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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slizzers, by Jerome Bixby
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Slizzers
+
+Author: Jerome Bixby
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2010 [EBook #33850]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SLIZZERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced Science Fiction Stories 1953. Extensive
+    research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
+    publication was renewed.
+
+
+       _The main trouble is that you'd never suspect anything was
+        wrong; you'd enjoy associating with _slizzers_, so long as
+        you didn't know...._
+
+
+                            _The Slizzers_
+
+
+                           by JEROME BIXBY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They're all around us. I'll call them the _slizzers_, because they
+_sliz_ people. Lord only knows how long they've been on Earth, and how
+many of them there are....
+
+They're all around us, living with us. We are hardly ever aware of
+their existence, because they can _make_ themselves look like us, and
+do most of the time; and if they can look like us, there's really no
+need for them to think like us, is there? People think and behave in
+so many cockeyed ways, anyhow. Whenever a _slizzer_ fumbles a little
+in his impersonation of a human being, and comes up with a puzzling
+response, I suppose we just shrug and think. _He could use a good
+psychiatrist._
+
+So ... you might be one. Or your best friend, or your wife or husband,
+or that nice lady next door.
+
+They aren't killers, or rampaging monsters; quite the contrary. They
+need us, something like the way we'd need maple trees if it came to
+the point where maple syrup was our only food. That's why we're in no
+comic-book danger of being destroyed, any more than maple trees would
+be, in the circumstances I just mentioned--or are, as things go. In a
+sense, we're rather well-treated and helped along a bit ... the way we
+care for maple trees.
+
+But, sometimes a man here and there will be careless, or ignorant, or
+greedy ... and a maple tree will be hurt....
+
+Think about that the next time someone is real nice to you. He may be
+a _slizzer_ ... and a careless one....
+
+How long do we live?
+
+Right. About sixty, seventy years.
+
+You probably don't think much about that, because that's just the way
+things are. That's life. And what the hell, the doctors are increasing
+our lifespan every day with new drugs and things, aren't they?
+
+Sure.
+
+But perhaps we'd live to be about a _thousand_, if the _slizzers_ left
+us alone.
+
+Ever stop to think how little we know about why we live? ... what it
+is that takes our structure of bones and coldcuts and gives it the
+function we call "life?"
+
+Some mysterious life-substance or force the doctors haven't pinned
+down yet, you say--and that's as good a definition as any.
+
+Well, we're maple trees to the _slizzers_, and that life-stuff is the
+sap we supply them. They do it mostly when we're feeling good--feeling
+really terrific. It's easier to tap us that way, and there's more to
+be had. (Maybe that's what makes so-called manic-depressives ... they
+attract _slizzers_ when they feel tip-top; the _slizzers_ feed; and
+_floo-o-m_ ... depressive.)
+
+Like I say, think about all this next time someone treats you just
+ginger-peachy, and makes you feel all warm inside.
+
+So see how long that feeling lasts ... and who is hanging around you
+at the time. Experiment. See if it doesn't happen again and again with
+the same people, and if you don't usually end up wondering where in
+hell your nice warm feeling went off to....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I found out about the _slizzers_ when I went up to Joe Arnold's
+apartment last Friday night.
+
+Joe opened the door and let me in. He flashed me his big junior-exec's
+grin and said, "Sit, Jerry. I'll mix you a gin and. The others'll be
+along in awhile and we can get the action started."
+
+I sat down in my usual chair. Joe had already fixed up the table ...
+green felt top, ashtrays, coasters, cards, chips. I said, "If
+Mel--that's his name, isn't it, the new guy?--if he starts calling
+wild games again when it comes his deal, I'll walk out. I don't like
+'em." I looked at the drink Joe was mixing. "More gin."
+
+Joe crimped half a lime into the glass. "He won't call any crazy stuff
+tonight. I told him that if he did, we wouldn't invite him back. He
+nearly ruined the whole session, didn't he?"
+
+I nodded and took the drink. Joe mixes them right--just the way I like
+them. They make me feel good inside. "How about a little blackjack
+while we're waiting?"
+
+"Sure. They're late, anyway."
+
+I got first ace, and dealt. We traded a few chips back and
+forth--nothing exciting--and on the ninth deal Joe got blackjack.
+
+He shuffled, buried a trey, and gave me an ace-down, duck-up.
+
+"Hit me," I said contentedly.
+
+Joe gave me another ace.
+
+"Mama! ... hit me again."
+
+A four.
+
+"Son," I told him, "you're in for a royal beating. Again."
+
+A deuce.
+
+Joe winced.
+
+I turned up my hole ace and said, "Give me a sixth, you poor son. I
+can't lose."
+
+A nine.
+
+"Nineteen in six," I crowed. I counted up my bets: five dollars. "You
+owe me fifteen bucks!"
+
+Then I looked up at him.
+
+I'll repeat myself. You know that hot flush of pure delight, of high
+triumph, even of mild avarice that possesses you from tingling scalp
+to tingling toe when you've pulled off a doozy? If you play cards,
+you've been there. If you don't play cards, just think back to the
+last time someone complimented the pants off you, or the last time you
+clinched a big deal, or the last time a sweet kid you'd been hot after
+said, "Yes."
+
+That's the feeling I mean ... the feeling I had.
+
+And Joe Arnold was eating it.
+
+I knew it, somehow, the moment I saw his eyes and hands. His eyes
+weren't Joe Arnold's blue eyes any longer. They were wet balls of
+shining black that took up half his face, and they looked hungry. His
+arms were straight out in front of him; his hands were splayed tensely
+about a foot from my face. The fingers were thinner and much longer
+than I could recall Joe's being, and they just _looked_ like antennae
+or electrodes or something, stretched wide-open that way and
+quivering, and I just _knew_ that they were picking up and draining
+off into Joe's body all the elation, the excitement, the warmth that I
+felt.
+
+I looked at him and wondered why I couldn't scream or move a muscle.
+
+"Guess I made a boo-boo," he said. He blinked his big black globes of
+eyes. "No harm done, though."
+
+His head had thinned down, just like his fingers, and now came to a
+peak on top.
+
+He had practically no shoulders. He smiled at me, and I saw long black
+hair growing on the insides of his lips.
+
+_What are you?_ I screamed at him to myself.
+
+Joe licked his hairy lips and folded those long inhuman hands in front
+of him.
+
+"It hurts like hell," he said in a not-human voice, "to be _slizzing_
+you and then have you chill off on me that way, Jerry. But it's my own
+fault, I guess."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The door-bell rang--two soft tones. Joe got up and let in the other
+members of our Friday night poker group. I tried to move and couldn't.
