Avram Davidson - The Avram Davidson Treasury - a tribute collection

The trouble all began with Count Cazmar. Count Cazmar had, like, a monopoly on all the firewood from the forest. The king gave it to him. Yes, but the king didn’t just “give” it to him; he had to pay the king. Okay, so he had to pay the king. So anybody wanted firewood they had to pay Count Cazmar. Then he got sore because the Slovo people weren’t buying enough firewood, see, because he still had to pay the king. Which king? Who the hell knows which king? Who the hell cares? None of them were any damn good anyway. What, old King Joseph wasn’t any good, the one who let Yashta Yushta out of the dungeon? Listen, will you for get about old King Joseph and get on with the story!

So Count Cazmar sent out all the blacksmiths to go from house to house with their great big sledgehammers to smash up all the Slovo stoves to force the Slovos to buy more firewood and — What? Yeah, that’s how Gramma’s stove is, like, broken. They all got, like, broken. Of course you could still use them. But dumb Count Cazmar he dint know that. So, what finely happen, what finely happen, everybody had to pay a firewood tax irregardless of how much they used or not. So lotta the Slovo people they figured, ya gotta pay for it anyway? so might as well use it. See? Lotta them figure, ya gotta pay for it anyway, so might as well use it. And so, lotta them quit usin’ their Slovo stoves. Y’see.

“That’s your superior Huzzuk civilization for you,” Wes said. Just then the deacon and deaconess in the corner, or whatever they were, lifted their cracked old voices and finished their chant; and everybody said something loudly and they all stamped their feet. “Here, Fred,” said Wes, “have some more — have another glass o’ mulberry beer.” And promptly an aunt set two more bowls down in front of Fred. “In this one is chopped spleen stew with crack buckwheats. And in udder one is cow snout cooked under onions. Wait. I give you pepper.”

Eventually Silberman got moved into his new apartment and eventually Silberman got moved into his new job; his new job required (among other things…among many other things) a trip to the diemakers, a trip to the printers, a trip to the suppliers: how convenient that all three were located in a new or newish commercial and industrial complex way out on the outskirts of. As he drove, by and by such landmarks as an aqueduct, a cemetery, an old brick foundry, reminded him that, more or less where the commercial and industrial complex now was, was where old Applebaum used to be. Lo! it seemed: still was! Shabby, but still reading M. APPLEBAUM CASH AND CARRY WHOLESALE GROCERIES. The complicated commerces and industries perhaps didn’t like shabby Old Applebaum’s holding out in their midst? Tough. Let them go back where they came from.

Afterwards, business finished elsewhere, thither: “Freddy. Hel lo .”

“Hello, Mr. Applebaum. How are you? ”

“How should I be? Every week seems like another family grocery bites the dust. Nu. I own a little swamp in Florida and maybe I will close up the gesheft and go live on a houseboat with hot and cold running crocodiles. Ahah, here comes an old customer with his ten dollars’ worth of business if we are both lucky; Mat. Grahdy.”

Sure enough. Beat him to the punch. “Hey, Mr. Grahdy, did it get hot yet?”

Grahdy laughed and laughed; then gave the counterword: “It didn’t even get warm! Ho ho ho ho.” He gestured to another man. “This is Petey Plazzek, he is a half-breeth. Hey, Petey, did it get hot yet? Ho ho ho ho! — Mosek!”—this to Old Applebaum. “A little sugar I need, a little semolina I need, a little cake flour, licorice candy, marshmallow crackers.” M. Applebaum said he could give him a good buy on crackers today. They went inside together.

Petey Plazzek, a worn-looking man in a worn-looking lumber jacket, came right to the point. “If you’re driving by the bus dee po, you could give me a ride.”

“Sure. Get in.” Off they went. Silberman’s glance observed no Iroquois cheekbones. “Excuse me, but what did he mean, ‘A half-breed’? No offense—”

“Naa, naa. Half Huzzuk, half Slovo.”

A touch of the excitement. “Well, uh, Mr. Plazzek—”

“Petey. Just Petey.”

“Well, uh, Petey, how many people have one of those old Slovo stoves anymore?”

“Nobody. Them stoves are all a thing o’ the past nowadays. Watch out for that truck.”

“How come, Petey? How come they are?”

Petey rubbed his nose, sighed very deeply. “Well. You know. Some greenhorn would come to America — as we used to say, ‘He had six goats and he sold five to get the steamship ticket and he gave one to the priest to pray for a good journey.’ I’m talking about a Slovo now. Huzzuk, that’s another thing altogether. So the poor Slovo was wearing high boots with his pants tucked innem and a shirt smock and a sheepskin coat and a fur hat. This was before Ellis Island. Castle Gar den in those days. He didn’t have a steamer trunk, he didn’t have a grip, he only had a sort of knapsack; so what was in it? A clean smock shirt and some clean foot rags, because they didn’t use socks, and a little iron pot and some hardtack-type bread and those two stove parts, the black part and the, uh, the, uh—”

“The blue part.”

“—the blue part, right. Watch out for that Chevy. Well, he’d get a job doing the lowest-paid dirtiest work and he’d rent a shack that subsequently you wouldn’t dast keep a dog in it, y’understand what I’m telling you, young fellow? Lights, he had no lights, he didn’t even have no lamp , just a tin can with some pork fat and a piece of rag for a wick. And he’d pick up an old brick here and an old brick there and set up his Slovo stove and cook buckwheat in his little iron pot and he’d sleep on the floor in his sheepskin coat.”

But by and by things would get better; this was America , the land of opportunity. So as soon as he started making a little money he brought his wife over and they moved into a room, a real room, and he’d buy a coal-oil lamp and a pair of shoes for each of them, but, um, people would still laugh attem, partickley the Zunks would still be laughing at them because of still using the Slovo stove , y’see. So by and by they’d buy a wood stove. Or a coal stove. And they’d get the gaslight turned on. And they’d even remember not t’ blow it out.”

“Yes, but, Petey. The wood and coal cost money . And the Slovo stove was free . So—”

Petey sighed again. “Well. To tell you the truth. It could cook : sure. Didn’t give out much heat, otherwise. Boil up a lotta water, place’d get steamy. ”

Fred Silberman cried, “Steam heat! Steam heat! ”

Petey looked startled, then — for the first time — interested. Then the interest ebbed away. He sighed. “None of them people were plumbers. They never thought of nothing like that, and neither did anybody else. The Slovo stove, what it come to mean, it come to mean poverty , see? It come to mean rid icule. And so as soon as they quit being dirt-poor, well, that was that .”

Fred asked, eagerly, “But aren’t there still a lot of them in the attics? Well… some of them? In the cellars ?”

Petey’s breath hissed. “Where you going? You going to the bus dee po, y’ shoulda turned leff! Oh. Circling the block. Naa…they juss, uh, thrown’m away . Watch out for that van.”