Stalking the Nightmare (34 page)

“I like that,” Joyce Muskat said. “See, you’re not such an unfeeling prick, after all.”

The rest of the hour went that way.

John Ratner suggested two ideas: a parasitic business manager who finds he is becoming a character in his top client’s newest production; and a concept, nebulous in the extreme, about “beautiful people” in a Los Angeles where humans have grown fur coats on themselves and there’s no fashion industry. Ellison’s development of these were less than successful. He wound up apologizing. Ratner forgave him.

Alan Chudnow called in with something different. A title. Just a title. “Dust is Falling at the Tower of Minos.” Ellison insulted his moustache, reaffirmed his desire to make it with his grandmother, and told him he’d file away the story title till he was ready to write a Samuel R. Delany-style trilogy. That time would come, Ellison assured Chudnow, soon after the writing of a novel featuring dragons, small people with furry feet and unicorns that responded to anyone who was
not
a virgin. “Tramp, slut unicorns,” Ellison said.

Jon R. McKenzie offered the vaguest idea of the evening. “Two friends who grow apart, who change, yet remain the same, and come back together over the period 1970 to 1980.” Ellison had trouble with that one, finally falling back on a variation of his story “Shatterday,” by suggesting they were halves of the same person, traumatically severed in childhood, who had grown up in the same neighborhood without realizing they were the dark and light sides of the same persona. “And in the end,” Ellison said, drawing to a close with that idea, “the dark side becomes a killer and the light side becomes a priest; and in the concluding scene the good guy, Father Flotski, is outside the prison where the bad guy, Mad Dog Berkowitz is holed up with hostage guards, and Father Flotski is yelling up at him with a bullhorn, ‘Come on, you no-good kike, let the guards go before I have the Virgin Mary bite off your nose!’”

Three subsequent phone calls accused Ellison of being an anti-Semite. Ellison responded by saying, “Some of my best friends are Jews. Like my mother. My father. Me.”

Jeff Rubenstein came on the air reminding Ellison he was the manager of a Crown Books shop in the San Fernando Valley where Ellison shopped. “What’s your idea?” Ellison asked.

He wished he hadn’t “How about the domestication of Arabian camels to be used as race animals for American racetrack betting; and National Football League players all want to ride them as jockeys.”

“Jeff,” Ellison said, “you are a good and decent human being, and I thank you for all your courtesy when I come into Crown, but
that
is in the top tenth of the first percentile of lamebrained ideas I have ever had thrown at me.”

“In other words, you’re giving up, admitting defeat, is that it?” Hodel said. Ellison threw the can of Fresca past his head.

“I’m not admitting defeat,” Ellison said. “I just need a while to let this one percolate. It ain’t easy.”

“Okay, we’ll take another call.”

“My name is Dan Turner. How about a story in which someone invents a way for individuals to get what they deserve?”

Ellison smiled. “Not what they
want…
what they
deserve?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s easy. The guy who develops the gizmo has been in love with this beautiful, witty, intelligent woman all his life, but she won’t have anything to do with him. Contrariwise, there’s this plain-looking woman—not ugly, just sort of average—who’s been in love with
him,
and she can’t get him. Well, when he’s busy turning this gizmo on people, giving them what they deserve, someone turns it on him …”

“And he gets the plain woman, right?” Hodel said.

“Wrong. He gets a thoroughly rotten woman. He didn’t even deserve the nice, decent, average woman.”

“It doesn’t knock me out,” Hodel said.

“The original idea didn’t send me to the moon, either, Hodel. I’m dancing as fast as I can here.”

Hodel punched up another call. Ellison was beginning to reel. He had the feeling he had been sucked headfirst into the collective head of science fiction fandom, and he didn’t like the neighborhood. “You’re on the air.”

“Hi, I’m Charles Garcia, and my topic for a story is another story about the little blue Jewish aliens with wheels who needed a
minyan
for their dying planet; and throw in something about the Pope, if possible.”

