Robert Sheckley
Cordle To Onion To Carrot
Surely, you
remember that bully who kicked sand on the 97-pound-weakling? Well, that puny
man's problem has never been solved, despite Charles Atlas's claims to the
contrary. A genuine bully likes to kick sand on people; for him, simply, there
is gut-deep satisfaction in a put-down. It wouldn't matter if you weighed 240
pounds — all of it rock-hard muscle and steely sinew — and were as wise as
Solomon or as witty as Voltaire; you'd still end up with the sand of an insult
in your eyes, and probably you wouldn't do anything about it.
That was how
Howard Cordle viewed the situation. He was a pleasant man who was forever being
pushed around by Fuller Brush men, fund solicitors, headwaiters, and other
imposing figures of authority. Cordle hated it. He suffered in silence the
countless numbers of manic-aggressives who shoved their way to the heads of
lines, took taxis he had hailed first and sneeringly steered away girls to whom
he was talking at parties.
What made it
worse was that these people seemed to welcome provocation, to go looking for
it, all for the sake of causing discomfort to others.
Cordle couldn't
understand why this should be, until one midsummer's day, when he was driving
through the northern regions of Spain while stoned out of his mind, the god
Thoth-Hermes granted him original enlightenment by murmuring, "Uh, look, I
groove with the problem, baby, but dig, we gotta put carrots in or it ain't no
stew."
"Carrots?"
said Cordle, struggling for illumination.
"I'm talking
about those types who get you uptight," Thoth-Hermes explained. "They
gotta act that way, baby, on account of they're carrots, and that's how carrots
are."
"If they are
carrots," Cordle said, feeling his way, "then I —"
"You, of course,
are a little pearly-white onion."
"Yes! My
God, yes!" Cordle cried, dazzled by the blinding light of satori.
"And,
naturally, you and all the other pearly-white onions think that carrots are just
bad news, merely some kind of misshapen orangey onion; whereas the carrots look
at you and rap about freaky round white carrots, wow! I mean, you're just too
much for each other, whereas, in actuality —"
"Yes, go
on!" cried Cordle.
"In
actuality," Thoth-Hermes declared, "everything's got a place in The
Stew!"
"Of course!
I see, I see, I see!"
"And that
means that everybody who exists is necessary, and you must have long hateful
orange carrots if you're also going to have nice pleasant decent white onions,
or vice versa, because without all the ingredients, it isn't a Stew, which is
to say, life, it becomes, uh, let me see…."
"A
soup!" cried ecstatic Cordle.
"You're
coming in five by five," chanted Thoth-Hermes. "Lay down the word,
deacon, and let the people know the divine formula…."
"A
soup!" said Cordle. "Yes, I see it now — creamy, pure-white onion
soup is our dream of heaven, whereas fiery orange carrot broth is our notion of
hell. It fits, it all fits together!"
"Om
manipadme hum," intoned Thoth-Hermes.
"But where
do the green peas go? What about the meat, for God's sake?"
"Don't pick
at the metaphor," Thoth-Hermes advised him, "it leaves a nasty scab.
Stick with the carrots and onions. And, here, let me offer you a drink — a
house specialty."
"But the
spices, where do you put the spices?" Cordle demanded, taking a long swig
of burgundy-colored liquid from a rusted canteen.
"Baby,
you're asking questions that can be revealed only to a thirteenth-degree Mason
with piles, wearing sandals. Sorry about that. Just remember that everything
goes into The Stew."
"Into The
Stew," Cordle repeated, smacking his lips.
"And,
especially, stick with the carrots and onions; you were really grooving
there."
"Carrots and
onions," Cordle repeated.
"That's your
trip," Thoth-Hermes said. "Hey, we've gotten to Corunna; you can let
me out anywhere around here."
Cordle pulled his
rented car off the road. Thoth-Hermes took his knapsack from the back seat and
got out.
"Thanks for
the lift, baby."
"My
pleasure. Thank you for the wine. What kind did you say it was?"
