III. Day of the Gargoyle
Croyd awoke in June, to discover that his mother was in a sanatorium, his brother had graduated high school, his sister was engaged, and he had the power to modulate his voice in such a fashion as to shatter or disrupt virtually anything once he had determined the proper frequency by a kind of resonant feedback that he lacked the vocabulary to explain. Also, he was tall, thin, dark-haired, sallow, and had regrown his missing fingers.
Foreseeing the day when he would be alone, he spoke with Bentley once again, to line up one big job for this waking period, and to get it over with quickly, before the weariness overcame him. He had resolved not to take the pills again, as he had thought back over the nightmare quality of his final days the last time around.
This time he paid even more attention to the planning and he asked better questions as Bentley chain-smoked his way through a series of details. The loss of both his parents and his sisters impending marriage had led him to reflect upon the impermanence of human relationships, with the realization that Bentley might not always be around.
He was able to disrupt the alarm system and damage the door to the bank’s vault sufficiently to gain entrance, though he had not counted on shattering all of the windows in a threeblock area while seeking the proper frequencies. Still, he was able to make good his escape with a large quantity of cash. This time he rented a safe-deposit box in a bank across town, where he left the larger portion of his share. He had been somewhat bothered by the fact that his brother was driving a new car.
He rented rooms in the Village, Midtown, Morningside Heights, the Upper East Side, and on the Bowery, paying all of the rents for a year in advance. He wore the keys on a chain around his neck, along with the one for his safe-deposit box. He wanted places he could reach quickly no matter where he was when the sleep came for him. Two of the apartments were furnished; the other four he equipped with mattresses and radios. He was in a hurry and could take care of amenities later. He had awakened with an awareness of several events that had transpired during his most recent sleep, and he could only attribute it to an unconscious apprehension of news broadcasts from the radio he had left playing this last time. He resolved to continue the practice.
It took him three days to locate, rent, and equip his new retreats. In that his place on the Bowery was his last one, he looked up John, identified himself, and had dinner with him. The stories he heard then of a gang of joker-bashers depressed him, and when the hunger and the chill and the drowsiness came upon him that evening he took a pill so as to stay awake and patrol the area. Just one or two, he decided, would hardly matter.
The bashers did not show up that night, but Croyd was depressed by the possibility that he might awaken as a joker the next time around. So he took two more pills with his breakfast to put things off a bit, and he decided to furnish his local quarters in the fit of energy that followed. That evening he took three more for a last night on the town, and the song he sang as he walked along Forty-second Street, shattering windows building by building, caused dogs to howl for several miles around and awakened two jokers and an ace equipped with UHF hearing. Bat-ears Brannigan-who expired two weeks later beneath a falling statue thrown by Muscles Vincenzi the day he was gunned down by the NYPD-sought him out to pound on him in payment for his headache and wound up buying him several drinks and requesting a soft UHF version of “Galway Bay.”
The following afternoon on Broadway, Croyd responded to a taxi driver’s curse by running his vehicle through a series of vibrations until it fell apart. Then, while he was about it, he turned the force upon all of those others who had proven themselves enemies by blowing their horns. It was only when the ensuing traffic snarl reminded him of the one outside his school on that first Wild Card Day that he turned and fled.
He awoke in early August in his Morningside Heights apartment, recalling slowly how he had gotten there and promising himself he would not take any more pills this time.
When he looked at the tumors on his twisted arm he knew that the promise would not be hard to keep. This time he wanted to return to sleep as quickly as possible. Looking out the window, he was grateful that it was night, since it was a long way to the Bowery.
On a Wednesday in mid-September he woke to find himself dark blond, of medium height, build, and complexion, and possessed of no visible marks of his wild card syndrome.
He ran himself through a variety of simple tests that experience had taught him were likely to reveal his hidden ability. Nothing in the way of a special power came to light.
Puzzled, he dressed himself in the best-fitting clothing he had on hand and went out for his usual breakfast. He picked up several newspapers along the way and read them while he devoured plate after plate of scrambled eggs, waffles, pancakes. It had been a chill morning when he’d entered the street. When he left the diner it was near to ten o’clock and balmy.
He rode the subways to midtown, where he entered the first decent-looking clothing store he saw and completely refitted himself. He bought a pair of hot dogs from a street vendor and ate them as he walked to the subway station.
He got off in the seventies, walked to the nearest delicatessen, and ate two corned beef sandwiches with potato pancakes. Was he stalling? he asked himself then. He knew that he could sit here all day and eat. He could feel the process of digestion going on like a blast furnace in his midsection. He rose, paid, and departed. He would walk the rest of the way. How many months had it been? he wondered, scratching his forehead. It was time to check in with Carl and Claudia. Time to see how Mom was doing. To see whether anybody needed any money.
