Prologue to an Analogue Part 2

Lawyers or no lawyers, that sort of thing was dangerous.

It took a week, and it took every member of the staff that could be pulled off other programs, as well as the ones a.s.signed to Witch.

The "slum" had been located--three buildings in a short block just up from the Battery, surrounded by new buildings. It was a one-privy-to-a-floor, cold-water only setup, with a family living in every room. It existed on high-value land only because the land and buildings were tied up in an estate and couldn't be sold. But they could be remodeled and thrown into one, and contracts were signed, permissions granted, the paperwork alone filled nearly a complete file cabinet.

It would take double the fifty thousand dollars, of course--maybe more. But Randolph had authorized it, hadn't he? He always named half the figure--or less--than he meant to be used. Anyhow, international ratings and sales would more than make up the purse, because this thing would hit socko. Worry about the cash was the last thing that was bothering Oswald. He had a bear by the tail, and his contract price was tied to the gross....

The show was ballyhooed the whole week while the work went on.

"Clean, clean, Witch clean--what's the witches next big cleanup?

Witches of the world, unite--let's cleanup this old world and make it livable...."

The night the new cleanup job was to show, Randolph tuned in his TV as ignorant of the details as the next viewer. It worried him a little that Oswald insisted on keeping him in the dark on everything except the fact that it would be a slum cleanup, but he had the best p.r. men and the best lawyers in the country working on it, he told himself; and certainly the sales charts for the past two weeks had been spectacular.

"We can count on the biggest TV audience of the year tonight," Oswald had told him gleefully at noon. "The buildup's been a natural, and those 'Salem with a new twist and a singing commercial' plugs have been continued on this network--the cost of that was comparatively small--and I've even gotten them onto a few of the really big shows to boot."

Bill Howard came on the screen, his big homely face leaning across the desk toward the TV audience.

"The biggest news in the country right now," Bill said in a solemn tone, "is the biggest single cleanup job in the country today.

"There's a slum," Bill said, "right here in New York that the Witches of the world will unite to cleanup--tonight."

Then he put on the full power of the personality that made him the most listened-to newscaster on the air, TV and radio. The manner that made the news sound human, like it really happened to real people. He put it on full power, and went to work.

First he showed a big map of New York, and talked about how people thought of it as a big, impersonal place, but it wasn't. He made it everybody's home town.

Then he traced the map right down to the exact spot where the buildings were. Then he turned on a movie, and he showed the back-door, garbage strewn, and a room where a family slept, seven of them, and the privy they shared with five other families.

Then Bill turned off the movie, and he brought that family to the mike, each of them dirty and in clothes that never had amounted to much, and had seen a long life since--even the baby. One kid's shoes had a sole flapping off, another had the toes cut out so he could wear them, though he'd long outgrown them.

"We haven't added to what we found," Bill said. "This is the way the ...

I've introduced them as the Jones family, let's leave it at that. This is how the Joneses have had to dress. This is how they've had to live.

This is a very real part of America," he said, and his voice was choking a little, and Randolph thought, if he's putting that on, he's the best actor I've seen yet.

Randolph found himself glad he was alone, and didn't have to speak himself. His own throat felt choked.

"And now," said Bill to his audience, "It's time for the witches...."

The camera s.h.i.+fted, and there was a papier-mache model of the buildings, built so you could look in the curtainless windows and see the squalor, lighted with a single bulb on a string. There was a gray pall over the whole thing, and newspapers and trash blowing against the front of the building. The gray pall, Randolph had figured from the sub-scene two weeks ago, was an effect of lights on a net curtain, but the effect was really good.

The thirteen witches, slender witches, danced in waving their products and crying their chant, their crimson-lined capes swirling out to glimpse the audience their long, slender legs.

They cried their chant as they pranced toward the dilapidated building. "Witches of the world, unite to make it clean, clean, clean, Witch clean--NOW!" And each threw a spray of her product toward the building.

"Witch soap or detergent, Witch cleanser upsurgent, which Witch do you need? You should have them all...."

Then riding over the muted jingle the deep voice of the announcer saying "Tonight the Witches of the world clean a slum of the world ...

a particular slum, this slum.

"Witches, unite! And clean, clean, clean, Witch clean...."

The dancing witches now threw each her ingredient on the building itself, and the gray pall began to lighten, a bright, new-painted front shone forth. Inside, the single bulbs blacked out for an instant, and then a soft light showed through curtained windows, a bright new scene dimly apparent through the curtains.

"This is not just an illusion," the deep voice of the announcer continued. "This is really happening, down near the Battery in New York City. It is happening to the Joneses and the Smiths who live there--"

The chorus rose to cover the announcer's voice, "Clean, clean, clean, Witch clean!"

The commercial and the witches faded, and Bill Howard's big, homely face came back on the screen.

"Let me introduce you again to the Jones family," Bill said. "I'll introduce you to the Joneses, but they're just one of the families who will now have a decent place to live--and the same miracle has happened to each of these families."

Now the Joneses came again on camera--clean, in new clothes, hair brushed, a miracle indeed of the costume-changers speedy art. Randolph a.s.sumed that teams of BDD&O members had been at work during the commercial, creating the miracle. From the baby up and down they shone, and their faces shone with an inner light--

When Randolph shut off the TV that night, he was chewing his lip violently. Must have been more than double that fifty thousand dollars, he thought. He reminded himself to phone BDD&O first thing in the morning.

It was still an hour before noon when Randolph's phone rang.

"Randolph, here," he said in the formality he'd adopted on an English visit and carefully kept.

"Good morning," Oswald's voice was formal. "Good morning." There was a silence, while Randolph waited for the other to continue.

Finally, Randolph said, "Good show, that. Must have cost a lot more than my price," he added. "It was good, though," he said again, thoughtfully.

"Randolph," Oswald's voice sounded wild, "I don't know what the thing cost. I don't know--"

"Now, sir, just what do you mean, you don't know the cost? I told you to spend fifty thousand dollars, and from what I saw last night it'll cost four times that. I'll go as high as one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars, but not one cent over. And you'd better make it worth the money, for that's a pretty penny," he said.

"Look, Randolph, the cleanup job down there was supposed to start this morning. Contracts let, big crews ready to do the job fast so people could go look at the finished product. Every family was signed up to act as guides, like in Williamsburg. We moved 'em all to the country yesterday, so they'd look healthy when they came back, and the job could start at the crack of dawn today."

"Well?"

"Well, the job's already done."

"That's pretty fast. You said you started it this morning."

"Yeah. And when my man phoned me from down there I told him to get black coffee and sober up. But I went down myself--and the job's done.

Exactly the job we specified, too. Done by our plans. Furnished, painted, paint dry, curtains hung, the works, new bathrooms and kitchen and plumbing and electricity. The works. It's finished.

"My best man was down there moving the families out yesterday. He swears the building hadn't been touched then. The contractor says he's going to sue, because he arrived with his crews to start the job, and somebody else had done it. You come on. You've got to meet me here and tell me the answers.

"Just what do you put in that soap of yours, anyhow?"

By afternoon it was banners in every paper, wire-serviced across the nation and the world.

Most of the stories were written tongue-in-cheek about the miracle part. It was a.s.sumed that Witch Products had done the inside job in advance, and thrown in the outside cleanup during the night.