Collected Short Fiction, page 1120
Webster went pale at the sight of the big man looming over him. “You been listening all along, Sam?”
“Sure I have. I know when to expect trouble. Go on. Beat it.” Broderick put one ham-like hand on the back of Webster’s neck and gave him a contemptuous shove. “Damn bunch of snakes. Scram!”
Then he turned and extended the same hand to Jansen. “I’m Sam Broderick,” he boomed. “I’m in charge here.”
Broderick was in his forties or maybe his fifties, an enormous man, six-four at least. His face had power in it to match his size. A huge black mustache drooped below a savagely beaked nose. He wore a friendly smile, but there was something grim about the smile. Jansen was surprised to realize that this man was even more commanding-looking than Ben Thurston.
Broderick shook his head. “I figured them guys would get at you with some scheming deal. Well, I’m still boss here, no matter what Webster thinks. Put all them posters back in your whirlybird, son. There ain’t going to be any elections here in Falbridge.”
“It’s up to the town authorities to decide that.”
“I’m the town authorities,” the big man said. “No election. You boys aren’t getting a foothold here.”
“Do you have any right to tell me that?”
“I think I do. I’m in charge here. Which means that every time there’s trouble, they send me out to take care of it. I didn’t ask for the job, but I got it, and I’m doing it. And you’re trouble, mister.”
“I’m not making any trouble. I’m just here to—”
“To tell us about the elections. Sure, I know. And that means trouble.” He pointed toward the other side of the square. “Come over to the town hall with me. I’ve got an office that I use when I’m being mayor. We can talk better there.”
Jansen walked back across the square into the gray, dumpy town hall, silently. The very physical massiveness of Broderick troubled him. Breaking this local strong-man’s hold might be a tough job.
They entered a small office. Broderick opened a desk drawer, took out a clay jug and two clay cups. He uncorked the jug and poured about two inches of liquor into each of the cups.
“Drink hearty,” Broderick said. Jansen tasted the drink hesitantly. It was fiery and tremendously potent. “What is it?”
“Applejack. Don’t they have applejack where you come from, mister?” Jansen smiled. “I suppose they do. I’m not much of a drinking man.” He set the cup down. “Now, about the election—”
“Yeah. The election.”
“Why are you against it?” Jansen asked.
“Because I know what’ll happen, after the election. The Federal Government will decide it doesn’t like the way this town is run, and next thing I know I’ll be mixed up in a power struggle. This town is full of power-hungry fools who’re willing to bamboozle the Feds into putting them in control. Well, I aim to stay in charge here so long as I think I can do the job better than anyone else. So there ain’t going to be any messing with a Federal Government here.”
Talk of power-hungry fools, Jansen thought This fellow must think he rules here by divine right, or something.
Broderick went on, “I got a question for you. How come there has to be an election in the first place?”
“Why, to reestablish formal legal authority in the United States. To end the state of anarchy that’s prevailed since the war.” And to take power away from demagogues like you, Jansen added silently.
Broderick smiled. “Okay, I got another question, then. What do we need a United States for? And a Constitution, and all that stuff?”
Jansen gawped. “What do—why, that question’s so silly I can’t answer it!”
“Is it?”
“Of course. We need a United States because we want to keep building upward. Until we’re back where we were before the war. Until we’ve got our strength again. There’s strength in union, you can’t deny that. If an enemy should attack us—”
“There ain’t no enemies left,” Broderick said.
“Suppose.”
“Anybody who wants to be our enemy has to do a hell of a lot of rebuilding before he gets as strong as we are now,” Broderick said. “And we ain’t very strong. But you’re ducking my question. What’s all this need for a Federal Government, for a United States? What will that give us that we don’t have now?”
“Contact with your fellow Americans. Markets for your produce. Communication. Laws.”
“We got laws,” Broderick said. “When two people in this town have an argument, they come to me. I settle it. We got contact with our fellow Americans, right here in this town: I got a hundred men I love like brothers. You have that many friends, mister? We got communication, too. When I want to see Jimmy Lyons, I go over to his place. If he ain’t there, I leave a message. And we don’t need markets for our produce. We make what we need. And we’ve got everything we want. So what we need your election for, mister?”
Jansen felt a dull throbbing in the pit of his stomach. He took a quick gulp of the apple brandy, but it didn’t improve the state of his nerves.
