Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along after the Bomb

XII

“It was Hoppy who killed the glasses man from Bolinas,” Bill said to his sister. “And he plans to kill someone later on, too, and then I can’t tell but after that it’s something more like that, again.”

His sister had been playing Rock, Scissors, Paper with three other children; now she stopped, jumped to her feet and quickly ran to the edge of the school grounds, where she would be alone and could talk to Bill. “How do you know that?” she asked, excited.

“Because I talked to Mr. Blaine,” Bill said. “He’s down below now, and there’s others coming. I’d like to come out and hurt Hoppy; Mr. Blaine says I should. Ask Doctor Stockstill again if I can’t be born.” Her brother’s voice was plaintive. “If I could be born even for just a little while—”

“Maybe I could hurt him,” Edie said thoughtfully. “Ask Mr. Blaine what I ought to do. I’m sort of afraid of Hoppy.”

“I could do imitations that would kill him,” Bill said, “if I only could get out. I have some swell ones. You should hear Hoppy’s father; I do that real good. Want to hear?” In a low, grown-up man’s voice he said, “I see where Kennedy proposes another one of those tax cuts of his. If he thinks he can fix up the economy that way he’s crazier than I think he is, and that’s damn crazy.”

“Do me,” Edie said. “Imitate me.”

“How can I?” Bill said. “You’re not dead yet.”

Edie said, “What’s it like to be dead? I’m going to be someday so I want to know.”

“It’s funny. You’re down in a hole looking up. And you’re all flat like—well, like you’re empty. And, you know what? Then after a while you come back. You blow away and where you get blown away to is back again! Did you know that? I mean, back where you are right now. All fat and alive.”

“No,” Edie said. “I didn’t know that.” She felt bored; she wanted to hear more about how Hoppy had killed Mr. Blaine. After a point the dead people down below weren’t very interesting because they never did anything, they just waited around. Some of them, like Mr. Blaine, thought all the time about killing and others just mooned like vegetables—Bill had told her many times because he was so mterested. He thought it mattered.

Bill said, “Listen, Edie, let’s try the animal experiment again; okay? You catch some little animal and hold it against your belly and I’ll try again and see if I can get outside and in it. Okay?”

“We tried it,” she said practically.

“Let’s try again! Get something real small. What are those things that—you know. Have shells and make slime.”

“Slugs.”

“No.”

“Snails.”

“Yes, that’s it. Get a snail and put it as close to me as you can. Get it right up to my head where it can hear me and I can hear it back. Will you do that?” Ominously, Bill said, “If you don’t, I’m going to go to sleep for a whole year.” He was silent, then.

“Go to sleep, then,” Edie said. “I don’t care. I have a lot of other people to talk to and you don’t.”

“I’ll die, then, and you won’t be able to stand that, because then you’ll have to carry a dead thing around forever inside you, or—I tell you what I’ll do; I know what I’ll do. If you don’t get an animal and hold it up near me I’ll grow big and pretty soon I’ll be so big that you’ll pop like an old—you know.”

“Bag,” Edie said.

“Yes. And that way I’ll get out.”

“You’ll get out,” she agreed, “but you’ll just roll around and die yourself; you won’t be able to live.”

“I hate you,” Bill said.

“I hate you more,” Edie said. “I hated you first, a long time ago when I first found out about you.”

“All right for you,” Bill said morosely. “See if I care. I’m rubber and you’re glue.”

Edie said nothing; she walked back to the girls and entered once more the game of Rock, Scissors, Paper. It was much more interesting than anything her brother had to say; he knew so little, did nothing, saw nothing, down there inside her.

But it was interesting, that part about Hoppy squeezing Mr. Blaine’s neck. She wondered who Hoppy was going to squeeze next, and if she should tell her mother or the policeman Mr. Colvig.

Bill spoke up suddenly. “Can I play, too?”

Glancing about, Edie made sure that none of the other girls had heard him. “Can my brother play?” she asked.

“You don’t have any brother,” Wilma Stone said, with contempt.

“He’s made-up,” Rose Quinn reminded her. “So it’s okay if he plays.” To Edie she said, “He can play.”

“One, two, three,” the girls said, each extending then one hand with all fingers, none or two displayed.

