R. A. Lafferty - Stories 5

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MORE STORIES BY R.A. LAFFERTY
*153. Bright Coins In Never-Ending Stream
*154. Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen-Seventies
155. Splinters
165. Lord Torpedo, Lord Gyroscope
170. The Only Tune That He Could Play
*175. You Can't Go Back
179. Square and Above Board
180. Ifrit
185. Golden Gate
*186. This Boding Itch
187. Tongues of the Madagora
*188. Make Sure the Eyes Are Big Enough
189. Marsilia V.
*190. One-Eyed Mocking-Bird
214. And Some In Velvet Gowns
215. The Doggone Highly Scientific Door
*216. Oh, Whatta You Do When the Well Runs Dry?
227. Magazine Section
240. Grey Ghost: A Reminiscence
245. Le Hot Sport
BRIGHT COINS IN NEVER-ENDING STREAM
People sometimes became exasperated with Matthew Quoin, that tedious old
shuffler. Sometimes? Well, they were exasperated with him almost all the time.
It isn't that people aren't patient and kind-hearted. All of them in our town
are invariably so. But Matthew could sure ruffle a kind-hearted surface.
"Oh, he is so slow about it!" people said of him. That wasn't true,
Matthew's fingers flew lightninglike when he was involved in a transaction. It
was just that so very many movements were required of him to get anything at
all transacted.
And then the stories that he told about his past, a very far-distant
past according to him, were worn out by repetition.
"Oh, was I ever the cock of the walk!" he would say. "I left a trail of
twenty-dollar gold pieces around the world three times, and that was when
twenty dollars was still worth something. I always paid everything with
twenty-dollar gold pieces, and there was no way that I could ever run out of
them. Ten of them, a hundred of them, a thousand of them, I could lay them out
whenever they were needed. I had a cruse of oil that would never be empty, as
the Bible says. I had a pocketbook that would never be without coin. I was the
cock of the walk. Plague take it all, I still am! Has anybody ever seen me
without money?"
No, nobody had. It was just that, of late years, it took Matthew's money
so long to add up. And often people had to wait behind him for a long time
while he counted it out, and they became Sulky and even furious.
When people became weary of listening to Matthew's stories (and of late
years he could feel their weariness for him like a hot blast) he went and
talked to the pigeons. They, at least, had manners.
"The bloom is off the plum now," he would tell those red-footed peckers,
"and the roses of life have become a little ratty for me. But I will not run
out of coin. I have the promise that I will not. I got that promise as part of
a dubious transaction, but the promise has held up now for more years and
decades than you would believe. And I will not die till I am death-weary of
taking coin out of my pocketbook: I have that promise also. How would I ever
be weary of drawing coins out of my pocketbook?
"This began a long time ago, you see, when the pigeons were no bigger
than the jenny-wrens are now. They had just started to mint the American
twenty-dollar gold piece, and I had them in full and never-ending flow. I tell
you that a man can make an impression if he has enough gold pieces. Ah, the
ladies who were my friends! Lola Montez, Squirrel Alice, Marie Laveau, Sarah
Bernhardt, Empress Elizabeth of Austria. And the high ladies were attracted to
me for myself as well as for my money. I was the golden cock of the golden
walk. "You ask what happened to those golden days?" Matthew said to the
pigeons, who hadn't asked anything except maybe, "How about springing for
another box of Cracker Jacks?"
"Oh, the golden days are still with me, though technically they are the
copper days now. I was promised eight bright eons of ever-flowing money, and
the eight of the eons could last (along with my life) as long as I wished it
to last.
"And, when the first eon of flowing money slipped into the second, it
didn't diminish my fortune much. It was still an unending stream of gold. Now
they were five-dollar gold pieces instead of twenty-dollar gold pieces, but
when there is no limit to the number of them, what difference does that make?
I would take one out of my pocketbook, and immediately there would be another
one in it waiting to be taken."
"I suppose I really had the most fun when I was known as the Silver
Dollar Kid," Matthew Quoin told them. He was talking to squirrels rather than
pigeons now, and it was a different day. But one day was very much like
another.
