Alas, Babylon

  “She won’t say,” Bill said. “She and Alice and Florence are cooking up some sort of a surprise for us. Maybe she’s found a bird’s nest. I wouldn’t know.”

  Randy said, “What’s the delegation?”

  Bill said, “It’s Two-Tone’s idea. Two-Tone, you talk.”

  Two-Tone said, “Mister Randy, you know my sugar cane will be tall and sweet and Pop’s corn will be up in June.”

  “So?”

  “Corn and sugar cane means corn whiskey. I mean we can make ‘shine if you says it’s okay. Pop and Mister Bill here, they say it’s up to you. I suggests it only on one account. We can trade ‘shine.”

  “Naturally you wouldn’t drink any, would you, Two-Tone?”

  “Oh, no sir!”

  Randy understood that they required something from him beyond permission. Yet if they could manufacture corn whiskey it would be like finding coffee beans. Whiskey was a negotiable money crop.

  In this humid climate both corn and sugar cane would deteriorate rapidly. Corn whiskey was different.

  The longer you kept it the more valuable it became. Furthermore, only a few bottles of bourbon and Scotch remained, and the bourbon was strictly medicinal, Dan’s anesthetic. Two-Tone, the no-good genius! Cannily, all Randy said was, “If you have Preacher’s permission, it’s all right with me. It’s Preacher’s corn.”

  Bill said, “I’ve already contributed my Imperial.”

  “You’ve what?”

  “Contributed the guts of my Imperial. You see, to make the still we have to have a lot of copper tubing. We have to bend condensing coils, and you have to have tubing between the boiler and condenser and so forth.”

  “What you’re getting at,” Randy said slowly, “is that you want me to contribute the gas lines out of my Bonneville.”

  “That’s right. The lines out of my car won’t give us enough length. And we have to have your lawn roller. You see, first we’ve got to build a mill to crush the cane. We have to get the juice and boil it down to molasses before we can make whiskey, or for that matter use it as syrup. Balaam, the mule, will walk a circle, a lever harnessed to his back to turn the roller on concrete slabs. That’s the mill. That’s the way they did it a couple of hundred years ago. I’ve seen pictures.”

  Randy knew it would work. He said, sadly, “Okay. Go into the garage. But I don’t want to watch.” It had been a beautiful car. He remembered Mark’s casual prediction that it wouldn’t be worth a damn to him. Mark had been wrong. Some of it was useful.

  Lunch was fish, with half a lime. Orange juice, all you could drink. A square of honeycomb. Dan and Helen were at the table. The others had already finished. Helen always waited for him, Randy noticed.

  She was so solicitous it was sometimes embarrassing.

  Dan looked at his plate and said, “A fine, thinning diet. If everybody in the country had been on this diet before The Day the cardiac death rate would have been cut in half.”

  “So what good would it have done them?” Randy said. He speared his honey and munched it, rolling his eyes. “We’ve got to do more trading with Jim Hickey. We’ve got to find something Jim needs.” Randy remembered what Jim had said about half his broods going foul since The Day and how Jim suspected radiation was responsible. He told Dan and Helen what Hickey had said.

  Dan stared at his plate, troubled. He cut into his honeycomb and tasted it. “Delicious,” he said, but his mind was elsewhere. At last he looked up and spoke gravely. “We shouldn’t be surprised. Who can tell how much cesium 137 showered down on The Day? How much was carried into the upper atmosphere and has been filtering down since? The geneticists warned us of damage to future generations. Well, Hickey’s bees are in a future generation.”

  Helen looked scared. Randy realized that this was a more serious matter to women than to men, although frightening enough to anybody. She said, “Does that mean—will it affect humans?”

  “Certainly some human genetic damage can be expected,” Dan said “What will happen to the birth rate is anybody’s guess. And yet, this is only nature’s way of protecting the race. Nature is proving Darwin’s law of natural selection. The defective bee, unable to cope with its environment, is rejected by nature before birth. I think this will be true of man. It is said that nature is cruel. I don’t think so. Nature is just, and even merciful. By natural selection, nature will attempt to undo what man has done.”

