“MR. FOLSOM FEELS FINE” was published in 1986, during the period in Avram Davidson’s life when he wrestled with the Veterans Administration to secure his meager pension.
What is the secret of a successful retirement? Some point to sound health and good medical care, others point to a solid portfolio of investments and pension benefits. But Mr. Folsom found another direction. He followed the trail to Gunk Up High, and the notorious illegal bush-wax trade. Beware.
—GD
Some people can handle foreign travel, whereas others simply can’t. Some can go live in a Himalayan satrapy so remote that it is not perceived on maps more than once in a century (and even that once it appears sketchily in some learned journal showing the distribution of its thirty-seven species of venomous earwigs)—can go live in it and do just fine, riding the small fur-bearing ponies as though they’d been hired for twenty minutes at a fun park and eating the roast slugs as though they were Mighty Max Burgers, whereas there are those who get ptomaine or its latest equivalent from a tortilla chip three feet south by southeast from the border of the U.S.A. Who can say why some people can travel by scooter through bandidi-infested crags and never encounter one single bandido and yet other people manage to alienate the usually imperturbable Royal Horsemen of Bothnia by dropping chewing-gum wrappers in front of their royal horses for a fine of seven boboes.
Mr. Edgar Folsom, who retained the same faith in the advertisements that he had had in his twenties, had for a long while planned to “Retire on Two Hundred and Twenty Dollars a Month,” and had lavished his savings upon the Good Old Days Retirement Company. Often he and Mamie (Mrs. Edgar) had been almost obliged to chuckle when they considered how they—and other subscribers to the GODRC—were going to beat the system, even if nobody else was—except maybe a handful of intractable Indians in the Wild Rice Country, who could, of course, always live on wild rice. And baskets. Lots and lots of edible baskets, woven from succulent shoots.
“Oh, I got to hand it to you two,” often said unmarried sister (and sister-in-law) Etta Folsom. (Their grandfather had not been originally named Folsom, he had originally been named something harsh and Nordish, a fact which only a distant cousin still claimed to remember. Mamie Folsom had long ago lost this man’s address and made little attempt to find it.) “You two know what you’re doing.”
Did Mamie know what she was doing when she passed away, quite suddenly and quite silently, two weeks before his effective (compulsory) retirement date? Perhaps she did. Edgar’s slightly delayed letter of notice to the GODRC was answered, eventually, by a firm of attorneys of which Edgar had never heard. It informed him that the Good Old Days Retirement Company (whose ads had not appeared in magazines for quite some time) no longer existed, as, under the laws of a not very well-known and distant state, it had wound up its affairs. Its assets now belonged to a giant conglomerate specializing in, among other things, the manufacture of waxes and wines and the management of ski lodges. This organization had somehow, certainly quite legally, acquired the assets of the Good Old Days Retirement Company without acquiring any of its liabilities. Anyway, the letter pointed out, you couldn’t retire on two hundred and twenty dollars a month any more. Not their fault, but as a matter of policy, if not benevolence—being a bunch of real good guys who know how it is—the conglomerate was going to make Mr. Folsom (in his own right and as sole heir and legatee of Mamie P. Folsom, Deceased) a lump sum, that’s-it payment of eleven hundred dollars.
“Well, you were always a very stubborn boy, Edgar, and no one could ever tell you what to do. Now, these quilts I am going to take with me, those quilts I am letting the Historical Society have, and this quilt I am letting you take with you,” said Etta.
“Take with me where? Where are we going?” her brother asked. He was slightly bewildered. If Mamie hadn’t always told him what to do, Etta had always told him what to do.
“I am going to the Sons and Daughters of Bothnia Residence in Calico Falls. Women are admitted at sixty, men at eighty. In the meanwhile, where you are going I’m sure I couldn’t say. Don’t you have a pension? Hand me that wrap of tissue paper, please.”
Mr. Folsom smote his brow. “A pension!” he cried. “Of course!”
* * *
IN THE PENSIONS Office of the Civil Functionaries Administration, Mr. Roswell P. Sawell addressed his assistant, Mr. Merton Rush. “Anything new today, Mert?”
“I’ve just opened a new file,” said Mr. Rush. “Application for pension from a Mr.—” he consulted the file “—Edgar Folsom. From Wampanoack.”
“Don’t matter where from,” said his superior. “What’s his timeage?”
“Timeage is seventeen years, seven days.”
“He doesn’t qualify for full payment, Rush.”
“I know that.”
“Minimum pension of, hm, let me calculate a second, um, two hundred and twenty dollars a month. Write him. Application denied. Subject named above may appeal. You know the routine.”
“I know the routine.”
“Then we’ll hold up the appeal for five years, and of course he draws no interest.”
“Of course.”
But Mr. Merton Rush did not move back into his own office and Ros Sawell asked, in some surprise, “What are you waiting for, then?”
Mert reminded his boss that it was CFA policy to grant three such applications without delay monthly, that so far they had granted only two, and that it was the last day of the month.
