Alternating Currents (21 page)

Poor us!

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~ * ~

Grandy Devil

Mahlon begat Timothy, and Timothy begat Nathan, and Nathan begat Roger, and the days of their years were long on the Earth. But then Roger begat Orville, and Orville was a heller. He begat Augustus, Wayne, Walter, Benjamin and Carl, who was my father, and I guess that was going too far, because that was when Gideon Upshur stepped in to take a hand.

I was kissing Lucille in the parlour when the doorbell rang and she didn’t take kindly to the interruption. He was a big old man with a burned-brown face. He stamped the snow off his feet and stared at me out of crackling blue eyes and demanded, ‘Orvie?’

I said, ‘My name is George.’

‘Wipe the lipstick off your face, George,’ he said, and walked right in.

Lucille sat up in a hurry and began tucking the ends of her hair in place. He looked at her once and calmly took off his coat and hung it over the back of a chair by the fire and sat down.

‘My name is Upshur,’ he said. ‘Gideon Upshur. Where’s Orville Dexter?’

I had been thinking about throwing him out up until then, but that made me stop thinking about it. It was the first time anybody had come around looking for Orville Dexter in almost a year and we had just begun breathing easily again.

I said, ‘That’s my grandfather, Mr Upshur. What’s he done now?’

He looked at me. ‘You’re his
grandson?
And you ask me what he’s
done
?’ He shook his head. ’Where is he ?’

I told him the truth: ‘We haven’t seen Grandy Orville in five years.’

‘And you don’t know where he is ?’

‘No, I don’t, Mr Upshur. He never tells anybody where he’s going. Sometimes he doesn’t even tell us after he comes back.’

The old man pursed his lips. He leaned forward, across Lucille, and poured himself a drink from the Scotch on the side table.

‘I swear,’ he said, in a high, shrill, old voice, ‘these Dexters are a caution. Go home.’

He was talking to Lucille. She looked at him sulkily and opened her mouth, but I cut in.

‘This is my fiancée,’ I said.

‘Hah,’ he said. ‘No doubt. Well, there’s nothing to do but have it out with Orvie. Is the bed made up in the guestroom ?’

I protested, ‘Mr Upshur, it isn’t that we aren’t glad to see any friend of Grandy’s, but Lord knows when he’ll be home. It might be tomorrow, it might be six months from now or years.’

‘I’ll wait,’ he said over his shoulder, climbing the stairs.

~ * ~

Having him there wasn’t so bad after the first couple of weeks. I phoned Uncle Wayne about it, and he sounded quite excited.

‘Tall, heavy-set old man?’ he asked. ‘Very dark complexion ?’

‘That’s the one,’ I said. ‘He seemed to know his way around the house pretty well, too.’

‘Well, why wouldn’t he ?’ Uncle Wayne didn’t say anything for a second. ‘Tell you what, George. You get your brothers together and -’

‘I can’t, Uncle Wayne,’ I said. ‘Harold’s in the Army. I don’t know
where
William’s got to.’

He didn’t say anything for another second. ‘Well, don’t worry. I’ll give you a call as soon as I get back.’

‘Are you going somewhere, Uncle Wayne?’ I wanted to know.

‘I certainly am, George,’ he said, and hung up.

So there I was, alone in the house with Mr Upshur. That’s the trouble with being the youngest.

Lucille wouldn’t come to the house any more, either. I went out to her place a couple of times, but it was too cold to drive the Jaguar and William had taken the big sedan with him when he left, and Lucille refused to go anywhere with me in the jeep. So all we could do was sit in
her
parlour, and her mother sat right there with us, knitting and making little remarks about Grandy Orvie and that girl in Eatontown.

~ * ~

So, all in all, I was pretty glad when the kitchen door opened and Grandy Orvie walked in.

‘Grandy!’ I cried. ‘I’m glad to see you! There’s a man -’

‘Hush, George,’ he said. ‘Where is he?’

‘Upstairs. He usually takes a nap after I bring him his dinner on a tray.’

‘
You
take his dinner up ? What’s the matter with the servants ?’

