1.6. GENERAL
There is a whole family of medical conditions related to the shock and trauma associated with nuclear war. Much has been written about the broad sociological changes that have occurred in the last five years, especially regarding individual and societal perceptions of national and international government, long-term security, possibilities for international accord, and fundamental changes in relationships between individuals at all levels of society. This report, however, is concerned with effects of a more physiological nature.
In both child and adult populations there is a marked increase in general susceptibility to disease. No doubt this susceptibility is influenced by stress, lack of suitable diet or caloric intake, and depressed metabolic levels. Continuing unsanitary conditions in or near War Zones are another major contributor to high levels of illnesses such as influenza and dysentery.
There is an increase in the number of persons displaying high levels of depression, dysphoria, unprovoked fears, etc.
Also, there is an increase in the number of persons exhibiting pronounced and chronic shock and disorientation. In some cases this condition, if severe enough, produces abnormal and often violent reactions to ordinary stimuli. It is estimated that some 10–15 million persons exhibit permanent disorientation. It is believed that this condition is a major factor in the large nomadic sub-populations that live on the fringes of the War Zones.
It should be mentioned here that a considerable portion of the population demonstrates varying degrees of phobic reactions to real or imagined radiation. There is a very pervasive fear of radioactive contamination, which has led to excessive countermeasures, such as over-strict local or regional laws. This abnormal fear is present even in “safe” areas such as California and the Northwestern states.
Other conditions, also believed to be trauma-induced, include marked increases in the reported rates of impotence, baldness, and a range of “sympathetic” ailments in individuals with little or no exposure to radiation.
SUMMARY
Less than five years have passed since Warday. While the full long-term implications of radioactivity are not known with certainty, sufficient trends have emerged to provide a disturbing portrait of surviving American society. The Committee recognizes that while the full effects of nuclear war are many, it is clear that the United States will have as a major concern, for many decades to come, the treatment of radiation-related diseases.
Both the Executive and Legislative branches of government should place their highest priority on the care and treatment of those members of the population who have suffered, or will suffer, the lasting effects of this war. The evidence is sufficient to document the alarming rise in human systemic illnesses; the effects upon the newly born and upon generations to come are even more disturbing.
SIGNED: Charles Wilson, M.D.
Everett Simkin, M.D.
Mary Louise Amadden, Ph.D.
William Lloyd, M.D.
Mario de los Santos, Ph.D.
Trevett Cole, Jr., Ph.D.
Coast Daylight to San Francisco
The Super Chief, the Broadway Limited, the Twentieth Century—these legendary trains came to mind as the sparkling Coast Daylight left Union Station and picked up speed past the Los Angeles County Jail. Soon we were heading toward Santa Barbara and the north.
We were on a super deluxe train—or at least in the super deluxe part of it, in a beautifully refurbished Superliner observation car. It was decorated in tan, with luxurious club-style seating and a view of the California coast so spectacular that we almost missed the appetizer tray.
“Father,” the tan-uniformed waiter said, leaning forward to present me with an array of shrimp, oysters, crab claws, and raw vegetables to go with my Bloody Mary.
These wonders were part of the ticket price—a hefty eleven dollars. Lunch in the spacious and spotless dining car behind us was included as well. I suppose we could even have taken the roses on the table, had we wanted them.
Also included, as it turned out, was conversation with Mr. Tanaka, a Japanese rail official, who happened to be sitting beside us, watching the passing view of the ocean.
On our train trip to Needles, people had not been willing to talk much. But that was another world. Those were refugees; here in the first-class section of the Coast Daylight were the new prime movers, and they were not afraid to speak their minds.
“This train’s barely doing sixty,” Mr. Tanaka scoffed, apparently his way of starting a conversation.
“How do you know that?” Jim asked. I saw him turn on his recorder.
“Simple. Each rail is thirty-three feet long. Each ‘click’ you hear means one rail. I count the number of clicks over sixty seconds and thus calculate the train’s speed.”
“Are you a trainman?”
Mr. Tanaka gave Jim a card that read
H. TANAKA, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR,
NIPPON-AMERICA INTERNATIONAL RAIL CORP.,
1130 SUNLAND BUILDING, LOS ANGELES.
“I’m Father William,” Jim said. “This is Father Brown.”
We exchanged handshakes. “What’s a Japanese railroad man doing here in California?” I asked.
“Ah, a great deal. This is the land of opportunity. Things need to be done here! We’re working with your government to create the most modern train system in North America. L.A. to Oakland in an hour and twenty minutes, and that includes a five-minute stop in Bakersfield. How do you like that?”
“Extraordinary.”
“It’s because of a revolutionary new transport system we call a magnetic-cushion tube train. Top cruising speed potential of five hundred miles an hour. Of course, this run is too short to reach that speed. But one day we’ll be going all the way to Seattle. Then you’ll see some speed.”
“What about air travel? Aren’t planes coming back?”
