Element 79

Cattle Trucks

Dionysus was the first to awaken. It hadn’t been at all bad, the life of a god in ancient Greece. But when Rome took over, mere existence became a desperate bore. So the gods all retired to Olympus, to “sleep it out.” It was hoped things would be better after a few millennia had slipped away.

Dionysus was all agog to take a quick first look around. He decided on a complete circumnavigation of the world. His flight took him across the great waters to the west of the Pillars of Hercules, to the continent now known as America. Here he gorged himself in astonishment.

One afternoon, in a place called California, he thought he would try out for himself one of the amazing little boxes, constructed, it seemed, from glass and metal, in which the mortals were now everlastingly scurrying around. He could see them below him, moving in almost continuous streams along a vast network of roads. From above, it all looked utterly aimless, like a big mound of ants. But there must be something to it, to all this commotion, Dionysus supposed.

The god slid unobtrusively into the first empty automobile he could find. To make the thing move demanded more ingenuity than he had expected. When at last he had the trick of it, he drove at a moderate pace onto a nearby highway. He soon mastered the standard practice of directing the box between two of the lines marked on the road. So what? He couldn’t imagine why anybody, even a mortal, would want to behave in this fashion. He felt there had to be more zip in it somewhere. He must be missing something. But the best he could find to do was to press the pedal harder and harder, the pedal that made the box go faster and faster. Even so, it was tame stuff.

There came a great whining noise. In fact, the noise gave Dionysus quite an ungodlike start. It issued apparently from another moving box, one that had suddenly come up close behind. On top of this other box a red light flashed unceasingly. Howling like Cerberus, the watchdog of Hades, the box went past him and then began to slow down. So Dionysus in turn went past the flashing box, which then immediately picked up speed. It seemed the other box was intent on playing some kind of game, a strange game, it was true. Dionysus wondered if his box should also be displaying a flashing light and if there was some way in which it could be made to howl in this outrageous manner, A dozen times or more he went past the thing, his foot stamped flat on the pedal, the one that made his box go faster. Then the other box began to crowd him to the roadside. He thought about giving it a block which would send it in a great arc through the air. Then he thought there might be some interest in stopping, to find out what it was that could howl so long and so loud.

Unfortunately, just when he expected to get to the bottom of the business, the howling stopped, although the light went on flashing. Dionysus saw a man coming toward him and felt an intense wonderment. The man was wearing a huge hat, there were black patches over his eyes—to shield them from the Sun, it seemed—and his gait would have befitted the god of Insolence. “You aiming to fly?”

“Yes, I am intending to fly.”

“Well, you’re doing no more flying today. See here, Charlie, I’m arresting you right now. You can fly after you’ve talked to the judge. Your license, Mac.”

“License?”

“You’re going to get the book, sweetie, oh, how you’re going to get the book. Maybe you’ve got a name?”

“Dionysus.”

“Dionysus what?”

“Dionysus nothing.”

“Okay, Dionysus Q. Squirt, you’re coming with me. We’ll straighten out the car and the license afterward. Come on, Mr. Wise Guy, make it snappy.”

As Dionysus climbed from the car, the cop put a hand over his gun. The god had previously adjusted his height to fit the car. Now he adjusted it to fit this new situation. He stood a head taller than the cop. With a swoop, faster than lightning, he picked the man up, swung him over the front of the box, and fastened him securely there. Then he drove back onto the highway, leaving the prowl car with its flashing light abandoned by the roadside.

An hour later Dionysus found himself approaching a large airport. The road took him right into it. The many people thronging Los Angeles Airport were intrigued by the big man with a curly golden beard who walked majestically into one of the airline buildings, leaving his car triple-parked outside. They were intrigued by the big buck deer strapped across its front. The deer turned out to be alive. Unwisely, three porters released the animal, whereupon it raced after the bearded man, emitting a bellow that sounded uncannily like “Hi, Mac.” As the prancing deer spread the utmost confusion, everybody looked for the strange hunter with the golden beard, but Dionysus had slipped invisibly onto a plane just taking off for New York.

Once inside the plane, Dionysus became visible again. Nobody took any particular notice as he moved into an empty seat. A tinny, glutinous sound was coming from some place immediately above his head. Music he supposed it was, but of an utterly commonplace quality, so commonplace as to be scarcely credible. It was his first experience of actual physical nausea, for in the ordinary way of things gods are never sick. These appalling sounds made him feel as if he were going to throw up.

Mercifully, the music stopped once the plane had lifted off the ground, once, miraculously, they were flying. Mortals were flying, ordinary mortals. Dionysus thought he had never seen so many ordinary mortals. They were packed together like cattle, five in a row, row after row of the creatures. The mere sight of them all, sitting there like so many huge pumpkins, depressed him. He considered how things might be livened up a bit. He tried singing in a tremendous bass voice, but nobody noticed it. They were all staring at little flickering pictures, their ears plugged solid with some device or other. Dionysus tried it himself. He heard more music, this time distantly projected against the roar of the plane. It had the quality of a sludge pump.

