The poor kid, he thought. Oh, the poor damn kid! I wonder if she’s trying to repay—I hope I haven’t done anything bad. My God, I hope she didn’t misunderstand anything! What did I say? I know I didn’t do anything, but what did I say? I wouldn’t hurt Suzy for the world. He glanced around again. She sure does a job of cleaning, he thought. The stew smells wonderful too. He poured a little more fresh water into the glass dish. The arms of the brittlestars were arranging themselves in small spirals. They hardly moved when the fresh poison was introduced.
The clean laboratory made Doc nervous and apprehensive. And there was something missing from himself, something lost. The lowest voice of all was still. In his black depths he was somehow comforted. He went to the record shelf: not Bach…no, not Buxtehude…not Palestrina[90] either. His hand strayed to an album not used in a long time. He had opened it before he knew what he was doing. And then he smiled and put the first record on the turntable: Mozart’s Don Giovanni.[91] It started its overture, and Doc, still smiling, went to the kitchen and stirred the stew. “Don Giovanni,” he said. “Is that what I think of myself? No! I do not. But why do I feel so good, and so bad?” He looked at his desk. The yellow pads were piled neatly and the pencils were sharpened. “I believe I’ll try.” And at that point there were fumbling steps on his porch and Old Jingleballicks burst in.
It is madness to write about Old Jingleballicks, but since he came in at this point it is necessary. People coming out of a session with Old Jay felt slightly dizzy, and the wise ones, after a time, just didn’t believe it. His name cannot be mentioned, for it occurs on too many bronze plaques that begin, “Donated by—.”
Old Jay was born so rich that he didn’t know he was rich at all. He thought everybody was that way. He was a scientist, but whether brilliant or a screwball nobody ever knew, and since he had contributed to so many learned foundations and financed so many projects and served on so many boards of trustees, nobody dared openly to wonder. He gave millions away but he was likely to sponge on a friend. His scholastic honors were many, and there were people who thought privately and venomously that they were awarded in hope of a donation, that he was, in fact, like a football player whose grades have little relation to his scholarship.
He was a stubby man with a natural tonsure of yellow hair. His eyes were bright as a bird’s eyes, and he was interested in everything. He was so close to reality that he had completely lost touch with realism. Sometimes he amused Doc, and at other times his endless and myopic enthusiasms could drive a man to despair. Old Jingleballicks shouted at everyone under the impression that this made for clarity.
“Did you get my wire?” he cried.
“No.”
“Came for your birthday. Always remember it. Same day they burned Giordano Bruno.”[92]
“It’s not my birthday,” said Doc.
“Well, what day is this?”
“Friday.”
“Oh! Well, I’ll wait over.”
“It’s in December. I only have one cot.”
“All right. I’ll sleep on the floor.” He wandered to the kitchen, took the lid off the pot, and began eating the stew—blowing on it violently to cool it.
“That’s not done,” said Doc, and he was irritated to find that he was shouting back.
“Done enough!” cried Old Jay and went on eating.
Doc said, “Hitzler came through. He said you were seen on a lawn in Berkeley, on your knees, pulling a worm out of the ground with your teeth.”
Old Jay swallowed a half-cooked carrot. “Not so!” he shouted. “Say, this stew’s not done.”
“That’s what I told you.”
“Oh! Well, you see I’ve watched robins getting worms. Little beggars dig in their heels, so to speak. I got to wondering how much actual pull was involved. Had a scale with a clamp in my teeth. Average night crawler resists to the extent of one pound six ounces. I tried forty-eight individuals. Think of it! A three-ounce bird pulls twenty-two ounces, over seven times his own weight. No wonder they eat so much. Just eating keeps them hungry. Like robins?”
“Not particularly,” said Doc. “Are you going to eat all my dinner?”
“I guess so,” said Old Jingleballicks. “But it’s not done. You got anything to drink?”
“I’ll get some beer,” said Doc.
“Fine! Get a lot.”
“Don’t you want to contribute a little?”
“I’m short,” said Old Jay.
Doc said, “You are not. You’re a freeloader.”
“Oh!” said Jingleballicks.
“I said, don’t you want to contribute!”
“I’m a little short,” said Old Jay.
Doc said angrily, “You are not. You’re a freeloader. You never pay. You ran the lab while I was in the Army and damn near bankrupted me. I don’t say you stole most of the museum glass, I just say it’s missing. Did you take those specimen jars?”
“Well, yes,” said Old Jingleballicks. And then he said thoughtfully, “I wish you were a charity or an institution.”
“What!”
“Then I could endow you,” said Old Jingleballicks.
“Well, I’m not an institution. So what do you do? You go to a lot of trouble to keep from paying a couple of dollars for beer.” And suddenly despair and humor crashed head-on in Doc and he burst into weary laughter. “Oh Lord,” he said, “you’re just not possible! You’re a ridiculous idea.”
“Your stew is burning,” said Old Jingleballicks.
Doc leaped to the stove and pulled the pot from the burner. “You ate all the juice,” he said bitterly. “Of course it burned!”
“It was very good,” said Old Jay.
In the grocery Doc said, “Give me a dozen cans of beer.”
“Don’t you want the Bohemia?”
“Hell no!” Doc said. “I have a guest who—” And then an evil thought came to him. “A very interesting man,” Doc said. “Why don’t you come over and have a drink with us? Old—I mean, my friend can explain chess to you better than I can.”
“Why not?” said the Patrón. “Maybe I better bring a little liquor.”
“Why not?” said Doc.
Crossing the street, the Patrón asked, “You going to the party tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“I like you, Doc, but I don’t get you. You ain’t real,” said the Patrón.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, everything you do is—well, you’re like that chess. I don’t get you at all.”
Doc said, “Do you suppose nobody’s real to anybody else? You’re going to meet a man who can’t possibly exist.”
“Don’t talk like that,” said the Patrón nervously.
Old Jay shouted as they went up the stairs, “I bring you tidings of great joy. The human species is going to disappear!”
“This is Joseph and Mary Rivas,” said Doc. “Joseph and Mary, this is Old Jingleballicks.”
“Why can’t you rig a chess game?” the Patrón asked.
“Oh, you can, you can! Or at least you can rearrange your opponent. Comes to the same thing. Now, where was I? Oh yes—we are about to join the great reptiles in extinction.”
“Good!” said Doc.
“You mean there ain’t gonna be no more people?” said the Patrón.
“Right, young man. We have played the final joke on ourselves. Open the beer! Man, in saving himself, has destroyed himself.”
“Who’s destroyed?” the Patrón demanded.
“There must be chuckling on Olympus,”[93] said Old Jingleballicks. “We go not to Armageddon[94] but to the gas chamber, and we generate our own gas—”
90
Buxtehude…Palestrina: Dietrich Buxtehude (ca. 1637–1707) was a German-Danish organist and a highly regarded composer of the Baroque period. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (ca. 1525–94) was an influential Italian composer of Renaissance music.
91
Mozart’s
92
Giordano Bruno: Italian philosopher, priest, astronomer/ astrologer, and occultist. Bruno (1548–1600) is perhaps best known for his system of mnemonics and as an early proponent of the idea of extrasolar planets and extraterrestrial life. Burned at the stake as a heretic for his theological ideas, Bruno is seen by some as a martyr to the cause of free thought.
93
Olympus: At 9,570 feet high, Mount Olympus is Greece’s tallest mountain. In Greek mythology, it was considered the home of the pantheon of principal Greek deities, led by Zeus, king of the gods.
94
Armageddon: In the New Testament’s Book of Revelation (16:12–16), Armageddon is the site where forces of good and forces of evil assembled for an apocalyptic, climactic battle.