"Vino de
casa mixed with a mere smidgen of old Dr. Hammerfinger's essence of instant
powdered Power-Pack brand acid. Brewed by gnurrs in the secret laboratories of
UCLA in preparation for the big all-Europe turn-on."
"Whatever it
was, it surely was," Cordle said deeply. "Pure elixir to me. You
could sell neckties to antelopes with that stuff; you could change the world
from an oblate spheroid into a truncated trapezoid…. What did I say?"
"Never mind,
it's all part of your trip. Maybe you better lie down for a while, huh?"
"Where gods
command, mere mortals must obey," Cordle said iambically. He lay down on
the front seat of the car. Thoth-Hermes bent over him, his beard burnished
gold, his head wreathed in plane trees.
"You
okay?"
"Never
better in my life."
"Want me to
stand by?"
"Unnecessary.
You have helped me beyond potentiality."
"Glad to
hear it, baby, you're making a fine sound. You really are okay? Well, then,
ta."
Thoth-Hermes marched
off into the sunset. Cordle closed his eyes and solved various problems that
had perplexed the greatest philosophers of all ages. He was mildly surprised at
how simple complexity was.
At last he went
to sleep. He awoke some six hours later. He had forgotten most of his brilliant
insights, the lucid solutions. It was inconceivable: How can one misplace the
keys of the universe? But he had, and there seemed no hope of reclaiming them.
Paradise was lost for good.
He did remember
about the onions and carrots, though, and he remembered The Stew. It was not
the sort of insight he might have chosen if he'd had any choice; but this was
what had come to him, and he did not reject it. Cordle knew, perhaps
instinctively, that in the insight game, you take whatever you can get.
* * * * *
The next day, he
reached Santander in a driving rain. He decided to write amusing letters to all
his friends, perhaps even try his hand at a travel sketch. That required a
typewriter. The conserje at his hotel directed him to a store that rented
typewriters. He went there and found a clerk who spoke perfect English.
"Do you rent
typewriters by the day?" Cordle asked.
"Why
not?" the clerk replied. He had oily black hair and a thin aristocratic
nose.
"How much
for that one?" Cordle asked, indicating a thirty-year-old Erika portable.
"Seventy
pesetas a day, which is to say, one dollar. Usually."
"Isn't this
usually?"
"Certainly
not, since you are a foreigner in transit. For you, once hundred and eighty
pesetas a day."
"All right,"
Cordle said, reaching for his wallet. "I'd like to have it for two
days."
"I shall
also require your passport and a deposit of fifty dollars."
Cordle attempted
a mild joke. "Hey, I just want to type on it, not marry it."
The clerk
shrugged.
"Look, the
conserje has my passport at the hotel. How about taking my driver's license
instead?"
"Certainly
not. I must hold your passport, in case you decide to default."
"But why do
you need my passport and the deposit?" Cordle asked, feeling bullied and ill
at ease. "I mean, look, the machine's not worth twenty dollars."
"You are an
expert, perhaps, in the Spanish market value of used German typewriters?"
"No, but
—"
"Then permit
me, sir, to conduct my business as I see fit. I will also need to know the use
to which you plan to put the machine."
"The
use?"
"Of course,
the use."
It was one of
these preposterous foreign situations that can happen to anyone. The clerk's
request was incomprehensible and his manner was insulting. Cordle was about to
give a curt little nod, turn on his heel and walk out.
Then he
remembered about the onions and carrots. He saw The Stew. And suddenly, it
occurred to Cordle that he could be whatever vegetable he wanted to be.
He turned to the
clerk. He smiled winningly. He said, "You wish to know the use I will make
of the typewriter?"
"Exactly."
"Well,"
Cordle said, "quite frankly, I had planned to stuff it up my nose."
The clerk gaped
at him.
"It's quite
a successful method of smuggling," Cordle went on. "I was also planning
to give you a stolen passport and counterfeit pesetas. Once I got into Italy, I
would have sold the typewriter for ten thousand dollars. Milan is undergoing a
typewriter famine, you know; they're desperate, they'll buy anything."