"I never cared overly for money. I just don't want to run out of it. And
I have the promise that my pocketbook will always have one more coin in it. I
liked that sound of silver dollars on a counter, and I'd ring them down as
fast as one a second when I wished to make all impression. And they rang like
bells. I was in my pleasant maturity then, and life was good to me. I was the
guy they all noticed. They called me 'Show Boat' and 'the Silver Dollar
Sport.' I always tipped a dollar for everything. That was when money was worth
ten times what it is now and a dollar was really something. What, squirrels,
another sack of peanuts, you say? Sure I can afford it! The girl at the kiosk
will be a little impatient with me because it takes the so long to get enough
coins out, but we don't care about that, do we?"
The fact was that Mitiliew Quoin, though he still commanded a shining
and unending stream of money, had a poor and shabby look about him in these
days of the eighth coin. As part of an old and dubious transaction, he had the
promise that he could live as long as he wished, but that didn't prevent him
from becoming quite old. He had a grubby little room. Je would get up at three
o'clock every Friday morning and begin to pull coins one at a time (there was
no possible way except one at a time) out of his pocketbook. It was one of
those small, three-section, snap-jaw pocketbooks such as men used to carry to
keep their coins and bills in. It was old, but it was never-failing. Matthew
would draw the coins out one at a time. He would count them into piles. He
would roll them into rolls. And at eight o'clock in the morning, when his
weekly rent was due, he would pay it proudly, twenty-seven dollars and fifty
cents. So he would be fixed for another week. It took him from three until
eight o'clock every Friday morning to do this; but he cat-napped quite a bit
during that time. All oldsters cat-nap a lot.
And it didn't really take him very long (no more than five or six
minutes) to draw out enough coins for one of his simple lunch-counter meals.
But some people are a little bit testy at having to wait even five or six
minutes behind an old man at the cashier's stand.
"I was known as the Four-Bit Man for a few years, and that was all
right," Matthew Quoin said. "Then I was known as the Two-Bit Man for a few
other years, and that was all right too." This was a different day, and
Matthew was talking to a flock of grackle-birds who were committing slaughter
on worms, slugs, and other crawlers in the grass of City Park. "It didn't
begin to hurt till I was known as the Dime-a-Time Man," Matthew said, "and
that stuck in the throat of my pride a little bit, although it shouldn't have.
I was still the cock of the grassy walk even though I didn't have as many hens
as I had once. I had good lodgings, and I had plenty to eat and drink. I could
buy such clothes as I needed, though it flustered me a bit to make a major
purchase. We had come into the era of the hundred-dollar overcoat then, and to
draw out one thousand coins, one by one, with people perhaps waiting, can be a
nervous thing.
"I began to see that there was an element of humor in that dubious
transaction that I had made so many years ago, and that part of the joke was
on me. 0h, I had won every point of argument when we had made that deal. The
pocketbook was calfskin, triple-stitched, and with German silver snap-latch.
It was absolutely guaranteed never to be clear empty of coin, and it should
last forever. Each coin appeared in the very bottom of the pocketbook, that's
true, and the contrivance was rather deep and with a narrow mouth, so it did
take several seconds to fish each dime out. But it was a good bargain that I
made, and all parties still abide by it. The Dime-a-Time years weren't bad.
"Nor were the nickel years really. There is nothing wrong with nickels.
Dammit, the nickel is the backbone of commerce! It was in the nickel years
that I began to get rheumatism in my fingers, and that slowed me down. But it
had nothing to do with the bargain, which was still a good one."
When the penney years rolled around, Matthew Quoin was quite old. Likely
he was not as old as he claimed to be, but he was the oldest and stringiest
cock around.
"But it's all as bright as one of my new pennies," he said to a
multitude of army caterpillars that was destroying the fine grass in City
Park. "And this is the eighth and final eon of the overflowing money, and it
will go on forever for me unless I tell it to stop. Why should I tell it to
stop? The flow of money from my pocketbook is is vital to me as the flow of
blood through my veins. And the denomination cannot be diminished further.
There is no smaller coin than the copper penney.
"It didn't go all that bright and shining with Mattlicw Quoin in the
penney years, though. The rheumatism had bitten deeper into his hands and
fingers, and now his lightning fingers were slow lightning indeed. The "time
is money" saying applied to Matthew more explicitly than it had ever applied
to anyone else, and there were quite a few slownesses conspiring to eat up his
valuable time.
And every time that prices went up, by the same degree was he driven
down. After five years in the peniiy eon he was driven down plenty.
"If it takes me five hours just to draw out and count the money for my
week's rent, then things are coming to an intolerable stage with me," he said.
"Something is going to have to give." Something gave.