Broderick was sawing him off at the ankles. He was asking questions so big that there weren’t any easy answers.
Jansen said, “Okay, I grant the fact that you’re happy, living in a little self-sufficient self-contained town. But the human race can’t make progress that way. There’s got to be a going out, a seeking for better things.”
“Why?” Broderick asked flatly.
“If we stand still, we’ll stagnate and die.”
“Says you.”
“It’s a law of human nature! We’ve got to progress,” Jansen said, a little panicky now. “We can’t just sit back and blot out the rest of the world.”
“Why the dickens not?”
“Progress—”
“Where did progress get us the last time? Where’s all the progress of New York? A bubbling slagheap, that’s all. Where’s Washington? Where’s Cleveland? Where’s every goddam big city in the world? Where’s all your progress, mister?”
“We made mistakes,” Jansen said. “Our mistakes destroyed the world. But now’s our second chance.”
“To make the same mistakes all over? Uh-uh, friend. We tried your kind of government and it didn’t work. This time we’ve got to try something different.”
Jansen scowled. “Like a country consisting of a bunch of independent towns run by strong-fisted bosses? Is that your idea of how America ought to be?”
“You must think I’m a real evil sort, huh?” Broderick asked casually. “A power-hungry villain. Listen, if I was the sort you think I am, I’d have slit your throat instead of hauling you in here for a nice civilized discussion.”
“You run this town undemocratically.”
“Damn right I do. But do you think I wanted this goddam job? You think I want to listen to damfool quarrels when I could be fishing? You think I want to spend my good time deciding produce quotas, or making sure that nobody like Webster gets control? Or talking to idiots from Kentucky who want to have elections?”
“You don’t act unwilling to run this town,” Jansen said.
“Because I know I have to. But I didn’t go out of my way to get the job. One day after the blowup a bunch of people from around here came to me and said, Sam, you’ve got to take charge. Webster and his bunch are making a mess of things. I ran them off my farm. They came back. Sam, we need you. Sam, help us. Sam this and Sam that. After a while I got the idea that if I didn’t take over everything around here would go to pot. But, brother, any time somebody in this town shows me he can do the job better than me, he can have it—with my blessing.”
“What about Webster?” Jansen asked. “That snake? He had his chance, right after the blowup. Funneled the town treasury into his pockets, gave all his friends soft jobs, told everybody else what to do. Everything for his benefit. Well, this town couldn’t put up with that. Nobody’s fitten to boss other people if he can’t even boss himself. So after I saw that if someone didn’t stop Webster he was going to run the town into the ground, and that if I didn’t do the stopping no one else would, I walked into town hall and threw Webster out. He’s been scheming to get back in ever since.”
“But how do you know your rule is any better?”
Broderick laughed. “I know, is all. Look, this town was like a runaway engine with a moron at the wheel. So I pushed him aside and took the controls myself, because I didn’t want to get run over. I’ve been running this town well ever since. But you come along, with your talk of an election. So Webster and his scalawags try to cook up a deal with you. They say to you, We’ll support you and you support us. So the Feds will come in here and turn the town over to Webster.”
“We’re only interested in restoring democracy.”
“Democracy’s only a word,” Broderick said. “What ought to interest you is restoring law and order. Which is what interests me.”
“Suppose the people really want Webster?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised if they do. People always want damfool things. Never know when they’re well off.”
“And you’re interfering with their free expression of opinion.”
“Surelam,” Broderick said. “Their opinions ain’t no good! They’re just a bunch of farmers. They want to be ruled by whoever’ll make things easiest for them. So Webster can promise them the moon, and they’d vote for him if they got the chance.”
“You don’t trust your own townspeople,” Jansen said accusingly.
“You’re afraid to let them voice their own wishes!”
Broderick chuckled. “All right, friend. You want democracy? You’ll get it. I’ll call a town meeting. You tell the people about the Feds, and we’ll see how they vote.”
Close to four hundred townspeople showed up at the hall. Broderick’s introduction was brief. “This is Lloyd Jansen. He’s from the Federal Government. Wants to talk to you.”
Jansen talked for twenty minutes. He gave them everything he had: fragments of Ben Thurston’s speeches, bits of the old Constitution and the new one, whole paragraphs from his psychology manuals. He wheedled, cajoled, threatened, bribed. He explained, half a dozen times in half a dozen ways, how necessary it was that everyone in what had been the United States throw his support behind the reorganized Provisional Government. And he ended up with what he hoped would be enough of a tearjerker to swing it:
“. . . and we here highly resolve that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. One nation—indivisible—with liberty and justice for all. The choice is yours. Will you help us forge the new America?”
