The Metrognome and Other Stories Read online

  "The farmers put up the fences to keep out the grazers of the Veldt as well as the Lopers. All the time they thought the Lopers were against the farms, when in reality all they objected to were the fences." He paced back and forth. For some reason he was unable to sit still these days.

  "The fences cut across many of the old runs, blocked traditional paths across the Veldt. The farmers couldn't understand why the Lopers didn't just go around the fences. They didn't understand that they were preventing the Lopers from their proper way of running. As everyone now ought to know, running is everything to them. It's not just something they do to move from place to place."

  "The Tuaregs of track," the xenologist replied, brushing at her gray hair. She smiled. "The gates in the fences will be sufficient, do you think?"

  Jachal nodded as he paced. "That and the agreement which states that any new farm will permit the Lopers free passage through its boundaries."

  "You've opened more than one kind of gate for the Lopers, Jachal Morales. "

  He shrugged. "Sometimes you have to live with people to understand their needs and wants."

  She studied this peculiar man curiously. "What about you, speaking of gates? What will you do now? I've heard about the incident you were involved in here. You'll have to come to trial, of course, but it will be before a legitimate magistrate, not a mob. If you need help or a reference, after what you've done, I'm sure that I can arrange . . ."

  He grinned at her and moved to the tent exit. Outside, atop the nearby hill whose volcanic convolutions protruded above the Veldt grasses, he knew Breang and the others would be waiting.

  "Thanks for the offer, but I don't think I'm ready to stand trial. Not just yet, anyway. See, I've been running all my life. That's what I told them." He gestured toward the distant, beckoning hill. "They misinterpreted what I said. Misinterpretation in this case led to mutual understanding. What I didn't realize at the time was that it worked both ways.

  "See, when nobody's chasing me " He left his last words behind him as he fled through the portal, advancing in long, steady, free strides toward the far hilltop. " I've discovered that I like running."

  UNAMUSING

  Readers are always asking what this or that writer artist or composer is really dike, how he or she functions, how, as Vaughn Bode said, they "do the trick. ' Creative inspiration takes many forms, and motivation arises not always in the head.

  After ideas, readers usually ask how a writer comes up with his characters. Sometimes they can be based on real people, but more often they're wholly imagined. Frequently they're a composite of many people or many individual traits drawn from real life, spiced up by the author's imagination.

  Most of my characters are entirely imagined for a very good reason. Just as I write science fiction and fantasy in order to see places 1'd never otherwise be able to visit, so I populate these far reaches of the mind with individuals 1'd like to meet. Or in the case of the bad guys, with people I wouldn't like to meet. Just for variety, I once wrote a book where I flip flopped completely and based every character in the story on someone I'd actually met (the book was Caehalot).

  Never did I have the audacity to base a character on a colleague. But as I mentioned previously, there are times when a story forces itself on the writer. There's nothing tougher to banish from your mind than a story that insists on being written, even if it doesn't take long to tell it.

  The character trait I saw in this colleague that so intrigued me I also saw in other creative individuals to a greater or lesser degree. I could not, would not make the character in the resultant story a straightforward portrait of my colleague. My work is fiction. That does not prohibit a real person from serving as the springboard.

  I first encountered Nevis Grampion at the one man show of his work the Met put on last winter. Or maybe I should say the show he put on for the Met. Never was an artist greater than the sum of his aesthetic parts than Grampion. He was his own best canvas, utilizing words with the same skill as he did his palette. His paintings were bold, shocking, sometimes outrageous, never dull. He'd perfected his technique through twenty years of arduous practice in his barn loft studio. Arizona is full of old barns and new artists. The longevity of the barns usually exceeds that of the artists.

  His work ranged from the competent to the brilliant. Not that the critics cared. Grampion was good copy, and they delighted in provoking him to comment on the state of art today, the position of critics, the power of the large museums and galleries. Grampion's response rarely disappointed them.

