Collected Stories Read online

  And do you know why, precious? Because today I've decided to sit down and write you a letter. Imagine, Willie, a letter of your very own! Baby's First Letter!

  There's so much I have to tell you, and I'm so excited I can hardly begin. Why, I don't remember the last time I felt so good! Just thinking about you now, and putting your picture here on the table where I can see it better, I feel as if... As if you're right here in the room with me! Of course, it's only an old photograph, not one of those 3-D holograph tilings they have nowadays-but it's a pretty picture just the same. Your Mommy and your Daddy, bless their hearts, are standing behind you looking oh so proud, the light gleaming off their chromium Helmets, and there you are in front of them, in your little plastic sunsuit, fast asleep with your thumb in your mouth, just as cute as can be! It's as if you're sitting right here beside me, I can almost reach out and touch you. Ooooh, snookums snookums snookums, Great-Granny could just eat you up you're so cute! Do you know how cute? Why, you're just the cutest little baby in the whole world, that's how cute you are! And if your Great-Granny were with you right now, do you know what she'd do? She'd just give you the biggest kiss you ever saw-and a big hug, too! That's how much she loves you.

  And even though they've put her in a Home (it's for my own good, I know) and she can't come round to see you like she used to, writing you this letter makes her feel so close to you. Why, so close I think I'll just reach out and tickle your little chinny-chin-chin! There! How does snookums like being tickled under his chinny-chin-chin?

  I remember the last time I saw you-I'm sure it wasn't very long ago-you were just the eentsy-weentsiest little baby, all swaddled up in your Baby-Sheath and looking ever so hug- gable! You were smiling in your sleep, with nothing but your precious little head sticking out of the top of the plastic like some relic in a museum. Your dear Mommy (God bless her) switched off the vibrator under your crib and went to get your vitamilk bottle, and just as I was leaning over to give you a Great Big Kiss, you woke up and, oh!, did you let out a howl! I guess you'd never seen such an oid woman before! (Yes, Willie, your Great Granny is old- so old she sometimes forgets her age.) Well, your Mommy had to come running back from the kitchen to turn the vibrator on again, so you'd stop crying and go back to sleep. She was a little cross with me, I'm afraid, and I felt sorry that I'd scared you, really I did. I'd only meant to kiss you Now I'm in this Home, and I won't be able to come visit you any more. But maybe after you've read this letter, you'll come visit me! Won't that be fun!

  But oh, Willie, your Great-Granny forgets. You ain't read this letter-I mean, not now, the 17th of Sept, 2039. You haven't learned to read yet! I'm sure you're nowhere near three years old.. .When I was a little girl, no one knew how to read before they were at least five or six-or even seven. Children nowadays are so smart, they being able to read much sooner than we did! Why, I'll bet my little Willie is reading and writing and multiplying and dividing by the time he's two-and-a-half, just like all my other Great-Grandchildren! There must be nearly a dozen of them by now. Funny that you're the only one I remember; I guess that's because yours is the only picture they've let me keep.

  But it's a lovely picture, Willie, snookums, and I don't care if you're too itty-bitty to read this now. I have such important news for you that I'm going to write it anyway, and Mommy and Daddy (bless their hearts) can save it for you till you're old enough to read it.

  But they're not allowed to read it themselves. This is your letter, Willie, and it's just for you. No Grown-Ups Allowed! That's because what I have to tell you concerns those shiny metal Helmets your Mommy and Daddy wear-and why they make Great-Granny Afraid.

  Maybe they frighten you, too, those Helmets; I think if they'd had such things when I was little, I'd have been frightened... But that was ever so many years ago, and I'm growing a little forgetful.

  Or maybe you don't even think about the Helmets at all; maybe you just "take them for granted," precious-that means not noticing things-because Mommy and Daddy wear them all the time, and you've never seen them with their Helmets off.

  Or maybe you think they're pretty. Yes, that's it, you think, What pretty Helmets! (And they are pretty, too, snookums, especially when they're freshly polished. But they're not as pretty as a certain baby I know!) You'd like to wear one of those pretty Helmets yourself, am I right? You can hardly wait for the Big Day to arrive when, five years old, you're taken on a Little Trip to the Clinic and come back wearing a Helmet of your own, just like Mommy and Daddy (God bless them) and all the other big people.

