the Divers
By JAMES STAMERS
The key to Fred's success
was simple ... he may not have
had much of a mind, but it
was all his, nobody else's!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
He had forgotten the beer again. He remembered that he had forgottenonly as he opened the apartment door. A wave of smoke and onions andhamburger flowed past him into the dingy corridor and he stumbled onthe garbage pail, plunked right in the doorway for him to lug along thepassage to the chute. The bed was not made in one of their two roomsand newspapers littered the other. Elsie was in the kitchen.
"Fred! Fred, did you remember my beer?"
He closed the door so that the neighbors would not hear the row tocome, except through the walls.
"Didja, Fred?"
She stood akimbo in the kitchen doorway, a cigarette hanging from herlips, her dressing gown loose and spotted, her feet in old scuffs.
"I forgot," he mumbled. "I'll go now."
Oh, no, he wouldn't. Not until he had heard a full resumé of his lackof character, lack of enterprise, ambition, decency, thoughtfulness,manhood, semblance of virtue.
"I said I was going, Elsie. I said I was going, didn't I?"
"Well, my day! You remembered my name!"
It was true he rarely used her name or called her any husbandly termsuch as dear or darling instead, and rarely looked at her at all if hecould avoid it inconspicuously. Ten years of marriage—ten years oflegal proximity, rather, for nothing in him was married to anything inher any more.
"I don't know why you married me," he said.
"Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Go on, get out."
He almost knocked the man over as he left the apartment. The man wasstanding there, about to ring the bell. Well dressed, clean, expensiveovercoat, polished shoes, black hat and a mild friendly face.
"Mr. Frederick Williams?" the man asked.
"Yes," said Fred.
"You entered the Sunday News competition for a free space ride?"
"Yes. Did I win it?"
"Unfortunately, no," said the man.
"Oh. Well, excuse me, I've got to go and get something."
"I'll come with you. My name is Howard Sprinnell, Mr. Williams, andI've been examining the entries to that competition. Frankly, we thinkyou have considerable talent."
"Mister," said Fred over his shoulder as they went down the stairs, "ifyou're trying to sell me something—"
"I don't want a penny from you, Mr. Williams."
"Then what—"
"We would merely appreciate a few hours of your time, at yourconvenience."
"A few hours?" Fred said, distressed. By working double shift in theautomation-parts supply house, he could just keep going, financiallyand physically. The question of mental fatigue was exclusively Elsie'sprovince and there he had a rough working technique for respondingwithout really listening. His job called for no mental effort greaterthan reading a shipping list, and his home life certainly didn't.Most of the time he had nothing in his mind at all; the days passedfaster that way. But Elsie and the job kept him tired. Odd how just notlistening wrung you out and drained you off.
"