“Bill goes scissors,” Edie said. “So he beats you, Wilma, because scissors cuts paper, and you get to hit him, Rose, because rock crushes scissors, and he’s tied with me.”

“How do I hit him?” Rose said.

Pondering, Edie said, “Hit me very lightly here.” She indicated her side, just above the belt of her skirt. “Just with the side of your hand, and be careful because he’s delicate.”

Rose, with care, rapped her there. Within her Bill said, “Okay, I’ll get her back the next time.”

Across the playground came Edie’s father, the principal of the school, and with him walked Mr. Barnes, the new teacher. They paused briefly by the three girls, smiling.

“Bill’s playing, too,” Edie said to her father. “He just got hit.”

George Keller laughed. To Mr. Barnes he said, “That’s what comes of being imaginary; you always get hit.”

“How’s Bill going to hit me?” Wilma said apprehensively; she drew away and glanced up at the principal and teacher. “He’s going to hit me,” she explained. “Don’t do it hard,” she said, speaking in the general direction of Edie. “Okay?”

“He can’t hit hard,” Edie said, “even when he wants to.” Across from her Wilma gave a little jump. “See?” Edie said. “That’s all he can do, even when he tries as bard as he can.”

“He didn’t hit me,” Wilma said. “He just scared me. He doesn’t have very good aim.”

“That’s because he can’t see,” Edie said. “Maybe I better hit you for him; that’s more fair.” She leaned forward and swiftly rapped Wilma on the wrist. “Now let’s do it again. One, two, three.”

“Why can’t he see, Edie?” Mr. Barnes asked.

“Because,” she said, “he has no eyes.”

To her father, Mr. Barnes said, “Well, it’s a reasonableenough answer.” They both laughed and then strolled on.

Inside Edie her brother said, “If you got a snail I could be it for a while and I could maybe crawl around and see. Snails can see, can’t they? You told me once they have eyes on sticks.”

“Stalks,” Edie corrected.

“Please,” Bill said.

She thought, I know what I’ll do; I’ll hold a worm against me, and when he gets into it he’ll be just like he is—a worm can’t see or do anything but dig, and won’t he be surprised.

“All right,” she said, again springing up. “I’ll get an animal and do that. Wait a minute until I find one; I have to find it first so be patient.”

“Gee, thanks a lot,” Bill said, in a voice laden with nervousness and yearning. “I’ll do something back for you; on my word of honor.”

“What can you do for me?” Edie said, searching about in the grass at the edge of the school yard for a worm; she had seen many of them, since the rains of the previous night. “What can a thing like you do for anybody?” She searched avidly, stirring the grass with eager, swift fingers.

Her brother did not answer; she felt his mute sorrow and to herself she snickered.

“Looking for something you lost?” a man’s voice said from above her. She peeped up; it was Mr. Barnes, standing there smiling dow.

“I’m looking for a worm,” she said shyly.

“What an unsqueamish girl,” he said.

“Who are you talking to?” Bill said, in confusion. “Who’s that?”

“Mr. Barnes,” she said, explaining.

“Yes?” Mr. Barnes said.

“I was talking to my brother, not you,” Eclie said. “He asked who it was. He’s the new teacher,” she explained to Bill.

Bill said, “I see; I understand him, he’s close so I can get him. He knows Mama.”

“Our Mama?” Edie said, surprised.

“Yes,” Bill said, in a puzzled voice. “I don’t understand but he knows her and he sees her, all the time, when nobody is looking. He and she—” He broke off. “It’s awful and bad. It’s—” He choked. “I can’t say it.”

Edie stared at her teacher open-mouthed.

“There,” Bill said hopefully. “Didn’t I do something back for you? I told you something secret younever would have known. Isn’t that something?”

“Yes,” Edie said slowly, nodding in a daze. “I guess so.”

To Bonny, Hal Barnes said, “I saw your daughter today. And I got the distinct impression that she knows about us.”

“Oh Christ, how could she?” Bonny said. “It’s impossible.” She reached out and turned up the fat-lamp. The living room assumed a much more substantial quality as the chairs and a table and pictures became visible. “And anyhow it doesn’t matter; she wouldn’t care.”

To himself, Barnes thought, But she could tell George.

