Cry Snooker, Andrew Fetler [mobi reader android TXT] 📗
- Author: Andrew Fetler
Book online «Cry Snooker, Andrew Fetler [mobi reader android TXT] 📗». Author Andrew Fetler
George grabbed the control panel and they ran outside. They saw the snooker describing a lovely ellipse over Sunnydale.
"My roast!" Rosy wailed.
"It seems to be waiting for orders," Charlie said.
"Have to get it down," George said, setting the control panel on the lawn. "Before it slams into some airplane."
He pressed a large red button. The snooker wobbled for a moment, then broke its orbit and dove for Charlie's house. It smashed in at the back and came out the front. Beth ran out in a bathrobe, screaming.
"Stop it!" Charlie yelled, flinging himself at the control panel and pressing a yellow button.
The snooker resumed its orbit, then wobbled and dove into every second or third house in the street, working the houses from side to side.
Women ran out and stood dazed, clutching their children and watching the snooker.
Desperately George pressed the blue button. The snooker resumed its orbit, wobbled, flew once over the street as if to check what all needed to be hit, then slammed through the whole length of houses from end to end.
Two houses caught fire. Charlie pressed the largest button of all, the green one. The snooker righted itself and flew out over the town. Wherever it struck a small cloud of dust rose in the air.
Four fire-engines turned into the street. Three of them turned around and raced back to downtown.
They lost sight of the snooker for a while. All they saw was the clouds of dust mushrooming all over town, and here and there a fire. When the snooker came in view again, it was rising toward a jet plane circling overhead.
"It'll get hit!" Charlie said.
George pressed all four buttons.
The snooker wobbled for a moment. Then it seemed to shake off the confused commands and rose into the plane's path. The plane veered. The snooker turned after it and rose steeply. Then it dove and slammed down through the fuselage.
They all stared as the plane crashed into the supermarket. Above them the pilot floated down in a parachute. He seemed to see the blinking lights of the control panel and worked the chute calmly. He landed through the hole in Rosy's kitchen. He came out of the house eating a piece of cold chicken.
He wore an air-research uniform with a belt slanted across his chest and high shiny boots, and in his hand he carried a Rommel whip.
He strode up to George and looked down at the blinking control panel. With the toe of his boot he pushed a black button in the lower left corner and squinted up at the sky, chewing the chicken. The snooker obeyed instantly and resumed its original elliptical orbit.
"Ja," he said. "Very goot." He gazed out over the town, the clouds of dust and the fires burning. "Excellent," he said, tossing the chicken bone over his back. It hit Charlie in the face.
"You must be the dismantling expert," George said hopefully.
"I am more. I am the infentor of pressure snooker." He noticed Rosy and Beth. "Ladies," he said, clicking his heels and bowing. "I haf the honor to present myself. Vernher von Wissenschaft, at your serfice."
"Likewise," Rosy said. "Could you get my pressure cooker down before it does any more damage?"
"Ha ha!" Vernher von Wissenschaft laughed. "Very goot! Pressure cooker! Hm, goot way to deceive brutal enemy. Export five hoondred tausend pressure cookers to enemy homes. Ja, I like it."
"You don't understand," Rosy said. "My roast will be ruined if you don't get it down pretty soon."
"You cook rosht in my infention?"
"Biggest roast you ever saw," Rosy said. She hugged George. "You see, this is our wedding anniversary and I'm dying to know how it came out."
"Rosht?" he mused, following the snooker with his eyes and licking his fingers thoughtfully. "Why not? Maybe I make deal on side with Amerikan Kitchen Appliance Inkorporated. If rosht comes out goot." He looked at the broken houses and the firemen spraying the fires. "Ja," he decided, "kill two experiments mit one snooker."
He waited for the snooker to pass overhead. Then he gave the control panel a sharp kick with his heel, breaking it in two. The snooker wobbled and exploded. Bits of steel whirred out over Sunnydale. A brown cloud appeared above them and in a moment they were all drenched in a rainfall of roast beef.
