Save a Place in the Lifeboat for Me
THE HILL WAS HIGH AND COLD when they appeared there, and the first thing they did was to look around.
It had snowed the night before, and the ground was covered about a foot deep.
Arthur looked at Leonard and Leonard looked at Arthur.
“Whatsa matter you? You wearin’ funny clothes again!” said Leonard.
Arthur listened, his mouth open. He reached down to the bulbhorn tucked in his belt.
Honk Honk went Arthur.
“Whatsa matter us?” asked Leonard. “Look ata us! We back inna vaudeville?”
Leonard was dressed in pants two sizes too small, and a jacket which didn’t match. He wore a tiny pointed felt hat which stood on his head like a roof on a silo.
Arthur was dressed in a huge coat which dragged the ground, balloon pants, big shoes, and above his moppy red hair was a silk top hat, its crown broken out.
“It’s a fine-a mess he’s gots us in disa time!”
Arthur nodded agreement.
“Quackenbush, he’s-a gonna hear about this!” said Leonard.
Honk Honk went Arthur.
* * *
The truck backed into the parking lot and ran into the car parked just inside the entrance. The glass panels which were being carried on the truck fell and shattered into thousands of slivers in the snowy street. Cars slushing down the early morning swerved to avoid the pieces.
“Ohh, Bud, Bud!” said the short baby-faced man behind the wheel. He was trying to back the truck over the glass and get it out of the way of the dodging cars.
A tall thin man with a rat’s mustache ran from the glass company office and yelled at the driver.
“Look what you’ve done. Now you’ll make me lose this job, too! Mr. Crabapple will . . .” He paused, looked at the little fat man, swallowed a few times.
“Uh . . . hello, Lou,” he said, a tear running into his eye and brimming down his face. He turned away, pulled a handkerchief from his coveralls and wiped his eyes.
“Hello, Bud,” said the little man, brightly. “I don’ . . . don’ . . . understand it either, Bud. But the man said we got something to do, and I came here to get you.” He looked around him at the littered glass. “Bud, I been a baaad boy!”
“It doesn’t matter, Lou,” said Bud, climbing around to the passenger side of the truck. “Let’s get going before somebody gets us arrested.”
“Oh, Bud?” asked Lou, as they drove through the town. “Did you ever get out of your contract?”
“Yeah, Lou. Watch where you’re going! Do I have to drive myself?”
They pulled out of Peoria at eight in the morning.
* * *
The two men beside the road were dressed in black suits and derby hats. They stood; one fat, the other thin. The rotund one put on a most pleasant face and smiled at the passing traffic. He lifted his thumb politely, as would a gentleman, and held it as each vehicle roared past.
When a car whizzed by, he politely tipped his hat.
The thin man looked distraught. He tried at first to strike the same pose as the larger man, but soon became flustered. He couldn’t hold his thumb right, or let his arm droop too far.
“No, no, no, Stanley,” said the larger, mustached man, as if he were talking to a child. “Let me show you the way a man of gentle breeding asks for a ride. Politely. Gently. Thus.”
He struck the same pose he had before.
A car bore down on them doing eighty miles an hour. There was no chance in the world it would stop.
Stanley tried to strike the same pose. He checked himself against the larger man’s attitude. He found himself lacking. He rubbed his ears and looked as if he would cry.
The car roared past, whipping their hats off.
They bent to pick them up and bumped heads. They straightened, each signaling that the other should go ahead. They simultaneously bent and bumped heads again.
The large man stood stock still and did a slow burn. Stanley looked flustered. Their eyes were off each other. Then they both leaped for the hats and bumped heads once more.
They grabbed up the hats and jumped to their feet.
They had the wrong hats on. Stanley’s derby made the larger man look like a tulip bulb. The large derby covered Stanley down to his chin. He looked like a thumbtack.
The large man grabbed the hat away and threw Stanley’s derby to the ground.
“MMMMMM-MMMMMM-MMMMM!” said the large man.
Stanley retrieved his hat. “But Ollie . . .” he said, then began whimpering. His hat was broken.
Suddenly Stanley pulled Ollie’s hat off and stomped it. Ollie did another slow burn, then turned and ripped off Stanley’s tie.
Stanley kicked Ollie in the shin. The large man jumped around and punched Stanley in the kneecap.
A car stopped, and the driver jumped out to see what the trouble was.
Ollie kicked him in the shin. He ripped off Stanley’s coat.
Twenty minutes later, Stanley and Ollie were looking down from a hill. A thousand people were milling around on the turnpike below, tearing each other’s cars to pieces. Parts of trucks and motorcycles littered the roadway. The two watched a policeman pull up. He jumped out and yelled through a bullhorn to the people, too far away for the two men to hear what he said.
As one, the crowd jumped him, and pieces of police car began to bounce off the blacktop.
