The Aggravation of Elmer Read online

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  The Aggravation of Elmer

  By ROBERT ARTHUR

  _The world would beat a path to Elmer's door--but he had to go carry the door along with him!_

  It was the darnedest traffic jam I'd ever seen in White Plains. For twoblocks ahead of me, Main Street was gutter to gutter with stalled cars,trucks and buses.

  If I hadn't been in such a hurry to get back to the shop, I might havepaid more attention. I might have noticed nobody was leaning on hishorn. Or that at least a quarter of the drivers were out peering undertheir hoods.

  But at the time it didn't register. I gave the tie-up a passing glanceand was turning up the side street toward Biltom Electronics--Bill-Tom,get it?--when I saw Marge threading her way to the curb. She was leadinga small blonde girl of about eight, who clutched a child-size hatbox inher hand. Marge was hot and exasperated, but small fry was as cool andcomposed as a vanilla cone.

  I waited. Even flushed and disheveled, Marge is a treat to look at. Sheis tall and slender, with brown eyes that match her hair, a smile thatfirst crinkles around her eyes, then sneaks down and becomes afull-fledged grin--

  But I'm getting off the subject.

  "Honestly, Bill!" Marge said as she saw me. "The traffic nowadays! We'vebeen tied up for fifteen minutes. I finally decided to get off the busand walk, even though it is about a hundred in the shade."

  "Come along to the shop," I suggested. "The reception room isair-conditioned and you can watch the world's first baseball gametelecast in color. The Giants versus the Dodgers, Carl Erskinepitching."

  Marge brightened. "That'll be more fun than shopping, won't it, Doreen?"she asked, looking down at the kid. "Bill, this is Doreen. She livesacross the street from me. Her mother's at the dentist and I said I'dlook after her for the day."

  "Hello, Doreen," I said. "What have you in the hatbox? Doll clothes?"

  Doreen gave me a look of faint disgust. "No," she piped, in a hightreble. "An unhappy genii."

  "An unhappy--" I did a double take. "Oh, an unhappy genii? Maybe he'sunhappy because you won't let him out, ha ha." Even to myself, I soundedidiotic.

  Doreen looked at me pityingly. "It's not a he, it's a thing. Elmer madeit."

  I knew when I was losing, so I quit.

  * * * * *

  I hurried Marge and Doreen along toward our little two-story building.Once we got into the air-conditioned reception room, Marge sank downgratefully onto the settee and I switched on the television set with thebig 24-inch tube Tom had built.

  Biltom Electronics makes TV components, computer parts, things likethat. Tom Kennedy is the brains. Me, Bill Rawlins, I do the legwork, andtend to the business details.

  "It's uncanny the way all those cars suddenly stopped when our bus brokedown," Marge said as we waited for the picture to come on. "Any day nowthis civilization of ours will get so complicated a bus breaking downsomeplace will bring the whole thing to a halt. Then where will we be?"

  "Elmer says silly-zation is doomed!" Doreen put in happily.

  The way she rolled the word out made me stare at her.

  Marge only nodded. "That's what Elmer says, all right," she agreed, atrifle grim.

  "Why does Elmer say silly-zation is doomed?" I asked Doreen.

  "Because it's getting hotter." The kid gave it to me straight. "All theice at the North Pole is gonna melt. The ocean is gonna rise two hundredfeet. Then everybody who doesn't live on a hill is gonna be drownded.That's what Elmer says and Elmer isn't ever wrong."

  Illustrated by CAVAT]

  Doreen they called her! Why not Cassandra? The stuff kids spout thesedays!

  I gave her a foolish grin. I wanted Marge to get the idea I was really afamily man at heart. "That's very interesting, Doreen. Now look, there'sthe baseball game. Let's watch, shall we?"

  We weren't very late after all. It was the top half of the secondinning, the score one to one, Erskine in trouble with two men on andonly one down. The colors were beautiful. Marge and I were just settlingback to watch when Doreen wrinkled her nose.

  "I saw that game yesterday!" she announced.

  "You couldn't have, sweetheart," I told her. "Because it's only beingplayed today. The world's first ball game ever broadcast in color."

  "There was a game on Elmer's TV," Doreen insisted. "The picture wasbigger and the colors prettier, too."

  "Absolutely impossible." I was a little sore. I hate kids who tell fibs."There never was a game broadcast in color before. And, anyway, youwon't find a color tube this big any place outside of a laboratory."

  "But it's true, Bill." Marge looked at me, wide-eyed. "Elmer only has alittle seven-inch black and white set his uncle gave him. But he'srigged up some kind of lens in front of it, and it projects a big colorpicture on a white screen."

  I saw that she was serious. My eyes bugged slightly. "Listen," I said,"who is this Elmer character? I want to meet him!"

  "He's my cousin from South America," Doreen answered. "He thinksgrownups are stupid." She turned to Marge. "I have to go to thebathroom," she said primly.

  "Through that door." Marge pointed.

  Doreen trotted out, clutching her hat box.

  * * * * *

  "Elmer thinks grownups are stupid?" I howled. "Listen, how old is thischaracter who says silly-zation is doomed and can convert a black andwhite broadcast into color?"

  "He's thirteen," Marge told me. I goggled at her. "Thirteen," sherepeated. "His father is some South American scientist. His mother diedten years ago."

  I sat down beside her. I lit a cigarette. My hands were shaking. "Tellme about him. _All_ about him."

  "Why, I don't know very much," Marge said. "Last year Elmer was sick,some tropic disease. His father sent him up here to recuperate. NowAlice--that's his aunt, Doreen's mother--is at her wits' end, he makesher so nervous."

  I lit another cigarette before I realized I already had one. "And heinvents things? A boy genius? Young Tom Edison and all that?"

  Marge frowned. "I suppose you could say that," she conceded. "He has thegarage full of stuff he's made or bought with the allowance his fathersends him. And if you come within ten feet of it without permission, youget an electric shock right out of thin air. But that's only part of it.It--" she gave a helpless gesture--"it's Elmer's effect on everybody.Everybody over fifteen, that is. He sits there, a little, dark,squinched-up kid wearing thick glasses and talking about how climaticchanges inside fifty years will flood half the world, cause the collapseof civilization--"

  "Wait a minute!" I cut in. "Scientists seem to think that's possible ina few thousand years. Not fifty."

  "Elmer says fifty," Marge stated flatly. "From the way he talks, Isuspect he's figured out a way to speed things up and is going to try itsome day just to see if it works. Meanwhile he fools around out there inthe garage, sneering about the billions of dollars spent to developcolor TV. He says his lens will turn any ordinary broadcast into colorfor about twenty-five dollars. He says it's typical of the muddledthinking of our so-called scientists--I'm quoting now--to do everythingbackward and overlook fundamental principles."

  "Bro-ther!" I said.

  Doreen came trotting back in then, with her hat box. "I'm tired of thatgame," she said, giving the TV set a bored glance. And as she said itthe tube went dark. The sound cut off.

  "Damn!" I swore. "Must be a power failure!" I grabbed the phone andjiggled the hook. No dice. The phone was dead, too.

  "You're funny," Doreen giggled. "It's just the unhappy genii. See?"

  She flicked over the catch on the hatbox.

  And the pict
ure came back on. The sound started up. "--swings and missesfor strike two!" The air conditioner began to hum.

  Marge and I stared. Mouths open. Wide.

  * * * * *

  "You did that, Doreen?" I asked it very carefully. "You made thetelevision stop and start again?"

  "The unhappy genii did," Doreen told me. "Like this." She flicked thecatch back. The TV picture blacked out. The sound