Plexus (54 page)

The kitchen is my realm. In there I dream away whole passages of destiny and causality.

“Well, Henry,” says Ulric, cornering me at the sink, “how goes it? This is to your success!” He raises his glass and downs it. “Good stuff! You must give me the address of your bootlegger later.” We have a little drink together while I fill a couple of orders. “Golly,” he says, “it sure does look funny to see you with that carving knife in your hand.”

“Not a bad way to pass the time,” I remarked. “Gives me a chance to think of what I will write some day.”

“You don't mean it!”

“Of course I do. It's not
me
making these sandwiches—it's someone else. This is like sleepwalking.… How about a nice piece of salami? You can have the Jewish kind or the Italian. Here, try these olives—
Greek
olives, what! You know, if I were simply a bartender I'd be miserable.”

“Henry,” he says, “you couldn't be miserable no matter what you were doing. You'll always find life interesting, even when you're at the bottom. You know, you're like those mountain climbers who, when they fall into a deep crevasse, see the stars twinkling overhead … in broad daylight. You see stars where others see only warts or blackheads.”

He gave me one of those knowing, tender smiles, then suddenly assumed a serious mien. “I thought I ought to tell you something,” he began. “It's about Ned. I don't know if he's told you, but he lost his job recently.
Drink
. He can't take it. I tell you this so that you'll keep an eye on him. He thinks the world of you, as you know, and
he'll probably be here frequently. Try to keep him in hand, won't you? Alcohol is poison to him.…”

“By the way,” he continued, “do you suppose I might bring my chess set down some evening? I mean, when things quiet down a bit. There'll be nights when nobody will turn up. Just give me a ring. By the way, I've been reading that book you lent me—on the history of the game. An astonishing book. We must go one day to the museum and have a look at those medieval chess boards, eh?”

“Sure,” I said, “if we ever manage to get up by noon!”

One by one my friends filed into the kitchen to chat with me. Often they served the customers for me. Sometimes the customers came to the kitchen themselves to ask for a drink, or just to see what was going on.

O'Mara, of course, anchored himself in the kitchen. He talked incessantly about his adventures in the sunny South. Thought it might be a good idea to go back there, all three of us, and make a new start. “Too bad you haven't got an extra bed here,” he said. He scratched his head thoughtfully. “Maybe we could put a couple of tables together and spread a mattress over them?”

“Later, maybe.”

“Sure, sure,” said O'Mara. “Anytime. It was just a thought. Anyway, it's good to see you again. You'll like it down South. Good clean air there, for one thing.…
This is some dump!
What a comedown from that other place! By the way, do you still see that crazy gink—what's his name again?”

“You mean Sheldon?”

“Yeah, Sheldon, that's the guy. He'll pop up again, just wait! You know what they'd do with a pest like that down South? They'd grab him by the seat of his pants and run him over the line—or else lynch him.

“By the way,” he continued, clutching my sleeve, “who's that dame in the corner over there? Ask her in here, will you? I haven't had a good lay now in two weeks. She's not a Yid, is she? Not that I give a damn… only they cling
too much.
You know.”
He gave a dirty little laugh and helped himself to a brandy.

“Henry, I'll have to tell you sometime about the gals I fooled around with down there. It was like a passage out of the
History of European Morals
. One of them, with a big colonial house and a retinue of flunkeys, was all set to hook me for life. I almost fell for it too—she was that pretty. That was in Petersburg. In Chattanooga I ran across a nymphomaniac. She nearly sucked me dry. They're all a bit queer, I tell you. Faulkner's got the low-down on them, no gainsaying it. They're full of death—or something. The worst of it is, they spoil you. I was pampered to death. That's why I came back. I've got to
do
something. Christ, but New York looks like a morgue! People must be crazy to stay here all their lives.…”

The girl in the corner, whom he had been eyeing steadily, gave him a sign. “Excuse me, Henry,” he said, “this is it,” and off he skedaddled.

