“He did what I do!” George said suddenly.
“Jack? I don’t think so. For a while, I suppose, he may have assisted, but—”
“No,” George said impatiently, “not him, not Jack, the father. He was a control. He did what I do!”
“Larry?”
“Right. Larry. He was a control. He was with the circus. Then he came here to Cassadaga. He met the mother here. I don’t know how he managed the courting. He did what I do. I mean I guess it would be pretty tough if you’re supposed to be this disembodied control and then you fall in love with one of your customers and you have to explain that the next time she sees you you’ll be just like everyone else, only shorter. But he must have figured out something to tell her, because they were married and had Jack!”
“You see it very clearly,” Wickland said.
Yes, he thought. He’d told Wickland what he’d told Kinsley, that he didn’t know how he thought up what to say. Calling him Jack like that. The other stuff. Kinsley said he was inspired, that spirits guided him, that he was a true vehicle, that he had powers. Yes, he thought. Yes.
“I do,” he said, “yes. Once you told me his father was a midget then that explained why—”
“Why?”
“It explains why he’s so sour on — Wait. I did see it clearly. Only I didn’t see all of it. What could he say? I mean if she was here to get comforted by visiting some dead person, then it would be pretty hard to take that the fellow who was tricking you one minute was in love with you the next. So she couldn’t have known he was a control. She didn’t do business with him. She just thought he was — She thought he was just—
“Maybe he’d seen her around town, maybe sitting right here on this bench, and he told her that that was why he was here himself, that he’d lost someone very dear to him too, and still wasn’t over it, but almost was, nearly was, and just wanted to get in contact one last time to say good-by because the departed may have died suddenly or gone out of town and there’d been no real chance to say farewell by the book, which is what Kinsley says is all a lot of them really want. Sure,” George said, “and I know from other stuff he’s told me that there used to be more repeat trade than there is today. Probably the roads weren’t as good, the distance to De Land would have been greater back then, so they had to have somewhere to stay, to put up.” He indicated the little neighborhood of a town. “Wait. I know. Some of these places must have been boarding houses before they ever got to be haunted houses, and he knew, Jack’s father did, that she’d be around for a while and they started seeing each other, but only during the daylight hours because he couldn’t let her know that he was in the business. Not after what he’d told her he couldn’t. So then maybe he told her he’d seen whoever it was that he’d come to see because she still couldn’t tell him. Not if she liked him she couldn’t, because then she wouldn’t have any excuse to stay on, and if he told her first that was the equal of saying he liked her without really saying it. Because he was, you know, shy, being so little and all, and would naturally be afraid of saying it straight out. So that was the way they courted, asking each other if they’d seen the spook yet, and Larry, Jack’s father, gradually working up his nerve to tell her well, yes, as a matter of fact he had, needing the nerve because he was afraid she’d say ‘Well, aren’t you the lucky little man?’ or something even meaner.
“But one day he just did. He said it. And she said ‘I did too, Larry,’ and that was that.”
“Was it?” Wickland said.
“Well sure,” George said. “Oh, you mean what would he do now? I mean about telling her he was in the business. He’d still have to tell her. You’re right, she’d have to know. He had to come up with something fast because he had to go to work that night. He didn’t have the excuse anymore that he was just going around the corner to the seance, and she’d be free, too, of course, so whatever he told her he’d have to tell her right off. Yes, I see. But he couldn’t. He’d just told her he’d said good-by to the specter. There wasn’t anything he could say that could put all those lies he’d told her in a good light. I mean he was so small. He was already at all the disadvantage he could afford. There was nothing he could say. Unless…” Yes, he thought again. I do have powers. It’s all these psychics. Maybe they’re carriers. “Unless she already knew. Sure,” George said, “she knew. But not that he was a control. These were the olden days. Controls were lowered on ropes from the ceilings or rose from the cellars like organs in theaters. That was the old style. They didn’t have sound effects or trick lighting. They didn’t sit up on chairs like I do. So she already knew. But he wasn’t a control. He was the medium. And she wasn’t a customer. You don’t fall in love with the customers. Most of the time you don’t even respect them. You certainly don’t let them know you’re human!”
Even to himself he didn’t sound like any kid who’d ever lived. He’d picked up their lingo, the conversational Urgent they spoke. He used to be the only kid in Cassadaga. Now there were none.
“Why couldn’t they already have been married?” Wickland asked.
“That’s so,” George said angrily, “they could.” He kicked at one of the fallen palm pods. “Damn,” he said, “they could.” And he wondered what he was going to say next, then he was saying it, his voice raised in that High Urgent that had no proper names in it, the trees and people and animals pronoun’d and anonymated into the clairvoyant’s confrontational style. “No,” he said, “no they couldn’t. You said he was born here. She was pregnant. You don’t make a big move like that until after the baby is born. They weren’t married when they came. When they came they—They? There wasn’t any they to it. They didn’t come. He did, the midget. Because he was a midget. A midget and a medium both. Where else could he go? He came! She was already here! Or in De Land!
“He said he had letters. She must have saved them. Of course. She would have had letters and some would even have been marked Personal, because people who are upset want to make sure that their mail gets through and probably they figure that if they’ve put down Personal and drawn a line under it they’ve warned the authorities and the busybodies at the circus that they mean business. Maybe they even think there’s something official about it, that it’s an actual aid in sorting the mail and seeing that it goes where it’s directed, like sticking on the extra postage that buys special handling. So that wasn’t why she saved it. If all she wanted was letters that said Personal on the envelope she could have had a hope chest full of them. Haven’t I read enough mail down here in Cassadaga to know that people will say anything if they’ve pencil and paper and a few cents for stamps? That they address letters to the dead or particular saints or even to God Himself because they’ve heard and even believe that we’re this clearing house for the extraordinary? It wasn’t the Personal that made her keep this one out of all the crazy correspondence that had come her way. It was what was inside. Not the expression of sympathy, because every last letter she ever got would have started with that. That would have been as regulation as the salutation. Even the madmen who wished her an even worse life than the one which had already been visited upon her would first have showered her with their declarations of pity, waiting until all that was out of the way before ever taking up the matter of reproach, blasting her with what would not even occur to them was ill-nature and ill will and citing her ‘condition’ as evidence that a retributive Lord not only existed but was at all times on His toes, no procrastinative, Second Coming Lord who put off till tomorrow what could just as easily be done today, but an eager beaver early bird God who didn’t care to wait till even today, who did His stuff retroactively, smiting you if He had a mind to in the cradle, in the womb. So it wasn’t the sympathy. Maybe she even skipped that part. Probably she wasn’t interested until she came to the stuff about the writer’s credentials, and maybe she was relieved when she saw that it wasn’t a doctor this time because she’d heard from the doctors before, so interested in her ‘case,’ so sure a particular pill or course of some special serum or amazing, recently discovered diet was just the thing to fix her up. Doctors were quacks, and reverends were worse, because when all was said and done the reverends were usually on the same side as the madmen and believed that the Lord had made her what she was, and that rather than flaunt it she would do better either to hide it away or send it on tour as a warning to others. Proceeds to charity.”