Thinking about Bonny’s husband made him peer past the window shade and out onto the moonlit road. No one stirred; the road was deserted and only foliage, rolling hillsides and the flat farm land below, were to be seen. A peaceful, pastoral sight, he thought. George, being the principal of the school, was at the PTA meeting and would not be home for several hours. Edie, of course, was in bed; it was eight o’clock.

And Bill he thought. Where is Bill, as Edie calls him? Roaming about the house, somewhere, spying on us? He felt uncomfortable and he moved away from the woman beside him on the couch.

“What’s the matter?” Bonny said alertly. “Hear something?”

“No. But—” He gestured.

Bonny reached out, took hold of him and drew him down to her. “My god, you’re cowardly. Didn’t the war teach you anything about life?”

“It taught me,” he said, “to value my existence and not to throw it away; it taught me to play it safe.”

Groaning, Bonny sat up; she rearranged her clothes, buttoned her blouse back up. What a contrast this man was to. Andrew Gill, who always made love to her right out in the open, in broad daylight, along the oaklined roads of West Marin, where anyone and anything might go past. He had seized her each time as he had the first time– yanking her into it, not gabbling or quaking or mumbling… maybe I ought to go back to him, she thought.

Maybe, she thought, I ought to leave them all, Barnes and George and that nutty daughter of mine; I ought to go live with Gill openly, defy the community and be happy for a change.

“Well, if we’re not going to make love,” she said, “then let’s go down to the Foresters’ Hall and listen to the satellite.”

“Are you serious?” Barnes said.

“Of course.” She went to the closet to get her coat.

“Then all you want,” he said slowly, “is to make love; that’s all you care about in a relationship.”

“What do you care about? Talking?”

He looked at her in a melancholy way, but be did not answer.

“You fruit,” she said, shaking her head. “You poor fruit. Why did you come to West Marin in the first place? Just to teach little kids and stroll around picking mushrooms?” She was overcome with disgust.

“My experience today on the playground—” Barnes began.

“You had no experience,” she interrupted. “It was just your goddam guilty conscience catching up with you. Let’s go; I want to hear Dangerfield. At least when he talks it’s fun to listen.” She put on her coat, walked quickly to the front door and opened it.

“Will Edie be all right?” Barnes asked as they started down the path.

“Sure,” she said, unable at the moment to care. Let her burn up, she said to herself. Gloomily, she plodded down the road, hands thrust deep in her coat pockets; Barnes trailed along behind her, trying to keep up with her strides.

Ahead of them two figures appeared, turning the corner and emerging into sight; she stopped, stricken, thinking one of them was George. And then she saw that the shorter, heavier man was Jack Tree and the other—she strained to see, still walking as if nothing were wrong. It was Doctor Stockstill.

“Come on,” she said over her shoulder, calmly, to Barnes. He came, then, hesitantly, wanting to turn back, to run. “Hi,” she called to Stockstill and Bluthgeld; or rather Jack Tree—she had to remember to keep calling him that. “What’s this, psychoanalysis out in the dark at night? Does that make it more effective? I’m not surprised to learn it.”

Gasping, Tree said in his hoarse, grating voice, “Bonny, I saw him again. It’s the Negro who understood about me that day when the war began, when I was going into Stockstill’s office, Remember, you sent me?”

Jokingly, Stockstill said, “They all look alike, as the saying goes. And anyhow—”

“No, it’s the same man,” Tree said. “He’s followed me here. Do you know what this means?” He looked from Bonny to Stockstil to Barnes, his eyes rubbery and enlarged, terror-stricken. “This means that it’s going to start again.”

“What’s going to start again?” Bonny said.

“The war,” Tree said to her. “Because that’s why it began last time; the Negro saw me and understood what I had done, he knew who I was and he still does. As soon as he sees me-” He broke off, wheezing and coughing in his agony. “Pardon me,” he murmured.

To Stockstil, Bonny said, “There’s a Negro here; he’s right. I saw him. Evidently he came to talk to Gill about selling his cigarettes.”

“It couldn’t be the same person,” Stockstill said. He and she went off to one side slightly, talking now between themselves.