I coughed. ‘Well, Grandy, after that trouble in Eatontown, they -’

‘Never mind,’ he said hastily. ‘Go ahead with what you’re doing.’

I finished scraping the dishes into the garbage-disposer and stacked them in the washer, while he sat there in his overcoat watching me.

‘George,’ he said at last, ‘I’m an old man. A very old man.’

‘Yes, Grandy,’ I answered.

‘My grandfather’s older than I am. And
his
grandfather is older than that.’

‘Well, sure,’ I said reasonably. ‘I never met them, did I, Grandy?’

‘No, George. At least, I don’t believe they’ve been home much these last few years. Grandy Timothy was here in ‘86, but I don’t believe you were born yet. Come to think of it, even your dad wasn’t born by then.’

‘Dad’s sixty,’ I told him. ‘I’m twenty-one.’

‘Certainly you are, George. And your dad thinks a lot of you. He mentioned you just a couple of months ago. He said that you were getting to an age where you ought to be told about us Dexters.’

‘Told what, Grandy Orville?’ I asked.

‘Confound it, George, that’s what I’m coming to! Can’t you see that I’m trying to tell you something? It’s hard to put into words, that’s all.’

‘Can I help ?’ said Gideon Upshur from the door.

Grandy Orville stood up straight and frosty. ‘I’ll thank you, Gideon Upshur, to stay the be-dickens out of a family discussion!‘

‘It’s my family, too, young man,’ said Gideon Upshur. ‘And that’s why I’m here. I warned Cousin Mahlon, but he wouldn’t listen, I warned Timothy, but he ran off to America - and look what
he
started!’

‘A man’s got a right to pass on his name,’ Grandy Orville said pridefully.

‘Once, yes! I never said a man couldn’t have a son - though you know I’ve never had one, Orvie. Where would the world be if all of us had children three and four at a time, the way you Dexters have been doing? Four now - sixteen when the kids grow up - sixty-four when
their
kids grow up. Why, in four or five hundred years, there’d be trillions of us, Orvie. The whole world would be covered six layers deep with immortals, squirming and fidgeting and I -’

‘Hush, man!’ howled Grandy Orville. ‘Not in front of the boy!’

Gideon Upshur stood up and yelled right back at him. ‘It’s time he found out! I’m warning you, Orville Dexter, either you mend your ways or I’ll mend them for you. I didn’t come here to talk; I’m prepared to take sterner measures if I have to!’

‘Why, you reeking pustoon,’ Grandy Orville started, but then he caught sight of me. ‘Out of here, George! Go up to your room till I call you. And as for you, you old idiot, I’m as prepared as you are, if it comes to that -’

I went. It looked like trouble and I hated to leave Grandy Orville alone, but orders were orders; Dad had taught me that. The noises from the kitchen were terrible for a while, but by and by they died down.

It was quiet for a long, long time. After a couple of hours, I began to get worried and I went back downstairs quietly and pushed the kitchen door open a crack.

Grandy Orville was sitting at the kitchen table, staring into space. I didn’t see Mr Upshur at all.

Grandy Orville looked up and said in a tired voice, ‘Come in, George. I was just catching my breath.’

‘Where did Mr Upshur go ?’ I asked.

‘It was self-defence,’ he said quickly. ’He’d outlived his usefulness, anyway.’

I stared at him. ‘Did something happen to Mr Upshur?’ I asked.

He sighed. ‘George, sometimes I think the old blood is running thin. Now don’t bother me with any more questions right now, till I rest up a bit.’

Orders were orders, as I say. I noticed that the garbage-disposal unit was whirring and I walked over to shut it off.

‘Funny,’ I said. ‘I forgot I left it running.’

Grandy Orville said nervously, ‘Don’t give it a thought. Say, George, they haven’t installed sewer lines while I was away, have they?’

‘No, they haven’t, Grandy,’ I told him. ‘Same old dry well and septic tank.’

‘That’s too bad,’ he grumbled. ‘Well, I don’t suppose it matters.’

I wasn’t listening too closely; I had noticed that the floor was slick and shiny.