+
+Fred raised his eyebrows when he saw Joe's face and hands. "Jerry
+isn't here yet? Relaxing a little?" Then he saw me sitting there and
+whistled. "Oh, you slipped up, eh?"
+
+Joe nodded. "You were late, and I was hungry, so I thought I'd go
+ahead and take my share. I gave him a big kick, and he really poured
+it out ... radiated like all hell. I took it in so fast that I
+_fluhped_ and lost my plasmic control."
+
+"We might as well eat now, then," Ray said, "before we get down to
+playing cards." He sat down across the table, his eyes--now suddenly
+enormous and black--eagerly on me. "I hate like hell waiting until you
+deal him a big pot--"
+
+"_No_," Joe said sharply. "Too much at one time, and he'd wonder what
+hit him. We'll do it just like always ... one of us at a time, and
+only a little at a time. Get him when he rakes in the loot. They never
+miss it when they feel like that."
+
+"He's right," Fred said. "Take it easy, Ray." He went over to the
+sideboard and began mixing drinks.
+
+Joe looked down at me with his black end-of-eggplant eyes.
+
+"Now to fix things," he said.
+
+... I blinked and shook my head. "You owe me fifteen bucks!" I said.
+
+"Lord," Joe wailed, "did this gonif just take me!"
+
+Ray groaned sympathetically from the chair across the table, where
+he'd been watching the slaughter. "And how!"
+
+Joe pushed fifteen blue chips at me. I began stacking them. "Well,
+that's life," I grinned. Then I shook my head again. "It's the
+damnedest thing...."
+
+"What?" Fred asked. He'd been over at the sideboard mixing drinks for
+the gang while I'd taken Joe over the bumps. Now he brought the tray
+over and shoved a tall one into Joe's hand. "Don't cry, Joe. What's
+the damnedest thing, Jerry?"
+
+"You know ... that funny feeling that you've been some place
+before--the same place, the same people, saying the same things--but
+you can't remember where the hell or when, for the life of you. Had it
+just a moment ago, when I told Joe he owed me fifteen bucks. What do
+they call it again?"
+
+"_Déjà vu_," said Allen, who's sort of the scholarly type. "Means
+'seen before' in French, I think. Or something like that."
+
+"That's right," I said. "_Déjà vu_ ... it's the damnedest funniest
+feeling. I guess people have it all the time, don't they?"
+
+"Yes," Allen said.
+
+Then he paused. "People do."
+
+"Wonder what causes it?"
+
+Joe's blue eyes were twinkling. "Dunno. The psychologists have an
+explanation for it, but it's probably wrong."
+
+"Wrong why?" Knowing Joe, I expected a gag. I got it.
+
+"Well," Joe said. "Let _me_ make up a theory. H'm ... hoo, hah ...
+well, it's like _this_: there are monsters all around us, see, but we
+don't know they're monsters except that every once in a while one of
+them slips up in his disguise and shows himself for what he really is.
+But this doesn't bother our monsters. They simply reach into our minds
+and twiddle around and--zoop!--you're right back where you were before
+the slip was--"
+
+"Very funny," Fred said boredly. "Maybe losing fifteen bucks made you
+lose a little sense, Joe. You wouldn't want to lose more than fifteen
+bucks, would you? You need some caution in the games we play, no? So
+cut the nonsense and let's run 'em."
+
+Ray licked his lips. "Yeah. Let's play, huh, fellows?"
+
+Ray's always eager to get started.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We played until 3 A. M. I won forty-six dollars. (I usually do win ...
+I guess over a period of six months or so I'm about five-hundred bucks
+ahead of the game. Which is why I like to play over at Joe's, even
+though I _am_ always so damned tired when I leave. Guess I'm not as
+young as I was.)
+
+Sometimes I wonder why the odds go my way, right down the line. I
+almost _never_ lose. But, hell, it _must_ be an honest game ... and if
+they're willing to go on losing to "Lucky" Bixby, I'm perfectly
+willing to go on winning.
+
+After all, can you think of any reason that makes any sense for
+someone to rig a game week after week to let you _win_?
+
+Frederik Boles, Author's Agent                   Oct. 20
+
+2200 Fifth Avenue
+
+New York, N. Y.
+
+Dear Fred,
+
+     Well, here's a new story. I've cleared it with Joe ... he
+     says it's okay to use his name; you know his sense of humor.
+     I've used your name, too, but you can change it if you want
+     to, being the shy retiring sort you are.
+
+     Frankly, I'm a little dubious about the yarn. It's the
+     result of last Friday's poker-session.... I actually did
+     have the _déjà vu_ sensation, as you'll recall. On the way
+     home I stopped in to pick up a chaser, feeling tired as all
+     hell (like I always do--these long grinds are too much for
+     me, I guess, just like the guy in the story) and the idea
+     came to me to slap the old "we are fodder" angle into the
+     thing as it happened and write it up.
+
+     But it's still an old plot. And one angle is left
+     unexplained: how is the narrator able to know all about the
+     _slizzers_ and write about them after Joe gives him the
+     _déjà vu_ treatment?
+
+     Well, maybe the readers won't mind. I've gotten away with
+     bigger holes than that. Try it on Bob Lowndes ... I still
+     owe him on that advance. It's up his alley, hope-a-hope.
+
+                                                     Jerry
+
+                                                 Oct. 22, 1952
+
+Jerome Bixby
+
+862 Union Street
+
+Brooklyn, N. Y.
+
+Dear Jerry,
+
+     I don't go for "The Slizzers." It just ain't convincing. As
+     you say, it's an old idea ... and besides--again as you
+     say--how does the narrator know what happened?
+
+     The manuscript looks good in my wastebasket. Forget about
+     it.
+
+                                       Sympathies.
+
+                                                     Fred
+
+                                                 Oct. 23, 1952
+
+Frederik Boles, Author's Agent
+
+2200 Fifth Avenue
+
+New York, N. Y.
+
+     Dear Wet Blanket (and aren't you a little old for that?)
+
+     Respectfully nuts to you. After proper browbeating I think
+     I'll try the yarn on Lowndes ... it's no masterpiece, but I
+     think it's got a chance; he likes an off trail bit, now and
+     then. I made a carbon, natch, so your ditching of the
+     original comes to naught.
+
+     Funny thing ... every time I read it over I get the
+     doggonedest _déjà vu_ feeling. Real dynamic thing ... almost
+     lifts my hair. Hope it does the same for the readers, them
+     as can read. Maybe Joe didn't quite do the job of making me
+     forget what happened that night, ha, ha. Say! ... maybe that
+     could explain the _narrator's_ remembering what happened ...
+     or maybe--hey! A _real_ idea!
