Ray Bradbury
The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse
When first we meet George Garvey he is nothing at all. Later he'll wear a white poker chip monocle, with a blue eye painted on it by Matisse himself. Later, a golden bird cage might trill within George Garvey's false leg, and his good left hand might possibly be fashioned of shimmering copper and jade.
But at the beginning?gaze upon a terrifyingly ordinary man.
«Financial section, dear?»
The newspapers rattle in his evening apartment.
«Weatherman says „rain tomorrow.“»
The tiny black hairs in his nostrils breathe in, breathe out, softly, softly, hour after hour.
«Time for bed.»
By his look, quite obviously born of several 1907 wax window dummies. And with the trick, much admired by magicians, of sitting in a green velour chair and?vanishing! Turn your head and you forgot his face. Vanilla pudding.
Yet the merest accident made him the nucleus for the wildest avant-garde literary movement in history!
Garvey and his wife had lived enormously alone for twenty years. She was a lovely carnation, but the hazard of meeting him pretty well kept visitors off. Neither husband nor wife suspected Garvey's talent for mummifying people instantaneously. Both claimed they were satisfied sitting alone nights after a brisk day at the office. Both worked at anonymous jobs. And sometimes even they could not recall the name of the colorless company which used them like white paint on white paint.
_Enter the avant-garde!_ _Enter The Cellar Septet!_
These odd souls had flourished in Parisian basements listening to a rather sluggish variety of jazz, preserved a highly volatile relationship six months or more, and, returning to the United States on the point of clamorous disintegration, stumbled into Mr. George Garvey.
«My God!» cried Alexander Pape, erstwhile potentate of the clique. «I met the most astounding bore. You simply must see him! At Bill Timmins' apartment house last night, a note said he'd return in an hour. In the hall this Garvey chap asked if I'd like to wait in his apartment. There we sat, Garvey, his wife, myself! Incredible! He's a monstrous Ennui, produced by our materialistic society. He knows a billion ways to paralyze you! Absolutely rococo with the talent to induce stupor, deep slumber, or stoppage of the heart. What a case study. Let's _all_ go visit!»
They swarmed like vultures! Life flowed to Garvey's door, life sat in his parlor. The Cellar Septet perched on his fringed sofa, eyeing their prey.
Garvey fidgeted.
«Anyone wants to smoke?» He smiled faintly. «Why?go right ahead?_smoke_.»
Silence.
The instructions were: «Mum's the word. Put him on the spot. That's the only way to see what a colossal _norm_ he is. American culture at absolute zero!»
After three minutes of unblinking quiet, Mr. Garvey leaned forward. «Eh,» he said, «what's _your_ business. Mr….?»
«Crabtree. The poet.»
Garvey mused over this.
«How's,» he said, «business?»
Not a sound.
Here lay a typical Garvey silence. Here sat the largest manufacturer and deliverer of silences in the world; name one, he could provide it packaged and tied with throat-clearings and whispers. Embarrassed, pained, calm, serene, indifferent, blessed, golden, or nervous silences; Garvey was _in_ there.
Well, The Cellar Septet simply wallowed in this particular evening's silence. Later, in their cold-water flat, over a bottle of «adequate little red wine» (they were experiencing a phase which led them to contact _real_ reality) they tore this silence to bits and worried it.
«Did you see how he fingered his collar! Ho!»
«By God, though, I must admit he's almost „cool.“ Mention Muggsy Spanier and Bix Beiderbecke. Notice his expression. _Very_ cool. I wish _I_ could look so uncaring, so unemotional.»
Ready for bed, George Garvey, reflecting upon this extraordinary evening, realized that when situations got out of hand, when strange books or music were discussed, he panicked, he froze.
This hadn't seemed to cause undue concern among his rather oblique guests. In fact, on the way out, they had shaken his hand vigorously, thanked him for a splendid time!
«What a really expert A-number-1 bore!» cried Alexander Pape, across town.
«Perhaps he's secretly laughing at us,» said Smith, the minor poet, who never agreed with Pape if he was awake.
«Let's fetch Minnie and Tom; they'd love Garvey. A rare night. We'll talk of it for months!»
«Did you notice?» asked Smith, the minor poet, eyes closed smugly. «When you turn the taps in their bathroom?» He paused dramatically. «_Hot_ water.»
Everyone stared irritably at Smith.
They hadn't thought to _try_.
The clique, an incredible yeast, soon burst doors and windows, growing.
«You haven't met the Garveys? My God! lie back down in your coffin! Garvey _must_ rehearse. No one's _that_ boorish without Stanislavsky!» Here the speaker, Alexander Pape, who depressed the entire group because he did perfect imitations, now aped Garvey's slow, self-conscious delivery:
«„_Ulysses?_ Wasn't that the book about the Greek, the ship, and the one-eyed monster! Beg pardon?“» A pause. «„Oh.“» Another pause. «„I see.“» A sitting back. «„_Ulysses_ was written by _James ce?_ Odd. I could _swear_ I remember, years ago, in school…“»
In spite of everyone _hating_ Alexander Pape for his brilliant imitations, they roared as he went on:
«„Tennessee Williams“? Is he the man who wrote that hillbilly „Waltz?“»
«Quick! What's Garvey's home address?» everyone cried.
«My,» observed Mr. Garvey to his wife, «life is fun these days.»
«It's you,» replied his wife. «Notice, they hang on your every word.»
«Their attention is rapt,» said Mr. Garvey, «to the point of hysteria. The least thing I say absolutely explodes them. Odd. My jokes at the office always met a stony wall. Tonight, for instance, I wasn't trying to be funny at all. I suppose it's an unconscious little stream of wit that flows quietly under everything I do or say. Nice to know I have it in reserve. Ah, there's the bell. Here we go!»
«He's especially rare if you get him out of bed at four A.M.,» said Alexander Pape. «The combination of exhaustion and _fin de siecle_ morality is a regular salad!»
Everyone was pretty miffed at Pape for being first to think of seeing Garvey at dawn. Nevertheless, interest ran high after midnight in late October.
Mr. Garvey's subconscious told him in utmost secrecy that he was the opener of a theatrical season, his success dependent upon the staying power of the ennui he inspired in others. Enjoying himself, he nevertheless guessed why these lemmings thronged to his private sea. Underneath, Garvey was a surprisingly brilliant man, but his unimaginative parents had crushed him in the Terribly Strange Bed of their environment. From there he had been thrown to a larger lemon-squeezer: his Office, his Factory, his Wife. The result: a man whose potentialities were a time bomb in his own parlor. The Garvey's repressed subconscious half recognized that the avant-gardists had never met anyone like him, or rather had met millions like him but had never considered studying one before.
