Come Back, Dr Caligari Read online

  The other contestants were a young man in white pajamas named Arthur Pick, a karate expert, and an airline pilot in full uniform, Wallace E. Rice. “Just be natural,” Miss Arbor said, “and of course be frank. We score on the basis of the validity of your answers, and of course that’s measured by the polygraph.” “What’s this about a polygraph?” the airline pilot said. “The polygraph measures the validity of your answers,” Miss Arbor said, her lips glowing whitely. “How else are we going to know if you’re…” “Lying?” Wallace E. Rice supplied. The contestants were connected to the machine and the machine to a large illuminated tote board hanging over their heads. The master of ceremonies, Peterson noted without pleasure, resembled the President and did not look at all friendly.

  The program began with Arthur Pick. Arthur Pick got up in his white pajamas and gave a karate demonstration in which he broke three half-inch pine boards with a single kick of his naked left foot. Then he told how he had disarmed a bandit, late at night at the A&P where he was an assistant manager, with a maneuver called a “rip-choong” which he demonstrated on the announcer. “How about that?” the announcer caroled. “Isn’t that something? Audience?” The audience responded enthusiastically and Arthur Pick stood modestly with his hands behind his back. “Now,” the announcer said, ‘let’s play Who Am I? And here’s your host, Bill Lemmon!” No, he doesn’t look like the President, Peterson decided. “Arthur,” Bill Lemmon said, “for twenty dollars — do you love your mother?” “Yes,” Arthur Pick said. “Yes, of course.” A bell rang, the tote board flashed, and the audience screamed. “He’s lying!” the announcer shouted, “lying! lying! lying!” “Arthur,” Bill Lemmon said, looking at his index cards, “the polygraph shows that the validity of your answer is… questionable. Would you like to try it again? Take another crack at it?” “You’re crazy,” Arthur Pick said. “Of course I love my mother.” He was fishing around inside his pajamas for a handkerchief. “Is your mother watching the show tonight, Arthur?” “Yes, Bill, she is.” “How long have you been studying karate?” “Two years, Bill.” “And who paid for the lessons?” Arthur Pick hesitated. Then he said: “My mother, Bill.” “They were pretty expensive, weren’t they, Arthur?” “Yes, Bill, they were.” “How expensive?” “Five dollars an hour.” “Your mother doesn’t make very much money, does she, Arthur?” “No, Bill, she doesn’t.” “Arthur, what does your mother do for a living?” “She’s a garment worker, Bill. In the garment district.” “And how long has she worked down there?” “All her life, I guess. Since my old man died.” “And she doesn’t make very much money, you said.” “No. But she wanted to pay for the lessons. She insisted on it.” Bill Lemmon said: “She wanted a son who could break boards with his feet?” Peterson’s liver leaped and the tote board spelled out, in huge, glowing white letters, the words bad faith. The airline pilot, Wallace E. Rice, was led to reveal that he had been caught, on a flight from Omaha to Miami, with a stewardess sitting on his lap and wearing his captain’s cap, that the flight engineer had taken a Polaroid picture, and that he had been given involuntary retirement after nineteen years of faithful service. “It was perfectly safe,” Wallace E. Rice said, “you don’t understand, the automatic pilot can fly that plane better than I can.” He further confessed to a lifelong and intolerable itch after stewardesses which had much to do, he said, with the way their jackets fell just on top of their hips, and his own jacket with the three gold stripes on the sleeve darkened with sweat until it was black.

  I was wrong, Peterson thought, the world is absurd. The absurdity is punishing me for not believing in it. I affirm the absurdity. On the other hand, absurdity is itself absurd. Before the emcee could ask the first question, Peterson began to talk. “Yesterday,” Peterson said to the television audience, “in the typewriter in front of the Olivetti showroom on Fifth Avenue, I found a recipe for Ten Ingredient Soup that included a stone from a toad’s head. And while I stood there marveling a nice old lady pasted on the elbow of my best Haspel suit a little blue sticker reading THIS INDIVIDUAL IS A PART OF THE COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY FOR GLOBAL DOMINATION OF THE ENTIRE GLOBE. Coming home I passed a sign that said in ten-foot letters COWARD SHOES and heard a man singing “Golden Earrings” in a horrible voice, and last night I dreamed there was a shoot-out at our house on Meat Street and my mother shoved me in a closet to get me out of the line of fire.” The emcee waved at the floor manager to turn Peterson off, but Peterson kept talking. “In this kind of a world,” Peterson said, “absurd if you will, possibilities nevertheless proliferate and escalate all around us and there are opportunities for beginning again. I am a minor artist and my dealer won’t even display my work if he can help it but minor is as minor does and lightning may strike even yet. Don’t be reconciled. Turn off your television sets,” Peterson said, “cash in your life insurance, indulge in a mindless optimism. Visit girls at dusk. Play the guitar. How can you be alienated without first having been connected? Think back and remember how it was.” A man on the floor in front of Peterson was waving a piece of cardboard on which something threatening was written but Peterson ignored him and concentrated on the camera with the little red light. The little red light jumped from camera to camera in an attempt to throw him off balance but Peterson was too smart for it and followed wherever it went. “My mother was a royal virgin,” Peterson said, “and my father a shower of gold. My childhood was pastoral and energetic and rich in experiences which developed my character. As a young man I was noble in reason, infinite in faculty, in form express and admirable, and in apprehension…” Peterson went on and on and although he was, in a sense, lying, in a sense he was not.

  Scan Notes, v3.0: Proofed carefully against DT, italics and special characters intact. Special care was taken with all aspects of this file, including complete paragraph checks, due to the non-traditional nature of the work.