“Certainly it could,” Bonny said. “But that doesn’t matter because that’s one of his delusions. I’ve heard biin gabble about it countless times. Some Negro was sweeping the sidewalk and saw him go into your office, and that day the war began so he’s got them connected in his mind. And now he’ll probably completely deteriorate, don’t you think?” She felt resigned; she had been expecting this to happen, eventually. “And so the period,” she said, “of stable maladjustment is drawing to a close.” Perhaps, she thought, for us all. Just plain all of us. We could not have gone on like this forever, Bluthgeld with his sheep, me with George… she sighed. “What do you think?”

Stockstil said, “I wish I had some Stelazine, but Stelazine ceased to exist on E Day. That would help him. I can’t. I’ve given that up; you know that, Bonny.” He sounded resigned, too.

“He’ll tell everyone,” she said, watching Bluthgeld, who stood repeating to Barnes what he had just told her and Stockstill. “They’ll know who he is, and they will kill him, as he fears; he’s right.”

“I can’t stop him,” Stockstill said mildly.

“You don’t particularly care,” she said.

He shrugged.

Going back to Bluthgeld, Bonny said, “Listen, Jack, let’s all go to Gill’s and see this Negro and I’ll bet he didn’t notice you that day. Do you want to bet? I’ll bet you twenty-five silver cents.”

“Why do you say you caused the war?” Barnes was saying to Bluthgeld. He turned to Bonny with a puzzled expression. “What is this, a war psychosis? And he says the war’s coming back.” Once more to Bluthgeld he said, “It isn’t possible for it to happen again; I can give you fifty reasons. First of all, there’re no hydrogen weapons left. Second—”

Putting her hand on Barnes’ shoulder, Bonny said, “Be quiet.” She said to Bruno Bluthgeld, “Let’s go down, all of us, together, and listen to the satellite. Okay?”

Bluthgeld muttered, “What is the satellite?”

“Good lord,” Barnes said. “He doesn’t know what you’re talldng about. He’s mentally ill.” To Stockstill he said, “Listen, Doctor, isn’t schizophrenia where a person loses track of their culture and its values? Well, this man has lost track; listen to him.”

“I hear him,” Stockstill said in a remote voice.

Bonny said to him, “Doctor, Jack Tree is very dear to me. He has been in the past very much like a father to me. For God’s sake, do something for him. I can’t stand to see him like this; I just can’t stand it.”

Spreading his hands helplessly, Stockstill said, “Bonny, you think like a child. You think anything can be obtained if you just want it badly enough. That’s magical thinking. I can’t help—Jack Tree.” He turned away and walked off a few steps, toward town. “Come on,” he said to them over his shoulder. “We’ll do as Mrs. Keller suggests; we’ll go sit in the Hall and listen for twenty minutes to the satellite and then we’ll all feel a good deal better.”

Once more Barnes was talking with great earnestness to Jack Tree. Let me point out where the error in your logic lies. You saw a particular man, a Negro, on Emergency Day. Okay. Now, seven years later—”

“Shut up,” Bonny said to him, digging her fingers into his arm. “For God’s sake—” She walked on, then, catching up with Doctor Stockstill. “I can’t stand it,” she said. “I know this is the last of him; he won’t survive past this, seeing that Negro again.”

Tears filled her eyes; she felt tears dropping, escaping her. “Goddam,” she said bitterly, walking as fast as possible, ahead of the others, in the direction of town and the Foresters’ Hall. Not even to know about the satellite. To be that cut off, that deteriorated… I didn’t realize. How can I stand it? How can a thing like this be? And once he was brilliant. A man who talked over TV and wrote articles, taught and debated…

Behind her, Bluthgeld was mumbling, “I know it’s the same man, Stockstill, because when I ran into him on the street—I was buying feed at the feed store—he gave me that same queer look, as if he was about to jeer at me, but then he knew if he jeered I’d make it all happen again, and this time he was afraid. He saw it once before and he knows. Isn’t that a fact, Stockstill? He would know now. Am I correct?”

“I doubt if he knows you’re alive,” Stockstill said.

“But I’d have to be alive,” Bluthgeld answered. “Or the world—” His voice became a blur and Bonny missed the rest; she heard only the sound of her own heels striking the weedy remains of pavement beneath her feet.

