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"My wife, she used to tell me it's all in my head, but lately she doesn't bother. But let me start at the first, when I finally decided I was ill, that the illness was getting worse and that it wasn't just in my head, not some sort of complex.

"Just last week I went to the butcher, the butcher I've been going to for ten years. We were never chummy, no one has ever been chummy to me but my wife, and she married me for my money. I was at least visible then; I mean you had to go to at least some effort to ignore me, but God, it's gotten worse . . .

"I'm off the track. I went to the butcher, asked him for some choice cuts of meat. Another man comes in while I'm talking to him and asks for a pound of hamburger. Talks right over me, mind you. What happens? You guessed it. The butcher starts shooting the breeze with the guy, wraps up a pound of hamburger and hands it over to him!

"I ask him about my order and he says, 'Oh, I forgot.'"

Merguson
lit a cigarette and held it between unsteady fingers after a long, deep puff. "I tell you, he waited on three other people before he finally got to me, and then he got my order wrong, and I must have told him three times, at least.

"It's more than I can stand, Doc. Day after day people not noticing me, and it's getting worse all the time. Yesterday I went to a movie and I asked for a ticket and it happened. I mean I went out completely, went transparent, invisible. I mean completely. This was the first time. The guy just sits there behind the glass, like he's looking right through me. I asked him for a ticket again. Nothing.

"I was angry, I'll tell you. I just walked right on toward the door. Things had been getting me down bad enough without not being able to take off and go to a movie and relax. I thought I'd show him. Just walk right in. Then they'd sell me a ticket.

"No one tried to stop me. No one seemed to know I was there. I didn't bother with the concession stand. No one would have waited on me anyway.

"Well, that was the first time of the complete fadeouts. And I remember when I was leaving the movie, I got this funny idea. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I swear to you, Doc, on my mother's grave, there wasn't an image in the mirror. I gripped the sink to keep upright, and when I looked up again I was fading in, slowly. Well, I didn't stick around to see my face come into view. I left there and went straight home.

"That afternoon was the corker. My wife, Connie, I know she's been seeing another man. Why not? She can't see me. And when she can I don't have the presence of a one-watt bulb. I came home from the movie and she's all dressed up and talking on the phone. "I say, 'Who are you talking to?'"

Merguson
crushed his cigarette out in the ashtray on the psychiatrist's desk. "Doesn't say
doodly
squat, Doc. Not a word. I'm mad as hell. I go upstairs and listen on the extension. It's a man, and they're planning a date.

"I broke in over the line and started yelling at them. Guess what? The guy says, 'Do you hear a buzzing or something or other?' 'No,' she says. And they go right on with their plans.

"I was in a homicidal rage. I went downstairs and snatched the phone out of her hand and threw it across the room. I wrecked furniture and busted up some lamps and expensive pottery. Just made a general wreck out of the place.

"She screamed then, Doc. I tell you she screamed good. But then she says the thing that makes me come here. 'Oh God,' she says. 'Ghost! Ghost in this house!'

"That floored me, and I knew I was invisible again. I went upstairs and looked in the bathroom mirror. Sure enough. Nothing there. So I waited until I faded back and I called your secretary. It took me five tries before she finally wrote my name down, gave me an appointment. It was worse than when I tried to get the meat from the butcher. So I hurried right over. I had to get this out. I swear I'm not going crazy, it's a disease, and it's getting worse and worse and worse.

"So what can I do, Doc? How can I handle this? I know it's not in my head, and I've got to have some advice. Please, Doc. Say something. Tell me what to do. I've never been this desperate in my entire life. I might fade out again and not come back."

The psychiatrist took his hand from his chin where it had been resting. "
Wha
. . . ? Sorry. I must have dozed. What was it again, Mr. . . uh?"

Merguson
dove across the desk, clawing for the psychiatrist's throat.

L
ater when the law came and found the psychiatrist strangled and slumped across his desk, his secretary said "Funny, I don't remember anyone coming in or leaving. Couldn't have come in while I was here. He had an appointment with a Mr. . . . uh." She looked at the appointment book. "A Mr.
Merguson
. But he never showed."

T
his one came to me in a flash, and like many stories of this period, it was written in a flash. And, like most stories of this period, it pretty much came out of the typewriter finished, and went into an envelope and was gone, leaving me with a faded carbon copy only.

"Personality Problem" was a story that I sent in without even having a copy. I just wrote it and sent it. I had trained myself to come up with "clever" ideas and to write them out almost as fast as I could think of them. It was the only way to sell enough short stories to make any kind of money or draw any attention to my name.

Fortunately, I had the knack for it and the bulk of these stories turned out well.

They were a great training ground for writing longer, more ambitious stories later, and of course, novels. I wrote chapters for my early books almost as if I were writing short stories, trying to pull the reader in, make them want to read more, get to that next short story like chapter.

My intro is getting as long as this story, so, it's time to move on.

Y
eah, I know, doc. I look terrible and don't smell any better. But you would, too, if you stayed on the go like I do, had a peg sticking out of either side of your neck and this crazy scar across the forehead. You'd think they might have told me to use cocoa butter on the place, after they took the stitches out, but
naw
, no way. They didn't care if I had a face like a train track. No meat off their nose.

And how about this getup? Nice, huh? Early wino or late drug addict. You ought to walk down the street wearing this mess, you really get the stares. Coat's too small, pants too short. And these boots, now they get the blue ribbon. You know, I'm only six-five, but with these on I'm nearly seven feet! That's some heels, Doc.

