Not so R.E.L. Beulah.
Trude hurried on, hitting all the best moments, the changing meaning of the word ‘orange,’ the changing occupation of Ronald Reagan from President to star of Bedtime for Bonzo the time his name was, for a period, “Keef,” the baseball glove, the teddy bear.
Kilgore was standing next to the couch now, transfixed by what he saw.
Trude concentrated very hard on his labors, but when it was safe, he glanced toward the aged southerner.
No question, he was bombing.
“Ahhhh-boo,” Trude said, tickling Winslow’s stomach. “Ahhh-boo.” As the giggling began Trude felt a sense of relief because it was so strange, so remarkable, this Neanderthal murderer kicking and giggling and shrieking with joy that you just had to be enthralled with it.
“Ahhhh-boo!
Ahhhh-boo!!
Ahhhh-boo!!!”
“It’s incredible,” Kilgore said. “Absolutely extraordinary.” He turned to Beulah. “Have you ever seen the like?”
“I suspect I would laugh if you tickled me under similar circumstances. Doctor Trude, this seems to be enough preliminaries; I’m here for the main event, if you don’t mind.”
Trude snapped, “I told you this was tedious!” He signaled for the nurse with the light brown hair and when she entered with the warm prosthetic breast, he took it from her, inserted it immediately between the lips of the giant, waited for the sucking to be done, put the breast down with the other toys.
And a few moments later, Billy Boy was back again, back between creation and birth.
Breathing ever more deeply…………………………………
………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………..
“How long’does this shit go on?-’ R.E.L. Beulah asked.
“Shhh.” Trude put his finger to his lips.
Beulah looked impatiently at his watch. “How much longer do we have to wait before contact?”
“Almost there,” Trude said, keeping his desperation behind his eyes.
………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………..
“Far be it from me to invade the mighty realms of science,” Beulah said. “But surely there must be some way to hurry things
“This is all still experimental,” Kilgore tried helpfully. “Everything Trude does is being done for the first time, more or less.”
Beulah scowled, stared at the sleeping giant, stared at his watch, walked around in a circle.
“We know certain things about contact,” Trude explained. “At least these are the suppositions we’re working on. It’s best if the parties are in the same city. It’s best if they’re the same nationality. It’s best if it’s the same day, the same time of day. But most important is this: Contact is most easily achieved during a crisis time.”
“Explain that”
“When we first reached Duncan he was having a crucial sex act —he was open, he was vulnerable, he was receptive. It was a time of sensitivity, of crisis in his life, if you will. You can’t just say, ‘skip a week ahead, go back a month!’—you take what contact you can get when you can get it.”
And now the giant was trembling, his clothes suddenly soaked with perspiration.
“There, you see?” Trude said excitedly—“we’re almost there.”
………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………..
At four in the morning, a surly Beulah began to talk. “When I was a child, we used to have snipe hunts. Some idiot, often me, would be sent out into the woods holding a sack while my so-called friends would supposedly flush a snipe from his hiding place and my job was to catch it in the sack. Night after night I foiled and they would say, my friends, ‘Okay, Bobby Lee, one more chance but that’s it’” He looked at Trude now. “I am too old to be left holding a snipe sack; you have one more chance. And that’s it.”
The giant began to groan softly.
“I assume that’s another wondrous sign for our cause,” Beulah said.
“He’s in some pain, that’s all. Not that he minds it, but for reasons we don’t quite understand, it’s not altogether without some discomforting moments.”
“I am at this time rather discomforted myself,” Beulah said. “And don’t give me any lecture about spreading hostility, we’re past that. I am very hostile and with good reason. I’m an old man in a dry month waiting for rain.”
Trude turned away.
Beulah walked after him.
Kilgore began to scream in panic—
—because then, right then, with no warning, William “Billy Boy” Winslow sat suddenly erect. And he spread his arms. And his eyelids parted. But his eyes were high up in his head. So only the whites showed.
And from these whites flowed tears.
“CRI-YUNNN!”
Trude whirled, faced the giant, stunned, because this was a different sound, this was no dead rasp constantly weakening. No. This was thunder.
“CRIII-YUNNN!
CRII-YUNNNH
WON’STOP
CRII-YUNNN!”
Trude moved close to the blind weeping eyes. “Who’s crying? Why?”
“MUHHH—
—MAMMEEE
CRIII-YUNNN!!”
“Why is she crying? Why won’t she stop?”
“DIIIIIIII.
DRAFFFFFF.”
“You’ll die because it’s so drafty? It’s that cold? She’s afraid you’ll die of the cold?”
“HUNNNNNNN!”
“You’ll die of hunger and cold. You’re that frail, she…” Trude’s voice stopped then because an instant before the others he realized it. He turned to Kilgore and said, “He’s connected with another life, we’ve made a terrible mistake—I don’t know where he is or when or— “
“-—go on!” R.E.L. Beulah commanded suddenly.
