by Jack Dann
"He's Leon Duffy and he washes dishes, and I'm training him to cook so maybe he won't have to wash dishes the rest of his life." He cocked his head slightly, narrowed his eyes at Grimes. "Is there a problem you have with this arrangement between Mr. Duffy and myself?"
"Just this, Mr. Tomacheski, there are a lot of men—white men—out of work in this country despite Mr. Eisenhower's best efforts. We have an understanding in this town about Negroes, about selling property to them, and about encouraging them to settle here by giving them jobs that could go to white men. Do you take my meaning?"
"Not entirely, Mr. Grimes, but I don't speak the language so well yet. This is a law, this thing about not hiring Negroes?" "Not exactly a law, Mr. Tomacheski—an understanding." "There are a lot of these `understandings' around here, yes?"
"Exactly. And they help keep things running smoothly with very little unpleasantness. That's the way we like it. When you grasp the way things work here, things will run smoothly for you, too." He reached into his portfolio and withdrew a shiny new A-placard with the seal of the Health Department emblazoned in gold in the center of the A. He smiled up at Tomacheski, waiting.
"Curse me for an ignorant immigrant, Mr. Grimes, but I don't understand your `understanding.' Every night, except for Saturday when I go see a movie, I study the U.S. Constitution for my citizenship test. Nowhere do I find it written that I can't train a dishwasher to be a cook."
Grimes could have sworn that Tomacheski was deliberately avoiding his point. He felt the beginnings of a tension headache crawling up his neck to the back of his skull. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a careful breath. "He'll have to have a blood test, a skin Tuberculin test, and a lung X-ray in order to obtain a food worker's permit. Without a food worker's permit, he cannot work in your kitchen. And to obtain such a permit, he will have to go through my department."
"Oh, he has these things already. He paid for all those tests last week."
His vacation. Crawford had done it while he was away on vacation. The headache arrived in full force. Grimes slipped the A-placard back and pulled out a different one—sunfaded, flyspecked, and marked with a large blue letter B. "My inspection reveals serious nonconformance with Health Department standards. You will remove your temporary permit and display this B-placard until my next inspection."
"But you haven't inspected anything yet!" Tomacheski protested. "This is terribly unfair, Mr. Grimes. You know I deserve an A-card. This restaurant is spotless. You could eat off this floor!"
Grimes glanced at the red and white linoleum, then up at Tomacheski. "County regulations require you to display this card until the premises have been inspected again." He smiled briefly and turned to leave. That should take care of the Negro business.
Tomacheski followed him to the door. "Well, when is the next inspection?"
"You'll have to call for an appointment, but I'll warn you right now, I'm a very busy man. I may not be able to make it back for, oh . . . sixty days."
"No customers will want to come to a B-card restaurant. In sixty days I could be closed down!"
Grimes tucked his portfolio up under his arm. "Business is uncertain in the best of times, Mr. Tomacheski. Perhaps the next proprietor at this location will prove more amenable to the way we do things around here. Good day." He walked out onto the sidewalk. The screen door clicked shut—a lovely sound.
He arrived back at the department in the early afternoon. There was a message from Crawford. He left the day's files on his desk and walked down the hall to Crawford's office.
"Come in," Crawford called from the other side of the door. Grimes walked in and stood before the hopelessly cluttered desk of the Chief Health Officer. He doubted Ed Crawford had seen the surface of his desk in months. "You asked to see me, Ed?"
"Yeah, Mort. What exactly is this Tomacheski business? Did you actually perform an inspection on his premises today, or didn't you?"
So. The Russian had gone over his head. "There are serious problems at that place, Ed."
"You have samples? Is the lab starting cultures?"
"This isn't exactly something you can culture, Ed." He crossed his hands behind his back, tapped his toe on the floor.
Crawford looked up at him expectantly. "Well?"
"This guy Tomacheski has a Negro working for him. As a cook."
"Oh, yes. That would be the fellow who was in here getting tests last week. Don't see too many Negroes applying for food cards around here. Came out clean as a whistle, though." He shuffled through a stack of file folders, scattering loose papers across the desk.
