I Sing the Body Electric Read online

Leaving the men stunned and isolated in a mob in the hall below, watching him go away out of sight.

  "Casey," said Blinky Watts, "has it crossed your small mind, if you'd remembered to bring the matches there would be no such long night of work as this ahead?"

  "Jesus, where's your taste for the ass-thetics?" cried Riordan.

  "Shut up!" said Casey. "Okay, Flannery, you on one end of the Twilight of the Gods, you, Tuohy, on the far end where the maid is being given what's good for her. Ha! Lift!"

  And the gods, soaring crazily, took to the air.

  By seven o'clock most of the paintings were out of the house and racked against each other in the snow, waiting to be taken off in various directions toward various huts. At seven fifteen, Lord and Lady Kilgotten came out and drove away, and Casey quickly formed the mob in front of the stacked paintings so the nice old lady wouldn't see what they were up to. The boys cheered as the car went down the drive. Lady Kilgotten waved frailly back.

  From seven thirty until ten the rest of the paintings walked out in one's and two's.

  When all the pictures were gone save one, Kelly stood in the dim alcove worrying over Lady Kilgotten's Sunday painting of the old Lord. He shuddered, decided on a supreme humanitarianism, and carried the portrait safely out into the night.

  At midnight, Lord and Lady Kilgotten, returning with guests, found only great shuffling tracks in the snow where Flannery and Tuohy had set off one way with the dear bacchanal; where Casey, grumbling, had led a parade of Van Dycks, Rembrandts, Bouchers, and Piranesis another; and, where last of all, Blinky Watts, kicking his heels, had trotted happily into the woods with his nude Renoirs.

  The dinner party was over by two. Lady Kilgotten went to bed satisfied that all the paintings had been sent out, en masse, to be cleaned.

  At three in the morning, Lord Kilgotten still sat sleepless in his library, alone among empty walls, before a fireless hearth, a muffler about his thin neck, a glass of brandy in his faintly trembling hand.

  About three fifteen there was a stealthy creaking of parquetry, a shift of shadows, and, after a time, cap in hand, there stood Casey at the library door.

  "Hist!" he called softly.

  The Lord, who had dozed somewhat, blinked his eyes wide. "Oh dear me," he said, "is it time for us to go?"

  "That's tomorrow night," said Casey. "And anyways, it's not you that's going, it's Them is coming back."

  "Them? Your friends?"

  "No, yours." And Casey beckoned.

  The old man let himself be led through the hall to look out the front door into a deep well of night.

  There, like Napoleon's numbed dog-army of foot-weary, undecided, and demoralized men, stood the shadowy but familiar mob, their hands full of pictures--pictures leaned against their legs, pictures on their backs, pictures stood upright and held by trembling, panic-whitened hands in the drifted snow. A terrible silence lay over and among the men. They seemed stranded, as if one enemy had gone off to fight far better wars while yet another enemy, as yet unnamed, nipped silent and trackless at their behinds. They kept glancing over their shoulders at the hills and the town as if at any moment Chaos herself might unleash her dogs from there. They alone, in the infiltering night, heard the far-off baying of dismays and despairs that cast a spell.

  "Is that you, Riordan?" called Casey, nervously.

  "Ah, who the hell would it be!" cried a voice out beyond.

  "What do they want?" asked the old party.

  "It's not so much what we want as what you might now want from us," called a voice.

  "You see," said another, advancing until all could see it was Hannahan in the light, "considered in all its aspects, your Honor, we've decided, you're such a fine gent, we--"

  "We will not burn your house!" cried Blinky Watts.

  "Shut up and let the man talk!" said several voices.

  Hannahan nodded. "That's it. We will not burn your house."

  "But see here," said the Lord, "I'm quite prepared. Everything can easily be moved out."

  "You're taking the whole thing too lightly, begging your pardon, your Honor," said Kelly. "Easy for you is not easy for us."

  "I see," said the old man, not seeing at all.

  "It seems," said Tuohy, "we have all of us, in just the last few hours, developed problems. Some to do with the home and some to do with transport and cartage, if you get my drift. Who'll explain first? Kelly? No? Casey? Riordan?"

  Nobody spoke.

