The Purple Pterodactyls

Tiki

The giant spider crab of the North Pacific, the largest living crustacean, is said to be a sluggish, harmless creature.

I first heard of Esau Drexel's giant crabs at a party at the Museum of Natural Science. As a faithful member, I had taken Denise to a meeting. We stand around among elephants, dinosaurs, and Eskimo artifacts and booze up. When the noise rises to where you have to scream to be heard, the lights are blinked to summon the members to dinner. Afterwards, we listen to somebody like the late Dr. Louis Leakey or the late Sir Julian Huxley, or perhaps see a movie on the life of the Bakhtiari tribesman or of the common flea. As one whose boyhood ambition was to be a naturalist-explorer, I get a great kick out of these events.

Before the movie began, Dr. Esther Farsace, the Curator of Invertebrates, announced a donation to finance a hall in the new wing. This would be the Drexel Hall of Crustaceans Everybody clapped. Looking, with his dark, three-piece suit and white mustache, every bit the prosperous, conservative old banker, Esau Drexel rose and bowed.

Everybody thinks of bankers as rich. I am not, but Esau Drexel was. When not presiding over the Harrison Trust Company and a junior banker named W. Wilson Newbury, he was off in his yacht, recording the songs of the finback whale or counting the elephant seals of Antarctica. He had fitted out this ship as a marine laboratory. The Japanese Emperor had been his guest on board, because of their common interest in marine biology.

After the lecture, we congratulated Drexel on his gift. Denise said: "Whatever gave you the idea, Esau?"

"When I was up in Bering Sea last summer," he said, "the dredge brought up one of those giant spider crabs. It struck me that this poor old museum had no proper place to put it. We have some fine collections of Arthropoda, but far too many to display in one hall. So, being a director of the Museum but never having given it anything much, I thought it was time I did, while I was still around to see how the money was spent.

"Tell you what," he continued, "when the new wing is further along, I'll give you and your kids a guided tour of it!"

Denise wrinkled her nose. "Willy will bring the children. Me, I like the animals with fur and feathers better than those like great bugs."

"Just a mammalian prejudice," said Drexel. "Where will you find a more gorgeous creature than Odontodacfylus scyllarus?"

"Zuf!" she said. "I still prefer my crabs in a can, ready to eat."

Drexel turned to me. "Willy, are you playing golf Saturday? You don't mind a little snow on the greens, do you?" For all that he was twenty years older than I, he had the constitution of a polar bear.

During the next summer, Drexel was off on his ship, collecting rare isopods and other sea creatures with lots of jointed legs. When he got back, I saw him (outside of working hours, that is) at the first fall members' meeting. We were drinking our cocktails in the Hall of Oceanic Anthropology, and Denise was reading the caption on a big statue of dark, mahoganylike wood.

"Tiki of Atea," she read. "Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands. Que veut dire 'Tiki of Atea,' darling?"

"A tiki is a Polynesian statue or idol," I said. "Indubitablement, Atea is the god the statue is of." Since Denise is French, we run a bilingual menage.

This statue was one of the oldest exhibits in the Museum. It had been there since the nineteenth century. When Christian missionaries in the South Seas were exhorting their converts to burn up all the relics of 'idolatry,' some enterprising scientist had salvaged this eidolon.

That must have been a job, for the statue is seven feet tall and massive. It is just as ugly as those stone images on Easter Island, of which it reminded one, although better-proportioned. It was a highly stylized piece of folk art, squat and blocky, with a snarling, thick-lipped mouth and round bug eyes. I daresay it had seen plenty of human sacrifices in its day.

Esau Drexel barged up with martini in hand and wife in tow. "Willy!" he roared. "Remember my saying Fd give you a guided tour of my new hall? Well, how about next week end?"

"I never see him by daylight any more," said Mrs. Drexel to Denise. "He spends all his week ends here, supervising. I wonder the Museum people haven't gone on strike, to get him out of their hair."

