Time Out of Joint (15 page)

On the television screen appeared Ragle Gumm, first a front view and then a side view. Ragle Gumm strolled along a tree-lined residential street, past parked cars, lawns. Then a close-up of him, full-face.

From the speaker of the TV set a voice said, "This is Ragle Gumm."

On the screen Ragle Gumm now sat in a deck-chair in the back yard of a house, wearing a Hawaiian sports shirt and shorts.

"You will hear an excerpt of his conversational manner," the voice from the speaker said. And then Ragle heard his own voice. "... get home ahead of you I’ll do it," Ragle Gumm said. "Otherwise you can do it tomorrow. Is that okay?"

They have me down in black and white, Ragle thought. In color, as a matter of fact.

He stopped the tape. The image remained, inert. Then he clicked the switch off, and the image dwindled to a spot of brightness and at last vanished entirely.

No wonder everybody recognizes me. They’ve been trained.

When I start to imagine I’m crazy I’ll remember this tape machine. This training-program of identification with me as the topic.

I wonder how many tapes like this are sitting in how many machines in how many homes. Over how large an area. Every house that I ever passed. Every street. Every town, perhaps.

The entire earth?

He heard, from far off, the noise of an engine. It started him into motion.

Not long, he realized. He opened the front door, and the noise increased. In the darkness below him, twin lights flashed and then were temporarily broken off.

But what is it for? he wondered. Who are they?

What are things really like? I’ve got to see....

Running through the house he passed one object after another, from one room to the next. Furnishings, books, food in the kitchen, personal articles in drawers, clothes hanging in closets ... what would tell him the most?

At the back porch he stopped. He had reached the end of the house. A washing machine, mop hanging from a rack, package of Dash soap, a stack of magazines and newspapers.

Reaching into the stack he dragged out a handful, dropping them, opening them at random.

The date on a newspaper made him stop searching; he stood holding it.

May 10, 1997.

Almost forty years in the future.

His eyes took in the headlines. Meaningless jumble of isolated trivia: a murder, bond issue to raise funds for parking lots, death of famous scientist, revolt in Argentina.

And, near the bottom, the headline:

VENUSIAN ORE DEPOSITS OBJECT OF DISPUTE

Litigation in the International system of courts concerning the ownership of property on Venus ... he read as rapidly as he could, and then he tossed the newspaper down and pawed through the magazines.

A copy of Time, dated April 7, 1997. Rolling it up he stuck it in his trouser pocket. More copies of Time; he rooted through them, opening them and trying to devour the articles all at once, trying to grasp and retain something. Fashions, bridges, paintings, medicine, ice hockey—everything, the world of the future laid out in careful prose. Concise summaries of each branch of the society that had not yet come into existence....

That had come into existence. That existed now.

This was a current magazine. This was the year 1997. Not 1959.

From the road outside, the noise of a vehicle stopping caused him to grab up the rest of the magazines. An armload ... he started to open the back door, to the yard outside.

Voices. In the yard men moved; a light flashed. His armload of magazines struck the door and most of them tumbled to the porch. Kneeling down, he gathered them up.

"There he is," a voice said, and the light flicked in his direction, dazzling him. He swung so that his back was to it; lifting up one of the copies of Time he stared at the cover.

On the cover of Time, dated January 14, 1996, was his picture. A painting, in color. With the words underneath it:

RAGLE GUMM—MAN OF THE YEAR

Sitting down on the porch he opened the magazine and found the article. Photographs of him as a baby. His mother and father. Him as a child in grammar school. He turned the pages frantically. Him as he was now, after World War Two or whatever war it had been that he had fought in ... military uniform, himself smiling back at the camera.

A woman who was his first wife.

And then a scenic sprawl, the sharp city-like spires and minarets of an industrial installation.

The magazine was plucked from his hands. He looked up and saw, to his amazement, that the men lifting him up and away from the porch had on familiar drab coveralls.

"Watch out for that gate," one of them said.

He glimpsed dark trees, men stepping on flower beds, crushing plants under their shoes, flashlights swinging across the stone path out of the yard, to the road. And, in the road, trucks parked with their motors noisily running, headlights on. Olive-green service trucks, ton and a half. Familiar, too. Like the drab coveralls.

City trucks. City maintenance men.

And then one of the men held something to his face, a bubble of plastic that the man compressed with his fingers. The bubble split apart and became fumes.

Held between four of the men, Ragle Gumm could do nothing but breathe in the fumes. A flashlight poured yellow fumes and glare into his face; he shut his eyes.

"Don’t hurt him," a voice murmured. "Be careful with him."

