HAIR-RAISING ADVENTURE

by Rosel George Brown

A young Louisiana housewife sat down to a typewriter one day last year to find the answer to a question: Was there anything hard about writing science-fiction stories? The answer, it turns out, is “no”—provided you have the wit, the talent and the grace of Mrs. Brown. Because of the idiosyncrasies of publishing schedules, this may not be the first of her stories to see print, but it’s the first she sold— and STAR is proud to present it to the world.

Sam had been a bachelor for many years. He liked it. He might have remained so all his life, if it hadn’t been for a girl named Ruth. The study of paleolinguistics had kept him happy until then; but Ruth’s face and figure began interposing themselves between Sam’s eyes and his beloved microfilms. It was a research problem which had to be solved. He solved it by marrying the girl.

Then he learned the facts of life.

This occurred some weeks after their return from their honeymoon. Ruth was knitting, on no evidence, little pink things. Sam was, as usual, working on deciphering some ancient Scythian script, new examples of which had recently been unearthed in lower Russia.

“Sam,” Ruth said, in the tone of a wife who has just given a man a good dinner and let him relax long enough. “Sam, why do you spend all your spare time fooling around with that silly old stuff? Who cares whether you can read it or not?”

“My daddy always told me,” Sam replied without looking up, “that if a thing is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing well.”

If a man’s wife won’t tell him things, who will? “Dear,” Ruth said gently. “Dear, did it ever occur to you that maybe it’s not worth doing at all?”

This jolted Sam. He removed his glasses and put aside his microfilm viewer. “No, Ruth,” he replied, feeling vaguely around his person for cigarettes and matches. “No. I’ve never thought of that. Why isn’t it worth doing?” He never did locate a cigarette, but Ruth had so upset him he forgot about it and began chewing absently on the end of the pencil instead.

“Dear,” Ruth said, removing the pencil and inserting a cigarette in his mouth, “you work hard all day at the Freight Depot and then you come home and work hard half the night deciphering some old script or other. And for all this your income is less than the milkman makes.”

“But my work on epigraphy is for the sake of … of scholarship. Of learning. My daddy always told me money wasn’t important.”

“Sam,” Ruth said, taking his hand and patting it soothingly, “Sam, I wish I wasn’t the one to have to tell you this. But money is important.”

“It is?”

“Dear, you really shouldn’t have stayed a bachelor so long. You’ve been sort of, well, cut off from the practical aspects of life.”

“But Ruth, you told me that money wasn’t… .”

“Not for me, Sam, Though I wouldn’t mind…” Ruth’s voice trailed off as she looked meaningfully around the dingy little apartment. “It’s the Little Ones that may come along.”

“Little Ones?” Sam echoed, frowning as he pictured an invasion of midgets.

Ruth held up her knitting with a coy smile.

“Oh, I see what you mean. You mean we might— well.” Sam turned pink and had a slight coughing fit. “Doesn’t it take longer than that? I mean, we’ve only been married three months. It really hadn’t occurred to me. About any progeny, I mean.”

Ruth laughed reassuringly. “Oh, no. Not yet. I was just giving an example of why money is important.”

“And epigraphy is not?” Sam was beginning to get his back up a little.

“Not for children, no.”

“I don’t know why epigraphy shouldn’t be important for children. I should think it would be of great benefit to the burgeoning intelligence.”

Ruth burst into tears. “I almost hope we don’t have any children. What kind of father would you make, with your nose always in a microfilm machine and not caring if we all starve?”

“Are you hungry, Ruth?” he asked anxiously. When she ran from the room and flung herself on the bed, Sam stood around frowning and trying to make some sense out of the whole conversation.

A lesser man might, at this moment, have abandoned his hobby in the interests of domestic serenity. Had Sam been a lesser man, this hour of decision might have left the world balder. As it was, Sam, bent over his microfilm machine in all his spare time, was woven into that fantastic chain of events of which he was the last to be aware….

Sam’s evenings with ancient Scythian script were soon curtailed. Ruth, finding the direct approach a total failure, tried the subtle approach. There was company over almost every night. Ambitious young couples jockeying their way bravely through the traffic jams of life, their chins jutting into the wind.

The husbands were only momentarily stunned by Sam’s occupation. “Great room for big thinking there,” they would say. “You take an office like that, streamline it, get rid of the deadwood. Boy, you’ll be appreciated. Take a place like you’re in, use a little efficiency, and it’ll show, all the way down the line. And when they ask who did it, boy, you just step up and say, ‘Me.’“

“But I didn’t,” Sam would say with a confused frown. “I like my job the way it is. It leaves my mind free. What I’m really interested in is epigraphy.”

“Taking a flier in the hog market?”