Without warning, there was a harsh crackle above his head. A disembodied voice began, “Well, folks, this is your captain.” The volume was enormous, almost sufficient to shatter his eardrums. The voice went on to advise them to look out of the plane on the right-hand side. Dionysus gathered from the announcement that something quite stupendous was to be seen, so he tried to look out just as the captain had advised, found the window so small that almost nothing was visible.

The plane gave a little shake, a kind of shrug, like an animal settling itself more comfortably. A notice flashed up in front of the god’s nose: FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT.

One of the stewardesses paraded up and down the aisle, checking the instant obedience of the passengers. By now the plane had resumed its smooth ride.

“I want to go to the john,” a woman complained.

“Not while the seat-belt sign is on, please,” was the firm command. The stewardess came abreast of the god. She was a pretty little thing, trim and wiry, hardworking, but reduced by the system to a prissy schoolmarm. She pointed imperiously at the god’s midriff. “Fasten your belt. Your belt, please.”

Dionysus rose from his seat. He took hold of the girl and marched her back along the aisle to a little cubicle, a place where coats were normally kept. The girl protested loudly, but nobody heard. Individual T.V. had the whole planeload in thrall. The stewardess was astonished to find the cubicle no longer small. It had suddenly become amply large enough for the god’s purpose. The stewardess shrieked and fought, but the fuss was of no avail. Off came the uniform, off came the standardized starched shirt. The shrieks changed to laughter as wave after wave of tingling and wingling swept over the girl. She emerged from the cubicle ten minutes later, her face flushed and her eyes shining. Nobody noticed the change except the second stewardess. A frenzied whispered conversation between the girls made it clear to Dionysus that more of the same was needed. The second girl also proved quite defenseless against the jingling and wingling. She too soon emerged wide-eyed from the cubicle.

Thereafter both girls giggled and laughed as they walked the plane. Time came for lunch. Now, if there is one thing your airline stewardess comes to hate with a furious intensity, it is the serving of appalling trays of appalling food. The operation has a certain similarity to the stuffing of turkeys, except turkeys demand more or less decent food, not the precooked, overcooked slush that passes for the usual airline meal. Your stewardess comes to hate all those little packages, packages for salt, pepper, butter, packages for package people on a package flight.

The girls were having none of it this time. The whole lot was thrown in together. No cocktails were served. Instead, all the alcohol went in, along with the meat, the potatoes, the dessert, and the cheese. They served the mixture in big pudding bowls.

Nobody noticed the difference, except a man traveling in solitary splendor in the first-class section. He angrily demanded to know what the white stuff was on top. The stewardess gave a deep, bell-like laugh. “Crabmeat garnish, sir.” The man became still more furiously angry. He revealed his exalted identity—president, he was, of the airline itself. Instantly, the wrath of Dionysus descended without pity. Struck dumb in midsentence, the fellow collapsed into his seat, his eyes riveted forever on individual T.V. Never again would this particular monster be permitted to manipulate people.

Dionysus started to sing again. This time he was joined by the two girls and by five of the passengers. Such was the measure of his success, seven from a total of one hundred or more. These seven were now rescued from a kind of living death. The rest were too far gone, too far below the surface, they had become bond-slaves to the god of Inanition. They sat there congealed, ears stuffed up, eyes stuffed up, brains stuffed up, all semblance of intellect completely dissolved away.

The plane landed. The stewardesses busied themselves. There were none of the usual glassy smiles, just genuine laughter. One of them chuckled as she announced, “On behalf of the crew, I’d like to say how very much we’ve enjoyed having you with us today, and with what pleasure we look forward to having you with us again, in the nearest future.”

The girls smiled with intense warmth as the man with the golden beard strode away into the airline building. Once the passengers were all gone, both girls raced down the plane, back to the cubicle. It really was very small, really too small, they both thought rather sadly.

Dionysus reached the main concourse. He heard a voice saying, “Will Mrs. Finkelstein and Mr. Fink please report…” Then the terrible music started again. It was the same abomination as before. It made him sick in the same way, churning his stomach over. With a tremendous concentration of will, he conquered the nausea. The music stopped. Everybody in the concourse braced themselves for a further announcement concerning Mrs. Finkelstein and Mr. Fink. But no further sound seemed to come from the speakers.

It wasn’t that Dionysus had interfered with the electrical feeder lines to the speakers. He was absorbing all the sound. The music was still really coming through, but Dionysus was taking it all for himself, leaving nothing to be heard by the milling throng of people in the concourse. He took the music, every note of it, for a long time, all deep into his belly. As one glutinous note after another went inside him, it seemed to Dionysus as if he were being pumped up and up to the size of an enormous gasbag. There was a limit to what even he could do, to what any god could do. At last the limit was reached, not another single note could he manage to pack inside himself. Dionysus let the whole lot go, in a colossal burp that shook the concourse like a thunderclap. Windows were shattered, cracks appearing everywhere in walls and ceiling. People raced for the exits, convinced that planes were exploding to the left and to the right on the runways outside.

Dionysus surveyed the wreckage and smiled to himself as he stepped through a gap in the outer wall. The evening air was warm and clear, just right for a return to Olympus. He knew what he was going to do when he got home—sleep. He also knew something else. Very definitely, he was flying the rest of his journey on foot.