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Betty Slack changed into the dress from Wohl's while Howard shaved, changed his shirt and put the bad letter and his presentation notes in his jacket, and then... in their Buick Special... they began the crosstown journey to the Grays in abject, fretful silence. She stared out the windshield in the beige "Fall Fantasy" dress with brown cuffs and patterns of dead and dying leaves and pinecones, the paper bag of mints between her ankles as the scenery unfolded... first, the rest of their development, the church, then the state highway. Howard wore a piece of toilet paper on his chin and drove fiercely, clenching his fists angrily upon the wheel when someone slowed in front of him, and at the stoplights. They passed the bowling alley as the sun went down and yielded the friendly little town to darkness and bereavement. In this poorest part of the city, shadows danced with sinister abandon on the grimy brick of tenements.

Howard turned on the radio.

"...Minister of Defense declared today that allies shall assist the small regime against insurgent bands. On Wall Street, stocks fell throughout the day and our correspondent, Winston Hargrove, is on hand..."

"I'm driving!" Howard pointed out with a small jut of chin, since both hands remained firmly on the wheel, "and I don't like that news. Betty, turn to something nice."

She leaned forward and twisted the dial.

"...who really knows where the Incumbent stands. Blood is a man of many masks. Who can aver that they have ever seen his true face? If elected..."

"Oh... that awful Vogoroff!" Betty shuddered. "I'll make him go away."

She tweaked the Buick radio, savagely this time, thrashing through a static forest to the station that played Nat King Cole.

"That's so much better. Howard," she suggested, for the song gave her a thought, "wouldn't it be blessed if the babies grew up like that boy of Waldo and Marlene's? He's so well mannered..."

Howard frowned and turned a corner, entering the heart of the slums. Betty snuggled deeper into the seat, building a protective shell of Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy" and purple vinyl. "Why can't they just let us be, those slum people?"

"It's not so bad as it seems. Most are just workers at the mill. Heck, some of them are covered in the plans." He licked his lips. "That's Henry's job... was Henry's job. A plum, a piece of cake... group policies... a piece of plum cake, those plans." And he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel to show confidence and anticipation.

"Anne hated having Henry have to go into the slums," Betty reminded him. "Those people out there are different from us, and some of the women aren't reliable..."

"Goes with the territory," Howard replied, trying not to sound flippant.

"I need another tranquilizer," Betty fumbled through her purse.

But, with another turn... past the Odd Fellow's Hall and bus depot... they'd come to the end of the bad neighborhood. Now grateful streets grew wider, streets of empty buildings without shadows, factories and warehouses that slept by night. A pickup truck turned sharply in front of the Buick and a tinny voice seeped through its rolled-up windows, penetrating the soft music like rot through a peach.

"What luck!" Howard groaned. "It's the Bloodmobile!"

"Ugh!" Betty agreed. "Oh I'll vote for him," she quickly amended, "but it's just that he, it's so... crude! Those loudspeakers driving all around at night, those contests on the telephone! Why should we stoop to his level just to win a deck of playing cards, or corncob holders, or even the set of steak knives? We already have those things, and so does everyone we know. Who doesn't? Factory workers, maybe?" she asked, with a toss of her head backwards, "...and he's always on the radio...

"Well," she added, with a defeated sigh, "do I open the window?"

"Might as well hear what the man has to say tonight," admitted Howard and, driving with one hand and worrying, throughout, about the risk that he was taking, he turned off the weeping Johnny Ray radio with an injunctive snap. "Maybe, this time, it will be something important."

"That would be a novelty." Betty sullenly tugged and turned the handle and the window came down a quarter, and the creeping voice gained stridence, tugging itself to its knees, its feet and, as Betty kept turning the handle, began to march with a mesmerizing, cocksure cadence.

