Brave New Worlds
Page 2
"Harburt. . . . Hutchinson."
"Get up there, Bill," Mrs. Hutchinson said, and the people near her laughed.
"Jones. "
"They do say," Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, "that over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery."
Old Man Warner snorted. "Pack of crazy fools," he said. "Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon. ' First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There's always been a lottery," he added petulantly. " Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody. "
"Some places have already quit lotteries," Mrs. Adams said. "Nothing but trouble in that," Old Man Warner said stoutly. "Pack of young fools. "
"Martin. " And Bobby Martin watched his father go forward. "Over-dyke. . . . Percy. "
"I wish they'd hurry," Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son. "I wish they'd hurry. "
"They're almost through," her son said.
"You get ready to run tell Dad," Mrs. Dunbar said.
Mr. Summers called his own name and then stepped forward precisely and selected a slip from the box. Then he called, "Warner. "
"Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery," Old Man Warner said as he went through the crowd. "Seventy-seventh time. "
"Watson. " the tall boy came awkwardly through the crowd. Someone said, "Don't be nervous, Jack," and Mr. Summers said, "Take your time, son. "
"Zanini."
After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr. Summers, holding his slip of paper in the air, said, "All right, fellows. " For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women began to speak at once, saying, "Who is it?," "Who's got it?," "Is it the Dunbars?," "Is it the Watsons?" then the voices began to say, "It's Hutchinson. It's Bill," "Bill Hutchinson's got it. "
"Go tell your father," Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son.
People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand. Suddenly, Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers, "You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!"
"Be a good sport, Tessie," Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, "All of us took the same chance. "
"Shut up, Tessie," Bill Hutchinson said.
"Well, everyone," Mr. Summers said, "that was done pretty fast, and now we've got to be hurrying a little more to get done in time. " He consulted his next list. "Bill," he said, "you draw for the Hutchinson family. You got any other households in the Hutchinsons?"
"There's Don and Eva," Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. "Make them take their chance!"
"Daughters draw with their husbands' families, Tessie," Mr. Summers said gently. "You know that as well as anyone else. "
"It wasn't fair," Tessie said.
"I guess not, Joe," Bill Hutchinson said regretfully." My daughter draws with her husband's family, that's only fair. And I've got no other family except the kids. "
"Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it's you," Mr. Summers said in explanation, "and as far as drawing for households is concerned, that's you, too. Right?"
"Right," Bill Hutchinson said.
"How many kids, Bill?" Mr. Summers asked formally.
"Three," Bill Hutchinson said. "there's Bill, Jr. , and Nancy, and little Dave. And Tessie and me."
"All right, then," Mr. Summers said. "Harry, you got their tickets back?"
Mr. Graves nodded and held up the slips of paper. "Put them in the box, then," Mr. Summers directed. "Take Bill's and put it in. "
"I think we ought to start over," Mrs. Hutchinson said, as quietly as she could. "I tell you it wasn't fair. You didn't give him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that. "
Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box, and he dropped all the papers but those onto the ground, where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.
"Listen, everybody," Mrs. Hutchinson was saying to the people around her.
"Ready, Bill?" Mr. Summers asked, and Bill Hutchinson, with one quick glance around at his wife and children, nodded.
"Remember," Mr. Summers said, "take the slips and keep them folded until each person has taken one. Harry, you help little Dave. " Mr. Graves took the hand of the little boy, who came willingly with him up to the box. "Take a paper out of the box, Davy," Mr. Summers said. Davy put his hand into the box and laughed. "Take just one paper," Mr. Summers said. "Harry, you hold it for him. " Mr. Graves took the child's hand and removed the folded paper from the tight fist and held it while little Dave stood next to him and looked up at him wonderingly.
"Nancy next," Mr. Summers said. Nancy was twelve, and her school friends breathed heavily as she went forward, switching her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box. "Bill, Jr.," Mr. Summers said, and Billy, his face red and his feet overlarge, nearly knocked the box over as he got a paper out. "Tessie," Mr. Summers said. She hesitated for a minute, looking around defiantly, and then set her lips and went up to the box. She snatched a paper out and held it behind her.
"Bill," Mr. Summers said, and Bill Hutchinson reached into the box and felt around, bringing his hand out at last with the slip of paper in it.
The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, "I hope it's not Nancy," and the sound of the whisper reached the edges of the crowd.
"It's not the way it used to be," Old Man Warner said clearly. "People ain't the way they used to be. "
"All right," Mr. Summers said. "Open the papers. Harry, you open little Dave's. "
Mr. Graves opened the slip of paper and there was a general sigh through the crowd as he held it up and everyone could see that it was blank. Nancy and Bill, Jr. , opened theirs at the same time, and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads.
"Tessie," Mr. Summers said. There was a pause, and then Mr. Summers looked at Bill Hutchinson, and Bill unfolded his paper and showed it. It was blank.