“Oh. Um. Yes, so it is. Shoot. Oh, well, grant it. He’ll soon enough try to collect the pension in a foreign country with a subversively lower cost of living. Then we’ll jump him.”
Mert said, “Oh, boy, yes! Estopped. Suspended pending investigation. That’s right!”
“We got to think of the taxpayers.”
* * *
ETTA HAD A very nice room with her own foyer facing the granite statue of The Intrepid Bothnian on the lawn. Constant hot tap water for making instant coffee. “Well, have you made up your mind yet, Edgar, what you’re going to do? Your lease runs out this month and your rent will be raised.”
Mr. Folsom straightened his bowtie. (He always had a little trouble with it.) “Well, I certainly hope and trust the President will do something about it.”
Etta was very patriotic, but. “Why should he do something about it?” she asked, for once a bit surprised.
“Well, I wrote and asked him to.”
“Oh, you—Edgar. What’s that sticking out of your pocket instead of a nice clean hankie? A letter. What would you do if I weren’t here to remind you.” Deftly, she opened and read. “Well, I never. You are going to get a Civil Functionary Partial Pension of two hundred and twenty dollars a month. Oh, for goodness sake.”
Edgar, however, wasn’t surprised. Not at all. “There, you see. I guess an American citizen can write to his President if he wants results. Guess that Good Old Days Retirement Company, he fixed their little red wagon sure enough.”
For once Etta had not much to say, but she said it. “You can’t retire on two hundred and twenty dollars a month. Have you seen the prices lately? Where do you shop?”
“Tut,” said Edgar. “I’ll go live in some country with a lower cost of living. Few can’t lick ’em, join ’em. Huh?”
* * *
THE YOUNG PERSON in the travel agency repeated his question. “Where can you go for eleven hundred dollars? Well, the pitcheresque Republic of La Banana has just been opened for tourism and foreign migration. We got this bunch of literature in just today. ‘The picturesque Republic of La Banana, which gave its name to the familiar succulent yellow fruit, contains one hundred and fifty-two species of edible wild slugs, also many colorful parrots.’ Here, you can read it while I make out your package.”
In the newly opened consulate and travel office of the Republic of La Banana, Bombo Duzbuz Jambatch looked at Mr. Folsom listlessly. “You wish to go to our country? Fine. So go. One moment. Health precaution. Stick out tongue, please. Thirty-seven dollar, you pay me. Okay, now I make out your Permission.”
Mr. Folsom had never traveled very much. “You’re put?” Mamie used to ask. “Stay put.”
He now inquired, “Permission for what?”
Bombo Duzbuz Jambatch looked up, surprised. “Everything,” he replied. “Enter. Exit. Transit. Operate steamroller. Even, you may to run for elective office. Save that no more we have elections. Kay. All finish. Here.”
Mr. Folsom took the large and colorful paper, folded it. “When does it have to be renewed?”
The bombo suddenly seemed bored. “How I know? I am not prophet. Do not push fates. Perhaps never. You think we are tyranty? Go.”
Edgar went.
* * *
IN THE CAPITAL hamlet of Gunk Up High, several gorges away from the non-capital hamlet of Gunk Not So High, Mr. Folsom found there was something of a housing shortage. The best he could obtain for himself was an eight-room poppick at a rental of one dollar per room per month, the landlord insisting on renting the poppick as a single unit. The other natives rolled their eyes at such cupidity and murmured a local proverb loosely translated as, “Foreigners and their welcome money often make the rich richer.” It was, of course, far more room than Edgar needed, but he found that the space gradually filled with the picturesque native furniture, artwork, and bric-a-brac which he found it amusing to buy at the Weeny Bazaar (the Great Big Bazaar dealt mostly in milch-sheep and rhinoceros legs). Sometimes he spent as much as two or three dollars a month on such items.
Goro-goro luntch-potch, as they say in the pawkey idiom of La Banana. Meaning, So the time does pass, even so.
* * *
“WELL, WHAT DID I tell you?” said Mr. Roswell Sawell. “Didn’t he run true to form? Here’s a change of address for his Civil Functionary Partial Pension check, just as I predicted.”
“You certainly can pick ’em, Chief.”
“Now, theoretically—” Ros pushed the compliment aside “—any American citizen may elect to receive his pension anywhere in the world—Andorra, Oz, Borrioboola-gha, anywhere. But we don’t like um to! We know that nobody can live on that kind of money! Where’s the cost of his car? Where’s his gas money? You know what a TV set costs in some a these countries with subversively low standards of living? Dishwashers? As for, say, the price of beef, well, you just price it yourself! If we can’t make it, they can’t make it! No, Mert: less a fellow’s getting a full career pension of, well, say at least two thousand dollars a month, there’s no way he can live on his pension. Which means—well, you know what it means!”
Merton nodded his birdy head. “Il-lic-it en-ter-prise.” He rolled out the syllables with relish. Relish, and unction.
“Absolutely. Smuggling Scotch whiskey. Promoting ox-races. And, increasingly, the notorious bush-wax trade.”
His assistant agreed with him. “That’s terrible stuff, that bush-wax.”
