The Essential Ellison Part 22

At last she was unafraid, and it was so good, so very good not to be afraid.

"When inward life dries up, when feeling decreases and apathy increases, when one cannot affect or even genuinely touch another person, violence flares up as a daimonic necessity for contact, a mad drive forcing touch in the most direct way possible."

-Rollo May, Love and Will

VA STAB OFMERRIMENT.

"I see myself as a cross between Jiminy Cricket and Zorro."

"The Harlan Ellison Interview" by Gary G. Groth, The Comics Journal #53, Winter 1980 Harlan is a funny man.

Anybody who has attended one of his college lectures, or seen him as an amusing guest on television talk shows, or heard his manic repartee with the " group mind" as the host of KPFK-FM's "Mike Hodel's Hour 25," in Los Angeles, will tell you that Harlan is, unquestionably, a funny man.

His essays, book introductions, columns, story notes and myriad articles on myriad subjects fairly burst at the seams with bon mots, deadpan acerbic wit, and unstoppered affection for verbal slapstick. Yet Harlan's reputation in fiction is seldom linked to his humorous efforts. Despite the success of stories such as "Santa Claus vs. S.P.I.D.E.R.," "I'm Looking for Kadak," "How's the Night Life on Cissalda?," "Prince Myshkin, and Hold the Relish" and "The Toad Prince or, s.e.x-QUEEN OF THE MARTIAN PLEASURE-DOMES!," all of which are deliberately comic, they have done little to make a dent in his reputation as a writer of "serious" bent.

For it is the impact of Harlan's serious work that makes it stick in the mind, despite the leavenings of humor which provide relief from the tensions of even his most demanding stories. These flashes of wit and irony, these brief struts of grim satire, are so much a part of the serious stories that we tend to forget how hilarious Harlan can be when he wants to be.

The stories and gags featured here to ill.u.s.trate Harlan's comedic turn do not include his longer and sometimes gentler works. Instead, you will find twelve mostly short pieces that come closer to producing the effect one gets from watching or hearing him perform on stage before an audience. They also reveal something of his great fondness for the work of writers such as Thurber, Leac.o.c.k and De Vries, Lafferty, Wodehouse and Cuppy.

"The Voice in the Garden" (1967), "Erotophobia" (1971), "Mom" (1976), "Ecowareness" (1974), "The Outpost Undiscovered By Tourists" (1981), "Dept. of 'What Was the Question?' Dept." (1974) and "Dept. of 'Trivial Pursuit' Dept." (1972-1986) show something of the range and thrust of Harlan's humor. They can be described respectively as: a genre one-liner; a ribald interlude; a tragicomedy of recognition; a parable, told out of frustration and weary disillusionment, manifesting an old old pain; an antic retelling of the Nativity, perhaps a lot closer to the way it would go down today; a New Yorker-style squib; and five compet.i.tion entries. And while the delivery is sometimes machine-gun rapid, aimed at the funny bone, and set to the accompaniment of a rim-shot, there is also the hollow laugh followed by the telling silence.

"Prince Myshkin, and Hold the Relish" (1982) is the sort of vivid thumbnail sketch of LA night-life everyone deserves-provided they can dig the story. As Harlan says: "If anyone ever asks you to sum up what an Ellison story is, with just one example...this is it." Another Ellison Experiment, this was a story originally intended to be heard, not read. Harlan's audio version is a tour de force. It was only after hundreds of ca.s.settes had been sold that his readers demanded he put it into print. Here, then, is the essence of the eternal liaison between male and female, related at 120 mph by the Author.

"Arthur [Byron Cover] looked at me seriously and said, 'You know, you're a very weird person.'"

Introduction to "Shoppe Keeper," SHATTERDAY, Houghton Mifflin, 1980 The Voice In The Garden After the bomb, the last man on Earth wandered through the rubble of Cleveland, Ohio. It had never been a particularly jaunty town, nor even remotely appealing to aesthetes. But now, like Detroit and Rangoon and Minsk and Yokohama, it had been reduced to a petulantly shattered Tinkertoy of lath and brickwork, twisted steel girders and melted gla.s.s.

As he picked his way around the dust heap that had been the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in what had been Public Square, his eyes red-rimmed from crying at the loss of humanity, he saw something he had not seen in Beirut or Venice or London. He saw the movement of another human being.

Celestial choruses sang in his head as he broke into a run across the pitted and blasted remains of Euclid Avenue. It was a woman!

She saw him, and in the very posture of her body, he knew she was filled with the same glory he felt. She knew! She began running toward him, her arms outstretched. They seemed to swim toward each other in a ballet of slow motion. He stumbled once, but got to his feet quickly and went on. They detoured around the crumpled tin of tortured metal that had once been automobiles, and met in front of the shattered carca.s.s that was, in a time seemingly eons before, The May Co.

