The Big Front Yard: And Other Stories

  “I can’t write,” he said. “Angela, no matter how I try, I can’t make it come out right. The machine is haywire and the tapes are threadbare and most of them are patched.”

  “What have you had to eat today?”

  “I had the beers with you and I had some bocca.”

  “That isn’t eating. You wash your face and change into some different clothes and we’ll go downstairs and get you some food.”

  “I have eating money.”

  “I know you have. You told me about the advance from Irving.”

  “It wasn’t an advance.”

  “I know it wasn’t, Kemp.”

  “What about the alien?”

  “It’ll be all right – at least long enough for you to get a bite to eat. You can’t help it by standing here. You don’t know how to help it.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Of course I am. Now get going and wash your dirty face. And don’t forget your ears.”

  V

  Jasper Hansen was alone in the Bright Star bar. They went over to his table and sat down. Jasper was finishing a dish of sauerkraut and pig’s knuckles and was drinking wine with it, which seemed a bit blasphemous.

  “Where’s everyone else?” asked Angela.

  “There’s a party down the street,” said Jasper. “Someone sold a book.”

  “Someone that we know?”

  “Hell, no,” Jasper said. “Just someone sold a book. You don’t have to know a guy to go to his party when he sells a book.”

  “I didn’t hear anything about it.”

  “Neither did the rest of the bunch. Someone looked in at the door and hollered about the party and everyone took off. Everyone but me. I can’t monkey with no party. I’ve got work to do.”

  “Free food?” asked Angela.

  “Yeah. Don’t it beat you, though. Here we are, honorable and respected craftsmen, and every one of us will break a leg to grab himself a sandwich and a drink.”

  “Times are tough,” said Hart.

  “Not with me,” said Jasper. “I keep working all the time.”

  “But work doesn’t solve the main problem.”

  Jasper regarded him thoughtfully, tugging at his chin.

  “What else is there?” he demanded. “Inspiration? Dedication? Genius? Go ahead and name it. We are mechanics, man. We got machines and tapes. We went into top production two hundred years ago. We mechanized so we could go into top production, so that people could turn out books and stories even if they had no talent at all. We got a job to do. We got to turn out tons of drivel for the whole damn galaxy. We got to keep them drooling over what is going to happen next to sloe-eyed Annie, queen of the far-flung spaceways. And we got to shoot up the lad with her and patch him up and shoot him up and patch him up and…”

  He reached for an evening paper, opened it to a certain page and thumped his fist upon it.

  “Did you see this?” he asked. “The Classic, they call it. Guaranteed to turn out nothing but a classic.”

  Hart snatched the paper from him and there it was, the wondrous yarner he had seen that morning, confronting him in all its glory from the center of a full-page ad.

  “Pretty soon,” said Jasper, “all you’ll need to write is have a lot of money. You can go out and buy a machine like that and say turn out a story and press a button or flip a switch or maybe simply kick it and it’ll cough out a story complete to the final exclamation point.

  “It used to be that you could buy an old beat-up machine for, say, a hundred dollars and you could turn out any quantity of stuff – not good, but salable. Today you got to have a high-priced machine and an expensive camera and a lot of special tape and film. Someday,” he said, with a sudden flare of anger, “the human race will outwit itself. Someday it will mechanize to the point where there won’t be room for humans, but only for machines.”

  “You do all right,” said Angela.

  “That’s because I keep dinging my machine up all the time. It don’t give me no rest. That place of mine is half study and half machine shop and I know as much about electronics as I do about narration.”

  Blake came shuffling over.

  “What’ll it be?” he growled.

  “I’ve eaten,” Angela told him. “All I want is a glass of beer.”

  He turned to Hart. “How about you” he demanded.

  “Give me some of that stuff Jasper has – without the wine.”

  “No cuff,” said Blake.

  “Damn it, who said anything about cuff? Do you expect me to pay you before you bring it?”

  “No,” said Blake. “But immediately I bring it.”

  He turned and shuffled off.

  “Some day,” said Jasper, “there has to be a limit to it. There must be a limit to it and we must be reaching it. You can only mechanize so far. You can assign only so many human activities and duties to intelligent machines. Who, two hundred years ago, would have said that the writing of fiction could have been reduced to a matter of mechanics?”

  “Who, two hundred years ago,” said Hart, “could have guessed that Earth could gear itself to a literary culture? But that is precisely what we have today. Sure, there are factories that build the machines we need and lumbermen who cut the trees for pulp and farmers who grow the food, and all the other trades and skills which are necessary to keep a culture operative. But by and large the Earth today is principally devoted to the production of a solid stream of fiction for the alien trade.”

  “It all goes back to one peculiar trait,” said Jasper. “A most unlikely trait to work – as it does – to our great advantage. We just happen to be the galaxy’s only liars. In a mass of stars where truth is accepted as a universal constant, we are the one exception.”

  “You make it sound so horrible,” protested Angela.