  What attracted me to him, however, was neither his skill with the brush nor his calculatedly abrasive personality but rather the demon squatting on his right shoulder.

  He was not an easy man to isolate. People clustered about him like cat hair on an angora sweater. He both attracted and repelled. Nevis Grampion, the Elephant' Man of art. I watched the people watching him and was reminded of witnesses to an auto accident.

  Eventually I managed to get him alone by dint of following him through the gallery hall until the novelty that was himself had begun to wear off. He was polite to me, indeed, cordial. I think he sensed something of a kindred artistic spirit. Besides, I didn't want something from him. Only to chat. I think that made me unique among those attending the show.

  We discussed respective influences, I alluding to Wyeth and Bierstadt and Lindsay, he to Goya and Klee and Dali. We debated the relative merits of acrylic and airbrush, which I prefer, to his choice of oil. He bawled me out for employing the easier media, and I suffered his well meant criticisms patiently.

  Eventually I could stand it no longer. I gestured toward his right shoulder, said, "Nevis, maybe I'm crazy "

  "Ain't we all?" he put in. He was unable to resist a chance to be clever. A congenital condition, I believe, that did not endear him to his public. The moreso because he usually was.

  " but is there or is there not what appears to be a small gargoyle perched on your shoulder?"

  For the first time that day some of the slick veneer he wore for his fans slid away, and I had a rare glimpse of the real Nevis Grampion.

  "I'll be damned. You can see him?"

  "Quite clearly." I moved close to study the apparition, which was ignoring me completely. I believe it was asleep at the time. It was quite solid, with nothing of the aspect of a dream about it.

  "It is bright red, with splotches of orange, about a foot high in its squatting position, and has four horns projecting from its bald skull."

  Grampion nodded slowly, watching me closely. "You see him, all right. You're the first . . . no, the second one, ever. Maxwell was the other."

  I thought of Jarod Maxwell, Grampion's close friend and an exquisite portraitist in his own right.

  "What," I asked, "is it doing there?"

  Grampion made that funny half pleased, half angry grin that was featured so prominently in the papers. "His name's Clamad. He's my artistic muse."

  Having already accepted the presence of this strange creature, it was easy to accept this new revelation. "Your artistic muse? You mean he inspires you?" In truth, upon close inspection I thought I could see certain qualities in the creature's face that had been reproduced numerous times in Grampion's paintings.

  "You could say that. Clamad's been with me a long time. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be a painter."

  "Really? What would you be?"

  He shrugged. "Something more relaxing, less demanding of the mind. A long haul trucker, maybe, or s librarian. But not a painter. Too painful. But I determined to be one long ago. I worked and worked at it, and one day, whammo, there he was. He's been with me ever since."

  Of all of us, I'd always thought of Grampion as a born painter. To learn otherwise was something of a letdown, though it in no way detracted from the brilliance of his work.

  "Can't you get rid of him?"

  He smiled sadly. "Don't you think I've tried? He helped me master my technique, bring to the fore everything I always wanted to say in my
work. But once I'd accomplished that, he refused to leave. He drives me to keep topping myself, to hunt for perfection. Won't even let me sleep unless I at least begin a new study every day." His eyes were growing slightly wild as his voice dropped to a whisper.

  "Look, you can see him. That means you must understand, at least a little, even if your own work is still too facile, too untested. What if I could persuade him to switch places? Would you have him?"

  The offer took me aback. Around our little corner the party continued to seethe. Conversation, cookies, dried-out little sandwiches, liquor, and carbonated waters, and in the middle of it Grampion, the demon, myself.

  Clamad the muse shifted slightly on his clawed crimson feet, grunting in his sleep. I shivered and even so was tempted.

  "If I agree, what will happen to me?"

  "Not much," said Grampion a little too eagerly. "He'll sharpen your style immediately, fasten on what natural uniqueness you possess, refine your technique, clarify your visions, bring out the hidden inside you and show you how to put it to canvas. Or Masonite, or art board, whatever you choose. You'll be world famous within a year."