“No, no. Reading ancient scripts. Writings. You know, trying to figure out writing that no one’s been able to translate.”

Ruth had finally given up trying to be proud of her husband’s epigraphical accomplishments. She’d finally just switch on the TV when it became obvious that Sam was not going to get interested in vacuum cleaners or selling insurance or advertising or whatever the eager young husband of the invited couple was engaged in.

“Sam,” she would sneer, “wouldn’t know a good idea if it hit him in the head.”

Ruth heard of Sam’s Discovery the way most wives find out what their husbands are doing—by listening to them talk to someone else at a party.

“New hair oil?” he was saying. “Nothing new about hair restorers. I’ve just translated a recipe that works very well. Doubt if you’d be able to stack yours up against it. And this one is almost twenty-four centuries old.”

“Yeah?” the young man answered skeptically. He smoothed his well-oiled hair. “Of course, we’re careful not to come out with the blank statement that Full Head actually grows hair. But we do say that people who use Full Head have more hair, more luxuriant hair, than people who do not. And more people with more hair use more Full Head than any other product. Furthermore, we’re prepared to back that statement with statistics.”

“It is remarkable,” Sam said, “that anyone could think up a statement like that in the first place. I doubt if that could be written in an inflected language. But tell me, where did you get your statistics?”

The young man looked a little sheepish and lowered his voice. “Well, don’t let this go any further. These statistics are a side line of a well known Educational Psychologist. It’s the same forty New York school children who learn to spell words written in red chalk three times faster than words written in white chalk.”

“Well,” Sam said, “I don’t know how well my recipe would work on New York school children. But it grew hair on the ancient Scythians in 450 B.C. and it grew hair on me on June 22nd this year.”

“You’re not really serious, are you?”

“Absolutely.”

“That hair?”

Sam looked uncomfortable. “Well, I didn’t say it grew pretty curls. It grows whatever kind of hair you had to start with. I imagine it’s a simple chemical that stimulates some hormonal activity or other.”

Ruth backed around to observe the top of her husband’s pate.

“Sam!” she cried. “It really isn’t bald any more. You’ve actually grown hair!”

“Yes, yes,” Sam said impatiently. “What’s so fascinating about that? The night I broke the Scythian alphabet, all you did was yawn in my face.”

“But you told me all there was written in Scythian were a few old laundry tickets.”

“I meant they were mostly lists of supplies and epitaphs and things like that. This recipe just happened to be among them. Probably chiseled into the rock by some shipping clerk.”

The young hair-oil man was by this time perspiring with eagerness. “Quick,” he said, “tell me. What was in this recipe?”

“It’s taken internally,” Sam said. “A drink. You use mare’s milk, a plant which was probably the same one the ancient Greeks called moly, and white wine. Probably any wine would do.”

The young man was clutching Sam’s arm and leading him off. Ruth was following, still dumfounded.

“The plant,” the young man panted. He licked his lips. He could hardly go on. “What is it? I mean, what do we call it?”

Sam frowned thoughtfully. “Afraid I don’t know. I’ve never had any botany.”

Ruth let out a long breath. “Thank God. Sam, you fool. Don’t you know what you’ve got hold of?”

“It’s that plant with the little white flower that opens just in the morning. You know, they use it on the Morning Joy ad. A very common herb.” Sam ignored his wife’s noises of admonition.

“I know,” the young man said, beaming like a day-old chick, though his hands were still shaking.

“Moly is a very interesting plant,” Sam said. “It was the ancient equivalent of Miltown, if you’re familiar with that drug.”

“Familiar with it! That’s practically all I can eat.”

But the conversation was interrupted by the thud of Ruth’s body on the floor.

Sam picked her up apologetically. “Afraid this sort of kills our evening,” he said. “My wife has a tendency to nervousness. Especially about epigraphy. But this is the first time she’s ever fainted when I started discussing it.”

The young man pocketed his hands, after popping a pill into his mouth. “Mind if I come along with you?”

“No, indeed,” Sam answered. “So few people show any interest in my work. Would you like to hear how I broke the Scythian alphabet?”

“It sounds absolutely fascinating,” the young man said. He hailed a taxi and held the door while Sam bundled in with his wife. “But first, a minor point. How many people know about this recipe for growing hair?”

“At the moment, no one but you and me. And Ruth, if she was listening. You don’t know how refreshing it is to find someone else who is interested in ancient Scythian.”

Ruth was sitting up, groaning. “You ten-karat jackass,” she told Sam disrespectfully. “He’s interested in your hair restorer. Don’t you know that’s worth a million dollars? And you’ve gone and given it away. Given it.”

“Is that true?” Sam asked the young man, suspicious for the first time.

