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Stories from the Verse
Multiverser: The Thirteenth Story
Chapter 9: Brown 367
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 159
Night was falling by the time they reached the city, but the streets, or many of them, were lit. Derek walked near one of the tall decorative poles and looked at the lamp above him.
“Gas,” he said. “I think that means at least mid nineteenth century, maybe into the mid twentieth, but history isn’t my strong suit. Well, let’s see what we can find.”
They continued into the city. Stores along here were by now closed, although people were still scurrying to get home, and there were more motorcars than he remembered from New Orleans, but still some horse-drawn carts. A voice called.
“Hey, kids, you want some tomatoes?”
Turning, Derek found the voice, a man with a horse-drawn wagon containing produce.
“I’m not sure we have any money,” he replied. The man shrugged.
“They’re not going to keep until tomorrow, and my wife and I won’t finish them tonight. No point in them going to waste.”
He glanced at Vashti and back, saying, “Thank you very much,” as he walked over to the cart, Vasthi echoing and following. The man made a hand motion Derek took as brushing off the thanks.
“Don’t mention it. Enjoy. Come on, girl, let’s get home.” And with that the man was gone, leaving them with a basket of tomatoes--not a bushel, Derek thought, perhaps a peck.
“Well, we won’t go hungry,” he said.
“Are these safe to eat?”
“Almost certainly. They won’t have invented pesticides yet, and there’s a lot of citric acid or something like it in tomatoes, so they’re pretty safe. Messy, though. Should have asked for napkins.”
“Seriously?”
“Joking.”
She nodded.
“Wait a minute,” he said, spotting something in a corner at the base of a building. Leaving the food with his wife, he trotted over and returned with most of a newspaper in hand.
“Chicago Tribune, June ninth, nineteen twenty-three. That puts us in Illinois, the north central United States, and that water must be, um, Lake Michigan? Anyway, one of the Great Lakes. And it’s the Roaring Twenties, Jazz age, maybe a decade after our New Orleans visit, a good thirty years before we were in Berkeley. But this isn’t either of those worlds--not enough psionics, although I’m hesitant to test the magic. Looks like Harding is President, and someone named Thompson is Mayor of Chicago.” He stared at a few headlines for another minute, decided he wasn’t going to learn anything useful, and closed the paper. Glancing for but not seeing a trash can, he decided that the newspaper would be as good a tablecloth and napkins as they were going to get.
“O.K., let’s find a place to have a picnic.”
They scooted off to the end of an alley and settled down, Derek spreading a double sheet of newsprint on the sidewalk in front of them and tearing another page into large napkins. “I should like to rinse these,” he said, wiping one of the tomatoes with one of his makeshift napkins, “but if we had water I would think it better to drink it.” Pushing up the sleeves of his suit, he took a bite from the tomato, and the juice ran down his arm.
“Not like eating peaches,” he said, “but not bad, and it’s food. Try one.” He handed her a napkin and one of the larger fruits. Copying what she had seen him do, she bit into it, and while she was still chewing she nodded agreeably.
They were each working on a third, about half of the total in the basket, when a policeman happened by.
“And what have we here?”
Derek swallowed and cleared his voice before answering. “Good evening, officer. My wife and I are just having a little picnic in the evening air.”
Derek thought the man raised an eyebrow. “Wife, is it?”
Vashti answered, “Yes, sir. Married in Persia a while back.”
The officer seemed uncertain how to respond to that. “Well,” he said, “don’t leave a mess on the street.”
“Certainly, sir,” Derek said. “Is there a trash can around here?”
The officer seemed to see the difficulty, and rubbing his chin and looking upward he said, “I don’t rightly know, but I’d check down that alley somewhere. Good night, now.”
“G’night,” they replied nearly in unison, and the officer headed off.
Derek folded up the rest of the paper and put it in the basket with the rest of the tomatoes. “We should probably head toward our equipment, and when we get tired find a place to eat the rest of these and get some sleep. Long day tomorrow.” As Vashti gobbled down the end of her tomato and wiped her mouth and hands and arms with the torn napkins, he scooped up the trash and managed to find a trash can in the alley. Then picking up the basket they headed back out of Chicago.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with ten other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #538: New Adventures. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
