A GOOD KNIGHT’S WORK
Robert Bloch
The next story is an example of the continuing use of the dragon-hunting theme in modern humorous fantasy. The tradition of the old sagas which F. Anstey brought into the twentieth century is here revived in a new guise by Robert Bloch, who is perhaps best known for his horror novel Psycho (1959) and the film of it by Alfred Hitchcock, but is also highly regarded as a writer of witty fantasy displaying what has been called his ‘graveyard humour. Although Bloch’s early stories were mostly tales of horror, his skill in writing comic fantasy was revealed in the series of Lefty Feep stories which he contributed to Fantastic Adventures in the Forties. Describing the exploits of a wisecracking hustler, the titles of these tales say all about the contents: ‘Time Wounds All Heels’, ‘Jerk the Giant Killer’, ‘Genie with the Light Brown Hair’ and ‘Stuporman’. The enthusiasm with which this series was received by readers encouraged Bloch to return to writing humorous fantasy throughout the rest of his life, and indeed one of the last stories he wrote was very much in the Lefty Feep tradition, ‘The Shrink and the Mink’.
Robert Bloch (1917—1994) was born in Chicago, the home town of the legendary pulp Weird Tales, and, not surprisingly, his first horror stories appeared in its pages. Soon, however, he was broadening his style, giving free rein to his ghoulish sense of humour and ultimately parodying a whole cross-section of the great writers of supernatural fiction, from H. P. Lovecraft to Stephen King. The success of Psycho opened the door to films, and he scripted numerous Hollywood pictures as well as a series of anthology movies made in England by Amicus and based upon his own short stories. In 1975 his contribution to the genre was honoured by a ‘Life Award’ at the First World Fantasy Convention, and he was regarded as one of the pre-eminent figures in fantasy fiction at the time of his sad death in 1994.
His talent, however, lives on—and especially in stories like this hilarious drama of a dragon-slayer on the loose in Thirties America, in which his literary model was unmistakably Damon Runyon, the famous chronicler of hardboiled characters with soft hearts. First published in Unknown Worlds in November 1942, the story imitates Runyon’s present-tense style of writing, but is equally full of Robert Bloch’s own special brand of comic invention.
* * * *
I am stepping on the gas, air is pouring into the truck and curses are pouring out, because I feel like I get up on the wrong side of the gutter this morning.
Back in the old days I am always informing the mob how I am going to get away from it all and buy a little farm in the country and raise chickens. So now I raise chickens and wish I am back in the old days raising hell.
It is one of those things, and today it is maybe two or three of them, in spades. Perhaps you are lucky and do not live in the Corn Belt, so I will mention a few items to show that the guy naming it knows what he’s talking about.
This morning I wake up at four a.m. because fifty thousand sparrows are holding a Communist rally under the window. I knock my shins over a wheelbarrow in the back yard because the plumbing is remote. When I get dressed I have to play tag with fifty chickens I am taking to market, and by the time that’s over I am covered with more feathers than a senator who gets adopted by Indians in a news-reel. After which all I do is load the cacklers on the truck, drive fifty miles to town, sell biddies at a loss, and drive back—strictly without breakfast.
Breakfast I must catch down the road at the tavern, where I got to pay ten bucks to Thin Tommy Malloon for protection.
That is my set-up and explains why I am not exactly bubbling over with good spirits. There is nothing to do about it but keep a stiff upper lip—mostly around the bottle I carry with me on the trip back.
Well, I am almost feeling better after a few quick ones, and am just about ready to stop my moans and groans when I spot this sign on the road.
I don’t know how it is with you. But this is how it is with me. I do not like signs on the road a bit, and of all the signs I do not like, the SIAMESE SHAVE signs I hate in spades.
They stand along the highway in series, and each of them has a line of poetry on it so when you pass them all you read a little poem about SIAMESE SHAVE. They are like the Old Lady Goose rhymes they feed the juveniles, and I do not have any love for Ma Goose and her poetry.
