The Zebra Derby

by Max Shulman

  “Well done, ladies,” he said.

  And after he had read the brochure he immediately called another mass meeting.

  “Citizens of Bonanza,” he said, “I have here the results of the poll. I don’t mind telling you that I’m flabbergasted. Even in my wildest dreams I didn’t think it would come out this well. Listen:

  “The postwar labor force of Bonanza, employers and employees, will be 6,561—593 more than are employed right now!”

  There was a spontaneous roar from the crowd.

  “Now, listen to these figures,” said Mayor Feinhaut. “New automobiles will be bought by 4,296 families at an average cost of $1,053!

  “Five hundred and ninety-two new houses will be constructed at an average cost of $4,068!

  “Repairs to 4,794 houses will be made at an average cost of $436!

  “Seven hundred and eighty of our people who have decided to farm will buy 780 tractors at an average cost of $926; 780 farmhouses at an average cost of $3,859; 780 barns at an average cost of $1,473; and 780 electric services at an average cost of $325!

  “Two thousand one hundred and twenty-five familes will buy refrigerators at an average cost of $157!

  “Five thousand one hundred and eighty-four families will buy radios at an average cost of $83!

  “Four thousand six hundred and eight families will buy vacuum cleaners at an average cost of $85!

  “Oh, friends, I could go on all night telling you how much will be spent on alarm clocks and kitchen canisters and sewing machines and rubber bath stoppers and what not. But I won’t take up your time. Copies of this brochure will be distributed to all of you when the meeting is over.

  “There’s just one thing I want to tell you, and that’s the best thing of all. According to this poll, there is going to be a shortage of merchants in every commodity, of practitioners in every service. We are all going to have more business than we can handle!”

  Then there was wild cheering from the crowd. Hats flew into the air and people threw their arms about one another. One man rose and proposed that Prosper Feinhaut be given the office of mayor for life, but Feinhaut declined, saying it was contrary to democratic principle. The newsreel men came and the man from Life returned for another story.

  And then the war ended and everyone in Bonanza moved back to Minneapolis except Olaf Qvistbergholm.

  chapter nineteen

  So the Minneapolis central committee (Yetta Samovar, secretary-treasurer) bought Bonanza from Olaf Qvistbergholm for twenty-five hundred dollars—ten dollars down and the rest payable in thirty days—and out to Bonanza moved the first American collective community.

  Three weeks later I arrived. Reverently, with a sense of destiny, I walked into Bonanza. I removed my hat and let the wind sweep back my tawny hair as I made my way down the street. How serene was my Bonanza! Sun-bathed and silent, it lay before me. I was thankful that I had arrived in an idle moment. I had expected to come upon a scene of noise and bustle—the clatter of hammers, the whir of scythes, the singing of strong, bronzed workers toiling side by side. That would have been good too, but for my first view I was glad to be able to drink in the place in silence. A churchlike moment.

  I walked farther into the town. There would be work for me, I noted with satisfaction. There would be use for my hands here. The tar paper was peeling off the houses. Johnson grass overran the lawns. Here was a broken sidewalk; there a plugged sewer spewed its refuse into the street. This garbage heap would have to be moved, and that fallen telephone pole was a hazard. Yes, I thought happily, there would be a place for me in Bonanza.

  Then I saw a resident. He walked down the street in blue denims, his toil-knotted shoulders squared, his gnarled hands swinging freely at his sides. Every inch a worker, I thought, and suddenly I felt a bond of kinship with him that negated formality and I rushed to his side and clasped him in a fierce embrace and kissed his weather-roughened cheek. “Comrade!” I cried hoarsely.

  “Ay’m Qvistbergholm,” he said, tearing loose.

  “Oh.”

  “You’re anudder vun of dem crazies,” he said. “Yesus Christ, dey take twenty acres of barley land and plant Tokay grapes. In Minnesota, Tokay grapes. Yesus Christ. In vun week vines is dead. So dey have harvest festival. All day and all night dey dance in streets.

