The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories (46 page)

With that, he swung from the floor, and Harvey watched it coming until it cracked on the point of his jaw. In a portion of his tired, bedraggled mind, he felt surprise that thin little Irving packed such a wallop. He was still carrying this thought as he fell over backward and landed on the floor.

Irving picked up a sign that read, “In Poor Condition-Not Recommended,” laid it on Harvey’s chest like a funeral wreath, and then stalked righteously out of the room.

Late that night, as Harvey tells it, he sat on the stoop of the shack looking out sadly at his car lot—and particularly at the model A, which stood like some metal pariah staring balefully back at him through its ancient headlights. The banner and bunting flapped noisily in the breeze, mocking him with their sound and with their meaninglessness.

A paunchy gentleman walked briskly into the nod end of the lot, stopped, and looked down the line of automobiles. In old and better days, Harvey would’ve been on his feet and shaking hands and beginning phase one of the attack before the prospective buyer had drawn three breaths. But on this night, Harvey just rose slowly, waved halfheartedly, and leaned against the shack while the man eyed him and walked toward him.

The man in this case was a gentleman named Luther Grimbley He wore a variation of a frock coat and had small beady eyes. He also wore a cigar in his mouth, which was obviously an accouterment, and he looked as if he had been born with it. He grimly nodded back at Harvey and then looked sideways at the model A. Clearly, this was one of those “thinker” type buyers who was as anxious to engage in a battle of wills and wiles as Harvey himself. This was quite evident in the rather nonchalant way Mr. Grimily studied the model A, but kept his eye on Harvey’s expression.

Harvey himself, seeing that the man was traditionally an opponent, forced himself to walk over to him. He dredged up some of his old charm, lit his own cigar, tilted his hat an inch farther back on his head, and looked, at this moment, like the Harvey Hennicutt of old.

“What’ll be your pleasure tonight?” he asked.

Grimbley kept the cigar in his teeth. “Luther Grimbley, here,” he announced, and handed Harvey a card. “Honest Luther Grimbley, thirty years in politics, currently up for reelection—alderman, thirteenth ward. You’ve probably heard of me.”

All of this came out as if it were a single sentence. Harvey took the card and read it.

“Delighted,” he said. “Something in a—” He gulped. “A nice model A? It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Then Harvey mentally sat back, waiting for the perverse honesty inside of him to come out with the denial of what he’d just said, but no words came—and for the first time in several days Harvey felt hope rising up inside.

Grimbley removed the cigar, picked off a few errant fragments of tobacco, and daintily freed them from his fingertips.

‘‘That depends,” he said, his eyes half closed. “If you take twelve aspirin and shut your eyes tight—you might call that car beautiful. But in the cold light of neon, son—” He shook his head and pointed to the car. “It’s a wreck! What about its condition?”

Harvey chuckled a deep chuckle and started to retort with a biblical quote that he usually used in answer to that question, and one that he had made up himself not six months before, but he heard himself saying, “The block’s cracked!” He shuddered, clamped tight on the cigar, and half turned away, damning himself, honesty, the haunted car, and everything else.

Grimbley’s eyebrow rose a little. “Block cracked, you say, son?”

Harvey nodded tiredly and gave up fighting. “Block cracked.”

“What else?”

Harvey looked down at the tires. “Rubber’s almost gone.” He kicked at the tire.

Grimbley went over to the car and also kicked the tire. “It sure is,” he said. Then he made a face and scratched his jaw.

“Might be a few good years left in it.” Then, hurriedly, looking keenly over at Harvey, “Not many, though.”

Harvey felt the misery welling up, and also the words. “Many? This car’s living on borrowed time!”

Grimbley ran his tongue inside one cheek and drummed softly on the fender of the model A. He looked at Harvey squinty-eyed.

“What’s she worth?” he asked, and then hurriedly changed his tone. “I mean, assuming some clod wanted a real bum car to use for a gag or something.”

He chewed off a little piece of the cigar and spit it out, then walked around the car again. He whistled a continuous low whistle, sucked in his cheeks, again tapped gently on the car’s fender.

“Maybe fifty bucks?”

Harvey’s eyes looked glazed. “Fifty bucks?” !

“All right,” Grimbley said, “maybe sixty.”

“Why not thirty?” Harvey said. “You don’t understand, do you?” He pointed to the car. “It’s a bad car. It’s a lemon.”

