Lot

Mr. Jimmon even appeared elated, like a man about to set out on a vacation.

“Well folks, no use waiting any longer. We’re all set. So let’s go.”

There was a betrayal here: Mr. Jimmon was not the kind of man who addressed his family as “folks.”

“David, you’re sure …?”

Mr. Jimmon merely smiled. This was quite out of character; customarily he reacted to his wife’s habit of posing unfinished questions—after seventeen years the unuttered and larger part of the queries were always instantly known to him in some mysterious way, as though unerringly projected by the key in which the introduction was pitched, so that not only the full wording was communicated to him, but the shades and implications which circumstance and humor attached to them—with sharp and querulous defense. No matter how often he resolved to stare quietly or use the still more effective, Afraid I didn’t catch your meaning, dear, he had never been able to put his resolution into force. Until this moment of crisis. Crisis, reflected Mr. Jimmon, still smiling and moving suggestively toward the door, crisis changes people. Brings out underlying qualities.

It was Jir who answered Molly Jimmon with the adolescent’s half-whine of exasperation. “Aw furcrysay Mom, what’s the idea? The highways’ll be clogged tight. What’s the good figuring everything heada time and having everything all set if you’re going to start all over again at the last minute. Get a grip on yourself and let’s go.”

Mr. Jimmon did not voice the reflexive, That’s no way to talk to your Mother. Instead he thought, not unsympathetically, of woman’s slow reaction time. Asset in childbirth, liability behind the wheel. He knew Molly was thinking of the house and all of the things in it: her clothes and Erika’s, the television set—so sullenly ugly now, with the electricity gone—the refrigerator in which the food would soon begin to rot and stink, the dead stove, the cellarful of cases of canned stuff for which there was no room in the station wagon. And the Buick, blocked up in the garage, with the air thoughtfully let out of the tires and the battery hidden.

Of course the houses would be looted. But they had known that all along. When they—or rather he, for it was his executive’s mind and training which were responsible for the Jimmons’ preparation against this moment—planned so carefully and providentially, he had weighed property against life and decided on life. No other decision was possible.

“Aren’t you going to phone Pearl and Dan?”

Now why in the world, thought Mr. Jimmon, completely above petty irritation, should I call Dan Davisson? (because, of course it’s Dan she means—My Old Beau. Oh, he was nobody then, just an impractical dreamer without a penny to his name; it wasn’t for years that he was recognized as a Mathematical Genius; now he’s a professor and all sorts of things—but she automatically says Pearl-and-Dan, not Dan.) What can Dan do with the square root of minus nothing to offset M equals whatever it is, at this moment? Or am I supposed to ask if Pearl has all her diamonds? Query, why doesn’t Pearl wear pearls? Only diamonds? My wife’s friends, heh heh, but even the subtlest intonation won’t label them when you’re entertaining an important client and Pearl and Dan.

And why should I? What sudden paralysis afflicts her? Hysteria?

“No,” said Mr. Jimmon.

Then he added, relenting, “Phone’s been out since.”

“But,” said Molly.

She’s hardly going to ask me to drive into town. He selected several answers in readiness. But she merely looked toward the telephone helplessly (she ought to have been fat, thought Mr. Jimmon, really should, or anyway plump; her thinness gives her that air of competence, or at least attempt), so he amplified gently, “They’re unquestionably all right. As far away from It as we are.”

Wendell was already in the station wagon. With Waggie hidden somewhere. Should have sent the dog to the humane society; more merciful to have it put to sleep. Too late now; Waggie would have to take his chance. There were plenty of rabbits in the hills above Malibu, he had often seen them quite close to the house. At all events there was no room for a dog in the wagon, already loaded within a pound of its capacity.

Erika came in briskly from the kitchen, her brown jodhpurs making her appear at first glance even younger than fourteen. But only at first glance; then the swell of hips and breast denied the childishness the jodhpurs seemed to accent.

“The water’s gone, Mom. There’s no use sticking around any longer.”

Molly looked incredulous. “The water?”

“Of course the water’s gone,” said Mr. Jimmon, not impatiently, but rather with satisfaction in his own foresight. “If It didn’t get the aqueduct, the mains depend on the pumps. Electric pumps. When the electricity went, the water went too.”

“But the water,” repeated Molly, as though this last catastrophe was beyond all reason—even the outrageous logic which It brought in its train.

Jir slouched past them and outside. Erika tucked in a strand of hair, pulled her jockey cap downward and sideways, glanced quickly at her mother and father, then followed. Molly took several steps, paused, smiled vaguely in the mirror and walked out of the house.

Mr. Jimmon patted his pockets; the money was all there. He didn’t even look back before closing the front door and rattling the knob to be sure the lock had caught. It had never failed, but Mr. Jimmon always rattled it anyway. He strode to the station wagon, running his eye over the springs to reassure himself again that they really hadn’t overloaded it.

The sky was overcast; you might have thought it was one of the regular morning high fogs if you didn’t know. Mr. Jimmon faced southeast, but It had been too far away to see anything now. Erika and Molly were in the front seat; the boys were in the back, lost amid the neatly packed stuff. He opened the door on the driver’s side, got in, turned the key, and started the motor. Then he said casually over his shoulder, “Put the dog out, Jir.”

Wendell protested, too quickly, “Waggie’s not here.”

Molly exclaimed, “Oh David.…”

Mr. Jimmon said patiently, “We’re losing pretty valuable time. There’s no room for the dog; we have no food for him. If we had room we could have taken more essentials; those few pounds might mean the difference.”

“Can’t find him,” muttered Jir.

“He’s not here. I tell you he’s not here,” shouted Wendell, tearful voiced.

“If I have to stop the motor and get him myself we’ll be wasting still more time and gas.” Mr. Jimmon was still detached, judicial. “This isn’t a matter of kindness to animals. It’s life and death.”

Erika said evenly, “Dad’s right, you know. It’s the dog or us. Put him out, Wend.”

“I tell you—” Wendell began.

“Got him!” exclaimed Jir. “OK, Waggie! Outside and good luck.”

The spaniel wriggled ecstatically as he was picked up and put out through the open window. Mr. Jimmon raced the motor, but it didn’t drown out Wendell’s anguish. He threw himself on his brother, hitting and kicking. Mr. Jimmon took his foot off the gas, and as soon as he was sure the dog was away from the wheels, eased the station wagon out the driveway and down the hill toward the ocean.

