I cast about for some salvation, some flimmer of hope, and my hand strayed across an ink pen. I snatched it up idly, thinking to play a dangerous game of mumblety-pen, imagining my father’s reaction if I were to stab myself with an inky nib. Would he relent? Would he love me again?
Instead I found my fingers moving as they had moved earlier. On a scrap of paper I signed the name of Strapon Thing, over and over again.
After awhile, realizing what I had done, I raised the paper to my eyes and scrutinized the signature. It looked exactly like that which I had seen in the museum that afternoon—more so, in fact, for it was fresh and alive!
I thought of my father and the pleasure that would be his if only he could own a signature of Strapon Thing. I realized that it was in my power to grant him such joy as he had never dreamed of acquiring.
I tossed aside the scrap of practice paper and headed into the dim recesses of Dorky Coxset’s storerooms. I had never ventured farther than several feet among the leaning stacks of old paper and corroded typewriters, for Dorky did not like me poking about in the dark. This time I brought the lantern along. My search led me into the depths of the storeroom, and quite a maze it was. Beneath layers of dust, undisturbed for years, I found bottles of nearly colorless ink and ballpoint pens whose balls refused to roll. I selected a few sheets of particularly malodorous paper and returned to my workbench, where Dorky had been teaching me the rudiments of typing in the evenings, after more important business was concluded. I also brought with me an ancient Underwood that Dorky had pronounced unfit for repair and abandoned several weeks before, but from which I managed to elicit more than half the alphabet. I thought it lent the proper air of antiquity to my work.
“My work.” What euphemisms the mind is capable of framing when it diligently stretches to avoid the simple truth!
For hours I labored over that first letter, filling it with the few scraps of knowledge that I had gleaned of the days before the Turbulation. I filled the missive with mysterious implications and carefully left them unexplained. It would not do, after all, to have Strapon Thing explaining commonplaces to one of his contemporaries. The gist of the letter, if you did not see it during the brief but popular tour of my father’s collection, was merely to thank one of Thing’s readers for his admiring response to The Whining. I also framed, in Thing’s words, my intentions to publish a novel which I hoped my fictitious reader would equally enjoy, an extravaganza which I dubbed Good ’n’ Evil. Then I signed the Master’s name to all this nonsense.
Already, as you see, the length and breadth of my plans were mapped out in my mind. Once my course was set, it was merely a matter of sticking to it. For in my heart I had resolved that my father would love me again, no matter what deeds I was driven to.
Late that night I returned home and found him collapsed across the threshold, snoring heavily. I covered him with a blanket and in his hand I placed my letter. Then I crawled into my bag.
I was awakened at first light by his astonished gasp. He stood at the window, a hand to his head, his eyes red-rimmed but fervent with joy.
“My boy!” he cried. “Maven, my son, do you know what this is? Where did you find it?”
“I… I thought you might be interested in it, Father,” I replied, erasing all guile from my face and voice. “Dorky Coxset has a new client, a gentleman from the country—a very secretive gentleman—who has asked us to retype a number of old papers belonging to his grandmother. In exchange, he promised that we may keep what we wish of the original manuscripts. Dorky’s collection of antique stationery is quite well-known, I suppose. But he’s been too busy to do any typing himself. He said that if I did the work, I could have my pick of the paper.”
“But my boy, my boy, this is no less than an original Strapon Thing!”
Before I could express my amazement, my father threw his arms around me and tried to draw me into a jig. I reminded him of the fragile paper which he held, and we set it safely aside before continuing with our celebrations. To my displeasure he insisted on opening another bottle of absinthe, while asking me again to tell him the story of the letter’s origin. He was very curious about the mysterious gentleman.
“Do you think there might be more letters from Strapon Thing in his grandmother’s collection?”
I nodded. “Undoubtedly. He mentioned reams of pages like this one, and not merely correspondence. He thought there might be an entire novel somewhere in the mess. Perhaps it is the one mentioned in the letter—Good ’n’ Evil.”
My father stumbled backward and sat down hard on the floor, with a loud hiccup and a spill of absinthe. His face had gone white. His mouth moved peculiarly. I wondered if he might be hallucinating. The absinthe had strange properties. But after awhile I heard him say, “Incredible fortune. But we must have these pages inspected. The Dean of the College will want to see them, and Professor Tadmonicker. Do you have these pages at the repair shop?”
“No, Father,” I stated quite honestly, and then went on boldly into fabrication. “The gentleman insisted that he apportion them to us a few at a time, so that he might have the opportunity to organize them, and so that we would not become burdened by the work. He was a peculiar fellow; I did not entirely understand his reasoning but he was most particular on these points.”
My father sat deep in thought. “A gentleman. Good family. Grandmother. Money. Perhaps they had a shelter-one that worked, I mean. Old money. Who knows what might have been preserved? And no wonder they are reclusive. Still, it would be excellent to meet this man. We shall have to see if it can be arranged at some point. Don’t be too brash with him, Maven. He mustn’t be frightened off. Go at it gradually but see if you can’t talk him into a meeting.”
I swallowed my doubts and nodded in order to please him.
I left my father perusing the letter, marveling at its excellent condition, and I swore to bring home whatever pages I finished copying. The grand scheme had been hatched; now the living monster issued forth.
All day I worked at my bench, ignoring the insistent knocking of Dorky’s customers. My typing had improved greatly in the several weeks I’d been at it; my fingers fairly flew over the ponderous keys of the old Underwood. The only thing that slowed me was an uncertain knowledge of the days before the Turbulation. This troubled me for some time, until I recalled that the Master had been known not chiefly for his correspondence, but for his fiction!
Refreshed by this insight, I embarked on my first major undertaking—an original manuscript of the epic, Ik! Only scattered fragments of the tale had been discovered. I had no fear that the forgery would be denounced on a comparative basis.
By nightfall, I was ready with a slender sheaf of pages purporting to have issued from the Master’s own Underwood. Weary and expectant, I approached my father’s house only to find it the scene of great excitement. White-bearded gentlemen in dark coats thronged the doorway, arguing with tremendous energy, stamping at the dust of the street as they made their points. I thought that fully half the staff of the College must be present in our house, and I noticed also several foreboding old men and women in the distinctive striped frocks of Museum custodians and the Prior Historical Society. Hoping to pass unnoticed among them, I slipped the forgeries under my jacket and hurried toward the door. But my father, standing in the second-story window, noticed my approach and called out loudly, “There you are, Maven! Have you brought more treasures from the Master?”