* * * * *
Weary and grateful, Marsha sank down at a table in the corner. “It feels good,” she commented. “Nice and warm.”
Hamilton stood absorbing the dim friendliness of the room, the bedraggled comfortableness of the heaped ashtrays, the collections of exhausted beer bottles, the tinny jangle of the jukebox. Safe Harbor hadn’t changed. At the bar sat the usual group of workmen, vacant-faced shapes hunched moodily over their beers. The wooden floor was littered with cigarette butts. The bartender, languidly wiping the surface of the bar with his dirty rag, nodded to McFeyffe as the three of them seated themselves around Marsha.
“Good to get off my feet,” McFeyffe sighed.
“Everybody want beer?” Laws asked. They signified their assent and he wandered off to the bar.
“We’ve come a long way,” Marsha said wanly, slipping out of her coat “I don’t believe I’ve ever been here before.”
“Probably not,” Hamilton agreed.
“Is this a place you come to?”
“This is where we all used to go for beer. When I was working for Colonel Edwards.”
“Oh,” Marsha said. “I remember, now. You used to mention it”
Carrying four bottles of Golden Glow beer, Laws appeared and cautiously seated himself. “Help yourselves,” he told them.
“You notice something?” Hamilton said, as he sipped his beer. “Look at the kids.”
Here and there in the dim recesses of the bar were teenagers. Fascinated, he watched a young girl, certainly no older than fourteen, make her way to the bar. That was new; he didn’t recall that in the real world … it seemed a long way behind them. And yet, this Communist fantasy wavered around him, insubstantial and hazy. The bar, the rows of bottles and glasses, extended into an indistinct blur. The drinking youths, the tables, the litter of beer bottles, faded off into cloudy darkness; he couldn’t locate the rear of the room. The familiar red neon signs reading Men and Women were not visible.
Squinting, he shaded his eyes and peered. A long way off, past the tables and drinkers, was a nondescript streak of red light. Was that the signs?
“What does that read?” he asked Laws, pointing.
Lips moving, Laws said, “It looks like Emergency Exit.” After a moment he added, “It’s up on the wall of the Bevatron. In case there’s a fire.”
“It looks more like Men and Women to me,” McFeyffe said. “That’s what it always said, before.”
“Habit,” Hamilton told him.
“Why are those kids drinking?” Laws asked. “And taking dope. Look at them—they’ve got weed there, sure as hell.”
“Coca-cola, dope, liquor, sex,” Hamilton said. “The moral depravity of the system. They probably work in uranium mines.” He couldn’t erase the bitterness from his voice. “And they’ll grow up to be gangsters and carry sawed-off shotguns.”
“Chicago gangsters,” Laws amplified.
“Then into the Army to slaughter peasants and burn their huts. That’s the kind of system we have; that’s the kind of country this is. Breeding ground for killers and exploiters.” Turning to his wife, he said, “Right, honey? The kids taking dope, capitalists with blood on their hands, starving bums scavenging through garbage cans—”
“Here comes a friend of yours,” Marsha said quietly.
“Of mine?” Surprised, Hamilton turned dubiously around in his chair.
Hurrying through the shadows toward them came a slim, willowy blonde, lips breathlessly apart, hair tumbled over her shoulders. At first he didn’t recognize her. She wore a drawstring blouse, low-cut and rumpled. Her face glowed with layers of make-up. Her tight skirt was slit almost to her thighs. She had on no stockings and her bare feet were thrust into untidy, low-heeled loafers. Her breasts were immense. As she came up to the table, a cloud of perfume and warmth drifted around him … a complicated mixture of scents that brought back equally complicated memories.
“Hello,” Silky said, in a low, husky voice. Bending over him, she briefly touched her lips to his temple. “I was waiting for you.”
Rising, Hamilton offered her a chair. “Sit down.”
“Thanks.” Seating herself, Silky glanced around the table. “Hello, Mrs. Hamilton,” she said to Marsha. “Hello, Charley. Hello, Mr. Laws.”
“May I ask you one question?” Marsha said curtly.
“Certainly.”
“What size bra do you wear?”
Without self-consciousness, Silky slipped down her blouse until her magnificent breasts were visible. “Does that answer your question?” she asked. She wore no bra.