When Croyd came to his front door he halted, key in his hand. He returned the key to his pocket and knocked. Moments later, Carl opened the door.
“Yes?” he said. “It’s me. Croyd.”
“Croyd! Jeez! Come in! I didn’t recognize you. How long’s it been?”
“Pretty long.” Croyd entered. “How is everybody?” he asked.
“Mom’s still the same. But you know they told us not to get our hopes up.”
“Yeah. Need any money for her?”
“Not till next month. But a couple of grand would come in handy then.”
Croyd passed him an envelope.
“I’d probably just confuse her if I went to see her, looking this different.”
Carl shook his head.
“She’d be confused even if you looked the same as you did, Croyd.”
“Oh.”
“Want something to eat?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
His brother led him to the kitchen.
“Lots of roast beef here. Makes a good sandwich.”
“Great. How’s business?”
“Oh, I’m getting established now. It’s better than it was at first.”
“Good. And Claudia?”
“It’s good you turned up when you did. She didn’t know where to send the invitation.”
“What invitation?”
“She’s getting married Saturday.”
“That guy from jersey?”
“Yeah. Sam. The one she was engaged to. He manages a family business. Makes pretty good money.”
“Where’ll the wedding be?”
“In Ridgewood. You come with me for it. I’m driving over.”
“Okay. I wonder what kind of present they’d like?”
“They’ve got this list. I’ll find it.”
“Good.”
Croyd went out that afternoon and bought a Dumont television set with a sixteen-inch screen, paid cash, and arranged for its delivery to Ridgewood. He visited with Bentley then, but declined a somewhat-risky-sounding job because of his apparent lack of special talent this time around. Actually, it was a good excuse. He didn’t really want to work anyway, to take a chance on getting screwed up-physically or with the law—this close to the wedding.
He had dinner with Bentley in an Italian restaurant, and they sat for several hours afterward over a bottle of Chianti, talking shop and looking ahead as Bentley tried to explain to him the value of long-range solvency and getting respectable one day-a thing he’d never quite managed himself.
He walked most of the night after that, to practice studying buildings for their weak points, to think about his changed family. Sometime after midnight, as he was passing up Central Park West, a strong itching sensation began on his chest and spread about his entire body. After a minute, he had to halt and scratch himself violently. Allergies were becoming very fashionable about this time, and he wondered whether his new incarnation had brought him a sensitivity to something in the park.
He turned west at the first opportunity and left the area as quickly as possible. After about ten minutes the itching waned. Within a half-hour it had vanished completely. His hands and face felt as if they were chapped, however.
At about four in the morning he stopped in an all-night diner off Times Square, where he ate slowly and steadily and read a copy of Time magazine which someone had left in a booth. It’s medical section contained an article on suicide among jokers, which depressed him considerably. The quotations it contained reminded him of things he had heard said by many people with whom he was acquainted, causing him to wonder whether any of them were among the interviewees. He understood the feelings too well, though he could not share them fully, knowing that no matter what he drew he would always be dealt a new wild card the next time aroundand that more often than not it was an ace.
All of his joints creaked when he rose, and he felt a sharp pain between his shoulder blades. His feet felt swollen, also. He returned home before daybreak, feeling feverish. In the bathroom, he soaked a washcloth to hold against his forehead. He noted in the mirror that his face seemed swollen. He sat in the easy chair in his bedroom until he heard Carl and Claudia moving about. When he rose to join them for breakfast his limbs felt leaden, and his joints creaked again as he descended the stairway.
Claudia, slim and blond, embraced him when he entered the kitchen. Then she studied his new face.
“You look tired, Croyd,” she said.
“Don’t say that,” he responded. “I can’t get tired this soon. It’s two days till your wedding, and I’m going to make it.”
“You can rest without sleeping, though, can’t you?” He nodded.
“Then, take it easy. I know it must be hard…. Come on, let’s eat.”
As they were sipping their coffee, Carl asked, “You want to come into the office with me, see the setup I’ve got now?”
“Another time,” Croyd answered. “I’ve got some errands.”
“Sure. Maybe tomorrow”
“Maybe so.”
Carl left shortly after that. Claudia refilled Croyd’s cup. “We hardly see you anymore,” she said.
“Yeah. Well, you know how it is. I sleep-sometimes months. When I wake up I’m not always real pretty. Other times, I have to hustle to pay the bills.”
“We’ve appreciated it,” she said. “It’s hard to understand. You’re the baby, but you look like a grown man. You act like one. You didn’t get your full share of being a kid.”
