Most of the drivers along Eastshore Freeway had in mind the idea of going to San Francisco. Traffic was heavy facing him but his own lanes were open as he continued toward Richmond. The windows of the Pontiac were up and the heater was on. He felt comfortable and sleepy, and the cowboy music lulled him. Gradually he let the car slide from its lane, and then, as a car behind him honked, he drew himself up on the seat and concentrated. The time was six-thirty.
Along the flat shoreline of the East Bay, on his right, ran the Aquatic Park. He had by this time reached a speed of sixty miles an hour, and that seemed to him plenty. Apparently he had not been this way in more time than he realized; there were changes in the freeway, new overhead ramps being built, detours and cut-offs which confused him. And already, he noticed, the freeway was twelve lanes wide. Did they have to make it even wider? The pavement was white cement and there were no stops. The flatness of the pavement pleased him. He held the wheel with both hands and gazed at the houses and hills to his right.
Now the problem came of finding Hoffman Boulevard; he had to get over to the right or he would not be able to leave the freeway. So he drifted gradually, thinking that this was the best way. Cars on his right, however, did not think so; a chorus of horns jolted him. Gunning the car forward, he shot into an open space in the right-hand lane, almost the asphalt shoulder. A moment later his car coasted along the narrow, bumpy temporary start of Hoffman; he shot past a green light at an intersection and under an ominous black-iron overpass with huge warning signs and winking yellow lights; the lights alternated in a pattern that made him feel, as he drove beneath them, that something terrible was going to happen. The passage under the overpass was so narrow that for a moment he thought the car would not make it. He had the illusion that he would scrape on both sides, and it was all he could do to keep his hands on the steering wheel. But already he had come out on the far side; there, once more, was the Bay to his left.
Several miles later Hoffman entered a strip of cut-rate gasoline stations and truck drivers’ cafés, and then the worst section of run-down Negro shacks that he could recall. Traffic moved very slowly, with huge diesel trucks interspersed among the cars. This, he understood, was Richmond. Trash littered the broken sidewalks.
To his left he saw factories and wharves. Near the water, he realized. Train tracks, one after another. And then, ahead, a steep hill with houses. The street turned sharply. He saw an open place, and then the immense Standard Oil refinery. All at once the street became a freeway again, climbing, with the cars picking up speed on all sides of him. He whizzed along a broad curve, above the refinery, and now he saw the Bay once more, and the bridge that connected the East Bay to Marin County. It was the ugliest bridge he had ever seen, but it did not depress him; instead, it made him laugh.
He slowed at the toll plaza of the bridge, paid his seventy-five cents, and then found himself on the bridge. They had built it so that the driver could see nothing, no water, none of the islands, not even his destination; all he could pick out were the heavy metal rails.
What genius, he said to himself. What planning. Again he laughed.
At last one sight became obvious; he fastened his gaze on it, far ahead. San Quentin Prison, clay-colored buildings like some old Mexican fort, spread out at the water’s edge, all in very good shape. The bridge passed to the right of the prison and let him off on a wide freeway which led into one cut-off after another. Again he was confused. But a sign told him which cut-off to take to get onto US 101 North. And so he took that.
He sped across a flat plain at enormous speed, a car behind him and another ahead. Wind whipped at his Pontiac. There was San Rafael and US 101; he had almost arrived, and it had not taken very long. He was well ahead of schedule, and his spirits rose even further.
When he saw a gas station on a little side cut-off road he made a signal and coasted from the freeway. After several turns he found himself at the gas station. Leaving the road he brought the car to the nearest island of pumps. The morning air, as he opened the car door, was warm. Wind riffled the stalks of weeds growing in the surrounding fields.
He lifted the hood and with a page of newspaper took an oil reading. The oil level was down, so he picked up a quart of 30 weight from the rack by the pumps. The boyish attendant in his white uniform was hurrying over as the old man emptied the oil into the pouring-can that had been put nearby.
