Older men -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
"Yes." There could be no other, for a man his age.
"It says 'dangerous,'" said the grocer. "I think maybe they cut you up,
find out how you live so long. Or make you sick to try new cure.
"You find better job--or Home. That one bad." There was a slight pause.
"Look. I close soon. You sweep store, I give you dollar."
"You're a good guy," said Ollie. "But I've got three dollars now." He
showed them proudly. "You save yours for somebody who doesn't have a
job to try for."
He tucked the rolls and orange inside his shirt, marched valiantly out
of the dark little store, and continued on to the yards.
The heavy traffic there confused him briefly. Transcontinental freight
was carried in long trains of rubber-tired cars towed on elevated
beamways by remotely-controlled, nuclear-fueled steam tractors. Here at
the San Francisco yards the trains were broken up and the individual
cars hauled by turbo-tractor on city streets and suburban roads for
delivery at the addressees' doors.
The cars were huge, the noise and bustle awe-inspiring. Ollie stood
outside the main exit watching the little tractors and big cars emerge,
till a beamway bull came over, flashed a badge, and told him to move on.
He did. He was a fugitive from so many things; he couldn't afford
resentments.
He went on around the yards. They were vast. He felt sure that
somewhere there must be an unguarded entry, and set out to find it,
moving cautiously from shadow to shadow along the high plasti-board
fence.
Twice he blundered into watchmen. Once he nearly got himself run over.
But after a couple of hours he saw a bindlestiff slip through an
unguarded gate, and in half a minute he was right behind the man.
Ollie moved away from him. There was safety in solitude. Besides, he
had to find a Salt Lake train.
The sealed cars were addressed like so many packages. But he had to
have light to read by, and he risked discovery every time he moved into
the light and took his stance behind the reading glass.
There were other hazards; television beams for the yard clerks to read
numbers by, invisible beams for the bulls to catch him with, headlights
that suddenly flashed on blindingly, humped cars rolling unattended on
silent, murderous tires.
Ollie felt like an ant on a busy sidewalk, liable to be crushed under
foot at any moment.
But an added hazard helped him find his train. The bulls had read that
want ad too. They were out in force around a string of cars. He slipped
between two sleepy-looking men, checked an address, and then slipped
out again, certain every car would be inspected before departure.
A good way down the yard he hid at the base of the fence, dozing and
shivering for several hours as he lay stretched out on the dew-chilled
concrete. He checked each outbound train as it went by, and again knew
his by the bulls on it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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