I said I should be delighted to bring such of my children as I could catch. I can take my crustaceans or leave them, but an invitation from the big boss is a command performance.

Our girls begged off. Stephen said he would go if he could bring his friend Hank. I hesitated at this.

Stephen was a sweet, docile twelve-year-old, who never needed to be punished. He was also a natural follower, and his leader was his friend Henry Schnell. Hank was a young hellion; but a parent should think carefully before trying to pry a boy loose from his best friend. So I said that Hank might come.

Knowing Hank's tendency to dash wildly off towards anything that caught his interest, I warned the boys to stay close to me. We met Esau Drexel at the information desk and started towards the new wing. Then we stopped to talk to David Goldman. Professor Goldman was full of the argument, whether therapsid reptiles evolved into birds by developing feathers to fly with, or developed feathers first to keep warm and then adapted them to flying. Goldman was excited by what he said was new evidence on the question.

While we were listening, the boys disappeared. I guessed that Hank, typically, had dashed on ahead, through the Oceanic Hall towards the new wing, and Stephen had followed. I did not worry about the boys. But, knowing Henry Schnell, I did worry about the Museum.

When we got to the Hall of Oceanic Anthropology, the first thing that caught my eye was the Tiki of Atea. On the statue, someone had painted, with one of those thick, felt-tipped pens that kids use to make grafitti on subway cars, a big, crude mustache.

While I stammered humble apologies for my young savages, Drexel said: "Never mind, Willy. I'm sure it'll wash off, even if it's the indelible kind. The statue's varnished. Some idiot put a coat of varnish on at the time of the First World War, and we've never taken it off. Now it's a good thing."

Then I heard another sentence. It said clearly: "You shall rue your insolence, mortal!"

I jumped and stared at Drexel. My boss was looking at the statue, with his hands in his pockets and his mouth closed. Anyway, I could hardly imagine Esau Drexel's telling anyone he should rue his insolence. That was not his style. In one of his more pompous moods, he might have said: "My good man, you'll be sorry for this!"

While I was staring, the same voice added: "You and your seed, both!"

Drexel had not opened his mouth, nor had he given any sign of hearing the voice. Nobody else was nearby. I must, I thought, be getting auditory hallucinations. Naturally, I did not want to say anything to Drexel to cause him to suspect that such was the case. I wondered whether I should consult a neurologist or a psychiatrist. I knew a couple of nice, gentle shrinks ...

"Well," growled Drexel, "let's catch your little bums before they do something else."

On we went. At the end of the Oceanic Hall is a small, square hall housing, on this floor, a mineral exhibition. It has no logical place there; but then, museum halls seldom do. As fast as one director begins to get things in what he thinks is a logical order, another director takes his place and starts moving them around again.

It is like one of those puzzles in which you move little wooden blocks in a box, this way and that to bring them into some desired array. In a museum, nobody lives long enough to complete one solution of the problem. The minerals had been left over from some previous arrangement.

The mineral hall opens on the new wing. This is not really a wing but a fourth side to a hollow square. On the far end of the new wing was another side of the square, housing some of the Museum's working and storage spaces. Visitors seldom realize that more space is devoted to these purposes than to exhibition halls. Any mature museum has far more specimens than it can show at any one time. Besides the fourth side of the square, a huge maze of cellars also contains storage and preparation rooms.

In Mineral Hall, we caught up with the boys. They tried to look casual and innocent but could not help smirking and snickering.

They vigorously denied putting a mustache on Atea. When I searched them, I did not find any felt-tipped pen or similar instrument. I supposed that they had ditched it. While I might be morally certain that they had done this vandalism, I could not prove it. One of them must have stood on the other's back or shoulders to reach the statue's bug-eyed face.

"Come on," said Drexel, opening the locked door with a key. Beyond lay the second story of the new wing, the incomplete Crustacean Hall.

