The Toyminator (22 page)

There’s a shark called Mark

That I’ll serve, for a lark,

With salad to keep you slim.

I’ve monkfish, swordfish, cramp fish, cuttlefish,

Goby, goldfish, gudgeon.

I’ve sperm whale, starfish, bottle-nose dolphin,

I ain’t no curmudgeon.

If you like salmon, perch or bass,

Mullet, hake, or flounder,

Dory, plaice, or skate, or sole,

Try Guy, he’s a great all-rounder.

And there was plenty more of that, twenty-three
[42]
verses more of that, all sung in the “country” style.

“Well,” said Jack, clapping his hands together when the song was finally done, “I quite enjoyed that.”

“Enjoyed
what
?” asked Guy.

“The song,” said Jack.

“What song was that?”

“The one about fish.”

“Oh,
that
song. I’m sorry, officer, it’s been a rough morning, what with all the toing and froing.”

“Yes,” said Jack. And added in as delicate a fashion as he could, “Do you have anything other than fish on your menu?”

Guy looked puzzled. He
was
puzzled.

“Meat,” said Jack. “Any meat?”

“A burger,” said Guy.

“A burger,” said Jack.

“Certainly, officer. One mackerel burger coming up. And for your lovely daughter?”

“Daughter?” said Jack.

“So sorry, officer, it’s these new shoes, the insteps pinch.”

“I’ll have the sardines,” said Dorothy, perusing the menu. “Do they come with the quahog sauce?”

“Surely do, ma’am. And whiting mayo and chingree chitlins.”

“Mahser on the side?”

“With hilsa and beckti?”

“That’s the way I love it.” And Dorothy smiled at Guy and he smiled back at her.

“And a mackerel burger for your uncle,” said Guy.

“Yes,” said Jack, “With snodgrass and mong-waffle and pungdooey. Oh and add a little clabwangle to my little chikadee while you’re about it.”

Guy bowed and departed.

“You made all that up,” said Dorothy.

“Well, so did you.”

“Here you go then,” said Guy, presenting his discerning patrons with an overloaded tray.

“That was fast!” said Jack.

“This
is
America,” said Guy, and he placed the tray upon the table and lifted food covers from two plates.

“That’s not what I ordered,” said Jack.

“Nor me,” said Dorothy.

Guy burst into tears.

Dorothy reached out and patted his shoulder. “There’s no need to go upsetting yourself,” she said. “I’m sure that whatever this is, it will be very nice.”

“What
is it
?” asked Jack, taking up a fork and prodding at the items that lay steaming up on his plate.

“It’s chicken fish,” said the sobbing Guy. “Locally caught and as fresh as the day is long.”

“It’s chicken,” said Jack. “There’s no fish at all involved here.”

“’Tis too,” said Guy.

“’Tis not,” said Jack. “It’s chicken. That’s a chicken leg.”

“It’s
a fish
leg,” said Guy.

“Fish do not have legs,” Jack informed him.

“Chicken fish do.”

“I don’t believe that there is such a thing as a chicken fish,” said Jack.

“There’s one there on the counter,” said Guy. “I was petting it when you came in.”

“It doesn’t have any legs.”

“I de-legged it earlier. That’s what’s on the plates.”

“Fish don’t have wings, either,” said Dorothy. “There are wings on my plate.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” said Guy. “Flying fish have wings, everybody knows that.”

“This is definitely chicken.” Jack sniffed at the chicken on his plate.

“Mine’s definitely chicken, too,” said Dorothy.

“You’re sure?” Guy dabbed at his running nose with an oversized red gingham handkerchief. “You’re absolutely sure?”

“Jack here
is
a police officer,” said Dorothy, “so he knows these things.”

“I knew it!” Guy beat a right-hand fist into a left-hand handkerchief-carrying palm. “I knew it. Chicken fish be damned. I’ve been cheated, officer. I wish to register a complaint.”

“Do you have
any
fish in this restaurant?” Jack asked.

Guy sniffed.

“That wasn’t an answer,” said Jack.

Guy shrugged.

“Nor was that.”

“All right! All right!” Guy fell to his knees, although given his shortcomings in the tallness department the difference in height that this made was hardly perceptible. “I’m so sorry,” he wailed, and he beat his chest with diminutive fists. “Thirty years I’ve been in business here. Thirty years in these parts, winning every fishing competition, known in these parts as Guy Haley, Champion of Champions. I took an eighty-pound buckling up at the creek in forty-seven. Never been beaten. Never been beaten.”

“Where is this leading?” Jack asked. “Only we
are
hungry. And we
are
in a hurry.”

“I’ll leave you to your chicken fish, then.”

