Alas, Babylon

by Pat Frank

  Hawes saw Randy, wiped his mouth, and called, "Hey, Randy."

  "Hello, Carleton."

  "What're you trading?"

  "A bottle of Scotch."

  Hawes' eyes fixed on the paper bag and he moved closer to Randy, cautious as a pointer blundered upon quail. Randy recalled from Saturday nights at the St. Johns Club that Scotch was Hawes' drink. "What's your asking price?" Hawes asked.

  "Two pounds of coffee."

  "I'll swap you these two birds. Both young hens. See how plump they are? Better eating you'll never have."

  Randy laughed.

  "Being it's you, I'll tell you what I'll do. I've got eggs at home. I'll throw in a couple of dozen eggs. Have 'em here tomorrow. On my word. If you don't believe me, you can take the birds now, as a binder."

  "The asking price," Randy said, "is also the selling price. Two pounds of coffee. Any brand will do."

  Hawes sighed. "Who's got coffee? It's been three months since I've had a drink of Scotch. Let me look at the bottle, will you?"

  Randy showed him the label and moved on to the bandstand.

  The square pillars supporting the roof had become a substitute for the county weekly's want-ad section and the radio station announcements. Randy read the no­tices, some in longhand, some hand printed, a few type­written, pinned to the timbers.

  WILL SWAP Late model Cadillac Coupe de Ville, ra­dio, heater, air-conditioned, battery run down but un­damaged, for two good 28-inch bicycle tires and pump.

  DESPERATELY NEED evaporated milk, rubber nipple and six safety pins. Look over our house and make your own deal.

  HAVE SMALL CANNED HAM, want large kettle, En­cyclopaedia Britannica, box 12-

  gauge No. 7 shells, and toothpaste.

  Randy closed his eyes. He could taste that ham. He had an extra kettle, the encyclopedia, the shells, and toothpaste. But he also had prospects of fresh ham if they could preserve the Henrys' young pigs from ma­rauders, wolves or whatever. Anyway, it was too big a price to pay for a small ham.

  WANTED - Three 2/0 fishhooks in exchange for expen­sive fly rod, reel, assorted lures:

  Randy chuckled. Sports fishing no longer existed. There were only meat fishermen now.

  WILL TRADE 50-HP Outboard motor, complete set power tools, cashmere raglan topcoat for half pound of tobacco and ax.

  Randy saw a notice that was different:

  EASTER SERVICES

  An interdenominational Easter Sunrise Service will be held in Marines Park on Sunday, April 17th. All citizens of Fort Repose, of whatever faith, are invited to attend.

  Signed,

  Rev. John Carlin, First Methodist Church

  Rev. M. F. Kenny, Church of St. Paul's

  Rev. Fred Born, Timucuan Baptist Church

  Rev. Noble Watts, Afro-Repose Baptist Church

  The name of the Rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, where there had always been a Bragg pew, was missing. Dr. Lucius Somerville, a gentle, white-haired man, a boyhood companion of Judge Bragg, had been in Jacksonville on the morning of The Day and there­fore would not return to his parish.

  Randy wasn't much of a churchgoer. He had contrib­uted to the church regularly, but not of his time or him­self. Now, reading this notice, he felt an unexpected thrill. Since The Day, he had lived in the imperative present, not daring to plan beyond the next meal or the next day. This bit of paper tacked on peeling white paint abruptly enlarged his perspective, as if, stumbling through a black tunnel, he saw, or thought he saw, a chink of light. If Man retained faith in God, he might also retain faith in Man. He remembered words which for four months he had not heard, read, or uttered, the most beautiful words in the language - faith and hope. He had missed these words as he had missed other things. If possible, he would go to the service. Sunday, seventeenth. Today was the fourteenth, and therefore Thursday.

  He stepped up on the platform. The men lounging there, some of them acquaintances, some strangers, were estimating the shape of bulk of the sack he held, like a football, under his arm. Dour, bearded, hair un­shorn or ludicrously cropped, they looked like ghosttown characters in a Western movie, except they were not so well fed as Hollywood extras, and their clothing, flowered sports shirts, shorts, or slacks, plaid or straw-peaked caps, was incongruous. John Garcia, the Minorcan fishing guide, asked the orthodox opening question, "What're you trading, Randy?"

  "A fifth of Scotch - twelve years old - the best."

