John D. MacDonald
Wine of the Dreamers
“Wine of the Dreamers” originally publishing in the May 1950 issue of Startling Stories.
One
The soft purr of the turbine was almost lost in the roar of wind as the gray sedan traveled south through the New Mexico night. The night air, as always, was cool. Night in this land, he thought, is different. The land seems to rest from the heavy fist of the sun.
Step out of the cool shadows of early morning and the sun is a vast white blow between the eyes. The sun sucks greedily at all liquids. A man lost for a full day in the wastes of rock and sand will be found in the blue dusk, curled in fetal position, lips black, body withered and mummified like the long-dead.
Parched, wind-driven air dries the membranes of mouth and nose. The sun gaunts the men, pinches wrinkles into the flesh around the eyes. It fades colors and drabs the women.
At night, in the blue desert dusk the jukes sing out the plaintive old ballads, and the young girls dance with a determined abandon. For the young girls know that the sun makes short work of youth, and juices are soon gone. Flat bronzed Indian faces look in at the dancers, and their eyes are polished obsidian. They know that they alone are bred for this land, and when the pallid laughing ones are gone, they will remain.
There are racial memories, more of a faint pulse of blood and ache of bone than a true memory. The sun is a god. The god is angered because the tall pyramids are no longer used. The sun has long since baked away the faint stains on the pyramid crests, on the stone bowls, the time-worn channels. At dawn the sun hears no chant, sees no black upraised glint of stone knife, sees no blinded virgin awaiting the clever twisting thrust that rips the pulsing heart from its hot membranous nest.
Maybe, he thought, big hands resting easily on the wheel as he drove, they are closer to truth than we are. We and our learned talk of hydrogen-helium reaction.
Speed at night was a hypnotic. The speedometer needle held steady at ninety-five. Faint vibration from the road surface. White onrushing flick of an insect caught in the hard bright headlight beams. And weariness. Bard Lane knew that his weariness was of a very special type. An all-inclusive type, compounded of physical, intellectual and emotional strain, each carried to the threshold of tolerance. For a moment the car seemed to be standing still while the road ahead leaped toward him and was snatched under the wheels. He bunched his shoulders, shook his head violently to thrust back the impulse toward sleep that for a moment had brushed his eyelids. He adjusted the side vent a bit to throw a stronger current of the cool air against his face.
Far ahead the Christmas tree of a truck appeared, heading in the same direction. He came up on it slowly, made a pass signal with his lights and swept by, noting that it was a truck train, with heavy quad trailers. Once by the truck he sat a bit higher in the seat so that he could use the rearview mirror and the diminishing glow of the truck lights to check on the prisoner who slept curled on the back seat.
Far ahead he saw the lights of a lonesome town. He diminished speed gradually, saw the single traffic light ahead turn from green to red. In the glow of the lights along the deserted sidewalks, he glanced at the girl who slept beside him. She had slumped over toward the door so that her head appeared to be uncomfortably braced in the angle between door and seat back. Long legs were stretched out under the dash, and both hands, palms up, fingers curled, rested in her lap. She looked remarkably young and quite helpless. Bard Lane knew that there was nothing at all helpless about Sharan Inly. At the southern outskirts of the town he picked up speed again, and felt the heaviness of eyelids begin anew.
He shook his head again, reached out and punched one of the radio buttons, turning the volume down so as not to disturb the girl.
“... and remember, when you’re bored, drink Wilkins’ Mead, spelled em ee aye dee. Wilkins’ Mead is non-alcoholic, non-habitforming. Four out of five doctors know that Wilkins’ Mead cures boredom through a simple process of intensifying your reception to all stimuli. Three years ago, in May of 1972, Wilkins’ Mead was placed on the market. Since that time, one hundred and sixty million Americans have learned that you have never really seen a sunset, enjoyed a kiss, tasted a steak until you have first had your handy lip-sized bottle of Wilkins’ Mead. And now for your Wilkins’ Mead reporter, the man the Senate couldn’t silence, Melvin C. Lynn, with his nightly Wilkins’ Mead summary of news of the world...”
“This is Melvin C. Lynn, reporting the news for Wilkins’ Mead and the Wilkins Laboratories, where the secret of your happiness was developed.
“This has been a quiet day on the international front. The Paris Conference continues and an informed source stated late this afternoon that the delegates have not yet lost hope of reaching an agreement on the basic problems confronting them. The Pan-Asia delegate has flown back to Moscow for further instructions on the Siberian agreement not to launch snooper satellites until new orbits have been assigned to each major power. The South American Coalition has refused to back down on their claim to five thousand miles of their moon base, even though they admit that it is almost a month since the last weak signals were received, and all expedition personnel must be assumed dead. Tomorrow, and throughout the world, as well as at the conference, there will be the customary sixty seconds of silence to commemorate the anniversary of the loss of the first manned rocket to Mars...
“And now for the national news front. Bliss Bailey, the Staten Island ferry boat captain who barricaded the ferry-boat bridge and chugged off toward Bermuda, was brought back under guard today. The commuters who took the inadvertent cruise with Captain Bailey have reported that once it was discovered that the ferryboat was heading east across a calm sea and nothing could be done, most of them turned it into a holiday. The identity of the nude blonde who jumped overboard the first night out has not yet been discovered. Bailey is quoted as saying, ‘It just seemed like a good idea at the time.’ Witnesses say Bailey appeared slightly dazed. His employers have not yet made public their decision regarding Captain Bailey. His cruise passengers are circulating a petition for his reemployment.
“Well, tomorrow morning the new slot-machine divorce law goes into effect in Nevada. Thirty machines have been installed to handle the expected rush of business. Applicants will slide a fifty-dollar bill into the waiting slot, then give their name, address and reason for requesting a divorce in a clear, low voice into the mike, then press their right thumb firmly against the exposed sensitive plate. Six weeks later they will return to the same machine and duplicate the procedure and the decree will fall into the hopper.
“Speaker of the House, Wally Blime, was severely reprimanded today in the public press and over the airwaves. This reporter feels, as others do after yesterday’s childish display, that bubble gum and a pea shooter are rather poor substitutes for the dignity expected of a public figure in high office. Blime’s only defense is that ‘Something told me to do it.’ And this, my friends, is from the same man who, two years ago, broke fourteen windows on New York’s Madison Avenue before he was restrained by the police. His defense, at that time, was the same. Wally, this is a word from a friend. This reporter feels that it is high time you returned to private life.
“Larry Roy, national TV favorite, today jumped or fell from the forty-first story of a New York City hotel. Melly Muro, Larry Roy’s seventh wife, told police that she could think of no reason for suicide, unless it could be a breakdown due to overwork. Melly, you will remember, is the redheaded woman who figured so largely in the divorce of Franz Steeval, composer and conductor, three months ago. Larry Roy was her sixth husband.