If I Were You - Part 7 - Out of the Sideshow and Into the Big Top

So Tom, after a busy day of using black magic to swap bodies with people against their will so he could be circus ringmaster for a day, has managed to frame himself for stealing the payroll and is now watching the lion tamer get mauled by a forty wild animals because Tom wanted to weasel out of his punishment.  In the big cage in front of a horrified audience, Jerry Gordon has lost his whip, his chair has been reduced to kindling, and his pistol's blanks are having no effect. 

Circus attendants are trying to use tear gas to calm the beasts, except it's been so long since they've used such precautions that... wow.  The one guy they have to throw the bombs forgot to pull the catch, so they just roll around on the floor.  Better recruit that one for the Apparatus.  And as horrified as everyone is, nobody is willing to actually enter the cage to try to save this guy.

All this to say, it's a strange situation.  Certainly not a good situation.  You could even say it's a... what's the word for when you make such a big mistake that someone dies?

Safe outside, Little Tom Little watched.  There was something all wrong about this, something horrible.

"Horrible," that's it!

He was the cause of Jerry Gordon's coming death.  He had done this to the man - and then he had slipped out of there, to remain safe and sound outside those bars.  Coward!  This was certain proof of it.  Craven coward, that's what he was, to cause another man's death and then let him die!

Coward, thief, murderer-by-inaction, warlock - there's a lot of charges to be applied.

Fortunately for Gordon, Tom growing a conscience also propels the little man into action, and he grabs a torch from a watching carny, slips through the bars of the cage, and rushes forward to help.  And it turns out a three-foot fella carrying a burning stick can succeed where a trained, hulking lion tamer with all of his accessories can fail.  In a berserk frenzy, Tom nearly shoves his torch down one tiger's throat, and when a lion pounces at him, a blow to its chest somehow causes the 400-pound killing machine to cancel its forward momentum and retreat instead of flattening the midget.  He is bowled "over and over" by one passing tiger, but Tom quickly recovers and continues flailing around his torch, until all forty beasts have retreated from the arena and a groaning Gordon is safe.

And there you have it - Little Tom Little has at last found his courage.  All he had to do was realize what a horrible person he was, and this self-loathing allowed him to do the right thing and save a man's life.  Which he put into danger in the first place, because again, Tom is a horrible person.

Tom comes out of his frenzy, drops the torch, and wonders if he's going to be sick.  Betty rushes in to sob over Gordon and confess that he was right about her and Schmidt, but she swears she'll make up for cheating on him.  A "doc" enters the cage to check on Gordon, but the lion tamer, having gone through the trauma of discovering his lover's infidelity, having his body stolen, and then getting mauled by his animals, shoves the doctor back and claims that "You think these cuts are anything, Doc?  Hell, man, I've been sick for weeks and weeks, but this is all I needed!" and limps off with Betty.  So he's... fine?  He's been sick but getting mangled set him straight?

Mrs. Johnson shows up and admits she doesn't know what to say, which is fair.  I don't think any of us are really prepared to see a three-foot-berserker accused of theft escape captivity to fight off forty big cats with a burning stick, even when black magic isn't involved.  Tom replies "Why say anything?" and starts patting his pockets, because like any good hobbit he's concerned about his handkerchief.

And then, well, remember when Tom and Schmidt swapped bodies, and Schmidt-in-Tom took the opportunity to raid his safe for all those incriminating documents and run off?  And then got caught, only for Tom to undo the body swap?  And then Schmidt took advantage of the situation to frame Tom for his own thefts?  Well, Schmidt made one teensie, catastrophic mistake - all those documents are still in Tom's pockets.

So instead of a hanky, Tom pulls out Schmidt's checkbook showing how he was making tens of thousands of dollars in three months despite a salary of just a few thousand dollars... and this is 1930's money?  Damn, I need to get in the circus biz.  Anyway, there's that, and Betty's letters to her "darling Hermann," and with this evidence in hand "a great light sizzled through" Tom.  Little feller's gone from black magic to blood rages to righteous fury all in one afternoon.  Pick a class and stick to it, munchkin.

At this point Schmidt-in-Schmidt makes his reappearance, accompanied by "two John Laws, men without imagination or a sense of the fitness of things."  We might say that the author is letting his biases towards law enforcement show here, but he could be writing for a specific audience, that anti-authority 1930's counterculture that liked stories with circus freak protagonists and evil wizards.  As such, the word "cop" or "police" will not appear in this story, instead any such officers are only referred to as "John Laws."

Schmidt sees what Tom's holding and quickly snatches it away and demands that those John Laws arrest him despite his recent heroism.  Tom demands that Schmidt give the goods back and threatens to tear his heart out.  Schmidt laughs.  And Tom attacks.  A boot to the shin brings Schmidt down, then Tom climbs up and stabs Schmidt's eyes with his thumbs, eeesh.  The Prussian giant knocks him back, but Tom instantly recovers, yelling for the checkbook.

Perhaps he had learned something from the tigers, or perhaps Schmidt looked small compared to a lion.  Anyway, small fists, correctly placed, and small boots stabbing sharp, and a small target which moves faster than the eye can follow will always be superior to slow and heavy brawn.  The John Laws gaped in amazement and got in each other's way.

So yeah, this is happening - immediately after getting kicked around in the process of fending off forty freakin' tigers, Tom is now going to town on big bad Schmidt.  The ringmaster ironically trips on the same dropped hoop that screwed over Tom-in-Gordon, Tom takes the opportunity to stomp Schmidt's solar plexus a few times, and out he goes.  Guess he... cut off blood flow to the brain or something?  I mean, I've never seen anyone knocked unconscious from blows to the belly or torso, but I don't get in many brawls.  The important thing is that Tom recovers the incriminating checkbook, gives it to Mrs. Johnson, and tells those useless John Laws who to arrest.

Oh, and Maizie's here too - she intervened when one of the John Laws tried to grab Tom, biting his hand and swatting his rear with a torch, an act of assaulting an officer that will go unremarked upon, let alone punished.  She gazes at Tom "hungrily" and gushes how she could tell when he was in the right body, but before she can praise his bravery Tom mercifully cuts her off.

