Tales From Gavagan's Bar (25 page)

             
[Dr. Bronck shook his head, beckoned to Mr. Cohan, and pointed to the glasses. "More libations, good Boniface," he said in a stage whisper.]

             
It is possible that his voice alone might have a hypnotic effect on certain individuals under the right conditions. It is also possible that the subject matter may in some way combine with the voice, but I am at a loss to account for the—spreading of the contagion.

             
However—Dr. Bronck spent his summer in the Holy Land that year, retracing the footsteps of Saul and David. It was something he had done before, but on this occasion he was putting the whole thing on to color film, including the famous cave of the Witch of Endor, for his lecture entitled
Sorcerers and Spiritual Leaders of the Old Testament,
which is so much appreciated throughout the South.

             
The lecture is one that he had delivered in previous years without provoking untoward incidents and then dropped for some time, because he had only slides to illustrate it. He revised it somewhat for reappearance on the list, and it made the sensational success that is usual with Dr. Bronck's lectures. (Dr. Bronck smiled his ample, tooth-displaying smile, ducked his head slightly as though acknowledging applause, and said: "Thank you" in a small voice.)

             
I do not believe he noticed the change in the reception of this lecture at first, although if he had, it is difficult to see how he could have avoided the trouble that later arose. The change came about as gradually as the emergence of a forest fire from a single dropped cigarette, and its origin is as hard to trace as the point where the cigarette was dropped.

             
Looking back over it, Dr. Bronck is inclined to believe that the first manifestation which forced itself upon his attention was when he gave
Sorcerers and Spiritual Leaders
in Birmingham. Am I right about its being Birmingham, Fabian? At the end of a lecture, it is his custom to have a question period, since a part of his popularity is due to the feeling of personal acquaintanceship he leaves with his audiences. Many people, of course, do not wish to stay for this period, so when the lights are turned on and he says ". . . and so, my
friends, we take leave of the Holy Land and return to our workaday world," there is a certain amount of movement toward the exits. This was true at the Birmingham lecture; but two men in the audience, instead of leaving in the ordinary way by the doors at the back of the hall, marched straight up and out the emergency exit at the side of the speaker's platform.

             
At the time Dr. Bronck was extremely busy with his questions and the incident only flicked at his attention as a minor discourtesy, which he noted out of the corner of his eye. It was only later, when the matter became more important and he was trying to remember details, that he realized that something odd about the appearance of the pair had registered on his subconscious memory. They were staring straight before them and lifting their feet very high as they walked; and Dr. Bronck recalls the thought flashing across his mind in the fraction of a second that both men must be drunk.

             
What is it, Fabian? . . . Oh, yes, he says it is not unusual to prepare for a religious lecture in the South by the liberal ingestion of corn liquor. People seem to feel that it enables them to attain more readily the emotional state desirable for receiving a revelation. Which reminds me, Mr. Cohan, our emotional states require a little bolstering. Will you see to it?

             
On that circuit, a lecture at Birmingham is usually followed by others at Tuscaloosa, Selma, Montgomery and Mobile. Dr. Bronck recalls nothing of special interest about the first three; but at Mobile, where the lecture was held in the open air under a tent, the Birmingham incident was repeated—that is, men shouldered out straight past the speaker's platform when the lights came up. Only this time there were four of them instead of two, all walking in the same peculiar dazed manner. Again Dr. Bronck was too busy with his questions to notice the incident except as one makes a mental remark upon a repeated peculiarity. It was not until he had covered Pensacola and Tallahassee and swung up to Waycross, Georgia, that the matter really forced itself upon his attention.

             
At Waycross, seven or eight people, men and women alike, nearly half a row, stood up and marched out when the lights came on. They used the normal exit at the rear of the hall this time, but Dr. Bronck was looking directly at them, and he could not miss the fact that the whole group, who had been sitting together, left with the same high step and fixity of vision he had remarked at Birmingham and Mobile.

             
After he had finished the usual post-lecture reception at the home of one of the social leaders of Waycross and was in his hotel room, restoring his emotional state, he connected the occurrence with the two previous incidents. As he did so, something struck him with prodigious force. Two of the four men of Mobile had also been present at Waycross, and as nearly as he could recall, the same two were the pair that had pushed past the speaker's platform at Birmingham. Then he remembered also that in all three places he had given the same lecture—
Sorcerers and Spiritual Leaders.
At Selma and Pensacola, where the audience exhibited their admiration of Dr. Bronck in the normal manner, he had given
Breakfast in Bethlehem;
and at Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, and Tallahassee, it was
Sailing in the Steps of St. Paul.

             
You may judge that it was with some trepidation that he approached the next reading of the unfortunate
Sorcerers and Spiritual Leaders
lecture, which was scheduled for Columbia, South Carolina. As soon as he reached the platform and began looking over the audience in the few minutes while being introduced, his fears were justified. The same two men were there, now sitting in the middle of a row of people, all of whom seemed to bear a family resemblance, in that their faces had a curious colorless character. They were perfectly well-behaved, merely sat there with their hands in their laps, waiting for him to begin; did not even applaud when the chairman finished his introduction and Dr. Bronck stepped to the podium. And when he had finished, they marched out in single file, the whole row of them, moving as though they had been hypnotized or stunned.

