Button, Button: Uncanny Stories (14 page)

SECTION OF A TYPICAL S CREENPLAY12

Tex D'Urberville comes riding into Doomtown on the Colorado, his Jaguar raising a cloud of dust in the sleepy western town. He parks in front of the Golden Sovereign Saloon and steps out. He is a tall, rangy cowhand, impeccably attired in waistcoat and fawn-skin trousers with a ten-gallon hat, boots and pearl-gray spats. A heavy sixgun is belted at his waist. He carries a gold-topped malacca cane.

He enters the saloon and every man there scatters from the room, leaving only Tex and a scowling hulk of a man at the other end of the bar. This is Dirty Ned Updyke, local ruffian and gunman.

TEX (Removing his white gloves and, pretending he does not see Dirty Ned, addressing the bartender): Pour me a whiskey and seltzer will you, Roger, there's a good fellow.

ROGER: Yes sir.

Dirty Ned scowls over his aperitif but does not dare to reach for his Webley Automatic pistol which is concealed in a holster beneath his tweed jacket.

Now Tex D'Urberville allows his icy blue eyes to move slowly about the room until they rest on the craven features of Dirty Ned.

TEX: So . . . you're the beastly cad what shot my brother.

Instantly they draw their cane swords and, approaching, salute each other grimly.

An additional result not to be overlooked was the effect of increased film production on politics. The need for high-salaried workers such as writers, actors, directors and plumbers was intense and this mass of nouveau riche, having come upon good times so relatively abruptly, acquired a definite guilt neurosis which resulted in their intensive participation in the so-called "liberal" and "progressive" groups. This swelling of radical activity did much to alter the course of American political history. (This subject being another which requires separate inquiry for a proper evaluation of its many and varied ramifications.)

Two other factors of this period which may be mentioned briefly are the increase in divorce due to the relaxation of divorce laws in every state affected by the Los Angeles Movement and the slow but eventually complete bans placed upon tennis and beach supplies by a rabid but powerful group within the N.A.M. This ban led inexorably to a brief span of time which paralleled the so-called "Prohibition" period of the 1920s. During this infamous period, thrill seekers attended the many bootleg tennis courts throughout the country, which sprang up wherever perverse public demand made them profitable ventures for unscrupulous men.

In the first days of January of 1983 the Los Angeles Movement reached almost to the Atlantic shoreline. Panic spread through New England and the southern coastal region.

The country and, ultimately, Washington reverberated with cries of "Stop Los Angeles!" and all processes of government ground to a virtual halt in the ensuing chaos. Law enforcement atrophied, crime waves spilled across the nation and conditions became so grave that even the outlawed L.A. Firsters held revival meetings in the street.

On February 11, 1983, the Los Angeles Movement forded the Hudson River and invaded Manhattan Island. Flame-throwing tanks proved futile against the invincible flux. Within a week the subways were closed and car purchases had trebled.

By March 1983 the only unaltered states in the union were Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. This was later explained by the lethargic adaptation of the fungi to the rocky New England soil and to the immediate inclement weather.

These northern states, cornered and helpless, resorted to extraordinary measures in a hopeless bid to ward off the awful incrustation. Several of them legalized the mercy killing of any person discovered to have acquired the taint of "Ellieitis." Newspaper reports of shootings, stabbings, poisonings and strangulations became so common in those days of "The Last-Ditch Defense" that newspapers inaugurated a daily section of their contents to such reports.

Boston, Mass. April 13, AP-Last rites were held today for Mr. Abner Scrounge who was shot after being found in his garage attempting to remove the top of his Rolls Royce with a can opener.

The history of the gallant battle of Boston to retain its essential dignity would, alone, make up a large work. The story of how the intrepid citizens of this venerable city refused to surrender their rights, choosing mass suicide rather than submission is a tale of enduring courage and majestic struggle against insurmountable odds.

What happened after the movement was contained within the boundaries of the United States (a name soon discarded) is data for another paper. A brief mention, however, may be made of the immense social endeavor which became known as the "Bacon and Waffles" movement, which sought to guarantee $750 per month for every person in Los Angeles over forty years of age.

With this incentive before the people, state legislatures were helpless before an avalanche of public demand and, within three years, the entire nation was a part of Los Angeles. The government seat was in Beverly Hills and ambassadors had been hastened to all foreign countries within a short period of time.

