A Century of Progress (7 page)

“Welcome,” the driver replied, not wasting words. And that was all the old guy had to say for a little while, though he kept shooting glances over at Jerry every few seconds as he drove. Jerry soon got the feeling that he was being sized up with a more than casual interest, for what purpose he couldn’t tell.

“How far you going?” the driver asked him at last.

“All the way into the city. If you’re going that far.” And meanwhile Jerry’s attention had been captured by all the equipment that was racked in the body of the truck. “Radio survey, huh? I bet your tubes jar loose a lot.”

“Not so often as you might think. We use special locking sockets in a rig like this. Know anything about radio?”

“Not much. Hell, really nothing, I guess. My wife’s folks have one. I’d like to have one myself.”

“What d’you do for a living? My name’s Alan Norlund, by the way.”

“Jerry Rosen.” They shook hands, Norlund sparing one hand from the wheel for a quick grip. Jerry went on. “What do I do—I look for work. Today I been out around here, looking at golf courses, cemeteries, any place I could think of that might have work. Until my feet started giving out. A guy told me there might be jobs out this way, but . . . it’s the same as in the city. Not even any cooler. Farther from the lake, I guess.”

Jerry leaned back in the high truck seat and closed his eyes.

“You live with your wife’s folks, do you? I guess it saves a little bit financially if you can do that.”

Jerry opened his eyes. He watched the alien suburban treetops pass between him and the sky, making the sun blink. “It don’t help. There’s just nothing else we can do. And now we got a kid. And . . . I dunno. My wife’s family’s Irish.” He glanced toward Norlund. “Not that I got anything against the Irish. Or anyone else. It’s just . . .”

“And you’re Jewish? Rosen, you said?”

“My family is.” Jerry’s tone added: If it’s any of your business. “I don’t work at being anything.”

The old man drove on for a little while in silence. He appeared to be thinking. Then he asked: “Got a driver’s license?”

Jerry looked over at him, blinking. “Yeah. I used to drive a delivery truck sometimes. Why?”

“Want a job?”

Jerry’s eyes popped wide open, even before, it seemed to him, his brain had had time to fully understand the words. In a moment he had completely forgotten his sweaty hike, his blistered feet. During the couple of seconds before he could answer, the old man glanced his way again, continuing the process of sizing him up.

“You’re not kiddin’, are you mister?”

“Hell no, I wouldn’t kid about a thing like a job. It starts right now. Thing is, my regular partner’s not available. I got to tell you it would be just temporary, for no more than a day or two.”

“Hell yes, I’ll take a job. What do I have to do?” Even as Jerry spoke an idea struck him, and he glanced back at the racks of radio equipment. Something about the way the setup looked suggested fake to him. Maybe just because there was so damn much of the radio stuff. He lowered his voice slightly. “I already done a little bootlegging in my time. It wouldn’t bother me at all.”

“No.” The old man calmly shook his head. “Nothing like that. This is completely legit, just like it says on the side of the truck. We’re taking a survey. Measuring how strong the broadcast signal is from certain radio stations, at different points on the map. That helps the companies judge how many people are listening to ‘em, that kind of thing. I’ll pay you a dollar an hour.”

For a few seconds Jerry’s breathing was reverently suspended. Then: “What do I have to do?” he repeated.

“I’ll show you. It’s not that hard. We’re mounting little gadgets, call ‘em radio markers, in certain places. Little units I got in a bin back there. You’ll climb up a wall or tree or something and attach ‘em, while I take readings on this equipment in the back of the truck, and tell you exactly where they have to go. I suppose you can use a hammer and a screwdriver?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“That’s about all it takes. I got all the tools and fasteners we’ll need. Our first installation ought to be about a mile up this road.” The old man briefly concentrated on his driving, meanwhile humming under his breath some tune that Jerry didn’t recognize.

Then he looked across at Jerry again, more sharply this time. “Oh, and one more thing. I expect you to keep quiet about what we’re doing. I mean, you can tell your family you got a job. But don’t tell anyone any details, not even your wife. There’s a lot of competition, you know. Other companies would give a lot to know about signal strength and so on. I mean the methods of how we measure it.”

“Jeez, yeah, I will. I can keep quiet about anything.”

