Collected Short Fiction, page 528
“But he didn’t blow his brains out.”
“Not at the start. He looked around at the world—this was 1959, back in the Nightmare Years—and decided that the world was going to hell in a handbasket, that unless someone did something and did it fast America and Europe and Asia were going to be smoking slagheaps in a year or two. But he believed humanity didn’t want to blow itself up. He wondered what would happen if he used his machine to eliminate some of the stumbling-blocks on the way to peace. Yes, I know, you look shocked. You ought to be.
“McDermott invented all sorts of rationalizations. Said that it didn’t matter, that the men he had picked out would undoubtedly be dead in the atomic war soon enough, but why should the rest of us be doomed too? He had all sorts of fancy hairsplitting excuses for what he was thinking of doing. But finally he realized that he didn’t have any choice. He worked out the equations, saw the backlash effect, and knew that he could do one of three things: smash the machine, use it on someone else, or sit back and wait for the machine to kill him.
“He used the machine. Then he let it recharge and the following month he used it again. And the month after that. You know who his victims were. Sometimes he guessed wrong. But generally he was removing the obstructions. When the U. N. Security Council killed the veto clause, he knew he was on the track, and so was the world. He kept at it.
“He kept at it for almost five years, until he couldn’t bear playing God any more. He knew that he was killing men who might be sincere, who might honestly think they were serving mankind even while they were helping to destroy it—and finally he couldn’t take it any more. But he had seen it happening to him for several years, and he’d been looking for a man to take over his work. He found him, told the whole story, handed over the machine—and put a bullet through his own head.”
“And then it was Halsey’s turn to run the machine?”
Waters nodded. “And after four and a half years Halsey jumped out of a twenty-story window, after he had handed the machine on to Blake. Blake lasted three years before it finished him. By that time, he had found his successor. Me.”
“You’ve had it the longest, haven’t you?”
“Ten years,” Waters said in that oddly thin voice of his. “I’ve seen the world become a safe place, a place where you can plan your life a month ahead without having to wonder if you’ll be blown up before then. So I know the machine is justified. But there are some powers men aren’t ready to handle, and this is one of them. I’ve been holding lightning in my hand for ten years. I can’t go on any longer.”
Waters fell silent. Sam thought he could hear the loud thumping of his own heart in the silence. Suddenly, perhaps minutes later, the implications of what Waters had just said sank in.
He could not go on any longer.
Sam said, “Why did you ask me to interview you?”
“I saw my time coming,” Waters said. “I knew I couldn’t hold on any longer, that next month or the month after I might jump out a window or cut my throat or just let the backlash from the machine kill me. So I sent for you. I’ve been watching you almost a year, Sam. I knew all about that chart you’ve been keeping.”
“How—”
“It doesn’t matter how. I knew. So I sent for you, and you came. And I showed you the machine, Sam. I used it on weeds and beetles and I left you to draw your own conclusions. I was taking a risk. I said there was a patent on the machine, but there isn’t; I couldn’t dare patent it, even if I knew how it worked. And if you had written a story about me and published it, I would have had to destroy the machine and then myself.”
“But I didn’t write the story.”
“No. You came after me, found my trail and followed me across the country. I had hoped you’d do that, Sam. Because you’re the one. The one I want to follow me.”
The words cut like whiplashes into Sam’s mind. He had seen them coming, but he had tried to pretend to himself that he was wrong.
Now there was no need to pretend.
Sam tried to speak. No words came out.
Waters smiled wearily. “The job will kill you, Sam, the way it’s killed all the rest of us. You may last a year, or ten years like me, or maybe more than that. But eventually the job will kill you. Only someone has to do it, for the good of all the rest, and I’ve picked you. I’m sorry, Sam. I really am.”
The big man rose, walked unsteadily to the closet, and took a book from his suitcase. “This is McDermott’s notebook, Sam. It’ll tell you all you need to know about using the machine. You understand what might happen to you if anyone ever gets a look at this notebook.”
