Collected Short Fiction

by C. M. Kornbluth

  The first thing that hit Norvell was the smell.

  The second thing was worse—the horrible feeling of betrayal. Belly Rave, in its teeming ruin, was worse than anything Norvell had dreamed.

  The convoying cars pulled up ahead and behind. A cop got out of each and stood ankle-deep in weeds and refuse, a hand idly resting on his gun.

  Norvell’s driver said, “This one will do. Let’s go.”

  The act of moving their possessions into the house in the driving rain, ringed by an audience of blank-faced Belly Ravers, was mercifully blurred in Norvell’s mind. At one moment, he was sitting in the police car, staring in disbelief at the wretched kennel they were offering him. The next, the police cars were gone and he was sitting on a turned-up suitcase and Alexandra was whining, “Norvell, I’ve got to have something to eat before I absolutely die. It’s been—”

  “Shut up,” Virginia said levelly to her daughter. “Norvell, help me get the big suitcase upstairs.”

  She kicked a heap of rattling cans out of her way and headed for a flight of steps, ignoring her daughter.

  Norvell followed her up the narrow broken stairs. The upper floor—Expansion Attic for Your Growing Family, the billboards had said—was soggy with rain, but Virginia found a spot where no water was actually dripping in. He dropped the suitcase there.

  “Go on down and watch the other stuff,” she ordered. “I’m going to change my clothes.”

  Before she got down, they had company—three men in ragged windbreakers.

  “Police,” one of them said, flashing something metallic in Norvell’s face. “Just a routine check. You people got any valuables, alcoholic beverages, narcotics or weapons to register?” Norvell protested, “The police just left.”

  “Bubble-town police, buster,” the man said. “They got no jurisdiction here. Come on, what’ve you got to register?”

  NORVELL shrugged feebly.

  “Nothing, I guess. Unless you count our clothes.”

  The men moved purposefully toward the bags. “Just clothes? No guns or liquor?”

  Virginia’s high, clear voice came down from the stairs. “You’re damned right we have guns! You bums scram before you find out the hard way!” Norvell, eyes popping, saw an old-fashioned revolver in her hand.

  “Just a minute, sister,” one of the men objected.

  “Beat it!” she snapped.

  They were gone, swearing. Virginia handed the gun to Norvell. “Keep it,” she said coldly. “Looks better if you have it. Just in case you were wondering, there aren’t any cops in Belly Rave.”

  Norvell swallowed. He hefted the gun cautiously. It was far heavier than his unskilled imagination would ever have estimated. “Where did you get this thing?”

  “Used to be Tony’s, before he died. There’s lesson one for you—you don’t live in Belly Rave without a gun.”

  Alexandra came forward with shining eyes. “You were wonderful!” she breathed. “Those detestable brutes—heaven only knows what would have happened to me if just Norvell had been here!”

  She started to plant a wet kiss on her mother’s cheek. Virginia shoved her daughter away. “We’ll have no more of that cack. From now on, you’re going to level with me—and with Norvell, too. Hear me? We can’t afford lying, faking, doublecrossing or temperament. The first bad break you make, I’ll sell you like a shot.”

  Alexandra’s face was a study in terror.

  “Sink or swim—you’re in Belly Rave now. You don’t remember, but you’ll learn. You’d better—fast. Now get out of here. If you can’t scrounge something to eat, go hungry. But don’t come back until sundown.”

  The child stood blankly. Virginia took her by the shoulder, pushed her through the door, slammed it behind her.

  Norvell looked through a chink in the boarding of the cracked picture window and saw Alexandra plodding hopelessly down the battered walk, weeping.

  Uncertainly, he asked Virginia—the new Virginia—“What was that about selling her?”

  “What I said. You can always find a fagin or a madam for a kid. I don’t know how prices are now—when I was thirteen, I brought fifty dollars.”

  Norvell, his hair standing on end, said, “You?”

  “I guess I was lucky—they sold me to a fagin, not into a house. He ran a tea pad. I helped him roll the clientèle. That’s where I met Tony. Now, if there are no more useless questions, help me unpack.”

  THE helped her, his head whirling. Without shame or apology, she had demolished the story he had painstakingly built up from her “accidental” hints and revelations over the years. The honest, industrious parents. The frugal, rugged life of toil. The warmth of family feeling, drawn together by common need. The meeting with Tony Elliston—glamorous, advantage-taking cad from the Field Day crowd. Not a bad fellow. “But not love, Norvell—not what we have.”