And the rest of us, we’re all just as insane, she said to herself. My kid with her imaginary brother, Hoppy moving pennies at a distance and doing imitations of Dangerfield, Andrew Gill rolling one cigarette after another by hand, year after year… only death can get us out of this and maybe not even death. Maybe it’s too late; we’ll carry this deterioration with us to the next life.

We’d have been better off, she thought, if we’d all died on E Day; we wouldn’t have lived to see the freaks and the funnies and the radiation-darkies and the brilliant animals—the people who began the war weren’t thorough enough. I’m tired and I want to rest; I want to get out of this and go lie down somewhere, off where it’s dark and no one speaks. Forever.

And then she thought, more practically, Maybe what’s the matter with me is simply that I haven’t found the right man yet. And it isn’t too late; I’m still young and I’m not fat, and as everyone says, I’ve got perfect teeth. It could still happen, and I must keep watching.

Ahead lay the Foresters’ Hall, the old-fashioned white wooden building with its windows boarded up—the glass had never been replaced and never would be. Maybe Dangerfield, if he hasn’t died of a bleeding ulcer yet, ‘could run a classified ad for me, she conjectured. How would that go over with this community, I wonder? Or I could advertise in News & Views, let the worn-out drunk Paul Dietz run a little notice on my behalf for the next six months or so.

Opening the door of the Foresters’ Hall she heard the friendly, familiar voice of Walt Dangerfield in his recorded reading; she saw the rows of faces, the people listening, some with anxiety, some with relaxed pleasure… she saw, seated inconspicuously in the corner, two men, Andrew Gill and with him a slender, good-looking young Negro. It was the man who had caved in the roof of Bruno Bluthgeld’s fragile structure of maladaptation, and Bonny stood there in the doorway not knowing what to do.

Behind her came Barnes and Stockstill and with them Bruno; the three men started past her, Stockstill and Barnes automatically searching for empty seats in the crowded hail. Bruno, who had never shown up before to hear the satellite, stood in confusion, as if he did not comprehend what the people were doing, as if he could make nothing out of the words emanating from the small battery-powered radio.

Puzzled, Bruno stood beside Bonny, rubbing his forehead and surveying the people in the roqm; he glanced at her questioningly, with a numbed look, and then he started to follow Barnes and Stockstill. And then he saw the Negro. He stopped. He turned back toward her, and now the expression on his face had changed; she saw there the eroding, dreadful suspicion—the conviction that he understood the meaning of all that he saw.

“Bonny,” he mumbled, “you have to get him out of here.”

“I can’t,” she said, simply.

“If you don’t get him out of here,” Bruno said, “I’ll make the bombs fall again.”

She stared at him and then she heard herself say in a brittle, dry voice, “Will you? Is that what you want to do, Bruno?”

“I have to,” he mumbled in his toneless way, staring at her sightlessly; he was completely preoccupied with his own thoughts, the various changes taking place within him. “I’m sorry, but first I’ll make the high-altitude test bombs go off again; that’s how I started before, and if that doesn’t do it then I’ll bring them down here, they’ll fall on everyone. Please forgive me, Bonny, but my God, I have to protect myself.” He tried to smile, but his toothless mouth did not respond beyond a distorted quiver.

Bonny said, “Can you really do that, Bruno? Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding. And he was sure; he had always been sure of his power. He had brought the war once and he could do it again if they pushed him too far: in his eyes she saw no doubt, no hesitation.

“That’s an awful lot of power for one man to have,” she said to him. “Isn’t that strange, that one man would have so much?”

“Yes,” he said, “it’s all the power in the world rolled together; I am the center. God willed it to be that way.”

“What a mistake God made,” she said.

Bruno gazed at her bleakly. “You, too,” he said. “I thought you never would turn against me, Bonny.”

She said nothing; she went to an empty chair and seated herself. She paid no more attention to Bruno. She could not; she had worn herself out, over the years, and now she had nothing left to give him.

Stockstill, seated not far away, leaned toward her and said, “The Negro is here in the room, you know.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I know.” Seated bolt-upright, she concentrated on the words coming from the radio; she listened to Dangerfield and tried to forget everyone and everything around her.

