Earth Unaware Page 3

  Helen said, “Jet it up, will you? I feel awful How could you keep from laughing in this character’s face?”

  Ed put a bit more pressure on the thrust pedal. “That’s what I mean. To listen to the guy, you’d think he was giving you a real square shake. Sincerity just dribbled from him. After that program, hundreds of letters came in wanting to know more about this revealed religion of his. He had mentioned that he was writing a book. The New Bible he called it. At least fifty orders came in, most of them with money enclosed. I tell you, when it come to religion, people believe anything. The more offbeat it is, the more faith they have. Whatever that is.”

  “Little Ed Wonder, I’ll have to get Daddy to have Mulligan switch you back to morning soap operas. That far out program of yours is making a cynic of you.”

  “That’s all I need. It took me years to get a program of my own.”

  Her tone changed. “Besides, you shouldn’t talk that way about faith. There’s certainly nothing wrong with real faith.”

  He took her in from the side of his eyes. “What’s real faith?”

  “Oh, don’t be such a sharpy. You know what I mean. Real religion. Where are we going? Let’s stop for coffee. I guess that argument with old whiskers upset me.”

  “I thought we’d go to the Old Coffee House; they’ve got a real waiter there. I like a real waiter. Sort of cozy.”

  The fact was, he had credit with Dave Zeiss, at the Old Coffee House. You can’t swing credit in an automated place. Squiring Helen Fontaine around ran into money. You had to dress up to her, you had to be able, on demand, to take her to such spots as the Swank Room. He was lucky she didn’t object more strongly to his Volkshover. She thought it was some kind of affectation. Her own General Ford Cyclones were auto, of course. Even the sports model. He doubted if Helen could drive, had she been in a situation where she had actually to manipulate the controls.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been there,” she said idly. “What’s wrong with an automated coffee shop?”

  “It’s just that I sort of like waiters.”

  “Oh, Mother, I feel awful. How far is this place of yours? Why in the world do you continue to hang around in radio, Little Ed? Why don’t you go into business, like everybody else I know? Doesn’t money make any difference to you at all?”

  He rolled his eyes upward, in knowledge that the darkness hid his expression. “I don’t know. I like radio. Of course, I’d rather have the program on TV. You sure you couldn’t drop a word to your father?”

  “Where is this place?” Her tone was getting on the petulant side. Confound it, she was a spoiled brat.

  “Coming up now.” Ed dropped the lift lever and drifted into the Old Coffee House’s parking area. It was far enough out of the city’s center for parking to be above ground. Even as he went through the motions of killing the Volkshover’s life, opening the door for her, and escorting her toward the brilliantly lighted coffee shop, Ed Wonder was muttering inwardly. Why didn’t he go into business … didn’t money make any difference at all? Ha! Why didn’t he raise walruses in goldfish bowls?

  “Let’s sit at the counter,” Helen said. “Order for me while I freshen up.” She was off to the ladies’ room.

  Ed took a stool at the counter.

  Dave Zeiss came up and they swapped standardized amenities. Ed made his request for credit, which was accepted, ordered the coffee.

  He said, “Listen, how about turning off that screen and the juke box? Between the two, I can’t hear my marbles rattle.”

  Dave chuckled appreciatively. “I never before did hear that one, Mr. Wonder. You radio guys always got them on tap. How come you don’t like no music, being in the business and all?”

  “That’s the exact reason I don’t like no music,” Ed growled. “Just because three quarters of the country doesn’t have anything to do but sit and stare at their idiot boxes, giving me a job supplying something for them to stare at, or listen to, doesn’t mean I have to like it too.”

  Dave was shaking his head. “Gees, I’m sorry, Mr. Wonder, but I can’t turn them off. I got other customers. You know how folks are. They go squirrel if it gets too quiet. If there wasn’t no music going on, they’d go to the next joint.”

  “I wanted to do some serious talking with the lady I’m with.”

  “I tell you, Mr. Wonder, I’d like to do it, but it wouldn’t do no good, even if I did. Even if they did stick around, they’d just start tuning in their portables. There’s hardly anybody anymore doesn’t carry around at least a portable radio, usually a TV.”

