C. M. Kornbluth

“ Mr. Cioni saw the man approach jauntily. Who, he wondered, can be full of bounce at this hour—one of the new people from the field hospital? But as the man came into the cone of light from the shaded Coleman lantern he saw that the fellow wasn't army, that he wore in fact the uniform of an old-timer who had been through the day and a half on the spot. The uniform was a stained and shapeless suit, mud-caked shoes, red eyes and a growth of beard. ”

“ Chesbro said.
Sharon permitted herself a frown, her face turned away. She said gaily, "Probably loving every minute of it, Arthur. It must be pretty exciting for her. Anyway," she added blandly, "Mickey Groff's probably taking good care of her."
"Mickey Groff?" He looked at her with surprise. "Polly?"
Sharon said, "Well, he did seem rather interested—"
Chesbro shook his head. "Oh, no. You don't know Polly. Believe me, men aren't her—" He hesitated, and said, "Believe me, she has too much sense to get involved with a two-bit operator like him. She's loyal, Sharon. Absolutely loyal to me." ”

“ Here in the streets and on the steps they saw drunken men and women with blank despair in their eyes tilting bottles skyward. One of them drained his bottle and yelled: "To hell with it!" and hurled the empty through the plate-glass window of a silt-choked little magazine-and-candy store. A man, not young, sitting in the store came charging out with a sawed-off ball bat in his hands, swinging. "You cheap rotten bum!" he yelled. "Things aren't bad enough, you have to make them worse!"
While the drunk stared stupidly, Groff rushed between them and caught the wrists of the man with the bat. ”

“ She glared furiously at the other woman, trembling with anger. Polly Chesbro was wiser than she; Polly felt the anger, and knew it was directed not at herself but at something inside the old lady. Polly said perceptively, "Don't worry, Mrs. Goudeket. Everything always works out."
The old lady was crying. Dick McCue stared in wonder as Polly Chesbro put her arms around the woman and protected her from the harsh surrounding world. ”

“ Please, you have to excuse—"
"There's nothing to excuse," said Polly Chesbro. "We're all worn out."
"No, not worn out. Tired, yes. Sick, maybe." Mrs. Goudeket wiped her streaming nose and said dismally, "Ever since Sam died it's slave, slave, slave. You know what Sam said? Every year. 'Next year we go to the Holy Land, why not?' And always I found a reason. So we kept on with the hotel, and it killed him." She patted Polly's arm absently. "Worn out is from a summer with the guests complaining about the food and changing their rooms. From something like this flood you only get tired." ”

“ Take the woman's husband, for instance. He was chattering away to, of all people, sick-pup Dick McCue; but his eyes kept wandering to Mickey Groff.
Mrs. Goudeket scolded: "Sharon! The blanket for Mr. Starkman, you forgot it?"
"He can take mine," Sharon said—she didn't want to go back to the storeroom just then. She handed the holed, grease-spotted rag to the old man, then remembered and carefully draped it around his shoulders. "They stink," she told him cheerfully. "And I think they've got bugs; but they're better than pneumonia." She grinned at Mickey Groff. ”

“ The flood was only the mercy bullet through the blindfold, after the man was down.
Polly was awake. She said, "Mrs. Goudeket, it's nice of you to offer to take us in, but—"
"But?" repeated Mrs. Goudeket. "What but?"
Polly Chesbro said, "I don't want to leave Mr. Starkman."
Mrs. Goudeket snapped angrily, "He's your father, maybe? A whole hospital they bring in on trucks to take care of him, and you can't trust the doctors to fix him up? So stay, Mrs. Chesbro! Hang around the old man some more, make a fool out of yourself. But I have to get to work!" ”

“ In the persons of Starkman the burgess, Groff the dynamic young executive, Sharon the shrewd opportunist, Mrs. Goudeket, the resort owner, and others, you will meet and understand the varying human elements that the flood unleashed and intensified. Through it all you will sense a growing feeling of pride—that despite the selfishness of some, the people of the town met the terrible onslaught with courage and a sense of mutual help. ”

