Ring Around the Sun

CHAPTER FOUR

IT had been the blade at first, the razor blade that would not wear out. And after that the lighter that never failed to light, that required no flints and never needed filling. Then the light bulb that would burn forever if it met no accident. Now it was the Forever car.

Somewhere in there, too, would be the synthetic carbohydrates.

There is something going on, Mr. Flanders had said to him, standing there in front of old Hans' shop.

Vickers sat in his seat next to the window, well back in bus, and tried to sort it out in his mind.

There was a tie-up somewhere — razor blades, lighters, light bulbs, synthetic carbohydrates and now the Forever car. Somewhere there must be a common denominator to explain why it should be these five items and not five other things, say roller curtains and pogo sticks and yo-yos and airplanes and toothpaste. Razor blades shaved a man and light bulbs lit his way and a cigarette lighter would light a cigarette and the synthetic carbohydrates had ironed out at least one international crisis and had saved some millions of people from starvation or war.

There is something going on, Flanders had said, standing there in neat, but shabby clothes and with that ridiculous stick clutched in his fist, although, come to think of it, it was not ridiculous when Mr. Flanders held it.

The Forever car would run forever and it used no oil and when you died you willed it to your son and when he died he willed it to his son and if your great-great-grandfather bought one of the cars and you were the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son you would have it, too. One car would outlast many generations.

But it would do more than that. It would close every automotive plant in a year or so; it would shut down most of the garages and repair shops; it would be a blow to the steel industry and the glass industry and the fabric makers and perhaps a dozen other industries as well.

The razor blade hadn't seemed important, nor the light bulb, nor the lighter, but now they suddenly all were. Thousands of men would lose their jobs and they would come home and face the family and say: "Well, this is it. After all these years I haven't got a job."

The family would go about their everyday affairs in tight and terrible silence, with a queer air of dread hanging over them, and the man would buy all the newspapers and study the want ad columns, then go out and walk the streets and men in little cages or at desks in the outer offices would shake their heads at him.

Finally the man would go to one of those little places that had the sign "Carbohydrates, Inc." over its door and he would shuffle in with the embarrassment of a good workman who cannot find a job, and he would say, "I'm a little down on my luck and the cash is running low. I wonder…"

The man behind the desk would say, "Why, sure, how many in your family?" The man would tell him and the one who was at the desk would write on a slip of paper and hand it to him. "That window over there," he'd say. "I figure there's enough there to last you for a week, but if there isn't be sure to come back anytime you want to."

The man would take the slip of paper and try to say his thanks, but the carbohydrates man would brush them easily aside and say, "Look, now, that's what we're here for. This is our business, helping guys like you."

The man would go to the window and the man behind the window would look at the slip of paper and hand him packages and one package would be synthetic stuff that tasted like potatoes and another one would taste like bread and there would be others that would make you think you were eating corn or peas.

That was what had happened before, that was what was happening all the time.

It wasn't like relief — anyhow, you could say it wasn't like relief. These carbohydrates people didn't ever insult you when you came to ask for help. They treated you like a paying customer and they always said that you should come back and sometimes when you didn't they came around to see what had happened — if maybe you had got a job or were bashful about coming in again. If it turned out that you were bashful, they'd sit down and talk to you and before they left they had you thinking you were doing them a favor by taking the carbohydrates off their hands.

Because of the carbohydrates millions who would have died were still alive in India and in China. Now the thousands who would lose their jobs when the automotive plants shut down and the steel mills curtailed their operations and the repair shops shut their doors, would travel the same trail to the doors with the carbohydrates sign.

The automotive industry would have to shut down. No one would buy any other car when you could walk down the street and buy one that would last forever. Just as the razor blade industry was already closing its doors, now that it was possible to get an everlasting blade at the gadget shops, The same thing was happening with light bulbs and with cigarette lighters and the chances were, Vickers told himself, that the Forever car wasn't the last that would be heard from these manufacturers, whoever they might be.

For it must be, he told himself, that those who made the razor blades also made the lighters and the light bulbs, and that those who made the gadget items must have designed the Forever car. Not the same companies, perhaps, although he couldn't know, for it had never occurred to him to try to find out who had made any of them

The bus was filling up, but Vickers still sat staring out the window and sorting out his thoughts.

Just behind him a couple of women were talking and, without consciously trying to eavesdrop, he picked up their words.

One of them giggled and said, "We have the _most_ interesting group. So _many_ interesting people in it."

And the other woman said, "I been thinking about joining one of those groups, but Charlie, he says it's all baloney. Says we're living in America in the year 1977 and there's no reason in the world why we should pretend we aren't. Says this is the best country and the best time the world has ever known. Says we got all the modern conveniences and everything. Says we're happier than people ever been before. Says this pretending business is just a lot of communist propaganda and he'd like to get hold of the ones that got it started. Says…

"Oh, I don't know," interrupted the first woman. "It _is_ kind of fun. It takes a _lot_ of work, of course, reading about them old times and all of that, but you get something out of it, I guess. One fellow was saying at a meeting the other night you get out of it what you put into it and I guess he's right. But I don't seem to be able to put much into it. I guess I must be the flighty type, I'm not too good a reader and I don't understand too well and I got to have a lot explained to me, but there are them as get a lot of it, seems like. There's a man in our group living bad in London, back in the times of a man named Samuel Peeps. I don't know who this Peeps was, but I guess he was an important man or something. You don't know who Peeps was, do you Gladys?

"Not me," said Glady.

"Well, anyhow," continued the other, "this fellow, he talks the time about this Peeps. 'He wrote a book, this Peeps, it must be an awful long book because he tells about so many things. This man I was telling you about writes the most wonderful diary. We always like to have him read it to us. You know, it sounds almost as if he was _really_ living there".

The bus stopped for a railroad crossing and Vickers glanced at his watch. They'd be in the city in another half an hour.

It was a waste of time, he told himself. No matter what sort of scheme Ann had up her sleeve, it would be a waste of time, for he was not going to allow anything to interrupt his writing. He shouldn't have allowed himself to be talked into wasting even this one day.

Back of him, Gladys was saying, "Did you hear about these new houses they're putting out. I was talking to Charlie about them the other night and I was saying maybe we ought to look into them. Our place is getting kind of shabby, you know, and we'll have to paint it and sort of fix it up, but Charlie he said that it was a sucker game of some sort. He said no one would put out them kind of houses on the sort of deal they offer without there was a catch somewhere. Charlie, he said he was too old a hand to be taken in by something like them houses. Mabel, have you seen any of them houses or read anything about them…"

"I was telling you," Mabel persisted, "about this group I belong to. One of the fellows is pretending that he's living in the future. Now, I ask you, ain't that a laugh. Imagine anyone pretending he's living in the future…"