the RAF was stationed in Syria. We used the wind mostly. Did some lovely things to their formations when they were on maneuvers. Good deal of tricky Coriolis force business there.”

“You really are real, aren’t you?” Noah asked.

Charlie started to say something. Alf turned on him and snapped, “Shut’cher gawb, Charlie!” Then he went back to Mayfair accents as he said to Raymond, “We’re a bit pressed tonight, Mr. Raymond. We can discuss reality and mythology another time. In fact, if you’ll just sit there quietly for a while I’ll knock off after a bit and let the boys carry on without me. I’ll take a break and explain as much to you as you can hold tonight.”

“Uh, sure…sure…go ahead. But, uh, what are you writing over there?”

“Why, I thought you understood, Mr. Raymond. We’re writing that story for the BBC. We’re here from now on to write
all
your stories. Since you can’t do it, I shouldn’t think you’ll mind if we maintain your world-famous reputation for you.”

And he put two minuscule fingers in his mouth and gave a blast of a whistle, and before Noah Raymond could say that he was so ashamed of himself he could cry, they were once again bounding up and down on the typewriter.

My
God
, how they worked!

It was simply the Nietzschean theory all over again. Nietzsche suggested that when a god lost all its worshipers, the god itself died. Belief was the sustaining force. When a god’s supplicants went over to newer, stronger gods, belief in the weaker deity faded and so did the deity. So it had been with the gremlins. They were ancient, of course, and they were worshiped in their various forms under various names. Pixies, nixies, goblins, elves, sprites, fairies, will-o’-the-wisps,
gamelins
…gremlins. But when the times were hard and the technocrats rode high, the belief in magic faded, and so did they. Day by day they vanished, one after another. Whole families were wiped out in a morning just by a group of humans switching to Protestantism.

And so, from time to time, they came back in strength with a new method of drawing believers to them. During World War II they had changed and taken on the very raiments of the science worshipers. They became elves of the mechanical universe: gremlins.

But the war was over, and people no longer believed.

So they had looked around for a promotional gimmick, and they had found seventeen-year-old Noah Raymond. He was quick, and he was imaginative, and he believed. So they waited. A few stories weren’t good enough. They wanted a body of work, a world-acclaimed body of work that could sustain them through this difficult period of future shock and automation. Tolkien had done his share, but he was an old man and they knew he couldn’t do it alone.

And so, on the night Noah Raymond went dry, they were waiting, a commando force of typewriter assaultists specially trained for throwing themselves into their work in the most literal sense. Tough, unsentimental gremlins with steely eyes and a fierce determination to save their race. Assault Force G-1. Each gremlin a hand-picked veteran of extra-dangerous service. Each gremlin a volunteer. Each gremlin a specialist:

Alf, who had led the assault on the Krupp munitions factory’s toilets in 1943.

Charlie, who had shipped aboard the
Titanic
on its maiden voyage, April 10th, 1912, as sabotaging supercargo.

Billy, who had been head gremlin in charge of London underground subway disruption since 1952.

Ted, who worked for the telephone company.

Joe, who worked for Western Union.

Bertie, who worked for the post office.

Chris, who was in charge of making coffee bitter in the brewing throughout the Western Hemisphere.

St. John (pronounced Sin-jin), who supervised a large staff of gremlins assigned to complicating the syntax in the public speeches of minor politicians.

And the others, and their standbys, and their reserve troops, and their replacements, and their backup support…

Ready to move in the moment Noah Raymond went dry.

And so they began.

For the next nineteen years they came to Noah Raymond’s typewriter every night, and they worked with unceasing energy. Noah would stand watching them for hours sometimes, marveling at the amount of kinetic energy flagrantly expended in the pursuit of survival-as-art.

And the stories spun out of Noah Raymond’s typewriter, and he grew more famous, and he grew wealthy, and he grew more complacent as the total of their works with his byline grew from one hundred to two hundred, from two hundred to three hundred, from three hundred to four hundred…

Until tonight, when Alf stood shamefacedly on the Olympia’s carriage housing, his cap in his tiny hands, and said to Noah Raymond, “That’s the long and short of it, Noah. We’ve run dry.”

“Now wait a minute, Alf,” Noah said, “that’s impossible. You’ve got the entire race of gremlins to choose from, to find talent to keep the stuff coming. I simply cannot believe an entire
race
has run out of ideas!”

“Uh, well, it’s not quite like that, Noah.” He was obviously embarrassed, and had something of special knowledge he was reluctant to say.

“Listen, Alf,” Noah said, laying his hand palm up on the carriage housing so the tiny man could step onto it. “We’ve been mates now for almost twenty years, right?”

The little man nodded and stepped into Noah’s palm.

Noah lifted him to eye level so they could talk more intimately.

“And in twenty-years-almost I think we’ve come to understand each other’s people pretty fair, wouldn’t you say?”

Alf nodded.

“I mean, I even get along pretty well with Charlie these days, when his sciatica isn’t bothering him too much.”

Alf nodded again.

“And God knows your stories have made things a lot better for the reality of the gremlins, haven’t they? And I’ve done my share with the lectures and the public appearances and all the chat shows on telly, now haven’t I?”

Alf nodded once more.

“So then what the hell is this load’a rubbish you’re handing me, chum? How can
all
of you have run out of story ideas?”

Alf went harrumph and looked at his feet in their solid workman’s shoes, and he said with considerable embarrassment, “Well, uh, those weren’t stories.”

“They weren’t stories? Then what were they?”

