The Illustrated Man, Page 5

  The ominous words. The familiar, remembered places. The struggle to imagine all of those places in ruins.

  Willie Johnson murmured the words, "Greenwater, Alabama. That's where I was born. I remember."

  Gone. All of it gone. The man said so.

  The man continued, "So we destroyed everything and ruined everything, like the fools that we were and the fools that we are. We killed millions. I don't think there are more than five hundred thousand people left in the world, all kinds and types. And out of all the wreckage we salvaged enough metal to build this one rocket, and we came to Mars in it this month to seek your help."

  He hesitated and looked down among the faces to see what could be found there, but he was uncertain.

  Hattie Johnson felt her husband's arm tense, saw his fingers grip the rope.

  "We've been fools," said the old man quietly. "We've brought the Earth and civilization down about our heads. None of the cities are worth saving--they'll be radioactive for a century. Earth is over and done with. Its age is through. You have rockets here which you haven't tried to use to return to Earth in twenty years. Now I've come to ask you to use them. To come to Earth, to pick up the survivors and bring them back to Mars. To help us go on at this time. We've been stupid. Before God we admit our stupidity and our evilness. All the Chinese and the Indians and the Russians and the British and the Americans. We're asking to be taken in. Your Martian soil has lain fallow for numberless centuries; there's room for everyone; it's good soil--I've seen your fields from above. We'll come and work itfor you. Yes, we'll even do that. We deserve anything you want to do to us, but don't shut us out. We can't force you to act now. If you want I'll get into my ship and go back and that will be all there is to it. We won't bother you again. But we'll come here and we'll work for you and do the things you did for us--clean your houses, cook your meals, shine your shoes, and humble ourselves in the sight of God for the things we have done over the centuries to ourselves, to others, to you.

  He was finished.

  There was a silence of silences. A silence you could hold in your hand and a silence that came down like a pressure of a distant storm over the crowd. Their long arms hung like dark pendulums in the sunlight, and their eyes were upon the old man and he did not move now, but waited.

  Willie Johnson held the rope in his hands. Those around him watched to see what he might do. His wife Hattie waited, clutching his arm.

  She wanted to get at the hate of them all, to pry at it and work at it until she found a little chink, and then pull out a pebble or a stone or a brick and then a part of the wall, and, once started, the whole edifice might roar down and be done away with. It was teetering now. But which was the keystone, and how to get at it? How to touch them and get a thing started in all of them to make a ruin of their hate?

  She looked at Willie there in the strong silence and the only thing she knew about the situation was him and his life and what had happened to him, and suddenly he was the keystone; suddenly she knew that if he could be pried loose, then the thing in all of them might be loosened and torn away.

  "Mister--" She stepped forward. She didn't even know the first words to say. The crowd stared at her back; she felt them staring. "Mister--"

  The man turned to her with a tired smile.

  "Mister," she said, "do you know Knockwood Hill in Greenwater, Alabama?"

  The old man spoke over his shoulder to someone within the ship. A moment later a photographic map was handed out and the man held it, waiting.

  "You know the big oak on top of that hill, mister?" The big oak. The place where Willie's father was shot and hung and found swinging in the morning wind.

  "Yes."

  "Is that still there?" asked Hattie.

  "It's gone," said the old man. "Blown up. The hill's all gone, and the oak tree too. You see?" He touched the photograph.

  "Let me see that," said Willie, jerking forward and looking at the map.

  Hattie blinked at the white man, heart pounding.

  "Tell me about Greenwater," she said quickly.

  "What do you want to know?"

  "About Dr. Phillips. Is he still alive?"

  A moment in which the information was found in a clicking machine within the rocket .

  "Killed in the war."

  "And his son?"

  "Dead."

  "What about their house?"

  "Burned. Like all the other houses."

  "What about that other big tree on Knockwood Hill?"

  "All the trees went--burned."

  "Thattree went, you're sure?" said Willie.

  "Yes."

  Willie's body loosened somewhat.

  "And what about that Mr. Burton's house and Mr. Burton?"

