Time Travelers Strictly Cash (8 page)

I have in my possession a volume of comparable size, which was commissioned by state legislature, printed at taxpayers’ expense in 1947, and bought by the same taxpayers for the State University Library system, from which I ultimately stole it, leaving behind five identical copies none of which has ever been checked out. It is an 800-page study of the ruffed grouse, a bird so stupid you can blow out the brains of one without disturbing the one next to it. It took six men to write, and one of the men later produced a 400-page sequel. I take it down from the shelf whenever I’m feeling especially useless and futile, and pore over the maps and graphs and close-ups of grouse droppings, and I feel better.

At long last I’ve found a companion volume.

If you’re an English major who believes you must know the man to properly read and evaluate his works (don’t laugh-I was one once) then by all means pick this book up-if you can (little joke there). If you’re an Ashley user, I should advise you that the binding is damnably difficult to destroy, and it’s too big to use all at once. If you’re H.P. Lovecraft, let me know what you think of it.

And so opens 1975 in the SF publishing world. Me, I think I’m going to get back in the time-capsule and get some sleep. Wake me up when Heinlein’s next book comes out, will you? Thanks.

Also concerning “Spider vs. The Hax Of Sol III”:

God, that hurt to proofread.

One flnal word on this column. Since its publication I have had an opportunity to apologize privately to L. Sprague de Camp, an apology he most graciously accepted; I would like to do. so now publicly. When I first met that worthy gentleman, he suggested with exquisitely gentle politeness that perhaps I had been a trifle harsh in reviewing his Lovecraft biography. I suggest that what I was was a horse’s ass. To heap scorn and abuse on a book one doesn’t happen to be excited about, on the grounds of its thoroughness, is the mark of an amateur playing to the bloodthirsty. One of the major agonies of reviewing is that you cannot recall an opinion which later reflection reveals to be fatheaded. There isn’t enough time for anything but snap judgements, and often you end up regretting them, and there’s no practical way to retract them. Writing a book gives you time for reflection: a year after you mail off the manuscript, they mail it back copy-edited and you re-read it carefully, changing what now strikes you as imprudent or ill-advised. Six months later you get galley proofs-again you can make sure that’s what you meant to say. A few months after that, people are reading it-and there’s still time to make changes for the paperback edition.

A book review column, is always due last week. You hammer it out on horseback, race to the post effice, nap on the doorstep for a few hours until they open up, mail the manuscript-and then the next time you see it is the same time everybody else does, in print. It generally has not been copy-edited; all your mistakes and syntactical horrors are intact and the typesetter has suggested some of his own. It contains opinions you cannot imagine yourself having entertained, let alone expressed, and if you sit down right now and dash off a letter to recant or clarrfy it will see print five or six months from now; half the readers won’t know what the hell you’re talking about. It’s too late.

This Is the only time I’ve ever had an opportunity to retract something I said in a column, and it feels good.

No one interested in the life of H.P. Lovecraft should be without Sprague de Camp’s definitive biography.

Ironíc update: Stan Schmidt, whom I praised in this first column, is now my employer. “Doc” Schmidt recently became editor of Analog, for which magazine I do quarterly book reviews. Funny how things work out.

It absolutely had to happen. I mean, it was so cosmically preordained-destined-fated flat out inevitable that I can’t imagine how we failed to be expecting it. Where else on God’s earth could Ralph and Joe possibly have ended up but at Callahan’s Place?

It was Tall Tales Night at Callahan’s, the night on which the teller of the most outrageous shaggy-dog story gets his night’s tab refunded. “Animals” had been selected as the night’s generic topic, and we had suffered through hours of stinkers about pet rocks and talking dogs and The Horse That Was Painted Green and the Fastest Dog in the World and the Gay Rooster and a dozen others you probably know already.

In fact, most of the Tale-Tellers had been disqualified when someone shouted the punchline before they got to it-often after only a sentence or two. The fireplace was filled to overflowing with broken glasses, and it was down to a tight contest between Dcc Webster and me. I thought I had him on the run, too.

A relative newcomer named B.D; Wyatt had just literally crapped out, by trying to fob off that old dumb gag about the South Sea island where “there lives a bird whose digestive system is so incredibly rank that, if its excrement should contact your skin, re-exposure of the contaminated skin to air is invariably fatal.” Named for its characteristic squawk, it is of course the famous Foo Bird, and the punchline-as I’m certain you know already—is, “If the Foo shits, wear it.”

