Smith's Monthly #15 Read online

  Screamer touched Lisa, then laid a hand gently on Mortuary Dan’s arm.

  For a moment, I thought we were going to have to calm Screamer down as well; but then he nodded and sat back and closed his eyes.

  Lisa’s eyes got huge and she was fidgeting some. I motioned for Stan to help, and he boosted both Patty’s and my calming power.

  Lisa calmed slightly. I was stunned she wasn’t so calm she was asleep. The woman had a very, very powerful mind. No wonder Laverne wanted us all to help Dan with this.

  And why Dan wanted the help. He and Laverne both knew how powerful the child of a god would be to deal with.

  Screamer kept his eyes closed, and Dan and Lisa just stared at each other. I slowly motioned for Stan to back off and he did, then Patty and I pulled back slightly, only increasing when we could sense Lisa getting upset.

  Forty-five minutes later in out-of-time time, Stan said, “Break.”

  Screamer pulled his hands away and Stan dropped the room back into real time. The sounds of Madge working on the milkshakes hit all of us hard.

  Patty and I kept our concentration firmly on Lisa, who seemed to close her eyes, then open them and look at her father again as if she was seeing him for the first time.

  No one said a word.

  Then Lisa said, “So I’m not going to die, I’m going to become immortal at midnight.”

  Dan nodded. “For all intents and purposes, yes.”

  Lisa nodded, then said, “I have to use the restroom.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Patty said.

  And wow was I glad she said that, since I had no idea how I was going to make it through more hours without visiting the restroom myself.

  “I’ll be right back,” Dan said and vanished.

  Stan also vanished.

  “You all right?” I asked Screamer. I had no idea what it would be like inside of Death’s mind, and I was very glad I didn’t have to find out.

  “I’m fine, actually. Dan is keeping me and Lisa blocked from most of his mind, just showing Lisa what she needs to see to get started. But this isn’t going to be a short process.”

  “That slow?” I asked.

  He nodded. Then he and I both headed for the rest rooms in the back, meeting Madge with a tray full of shakes.

  “Don’t tell me you all are leaving again?” she asked.

  “Just a break,” I said. “But I have a hunch that by the time this is over, you’re going to wish we had left.”

  “Anything going on with both Laverne and Mortuary Dan, I suppose you might be right.”

  She went to put our milkshakes on the table as I just kept on, shaking my head at all the surprises I was getting on a simple Saturday night.

  SIX

  It took nine hours of actual lesson time spread over six different sessions in just over three hours of real time before Lisa finally seemed to know what she was getting into and was ready.

  It was five minutes until midnight.

  Patty and I had stopped helping keep Lisa calm about three lessons back. Stan had asked me on the last break to help him keep up the out-of-time shield, since he was getting tired and Screamer needed some help with energy as well from him.

  So for most of the last hour of lesson time, with Stan spelling me every ten minutes, I held up the shield that kept us out of real time.

  As we dropped back into real time and Screamer moved away from the two he had kept connected for almost nine hours, everyone climbed out of the booth. I felt as if I had sat in that booth for most of my life.

  Laverne appeared, smiling. She and Dan moved off to one side for a moment as Patty and I stayed with Lisa.

  “Amazing stuff I was born into,” Lisa said. “I wish someone had told me about this last year so I wouldn’t have been so worried for so long, but thanks to all of you, this didn’t catch me by surprise now.”

  “Good,” Patty said. “Knowledge is far, far more powerful than rumors.”

  “But only slightly less scary,” Lisa said.

  Suddenly, around the restaurant, other people began to pop in, almost none of them anyone I knew, until the place was very crowded with only an open circle in the middle of the floor where a table used to be.

  Stan stepped over beside us and whispered. “The other eleven Undertakers have arrived, plus a number of top gods from all the deities. This is a real event.”

  Stan and Screamer and Patty and I sort of moved back against the edge of the booth to allow the really powerful to take their places around the center.

  “Are you ready to join me, daughter?” Dan asked, stepping into the circle in the center of the crowd.

  Lisa smiled at us, then turned and stepped forward. “I am.”

  “Thirty seconds,” Laverne said.

  Dan indicated that Lisa should kneel in front of him and she did.

  “Thank you all for joining this special occasion,” Dan said, his face now a complete skeleton, even though his hands and business suit looked perfectly pressed and in order. “We are here to welcome to our ranks the first new Undertaker in centuries. And the first woman to ever hold that position.”

  “Five seconds,” Laverne said.

  Dan reached out both hands and placed them over Lisa’s head. Then as the clock ticked midnight, Lisa seemed to slump slightly, then something bright and shining and very yellow filled the air around her.

  After a moment the yellow light all went inside of her, like she was a giant sponge soaking up water.

  After a long pause, she opened her eyes and smiled.

  Everyone cheered.

  I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t think I could feel so relieved in all my life.

  “May I introduce you to the newest god?” Dan said, extending an arm to his daughter to help her off her knees. “My daughter Lisa. An Undertaker.”

  The entire room cheered, then calmed as Lisa looked around, smiling, nodding at many people she now clearly knew somehow.