He smiled.
“So what are you-an old lady? Here you are just seventeen, and you’re getting married.”
She smiled back.
“He’s a nice guy, Croyd. I know we’re going to be happy.”
“Good. I hope so. Listen, if you ever want to reach me I’m going to give you the name of a place where you can leave a message. I can’t always be prompt, though.”
“I understand. What is it that you do, anyway?”
“I’ve been in and out of a lot of different businesses. Right now I’m between jobs. I’m taking it easy this time, for your wedding. What’s he like, anyhow?”
“Oh, very respectable and proper. Went to Princeton. Was a captain in the Army.”
“Europe? The Pacific?”
“Washington.”
“Oh. Well-connected.” She nodded.
“Old family,” she said.
“Well…. Good,” he said. “You know I wish you happiness.”
She rose and embraced him again. “I’ve missed you,” she said.
“Me, too.”
“I’ve got errands to run, too, now. I’ll see you later.”
“Yes.”
“You take it easy today.”
When she left he stretched his arms as far as they would go, trying to relieve the ache in his shoulders. His shirt tore down the back as he did this. He looked in the hall mirror. His shoulders were wider today than they had been yesterday. In fact, his entire body looked wider, huskier. He returned to his room and stripped. Most of his torso was covered with a red rash. Just looking at it made him want to scratch, but he restrained himself. Instead, he filled the bathtub and soaked in it for a long while. The water level had lowered itself visibly by the time he got out. When he studied himself in the bathroom mirror he seemed even larger. Could he have absorbed some of the water through his skin? At any rate, the inflammation seemed to have vanished, though his skin was still rough in those areas where it had been prominent.
He dressed himself in clothing he had left from an earlier time when he had been larger. Then he went out and rode the subways to the clothing store he had visited the previous day.
There, he re-outfitted himself completely and rode back, feeling vaguely nauseous as the car jounced and swayed. He noted that his hands looked dry and rough. When he rubbed them, flakes of dead skin fell off like dandruff.
After he left the subway he walked on until he came to the Sarzannos’ apartment building. The woman who opened the door was not Joe’s mother, Rose, however.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I’m looking for Joe Sarzanno,” he said.
“Nobody here by that name. Must be someone who moved out before we moved in.”
“So you wouldn’t know where they went?”
“No. Ask the manager. Maybe he knows.” She closed the door.
He tried the manager’s apartment, but there was no answer. So he made his way home, feeling heavy and bloated. The second time that he yawned he was abruptly fearful. It seemed too soon to be going back to sleep. This transformation was more puzzling than usual.
He put a fresh pot of coffee on the stove and paced while he waited for it to percolate. While there was no certainty that he would awaken with a special power on each occasion, the one thing that had been constant was change. He thought back over all of the changes he had undergone since he had been infected. This was the only one where he had seemed neither joker nor ace, but normal. Still…
When the coffee was ready, he sat down with a cup and became aware that he had been scratching his right thigh, halfconsciously. He rubbed his hands together and more dry skin flaked off. He considered his increased girth. He thought of all the little twinges and creaks, of the fatigue. It was obvious that he was not completely normal this time, but as to what his abnormality actually constituted, he was uncertain. Could Dr. Tachyon help him? he wondered. Or at least give him some idea as to what was going on?
He called the number that he had committed to memory. A woman with a cheerful voice told him that Tachyon was out but would be back that afternoon. She took Croyd’s name, seemed to recognize it, and told him to come in at three. He finished the pot of coffee; the itching had increased steadily all over his body as he sat drinking the final cup. He went upstairs and ran the water in the bathtub again. While the tub was filling he undressed and studied his body. All of his skin now had the dry, flaky appearance of his hands. Wherever he brushed himself a small flurry occurred.
He soaked for a long while. The warmth and the wetness felt good. After a time he leaned back and closed his eyes. Very good…
He sat up with a start. He had begun dozing. He had almost drifted off to sleep just then. He seized the washcloth and began rubbing himself vigorously, not only to remove all of the detritus. When he had finished he toweled himself briskly as the tub drained, then rushed to his room. He located the pills at the back of a clothing drawer and took two of them. Whatever games his body was playing, sleep was very much his enemy now.
He returned to the bathroom, cleaned the tub, dressed. It would feel good to stretch out on his bed for a time. To rest, as Claudia had suggested. But he knew that he couldn’t.
Tachyon took a blood sample and fed it to his machine. On his first attempt, the needle had only gone in a short distance and stopped. The third needle, backed with considerable force, penetrated a subdermal layer of resistance and the blood was drawn.