He stepped down from the platform. There were no whoops of applause, no patriotic outcries. For twenty minutes his audience had stared at him like so many wooden Indians. They kept their hands on their laps. Jansen bit his lip. Didn’t I reach them at all, he wondered.
Broderick rose again. His towering form dominated the entire hall; his big voice filled the auditorium effortlessly, while Jansen had had to push and strain. “That was a mighty fine speech, young fellow,” Broderick said amiably. “You really know how to spout. Let’s give the boy a hand, folks!”
A light applause, for a moment. Jansen gritted his teeth. In three patronizing sentences Broderick had wiped out any effect the speech might have had.
The big man went on, “I just want to say one little thing before we vote. I don’t like this Federal Government business myself. I think we’re doing okay running ourselves. I also think that the Feds will interfere with us, in a way we won’t like.
“Let your conscience guide you. But keep this in mind: there are still plenty of hungry folk from the cities wandering around these parts raiding farms. I’ve organized a pretty tough little corps to protect you folk against raiders. But anybody who wants to vote for joining this Federal Government, well, I figure he an be protected by the Feds, not us. So I’D tell the militia to stop guarding the farm of anyone who thinks the Feds can do a better job running this town than I do. That’s fair enough, ain’t it?
“And now it’s time for voting. We’re all friends, so we don’t need to fool around with paper ballots. Just stand up and show your face. Everybody here who wants us to have these elections and let Ben Thurston’s government run us, stand up good and tall.”
Broderick waited. No one stood up.
“Kinda looks like yon lost,” Broderick said casually. “The other side, now. All those who don’t want no elections, suppose you sing out with a nay.”
The deafening Nay from four hundred throats almost blew Jansen off the platform.
“Okay, folks,” Broderick said. “Meeting’s over. You can all go home.”
As the crowd filed out, Jansen muttered to him, “It was rigged. You blackmailed them into voting against me.”
“Not so, son. I just put the realities to ‘em, and let them stand up on their hind legs and vote.”
“You threatened to withdraw protection from them!”
“Sure. If they were going to repudiate the town government, there wouldn’t be any government to protect them. You Feds can’t go policing every small town. I just put it to them a little differently.”
“I should have known you’d connive,” Jansen said bitterly. “The meeting was a farce. You wouldn’t let them vote against you.”
“They have to be pushed a little,” Broderick said. “Deep down a lot of them would love to toss me out and put Webster in. Leave them be and they’d be likely to do just that. And he ain’t fit to run the town. I am.”
“You’re pretty cocky about your qualifications.”
“I’ve got sense,” Broderick said. “Pretty near the only man around here who does.”
“Where was Webster at the meeting?”
“He wasn’t. You think I was going to let him and his pals in to start trouble?”
Despite his anger, Jansen chuckled. “So that’s your idea of a free and open meeting—your opponents excluded, and threats applied to the electorate! This thing tonight was just a high-handed power play to keep yourself in office.”
“Call it that. But it was necessary.” One of Broderick’s massive paws tightened on Jansen’s arm. “Come on, now. Better clear out of town. I don’t want you hanging around, stirring up trouble. I’ll walk as far as the copter with you.”
The moon lit up the town square. Men were busily ripping down the election posters. Jansen caught stray scraps of conversation.
“. . . the damn fool! Who needs a Federal Government anyway?”
“Yeah. We had one of them once. We been there before. And what good it did?”
“Blew everything to bits, that’s what.” Jansen and Broderick paused at the copter. In a surprisingly gentle voice, Broderick said, “You look awful hurt, son. Don’t take it personal.”
“I’m not hurt, I’m angry. Sheer dumbness makes me angry.”
“It isn’t dumbness,” Broderick said. “It’s fear.”
“Fear of a government?”
“Fear of making bad mistakes twice. Look, you go on back where you came from. Next town you stop at, you might get lynched.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Jansen said. “One of these days the government will be strong again, and then we’ll come back here and clean this town up.”
“You still harping on my wickedness?” Broderick said.