“Wendell, Wendell, stop,” pleaded Molly. “Don’t hurt him, Jir.”

Mr. Jimmon clicked on the radio. After a preliminary hum, clashing static crackled out. He pushed all five buttons in turn, varying the quality of unintelligible sound. “Want me to try?” offered Erika. She pushed the manual button and turned the knob slowly. Music dripped out.

Mr. Jimmon grunted. “Mexican station. Try something else. Maybe you can get Ventura.”

They rounded a tight curve. “Isn’t that the Warbinns?” asked Molly.

For the first time since It happened Mr. Jimmon had a twinge of impatience. There was no possibility, even with the unreliable eye of shocked excitement, of mistaking the Warbinns’ blue Mercury. No one else on Rambla Catalina had one anything like it, and visitors would be most unlikely now. If Molly would apply the most elementary logic!

Besides, Warbinn had stopped the blue Mercury in the Jimmon driveway five times a week for the past two months—ever since they had decided to put the Buick up and keep the wagon packed and ready against this moment—for Mr. Jimmon to ride with him to the city. Of course it was the Warbinns.

“… advised not to impede the progress of the military. Adequate medical staffs are standing by at all hospitals. Local civilian defense units are taking all steps in accordance …”

“Santa Barbara,” remarked Jir, nodding at the radio with an expert’s assurance.”

Mr. Jimmon slowed, prepared to follow the Warbinns down to 101, but the Mercury halted and Mr. Jimmon turned out to pass it. Warbinn was driving and Sally was in the front seat with him; the back seat appeared empty except for a few things obviously hastily thrown in. No foresight, thought Mr. Jimmon.

Warbinn waved his hand vigorously out the window and Sally shouted something.

“… panic will merely slow rescue efforts. Casualties are much smaller than originally reported …”

“How do they know?” asked Mr. Jimmon, waving politely at the Warbinns.

“Oh, David, aren’t you going to stop? They want something.”

“Probably just to talk.”

“… to retain every drop of water. Emergency power will be in operation shortly. There is no cause for undue alarm. General …”

Through the rearview mirror Mr. Jimmon saw the blue Mercury start after them. He had been right then, they only wanted to say something inconsequential. At a time like this.

At the juction with U.S. 101 five cars blocked Rambla Catalina. Mr. Jimmon set the handbrake, and steadying himself with the open door, stood tiptoe twistedly, trying to see over the cars ahead. 101 was solid with traffic which barely moved. On the southbound side of the divided highway a stream of vehicles flowed illegally north.

“Thought everybody was figured to go east,” gibed Jir over the other side of the car.

Mr. Jimmon was not disturbed by his son’s sarcasm. How right he’d been to rule out the trailer. Of course the bulk of cars was headed eastward as he’d calculated; this sluggish mass was nothing compared with the countless ones which must now be blocking the roads to Pasadena, Alhambra, Garvey, Norwalk. Even the northbound refugees were undoubtedly taking 99 or regular 101—the highway before them was really 101 Alternate—he had picked the most feasible exit.

The Warbinns drew up alongside. “Hurry didn’t do much good,” shouted Warbinn, leaning forward to clear his wife’s face.

Mr. Jimmon reached in and turned off the ignition. Gas was going to be precious. He smiled and shook his head at Warbinn; no use pointing out that he’d got the inside lane by passing the Mercury, with a better chance to seize the opening on the highway when it came. “Get in the car, Jir, and shut the door. Have to be ready when this breaks.”

“If it ever does,” said Molly. “All that rush and bustle. We might just as well.…”

Mr. Jimmon was conscious of Warbinn’s glowering at him and resolutely refused to turn his head. He pretended not to hear him yell, “Only wanted to tell you you forgot to pick up your bumper-jack. It’s in front of our garage.”

Mr. Jimmon’s stomach felt empty. What if he had a flat now? Ruined, condemned. He knew a burning hate for Warbinn—incompetent borrower, bad neighbor, thoughtless, shiftless, criminal. He owed it to himself to leap from the station wagon and seize Warbinn by the throat.…

“What did he say, David? What is Mr. Warbinn saying?”

Then he remembered it was the jack from the Buick; the station wagon’s was safely packed where he could get at it easily. Naturally he would never have started out on a trip like this without checking so essential an item. “Nothing,” he said, “nothing at all.”

“… plane dispatches indicate target was the Signal Hill area. Minor damage was done to Long Beach, Wilmington and San Pedro. All non-military air traffic warned from Mines Field …”

The smash and crash of bumper and fender sounded familiarly on the highway. From his lookout station he couldn’t see what had happened, but it was easy enough to reconstruct the impatient jerk forward that had caused it. Mr. Jimmon didn’t exactly smile, but he allowed himself a faint quiver of internal satisfaction. A crash up ahead would make things worse, but a crash behind—and many of them were inevitable—must eventually create a gap.

Even as he thought this, the first car at the mouth of Rambla Catalina edged on to the shoulder of the highway. Mr. Jimmon slid back in and started the motor, inching ahead after the car in front, gradually leaving the still uncomfortable proximity of the Warbinns.

“Got to go to the toilet,” announced Wendell abruptly.

“Didn’t I tell you—Well hurry up! Jir, keep the door open and pull him in if the car starts to move.”

“I can’t go here.”

Mr. Jimmon restrained his impulse to snap, Hold it in then. Instead he smiled mildly, “This is a crisis, Wendell. No time for niceties. Hurry.”

“… the flash was seen as far north as Ventura and as far south as Newport. An eyewitness who has just arrived by helicopter …”

“That’s what we should have had,” remarked Jir. “You thought of everything except that.”

“That’s no way to speak to your father,” admonished Molly.

“Aw heck, Mom, this is a crisis. No time for niceties.”

“You’re awful smart, Jir,” said Erika. “Big, tough, brutal man.”

“Go drown, brat,” returned Jir, “your nose needs wiping.”

“As a matter of record,” Mr. Jimmon said calmly, “I thought of both plane and helicopter and decided against them.”

“I can’t go. Honest, I just can’t go.”

“Just relax, darling,” advised Molly. “No one is looking.”

“… fires reported in Compton, Lynwood, Southgate, Harbor City, Lomita and other spots are now under control. Residents are advised not to attempt to travel on the overcrowded highways as they are much safer in their homes or places of employment. The civilian defense …”

The two cars ahead bumped forward. “Get in,” shouted Mr. Jimmon.

