Tomorrow! (8 page)

“We’re going to crap on it.”

For a moment, no one spoke. Then the city editor said, ‘Why?”

“Minerva’s mad.”

“You can’t do it!” Grieg, a reporter, a man of forty with graying red hair, made the assertion flatly. “The whole town’s proud—except for the usual naysayers. It’s the best CD

blowout ever staged in the middle west. About the
least
popular thing you could do would be crap on it.”

“Civil Defense,” Coley answered, with nothing but intonation to indicate his scorn, “is Communist-inspired.”

“
What
!”

“So Mrs. Sloan claims.”

“I always predicted,” Grieg moodily murmured, “they’d come for that moneybag with nets someday. Men in white.”

Payton, the city editor, said, “Just what do you want, Coley?”

The managing editor sighed. “I merely want to undo the work of about forty thousand damned good citizens-not to mention a like number of school kids—over the last years.” He considered. “Every day in Green Prairie, people get hurt in car crashes. All people hurt this afternoon will be victims of our crazed Civil Defense policies. Any dogs run over will be run over because of the air-raid rehearsal. Any fires started. All people delayed will be delayed unnecessarily. If anybody died in the hospitals, it will be—because the traffic jam held up some doctor.”

Grieg whistled. “The works, eh?
Jesus!
She
must
be mad!”

“She didn’t get home for dinner,” Coley answered quietly, “and she had guests.”

“Has she got a fiddle?” the reporter enquired.

“Fiddle?” someone echoed.

“—in case Rome burns?”

Coley looked out over the big room. “I was thinking that. Now look, you guys. Payton, spread this. No clowning. You could overdo CD criticism in such a way as to make everybody realize it was orders, and that the staff disagreed. I don’t want it! When we obey orders of that kind, we really obey ‘em. Run only stuff that actually seems to indict CD.”

“A lot of pretty devoted people are going to hate it. Have you considered mutiny?”

Payton asked.

Coley said, “Yes.”

Grieg muttered, “Sometimes, boss, even I get the old lady’s feeling. Why the hell drive yourself nuts getting set for a thing that probably never will happen and a thing you can’t do much about, if it does.”

“I know. It’s just the alternative that annoys you: do nothing; lie down; quit; take a cockeyed chance.
That,
in my opinion, is totally un-American. However . . .” His head shook. “A lot of Americans these days, a lot I used to respect, are doing and saying things I call un-American. Anyway, gentlemen, as of tonight the
Transcript
is anti-CD.”

Coley Borden went back to his office, back to the windows, back to staring silently at the area, beautiful in its garment of colored electric lights.

Later he approved the morning lead:

SIXTEEN HURT IN CD ALERT

Sister Cities Paralyzed

“Outrageous and Unnecessary”

—Says Mayor

GREEN PRAIRIE. September 21: Air-raid sirens, sending the population of this great metropolis cowering into “shelters,” keynoted at six P.M. yesterday the onset of a great fiasco in which sixteen persons were injured and large but unestimated damage was sustained by property.

He was still standing at the window, still staring at the same scene and thinking thoughts grown familiar over the years, thoughts he usually kept to himself, strange, grim and yet honest thoughts, when the early editions hit the streets and angry citizens began to set the
Transcript
phones jangling.

Nora Conner was a wonderful child. Unfortunately, she knew it. She was blessed with a remarkable intelligence; the blessing was accompanied by an overweening desire to put it to premature uses. The matter of studies was an example. The geography period had covered “Our Country,” and “Our State,” and was immersed in “Our Town.” There had been a homework assignment the day before. “Our
own
industries!” Mrs. Brock had breathed with enthusiasm.

“Just think, class! We’ve studied the imports and exports of dozens of foreign lands and of the nation and we’ve learned the principal industries of our state and
now
we’re going to memorize all we do right here in Green Prairie!”

“All we do in Green Prairie,” Nora had murmured, thinking of an overheard parental discussion of gambling, “won’t be in any musty old geography book.”

Mrs. Brock had diminished her smile—perfunctory, perhaps, from its long use in connection with local industry—and said with slight sharpness, “Nora. Did you speak?”

“Possibly,” Nora answered.

“What did you say, Nora?”

