Microcosmic God (21 page)

“That’s a fairy story. It just couldn’t
be!
Wishes coming true.
… Me
, without a
face?”
He ran to the wall switch and flipped it, turned up the table and bed lamps, and stood in a blaze of light before the mirror.

“It’s—it’s amazing,” he said aloud. His face was blurred—just the slightest bit indistinct, like a molded jelly that has been standing in a warm room. It was a perfectly normal, unfrightening face. It was the face of the Great Average—the consolidated features of a mob. It was the face of the man who shines your shoes on a ferryboat, as remembered two months later. It was the face of a fellow called Charley something, who was in your Latin class in your first year in high school. Gabriel Jarret, glamor-boy, was now—the Anonymous!

“What am I going to
do?”
he breathed, turning away and back to the mirror, away and back. It was a terrible thing, a horrifying, morbidly fascinating thing. What could he do? He was a salesman; his living depended on his ability to put up a memorable front. Why, they wouldn’t even know him at the office. He’d have to introduce himself in the morning and every day when he came in from his calls! What about his regular customers, and—omigosh—his prospects? Suppose he entertained a buyer, and left him for a moment during the evening; the man wouldn’t know him when he got back! He was through—washed up—ruined. How could he even get a job now, let alone keep the one he had?

He turned out half the lights and threw himself into an easy chair to think it over. What would life be like for an anonymous man? No more heads turning when he came into a restaurant or night-club or office. No more women on his doorstep, on his mind, in his hair. Say, that wouldn’t be bad, at that. He had spent twenty-eight years in being admired, and he was as sick of it as is a man with a purple birthmark with his particular flaw. It was a flaw, you see, as anything must be when carried to an extreme. Good diction is an asset; perfect diction is annoying and affected. Pleasing features are helpful to their possessor; perfect ones are a damn nuisance, to quote the late Valentino, who early learned that the art of un-wenching is a
far more difficult one than that of amorous conquest. And Gabe had been the extreme, the outside edge of hyper-superlativity.

He grinned excitedly. He could actually walk into a whole roomful of high school girls and walk out again without having one of them gasp and flutter! Why, he could have a life of his own, unmarked, unremarkable!

And so it was that Gabe smacked his palm with his fist, laughed aloud, turned out the lights and dove into bed, a happy man. Of all men in the world, only he could have been delighted with such an affliction; of all lovers in the world, only he was foolish enough to believe that his precious Chloe would be happy to find him as he was now. Hadn’t she persistently accused him of being too handsome? Hadn’t she fervently wished that he had the most ordinary-looking mug on earth? Ah, now she was his; now he was all she could have wanted him to be.

That’s what he thought.

He woke early the next morning, and like a kid running for his Christmas tree, he ran for the mirror. It was true—it was true!

“Hot damn,” he grinned. “No glamour!”

He dressed carefully and sat down to write a few notes. One to his bank, informing them that hereafter he would deal with them by mail. One to his landlord, giving him notice. A few to various debtors, enclosing checks. One to his employers, a resignation. And one to Chloe, and that was the strangest:

“Darling:

“Forgive me for the way I acted last night; something has happened to me that I can’t understand, but which has made me very happy. That explosion in our booth last night changed me into what you have said you wanted me to be. I want you to see it too. Please, beloved, meet me as usual at lunch. Same place, same time. And be prepared for a surprise!”

He marked it for a special messenger, took the sheaf of envelopes out and mailed them, and then headed for a restaurant. He ordered a substantial breakfast, thinking amusedly that if he ordered and then moved to another table, the waiter would never find him. He
ate leisurely, picked up his check and reached in his pocket for a dime to leave on the table.

He’d forgotten to bring any money.

He said, “Damn!” and wondered whether to try explaining it to the cashier, or to—he ate here often; she’d know him. It would be no trouble.

Approaching the cashier’s desk, he remembered that she wouldn’t remember him at that. He paused again, rubbed the side of his cheek in perplexity, and then squared his shoulders, tossed the check on the desk, said, “Good Morning!” and sauntered out the door.

“Hey, mister!” called the cashier, a pert young blonde. “Hey—you didn’t pay! Jim—catch that guy!”

