Shock III Part 6

On a small teleview screen built into the wall, Clemolk's face had appeared. Wade couldn't hear the historian's voice but his face showed excitement at last.

Wade spun back, facing the chamber, and asked, Think I could see what it's like inside?'

'No, no,' said the Commander. 'You'll play tricks.'

'I won't,' he said, 'I'll just-'

'Commander!' cried the student.

The Commander turned. Wade gave him a shove, and the corpulent officer staggered forward, his arms flailing the air for balance, and a look of astonished outrage on his face.

Wade dove into the time chamber, cracking his knees on the metal deck, and scrambled around.

The student was rus.h.i.+ng toward the sphere, pointing one of those dull black tubes ahead of him.

Wade grabbed the heavy door and with a grunt of effort pulled it shut. The heavy circle of metal grated into place, cutting off a flash of blue flame that was directed at him. Wade spun the wheel around feverishly until the door was securely fixed.

They would be cutting the chamber open any moment.

His eyes swept over the dials as his fingers worked on the strap buckles. He saw that the main dial was still set at five hundred years and reaching over, flipped it to reverse position.

Everything seemed ready. He had to take a chance that it was. There was no time to check. Already a deadly cutting flame might be directed at the metal globe.

The straps were fastened. Wade braced himself and threw the main switch. Nothing happened. A cry of mortal terror broke through his lips. His eyes darted around. His fingers shook over the control board as he tested the connections.

A plug was loose. Grabbing it with both hands to steady it, he slid it into its socket. At once the chamber began to vibrate. The high screech of its mechanism was music to him.

The universe poured by again, the black night was.h.i.+ng over him like ocean waves. This time he didn't lose consciousness.

He was secure.

The chamber stopped vibrating. The silence was almost deafening. Wade sat breathlessly in the semi-darkness, gasping in air. Then he grabbed the wheel and turned it quickly. He kicked open the door and jumped down into the apparatus lab of Fort College and looked around, hungry for the sight of familiar things.

The lab was empty. One wall light shone down bleakly in the silence, casting great shadows of machines, sending his own shadow leaping up the walls. He touched benches, stools, gauges, machines, anything, just to convince himself that he was back.

'It's real.' He said it over and over.

An overpowering weakness of relief fell over him like a mantle. He leaned against the chamber. Here and there he saw black marks on the metal, and pieces of it were hanging loose. He felt almost a love for it. Even partly destroyed it had gotten him back.

Suddenly he looked at the clock. Two in the morninga Marya He had to get home. Quickly, quickly.

The door was locked. He fumbled for keys, got the door open and rushed down the hall. The building was deserted. He reached the front door, unlocked it, remembered to lock it behind him, although he was shaking with excitement.

He tried to walk, but he kept breaking into a run, and his mind raced ahead in antic.i.p.ation. He was on the porch, through the doorway, rus.h.i.+ng up to the bedrooma Mary, Mary, he was callinga He was bursting through the doorwaya She was standing by the window. She whirled, saw him, a look of glorious happiness crossed her face. She cried out in tearful joya They were holding each other, kissing; together, together.

'Mary,' he murmured in a choked-up voice as, once more, he began running.

The tall black Social Sciences Building was behind him. Now the campus was behind him, and he was running happily down University Avenue.

The street lights seemed to waver before him. His chest heaved with shuddering breaths. A burning ache stabbed at his side. His mouth fell open. Exhausted, he was forced to slow down to a walk. He gasped in air, started to run again.

Only two more blocks.

Ahead the dark outline of his home stood out against the sky. There was a light in the living room. She was awake. She hadn't given up!

His heart flew out to her. The desire for her warm arms was almost more than he could bear.

He felt tired. He slowed down, felt his limbs trembling violently. Excitement. His body ached. He felt numb.

'Mary,' he sobbed, 'I'm sick.'

He was on their walk. The front door was open. Through the screen door, he could see the stairs to the second floor. He paused, his eyes glittering with a sick hunger.

'Home,' he muttered.

He staggered up the path, up the porch steps. Shooting pains wracked his body. His head felt as though it would explode.

He pulled open the screen door and lurched to the living room arch.