“Who are you, you’re not Theo.”
“BOOKER!
BOOKERRR!”
“Last name?”
“JUH—
JACKSON!
AN’—
AN’SHE WON’—
—WON’STOP—
CR1II-YUNNN!”
“Ask him how old he is,” Beulah commanded. Trude took a deep breath, complied.
“TWENNY”
“Now ask him the year!” Beulah’s voice was louder. Trude just stood silently, because it didn’t matter, if it wasn’t 1876, nothing mattered to him. “Ask. Ask if this is 1917!” Beulah was relentless. Trude did as demanded.
“YUH
YUH.”
“New York?” Beulah went on. He was all but shouting now. “New York?” Trude repeated.
“YUH.”
Beulah approached the giant, who sat as before, the huge arms outstretched, the sightless eyes continuing to weep. “The answer to our prayers,” he said, and then he whirled on Trude and Kil-gore. “Don’t you see? He’s a twenty-year-old Negro. With a mammy. And he isn’t cold because of the draft, his mother’s afraid he will die when he’s drqfted—and not hunger-—it’s the Hun— the Germans—this was the first half of 1917, right before the war.” He stared at them both. “Don’t you set yet?”
No one seemed to.
“Trotsky was in New York the first half of 1917; Leon Trotsky lived here before he went back to home—4esus~once we get back to 1876 and nail Bell, we can go to 1917 and kill Trotsky—we can zap the Russian Revolution before it goes anywhere—we can win it all!” Then he pointed his pipe toward Billy Boy. “This man,” he said, and there was no mistaking the emotion in his old eyes; “this man
, well, he’s a national treasure…”
By the time Trude reached his office half an hour later, the celebration was well under way. Beulah and Kilgore had gone straight there once the 1917 revelation had occurred, and Beulah had unpacked the pint of Chivas he felt helped his bones ward off the cold. He poured the liquid into coffee cups and the party had begun.
Trude had to bring Billy Boy slowly to the present and oversee the wheeling back to his plain room. He ordered the two nurses to lock the door behind him, told Apple and Berry to alert him if anything unusual happened. So when he reached his desk, he was already more than a drink behind.
“Jes’ in time to settle an argument,” Beulah said, his speech already the least bit slurred.
“I say Stalin,” Kilgore cut in.
“If you really wanted to cripple Russia once and forever,” Beulah went on. “When we get this control business honed down and all the bugs out of it, who would you kill? Mr. Kilgore and I are locked in this intellectual debate. He says Stalin, I say no, Lenin, he was the linchpin figure. Do I mean ‘linchpin’? Anyway, if you could kill any Russian you wanted, and thereby destroy Russia forever as our enemy, who would you kill?”
… While this question hung in the air, in his hospital room now, the National Treasure was pulling at his temples to stop the pounding and screaming wildly…
“I’ve done a great deal of thinking on just that particular problem,” Trude answered, the first sips of Scotch warming him. “I’d greatly appreciate it if you would listen to my answer, because, you see, it’s very hard because, yoifsee, we didn’t travel.”
“Don’t see the connection,” Beulah put in at once.
“Well, if you could control me today and you wanted me to eliminate, say, Mrs. Thatcher, nothing simpler. I’d hop a plane to London, wait outside Number 10, and when she appeared, simply blast away.”
… While Mrs. Thatcher was being disposed of Billy Boy managed to get to his feet He fell back immediately with dizziness, but not for long. .
“But in the old days,” Trude went on happily, “travel was a huge problem. A hundred years ago, it could take weeks to make a trip like that. And whoever you were after might be gone. The point being, people came to America—we were the magnet. It would have been much easier for a Chinaman to do it, because there were Chinamen all over the world, and you might find one easily to do your wishes. Even many Russians were here during the Civil War. But very few Americans were overseas.”
“So?” Kilgore said.
“Just that thus far, we’ve found that one controls one’s own kind. Americans remember Americans, etcetera. So it would be very hard to get to one of the Russians, but assuming I could, my answer would be neither Lenin nor Stalin, I would do my very best to deal with Karl Marx.”
… While Beulah and Kilgore considered that answer, Billy Boy staggered to the door, pounded on the little glass window, screamed he wanted the door unlocked. The nurse with the light brown hair used the speaker outside to tell him that was quite impossible and to get some rest immediately. Billy Boy picked up the chair and smashed the glass window on the third swing. Then he started working on the door… “
“I can’t see Marx at all,” Beuiah said. “Big mistake.” “Don’t think so,” Trude said. He was proud of his reasoning. It had come to him over many nights. “You’d have tc^get Marx early is all. The late 1830s say. Before— and this is essential— before he wrote the ‘Communist Manifesto.’ You see, his writings didn’t just give a platform and foundation to the Russians, it’s done the same to every revolutionary group that’s come along since. If you destroy Stalin or Lenin, you certainly damage Russia mortally. But some other nation might have grabbed the banner. If you erase Marx, you erase minds, and those are what always cause the most trouble to a democracy.”
