by Tom Boardman
“They printed books long before electricity, George. It’ll take a while to readjust the printing industry, but there’ll be books all right. Thank God for that.”
George Bailey grinned and got up. He walked over to the window and looked out into the night. The rain had stopped and the sky was clear.
A street-car was stalled, without lights, in the middle of the block outside. An automobile stopped, then started more slowly, stopped again; its headlights were dimming rapidly.
George looked up at the sky and took a sip of his drink.
“No lightning,” he said sadly. “I’m going to miss the lightning.”
The changeover went more smoothly than anyone would have thought possible.
The government, in emergency session, made the wise decision of creating one board with absolutely unlimited authority and under it only three subsidiary boards. The main board, called the Economic Readjustment Bureau, had only seven members and its job was to coordinate the efforts of the three subsidiary boards and to decide, quickly and without appeal, any jurisdictional disputes among them.
First of the three subsidiary boards was the Transportation Bureau. It immediately took over, temporarily, the railroads. It ordered Diesel engines run on sidings and left there, organized use of the steam locomotives, and solved the problems of railroading sans telegraphy and electric signals. It dictated, then, what should be transported; food coming first, coal and fuel oil second, and essential manufactured articles in the order of their relative importance. Car-load after car-load of new radios, electric stoves, refrigerators, and such useless articles were dumped unceremoniously alongside the tracks, to be salvaged for scrap metal later.
All horses were declared wards of the government, graded according to capabilities, and put to work or to stud, Draught horses were used for only the most essential kinds of hauling. The breeding programme was given the fullest possible emphasis; the bureau estimated that the equine population would double in two years, quadruple in three, and that within six or seven years there would be a horse in every garage in the country.
Farmers, deprived temporarily of their horses, and with their tractors rusting In the fields, were instructed how to use cattle for ploughing and other work about the farm, including light hauling.
The second board, the Manpower Relocation Bureau, functioned just as one would deduce from its title. It handled unemployment benefits for the millions thrown temporarily out of work and helped relocate them—not too difficult a task considering the tremendously increased demand for hand labour in many fields.
In May of 1957 thirty-five million employables were out of work; in October, fifteen million; by May of 1958, five million. By 1959 the situation was completely in hand and competitive demand was already beginning to raise wages.
The third board had the most difficult job of the three. It was called the Factory Readjustment Bureau. It coped with the stupendous task of converting factories filled with electrically operated machinery and, for the most part, tooled for the production of other electrically operated machinery, over for the production, without electricity, of essential non-electrical articles.
Hie few available stationary steam engines worked twenty-four hour shifts in those early days, and the first thing they were given to do was the running of lathes and stampers and planers and millers working on turning out more stationary steam engines, of all sizes. These, in turn, were first put to work making still more steam engines. The number of steam engines grew by squares and cubes, as did the number of horses put to stud. The principle was the same. One might, and many did, refer to those early steam engines as stud horses. At any rate, there was no lack of metal for them. The factories were filled with non-convertible machinery waiting to be melted down. Only when steam engines—the basis of the new factory economy—were in full production, were they assigned to running machinery for the manufacture of other articles. Oil lamps, clothing, coal stoves, oil stoves, bath-tubs, and bedsteads.
Not quite all of the big factories were converted. For while the conversion period went on, individual handicrafts sprang up in thousands of places. Little one- and two-man shops making and repairing furniture, shoes, candles, all sorts of things that could be made without complex machinery. At first these small shops made small fortunes because they had no competition from heavy industry. Later, they bought small steam engines to run small machines and held their own, growing with the boom that came with a return to normal employment and buying power, increasing gradually in size until many of them rivalled the bigger factories in output and beat them in quality.
There was suffering, during the period of economic readjustment, but less than there had been during the great depression of the early thirties. And the recovery was quicker.
The reason was obvious: In combating the depression, the legislators were working in the dark. They didn’t know its cause—rather, they knew a thousand conflicting theories of its cause—and they didn’t know the cure. They were hampered by the idea that the thing was temporary and would cure itself if left alone. Briefly and frankly, they didn’t know what it was all about and while they experimented, it snowballed.
