The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories (55 page)

Irving was both frightened and impressed as he looked out through the open door at the black limousine departing.

“You know what that is, boss? That’s what they call a Zis. It’s Russian.”

Harvey kicked over a wastebasket with sheer animal joy. “That’s what she is,” he said. “Irving, booby,” he gushed, as he leaped up on the desk upsetting an inkwell and a basket of papers, “this is very likely the happiest day of my life!”

Irving was not listening to him anymore. He was staring, wide-eyed, out the door as the model A chugged past him.

“Boss,” Irving whispered, “boss, you sold it!” He turned to stare at Harvey, then slowly his eyes lowered to the newspaper, still on the desk. The headline read, “Khrushchev visiting UN.”

“Khrushchev.” Irving barely got it out. “Nikita Khrushchev.”

He took a hesitant step toward the desk, where Harvey stood like some offbeat god in a pool of ink and torn papers. Irving looked up at him with awe and reverence.

“That’s who you sold the car to, wasn’t it, boss? Nikita Khrushchev.”

Harvey held out the registration papers in his hand and pointed to a signature. “Irving, booby,” he announced senatorially, “from this second on, when that old lard-head starts to walk on his lower lip—it comes out like the truth!”

“Boss,” Irving whispered, feeling himself in the presence of some kind of deity, “boss...how the hell did ya do it?”

Harvey lowered the papers and placed them on the desk well away from the pool of ink. He thought for a moment and then spoke.

“Acumen, Irving,” he finally said, in a gentle voice. “Stick-to-it-iveness. Will. Determination. Perseverance. Patriotism. Unselfishness. Resolve.” He lit a cigar. “And also the fact that if I had to tell the truth one more time, I’d’ve had to commit suicide!”

He took the cigar out of his mouth and surveyed it at arm’s length. “Know what I told ‘em, Irv? I told ‘em it’d be a real blast to take the raunchiest-lookin’ puddle jumper ever to come out of Detroit, take it back to the USSR and put it on display. Propaganda! That was the pitch. Show all of them walking Muscovites just what the average American drives—or at least what Nikita would like ‘em to believe we drive.”

Irving’s face looked drawn and his eyes narrowed slightly.

“Boss,” he said, “that ain’t patriotic.”

Harvey beamed at him from his Mount Olympus of righteousness and holy zeal.

“Irving,” he said patiently, “that’s what I
told
‘em they could do with the car, but that isn’t what they’re gonna be
able
to do with it. When Fatty starts that kind of pitch, it isn’t gonna come out that way—”

He chuckled softly, got down off the desk, reached for the phone, studied it a moment, then started to dial a number.

“Irving,” he said, over his shoulder to the boy standing there like a pilgrim seeing a miracle performed. “Irving, run out there and close the hood on the Essex—and if anybody should come within ten feet of it, you lasso ‘em. Tell ‘em that that car was formerly owned by a lady embalmer who won it at a raffle at a DAR convention in Boston, but it was only used once a year as a float in Fourth of July parades.”

Irving’s eyes shone with almost tearful respect and admiration.

“Right, boss,” he choked. “I’ll attend to it.”

He turned and went outside, as Harvey heard the operator’s voice on the phone.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, chewing on the cigar. “I think I’ll probably need Information....That’s correct. . . . Ya see, what I had in mind was that if an American citizen had somethin’ real important in the way of news...I mean...if it affected the policy of the United States...what I mean is—if from now on, everything that fat boy over there said was the absolute truth—well, what I’d really like to know is...
Can you get me through to Jack Kennedy?
”

Then he sat back, chewing happily on his cigar, as outside the noise of Irving’s pounding down the hood of the aged Essex came over the quiet lot like a clarion call to arms.

Harvey Hennicutt, as he tells it, was eminently satisfied.

The Shelter

Outside it was a summer night. Broad-leaved oaks and maples caught the lights of the old stately houses that flanked the street. A breeze carried with it the eight o’clock noises of television westerns, kids asking for glasses of water, and the discordant tinkle of a piano.

In Dr. Stockton’s house, the meal had been eaten, and his wife, Grace, was bringing in the birthday cake. The people at the table rose, applauded, whistled—and somebody began singing “Happy Birthday to You,” and then they all joined in.

Bill Stockton blushed, put his head down, held up his hand in protest, but down deep he felt incredibly happy.

Marty Weiss, a small, dark, intense little guy who ran a shoe store on Court Street, got to his feet and shouted out:

“Speech, Doc. Let’s have a speech!”

Bill Stockton blushed again. “Lay off me, will ya—you crazy people. A surprise party is all my heart can take. You want to lose your friendly family physician?”

There was laughter, and then Jerry Harlowe—a big, tall man, who had gone to college with Bill—stood up and held out his glass.

“Before he blows out the candles,” Harlowe announced pontifically, “I should like to propose a toast, since no birthday celebration is complete without a traditional after-dinner address.”

Martha Harlowe gave him a Bronx cheer and Marty’s wife, Rebecca, tried to pull him down by the back of his coat. Harlowe leaned over and gave her a big wet kiss and they all shrieked with laughter. Then he held up his glass again, waved off Grace’s protest that first her husband should blow out the candles, and addressed the group.

