“. . . gobble trink visky chin glassabeer gobblegobblegobble . . .”
“. . .gabblegabblegabble. . .”
“. . . makes me so gobblegobble mad little no-good tramp no she ain’ but I don’ like no standup from no dame …”
A blond, square-headed boy fuming under a street light.
“. . . out wit’ Casey Oswiak I could kill that dumb bohunk alia time trine ta paw her. . .”
It was a possibility. The Mindworm drew near.
“. . . stand me up for that gobblegobble bohunk I oughtta slap her inna mush like my ole man says . . .”
“Hello,” said the Mindworm.
“Waddaya wan’?”
“Casey Oswiak told me to tell you not to wait up for your girl. He’s taking her out tonight.”
The blond boy’s rage boiled into his face and shot from his eyes. He was about to swing when the Mindworm began to feed. It was like pheasant after chicken, venison after beef. The coarseness of the environment, or the ancient strain? The Mindworm wondered as he strolled down the street. A girl passed him:
“. . . oh but he’s gonna be mad like last time wish I came right away so jealous kinda nice but he might bust me one some day be nice to him tonight there he is lam’post leaning on it looks kinda funny gawd I hope he ain’t drunk looks kinda funny sleeping sick or bozhe moi gabblegabblegabble . . .”
Her thoughts trailed into a foreign language of which the Mind-worm knew not a word. After hysteria had gone she recalled, in the foreign language, that she had passed him.
The Mindworm, stimulated by the unfamiliar quality of the last feeding, determined to stay for some days. He checked in at a Main Street hotel.
Musing, he dragged his net:
“. . . gobblegobblewhompyeargobblecheskygobblegabblechy-
esh . . .”
“. . . take him down cellar beat the can off the damn chesky thief put the fear of god into him teach him can’t bust into no boxcars in mah parta the caounty. . .”
“. . . gabblegabble. . .”
“. . . phone ole Mister Ryan in She-cawgo and he’ll tell them three-card monte grifters who got the horse-room rights in this necka the woods by damn don’t pay protection money for no protection . . .”
The Mindworm followed that one further; it sounded as though it could lead to some money if he wanted to stay in the town long enough.
The Eastern Europeans of the town, he mistakenly thought, were like the tramps and bums he had known and fed on during his years
on the road—stupid and safe, safe and stupid, quite the same thing.
In the morning he found no mention of the square-headed boy’s death in the town’s paper and thought it had gone practically unnoticed. It had—by the paper, which was of, by, and for the coal and iron company and its native-American bosses and straw bosses. The other town, the one without a charter or police force, with only an imported weekly newspaper or two from the nearest city, noticed it. The other town had roots more than two thousand years deep, which are hard to pull up. But the Mindworm didn’t know it was there.
He fed again that night, on a giddy young streetwalker in her room. He had astounded and delighted her with a fistful of ten-dollar bills before he began to gorge. Again the delightful difference from city-bred folk was there. . . .
Again in the morning he had been unnoticed, he thought. The chartered town, unwilling to admit that there were streetwalkers or that they were found dead, wiped the slate clean; its only member who really cared was the native-American cop on the beat who had collected weekly from the dead girl.
The other town, unknown to the Mindworm, buzzed with it. A delegation went to the other town’s only public officer. Unfortunately he was young, American-trained, perhaps even ignorant about some important things. For what he told them was: “My children, that is foolish superstition. Go home.”
The Mindworm, through the day, roiled the surface of the town proper by allowing himself to be roped into a poker game in a parlor of the hotel. He wasn’t good at it, he didn’t like it, and he quit with relief when he had cleaned six shifty-eyed, hard-drinking loafers out of about three hundred dollars. One of them went straight to the police station and accused the unknown of being a sharper. A humorous sergeant, the Mindworm was pleased to note, joshed the loafer out of his temper.