by Tom Hanks
At each stop Bert stepped off the car just long enough to scan the stations for Carmen and Virginia because, who knows? They could be riding the IRT out to Flushing Meadows. If so, Bert could ask them for directions, they would volunteer to guide him along since they were going, too, he could confess that his three VIP passes were burning a hole in his pocket and why not let him treat the two ladies to a hassle-free day of no lines, no waiting? And just like that, what had in the past been less than two hours with Carmen would, in the present, become an entire day together.
But Carmen never got on the train.
“Wow! Look at that!” a rider shouted. Out the window were the Trylon and Perisphere—the Fair. Bert could see the huge globe and its attendant tower, bright and white in the morning sky. Everyone on the train gave the landmarks a glance.
The IRT discharged fairgoers at the Bowling Green Gate, where Bert paid seventy-five cents for admission and bought a guidebook for a dime.
It was only 10:30, so unless fate was to intercede there were hours before he would see Carmen again. He took a look at the Home Building Center, admired the sofa beds in Home Furnishings, and found the exhibits in the American Radiator Building just about hilarious. He kept chuckling to himself at the dazzling-in-those-days presentations by RCA, American Telephone & Telegraph, the Communications Building, and the museum-like presentations of the Crosley Radio Corporation.
He joined the line for Democracity, the lesson in social studies that was inside the Perisphere. He was soon talking with the Gammelgards, a family of six including grandparents, who had taken the train all the way from Topeka, Kansas, to spend a week at the fair. This was their very first day, and Pop-Pop Gammelgard said to Bert, “Young man, never have I dreamed the good Lord would allow me to see such a place as this.” Bert was happy to be considered a young man. His $756 billion afforded him every procedure in the world to look much younger than his sixty-one years.
He told the Kansans he had friends in Salina, which prompted an invitation for dinner at the Gammelgards’, should Bert ever find himself in Topeka.
All morning he checked out every woman dressed in green, hoping to find Carmen. He toured every building in the Court of Power, the Plaza of Light, and along the Avenue of Labor, where uniformed ladies working for Swift & Co. demonstrated the slicing and packaging of fresh bacon. At noon, he blew two nickels on hot dogs at Childs and compared the cut of his double-breasted suit to the fashions-to-come, according to the prophets of Men’s Apparel. He then walked all the way to the Amusements Area, heading for the tall iron tower that was the parachute drop. The Amusements were the Fair’s most popular attractions, and the carnival crowd was thick and jumbled. Bert circled the area again and again, stopping at the parachute tower repeatedly, expecting to find Carmen and Virginia as they rose up, up, up, and came down ka-joink. But they were never there. So he started one last, slow walk around the area and back toward the main fairgrounds.
Then he saw her! Not Carmen at first, but Virginia! He was crossing the bridge by the Amphitheater, where the Aquacade performed, when a multicar tram passed him, Virginia sitting on the rail and, yes, Carmen beside her! They had been among the amusement rides after all, and were now en route to the Plaza of Light. Bert checked his wristwatch. If he could catch up with that tram, he’d meet Carmen nearly an hour early! He ran.
He kept sight of the tram all along the Avenue of Labor, but lost them at the Schaefer Center on Rainbow Avenue. He just couldn’t keep up. The tram continued, passing the Court of States, then stopping at Constitution Mall to empty and take on new passengers. They had to be nearby! Sweating in that double-breasted suit, Bert checked Beech-Nut, Jewish Palestine, the YMCA, the Temple of Religion, and the Works Progress Administration, but no joy. Resigned to the singularity of the Time-Space Continuum, Bert was pivoting toward the lagoon benches when she appeared right in front of him.
Carmen was coming out of Brazil, holding Virginia’s hand. They were laughing. Good Lord, the woman laughed so much and her smile was so adorable. He almost called out her name but remembered they had yet to meet, so instead he fell in behind them by a few yards, following them across the walkway over the man-made river that fed the Lagoon of Nations. He didn’t trail them into Great Britain but headed for the bench. A few minutes later, there she was again, with Virginia. Right on time.
