Smoke Ghost & Other Apparitions (26 page)

At first it was a very good party. The unchanging but ever-renewed pearl-gray of the furnishings brought me memories of less nervous years. The inevitable political discussions got underway but due to the unsuspected effects of the punch, they were more exciting than usual and, at first, very good-tempered. For instance Fitch and Parks staged a genial and heart-to-heart talk which everyone appreciated hugely.

Lavinia was her usual well-poised unobtrusive self – I suppose a diplomat's daughter learns early to act that way. She wore a black satin evening gown that was attractive but, as always, subtly "wrong." And that rarity – black silk stockings.

But gradually I became aware of a change in her behavior. She was talking a lot more, to a lot more people than usual, and in an oddly confidential way. She'd link onto someone and draw him aside.

You'd see her eager, intent face and the bobbing head of her companion as they nodded agreement.

I'd give a good deal to know what she said at those times. I asked Leslie Packard about it afterwards. I can't ask most of the others because I don't know them well enough or else they've cut me on account of my behavior toward Lavinia.

Leslie was puzzled at first but then he said, "By George, I believe you're right. I seem to remember that she did say something to me, something that exploded in my brain and left me with the nasty feeling of having been cut loose from my moorings. But I can't remember what it was. I just can't recall." And for a moment he looked at me with an expression of genuine fear.

I wish he
could
recall because it might give me the clue to things Lavinia said to me that night, things that I too have forgotten. But it's probably safer as it is.

Whatever the things were they had their effect. For the party suddenly turned nasty. Of course it was the political arguments, become personal and carried to unwise lengths, that were responsible. But it was more than that, for
they weren't the political arguments of 1949
.

You've read stories of time-travel? Well, this was as if our minds and emotions were time-traveling into the future, living over in one night all the strife and turmoil and suffering of the next ten years. We were adjusting ourselves in instants to new ideas and loyalties that ordinarily we'd have spent months assimilating.

It was as if there were a "wine of life" that is doled out to mankind drop by drop and we had somehow broken open the barrels and were swilling down great bumpers of it.

We acted as if we were choosing sides for some bitter social conflict that is to come. I'll have to call the two sides "reactionary" and "radical" but they weren't reactionary or radical in exactly the sense of those terms today. Because, you see, we were reacting to events that haven't happened yet, to ideas unborn.

This was frighteningly apparent in the way we lined up, for few of us picked the side you'd have expected. I, for instance, found myself among the "reactionaries." Bella McCluskey, looking blank and frightened, joined us.

Leslie Packard, his face suddenly losing its bland expression and setting in sardonic lines, was against us. So, amazingly, was Mrs. Grotius. Red-faced and shouting, her gray silk dress flapping, she looked like an enraged lovebird.

We were only vaguely aware of where we were heading. Actually, and incredible as it may seem, we were preparing, then and there in that pearl-cool apartment, to fight the great war or revolution or counter-revolution or whatever it is that is to come in -Lord, if I could name the year!

I hate to think of that conflict because it isn't going to be nice. Yet I can't tell you a solitary thing about the grounds on which it's going to be fought except – yes – I think it will have something to do with that split-earth symbol.

Of course we were all of us getting drunk without knowing it, but that isn't enough to explain what was happening, not nearly enough.

We were no longer arguing, we were spitting personalities and accusations and threats. Harry Parks' face was grim, his eyes were glassy. Howard Fitch's underlip jutted out with sulky viciousness. Along with the incessant shouldering and back-turning and snatching of drinks, there was an ominous feeling of gathering forces.

It seems to me that the lights grew dim and there was a reddish glow from somewhere but that must have been an illusion. And everywhere went Lavinia, slipping from one person to another, whispering, hinting, inciting – I think.

At last the fighting started – yes, actual fighting, though it was hushed up afterwards. The punchbowl was overset and smashed, the strangely dimmed chandelier was swinging – something must have hit it – and Parks had his fingers around Fitch's throat and Fitch was beating at Parks' face with ineffectual fists. A minute more –

But then, in an instant, the atmosphere broke. Rage fled. The cloud of the future vanished as if it had never been. We were left staring at each other, dumbfounded.