“Well, I’m interested in the hair restorer and in epigraphy. Tell me, are there many people who can read ancient Scythian?”

“You see,” Sam told his wife triumphantly, “he is interested.” He turned back to his new friend. “I am the only person in the world who can read ancient Scythian. But let me tell you how I broke the Scythian …”

“Yes, yes,” the young man said. “I’m very anxious to hear all about it. But first—have you made up any samples of this hair restorer?”

“Oh, I have half a milk bottle full,” Sam replied impatiently. “Why do you care? You don’t need it. Let me tell you how I broke …”

“Look!” the young man said desperately, as one who abandons the last vestige of his pride. He yanked off his toupee. It was apparent, in the dim light of the taxi, that he was not such a young man after all.

“Oh, all right,” Sam said. He extricated Ruth from the taxi. She was in an actual paralysis of rage. “Come on up and I’ll give you a sip of this moly mix. Now, the first inkling I got that I might actually be on the trail was when I got the microfilm of a fragment with what appeared to be a picture of a Persian king carved into it and half a word underneath. Now this might have been many names. Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes …”

“Sam,” Ruth said hoarsely, when he had arranged her in a chair, “don’t give it to him. There’s still a chance.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, my dear,” Sam said. “I’ve just had my article on the subject accepted. The king was Xerxes.”

“No, no,” Ruth went on. “I mean the hair restorer.”

“Oh, I’d forgotten that,” Sam said. He fetched a milk bottle. “Don’t know how clean this is,” he told the young man. “I don’t think Ruth really scrubs them. But I don’t have a cold.”

“Germs don’t bother me,” the hair oil man replied. “If you’d just help me get it to my mouth.” He had a handkerchief wrapped around his hand, but it was still too unsteady to hold anything. “How long does it take to start working?”

“Oh, I’d say about four hours. I mean, for the fuzz to just start showing. It takes much longer for the hair to grow to normal length.”

The young man looked at his watch, sat down and sighed deeply. “Now tell me about how you broke the Scythian alphabet.”

“Be glad to,” Sam said eagerly. “Now take a look at this fragment.” He handed the man a microfilm viewer. “Now, you would probably assume that the name incised under the picture is Persian transliterated into Scythian. Right?”

“The first thing I thought of,” the young man agreed. He was running a trembling hand over the smooth skin of his head. “Persian, of course.”

“Ha!” Sam cried. “Not at all. You can try it for yourself, if you like. It won’t work.”

“Then I don’t think I’ll try it. What did you do then?” He was concentrating on his watch.

“Isn’t it obvious? I transliterated the Persian into Aeolic Greek and then again transliterated it into Scythian script. And there it was! I was on the trail of the key to the Scythian script.”

“Marvelous.” The hair oil man got up and began pacing the floor. “Sorry, but I just can’t sit still. My nerves are bad.”

“I felt the same way,” Sam said enthusiastically, “the night I broke the Scythian alphabet. Couldn’t sleep all night. It is exciting, isn’t it?”

“I think I feel a prickling on my scalp!”

“It’s almost unearthly,” Sam agreed, “reading something that’s been buried all these centuries. I quite know how you feel.”

Ruth, who had disappeared into the bedroom, returned with a suitcase in each hand and tears streaming down her eyes.

“Sam, I’m leaving you. I can’t stand to stay around and watch this.”

“But Ruth,” Sam said. “You can’t do that. I love you. Honesty I do. If you like, I’ll give up epigraphy. Now that I’ve broken the Scythian alphabet I’ve finished the task I set myself fifteen years ago. No more epigraphy. Now, how’s that, dear?”

“Sam, this skin-headed swindler is going to take your hair restorer and make five million dollars out of it, and we’re not going to get a damn thing. You don’t even know his name!”

The hair-oil man faced her with an expression of bland honesty with an inescapable undercurrent of six ulcers. “Madam,” he said, “my name is Chuck Bradford. I have no intention of stealing your husband’s formula. I only want to help him. This sort of, thing calls for group thinking. Together we can work out—”

“Together, bah! I know exactly what you’re going to do.”

The door bell rang and Ruth jerked the door open angrily. She backed off, blanching like an almond.

Into the room walked a lengthy, ferocious-looking African native, painted here and there and brandishing a wicked spear.

“Um!” the native said, pointing the spear at everyone in turn. “Who Sam?”

“I am,” Sam answered. “Surely you’re not from the Kenya International Epigraphical Review!”

“Where proof sheets?” the native asked laconically.

“Good Heavens, I had no idea the KIER had that sort of deadline. You can’t be the senior editor?”

“Where proof sheets?” the native repeated in a menacing tone, shaking his spear and puffing out his painted cheeks.