Blushing, Marsha retreated. “Yes, thanks.”
Gazing with unabashed awe at the girl’s distended, almost mystically up-raised bosom, Hamilton said, “I guess the bra is a capitalist trick, designed to deceive the masses.”
“Talk about masses,” Marsha said halfheartedly, but the sight had robbed her of any real spirit. “You must have trouble finding things you’ve dropped,” she said to Silky.
“In a Communist society,” Laws announced, “the proletariat never drops anything.”
Silky smiled absently. Touching her breasts with her long, tapering fingers, she sat for a time, deep in thought. Then, with a shrug, she lifted her blouse around her, smoothed down her sleeves, and folded her hands on the table. “What’s new?”
“Big battle over our way,” Hamilton said. “Bloodsucking vampire of Wall Street versus heroic, clear-eyed, joyfully-singing workmen.”
Silky eyed him uncertainly. “Who seems to be winning?”
“Well,” Hamilton conceded, “the lying fascist jackal-pack is pretty much buried in flaming slogans.”
“Look,” Laws said suddenly, pointing. “See that over there?”
In the corner of the bar stood the cigarette dispensing machine.
“Remember that?” Laws asked Hamilton. “I sure do.”
“And there’s the other one.” Laws pointed to the candy dispensing machine, in the opposite corner of the bar, almost lost in the drifting shadows. “Remember what we did to that?”
“I remember. We had that thing spouting top-quality French brandy.”
“We were going to change society,” Laws said. “We were going to alter the world. Think what we could have done, Jack.”
“I’m thinking.”
“We could have turned out everything anybody ever wanted. Food, medicine, whiskey, comic books, plows, contraceptives. What a principle that was.”
“The Principle of Divine Regurgitation. The Law of Miraculous Fission.” Hamilton nodded. “That would have worked out fine in this particular world.”
“We could have outdone the Party,” Laws agreed. “They have to build the dams and heavy industries. All we needed was a U-no bar.”
“And a length of neon tubing,” Hamilton reminded him. “Yes, it would have been a lot of fun.”
“You sound so sad,” Silky said, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Hamilton answered shortly. “Nothing at all”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No.” He grinned a little. “Thanks anyhow.”
“We could go upstairs and go to bed.” Willingly, she stroked aside the fabric that covered her loins. “I always wanted you to have me.”
Hamilton patted her wrist “You’re a good girl. But that won’t help.”
“You’re sure?” Appealingly, she showed him her bare, moistly luminous thighs. “It’ll make us both feel better … you’d enjoy it …”
“Maybe once, but not now.”
“Isn’t this a sweet little conversation?” Marsha murmured, her face pinched and drawn.
“We were just kidding,” Hamilton told her gently. “No harm intended.”
“Death to monopolistic capitalism,” Laws interjected, with a solemn belch.
“All power to the working class,” Hamilton responded dutifully.
“For a people’s democracy of the United States,” Laws stated.
“For
a Soviet of Socialistic Americas.”
Around the dim bar, a few of the workmen had looked up from their beers. “Keep your voice down,” McFeyffe warned uneasily.
“Hear, hear,” Laws cried, banging on the table with his pocketknife. Opening the knife, he laid it out menacingly. “I’m going to skin one of the carrion-eaters of Wall Street,” he explained.
Hamilton studied him suspiciously. “Negroes don’t carry pocketknives. That’s a bourgeois stereotype.”
“I do,” Laws said flatly.
“Then,” Hamilton decided, “you’re not a Negro. You’re a crypto-Negro who’s betrayed his religious group.”
“Religious group?” Laws echoed, hypnotized.
“The concept race is a fascistic concept,” Hamilton confided. “The Negro is a religious and cultural group, nothing more.”
“Ill be damned,” Laws said, impressed. “Say, this stuff isn’t bad at all.”
“Would you like to dance?” Silky said to Hamilton, with sudden intensity. “I wish I could do something for you … there’s such an awful despair about you.”
“I’ll recover,” he told her briefly. “What can we do for the revolution?” Laws demanded eagerly. “Who do we kill?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Hamilton said. “Anybody you see. Anybody who can read and write.”