The government decreed that, due to the general inflation of the economy
and the near-worthlessness of the one-cent piece, or penny, that coin would no
longer be minted. And, after a cutoff date in the near future, it would no
longer be legal tender either.
"What will I do now?" Matthew Quoin asked himself.
He went to talk to the people at the Elite Metal Salvage Company,
Scavenger Department.
"How much a pound will you give me for copper pennies?" he asked.
"Two cents a pound," the man said. "There hasn't been very much copper
in copper pennies for years and years."
"There is in these," Matthew said. "They follow the specifications of
the earliest minting." He showed several of them to the man.
"Amazing, amazing!" the man said. "They're almost pure copper. Five
cents a pound."
"I don't know if I can live on that or not," Matthew Quoin said, "but
I've no choice except to try."
Matthew Quoin changed his life style a bit. He gave up his lodging room.
He slept in a seldom-flooded storm sewer instead. But it was still a hard go.
A nickel a pound! Do you know how many pennies, pulled out rheumatically
one by one, it takes to make a pound? Do you know how many nickels it takes
now just to get a cup of coffee and an apple fritter for breakfast? Matthew
Quoin had started at three-thirty that morning. It would be ten o'clock before
he had enough to take to the Elite Metal Salvage Company to sell for legal
tender. It would be ten-thirty before he had his scanty breakfast. And then
back to the old penny-fishing again. His fingers were scabbed and bleeding. It
would be almost midnight before he had enough (yes, the Elite Metal Salvage
Comany did do business at night; that's when they did of lot of their
purchasing of stolen metal) to trade in for supper money. And that would
represent only one hamburger with everything on it, and one small glass of
spitzo. But Matthew would never be clear broke. He was still cock of the
walk. "Now here is where it gets rough," Matthew Quoin said. "Suppose that I
give up and am not able to live on the bright flow of coins, and I die (for I
cannot die until I do give up); suppose that I die, then I will have lost the
dubious transaction that I made so long ago. I'll have been outsmarted on the
deal, and I cannot have that. That fellow bragged that he'd never lost on a
transaction of this sort, and he rubbed it in with a smirk. We'll just see
about that. I've not given up yet, though I do need one more small morsel of
food if I'm to live through the day. Do you yourself ever get discouraged,
robin?"
Matthew Quoin was talking to a lone robin that was pulling worms out of
the browned grass that was beginning to be crusted with the first snow of the
season. But the robin didn't answer.
"You live on the promise of spring, robin, though you do well even now,"
Quoin said. "I also have a new promise to live for. I have been given a fresh
lease on life today, though it will be about seven years before I call put
that lease into effect. But, after you're old, seven years go by just like
nothing. A person in the Imperial Coin Nook (it's in a corncr of the Empire
Cigar and Hash Store) says that in about seven years my coins will have value,
and eventually he will be able to pay a nickel or dime or even fifteen cents
for each of them. And that is only the beginning, he says: in fifty years they
may be worth eighty cents or even a dollar each. I am starting to put one coin
out of every three into a little cranny in my sewer to save them. Of course,
for those seven years that I wait, I will go hungrier by one third. But this
promise is like a second sun coming up in the morning. I will rise and shine
with it."
"Bully for you, " the robin said.
"So I have no reason to be discouraged," Quoin went on. "I have a warm
and sheltered sewer to go to. And I have had a little bit, though not enough,
to eat today. I hallucinate, and I'm a trifle delirious and silly, I know. I'm
lighthearted, but I believe I could make it if I had just one more morsel to
eat. This has been the worst of my days foodwise, but they may get a little
bit better if I live through this one. It will be a sort of turning of the
worm for me now. Hey, robin, that was pretty good, the turning of the worm.
Did you get it?"
"I got it," said the robin. "It was pretty good."
"And how is it going with yourself?" Matthew Quoin asked.
"There's good days and bad ones," the robin said. "This is a pretty good
one. After the other robins have all gone south, I have pretty good
worm-hunting."
"Do you ever get discouraged?"
"I don't let myself," the robin said. "Fight on, I say. It's all right
today. I'm about full now."
"Then I'll fight on too," Matthew swore. "One extra morsel would save my
life, I believe. And you, perhaps, robin --"
"What do you have in mind?" the robin asked.
"Ah, robin, if you're not going to cat the other half of that worm --"
"No, I've had plenty. Go ahead," the robin said.