“You mean you want me to write a sequel to I’m Looking for Kadak’?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mr. Garcia, that’s not an idea. I did that one already.”

“Oh.” He sounded wounded. “Okay.” And he rang off.

Ellison looked chagrined. “I think I hurt his feelings.”

“As opposed to the thousands you’ve insulted tonight who are probably all slashing their wrists or mailing you bombs,” Hodel said wryly.

“Yeah, well … I didn’t
mean
to upset Garcia.”

Hodel put on another caller. Mayer Alan Brenner.

“I know you,” Ellison said.

“You sure do. And I’ve got a beauty for you.”

“Be still my heart,” Ellison said, sinking down on his spine.

“It’s an excerpt from NORTHEAST TREE AND STREAM,” Mayer said. “A short natural history of the famous Chesapeake Tree-Climbing Octopus …”

“Why me?” Ellison groaned. “Which God did I offend?”

“All of them,” said Hodel.

Mayer went on, undaunted by sounds of pain coming over his radio. “This retiring and rarely-glimpsed creature lives in the many quiet estuaries of the Chesapeake system. Early each morning the octopus leaves the water and crawls up the trunk of a shoreside tree. It makes its way precariously onto a branch overhanging the water, where it waits for its prey to pass underneath.”

Silence ensued. Dead air hung heavily in the night.

Finally, Ellison said, “And that’s it, right? That’s the idea, right, Mayer?”

“Uh-huh.”

More silence. Then, in a very soft, very tired voice, Ellison said, “These blue-skinned Jewish aliens with wheels come down to Earth and kidnap the Pope so they can have a race on Arabian camels to establish whether Jews or Gentiles are worthiest to live in the universe, and the Pope gets all these NFL players to ride as his team, because they’re all Polish or black and not a Jew in the lot, and they have this watercourse raceway and they race for the universe, and as they come under this tree in the Chesapeake system the octopus drops out of a tree and eats every last, fucking one of them, football players, Jewish aliens, the Pope, the camels, Brian Sipe and Terry Bradshaw and Walter Payton
and you too Mayer!”

In the control room Burt Handelsman, crack engineer, was trying to laugh and pick his nose at the same time.

“The time is 10:55 and this is KPFK-FM in Los Angeles,” Hodel said. “And this is
Hour 25,
the weekly program of speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy and wonder … and I’m your host, Mike Hodel.”

“This is a
science fiction
program?!” Ellison shrieked. “This isn’t
The 700 Club?
But I came to declare for Ba’al!”

Hodel punched up a call. “You’re on the air.”

It was William Stout, the artist responsible for the bestselling DINOSAURS book. “I want him to think up a story in which William Stout gets to meet some real dinosaurs,” he said. He waited.

Ellison said, “Okay, there’s this story in which William Stout gets to meet some real dinosaurs, and they have lots and lots of real nice adventures, and if you want to find out how this story ends, go to the library and ask Miss Beckwith to let you check out the book. So long, Stout, you asshole.”

Hodel said, “Thank God we have an eight second delay on the live phone lines.”

“You don’t have any eight second delay,” Ellison said.

“I know, I know,” Hodel said, dropping his head into his hands.

“And now, let’s cut to Pasadena, to the LungFishCon, for the weekly calendar of events and the scintillant Terry Hodel, this dip’s ex-wife,” Ellison said. Hodel was weeping.

Burt Handelsman, crack engineer, threw the switch and the booth went dead as Terry Hodel did the calendar remote.

Hodel looked up, with tears in his eyes. “The FCC’s gonna get me again. You did it to me the last time, and you’re gonna do it again this time.”

“You knew the job was dangerous when you took it,” Ellison said. Then a look of transcendental horror passed over his face. “Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod … where’s Jane? What happened to my girl friend, Jane? Where did I leave her? Ohmigod, this program has drained my brain. Where did I park her, did I lock her, is someone even now stealing her hubcaps?”

“She went home to North Attleboro to see her parents last week,” Hodel said. “Calm down. She’s all right.”

