TVA BABY and Other Stories (16 page)

After a while he came to the circus. “Maybe they can help me,” thought Billy. He had heard that circus people were smart. Everyone has heard that.

He told the Ringmaster his problem. “How can I make my dick little again?” he asked.

“That’s easy,” said the Ringmaster. “First you have to stop rubbing it.”

Billy stopped rubbing it. But it stayed big.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Now you have to stick it into a circus girl,” said the Ringmaster. He introduced Billy to a circus girl. She wore gold pants.

“Where do I stick it?” asked Billy. He didn’t see any holes.

“Look here,” said the circus girl. She pulled her gold pants down and spread her legs apart.

Billy saw the hole and it was amazing. He stuck in his dick. It slid right in.

“Do it like a pump,” said the circus girl.

Billy did it like a pump. Pretty soon he felt stuff squirting out, and his dick got smaller.

When he pulled it out, it was almost as little as usual.

Billy heard clapping. “Good going,” someone shouted.

Billy looked around. There was his mother, she was smiling. His father, too. Also Father McBride and Mr. Smart, the science teacher. Even the principal, Mrs. Sutton, was there. She was smiling too.

Billy felt good.

He pulled up his pants. His little dick fit into them easily. He looked around for the circus girl but she was gone.

“That’s better, son,” said Billy’s father. “Now you can come home and watch TV.” Billy could tell he was proud.

“And you can come back to school,” said Mr. Smart and the Principal, Mrs. Sutton.

Father McBride didn’t say anything. He had a funny haircut.

“You mustn’t rub your dick anymore,” said Billy’s mother, as they headed off for home.

“I have learned my lesson,” said Billy. “What’s for supper?”

It was turkey. They had turkey every night.

“U
p and at ‘em!”

“Hey, you, get up and get moving.”

Caleb opened his eyes. Two cops were bending over him. One skinny and one fat, like Laurel and Hardy. Only not funny.

The fat one was slapping a nightstick against his open hand. It made an ugly sound.

“Have a heart, officer,” whined Caleb. “I’m freezing. And it’s almost warm here in this doorway.”

“It’s warmer in Florida,” said the skinny cop.

“Or jail,” said the fat cop. “We got orders to clear you bums out of the Loop. So move.” He rapped his nightstick on the sidewalk, like a gavel.

“Okay, okay,” said Caleb. He rolled up his blanket and gathered his worldly goods—a single tattered copy of
Thrilling Future Tales
. He had read the magazine three times already, but tucked inside his shirt, it helped to cut the wind.

He watched the cops walk away, then hid the blanket behind a trash can. All he had to do was wait them out; the doorway would still be there, and the night ahead loomed long and dark and cold.

Meanwhile, he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten in two days.

He stumbled out into the crowded street. The Loop was filled with grim figures, all bundled up against the bitter wind. Caleb eyed the passing faces, looking for a touch. Half of them were bums like himself. The others all looked mean and cold.

Caleb had no choice, though. He had to get something in his belly.

He fixed a pitiful expression on his face—not a difficult acting job, given his situation—and stuck out his hand.

“Brother, can you spare a dime?”

Nobody even bothered to say no. They walked by without even glancing at him. The Great Depression—the newspapers were already calling it that—was like the Chicago winter itself: endless and relentless.

It made people mean.

It was spitting snow. Caleb sat down on a stoop and spread the magazine across his chest like a pulp paper vest. It didn’t help much. He closed his eyes and shivered and tried to imagine Florida.

Or even jail.

He opened his eyes.

A man was bending over him. A strange-looking man wearing a long black coat made out of some kind of sleek canvas. And bright silver shoes.

He was staring at the cover of the magazine.

Caleb managed a pitiful smile. The pitiful part was easy. “Brother, can you spare a dime?” he whined.

The man reached out, holding a dime between two fingers, and dropped it into Caleb’s palm. That was when Caleb saw the big black watch, hanging loose on the man’s wrist.

Carpe Diem
was all Caleb remembered of his schoolboy Latin. But it was enough. He grabbed the watch and ran, dropping the magazine into the gutter.

“Hey!” yelled the man in the long black coat. * * *

“Damn.”

It wasn’t a watch. It wasn’t even metal. It was made out of some kind of funny rubber, and it had no hands, just some square numbers and a blinking light.

Radium dial? Maybe it was worth something. Caleb dropped it into the pocket of his ragged coat. He would find out later. For now, he needed something to eat.

The dime would take care of that.