A brawny gentleman dropped his mop and trotted after Gabe. Gabe, by this time, was twenty feet away from the door and still moving. The waiter’s heavy hand fell on his shoulder; he stopped, turned, looked surprisedly up at the duty-bound face.

“You can’t get away with that, bud,” said the mopster.

“With what?” asked Gabe innocently.

“Come back in here and ask the cashier with what,” said the man, pushing Gabe in that direction.

Gabe went, protesting. Once inside the restaurant, the man said,

“I’ve got ‘im, Molly.”

The girl threw up her hands. “Jimmy, you’re a double-barreled half-wit! You’ve got the wrong guy!”

The man loosed Gabe and shuffled uneasily. “You sure, Molly?”

“Sure I’m sure, you—you ox!” she snapped, and said to Gabe, “Gee, I’m sorry, mister. I wouldn’t have had that happen for—”

“Skip it,” grinned Gabe. “As for you, Muscles, watch your step. You can get into trouble doing things like that.” The lug retreated; Gabe smiled at the girl and walked out like an honest citizen. And after that he didn’t bother going home for his money. He didn’t need money.

He walked along Beaufort St., feeling proud of himself. He thought of the great criminal masterminds of song and story, and of how the basic idea, that a man must be remarkable to be a phenomenon, had been plugged. Why, you don’t need brains to break the laws of statute
and custom; all you need is protective coloration. He was absolutely invulnerable, and the idea was intoxicating. He could do anything—absolutely anything, and get away with it. That redhead over there, for instance; a luscious creation. Motivated not entirely by scientific curiosity, he overtook her, spun her around, put his arms about her and kissed her lingeringly. He held her long enough for a sizable crowd to gather, which took about forty-five seconds, and then released her, breathless and choleric. She said, “You—you—” and then hauled off and swung at him. He laughed at her and ducked back into the crowd. She lost sight of him for a moment—which was, of course, forever. She peered angrily about, looking for her “attacker,” and her eyes finally rested on Gabe.

Now there were a lot of people laughing in that crowd, but none more heartily than Gabe Jarret. He was having the time of his life. The redhead took note of this, and spat out at him,

“What are you laughing at? What’s supposed to be so funny? If you had the guts God gave a goose, you’d have stopped that—that beast from doing that to me instead of standing there laughing!”

“Lady,” gasped Gabe, “I could no more have stopped him than I could have stopped myself!” And, still joyful, he threaded his way through the crowd and on down the street, leaving the girl to give furious and vain descriptions of her assailant to a tardy policeman.

“This,” said Gabe, “certainly has possibilities.”

He strolled on up the street, casually stepping on people’s feet and watching them glare past him for the guilty party; boldly pulling handkerchiefs out of dignified old gentlemen’s breast pockets; having himself a hell of a time. He stole a revolver out of a policeman’s holster, ran around a bystander and handed it back to the cop, saying, “Lucky for you I snatched this out of that crook’s hand, officer.” The cop positively blushed. It was altogether too fast for him. And he saw a face he didn’t like and knocked some teeth out of it for that reason, then disappeared completely by moving ten feet. He stopped at a bar and moved along the mahogany a few inches after each of four drinks, and they were all on the house. Ultimately, then, he wound up at the fountain and restaurant where he had been used to lunching with Chloe.

And she was there. He was thrilled at the sight of her, and went over and sat at her table. She looked up at him, deadpan, and went back to her food. He hugged himself.

“Chlo—”

She started and looked around her. He said it again. She looked straight at him, sniffed coldly and did something with one shoulder which said, “Don’t annoy me.”

“Chloe—don’t you recognize me?”

“I do not! Leave me alone!”

“Chloe—it’s Gabe!”

She narrowed her eyes and stared. “Don’t look at my face,” he said. “Look at my hands. See that ring? Remember it—the signet I always wore?”

“Yes,” she said, puzzled. “It’s Gabe’s, but—” and her eyes went back to his face.

“This scar on my wrist,” he said. “This necktie—you chose it. Remember the red pin-stripe suit?”

She pushed her chair back, appalled. “Gabe! What’s—happened to you?”

“Something you won’t believe—but it happened anyway. Remember last night in Romany Joe’s? Well—you can think what you like about it, but when that old gypsy said you could make a wish and have it come true, she was right. You made a wish, and—here I am!”