“And now to get down to the business at hand—that of honoring one Dr. William Stockton, who’s grown one year older and who will admit to being over twenty-one.” Again they all laughed, and Grace leaned over to hug her husband.

Harlowe turned toward Bill Stockton and smiled, and there was something in the smile that made them all become quiet.

“We got this little surprise party together, Bill,” he said, “it’s a very small reminder to you that on this particular street, and in this particular town, you’re a very beloved guy. There isn’t one of us in this room who hasn’t put in a frantic phone call to you in the middle of the night with a sick kid or a major medical crisis that turns out to be indigestion. And you’d come out with that antique medical bag of yours, one eye closed and half asleep, but without even a moment’s hesitation. And while things like this never appear on a bill under ‘services rendered,’ you made a lot of hem beat easier, and you’ve eased more pain than I’d ever like to feel.”

He grinned, then winked at the people who were listening so intently.

“And there also isn’t one of us in this room,” he continued, “who hasn’t owed you a whopping bill for a lot of months, and I expect there are plenty of us on this street who owe you one now.”

There was laughter at this. And Marty Weiss banged on his glass with a fork.

“What about his hammering at all hours of the night?” he called out. “That’s another thing we owe him for.”

Jerry Harlowe joined in the laughter, then held up his hands.

“Oh, yes,” he said, with a smile. “The good doctor’s bomb shelter. I think we might as well forgive him for that, despite the fact that what he thinks is farsightedness on his part is a pain in the neck to all the rest of us on this street. The concrete trucks, the nocturnal hammering, and all the rest of it.”

They all laughed again, and Bill Stockton looked around quizzically, knife in hand.

“I can tell you all this,” he said. “You don’t get any cake until the windbag is finished.”

“Why, Bill Stockton!” his wife said, with gentle admonition.

“Bill’s right,” Marty interjected. “Go ahead, Jerry, get it over with while we’re still sober enough to eat.”

Harlowe picked up his wine glass again. “This is the end right here. When Grace mentioned that it was your birthday, we took it on ourselves to handle the proceedings. And just as a little personal aside, let me conclude this way. A toast to Dr. William Stockton, whom I’ve known for better than twenty years. To all the nice things he’s done for a lot of people—and because he’s forty-four years old, and because we wish him a minimum forty-four more to keep being the same kind of guy he is, and the way he always has been. Happy birthday, you old bastard.”

He took a long swig and Rebecca Weiss suddenly began to cry.

“Oh, my dear God,” announced Marty. “Down goes a speech, up come my wife’s tears.”

Bill Stockton blew out the candles, then looked up with a mock sardonic look. “I don’t blame her,” he said. “First a surprise party—and I abhor surprise parties—and then a sloppy sentimental speech.”

He turned toward Harlowe and held out his hand. “But just between you and me and the American Medical Association—you’re nice people to have around, whether you pay your bills or not.” He turned and looked down the length of the table, and held up his own glass. “May I reciprocate, my friends. To my neighbors—with my thanks that you’re in the neighborhood.”

“Amen,” whispered Marty Weiss, and turned to his wife. “And if you cry again, I’ll belt you.” He leaned over and kissed her, and Bill Stockton started to cut the cake.

“Hey, pop.”

It was Stockton’s son, Paul, who came into the dining room He was a twelve-year-old mass of freckles and looked like a pintsize version of the doctor.

“The television set just went out.”

Stockton held out his hands in dismay. “Gad, crisis, crisis, crisis! And how can the world survive without the
Untouchables
and
Huckleberry Hound
?”

“It was the
U.S. Steel Hour
,” the boy said seriously. “And the picture went out and then there was some kind of crazy announcement. Something about...”

He continued to speak, but he was drowned out by Martha Harlowe laughing at something Rebecca had said to her. But Marty Weiss, closest to the boy, suddenly looked serious. He got out of his seat and turned to the others.

“Hold it, everybody,” he said tensely. Then he turned toward Paul. “What did you say, Paul?”

“The announcer said something about turning to the Conelrad station on the radio. What’s that mean? Hasn’t that got something to do with—”

He stopped abruptly. There was a sudden absolute stillness.

“You must have heard it wrong, Paul,” his father said quietly.

The boy shook his head. “I didn’t hear it wrong, pop. That’s what he said. To turn on your Conelrad station. Then everything went blank.”

A gasp came from Jerry Harlowe. A woman let out a cry. They ran into the living room behind Stockton, who immediately turned the knob on a small table-model radio, and stared down at it grimly. After a moment, there came the voice of an announcer...

“Direct from Washington, D.C. Repeating that. Four minutes ago, the President of the United States made the following announcement—I quote: ‘At eleven-o-four P.M. Eastern Standard Time, both our Distant Early Warning and Ballistics Early Warning lines reported radar evidence of unidentified flying objects, flying on a course due southeast. As of this moment, we have been unable to determine the nature of these objects, but for the time being, in the interest of national safety, we are declaring a state of Yellow Alert.’”

There was a moment’s silence, and Grace seized the doctor’s arm. With her free hand, she reached for Paul and drew him to her.

Rebecca Weiss started to cry, and her husband, Marty, just stood there, his face white.