The Mind Spider and Other Stories (4 page)

There was an eruption of comments at that, with Dickrow starting to say, “Dave doesn’t mean—”, Gline beginning, “I disagree. I would
not
say—”, and Snowden commencing, “Now if you bring in depth psychology—” but Dave added decibels to his voice and overrode them.

“Oh yes, superficially our Monster Program just consists of hints to our customers on how to appear harmlessly and handsomely sinister, but fundamentally it’s going to give people a glimpse of the real Mr. Hyde in themselves—the deviant, the cripple, the outsider, the potential rapist and torture-killer—under the sugary hypno-soothed consciousness of Dr. Jekyll. In a story or play, people always love the villain best—though they’ll seldom admit it—because the villain stands for the submerged, neglected, and unloved dark half of themselves. In the Monster Program we’re going to awaken that half for their own good. We’re going to give some expression, for a change, to the natural love of adventure, risk, melodrama, and sheer wickedness that’s part of every man!” "Dave, you’re giving an unfair picture of your own program!” Diskrow was on his feet and almost bellowing at Cruxon. “I don’t know why—maybe out of some twisted sense of self-criticism or some desire for martyrdom—but you are! Gentlemen, IU is not suggesting in its new program that people become real monsters in any way—”

"Oh, aren’t we?”

“Dave, shut up and sit down! You’ve said too much already. “I’ll-”

"Gentlemen!” Wisant lifted a hand. “Let me remind you that this is a democratic conference. We can all speak freely. Any other course would be highly suspicious. So simmer down, gentlemen, simmer down.” He turned toward Dave with a bland warm smile. “What Mr. Cruxon has to say interests me very much.’

“I’m sure it does!” Diskrow fumed bitterly.

Dave said smoothly, “What I’m trying to get over is that people can’t be pampered and soothed and wrapped away from the ugly side of reality and stay sane in the long run. Half truths kills the mirtd just as surely as lies. People live by the shock of reality—especially the reality of the submerged sections of their own minds. It’s only when a man knows the worst about himself and other men and the world that he can really take hold of the facts—brace himself against his atoms, you might say—and achieve true tranquility. People generally don’t like tragedy and horror—not with the Sunday-School side of their minds, they don’t—but deep down they have to have it. They have to break down the PoHyanna Partition and find what’s really on the other side. An allsugar diet is deadly. Life can be sweet, yes, but only when the contrast of horror brings out the taste. Especially the horror in a man’s heart!”

"Very interesting indeed,” Dr. Snowden put in quietly, even musingly, "and most lavishly expressed, if I may say so. What Mr. Cruxon has to tell us about the dark side of the human mind—the Id, the Shadow, the Death Wish, the Sick Negative, there have been many names—is of course an elementary truth. However . . .” He paused. Diskrow, still on his feet, looked at him with suspicious incredulity, as if to say, “Whose side are
you
pretending to be on?”

The smile faded from Snowden’s face. “However,” he continued, “it is an equally elementary truth that it is dangerous to unlock the dark side of the mind. Not every psychotherapist—not even every analyst—” (Here his gaze flickered toward Dr. Gline) “—is really competent to handle that ticklish operation. The untrained person who attempts it can easily find himself in the position of the sorcerer’s apprentice. Nevertheless ...”

“It’s like the general question of human freedom,” Wisant interrupted smoothly. “Most men are simply not qualified to use all the freedoms theoretically available to them.” He looked at the IU people with a questioning smile. “For example, I imagine you all know something about the antigravity harness used by a few of our special military units?—at least you know that such an item exists?"

Most of the people across the table nodded. Diskrow said, "Of course we do. We even had a demonstration model in our vaults until a few days ago.” Seeing Wisant’s eyebrows lift he added impressively, “IU is often asked to help introduce new devices and materials to the public. As soon as the harness was released, we were planning to have Inferior Supe use it on The Useless Five show. But then the directive came through restricting the item—largely on the grounds that it turned out to be extremely dangerous and difficult to operate—and we shipped back our model.”

Wisant nodded. “Since you know that much, I can make my point about human freedom more easily. Actually (but I’ll deny this if you mention it outside these chambers) the antigravity harness is not such a specialist’s item. The Average man can rather easily learn to operate one. In other words it is today technologically possible for us to put three billion humans in the air, flying like birds.

