You'll Like It Here (Everybody Does)

by Ruth White

  “That’s okay, little girl,” she says as if I’m five instead of eleven. “How could you know that newspapers were banned after the insurrection?”

  “What insurrection?” are the words about to spill out of me, but I catch them just in time, which is probably a good thing.

  “Newspapers are a source of discontent,” Tammy informs us. “What a blessing for us that they were banned.”

  “And who, might I ask, banned them?” Gramps says with a fake smile.

  “The Fathers, of course!” Tammy answers Gramps’s question with a great warm smile of her own. “Praise the Fathers!”

  “Indeed, praise the Fathers!” Gramps agrees cynically, but Tammy doesn’t get it.

  “I know you’ll like Fashion City,” Tammy says. “Everybody does.”

  “So we’ve been told.” Gramps keeps up his charade.

  We are turning to leave when Tammy calls out suddenly, “Oh, you forgot your Lotus! You’re allowed four boxes, one for each of you.”

  Tammy shoves the Lotus boxes into a plastic bag and hands it to David.

  “How much?” Gramps says, digging for the food stamps in his shirt pocket.

  “Absolutely free!” Tammy gushes. “A gift to the people from the Fathers.”

  • 11 •

  “Check the coins!” David says to Mom when we are out on the street. “See what’s printed on them!”

  “Good idea!” Mom says as she digs around in her jeans pocket for the coins Tammy gave her.

  Eagerly we all crowd around Mom to see what’s on the nickel, two dimes, and one quarter. All are stamped FASHION CITY, PRAISE THE FATHERS. No date, no country. So we are still in the dark.

  “Blue, Mom, blue,” David says suddenly. He means that he has spotted a blue streak in Mom’s hair.

  Mom touches her bare head. “We can’t apply the vinegar here.”

  “Take Meggie’s cap,” David says as he snatches it from my head. “She doesn’t need it. Do you, Meg?” And he laughs like he thinks he’s totally funny.

  Back in our apartment we go to our rooms and rest, so that it’s well into evening when Gramps and Mom begin preparing our salad for dinner.

  David and I sit down in the living room, where we discover that only a few channels are available to us on TV. We watch a brainless sitcom about a family with eight children whose parents work in a clothing factory. Just like in the sitcoms we’ve become accustomed to on our Earth, everybody is cute and witty and sharp. But talk about your Goody Two-shoes—these kids make me and David look like crooks. They never have to be told twice to do something, and they always say “Praise the Fathers” for every good thing that comes to them. More than once, David and I make like we’re barfing.

  “Do you think the kids here are like that?” I say to my brother.

  “Jennifer doesn’t seem that way,” he responds. Then, cupping a hand over his mouth, he whispers, “Perfection sucks.”

  Mom hates that word. In fact, her face changes color when she hears it. And here’s my geeky brother trying it on for size.

  So I encourage him. “You go, David.”

  By the time we finish dinner and clean up the kitchen, the evening light is gone. Now we are unusually quiet and thoughtful. I know my family is thinking of the old Fischer place, as I am, and what we might have been doing at this hour if we’d been lucky enough to stay there. We slump heavily on the living room furniture. Gramps picks up the remote control and clicks the TV on again.

  “Maybe we can get some news,” he says.

  A Lotus commercial is playing. The words are the same as the ones we saw on the billboards this morning, but set to music.

  Take it for a headache or a heartache.

  Just one Lotus

  For a difference you will notice.

  Lotus! Lotus! Lotus!

  “I wonder what that stuff is,” Mom says.

  “Some kind of tranquilizer, is my guess,” Gramps says. “I had the feeling that many of the people we saw today were on something.”

  “No kidding?” David says. “That would explain their unmitigated joy.”

  “On something, for real?” I say.

  Mom goes into the kitchen and brings out a box of Lotus. She opens it up and pulls out two handfuls of blue pills, each one wrapped in hard clear plastic.

  “No literature,” Mom says, looking inside the empty box. “Nothing to tell us what the ingredients are.”