"I'm the last man!" he blurted. He could not keep the words inside, they fought to fill the air. "I'm the last, the very last. They're all dead, everyone but us. I'm the last man, and you're the last woman, and we'll have to mate and start the race again, and this time we'll do it right. No war, no hate, no bigotry, nothing but goodness...we'll do it, you'll see, it'll be fine, a bright new shining world from all this death and terror."

Her face was lit with an ethereal beauty, even beneath the soot and deprivation. "Yes, yes," she said. "It'll be just like that. I love you, because we're all there is left to love, each other."

He touched her hand. "I love you. What is your name?"

She flushed slightly. "Eve," she said. "What's yours?"

"Bernie," he said.

Erotophobia It began with my mother, Nate Kleiser said, hating every word of it. The ignominy of it, oh. Not only here in a psychiatrist's office, not only lying on a forest green Naugahyde chaise, not only suffering every literate man's embarra.s.sment at speaking lines Roth had portnoyzed into the ground, but to be speaking those lines to a female shrink, to be speaking them with choked-up emotion, to have started with mother...

Do you play with yourself much? asked Herr Doktor Felicia Bremmer, graduate of the Spitzbergen Kopfschmerzenklinik, 38-21-35.

I don't have to, Doctor, that's the trouble, Nate said. His head was beginning to ache, just behind the right eye. He heard the fingers of his left hand, quite independent of the directions of his brain, scrabbling at the forest green Naugahyde.

Perhaps you'd better go over that part again, Mr. Kleiser, Dr. Bremmer urged him. I'm not entirely sure I have the problem.

Okay, look, it's like this, for instance. He tried to sit up and she placed a soft, but firm hand on his chest and he lay still. Your reputation for handling uh, well, s.e.x-oriented problems like mine is widespread, right? Right. So I get on a plane in Toronto, and I fly down here to Chicago to see you. So on the plane there're these two stewardesses, nice girls, and first this one, Chrissy Something, she offers me pillows and little bootie-socks, and then her partner, Jora Lee, she brings me a big gla.s.s of champagne- before anybody else gets served anything-and when she leans down to put it on the tray-table, she bites me on the ear. So in about ten minutes the two of them are fighting over me in the galley, and everybody's pushing those service b.u.t.tons to call the stewardesses, and they aren't coming out of there except every few minutes to ask me do I like my steak well-done or rare, or offering me little c.o.c.ktail mints...it really gets embarra.s.sing.

And it goes on like that an through the d.a.m.ned flight, and they're just about on the verge of using those demonstration oxygen masks with the plastic air hoses to strangle one another, just to see which one will layover with me in Chicago, and I don't think I'm going to get off the G.o.ddam plane in one piece, when we come in to land and they still haven't served anybody, and the whole plane wants to kill me except they love me too much, and I know I'm going to have to fight my way down the ramp, and the only thing that saved me was a little black kid who was with his mother-who kept winking at me- puked an over the seat and the aisle and everything else, and I slipped past while they were trying to pour coffee grounds on it to kill the smell, and I got away.

Dr. Bremmer shook her head slowly. That's just terrible. Terrible.

Terrible? h.e.l.l, it's frightening. If you want to know the simple truth, Doctor, I'm scared out of my mind I'm going to be loved to death!

Well...Dr. Bremmer said. Isn't that a bit, just a bit overdramatic?

What are you doing, Doctor?

Nothing, Mr. Kleiser, not a thing. Just concentrate on the problem.

Concentrate? You've got to be kidding, Doctor; I can't think of anything else/ Thank G.o.d I make my living as a cartoonist. I can mail my work in; if I had to actually go out and mix with people, it'd be an over for me in ten minutes.

I think you may be overstating, Mr. Kleiser.

Sure, easy enough for you to say, you aren't me. But it's been like this since I was a kid. I was always the most popular one in the cla.s.s, the first one picked at dances when it was ladies' choice, the one both teams wanted when we played choose-up baseball or red rover, most likely to succeed, straight A's the teachers all wanted my body...

In college, added Dr. Bremmer.

College, h.e.l.l : in kindergarten/ I'm the only male I know who was forcibly raped in a girl's locker room before he was out of the fourth grade! You just don't understand, dammit! I'm going to be loved...to...death!

Dr. Bremmer tried to quiet him. Nate's voice had grown frantic, strident.

Fear of being watched, of people wanting to hurt you, even -in extreme cases of advanced paranoia-people plotting to kill you...yes, that problem I know quite well, Mr. Kleiser. Paranoia. It's terribly common, particularly these days. But what you're telling me, well, that's something different, something exactly opposite. I've never encountered it. I wouldn't even know what to call it.

