I Will Fear No Evil

5

Johann Sebastian Bach Smith was somewhere else. Where, he did not know, nor care, nor wonder...did not know that he was himself, was not aware of himself nor of anything, was not aware that he was not aware.

Then slowly, over eons, he came up from the nothingness of total anesthesia, surfaced into dreaming. The dreams went on for unmeasured time, endlessly. Mrs, Schmidt, can Yonny come out and play... Wuxtra! Horrible atrocities in Belgium, read all about it! Johann, don't ever walk in like that without knocking, you bad, bad boy... under a cabbage leaf... more margin before the market opens tomorrow... like hell a cabbage leaf; it comes out of her belly button Yoho you don't know nothing... Johnny you know it's not nice to do that and what if my father came downstairs.... pretty girl is like a melody... hey get a load of that not a damn thing on her boobs... sergeant I volunteered once and that's enough for a lifetime....ur Father ‘Which art in Heaven hallowed be thy Name of the game is look out for yourself Smith old Buddy you co-signed the note and I have other fish to Friday at the latest and that's a promise Johann darling I don't know how you could even bring yourself to think such a thing of your own wife is a man's responsibility Mr. Smith and I'm sure the court will agree that four thousand per monthlies is a very modest girl would never do such a thing Schmidt and if I ever catch you hanging around my daughter again I'll shoot the whole works they're not worth the paper they're printed on Johann I don't know what your father will say when he gets home on the range where the deer and antelope play square with me and you'll get a fair shake it, girlie, shake it, shake it twice is regulation shake it thrice pudding with creamed in her coffin my head off and her old man beard us and that queered it not queer Johann just curious you understand me old body boy I ain't got no body and no body works very long for some body else if he expects to get ahead in the world of business girl has got just as much right to be treated like a lady as any body seen my girl's best friend is her cherish as long as you both shall live right and work hard and pay your bills of lading son goes down and the stars come out of my room at once my husband would kill me and the neighbors are always snooping where did you leave your bicycle would pay for itself in no time Pop if I get this paper rout and in full retreat as we go to press me closer Johnny you're so huge national debt will never be paid off and all our companies' policies must be in inflation so borrow now and pay later than you think I'm that sort of a girl simply because I let you go on to college to be a teacher son but now I see by the dawn's early warning system is useless gentlemen without second-strike capabilities of sustained growth when treated last time so it's your treat this time you treat me nice and I treat you nice you-thee Eunice Eunice! where did that girl go I've lost Rome and I've lost Gaul but worst of all I've lost Eunice somebody find Eunice coming where have you been right here all along Boss— His dreams went on endlessly in full stereo—sound, sight, odor, touch—and always surrealistic, which he never noticed. They flowed through him, or he through them, with perfect logic. To him.

Meanwhile the world flowed on around him—and forgot him. The attempt at transplanting a living brain offered opportunity for much loose talk by video commentators, plus guest "experts" who were encouraged to add their own mixture of prejudice, speculation, and bias in the name of "science." A judge in need of publicity issued a warrant for the arrest of "Dr. Lyndon Doyle" (sic) but Dr. Lindsay Boyle was outside of jurisdiction before the warrant was signed and long before the name was straightened out. A famous and very stylish evangelist prepared a sermon denouncing the transplant, using as a text "Vanity of Vanities."

But on the third day a spectacular and unusually bloody political assassination crowded Johann Smith out of the news and the evangelist found that he could use the sermon by changing a few sentences—which he did, understanding instinctively the American lust for the blood of the mighty.

As usual, the unlicensed birth rate exceeded the licensed rate while the abortion rate exceeded both. Upjohn In­ternational declared an extra dividend. The backing and filling for the upcoming Presidential campaign speeded up with a joint announcement by the national committees of the two conservative parties, the SDS and the PLA, that they would hold their conventions together (while preserving mutual autonomy) for the (unannounced but understood) purpose of reelecting the incumbent. The chairman of the extreme left-wing Constitutional Liberation Rally denounced it as a typical crypto-fascist capitalistic plot, and predicted a November victory for Constitutional freedom. The splinter parties, Democratic, Socialist, and Republican, met quietly (few members and almost no delegates under sixty-five) and stole away without causing more than a ripple in the news.

In the Middle East an earthquake killed nine thousand people in three minutes and brought close the ever-present possibility of war through disturbing the balance of terror.

The Sino-American Lunar Commission announced that the Lunar Colonies were now 87% self-sufficient in proteins and carbohydrates, and raised the subsidized out-migration quota but again refused to relax the literacy requirement.

Johann Sebastian Bach Smith dreamed on.

After an unmeasured time (how measure a dream?) Smith woke enough to be aware of himself—the reflexive self-awareness of waking as contrasted with the unquestioning and unexplicit self-experience of dreaming.. He know who he was, Johann Sebastian Bach Smith, a very old man—not a baby, not a boy, not any of his younger selves—and was aware of his sensory surroundings, which were zero: darkness, silence, absence of any physical sensation, not even pressure, touch, kinesthesia.