  "And what does he demand in return?" The demon yawned.

  Grampion eyed his shoulder. "Only responsiveness and artistic dedication. His pleasures are simple. He fastens himself to artists with potential because he likes to see the results. Paradoxically, he can't paint a lick himself."

  "Let me think about it." Suddenly the hall seemed dark, the overhead lights dim. The conversation around us had begun to fade as if something had deliberately muted all other talk, and I felt my throat constrict.

  "Sure. Sure, you think about it. Think about what you're missing with your silly pretty pictures. Acclaim, fortune, the admiration of your colleagues. Think about it." He was as disappointed as he was sarcastic.

  "If he's such a prize to have around, why are you so anxious to get rid of him?"

  "Who said I was anxious? I'm just trying to help out a younger artist, that's all. I I need to rest. I've done it all, accomplished everything I'd hoped to do as a painter. It's time to share the wealth. Maybe I'll take up tatting. You think about it. When you're ready, come see me."

  He fumbled in his pocket, produced a business card.

  "You know Paradise Valley?"

  "A little."

  He nodded once, then turned and vanished into the crowd. I watched him borne away by several obsequious collectors, Clamed the demon visible like a red searchlight above the clutter of humanity. A searchlight only I could see.

  I don't know why I went up to the house that night. Temptation, temptation. A subject I'd often tried to render in paint and now was acting out.

  I went home thinking of Grampion's words, of the wealth and independence his work had brought him, the independence to thumb his nose at even the most influential critics, those same critics who casually dismissed my own work as purely "commercial," a stigma I had striven for years to escape.

  Nowadays I am wiser, but then I was young and impatient.

  There was no answer to the bell, but the door was unlocked. I considered. Had I not established a rapport of sorts with Grampion? Surely he would not object to my surprising him, even at so late an hour. He was said to be fond of surprises. I fancied he would be happy to see me, for though he had many casual friends, he knew few who understood him.

  I called out past the opened door. There was no reply. Now that was odd, I thought. Surely he would not go out and leave the place unlocked. I entered, made my way through the central atrium, the kitchen area, down a hallway toward bedrooms unslept in. By my watch it was eleven o'clock. The moon lit my path.

  Gone out for a minute, I thought. Artists are notoriously unpunctual eaters. Cake and chocolate at midnight in place of a balanced meal. I resolved to wait until he returned.

  A grandfather clock boomed portentously from the salon, announcing the time. I perused the well stocked library, the objets d'art.

  Then there was a sound. A stilled cry, almost a whining. I frowned and debated within myself. Grampion had many enemies. The door, unlocked. Could I have stumbled onto a burglary or worse? Was Grampion lying somewhere nearby, bleeding and in need of immediate help?

  I armed myself with the nearest heavy object atrophy of carved marble, presented by some society of European avant garde artists and moved cautiously in the direction of the sound. As I drew near a part of the house I had not yet visited, the rhythmic roll of anxious breathing reached me. I was reminded of a marathon runner well along his course.

  A door was open, and light stole from beyond. Cautiously I pushed it open all the way.

  Grampion stood in his vaulted studio, in front of an easel. A half completed canvas rested there, full of mad, violent colors and strokes. The subject matter was still indistinct, but the breathtaking talent behind the work was already in evidence.

  Crouching behind Grampion was a giant, glowing, red thing. Its eyes were open now, the pupils black slits that probed the canvas. No longer decorative and modest, it was immense and muscular. Each of its huge, clawed hands held one of Grampion's wrists prisoner. There was a brush in each hand.

  Grampion turned and saw me. I was shocked at his appearance. His face was flushed, his eyes bulging and red, his expression one of desperation born of complete exhaustion.

  "Help me, Malcolm!," he pleaded, his voice hoarse, the words painful. "For the love of God, make him stop!"

