A Century of Progress (10 page)

Nobody in the city objected to any of the activities of the Radio Survey team, though some of the Hooverville inhabitants fled. The more people there were around, thought Norlund, the less conspicuous workmen became. So far, he thought, all was going very well.

He bought lunch for himself and his work force at a Greek place on Halsted Street, the sandwiches Judy had packed in a brown bag being reserved for afternoon snacking. Not far to the east of this restaurant rose the Loop’s tall buildings, and not far beyond them the lake terminated the city, and right there on the lake shore the job would presently end. Norlund, in an almost-euphoric state, was toying with the idea of buying some souvenir for Sandy at the Fair, or maybe in one of the downtown stores, Marshall Field perhaps. No one up in Eighty-four had said he couldn’t bring back something.

Jerry, seated across the table, had plainly enjoyed his lunch. But now he was fidgeting. “Mr. Norlund? Think you’ll have another job like this sometime? Or maybe some other kinda work?”

“It could be, Jerry.” Norlund found himself wishing that it could. “You’ve been a good worker.”

“You got a phone number where I could get ahold of you? Here in Chicago?”

Norlund felt torn between the urge to hold out hope and the thought that in the long run it would be kindest not to do so. He let himself be swayed toward the former, and reached into his pocket for a card. He got out one of the business cards he’d put into his billfold, giving the address of the old Wheaton farmhouse, and a phone number. He had been assured that anyone dialing that number in the Thirties would get only a busy signal or a sound of endless ringing. He had also been urged to use discretion in handing out the cards, but now seemed like the perfect time if he was going to use them at all. A card once separated from its fellows, he had been told, would wear rapidly. A couple of months in pocket or purse and it would be illegible. In less than a year it would be little more than dust.

Norlund handed one of the cards across the table. Jerry looked at it, brightened a bit, and put it in his pocket.

They left the restaurant and got into the truck, and began the job of putting the final units into place. By midafternoon there were only two more to go, and these were going to have to be placed right on the Fairgrounds. This near the convergence point, Norlund’s equipment was becoming increasingly hard to satisfy as to the location of the devices. Now each unit was taking longer to position.

They drove east on the long bridge that carried Twenty-third Street over the Illinois Central railroad tracks, approaching one of the main entrances to the Fair. The tall multicolored buildings and the brave banners could be seen from some distance, against the lake. The Skyride towers, each the equivalent of sixty stories or so, by far overtopped any other building within the city. They were mostly openwork girders. At what Norlund estimated as about the two hundred foot level, cables bore cars filled with sightseers back and forth between the two towers, over the Fair’s central lagoon.

The Fair entrance was crowded, with lines of people waiting to buy tickets and more lines forming to get through the gates.

“Sally Rand draws ‘em”, Jerry commented knowledgeably. “Streets of Paris is almost right inside this entrance. That’s where she does her hootchy-kootch. Hey, you really think she’s not wearin’ nothing behind those fans?”

“I’m getting old, kid, my eyes are not too good. I’ll have to get a front-row seat to know for sure.”

And Jerry laughed.

Sure enough, there was a service gate close to the one for paying customers. Norlund pulled in line behind a small telephone company truck, and when it was waved through he pulled up to the gate.

The uniformed guard who came to his window was a small, intense-looking man. Immediately he impressed Norlund as a frustrated dictator. He challenged in a raspy, almost quacky voice: “What’s this? You can’t come in this way.”

Norlund looked back with what he hoped was a properly outraged stare. “They didn’t tell you we were coming in today?”

“Nope. Nobody told me nothing like that.” But the aggressive edge in the guard’s squawky voice had now been dulled by caution.

Norlund had a five dollar bill ready in his hand. It was folded so that just a numbered corner would be visible to the intended recipient. In sixty years, Norlund thought, you learn to do some things pretty well. He said: “Oh hell, it’s not worth it to me to have to wait around while you check.” There was another uniform in the background. “Treat your partner to a little something, too.”

Five dollars might well be more than either guard would earn today. Resistance vanished. As he drove the truck in, Norlund muttered thoughtlessly: “That guy sounded just like Donald Duck.”