“Mau-mau infiltration into the KIER,” Sam concluded suddenly. “Spies must have sent you.”

“Sam!” Chuck Bradford gasped. “You were about to publish this thing?”

“On the whole,” Sam said complacently, “the article was rather well written. As a matter of fact, it was accepted the first place I sent it.”

“Thank God I found out in time!” Chuck said. He popped another pill into his mouth, started toward the native and retreated fast.

“Bwana can’t grow hair on shrunken head.” The African grinned and poised his spear. It was then that everyone noticed what rattled on the end of the spear. There were two of them, neither in need of hair restorer.

Ruth hit the floor with a thud.

“I’d better get him the proof sheets,” Sam said. “If he’ll promise to get them to the KIER when he’s finished. You promise?” he asked the native.

“Witch doctors use hair grower to be number one place of honor again. Then me give proof sheets to brother number three boy in office of KIER. If witch doctors no eat powerful printed page,” he added.

“Then it’s not Mau mau,” Sam said. “It’s witch doctors?”

“White missionary send son U. S. A. medical school, come back, work big magic. Now witch doctor send son U. S. A. witch doctor formula. Work bigger magic. White doctor lose practice. Witch doctor take over.”

“And all this over the hair restorer,” Sam muttered. “I might have known my article on epigraphy wouldn’t stir up this much excitement. Well, I don’t care if you have the proof sheets.”

“Don’t give them to him, Sam,” Chuck shouted. “Look at him. He’ll kill us anyway.”

The native had gone into a light soft-shoe war dance, and the look in his eye was not gentle. He had started singing a jerky sort of song to himself and he was thrusting the spear nearer and nearer to the three white people.

Ruth groaned, sat up, looked at the African and shuddered. “Why the hell don’t you do some group thinking?” she snapped at Chuck.

“I am,” Chuck answered. “If I could only stop shaking long enough.”

“And you, Sam,” Ruth sneered at her husband. “What are you going to do? Just stand around and look apologetic while he sticks a spear into me?”

The African evidently had an itchy spear hand and was having trouble restraining himself. “Bwana no get proof sheets? Me find. Bwanas go to happy Methodist heaven. No need hair restorers.”

“Wait!” Sam cried. “I’m not a Methodist. Look. I’ve just remembered I left those proof sheets at the office. You’ll have to wait while I go get them.”

“Me no wait!” the native said.

“Don’t get the police,” Chuck yelled hysterically. “They’ll have your recipe in all the papers. My God!” he groaned. “I’d rather get hung on his spear than lose this thing now.”

“Me go with you,” the African boomed.

“I’ll be back,” Sam said cheerfully. “You two just wait here.”

“Don’t get the police!” Chuck shouted again.

“Oh, get the damn police,” Ruth said, sobbing. “Sam, this is the bravest thing you’ve ever done, getting him out of the apartment like this. Do you want me to c-a-l-l the p-o-l-i-c-e,” she spelled, glancing furtively at the dancing African, “after you leave?”

“By no means,” Sam said calmly. “Don’t forget, dear, that I’m a shipping clerk. I handle invoices from everywhere in town. I know exactly what to do with our elemental friend.”

Ruth and Chuck alternately glared at each other, had hysterics, and chewed on Miltown until Sam returned, some hours later.

“Your hair,” Sam remarked to Chuck when he walked in the door, “is growing out absolutely gray.”

Chuck ran to the living room mirror. “My God, there it is! Real hair! I don’t care if it’s purple.”

“Darling,” Ruth cried, throwing herself into her husband’s bony arms, “what did you do with Jumbo? And why were you gone so long? I was afraid!” She began to sob, unable to go on.

“I palmed him off on Abercrombie and Fitch,” Sam said. “First I went by the shipping office and I faked an invoice on him. Then I called Abercrombie and Fitch and convinced them they had ordered an African bearer with a spear. They had to come out, of course, suitably prepared to deal with him. I showed them the invoice and what could they do? He’s their problem now.”

“Oh, Sam, you’re just wonderful!” Ruth cried, clinging to her husband in abject admiration.

“Damn it,” Chuck said. “Now why don’t I have ideas like that? An idea like that could make a million dollars.”

“Oh, you go away,” Ruth told Chuck. “You’re not going to make a million dollars off our idea.”

“I’ve already got the formula,” Chuck said.

“Well, you might as well take the proof sheets,” Sam said. They were flapping in his hand. “But I want them back. I really had left them at the office.”

“I just want to look at the directions,” Chuck said. He seized the proof sheets and began to copy vigorously into his little black Idea book. After that he abandoned the last vestiges of decency. He grabbed the bottle of hair restorer Sam had mixed up and lit out.

