The Nail and the Oracle (40 page)

In the spring of 1966, Sturgeon began to make Los Angeles his permanent home, first living for a period with the writer Harlan Ellison, and then in Sherman Oaks. In the spring of 1969, he met and began living with his fourth long-term companion, Wina. They moved to a house in Echo Park and in January 1970, they had a son, Andros.

“Ride in, Ride Out”
by Theodore Sturgeon and Don Ward; first published in
Sturgeon’s West
, (Doubleday, 1973). Probably written in 1957 (judging from a mention in Sturgeon’s correspondence of stories he was trying unsuccessfully to sell). In 1956, Sturgeon described the process of his collaboration with Ward:
Don dreams ’em up and I write ’em my way and submit them without his seeing them
. Ward, who was editor of the short story magazine
Zane Grey’s Western (ZGW)
, describes
ZGW
as “one of the last Western magazines to fall before the rising challenge of the TV horse opera.” “The market for Western short stories vanished,” he reports
in his introduction to
Sturgeon’s West
, reminding us that the existence of genre fiction, including most of Theodore Sturgeon’s opus, depends on the existence of a paying market for such particular types of story.

The epigram “Beware the fury of a patient man” is also quoted in the story “Extrapolation” in the 1964 anthology
Sturgeon in Orbit
(first published under the title “Beware the Fury” in
Fantastic Stories
magazine in 1954).

“Assault and Little Sister”:
first published in
Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine
, July 1961. Editor’s blurb from the original magazine appeared as “A TERRIFYING STORY OF SUSPENSE: THE AUTHOR OF THIS UNUSUAL AND CHILLING MYSTERY STORY SHARES WITH RAY BRADBURY THE DISTINCTION OF BEING ONE OF THE TWO OR THREE OUTSTANDING FANTASY WRITERS OF OUR DAY. WE THINK YOU’LL AGREE THAT HE HAS MORE THAN ONE STRING TO HIS BOW.”

“When You Care, When You Love”:
first published in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF)
, September, 1962; probably written in the first months of 1962. This was identified by Sturgeon bibliographers Benson and Stephenson-Payne as the long-awaited first installment of a Sturgeon novel called
The Unbegotten Man
, which was originally announced in the back pages of the 1950 Greenberg Publishers’ hardcover edition of
The Dreaming Jewels
. That means that as far back as 1950, Sturgeon was already developing the novel that he ultimately contracted to write in the early 1960s in which “When You Care, When You Love” became the out-of-sequence opening section, as “Baby Is Three” had been in
More than Human
. As I indicated in the notes to the first volume of this
Complete Stories
series, Sturgeon’s interest in pursuing this theme began with his story “Accidentally on Porpoise” in 1938.

The novel-length expansion of “When You Care” that Sturgeon contracted with a publisher to write in the 1960s was to be called
The Tulip Tree
. A large file folder containing notes for this novel can be found among the papers belonging to the Sturgeon Literary Trust. In an introductory feature of a special Sturgeon issue, Editor Avram Davidson of
F&SF
wrote, “There is, of course, the new Theodore Sturgeon story, the first of three, which, when finished, will be published as one book; plus Judith Merril’s ‘personality’ article on the Guest of Honor [while the magazine was on
sale, Sturgeon was Guest of Honor at the annual World Science Fiction Convention, held in 1962 in Chicago]; plus James Blish’s cameo-like critique of Sturgeon as literary craftsman; plus Sam Moskowitz’s Sturgeon bibliography—and, for lagniappe, a short excursion into extraterrestrial zoology by Robin Sturgeon, penultimate child to Theodore.”

The editor’s introduction to Robin’s half-page piece reveals that he is ten years old and that “this article [“Martian Mouse”] was originally written as a school composition.”