"It's Tessie," Mr. Summers said, and his voice was hushed. "Show us her paper, Bill. "
Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal-company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.
"All right, folks," Mr. Summers said. "Let's finish quickly. "
Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones. The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready; there were stones on the ground with the blowing scraps of paper that had come out of the box. Mrs. Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs. Dunbar. "Come on," she said. "Hurry up. "
Mrs. Dunbar had small stones in both hands, and she said, gasping for breath, "I can't run at all. You'll have to go ahead and I'll catch up with you. "
The children had stones already, and someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles.
Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head.
Old Man Warner was saying, "Come on, come on, everyone. " Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Graves beside him.
"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.
Red Card
by S. L. Gilbow
S. L. Gilbow is a relatively new writer, with five stories published to date, four in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and one in my anthology Federations. Gilbow served twenty-six years in the Air Force, and has been on dozens of deployments,
and has flown more than 2000 hours as a B-52 navigator. He currently makes his living by teaching English at a public high school in Norfolk, Virginia.
Everyone knows that James Bond has a "license to kill." As an international spy, he must sometimes fight for his life. But he's a trained government employee, specially selected for Her Majesty's Service. But could you trust just anyone with a license to kill?
What about your neighbor?
Or your boss?
In fact, what if the government gave everybody one free pass to shoot one person, any person, for whatever reason?
That's the premise of our next story. S. L. Gilbow says that the idea for "Red Card" actually came from a conversation he had with his daughter, Mandy. "One day after a driver cut me off in heavy traffic, I. . . Turned to my daughter and said, ‘Everyone should be allowed to shoot one person without going to prison. ' My daughter thought for a second then turned to me and said, ‘Dad, if that were true you would have been dead a long time ago. '"
Mr. Gilbow might have lived to write this story. But in the world he's imagined, not everyone is so lucky.
Late one April evening, Linda Jackson pulled a revolver from her purse and shot her husband through a large mustard stain in the center of his T-shirt. The official after incident survey concluded that almost all of Merry Valley approved of the shooting. Sixty-four percent of the townspeople even rated her target selection as "excellent. " A few, however, criticized her, pointing out that shooting your husband is "a little too obvious" and "not very creative. "
Dick Andrews, who had farmed the fertile soil around Merry Valley for over thirty years, believed that Larry Jackson, more than anyone else in town, needed to be killed. "I never liked him much," he wrote in the additional comments section of the incident survey. "He never seemed to have a good word to say about anybody. "
"Excellent use of a bullet," scrawled Jimmy Blanchard. Born and raised in Merry Valley, he had known Larry for years and had even graduated from high school with him. "Most overbearing person I've ever met. He deserved what he got. I'm just not sure why it took so long."
Of course, a few people made waves. Jenny Collins seemed appalled. "I can hardly believe it," she wrote. "We used to be much more discerning about who we killed, and we certainly didn't go around flaunting it the way Linda does. " Jenny was the old-fashioned kind.
Linda would never have called her actions "flaunting it. " Of course she knew what to do after shooting Larry. She had read The Enforcement Handbook from cover to cover six times, poring over it to see if she had missed anything, scrutinizing every nuance. She had even committed some of the more important passages to memory: Call the police immediately after executing an enforcement—Always keep your red card in a safe, dry place—Never reveal to anyone that you have a red card—Be proud; you're performing an important civic duty.
But flaunting it? No, Linda blended in better than anyone in town, rarely talked and never called attention to herself. She spent most of her days at the Merry Valley Public Library, tucked between rows of antique shelves, alone, organizing a modest collection of old books. In the evening she fixed dinner. After Larry had eaten, cleaned up and left the house for "some time alone," Linda would lie in bed reading Jane Austen. No, Linda never flaunted anything—never had much to flaunt.
After she shot her husband, Linda returned the revolver to her purse and collapsed onto her oversized couch. She then picked up the telephone, set it in her lap, and tugged at her long, pale bangs—a nervous habit that drove Larry crazy. She had once considered cutting them to make him happy, but Sarah Hall from across the street had commented on how nice they looked. "they really bring out your eyes," Sarah had said. "they make you look as pretty as a princess. "
Linda would never have called herself pretty, but she always looked as nice as she could. Her makeup—tasteful and modest—came straight off of page twenty-seven of the current issue of Truly Beautiful. She applied her eyeliner, mascara, lipstick and blush precisely according to the instructions, copying every detail of the model's face, framing each eye with two delicate, taupe lines. But she realized she could do no better than pass as the model's homely cousin.
Linda let go of her bangs, lifted the receiver and dialed a number from a yellow sticker plastered across the phone; the sticker doubled as an ad for Bob's Pizza Heaven, so she dialed carefully.
"Merry Valley Police Department. "
"I'd like to report an enforcement," said Linda.
