Look at the Birdie (16 page)

He wished Madelaine would come home.

Tentatively, he dialed the number of the police.

“Seventh precin’t. Sergeant Cahoon speakin’.”

The voice was coarse, and Lowell was appalled by the image of Cahoon that appeared in his mind: gross and clumsy, slab-footed, with room for fifty little people in each yawning chamber of his service revolver.

Lowell returned the telephone to its cradle without saying a word to Cahoon. Cahoon was not the man.

Everything about the world suddenly seemed preposterously huge and brutal to Lowell. He lugged out the massive telephone book, and opened it to
“United States Government.”
“Agriculture Department … Justice Department … Treasury Department”—everything had the sound of crashing giants. Lowell closed the book helplessly.

He wondered when Madelaine was coming home.

He glanced nervously at the couch, and saw that the little people, who had been motionless for half an hour, were beginning to stir, to explore the slick, plum-colored terrain and flora of tufts in the cushion. They were soon brought up short by the walls of a glass bell jar Lowell had taken from Madelaine’s antique clock on the mantelpiece and lowered over them.

“Brave, brave little devils,” said Lowell to himself, wonderingly. He congratulated himself on his calm, his reasonableness with respect to the little people. He hadn’t panicked, hadn’t killed them or called for help. He doubted that many people would have had the imagination to admit that the
little people really were explorers from another world, and that the seeming knife was really a spaceship.

“Guess you picked the right man to come and see,” he murmured to them from a distance, “but darned if I know what to do with you. If word got out about you, it’d be murder.” He could imagine the panic and the mobs outside the apartment.

As Lowell approached the little people for another look, crossing the carpet silently, there came a ticking from the bell jar, as one of the men circled inside it again and again, tapping with some sort of tool, seeking an opening. The others were engrossed with a bit of tobacco one had pulled out from under a tuft.

Lowell lifted the jar. “Hello, there,” he said gently.

The little people shrieked, making sounds like the high notes of a music box, and scrambled toward the cleft where the cushion met the back of the couch.

“No, no, no, no,” said Lowell. “Don’t be afraid, little people.” He held out a fingertip to stop one of the women. To his horror, a spark snapped from his finger, striking her down in a little heap the size of a morning-glory seed.

The others had tumbled out of sight behind the cushion.

“Dear God, what have I done, what have I done?” said Lowell heartbrokenly.

He ran to get a magnifying glass from Madelaine’s desk, and then peered through it at the tiny, still body. “Dear, dear, oh, dear,” he murmured.

He was more upset than ever when he saw how beautiful the woman was. She bore a slight resemblance to a girl he had known before he met Madelaine.

Her eyelids trembled and opened. “Thank heaven,” he said. She looked up at him with terror.

“Well, now,” said Lowell briskly, “that’s more like it. I’m your friend. I don’t want to hurt you. Lord knows I don’t.” He smiled and rubbed his hands together. “We’ll have a welcome to earth banquet. What would you like? What do you little people eat, eh? I’ll find something.”

He hurried to the kitchen, where dirty dishes and silverware cluttered the countertops. He chuckled to himself as he loaded a tray with bottles and jars and cans that now seemed enormous to him, literal mountains of food.

Whistling a festive air, Lowell brought the tray into the living room and set it on the coffee table. The little woman was no longer on the cushion.

“Now, where have you gone, eh?” said Lowell gaily. “I know, I know where to find you when everything’s ready. Oho! a banquet fit for kings and queens, no less.”

Using his fingertip, he made a circle of dabs around the center of a saucer, leaving mounds of peanut butter, mayonnaise, oleomargarine, minced ham, cream cheese, catsup, liver pâté, grape jam, and moistened sugar. Inside this circle he put separate drops of milk, beer, water, and orange juice.

He lifted up the cushion. “Come and get it, or I’ll throw it on the ground,” he said. “Now—where did you get to? I’ll find you, I’ll find you.” In the corner of the couch, where the cushion had been, lay a quarter and a dime, a paper match, and a cigar band, a band from the sort of cigars Madelaine’s boss smoked.

