The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 7

PARKY by David Rome

David Rome is another new writer, whose work has appeared only in the past year in the two British magazines. New Worlds and Science Fantasy. This is his first American publication.

Drop Parky into a crowd anywhere and he’d stand out like a Roman nose in Basutoland. Tall and excessively thin, with eyes like twin tail-lights — that was Parky. But get him alone, start a conversation, and he’d seem to shrink a foot. His voice was high-pitched, like a woman’s; his baby-white hands never stopped moving.

He was a seer, and I owned him. Leastways, I owned an hour of his time Mondays to Saturdays when he’d sit up there on his rostrum and drone through his act.

Sundays, Parky was free; but he never went anywhere. He’d loll around my caravan drinking warm beer, telling me I should be paying him double his wage. His red eyes would glow and his fingers would tap out a melancholy tune on the side of the can.

‘Listen,’ I said once. ‘Your act is deader than Dodo.’

Dodo was a highwire, no-net, artist I once had.

So Parky would tell me then that because I wasn’t paying him enough he wasn’t getting enough to eat.

‘Reading the future takes energy, Charlie.’

Then he’d finish his beer, poke around in the fridge until he found a leg of chicken, and start chewing it for its energy.

‘Look, Parky,’ I said. ‘You read the future, eh? Well, read it now. See any raise in the ether? Any big money about to materialise?’

He didn’t, and I knew it. His act wasn’t worth half what I was paying him now. I opened another can and avoided his eyes.

‘I could always go elsewhere,’ he said.

Like hell he could. I’d tried to shuffle him out of my hand months ago, but nobody else was having any.

‘Don’t make me laugh,’ I said. ‘And have a beer.’

He took the huff at that. He grabbed the can I was holding out to him, mumbled a word or two under his breath, and off he went. I never saw him again that day. I wrote up my accounts, put the books away in my safe, and started out on my Sunday check of the fairground.

I was halfway around, with two kids and a stray dog to my credit, when I first saw the little guy with yellow hair. Just a glimpse. There, then gone. I changed my direction and went after him.

Rounding a tent, I caught sight of him again. He was walking towards Parky’s pitch, his bright hair shining like a halo under the afternoon sun.

‘Hey!’ I called out.

He turned slowly. Neatly pressed suit; collar-and-tie. He was well dressed. He waited until I was closer, then he said, ‘Yes?’

Funny that. I’d thought he was little; when he spoke, though, he seemed taller than I was.

‘Look,’ I said carefully. ‘I don’t want to be unpleasant.’

An up-and-down line creased his brow. He stared at me.

‘The fact is — ah — the fairground is closed.’

Silence.

‘Sunday, you know.’

He spoke then, very softly, without malice. ‘I’m not certain I understood your first remark.’

Peculiar accent he had. Some kind of foreigner. I retrospected. First remark? ‘I don’t want to be…’

‘Unpleasant?’ The question came sharply.

‘That’s right.’

He sighed gently. ‘Ahhh!’ Then he said frankly, ‘I like your system down here.’

My heart warmed suddenly. ‘Like it?’ I turned in a slow circle, taking in the tents and caravans under a blue sky. ‘Yes I suppose it’s not a bad layout. You’re in the entertainment world, then?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Government.’

Well, you can understand that this rocked me a little. I mustered up my talking-to-big-brass tone and said politely, ‘Local MP?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘IGC. Inter-Galaxy.’

Some kind of European was my guess. Anyway, I was beginning to wonder about something else. The main gate had been locked, so how had he got in? I looked at his immaculate suit. Kids crawl through the holes, and performers have their own keys. He wasn’t a performer, and he hadn’t been doing any crawling.

‘How — ’

He cut me short. ‘I’m looking for Ephraim Parkinson,’ he said.

For Ephraim Parkinson. That stumped me for a moment. But sometime in the past I had seen that name scratched out on a contract.

‘For Parky?’ I said.

‘Yes — for Ephraim Parkinson. You can direct me?’