“Excuse me,” Bert immediately said, just as Carmen and Virginia were sitting down. “Do you ladies know if the Futurama is running today?”
“It is, but the line is very long. We spent all afternoon in the Amusements Area. What a time we had!”
“Have you rode the Parachute, mister?”
“I haven’t. Should I?”
“It’s not for the weakhearted.”
“You go up and up and up. You think you are going to come floating down slow and soft. But you don’t. You land ka-joink!”
“It’s true.”
“Have you seen the Futurama?”
“We didn’t want to wait through that long line.”
“I certainly don’t want to miss it.” Bert reached into the breast pocket of his suit. “And I have these special passes.”
Bert showed them the three heavy cards embossed with the Trylon and Perisphere and the letters VIP. “I’m told these will get us into the Futurama via a secret passage. No waiting. I have three. And I’m alone. Would you like to join me?”
“Oh, that’s so nice of you. But we are definitely not VIPs.”
“Believe me, neither am I. Not sure why I even have these.”
“Can we go, Aunt Carmen?”
“I feel like a sneaky pete. But let’s! Thank you so much.”
“Yes. Thanks! My name is Virginia and this is my aunt Carmen. Who are you?”
“Bert Allenberry.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Allenberry. We’ll see the Future with you!”
The three chatted as they walked the length of Constitution Mall, below the huge statue of George Washington, and around the Trylon and Perisphere. Virginia told of all they had seen of the Fair in that day, most of it spent on the rides in the Amusement Area.
“Have you seen Electro, the Mechanical Man?” Bert asked. “He can add up numbers on his metal hands.”
The General Motors Building was next to that of the Ford Motor Company. Ford showed fairgoers how their automobiles were built, then let them drive a car along a dipsy doodle of a road around the building. GM took its visitors into the future, first by ascending a long ramp, one so modern they called it a Helicline, to a cleft in the architecture so majestic it looked like a gateway into the Promised Land. The line of people waiting to see Futurama looked to number in the millions.
But, flashing their VIP cards at a pretty girl in a GM uniform, Bert, Carmen, and Virginia were taken to a door on the ground level.
“I hope you aren’t tired,” the girl said. “We have a few flights to climb.”
The machinery of the Futurama bumped and whirred around them. They could hear music coming through the walls along with the murmur of a narration.
“You’ll notice the soundtrack matches exactly what you are seeing,” the girl explained. “GM is truly proud of the engineering that went into the Futurama. It’s absolutely modern.”
“Are we going to be driving a car?” Virginia asked.
“You’ll find out!” The girl opened a door revealing the starting point of the ride—sunlight and people were streaming in through the opening. “Enjoy your stay,” the girl said.
There were no automobiles, but rather a long train of wheeled, sofa-like carts lined end to end, each enclosed in a shell. Passengers were climbing into the shells, which never stopped moving as the cars passed through the opening of a tunnel.
The three intrepid voyagers climbed into one, Virginia first, then Carmen, followed by Bert. Before they knew it they were in darkness. Music played and a narrator welcomed them to America, as it would be in the year 1960. The voice was so clear it was like the announcer was in
the car with them.
A city appeared before them—a world in miniature that stretched to the horizon. The skyscrapers in the center stood like trophies, some connected to each other by sky bridges. The narrator explained that in just a few decades American cities would be planned and built to the specifics of perfection. Streets would be clear and ordered. Highways would flow with modern automobiles—GM cars, each of them—with traffic that never cluttered or jammed. The sky would be filled with aircraft carrying goods and passengers to terminals as conveniently placed as filling stations. The countryside would be scattered with farms, homes, and power stations, supplying 1960 with all the food, space, and electricity the American people would need.
The houses and towers and cars and trains and planes were filled with a happy, invisible populace that had tamed the wild chaos of the past; they’d figured out not only how to build the future but how to live in it side by side, in peace.
Virginia was riveted to her seat as the future rolled by. Carmen smiled at her and looked at Bert. She leaned toward him and whispered, “She’ll live there and likes what she sees.”