"Forget it," said Tommy with a grin. "You were right and I was wrong. But I was right, too, you see,

That's not how you apologize, Tommy.

because... because... well, if the ghost of the Professor is around, I'll bet he's plenty disappointed.  He did me a favor, Maizie.  He showed me that I was a selfish fool, a coward.  I'm ashamed of myself.

And you should be!  You were stealing other people's lives to fulfill your own ambit-

I didn't think of you at all when I started this.

No, no, the bad thing you did wasn't failing to think of your girlfriend when you stole people's bodies, it was stealing people's bodies.  Well, I mean, ignoring your girlfriend isn't good either, but-

I won't ever do it again, Maizie.  Never... I promise!"

Unless, you know, someone yells at you loudly while you're startled and distracted, and whoosh you're suddenly a clown or something.  Damn trigger-happy soul-transfer magic.

Maizie's eyes were very bright.

"And you'll come back and be satisfied to be - a freak?"

"No!" cried Tommy.  "Who said anything about going back?  Look up there, Maizie!"

See, they're right next to the microphone platform in the big ring, and Tom promptly runs up, adjusts the mic, and gives the whole "Ladies an' gennulmen!" speech introducing the next act, because after all the show must go on.  Just because someone nearly died in the ring doesn't mean that they're canceling the night's fun, and of course the audience has stuck around instead of fleeing or anything.

It was Tommy the Showman, Tommy at his best, doing what he had longed to do, realizing the ambition that had burned all these years in his frail but valiant little body.

Tommy was glowing, vivid, terrifically alive - and happier than he had ever been in his life.

Maizie is briefly worried that having attained ultimate happiness, something might happen to snatch it all away, but Mrs. Johnson is watching approvingly, and the audience seems impressed with the crazed little midget who charged a bunch of wild animals and gave a man a savage beating a few moments ago.  She meets the smaller woman's eye and slowly nods "her much wiser old head," ellipses, end of story.

And that's that.  Tom uses dark magic left to him by a transparently evil wizard, steals peoples' bodies to fulfill his own ambitions and to avoid the consequences of his actions, accidentally thwarts an embezzlement scheme and manages to rescue someone he endangered in the first place, and so gets everything he ever wanted - to graduate from a sideshow freak to a novelty act in the big top, as a midget ringmaster.

Of course, the real moral of this story is that it's the soul that's important, not the body, but that said the body is pretty smart and can get you through a tough situation if you don't misjudge a step and fall on your ass because you're not used to that particular body.  And you might be able to find the courage to stand up for yourself and achieve your dreams if you nearly get someone killed and desperately act to save their life, so the next time someone tells you that some stunt is a terrible idea, that's a sure sign that it's an opportunity to better yourself, even if it leaves someone else hospitalized and scarred for life.

Also, ladies, if your boyfriend turns drunk and abusive when life takes a turn for the worst, don't trust any new love interests, they're only trying to exploit you.  Just tough it out, and beg your boyfriend's forgiveness if your heart wanders.

Or maybe a better moral is to not trust evil wizards.  Wait, or maybe you should trust them, because if Tom had never messed with black magic he'd never have (accidentally) thwarted Schmidt, put Gordon's life in danger, and thus found his courage.  It's not like Gordon seemed upset after being stuck in a three-foot body in a cell for a little bit. 

Or maybe that's the real lesson - the soul is what's important, not the body, so if someone steals your body, no biggie.


Back to Part 6

If I Were You - Part 6 - Lions and Tigers

To recap: using black magic learned from a dead wizard's collection of evil tomes, Tom the midget forcefully swapped bodies with circus ringmaster Schmidt, and was having a pretty good time until all of Schmidt's scheming and betrayals blew up in his face.  Then he swapped back with Schmidt, allowing the ringmaster to talk his way out of getting beat up and/or fired, but this put Tom back in danger because while Schmidt was in his body he tried to run out with stolen funds and got caught.  Tom tried to swap bodies with Schmidt again, but accidentally crossed souls with Gordon the lion-tamer instead, so that poor schmuck is now getting hauled away in Tom's little body for a crime committed by Schmidt.

Not a great situation to be in, right?

Having gotten out of the scrape so neatly, Tommy himself, now bronzed and strong, tall and handsome, felt quite elated about the matter.  Plainly he now had his chance.  He had the goods on Schmidt.  He merely had to turn the tables and wrest the proof, and all was well once more.

Tom's about as smart as he is moral.  His plan to deal with Schmidt is to pose dramatically and accuse Schmidt of "all the crimes he knew the ringmaster guilty of," such as... actually, what does Tom know Schmidt has done?  He knows Schmidt has blamed Tom for stealing circus funds, there's something about Betty and letters, and Mrs. Johnson is mad for some reason about the possibility of Schmidt being involved with someone.  There's obviously a few pieces missing in whatever scheme Schmidt is up to, and Tom doesn't have any concrete evidence to back up any half-baked accusations he makes.  More to the point, has he considered the potential reaction to Gordon suddenly making such half-baked accusations?  Immediately after nearly starting a fight over (what Schmidt claims is) a misunderstanding about his wife?

It's all moot, though - just before Tom-in-Gordon can confront Schmidt-in-Schmidt, there's a "long, stirring chord" from the main tent, and Betty says "That's your cue!"  And that's the downside of stealing the body of a lion tamer: people expect you to tame lions.  Or in this case, twenty lions, along with twenty tigers.  And poor Tom has been terrified of big cats ever since that time in St. Louis where one got lose and nearly ate him.

As such, Tom-in-Gordon is paralyzed with fear as Schmidt yells at him for holding up the show and Betty and Mrs. Johnson hustle him along.  On the bright side, his imminent grisly death has allowed Tom to Learn a Valuable Lesson.

How he had failed! Tommy thought.  Bodies did not seem to make any difference at all.  It was the soul of the man that counted.  What he was deep inside him, what courage and daring he might possess.  And if he were the biggest man in the world and possessed no strength of soul, he would still be a bumbling fool.

If only someone could come along and invent something for people like Tom, some way for them to strengthen their soul, to winnow out all the flaws and imperfections and allow them to reach their full potential.  Alas, it's too late for him.  He's already been dragged into the big tent in front of five thousand people, and because of his fear of kitties, Tom never watched Gordon work, so he can't even feign the man's routine.

