"It's me, professor," Charley called. He slipped the sandal back on.
"Charley de Milo. I came to see you."
"Charley--" There was a second of silence. "Charley de Milo?" Professor
Lightning's grating voice said. "From the show?" Footsteps came across a
room, and the door swung open. Professor Lightning stood inside, just as
tall and white-haired as ever, and Charley blinked, looking at him, and
past him at the room.
People didn't live in rooms like that, he thought. They were only for
the movies, or maybe for millionaires, but not for people, real people
that Charley himself knew to talk to.
The furniture--a couch, a few chairs and tables, a phonograph--was
glitteringly new and expensive-looking. The walls were freshly painted
in soft, bright colors, and pictures hung on them, strange-looking
pictures Charley couldn't make sense out of. But they looked right,
somehow, in that room.
On the floor there was a rug deeper and softer-looking than any Charley
had ever seen. And, away to the right, two floor-length windows
sparkled, hung with great drapes and shining in the daylight. There were
flowers growing outside the sills, just visible above the window frames.
Charley gulped and took a breath.
"Come in," Professor Lightning said. "Come in." In the midst of the riot
of wealth, the professor didn't seem to have changed at all. He was
still wearing the same ratty robe he'd worn in the carnival, his hair
was still as uncombed. It was only on second glance that Charley saw the
look in his eyes. Professor Lightning was Dr. Schinsake now; the eyes
said that, and were proud of it. And the world agreed with Dr.
Schinsake.
Charley came into the bright room and stood quietly until Dr. Schinsake
asked him to sit down.
"Well, now, my boy," he said. "You haven't given me a word since you
rang the bell, and I would like to know why you're here. Frankly, you're
lucky to catch me in; but we were up late last night, working in the
labs. I'm afraid I overslept a little." His eyes shone with the mention
of his laboratories. It was a far cry from the back of the science tent,
Charley supposed.
But he'd come for a definite purpose. He licked his lips, waited a
second, and said: "Professor, it's about my arms. What you said you
could do."
"Your arms?" The old man frowned. "Now? You've come to me ... Charley,
my boy, tell me why. Tell me why you have changed your mind now."
Charley nodded. "I ... I didn't start out here to ask you about my
arms," he said. "But on the way I started putting things together.
Professor, why do people come to side-shows?"
The old man shrugged. "Entertainment," he said.
"Sure, but there are all kinds of entertainment," Charley said. "Like
strong men. There used to be a lot of strong men in carnivals, but there
aren't any more. And now I know why. Ed Baylis started to tell me, but I
... well, never mind."
"Charley," the old man said. "What do strong men have to do with--"
"Let me tell you, professor," Charley said. "People don't care about
strong men any more; there are too many gadgets around. Nobody has to be
a strong man; nobody wants to watch one. They're useless. See?"
"Everyone can be his own strong man," the old man said.
"Right," Charley said. "The chain hoist--machines like that--they killed
off the whole act. Years ago. And you've killed off the Armless Wonders
and the Legless Wonders, professor. You've done it, all at once."
Professor Lightning shook his head. "I don't see--" he began.
"Anybody can grow new arms," Charley said. "So the man without
arms--he's not an object of pity any more. He's just some guy who
doesn't want to work. Nobody wants to go and see him; let him grow arms,
if he doesn't want to be called a lazy bum. See?"
There was a little silence.
"I see," Professor Lightning said slowly. "Without pity, without a
strong sense of identification, there is no audience."
"For me there isn't," Charley said. "Or for anybody like me."
Professor Lightning nodded. "Well," he said. "I hardly meant to ...
well, Charley, you came for something else." His face seemed to
lengthen. "And I must tell you ... Charley, I have been doing a lot of
work. I am hardly a professional scientist; I have been away too long."
"But--"
"It is true," Professor Lightning said sadly. "Never mind; I've had my
one discovery--how much an accident, no one may ever know. But I
neglected to widen the scope of what I had done; I generalized too
rapidly, my boy." He took a deep breath. "The method, the technique, is
very complex," he said. "But imagine it this way: a man comes to New
York. He explores it. Later, when he goes home, he is asked to draw a
map of it--and he can do so, because he has the experience. He has the
memory of New York, locked in his mind."
Charley nodded. "What does that have to do with me?" he said.
"The cells ... the cells of the body seem to have such a memory," the
professor said. "It is the basis of my technique."
Charley nodded. "O.K.," he said "I don't care how it works, so long as
it-- It does work, doesn't it?"
The professor shook his head. Very slowly, he said: "Not for you, my
boy. Not for you." He paused. "You see, you were born without arms. In
such a case the cellular memory does not seem to exist--like a man who
has never been to New York. He cannot draw the map. He has no memory to
begin with."
The silence this time was a long one.
At last Charley said: "But somebody could tell him. I mean about New
York, so he could draw the map."
"Perhaps," the professor said. "We are working on it. Some day--"
"But not today," Charley said. "Is that it?"
"I ... I'm afraid so," the professor said.
Charley sat for a long time, thinking. He pictured the carnival, and the
shrinking audiences. Could he explain to them why he couldn't get arms?
Would any audience stop to listen and digest the truth? Charley thought
of the armless man in the Flea Museum, and decided slowly that no
explanation would be good enough. People didn't stop to make small
distinctions. Not in a sideshow. Not in a carnival.
No.
There was only one thing he could do; he saw that clearly. But it took
him a long time to find the right words. At last he had them.
"Professor," he said, "suppose I go right back to being a sideshow
exhibit--but with a limited audience."
Professor Lightning looked puzzled. "What do you mean?" he said.
"Well," Charley said, carefully and with a sudden, surprising feeling of
hope, "you don't happen to need a new guinea pig, do you?"