“No,” said Jack, “you won’t. I don’t want chicken. I will eat anything that you have, but
not
chicken.”

“All right! All right!” Guy was back on his feet.

“Get up,” said Jack.

“I
am
up.”

“Then please, in as few words as possible, offer us an explanation.”

“For what?” asked Guy.

“Would you like me to hit him?” asked Dorothy.

Guy flinched.

“No,” said Jack. “He’s only little.”

“I’m not
that
little,” said Guy.

“True enough,” said Jack. “I’ll hit you myself.”

“No, please.”

“Then tell us. Everything.”

“Well, like I say, I’ve been fishing these parts for –”

Jack raised his fist.

“No, please, officer, no.”

“Then tell us,” said Jack. “Everything. And you know what I mean by that.”

“It’s not my fault.” Guy wept. “The chickens made me do it.”

“The chickens?” said Jack. “
The chickens
?”

“Out there.” Guy pointed with a short and trembly finger. “Out there in the desert, twenty miles from here in Area Fifty-Two.”

“Area Fifty-Two?” went Jack, a-falling back in his seat. “Chickens from Area Fifty-Two?”

“It’s as true as I’m sitting here, although I’m actually standing up.”

“Chickens,” said Jack to Dorothy.

“Area Fifiy-Two?” said Dorothy to Jack.

“Where the crashed flying saucer was taken. The head chef at the Golden Chicken Diner told me all about it.”

“It’s a ‘chef thing’,” said Guy. “All chefs know about it.”

Jack looked very hard at Guy. “
What
did the chickens make you do?”

“Did I say
chickens
?” said Guy. “I meant
chicken people
. The people who produce the chicken for the Golden Chicken Diners. It all comes from Area Fifty-Two, up the Interstate. The toxic waste from their factory out there in the desert polluted the creek, so I couldn’t catch fish anymore. And I complained. I went out there. And their guys said that if I just kept my mouth shut they’d see to it that I had free supplies of chicken for life to sell as fish.”

“No one is ever going to be fooled by you passing off chicken as fish,” said Jack.

“No one’s ever complained before,” said Guy.

“No one?” said Jack. “How long have you been serving this chicken?”

Guy looked down at his wristlet watch. “Since ten this morning,” he said. “You’re the first folk in the diner today.”

“Right,” said Jack, and he nodded. Thoughtfully.

“Listen, officer,” said Guy, “this is my livelihood. Could you not just eat the chicken and pretend it’s fish? What harm could it do?”

“Mister Haley,” said Jack, “I’m going to ask you a question and I’d like you to think very carefully before you answer it. Do you think you can do that?”

Guy Haley nodded also. Perhaps even a little more thoughtfully than Jack had.

“My question is this,” said Jack. “Why don’t you just sell chicken as chicken?”

“Sell it as chicken,” Guy said. Slowly.

Jack did further noddings.

“Ah,” said Guy. “You mean
not
pretend it’s fish?”

Jack made an encouraging face. And did a bit more nodding.

“If I might just stop you there,” said Dorothy, with no head noddings involved. “I feel that this conversation has gone quite far enough. Which way is it to Area Fifty-Two, Mister Haley?”

“Not pretend it’s fish,” said Mr Haley.

“Which way?” asked Dorothy.

“Say it’s chicken,” said Mr Haley.

“Which way?” asked Dorothy once more.

“Now let me just get this straight,” said Mr Haley. “What you’re suggesting is –”

But suddenly he was up off his feet and dangling in the air. Dorothy held him at arm’s length and then shook him about. “Which way is it to Area Fifty-Two?” she demanded to be told.

“That way. That way.” Guy Haley pointed. “Five miles up the Interstate there’s a turn-off to the right, a dirt road. It goes all the way there.”

“Thank you,” said Dorothy, lowering Guy to the floor. “We’ll pass on the lunch, I think. Farewell.”

And she and Jack left Haley’s Comet Lounge.

“Well,” said Jack as they stood in the sunlight, “fancy that. What a coincidence, eh? Area Fifty-Two being just up the road. And it being the place where all the chickens for the Golden Chicken Diner are produced.”

“Yes,” said Dorothy. “Fancy that.”

“If I believed in a God,” said Jack, “I would believe that he, she or it was smiling right down on me now. That he, or she, or it, had provided me with the miracle that I’d hoped for earlier.”

“Would you?” said Dorothy. “Would you really?”

“Yes,” said Jack. “I would.”

“Hey, officer,” the tall drab grey man with the short hair called out to Jack from the garage. “Your auto’s all done. Shall I bring it out?”

“Thanks,” said Jack. “Please do.”

