This Crowded Earth

  5. Minnie Schultz--2009

  When Frank came home, Minnie met him at the door. She didn't say aword, just handed him the envelope containing the notice.

  "What's the matter?" Frank asked, trying to take her in his arms. "Youbeen crying."

  "Never mind." Minnie freed herself. "Just read what it says there."

  Frank read slowly, determinedly, his features contorted inconcentration. Vocational Apt had terminated his schooling at the oldgrade-school level, and while like all students he had been taughtenough so that he could read the necessary advertising commercials,any printed message of this sort provided a definite challenge.

  Halfway through the notice he started to scowl. "What kind of monkeybusiness is this?"

  "No monkey business. It's the new law. Everybody that gets married inAngelisco takes the shots, from now on. Fella from State Hall, he toldme when he delivered this."

  "We'll see about this," Frank muttered. "No damn government's gonnatell me how to run my life. Sa free country, ain't so?"

  Minnie's mouth began to twitch. "They're coming back tomorra morning,the fella said. To give me the first shots. Gee, honey, I'm scared,like. I don't want 'em."

  "That settles it," Frank said. "We're getting out of this place,fast."

  "Where'd we go?"

  "Dunno. Someplace. Texas, maybe. I was listening to the 'casts at worktoday. They don't have this law in Texas. Not yet, anyway. Come on,start packing."

  "Packing? But how'll we get there?"

  "Fly. We'll jet right out."

  "You got prior'ty reservations or something?"

  "No." The scowl returned to Frank's forehead. "But maybe if I pitch'em a sob story, tell 'em it's our honeymoon, you know, then wecould--"

  Minnie shook her head. "It won't work, honey. You know that. Takes sixmonths to get a prior'ty clearance or whatever they call it. Besides,your job and all--what'll you do in Texas? They've got your numberlisted here. Why, we couldn't even _land_, like. I bet Texas is evenmore crowded than Angelisco these days, in the cities. And all therest of it is Ag Culture project, isn't it?"

  Frank was leaning against the sink, listening. Now he took three stepsforward and sat down on the bed. He didn't look at her as he spoke.

  "Well, we gotta do something," he said. "You don't want those shotsand that's for sure. Maybe I can have one of those other thingsinstead, those whaddya-call-'ems."

  "You mean where they operate you, like?"

  "That's right. A vas-something. You know, sterilize you. Then we won'thave to worry."

  Minnie took a deep breath. Then she sat down and put her arm aroundFrank.

  "But you wanted kids," she murmured. "You told me, when we gotmarried, you always wanted to have a son--"

  Frank pulled away.

  "Sure I do," he said. "A son. That's what I want. A _real_ son. Not afreak. Not a damned little monster that has to go to the Clinic everymonth and take injections so it won't grow. And what happens to you ifyou take _your_ shots now? What if they drive you crazy or something?"

  Minnie put her arm around Frank again and made him look at her."That's not true," she told him. "That's just a lot of Naturalisttalk. I know."

  "Hell you do."

  "But I do, honey! Honest, like! May Stebbins, she took the shots lastyear, when they asked for volunteers. And she's all right. You seenher baby yourself, remember? It's the sweetest little thing, and awfulsmart! So maybe it wouldn't be so bad."

  "I'll ask about being operated tomorrow," Frank said. "Forget it. Itdon't matter."

  "Of course it matters." Minnie looked straight at him. "Don't youthink I know what you been going through? Sweating it out on that jobday after day, going nuts in the traffic, saving up the ration couponsso's we'd have extra food for the honeymoon and all?

  "You didn't have to marry me, you know that. It was just like we couldhave a place of our own together, and kids. Well, we're gonna have'em, honey. I'll take the shots."

  Frank shook his head but said nothing.

  "It won't be so bad," Minnie went on. "The shots don't hurt at all,and they make it easier, carrying the baby. They say you don't evenget morning sickness or anything. And just think, when we have a kid,we get a chance for a bigger place. We go right on the housing lists.We can have two rooms. A real bedroom, maybe."

  Frank stared at her. "Is that all you can think about?" he asked. "Areal bedroom?"

  "But honey--"

  "What about the kid?" he muttered. "How you suppose it's gonna feel?How'd you like to grow up and _not_ grow up? How'd you like to be amidget three feet high in a world where everybody else is bigger? Whatkind of a life you call _that_? I want my son to have a decentchance."

  "He will have."

  Minnie stared back at him, but she wasn't seeing his face. "Don't youunderstand, honey? This isn't just something happening to _us_. We'renot special. It's happening to everybody, all over the country, allover the world. You seen it in the 'casts, haven't you? Most states,they adopted the laws. And in a couple more years it'll be the onlyway anyone will ever have kids. Ten, twenty years from now, the kidswill be growing up. Ours won't be different then, because from now onall the kids will be just like he is. The same size."

  "I thought you was afraid of the shots," Frank said.

  Minnie was still staring. "I was, honey. Only, I dunno. I keepthinking about Grandma."

  "What's the old lady got to do with it?"

  "Well, I remember when I was a little girl, like. How my Grandmaalways used to tell me about _her_ Grandma, when _she_ was a littlegirl.

  "She was saying about how in the old days, before there even was anAngelisco--when her Grandma came out here in a covered wagon. Justthink, honey, she was younger than I am, and she come thousands andthousands of miles in a wagon! With real horses, like! Wasn't anyhouses, no people or nothing. Except Indians that shot at them. Andthey climbed up the mountains and they crossed over the deserts andwent hungry and thirsty and had fights with those Indians all theway. But they never stopped until they got here. Because they was thepioneers."

  "Pioneers?"

  "That's what Grandma said _her_ Grandma called herself. A pioneer. Shewas real proud of it, too. Because it means having the courage to cutloose from all the old things and try something new when you need to.Start a whole new world, a whole new kind of life."

  She sighed. "I always wanted to be a pioneer, like, but I neverthought I'd get the chance."

  "What are you talking about? What's all this got to do with us, orhaving a kid?"

  "Don't you see? Taking these shots, having a baby this new way--it'ssort of being a pioneer, too. Gonna help bring a new kind of peopleinto a new kind of world. And if that's not being a pioneer, like,it's the closest I can come to it. It sounds right to me now."

  Minnie smiled and nodded. "I guess I made up my mind just now. I'mtaking the shots."

  "Hell you are!" Frank told her. "We'll talk about it some more in themorning."

  But Minnie continued to smile.

  And that night, as she lay in the utility bed, the squeaking of thesprings became the sound of turning wheels. The plastic walls andceiling of the eightieth-floor apartment turned to billowing canvas,and the thunder of the passing jets transformed itself into thedrumming hoofbeats of a million buffalo.

  _Let Frank talk to her again in the morning if he liked_, Minniethought. _It wouldn't make any difference now. Because you can't stopus pioneers._