The Classic Philip Jose Farmer. 1952 - 1964 Part 9

"Not so much. It's merely the decent thing to do."

She would have to say that just when I was beginning to feel a little warmer toward her.

We went down the road. A big red-haired man walked toward us. He was all eyes for Alice, so much so that I expected the same sort of trouble we'd had with Polivinosel. But when he looked at me, he stopped, grinned, and burst into loud howls of laughter. As he pa.s.sed me, I smelled his breath. It was loaded with the Brew.

"What's the matter with him?"

"I don't know," said Alice, looking at me. "Wait a minute! Of course! Polivinosel and the others must have known all the time that you were an Outsider!"

"Why?"

"Because you're bald! Have we seen any bald men? No! That's why this fellow laughed!"

"If that's so, I'm marked! All Polivinosel has to do is have his wors.h.i.+pers look for a skinhead."

"Oh, it's not that bad," she said. "You have to remember that Outsiders are constantly coming in, and that any number of ex-soldiers are in the process of changing. You could pa.s.s for one of those." She grabbed my hand. "Oh well, come along, let's get some sleep. Then we can think about it."

We came to the cemetery entrance. The shrubbery on either side of the stone arch had grown higher than rny head. The iron gate in the arch was wide open and covered with rust. Inside, however, I did not see the expected desolate and wild expanse of tall weeds. They were kept trimmed by the goats and sheep that stood around like silvery statues in the moonlight.

I gave a cry and ran forward.My mother's grave gaped like a big brown mouth. There was black water at the bottom, and her coffin was tilted on end. Evidently, it had been taken out and then slid carelessly back in. Its lid was open. It was empty.

Behind me, Alice said, "Easy, Dan. There's no cause for looking so alarmed."

"So this is your splendid people, Alice, the G.o.ds and nymphs of the New Golden Age. Grave-robbers!

Chouls!"

"I don't think so. They'd have no need or desire for money and jewels. Let's look around. There must be some other explanation."

We looked. We found Weepenw.i.l.l.y.

He was sitting with his back against a tombstone. He was so large and dark and quiet that he seemed to be cast out of bronze, a part of the monument itself. He looked like Rodin's Thinker-a Thinker wearing a derby hat and white loincloth. But there was something alive about him and, when he raised his head, we saw tears glistening in the moonlight.

"Could you tell me," I asked excitedly, "why all these graves are dug up?"

"Bless you, my bhoy," he said in a slight brogue. "Sure, now, and have you a loved one buried here?"

"My mother," I said.

His tears flowed faster. "Faith, bhoy, and is it so? Then you'll be happy when I tell you the glorious news.

Me own dear wife was buried here, you know."

I didn't see anything about that to make me happy, but I kept quiet and waited.

"Yes, me bhoy-you'll pardon my calling you that, won't you? After all, I was a veteran o' the Spanish-American War, and I outrank you by quite a few years. In fact, if it hadn't been for the blessed ascent o' Mahrud-may he stub his divine toe and fall on his glorious face, bless him-I would now be dead of old age and me bones resting in the boat along with me wife's, and so-"

"What boat?" I interrupted.

"What boat? Where have you been? Ah, yes, you're new." He pointed his finger at his head, to indicate my baldness, I suppose.

"Faith, bhoy, you must hurry to Onaback in the morning and see the boatload o'bones leave. Twill be big doings then, you can count on that, with lots o' Brew and barbecued beef and pork and enough love-making to last you for a week."

After repeated questioning, I learned that Mahrud had had the remains of the dead in all the graveyards of the Area dug up and transported to Onaback. The next day, a boat carrying the bones would cross the Illinois and deposit the load upon the eastern sh.o.r.e. What would happen after that, not even the minor G.o.ds knew-or else would not tell-but everybody was sure that Mahrud intended to bring the dead back to life. And everybody was thronging into the city to witness such an event.

That news made me feel better. If there were to be many people on the roads and in the city itself, then it would be easy to stay lost in the crowds.

The man with the derby said, "As sure as they call me Weepenw.i.l.l.y, children, the All-Bull is going toofar. He'll try to raise the dead, and he won't be able to do it. And then where will the peoples faith in him be? Where will / be?"