“Don’t talk to me about the competition! I’m telling you, we can move more people faster and with greater efficiency than the best airline in the world. Our energy costs are thirty percent less than the most efficient jet engines now under development back home. Planes can never compete.”
“But all those miles of track—”
“Prefabricated above ground tunnel segments with magnetic cushions inside. Built in Japan very cheaply and shipped here for easy installation. The roadbed is a circular magnetic field in the tunnel. The train floats in it. Our cost per mile is about three million gold, and if California can’t get the money directly, it can find a way to obtain it from the Feds.”
It seemed a lot to me.
“This thing is creeping,” Tanaka scoffed. “Bullet trains do better at home with dead birds on the windshields.”
“How long have you been in the United States?”
“Since 1990. I’ve got my whole family here now. We bought a house in Beverly Hills last year. Lovely house. Pola Negri used to live there. Or maybe Theda Bara, we’re not sure. We are redoing the gardens and installing a complete computerized home security system. It’s lots of fun, because such huge houses are unobtainable in Japan.”
“How do you find working here?”
“I love it! There’s so much to be done. A whole new world is being built in this country, and it’s starting with California.”
“Do you approve of California’s immigration policies?”
“Not my business. I’m a foreigner. My interest is in getting people from place to place fast. I don’t care why they make their journeys.”
“How about the rest of the country? Have you done any traveling?”
“Well, Japan Air lines operates an all-America tour, but we haven’t taken it I don’t want to fool around with radiation.” He lifted his left hand. Two of the fingers were grown together, a thick stump. “My mother was at Nagasaki.” There came silence between us. “The road can be very hard,” he said at last. “This we Japanese have learned.”
After a moment he settled back, contemplating the black cliffs and the slow blue sea.
; Golden City
The Daylight reached Oakland at 8:36 in the evening. As soon as we got off the train I went to a phone booth and called my one contact in the area, a writer named Quinn Yarbro, whom I had known before the war.
Quinn wrote historical novels back when such things were popular. I haven’t seen her name on anything in the Doubleday bookstore in Dallas in years, so I had no idea what had happened to her.
There seemed to me a risk in using long distance in California, so I had delayed trying to call her until we were actually here. I dialed the last number I had for her.
After five rings an older woman answered. “Yarbro Locators,” she said.
“May I speak to Quinn, please?”
“This is she. May I help you?”
“Quinn? This is Whitley.”
“Oh God, where are you calling from?”
“Oakland. I just came up from L.A. I have a friend with me. We’re doing a book on America together. We’re here to see San Francisco.”
“Whitley, this is—I mean, I’m in the locating business, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised—but—”
“I lived, Quinn.”
“Oh God, Whitley, I assumed—with you in New York and all.”
“We’ve been living in Dallas. Anne and Andrew too.”
She told us to take the BART to Market and Powell in San Francisco. “I—well, I’ll wear something recognizable. If I must, a blue fedora.”
“Quinn, we’re dressed like priests.”
“Ah. Okay. Shall I expect to pray?”
“Just look for two middle-aged priests with backpacks.”
“I’m sure I won’t have any trouble. And you can forget the darned fedora. I’ll find you.”
We traveled on BART for fifteen cents. The highest fare is a quarter, the lowest a penny. The trains are jammed and not particularly frequent, but they work. Like so many things in California, much EMP-related damage sustained by BART has been repaired.
There are ticket clerks, however, instead of computerized machines, and my impression was that the trains were directly controlled by their motormen rather than by a central computer. I noticed signal lights along the tracks much like those in the old New York subway system.
Even past nine at night, the Powell Street station resounded with the footsteps of a swarming crowd. Like Los Angeles, the San Francisco area has sustained a massive population influx in the past few years—despite the efforts of the immigration police.
“Hello, Father Whitley.”
She was older, very much older. “Quinn.” There were tears at the corners of her eyes. Finding old friends alive hurts. It is a pain one at once seeks and fears. I embraced Quinn. I touched her hair, which was still red but struck with gray. Her eyes, looking at me, were wide. Jim stood nearby, silent, not intruding, waiting.
“Quinn, this is Jim Kunetka.”
“Father Jim?”
“Simply Jim. This is a disguise.”
“I’m glad. You both look too thin to be priests. I’d peg you as robbers.”
“Is there much crime in California?” Jim asked, ever the newsman.
“More than before the war. People are so desperate. We have rich and poor and not much in between.”
“It looks so good.”
“It’s still got the best weather in the world, anyway.”
“Quinn, we’re fugitives.”
She laughed. “I gathered that. You want to get off the street?”
“Exactly.”
She offered to put us up at her apartment on Russian Hill. We rode the Powell-Hyde cable car for two cents each. There was an “I Stop at the St. Francis” sign on the front of the car, and the familiar yellow destination sign: Powell & Market, Hyde & Beach. We had to hang on all the way. The gripman was a master with his bell, and he needed to be—the streets were jammed with pedestrians. On the way, Quinn asked if we’d eaten dinner. We had not.
