The Avram Davidson Treasury (71 page)

“Huh!” said Beulah Gurnsey. “You feel sorry for
her
, that brazen thing; what about
me?
”

The television lady with the frosted hair sort of wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, and said to the real-blonde television lady, “Uh, well, yes, what
about
Beulah Gurnsey?”

A sort of sarcastic smile on her face, the blonde one asked, “Well, what
about
her?
She’s
nothing special. Why is she any better than anyone else?”

In the kitchen the icebox made that funny sound that meant it was going to die again, and so Beulah would have to eat the lunch leftovers for supper or else they would be no good by tomorrow. “Oh, you rotten thing!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, well,
you
know,” said the frosty-haired one, “she came from such a good family once upon a time and now look at the awful element moving into her neighborhood; besides which she hasn’t got any money and she hasn’t the first idea where to go look for any.”

“Oh
no?
”—
such
sarcasm!

“No!” cried Beulah, striking the worn-through cloth on the arm of the chair. “No, she hasn’t! So you just shut up—”

“And the few old-timers who are left around where she still lives, never coming to see her for years on end and looking at her house when they go by and talking about her and saying
you
-know-what…and besides that, as I say, she hasn’t got any money. Well, that’s what it is to be poor, as well we know; let me give you some fresh tea in that nice bone china cup, dear. We can’t afford anything better, because we’re poor.”

Blondie in the television let Frosty pour, but then she said, after a single sip, “Well, why doesn’t she just go right down to J. Saul Sloane and ask
him
what
about
her late brother Clarence’s bearer bonds that he has?”

Beulah Gurnsey stretched neck up straight and peered all around the room. “
I
don’t know anything about any bearer bonds of my late brother Clarence’s that J. Saul Sloane has!”

Frosty in the television put her head slightly to one side, said, “You see, she doesn’t
know
anything about that. Isn’t the receipt for that inside the big paperweight on her late brother’s desk?
She
doesn’t know about that—”

Blondie smirked. Anyone could see what
she
was. “
Weh-
ll,” said she, with a toss of her head, “you can just bet that J. Saul
Sloane
knows about that. So—” But Beulah Gurnsey turned the set off before that one could say another word. Then she went into the closet and got out her ugliest black velvet hat and put it on with firm little jerks. Then she went into Clarence’s bedroom, everything just as he had left it: there was the big paperweight on his desk. She pulled with her fingers, she pushed with her fingers—lo! part of the bottom came sliding out. Just like Clarence.
Who
always had to have the nicest lamb chop? Clarence! Beulah didn’t exactly remember the last time she had had a lamb chop. There was the receipt. Secretive. Sly. Clarence.

She picked up the shopping bag with the neatly folded newspapers in it;
people
didn’t have to think she didn’t have a house to shop for.

Out she went.

The two children on the street had already grown bored with trying to bait the three at the window; on seeing her, they slid simultaneously across her path, their faces gone rubbery but not quite blank. She leaned over toward them and opened her eyes wide as she could and crossed them and with a quick movement of her tongue slid her false uppers almost entirely out between her lips, then immediately slipped them in again. The children fled, mouths open to express a silent horror. “Don’t you
dare
eat
my
cats!” she shouted at the suddenly empty window, shaking her fist. Beulah didn’t exactly remember the last time she had had a cat.

J. Saul Sloane. Insurance. Real Estate. Usury. Unscrupulous Bilking of Widows, Orphans, and Legatees.

In she went.

That
was a sight to see. Oh, that would have made your heart feel
good
.
Oh
, how he looked up when she just marched in as bold as you please.
She
knew about his filthy rotten low vile immoral life. His putty mouth opening in his putty face under his putty nose as he saw her just march in and wave that receipt so he could see it and recognize it, and
then
what did he say?
Ha!

“Miss Beulah. Miss Beulah. I can explain. I was just keeping them for you. I—”

She said, “Hand them over. Ev-er-y-single-
one
-of-them, J. Saul Sloane.” Which he did. And she gave him one look. Out of his safe. In the manila envelope. Did she think to check them to see if they were all of them there? Oh, you just bet. And left him his old paper and said not one word more.

Out she went.