Sounds of engine revvings were to be heard and then the tall man drove the black-and-white from the garage.

Jack gawped somewhat at the black-and-white. It had been totally repaired. The bodywork was perfect, resprayed and waxed, too. The windows had been replaced. There was a shiny new back bumper.

The tall man climbed from the car and tossed the keys to Jack.

Jack was all but speechless.

“There’s still a bit of rust inside the tailpipe,” said the tall mechanic. “I hope you don’t mind about that.”

Jack shook his head. “You fixed it all up,” he said. “That is incredible.”

“It’s nothing,” said the mechanic, getting to work on his hands with an oily rag. “After all, this
is
America.”

“Yes,” said Jack. “Quite so. So, er, what do I owe you?”

The tall mechanic winked. “Nothing at all,” he said. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, if you know what I mean.”

“Not exactly,” said Jack.

“Well,” said the tall mechanic, “I have been guilty of one or two minor misdemeanours, and if you, as a police officer, could turn a blind eye to them, then we’re all square. Is that okay with you?”

“Absolutely,” said Jack, settling himself back behind the steering wheel and taking a sniff at the Magic Tree that now hung from the rear-view mirror. “This is America, after all. Consider yourself forgiven in the eyes of the law.”

“Why, thank you kindly, officer.” The tall mechanic closed the driver’s door upon Jack. Dorothy sat herself down on the passenger seat and patted at the refurbished upholstery.

“I mean, it’s no big deal,” said the tall mechanic. “And I only did twenty-three
[43]
of them.”

“Twenty-three,” said Jack, sticking the key into the ignition and giving it a little twist. The engine purred beautifully.

“And they all had it coming, those daughters of Satan. High-school girls with their skirts all up to here,” and he gestured to where these skirts were all up to. “Flaunting themselves. And those nuns, too.”

“Excuse me?” said Jack, looking up at the tall mechanic. All shadow-faced now, the sunlight behind him.

“Killed ’em quick and clean. Well, some not so clean, perhaps, but after all the torturing was done, they was begging for death anyway,” said the tall mechanic. “And I only ate the good bits.”

“Right,” said Jack. “Well, we have to be on our way now. Thank you for fixing the car.”

“No sweat!” The tall mechanic took a step back.

“Goodbye,” said Jack, and he drove away.

The tall mechanic sidled out onto the road, where he waved farewell with his oily rag.

“Twenty-three,” said Jack to Dorothy. “Did he just say what I thought he just said?”

Dorothy said, “Yes, he did.”

“That’s what I thought.” Jack halted the car.

The tall mechanic stepped out into the middle of the road. “Everything okay up there?” he called. “No trouble with the engine?”

Jack looked at Dorothy.

And Dorothy looked at Jack.

And then Jack put the car into reverse, revved the engine, let out the clutch and reversed at considerable speed over the tall mechanic.

And then, to be sure, as you
have
to be sure, drove over the body once more.

Then backed up a couple more times to be
absolutely
sure.

And then proceeded on his way.

No words passed between Dorothy and Jack for a while.

And when words
did
pass between them once again, these words did not include any reference to the tall mechanic.

“Slow down a bit,” said Dorothy. “We must be almost there.”

Jack slowed down a bit. “There?” he asked. “
That
dirt road, do you think?”

That
dirt road had a big signpost beside it. The signpost read:

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT DRIVING UP HERE.

“I think we should drive up there,” said Dorothy.

Jack steered the spotless police car onto the dusty dirt road.

“What are you planning to do,” asked Dorothy, “when we get there?”

“Rescue Eddie,” said Jack.

“But we don’t know for certain that he’s there.”

“I do,” said Jack. “He is.”

“But you can’t know for certain.”

“Oh yes I can,” said Jack. “I can feel him. In here.” And Jack tapped at his temple. “The closer we get, the more I can feel him. I can feel him, and he’s hurting.”

And Eddie Bear
was
hurting. He’d been kept waiting about in a concrete corridor outside a big steel rivet-studded door for quite some time now. The other Jack had passed this quite some time by kicking Eddie up and down the corridor. So Eddie was
really
hurting. And hurting more than just from the kickings.

Eddie felt decidedly odd. Slightly removed from himself, somehow, as if he didn’t quite fit into his body any more. It was a decidedly odd and most disconcerting sensation. And it was not at all helped by the kickings.

The other Jack squared up for another boot. Bolts clunked and clanked and the big steel door slid open.

“Thanks for
that
,” said Eddie.

The other Jack ticked him through the opening.

Eddie came to rest upon a carpeted floor. It was most unpleasantly carpeted. With poo. Chicken poo.

“Urgh,” went Eddie, and he struggled up from the floor.