Sam said hoarsely, “And you—are you—going to—”
“To die?” Waters chuckled. “I’m dead already, Sam. I’ve had poison in me ever since I took that drink, half an hour ago. Slow poison. I’m going to go to sleep now. I won’t wake up. I’m taking a mountain off my shoulders and putting it on yours, and for the first time in ten years I know what peace is.”
“You haven’t even asked me if I agree,” Sam said.
“I’m not going to ask you. Sit here for a while and think it over. A quick decision would be wrong. I’m asking you to become the guardian of mankind, Sam. But I’m also asking you to become a monster.”
“A guardian devil,” Sam said.
Waters nodded. “You hate taking life. Your soul rebels at this whole terrible idea. Which means you’re just like McDermott and Halsey and Blake and me. You’re the only sort of man who could do the job.”
Sam did not reply. Waters stretched out on the bed, his feet dangling over the edge. He kicked off his shoes, gave a little sigh of comfort, and closed his eyes. Within minutes his breath was rising and falling with calm, metronomic regularity.
The sleep of a man at peace, Sam thought.
It was late in the day, and the late-afternoon fog was swirling in, bringing with it the gray, windy twilight. Sam shivered involuntarily. He looked at the sleeping, peaceful Waters, then at the machine on the night-table, then down at the dingy carpet.
He had been handpicked by the man now dying on the bed. Chosen to carry on the monstrous work of killing.
He saw the choices in front of him. He could open the window, hurl the machine eight stories to the street, and try to forget. Or he could take the machine, allow it to charge itself on whatever strange impulse from his mind it used to kill, and let it destroy him.
Or he could accept the dread mantle of McDermott and Halsey and Blake and Waters, become a remote-control assassin, striking down those he marked for death.
Sam tiptoed across the room and picked up the machine. It was oddly light, and cold to the touch. Suddenly, he smiled. For ten years he had been an obscure staffman for an obscure telefax sheet. Now he could change the world, guide it, aid it.
The burden would crush him, eventually. But it was worth it to shoulder the load even for a little while—a year, five years, a decade.
He put the machine under one arm, McDermott’s notebook under the other.
The power was his: to shape the world, to nudge it along its destined path.
His ultimate victim would be himself, in that future day when he could no longer abide the power that was his. But before that day came, he hoped, he would have used his power wisely and well.
Clutching the box tightly, he walked out into the fog-swept street. THE END
The Middle-Aged Rookie
Baseball seldom figures to make a bitter-sweet story. But here’s a wild tale that mixes mental power with Mickey Mantle-ism, and leaves you glad that you met
HE WAS a tired-looking, rumpled little man, about forty-five or so. And, though it had been thirty years since Dave Marks had first attended a ballgame at the immense stadium of the New York Yankees, this was the first time his feet had ever touched the turf on which the ballplayers trod.
It was a warm spring morning, and the air was fresh and clean. Marks, standing near the dugout staring up at the empty expanses of seats in the distant stands, wondered what it must feel like to park one back there.
He heard the sharp crack! of bat against ball, and glanced around suddenly to see a tanned youngster grinning broadly at the plate, and a white pellet vanishing into the unoccupied left-field bleachers.
“Good shot, kid!” shouted a raucous voice. “Let’s see another out there now!”
Marks watched as the man on the mound sent a slow floater spinning up to the plate. The youngster smiled confidently, tightened his grip on his bat, and lined the ball out to short. The boy in the field seemed to leap ten feet in the air to pull the drive in.
Suddenly Marks felt a rough hand tap him on the back. He turned and saw a tall, slab-jawed man in a baseball uniform looking down at him.
“Sorry, Pop. It doesn’t matter if your son’s trying out for the team or not—you can’t stay on the ballfield. It’s a matter of safety.”
Marks shook his head. “I don’t have a son,” he said. “I’m a bachelor.”