"Sir,"
the clerk said, "you choose to be disagreeable."
"Nasty is
the word you were looking for. I've changed my mind about the typewriter. But
let me compliment you on your command of English."
"I have
studied assiduously," the clerk admitted, with a hint of pride.
"That is
evident. And, despite a certain weakness in the Rs, you succeed in sounding
like a Venetian gondolier with a cleft palate. My best wishes to your esteemed
family. I leave you now to pick your pimples in peace."
* * * * *
Reviewing the
scene later, Cordle decided that he had performed quite well in his maiden
appearance as a carrot. True, his closing lines had been a little forced and
overintellectualized. But the undertone of viciousness had been convincing.
Most important
was the simple resounding fact that he had done it. And now, in the quiet of
his hotel room, instead of churning his guts in a frenzy of self-loathing, he
had the tranquilizing knowledge of having put someone else in that position.
He had done it!
Just like that, he had transformed himself from onion into carrot!
But was his
position ethically defensible? Presumably, the clerk could not help being
detestable; he was a product of his own genetic and social environment, a
victim of his conditioning; he was naturally rather than intentionally hateful
–
Cordle stopped
himself. He saw that he was engaged in typical onionish thinking, which was an
inability to conceive of carrots except as an aberration from oniondom.
But now he knew
that both onions and carrots had to exist; otherwise, there would be no Stew.
And he also knew
that a man was free and could choose whatever vegetable he wanted to be. He
could even live as an amusing little green pea, or a gruff, forceful clove of
garlic (though perhaps that was scratching at the metaphor). In any event, a
man could take his pick between carrothood and oniondom.
There is much to
think about here, Cordle thought. But he never got around to thinking about it.
Instead, he went sightseeing, despite the rain, and then continued his travels.
* * * * *
The next incident
occurred in Nice, in a cozy little restaurant on the Avenue des Diables Bleus,
with red-checkered tablecloths and incomprehensible menus written in longhand
and purple ink. There were four waiters, one of whom looked like Jean-Paul
Belmondo, down to the cigarette drooping from his long lower lip. The others
looked like run-of-the-mill muggers. There were several Scandinavian customers
quietly eating a cassoulet, one old Frenchman in a beret and three homely
English girls.
Belmondo
sauntered over. Cordle, who spoke a clear though idiomatic French, asked for
the ten-franc menu he had seen hanging in the window.
The waiter gave
him the sort of look one reserves for pretentious beggars. "Ah, that is
all finished for today," he said, and handed Cordle a 30-franc menu.
In his previous
incarnation, Cordle would have bit down on the bullet and ordered. Or possibly
he would have risen, trembling with outrage, and left the restaurant,
blundering into a chair on the way.
But now –
"Perhaps you
did not understand me," Cordle said. "It is a matter of French law
that you must serve from all of the fixed-price menus that you show in the
window."
"M'sieu is a
lawyer?" the waiter inquired, his hands perched insolently on his hips.
"No. M'sieu
is a troublemaker," Cordle said, giving what he considered to be fair
warning.
"Then m'sieu
must make what trouble he desires," the waiter said. His eyes were slits.
"Okay,"
Cordle said. And just then, fortuitously, an elderly couple came into the restaurant.
The man wore a double-breasted slate-blue suit with a half-inch white pin
stripe. The woman wore a flowered organdy dress. Cordle called to them,
"Excuse me, are you folks English?"
A bit startled,
the man inclined his head in the barest intimation of a nod.
"Then I
would advise you not to eat here. I am a health inspector for UNESCO. The chef
has apparently not washed his hands since D Day. We haven't made a definitive
test for typhoid yet, but we have our suspicions. As soon as my assistant arrives
with the litmus paper…."
A deathly hush
had fallen over the restaurant.
"I suppose a
boiled egg would be safe enough," Cordle said.