  A new voice said, “Little Ed Wonder! Horatio Alger’s representative on radio!”

  Ed looked around. “Hi, Buzzo. How’s the demon reporter? How the devil do you ever hold a job dressed like a bum?”

  The other said, “I seldom do, Little Ed. Seldom do, you old clothes horse.”

  Ed said, screwing up his nose, “What do they make your cigars out of, rolled up army blankets?”

  De Kemp took the object in question from his mouth and looked at it fondly. “This isn’t a cigar, it’s a stogie. When I was a kid I saw Tyrone Power playing a Mississippi gambler and smoking stogies. Never forgot it. A great Mississippi steamboat gambler was lost in me, Little Ed. I’ve got the soul for it. It’s a shame the sidepaddle river boat ever went out.”

  Ed caught a glimpse of Helen returning to him and swiveled on his stool to help her to a place. Then his eyes bugged. He opened his mouth, couldn’t think of anything to say and closed it again.

  Buzz De Kemp, his back to Helen so that he hadn’t seen her coming up, said, “Little Ed, what’s this gaff I hear about you playing up to some rich society dame? Somebody said you were trying to marry the boss’ daughter. You getting tired of working, chum? She hasn’t got a friend, has she?”

  Ed Wonder closed his eyes in mute agony.

  Helen looked her aristocratic look down her straight nose at the reporter. “What is this?” she said to Ed, not, Who is this?

  Ed groaned. “Miss Fontaine, may I present Buzz De Kemp, of the Times-Tribune. That is, if he’s still got the job. Buzz—Helen.”

  Buzz shook his head. “Phooey. You can’t be Helen Fontaine. Big glamour girl type. All jigged up hair styles, makeup that takes a couple of hours to plaster on. I’ve seen pictures of Helen…”

  Helen turned to Ed, almost defensively. She said, “I washed my face and combed out my hair, just to get more comfortable. It must have been filthy in that tent. I absolutely itched.” She took the coffee and stirred sugar into it.

  Ed Wonder couldn’t keep from staring at her. He said, “Listen, Helen, you didn’t take that old duffer’s sounding off seriously, did you?”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, watching the waiter fill her cup again. “It was simply dirty in that tent—I suppose.”

  “What’s everybody talking about? What tent?” Buzz asked.

  Ed said impatiently, “Helen and I went to a supposed revival meeting. Some offbeat crank named Ezekiel Joshua Tubber.”

  “Oh, Tubber,” Buzz said. “I wanted to do up a couple of articles about him but the city editor said nobody was interested in new religious cults.”

  Helen looked at him, as though for the first time. “You’ve been to his meetings?”

  “That’s right. I’ve got a phobia for offbeat political economy theories. Regular phobia.”

  To keep the conversation going along the present path, in wishful prayer that it would never get back to Buzz’s crack about trying to marry the boss’ daughter, Ed said, “Political economy? He’s supposed to be a religious twitch, not an economist.”

  Buzz took a long drink of coffee before answering. He put the cup down and pointed at Ed with his stogie. “Where religion lets off and socio-economics begins can be a moot question, Little Ed. You’ll find most of the world’s religions have a foundation in the economic system of their time. Take Judaism. When Moses laid down those laws of his, chum, they covered every aspect of the nomad life of the Jews
. Property relationships, treatment of slaves, treatment of servants and employees, money questions. The works. Same thing with Mohammedism.”

  Ed said, “That was a long time ago.”

  Buzz grinned at him and stuck the stogie back in his mouth. He said around it, “Want a more recent example? Take Father Divine. Ever heard of his movement? It started back in the big depression, and, believe me, if the Second War hadn’t come along Father Divine’s so-called religion might have swept the country. Because why? Because it was basically a socio-economic movement. It fed people at a time when a lot were going hungry. It was sort of a primitive communism. Everybody tossed everything he had into the common kitty. If you didn’t have anything to toss, that was okay too, you were still welcome. And then everybody worked, fixing up the delapidated old mansions they bought into what they called heavens. Those who could, got jobs on the outside as maids, chauffeurs, cooks or whatever, and the cash they brought in went into the kitty too. When a heaven saved up enough money and when enough new converts came along, they bought another old mansion and fixed up another heaven. Oh, it was going great guns until the war came along and things boomed and everybody hurried off to make a hundred dollars a week welding in the shipyards.”