The other wrinkled his brows. “Okay, your nephew, then. Look, mister, these kids are trying out for a big-league team, and we just can’t have excess spectators on the field. Now, if you’d like to watch from the dugout—”
“You don’t understand,” Marks said. “I’m not here to watch.” He drew himself up proudly, and delivered the words he’d been waiting so long to say. “I’m here to try out for the New York Yankees!”
The man in the baseball uniform stood there, gaping, for a long moment, surveying Marks’ dumpy figure and balding head. His mouth moved slowly open and shut for a while, and then he managed to say, “Did I hear you right?”
“I said I’m here to try out for the team.” He fished in his jacket pocket, drew forth the tattered clipping from the sports pages. “Here’s the item, right here—it says that the Yankees will hold tryouts at the Stadium at 10 A.M. May 18, and that all local talent interested in a possible Yankees contract should report then.”
The other nodded slowly. “That’s right. We are looking for new ballplayers, and the tryout system’s a good way to find them. Why don’t you go home and send your nephew, Pop?”
“Listen,” Marks said patiently. “The clipping says nothing about age. I think I can play big-league ball, and you’ve got to give me at least a tryout. Are you the manager?”
“Uh-uh. I’m only the first-base coach. And I’m glad of it, too. With all the oddball things that go on here, I wouldn’t want his job. How old do you claim to be?”
“Forty-seven,” Dave said.
“Forty-seven,” the coach repeated incredulously. “And you want to play for the Yankees. Okay, Satchel Paige—come on over to the manager, and we’ll see if he’s crazy enough to let you show your stuff.”
It had actually started thirty years before, on a hot September afternoon in 1927. Dave Marks had been in the Stadium stands that day, a chubby, unathletic boy in his middle teens. The Senators were in town to take on the fearsome, pennant-bound Yankees, and it was a day to remember.
Dave recalled it clearly—how the Washington pitcher had stared down at the hulking figure at the plate, had chewed reflectively on his lump of tobacco, and had gone into his windup. The man at the plate had swung, with the astounding grace that seemed so improbable in such an awkward figure, and the ball had traveled on a clean, high arc into the far-off stands.
The crowd had exploded in wild approval, and baseball history had been made. Marks remembered how tears of happiness had rolled down his cheeks as the immortal Bambino trotted around the bases, moving with his clumsy, peculiar, mincing gait, and trod the plate for his sixtieth circuit blow of the season.
Sixty home runs! A matchless record, one of the milestones of athletic achievement. It was a stunning accomplishment, a record to stand for the ages.
And young Dave Marks, who had never swung a baseball bat in his life, listened to the ecstatic screaming of the crowd and vowed that the first man to hit sixty-one homers was going to be—Dave Marks.
It seemed unlikely. Dave’s athletic experience had been strictly vicarious up till then. A mild, unassuming person even as a child, Dave had never dared to join the other boys in their games, and had always remained withdrawn and shy. He made up for this by becoming an avid follower of the Yankees, that majestic team that so dominated the league.
By identifying himself with the exploits of the all-powerful Bronx ballclub, Dave was able to maintain his own self-respect. Each year, as the Yankees rolled remorselessly on to their inevitable pennant, Dave regarded it as a sort of personal achievement of his own. Each home run, each brilliant play, each tight-pitched game added privately to his own stature.
And then the moment of the Babe’s sixtieth home run, and Dave reached a new and disturbing realization. His happiness, he now saw, was an empty sham; the Yankees might be a great ball team, but Dave Marks himself was a totally worthless and insignificant person. That final home-run blast peeled the scales away, showed him that he himself had done nothing in life and probably would never do anything.
That was when he made his vow. He would do something; he would leave his mark. He would become a major-league ballplayer, and he would break the Babe’s seemingly immortal record.
It took some doing. That day he had gone home inflamed with his new ambition, and the next afternoon he had taken part in his first baseball game. It was an experience he would long remember.
