“But, but, but,” said Will.
“No buts, sir.” Ollie scanned his derby as if it were a crystal ball. “With so much melancholy to be cured on so many needy worlds, there could be a dozen Stans and Ollies. Good gravy, the Lonely sickness might rise again to knock millions into grief.”
“I know—” said Will.
“You do not know, sir, so I’ll continue. When questioned by skeptics we deny our DNA family. We are the only black-and-white ghosts who fall downstairs out of the Lazarus Internet.”
“Like,” piped Stan, “two peas in a pod!”
“Still, it is hard for me to believe—” I said.
“Do not believe, sir, know. Observe caterpillars and butterflies. Unrelated? Yet they are one. And what of Life itself, on Earth? How could dead rock, in primal sweats, hit by lightning, come alive?
How could electric storms cause life to stir and know itself? Dunno, the scientists say. It just happened. Boy, some science! So, dear sirs, that’s us. We happened. No beginning and no end. Half caterpillar, half moth.”
“What’s more …” whispered Stan, “Ollie and me, Ollie and I, will live forever.”
“Forever?” I gasped.
“Isn’t that what you always wanted, in the old days? When we did vaudeville in Dublin and London they shouted, ‘Stan? Ollie? Don’t die!’
“So,” Stan finished, looking with moist eyes at the years ahead, “that’s how it’ll be. We’ll come back for a last Farewell Tour. It’s in our contract, year after year after year …” His voice was a falsetto whisper. “… forever.”
“Forever,” whispered someone.
“Or Eternity,” said Ollie jauntily. “Whichever comes first.”
“Where do you go next?” I said.
“There are planets in the Alpha complex, eight habitable, seven with colonial drops. Lots of Lonelies out there waiting for cheerleaders to show up and save a civilization. But there I go again.”
“You,” said Will quietly, “are Christs without the crucifixion. God’s most dearly beloved intergalactic sons. Nazareth without tears.”
“How you do go on,” chirped Stan. “If we ever truly knew who we were, Ollie would be twice as pompous, me twice as dumb.”
“I wouldn’t say that!” cried Ollie.
“I just did,” said Stan.
“Well,” said Hardy, wiggling his fingers. “We must say ta-ta. The Centauri branch of the Irish orphans has a midnight feed. Stanley and I must head a Destruction Derby. Right, Stanley?”
“Do you never rest, never sleep?” I asked.
“With so much to do?”
“Ta-ta.”
“Wait,” I said.
I reached out to touch. Their handshakes, though black-and-white, were warm. “Toodle-oo,” I said.
And they ambled, rolled with vaudeville jumps and leaps, out the door.
The rest of that night, suspended in laser beam Virtual Realities,
- they met a gorilla on a flimsy bridge over a deep gorge.
- their feet trapped in cement, they plunged into deep waters.
- they heard a lunatic promise to twist their heads, tie their legs under their chins.
- Laurel skipped over a picket fence. Hardy, jauntily trying the leap, knocked the fence down.
The grand finale was, of course, Oliver Hardy poised atop a staircase holding a huge birthday cake, fully lit, pompously certain of his dignity, taking just one misstep, not down, but hurled out.
With a terrible cry of despair, birthday cake and Ollie in slow motion soared until cake, candles, and Ollie landed full on the dining-room table, Ollie’s face smashed in frosting, as the table crashed and cake and Ollie hit the floor, and the chandelier and all the wall pictures leaped and fell in the same instant so that pictures, chandelier, table, cake, and Ollie were buried under lit candles!
Then behold! The pictures leaped back onto walls, chandelier to ceiling, the cake reconstituted, and let Ollie go so that he was thrown in reverse up to the top of the stairs, the cake in his hands, glancing grandly over at us with a fake modest glance which said, here I go again, but this time no fall, no shriek! Watch!
And there he went again, in black and white, forever certain, forever slipping, forever dreading the upthrust target of flimsy table, gullible pictures, guillotine chandelier.
Pandemoniums of Alpha Centauri applause.
“But when, when, oh when will you return?” I asked.
“Whenever you feel the greatest need,” said Ollie. “When the Affliction sets in, when the Loneliness stays. Now say the magic words. What the traffic cop said when we didn’t move our wreck.”
Stan and Ollie held on to their hats, waiting.
“Ollie,” I said, “twiddle your tie.”
Ollie twiddled his tie.
“Stan, pull your topknot.”
Stan yanked his hair.
I took a deep breath and shouted:
“Git outta here, or I’ll give you a ticket for blocking traffic!”
Leaping up, clapping their hats, elbows flying …
Laurel and Hardy got out of there.
The crying didn’t stop till after the third Bombay gin.
The end