Eddie was now, it had to be said, a somewhat unsightly bear. He was thoroughly besmirched with sewage and cell dust and now chicken poo. Eddie was
not
a bear for cuddling, not a bear to be hugged.

“So,” said a voice, and Eddie searched for its source, “So, Mister Bear, we meet at last.”

Eddie could make out a desk of considerable proportions and behind this a chair, with its back turned to him. Behind this chair and affixed to the wall were numerous television screens and upon these were displayed numerous scenes of American life. Most being played out via the medium of the television show.

The shows meant nothing to Eddie and so he did not recognise George Reeves as Superman, Lucille Ball in
I Love Lucy
, Phil Silvers as Sergeant Bilko or Roy Rogers on Trigger.

On one TV screen, Eddie viewed a newscast. It showed scenes of devastation, crashed police cars, a wrecked AC Cobra and a Ford Mustang called Sally. And a photograph was being displayed also. A mugshot of a wanted man. Eddie gawped at the mugshot: it was a mugshot of Jack.

The desk and the chair back and the TV screens, too, were all besmutted with poo. Chicken poo. Eddie Bear sniffed at the air of this room. It must have smelled pretty bad. But Eddie Bear couldn’t smell it. Eddie Bear had no sense of smell left whatsoever.

“Who are you?” asked Eddie. “Who is this?”

The chair behind the desk swung around and Eddie Bear viewed the sitter.

The sitter on the chair was no chicken.

The sitter was Eddie Bear.

“Whoa,” went Jack and he shuddered.

“Are you all right?” asked Dorothy.

“Yes,” said Jack. “I suppose so. I went all cold there. Have you ever heard that expression about feeling as if someone just walked over your grave?”

“I’ve heard it, but I’ve never understood it.”

Jack peered out through the windscreen. He had the wipers on now – there was a lot of dust. “Are we nearly there yet?” he asked.

Dorothy did peerings also. “There’s something up ahead,” she said. “It looks like some big military installation with a big wire fence around it. What are you going to do?”

“Bluff it out,” said Jack. “This is a police car. I’m a policeman. We’ll get in there somehow.”

“Seems reasonable,” said Dorothy. “Let’s just hope that there’s no real policemen around.”

“I don’t think that’s very likely out here,” said Jack.

“Out
where
?” asked Police Chief Samuel J. Maggott, shouting somewhat into the mouthpiece of his telephone. Sam was considerably bandaged, but back behind his desk. “Speak up, boy, I can hardly hear you, what?”

Words came to him through the earpiece.

“You’re saying what? You saw the midday newscast? The wanted maniac, Jack? That’s right. Dressed as a police officer, at your lounge? Left without paying for his chicken-fish lunch? Drove over your mechanic? How many times? That many, eh? And he’s gone on to where? I see.”

Samuel J. Maggott replaced the receiver.

And then picked it up again.

“Get me Special Ops,” he told the telephonist. “Get me Special Ops, get me a chopper and put out an all-points bulletin.”

“You look put out,” said the Eddie in the chair. “In fact you look all in. You look as wretched as a weevil with the wobbles.”

“What are you?” asked Eddie Bear. “You’re not me. What are you?”

“I’m the you of this world,” said the other Eddie.

“No you’re not,” said the Real McCoy. “Toys don’t live in this world.” Eddie Bear paused. “Or do they?”

The other Jack loomed over Eddie. “Would you like me to knock him about a bit, boss?” he asked.

“That won’t be necessary. Eddie and I are going to get along just fine, aren’t we, Eddie? We are going to be as cosy as two little peas in a little green pod.”

Eddie looked down at his grubby old self.

“Yes, you’re right,” said the other Eddie. “You really are in disgusting condition. You’re as foul as a fetid fur-ball. We’ll have to get you all cleaned up. Jack, take Eddie to the cleaning facility, see that he gets all cleaned up.”

“Can I hold his head under the water? Or use the high-pressure hose?” asked the other Jack.

“No, Jack, I want Eddie in tip-top condition. He’s very precious, is Eddie. After all, he’ll soon be the last of his kind.”

“What?” asked Eddie. “What do you mean?”

“Hurry,” said his other self. “The countdown has already begun.”

The other Jack picked Eddie up and hurled him out into the corridor.

The
other
other Jack, the real Jack that was, drew the police car to a halt before a little guard post. A little guard issued from this post and made his way to the car.

Jack wound down the window.

The guard wore a rather stylish golden uniform with a Golden Chicken logo picked out in red upon the right sleeve. He took off his golden cap and mopped at his brow with an oversized red gingham handkerchief.

“Good day, officer,” he said. “It’s a hot’n, ain’t it?”