Theodore Sturgeon - Shottle Bop

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SHOTTLE BOP

Unknown February by Theodore Sturgeon (1918- )

I'd never seen the place before, and I lived just down the block and around the corner. I'll even

give you the address, if you like. "The Shottle Bop," between Twentieth and Twenty-first Streets,

on Tenth Avenue in New York City. You can find it if you go there looking for it. Might even be

worth your while, too.

But you'd better not.

"The Shottle Bop." It got me. It was a small shop with a weather-beaten sign swung from a

wrought crane, creaking dismally in the late fall wind. I walked past it, thinking of the engagement

ring in my pocket and how it had just been handed back to me by Audrey, and my mind was far

removed from such things as shottle bops. I was thinking that Audrey might have used a gentler

term than "useless" in describing me: and her neatly turned remark about my being a "constitutional

psychopathic incompetent" was as uncalled -for as it was spectacular. She must have read it

somewere, balanced as it was by "And I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on earth!"

which is a notably worn cliche.

"Shottle Bop!" I muttered, and then paused, wondering where I had picked up such oddly

rhythmic syllables with which to express myself. I'd seen it on that sign, of course, and it had

caught my eye. "And what," I asked myself, "might be a Shottle Bop?" Myself replied promptly,

"Dunno. Toddle back and have a look." So toddle I did, back along the east side of Tenth,

wondering what manner of man might be running such an establishment in pursuance of what kind

of business. I was enlightened on the second point by a sign in the window, all but obscured by the

dust and ashes of ap-parent centuries, which read:

WE SELL BOTTLES

There was another line of smaller print there. I rubbed at the crusted glass with my sleeve and

finally was able to make out.

With things in them.

Just like that:

WE SELL BOTTLES

With things in them.

Well of course I went in. Sometimes very delightful things come in bottles, and the way I was

feeling, I could stand a little delighting.

"Close it!" shrilled a voice, as I pushed through the door. The voice came from a shimmering

egg adrift in the air behind the counter, low-down. Peering over, I saw that it was not an egg at all,

but the bald pate of an old man who was clutching the edge of the counter, his scrawny body

streaming away in the slight draft from the open door, as if he were made of bubbles. A mite

startled, I kicked the door with my heel. He immediately fell on his face, and then scrambled smiling

to his feet.

"Ah, it's so good to see you again," he rasped.

I think his vocal cords were dusty, too. Everything else here was. As the door swung to, I felt as

if I were inside a great dusty brain that had just closed its eyes. Oh yes, there was light enough. But

it wasn't the lamp light and it wasn't daylight. It was like—like light reflected from the cheeks of pale

people. Can't say I enjoyed it much.

"What do you mean, `again'?" I asked irritably. "You never saw me before."

"I saw you when you came in and I fell down and got up and saw you again," he quibbled, and

beamed. "What can I foo for do?"

"Huh?" I huhed, and then translated it into "What can I do for you?"

"Oh, I said. "Well, I saw your sign. What have you got in a bottle that I might like?"

"What do you want?"

"What've you got?"

He broke into a piping chant—I remember it yet, word for word.

"For half a buck, a vial of luck

Or a bottle of nifty breaks

Or a flask of joy, or Myrna Loy

For luncheon with sirloin steaks

"Pour out a mug from this old jug,

And you'll never get wet in rains.

I've bottles of grins and racetrack wins

and lotions to ease your pains.

"Here's bottles of imps and wet-pack shrimps

From a sea unknown to man,

And an elixir to banish fear,

And the sap from the pipes of Pan.

"With the powdered horn of a unicorn

You can win yourself a mate;

With the rich hobnob; or get a job—

It's yours at a lowered rate."

"Now wait right there!" I snapped. "You mean you actu-ally sell dragon's blood and ink from the

pen of Friar Bacon and all such mumbo-jum?"

He nodded rapidly and smiled all over his improbable face. I went on—"The genuine article?"