  "No houses at all left, no people."

  "You know Mrs. Johnson's washing shack, my mother's place?"

  The place where she was shot.

  "That's gone too. Everything's gone. Here are the pictures, you can see for yourself."

  The pictures were there to be held and looked at and thought about. The rocket was full of pictures and answers to questions. Any town, any building, any place.

  Willie stood with the rope in his hands.

  He was remembering Earth, the green Earth and the green town where he was born and raised, and he was thinking now of that town, gone to pieces, to ruin, blown up and scattered, all of the landmarks with it, all of the supposed or certain evil scattered with it, all of the hard men gone, the stables, the ironsmiths, the curio shops, the soda founts, the gin mills, the river bridges, the lynching trees, the buckshot-covered hills, the roads, the cows, the mimosas, and his own house as well as those big-pillared houses down near the long river, those white mortuaries where the women as delicate as moths fluttered in the autumn light, distant, far away. Those houses where the cold men rocked, with glasses of drink in their hands, guns leaned against the porch newels, sniffing the autumn airs and considering death. Gone, all gone; gone and never coming back. Now, for certain, all of that civilization ripped into confetti and strewn at their feet. Nothing, nothing of it left to hate--not an empty brass gun shell, or a twisted hemp, or a tree, or even a hill of it to hate. Nothing but some alien people in a rocket, people who might shine his shoes and ride in the back of trolleys or sit far up in midnight theaters "You won't have to do that," said Willie Johnson.

  His wife glanced at his big hands.

  His fingers were opening.

  The rope, released, fell and coiled upon itself along the ground.

  They ran through the streets of their town and tore down the new signs so quickly made, and painted out the fresh yellow signs on streetcars, and they cut down the ropes in the theater balconies, and unloaded their guns and stacked their ropes away.

  "A new start for everyone," said Hattie, on the way home in their car.

  "Yes," said Willie at last. "The Lord's let us come through, a few here and a few there. And what happens next is up to all of us. The time for being fools is over. We got to be something else except fools. I knew that when he talked. I knew then that now the white man's as lonely as we've always been. He's got no home now, just like we didn't have one for so long. Now everything's even. We can start all over again, on the same level."

  He stopped the car and sat in it, not moving, while Hattie went to let the children out. They ran down to see their father. "You see the white man? You see him?" they cried.

  "Yes, sir," said Willie, sitting behind the wheel, rubbing his face with his slow fingers. "Seems like for the first time today I really seen the white man--I really seen him clear."

  * * *

  The Highway

  THE cooling afternoon rain had come over the valley, touching the corn in the tilled mountain fields, tapping on the dry grass roof of the hut. In the rainy darkness the woman ground corn between cakes of lava rock, working steadily. In the wet lightlessness, somewhere, a baby cried.

  Hernando stood waiting for the rain to cease so he might take the wooden pl
ow into the field again. Below, the river boiled brown and thickened in its course. The concrete highway, another river, did not flow at all; it lay shining, empty. A car had not come along it in an hour. This was, in itself, of unusual interest. Over the years there had not been an hour when a car had not pulled up, someone shouting, "Hey there, can we take your picture?" Someone with a box that clicked, and a coin in his hand. If he walked slowly across the field without his hat, sometimes they called, "Oh, we want you with your hat on!" And they waved their hands, rich with gold things that told time, or identified them, or did nothing at all but winked like spider's eyes in the sun. So he would turn and go back to get his hat.

  His wife spoke. "Something is wrong, Hernando?"

  "Si. The road. Something big has happened. Something big to make the road so empty this way."

  He walked from the hut slowly and easily, the rain washing over the twined shoes of grass and thick tire rubber he wore. He remembered very well the incident of this pair of shoes. The tire had come into the hut with violence one night, exploding the chickens and the pots apart! It had come alone, rolling swiftly. The car, off which it had come, had rushed on, as far as the curve, and hung a moment, headlights reflected, before plunging into the river. The car was still there. One might see it on a good day, when the river ran slow and the mud cleared. Deep under, shining its metal, long and low and very rich, lay the car. But then the mud came in again and you saw nothing.

