FANTASY
If there exists a royal class among the writers of short mystery fiction in general and the McGuffin in particular, Henry Slesar indisputably belongs to it. He has published more than five hundred stories since he began writing in the mid-1950s, the preponderance of them crime/suspense, and each and every one, in its own way, is a polished gem. “My Mother, the Ghost” is not only vintage Slesar—flawlessly crafted and constructed, with a surprise ending guaranteed to fool and delight almost any reader—it is also a complete home-study course in how to write the fantasy story, the short-short story, and (naturally) the McGuffin. - B.P.
His show closed, his mother died, and his hair started to fall out, a combination of events that led Raymond Schiff to think seriously about aiming a gun at the roof of his mouth. The show, called Flapper, was dubbed “Flopper” by the grips at the first rehearsal, a verdict confirmed on opening night. The mother, called Mama, had succumbed to a failing heart that had beaten solely for her Raymond’s sake for the past 40 years. The hair came out in handfuls on the day he received word from the bank concerning an overdraft of $1,100. Eleven hundred hairs, Raymond estimated gloomily.
Because his rent was two months in arrears, his landlady locked him out of his room immediately after the reviews appeared. She had sat up half the night, like a theater buff, waiting for Kerr, Watts, and the rest of the critics to tell her if she had a solvent tenant. When Raymond returned from Lindy’s, stuffed with cheesecake and remorse, he found his one shabby suitcase thoughtfully left outside. He checked into a hotel down the street.
He was lying on the bed in his underwear, thinking about his old Army .45, when the 60-watt bulb in the ceiling whooshed out like a candle in the wind. He felt the wind, too; it made ripples along his hairy calves. He received a frantic message from his brain telling him to be afraid. Yet he was calm, even expectant, when suddenly another light materialized at the foot of his bed and gradually took on a plump, familiar shape.
“Mama!” Raymond Schiff exclaimed.
“Raymond!” said his mother’s ghost. “Look at you! Two months I’m away, and this is how you take care of yourself? Lying around naked in drafty hotel rooms?”
“Mama,” Raymond said in a trembling voice, lifting himself from the bed, “is it really you?”
“So who else?” The spirit shrugged. “Listen, talk quick, this is a long-distance call. The only reason they let me come is on account of you need me so bad.”
“Oh, Mama!” Raymond groaned, catching a sob. “Do I need you! I can’t tell you how rotten things are. We had to close the show. One night, and we closed!”
Even in incorporeal form, his mother expressed a certain down-to-earth practicality. “All right, so it closed. You’ll have another show, don’t worry. Ideas you always had, Raymond, ever since you were a little boy.”
“Ideas, ideas,” Raymond groaned. “Who’d listen to my ideas now? The Japanese wrestlers I brought over—a failure! The Italian movie with the gladiators—a loss! The musical—a flopperino! I’m through, Mama, I’m washed up!”
She waggled a ghostly finger. “What did I always tell you, Raymond? Didn’t I always tell you I’d take care of you? If it’s a matter of a few dollars—”
“There’s nothing you can do for me now, Mama.”
“Name it! Name it!” she said, striking her breast. “What wouldn’t a mother do? Alive, dead, what does it matter?”
Tears slid from Raymond’s eyes. Then they narrowed, and generated a light of their own. The idea that exploded in his mind had a kilowatt power that was almost blinding.
“Mama!” he said. “Mama, could you do this again? Could you come back to earth again?”
“Well, maybe. Maybe once more they’ll let me come, if you really need me.”
“For sure, Mama, for positive sure?”
“If it’s so important, all right. For sure.”
“Could you come at a certain time—a certain place?”
“Why not?” said the ghost, lifting an insubstantial shoulder. “Didn’t I come to this dirty, old hotel room? You tell me where you want me, I’ll be there.”
Raymond hastily consulted a pocket calendar. “Could you make it a theater, Mama? On the night of, say, the 10th of October? At nine o’clock?”
“For what?”
“For a show,” Raymond whispered in delighted anticipation. “A show—starring you!”
“Raymond, Raymond,” his mother clucked. “From your old mother you want to make a hoochy-koochy dancer? Who’d pay money to see me?”
“Thousands of people, Mama! Thousands! It’ll be terrific—spectacular! Something nobody ever saw on stage before. A real live ghost!”
He waited breathlessly as the image wavered.
“So, all right,” his mother sighed. “I told you I’d take care of you, Raymond. And if this is what you want me to do—all right. Only one thing!” The finger waggled again. “It’s got to be decent, understand? No nakedness!”
“I swear!” Raymond Schiff shouted ecstatically.
Sid Salmon, of course, thought he was crazy when Raymond described the enterprise he had in mind: a one-time performance in a large-capacity house, say, Madison Square Garden, Carnegie Hall, the Winter Garden—$5 general admission, $10, $20 and more for a closer view of his mother, the ghost. Raymond didn’t ask Sid to believe him, all he said was: “If I could do it, Sid, if is all I’m asking. Is it worth five bucks a head? Would I pack them in?”
Sid gave a cracked, high-pitched giggle. “And when the ghost doesn’t come, Raymond? And they stamp their feet, break up the furniture and kill you? What then?”
“I’ll give them a guarantee,” Raymond said triumphantly. “The ghost shows or their money back. What can they lose?”
“They nothing. You plenty. The rental. The ushers. The stagehands. The orchestra. Union labor. Raymond, better to spend the money on a good psychiatrist.”