SELENIUM GHOSTS OF THE EIGHTEEN SEVENTIES
Even today, the "invention" of television is usually ascribed to Paul
Nipkow of Germany, and the year is given as 1884. Nipkow used the principle of
the variation in the electrical conductivity of selenium when exposed to
light, and he used scanning discs as mechanical effectors. What else was there
for him to use before the development of the photo tube and the
current-amplifying electron tube? The resolution of Nipkow's television was
very poor due to the "slow light" characteristics of selenium response and the
lack of amplification. There were, however, several men in the United States
who transmitted a sort of television before Nipkow did so in Germany.
Resolution of the images of these even earlier experimenters in the
field (Aurelian Bentley, Jessy Polk, Samuel J. Perry, Gifford Hudgeons) was
even poorer than was the case with Nipkow. Indeed, none of these pre-Nipkow
inventors in the television field is worthy of much attention, except Bentley.
And the interest in Bentley is in the content of his transmissions and not in
his technical ineptitude.
It is not our object to enter into the argument of who really did first
"invent" television (it was not Paul Nipkow, and it probably was not Aurelian
Bentley or Jessy Polk either); our object is to examine some of the earliest
true television dramas in their own queer "slow light" context. And the first
of those "slow light" or selenium ("moonshine") dramas were put together by
Aurelian Bentley in the year ]873.
The earliest art in a new field is always the freshest and is often the
best. Homer composed the first and freshest, and probably the best, epic
poetry. Whatever cave man did the first painting, it remains among the
freshest as well as the best paintings ever done. Aeschylus composed the first
and best tragic dramas, Euclid invented the first and best of the artful
mathematics (we speak here of mathematics as an art without being concerned
with its accuracy or practicality). And it may be that Aurelian Bentley
produced the best of all television dramas in spite of their primitive aspect.
Bentley's television enterprise was not very successful despite his fee
of one thousand dollars per day for each subscriber. In his heyday (or his
hey-month, November of 1873), Bentley had fifty-nine subscribers in New York
City, seventeen in Boston, fourteen in Philadelphia, and one in Hoboken. This
gave him an income of ninety-one thousand dollars a day (which would be the
equivalent of about a million dollars a day in today's terms), but Bentley was
extravagant and prodigal, and he always insisted that he had expenses that the
world wotted not of. In any case, Bentley was broke and out of business by the
beginning of the year 1874. He was also dead by that time.
The only things surviving from The Wonderful World of Aurelian Bentley
are thirteen of the "slow light" dramas, the master projector, and nineteen of
the old television receivers. There are probably others of the receivers
around somewhere, and person coming onto them might not know what they are
for. They do not look much like the television sets of later years.
The one we use for playing the old dramas is a good kerosene powered
model which we found and bought for eighteen dollars two years ago. If the old
sets are ever properly identified and become collectors' items, the price on
them may double or even triple. We told the owner of the antique that it was a
chestnut roaster, and with a proper rack installed it could likely be made to
serve as that.
We bought the master projector for twenty-six dollars. We told the owner
of that monster that it was a chicken incubator. The thirteen dramas in their
canisters we had for thirty-nine dollars total. We had to add formaldehyde to
activate the dramas, however, and we had to add it to both the projector and
the receiver; the formaldehyde itself came to fifty-two dollars. I discovered
soon that the canisters with their dramas were not really needed, not was the
master projector. The receiver itself would repeat everything that it had ever
received. Still and all, it was money well spent.
The kerosene burner activated a small dynamo that imposed an electrical
grid on the selenium matrix and awakened the memories of the dramas.
There was, however, an oddity in all the playbacks. The film-fix of the
receiver continued to receive impressions so that every time a "slow light"
drama is presented it is different, because of the feedback. The resolution of
the pictures improves with use and is now much clearer and more enjoyable than
originally.
The librettos of the first twelve of the thirteen Bentley dramas are not
good, not nearly as good as the librettos of the Jessy Polk and the Samuel J.
Perry dramas later in the decade. Aurelian Bentley was not a literary man; he
was not even a completely literate man. His genius had many gaping holes in
it. But he was a passionately dramatic man, and these dramas which he himself
devised and directed have a great sweep and action to them. And even the
librettos from which he worked are valuable for one reason. They tell us,
though sometimes rather ineptly and vaguely, what the dramas themselves are
all about. Without these outlines, we would have no idea in the world of the
meaning of the powerful dramas.