There is a chance at escape, though - as Tom-in-Gordon is let to his doom, he spies Maizie sitting in the front row.  And once again a Hubbard character "somehow" knows something, as Tom is able to realize that Maizie was close enough to the commotion in Schmidt's wagon to figure out what's going on.  She yells to him "Look at me!  Save yourself!", offering Tom a chance to swap bodies and send another innocent person to be punished for his mistakes.  Except Schmidt intercepts her and shoves her back, allowing Tom to "discover another truth," that Schmidt has also figured out whose soul is in whose body and is trying to get Tom-in-Gordon killed.

Tom doesn't do anything with this knowledge, though, even as he asks himself why he's not fighting back.  To answer his own question, the narration explains "But Schmidt's grip on his arm was painful," so there you go.  One strong grip on one limb is all it takes to disable our hero, even when he's inhabiting the muscular body of a lion tamer.

The spotlight hits Tom-in-Gordon, Schmidt gives the bombastic introduction - and remember that this guy is supposedly pretty Prussian?  He doesn't have much of a German accent.  "Ladies and gennulmun, I give you the most fearless man who ever trod our earth's fair face, Jerry Gordon, Emperor of the Jungle Monarchs, Master of the Wurld's most dangerous animals!"  Not even a little und.

Anyway, once the show starts, Gordon's legs propel Tom forward almost on instinct, and that gives the little guy-inside-a-bigger guy hope that maybe muscle memory will get him through this hellish experience.  So he rallies, resolving to prove to himself that maybe he can do this.  Tom-in-Gordon "mechanically" cracks his whip and fires the blanks from his revolver, and the snarling, stinking lions and tigers all get on their perches.  All except one unruly lion, that is, but once again Gordon's body knows what to do, naturally using a chair to drive the animal back and into place.

And this is a bit confusing, Hubbard.  Earlier the lesson was "it's the soul that's important, not the body," except here Gordon's muscle memory is saving Tom's dubiously-heroic ass.  If the real moral is supposed to be that Tom just needed confidence, it falls a bit flat since Tom was totally terrified and was expecting to be torn apart by wild animals until said muscle memory kicked in.  In fact, Tom's misplaced soul and misguided confidence is what dooms him.

Everything's going swimmingly, Tom-in-Gordon is cracking the whip and firing his pistol to put the lions and tigers through their paces, and the act gets to the part where one tiger rushes him but is driven back when Gordon advances on her behind a chair, glaring at the beast until his gaze hypnotizes the tiger into submission.  Except because it's Tom-in-Gordon, and he's used to being much smaller than he is now, he takes three steps where he should have taken one, proceeds to trip on a dropped hoop, and falls onto his back.  The lions and tigers react like any good predators would in this situation, and turn upon their handler.

Immediate death was not scheduled by fate in that instant,

Ouch, that might be the worst string of words in the story thus far.

for a great lion jostled a tiger as they both leaped in the van.  Blood enemies, personal enemies, they whirled and met with a thud which shook the bars like straws.

So it all goes to hell.  The big cats are having a snarling tussle, circus workers are trying to intervene with sharp sticks and burning brands poked through the big cage's bars, the audience has "gone crazy" which is to say that everyone's gone silent... huh.  Crazy silent.  Anyway, Tom seems to be thoroughly boned, until...

"You fools!" screamed a shrill voice.  "You fools, get away from that door!"

Tommy, through the haze of battle, saw a sight which came into his consciousness more acutely than even the shock of immediate death.

Or maybe that's the worst string of words.

Yes, "Somehow" Gordon-in-Tom has gotten free of his captors, come to the ring, and upon seeing his body about to get torn apart by dozens of lions and tigers, is doing his damnedest to save Tom-in-Gordon.  "He belonged in that cage, and he was fighting his way to it."  He yells at Tom-in-Gordon to use his pistol, and... oh good grief.

And in that instant the thing was again effected.

Okay, that sentence is less inherently cringeworthy than the others, but it's still pretty bad.

Tommy could not have helped it had he tried. He had been called, the words were hot in his brain, and a moment later all the strain was done. For there he stood, safe outside the cage, staring in at Jerry Gordon, all buried underneath the savage cats!

So the body swap mechanic has gone from requiring sustained eye contact and a muttered incantation, to misfiring and sending a concentrating Tom into the wrong body based on someone speaking to him without eye contact, to just going off unintentionally because someone off a ways was yelling at him.  This is some twitchy-ass magic.  It's a wonder the Magician didn't swap bodies five times a day whenever someone looked at him or talked to him bumped into him on the way to the can.

But there we go, Tom's back in his original three-foot body.  Things are looking pretty good!

Here he was safe.  He had turned the tables again.  There was Gordon in his rightful self.  Here was he, Tommy-

Jerry Gordon, beneath the howling hell, blazed away hysterically with his revolver, straight up into the bodies of the brutes.  But the bit of powder had only one effect.  They had forgotten Gordon.  They had been intent upon killing each other.  But the sting in the bellies of the lion and the tiger made them leap back away from one another and see their original goal.

Well, at least he'll be torn apart in the right body.  And again, I guess the important thing is that Tom is once again safe and has escaped the consequences of his actions.


Back to Chapter 5

Forward to Part 7

If I Were You - Part 5 - The Gathering of the Conned

So Tom is getting the hang of being Hermann now.  But what has the former Hermann been doing since he "soul-shattering experience" of having his body stolen from him?

Not a whole lot, actually.  The narration explains that he had just about taken off after Tom-in-Hermann while screaming for help, until Schmidt's "coldly logical brain" told him that probably wouldn't be a good idea.  I mean, just think how ridiculous that would look, a midget stumbling after someone ranting about body theft?  No, in this sort of situation, the thing to do is to step back, stay calm, and puzzle out the solution.

In the dusty emptiness of the sideshow tent, he had brought himself into a full realization of his strange and very disturbing predicament.  In the Black Forest of his native land, he had heard such things had happened

Really.  This sort of thing is common in Germany.

and, so far as he could tell, no kind fate had come along immediately to undo them.  And the longer he measured his slightness up against his surroundings, the more he became convinced of the awfulness of his situation and the need to do something about it.