But Raymond was unshakeable in his faith. “Mama wouldn’t let me down,” he said. “Mama always promised to take care of me. Sidney, this time God is on my side. Can you loan me five thou?”
“Go ask God,” Sid answered. But that night he wrote him the check. Sid was his uncle.
Five thousand wasn’t enough, of course, so Raymond sold a Lincoln Continental he didn’t really own to his best friend, Earl Steckel.
He also wrote his ex-wife and told her he was seriously ill with a polluted kidney and could she send him a few bucks? She did, upon receipt of his I.O.U. for $2,500. He was still some $8,000 short of the total he needed, so he did something he had sworn never to do. He went to The Friend, a bulgy-necked hood who had absolutely no connection with Chase Manhattan, but whose loan business was thriving. (Those who patronized The Friend did so at their own risk, paying for any default with their well-being.)
At last he had the money, picked the date, chose the place and sent an earnest prayer up to his mother.
“Mama,” he said on his knees beside the hotel bed, “you’re booked for the 10th. The 10th, Mama. Don’t fail me. The tickets go on sale this week.”
The tickets went on sale-and the town chuckled.
RAYMOND SCHIFF PRESENTS
MY MOTHER, THE GHOST
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY
ON STAGE—IN PERSON
A GENUINE MANIFESTATION PROM THE SPIRIT WORLD
NOT A FILM—NOT A RECORDING
THE GHOST OF MRS. HANNA SCHIFF
BORN 1897—DIED 1965
APPEARANCE GUARANTEED OR YOUR MONEY REFUNDED
WINTER GARDEN—ONE NIGHT ONLY
OCT. 10—9:00 P.M.
At first, people laughed. Then, they bought a few tickets. And a few more. The line at the box office was started by two or three sheepish-looking customers. But it began to grow. It lengthened and wound like a snake, down the block and around the comer. The ticket brokers caught the scent of money. Demand began to overtake supply. Suddenly, a full-scale panic was on. Two weeks before the performance date, the theater was SRO, and Raymond Schiff saw a balance-sheet total that rose to a dizzying height. Loans, expenses, and all—after the 10th of October, he would be a wealthy man.
There was one more expense: the hiring of a dress suit, for Raymond himself planned to introduce the star of the evening. He occupied the theater’s best (meaning least objectionable) dressing room and meticulously prepared himself. In the grimy mirror, he saw a new look of optimism, even a new growth of hair.
“Mama, Mama,” he whispered to the ceiling. “You’re really taking care of me, just like you promised.” No shadow of a doubt crossed his mind. In truth, he was the only one in the theater that night, on both sides of the velvet curtain, who believed that the show could go on.
At 8:40, the orchestra struck up a jazzy version of “Ghost of a Chance.” Raymond was humming the tune when Sid Salmon came in babbling. “Raymond, Raymond, what kind of madness is—I never thought you’d really—did you see the people out there?—Raymond, what have you done?”
“Relax,” Raymond laughed. “Mama will be here, Sidney, no question about it.”
Raymond left the dressing room shortly before nine. He went out on stage, in front of the single painted backdrop representing a star-filled universe. He took a quick house count and wished he hadn’t. Sid was right. There were a lot of people out there.
But he thought of Mama, concentrated on her goodness and felt confident again. He walked to stage center and lifted his eyes heavenward. On the other side of the closed curtain, the orchestra had stopped. The audience murmur died away.
Raymond said, “Okay, Mama. You’re on.” Nothing happened.
Raymond’s heart went balump.
“Okay, Mama,” he said. “Come down.”
At 9:13, the audience buzz was audible again and, wisely, the orchestra began to play once more.
By 9:30, Raymond’s face was drenched. ‘‘Mama!” he pleaded. “Don’t do this to me, Mama. You promised. You said you’d take care of me!”
At 9:42, the crowd began to stamp in unison, a threat to the fixtures. The theater manager rushed out to Raymond and said, “Do something, will you do something? Raise the curtain at least!”
Ready to listen to any advice, Raymond nodded dumbly. The curtain was lifted. When the audience saw him, they hooted but quieted down—hopefully. He lifted his arms and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll please be patient—”
It was the wrong opener. The rhythmic stamping began again, out of step with the orchestra’s feeble version of “Got a Date with an Angel.” Minutes later, the first flying object hit the starry backdrop. It was an orange-drink container—filled. It was followed by half a dozen more and Raymond, for his own protection, was hustled into the wings by the stagehands. The theater manager screamed for the curtain. Its lowering only infuriated the audience more.
“Mama, Mama!” Raymond wept. “How could you do this to me?” At 10 o’clock, the manager made a timid appearance from behind the curtain and delivered a short speech about an immediate refund at the box office. It started a stampede out front in which six people were trampled.
Raymond, of course, owned nothing. He was in debt some $20,000, mainly to The Friend, whose emissaries had been in the front row watching the investment.
Raymond managed to leave the theater without being stopped. He got back to the hotel room and shut the door on the world. In the bathroom, he looked into the mirror and said, “Mama, how could you? Only tell me that. How could you do it?”
He opened his suitcase and found his Army .45 under his pajamas. He checked to see if it was loaded. It was. Not everything would go wrong tonight.
He sat down, drank half a glass of whiskey and then made a mental recapitulation of his troubles. That convinced him. He put the gun to his temple and squeezed the trigger. At that very moment, he saw his mother sitting on the sofa opposite, an interested observer.
The gun went off.
“Now,” his mother said with a contented smile. “Now, Raymond, I can really take care of you.”