“Like who?” Jerry was honestly puzzled, though he’d been listening carefully.

“Someone I used to know.” A slip there, thought Norlund, but no harm done. And he grinned faintly to himself, thinking of the hard times that guard was going to have in a few years, when Disney’s creation began to walk the movie screens.

Jerry was quickly absorbed in the splendors of the Fair. There was a lot to see; that black-and-white photo blowup of Ginny Butler’s didn’t begin to do justice to the reality. The buildings had been deliberately constructed in a variety of colors; there were varied shades of green, blue, yellow, red, and orange, with black, white, and gray in a minority. Masses of flowers grew beside the broad walks. A sightseers’ bus, passengers sitting facing open sides, drove slowly ahead of Norlund’s creeping truck. There was a goodly crowd in attendance, mostly well dressed by the standards of the day. The weather was fine, and the lake, visible between buildings—there was the Chinese Lama Temple, there the Colonial Village—was sparked with white sails. Avenues of brave, multicolored banners snapped briskly in the breeze.

Stopping to change drivers, Norlund observed a plaque nearby:
ONLY A HUNDRED YEARS AGO
C
HICAGO WAS A HUDDLE OF HUTS, CLINGING TO THE SHADOWS OF FORT DEARBORN FOR SAFETY FROM THE INDIANS, FOUR YEARS AFTER ITS INCORPORATION AS A VILLAGE IN
1833,
ITS POPULATION, CONQUERING PATCHES OF DREARY SWAMP, HAD REACHED
4,000.
TODAY IT IS NEARLY
4,000,000—3,376,438
FOR THE SAKE OF ACCURACY, BY THE CENSUS OF
1930,
AND GROWING AT A RATE OF
70,000
A YEAR
.

Glancing once more at Jerry from his own seat in the .rear, Norlund thought that the young man’s thoughts were not on the hundred years past. The future was a likelier bet. Or Sally Rand.

ON THE MIDWAY– –LIVING WONDERS

Largest collection of strange and curious people ever assembled.

Human mistakes and mishaps.

Siamese Twins

GIANTS FROM

THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH

Adults, 25 cents         Children, 15 cents

* * *

OLD PLANTATION

SHOW

60 hand-picked

Colored Entertainers

Hottest colored band from Dixie

Singers, Comedians and Dancers

Fastest moving, fastest stepping

Show ever put together.

Adults, 25 cents       Children, 15 cents

Both shows operated by

THE DUKE MILLS CORP.

“You think people will ever get to the Moon, Mr. Norlund?” Obviously Jerry was not much interested in minstrel shows and freaks. In his mind science and industry were on the move, and great things were to be expected from them just over the next hill of years.

“A lot of people think I’m crazy when I say that. But I can picture that. By—by a hundred years from now there’ll be guys landing on the Moon.”

“I dunno, Jerry.” Norlund supposed that the kid would have picked a closer year than two thousand thirty three except for his concern for the sensibilities of conservative age. “What’s all that over there? General Exhibits Group. I think we may wind up putting a unit inside one of those buildings.”

The outside wall of one of them turned out to be preferable. One unit left to install. Norlund, looking alternately at his instruments and out the window, realized suddenly that the convergence point of his two long-drawn lines had to be right at the eastern Skyride tower, the one on the outer peninsula and closest to the lake. What that might mean, he couldn’t begin to guess.

As location for his last unit, his instruments opted for somewhere inside the House of Tomorrow—which was, he supposed, appropriate enough.

In brief moments when Norlund’s attention wandered from the job he thought about Jerry and the kid’s wistful eagerness for the future. Jerry had said that he was twenty now. He’d still be possible draft bait in nineteen forty-one, by the standards of the World War II selective service—even in America where no one was fighting on the local soil. Not that he’d waited around to be drafted. I was gung-ho in those days, he thought; and then he cautioned himself not to say gung-ho aloud. He’d get another of those funny looks.

Trying to plan tactics, Norlund picked up a small brochure on the House of Tomorrow.