“Sam,” Ruth said, “I’m sorry for all the things I’ve said about you. It was ingenious the way you got rid of that cannibal, or whatever he was.”

“It was not ingenious. It was merely a matter of attention to detail. If I had not made an exact copy of an Abercrombie and Fitch invoice, I would never have gotten away with it. You admit, then, that if a thing is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing well?”

“Oh, yes, darling.”

“And I am capable of deciding what’s worth doing?”

“Yes, yes.”

“But still,” Sam went on, like Socrates chasing down some point of logic, “you are sorry about the hair formula. Now tell the truth, Ruth. You still think money is important?”

“Yes,” Ruth admitted with the monosyllabic regularity of most of Socrates’ pupils.

“And you don’t think I’m capable of making money because all I can do is mess around with the meanings of words, in one language or another?”

“Now, Sam, I didn’t say that. I meant that you don’t even try to make money. Nobody can do it if they don’t try.”

“Well,” Sam said, “you just wait and see.”

“But Chuck’s gone off with your formula. And I know that kind of man. They’ll have the thing in full production in a week. Sam, maybe if we rush down to the patent office—”

“Dear,” Sam said, “I’m not even going to try.”

Ruth didn’t turn on the radio, go out of the house or watch television for the next week. The advertising was everywhere. “Full Head positively guaranteed to grow hair! Not more hair! Not less scalp! Just the same hair you had before. The hair of your blazing youth!”

A check for a thousand dollars came from Full Head a week after the meeting with Chuck Bradford. Ruth would have torn it up, except that she now had very good evidence that a Little One was, indeed, on the way.

“This” Ruth said, waving the check in Sam’s face, “is our share of the hair-restorer money.”

“Rather a handsome sum,” Sam said, quite pleased.

“Oh, Sam, you’re impossible. Do you know what they’re making out of it?”

“I don’t care what they make.”

“If I ever get my hands on that Chuck Bradford again,” Ruth said gritting her teeth, “I’ll—”

The doorbell rang.

It was Chuck.

“Don’t do it, Ruth,” Sam said. “He doesn’t look like he could stand it. He looks like a—” Sam groped for words because Chuck, indeed, looked awful. His new hair hung despairingly over a face now gaunt and haunted.

“Like an old hound dog,” Ruth concluded. “You have your nerve showing your face here, Chuck Bradford, after the swindle you pulled on us.”

“I have my nerve?” Chuck shouted. Then he sat down with his head in his hands. “I don’t even have any nerves left. They’ve all popped from overuse. Sam, you’ve perpetrated the worst horror since Nero burned Rome. Why couldn’t you just have been a pyromaniac or a sex fiend?”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Ruth asked.

“Don’t act innocent. You were in on it, too.”

“On what?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Chuck said. “You got me into this mess, now you get me out.”

Sam was looking even milder than usual. “Some hitch in the hair restorer?”

“You bet your sweet life there’s some hitch!”

“I was afraid something like that might happen,” Sam said.

“What is all this?” Ruth asked. “Nobody ever tells me anything. Your hair looks all right, Chuck.”

“Oh, yes,” Chuck moaned. “My hair is all right. I’ve pulled it out by the handfuls, believe me, and it all grows back. All the people we tried Sam’s bottle on grew hair. All the hair anybody would want. And it stayed. There’s just one trouble.”

“Get to the point!”’ Ruth said. “What’s the just one trouble.”

“We didn’t waste any time,” Chuck went on, ignoring her. “We got it into production in a matter of hours. Not days, I tell you, hours. Packaging, advertising, everything went out zip-bam-boom! It sold. Boy, it sold. Supermarkets, drug stores, hot-dog stands, everywhere. Then, guess what?”

“What!” Ruth screamed.

“The hair all sprouted out for one week and then it fell off. Not just the new hair, mind you, but the old hair, too. I tell you, if something isn’t done, you’re not going to be able to tell Times Square from a billiard table. And guess who gets the blame for all this? Me. Me!” Chuck sprang up and began pacing the floor and chewing on the edge of his handkerchief.

Ruth laughed until the tears ran down her face. “How marvelous!” she said, when she could talk. “How marvelous!”

“Sam,” Chuck said, going up and clutching his erstwhile friend by the lapels. “Sam, you’ve got to help me now. You’ve got to. What did you put in your formula that isn’t in the recipe?”

“Nothing,” Sam said, gently extricating his lapels. “Absolutely nothing else. Only what I told you. Mare’s milk, moly and white wine.”

“Then why did your mixture grow hair that stays and ours doesn’t?”

“It ain’t what you do,” Sam replied, “it’s the way that you do it. You probably processed it wrong.”