  Helen said, “What you say might apply to Father Divine and the Mohammedans, but not all religions are, well, economic.”

  Buzz De Kemp looked at her. “That’s not exactly the way I put it. But, anyway, name one.”

  “Don’t be silly. Christianity.”

  Buzz threw back his head and laughed. He ground his stogie out. He said, “Who was it that said if Christianity hadn’t come along when it did, it would have been to the advantage of the Romans to invent it? And maybe they did.”

  “Why, you’re insane. The Romans persecuted the Christians. Anybody knows that who’s read anything at all about history.”

  “At first they persecuted them, but they made it the State religion after catching on to the fact that it was the perfect religion for a slave society. It promised pie in the sky when you died. Suffer on earth, and you get your just desert after death. What could be a better creed to keep an exploited population quiet?”

  Ed Wonder said morosely, “This is getting to be a swell evening. We’re sitting here arguing politics and religion. What do you say we amble on, Helen? There’s still time to take in a show. I’ve got a couple of tickets to—”

  Helen was saying heatedly, “You sound like an atheist!”

  The reporter did a burlesque bow. “An agnostic with atheistic tendencies.” He grunted ruefully. “Actually, I can’t make any claims to intellectual superiority. My mother came from a long-time family of agnostics, and my father, though born a Seventh Day Adventist became one of those street corner atheists. You know, great for cornering some poor sincere Baptist and demanding if Adam and Eve were the only people in the world, who did Cain marry? So I was raised in an atmosphere that lacked belief in any organized religion. I became an agnostic for the same reason you became a Methodist or Presbyterian…”

  “I’m an Episcopalian!” Helen snapped, not placated by his wry self-deprecation.

  “Like your parents? And suppose a trick of fate had you born into a Moslem family? Or a Shintoist one. What do you think you’d be? Nope. Miss Fontaine—you really are Helen Fontaine, eh?—I am afraid we both lack originality.”

  “Well, anyway that doesn’t apply to me,” Ed said. “My people were both Baptists and I switched to Episcopalian.”

  Buzz De Kemp grunted. “You know, Little Ed, I suspect that under that fawning, pyramid-climbing exterior which you present to the world, beats a heart of pure brass. Let’s face up to cruel reality. You’re an opportunist. It’s all the thing to be an Episcopalian.”

  Ed Wonder awoke from no deep dream of peace and groaned the words that had to be said to register with the voco-alarm and turn it off. The action brought back to mind that he was going to have to check his credit balance. The Volkshover wasn’t paid for yet, not to speak of this far out TV-stereo-radio-phono-tape recorder-alarmclock built into his apartment wall.

  He swung his legs over the side of the bed and scratched his wisp of a mustache. He moaned gently as he came to his feet and started for the bathroom. He stared into the mirror. Thirty-three years. When did you start getting middleaged? Maybe at forty. You couldn’t exactly call yourself young anymore at forty. He looked into his face for wrinkles, realizing he’d been doing that more often recently. He didn’t hare any wrinkles to speak of. And that merest touch of gray at his temples was on the plus side. Gave him some dignity. That was one of the advantages of a roundish face, slightly on the plump side. The wrinkles didn’t show like they did on a thin, long face.

  He skinned back his lips so he could see his teeth. That was one of his unsolved problems, whether or not to have his lower front teeth straightened a bit for TV appearance. But then, there was such a thing as too perfect teeth. The twitches tuned in figured they were false.

  And how about his mustache? Should he shave it off completely or let it grow heavier? He was presently wearing a thin line of a mustache currently popular among the bright young executive types. The trouble was, a thin mustache made him look like a stereotype Parisian gigolo. He probably wasn’t suited for a mustache at all, he decided gloomily. A mustache went with a face that had quite a space between the upper lip and the nose.

