Abnormal Occurrences (3 page)

Again the audience rose to its feet, and now it remained so, the applause reverberating from floor to chandelier. The mayor put Phipps in a bear hug, and the governor placed a hand on each of his shoulders and, looking down, irradiated him with the grandest smile of all. After each of the officials had said a few (incomprehensible) words from the lectern, gesturing lavishly at Phipps, they took their leave, followed by TV cameramen, and Nebling linked arms with Phipps and led him back to the west wing, trailed at a respectful distance by a group of obsequious subordinates, among whom were Fallon and the others who had once lorded it over him. Nebling spoke in a tone of lively affection, and Phipps was sure he was being promoted, with a substantial raise in pay. By now he could
feel
such messages and with a certainty he had never been able to associate with words, which by their nature were so ambiguous—think, for example, of all the possible connotations of “success,” or “prestige,” or, for that matter, “love.”

With his newfound sense of power Phipps decided, after leaving Nebling in the latter’s office—and speaking some rubbish to Barbara that obviously left her eating her heart out for him—to go home. Anything further would have been by way of anticlimax. He would come back on the following morning, prepared to begin a campaign the aim of which could be not other than eventually to unseat John C. Nebling himself. There was no reason to set any limit whatever on the reach of nonsense. He could say anything at all to other people, and they would inevitably interpret it to his advantage. He might well go on to become mayor or governor, and more.

At his current elevation he did not belong on a bus. He therefore walked around the corner to the one-way cross street that went in the direction of his apartment and looked for a taxi. A young man in neat business attire, including a gray felt hat, approached him smiling.

When he was very near Phipps, he opened his soft-sided briefcase and displayed the revolver within. “Look at this,” he said, “and give me your money.”

“I can understand you!” Phipps shouted. “You’re the first person I can understand since I got up this morning!” The man scowled and reached into the briefcase. “God!” Phipps cried. “What a relief! I thought I was crazy.”

“Stop making that noise,” said the man.

“Only,” Phipps said, the implication having struck him now, “what’s that going to mean to my career, my life? How can I return to being what I was?”

“You’re one of those jerks who read somewhere that if you act crazy and babble away, you’ll scare a robber off,” the man said scornfully. “I’m telling you for the last time to knock off that gibberish and give me your money, or I’ll kill you.”

“You don’t understand,” Phipps shouted. Desperate to get his meaning across, he clutched at the man’s lapels. “Suddenly I had it all, because of this weird thing that came over me—oddly enough, not the magical power to do something, but rather the lack of—”

The holdup man twisted away, took the gun from the briefcase, and shot him, and, as Phipps was falling, said with contempt, “Either you don’t speak English or you want to be a hero. So where did it get you?”

Lying on his side on the pavement, Phipps watched the man walk rapidly away and be replaced by a crowd of other people, some of whom knelt near him and asked questions which he was in no condition to answer, for now he could not speak at all. But there would have been little point in trying to inform them he was dying: that was surely self-evident and, like all the essential matters, beyond words.

F
RANK VERMILYEA HAD BEEN
extremely ugly even as an infant. It was routine in his family for one member or another to say, at any moment and apropos of nothing, that Bimbo the Boston terrier, if dressed in baby dress and bonnet, would be more attractive than their son or brother. And in fact this was said so often that eventually it seemed no longer to be merely one of those easily uttered absurdities but rather something capable and worthy of being realized and therefore the three of them, his father, mother, and sister, carried it out, removing little Frank, and putting Bimbo the dog in the crib, appropriately attired. Then they invited many friends to come visit, all of whom after simpering at Bimbo, turned to the Vermilyeas and made some expression in this wise: “Little Frank has certainly become a beautiful baby! I don’t mind telling you that we used to think he was awfully ugly.”

“Yes, aren’t we fortunate?” was the kind of thing that the grownup Vermilyeas said in reply. Geraldine, Frank’s five-year-old sister, would just snicker and hide her face in an armpit.

