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          The uniformed Civic who had ordered Howard and Betty Slack out of their vehicle gave a world-weary smirk… wasted as a consequence of his being hidden behind the gas mask… and waved towards the men behind the roadblock. "Set her up proper, boys, right over there. Smart of you," he added to Howard. A big, white angry pimple on his neck, just below the gas mask, throbbed in the glow cast by the Buick Special's headlights. "Know how many horses them State Police got beneath their hoods? Four twenty eight! That's truth, mister, gospel truth. Nobody gets away from our police...

          "Hey, not that way! This way!" he shouted towards the swarming men, more of whom had poured out of parked cars with boards and clipboards, more sawhorses and concrete blocks, which they began to pile up, one atop another. Presently, the nature of an obstacle course became visible to Howard, if not exactly comprehensible. The walking surface was composed of half a dozen six to eight foot, four inch wide beams, suspended on upward and downwards inclines. The summit of the ordeal veered off towards the side of the road, perhaps thirty inches off the ground, and overhung a ditch littered with empty gasoline cans, wooden boxes with faded pictures of cabbages, an animal dead so long that Howard could not make out just what kind of beast it was and bound and mildewed volumes of condensed Reader's Digest Classics.

          Howard walked parallel to the course, estimating its length as perhaps thirty feet although, with all the ups and downs and turnings, it would naturally appear longer.

          "We're still working on particulars," admitted the Civic. His swagger slumped somewhat at the sight of the disapproval showing at the corner of Howard's lip, a response to the shabbiness of the device. "It looks a little funny, but it does the job," he warned, "keeping you drunken and unsafe drivers off the road. Remember, nobody keeps time. Just accuracy, mister, is what matters... that's the ticket!"

          Betty leaned out the window of the Buick. "Officer, what happens if he falls..."

          The Civic scowled... and scowled again, harder, for he'd realized the gray gas mask had masked his scowling. He pounded his palm with his fist and stomped one of his high-heeled jackboots on the road for emphasis. "We're only volunteers. We turn our failures over to the State patrol."

          Betty wriggled out of her side of the Buick and trotted over, just as fast as her own high heels permitted. "But Officer... what if he's injured?"

          The Civic liked the sound of that, and liked the title "Officer". He even thought about making her go back to the car, just to show Howard who was in control, but could not remember what he was allowed to do to her if she refused. So, instead, he allowed Betty's words to roll round around, ricocheting through the black, bug eyes of the gray gas mask, giving his own words pause to ripen on his tongue.

          "Why them that do fall off," he said, at last, "the don't get hurt. Because they're drunk or otherwise, ma'am, and that's the only reason folks fall off, and those don't deserve to be out and on the road with law-abiding drivers nohow. Now, if they're not... and could get hurt if they fell off... they don't fall off. That's how the Chairman sees it. Here you go!" The Civic waved to Howard.

          "I'll be fine," Howard promised. "Betty... Wayne is the Chairman of this bunch, you know?"

          Nonetheless, he took a deep breath, glanced up the incline and across the treetops to the stars, which had begun their climb up the rungs of the ladder of the night. The beam seemed to give towards the left, where the old roadbed was worn, and, in fact, slanted notably towards the left. He compensated, accordingly, stepping slowly and deliberately though the grade, at least here, at the beginning, was not steep. Accomplishing the first segment, he navigated the second... which continued upwards on a steady incline, although a disconcerting wobble occurred towards the end, resultant of the board's resting on a sawhorse, instead of two stronger, concrete blocks. He paused, realizing he would have to measure his steps, compensating for the leftwards sag, and attained the sawhorse with his left foot forward, in order to make a smooth transition to the next beam, which swerved back towards the highway on a steep decline from the sawhorse, two feet up, down to a single concrete block, laid sideways and, at most, eight inches off the ground.

          The beam swayed as he edged his left foot forward... not too far... just so, and then the right and left again, where he'd be in position, centered. He lifted his right foot, looking into the ditch with the dead animal and literature. If he fell, he'd try to land among the Readers' Digests... those old cabbage boxes certainly had rusty nails in them. But it would be better not to fall. Now he stepped left again, then right, then left again, and he had only to step six inches sideways to the next beam that rested on the concrete block

          On the highway, a Civic tore his gas mask off and violently sneezed.

          Howard stepped back, causing the beam behind him to rise up sharply, the way a teeter-totter answers to a fat boy's behind. He threw his left arm out for balance, and slid his foot forward, off the wavering beam, to the concrete block. Pitching sideways, the back beam bounced three times against the upraised sawhorse, each time further to the right, and it fell, at last, into the ditch behind Howard, and across the dead animal.

          A small, unpleasant smell wafted upwards from the ditch.

          "Keep going!" the leader of the Civics said, as Howard crouched to lower his center of gravity. His right foot slithered forward onto the next beam and he advanced, hunched over, crab-stepping with his right foot ahead, his left trailing behind. "Goddammit Murph," the Civic complained behind his mask as the man in the road sneezed again, again and again, "at least you could've brought a handkerchief!"