He got the left front tire of the station wagon on the asphalt shoulder—the double lane of concrete was impossibly far ahead—only to be blocked by the packed procession. The clock on the dash said 11:04. Nearly five hours since It happened, and they were less than two miles from home. They could have done better walking. Or on horseback.

“… all residents of the Los Angeles area are urged to remain calm. Local radio service will be restored in a matter of minutes, along with electricity and water. Reports of fifth column activities have been largely exaggerated. The FBI has all known subversives under …”

He reached over and shut it off. Then he edged a daring two inches further on the shoulder, almost grazing an aggressive Cadillac packed solid with cardboard cartons. On his left a Model A truck shivered and trembled. He knew, distantly and disapprovingly, that it belonged to two painters who called themselves man and wife. The truckbed was loaded high with household goods; poor useless things no looter would bother to steal. In the cab the artists passed a quart beer bottle back and forth. The man waved it genially at him; Mr. Jimmon nodded discouragingly back.

The thermometer on the mirror showed 90. Hot all right. Of course if they ever got rolling. I’m thirsty, he thought; probably suggestion. If I hadn’t seen the thermometer. Anyway I’m not going to paw around in back for the canteen. Forethought. Like the arms. He cleared his throat. “Remember there’s an automatic in the glove compartment. If anyone tries to open the door on your side, use it.”

“Oh, David, I.…”

Ah, humanity. Non-resistance. Gandhi. I’ve never shot at anything but a target. At a time like this. But they don’t understand.

“I could use the rifle from back here,” suggested Jir. “Can I, Dad?”

“I can reach the shotgun,” said Wendell. “That’s better at close range.”

“Gee, you men are brave,” jeered Erika. Mr. Jimmon said nothing; both shotgun and rifle were unloaded. Foresight again.

He caught the hiccupping pause in the traffic instantly, gratified at his smooth coordination. How far he could proceed on the shoulder before running into a culvert narrowing the highway to the concrete he didn’t know. Probably not more than a mile at most, but at least he was off Rambla Catalina and on 101. He felt tremendously elated. Successful.

“Here we go!” He almost added, Hold on to your hats.

Of course the shoulder, too, was packed solid, and progress, even in low gear, was maddening. The gas consumption was something he did not want to think about; his pride in the way the needle of the gauge caressed the F shrunk. And gas would be hard to come by in spite of the pocketful of ration coupons. Black market.

“Mind if I try the radio again?” asked Erika, switching it on.

Mr. Jimmon, following the pattern of previous success, insinuated the left front tire on to the concrete, eliciting a disapproving squawk from the Pontiac alongside.

“… sector was quiet. Enemy losses are estimated …”

“Can’t we get anything else?” asked Jir. “Something less dusty?”

“Wish we had TV in the car,” observed Wendell. “Joe Tellifer’s old man put a set in the backseat of their Chrysler.”

“Dry up, squirt,” said Jir. “Let the air out of your head.”

“Jir!”

“Oh, Mom, don’t pay attention! Don’t you see that’s what he wants?”

“Listen, brat, if you weren’t a girl I’d spank you.”

“You mean if I wasn’t your sister. You’d probably enjoy such childish sex-play with any other girl.”

“Erika!”

Where do they learn it? marveled Mr. Jimmon. These progressive schools. Do you suppose.…

He edged the front wheel further in exultantly, taking advantage of a momentary lapse of attention on the part of the Pontiac’s driver. Unless the other went berserk with frustration and rammed into him, he practically had a cinch on a car-length of the concrete now.

“Here we go!” he gloried. “We’re on our way.”

“Aw, if I was driving we’d be halfway to Oxnard by now.”

“Jir, that’s no way to talk to your father.”

Mr. Jimmon reflected dispassionately that Molly’s ineffective admonitions only spurred Jir’s sixteen-year-old brashness, already irritating enough in its own right. Indeed, if it were not for Molly, Jir might.…

It was of course possible—here Mr. Jimmon braked just short of the convertible ahead—Jir wasn’t just going through a “difficult” period (What was particularly difficult about it? he inquired, in the face of all the books Molly suggestively left around on the psychological problems of growth. The boy had everything he could possibly want!) but was the type who, in different circumstances, drifted into, well, perhaps not exactly juvenile deliquency but.

“… in the Long Beach-Wilmington-San Pedro area. Comparison with that which occurred at Pittsburgh reveal that this morning’s was in every way less serious. All fires are under control and all the injured are now receiving medical attention …”

“I don’t think they’re telling the truth,” stated Mrs. Jimmon.

He snorted. He didn’t think so either, but by what process had she arrived at that conclusion?

“I want to hear the ball game. Turn on the ball game, Rick,” Wendell demanded.

Eleven sixteen, and rolling northward on the highway. Not bad, not bad at all. Foresight. Now if he could only edge his way leftward to the southbound strip they’d be beyond the Santa Barbara bottleneck by two o’clock.

“The lights,” exclaimed Molly, “the faucets!”

Oh no, thought, Mr. Jimmon, not that too. Out of the comic strips.

“Keep calm,” advised Jir. “Electricity and water are both off—remember?”

“I’m not quite an imbecile yet, Jir. I’m quite aware everything went off. I was thinking of the time it went back on.”

“Furcrysay, Mom, you worrying about next month’s bills now?”

Mr. Jimmon, nudging the station wagon ever leftward, formed the sentence: You’d never worry about bills, young man, because you never have to pay them. Instead of saying it aloud, he formed another sentence: Molly, your talent for irrelevance amounts to genius. Both sentences gave him satisfaction.

Miraculously the traffic gathered speed briefly, and he took advantage of the spurt to get solidly in the left hand lane, right against the long island of concrete dividing the north from the southbound strips. “That’s using the old bean, Dad,” approved Wendell.

Whatever slight pleasure he might have felt in his son’s approbation was overlaid with exasperation. Wendell, like Jir, was more Manville than Jimmon; they carried Molly’s stamp on their faces and minds. Only Erika was a true Jimmon. Made in his own image, he thought pridelessly.