+
+     Remember Joe's kidding us about monsters?--remember, you got
+     a little sore because he was holding up the game, you
+     money-hungry son? I think I'll rewrite the ending to include
+     that! ... which oughta take care of the narrator's
+     remembering: Joe can be sort of a dopey _slizzer_, a
+     blat-mouth, and his screwy theory (which is _true_ in the
+     story, or will be when I write it in--say, isn't this
+     involved!) can trigger our hero's memory just a bit, shake
+     the block a mite, undiddle the synapses etc ... and then
+     I'll have you, platinum-butt, step in to head Joe off, under
+     pretense of a poker itch.
+
+     You know, it's wonderful the way there are hot story ideas
+     in plain old everyday things! S'long ... gonna revise.
+
+                                                     Jerry
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                                                 Oct. 23, 1952
+
+Mr. Robert W. Lowndes
+
+COLUMBIA PUBLICATIONS, Inc.
+
+241 Church Street,
+
+New York 13, New York
+
+MASTER,
+
+     Herewith a story, "The Slizzers," which Fred and I don't
+     quite see eye to eye on. He thinks it stinks on ice. I'm
+     sure you will disagree to the tune of nice money.
+
+                                                     J.
+
+     ENCL: THE SLIZZERS
+
+                                             1952 OCT 24 AM 9 06
+
+NB168 PD=NEW YORK NY 63 110B=
+JEROME BIXBY=
+862 UNION ST APT 6H=
+BKLYN=
+JERRY=
+
+     URGE STRONGLY THAT YOU DON'T TRY TO SELL SLIZZERS STOP IT'S
+     JUST NO DAMN GOOD STOP YOU'VE GOT YOUR REPUTATION TO THINK
+     OF STOP WHY LOUSE UP YOUR GOOD NAME WITH A LEMON AT THIS
+     LATE DATE STOP KILL IT STOP I'VE TALKED IT OVER WITH JOE AND
+     HE ISN'T FEELING HUMOROUS ANY MORE STOP PREFERS NOT TO HAVE
+     NAME USED STOP REPEAT KILL THE THING FOR YOUR OWN GOOD=
+
+                                                     FRED
+
+                                             1952 OCT 24 AM 11 14
+
+KL300 PD=NEW YORK NY 12 604B=
+JEROME BIXBY=
+862 UNION ST APT 6H=
+BKLYN=
+SON=
+
+     LIKE SLIZZERS STOP PREPOSTEROUS BUT CUTE STOP DISAGREE WITH
+     FRED TO THE TUNE OF NICE MONEY BUT NICE MONEY STAYS IN MY
+     POCKET STOP YOU NOW OWE ME ONLY FIFTY DOLLARS OF ADVANCE
+     AUGUST 16 STOP DO I HEAR A SCREAM POOR BOY=
+
+                                                     BOB
+
+                                                 Oct. 24, 1952
+
+Frederik Boles, Author's Agent
+2200 Fifth Avenue
+New York, N. Y.
+
+Dear Fred,
+
+     Your telegram came too late, and besides, the hell with it.
+     Sent the yarn to Bob yesterday (groceries and rent wait for
+     no man, you know) and he bought it, like the sensitive and
+     discerning editor he is. What're you and Joe getting your
+     tails in an uproar about? It's only a gag, so relax. Joe'll
+     change his mind when he sees his name in print.
+
+     Would like to have included another angle, by the way: if
+     the narrator's amnesia-job _had_ been botched, wouldn't the
+     _slizzers_ decide pretty damn quick that he was a menace to
+     them and get rid of him? Think I'll send Bob a line or two
+     to stick on the end ... you know, the old incompleted
+     sentence deal ... just as if, while the narrator was
+     finishing the story, the _slizzers_ came in and
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slizzers, by Jerome Bixby
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Slizzers, by Jerome Bixby
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slizzers, by Jerome Bixby
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Slizzers
+
+Author: Jerome Bixby
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2010 [EBook #33850]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SLIZZERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<p class="center">This etext was produced Science Fiction Stories 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" id="coverpage" width="500" height="716" alt=""  />
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="blockquot1"><p><i>The main trouble is that you'd never suspect anything was
+wrong;<br />
+you'd enjoy associating with </i>slizzers<i>, so long as you didn't know....</i></p></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h1><i>The Slizzers</i></h1>
+
+<h2>by JEROME BIXBY</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<img src="images/image_001.jpg" width="700" height="353" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t1.jpg" alt="T" width="45" height="50" /></div>
+<p>hey're all around us. I'll call them the <i>slizzers</i>, because they
+<i>sliz</i> people. Lord only knows how long they've been on Earth, and how
+many of them there are....</p>
+
+<p>They're all around us, living with us. We are hardly ever aware of
+their existence, because they can <i>make</i> themselves look like us, and
+do most of the time; and if they can look like us, there's really no
+need for them to think like us, is there? People think and behave in
+so many cockeyed ways, anyhow. Whenever a <i>slizzer</i> fumbles a little
+in his impersonation of a human being, and comes up with a puzzling
+response, I suppose we just shrug and think. <i>He could use a good
+psychiatrist.</i></p>
+
+<p>So ... you might be one. Or your best friend, or your wife or husband,
+or that nice lady next door.</p>
+
+<p>They aren't killers, or rampaging monsters; quite the contrary. They
+need us, something like the way we'd need maple trees if it came to
+the point where maple syrup was our only food. That's why we're in no
+comic-book danger of being destroyed, any more than maple trees would
+be, in the circumstances I just mentioned&mdash;or are, as things go. In a
+sense, we're rather well-treated and helped along a bit ... the way we
+care for maple trees.</p>
+
+<p>But, sometimes a man here and there will be careless, or ignorant, or
+greedy ... and a maple tree will be hurt....</p>
+
+<p>Think about that the next time someone is real nice to you. He may be
+a <i>slizzer</i> ... and a careless one....</p>
+
+<p>How long do we live?</p>
+
+<p>Right. About sixty, seventy years.</p>
+
+<p>You probably don't think much about that, because that's just the way
+things are. That's life. And what the hell, the doctors are increasing
+our lifespan every day with new drugs and things, aren't they?</p>
+
+<p>Sure.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps we'd live to be about a <i>thousand</i>, if the <i>slizzers</i> left
+us alone.</p>
+
+<p>Ever stop to think how little we know about why we live? ... what it
+is that takes our structure of bones and coldcuts and gives it the
+function we call "life?"</p>
+
+<p>Some mysterious life-substance or force the doctors haven't pinned
+down yet, you say&mdash;and that's as good a definition as any.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we're maple trees to the <i>slizzers</i>, and that life-stuff is the
+sap we supply them. They do it mostly when we're feeling good&mdash;feeling
+really terrific. It's easier to tap us that way, and there's more to
+be had. (Maybe that's what makes so-called manic-depressives ... they
+attract <i>slizzers</i> when they feel tip-top; the <i>slizzers</i> feed; and
+<i>floo-o-m</i> ... depressive.)</p>
+
+<p>Like I say, think about all this next time someone treats you just
+ginger-peachy, and makes you feel all warm inside.</p>
+
+<p>So see how long that feeling lasts ... and who is hanging around you
+at the time. Experiment. See if it doesn't happen again and again with
+the same people, and if you don't usually end up wondering where in
+hell your nice warm feeling went off to....</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="19" height="40" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp; found out about the <i>slizzers</i> when I went up to Joe Arnold's
+apartment last Friday night.</p>
+
+<p>Joe opened the door and let me in. He flashed me his big junior-exec's
+grin and said, "Sit, Jerry. I'll mix you a gin and. The others'll be
+along in awhile and we can get the action started."</p>
+
+<p>I sat down in my usual chair. Joe had already fixed up the table ...