No scheisse, Schmidt.

Now, Schmidt's towering Prussian intellect can't figure out a way to reverse the soul transfer, but he has an almost-as-good solution - accelerate his existing plans.  Grab the stolen cash from his safe, destroy the evidence and incriminating documents, and get out of town.  It's not quite Just As Planned, since he'll be enjoying his ill-gotten gains from three feet off the ground, but it's better than nothing.  Problem is, Tom-in-Schmidt still has the safe's keys.  So Schmidt-in-Tom waits patiently until Tom-in-Schmidt goes to the ringmaster's wagon, then follows him inside.

Schmidt-in-Tom slams the door shut, and a confrontation ensues.

"You," said Schmidt, in his now piping midget voice, "are going to do something about this!"

Tommy momentarily forgot his stature.  Not unlike a midget, he had never been very long on courage when it came to physical conflict, but so engrossed was he with his determination to direct the show, if only once, that he made a stern show of it.

"Why should I?" he said, flicking his great black boots with his riding crop and staring down at the midget Schmidt.

Good question.  Schmidt grabs a gun out of a drawer and points it as Tom-in-Schmidt, but when he's reminded that "This is your body - if you want to mess it up that's okay with me," Schmidt slowly lowers the weapon.  And then we get that awkward moment where you threaten to kill someone, but you've swapped bodies with them so if you killed them they'd be really killing yourself, and then there's that long uncomfortable silence.  I hate it when that happens.

Thus defeated, all Schmidt-in-Tom can think to do is - well, first there's a sudden knock on the door.  Then while Tom-in-Schmidt gets up to deal with it, Schmidt-in-Tom raids the safe and flees to the wagon's bathroom.  And presumably he gets all this done quickly, because he's hidden himself by the time Tom-in-Schmidt opens the door.  The body thief certainly doesn't ignore the knocking to deal with his victim/enemy, or demand to know what he's doing, he just watches him scurry about and then does as politeness dictates and admits his visitor.

In comes Betty, so agitated that her features "alternatively burned and went cold with the intensity of her emotion."  She wails that her husband Gordon saw her leave Schmidt's room this morning, and now he's on his way, so "Schmidt" better return all those letters of hers or else "He'll find them!"  Tom-in-Schmidt has no idea what's going on.  Then Mrs. Johnson bursts in "Like a thundercloud which blankets the land in darkness," snidely apologizing for interrupting Schmidt and Betty's "tryst."  She promptly fires "Schmidt" and vows he'll never work in a circus again, and when Betty wails that her husband is going to kill her, Mrs. Johnson says she definitely wants to see that.  Tom-in-Schmidt can only stammer and ask "What's happened?  What have I done?"  And then Gordon bursts in, booting aside Betty when she flings herself towards him, and glares hatefully at "Schmidt."

So hey, you know how the Professor - who may as well not have been in the story, given how much these other characters are talking about him - was dying and all?  And he knew the dark art of body-swapping?  And he didn't use it to get out of a failing meatbag?  Maybe this is why.  You never know what kind of baggage someone's carrying, and then when you swap bodies with them, bam!  You're up to your neck in a mess like this.  So that's the real lesson of this story: always investigate your victims thoroughly, make sure they aren't involved in any love triangles or embezzlement schemes, before you steal their bodies.

While Tom-in-Schmidt boggles at these bewildering confrontations, people outside the wagon start yelling for Mrs. Johnson, and walk up escorting a little prisoner - it's Schmidt-in-Tom, with his pockets full of money and documents from the ringmaster's safe.  See, Mrs. Johnson was smart enough to have some loyal circus henchmen surround Schmidt's wagon before confronting him, and in a way, they've caught him.

Before Tom-in-Schmidt can properly react to any of this, Gordon takes another vengeful step forward, and even though he's wrapped in Teutonic muscle, Tom reflexively flees to a more familiar body that's not about to get punched by a lion tamer.  And oddly enough he's relieved when he's back in his old self, mentally crowing "Let Schmidt get out of his own messes as best he could!" and not sparing a thought for how Tom is now in similar trouble for theft.

But there's a problem with Tom's "watch Schmidt get punished" plan - Schmidt is no Soltan Gris, he's an effective bad guy.  When Gordon swings his whip as if "it would take the ringmaster's head from his shoulders" ...Hubbard, I don't think whips can do that.  Maybe leave a nasty cut, but not decapitate.

Anyway, Schmidt avoids the attack and sends Gordon reeling with one punch, and when the lion-tamer accuses Schmidt of stealing his wife, the Prussian counters that she's merely in his office to conduct business, and claims that Betty knows Gordon's failing and was begging Schmidt not to fire him.  Then he graciously and preemptively accepts Mrs. Johnson's apologies for her wild accusations and "condescends to" stay with her circus until she finds a replacement ringmaster, if she still feels a need to seek one.

Or in other words, Schmidt has nearly everyone he's scamming come after him at once, on top of having his body temporarily stolen by a magical midget, and then manages to talk his way out of it.  They apologize to him for making such outrageous accusations.  Schmidt even has a scapegoat to blame for why they've been losing money - after all, he always kept his wagon's window open at night, open just wide enough that a little fellow could just about crawl through it.  As his eyes flash in dark amusement, Schmidt tells the other circus folk to take Tom to a holding area until "John Law" can come pick him up. 

So props, ladies and gentleman, for Herr Hermann Schmidt, a Hubbard villain with the qualities to actually succeed in his schemes.  But... well, he has made a fatal mistake.  See if you can spot it.

Tom can only tear up in impotent rage as he's about to be escorted out of the wagon and into a cell, but he knows that one quick body swap will reverse his fortunes.  He concentrates, waits for Schmidt to focus on him, and...

So hey, remember the first time he swapped bodies with Schmidt, and he had to get the other man's attention, and then stare at him while muttering to himself until the magic happened?  Well, the rules seem to have changed.  Now you don't have to murmur the magic words to make the spell work, or hold eye contact.  Because now Tom's waiting for Schmidt to speak to him.  Except instead of Schmidt it's Gordon who voices his surprise that Tom could be a thief, and then

It happened so fast that Tommy could not prevent it.  There was a swish and a shudder, and then Tommy was standing, whip in hand, looking at a helpless midget held fast between two brawny stakers!

