“He says they sold people as many cars and washing machines and television sets as they could use. He says NATS and bomb shelters aren’t good for anything, so people never get all they can use. He says factories can keep turning out guns and gas masks forever, and as long as people are afraid they’ll keep paying for them because they think if they don’t they might get killed, and maybe a man gets tired of paying for a new car every year and stops, but he’s never going to stop buying shelters to protect his children.”
“You believe that?” the salesman asked.
“I wish we had that shelter,” Mike Foster answered. “If we had a shelter like that I’d go down and sleep in it every night. It’d be there when we needed it.”
“Maybe there won’t be a war,” the salesman said. He sensed the boy’s misery and fear, and he grinned good-naturedly down at him. “Don’t worry all the time. You probably watch too many vidtapes— get out and play, for a change.”
“Nobody’s safe on the surface,” Mike Foster said. “We have to be down below. And there’s no place I can go.”
“Send your old man around,” the salesman muttered uneasily. “Maybe we can talk him into it. We’ve got a lot of time-payment plans. Tell him to ask for BUI O’Neill. Okay?”
Mike Foster wandered away, down the black evening street. He knew he was supposed to be home, but his feet dragged and his body was heavy and dull. His fatigue made him remember what the athletic coach had said the day before, during exercises. They were practicing breath suspension, holding a lungful of air and running. He hadn’t done well; the others were still red-faced and racing when he halted, expelled his air, and stood gasping frantically for breath.
“Foster,” the coach said angrily, “you’re dead. You know that? If this had been a gas attack ” He shook
his head wearily. “Go over there and practice by yourself. You’ve got to do better, if you expect to survive.”
But he didn’t expect to survive.
When he stepped up on the porch of his home, he found the living-room lights already on. He could hear his father’s voice, and more faintly his mother’s from the kitchen. He closed the door after him and began unpeeling his coat.
“Is that you?” his father demanded. Bob Foster sat sprawled out in his chair, his lap full of tapes and report sheets from his retail furniture store. “Where have you been? Dinner’s been ready half an hour.” He had taken off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. His arms were pale and thin, but muscular. He was tired; his eyes were large and dark, his hair thinning. Restlessly, he moved the tapes around, from one stack to another.
“I’m sorry,” Mike Foster said.
His father examined his pocket watch; he was surely the only man who still carried a watch. “Go wash your hands. What have you been doing?” He scrutinized his son. “You look odd. Do you feel all right?”
“I was down town,” Mike Foster said.
“What were you doing?”
“Looking at the shelters.”
Wordless, his father grabbed up a handful of reports and stuffed them into a folder. His thin lips set; hard lines wrinkled his forehead. He snorted furiously as tapes spilled everywhere; he bent stiffly to pick them up. Mike Foster made no move to help him. He crossed to the closet and gave his coat to the hanger. When he turned away his mother was directing the table of food into the dining room.
They ate without speaking, intent on their food and not looking at each other. Finally his father said, “What’d you see? Same old dogs, I suppose.”
“There’s the new ’72 models,” Mike Foster answered.
“They’re the same as the ’71 models.” His father threw down his fork savagely; the table caught and absorbed it. “A few new gadgets, some more chrome. That’s all.” Suddenly he was facing his son defiantly. “Right?”
Mike Foster toyed wretchedly with his creamed chicken. “The new ones have a jamb-proof descent lift. You can’t get stuck half-way down. All you have to do is get in it, and it does the rest.”
“There’ll be one next year that’ll pick you up and carry you down. This one’ll be obsolete as soon as people buy it. That’s what they want—they want you to keep buying. They keep putting out new ones as fast as they can. This isn’t 1972, it’s still 1971. What’s that thing doing out already? Can’t they wait?”
Mike Foster didn’t answer. He had heard it all before, many times. There was never anything new, only chrome and gadgets; yet the old ones became obsolete, anyhow. His father’s argument was loud, impassioned, almost frenzied, but it made no sense. “Let’s get an old one, then,” he blurted out. “I don’t care, any one’ll do. Even a second-hand one.”
“No, you want the new one. Shiny and glittery to impress the neighbors. Lots of dials and knobs and machinery. How much do they want for it?”
“Twenty thousand dollars.”
His father let his breath out. “Just like that.”
“They have easy time-payment plans.”
“Sure. You pay for it the rest of your life. Interest, carrying charges, and how long is it guaranteed for?” “Three months.”
“What happens when it breaks down? It’ll stop purifying and decontaminating. It’ll fall apart as soon as the three months are over.”
Mike Foster shook his head. “No. It’s big and sturdy.” His father flushed. He was a small man, slender and light, brittle-boned. He thought suddenly of his lifetime of lost battles, struggling up the hard way, carefully collecting and holding onto something, a job, money, his retail store, bookkeeper to manager, finally owner. “They’re scaring us to keep the wheels going,” he yelled desperately at his wife and son. “They don’t want another depression.” “Bob,” his wife said, slowly and quietly, “you have to stop this. I can’t stand any more.”
