My cloak had no pockets. I took it off and, naked, turned it inside
out. It taught me nothing. I put it back on and thought idly of smoking
a cigarette. There are times when I sit at the news desk and words
simply will not come unless I light a cigarette. It may be that I don't
take a single puff after the first one, but the mere action of lighting
the cigarette sets the old train of thought to operating. But now I
couldn't have cared less if I never had a cigarette. Or a drink. Or
food.
But my curiosity was still perking. I got to my feet and made another
circuit of the little room. I found something I'd overlooked before.
On one of the walls near a corner were two knobs, one above the other.
They were set out a scant quarter inch from the wall and were of the
same color and material.
"This opens the door," I told myself, turning the top one clockwise.
No door opened.
"Then this does," I said, turning the other one.
Instead I got music. I'd found a radio.
It was Perez Prado, that musical humorist, ripping out an unabashed
Latinate romp through an old standard, giving it new excitement with
his dramatic pauses and irreverent burps.
The Prado record ended and a recorded commercial came on:
"Ladies, stop tearing the end off the wrapper on a loaf of bread," was
the message I got. From this exhortation to the ladies, I judged that
this was daytime radio.
The next station was more informative: "Temperature now 75
degrees--bright and enjoyable. And we hope it's nice where you are this
fine Friday morning...."
Friday! It had been Thursday when my neighbor's boy had led me through
the apple orchard. I wondered if young Harry had reported my capture,
and if he had, whether anybody believed him.
My next thought was of Mae. She must be worried sick about me. She
wouldn't have worried till suppertime yesterday, when I didn't get home
on time--unless the office had called her to find out why I hadn't come
to work, as it probably had. That meant she'd already had 24 hours of
anxiety. I banged on the walls with my palms, then kicked with the flat
of my bare foot, but no one came.
"Can't stay in bed?" the radio asked me. "Get up and still get five
stay-in-bed benefits."
I turned the volume up as high as it would go, hoping that would
attract the attention of my captors. But the rest of the booming
commercial and the ensuing rendition of _Stardust_--a song I can do
without--did nothing but hurt my ears.
I reduced the volume for a panegyric to "the most delightfully
different cigarette ever made" and reflected that in spite of the fact
that my own pack was gone with my clothes I didn't want to smoke.
Nor was I thirsty, I realized during subsequent commercials praising
the joys of Coke and Seven Up. And I wasn't hungry, not reacting
to the one about there being "more crackling good taste in every
slice"--meaning bacon. And fortunately, considering the john-less
aspect of my cell, I didn't have to go to the bathroom. My appetites
seemed to have vanished with the 24 hours that had gone out of my life
since I caught that handball in the alien's office.
What were they doing to me? I wondered. What had they done to me? I
paced the limited confines of my prison, occasionally banging on the
hard wall, then threw myself on the couch. As I lay down the lights
went out and the radio faded. I sat up. The lights came on again and
the radio woke up to say:
"Time for news from American--live at 55! The news in just a moment."
"From Hackensack, New Jersey, an interesting sidelight on the aliens,"
the voice was saying in the verbless way of radio newsmen. "Commuters,
faced with a new fare increase totaling 81 per cent in ten months,
revolted against the Susquehanna Railroad today and rode to work in
a bus provided by the Monolithians. They pay $24 a month instead of
the $35 the new railroad fare would have cost. There was no immediate
comment from the Susquehanna, but a spokesman from the commuters'
association said the idea is so successful that a second group is
joining...."
That being the first news item, it was obvious that nothing startling
had been going on. Whatever all those duplicate men were planning to
do, they hadn't done it yet.
"In Boston, a group of alien volunteers pitched in with a will to help
tow away illegally parked cars. In the first two hours they towed away
28 unmarked police cars...."
WABC's newscast came five minutes before the hour. I switched to the
NBC station, "where news comes first"--meaning on the hour--and endured
the opening gongs which were NBC's substitute for big black headlines.
It started off with a couple of non-Monolithian items from overseas.
"More news in a moment. But first--"
"Isn't there someone, somewhere, whose voice you'd like to hear? Well
then, why not pick up your telephone...."
I yelled at it, "Yes, God damn it! Why don't I just?" and switched it
off.
I must have fallen asleep. I came to in darkness and when I sat up the
lights glowed on. I tried the radio again. Music.
I still wasn't hungry or thirsty and I still didn't have to go to
the bathroom. I wondered if I were being watched. I looked again for
a possible tiny television eye but couldn't see any. I considered
thumbing my nose in all directions, as a morale factor, but decided it
would be undignified.
I wondered what time it was, how long I'd slept. Somehow it sounded
like early evening music, suitable for housewives preparing dinner and
men driving home from a hard day at the office.
Then station identification told me it was seven o'clock (P.M.) and
asked whether right about here I would like a beer. The answer was no.
All I wanted was to get out.
"And now we bring you that popular round-table discussion of events of
the day, _News and Newsmen_," the radio said, "featuring the men who
edit the news for leading papers and wire services. Tonight our subject
is 'Monolithians--Friend or Foe?' and our panel consists of Russell
Sidenam, city editor of the _World-Telegram_; Barton Pascal, reporter
on the _Daily News_; Herb Small, from the world desk of the Associated
Press; and Sam Kent, assistant editor of the New York bureau of World
Wide News...."
A few minutes later, after the inevitable commercial, I heard my own
voice passionately defending the Monolithians as men of principle and
high conscience whose only purpose was to uplift their brethren on
Earth to a realization of their manifest destiny as worthy members of
the community of the Interstellar Realm.