So not only has the body swap spell changed from one with a prolonged casting time and vocal component based upon eye contract to an instantaneous effect involving voices, now it's developed side effects, and Gordon-in-Tommy is so dazed that he can't even focus his eyes, much less cry out that he's not supposed to be this short.  And whoopsie-daisy, Tom just stole the wrong body.

And though Tommy did wait for that protest to be made so as to take full advantage of it and swap back, it struck him suddenly that he was far better off as Jerry Gordon than as either Schmidt or Little Tom Little.

So let it be.

Yeah.  Our "hero" has gone from preying upon a villain completely by accident in his attempts to live his lifelong fantasy of directing the circus, to condemning a man to prison for a crime he didn't commit in a body he wasn't born in.  Good to see that Hubbard's in fine form when it comes to writing his heroes, even if this story's villain is a bit of an outlier due to being competent at his job.


Back to Part 4

Forward to Part 6

If I Were You - Part 4 - A Cold Welcome

So hey, turns out stealing someone's body involves more difficulties than the actual theft itself.

After the first shock of the transition was over, Little Tom Little felt very much like a bean in a bass drum.  When he took a step, he went about four times as far as he thought he should have gone, a fact which occasioned his stumbling over a guy rope and almost losing his dignity in the lap of Matilda, the World's Fattest Woman.  He bowed with great difficulty and again misjudged his distance, almost knocking out his brains against a wagon side, so much further had he gone than he had expected.

Tom should have been more methodological in his soul transfers.  Start with a dwarf, get used to that sort of stature, then work your way up to an average human, then go for a towering German fellow.

Our... hero?  Has a moment of doubt when he sees the cool and distant look Matilda gives him, since as Little Tom Little he was doted upon by the woman and given lots of cookies, as if she were taking him for a boy.  Which means that once again a Hubbard hero is being coddled with sweets and motherly affection by a woman noteworthy for an exaggerated physical attribute.  Hmm.  If we had more cases I'd call it a trend.

But whatever, right?  Tom's big now!  So what if he almost loses his hat on low-hanging obstacles?  So what if people are scowling at him, almost as though they don't like or respect the ringmaster?  And so what if the real Schmidt is still out there in a little person's body?  With a bit of patience and the power of stature, Tom will now be able to fulfill his destiny as a lead performer in the circus.  Because when you have the power to swap bodies with anyone you come across, why settle for the sideshow, eh?

Despite his mental bluster that everything is going to work out, Tom grows more and more paranoid, particularly when Betty shoots him a strange look and Gordon the lion-tamer gives him a suspicious and hateful glare.  Perhaps Maizie talked to people about the magic books, warned them of Tom's plans?  Maybe they all know that inside the towering figure of Hermann Schmidt is the puny soul of Little Tom Little, and any minute now the whole circus is going to "fall upon him en masse and eat him up."  Suck that midget soul right out of his host body and nom nom nom all over it.

And then he bumps into Mrs. Johnson.  Or rather, she calls out "Hermann!" and it takes awhile for Tom to remember to answer to that name.  Tom is worried at her approach because of how differently she's treating 'Hermann' from Tom, and he doesn't really want to talk to her because he fears his "somewhat midgetish voice would betray him."  Huh.  We can't take this to mean that Tom-in-Schmidt sounds just like Little Tom Little, otherwise everyone would know instantly that something was up.  So how exactly does one speak in a "midgetish" manner?  Is Tom not making the most of his borrowed lungs?

While trying to talk like a big person, Tom makes idle conversation about how today's crowds look good, so "we'll all be rich in no time."  This gets an unusually interested reaction from her, and Mrs. Johnson presses Tom-in-Schmidt for "some good news of some sort," to which he can only stammer that "you can never tell" before bidding her good day and retreating to the main tent.

Sheesh, this guy didn't think his whole body-snatching plan through, did he?  It's like Tom expected everything to just work out for him, like magic... wait.

He takes a moment to collect himself, running a hand through "the unaccustomed bushiness of his physiognomy," and decides that if he can just make it to showtime, his natural talent will shine through, everything will turn out fine.  But until then, there's work to do.

Although he had the routine of sawdust land at his fingertips,

I have no idea.

it made him very uncomfortable to be called upon for so many decisions at once.  Joe Middler was taking too much "strawberry shortcake."

Is that Depression-era slang for cocaine or something?

His shill wasn't getting a long enough string of coconuts.

I'm just going to assume that the author carefully researched circus jargon and all of this makes sense.

The pup opera was minus its canine star, who had wandered too near a gravedigger's cage, and it was either a new mutt or a dead hyena.

Why would you keep a cemetery worker behind bars?

The payoff was too high on a juice joint, and if John Law objected to the kife, what else could a guy do but howl?

"Kife" at least seems to be slang for 'steal,' and not a racial slur.

A kinker had a twisted wrist, and he figured Bill had had it in for 'im anyway since that dame in St. Looie had shown good sense, and he wasn't goin' to get a broken neck over any fool dame!

Look, what you fellows do with your kinks is your business, just try not to do it so hard you miss work with a hand injury, alright?

Despite these baffling sentences, Tom rises to the challenge, dispensing a big man's justice and, to the surprise of several, refusing to be bribed in the process.  So he's in high spirits when the circus ground fills with the sound of customers and barkers and music and petty conmen.  Soon it'll be showtime, and Tom's big break.

Tommy felt better.  This was his element, and of this element he was now king.  So delighted was he at the thought of at last snapping the lash in the hoople to the admiration of all, that he quite forgot to think at all of what was happening to himself, erstwhile Little Tommy Little, now Hermann Schmidt - in the flesh, at least.

Yeah, there is a little flaw in his plan: somewhere in this circus is six feet of angry Prussian gentleman compressed into a three-foot frame.  That's a lot of Prussian-per-pound to deal with, especially when he's within biting distance of your crotch.


Back to Part 4 

Forward to Part 5

If I Were You - Part 3 - A Body-Thief in the Morning

One paragraph break later and we're with Hermann Schmidt as he starts his day, getting dressed with boots "polished into black mirrors; his stock had been starched into armor plate; his waistcoat had been brushed until it resembled newly shed blood."  I'm not entirely sure how brushing fabric brightens its color or how an overcoat looks like a bleeding wound, but I've never worked in the circus.