There were the usual wall cases and central cases, most of them with their cover glasses still off. The central cases formed a continuous row down the middle of the hall.

Crustaceans of all sizes and shapes were mounted, but only half the spaces in the cases had been filled. There was a lobster that must have weighed thirty pounds alive. There was a Pacific coconut crab almost as big as that lobster. There were gaudily-colored stomatopods and other scuttly creatures.

There were signs of work in progress: a stepladder standing in the fairway, pails, a fire extinguisher, stacks of panes of glass, tools, a box of fasteners to hold the glass of the cases in place. Muttering something about "slobs," Drexel began moving these things into the corners to give the hall a tidier look. I helped him.

Drexel pointed to a blank wall space. "A giant spider crab would go well there, I think."

The boys were getting restless. Few of them can maintain interest for very long in static exhibits. Drexel was spouting his enthusiasm. I gently suggested:

"How about the hall in which these things are being prepared, Esau? I think they'd like that."

"Sure thing!" said Drexel.

He unlocked another door, at the far end of the Crustacean Hall, and led us into one of the preparation halls, which smelled of formaldehyde. There were workbenches, on which the preparators had been painstakingly cleaning the meat out of crabs, shrimps, and other denizens of the deep before wiring them up for mounting. There were racks with dried specimens, and jars and tanks with others floating in preservative. None of the scientists or technicians was at work that day.

The biggest object was a huge metal tank, nearly full of liquid. In it lay what-looked at first like a disorganized tangle of the limbs of some fictional super-spider—Tolkien's Shelob, for instance.

"We just got these in," said Drexel. "I didn't catch these beauties. The Lemuria got 'em off the Aleutians."

"What are they?" asked Stephen. "They look horrible."

"They," said Drexel, "are the so-called Japanese spider crab, Macrocheira kampferi. I don't see what call the Japs have to claim them when they're found all over the Pacific north of latitude forty. And they're not horrible. They're beautiful—at least, to another spider crab."

"How many are there? They're all tangled up so I can't tell."

"There are four," said Drexel. "We figure on mounting the biggest and keeping the rest in storage."

"Are they man-eaters?" asked Henry.

"They're harmless, although I suppose if you went scuba-diving and bothered one, it would defend itself ... Yes, Angela?"

A young woman had come in, through the door at the far end of the hall. "Mr. Drexel, Mrs. Drexel wants you on the telephone. You can use the one in my office."

"Excuse me, Willy," said Drexel. "I'll be right back. You and the kids look at the stuff here. Don't let 'em touch anything."

Angela's heels went click, click as the two marched out the door at the far end. The door slammed shut.

I bent over the tank with the spider crabs. They were tremendous creatures, the biggest with legs four to six feet long and chelae of eight or ten feet. One of those nippers, I thought, could easily take off a human hand or foot.

"What's that stuff? Water?" asked Stephen.

"Formaldehyde, I suppose," I said. "Don't stick your finger in it and then in your mouth to find out."

"Yech!" said Hank. "Putting the stuff those things have been lying dead in, in your mouth!"

"Well, you eat crab out of a can, don't you?" said Stephen. "And it's dead, isn't it?"

"Not me," said Hank. "I don't eat no dead monsters. Say!"

"What?" I asked.

"Did Mister—you know—the old guy—your friend—"

"Mr. Drexel," said Stephen.

"Mr. Drexel—did he say they were dead?"

"Of course he did," I said. He had not, but I was not about to make a point of it.

"Well, they ain't. They're moving."

"You're crazy, Hank," said Stephen.

"Look there!" said Hank. "His legs are wriggling, like he was waking up."

"Just your imag—Hey, Dad, take a look!"

I did. As I looked, all four crabs stirred, gathered their tangled limbs under them, and stood up. They rose from the liquid like Venus from the sea foam, only it would take a more avid seafood lover than I to see any resemblance to Venus. They were a pale, bonelike gray, with bits of olive-green sponge and other marine growths adhering to them.