John Randall's wife was sleeping on the couch.

There was no time to talk. He wanted Mary. He turned and stumbled to the stairs. He started up.

He tripped, almost fell. He groped for the banister with his right hand. A scream gurgled up and died in his throat. The hand was dissolving in air. His mouth fell open as the horror struck him.

'No!' He tried to scream it but only a mocking wheeze escaped his lips.

He struggled up. The disintegration was going on faster. His hands. His wrists. They were flying apart. He felt as though he had been thrown into a vat of burning acid.

His mind twisted over itself as he tried to understand. And all the while he kept dragging himself up the stairs, now on his ankles, now on his knees, the corroded remnants of his disappearing legs.

Then he knew all of it. Why the chamber door was locked. Why they wouldn't let him see his own corpse.

Why his body had lasted so long. It was because he had reached 2475 alive and then had died. Now he had to return to that year. He could not be with her even in death.

'Mary!'

He tried to scream for her. She had to know. But no sound came. He felt pieces of his throat falling out. Somehow he had to reach her, let her know that he had come back.

He reached the top of the landing and through the open door of their room saw her lying on the bed, sleeping in exhausted sorrow.

He called. No sound. Tears of rage poured from his anguished eyes. Now he was at the door, trying to force himself into the room.

There'd be no life for me without you.

Her remembered words tortured him. His crying was like a gentle bubbling of lava.

Now he was almost gone. The last of him poured over the rug like a morning mist, the blackness of his eyes like dark s.h.i.+ny beads in a swirling fog.

'Mary, Mary -' he could only think it now '- how very much I love you.'

She didn't awaken.

He willed himself closer and drank in the fleeting sight of her. A ma.s.sive despair weighed on his mind. A faint groan fluttered over his wraith.

Then, the woman, smiling in her uneasy sleep, was alone in the room except for two haunted eyes which hung suspended for a moment and then were gone; like tiny worlds that flare up in birth and, in the same moment, die.

IV a" THE JAZZ MACHINE.

I had the weight that night.

I mean I had the blues and no one hides the blues away You got to wash them out.

Or you end up riding a slow drag to nowhere You got to let them fly.

I mean you got to.

I play trumpet in this barrelhouse off Main Street Never mind the name of it It's like sc.u.mpteen other cellar drink dens Where the downtown ofays bring their loot and jive talk And listen to us try to blow out notes As white and pure as we can never be Like I told you, I was gully low that night Bra.s.sing at the great White way Lipping back a sa.s.s in jazz that Rone got off in words And died for Hitting at the jug and loaded Spiking gin and rage with shaking miseries I had no food in me and wanted none I broke myself to pieces in a hungry night This white I'm getting off on showed at ten Collared him a table near the stand And sat there nursing at a gla.s.s of wine Just casing us All the way into the late watch he was there He never budged or spoke a word But I could see that he was picking up On what was going down He got into my mouth, man He bothered me At four I crawled down off the stand And that was when this ofay stood and put his grabberon my arm 'May I speak to you?' he asked The way I felt I took no s.h.i.+ne To pink hands wrinkling up my gaberdine 'Broom off, stud,' I let him know 'Please,' he said, 'I have to speak to you.'

Call me blowtop, call me Uncle Tom Man, you're not far wrong Maybe my brain was nowhere But I sat down with Mister Pink and told him a" lay his racket 'You've lost someone,' he said.

It hit me like a belly chord 'What do you know about it, white man?'

I felt that hating pick up tempo in my guts again 'I don't know anything about it,' he replied 'I only know you've lost someone 'You've told it to me with your horn a hundred times.'

I felt evil crawling in my belly 'Let's get this straight,' I said 'Don't hype me, man; don't give me stuff 'Listen to me then,' he said.

'Jazz isn't only music 'It's a language too 'A language born of protest 'Torn in b.l.o.o.d.y ragtime from the womb of anger and despair 'A secret tongue with which the legions of abused 'Cry out their misery and their troubled hates.'