Grimes went on tapping, a little harder now. "Ed, you're a newcomer around here, relatively speaking, and if you'll pardon my saying so, you haven't gone out of your way to fit in—join up—you know what I mean, I guess. But there are things we do in this town and things we don't do. Encouraging Negroes to live and work here is one of the things we just don't do." He nodded sagely, certain that Crawford would understand.
"Let me tell you what I do, Mort," Crawford said, rising from his chair. "I enforce the health regulations and protect the health standards of this county. I do not decide who will live or work here, and neither do you. It's simply not our job." He handed Grimes a sheet of paper. "You have an appointment at ten A.M. tomorrow to conduct a genuine Health Department inspection of Tomacheski's Hole in the Wall and grant or withhold his A-placard based on the results of that inspection. Is that clear?"
Grimes took the appointment slip and left the office. On his way back down the hall he reduced the paper to a tight, sweaty ball in his fist, and lobbed it at a wastebasket. It missed.
Tomacheski met him at the front door. "We've got a little problem back in the kitchen, Mr. Grimes. I don't know if this would be such a good time for your inspection."
Grimes beamed. "You made an appointment. Tomacheski—I'm keeping it." He advanced down the row of stools. Tomacheski retreating before his burning righteousness. "Just what is the nature of your problem?"
"You remember that funny spot on the Ladies' Room wall?"
"Yes, what about it?"
"Well it came back this morning, only worse."
"Probably comes from using cheap paint. I won't be able to pass you if there's any peeling. Lead, you know."
"I'm afraid it's worse than just paint." Tomacheski stopped retreating just outside the kitchen doors.
"Well? Don't just stand there. What happened?"
"It sort of opened up."
"The door to the Ladies' Room?"
"Not exactly. Sort of a hole. Where you thought the paint was bad."
"And?" Grimes was running short of patience with this ignorant commie, or not-commie, whatever he was.
"He's in the kitchen." Tomacheski pushed open the doors with his back and gestured Grimes inside, never taking his eyes from Grimes' face.
Grimes strode into the kitchen. What he saw inside nearly made him stride out again. The Negro was still there, of course, but Grimes scarcely noticed him next to the filthy, louse-ridden Indian sitting on a bench under the window and slurping soup from a Buffalo China cup. Grimes clutched his portfolio under his arm and struggled to control his voice. "What is that doing here?"
"That's what I was trying to explain. This hole opened up, you know, on the wall of the Ladies' Room, and he sort of fell through"
"He was in the Ladies' Room?" Grimes could feel his voice rising in step with his blood pressure. "What was he doing in the Ladies' Room?"
Tomacheski and the Negro were staring at him in amazement. The Indian had pulled his blanket up over his head and was peeking out with one frightened eye. Grimes stood in one spot and trembled, imagining the bacteria count on one square inch of that skin. He put two fingers on his left wrist and felt his pulse. Not good. This bastard Tomacheski was going to be the death of him. He turned toward the Russian, took two deep breaths and let them out slowly. "What," he repeated in a voice dripping control like icicles, "was this Indian doing in the Ladies' Room?"
/> "I don't think he was in the Ladies' Room, exactly. You see, the wall started looking funny again, like it did yesterday and the day before, only this time it got worse, and it turned into a kind of a hole, and there was a great snowstorm on the other side."
"A blizzard," interjected Duffy. "And there was all this snow blowing in on the floor, and all this cold wind, like to froze us both."
"Duffy tells the truth. It was like some other place in there. And then we saw someone walking toward us, and this poor fellow stumbles into the hallway."
"Well, why didn't you push him right back through? He's a walking health hazard!"
"Because he was half-starved and half-frozen to death!" bellowed Tomacheski.
"And also because the hole closed up right after that," Duffy added. "Then it was just the wall again. Wasn't nothin' we could do after that. I think we're stuck with this guy."
"No," Tomacheski said, "I don't think so. What time were you here yesterday, Mr. Grimes?"
"Nine A.M."
"You're sure of that?"
Grimes snorted. "Of course I'm sure."
"And that's when you saw the wall not looking just right. And the morning before that I saw it, too. I'm sure it was about the same time. I thought it was the light, remember? I think that if we just wait around until nine o'clock tomorrow morning . . .