It’s out of my hands now, she said to herself. Whatever he does, whatever becomes of him, it’s not my fault. Whatever happens—to all of us. I can’t take any more responsibility; it’s gone on too long, as it is, and I am glad, at last, to get out from under it.

What a relief, she thought. Thank God.

Now it must begin again, Bruno Bluthgeld thought to himself. The war. Because there is no choice; it is forced on me. I am sorry for the people. All of them will have to suffer, but perhaps out of it they will be redeemed. Perhaps in the long run it is a good thing.

He seated himself, folded his hands, shut his eyes and concentrated on the task of assembling his powers. Grow, he said to them, the forces at his command everywhere in the world. Join and become potent, as you were in former times. There is need for you again, all ye agencies.

The voice issuing from the loudspeaker of the radio, however, disturbed him and made it difficult for him to concentrate. Breaking off, he thought, I must not be distracted; that is contrary to the Plan. Who is this that’s talking? They are all listening… are they getting their instructions from him, is that it?

To the man seated beside him he said, “Who is this we’re listening to?”

The man, elderly, turned irritably to regard him. “Why, it’s Walt Dangerfield,” he said, in tones of utter disbelief.

“I have never heard of him,” Bruno said. Because he bad not wanted to hear of him. “Where is he talking from?”

“The satellite,” the elderly man said witheringly, and resumed his listening.

I remember now, Bruno said to himself. That’s why we came here; to listen to the satellite. To the man speaking from overhead.

Be destroyed, he thought in the direction of the sky above. Cease, because you are deliberately tormenting me, impeding my work. Brung waited, but the voice went on.

“Why doesn’t he stop?” he asked the man on the other side of him. “How can he continue?”

The man, a little taken aback, said, “You mean his illness? He recorded this a long time ago, before he was sick.”

“Sick,” Bruno echoed. “I see.” He had made the man in the satellite sick, and that was something, but not enough. It was a beginning. Be dead, he thought toward the sky and the satellite above. The voice, however, continued uninterrupted.

Do you have a screen of defense erected against me? Bruno wondered. Have they provided you with it? I will crush it; obviously you have been long prepared to withstand attack, but it will do you no real good.

Let there be a hydrogen instrument, he said to himself. Let it explode near enough to this man’s satellite to demolish his ability to resist. Then have him die in complete awareness of who it is that he is up against. Bruno Bluthgeld concentrated, gripping his hands together, squeezing out the power from deep inside his mind.

And yet the reading continued.

You are very strong, Bruno acknowledged. He had to admire the man. In fact, he smiled a little, thinking about it. Let a whole series of hydrogen instruments explode now, he willed. Let his satellite be bounced around; let him discover the truth.

The voice from the loudspeaker ceased.

Well, it is high time, Bruno said to himself. And he let up on his concentration of powers; he sighed, crossed his legs, smoothed his hair, glanced at the man to his left.

“It’s over,” Bruno observed.

“Yeah,” the man said. “Well, now he’ll give the news– if he feels well enough.”

Astonished, Bruno said, “But he’s dead now.”

The man, startled, protested, “He can’t be dead; I don’t believe it. Go on—you’re nuts.”

“It’s true,” Bruno said. “His satellite has been totally destroyed and there is nothing remaining.” Didn’t the man know that? Hadn’t it penetrated to the world, yet?

“Doggone it,” the man said, “I don’t know who you are or why you say something like that, but you sure are a gloomy gus. Wait a second and you’ll hear him; I’ll even bet you five U.S. Government metal cents.”

The radio was silent. In the room, people stirred, murmured with concern and apprehension.

Yes, it has begun, Bruno said to himself. First, highaltitude detonations, as before. And, soon—for all of you here. The world itself wiped out, as before, to halt the steady advance of cruelty and revenge; it must be halted before too late. He glanced in the direction of the Negro and smiled. The Negro pretended not to see him; he pretened to be involved in discussion with the man beside him.

You are aware, Bruno thought. I can tell; you can’t fool me. You, more than anyone else, know what is beginning to happen.

Something is wrong, Doctor Stockstill thought. Why doesn’t Walt Dangerfield go on? Has he suffered an embolism or something on that order?