County First National Bank and Trust Company.

“Now, Miss Gurnsey, we are really very sorry, but another extension would be out of the—Oh.”

“Oh.”
Ha!
Took the wind out of
his
sails!

Herman Heinrichs and Sons. Fine Meats. The young heinie, well, one of the young heinies, drew a sour face when he saw her. “No, I don’t have any bones for your dog today,” he said. Beulah Gurnsey didn’t exactly remember the last time she had had a dog. A legal fiction;
never
mind.

Ignoring the young one, she turned to the old one, who was
there
today, for a change; “Heinie,” she said, firmly, “I want six of your best, biggest, nice rib lamb chops, and don’t you trim an ounce off them and don’t you break a single bone:
you
know how I like them.”

“Yes, Miss Kurnssey,” he said, obediently. And after, he asked, “Shoult I but dem on your pill, Miss Kurnssey?”

Oh, how the young one yelped! “Grossdaddy, we don’t
carry
any more bills,” he cried.

Beulah paid him no mind. “
I
. Shall pay.
Cash. Thank
you, Heinie.”

Simmons Electrical. It always took Hi Simmons a week to stand up, he was so tall. “Beulah Gurnsey,” said he, now, “that was a good enough and cheap enough used icebox when I sold it to you and I have worked many a miracle with it for you and for the old times in Old Granger Grammar School, but I am not Frankenstein and cannot hang it up in a tower in a lightning storm to revive it again; therefore—” He was all stood up.

“I want a nice new one.”

“You can have a nice new one for $300.”

“I want a nice new one for $500.”

“You shall have it. Though there’s got to be a catch.”

“Yes. The catch is that the men who bring the new one take away the old one.
You
pay the dump fee.
Good
-bye, Hiram-firam.”

Back home she simply sat in her chair awhile. A long while. Then she got up and unwrapped the lamb chops and she salted them and peppered them and garlic’d them and onioned them and thymed them and put them in the broiler and turned it on, and then she washed her hands. The fat would bubble and crisp and they would grow nice and brown on the outside and yet be pink and juicy on the inside and she would hold each one by its bone-handle and eat it while she watched television.

Speaking of
which
.

7:30
2
WHERE IT
’
S AT
. Featured:
Treasure in Your Attic and Basement
.

8:00
13
MOVIE
★½
Revenge of the
Cat-Lady
(1953) Percy Wilkins, Velda Snow. An insane spinster terrorizes her neighborhood with the aid of a strange old family amulet. (2 hrs. 5 mins.)

Good, good. Those looked very good. Beulah Gurnsey sat back in her armchair.

What
was
the treasure in her attic and in her basement? Well, she would find out. The television would let her know.

And tomorrow she must certainly get a cat.

Cats.

She leaned forward and turned on the television.

I
NTRODUCTION BY
F
ORREST
J. A
CKERMAN

A
VRAM THE
M
ARVA

I’m an Esperantist and, as a recognizer of the “universalanguage” Esperanto, when I look at author Davidson’s first name it reverses itself and practically suggests “marvelous.” In any language, Avram was marvelous.

My auctorial specialty is the short-short story. I have had the world’s shortest published, “Cosmic Report Card: Earth.” You may guess the one failing letter of the alphabet that the flying saucer sociologists give Earth.

I’ve collaborated on short stories with Catherine L. Moore, Robert W. Lowndes, Theodore Sturgeon, and A. E. van Vogt, among others. Why didn’t it occur to me while there was still time to ask Avram if he’d consider collaborating with me on a sequel to “Cosmic Report Card”? After all, I sold it five times for a total of five hundred dollars and it’s been translated into eight languages.

But enough of my ambling along in this preamble, this is a collection of Davidson stories, not Ackermanuscripts. I’m delighted that the word “friend” was found after my name in Avram’s address book and therefore I was contacted to write an introduction to “While You’re Up.”

I had only finished the first sentence when I realized something was wrong, inexplicably anachronistic. Undoubtedly you will too when you wonder why anyone would include Maxfield Parrish as a compatriot (dare I, with a bow to Avram, say com
paint
riot?) of da Vinci and Rembrandt?

Warm wine?