Ellison visibly relaxed, breathed a sigh of relief. “Boy, it was touch-and-go there for a minute.”

Burt Handelsman, c.e., suddenly boomed in the room. “Terry’s almost finished. Get set for a cue.”

The red light flashed and Hodel said, “Well, we’re back now. How’re you doing, Harlan?”

“You know, I work seriously at my craft. I spend hours and days and months and years writing these stories with proper serious intent … and then I’m thrown into conjunction with my readers … and it’s scary, very scary. These people are all
nuts!”

“Yes, but
you’re
the one making stories out of these crazy ideas.”

“I’m just a Force for Good in My Time,” Ellison replied.

“Well, we’re going to make it easy for you,” Hodel said. “Group Mind, we’re only going to take, say, five more ideas; and then Harlan and I will just chat about other things.”

“Bless yuh, Massa Ho’del suh; I jus’ loves wukkin’ foah yuh heah on de plantation.”

Hodel punched up a caller. “This is Tad Stones, and I’m calling in an idea for Ed Coffey.”

“Good old Ed Coffey, whoever the hell
he
is,” Ellison murmured. “Now they’re selling shares in my breakdown.”

“This is a science fiction story,” Tad Stones said.

“What a swell change of pace,” Ellison said through clenched teeth, thereby making it unintelligible to the audience.

“An average looking man offers the owner of a video arcade a free computer game for market testing. At the same moment, apparently the same man is making the same offer to arcades across the country.”

Ellison gritted his teeth. The sound of avalanches went out at one million cycles per second.

“It’s an alien plot, okay?” Ellison said.

“You asking me,” Tad Stones said.

“Yeah. I’m asking you. Alien invasion, right?”

“Sure. If you say so.”

“Clones. They’re clones. That okay, too?”

“Uh huh.”

“Alien clone invasion, howzabout it?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“I aims to please, Mr. Stones. An alien clone invasion from Far Centauri that has as its secret intent the violent overthrow of video arcades. How about it, Stones, you dip? Satisfactory?”

Hodel was getting disturbed. Ellison was no longer funny. He was getting actively vicious. The self-mocking tone at the edge of his remarks was vanishing. Hodel scribbled a note and thrust it in front of Ellison’s glazed eyes.
Are you okay?

“Am I okay, am I okay?” Ellison howled. “No, I’m not okay.
I
‘m going bugfuck in here! Do you have any idea what it does to someone who spends fifteen hours a day writing to have to deal with this shit?”

“I write, too, Harlan,” Hodel said gently.

His concern was evident Ellison, who had been spiraling up into hysteria, calmed down quickly. “I’m sorry. Yes, of course, you understand. I’ve read ENTER THE LION and you’re a very
good
writer, Mike. He’s a very
good
writer, folks.” He paused. “But I’m
still
going bugfuck!”

Great clouds of smoke Etna’d from his pipe.

There were only four more to go. The first was a man named Jon Clarke who reminded Ellison that he had held down the tire-puncture spikes at the entrance to Cal State, Northridge, when the writer had spoken there some years before and was late in arriving and had to drive in the egress to get to the auditorium. He offered an idea about a Group Mind on cable television stealing the souls of those who appear in its circuits. Ellison was far gone by that time, and could make no sense of the idea. He babbled something about gestalt video vampirism and sank into a depressed funk.

Then a woman named Diana AdMns called and they both listened as she said, “This really happened, A little boy I knew, who was very bright, was asked why, in school and everywhere else, he didn’t exhibit how bright he was. And he said, If I hold a candle under the bed, no one will see the flame,’ and when he was asked why he would hold a candle under the bed, he said, ‘Because if I don’t, someone will put it out.’”

Hodel said, “That’s very sad.” Ellison said nothing.

“Thank you for calling,” Hodel said. He cut to a new caller. Only two to go. He was worried about his guest. He’d known Ellison for years, and the sharpest parallel to what seemed to be happening to him was a story Ellison had written about a man being drained by emotional vampires. He wanted to cut this off before something more spectacular than he could handle went down.