A Town Is Drowning

by Frederik Pohl

  Chesbro tramped on the dead button again and again.

  “It’s rising, isn’t it?” said the burgess. “Let’s get out and wade before we have to swim.”

  Hating him, his wife and himself, hating the car and the water, Arthur Chesbro opened the door; more water swirled in, seat-high. “Let’s go,” he said gruffly. “Five minutes and we’ll be in that filling station, grocery, whatever it was.”

  He gingerly lowered himself into the water; it came to his waist and chilled the bone. “I’ll lead,” he said. “Come on.

  Surprisingly there was a strong current; he had thought it would be a sort of pond. Instead it was a temporary catch basin for the living water that was thundering down from the heavens on its way to the river and finally the sea. They were simply in a low spot where water was detained for a while before rushing on. The same cubic yard of water could wash out a power line running along a high ridge, wash out a dirt road lower down on the hill, pour through a farmhouse lower down smashing the windows and depositing stinking mud on the floor, short his battery here, trapping the three of them, and still rage on with a long career of ruin before it. It was the secret of the flood’s destructiveness.

  Chesbro inched his way forward, taking care to keep the current abeam of him, feeling for the hardtop with his feet. The burgess and his wife held the skirt of his raincoat, one to a side.

  He stepped on something slippery and crashed face-forward into the muddy water; it was the burgess who, with unexpected wiry strength hauled him upright again while he floundered.

  “Fish or something.” he sputtered.

  They trudged forward, dead-tired after fifty feet of it, the current and the sullen resistance of the water itself, but the level was dropping about them as they climbed the rim of the basin in the land.

  In ten minutes they kicked through inch-deep water to the road surface, wet only with the pelting rain. Silently they splashed along the road.

  “Wait,” the burgess said abruptly. They stopped. He still had Chesbro’s lighter; he crouched and snapped it alight. “The water’s still rising,” he said. “Following right along behind us.” As they stood there it lapped at the soles of their shoes.

  Ten more interminable minutes—hard walking, their weight increased fifty per cent by their sodden clothes—and Mrs. Chesbro said: “There’s the light.”

  They shambled into a trot by unspoken agreement. It suddenly seemed very important to them all that they should get to a warm, dry place, shed their clothes, eat, sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sharon Froman shepherded the woman from the car, this Mrs. Chesbro, into the back room—a queer one, she was, but that could wait. “Take off what you can spare and hang it up,” she said briskly, efficiently, and headed back for the front room. There had been something when the woman’s husband and Mickey Groff met. Sharon Froman wanted to see.

  They were comparing notes on the flood, and that was all right. If you didn’t have an ear skilled in detecting the grace notes of conflict it might have sounded like any other strangers in common trouble, but Sharon’s ear caught resonances beyond that. Take the woman’s husband, for instance. He was chattering away to, of all people, sick-pup Dick McCue; but his eyes kept wandering to Mickey Groff.

  Mrs. Goudeket scolded: “Sharon! The blanket for Mr. Starkman, you forgot it?”

  “He can take mine,” Sharon said—she didn’t want to go back to the storeroom just then. She handed the holed, grease-spotted rag to the old man, then remembered and carefully draped it around his shoulders. “They stink,” she told him cheerfully. “And I think they’ve got bugs; but they’re better than pneumonia.” She grinned at Mickey Groff.

  “Thank you, Miss,” said Henry Starkman. He had not failed to notice that the girl was playing up to Groff. Gold digger, he diagnosed, archaically and without passion. He was waiting for Chesbro to switch his attention from the kid to Groff. Starkman had sat enough hours in the law-offices of county politicians to smell the beginnings of a deal before it really existed. Chesbro wasn’t ready yet; he hadn’t even made up his mind to offer something to Groff—quite. But it was in the air. Pretty soon Chesbro would turn to the manufacturer and say something bluff and hearty like, “Well, I see we’re going to be chewing each other’s ears off in the ring tomorrow,“ and then, if Chesbro could find a private place to do it, the two of them would be talking quietly for a while…

  Starkman hugged the smelly blanket around him. Shivering, he thought querulously: What’s the matter with Bess? I want my cocoa.