"Tomorrow morning!"
"Yeah!" said Duffy. "If the hole opens up again tomorrow morning we could put this guy back where he belongs, and everything could get back to normal around here."
"And in the meantime," added Tomacheski, "We could get together some food and warm clothes. Maybe some boots. . . ." He placed his foot next to the Indian's, comparing sizes.
"Mr. Tomacheski, you will take that . . . person to the Social Welfare Department now if you want to retain your permit to operate a restaurant." He turned and pushed through the swinging doors, knuckles white around the handle of his portfolio.
Tomacheski followed him into the dining area. "Mr. Crawford promised you would make an inspection."
Grimes turned at the door. "You will be open for business in less than two hours, and in your kitchen there is a filthy, infested savage not six feet from where food is being prepared."
"There's a little porch out back. I'll put him out there. He can't go to the Welfare, Mr. Grimes, he needs to go home."
Grimes said nothing, but fixed the Russian with his gaze.
"You come back tomorrow," Tomacheski said. "You come back and see for yourself. The hole will come back. And then he will go. But not before that, because I've been cold, Mr. Grimes, and I've been hungry, and I've got a home I can never go back to, and I won't do that to nobody."
Grimes looked up at the Russian and anger burned in his breast, clean and bright. "I'll be back at nine tomorrow morning with the Chief Health Officer. Enjoy your day, Mr. Tomacheski. It will be your last doing business in this county." He walked out and slammed the screen behind him.
Grimes adjusted his hat and knocked on Ed Crawford's door.
"Come on in, Mort."
"Ed, it's ten minutes till nine. Aren't you coming to Tomacheski's with me?"
"Yeah, Mort. You go on ahead. I'll be along in a couple of minutes in my car. I've got some things to straighten up here." He indicated a particularly tall pile on the desk. "Well, hurry, Ed . .. please. This is important." "Just a few minutes, Mort. I'll meet you there."
The door was open, and Grimes walked in without knocking. He could hear voices coming from the back.
"I think it's starting. Look there."
"Yeah, there it goes. Get him ready, now."
Grimes hurried back to the hallway. Duffy and Tomacheski stood on either side of the Indian with bags of provisions. They were all staring at the Ladies' Room wall, where a widening hole was forming from churning whiteness that boiled out of . . . Grimes steadied himself on Tomacheski's arm and looked away for a moment.
"You see, Mr. Grimes?" Tomacheski was shouting over the roar that was emanating from the hole. "It was true, what I said. This hole goes somewhere. Look!"
The hole was about five feet tall now, and lengthening, but on the other side was not a raging blizzard, but a narrow alley between two tall buildings. The scent of rubber and auto exhaust drifted through. A whistle sounded in the distance, and they could hear shouts and running footsteps. A balding man in a shabby suit rounded the corner of a building and ran straight for them, a blue-coated policeman in hot pursuit. Grimes yelped as the man ran through the wall, bowled him over, and slammed through the kitchen doors.
Duffy and Tomacheski hurried into the kitchen. The Indian looked down at Grimes and said something in its barbaric language that sounded vaguely sympathetic. The hole closed as rapidly as it had opened.
Grimes got up and brushed himself off. This was not going according to plan. And where the hell was Crawford? Well, no matter. He had that immigrant pinko now. No more extensions, no more inspections, just CLOSED. Finis. Done with. He turned and pushed on one door, which flew back in his face as the shabby man rushed back out of the kitchen.
"Where the hell am I?" the man shouted, looking around wildly.
Grimes felt his nose gingerly. It didn't seem to be broken, but it was dripping blood onto his shirt and tie. He placed his folded handkerchief under it. He felt strangely calm in spite of all the shouting and confusion, bums and Indians and colored fry cooks and communist restaurant owners. Ed Crawford would be here any minute and he could wash his hands of this place forever.
Tomacheski and Duffy had followed the bum out of the kitchen and were trying to calm him down. The Indian was standing by Duffy's elbow looking back over his shoulder at Grimes, who was looking at the Ladies' Room wall. Sweet Jesus, it was happening again!