“I wasn’t aware,” Nora responded thoughtfully, “of saying it aloud. Pardon me.”

Mrs. Brock meditated, and pursued the matter no further. The last time she had persisted in probing Nora’s murmurings, Nora had reluctantly vouchsafed their subject: certain frank facts of natural history gleaned from idle reading in a book on pig breeding. Mrs. Brock resumed the mien of good will related to home industries—and myriad other subjects.

She would like, Nora thought judiciously, to teach us
something;
it’s just that the poor woman doesn’t know anything worth teaching.

It has been noted that Nora had evaded the study of geography on the previous evening.

She had, very honorably, opened the book. But she had pored over other matters than home industries and resources: matters contained in a hidden, paper-back volume entitled
Sin in Seven
Streets.
This item, borrowed from a classmate in return for the use of one of Nora’s mother’s necklaces at a party, purported to be “a frank and factual account of the shocking international traffic in womanhood, written by a team of world-renowned journalists.”

So it happened the next day (which was sunny and very hot) that Nora found herself ill prepared for geography recitation. Bells, which regiment the lives of children, rang loudly.

Arithmetics had been put away and thirty-nine sixth graders had taken out geographies, setting them on their desks, closed. Blackboards were erased.

“Now, class,” Mrs. Brock began, “we have memorized the industries of Green Prairie
and,
though it’s not in ‘Our State,’ of River City, also. I’m going to call on one of you to start the list and when he—or she—thinks it’s complete, I’ll ask for hands. Nora Conner. How many—

and what—industries did you memorize last night?”

Nora stood. It was her opinion that she was being picked on. Inasmuch as she had done no memorizing whatsoever, she could only regard her predicament in that light. It would not have occurred to her (under these circumstances) that very little in this wide world bored Mrs.

Brock more than the lists of what nations and cities made and shipped to each other. Nora was incapable of imagining—for all the yeastiness of her brain—that teachers even had such feelings, or to guess that Mrs. Brock had singled her out in the hope that her voluble memory would complete the dull circuit faster than any other pupil’s.

In her dilemma, however, Nora was not without resources. She had, to begin with, lived in Green Prairie for eleven years, the sum total of her life. She was observant. Her family was a lively one. She had also perceived early in her school career that where a long list is asked for—

or a complex matter is to be discussed—and where the victim of such inquiry is unprepared, a very thorough exposition of some recollected or guessed—at
portion
of the unknown whole will satisfy a teacher, even fool one, and often lead to a good mark when Hat failure threatened.

“Green Prairie,” Nora therefore began, taking her time, “has a vast metals industry. Early settlers in the area noticed the peculiar color of some of the rocks. These rocks, occurring in sandstone hills, are much older than most of the Missouri Basin. They were pushed up by volcanoes before the dinosaurs came on the earth. They are called igneous intrusions. They contained lead and zinc and other ores—”

“Just the
list,”
Mrs. Brock munnured. “The
geology
is something from last week’s lesson we got from
Life
magazine. Now. Our industries. Metals smelting is one, of course.”

“Petroleum. . . .”

Mrs. Brock nodded. “Green Prairie has a cracking plant.”

“. . . and, of course, agriculture and all that cities do with it. Sugar beets grow all around, wheat and corn, oats and barley. Green Prairie refines beet sugar and makes oatmeal. It—”

“Nora. Did you study last night?”

“Yes, Mrs. Brock.” Nora would have been happy to oblige with a detailed resume of harlotry in Buenos Aires, as noted by two American journalists who had made a three-day survey of the city. But she was not, she realized, on the beam in the matter of “industries.” Hands flew all around her.

Mrs. Brock sighed. “Sit down, Nora. Charles Williams.”

Charles stood. His small, marblelike eyes squinted, and his freckled face tipped back, his stomach mightily protruding. His voice shrilled and its every syllable was a wound to Nora’s self-esteem: “Steel, limestone, coking ovens, brick, brine, sulphuric acid, light metals including a large aluminum plant, airplane frames, farm machinery—this is the biggest business in the area—dairy products, furniture, pumps, hardware of all sorts, tools, dies, wool and flax fabrics, beet sugar”—his slitted eye rolled on Nora—“one of the
least
important industries—and also paint, dyes, wallpaper, plastics, patent medicines and varnish. Linoleum, soap, industrial resins and greases and potash. Doll carriages, cement—” his memory gave out.