+green felt top, ashtrays, coasters, cards, chips. I said, "If
+Mel&mdash;that's his name, isn't it, the new guy?&mdash;if he starts calling
+wild games again when it comes his deal, I'll walk out. I don't like
+'em." I looked at the drink Joe was mixing. "More gin."</p>
+
+<p>Joe crimped half a lime into the glass. "He won't call any crazy stuff
+tonight. I told him that if he did, we wouldn't invite him back. He
+nearly ruined the whole session, didn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded and took the drink. Joe mixes them right&mdash;just the way I like
+them. They make me feel good inside. "How about a little blackjack
+while we're waiting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure. They're late, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>I got first ace, and dealt. We traded a few chips back and
+forth&mdash;nothing exciting&mdash;and on the ninth deal Joe got blackjack.</p>
+
+<p>He shuffled, buried a trey, and gave me an ace-down, duck-up.</p>
+
+<p>"Hit me," I said contentedly.</p>
+
+<p>Joe gave me another ace.</p>
+
+<p>"Mama! ... hit me again."</p>
+
+<p>A four.</p>
+
+<p>"Son," I told him, "you're in for a royal beating. Again."</p>
+
+<p>A deuce.</p>
+
+<p>Joe winced.</p>
+
+<p>I turned up my hole ace and said, "Give me a sixth, you poor son. I
+can't lose."</p>
+
+<p>A nine.</p>
+
+<p>"Nineteen in six," I crowed. I counted up my bets: five dollars. "You
+owe me fifteen bucks!"</p>
+
+<p>Then I looked up at him.</p>
+
+<p>I'll repeat myself. You know that hot flush of pure delight, of high
+triumph, even of mild avarice that possesses you from tingling scalp
+to tingling toe when you've pulled off a doozy? If you play cards,
+you've been there. If you don't play cards, just think back to the
+last time someone complimented the pants off you, or the last time you
+clinched a big deal, or the last time a sweet kid you'd been hot after
+said, "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>That's the feeling I mean ... the feeling I had.</p>
+
+<p>And Joe Arnold was eating it.</p>
+
+<p>I knew it, somehow, the moment I saw his eyes and hands. His eyes
+weren't Joe Arnold's blue eyes any longer. They were wet balls of
+shining black that took up half his face, and they looked hungry. His
+arms were straight out in front of him; his hands were splayed tensely
+about a foot from my face. The fingers were thinner and much longer
+than I could recall Joe's being, and they just <i>looked</i> like antennae
+or electrodes or something, stretched wide-open that way and
+quivering, and I just <i>knew</i> that they were picking up and draining
+off into Joe's body all the elation, the excitement, the warmth that I
+felt.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him and wondered why I couldn't scream or move a muscle.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess I made a boo-boo," he said. He blinked his big black globes of
+eyes. "No harm done, though."</p>
+
+<p>His head had thinned down, just like his fingers, and now came to a
+peak on top.</p>
+
+<p>He had practically no shoulders. He smiled at me, and I saw long black
+hair growing on the insides of his lips.</p>
+
+<p><i>What are you?</i> I screamed at him to myself.</p>
+
+<p>Joe licked his hairy lips and folded those long inhuman hands in front
+of him.</p>
+
+<p>"It hurts like hell," he said in a not-human voice, "to be <i>slizzing</i>
+you and then have you chill off on me that way, Jerry. But it's my own
+fault, I guess."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_t.jpg" alt="T" width="36" height="40" /></div>
+<p>he door-bell rang&mdash;two soft tones. Joe got up and let in the other
+members of our Friday night poker group. I tried to move and couldn't.</p>
+
+<p>Fred raised his eyebrows when he saw Joe's face and hands. "Jerry
+isn't here yet? Relaxing a little?" Then he saw me sitting there and
+whistled. "Oh, you slipped up, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Joe nodded. "You were late, and I was hungry, so I thought I'd go
+ahead and take my share. I gave him a big kick, and he really poured
+it out ... radiated like all hell. I took it in so fast that I
+<i>fluhped</i> and lost my plasmic control."</p>
+
+<p>"We might as well eat now, then," Ray said, "before we get down to
+playing cards." He sat down across the table, his eyes&mdash;now suddenly
+enormous and black&mdash;eagerly on me. "I hate like hell waiting until you
+deal him a big pot&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>No</i>," Joe said sharply. "Too much at one time, and he'd wonder what
+hit him. We'll do it just like always ... one of us at a time, and
+only a little at a time. Get him when he rakes in the loot. They never
+miss it when they feel like that."</p>
+
+<p>"He's right," Fred said. "Take it easy, Ray." He went over to the
+sideboard and began mixing drinks.</p>
+
+<p>Joe looked down at me with his black end-of-eggplant eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Now to fix things," he said.</p>
+
+<p>... I blinked and shook my head. "You owe me fifteen bucks!" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord," Joe wailed, "did this gonif just take me!"</p>
+
+<p>Ray groaned sympathetically from the chair across the table, where
+he'd been watching the slaughter. "And how!"</p>
+
+<p>Joe pushed fifteen blue chips at me. I began stacking them. "Well,
+that's life," I grinned. Then I shook my head again. "It's the
+damnedest thing...."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" Fred asked. He'd been over at the sideboard mixing drinks for
+the gang while I'd taken Joe over the bumps. Now he brought the tray
+over and shoved a tall one into Joe's hand. "Don't cry, Joe. What's
+the damnedest thing, Jerry?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know ... that funny feeling that you've been some place
+before&mdash;the same place, the same people, saying the same things&mdash;but
+you can't remember where the hell or when, for the life of you. Had it
+just a moment ago, when I told Joe he owed me fifteen bucks. What do
+they call it again?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>D&eacute;j&agrave; vu</i>," said Allen, who's sort of the scholarly type. "Means
+'seen before' in French, I think. Or something like that."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right," I said. "<i>D&eacute;j&agrave; vu</i> ... it's the damnedest funniest
+feeling. I guess people have it all the time, don't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Allen said.</p>
+
+<p>Then he paused. "People do."</p>
+
+<p>"Wonder what causes it?"</p>
+
+<p>Joe's blue eyes were twinkling. "Dunno. The psychologists have an
+explanation for it, but it's probably wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Wrong why?" Knowing Joe, I expected a gag. I got it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Joe said. "Let <i>me</i> make up a theory. H'm ... hoo, hah ...
