5,271,009

7

He awoke with a splitting headache. He was lying on the tile dais alongside the stool, his bruised temple pressed against the cold floor. Mr. Aquila had emerged from the lead shield and was turning on an exhaust fan to/ clear the air.

“Bravo, my liver & onions,” he chuckled. “The last one you did by yourself, eh? No assistance from yours truly required. Meglio tarde che mai. But you went over with a crack before I could catch you. God damn.”

He helped Halsyon to his feet and led him into the consultation room where he seated him on a velvet chaise longue and gave him a glass of brandy.

“Guaranteed free of drugs,” he said. “Noblesse oblige. Only the best spiritus frumenti. Now we discuss what we have done, eh? Jeez.”

He sat down behind the desk, still sprightly, still bitter, and regarded Halsyon with kindliness. “Man lives by his decisions, nest-ce-pas?” he began. “We agree, oui? A man has some five million two hundred seventyone thousand and nine decisions to make in the course of his life. Peste! Is it a prime number? N importe. Do you agree?”

Halsyon nodded.

“So, my coffee & doughnuts, it is the maturity of these decisions that decides whether a man is a man or a child. Nicht wahr? Malgre nous. A man cannot start making adult decisions until he has purged himself of the dreams of childhood. God damn. Such fantasies. They must go. Pfui.”

“No,” Halsyon said slowly. “It's the dreams that make my art… the dreams and fantasies that I translate into line and color…”

“God damn! Yes. Agreed. Maitre d 'hotel! But adult dreams, not baby dreams. Baby dreams. Pfui! All men have them… To be the last man on earth and own the earth… To be the last fertile man on earth and own the women… To go back in time with the advantage of adult knowledge and win victories… To escape reality with the dream that life is make-believe… To escape responsibility with a fantasy of heroic injustice, of martyrdom with a happy ending… And there are hundreds more, equally popular, equally empty. God bless Father Freud and his merry men. He applies the quietus to such nonsense. Sic semper tyrannis. Avaunt!”

“But if everybody has those dreams, they can’t be bad, can they?”

“For everybody read every baby. Quid pro quo. God damn. Everybody in Fourteenth century had lice. Did that make it good? No, my young, such dreams are for childrens. Too many adults are still childrens. It is you, the artists, who must lead them out as I have led you. I purge you; now you purge them.”

“Why did you do this?”

“Because I have faith in you. Sic vos non vobis. It will not be easy for you. A long hard road and lonely.”

“I suppose I ought to feel grateful,” Halsyon muttered, “but I feel… well… empty. Cheated.”

“Oh yes, God damn. If you live with one Jeez big ulcer long enough you miss him when he’s cut out. You were hiding in an ulcer. I have robbed you of said refuge. Ergo: you feel cheated. Wait! You will feel even more cheated. There was a price to pay, I told you. You have paid it. Look.”

Mr. Aquila held up a hand mirror. Halsyon glanced into it, then started and stared. A fifty-year-old face stared back at him: lined, hardened, solid, determined. Halsyon leaped to his feet.

“Gently, gently,” Mr. Aquila admonished. “It is not so bad. It is damned good. You are still 33 in age of physique. You have lost none of your life… only all of your youth. What have you lost? A pretty face to lure_ young girls? Is that why you are wild?”

“Christ!” Halsyon cried.

“All right. Still gently, my child. Here you are, purged, disillusioned, unhappy, bewildered, one foot on the hard road to maturity. Would you like this to have happened or not have happened? Si. I can do. This can never have happened. Spurlos versenkt. It is ten seconds from your escape. You can have your pretty young face back. You can be recaptured. You can return to the safe ulcer of the womb… a child again. Would you like same:

“You can’t!”

“Sauve qui peut, my Pike’s Peak. I can. There is no end to the 15,000 angstrom band.”

“Damn you! Are you Satan? Lucifer? Only the devil could have such powers.”

“Or angels, my old.”

“You don’t look like an angel. You look like Satan.”

“Ah? Ha? But Satan was an angel before he fell. He has many relations on high. Surely there are family resemblances. God damn.” Mr. Aquila stopped laughing. He leaned across the desk and the sprightliness was gone from his face. Only the bitterness remained. “Shall I tell you who I am, my chicken? Shall I explain why one unguarded look from this phizz toppled you over the brink?”

Halsyon nodded, unable to speak.

“I am a scoundrel, a black sheep, a scapegrace, a blackguard. I am a remittance man. Yes. God damn! I am a remittance man.” Mr. Aquila’s eyes turned into wounds. “By your standards I am the great man of infinite power and variety. So was the remittance man from Europe to naive natives on the beaches of Tahiti. Eh? So am I to you as I comb the beaches of this planet for a little amusement, a little hope, a little joy to while away the weary desolate years of my exile…

“I am bad,” Mr. Aquila said in a voice of chilling desperation. “I am rotten. There is no place in my home that can tolerate me. And there are moments, unguarded, when my sickness and my despair fill my eyes and strike terror into your waiting souls. As I strike terror into you now. Yes?”

Halsyon nodded again.

“Be guided by me. It was the child in Solon Aquila that destroyed him and led him into the sickness that destroyed his life. Oui. I too suffer from baby fantasies from which I cannot escape. Do not make the same mistake. I beg of you…” Mr. Aquila glanced at his wristwatch and leaped up. The sprightly returned to his manner. “Jeez. It’s late. Time to make up your mind, old bourbon & soda. Which will it be? Old face or pretty face? The reality of dreams or the dream of reality?”

“How many decisions did you say we have to make in a lifetime?”

“Five million two hundred and seven ty-one thousand and nine. Give or take a thousand. God damn.”

“And which one is this for me?”

“Ah? Verite sans peur. The two million six hundred and thirty-five thousand five hundred and fourth… off hand.”

“But it’s the big one.”

“They are all big.” Mr. Aquila stepped to the door, placed his hand on the buttons of a rather complicated switch and cocked an eye at Halsyon.

“Voila tout,” he said. “It rests with you.”

“I’ll take it the hard way,” Halsyon decided.

There was a silver chime from the switch, a fizzing aura, a soundless explosion, and Jeffrey Halsyon was ready for his 2,635,505th decision.