Troublemakers. Part 5

Sims stopped to refill his pipe, and stared up at the big black-lined poster near the door.

HEAR QARLO, THE SOLDIER FROM THE FUTURE!.

SEE THE MAN FROM TOMORROW,.

AND HEAR HIS STORIES.

OF THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE FUTURE!.

FREE! NO OBLIGATIONS! HURRY!.

The advertising had been effective, and it was a fine campaign.

Qarlo had been more valuable just telling about his Wars, about how men died in that day in the future, than he could ever have been as a strategist.

It took a real soldier, who hated war, to talk of it, to show people that it was ugly, and unglamorous. And there was a certain sense of foul defeat, of hopelessness, in knowing the future was the way Qarlo described it. It made you want to stop the flow of Time, say, "No. The future willnot be like this! We will abolish war!"

Certainly enough steps in the right direction had been taken. The legislation was there, and those who had held back, who had tried to keep animosity alive, were being disposed of every day.

Qarlo had done his work well.

There was just one thing bothering special advisor Lyle Sims. The soldier had come back in time, so he was here. That much they knew for certain.

But a nagging worry ate at Sims's mind, made him say prayers he had thought himself incapable of inventing. Made him fight to get Qarlo heard by everyone . . .

Could the future be changed?Or was it inevitable?

Would the world Qarlo left inevitably appear?

Would all their work be for nothing?

It couldn't be! It dare not be!

He walked back inside, got in line to sign the pet.i.tions again, though it was his fiftieth time.

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY.

I had this pal when I was about fifteen or so, I'll call him Dandy, even though that wasn't his name. He's still around, and I see no reason to disrespect him, but I want to use him as the example of the troublemaker lesson embodied in the story that follows . . . an admittedly silly little story I wrote early in my career. Dandy was talented. He was whip-smart, and goodlooking and could talk to girls and adults with ease. He was the front-man for our bunch of weird geekazoids, because he got along with the basketball team and the social slicks and the cops, even. But he was one of us, because he liked to read, and he had a talent for writing, and he understood science and math and all like that, sort of an all-around Renaissance High School kid. So we all thought he was going to be the one who became famous and rich and had the best-looking girls. (Remember, I was the one who was gonna wind up in the gutter or jail.) And soon after we all graduated high school, Dandy wrote this story that got published in one of the most prestigious magazines of the time, he got a book contract, he got a full scholarship to an atomic energy university, and he was courted and inducted into a top-line fraternity. And the book never got published, he bombed out of school, he drank too much, and he wound up writing copy for some mail order catalogue. Spent a decade or so wandering around, and last time I heard of him he'd managed to find a happy berth, and was enjoying life. But now he's approaching seventy, and there was a lot of potential and grandeur that never got to show itself. He procrastinated. He put off till a decade later, that which he should've done today. Rain, rain, go away, come again . . .

Sometimes I wish I were a duck, mused Hobert Krouse.

Standing in front of his desk, looking out the window at the amount of water the black sky had begun to let flow, his thoughts rolled in the same trough made for them years before.

"Rain, rain, go away, come again another . . ." he began,sotto voce .

"Krouse!Come away from that window and get back to those weather a.n.a.lyses, man, or you'll be out walking in that, instead of just looking at it!" The voice had a sandpaper edge, and it rasped across Hobert's senses in much the same way real sandpaper might. Hobert gasped involuntarily and turned.

Mr. Beigen stood, florid and annoyed, framed in the big walnut timbers of the entrance to his office.

"I - I was just looking at the rain, sir. You see, my predictionswere correct. Itis going to be a prolonged wet spell . . ." Hobert began, obsequiously sliding back into his swivel chair.

"Balderdash, man," Mr. Beigen roared. "Nothing of the sort! I've told you time and again, Krouse, leave the predictions to the men who are paid for that sort of thing. You just tend to your checking, and leave the brainwork to men who have the equipment. Prolonged rain, indeed! All my reports say fair.

"And let's have that be thelast time we see you at something other than your job during work hours, Krouse. Which are eight-thirty to five, six days a week," he added.With a quick glance across the rest of the office, immobilizing every person there with its rockiness, Beigen went back into his office, the door slamming shut with finality.

Hobert thought he caught a fragment of a sentence, just as the door banged closed. It sounded like "Idiot," but he couldn't be sure.

Hobert did not like the tone Mr. Beigen had used in saying it was thelast time he wanted to see him away from his desk. It sounded more like a promise than a demand.

The steady pound of the rain on the window behind him made him purse his lips in annoyance. Even though his job was only checking the weather predictions sent down from the offices upstairs against the messages sent out by the teletype girls, still he had been around the offices of Havelock, Beigen and Elsesser long enough to take a crack at predicting himself.