“ Groff said grimly. He walked into the smoke and, holding his breath, came out with a smoldering armful of suits off a rack. He dumped them in the gutter, where they charred and stank.
"Axes," a man sighed. "Hardware store around the corner."
"I'll get 'em," shouted Mrs. Goudeket, trotting off. "Save the man's stock. Don't let the fire spread."
The next half hour was a nightmare of chopping and prying at burning wood, dashing out for smokefree air when you had got a little ahead of the flames. Groff burned his left forearm when he brushed once against the still-blistering frame of the car. ”

“ Dick McCue said, "I wonder if it's safe to smoke."
Mrs. Goudeket snapped: "In a situation like this you don't take chances."
Groff said slowly, "I think it's all right. Gas fumes are heavy; they hug the ground. If we hadn't been sleeping on the floor—"
"I guess I'd better not," McCue said uncertainly. "You can't smell much up here but—I wonder where the water level is now."
"We'll know in the morning," Chesbro said. "Couple of hours. My God, who would have thought it yesterday?"
Sharon Froman said, "It's bad, Mr. Chesbro. It means a permanent loss of industry—unless we move fast." ”

“ Because I wanted to be my own boss, I wanted to be a pioneer, it's no good crowding into the big cities and working for other people. In this country you have to make money to be respected, nobody respects you if you're just a working stiff all your life. So I saved and I bought that place through a broker and I've been slaving for five years, eating the lousy food and thinking about broiled lamb I'm going to eat every day when I find a wife, and then...."
He subsided and the rain drummed down.
They're an emotional people, Mickey Groff thought automatically, and then cursed himself. ”

“ The pile of clothes from the store was dwindling before his eyes. People were picking it over and grabbing; Mrs. Goudeket was screaming at them: "Leave the man's stock alone! I'll—I'll—" She took an axe and made a feeble pass at a man in mechanic's coveralls. He shoved her hard and sent her sprawling. Polly Chesbro began to curse the man fluently; he ignored her as if she were a buzzing fly. Groff went and picked up the gasping old woman. "You hurt?" he asked.
She rubbed her behind and shook her head, glaring murderously. "Loafers," she said. "Bums without brains to run a business themselves. ”

“ Either the rain had slackened off a little or Zehedi was more worried about what was behind them than about the rain; they roared up the hill, accelerating all the way, and only stopped when they saw another car parked by the side of the road, lights on and windshield wipers flapping, and a man leaning out of the opened door, staring back.
It was the car that had passed them. Zehedi recklessly stopped alongside him, making it a tight squeeze in case another car wanted to get by. The other driver misinterpreted the move. ”

“ In the marble lobby of the schoolhouse Mickey Groff was studying an extraordinary organization that had sprung up within a very few hours. Card tables had been set up and conference tables dragged from offices and classrooms. For an ad-hoc government with the wires out you wanted everything under one roof, in one room, instead of scattered through a town hall. When a man came to you with trouble you could fix, this way there was no phone to pick up; this way you called across the room and things happened fast.
There were two main centers around the fire chief and the police chief. ”

“ Chesbro was at it again, he noticed abstractedly. It didn't take him fifty words to get from the flood to Topic A—why the borough of Hebertown should, ought and must give him the old Swanscomb place. But the burgess didn't mind. Chesbro was a saturation-talker; his tactic was to hammer, hammer, hammer away, never giving the other man a chance to get an adverse word in; and it wasn't too hard, after all, to listen to the rain on the car roof instead. ”

“ A day and a half I been away from Goudeket's Green Acres, and all the time I been worried sick. You know something? Now I'm not worried."
Mickey Groff said, "That's right, Mrs. Goudeket. There's nothing to worry about. Everything's all right there, you'll see."
She looked at him surprised. "All right? Nah." She shook her head. "All wrong, you mean. Believe me, Mickey, I know what can happen to a place like Goudeket's Green Acres when it should only rain three days in a row, much less something like this. Goudeket's Green Acres is finished. What's the sense trying to kid myself? ”