  “You make it sound comforting,” Helen said.

  “Only an opinion, based on almost no evidence. In six or seven months I’ll know more. But to evaluate everything may take a thousand years. So let’s not worry about it. Right now I’ve got other worries, like tires. The tires on the Model-A are smooth, Randy, and I’ve got to make a couple of calls out in the country. Got any suggestions?”

  “I’ve been thinking of tires,” Randy said. “The tires on Florence’s old Chevy will fit the Model-A. Two of them are almost new. Let’s go over and make the change.”

  It was the custom of Randy and Dan to meet in the apartment at six each evening, listen for the clear channel station which would be heard at this hour if at all, and, if they were tired and the rigors of the day warranted, share a drink. At six on that Friday evening, Dan had not returned from his calls, so Randy sat at his bar alone with the little transistor portable. Life was ebbing from its last set of batteries.

  He feared the day when it would no longer pick up even the strongest signal, or give any sound whatsoever, and the day could not be far distant. So, what strength as left in the batteries he carefully rationed. Sam Hazzard’s all-wave receiver, operating on recharged automobile batteries, was really their only reliable source of information. He clicked on the radio, was relieved to hear static, and tried the Conelrad frequencies.

  Immediately he heard a familiar voice, thin and gravelly although he turned the volume full. “… against smallpox.”

  Randy knew he had missed the first item of news. Then he heard:

  “There have been isolated reports of disorders and outlawry from several of the Contaminated Zones. As a result, Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown, Acting President, in her capacity as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, has authorized all Reserve officers and National Guard officers, not in contact with their commanders or headquarters, to take independent action to preserve public safety in those areas where Civil Defense has broken down or where organized military units do not exist. These officers will act in accordance with their best judgment, under the proclamation of martial law. When possible, they will wear the uniform when exercising authority. I repeat this new …”

  The signal hummed and faded. Randy clicked off the set. Even as he began to assimiliate the significance of what he had heard he was aware that Helen was standing on the other side of the counter. In her hands she held a pair of scissors, comb, and a silver hand mirror. She was smiling. “Did you hear that?” he asked.

  “Yes. Today’s your haircut day, Randy. Today’s Friday.” Helen trimmed his hair and Bill McGovern’s fringe each Friday, and barbered Dan and Ben Franklin Saturdays.

  “You know I’m in the Reserve,” Randy said. “I’m legal.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had to pull my gun this morning to get Porky Logan buried. I had no authority. Now I do have authority, legally.” His thoughts on the proclamation, at the moment, went no further.

  “That’s fine. Now get into a chair.”

  He walked into his office. Because of the swivel chair, it was also the barbershop. Helen tied a towel around his neck and began snipping, deftly and rapidly. She was some woman, he thought. Under any conditions she could keep a household running smoothly. In ten minutes it was done.

  Her hand ruffled and then smoothed his hair. He could feel her breasts, round and warm, pressing against his shoulder blades. “You’re getting gray hairs, Randy,” she said. The timbre of her voice was deeper than usual.

  “Who isn’t?”

  She rubbed and smoothed his temples. Her fingers knea
ded the back of his neck. “Do you like that?” she whispered. “Mark loved it. When he came home, tense and worried, I always rubbed his temples and his neck like this.”

  Randy said, “It feels fine.” He wished she wouldn’t talk like that. She made him nervous. He put his hands on the arms of the chair and started to rise.

  She pulled him back and whirled the chair so that he faced her. Her eyes were round. He could see beads of perspiration at the corners of her nose, and on her forehead, “You are Mark,” she said. “Don’t you believe me? Here, look!” She lifted the mirror from the desk and thrust it before his face.

  He looked, wondering how he could gracefully escape, wondering what was wrong with her. It was true that his face, leaner and harder, looked like Mark’s face now. “I do look something like him,” he admitted, “but why shouldn’t I? I’m his brother.”

  Her arms pinning him with unexpected strength, she kissed him wildly, as if her mouth could subdue and mold and change him.

  His hands found her wrists and he forced her back. The mirror fell and smashed.