He sobbed, "I'll be out o'work again, me position lost-me that served the Old G.o.d faithfully until I saw He was losing ground and that Mahrud was the up-and-coming deity nowadays. A G.o.d such as they had in the ancient days in Erin when G.o.ds was G.o.ds and men was giants. But now Mahrud-bull be his name, curse him- will lose face, and he'll never get it back. Then I'll be that most miserable o' all things, a prophet without honor. What's worse, I was just about to be promoted to a hemi-semi-demiG.o.d-I've been coming up fast all on account o' me faithful and hard work and keeping me mouth shut-when this big promotional stunt has to enter the All-Bull's head. Why can't he leave well enough alone?"

At last, I got out of him that he wasn't so much afraid Mahrud would fail as he was that he might succeed.

"If Mahrud does clothe the old bones with new flesh, me ever-loving wife will be out looking for me, and me life won't be worth a pre-Brew nickel. She'll never forget nor forgive that 'twas me who pushed her down those steps ten years ago and broke her stringy neck. Twill make no difference to her that she'll come back better than ever, with a lovely new figure and a pretty face instead o' that hatchet. Not her, the black-hearted, stone-livered wrath o' G.o.d!

"Sure, and I've had an unhappy life ever since the day I opened me innocent blue eyes-untainted except for the old original sin, but Mahrud says that's no dogma o' his-and first saw the light o' day.

Unhappy I've been, and unhappy I'll live. I can't even taste the sweet sting o' death-because, as sure as the sun rises in the east, as sure as Durham became a bull and swam the Illinois with the lovely Peggy on his back and made her his bride upon the high bluffs-I can't even die because me everloving wife would search out me bones and s.h.i.+p them to Mahrud and be standing there facing me when I arose."

I was getting weary of listening to this flow of hyperbole, interminable as the Illinois itself. I said, "Thank you, Mr. Weepen-w.i.l.l.y, and good night. We've got a long trip ahead of us."

"Sure, me bhoy, and that's not me given name. Tis a nickname given me by the bhoys down at the town hall because..."

I heard no more. I went back to my mother's grave and lay down by it. I couldn't get to sleep, because Alice and Weepenw.i.l.l.y were talking. Then, just as I'd managed almost to drop off, Alice sat down by me. She insisted on retelling me the story Weepenw.i.l.l.y had just told her.

I'd seen his white loincloth, hadn't I? Well, if Weepenw.i.l.l.y had stood up, I'd have perceived the three-cornered fold of it. And I'd have seen its remarkable resemblance to early infant apparel. That resemblance was not coincidental, for Weepenw.i.l.l.y was one of the Dozen Diapered Darlings.

Moreover, if he had stood up, I'd have noticed the yellow glow that emanated from his posterior, the nimbus so much like a firefly's in color and position.

It seemed that, shortly after the Brew began taking full effect, when the people of Onaback had turned their backs to the outside world, numerous self-styled prophets had tried to take advantage of the new religion. Each had presented his own variation of an as-yet-misunderstood creed. Among them had been twelve politicians who had long been bleeding the city's treasury dry. Because it was some time before the Bottle's contents began affecting the nature of things noticeably, they had not been aware at first of what was happening.

The wheels of industry slowed by degrees. Gra.s.s and trees subtly encroached upon pavement. People gradually lost interest in the cares of life. Inhibitions were imperceptibly dissolved. Enmities andbitternesses and diseases faded. The terrors, burdens, and boredoms of life burned away as magically as the morning mist under the rising sun.

A time came when people quit flying to Chicago for business or pleasure. When n.o.body went to the library to take out books. When the typographers and reporters of the daily newspapers failed to show up for work. When the Earthgripper Diesel Company and Myron Malkers Distillery-biggest on earth of their kind, both of them-blew the final whistle. When people everywhere seemed to realize that all had been wrong with the world, but that it was going to be fine and dandy in the future.

About then, the mail-carriers quit. Frantic telegrams and letters were sent to Was.h.i.+ngton and the state capital-though from other towns, because the local operators had quit. This was when the Food and Drug Administration, and the Internal Revenue Bureau, and the F.B.I, sent agents into Onaback to investigate. These agents did not come back and others were sent in, only to succ.u.mb to the Brew.

The Brew had not yet reached its full potency, when Durham had just revealed himself, through the prophet Sheed, as Mahrud. There was still some opposition, and the most vigorous came from the twelve politicians. They organized a meeting in the courthouse square and urged the people to follow them in an attack on Mahrud. First they would march on Traybell University, where Sheed lived in the Meteorological Building.

"Then," said one of the twelve, shaking his fist at the long thin line of Brew geysering from the Bottle up on the hills, "we'll lynch this mad scientist who calls himself Mahrud, this lunatic we know is a crazy university professor and a reader of poetry and philosophy. Friends, citizens, Americans, if this Mahrud is indeed a G.o.d, as Sheed, another mad scientist claims, let him strike me with lightning! My friends and I dare him to!"