“ You don't last thirty years in the resort business unless you know how to take your mind off your troubles. Mrs. Goudeket, sipping delicately from a quart bottle of black cherry soda, chattered gaily: "Soda pop! Three years I haven't had a drop of soda pop. Now don't tell on me, Dick. If Dr. Postal ever finds out, he'll kill me next time he comes to the hotel—" She choked on a swallow of the soda.
Dick McCue sat on one of the counter stools, sneering at the spectacle Sharon Froman was making of herself over that Mickey Groff. ”

“ They apathetically began to trudge down the hill to the temporary hospital.
"Out of gas," Groff said. "They're all running out of gas."
And then one car that was not out of gas, a low-slung sports job, came rocketing along the road, took a turn too fast and skidded on the mud-slick street. Its fishtail swerved left into a fire hydrant with a crash that made the dishes behind the diner counter rattle. On the rebound the car's remaining energy sent it nosing to the right through the plate window of a clothing store. ”

“ Why can't you be reasonable? You're an outlander here, you've got nothing to do with the community. You want to move in with your nickel factory? Go ahead. I won't stand in your way. I'll even help you. But you can't do anything with the federal grants, because you don't have the connections, because you don't have the information about who needs what, because you aren't local and wouldn't be allowed to come within smelling distance of it in the first place. Why not live and let live?"
He was open and honest, Groff saw—as open and honest as the likes of Artie Chesbro ever knew how to be. ”

“ Sam Zehedi said. "You give a Syrian a busted machine and a wrench, he'll have it going in five minutes. We're a civilized, Christian people. We been Christian a lot longer than the French or the Germans. And you know what some dumb people called me when I first bought the store? An Ay-rab. A heathen Ay-rab."
"They'll learn." Groff shrugged. He studied the newspaper story. So this Chesbro was interested in newspapers. It looked, it very definitely looked, as though he might have a piece of the Hebertown Weekly Times in his pocket; the story was pure propaganda. ”

“ Groff dashed for the cab when the door swung open and vaulted in. His speed hadn't helped him a bit; he was wet all over again from his brief exposure.
Zehedi got out on his side, sensibly swathed in a slicker, put out the lantern in the store and locked up. He climbed back into the cab and had to raise his voice to be heard above the rain beating on the top. "Well, here we go, mister. About how far?"
"Quarter of a mile, maybe."
"We'll get you there." He put the truck in gear and crawled away from the store, feeding the gas lightly. "My tires are pretty good," he said. ”

“ Goudeket. "You thought nobody knew? You thought you could see through everybody, Miss Sharon Froman, but nobody could see through you? We all know you have an upper plate. We all know you'll never finish your book or hold a man. We all see through you because we all see through each other, but we know also that we're seen through. That makes us sometimes kind to each other—we have to be. But you, you have to think you're perfect and that if anybody sees anything less than perfect in you it's because they're fools."
The '47 Dodge rolled slowly into the motor pool. ”

“ You had to make money and you had to grow. Mr. Goudeket had never understood that. Orange trees were all very well, but since 1926 she had been the driver, the doer, the builder. And Mr. Goudeket had never got to Palestine after all, which showed that dreaming got you nowhere. She felt a guilty twinge. One year they could have made the cruise. One year there had been nothing urgent, which is a miraculous year in the resort business. She had put the money aside as a reserve and said nothing about it, and poor Mr. Goudeket couldn't understand a financial statement. ”

“ As he headed back to the car where the Chesbros were waiting, he thought: Red's a good man and he's right, only he hasn't finished thinking it through yet. We need all those things all right. But after this—what taxpayers?
Artie Chesbro was sulking. If that power-mad son of a bitch Starkman had been willing to give him two lousy minutes of his time, they could have got the whole thing over with and he'd be back in Summit by now, getting a good night's sleep, instead of catching pneumonia sitting in the car. ”

“ Burgess Starkman's voice emerged from an attack of coughing. "He's dead, Mrs. Goudeket. You shouldn't—" He broke into coughing again.
Mickey Groff grunted, trying to talk. It was important to clear that up. His head was pounding, but Mrs. Goudeket didn't understand. "He was a Syrian," he croaked. "A civilized Christian people."
"Mr. Groff!" said Mrs. Goudeket. "You're better! We were afraid—You're a hero, Mr. Groff. You saved our lives. Except—"
"Zehedi?" he asked. ”