  Garcia whistled. "You must be hard up. What're you askin'?"

  "Two pounds of coffee."

  Several of the men on the platform shifted their posi­tion. One snickered. None spoke. Randy realized that these men had no coffee, either for trading or drinking. No matter how well stocked their kitchens might once have been, or what they had purchased or pillaged on The Day and in the chaotic period immediately after, four months had exhausted everything. Randy's com­munity was far more fortunate with the bearing groves, fish loyally taking bait, the industrious Henrys and their barnyard, and some small game - squirrels, rabbits, and an occasional possum.

  John Garcia was trading two strings of fish, a four-pound catfish and small bass on one, warmouth perch and bream on the other. Garcia's brown and weathered skin had shriveled on his slight frame until he seemed only bones loosely wrapped in dried leather. The sun was getting warm. With his toe Garcia nudged his fish into the shadow. "Wouldn't trade for fish, would you, Randy?" he asked, sniffing.

  "Fish we've got," Randy said.

  "You River Road

  people do all right by yourselves, don't you?" a stranger said. "If you got Scotch likker, you got everythin'. Us, we ain't got nuthin'." The stranger was trading a saw, two chisels, and a bag of nails. Randy guessed he was an itinerant carpenter set­tled in Pistolville.

  Randy ignored him and asked Marines Park's inevi­table second question, "What do you hear?"

  Old Man Hockstatler, who was trading small tins of aspirins and tranquilizers, salvage from his looted phar­macy, said, "I hear the Russians are asking that we sur­render."

  "No, no, you got that all wrong," said Eli Blaustein. "Mrs. Vanbruuker-Brown demanded that the Russians surrender. They said no and then they said we should be the ones to surrender."

  "Where did you hear that?" Randy asked.

  "My wife got it from a woman whose husband's bat­tery set still works," Blaustein said. Blaustein was trad­ing work pants and a pair of white oxfords and he was asking canned corn beef or cheese. Randy knew that as the sun got higher John Garcia's asking price for his fish would drop lower. At the same time Blaustein's hunger would grow, or he would be thinking of his protein-starved family. Before the fish were tainted, there would be a meeting of minds. John Garcia would have a new pair of work pants and Blaustein would have food.

  "What I would like to know," said Old Man Hock­statler, "is who won the war? Nobody ever tells you. This war I don't understand at all. It isn't like World Wars One or Two or any other wars I ever heard of. Sometimes I think the Russians must've won. Otherwise things would be getting back to normal. Then I think no, we won. If we hadn't won the Russians would still be bombing us, or they would invade. But since The Day I've never seen any planes at all."

  "I have," said Garcia. "I've seen 'em while I was fish­ing for cats at night. No, that ain't exactly right. I've heard 'em. I heard one two nights ago."

  "Whose?" Blaustein asked.

  Garcia shrugged. "Beats me."

  This discussion, Randy knew, would continue through the day. The question of who won the war, or if the war still continued, who was winning, had replaced the weather as an inexhaustible subject for speculation. Each day you could hear new rumors, usually baseless and always garbled. You could hear that Russian land­ing craft were lined up on Daytona Beach or that Mar­tian saucers were unloading relief supplies in Pensacola. Randy believed nothing except what he himself heard or saw, or those sparse hard grains of fact sifted from the air waves by Sam Hazzard. Randy had been leaning on the bandstand railing.
He straightened, stretched, and said, "Guess I'll circulate around and look for somebody who's holding coffee."

  John Garcia said, "You coming to the Easter service, Randy?"

  "Hope so. Hope to come and bring the family." As he stepped from the bandstand he looked again at the two useless drinking fountains. There was something important about them that he could not recall. This was irritating, as when the name of an old friend capri­ciously vanishes from memory. The drinking fountains made his mind itch.

  He saw Jim Hickey, the beekeeper, a picnic basket under his long, outstretched legs, relaxed on a bench. Before The Day Jim had rented his hives to grove own­ers pollinating young trees. Before The Day, Jim's honey was a secondary source of income; "gravy," he called it. Now, honey was liquid gold, and beeswax, with which candles could be dipped, another valuable item of barter. Jim Hickey, who was Mark's age, had learned beekeeping at the College of Agriculture in Gainesville. It would never make him rich, he had been warned, and until The Day it hadn't. Now he was re­garded as a fortunate man, rich in highly desirable com­modities endlessly produced by tens of thousands of happy and willing slaves. "What are you trading?" he greeted Randy.