“You’re nothing but a two-bit tyrant.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Broderick said, taking no offense. “I like to think I’m a sort of philosopher-king, like Plato talked about.”
“You read Plato?”
“How dumb do you think I am?” Broderick retorted. “We got a library here. My grammar ain’t so good, but I can read. And think. And what I’ve been thinking is that we’ve got to change this country around a little. Sure, we need a central government, if we’re ever going to climb back up to where we were. But not a government of fools by fools.”
“And you think Ben Thurston’s a fool?”
“He isn’t, but he’s trying hard to act like one. Him and his bunch in Kentucky are trying to do a Humpty Dumpty act with this country. He’s got a right to try, but I know he’s wrong, and I’m not going to support him.” Broderick yawned. “Thurston’s a good, powerful man, and I respect strong men. But he’s full of a lot of crazy ideas. This ain’t no time to go around with fancy-pants stuff like elections and congresses and political parties.”
“It’s fifteen years since the blowup. How long do you think we ought to wait? A thousand years?”
“The blowup,” Broderick said, “set this country back three hundred years. What got blown apart takes a lot of time to grow together. No matter how hard you Kentucky people want to put back the good old days of television and advertising and Republicans and Democrats, you better learn that it can’t be done. Maybe even shouldn’t be done. You see those people over there?” Jansen nodded. They were at work on the last of his posters now.
Broderick said, “Those people are scared of governments. The governments built the bombs. If things stay split up this way, there won’t be any more bombs. These people don’t want a central government. You heard them. They been there once.”
“Should we just let things slide, then?”
“Of course not. But we can’t put them back together with an election proclamation. The time ain’t fitten for democracy again, yet. That’s Ben Thurston’s mistake. He wants the whole extinct shooting match, conventions and parties and secret ballots. Well, all that stuffs nice enough. But you have to let the old wounds heal. Let the country get its balance again. Right now we got a lot of weak, scared people in this country. They just want to be left alone, to hide their heads like ostriches. And if a man comes along running for office and promising to let them be ostriches, they’ll vote for him. How you gonna rebuild that way?” Broderick shook his head. “Thurston’s all wrong on this election thing. If he set up shop as Emperor of the United States, I’d support him. But he wants to be constitutional president, and the time ain’t ripe for that yet.”
“Thurston thinks it is.”
“Sure I have. I know when to expect trouble. Go on. Beat it.” Broderick put one ham-like hand on the back of Webster’s neck and gave him a contemptuous shove. “Damn bunch of snakes. Scram!”
Then he turned and extended the same hand to Jansen. “I’m Sam Broderick,” he boomed. “I’m in charge here.”
Broderick was in his forties or maybe his fifties, an enormous man, six-four at least. His face had power in it to match his size. A huge black mustache drooped below a savagely beaked nose. He wore a friendly smile, but there was something grim about the smile. Jansen was surprised to realize that this man was even more commanding-looking than Ben Thurston.
Broderick shook his head. “I figured them guys would get at you with some scheming deal. Well, I’m still boss here, no matter what Webster thinks. Put all them posters back in your whirlybird, son. There ain’t going to be any elections here in Falbridge.”
“It’s up to the town authorities to decide that.”
“I’m the town authorities,” the big man said. “No election. You boys aren’t getting a foothold here.”
“Do you have any right to tell me that?”
“I think I do. I’m in charge here. Which means that every time there’s trouble, they send me out to take care of it. I didn’t ask for the job, but I got it, and I’m doing it. And you’re trouble, mister.”
“I’m not making any trouble. I’m just here to—”
“To tell us about the elections. Sure, I know. And that means trouble.” He pointed toward the other side of the square. “Come over to the town hall with me. I’ve got an office that I use when I’m being mayor. We can talk better there.”
Jansen walked back across the square into the gray, dumpy town hall, silently. The very physical massiveness of Broderick troubled him. Breaking this local strong-man’s hold might be a tough job.
They entered a small office. Broderick opened a desk drawer, took out a clay jug and two clay cups. He uncorked the jug and poured about two inches of liquor into each of the cups.
“Drink hearty,” Broderick said. Jansen tasted the drink hesitantly. It was fiery and tremendously potent. “What is it?”
“Applejack. Don’t they have applejack where you come from, mister?” Jansen smiled. “I suppose they do. I’m not much of a drinking man.” He set the cup down. “Now, about the election—”
“Yeah. The election.”
