Short Fiction - R. A. Lafferty (i can read book club .txt) 📗

was the essence of melancholy made into music. It was a little bit like the ghost music on the asteroid Artemis, a little like the death chants on Dolmena. Sex and sorrow. Nostalgia. Regret.

Her singing shook me with a yearning that had no precedent.

She came back to my cage.

“You were wonderful, Margaret,” I said.

“I’m always wonderful when I’m singing for my supper. I am less wonderful in the rare times that I am well fed. But are you happy, little buddy?”

“I had become almost so, till I heard you sing. Now I am overcome with sorrow and longing. Margaret, I am fascinated with you.”

“I go for you too, blob. You’re my buddy. Isn’t it funny that the only buddy I have in the world is a blob? But if you’d seen some of the guys I’ve been married to⁠—boy! I wouldn’t insult you by calling them blobs. Have to go now. See you tomorrow night⁠—if they keep us both on.”

Now there was a problem to face. It was necessary that I establish control over my environment, and at once. How else could I aspire to Margaret?

I knew that the heart of the entire place here was neither the bar nor the entertainment therein, nor the cuisine, nor the dancing. The heart of the enterprise was the Casino. Here was the money that mattered; the rest was but garnish.

I had them bring me into the gambling rooms.

I had expected problems of complexity here with which the patrons worked for their gain or loss. Instead there was an almost amazing simplicity. All the games were based on first aspect numbers only. Indeed, everything on the Planet Florida seemed based on first aspect numbers.

Now it is an elemental fact that first aspect numbers do not carry within them their own prediction. Nor were the people even possessed of the prediction key that lies over the very threshold of the second aspect series.

These people were actually wagering sums⁠—the symbols of prosperity⁠—blindly, not knowing for sure whether they would win or lose. They were selecting numbers by hunch or at random with no assurance of profit. They were choosing a hole for a ball to fall into without knowing whether that was the right hole!

I do not believe that I was ever so amazed at anything in my life.

But here was my opportunity to establish control over my environment.

I began to play the games.

Usually I would watch a round first, to be sure that I understood just what was going on. Then I would play a few times⁠ ⁠… as many as it took to break the game.

I broke game after game. When he could no longer pay me, Blackjack closed the Casino in exasperation.

Then we played poker, he and I and several others. This was even more simple. I suddenly realized that the grub-people could see only one side of the cards at a time.

I played and I won.

I owned the Casino now, and all of those people were now working for me. Billy Wilkins also played with us, so that in short order I also owned the Reptile Ranch.

Before the evening was over, I owned a race track, a beach hotel, and a theater in a place named New York.

I had begun to establish control over my environment⁠ ⁠…

Later. Now started the golden days. I increased my control and did what I could for my friends.

I got a good doctor for my old friend and roommate, Pete the python, and he began receiving treatment for his indigestion. I got a jazzy sports car for my friend Eustace imported from somewhere called Italy. And I buried Margaret in mink, for she had a fix on the fur of that mysterious animal. She enjoyed draping it about her in the form of coats, capes, cloaks, mantles and stoles, though the weather didn’t really require it.

I had now won several banks, a railroad, an airline, and a casino in somewhere named Havana.

“You’re somebody now,” said Margaret. “You really ought to dress better. Or are you dressed? I never know. I don’t know if part of that is clothes or if all of it is you. But at least I’ve learned which is your head. I think we should be married in May. It’s so common to be married in June. Just imagine me being Mrs. George Albert Leroy Ellery McIntosh! You know, we have become quite an item. And do you know there are three biographies of you out⁠—Burgeoning Blob, The Blob from Way Out, The Hidden Hand Behind the Blob⁠—What Does It Portend? And the governor has invited us to dine tomorrow. I do wish you would learn to eat. If you weren’t so nice, you’d be creepy. I always say there’s nothing wrong with marrying a man, or a blob, with money. It shows foresight on the part of a girl. You know you will have to get a blood test? You had better get it tomorrow. You do have blood, don’t you?”

I did, but not, of course, of the color and viscosity of hers. But I could give it that color and viscosity temporarily. And it would react negative in all the tests.

She mused, “They are all jealous of me. They say they wouldn’t marry a blob. They mean they couldn’t⁠ ⁠… Do you have to carry that tin ball with you all the time?”

“Yes. It is my communication sphere. In it I record my thoughts. I would be lost without it.”

“Oh, like a diary. How quaint!”

Yes, those were the golden days. The grubs appeared to me in a new light, for was not Margaret also a grub? Yet she seemed not so unfinished as the rest. Though lacking a natural outer casing, she had not the appearance of crawling out from under a rock. She was quite an attractive “girl.” And she cared for me.

What more could I wish? I was affluent. I was respected. I was in control of my environment. And I could aid my friends, of whom I had now