“I can’t help but think it would have been at least courteous to get in touch with Pearl and Dan. At least try. And the Warbinns.…”

The gap in the concrete divider came sooner than he anticipated and he was on the comparatively unclogged southbound side. His foot went down on the accelerator and the station wagon grumbled earnestly ahead. For the first time Mr. Jimmon became aware how tightly he’d been gripping the wheel; how rigid the muscles in his arms, shoulders and neck had been. He relaxed partway as he adjusted to the speed of the cars ahead and the speedometer needle hung just below 45, but resentment against Molly (at least courteous), Jir (no time for niceties), and Wendell (got to go), rode up in the saliva under his tongue. Dependent. Helpless. Everything on him. Parasites.

At intervals Erika switched on the radio. News was always promised immediately, but little was forthcoming, only vague, nervous attempts to minimize the extent of the disaster and soothe listeners with allusions to civilian defense, military activities on the ever-advancing front, and comparison with the destruction of Pittsburgh, so vastly much worse than the comparatively harmless detonation at Los Angeles. Must be pretty bad, thought Mr. Jimmon; cripple the war effort.…

“I’m hungry,” said Wendell.

Molly began stirring around, instructing Jir where to find the sandwiches. Mr. Jimmon thought grimly of how they’d have to adjust to the absence of civilized niceties: bread and mayonnaise and lunch meat. Live on rabbit, squirrel, abalone, fish. When Wendell got hungry he’d have to get his own food. Self-sufficiently. Hard and tough.

At Oxnard, the snarled traffic slowed them to a crawl again. Beyond, the juncture with the main highway north kept them at the same infuriating pace. It was long after two when they reached Ventura and Wendell, who had been fidgeting and jumping up and down in the seat for the past hour, proclaimed, “I’m tired of riding.”

Mr. Jimmon set his lips. Molly suggested, ineffectually, “Why don’t you lie down, dear?”

“Can’t. Way this crate is packed, ain’t room for a grasshopper.”

“Verry funny. Verrrry funny,” said Jir.

“Now Jir, leave him alone! He’s just a little boy.”

At Carpinteria the sun burst out. You might have thought it the regular dissipation of the fog, only it was almost time for the fog to come down again. Should he try the San Marcos Pass after Santa Barbara, or the longer, better way? Flexible plans, but. Wait and see.

It was four when they got to Santa Barbara and Mr. Jimmon faced concerted though unorganized rebellion. Wendell was screaming with stiffness and boredom; Jir remarked casually to no one in particular that Santa Barbara was the place where they were going to beat the bottleneck oh yeh; Molly said, “Stop at the first clean-looking gas station.” Even Erika added, “Yes, Dad, you’ll really have to stop.”

Mr. Jimmon was appalled. With every second priceless and hordes of panic-stricken refugees pressing behind, they would rob him of all the precious gains he’d made by skill, daring, judgment. Stupidity and shortsightedness. Unbelievable. For their own silly comfort—good lord, did they think they had a monopoly on bodily weaknesses? He was cramped as they and wanted to go as badly. Time and space which could never be made up. Let them lose this half hour and it was quite likely they’d never get out of Santa Barbara.

“If we lose a half hour now we’ll never get out of here.”

“Well now, David, that wouldn’t be utterly disastrous, would it? There are awfully nice hotels here and I’m sure it would be more comfortable for everyone than your idea of camping in the woods, hunting and fishing.…”

He turned off State; couldn’t remember the name of the parallel street, but surely less traffic. He controlled his temper, not heroically, but desperately. “May I ask how long you would propose to stay in one of these awfully nice hotels?”

“Why, until we could go home.”

“My dear Molly.…” What could he say? My dear Molly, we are never going home, if you mean Malibu? Or, My dear Molly, you just don’t understand what is happening?

The futility of trying to convey the clear picture in his mind. Or any picture. If she could not of herself see the endless mob pouring, pouring out of Los Angeles, searching frenziedly for escape and refuge, eating up the substance of the surrounding country in ever-widening circles, crowding, jam-packing, overflowing every hotel, boardinghouse, lodging or private home into which they could edge, agonizedly bidding up the price of everything until the chaos they brought with them was indistinguishable from the chaos they were fleeing—if she could not see all this instantly and automatically, she could not be brought to see it at all. Any more than the other aimless, planless, improvident fugitives could see it.

So my dear Molly: nothing.

Silence gave consent only continued expostulation. “David, do you really mean you don’t intend to stop at all?”

Was there any point in saying, Yes I do? He set his lips more tightly and once more weighed San Marcos Pass against the coast route. Have to decide now.

“Why, the time we’re waiting here, just waiting for the cars up ahead to move would be enough.”

Could you call her stupid? He weighed the question slowly and justly, alert for the first jerk of the massed cars all around. Her reasoning was valid and logical if the laws of physics and geometry were suspended. (Was that right—physics and geometry? Body occupying two different positions at the same time?) It was the facts which were illogical—not Molly. She was just exasperating.

By the time they were halfway to Gaviota or Goleta—Mr. Jimmon could never tell them apart—foresight and relentless sternness began to pay off. Those who had left Los Angeles without preparation and in panic were dropping out or slowing down, to get gas or oil, repair tires, buy food, seek rest rooms. The station wagon was steadily forging ahead.

He gambled on the old highway out of Santa Barbara. Any kind of obstruction would block its two lanes; if it didn’t he would be beating the legions on the wider, straighter road. There were stretches now where he could hit 50; once he sped a happy half-mile at 65.

Now the insubordination crackling all around him gave indications of simultaneous explosion. “I really,” began Molly, and then discarded this for a fresher, firmer start. “David, I don’t understand how you can be so utterly selfish and inconsiderate.”

Mr. Jimmon could feel the veins in his forehead begin to swell, but this was one of those rages that didn’t show.

“But, Dad, would ten minutes ruin everything?” asked Erika.

“Monomania,” muttered Jir. “Single track, like Hitler.”

“I want my dog,” yelped Wendell. “Dirty old dog killer.”

“Did you ever hear of cumulative—” Erika had addressed him reasonably; surely he could make her understand? “Did you ever hear of cumulative.…” What was the word. Snowball rolling downhill was the image in his mind. “Oh, what’s the use?”

The old road rejoined the new; again the station wagon was fitted into the traffic like parquetry. Mr. Jimmon, from an exultant, unfettered!—almost—65 was imprisoned in a treadmill set at 38. Keep calm; you can do nothing about it, he admonished himself. Need all your nervous energy. Must be wrecks up ahead. And then, with a return of satisfaction: If I hadn’t used strategy back there we’d have been with those making 25. A starting-stopping 25.