Blish’s article describes Sturgeon, in a much-quoted line, as “the finest conscious artist science fiction has ever had. Davidson’s introduction in
F&SF
read:

“Among the paradoxes of the kingdom of nature is this: that the golden-throated nightingale is drab, while the splendid peacock has a harsh scream for a voice. ‘Paradox,’ in the sense of ‘a seeming contradiction’—but of course really no contradiction at all. The splendor of song is sufficient for the nightingale. The peacock’s plumage is glory enough for him. Nature, there, is neither niggardly nor lavish past measure. We have writers who sing sweetly as nightingales, writers who are gorgeous as peacocks. It is a flat fact that Theodore Sturgeon is both. As someone put it to us recently, he ‘has an aura.’ His flashing eyes, his floating hair, Pan-like beard, continually sparkling wit, his alchemist’s fingers, and his ardent pen.… It is around us that the circle is thrice-woven; it is we who feed on honeydew and drink the milk of paradise. Much have we traveled in the realms of gold, who have read much (or even little) of his work. It seems only right, somehow, that, with all this, Theodore Sturgeon should have a beautiful wife and beautiful children as well. It seems, anyhow, not right that we can find (after long searching) nothing fresher to say at this point than this: We are proud to publish this newest story by Theodore Sturgeon. It will form (though complete in itself) part of a book, and he has promised us the privilege of publishing the other parts as they are written. The tale has its beginnings with the long, deep thoughts of Captain Gamaliel Wyke, crouching by the winter fire in his four great grey shawls, near the tolling breakers and the creaking gulls. Thus it begins. There is time enough before we consider its ending.”

“Hold-up à la Carte”:
first published in
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
, February, 1964. Editor’s blurb from the first page of the original magazine appearance: “Once upon a time (in September, 1962, to be exact),
Theodore Sturgeon had occasion to look through his old files for the carbon copy of an early short story—when lo and behold, out popped another short story, one that had never been published and which Mr. Sturgeon had completely forgotten. This original manuscript was resting in peace under (to quote Mr. Sturgeon) some layers of peat moss in the bottom of an old box.… Now, Mr. Sturgeon could not remember how long ago he had written this newly discovered story—he judged he had done it for some demanding editor back in the 16th or 17th Century.…

Well, the interesting thing about this previously unpublished Sturgeon is simply this: it is a genuine ‘period piece’—a story that will remind you of ‘the good old days’ of Street and Smith’s
Detective Story Magazine—
the ‘dear, dead days’ of Herman Landon’s
The Gray Phantom
, and of Johnston (
The Mark of Zorro
) McCulley’s Thubway Tham; ah, remember? This new-old Sturgeon is the kind of story that was sedately popular in the 1920s, the accepted detective fare of its time (when the hard-boiled experiment was just beginning). It is the kind of story that, we judge, could have been written early in the same decade that saw the birth of Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey, Earl Derr Bigger’s Charlie Chan, S.S. van Dine’s Philo Vance, and E.Q.’s Ellery Queen.

“How to Forget Baseball”:
first published in
Sports Illustrated
, December 21, 1964. In the introduction to the tenth anniversary issue of
Sports Illustrated
, the editors described the special feature on “The Future of Sport” as “a practical look at what to expect in the next decade,” “the sporting miracles of tomorrow, in color today,” and “a chilling glimpse of a game of the far future” (the Sturgeon story). In introducing the special issue, the publisher, Sidney L. James, writes, among other things: “Beyond the practical side of the future is the fanciful. Ours is a science fiction sports story by Theodore Sturgeon, one of the two or three writers who emerged as giants in the field when science fiction moved out of pulp country after the atom bomb made impossibilities valid subjects for serious speculation. Sturgeon’s grim, sardonic and somewhat Orwellian view of how sport and society may evolve is one that we are far from sharing, but we do feel that his story—which effectively demonstrates the high level of writing skill in this genre—is a contribution to thinking about sport. And sport is to be thought about as well as enjoyed.”

On the title page of the story: OUT OF A FANTASTIC SOMEDAY WORLD WHIRLS A DEMONIAC FLACK IN A FORMLESS CAR TO
SHOW A POOR PRIMITIVE FROM AN ALL-BUT-VANISHED SOCIETY THE NEW NATIONAL GAME, QUOIT. ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S MOST DISTINGUISHED SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS TELLS HOW THE PRIMITIVE IS AT FIRST CONFUSED, THEN HORRIFIED, FASCINATED AND—IN THE END—ENTRAPPED BY A THING HE ABHORS.

“The Nail and the Oracle”:
first published in
Playboy
, Oct. 1965.