"Linda?"
"Yes," she replied, trying to recognize the voice.
"This is Officer Hamilton. "
"Oh, thank goodness," she said, unable to hide her relief. She admired Officer Hamilton. Once, while making his usual patrol through Merry Valley, he had pulled over to help her carry two bags of groceries, heavy with the dead weight of frozen meat and canned vegetables. He was probably just fighting boredom, but she still appreciated the help. You rarely found that kind of service anymore.
`Linda paused, wondered what tone to strike, and settled on matter-of-fact. "I've just shot someone. The Enforcement Handbook says I'm supposed to call you. "
"That's right," said Officer Hamilton. "Chapter three, I think. Who did you shoot?"
"My husband. "
"Is he dead?" he asked.
Linda studied Larry, sensitive to any movement, the slightest twitch. "He's not moving. " she said. "He hasn't moved since I shot him. "
"How many times did you shoot him?"
"Once," she said.
"I'd recommend you shoot him one more time just to be sure," said Officer Hamilton.
"No," said Linda, “I’m sure he's dead enough." The Enforcement Handbook recommended at least two shots, but the thought of shooting Larry again bothered Linda. the first shot hadn't been easy, in spite of what the handbook said.
"Fine then, but you'll need to come down to the station to fill out the paperwork. "
"Of course," she said. "Do I need to call someone to pick him up?" the handbook hadn't mentioned how to remove the body.
"We'll take care of that," said Officer Hamilton. "Just come down to the station and don't forget to bring your red card. You do have a red card, don't you?"
"I do," she said.
"Wonderful," said Officer Hamilton.
"And I'll bring the revolver," she said, paraphrasing a portion from chapter two of the handbook.
"And any spare ammunition you didn't use," said Officer Hamilton. "We can reissue it with the card. "
Linda hung up, set the phone on the floor, and rose from the couch. She looked at Larry, and the longer she looked at him the more she expected him to move; it seemed so unnatural for him to be so still, so silent—he had always been in motion. Early in their courtship she pictured him as a hummingbird—a large, gawky hummingbird—but lately she saw him as something else—perhaps a mongoose.
"Larry," she said without taking her eyes off him. She wondered if she should follow Officer Hamilton's advice and shoot him again. But there was no movement, no sound. She thought he looked like he was asleep, but then she remembered the constant rolling and snoring that marked his nights. No second shot would be needed.
Linda felt an urge to wash. She stepped around Larry's body, crossed the living room and passed through the spare bedroom into the bathroom. Linda filled the sink with warm water, adding a delightful mixture of strawberry and watermelon soap. The crimson color had never bothered her before, but now she braced herself as she plunged her hands into the water. She scrubbed her hands for more than minute; it seemed like the right thing to do.
After she dried her hands on a monogrammed towel, Linda went to her bedroom. Larry and Linda referred to it as the "spare bedroom," but it was the one room Linda had all to herself, her refuge from Larry when he got wild—even wilder than usual. The room became her sanctuary, and Larry rarely entered it. Not that Linda forbid him to do so. It's just that Linda had filled it with things that made him uncomfortable. A large four-poster bed dominated the c
enter of the room. On top of the bed were a handmade quilt, a pile of embroidered throw pillows, and a stuffed animal Larry had given to Linda years ago. Linda called the animal “Sally Cat" but lately had considered the possibility that it might be a ferret. Beside the bed stood an antique vanity bordered by two windows, each framed with lace curtains adorned with a delicate tea rose pattern. The room radiated Linda; there was nothing about Larry in it.
Linda scanned her closet and filtered through a row of clothes she had worn only once—a wedding dress, a pink prom dress, and an evening gown. She finally settled on a gathered lavender dress. She had once worn it to the Merry Valley Bistro, the one restaurant in town Linda looked forward to. Larry criticized her for being overdressed, and she hadn't worn the dress since. But tonight it seemed right—the lavender dress and a matching pair of high heeled shoes. Linda wasn't sure who might be at the police station, but crowds had a way of forming in Merry Valley, and she wanted to be presentable. "Besides," she thought, "there's no chance of Larry objecting. "
When she finished dressing, Linda gathered the red card, the government revolver, and the last two rounds of ammunition, and dropped them into her purse. She checked her makeup in the vanity mirror and then, deciding she was in no mood to drive, called a taxi.
She opened the front door, paused, and surveyed the living room one last time. "Damn it, Larry," she said. "I gave you fair warning. "
Linda stepped into the dark night of a new moon. Her outdoor light had burned out weeks ago, but the porch light on Sarah Hall's house across the street blazed like a beacon, allowing Linda to navigate her steps safely. Sarah, swaying in time to a big band tune coming from her living room, deadheaded flowers that grew in large pots that framed her house. She was a large, nocturnal woman with a strong jaw and an unmistakable silhouette.