There was an unreality, a "ghostliness", about all the dramas, as though
they were made by sewer light underground; or as if they were made by poor
quality moonlight. Remember that the element selenium(the metal that is not a
metal), the chemical basis of the dramas, is named from Selene, the moon.
Bentley did not use "moving pictures" of quickly succeeding frames to
capture and transmit his live presentation dramas. Although Muybridge was in
fact working on the zoopraxi scope (the first "moving picture" device) at that
very time, his still incomplete work was not known to Aurelian Bentley. Samuel
J. Perry and Gifford Hudgeons did use "moving picture" techniques for their
primitive television dramas later in the decade; but Bentley, fortunately
perhaps, did not. Each of Bentley's thirty-minute live dramas, however it
appeared for the first time in the first television receiver, was recorded in
one single matrix or frame: and, thereafter, that picture took on a life and
growth of its own. It was to some extent independent of sequence (an effect
that has been attempted and failed of in several of the other arts); and it
had a free way with time and space generally. This is part of the
"ghostliness" of the dramas, and it is a large part of their power and charm.
Each drama was one evolving moment outside of time and space (though mostly
the scenes were in New York City and the Barrens of New Jersey).
Of course there was no sound in these early Bentley dramas, but let us
not go too far astray with that particular "of course". "Slow sound" as well
as "slow light" is a characteristic of selenium response, and we will soon see
that sound did in fact creep into some of the dramas after much replaying.
Whether their total effects were accidental or by design, these early
television dramas were absolutely unique.
The thirteen "slow light" dramas produced by Aurelian Bentley in the
year 1873 (the thirteenth of them, the mysterious Pettifoggers of
Philadelphia, lacks Bentley's "Seal of Production", and indeed it was done
after his death: and yet he appears as a major character in it) the thirteen
were these:
1. The Perils of Patience, a Damnable Chase. In this, Clarinda Calliope,
who was possibly one of the greatest actresses of American or world drama,
played the part of Patience Palmer in the title role. Leslie Whitemansion
played the role of Simon Legree. Kirbac Fouet played the part of "the Whip", a
sinister character. X. Paul McCoffin played the role of "the Embalmer". Jaime
del Diablo played "the Jesuit", one of the most menacing roles in all drama.
Torres Malgre played "the Slaver", who carried the forged certificate showing
that Patience had a shadow of black blood and so might be returned to slavery
on San Croix. Inspiro Spectralski played "the Panther" (Is he a Man? Is he a
Ghost?), who is the embodiment of an evil that is perhaps from beyond the
world. Hubert Saint Nicholas played the part of "the Guardian", who is really
a false guardian.
This Damnable Chase is really a galloping allegory. It is the allegory
of good against evil, of light against darkness, of inventiveness against
crude obtuseness, of life against death, of openness against intrigue, of love
against hatred, of courage against hellish fear. For excitement and intensity,
this drama has hardly an equal. Time and again, it seemed that the Embalmer,
striking out of the dark, would stab Patience with his needle full of the
dread embalming fluid and so trap her in the rigidity of living death. Time
and again, it seemed that the Whip would cut the flesh of Patience Palmer with
his long lash with viper poison on its iron tip that would bring instant
death. At every eventuality, it seemed as though Simon Legree or the slaver
would enslave her body, or the Jesuit or the Panther would enslave her soul.
And her mysterious Guardian seems always about to save her, but his every
attempt to save her has such reverse and disastrous effects as to cast doubt
on the honesty and sincerity of the Guardian.
A high point of the drama is the duel of the locomotives that takes
place during a tempestuous night in the West Orange Shipping Yards. Again and
again, Patience Palmer is all but trapped on railroad trestles by thundering
locomotives driven by her adversaries (the West Orange Switching Yards seem to
consist almost entirely of very high railroad trestles). Patience finally gets
control of a locomotive of her own on which to escape, but the locomotives of
her enemies thunder at her from every direction so that she is able to switch
out of their way only at the last brink of every moment.
The Embalmer attempts to stab her with his needleful of embalming fluid
every time their locomotives pass each other with double thunder and only
inches to spare. The Whip tries to lash her with his cruel lash with its
poisoned tip; and the Slaver threatens her with the outreached forged
certificate of color, and only by fantastic cringing can she cringe back far
enough to keep from being touched by it as their locomotives roar past each
other in opposite directions.