“It’s fantastic,” exclaimed Molly. “I can almost believe Jir’s right and you’ve lost your mind.”

Mr. Jimmon smiled. This was the first time Molly had ever openly shown disloyalty before the children or sided with them in their presence. She was revealing herself. Under pressure. Not the pressure of events; her incredible attitude at Santa Barbara had demonstrated her incapability to feel that. Just pressure against the bladder.

“No doubt those left behind can console their last moments with pride in their sanity.” The sentence came out perfectly formed, with none of the annoying pauses or interpolated “ers” or “mmphs” which could, as he knew from unhappy experience, flaw the most crushing rejoinders.

“Oh, the end can always justify the means for those who want it that way.”

“Don’t they retrain people—”

“That’s enough, Jir!”

Trust Molly to return quickly to fundamental hypocrisy; the automatic response—his mind felicitously grasped the phrase, conditioned reflex—to the customary stimulus. She had taken an explicit stand against his common sense, but her rigid code—honor thy father; iron rayon the wrong side; register and vote; avoid scenes; only white wine with fish; never rehire a discharged servant—quickly substituted pattern for impulse. Seventeen years.

The road turned away from the ocean, squirmed inland and uphill for still slower miles; abruptly widened into a divided, four-lane highway. Without hesitation Mr. Jimmon took the southbound side; for the first time since they had left Rambla Catalina his foot went down to the floorboards and with a sigh of relief the station wagon jumped into smooth, ecstatic speed.

Improvisation and strategy again. And, he acknowledged generously, the defiant example this morning of those who’d done the same thing in Malibu. Now, out of re-established habit the other cars kept to the northbound side even though there was nothing coming south. Timidity, routine, inertia. Pretty soon they would realize sheepishly that there was neither traffic nor traffic cops to keep them off, but it would be miles before they had another chance to cross over. By that time he would have reached the comparatively uncongested stretch.

“It’s dangerous, David.”

Obey the law. No smoking. Keep off the grass. Please adjust your clothes before leaving. Trespassers will be. Picking California wildflowers or shrubs is forbidden. Parking 45 minutes. Do not.

She hadn’t put the protest in the more usual form of a question. Would that technique have been more irritating? Isn’t it dangerous, Day-vid? His calm conclusion: it didn’t matter.

“No time for niceties,” chirped Jir.

Mr. Jimmon tried to remember Jir as a baby. All the bad novels he had read in the days when he read anything except Time and The New Yorker, all the movies he’d seen before they had a television set, always prescribed such retrospection as a specific for softening the present. If he could recall David Alonzo Jimmon, junior, at six months, helpless and lovable, it should make Jir more acceptable by discovering some faint traces of the one in the other.

But though he could recreate in detail the interminable, disgusting, trembling months of the initial pregnancy (had he really been afraid she would die?) he was completely unable to reconstruct the appearance of his firstborn before the age of.… It must have been six that Jir had taken his baby sister out for a walk and lost her. (Had Molly permitted it? He still didn’t know for sure.) Erika hadn’t been found for four hours.

The tidal screeching of sirens invaded and destroyed his thoughts. What the devil.… His foot lifted from the gas pedal as he slowed obediently to the right, ingrained reverence surfacing at the sound.

“I told you it wasn’t safe! Are you really trying to kill us all?”

Whipping over the rise ahead, a pair of motorcycles crackled. Behind them snapped a long line of assorted vehicles, fire trucks and ambulances mostly, interspersed here and there with olive-drab army equipment. The cavalcade flicked down the central white line, one wheel in each lane. Mr. Jimmon edged the station wagon as far over as he could; it still occupied too much room to permit the free passage of the onrush without compromise.

The knees and elbows of the motorcycle policemen stuck out widely, reminding Mr. Jimmon of grasshoppers. The one on the near side was headed straight for the station wagon’s left front fender; for a moment Mr. Jimmon closed his eyes as he plotted the unswerving course, knifing through the crust-like steel, bouncing lightly on the tires, and continuing unperturbed. He opened them to see the other officer shoot past, mouth angrily open in his direction while the one straight ahead came to a skidding stop.

“Going to get it now,” gloated Wendell.

An old-fashioned parent, one of the horrible examples held up to shuddering moderns like himself, would have reached back and relieved his tension by clouting Wendell across the mouth. Mr. Jimmon merely turned off the motor.

The cop was not indulging in the customary deliberate and ominous performance of slowly dismounting and striding toward his victim with ever more menacing steps. Instead he got off quickly and covered the few feet to Mr. Jimmon’s window with unimpressive speed.

Heavy goggles concealed his eyes; dust and stubble covered his face. “Operator’s license!”

Mr. Jimmon knew what he was saying, but the sirens and the continuous rustle of the convoy prevented the sound from coming through. Again the cop deviated from the established routine; he did not take the proffered license and examine it incredulously before drawing out his pad and pencil, but wrote the citation, glancing up and down from the card to Mr. Jimmon’s hand.

Even so, the last of the vehicles—San Jose F.D.—passed before he handed the summons through the window to be signed. “Turn around and proceed in the proper direction,” he ordered curtly, pocketing the pad and buttoning his jacket briskly.

Mr. Jimmon nodded. The officer hesitated, as though waiting for some limp excuse. Mr. Jimmon said nothing.

“No tricks,” said the policeman over his shoulder. “Turn around and proceed in the proper direction.”

He almost ran to his motorcycle, and roared off, twisting his head for a final stern frown as he passed, siren wailing. Mr. Jimmon watched him dwindle in the rearview mirror and then started the motor. “Gonna lose a lot more than you gained,” commented Jir.

Mr. Jimmon gave a glance in the mirror and moved ahead, shifting into second. “David!” exclaimed Molly horrified, “you’re not turning around!”

“Observant,” muttered Mr. Jimmon, between his teeth.

“Dad, you can’t get away with it,” Jir decided judicially.

Mr. Jimmon’s answer was to press the accelerator down savagely. The empty highway stretched invitingly ahead; a few hundred yards to their right they could see the northbound lanes ant-clustered. The sudden motion stirred the traffic citation on his lap, floating it down to the floor. Erika leaned forward and picked it up.

“Throw it away,” ordered Mr. Jimmon.