“Good. Why don’t you just reach back there and we’ll see what we can get on the radio now? See that first brown knob? Then the second one over is the tuner.”

Jerry twiddled knobs. A speaker right over his head came to life. First he got some dame singing, with piano music in the background. It was right at the end of the song, and now some man’s voice came on telling everyone how healthy their skins would be if they used this soap. Jerry estimated Norlund’s expression, and turned the dial for another station. This one had two women’s voices, engaged in a fake-sounding argument with stagy pauses, over whether someone’s long-lost daughter was ever going to come home.

“My wife likes this one,” said Jerry. “She’s probably listening to it now . . . Jeez, I’m on the payroll now?”

Norlund consulted his wristwatch. “It’s just about two o’clock. Starting at two, okay?”

“Jeez, yes,” said Jerry. And he made a mental note to himself to make sure that this nice-sounding old guy actually paid him for this first half-day’s work when quitting time came around.

Presently Norlund pulled over to the curb. Now he let Jerry take over the driving. Jerry eased the truck ahead, block by block, going slowly at Norlund’s direction, while Norlund sat in the chair in the rear of the truck and twiddled dials and read things off and called out orders. Jerry couldn’t really see what Norlund was doing back there, but then he wouldn’t have been able to understand it anyway. He wished for the millionth time that he had a real education of some kind. But he didn’t have one, and that fact wasn’t about to change. Not having much school just meant that you had to be that much smarter than you’d have to be otherwise, use willpower and determination, and look out for yourself every minute.

“Now take it across the street, Jerry. Stop by that vacant lot on the corner. That should be about it.”

“Okay, Boss.”

They were still well out in the suburbs, but the houses were gradually getting closer together and the streets busier. The empty lot beside which Jerry stopped the truck was crisscrossed by paths worn in the grass and weeds, and littered with a moderate amount of junk. In the middle a few trees were growing, and in the largest tree some kids had once put up a treehouse. It was now collapsed—like a lot of other housing plans, thought Jerry.

The old man was sweating when he emerged from the hot back of the truck to squint in the sunlight toward the lot. “Tell you what, Jerry, put it right up in one of those trees. Here, I’ll help you get the ladder out.”

The ladder slid out from a long storage compartment in the back of the truck under the electrical stuff, and then unfolded. Like the other tools Norlund now brought out, it appeared almost new. Norlund brought out some dull gray coveralls, too, with the company name on them as it was on the truck, in letters that didn’t stand out very well.

Jerry found a pair of coveralls of the right size and pulled them on, meanwhile pondering to himself: Why have a name showing at all, and then tell me to keep it a secret? Something was not quite kosher here. Maybe his first suspicion about bootlegging was right. Maybe the racketeers now needed fancy radio communications systems to keep ahead of highjackers and the Feds. Well, that was all right with Jerry; everybody, or almost everybody, had something to do with boot-legging, and right now a job was a job. Just make sure, Rosen, he cautioned himself sternly, that you get out of sight before the highjackers show up and the shooting starts. Not that he thought that was really likely.

Presently Jerry was standing atop the ladder, his head among tree branches, a modest assortment of tools and fasteners stuffed into his coverall pockets. Norlund had gotten back into the truck. He stuck his head out every few seconds to call directions to Jerry, saying move it right or left a little, or up or down. If any of the neighbors were at all curious about what was going on, none of them bothered to come out and ask—anyway, Jerry thought, the whole thing looked pretty official.

“That’s it right there! Take some screws and put it in tight now. Do a solid job of it.” Norlund got out of the truck again and came to stand right beside the ladder, supervising this first effort closely. Jerry, as soon as he had the little banana-shaped thing fastened to the treetrunk, took a grip on the device and wobbled his whole weight back and forth on it, demonstrating solidity.

Even so, Norlund had to climb the ladder and take a close-up look himself before he was completely satisfied. That was all right with Jerry, who had done a good job; he always liked to do a job well, if he was going to do it at all.

Norlund had to stand on tiptoe atop the ladder, to get a good look at what the taller Jerry had been doing. “Good,” the old guy said at last, and came down briskly. “Well, on we go. Only nineteen more to put in.” And he looked at his watch.