And then, before Fitch's giggle broke the silence, I became aware of another noise, a muffled gasping that came in gargling rushes of sound. I ran down the hall. Lavinia was on her knees in the bathroom, being sick. Mrs. Grotius had her by the shoulders and was shaking her and saying in a low, intense voice, "You little –
witch!
You little –
witch!
"

I think that Mrs. Grotius, who could never possibly lose the last shreds of her propriety, was using the word as a substitute for another stronger word. Involuntarily she probably used the right one.

I pulled Mrs. Grotius away and held Lavinia's head. As soon as she realized who it was she began to gasp, "Oh Ken, take me home, take me home!"'

Before the others had begun to recover from their stupefaction we were outside. I still have a vivid picture of those little broken groups, eyeing each other incredulously, trying to talk.

Driving home, Lavinia leaned on my shoulder and kept babbling, "Oh Ken, what happened? Oh Ken, I was drunk. What did I say, Ken? What did I do? Oh, I'm frightened. I mustn't ever let that happen again, Ken, I mustn't.

"I let myself go and I'm frightened. I said things I shouldn't have said. What did I say, Ken, what did I say? Whom did I talk to? What did I tell them? What did they say I'd said? What did I say, Ken, what did I say?"

About that time it occurred to me what must have been done to the punch. When I got Lavinia home and Theodore answered the door I explained to him what had happened and how he could check my story. He seemed startled but his usual poise asserted itself as he took charge of the business of getting Lavinia to bed.

Next morning I drove around reluctantly to their apartment, very doubtful as to whether Lavinia and I would go on any expedition at all, certainly not the inappropriate one we had scheduled. But to my surprise Lavinia was dressed and waiting when I came. She looked hardly the worse for the night before and wouldn't hear of any change in our plans. I yielded to her, though I didn't have much stomach for the business myself.

Of course, as you'll understand, it was a great deal more than a hangover I was feeling. A lot of things had been fitting themselves together in my subconscious mind and last night had provided the keystone. I was aware of a mounting feeling of distaste and fear, was almost aware that the distaste and fear were directed at Lavinia.

My war nerves had come back and with them my gloomiest ideas about mankind's mindless stampede toward doom. Last night's scene had been such a terrifying hope-shattering allegory. And below the surface of my conscious mind was a black theory or rather a dark philosophy of life that deals an almost permanently crushing blow to any notion of freedom or joy or good in the universe.

As if to provide the sharpest possible contrast to my mood the weather was wonderful. It was one of those matchless balmy days that come once or twice a year in Chicago. Despite her black linen dress Lavinia managed to look very cool and airy. Her skin was creamy, her hair was sleek, her eyes were bright.

We arrived at our destination. I parked the car and soon we had joined a small group making the tour. With my queasy stomach I found it rough going, particularly the omnipresent sweetish odor. I would have liked very much to turn back.

But not Lavinia. She looked in the best sort of humor, fairly blooming, as if what we were seeing were giving her the finest sort of appetite for lunch. I'd never seen her drink in everything with such eager schoolgirlish eyes. Her fresh-from-the-prairie look was particularly noticeable this morning, which in a way was highly appropriate.

We finally halted on a raised platform and the guide started an explanation. I felt a wave of nausea and gripped the rail, looking down.

Some distance below and beyond us a narrow, wooden-walled runway led up toward a dark door. The guide's voice droned in my ear. Then a low thundering sound began, like a lot of people crossing a wooden bridge.

The guide was saying, "...and then they're struck on the head. It's painless. They drop through a trap door onto a moving belt. Before they regain consciousness, the spinal cord has been pierced. Then the belt takes them..."

I swayed dizzily, gripping the railing. But now, instead of physical sickness it was a spiritual nausea that gripped me. It seemed to me, as I stared down unwillingly, that the wooden-walled runway was life and that the creatures pressing up it were mankind, that the dark door was war, destruction and death. They were all white, those creatures, but my swimming eyes seemed to make out a black shadow ahead of them.