“We followed the directions exactly, Sam. Exactly.”

“That’s the trouble. You got the wrong directions.”

“You mean you deliberately gave the wrong directions?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Sam said indignantly. “When I do something I do it right. My daddy used to say, ‘Son, if a thing’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing right.’ “

“You’re just torturing me,” Chuck said. “Why don’t you put bamboo splinters under my fingernails? Let me know right now if you’re not going to explain yourself, and I’ll go ahead and jump out of the window.”

“I sent in a correct manuscript to the Kenya International Epigraphical Review. There was a misprint in the proof sheet. That was not my fault. Nor was it my fault that you assumed the recipe was correct and used it for your own purposes.”

“My God!” Chuck said. “I came to you as a last resort. I didn’t really think you’d know what was wrong. Our chemists are working on it night and day. They’ll probably come up with a solution in the next year or two, but we can’t wait that long. I can’t wait that long. I’ll be lynched. Sam, what is that misprint?”

Sam picked up his microfilm viewer and began looking through it and taking notes on 5x8 cards. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“You know it? One word? And you’re not going to tell me!”

“Why should I?”

“Oh, now we can talk business,” Chuck said, snatching the viewer away from him. “How much? Five thousand? Ten? Oh, the hell with it. My nerves are shot. We’ll go to a million. O. K. What’s the misprint?”

Sam retrieved his microfilm viewer and became absorbed in it again. “My daddy always said,” he remarked absently to Chuck, “ ‘Son, money isn’t important.’“

“But Sam!” Ruth cried, snatching the microfilm again. “A million dollars!”

“How much do you want, Sam?” Chuck asked, pale as a prepackaged mushroom.

“My daddy always said—”

“Never mind,” Chuck interrupted. “All right, you freak, money isn’t important to you. We’ll get you something else. What is important to you?”

“Well,” Sam murmured thoughtfully. The room was silent for the space of half a cigarette. “Epigraphy is important to me.”

“We’ll get you all the epigraphy you want,” Chuck said, panting heavily. “Tons of it. Miles of it. However it comes.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Sam said. “There’s only so much of it, and it’s all free.”

“Oh, my God,” Chuck cried. “Sam, isn’t there anything else in the world you want. Anything you’ll trade that misprint for?”

Sam thought and thought. “Yes. There is something else I want. But it isn’t the sort of thing you could do for me.”

“Full Head can do it. Full Head would sell human souls to correct the recipe for that hair restorer. What is the thing you want?”

“Oh, it would sound silly to you.”

“No, it wouldn’t.” Chuck grabbed Sam by the lapels again. “I swear, Sam. Nothing on God’s earth would sound silly to me. You can do anything. Anything. You want to chop the head off the Statue of Liberty? Put a goat on top of the Washington Monument? Tear a page out of the Gutenberg Bible? Shuffle the catalog cards in the Library of Congress? Come on, what is it?”

“You won’t laugh at me?” Sam asked anxiously.

“I’ll never laugh again as long as I live,” Chuck sobbed.

“Well, I’d like to convince my wife that money isn’t important.”

“Sam!” Ruth cried. “Get them to draw up a contract. I’ll admit it right now. And let me handle the business end of this.”

“Now, Ruth,” Sam said. “You obviously don’t mean it. You’ll sell the word for a million dollars, or however much you can get. That shows you think money is important.”

Chuck was chewing on the shredded edge of his handkerchief again. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “Maybe we can do something there. A psychologist, maybe. Or pamphlets on heart disease. Ruth, would you read the pamphlets?”

“You’re a wise one,” she answered. “Hell, no, I wouldn’t read the pamphlets. I’ve got a much better idea. Why don’t you convince Sam that money is important?”

“We’ll work on that angle, too,” Chuck said. “And the misprint. We ought to be able to work that out.”

“What were the directions to the recipe?” Ruth asked.

“The words,” Chuck answered, “are engraved on my heart in acid. ‘Pick a handful of moly in the early morning. Boil well in fresh mare’s milk. Pour in a healthy amount of pale wine. Drink.’ That’s all.”

“Well, let’s see,” Ruth said concentrating. “If I find the misprint, will you buy it from me?”

“Yes, yes,” Chuck said feverishly. “We’ll be working on that, too. Although I don’t know what we could do to that recipe that we haven’t tried. We’ve boiled it, baked it, broiled it, burned it, sun-dried it. We’ve tried it raw, slightly cooked, cooked solid. We’ve tried every possible amount of each ingredient.”

“The amounts and methods of preparation don’t matter that much,” Sam said maddeningly. “I wouldn’t go to all that trouble.”

Ruth and Chuck were muttering to themselves.

“Pick a canful?”