A churning nothingness was growing out of the wall, or into it, shaping itself into a long ovoid that stretched and grew as he watched, unable to speak or look away. Now Tomacheski could see it too, and he was backing away in torturous slow motion, grabbing Duffy by the arm. Their mouths were moving, but all Grimes could hear was the awful roaring. He realized he was moving toward the hole—not walking, it seemed—just gliding across (above?) the linoleum toward the Ladies' Room wall.
He put his hand out as he came up to it and it tingled like before, but this time he found it a somewhat pleasant sensation, and did not pull away. It engulfed his hand, moved up his arm to his chest, and was all over him in an instant. From somewhere far away, he felt his face form a smile.
He was still smiling when he realized he was no longer in the diner, but in a plain white room with no windows. He was sitting on a white box on a white floor. The bum and the Indian were seated on identical boxes, and their faces slowly began to echo his confusion as they looked around at the featureless room. A door he hadn't seen opened and a woman stepped through. She was wearing fewer clothes than a Pageant Pin-Up, and her hair was bright blue.
"Hello, Mr. Grimes. I hope we haven't startled you."
Grimes thought about it and decided he was definitely startled. "Where's Tomacheski? Where am I? This can't be the Ladies' Room." He looked around. Two other odd-looking people were talking to the bum and the Indian, who looked pretty startled, too.
The woman smiled. "No, Mr. Grimes, I'm afraid you're ... someplace else. This is a holding area, actually. Visually sterile, to minimize unfamiliarity. I'll change it for you if you like."
A wall appeared, a desk, some bookshelves. The boxes became chairs. They were alone. She was behind the desk in a white jacket, a stethoscope peeking out of one pocket. Bad choice. Doctors' offices always made him sick.
"It's only a temporary displacement, we hope. We seem to have a bug in the system."
"Bug?" Grimes' upper lip wrinkled involuntarily. "There's been a . . . glitch?"
He stared at her blankly.
"A fuck-up."
Grimes blanched.
"Technical difficulties beyond our control. At any rate, we'll have you back in A.U. 1956 very soon." She wa
tched him as he absorbed this, then took a fountain pen out of her coat. "In the meantime, let's talk about Mr. Tomacheski. Give me your hand, please."
He held out his hand and she pushed up his sleeve and passed the pen across the inside of his arm. It didn't leave a mark, so maybe it wasn't a pen, but he began to feel better immediately. Calmer. He still didn't understand, but it didn't seem to matter as much. "What about Tomacheski?" he asked.
"Given your present course of action in A.D. 1956, it seems unlikely that he'll be able to continue doing business in that location."
Grimes shrugged. "I don't particularly want him to stay in business."
"I see. But we do. And we don't consider your wishes to be more important than our own in this matter." She looked around, indicated the paneled office with her hands. "This spot is quite simply the best natural spacetime nexus on this continent, and as long as we control it, we will have things the way we want them. We have decided that Tomacheski will remain in business until A.D. 1975, when he will retire peacefully to California." She looked him in the eye. "We have plans. Those plans require things to remain as they are at Tomacheski's. We won't allow any tampering."
Grimes tried to summon up indignation. "Nobody tells Morton Grimes how to do his job." He didn't sound very indignant, he realized, and he probably ought to be frightened, too, but he couldn't mange it, somehow. "Nobody."
"Wrong Mr. Grimes. We do." She swung her feet up onto the desk. "Of course there is an alternative." She smiled a thin smile not unlike his own. "We could always keep you here."
"You could what? What do you mean keep me? I'm a citizen. I have rights. I want to call my lawyer! Who the hell are you, anyway?" He suddenly remembered how to be frightened.
She leaned forward and stroked his arm again with the pen. Or whatever. "One point at a time, Mr. Grimes. To begin with, your rights are moot here. If by `you' you mean me, I am the person currently giving you orders. Think of me as a doctor of sorts. If you mean all of us here, we are the party, clan, race—choose one or more as you wish—currently in charge of this locus. However powerful you may imagine us to be from what you have seen, you will almost certainly be underestimating us. We try not to be deliberately cruel to primitives, but we don't take shit from anybody. I hope that answers your questions. Believe me when I say that nothing can stop us from keeping you if we wish to do so."