Harvey wished fervently at this moment that his tongue would rot at the roots and he could keep his mouth shut. He was cursed, damned, and preordained, so he half turned as if ready to walk away and give it up as a bad thing. He was quite unprepared for Grimbley’s reaction, for the far little man stared at him and began to laugh. The laugh turned into a full-throated roar, until it was uncontrollable. Grimbley just stood there and laughed until the tears came out of his eyes.

‘Why, you dirty dog, you! Why, you clever son of a—!”

Harvey began to laugh now, too. He didn’t know exactly why. Maybe it was release or relief or something—but he joined Grimbley’s laughter until his own was a shriek.

“Isn’t it the truth?” he screamed. “Isn’t it the honest-to-God truth!”

Grimbley wiped his eyes and gradually the laughter died away, though he still shook his head in respectful amazement.

“I’ve seen all kinds of routines, honest-to-God...all kinds of routines.” He winked at Harvey and poked him in the chest. “But you clever little cookie, you—this is the old reverse English, isn’t it? The old twist-a-roo! Why, you sharp shootin’ sharpie!”

He laughed again and clamped the cigar back in his mouth. “You knew I wanted it, didn’t you—you little devil, you!” He poked Harvey again. “You knew I wanted it. I’ll tell you what,” he announced, taking the cigar out, “I’ll give you twenty-five bucks for it—mainly on account of it’s good politics to drive an old car. Makes people realize you’re not getting rich off them!”

He turned to look at the car again. “Make it twenty-two and a half. I didn’t notice the dent in the fender.” He put the cigar back, squinted his eyes, and looked at Harvey. “Deal?” he asked. “I mean twenty-two fifty, the car—and no strings.”

The ecstatic look on Harvey’s face slowly dissolved and he felt cold all over. “No strings,” he repeated weakly.

Harvey’s tone was quite sufficient for Grimbley. Once again his tongue explored the inside of his mouth and he squinted from Harvey to the car and back again.

“You better trot out the strings, buddy boy. Trot out the strings. I want to know what I’m getting!’’

Harvey looked off in another direction and closed his eyes. “Twenty-two-fifty—the car as is, and. . . and. . .”

“And what?”

Harvey turned to him, his voice ghostlike. “It’s haunted,” he said weakly.

Grimbley took the cigar out of his mouth again and stared at Harvey, and then the laughter came again, uncontrollable, shrieking. “It’s haunted!” he shouted. “The Goddamn car is haunted!” He could barely control himself and just stood there, hands around his vast girth, rolling, wheezing, and half doubled over with hysteria, repeating it over and over again. “It’s haunted. The Goddamn thing is haunted.”

Finally he stopped and wiped his eyes, and the cigar was back between his teeth. “So it’s haunted! I swear to God, you’re the cleverest cookie in fifty states! You ought to be in politics.” He laughed again. “It’s haunted.” He wiped his eyes again, and the chuckle was still in his voice when he asked, “How’s it haunted?”

Harvey’s eyeballs rolled up in his head. “Whoever owns it,” he heard himself say, “has to tell the truth!” There, Goddamnit, Harvey thought, at least it’s out in the air. He could stop worrying about it. The honest Satan inside him had performed the ultimate treachery and forced the admission out.

The word “truth” had a telling effect on Mr. Grimbley. It was as if Harvey had said “smallpox” or “Venereal disease” or “the black plague.” He let out a long, low breath and took the cigar out of his mouth.

“Has to tell the
truth?
” he asked, pronouncing the word as if it were a profanity.

Harvey nodded. “The whole truth. And the only way you can stop telling the truth is to sell the car.”

Again Grimbley gave Harvey his squinty-eyed look and then stared at the model A. He walked a few feet away and pointed to a 1935 Dodge with a rumble seat.

“How about this baby?” he inquired, loading the question with the grape shot of the experienced price-knocker-down.

Harvey heaved a huge sigh. “That’s no baby! It’s a great grandfather. It’s got no transmission, no rear end, no axle. That one’s shot.”

Immediately after saying this, his shoulders slumped and his normally ruddy face took on the color of an off-white sheet.

Grimbley’s eyes sparkled. He was on the precipice of a vast and strange knowledge and he perceived it readily. He took a few steps over to Harvey and spoke in a hushed voice.

