The Dark Side by Damon Knight (ed.) Page A

dry and that he lay in a waterless bathtub. The water, in one surge of revulsion, had swept out onto the floor.
    “Herman, stop splashing!” his wife yelled. “I just washed that floor. If I find one little puddle I’ll murder you!”
    Greenberg surveyed the instep-deep pool over the bathroom floor. “Yes, my love,” he croaked unhappily.
    With an inadequate washrag he chased the elusive water, hoping to mop it all up before it could seep through to the apartment below. His washrag remained dry, however, and he knew that the ceiling underneath was dripping. The water was still on the floor.
    In despair, he sat on the edge of the bathtub. For some time he sat in silence. Then his wife banged on the door, urging him to come out. He started and dressed moodily.
    When he sneaked out and shut the bathroom door tightly on the flood inside, he was extremely dirty and his face was raw where he had experimentally attempted to shave with a dry razor.
    “Rosie!” he called in a hoarse whisper. “Sh! Where’s Mamma?”
    His daughter sat on a studio couch and applied nail polish to her stubby fingers. “You look terrible,” she said in a conversational tone. “Aren’t you going to shave?”
    He recoiled at the sound of her voice, which, to him, roared out like a siren. “Quiet, Rosie! Sh!” And for further emphasis, he shoved his lips out against a warning finger. He heard his wife striding heavily around the kitchen. “Rosie,” he cooed. “I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll mop up the water I spilled in the bathroom.”
    “I can’t, Papa,” she stated firmly. “I’m all dressed.”
    “Two dollars, Rosie—all right, two and a half, you blackmailer.”
    He flinched when he heard her gasp in the bathroom; hut, when she came out with soaked shoes, he fled downstairs. He wandered aimlessly toward the village.
    Now he was in for it, he thought; screams from Esther, tears from Rosie—plus a new pair of shoes for Rosie and two and a half dollars. It would be worse, though, if he could not get rid of his whiskers—
    Rubbing the tender spots where his dry razor had raked his face, he mused blankly at a drugstore window. He saw nothing to help him, but he went inside anyhow and stood hopefully at the drug counter. A face peered at him through a space scratched in the wall case mirror, and the druggist came out. A nice-looking, intelligent fellow, Greenberg saw at a glance.
    “What you got for shaving that I can use without water?” he asked.
    “Skin irritation, eh?” the pharmacist replied. “I got something very good for that.”
    “No. It’s just—Well, I don’t like to shave with water.”
    The druggist seemed disappointed. “Well, I got brushless shaving cream.” Then he brightened. “But I got an electric razor—much better.”
    “How much?” Greenberg asked cautiously.
    “Only fifteen dollars, and it lasts a lifetime.”
    “Give me the shaving cream,” Greenberg said coldly.
    With the tactical science of a military expert, he walked around until some time after dark. Only then did he go back to the hotel, to wait outside. It was after seven, he was getting hungry, and the people who entered the hotel he knew as permanent summer guests. At last a stranger passed him and ran up the stairs.
    Greenberg hesitated for a moment. The stranger was scarcely a boy, as Esther had definitely termed him, but Greenberg reasoned that her term was merely wish-fulfillment, and he jauntily ran up behind him.
    He allowed a few minutes to pass, for the man to introduce himself and let Esther and Rosie don their company manners. Then, secure in the knowledge that there would be no scene until the guest left, he entered.
    He waded through a hostile atmosphere, urbanely shook hands with Sammie Katz, who was a doctor—probably, Greenberg thought shrewdly, in search of an office—and excused himself.
    In the bathroom he carefully read the directions for using brushless shaving cream. He felt less confident when he