He’d probably have to write plenty of them, he thought gloomily. Even here in Long Beach the situation was going to be tough. In Hollywood it would have been impossible.
Hollywood was the hardest hit spot in the country. Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City and the whole movie colony area. Everybody connected in whatever capacity with the movie and television and radio businesses was out of work. Actors, producers, announcers, everyone. All in the same boat, and the boat had sunk suddenly.
And by secondary reaction everything else in Hollywood was being hit hard. Bankrupt or failing were the thousands of shops, beauty parlors, hotels, taverns, restaurants and call houses whose clientele had been mostly among movie people.
Hollywood was becoming a deserted village. The only people staying there were those who, for one reason or another, couldn’t get out. As he, Luke, wouldn’t have been able to get out, except by walking, if he’d waited much longer.
Probably, he thought, he should have gone farther from Hollywood than Long Beach but he hated to cut deeply into his dwindling hoard for long-distance transportation. And anyway, things were tough all over.
Throughout the country—except Hollywood, which simply gave up—BUSINESS AS USUAL had been the slogan for a week now.
And in some businesses it worked, more or less. You can get used to driving a truck with a Martian sneering at the way you drive or jumping up and down on the hood—or if you can’t get used to it, at least you can do it. Or you can sell groceries across a counter with a Martian sitting—weightlessly but irremovably—on top of your head and dangling his feet in front of your face while he heckles you and the customer impartially. Things like that are wearing on the nerves but they can be done.
Other businesses did not fare so well. As we have seen, the entertainment business was the first and hardest hit.
Live television was particularly impossible. Although filmed television shows were not interrupted that first night, except at some stations where technicians panicked at the sight of Martians, every live television broadcast was off the air within minutes. The Martians loved to disrupt live broadcasts, either television or radio ones.
Some television and radio stations closed down completely, for the duration, or forever if the Martians stayed forever. Others were still operating, using only canned material, but it was obvious that people would tire soon of seeing and hearing old material over and over again—when a temporary absence of Martians in the living room permitted them to see and hear it without interruption.
And, of course, no one in his right mind was interested in buying new television and radio sets, so there went a good many more thousands of people out of work all over the country, all of those engaged in the manufacture and sale of television and radio sets.
And the many thousands who had worked in theaters, concert halls, stadiums, other places of mass entertainment. Mass entertainment of any sort was out; when you brought together a mass of people you brought together a mass of Martians, and whatever was supposed to be entertainment ceased to be such even if it was possible for it to continue at all. Scratch baseball players, ticket sellers, ushers, wrestlers, projectionists…
Yes, things were tough all over. The Great Depression of the nineteen thirties was beginning to look like a period of prosperity.
Yes, Luke was thinking, it was going to be a tough job to find a job. And the sooner he got at it the better. He tossed the last few things impatiently into the dresser drawer, noticing somewhat to his surprise that Margie’s Y.W.C.A. T-shirt was among them—why had he brought that?—felt his face to remind himself that he’d shaved, ran his pocket comb quickly through his hair, and left the room.
The telephone was on a table in the hall and he sat down at it and pulled the phone book over. Two Long Beach newspapers came first. Not that he had any real hope of getting on one, but reporting was the least onerous type of work he could think of, and it wouldn’t cost him anything to try, except for a couple of dimes in the telephone. Besides he knew Hank Freeman on the News, which might give him an in on one of the two papers.
He dialed the News. There was a Martian at the switchboard jabbering along with the switchboard girl, trying to foul up calls and sometimes succeeding, but he finally got through to Hank. Hank worked on the city desk.
“Luke Devereaux, Hank. How are things?”
“Wonderful, if you don’t care what you say. How are the Greenies treating you, Luke?”
“No worse than anybody else, I guess. Except that I’m looking for a job. How are chances of getting on the News?”
“Zero point zero. There’s a waiting list as long as your arm for every kind of job here. Plenty of ’em with newspaper experience, too—left newspaper work to go into radio or TV. You never worked on a newspaper, did you?”
“I carried a route when I was a kid.”
“You couldn’t even get a job doing that now, pal. Sorry, there isn’t a ghost of a chance of anything, Luke. Things are so tough we’re all taking pay cuts. And with so much high-powered talent trying to get in, I’m afraid of losing my own job.”
“Pay cuts? With no competition from newscasts, I’d think newspapers would be booming.”
“Circulation is booming. But a newspaper’s revenue depends on advertising, not on circulation. And that’s way down. So many people are out of work and not buying that every store in town’s had to cut its advertising budget with a dull ax. Sorry, Luke.”
Luke didn’t bother to phone the other newspaper.
He went out, walked over to Pine Avenue and south into the business district. The streets were full of people and Martians. The people were mostly glum and silent, but the strident voices of the Martians made up for that. There was less auto traffic than usual and most drivers drove very cautiously. Martians had a habit of kwimming suddenly onto the hoods of cars, right in front of windshields. The only answer to that was to drive slowly and with a foot on the brake pedal ready to stop the instant vision was cut off.
It was dangerous, too, to drive through a Martian, unless you were sure that he wasn’t standing in front of some obstacle to block your view of it.
Luke saw an example of that. There vas a line of Martians part way across Pine Avenue just south of Seventh Street. They seemed to be very quiet, for Martians, and Luke wondered why—until a Cadillac came along at about twenty miles an hour and the driver, with a grim look on his face, suddenly speeded up and swerved slightly to drive through the line. It had been masking two-foot-wide trench dug for laying sewer pipe. The Cadillac bounced like a bronco and the right front wheel came off and rolled ahead of it down Pine Avenue. The driver broke the windshield with his head and got out of the wrecked car dripping blood and profanity. The Martians yelled with glee.
At the next corner, Luke bought a newspaper. And, seeing a shoeshine stand, decided to get a shine while he looked at the ads. His last paid-for shine until after he was solvent and working again, he told himself; hereafter he’d keep his own shoes shined.
He turned to the want ads, looked for MALE HELP WANTED. At first be thought there weren’t any such ads, then he found a quarter of a column of them. But there might as well have been none, he realized within a few minutes, as far as he was concerned. Jobs offered were in two categories only—highly skilled technical jobs demanding a special training and experience, and NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED sucker ads for house-to-house canvassers on straight commission. Luke had tried that toughest of rackets years before when he was in his twenties and just getting a start at writing; he’d convinced himself that be couldn’t even give away free samples, let alone sell anything. And that had been in “good tunes.” No use his trying it again now, no matter bow desperate he got.