Read Online Going to Chicago by Rob Levandoski - Free Book Online Page B

did.

“ You see machines that tabulate, sort and file. They can automatically sort out any group of cards from a file of hundreds of thousands in a few minutes. Books and records are kept by machinery. Intricate tasks that would require thousands of eyes and fingers are rattled off at a dizzy speed .”
    O FFICIAL G UIDE B OOK OF THE W ORLD ’ S F AIR
    Seven/Whizzing By
    Will, Clyde, and I lined up like sardines on the tent floor, our noses itching from the stink of fresh dog urine and moldy canvas. Will clicked off his flashlight. “This is something, isn’t it?” he said.
    â€œIf you mean how the tent smells, it’s something all right,” I said.
    â€œI mean just being here. Almost to Chicago. On the greatest adventure of our lives.”
    â€œI just wish you two would shut up and go to sleep,” Clyde said. “I don’t want be awake when my ear starts aching.”
    Will hit Clyde on the belly with his flashlight. “You’re the one who better shut up.”
    Clyde was defiant. “I’ll shut up when you do.”
    â€œYou’ll shut up or I’ll take that medicine bottle and give you an earache right up the ass.”
    Clyde didn’t want to risk that. He rolled over and buried his head under his blanket. Will continued his inspirational lecture: “Week from today we’ll be different people, Ace. We’ll be men of the world. We’ll have seen the future. We’ll be armed to the teeth with knowledge. Ready for whatever life has in store.”
    I was squirming like a beached catfish. “All I’m ready for is a real bed. There’s a rock hard as an algebra test in my back.”
    Will’s flashlight clicked on. He reached under his pillow for his guidebook. “That reminds me, right after we see them make tires at the Firestone Pavilion we’ve got to get over to the International Business Machine Company Exhibit. They’ve got these machines that can count and sort numbers with the push of a button. Listen to this: ‘Intricate tasks that would require thousands of eyes and fingers are rattled off at a dizzy speed.’”
    I answered with an unenthusiastic, “Imagine that.”
    Will put his guidebook away. Clicked off the flashlight. “If you want to spend your whole life empty as a pumpkin, that’s all right with me.”
    I’d been disrespectful. “I’m sorry.”
    â€œYou’re sorry all right.”
    We both laughed, instantly recementing our friendship.
    â€œHow’d you and me ever end up friends anyway?” I asked.
    â€œI’ve been wondering that for six years.”
    â€œI mean it,” I said. “We’re such different squirrels. You like to stand back and look at life. Study it. Discuss it. Take notes on it. But me, I like to live life.”
    Will protested. “I like to live life.”
    â€œNo you don’t. All the way here you had your snoot stuck in your maps while the real world was whizzing by. You didn’t see none of it.”
    â€œSure I did. Two hundred and eighty-three miles of cornfields.”
    â€œMaybe you knew those cornfields were there. But you didn’t see them. Not the way I did.”
    â€œNow that makes a lot of sense.”
    â€œIt does. Remember when we dissected that frog in science? You couldn’t wait to cut that little croaker open to see how it worked, like it was a broken radio or something. I wanted to see its guts. See how bad it smelled.”
    â€œThat frog did smell bad, didn’t it?”
    â€œRemember how I cut out its little brain and stuck it in Gloria Gerber’s ear?”
    I didn’t know it then, but that was the deepest talk Will Randall and I would ever have. It chiseled in unerodible tombstone granite just who he was and just who I was. It didn’t matter a lick if we were two different squirrels, only that we accepted and respected, and enjoyed each other