Ten years later the North American continent fell and Los Angeles was creeping rapidly down the Isthmus of Panama.

Then came that ill-fated day in 1994.

On the island of Pingo Pongo, Maona, daughter of Chief Luana, approached her father. "Omu la golu si mongo," she said.

(Anyone for tennis?)

Whereupon her father, having read the papers, speared her on the spot and ran screaming from the hut.

1    John Gunther, Inside U.S.A., p. 44.

2    Henry G. Alsberg (ed.), The American Guide, p. 1200.

3    Symmes Chadwick, "Will We Drown the World?" Southwestern Review IV (Summer 1982), p. 1 ff.

4    Guillaume Gaulte, "Les Theories de l'Eau de Ciel Sont Cuckoo," Jaune Journale (August 1982).

5    Harry L. Schuler, "Not Long for This World," South Orange Literary Review, XL (Sept. 1982), p. 214.

6    H. Braham, "Is Los Angeles Alive?" Los Angeles Sunday Examiner, 29 Oct. 1982.

7    "Ellieitis: Its Symptoms," AMA pamphlet (fall 1982).

8    Fritz Felix DerKatt, "Das Beachen Seeken," Einzweidrei (Nov. 1982).

9    The Los Angeles Manifesto, L.A. Firster Press (Winter 1982).

10    L. Savage, "A Report on the Grand Teton Drive-In," Fortune (Jan. 1983).

11    "Gulls Creek Gets Its Forty-Eighth Theater." The Arkansas Post-Journal, 1 March 1983.

12    Maxwell Brande, "Altercation at Deadwood Spa," Epigram Studios (April 1983). Shock Wave

I tell you there's something wrong with her," said Mr. Moffat. Cousin Wendall reached for the sugar bowl.

"Then they're right," he said. He spooned the sugar into his coffee.

"They are not," said Mr. Moffat, sharply. "They most certainly are not."

"If she isn't working," Wendall said.

"She was working until just a month or so ago," said Mr. Moffat. "She was working fine when they decided to replace her the first of the year."

His fingers, pale and yellowed, lay tensely on the table. His eggs and coffee were untouched and cold before him.

"Why are you so upset?" asked Wendall. "She's just an organ."

"She is more," Mr. Moffat said. "She was in before the church was even finished. Eighty years she's been there. Eighty."

"That's pretty long," said Wendall, crunching jelly-smeared toast. "Maybe too long."

"There's nothing wrong with her," defended Mr. Moffat. "Leastwise, there never was before. That's why I want you to sit in the loft with me this morning."

"How come you haven't had an organ man look at her?" Wendall asked.

"He'd just agree with the rest of them," said Mr. Moffat, sourly. "He'd just say she's too old, too worn."

"Maybe she is," said Wendall.

"Well, I don't know," said Wendall, "she's pretty old though."

"She worked fine before," said Mr. Moffat. He stared into the blackness of his coffee. "The gall of them," he muttered. "Planning to get rid of her. The gall."

He closed his eyes.

"Maybe she knows," he said.

The clock-like tapping of their heels perforated the stillness in the lobby.

"This way," Mr. Moffat said.

Wendall pushed open the arm-thick door and the two men spiraled up the marble staircase. On the second floor, Mr. Moffat shifted the briefcase to his other hand and searched his keyring. He unlocked the door and they entered the musty darkness of the loft. They moved through the silence, two faint, echoing sounds.

"Over here," said Mr. Moffat.

"Yes, I see," said Wendall.

The old man sank down on the glass-smooth bench and turned the small lamp on. A wedge of bulb light forced aside the shadows.

"Think the sun'll show?" asked Wendall.

"Don't know," said Mr. Moffat.

He unlocked and rattled up the organ's rib-skinned top, then raised the music rack. He pushed the finger-worn switch across its slot.

In the brick room to their right there was a sudden hum, a mounting rush of energy. The air-gauge needle quivered across its dial.

"She's alive now," Mr. Moffat said.

Wendall grunted in amusement and walked across the loft. The old man followed. "What do you think?" he asked inside the brick room.

Wendall shrugged.

"Can't tell," he said. He looked at the turning of the motor. "Single-phase induction," he said. "Runs by magnetism."