  My gaze moved from the thin, drawn specter of the painter to the demon who would not let him rest, who drove him to brilliance and madness and near death. At that moment he, Clamad, noticed me. He let out a threatening growl that turned unexpectedly into something else. Something at once less and more inimical.

  A flicker of interest.

  I turned and fled screaming from the studio, from that accursed house, down the road outside, my path lit only by the moon. I fled past my parked car and did not stop running until I was aboard a city bus and on my way home. The other passengers stared at me. I did not see them.

  I saw Grampion several times after that. He was always unnaturally subdued in my presence but unapologetic. Only I knew the real reason for those circles around his eyes and the nervous, jittery movements of his body. Clamad rode his shoulders as always, asleep as always, each time seemingly a little plumper. I wondered just how he fed off Grampion, for it was evident that he did, but by mutual consent we restricted our subsequent conversations to art and related topics.

  I've given up art for art's sake. Now I make my living in advertising, where there is little need for the dirty inspiration a muse like Clamad can provide. But every so often I will see a thoughtful shadow flitting about the room, probing the work of Mark or Jillian or Carrie, searching for promise, for talent, for a victim.

  I avoid mirrors.

  THE THUNDERER

  The wonderful thing about English (the rotten thing is spelling, but that has nothing to do with this story) is that it's like a big vacuum cleaner. It sucks up everything, useful or not, and compacts it in one place where you can pick through stuff at your leisure, sorting out the useful from the lint and dead things. Not only individual words and phrases but patterns of speech as well.

  Not long ago The Economist magazine did an extended survey of international English, remarking on its versatility and ready adaptability to the needs of today. The gist was that a supplier of raw materials in Bombay could talk to his dealer in Singapore to ship via Kenya to London and New York even if he couldn't talk to his neighbor down the block. Putting Urdu and Hindi aside, neighbors would end up conversing in English.

  Because the English language lives while others wither and die. In English words are never thrown out with the garbage. More often than not they're resurrected and given new life and meaning. Witness "gay, " "cool, " and "gas" as examples of old words given new meanings. Sometimes a word can acquire and dose several meanings in a mere lifetime, such as "bitchin'. " Words are discarded as rapidly as new ones are invented to take
their place, so we have "rad" replacing "reet. "

  Speech patterns can be as fascinating as the words they employ. When stirred together, they form a linguistic gumbo that can create a mythology all its own. Plain everyday talk can suggest any number of phantasmagoric possibilities.

  "His feet big and flat bottomed like heavy pirogue. His legs, dey thick as oaks and tall as slash pine. His body one great slab o' rock that flake off side o' tired old mountain an' de arms hang from dat like twisty cypress.

  "He got a cane field full o' hair and skin de color o' de best bottom soil, cloud big cheeks all sunk in and eyes like swamp pool wid no bottom. When de trees bend, when de of river talk loud, when de bull Gator roar his lovey song, when de crook flash walk de sky, den we say dat de Thunderer walkin', de Thunder stallkin', de Thunderer . . . he talkin! . . ."

  Old Louisiana folk tale

  Out southwest of New Orleans there are places in counties with names like Iberia and Cameron, Vermilion and Terrebonne, where sometimes even the rain has no ambition. Instead of falling hard and quicksilver, it just sort of dribbles down out of a winter sky the color of soiled mattresses. By the time it's worked its lazy way through the obstructing leaves and bushes and Spanish moss, you can almost hear it sigh in relief as it finally touches ground.

  The Texon geologist tugged the slick bill of her rain cap lower over her forehead, and still the rain crawled for her eyes.

  "You sure that place is around here, Crossett?"

  "Yes, ma'am." The guide grinned. His narrow face erupted with alternating squares of ivory and gold, a thin parody of a Vasarely print. His hand, which always shook slightly, was an extension of the outboard motor. Voice of man and voice of motor were also much alike: steady, unexcited purrs.