             
However flattering it is to a lecturer when part of his audience follows him from place to place, it is a somewhat
unnerving experience to be a focus of attraction for a growing group of people who look as though they had just come from a graveyard, and who are not really there to listen to the lecture but to be thrown into a state of ecstatic catalepsy by the lecturer's voice. Not to mention that Dr. Bronck felt that his position as a religious teacher might be compromised by such events, which, although not altering the value of his teaching, might be taken in the wrong spirit by the unthinking.

             
By the time he reached Asheville and there were twenty of these persons in the audience, Dr. Bronck was more than a little disturbed. It was evident that the people who are normally his listeners had begun to notice the intrusion of these peculiar characters, and were not taking it too well. And it was also apparent that the effect of the lecture on these individuals was impermanent; they reached their period of exaltation after hearing Dr. Bronck for an hour. Then the effect apparently gradually wore off, so that they had to have the dosage renewed. He was thus being pursued about the country by a retinue that was growing embarrassingly.

             
Upon consideration, he decided that in a manner which he could by no means explain, the zombie effect was produced by the lecture
Sorcerers and Spiritual Leaders of the Old Testament.
By telegraphing ahead, he managed to persuade his sponsors at Lynchburg, Virginia, to accept
Breakfast in Bethlehem
instead. His special group was present, larger than ever, not having been advised of the change, but he was relieved to see that only one of them—one of the original two from Mobile—left with the typical high step and fixed stare. The rest shambled out, looking at the floor, with their hands in their pockets.

             
This particular tour ended at Richmond, and Dr. Bronck enjoyed a week of rest before taking a swing through New England and central New York. In the interval he waited on his agents, McPherson and Kantor, and told them firmly that he declined to deliver
Sorcerers and Spiritual Leaders
again. They are notorious slave-drivers—I have been under their management myself—but they were not too averse, as
audiences in the northern states require a somewhat more sophisticated and more sentimental approach, and Dr. Bronck's habit of not modifying his lectures was well established.

             
He did Connecticut and Rhode Island easily, though at Bristol, where he gave
Characters of the Crusades,
he thought he recognized one of his southern friends in the audience. At Worcester, however, he was shocked. The lecture was
Sailing in the Steps of St. Paul
and his eye, now attuned to looking for it, caught the zombie effect in at least two of those present. One of them was definitely a person who had attended one of the
Sorcerers and Spiritual Leaders
lectures in the south.

             
You will understand that Dr. Bronck has little opportunity to make personal observations of the thousands of people who come to hear him, except as they are unusual in some way. But the Worcester experience was shocking because at that point he realized that his peculiar clientele had not deserted him when he ceased to give
Sorcerers and Spiritual Leaders.
They had merely been following him and accustoming themselves to the accent of his voice until anything he said in any lecture would produce the effect they desired.

             
At Albany, he felt himself on safe ground again, having given
Breakfast in Bethlehem;
but at Utica, where he gave
Sailing in the Steps of St. Paul,
there were four who left with the cataleptic march; and by the time he reached Binghamton and
Characters in the Crusades,
the number had become eight.

             
He managed to finish this tour, which terminated at Buffalo, without having his private audience attract too much attention from the others and, after another brief rest, went out for a trip along the Pacific Coast. This had no incidents, except for the simultaneous exhibition of the zombie effect on almost a third of his audience in Los Angeles. It was fortunately the last lecture of the year; he believed that he had conquered whatever influence was at work—at least on audiences above the Los Angeles level—and happily embarked for Rome, where he spent the summer in working up a new
lecture.

             
[Dr. Bronck abruptly emitted a loud burp and motioned for the refilling of his glass.]

             
Yes, Fabian, I know. Mr. Cohan will take care of the matter. In the fall, the first tour arranged for him was through Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. I believe it opened at Columbus, did it not, Fabian? Dr. Bronck had just arrived in the city and was seated in his hotel room, restoring his emotional state, when he received a telephone call. It was a man's voice, with the sugary accent of the Deep South. He said that he had heard Dr. Bronck lecture during the previous year and wished to discuss a theory with him. The theory was that the world had really been created in 1932, complete with records and people whose memories indicated an earlier existence. Now this sort of thing happens rather frequently to lecturers, as good God, I know, and Dr. Bronck put up the standard defense, which was to say that he was engaged, with somebody in the room. But the man was persistent, and Dr. Bronck was forced to enter upon explanations. After a minute or two he asked some semi-rhetorical question, ending with "Wouldn't it?" or something like that, and was rather surprised to get no answer. He called "Hello!" two or three times, still without drawing any reply. There was no click of the phone hanging up; just nobody answering at the other end. That night—

             
["That night was bloody awful," said Dr. Bronck. "I need a drink when I think of it."]

             
Indeed, it must have been awful, Fabian. There were at least twenty of the gray-faced people in the audience; and, although the lecture was the new one he had made up in Rome,
Children of the Catacombs,
every single one of them got up and went out with the sleepwalker gait. They had apparently been increasing their sensitivity by practicing with transcriptions of Dr. Bronck's voice. Or perhaps, during the summer in Rome, the voice itself had acquired the additional richness and timbre necessary to the easy production of the zombie effect, regardless of the words spoken.