  He had thought himself clever. He had pieced it together into a connected tale, chuckling privately because she couldn’t know how much she had “unwittingly” revealed.

  And all the while she had been a pickpocket in a dope joint, sold into it by her parents.

  There was a knock on the door.

  Virginia said, through her teeth, “If that brat’s come back before I told—” and swung it open. She screamed.

  Norvell found he had the revolver in his hand, pointing it at the middle of the hulking, snaggle-toothed figure in the doorway.

  The figure promptly raised its enormous hands over its shock-haired head, grinning.

  “Don’t shoot, mister. I know I’m not pretty, but I’m harmless. Came here to help you out. Show you where to register and all. The name’s Shep. I’ll give you a fair shake. Show you the best places for firewood, wise you up on the gangs. Hear you have a little girl. You want to sell her, I’ll get you a price. You want to go into business, I can put you next to a guy who’ll start you out with hemp seed. If you got real money, I know a sugar dealer and a guy with a still to rent. I’m just Shep, mister. I’m just trying to get along.”

  Virginia said, “Keep the gun on him, Norvell. Shep, you come in and sit down. What do you want?”

  “Surplus rations,” the giant said with a childlike smile. “Cash, if you have any. I’m always desperate, but right now I’m out of my mind.” His arm swept at the open door. “See the rain? It’s the front end of the rainbow, mister. See it? I have to catch it. And to catch it, I’ve got to have some crimson lake. Some other things, too, but the crimson lake. You don’t see crimson in it, do you? Well, you won’t see crimson in the canvas, but it’ll be there—in the underpainting—and, because it’s there, I’ll have the pot of tears, the bloody, godawful rainsweep caught gloomdriving down on two hundred thousand desolations.”

  Norvell, lowering the pistol, said stupidly, “You paint.”

  “I paint. And for fifty bucks I can get what I need, which leaves me only the problem of getting fifty bucks.”

  VIRGINIA said, “With your build, you could get it.”

  “Not like you mean. Not since I started painting. So I run errands. Any errands? I’ve got to raise the fifty before the rain stops.”

  Virginia appeared to come to a conclusion. “Norvell, give Shep fifty dollars.” He shot his wife a horrified look. That would leave them with eighteen dollars and sixty-five cents. But she wasn’t even looking at him. She told Shep, “You’ll work for it. One week’s hard work. The outhouse is probably afloat. The chimney looks like it’s blocked. We need firewood. This place needs patching all around. Also, my husband doesn’t know the ropes and he might get in trouble. You’ll watch him?”

  “For fifty, sure. Want me to watch the kid?”

  “No,” she said shortly.

  “You know what you’re doing, lady. It’ll be rough on her. Can I have the fifty now? It’ll take ten bucks for the kid who does the running. I can’t miss this rain.”

  Norvell counted out fifty dollars and handed them over.

  “Okay!” Shep boomed happily. “We’ll get my c
rimson lake out of the way, then registration.”

  They walked through the driving rain to a tumbledown building guarded by a rat-faced boy of twelve. Shep told him cryptically, “Got a message for Monmouth.”

  The boy hooted mournfully, “Wa-wa-wa-wa-wabbit twacks!”

  Norvell blinked. Kids—everywhere—from nowhere! Gimleteyed, appearing silently from the rain shroud.

  Shep told them, “Like last time, but with crimson lake, too. Got it?”

  A haggard girl of perhaps thirteen said dispassionately, “Cack like last time. The Goddams joined up with the Goering Grenadiers. It’ll be a busted-bottle job getting through the West Side.”

  “I’m in a hurry, Lana. Can you do it or can’t you?”

  Mildly, she told him, “Who said ‘can’t’—you or me? I said it’d be a busted-bottle job.”

  The rat-faced twelve-year-old said sullenly, “Not me. They know I was the one got Stinkfoot’s kid brother. Besides, what about the Willowdale—”

  “Shut your mouth about Willowdale,” Lana blazed. The boy cowered away. “Bwuther wabbits, inspection—harms!”

  Jagged glass edges flashed. Norvell gulped in horror.

