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“Whyn’t you run off, give your place to someone who appreciates?”
“Leave the boy alone,” said the man ahead, suddenly turning.
“I was joking.” The man behind put his hand on the boy’s head. The boy shook it away coldly. “I just thought it strange, a boy out of bed so early.”
“This boy’s an appreciator of arts, I’ll have you know,” said the boy’s defender, a man named Grigsby. “What’s your name, lad?”
“Tom.”
“Tom here is going to spit clean and true, right, Tom?”
“I sure am!”
Laughter passed down the line.
A man was selling cracked cups of hot coffee up ahead. Tom looked and saw the little hot fire and the brew bubbling in a rusty pan. It wasn’t really coffee. It was made from some berry that grew on the meadowlands beyond town, and it sold a penny a cup to warm their stomachs; but not many were buying, not many had the wealth.
Tom stared ahead to the place where the line ended, beyond a bombed-out stone wall.
“They say she smiles,” said the boy.
“Aye, she does,” said Grigsby.
“They say she’s made of oil and canvas.”
“True. And that’s what makes me think she’s not the original one. The original, now, I’ve heard, was painted on wood a long time ago.”
“They say she’s four centuries old.”
“Maybe more. No one knows what year this is, to be sure.”
“It’s 2061!”
“That’s what they say, boy, yes. Liars. Could be 3000 or 5000, for all we know. Things were in a fearful mess there for a while. All we got now is bits and pieces.”
They shuffled along the cold stones of the street.
“How much longer before we see her?” asked Tom uneasily.
“Just a few more minutes. They got her set up with four brass poles and velvet rope, all fancy, to keep folks back. Now mind, no rocks, Tom; they don’t allow rocks thrown at her.”
“Yes, sir.”
The sun rose higher in the heavens, bringing heat which made the men shed their grimy coats and greasy hats.
“Why’re we all here in line?” asked Tom at last. “Why’re we all here to spit?”
Grigsby did not glance down at him, but judged the sun. “Well, Tom, there’s lots of reasons.” He reached absently for a pocket that was long gone, for a cigarette that wasn’t there. Tom had seen the gesture a million times. “Tom, it has to do with hate. Hate for everything in the past. I ask you, Tom, how did we get in such a state, cities all junk, roads like jigsaws from bombs, and half the cornfields glowing with radioactivity at night? Ain’t that a lousy stew, I ask you?”
“Yes, sir, I guess so.”
“It’s this way, Tom. You hate whatever it was that got you all knocked down and ruined. That’s human nature. Unthinking, maybe, but human nature anyway.”
“There’s hardly nobody or nothing we don’t hate,” said Tom.
“Right! The whole blooming kaboodle of them people in the past who run the world. So here we are on a Thursday morning with our guts plastered to our spines, cold, live in caves and such, don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t nothing except have our festivals, Tom, our festivals.”
And Tom thought of the festivals in the past few years. The year they tore up all the books in the square and burned them and everyone was drunk and laughing. And the festival of science a month ago when they dragged in the last motorcar and picked lots and each lucky man who won was allowed one smash of a sledge-hammer at the car.