He listened. "Sounds all right to me," he said.

He walked across the small room.

"What's this?" he asked, pointing.

"Relay machines," said Mr. Moffat. "Keep the channels filled with wind."

"And this is the fan?" asked Wendall.

The old man nodded.

"Mmm-hmm." Wendall turned. "Looks all right to me," he said.

They stood outside looking up at the pipes. Above the glossy wood of the enclosure box, they stood like giant pencils painted gold.

"Big," said Wendall.

"She's beautiful," said Mr. Moffat.

"Let's hear her," Wendall said.

They walked back to the keyboards and Mr. Moffat sat before them. He pulled out a stop and pressed a key into its bed.

A single tone poured out into the shadowed air. The old man pressed a volume pedal and the note grew louder. It pierced the air, tone and overtones bouncing off the church dome like diamonds hurled from a sling.

Suddenly, the old man raised his hand.

"Did you hear?" he asked.

"Hear what?"

"It trembled," Mr. Moffat said.

Tiefe rufe ich (From the Depths, I Cry). His fingers moved certainly on the manual keys, his spindling shoes walked a dance across the pedals; and the air was rich with moving sound.

Wendall leaned over to whisper, "There's the sun."

Above the old man's gray-wreathed pate, the sunlight came filtering through the stained-glass window. It passed across the rack of pipes with a mistlike radiance.

Wendall leaned over again.

"Sounds all right to me," he said.

"Wait," said Mr. Moffat.

Wendall grunted. Stepping to the loft edge, he looked down at the nave. The three-aisled flow of people was branching off into rows. The echoing of their movements scaled up like insect scratchings. Wendall watched them as they settled in the brown-wood pews. Above and all about them moved the organ's music.

"Sssst."

Wendall turned and moved back to his cousin.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Listen."

Wendall cocked his head.

"Can't hear anything but the organ and the motor," he said.

"That's it," the old man whispered. "You're not supposed to hear the motor."

Wendall shrugged. "So?" he said.

The old man wet his lips. "I think it's starting," he murmured.

Below, the lobby doors were being shut. Mr. Moffat's gaze fluttered to his watch propped against the music rack, thence to the pulpit where the Reverend had appeared. He made of the chorale prelude's final chord a shimmering pyramid of sound, paused, then modulated, mezzo forte, to the key of G. He played the opening phrase of the Doxology.

Below, the Reverend stretched out his hands, palms up, and the congregation took its feet with a rustling and crackling. An instant of silence filled the church. Then the singing began.

Mr. Moffat led them through the hymn, his right hand pacing off the simple route. In the third phrase an adjoining key moved down with the one he pressed and an alien dissonance blurred the chord. The old man's fingers twitched; the dissonance faded.

"Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost."

The people capped their singing with a lingering amen. Mr. Moffat's fingers lifted from the manuals, he switched the motor off, the nave re-murmured with the crackling rustle and the dark-robed Reverend raised his hands to grip the pulpit railing.

"Dear Heavenly Father," he said, "we, Thy children, meet with Thee today in reverent communion."

Up in the loft, a bass note shuddered faintly.

Mr. Moffat hitched up, gasping. His gaze jumped to the switch (off), to the air-gauge needle (motionless), toward the motor room (still).

"You heard that?" he whispered.

"Seems like I did," said Wendall.

"Seems?" said Mr. Moffat tensely.

"Well . . ." Wendall reached over to flick a nail against the air dial. Nothing happened. Grunting, he turned and started toward the motor room. Mr. Moffat rose and tiptoed after him.

"Looks dead to me," said Wendall.

"I hope so," Mr. Moffat answered. He felt his hands begin to shake.

The offertory should not be obtrusive but form a staidly moving background for the clink of coins and whispering of bills. Mr. Moffat knew this well. No man put holy tribute to music more properly than he.

Yet, that morning . . .

The discords surely were not his. Mistakes were rare for Mr. Moffat. The keys resisting, throbbing beneath his touch like things alive; was that imagined? Chords thinned to fleshless octaves, then, moments later, thick with sound; was it he? The old man sat, rigid, hearing the music stir unevenly in the air. Ever since the Responsive Reading had ended and he'd turned the organ on again, it seemed to possess almost a willful action.

Mr. Moffat turned to whisper to his cousin.