"There'll Always Be Another Me" (1981/2003)

“There’ll Always Be Another Me” is one of my least favorite Lafferty stories. It is a late variation on the schizo-gash, a potshot at the New Age metaphysical temperament. That I don’t mind. The story’s trick: one locks a door to force something out, only to find oneself abruptly on the other side, locked out instead.

We have two main characters who become four. One day, the unified Spaltman (let's call these unified selves Priors) decides to answer ten advertisements from Los Angeles “quackeries” because he finds his life somewhat empty. His wife, the rather vapid Roxie, joins him by answering advertisements for "Splitting Headaches." She says that if she were split into two people, at least she would have someone to talk to. The kooky self-help bundle out of Cali arrives several days later. After reading it, Otto follows the instructions in a chapter titled "How to Turn It All On." Importantly, his wife has already read ahead of him. At this point, the schizogony occurs. The Prior we were with has now become Ottoman Spaltman and Otto Spaltman. Our point-of-view character will be the Secondary, the purged part of Spaltman, who keeps the original name Otto.

The next morning, Otto, thinking he is still the Prior, is dealing with his now shrewish wife, who is also no longer a Prior, for she too has split off into her Primary (Moxie) and her Secondary (Roxie). Moxie gives Otto the what-for. Later, at his workplace, the higher-ups, Charles Banner and Ed Klaxon, praise Otto for brilliant ideas he does not recall. They are, of course, praising Ottoman, showing that the New Age twaddle has worked: Ottoman’s life is superficially better for having performed the little occult operation. Yet Otto is out of luck, locked out. The paymaster, Mr. Juggers, tells Otto that he has already signed for and received his check. Otto has no memory of the transaction, but he sees his signature, which is hard to fake. Otto also looks terrible, as if he is not all there, and Mr. Juggers makes a point of telling him so.

Returning home that evening, Otto finds a fading, translucent version of Roxie standing under a lilac bush. She is upset. On the front steps of his house, he runs into the dominant, self-helped version: the Primary, Ottoman Spaltman. Ottoman says that he has read a pamphlet titled "How to Pull the Chain on the Other You if Things Get Really Rough" and has successfully evicted the shadow version of Otto. Otto now sees that he no longer casts a shadow in the evening sun and joins the ghost-like Roxie as they walk toward downtown.

While crossing a busy street, a car passes right through Roxie without causing any injury. Maybe there are advantages to being invisible and walking on air. Soon, Otto and Roxie are proper Lafferty-style poltergeists. They can walk through walls, move physical objects, and eat. They meet another dissociated couple who invite them to stay at the haunted Avalon Luxury Apartments. Then the story takes its dark little turn. What Otto and Roxie really want is revenge. They return to their former home. Otto assaults Ottoman by punching him in the nose and kneeing him in the groin while whistling "There'll Always Be Another Me," the song the Secondaries have adopted as their song. Roxie goes full poltergeist, stripping Moxie of her pajamas and vowing to keep her Primary "stitchless" by removing her clothes whenever she tries to dress. Otto takes the booklets to prevent them from falling into the hands of the irresponsible, claiming that he and Roxie have achieved limitless power.

This is very on the nose: the name Spaltman means split-man. In becoming Califorked, the Priors use occult materials to improve themselves. But we get the return of the repressed when Otto and Roxie return as ghosts, with nothing to lose and powers the Primaries can't fight; as a result, the Primaries have no defense. The upshot is that the forced split degrades both halves. The Primaries become California-style narcissists. The Secondaries, who started as the kind of people who would give their money to California-style hucksters, become vengeful haunters who steal strangers' food, beat up their own former bodies, and call it "fun going on almost forever." They think that they have got what they wanted from ordering the occult materials: pleasure, profit, and power, oblivious to what they have lost. So the ads deliver on their promise, monkey-paw fashion with a large sprinkle of obliviousness. If there is more going on here, I don't see it. This is the schizo-gash as trashed-life principle. Sour Lafferty.

There'll Always Be Another Me Notes.pdf

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