Molly gasped. “You’re out of your mind.”

“You’re a fool,” stated Mr. Jimmon calmly. “Why should I save that piece of paper?”

“Isn’t what you told the cop.” Jir was openly jeering now.

“I might as well have, if I’d wanted to waste conversation. I don’t know why I was blessed with such a stupid family—”

“May be something in heredity after all.”

If Jir had said it out loud, reflected Mr. Jimmon, it would have passed casually as normal domestic repartee, a little ill-natured perhaps, certainly callow and trite, but not especially provocative. Muttered, so that it was barely audible, it was an ultimate defiance. He had read that far back in prehistory, when young males felt their strength, they sought to overthrow the rule of the Old Man and usurp his place. No doubt they uttered a preliminary growl or screech as challenge. They were not very bright, but they acted in a pattern; a pattern Jir was apparently following.

Refreshed by placing Jir in proper Neanderthal setting, Mr. Jimmon went on,”—none of you seems to have the slightest initiative or ability to grasp reality. Tickets, cops, judges, juries mean nothing anymore. There is no law now but the law of survival.”

“Aren’t you being dramatic, David?” Molly’s tone was deliberately aloof adult to excited child.

“I could hear you underline words, Dad,” said Erika, but he felt there was no malice in her gibe.

“You mean we can do anything we want now? Shoot people? Steal cars and things?” asked Wendell.

“There, David! You see?”

Yes, I see. Better than you. Little savage. This is the pattern. What will Wendell—and the thousands of other Wendells (for it would be unjust to suppose Molly’s genes and domestic influence unique)—be like after six months of anarchy? Or after six years?

Survivors, yes. And that will be about all: naked, primitive, ferocious, superstitious savages. Wendell can read and write (but not so fluently as I or any of our generation at his age); how long will he retain the tags and scraps of progressive schooling?

And Jir? Detachedly Mr. Jimmon foresaw the fate of Jir. Unlike Wendell who would adjust to the new conditions, Jir would go wild in another sense. His values were already set; they were those of television, high-school dating, comic strips, law and order. Released from civilization, his brief future would be one of guilty rape and pillage until he fell victim to another youth or gang bent the same way. Molly would disintegrate and perish quickly. Erika.…

The station wagon flashed along the comparatively unimpeded highway. Having passed the next crossover, there were now other vehicles on the southbound strip, but even on the northbound one, crowding had eased.

Furiously Mr. Jimmon determined to preserve the civilization in Erika. He would teach her everything he knew (including the insurance business?).

… ah, if he were some kind of scientist, now—not the Dan Davisson kind, whose abstract speculation seemed always to prepare the way for some new method of destruction, but the … Franklin? Jefferson? Watt? He would have to protect her night and day from the refugees who would be roaming the hills south of Monterey. The rifle ammunition, properly used—and he would see that nobody but himself used it—would last years. After it was gone—presuming fragments and pieces of a suicidal world hadn’t pulled themselves miraculously together to offer a place to return to—there were two hunting bows with steel-tipped shafts that could stop a man as easily as a deer or mountain lion. He remembered debating long, at the time he first began preparing for It, how many bows to order, measuring their weight and bulk against the other precious freight and deciding at last that two was the satisfactory minimum. It must have been in his subconscious mind all along that of the whole family Erika was the only other person who could be trusted with a bow.

“There will be,” he spoke in calm and solemn tones, not to Wendell, whose question was now left long behind, floating on the gas-greasy air of a sloping valley growing with live oaks, but to a larger, impalpable audience, “there will be others who will think that because there is no longer law or law enforcement—”

“You’re being simply fantastic!” She spoke more sharply than he had ever heard her in front of the children. “Just because It happened to Los Angeles—”

“And Pittsburgh.”

“All right. And Pittsburgh, doesn’t mean that the whole United States has collapsed and everyone in the country is running frantically for safety.”

“Yet,” added Mr. Jimmon firmly. “Yet. Do you suppose they are going to stop with Los Angeles and Pittsburgh, and leave Gary and Seattle standing? Or even New York and Chicago? Or do you imagine Washington will beg for armistice terms while there is the least sign of organized life left in the country?”

“We’ll wipe them out first,” insisted Jir in patriotic shock. Wendell backed him up with a machine gun “Brrrrr.”

“Undoubtedly. But it will be the last gasp. At any rate it will be years, if at all in my lifetime, before stable communications are reestablished—”

“David, you’re raving.”

“Reestablished,” he repeated. “So there will be many others who’ll also feel the dwindling of law and order is a license to kill people and steal cars ‘and things.’ Naked force and cunning will be the only means of self-preservation. That was why I picked out a spot where I felt survival would be easiest; not only because of wood and water, game and fish, but because it’s nowhere near the main highways, and so unlikely to be chosen by any great number.”

“I wish you’d stop harping on that insane idea. You’re just a little too old and flabby for pioneering. Even when you were younger you were hardly the rugged outdoor type.”

No, thought Mr. Jimmon, I was the sucker type. I would have gotten somewhere if I’d stayed at the bank, but like a bawd you pled your belly; the insurance business brought in the quick money for you to give up your job and have Jir and the proper home. If you’d got rid of it as I wanted. Flabby, flabby! Do you think your scrawniness is so enticing?

Controlling himself, he said aloud, “We’ve been through all this. Months ago. It’s not a question of physique, but of life.”

“Nonsense. Perfect nonsense. Responsible people who really know Its effects.… Maybe it was advisable to leave Malibu for a few days or even a few weeks. And perhaps it’s wise to stay away from the larger cities. But a small town or village, or even one of those ranches where they take boarders—”

“Aw, Mom, you agreed. You know you did. What’s the matter with you anyway? Why are you acting like a drip?”

“I want to go shoot rabbits and bears like Dad said,” insisted Wendell.

Erika said nothing, but Mr. Jimmon felt he had her sympathy; the boys’ agreement was specious. Wearily he debated going over the whole ground again, patiently pointing out that what Molly said might work in the Dakotas or the Great Smokies but was hardly operative anywhere within refugee range of the Pacific Coast. He had explained all this many times, including the almost certain impossibility of getting enough gasoline to take them into any of the reasonably safe areas; that was why they’d agreed on the region below Monterey, on California State Highway 1, as the only logical goal.