Anyhow, when I see this first sign I let out some steam and take another nip. But I cannot resist reading the sign because I always do. It says:
DON’T WEAR A LONG BEARD
And a little further on the second one reads:
LIKE A GOAT
Pretty soon I come to the third one, saying:
JUST TAKE A RAZOR
And all at once I’m happy, hoping maybe somebody made a mistake and the fourth sign will say:
AND CUT YOUR THROAT!
So I can hardly wait to see the last one, and I’m looking ahead on the road, squinting hard. Then I slam on the brakes.
No, I don’t see a sign. There is a thing blocking the road, instead. Two things.
One of these things is a horse. At least, it looks more like a horse than anything else I can see on four drinks. It is a horse covered with a kind of awning, or tent that hangs down over its legs and out on its neck. In fact, I notice that this horse is wearing a mask over its head with eyeholes, like it belongs to the Ku Klux Klan.
The other thing is riding the horse. It is all silver, from head to foot, and there is a long plume growing out of its head. It looks like a man, and it has a long, sharp pole in one hand and the top off a garbage can in the other.
Now when I look at this party I am certain of only one thing. This is not the Lone Ranger.
When I drive a little closer my baby-blue eyes tell me that what I am staring at is a man dressed up in a suit of armour, and that the long, sharp pole is a little thing like a twelve-foot spear with a razor on the end.
Who he is and why he is dressed up this way may be very interesting to certain parties like the State police, but I am very far away from being one. Also I am very far away from Thin Tommy Malloon who is waiting for my ten bucks protection money.
So when I see Old Ironsides blocking the road, I place my head outside the window and request, ‘Get the hell out of the way, buddy!’ in a loud but polite voice.
Which turns out to be a mistake, in spades and no trump.
The party in the tin tuxedo just looks at the truck coming his way, and cocks his iron head when he sees steam coming from the radiator. The exhaust is beginning to make trombone noises, because I am stepping hard on the gas, and this seems to make up the heavy dresser’s mind for him.
‘Yoiks!’ howls his voice behind his helmet. ‘A dragon!’
And all at once he levels that lance of his, knocks his tootsies against the horse’s ribs, and starts coming head-on for the truck.
‘For Pendragon and England!’ he bawls, over the clanking. And charges ahead like a baby tank.
That twelve-foot razor of his is pointed straight for my radiator, and I do not wish him to cut my motor, so naturally I swing the old truck out of the way.
This merely blows the radiator cap higher than the national debt, and out shoots enough steam and hot air to supply a dozen congressmen.
The horse rears up, and the tintype lets out a yap, letting his lance loose. Instead of hitting my radiator, it smashes my windshield.
Also my temper. I stop the truck and get out, fast. ‘Now, listen, buddy,’ I reason with him.
‘Aha!’ comes the voice from under the helmet. ‘A wizard!’ He uses a brand of double-talk I do not soon forget. ‘Halt ye, for it is Pallagyn who speaks.’
I am in no mood for orations, so I walk up to him, waving a pipe wrench.
‘Bust my windows, eh, buddy? Monkey business on a public highway, is it? I’m going to—Yow!’
I am a personality that seldom hollers ‘Yow!’ even at a burlesque show, but when this armour-plated jockey slides off his horse and comes for me, he is juggling a sharp six feet of sword. And six feet of sword sailing for your neck is worth a ‘Yow!’ any day, I figure.
I also figure I had better duck unless I want a shave and a haircut, and it is lucky for me that Iron-lung has to move slow when he whams his sword down at me.
I come up under his guard and give him a rap on the old orange with my pipe wrench.
There is no result.
The steel king drops his sword and lets out another roar, and I caress his helmet again with the wrench. Still no result. I get my result on the third try. The wrench breaks.
And then his iron arms grab me, and I am in for it.
The first thing I know, everything is turning black as solitary, and my sparring partner is reaching for a shiv at his belt. I get my foot there, fast.