  "A bottle of Scotch. Are you holding coffee?"

  "No. I've been trying to trade for coffee myself. Can't find any. All I hold is honey." He lifted the lid of the picnic basket. "Lovely stuff, isn't it?"

  It was lovely. Randy thought of Ben Franklin and Peyton, whose need and desire for sweets could not be wholly supplied by the sugar content of citrus. It would be weeks before Two-Tone's cane crop matured. Randy wondered whether he was being selfish, trading for cof­fee. It was true that he would share the coffee with he other adults on River Road

  , but the children didn't drink it. There were no calories or vitamins in coffee and it was of no use to them. He forced himself to be judicial. When you examined the facts judicially, and asked which would provide the greatest good for the greatest number, there could be only one answer. Coffee would furnish only temporary and personal gratifica­tion. He said, "Jim, maybe I could be persuaded to trade for honey."

  "I'm sorry, Randy. We're Adventists. We don't drink whiskey or trade in it."

  This contingency Randy had never imagined. Half-aloud he said, "Well, I tried."

  "I suppose you wanted the honey for Mark's chil­dren," Hickey said.

  "Yes. I did."

  Hickey reached into the basket and brought out two square, honey-packed combs. "I wouldn't like to see Mark's kids go without," he said. "Here. I'd give you more except my supply is 'way down. There's something wrong with my bees this spring. Half my broods are foul, full of dead pupae and larvae. At first I thought it was what we call sacbrood, or queen failure. I've been to the library, reading up on it, and now I wonder whether it couldn't be radiation. We must've had fallout on The Day - after all, the whole state is a contami­nated zone - and maybe it affected some of my queens and drones. I don't know what to do about it. It isn't something they taught us at the University."

  Randy removed the bottle from his paper bag, locked it under his arm, and replaced it with the honeycombs. He was overwhelmed. He knew that Mark and Hickey had been in the same grade in primary school, but they had never been close friends. Hickey was no more than an acquaintance. He lived in a neat, sea-green, five-­room concrete block house far out on the road to Pasco Creek. Randy, before The Day, rarely saw him; and then only to wave a greeting. Randy said, "Jim, this is the nicest, most generous thing I can remember. I just hope I can repay you some way, some day."

  "Forget it," Hickey said. "Children need honey. My kids have it every meal."

  Randy heard the Model-A's horn, raucous as an an­gry goose, and saw it pull up to the curb. Walking to the car, he noticed that it was a clear and beautiful spring day, a better day than yesterday. The spores of kind­ness, as well as faith, survived in this acid soil.

  Randy climbed into the car and showed the honey to Dan and explained how it had been given to him. "The world changes," Dan said. "People don't. I still have one old biddy in the schoolhouse who prunes and trims the camellias, and weeds the beds. They aren't her ca­mellias and nobody gives a damn about flowers any more, except her. She loves flowers and it doesn't mat­ter where she is or what happens she's going to take care of 'em. This same old lady - Mrs. Satterborough, she's been spending her winters at the Riverside Inn for years - she picks up the telephone in the principal's of­fice every morning and dials Western Union. She thinks that one day the phone will be working just fine and that she'll get off a telegram to her daughter. She's cer­tain of it. Her daughter lives in Indiana."

  "I don't understand how those old people stay alive," Randy said. He knew that Dan brought them oranges by the bushel, and Randy sent them fish whenever there was a surplus catch.

  "Most of them didn't. Death can be merciful, espe­cially for the old and sick. I was about to say old, sick, and broke, but it doesn't matter any longer whether you're broke. Only five alive out of the Riverside Inn now. Maybe three will get through the summer. I don't think any will get through next winter."

  Driving north on Yulee, the business district, while deserted, seemed no more battered than it had the month before, or the month before that. A few optimis­tic storekeepers had prudently boarded windows, split by blast on The Day or broken by looters afterwards, against water and wind. On the two principal business blocks glass had been swept from the sidewalks. Aban­doned cars, stripped of wheels, batteries, radios, and spark plugs, rusted in gutters like the unburied carcasses of giant beetles.

  They turned off Yulee into Augustine Road

  , with its broken macadam and respectable but decaying resi­dences. They bounced along for a block and then Randy smelled Pistolville. Another block and they were in it.