It seems impossible that the racing locomotives can come so close and
not hit each other, with their dazzling switching from track to track. And
then (Oh, God save us all!) the Panther (Is he a Man? Is he a Devil?) has
leapt from his own locomotive to that of Patience Palmer: he is behind her on
her own locomotive, and she does not see him. He comes closer --
But the climax of The Perils of Patience is not there in the West Orange
Switching Yards. It is at a secret town and castle in the Barrens of New
Jersey, a castle of evil repute. In this place the enemies of Patience were
assembling a gang of beaters (slack-faced fellows with their tongues cut out),
and they were readying bloodhounds to hunt Patience down to her death. She
somehow obtains a large wagon piled high with hay and pulled by six large the
high-spirited horses. With this, she boldly drives, on a stormy night, into
the secret town of her enemies and down that jagged road (there was a
lightning storm going on that made everything seem jagged) at the end of which
was the castle itself. The bloodhounds leap high at her as she passes, but
they cannot pull her from the wagon.
But the Panther (Is he a Man? Is he a Beast?) has leapt onto her hay
wagon behind her, and she does not see him. He comes close behind her-But
Patience Palmer is already making her move. Driving unswervingly, carrying out
her own intrepid plan, at that very moment she raises a key in her hand very
high into the air. This draws the lightning down with a stunning flash, and
the hay wagon is set ablaze. Patience leaps clear of the flaming hay wagon at
the last possible moment, and the blazing, hurtling inferno crashes into the
tall and evil castle to set it and its outbuildings and its whole town ablaze.
This is the flaming climax to one of the greatest chase dramas ever.
This final scene of The Perils will be met with often later. Due to the
character of the "slow light" or selenium scenes, this vivid scene leaks out
of its own framework and is superimposed, sometimes faintly, sometimes
powerfully, as a ghost scene on all twelve of the subsequent dramas.
2. Thirtsy Daggers, a Murder Mystery. This is the second of the Aurelian
Bentley television dramas of 1873. Clarinda Calliope, one of the most talented
actresses of her time, played the part of Maud Trenchant, the Girl Detective.
The actors Leslie Whitemansion, Kirbac Fouet, X. Paul McCoffin, Jaime del
Diablo, Torres Malgre, Inspiro Spectral ski, and Hubert Saint Nicholas played
powerful and menacing roles, but their identities and purposes cannot be set
exactly. One must enter into the bloody and thrilling spirit of the drama
without knowing the details.
More even than The Perils of Patience does Thirsty Daggers seem to be
freed from the bonds of time and sequence. It is all one unfolding moment,
growing always in intensity and intricacy, but not following a straight line
of action. And this, accompanied by a deficiency of the libretto, leads to
confusion.
The libretto cannot be read. It is darkened and stained. Chemical
analysis has revealed that it is stained with human blood. It is our belief
that Bentley sent the librettos to his clients decorated with fresh human
blood to set a mood. But time has spread the stains, and almost nothing can be
read. This is, however, a highly interesting drama, the earliest murder ever
done for television.
It is nearly certain that Maud Trenchant, the Girl Detective, overcomes
all the menaces and solves all the crimes, but the finer details of this are
lost forever.
3. The Great Bicycle Race, the third of the Bentley television dramas,
has that versatile actress Clarinda Calliope playing the lead role of July
Meadowbloom in this joyful and allegorical "journey into summertime". It is in
The Great Bicycle Race that sound makes its first appearance in the Bentley
dramas. It is the sounds of all outdoors that are heard in this drama, faintly
at first, and more and more as time goes on. These are country and village
sounds; they are county-fair sounds. Though the sounds seem to be an
accidental intrusion (another ghostly side-play of the selenium response
magic), yet their quality lends belief to the evidence that the full and
original title of this drama was The Great Bicycle Race, a Pastoral.
But there are other sounds, sometimes angry, sometimes imploring,
sometimes arrogant and menacing -- more about them in a bit.
Sheep and cattle sounds are all through the play; goat and horse and
swine sounds; the rattle of ducks and geese; all the wonderful noises of the
countryside. There are birds and grasshoppers, windmills and wagons, people
calling and singing. There are the sounds of carnival barkers and the chants
of gamblers and shills. There are the shrieks and giggles of young people.
And then there are those intrusive sounds of another sort, the separate
overlay. These seem to be mostly indoor sounds, but som~ times they are
outdoor grandstand sounds also, bristling talk in the reserved shadows of
crowd noise and roaring.