  “Remember the story of Ulysses?” Gramps says.

  We nod. We read it together at the old Fischer place.

  “Remember the land of the lotus eaters?”

  “Vaguely,” Mom says. “Refresh our memory.”

  “The people who lived there ate of the lotus plant and lost all ambition. After his crew tasted it, Ulysses had to force them back onto the ship because they had no desire to return home.”

  Mom stuffs the pills back into the box. “We will not be swallowing any of these.”

  A series of slogans begins rolling across the TV screen while the silky-smooth voice of a woman reads the words. Tranquil music plays softly in the background.

  Stay healthy and alive for Vacation 65!

  Conformity is security.

  Conformity is contentment.

  The daydreamer is discontented.

  I will gladly give four years to serve the Fathers.

  Everybody likes Fashion City.

  Conformity is security.

  Conformity is contentment.

  Praise the Fathers!

  The music is soothing, hypnotic, and without the help of Lotus or anything else, we are lulled into a weird kind of spell. The doorbell startles us back to reality.

  Gramps opens the door to reveal Tom standing there with a clipboard in his hand. His Adam’s apple bobs comically in his long, thin neck as he yells importantly, “Eight-thirty curfew! Let me see your faces.”

  The four of us are right in front of him, but he counts heads out loud as if there are a dozen of us in the room.

  “One … two … three … four, all accounted for,” he says. “Lockdown! You can’t go out again until six a.m.”

  And he leaves us mystified. Our door makes a clicking sound.

  Gramps tries the knob. It doesn’t budge. “Lockdown?” he screeches. “This is outrageous!”

  “So we aren’t allowed outside from eight-thirty at night until six in the morning?” David says.

  “Are we in prison?” I say.

  Mom’s face has gone scarlet, as it’s prone to do when she’s upset. She starts to say something, but is interrupted when every television in our apartment—seven, to be exact—comes on. Gramps grabs the remote and begins punching buttons angrily. No luck. He lurches from room to room, trying to turn off or turn down the TVs. Nothing works.

  “Welcome to The Family Hour,” comes the same warm female voice we heard earlier. “An hour of entertainment for the entire family, brought to you by the Fathers.”

  • 12 •

  Being hungry for information, and learning that the first item on The Family Hour is news, we sit down again on the mushroom-colored furniture. There is no choice about listening. Gramps closes all the bedroom and bathroom doors to cut down the noise, but the volume simply can’t be controlled. It seems to be set for the hard of hearing.

  “Good evening,” the young announcer is saying. She is pretty in spite of her dull gray suit. “I’m Sherry Cross, and our first report is from the Fashion City Police Department. We regret to inform you of three arrests today.”

  There appears a mug shot of a man who looks like he’s so mad, he could chew you up and spit you out.

  “Forty-three-year-old Harley Meeks of Sector C was arrested for leaving work and going to Fashion City Park without permission,” the announcer says. She is clearly tickled, as Kitty would say. “We all know it is not Sector C’s turn for the park, but Mr. Meeks pleaded confusion.” The announcer chuckles. “The judge ordered him to forgo his next two holidays.”

  There
appears a mug shot of a teenage girl who is obviously in a state of shock.

  “Sixteen-year-old Ginger Shore of Sector D was arrested for evading the military police for fourteen days. She was sentenced to an extra season of duty.”

  We all cut our eyes at each other. Sixteen years old? Military police?

  A mug shot of Elvis appears.

  “Twenty-one-year-old Elvis Presley of Sector E was arrested for breaking the conformity laws with his street show. According to the arresting officer, Presley’s hair and sideburns were too long, his clothing too appealing, and his performance too tantalizing. He was charged with three counts of gross uniqueness and sentenced to seven days of rehabilitation for each count.

  “In other news, a new family arrived in Fashion City today. Having escaped from the Western Province, Mr. Sam Lane; his daughter, Linda Blue; and Mrs. Blue’s two children, David and Meggie, walked all the way with very little food and water, traveling mostly in the dark, and retiring to the undergrowth during daylight.”