'This language has a million dialects and accents 'It may be a tone of bitter sweetness whispered in a bra.s.s-lined throat 'Or rush of frenzy screaming out of reed mouths 'Or hammering at strings in vibrant piano hearts 'Or pulsing, savage, under taut-drawn hides 'In dark-peaked stridencies it can reveal the aching core of sorrow 'Or cry out the new millennium 'It's voices are without number 'Its forms beyond statistic 'It is, in very fact, an endless tonal revolution 'The pleading furies of the d.a.m.ned 'Against the cruelty of their d.a.m.nation 'I know this language, friend,' he said.

'What about my -?' I began and cut off quick 'Your a" what, friend?' he inquired 'Someone near to you; I know that much 'Not a woman though; your trumpet wasn't grieving for a woman loss 'Someone in your family; your father maybe 'Or your brother.'

I gave him words that tiger-prowled behind my teeth 'You're hanging over trouble, man 'Don't break the thread 'Give it to me straight.'

So Mister Pink leaned in and laid it down 'I have a sound machine,' he said 'Which can convert the forms of jazz 'Into the sympathies which made them 'If, into my machine, I play a sorrowing blues 'From out the speaker comes the human sentiment 'Which felt those blues 'And fas.h.i.+oned them into the secret tongue of jazz.'

He dug the same old question stashed behind my eyes 'How do I know you've lost someone?' he asked 'I've heard so many blues and stomps and strutting jazzes 'Changed, in my machine, to sounds of anger, hopelessness and joy 'That I can understand the language now 'The story that you told was not a new one 'Did you think you were inviolate behind your tapestry of woven bra.s.s?'

'Don't hype me, man,' I said I let my fingers rigor mortis on his arm He didn't ruffle up a hair 'If you don't believe me, come and see,' he said 'Listen to my machine 'Play your trumpet into it 'You'll see that everything I've said is true.'

I felt s.h.i.+vers like a walking ba.s.s inside my skin 'Well, will you come?' he asked.

Rain was pressing drum rolls on the roof As Mister Pink turned tires onto Main Street I sat dummied in his coupe My sacked-up trumpet on my lap Listening while he rolled off words Like Stacy runnings on a tinkle box 'Consider your top artists in the genre 'Armstrong, Bechet, Waller, Hines 'Goodman, Mezzrow, Spanier, dozens more both male and female 'Jews and Negroes all and why?

'Why are the greatest jazz interpreters 'Those who live beneath the constant gravity of prejudice?

'I think because the scaldings of external bias 'Focus all their vehemence and suffering 'To a hot, explosive core 'And, from this nucleus of restriction 'Comes all manner of fissions, violent and slow 'Breaking loose in brief expression 'Of the tortures underneath 'Crying for deliverance in the unbreakable code of jazz.'

He smiled. 'Unbreakable till now,' he said.

'Rip bop doesn't do it 'Jump and mop-mop only cloud the issue 'They're like jellied coatings over true response 'Only the authentic jazz can break the pinions of repression 'Liberate the heart-deep mournings 'Unbind the pa.s.sions, give freedom to the longing essence 'You understand?' he asked.

'I understand,' I said, knowing why I came.

Inside his room, he flipped the light on, shut the door Walked across the room and slid away a cloth that covered his machine 'Come here,' he said I suspicioned him of hyping me but good His jazz machine was just a jungleful of scraggy tubes and wheels And sc.u.mpteen wires boogity-boogity Like a black-snake brawl I double-o'ed the heap 'That's really in there, man,' I said And couldn't help but smile a cutting smile Right off he grabbed a platter, stuck it down 'Heebie-Jeebies; Armstrong 'First, I'll play the record by itself,' he said Any other time I'd bust my conk on Satchmo's scatting But I had the crawling heavies in me And I couldn't even loosen up a grin I stood there feeling nowhere While Daddy-O was tromping down the English tongue Rip-bip-dee-doo-dee-doot-doo!

The Satch recited in his Model T baritone Then white man threw a switch In one hot second all the crazy scat was nixed Instead, all pounding in my head There came a sound like bottled blowtops scuffling up a jamboree Like twenty tongue-tied hipsters in the next apartment Having them a ball Something frosted up my spine I felt the shakes do get-off chorus in my gut And even though I knew that Mister Pink was smiling at me I couldn't look him back My heart was set to knock a doorway through my chest Before he cut his jazz machine 'You see?' he asked.