Thus dressed, the ringmaster goes forth, earning respectful bows from everyone he passes "from razorback to high traps," respect he returns with "lofty nods which held a certain amount of doubt, as though he was not quite sure they existed."  I'm not quite sure how exhibiting signs of suffering from hallucinations or delusions helps you look grand and impressive, but again, I've never worked in the circus.

It's actually unclear where Schmidt's success comes from - one paragraph notes that with his great stature, no one can look at him and not feel confident in his ability to run the circus, while the next has Schmidt reflecting that of course he's competent and important because he comes from a long line of ringmasters and knows the circus "from bale ring to stakes."  Maybe there's more to life than experiencing it from an above-average altitude, or maybe one's attitude is influenced by outside forces.  Or maybe such musings are wasted on a story involving a magical midget.

Schmidt sits down for his breakfast steak, the most important steak of the day, but is interrupted when Mrs. Johnson takes the opposite seat at his table, forcing him to stifle a shudder.  See, Schmidt is not only the circus' ringmaster, he's also a bit of a performer himself, and like the worst of circus folk is scamming people.  He's engaged to the old crone as part of some scheme, but keeps finding excuses to postpone their wedding - for example, he laments that the circus is running at a loss, and vows "I promise I shall never marry you until I can prove my full worth."  Then he goes to write up the circus' finances, where he makes "the art of the show's slip artists seem pale," and since Wikipedia and Wiktionary don't know what a "slip artist" is, I'm guessing he's cooking the books and embezzling money. 

At least our "hero" won't be stealing the body of an innocent victim, eh?  Instead the story will be the more familiar scenario of bad guys versus assholes who are presented as heroes.

It's not enough that Schmidt is stringing an old hag along, he's also two-timing her.  He's interrupted in his financial flimflamery by a knock at the door, and in comes a beautiful blonde (what a surprise, Hubbard) named Betty.  She's flustered and desperate, he's smiling but not with any positive emotions, and they talk for a good three pages.

The gist of it is this - Betty, a high-wire girl, is trying to back out of Schmidt's "wild plan" for her to divorce her husband Gordon the lion tamer, marry Schmidt, and run off and be rich and famous and whatever.  She and Gordon went through some tough spots after he lost all his money, turned to drink, and grew so abusive he drove Betty into Schmidt's arms.  But now the couple have patched things up, and Betty has become a star act, so she refuses to betray her husband again.  Schmidt pulls the ol' "I picked you both out of the mud and taught you everything you know" card and threatens to fire Betty and her husband, which would surely cause him to drink and beat her again until they were both dead.

"But he loves me, Hermann! What's past is past! It's useless to think of running away with you and divorcing him. Crazy!"

"And yet if you don't," said Hermann, smiling, "you'll very much wish you had."

The strain of holding out so long against his will at last broke her own. She began to weep quietly and forlornly, and when at last he cupped her face in his hands and said, "Of course you'll go with me, won't you?" she could only nod a weary assent.

Huh, this is the same guy who was forced to hire the Professor after the old bat gave him the evil eye?  ...Also, it's kind of odd that nobody in the circus is reacting to the Professor's death except Tom and Maizie.  There's no talk of an oppressive cloud suddenly lifting, everyone's spirits being higher, a possible obstacle to Schmidt's schemes being removed, or any of that.  It's like the story wouldn't be any different if Tom had just found those evil spellbooks at a yard sale one day.

Anyway, Betty eventually leaves, and Schmidt steps out of his wagon once more, "An aloof demigod, secure in his realm, proud of his abilities and cunning," etc.  But as he does so, he's watched by Little Tom Little, who can barely breathe in his excitement.

The little fella cracks a little whip to get Schmidt's attention, the ringmaster looks down and is affronted by the very presence of the other man, their eyes meet, and... it's exactly as underwhelming as it was last chapter.  To a watching razorback - yes, that's the focal point the narration is working from - Little Tom is apparently muttering to himself while Schmidt stares, until the ringmaster's face goes blank.  Then Schmidt seems to recover, looks down and takes a "delighted inventory of his dress," while Little Tom Little suddenly looks horrified.  And then Schmidt strides off, while Tom makes as if to follow before noticing the watching pig and slinking into the shadows.

Underwhelming and weird.  If I suddenly found myself in a body a fraction the size of the one I'm used to, I'd probably scream a bit.  Heck, if I suddenly found myself in a body several times the size of the one I'm used to, I'd probably scream some too, even if I planned it.  But if these two made a fuss about their body swap the story wouldn't unfold in just the right way, I reckon.


Back to Part 2 

Forward to Part 4

If I Were You - Part 2 - Spirits Out Of Bond

A break in the paragraphs, and we get a sentence that allows us to guess the rest of the story's plot.

If I have to be a midget another minute," cried Little Tom Little, "I'll - I'll use a stretcher on myself!"

No, the omitted opening quotation mark isn't a mistake on my part, it's either a typo or a byproduct of the paperback starting a new section with a larger-than-usual capital letter.  But yes, we have here a fellow with body image problems, who has now been given magical spellbooks.  So he's going to find some way to alter the body he's in, and since the novella's title is If I Were You, this will probably involve swapping bodies with someone.  And since this power was bestowed upon him as a dying wizard's final act of vengeance, either these body swaps will end badly or with Tom learning an important lessons about being happy with the skinvelope you're enveloped by.

So we don't really need to read the rest of the story, since we have a good idea now of how it will end.  So... how about The Force Awakens?  I loved it, though with some big reservations.  I can understand why it played it safe and did a retread of A New Hope, but it desperately needed to slow down for a moment and talk about why every one of the original trilogy's characters are in exactly the same situation they were in decades ago.  Leia's still a rebel general even though the Republic has been reestablished, Han is still a roguish smuggler even though he's a hero of the Rebellion, and unless we are to pretend that Return of the Jedi never happened it's vital to explain why everyone's back where they started.  Maybe cut out that pointless action sequence aboard Han's freighter with the CGI monster chase and have some exposition beyond the opening crawl.