+well, it's like <i>this</i>: there are monsters all around us, see, but we
+don't know they're monsters except that every once in a while one of
+them slips up in his disguise and shows himself for what he really is.
+But this doesn't bother our monsters. They simply reach into our minds
+and twiddle around and&mdash;zoop!&mdash;you're right back where you were before
+the slip was&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Very funny," Fred said boredly. "Maybe losing fifteen bucks made you
+lose a little sense, Joe. You wouldn't want to lose more than fifteen
+bucks, would you? You need some caution in the games we play, no? So
+cut the nonsense and let's run 'em."</p>
+
+<p>Ray licked his lips. "Yeah. Let's play, huh, fellows?"</p>
+
+<p>Ray's always eager to get started.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_w.jpg" alt="W" width="51" height="40" /></div>
+<p>e played until 3 A. M. I won forty-six dollars. (I usually do win ...
+I guess over a period of six months or so I'm about five-hundred bucks
+ahead of the game. Which is why I like to play over at Joe's, even
+though I <i>am</i> always so damned tired when I leave. Guess I'm not as
+young as I was.)</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes I wonder why the odds go my way, right down the line. I
+almost <i>never</i> lose. But, hell, it <i>must</i> be an honest game ... and if
+they're willing to go on losing to "Lucky" Bixby, I'm perfectly
+willing to go on winning.</p>
+
+<p>After all, can you think of any reason that makes any sense for
+someone to rig a game week after week to let you <i>win</i>?</p>
+
+<p class="p1">Oct. 20</p>
+<p>Frederik Boles, Author's Agent</p>
+
+<p>2200 Fifth Avenue</p>
+
+<p>New York, N. Y.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Fred,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Well, here's a new story. I've cleared it with Joe ... he
+says it's okay to use his name; you know his sense of humor.
+I've used your name, too, but you can change it if you want
+to, being the shy retiring sort you are.</p>
+
+<p>Frankly, I'm a little dubious about the yarn. It's the
+result of last Friday's poker-session.... I actually did
+have the <i>d&eacute;j&agrave; vu</i> sensation, as you'll recall. On the way
+home I stopped in to pick up a chaser, feeling tired as all
+hell (like I always do&mdash;these long grinds are too much for
+me, I guess, just like the guy in the story) and the idea
+came to me to slap the old "we are fodder" angle into the
+thing as it happened and write it up.</p>
+
+<p>But it's still an old plot. And one angle is left
+unexplained: how is the narrator able to know all about the
+<i>slizzers</i> and write about them after Joe gives him the
+<i>d&eacute;j&agrave; vu</i> treatment?</p>
+
+<p>Well, maybe the readers won't mind. I've gotten away with
+bigger holes than that. Try it on Bob Lowndes ... I still
+owe him on that advance. It's up his alley, hope-a-hope.</p></div>
+
+<p class="p1">Jerry</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Oct. 22, 1952</p>
+
+<p>Jerome Bixby</p>
+
+<p>862 Union Street</p>
+
+<p>Brooklyn, N. Y.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Jerry,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I don't go for "The Slizzers." It just ain't convincing. As
+you say, it's an old idea ... and besides&mdash;again as you
+say&mdash;how does the narrator know what happened?</p>
+
+<p>The manuscript looks good in my wastebasket. Forget about
+it.</p></div>
+
+<p class="p3">Sympathies.</p>
+
+<p class="p1">Fred</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Oct. 23, 1952</p>
+
+<p>Frederik Boles, Author's Agent</p>
+
+<p>2200 Fifth Avenue</p>
+
+<p>New York, N. Y.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Dear Wet Blanket (and aren't you a little old for that?)</p>
+
+<p>Respectfully nuts to you. After proper browbeating I think
+I'll try the yarn on Lowndes ... it's no masterpiece, but I
+think it's got a chance; he likes an off trail bit, now and
+then. I made a carbon, natch, so your ditching of the
+original comes to naught.</p>
+
+<p>Funny thing ... every time I read it over I get the
+doggonedest <i>d&eacute;j&agrave; vu</i> feeling. Real dynamic thing ... almost
+lifts my hair. Hope it does the same for the readers, them
+as can read. Maybe Joe didn't quite do the job of making me
+forget what happened that night, ha, ha. Say! ... maybe that
+could explain the <i>narrator's</i> remembering what happened ...
