The Essential Ellison Part 6

"Bart! Your language! And to your mother!"

"Sorry, Ma, really sorry, but this is so hot it's burnin' my pinkies! Honest to-" he caught himself quickly, "-gos.h.!.+ Ma, I need the dough like I never did before. I can get it back to you in a few months, Ma! Pleeeze, Ma! I never asked ya for nothin' before!"

The next two minutes were a gradual wearing-down period culminating in Mrs. Charles Chester promising to go to the bank to get the last two hundred in sight. Bart thanked her most graciously. He ignored the operator's snide interjections to his mother about waiting for charges she would have to pay, then he was off the line and back on another.

"h.e.l.lo, Erbie? This is Bart. Look, I got a deal on that is without a doubt the most-wait a minute, for Christ's sake, w.i.l.l.ya-this is the greatest thing ever hit the-"

Five minutes and five hundred dollars later: "Sandy, baby? Who's this? Who ya think? This's Bart. Bart Ches-HEY! don' t hang up! This is a chance for you to make a millyun; a sweet honest-to-G.o.d millyun! Now here's what I want. I wanta borrow from you-"

Fifteen minutes, six phone calls and four thousand five hundred and twenty dollars later, Bart Chester bolted from the drug store, just in time to see the tentacled plate receding into the s.h.i.+p, the skin closing again.

Eloise was, of course, gone. Bart didn't even notice.

The crowds were, by this time, overflowing into the streets-though everyone was careful not to get under the structure-and traffic was blocked to a standstill all up the avenue. Motorists were perched on car hoods, watching the machine.

Fire trucks had been drawn up, somehow. Rubber-overcoated firemen stood about biting their lower lips and shaking their heads ineffectually. I've gotta get in there; get the edge on any other promoters! Visions of overflowing steam-tables danced in Bart Chester's head.

As he was pus.h.i.+ng through the crowd, back to the curb, he saw the police cordon forming. The beefy, spectacled cop was joining hands with a thin, hara.s.sed-looking bluecoat, as Chester got to them.

"Sorry, buddy, you can't go in there. We're shooin' everyone out now," the fat officer said, over his shoulder.

"Look, officer, I gotta get in there." At the negative shake from the cop, Chester exploded, "Look-I'm Bart Chester! You know, Star Cavalcade of 1954, the Emery Bros. Circus-I produced 'em! I got to get in there!" He could tell he was making no impression whatsoever.

"Look, you've got to-Hey! Inspector! Hey, over here!" He waved frantically, and the short man in the drab overcoat paused as he headed toward the squad car pool.

Taking care not to step on the microphone cables being laid along the street, he walked toward the crowd. Chester said to the cops, "Look, I'm a friend of Inspector Kesselman. Inspector," he said imploringly, "I've got to get in there. It's real important. Maybe a promotion!"

Kesselman began to shake his head no, then he looked at Chester with narrowed eyes for a moment, remembering free tickets to the fights, and reluctantly bobbed his head in agreement. " Okay, come on," he said, with obvious distaste, "but stay close."

Chester ducked under the restraining arms of the cops, following the little man around the shadow of the structure.

"How's the promoting business, Chester?" asked the Inspector as they walked.

Bart felt his head grow light and begin to float off his shoulders. That was precisely the trouble: "Lousy," he said.

"Come over some night for dinner, if you get the time," added the Inspector, in a tone that suggested Bart turn down the invite.

"Thanks," said Bart, carefully walking around the huge machine's shadow in the street.

"Is it a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p?" asked Chester, in almost a childlike tone. Kesselman turned and looked at him strangely.

"Where in h.e.l.l did you get that idea from?" he asked.

Chester shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, just them comic books I been readin'." He smiled lopsidedly.

"You're crazy," said Kesselman, shaking his head as he turned away.

Two hours later, when the last firemen had come down from the ladders, shaken their heads in failure and said, "Sorry, these acetylene torches don't even get the metal smoky," and walked away, Kesselman still looked at Chester with annoyance and said, "You're crazy."

An hour later, when they had ascertained definitely that machine gun bullets did not even dent the structure, he was less sure, but he refused to call the scientists Chester suggested. "G.o.ddammit, Chester, this is my business, not yours; now either you keep your trap shut, or I'll boot you out beyond the cordon!" He gestured meaningfully at the throbbing crowds straining against the joined hands of the police. Chester subsided, confident they would do as he had suggested, eventually.

Eventually was one hour and fifty minutes later when Kesselman threw up his hands in despair and said, " Okay, get your G.o.ddam experts in here, but do it fast. This thing might settle any minute.