It was when Arthur Raymond started coming regularly that things began to take a dramatic turn. He was usually accompanied by his bosom pal, Spud Jason, and Alameda, the latter's “paramour.” Arthur Raymond liked nothing better than to argue and dispute, and, if possible, to consummate these sessions on the floor, with toe holds and arm locks. Nothing gave him more pleasure than to twist someone's arm or wrench it out of its socket. His idol was Jim Driscoll, who had lately turned professional. Perhaps it was because Jim Driscoll had once studied to be an organist that he adored him so.

As I say, Arthur Raymond was always itching for trouble. If he was unable to inveigle the others into argument and disputation he fell back on his comrade Spud Jason. The latter was a thoroughgoing Bohemian, a painter of considerable talent, who was going to seed. He was always ready to drop his work on the slightest excuse. His place was a pigsty in which he and his little spitfire, Alameda, wallowed. One could knock at his door any hour
of the day or night. He was an excellent cook, always in good humor, amenable to any suggestion or proposal, no matter how fantastic. Too, he always had a bit of cash on him which he lent freely.

Mona didn't care for Spud Jason at all. And she detested “the little Spanish bitch,” as she called Alameda. However, they usually brought three or four other customers with them when they came. Certain people usually left when this gang arrived—Tony Maurer, for instance, Manuel Siegfried and Cedric Ross. Caccicacci and Trevelyan, on the other hand, always welcomed them with open arms. For them it meant free drinks and a spot of food. Besides, they enjoyed argument and dispute. They reveled in it.

Posing as a Florentine, though he had not seen Italy since he was two years old, Caccicacci could tell marvelous anecdotes about the great Florentines—all pure inventions, to be sure. Some of these anecdotes he repeated, with alterations and elaborations, the extent of these depending on the indulgence of his listeners.

One of these “inventions” had to do with a robot of the twelfth century, the creation of a medieval scholar whose name he could never recall. Originally, Caccicacci was content to describe this mechanical freak (which he insisted was hermaphroditic) as a sort of tireless drudge, capable of performing all sorts of menial tasks, some of them rather droll. But as he continued to embellish the tale, the robot—which he always referred to as Picodiribibi—gradually came to assume powers and propensities which were, to say the least, astounding. For example, after being taught to imitate the human voice, Picodiribibi's master instructed his mechanical drudge in certain arts and sciences which were useful to the master—to wit, the memorizing of weights and measures, of theorems and logarithms, of certain astronomical calculations, of the names and positions of the constellations at any season for the previous seven hundred years. He also instructed him in the use of the saw, the hammer and chisel, the compass, the sword and
pike, as well as certain primitive musical instruments. Picodiribibi, consequently, was not only a sort of
femme de ménage
, sergeant-at-arms, amanuensis and compendium of useful information, but a soothing spirit who could lull his master to sleep with weird melodies in the Doric mode. However, like the parrot in the cage, this Picodiribibi developed a fondness for speech which was beyond all bounds. At times his master had difficulty in suppressing this proclivity. The robot, who had been taught to recite lengthy poems in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and other tongues, would sometimes take it into his head to recite his whole repertoire without pausing for breath and, of course with no consideration for his master's peace of mind. And, since fatigue was utterly meaningless to him, he would occasionally ramble on in this senseless, faultless fashion, reeling off weights and measures, logarithmic tables, astronomical dates and figures, and so on, until his master, beside himself with rage and irritation, would flee the house. Other curious eccentricities manifested themselves in the course of time. Adept in the art of self-defense, Picodiribibi would engage his master's guests in combat upon the slightest provocation, knocking them about like ninepins, bruising and battering them mercilessly. Almost as embarrassing was the habit he had developed of joining in a discussion, suddenly flooring the great scholars who had come to sit at the master's feet by propounding intricate questions, in the form of conundrums, which of course were unanswerable.