  Why, I'll bet you're counting the days till your Fifth Birthday!

  (That's true, isn't it, snookums? Don't tell me you're five already. No, please don't tell me that! If I recollect, you should be. Still a little baby. Five is a long way off, isn't it? Sure it is. You'll be reading this long before you're five. I know that because I know what a Smart Baby you are!)

  But Willie, precious, even though you're so looking forward to that Little Trip, even though you want a Helmet of your. own more than anything in the world, please listen to what your Great-Granny has to say-because you know your Great-Granny loves you, even if she did make you cry that time, and you know her only thought is what's best for you. Willie, precious, don't let them put one of those Helmets on you. They aren't good for you. You can trust Great-Granny, Great-Granny knows. Don't go with Mommy and Daddy when they take you down to the Clinic. There are men there who will hurt you, Willie. Great-Granny knows.

  Instead, a few days before your Fifth Birthday, sneak out of the house and don't tell Mommy and Daddy where you're going. Put some food in your pockets, in case you get hungry. Maybe you could run away and come live with Great-Granny at the Home, wouldn't that be fun? Wouldn't you like to live here with me? They take very good care of you here, it's always quiet and there's plenty of heat in the winter. And I'd give you all the candy and cake you wanted, even for breakfast. I promise, Willie. Cross my heart.

  But the important thing, precious, is not to tell Mommy and Daddy about this part of the letter. Don't tell them what I'm saying here. And most of all, don't tell them you're going to run away before the Big Day. That way, no one will know but you and me. And then we'll have a Secret! Secrets are fun-but only if you don't tell anybody about them. Then. Why, then it wouldn't be a Secret any more!

  A Secret is much more fun than a Helmet, "Willie. Helmets are no good for you. I know you want one, I know they look pretty, but you mustn't let Mommy and Daddy take you to the Clinic. They love you, Willie, but I'll bet you a giant chocolate cake with candy, flowers, and five birthday candles that they don't love you as much as Great-Granny does. They mean well, but they don't know what's best for you.

  Great-Granny does. I'm no years old (or was the last time I looked) and they say I'm getting a little senile, but I know a thing or two. I know why more people are going to the movies than ever before-and why no more movies are being made. I know why people in this country walk around smiling-and why all the other countries laugh at us. Oh yes, I know a thing or two.

  I also know what Feb 24th is. That's right, Willie, it's Keyes Day, the day of the big Treasure Hunt-aren't you the smart one! But I'll bet you don't know what it really is. I'll bet you think the same as every other child, that Keyes Day is when Mommy and Daddy hide little gifts around the house, locked inside closets and boxes and drawers, then give you a set of keys and turn you loose.

  But Keyes Day means more than just getting presents. It's a very special holiday, for it celebrates the birthday of Alonzo Keyes. (Isn't that a funny name? I think William is so much prettier!)

  And because Great-Granny knows that you like stories- of course you do, snookums, all children like stories-she's going to tell you one about Alonzo Keyes.

  Story-Time, snookums.

  Once upon a time there was a young man named Alonzo who lived on an island named Trinidad, where he spent all day playing with his pets. His pets were called guinea pigs, but they weren't real pigs, and they didn't go "oink oi
nk!" They were fat, furry little things, like hamsters, only bigger, and Alonzo liked nothing better than watching them as they scampered around their cage, feeding them all sorts of delicious food and teaching them the most wonderful tricks. He taught them to find their way through long, twisty tunnels, and to ring a bell when they got thirsty, and to guess which trapdoor led to their supper.

  Alonzo was what was called a Brain Researcher.

  You know what a brain is, don't you, precious? It's the lump of meat that fills the inside of your head, and it's what hurts when you try too hard to remember something that happened long ago. It's colored grey and wrinkled all over like a soyburger, but the really strange thing is that, just as people's faces wrinkle as they grow older, so do their brains. My face and brain are very, very wrinkled.

