Read Online Can and Can'tankerous by Harlan Ellison (R) - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Harlan Ellison (R)
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divine spark droned on, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and on and on and on. After six months, #7 asked the elder Archon, “What are we supposed to do to pass the time?”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I did for most of the time I’ve been here with this imbecile. And I’ll be gone soon—which is, I suppose, why The Old Man brought you in—so you can practice with me, if you like.”
“Yeah, sure. Of course. But…what is it?”
“Gin rummy. Three across, Hollywood style, tenth of a scintilla a point, five hundred per game for schneider.”
In the corner, for the first time since the younger Archon had entered the detention cell, the divine spark shut up, perked up, and began making warm, expectant sounds.
“The divine spark plays gin rummy?”
“For eons.”
“Well, that’s a little better, I guess.”
“Not really,” said #12.
“Why’s that,” #7 asked.
“The divine spark of the human soul cheats.”
In the corner, the glowing ball chuckled nastily. As Archons went, there was one born every second.
B is for BANSHEE
Just outside Belfast, the heavy metal ripper punk snake-oil rock band that called itself The Fluorescent Stigmatas had been booked into Castle Padveen as the opening night attraction. The ninth Earl of Padveen—Skipper to his friends—had been offered the options of selling the great stone structure for back taxes or developing some commercial use for the ancestral home, though it was known throughout the land as the most annoyingly haunted edifice in Ireland. Skipper had decided to turn Castle Padveen into a night club. And on opening night, as The Fluorescent Stigmatas launched into their second set, opening with “Don’t Woof in Mah Haggis, Bitch,” the Fender bass player, Nigel, had a massive coronary, pitched over dead, sent the packed audience into paroxysms of anger at having the music stopped, and brought forth the redoubtable banshee of Castle Padveen, acknowledged the noisiest and most off-key wailer of all those ghastly haunts.
The banshee materialized just over the bandstand, her one great nostril blowing air like a bagpipe, her long red hair smoldering and sparking, her empty eyesockets on fire. And she began her dirge, her horrific caterwauling, her teeth-jarring threnody of fingernails down a blackboard…and The Fluorescent Stigmatas nodded, listened, vamped for a minute, then fell in behind her.
Their first album went platinum last week. With a bullet.
C is for CHARON
Among the poster advertisements on the Staten Island Ferry is one that shows a terribly thin, extremely unhappy looking man in black cape and cowl, poling a garbage scow bearing the legend Phlegethon, around Manhattan Island. The poster reads: I Got My Job Through the Times
The lonely figure has a copy of The National Enquirer sticking out of his back pocket.
D is for DYBBUK
The dibbuq, in Jewish folklore, is a disembodied human spirit that, because of former sins, wanders restlessly until it finds safe haven in the body of a living person.
It is well-known that the French love the work of Jerry Lewis.
If you look long enough, and hard enough, there is an explanation for even the most arcane aberration.
E is for ECHIDNA
Downunder, in Oz, there is a small, awfully cute monotreme known as the echidna. If you startle this Disneylike animal, it will roll into a spiny ball, belly-up, seemingly comatose.
If one looks up echidna in the BRITANNICA, one learns that the name comes from the Greek for snake: a creature half-woman, half-serpent. Her parents are variously alleged to have been the sea deities Phorcys and Ceto, or Chrysaor—the hideous son of Medusa—and Callirrhoë—the daughter of Oceanus. Further, one learns that among Echidna’s children by the hundred-headed Typhoeus were the dragons of the Hesperides, the Hydra, the Chimaera, and the infernal hounds Orthus and Cerberus. Which makes Orthus’s progeny, the Nemean Lion and the Sphinx,
“Well, I’ll tell you what I did for most of the time I’ve been here with this imbecile. And I’ll be gone soon—which is, I suppose, why The Old Man brought you in—so you can practice with me, if you like.”
“Yeah, sure. Of course. But…what is it?”
“Gin rummy. Three across, Hollywood style, tenth of a scintilla a point, five hundred per game for schneider.”
In the corner, for the first time since the younger Archon had entered the detention cell, the divine spark shut up, perked up, and began making warm, expectant sounds.
“The divine spark plays gin rummy?”
“For eons.”
“Well, that’s a little better, I guess.”
“Not really,” said #12.
“Why’s that,” #7 asked.
“The divine spark of the human soul cheats.”
In the corner, the glowing ball chuckled nastily. As Archons went, there was one born every second.
B is for BANSHEE
Just outside Belfast, the heavy metal ripper punk snake-oil rock band that called itself The Fluorescent Stigmatas had been booked into Castle Padveen as the opening night attraction. The ninth Earl of Padveen—Skipper to his friends—had been offered the options of selling the great stone structure for back taxes or developing some commercial use for the ancestral home, though it was known throughout the land as the most annoyingly haunted edifice in Ireland. Skipper had decided to turn Castle Padveen into a night club. And on opening night, as The Fluorescent Stigmatas launched into their second set, opening with “Don’t Woof in Mah Haggis, Bitch,” the Fender bass player, Nigel, had a massive coronary, pitched over dead, sent the packed audience into paroxysms of anger at having the music stopped, and brought forth the redoubtable banshee of Castle Padveen, acknowledged the noisiest and most off-key wailer of all those ghastly haunts.
The banshee materialized just over the bandstand, her one great nostril blowing air like a bagpipe, her long red hair smoldering and sparking, her empty eyesockets on fire. And she began her dirge, her horrific caterwauling, her teeth-jarring threnody of fingernails down a blackboard…and The Fluorescent Stigmatas nodded, listened, vamped for a minute, then fell in behind her.
Their first album went platinum last week. With a bullet.
C is for CHARON
Among the poster advertisements on the Staten Island Ferry is one that shows a terribly thin, extremely unhappy looking man in black cape and cowl, poling a garbage scow bearing the legend Phlegethon, around Manhattan Island. The poster reads: I Got My Job Through the Times
The lonely figure has a copy of The National Enquirer sticking out of his back pocket.
D is for DYBBUK
The dibbuq, in Jewish folklore, is a disembodied human spirit that, because of former sins, wanders restlessly until it finds safe haven in the body of a living person.
It is well-known that the French love the work of Jerry Lewis.
If you look long enough, and hard enough, there is an explanation for even the most arcane aberration.
E is for ECHIDNA
Downunder, in Oz, there is a small, awfully cute monotreme known as the echidna. If you startle this Disneylike animal, it will roll into a spiny ball, belly-up, seemingly comatose.
If one looks up echidna in the BRITANNICA, one learns that the name comes from the Greek for snake: a creature half-woman, half-serpent. Her parents are variously alleged to have been the sea deities Phorcys and Ceto, or Chrysaor—the hideous son of Medusa—and Callirrhoë—the daughter of Oceanus. Further, one learns that among Echidna’s children by the hundred-headed Typhoeus were the dragons of the Hesperides, the Hydra, the Chimaera, and the infernal hounds Orthus and Cerberus. Which makes Orthus’s progeny, the Nemean Lion and the Sphinx,
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