“Why are you against it?” Jansen asked.
“Because I know what’ll happen, after the election. The Federal Government will decide it doesn’t like the way this town is run, and next thing I know I’ll be mixed up in a power struggle. This town is full of power-hungry fools who’re willing to bamboozle the Feds into putting them in control. Well, I aim to stay in charge here so long as I think I can do the job better than anyone else. So there ain’t going to be any messing with a Federal Government here.”
Talk of power-hungry fools, Jansen thought This fellow must think he rules here by divine right, or something.
Broderick went on, “I got a question for you. How come there has to be an election in the first place?”
“Why, to reestablish formal legal authority in the United States. To end the state of anarchy that’s prevailed since the war.” And to take power away from demagogues like you, Jansen added silently.
Broderick smiled. “Okay, I got another question, then. What do we need a United States for? And a Constitution, and all that stuff?”
Jansen gawped. “What do—why, that question’s so silly I can’t answer it!”
“Is it?”
“Of course. We need a United States because we want to keep building upward. Until we’re back where we were before the war. Until we’ve got our strength again. There’s strength in union, you can’t deny that. If an enemy should attack us—”
“There ain’t no enemies left,” Broderick said.
“Suppose.”
“Anybody who wants to be our enemy has to do a hell of a lot of rebuilding before he gets as strong as we are now,” Broderick said. “And we ain’t very strong. But you’re ducking my question. What’s all this need for a Federal Government, for a United States? What will that give us that we don’t have now?”
“Contact with your fellow Americans. Markets for your produce. Communication. Laws.”
“We got laws,” Broderick said. “When two people in this town have an argument, they come to me. I settle it. We got contact with our fellow Americans, right here in this town: I got a hundred men I love like brothers. You have that many friends, mister? We got communication, too. When I want to see Jimmy Lyons, I go over to his place. If he ain’t there, I leave a message. And we don’t need markets for our produce. We make what we need. And we’ve got everything we want. So what we need your election for, mister?”
Jansen felt a dull throbbing in the pit of his stomach. He took a quick gulp of the apple brandy, but it didn’t improve the state of his nerves.
Broderick was sawing him off at the ankles. He was asking questions so big that there weren’t any easy answers.
Jansen said, “Okay, I grant the fact that you’re happy, living in a little self-sufficient self-contained town. But the human race can’t make progress that way. There’s got to be a going out, a seeking for better things.”
“Why?” Broderick asked flatly.
“If we stand still, we’ll stagnate and die.”
“Says you.”
“It’s a law of human nature! We’ve got to progress,” Jansen said, a little panicky now. “We can’t just sit back and blot out the rest of the world.”
“Why the dickens not?”
“Progress—”
“Where did progress get us the last time? Where’s all the progress of New York? A bubbling slagheap, that’s all. Where’s Washington? Where’s Cleveland? Where’s every goddam big city in the world? Where’s all your progress, mister?”
“We made mistakes,” Jansen said. “Our mistakes destroyed the world. But now’s our second chance.”
“To make the same mistakes all over? Uh-uh, friend. We tried your kind of government and it didn’t work. This time we’ve got to try something different.”
Jansen scowled. “Like a country consisting of a bunch of independent towns run by strong-fisted bosses? Is that your idea of how America ought to be?”
“You must think I’m a real evil sort, huh?” Broderick asked casually. “A power-hungry villain. Listen, if I was the sort you think I am, I’d have slit your throat instead of hauling you in here for a nice civilized discussion.”
“You run this town undemocratically.”
“Damn right I do. But do you think I wanted this goddam job? You think I want to listen to damfool quarrels when I could be fishing? You think I want to spend my good time deciding produce quotas, or making sure that nobody like Webster gets control? Or talking to idiots from Kentucky who want to have elections?”
“You don’t act unwilling to run this town,” Jansen said.
“Because I know I have to. But I didn’t go out of my way to get the job. One day after the blowup a bunch of people from around here came to me and said, Sam, you’ve got to take charge. Webster and his bunch are making a mess of things. I ran them off my farm. They came back. Sam, we need you. Sam, help us. Sam this and Sam that. After a while I got the idea that if I didn’t take over everything around here would go to pot. But, brother, any time somebody in this town shows me he can do the job better than me, he can have it—with my blessing.”