  “Good kids,” Shep said approvingly and handed Lana the fifty dollars.

  “Wa-wa-wa-wa-wabbit twacks!” she hooted and the kids vanished back into the shrouding rain.

  TRUDGING after Shep through the floods, Norvell asked no questions. He had learned that much, at least.

  The Resident Commissioner lived in an ordinary house, to Norvell’s surprise. He had expected to see the man responsible for the allowances of thousands of people in a G-M-L. Certainly his rank entitled him to one.

  Then Norvell saw the Resident Commissioner. He was a dreary old political hack. He told Norvell vaguely, “Carry your cards at all times. Be sure and impress that on your wife and the little girl. There’s all kinds of red tape to getting duplicate cards, and you might go hungry for a week before they come through, if you lose these. As head of the family, you get a triple ration and there’s a separate one for the wife. Is the little girl a heavy eater?”

  Norvell guessed so.

  “Well, we’ll give her an adult ration then. Lord knows there’s no shortage of food. Let’s see, we’ll make your hours of reporting on Wednesdays, between three and five. It’s important to keep to your right hours, otherwise there’s likely to be a big rush here sometimes and nobody at all others. Is all that clear? You’ll find that it’s mostly better to travel in groups when you come down for your allowance. Shep can tell you about that. It—prevents trouble. We don’t want any trouble here.” He tried to look stern. He added pathetically, “Please don’t make trouble in my district.”

  He consulted a checklist. “Your ration cards entitle you and the whole family to bleacher seats at all bouts and Field Days.” Nor veil’s heart was torn by the words. The rest was a blur. “Free transportation, of course—hope you’ll avail yourself—no use to stay home and brood—little blood clears the air—door always open . . .”

  Outside, in the rain, Norvell asked Shep, “Is that all he does?”

  Shep looked at him. “Is there something else to do?” He swung around. “Let’s get some firewood.”

  X

  AS a disappearing act, it was a beaut. Mundin had tried everything. No Norma Lavin. After Ryan’s phone call, the track was lost.

  He went first to the police, of course. When he told them Norma Lavin was a Belly Raver, they tried not to laugh in his face.

  “Look, mister,” a kindly Missing Persons sergeant explained. “People are one thing—Belly Ravers are something else. Are these people on the tax rolls? Do they have punch-card codes? Do they have employment contract identification tattoos? No, they don’t. So what can we do? We can find missing persons, sure, but this girl ain’t a person—she’s a Belly Raver. Maybe she just took a notion to wander off. Maybe she’s got her toes turned up in a vacant lot. We just wouldn’t know, see?”

  But he took Charles Mundin’s name, just in case. Mundin found himself making regular trips to the Lavin-Ryan home, loaded down with groceries. He also found that Ryan was tapping him for cash to buy drugs.

  Don Lavin was sinking into a kind of catatonia without his sister. Ryan, alternately coldly confident with a bellyful of yen pox and devoured by the weeping shakes, begged Mundin to try something, anything. Mundin tried a doctor.

  The doctor made one visit—during which Don Lavin, sparked by some flickering pride, rallied wonderfully and conversed good-humoredly with the doctor. The doctor left, with an indignant glare at Mundin, and Don lapsed back into his twilight gloom.

  “All right, Ryan,” Mundin said bitterly, “now what?”

  Ryan shook the last pill out of the tin, swallowed it and told Mundin now what.

  And Mundin found himself calling on his old schoolmate, William Choate IV.

  POOR Willie’s office was a little smaller than a landing field. He sprinted the length of it to embrace good old Charles.

  “Gosh!” he burbled. “I’m so glad you could come and see me! They just put me in here, after old Sterling died. It used to be his office, see? So when he died, they put—”

  “I see,” Mundin said gently. “They put you in here.”

  “Yep. Say, Charles, how about some lunch?”

  “Maybe. Willie, I need a little help.”

  Willie said reproachfully, “Now, Charles, it isn’t about a job again, is it? Gee, that’s an awful spot to put me in.”

  Well, Mundin thought, they had succeeded in beating one thing into Willie’s head, though not two. “I just want a little advice. I’d like to know when and where the annual stockholder’s meeting of G-M-L Homes comes off.”

  Willie said happily, “I don’t know. Don’t they have to publish it somewhere? In a newspaper?”