  Every morning Alonzo used to look inside the brains of his pets. I'm sorry to say that, to do this, he usually had to cut them open, but I'm sure he did it in a nice way. Sometimes he also had to give his pets injections in their brains. (Injection means sticking someone with a needle, and then squirting some sort of drug into the hole you've made. When I was a girl I was very scared of needles; but they don't use them any more, not even for sewing-in fact, I'll bet you've never even seen a needle-so don't go having Nightmares. Nightmares-yes, that's something else brains are good for.)

  Alonzo was brown as a walnut and very, very smart. He worked in a building called a la- boratory-a little red-brick building filled with glasses and cages and needles on the inside and with palm trees on the outside-where he spent his time teaching his guinea pigs so many wonderful tricks that they'd forget the ones they'd learned the week before. Then he would inject different sorts of drugs into their brains to see which ones helped them remember the trick they'd forgotten.

  Alonzo was working on a Memory Drug.

  So far, he hadn't found a single one that worked.

  Some people thought that Alonzo was doing all this for A Good Cause: if he could find a way for guinea pigs to remember their old tricks, he could find a way for people to do the same. But the truth was, he was doing all this for Money-that is, he was getting an allowance, just like, some day, you'll get an allowance.

  Your allowance, though, will come from Daddy or, better yet, from me. (I'll start giving you things just as soon as you come live with me here in the Home.) Alonzo's allowance, though, came from a group of men called the Trinidad Police Department. You know what Police are, don't you, snookums? They're men dressed in blue sunsuits who hit people who are bad. You've seen them on TV, and if you'd lived thirty years ago you'd have seen them on the street.

  The Chief of the Trinidad Police Department-the Daddy of the Department, the man who told everyone else what to do-was a fat black man named Jubal. Jubal's tummy was so big that he always had to sleep on his back; if he'd tried to sleep on his tummy, or so the story goes, he would have tipped back and forth like an old-time rocking horse, a kind of wooden toy. Jubal loved to eat more than anything else in the world, and I'm sure he always cleaned his plate. Next to food, he loved his wife; for unlike him, Mrs. Jubal was thin and very pretty. Everyone on the island thought so, in fact. So did Alonzo.

  The Memory Drug was Jubal's idea; he decided that, if the men in the laboratory could make him such a drug, it would help in his Police work by making it easier to catch Criminals. (A Criminal is a grown-up who does something naughty; the only place you can see them now is on TV, along with Police.) When the Police caught a Criminal, they would hit him; but before they could catch him they had to know what he looked like. Sometimes, when a Criminal did something naughty, other people might see him do it; but after a few days they'd quite often forget they'd seen, and if they saw the Criminal again they might not know him. Jubal wondered if a drug might not help people remember, and he set Alonzo to work finding out.

  This very thing had once happened to Jubal himself: he had seen a Criminal with his very own eyes and, only a few days later, had forgotten what the man looked like. His memory must not have been very good; though of course, the whole thing had happened in the dark. It seems that Jubal had walked, or rather, rolled into his bedroom late one night, long after his wife was asleep, and in the moonlight pouring through the curtains he'd seen the dark shape of a man standing over his wife's bed. The man looked as if he'd just given Mrs. Jubal a Big Hug and a Kiss. When Jubal yelled, the man scampered across the room and climbed out the window-but not before Jubal saw, for barely a second, his face outlined in the moonlight.

  Mrs. Jubal told everyone she'd been fast asleep, and hadn't seen the Criminal. Jubal wondered if maybe she was Telling a Fib.. .But anyway, he knew he wouldn't need his wife's help- not if Alonzo came up with his Memory Drug.

  But Alonzo wasn't coming up with the drug. He worked hard, injecting the brains of guinea pig after guinea pig-yet maybe he didn't work hard enough.

  True, if he found the drug, it would make him rich and famous, and Alonzo very much wanted to be rich and famous; he wanted people to point and stare, to know his name, to smile at him. And above all he wanted Mrs. Jubal to smile at him.

  But it was Mr. Jubal he was worried about. He didn't want Mr. Jubal to point and stare, he didn't even want Mr. Jubal to look at him too closely. Because you see, precious, Alonzo had been the man in the Jubals' bedroom, and Mr. Jubal was the only one who didn't know it.

  Alonzo went on testing drugs, but he never found the one he'd been paid to find-or if he did, he poured it down the sink. His guinea pigs remained as forgetful as an old woman.