  Then she looked at us and said simply, “Thank you, Poker Boy, Screamer, Stan, and Patty. And most of all Laverne, who loaned my father such a wonderful team to help me through this transition. I will be forever grateful to you all.”

  Everyone cheered.

  And I did as well, and just kept smiling.

  Somehow we had managed to save yet another person. And that always felt great.

  But it felt even better to have Death herself grateful to you.

  It just didn’t get any better than that.

  One fine summer night Buckey the Space Pirate takes his girlfriend for a little excitement to a local park. He hoped for a sexual adventure and ended up meeting Fred, a talking oak tree.

  With a talking oak tree, adventure and bad limericks never end.

  First published in Dinosaur Fantastic edited by Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg. The book came out from DAW Books in 1993.

  The origin story for Fred, the time-traveling and talking oak tree.

  CUTTING DOWN FRED

  A Buckey the Space Pirate Story

  ONE

  I tried to make love under Fred for the first time on a warm October evening two years ago.

  It was right in the middle of Big John’s annual Halloween bash, the very same party that keeps three square city blocks of the city up all night. My current girlfriend, Annie, was in one of her moods, none of which I ever figured out. So when I suggested, after six very fast and hot dances, that we go somewhere cool, take off some costumes and really get hot, she laughed and said she would love to.

  But she wanted to go somewhere new. She said she was tired of my apartment and “those old squeaky bed springs.” She wanted to be daring. “Really live,” was the way I think she put it.

  So we ended up under Fred.

  We left the party with a wave at Big John and headed downtown. I was wearing my Buckey the Space Pirate costume, with the white tights, white cape, lace shirt, saber, and plumed white hat. Most people thought I looked like one of the Three Musketeers, but what the he
ll did they know about space pirates, anyway?

  Annie had on her Queen of the Alien Warlords’ costume made up of black tights, high black boots, and lots of chains over a very open-necked blouse. On her head she wore this three-foot tall jeweled headdress that gave the entire costume a feeling of power. The only problem was that she kept forgetting to duck when going through doors.

  I didn’t exactly know what Annie had in mind when she said “daring,” but I figured Russell Park might fit. And it was close by. I didn’t feel like walking too far dressed as Buckey, especially in this part of the city.

  Russell Park was the second oldest park in the city. I’d been there a few times, mostly passing through. It was one of those places where old people sat around on the benches and watched the young mothers ignore their children. It measured a half a block wide, a block long, and was filled with benches, small patches of grass, and big old oak trees. But it didn’t smell much like a park because there just wasn’t enough green to hold back the smells of the city.

  We ended up under one of the biggest trees in the park, tucked off in one corner, near a hedge and a wooden bench that looked like no one had sat on it since the First World War. There I hoped we would have the least chance of getting seen, yet give Annie the thrill she needed.

  To say Annie was thrilled would have been putting it lightly. She liked the idea of making love out in the open. In the two months we’d gone out she said we’d never done anything this much “fun.”

  “My dear Queen Annie,” I said, taking my plumed hat off and bowing deeply at the waist while sweeping the hat along the grass. “Will this place of repose suit a lady of your stature?” She always loved it when I went formal on her.

  “You have done well, faithful servant,” she said, smiling. Then she reached up, took off her headdress, and sat it against the base of the tree. Then the chains came over her head, then the blouse. She was working on taking off the tights before I had enough common sense to start getting undressed too.

  She was totally nude and lying on the grass by the time I had gotten my boots and saber off. So instead of finishing undressing, I went to work, kissing that soft skin, starting at her right ear and working my way down. I was doing my best to not miss a spot on that beautiful body, when this deep voice came out of nowhere.

  “There was a young lady from Hunt

  Whose body could take a small punt.

  Her mother said, ‘Annie,

  It matches your fanny,

  Which never was that of a runt.’”

  I thought my heart was going to explode right out of my chest.

  I expected to look up and see a policeman standing there with a big nightstick, slapping it into his palm as he smiled down at us. We were going to end up in jail. I just knew it. Mom would never understand.

  So from between her legs I glanced quickly around. No one. At least in sight.

  “What did you mean by that?” Annie said, pushing me away and sitting up. “That seemed like a pretty crude thing to say, especially when you were doing what you were doing. And just what the hell is a punt?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “It’s a flat-bottomed boat that is propelled by thrusts from a pole,” the voice said.

  Annie glanced quickly around, then stood up and stared down at me, hands on her hips. “I don’t think I like you anymore,” she said and pulled on her black tights.

  “But I didn’t say anything,” I pleaded.

  “Then who did,” she asked. “And you know, if you were any bigger than a pencil, you wouldn’t think I was so large.”

  “A pencil?” I said. “But—”

  She pulled her blouse quickly on, grabbed the chains and headdress and stormed off with me still there on the grass trying to get my boots back on. “But— But— But—” I said over and over as she disappeared through an opening in the hedge.

  “There was a young fellow of Buckingham

  Wrote a treatise on girls and on fucking them.