Under him the metal of the truck had a cold, damp quality. As if, he thought, he had been loaded in a refrigerator tank. Produce, from the countryside, to be hauled into town. To be ready for the next day’s market.

TEN

Hearty morning sunlight filled his bedroom with a white glare. He put his hand over his eyes, feeling sick.

"I’ll pull down the shades," a voice said. Recognizing the voice he opened his eyes. Victor Nielson stood at the windows, pulling down the shades.

"I’m back," Ragle said. "I didn’t get anywhere. Not a step." He remembered the running, the scrambling uphill, through shrubbery. "I got up high," he said. "Almost to the top. But then they rolled me back." Who? he wondered. He said aloud, "Who brought me back here?"

Vic said, "A burly taxi driver who must have weighed three hundred pounds. He carried you right in the front door and set you down on the couch." After a moment he added, "It cost you or me, depending on who foots the bill, eleven dollars."

"Where did they find me?"

"In a bar," Vic said.

"What bar?"

"I never heard of it. Out at the end of town. The north end. The industrial end, by the tracks and the freight yards."

"See if you can remember the name of the bar," Ragle said. It seemed important to him; he did not know why.

"I can ask Margo," Vic said. "She was up; we both were up. Just a minute." He left the room. After a moment or so, Margo appeared at the end of his bed.

"It was a bar called Frank’s Bar-B-Q," she said.

"Thanks," Ragle said.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Better."

"Can I fix you something bland to eat?"

"No," he said. "Thanks."

Vic said, "You really tanked up. Not on beer. Your pockets were full of shoestring potatoes."

"Anything else?" Ragle said. There was supposed to be something else; he had a memory of stuffing something valuable into them; something that he wanted vitally to keep and bring back.

"Just a paper napkin from Frank’s Bar-B-Q," Margo said.

"And a lot of change. Quarters and dimes."

"Maybe you were making phone calls," Vic said.

"I was," he said. "I think." Something about a phone. A phone book. "I remember a name," he said. "Jack Daniels."

Vic said, "That was the cab driver’s name."

"How do you now?" Margo asked him.

"Ragle kept calling the cab driver that," Vic said.

"What about city maintenance trucks?" Ragle said.

"You didn’t say anything about them," Margo said. "But it’s easy to see why you might have them on your mind."

"Why?" he said.

She raised the window shade. "They’ve been out there since sunup, since before seven o’clock. The din probably affected your subconscious and got into your thoughts."

Lifting himself up, Ragle looked out of the window. Parked at the far curb were two olive-green maintenance trucks. A crew of city workmen in their drab coveralls had started digging up the street; the racket of their trip hammers jarred him, and he realized that he had been hearing the sound for some time.

"It looks like they’re there to stay," Vic said. "Must be a break in the pipe."

"It always makes me nervous when they start digging up the street," Margo said. "I’m always afraid they’ll just walk off and leave it dug up. Not finish it."

"They know what they’re doing," Vic said. Waving goodbye to Margo and Ragle, he set off for work.

Later, after he had got shakily out of bed, washed and shaved and dressed, Ragle Gumm wandered into the kitchen and fixed himself a glass of tomato juice and a soft-boiled egg on unbuttered toast.

Seated at the table he sipped some of the coffee that Margo had left on the stove. He did not feel like eating. From a distance he could hear the drapapapapapa of the trip hammers. I wonder how long that’ll be going on, he asked himself.

He lit a cigarette and then picked up the morning paper. Vic or Margo had brought it in and laid it on the chair by the table where he would find it.

The texture of the paper repelled him. He could hardly bear to hold it in his hands.

Folding the first sheets back he glanced over the puzzle page. There, as usual, the names of wnners. His name, in its special box. In all its glory.

"How does the contest look today?" Margo asked, from the other room. Wearing toreador pants, and a white cotton shirt of Vic’s, she had started to polish the television set.

"About the same," he said. The sight of his name on the newspaper page made him restless and uncomfortable, and his first nausea of the morning returned. "Funny business," he said to his sister. "Seeing your name in print. All of a sudden it can be nerve-racking. A shock."

"I’ve never seen my name in print," she said. "Except in some of those articles about you."

Yes, he thought. Articles about me. "I’m pretty important," he said, putting the paper down.

"Oh you are," Margo agreed.

"I have the feeling," he said, "that what I do affects the human race."

She straightened up and stopped polishing. "What a peculiar thing to say. I don’t really see—" She broke off. "After all, a contest is only a contest."

Going into his room, he began setting up his charts, graphs, tables and machines. An hour or so later he had gotten deep into the order of solving the day’s puzzle.