Jerry was pleased, too. Nineteen more would mean that
the
job was certainly good for one more day at least; obviously Norlund was concerned that it be done right, and there’d evidently be a lot of driving in between.

They loaded their tools back into the truck, and Jerry drove on, at Norlund’s direction. They were entering a different suburb now.

“We’re probably not gonna get lucky with too many more empty lots,” Norlund mused aloud, studying his map as Jerry drove. “Well, we’ll figure out something.” He looked up. “Seen the Fair yet?”

“Hah, you kiddin? Who can spare half a buck for a ticket, just to get on the grounds? I wouldn’t mind gettin’ a look at Sally Rand. But I hear they charge extra for that.”

“Well, I can’t promise you Sally Rand. But it looks like we’ll be going on the fairgrounds at least, toward the end of this job.”

“Great. Hey, Mr. Norlund? Would you mind if I stopped someplace and phoned home? Just to tell ‘em I’m working. I’ll keep all the details quiet like you told me. But otherwise they’re gonna start to wonder what’s happened to me.”

“Sure. Stop somewhere when you see a phone.” And Norlund, staring at his map again, was wondering privately if getting onto the fairgrounds, where the last units had to go, and working there, was going to pose a problem. He’d have to bring the truck with its equipment on too, to determine the exact placing of those last units. There’d have to be a service gate of some kind, and he could probably bluff his way through that. He’d hand out a few bucks if necessary to smooth the way.

“There’s a phone booth right over there, Mr. Norlund.”

“Okay, stop. Make your call. Just don’t take all day.”

The youngster pulled the truck over. He hesitated, then fished in his shirt pocket and pulled out a metal matchbox that proved to hold not only matches but a couple of cigarettes. He made a gesture of offering one to Norlund, and when that was refused quickly lit up himself.

Looking after Jerry as the wiry kid went trotting off to the phone booth, Norlund found himself reflecting on youth and its eternal difficulties. Jerry was a strong kid, with a head of wiry, almost-blond hair. After people had learned his name, he probably often heard from them that he didn’t look Jewish. A tough young guy, thought Norlund; well, Jerry was headed into years when toughness was certainly going to be an asset. Of course, if you thought about it, that was the predominant kind of year in human history.

This kid Jerry must have been born in nineteen ten or thereabouts, and was therefore chronologically—if that was the right word—somewhat older than Norlund himself. And on the tail of that thought came another one, that brought with it a fresh sense of logical vertigo: There might be, in fact there probably was, a septuagenarian Jerry Rosen alive somewhere in that distant land of nineteen eighty-four—an aged Jerry Rosen who probably reminisced from time to time about his weird experiences during the Great Depression.

Just as there was now a ten-year-old Alan Norlund only a few miles away . . .

Norlund didn’t even want to think about seeing that kid or his young parents. There was only so much that the psyche could take at one time.

The Time Machine, thought Norlund wryly. H. G. Wells. When Norlund was younger he had read a fair amount of science fiction.

Here was Jerry, still moving at a trot in the baggy coveralls, coming back from the phone booth before Norlund had really expected him.

“Hey, Mr. Norlund? I’m supposed t’ bring you home for dinner. If you can come, that is. They said if it was at all possible.”

Norlund was on the verge of making some easy excuse. But then he thought, why not? He’d have to eat dinner somewhere, and there” was nothing in his orders against fraternizing with the natives. And anyway, he felt a need for human society, to fix him in this version of reality.

“Okay,” he said. “Sure. If it’s no trouble with the women folks.”

“No trouble. They’re the ones who told me. Whenever we get there is fine.”

Jerry got behind the wheel again. They drove on, soon nearing the place where the second unit would have to be installed. The instrumentation in the back of the truck indicated to Norlund that the ideal place for this device was right in the middle of a large suburban house. Well, forget that ideal place. One part of Norlund’s job was to overrule the machinery in a case like this, and force it to come up with a suitable compromise.

Coaxing the instruments as he’d been taught to do, Norlund got them to admit as an acceptable alternative the mounting of this unit in a large tree overhanging the sidewalk directly in front of the house. Once again Jerry climbed the ladder and went to work. If people saw him, maybe they thought that he was trimming trees.