  A learned Parsee

  Taught him Gamahuchee,

  So he added a chapter on sucking them.”

  “Who’s there?” I quickly turned around, but couldn’t see anyone. The deep baritone voice sounded like it had come from right beside me. “Come out, damn you!”

  I pulled on my boots and saber and checked behind the trunk of the old tree, then in the hedges, and then in the branches of the tree itself. No one. In fact, the entire little park looked completely deserted.

  “Aren’t you even curious,” the voice asked. Again it sounded as if it was coming from right beside my head. I spun around, then checked my shirt for hidden microphones someone might have slipped in at the party. Nothing.

  “All right,” I said. “I give up. What’s the joke?”

  “Oh, no joke,” the voice said. “But I wonder if you are curious as to what Gamahuchee means. Most people would be.”

  “Who’s talking?” I shouted at the dimly lit park. This was getting damned annoying. It was going to take me a week to calm Annie down, if she would even talk to me again.

  “I’ll tell you who I am if you first ask me what Gamahuchee means.”

  “Oh, for hell’s sake,” I checked once more in the limbs of the tree, in the hedge, and around the trunk. Just one old oak tree. No one anywhere near.

  Finally, I gave up and sat down. “All right, what the hell does Gamahuchee mean?”

  “No one is really sure,” the voice said.

  “Great,” I said. “You—”

  “But it is thought to have a Japanese derivation, and in the context of the limerick, it refers to oragenitalism. Or, in more current terminology, oral sex.”

  “I could have figured out as much,” I said. “If I really gave a shit. Now would you please tell me who the hell you are? And where you are so you can laugh and I can kill you?”

  “I am the tree you now repose under. I refer to myself as Fred. I am sure you would not like to hear the story of how I came to acquire that name, even though it is quite interesting.”

  “You’re right,” I said, looking up into the thick green leaves of the tree. “I wouldn’t. And I don’t buy this for a minute. Where’s the speaker hidden?”

  “I am really the tree,” the voice said, sadly. “Why don’t you believe me? Dressed as you are, I had hoped you at least would believe me.”

  “Well I don’t!” I shouted up into the tree. “And there’s not a damned thing wrong with how I’m dressed.” I felt immediately stupid for shouting. Somewhere, someone was laughing their fool head off and I was playing along. I stood and headed for the entrance to the park. A joke was a joke. But Buckey the Space Pirate had let this one go too far.

  TWO

  By the next afternoon, no one had come up to me and laughed at how much they had got me. And Annie didn’t show one sign of talking to me no matter how much I pounded on her door. The only way she was going to ever speak to me again was if I proved to her that it wasn’t me who had accused her of being able to do strange things with boats.

  If I uncovered whoever the joker was, I could prove to her it wasn’t me. So that evening I found myself back down at the park under the old tree.

  “You look much more normal for these times dressed as you are today,” the voice said as I walked up. I had on a tee shirt and Levi’s. “Would you like to hear another limerick?”

  “Whoever you are,” I said as calmly as I could. “Please show yourself.”

  “I am showing myself. I’m shading you from the sun. What more do you want? Don’t you like my limericks. I have one I made up for a young couple back thirty, maybe forty years ago. I was much smaller then and they were one of the first who used my shelter for the purpose that you were using it for yesterday. I feel it is one of my best limericks. And by the way, my name is Fred.”

  “Fred. Sure. You told me.” I moved slowly around the tree trying to humor the voice while spotting exactly where the speaker was hidden. “You know you could have at least waited until we
finished. And I’m not buying this talking tree line. I know someone’s behind all this and when I find out who, I— I—”

  “Do what you like,” the voice said. “I won’t be around much longer for you to believe or not believe.”

  “Sure.” I searched through some high grass near a sprinkler head. “You’re just going to pull up roots and walk away. Right?”

  “Hardly,” Fred said.

  “All right then,” I said and went back to searching the trunk, feeling for any loose bark. “Why don’t you tell me, for starters, how you can talk. Some witch cast a spell over you or something?”

  “I suppose it could be called magic,” Fred said. “But I prefer to think of it as the miracle of life. Actually us trees are much more intelligent than you humans think and have very long memories.”

  “Sure. Sure. All from the miracle of life.” I said, as sarcastically as I could make my voice sound. “So how’d that get you a voice?”

  “I don’t actually know. I don’t actually have vocal cords as you do, but I can project my thoughts to make humans hear the thoughts as a voice. You see, ninety-seven years ago, a sailor visited a brothel here in this fine city. The man used a prophylactic. It was disposed of in the alley outside of the brothel and a very young girl found it a short time later. She took an acorn from my mother, put it in the sperm and planted the entire thing here. The young girl watered me carefully for the first two years until she died, ran over by a wagon right in front of me. Poor child. Of course, there was nothing I could have done.”

  I had kept looking the entire time he had been talking and still hadn’t found one hint of any speaker, microphone, or wiring. The voice seemed to come from everywhere around the tree and inside my head at the same time. “You don’t really expect me to believe that?” I said.

  “You asked,” Fred said. “Would you like to hear another limerick? I know all of the good old ones.”