“There you are,” said Lowell. Several tiny pairs of feet projected from the pile of debris.

Lowell picked up the coins, leaving the six little people huddled and trembling. He laid his hand before them, palm up. “Come on, now, climb aboard. I have a surprise for you.”

They didn’t move, and Lowell was obliged to shoo them into his palm with a pencil point. He lifted them through the air, dumped them on the saucer’s rim like so many caraway seeds.

“I give you,” he said, “the largest smorgasbord in history.” The dabs were all taller than the dinner guests.

After several minutes, the little people got courage enough to begin exploring again. Soon, the air around the saucer was filled with piping cries of delight, as delicious bonanza after bonanza was discovered.

Lowell watched happily through the magnifying glass as faces were lifted to him with lip-smacking, ogling gratitude.

“Try the beer. Have you tried the beer?” said Lowell. Now, when he spoke, the little people didn’t shriek, but listened attentively, trying to understand.

Lowell pointed to the amber drop, and all six dutifully sampled it, trying to look appreciative, but failing to hide their distaste.

“Acquired taste,” said Lowell. “You’ll learn. You’ll—” The sentence died, unfinished. Outside a car had pulled up, and floating up through the summer evening was Madelaine’s voice.

When Lowell returned from the window, after watching Madelaine kiss her boss, the little people were kneeling and facing him, chanting something that came to him sweet and faint.

“Hey,” said Lowell, beaming, “what is this, anyway? It was nothing—nothing at all. Really. Look here, I’m just an
ordinary guy. I’m common as dirt here on earth. Don’t get the idea I’m—” He laughed at the absurdity of the notion.

The chant went on, ardent, supplicating, adoring.

“Look,” said Lowell, hearing Madelaine coming up the stairs, “you’ve got to hide until I get squared away in my mind what to do about you.”

He looked around quickly, and saw the knife, the spaceship. He laid it by the saucer, and prodded them with the pencil again. “Come on—back in here for a little while.”

They disappeared into the hole, and Lowell pressed the pearly hatch cover back into place just as Madelaine came in.

“Hello,” she said cheerfully. She saw the saucer. “Been entertaining?”

“In a small way,” said Lowell. “Have you?”

“It looks like you’ve been having mice in.”

“I get lonely, like anybody else,” said Lowell.

She reddened. “I’m sorry about the anniversary, Lowell.”

“Perfectly all right.”

“I didn’t remember until on the way home, just a few minutes ago, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks.”

“The important thing is,” said Lowell pleasantly, “did you close the deal?”

“Yes—yes, I did.” She was restless, and had difficulty smiling when she found the roses on the hall table. “How nice.”

“I thought so.”

“Is that a new knife you have?”

“This? Yes—picked it up on the way home.”

“Did we need it?”

“I took a fancy to it. Mind?”

“No—not at all.” She looked at it uneasily. “You saw us, didn’t you?”

“Who? What?”

“You saw me kissing Bud outside just now.”

“Yes. But I don’t imagine you’re ruined.”

“He asked me to marry him, Lowell.”

“Oh? And you said—?”

“I said I would.”

“I had no idea it was that simple.”

“I love him, Lowell. I want to marry him. Do you have to drum on your palm with that knife?”

“Sorry. Didn’t realize I was.”

“Well?” she said meekly, after a long silence.

“I think almost everything that needs to be said has been said.”

“Lowell, I’m dreadfully sorry—”

“Sorry for me? Nonsense! Whole new worlds have opened up for me.” He walked over to her slowly, put his arm around her. “But it will take some getting used to, Madelaine. Kiss? Farewell kiss, Madelaine?”

“Lowell, please—” She turned her head aside, and tried to push him away gently.

He hugged her harder.

“Lowell—no. Let’s stop it, Lowell. Lowell, you’re hurting me. Please!” She struck him on the chest and twisted away. “I can’t stand it!” she cried bitterly.

