“Ten thousand dollars.” He laughed nastily and hung up.
I dutifully wrote the figure on a slip of paper and put it in the basket in front of me on the table. Beside me the pimply Romeo was fielding another call while trying to work his free hand between April Wilder’ s tightly clenched knees. On my other side Happy Daze was wisecracking into the phone. Prince Juv Satir was just coming off-stage and taking a seat at the far end of the table when my phone rang again.
“Death!” the voice said in my ear when the connection was made.
This was‘ it! That's all I could think. I couldn’t answer.
“It’s the only way,” the voice continued. “A kindness, really. Why can't you people see that? All this research and treatment by outfits like the Acne Foundation is only prolonging the problem. Euthanasia for acne sufferers. That’s what my organization believes in! What have you got to say to that?”
“Maybe your organization and the Acne Foundation should join forces and combine activities,” I suggested weakly. . .
“If they’ll agree to our method, I think my group might go along with that. How much does the Acne Foundation have in its treasury?”
“Offhand, I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Well, we’ll need money to buy mass-extermination equipment. Perhaps second-hand from the German government,” he mused. “Anyway ,our organization’s treasury stands at eleven hundred thirty-nine dollars and forty-two cents.”
I jotted down the figure, thanked him, hung up, and threw the slip of paper in the basket. The calls were picking up now as we got into prime time and Voluptua, April, Happy and the Prince were all busy on the telephone. On-stage Misty Milo was making a dramatic appeal with pronounced--if subliminal—sex overtones. To one side of her, in the wings, an old man with a truly horrible skin condition was seated on a chair. Three make-up personnel hovered over him. They were busily engaged in disguising his acned face.
Like a man with a sore tooth, I couldn’t stop my fingers from seeking out the button again. I just barely touched it when my phone rang again. I jerked away from the button and answered it.
“Strike now!”
I gulped. I didn’t answer. It was getting to be a habit, not answering.
“Acnes of the world, unite!” the voice continued. “You have nothing to lose but your shame!”
“I beg your pardon?” I found my voice.
“J’accuse!” The tone was righteous. “You stand accused! The Acne Foundation and all of you bigots stand accused of spreading the poison of prejudice!”
“Prejudice? Prejudice against who?”
“Against those of us with acne. Strike now! That’ s what we’re going to do! Strike now! Before you succeed in your diabolical campaign to wipe acne from the face of the earth. It’s war! It’s us, or you! And it must be us! If humanity is to progress, it must be us. For we are the fittest! Darwin! The fittest must survive!”
“How do you figure people with acne are more fit than people without acne?"
“It’s been proven historically. It’s as old and established a fact as the non-acne race’s campaign to wipe us out. Look at the greatest minds in the history of mankind. All acned! Socrates—a pimple-faced genius!”
“I never heard that before. Are you sure he had a skin condition?”
“Of course! Why do you think they gave him the hemlock?”
“For his acne?”
“Because of it! Acne was the sign of his superiority. They had to destroy it. And Marat! Look at Marat! Another genius! His skin condition was so excruciatingly itchy he had to spend almost all of his last years immersed in a bathtub. Now, I ask you, where would mankind be without that itch? I’ll tell you where! Nowhere, that’s where! Without an itch there can be no scratching. Symbolically, the itch is mankind's thirst to improve itself and the scratching is progress. But always there are the forces of reaction -- in Marat’s case the murderess Charlotte Corday—who prefer to kill the itch rather than watch it scratched. Yes, just as they killed Lincoln. He too had severe acne, you know.
“I always wondered what was under that beard.”
“So did Washington. All the great minds in history. All were acnes. All reached acmes. Get it? It’s not mere chance that the two words are so close together. Once, before the reactionary propagandists rewrote history, they were synonymous. Acne-acme! We are the future! And all your telethons and other foul propaganda won’t be able to stop us. In the end we shall destroy you. Your campaign is worth no more than a plugged nickel!“
I scrawled “5¢” on a slip of paper, threw it in the basket, and hung up. Misty was just taking her seat at the table. The others were busy with their phones. The old man, his acne completely covered with make-up now, was approaching center stage from the wings.
After eliciting his name, the emcee asked his age.
“Ninety-two years old," the old man told him.
“And you were an acne sufferer?” the emcee inquired.
“YES I WAS.” The old man was peering at the cue-cards and having difficulty making them out. “I HAD A VERY SEVERE ACNE CONDITION.”
“At what age did this condition begin?”
“When I was eleven years old.” The old man evidently knew the answer without having to scrutinize the cards.
“And how long did it last?”
“Until about a year go.” Still sure of himself, the old man didn’t bother giving the cue-cards more than a glance.
“And how was this condition alleviated?” the emcee wanted to know.
“I WENT TO THE ACNE FOUNDATION AND—” The old man leaned so far forward to see the cue-cards that his spectacles slid right off the end of his nose and landed on the floor. Desperately, he took a step forward to peer at the cue-cards. It was the wrong step. His foot came down solidly on the eyeglasses and crunched them to bits. The old man gave up and answered in his own words. “They gave me treatments and now, as anybody can see, my acne is all gone,” he said, his face stiff from the caked make-up concealing his true condition.
“Did they indicate what caused the acne in the first place?” the emcee prompted him.
“They didn’t have to.” The old man was completely on his own now and seemed to be enjoying it. “I always knew what caused it. Puberty! That's what!”
“I don’t think—” The emcee was beginning to worry a little now.
“Course not! You’re too young to think. Get to be my age, then you’ll think. But it was puberty all right. I ’member it like it was yesterday. My old man says to me, he says, Philbert, you be naughty and play with yourself and you’re gonna get warts on your hands!”
“But that’s an old wives’ tale!” the emcee protested.
“Is that so? Well, maybe! But the fact is I touched myself where I wasn't supposed to and danged if I didn’t get warts on my hands!”
“Coincidence—”
“Maybe. But then come the acne and I never could get rid—"
My telephone rang again and I lost track of what the old man was saying as I answered it. “Stevkovsky!” The voice was clipped and authoritative. “Push the button! Push it now!” The receiver clicked.
I didn’t push the button. I couldn’t bring myself to take the chance -- the chance of murder, the chance of suicide! I just sat there, frozen, my mind blank of any plan of action.
A moment, perhaps two, passed like that. Then I felt something brush-against my knee under the table. I was slow in responding. Finally I reached under the table to the spot where the button had been. It was gone! So were the wires leading from it.
I glance around the table. They were all there—Voluptua, April Wilder, Happy Daze, Misty Milo -- all busy on their respective telephones. Only Prince Juv Satir was blocked from my view by Misty’s shoulder as she leaned forward. But I could see a partial Oriental silhouette where the Prince was sitting.