A circular glass house, incorporating possible indications of what the future may bring . . . built around a central mast which contains all utilities. Exterior walls are of clear glass, and there are no windows. Privacy is obtained by drapes and roller and Venetian blinds. The most modern equipment available has been used, including everything from an airplane to electrically controlled doors. The furniture is especially designed. The ground floor includes the airplane hangar in addition to the garage; the roof above forms an extensive deck terrace, opening from the living room floor, and there is a similar deck around the drum-shaped solarium on the third floor. Ventilation is provided by filtered, washed, heated or cooled air, recirculated every ten minutes. There are no visible light fixtures, as the necessary artificial light is indirect, from hidden sources. There are no closets, but movable wardrobes are used . . . the house is frankly declared to be a ‘laboratory’ house, for the purpose of determining the attitude of World’s Fair visitors to the idea of an utterly different home . . . price has been no object . . .

Jerry was still inside the House of Tomorrow, Norlund watching his instruments in the back of the truck, when a slight sound came from the front, and the whole truck shifted slightly as if someone’s weight had come aboard.

Norlund’s right hand, concealed by equipment from the intruder’s gaze, moved to scramble dial settings, wiping all sense and purpose from the panel. With the same motion he turned his chair. “Yeah?”

There was a uniformed head and shoulders leaning in through the open window on the left side. The face that came with the uniform looked baked, as if by sun bouncing from city pavements. It had dusty-looking eyebrows and in general a hard, unhappy look. The voice was gritty, also suggesting streets and pavements. “Let’s see your working-on-the-grounds permit.”

Norlund put on an expression that he hoped looked like controlled arrogance. He moved forward through the narrow aisle, and threw himself into the driver’s seat with an air of exasperation. With one hand he further loosened his tie, at the same time managing to call attention to it as a badge of social authority. “Who sent you guys around now? If you don’t want to make trouble for yourselves, better butt out and let me get some work done.”

“Just lemme see the permit, please,” said the hard face a few inches from his own. That last word represented a concession, but Norlund got the feeling that bluster on his part was unlikely to accomplish more.

Peering out past the man, Norlund demanded, “Who’s in charge here?” He could see now that there were at least two more uniformed figures in the background, and just behind them the gray unmarked car in which they had evidently driven up.

And where was Jerry? He still had to be inside the House of Tomorrow, some yards away across a concourse. Norlund was careful not to look in that direction.

At a nod from one in the background, the cop who had been peering into the truck now yanked the door open. “All right, buddy, step out.”

Norlund wasn’t sure if these were city cops or some of the Fair’s own security force; he noted that they were wearing guns at their belts as the regular city policemen did. Their uniforms were of police type, but otherwise uninformative. Norlund got out of the truck-he realized he’d be dragged out if he didn’t—and moved toward the two men in the background. They stood waiting for him. One of them was leaning, arms folded, against the gray car behind him. This man was thin but strong-looking, a little taller than average, and Norlund instantly picked him out as the authority. His fair coloring suggested Nordic ancestry, but something in his cast of features suggested an unusual combination, perhaps black or Indian. Norlund didn’t consider the incongruous effect handsome, but it was certainly striking.

This man, still leaning against his car, spoke to Norlund in a voice of authority. “We have to see your driver’s license as well as the permit.” There was more than enough authority for a police sergeant in that voice; well, these days a lot of former big shots were glad to have any kind of a job.

Being careful to move his hands slowly, Norlund got his billfold. He fumbled with it for a moment, then drew forth a business card along with his license. When he handed the card and license over, there was a folded ten-spot pressed between them . . .

 . . . and Norlund knew at once that bribery wasn’t going to do him any more good than bluster. The pale-faced sergeant—or whatever he was—carefully and at once separated the money from the card and license, holding the bill in plain sight between two fingers while he studied the documents carefully. The expression on his face was one of faint amusement.

Then he handed the three items back, separately. “Mr., ah, Norlund, you’re going to have to come along with us. Just until we can get this straightened out.” He managed to make that last sentence sound almost reassuring. He held out an empty hand. “The keys to the truck, please.”

One of the other uniformed men had gone to poke around a little inside the truck, and had evidently not found any keys. Jerry must have taken them with him. Norlund’s hands had already gone to his own pockets, under an almost hypnotic compulsion to look for keys where he knew they wouldn’t be found. He stood silent.