Well, I was able to direct him all right. I pointed out Parky’s pitch to him, and off he went. It wasn’t until he was yards away that I remembered to ask him how he’d got in.

He turned when I called out the question.

He smiled brightly.

‘Oh, I came over the gate,’ he said.

In my business you don’t let anything worry you. There are funnymen in every walk of life, and if they’re from the government I leave them alone.

I finished my rounds without further incident and went back to my caravan. I had a drink, read the papers, turned on the radio, turned it off. Then I went to sleep.

If Parky was in trouble it was his lookout.

Next morning I was up at ten. I was shaving when Parky came in. He didn’t say anything. He sat down in one of my chairs and watched me scraping the razor around my face.

‘That’s a fine, well-fed face you’ve got, Charlie,’ he said finally.

I wiped the razor, rinsed my face, and mopped it dry.

‘Thanks, Parky,’ I said.

He watched me, eyes blinking slowly.

‘You know,’ he said. ‘I once weighed a hundred and ninety.’

‘Too much,’ I said. But I knew he was getting at something. As I pulled my shirt over my head I said, ‘What’s eating you today?’

His long fingers were picking at his sleeves.

‘We’ve been together a long time, Charlie.’

This I knew.

‘But I’ve never had a raise, Charlie.’

I knotted my tie and watched him in the mirror.

‘You’ve never had a wage-cut either, Parky.’

I saw his red eyes spark. Suddenly he seemed to reach a decision in his own mind. He got to his feet.

‘Charlie — I’ve got to ask you for a raise. If you can’t give me a raise I’ll be — ’ He hesitated, then said it:

‘I’ll be leaving.’

I didn’t move a muscle. ‘Leaving?’

‘That’s right.’ He seemed embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie, but I’ve had another offer.’

I sat down. I smiled across at him. Every move was calculated now. For months I’d been trying to shake Parky off my lists — but this was something different. If a performer gets an offer, then somebody thinks that performer is worth something. And if you’ve still got all your screws, this starts you thinking. What had I missed in Parky? What did he have that I hadn’t seen?

‘Parky,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to talk about this.’

He shook his head grimly. ‘I can’t talk about it, Charlie. I’ve been offered another job at a higher rate of pay. That’s all there is to it. I can’t tell you who. I can’t tell you where.’

‘Can’t? Or won’t?’

He didn’t answer me. Just shook his head.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘Give me until after the show tonight.’

He nodded, satisfied. ‘That’s fine, Charlie.’

‘You won’t do anything rash?’

He shook his head like a child. I wondered if he realised that he was legally bound to me. Unless I gave him the OK he couldn’t go anywhere. I could hold him to his contract if I had to.

But I wouldn’t do that to the old fraud.

He went off down the steps, beaming, and I opened a beer, gulped it down, and started thinking.

Who the hell was after Parky? That was the first question. Nobody wants psi minds these days. Science has proved that the Power is so much s.f. It’s the equivalent of the headless woman nowadays.

I wondered if the yellow-haired guy had anything to do with it. What did he call his department? IGC? Something connected with government. And what the hell had he meant about ‘unpleasant’?

Angrily I tossed the empty beer-can into a corner and pulled on my coat. I locked the door of the caravan behind me and crossed the battered stretch of grass that separated my place from the rest of the fairground.

The remainder of the morning was spent in futile questioning. Nobody else had been approached. Nobody else had seen the guy with yellow hair. Finally, after lunch, I decided that all I could do was watch Parky’s act. If he had something new, I would spot it.

Accordingly, with two cans of beer and a plate of sausage-and-mash under my belt, I made my way over to Parky’s tent at about seven o’clock. There was a handful of people sown over the wooden benches, all of them looking around without interest, or watching a couple of kids who were trying to pull down the pale-blue curtain that screened Parky’s rostrum.

The dim yellow lights were shining uncertainly on the muddy grass inside the tent, and somewhere behind his curtain Parky was playing the harmonica while he changed his robes.

I sat down at the back of the tent, looking around. There was no sign of the guy with yellow hair. The spectators were an ordinary looking bunch. I would’ve bet my profits that none of them were talent scouts.