"Or," he added sarcastically, looking at the grinning Bart Chester, "if there's monsters in this thing, they may start eating us any minute now."

It was a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. Or at any rate, it was from someplace else.

The gray-faced scientists ducked knowingly to each other for a while; one of the braver experts climbed a fire ladder and tested the s.h.i.+p in some incomprehensible manner, and then they concurred.

"It is our opinion," said the scientist with the three s.n.a.t.c.hes of hair erupting from an otherwise bald head, " that this vehicle-am I speaking clearly enough for you reporters?-this vehicle is from somewhere off Earth. Now whether," he pointed out, while the others nodded in agreement, " this is a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p or, as seems more likely from the manner in which it appeared, a dimension-spanning device, I am not certain.

"But," he concluded, making was.h.i.+ng movements with his hands, " it is definitely of extraterrestrial origin." He spelled the six-syllable word, and the reporters went whooping off to the telephones.

Chester grabbed Kesselman by the arm. "Look, Inspector, who has say-so-jurisdikshun, you know-over this thing? I mean, who would have say-so about entertainment rights and like that?" Kesselman was looking at him as though he were insane. Chester started another sentence, but the screams from the crowd drowned him out. He looked up quickly.

The skin of the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p was opening again.

By the time the crowds had streamed into the crosstown streets-terror universally mirrored on every face, yet mingled with an overwhelming curiosity-the eternal conundrum of New Yorkers was once again manifested: poor souls torn between their mad desire to watch, and a fear of the unknown.

Chester and the stubby-legged Inspector found themselves walking backward, taking short steps, fearful steps, as they looked upward. Don't let them be monsters, Chester was almost praying. Or that beautiful meal-ticket'll be knocked off by the militia!

The s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p was motionless; it had not altered its original position by an inch. But a platform was extending. A transparent platform, so clear and so thin, it seemed almost invisible. Six hundred feet up the s.h.i.+p's length, between two huge ribbed k.n.o.bs extending as though they were growths, the platform slid out over Times Square.

"Get some guns on that thing!" bellowed Kesselman at his men. "Get up in those buildings." He pointed at two skysc.r.a.pers between which the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p hovered.

Chester stared at the s.h.i.+p in fascination as the platform extended-then stopped. As he watched, a note was sounded. It rose in his mind, audibly, yet soundlessly. He c.o.c.ked his head to one side, listening. He could see police and slowly returning pedestrians doing the same. "Whutzat?" he asked.

The sound built, climbing from the hollow arch at the bottom of his feet, to the last feeling inch of each strand of hair on his head. It overwhelmed him and his sight dimmed for a moment, to be replaced by bursting lights and flickering shadows. In an instant his vision cleared, but he knew it had been a preamble. He knew-again without reason-the sound had come from the s.h.i.+p. He turned his eyes to the platform once more, just in time to see the lines begin their forming.

He could never quite describe what they were, and the only thing he knew for certain was that they were beautiful. The lines were suspended in air and of colors he had never known existed. They were parallel and crossed streamers that lived between the reds and blues of Earth. They were alien to his sight, yet completely arresting. He could not take his eyes from their wavering, s.h.i.+fting formations.

Then the colors began to seep. Like running paints the lines melted, forming, forming, forming in the air above the platform. The colors intermingled and blended; soon a backdrop of shades blotted out the skin of the s.h.i.+p.

"What-what is it?" he heard Kesselman ask, faintly.

Before he could answer, they came out.

The beings appeared and stood silent for an instant. They were all different in bodily appearance, yet somehow Chester knew they were all alike underneath. As though they had donned coverings. In the instant they stood there, motionless, he knew each by name. The purple-furred one on the left, he was Vessilio. The one with stalks growing where his eyes should have been, he was Davalier. The others, too, all bore names, and oddly, Chester knew each one intimately. They did not repulse him, for all their alienness. He knew Vessilio was stalwart and unflinching in the face of duty. He knew Davalier was a bit of a weakling, p.r.o.ne to crying in private. He knew all this and more. He knew each one, personally.

Yet they were all monstrous. Not one was shorter than forty feet. Their arms-when they had arms-were well-formed and properly sized for their bodies. Their legs, heads, torsos the same. But few had arms and legs and torsos. One was a snail-shape. Another seemed to be a ball of coruscating light. A third changed form and line even as Chester watched, pausing an instant in a strangely unidentifiable middle stage.

Then they began moving.

Their bodies positioned and swayed. They moved around one another, intricately. Chester found himself enthralled. They were magnificent! Their motions, their actions, their att.i.tudes in relation to one another, were glorious. More, they told a story. A deeply interesting story.