+or maybe&mdash;hey! A <i>real</i> idea!</p>
+
+<p>Remember Joe's kidding us about monsters?&mdash;remember, you got
+a little sore because he was holding up the game, you
+money-hungry son? I think I'll rewrite the ending to include
+that! ... which oughta take care of the narrator's
+remembering: Joe can be sort of a dopey <i>slizzer</i>, a
+blat-mouth, and his screwy theory (which is <i>true</i> in the
+story, or will be when I write it in&mdash;say, isn't this
+involved!) can trigger our hero's memory just a bit, shake
+the block a mite, undiddle the synapses etc ... and then
+I'll have you, platinum-butt, step in to head Joe off, under
+pretense of a poker itch.</p>
+
+<p>You know, it's wonderful the way there are hot story ideas
+in plain old everyday things! S'long ... gonna revise.</p></div>
+
+<p class="p1">Jerry</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;">
+<img src="images/image_002.jpg" width="200" height="103" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="p2">Oct. 23, 1952</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Robert W. Lowndes</p>
+
+<p>COLUMBIA PUBLICATIONS, Inc.</p>
+
+<p>241 Church Street,</p>
+
+<p>New York 13, New York</p>
+
+<p>MASTER,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Herewith a story, "The Slizzers," which Fred and I don't
+quite see eye to eye on. He thinks it stinks on ice. I'm
+sure you will disagree to the tune of nice money.</p></div>
+
+<p class="p1">J.</p>
+
+<p>ENCL: THE SLIZZERS</p>
+
+<p class="p2">1952 OCT 24 AM 9 06</p>
+
+<p>
+NB168 PD=NEW YORK NY 63 110B=<br />
+JEROME BIXBY=<br />
+862 UNION ST APT 6H=<br />
+BKLYN=<br />
+JERRY=<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>URGE STRONGLY THAT YOU DON'T TRY TO SELL SLIZZERS STOP IT'S
+JUST NO DAMN GOOD STOP YOU'VE GOT YOUR REPUTATION TO THINK
+OF STOP WHY LOUSE UP YOUR GOOD NAME WITH A LEMON AT THIS
+LATE DATE STOP KILL IT STOP I'VE TALKED IT OVER WITH JOE AND
+HE ISN'T FEELING HUMOROUS ANY MORE STOP PREFERS NOT TO HAVE
+NAME USED STOP REPEAT KILL THE THING FOR YOUR OWN GOOD=</p></div>
+
+<p class="p1">FRED</p>
+
+<p class="p2">1952 OCT 24 AM 11 14</p>
+
+<p>
+KL300 PD=NEW YORK NY 12 604B=<br />
+JEROME BIXBY=<br />
+862 UNION ST APT 6H=<br />
+BKLYN=<br />
+SON=<br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>LIKE SLIZZERS STOP PREPOSTEROUS BUT CUTE STOP DISAGREE WITH
+FRED TO THE TUNE OF NICE MONEY BUT NICE MONEY STAYS IN MY
+POCKET STOP YOU NOW OWE ME ONLY FIFTY DOLLARS OF ADVANCE
+AUGUST 16 STOP DO I HEAR A SCREAM POOR BOY=</p></div>
+
+<p class="p1">BOB</p>
+
+<p class="p2">Oct. 24, 1952</p>
+
+<p>
+Frederik Boles, Author's Agent<br />
+2200 Fifth Avenue<br />
+New York, N. Y.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Dear Fred,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Your telegram came too late, and besides, the hell with it.
+Sent the yarn to Bob yesterday (groceries and rent wait for
+no man, you know) and he bought it, like the sensitive and
+discerning editor he is. What're you and Joe getting your
+tails in an uproar about? It's only a gag, so relax. Joe'll
+change his mind when he sees his name in print.</p>
+
+<p>Would like to have included another angle, by the way: if
+the narrator's amnesia-job <i>had</i> been botched, wouldn't the
+<i>slizzers</i> decide pretty damn quick that he was a menace to
+them and get rid of him? Think I'll send Bob a line or two
+to stick on the end ... you know, the old incompleted
+sentence deal ... just as if, while the narrator was
+finishing the story, the <i>slizzers</i> came in and</p></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;">
+<img src="images/image_003.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt=""  />
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slizzers, by Jerome Bixby
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slizzers, by Jerome Bixby
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Slizzers
+
+Author: Jerome Bixby
+
+Release Date: October 10, 2010 [EBook #33850]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SLIZZERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced Science Fiction Stories 1953. Extensive
+    research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
+    publication was renewed.
+
+
+       _The main trouble is that you'd never suspect anything was
+        wrong; you'd enjoy associating with _slizzers_, so long as
+        you didn't know...._
+
+
+                            _The Slizzers_
+
+
+                           by JEROME BIXBY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They're all around us. I'll call them the _slizzers_, because they
+_sliz_ people. Lord only knows how long they've been on Earth, and how
+many of them there are....
+
+They're all around us, living with us. We are hardly ever aware of
+their existence, because they can _make_ themselves look like us, and
+do most of the time; and if they can look like us, there's really no
+need for them to think like us, is there? People think and behave in
+so many cockeyed ways, anyhow. Whenever a _slizzer_ fumbles a little
+in his impersonation of a human being, and comes up with a puzzling
+response, I suppose we just shrug and think. _He could use a good
+psychiatrist._
+
+So ... you might be one. Or your best friend, or your wife or husband,
+or that nice lady next door.
+
+They aren't killers, or rampaging monsters; quite the contrary. They
+need us, something like the way we'd need maple trees if it came to
+the point where maple syrup was our only food. That's why we're in no
+comic-book danger of being destroyed, any more than maple trees would
+be, in the circumstances I just mentioned--or are, as things go. In a
+sense, we're rather well-treated and helped along a bit ... the way we
+care for maple trees.
+
+But, sometimes a man here and there will be careless, or ignorant, or
+greedy ... and a maple tree will be hurt....
+
+Think about that the next time someone is real nice to you. He may be
+a _slizzer_ ... and a careless one....
+
+How long do we live?
+
+Right. About sixty, seventy years.
+
+You probably don't think much about that, because that's just the way
+things are. That's life. And what the hell, the doctors are increasing
+our lifespan every day with new drugs and things, aren't they?
+
+Sure.
+
+But perhaps we'd live to be about a _thousand_, if the _slizzers_ left
+us alone.
+
+Ever stop to think how little we know about why we live? ... what it
+is that takes our structure of bones and coldcuts and gives it the
+function we call "life?"
+
+Some mysterious life-substance or force the doctors haven't pinned
+down yet, you say--and that's as good a definition as any.
+
+Well, we're maple trees to the _slizzers_, and that life-stuff is the
+sap we supply them. They do it mostly when we're feeling good--feeling
+really terrific. It's easier to tap us that way, and there's more to
+be had. (Maybe that's what makes so-called manic-depressives ... they
+attract _slizzers_ when they feel tip-top; the _slizzers_ feed; and
+_floo-o-m_ ... depressive.)
+
+Like I say, think about all this next time someone treats you just
+ginger-peachy, and makes you feel all warm inside.
+
+So see how long that feeling lasts ... and who is hanging around you
+at the time. Experiment. See if it doesn't happen again and again with
+the same people, and if you don't usually end up wondering where in
+hell your nice warm feeling went off to....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I found out about the _slizzers_ when I went up to Joe Arnold's
+apartment last Friday night.
+
+Joe opened the door and let me in. He flashed me his big junior-exec's
+grin and said, "Sit, Jerry. I'll mix you a gin and. The others'll be
+along in awhile and we can get the action started."
+
+I sat down in my usual chair. Joe had already fixed up the table ...
+green felt top, ashtrays, coasters, cards, chips. I said, "If
+Mel--that's his name, isn't it, the new guy?--if he starts calling
+wild games again when it comes his deal, I'll walk out. I don't like
+'em." I looked at the drink Joe was mixing. "More gin."
+
+Joe crimped half a lime into the glass. "He won't call any crazy stuff
+tonight. I told him that if he did, we wouldn't invite him back. He
+nearly ruined the whole session, didn't he?"