“I made a—what are you talking about?”

“You did. You were sore at me, I guess, and you wished I had the most ordinary face on earth. Well—this is it! It’s so ordinary that nobody I’ve met so far can remember it for two consecutive seconds!”

“Gabe—that’s—that’s childish. Wishes, indeed! Come on, now—tell me what’s changed you so!”

“I tell you, that’s it! Darling, isn’t that what was bothering you so? Didn’t you tell me that the main thing wrong with me was my looks?” He leaned eagerly across the table to her. “Well, that’s been taken care of! I’ll guarantee, there’ll never be another woman cooing over me again!”

She looked at him. “I can well believe that,” she said nastily.

“Chloe—I’ve changed my clothes and my mind and my habits
for you, and it wasn’t enough. Now I’ve changed my face—isn’t that all you can ask?”

Chloe rose, her head whirling. What colossal joke was this? What was she doing even talking to this nondescript character? How could she listen to this drivel he was pouring out, about an engagement and love and—and marriage? Had she come as low as this, that she must marry such an unassuming creature? Certainly she could catch a man who looked like
somebody
, not like just—
anybody
.

She twisted the diamond from her finger. “Gabe—I can’t for the life of me think why I took this at all, or why I didn’t give it back to you weeks ago. Do I have to say anything more?” And she tossed it on the table in front of the now speechless Gabe, and ran from him. As she left the restaurant she turned and looked back. There was a man sitting at the table—a man whom, as far as she knew, she had never seen before. He was looking at something clutched in his hands and he was apparently crying into them. Chloe wondered vaguely where Gabe had gone so quickly, and then went back to her office, where she sat in front of a typewriter all afternoon doing nothing and silently shrieking out at the injustice of the monstrous fate that had taken her beautiful, beautiful Gabe away.

It was a little more than Gabe could stand, that jilting. He sat there for a long time, watching the diamond wink and glitter crazily through his tears; and then he got up and walked unnoticed out of the restaurant. He walked without purpose, through the teeming streets, back and back through the city until he brought up in the marketing district, where fat women in shawls and squalling brats dodged great refrigerator trucks. He stood there for an hour or so, seeing nothing, smoking constantly and without enjoyment, staring blindly into his empty heart. Resentment grew redly as he stood there, and when he took his last cigarette and hurled it into the gutter, straightened his shoulders and said, “Damn her!”, he was a changed and bitter man. He looked up and down the cluttered street, got his bearings and strode rapidly off. “I’m this way, by God, and she don’t like it. Well, I do, and I’m going to make it pay off.”

The late afternoon and evening papers were filled with an amazing
series of robberies. It was a one-man crime wave, but the papers didn’t know that.

A pawn-shop was the first. An unidentified man had walked into the store, stepped behind the counter, scooped up a handful of large bills and a revolver, and had casually walked out again. He was chased, but had vanished into the crowd.

A man with a gun had held up a gas station a block away from the pawn shop. He had cleared out the till and disappeared under the very nose of the policeman on the beat.

Two patrol cars had responded to a call that a bank was being robbed. Technically, it was only the patrons who were held up, and forced at gunpoint to deliver up their larger bills. When the police arrived, they bumped into a “bystander” on his way out of the bank. He cried, “There’s a robbery going on in there!” and as the police rushed in with drawn revolvers, he leaped into one of the patrol cars and roared off up the avenue, his siren going full blast. The police could find no one who could describe either the bank-robber or the man who had stolen the bandit-chaser, or who could determine whether or not they were the same man. The car was found abandoned two miles up the street; several people had seen a man in plain clothes get out quietly and walk away, but no one knew what he looked like. While the two patrolmen were dusting their repossessed car for fingerprints, the jewelry store across the sidewalk from them was robbed—cash only. They both saw him leave and duck into a side street. They were greatly helped by a man who said he saw the robber go into a certain house. Search of the house revealed—nothing; and no sign was found of their informant.

Oh, Gabe had a wonderful afternoon.

Chloe left the office early, pleading sickness. All during the long afternoon she had worried and fretted about Gabe. Perhaps she had been hasty, she thought. Maybe it was his idea of a joke—a lesson for her, perchance. Could he have achieved that amazing, subtle change in his face by makeup? She doubted it. It was too good.