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I heard no more. I went back to my mother’s grave and lay down by it. I couldn’t get to sleep, because Alice and Weepenwilly were talking. Then, just as I’d managed almost to drop off, Alice sat down by me. She insisted on retelling me the story Weepenwilly had just told her.
I’d seen his white loincloth, hadn’t I? Well, if Weepenwilly had stood up, I’d have perceived the three-cornered fold of it. And I’d have seen its remarkable resemblance to early infant apparel. That resemblance was not coincidental, for Weepenwilly was one of the Dozen Diapered Darlings.
Moreover, if he had stood up, I’d have noticed the yellow glow that emanated from his posterior, the nimbus so much like a firefly’s in color and position.
It seemed that, shortly after the Brew began taking full effect, when the people of Onaback had turned their backs to the outside world, numerous self-styled prophets had tried to take advantage of the new religion. Each had presented his own variation of an as-yet-misunderstood creed. Among them had been twelve politicians who had long been bleeding the city’s treasury dry. Because it was some time before the Bottle’s contents began affecting the nature of things noticeably, they had not been aware at first of what was happening.
The wheels of industry slowed by degrees. Grass and trees subtly encroached upon pavement. People gradually lost interest in the cares of life. Inhibitions were imperceptibly dissolved. Enmities and bitternesses and diseases faded. The terrors, burdens, and boredoms of life burned away as magically as the morning mist under the rising sun.
About then, the mail-carriers quit. Frantic telegrams and letters were sent to Washington and the state capital—though from other towns, because the local operators had quit. This was when the Food and Drug Administration, and the Internal Revenue Bureau, and the F.B.I, sent agents into Onaback to investigate. These agents did not come back and others were sent in, only to succumb to the Brew.
The Brew had not yet reached its full potency, when Durham had just revealed himself, through the prophet Sheed, as Mahrud. There was still some opposition, and the most vigorous came from the twelve politicians. They organized a meeting in the courthouse square and urged the people to follow them in an attack on Mahrud. First they would march on Traybell University, where Sheed lived in the Meteorological Building.
“Then,” said one of the twelve, shaking his fist at the long thin line of Brew geysering from the Bottle up on the hills, “we’ll lynch this mad scientist who calls himself Mahrud, this lunatic we know is a crazy university professor and a reader of poetry and philosophy. Friends, citizens, Americans, if this Mahrud is indeed a god, as Sheed, another mad scientist claims, let him strike me with lightning! My friends and I dare him to!”
The dozen were standing on a platform in the courthouse yard. They could look down Main Street and across the river to the hills. They faced the east defiantly. No bellowings came, no lightnings. But in the next instant, the dozen were forced to flee ignominiously, never again to defy the All-Bull.
Alice giggled. “They were struck by an affliction which was not as devastating as lightning nor as spectacular. But it was far more demoralizing. Mahrud wished on them a disability which required them to wear diapers for much the same reason babies have to. Of course, this convinced the Dozen Diapered Darlings. But that brassy-nerved bunch of ex-ward-heelers switched right around and said they’d known all along that Mahrud was the Real Bull. They’d called the meeting so they could make a dramatic a
“They even had the shortsightedness and the crust to pray to Mahrud for a special sign to prove their prophethood. And the All-Bull did send them signs of their sanctity. He gave them permanent halos, blazing yellow lights.”
Sitting up and hugging her knees, Alice rocked back and forth with laughter. “Of course, the Dozen should have been ecstatically happy. But they weren’t. For Mahrud had slyly misplaced their halos, locating them in a place where, if the Darlings wished to demonstrate their marks of sainthood, they would be forced to stand up.
“And, would you believe it, this thick-headed Dozen refuses to admit that Mahrud has afflicted them. Instead, they brag continually about their halos’ location, and they attempt to get everybody else to wear diapers. They say a towel around the middle is as much a sign of a true believer in Mahrud as a turban or fez is that of a believer in Allah. “Naturally, their real reason is that they don’t want to be conspicuous. Not that they mind being outstanding. It’s just that they don’t want people to be reminded of their disability or their original sin.”
I failed to see anything fu
“You don’t get it, Temper,” she said. “This condition is curable. All the Darlings have to do is pray to Mahrud to be relieved of it, and they will be. But their pride won’t let them. They insist it’s a benefit and a sign of the Bull’s favor. They suffer, yes, but they like to suffer. Just as Weepenwilly likes to sit on his wife’s tombstone— as if that’d keep her under the ground—and wail about his misfortune. He and his kind wouldn’t give up their punishment for the world—literally!”
She began laughing loudly again. I sat up and grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close to smell her breath. There was no hint of the Brew, so she hadn’t been drinking from Weepenwilly’s bottle. She was suffering from hysteria, plain and simple.
The normal procedure for bringing a woman back to normality is to slap her resoundingly upon the cheek. But in this case Alice turned the tables by slapping me first—resoundingly. The effect was the same. She quit laughing and glared at me.
I held my stinging cheek. “What was that for?”
“For trying to take advantage of me,” she said.
I was so angry and taken aback that I could only stutter, “Why, I—why, I—”
“Just keep your hands to yourself,” she snapped. “Don’t mistake my sympathy for love. Or think, because these Brew-bums have no inhibitions or discrimination, that I’ve also succumbed.”
I turned my back on her and closed my eyes. But the longer I lay there, and the more I thought of her misinterpretation, the madder I became. Finally, boiling within, I sat up and said tightly, “Alice!”
She must not have been sleeping either. She raised up at once and stared at me, her eyes big. “What—what is it?”
“I forgot to give you this.” I let her have it across the side of her face. Then, without waiting to see the effect of my blow, I lay down and turned my back again. For a minute, I’ll admit, my spine was cold and tense, waiting for the nails to rake down my naked skin.
But nothing like that happened. First, there was the sort of silence that breathes. Then, instead of the attack, came a racking breath, followed by sobs, which sloped off into snifflings and the wiping of tears.
I stood it as long as I could. Then I sat up again and said, “All right, so maybe I shouldn’t have hit you. But you had no business taking it for granted that I was trying to make love to you. Look, I know I’m repulsive to you, but that’s all the more reason why I wouldn’t be making a pass at you. I have some pride. And you don’t exactly drive me out of my mind with passion, you know. What makes you think you’re any Helen of Troy or Cleopatra?”
There I went. I was always trying to smooth things over, and every time I ended by roughing them up. Now she was mad and she showed it by getting up and walking off. I caught her as she reached the cemetery gate.