Out of Their Minds

"You created us," he yelled at them. "With your dirty little evil minds and your beautifully fuzzy minds and your fumbling, uncertain, yearning, fearful minds you created us and the world you put us in. You did it without knowing it and for that you can't be blamed, although one would think that personages so clever with the physics and chemistry would have run to earth these impossible things your savants say can't happen. But now that you do know, now that the knowing has been forced upon you, you are morally obligated to come up with a remedy to the deplorable conditions you have forced upon us. You can…"

The President sprang to his feet and, like the Devil, thumped the table with his fist—although the total effect was lost since no smoke spouted from his ears.

"Monsieur Devil," he shouted, "I want some answers from you. You say you stopped the cars and the radios and..»

"You're damned right I stopped them," roared the Devil. "All over the world I stopped them, but it was a warning only, a showing of what could be done. And I was humane about it. The cars came to smooth and even stops and not a soul was injured. The planes I let get to the ground before I made them not to run. The factories I left working so there would be jobs and wages and goods still being made…"

"But without transportation we are dead," yelled Agriculture, who had been silent heretofore. "If food can't be moved, the people will starve. If goods can't move, business will come to a standstill."

"Our armies in the field," the general cried. "They have no planes nor armor and communications are cut off.."

"You ain't seen nothing yet," the Devil told them. "Next time around the wheel will be outlawed. No wheel will turn. No factories, no bicycles, no roller skates, no…"

"Monsieur Devil, please," screamed the President, "will you lower your voice? Will all of us lower our voices? There is nothing gained in screaming. We must be reasonable. I had one question and now I have another. You say you did this. Now tell us how you did it."

"Why, I," the Devil stammered, "why, I just did it, that is all. I said let it happen and it happened. I do a lot of things that way. You see, you wrote it into me and you thought it into me and you talked it into me. A devil can do anything at all, so long as it is bad. I doubt exceedingly I'd be so successful doing good."

"Enchantment, gentlemen," I told them. "That is the only answer for it. And don't blame the Devil for it; we thought it up ourselves."

The old gentleman who had spoken for the scientists lurched to his feet. He raised clenched fists above his head. "Enchantment," he squeaked. "There can't be enchantment. There is no law of science…" He meant to say more, but his voice choked and he stood for a moment, fighting for breath and voice, but giving up, sat down."

"Maybe not," the Devil said. "Maybe not any science law. But what care we for science? The wheel next, then electricity and after that, most likely, fire, although I haven't thought that far ahead. And once that is done, back to the feudal manor, back to the good old Dark Ages, where there was some honest thinking done and..»

"Now, sir," said the President, "another question, please, if you have done with threats."

"Most excellent sir," said the Devil, trying very hard to be polite, "I do not deal in threats. I only tell what can be done and what shall be done and..»

"But why?" asked the President. "What exactly is your grievance?"

"Grievance!" bellowed the Devil, in a rage and forgetful of politeness. "You ask me for grievance. Horton Smith, who has a wound from Gettysburg, who jousted barehanded with Quixote, who chased a vicious witch through a fearsome woods, has outlined my grievance."

As a sign of his honest reason, he let his voice sink from a bellow to a roar. "Once," he said, "our land was peopled by a hardy folk, some of them honestly good and some of them as honestly evil. I kid you not, my friends; I was and am one of the evil ones. But at least we had purpose and between the good and bad, between the imps and fairies, we made a life of it. But now what have we got? I'll tell you what we have. We have Li'l Abner and Charley Brown and Pogo. We have Little Orphan A

The President waved him silent. "I think you have made your point," he said.

"They have no character," said the Devil. "They have no flavor nor any style. They are vapid things. There's not an honestly evil one among them and none is really good—the goodness that is in them is enough to turn one's stomach. I ask you in great sincerity how one is to build a worthwhile civilization with inhabitants such as that?"

"This gentleman's stomach," said HEW, "is not the only one's that's turned. I am.aghast that we sit here and listen to his buffoonery."

"Just a little more," said the President. "I'm trying to make something out of this. With your indulgence, please."

"I suppose," the Devil said, "that you are wondering now what can be done about it."

"Precisely," said the President.

"You can put an end to all this foolishness. You can halt the Li'l Abners and the Mickey Mouses and the Howdy Doodles. You can return to honest fantasy. You can think about some evil things and others that are good and you can believe in them.."

Agriculture was on his feet. "I have never in my life," he yelled, "heard such an infamous suggestion. He is suggesting thought control. He would have us dictate entertainment values and he would have us throttle artistic and literary creativity. And even if we agreed to do this, how would we go about it? Laws and edicts would not be enough. A secret campaign would have to be launched, a most secret one, and I would guess it would be impossible to keep it secret for longer than three days. But even if we could, it would take billions of dollars and years of Madison Avenue's most devious and devoted efforts and I don't think even then that it would catch on. These are not the Dark Ages, the honest thought of which this gentleman seems to admire so greatly. We ca

"My friend," said Treasury, "takes this incident too seriously. I ca

"Hear! Hear!" the Devil said.

"We have taken enough of your impudence," the FBI said to the Devil. "It is not in the best American tradition for a council of state to be insulted by such outbursts of malicious nonsense delivered by something, or someone, who can have no actual basis in fact."

"That does it!" the Devil raged. "No basis in fact, you say. I'll show you nincompoops. Next comes the wheel and electricity and then I will be back and we have a better basis, maybe, for some forthright dealing."

Saying which, he reached out and grabbed me by the arm. "Leave us go," he said.

We went, no doubt in a flash of evil-smelling light and smoke. In any case, the world went away again and there was the blackness and the howling of the winds and when the blackness fell away we were back on the sidewalk outside the White House fence.

"Well," the Devil said, triumphantly, "I guess I told them, kid. I took the pompous hides off their four-flushing backs. Did you see their faces when I called them nincompoops?"

"Yes, you did well," I said, disgusted. "You have all the. finesse of a hog."

He rubbed his hands together. "And now," he said, "the wheels."