  “I suppose I do, but that’s the way it is. We could have become great traders and skinned all and sundry until they got wise to us. We could have turned our talent for the untruth into many different channels and maybe even avoided getting our heads bashed in. But instead we drifted into the one safe course. Our lying became an easy virtue. Now we can lie to our hearts’ content and they lap it up. No one, nowhere, except right here on Earth, ever even tried to spin a yarn for simple entertainment, or to point a moral or for any other reason. They never attempted it because it would have been a lie, and we are the only liars in the universe of stars.”

  Blake brought the beer for Angela and the pig knuckles for Hart. Hart paid him out of hand.

  “I’ve still got a quarter left,” he said. “Have you any pie?”

  “Apple.”

  “Here,” said Hart, “I’ll pay you in advance.”

  “First,” went on Jasper, “it was told by mouth. Then it was writ by hand and now it’s fabricated by machine. But surely that’s not the end of it. There must be something else. There must be another way, a better way. There must be another step.”

  “I would settle for anything,” said Hart. “Any way at all. I’d even write by hand if I thought I could go on selling.”

  “You can’t!” Angela told him, sharply. “Why, it’s positively indecent to even joke about it. You can say it as a joke just among the three of us, but if I ever hear you –”

  Hart waved his hand. “Let it go. I’m sorry that I said it.”

  “Of course,” said Jasper, “it’s a great testimonial to the cleverness of Man, to the adaptability and resourcefulness of the human race. It is a somewhat ludicrous application of big business methods to what had always been considered a personal profession. But it works. Some day, I have no doubt, we may see the writing business run on production lines, with fiction factories running double shifts.”

  “No,” Angela said. “No, you’re wrong there, Jasper. Even with the mechanization, it’s still the loneliest busi
ness on Earth.”

  “It is,” agreed Jasper. “But I don’t regret the loneliness part. Maybe I should, but I don’t.”

  “It’s a lousy way to make a living,” said Angela, with a strange half-bitterness in her voice. “What are we contributing?”

  “You are making people happy – if you can call some of our readers people. You are supplying entertainment.”

  “And the noble ideas?”

  “There are even a few of those.”

  “It’s more than that,” said Hart. “More than entertainment, more than great ideas. It’s the most innocent and the deadliest propaganda in all of human history. The old writers, before the first space flight, glorified far wandering and galactic conquest and I think that they were justified. But they missed the most important development completely. They couldn’t possibly foresee the way we would do it – with books, not battleships. We’re softening up the galaxy with a constant stream of human thought. Our words are reaching farther than our spaceships ever could.”

  “That’s the point I want to make,” Jasper said, triumphantly. “You hit the point exactly. But if we are to tell the galaxy a story it must be a human story. If we sell them a bill of goods it must be a human bill of goods. And how can we keep it human if we relegate its telling to machines?”

  “But they’re human machines,” objected Angela.

  “A machine can’t be purely human. Basically a machine is universal. It could be Caphian as well as human, or Aldebaran or Draconian or any other race. And that’s not all. We let the machine set the norm. The one virtue of mechanics is that it sets a pattern. And a pattern is deadly in literary matters. It never changes. It keeps on using the same old limp plots in many different guises.

  “Maybe at the moment it makes no difference to the races who are reading us, for as yet they have not developed anything approaching a critical faculty. But it should make some difference to us. It should make some difference in the light of a certain pride of workmanship we are supposed to have. And that is the trouble with machines. They are destroying the pride in us. Once writing was an art. But it is an art no longer. It’s machine-produced, like a factory chair. A good chair, certainly. Good enough to sit on, but not a thing of beauty or of craftsmanship or –”

  The door crashed open and feet pounded on the floor.

  Just inside the door stood Green Shirt and behind him, grinning fiendishly, his band of Caphians.

  Green Shirt advanced upon them happily, with his arms flung wide in greeting. He stopped beside Hart’s chair and clapped a massive hand upon his shoulder.

  “You recall me, don’t you?” he asked in slow and careful English.

  “Sure,” Hart said, gulping. “Sure, I remember you. This is Miss Maret and over there is Mr. Hansen.”

  Green Shirt said, with precise bookishness, “So happy, I assure you.”

  “Have a seat,” said Jasper.

  “Glad to,” said Green Shirt, hauling out a chair. His necklaces jingled musically as he sat down.

  One of the other Caphians said something to him in a rapid-fire alien tongue. Green Shirt answered curtly and waved toward the door. The others marched outside.

  “He is worried,” Green Shirt said. “We will slow – how do you say it – we will slow the ship. They cannot leave without us. But I tell him not to worry. The captain will be glad we slow the ship when he see what we bring back.”

  He leaned forward and tapped Hart upon the knee. “I look for you,” he said. “I look high and wide.”

  “Who is this joker?” Jasper asked.

  “Joker?” asked Green Shirt, frowning.

  “A term of great respect,” Hart hastily assured him.

  “So,” said Green Shirt. “You all write the stories?”

  “Yes. All three of us.”

  “But you write them best.”

  “I wouldn’t say that exactly. You see –”

  “You write the wild and woolly stories? The bang-bangs?”

  “Yeah. I guess I’m guilty.”

  Green Shirt looked apologetic. “Had I known, we would not from the tavern have thrown you out. It was just big fun. We did not know you write the stories. When we find out who you are we try to catch you. But you run and hide.”