Silky and some of the attentive workmen exchanged glances. “Jack,” Silky said, in a worried voice, “this isn’t a joking matter.”
“Absolutely not,” Hamilton agreed. “We were almost lynched by that mad dog of monopolistic finance, Tillingford.”
“Let’s liquidate Tillingford,” Laws cried.
“I’ll do it,” Hamilton said. “I’ll dissolve him and pour him down the drain.”
“It seems so funny to hear you talk this way,” Silky said, eyes still fixed doubtfully on him. “Please, Jack, don’t talk this way. It scares me.”
“Scares you? Why?”
“Because—” She gestured hesitantly. “I think you’re being sarcastic.”
Marsha gave a thin, frantic bark of hysteria. “Oh, God, not her, too.”
Some of the workmen had slid from their stools; edging their way among the tables, they were approaching quietly. The noise of the bar had faded away. The jukebox was deathly still. In the rear, the teen-agers had slipped away into the eddying gloom.
“Jack,” Silky said apprehensively, “be careful. For my sake.”
“Now I’ve seen everything,” Hamilton said. “You, politically active. You! An honest, home-loving girl, is that it? Corrupted by the system?”
“By capitalist gold,” Laws said moodily, rubbing his dark forehead and upturning his empty beer bottle. “Seduced by a bloated entrepreneur. A minister, probably. Has her maidenhead mounted on the wall of his library, over the fireplace.”
Gazing around the room, Marsha said, “This isn’t really a bar, is it? It just looks like a bar.”
“It’s a bar in front,” Hamilton pointed out. “What more do you want?”
“But in back,” Marsha said unsteadily, “it’s a Communist cell. And this girl here—”
“You work for Guy Tillingford, don’t you?” Silky said to Hamilton. “I picked you up there, that day.”
“That’s right. But Tillingford fired me. Colonel T. E. Edwards fired me, Tillingford fired me … and I guess we’re not done, yet.” With vague interest, Hamilton noticed that the circle of workmen around them were armed. In this world, everybody was armed. Everybody was on one side or the other. Even Silky. “Silky,” he said aloud, “is this the same person I used to know?”
For a moment the girl faltered. “Of course. But—” She shook her head uncertainly; tides of blond hair spilled down around her shoulders. “Everything’s so darn mixed-up. I can hardly keep it straight.” “Yeah,” Hamilton agreed. “It has been a mess.” “I thought we were friends,” Silky said unhappily. 1 thought we were on the same side.”
“We are,” Hamilton said. “Or were, once. Somewhere else, in some other place. A long way from here.” “But—didn’t you want to exploit me?” “My dear,” he said sadly, “I have eternally wanted to exploit you. Throughout time. In all lands and places, in all worlds. Everywhere. I’d want to exploit you until the day I die. I would like to take hold of you and exploit you until that titanic chest of yours rattles like an aspen in the wind.”
“I thought so,” Silky said brokenly. For an interval she leaned against him, her cheek resting against his necktie. Clumsily, he toyed with a strand of blond hair that had fallen across her eye. “I wish,” she said distantly, “that things had worked out better.”
“So do I,” Hamilton said. “Maybe—I could drop by and have a drink with you, once in awhile.”
“Colored water,” Silky said. “That’s all it is. And the bartender gives me one chip.”
A little sheepishly, the circle of workmen had drawn their rifles out. “Now?” one of them asked. Disengaging herself, Silky got to her feet “I suppose,” she murmured, almost inaudibly. “Go ahead. Get it over with.”
“Death to the fascist dogs,” Laws said hollowly.
“Death to the wicked,” Hamilton added. “Can we stand up?”
“Certainly,” Silky said. “Whatever you want. I wish— I’m sorry, Jack. I really am. But you’re not with us, are you?”
“Afraid not,” Hamilton agreed, almost good-humoredly.
“You’re against us?”
“I must be,” he admitted. “I can’t very well be anything else. Isn’t that so?”
“Are we just going to let them murder us?” Marsha protested.
“They’re your friends,” McFeyffe said, in a sick, defeated voice. “Do something; say something. Can’t you reason with them?”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” Hamilton said. “They don’t reason.” Turning to his wife, he gently raised her to her feet “Close your eyes,” he told her. “And relax. It won’t hurt much.”