  He shook his head to clear it, and got up to look at the rain outside. He shouldn’t be here at all, of course; what had the people made him burgess for, at that fat and sought-after salary of two hundred dollars a year, if not to be on hand when the community was in trouble? And if a flood wasn’t trouble—

  A sort of choking sound from Mrs. Goudeket made him turn around.

  The Chesbro woman was standing in the doorway to the storeroom. In the light from the candles she had no eyes, the ragged blankets she wore were robes, she was blindly staring marble. She had swept the blankets spirally around her body and over her wet hair; a hobble skirt at one end and a turban at the other. She was striking, and she stood for a moment posed as though she knew it.

  Mrs. Goudeket made a tongue-smacking sound. Artie Chesbro looked around vaguely. “Oh, hello, honey,” he said. “Now, this thunderstorm we had in Summit in forty-six a couple of cellars were flooded all right, but—” Dick McCue nodded mechanically, his eyes fixed on the woman.

  She came over to Starkman and sat down next to him. At close range, the costume didn’t seem as extreme as half-lit by the candles, but the burgess^ felt uneasy. She was too close to him, that was it; she was sitting on the floor, looking up at him.

  “I’d better get you something to sit on.” he said, and escaped.

  They managed to build a fire in the storeroom—there were a couple of sheet-metal soft-drink signs; they raised one, punctured for draft, on a row of bottles and placed another one underneath to catch the hot ashes. It worked. Mickey Groff had placed his bet on the normal air leakage around the window frames carrying off the worst of the smoke, and so it did. It didn’t pay to sit too close to . it. You had to watch it minute by minute to keep it fed and keep it from setting fire to the shack. But it served to dry out their clothes, and besides it felt more cheerful.

  The men settled among themselves a plan for rotating guard duty—guarding against fire and flood. Sam Zehedi and Dick McCue took the first shift, one to keep the other awake; they sat and looked at each other. They had nothing to say; and besides, it was hard enough for the others to sleep without their talking.

  Artie Chesbro, sharing a double pad of newspapers with his wife, schemed feverishly: He hasn’t said a word, he’s waiting for me to make the first move. How much should I cut him in for? Or for that matter, do I have to—?

  Well, yes. He’d seen enough of the burgess by now to know that the deal he had optimistically outlined in the newspaper was out. Starkman wouldn’t cave in; you could use the anti-outsider theme just so far, and then you had to come across with something tangible for Starkman himself, or for the borough of Hebertown. On the other hand, what about this: Suppose Groff cooled off on the location after being stuck in this crazy flood they had down here? Maybe it wouldn’t be too hard to convince him Hebertown was a lousy idea—maybe even, this was a chance to do something with the old Ackerman tract north of Summit. He doubted that; Groff would know a swamp when he saw one; but suppose, an hour and eight minutes from now, when they went on guard duty together as he had carefully arranged, he merely suggested it to the manufacturer and made it sound good…He wished his wife would stop that damn humming in his ear. God, why couldn’t they at least be home, where they could be decently asleep in their own individual rooms?

  Asleep, Mrs. Goudeket’s face was curved in a smile. She was dreaming of 1926, a bride, the rooming house at Brighton Beach. Between her and Mickey Gr
off, Sharon’s face was smiling too, sweetly and trustfully, as she nestled obliviously against the manufacturer, but of course she wasn’t asleep.

  Sam Zehedi sat torpidly over the fire, waiting for the last of it to burn itself out. He’d nearly dropped off three times, and he and McCue, consulting, had decided it was more dangerous to leave it burning than to put it out. It did stink pretty bad, he though fuzzily; putting water on it had been a mistake. It smelt a little oily.

  He swallowed and rubbed his stomach. That lousy candy bar, he didn’t like it, he didn’t want it, why had he eaten it? He wistfully turned his thoughts to pickled mussels wrapped in grape leaves, now farther out of reach than ever, and a nice, plump black-eyed girl to serve them.

  McCue had dozed off, he noticed. A kid. Well, let him sleep. What difference did it make?

  Funny, he thought dizzily, not even broiled lamb seemed attractive right now. He shouldn’t have drunk that cream soda either—he gulped and wrenched his thoughts away from that cream soda. The smell of the dying fire was getting pretty strong and he felt nauseous, as if the floor were moving about underneath him.