“That’s the goods, isn’t it? he asked. “You
have
to tell the truth, don’t you? He shook his head from side to side. “That’s it! That’s the reason for the song and dance.
You have to tell the truth.”

Harvey smiled the kind of smile that on babies is considered gas. He made a halfhearted gesture toward the car.

“What about the model A? he said. “Outside of the fact that it’s haunted, it’s a. . .it’s a nice conversation piece.”

Grimbley held up a beefy hand. “For some people, maybe,” he said positively, “but not for old honest Luther Grimbley! Buddy boy, I’m in politics and when you tell me I gotta start tellin’ the truth all the time—” He pulled at his jowls and looked horrified. “Holy God!” He looked back over at the car. “Well, do you know something? I couldn’t make a single political speech! I couldn’t run for office again. Why, old honest Luther Grimbley . . . old honest Luther Grimbley would die on the vine!”

He carefully butted out the cigar on the sidewalk, scraped off the ashes, and deposited it in his pocket. He started off with a wave of his hand.

“See ya around, buddy boy,” he called over his shoulder.

“Hey!” Harvey yelled.

Grimbley stopped and turned to him. Harvey pointed to the car.

“Any suggestions?”

Grimbley looked thoughtful for a moment. “Suggestions? Yeah, maybe one. Why don’t ya hang yourself!” Then he turned and walked off.

Harvey leaned against the model A, staring down at his feet, feeling the weight of his depression like sandbags on his shoulders. He took a slow, rather aimless walk over to the shack. He had barely entered the small room when Irving appeared at the door.

He entered silently and picked up a paintbrush from a bucket in the corner. He held it up.

“I came back for this.”

Harvey nodded numbly and sat down at his desk.

“It belongs to me,” Irving said defensively.

Harvey shrugged again and looked at him blankly. “I’m happy for you.” He turned in the swivel chair and looked out the window. “I’m like Dante in the inferno,” he announced rhetorically. “I’m absolutely like that fella Dante—doomed, damned...bankrupt!”

He turned again in the chair to face Irving. “Booby...One man! One clod! One absolute idiot who’s got a thing for a pig-in-the-poke! Or one guy whose tellin’ the truth all the time might do some good!

Irving—is there no such patsy in this city? In this country?” Irving stared at him, totally without sympathy.

“You’re askin’ me? You got a helluva nerve! Askin’ me about patsies! After I’ve slaved and worked and broke my back and told lies for ya! You got a helluva nerve even sittin’ there talkin’ to me! My old man says you’re a son of a bitch! And ya know somethin’, Hennicutt?”

At this point, Irving slammed his small fist down on the desk. “My old man is right!”

Once again he pounded on the desk for emphasis, and it was then that Harvey noticed the newspaper lying there. He reached over and pulled it to him, turning it so that he could read the headlines. He stared at it for a long moment, then put it down and started to drum his fingers on the desk.

“And, furthermore,” Irving’s voice squealed, “my old man says that for two cents he’d come over here and give you such a hit in the head you’d never forget it! And, besides that—my sister’s husband is goin’ to law school at night and I’ve got every intention of talkin’ this whole thing over with him and maybe suing you for contributing to the delinquency of a minor!”

Harvey’s head was bent low over the paper. He gave no sign of hearing Irving’s soliloquy, much less being moved by it.

Irving slammed his bony little fist on the desk top again.

“when I think...When I think of the terrible things you had me do—like sellin’ that 1928 hearse and saw it was Babe Ruth’s town car!”

He shook his head at the enormity of his past transgressions, but still Harvey Hennicutt kept his eyes fastened on the paper. His lips moved soundlessly as he read something in it, and then, very slowly, he looked up into Irving’s face.

“Why not?” he whispered. “I ask ya, Irving,
why not?”

Irving thrust out a belligerent pointed jaw. “Why not what?”

Harvey slapped the newspaper. “Why not sell it to
him?
”

“Never mind
him
,” Irving screeched out. “What about my rights? What about my severance pay? What about my seniority?”

Harvey had the phone book in his hand and was riffling through the pages. He looked up briefly at Irving.

“Irving, booby...I am about to strike a blow for democracy! I don’t know how I’m goin’ to—but I’m goin’ to. You and me, booby,” he said, looking down at the phone book. “You and me. This moment is goin’ down in history right alongside of Washington crossing the Delaware, the invasion of Normandy, and the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment!”