Terrible? said his superior. Terrible was hardly the word for it. It was diuretic, euphoric, and non-addictive! No wonder the Pensions Office of the Civil Functionaries Administration worked hand in glove with the Illegal Ear Substances Division of the Crack-Down Department. “So let’s put a Stop on his pension, and he can swim back, if he likes, and file an appeal. There’s a good ten years he won’t be robbing the taxpayers.—Why are you just standing there, Mert?”
Merton said because they had already put Stops on eight hundred and thirty-five pensions that month already, which was tops according to policy, and so they’d better wait till next month.
“Don’t rock the boat, in other words?”
“You said it, Chief!”
“Well, you may be right. I have a sort of nose for these things. But, next month we drop the Himalayan Mountains on him!”
He and his assistant laughed soundlessly.
* * *
MR. EDGAR FOLSOM never drank Scotch whiskey, thought the ox-races were smelly, and would have been bored by TV had there been any. (The mountain ranges made it impracticable. As for washing his dishes, he threw them all into the gorge behind his house and got new ones.) He was spending so little money he was obliged to buy quite a number of boxes to store the money he didn’t spend. He was by now probably the richest man in Gunk Up High, and the lower caste of natives never came near his house at night lest the gods, who obviously love rich men (else why are they rich—answer that one, would you?), eat their kidney-fat. They may not know much, those innocent, childlike, very dirty natives, but they know that without kidney-fat you just ain’t got it.
One day Mr. Edgar Folsom was strolling along a road (path, the very particular might call it) which had yet to receive the biannual attentions of the steamroller. (The fact is that the dictator was very fond of operating it himself and paid no attention to any of the schedules the Department of Public Works submitted to him—very, very occasionally.) Rather incuriously, he observed someone he rather thought was a foreigner. In fact, this one admitted as much to him, saying, “I am a foreigner.”
“What brings you here? Not that it isn’t a nice little place.”
The man said he was allowing vortices of energy to carry him along as he observed the Way and the Eternal Snows.
“Oh.”
The foreigner took him by the arm and slightly turned him. He gestured. “Just cast your gaze through the, like, mists of illusion and tell me if there are three energy-forms in uniform standing at the crossroads.”
Mr. Folsom slightly squinted. “Well,” he said, “usually there are two policemen standing there, I don’t know why—I mean, there’s never that much traffic—but today I guess there are three.”
The foreigner said that that which was not an enigma was an illusion. “Just point out your house—I mean the compass-point where the non-real you is dwelling, as it were, man. There? Good. Now, would you do me one big favor? My arm hurts today—a mere illusion to be sure, but would you just let me put this in your case and I’ll meet you later. Right now it’s my, um, time of withdrawal and meditation.”
* * *
OF THE THREE at the crossroads, only one spoke sufficient English to be more than merely amusing. This was Bombo Yimyam Hutchkutch. “Ah, Meestair Edgar Folsom, you are out to ramble, as often, eh?”
Mr. Folsom acknowledged it. “I was taking some snapshots with my little old Kodak brownie camera and the people there started yelling, so I stopped and gave ’em some pennies—anyway I call ’em pennies. So then they all kissed my coat lapels and gave me what they said is the stuffed head of a yeti. I put it in my briefcase. No, that’s not it. I dunno what this is—some other foreigner asked me to take it down the hill for him, I guess because it will help his hurt arm.” And he gazed round the mountain-circled universe with his candid eyes.
From the policemen meanwhile had come noises of suspicion, irritation, and something which another might have taken for dismay. Said the bombo, “We will take it down the hill for you, Meestair. We will take care to find him and alleviate his hurt arm. What, to think he can move about with this stash and pay us nothing? Proceed upon your ramble, Meestair Folsom, and may you live in our nation for a hundred thousand eons.”
* * *
“WELL, CHIEF,” SAID Merton, “guess what just came in?”
“Some more appeals against estoppment of pensions, I suppose,” suggested Mr. Sawell indifferently. The Pacific Ocean and the entirety of the Indoo Sea might have been filled with swimming appellants, much cared he.
Nay, not so, Merton told him. “It’s the monthly exchange list from the Illegal Ear Substances Division of the Crack-Down Department, and guess what? Folsom, Edgar, in La Banana has been instrumental in catching a cache of illegal bush-wax!”
They gazed at each other with a wild surmise. Then, slowly but with admiration, Mr. Sawell said, “I guess he is one of the IED’s men. This pension thing, it’s just his cover. Of course he doesn’t have to live on it. Get the big red rubber stamp and stamp his file NTBTW. Get going, now, Mert.” And Merton, bowing his head respectfully, proceeded to affix the indication that Edgar Folsom’s pension was Never To Be Tampered With.
A civil functionary has many, many duties. The public scarcely knows.
* * *
AS FOR MR. Edgar Folsom, he has grown tired of hoarding his money. For one thing, he sends contributions to the worthy causes he finds mentioned in the worn, worn copies of Reader’s Digest that come his distant way as padding in the ox-caravans. And for another, he has bought a choice and select herd of jet-black milch-sheep, plus three dancing bears.
He feels just fine.