Confessions of a Crap Artist

12

On Friday, in spite of my sister cursing me out in her usual terms, I walked up the road to Inverness Park to Claudia Hambro’s house and attended the meeting of the group.

The house had been built in one of the canyons, halfway up the side, on one of the twisting roads too narrow for cars to pass. The outside of the house had a damp appearance, as if the wood, in spite of paint, had absorbed moisture from the ground and trees. Most of the houses built in the canyons never dried off. Ferns grew on all sides of the Hambro house, some of them so tall and so densely packed in against the sides of the house that they seemed to be consuming the house. Actually the house was big: three stories, with a railed porch running along one side of it. But the foliage caused it to blend back into the canyon wall and become indistinct. I saw several cans parked in front of it, on the shoulder of the road, and that was how I knew where to go.

Mrs. Hambno met me at the front door. She wore Chinese silk trousers and slippers, and her hair, this time, had been tied back in a black, shiny rope, like a pigtail; it hung all the way down to her waist. Her fingernails, I noticed, had been lacquered silver and were long and sharp. She had on quite a bit of make-up; her eyes seemed extra dank and enlarged, and her lips so red as to be almost brown.

Two glass doors, propped back with books, let me into the living room, which had walls and ceiling of black wood, with bookcases everywhere, and chairs and couches, with a fireplace at one end over which the Hambnos had hung a Chinese tapestry showing the branch of a tree and a mountain in the distance. Six on seven people sat about on the chains. As I walked around I noticed a tape recorder and a number of spools of tape, plus quite a few copies of Fate magazine, a magazine devoted to unusual scientific facts.

The people in the room seemed tense, and considering why we had come I could not blame them. Mrs. Hambro introduced me to them. One man, elderly, with rustic-looking clothes, worked at the hardware store in Point Reyes. A second man, she told me , was a carpenter from Inverness. The last man was almost as young as I, a blond-haired man weaning slacks and loafers, his hair cut short. According to Mrs. Hambro he owned a small dairy farm up the coast on the other side of the bay near Marshall. The other people were women. One, huge and well-dressed, in her middle fifties, was the wife of the man who owned the coffee shop in Inverness Park. Another was the wife of a technician from the RCA transmitter out on the Point. Another was the wife of a garage mechanic at Point Reyes Station.

After I had seated myself, a middle-aged couple entered. Mrs. Hambro told us that they had just moved to Inverness; the man was a landscape painter and his wife did dress alterations. They had come up to north west Marin County for reasons of health. That evidently completed the group; Mrs. Hambro closed the glass doors after the couple and seated herself in our midst.

The meeting began. The shades were pulled down and then Mrs. Hambro had the large well-dressed woman—whose name was Mrs. Bruce—lie down on the coach. Mrs. Hambro then hypnotized her and had her recall a number of past lives, for the purpose of establishing contact with an inner personality, that only rarely came out, which had the ability to receive information dealing with the evolved beings that control our lives. It was explained to me and the couple who had arrived after me that through this inner personality of Mrs. Bruce the group had been able to gather exact information on the plans that the beings had for the disposition of the Earth and its inhabitants.

After an interval of sighing and murmuring, Mrs. Bruce said that the evolved beings had definitely decided to put an end to the Earth, and that only those who had established contact with the genuine forces of the universe would be saved. They would be taken off Earth in a flying saucer a day or so before the conflagration. After that, Mrs. Bruce passed into a deep sleep, during which she snored. Finally Mrs. Hambro had her wake up by counting to ten and clapping her hands.

All of us were, naturally, quite keyed-up by this news. If I had had any doubts before, the actual sight—witnessed by myself—of this inner personality of Mrs. Bruce responding to direct transmissions from the superior evolved beings on other planets made up my mind. After all, I now had empirical verification, the best scientific evidence in the world.

The problem before the group was now to decipher the exact date at which the world would be brought to an end. Mrs. Hambro made up twelve slips of paper each with the name of a month of the year, plus thirty-one slips each with a date between one and thirtyone. These she put in two piles on the table. Then she put Mrs. Bruce back into a trance and inquired who should be sent as an instrument of initiate knowledge to select the slips.

Mrs. Bruce stated that the person who should go had just come into the group this day, and that he came alone. Obviously they meant me. When she had awakened Mrs. Bruce, Mrs. Hambro told me to shut my eyes and go to the table and take a slip from each pile.

With everyone watching, I walked to the table and selected two slips. The first said April. The second said twenty-third. So the world, according to the superior evolved beings that control the universe, would end on April twenty-third.

It made me feel strange to realize that I had been picked to select and announce the date on which the world would end. But all along, as I acknowledged, these superior forces had been controlling me; they had brought me from Seville to Drake’s Landing, no doubt for this purpose. So in a sense there was nothing odd about my going to the table and picking out the dates. Actually, we were quite calm at this point. Everyone in the room had his feelings under control. We had coffee and sat in semi-silence, meditating about it.

