Forgotten Moments In Science Fiction History
Rolf And The Volvo
Few readers today remember the name Rolf Z. Heinz, though, for a brief few months in 1957 this author achieved a degree of notoriety throughout the SF world previously unheard of - if, of course, we are to ignore the minor incident at Astounding's 20th birthday party when a young fan-turned-author, no doubt overcome by alcohol, enthusiasm and hopes of furthering his career, was said to have kissed the Great Man.
Rolf Zacharia Heinz was born in a small Norwegian village. His parents had emigrated from Germany in 1933, only weeks before his birth, to escape the cancerous spread of National Socialism and Italian pizza parlours.
His childhood was harsh and, at times, cruel. At the age of twelve, just as the war in Europe was drawing to an end, his father hired him out to the district postman, whose reindeer had been shot, mistaken one dark night for escaping Nazi war criminals. He grew to hate his father.
Rolf's years spent pulling the postman's sleigh were undoubtedly a major cause of his alienation. He became withdrawn, depressive, occasionally eccentric. It is therefore no surprise that he became a science fiction writer.
His first encounter with SF was through reading the magazines in the postbag in an attempt to keep his mind off the cold during the night spent at this or that stable. Reading by candlelight was said to be one of the two causes of his later dreadful eyesight and was also the true reason for the strange epidemic of singed magazines throughout Norway - this fact debunks those wilder notions put forward in Amazing.
No-one was more surprised by his sudden writing success than he was. His early bug-eyed-reindeer stories had obviously struck a chord. The 1949 Norwegian convention, Coldcon, invited him as their Guest of Honour, but unfortunately he failed to show. His invitation had apparently gone astray in the post.
Rolf achieved greatest recognition - a scathing hatchet job in New Worlds - with his series of stories about an interplanetary postman, 'The Mailman Comet'. His success, however, was short-lived. That he was killed by a British Post Office van seems particularly ironic.
But perhaps he is best remembered - by those few remaining die-hard fans who most likely also harbour fond memories of Lionel Fanthorpe - for the incredible but true story which emerged from the first Liechtensteinian SF convention, Con-one.
Due to an administrative hitch - basically a hotel management with a combined IQ of five - the Guests of Honour arrived to find five miles between their hotel and the marquee wherein the con was to be staged. The use of a cab was briefly considered, but no-one fancied twenty bone-rattling minutes behind a flatulent horse. The con committee came to the rescue, quickly organising an auction of autographed beer-mats, and scraped together enough to hire a battered Volvo.
Following a brief diversion to the hotel bar, the Guest of Honour team - who, were it not for the risk of assumed sarcasm, could be called our heroes - headed outside to the car. Rolf felt proud to be with his four companions. These were world-famous SF writers, professionals at the top of their field, ambassadors of SF. It was a great pity they were about as cheerful as an insomniac at a screening of Hawk The Slayer.
The morning rain was heavy and cold and did nothing to improve their tetchiness. The elected driver climbed into the unlocked car - this was Liechtenstein after all - and swore loudly. The loss of the key proved to be the last straw. Rolf quotes from the ensuing conversation in his essay 'Starships and Barstools', published in Woman and Home, 1963:
"You had the key."
"I never had the goddamn key."
"Yes he did. I saw him with it."
"You've bloody well lost it!"
"I never had it. He's blind!"
"I saw you with that key."
"Sit on your bleeding key!"
Disturbed by the distress caused to his colleagues, Rolf did something which seemed only natural to him, but which was to send waves throughout the SF community and cause several fans of unbalanced disposition to consider that the Aliens had indeed landed. Herding the others inside the vehicle, he borrowed the rope which had cordoned off the VIP parking and tied it to the front door of the car. Then he hauled the Volvo the full five miles to the con. Neither the rain nor the cold seemed to worry him. Some said that he had the look of a traveller who had finally found his way home.
That such a writer should be so soon forgotten is sad, but not unusual. The archives are full of the names of writers who were once well known but are now neglected: John Carpetfitter, Vorsprung Golf, N.E.C. Birmingham....
Perhaps it is fitting to end this brief recap of the achievements of Rolf Z. Heinz with those final lines from his epic poem 'I'm Cold, I'm Very, Very Cold', which have now passed into popular legend and are often quoted - usually drunkenly - at conventions.
So all you struggling writers,
Who think your lives so squalid,
Try writing in a stable,
With your knackers frozen solid.
(Originally published in Works #6)
Readers
Paperback Inferno
2027
Summer came early that year.
In March, on a surprising
Rising wave of glacial meltdown
And blazing storms of whipping, wilting winds.
The sun burning low, hot as high July.
Shattered icebergs racing down from the north,
Crystal buoys bobbing down the high street,
Rapping on McDonald’s windows,
Coasting into darkened arcades.
Then came the rain,
Pounding the silver surface into a fluid moonscape,
Moon-people surfacing briefly
Offering unseeing eyes to the sky
And again slipping below.
That year the sea came to stay.
I saw from the safety of a motor barge,
Rain streaking down the window like belated tears
For a grief larger than my grasp.
I was eight when the calendar stopped.
These later years we children have a song:
Ten million souls consigned to Heaven
By the Devil’s Storm of twenty-seven.
Is it time or distance
Which turns Death into Myth?
We bend backwards to survive
Twist ourselves into inhuman shapes
Fail to feel for the past
For those passed.
They have mutated into History.