Nate closed his eyes.

Neither do I, he said.

Perhaps Erotophobia, fear of being loved, she said.

Dynamite. Now we have a name for it. A lot of good that does me. Nomenclature isn't my problem, s.e.x is!

Mr. Kleiser, she said softly, you can't expect results instantaneously. You'll have to cooperate with me.

Cooperate? h.e.l.l, I shouldn't even be lying on this sofa with you!

Now, please, take it easy, Mr. Kleiser.

What are you doing?

Nothing.

You're unb.u.t.toning your blouse. I can hear the fabric. I know that sound!

Nate sat straight up on the sofa, throwing the psychiatrist's leg off his lower body. She was half undressed; had, in fact, cleverly managed to rid herself of miniskirt, half-slip, shoes, panty hose and bikini briefs without his knowing it. Nate knew instantly that he had met a master of the art. In a pitched panic he bolted from the forest green Naugahyde chaise, and lurched toward the door.

Dr. Bremmer hurled herself sidewise, hanging half off the chaise. Her arm swept the desk, knocked files of Psychology Today to the floor. She grabbed and connected.

Jeeezus! screamed Nate, doubling over.

Oops, sorry, darling, Dr. Bremmer murmured, scrabbling for him. He was in flight. She crawled after him, got her arms locked around one ankle. Take me with you, please, please, do with me what you will, hurt me, use me, abuse me, I love you, I love you! Hopelessly, desperately, completely.

Oh my G.o.d oh my G.o.d...mumbled Nate, clinging to the doork.n.o.b in an effort to keep his balance. Then the office door opened inward, catching Nate in the shoulder, knocking him off-balance so he stepped on the psychiatrist's back. Yes, yes, she said huskily, yes, dominate me, hurt me, I've denied myself all these years, I never knew what it was to love a man like you, take me, the Story of 0, yes...yes...

The open door now admitted Dr. Bremmer's nurse, a pimply woman of fifty who had watched Nate when he had waited in the reception room for the psychiatrist to see him. Her eyes widened as she saw the supine Dr. Bremmer and in a moment she was pulling the half-naked psychiatrist's arms from around Nate's ankle.

Before she could join in, before her astonishment could turn to l.u.s.t, Nate hurtled through the door, caromed off two walls, hit the outer office door at a dead run and barely managed to get through before shattering the gla.s.s panel.

He was down the hall, into the self-service elevator, and safe before the two women could get to their feet. Nate Kleiser knew what fate befell those who were not fleet of foot.

As he ran down the street toward Michigan Avenue, he heard screaming and, looking up, saw Dr. Bremmer, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s now bare, hanging from the eighteenth story window. He could barely make out what she was yelling.

If you leave me I'll kill myself!

Some people have alternatives, Nate thought, and ran.

Having gone straight from O'Hare Airport to Dr. Bremmer's office, Nate had no hotel in which to hide. It was, in fact, the first time in six years he had been out of his isolated Toronto house for more than two hours. He needed a drink desperately. Imps of h.e.l.l prodded the soft optic chiasma with fondue forks.

A neon Budweiser sign and a dark-thick doorway presented themselves, and he slipped inside. He was lucky. It was eye-of-the-hurricane hour between the closet alcoholics who needed three swift ones straight up before they could face the crabgra.s.s and waiting ladies in Wilmette, and the bar vampires who hung by their curled toes from the bar-rail till closing time. The bar was deserted, nearly deserted.

He slid into a shadowed booth, blew out the candle in its metal sh.e.l.l, and waited for the waiter, hoping it would not be a waitress. It was a waitress. Pouf skirt, net-mesh opera hose, spike heels, quiet good taste.

He hid his face and ordered three doubles of McCormick bourbon, no water, no rocks, no gla.s.s if possible, just pour them in my hands. She stared at him for a long moment, started to say Don't I know you from some And Nate croaked in a frog-like, hideous voice, You couldn't possibly, I just got out of Dannemora, serving eighteen-to-life for raping, killing and eating a choir boy, not necessarily in that order.

She fled, and the bartender brought the drinks, standing well back from the booth as Nate slid the bills across the table.

It went that way for the next three and a half hours, till Nate's buzz was sufficiently nestled-in to permit conversation with the odd little man whose yogurt-soft eyes preceded him into the booth. Nate found himself unburdening his woes, and the little man, who matched him drink for drink, offered various unworkable solutions.