  “Yes, they have to publish it in a newspaper, Willie. The trick is to find out what newspaper. There are maybe fifty thousand of them in the country and the law just says that it has to be published in one—not necessarily English language either.”

  Willie looked sorrowful. “I only speak English, Charles.”

  “Why don’t you ask your Periodical Research Department?” Willie nodded vigorously. “Oh, sure, Charles—anything to oblige. Anything at all!” Willie uncertainly asked his squawk-box whether they had anything like a Periodical Research Department, and the squawk-box said, “yes, sir,” and connected him.

  Half an hour later, while Mundin was deep in the intricacies of the preliminary pre-hearing of the Group E Debenture Holders’ Protective Committee, the squawk-box coughed and announced that the G-M-L Homes meeting was advertised in the Lompoc, California, Intelligencer. Time, day after tomorrow. Place, Room 2003, Administration Building, Morristown, Long Island.

  “Whew!” said Willie dubiously. “They won’t get many people to come there, will they?”

  “One too many,” Mundin said.

  THE next morning, Mundin was waiting at a two-dollar ticket window of the New York Stock Exchange when the opening bell rang.

  He examined the crumpled instructions from Ryan nervously, as sweating and tense as any of the passionate throng of devotees pressing around him, but for other reasons.

  Ryan’s instructions were complete and precise, except for one thing—they didn’t tell him what bets to make. Mundin swore under his breath, shrugged and swiftly punched Number 145. Anaconda Copper. He inserted his token, threw the lever and tore off his ticket. At 19,999 other windows in the gigantic hall, 19,999 other investors were doing the same. And outside, on the polychrome street, ten thousand latecomers were waiting for their turn inside.

  The angular Big Board in the center of the hall flashed and twinkled—-fast, then slow. The lights stopped. The parimutuel computers began to hum.

  Mundin leveled his field glasses on 145, but it was hard to stay on it. His hands were trembling.

  The gong rang and the line he was watching flashed:

  145, up 3.

&
nbsp; The great hall trembled with noise, of which Mundin’s obscene monosyllable was only the twenty-thousandth part. A lousy six cents profit. Not worth taking to the cashier’s window.

  A passing broker, a grimy Member’s button in his lapel, said intimately, “Hey, bud—watch metals.”

  “Beat it or I’ll have you run in,” Mundin snapped. He had no time to waste on phony touts. He swept his field glasses over the Big Board, trying to make some sense out of the first movement of the day.

  Industrials were down an average of four, the helpful summary told him. Rails—meaning, mostly, factory-site land developments—were up three. Chemicals, up eight.

  Mundin figured—that meant the investors would lay off chemicals because they would figure everybody would be on chemicals because of the rise—except for the investors, who would be on chemicals because they would figure everybody would lay off chemicals, because they’d figure everybody would be on chemicals. Because of the rise. Thirty-second warning bell. “Bud,” said the broker insistently, “Watch metals!”

  “Go to hell,” Charles said hoarsely, his fingers shaking over the buttons. He punched Anaconda again, bought five tickets and waited.

  WHEN he heard the great groan at last, he opened his eyes and swept the board with his glasses.

  145, up 15

  “Remember who told ya,” the broker was saying.

  Mundin gave him a dollar. “Thanks, bud,” the broker said. “Don’t switch. Not yet. I’ll tell ya when. This is a morning crowd—Tuesday morning at that. Not a crazy hysterical Monday-morning crowd that gets in fast and gets cleaned out fast. Look around and see for yaself. Little fellows taking a day off. The family men that play it smart—they think. Smart and small. I been watching them for twenny years. I tell you, don’t switch.”

  Charles didn’t switch.

  He kept feeding a dribble of dollars to the broker, who was either lucky or a genius that day. By noon, Charles had a well-diversified portfolio of metals with a cash-in value of four hundred and eighty dollars.

  “Now,” the broker said hoarsely. He had borrowed Charles’s field glasses to scan the crowd. “See? Some of them’s leaving. Some of them’s breaking out sanniches. The handle’s dropping. They’re getting not-so-smart now, not-so-small. I been watching them twenny years. Now they start doing the dopy things, because they’re gettin’ hungry and a hungry man ain’t smart. Sell twenny points short. Jeez, I wish I had the nerve to say thirty!”