Shock III Part 18

So I toss my greying shock of hair to the side, and am preparing my retreat to blue underwear, when to the house comes a party of three. They are directors of a proposed contest to determine who is to be a certain Miss Stardust.

I elucidate, this being the crux of my sombre plaint. The winner of this here contest is to be declared best-looking head not only on Earth, not only in the Solar System, but in the whole blarsted galaxy. This includes beaucoup stars and this, my skinny info about the heavens informs me, includes the chance of a goodly sum of probable life-sustaining planets. As well as our own nine, one of which we already know contains a strange brand of living matter.

Ergo a" mishmosh.

However, at the moment these three talent-seeking gents come to see me, I am not thinking overhard about such wraithlike topics. I know as much astronomy as I know where last year's taxes went. When it comes to supernova and escape velocities, I am on a par with the guy who can lose a ba.s.s drum in a telephone booth.

This, I hasten to add, disturbs me not one whit. Because the three characters like my publicity work on Gad's ill-fated plunge. I have imagination. I have the fresh approach. I have journalistic joie de vivre. Outcome a" they want me to handle the Miss Stardust contest at a juicy figure (not one of their prospective contestants a" a retainer).

I sign the contract. Hastily. I am now head rah-rah man for a setup that determines which babe has the face that launches a thousand s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps.

So I get hep. I start ladling out the pablum of publicity articles and ads disguised as news. 8 x 10 glossies make the rounds. Miss Georgia and Miss New York and Miss Transylvania and Miss Hemoglobin and Miss The Girl We'd Most Like To Be Trapped in a Cement Mixer With.

Prizes are announced. A huge silver loving cup. A Hollywood contract. A car. Others. The applications pour in.

Interest picks up. The boardwalk at Long Harbour starts to get prettied up. The judges are picked, five of them. Two are local dignitaries, fugitives from the Chamber of Commerce. One is a Mayor Gra.s.sblood on his yearly vacation from Gall Stone, Arizona. Another is Marvin O'Shea, president of a chemical plant. Last and least is Gloober, of Gloober and Gloober, old firm of good repute that turns out bathing suits. (Guess what kind of bathing suits all contestants are going to wear.) Everything is going cracky good. Excitement fills the air. Drivel fills the columns. Merchants are rubbing their gnarled palms together, oiling up the wheels on their cash register drawers. Middle-aged men are packing duds and combing out toupees to attend the festival. Joy to the world. Everyone is animate. Especially me. I am raking in such matchless coin that I am tempted to slip Mae Bushkin the word to take a flying leap into blue underwear while drawing candied dental floss between the gaps in her bridge. But caution prevails. My wife's middle name. She says you never can tell.

Truer words were never growled.

Because what happens, but three days before the contest starts Mrs. Local Dignitary Number One gets a severe case of galloping undefinable, and ends up in the hospital. Old Man Local Dignitary Number One gets the shakes, cancels his job, and his to the bedside with roses and condolences. A sordid marital gesture, but rough on the contest.

We replace him with Sam Sampson, who owns five car lots. This is not too bad, because we now sidestep the need to hire cars for the babes to ride around Long Harbour in, and cause all male viewers to wax pop-eyed viewing how little material old man Gloober weaves into his bathing suits.

So we are all squared off again. Until Marvin O'Shea, president of a chemical plant, is driving to see an infirm aunt in La Jolla, when his right rear goes 'pow', and he and his ever-nagging go ploughing through the last two cabins of Mackintoshe's Little Hawaiian Motel.

The duo is not seriously injured, but both end up in the white place, flat on their backs and sniffing flowers of compa.s.sion. That takes care of another judge.

With mutters of 'jinx' in our ears we find ourselves yet another replacement. Said replacement promptly gets himself in a drunken street brawl, and we have to ease him out of the picture fast. He screams foul and, true, it does seem undue odd. The joker has laid off the bottle for twenty-seven years. But testimony prevails. It emerges clear that the old gent had enough alcohol in him to light seventeen hurricane lamps.

We make the bid to replace this unfortunate with one Saul Mendelheimer, owner and producer of Mendel-heimer's Garden-of-Eden Pickles. Mendelheimer acquiesces. We are set again. The machine shudders on.