The elderly man
probably didn't believe him. But it didn't matter, Cordle was obviously
trouble.
"Come,
Mildred," he said, and they hurried out.
"There goes
sixty francs plus five percent tip," Cordle said, coolly.
"Leave here
at once!" the waiter snarled.
"I like it
here," Cordle said, folding his arms. "I like the ambiance, the sense
of intimacy —"
"You are not
permitted to stay without eating."
"I shall
eat. From the ten-franc menu."
The waiters
looked at one another, nodded in unison and began to advance in a threatening
phalanx. Cordle called to the other diners, "I ask you all to bear
witness! These men are going to attack me, four against one, contrary to French
law and universal human ethics, simply because I want to order from the
ten-franc menu, which they have falsely advertised."
It was a long
speech, but this was clearly the time for grandiloquence. Cordle repeated it in
English.
The English girls
gasped. The old Frenchman went on eating his soup. The Scandinavians nodded
grimly and began to take off their jackets.
The waiters held
another conference. The one who looked like Belmondo said, "M'sieu, you
are forcing us to call the police."
"That will
save me the trouble," Cordle said, "of calling them myself."
"Surely,
m'sieu does not want to spend his holiday in court?"
"That is how
m'sieu spends most of his holidays," Cordle said.
The waiters conferred
again. Then Belmondo stalked over with the 30-franc menu. "The cost of the
prix fixe will be ten francs, since evidently that is all m'sieu can
afford."
Cordle let that
pass. "Bring me onion soup, green salad and the boeuf bourguignon."
The waiter went
to put in the order. While he was waiting, Cordle sang "Waltzing
Matilda" in a moderately loud voice. He suspected it might speed up the
service. He got his food by the time he reached "You'll never catch me
alive, said he" for the second time. Cordle pulled the tureen of stew
toward him and lifted a spoon.
It was a
breathless moment. Not one diner had left the restaurant. And Cordle was
prepared. He leaned forward, soupspoon in shoveling position, and sniffed
delicately. A hush fell over the room.
"It lacks a
certain something," Cordle said aloud. Frowning, he poured the onion soup
into the boeuf bourguignon. He sniffed, shook his head and added a half loaf of
bread, in slices. He sniffed again and added the salad and the contents of a saltcellar.
Cordle pursed his
lips. "No," he said, "it simply will not do."
He overturned the
entire contents of the tureen onto the table. It was an act comparable,
perhaps, to throwing gentian violet on the Mona Lisa. All of France and most of
western Switzerland went into a state of shock.
Unhurriedly, but
keeping the frozen waiters under surveillance, Cordle rose and dropped ten
francs into the mess. He walked to the door, turned and said, "My
compliments to the chef, who might better be employed as a cement mixer. And
this, mon vieux, is for you."
He threw his
crumpled linen napkin onto the floor.
As the matador,
after a fine series of passes, turns his back contemptuously on the bull and
strolls away, so went Cordle. For some unknown reason, the waiters did not rush
out after him, shoot him dead and hang his corpse from the nearest lamppost. So
Cordle walked for ten or fifteen blocks, taking rights and lefts at random. He
came to the Promenade des Anglais and sat down on a bench. He was trembling and
his shirt was drenched with perspiration.
"But I did
it," he said. "I did it! I was unspeakably vile and I got away with
it!"
Now he really
knew why carrots acted that way. Dear God in heaven, what joy, what delectable
bliss!
* * * * *
Cordle then
reverted to his mild-mannered self, smoothly and without regrets. He stayed
that way until his second day in Rome.
He was in his
rented car. He and seven other drivers were lined up at a traffic light on the
Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. There were perhaps twenty cars behind them. All of
the drivers were revving their engines, hunched over their steering wheels with
slitted eyes, dreaming of Le Mans. All except Cordle, who was drinking in the
cyclopean architecture of downtown Rome.
