Folding back the paper to the front page, he wondered if he’d made a mistake in picking Long Beach. Why had he? Not, certainly, because the mental hospital his ex-wife Margie worked at was here. He wasn’t going to look her up; he was through with women. For a long time, anyway. A brief but very unpleasant scene with the fair Rosalind the day after his return to Hollywood had shown him that the Martian hadn’t been lying about what had happened in her apartment the night before. (Damn them, they never lied when they tattled; you had to believe them.)
Had Long Beach been a mistake?
The front page of the paper told him that things were tough all over. DRASTIC CUT IN DEFENSE SPENDING, the President announced. Yes, he admitted that that would cause more unemployment, but the money was desperately needed for relief and would go farther that way. And relief—with people starving—was certainly more important than defense spending, the President told the press conference.
In fact, defense spending wasn’t important at all, just at the moment. The Russians and the Chinese were having troubles of their own, worse than ours. Besides, by now we knew all their secrets and they knew all ours—and, the President had said with a wry smile, you can’t fight a war that way.
Luke, who had served a three-year hitch as an ensign in the navy ten years before, shuddered at the thought of fighting a war with the Martians gleefully helping both sides.
STOCK MARKET STILL ON TOBOGGAN, another article told him. But entertainment stocks, like radio, moving picture, television and theater, had staged a slight comeback. After being considered completely worthless the week before, they were now being bid for at about a tenth of their former value, as a long-shot long range gamble, by people who thought and hoped that the Martians might not stay long. But industrials reflected the defense spending cut with a sharp drop, and all other stocks were down at least a few points. The big drops, all down the lane, had happened the week before.
Luke paid for his shine and left the paper on the seat. A line of men, and a few women, that led around a corner caused him to turn the corner to see where the line led. It was an employment agency. For a moment he considered going back and joining the line; then, in the window, he saw a sign that read REGISTRATION FEE $10, and decided the hell with it. With hundreds of people being registered the chance of getting a job through that agency certainly wasn’t worth ten bucks of his dwindling capital. But hundreds of people were paying it.
And if there were any employment agencies that didn’t charge registration fees, they’d be mobbed even worse.
He drifted on.
A tall elderly man with fierce eyes and a wild gray beard stood on a soapbox at the curb between two parked cars. Half a dozen people stood listening listlessly. Luke stopped and leaned against a building.
“…and why, I ask you, do they never tell lies in their meddling? Why are they truthful? Why? So that, since they tell no small lies, you will believe their BIG LIE!
“And what, my friends, is their BIG LIE? It is, that they are Martians. That is what they want you to believe, to the eternal damnation of your souls.
Martians! They are DEVILS, devils out of the foulest depths of hell, sent by SATAN, as is predicted in the Book of Revelations!
“And, O my friends, you are damned, damned unless you see the TRUTH and pray, pray on your bended knees every hour of the day and night, to the ONE BEING who can drive them back whence they carne to tempt and torment us. O my friends, pray to GOD and to His Son, ask forgiveness for the EVILS of the WORLD that loosed these demons…”
Luke drifted on.
Probably, he thought, all over the world religious fanatics were taking that line, or a similar one.
We’ll, they could even be right. There wasn’t any proof that they were Martians. Only thing was, he personally believed that there could be Martians and he didn’t believe in devils and demons at all. For that reason, he was willing to take the Martians’ word for it.
Another queue, another employment agency.
A boy walking along with a pile of handbills handed Luke one. He slowed down to glance at it. “GREAT OPPORTUNITIES IN NEW PROFESSION,” he read. “BECOME A PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSULTANT.”
The rest was in smaller type and he stuffed it into his pocket. Maybe he’d read it later. A new racket, probably. A depression breeds rackets as a swamp breeds mosquitoes.
Another line of people leading around a corner. It seemed longer than the two other lines he’d passed and he wondered if it might be a public employment agency, one that wouldn’t charge a registration fee.
If so, it wouldn’t hurt to register, since he couldn’t think of anything more constructive to do at the moment. Besides, if his money ran out before he got a job, he’d have to be registered there before they’d let him go on relief. Or even get on any of the WPA-type projects that the government was already getting ready to organize. Would there be a Writers’ Project this time? If so, he could certainly qualify for that, and it wouldn’t take creative writing, just boondoggling along on something like a history of Long Beach, and even if he was burned out as a writer he could do that. In his sleep.
And the line seemed to be moving fairly fast, so fast that he decided they must be just handing out blanks for people to fill out and mail in.
Just the same, he’d check the head of the line first and make sure that was what was going on.
It wasn’t.
The line led to an emergency soup kitchen. It led through a doorway into a big building that looked as though it had once been a skating rink or a dance hall. It was filled now with long tables improvised from planks laid over sawbucks; hundreds of people, mostly men but a few women, sat at the tables hunched over bowls of soup. Scores of Martians ran up and down the tables, frequently stepping—but without other than visual effect, of course—into the steaming bowls and playing leapfrog over the diners’ heads.
The odor of the soup wasn’t bad, and it reminded Luke that he was hungry; it must be at least noon and he’d skipped breakfast. Why shouldn’t he join the line and husband his dwindling financial resources? Nobody seemed to be asking any questions; anybody who joined the line got a bowl.
Or did they? For a moment, he watched the table on which stood a big kettle of soup, from which a big man in a greasy apron ladled soup into bowls; he noticed that quite a few people turned down tine bowl offered them and, with a slightly sickish or disgusted look on their faces, turned and headed out again.
Luke put his hand on the arm of a man walking past him after declining a bowl. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “The soup look that bad? It smells all right.”
“Go look, chum,” said the man, disengaging his arm and hurrying outside.
Luke stepped closer arid looked. There was a Martian, he could see now, sitting or squatting in the middle of the bowl of soup. Every few seconds he would bend forward and stick a tremendously long chartreuse tongue into the soup in front of him. Then he’d pull his tongue back and pretend to spit out the soup, making a very disgusted and very disgusting noise in the process. The big man with the ladle paid no attention, dipping soup right out through the Martian. Some of the people in the line—the ones who’d been here before, Luke suspected—paid no attention either, or walked past with eyes carefully averted.