All I can do is push forward, but it works. About a hundred and fifty pounds of armour loses balance, and there is nothing for the guy inside to do except to go down with it. Which he does, on his back. Then I am on his chest, and I roll up the Venetian blind on the front of his helmet.
‘Hold, enough!’ comes the double-talk from inside. ‘Prithee, hold!’
‘OK, buddy. But open up that mail box of yours. I want to see the face of the jerk that tries to get me into a traffic accident with a load of tin.’
He pulls up the shutters, and I get a peek at a purple face decorated with red whiskers. There are blue eyes, too, and they look down, ashamed.
‘Ye are the first, O Wizard, to gaze upon the vanquished face of Sir Pallagyn of the Black Keep,’ he mumbles.
I get off his chest like it was the hot seat. Because, although I am very fond of nuts, I like them only in fruit cakes.
‘I’ve got to be going,’ I mention. ‘I don’t know who you are or why you are running around like this, and I maybe ought to have you run in, but I got business up the road, see? So long.’
I start walking away and turn around. ‘Besides, my name is not O. Wizard.’
‘Verily,’ says the guy who calls himself Sir Pallagyn, getting up slow, with a lot of rattling. ‘Ye are a wizard, for ye ride a dragon breathing fire and steam.’
I am thinking of the fire and steam Thin Tommy Malloon is breathing right now, so I pay little or no attention, but get in the truck. Then this Pallagyn comes running up and yells, ‘Wait!’
‘What for?’
‘My steed and arms are yours by right of joust.’
Something clicks inside my head, and even if it is an eight ball, I get interested. ‘Wait a minute,’ I suggest. ‘Just who are you and where do you hang out?’
‘Why,’ says he, ‘as I bespoke, O Wizard—I am Sir Pallagyn of the Black Keep, sent here ensorcelled by Merlin, from Arthur’s court at Camelot. And I hang out at the greves in my armour,’ he adds, tucking in some cloth sticking out of the chinks and joints in his heavy suit.
‘Huh?’ is about the best I can do.
‘And besting me in fair combat, ye gain my steed and weapons, by custom of the joust.’ He shakes his head, making a noise like a Tommy-gun. ‘Merlin will be very angry when he hears of this, I wot.’
‘Merlin?’
‘Merlin, the Grey Wizard, who sent me upon the quest,’ he explains. ‘He it was who sped me forward in Time, to quest for the Cappadocian Tabouret.’
Now I am not altogether a lug—as you can tell by the way I look up some of the spelling on these items—and when something clicks inside my noggin it means I am thinking, but difficult.
I know I am dealing with the worst kind of screwball—the kind that bounces—but still there is some sense in what he is saying. I see this King Arthur and this Merlin in a picture once, and I see also some personalities in armour that are called knights, which means they are King Arthur’s trigger men. They hang out around a big table in a stone hideout and are always spoiling for trouble and going off on quests—which means putting the goniff on stuff which doesn’t belong to them, or copping dames from other knights.
But I figure all this happens maybe a hundred years ago, or so, over in Europe, before they throw away their armour and change into coloured shirts to put the rackets on an organised paying basis.
And this line about going forward in Time to find something is practically impossible, unless you go for Einstein’s theory, which I don’t, preferring Jane Fonda.
Still, it is you might say unusual, so I answer this squirrel. ‘What you’re trying to tell me is that you come here from King Arthur’s court and some magician sends you to find something?’
‘Verily, O Wizard. Merlin counselled me that I might not be believed,’ says Pallagyn, sadlike. He chews on his moustache, without butter. He almost looks like he is promoting a weeper.
‘I believe you, buddy,’ I say, wanting to cheer him up and also get out of here.
‘Then take my mount and weapons—it is required by law of the joust,’ he insists.
Right then I figure I would rather take a drink. I do. It makes me feel better. I get out and walk over to the oat burner. ‘I don’t know what to do with this four-legged glue barrel,’ I tell him, ‘or your manicure set, either. But if it makes you happy, I will take them with me.’
So I grab the nag and take him around back of the truck, let down the ramp and put him in. When I get back, Sir Pallagyn is piling his steel polo set into the front seat.