  There had been no garbage collections since The Day. In Pistolville each hut or house squatted in a mound of its own excretion - crushed crates and car­tons, rusting tin cans, broken bottles, rotting piles of cit­rus rusks and pecan shells, the bones of fowl, fish and small animals. A tallow-faced, six-year-old girl, clad in a man's castoff, riddled T-shirt, crouched on the curb, emptying her bowels in the dust. She cried out shrilly and waved as the Model-A bounced past. A bearded, long-haired man burst out of a doorway and jogged down the street on bandy legs, peeling and eating a ba­nana, turning his head as if he expected to be followed. At the corner a scrawny boy of eighteen urinated against a lamp post, not bothering to raise his eyes at the sound of the car. Buzzards, grown arrogant, roosted in the oaks and foraged in the refuse. Of mongrel dogs, cats, partihued pigs, chickens, and pigeons - all normal impediments to navigation on the streets of Pistolville - no trace remained.

  Once before in his life, in Suwon, immediately after its recapture and before the Military Government peo­ple had begun to clean up, Randy had seen degradation such as this. But this was America. It was his town, set­tled by his forebears. He said, "We've got to do some­thing about this."

  "Yes? " Dan said. "What?"

  "I don't know. Something."

  "Torches and gasoline," Dan said, "except there isn't enough gasoline. Anyway, these poor devils are as well off in their own houses as they would be in the woods, or in caves. No better off, mind you. But they have shel­ter."

  "In four months," Randy said, "we've regressed four thousand years. More, maybe. Four thousand years ago the Egyptians and Chinese were more civilized than Pis­tolville is right now. Not only Pistolville. Think what must be going on in those parts of the country where they don't even have fruit and pecans and catfish."

  As they approached the end of Augustine Road

  the houses were newer and larger, constructed of concrete block or brick instead of pitch-sweating pine clapboard. Between these houses grass grew shin-high, fighting the exultant weeds for sunlight and root space. There was less filth, or at least it was concealed by greenery, and the smell was bearable. In this airier atmosphere lived the upper crust of Pistolville, including Pete and Rita H
ernandez and Timucuan County's Representative in the state legislature, Porky Logan.

  "How long has it been since you've seen Rita?" Dan asked.

  "Not since before The Day - quite a while before."

  "Does Lib know about her?"

  "She knows all about it. She says Rita doesn't bother her, because Rita is part of the past, like Mayoschi's in Tokyo. You know who worries Lib? Helen. Imagine that."

  They were at the Hernandez house. Dan stopped the car. He said, "I can imagine it. Lib is an extremely sen­sitive, perceptive woman. About some things, she has more sense than you have, Randy. And all rules are off, now."

  Randy wasn't listening. Rita had stepped out of the doorway. In Hawaii Randy had seen girls of mixed Caucasian, Polynesian, and Chinese blood, hips moving as if to the pulse of island rhythm even when only cross­ing the street, who reminded him of Rita. She was not like a girl of Fort Repose. She was a child of the Medi­terranean and Carribean, seeming alien; and yet certainly American. Her ancestors included a Spanish sol­dier whose caravel beached in Matanzas Inlet before the Pilgrims found their rock, and Carib Indian women, and the Minorcans who spread inland from New Smyrna in the eighteenth century. She had not gone to college but she was intelligent and quick. She had an annulled high school marriage and an abortion behind her. She no longer made such foolish errors. Her hobby was men. She sampled and enjoyed men as other women collected and enjoyed African violets, Limoges teacups, or sterling souvenir teaspoons. She was profes­sional in her avocation, never letting a man go without some profit, not necessarily material, and never trading one man for another unless she thought she was better­ing her collection.

  Under any circumstances Rita was an arresting woman. Her hair was cut in straight bangs to form an ebony frame for features carved like a Malayan mask in antique ivory. She could look, and behave, like an Egyptian queen of the Eighteenth Dynasty or a Creole whore out of New Orleans. On this morning she wore aquamarine shorts and halter. Cradled easily under her right arm was a light repeating shotgun. She was smok­ing a cigarette and even from the road Randy. could see that it was a real, manufactured filtertip and not a stubby homemade, hand-rolled with toilet paper. She called, "Hello Doctor Gunn. Come on in." Then she recognized the passenger and yelled; "Hey! Randy!"