Five minutes went by, and the harmonica rose on a weird note, and fell silent. Quite suddenly, the lights went out. A girl in the second row giggled, of course, and for a moment the sound caught my attention. I almost missed the entry of two men who slipped into their seats unobtrusively in the half-darkness. Then Parky flung his curtain open with a flourish and the light from the rostrum fell on the hair of one of the men.

Government my pink eye. Yellow Hair was after Parky.

Almost in the same instant my eyes switched back to the tall, thin figure on the rostrum. I didn’t want to miss anything. So Parky did have something. So what the hell was it?

An hour later I was still asking myself the same question. Parky read the minds of two mindless youths; he foretold the futures of half a dozen seedy couples. But hell! The whole act was corn. His patter was feeble. His stage manner was laughable.

When it was over I ducked out quick because I didn’t want the embarrassment of seeing the guy with yellow hair turning Parky down. It was raining outside — a fine drizzle. I walked back to my caravan through the milling crowds with that rain slanting down into my face and Parky’s troubles in my mind.

I couldn’t give him a raise — he was already operating at a loss. And after tonight’s performance he wouldn’t be getting his offer. If one had been made, it was going to be withdrawn fast. I knew the business. I knew no one would want Parky now.

It was sometime after eight when I reached the caravan. I went inside and shut the door. I stripped off my wet clothes, put on my dressing-gown and started to make supper. I turned on the radio and got some soft music playing.

The hell with the whole business, I thought. The hell with Parky and his lousy act, and the hell with the whole damned fairground.

Then there was a knock at the door.

I thought it would be Parky, but it wasn’t. It was the guy with yellow hair. He stood outside, dripping. The rain, I saw, was heavier now.

‘Come in,’ I said. And in he came. He pushed past me purposefully and turned, facing me. Now he was between me and my desk. I had my back to the door. I closed it.

‘I’m sorry to intrude,’ he said quickly.

‘Not at all,’ I said. His dress was still very gentlemanly. His tie was knotted neatly. He carried an umbrella.

‘I understand that you’re Parkinson’s manager,’ he said in his precise English. He gestured faintly with his hand. ‘This is correct?’

‘That’s righ — yikes!’

I gagged. My eyelids peeled back like sprung traps.

During that little gesture, his dainty feet enclosed in his dainty shoes had risen! Perceptibly — unmistakably — they had left the floor!

He looked down and realised what was wrong. He touched a hand to his waist, under his coat. He descended, unperturbed.

‘Gravity Variation,’ he explained. ‘Plays the dickens with our AG belts.’

I sat down heavily on the bed.

‘Now,’ he said briskly, ‘to business.’ He took a seat on the arm of a chair, crossed his impeccably tailored knees, and went on: ‘You must realise that our world is not your world. You yourself once said to me that you didn’t wish to be unpleasant. On my world, Mr Cot, everyone wished to be unpleasant. Our civilisation has advanced until it is chaos. Our government has broken apart. We need Ephraim Parkinson!’

I gaped.

‘As his manager, of course, you will expect compensation. Perhaps this’ — he extended one arm gracefully and the point of his umbrella touched the steel door of the safe — ‘will be recompense enough?’

He smiled. ‘We took the opportunity earlier this evening, Mr Cot, of placing your reward in the safe. You will open it when I am gone.’

‘Why Parky?’ I croaked.

He smiled again. ‘Because Ephraim Parkinson is the only man in the Universe who actually can read minds, Mr Cot. He will be of inestimable value to my government when our Peace Talks begin.’

Then he waved his umbrella cheerfully, stepped out into the rain without raising it, and was gone.

Apparently it never rained on Parky’s new world.

I got around to opening that safe, you know. And by now most of you will have been out to the fairground to see the ‘Snuffler’ they left me.

It’s small, red, and furry. It eats glass, nails, paper — anything. It has three eyes, breathes fire, and can dance the hula on one leg.

But you know something. I’d give any amount of ‘Snufflers’ to get old Parky back.

We could do with a guy like him on Earth these days.