The tall narrow boy said, “Why doesn’t your father run his own errands? He’s all grown up now.” He said it gracefully because that’s the way he was.
Woody stared straight ahead with all the best deafness he could muster. It was the deafness he did when he sat in the corner of the closet with his back to the world and wouldn’t hear. He could shut out lots and lots.
The other boy and the girl said, “Come on, Woody. The vertical world is turning horizontal. Come with us, Woody. We’re in Brooklyn now. This is New Lots. This is our stop. This is our place. Take a chance, Woody. Dare. Dance. Dance in the rain.”
And everybody in the car said, “Come one, come all, Woody. There’s room for you. There’s room for everyone.”
But Woody stared straight ahead, which made everything on either side blurry, and wouldn’t hear. It was as good as shutting his eyes. He held onto his map and his directions with both hands so that he would not become lost.
Woody felt the subway come to a smooth stop. He wouldn’t admit it, but he heard the doors slide gently open. He wouldn’t admit it, but after a long moment he heard the doors slide gently shut again. He only unblunked his eyes when he felt the train begin to move again.
He was alone in the car. There was no one else there. The girl in that purple dress down to her ankle and up to her thigh was gone. The boy in the white suit was gone. The boy in the brown doublet and orange shirt was gone. All the people in the car were gone. Even the robot was gone, and the umbrella with him. You can imagine how that made Woody feel.
No hand to hold. No umbrella to keep him dry and safe.
But still he had his map and directions. He wasn’t completely lost.
He was driven to walk the length of the train. Every car was empty. Every car was as empty as his car when everyone had gone. He was alone. He walked from one end of the train to the other and he saw no one. When he got to the head of the train he looked in the window at the driver. But there was no pilot.
And still the train hurtled on. Woody was afraid.
He went back to his own seat. He sat there alone studying his map and directions. They said to get off at Rockaway Parkway.
And then the train came to a halt. An automatic voice said automatically, “Rockaway Parkway. End of the line.” And the door slid open. Woody bolted through it and up the stairs.
There was an orange railing here, too. The stairs ended between two great boulders with white lamps that said, “Subway.” Woody was standing in a great rock garden. And this was Brooklyn.
It was not raining. The air was hot, damp, and heavy in Brooklyn, like a warm smothering washcloth. Woody wished he had his umbrella.
He looked at his directions. They said, “Follow the path to Stewart’s.”
So he followed the path, and in a few minutes he came to the edge of the hill. He could see the flatlands below and on across the damp sand flats even to the palm-lined shores of Jamaica Bay itself. He could see the palms swaying sullenly under a threatening sky. He followed the path further, never straying, and when he reached Flatlands Avenue, he could suddenly see the great porcelain height of his landmark, white, but marked by stains of rust. That was the Paerdegat Basin—and close by the Paerdegat Basin was Stewart’s.
It was an easy walk. Woody had time to study his instructions. They were frightening, for they asked him to lie. He wasn’t good at that. When he lied, his father always caught him out.
And then, almost before he knew, his feet had followed a true path to Stewart’s Out-of-Stock Supply. It was a small block building. He hesitated and then he entered.
The small building was filled with amazing machines, some of them a bit dusty, displayed to show the successes of the shop. All of them had been made of parts supplied by Stewart’s. There was a four-dimensional roller-press, a positronic calculator, an in-gravity parachute—which seemed to be a metal harness with pads to protect the body—and a mobile can opener.
At the back of the building was a sharp-featured, crew-cut old man with a positive manner. He looked as though he had his mind made up about everything.
“Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me. I’ve got my theory,” the old man said. He looked at Woody, measuring him with his eye. Then he punched authoritatively at a button console on the counter in front of him. The wall behind him dissolved as though it had forgotten to remember itself, and there were immense aisles with racks and bins and shelves filled with out-of-stock supplies. A sign overhead said, “1947-1957.” And another sign said, “At Last. 4 Amazing New Scientific Discoveries Help to Make You Feel Like a New Person and More Alive!”