But the situation that faced the country—and all other countries—in 1957 was clear-cut and obvious. No more electricity. Readjust for steam and horsepower.
As simple and clear as that, and no ifs or ands or buts. And the whole people—except for the usual scattering of cranks—back of them.
By 1961—
It was a rainy day in April and George Bailey was waiting under the sheltering roof of the little railroad station at Blakestown, Connecticut, to see who might come in on the 3.14.
It chugged in at 3.25 and came to a panting stop, three coaches and a baggage car. The baggage car door opened and a sack of mail was handed out and the door closed again. No luggage, so probably no passengers would—
Then at the sight of a tall dark man swinging down from the platform of the rear coach, George Bailey let out a yip of delight “Pete! Pete Mulvaney! What the devil—”
“Bailey, by all that’s holy! What are you doing here?”
George wrung Pete’s hand. “Me? I live here. Two years now. I bought the Blakestown Weekly in ’59, for a song, and I run it—editor, reporter, and janitor. Got one printer to help me out with that end, and Maisie does the social items. She’s—”
“Maisie? Maisie Hetterman?”
“Maisie Bailey now. We got married same time I bought the paper and moved here. What are you doing here, Pete?”
“Business, just here overnight. See a man named Wilcox.”
“Oh, Wilcox. Our local screwball—but don’t get me wrong; he’s a smart guy all right. Well, you can see him tomorrow. You’re coming home with me now, for dinner and to stay overnight. Maisie’ll be glad to see you. Come on, my buggy’s over here.”
“Sure. Finished whatever you were here for?”
“Yep, just to pick up the news on who came in on the train. And you came in, so here we go.”
They got in the buggy, and George picked up the ’reins and said, “Giddup, Bessie,” to the mare. Then, “What are you doing now, Pete?”
“Research. For a gas-supply company. Been working on a more efficient mantle, one that’ll give more light and be less destructible. This fellow Wilcox wrote us he had something along that line; the company sent me up to look it over. If it’s what he claims, I’ll take him back to New York with me, and let the company lawyers dicker with him.”
“How’s business, otherwise?”
“Great, George. Gas; that’s the coming thing. Every new home’s being piped for it, and plenty of the old ones. How about you?”
“We got it. Luckily we had one of the old Linotypes that ran the metal pot off a gas burner, so it was already piped in. And our home is right over the office and print shop, so all we had to do was pipe it up a flight. Great stuff, gas. How’s New York?”
“Fine, George. Down to its last million people, and stabilizin
g there. No crowding and plenty of room for everybody. The air—why, It’s better than Atlantic City, without gasoline fumes.”
“Enough horses to go around yet?”
“Almost. But bicycling’s the craze; the factories can’t turn out enough to meet the demand. There’s a cycling club in almost every block and all the able-bodied cycle to and from work. Doing ’em good, too; a few more years and the doctors will go on short rations.”
“You got a bike?”
“Sure, a pre-vader one. Average five miles a day on it, and I eat like a horse.”
George Bailey chuckled. “I’ll have Maisie include some hay in the dinner. Well, here we are. Whoa, Bessie.”
An upstairs window went up, and Maisie looked out and down. She called out, “Hi, Pete!”
“Extra plate, Maisie,” George called. “Well be up soon as I put the horse away and show Pete around downstairs.”
He led Pete from the barn into the back door of the newspaper shop. “Our Linotype!” he announced proudly, pointing.
“How’s it work? Where’s your steam engine?”
George grinned. “Doesn’t work yet; we still hand set the type. I could get only one steamer and had to use that on the press. But I’ve got one on order for the Lino, and coming up in a month or so. When we get it, Pop Jenkins, my printer, is going to put himself out of a job teaching me to run it. With the Linotype going, I can handle the whole thing myself.”
“Kind of rough on Pop?”