Even though Mr. Beigen was the biggest man in the wholesale farm supply business, and Hobert was one small link in a chain employing many hundreds of people, still he didn't have to scream that way, did he?

Hobert worried for a full three minutes, until he realized that the stack of invoices had been augmented by yet another pile from the Gloversville, Los Angeles and Topeka teletypes. He began furiously trying to catch up. Something which he would never quite be able to do.

Walking home in the rain, his collar turned up, his bowler pulled down tight over his ears, the tips of his shoes beginning to lose their shine from the water, Hobert's thoughts began to take on a consistency much like the angry sky above him.

Eight years in the offices of Havelock, Beigen and Elsesser had done nothing for him but put sixty-eight dollars and fifty-five cents into his hand each week. The work was an idiot's ch.o.r.e, and though Hobert had never finished college, still it was a job far beneath his capabilities.

Hobert's section of the firm was one of those little services rendered to farmers within the reach of the company's services. A long-range weather forecast for all parts of the country, sent free each week to thousands of subscribers.

A crack of thunder split Hobert's musings, forcing him to a further awareness of the foul weather. Rain had soaked him from hat crown to shoe soles and even gotten in through his upturned collar, to run down his back in chilly threads. He began to wish there might be someone waiting at home for him with the newspaper (the one he had bought at the corner was now a sodden ma.s.s) and his slippers, but he knew there would not be.

Hobert had never married - he had just not foundthe girl he told himself must come to him. In fact, the last affair he could recall having had was five years before, when he had gone up to Bear Mountain for two weeks. She had been a Western Union telegraph operator named Alice, with very silky chestnut hair, and for a while Hobert had thought perhaps. But he had gone back to New York and she had gone back to Trenton, New Jersey, without even a formal goodbye, and Hobert despaired of ever finding The One.

He walked down West 52nd to Seventh Avenue, scuffing his feet in irritation at the puddles which placed themselves so he could not fail to walk through them, soaking his socks. At 50th he boarded the subway uptown and all the way sat brooding.

Who does Beigen think he is, Hobert seethed within himself. I've been in that office eight years, three months and . . . well, I've been there well over eight years, three months. Who does he think he's pushing around like that? I may be a little smaller, but I'll be (his mind fortified itself)d.a.m.ned (his mind looked around in embarra.s.sment to see if anyone had noticed) if I'll take treatment like that. I'll - I'llquit , that's what I'll do. I'll quit. Then where will he be? Who'll he get to fill my job as capably as I can?

But even as he said it, he could see the ad in theHerald-Tribune the night he would resign: OFFICE Boy-clk, 1820 exc. future $40 no exp. nec. Havelock, Beigen Elsesser 229 W 52.

He could see it so clearly in his mind because that had been the ad to which he had replied, eight years, three months and an undetermined number of weeks before. The horror of it all was compounded by the fact that he couldn't evenanswer the ad now. He was no longer 1820. He was caroming toward 50.

The mindless roar of the train hurtling through the subway dimmed for Hobert and, as happens to everyone occasionally, everything summed up for him. The eight years summed up. His life summed up.

"I'm a failure." He said it aloud, and heads turned toward him, but he didn't notice. He said it again in his mind, clearer this time, for it was true and he knew it:I'm a failure .

I've never been to Puerto Rico or India or even to Trenton, New Jersey, he thought. The farthest away from this city I've been is Bear Mountain, and that was only for two weeks. I've never really loved anyone - except Mother, he hastened to add; and she's been gone thirteen years now - and no one has ever really loved me.

When the line of thoughts had run itself out, Hobert looked up, misty-eyed, and saw that he had gone past his station. He got off, walked over and took the downtown train back to West 110th.

In his room, cramped by books and periodicals so that free s.p.a.ce was nearly non-existent, Hobert removed his wet hat and coat, hung them near the radiator, and sat down on the bed, which served as a couch. I wish something truly unusual would happen to me, thought Hobert. I wish something so spectacular would happen that everyone would turn as I went down the street, and say, "There goes Hobert Krouse; what aman! " And they would have awe and wonder in their eyes. I wish it would happen to me just once. "Every man is ent.i.tled to fame at least once in his lifetime!" He said it with force, for he believed it. But nothing happened, and Hobert went to bed that night with the wind howling through the s.p.a.ce between the apartment buildings and with the rain beating against his window.

Perhaps it will wash some of that dirt off the outside, he mused, thinking of the window that had not been clean since he had moved in. But then, it was five floors up and the custodian wouldn't hire a window-washer and it was too dangerous out there for Hobert to do it. Sleep began to press down on him, the sure feel of it washing away his worries of the day. Almost as an incantation he repeated the phrase he had remembered from his childhood, the phrase he had murmured thousands of times since.

"Rain, rain, go away, come again another day." He began the phrase again, but sleep cut it off in mid-thought.

