“I only showed him the simplest tricks, of course. Kid stuff.”
“Of course,” Mr. Scott echoed. “I guessed you must have used a fine thread to make the extension cord dance.”
“Reckon you know all the answers, Mr. Scott,” the other said, his eyes flashing. “But come across to the patio and sit for a while.”
The buzzing was quite loud that day, yet after a bit Mr. Scott had to admit to himself that it was a restful sound. And it had more variety than he’d realized—mounting crackles, fading sizzles, hisses, hums, clicks, sighs: If you listened to it long enough, you probably would begin to hear voices.
Mr. Leverett, silently rocking, said, “Electricity tells me about all the work it does and all the fun it has— dances, singing, big crackling band concerts, trips to the stars, foot races that make rockets seem like snails. Worries, too. You know that electric breakdown they had in New York? Electricity told me why. Some of its folks went crazy-overwork, I guess—and just froze. It was a while before they could send others hi from outside New York and heal the crazy ones and start them moving again through the big copper web. Electricity tells me it’s fearful the same thing’s going to happen in Chicago and San Francisco. Too much pressure.
“Electricity doesn’t mind working for us. It’s generous-hearted and it loves its job. But it would be grateful for a little more consideration—a little more recognition of its special problems.
“It’s got its savage brothers to contend with, you see—the wild electricity that rages in storms and haunts the mountaintops and comes down to hunt and kill. Not civilized like the electricity in the wires, though it will be some day.
“For civilized electricity’s a great teacher. Shows us how to live clean and hi unity and brother-love. Power fails one place, electricity’s rushing in from everywhere to fill the gap. Serves Georgia same as Vermont, Los Angeles same as Boston. Patriotic too—only revealed its greatest secrets to true-blue Americans like Edison and Franklin. Did you know it killed a Swede when he tried that kite trick? Yep, electricity’s the greatest power for good in all the U.S.A.”
Mr. Scott thought sleepily of what a neat little electricity cult Mr. Leverett could set up, every bit as good as Science of Mind or Krishna Venta or the Rosicrucians. He could imagine the patio full of earnest seekers while Krishna Leverett—or maybe High Electro Leverett—dispensed wisdom from his rocker, interpreting the words of the humming wires. Better not suggest it, though—in Southern California such things had a way of coming true.
Mr. Scott felt quite easy at heart as he went down the hill, though he did make a point of telling Bobby not to bother Mr. Leverett any more.
But the prohibition didn’t apply to himself. During the next months Mr. Scott made a point of dropping in at Peak House from time to time for a dose of “electric wisdom.” He came to look forward to these restful, amusingly screwy breaks in the hectic round. Mr. Leverett appeared to do nothing whatever except sit in his rocker on the patio, yet stayed happy and serene. There was a lesson for anybody in that, if you thought about it.
Occasionally Mr. Scott spotted amusing side effects of Mr. Leverett’s eccentricity. For instance, although he sometimes let the gas and water bills go, he always paid up phone and electricity on the dot.
And the newspapers eventually did report short but severe electric breakdowns in Chicago and San Francisco. Smiling a little frowningly at the coincidences, Mr. Scott decided he could add fortune-telling to the electricity cult he’d imagined for Mr. Leverett. “Your life’s story foretold in the wires!”—more novel, anyway, than crystal balls or Talking with God.
Only once did the touch of the gruesome, that had troubled Mr. Scott hi his first conversation with Mr. Leverett, come briefly back, when the old man chuckled and observed, “Recall what I told you about whipping a copper wire up there? I’ve thought of a simpler way, just squirt the hose at those H-T lines in a hard stream, gripping the metal nozzle. Might be best to use the hot water and throw a box of salt hi the heater first.” When Mr. Scott heard that he was glad that he’d warned Bobby against coming around.
But for the most part Mr. Leverett maintained his mood of happy serenity.
When the break in that mood came, it did so suddenly, though afterwards Mr. Scott realized there had been one warning note sounded when Mr. Leverett had added onto a rambling discourse, “By the way, I’ve learned that power electricity goes all over the world, just like the ghost electricity in radios and phones. It travels to foreign shores in batteries and condensers. Roams the lines in Europe and Asia. Some of it even slips over into Soviet territory. Wants to keep tabs on the Communists, I guess. Electric freedom-fighters.”
On his next visit Mr. Scott found a great change. Mr. Leverett had deserted his rocking chair to pace the patio on the side away from the pole, though every now and then he would give a quick funny look up over his shoulder at the dark muttering wires.
“Glad to see you, Mr. Scott. I’m real shook up. Reckon I better tell someone about it so if something happens to me they’ll be able to tell the FBI. Though I don’t know what they’ll be able to do.
“Electricity just told me this morning it’s got a world government —it had the nerve to call it that—and that it doesn’t care a snap for either us or the Soviets and that there’s Russian electricity in our wires and American electricity in theirs—it shifts back and forth with never a quiver of shame.
“When I heard that you could have knocked me down with a paper dart.
“What’s more, electricity’s determined to stop any big war that may come, no matter how rightful that war be or how much hi defense of America. If the buttons are pushed for the atomic missiles, electricity’s going to freeze and refuse to budge. And it’ll flash out and kill anybody who tries to set them off another way.
“I pleaded with electricity, I told it I’d always thought of it as American and true—reminded it of Franklin and Edison—finally I commanded it to change its ways and behave decent, but it just chuckled at me with never a spark of love or loyalty.
“Then it threatened me back! It told me if I tried to stop it, if I revealed its plans it would summon down its savage brothers from the mountains and with their help it would seek me out and kill me! Mr. Scott, I’m all alone up here with electricity on my window silL What am I going to do?”
Mr. Scott had considerable difficulty soothing Mr. Leverett enough to make his escape. In the end he had to promise to come back in the morning bright and early—silently vowing to himself that he’d be damned if he would.
His task was not made easier when the electricity overhead, which had been especially noisy this day, rose in a growl and Mr. Leverett turned and said harshly, “Yes, I hear!”
That night the Los Angeles area had one of its very rare thunderstorms, accompanied by gales of wind and torrents of rain. Palms and pines and eucalyptus were torn down, earth cliffs crumbled and sloshed, and the great square concrete spillways ran brimful from the hills to the sea.
The lightning was especially fierce. Several score Angelinos, to whom such a display was a novelty, phoned civil defense numbers to report or inquire fearfully about atomic attack.
Numerous freak accidents occurred. To the scene of one of these Mr. Scott was summoned next morning bright and early by the police —because it had occurred on a property he rented and because he was the only person known to be acquainted with the deceased.
The previous night Mr. Scott had awakened at the height of the storm when the lightning had been blinding as a photoflash and the thunder had cracked like a mile-long whip just above the roof. At that time he had remembered vividly what Mr. Leverett had said about electricity threatening to summon its wild giant brothers from the hills. But now, in the bright morning, he decided not to tell the police about that or say anything to them at all about Mr. Leverett’s electricity mania—it would only complicate things to no purpose and perhaps make the fear at his heart more crazily real.