“Wait a second, Mom I Are you saying that Nelson Fisher was behind his nephew’s crazy behavior?”
“Who else? Who acted very peculiar for a grown man, ignoring the company of people his own age and spending his time with a little five-years-old? Who was lonely and sick and in a terrible state because his life as a plane pilot was over? Who could think to himself, ‘This sister-in-law of mine likes me already. She could be mine, along with her house and her money — if only this little brat was out of the way’? And who was it, after the first jealousy wore oft, that had the most influence over little Kenny? Who did little Kenny hero-worship and believe everything he said — especially on the subject of flying, because wasn’t his Uncle Nelson an Air Force pilot like his Papa used to be? And last but not littlest, who was up on the roof with little Kenny all morning? Nelson, exclusively Nelson. He climbed on the ledge, he flapped his arms, he shouted. ‘Look, Kenny, see how easy it is? Why are you hesitating, Kenny? Why are you acting scared? Why, Kenny, why?’ — and then he fell over himself.”
The picture before my eyes fascinated me, kept me silent for a moment. Then I said, “But how did it happen, Mom? What made him lose his balance and fall from the ledge?”
Mom frowned. “This was a problem. For a while it bothered me. And then it came to me, and I asked you about the weather. It was a bright, hot, sunny morning, you said. So I put myself in this no-good Nelson’s place. I’m excited. I’m so close to what I’ve been wanting and working for. And I’m a man who had malaria, a man who still gets dizzy spells. I climb up on a ledge — a narrow ledge, four storys up, and when I look down I see how far it is to the ground. And the sun is so hot, and it is beating down on me, I flap my arms, I yell at the little boy, then everything begins to dance in front of me. It is one of my dizzy spells. My God, I’m falling — I’m flying—” And Mom let her voice trail off solemnly.
After a pause, I laughed out loud, I couldn’t help myself. “Mom, you don’t know how grateful I am. A five-year-old murderer — we’ve been hating the idea all day. What a relief for the boys down at Homicide!”
“What a relief for the Mama,” said Mom, in a low voice.
I looked at her a moment. And then I thought I’d have a little fun with her. “But you still haven’t proved your main point, Mom,” I said, pretending to be very serious. “You still haven’t proved that it’s a good thing to have kids, that they aren’t all little monsters.”
Mom’s head snapped up. “I haven’t proved it? Who said so? Didn’t I show you that this Kenny is a sweet, innocent, intelligent little child?”
“Yes, Mom. But what about Nelson? Nelson was somebody’s child once.”
“Nelson?” Mom gaped at me, almost at a loss for words. Then her voice grew very fierce. “Nelson don’t mean nothing! What kind of talk is this, bringing up Nelson as an argument?”
“I don’t know, Mom.” I shrugged my shoulders elaborately. “Shirley and I will have to do a lot of thinking about this. We’d love to have a kid like Kenneth. But suppose that kid grew up to be like Nelson, It’s quite a problem.”
“It’s no problem!” Mom shook her head back and forth energetically. “Don’t talk like that — a son of mine! Don’t get a prejudice against children, I beg you, Davie. Little children — little grandchildren — they’re the most beautiful thing in the world. Sometimes I think they’re the only beautiful thing in the world.”
Then it happened — something I never thought I’d see. A mist came into Mom’s eyes, a trembling over her lips, and while I stared in amazement, Mom shed a tear.
I was terribly ashamed of myself. “Please, Mom,” I said, “I was only fooling.”
She recovered herself instantly. She got to her feet, her eyes dry again. “So was I!” she snorted. Then she stamped out indignantly to fetch the nesselrode pie.
The Dipping of the Candlemaker
by Hayden Howard
When we published Hayden Howard’s “Pass the Bottle” last year, we promised you more facts about the author himself. Here they are: Mr. Howard is now in his late twenties, which is very young indeed; his physique is, to quote, “elongated.” After wrestling a couple of years with engineering at U.C.L.A., Mr. Howard worked briefly as a milkman and a house painter, then switched to U. of C. for a degree in social science. His ambition to be a professor of sociology was interrupted by necessary money-making ventures as a stationer s salesman and census taker, but finally he returned to U. of C. for graduate work. During this trying period, Mr. Howard turned to writing fiction for, as he phrased it, “mental relaxation.” And then he was lost. For he is now writing full lilt, although he admits that in many ways and on many scores he is “still fumbling in the dark.” (Who isn’t, brother?)
Hayden Howard s latest prize-winning story is one of the most difficult types of fiction to write — an historical detective story. The action takes place in the America of 1722 — but we will let the author tell you more about the significance of the scene and the times in the tale itself, and in a short postscript. The point is, historical detective stories are not everybody s meat — although they shouldn’t be anyone’s poison. Personally, we have a deep fondness for historical detection — especially when it has a stature approaching either fact or folklore, and even more especially when it parallels today’s problems and throws light and insight on the conflicts and insecurities now facing us.
Mr. Howard’s story is a wonderful conception, with fascinating meanings and implications, and it has (although perhaps we should not warn you even this much) a terrific kick at the end. Whatever your penchant for or prejudice against historical detective stories, we think you will enjoy this one hugely.
Mr. Howards two stories — a Black Mask tough ’tec and a serious historical detective story — illustrate not only the author’s versatility but also what a Black Mask type of writer can do for a change of pace, and vice versa. So again we take an opportunity to invite all writers to do originals for our Black Mask department. We encourage you to explore, in the highest tradition of the hardboiled school, the seamy side of life — to illuminate, with all the integrity and artistry at your command, the back alleys and dark streets of crime and its moral concomitant, punishment.
On a frosty morn, when a rigid gentleman, wigg’d, powder’d, and exhaling vapours like a dragon, stamp’d into our printing-house with his red cloak flung back in anger, I smiled secretly at the stick of type I was composing. For here was Colonel Clinton of the Assembly.
Now, thought I, it is my brother James’s turn to bend the knee!
While breaking our fast, we had fallen into another of our disputations, and he, unwilling to admit himself trapp’d in contradiction by my devious Socratic inquiries, beat me passionately, which I took extreamly amiss; and, thinking my apprenticeship to him very tedious, I was wishing for some means of shortening it.
Most merrily I listen’d to Colonel Clinton berate him for some political piece lately appearing in our weekly newspaper. Yet I admired my brother for refusing to give up the name of its author who had made so free with our Massachusetts Assembly.