‘I place these on the dragon for thee,’ he says.
‘This isn’t a dragon,’ I explain. ‘It’s a Ford.’
‘Ford? Merlin did not speak of that creature.’ He climbs into the seat after his cutlery, looking afraid the steering wheel will bite him.
‘Hey, where you going?’
‘With thee, O Wizard. The steed and weapons are thine, but I must follow them, even into captivity. It is the law of the quest.’
‘You got laws on the brain, that’s your trouble. Now listen, I don’t like hitchhikers—’
Then I gander at my ticker and see it is almost ten and remember I am to meet Thin Tommy at eight. So I figure, why not? I will give this number a short lift down the pike and dump him where it is quiet and forget him. Maybe I can also find out whether or not there is somebody missing from Baycrest, which is the local laughing academy, and turn him in. Anyway, I have my date to keep, so I start the truck rolling.
This Pallagyn lets out a sort of whistle through his whiskers when I hit it up, so I say, ‘What’s the matter, buddy, are you thirsty?’
‘No,’ he gasps. ‘But we are flying!’
‘Only doing fifty,’ I tell him. ‘Look at the speedometer.’
‘Fifty what? Speedometer?’
My noggin is clicking like a slot machine in a church bazaar. This baby isn’t faking! I get another look at his armour and see it is solid stuff—not like fancy-dress costumes, but real heavy, with little designs in gold and silver running through it. And he doesn’t know what a car is, or a speedometer!
‘You need a drink,’ I say, taking it for him, and then passing him the bottle.
‘Mead?’ he says.
‘No, Haig & Haig. Try a slug.’
He tilts the bottle and takes a terrific triple-tongue. He lets out a roar and turns redder than his whiskers.
‘I am bewitched!’ he yells. ‘Ye black wizard!’
‘Hold it. You’ll cool off in a minute. Besides, I’m not a wizard. I’m a truck farmer, believe it or not, and don’t let them kid you down at the Bastille. I’m through with the rackets.’
He gets quieter in a minute and begins to ask me questions. Before I know it, I am explaining who I am and what I am doing, and after another drink it doesn’t seem so screwy to me any more.
Even when he tells me about this Merlin cat putting a spell on him and sending him through Time to go on a quest, I swallow it like my last shot. I break down and tell him to call me Butch. In a few minutes we’re practically cell mates.
‘Ye may call me Pallagyn,’ he says.
‘OK, Pal. How about another slug?’
This time he is more cautious, and it must go down fairly well, because he smacks his lips and doesn’t even turn pink.
‘Might I enquire as to your destination, O Butch?’ he lets out after a minute or so.
‘You might,’ I say. ‘There it is, straight ahead.’
I point out the building we are just coming to. It is a roadhouse and tavern called ‘The Blunder Inn’, and it is in this rat hole that Thin Tommy Malloon hangs his hat and holster. This I explain to Pal.
‘It doth not resemble a rat hole,’ he comments.
‘Any place where Thin Tommy gets in must be a rat hole,’ I tell him, ‘because Thin Tommy is a rat. He is a wrongo but strongo. Nevertheless, I must now go in and pay him his ten dollars for protection or he will sprinkle lye on my alfalfa.’
‘What do you mean?’ asks Pallagyn.
‘Yes, Pal. I have a little farm, and I must pay Thin Tommy ten a week or else I will have trouble, such as finding ground glass in my hen mash, or a pineapple in my silo.’
‘Ye pay to keep vandals from despoiling the crops?’ asks the knight. ‘Would it not be expedient to discover the miscreants and punish them?’
‘I know who would wreck the farm if I didn’t pay,’ I reply. ‘Thin Tommy.’
‘Ah, now methinks I comprehend thy plight. Thou art a serf, and this Thin Thomas is thy overlord.’
Somehow this remark, and the way Pallagyn says it, seems to show me up for a sucker. And I have just enough drink in me to resent it.
