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Marlene lifted an eyebrow and Jake’s smirk turned to a bashful, fawning smile, followed by a shrug. She opened the door and Wayne Ray embraced her, bussing both her cheeks lightly and stepping back to survey the room arrogantly, hiking himself further up on the high heels of his cowboy boots... although these were only two inches, not four... the better to look down at the rest of them. Howard was reminded of a rooster, a big, red-combed blue-ribbon bird at the summit of the pecking order, and he almost slumped before calling up his triumph to buttress his self-esteem.

No... a whatever ribbon there was for a fourth-place fowl because, unless, he'd come up with three sales of his own since noon, Wayne was behind Jacob... and also Ferdinand and Howard...

And then his wife, Beatrice, equally proud and large in her own way, filed in deferentially behind him...

In the same beige dress with brown trim from the sale at Wohl's...

All of the stuffing ran out of both Rays. Beatrice allowed a stare of hostile resignation at the faces of Karyl, Mimi, Ruth and Betty, all of whom glowered back with a subdued but mocking malice. The salesmen affected manly disconcern, though Jake flashed strange hand signals to Howard, which he failed to understand.

Alone, in black, at the other end of the room, the Widow Harwood stared at the coffee table... occasionally lifting a thin, widow's hand to her mouth to suppress a muted, widow's cough.

Wayne pawed the boss' carpet with his bootheels; Marlene looked down and grimaced. They were muddy. "Turn around," she ordered crisply, "Let me take your coats and hat."

"Sorry, folks," Wayne apologized as Marlene bore her burden to the closet. "I was held up checking on the operations of my civic interests..."

"He must mean the Civics," Betty whispered into Howard's back.

Jacob appeared unimpressed. "And might that be the Blood campaign? Enlighten us... just how well is our own homegrown political pariah faring?"

"Better than the competition," Wayne snapped curtly. "Better and better every day, in every way. Judge for yourselves, he'll be on television later on this evening... channel six. But I'm talking about something else," he swaggered. "Waldo will be pleased to discover that the functions of the Civics are expanding. Yes... beginning the first of the year, we'll be diversifying... into litter. Litter, folks... not only unsightly but, to our profession, just as surely as our physical existence, a danger more subtle and pervasive than even the flu, than even Communism.

"Litter!

"Picture a small town in Missouri," Wayne appealed, moving his hands around to tell his story. "Somebody carelessly discards a cigarette out of a moving vehicle. It blows back to the convertible innocently cruising behind at the speed limit... or perhaps two, even three miles per hour above... perhaps just like the kind of car that you drive, Jake! And, it starts a blaze in the upholstery. When the driver turned to put it out, he lost control of the wheel. Two children left fatherless! Or that other cigarette, worse yet, which struck a driver in the face and he collided with a tree in West Virginia. Burned to a crisp... family of five..."

Fear and disgust crossed the faces of the wives at Wayne's invocation of this ancient enemy... stiff and displaced, now, as Waldo's collection of wooden masks from primitive cultures that decorated the wall next to the stairs.

Ferdinand kicked in his two cents' worth. "Tragedies we only hope were mitigated by insurance."

"We hope," Jacob agreed. "At least we are fortunate that both the bellicose incumbent and Mr. Vogoroff have endorsed compulsory motor vehicle insurance.

Wayne still wore a suspicious frown. Marlene stepped back, welcoming him and Beatrice to the gathering but noting, still, the faint outline of his bootprints on the carpet.

"Well, we may all count ourselves fortunate," she told them from the center of the living room, "that both parties have taken the high road, and that the incumbent has, at last, availed himself of the Chinese laundry here. People do not respect a man with stained suits and wrinkled shirts, and they do know their shirts, those little Chinese people... I, of course, refer to the Good Chinese. My husband wrote the first policy issued to an Oriental here ten years ago... to the restaurateur, Toy Sun. Just after the war - ten years ago! And now, when Mr. Blood appears on television, he can freely speak his mind on issues of importance to the public without fearing that some voters may take offense at the state of his shirt.

"That was beautiful, Marlene," said Ferdinand.

"Touching," added Ruth Swan. "Deeply touching!" And she gave a nudge to Harvey, who bobbed his head in agreement.

Marlene acknowledged the compliments, but raised one pearl-encircled wrist in warning. "Thank you. Thank you. Nonetheless, we all must keep an open mind until Election Day. Mr. Vogoroff, the challenger, is not without his shirts and merits also. Now... who'll help me open up the bar? Ferdie?"

With the former chaplain's eager assistance, the guests were served their scotch and sodas; each in a glass embossed with the owl of the Waldo Gray Insurance Company. Ferdinand, encouraged by Marlene's trust, glowed with an inner radiance; Wayne, on the other hand, gulped his drink quickly, demanding another.