  “Den dey get cow. Yesus Christ. All day long dey milk poor sonofabitch. As soon as one get tired, anudder start milking. Cow finally run out on road and yump in front of truck. First time I ever see cow commit suicide. So dey bury cow and put sign on grave, ‘Hero of Soviet Union.’

  “Den dey go out in voods to chop tree. Two men chops. De rest stand under tree and say, ‘How mayestic is yiant of forest!’ Tree falls down. Six more heroes of Soviet Union.

  “Den dey go into veaving business. Dey get vun hand loom and vun sheep. Yesus Christ. Vun sheep. Dey shear poor sonofabitch five, six times a day. Sheep finally run to Svift and Company and give himself up.

  “And every goddam day is dancing and singing and plays and speeches, Yesus Christ.”

  “Where are they now?” I interrupted.

  “Some is holding meeting in building over dere. De rest is down by river svimming naked. Come, ve’ll go see. Better dan zoo.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll go look in on the meeting,” I said.

  I entered the building Qvistbergholm had indicated and there saw Yetta and another girl and two men sitting at a table drinking tea out of glasses. Yetta saw me come in and rose to greet me.

  “Come in, comrade,” she said. “I want you to meet my friends.”

  She took my arm, but I held back. “Yetta,” I said, “before I am inaugurated into this new world, before I begin this golden experiment, there are a few things I must say. There is much in my heart as I stand here this moment. There is a tumult of emotion striving to be released in words. Language, unfortunately, is a poor vehicle to convey to you that which I presently feel. I could say that I am happy; I could say that I am grateful. Both would be true. True, but hardly adequate.

  “For what I feel is more than happiness, more than gratitude. It is a sense of cosmic home-coming—a return to the world, a reunion with mankind. It is a realization, a fulfillment, a flowering, a fruition, a consummation. I know now that I am of humanity. I know that I am, in small, humanity. This being together and working together in common purpose underlines that fact. It is more than a comradeship, more than a brotherhood. It is an identification, a valid empathy. I am inextricably humanity; humanity is irreducibly I.

  “No man is an Iland, Yetta, intire of it selfe; Every man is a peece of the Continent, Yetta, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the sea, Yetta, Europe is the lesse, as well, Yetta, as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any man’s death diminishes me, Yetta, because I am involved in Mankinde; and therefore, Yetta, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls, Yetta, for thee.”

  “Sure, Asa, sure,” said Yetta. “Now I’d like you to meet my friends. This is Millie de Agnes, Commissar of Folk Dancing. This is Max Stagecraft, Commissar of the People’s Theater. And this is Bertram Lathe, Commissar of Labor. Asa Hearthrug, everybody.”

  “Charmed,” I said.

  They nodded.

  “Have a glass tea?” asked Yetta.

  “No, thanks,” I replied quickly.

  “You came at a rather crucial time,” Yetta told me. “Our handicraft program isn’t going as well as we expected. We’re trying to solve the problem at this meeting.”

  “The trouble is,” said Bertram Lathe, “that we’re all intellectuals. We’ve got to learn to work with our hands. It’s a simple matter of manual training. Let’s learn our jobs and stop talking about the nobility of working.”

  “I disagree with Comrade Lathe,” said Max Stagecraft. “I think the trouble has been improper indoctrination. I think that before we begin another work project we must first conduct an educational program. Not until our people are made full
y conscious of the issues in the class war will they be able to do their work well. And the way to indoctrinate the people, of course, is through the folk arts. We must have a play.”

  “With dancing,” said Millie de Agnes.

  “But we’ve already had six plays,” protested Bertram Lathe.

  “Obviously that was not enough,” said Max Stagecraft. “Now, I’ve just written a little folk drama that will really bring home the message.”

  “I’ve got a new folk dance too,” said Millie de Agnes. “It’s better even than my Pas de Biscuits, Pappy. This is a great pageant with dancers representing each of the United Nations—three for the Soviet Union, of course.”