The checkered flag
came down! The drivers floored their accelerators, trying to spin the wheels of
their underpowered Fiats, wearing out their clutches and their nerves, but
doing so with éclat and brio. All except Cordle, who seemed to be the only man
in Rome who didn't have to win a race or keep an appointment.
Without undue
haste or particular delay, Cordle depressed the clutch and engaged the gear.
Already he had lost nearly two seconds — unthinkable at Monza or Monte Carlo.
The driver behind
him blew his horn frantically.
Cordle smiled to
himself, a secret, ugly expression. He put the gearshift into neutral, engaged
the hand brake and stepped out of his car. He ambled over to the hornblower,
who had turned pasty white and was fumbling under his seat, hoping to find a
tire iron.
"Yes?"
said Cordle, in French, "is something wrong?"
"No, no,
nothing," the driver replied in French — his first mistake. "I merely
wanted you to go, to move."
"But I was
just doing that," Cordle pointed out.
"Well, then!
It is all right!"
"No, it is
not all right," Cordle told him. "I think I deserve a better
explanation of why you blew your horn at me."
The hornblower —
a Milanese businessman on holiday with his wife and four children — rashly
replied, "My dear sir, you were slow, you were delaying us all."
"Slow?"
said Cordle. "You blew your horn two seconds after the light changed. Do
you call two seconds slow?"
"It was much
longer than that," the man riposted feebly.
Traffic was now
backed up as far south as Naples. A crowd of ten thousand had gathered.
Carabinieri units in Viterbo and Genoa had been called into a state of alert.
"That is
untrue," Cordle said. "I have witnesses." He gestured at the
crowd, which gestured back. "I shall call my witnesses before the courts.
You must know that you broke the law by blowing your horn within the city
limits of Rome in what was clearly not an emergency."
The Milanese
businessman looked at the crowd, now swollen to perhaps fifty thousand. Dear
God, he thought, if only the Goths would descend again and exterminate these
leering Romans! If only the ground would open up and swallow this insane
Frenchman! If only he, Giancarlo Morelli, had a dull spoon with which to open
up the veins of his wrist!
Jets from the
Sixth Fleet thundered overhead, hoping to avert the long-expected coup d'état.
The Milanese
businessman's own wife was shouting abuse at him: Tonight he would cut out her
faithless heart and mail it back to her mother.
What was there to
do? In Milan, he would have had this Frenchman's head on a platter. But this
was Rome, a southern city, an unpredictable and dangerous place. And
legalistically, he was possibly in the wrong, which left him at a further
disadvantage in the argument.
"Very
well," he said. "The blowing of the horn was perhaps truly
unnecessary, despite the provocation."
"I insist on
a genuine apology," insisted Cordle.
There was a
thundering sound to the east: Thousands of Soviet tanks were moving into battle
formation across the plains of Hungary, ready to resist the long-expected NATO
thrust into Transylvania. The water supply was cut off in Foggia, Brindisi,
Bari. The Swiss closed their frontiers and stood ready to dynamite the passes.
"All right,
I apologize!" the Milanese businessman screamed. "I am sorry I
provoked you and ever sorrier that I was born! Again, I apologize! Now will you
go away and let me have a heart attack in peace?"
"I accept
your apology," Cordle said. "No hard feelings, eh?" He strolled
back to his car, humming "Blow the Man Down," and drove away as
millions cheered.
War was once
again averted by a hairbreadth.
Cordle drove to
the Arch of Titus, parked his car and — to the sound of a thousand trumpets —
passed through it. He deserved this triumph as well as any Caesar.
God, he gloated,
I was loathsome!
* * * * *
In England,
Cordle stepped on a young lady's toe just inside the Traitor's Gate of the
Tower of London. This should have served as an intimation of something. The
young lady was named Mavis. She came from Short Hills, New Jersey, and she had
long straight dark hair. She was slender, pretty, intelligent, energetic and
she had a sense of humor. She had minor faults, as well, but they play no part
in this story. She let Cordle buy her a cup of coffee. They were together
constantly for the rest of the week.
