Sta-nine Zero by Mack Hitch A Collection of Short Stories and Articles Collection of Short Stories and A Table of Contents Short Stories Lila, You Kill Me (3) Tending the Rabbits (33) Saguaro Revenge (40) Nathanael West Lives (61) Belated Circumcision (72) Science Fiction Leaving the Sargasso (86) Would You Like Fries? (103) The Courtship of Jonathan Tidley (118) Dream Boy (142) Sta-nine Zero (155) Into the Corn (184) Meddling With Their Mettle (203) A Universe Unobserved (223) Earlier Science Fiction Laugh, Skudlow, Laugh (233) Always a Critic (250) Girly Magazine Attempt Big Bazoonarinos (257) Mark Twain Articles The Monster Who Was Mark Twain (267) Furry Royalty (280) Don’t No Body Read My Book? (286) Mark Twain Afloat (297) Difficult to Categorize A Christmas Carol for the Self-Actualized (303) !2 Much of this story is true. It is set during that time when I lived at 590 S. Sherman in Denver and worked for The Associated Press. The lady, whose real name was Rose Murphy, lived in the apartment above me in the fine, old brick house. Lila, You Kill Me by Mack Hitch Lila herself picked this chill winter's day to die, picked it the moment she counted the coins onto Carl's counter for the two quarts of wine, complaining all the while that a little sweet wine for the heart cost an arm and a leg now-a-days, not like in the honest bygone days when prices were Christian and the Devil's own didn't dispense what she considered God's libation. Carl's not like me. He can ignore her. There's a small profit in the wine for him, and he's used to working for ol' Scratch anyway, at least of being accused of such employment. Me? I've stood all I'll stand. Tonight she's going to that vintner in the sky, and that brace of bottles will be her one-way ticket. She'll be rapping at my door in a few minutes, the bottles under her arms, begging me to open them. She can't do !3 it herself because of her arthritis. I'll pull the corks for her and she'll lug them upstairs to her apartment above mine. It's a Friday ritual with us. Usually I take a sip or two before pushing the corks half way back in so that she can extract them later with a pair of pliers. Tonight I won't have to drink very much because what I'll be pouring in won't take up much space. Benzedrine. I've already crushed the tablets and the powder is nestled in the bowls of two spoons in the kitchen right this moment. Maybe Benzedrine doesn't sound so sinister, but I haven't told you everything. Lila had open heart surgery twelve years ago, and I don't think her ticker will tolerate the excitement. That's the plan. Deceptively simply. No one will ever guess. After all, who's going to perform a serious autopsy on an elderly woman with a history of heart trouble, including an operation? This killing of Lila isn't a spur of the moment thing at all. I'm not like that. Such crimes show a want of intellect. Simply by daydreaming I've come up with several murder scenarios, but they all lack that certain elan with which I wish to mark my life. Since I work for The Associated Press, I tend to see those murders as they would appear in the following day's newspaper. Being the good little AP mule that I am, I have already written leads for both the morning and afternoon papers. I like the afternoon story best because of its action lead, but I'll give you the AM lead first. I think I have it sufficiently in my mind to recite it to you. Let's see. DENVER (AP)--The body of an elderly woman, strangled and beaten to death, was discovered early today near the telephone in the apartment of a 26-year- !4 old man. The suspect, whom police declined to identify, had lived in the same converted apartment house with the victim for the past three years. Officers said the cool, collected suspect refused to be booked until he had watered his house plants. Even I'll admit it's not a brilliant lead, but it is adequate. Trust me. I do it for a living. This particular lead, triple spaced and ready to go, is in the drawer under the word processor on a stand next to my bed. The afternoon lead is still on the screen, though the computer is in its sleep mode and dark at the moment. Let me tap a key and wake it up. That way I can read it to you word for word DENVER (AP)--While horrified residents of a lower downtown apartment screamed in terror yesterday, an unidentified 26-year-old man gleefully strangled and pummeled an elderly woman to death. Occupants of the apartment house said the elderly woman had only wished to use the young man's telephone, but when she knocked at his door, he pounced upon her, screaming that she had been mutilating his house plants. As I've already told you, I discarded this method of murder. It's pedestrian. Anyway, I'd have to go to prison for life if I did it that way, and then who would water my plants. I only recited the leads to you so that you can see my resolve. The plants? Oh, I say plants but I really mean my African violet. Each day Lila returns from her free lunch at the old folks' center downtown, comes in here, and rubs its leaves between her thumb and forefinger. She says it feels like a fine gown she once owned and wore to wakes. She can't resist free finger food. !5 The real problem--let's forget the African violet for the moment--is that Lila is a royal Catholic pain. But don't take my word for it. She'll be in here in a few minutes and you can judge for yourself. You'd think that with her arthritic hips she'd be anything but punctual, but there is a military regularity to her movements. She's a real Soldier of the Cross. Her inner clock has been sharpened from umpteen years of early morning masses. It's because of this regularity, this regime of hers, that I know she's going to be at my door in just a few minutes. She'll have those bottles of cheap wine in each hand and she'll be chirping my name from her beaked lips. Just so you'll know that I'm not babbling on, that I really know my quarry, let me tell you exactly what she's going to do when she gets to the house. She's going to totter around in the foyer for two minutes and forty-five seconds before she starts pounding on my door with one of the wine bottles and calling out my name. When I let her in she's going to tell me what a nice boy I am--what a nice Christian boy, that is,--what a nice house we live in, and then she's going to ask to use my phone. I could give you her exact words, I could block her movements about the apartment like a playwright. Really. And I can guarantee you that she will maliciously damage the African violet I just spoke of. As you can see, I'm head ruled. But let's forget about that. I can hear her opening the outside door. It's a big door and she doesn't open it wide, just cracks it enough to squeeze her frail frame through. She's tottering around out there in the foyer now. Hear her? When you see her walk it'll remind you of a pickle on toothpick stilts. It's her arthritic hips. Generally she hobbles through a couple of practice circles in the foyer before !6 approaching my door. I think she only does it to warm up her fingers so she can press the buttons on my telephone. As the news stories indicated, that's another thing that irritates me. Lila wanting to use my phone all the time. Anything to save a quarter. I bet she hobbles to church each morning reciting "tap the bottom of the collection plate and use Mack's phone." She probably repeats it five hundred times a block considering how many steps she has to take. And each time she recites it, she's probably hearing two saved coins falling into an empty tin-can bank that's nailed securely to a wooden floor. Oh, oh. Here it comes. Can't you hear her steps tottering this way? Knock. Knock. "Mack, Mack, Mack." When I was a child in Sterling, Colorado, I had a baby magpie that used to sit on a croquet mallet outside the kitchen door and make similar sounds when it was hungry. "Mack, Mack, Mack." Lila's like that magpie, except that she won't be satisfied with a lump of hamburger or a piece of bread soaked in milk. Unless I open the door and humor her, she'll never shut up. Well, here goes. I'm opening the door. "Oh, good. You're home." She coos like a pigeon in a church loft, contented that the organ has finally fallen into silence.