The boys and I jumped back from the tank. The boys shrieked.

Stepping deliberately, the four crabs climbed dripping out of the tank. Led by the biggest of all, they started towards us, chelae extended and open.

"Run!" I yelled. "This way! Don't let 'em lay a claw on you! They'll take your heads off!"

I started for the Crustacean Hall. The boys dashed past me. Behind us, in single file, came the four spider crabs, their clawed feet going clickety-click on the tiles.

The crabs did not move faster than a brisk walk. Amazed and horrified though I was, I did not, being in good shape for a man past forty, expect any trouble in outrunning them.

When the boys got to the far end of the Crustacean Hall ahead of me, they tried the door. It would not open.

I caught up with them and heaved on the knob. The door was shut on a snap lock, to keep out the unauthorized. It could only be opened with a key, and the key was in Esau Drexel's pocket.

The four crabs came clattering down the Crustacean Hall, along one side of the row of central cases. I yelled and banged the door to no avail.

"Boys!" I said. "They're on one side of the cases. We'll run back on the other and try the other door."

The crabs were now a mere nine feet from us. We dashed back up the hall on the other side of the central cases. The crabs continued their course. They came to the end of the row of central cases, rounded it like Roman racing chariots rounding the end of the spina, and continued their pursuit.

We went back through the Crustacean Hall, through the Mineral Hall, and through the preparation hall. After us came the crabs.

The door at the far end of the preparation hall was also locked. I fruitlessly yelled and banged some more.

As the crabs clicked past the big tank on one side, the boys and I ran the other way on the other side. We made the Crustacean Hall all right. Then, when I looked back, my heart sank. The crabs, or the spirit of Atea, or whatever motivated the monsters, had done the obvious thing. The crabs had split up into two pairs. One pair approached on either side of the row of central cases. Now there was no way to get past them, so we could not continue to play ring-around-the-rosy with them. They had us.

I kicked the door and nearly burst my lungs screaming. I looked around for something to use as a club. Since the crabs were slow and clumsy, I thought I might have a change of bashing in a carapace or two before they got me. At least, I thought, I might save the boys.

When the crabs were over halfway down the hall, I saw something in a corner. It was the fire extinguisher that Drexel had moved out of the way. This was of the big cylindrical type that you turn upside down.

I grabbed that extinguisher, inverted it, and pointed the nozzle on the end of the hose at the nearest crab. I had no time to read the directions and only hoped I was following proper procedure.

The extinguisher made a great fizzing. Liquid shot from the nozzle, spraying all over the crab. The creature halted, waving its chelae in a disorganized way.

I sprayed another, and another, and another, and then back to the first one. I don't know what chemicals were in the extinguisher, but the crabs teetered on their spindly legs. They waved their chelae wildly, banged into the cases, and fell over. One lay on its back with twitching legs. Another collapsed against a case ...

When Esau Drexel came in a few minutes later, he found four motionless crabs and one motionless banker. The last-mentioned leaned breathlessly against a case and held an empty fire extinguisher.

"But—but that's impossible!" said Drexel when he heard the story.

I shrugged. I have had too many funny things happen to me to be very free with the word "impossible."

When the door to the Crustacean Hall was unlocked, others came in. Drexel told a guard to admit only Museum personnel. The boys and I repeated our story.

Doctor Einarson, the assistant curator of Pacific anthropology, spoke up. He talked with a funny little smile, as if hinting that we were not to take him seriously.

"Put a mustache on Atea?" he said. "No wonder. She's a goddess, you know. No mustaches for her!"

The following Monday, when the whole Museum was closed, you would have seen one junior banker and his wife, with a stepladder, a bucket, a sponge, a scrubbing brush, and soap. They were painstakingly erasing the mustache on Atea's tiki.

It must have worked, because nothing more like that has happened to me in the Museum in all the years since.