“Soil well in fresh mare’s milk?”

“Pick a handful in the barley morning?”

“Pour in a healthy amount of stale wine?”

“Blink?”

“Pink?”

“Think?”

“Oh, hell,” Chuck said, “none of that makes sense. We’ll have experts working on this.”

“Don’t go sending any experts to work on me,” Ruth said. “Why don’t you just give us some money and when Sam sees what I can do with it, maybe he’ll change his mind.”

“We’ll see,” Chuck said. “I’m going to throw this one to a battery of idea men.” He dove out the door and went careening down the steps.

Sam spent the rest of the evening with his microfilm viewer while Ruth sat around muttering to herself. “Store in a healthy amount of pale wine? Maybe it needs to age. Male wine? Sam, did they have a different wine for men and women?”

“What?”

“I said … Oh, never mind. Coil well in fresh mare’s milk? Maybe you just need to twist out a little of the juice. Like bruising mint gently for a julep. Oh, I won’t sleep until all this is cleared up.”

Her words were truer than she thought.

The next evening Sam was visited by an apparition from a calendar. She was the sort of woman about whom wives say, “Dear, that isn’t even artistic. No woman is actually built like that.” But this one was.

The girl ran a slim, white hand through her luxuriant blond hair and smiled. “Mind if I take off my wrap?”

“Of course I mind,” Ruth answered, eyeing the backless and almost frontless black velvet gown beneath. “But go ahead. I suppose Full Head sent you to show what money can buy.”

“By no means,” the girl said. She immediately pulled up a chair beside Sam and ignored Ruth completely. “Sam,” she said, “my name is Debbie. Full Head did send me. But not for the reason your wife thinks.” She gave Ruth a nasty look.

Sam looked at her and frowned. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll catch cold, Debbie?”

“Oh, no.” Debbie sprang a soft, contralto laugh that shimmied around the living room and made Ruth fear for her unborn child. “I’m so young, Sam. And warm. But how darling of you to be concerned.”

“Well, why did you come?” Ruth asked in a menacing tone.

“To learn,” the girl breathed. She breathed it on Sam’s neck. “Full Head has naturally developed an interest in epigraphy. Now, our people can’t hope to break the Scythian alphabet in a few days when it took Sam fifteen years. But we’re thinking of setting up a special department of research in epigraphy, in honor of Sam. And I’m here,” she went on, gazing up at Sam with eyes that would have been bovine had they not been blue, “to sit at the feet of the master.”

“Oh. I’m not that good,” Sam said modestly. “But if you’re really interested in epigraphy, I’d be glad to teach you a few basic rules.”

“Interested?” the girl cried. “I’m fascinated. I begged to be sent on this assignment. I think epigraphy is the most fascinating subject in the world.”

“Like hell you do,” Ruth said viciously, “You can stop right now.”

“You’ll have to excuse my wife,” Sam said apologetically. “Epigraphy always makes her nervous. I don’t know what it is that annoys her so about it.”

“I know,” Debbie said sympathetically. “It so often happens with men of powerful intellect. Your wife simply doesn’t understand you.”

Sam looked pensively at his wife. “Ruth, is that it? You don’t understand me?”

“Oh, you idiot,” Ruth said. “That female’s here to worm the misprint out of you. She’s no more interested in epigraphy than Chuck was. Look at her. Never mind,” Ruth said on second thought. “Don’t look at her. Just tell her to go home.”

“Did you really come to worm that word out of me?” Sam asked.

“Definitely not. Cross my heart,” Debbie answered, crossing a well-developed area. “You can send me right home if I say one word about that misprint.”

“Fair enough,” Sam said with a pleased look at his wife. “All right, now. Let’s get started.”

“Let’s!” Debbie moved in closer to him.

“Epigraphy, as you probably know, is from the Greek ‘epi’ and ‘graphe’ meaning—”

“Oh, Sam” Ruth cried. “I can’t stand this.”

“Well, you go on to bed, dear. I know you’re not interested.”

“Yes,” Debbie said with a sweet smile. “You go to bed. We can carry on.”

“I’ll bet you can,” Ruth said, and slammed the door behind her.

The next morning was Sunday. Ruth arose late and red-eyed. She fixed one cup of coffee, one egg and one piece of toast. When Sam came into the kitchen sniffing the air hungrily, Ruth turned on the radio with a vicious twist and continued eating to a deafening account of the morning news.

Sam got himself a bowl of what he usually referred to as flaked cardboard, turned down the radio and ate unhappily.

Suddenly Ruth forgot how mad she was and put her hand on Sam’s. “Listen!” she cried. The familiar nasal voice of the newscaster was excited.

