C. M. Kornbluth, page 50
Yet the text says she is a Ph.D. in astrophysics! She is plainly a narcissistic she-monster, for every hair of every wisp is in its calculated place and her garb is tight where tight and loose where loose to the predetermined thousandth of an inch at the cost of nightly toil, mad self-love and abnegation of all other activity. Yet the text calls her casual, vital, warm!
She was the girl whom Richard wanted, poor fellow, and he wanted lots of her—blonde, red-haired, brunette, tanned and pale, playtime, daytime and gay-time, tall and rangy, cute and cuddly, the sophisticate who learns in the back pages that brains are not enough, the naïve thing who turns out in the back pages to have brains enough to save the day.
My readers have of course all seen through the pitiful sham, and will feel only amused compassion for Richard.
Through grammar school and high school Richard met several dozen versions of The Girl, and for each one he carefully thought out the witty opening phrase of a campaign that would end only with her as helpless putty in his hands. It happened, however, that he never got to speak the carefully-composed phrase. He would choke up; or the girl would say
“Well, dig you later” and breeze off wobbling tantalizingly; or a football player would roar up out of nowhere and slap him on the back; or the class bell would ring—always something.
That was the way it went through college too, except for one evening when he got carried away and attempted near-assault on a field-hockey-playing version ofThe Girl. They patched him up at the infirmary and believed him when he said he had been hit by a runaway three-quarter-ton truck.
After his bones had knit Richard said to himself: “The hell with this noise. Charm I do not have. Muscle too I lack. What I do possess, some knowledge of biochemistry, seems irrelevant to the problem. Or—or is it?” For Richard was majoring in biochemistry because Of an aptitude test he had taken, in the course of which his punch card had been put into a machine upside-down.
Richard leaped to his feet and cried “Thalassarsince his talent for languages was almost as slight as his aptitude for biochemistry. Then, more collectedly, he schemed: “The girl shall be mine through the science which I am learning, and specifically through those certain pills and fluids of which one has heard!”
Forthwith he plunged into a reading program to establish the basis for his research. The first thing he learned in his quest for what are euphemistically called “love philtres” was the discouraging fact that there are no such things, vulgar superstition to the contrary notwithstanding. Such diverse substances as cabbage juice, powdered mandrake, muscatel wine, oysters on the half-shell, and frog spawn have had their vogues, he learned, but proved to have no effect except an imaginary one. The notorious Spanish Fly, he discovered, is about as effective a love potion as a kick in the stomach, which is to say not very.
Richard concluded his first week of reading by slamming his books shut, hurling them into the corner of his dormitory room and stalking with agitation out into the campus night. “Thunderation!” he growled.
“I’m going to have to start from scratch and invent this whole science in the lab with my own two hands!” From this the reader may gauge the depths of his determination.
After that it was no unusual thing to see the lights burning late in the biochemistry building, or to behold a single shadow moving busily against the drawn blind, ever pouring, mixing, distilling, titrating, centrifuging. “A good lad, Hanbury,” his professors took to telling one another. “Pity he’s such a gargoyle.”
It will be a little difficult for the lay reader to follow the ensuing passage without the utmost concentration, so the author requests that the television set be turned off, the mind be cleared, the lamp adjusted to shine over the left shoulder without glare and the feet slightly elevated on a stool or hassock to promote a stimulating flow of blood to the brain.
Richard began his attempts at synthesis of an aphrodisiac by hooking two benzene rings symmetrically to one end of a long-chain hydrocarbon, mainly because the molecular diagram of this compound looked reasonably suggestive. He found, however, that it was instantly toxic to the laboratory hamsters even though it made a fair fuel for his motor scooter, and so was forced to abandon this line. Next he isolated the congenerics of muscatel wine, that is, the trace substances responsible for muscatel’s peculiar flavor, using in the process several gallons of the stuff. His attempt to win the radium of truth from the pitchblende of folklore was a failure. The isolated congenerics proved to be a malodorous sludge which caused the hamsters to turn blue and die as if relieved to have done with the awful taste in their little mouths; also, his heavy purchases at the liquor shop gained him an undeserved reputation as a wino which almost resulted in his expulsion from the college.