          "I lost it!" whined the maskless Civic. Betty observed critically that he was barely old enough to shave. "You know what would've happened if I'd kept the damn thing on..."

          "Next time, use your sleeve!" the leader barked, and then nodded at Betty. "Handled that good, he did, there, real good. We don't write a man up if a little wood goes by the by, only if there's something human that goes down with it. Go on!" he encouraged Howard.

          Howard had been resting in his crouch, studying the angle at which the beam approached the second of the sawhorses but now, in the flashing blue and orange lights, he noticed three things rising from its surface. Nails! He looked down... this beam was old and dusty, not a new one, like the others. Rusty nails! "Bastards!" he swore, but to himself, and started up and forwards with flailing arms and gritted teeth, duckwalking like the colored singer on TV, that friend of Elvis Presley whose name, for the time, escaped him. The incline was steeper than the first, and he dug his heels into the musty old timber to keep from sliding backwards into the nails, which were spaced about eight inches distant, two thirds to the second sawhorse.

          Wondering if they had been placed there deliberately and, moreover, if Wayne himself had known and timed his approach to the boss' dinner party, Howard rocked back and planted his right sole between the first and second nail. They had been hammered deep into the wood, and held firm. Now the left. Again, he advanced his right foot forward, extending it clumsily past the last nail, steadying himself with his arms. He wiped his palms against his trousers, they were moist with sweat. Had sweat seeped through his pants and dripped from the cuffs, through his socks, and onto his soles? Had Wayne planned all this? He dismissed the thought as paranoia... Halloween was over. Quitters never won, and winners never quit.

          Against a background field of honking horns and flashing headlights from the cars that had been held up on the highway... casting their glow on the row of the upturned nails behind him (glittering like the teeth of phosphorescent gamefish in a phosphorescent tropical bay, Howard achieved the sawhorse, balanced himself and crossed his arms over his chest, looked sternly down towards the Civics, and said, "That wasn't really fair, you guys!"

          The next beam rose from the sawhorse to another sawhorse balanced on two concrete blocks; therefore it was the highest and shakiest obstacle of the Civics' obstacle course. At least it seemed new, and there weren't any nails. He crossed it resolutely, if not effortlessly, measuring the angle of incline, and taking into account the way his shoes tended to slide, slightly, against the polished wood. A thought crossed his mind... if he'd worn sneakers, the crossing would have been much easier but, then, he would have to explain why he was wearing sneakers to Waldo and Marlene. This was what a salesman got - a consequence of his days of knocking on strange doors, pounding pavements, wearing down his shoes.

          The Civic, meanwhile, had clasped his hand over Betty's shoulder and she shrunk under the clammy leather and clammier implications in his masked and muffled advice. That next one! We get mos' of 'em there, coming down." The other Civics nodded, muttered, and she thought of people in big cities or on the television, waiting, shouting out comments while a suicide peers down over his ledge. It would be better if they shouted taunts, she decided, it would strengthen Howard's resolution.

          "He's gotta watch that wiggle in the way," the Civic advised.

          Howard wiped his palms again, and studied the challenge. The beam, mounted atop the sawhorse that, in turn, rested upon two concrete blocks seemed stable but, Howard suspected, would begin to sway almost as soon as his full weight was upon it. It was larger than shorter, nearer eight feet in length than six, and sloped downwards to a single concrete block, resting on its side, not its end. He'd be susceptible to the effects of gravity... and, finally, the beam swung wide so that below, and to the right, the ditch and all its perils waited.

          He took another deep breath. If he didn't make it down, it didn't matter how his presentation went. Somebody else, probably Wayne, would be named Vice-President, and go to the private office with the stuffed owl, the salary increase and opportunities. He and Betty would stay in the development forever, or even have to go back to the apartments, if he lost his job. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibilities... Wayne would be tough on him, or Jacob, too, if he won the promotion. And Ferdie was sneaky... even Harvey had relatives in high-up places. All of them would come to sit on Howard's desk, cracking wise while he tried to sell insurance on the telephone and, sometimes, they'd spill coffee all over his papers.

          Betty opened her mouth to try and give encouragement, but nothing would come out.

          On the highway, at least a dozen Civics had gathered... glancing from side to side like bewildered bugs. At a signal from their leader, they unhooked their masks, and took them off... the better to see Howard's fall. A line of cars had backed up, and the passengers of these also got out and gathered. No longer impatient with the delay, or anxious at their own fates, they joked and pointed and made small, hushed bets upon the outcome.

