Then he traced the map right down to the exact spot where the
buildings were. Then he turned on a movie, and he showed the
back-door, garbage strewn, and a room where a family slept, seven of
them, and the privy they shared with five other families.
* * * * *
Then Bill turned off the movie, and he brought that family to the
mike, each of them dirty and in clothes that never had amounted to
much, and had seen a long life since--even the baby. One kid's shoes
had a sole flapping off, another had the toes cut out so he could wear
them, though he'd long outgrown them.
"We haven't added to what we found," Bill said. "This is the way the ...
I've introduced them as the Jones family, let's leave it at that. This
is how the Joneses have had to dress. This is how they've had to live.
This is a very real part of America," he said, and his voice was choking
a little, and Randolph thought, if he's putting that on, he's the best
actor I've seen yet.
Randolph found himself glad he was alone, and didn't have to speak
himself. His own throat felt choked.
"And now," said Bill to his audience, "It's time for the witches...."
The camera shifted, and there was a papier-maché model of the
buildings, built so you could look in the curtainless windows and see
the squalor, lighted with a single bulb on a string. There was a gray
pall over the whole thing, and newspapers and trash blowing against
the front of the building. The gray pall, Randolph had figured from
the sub-scene two weeks ago, was an effect of lights on a net curtain,
but the effect was really good.
The thirteen witches, slender witches, danced in waving their products
and crying their chant, their crimson-lined capes swirling out to
glimpse the audience their long, slender legs.
They cried their chant as they pranced toward the dilapidated
building. "Witches of the world, unite to make it clean, clean, clean,
Witch clean--NOW!" And each threw a spray of her product toward the
building.
"Witch soap or detergent, Witch cleanser upsurgent, which Witch do you
need? You should have them all...."
Then riding over the muted jingle the deep voice of the announcer
saying "Tonight the Witches of the world clean a slum of the world ...
a particular slum, this slum.
"Witches, unite! And clean, clean, clean, Witch clean...."
The dancing witches now threw each her ingredient on the building
itself, and the gray pall began to lighten, a bright, new-painted
front shone forth. Inside, the single bulbs blacked out for an
instant, and then a soft light showed through curtained windows, a
bright new scene dimly apparent through the curtains.
"This is not just an illusion," the deep voice of the announcer
continued. "This is really happening, down near the Battery in New
York City. It is happening to the Joneses and the Smiths who live
there--"
The chorus rose to cover the announcer's voice, "Clean, clean, clean,
Witch clean!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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