“What’s behind the lanolin curtain? What happens to the hair that Full Head grows? Why is there an armed guard around the Full Head Building? Don’t call your senator yet. We expect to have a full report on the seven o’clock news tonight… . Flash! There has just been an attempted lynch of a Manhattan barber by three bald-headed men in gray flannel suits.”

“Well,” Ruth said vindictively, “I guess that ought to teach Chuck Bradford crime does not pay.”

The doorbell rang.

“I think we’d have more privacy around here,” Sam said gently but reprovingly, “if you didn’t keep speaking of the devil.”

Chuck slunk in the door with paranoidal glances over his left shoulder. “They’re after me,” he said, sinking onto the shabby sofa.

“Good for them!” Ruth commented. “I’ll buy the rope.”

“Kick a handful of moly?” Chuck asked Sam, not very hopefully.

“If you like,” Sam answered, “but it won’t help your formula.”

At this point of impasse in the history of hirsute western civilization, Fate again took a hand. A rather hairy but very capable hand, extending from a black flannel sleeve, pushed the doorbell still warm from Chuck Bradford’s caress.

“The President of the United States,” said the respectable but anonymous-looking man attached to the capable hand, “would like to see you.”

“I had a previous engagement,” Sam said with an uncertain frown. “Of course—”

“The President, too, has a full schedule.”

“Oh, of course.” Sam went peacefully.

“Creeping Socialism!” Chuck shouted after they left. “Government intervention! If they make that hair restorer a government project—hell, what can you expect after twenty years of the Re-Deal?”

“Now who could Sam have had an engagement with?” Ruth mused.

The doorbell rang. This time Fate had a soft white hand.

“Oh, he’s not here!” Debbie exclaimed, fluttering in disappointment. “He was supposed to show me through a collection of ancient coins.”

“Goodbye,” Ruth said clammily, and shut the door behind Debbie after a good, hard shove. She turned to Chuck. “O.K. I was going to wait and watch you get lynched. But I want to get that woman off Sam’s neck. You draw up a contract and I’ll give you the correct formula for Sam’s hair restorer.”

“You mean all this time you’ve known it?”

“Not all this time. But I had a lot of time to myself last night. And it occurred to me that Sam must have a carbon copy of his manuscript, and I looked and there it was.”

“You go find some neighbors to witness,” Chuck said, “and I’ll do the writing.”

Sam was gone most of the day. He opened the door to find Debbie on the sofa and Ruth in the armchair, studiously ignoring each other.

“The President of the United States,” he announced, “will not go bald.”

“She won’t go away,” Ruth said.

“Why should I?” Debbie asked, smiling just for Sam.

“Because Full Head already has the formula,” Ruth volunteered. “You’re no longer needed.”

“Do you want me to go, Sam?”

“Now she wants your money,” Ruth said.

“What money? What is this? And where’s dinner?”

“I found the carbon copy of your manuscript and sold it to Chuck. And now I didn’t get rid of her after all.” Ruth could no longer; control herself. “You don’t love me any more,” she sobbed.

“Yes I do, dear.”

“Well, you won’t for long. Tell her to go away.”

“We mustn’t be impolite. What makes her think I have money?”

“I just told you. I sold your word to Full Head.”

“Just so Debbie wouldn’t come around? Not for money?”

“I had to sell it for something. But yes, I mostly wanted to get rid of Debbie.”

“Dear, that was very misguided of you, but underneath I think your motive was not monetary. Suppose I told you we weren’t going to make any money after all.”

“That would be wonderful” Ruth said. “That would solve all our problems.”

“What do you mean?” Debbie asked. Her ingenuous air began to thicken a little.

“I gave the correct translation of the Scythian formula to the American Government. You couldn’t sell it, anyway, Ruth. It’s common property. No copyrights back in 450 B.C., you know. All I did was translate it.”

“But Ruth’s got a contract!” Debbie cried.

“Won’t hold water, or whatever contracts hold. But don’t worry about your company, Debbie. I took care of Full Head. Chuck Bradford’s worked so hard over this. The United States Government is going to farm out production to Full Head. They just want to control cheap distribution overseas. As the President says, a head full of hair; is a heart full of good will.”

“No money?” Debbie asked.

“No money.”

“No Debbie,” said Debbie, and she was gone, like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face.

“Do I get any dinner?” Sam asked.

“Yes. But why ‘Lick a handful of moly’?”

“Some enzyme in human spit, I’m sure. But you boil it later so it’s perfectly sanitary. What do we have for—”

“Meatloaf again,” Ruth said happily. “I like meatloaf. You’re right. Money isn’t important. And Sam, I’m sorry that I sold the word, I hate to go above you.” Here the brown eyes lower fell. “Because, you see, I love you.”

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