I couldn't get things straight. I kept looking beside me at Lavinia as she peered down with interest, so fresh in her black linen dress, her skin so creamy-cool, just the tiniest beads of perspiration dewing the powder on her upper lip.

And as I looked at her an unbearable horror would seize me and I would look down at the runway again and another kind of horror would catch hold of me. In my confused mental state it seemed to me unendurable that such a thing as I was witnessing should be – that mankind should go crowding up to the dark door and no man sane enough to call a halt, but everyone mindlessly following, following.

And because of this feeling I asked the guide a question. And because of his answer I turned and walked away from Lavinia Simes without any explanation and have refused to see her ever again.

They say she's gone away with her father once more. The Simes are always on the move, you know. Maybe to Buenos Aires, maybe to Moscow, to Calcutta, Tel Aviv, or some less likely place. I don't know nor do I want to know. It would just give me one more thing to worry about.

I don't really think I'm safe, you see.

I broke off the engagement but still I know too much. No one is safe, who suspects as much as I do.

I wonder how it will come to me when it comes. Will it be the earth rushing up through the fog to crush me – I travel quite a bit by plane – or will it just be a slip on the stairs – and will I see it before I see what's waiting in the dark for all mankind?

As I said, I'd just mumbled a question to the guide and his reply came to my buzzing ears indistinctly, as if from a great distance.

"Oh no, sir, they wouldn't go so easily if we just herded 'em along. In fact, there'd be quite a to-do. Sheep have more brains than most people think and I bet some of them would guess pretty well what was coming.

"But we have a little trick that makes 'em trot along as nice as pie. We have one animal that we've trained to walk up that runway. It's taken out of line at the last second and given a reward, so there's never any doubt of
it
going up the runway. And then, of course, all the rest follow.

"There, you can see it there, sir, just going through the door.

"We have it a different color so there won't be any chance of it getting destroyed by mistake. Most other slaughter houses do the same. They use a black ewe."

 

 

 

REPLACEMENT FOR WILMER: A GHOST STORY

 

AS THE holes on the tape stopped jumping up and down and took long solemn, longitudinally rectilinear paces, and as the carillon over the bank three blocks away consequently finished its melodious jangling and tolled four o'clock, a cab stopped in front of the Amity Liquor Store and three men, conspicuous in this neighborhood by their coats and neckties, silently crossed the sidewalk. The fourth, who also wore a hat, paused to pay the driver with a handful of half dollars and quarters he had collected from his comrades a block back. He tipped a big four quarters, which made the cabbie shake his head at his sanity.

Once inside the store the four men, after a look at each other, simultaneously removed their neckties and carried them to a hatrack in the carton-crammed rear of the store next to the toilet. One of the men exchanged his coat for a bulky sweater that buttoned up the front, while the man with the hat replaced it with a faded blue cap that covered all of his thinning, mouse-colored hair but made his butterfly ears even more prominent.

Still not saying anything, they trooped back to the front of the store, collecting on the way from the short length of dinted counter denominated as bar the four drinks the store owner, acting as barman and clerk, had uncapped or poured for them.

The man in the sweater, a grizzled-topped hulk with misanthropic, watchful pale eyes, raised his brown beer bottle for a toast.

"Wilmer," he said.

They drank.

As he lowered his gin and lemon soda, the second man quirked his full lips in a satyrlike smile.

"You know, Cappy," he said reflectively to the man in the sweater, "I believe that was the cleanest I ever saw Wilmer's face."

There was a tentative general snort of laughter, followed by a somewhat uncomfortable pause.

Then the third man slowly nodded his big head. "That's only the truth, George," he assured the second man. "It was also the best shave Wilmer ever had in his life. Those guys at the mortuary sure put a gloss on him."

"Bet they had quite a job, though," George shot back, "probably had to sand-blast."

At the same time the man with the butterfly ears reminded the third man, "Hey, Driscoll, Wilmer's dead. We ought to show more respect, at least the first day, or don't you think?" The objection was even more tentative than the snort of laughter had been. Then Butterfly Ears continued, getting onto firmer ground, at least for a butterfly, "You made me wear a hat to the funeral. You said this cap wouldn't look right."