There was some discussion as to whether we should notify the San Rafael Journal and the Baywood Press. In the end we decided that there was no point in making a public statement, since those to be saved by the superior evolved beings—which we referred to as the SEBs—would be notified by direct mental telepathy.

In a sort of stunned haze, we adjourned the meeting and left Mrs. Hambro’s house, tiptoeing out like the members of a congregation leaving church. One of the group, the man who worked at the hardware stone, gave me a ride home and dropped me off in front of the house. I never did catch his name, and on the drive we were both too occupied with our thoughts to talk.

When I got into the house I found Fay dusting in the living room. I had expected her to ask about the meeting, but she paid no attention to me; by the hectic pace at which she dusted I realized that she was deep in some problem of her own and wasn’t interested in me or what I had to say.

“The hospital called,” she said finally. “They want me to come down; they have something they want to tell me about Charley.”

“Bad news?” I said, thinking that whatever news it was it could scarcely compare with what I had to tell her. And yet, even knowing as I did that we had only a month left, I found myself concerned with the news about Charley. “What did they say?” I demanded, following her into her bedroom.

“Oh,” she said vaguely. “I don’t know. They want to discuss whether he can be brought home.”

“You want me to go down with you?” I said.

Fay said, “I don’t feel like driving. I called the Anteils and they’re going to drive me down. In the state I’m in I couldn’t handle the car.” She disappeared into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door after her. I heard water running; she was taking a shower and changing her clothes.

“It sounds like the news isn’t too bad,” I said, when she reappeared. “If they’re talking about bringing him home—”

“Be quiet,” she said, in the tone of voice that she used with the girls. “I want to think.” And then, halting, she eyed me and said, “You didn’t say anything to Charley about Nathan being over here, did you?”

“No,” I said.

“God damn you,” she said, still eying me. “I’ll bet you did. I know you did.”

“It’s my job to report scientific facts,” I said. “What is there about him coming over here that makes it wrong for me to tell Charley about it? After all, this is his house. He has a right to know who comes here.”

Glaring at me, she tapped herself on the chest and said loudly, “This is my house. This is my business.”

Seeing the expression on her face, the worry and animosity, I felt upset. Not knowing what to say I went off by myself and played with the dog. The next I knew, the Anteils’ Studebaker had appeared in the driveway, and I saw Nathan Anteil and his wife inside, with Nathan at the wheel. He honked, and Fay came out, in her suit and coat and high heels, and got into the car.

As the car started to back out, Fay rolled down the window on her side and called to me, “You be sure you’re here when the girls get home. And if I’m not home by five, start fixing dinner. Better get a steak out of the freezer and start it thawing. And there’s some potatoes.” Then the car drove off.

Much to my dissatisfaction I hadn’t had a chance to tell her about the meeting and what we had decided, that I personally had been chosen by the SEBs to pick the date for the end of the world. Feeling cheated, I returned to the house and seated myself in the living room to read last night’s newspaper. And also I felt irritable and guilty at Fay’s accusation; of course I had told Charley, through the pressure of duty, but nevertheless it bothered me to have her so angry with me. Even if she was in the wrong it was not a pleasant situation. I hardly enjoy having somebody angry with me.

During Fay’s absence I spent time in the study, using the typewriter to get down on paper the new and more vivid presentation of facts which I felt Charley should have before him. After all, human choice is impossible without knowledge, and accurate choice is only possible where knowledge is complete and scientifically organized. That’s what separates us from the brutes.

For reference—as a prototype, a model—I got out some of my few remaining Thrilling Wonder Stories magazines and selected stories that had especially impressed me. After studying them I was able to perceive the methods by which the authors had dramatized their points. So I set to work with the magazines open on the desk beside me.

If Charley would be coming home soon it was imperative for me to get my fictionalized account before him almost at once. He would need it as a basis on which to act in reference to the situation.

When Fay returned home that night she said that possibly within a week Charley would be home. Fortunately I had made good progress on my work during the day, and I felt sure I would complete it. As it turned out, I got the account done the following day, and on Friday I took the bus down to San Francisco, carrying the account with me rolled up and fastened with a rubber band.

After spending a short time in the public library going over the new magazines, I took a bus to the U.C. Hospital. I found Charley out on the sundeck, in a wheelchair, wearing a bathrobe.

“Hi,” I said.

He glanced at me. Immediately his eyes made out the rolled-up tube of paper that I carried, and I saw that he understood—at least in a general way—what it was I had for him. He started to speak, then changed his mind.

“It won’t be long now,” I said. “Before you’re back home.”

He nodded slightly.

Pulling a chair up I sat down across from him.