The spaceship in Lowell’s hand hummed and grew hot. It trembled and shot from his hand, under its own power, straight at Madelaine’s heart.

Lowell didn’t have to look up the number of the police. Madelaine had taped it to the telephone table. “Seventh precin’t. Sergeant Cahoon speakin’.”

“Sergeant,” said Lowell, “I want to report an accident—a death.”

“Homicide?” said Cahoon.

“I don’t know what you’d call it. It takes some explaining.”

When the police arrived, Lowell told his story calmly, from the finding of the spaceship to the end.

“In a way, it was my fault,” he said. “The little people thought I was God.”

The sun was setting behind the big black drawbridge. The bridge, with its colossal abutments and piers, weighed more than the whole river-mouth village in its shadows. On a revolving stool in a lunchroom at one end of the bridge sat Red Mayo, the new bridge tender. He had just come off duty.

The air of the lunchroom was cut by a cruel screech from a dry bearing in the revolving stool as Red turned away from his coffee and hamburger, and looked up at the bridge expectantly. He was a heavy young man, twenty-eight, with the flat, mean face of a butcher boy.

The frail counterman and the three other customers, all men, watched Red with amiable surmise, as though ready to bloom with broad smiles at the first sign of friendliness from him.

No friendliness was forthcoming. When Red’s eyes met theirs briefly, Red sniffed, and returned his attention to his food. He toyed with his tableware, and the big muscles in his forearms fretted under his tattoos, under intertwined symbols of bloodlust and love—daggers and hearts.

The counterman, egged on by nods from the other three customers, spoke to Red with great politeness. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but are you Red Mayo?”

“That’s who I am,” said Red, without looking up.

A universal sigh and happy murmur went up. “I knew it was… I thought it was …That’s who it is,” said the chorus of three.

“Don’t you remember me, Red?” said the counterman. “Slim Corby?”

“Yeah—I remember you,” said Red emptily.

“Remember
me
, Red?” said an elderly customer hopefully. “George Mott?”

“Hi,” said Red.

“Sorry about your mother and father passing on, Red,” said Mott. “That was years ago, but I never got to see you till now. Good people.
Real
good people.” Finding Red’s eyes filled with apathy, he hesitated. “You remember me, Red—George Mott?”

“I remember,” said Red. He nodded to the other two customers. “And that’s Harry Childs and that’s Stan West.”

“He remembers …Sure he remembers …How could Red forget?” said the nervous chorus. They continued to make tentative gestures of welcome.

“Gee,” said Slim, the counterman, “I figured we’d never see
you
again. I figured you’d took off for good.”

“Figured wrong,” said Red. “Happens sometimes.”

“How long since you been back, Red?” said Slim. “Eight, nine years?”

“Eight,” said Red.

“You still in the merchant marines?” said Mott.

“Bridge tender,” said Red.

“Whereabouts?” said Slim.

“This bridge right here,” said Red.

“Heeeeeeey—you hear that?” said Slim. He started to
touch Red familiarly, but thought better of it. “Red’s the new bridge tender!”

“Home to stay…Got hisself a good job…Ain’t that nice?” said the chorus.

“When you start?” said Mott.

“Started,” said Red. “Been up there two days now.”

All were amazed. “Never heard a word about it… Never thought to look up and see who’s there …Two days, and we never noticed him,” said the chorus.

“I cross the bridge four times a day,” said Slim. “You should have said hello or something. You know—you get to kind of thinking of the bridge tender as just kind of part of the machinery. You must of seen me and Harry and Stan and Mr. Mott and Eddie Scudder and everybody else crossing the bridge, and you never said a word?”

“Wasn’t ready to,” said Red. “Somebody else I had to talk to first.”

“Oh,” said Slim. His face went blank. He looked to the other three for enlightenment, and got three shrugs. Rather than pry, Slim tried to fidget his curiosity into thin air with his fingers.

“Don’t give me that,” said Red irritably.

“Give you what, Red?” said Slim.