  “Sounds fine, comrade,” said Max Stagecraft. “I may have a little trouble working it into my play. My play takes place in a sharecropper’s cabin. But I’ll figure something out.”

  I spoke up. “Excuse me, Comrade Stagecraft,” I said, “but if you should happen to need any help with your play, I’d be glad to do what I can.”

  “No, thanks, comrade,” he said. “I’ve got it all done.”

  “I just thought I’d ask,” I said. “I know how difficult this writing game is.”

  “Particularly plays,” said Max Stagecraft. “The stage is such a limited medium that it’s often very hard to tell your story within its confines. Especially when you have lofty themes like I do. However, I’ve developed a few tricks that come in handy. Take exposition, for example. To some writers it’s such a problem to work in what happened before the action of the play begins. Not me. I’ve got it licked. I hit upon a method a few years back when I wrote a play called Love, and I’ve used it ever since. Love was the story of the failure of the marriage of two people named Max and Vesta Spondooley. By the way, my own name is Max, but I always have people in my plays called Max. False modesty, faugh!”

  “What a revolutionary idea,” I said. “I’m afraid I could never do it.”

  “As I was saying, I figured out a clever way to work in my exposition in Love. Here’s how I did it. The curtain opened on the living room of Max and Vesta Spondooley. There was nobody in the room and the phone was ringing. Maggie, the Spondooleys’ maid, came in and answered the phone. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘This is the grocery store? Fine. I want to order a few things. We’re having a little dinner party here tonight—just Mr. and Mrs. Spondooley. I guess you couldn’t hardly call it a dinner party, only it’s a special occasion. Their tenth wedding anniversary. Yes sir. Ten years. My, it don’t seem that long. But I guess time goes fast when folks are happy. Or think they’re happy. For in recent weeks I have detected an ominous note around here. Oh, nothing I can put my finger on, mind you. It’s just that everything don’t seem right. A body can tell when things don’t seem right. Just little things. A harsh word. A sharp look. Oh, it’s all forgotten quick enough, but those kind of things never used to happen before. Since that day when they first met in the lift of a loft building, the Spondooleys have been completely devoted. I would say that I have never seen a couple so perfectly mated. They’ve stuck together through good times and bad, through sickness and health, through poverty and riches. And now something vague and obscene has come between them. They don’t realize it yet, but mark my words: this marriage, apparently so perfect, is heading for the rocks. I’ll have five pounds of sugar, a stalk of celery, and a six-pound roasting chicken should be tender.’

  “So you see, although the play has scarcely begun, already the audience knows that the Spondooleys have been married ten happy years but now something mysterious is breaking up their marriage.”

  “Ingenious,” I said simply.

  “In my field,” remarked Millie de Agnes modestly, “I have also contributed a few innovations, not the least of them a ballet performed entirely on bicycles.”

  “I still think,” said Bertram Lathe, “that we’ve had enough plays. We ought to go to work. All we seem to be doing is having plays and folk dances and naked swimming.”

  “Now, comrade,” said Yetta, “that’s not fair. We’ve had a vineyard and a cow and a sheep and we’ve chopped trees. The people deserve a little relaxation.”

  “Especially when it indoctrinates them at the same time,” said Max Stagecraft.

  “With dancing,” said Millie de Agnes.

  “No,” said Bertram Lathe. “We’ve reached a point where we ought to stop indoctrinating each other. Let’s learn a trade. We’ve got to have workers to keep this place alive.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Yetta. “The workers will come in droves when they hear about our experiment. We’ve got to be ready to educate them in the ways of the Movement.”

  “With plays,” said Max Stagecraft.

  “And dancing,” said Millie de Agnes.

  “It’s just possible,” said Bertram Lathe, “that the Party would get more workers if we were workers ourselves. I’m beginning to think we frighten workers with all this indoctrination. I’m not sure that workers want to see class-war plays and dance folk dances and swim naked.”

  “Do you really swim naked?” I asked. “All naked?”

  “Why, of course, Asa,” said Yetta.