“Hey,” the boy said indignantly. “None of that.”
“Sorry,” Fergesson said, remembering, now, that he was not in his own garage. “Give me five of the regular.” He had already begun to reach for the gas hose, but he pretended that he had been reading the price. Ethyl was thirty-nine cents a gallon. He showed amazement at the amount as the boy lifted down the hose.
The boy was still upset. As he walked to the rear of the car and removed the gas cap, he watched the old man as if expecting him to tinker again with the company’s property. Self-consciously, the old man got back inside the car and remained there until the boy came around to wash the windshield. “No, no,” he said to the boy, wanting to leave, pushing several one-dollar bills at him.
The boy gave him change and retrieved the pouring-can. The hood slammed down and the old man drove from the station back onto the road. There a milk truck honked at him as he pulled in front of it.
As he drove, his eagerness increased. Now, at any time, he might see the sign leading to Marin Country Gardens. But he had left the freeway; the little road did not lead back to it but brought him out on a residential street. A huge wire cyclone fence separated him from the freeway, and beyond the fence cars shot along at enormous speed. However, he continued on with no diminution of spirits, disconnected from the freeway as he was. Evidently he had entered San Rafael, a town to which he rarely, if ever, came.
Between silent houses he drove at twenty-five miles an hour. The blocks were short. A number of men could be seen on their way to work, walking rapidly, some wearing suits, others in work clothes. They all had a speeded-up motion, as in an old film. That amused him, too.
For a time he drove through the town, still keeping in sight of the freeway, wondering where he was but enjoying himself. And then at last he sighted something heartening. The broken-up expanse of new dirt which, he realized, was construction beyond the freeway. Great culverts lying in rows, the ceramic drainage system which would go down first, before anything else. And parked machinery. Big ones. The major equipment which the Federal Government used in its work; he had seen them when Highway 40 had been rebuilt, the Eastshore Freeway.
He came, then, to the very edge of the construction zone, and halted his car; he had no choice but to halt—the pavement ended in a series of jagged projections that had already cracked. The road on which he drove had been scooped away by the digging equipment. He saw down, into a drop-off. Dirt only. The underneath part which they usually never got to see. It frightened him, and he pulled on the handbrake. Machines, he thought, had carried away everything here; had left nothing at all. What power to remove! Nothing could stand…he looked to the right and left. Furrow for a long way, and so God damn wide. Did cars go across? Could one go and rejoin the freeway on the far side? He saw, high up, tiny swift dots. Cars on the freeway.
Parallel to the freeway ran a double track. Tread marks in the dirt, imprinted by pressure. Some vehicles. So he started up the car and drove down, off the asphalt; the car bumped, creaked, lifted on first one side and then the other. He drove carefully along the rutted tracks. The car shuddered as stones broke beneath the wheels. He gripped the steering wheel and eased the car into holes and out again.
Once he passed workmen who gaped at him. Then he passed mounds of machines. And, at last, he saw a metallic bulk approaching him head-on.
He stopped the car as the object became a bulldozer. The driver, perched high up in his seat, shook his fist and shouted; he, too, stopped, and the two vehicles faced each other. Fergesson did not get out. He remained behind the wheel.
The driver o
f the bulldozer jumped down and walked over. “Who the hell are you? Get this heap out of here.”
To Fergesson the bulldozer and the angry driver were unreal. He heard the man panting and saw his red face moon up at the window, but still he did not stir. He did not know what to do.
“Get back!” the man shouted. “Get back to the road! Come on, fellow!”
Fergesson said, “You know Mr. Bradford?”
Other workmen arrived and with them was a man in a business suit. They pointed at Fergesson’s Pontiac and waved more workmen to follow. A line of figures grew along the rise of equipment and dirt: onlookers.
The man in the business suit came to the window and said, “I’ll have to ask you to back your car the way you came. This is a private road for use by the State.”