Unfortunately for B.D. (“Bird Doo”?), we already knew it too. But it gave me an idea.

“You know,” I drawled, signalling Callahan for a fresh Bushmill’s, “like all of us, I’ve heard that story before. So many times, in fact, that I decided there might be a grain of truth in it-hidden, of course, by a large grain of salt. So my friend Thor Lowerdahl and I decided to check it out. We investigated hundreds of south sea islands without success, until one day our raft, the Liki Tiki, foundered on an uncharted atoll. No sooner did we stagger ashore than we heard a distant raucous cry: ‘Foo! Foo!’

“Instantly, of course, we dove back into the surf, and didn’t stick our heads up until we were far offshore. We treaded water for awhile, hoping for a glimpse of the fabubus bird, to no avail. Suddenly a seal passed us underwater, trailing a cloud of sticky brown substance. Some of it got on Thor’s leg, and with a snort of disgust, he wiped it off. He expired at once. Realizing the truth in an instant, I became so terrified that I swam back to the States.”

I paused expectantly, and Fast Eddie (sensing his cue) obliged me with a straight line.

“What truth, Jake?”

“That atoll,” I replied blithely,. “was far more dangerous than anyone suspected-as any seal can plainly foo.”

A general howl arose. Long-Drink chanced (by statistical inevitability) to have his glass to his mouth at the time; he bit a piece off clean and spat it into the fireplace. I kept my face straight, of course, but inwardly I exulted. This time I had Doc Webster beat for sure, and with an impromptu pun at that. I ordered another.

But when the tumult died down, the Dcc met my eyes with a look of such mild, placid innocence that my confidence faltered.

“Fortunate indeed, Jacob,” he rumbled, patting his ample belly, “that you should have rendered so unbearable a pun. It reminds me of a book about a bear I read the other day by Richard Adams-Shardik, it’s called. Any of you read it?”

There were a few nods. The Dcc smiled and sipped scotch.

“For those of you who missed it,” he went on, “it’s about a primitive empire that forms around an enormous, semimythical bear. Well, it happens I know something about that empire that Adams forgot to mention, and now’s as good a time as any to pass it along. You see, the only way to become a knight in Shardik’s empire was to apply fér a personal interview with the bear. This had its drawbacks. If he liked your audition, you were knighted on the spot-but if you failed, Lord Shardik was quite likely to club your head off your shoulders with one mighty paw. Even so, there were many applicants-for the peasantry were poor farmers, and if a candidate failed for knighthood his family received, by way of booby-prize, a valuable sheepdog from the Royal Kennels. This consoled them greatly, for truly it is written…”

And here he actually paused to sip his scotch again, daring us to guess the punchline:

“… For the mourning after a terrible knight, nothing beats the dog of the bear that hit you.”

A howl again began to arise-and then suddenly a howl arose.

I mean a real howl.

So of course we all swiveled around in our chairs, and damned if there wasn’t a guy with a German shepherd sitting near the door. I hadn’t seen them come in, and it took me a second to notice that the dog had a glass of gin on the floor in front of him, half-empty.

As we gaped, open-mouthed, the dog picked up the half full glass in his teeth (without spilling a drop), carried it to the hearth, and with a flick of his powerful head, flung it into the fireplace hard enough to bust it. He turned and looked at us then, wagging his tail as if to make sure we understood that he was commenting on the Doc’s tale. Then, to underline the point, he turned back to the fireplace, lifted his leg and put out a third of the ftre.

We roared with laughter, a great simultaneous outburst of total glee, and the dog trotted proudly back to his master. I looked the guy over: medium height, a little thin, nose like an avalanche about to happen and a great sprawling fungus of a mustache clinging to its underside. He wore Salvation Army-rejects like Mr. Emmett Kelly used to wear, clothes that booked like what starts fires in old warehouses. But his eyes were alert and aware, and he was obviously quite proud of his dog.

Then he caught Callahan’s eye, and winced. “You got a house rule on dogs, Mister?” he asked. You could hardly see his lips move under that ridiculous mustache.