The dozen were standing on a platform in the courthouse yard. They could look down Main Street and across the river to the hills. They faced the east defiantly. No bellowings came, no lightnings. But in the next instant, the dozen were forced to flee ignominiously, never again to defy the All-Bull.

Alice giggled. "They were struck by an affliction which was not as devastating as lightning nor as spectacular. But it was far more demoralizing. Mahrud wished on them a disability which required them to wear diapers for much the same reason babies have to. Of course, this convinced the Dozen Diapered Darlings. But that bra.s.sy-nerved bunch of ex-ward-heelers switched right around and said they'd known all along that Mahrud was the Real Bull. They'd called the meeting so they could make a dramatic announcement of their change of heart. Now he'd given them a monopoly on divine relevation. If anybody wanted to get in touch with him, let them step up and pay on the line. They still hadn't realized that money was no good anymore.

"They even had the shortsightedness and the crust to pray to Mahrud for a special sign to prove their prophethood. And the All-Bull did send them signs of their sanct.i.ty. He gave them permanent halos, blazing yellow lights."

Sitting up and hugging her knees, Alice rocked back and forth with laughter. "Of course, the Dozen should have been ecstatically happy. But they weren't. For Mahrud had slyly misplaced their halos, locating them in a place where, if the Darlings wished to demonstrate their marks of sainthood, they would be forced to stand up.

"And, would you believe it, this thick-headed Dozen refuses to admit that Mahrud has afflicted them.

Instead, they brag continually about their halos' location, and they attempt to get everybody else to wear diapers. They say a towel around the middle is as much a sign of a true believer in Mahrud as a turban or fez is that of a believer in Allah."Naturally, their real reason is that they don't want to be conspicuous. Not that they mind being outstanding. It's just that they don't want people to be reminded of their disability or their original sin."

Tears ran from her eyes. She choked with laughter.

I failed to see anything funny about it, and I told her so.

"You don't get it, Temper," she said. "This condition is curable. All the Darlings have to do is pray to Mahrud to be relieved of it, and they will be. But their pride won't let them. They insist it's a benefit and a sign of the Bull's favor. They suffer, yes, but they like to suffer. Just as Weepenw.i.l.l.y likes to sit on his wife's tombstone- as if that'd keep her under the ground-and wail about his misfortune. He and his kind wouldn't give up their punishment for the world-literally!"

She began laughing loudly again. I sat up and grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close to smell her breath. There was no hint of the Brew, so she hadn't been drinking from Weepenw.i.l.l.y's bottle. She was suffering from hysteria, plain and simple.

The normal procedure for bringing a woman back to normality is to slap her resoundingly upon the cheek. But in this case Alice turned the tables by slapping me first-resoundingly. The effect was the same. She quit laughing and glared at me.

I held my stinging cheek. "What was that for?"

"For trying to take advantage of me," she said.

I was so angry and taken aback that I could only stutter, "Why, I-why, I-"

"Just keep your hands to yourself," she snapped. "Don't mistake my sympathy for love. Or think, because these Brew-b.u.ms have no inhibitions or discrimination, that I've also succ.u.mbed."

I turned my back on her and closed my eyes. But the longer I lay there, and the more I thought of her misinterpretation, the madder I became. Finally, boiling within, I sat up and said tightly, "Alice!"

She must not have been sleeping either. She raised up at once and stared at me, her eyes big.

"What-what is it?"

"I forgot to give you this." I let her have it across the side of her face. Then, without waiting to see the effect of my blow, I lay down and turned my back again. For a minute, I'll admit, my spine was cold and tense, waiting for the nails to rake down my naked skin.

But nothing like that happened. First, there was the sort of silence that breathes. Then, instead of the attack, came a racking breath, followed by sobs, which sloped off into snifflings and the wiping of tears.

I stood it as long as I could. Then I sat up again and said, "All right, so maybe I shouldn't have hit you.

But you had no business taking it for granted that I was trying to make love to you. Look, I know I'm repulsive to you, but that's all the more reason why I wouldn't be making a pa.s.s at you. I have some pride. And you don't exactly drive me out of my mind with pa.s.sion, you know. What makes you think you're any Helen of Troy or Cleopatra?"

There I went. I was always trying to smooth things over, and every time I ended by roughing them up.

Now she was mad and she showed it by getting up and walking off. I caught her as she reached the cemetery gate.