Meanwhile, Frank himself was concealed somewhere; perhaps a bureau drawer, of course opened a crack so that he could breathe; or on Bimbo’s blanket on the floor of the broom closet (from which, naturally, the mops, wet and dry, had been removed, along with the dustpan and wringer-bucket); or sometimes back of a door where the newspapers were kept until recycling day.

When Frank got a bit older and could move about under his own power, he chose his own places of concealment, for he was aware of how unsightly he was and he didn’t want to upset anybody by forcing them to look at him. He had to admit that he had never seen anyone who even approached him in ugliness. It was amazing. He looked nothing like either parent, both of whom were so-so, and certainly did not resemble his sister, who kept getting prettier as she grew.

The awful thing about being as ugly as Frank is that no one has the compassion for you that might be possible with regard to some form of disability. This seemed completely unfair, but there wasn’t much that could be done about it. Frank went through childhood without having any friends at all. While at college, however, he got a bright idea when he saw a man being led by a seeing-eye dog. Of course! It was only a pity that it had taken him so long to arrive at the obvious conclusion that he should frequent the blind.

But what he had not taken into account was that the dog, a handsome German shepherd, might find him repulsive! So in short order, and as usual, Frank was alone with his ugliness. However, he was an extremely intelligent individual and excelled at anything in the scientific line, and his progress through the undergraduate program and then on to a doctorate in nuclear physics was and remains unique in the records at State, consuming as it did only two and a half years, owing to his utter lack of a social life or even a roommate.

When Dr. Frank emerged from the university he was immediately hired, for a lucrative fee, as trouble-shooter at a nuclear-power generating plant which was notorious for its accidents. In this job Frank usually went about in a coverall that concealed him from head to toe, and its face mask had only one aperture, a narrow slit across the eyes, and its window was of smoked glass, too dark to see through from the outside. Once his ugliness was concealed, of course no one had any objection whatever to being in Frank’s presence, and he was popular at work as long as he stayed inside his coverall.

However, once he forgot his problem and, because it was not the most convenient garment to wear except when you were actually inspecting the atomic pile at close range, Frank removed the headpiece of the coverall and unthinkingly approached a group of his friends in the laboratory. Well, one woman physicist fainted dead away, and all the men covered their eyes.

Another scientist, a close friend so long as Frank was concealed, said, “Look here, we can’t put up with this, and why should we? It’s really unpleasant, Frank. And you know I say that without animosity.”

Frank answered sadly, turning his back on the group. “You’re right. But you’ll admit it’s my only flaw.”

“Unfortunately,” said his friend, “it’s the kind that outweighs most of your virtues.”

“Then tell me this,” asked Frank. “What about plastic surgery?”

“No,” said the female physicist, who had been revived by now. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t do any good, Frank. It’s not any one thing that’s wrong with your face, like a crooked nose or a big mouth or flap-ears. You’re just
completely
ugly, and there’s no answer for that.”

The other scientists fervently agreed with this assessment, and Frank’s best friend among them said, “You’ve just been given a dirty deal by Fate. There’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.”

Oddly enough, Frank had never really thought about it in that way, but he could see now that what his friend said made sense. So where did that leave the situation? Did he have no choice but to do away with himself?

But when he went home that night to his little studio apartment he said to the ceiling, as he lay in bed, “I don’t want to commit suicide, for gosh sake! I am really interested in my work, for one thing. And then I enjoy all my meals, and I get a lot of pleasure from my telescope and my collections.” Frank was an amateur astronomer and he collected foreign coins and antique political-campaign buttons. “Why should I kill myself just because I’m not handsome?”

But then he thought of how much he’d like to have some lady friends, he who thus far in life had never had even one date, and he fell into a despondency.

“It really is lousy to be so ugly,” he told himself. “And it’s ridiculous, when you think that all my troubles could be solved if I were just better looking.”

At that point the bedside telephone rang.

“Hello,” said Frank.

“Is this Frank?” asked the voice at the other end of the line. “That ugly guy, right?”

Frank felt like hurling down the phone. “How dare you insult me?” he cried angrily. “What business is it of yours?”

“Now, now,” said the voice. “Don’t ruffle your feathers. I just wanted to establish your identity. ...Listen, Frank, I’ve got good news for you.”

