of the bad Ford experience at Willow Run, where a mixed-sex dormi-
tory had quickly become a mass of troubles, lots of keyed-up well-paid
workers looking to unlax, nonrationed rum flowing, parties moving
from floor to floor, high-stakes strip poker only one rumored aberra-
tion, the whole system falling into depths of vice, lost work time, and
bad press before being segregated.
The whole settlement filled fast, and even the trailers were left
there when the job was done, to put more people in—eventually most
of the colored workers were housed there, happier with their own
kind said the VP for Employment, you had to conform to local cus-
toms if you could and Oklahoma had the distinction of being the
first state in these States to establish segregated phone booths. Van
Damme Aero had addressed the workforce problem by shifting their
West Coast employees ( associates as management named them,
workers as the union went on stubbornly calling them) to the Ponca
City plant, and hiring new people for the older plant from among the
migrants always coming in. Van Damme paid a bonus to the associ-
ates who’d go east, then pretty soon raised the bonus, what the hell,
and that’s how Al and Sal Mass and Violet Harbison and Horse
Offen and so many others had been summoned (Horse Offen put it
that way in the Aero) to Oklahoma and that wind that came sweeping
down the plain, which were being celebrated at that very moment on
Broadway far away. Some of the associates were originally from
there, having left the dust bowl farms and sold-up towns to get in on
the good times on the Gold Coast, and now strangely come back
again. As more were needed and Van Damme’s recruiters went
nationwide and the word spread about the new city as foursquare
and purposeful and wealthy as the communes dreamed of by Brigham
Young or Mother Ann Lee, people began arriving from everywhere
else, shading their eyes against the gleam of it coming into view in
the salty sunlight.
F O U R F R E E D O M S / 39
Prosper Olander began his journey from a northern city with its own
aircraft plant, though not one that would hire someone like himself.
He was headed for the West Coast, like so many others (when the war
was over it would be found that four million of us came out from where
we lived to the West Coast, and most never went back). On a winter
morning he stood on a street corner of that city, by the stairs that led
up to the tracks of the elevated train that could take him to the city
center where he could buy a ticket for the West; he had money enough
in the wallet tucked into the inner pocket of his houndstooth sport
coat, and another fifty that his aunt May had sewn into the coat’s
lining, which he’d promised to return if he never needed it. A woolen
scarf around his neck. Everything else he had decided to bring was
packed into an old army knapsack that was slung over his shoulders,
somewhat spoiling the lines of his jacket (he thought) and smelling a
bit musty, but necessary for someone like himself, propelled by his
arms and his wooden crutches.
He hadn’t moved from where he stood for some minutes. He was
contemplating the stairs leading up to the El, and thinking of the stairs
that would certainly lead down into the station when he reached it.
He’d never been there, had never before had a reason to go there. And
so what if he got a cab, flagged one down, spent the money, got himself
to that station—could he get himself inside it? And then the high
narrow stairs of the train coaches he’d have to mount—he’d seen them
in the movies—and all the stairs up and down from here on, as though
the way west were one long flight of them.
Alone too, it was certain now, though he hadn’t set out alone.
He turned himself away from the El as a laughing couple went by
him to go up—he didn’t care to appear as though he himself wanted
to go up and couldn’t. Across the street a small open car was parked
by a sign that said no parking! and showed a fat-faced cartoon cop
blowing an angry whistle and holding up a white-gloved hand. Lean-
ing against the fender was a small elderly man, arms folded before
him, one foot crossed over the other, looking down the street as
though in some disgust. Waiting for a tow? Prosper Olander, unwilling
40 / J O H N C R O W L E Y
to think of his own dilemma, contemplated this man’s. Expecting a
woman? Stood up? Prosper had reason to consider that explanation.
The man now turned to where Prosper stood in the tiger-striped shad-
ows of the El, and seemed to ponder Prosper’s condition—but people
often did that. At length—for no real reason, maybe just to be in
motion—Prosper walked toward the man and the car. The man
seemed to come to attention at Prosper’s approach, unsurprised and
already rooting in his pocket for the coin he assumed Prosper was
about to ask him for—Prosper was familiar with the look. Prosper
pointed to the car.
“Out of gas?”
“Not quite,” said the gent. “But near enough that I have decided I
won’t go farther without a plan to get more.”
“Can’t get any, or can’t find any?”
“Both.” He looked down at the machine, an old Chrysler Zephyr,
gray and dispirited and now seeming to shrink in shame. The plates
were from a neighboring state. “You may know there’s a shortage on,
though you yourself may not have experienced it. I don’t know.”
“I’ve heard,” Prosper said.
“I was doing pretty well, what with one thing and another,” said
the man, “until on driving into this town I began to run low, and all
the gas stations I passed were all out, or so they claimed.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then a gasoline truck went by me, going the other way,” he said.
“Good luck! You could tell by the way he drove—slouching around
corners—he was full. Gravid you might say. A line of cars had figured
that out and were following him. I turned around and got in line too,
but I was cut off by others on the way, and fell behind, and was further
supplanted till when the station was reached I was far in the rear. I do
not like to battle for precedence or advantage. I don’t do it.”
“You’re a lover not a fighter,” Prosper ventured.
“Well. By the time I got my heap up to the front of the line—after
every car passing by wedged itself in too, and a fight or two had broken
out—the well was dry. I had just enough left to get me this far.”
“They say the shortages are local. Farther south they have a lot.”
“The Big Inch,” said the gent.
F O U R F R E E D O M S / 41
“The what?”
“The great pipeline that’ll bring oil from down there up this way.
When it’s done.”
“Oh.”
“We make do now with the Little Inch.”
“Oh.”
“In any case finding the gas wouldn’t have done me much good. I
have one stamp left, and no more till next month.”
“What kind of ration card do you have?” Prosper asked.
The fellow looked up at him as though surprised, maybe, that some-
one like him would know to ask this question, which could hardly be
of much interest to him. “The miserable A,” he said. “My employer
was unable even to get me a B. He was told salesmen could take the