I couldn't talk. He had the up on me 'Electrically, I've caught the secret heart of jazz 'Oh, I could play you many records 'That would ill.u.s.trate the many moods 'Which generate this complicated tongue 'But I would like for you to play in my machine 'Record a minute's worth of solo 'Then we'll play the record through the other speaker 'And we'll hear exactly what you're feeling 'Stripped of every sonic superficial. Right?'

I had to know I couldn't leave that place no more than fly So, while white man set his record maker up, I unsacked my trumpet, limbering up my lip All the time the heebies rising in my craw Like ice cubes piling Then I blew it out again The weight The dragging misery The bringdown blues that hung inside me Like twenty irons on a string And the string stuck to my guts with twenty hooks That kept on slicing me away I played for Rone, my brother Rone who could have died a hundred different times and ways Rone who died, instead, down in the Murder Belt Where he was born Rone who thought he didn't have to take that same old stuff Rone who forgot and rumbled back as if he was a man And not a spade Rone who died without a single word Underneath the boots of Mississippi p.e.c.k.e.rwoods Who hated him for thinking he was human And kicked his brains out for it That's what I played for I blew it hard and right And when I finished and it all came rus.h.i.+ng back on me Like screaming in a black-walled pit I felt a coat of evil on my back With every scream a b.u.t.ton that held the dark coat closer Till I couldn't get the air That's when I crashed my horn on his machine That's when I knocked it on the floor And craunched it down and kicked it to a thousand pieces 'You fool!' That's what he called me 'You d.a.m.ned black fool!'

All the time until I left I didn't know it then I thought that I was kicking back for every kick That took away my only brother But now it's done and I can get off all the words I should have given Mister Pink Listen, white man; listen to me good Buddy ghee, it wasn't you I didn't have no hate for you Even though it was your kind that put my brother In his final place I'll knock it to you why I broke your jazz machine I broke it 'cause I had to 'Cause it did just what you said it did And, if I let it stand, It would have robbed us of the only thing we have That's ours alone The thing no boot can kick away Or rope can choke You cruel us and you kill us But listen, white man, These are only needles in our skin But if I'd let you keep on working your machine You'd know all our secrets And you'd steal the last of us And we'd blow away and never be again Take everything you want, Man You will because you have But don't come scuffling for our souls.

V a" THE DISINHERITORS.

Let me tell you about one of the last persons who went on a picnic with her husband, George Grady.

This person's name was Alice and she had blonde hair and a mind of her own. She was twenty-eight by the calendar and her husband was thirty-two. They liked to daydream sometimes as most people do. That's not why they went on a picnic but it bears mentioning.

George worked for the city. This meant working six days and having one free. The week they went on the picnic, the day was Wednesday.

So on this Wednesday morning, Alice and George got up very early, even before their electric rooster had clarioned the dawn. They whispered while they dressed and completed their toilets, and then went downstairs to the kitchen.

They had breakfast and made sandwiches and sliced pickles and George took out hard-boiled egg yolks, mixed them with pepper and other condiments and shoved the result back into the eggs again and called them works of art.

Then, when they had all the sandwiches neatly folded into waxed paper and the thermos bottle gurgling full with coffee, they tumbled out of their little homestead.

Their automobile stood waiting in the early-morning air. Into its damp, oily interior they piled and went chugging off to the country, up hills and down dales and so on. They drove until there were no more billboards, which is a long drive from any city.

When they reached the point where nature had a thin breathing ground before dying into the next suburb, George turned off the superhighway and drove down an old lane encrusted with high gra.s.s and bushes and foliage-dripping trees.

At length he turned the nose of their faithful runabout into a rich forest glade. He shut off the motor and they got out and spread a blanket on the ground where they could look over a mirror-sheened lake.

Then they sat down and admired G.o.d's handiwork and made appropriate remarks. Alice pulled up her thin knees and put her equally thin arms around them. George took off his hat and arranged the few remaining strands of his hair. As usual he regaled Alice with tales about the boys at work and what cards they were. Alice didn't care. Neither did George, for that matter.