“What about Webster?” Jansen asked. “That snake? He had his chance, right after the blowup. Funneled the town treasury into his pockets, gave all his friends soft jobs, told everybody else what to do. Everything for his benefit. Well, this town couldn’t put up with that. Nobody’s fitten to boss other people if he can’t even boss himself. So after I saw that if someone didn’t stop Webster he was going to run the town into the ground, and that if I didn’t do the stopping no one else would, I walked into town hall and threw Webster out. He’s been scheming to get back in ever since.”
“But how do you know your rule is any better?”
Broderick laughed. “I know, is all. Look, this town was like a runaway engine with a moron at the wheel. So I pushed him aside and took the controls myself, because I didn’t want to get run over. I’ve been running this town well ever since. But you come along, with your talk of an election. So Webster and his scalawags try to cook up a deal with you. They say to you, We’ll support you and you support us. So the Feds will come in here and turn the town over to Webster.”
“We’re only interested in restoring democracy.”
“Democracy’s only a word,” Broderick said. “What ought to interest you is restoring law and order. Which is what interests me.”
“Suppose the people really want Webster?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised if they do. People always want damfool things. Never know when they’re well off.”
“And you’re interfering with their free expression of opinion.”
“Surelam,” Broderick said. “Their opinions ain’t no good! They’re just a bunch of farmers. They want to be ruled by whoever’ll make things easiest for them. So Webster can promise them the moon, and they’d vote for him if they got the chance.”
“You don’t trust your own townspeople,” Jansen said accusingly.
“You’re afraid to let them voice their own wishes!”
Broderick chuckled. “All right, friend. You want democracy? You’ll get it. I’ll call a town meeting. You tell the people about the Feds, and we’ll see how they vote.”
Close to four hundred townspeople showed up at the hall. Broderick’s introduction was brief. “This is Lloyd Jansen. He’s from the Federal Government. Wants to talk to you.”
Jansen talked for twenty minutes. He gave them everything he had: fragments of Ben Thurston’s speeches, bits of the old Constitution and the new one, whole paragraphs from his psychology manuals. He wheedled, cajoled, threatened, bribed. He explained, half a dozen times in half a dozen ways, how necessary it was that everyone in what had been the United States throw his support behind the reorganized Provisional Government. And he ended up with what he hoped would be enough of a tearjerker to swing it:
“. . . and we here highly resolve that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. One nation—indivisible—with liberty and justice for all. The choice is yours. Will you help us forge the new America?”
He stepped down from the platform. There were no whoops of applause, no patriotic outcries. For twenty minutes his audience had stared at him like so many wooden Indians. They kept their hands on their laps. Jansen bit his lip. Didn’t I reach them at all, he wondered.
Broderick rose again. His towering form dominated the entire hall; his big voice filled the auditorium effortlessly, while Jansen had had to push and strain. “That was a mighty fine speech, young fellow,” Broderick said amiably. “You really know how to spout. Let’s give the boy a hand, folks!”
A light applause, for a moment. Jansen gritted his teeth. In three patronizing sentences Broderick had wiped out any effect the speech might have had.
The big man went on, “I just want to say one little thing before we vote. I don’t like this Federal Government business myself. I think we’re doing okay running ourselves. I also think that the Feds will interfere with us, in a way we won’t like.
“Let your conscience guide you. But keep this in mind: there are still plenty of hungry folk from the cities wandering around these parts raiding farms. I’ve organized a pretty tough little corps to protect you folk against raiders. But anybody who wants to vote for joining this Federal Government, well, I figure he an be protected by the Feds, not us. So I’D tell the militia to stop guarding the farm of anyone who thinks the Feds can do a better job running this town than I do. That’s fair enough, ain’t it?
“And now it’s time for voting. We’re all friends, so we don’t need to fool around with paper ballots. Just stand up and show your face. Everybody here who wants us to have these elections and let Ben Thurston’s government run us, stand up good and tall.”
Broderick waited. No one stood up.
“Kinda looks like yon lost,” Broderick said casually. “The other side, now. All those who don’t want no elections, suppose you sing out with a nay.”
The deafening Nay from four hundred throats almost blew Jansen off the platform.
“Okay, folks,” Broderick said. “Meeting’s over. You can all go home.”
As the crowd filed out, Jansen muttered to him, “It was rigged. You blackmailed them into voting against me.”
“Not so, son. I just put the realities to ‘em, and let them stand up on their hind legs and vote.”