He kept on nodding.

I regarded him for a moment. "You mean to stand there with your teeth in your mouth and your

bare face hanging out and tell me that in this day and age, in this city and in broad daylight, you sell

such trash and then expect me—me, an enlightened intellectual—"

"You are very stupid and twice as bombastic," he said qui-etly.

I glowered at him and reached for the doorknob—and there I froze. And I mean froze. For the

old man whipped out an ancient bulb-type atomizer and squeezed a couple of whiffs at me as I

turned away; and so help me, I couldn't move! I could cuss, though, and boy, did I.

The proprietor hopped over the counter and ran over to me. He must have been standing on a

box back there, for now I could see he was barely three feet tall. He grabbed my coat tails, ran up

my back and slid down my arm, which was extended doorward. He sat down on my wrist and

swung his feet and laughed up at me. As far as I could feel, he weighed absolutely nothing.

When I had run out of profanity—I pride myself on never repeating a phrase of invective—he

said, "Does that prove anything to you, my cocky and unintelligent friend? That was the essential oil

from the hair of the Gorgon's head. And un-til I give you an antidote, you'll stand there from now

till a week from text Nuesday!"

"Get me out of this," I roared, "or I smack you so hard you lose your brains through the pores

in your feet!" He giggled.

I tried to tear loose again and couldn't. It was as if all my epidermis had turned to high-carbon

steel. I began cussing again, but quit in despair.

"You think altogether too much of yourself," said the pro-prietor of the Shottle Bop. "Look at

you! Why, I wouldn't hire you to wash my windows. You expect to marry a girl who is

accustomed to the least of animal comfort, and then you get miffed because she turns you down.

Why does she turn you down? Because you won't get a job. You're a no-good. You're a bum. He,

he! And you have the nerve to walk around pelling teople where to get off. Now if I were in your

position I would ask politely to be released, and then I would see if anyone in this shop would be

good enough to sell you a bottle full of something that might help out."

Now I never apologize to anybody, and I never back down, and I never take any guff from mere

tradesmen. But this was different. I'd never been petrified before, nor had my nose rubbed in so

many gaffing truths. I relented. "O.K., O.K.; let me break away then. I'll buy something."

"Your tone is sullen," he said complacently, dropping lightly to the floor and holding his atomizer

at the ready. "You'll have to say `Please. Pretty please.' "

He went back of the counter and returned with a paper of powder which he had me sniff. In a

couple of seconds I be-gan to sweat, and my limbs lost their rigidity so quickly that it almost threw

me. I'd have been flat on my back if the man hadn't caught me and solicitously led me to a chair. As

strength dribbled back into my shocked tissues, it occurred to me that I might like to flatten this

hobgoblin for pulling a trick like that. But a strange something stopped me—strange because I'd

never had the experience before. It was simply the idea that once I got outside I'd agree with him

for having such a low opinion of me.

He wasn't worrying. Rubbing his hands briskly, he turned to his shelves. "Now, let's see . . .

what would be best for you, I wonder? Hm-m-m. Success is something you couldn't justify.

Money? You don't know, how to spend it. A good job? You're not fitted for one." He turned gentle

eyes on me and shook his head. "A sad case. Tsk, tsk." I crawled. "A perfect mate? Uh-huh. You're

too stupid to recognize perfec-tion, too conceited to appreciate it. I don't think that I can—Wait!"

He whipped four or five bottles and jars off the dozens of shelves behind him and disappeared

somewhere in the dark recesses of the store. Immediately there came sounds of vio-lent

activity—clinkings and little crashes; stirrings and then the rapid susurrant grating of a mortar and

pestle; then the slushy sound of liquid being added to a dry ingredient during stirring; and at length,

after quite a silence, the glugging of a bottle being filled through a filtering funnel. The proprietor

reappeared triumphantly bearing a four-ounce bottle without a label.

"This will do it!" he beamed.

"That will do what?"

"Why, cure you!"

