Дональд Уэстлейк: Collected Stories

“You could get a government pension,” I said. “Live in a vine- covered cottage outside Richmond and write delicate little stories about the Revolution.”

“Young man,” said Patrick, rising to his feet and glowering, with the old oratorical fire in his eye, “do you realize that if you spell the Revolution with a small r you have something that one of your politicians just recently said always leads to tyranny? Do you realize that I, and all the others with me were a bunch of subversives? Men who refused to do their duty as citizens and pay taxes for the mutual security and national defense of the British empire, who stored up loads of munitions in hiding places, who plotted to overthrow the government ? More than that, they did overthrow the government. Dammit man, those aren’t your forebears, I think all those men were sterile, and only the Tories, the loyal, conforming Tories, had any children. Bunch of mealy-mouthed welfare statists! Bah!”

I was a little taken aback by Patrick’s sudden blast, but I said, “You’re confused. It’s the welfare statists who are trying to overthrow the government.”

“What?” He actually got purple in the face. “Social security, public power, unemployment, insurance, free college education, all the rest of it, the stupid junk they’ve been cramming down the Tories’ gullible gullets, and you try to tell me it’s the welfare statists who are trying to overthrow the government? Hell, man, they are the government.”

“What’s wrong with Social Security and free college educations?” I asked. “They’re progressive.”

“Progressive! If I told you suicide was progressive, you’d run out and kill yourself. There’s nothing wrong with government insurance. But there’s everything wrong with compulsory government insurance. And giving everybody college educations. What are most of them going to do with all that pretty knowledge? All they’re going to do is be unhappy all their lives because they were prepared for a better job than the one they got. There aren’t enough jobs needing a college education for all these young boobs. Somebody’s going to have to dig the coal and make the undershirts.”

He clutched his stomach in unfond reminiscence. “Oh, the stomach ache I got when Social Security went through! I couldn’t eat anything but liquids for three weeks.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “What did Social Security have to do with your stomach?”

“Every time the United States loses some of its liberty, I get closer to death. They even off in me all the time. My health and the nation’s freedom. The Civil War conscription gave me a heart murmur. The First World War conscription gave me high blood pressure. This one gave me coronary thrombosis. Excise taxes laid me low for two months.

“Of course, there’ve been times when I was in worse shape than I’m in right now. When the Alien and Sedition Act was passed, I went stone deaf, blind in the right eye, and paralyzed from the waist down. During prohibition, it was my right arm that was paralyzed. Couldn’t bend my elbow to save myself.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you doing anything special, got any important engagements, anything like that?”

He shook his head. “No. Why?”

“How would you like to live at my house? I have plenty of room, and all the privacy you want. I’d like to examine you some more.”

He thought for a while. “All right,” he said at last. “As long as it’s examine, not investigate. I’ve had a beautiful set of ulcers since that word took on its new meaning.”

“By the way,” I said. “Your headache. How long have you had it?”

“About three weeks,” he said.

“You said your ills come from lost liberties. What liberty did we lose three weeks ago? I thought for a minute. “Around the first of the year. End of ’54, beginning of ’55. What liberty did we lose then?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. “Sometimes I get the ache before the thing becomes public. Whatever it is, we’ll know about it soon enough. And, whatever it is, the Tories all over the country will welcome it with open arms, as long as somebody tells them it’s progressive. Bah!”

“Don’t be bitter,” I told him. “You’d be murder in a political discussion.”

“I can back up my statements with diseases,” he said.

“I’ll close the office now,” I said, “and take you round to my house.”

I closed the office and brought him home.

There was a long pause. Then, the editor said, “Is that all?”

“Just about,” said Lambert. “I examined him some more, did what I could for the headache. He claimed it was getting worse. He first came to me three months ago. After a week, I went to see a psychiatrist. He suggested I go away somewhere for a nice long rest, so I brought him home to talk to Patrick. He went home dazed, but convinced that I was sane and Patrick was alive and, well, Patrick. I got a written statement from him and from two other psychiatrists.

Just in case I ever wanted to tell anyone about this without Patrick around, for proof.” Lambert reached into his breast pocket, withdrew a flat envelope. “Here they are,” he said.

The editor looked at the notes. He knew the names signed to the bottom of them. All three said that Doctor Philip Lambert was sane, that Patrick Henry lived, and that Lambert’s account of him was correct.

“Okay,” said the editor, dropping the notes on his desk. “Say I believe you. So what? Do you want some free publicity for Patrick, or what?”

Lambert shook his head. “I told you. Patrick died last night, at eight-seven.”

“Then what do you want?” asked the editor. “Just an obituary notice?”

“No, no, no,” said Lambert impatiently. “Didn’t I tell you that Patrick had received liberty instead of death, that until all liberty was gone from the United States, he could not die?”

“What are you trying to say?” asked the editor.

“That at eight-seven last night, we lost the last of our liberties. I don’t know what it was, what happened, anything about it. All I know is that this is no longer a free nation.”

“Now that’s enough,” said the editor. “There I can check you up. I run a paper here, and I put in it anything I want to put in it. I say whatever I feel like saying. If I couldn’t, then this wouldn’t be a free country. But I can, so your Patrick Henry story is a lot of—”

The door opened and two men walked in.

He was just another madman in a world full of madmen. Luckily he had enough sense to see a good psychiatrist. (P.S. The psychiatrist is now looking for a good psychiatrist.)

He was a thin man with a gray look about him. He had been shuffling aimlessly along the crowded street; now he paused to look at a window display of pots and pans.

He was the only person looking at the display. He concentrated for a moment, and imagined the contents of the window completely out of existence.

The pots and pans vanished. The thin man squared his shoulders.

I am God, he thought; and looked around to see if anyone realized the fact besides himself.

Apparently no one did, for the stream of passers-by did not shift course, nor did they disperse to render him homage. He felt a little let-down.

Godship without homage was a tasteless thing.

He looked without favor at a pot-bellied man in a gray suit. He did not like pot-bellied men with gray suits.

He imagined him out of existence, then surveyed the spot he had occupied with satisfaction.

A hand tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned, half-startled by the interruption.