"No, no, no. I'll not be had. What sort of a girl do you think I am?"
"All these things I will give you, Clarie. No one else would give you so
much. No one else would ever care so much. But now is the time for it. Now is
the summer of our lives. Now we cut hay."
"Let's just see the price of a good hay barn first, Aurie. Let's just
get some things down on paper right now. We are talking about a summertime
check that is as big as all summer. And we are talking about a much larger
settlement to back up the other seasons and years."
"Don't you trust me, Clarie?"
"Of course I trust you, Ben tie baby. I trust that you will get that
trust fund that we are talking about down on paper today. I am a very trusting
woman. I believe that we should have a trust fund to cover every condition and
circumstance."
Odd talk that, to be mixed in with the sound of The Great Bicycle Race.
The race was in conjunction with the Tri-county Fair, which counties
were Camden, Gloucester, and Atlantic. The bicycle racers rode their
twenty-mile course every afternoon for five afternoons, and careful time was
kept. There was betting on each day's race, but there was bigger betting on
the final winner with the lowest total time for the five days, and the kitty
grew and grew. From the great fairground grandstand, one could see almost all
of the twenty-mile course that the riders rode, or could follow it by the
plumes of dust. The grandstand was on high ground and the whole countryside
was spread out before it. Cattle and mules were paraded and judged in front of
that grandstand, before and during and after that daily race; then the race
(for the approximate hour that it took to run it) was the big thing. There
were seven drivers in the race, and all of them were world famous: 1. Leslie
Whitemansion drive on a Von Sauerbronn "Special" of fine German craftsmanship.
This machine, popularly known then as the "whizzer", would get you there and
it would bring you back. It was very roadworthy and surprisingly fast.
2. Kirbac Fouet was on an Ernest Michaux Magicien, a splendid machine.
It had a socket into which a small sail might be fitted to give greater speed
on a favorable wind.
3. X. Paul McCoffin was on a British Royal Velocipede. There are two
things that may be remarked about the British Royal: it had solid rubber tires
(the first rubber-tired bicycle ever), and it had class. It had that cluttered
austerity of line that only the best of British products have.
4. Jaime del Diablo was on a Pierre Lallement "Boneshaker" with its
iron-tired wooden wheels, the front one much larger than the rear.
5. Torres Maigre was on an American-built Richard Warren Sears
Roadrunner, the first all-iron machine. "The only wood is in the heads of its
detractors" was an advertising slogan used for the Roadrunner.
6. Inspiro Spectralski (Is he a Man? Is he a Cannon Ball?) was riding a
Mcracken's Comet. This comet had won races at several other county fairs
around the state.
7. Hubert Saint Nicholas had a machine such as no one in the state had
ever seen before. It was a French bicyclette named the Supreme. The bicyclette
had the pedals fixed to drive the back wheel by the ingenious use of a chain
and sprocket wheel, and so was not, strictly speaking, a bicycle at all. The
true bicycles of the other six racers had the pedals attached directly to the
front wheels. There was one syndicate of bettors who said the bicyclette had a
mechanical advantage, and that Hubert would win on it. But other persons made
jokes about this rig whose back wheel would arrive before its front wheel and
whose driver would not arrive before the next day.
It was on these great riders that all the six-shot gamblers around were
wagering breath-taking sums. It was for them that sports came from as far away
as New York City.
Clarinda Calliope played the role of Gloria Goldenfield, the beauty
queen of the Tri-county Fair in this drama. But she also played the role of
the "Masked Alternate Rider Number Seven". (All the racing riders had their
alternates to ride in their places in case of emergency.) And Clarinda also
played a third role, that of Rakesly Rivertown, the splurging gambler. Who
would ever guess that the raffish Rakesly was being played by a woman? The
author and director of The Great Bicycle Race did not know anything about
Clarinda playing these latter two roles.
The grandstand, the bandstand, the pleasures of a country carnival in
the summertime! And the "slow smells" of the selenium-directed matrix just
becoming ripe and evocative now! Smell of sweet clover and timothy hay, or hot
horses pulling buggies or working in the fields, smells of candy and sausage
and summer squash at the eating places at the fair, smells of dusty roads and
of green money being counted out and thumped down on betting tables for the
bicycle race! And then again there was the override of intrusive voices
breaking in on the real summer drama just by accident.
