A Touch of Infinity (11 page)

“Who is Harvey Titterson?” asked the British Ambassador.

Who indeed? Two hours later the President of the United States and his friend, Billy, sat in the White House, facing the bulldog visage of the aging director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Harvey Titterson,” said the President. “We want you to find him.”

“Who is he?” asked the aging director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“If we knew who he was, you would not have to find him,” the President explained slowly and respectfully, for he was always respectful when he exchanged ideas with the aging director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Is he dangerous? Do we take him alive or dead?”

“You don't take him, sir,” Billy explained respectfully, for like everyone else, he was always respectful when he spoke to the aging director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “We simply want to know where he is. If possible, we don't want him to be alarmed or disturbed in any way; as a matter of fact, we would prefer that he should be unaware of any special supervision. We only desire to know who he is and where he is.”

“Have you looked in the telephone book?”

“We've been in touch with the telephone company,” the President replied. “You must understand, we had no intention of bypassing you. But knowing the heavy load of work your department carries, we thought the telephone company might be able to simplify our task. Harvey Titterson does not have a telephone.”

“It might be an unlisted number.”

“No. The telephone company was very cooperative. It's not even an unlisted number.”

“You'll have results, Mr. President,” said the aging director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “I'll put two hundred of my best agents on it.”

“Time is of the essence.”

“Yes, sir. Time is of the essence.”

It is a tribute to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and to the acumen of its aging director that in three days a report was placed upon the President's desk. The folder was marked “Confidential, top secret, restricted and special to the President of the United States.”

The President called Billy into his office before he even opened the folder. “Billy,” he said grimly, “this is your dish of tea. I've dealt with Russia and with Red China, but this is a piece of diplomacy you have to make your own. We'll read it together.”

Then he opened the folder, and they read:

“Special secret report on Harvey Titterson, age twenty-two, son of Frank Titterson and Mary (Bently) Titterson. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey. Educated at Plainfield High School and at the University of California at Berkeley. Majored in Philosophy. Arrested twice for possession of marijuana. Sentence suspended in the first instance. Thirty days in jail in the second instance. Presently living at 921 East Eighth Street in New York City. Present occupation unknown.”

“So that's Harvey Titterson,” the President said. “He works in strange ways.”

“I wouldn't blame Him,” said Billy. “Harvey Titterson came out of the IBM machine.”

“I want you to take this, Billy,” the President said. “I want you to carry on from here. I have given you top clearance.
Airforce 1
is at your disposal if you need it. Also my personal helicopter. It's your mission, and I don't have to say what rides on its success or failure.”

“I'll do my best,” Billy promised.

Two hours later a chauffeur-driven black government limousine drew up in front of 921 East Eighth Street, an old-law cold-water tenement, and Billy got out of the car, climbed four flights of stairs, and tapped at the door.

“Enter, brother,” said a voice.

Billy opened the door and entered a room whose contents consisted of a table, a chair, a single bed, a rug, and on the rug a young man in ancient blue jeans and a T-shirt, sitting cross-legged. He had a russet beard and moustache, russet hair that fell to his shoulders, and a pair of bright blue eyes; and Billy couldn't help noticing his resemblance to his own mentor.

Billy stared at the young man, who stared back and said pleasantly, “You're sure as hell not fuzz and you're not the landlord, so you got to have the wrong place.”

“Are you Harvey Titterson?” Billy asked.

“Right on. At least there are times when I believe I am. The search for identity is no simple matter.”

Then Billy identified himself, and the young man grinned appreciatively. “Man, you are with it,” he said.

“Let me come to the point,” said Billy, “because time is of the essence. I have come to you on the question of our basic dilemma.”

“You mean the war in Vietnam?”

“No, I mean the show cause order.”

“Man, you confuse me. What show cause order?”

“Don't you read the newspapers?” Billy asked in amazement.

“Never.”

“Surely you listen to radio—to television?”

“Don't own one.”

“You meet people. At work. Everyone's talking—”

“I don't work.”

“What do you do?”

“Man, you're direct,” said Harvey Titterson. “I smoke a little grass and I meditate.”

“How do you live?”

“Affluent parents. They tolerate me.”

“But this has been going on for weeks. Surely you've been out of here?”

“I been on a long meditation trip.”

“Are you a Jesus Freak?” Billy asked, drawing on his knowledge of the vernacular, a note of respect in his voice.

“No, hardly. I got my own way.”

“Then let me bring you up to date. Some weeks ago, at precisely the same time all over the world, a voice took over the major broadcasting channels and spoke these words: ‘You must show cause why the people of Earth shall not be destroyed. I am the Lord your God.' Those were the words.”

“Cosmic,” Harvey said. “Absolutely cosmic.”

“It repeats every day. Same voice, same words.”

“Absolutely cosmic.”

“You can imagine the results,” Billy said.

“It must have been a hassle.”

“China, Russia—all over the world.”

“Out of sight,” said Harvey.

“The President is a friend of mine—”

“Oh?”

“The point is, I convinced him that there was no simple answer. He depends on me for this kind of thing. It's a great honor, but this was too big.”

“Absolutely cosmic,” Harvey said.

“So I came up with an idea and sold it to him. We put together the biggest computer the world ever saw, and we fed it all the information there is. Everything. And then, when we put the question to it, it came up with your name.”

“You're putting me on.”

“You have my word of honor, Harvey.”

“That shakes me.”

“So you see what it means to us, Harvey. You're the last hope. Can you show cause?”

“Heavy—very heavy.”

“Maybe you want time to think about it?”

“You don't want to think about it,” Harvey said. “If it's there, it's there.”

“Is it there?”