… while democracy was being saved, Billy Boy tried to shoulder the door but it was soon clear to him that it was of some sort of special construction. Outside, the nurses were nervous. Apple and Berry knew about the special construction and told the nurses to relax. This became increasingly hard to do as Billy Boy picked up the entire bureau and began to slam it against the door…
Kilgore was exhausted and the second drink hit him hard. “Let’s destroy America,” he said, “who would you kill?” He couldn’t help laughing. “This is more fun than playing Space Invaders any day.”
“Washington, he was the father of us all,” Beuiah replied. “More Scotch?”
… while Trude and Kilgore said just a touch please, the specially constructed door showed the first sign of weakening…
“I think I’ve researched every country,” Trude said, happily; “I’ve got a good grasp on just who would be most advantageous for us to get. But there are wrinkles. Example: Bach died neglected and stayed that way for seventy-five years till Mendelssohn revived his reputation. Does that mean if we got to Mendelssohn, there would be no Bach interest? Hardly, because even though he was neglected, he was not unknown— Mozart and Beethoven both were aware of him, so we can assume someone would have rediscovered Johann Sebastian’ In history, there are manifest forces— that’s what people see at the time—and latent forces—things unseen by contemporaries, and …”
… and while Trude almost emptied the room with his boring chat on forces, Billy Boy continued exerting forces of his own against the offending door. And once she realized there was no question the door would lose, the second nurse began to scream…
“Washington was certainly a great man,” Trude expounded, smiling into his coffee cup. “But he was also surrounded by others of greatness. Never such talent in America as then. No, I think the man to obliterate is the most hated man in our country’s history, Mr. Lincoln of Illinois.”
… while Kilgore said he hadn’t realized Lincoln was a despised figure, the nurse with the light brown hair began to run…
“During the war, loathed,” Trude said. “Like no one before or since. But he died, you see, in the arms of victory, and the Lincoln myth—he died so our country might survive, might become one again—without that, we would still be fighting the Civil War. Except again, like Marx, you’d have to get to Lincoln early, back in Springfield would be an excellent time, he would have been ripe for the plucking back then.”
“Like to propose a toast,” R.E.L. Beulah began; it was to have been a brief but flowery speech about the fact that there was no doubt whatsoever in his mind that God Almighty kept a special eye out for this great land of ours—but the brown-haired nurse’s arrival canceled all that
“We can’t control him,” she said. “He’s getting out!”
Trude moved remarkably quickly, considering the hour and the Scotch. He got out a key and unlocked a drawer in the bottom of his desk and took out the stun pellets, was already inserting them into the gun on his way out the door. He ran along the corridor and up the two flights of stairs until he reached Winslow’s floor.
The giant was stepping through the wreckage when Trude got there, and he shouted for Apple and Berry to get away but they went for Winslow like the good men they were.
He simply slapped them backhanded across the corridor. Then he saw Trude. “You fuckin’ lied to me.”
“And I will again if I so desire.”
“Not anymore.” He started toward Trude now.
Trude raised the gun.
Billy Boy couldn’t believe it. “A toy?’’ he said.
It was small. It held four pellets. One would do the job on an ordinary person. Trude hoped four were enough. Billy Boy was twenty feet away when he fired the first time, hitting the shoulder.
Billy Boy kept on coming.
The second pellet hit the thigh, as did the third.
“I said I’d tear your arms off.” He reached toward Trude, five feet from him.
The fourth shot hit the neck and Billy Boy hit the floor like a water buffalo. He got to his knees, got almost to his feet before he fell again. He got almost to his knees a second time, before he made a final growlin
g sound and toppled over sideways.
Trude moved to the wall to avoid fainting.
Beulah and Kilgore came up the stairs then. They stared at the silent behemoth. “I assume he’s not dead,’’ Beulah said. “For all our benefits.”
Trude shook his head. “Anesthetic mixture.’’
“How long will he be out for?’’ Kilgore asked.
Trude muttered, “Many hours.’’
“Well, we won’t waste any time at least,” Beulah said. “You put him out when you regress him.”
“Not the same at all. It’s got to be natural. It’s no use trying a regression with any drugs in his system. We’ll just have to wait.”
“You’ve got a bigger problem than that, son.” Beulah pointed at the crumpled door. “It doesn’t appear to me that he’s very happy |n these surroundings. I don’t think you’ll have much luck getting him to regress again. You can’t use force on him, and you sure as hell can’t scare him into doing it.”
“Perhaps I can,” Trude said.
Beulah shook his head. “Scare him? With what?”
“Not ‘what,’” Trude said. “Who…”
4
The Blues
As he crossed the street toward the fortune-telling parlor, Eric knew all was not as it should be. No logical reason: the light was on, the front room empty, neat enough. But Eric knew. Probably one of the many blessed side benefits of dealing with torment all day long; you learned not to let it take you by surprise.