“The history of the gremlins. They were all true.”

“But they sound like fantasies.”

“Life is interesting for us.”

“But…but…”

“I never mentioned it because it never came up, but the truth of it is that gremlins don’t have any sense of what you call imagination. We can’t dream things up. We just tell what happened. And we’ve written everything that’s ever happened to our race, right up to date, and we, uh, er, haven’t got any more stories.”

Noah stared at him with openmouthed amazement.

“This is awful,” Noah said.

“Don’t I know it.” He hesitated, as if not wanting to say any more; then a look of determination came over his face and he went on. “I wouldn’t tell this to just any human, Noah, but you’re a good sort, and we’ve shared a jar or two, so I’ll tell you the rest of it.”

“The rest of it?”

“I’m afraid so. The program’s been working both ways, I’m sorry to say. The more humans came to believe in us, the more we gremlins have come to believe in you. Now it’s pretty well fifty-fifty. But without the stories to keep things going, I’m afraid the gremlins are going to start thinking of you again as semireal, and…”

“Are you trying to tell me that now the gremlins are responsible for the reality of
humans?
”

Alf nodded nervously.

“Oh, shit,” Noah suggested.

“Been having a bit of trouble in that area, as well,” Alf lamented.

And they sat there, the tiny man in the human’s hand, and the human in the hands of the gremlins, and they thought about getting drunk. But they knew that wouldn’t help. At least not for very long. It had been a good ride for nineteen years, but the gravy train had been shunted onto a weed-overgrown siding.

And they stayed that way, sunk in silent despair, for most of the night.

Until about three fifteen this morning, when Noah Raymond suddenly looked at Alf and said, “Wait a minute, mate. Let me see if I have this figured out right: if the gremlins stop believing in humans, then the humans start disappearing…check?”

Alf said, “Check.”

“And if the humans start disappearing, then there won’t be sufficient of us to keep up the reality of the gremlins and the
gremlins
start vanishing…check?”

“Check.”

“So that means if we can find a way of writing stories for the gremlins that will reinforce their belief in
us
, it solves the problem…check?”

“Check. But where do we get that many stories?”

“I’ve got them.”

“
You’ve
got them? Noah, I like you, but let’s not lose sight of reality, old chum. You ran out of ideas nineteen years ago.”

“But I’ve got a source.”

“A source for stories?”

“A unified mythology just like your gremlin history. Full of stories. We can pass them off as the truth.”

And Noah went into one of the other rooms and came back with a book, and opened it to the first page and rolled a fresh piece of typing paper into the Olympia, and checked out the ribbon to make sure it was still fresh, and he said to Alf, “This ought to keep us for at least a few years. And in the meantime we can start looking around for another writer to work with us.”

And he began to type the opening of the first fantasy he had attempted in nineteen years: a story that would be printed on very small pages in infinitesimal type, to be read by very little people.

And he typed: “In the beginning Kilroy created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void and you couldn’t get a decent mug of lager anywhere…”

“I like that part,” said Alf, dropping his Mayfair accent. “‘At’s bloody charmin’, is what ’at is.”

Charlie went
blatttt

There is absolutely nothing startling or terrific to say about this story, and I’ll not be badgered into making something up. Except. All of the toys described in this story as being unmarketable (and for the reasons given) are, in actual fact, as opposed to unactual fact, for-real toys that one or another of the major toy manufacturers tried and discarded. (For the reasons given.) This is called in-depth research and you’d damned well better appreciate it.

BERENGER: (to JEAN) Life is an abnormal business.

JEAN: On the contrary. Nothing could be more natural, and the proof is that people go on living.

BERENGER: There are more dead people than living. And their numbers are increasing. The living are getting rarer.

JEAN: The dead don’t exist, there’s no getting away from that!…Ah! Ah…! (
He gives a huge laugh
.) Yet you’re oppressed by them, too? How can you be oppressed by something that doesn’t exist?

BERENGER: I sometimes wonder if I exist myself.

JEAN: You don’t exist, my dear Berenger, because you don’t think. Start thinking, then you will.

LOGICIAN: (to the OLD GENTLEMAN) Another syllogism. All cats die. Socrates is dead. Therefore Socrates is a cat.

Eugene Ionesco,
Rhinoceros

If God (or Whoever’s in charge) had wanted Dr. Netta Bernstein to continue living, He (or She) wouldn’t have made it so easy for me to kill her.

The night before, she had said again, do it again, we can do it once more, can’t we; and her thick, auburn hair smelled fresh and clean and it flowed across the pillows like the sunsets we get these days. The kind that burn the eyes they’re so beautiful. Our grandparents never saw such wonders of melting copper, flickering at the edges, sliding into darkness at the horizon. Exquisite beyond belief, created by pollution. Smog produces that kind of gorgeous sunset. Grandeur, created by imminent destruction. Her hair burned and slid into darkness and I buried my face in it and we made love and I didn’t make any mistakes.

And the next day she acted as if she didn’t know me.

Talked to me as though I were one of the test children she had in for her perception analyses. I felt waves of actual dislike coming from her. “Netta,” I said, “what’s the matter? Did I say something?”

She looked back at me with the expression of someone who has been asked for her driver’s license or other identification at a bank where she has had an account for sixteen years. I was a troublesome new teller, a trainee, an upstart stealing her time, impertinent and callow. “Duncaster,” she said, calling me by my last name, “I have work to do. Why don’t you go on about your business.” The night before she had called me Jimmy a hundred times in a minute.