“Yep. And this time I’m going alone, without my dad. There are a lot of things to see and do that he wouldn’t let me into. He always thinks he knows best . . . treats me like a kid.”
Jimmy asked, “Does your father know you’re going back alone?”
“No. And don’t anybody tell on me, either.”
They were still talking about New York City when the ten o’clock whistle went off.
“Damn!”
“Curfew time already?”
“I bet those security cops ring it early on us.”
“They can’t. It’s automatic.”
The boys got up slowly, grumbling. Ron pulled himself to his feet.
Jimmy came over beside him and asked softly, “Are you really going back to New York City?”
Nodding, Ron said, “You bet. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going.”
“There’s only a week or so left before Labor Day. Don’t they close the City after that?”
“Yep.”
“Wish I could go, too.”
“Come on along!” Ron said, enthusiastically. “It’d be terrific, the two of us.”
“Naw, I can’t. My folks wouldn’t let me.”
“Don’t tell them!”
Jimmy scuffed at the astroturf with a bare foot.
“They’d kill me when I got back. Naw . . . I just can’t.”
Ron didn’t know what to say. He just stood there.
“Well . . . g’night,” Jimmy said.
Ron shrugged at him.
The boys filed through the back gate in the fence that surrounded Ron’s house. They fanned out, each heading for his own house. All the houses on the long curving broad quiet street were the same. Each had a broad back lawn of astroturf with a swimming pool and the same low, imitation-wood fences. In each of the houses, the parents sat watching TV, like good citizen consumers.
The Tract houses went on, street after street, row after row, for as far as Ron knew. The only break in their ranks was the big shopping center, where all the fathers worked in offices on the upper floors of the store buildings. The train station was next to the shopping center, underground, beneath the parking lot. The train ran through a deep tunnel, so Ron never saw where the Tracts ended and the City began.
Ron stood beside the pool for a long while and looked up at the stars. The sky was completely clear of clouds. The Weather Control Force wouldn’t start the nightly rain for another couple of hours. Up there now in the blackness he could see sparkling Vega and brilliant Altair. And there was Deneb, at the tail of the Swan—the stars of the Swan stretched halfway across the summer sky in a long, graceful cross, slim and beautiful.
If only Dad could see how beautiful it all is, Ron thought. If only . . .
Then he remembered the National Exams. The tests that settled what your career would be. The tests that fixed the pattern of the rest of your life. If you did poorly, the chances were that they would put you in the Social Services, or worse, in the Army. But if you did well—incredibly well—maybe you could get to spend your whole life studying the stars.
They’d tell him how he scored on the tests tomorrow.
Tomorrow was going to be The Day.
Tomorrow.
A movement of light caught his eye. Far down the row of houses, a silent patrol car was gliding along the emptied street. The security patrol, making certain that nobody was out past curfew.
Ron shook his head and headed for the house. He knew that his parents were watching TV: Dad in his den and Mother in her bedroom. Mother never felt very strong, so they seldom had friends over. Ron went straight up to his room without bothering either of his parents.
Before they close the City down, I’m going back to New York, he told himself again. No matter what the National Exam results are, I’m going back.
Ron woke up.
His eyes snapped open and he was awake. Not groggy at all. Eyes wide open, mind clear and sharp. He could hear the morning music and news coming from his alarm stereo, the newscaster’s soft voice purring along in cadence to the “easy listening” music. The sun was streaming through his bedroom window. Very faintly, Ron could hear the water circulating in the solar-powered pumps between his bedroom ceiling and the roof.
A moment ago he had been sleeping, dreaming something ugly and scary. Now he was so fully awake that he couldn’t even remember what his dream was about. He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He had painted patterns of stars up there on the blue paneling: Orion, the Dippers, the Lion—
The Exam results, he suddenly recalled. Today’s The Day!
Forever Day.
He got out of bed and walked quietly to the sanitary stall. The needle-spray shower felt good. The hot-air blower felt even better. Ron looked at his face in the stall’s mirror. He had never been very happy about his face. The nose was too big and the eyes were too small. Ordinary brown eyes. Brown hair, too. Just ordinary.
He had seen a few guys in New York with long hair, really long and flowing. It looked weird at first. Ron stared at his own short-clipped hair. Nice and trim. Everybody wore it that way at home. Easy to keep clean. Sanitary. Ordinary.