He rubbed it in his pocket, like a lucky charm. It would buy him a bowl of thin soup and a cup of even thinner coffee at Meg’s Loop Diner. Little enough, but it was a start.

He turned another corner and looked back to make sure he wasn’t being followed. The dark street behind him was almost empty. A few bums, a few piles of dirty snow. No man in a long black coat.

The diner was steamy and noisy with the clattering of dishes. Caleb ignored Meg’s suspicious look and ordered a

“soup ‘n’ joe.”

“First things first.” Meg held out her hand.

Caleb dropped the dime into it. She stared down at it, then glared up at him. “Very funny,” she said. “Now out.” “Huh?”

“Out!” Meg said, pushing him toward the door and out into the cold. She flipped the dime after him. “And take your stupid trick dime with you.”

“Huh?” Caleb lunged and barely caught the dime. He opened his hand and looked at it.

It was perfectly normal, with a Roman-looking torch on one side and a face on the other, some Greek goddess or—

Caleb stared. The face on the dime stared back. It was …

“Hey, you!”

Caleb turned and saw the man in the long black coat, crossing the street toward him. “Wait!” the man yelled.

“Not likely,” muttered Caleb. He ran down the block, rounded a corner, and ducked into the first alley he saw.

Dead end! And the man was right behind him. Caleb reached into his pocket for the watch. He would give it back. It was worthless anyway.

Or was it? Now it was blinking, faster and faster. Caleb felt an electric shock and dropped to his knees. With the watch in his outstretched hand, he looked up and saw silver shoes, and then—

And then nothing at all.

Caleb opened his eyes.

He saw silver shoes, lots of them.

The man was gone. The alley was gone.

It was daylight. It was warm! Caleb was on his knees beside a smooth sidewalk. The silver shoes were on people in long robes and bright dresses, gliding past him while standing still. The sidewalk they were on was moving, like a conveyer belt.

Overhead, a car without wheels sailed past, slowly, through the air. A kid in the back seat waved.

Caleb closed his eyes and opened them again. The car was still there, gliding around a corner.

Caleb got to his feet, rubbing his eyes.

He looked around. He was standing on a narrow bridge connecting two huge towers, all glass and steel. He walked to the edge and …

He was standing on the edge of nothing, looking down a thousand feet. He felt a sudden wave of dizziness, and almost fell, but an invisible railing stopped his hand.

Caleb caught his breath. He looked up and saw more flying cars. He looked over the edge again, steadying himself on the invisible railing, and saw more towers, more cars, more bridges, all filled with people. And in the distance, a bright blue lake.

Where am I? he wondered. But he knew: this was the Future. Caleb had read about it; he had even seen it, on the covers of the magazines he liked to read when he could find them in the trash.

And now he was here. In the Future.

But how?

Then he remembered the watch. He pulled it out of his pocket. “Must be some kind of Time Machine,” he muttered.

Behind him, on the center of the sidewalk, people were gliding past without walking. They were of all races and colors; they all wore silver shoes, and they were all smiling.

A man in a bright metallic robe nodded and smiled, and Caleb’s instincts took over. He held out his hand. “Brother, can you spare a dime?”

The man dropped a dime into his hand as he glided by.

Caleb looked at it. There was the torch on one side and on the other—

His own face. Cleaned up, with a shave and a haircut, looking very heroic.

He pulled the other dime out of his pocket and looked at them, side by side.

There was no doubt about it: There he was, full face on both dimes, like Lincoln or Caesar.

“What did I do to deserve this honor?” Caleb asked aloud.

“Excuse me?” asked a woman in a diaphanous gown as she glided past on the moving sidewalk.

“Can you tell me …” Caleb began.

“In a hurry!” the woman said, apologetically. “You can ask an InfoBot. There’s one.”

She pointed to a life-sized statue, set into an alcove beside the walkway. A light in the statue’s head was blinking; it blinked faster and faster as Caleb approached.

“Ask a statue?” he muttered.

“Not a statue, citizen,” said the statue. “I am an InfoBot. At your service.”

Of course! This was the Future! It was a robot. Inside the transparent crystal head, Caleb could see a forest of glowing vacuum tubes.

“And you can answer any question?”

“Certainly, bio-citizen. I am at your service.”

Caleb reached into his pocket and pulled out his dime. He held it out toward the robot.

“My services are free,” said the InfoBot.

“Who is that?” Caleb asked.

“It’s you, of course.”

“So it’s true!” said Caleb, slipping the dime back into his pocket. This was almost too good to believe! “Can you tell me where I am?”

“Chicago, bio-citizen. This is the Loop.”

“I mean the date.”