Fredric Brown: The Waveries

There was suffering, during the period of economic readjustment, but less than there had been during the great depression of the early thirties. And the recovery was quicker.

The reason was obvious: In combating the depression, the legislators were working in the dark. They didn’t know its cause—rather, they knew a thousand conflicting theories of its cause—and they didn’t know the cure. They were hampered by the idea that the thing was temporary and would cure itself if left alone. Briefly and frankly, they didn’t know what it was all about and while they experimented, it snowballed.

But the situation that faced the country—and all other countries—in 1977 was clear-cut and obvious. No more electricity. Readjust for steam and horsepower.

As simple and clear as that, and no ifs or ands or buts. And the whole people—except for the usual scattering of cranks—back of them.

By 1981—

It was a rainy day in April and George Bailey was waiting under the sheltering roof of the little railroad station at Blakestown, Connecticut, to see who might come in on the 3:14.

It chugged in at 3:25 and came to a panting stop, three coaches and a baggage car. The baggage car door opened and a sack of mail was handed out and the door closed again. No luggage, so probably no passengers would—

Then at the sight of a tall dark man swinging down from the platform of the rear coach, George Bailey let out a yip of delight. “Pete! Pete Mulvaney! What the devil—”

“Bailey, by all that’s holy! What are you doing here?”

George wrung Pete’s hand. “Me? I live here. Two years now. I bought the Blakestown Weekly in ’79, for a song, and I run it—editor, reporter, and janitor. Got one printer to help me out with that end, and Maisie does the social items. She’s—”

“Maisie? Maisie Hetterman?”

“Maisie Bailey now. We got married same time I bought the paper and moved here. What are you doing here, Pete?”

“Business. Just here overnight. See a man named Wilcox.”

“Oh, Wilcox. Our local screwball—but don’t get me wrong; he’s a smart guy all right. Well, you can see him tomorrow. You’re coming home with me now, for dinner and to stay overnight. Maisie’ll be glad to see you. Come on, my buggy’s over here.”

“Sure. Finished whatever you were here for?”

“Yep, just to pick up the news on who came in on the train. And you came in, so here we go.”

They got in the buggy, and George picked up the reins and said, “Giddup, Bessie,” to the mare. Then, “What are you doing now, Pete?”

“Research. For a gas supply company. Been working on a more efficient mantle, one that’ll give more light and be less destructible. This fellow Wilcox wrote us he had something along that line; the company sent me up to look it over. If it’s what he claims, I’ll take him back to New York with me, and let the company lawyers dicker with him.”

“How’s business, otherwise?”

“Great, George. Gas; that’s the coming thing. Every new home’s being piped for it, and plenty of the old ones. How about you?”

“We got it. Luckily we had one of the old Linotypes that ran the metal pot off a gas burner, so it was already piped in. And our home is right over the office and print shop, so all we had to do was pipe it up a flight. Great stuff, gas. How’s New York?”

“Fine, George. Down to its last million people, and stabilizing there. No crowding and plenty of room for everybody. The air—why, it’s better than Atlantic City, without gasoline fumes.”

“Enough horses to go around yet?”

“Almost. But bicycling’s the craze; the factories can’t turn out enough to meet the demand. There’s a cycling club in almost every block and all the able-bodied cycle to and from work. Doing ’em good, too; a few more years and the doctors will go on short rations.”

“You got a bike?”

“Sure, a pre-vader one. Average five miles a day on it, and I eat like a horse.”

George Bailey chuckled. “I’ll have Maisie include some hay in the dinner. Well, here we are. Whoa, Bessie.”

An upstairs window went up, and Maisie looked out and down. She called out, “Hi, Pete!”

“Extra plate, Maisie,” George called. “We’ll be up soon as I put the horse away and show Pete around downstairs.”

He led Pete from the barn into the back door of the newspaper shop. “Our Linotype!” he announced proudly, pointing.

“How’s it work? Where’s your steam engine?”

George grinned. “Doesn’t work yet; we still hand set the type. I could get only one steamer and had to use that on the press. But I’ve got one on order for the Lino, and coming up in a month or so. When we get it, Pop Jenkins, my printer, is going to put himself out of a job teaching me to run it. With the Linotype going, I can handle the whole thing myself.”

“Kind of rough on Pop?”

George shook his head. “Pop eagerly awaits the day. He’s sixty-nine and wants to retire. He’s just staying on until I can do without him. Here’s the press—a honey of a little Miehle; we do some job work on it, too. And this is the office, in front. Messy, but efficient.”

Mulvaney looked around him and grinned. “George, I believe you’ve found your niche. You were cut out for a small-town editor.”

“Cut out for it? I’m crazy about it. I have more fun than everybody. Believe it or not, I work like a dog, and like it. Come on upstairs.”

On the stairs, Pete asked, “And the novel you were going to write?”

“Half done, and it isn’t bad. But it isn’t the novel I was going to write; I was a cynic then. Now—”

“George, I think the waveries were your best friends.”

“Waveries?”

“Lord, how long does it take slang to get from New York out to the sticks? The vaders. of course . Some professor who specializes in studying them described one as a wavery place in the ether, and ‘wavery’ stuck—Hello there, Maisie, my girl. You look like a million.”

They ate leisurely. Almost apologetically, George brought out beer, in cold bottles. “Sorry, Pete, haven’t anything stronger to offer you. But I haven’t been drinking lately. Guess—”

“ You on the wagon, George?”

“Not on the wagon, exactly. Didn’t swear off or anything, but haven’t had a drink of strong liquor in almost a year. I don’t know why, but—”

“I do,” said Pete Mulvaney. “I know exactly why you don’t—because I don’t drink much either, for the same reason. We don’t drink because we don’t have to—say, isn’t that a radio over there?”

George chuckled. “A souvenir. Wouldn’t sell it for a fortune. Once in a while I like to look at it and think of the awful guff I used to sweat out for it. And then I go over and click the switch and nothing happens. Just silence. Silence is the most wonderful thing in the world, sometimes, Pete. Of course I couldn’t do that if there was any juice, because I’d get vaders then. I suppose they’re still doing business at the same old stand?”

“Yep, the Research Bureau checks daily. Try to get up current with a little generator run by a steam turbine. But no dice; the vaders suck it up as fast as it’s generated.”

“Suppose they’ll ever go away?”

Mulvaney shrugged. “Helmetz thinks not. He thinks they propagate in proportion to the available electricity. Even if the development of radio broadcasting somewhere else in the Universe would attract them there, some would stay here—and multiply like flies the minute we tried to use electricity again. And meanwhile, they’ll live on the static electricity in the air. What do you do evenings up here?”

“Do? Read, write, visit with one another, go to the amateur groups—Maisie’s chairman of the Blakestown Players, and I play bit parts in it. With the movies out everybody goes in for theatricals and we’ve found some real talent. And there’s the chess-and-checker club, and cycle trips and picnics—there isn’t time enough. Not to mention music. Everybody plays an instrument, or is trying to.”