  We all sit erect and look at Sherry Cross with startled expressions.

  “They were found by a police officer this morning, sleeping in the park,” she continues.

  And there we are on television—Mom, Gramps, David, and I—walking down the street from the employment agency, looking for a place to eat, and probably talking about Elvis, though our conversation is not audible.

  “Where was the camera?” I wonder out loud. Nobody answers.

  Sherry Cross goes on, “Mrs. Blue told this reporter, ‘It was all for freedom, and we would go through the same ordeal again in order to escape the gross tyranny and oppression in the Western Province.’

  “Mrs. Blue’s own husband, the father of her children, was murdered by the Lincoln-King regime.”

  “Wh-what!” I sputter.

  “The nerve!” Mom gasps.

  “I asked Mrs. Blue if all the stories we’ve been hearing about that place are really true, and, my dear fellow citizens, I must regretfully report that they are! According to the Blues, people really are starving to death in the Western Province. They have been reduced to”—the announcer halts for a moment to shudder, and places a small white hand over her heart—“to eating rats … and … even resorting to cannibalism.” She finishes in a shaky voice.

  Then, collecting herself instantly, Sherry Cross smiles brightly for the camera and takes up the story again in a cheerful voice. “The Blues have been given a three-bedroom in Sector B, where they will recover from their ordeal before going to work in the factory. Welcome, Mr. Lane, Mrs. Blue, Meggie, and David. We know you’ll like Fashion City. Everybody does.”

  We are too amazed even to comment to each other. The news continues with a video of the big white bus with VACATION 65 in purple on the side.

  “As everybody must know by now, it’s Vacation 65 time again. It seems the last one was only yesterday, instead of last season. Today twenty-seven of our beloved seniors, upon reaching the age of sixty-five, found it was finally their turn to ride the white bus.”

  There follows a tape of Sherry Cross interviewing several old people before they boarded the bus earlier in the day. They are all laughing and hugging each other, and talking about the goodness of the Fathers.

  “And what is your name, sweetheart?” Sherry asks one of the ladies.

  “Well, it’s not Sweetheart!” the old woman retorts. She’s giddy with excitement.

  “Excu-uu-se me!” Sherry Cross says with a laugh.

  “My name is Anna Mary Robertson Moses.”

  “And in what capacity did you serve?” Sherry asks.

  “I worked at the factory. I started there at the age of twenty,” Anna Mary says. “Then I married and raised ten children, but continued working until it was time for Vacation 65.”

  “Ten children!” Sherry exclaims with exaggerated astonishment. “How delightful! You have given ten children to serve the Fathers. What a well-deserved vacation!”

  “But it won’t be all play. Oh, no. This will be a working vacation!” Anna Mary says proudly. “I plan to paint pictures. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. And now I will have time.”

  “Grandma Moses!” Gramps says with a gasp. “That’s who she is!”

  “Who’s Grandma Moses?” I ask.

  “Tell you later,” he mumbles, too intent on the screen to explain right now.

  Then the show returns to Sherry Cross back in the studio. “Wait a moment … Just one moment,” she says as she touches her earpiece. A big smile is on her face. “We have live pictures coming in at this very second … pictures of the lucky seniors arriving in Farlands for Vacation 65.”

  There is the same bunch of old people getting off an airport van, including the man David and I saw saying goodbye to his family. Clutching a box of Lotus under one arm, he seems bewildered but happy. Grandma Moses seems unaware of the camera, so intent is she on gazing at her surroundings. Vacation 65 is located on a beach with sand as white as sugar. It’s the most beautiful resort one could imagine.

  Each senior is welcomed by a perky young guide with a frothy tropical drink in her hands. After accepting the drinks, the old people are escorted toward the grand hotel on the oceanfront.

  Then the scene cuts away to still shots of the area—a waterfall, a garden filled with exotic flowers, gazebos, a golf course, a cruise ship, an indoor-outdoor swimming pool, a gurgling creek meandering through a stretch of woods, with petite and picturesque bridges, and hammocks stretched between the trees.