"But three billion humans in the air would add up to confusion, anarchy, an unimaginable aerial traffic jam. Hence— restriction and an emphasis on the dangers and extreme difficulties of using the harness. The freedom to swim through the air can’t be given outright, it must be doled out gradually. The same applies to all freedoms—the freedom to love, the freedom to know the world, even the freedom to know yourself—especially your more explosive drives. Don’t get me wrong now—such freedoms are fine if the person is conditioned for them.” He smiled with frank pride. “That’s our big job, you know: conditioning people for freedom. Using conditioning-for-freedom techniques we ended juvenile delinquency and beat the Beat Generation. We—”

"Yes, you beat them all right!” Dave breaking in again suddenly, sounded raspingly angry. "You got all the impulses such movements expressed so well battened down, so well repressed and decontaminated, that now they’re coming out as aberration, deep neurosis, mania. People are conforming and adjusting so well, they’re such carbon copies of each other, that now they’re even all starting to flip at the same time. They were over-protected mentally and emotionally. They were shielded from the truth as if it were radio-active— and maybe in its way it is, because it can start chain reactions. They were treated like halfwits and that’s what we’re getting. Age of Tranquility! It’s the Age of Psychosis! It’s an open secret that the government and its Committee for Public Sanity have been doctoring the figures on mental disease for years. They’re fifty, a hundred percent greater than the published ones—no one knows how much. What’s this mysterious Report K we keep hearing about? Which of us hasn’t had friends and family members flipping lately? Any one can see the overcrowding at asylums, the bankruptcy of hypnotherapy. This is the year of the big payoff for generations of hysterical optimism, reassurance psychology and plain soft-soaping. It’s the DTs after decades of soothing-syrup addiction!”

“That’s enough, Dave!" Diskrow shouted. “You’re fired! You no longer speak for IU. Get out!”

“Mr. Diskrow!” Wisant’s voice was stem. “I must point out to you that you’re interfering with free inquiry, not to mention individuality. What your young colleague has to say interests me more and more. Pray continue, Mr. Cruxon.” He smiled like a big fat cat.

Dave answered smile with glare. “What’s the use?” he said harshly. "The Monster Program’s dead. You got me to cut its throat and now you’d like me to finish severing the neck, but what I did or didn’t do doesn’t matter a bit—you were planning to kill the Monster Program in any case. You don’t want to do anything to stop the march of depersonalization. You like depersonalized people. As long as they’re tranquil and manageable, you don’t care—it’s even okay by you if you have to keep ’em in flip-factories and put the tranquility in with a needle. Government by the three Big Cs of Commission, Committee and Conference! There’s a fourth C, the biggest, and that’s the one you stand for—government by Censorship! So long everybody, I hope you’re happy when your wives and kids start flipping—when
you
start flipping. I’m getting out.” Wisant waited until Dave got his thumb on the door, then he called, “One moment, Mr. Cruxon!" Dave held still though he did not turn around. “Miss Sturges,” Wisant continued, “would you please give this to Mr. Cruxon?” He handed her the small folded sheet of pink paper from his breast pocket. Dave shoved it in his pocket and went out.

“A purely personal matter between Mr. Cruxon and myself,” Wisant explained, looking around with a smile. He swiftly reached across the table and snagged the scratchpad where Dave had been sitting. Diskrow seemed about to protest, then to think better of it.

“Very interesting,” Wisant said after a moment, shaking his head. He looked up from the pad. "As you may recall, Mr. Cruxon only used his stylus once—just after Dr. Gline had said something about the awe-inspiring rhythms of the sea. Listen to what he wrote.” He cleared his throat and read:

“When the majestic ocean starts to sound like water slopping around in the bathtub, it’s time to jump in.”

Wisant shook his head. "I must say I feel concerned about that young man’s safety . . . his
mental
safety.”

“I do too,” Miss Rawvetch interjected, looking around with a helpless shrug. “My Lord, was there
anybody
that screwball forgot to antagonize?”

Dr. Snowden looked up quickly at Wisant. Then his gaze shifted out and he seemed to become abstracted.