Callahan considered the matter. “We try not to be human-chauvinists around here,” he allowed at last. “Only house rule on dogs, Mister?“he asked. You could hardly see his lips move under that ridiculous mustache.

“Are you kiddin’?” the guy mumbled. “This dog mess on the floor? Why, this is the Smartest Dog In The World.” He said it just like that, with capital letters.

“Uh-huh,” said Long-Drink. “He talks, right?”

A strange gleam came into the shabby man’s eyes.

“Yep.”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Doc Webster groaned. “Don’t tell me. A talking dog has walked into Callahan’s Place on Tall Tales Night. If that hound tops my story, I’m going on the wagon for the whole night.”

That broke everyone up, and Long-Drink McGonnigle was particularly tickled (say that three times fast with whiskey in your mouth). “Patron saint of undershorts,” he whooped, “it makes so much sense I almost believe it.”

“You think I’m kidding?” the stranger asked.

“That or crazy,” the Dcc asserted. “A dog hasn’t got the larynx to talk-let alone the mouth structure-even if he is as smart as you say.”

“I’ve got two hundred dollars says you’re wrong”, the stranger announced. He displayed a fistfull of bills. “Any takers?”

Well, now. We’re a charitable bunch at Callahan’s, not normally inclined to cheat the mentally disturbed. And yet there was a clarity to his speech that belied his derelict’s clothes, a twinkle in his eye that looked entirely sane, and a challenging out-thrust to his chin that reminded us of a kid daring you to hit him. And there was that wildly improbable handful of cash in his hand. “I’ll take ten of that,” I said,digging for my wallet, and a dozen other guys chimed in. “Me too.” “I’ll take ten.” “I’m in for five.” Doc Webster took a double sawbuck’s worth, and even Fast Eddie produced a tattered single. The guy collected the dough in a hat that looked like its former owner had been machine-gunned in the head, and the whole time that damn dog just sat there next to the table, watching the action.

When the guy had it all counted, there was a hundred and seventy bucks in the hat. “There’s thrity unfaded,” he said, and looked around expectantly.

Callahan came around the bar, a redheaded glacier descending on the shabby man. The barkeep picked him up by the one existing lapel and the opposite collar, held him at arm’s length for a while, and sighed.

“I like a good gag as well as the next guy,” he said conversationally. “But that’s serious money in that hat. Now if you was to ask that dog his name, and he said ‘Ralph! Ralph! and then you was to ask him what’s on top of a house and he said ‘Roof! Roof!’ and then you was to ask him who was the greatest baseball player of all time and he sad ‘Ruth! Ruth!’, why, I’d just naturally have to sharpen your feet and drive you into the floor. You would become like a Gable roof: Gone With The Wind. What I mean, there are very few gags I’ve never heard, and if yours is of that calibre you are in dire peril. Do we have a meeting of the minds?” He was still holding the guy at ann’s length, the muscles of his arms looking like hairy manila, absolutely serene.

“I’m telling you the truth,” the guy yelped. “The dog can talk.”

Callahan slowly lowered him to the floor. “In that case,” he decided, I will fade your thirty”. He went back behind the bar and produced an apple. “Would you mind putting this in your mouth?”

The guy blinked at him.

“I believe you implicitly,” Callahan explained, “but someone without my trusting nature might suspect you was a ventriloquist tryin’ to pull a fast one.”

“Okay,” said the guy at once, and he stuffed the apple in his face. He beckoned to the dog, who came at once to the center of the room and sat on his haunches. He gazed up inquisitively at the shabby man, who nodded.

“I hope you will forgive me,” said the dog with the faintest trace of a German accent, “but I’m afraid my name actually is Ralph.”

There was silence, as profound as that which must exist on the Moon now that the tourist season is past. Then, slowly at first, glasses began to hit the fireplace. Soon there was a shower of glasses shattering on the hearth, and not a drop of liquid in any of ‘em. Callahan passed fresh beers around the room, bucket-brigade fasion, his face impassive. Not a word was spoken:

At last every had been lubed, and the big Irishman wiped off his hands and came around the bar. He pulled up a chair in front of the dog, dropped heavily into it, and put a fresh light to his cigar.

“Sure is a relief,” he sighed, “to take the weight offa my d… to sit down.”

You must understand-we were all still so stunned that not one of us thought to ask him if he was bitching.