Clifford Simak - Grotto of the Dancing Deer - And Other Stories

“None at all,” I said.

So I told him about Elmer Trotter, who worked his way through law school up at Madison, doing all kinds of odd jobs to earn his way, since he had no folks, and how he finally got through and passed the bar examination, then came back to Millville to set up an office.

I couldn’t tell him how it happened or why, although I had always figured that Elmer had got a belly full of poverty and grabbed this chance to earn a lot of money fast. No one should have known better than he did that it was dishonest, being he was a lawyer. But he went ahead and did it and he got caught.

“And what happened then?” asked the alien breathlessly. “Was he punished?”

I told him how Elmer got disbarred and how Eliza Jenkins gave him back his ring and how Elmer went into insurance and just scraped along in a hand-to-mouth existence, eating out his heart to be a lawyer once again, but he never could.

“You got all this down?” the alien asked the robot.

“All down,” the robot said.

“What fine nuances!” exclaimed the alien, who seemed to be much pleased. “What stark, overpowering reality!”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I had another drink instead.

Then I went ahead, without being asked, and I told him about Amanda Robinson and her unhappy love affair and how she turned into Millville’s most genteel and sorriest old maid. And about Abner Jones and his endless disappointments, but his refusal to give up the idea that he was a great inventor, and how his family went in rags and hungry while he spent all his time inventing.

“Such sadness!” said the alien. “What a lovely planet!”

“You better taper off,” the robot warned him. “You know what happens to you.”

“Just one more,” the alien begged. “I’m all right. Just one more.”

“Now, look here,” I told him, “I don’t mind telling them, if that is what you want. But maybe first you better tell me a bit about yourself. I take it you’re an alien.”

“Naturally,” said the alien.

“And you came here in a spaceship.”

“Well, not exactly a spaceship.”

“Then, if you’re an alien, how come you talk so good?”

“Now, that,” the alien said, “is something that still is tender to me.”

The robot said scornfully: “They took him good and proper.”

“You mean you paid for it.”

“Too much,” the robot said. “They saw that he was eager, so they hiked the price on him.”

“But I’ll get even with them,” the alien cut in. “If I don’t turn a profit on it, my name isn’t ——.”

And he said a word that was long and twisted and didn’t make no sense.

“That your name?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure. But you can call me Wilbur. And the robot, you may call him Lester.”

“Well, boys,” I said, “I’m mighty glad to know you. You can call me Sam.”

And I had another drink.

We sat there on the stoop and the moon was coming up and the fireflies were flickering in the lilac hedge and the world had an edge on it. I’d never felt so good.

“Just one more,” said Wilbur pleadingly.

So I told him about some of the mental cases up at the sanitorium and I picked the bad ones and alongside of me Wilbur started blubbering and the robot said: “Now see what you’ve done. He’s got a crying jag.”

But Wilbur wiped his eyes and said it was all right and that if I’d just keep on he’d do the best he could to get a grip on himself.

“What is going on here?” I asked in some astonishment. “You sound like you get drunk from hearing these sad stories.”

“That’s what he does,” said Lester, the robot. “Why else do you think he’d sit and listen to your blabber.”

“And you?” I asked of Lester.

“Of course not,” Wilbur said. “He had no emotions. He is a mere machine.”

I had another drink and I thought it over and it was as clear as day. So I told Wilbur my philosophy: “This is Saturday night and that’s the time to howl. So let’s you and I together—”

“I am with you,” Wilbur cried, “as long as you can talk.”

Lester clanked a gear in what must have been disgust, but that was all he did.

“Get down every word of it,” Wilbur told the robot. “We’ll make ourselves a million. We’ll need it to get back all overpayment for our indoctrination.” He sighed. “Not that it wasn’t worth it. What a lovely, melancholy planet.”

So I got cranked up and kept myself well lubricated and the night kept getting better every blessed minute.

Along about midnight, I got falling-down drunk and Wilbur maudlin drink and we gave up by a sort of mutual consent. We got up off the stoop and by bracing one another we got inside the door and I lost Wilbur somewhere, but made it to my bed and that was the last I knew.

When I woke up, I knew it was Sunday morning. The sun was streaming through the window and it was bright and sanctimonious, like Sunday always is around here.

Sundays usually are quiet, and that’s one thing wrong with them. But this one wasn’t quiet. There was an awful din going on outside. It sounded like someone was throwing rocks and hitting a tin can.

I rolled out of bed and my mouth tasted just as bad as I knew it would be. I rubbed some of the sand out of my eyes and started for the living room and just outside the bedroom door I almost stepped on Wilbur.

He gave me quite a start and then I remembered who he was and I stood there looking at him, not quite believing it. I thought at first that he might be dead, but I saw he wasn’t. He was lying flat upon his back and his catfish mouth was open and every time he breathed the feathery whiskers on his lips stood straight out and fluttered.

I stepped over him and went to the door to find out what all the racket was. And there stood Lester, the robot, exactly where we’d left him the night before, and out in the driveway a bunch of kids were pegging rocks at him. Those kids were pretty good. They hit Lester almost every time.

I yelled at them and they scattered down the road. They knew I’d tan their hides.

I was just turning around to go back into the house when a car swung into the drive. Joe Fletcher, our constable, jumped out and came striding toward me and I could see that he was in his best fire-eating mood.

Joe stopped in front of the stoop and put both hands on his hips and starred first at Lester and then at me.

“Sam,” he asked with a nasty leer, “what is going on here? Some of your pink elephants move in to live with you?”

“Joe,” I said solemn, passing up the insult, “I’d like you to meet Lester.”

Joe had opened up his mouth to yell at me when Wilbur showed up at the door.

“And this is Wilbur,” I said. “Wilbur is an alien and Lester is a …”

“Wilbur is a what!” roared Joe.

Wilbur stepped out on the stoop and said: “What a sorrowful face. And so noble, too!”

“He means you,” I said to Joe.

“If you guys keep this up,” Joe bellowed, “I’ll run in the bunch of you.”

“I meant no harm,” said Wilbur. “I apologize if I have bruised your sensitivities.”

That was a hot one—Joe’s sensitivities!

“I can see at a glance,” said Wilbur, “that life’s not been easy for you.”

“I’ll tell the world it ain’t,” Joe said.

“Nor for me,” said Wilbur, sitting down upon the stoop. “It seems that there are days a man can’t lay away a dime.”

“Mister, you are right,” said Joe. “Just like I was telling the missus this morning when she up and told me that the kids needed some new shoes …”

“It does beat hell how a man can’t get ahead.”

“Listen, you ain’t heard nothing yet …”