“You threatened to withdraw protection from them!”
“Sure. If they were going to repudiate the town government, there wouldn’t be any government to protect them. You Feds can’t go policing every small town. I just put it to them a little differently.”
“I should have known you’d connive,” Jansen said bitterly. “The meeting was a farce. You wouldn’t let them vote against you.”
“They have to be pushed a little,” Broderick said. “Deep down a lot of them would love to toss me out and put Webster in. Leave them be and they’d be likely to do just that. And he ain’t fit to run the town. I am.”
“You’re pretty cocky about your qualifications.”
“I’ve got sense,” Broderick said. “Pretty near the only man around here who does.”
“Where was Webster at the meeting?”
“He wasn’t. You think I was going to let him and his pals in to start trouble?”
Despite his anger, Jansen chuckled. “So that’s your idea of a free and open meeting—your opponents excluded, and threats applied to the electorate! This thing tonight was just a high-handed power play to keep yourself in office.”
“Call it that. But it was necessary.” One of Broderick’s massive paws tightened on Jansen’s arm. “Come on, now. Better clear out of town. I don’t want you hanging around, stirring up trouble. I’ll walk as far as the copter with you.”
The moon lit up the town square. Men were busily ripping down the election posters. Jansen caught stray scraps of conversation.
“. . . the damn fool! Who needs a Federal Government anyway?”
“Yeah. We had one of them once. We been there before. And what good it did?”
“Blew everything to bits, that’s what.” Jansen and Broderick paused at the copter. In a surprisingly gentle voice, Broderick said, “You look awful hurt, son. Don’t take it personal.”
“I’m not hurt, I’m angry. Sheer dumbness makes me angry.”
“It isn’t dumbness,” Broderick said. “It’s fear.”
“Fear of a government?”
“Fear of making bad mistakes twice. Look, you go on back where you came from. Next town you stop at, you might get lynched.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Jansen said. “One of these days the government will be strong again, and then we’ll come back here and clean this town up.”
“You still harping on my wickedness?” Broderick said.
“You’re nothing but a two-bit tyrant.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Broderick said, taking no offense. “I like to think I’m a sort of philosopher-king, like Plato talked about.”
“You read Plato?”
“How dumb do you think I am?” Broderick retorted. “We got a library here. My grammar ain’t so good, but I can read. And think. And what I’ve been thinking is that we’ve got to change this country around a little. Sure, we need a central government, if we’re ever going to climb back up to where we were. But not a government of fools by fools.”
“And you think Ben Thurston’s a fool?”
“He isn’t, but he’s trying hard to act like one. Him and his bunch in Kentucky are trying to do a Humpty Dumpty act with this country. He’s got a right to try, but I know he’s wrong, and I’m not going to support him.” Broderick yawned. “Thurston’s a good, powerful man, and I respect strong men. But he’s full of a lot of crazy ideas. This ain’t no time to go around with fancy-pants stuff like elections and congresses and political parties.”
“It’s fifteen years since the blowup. How long do you think we ought to wait? A thousand years?”
“The blowup,” Broderick said, “set this country back three hundred years. What got blown apart takes a lot of time to grow together. No matter how hard you Kentucky people want to put back the good old days of television and advertising and Republicans and Democrats, you better learn that it can’t be done. Maybe even shouldn’t be done. You see those people over there?” Jansen nodded. They were at work on the last of his posters now.
Broderick said, “Those people are scared of governments. The governments built the bombs. If things stay split up this way, there won’t be any more bombs. These people don’t want a central government. You heard them. They been there once.”
“Should we just let things slide, then?”
“Of course not. But we can’t put them back together with an election proclamation. The time ain’t fitten for democracy again, yet. That’s Ben Thurston’s mistake. He wants the whole extinct shooting match, conventions and parties and secret ballots. Well, all that stuffs nice enough. But you have to let the old wounds heal. Let the country get its balance again. Right now we got a lot of weak, scared people in this country. They just want to be left alone, to hide their heads like ostriches. And if a man comes along running for office and promising to let them be ostriches, they’ll vote for him. How you gonna rebuild that way?” Broderick shook his head. “Thurston’s all wrong on this election thing. If he set up shop as Emperor of the United States, I’d support him. But he wants to be constitutional president, and the time ain’t ripe for that yet.”
“Thurston thinks it is.”