The Bloodmobile, festooned with red, white and blue crepe, was filthy. Vandals had inscribed "Wash Me!" on the back panel door, from which dangled limp, shriveled balloons. Its tailpipe coughed blue smoke back towards the Buick. In the driver's cab, alongside the empty bottles, dried up apple cores and cigarette butts, reposed a reel-to-reel tape recorder with bare wires leading to the speakers taped to the truck's roof. And it was from these speakers that Bill Blood pronounced judgment on his domain... bringing tidings of an exalted heritage, a present wretched with uncertainty but contrasted... if the voters did the right thing... with the boundless future...

"...is or can become," boomed Blood, "the impetus for early marriage and, concomitantly, our rising divorce rate. As Incumbent, I've introduced legislation which will require local school districts to bar from holding in any student organization, or from participation in athletic competition or cheerleading, any student found to engage in the insidious practice of..."

The Bloodmobile turned a corner and the remainder of the message quickly grew inaudible, wasting away like a punctured, inflated toy.

"He's been in office since before the war, almost, but he's always complaining," Betty wondered. "What was that about those students?"

Howard motioned for her to raise up the window. "I didn't hear either. But don't worry, he'll come round again."

"I know," she answered wearily.

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They had passed through the downtown, and the sudden absence of streetlights brought down intermittent darkness, broken only by occasional approaching headlights speeding past towards unknown nighttime assignations in the slums.

"What would it be like to be Vice President?" Betty asked, just for making the conversation. "Aside from the raise..."

Howard cleared his throat, putting his thoughts in line like little building blocks... a different line from the blocks that composed the presentation he would make later that evening. "For one thing, Henry... the Vice President... has his own office, with a glass partition. No one may come in, unless they have made an appointment, except Waldo, of course. So people don't sit on your desk and spill coffee and tie up your telephone."

"Like Wayne?"

"Like Wayne." Howard gripped the wheel and, soon, the sour recollections faded in a fuzzy glow of his approaching future. "And the Vice-President doesn't go calling on customers, except for the big accounts... the group policies, as I've said, the Board of Education, the Controller, Presidents and Payroll Managers at all the plants. We'd be invited to the Country Club... but..."

"Howard, the road!" Betty screeched, and Howard jerked the wheel away from the fuzzy, approaching headlights.

"Now what the hell is this?" he said.

Ahead, the road was cordoned off by sawhorses... dirty white, with orange flashing signals. Cars with flashing blue and orange lights were parked on both sides of the road beyond the barricade and men in khaki, gas masks and light brown ten-gallon hats were swarming across the pavement like an upturned nest of ants.

At length, one of these approached the Buick.

"License 'n registration." Howard pulled these from the glove compartment and the man in khaki frowned and read through twice; mouthing the information and tracking it with a fat, pink finger. "Out of the car!"

"Who are these people?" Betty whispered.

"Civics," Howard said over his shoulder. "County Volunteer Corps. They make sure that drivers... well, it's one of Wayne's new projects."

"Oh," Betty understood.

"Don't sit there movin' your jaws," the Civic barked. "Move out!" Howard edged out of the Buick, shooting a quick glance downwards to confirm that the Civic wore cowboy boots with four inch heels. "Now as a citizen and licensed driver in this county, you may have some rights. You may remain silent, with or without outside attorneys present, or absent as they may choose. And you may refuse to take the test..."

He nodded, holding Howard's eye as he tugged a pair of brown gloves from his belt, drawing them on with an exaggerated malice as Howard briefly thought of telling him and the rest of the Civics that he knew their leader. But, instead, he looked down at the four-inch heels.

The Civic, satisfied that Howard could not meet his gaze and, therefore, must have something to conceal, made a fist and pounded it into his gloved palm.

"But now, merely as a practical consideration, I suggest to you that, if you do refuse, we are empowered by the County to make citizen's arrests. And, if you try to run away, Ike's got a radio and them boys from the State Patrol will be all over your ass like maggots on a rotten onion."

"I understand," said Howard, "and I'll take your test. I've nothing to run away from."

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