A solitary car decorously bound in the legal direction interrupted his thoughts. Either crazy or has mighty important business, he decided. The car honked disapprovingly as it passed, hugging the extreme right side of the road.

Passing through Buellton the clamor again rose for a pause at a filling station. He conceded inwardly that he could afford ten or fifteen minutes without strategic loss since by now they must be among the leaders of the exodus; ahead lay little more than the normal travel. However he had reached such a state of irritated frustration and consciousness of injustice that he was willing to endure unnecessary discomfort himself in order to inflict a longer delay on them. In fact it lessened his own suffering to know the delay was needless, that he was doing it, and his action was a just—if inadequate—punishment.

“We’ll stop this side of Santa Maria,” he said. “I’ll get gas there.”

Mr. Jimmon knew triumph: his forethought, his calculations, his generalship had justified themselves. Barring unlikely mechanical failure—the station wagon was in perfect shape—or accident—and the greatest danger had certainly passed—escape was now practically assured. For the first time he permitted himself to realize how unreal, how romantic the whole project had been. The docile mass perished; the headstrong (but intelligent) individual survived.

Along with triumph went an expansion of his prophetic vision of life after reaching their destination. He had purposely not taxed the cargo capacity of the wagon with transitional goods; there was no tent, canned luxuries, sleeping-bags, lanterns, candles or any of the paraphernalia of camping midway between the urban and nomadic life. Instead, besides the weapons, tackle and utensils, there was in miniature the List For Life On A Desert Island: shells and cartridges, lures, hooks, nets, gut, leaders, flint and steel, seeds, traps, needles and thread, government pamphlets on curing and tanning hides and the recognition of edible weeds and fungi, files, nails, a judicious stock of simple medicines. A pair of binoculars to spot intruders. No coffee, sugar, flour; they would begin living immediately as they would have to in a month or so in any case, on the old, half-forgotten human cunning.

“Cunning,” he said aloud.

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing.”

“I still think you should have made an effort to reach Pearl and Dan.”

“The telephone was dead, Mother.”

“At the moment, Erika. You can hardly have forgotten how often the lines have been down before. And it never takes more than half an hour till they’re working again.”

“Mother, Dan Davisson is quite capable of looking after himself.”

Mr. Jimmon shut out the rest of the conversation so completely he didn’t know whether there was any more to it or not. He shut out the intense preoccupation with driving, with making speed, with calculating possible gains. In the core of his mind, quite detached from everything about him, he examined and marveled.

Erika. The cool, inflexible, adult tone. Almost indulgent, but so dispassionate as not to be. One might have expected her to be exasperated by Molly’s silliness, to have answered impatiently, or not at all.

Mother. Never in his recollection had the children ever called her anything but Mom. The “Mother” implied—oh, it implied a multitude of things. An entirely new relationship, for one. A relationship of aloofness, of propriety without emotion. The ancient stump of the umbilical cord, black and shriveled, had dropped off painlessly.

She had not bothered to argue about the telephone or point out the gulf between “before” and now. She had not even tried to touch Molly’s deepening refusal of reality. She had been … indulgent.

Not “Uncle Dan,” twitteringly imposed false avuncularity, but striking through it (and the facade of “Pearl and”) and aside (when I was a child I … something … but now I have put away childish things); the wealth of implicit assertion. Ah yes, Mother, we all know the pardonable weakness and vanity; we excuse you for your constant reminders, but Mother, with all deference, we refuse to be forced any longer to be parties to middle-age’s nostalgic flirtatiousness. One could almost feel sorry for Molly.

… middle age’s nostalgic flirtatiousness …

… nostalgic …

Metaphorically Mr. Jimmon sat abruptly upright. The fact that he was already physically in this position made the transition, while invisible, no less emphatic. The nostalgic flirtatiousness of middle age implied—might imply—memory of something more than mere coquetry. Molly and Dan.…

It all fitted together so perfectly it was impossible to believe it was untrue.

The impecunious young lovers, equally devoted to Dan’s genius, realizing marriage was out of the question (he had never denied Molly’s shrewdness; as for Dan’s impracticality, well, impracticality wasn’t necessarily uniform or consistent. Dan had been practical enough to marry Pearl and Pearl’s money.) could have renounced …

Or not renounced at all?

Mr. Jimmon smiled; the thought did not ruffle him. Cuckoo, cuckoo. How vulgar, how absurd. Suppose Jir were Dan’s? A blessed thought.

Regretfully he conceded the insuperable obstacle of Molly’s conventionality. Jir was the product of his own loins. But wasn’t there an old superstition about the image in a woman’s mind at the instant of conception? So, justly and rightly Jir was not his. Nor Wendell for that matter. Only Erika, by some accident. Mr. Jimmon felt free and lighthearted.

“Get gas at the next station,” he bulletined.

“The next one with a clean rest room,” Molly corrected.

Invincible. The Earth-Mother, using men for her purposes: reproduction, clean rest rooms, nourishment, objects of culpability, Homes & Gardens. The bank was my life; I could have gone far but: Why, David—they pay you less than the janitor! It’s ridiculous. And: I can’t understand why you hesitate; it isn’t as though it were a different type of work.

No, no different; just more profitable. Why didn’t she tell Dan Davisson to become an accountant; that was the same type of work, just more profitable? Perhaps she had and Dan had simply been less befuddled. Or amenable. Or stronger in purpose? Mr. Jimmon probed his pride thoroughly and relentlessly without finding the faintest twinge of retrospective jealousy. Nothing like that mattered now. Nor, he admitted, had it for years.

Two close-peaked hills gulped the sun. He toyed with the idea of crossing over to the northbound side now that it was uncongested and there were occasional southbound cars. Before he could decide the divided highway ended.

“I hope you’re not planning to spend the night in some horrible motel,” said Molly. “I want a decent bath and a good dinner.”

Spend the night. Bath. Dinner. Again calm sentences formed in his mind, but they were blown apart by the unbelievable, the monumental obtuseness of.… How could you say it, It is absolutely essential to drive until we get there? When there were no absolutes, no essentials in her concepts? My dear Molly, I.

“No,” he said switching on the lights.

Wendell would be the next to kick up a fuss. Till he fell mercifully asleep. If he did. Jir was probably debating the relative excitements of driving all night and stopping in a strange town. His voice would soon be heard.