Fergesson could think of nothing to say. He had come almost a mile along the rutted tracks in low gear. The idea of backing bewildered him. He felt confused and he could not speak.
“What’s the matter with him?” the driver was yelling. “Christ, I have to get by—I can’t fart around here.”
A workman said, “Maybe he doesn’t speak English.”
“Let me see your driver’s license,” the man in the business suit said.
“No,” Fergesson said.
A workman said, “He don’t know how to back out.”
“Move over,” the man in the business suit said. He opened the car door. “I’ll back it. Move over, buddy. Look, we can give you a citation; you’re on State property. You’re a trespasser. You have no legal right to be on this road; it isn’t a road, it’s a construction project.”
He pushed Fergesson over, slammed the door, and, putting the Pontiac into reverse and peering over his shoulder, began to back. The driver returned to his bulldozer and followed. It took a long time to reach the point at which the genuine road had ceased. Fergesson gazed at the floorboards and said nothing.
“Okay,” the man said, tugging on the parking brake and stepping out. “It’s all yours.”
“How do I go?” Fergesson said.
“Back, up the rise, the way you came.”
Fergesson pointed across the expanse of dirt, at the freeway on the far side.
“Go back,” the man repeated. “Back to San Rafael and find a street to cross there.” He walked rapidly off and Fergesson was alone. He could hear the rumble of the bulldozer and the sounds of the workmen; they were starting their day. Shifting into gear—the teeth clashed—he drove clumsily back along the road and once again found himself in the residential section of San Rafael, among the houses and lawns.
When he saw a man walking along the sidewalk, Fergesson leaned out the window and called, “How do I get across?”
The man glanced at him and went on without speaking. Fergesson rolled up the window again. He felt shaken and depressed and he did not pursue the man. The time was now nine o’clock and the sky was warming. Yellow sunlight hung over the trees and sidewalks; the lawns sparkled. A mailman walked slowly along and Fergesson brought the car to the curb beside him.
“How do I get across 101?” he said.
“Where do you want to go?”
“Marin Country Gardens,” he said, resting a little as he sat behind the steering wheel.
The mailman consulted with himself. “No,” he said, “I never heard of it. Go down to the city hall and ask them. Ask somebody down there; they’ll know.” He continued on.
From then on the old man drove aimlessly, not knowing where to go or whom to talk to. He seemed to be getting farther and farther away from the main part of town; the streets became steeper and the houses older. At last he came out into what seemed to be a housing tract, but an old one; the houses were decayed and the weeds high in the yards.
Once he saw a policeman, but the policeman looked tough and unsympathetic so he did not stop there either. The time was now a quarter past ten. This is a hell of a thing, he thought to himself. Where am I? Still in San Rafael? He saw, past the tract, what appeared to be a glimpse of open country. Fields, hills far off.
At ten-thirty he came to an intersection at which was a small imitation-stone building with a sign over it: DOWLAND REAL ESTATE NOTARY PUBLIC RENTALS. So he parked the car and went inside.
Behind one of the three desks sat a middle-aged woman in a print dress, wearing a hat and talking on the phone. She smiled at him, concluded her conversation, and then came over to the counter. “Good morning,” she said.
Fergesson said, “I want to go to Marin Country Gardens.”
The woman pondered. She seemed well groomed with gray hair pulled back and waved; her clothes looked expensive and she smelled of powder and perfume. “That’s not ours,” she said. “That’s one of the new subdevelopments on the far side of 101.” Hesitating, she said, “I frankly don’t even know if they’re showing, yet.”
“I want to see Mr. Bradford,” he said.
The woman leaned against the counter and tapped at her teeth with a yellow lead pencil. “You can double back for a mile or so and then get across. Or you can go on. Your subdevelopment is up the highway toward Petaluma, so you might as well go that way. They’re working all around there; you really should be careful. It’s easy to get lost.”