          One step at a time, Howard began his descent. After the first tremblings, the beam stabilized, but one of the legs of the sawhorse wiggled slightly, a bare inch from the edge of the cinder block. Throwing aside his dreams and schemes and premonitions... even the substance of his presentation... he sidled downwards and, although he couldn't have been much more than a yard above the ditch, the treetops and the stars still seemed closer; almost as if he, Howard Slack, could reach out and grasp them. His pace quickened, and the sawhorse held its place, even the leg that trembled at the block's edge. Six more steps to the last beam, resting on the sideways concrete block. Five! Four!

          He's going to make it!" Betty cried defiantly. The last of the masked Civics unhooked and removed their protective facewear, even their leader. Betty thought she'd seen his long, dark, windburned countenance around town - behind the counter at the hardware store, perhaps, or in the gas station. They cheered Howard forward. Three steps! Two!

          "You can do it, mister!" shouted up the leader, now, and Howard resolutely placed his left foot at the intersection of the beam and concrete block, stepped across it with the right, and straightened to his full six feet. He'd been to the summit and back... in the ditch, barely inches away, the cans and books and boxes and the bad smell seemed diminished, pitiful... far off as the earth was from the moon.

          And Howard knew... was certain... his ordeal was over. He had been too sure, too strong for the Civics' trap, and now he would be swift and remorseless in his descent. He lifted a pacifying hand, and Betty waved back as he stepped onto the final beam that rested on the concrete block, six inches above the ground... left foot first, then right, then left again. He grinned, waved, and crouched into the wind, like a surfer besting California waves. Slowly, at first, he slid... then faster, faster, till the scenery veritably seemed to blur, and friction heat rose through his socks and shoes and warmed his soles. Behind, he felt the beam wiggling, bump against its neighbor and send the whole apparatus of wood and concrete shaking in mortal fury... but it was late, too late, and Howard stepped off the beam amidst cheering Civics.

          Slowly, and with the greasy majesty of misdirected science, the obstacle course collapsed like so many dominoes... the beams and sawhorses and the concrete blocks of Howard's testing. Rattling and groaning, the defeated planks tumbled into the ditch, bounced and lay there with the rest of the discarded things.

          "Magnificent!" cried Betty as the Civics tossed their gas masks up, the moonlight glinting off the smoked black eyepieces.

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          "Passed!" the leader of the Civics said, writing Howard's name and license number down on his notepad. "Ain't supposed to keep time, like I told you, but I done it, anyway, and yours, mister, yours was the best today!"

          "It ought to be," said Howard curtly, taking out his brand new business cards. "I've an important engagement to attend. Call me tomorrow."

          Squinting at the card, the Civic looked up with a rueful smile, and said, "Well, I'll be fried. You're outta Wayne's outfit! He's Chairman of this squadron. You know, his records still hold up..."

          "What records?" demanded Howard, still indignant. Suddenly he wanted a cigarette, but not a whole, clean mentholated Kent... rather, a grimy stubble-butt, perhaps of an unfiltered Camel, that he could draw upon and blow back old smoke in the Civic's face.

          "Them tackles that he made? You know, at Junior College? Why it must be six years, or maybe seven? Those big college coaches sure missed their mark by letting him slip by. Of course," he added, "football's loss is the safety movement's gain."

          "Wayne's doing the job he's being paid for," snapped Howard, "and I'll be seeing him tonight. It's well enough that he works for Waldo Gray... who knows how he would have turned out if he had stayed in school?"

          The Civic nodded with a worried running of his snaky tongue over decaying teeth. "Well, you just tell him Jed Powell and the boys are doin' fine tonight. Already got nine flunks and five non-comps... that's ones as don't comply. An' if I weren't already signed up with Wayne for auto, house and property coverage, I'd surely call you." He extended the card back, simpering weakly.

          "How about your life insurance?" Howard pressed him.

          Powell found a little speck of gravel to kick off the road. "Wayne won't write me up," he admitted. "See... this is dangerous, this volunteer work. There's still people don't believe in safety, and they sometimes make things... well, a little dicey. Says he's sorry, yeah, Wayne does, but he says that you can't fight percentages. Seems wrong, somehow. Now, if we could work that out..."

          "I'd have to consult with Waldo," Howard interrupted, for the night was deepening and Betty shivering, "but I'll see what I can do. Why don't you call at ten tomorrow morning. Tell the lady who answers that it's personal."

          "Really? I'll do that, yes, Mr. Slack," promised Jed the Civic, "and I'll disguise my voice, in case Wayne's listening in on the other people's lines. He told me he always does that. I'll be... Mr. Bailey!" He placed Howard's new card carefully in the breast pocket of his khaki Eisenhower jacket. "Now move them roadblocks!" he called out to his corps, "and get your masks back on." He coughed again, and smiled, pointing up the way towards town, where Howard scanned the waiting headlights. "Time for another sucker!" He slid on his own mask, topped it with the cowboy hat and saluted. "Appreciate your not bringing this matter up with Wayne," he gurgled through the gas mask.

          "That's not likely," Howard answered sharply. "Goodnight!"

 

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