  “What a great place to paint!” Gramps says. “I’d love a vacation like that.”

  “I think you have to be sixty-five,” David says with a grin, “and we all know you are only sixty!”

  Gramps grins too, and tosses a pillow at David.

  Last, but far from least, there’s a state-of-the-art hospital where smiling doctors and nurses stand poised to give the best medical care available to these lucky seniors, it is announced, with no expense spared.

  After leaving the happy Vacation 65 group, The Family Hour camera focuses on a grumpy man in a brown suit who gives us a sermon regarding water waste in Fashion City. There has been too much of it, he says, and the Fathers are not pleased. The people are reminded to refrain from washing clothes or dishes unless there is a full load, to limit showers to five minutes, and to be more frugal in flushing.

  “Remember our motto: ‘If it’s yellow, let it mellow, but if it’s brown, flush it down!’ ”

  David and I burst into laughter at this sudden humor from the crabby announcer, but there isn’t a hint of a smile on his face.

  Then he announces that the consumption of electricity has risen almost five percent in the last year, and suggestions are given for cutting back on precious energy.

  “Don’t burn lights during the day!” he says sternly. “And when you’re not loaded down with consumer goods, take the stairs instead of the elevator! Don’t be so soft. Remember the sacrifices of the Fathers, and make a few of your own!”

  There follows on The Family Hour an emotional pep rally for the Fathers. It’s creepy to watch the ceremonies involving people of all ages, and listen to the sounds from other apartments in our building. Hallelujahs and screeching praises are bouncing off the walls. In fact, our neighbors sound like a football crowd. One thing is sure—in Fashion City everybody luuuves the Fathers.

  Following the pep rally, a group of young people in white robes and glowing faces sings praises to the Fathers in sweet clear voices.

  Praise the Fathers, for they are good …

  The Fathers take care of the people …

  These themes are repeated in many ways. And then the same mantras we saw earlier roll across the screen as Sherry Cross reads them aloud to us and soft music plays in the background. It’s hypnotic.

  I will gladly give four years to serve the Fathers.

  For the Fathers are good.

  Finally the hour comes to an end. Sherry Cross informs her audience we have thirty minutes to
prepare for bed, at which time all lights in the city will be extinguished.

  “Lockdown and lights-out,” Gramps mutters between clenched teeth.

  Mom’s face is troubled, but she speaks calmly. “While in residence here, we shall follow the rules.”

  “Do we have a choice?” Gramps says.

  We say good night and go to our bedrooms. After brushing my teeth, I change for bed, and remember the last time I put on these same pajamas. It was at the old Fischer place in my own sky-blue room just off the upstairs porch. That was only last night! But it seems like days ago and worlds away.… Well, it was worlds away.

  “I feel like Alice,” Mom says when we are lying side by side in bed, “and I’ve just fallen down the rabbit hole.”

  “Or we’re in the land of Oz,” I say dreamily, remembering David’s remark about not being in Kansas anymore. “Maybe the wizard will help us.”

  Then I can say no more, because my mind is whirling with fantastic visions.

  The angry eyes of the mob chasing us from our home on Earth … Elvis Presley singing for coins in the street … a white bus taking old people on vacation … a transparent rocket tearing through space … a burly cop scolding David … the Log recording our memories of Earth … fanatical voices screeching in praise of the Fathers.

  Finally my mind shuts down, and I sleep.

  • 13 •

  It’s very dark when I wake up to find myself alone. Softly I call for Mom, but I get no answer. I sit straight up in bed. What if my family has flown away in the Carriage and left me behind in this loopy world?

  Near panic, I call more loudly, “Mom!” No answer.

  I’m close to tears as I slip out of bed and try to snap on the lamp. It doesn’t work. Neither does the wall switch. In this place, when they say lights-out, they really mean it. I tiptoe into the dark hallway, and take only a few steps before I run into somebody.