FORGOTTEN STORIES: HICKS' INVENTIONS WITH A KICK

 Hicks' Inventions with a Kick by "Henry Hugh Simmons" (a series of four stories appearing in Amazing Stories, 1927-1928)

Clement Fezandie (1865-1959) was a playwright, author, and business man perhaps best known for his novel Through the Earth, which was first published in St. Nicholas Magazine from January to April 1898.  The book imagined an underground tube that took passengers directly from New York to Australia. (A sequel was written, but never published.)  Fezandie was greatly admired by Hugo Gernsback, who published his series of 40 stories (perhaps 43; one story was serialized in four parts and may have been actually four linked stories; I haven't read it yet, so I can't tell) with the general title Doctor Hackinsaw's Secrets in Science and Invention from 1921 to 1925.  Two additional Hackinsaw stories appeared in Amazing Stories in June and July 1926.  All stories published by Gernsback were presented as "scientifiction" kin those days before the term "science fiction" was invented.

Fezandie returned to Amazing in the April 1927 issue under the pseudonym "Henry Hugh Simmons" with his first entry in Hicks' Inventions with a Kick, a short-lived humorous series about a well-meaning inventor whose inventions always go wrong.  Following Gernsback's dictate that stories in Amazing be "educational," there is a bit of science along with the mumbo-jumbo in Hicks' inventions -- they could all possibly work, but why would you want them to?

Wacky inventors and inventions have been a staple of science fiction for a long time, basically as a twist on the mad scientist theme.  John Kendrick Bangs did it in his stories about The Idiot and Henry Kuttner perfected the theme with his tales of Gallagher, the genius scientist who could only invent while he was drunk with the sober Gallagher wondering what the heck he invented and what is it supposed to do?  Wacky inventors live in a Rube Goldberg world of delightful but impractical inventions.

Hicks -- no first name given -- had been trying to change the world by writing "important " books, such as Essays in Practical Philosophy and The Necessity of Regularity in Nutrition as an Aid to Longevity -- tomes that landed with a thud on the reading public.  Believing actions speak louder than words, Hicks then decided to turn to invention to improve mankind.  To demonstrate his first invention, "The Automatic Self-Serving Dining Table" (April 1927), he conjoles his friend O'Keefe to attend a demonstration,attneded by other friends and acquaintances.  This invention not only eliminates the need to reach across a table while dining, but it also eliminates a pesky waiter who comes up behind you to serve food and perhaps eavesdrop on private conversations -- truly this would be a boon to mankind!  Liquid, both hot and cold, is served through pressurized nozzles.  The two-tiered table rotates with a flick of a switch in front of each diner.  Every detail has been scientifically works out, including clearing the table, cleaning the dishes, and stacking them.  What could go wrong?  The entire rig was operated through steam pressure.  The throttle got stuck, the pressure built up, hot and cold liquids began attacking the diners.  The rotating table began to speed up, it velocity forcing the food and dinnerware to go flying and striking fierce blows on the party.  O'Keefe's Aunt Zelinda is thrown against a wall; she manages to extricate herself by her wig stays adhered to the wall.  Foodstuff pummels the guests and (in the only uncomfortable scene) one guest is sprayed with chocolate resulting in he having an appearance of a minstrel show "darky."  Relativ of O'Keefe and Hicks who are present soon disinherit them.  

Thus the pattern for the series is set.  Hicks continues to invent complicated items to ease everyday life.  O'Keefe ( a somewhat dimbulb) continues to admire Hicks' inventiveness.  A demonstration is arranged and disaster follows.

In "The Automatic Apartment" (August 1927),  Hicks invents an apartment that eliminates menial housework.  Floors are swept and washed, dust and cobwebs are removed, dishes are automatically washed, and shoes are automatically shined.  Come the public demonstratio and what could go wrong?  Well, too much water on the floors for one thing, and rising rapidly.  Collected dust and dirt are released from the ceiling and cover the guests completely, leading everyone of sneeze.  One guest trips and lands headfirst on the automatic shoe shining machine; the machine grabs his head in a solid grip and begin to shine it with rough brushes and blacking (once again we have the blackface reference), the brushes begin to remove his hair; worst yet, the water on the floor keeps rising and will soon drown him.  O'Keefe rushes to the kitchen to find a hose through which the man could breathe and soon has large chunks of his hair ripped off by one of the machines.  The water is till rising near to the top of the hose through the shoe-shined  man is breathing.  Finally a door is opened and the water rushes out taking Hicks, O'Keefe, and everyone else down the street in the torrent.

Hicks is not deterred, returning in "The Electro-Hydraulic Bank Protector" (December 1927).  Bank robberies have been on the increase and an understaffed police force cannot stop them.  If a criminal is caught, lenient judges tend to release them with little or no consequences.  It is up to citizens to step in, hep catch the evil-doers and bring them to justice.  Enter Hicks.  With the backing of one of the largest banks in the city, Hicks invents a "fool-proof" of preventing robberies and of capturing the robbers.  Strong metal curtains can be lowered at the push of a teller's button, protecting the bank's assets.  Mighty streams of water, strategically placed, would put the robbers out of action, and a mass of fast-acting glue would descend from the ceiling to entrap the ne'er-do-wells.  Of course things go wrong, then a gang of robbers, who had been watching the action, enter and rob the bank.

Hicks' final invention was "The Perambulating Home" (August 1978).  Six months had past and O'Keefe had escaped to Los Angeles, presumably far away from Hicks.  As is often the case in fiction as well as in real life, things oft gang aglay.  In La Junta, O'Keefe comes across a house that moved!  It was a Colonial-style home, newly-built, and rotating on a pivot.  It couldn't be?  Could it? thought O'Keefe.  It was, Hicks had made his way to California and had produced another invention:  The Perambulating Home.  Who wouldn't want a house that could catch the morning sun from every room?  Not if the house speeds up on its pivot and starts tilting and spinning dangerously.  Things go flying.  People go flying.  The house incorporates many of the features of the first two stories, so that can't be good.  The house then rolls down the hill and into the sea, having "transmigrated into ocean-going motor-ship of alcoholic joy, destination generally unknown," as a Japanese diplomat put it.  Luckily (?) the floating house was soon boarded by Government patrol officers.  Everyone on the house were fined $500 (except Hicks, who was fined $2000) once The Perambulating House was towed to shore.  This was the only Hicks story that has been reprinted, in August Derleth's posthumous anthology New Horizons:  Yesterday's Portraits of Tomorrow (1998).

With "The Perambulating Home," Fezandie/Simmons left the scientifiction field.  The stories remain as typical examples of early science fiction humor, a Three Stooges/Abbott and Costello/Marx Brothers slapstick comedy.  They are short and not very painful to read, although their general tenor of the anything-can-be-possible world of the early twentieth century masks a more prevalent conservative (and white) viewpoint.  At least Fezandie did not put forth his opinions on women (they are inferior to men and should never be allowed to vote) in these tales; most of these opinions were recorded in works that that were not accepted by those to whom he submitted them.