Wisant continued: "Mr. Diskrow, I had best tell you now that in addition to my advisement against the Monster Program, I am going to have to issue an advisement that there be a review of the mental stability of IU’s entire personnel. No personal reflection on any of you, but you can clearly see why.” Diskrow flushed but said nothing. Dr. Gline held very still. Dr. Snowden began to doodle furiously.

A monster is a master symbol of the secret and powerful, the dangerous and unknown, evoking the remotest mysteries of nature and human nature, the most dimly-sensed enigmas of space, time, and the hidden regions of the mind.

—the notebooks of A.S.

Masks of monsters brooded down from all the walls—fulllipped raven-browed Dracula, the cavern-eyed domeforeheaded Phantom, the mighty patchwork visage of Dr. Frankenstein’s chamel-man with his filmy strangely compassionate eyes, and many earlier and later fruitions of the dark half of man’s imagination. Along with them were numerous stills from old horror movies (both 3-D and flat), blown-up book illustrations, monster costumes and disguises including an Ape Man’s hairy hide, and several big hand-lettered slogans such as "Accent Your Monster!” “Watch Out, Normality!” “America, Beware!” “Be Yourself—in Spades!” “Your Lady in Black,” and “Mount to Your Monster!”

But Dave Cruxon did not look up at the walls of his “Mon-sterarium.” Instead he smoothed out the pink note he had crumpled in his hand and read the crimson script for the dozenth time.

Please excuse my daughter for not attending lunch today, she being detained in consequence of a massive psychosis.
(Signed and Sealed on the threshold of Serenity Shoals
)

The strangest thing about Dave Cruxon’s reaction to the note was that he did not notice at all simply how weird it was, how strangely the central fact was stated, how queerly the irony was expressed, how like it was to an excuse sent by a pretentious mother to her child’s teacher. All he had mind for was the central fact.

Now his gaze did move to the walls. Meanwhile his hands automatically but gently smoothed the note, then opened a drawer, reached far in and took out a thick sheaf of sheets of pink notepaper with crimson script, and started to add the new note to it. As he did so a brown flattened flower slipped out of the sheaf and crawled across the back of his hand. He jerked back his hands and stood staring at the pink sheets scattered over a large black blotter and at the wholly inanimate flower.

The phone tingled his wrist. He lunged at it.

“Dave Cruxon,” he identified himself hoarsely.

“Serenity Shoals, Reception. I find we do have a patient named Gabrielle Wisant. She was admitted this morning. She cannot come to the phone at present or receive visitors. I would suggest, Mr. Cruxon, that you call again in about a week or that you get in touch with—”

Dave put back the phone. His gaze went back to the walls. After a while it became fixed on one particular mask on the far wall. After another while he walked slowly over to it and reached it down. As his fingers touched it, he smiled and his shoulders relaxed, as if it reassured him.

It was the face of a devil—a green devil.

He flipped a little smooth lever that could be operated by the tongue of the wearer and the eyes glowed brilliant red. Set unobtrusively in the cheeks just below the glowing eyes were the actual eyeholes of the mask—small, but each equipped with a fisheye lens so that the wearer would get a wide view.

He laid down the mask reluctantly and from a heap of costumes picked up what looked like a rather narrow silver breastplate or corselet, stiffly metallic but hinged at one side for the convenience of the person putting it on. To it were attached strong wide straps, rather like those of a parachute. A thin cable led from it to a small button-studded metal cylinder that fit in the hand. He smiled again and touched one of the buttons and the hinged breastplate rose toward the ceiling, dangling its straps and dragging upward his other hand and arm. He took his finger off the button and the breastplate sagged toward the floor. He set the whole assembly beside the mask.

Next he took up a wicked-looking pair of rather stiff gloves with homy claws set at the finger-ends. He also handled and set aside a loose one-piece suit.

What distinguished both the gloves and the coverall was that they glowed whitely even in the moderately bright light of the Monsterarium.

Finally he picked up from the piled costumes what looked at first like a large handful of nothing—or rather as if he had picked up a loose cluster of lenses and prisms made of so clear a material as to be almost invisible. In whatever direction he held it, the wall behind was distorted as if seen through a heat-shimmer or as reflected in a crazy-house mirror. Sometimes his hand holding it disappeared partly and when he thrust his other arm into it, that arm vanished.