The old man put on a golf cap and said, “There. I’m right so far, aren’t I? Now, let me see. The rest of it should be easy. Yes, you’re really quite simple, young man. I see to the bottom of you.”
He punched a series of buttons. A little robot rolled by, made a right turn down an aisle and then a left turn out of sight. The old man stood waiting with a surefooted expression on his face. In a moment the robot rolled back. It placed a flat plate in the old man’s hand, and he placed the plate on the counter. Then he patted the robot on the head and it rolled away.
“There, you see. You’re the right age. You’re obviously a broad-headed Alpine. The half-life of strontium-90 is twenty-eight years. So you’re here to replace the tactile plate on your Erasmus Bean machine. Am I right?”
Woody shook his head.
“But of course I’m right. I’m always right.”
Woody shook his head.
“Then what are you here for?” the old man asked in a disgruntled tone.
Woody said, “I want a 28K-916 Hersh. It was discontinued in 1932.”
The old man hung his golf cap on a peg. “Don’t tell me my business. It’s strange. You don’t look like a 1932.”
He punched again at his console of buttons, and the configuration of aisles flickered and restabilized. The overhead sign now said, “1926-1935.” And another sign said, “Are You Caught Behind the Bars of a ‘Small-Time’ Job? Learn Electricity! Earn $3,000 a Year!” The old man slapped a straw skimmer on his head.
“We did have a 28K-916 Hersh.,” he said. “Once. We don’t have much call for one of these. I recollect seeing it along about 1934.”
The little robot rolled out once again, made a right turn down an aisle and then a left turn out of sight.
The old man turned suddenly to Woody and said, “This tube isn’t for your own invention, is it? You’re not a 1932 at all. Who are you here for? Murray? Stanton? Hyatt?”
Woody lowered his eyes. He shook his head.
The robot rolled suddenly back into view. It placed an orange-and-black box, as shiny and new as though this were 1932 and it was fresh from the Hersh. factory, in the hand of the sharp-featured old man.
“This is a rare tube with special rhodomagnetic properties,” the old man said. “Just how do you propose to put it to use?”
Woody looked down again. Below the counter top he looked at his instructions and he read his lie.
In a thoroughly unconvincing manner he read, “I am a collector. I mean to collect one of every vacuum tube in the world. When I own a 28K-916 Hersh., my collection will be complete.”
But the old man looked over the counter and caught Woody reading and his suspicions were aroused. He seized the map and directions from Woody’s hands, and discovered their meaning with a single glance.
“Woodrow Asenion!” he said. “I barred your father from this store in 1937! You know what that man intends. He means to make a Dimensional Redistributor and control the world. Well, not with help from Stewart’s. Power is to be used responsibly.”
He threw the map and instructions behind him, seized Woody, and hustled him through the showroom, past the four-dimensional roller-press, the positronic calculator, the in-gravity parachute, the mobile can opener, and all the many others. He threw Woody onto the sand under the palm tree in front of the building.
“And never come back,” he said. He straig
htened his skimmer. Then he looked up.
Very slowly he said, “Why, I do believe it’s going to rain.”
The old man slammed the door and pulled down a curtain that said, “Closed on Account of Rain.”
Woody looked around desperately. He looked at the sky. It was going to rain and he had no umbrella. He had not bought the vacuum tube. He had no map and directions. He was almost lost. He beat desperately on the door, but it would not open. While he pounded, all the lights within went out. The building was silent. Then thunder rumbled overhead.
In panic Woody retreated along Flatlands Avenue. The sky was crackling and snarling. It was flaring and fleering. Woody wished desperately that he were safe at home in the comfort of his own familiar closet. He felt very vulnerable. He felt naked and alone in a strange country. He was hungry, too. What was he to do? What was he to do? He was bewildered.
Woody thought that if he could only find the subway station in the rock park again, the green stairs with the orange railing under the lamps that said, “Subway,” he might find his way home to 206 W. 104th St. in Manhattan. Desperately he began to run across the sand.