But listen, how can I do any better? I can't even afford to buy myself a tie at Goodwill, let alone get myself a new suit of clothes. And have you ever tried to fit someone my size? This shoulder is higher than the other one. The arms don't quite match, and—well, you see the problem. I tell you, Doc, it's no bed of roses.

Worst part of it is how people are always running from me, and throwing things, and trying to set me on fire. Oh, that's the classic one. I mean, I've been frozen for a while, covered in mud, you name it, but the old favorite is the torch. And I hate fire . . . Which reminds me, think you could refrain from smoking, Doc? Sort of makes me nervous.

See, I was saying about the fire. They've trapped me in windmills, castles, and labs. All sorts of places. Some guy out there in the crowd always gets the wise idea about the fire, and there we go again—Barbecue City. Let me tell you, Doc, I've been lucky. Spell that L-U-C-K-Y. We're talking a big lucky here. I mean, that's one reason I look as bad as I do. These holes in this already ragged suit . . . Yeah, that's right, bend over. Right there, see? This patch of hide was burned right off my head, Doc—and it didn't feel like no sunburn either. I mean it hurt.

And I've got no childhood. Just a big dumb boy all my life. No dates. No friends. Nothing. Just this personality complex, and this feeling that everybody hates me on sight.

If I ever get my hands on that Victor, or Igor, oh boy, gonna have to snap 'em, Doc. And I can do it, believe me. That's where they crapped in the mess kit, Doc. They made me strong. Real strong.

Give me a dime. Yeah, thanks.

Now watch this. Between thumb and finger . . .
Uhhhh
. How about that? Flat as a pancake.

Yeah, you're right, I'm getting a little excited. I'll lay back and take it easy . . . Say, do you smell smoke? Doc?

Doc?

Doc, damn you, put out that fire! Not you, too? Hey, I'm not a bad guy, really. Come back here, Doc! Don't leave me in here. Don't lock that door. . . .

I
wrote this one for
Twilight Zone
, but T. E. D. Klein didn't like it. I didn't either. It sort of fizzled out. I showed it to my wife, and she thought she saw what was wrong with it, gave me an ending and corrected some interior lines and dialogue. I revised it to her suggestions, made her co-author, sent it in, and she was right.

Klein thought we had it now.

He bought it.

My wife's inspiration was simple.

We needed the money. She has written a few articles, couple of stories, has co-edited with me, and without her inspiration, and confidence, and ability to put up with the oddness of a freelance writer's life, and perhaps my own personal oddness, I'd probably be making chairs in an aluminum chair plant factory.

When I see this story all I think about is how lucky a man I am to have met the woman I'm married to.

Thirty years and counting as of 2003, friends. Thirty years and counting.

(Written With Karen Lansdale)

G
ot up this morning and couldn't take it anymore. I'd had all the cutesy words and hugs I could take from the old bag, and I'd also had it with my food. She thought that just because I liked something once, I couldn't wait to have it every day.

'Course, it beat hell out of that
McWhipple
burger I got out of the next-door neighbor's trash can. I saw him toss it out, and as I recall, he was looking mighty green and holding his stomach. Didn't bother me none, though; I'd eaten out of his trash can before. (He even took a shot at me one night on account of it.) But this
McWhipple
burger would have made a vulture choke! Must've been kangaroo meat or something. Or maybe the burger had just been lying on the assembly line too long. In any case, it sure made me sick, and up until then I could eat anything short of strychnine.

See, that's part of the problem. Suddenly I couldn't stand the way I'd been living. Just came over me, you know? One day I was fine and happy as a tick in an armpit, and the next day things were no longer
hokay
-by-me. I wanted a change of lifestyle.

It was all so goofy . . . the way I was feeling in the head, I thought maybe I'd got some medical problems, you know? So first thing I thought of was to go see the doc. Figured I ought to do that before I made any drastic changes—changes like getting the old lady out of my life, finding a new place to live, that sort of thing. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't having a spell of some sort, one of them
metabolistic
shake-ups.

So the doc was the ticket. I mean, he'd always been nice to me. A few pills and needles, but that's to be expected, right?

Next problem was getting out of the house without making a scene. Old gal treated me like some sort of prisoner, and that didn't make it easy.

The window over the sink was open, though, and that's how I plotted my escape. It was hard for me to get my body up and through the opening, but I managed. Made the six-foot drop without so much as a sprained ankle.

I got my thoughts together, charted out the doc's office, and set out. On the way, I noticed something weird: not only was I having this change in attitude, I seemed to be having some physical problems, too. I could feel stuff shifting around inside me, the way you feel the wind when it changes.

When I finally reached the doc's, man, was I bushed. Caught this lady coming out with a white cat under her arm, and she looked at me like I was the strange one. I mean, here she was with a cat under her arm, things hanging off her ears and wrists and wearing as much war paint as an Indian in a TV western, and she looks at me like I'm wearing a propeller beanie or something.

I slid in before she closed the door, and I looked around. People were sitting all over the place, and they had their pets with them. Dogs, cats, even a pet monkey.

I suddenly felt mighty sick, but I figured the best thing to do was to hang tough and not think about my problem. I decided to get a magazine down from the rack, but I couldn't get one down. Couldn't seem to hold onto it.

People were staring.

So were their pets.

I decided the heck with this and went right over to the receptionist. Standing on my hind legs, I leaned against the desk and said, "Listen, sweetheart, I've got to see the doc, and pronto."