While awaiting the machine’s findings, Tachyon conducted a gross examination.
“Were your incisors that long when you awoke?” he asked, peering into Croyd’s mouth.
“They looked normal when I brushed them,” Croyd replied. “Have they gown?”
“Take a look.”
Tachyon held up a small mirror. Croyd stared. The teeth were an inch long, and sharp looking.
“That’s a new development,” he stated. “I don’t know when it happened.”
Tachyon moved Croyd’s left arm up behind his back in a gentle hammerlock, then pushed his fingers beneath the protruding scapula. Croyd screamed.
“That bad, is it?” Tachyon asked.
“My God!” Croyd said. “What is it? Is something broken back there?”
The doctor shook his head. He examined some of the skin flakes under a miscroscope. He studied Croyd’s feet next. “Were they this wide when you woke up?” he asked. “No. What the hell is happening, Doc?”
“Let’s wait another minute or so for my machine to finish with your blood. You’ve been here three or four times in the past…”
“Yes,” Croyd said.
“Fortunately, you came in once right after you woke up. Another time, you were in about six hours after you awoke. On the former occasion you possessed a high level of a very peculiar hormone which I thought at the time might be associated with the change process itself. The other time six hours after awakening-you still had traces of the hormone, but at a very low level. Those were the only two times it was evident.”
“So?”
“The main test in which I am interested right now is a check for its presence in your blood. Ah! I believe we have something now.”
A series of strange symbols flashed upon the screen of the small unit.
“Yes. Yes, indeed,” he said, studying them. “You have a high level of the substance in your blood-higher even than it was right after awakening. Hm. You’ve been taking amphetamines again, too.”
“I had to. I was starting to get sleepy, and I’ve got to make it to Saturday. Tell me in plain words what this damn hormone means.”
“It means that the process of change is still going on within you. For some reason you awoke before it was completed. There seems to be a regular cycle of it, but this time it was interrupted.”
“Why?”
Tachyon shrugged, a movement he seemed to have learned since the last time Croyd had seen him.
“Any of a whole constellation of possible biochemical events triggered by the change itself. I think you probably received some brain stimulation as a side effect of another change that was in progress at the time you were aroused. Whatever that particular change was, it is completed-but the rest of the process isn’t. So your body is now trying to put you back to sleep until it finishes its business.”
“In other words, I woke up too soon?”
“Yes.”
“What should I do?”
“Stop taking the drugs immediately. Sleep. Let it run its course.”
“I can’t. I have to stay awake for two more days-a day and a half will do, actually.”
“I suspect your body will fight this, and as I said once before, it seems to know what it’s doing. I think you would be taking a chance to keep yourself awake much longer.”
“What kind of chance? Do you mean it might kill me—or will it just make me uncomfortable?”
“Croyd, I simply do not know. Your condition is unique. Each change takes a different course. The only thing we can trust is whatever accommodation your body has made to the virus-whatever it is within you that brings you through each bout safely. If you try to stay awake by unnatural means now, this is the very thing that you will be fighting.”
“I’ve put off sleep lots of times with amphetamines.”
“Yes, but those times you were merely postponing the onset of the process. It doesn’t normally begin until your brain chemistry registers a sleep state. But now it is already under way, and the presence of the hormone indicates its continuance. I don’t know what will happen. You may turn an ace phase into a joker phase. You may lapse into a really lengthy coma. I simply have no way of telling.”
Croyd reached for his shirt.
“I’ll let you know how it all turns out,” he said.
Croyd did not feel like walking as much as he usually did. He rode the subway again. His nausea returned and this time brought with it a headache. And his shoulders were still hurting badly. He visited the drugstore near his subway stop and bought a bottle of aspirins.
He stopped by the apartment building where the Sarzannos had formerly resided, before he headed home. This time the manager was in. He was unable to help him, however, for Joe’s family had left no forwarding address when they departed. Croyd glanced in the mirror beside the man’s door as he left, and he was shocked at the puffiness of his eyes, at the deep circles beneath them. They were beginning to ache now, he noted.
He returned home. He had promised to take Claudia and Carl to a good restaurant for dinner, and he wanted to be in the best shape he could for the occasion. He returned to the bathroom and stripped again. He was huge, bloated-looking. He realized then that with all of his other symptoms, he had forgotten to tell Tachyon that he had not relieved himself at all since awakening. His body must be finding some use for everything that he ate or drank. He stepped on the scale, but it only went up to three hundred and he was over that. He took three aspirins and hoped that they would work soon. He scratched his arm and a long strip of flesh came away, painlessly and without bleeding. He scratched more gently in other areas and the flaking continued. He took a shower and brushed his fangs. He combed his hair and big patches of it came out. He stopped combing. For a moment he wanted to cry, but he was distracted by a yawning jag. He went to his room and took two more amphetamines. Then he recalled having heard somewhere that body mass had to be taken into account in calculating doses of medication. So he took another one, just to be safe.