"Cure—" My pompous attitude, as Audrey called it, had returned while he was mixing. "What

do you mean cure? I haven't got anything!"

"My dear little boy," he said offensively, "you most cer-tainly have. Are you happy? Have you

ever been happy? No. Well, I'm going to fix all that up. That is, I'll give you the start you need. Like

any other cure, it requires your cooper-ation.

"You're in a bad way, young fellow. You have what is known in the profession as retrogressive

metempsychosis of the ego in its most malignant form. You are a constitutional unemployable; a

downright sociophagus. I don't like you. Nobody likes you."

Feeling a little bit on the receiving end of a blitz, I stam-mered, "W-what do you aim to do?"

He extended the bottle. "Go home. Get into a room by yourself—the smaller the better. Drink this

down, right out of the bottle. Stand by for developments. That's all."

"But—what will it do to me?"

"It will do nothing to you. It will do a great deal for you. It can do as much for you as you want it

to. But mind me, now. As long as you use what it gives you for your self-improvement, you will

thrive. Use it for self-glorification, as a basis for boasting, or for revenge, and you will suffer in the

extreme. Remember that, now."

"But what is it? How—"

"I am selling you a talent. You have none now. When you discover what kind of a talent it is, it

will be up to you to use it to your advantage. Now go away. I still don't like you."

"What do I owe you?" I muttered, completely snowed un-der by this time.

"The bottle carries its own price. You won't pay anything unless you fail to follow my directions.

Now will you go, or must I uncork a bottle of jinn—and I don't mean London Dry?"

"I'll go," I said. I'd seen something swirling in the depths of a ten-gallon carboy at one end of the

counter, and I didn't like it a bit. "Good-by."

"Bood-gy," he returned.

I went out and I headed down Tenth Avenue and I turned east up Twentieth Street and I never

looked back. And for many reasons I wish now that I had, for there was, without doubt, something

very strange about that Shottle Bop.

I didn't simmer down until I got home; but once I had a cup of black Italian coffee under my belt

I felt better. I was skeptical about it at last. I was actually inclined to scoff. But somehow I didn't

want to scoff too loudly. I looked at the bottle a little scornfully, and there was a certain something

about the glass of it that seemed to be staring back at me. I sniffed and threw it up behind some old

hats on top of the closet, and then sat down to unlax. I used to love to unlax. I'd put my feet on the

doorknob and slide down in the uphol-stery until I was sitting on my shoulder blades, and as the

old saying has it, "Sometimes I sets and thinks, and sometimes I just sets." The former is easy

enough, and is what even an accomplished loafer has to go through before he reaches the latter and

more blissful state. It takes years of practice to relax sufficiently to be able to "just set." I'd learned

it years ago.

But just as I was about to slip into the vegetable status, I was annoyed by something. I tried to

ignore it. I manifested a superhuman display of lack of curiosity, but the annoyance persisted. A

light pressure on my elbow, where it draped over the arm of the chair. I was put in the unpleasant

predicament of having to concentrate on what it was; and realizing that concentration on anything

was the least desirable thing there could be. I gave up finally, and with a deep sigh, opened my eyes

and had a look.

It was the bottle.

I screwed up my eyes and then looked again, but it was-still there. The closet door was open as I

had left it, and its shelf almost directly above me. Must have fallen out. Feeling that if the damn

thing were on the floor it couldn't fall any farther, I shoved it off the arm of the chair with my

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摘要：

SHOTTLEBOPUnknownFebruarybyTheodoreSturgeon(1918-)I'dneverseentheplacebefore,andIlivedjustdowntheblockandaroundthecorner.I'llevengiveyoutheaddress,ifyoulike."TheShottleBop,"betweenTwentiethandTwenty-firstStreets,onTenthAvenueinNewYorkCity.Youcanfinditifyougotherelookingforit.Mightevenbeworthyourwhil...

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Theodore Sturgeon - Shottle Bop

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