  “Don’t!” she cried. “Don’t push me away! You’re Mark! You can’t deny it! You’re Mark!”

  He struggled out of the chair, clamping her wrists, trying not to injure her. He knew that she was mad and he fought to control the panic within himself. “Stop it!” he heard himself shouting. “Stop it, Helen! Stop it! I’m not Mark! I’m Randy!”

  She screamed, “Mark!”

  The door was ajar. Through it came Lib’s voice, loud and welcome, “Randy, are you shorn? If Helen’s finished, come on out. I’ve got something to show you.”

  He released Helen’s wrists. She leaned against the desk, face averted, shoulders quivering, one hand stifling the sounds erupting from her mouth. He said, gently, “Please, Helen—” He touched her arm. She drew away from him. He fled into the living room.

  Lib stood at the porch door, her face somber, beckoning. She said quietly, “Up to the roof, where we can talk.”

  Randy followed her, knowing that she must have heard and grateful for her interference. It was something he would have had to tell Lib anyway. He would have to tell Dan too. This emotional earthquake could bring down their house. It was a problem for a physician.

  Up on the captain’s walk, Randy lowered himself carefully into a deck chair. The canvas would rot before summer’s end. His hands were shaking. “Did you hear it all?” he asked.

  “Yes. All. And saw some too. Don’t ever let her know.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” It was a protest rather than a question.

  Lib sat on the edge of his chair and put her hands on his hands and said, “Stop shaking, Randy. I know you’re confused. It was inevitable. I knew it was coming. I’ll diagnose it for you as best I can. It’s a form of fantasy.”

  Randy was silent, wondering at her detachment and coolness.

  “It is,” she went on, “the sort of transference you find in dreams—the substitution in dreams of one person for another. Helen allowed herself to slip into a dream. I think she is a completely chaste person. She is, isn’t she?”

  “I’m sure of it, or I was.”

  “Yet she is a person who requires love and is used to it. For many years a man has been the greater part of her life. So she has this conflict—intense loyalty to her husband and yet need of a man to receive her abundance of love and affection. She tried to resolve the conflict irrationally. You became Mark. It was an hallucination.”

  “You’re talking like a professional, Lib.”

  “I’m not a professional. I just wanted to be one. I majored in psychology. Remember?”

  It was something she had told him but he had forgotten because it seemed incongruous and not in the least important. Lib looked like a girl who had majored in ballet and water-skiing at Miami rather than psychology at Sarah Lawrence. He knew that she worked for a year in a Cleveland clinic and had abandoned the job only because of her mother’s illness. When she spoke of this year, which was seldom, it was with nostalgia, as some girls spoke of a year in Europe or on the stage. He suspected it must have been the most rewarding year of her life, and certainly there must have been a man, or men, in it. Randy said, “Lib, do you think she’s crazy?”

  “Helen’s not psychotic. She’s under terrible strain. She let herself go, but only for a moment. She indulged a temporary fantasy. Now it is over. Now she will be ashamed of herself. The best thing you can do is pretend it didn’t happen. One day she’ll mention it to you, perhaps obliquely, and apologize. Eventually she’ll understand why she did it and the sense of guilt will leave her. One day, when we’re better friends, I’ll make her understand it. You know there is a man in the house for Helen—a perfectly fine man. I’m going to make that my special project.”

  Randy felt relieved. He looked out over the river, contemplating his ignorance of women and the peace of evening. On the end of the dock Ben Franklin and Peyton were fishing. It was understood that anyone, child or adult, could go fishing before breakfast or after assigned chores were done. Fishing was not only recreation but the necessary daily harvest of a crop providentially swimming at their feet.

  Presently the brass ship’s bell on the porch sang its sharp, clean, sea note. The bell was a relic of Lieutenant Randolph Rowzee Peyton’s longboats. It was the same bell that Randy’s mother had used to summon Mark and him from the river to wash for dinner. There was peace and continuity in the sound of the bell. The bell announced that there was food on the table and a woman in the kitchen. So it was not only a message to the children but to Randy. Helen had pulled herself together. He watched Ben and Peyton, trailed by Graf, thread their way up through the grove. Graf still shared Randy’s couch but all day he shadowed the boy. This was right. A boy needed a dog. A boy also needed a father.