But as we learn from the illustrious histories of Robert the Bruce, Thomas the Dewey and Adlai the Stevenson, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.” Richard did, and by catalyzing hexylmethyldiethylstilbestrol in the presence of, oddly enough, tri-tri-tri-ethylmermanotic acid he precipitated two five-grain tablets, each one stamped INSTANT LUST.
Obviously success was his at last, and obviously there was no question of testing the pills on a hamster; they were too precious. For days he went about the campus absently juggling his pills in his hand, his eye roving from blonde to brunette to redhead. All unaware, they paraded for him in their youth and beauty.
As if by inspiration the answer came to him after a pleasant week spent in the first eliminations, the finals, and the semi-finals. In a blow the two campus queens (they knew it not) who were vying for his dear smile were swept aside and undone. Studs Flanagan would be his choice.
At first blush this would appear an odd choice, for Studs was moon-faced, stringy-haired, bony of figure and awkward of movement. Studs proceeding along the gravel walks of the campus reminded students from the great Dakota wheat fields of a steam thresher in full career across the golden harvest bounty. Studs appropriately was in economics. Economics is known as “the dismal science,” and it seemed to suit her. Her social life consisted of arguing bitterly with other economics majors about the rediscount rate and the validity of bat-guano tonnage importations as an index of agricultural prosperity.
Start small, a little voice had told Richard; that was why he chose Studs to be the first to taste his pills. Were he suddenly to become the adored one of a reigning campus queen, there would be no end of talk. He could not immediately afford the luxury of a great beauty; he would have to start small—and who smaller than Studs?—and work his way up while people slowly got used to the idea of him as a successful lover.
He hailed Studs one afternoon at the co-op; she was alone and reading gloomily; untasted cocoa stood before her. “Hi,” said Richard, his throat sealed almost shut by globus hystericus. “Wanted to talk to you about the bat-guano situation.”
She eyed him coldly. “What about it?”
“Well, the effects of synthetic fertilizer, ah, man-made guano so to speak—I’m in biochem, you know—isn’t that Professor Guano—I mean Granotto—over there?”
She looked over there; splash-splash went the two little pills into her cocoa. She looked back. “No,” she said.
“Have your cocoa,” he invited her largely.
“Thanks,” she said satirically, and sipped. “Tastes odd,” she said, and took a larger gulp, rolled it unattractively around her mouth, and swallowed. Richard sat back complacently waiting for it to begin.
It began. His pulses started to pound; his eyes popped a little; his heart convulsed in his breast. He was in love with Studs Flanagan.
“Watcha staring at me for?” she demanded. “You chemistry creeps been synthesizing cocaine again?”
“Studs,” he said hoarsely, “darling Studs, did anybody ever tell you that you have the most beautiful case of acne in the world?”
“Insults from a monkey like you I don’t have to take,” she snorted, and stalked out of the co-op. Richard Claxton Hanbury III trailed after her like an arbutus plant.
Eventually he persuaded her of his sincerity and they were married.
Everybody cautiously said that they were well matched. Sometimes Richard would see a tanned, long-limbed blonde lounging in a yellow convertible and suffer an anachronistic pang, but it did not happen often. He was happy in the dear presence of his Studs, and at all times profoundly grateful that he had not tried out the pills on a hamster.
Some things are practically impossible to explain, and that would have been one of them.
THE SILLY SEASON [F&SF, Fall 1950]
It was a hot summer afternoon in the Omaha bureau of the World Wireless Press Service, and the control bureau in New York kept nagging me for copy. But since it was a hot summer afternoon, there was no copy. A wrapup of local baseball had cleared about an hour ago, and that was that. Nothing but baseball happens in the summer. During the dog days, politicians are in the Maine woods fishing and boozing, burglars are too tired to burgle, and wives think it over and decide not to decapitate their husbands.