They put him in right field, where he couldn’t do much damage defensively, and luckily no balls came out there in the first few innings. In the second, Dave came to bat.
It was an inauspicious start for a would-be Babe Ruth. He grasped the bat at the wrong end and uncertainly took his position standing on the plate.
“Whatinell you think you’re doin’ ?” the catcher demanded.
Dave looked at him in embarrassment and finally had confessed that he did not know how to bat. After a short pause for astonishment, the catcher put him in the batter’s box and told him which end of the bat to swing.
The first pitch came down, at blinding speed. Dave swung. Dave missed. The second likewise, and the third. That concluded Dave’s active baseball career.
He realized he would have to fulfill his vow at some later date. He set his dreams aside for a while, and concentrated on the more serious business of getting a commercial degree and finding a good, secure job as a bookkeeper—the sort of job that would allow him leisure for reflection and planning.
Dave studied handbooks and took courses at gyms, but after a short while it became obvious that he did not have the physical equipment to produce a squib single, let alone a four-master. He seemed doomed to a life as a nonentity—one of the shadowy little men who skirt the edges of existence and are rapidly forgotten.
During the Thirties, he watched anxiously as first one, then another athlete approached the magic number of sixty, without getting there. Hack Wilson pounded out 56, one year; Jimmy Foxx and Mel Ott cleared fifty. Hank Greenberg gave the recordbook a terrific struggle before stopping short at 58.
In 1947—the year Ralph Kiner and Johnny Mize hit 51 homers each—Dave Marks struck his method. Twenty years had passed, but he had not given up. And now he had it.
He took up the studies of oriental philosophy, learned of the workings of yoga and of Hindu mysticism. He practiced strange, ascetic disciplines in the privacy of his rented room in the Bronx, in the shadow of the great stadium. He drew near his goal.
Five years passed, as he painstakingly acquired mental strength to compensate for his lack of physical power. He concentrated his faculties on the attainment of one goal—the ability to hit sixty-one home runs in big-league competition. It was more than a vow, by now; it was an obsession.
And one day, five years later, he felt a sudden surge of power run shiveringly through him, as if he had attached himself to a transformer that poured tremendous voltage into him. The power was his, now. He was graying, spreading around the middle, and as unimpressive as always.
But now he was sure. It was in his grasp.
When the notice came for tryout time, he reported to the ballpark.
Yankee Manager Lew Yancey was a small, wizened man with a squint in one of his faded blue eyes. He stared unbelievingly at Marks, then to the coach, who shrugged.
“He says he’s here to try out, Lew.”
“Mumph. What kind of joke is this?”
“I think I can help your team,” Marks said firmly, surprising even himself. “I demand to be tried out.”
The manager squinted his eye up until it was hidden almost completely by the folds of skin. “Tryout, eh? Don’t recognize you. You been around?”
“No, sir. I’ve never played in Organized Baseball.”
“Not at all? What kind of experience do you have, then?”
“None,” Dave said blandly. “I’ve never played a game of baseball in my life.”
The manager froze, speechless. He took off his cap and stared at it uneasily, groping for words. Finally he said, “One of us is crazy, friend. And I’m not at all sure which one. Maybe both.”
“Look,” Dave said in annoyance. “I’m merely asking for a tryout. I don’t think you are being fair. For all you know, I might be the greatest power hitter the game has ever seen.”
Yancey let his cap drop to the ground. He stared at it for a moment, unable to speak. The coach stepped up and said, “Look, mister, why don’t you take the subway down to Brooklyn? We’ll even pay your fare. They thrive on screwballs down there. We prefer a more conservative kind of ball.”
“No,” Yancey said, recovering his voice. “Let’s give him his tryout. Then we can get rid of him legally. We’ve wasted too much time on this crazy business as it is.” He turned to Dave. “Okay, slugger. Get into your uniform and pick up a couple of bats.”
Dave was taken aback. “Uniform? But I don’t—”
“No uniform, eh? Not even spikes?”