Bob Foster blinked. “What’re you talking about?” he muttered. “I’m tired. These god-damn taxes. It isn’t possible for a little store to keep open, not with the big chains. There ought to be a law.” His voice trailed off. “I guess I’m through eating.” He pushed away from the table and got to his feet. “I’m going to lie down on the couch and take a nap.”
His wife’s thin face blazed. “You have to get one! I can’t stand the way they talk about us. All the neighbors and the merchants, everybody who knows. I can’t go anywhere or do anything without hearing about it. Ever since that day they put up the flag. Anti-P. The last in the whole town. Those things circling around up there, and everybody paying for them but us.”
“No,” Bob Foster said. “I can’t get one.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” he answered simply, “I can’t afford it.”
There was silence.
“You’ve put everything in that store,” Ruth said finally. “And it’s failing, anyhow. You’re just like a packrat, hoarding everything down at that ratty little hole-in-the-wall. Nobody wants wood furniture, any more. You’re a relic— a curiosity.” She slammed at the table and it leaped wildly to gather the empty dishes, like a startled animal. It dashed furiously from the room and back into the kitchen, the dishes churning in its wash-tank as it raced.
Bob Foster sighed wearily. “Let’s not fight. I’ll be in the living room. Let me take a nap for an hour or so. Maybe we can talk about it later.”
“Always later,” Ruth said bitterly.
Her husband disappeared into the living room, a small, hunched-over figure, hair scraggly and gray, shoulder blades like broken wings.
Mike got to his feet. “I’ll go study my homework,” he said. He followed after his father, a strange look on his face.
The living room was quiet; the vidset was off and the lamp was down low. Ruth was in the kitchen setting the controls on the stove for the next month’s meals. Bob Foster lay stretched out on the couch, his shoes off, his bead on a pillow. His face was gray with fatigue. Mike hesitated for a moment and then said, “Can I ask you something?”
His father grunted and stirred, opened his eyes. “What?” Mike sat down facing him. “Tell me again how you gave advice to the President.”
His father pulled himself up. “I didn’t give any advice to the President. I just talked to him.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I’ve told you a million times. Every once in a while, since you were a baby. You were with me.” His voice softened, as he remembered. “You were just a toddler—we had to carry you.”
“What did he look like?”
“Well,” his father began, slipping into a routine he had worked out and petrified over the years, “he looked about like he does in the vidscreen, Smaller, though.”
“Why was he here?” Mike demanded avidly, although he knew every detail. The President was his hero, the man he most admired in all the world. “Why’d he come all the way out here to our town?”
“He was on a tour.” Bitterness crept into his father’s voice. “He happened to be passing through.”
“What kind of a tour?”
“Visiting towns all over the country.” The harshness increased. “Seeing how we were getting along. Seeing if we had bought enough NATS and bomb shelters and plague shots and gas masks and radar networks to repel attack. The General Electronics Corporation was just beginning to put up its big showrooms and displays—everything bright and glittering and expensive. The first defense equipment available for home purchase.” His lips twisted. “All on easy-payment plans. Ads, posters, searchlights, free gardenias and dishes for the ladies.”
Mike Foster’s breath panted in his throat. “That was the day we got our Preparedness Flag,” he said hungrily. “That was the day he came to give us our flag. And they ran it up on the flagpole in the middle of the town, and everybody was there yelling and cheering.”
“You remember that?”
“I—think so. I remember people and sounds. And it was hot. It was June, wasn’t it?”
“June 10, 1965. Quite an occasion. Not many towns had the big green flag, then. People were still buying cars and TV sets. They hadn’t discovered those days were over. TV sets and cars are good for something—you can only manufacture and sell so many of them.”
“He gave you the flag, didn’t he?”
“Well, he gave it to all us merchants. The Chamber of Commerce had it arranged. Competition between towns, see who can buy the most the soonest. Improve our town and at the same time stimulate business. Of course, the way they put it, the idea was if we had to buy our gas masks and bomb shelters we’d take better care of them. As if we ever damaged telephones and sidewalks. Or highways, because the whole state provided them. Or armies. Haven’t there always been armies? Hasn’t the government always organized its people for defense? I guess defense costs too much. I guess they save a lot of money, cut down the national debt by this.”
“Tell me what he said,” Mike Foster whispered.
His father fumbled for his pipe and lit it with trembling hands. “He said, ‘Here’s your flag, boys. You’ve done a good job.’ Bob Foster choked, as acrid pipe fumes guzzled up. “He was red-faced, sunburned, not embarrassed. Perspiring and grinning. He knew how to handle himself. He knew a lot of first names. Told a funny joke.”
