Who Made Stevie Crye? by Michael Bishop Page A

what it found there in the form of a news story.”
    “Lots of writers think like that, Stevie. They sit down at their typewriters, and when they’re rattling along at a good clip, it’s as if they’re taking dictation . They’re an instrument through which the words splash down on paper. That’s the subconscious mind working. Same thing’s true of people who speak in tongues, estate auctioneers, and most of the lawyers you’re likely to hear in the Wickrath County Courthouse on Thursday morning.”
    “That puts it in perspective,” said Stevie wryly.
    “I don’t mean to take you down a notch, kiddo. Just noting that you needn’t give your typewriter all the credit. The receptor-conductor’s important, too; essential, in fact. I couldn’t be one if I tried. It takes talent and training.”
    “Elsa, I wasn’t even sitting at the typewriter when it did this. I was in the next room. It typed that page by itself.”
    “Seaton Benecke’s a wizard, all right.” Releasing the page, Dr. Elsa let it waft back into Stevie’s lap. “Typewriter repairman and part-time dosimetrist.”
    “You don’t believe me?”
    Dr. Elsa squinted at her visitor. “You’re serious ?”
    Stevie held up her evidence. “It stops in the middle of a line of Ted’s dialogue—just as he’s about to explain why he surrendered—because it ran out of room. Alibi interruptus. That makes me as crazy, Elsa, as the crazy way it all got down on paper in the first place.”
    Dr. Elsa hoisted her ample lower body to the edge of the examination table. “What do you want me to do, honey?’’
    “Tell me you believe me.”
    “I believe you believe the typewriter wrote that by itself. That okay for now? The other’s liable to take me a while.”
    “Okay for now,” Stevie said quietly. “You think I’m ready for the funny farm?”
    “Kiddo, they’re not ready for you .”
    Both women laughed. Whether she or Dr. Elsa moved first to abandon the examination table, Stevie could not have said, but they bumped shoulders and hips on the way down. Stevie apologized, noted their common need to get back to work, and then found herself gazing pensively at the broad strip of shiny white paper on the table.
    “Where do you get this stuff?”
    “This? From a medical-supply salesman who comes through here every couple of months. Why?”
    “Could I buy a sheet or two when I’m paying my bill?”
    “What bill? And hell, no, you can’t buy any of this slippery sausage wrap. I toss a sheet every time somebody puts her fanny to it. You can have this piece and a half-dozen more if you want.” Dr. Elsa folded the long sheet from the table into Stevie’s arms and fetched several more from the bottom of an aluminum cart. “Enough?”
    “Plenty, plenty.”
    “What you gonna do with it? Turn your minibus into a float for the Barclay Easter parade?”
    “Shelving paper,” Stevie improvised. “I never remember to buy shelving paper. Don’t you think it’ll do?”
    “Sure,” said Dr. Elsa. “Cockroaches love to go skating on this stuff. Turn your shelves into a regular cockroach roller rink.”

XII
    She knew what had happened . She was not insane. She had heard the Exceleriter typing and had actually found the unfinished product of its labor. If her machine had been functioning as the printer in a word-processing system, she could have attributed its performance to prior programming—but her typewriter was a desk model, with no expensive hookups or modifications, and it should not have been doing what she had seen it do. Telling Dr. Elsa, dumping her impossible discovery into the minor maelstrom of her friend’s workday, had not shown good judgment. Although their friendship spanned a dozen years, Stevie could hardly expect Dr. Elsa to embrace a report as unlikely as the one she had ill-advisedly sought to foist upon her.
    All you did, Stevie chided herself, was make her worry. She thinks the pressure has finally worn you down. She thinks you