"Clarie, I will do handsomely by you in just a day or so. I have placed
very, very heavy bets on the bicycle race, and I will win. I am betting
against the wildest gambler in this part of the country, Rakesly Rivertown,
and we will have the bet up to a cool million with one more raise. He is
betting the field against number seven. And number seven will win."
"I have heard that this Rakesly Rivertown is about the sharpest gambler
anywhere, and that he has a fine figure and makes and extraordinary
appearance."
"A fine figure! Why, the fraud is shaped like a girl! Yes, he is a sharp
gambler, but he doesn't understand mechanics. Number seven, the Supreme, has a
rear-wheel drive with gear-ratio advantage. Hubert Saint Nicholas, who is
riding number seven, is just toying with the other riders so far to get the
bets higher, and he can win whenever he wants to. I will win a million dollars
on the race, my love. And I will give it to you, if you act a little bit more
like my love."
"Surely your love for me should transcend any results of a bicycle race,
Aurie. If you really loved me, and if you contemplated making such a gift to
me, you would make it today. That would show that your appreciation and
affection are above mere fortune. And, if you can't lose, as you say that you
cannot, you will have your money in the same amount won back in two days'
time, and you will have made me happy two days longer."
"All right, I guess so then, Clarie. Yes, I'll give it to you today.
Right now. I'll write you a check right now."
"Oh, you are a treasure, Aurie. You are a double treasure. You can't
guess how double a treasure you are!"
The wonderful Tri-county Fair was near its end, and its Great Bicycle
Race with it. It was the last day of the race. Hubert Saint Nicholas on number
seven, the Supreme, the French bicyclette with the mechanical advantage, was
leading the field by only one minute in total elapsed time going into that
last day's racing. There were those who said that Hubert could win any time he
wanted to, and that he stayed so close only to keep the bets a-growing.
And the bets did grow. The mysterious gambler with the fine figure and
the extraordinary appearance, Rakesly Rivertown, was still betting the field
to win against number seven. And a still more mysterious gambler, working
through agents, was betting on number seven to place, but not to win. These
latter bets were quickly covered. Number seven would win, unless some terrible
calamity overtook that entry; and, in the case of such terrible calamity,
number seven would not finish second, would not finish at all most likely.
The seven intrepid racers were off on their final, mad, twenty-mile
circuit. Interest was high, especially with moneyed gamblers who followed the
riders from the grandstand with their binoculars. At no place was the winding,
circuit course more than four miles from the grandstand; and there were only
three or four places, not more than three hundred yards in all, where the
racers were out of sight of the higher tiers of the grandstand. One of those
places was where Little Egg Creek went through Little Egg Meadow. Something
mysterious happened near Little Egg Creek Crossing that neither the libretto
nor the enacted drama itself makes clear.
Hubert Saint Nicholas, riding the French bicyclette, number seven, the
Supreme, with the rear-wheel drive and the mechanical advantage, was unsaddled
from his mount and knocked unconscious. The race master later and officially
entered this incident as "A careless rider knocked off his bicycle by a tree
branch," though Hubert swore that there wasn't a tree branch within a hundred
yards of that place.
"I was slugged by a lurker in the weeds," Hubert said. "It was a
criminal and fraudulent assault and I know who did it." Then he cried, "Oh,
the perfidy of women!" This latter seemed to be an unconnected outcry; perhaps
Hubert had suffered a concussion.
Fortunately (for whom?) the alternate rider for number seven, the
Mysterious (though duly certified) Masked Rider, was in the vicinity of the
accident and took control of the bicyclette, the Supreme, and continued the
race. But number seven, though having a one-minute lead ere the race began,
did not win. Number seven did come in second though in total elapsed time.
The Great Bicycle Race is a quaint little drama, with not much plot, but
with a pleasant and bucolic atmosphere that grows more pleasant every time the
drama is played back. It is a thoroughly enjoyable "Journey into Summertime".
And there were a few more seconds of those intrusive "ghost" voices
breaking into the closing moments of the pastoral drama.
摘要：

MORESTORIESBYR.A.LAFFERTY*153.BrightCoinsInNever-EndingStream*154.SeleniumGhostsoftheEighteen-Seventies155.Splinters165.LordTorpedo,LordGyroscope170.TheOnlyTuneThatHeCouldPlay*175.YouCan'tGoBack179.SquareandAboveBoard180.Ifrit185.GoldenGate*186.ThisBodingItch187.TonguesoftheMadagora*188.MakeSuretheE...

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