  When the children were close to the house Randy yelled down, “What’d you get?”

  Ben held up a string of bream and speckled perch. “Sixteen,” he shouted, “on worms and crickets. I got fifteen, she only got one.”

  Peyton danced in indignation, a slim shrill-voiced sprite. “Who cares about fish? If I grow up I’m not going to be a fisherman!”

  Helen called from the kitchen window. The children disappeared.

  Randy said, “Did you ever hear a little girl say ‘If I grow up’ before?”

  “No, I never did. It gives me the creeps.”

  “Not their fault,” Randy said. “Ours.”

  “Would you want children, Randy?”

  Randy considered the question. He thought of Jim Hickey’s bees, and Peyton’s “if,” and of cow’s milk you would not dare feed a baby in a contaminated zone, even if you had a cow, and of many other things.

  Lib waited a long time for an answer and then she leaned across the chair and kissed him and said, “Don’t try to answer now. I’ve got to go down and help with dinner. Don’t come downstairs for a few minutes, Randy. We’ve whipped up a surprise.”

  At seven, conscious that he had not heard Dan return, Randy went downstairs. The table was set as if for a feast—a white cloth, two new candles; a salad bowl as well as plate at each place. A laden salad-boat of Haitian mahogany rode on the circular linen lagoon. Garnishing the inevitable platter of broiled fish was a necklace of mushrooms. He tasted the salad. It was delicate, varied, and wonderful.

  “Who invented this?” he asked. He had not tasted greens in months.

  Helen had not met his eyes since he entered the dining room. She said, “Alice Cooksey. Alice found a book listing edible palms, grasses, and herbs. Lib did most of the picking.”

  “What all’s in it?”

  “Fiddlehead ferns, hearts of palm, bamboo shoots, wild onions, some of the Admiral’s ornamental peppers, and the first tomatoes out of Hannah Henry’s garden.”

  Lib said, “Wait’ll you try the mushrooms. That was Helen’s idea. It’s funny, for the last week they’ve been growing all over, right in front of our eyes, and only Helen recognized them as food.” r />
  “No toadstools I hope,” Randy said.

  Helen smiled and for the first time looked at him directly. “Oh, no. Alice thought of that too. I’ve been wandering around the hammock with an illustrated book in one hand and a basket in the other.”

  Now that she could see he was treating the incident in his office as something that hadn’t happened, she was regaining control of herself. He said, “Helen, you be careful in that hammock. And Lib, you stay out of palm trees. We don’t want any snake bites or broken legs. Dan has troubles enough.” He put down his fork. “Where is Dan?”

  Nobody knew. Dan was usually home before six. Occasionally, he was as late as this or later when he encountered an emergency. Still, it was impossible not to worry. It was at times like this that Randy truly missed the telephone, Without communications, the simplest mechanical failure could turn into a nightmare and disaster. He finished the fish, mushrooms, and salad, but without appetite.

  Randy fidgeted until eight and then said, “I’m going to see the Admiral. Maybe Dan stopped there for dinner.” He knew this was unlikely, but he tried in any case to visit Sam Hazzard each evening and watch him comb the frequencies. There were other reasons. He stopped at the Wechek and Henry houses like a company commander checking his outposts. He slept uneasily unless he knew all was well around his perimeter. More compelling, Lib usually went with him. It was their opportunity to have a little time alone. It was paradoxical that they lived in the same house, ate almost every meal elbow to elbow or across the bar in his apartment, slept within twenty feet of each other, and yet they could be alone hardly at all.

  Ben Franklin said, “Wait until I get the shotgun, Randy. I’ll go with you. It’s my night to stand guard.”

  He raced upstairs.

  Helen said, “Do you really think you ought to let him do it, Randy?”

  “It’d break his heart if I didn’t. I think he’ll be okay. Caleb is going to stay up with him and Malachai will be right there. Malachai will sleep with one eye open.”