The words landed on Bert like so many soft kisses. The narration had paused, leaving only the swelling strings of violins and cellos from the musical score. He smelled Carmen’s perfume, the soft whiff of lilac mixed with vanilla. Her lips stayed close to his cheek.
“Do you think it will all happen?” Carmen asked quietly. “Just like this?”
Finding her ear surrounded by the dark curl of her black hair, Bert whispered back, “If it does, it will be wonderful.”
When they exited, the afternoon shadows had grown longer. As they crossed the Bridge of Wheels over the Grand Central Parkway, Virginia announced that she would be thirty years old in 1960. “I wish I could jump in a time machine right now and go there!”
Bert checked his watch—it was 5:56 p.m. In the past, he had been in a taxi by now, on his way back to room 1114. By 7:00 he had undressed, removed all the items that had been provided for his adventure, like the rings and the watch, had squeezed back into his compression suit, and was lying on the precisely placed bed for Progression out of 1939. He should be leaving right now; the taxi stand was just outside the gate on the other side of Chrysler Motors. Instead, he asked Carmen when the Fountains of Light show was to start.
“Not until dark,” she said. “Hey, since you are now in the presence of a couple of VIPs, may I treat you to some pie?”
“I happen to love pie.”
“Let’s go to Borden’s!” Virginia said. “We can see Elsie the Cow.”
Over pie and coffee, he relearned about Carmen and her niece—of the Radio Club and the roommates on East Thirty-Eighth Street. Everything was just as it had been. Then the past took a turn.
“Do you have anyone special in your life, Mr. Allenberry?”
Bert looked into Carmen’s eyes. Framed now in the décor of Borden’s Food Court, they’d turned an even deeper shade of green.
“She means are you married!” Virginia teased.
“Virginia! I’m sorry, Mr. Allenberry. I don’t mean to be forward, but I see you have no wedding ring and I just thought, well, a fellow like you must have someone special.”
“I’ve thought so, many times,” Bert said, wistfully. “I’m forever looking, I guess.”
“You bachelors are so lucky. You can wait and wait for the right girl to come along and nobody says boo.” She rattled off the names of movie stars and athletes who had yet to marry, names Bert did not recognize. “But us ladies? If we wait too long we become old maids.”
“Mama says if you don’t find a man soon, there’ll be none left for you!” Virginia giggled. “You’re almost twenty-seven!”
“You hush,” Carmen hissed, reaching over with her fork to stab the best piece of crust, then popping it into her mouth.
“You dirty rat!” Virginia laughed.
Dabbing her lips with a napkin, Carmen smiled at Bert. “It’s true. I’m the last hen in the barnyard.”
“How old are you, Mr. Allenberry?” Virginia asked. “I’m guessing you’re like Mr. Lowenstein, my school principal. He’s almost forty. Are you forty yet?”
“Young lady, I am going to throw you into the Lagoon of Nations! Mr. Allenberry, I’m sorry. My niece has yet to learn the practice of tact. Maybe by 1960.”
Bert laughed. “I’m like your aunt Carmen. The last rooster in the barnyard.”
They all laughed at that. Carmen reached over and took his wrist. “Aren’t we a pair?” she said.
Bert should have excused himself right then. Six p.m. had passed. If a cab was available, he could be in room 1114 just in time for Progression. But this was his last day ever with Carmen. He would never see the woman in the green dress again.
Now, Bert Allenberry was a smart man, many say a genius. His invention of the Shuffle-Access Digital Valve-Relay had changed the world and garnered him the rapt attention of audiences at conferences full of movers and shakers—in Davos, Vienna, Abu Dhabi, and Ketchum, Idaho. He had teams of lawyers obeying his dictates, researchers and developers turning his ideas of whimsy into realities. He had more money than the GNP of most nations of the world, including those where he owned factories. He had donated to very good causes and had his name on buildings he had never even bothered to visit. He had everything a man—a very rich man—was supposed to have, need, or want.
Except for time, of course.