George shook his head. “Pop eagerly awaits the day. He’s sixty-nine and wants to retire. He’s just staying on until I can do without him, Here’s the press—a honey of a little Miehle; we do some job work on it, too. And this is the office, in front. Messy, but efficient.”
Mulvaney looked around him and grinned. “George, I believe you’ve found your niche. You were cut out for a smalltown editor.”
“Cut out for it? I’m crazy about it. I have more fun than everybody. Believe it or not, I work like a dog, and like it. Come on upstairs.”
On the stairs, Pete asked, “And the novel you were going to write?”
“Half done, and it isn’t bad. But it isn’t the novel I was going to write; I was a cynic then. Now—”
“George, I think the waveries were your best friends.”
“Waveries?”
“Lord, how long does it take slang to get from New York out to the sticks? The vaders, of course. Some professor who special-fees in studying them described one as a wavery place in the ether, and ‘wavery’ stuck—Hello there, Maisie, my girl. You look like a million.”
They ate leisurely. Almost apologetically, George brought out beer, in cold bottles. “Sorry, Pete, haven’t anything stronger to offer you. But I haven’t been drinking lately. Guess—”
“You on the wagon, George?”
“Not on the wagon, exactly. Didn’t swear off or anything, but haven’t had a drink of strong liquor in almost a year. I don’t know why, but—”
“I do,” said Pete Mulvaney. “I know exactly why you don’t—because I don’t drink much, either, for the same reason. We don’t drink because we don’t have to—say, isn’t that a radio over there?”
George chuckled. “A souvenir. Wouldn’t sell it for a fortune. Once in a while I like to look at it and think of the awful guff I used to sweat out for it. And then I go over and click the switch and nothing happens. Just silence. Silence is the most wonderful thing in the world, sometimes, Pete. Of course I couldn’t do that if there was any juice, because I’d get vaders then. I suppose they’re still doing business at the same old stand?”
“Yep, the Research Bureau checks daily. Try to get up current with a little generator run by a steam turbine. But no dice: the vaders suck it up as fast as it’s generated.”
“Suppose they’ll ever go away?”
Mulvaney shrugged. “Helmetz thinks not. He thinks they propagate in proportion to the available electricity. Even if the development of radio broadcasting somewhere else in the Universe would attract them there, some would stay here—and multiply like flies the minute we tried to use electricity again. And meanwhile, they’ll live on the static electricity in the air. What do you do evenings up here?”
“Do? Read, write, visit with one another, go to the amateur groups—Maisie’s chairman of the Blakestown Players, and I play bit parts in it. With the movies out everybody goes in for theatricals and we’ve found some real talent. And there’s the chess-and-checker club, and cycle trips and picnics—there isn’t time enough. Not to mention music. Everybody plays an instrument, or is trying to.”
“You?”
“Sure, cornet. First cornet in the Silver Concert Band, with solo parts. And—Good Heavens! Tonight’s rehearsal, and we’re giving a concert Sunday afternoon. I hate to desert you, but—”
“Can’t I come around and sit in? I’ve got my flute in the brief case here, and—”
“Flute? We’re short on flutes. Bring that around and Si Perkins, our director, will practically shanghai you into staying over for the concert Sunday—and it’s only three days, so why not? And get it out now; well play a few old timers to warm up. Hey, Maisie, skip those dishes and come on in to the piano!”
While Pete Mulvaney went to the guest room to get his flute from the brief case, George Bailey picked up his comet from the top of the piano and blew a soft, plaintive little minor run on it. Clear as a bell; his lip was in good shape tonight.
And with the shining silver thing in his hand he wandered over to the window and stood looking out into the night. It was dusk out and the rain had stopped.
A high-stepping horse clop-clopped by and the bell of a bicycle jangled. Somebody across the street was strumming a guitar and singing. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
The scent of spring was soft and sweet in the moist air.
Peace and dusk.
Distant rolling thunder.
God damn it, he thought, if only there was a bit of lightning.
He missed the lightning.