Harvey Titterson closed his eyes for a long moment, and then he looked up at Billy and said simply:

“We are what we are.”

“What?”

“We are what we are.”

“Just that?”

“Man, it's your thing. Just think about it.”

“Exodus three, fourteen,” Billy said. “‘And God said unto Moses, I am what I am.'”

“Right on.”

Billy looked at his watch. It was three minutes before eleven o'clock. With hardly a thank you, he bolted out of the room and down the stairs and into the big black limousine.

“Turn on the radio!” he shouted at the chauffeur. “Eight eighty on the dial.”

The chauffeur fiddled nervously.

“Eight eighty—what's holding you?”

“This is the Columbia Broadcasting Company,” the radio crackled, “CBS radio in New York City. At this time we have been leaving the air for a special announcement.” Then silence. Silence. Minute after minute went by, and still silence.

Then the voice of the announcer, “Apparently we are not to be interrupted today—”

On the fourth floor of the tenement, Harvey Titterson rolled a joint, had a toke, and then laid it aside.

“Crazy,” he said softly.

And then he composed himself to continue his meditation trip.

7

Not with a Bang

On the evening of the third of April, standing at the window of his pleasant three-bedroom, split-level house and admiring the sunset, Alfred Collins saw a hand rise above the horizon, spread thumb and forefinger, and snuff out the sun. It was the moment of soft twilight, and it ended as abruptly as if someone had flicked an electric switch.

Which is precisely what his wife did. She put on lights all over the house. “My goodness, Al,” she said, “it did get dark quickly, didn't it?”

“That's because someone snuffed out the sun.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” she asked. “And by the way, the Bensons are coming for dinner and bridge tonight, so you'd better get dressed.”

“All right. You weren't watching the sunset, were you?”

“I have other things to do.”

“Yes. Well, what I mean is that if you were watching, you would have seen this hand come up behind the horizon, and then the thumb and the forefinger just spread out, and then they came together and snuffed out the sun.”

“Really. Now for heaven's sake, Al, don't redouble tonight. If you are doubled, have faith in your bad bidding. Do you promise me?”

“Funniest damn thing about the hand. It brought back all my childhood memories of anthropomorphism.”

“And just what does that mean?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm going to take a shower.”

“Don't be all evening about it.”

At dinner, Al Collins asked Steve Benson whether he had been watching the sunset that evening.

“No—no, I was showering.”

“And you, Sophie?” Collins asked of Benson's wife.

“No way. I was changing a hem. What does women's lib intend to do about hems? There's the essence of the status of women, the nitty-gritty of our servitude.”

“It's one of Al's jokes,” Mrs. Collins explained. “He was standing at the window and he saw this hand come over the horizon and snuff out the sun.”

“Did you, Al?”

“Scout's honor. The thumb and forefinger parted, then came together. Poof. Out went the sun.”

“That's absolutely delicious,” Sophie said. “You have such delicious imagination.”

“Especially in his bidding,” his wife remarked.

“She'll never forget that slam bid doubled and redoubled,” Sophie said. It was evident that she would never forget it either.

“Interesting but impractical,” said Steve Benson, who was an engineer at IBM. “You're dealing with a body that is almost a million miles in diameter. The internal temperature is over ten million degrees centigrade, and at its core the hydrogen atoms are reduced to helium ash. So all you have is poetic symbolism. The sun will be here for a long time.”

After the second rubber, Sophie Benson remarked that either it was chilly in the Collins house or she was catching something.

“Al, turn up the thermostat,” said Mrs. Collins.

The Collins team won the third and fourth rubbers, and Mrs. Collins had all the calm superiority of a winner as she bid her guests good night. Al Collins went out to the car with them, thinking that, after all, suburban living was a strange process of isolation and alienation. In the city, a million people must have watched the thing happen; here, Steve Benson was taking a shower and his wife was changing a hem.

It was a very cold night for April. Puddles of water left over from a recent rain had frozen solid, and the star-drenched sky had the icy look of midwinter. Both of the Bensons had arrived without coats, and as they hurried into their car, Benson laughingly remarked that Al was probably right about the sun. Benson had difficulty starting the car, and Al Collins stood shivering until they had driven away. Then he looked at the outside thermometer. It was down to sixteen degrees.

“Well, we beat them loud and clear,” his wife observed when he came back to the house. He helped her clean up, and while they were at it, she asked him just what he meant by anthropomorphism or whatever it was.

“It's a sort of primitive notion. You know, the Bible says that God made man in His own image.”

“Oh? You know, I absolutely believed it when I was a child. What are you doing?”

He was at the fireplace, and he said that he thought he'd build a fire.

“In April? You must be out of your mind. Anyway, I cleaned the hearth.”

“I'll clean it up tomorrow.”

“Well, I'm going to bed. I think you're crazy to start a fire at this time of the night, but I'm not going to argue with you. This is the first time you did not overbid, and thank heavens for small favors.”

The wood was dry, and the fire was warm and pleasant to watch. Collins had never lost his pleasure at watching the flames of a fire, and he mixed himself a long scotch and water, and sat in front of the flames, sipping the drink and recalling his own small scientific knowledge. The green plants would die within a week, and after that the oxygen would go. How long? he wondered. Two days—ten days—he couldn't remember and he had no inclination to go to the encyclopedia and find out. It would get very cold, terribly cold. It surprised him that instead of being afraid, he was only mildly curious.

He looked at the thermometer again before he went to bed. It was down to zero now. In the bedroom, his wife was already asleep, and he undressed quietly and put an extra comforter on the bed before he crawled in next to her. She moved toward him, and feeling her warm body next to him, he fell asleep.

8

A Talent of Harvey