By the time the gravy hit them it had cooled enough to taste.
"It's wonderful!" Rosy said.
"Chust a minute," Vernher von Wissenschaft said. "Scientific experiment not so fast." He removed a shred of roast beef from behind his ear and chewed.
"Isn't it good?" Rosy asked anxiously.
Vernher von Wissenschaft finished tasting. He thought a moment, stretched his face. "Excellent," he said.
"Do you really like it?"
"Ja, excellent." He held up a finger. "Perhaps," he suggested, "two more grains pepper."
Two weeks later, when all the fires in the town had been put out and the damage assessed, a great banquet was held in the Emperor Room to honor George. In the street a huge crowd of well-wishers waited to greet him as he came out. The Emperor Room could accommodate only the town's important personages; there were so many of them that some of the best families did not bribe the mayor in time to get a seat.
But George managed to get standing room for Mr. Perkins and Mr. Zungenspiel.
Beside George at the table of honor sat Charlie. Next to him Vernher von Wissenschaft in a splendid uniform, cracking his Rommel whip from time to time. Everybody who was anybody was there: the Police Commissioner, the Gambling Czar, the District Attorney, the Teamsters' Boss, Senator Smiley, Coroner Schadenfrohm, the Election Commissioner, the Slum Owner, the Housing Inspector.
"Never before," the mayor orated, "has so much damage been done by such a little man in such a short time."
Vernher cracked his whip. "Very goot," he said, turning to George. "Rhetoric, you know."
"The national economy," the mayor continued, "was in danger of imminent collapse ever since our old-fashioned P.O.—planned obsolescence—reached a point of no return. We had to produce more and more until the market was glutted. Of course we would not sell so much as a toaster to our brutal enemy." (Applause.)
Vernher cracked his whip. "Very goot."
"But now," the mayor said, smiling at George, "the solution to our economic impasse has been found! This young man had the daring vision to contribute a brilliant new concept to our economics. S. D.—Senseless Destruction!" (Applause.)
Vernher cracked his whip. "Excellent."
The mayor raised his arms for silence. "I have good news," he said. "Congress has just voted one billion dollars for Senseless Destruction research!" (Wild applause.)
Vernher cracked his whip six times.
"I can promise you, ladies and gentlemen," the mayor continued, "what happened to our town is only the beginning. As a result of the visionary experiment by this daring young man, fifty thousand idle construction workers have already been put back on the job; twenty new banks have sprung up to handle the flood of mortgages; a new steel mill will be erected in our world-famous game preserve. But I need not go on. The industries, businesses and stock markets that will profit by Senseless Destruction can hardly be numbered. The biggest boom in history is on! And as long as we have the snooker it will never end!" (General pandemonium.)
When order was restored, the mayor turned solemnly to George and said: "In grateful recognition of your...."
After the recognition speech George accepted humbly the following sums, not listing gifts under $10,000:
$10,000 from Home Builders Assn.
$12,500 from Construction Union, Local 256.
$15,000 from Last Bank of America.
$11,276.88 from Unified Steel Corp.
$20,00 from Chicago Furniture Mart.
$10,000 from Congress in Series E Bonds.
George also received the following appointments:
Special Adviser to Mayor on Senseless Destruction, with nominal yearly income of $75,000 tax free.
Vice-President of Trojan Life & Casualty Co.
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Sunnydale Game and Wood Preserve.
Honorary Supreme Commander of Juvenile Senseless Destructionists, to be organized.
A year later George sat wearily in the control room of his chateau on Indian Rock overlooking the town. Snookers buzzed over rooftops like flies. Clouds of dust rose prosperously everywhere. In the streets construction gangs raced in speed trucks.
George had begun to wonder how it would all end.