  If he ever got the program on TV and off this kooky late hour radio arrangement, he’d have to settle about both teeth and mustache. You can’t go switching your appearance once you get to be a TV personality. The viewers get used to the way you look and they want you to continue looking that way. They don’t have brains enough to put up with switches. It irritates them.

  He opened the jar of NoShav depilatory and began spreading it over his right cheek, rubbing it in well. Quite a few of the boys in TV had resorted to having their beards permanently removed. You couldn’t take chances of your public image. What was the name of that presidential candidate, way back, who supposedly lost the election because on camera he looked like he hadn’t shaved? The idea made Ed Wonder uncomfortable. Removing the hair from his face each morning was an act of masculinity. Had a way of making you feel, well, like a man. However, you couldn’t take chances with your public image. You couldn’t afford to look like a hooligan if you got your program onto TV.

  The question of his credit balance came up again. Trying to keep up to Helen’s pace was getting to him. He wished he had the gumption to ask her to marry him. He had an unhappy suspicion that the idea would fracture her. But he had to do it sooner or later. The son-in-law of Jensen Fontaine. Holy smokes.

  Maybe he should have asked her the night before. She was gay there for a while. And at one time, depressed. He’d never seen her before with her hair combed straight and her face completely free of makeup. Come to think of it, she had a certain wistful appeal, looking that way. He had to laugh inwardly. That old coot, what was his name? Tubber. Ezekiel Joshua Tubber. He had something with that able-to-swell personality of his. He’d evidently set Helen back with that cursing vanity, or whatever it was he had cursed.

  Ed reached for a towel to wipe away the NoShav.

  Ed Wonder parked his little hover car in the Fontaine Building’s cellar parking area and made his way to the elevators. There was only one fellow passenger in the elevator, a dowdily dressed, plain-faced young woman. She evidently didn’t care much about her appearance. Ed wondered vaguely who she worked for and who, in the swank Fontaine Building, would put up with such a drab.

  It was none of his business. He didn’t bother to wait for her to call her floor first. He said, “Twentieth,” and the auto-operator said, “Twentieth, yes sir.” The girl called her own floor, in a throaty slur of a voice that vibrated warmth.

  Ed Wonder looked at her with slightly more interest. With a voice like that, she belonged on the air. He took in her features. Why any beautician could go to town on that face. You could…

  He pulled himse
lf up, startled.

  He said, “Oh. Pardon me. I didn’t recognize you, Miss Malone. I didn’t even know you were in Kingsburg.”

  She took him in, disinterestedly. “Hello, uhh, Little Ed, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right,” he told her eagerly. “I caught your network program Monday night. Real sharpy.”

  “Thanks, Little Ed. I came up for a special program. What are you doing these days? I don’t believe I’ve seen you since you helped with the commercials on the—let’s see…”

  “The Sophisticated Heure show,” Ed reminded her, wagging his tail at the recognition. “I’ve got my own program now.”

  Her eyebrows went up and she tried to project interest. “Really? How nice. Well, I’m afraid this is my floor.”

  When she was gone, he scowled in perplexity. Then his face cleared. She was incognito. That was the way to handle avoiding the fans. Why, not even he recognized her. When he had a name like Mary Malone’s, maybe he’d have to figure out ways to keep his public off too.

  He strolled down the corridor to his desk, his mind on the program to come. He’d had a letter from a swami, or yoga, or whatever he was, that might be a lead. He hadn’t had any Hindus on the show for some time. Indians went over pretty well. They sounded authentic. He noted vaguely that someone else was sitting at Dolly’s desk. Maybe the girl was ill. That’d be a pain. Dolly was his part-time assistant, his program not calling for a full secretary. She did most of the drudgery, and had been with him since he’d first got Mulligan’s okay for his offbeat show.

  Ed Wonder pulled up before her desk and began to inquire who this newcomer was, then shut his mouth with an audible pop.

  He opened it again to say, “What in the name of Mountain Moving Mohammed are you doing in this getup?”

  Dolly said defensively, “What’s wrong with it?”

  “You look like a country hick.”