“Don’t read me that thing,” he said.

I said, “These are the dramatized facts.”

“Get out of here,” he said.

That upset and confused me. I sat fooling with the rubber band, feeling like a fool. I had done all this work, and for what? Finally I said, “The difference between us and the animals is that we can use words. Isn’t that right?”

With obvious reluctance he nodded.

“We expand our environment,” I said. “We learn through the written word. We’d never even know about far-distant places such as Siam if we couldn’t read.” I went on, amplifying this idea; he listened but said nothing. After I had finished, he still said nothing. I waited, and then I unrolled the rubber band from the tube, flattened the sheets of paper, and very carefully began to read.

After I had come to the end I sat waiting for his reaction.

“How’d you even put together a thing like that?” he said, in a tone of voice suggesting that he was virtually ready to burst out laughing. His whole face seemed twisted out of shape and his eyes shone as if at the same time he was mad as hell. I saw that his hands were shaking. “It sounds like something out of an old pulp magazine,” he said. “Whene’d you get those phrases like ‘breasts like mounds of whipped cream’ and ‘red-tipped cones of pure ecstasy’?”

I couldn’t have been more embarrassed. Putting away the sheets of paper I mumbled, “I was simply trying to vivify it.”

He stared at me with that same mixture of expressions on his face. Now he had begun to flush, and his breathing became more rapid. For a moment I thought he was going to sneeze. But then he laughed. I felt my own face flush with humiliation. Charley laughed harder and harder.

“Read me that one pant again,” he said finally in a choked voice. “That about ‘I saw her gown open to the waist and fastened by only a single jewel at her navel.’ “ And he again went into paroxysms of laughter.

His reaction horrified me. I had no inkling that he would respond in this manner, and it totally unnerved me; I found myself twitching and muttering, unable to speak.

“Also that part that goes—” He tried to remember; I saw his lips moving. “About ‘as I kissed her hot, sweet lips I pushed her backward toward the couch. Her body yielded—’“

I interrupted, “It’s not fair to harp on individual phrases. It’s the over-all work that’s important. I tried to be absolutely accurate in this account. This is vital information that you ought to have at your disposal so you’ll be able to act. Isn’t that so? You need information to act.”

“Act,” he said. “What do you mean?”

“When you get back home,” I said, seeing nothing complex about it.

“Listen,” Charley said. “This is all in your mind. You’re out of your head. You’re a psycho. Anybody who’d write a thing like that about his sister is a psycho; let’s face it. Don’t you know that? Haven’t you ever faced the fact that you’re a warped, stunted, asshole type?”

An orderly or a nurse—on someone—came along the corridor. Charley raised his voice and yelled at them.

“Get this asshole out of here! He’s driving me nuts!”

I voluntarily got up and left, then. I was glad to get out of there All the way home on the bus I was shaking with anger and disbelief; it was one of the worst days in my life, and I knew I’d never forget it as long as I lived.

As the bus was passing through Samuel P. Taylor Park, the idea came to me to appeal to a disinterested person. To put this whole situation, my efforts and Charley’s response—the whole business, before them and let them impartially judge if I hadn’t done what was absolutely right.

First I thought of writing a letter to either the San Rafael Journal or to the Baywood Press. I even went so far as to begin composing, in my head, such a letter.

But then I thought of a better solution. Unrolling my presentation, I carefully went over it, editing out some of the phrases that Charley had called my attention to. Then I rolled it up again and wrote Claudia Hambro’s name and address on it.

When the bus reached Inverness Park, I got off and walked up the road to Mrs. Hambro’s house. Without making any noise that would disturb anyone in the house, I slipped the pages of the presentation under the door. Then I left.

After I had gotten almost all the way to Inverness—walking took much more time than using the bus—I suddenly realized that I hadn’t put my own name on the presentation. For a moment I halted and toyed with the idea of going back. But then I realized that Mrs. Hambro would know whom it was from; there would be a telepathic communication between her and me, as soon as she saw the presentation. And, in the presentation itself, there were Fay’s name and Nat Anteil’s name, of course. So she would have no trouble discovering who had left it.

Cheered up, I reached the house with rapid steps. I had actually opened the front door and started inside before I remembered, all at once, that in a month the world was coming to an end, on a date that I had decided, and that all these people, Charley and Fay and Nat Anteil and Gwen—all of them would be dead anyhow. And so in a sense it did not matter. It did not matter whether I got the facts to Charley or not. It did not matter what Charley did as a result of knowing those facts. Nothing any of them did mattered. They were just so much radioactive dust, the whole bunch of them. Just handfuls of black, radioactive, ashy dust.

That realization, that picture of them, stayed in my mind vividly for days after that. I could not get it out of my mind, even if I wanted to; several times I tried to think of something else, but that picture came right back.