It rained all that week, and by Sunday morning, when Hobert emerged from the brownstone face of his building, the ground around the one lone tree growing slantwise on the sloping sidewalk of W. 110th Street was mushy and runny. The gutters were swollen with flowing torrents. Hobert looked up at the darkened sky which was angry even at eleven in the morning, with no trace of sun.

In annoyance he ran through the "Rain, rain, go away," nonsense and trudged up the hill to the corner of Broadway for breakfast.

In the little restaurant, his spread-bottom drooping over a stool too small for his pear shape, Hobert gave huge traditional leers to Florence, the redhead behind the counter, and ordered the usual: "Two up, ham steak, coffee, cream, Florence."As he ate his eggs, Hobert returned again to his wistful dreams of a few evenings previous.

"Florence," he said, "you ever wish something spectacular would happen to you?" He pushed a mouthful of toast and ham around his tongue to get the sentence out.

Florence looked up from her duty; putting rock-hard b.u.t.ter squares on paper pads. "Yeah, I useta wish somethin'd happen ta me." She pushed a string of red hair back into place. "But it never did." She shrugged.

"Like what did you wish?" inquired Hobert.

"Oh,you know. Silly stuff, like whyn't Mahlon Brando come in here an' grab me an' like that. Or whyn't I win a millyun bucks in the Irish Sweepstakes and come back here some aftuhnoon wearin' a mink stole and flip the end of it in that stinkin' Erma Geller's kisser.You know." She went back to the b.u.t.ter.

Hobert knew. He had made equivalent wishes himself, with particulars slightly changed. It had been Gina Lollobrigida and a $250 silk shantung suit like Mr. Beigen owned, whenhe had daydreams.

He finished the eggs and ham, wiped up the last little drippings of egg yellow, bolted his coffee, and, wiping his mouth with his paper napkin, said, "Well, see you tomorrow, Florence."

She accepted the exact change he left for the bill, noted the usual fifteen cents under the plate and said, "Ain'tcha comin' in for dinner tanight?"

Hobert a.s.sumed an air of bored detachment. "No, no, I think I shall go downtown and take in a show tonight. Or perhaps I shall dine at The Latin Quarter or Lindy's. With pheasant under gla.s.s and caviar and some of that famous Lindy's cheesecake. I shall decide when I get down there." He began to walk out, joviality in his walk.

"Oh, yasuch a character," laughed Florence, behind him.

But the rain continued, and Hobert only went a few streets down Broadway where the storm had driven everyone off the sidewalks, with the exception of those getting the Sunday editions. "Lousy day," he muttered under his breath. Been like this all week, he observed to himself. That ought to teach that bigmouth Beigen that maybe I can predict as well as his high-priced boys upstairs. Maybenow he'll listen to me!

Hobert could see Mr. Beigen coming over to his desk, stammering for a moment, then, putting his arm around Hobert's shoulders - which Hobert carefully ignored - telling Hobert he was terribly sorry and he would never scream again, and would Hobert forgive him for his rudeness and here was a fifteen dollar raise and a job upstairs in the a.n.a.lysis department.

Hobert could see it all. Then the wetness of his socks, clinging to his ankles, made the vision fade. Oh, rain, rain!

The movie was just opening, and though Hobert despised Barbara Stanwyck, he went in to kill the time.

It was lonely for a pot-bellied man of forty-six in New York without any close friends and all the current books and magazines read.

Hobert tsk-tsked all the way through the picture, annoyed at the simpleton plot. He kept thinking to himself that if he had one wish he would wish she never made another picture.

When he emerged, three hours later, it was afternoon and the rain whipped into the alcove behind the ticket booth drenching him even before he could get onto the street. It was a cold rain, wetter than anyHobert could remember, and thick, with no s.p.a.ce between drops, it seemed. As though G.o.d were tossing down all the rain in the heavens at once.

Hobert began walking, humming to himself the little rain, rain ditty. His mind began trying to remember how many times he had uttered that series of words. He failed, for it stretched back to his childhood.

Every time he had seen a rainfall he had made the same appeal. And he was surprised to realize now that it had worked almost uncannily, many times.

He could recall one sunny day when he was twelve, that his family had set aside for a picnic. It had suddenly darkened and begun to come down scant minutes before they were to leave.

Hobert remembered having pressed himself up flat against the front room windows, one after another, wildly repeating the phrase over and over. The windows had been cold, and his nose had felt funny, all flattened up that way. But after a few minutes it had worked. The rain had stopped, the sky had miraculously cleared, and they went to Huntington Woods for the picnic. It hadn't been a really good picnic, but that wasn't important. Whatwas important was thathe had stopped the rain with his own voice.

For many years thereafter Hobert had believed that. And he had applied the rain, rain ditty as often as he could, which was quite often. Sometimes it never seemed to work, and others it did. But whenever he got around to saying it, the rain never lasted too long afterward.