"Where do you think you're going?" I asked."Down to the foot of Main Street, Onaback, Illinois, and I'm bottling a sample of the Brew there. Then I'm reporting to my father as soon as possible."

"You little fool, you can't do that. You're supposed to stick with me."

She tossed her long black hair. "My orders don't say I have to. If, in my opinion, your presence becomes a danger to my mission, I may leave you. And I think you're a definite danger-if not to my mission, at least to me!"

I grabbed her wrist and whirled her around. "You're acting like a little girl, not like a major in the U.S.

Marines. What's the matter with you?"

She tried to jerk her wrist loose. That made me madder, but when her fist struck me, I saw red. I wasn't so blinded that I couldn't find her cheek again with the flat of my hand. Then she was on me with a hold that would have broken my arm if I hadn't applied the counterhold. Then I had her down on her side with both her arms caught behind her back. This was where a good little man was better than a good big girl.

"All right," I gritted, "what is it?"

She wouldn't reply. She twisted frantically, though she knew she couldn't get loose and groaned with frustration.

"Is it the same thing that's wrong with rne?"

She quit struggling and said, very softly. "Yes, that's it."

I released her arms. She rolled over on her back, but she didn't try to get up. "You mean," I said, still not able to believe it, "that you're in love with me, just as I am with you?"

She nodded again. I kissed her with all the pent-up desire that I'd been taking out on her in physical combat a moment ago.

I said, "I still can't believe it. It was only natural for me to fall in love with you, even if you did act as if you hated my guts. But why did you fall in love with me? Or, if you can't answer that, why did you ride me?"

"You won't like this," she said. "I could tell you what a psychologist would say. We're both college graduates, professional people, interested in the arts and so on. That wouldn't take in the differences, or course. But what does that matter? It happened.

"I didn't want it to. I fought against it. And I used the reverse of the old Jamesian principle that, if you pretend to be something or to like something, you will be that something. I tried to act as if I loathed you."

"Why?" I demanded. She turned her head away, but I took her chin and forced her face to me. "Let's have it."

"You know I was nasty about your being bald. Well, I didn't really dislike that. Just the opposite-I loved it. And that was the whole trouble. I a.n.a.lyzed my own case and decided I loved you because I had an Electra complex. I-"

"You mean," I said, my voice rising, "that because I was bald like your father and somewhat older than you, you fell for me?""Well, no, not really. I mean that's what I told myself so I'd get over it. That helped me to pretend to hate you so that I might end up doing so."

Flabbergasted was no word for the way I felt. If I hadn't been lying on the ground, I'd have been floored. Alice Lewis was one of those products of modern times, so psychology-conscious that she tended to regard an uninhibited affection of parent and child as a sign that both ought to rush to the nearest psychoa.n.a.lyst.

"I'm in a terrible fix," said Alice. "I don't know if you fulfill my father-image or if I'm genuinely in love with you. I think I am, yet..."

She put her hand up to stroke my naked scalp. Knowing what I did, I resented the caress. I started to jerk my head away, but she clamped her hand on it and exclaimed, "Dan, your scalp's fuzzy!"

I said, "Huh?" and ran my own palm over my head. She was right. A very light down covered my baldness.

"So," I said, delighted and shocked at the same time, "that's what the nymph meant when she pointed at my head and said that if it weren't for that, she'd think I hadn't tasted the Brew yet! The Brew that fellow poured on my head-that's what did it!"

I jumped up and shouted, "Hooray!"

And scarcely had the echoes died down than there was an answering call, one that made my blood chill.

This was a loud braying laugh from far off, a bellowing hee-haw!

"Polivinosel!" I said. I grabbed Alices hand, and we fled down the road. Nor did we stop until we had descended the hill that runs down into U.S. Route 24. There, puffing and panting from the half-mile run and thirstier than ever, we walked toward the city of Onaback, another half-mile away.

I looked back from time to time, but I saw no sign of the a.s.s. There was no guarantee he wasn't on our trail, however. He could have been lost in the great ma.s.s of people we'd encountered. These carried baskets and bottles and torches and were, as I found out from conversation with a man, latecomers going to view the departure of the bone-boat from the foot of Main Street.

"Rumor says that Mahrud-may his name be bull-will raise the dead at the foot of the hill the Fountain of the Bottle spurts from. Whether that's so or not, we'll all have fun. Barbecue, Brew, and bundling make the world go round."

I couldn't argue with that statement. They certainly were the princ.i.p.al amus.e.m.e.nts of the natives.