  At last, with a sigh, Flannery edged forward. "It's this way--" he said.

  "Yes?" said the old man, gently.

  "Well," said Flannery, "me and Tuohy here got half through the woods, like damn fools, and was across two thirds of the bog with the large picture of the Twilight of the Gods when we began to sink."

  "Your strength failed?" inquired the Lord kindly.

  "Sink, your Honor, just plain sink, into the ground," Tuohy put in.

  "Dear me," said the Lord.

  "You can say that again, your Lordship," said Tuohy. "Why together, me and Flannery and the demon gods must have weighed close on to six hundred pounds, and that bog out there is infirm if it's anything, and the more we walk the deeper we sink, and a cry strangled in me throat, for I'm thinking of those scenes in the old story where the Hound of the Baskervilles or some such fiend chases the heroine out in the moor and down she goes, in a watery pit, wishing she had kept at that diet, but it's too late, and bubbles rise to pop on the surface. All of this a-throttling in me mind, your Honor."

  "And so?" the Lord put in, seeing he was expected to ask.

  "And so," said Flannery, "we just walked off and left the damn gods there in their twilight."

  "In the middle of the bog?" asked the elderly man, just a trifle upset.

  "Ah, we covered them up, I mean we put our mufflers over the scene. The gods will not die twice, your Honor. Say, did you hear that, boys? The gods--"

  "Ah, shut up," cried Kelly. "Ya dimwits. Why didn't you bring the damn portrait in off the bog?"

  "We thought we would come get two more boys to help--"

  "Two more!" cried Nolan. "That's four men, plus a parcel of gods, you'd all sink twice as fast, and the bubbles rising, ya nitwit!"

  "Ah! said Tuohy. "I never thought of that."

  "It has been thought of now," said the old man. "And perhaps several of you will form a rescue team--"

  "It's done, your Honor," said Casey. "Bob, you and Tim dash off and save the pagan deities."

  "You won't tell Father Leary?"

  "Father Leary my behind. Get!" And Tim and Bob panted off.

  His Lordship turned now to Nolan and Kelly.

  "I see that you, too, have brought your rather large picture back."

  "At least we made it within a hundred yards of the door, sir," said Kelly. "I suppose you're wondering why we have returned it, your Honor?"

  "With the gathering in of coincidence upon coincidence," said the old man, going back in to get his overcoat and putting on his tweed cap so he could stand out in the cold and finish what looked to be a long converse, "yes, I was given to speculate."

  "It's me back," said Kelley. "It gave out not five hundred yards down the main road. The back has been springing out and in for five years now, and me suffering the agonies of Christ. I sneeze and fall to my knees, your Honor."

  "I have suffered the self-same delinquency," said the old man. "It is as if someone had driven a spike into one's spine." The old man touched his back, carefully, remembering, which brought a gasp from all, nodding.

  "The agonies of Christ, as I said," said Kelly.

  "Most understandable then that you could not finish your journey with that heavy frame," said the old man, "and most commendable that you were able to struggle back this far with the dreadful weight."

  Kelly stood taller immediately, as he heard his plight described. He beamed. "It was nothing. And I'd do it again, save for the string of bones above me ass. Begging pardon, your Honor."

  But alrea
dy his Lordship had passed his kind if tremulous gray-blue, unfocused gaze toward Blinky Watts who had, under either arm, like a dartful prancer, the two Renoir peach ladies.

  "Ah, God, there was no trouble with sinking into bogs or knocking my spine out of shape," said Watts, treading the earth to demonstrate his passage home. "I made it back to the house in ten minutes flat, dashed into the wee cot, and began hanging the pictures on the wall, when my wife came up behind me. Have ya ever had your wife come up behind ya, your Honor, and just stand there mum's the word?"

  "I seem to recall a similar circumstance," said the old man, trying to remember if he did, then nodding as indeed several memories flashed over his fitful baby mind.

  "Well, your Lordship, there is no silence like a woman's silence, do you agree? And no standing there like a woman's standing there like a monument out of Stonehenge. The mean temperature dropped in the room so quick I suffered from the polar concussions, as we call it in our house. I did not dare turn to confront the Beast, or the daughter of the Beast, as I call her in deference to her mom. But finally I heard her suck in a great breath and let it out very cool and calm like a Prussian general. 'That woman is naked as a jay bird,' and 'That other woman is raw as the inside of a clam at low tide.'