Crystal bowls for divining—not balls?

Aprons outlawed?

Handkerchiefs archaic?

What’s going on here?

And when Sexton—But, no, I’ll leave you to read the shock yourself.

Avram, you marva rascal, you’ve done it again!

WHILE YOU’RE UP

T
HE SCENE MIGHT HAVE
been painted by Maxfield Parrish, perhaps the best of painters during that rich, lost era that also gave the world Leonardo and Rembrandt. While the latter two have their spokesmen, nay, their devotees, even they would have to concede that neither ever painted so blue a sky, and that there are those who deny that such blue skies ever indeed existed is (as Sexton often explained) beside the point. “They ought to have existed,” Tony said now to the few friends, to Mother Ruth—his wife of many years—all sitting in the large front room to which his preeminence and seniority entitled him. “They
ought
to have existed, for, as we see now, sometimes they almost do—and—look! a cloud!”

Mother Ruth, who had certainly seen clouds from this room before, merely smiled and murmured something soft and inaudible; the others craned and clearly spoke of their delight and good fortune. All, except of course, for Samjo, who continued sitting with his mouth open. Tony Sexton more than once had said, though—they could all well remember—“Don’t ever underestimate Samjo. He sees more than you think, and he adds things up, too.”

“The wine should be warm enough to drink in a few minutes,” Sexton said now. “We brought it up from the cellar several hours ago.”

Barnes, from his chair with the wooden arms, declared, hands sweeping the air, “Good friends, a good view, good thoughts, and—good wine, too.” Overfamiliarity may have perhaps tarnished the quotation, but Barnes’s enthusiasm was always contagious.

Maria said, “This moment, with the view and the blue and the cloud and, shortly, the wine—will be a moment that I shall always remember.” She peered forward, probably seeking to look into Mother Ruth’s eyes, for such was Maria’s habit; when she said something worthy, she felt, of notice, she sought someone’s eyes and, as it were, sought to bring forth an evident approval: a smile, a nod, an expression of the face, a gesture. But this time it was not forthcoming. Perhaps Maria, for all she knew, was just a bit annoyed.

Perhaps Tony understood all this, for he smiled his famous Sexton smile, and said, “Mother Ruth often looks into her apron as the ancient sibyls did into their crystal bowls.” For it was true, Mother Ruth dared to wear the antique apron, so long outlawed; and almost it did seem to make her look like something from antique eras.

Barnes picked up the metaphor and asked—Barnes often asked very odd !questions—“Father, were those crystal bowls empty when the sybils looked into them, or did they contain something, a…a liquid, perhaps?”

Tony Sexton very slightly pursed his lips. “Wine, I suppose, would have been too precious for such a use; water would always be in short supply. What, then? A thick soup would surely have interfered with the visioning, so—broth perhaps?”

Barnes in a moment went bright: A new concept! Then the brightness went. “One never knows when you are making a joke,” he muttered.

“I wanted to have a few friends over,” Sexton said, lightly leaving the subject. “Wine and five glasses waiting, a day with a lot of blue, and, if we were lucky…and I felt we would be lucky…even a cloud. A day to be remembered.”

Murmurs from all assured him that the day would surely be remembered. With an effect most odd, Sexton’s face turned gray, and his body seemed to fall in upon itself. For a second only, his face—like a dim, thin, crusted mask—rested on what seemed a pile of ashes; then it, too, dissolved.

The reaction of the others was varied. Maria started to rise, fell back, composed herself, looked about with a rueful air. Mother Ruth sagged. “Oh, Tony, Tony,” she said, her voice very small. Barnes exclaimed loudly, beat his hands upon the costly arms of his chair. “He didn’t
renew!
” cried Barnes. “Time and time again, I asked, I begged—much good that will do now,” he said, deeply annoyed. He bent over, removed from the still settling pile the small tag of malleable substance, read aloud, “Your warranty expires on or about the hour of noon on the 23rd of April, 2323.” Several voices declared that Tony Sexton had timed it just about right—leave it to Sexton! they said.

Maria now rose all the way. “I think,” she said, “that now is
just
the time to drink that container of wine Sexton was saving; he’d want that, wouldn’t he?”