  He did find a drug, though, that had a very interesting effect: it made his guinea pigs forget even more.

  Remember what I said about the brain, snookums? How it looks as wrinkled as a lump of grey soyburger? (Sure you do, your memory's OK!) Well, even though everyone's soyburger is special and belongs to them alone, they're all just about the same shape and have wrinkles in just about the same places. And there's one certain place, a little lump on a bigger one, where everyone has a certain set of wrinkles for remembering things. Do you know what we call it? Why, IT, of course! Isn't that funny? IT is short for a certain Com-pli-cat-ed Name you'll learn when you go to School. (In fact, it will probably be the first thing they teach you, though I didn't learn it-or IT-till much later.) The name is Inferior Temporal Gyrus-that's funny too, isn't it?-and Alonzo found that, when he injected a certain drug into that certain set of wrinkles, IT, and then stuck two wires into the hole and did a certain Com-pli-cat-ed Thing to them (sort of like touching them to a wall socket; do you know what E-lec-tric-i-ty is?), he could make his little pets forget the trick they'd just learned.

  He called it "snuffing a memory," and it worked almost every time.

  As for the drug, he called it simply Number 57, which we sometimes write like this: #57. (That little tic-tac-toe. board means Number.) He'd been searching for a Memory Drug, but even though #57 was exactly the opposite, a Forgetfulness Drug, Alonzo decided that it had its uses.

  He didn't tell anyone about what he'd found; he worked alone for the rest of the year. Then, on New Year's Eve, just as 1976 was turning into 1977, he brought a batch of # 57 to the Chief of Police.

  The Jubals were in the middle of having a Big Party, and the house was filled with Policemen and their wives. There were broken bottles everywhere-bottles that had once held a certain kind of old-time drink called Rum-and everyone was doing the thing he liked best: the Policemen were drinking Rum and laughing and fighting, their wives were drinking Rum and laughing and talking, Mrs. Jubal was dancing, and Jubal himself was in the kitchen doing his own Favorite Thing, which was eating his New Year's Dinner. There was too much food for even a man as big as Jubal to eat, but he didn't mean to eat it all himself. Every year at this time he would stuff himself full of goose and chicken and pork and lamb and other precious meats that today only kings can eat; and after he had stuffed himself just as full as a soysausa- ge, he would give what was left over to his guests.

  After saying hello to Mrs. Jubal, and
giving her a Little Wink (can you close just one eye at a time?), Alonzo went into the kitchen where Mr. Jubal was busy eating, and showed him the #57. I'm afraid, though, that he Told a Fib: he told Jubal that #57 would help him remember the man in the bedroom.

  The Chief of Police asked Alonzo to pour some of the drug into the tall glass of Rum he was drinking, and Alonzo did as he was told. He also taped some wires to the man's head and ran them to a little machine he had made. Jubal drank his glass of Rum, just like a Good Little Boy drinking his vitamilk, and then nodded to Alonzo, who pressed a little button on his machine. All of a sudden Jubal's eyes closed, his mouth hung open, and he hiccupped. Alonzo let go of the little button, and the man's eyes opened again.

  "What am I doing here?" he asked. "And what are these wires on my head?"

  "You're just sitting down to your New Year's Dinner," said Alonzo. "Don't you remember? You'd been waiting so long for it that you fainted from hunger. These wires brought you back."

  "Well, leave them on," said the Chief of Police. "I don't want to faint again, I want to eat" He reached for a leg of lamb with one hand and his glass of Rum with the other. The glass was empty, but Alonzo quickly filled it with Rum and #57.

  As Alonzo watched, Jubal ate till he could eat no more. "Strange," he said, blinking, "I seem to get filled up faster than I used to." Alonzo pressed the little button, and again the Chief’s eyes closed, his mouth hung open, and he hiccupped. When he awoke again, Alonzo told him the same story and refilled his glass. Once more the Chief began to eat his New Year's Dinner.

  An hour later, as the New Year was almost upon them, the people in the next room heard a loud crash, followed by the tinkling of breaking glass. They rushed into the kitchen to find Alonzo bent over the shape on the floor; he seemed to be reading the dial of a little machine from which two wires dangled.