I pawed through some press releases. One sloppy stencil-duplicated sheet began: “Did you know that the lemonade way to summer comfort and health has been endorsed by leading physiotherapists from Maine to California? The Federated Lemon-Growers Association revealed today that a survey of 2,500 physiotherapists in 57 cities of more than 25,000 population disclosed that 87 per cent of them drink lemonade at least once a day between June and September, and that another 72 per cent not only drink the cooling and healthful beverage but actually prescribe it—”
Another note tapped out on the news circuit printer from New York:
“960M-HW kicker? ND SNST-NY.”
That was New York saying they needed a bright and sparkling lit-tle news item immediately—”soonest.” I went to the eastbound printer and punched out: “96NY-UPCMNG FU MINS-OM.”
The lemonade handout was hopeless; I dug into the stack again. The State University summer course was inviting the governor to at-tend its summer conference on aims and approaches hi adult secondary education. The Agricultural College wanted me to warn farmers that white-skinned hogs should be kept from the direct rays of the summer sun. The manager of a fifth-rate local pug sent a writeup of his boy and a couple of working press passes to his next bout in the Omaha Arena.
The Schwartz and White Bandage Company contributed a glossy eight-by-ten of a blonde in a bathing suit improvised from two S. & W. Redi-Dressings.
Accompanying text: “Pert starlet Miff McCoy is ready for any seaside emergency. That’s not only a darling swim suit she has on— it’s two standard all-purpose Redi-Dressing bandages made by the Schwartz and White Bandage Company of Omaha. If a broken rib results from too-strenuous beach athletics, Miff’s dress can supply the dressing.”
Yeah. The rest of the stack wasn’t even that good. I dumped them all in the circular file, and began to wrack my brains in spite of the heat.
I’d have to fake one, I decided. Unfortunately, there had been no big running silly season story so far this summer—no flying saucers, or monsters in the Florida Everglades, or chloroform bandits terrifying the city. If there had, I could have hopped on and faked a “with.” As it was, I’d have to fake a “lead,” which is harder and riskier.
The flying saucers? I couldn’t revive them; they’d been forgotten for years, except by newsmen. The giant turtle of Lake Huron had been quiet for years, too. If I started a chloroform bandit scare, every old maid in the state would back me up by swearing she heard the bandit trying to break in and smelled chloroform—but the cops wouldn’t like it. Strange messages from space received at the State University’s radar lab? That might do it. I put a sheet of copy paper hi the typewriter and sat, glaring at it and hating the silly season.
There was a slight reprieve—the Western Union tie-line printer by the desk dinged at me and its sickly-yellow bulb lit up. I tapped out:
“WW GA PLS,” and the machine began to eject yellow, gummed tape which told me this:
“wu co62-dpr collect—ft hicks ark aug 22 105p— worldwireless omaha—town marshal pinkney crawles died mysterious circumstances fishtripping ozark hamlet rush city today. rushers phoned hicksers
‘burned death shining domes appeared yesterweek.’ jeeping body hicksward. queried rush constable p.c. allenby learning ‘seven glassy domes each housesize clearing mile south town. rushers untouched, unapproached. crawles warned but touched and died burns.’ note desk—rush fonecall 1.85. shall i upfollow?—benson— fishtripping rushers hicksers yesterweek jeeping hicksward housesize 1.85 428p clr.
. .”
It was just what the doctor ordered. I typed an acknowledgment for the message and pounded out a story, fast. I punched it and started the tape wiggling through the eastbound transmitter before New York could send any more irked notes. The news circuit printer from New York clucked and began relaying my story immediately: “ww72 (kicker) fort hicks, arkansas, aug 22—(ww)—mysterious death today struck down a law enforcement officer in a tiny ozark mountain hamlet.
marshal pinkney crawles of fort hicks, arkansas, died of burns while on a fishing trip to the little village of rush city. terrified natives of rush city blamed the tragedy on what they called ‘shining domes.’ they said the so-called domes appeared in a clearing last week one mile south of town. there are seven of the mysterious objects —each one the size of a house. the inhabitants of rush city did not dare approach them. they warned the visiting marshal crawles—but he did not heed their warning. rush city’s constable p.c. allenby was a witness to the tragedy.
said he: — “there isn’t much to tell. marshal crawles just walked up to one of the domes and put his hand on it. there was a big plash, and when i could see again, he was burned to death.’ constable allenby is returning the body of marshal crawles to fort hicks. 602p220m”
That, I thought, should hold them for a while. I remembered Benson’s
“note desk” and put through a long distance call to Fort Hicks, person to person. The Omaha operator asked for Fort Hicks information, but there wasn’t any. The Fort Hicks operator asked whom she wanted.
