Chapter 7 - No Need for Old Friends
"I tell you, Allie Amy, I feel real bad about that radio talking to the stars. I've only got bad feelings about it."
Allie Amy inhales deeply on her cigarette. "I agree with you, Lucy Lee. What if the smart men are wrong? What if those aliens are monsters?"
"Do you think the smartmen could be so wrong about something?"
Allie Amy frowns. "I don't know. I've always assumed they've always been right before. But there's a lot to risk now. What if those aliens want to eat us?"
I have to wait a few days after Kurt Larry's surprise visit to gather in line for another meeting with Yogi. Stress knots my stomach. I can't sleep no matter how the pace of work on the radio grows more furious. I can't remember feeling so uncertain.
I arrive in the smartman's line earlier than ever, but I'm disappointed to realize my efforts will not get me any closer to the front of the gathered crowd. My neighbors must feel at ill at ease as I do, because they've pitched tents and camped through the night to be among the first to enter the new line. Typical for the season, the humidity brewed up a heavy rain during the night, and those neighbors look haggard and wet, mixing them into a grumbling mass of unpleasantly that will only worsen.
"Allie Amy, have you noticed if we've taken a single step forward in this line?"
"Lucy Lee, I don't think the line's moved at all."
It seems like the entire community empties into the smartman's line during the next hour. The sun rises, and it doesn't take long before we're all sweltering beneath the corrugated shelter. Still, the line fails to move an inch forward. A sinister cloud of curses and mumbles rises and hangs over everyones' heads. Elbows soon prod against my back. My legs stiffen to resist the pressure those in the back of the line begin to exert on those standing in the front. It's never been so tense. Yet the line doesn't budge.
"Attention. May I please have your attention?" Everyone jumps as Yogi's voice booms from the speakers I spent the week installing upon the line's shelter. "Due to the demands placed upon my schedule in preparation for the coming alien visitation, I am sorry to report that visits with me will be indefinitely suspended. Further bulletins will provide updates should community consultations continue at a future time. Please exit the line via the gates in a calm, orderly fashion."
I feel sick. I'm ashamed to be the man who installed the speakers that deliver such an announcement.
Everyone takes a moment to stare at one another, as if our minds hiccup to process it all. Then all hell breaks loose in a wink. Angry screams bounce of off the corrugated roofing panels, and the line surges forward. People cry out before falling, yell as feet trample upon them. I hustle ahead to keep my balance, and I'm not proud when I shove Allie Amy in the back so my face doesn't bite the concrete. It's worse than I feared. Punches fly, and I watch folks grabbing for any weapon they can find as that line surges towards the door of the bubble chamber, which shows no sign of opening.
Then, the speakers shriek.
Like all the smartmen, Yogi can never be underestimated. I know it's only noise, that it's only my ears that feel the horrible wailing shrilling from those speakers I mounted about the shelter last week, but I've never been hit so hard by anything in my entire life. It feels like a hammer is pounding the bottom of my spine at the same time a sledge cracks my skull. Stars spin in my vision. My muscles spasm. I choke when I try to scream.
The concrete scrapes the skin off of my knuckles as I hurry to crawl away from that awful shelter, away from the shrill that vibrates pain through every inch of my body. It's not an easy retreat. A lot of neighbors wail between myself and sanctuary. I feel blood, and vomit, and whatever else, before I put enough room between myself and those speakers so that the pain subsides.
Behind me, I still hear that mob shouting in pain and screaming in anger. They're braver and stronger than I am to keep growling back at that noise from the smartman's speakers, to keep surging towards that closed door to the bubble chamber. They're also fools. Yogi has made his decision. He has used me as a tool. He has used us all as tools in order to build that giant radio. Yogi believes he's found new friends out among those stars.
And the smartman's not going to want to talk to any of us.
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Jimmy Jack and the Smartman Page 9