Look, I like you, said the little man, so I'll try and help you out. See, I'm something of a lay a.n.a.lyst myself. I've done just a whole lot of reading. Fromm, Freud, Bettelheim, Kahlil Gibran, that whole crowd. Now what I'd say is this: see, everybody has both male and female in him, you know what I mean? I think the female part of you is trying to a.s.sert itself. Have you ever thought of having sloppy s.e.x with a man? Nate felt a hand crawling up his thigh. It was impossible. n.o.body had arms that long, to reach across a booth, under a table. He yelped and looked down. The waitress was crawling around down there on hands and knees.

Nate bolted from the bar and didn't stop till he'd reached a crowded intersection.

When the light changed, and Nate stopped on the curb, he knew he was in trouble. It was State Street, and the clubs were letting out.

They chased him fifteen blocks and he lost the last two women-a gorgeous black girl with an enormous natural and a fiftyish matron who kept trying to use her Emba Cerulean mink stole to la.s.so him-in a pitfall-riddled construction site. He heard their shrieks as they dropped from sight, but he didn't slow down.

There was a motor hotel on the comer of Ohio and the Sh.o.r.e Drive and he pulled the tattered remnants of his clothing about him, making sure his wallet with the credit cards had not been lost when the Girl Scouts-Girl Scouts!?!-had ripped the arms off his jacket.

Inside, safe for the moment, he registered. The desk clerk, a whispery young man with white-on-white shirt, white-on-white tie, white-on-white face, looked at him with undisguised affection and offered the key to the bridal suite.

A single, away from everything, Nate insisted, and went up in the elevator, leaving the desk clerk breathing heavily.

The room was quiet and small. Nate pulled the drapes, locked the door, wedged a chair under the doork.n.o.b, and slumped on the edge of the bed. After a while he felt moderately sober, moderately relaxed, and thoroughly sick to his stomach. He undressed slowly and took a hot shower.

Soaping himself, he thought. It was a good place to think, in the shower.

Life had been at least supportable in Toronto. He'd devised a way to live. It was a ghastly way to live, but it was at least, well, supportable. But after Lois and the three bottles of Dexamils, he knew he had to do something, to try and arrest this hideous condition that had been getting worse and worse as he'd grown older. Only twenty-seven years old, and my life is hopeless, he thonght. He'd thought that every year since he had reached p.u.b.erty.

Then he'd heard of Dr. Bremmer and he'd been dubious. She was a woman, after all. But desperation knows no rationalizing deterrents, and he'd long distanced an appointment. Now that had gone bananas, and he was thoroughly peeled. It was getting worse. The trip to Chicago had been a lousy idea. Now what will I do? How the h.e.l.l will I get safely out of this enemy territory?

He turned and looked in the full-length mirror.

He saw himself naked.

He did have a good body.

And he did have a pleasant face, really quite a handsome and compelling face.

As he watched, his image began to shimmer and flow. His hair grew longer, more blond, even blonde, and b.r.e.a.s.t.s began to bulge as the hair vanished from his body. The image altered, as he stared, into the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The words of the little man in the bar skimmed across his mind and were gone in an instant, lost in the adoration he felt for the fantastic creature in the mirror.

I love you, he said, finding it difficult to speak coherently.

He reached for her, and she drew back. Don't you put a hand on me you lecher, she said.

But I love you...I really love you!

I'm not that kind of a girl, she said.

But I don't just want your body, Nate said. There was an imploring note in his voice. I want to love you, to have you with me all my life. I can make a good home for you. I've been waiting for you all my life.

Well...she said, maybe we can just talk a while. But keep your hands to yourself.

I will, Nate promised, I will. I'll keep my hands to myself.

And they lived happily ever after.

Mom In the living room the family was eating. The card tables had been set up and tante Elka had laid out her famous tiny meat knishes, the matzoh meal pancakes, the deli trays of corned beef, pastrami, chopped liver, and potato salad; the lox and cream cheese, cold kippers (boned, for G.o.d's sake, it must have taken an eternity to do it) and smoked whitefish; stacks of corn rye and a nice pumpernickel; cole slaw, chicken salad; and flotillas of cuc.u.mber pickles.

In the deserted kitchen, Lance Goldfein sat smoking a cigarette, legs crossed at the ankles, staring out the window at the back porch. He jumped suddenly as a voice spoke directly above him.

"I'm gone fifteen minutes only, and already the stink of cigarettes. Feh."

He looked around. He was alone in the kitchen.

"It wasn't altogether the most sensational service I've ever attended, if I can be frank with you. Sadie Fertel's, now that was a service."

He looked around again, more closely this time. He was still alone in the kitchen. There was no one on the back porch. He turned around completely, but the swinging door to the dining room, and the living room beyond, was firmly closed. He was alone in the kitchen. Lance Goldfein had just returned from the funeral of his mother, and he was alone, thinking, brooding, in the kitchen of the house he now owned.