Omaha finally admitted that we wanted to talk to Mr. Edwin C. Benson.
Fort Hicks figured out loud and then decided that Ed was probably at the police station if he hadn’t gone home for sup-per yet. She connected us with the police station, and I got Benson. He had a pleasant voice, not particularly backwoods Arkansas. I gave him some of the old oil about a fine dispatch, and a good, conscientious job, and so on. He took it with plenty of dry reserve, which was odd. Our rural stringers always ate that kind of stuff up. Where, I asked him, was he from?
“Fort Hicks,” he told me, “but I’ve moved around. I did the court-house beat in Little Rock—” I nearly laughed out loud at that, but the laugh died out as he went on—”rewrite for the A.P. in New Orleans, not to be bureau chief there but I didn’t like wire service work. Got an opening on the Chicago Trib desk. That didn’t last— they sent me to head up their Washington bureau. There I switched to the New York Tunes. They made me a war correspondent and I got hurt—back to Fort Hicks. I do some magazine writing now. Did you want a follow-up on the Rush City story?”
“Sure,” I told him weakly. “Give it a real ride—use your own judgment.
Do you think it’s a fake?”
“I saw Pink’s body a little while ago at the undertaker’s parlor, and I had a talk with Allenby, from Rush City. Pink got burned all right, and Allenby didn’t make his story up. Maybe somebody else did—he’s pretty dumb—but as far as I can tell, this is the real thing. I’ll keep the copy coming. Don’t forget about that dollar eighty-five phone call, will you?”
I told him I wouldn’t, and hung up. Mr. Edwin C. Benson had handed me quite a jolt. I wondered how badly he had been hurt, that he had been forced to abandon a brilliant news career and bury himself in the Ozarks.
Then there came a call from God, the board chairman of World Wireless. He was fishing in Canada, as all good board chairmen do during the silly season, but he had caught a news broadcast which used my Rush City story. He had a mobile phone in his trailer, and it was but the work of a moment to ring Omaha and louse up my carefully planned vacation schedules and rotation of night shifts. He wanted me to go down to Rush City and cover the story personally. I said yes and began trying to round up the rest of the staff. My night editor was sobered up by his wife and delivered to the bureau in fair shape. A telegrapher on vacation was reached at his summer resort and talked into checking out. I got a taxi company on the phone and told them to have a cross-country cab on the roof in an hour. I specified their best driver, and told them to give him maps of Arkansas.
Meanwhile, two “with domes” dispatches arrived from Benson and got moved on the wire. I monitored a couple of newscasts; the second one carried a story by another wire service on the domes—a pickup of our stuff, but they’d have their own men on the scene fast enough. I filled in the night editor, and went up to the roof for the cab.
The driver took off in the teeth of a gathering thunderstorm. We had to rise above it, and by the time we could get down to sight-pilot-age altitude, we were lost. We circled most of the night until the driver picked up a beacon he had on his charts at about 3:30 a.m. We landed at Fort Hicks as day was breaking, not on speaking terms.
Fort Hicks’ field clerk told me where Benson lived, and I walked there.
It was a white, frame house. A quiet, middle-aged woman let me in. She was his widowed sister, Mrs. McHenry. She got me some coffee and told me she had been up all night waiting for Edwin to come back from Rush City. He had started out about 8:00 p.m., and it was only a two-hour trip by car. She was worried. I tried to pump her about her brother, but she’d only say that he was the bright one of the family. She didn’t want to talk about his work as war correspondent. She did show me some of his magazine stuff—boy-and-girl stories in national weeklies. He seemed to sell one every couple of months.