After the novelty had worn off, Senseless Destruction became more monotonous, more depressing than the Installment Way of Life before it. People worked harder than ever now and had less to show for it. Of course, it was unpatriotic to have anything to show for it. Nobody in his right senses would argue against Round-the-Clock Employment for All. And if you didn't go around grinning and saying how happy you were with your seventh mortgage, people began to suspect you.
George had talked it all over with Rosy and she agreed. Sure, it was all right for them—for the time being. But George had begun to despise himself.
He had to keep sharp control over the snookers. Some of them showed a tendency to sneak off course, looking for some nice fresh target—like the chateau, maybe.
The butler came in and presented a calling card on a silver platter.
"Vernher! Show him in at once."
Vernher von Wissenschaft marched in, cracking his Rommel whip. He looked worried.
"Bad news," Vernher said, shaking hands. "Chust come from the President."
"How is Charlie?"
"Goot. But too much work. And trouble. These snookers." Vernher strode to the window and looked out over the town.
"They're doing a fine job," George assured him.
Vernher turned. A grim smile slashed his face. "Too goot. Russian economy caught up with ours. They vant snookers too. Must have snookers or they go kaput."
"What's so bad about that? Let them go kaput. Cold war will be over at least."
Vernher shook his head. "They threaten atomic war if they don't get snookers. This time for real."
George gave a low whistle.
"Ja," Vernher sighed. "Charlie had secret cabinet meeting. We cannot take chance. You must go teach them how."
"Can't you go?"
"I'm leaving for Johannesburg tonight. United Africa also caught up."
"As it is our economy barely keeps ahead of the Russians!"
"Ja. But cannot be helped."
"Maybe," George said, "if you invented something bigger, better, more efficient."
"You think I haf not tried?"
George stood thinking a long moment. He said, "Vernher, is there no way out?"
"Sure," Vernher laughed. "If we go back to savage pre-civilization."
"All right," George said. "I'll go tell Rosy. Watch the control panel a moment, will you? Especially the Eastern Section."
"What's the matter with them?"
"They seem to be getting restless lately."
"Nonsense! My snookers haf no emotions."
"Just seems that way sometimes," George said, going out. Their job could even make stones feel something, he thought.
He ran down to Rosy in the kitchen. She had consented to having servants only because of her social position, but she still insisted on personally running the kitchen her own way.
George pulled her into the hallway and put his arms around her and kissed her.
"What on earth?" she said.
"You must be very brave, darling." He fixed her with his eyes. "Rosy, this is it."
"It?"
"E-Day."
E for Escape.
"We can't talk now," he said. "Vernher is at the controls."
"Can I change?"
"No time. Are the suitcases packed?"
"They're in the garage, behind the beer barrels."
"Go get Timmy," George said. "I'll drive the station wagon round to the back door."
At the gate to the grounds they stopped and took a last look at the chateau. They could see Vernher standing in the control window. He seemed to be enjoying the spectacle in the town below.
Rosy gripped George's arm. "Look!"
A snooker had strayed off its orbit and was hissing in toward the chateau. It came fast over the grounds, heading straight for the control window.
Vernher never saw it coming. Probably he did not even hear the glass crashing as the sharp slivers shot into the room.
By the end of May George was still chopping a small clearing in the Montana woods. George and Charlie's old campsite. It was harder work than he'd expected. But it was a good site and the tent would be replaced by a heavy log cabin before winter set in. Sometimes they'd climb one of the peaks on the Flathead Range and sit gazing at Hungry Horse Reservoir in the distance.
The trees were stubborn here, blunting the ax. But they'd make it all right. George sat down to rest.
Rosy waved to him from the potato patch. A strand of smoke rose peacefully from the stone oven. He waved back and grinned.
Timmy worked his way up bravely to where George sat. He'd gotten used to his bark shoes and had quite forgotten that he had ever worn any other kind.
"Can I help you, Daddy?"
Education too, George thought. The real kind. "No, thanks,
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