‘Grandy,’ I said, ‘you didn’t have to mop the floor for me. I can manage, even if all the servants did quit when -’

‘Oh, shut up about the servants,’ he snapped testily. ‘George, I’ve been thinking. There’s a lot that needs to be explained to you, but this isn’t the best time for it and maybe your dad ought to do the explaining. He knows you better than I do. Frankly, George, I just don’t know how to put things so you’ll understand. Didn’t you ever notice that there was anything different about us Dexters ?’

‘Well, we’re pretty rich.’

‘I don’t mean that. For instance, that time you were run over by the truck when you were a kid. Didn’t that make you suspect anything - how soon you mended, I mean ?’

‘Why, I don’t think so, Grandy,’ I said, thinking back. ‘Dad told me that all the Dexters always healed fast.’ I bent down and looked under the table Grandy Orville was sitting at. ‘Why, that looks like old clothes down there. Isn’t that the same kind of suit Mr Upshur was wearing ?’

Grandy Orville shrugged tiredly. ‘He left it for you,’ he explained. ‘Now don’t ask me any more questions, because I’ve got to go away for a while and I’m late now. If your Uncle Wayne comes back, tell him thanks for letting me know Mr Upshur was here. I’ll give your regards to your dad if we happen to meet.’

Well, that was last winter. I wish Grandy would come back so I could stop worrying about the problem he left me.

Lucille never did get over her peeve, so I married Alice along about the middle of February. I’d have liked having some of the family there at the wedding, but none of them was in town just then - since, for that matter - and it wasn’t really necessary because I was of legal age.

I was happy with Alice right from the start, but even more important, it explained what Grandy and Mr Upshur had been trying to tell me. About what us Dexters are, that is.

Alice is a very attractive girl and a good housekeeper, which is a good thing - we haven’t been able to get any of the servants back. But that’s good, too, in a way, because it keeps her inside the house a lot.

It’s getting on towards nice weather, though, and I’m having a tough time keeping her away from the third terrace, where the dry well and septic tank are. And if she goes down there, she’s bound to hear the noises.

I don’t know. Maybe the best thing I could do would be to roll the stone off the top of the septic tank and let what’s struggling around in there come out.

But I’m afraid he’s pretty mad.

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~ * ~

The Tunnel Under The World

On the morning of June 15th, Guy Burckhardt woke up screaming out of a dream.

It was more real than any dream he had ever had in his life. He could still hear and feel the sharp, ripping-metal explosion, the violent heave that had tossed him furiously out of bed, the searing wave of heat.

He sat up convulsively and stared, not believing what he saw, at the quiet room and the bright sunlight coming in the window.

He croaked, ‘Mary?’

His wife was not in the bed next to him. The covers were tumbled and awry, as though she had just left it, and the memory of the dream was so strong that instinctively he found himself searching the floor to see if the dream explosion had thrown her down.

But she wasn’t there. Of course she wasn’t, he told himself, looking at the familiar vanity and slipper chair, the uncracked window, the unbuckled wall. It had only been a dream.

‘Guy ?’ His wife was calling him querulously from the foot of the stairs.’ Guy, dear, are you all right ?’

He called weakly, ‘Sure.’

There was a pause. Then Mary said doubtfully, ‘Breakfast is ready. Are you sure you’re all right ? I thought I heard you yelling.’

Burckhardt said more confidently, ‘I had a bad dream, honey. Be right down.’

~ * ~

In the shower, punching the lukewarm-and-Cologne he favoured, he told himself that it had been a beaut of a dream. Still bad dreams weren’t unusual, especially bad dreams about explosions. In the past thirty years of H-bomb jitters, who had not dreamed of explosions ?

Even Mary had dreamed of them, it turned out, for he started to tell her about the dream, but she cut him off. ‘You
did?’
Her voice was astonished. ‘Why, dear, I dreamed the same thing! Well, almost the same thing. I didn’t actually
hear
anything. I dreamed that something woke me up, and then there was a sort of quick bang, and then something hit me on the head. And that was all. Was yours like that ?’