+
+I nodded and took the drink. Joe mixes them right--just the way I like
+them. They make me feel good inside. "How about a little blackjack
+while we're waiting?"
+
+"Sure. They're late, anyway."
+
+I got first ace, and dealt. We traded a few chips back and
+forth--nothing exciting--and on the ninth deal Joe got blackjack.
+
+He shuffled, buried a trey, and gave me an ace-down, duck-up.
+
+"Hit me," I said contentedly.
+
+Joe gave me another ace.
+
+"Mama! ... hit me again."
+
+A four.
+
+"Son," I told him, "you're in for a royal beating. Again."
+
+A deuce.
+
+Joe winced.
+
+I turned up my hole ace and said, "Give me a sixth, you poor son. I
+can't lose."
+
+A nine.
+
+"Nineteen in six," I crowed. I counted up my bets: five dollars. "You
+owe me fifteen bucks!"
+
+Then I looked up at him.
+
+I'll repeat myself. You know that hot flush of pure delight, of high
+triumph, even of mild avarice that possesses you from tingling scalp
+to tingling toe when you've pulled off a doozy? If you play cards,
+you've been there. If you don't play cards, just think back to the
+last time someone complimented the pants off you, or the last time you
+clinched a big deal, or the last time a sweet kid you'd been hot after
+said, "Yes."
+
+That's the feeling I mean ... the feeling I had.
+
+And Joe Arnold was eating it.
+
+I knew it, somehow, the moment I saw his eyes and hands. His eyes
+weren't Joe Arnold's blue eyes any longer. They were wet balls of
+shining black that took up half his face, and they looked hungry. His
+arms were straight out in front of him; his hands were splayed tensely
+about a foot from my face. The fingers were thinner and much longer
+than I could recall Joe's being, and they just _looked_ like antennae
+or electrodes or something, stretched wide-open that way and
+quivering, and I just _knew_ that they were picking up and draining
+off into Joe's body all the elation, the excitement, the warmth that I
+felt.
+
+I looked at him and wondered why I couldn't scream or move a muscle.
+
+"Guess I made a boo-boo," he said. He blinked his big black globes of
+eyes. "No harm done, though."
+
+His head had thinned down, just like his fingers, and now came to a
+peak on top.
+
+He had practically no shoulders. He smiled at me, and I saw long black
+hair growing on the insides of his lips.
+
+_What are you?_ I screamed at him to myself.
+
+Joe licked his hairy lips and folded those long inhuman hands in front
+of him.
+
+"It hurts like hell," he said in a not-human voice, "to be _slizzing_
+you and then have you chill off on me that way, Jerry. But it's my own
+fault, I guess."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The door-bell rang--two soft tones. Joe got up and let in the other
+members of our Friday night poker group. I tried to move and couldn't.
+
+Fred raised his eyebrows when he saw Joe's face and hands. "Jerry
+isn't here yet? Relaxing a little?" Then he saw me sitting there and
+whistled. "Oh, you slipped up, eh?"
+
+Joe nodded. "You were late, and I was hungry, so I thought I'd go
+ahead and take my share. I gave him a big kick, and he really poured
+it out ... radiated like all hell. I took it in so fast that I
+_fluhped_ and lost my plasmic control."
+
+"We might as well eat now, then," Ray said, "before we get down to
+playing cards." He sat down across the table, his eyes--now suddenly
+enormous and black--eagerly on me. "I hate like hell waiting until you
+deal him a big pot--"
+
+"_No_," Joe said sharply. "Too much at one time, and he'd wonder what
+hit him. We'll do it just like always ... one of us at a time, and
+only a little at a time. Get him when he rakes in the loot. They never
+miss it when they feel like that."
+
+"He's right," Fred said. "Take it easy, Ray." He went over to the
+sideboard and began mixing drinks.
+
+Joe looked down at me with his black end-of-eggplant eyes.
+
+"Now to fix things," he said.
+
+... I blinked and shook my head. "You owe me fifteen bucks!" I said.
+
+"Lord," Joe wailed, "did this gonif just take me!"
+
+Ray groaned sympathetically from the chair across the table, where
+he'd been watching the slaughter. "And how!"
+
+Joe pushed fifteen blue chips at me. I began stacking them. "Well,
+that's life," I grinned. Then I shook my head again. "It's the
+damnedest thing...."
+
+"What?" Fred asked. He'd been over at the sideboard mixing drinks for
+the gang while I'd taken Joe over the bumps. Now he brought the tray
+over and shoved a tall one into Joe's hand. "Don't cry, Joe. What's
+the damnedest thing, Jerry?"
+
+"You know ... that funny feeling that you've been some place
+before--the same place, the same people, saying the same things--but
+you can't remember where the hell or when, for the life of you. Had it
+just a moment ago, when I told Joe he owed me fifteen bucks. What do
+they call it again?"
+
+"_Deja vu_," said Allen, who's sort of the scholarly type. "Means
+'seen before' in French, I think. Or something like that."
+
+"That's right," I said. "_Deja vu_ ... it's the damnedest funniest
+feeling. I guess people have it all the time, don't they?"
+
+"Yes," Allen said.
+
+Then he paused. "People do."
+
+"Wonder what causes it?"
+
+Joe's blue eyes were twinkling. "Dunno. The psychologists have an
+explanation for it, but it's probably wrong."
+
+"Wrong why?" Knowing Joe, I expected a gag. I got it.
+
+"Well," Joe said. "Let _me_ make up a theory. H'm ... hoo, hah ...
+well, it's like _this_: there are monsters all around us, see, but we
+don't know they're monsters except that every once in a while one of
+them slips up in his disguise and shows himself for what he really is.
+But this doesn't bother our monsters. They simply reach into our minds
+and twiddle around and--zoop!--you're right back where you were before
+the slip was--"
+
+"Very funny," Fred said boredly. "Maybe losing fifteen bucks made you
+lose a little sense, Joe. You wouldn't want to lose more than fifteen
+bucks, would you? You need some caution in the games we play, no? So
+cut the nonsense and let's run 'em."
+
+Ray licked his lips. "Yeah. Let's play, huh, fellows?"
+
+Ray's always eager to get started.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We played until 3 A. M. I won forty-six dollars. (I usually do win ...
+I guess over a period of six months or so I'm about five-hundred bucks
+ahead of the game. Which is why I like to play over at Joe's, even
+though I _am_ always so damned tired when I leave. Guess I'm not as
+young as I was.)
+
+Sometimes I wonder why the odds go my way, right down the line. I
+almost _never_ lose. But, hell, it _must_ be an honest game ... and if
+they're willing to go on losing to "Lucky" Bixby, I'm perfectly
+willing to go on winning.
