Clifford Simak - The Big Front Yard and Other Stories

“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.

And above and beyond all that, he always kept his door locked – which showed a contemptible suspicion of his fellow writers.

Hart swung about and walked rapidly away in an opposite direction. Eventually he’d go back home, he told himself. But not right now.

Later on he’d go, when the dust had settled slightly.

It was dawn when Hart climbed the stairs to the seventh floor and went down the corridor to Jasper Hansen’s door. The door was locked as usual. But he took out of his pocket a thin piece of spring steel he’d picked up in a junkyard and did some judicious prying. In the matter of seconds, the lock clicked back and the door swung open.

The yarner squatted in its corner, a bright and lovely sight.

Jiggered up, Jasper had affirmed. If someone else ever tried to use it, it would very likely burn out or kill him. But that had been just talk, just cover-up for his pig-headed selfishness.

Two weeks, Hart told himself. If he used his head he should be able to operate it without suspicion for at least two weeks. It would be easy. All he’d have to say was that Jasper had told him that he could borrow it any time he wished. And if he was any judge of character, Jasper would not be returning soon.

But even so, two weeks would be all the time he’d need. In two weeks, working day and night, he could turn out enough copy to buy himself a new machine.

He walked across the room to the yarner and pulled out the chair that stood in front of it. Calmly he sat down, reached out a hand and patted the instrument panel. It was a good machine. It turned out a lot of stuff – good stuff. Jasper had been selling steadily.

Good old yarner, Hart said.

He dropped his finger to the switch and flipped it over. Nothing happened. Startled, he flipped it back, flipped it on again. Still nothing happened.

He got up hastily to check the power connection. There was no power connection! For a shocked moment, he stood rooted to the floor.

Jiggered up, Jasper had said. Jiggered up so ingeniously that it could dispense with power?

It just wasn’t possible. It was unthinkable. With fumbling fingers, he lifted the side panel, and peered inside.

The machine’s innards were a mess. Half of the tubes were gone. Others were burned out, and the wiring had been ripped loose in places. The whole relay section was covered with dust. Some of the metal, he saw, was rusty. The entire machine was just a pile of junk.

He replaced the panel with suddenly shaking fingers, reeled back blindly and collided with a table. He clutched at it and held on tight to still the shaking of his hands, to steady the mad roaring in his head.

Jasper’s machine wasn’t jiggered up. It wasn’t even in operating condition.

No wonder Jasper had kept his door locked. He lived in mortal fear that someone would find out that he wrote by hand!

And now, despite the dirty trick he’d played on a worthy friend, Hart was no better off than he had been before. He was faced with the same old problems, with no prospect of overcoming them. He still had his own beaten-up machine and nothing more. Maybe it would have been better if he had gone to Caph.

He walked to the door, paused there for an instant, and looked back. On the littered desk he could see Jasper’s typewriter, carefully half-buried by the litter, and giving the exact impression that it was never used.