  Now the sleepers were turning and coughing. There was something wrong, Sam Zehedi fuzzily thought. He swayed to his feet and lurched toward the door. Clear the air, he thought. The last embers of the fire winked out and he thought for a vague moment that he had lost his eyesight. He flung the door open with his last strength and took a deep sobbing breath. Images of white-tiled walls, green-painted corridors swirled through his head; he was ten again and they were wheeling him along the green-painted corridors to have his tonsils cut out, Morrisania Hospital—

  He fell heavily across the restless, coughing shape of Mickey Groff.

  Groff sat up slowly, choking. His head thudded as if with the hangover to end them all.

  Gas.

  “Get up!” he cried, swaying. “Get up!” Around him they stirred and coughed.

  “Gasoline fumes!” he yelled. “Get up! Up the stairs! Move!” He staggered through the dark room, kicking at them and yelling. The stairs were in back—back. And this was—a wall. He leaned against it. It would be good to slump down and rest for a moment, just a moment—

  He lurched along the wall to the corner, to the open stairway that let to the upstairs room. “Over here!” he choked at them. “I’m standing by the stairs. Come on! Come on!”

  One by one they stumbled to the sound of his voice and began to drag themselves up the shaky stairs.

  One. Two. Three…Four…Five…

  “Come on! I’m standing by the stairs. The stairs. This way. This.”

  Two more to come. Two. More. Some fool was striking a light, a blue-green light to blow them to hell. But no; it was his eyes, glazed and burning, that made the light. Two more to come.

  His raw throat and bursting lungs silenced him. He lurched across the floor and stumbled over something soft. He knelt, took it under the armpits and dragged it to the wall, followed the wall to the corner, to the stairs. Feet on the stairs.

  A young voice in the darkness choked: “Mr. Groff. Come up. I’ll get him. Can you make it?” Young McCue. Strong arms took his burden over and it bumped up the steps. That was seven. One to go. He headed back into the thick sweetness of the fumes and crashed to the floor.

  He never felt McCue come to his aid and heave him up the steps, but through it he was muttering: “One more.”

  They were a sick lot when he awoke an hour later.

  In the dark upstairs, cluttered with boxes and cans Mrs. Goudeket was saying: “The water, it seeped into the gas tanks underground, it must be. The gas floated up and all around us on top of the water. God be thanked, nobody lit a match and the fire was out. As it was we were almost poisoned in our sleep, thanks to that Arab.“ There was hatred in her voice, fifteen centuries of it.

  Burgess Starkman’s voice emerged from an attack of coughing. “He*s dead, Mrs. Goudeket. You shouldn’t—” He broke into coughing again.

  Mickey Groff grunted, trying to talk. It was important to clear that up. His head was pounding, but Mrs. Goudeket didn’t understand. “He was a Syrian,’

  ’ he croaked. “A civilized Christian people.**

  “Mr. Groff!” said Mrs. Goudeket. “You’re better! We were afraid—You’re a hero, Mr. Groff. You saved our lives. Except—”

  “Zehedi?** he asked.

  He knew that she was nodding in the darkness, just as he knew that she was bitterly ashamed of her outburst. “Too late.” she sighed. “Ai, too late. Dick went down with the handkerchief around his mouth and pulled him up the stairs. His heart was going, and then it wasn’t. Maybe fifteen minutes. Too late.”

  A plump arm slid around him and Sharon Froman’s voice said in his ear, “Try to sit up. We all felt better after we sat up.” She supported his back and eased his trunk upright; he thought his head would explode. He leaned against her dizzily and felt her cool palm against his forehead. “Better,” he grunted. “Thanks.”

  The burgess’s old voice said abruptly, “Sing a psalm for Sam Zehedi, the sad Syrian. Bess? Bess?”

  “He’s wandering,” Sharon said very softly to Mickey Groff. “He won’t sleep.”

  Mrs. Chesbro moved across the floor to the sound of the burgess’s voice.

  “Where are you going, Polly?” Arthur Chesbro snapped.

  “To the poor old man,” she said. “Maybe I can talk him into signing the lease before he takes wing.”