+
+After all, can you think of any reason that makes any sense for
+someone to rig a game week after week to let you _win_?
+
+Frederik Boles, Author's Agent                   Oct. 20
+
+2200 Fifth Avenue
+
+New York, N. Y.
+
+Dear Fred,
+
+     Well, here's a new story. I've cleared it with Joe ... he
+     says it's okay to use his name; you know his sense of humor.
+     I've used your name, too, but you can change it if you want
+     to, being the shy retiring sort you are.
+
+     Frankly, I'm a little dubious about the yarn. It's the
+     result of last Friday's poker-session.... I actually did
+     have the _deja vu_ sensation, as you'll recall. On the way
+     home I stopped in to pick up a chaser, feeling tired as all
+     hell (like I always do--these long grinds are too much for
+     me, I guess, just like the guy in the story) and the idea
+     came to me to slap the old "we are fodder" angle into the
+     thing as it happened and write it up.
+
+     But it's still an old plot. And one angle is left
+     unexplained: how is the narrator able to know all about the
+     _slizzers_ and write about them after Joe gives him the
+     _deja vu_ treatment?
+
+     Well, maybe the readers won't mind. I've gotten away with
+     bigger holes than that. Try it on Bob Lowndes ... I still
+     owe him on that advance. It's up his alley, hope-a-hope.
+
+                                                     Jerry
+
+                                                 Oct. 22, 1952
+
+Jerome Bixby
+
+862 Union Street
+
+Brooklyn, N. Y.
+
+Dear Jerry,
+
+     I don't go for "The Slizzers." It just ain't convincing. As
+     you say, it's an old idea ... and besides--again as you
+     say--how does the narrator know what happened?
+
+     The manuscript looks good in my wastebasket. Forget about
+     it.
+
+                                       Sympathies.
+
+                                                     Fred
+
+                                                 Oct. 23, 1952
+
+Frederik Boles, Author's Agent
+
+2200 Fifth Avenue
+
+New York, N. Y.
+
+     Dear Wet Blanket (and aren't you a little old for that?)
+
+     Respectfully nuts to you. After proper browbeating I think
+     I'll try the yarn on Lowndes ... it's no masterpiece, but I
+     think it's got a chance; he likes an off trail bit, now and
+     then. I made a carbon, natch, so your ditching of the
+     original comes to naught.
+
+     Funny thing ... every time I read it over I get the
+     doggonedest _deja vu_ feeling. Real dynamic thing ... almost
+     lifts my hair. Hope it does the same for the readers, them
+     as can read. Maybe Joe didn't quite do the job of making me
+     forget what happened that night, ha, ha. Say! ... maybe that
+     could explain the _narrator's_ remembering what happened ...
+     or maybe--hey! A _real_ idea!
+
+     Remember Joe's kidding us about monsters?--remember, you got
+     a little sore because he was holding up the game, you
+     money-hungry son? I think I'll rewrite the ending to include
+     that! ... which oughta take care of the narrator's
+     remembering: Joe can be sort of a dopey _slizzer_, a
+     blat-mouth, and his screwy theory (which is _true_ in the
+     story, or will be when I write it in--say, isn't this
+     involved!) can trigger our hero's memory just a bit, shake
+     the block a mite, undiddle the synapses etc ... and then
+     I'll have you, platinum-butt, step in to head Joe off, under
+     pretense of a poker itch.
+
+     You know, it's wonderful the way there are hot story ideas
+     in plain old everyday things! S'long ... gonna revise.
+
+                                                     Jerry
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                                                 Oct. 23, 1952
+
+Mr. Robert W. Lowndes
+
+COLUMBIA PUBLICATIONS, Inc.
+
+241 Church Street,
+
+New York 13, New York
+
+MASTER,
+
+     Herewith a story, "The Slizzers," which Fred and I don't
+     quite see eye to eye on. He thinks it stinks on ice. I'm
+     sure you will disagree to the tune of nice money.
+
+                                                     J.
+
+     ENCL: THE SLIZZERS
+
+                                             1952 OCT 24 AM 9 06
+
+NB168 PD=NEW YORK NY 63 110B=
+JEROME BIXBY=
+862 UNION ST APT 6H=
+BKLYN=
+JERRY=
+
+     URGE STRONGLY THAT YOU DON'T TRY TO SELL SLIZZERS STOP IT'S
+     JUST NO DAMN GOOD STOP YOU'VE GOT YOUR REPUTATION TO THINK
+     OF STOP WHY LOUSE UP YOUR GOOD NAME WITH A LEMON AT THIS
+     LATE DATE STOP KILL IT STOP I'VE TALKED IT OVER WITH JOE AND
+     HE ISN'T FEELING HUMOROUS ANY MORE STOP PREFERS NOT TO HAVE
+     NAME USED STOP REPEAT KILL THE THING FOR YOUR OWN GOOD=
+
+                                                     FRED
+
+                                             1952 OCT 24 AM 11 14
+
+KL300 PD=NEW YORK NY 12 604B=
+JEROME BIXBY=
+862 UNION ST APT 6H=
+BKLYN=
+SON=
+
+     LIKE SLIZZERS STOP PREPOSTEROUS BUT CUTE STOP DISAGREE WITH
+     FRED TO THE TUNE OF NICE MONEY BUT NICE MONEY STAYS IN MY
+     POCKET STOP YOU NOW OWE ME ONLY FIFTY DOLLARS OF ADVANCE
+     AUGUST 16 STOP DO I HEAR A SCREAM POOR BOY=
+
+                                                     BOB
+
+                                                 Oct. 24, 1952
+
+Frederik Boles, Author's Agent
+2200 Fifth Avenue
+New York, N. Y.
+
+Dear Fred,
+
+     Your telegram came too late, and besides, the hell with it.
+     Sent the yarn to Bob yesterday (groceries and rent wait for
+     no man, you know) and he bought it, like the sensitive and
+     discerning editor he is. What're you and Joe getting your
+     tails in an uproar about? It's only a gag, so relax. Joe'll
+     change his mind when he sees his name in print.
+
+     Would like to have included another angle, by the way: if
+     the narrator's amnesia-job _had_ been botched, wouldn't the
+     _slizzers_ decide pretty damn quick that he was a menace to
+     them and get rid of him? Think I'll send Bob a line or two
+     to stick on the end ... you know, the old incompleted
+     sentence deal ... just as if, while the narrator was
+     finishing the story, the _slizzers_ came in and
+
+[Illustration]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slizzers, by Jerome Bixby
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SLIZZERS ***
+
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