“What—are you going to do?” Marsha whispered.
“I’m going to get us out of here. By the only method that seems to work.” As the circle of rifles clicked and lifted around him, Hamilton drew back his fist, took careful aim, and hit his wife cleanly on the jaw.
With a faint shiver, Marsha collapsed in Bill Laws’ arms. Hamilton took hold of her limp body and stood foolishly clutching her. Foolishly, because the dispassionate workmen were still very tangible and real, as they loaded and adjusted their guns.
“My God,” Laws said wonderingly. “They’re still here. We’re not back at the Bevatron.” Stunned, he helped Hamilton support his inert, totally unconscious wife. “This isn’t Marsha’s world after all”
XVI
“But it doesn’t make sense,” Hamilton said woodenly, holding onto the unstirring, warmly yielding body of his wife. “It must be Marsha’s world. If it isn’t, then whose world is it?”
And then, with overwhelming relief, he noticed it.
Charley McFeyffe had begun to change. It was involuntary; McFeyffe could not control it. The transformation stemmed from his deepest, most profound layer of beliefs. Part of and hub to his over-all view of the world.
McFeyffe was visibly growing. As they watched, he ceased to be a squat, heavy-set little man with a potbelly and pug nose. He became tall. He became magnificent A god-like nobility descended over him. His arms were gigantic pillars of muscle. His chest was massive. His eyes flashed righteous fire. His square, morally inflexible jaw was set in a stern and just line as he gazed severely around the room.
The resemblance to (Tetragrammaton) was startling. McFeyffe had clearly not been able to shed all his religious convictions.
“What is it?” Laws demanded, fascinated. “What’s he turning into?”
“I don’t feel so good,” McFeyffe boomed, in ringing, god-like tones. “I think I’ll go take a bromo.”
The burly workmen had lowered their guns. Awed, trembling, they gaped at him with reverence.
“Comrade Commissar
,” one of them muttered. “We didn’t recognize you.”
Sickishly, McFeyffe turned to Hamilton. “Damn fools,” he boomed in his great authoritative voice.
“Well, I’ll be goddammed,” Hamilton said softly. “The little Holy Father himself.”
McFeyffe’s noble mouth opened and closed, but no sound came.
“That explains it,” Hamilton said. “When the umbrella got up there and (Tetragrammaton) had a good look at you. No wonder you were shocked. And no wonder He gave you a blast.”
“I was surprised,” McFeyffe admitted, after pause. “I didn’t really believe He was up there. I thought it was a fake.”
“McFeyffe,” Hamilton said, “you’re a Communist”
“Yeah,” McFeyffe boomed wretchedly. “Aren’t I, though?”
“How long?”
“Years. Since the Depression.”
“Kid brother shot by Herbert Hoover?”
“No. Just hungry and out of work and tired of taking it on the chin.”
“You’re not a bad guy, in a way,” Hamilton said. “But you certainly are twisted around inside. You’re more insane than Miss Reiss. You’re more of a Victorian than Mrs. Pritchet. You’re more of a father-worshiper than Silvester. You’re the worst parts of all of them rolled in together. And a lot more. But other than that, you’re all right.”
“I don’t have to listen to you,” the magnificent golden deity declared.
“And on top of everything else, you’re a heel. You’re a subversive, a conscienceless liar, a power-hungry crook, and you’re a heel. How could you do that to Marsha? How could you make up all that stuff?”
After a moment, the radiant creature answered him. “The end, it’s said, justifies the means.”
“Party tactics?”
“People like your wife are dangerous.”
“Why?” Hamilton asked.
“They don’t belong to any group. They fool around with everything. As soon as we turn our back—”
“So you destroy them. You turn them over to the lunatic patriots.”
“The lunatic patriots,” McFeyffe said, “we can understand. But not your wife. She signs Party peace petitions and she reads the Chicago Tribune. People like her—they’re more of a menace to Party discipline than any other bunch. The cult of individualism. The idealist with his own law, his own ethics. Refusing to accept authority. It undermines society. It topples the whole structure. Nothing lasting can be built on it. People like your wife just won’t take orders.”