And then, suddenly, there they all were. There was the boy in the white suit. There was the boy in the brown doublet. There was the girl in the long purple dress. And behind them was a pied piper’s gathering of people—dancing, larking, and gadding. And that was just anticipation, for the moment of shift when the old vertical world was forgotten and the new guiding dream was dreamed had not yet come. It had not yet begun to rain.
“Hi, Woody,” said the boy in brown. “Are you ready to join us?”
“Hi, Woody,” said the girl in purple. “Are you ready to dance in the rain?”
That was too frightening. Woody said to the tall ugly boy in white: “Where is my robot? It has my umbrella.”
“He,” said that one, and tapped Woody on the forehead with his yellow chrysanthemum. “He. And he isn’t yours. And I have my doubts about the umbrella, too.”
“Ha,” everybody said. “Get wet.”
“Ho,” everybody said. “It will hardly hurt.”
That was terrifying. Now, Woody knew who he was. He was the one at the bottom. It was a certain place. If he left the path and joined this many, who would he be? He would be lost. He would not know himself.
“Who?” he asked. “Who?”
“You,” they said. “You.”
They laughed. And they were singing, some of them. And doing other things. Celebrating beneath this final black threatening sky, this roiling heaven.
Woody could not bear it. “I have to find a 28K-916 Hersh.,” he said. “How else can I go home? I can’t stay. I have to go.”
“Good-bye. Good-bye,” they called as he hurried away. He looked back from the hillside, and they were looking up at the sky and waiting. Waiting for the clouds to open and the rain to pour down. Woody feared the rain. He ran.
No map. No directions. No map. No instructions. No umbrella. But he still had two toll tokens.
Down the path he ran into the rock park. Along the path. Still on the true path. And there before him were the twin boulders. Before him was the green stair with the orange railing. Before him was haven.
But there was a chain across the top of the stair. There was a locked gate across the bottom of the stair. And the lamps at the entrance were not lit. All said, “Closed.” All said, “Try Other Entrance.”
The other entrance. The other entrance. Where was the other entrance? There it was! It was visible on the other side of the rock park, marked by another pair of lamps set atop another pair of boulders.
Woody left the path and struck toward them. He ran in all his hope of home. He ran in all his fear of the rain. His understanding was not profound, but he knew that if he were rained upon, nothing would be as it was.
He did not notice that in leaving the path his father had marked for him before Woody had ventured out of the closet, he had lost his last protection. First the robot, sturdy and comforting. Then the umbrella to shield him. Then he had lost his map and instructions. And finally he had left the true path.
Woody reached the other entrance. There was a chain across the top of the stairs. There was a gate across the bottom of the stairs. There were signs, and the signs said, “Closed” and “Try Other Entrance.”
The other entrance. The other entrance. Where was the other entrance? There it was! It was visible on the other side of the rock park.
Woody hurried toward it. But then halfway between the two he stopped. That was where he had already been. He looked confused. He began to spin. Around and around on his toe he went. He did not know what to do. Overhead the skies impended. Poor Woody. He really needed someone in charge to tell him what to do next.
Around and around he went. Suddenly an imposing figure flashed into being before him. It glowed lemon yellow and it was very tall.
“Halt. Cease that,” it said. It was a stranger foreign creature than the blue alien in the Friends of the New York Subway System uniform. “Woody Asenion?”
Woody nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“I know all about you. You’re late. You’re very late. It’s time for the rain to start. It should have started by now.”
“Is it going to rain?” Woody asked. “Is it truly going to rain?”
“Yes, it is.”
“But I don’t want it to rain,” Woody said. “I want to be home safe in my own closet. Is it because I left the path?”
“Of course,” the strange creature said. “And now you must get wet.”
“No,” said Woody. “I won’t. I’ll run between the raindrops. I won’t get wet.”