The lines s.h.i.+fted, the merged colors changed. The aliens went through involved panoramas of descriptive motion.

Not for a second did Chester consider he might stop watching them. They were something so alien, so different, yet so compelling, he knew he must watch them or forever lose the knowledge they were imparting with their movements.

When the soundless note had sounded again, the colors had faded, the aliens were gone and the platform had slid back, the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p was quiet and faceless once more. Chester found himself breathing with difficulty. They had been-well, literally breathtaking!

He glanced at the huge clock on the Times Building. Three hours had elapsed in the s.p.a.ce of a second.

The murmurs of the crowd, the strange applause for a performance they could not have fully understood, the feel of Kesselman's hand on his arm, all faded away. He heard the Inspector's voice, so whispery in his ear, "Good Lord, how marvelous!" Even that was out of his range now.

He knew, as he had known everything else, just what the s.h.i.+p was, who the aliens were, what they were doing on Earth. He heard himself saying it, quietly, almost with reverence: "That was a play. They're actors!"

They were magnificent, and New York learned it only shortly before the rest of the world got wind of the news. Hotels and shops suddenly found themselves deluged by the largest tourist crowds in years. The city teemed with thousands of visitors, drawn from all over the Earth, who wished to witness the miracle of The Performance.

The Performance was always the same. The aliens came out onto their platform-their stage, really-every evening at precisely eight 0' clock. They were finished by eleven.

During the three hours they maneuvered and postured, they filled their appreciative audiences with mixtures of awe and love and suspense such as no other acting group had ever been able to do.

Theatres in the Times Square area found they had to cancel their evening performances. Many shows closed, many switched to matinee runs and prayed. The Performance went on.

It was uncanny. How each person who watched enraptured could find identification, find meaning; though everyone saw something a little different; though no words were spoken; though no comprehensible motions were made.

It was uncanny. How they could see the actors do the exact same things, over and over, each Performance, and never tire of it-come back to see it again. It was uncanny, yet beautiful. New York took The Performance to its heart.

After three weeks, the Army was called away from the s.h.i.+p-which had done nothing but produce The Performance regularly each evening-to quell a prison riot in Minnesota. In five weeks Bart Chester had made all the necessary arrangements, shoestring-fas.h.i.+on, and was praying things wouldn't fizzle as they had with the Emery Bros. Circus. He was still going without meals, moaning to those who would listen, "What a lousy racket this is-but I got a deal on now that's-"

In seven weeks Bart Chester had begun to make his first million.

No one would pay to watch The Performance, of course. Why should they when they could stand in the streets and see it? But there was still the unfathomable "human nature" factor with which to contend.

There were still those who would rather sit in a gilded box seat, balcony style, hung from the outside of a metropolitan skysc.r.a.per (insured by Lloyd's, to be sure!), than stand in a gutter.

There were still those who felt that popcorn and chocolate-covered almonds made preparation of watching more pleasant. There were still those who felt the show was common if they did not have a detailed program.

Bart Chester, whose stomach had begun to bulge slightly beneath his new charcoal-gray suit, took care of those things.

Bart Chester Presents was scripted across the top of the programs, and beneath it, simply, The Performance. It was rumored up and down the street that Bart Chester was the new Sol Hurok, and a man which definitely we should all watch!

During the first eight months of The Performance, he made back all the borrowed money he had' invested in building-face leases and construction work. Everything from there on out was reasonably clear profit. The confection and souvenir concessions he leased for a fifty percent cut of the gross to the people who supplied ball games and wrestling matches.

The Performance went on, regularly, as an unquestionable smash hit.

Variety said: ETs SOCKO IN PLUSH REVUE!

The Times was no less ebullient with its praise: "...we found The Performance on Times Square as refres.h.i.+ng and captivating at its first anniversary as it was on its opening night. Even the coa.r.s.e commercial interests which have infected it could not dim the superlativeness of the..."

Bart Chester counted his receipts and smiled; and grew fat for the first time in his life.

The two thousand, two hundred and eighty-ninth Performance was as brilliant and as satisfying as the first, the hundredth, or the thousandth. Bart Chester sat back in his plush seat, only vaguely aware of the stunning girl beside him. Tomorrow she would be back, trying to get a break in some off-Broadway production, but tomorrow The Performance would still be there, pouring money into his pockets.

The major part of his mind concentrated, held in awe and wonder at the intricacy and glory of the actors' movements. A minor segment was thinking, as it always did with him.