“Very good—very good, indeed, Charles! Evelyn?”

A solemn child with a pale face, bangs and a surprisingly animated, even sassy voice said, “He forgot—toothpaste, synthetic flavorings, canned vegetables and a small but promising garment industry.”

“Excellent! Now, what does River City make and do
besides
these?”

Hands fluttered again, like confetti.

Roy Rich filled in: “River City has many of those industries, also.” His eyes did not squint, but shut, as he consulted memory and ripped off in a staccato: “World’s biggest built-in, tractor-plow factory, huge ceramics industry, lead and zinc smelters, electric-furnace reduction plants, nation’s eighth largest surgical aid and pros- pros- something—”

“Prosthetics.”

“Pros-thetics-whatever-that-is-plant, high-grade special oils, tungsten wire, nuts, bolts, screws and automatic screw machines, chicken and fence wire, and that’s all I remember.”

Mrs. Brock sighed. It hadn’t taken half the period, after all, to pull from her class the various items of the Sister Cities’ endless business and, she thought irrelevantly, the attendant smoke, fumes, slums, labor troubles and traffic congestion. She brightened. “Now, class, you’ve pretty well covered the lists in the book. We’ll turn to a more
creative
project. What industries can you
yourselves
list that are
not
in our geography book?”

Fewer hands rose. Nora thought poutily, She’s a sucker for
anything
she thinks is
creative!

It was not far from the truth, though Nora’s momentarily low opinion of Mrs. Brock’s educational penchant was unjustified.

“Halleck?” Mrs. Brock beamed.

“Candy,” said Halleck Watrous, hardly rising and dropping back in his seat at once.

“Well-yes,” the teacher murmured dubiously.

“Mr. Papandrocopulis makes the best nougat in the West,” Halleck said defensively.

“It’s a small local business. Who else?” She looked. “Mary?”

A sleek, prettied-up sixth grader with very blonde hair said, “My own father is superintendent of the Acme Rubber Products Company.”

“Very good,” Mrs. Brock nodded. Then, catching a subdued snicker in the male section, she flushed faintly and hurried on. “I can think of
dozens
of things! John?”

“Slaughterhouses and sawmills.”

“Excellent! Manda?”

“Lace. Old ladies tat it.”

“Marvin?”

“The Teen-James Company makes police whistles.”

“I suppose they do—very good—novelty products, we should call it.”

Nora had an idea and put up her hand, thinking to recoup. Mrs. Brock, surprised, said,

“Yes, Nora?”

“Amusement rides—Swan Island’s the biggest amusement park in the whole area.”

Mrs. Brock’s reaction was less than delighted and the class giggled.

“It isn’t
play
—for the people that make money out of it!” Nora said defensively. “It’s a
business.
I bet they make
more
money than the
banks
!”

The teacher nodded happily. “
Banks!
Now there is a
big
Sister City business. Finance, market trading, clearing houses, banks.” Horse dust, Nora thought to herself, with no clear image of a substance, but a sense that the phrase was appropriate.

Mrs. Brock went on. “Well, let me
hint.
What’s big, and mostly glass, that you see in the suburbs and the country. . . ?”

They guessed it. Greenhouses, nurseries and a new hydroponics experiment in winter-vegetable raising.

It was not a good day for Nora. She was unable to define “commission government” in civics, and she got three dates wrong in the history test. Moreover, when she stopped beside the school fence to argue with Judy Martin on the meaning of “morphodite,” Billy Westcott crept up behind her, tied her two long pigtails together and hung them over an iron picket. The result was that, finding herself overwhelmed by Judy’s superiority in esoteric information and being told there was “no such word,” Nora decided to run—and did not. Instead, her head jerked back nastily, her neck-hair was painfully pulled, she bumped the iron fence, and only a fast, reflex scuffling of her feet saved her from falling, and from hanging ignominiously by her braids. She unhooked herself speedily. The same thing had already happened twice before that year: once on the iron cleat of a phone pole and once on a fire extinguisher. She threw four futile rocks at the hilarious, rapidly retreating Billy.

Her journey back to her home did little to improve things.