He wondered if the operation had started, and what it would feel like when he died. He did not worry about pain; he had been assured that the brain itself had no pain receptors and that he was being anesthetized solely to keep him quiet and unworried while the job was done—besides, pain had not worried Smith in years; it was his constant companion, almost an old friend.

Presently he went back to sleep and to more dreams, unaware that his brain-wave pattern was being monitored and had caused great excitement when change in rhythm and peak had shown that the patient was awake.

Again be was awake and this time gave thought to the possibility that this nothingness was death. He considered the idea without panic, having come to terms with death more than a half century earlier. If this was death, it was neither the Heaven he had been promised as a child nor the Hell he had long since ceased to believe in, nor even the] total lack of self he had come to expect—it was just one damn big bore.

He slept again, unaware that the physician in charge of his life-support team had decided that the patient had been awake long enough and had slowed his breathing and made a slight change in his blood chemistry.

He woke again and tried to take stock of the situation. if he was dead—and there seemed no longer reason to doubt it—what did he have left and how could he cut his losses? Assets: none. Correction: one asset, memory. He had a recent memory-of-a-memory, vague and undefined, of confused and crazy dreams—probably from anesthesia and no use to him—plus other memories older but much sharper of being (or having been) Johann Smith. Well, Johann you old bastard, if you and me are going to have to spend all eternity locked in this limbo we had better get to work on total recall of everything we ever did.

Everything? Or concentrate on the good parts? No, a stew had to have salt or it was too bland. Try to remember all of it. If we have all eternity with nothing to play but this one rerun, we're going to want to have all of it on tap, as even the best parts may get boring after a few thousand times.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to concentrate—just for practice—on some exceptionally pleasant memory. So what'll it be, partner? There are only four top subjects, the rest are sideshows: money, sex, war, and death. So which do we choose? Right! You're correct, Eunice; I'm a dirty old man and my only regret (and a sharp one!) is that I didn't find you forty or fifty years back. When you were not yet a gleam in your father's eye, more's the pity. Tell me, girl, were those sea-shell doodads a brassiere or just paint on your pretty skin? Euchered myself on that one—should have asked and let you sass me. So tell great-grandpappy. Give me a phone call and tell me. Sorry, I can't tell you the wave length, dear; it's unlisted. Golly, you looked cute!

Let's try another one—no chance that I'll forget you, Eunice my dear, but I never laid a finger on you, damn it.

Let's go way, way back to one we did lay a finger on. Our very first piece? No, you mucked that up pretty badly, you clumsy lout. The second one? Ah, yes, she was the cat's pajamas! Mrs. Wicklund. First name? Did I ever know her first name? Certainly I never called her by it, not then or later. Even though she let me come back for more. Let me? Encouraged me, set it up.

Let's see, I was fourteen, fourteen and a half, and she must have been... thirty-five? I remember her mentioning that she had been married fifteen years, so call it thirty-five at a guess. No matter, it was the first time I ever en­countered a female who wanted it, managed to let me know that she wanted it, then without any bobbles could take charge of a lanky, too-eager, almost-virgin boy, steady him, lead him through it, make him enjoy it, let him know she enjoyed it—make him feel good about it afterwards.

God bless your generous soul, Mrs. Wicklund! If you are lost somewhere in this darkness—for you must have died many years sooner than I did—I hope you remember me and are as happy in remembering me as I am in remembering you.

All the details now— Your flat was right under ours. Cold windy afternoon and you gave me ‘a quarter (big money then, a dime was standard) for going to the grocery for you. For what? How good is your memory, you horny old goat? Correction: horny old ‘ghost.' What have I got left to be horny with? Never mind, I am—it's up here, Doc. Half a pound of sliced boiled ham, a sack of russet potatoes, a dozen ranch eggs (seven cents a dozen then—my God!), a ten-cent loaf of Holsum bread and—something else. Oh, yes, a spool of sixty white cotton thread at the notions shop next to Mr. Gilmore's drugstore. Mrs. Baum's shop—two sons, one killed in War One and the other made a name for himself in electronics. But let's get back to you, Mrs. Wicklund.

You heard me bring my bike into the hallway and opened your door, and I carried your groceries on through to your kitchen. You paid me and offered me hot cocoa and—why wasn't I nervous about Mama? Pop at work and Mr. Wicklund, too; that figured—but where was Mama? Oh, yes, her Sewing Circle afternoon.

So while I drank cocoa and was being polite, you cranked your Victrola and put on a record—uh. "Margie," it was, and you asked me if I knew how to dance. You taught me to dance all right—on the sofa.

A life-support technician studied an oscilloscope, noted an increase in brain activity, concluded that the patient might be frightened and decided to tranquilize. Johann Smith slipped gently into sleep without knowing it—to the scratchy strains of a mechanical phonograph. He was "fox-trotting," so she told him. He did not care what it was called; his arm was around her waist, hers was around his neck, her warm clean odor was sweet in his nostrils. Presently she seduced him.

After a long, ecstatic, and utterly satisfying time he said, "Eunice honey, I didn't know you could fox-trot."

She smiled into his eyes. "You never asked me, Boss. Can you reach past me and shut off the Victrola?"

‘"Sure, Mrs. Wicklund."