By bringing a map to the counter she was able to give him directions that he could make out. He thanked her and returned to his car, feeling new confidence. Maybe now, he thought. At least it did exist; she had recognized the name.
Once more he was in motion, and again in the area of construction work. The road became a tangle of dirt and asphalt, broken down, he decided, by heavy equipment; but it did cross the highway and he reached the far side, flagged by an old man in blue jeans, along with a group of other cars. There he was sent left along a pitted old blacktop road that followed the course of the freeway, but perhaps a mile to its left. On each side of him were orchards of dead fruit trees. He could not tell what sort they had been.
To his ears came the racket of machinery. Now he saw them, far off, like toiling insects. But he thought now, really thought, that he could see Marin Country Gardens; at least there was some sort of new housing development going up the side of a broad, brown hill. He could make out where the ground had been cleared, new narrow roads put in, foundations begun. Feeling buoyed up, he rolled the car windows down and let the warm summer air into the car, the dry country air, so different from the city’s. The smell of drying grass seemed satisfying and the sight of the flat fields gave him the absolute conviction that he had finally found it; the view which he now saw through his dust-and-bug-spattered windshield exactly fitted his expectations.
Now, to his delight, the sign itself appeared. As he passed he made out only the larger words; the information, painted on the wood in blazing green and red, dwindled row by row into facts about down-payments, floor-plans, number of bricks in the fireplace, colors. He read:
MARIN COUNTRY GARDENS
ONLY ¼ MILE AHEAD
OPEN FOR PUBLIC INSPECTION
This no longer was a State or Federal construction project, this area of dirt and machines ahead; this was a private business enterprise. And yet it fit in. It was part of the general stirring, the activity. All joined, and here his part entered; here he fit in. His wrists and hands burned with perspiration; he blinked and felt a new kind of feeling, or rather an old one, left over from his childhood. He yearned to spill from the car and get his feet onto the ground; he wanted to run and leap and grab up things to throw.
The road led to a small building with tar-paper roof and parking lot before it. A single dingy black Ford was parked there. The ground was muddy and trampled; he saw several rolls of roofing paper stacked up beside the small building. And a half-empty cement sack.
When he had parked and put on the handbrake—he made himself act methodically—he walked to the building with slow, easy steps. The door was open to an office in which a man sat behind a desk with his feet up and crossed. He was reading a paperback book. The office smelled of varnish. On th
e desk were a telephone and wire baskets of papers, and on one wall was a glossy calendar, new and crisp, with a print of a girl in a long flowered skirt.
“Greetings,” the man said. He turned the pages of his book as if discarding the unread part. Then he tossed it down on the desk, loudly, and folded his hands. He was young, with a long horse-face and thick hair. His suit was informal, single-breasted; his teeth projected and the skin of his neck was red and rough. Surprisingly, his socks hung in folds around his ankles. “You read these things?” he said, pointing with his thumb at the closed paperback book.
“No,” Fergesson said, panting with exertion and excitement.
The man picked up the book and regarded it. “Brain Wave” he said. “By Poul Anderson. Science fiction. I read all these science fiction books. I must have read fifty the last month or so. The desk’s full of them. People give them to me; I don’t have to buy them.”
Fergesson, with his urgency, had arrived at this little closed spot of timelessness. The gigantic public works, protracted over decades, were unfolding close to this office and man; he had taken on their viewpoint. At his desk, with his heap of books, he was an Egyptian officer. Emotionless, cut off, he greeted Fergesson ponderously.
“No,” Fergesson said, wanting to bring the man back into motion, back into time. “Say, you know Mr. Bradford?”
The man nodded.
“Is he here?”
“Bradford isn’t here,” the man said. He rose to his feet and extended his hand, which Fergesson found heavy and dry. The man stooped from the low ceiling of the office and his height had gone into his shoulders. “My name is Carmichael. What is your name?” He asked it with a rising inflection, as if he had known it and forgotten it and expected to recognize it once he heard it repeated again.