And the battles were a real step back from even the prequel trilogy.  No capital ship-on-capital ship action, and I'm pretty sure more fighters were involved in the original Death Star run than the attack on Starkiller Base.  And

Okay, okay, focus on the story in the post title.

Tom is standing on his stage in his tent, complaining about the body God gave him, the jerk, while a distant announcer describes how the great Gordon will now be handling twenty lions and twenty tigers all at once.  This makes Tom flinch, because he hates big cats, especially after a loose lion almost killed him in Kansas City.  Given the tiger on the cover, I do believe we can identify this as foreshadowing.

With him is fellow performer Maizie... Corny?  Anyway, she's an inch taller than Tom and doesn't like these rants since they put her down by association.  She tries to reassure him that "it's better to be the best midget star in the world than a failure as a big person," but Tom is hearing none of it - he'd rather be a ditch-digger who can look his fellow man in the eye than someone gawked at by patrons who find him "cute" or "darling."  But what he wants to be is the circus ringmaster, and vows that someday soon, that's exactly who he'll be.

This makes Maizie nervous, and she asks if he's been reading "those books" again.  She alone suspects that the Professor's deathbed repentance wasn't genuine and remembers the evil looks that guy gave Tom.  "There's such a thing as vengeance after death, Tommy!", she warns him.

Naturally, our hero doesn't listen, and with another paragraph break, we cut to

Late that night Maizie lay wide awake and apparently sound asleep in the dark of the stateroom berth, fearfully watching Tommy, king of the midget showmen - who did not want his crown - sitting gnomelike at the dressing table, surrounded by a litter of cracked and weighty tomes whose parchment pages were like mummies' skin in the gloom. The book he was studying was so unwieldy that he had propped it with greasepaint cans to save his arms.

Eh, I appreciate the effort, but when I think of mummified skin I think of tissue that's shrunken and leathery, not exactly book page material.

It's all Maizie can do not to cry - she's known Tom for years and has long admired his great spirit and skill with words.  She's also privy to his deepest secrets, and has seen him alone in his tent, cracking a whip at imaginary animals.  Now here he is, reading a copy of the Necronomicon left behind by "a vulture of bad omen, a cadaver without a coffin, a man whose eyes gleamed at the tidings of misfortune."  Much better, Hubbard.

Tom notices Maizie's not sleeping, but when he asks if something's wrong, Maizie, seeing how "abstracted" he was... not so good, Hubbard.  Anyway, she lies and he goes back to flip through forbidden scrollery, before Tom suddenly declares that "tomorrow I'll be ringmaster of this show!"  She asks how this will happen, and Tom explains that the tome he's studying talks about the transmigration of the soul, spirits leaving a dying body to enter a new one, that sort of thing.  And wow, it looks like the Professor even marked these pages specifically as relevant to Tom's interests.  He must have been a good guy all along, huh?

"Oh, Tommy," she whispered.  "Are you sure it won't mean-"

But Tommy's excited voice swept on and his thirty inches of height seemed to double themselves already.  "It says if the transmigration of the soul can be effected after death, it is logical to conclude that it can be done in life.  It says the only vital, thinking portion of man is his soul energy, and that it can be projected from one body to another.  Maizie, think what this means!"

Grand theft body, that's what.  Tom is thrilled, and rants about how you'd be able to leave your past mistakes behind and get a grand new start in a spiffy new body.  And the actual mechanics for this?  Literally "All you have to do is miss a few meals, say breakfast and lunch, and then begin your concentration upon the object into which you desire to transfer."  Yep.  Starvation and staring, that's all it takes to project your spiritual essence and dislodge someone's soul from their body, taking it over for yourself.  Then their soul would have to occupy your former body, "or else die."

Wait, the soul would die?  It can't have an existence independent of a meatsack?  So there's no life after death after all, unless souls are constantly flowing into new(ly-born?) bodies, except the numbers for that don't stack up, and we'd have to determine where all the new souls are coming from to inhabit the increasing number of people in the world.

"Tommy... this is dangerous!"  But she could not say more, for the possibilities of this terrible idea were overwhelming.

"And it's so easy!  It says here that man becomes everything he senses, even for the briefest of instants.  If you look at a hero in a story, you are, for the duration of that story, the hero.  You take on his mannerisms and his way of speech.  But because he is just the hero of a story he cannot return that concentration.  

Just goes to show that Hubbard had... unique ideas about metaphysics even early in his literary career.

It says that all men, when talking to other men, are too watchful of the other's words and actions and too conscious of self to achieve this feat.  But if one refuses to be aware of the possible menace to the self from the other ego, then it is simple to completely assimilate the other person and to project oneself into the other."

I don't think "assimilate" and "swap bodies with" mean quite the same thing.

Tom hasn't eaten since lunch, he's pumped, and he plays the "do you love me?" card to get Maizie to cooperate... and fails.  She tries to protest but is hit with a strange chill and floating sensation, and after a second attempt, suddenly Maizie's wearing a tie and belt and sees Tom in the mirror, while Maizie looks astonished by her dress and long blonde curls.

They stared at each other, then, silent and numb with awe.  When minutes had passed, Tommy laughed shakily.  "You see - it works."

"But... but Tommy... how are we doing to get back?"

But he was triumphant now and growing bolder.  "Why should we?" he teased.

Just goes to show that Hubbard's heroes were dicks to their love interests even early in his literary career.

Tom reverses the swap, Maizie throws herself at his feet and tries to beg him to give up black magic, but Tom is thrilled that the spell worked.  Oh wait, there are magic words involved after all, "the right words to think" as you stare at someone with an empty stomach.  Anyway, he vows that he'll never look another person in the shin again, and tomorrow he'll be the ringmaster.

So tune in next time, when a halfling with several new levels of wizard has a rematch with a Prussian half-ogre.


Back to Part 1 

Forward to Part 3

If I Were You - Part 1 - An Unexpected Parting

I'll admit, I was a little worried after finishing the last story.  Hubbard's at his "best" when writing sci-fi, but the other story collections I have look to be more mundane adventure or spy stories, so I wasn't sure they'd stack up.  Then I picked up If I Were You, a book which once again contains more than the novella advertised on the cover.

