Read Online A Century of Progress by Fred Saberhagen - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Fred Saberhagen
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appeared to be taking any notice of his arrival.
On the side of the street that he was facing from his driver’s seat, two of the stores were empty, and their for rent signs appeared to have been up for a considerable time. The next thing that caught Norlund’s eye was the small movie theater halfway down the block from where he’d parked. The theater was open this summer afternoon, and there were black letters on the white marquee:
SHE DONE HIM WRONG
MAE WEST
Turning to the other side of the street, Norlund spotted a small newspaper and magazine stand opposite the theater—and, sure enough, next to the newsstand was a barber’s painted pole.
He got out of the truck, setting foot in territory that, he kept telling himself, ought to be basically familiar to him. He crossed the street and entered the barber shop, interrupting a conversation between two old cronies. One of them, in a white coat—Norlund kept trying to see the elderly man as Dr. Harbin—came to help Norlund off with his jacket.
“Yessir. What’ll it be?”
“Trim it all the way around.”
He heard talk about baseball. The Cubs were in second place. He saw brass spittoons, and lazy flies. The calendar on the wall, as it should, said July of nineteen thirty-three. He checked the time on the majestically ticking wall clock, and reminded himself to reset his wristwatch later.
He also looked over the list of prices posted on the wall. And presently, trimmed, brushed, and redolent of bay rum, he gave the barber a quarter and told him to keep the change.
From the barber shop Norlund stepped next door to the newsstand and picked up a paper off a pile, meanwhile handing another quarter to the old man tending the stand. The old fingers trembled back his change, two silver dimes, two pennies. Norlund, struck by a sudden thought, delayed, staring impolitely at those fingers and their owner. He couldn’t help himself. The man he was looking at had perhaps been born in eighteen sixty. As a child he might well have seen
Lincoln, and his father had as likely as not fought in the Civil War . . .
Norlund got hold of himself, and made himself walk away, giving his attention to the paper he had just purchased. Yes, right on the money, Saturday, July 22, nineteen thirty-three.
WORLD FLYER ON HOMEWARD LAP
Wiley Post Hops off for Edmonton
STAGE SET FOR ROOSEVELT SON
TO WED TODAY
He’d read more of it later. He returned to his truck and got into the rear seat, taking off his coat and loosening his tie. It was time to get some of the electronics up and running on battery power. With the equipment running, he calibrated it according to instructions, and took some preliminary readings. Curiosity about what he was really doing began to nag him. The readings he took were recorded somewhere, he was sure, perhaps also transmitted somewhere. They hadn’t told him anything about that, or even explained to him exactly what it was that the machinery was supposed to be recording. Well, as long as he got paid . . .
The preliminary session completed, Norlund turned the electronics off and went back to the driver’s seat. There he got out his map and spread it on his knees. The areas where he was to install recording units were not marked on this map, or anywhere but in his newly strengthened memory. But having the map in front of him helped Norlund to visualize the pattern that those areas made. They formed two lines, with ten units in each, each line several miles long and not quite straight. The fines converged upon a point of intersection on the Lake Michigan shoreline, right next to downtown Chicago. Ginny Butler in her teaching had never mentioned the existence of any such convergence point. Nor was it marked on the map. But it obviously had to be right on the peninsula called Northerly Island, that had been built out into the lake by landfill as a site for the Century of Progress—the site shown in the photographic blowup that Ginny had on the wall of her conference
On the side of the street that he was facing from his driver’s seat, two of the stores were empty, and their for rent signs appeared to have been up for a considerable time. The next thing that caught Norlund’s eye was the small movie theater halfway down the block from where he’d parked. The theater was open this summer afternoon, and there were black letters on the white marquee:
SHE DONE HIM WRONG
MAE WEST
Turning to the other side of the street, Norlund spotted a small newspaper and magazine stand opposite the theater—and, sure enough, next to the newsstand was a barber’s painted pole.
He got out of the truck, setting foot in territory that, he kept telling himself, ought to be basically familiar to him. He crossed the street and entered the barber shop, interrupting a conversation between two old cronies. One of them, in a white coat—Norlund kept trying to see the elderly man as Dr. Harbin—came to help Norlund off with his jacket.
“Yessir. What’ll it be?”
“Trim it all the way around.”
He heard talk about baseball. The Cubs were in second place. He saw brass spittoons, and lazy flies. The calendar on the wall, as it should, said July of nineteen thirty-three. He checked the time on the majestically ticking wall clock, and reminded himself to reset his wristwatch later.
He also looked over the list of prices posted on the wall. And presently, trimmed, brushed, and redolent of bay rum, he gave the barber a quarter and told him to keep the change.
From the barber shop Norlund stepped next door to the newsstand and picked up a paper off a pile, meanwhile handing another quarter to the old man tending the stand. The old fingers trembled back his change, two silver dimes, two pennies. Norlund, struck by a sudden thought, delayed, staring impolitely at those fingers and their owner. He couldn’t help himself. The man he was looking at had perhaps been born in eighteen sixty. As a child he might well have seen
Lincoln, and his father had as likely as not fought in the Civil War . . .
Norlund got hold of himself, and made himself walk away, giving his attention to the paper he had just purchased. Yes, right on the money, Saturday, July 22, nineteen thirty-three.
WORLD FLYER ON HOMEWARD LAP
Wiley Post Hops off for Edmonton
STAGE SET FOR ROOSEVELT SON
TO WED TODAY
He’d read more of it later. He returned to his truck and got into the rear seat, taking off his coat and loosening his tie. It was time to get some of the electronics up and running on battery power. With the equipment running, he calibrated it according to instructions, and took some preliminary readings. Curiosity about what he was really doing began to nag him. The readings he took were recorded somewhere, he was sure, perhaps also transmitted somewhere. They hadn’t told him anything about that, or even explained to him exactly what it was that the machinery was supposed to be recording. Well, as long as he got paid . . .
The preliminary session completed, Norlund turned the electronics off and went back to the driver’s seat. There he got out his map and spread it on his knees. The areas where he was to install recording units were not marked on this map, or anywhere but in his newly strengthened memory. But having the map in front of him helped Norlund to visualize the pattern that those areas made. They formed two lines, with ten units in each, each line several miles long and not quite straight. The fines converged upon a point of intersection on the Lake Michigan shoreline, right next to downtown Chicago. Ginny Butler in her teaching had never mentioned the existence of any such convergence point. Nor was it marked on the map. But it obviously had to be right on the peninsula called Northerly Island, that had been built out into the lake by landfill as a site for the Century of Progress—the site shown in the photographic blowup that Ginny had on the wall of her conference
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