Howard, mindful of the ever-shifting geometries of power, called to memory a chapter of that most recent monthly self help book, 'Geogarchy", which treated matters such as the status of those first and last to enter and leave elevators or a taxi. The author, a full Professor at a City College, warned of situations in which slight, seemingly meaningless courtesies could be abused and transformed, irrevocably, into positions of advantage or the lack of it. Accordingly, he pressed in upon Ferdinand, Marlene and Karyl Shea.

"Remarkable," the latter was flattering, "how Timmy has just grown. Just like a beanstalk! It must be that school you've placed him in with windows that cause young people to sprout up so. I intend to apply for Robin, next year..."

"What school is that?" Howard asked.

Ferdie served up the answer like a cocktail. "The Modern School." He nodded for Marlene's benefit and watched her eyebrow lift in appreciation.

Beatrice Ray elbowed her way into the little circle... a bit impudently, to Howard's reckoning. "Why, I know them... I know all those people. They're said to have progressive standards."

"It's all in the doing of the PTA," confided Ferdinand. "Isn't that so, Marlene? Besides Waldo there's a chemist on the Board, an airline pilot, an accountant... let's see... a Colonel at the base and, even, an agent of the FBI. Yes, people like that take interest."

"Well they should," Howard thought to comment. "When young people start off on the wrong foot, they will tend to lag in high school and this will hinder their chances of acceptance at the better universities..."

"A parent never can take too many precautions," Karyl interrupted. "One day, you will wake and find tomorrow's here! In the Modern School, the lighter, brighter rooms are environments for learning. Students never tire, fight or fidget. And they show movies on history..."

Not wishing to be left out, the others... with the glum exception of the Widow Harwood, closed in, tighter. Wayne bulled through the crowd, tossed down his drink, and challenged Karyl before Marlene Gray.

"Well I, for one, have problems with the Modern School. They may have historical distractions... but, they also have fluorescent lighting. And, as Marlene is fond of saying," he added with a distinct, if deferential glance, "we have to keep an open mind and weigh the consequences. It may be that short-term benefits conceal unforeseen problems."

Marlene listened thoughtfully, then threw her head back. "Wayne," she said, "that certainly is a different perspective." She looked about the circle and the faces, seeking her candidate. Would anybody care to reply?"

It was Betty, from the back of the throng, who gave a sort of answer.

"Well, it would appear that there's only one person here... I mean around, not quite in this room... perhaps... who's capable of judgment, and that would be Timmy. None of us are in the Modern School day in and day out... are we?"

Sensing a consensus building, Karyl moved to claim the query for her own. "That's right!" she said hurriedly, "we should ask Timmy... if his mother's willing, of course..."

"Certainly!" Marlene replied. "There's never a substitute for first-hand experience. Close the bar down!" she called out to Ferdinand and Wayne gritted his teeth.

"Mrs. Gray marched to the foot of the stairs and clapped three times. "Timmy!"

Timmy's head appeared over the railing. There was only half a second story in Waldo's and Marlene's old house... the upper floor rooms being arranged in formation opposite a balcony, which overlooked the living room, whose walls were twice as high and ceiling twice as distant as usual. Howard had always felt small in the boss' house, as small as Timmy, and he had a feeling that most of the others felt the same way. But nobody would talk about it.

Now the boy came downstairs, having changed to a brown and yellow checkered sweater and a pair of neatly pressed but sturdy dungarees. In his cold, calm demeanor, there was a foreshadowing of Waldo that also made Howard clammy... the patience and ruthlessness of evolution, bulwarked by the imperturbability of the insured.

"These people have been talking about school," his mother began, "...and they don't remember what it is like. They all went to the same old-fashioned schools your father and I did - dim edifices of brick and dark wood, with old books and uncomfortable seating. Tell them, Timmy, tell them of the conditions..."

Karyl interrupted pleadingly before Jake could reach out and prevent her from seeming to assume airs over Waldo's wife. "Don't forget the movies and windows..."

"And fluorescent lighting..." Wayne scowled.

Timmy waited until expectant silence fell, and then a moment more. "We learn to rhyme," he said.

"Rhymes?" Betty asked. "You mean poems? They're charming... could you recite one to us? Your favorite?"

Timmy glanced towards his mother, who simply folded her arms across her bosom, saying neither yes nor no. Finally Marlene nodded so, in a singsong voice, Timmy began:

"Whistle while you work!

Vogoroff's a jerk!

William Blood makes him eat crud, so...

Whistle while you work!"

Wayne was first to break the silence with a polite, yet persistent applause, which failed and died when nobody else joined in, not even Beatrice. He pulled a dime from his pocket, glancing humbly towards Marlene.

"With your permission..."

She nodded, and Wayne handed the coin over. Timmy grinned, brushed the cowlick back from over his forehead, and bolted through the dining room and its swinging doors to the kitchen, then out the back in search of the elusive Hamelin of the ice cream man.

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