Fittingly, it was a dark and blustery night when the Professor died.  The summer storm had come yelling in from a scorching afternoon to tear at canvas and yank out stakes and stab bright fury at the big top.  The rain bucketed down with a shock of coldness and then settled to a ceaseless cannonading which, after seven hours, had turned the lot into a swamp so tenacious that not even the rubber mules could budge the wagons.  Banners wept from their staffs; lot lice shivered in scant cover; somewhere a big cat, excited by the tropical aspect of the storm, moaned and paced in his cage.

In case you can't tell by the tiger and the guy with the whip, this story is set in a circus.  And that certainly takes the edge off the old 'dark and stormy night' cliche, doesn't it?

And although a waxen yellowness was already upon his face and his skin was falling away from his bones, the Professor managed an evil smile.  He was waiting, hanging on and waiting.  For he had sent half an hour since for Little Tom Little, king of the midgets.  And as he waited, his thoughts roamed over the past, the better to savor what he was about to do.

You can imagine the slowly creeping smile on my face when I realized that this story's lead was going to be rather different from Hubbard's typical heroes.  I mean, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler and Jettero Heller and Kree Lorin are all rather generic protagonists noteworthy mainly for their questionable heroism and the sheer amount of stupidity that surrounds them.  And here we are, starting with a little person.

So this Professor guy, he's nothing but sinister, "the gypsy camp's bird of bad omen."  Tall and stick-thin, with dark eyes and matted hair, messy clothes, hands fit for strangling someone, he's one of those people you can't help but assume is evil.  He just showed up out of nowhere to become the circus' "mitt reader" (I'm assuming that's a palm reader) over the objections of the group's boss lady because its ringmaster caved in after being hit by the "eerie command" in the Professor's gaze.   Always annoying when you have to hire someone because they put the whammy on your assistant manager, isn't it?

His real name isn't given, but the circus folk call him the Professor, and the guy's stage name is "Yogi Matto."  Which I don't think is all that menacing, but maybe yogi was a more ominous title in 1940.  Them crazy Indians, what with the snake charming and climbing up disappearing ropes and all that.

Anyway, the Professor is the sort of fortune teller who always forecasts doom and makes customers freak out, costing the circus business.  But he's also, worrying enough, always right in his dire predictions, such as tonight's storm and even his imminent death.  He speaks Chinese and Turkish and "the Hindu's tongue" (that would be Hindi, Hubbard), and has a trunk full of ancient tomes of eldritch lore, so he's clearly some manner of evil wizard, but nobody's been able to burn him at the stake yet because of his scary gaze.

But there's one man able to look this sinister sorcerer in the eye, someone who even dares to openly mock him.  And that man is the thirty-inch-tall Little Tom Little, the circus' mimic who takes the edge off the Professor's performances by imitating his voice and mannerisms to deliver his own horrible prophecies, allowing the audience to laugh the tension off.  So it was that a sinister fortuneteller began a feud with the king of the midgets, which is not a sentence I expected to find myself writing when I started this blog.

But he was dying now.  And he was glad to die, secure in the knowledge of the glories which awaited him elsewhere.  In dying he would find himself at last.  But he could not forget Little Tom Little.  No!  He would remember Little Tom Little with a legacy.  He had already made out the paper.

Little Tom Little, in his "tiny poncho," steps into the Professor's (train?) "car," unsure why he alone in the entire circus has been summoned to the man's deathbed.  The Professor claims that he's always respected Tom for his bravery... would it be bad taste to make reference to the surprising courage of hobbits?  Too late, I can already hear the soundtrack.

Our hero isn't sure what to make of this message of goodwill from an old enemy.

"It's not courage," he protested, trying to say something decent to a dying man.  "You just imagined-"

"No, I did not imagine.  Men slink away from me for a peculiar reason, Little Tom.  They slink from me because I impel them.  Yes, that is the truth.  I force them away.  I want nothing to do with men, for I loathe all mankind.  I impelled them, Little Tom Little.  Long before now you must have realized that I command strange and subtle arts beyond the understanding of these foolish and material slaves of their own desires."

So the Professor is an actual wizard commanding unnatural powers of foresight, and he hates people, so he decided the best use of his time was to become a small-time circus performer expected to interact with customers on a regular basis.  'kay.  At least he's not following the desires of those material slaves.

The wizard goes on to explain that because Tom was unaffected by his juju, the fellow must unconsciously be able to resist and therefore command "all phases of the black arts."  Tom is very surprised to hear this, as any of us would be.  But for this reason, and the aforementioned respect the Professor has for him, he's leaving Tom with his collection of tomes containing "the black lore of the ancient peoples of the East."  With them, Tom will be able to master the dark powers of yoga, acupuncture, and origami.

This obviously proves the Professor is Tom's friend, right?  No ulterior motives or anything like that.  After making assurances to this effect, the Professor asks Tom to leave to he can get on with dying, and our hero stumbles out of the tent.  He's so off-balance from all this, in fact, that Tom proceeds to enter the wrong car, the one belonging to ringmaster Hermann Schmidt.  Now, Schmidt is an angry Prussian giant with little patience for interruptions when he's counting out money... wait, Prussia?  The German states united into the German Empire in 1871.  I guess it's possible for someone to hang on to their Prussian identity seventy years later... assuming this story actually takes place when it was published, there's no way to tell-

Anyway, Schmidt flies into a Teutonic rage, rants about little spies and Tom being a "tenth of a human being," picks him up, carries him out the door, and drops Tom eight feet from the car to the rain-sodden ground.

Dimly he saw Schmidt up on the car platform, much as a drowning sailor might have seen the Colossus of Rhodes.  Little Tom dazedly pried himself out of the mud.  His shoulder was full of lightning and he could barely support even his meager weight upon his twisted ankle.  In him a rage was kindled, to run along like a dot of fire eating the length of a fuse.  A fuse which was to burn for weeks ere it reached the dynamite.

Maybe this doesn't take place in 1940, or else they'd be talking about plungers and detonation cord instead of more primitive explosives.

So there's our premise: an evil wizard "gifts" a little person with some magic books, a little person with a chip on his shoulder.  I haven't read ahead much farther from this point, and I'm quite curious as to where Hubbard plans on taking us.

Forward to Part 2