Avram Davidson - The Avram Davidson Treasury - a tribute collection

I marveled at it, at the time. I had just reached the age at which I was beginning to see how writers worked at least some of their magic, to spot a few of the more common professional tricks — but “Sacheverell” defeated me. I understood why my mother liked it, when I showed it to her — but I couldn’t quite figure out why I found it so memorable. I tried, that summer, to understand the source of the story’s power, to explain to myself its impact on me…with such poor success that I’m still at it thirty-three years later, sitting here typing this. Avram worked that trick often: effortlessly pushed buttons nobody else has been able to locate. A very hard writer to reverse-engineer…and therefore an immortal.

Here’s my current best take on the source of “Sacheverell” ’s intense, layered emotional impact: maybe Avram captured, in an absolute minimum of words, what it is like to be a youth bright enough to read science fiction for pleasure.

Even masturbation doesn’t help…enough. You need friends.

THE FRONT WINDOWS OF the room were boarded up, and inside it was dark and cold and smelled very bad. There was a stained mattress on which a man wrapped in a blanket lay snoring, a chair with no back, a table which held the remains of a bag of hamburgers, several punched beer cans, and a penny candle which cast shadows all around.

There was a scuffling sound in the shadows, then a tiny rattling chattering noise, then a thin and tiny voice said, tentatively, “You must be very cold, George …” No reply. “Because I know I’m very cold …” the voice faded out. After a moment it said, “He’s still asleep. A man needs his rest. It’s very hard … ” The voice seemed to be listening for something, seemed not to hear it; after an instant, in a different tone, said, “All right.”

“Hmm?” it asked the silence. The chattering broke out again for just a second, then the voice said, “Good afternoon, Princess. Good afternoon, Madame. And General — how very nice to see you . I wish to invite you to a tea-party. We will use the best set of doll dishes and if anyone wishes to partake of something strong er, I believe the Professor—” the voice faltered, continued, “—has a drop of the oh-be-joyful in a bottle on the sideboard. And now pray take seats.”

The wind sounded outside; when it died away, leaving the candleflame dancing, there was a humming noise which rose and fell like a moan, then ended abruptly on a sort of click. The voice resumed, wavering at first, “Coko and Moko? No — I’m very sorry, I really can’t invite them, they’re very stupid, they don’t know how to behave and they can’t even talk …”

The man on the stained mattress woke in a convulsive movement that brought him sitting up with a cry. He threw his head to the right and left and grimaced and struck at the air.

“Did you have a bad dream, George?” the voice asked, uncertainly.

George said, “Uhn!” thrusting at his eyes with the cushions of his palms. He dropped his hands, cleared his throat and spat, thickly. Then he reached out and grabbed the slack of a chain lying on the floor, one end fastened to a tableleg, and began to pull it in. The chain resisted, he tugged, something fell and squeaked, and George, continuing to pull, hauled in his prize and seized it.

“Sacheverell—”

“I hope you didn’t have a bad dream , George—”

“Sacheverell — was anybody here? You lie to me and—”

“No, George, honest! Nobody was here, George!”

“You lie to me and I’ll kill you!”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, George. I know it’s wicked to lie.”

George glared at him out of his reddened eyes, took a firmer grip with both hands, and squeezed. Sacheverell cried out, thrust his face at George’s wrist. His teeth clicked on air, George released him, abruptly, and he scuttled away. George smeared at his trouser-leg with his sleeve, made a noise of disgust. “Look what you done, you filthy little ape!” he shouted.

Sacheverell whimpered in the shadows. “I can’t help it, George. I haven’t got any sphincter muscle, and you scared me, you hurt me …”

George groaned, huddled in under his blanket. “A million dollars on the end of this chain,” he said; “and Om living in this hole, here. Like a wino, like a smokey, like a bum! ” He struck the floor with his fist. “It don’t make sense!” he cried, shifting around till he was on all fours, then pushing himself erect. Wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, he shambled quickly to the door, checked the bolt, then examined in turn the boarded-up front windows and the catch on the barred and frost-rimmed back window. Then he did something in a corner, cursing and sighing.

Under the table Sacheverell tugged on his chain ineffectually. “I don’t like it here, George,” he said. “It’s cold and it’s dirty and I’m dirty and cold, too, and I’m hungry. It’s all dark here and nobody ever comes here and I don’t like it, George, I don’t like it here one bit. I wish I was back with the Professor again. I was very happy then. The Professor was nice to me and so was the Princess and Madame Opal and the General. They were the only ones in on the secret, until you found out.”

George swung around and looked at him. One eye sparked in the candlelight.

“We used to have tea-parties and Madame Opal always brought chocolates when she came, even when she came alone, and she read love stories to me out of a magazine book with pictures and they were all true. Why can’t I be back with the Professor again?”

George swallowed, and opened his mouth with a little smacking sound. “Professor Whitman died of a heart-attack,” he said.

Sacheverell looked at him, head cocked. “An attack …”

“So he’s dead! So forget about him!” the words tore out of the man’s mouth. He padded across the room. Sacheverell retreated to the end of his chain.

“I don’t know what the hell Om gunna do … In a few weeks now, they’ll tear this rotten building down. Maybe,” he said, slyly, putting his foot down on the chain, “I’ll sell you to a zoo. Where you belong.” He bent, grunting, and picked up the chain.

Sacheverell’s teeth began to chatter. “I don’t! ” he shrilled. “I don’t belong in a zoo! The little people they have there are stupid— they don’t know how to behave , and they can’t even talk! ”

George closed one eye, nodded; slowly, very slowly, drew in the chain. “Come on,” he said. “Level with me. Professor Whitman had a nice little act, there. How come he quit and took off and came here?” Slowly he drew in the chain. Sacheverell trembled, but did not resist.

“We were going to go to a laboratory in a college,” he said. “He told me. It was a waste to keep me doing silly tricks with Coko and Moko, when I was so smart. He should have done it before, he said.”

George’s mouth turned up on one side, creasing the stubble. “Naa, Sacheverell,” he said. “That don’t make sense. You know what they do to monkeys in them labs? They cut ‘em up. That’s all. I know . I went to one and I asked. They pay about fifteen bucks and then they cut ’em up.” He made a scissors out of his fingers and went k’khkhkhkh … Sacheverell shuddered. George set his foot on the chain again and took hold of him by the neck. He poked him in the stomach with his finger, stiff. It had grown colder, the man’s breath shown misty in the tainted air. He poked again. Sacheverell made a sick noise, struggled. “Come on,” George said. “Level with me. There’s a million dollars inside of you, you dirty little ape. There’s gotta be. Only I don’t know how. So you tell me.”