THE PLACE WHERE CHICAGO WAS
By JIM HARMON
Illustrated by COWLES
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine February 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Well, they finally got rid of war. For the first time there was peace on Earth—since the only possible victims were the killers themselves!
It was late December of 1983. Abe Danniels knew that the streets and sidewalks of Jersey City moved under their own power and that half the families in America owned their own helicopters. He was pleased with these signs of progress. But he was sweating. He thought he was getting athlete's foot instead of athletic legs from walking from the New Jersey coast to just outside of Marshall, Illinois.
The heat was unbearable.
The road shimmered before him in rows of sticky black ribbon, on which nothing moved. Nothing but him.
He passed a signal post that said "Caution—Slow" in a gentle but commanding voice. He staggered on toward a reddish metallic square set on a thin column of bluish concrete. It was what they called a sign, he decided.
Danniels drooped against the sign and fanned his face with his sweat-ringed straw cowboy hat. The thing seemed to have something to say about the mid-century novelist, James Jones, in short, terse words.
The rim of the hat crumpled in his fist. He stood still and listened.
There was a car coming.
It would almost have to stop, he reasoned. A man couldn't stand much of this Illinois winter heat. The driver might leave him to die on the road if he didn't stop. Therefore he would stop.
He jerked out the small pouch from the sash of his jeans. Inside the special plastic the powder was dry. He rubbed some between his hands briskly, to build up the static electricity, and massaged it into his hair.
The metal of the Jones plaque was fairly shiny. Under the beating noon sun it cast a pale reflection back at Danniels. His hair looked a reasonably uniform white now.
He started to draw the string on the pouch, then dipped his hand in and scooped his palm up to his mouth. He chewed on the stuff while he was securing the nearly flat bag in his sash. He swallowed the dough; the powder had been flour.
Danniels took the hat from beneath his arm, set it to his head and at last faced the direction of the engine whine.
The roof, hood and wheels moved over the curve of the horizon and Danniels saw that the car was a brandless classic which probably still had some of the original, indestructible Model A left in it.
He pondered a moment on whether to thumb or not to thumb.
He thumbed.
The rod squealed to a stop exactly even with him. A door unfolded and a voice like a stop signal said flatly, "Get in."
Danniels got in. The driver was a teen-ager in a loose scarlet tunic and a spangled W.P.A. cap. The youth wouldn't have been bad-looking except for a sullen expression and a rather girlish turn of cheek, completely devoid of beard line. Danniels wrote him off as a prospective member of the Wolf Pack in a year or two.
But not just yet, he fervently hoped.
"Going far? I'm not," said the driver.
Danniels adjusted the knees of his trousers. "I'm going to—near where Chicago used to be."
"Huh?"
Danniels had forgotten the youth of his companion. "I mean I'm going to where you can't go any further."
The driver nodded smugly, relieved that the threat to the vastness of his knowledge had been dismissed. "I get you, Pop. I guess I can take you close to where you're headed."
They rode on in silence, both relieved that they didn't have to try to span the void between age and position with words.
"You aren't anywhere near starvation, are you?" the driver said suddenly, uneasy.