At noon, Margo rapped on the closed door. "Ragle," she said, "can you be interrupted? Just say you can’t if you can’t."

He opened the door, glad of a break.

"Junie Black wants to talk to you," Margo said. "She swears she’ll stay only a minute; I told her you hadn’t finished." She made a motion, and Junie Black appeared from the living room. "All dressed up," Margo said, eying her.

"I’m going downtown shopping," Junie explained. She had on a red knit wool suit, stockings and heels, and a shorty coat over her shoulders; her hair was done up and she had on make-up, a good deal of it. Her eyes seemed extra dark, and her lashes long, dramatic. "Close the door," she said to Ragle, stepping into his room. "I want to talk to you."

He shut the door.

"Listen," Junie said. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," he said.

"I know what happened to you." She put her hands on his shoulders and then she drew away from him with a quake of anguish. "Damn him!" she said. "I told him I’d leave him if he did anything to you."

"Bill?" he asked.

"He’s responsible. He had you followed and spied on; he hired some private detectives." She paced about the room, tense and smouldering. "They beat you up, didn’t they?"

"No," he said. "I don’t think so."

She pondered that. "Maybe they just wanted to scare you."

"I don’t think this has anything to do with your husband," Ragle said hesitantly. "Or with you."

Shaking her head, Junie said, "I know it does. I saw the telegram he got. When you were missing he got this telegram—he didn’t want me to see it, but I grabbed it away from him. I remember exactly what it said. It was about you. A report on you."

Ragle said, "What did it say?"

For a moment she squeezed together her faculties. Then, fervently, she said, "It said, ’Sighted missing truck. Gumm passed barbecue. Your move next.’ "

"You’re sure?" he said, aware of her vagaries.

"Yes," she said. "I memorized it before he got it back."

City trucks, he thought. Outside, in the street, the olive-drab trucks had not left. The men still worked away at the pavement; they had gotten quite a stretch of it dug up, by now.

"Bill has no contact with maintenance, does he?" he asked. "He doesn’t dispatch the service trucks, does he?"

"I don’t know what he does down at the water company," Junie said. "And I don’t care, Ragle. Do you hear that? I don’t care. I wash my hands of him." Suddenly she ran toward him and put her arms around him; hugging him she said loudly in his ear, "Ragle, I’ve made up my mind. This thing, this awful criminal vengeance business of his, finishes it forever. Bill and I are through. Look." She tugged off the glove of her left hand and waved her hand before his face. "Do you see?"

"No," he said.

"My wedding ring. I’m not wearing it." She put her glove back on. "I came over here to tell you that, Ragle. Do you remember when you and I lay out on the grass together, and you read poetry to me and told me you loved me?"

"Yes," he said.

"I don’t care what Margo says or anybody says," Junie said.. "I have an appointment at two-thirty this afternoon with an attorney. I’m going to see about leaving Bill. And then you and I can be together for the rest of our lives, and nobody can interfere. And if he tries any more of his strong-arm criminal tactics, I’ll call the police."

Gathering up her purse, she opened the door to the hall.

"You’re leaving?" he asked, somewhat dazed to find himself now in the ebb of the whirlwind.

"I have to get downtown," she said. She glanced up and down the hall and then she made a pantomime, in his direction, of ardent kissing. "I’ll try to phone you later today," she whispered, leaning toward him. "And tell you what the lawyer said." The door snapped shut after her, and he heard her heels against the floor as she rushed off. Then, outside, a car started up. She had gone.

"What was all that?" Margo said, from the kitchen.

"She’s upset," he said vaguely. "Fight with Bill."

Margo said, "If you’re important to the whole human race you ought to be able to do better than her."

"Did you tell Bill Black I had gone off?" he said.

"No," she said. "But I told her. She showed up here, after you had gone. I told her I was too worried about where you were to give a darn what she had to say. Anyhow, I think it was just an excuse on her part to see you; she didn’t really want to talk to me." Drying her hands on a paper towel she said, "She looked quite nice, just now. She really is physically attractive. But she’s so juvenile. Like some of the little girls Sammy has for his playmates."

He barely heard what she was telling him. His head ached and he felt more sick and confused than before. Echoes of the night ...

Outside, the city maintenance crew leaned on their shovels, smoked cigarettes, and seemed to be keeping in the vicinity of the house.

Are they there to spy on me? Ragle wondered.

He felt a strong, reflexive aversion to them; it bordered on fear. And he did not know why. He tried to think back, to remember what had happened to him, The olive-green trucks ... the running and crawling. An attempt, somewhere along the line, to hide. And something valuable that he had found, but which had slipped or been taken away ...