“If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?”:
first published in Harlan Ellison, ed.,
Dangerous Visions
, in 1967. In
Dangerous Visions
, each story was bookended by an introduction by the book’s editor and an afterword or epilogue by the story’s author. Sturgeon, consistent with his use of the auctorial voice (in the style of British novelist Henry Fielding) as part of his stories from the beginning of his writing career, made the afterword part of his story. He used a shortened, rewritten version of the afterword (when he first published the story outside of Harlan’s anthology—in
Case and the Dreamer
, a Sturgeon collection of three short novels published in 1974) to conclude themes raised in auctorial asides earlier in the story. So the afterword appears in that shortened form as part of the story, as in
Case and the Dreamer
. It’s a letter to the story’s reader, parallel to the letter from TS to Harlan quoted in Ellison’s introduction.

Finally, for the reader’s enjoyment, this is a letter Sturgeon wrote to his wife Marion and their children in Woodstock, New York, dated July 15, 1966, and thus during the period he was staying with Harlan and writing some of the stories in this volume:

Dear Dear Everybody:

This is just a short note to let you know I love you all, each and every single one, and love you well; and that I miss you and will appreciate any tiny word from any of you about what you are doing and what you are thinking about, no matter how trivial you might think it is; it’s important to me. Also I want you to know that I am working very hard on my two television shows, The Invaders and Star Trek, and although it is very hard, and coming too slowly, it is going well, and if I work very hard I will be able to be back in Woodstock before the second week in August
.

I will tell you about one adventure and one wonderful surprise. The other night Harlan had the wild and sudden impulse to go to a huge discount
store called Akron—kind of a Big Scot. Harlan’s little bronze Austin-Healey only has two seats, and Norman Spinrad, the writer, is here, and Harlan’s girlfriend Sherri, so we took my car, which is a little brown Volkswagen I rented, and off we went. As soon as we got there Harlan dived into the clothing section and I disappeared into Hardware and Tools and Sherri began to look at hats and sweaters and Norman sort of got lost
.

After quite a long time, Harlan found me looking at some lumber thoughtfully, and zeroed in on something stacked next to the lumber. “Just what we need,” he said, in that superpositive Harlan Ellison way, pointing at a twelve-foot stepladder. “What on earth for?” says I. Says he: “To clean the inside of the skylight.” “But Harlan!” “Come on,” says he. “Let’s take it over to the checkout.” “But Harlan,” I said gently, knocking him down and putting my knee to his chest, “don’t you think it’s too big?” “Oh no. It’ll just reach,” says he. Says I, patiently, “I don’t mean for the skylight, Harlan, I mean for the Volkswagen, Harlan: that stepladder is TWELVE FEET LONG.” Says he, a great light dawning: “Oh.” So we went to the check-out to pick up the other things he had bought
.

He had bought the way nobody else in the world buys: hot plate trivets, some Italian knit dickies, some stationery, kitchen stuff, some electrical fixtures, an ebony and wicker settle about the size of our piano bench, and FOUR THIRTY-QUART GARBAGE CANS. We loaded everything into the garbage cans and carried them out to the Volks. We put them down on the sidewalk. We looked at each other and at the car, which somehow looked very much smaller than it had before we went in. Spinrad, who at the best of times is an Eeyore, immediately sent up a wail of total despair and impossibility. Sherri, who is usually a very self-contained girl, began to laugh uncontrollably. Harlan took out his glasses and put them on, and uttering small sounds of purpose and reassurance, began attacking the problem of loading the car. “See? No sweat! Told you. Now the other garbage can? Just give it a good shove there. Right. What do you mean you can’t get the door shut?” and so on. Norman began to get really persuasive with his Eeyorisms
.

The store was now closed and we wouldn’t be able to return the merchandise. If the police saw the car loaded like that they’d make us take half of it out, probably miles out on a freeway. And besides it looked as if it were going to rain. About this time Harlan got the last of our purchases into the car and got both doors and the trunk lid closed. ‘I told
you!’ he said triumphantly. The trunk was full and the back seat was full and the seat-backs were tipped forward, the right one against the windshield and the left one smack against the steering wheel. ‘Harlan,’ I said. ‘Where are we going to put the people?’ ‘Yeah,’ he acknowledged, wrenched the door open and started to pull everything out again. The self-contained Sherri staggered backwards across the sidewalk and clung to the building front to keep from collapsing; I don’t think I have ever seen anyone laugh so hard. Norman, on the other hand, seemed about to dissolve in tears. Harlan got everything back out on the sidewalk, took off his glasses, polished them, put them back on again and began loading things in a different way. (Do you know how big a thirty-quart garbage can is? Big enough for one of me, or two of Harlan, to hide in with the cover on.…) Well—he did it
.