  The following day he had carved the shoe soles from the tire rubber.

  He reached the highway now, and stood upon it, listening to the small sounds it made in the rain.

  Then, suddenly, as if at a signal, the cars came. Hundreds of them, miles of them, rushing and rushing as he stood, by and by him. The big long black cars heading north toward the United States, roaring, taking the curves at too great a speed. With a ceaseless blowing and honking. And there was something about the faces of the people packed into the cars, something which dropped him into a deep silence. He stood back to let the cars roar on. He counted them until he tired. Five hundred, a thousand cars passed, and there was something in the faces of all of them. But they moved too swiftly for him to tell what this thing was.

  Finally the silence and emptiness returned. The swift long low convertible cars were gone. He heard the last horn fade.

  The road was empty again.

  It had been like a funeral cortege. But a wild one, racing, hair out, screaming to some ceremony ever northward. Why? He could only shake his head and rub his fingers softly, at his sides.

  Now, all alone, a final car. There was something very, very final about it. Down the mountain road in the thin cool rain, fuming up great clouds of steam, came an old Ford. It was traveling as swiftly as it might. He expected it to break apart any instant. When this ancient Ford saw Hernando it pulled up, caked with mud and rusted, the radiator bubbling angrily.

  "May we have some water, please, senor!"

  A young man, perhaps twenty-one, was driving. He wore a yellow sweater, an open-collared white shirt and gray pants. In the topless car the rain fell upon him and five young women packed so they could not move in the interior. They were all very pretty and they were keeping the rain from themselves and the driver with old newspapers. But the rain got through to them, soaking their bright dresses, soaking the young man. His hair was plastered with rain. But they did not seem to care. None complained, and this was unusual. Always before they complained; of rain, of heat, of time, of cold, of distance.

  Hernando nodded. "I'll bring you water."

  "Oh, please hurry!" one of the girls cried. She sounded very high and afraid. There was no impatience in her, only an asking out of fear. For the first time Hernando ran when a tourist asked; always before he had walked slower at such requests.

  He returned with a hub lid full of water. This, too, had been a gift from the highway. One afternoon it had sailed like a flung coin into his field, round and glittering. The car to which it belonged had slid on, oblivious to the fact that it had lost a silver eye. Until now, he and his wife had used it for washing and cooking; it made a fine bowl.

  As he poured the water into the boiling radiator, Hernando looked up at their stricken faces. "Oh, thank you, thank you," said one of the girls. "You don't know what this means."

  Hernando smiled. "So much traffic in this hour. It all goes one way. North."

  He did not mean to say anything to hurt them. But when he looked up again there all of them sat, in the rain, and they were crying. They were crying very hard. And the young man was trying to stop them by laying his hands on their shoulders and shaking them gently, one at a time, but they held their papers over their heads and their mouths moved and their eyes were shut and their faces changed color and they cried, some loud, some soft.

  Hernando stood with the half-empty lid in his fingers. "I did got mean to say anything, senor," he apologized.

  "That's all right," said the driver.

  "What is wrong, senor?"

  "Haven't you heard?" replied the young man, turning, holding tightly to the wheel with one hand, leaning forward. "It's happened."

  This was bad. The others, at this, cried still harder, holding onto each other, forgetting the newspapers, letting the rain fall and mingle with their tears.

  Hernando stiffened. He put the rest of the water into the radiator. He looked at the sky, which was black with storm. He looked at the river rushing. He felt the asphalt under his shoes.

  He came to the side of the car. The young man took his hand and gave him a peso. "No." Hernando gave it back. "It is my pleasure."

  "Thank you, you're so kind," said one of the girls, still sobbing. "Oh, Mama, Papa. Oh, I want to be home, I want to be home. Oh, Mama, Dad." And others held her.

  "I did not hear, senor," said Hernando quietly.

  "The war!" shouted the young man as if no one could hear. "It's come, the atom war, the end of the world!"

  "Senor, senor," said Hernando.