And he started to run in fear and in trembling. The lightning lightened, to see him run. Thunder clapped the stale air between its hands. The forefinger of the rain prodded at Woody.
Rain fell at Woody, but he dodged and ducked. He ran down Grapefruit Street, and it missed him. He ran up Joralemon and it spattered around him and never touched him. He ran past the infamous Red Hook of Brooklyn, sharp and deadly. He ran through the marketplaces and bazaars of the Arab Quarter. He ran through a quiet sleeping town of little brown houses, all like beehives, full of little brown people. He ran through all the places of Brooklyn and the rain pursued him everywhere.
He would not be touched. This was Woody Asenion, who was raised in a closet and who didn’t dare to open the door by himself. Who would have thought he would be so daring. Who would have thought he would be so nimble. Fear took him to heights he had never dreamed of. Fear made him magnificent.
Watching people paused and cheered as he passed. They had to admire him. Pigeons fled before him. Lightning circled his head. Thunder thundered. The skies rolled and tumbled blackly, but not a drop of rain could touch Woody Asenion.
Then at last as he ran up the long slow slope to Prospect Park, he began to tire. His breath was sharp in his throat. His steps grew labored. His dodges grew less canny. And of a sudden lightning struck all around him. It struck before him. It struck behind him. It struck on his either hand. All at once. Woody was engulfed in thunder, drowned in thunder, rolled and tossed by thunder. He was washed to the ground. He was beached. He was helpless.
And as he lay there, unable to help himself, it rained on Woody. A single giant drop of water. It surrounded him and gently drenched him from head to toe, and after that Woody was not the same.
That was a very strange drop of rain.
And now Woody was all wet. He stood and looked down at himself. He held his arms out and watched them drip. Then he laughed. He shook himself and laughed. He was really changed.
All the other multiforms, all the other people, came running up to Woody and surrounded him. They were all wet, too.
“Here,” said the boy in the doublet. “Look what we found for you.”
It was an orange-and-black box, factory new. It was a 28K-916 Hersh. It said so on the box. He gave it to Woody.
The girl said, “Woody. You made it, Woody.” She kissed
him and Woody could only smile and laugh some more. He was happy.
The boy in the white suit handed Woody his chrysanthemum. “We waited for you,” he said. “We didn’t get wet until you did.”
It was such a great secret to be included in. It didn’t matter to Woody that he was the last to know. He was the first to get wet. How lucky he was.
Woody began to dance then. If fear had made him an inspired dodger, the promise of the new horizontal world made him an intoxicated dancer. His dance was brilliant. His dance was so brilliant that everybody danced Woody’s dance for a time. But nobody danced it as well as he did.
Woody danced, and with him danced all the no-longer-verticals. With him danced three alien beings—two blue, one lemon yellow. With him danced the two boys and the girl. With him danced all the people from the subway train. With him danced all the people from his neighborhood, including the little girl who also lived at 206 W. 104th St. in Manhattan. She danced between two robots, one small, one tall and skinny.
Then Woody saw his father. His father was dancing Woody’s dance, too! There were three other men of his age dancing with him.
Woody danced over to his father and everybody danced after him. Mr. Asenion said, “These are my good friends, Murray, Stanton, and Hyatt. We are going to invent together.”
Woody said, “I have your 28K-916 Hersh.”
“No need,” his father said, waving it away, never ceasing to dance. “No need, indeed. I made do without it. As you can see.” And everybody cheered for Woody’s father.
Then the step changed and everybody danced his own way again. Woody was happy. Woody celebrated, too.
And the horizontal world began.
12
Farewell to Yesterday’s Tomorrow
ALL OUR lives we have assumed that the near future would hold one of two likely possibilities. One possibility was atomic war between us and the Commies. We used to practice huddling under our desks in school and guarding our eyes against the bomb flash, but in our hearts we knew that our chances of survival were slim and that those who survived would wish they were dead. The other possibility of our times was that America would rule the world on the strength of its superior morality, politics, economics, power, and knowledge.
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