Croyd found a dark restaurant and he slipped the waiter something to put them in a booth toward the rear, out of sight of most of the other diners.
“Croyd, you’re really looking-unwell,” Claudia had said when she’d returned earlier.
“I know,” he replied. “I went to see my doctor this afternoon.”
“What did he say?”
“I’m going to need a lot of sleep, starting right after the wedding.”
“Croyd, if you want to skip it, I’ll understand. Your health comes first. “
“I don’t want to skip it. I’ll be okay.”
How could he say it to her when he did not fully understand it himself? Say that it was more than his favorite relative’s wedding?-that the occasion represented the final rending of his home and that it was unlikely he would ever have another? Say that this was the end of a phase of his existence and the beginning of a big unknown?
Instead, he ate. His appetite was undiminished and the food was particularly good. Carl watched with the fascination of a voyeur, long after he had finished his own meal, as Croyd put away two more chateaubriands-for-two, pausing only to call for extra baskets of rolls.
When they finally rose Croyd’s joints were creaking again. He sat on his bed later that evening, aching. The aspirins weren’t helping. He had removed his clothing because all of his garments were feeling tight again. Whenever he scratched himself now, his skin did more than flake. Big pieces of it came away, but they were dry and pale with no signs of blood. No wonder I look pasty-faced, he decided. At the bottom of one particularly large rent in his chest he saw something gray and hard. He could not figure what it was, but its presence frightened him.
Finally, despite the hour, he phoned Bentley. He had to talk to someone who knew his condition. And Bentley usually gave good advice.
After many rings Bentley answered, and Croyd told him his story.
“You know what I think, kid?” Bentley said at last. “You ought to do what the doctor said. Sleep it off.”
“I can’t. Not yet. I just need a little over a day. Then I’ll be all right. I can keep awake that long, but I hurt so damn much and my appearance-“
“Okay, okay. Here’s what we’ll do. You come by about ten in the morning. I can’t do anything for you now. But I’ll talk to a man I know first thing, and we’ll get you a really strong painkiller. And I want to have a look at you. Maybe there’s some way of playing down your appearance a bit.”
“Okay. Thanks, Bentley. I appreciate it.”
“It’s all right. I understand. It was no fun being a dog either. G’night.”
“‘Night.”
Two hours later, Croyd was stricken with severe cramps followed by diarrhea; also, his bladder felt as if it were bursting. This continued through the night. When he weighed himself at three-thirty he was down to 276. By six o’clock he weighed 242 pounds. He gurgled constantly. Its only benefit, he reflected, was that it kept his mind off the itching and the aches in his shoulders and joints. Also, it was sufficient to keep him awake without additional amphetamines.
By eight o’clock he weighed 216 and he realized-when Carl called him-that he had finally lost his appetite. Strangely, his girth had not decreased at all. His general body structure was unaltered from the previous day, though he was pale now to the point of albinism-and this, combined with his prominent teeth, gave him the look of a fat vampire.
At nine o’clock he called Bentley because he was still gurgling and running to the john. He explained that he had the shits and couldn’t come for the medicine. Bentley said that he’d bring it by himself as soon as the man dropped it off. Carl and Claudia had already left for the day. Croyd had avoided them this morning, claiming an upset stomach. He now weighed 198.
It was near eleven o’clock when Bentley came by. Croyd had lost another twenty pounds by then and had scratched off a large flap of skin from his lower abdomen. The area of exposed tissue beneath it was gray and scaly.
“My God!” Bentley said when he saw him. “Yeah.”
“You’ve got big bald patches.”
“Right.”
“I’ll get you a hairpiece. Also, I’ll talk to a lady I know. She’s a beautician. We’ll get you some kind of cream to rub in. Give you some normal color. I think you’d better wear dark glasses, too, when you go to the wedding. Tell ‘em you got drops in your eyes. You’re getting hunchbacked, too. When’d that happen?”
“I didn’t even notice. I’ve been—occupied.”
Bentley patted the lump between his shoulders and Croyd screamed.
“Sorry. Maybe you’d better take a pill right away.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re going to need to wear a big overcoat, too. What size do you take?”
“I don’t know-now”
“That’s okay. I know someone’s got a warehouse full. We’ll send you a dozen.”