‘I am no serf,’ I shout. ‘As a matter of fact, I am waiting a long time to fix the clock of this Thin Tommy. So today I pay him no ten dollars, and I am going in to tell him so to what he calls his face.’
Pallagyn listens to me kind of close, because he seems pretty ignorant on English and grammar, but he catches on and smiles.
‘Spoken like a right true knight,’ he says. ‘I shall accompany ye on this mission, for I find in my heart a liking for thy steadfast purpose, and a hatred of Thin Thomas.’
‘Sit where you are,’ I says, fast. ‘I will handle this myself. Because Thin Tommy does not like strangers coming into his joint in the daytime without an invitation, and you are dressed kind of loud and conspicuous. So you stay here,’ I tell him, ‘and have a drink.’
And I pull up and climb out of the car and march into the tavern fast.
My heart is going fast also, because what I am about to do is enough to make any heart go fast in case Thin Tommy gets an idea to stop it from beating altogether. Which he sometimes does when he is irked, particularly over money.
Even so I walk up to the bar and sure enough, there is Thin Tommy standing there polishing the glasses with boxing gloves on. Only when I look again I realise these are not boxing gloves at all, but merely Thin Tommy’s hands.
Thin Tommy is not really thin, you understand, but is called that because he weighs about three hundred fifty pounds—stripped—such as once a month, when he takes a bath.
‘So, it’s you!’ he says, in a voice like a warden.
‘Hello, Thin Tommy,’ I greet him. ‘How are tricks?’
‘I will show you how tricks are if you do not cough up those ten berries fast and furious,’ grunts Thin Tommy. ‘All of the others have been here two or three hours ago, and I am waiting to go to the bank.’
‘Go right ahead,’ I tell him. ‘I wouldn’t stop you.’
Thin Tommy drops the glass he is polishing and leans over the bar. ‘Hand it over,’ he says through his teeth. They are big yellow teeth, all put together in not such a pleasant grin.
I grin right back at him because how can he see my knees shaking?
‘I have nothing for you, Tommy,’ I get out. ‘In fact, that is why I am here, to tell you that from now on I do not require protection any longer.’
‘Ha!’ yells Thin Tommy, pounding on the bar and then jumping around it with great speed for a man of his weight. ‘Bertram!’ he calls. ‘Roscoe!’
Bertram and Roscoe are Tommy’s two waiters, but I know Tommy is not calling them in to serve me.
They come running out of the back, and I see they have experience in such matters before, because Bertram is carrying a blackjack, and Roscoe has a little knife in his hand. The knife worries me most, because I am practically certain that Roscoe is never a Boy Scout.
By the time I see all this, Thin Tommy is almost on top of me, and he lets go with one arm for my jaw. I bend my head down just in time, but Thin Tommy’s other hand catches me from the side and slaps me across the room. I fall over a chair, and by this time Bertram and Roscoe are ready to wait on me. In fact, one of them pulls out the chair I fell over, and tries to hit me on the head with it.
I let out a yell and grab up a salt cellar from the table. This I push down Bertram’s mouth, and I am just ready to throw a little pepper in Roscoe’s eyes when Thin Tommy crashes over, grabs the knife from Roscoe’s hand, and backs me into the corner.
All at once I hear a crash outside the door, and somebody hollers, ‘Yoiks! Pendragon and Pallagyn!’
Into the room gallops Sir Pallagyn. He has got his sword in one hand, and the empty bottle in the other, and he is full to the eyeballs with courage.
He lets the bottle go first and it catches Bertram in the side of the head, just when he is getting the salt cellar out of his mouth. Bertram slides down with a sort of moan, and Roscoe and Tommy turn around.
‘It’s one of them there rowboats, like in science fiction!’ remarks Thin Tommy.
‘Yeah,’ says Roscoe, who is all at once very busy when Pallagyn comes for him with his sword. In fact Roscoe is so busy he falls over the chair and lands on his face, which gets caught in a cuspidor. Pallagyn is ready to whack him one when Thin Tommy drops hold of me and lets out a grunt.
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