Then, the day before the contest is to start, the pier collapses. Luckily no one is on it but Lewisohn Tamarkis, who is arranging floral wreaths. He dog-paddles to sh.o.r.e, whilst cursing all living things, and drives off, dripping Pacific Ocean on the seat covers of his 1948 Studebaker.

Our brows knit with grave suspicions. Mutters of 'Communists' falling from many a furtive lip, we acquire the Munic.i.p.al Auditorium. This is not so good as the outdoors, but our hands are tied. I for one, being a superst.i.tious crank, think there is a curse operating on the show. I have dealt with such ill-fated projects in my time and, say I, once a deal starts going sour there's nothing you can do.

This Miss Stardust contest was accursed, I decided. I didn't know the half of it.

So where was I? Oh, yeah. Well, we finally manage to reach the morning of the show with five breathing, walking judges. The day dawns bright and rainy. First time it rains on that date since 1867. We're all burned. The judges sit in their hotel suite and grouse. Get to the auditorium, I tell them. Then I run around trying to get things rolling.

First I send out sixteen Sampson cars with loudspeakers, and Long Harbour is informed that The Show Will Go On. On top of each car is a broad, gamuting from Miss Alsace-Lorraine to Miss Pitkin Avenue. They are dressed in flesh-coloured bathing suits and transparent raincoats. They hold umbrellas with one hand and wave with the other. They giggle and give the come-on over the mike. If this, plus flesh-coloured suits, fails, I will concede all to be over, and will wire Mae Bushkin for a rematch.

Also I send out little boys with handbills. I s.n.a.t.c.h a few minutes of radio time and get a local happy voice announcer to give out with a come one, come all. I send up a balloon. See Miss Stardust Today!! it says. Someone shoots it down. A prankster, I think.

Not so.

After a morning of hasty relations with the public, I hie to the auditorium for a last confab with the judges. I note that carpenters are still banging away on the judges' booth on stage. A dry Lewisohn Tamarkis and crew are heaving bouquets around. I think, we may get this show on the road yet.

Then it comes.

I step into the elevator and zip up the shaft. I patter down the hallway. I enter the judges' room.

'Men,' I say.

And that's all.

Because they are sitting paralysed in their chairs, gaping at a thing in the middle of the floor to which my eyes move.

My lower jaw hits the laces on my Florsheims.

Ever see a vacuum cleaner? With a head of cabbage on top? With a jacket on? Standing in the middle of a rug and giving you the eye?

Kiddo, I did.

I am verging on swoon when it addresses me.

'You are in charge?' it inquires.

I do not reply. My tongue is tied. It is strapped. My eyes roll out and bounce on the floor. Nearly.

The thing looks piqued a" as much as a head of cabbage can look piqued.

'Very well,' he-she-it says, 'since no one present seems capable of speech, I shall state our case and depart.'

Our case. I feel my skin tightening. We are all riven to our spots. We listen to the mechanical voice of the thing. No mouth is to be seen. Its p.r.o.nunciation is stilted. It is something like hearing a monologue from that train that says 'Bromo Seltzer, Bromo Seltzer, Bromo Seltzer 'This contest,' it says, 'is declared void.'

Then, as he looks us over with his one oval eye, I get me a glimmer. In my long years as drudge, rabble-rouser and savant of the public taste, I have seen many a weirdie in operation.

So I watch this article with sage eyes. I ponder the angle.

'I will elucidate,' says cabbage head, 'should your silence indicate vacuity of perception. You have, most inappropriately, named this tourney the Miss Stardust contest. Since your microbic Earth, as you call it, represents no more than the most infinitesimal mote in this galaxy, your choice of contest t.i.tling is more than inexpedient. It has been considered noxiously naive and insulting to a serious degree.'

Too clever, I thought, too all-fire verbose. n.o.body spiels like so except the English Department at Cambridge. This is a frame, I deduce. Someone is kidding us.

Used to know a guy named Campbell Gault. He made those novelties like joy buzzers and fake spiders and ashtrays that look like outhouses. Old Camp used to make robots, too. Once during the war he had a steel Hirohito clanking up old 42nd Street singing I'm a j.a.panese Sandman. Clever, and just the sort of John to play a gag like this.

'Is this understood?' says cabbage skull with a toss of his leaves.

I smile knowingly. I look at the transfixed judges.

'All right,' I say, 'Let's cut it. We have work to do.'

'Sit down,' says the thing. 'I am not addressing you.'

'Go find yourself some corned beef,' I say.