  “Just what is going on here, anyhow?” Angela demanded.

  Green Shirt whooped for Blake.

  “Set them up,” he shouted. “These are my friends. Set up the best you have.”

  “The best I have,” Blake said icily, “is Irish whiskey and that costs a buck a shot.”

  “I got the cash,” said Green Shirt. “You get this name I cannot say, and you will get your cash.”

  He said to Hart, “I have a surprise for you, my friend. We love the writers of the bang-bangs. We read them always. We get much stimulation.”

  Jasper guffawed.

  Green Shirt swung about in amazement, his bushy brows contracting.

  “He’s just happy,” Hart explained, quickly. “He likes Irish whiskey.”

  “Fine,” said Green Shirt, beaming. “You drink all you wish. I will give the cash. It is – how do you say – on me.”

  Blake brought the drinks and Green Shirt paid him.

  “Bring the container,” he said.

  “The container?”

  “He means the bottle.”

  “That’ll be twenty dollars,” said Blake.

  “So,” said Green Shirt, paying him.

  They drank the whiskey and Green Shirt said to Hart, “My surprise is that you come with us.”

  “You mean in the ship?”

  “We have never had a real live writer on our planet. You will have a good time. You will stay and write for us.”

  “Well,” said Hart, “I’m not sure –”

  “You try to take the picture. The tavern man explain it all to us. He say it is against the law. He say if I complain it will come big trouble.”

  “You can’t do it, Kemp,” protested Angela. “Don’t let this big hyena bluff you. We’ll pay your fine.”

  “We not complain,” said Green Shirt, gently. “We just with you mop up the condemned place.”

  Blake brought the bottle and thumped it down in the center of the table. Green Shirt picked it up and filled their glasses to the brim.

  “Drink up,” he said and set a fine example.

  He drank and Green Shirt filled his glass again. Hart picked up his glass and twirled it in his fingers.

  There had to be a way out of this mess, he told himself. It was absurd that this thundering barbarian from one of the farther suns should be able to walk into a bar and tell a man to come along with him.

  However, there was no percentage in stirring up a fight – not with ten or eleven Caphians waiting just outside.

  “I explain it to you,” said Green Shirt. “I try hard to explain it well so that you will – so that you will –”

  “Understand,” supplied Jasper Hansen.

  “I thank you, Hansen man. So you will understand. We get the stories only shortly ago. Many of the other races got them long ago, but with us it is new and most wonderful. It takes us – how would you say – out of ourselves. We get many things from other stars, useful things, things to hold in the hand, things to see and use. But from you we get the going of far places, the doing of great deeds, the thinking of great things.”

  He filled the glasses all around again.

  “You understand?” Green Shirt asked.

  They nodded.

  “And now we go.”

  Hart rose slowly to his feet.

  “Kemp, you can’t!” screamed Angela.

  “You shut the mouth,” said Green Shirt.

  Hart marched through the door and out into the street. The other Caphians oozed out of dark alleyways and surrounded him.


  “Off we go,” said Green Shirt, happily. “It gives big time on Caph.”

  Halfway to the river, Hart stopped in the middle of the street.

  “I can’t do it,” he said.

  “Can’t do what?” asked Green Shirt, prodding him along.

  “I let you think,” said Hart, “that I was the man you wanted. I did it because I’d like to see your planet. But it isn’t fair. I’m not the man you want.”

  “You write the bang-bangs, do you not? You think up the wild and woolies?”

  “Certainly. But not really good ones. Mine aren’t the kind where you hang on every word. There’s another man who can do it better.”

  “This man we want,” said Green Shirt. “Can you tell us where to find him?”

  “That’s easy. The other man at the table with us. The one who was so happy when you ordered whiskey.”

  “You mean the Hansen man?”

  “He is the one, exactly.”

  “He write the bang-bangs good?”

  “Much better than I do. He’s a genius at it.”

  Green Shirt was overcome with gratitude. He hugged Hart to him in an extravagant expression of good will.

  “You fair,” he said. “You fine. It was nice of you to tell us.”

  A window banged up in a house across the street and a man stuck his head out.

  “If you guys don’t break it up,” he bellowed, “I’ll call the cops.”

  “We shatter the peace,” sighed Green Shirt. “It is a queer law you have.”

  The window banged down again.

  Green Shirt put a friendly hand upon Hart’s shoulder. “We love the wild and woolies,” he said gravely. “We want the very best. We thank you. We find this Hansen man.”

  He turned around and loped back up the street, followed by his ruffians.

  Hart stood on the corner and watched them go. He drew a deep breath and let it slowly out.

  It had been easy, he told himself, once you got the angle. And it had been Jasper, actually, who had given him the angle. Truth is regarded as a universal constant, Jasper had said. We are the only liars.

  It had turned out tough on Jasper – a downright dirty trick. But the guy wanted to go on vacation, didn’t he? And here was the prospect of a travel jaunt which would be really worthwhile. He’d refused the use of his machine and he had guffawed insultingly when Green Shirt had asked about the wild and woolies. If ever a guy had it coming to him, Jasper Hansen was that guy.