Mack Reynolds - Earth Unaware

They named their druthers, she dialed them, and when the food arrived and the first taste had been taken, said, “Okay, let’s bring the meeting to order. I’m not up on this movie thing.”

Ed Wonder gave them a complete rundown on the happenings in Saugerties. By the time he wound it up, they were both staring at him.

“Oh, Mother ,” Helen said. “You mean, until you told him, he didn’t even know he’d done it. Radio and TV, I mean.”

Buzz said, “Remember on the program? He had forgotten he put the hex on women’s vanity.” He looked at Helen Fontaine calculatingly. “You know, on you the Homespun Look comes off.”

“Thank you, kind sir. If I could think of something about your own appearance that I could say something nice about, I would. Why don’t you get a haircut?”

“Compliment the girl, and what do I get?” Buzz complained. “A jolly. I can’t afford a haircut. I’m the most improvident man in the world. I’ve been known to go into a cold shower and come out three dollars poorer.”

Ed said gloomily, “I admit I let the cat out of the bag. Now he knows.” They scowled at him and he explained. “Tubber. Now he knows he’s got the power, as Nefertiti calls it. What’s worse, it seems to be growing.”

“What seems to be growing?” Buzz growled at him.

“The power to make with hexes. Evidently, he’s always had it, but only just recently has he been using it on the grand scale.”

“You mean…” Helen said, ramifications dawning.

“I mean his first two major hexes he pulled off in a rage and without knowing what he was doing. This last one he did on purpose. Now he knows he can do them on purpose.”

Ed said, “Have you two considered the fact that we’re the only ones in the world, except for Tubber’s little group, who know what’s going on?”

Buzz pulled out a fresh stogie and rammed it into his mouth. “How could I forget it? A newspaperman sitting on the biggest story since the Resurrection and he can’t even write it. If I mention Tubber and his curses to Old Ulcers once more, he’s promised to fire me.”

“At least you’ve still got a job,” Ed told him sourly. “Look at me. I spend a couple of years working up the Far Out Hour, a program devoted to spiritualism, ESP, flying saucers, reincarnation, levitation, and what not, and for all that time I have an endless series of cranks, crackpots and crooks as guests. So finally, a real phenomenon comes along. And what happens? I’m out of a career.”

“Both of you are breaking my heart,” Helen said snappishly. “Don’t forget, I was runner-up on the Statewide ten best dressed women of the year poll.”

Buzz looked at her. “How about your father? He was there when Tubber hexed radio. Doesn’t he realize what’s going on?”

Helen said, “I think about half and half. What he really thinks is that Tubber is an agent for the Soviet Complex who’s been sent over to sabotage American industry. He wants the Stephen Decatur Society to investigate and place their information before the F.B.I. Matthew Mulligan agrees with him, of course.”

Ed Wonder closed his eyes to hide his suffering. “Oh, great. I can just see that bunch of kooks sniffing around Tubber’s tent. The new hexes would start flying like geese.”

Helen said, without a good deal of conviction. “The Society isn’t composed of kooks, as you call them.”

Buzz leered at her through the smoke of his newly lighted stogie. “What is it composed of?”

She laughed suddenly, “Twitches,” she said.

Buzz looked at her afresh. “I think I could learn to like you,” he said, nodding.

“All right, all right,” Ed said. “We’ve got to do something. You both realize that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Buzz said. “What?”

Helen said, worriedly, “Perhaps if we all went to see Tubber…”

Ed held up a hand. “Go no further, please. Here sit the three of us. Helen brought him to wrath and the result was the Homespun Look and what will eventually mean the collapse of the cosmetic and women’s textile industries. Buzzo brought him to wrath and the result was the end of radio and TV. Through a fluke, I said too much and as a result he brought himself to wrath and wound up the movie industry. With a background like that do you think any of we three ought ever to let him lay eyes on us again? We seem to be a set of accident prones, with the whole human race getting the benefits.”

Buzz growled around his stogie, “I think you’re right, chum.”

“But we’ve got to do something,” Helen protested.

“What?” Buzz said to the unanswering group.

They had left it at that. All three resolved that something had to be done. But no one had come up with even the smallest idea.

Ed finally left them to that solution of the problem and took a cab to where he had left the Volkshover the night before. It seemed to have survived the mob and the wetting down from the fire hoses which had finally broken up the enraged crowd and led to the rescue of the hapless movie projectionist.

On the scene again, Ed could only wonder at the hysteria of a citizenry that could become that worked up over a simple matter such as not being able to see the movie for which they had stood in line. What the devil, this was the tail end of the 20th Century, not frontier days. You didn’t lynch a man because you suspected him of lousing up your evening’s entertainment.

Or did you?

What had the rioter said to him? Everybody’s on edge .

It didn’t make too much sense to Ed Wonder. Admittedly, he was thoroughly familiar with the world of radio and TV and knew the dependence of most citizens on the entertainment they provided. But Ed Wonder had been a performer, rather than a passive viewer and, at least subconsciously, was contemptuous of his audiences. He viewed TV himself, only as part of his work, in common with his colleagues.

Back at his own apartment house, he remembered to go to the drug store for a newspaper before ascending to his rooms. The manager had saved a paper for him, otherwise, as the day before, the morning edition of the Times-Tribune was sold out.

He showered, utilized his No-Shav cream, and dressed in fresh clothes, and then, before sitting down to read, he dialed himself a glass of ale. The autobar failed to respond and he scowled down at it. The gadget was designed for a variety of forty different drinks, and operated through a distribution center which served this part of the city in much the same manner as his kitchenette worked. He tried dialing a Fish House Punch with the same results.

Irritated, he went to the phone and dialed the center. A harassed ash blonde appeared on the screen and before he could open his mouth, said hurriedly, “Yes, we know. Your autobar is failing to function. Unfortunately, stocks have run short due to unprecedented demand. New supplies are being rushed up from Ultra-New York. Thank you.” She flicked off.

Ed Wonder grunted and sat down in his reading chair. Unprecedented demand, yet. Well, it wasn’t surprising. With nothing else to do, people had upped their drinking considerably.

The paper had no inkling of the real nature of the blight on the world’s entertainment media. None whatsoever. Evidently, Buzz De Kemp was the only journalist exant who realized the actuality, and his city editor had ominously warned him not to mention Ezekiel Joshua Tubber and his curses ever again. AP-Reuters and the other news services hadn’t a clue. Learned articles and columns pursued this theory and that, ranging from sun spots, or radio emanations from far star systems, to sinister schemes on the part of the Soviet Complex or Common Europe to disrupt America’s balance by withholding needed restful entertainment from the man in the street. Just how this was being accomplished was moot. Those who argued against the charge, pointed out that the same disruption was taking place throughout the realm of the Soviet Complex and throughout Common Europe as well.