Lunch on the train had seemed sufficient for a month. I can remember very long periods of my life without so much food. And the freshness of it was unforgettable, as was the menu: lima beans cooked in real butter, a thick lamb chop with the juice running in the plate, mashed potatoes with pan gravy, an endive salad, two different wines, and, for dessert, frozen pecan balls.
It is no wonder that people are willing to risk prison to come to California.
Despite the danger of the streets, we could not resist seeing if we could tuck in a dinner in Chinatown. I thought at once of a certain restaurant. “Dare I ask if Kan’s is still there?”
“Kan’s is still there.”
We hopped off the cable car and went looking. Kan’s had not changed at all. The restaurant had opened in 1936, and it retains the comfortable spaciousness of former times. If I was impressed by lunch on the train, I was delighted by dinner here, even though I couldn’t eat much. A stomach used to a simpler diet cannot adjust quickly to the richness of California food.
In a way, being at Kan’s made me sad. Anne and I had taken five days in San Francisco in the summer of ’87. Andrew was at camp and we flew out for the chance to be alone together, to see a few good friends, to enjoy the city. It was our last vacation, and we had our last meal in San Francisco at Kan’s.
Over dinner, the three of us traded lives. As soon as Quinn understood what we were doing, she had an idea. “I know a man you’ll want to interview. If you’re trying to understand things, he’s somebody who probably knows. He’s an economist, and he teaches at Berkeley. He’s also somebody I love. He’ll be over to the apartment in the morning. You can meet him then.”
Neither of us had heard of Dr. Walter Tevis. I doubt, however, that we will ever forget him.
I asked her what she was doing. “I’m a gumshoe,” she said.
“A what?”
“A detective.”
Jim went pale. I was stunned. It wasn’t possible that we were in the hands of the police.
“I’m not a cop,” she said, “so you can redirect some blood into your faces. I find lost people. I’ll try to locate anybody you’re missing. If I succeed, I get a fee.”
“You must be incredibly busy,” I said.
“Very.”
Jim leaned forward. “My wife—I lost her in Austin right after Warday.” His face was suddenly sharp, his eyes boring into Quinn’s.
“Give me her name and description and last known address. I’ll see what I can do. It might take some time, you understand.”
Jim gave her the information.
After dinner she took us to her apartment, on a hidden Russian Hill byway called Keys Alley. “I warn you, I still have cats,” she said as she let us into the single cluttered room. A huge red furball came up and began protesting.
The room was jammed with the tools of her trade. There were stacks of old telephone books from dozens of cities, city directories, maps, old newspapers, census tracts, Zip Code directories, copies of birth certificates in lettered stacks, card files and Rolodexes identified by colored tags, and hundreds and hundreds of photographs in thick black albums.
I could see how she carried out her trade, working from the telephone and through the mails. It must have been a frustrating and difficult job.
“Sorry about the mess.” She sat down. She looked, then, very small and tired and somewhat lost herself. “A lot of people are missing,” she said.
Jim and I slept on the floor. Just as I was dropping off, the cat woke me by flopping down on my face. I moved it aside and sat up.
The little room was quiet. Quinn was a shadow on her couch. On the table beside her was a Princess telephone attached to an answering machine whose power lamp glowed red. I wondered how she managed. She must be besieged with clients. Names and names and names.
A trapped feeling came upon me and made me get up and put on my collar and my black suit and go out to get some night air.
Keys Alley was silent, lit through the leaves of trees lining the street. Music drifted in the dark, a radio playing an old, old song I c
ould not name, but which drew me back to childhood summer nights, watching my bedroom curtains make shadows on the walls and listening to my parents and their friends talking in low voices under the trees outside, talking of the cares of forty years ago, Truman and the cost of the Marshall Plan and Stalin’s health.
I stepped softly as I left the silent alley. I went up Pacific Street to the crest, then turned and looked down across the roofs of Chinatown to the Bay. The view is not one of San Francisco’s most spectacular, but it satisfied me. Far out in the Bay I heard foghorns beginning to sound above the subdued rumble of the city.
The hour was late; midnight had come and gone.
Slowly, nearer horns started sounding. A fog was coming through the Golden Gate. Soon I could see it slipping up the streets and across the roofs, dulling lights, drawing the dark close around me.
When it swirled up Pacific, cold and damp, transforming crisp night sounds to whispers and making me shudder with the cold of it, I returned to the stuffy little flat and the sounds of Quinn and Jim sleeping, and the cat purring.
Sometime in the night the phone gave half a ring and the answering machine clicked. I heard a voice talking quickly into the recorder, quickly and endlessly, droning, filling my sleep with a tale of loss I no longer remember.
INTERVIEW
Walter Tevis, Economist
What happened to the economy on Warday was quite simple. Six out of every ten dollars disappeared. The Great Depression of the thirties was caused by the stock market crash of 1929, when three out of ten dollars ceased to exist. Simultaneously, we lost the ability to communicate. We lost all our current records. Chaos was inevitable. We’re fortunate that the continuing deflationary process hasn’t been worse.
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