But Frank was sceptical. “I don’t want to buy any more medical insurance or subscribe to a financial newsletter.”

“How’d you like to be goodlooking?”

This was even worse. “I don’t like to be rude,” said Frank, “but you’ve just about lost me.”

“No strings,” said the voice. “Just go look in the bathroom mirror.” The line went dead.

Well, it didn’t cost anything to look, though Frank was sure he was making a fool of himself and had been victimized by a cruel practical joker.

...He was staggered to see a very handsome face staring back at him from the mirror on the medicine chest! It was himself, all right, and not a picture of a movie star that had been pasted on the glass. He had the same individual features as before: eyes, nose, chin, forehead, but the ensemble was somehow altogether different.

Aw, it was probably some kind of autohypnosis. He probably wanted so much to be goodlooking that he had convinced himself. But he could not have gone to sleep if he had let it go at that.

He got dressed and went down to the lobby of his building, which unfortunately for his current purpose was too small to employ a doorman, and though he lingered in the lobby for a while none of the other tenants came or went. He finally became too impatient to wait, and he went out and wandered along the darkened sidewalks of the city. Before very long a man stepped out from behind a tree, stuck a pistol into Frank’s belly, and demanded his money.

“Oh, God,” Frank gasped. “I left my wallet back home! I guess you’ll kill me now.” It occurred to him that this would settle the problem of his appearance once and for all.

But the robber said, “No. We’re going home together, the both of us, and get your funds.”

So they started to walk, the man with the gun right behind Frank. When they came to a place where there was a ring of light from a streetlamp, Frank glanced back at the perpetrator, so that he might identify him for the police later on. But he soon regretted having done this, for the thug instantly ordered him to stop. Oh-oh, thought Frank, here’s where I get shot for my pains.

But the robber said, “Just a minute! Let me look at you.” He took Frank by the elbow and led him to a place where the light from the streetlamp was at its brightest. He stared at Frank and then he put his pistol away.

“You’re really a handsome guy!” the robber said. “I can’t take the money of anybody who looks as good as you do. I apologize for putting you to any trouble.” He shrugged as if in shame, turned, and walked rapidly away.

Frank was so amazed that he continued to stand there. After a while a police car rolled up and stopped at the curb near him, and the beam of a powerful flashlight was directed into his eyes.

“Say, fella, c’mere,” called the cop from his window, and Frank approached the car.

“Oh,
I’m
sorry, sir,” the policeman said, and he lowered his light. “There are reports that a mugger is in the area, but I don’t suppose he would bother anyone as fine looking as you.”

“He just went down that way,” said Frank.

The cop begged his forgiveness again and drove on. Frank had now heard the testimony of two independent witnesses, neither of whom he had ever seen before. Of course, it was just barely possible that the wellwisher who had telephoned him had hired actors to impersonate the would-be robber and the cop and perform as they did so as to encourage him to believe he had become handsome, but that seemed extremely unlikely. Who would have a motive to befriend him in such a way? Certainly not anyone in his family. At the previous holiday season his mother and sister had entreated him to stay away from them on compassionate grounds, now that his father was no longer alive. Perhaps one of his fellow scientists: for example, the man he thought of as his best friend?

Frank went home and called this individual.

“Hi, Harvey. Frank. Say, would you be involved in some scheme to make me think I am handsome?”

Harvey laughed heartily. “What a question! Certainly not, Frank. Look, as scientists we must accept the truth, even though it be uncomfortable. You’re ugly: that’s all there is to it. As long as you keep your mask on when you’re near me, though, I couldn’t care less. If you ever do take it off again in my presence I’ll throw acid at you. Bye.”

Frank had never suspected that Harvey was capable of such extreme emotion: he had always seemed such a cold fish. But Frank was beginning to realize that human beings tend to have very strong feelings about how other people look, whether ugly or beautiful. He decided to put aside an investigation into who was responsible until it could be determined that something definitely had happened to him, for if the change was as remarkable as was suggested, then it was only basic scientific procedure to seek as much evidence as possible to bear upon the subject, pro or con.