  "'But,' said I, 'these are studies of natural physique by a famous French artist.'

  "'Jesus-come-after-me-French,' she cried; 'the-skirts-half-up-to-your-bum-French. The-dress-half-down-to-your-navel-French. And the gulping and smothering they do with their mouths in their dirty novels French, and now you come home and nail 'French' on the walls, why don't you while you're at it, pull the crucifix down and nail one fat naked lady there?'

  "Well, your Honor, I just shut up my eyes and wished my ears would fall off. 'Is this what you want our boys to look at last thing at night as they go to sleep?' she says. Next thing I know, I'm on the path and here I am and here's the raw-oyster nudes, your Honor, beg your pardon, thanks, and much obliged."

  "They do seem to be unclothed," said the old man, looking at the two pictures, one in either hand, as if he wished to find all that this man's wife said was in them. "I had always thought of summer, looking at them."

  "From your seventieth birthday on, your Lordship, perhaps. But before that?"

  "Uh, yes, yes," said the old man, watching a speck of half-remembered lechery drift across one eye.

  When his eye stopped drifting it found Bannock and Toolery on the edge of the far rim of the uneasy sheepfold crowd. Behind each, dwarfing them, stood a giant painting.

  Bannock had got his picture home only to find he could not get the damn thing through the door, nor any window.

  Toolery had actually got his picture in the door when his wife said what a laughingstock they'd be, the only family in the village with a Rubens worth half a million pounds and not even a cow to milk!

  So that was the sum, total, and substance of this long night. Each man had a similar chill, dread, and awful tale to tell, and all were told at last, and as they finished a cold snow began to fall among these brave members of the local, hard-fighting I.R.A.

  The old man said nothing, for there was nothing really to say that wouldn't be obvious as their pale breaths ghosting the wind. Then, very quietly, the old man opened wide the front door and had the decency not even to nod or point.

  Slowly and silently they began to file by, as past a familiar teacher in an old school, and then faster they moved. So in flowed the river returned, the Ark emptied out before, not after, the Flood, and the tide of animals and angels, nudes that flamed and smoked in the hands, and noble gods that pranced on wings and hoofs, went by, and the old man's eyes shifted gently, and his mouth silently named each, the Renoirs, the Van Dycks, the Lautrec, and so on until Kelly, in passing, felt a touch at his arm.

  Surprised, Kelly looked over.

  And saw that the old man was staring at the small painting beneath his arm.

  "My wife's portrait of me?"

  "None other," said Kelly.

  The old man stared at Kelly and at the painting beneath his arm and then out toward the snowing night.

  Kelly smiled softly.

  Walking soft as a burglar, he vanished out into the wilderness, carrying the picture. A moment later, you heard him laughing as he ran back, hands empty.

  The old man shook his hand, once, tremblingly, and shut the door.

  Then he turned away as if the event was already lost to his wandering child mind and toddled down the hall with his scarf like a gentle weariness over his thin shoulders, and the mob followed him in where they found drinks in their great paws and saw that Lord Kilgotten was blinking at the picture over the fireplace as if trying to remember, was the Sack of Rome there in the years past? or was it the Fall of Troy? Then he felt their gaze and looked full on the encircled army and said: "Well now, what shall we drink to?"

  The men shuffled their feet.

  Then Flannery cried, "Why, to his Lordship, of course!"

  "His Lordship!" cried all, eagerly, and drank, and coughed and choked and sneezed, while the old man felt a peculiar glistering about his eyes, and did not drink at all till the commotion stilled, and then said, "To Our Ireland," and drank, and all said Ah God and Amen to that, and the old man looked at the picture over the hearth and then at last shyly observed, "I do hate to mention it--that picture--"

  "Sir?"

  "It seems to me," said the old man, apologetically, "to be a trifle off-centered, on the tilt. I wonder if you might--"

  "Mightn't we, boys!" cried Casey.

  And fourteen men rushed to put it right.