Wonderful! Marvelous! A true spec'tcle like The New Yorker said! All around him, like perspiration on a huge beast, the Chester Balconies clung to their buildings. The inexpensive seats between 45th and 46th Streets, the higher priced boxes dotting the buildings all the way up to the Times Building. One of these days those slobs'll break down and I'll be able to build on the Times, too! he thought.

Over six years; what a run! Beats South Pacific! Dammit, wish I could have made all that in gate receipts.

He frowned mentally, thinking of all the people watching from the streets. For free! The crowds were still as huge as the first day. People never seemed to tire of seeing the play. Over and over they watched it, enraptured, deep in it, not even noticing the flow of time. The Performance always satisfied, always enchanted.

They're fabulous players, he thought. Only...

The thought was half-formed. Nebulous. Annoying. It itched in the back of his mind. Then he shrugged. There was no reason why he should feel qualms. Oh well.

He concentrated on the play. It really took little concentration, for the actors spoke directly to the mind; their charming appeal was to a deeper and clearer well than mere appreciation.

He was not even aware when the tone of the play changed. At one point the actors were performing a strangely exotic minuet of movement. A second later, they were all down near the front of the platform.

"That isn't in the play!" he said, incredulously, the mood broken. The beautiful girl beside him grabbed at his sleeve.

"What d'ya mean, Bart?" she asked.

He shook her hand off in annoyance. "I've seen this show hunnerds of times. Right here they all get around that little humpbacked bird-thing and stroke it. What're they staring at?"

He was correct. The actors were looking down at their audience who had begun to applaud nervously, sensing something was wrong. The aliens watched with stalks, with cilia, with eyes. They were staring at the people in the streets, on the balconies, seeming to see them for the first time since they'd arrived. Something was very wrong. Chester had felt it first-perhaps because he had been there from the beginning. The crowds were beginning to sense it also. They were milling in the streets, uncertainly.

Chester found his voice tight and high as he said, "There's-there's something wrong! What're they doing?"

When the platform sank slowly down the face of the s.h.i.+p, till finally one of the actors stepped off into the empty s.p.a.ce beside the machine, he began to realize.

It was only after the first few moments, when the horror of the total carnage he knew was coming had worn off, and he found himself staring fascinated as the little, forty foot, humpbacked bird-thing strode through Times Square, that he knew.

It had been a wonderful show, and the actors had appreciated the intense interest and following of their audience. They had lived off the applause for over six years. They were artists, without a doubt.

And up to a point, they had starved for their art.

IIWORLDSOF TERROR.

"I want people's hair to stand on end when they read my work, whether it's a love story, or a gentle childhood story, or a story of drama and violence."

"Harlan Ellison," DREAM MAKERS: THE UNCOMMON PEOPLE WHO WRITE SCIENCE FICTION, Interviews by Charles Platt, Berkley, 1980 "Horror" and "terror," while often given as synonyms for each other are really creatures quite different. "Horror" brings forth images of rotting corpses, yawning graves. Something shambling and rotting moves toward us, something disgusting. Horror is the gross out. "Terror" is something else again, and it links directly and unequivocally with fear. Harlan has written few stories of horror for its own sake, though his stories of terror may have us end up horrified. If horror is the rising gorge, then fear is the sheen of sweat on the forehead.

These are stories more of terror than horror.

"Lonelyache" (1964) is unmistakably a portrait of obsession, but its grimness is not in the fate of its protagonist, but in that awful last line. (Though perhaps a different interpretation derives from what Harlan a.s.serts is the key to the story: that dream car and its back window.) The fear in this story is that great lonelyache, when nothing else matters anymore.

"Punky & the Yale Men" (1966) is a particularly savage look at fear inside and out. Here the twin icons of money and power are wedded to guilt. Punky's fear is of being exposed as a fraud, a charlatan, and the bravado of his fear drives him into the underbelly of the American city and to his fate.

"A Prayer for No One's Enemy" (1966) sees ghosts from the past, whether from ethnic or personal history, stirring themselves up and forcing some expected and unexpected confrontations. But it is the two teenagers, outside the central turmoil, who learn the lessons of madness and how it shakes forever their own complacency.

"Pulling Hard Time" (1995) delivers a double punch. It takes the solitary, wholly private nature of terror as lived and felt by each of us and externalizes it into something more quietly, perhaps even more deeply, chilling. As tragic, pitiful and unforgettable as Charlie Lumschbogen's plight is, it's the horrific nature of a society that can so do such a thing and feel good about itself that completes this particular terror equation, measured here in a self-satisfied refrain and some casual remarks about storage problems.

Three stories from the Sixties, and one from the Nineties, but their morals are really timeless.