Little by little, Picodiribibi's master became jealous of his own creation. What infuriated him above all, curiously enough, was the robot's tirelessness. The latter's ability to keep going twenty-four hours of the day, his gift for perfection, meaningless though it was, the ease and rapidity with which he modulated from one feat of skill to another—these qualities or aptitudes soon transformed “the idiot,” as he now began to call his invention, into a menace and a mockery. There was scarcely anything any more which “the idiot” could not do better than the master himself.
There remained only a few faculties the monster would never possess, but of these animal functions the master himself was not particularly proud. It was obvious that, if he were to recapture his peace of mind, there was only one thing to be done—destroy his precious creation! This, however, he was loath to do. It had taken him twenty years to put the monster together and make him function. In the whole wide world there was nothing to equal the bloody idiot. Moreover, he could no longer recall by what intricate, complicated and mysterious processes he had brought his labors to fruition. In every way Picodiribibi rivaled the human being whose simulacrum he was. True, he would never be able to reproduce his own kind, but like the freaks and sports of human spawn, he would undoubtedly leave in the memory of man a disturbing haunting image.

To such a pass had the great scholar come that he almost lost his mind. Unable to destroy his invention, he racked his brain to determine how and where he might sequester him. For a time he thought of burying him in the garden, in an iron casket. He even entertained the idea of locking him up in a monastery. But fear, fear of loss, fear of damage or deterioration, paralyzed him. It was becoming more and more clear that, inasmuch as he had brought Picodiribibi into being, he would have to live with him forever. He found himself pondering how they could be buried together, secretly, when the time came. Strange thought! The idea of taking with him to the grave a creature which was not alive, and yet in many ways more alive than himself, terrified him. He was convinced that, even in the next world, this prodigy to which he had given birth would plague him, would possibly usurp his own celestial privileges. He began to realize that, in assuming the powers of the Creator, he had robbed himself of the blessing which death confers upon even the humblest believer. He saw himself as a shade flitting forever between two worlds—and his creation pursuing him. Ever a devout man, he now began to pray long and fervently for deliverance. On his knees he
begged the Lord to intercede, to lift from his shoulders the awesome burden of responsibility which he had unthinkingly assumed. But the Almighty ignored his pleas.

Humiliated, and in utter desperation, he was at last obliged to appeal to the Pope. On foot he made the journey with his strange companion—from Florence to Avignon. By the time he arrived a veritable horde had been attracted in his wake. Only by a miracle had he escaped being stoned to death, for by now all Europe was aware that the Devil himself was seeking audience with his Holiness. The Pope, however, himself a learned man and a master of the occult sciences, had taken great pains to safeguard this curious pilgrim and his offspring. It was rumored that his Holiness had intentions of adopting the monster himself, if for no other reason than to make of him a worthy Christian. Attended only by his favorite Cardinal, the Pope received the penitent scholar and his mysterious ward in the privacy of his chamber. What took place in the four and a half hours which elapsed nobody knows. The result, if it can be called such, was that the day after the scholar died a violent death. The following day his body was publicly burned and the ashes scattered
sous le pont d' Avignon
.

At this point in his narrative Caccicacci paused, waiting for the inevitable question—
“And what happened to Picodiribibi?”
Caccicacci put on a mysterious baiting smile, raised his empty glass appealingly, coughed, cleared his throat, and, before resuming, inquired if he might have another sandwich.

“Picodiribibi!
Ah, now you ask me something! Have any of you ever read Occam—or the
Private Papers
of Albertus Magnus?”

No one had, needless to say.

“Every now and then,” he continued, the question being wholly rhetorical, “one hears of a sea monster appearing off the coast of Labrador or some other outlandish place. What would you say if tomorrow it were reported that a weird human monster had been glimpsed roaming through
Sherwood Forest? You see, Picodiribibi was not the first of his line. Even in Egyptian times legends were in circulation attesting to the existence of androids such as Picodiribibi. In the great museums of Europe there are documents which describe in detail various androids or robots, as we now call them, which were made by the wizards of old. Nowhere, however, is there any record of the destruction of these man-made monsters. In fact, all the source material we have on the subject leads to the striking conclusion that these monsters always succeeded in escaping from the hands of their masters.…”