  Tomorrow's Child

  He did not want to be the father of a small blue pyramid. Peter Horn hadn't planned it that way at all. Neither he nor his wife imagined that such a thing could happen to them. They had talked quietly for days about the birth of their coming child, they had eaten normal foods, slept a great deal, taken in a few shows, and, when it was time for her to fly in the helicopter to the hospital, her husband held her and kissed her.

  "Honey, you'll be home in six hours," he said. "These new birth-mechanisms do everything but father the child for you."

  She remembered an old-time song. "No, no, they can't take that away from me!" and sang it, and they laughed as the helicopter lifted them over the green way from country to city.

  The doctor, a quiet gentlemen named Wolcott, was very confident. Polly Ann, the wife, was made ready for the task ahead and the father was put, as usual, out in the waiting room where he could suck on cigarettes or take highballs from a convenient mixer. He was feeling pretty good. This was the first baby, but there was not a thing to worry about. Polly Ann was in good hands.

  Dr. Wolcott came into the waiting room an hour later. He looked like a man who has seen death. Peter Horn, on his third highball, did not move. His hand tightened on the glass and he whispered:

  "She's dead."

  "No," said Wolcott, quietly. "No, no, she's fine. It's the baby."

  "The baby's dead, then."

  "The baby's alive, too, but--drink the rest of that drink and come along after me. Something's happened."

  Yes, indeed, something had happened. The "something" that had happened had brought the entire hospital out into the corridors. People were going and coming from one room to another. As Peter Horn was led through a hallway where attendants in white uniforms were standing around peering into each other's faces and whispering, he became quite ill.

  "Hey, looky looky! The child of Peter Horn! Incredible!"

  They entered a small clean room. There was a crowd in the room, looking down at a low table. There was something on the table.

  A small blue pyramid.

  "Why've you brought me here?" said Horn, turning to the doctor.

  The small blue pyramid moved. It began to cry.

  Peter Horn pushed forward and looked down wildly. He was very white and he was breathing rapidly. "You don't mean that's it?"

  The doctor named Wolcott nodded.

&nbs
p; The blue pyramid had six blue snakelike appendages and three eyes that blinked from the tips of projecting structures.

  Horn didn't move.

  "It weighs seven pounds, eight ounces," someone said.

  Horn thought to himself, they're kidding me. This is some joke. Charlie Ruscoll is behind all this. He'll pop in a door any moment and cry "April Fool!" and everybody'll laugh. That's not my child. Oh, horrible! They're kidding me.

  Horn stood there, and the sweat rolled down his face.

  "Get me away from here." Horn turned and his hands were opening and closing without purpose, his eyes were flickering.

  Wolcott held his elbow, talking calmly. "This is your child. Understand that, Mr. Horn."

  "No. No, it's not." His mind wouldn't touch the thing. "It's a nightmare. Destroy it!"

  "You can't kill a human being."

  "Human?" Horn blinked tears. "That's not human! That's a crime against God!"

  The doctor went on, quickly. "We've examined this--child--and we've decided that it is not a mutant, a result of gene destruction or rearrangement. It's not a freak. Nor is it sick. Please listen to everything I say to you."

  Horn stared at the wall, his eyes wide and sick. He swayed. The doctor talked distantly, with assurance.

  "The child was somehow affected by the birth pressure. There was a dimensional distructure caused by the simultaneous short-circuitings and malfunctionings of the new birth and hypnosis machines. Well, anyway," the doctor ended lamely, "your baby was born into--another dimension."

  Horn did not even nod. He stood there, waiting.

  Dr. Wolcott made it emphatic. "Your child is alive, well, and happy. It is lying there, on the table. But because it was born into another dimension it has a shape alien to us. Our eyes, adjusted to a three-dimensional concept, cannot recognize it as a baby. But it is. Underneath that camouflage, the strange pyramidal shape and appendages, it is your child."

  Horn closed his mouth and shut his eyes. "Can I have a drink?"

  "Certainly." A drink was thrust into Horn's hands.

  "Now, let me just sit down, sit down somewhere a moment." Horn sank wearily into a chair. It was coming clear. Everything shifted slowly into place. It was his child, no matter what. He shuddered. No matter how horrible it looked, it was his first child.

  At last he looked up and tried to see the doctor. "What'll we tell Polly?" His voice was hardly a whisper.