  "Thank you, thank you for your help. Good-by," said the young man.

  "Good-by," they all said in the rain, not seeing him.

  He stood while the car engaged its gears and rattled off down, fading away, through the valley. Finally it was gone, with the young women in it, the last car, the newspapers held and fluttered over their heads.

  Hernando did not move for a long time. The rain ran very cold down his cheeks and along his fingers and into the woven garment on his legs. He held his breath, waiting, tight and tensed.

  He watched the highway, but it did not move again. He doubted that it would move much for a very long time.

  The rain stopped. The sky broke through the clouds. In ten minutes the storm was gone, like a bad breath. A sweet wind blew the smell of the jungle up to him. He could hear the river moving gently and easily on its way. The jungle was very green; everything was fresh. He walked down through the field to his house and picked up his plow. With his hands on it he looked at the sky beginning to burn hot with the sun.

  His wife called out from her work. "What happened, Hernando?"

  "It is nothing," he replied.

  He set the plow in the furrow, he called sharply to his burro, "Burrrrrrr-o!" And they walked together through the rich field, under the clearing sky, on their tilled land by the deep river.

  "What do they mean, 'the world'?" he said.

  * * *

  The Man

  CAPTAIN HART stood in the door of the rocket. "Why don't they come?" he said.

  "Who knows?" said Martin, his lieutenant. "Do I know, Captain?"

  "What kind of a place is this, anyway?" The captain lighted a cigar. He tossed the match out into the glittering meadow. The grass started to burn.

  Martin moved to stamp it out with his boot.

  "No," ordered Captain Hart, "let it burn. Maybe they'll come see what's happening then, the ignorant fools."

  Martin shrugged and withdrew his foot from the spreading fire.

  Captain Hart examined h
is watch. "An hour ago we landed here, and does the welcoming committee rush out with a brass band to shake our hands? No indeed! Here we ride millions of miles through space and the fine citizens of some silly town on some unknown planet ignore us!" He snorted, tapping his watch. "Well, I'll just give them five more minutes, and then----"

  "And then what?" asked Martin, ever so politely, watching the captain's jowls shake.

  "We'll fly over their damned city again and scare hell out of them." His voice grew quieter. "Do you think, Martin, maybe they didn't see us land?"

  "They saw us. They looked up as we flew over.

  "Then why aren't they running across the field? Are they hiding? Are they yellow?"

  Martin shook his head. "No. Take these binoculars, sir. See for yourself. Everybody's walking around. They're not frightened. They--well, they just don't seem to care.

  Captain Hart placed the binoculars to his tired eyes. Martin looked up and had time to observe the lines and the grooves of irritation, tiredness, nervousness there. Hart looked a million years old; he never slept, he ate little, and drove himself on, on. Now his mouth moved, aged and drear, but sharp, under the held binoculars.

  "Really, Martin, I don't know why we bother. We build rockets, we go to all the trouble of crossing space, searching for them, and this is what we get. Neglect. Look at those idiots wander about in there. Don't they realize how big this is? The first space flight to touch their provincial land. How many times does that happen? Are they that blase?"

  Martin didn't know.

  Captain Hart gave him back the binoculars wearily. "Why do we do it, Martin? This space travel, I mean. Always on the go. Always searching. Our insides always tight, never any rest."

  "Maybe we're looking for peace and quiet. Certainly there's none on Earth," said Martin.

  "No, there's not, is there?" Captain Hart was thoughtful, the fire damped down. "Not since Darwin, eh? Not since everything went by the board, everything we used to believe in, eh? Divine power and all that. And so you think maybe that's why we're going out to the stars, eh, Martin? Looking for our lost souls, is that it? Trying to get away from our evil planet to a good one?"

  "Perhaps, sir. Certainly we're looking for something."

  Captain Hart cleared his throat and tightened back into sharpness. "Well, right now we're looking for the mayor of that city there. Run in, tell them who we are, the first rocket expedition to Planet Forty-three in Star System Three. Captain Hart sends his salutations and desires to meet the mayor. On the double!"