  “Gee,” I said. “Aren’t you embarrassed?”

  “Ha!” laughed Yetta. “Don’t be bourgeois. There’s nothing more natural. Anything natural is good.”

  “Of course, comrade,” said Max Stagecraft. “We don’t observe the narrow rules of capitalistic morality. We take our clothes off whenever we want to. If we felt like taking them off this very minute, we would.”

  “Let’s,” said Millie de Agnes.

  “Yes, let’s,” agreed Yetta, unlacing her bodice.

  “I’m getting discouraged,” said Bertram Lathe. “I’m beginning to have doubts about the success of this experiment.”

  “Why are you staring at me?” Yetta asked me.

  “Am I?” I said. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just that you don’t see many girls wearing union suits any more.”

  “I like them,” she said, “although they do present certain problems at times.”

  “I was wondering about that,” I confessed.

  “Aren’t you going to take off your clothes?” asked Max Stagecraft as he removed his trousers.

  “Yes, aren’t you?” asked Millie de Agnes, who was down to her shift.

  “It’s not nice,” I said.

  “Nonsense,” said Yetta. “The human body is a depository of dignity.”

  I looked at her depository of dignity. It was more depository than dignified.

  “It lets your pores breathe,” said Max Stagecraft. “Good for your acne.”

  “I don’t have acne,” I said.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Yetta. “Who ever heard of a communist without acne?”

  “I think I’ll resign,” said Bertram Lathe. “I think I’ll go look for a job.”

  “Are you crazy?” asked Max Stagecraft. “You know what happened to you last time you applied for a job, when you got in line with those veterans and told them that you were a Civil Service employee during the war.”

  “The feathers came off all right,” said Bertram Lathe, “but I’ve still got tar in some inaccessible places.”

  “Take off your clothes,” said Yetta. “We’ll try to get it off.”

  “No,” said Bertram Lathe. “I’m going.”

  He left.

  “Good riddance,” said Yetta. “He never really understood the Movement anyhow.”

  “Come, Comrade Hearthrug, take off your clothes,” said Millie de Agnes, now mother naked.

  “Good God, woman!” I cried. “What’s that?”

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “Haven’t you ever seen secondary mammaries before?”

  “Of course,” I said, “but always in even numbers.”

  “Take off your clothes, Asa,” said Yetta.

  “I’m embarrassed,” I said.

  “You should be used to being undressed,” said Yetta. “While you were in the Army you must have taken your clot
hes off thousands of times for small-arms inspection.”

  “Well, let’s get on with the meeting,” said Max Stagecraft.

  I said, “I’d like to ask something first. When you all have your clothes off, don’t—aren’t—well, are there ever any outbursts of passion?”

  “Of course,” said Yetta. “That’s only natural.”

  “And what do you do about it?”

  “Anything natural is good,” she replied.

  “I see,” said I. “You know, it’s a little stuffy in here. I think I’ll take my clothes off.”

  “I’ll help,” said Millie de Agnes.

  In a moment my garments lay in a shredded heap on the floor.

  “Well,” said Millie de Agnes, “do you hear Nature calling?”

  I looked at her. I shuddered. “That’s incredible,” I said, pointing.

  “Earl Wilson said they had a sort of haunting beauty,” she replied.

  “Hey,” said Yetta.

  I looked at Yetta. I shuddered.

  “Let’s get on with the meeting,” I said. “Comrade Stagecraft, you were talking about plays.”

  “Yes,” said Max Stagecraft. He cleared his throat. “Another problem in writing plays is action. Sometimes you have a situation where nothing is happening. People are just sitting and talking. There is a great danger that the play will drag in such a situation, that it will become unbearably static. I’ve solved that problem too. Again, my play Love is an example. In Love I had three whole acts there was nothing but talk. No action whatever. So what did I do? I instilled the feeling of action into this sedentary situation. Thus:

  MAX (rising and walking to the fireplace): Darling, do you feel that things aren’t entirely as they should be?