And then he noticed the crooked grin of triumph on Bruno Bluthgeld’s toothless face. At once Stockstill thought, He’s taking credit for it, in his own mind. Paranoid delusions of omnipotence; everything that takes place is due to him. Repelled, he turned away, moved his chair so that he could no longer see Bluthgeld.

Now he turned his attention on the young Negro. Yes, he thought, that could well be the Negro television salesman who used to open up the TV store across from my office in Berkeley, years ago. I think I’ll go over and ask him.

Rising, he made his way over to Andrew Gill and the Negro. “Pardon me,” he said, bending over them. “Did you ever live in Berkeley and sell TV sets on Shattuck Avenue?”

The Negro said, “Doctor Stockstill.” He held out his hand and they shook. “It’s a small world,” the Negro said.

“What’s happened to Dangerfield?” Andrew Gill said worriedly. Now June Raub appeared by the radio, fiddling with the knobs; other people began to collect around her, offering advice and murmuring with one another in small, grave clusters. “I think this is the end. What do you say, Doctor?”

“I say,” Stockstill said, “that if it is it’s a tragedy.”

In the rear of the room, Bruno Bluthgeld rose to his feet and said in a loud, husky voice, “The demolition of existence has begun. Everyone present will be spared by special consideration long enough to confess sins and repent if it is sincere.”

The room fell silent. The people, one by one, turned in his direction.

“You have a preacher, here?” the Negro said to Stockstill.

To Gill, Stockstill said rapidly, “He’s sick, Andy. We’ve got to get him out of here. Give me a hand.”

“Sure,” Gill said, following him; they walked toward Bluthgeld, who was still on his feet.

“The high-altitude bombs which I set off in 1972,” Bluthgeld was declaring, “find reinforcement in the present act, sanctioned by God Himself in His wisdom for the world. See the Book of Revelations for verification.” He watched Stockstill and Gill approach. “Have you cleansed yourself?” he asked them. “Are you prepared for the judgment which is to come?”

All at once, from the speaker of the radio, came a f amiliar voice; it was shaky and muted, but they all recognized it. “Sorry for the pause, folks,” Dangerfield said. “But I sure felt giddy there for a while; I had to lie down and I didn’t notice the tape had ended. Anyhow—” He laughed his old, familiar laugh. “I’m back. At least for a while. Now, what was I about to do? Does anybody remember? Wait, I’ve got a red light on; somebody’s calling me from below. Hold on.”

The people in the room buzzed with joy and relief; they turned back to the radio, and Bluthgeld was forgotten. Stockstill himself walked toward the radio, and so did Gill and the Negro TV salesman; they joined the circle of smiling people and stood waiting.

“I’ve got a request for ‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schön,’ “ Dangerfield said. “Can you beat that? Anybody remember the Andrews Sisters? Well, the good old U.S. Government had the kindness to provide me with, believe it or not, a tape of the Andrews Sisters singing this corny but well-loved number… I guess they figured I was going to be some sort of time capsule on Mars, there.” He chuckled. “So it’s ‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schön,’ for some old codger in the Great Lakes Area. Here we go.” The music, tinny and archaic, began, and the people in the room gratefully, joyfully, moved one by one back to their seats.

Standing by his chair rigidly, Bruno Bluthgeld listened to the music and thought, I can’t believe it. The man up there is gone; I myself caused him to be destroyed. This must be a fake of some kind. A deception. I know that it is not real.

In any case, he realized, I must exert myself more fully; I must begin again and this time with utmost force. No one was paying attention to him—they had all turned their attention back to the radio—so he left his chair and made his way quietly from the Hall, outside into the darkness.

Down the road the tall antenna at Hoppy Harrington’s house glowed and pulsed and hummed; Bruno Bluthgeld, puzzled, noted it as he walked along toward his horse, where he had left the beast tied up. What was the phocomelus doing? Lights blazed behind the windows of the tarpaper house; Hoppy was busy at work.

I must include him, too, Bluthgeld said to himself. He must cease to exist along with the others, for he is as evil as they are. Perhaps more so.

As he passed Hoppy’s house he sent a stray, momentary thought of destruction of Hoppy’s direction. The lights, however, remained on and the antenna mast continued to hum. It will take more mind-force, Bluthgeld realized, and I don’t have the time right now. A little later.

Meditating profoundly, he continued on.