"I think I
am infatuated," Cordle said to himself on the seventh day. He realized at
once that he had made a slight understatement. He was violently and hopelessly
in love.
But what did
Mavis feel? She seemed not unfond of him. It was even possible that she might,
conceivably, reciprocate.
At that moment,
Cordle had a flash of prescience. He realized that one week ago, he had stepped
on the toe of his future wife and mother of his two children, both of whom
would be born and brought up in a split-level house with inflatable furniture
in Summit, New Jersey, or possibly Millburn.
This may sound
unattractive and provincial when stated baldly; but it was desirable to Cordle,
who had no pretensions to cosmopolitanism. After all, not all of us can live at
Cap Ferrat. Strangely enough, not all of us even want to.
That day, Cordle
and Mavis went to the Marshall-Gordon Residence in Belgravia to see the
Byzantine miniatures. Mavis had a passion for Byzantine miniatures that seemed
harmless enough at the time. The collection was private, but Mavis had secured
invitations through a local Avis manager, who was trying very hard, indeed.
They came to the
Gordon Residence, an awesome Regency building in Huddlestone Mews. They rang. A
butler in full evening dress answered the door. They showed the invitations.
The butler's glance and lifted eyebrow showed that they were carrying
second-class invitations of the sort given to importunate art poseurs on 17-day
all-expense economy flights, rather than the engraved first-class invitations
given to Picasso, Jackie Onassis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Norman Mailer, Charles
Goren, and other movers and shakers of the world.
The butler said,
"Oh, yes…." Two words that spoke black volumes. His face twitched, he
looked like a man who has received an unexpected visit from Tamerlane and a
regiment of his Golden Horde.
"The
miniatures," Cordle reminded him.
"Yes, of
course…. But I am afraid, sir, that no one is allowed into the Gordon Residence
without a coat and necktie."
It was an
oppressive August day. Cordle was wearing a sport shirt. He said, "Did I
hear you correctly? Coat and necktie?"
The butler said,
"That is the rule, sir."
Mavis asked,
"Couldn't you make an exception this once?"
The butler shook
his head. "We really must stick by the rules, miss. Otherwise…." He
left the fear of vulgarity unsaid, but it hung in the air like a chrome-plated
fart.
"Of
course," Cordle said, pleasantly. "Otherwise. So it's a coat and tie,
is it? I think we can arrange that."
Mavis put a hand
on his arm and said, "Howard, let's go. We can come back some other
time."
"Nonsense,
my dear. If I may borrow your coat…."
He lifted the
white raincoat from her shoulders and put it on, ripping a seam. "There we
go, mate!" he said briskly to the butler. "That should do it,
n'cest-ce pas?"
"I think
not," the butler said, in a voice bleak enough to wither artichokes.
"In any event, there is the matter of the necktie."
Cordle had been
waiting for that. He whipped out his sweaty handkerchief and knotted it around
his neck.
"Suiting
you?" he leered, in an imitation of Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto, which only he
appreciated.
"Howard!
Let's go!"
Cordle waited,
smiling steadily at the butler, who was sweating for the first time in living
memory.
"I'm afraid,
sir, that that is not —"
"Not
what?"
"Not
precisely what was meant by coat and tie."
"Are you
trying to tell me," Cordle said in a loud, unpleasant voice, "that
you are an arbiter of men's clothing as well as a door opener?"
"Of course
not! But this impromptu attire —"
"What has
'impromptu' got to do with it? Are people supposed to prepare three days in
advance just to pass your inspection?"
"You are
wearing a woman's waterproof and a soiled handkerchief," the butler stated
stiffly. "I think there is no more to say."
He began to close
the door. Cordle said, "You do that, sweetheart, and I'll have you up for
slander and defamation of character. Those are serious charges over here,
buddy, and I've got witnesses."
Aside from Mavis,
Cordle had collected a small, diffident but interested crowd.
"This is
becoming entirely too ridiculous," the butler said, temporizing, the door
half closed.