Chronometric Adventures said he had twenty-two hours of June 8, 1939, to do whatever he wanted. But now, what he wanted was to stay awhile. There must be some wiggle room, right? After all, Progression, or was it Reprogression—he was never sure—could not begin until his body, all his atoms and molecules, were in place in room 1114 of the Hotel Lincoln on Eighth Avenue. He understood why Chronometric Adventures demanded such terms—to cover their asses! Why did he have to be in that tight compression suit and on that bed according to the tick of the clock? Was he Cinderella at the Ball? Why couldn’t he saunter into the room at, say, midnight, then slip into that rubber suit and then whoosh away? What was the big deal?
“Have you seen the Time Capsule?” he asked Virginia.
“I read about it in school. It’s buried for the next five thousand years.”
“They have what’s in it on display in Westinghouse. Electro the robot, too. Do you know what television is? You just have to see television.” Bert was rising from the table. “Shall we go to Westinghouse?”
“Let’s!” Carmen’s eyes were smiling again.
The Time Capsule was loaded with silly stuff—Mickey Mouse comics and cigarettes and whole sets of books printed on microfilm.
Though the Time Capsule and Electro were impressive, television was what had Virginia over the moon. She could see her aunt and Mr. Allenberry on a small screen, in black and white, almost like they were stars in a movie, but their images were in miniature, projecting from a screen in a cabinet no bigger than the radio at home. In fact, they were in another room, standing in front of a camera, one unlike any she had ever seen, and they were also in front of her. The vision was thrilling. When they switched places, Virginia waved and spoke into the microphone: “This is me, on the television saying hello from right here and you can see me right there!”
“Look at you!” Carmen said. “You look so pretty! So grown up! Oh, Bert!” She turned to him. “This should be impossible, but here it is!”
Bert was looking not at Virginia on the screen but at Carmen. He was thrilled that he was no longer Mr. Allenberry.
Checking his watch, Bert saw that it was 7:06. The deadline had passed, the twenty-two hours were up, and, lo and behold, there was wiggle room!
They visited the DuPont, Carrier, and Petroleum Industry Buildings, none of which had the socko exhibits to match television. The Glass Building, the American Tobacco exhibit, and Continental Baking were just time killers; the longer they lingered in them the sooner came darkness and the light show.
After watching films of
water-skiers in the Academy of Sports, he bought cups of ice cream, which they ate with little wooden spoons.
“Here’s our spot for the show!” Virginia claimed a bench for the three of them. In the growing indigo of the evening, they could see all the way from the Lagoon to giant George Washington, silhouetted against the Perisphere, surveying the great nation he had sired. As night fell, the buildings of the Fair became so many tracings of brightly lit lines on deepening black. The skyscrapers of Manhattan lit up the horizon. The illuminated fairground trees looked to be glowing from within, from their own inner light.
Bert Allenberry wanted this night to last forever, for all time. He wanted to sit beside Carmen at the Lagoon of Nations, listening to the murmur of the Fair, with her scent of lilac and vanilla stirring the warm air of 1939.
When Virginia collected their ice cream cups and took them to a trash bin, Bert and Carmen were alone for the first time ever. He reached for her hand.
“Carmen,” he said. “This has been a perfect day.” Carmen was looking at him. Oh, those hazel eyes. “Not because of Futurama. Or television.”
“Elsie the Cow?” Carmen said, her breath catching as she smiled.
“Would you allow me to give you and Virginia a ride home when the Fair closes?”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that. My sister lives too deep in the Bronx.”
“We’ll take a taxi. Then I can drop you off at your place. On East Thirty-Eighth Street.”
“That would be very kind of you, Bert,” Carmen said.
Bert wanted to hold Carmen in his arms, to kiss her, maybe in the back of a taxi on East Thirty-Eighth Street. Or, in room 1114. Better yet, on the one hundredth floor of his building at 909 Fifth Avenue.
“I’m glad I came to the Fair today.” Bert smiled. “So I could meet you.”
“I’m glad, too,” Carmen whispered. Her hand never left his.
Music began to play from speakers hidden around the Lagoon of Nations. Virginia ran back to the bench just as the fountains shot water into the sky, lights turning the geysers into columns of liquid color. Every patron of the Fair stopped to watch. Projections turned the Perisphere into a luminescent ball of clouds.