“Two Shot Wonders: Help! I Am Dr. Morris Goldpepper” is the first in a series of pieces on famous SF or Fantasy series that contain only two stories. The trilogy (even before Tolkien) was something of the norm. Things come in threes: birth, life, death, or the beginning, the middle and the end and so on…. Then there are those times when you only get two and it’s a bad thing. Independence Day then Independence Day: Resurgence or Pacific Rim then Pacific Rim: Uprising (though there is talk of another one of those). The crappy sequel is a good example of “why bother with the second one?”
The stories of Dr. Morris Goldpepper are not quite so horrific. Avram Davidson (1923-1993) is the author of this two-story series. Anything by him you know will be filled with erudite humor and facts. “Help! I Am Dr. Morris Goldpepper” appeared in Galaxy in July 1957. This should not be surprising as Galaxy had a reputation for sardonic SF with authors like William Tenn and Robert Sheckley. “Help! I am Dr. Morris Goldpepper” received three illustrations by an artist anyone who reads Mad Magazine will recognize, Don Martin.
The plot follows an illustrious group of men gathering to deal with a world-shaking problem. Are they the highest level of government officials? No, they are the top dentists in the world. The men examine the strange evidence that has come to them, a dental plate with microscopic writing on it. The writing is from Dr. Morris Goldpepper D. D. S., a well-thought of practitioner of dental science and dental plate assemblage. He is, after all, the inventor of the Semi-Retractable Clasp. (Like Davidson, he was also a veteran.)
The middle part of the tale recounts how a man with a blue mouth came to Goldpepper’s office with an offer. Using transmat technology he will take Goldpepper to his planet. (Earlier in the story Davidson established Goldpepper’s greatest ambitious was to be the dentist on the first expedition into space. His friends chide him for reading those trashy sci-fi magazines, but he says “Each to his own.”) What a chance? And in return the alien will share his “matterporting” technology.
Goldpepper goes with him to Proxima Centauri Gamma. They briskly set him to work making dental plates. He has been lied to and enslaved, producing dental plates day in and day out. He learns why the aliens, who are a very old-looking species, entirely toothless, want the dentures. Using them, they go to Earth and pose as Californians and collect old age security. (Why California? because they have the highest benefits for seniors.) It is a geriatric space invasion! Goldpepper makes a few plates poorly (which is hard to do since he is stickler for quality) so that they will end up in the hands of dentists who might rescue him. The story ends with Goldpepper still captive but the men declaring they will rescue him, with the help of certain waterfront gangsters.
“Dr. Morris Goldpepper Returns” appeared in Galaxy in December 1962, five and a half years later. (It received one illustration by Jack Gaughan.) This tale begins years after Goldpepper has been rescued. He now lives on a friend’s ranch in Texas. “Doc” Clem Crawford is a retired dentist, now rancher. Goldpepper is a permanent guest, working when he likes in his dental lab. We learn gradually that the gangsters and dentists figured out that fluoride is lethal to the aliens, stormed their planet and sued for peace. If any aliens appear on Earth the planet will be covered in fluoride bombs.
We meet the cast of characters around the ranch. Clem has a daughter, Mary Jane, who does nothing but cry. She wants to marry her sweetheart “Little Jimmy” Dandy but it looks like “Big Jimmy”, his father, is about to go under. We also meet Mrs. Doothit, the widow-woman who is Crawford’s house-keeper. She had her eye on Clem but nothing happened.
So it is a surprise when one of the blue aliens shows up. Goldpepper sends him away. The alien has a problem but Goldpepper can’t stand the sight of the blue creatures. Instead he spends time with “Big Jimmy”, hearing about his problems. To the dentist’s surprise, Big Jimmy is in the worm business. He has fifteen million worms he can’t sell. Speculating on a need for more worms, as the Texas government meant to create a dam and twenty-seven new lakes (a fisherman’s dream!), he borrowed money to expand his operations. The dam project failed and now Big Jimmy is about to go bust. Little Jimmy won’t marry Mary Jane if he is a pauper.
It is at this time that Goldpepper meets the alien again, sitting on a dirt hill surrounded by greenery. The blue-skinned fellow tells him that the people of Proxima Centauri Gamma are starving because the soil of their planet is failing. Later Goldpepper ask Little Jimmy about the hill. He explains that all the ground near the ranch is green because of all the earthworms. They keep the hill as a reminder of how the land used to look. Goldpepper puts it all together. Big Jimmy’s worms will save Proxima Centauri Gamma. The only problem is payment. The aliens have no money and their food crops taste like paste. But when the alien shows the two men a pretzel-shaped pill, they have a deal. The pills cure arthritis, stomach upset, even “the freest and the grunk”. Turns out, they are the next Viagra, and Big Jimmy marries Mrs. Doothit in a double-wedding with Mary Jane and Little Jimmy.
The sequel was quite different from the first piece. “Help! I Am Dr. Morris Goldpepper” is a knot that has to be untied slowly like a Mystery (some of which Davidson wrote under the name Ellery Queen). The sequel is more like an SF puzzle story with a Jack Vance-style solution. (See Jack Vance’s Magnus Ridolph stories.) Could Davidson continued the adventures of Dr. Morris Goldpepper D. D. S.? Certainly. But he never did.
Was this Davidson’s only two-shot series? No. In novel form he wrote Rogue Dragon (1965) and a prequel The Karchee Reign (1966). The Peregrine Series was Peregrine: Primus (1971) and Peregrine: Secundus (1981). He managed to squeeze out a third book for his Virgil trilogy but it didn’t look good for a while. Davidson was never a production writer, pumping out material in agreed upon portions. He wrote what he felt and this made two-story series a distinction possibility every time he put pen to paper.