"You'll find
a stretch at Wormwood Scrubs even more ridiculous," Cordle told him.
"I intend to persecute — I mean prosecute."
"Howard!"
cried Mavis.
He shook off her
hand and fixed the butler with a piercing glance. He said, "I am Mexican,
though perhaps my excellent grasp of the English has deceived you. In my country,
a man would cut his own throat before letting such an insult pass unavenged. A
woman's coat, you say? Hombre, when I wear a coat, it becomes a man's coat. Or
do you imply that I am a maricón, a — how do you say it? —
homosexual?"
The crowd —
becoming less modest — growled approval. Nobody except a lord loves a butler.
"I meant no
such implication," the butler said weakly.
"Then it is
a man's coat?"
"Just as you
wish, sir."
"Unsatisfactory!
The innuendo still exists. I go now to find an officer of the law."
"Wait, let's
not be hasty," the butler said. His face was bloodless and his hands were
shaking. "Your coat is a man's coat, sir."
"And what
about my necktie?"
The butler made a
final attempt at stopping Zapata and his blood-crazed peons.
"Well, sir,
a handkerchief is demonstrably —"
"What I wear
around my neck," Cordle said coldly, "becomes what it is intended to
be. If I wore a piece of figured silk around my throat, would you call it
ladies' underwear? Linen is a suitable material for a tie, verdad? Function
defines terminology, don't you agree? If I ride to work on a cow, no one says
that I am mounted on a steak. Or do you detect a flaw in my argument?"
"I'm afraid
that I don't fully understand it…."
"Then how
can you presume to stand in judgment over it?"
The crowd, which
had been growing restless, now murmured approval.
"Sir,"
cried the wretched butler, "I beg of you…."
"Otherwise,"
Cordle said with satisfaction, "I have a coat, a necktie, and an
invitation. Perhaps you would be good enough to show us the Byzantine
miniatures?"
The butler opened
wide the door to Pancho Villa and his tattered hordes. The last bastion of
civilization had been captured in less than an hour. Wolves howled along the
banks of the Thames, Morelos' barefoot army stabled its horses in the British
Museum, and Europe's long night had begun.
Cordle and Mavis
viewed the collection in silence. They didn't exchange a word until they were
alone and strolling through Regent's Park.
"Look,
Mavis," Cordle began.
"No, you
look," she said. "You were horrible! You were unbelievable! You were
— I can't find a word rotten enough for what you were! I never dreamed that you
were one of those sadistic bastards who get their kicks out of humiliating
people!"
"But, Mavis,
you heard what he said to me, you heard the way —"
"He was a
stupid, bigoted old man," Mavis said. "I thought you were not."
"But he said
—"
"It doesn't
matter. The fact is, you were enjoying yourself!"
"Well, yes,
maybe you're right," Cordle said. "Look, I can explain."
"Not to me,
you can't. Ever. Please stay away from me, Howard. Permanently. I mean
that."
The future mother
of his two children began to walk away, out of his life. Cordle hurried after
her.
"Mavis!"
"I'll call a
cop, Howard, so help me, I will! Just leave me alone!"
"Mavis, I
love you!"
She must have
heard him, but she kept on walking. She was a sweet and beautiful girl and
definitely, unchangeably, an onion.
* * * * *
Cordle was never
able to explain to Mavis about The Stew and about the necessity for
experiencing behavior before condemning it. Moments of mystical illumination
are seldom explicable. He was able to make her believe that he had undergone a
brief psychotic episode, unique and unprecedented and — with her — never to be
repeated.
They are married
now, have one girl and one boy, live in a split-level house in Plainfield, New
Jersey, and are quite content. Cordle is visibly pushed around by Fuller Brush
men, fund solicitors, headwaiters and other imposing figures of authority. But
there is a difference.
Cordle makes a
point of taking regularly scheduled, solitary vacations. Last year, he made a
small name for himself in Honolulu. This year, he is going to Buenos Aires.
The End