Wishes, wishes, wishes, ruminated Hobert. If I had one wish, what would I wish? Would the wish really come true?

Or do you have to keep repeating your wish? Is that the secret? Is that why some people get what they want eventually, because they make the same wish, over and over, the same way till it comes true?

Perhaps we all have the ability to make our wishes come true, but we must persist in them, for belief and the strength of your convictions is a powerful thing. If I had one wish, what would I wish? I'd wish that . .

It was then, just as Hobert saw the Hudson River beginning to overflow onto Riverside Drive, rising up and up over the little park along the road, that he realized.

"Oh my goodness!" cried Hobert, starting up the hill as fast as he could.

"Rain, rain, go away, come again another day."

Hobert said it, sprayed his throat, and made one more chalk mark on the big board full of marks. He said it again, and once more marked.

It was odd. All that rainhad gone away, only to come another day. The unfortunate part was that itall came back the same day. Hobert was - literally speaking - up the creek. He had been saying it since he was a child, how many times he had no idea. The postponements had been piling up for almost forty-six years, which was quite a spell of postponements. The only way he could now stop the flood of rain was to keep saying it, and say it one more time than all the times he had said it during those forty-six years. And the next time all forty-six years plus the one before plus another. And so on. And so on.

The water was lapping up around the cornice of his building, and Hobert crouched farther into his rubber raft on its roof, pulling the big blackboard toward him, repeating the phrase, chalking, spraying occasionally.

It wasn't bad enough that he was forced to sit there repeating, repeating, repeating all day, just to stopthe rain; there was another worry nagging Hobert's mind.

Though it had stopped raining now, for a while, and though he was fairly safe on the roof of his building, Hobert was worried. For when the weather became damp, he invariably caught laryngitis.

NIGHT VIGIL.

The lesson in this "s.p.a.ce opera" should be apparent. If you're hired to do a job, DO THE d.a.m.nED JOB! There are always punk-out reasons you can dream up why: "I'm not being paid enough" or "They work me too hard" or "How come s/he over there is doing the same job as I am, but s/he's getting paid twice as much" or "They don't respect me." You're supposed toenjoy the work you do, but if circ.u.mstances put you in the grease at a Mickey D's, or under a leaking tranny on somebody's Yugo, or working the stockroom at a K-Mart or Target, and you have to do it for the dough, and you hate the job, and you hate the hours, and you hate the fact that you can't be out hanging with the posse, well tough sh-t, Joker; you signed on to do the job, and they pay you to do it, so DO THE d.a.m.nED JOB!

If you don't like the gig, quit. Give 'em notice promptly, don't leave 'em in the lurch suddenly, don't trash the area out of baby-spite, and don't start shoplifting. Just DO THE d.a.m.n JOB! That's how somebody with strength does it. Don't whine, don't p.i.s.s'n'moan, don't jerk 'em around, just hang in there as long as it's ethically necessary, and they get in the wind. But if you sign on to do the job, no matter how onerous the ch.o.r.e, DO THE d.a.m.nED JOB, justdo it.

Darkness seeped in around the little quonset. It oozed out of the deeps of s.p.a.ce and swirled around Ferreno's home. The automatic scanners turned and turned, whispering quietly, their message of wariness unconsciously rea.s.suring the old man.

He bent over and plucked momentarily at a bit of lint on the carpet. It was the only speck of foreign matter on the rug, reflecting the old man's perpetual cleanliness and almost fanatical neatness.

The racks of bookspools were all binding-to-binding, set flush with the lip of the shelves; the bed was made with a military tightness that allowed a coin to bounce high three times; the walls were free of fingerprints - dusted and wiped clean twice a day; there was no speck of lint or dust on anything in the one room quonset.

When Ferreno had flicked the single bit of matter from his fingers, into the incinerator, the place was immaculate.

It reflected twenty-four years of watching, waiting, and living alone. Living alone on the edge of Forever, waiting for something that might never come. Tending blind, dumb machines that could saySomething is out here , but also said,We don't know what it is .

Ferreno returned to his pneumo-chair, sank heavily into it, and blinked, his deep-set grey eyes seeking into the furthest rounded corner of the quonset's ceiling. His eyes seemed to be looking for something.

But there was nothing there he did not already know. Far too well.

He had been on this asteroid, this spot lost in the darkness, for twenty-four years. In that time, nothing had happened.

There had been no warmth, no women, no feeling, and only a brief flurry of emotion for almost twenty of those twenty-four years.Ferreno had been a young man when they had set him down on The Stone. They had pointed out there and said to him: "Beyond the farthest spot you can see, there's an island universe. In that island universe, there's an enemy, Ferreno. One day he'll become tired of his home and come after yours.

"You're here to watch for him."