Ollie dusted off his clothing as meticulously as possible. His and Stanley’s clothes consisted of torn underwear and crushed derby hats.
“That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us in, Stanley,” he said. He looked north.
“And it looks like it shall soon snow. Mmmm-mmmm-mmmm!”
They went over the hill as the wail of sirens began to fill the air.
* * *
“Hello, a-Central, givva me Heaven. ETcumspiri 220.”
The switchboard hummed and crackled. Sparks leaped off the receiver of the public phone booth in the roadside park. Arthur did a back flip and jumped behind a trashcan.
The sun was out, though snow was still on the ground. It was a cold February day, and they were the only people in the park.
The noise died down at the other end and Leonard said:
“Hallo, Boss! Hey, Boss! We doin’-a like you tell us, but you no send us to the right place. You no send us to Iowa. You send us to Idaho, where they grow the patooties.”
Arthur came up beside his brother and listened. He honked his horn.
On the other end of the line, Rufus T. Quackenbush spoke:
“Is that a goose with you, or do you have a cold?”
“Oh, no, Boss. You funnin’-a me. That’s-a Bagatelle.”
“Then who are you?” asked Quackenbush.
“Oh, you know who this is. I gives you three guesses.”
“Three guesses, huh? Hmmmm, let’s see . . . you’re not Babe Ruth, are you?”
“Hah, Boss. Babe Ruth, that’s-a chocolate bar.”
“Hmmm. You’re not Demosthenes, are you?”
“Nah, Boss. Demosthenes can do is bend in the middle of your leg.”
“I should have known,” said Quackenbush. “This is Rampolini, isn’t it?”
“You got it, Boss.”
Arthur whistled and clapped his hands in the background.
“Is that a hamster with you, Rampolini?”
“Do-a hamsters whistle, Boss?”
“Only when brought to a boil,” said Quackenbush.
“Ahh, you too good-a for me, Boss!”
“I know. And if I weren’t too good for you, I wouldn’t be good enough for anybody. Which is more than I can say for you.”
“Did-a we wake you up, Boss?”
“No, to be perfectly honest, I had to get up to answer the phone anyway. What do you want?”
“Like I said, Boss Man, you put us inna wrong place. We no inna Iowa. We inna Idaho.”
“That’s out of the Bronx, isn’t it? What should I do about it?”
“Well-a, we don’t know. Even if-a we did, we know we can’t-a do it anyway, because we ain’t there. An if-a we was, we couldn’t get it done no ways.”
“How do you know that?”
“Did-a you ever see one of our pictures, Boss?”
There was a pause. “I see what you mean,” said Quackenbush.
“Why for you send-a us, anyway? We was-a sleep, an then we inna Idaho!”
“I looked at my calendar this morning. One of the dates was circled. And it didn’t have pits, either. Anyway, I just remembered that something very important shouldn’t take place today.”
“What’s-a that got to do with us two?”
“Well . . . I know it’s a little late, but I really would appreciate it if you two could manage to stop it.”
“What’s-a gonna happen if we don’t?”
“Uh, ha ha. Oh, small thing, really. The Universe’ll come to an end several million years too soon. A nice boy like you wouldn’t want that, would you? Of course not!”
“What for I care the Universe’ll come to an end? We-a work for Paramount.”
“No, no. Not the studio. The big one!”
“M-a GM?”
“No. The Universe. All that stuff out there. Look around you.”
“You mean-a Idaho?”
“No, no, Rampolini. Everything will end soon, too soon. You may not be concerned. A couple of million years is nothing to somebody like you. But what about me? I’m leasing this office, you know?”
“Why-a us?”
“I should have sent someone earlier, but I’ve . . . I’ve been so terrible busy. I was having a pedicure, you see, and the time just flew by.”
“What-a do the two of us do to-a stop this?”
“Oh, I just know you’ll think of something. And you’ll both be happy to know I’m sending you lots of help.”
“Is this help any good, Boss?”
“I don’t know if they’re any good,” said Quackenbush. “But they’re cheap.”
“What-a we do inna meantime?”
“Be mean, like everybody else.”
“Nah, nah. (That’s-a really good one, Boss.) I mean, about-a the thing?”
“Well, I’d suggest you get to Iowa. Then give me another call.”
“But what iffa you no there?”
“Well, my secretary will take the message.”
“Ah, Boss, if-a you no there, you’re secretary’s-a no gonna be there neither.”
“Hmmm. I guess you’re right. Well, why don’t you give me the message now, and I’ll give it to my secretary. Then I’ll give her the answer, and she can call you when you get to Iowa!”
“Hey, that’s-a good idea, Boss!”
“I thought you’d think so.”
Outside the phone booth, Arthur was lolling his tongue out and banging his head with the side of his hand, trying to keep up with the conversation.
* * *
END OF SAMPLE
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