  Now, what did she mean by that? They didn’t have a pen, there would have to be witnesses, Groff was right there to break things up if they tried to pressure him, it wouldn’t work in a million years. The stupidity of that woman was sometimes absolutely astounding.

  She found the bony bundle that was Burgess Harry Starkman. “How little we know…he was mumbling “I was at Belleau Wood, you know. Leatherneck couple wars back. They poured gas shells in for forty-eight hours, but the leathernecks didn’t have gas casualties. Court-martial for gas casualties. Not like the doughboys, threw away their masks. Got through Belleau Wood and here I am a gas casualty anyway, thirty-seven years later. Ambushed in Hebertown Township. The boys at the Legion’ll get a kick out of that.” He sat up abruptly and anxiously called out: “Bess?”

  She soothed him and urged him down. “Rest,” she said. She felt and unbuttoned his shirt, loosened the blanket around her and spread it over the two of them, pressing herself against his bare chest.

  “I remember,” he said. “King Solomon. Old reprobate. But don’t go away, child.” He fell into an uneasy doze, his breath rattling in his chest. She pressed herself against him and lay still and silent.

  Dick McCue said, “I wonder if it’s safe to smoke.”

  Mrs. Goudeket snapped: “In a situation like this you don’t take chances.”

  Groff said slowly, 4iI think it’s all right. Gas fumes are heavy; they hug the ground. If we hadn’t been sleeping on the floor—”

  “I guess I’d better not,” McCue said uncertainly. “You can’t smell much up here but—I wonder where the water level is now.”

  “We’ll know in the morning,” Chesbro said. “Couple of hours. My God, who would have thought it yesterday?”

  Sharon Froman said, “It’s bad, Mr. Chesbro. It means a permanent loss of industry—unless we move fast.”

  “What permanent loss?” Chesbro snapped. “We shovel out the mud, we replace the machines, we get going again. The government’ll help any sound business in a case like this.”

  “I am thinking,” she said, “of the South.”

  “The South? What’s the South got to do with this?”

  “This is the godsend they’ve been waiting for! Think, Mr. Chesbro! They’ve spent millions on advertising and promotion to attract industry—to steal it, if you like. Tax exemptions. Rent-free plant. This flood is worth a billion dollars to them, Mr. Chesbro. If it’s as big as it looks from here, it’s worth all the sixteen-page ads they’ll ever run in the Sunday Times. Believe me, I know. There are goi
ng to be task-forces from the Bureau of Industrial Development of every southern state calling on every manufacturer and distributor in this area. ‘Frightful about your tragedy,’ and ‘Us Delta folks want to he’p you any way we can,’ and ‘Don’t get us wrong, friend, we ain’t out to steal industry from the No’th at a time like this, but—‘ And then it starts. They’ll woo them with sites, with tax write-offs, with cheap labor rates. They’ll strip the area of industry, dean as a whistle. Unless.”

  “My God!” said Chesbro, appalled.

  He had never considered the angle but she was, God knew, dead-right.

  Nor, he reflected self-pityingly, would he get any such offers. What did he have that would attract a Mississippi chamber of commerce? It was all intangibles that his fortune was going to come from—was almost coming from already, he assured himself panickily. tie had come pretty close; it was only a question of time until the legislature authorized the trotting track, until the money borrowed from his wife’s father and invested in that promising Geiger-positive tract north of Summit turned up real pay dirt, until—

  Until never, now. Not if this frighteningly plausible young woman was right. And she sounded right.

  He said slowly, “You’re a very smart young woman, Miss Froman. Have you had any experience in this field?”

  She smiled candidly. “Only enough to get the feel of it, Mr. Chesbro. I’m a writer. You might say I’ve made a study of everything.” (And besides, I typed Hesch’s thesis for him, didn’t I? The War Between The States, Round Two: A Study in Industrial Dynamics.)

  He nodded. “You said ’unless.’ Unless what?”

  She said composedly, “Unless we get there first. Unless we form an organization immediately—on a regional basis—to hammer home our side. Skilled labor that’s been through the birth-pangs of organizational strikes. They’re the roughest kind, and they still lie ahead for the South. Access to the markets. A good life for the management and supervisory workers. Bracing climate. Sound Republican territory.”