'I warn you.'

'Bromo Seltzer, Bromo Seltzer,' I reply.

I find myself pinned to the broadloom by a bluish ray that buzzes out from the vacuum cleaner. It feels something like when you stand on one of those penny Foot Easers. Lots of vibration, and a numbing sensation. But I'm not standing on anything. I'm flat on my back.

'Hey!' I yell, confounded.

'May that strike some reason into you,' quoth the vacuum cleaner. 'I will now conclude my statement.'

The thing rolls around the floor, concluding.

'As I was saying before this intemperate intrusion on my words,' he says, 'since your molecular planet is but the minutest portion of the vast s.p.a.ces which this contest presumes to encompa.s.s, we can only a.s.sume grave intolerance, and demand retraction.'

'May Ia' commences Mendelheimer of Mendel-heimer's Garden-of-Eden Pickles, 'May I, ulp, inquirea w-w-where you are from?'

'I have just arrived from Asturi Cridenta, as you might call it in your primitive linguistics.'

'Aa aa aa' Mendelheimer gags.

'An extraterrestrial!' gasps Sam Sampson, who reads science fiction, between hooking car lovers.

' W-what do you want?'

That's me, a faint squeak in the vicinity of the carpet.

'One of two things,' replies the interplanetary vegetable. 'A change in the contest t.i.tle, or representation.'

'Buta' from me.

'I will remind you,' said the appliance from outer s.p.a.ce, 'We have the necessary potency to apply coercion on this body.'

'Co-ercion?' says Gloober of Gloober and etcetera.

'We have already attempted to disappoint furtherance of this affair,' says you-know-what, 'but to no apparent avail.'

'The accidents,' murmur I.

'The pier!' cries Mendelheimer.

'The fight!' Sampson snaps words and lingers.

'The rain,' says the vacuum cleaner.

'I knew it!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es Local Dignitary Number Two. 'It never rains in Long Harbour unless there is foul play!'

'This is beside the actual point,' says our visitor.

'Being now aware of our potential effect, judge accordingly.'

Outside, rain is dribbling on the windows. Inside, Judges are dribbling on their cravats. I am pale, and fain would conk out. We look at the cabbage, which poses a truculent pose on the rug.

'How d-did you get in here?' asks Mendelheimer.

'Make your decision,' states the thing. 'You will have the contest t.i.tle changed, or accord us due representation.'

'But, look,' I start in, forgetting momentarily my head-to-toe hotfoot.

His eye is on me. I subside.

'We are not here to haggle.' The Bromo-Seltzer train rattles angrily over a trestle. 'The decision is made. Do not strain our patience.'

Public relations to the rescue.

'But, look,' I proceed. 'We've already got a thousand posters that read Miss Stardust Contest. We've advertised that name. We've sold advance-ticket blocks and the tickets read Admit One to the Miss Stardust Contest. Concessionaires have balloons that reada'

'Balloons can be punctured,' says cabbage head, yet testier.

'You did that,' I murmur, 'too?'

'Enough of this!' bristles the vacuum cleaner from the black velocities. 'If you wish to retain your t.i.tle, then we demand representative rights.'

In my true hack mind, Harry, already are wheels turning and buzzers buzzing and little factory workers hustling. The potential spread is before my mental eyes.

SEE MISS STARDUST!! THE BEAUTY OF THE HEAVENS!!! PULCHRITUDE FROM BEYOND THE STARS!!!! THE GREATEST, THE MOST SENSATIONAL!!!!.

Exclamation point.

'All right,' I say, getting the jump on a stunned board of judges, 'You've got it.'

'Now, one moment please.' The mayor of Gall Stone, Arizona, starts a slow-fission bombast. 'This calls for discussion.'

'Discussion!' I say, still flat on my back. 'What do you want them to do a" disintegrate the Munic.i.p.al Auditorium?'

Local Dignitary Number Two leaps to his brogans.

'No sir!' he cries. 'Not the Munic.i.p.al Auditorium!'

Silence upon the babbling. The vacuum cleaner gives us the once-over heavily.

'Make your decision,' he warns.

So we all nod, pale at the gills.

'Very well,' he says.

'How long will it take to get your entry here?' I inquire politely.

'I will inform the member units of the alliance,' he tells us. 'The entries will be here within the hour.'

'Entry-zzzz?' I gurgle.

'There are several thousand,' He says.