The lights of the combination wayside store and filling-station burned inefficiently, illuminating the deteriorating false-front brightly and leaving the gas pumps in shadow. Swallowing regret at finally surrendering to mechanical and human need, and so losing the hard-won position; relaxing, even for a short while, the fierce initiative that had brought them through in the face of all probability, he pulled the station wagon alongside the pumps and shut off the motor. About halfway—the worst half, much the worst half—to their goal. Not bad.

Molly opened the door on her side with stiff dignity. “I certainly wouldn’t call this a clean station.” She waited for a moment, hand still on the window, as though expecting an answer.

“Crummy joint,” exclaimed Wendell, clambering awkwardly out.

“Why not?” asked Jir. “No time for niceties.” He brushed past his mother, who was walking slowly into the shadows.

“Erika,” began Mr. Jimmon, in a half-whisper.

“Yes, Dad?”

“Oh … never mind. Later.”

He was not himself quite sure what he wanted to say; what exclusive, urgent message he had to convey. For no particular reason he switched on the interior light and glanced at the packed orderliness of the wagon. Then he slid out from behind the wheel.

No sign of the attendant, but the place was certainly not closed. Not with the lights on and the hoses ready. He stretched, and walked slowly, savoring the comfortably painful uncramping of his muscles, toward the crude outhouse labeled MEN. Molly, he thought, must be furious.

When he returned, a man was leaning against the station wagon. “Fill it up with ethyl,” said Mr. Jimmon pleasantly, “and check the oil and water.”

The man made no move. “That’ll be five bucks a gallon.” Mr. Jimmon thought there was an uncertain tremor in his voice.

“Nonsense; I’ve plenty of ration coupons.”

“OK.” The nervousness was gone now, replaced by an ugly truculence. “Chew’m up and spit’m in your gas tank. See how far you can run on them.”

The situation was not unanticipated. Indeed, Mr. Jimmon thought with satisfaction of how much worse it must be closer to Los Angeles; how much harder the gouger would be on later supplicants as his supply of gasoline dwindled. “Listen,” he said and there was reasonableness rather than anger in his voice, “we’re not out of gas. I’ve got enough to get to Santa Maria, even to San Luis Obispo.”

“OK. Go on then. Ain’t stopping you.”

“Listen. I understand your position. You have a right to make a profit in spite of government red tape.”

Nervousness returned to the man’s speech. “Look whyn’t you go on? There’s plenty other stations up ahead.”

The reluctant bandit. Mr. Jimmon was entertained. He had fully intended to bargain, to offer two dollars a gallon, even to threaten with the pistol in the glove compartment. Now it seemed mean and niggling even to protest. What good was money now? “All right,” he said, “I’ll pay you five dollars a gallon.”

Still the other made no move. “In advance.”

For the first time Mr. Jimmon was annoyed; time was being wasted. “Just how can I pay you in advance when I don’t know how many gallons it’ll take to fill the tank?”

The man shrugged.

“Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll pay you for each gallon as you pump it. In advance.” He drew out a handful of bills; the bulk of his money was in his wallet, but he’d put the small bills in his pockets. He handed over a five. “Spill the first one on the ground or in a can if you’ve got one.”

“How’s that?”

Why should I tell him; give him ideas? As if he hadn’t got them already. “Just call me eccentric,” he said. “I don’t want the first gallon from the pump. Why should you care? It’s just five dollars more profit.”

For a moment Mr. Jimmon thought the man was going to refuse, and he regarded his foresight with new reverence. Then he reached behind the pump and produced a flat-sided tin in which he inserted the flexible end of the hose. Mr. Jimmon handed over the bill, the man wound the handle round and back—it was an ancient gas pump such as Mr. Jimmon hadn’t seen in years—and lifted the drooling hose from the can.

“Minute,” said Mr. Jimmon.

He stuck two fingers quickly and delicately inside the nozzle and smelled them. Gas all right, not water. He held out a ten-dollar bill. “Start filling.”

Jir and Wendell appeared out of the shadows. “Can we stop at a town where there’s a movie tonight?”

The handle turned, a cogtoothed rod crept and retreated, gasoline gurgled into the tank; movies, rest rooms, baths, restaurants. Gouge apprehensively lest a scene be made and propriety disturbed. In a surrealist daydream he saw Molly turning the crank, grinding him on the cogs, pouring his essence into insatiable Jir and Wendell. He held out twenty dollars.

Twelve gallons had been put in when Molly appeared. “You have a phone here?” he asked casually. Knowing the answer from the blue enameled sign not quite lost among the less sturdy ones advertising soft drinks and cigarettes.

“You want to call the cops?” He didn’t pause in his pumping.

“No. Know if the lines to LA”—Mr. Jimmon loathed the abbreviation—“are open yet?” He gave him another ten.

“How should I know?”

Mr. Jimmon beckoned his wife around the other side of the wagon, out of sight. Swiftly but casually he extracted the contents from his wallet. The 200 hundred-dollar bills made a fat lump. “Put this in your bag,” he said. “Tell you why later. Meantime why don’t you try and get Pearl and Dan on the phone? See if they’re OK?”

He imagined the puzzled look on her face. “Go on,” he urged. “We can spare a minute while he’s checking the oil.”

He thought there was a hint of uncertainty in Molly’s walk as she went toward the store. Erika joined her brothers. The tank gulped; gasoline splashed on the concrete. “Guess that’s it.”

The man became suddenly brisk as he put up the hose, screwed the gascap back on. Mr. Jimmon had already disengaged the hood; the man offered the radiator a squirt of water, pulled up the oil gauge, wiped it, plunged it down, squinted at it under the light and said, “Oil’s OK.”

“All right,” said Mr. Jimmon. “Get in, Erika.”

Some of the light shone directly on her face. Again he noted how mature and self-assured she looked. Erika would survive—and not as a savage either. The man started to wipe the windshield. “Oh, Jir,” he said casually, “run in and see if your mother is getting her connection. Tell her we’ll wait.”

“Aw furcrysay, I don’t see why I always—”

“And ask her to buy a couple of boxes of candy bars if they’ve got them. Wendell, go with Jir, will you?”

He slid behind the wheel and closed the door gently. The motor started with hardly a sound. As he put his foot on the clutch and shifted into low he thought Erika turned to him with a startled look. As the station wagon moved forward, he was sure of it.

“It’s all right, Erika,” said Mr. Jimmon, “I’ll explain later.”

He’d have lots of time to do it.