The Ghost of a Model T and Other Stories (36 page)

“Not the least,” said Hank, picking up the sax again.

“Well, hell,” said Virg, “it don't really matter, just so we're on our way. There was a sign back there a ways that said Chicago. Do you think we could be headed for Chicago?”

Hank took the sax out of his mouth. “Could be,” he said. “I ain't worried over it.”

“I ain't worried neither,” said Old Virg. “Chicago, here we come! Just so the booze holds out. It seems to be holding out. We've been sucking at it regular, and it's still better than half-f.”

“You hungry, Virg?” asked Hank.

“Hell, no,” said Virg. “Not hungry, and not sleepy, either. I never felt so good in all my life. Just so the booze holds out and this heap hangs together.”

The Model T banged and clattered, running with a pack of smooth, sleek cars that did not bang and clatter, with Hank playing on the saxophone and Old Virg waving the bottle high and yelling whenever the rattling old machine outdistanced a Lincoln or a Cadillac. The moon hung in the sky and did not seem to move. The freeway became a throughway, and the first toll booth loomed ahead.

“I hope you got change,” said Virg. “Myself, I am cleaned out.”

But no change was needed, for when the Model T came near, the toll-gate arm moved up and let it go thumping through without payment.

“We got it made,” yelled Virg. “The road is free for us, and that's the way it should be. After all you and I been through, we got something coming to us.”

Chicago loomed ahead, off to their left, with night lights gleaming in the towers that rose along the lakeshore, and they went around it in a long, wide sweep, and New York was just beyond the fishhook bend as they swept around Chicago and the lower curve of the lake.

“I never saw New York,” said Virg, “but seen pictures of Manhattan, and that can't be nothing but Manhattan. I never did know, Hank, that Chicago and Manhattan were so close together.”

“Neither did I,” said Hank, pausing from his tootling on the sax. “The geography's all screwed up for sure, but what the hell do we care? With this rambling wreck, the whole damn world is ours.”

He went back to the sax, and the Model T kept rambling on. They went thundering through the canyons of Manhattan and circumnavigated Boston and went on down to Washington, where the Washington Monument stood up high and Old Abe sat brooding on Potomac's shore.

They went on down to Richmond and skated past Atlanta and skimmed along the moon-drenched sands of Florida. They ran along old roads where trees dripped Spanish moss and saw the lights of Old N'Orleans way off to their left. Now they were heading north again, and the car was galumphing along a ridgetop with neat farming country all spread out below them. The moon still stood where it had been before, hanging at the selfsame spot. They were moving through a world where it was always three A.M.

“You know,” said Virg, “I wouldn't mind if this kept on forever. I wouldn't mind if we never got to wherever we are going. It's too much fun getting there to worry where we're headed. Why don't you lay down that horn and have another drink? You must be getting powerful dry.”

Hank put down the sax and reached out for the bottle. “You know, Virg,” he said, “I feel the same way you do. It just don't seem there's any need for fretting about where we're going or what's about to happen. It don't seem that nothing could be better than right now.”

Back there at the dark pavilion he'd remembered that there had been something he'd heard about Old Virg and had thought he should speak to him about, but couldn't, for the life of him, remember what it was. But now he'd remembered it, and it was of such slight importance that it seemed scarcely worth the mention.

The thing that he'd remembered was that good Old Virg was dead.

He put the bottle to his lips and had a drink, and it seemed to him he'd never had a drink that tasted half so good. He handed back the bottle and picked up the sax and tootled on it with high spirit while the ghost of the Model T went on rambling down the moonlit road.

About the Author

CLIFFORD D. SIMAK, during his fifty-five-year career, produced some of the most iconic science fiction stories ever written. Born in 1904 on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin, Simak got a job at a small-town newspaper in 1929 and eventually became news editor of the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune,
 writing fiction in his spare time.

Simak was best known for the book
City
, a reaction to the horrors of World War II, and for his novel 
Way Station. 
In 1953 
City
 was awarded the International Fantasy Award, and in following years, Simak won three Hugo Awards and a Nebula Award. In 1977 he became the third Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and before his death in 1988, he was named one of three inaugural winners of the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

About the Editor

DAVID W. WIXON was a close friend of Clifford D. Simak's. As Simak's health declined, Wixon, already familiar with science fiction publishing, began more and more to handle such things as his friend's business correspondence and contract matters. Named literary executor of the estate after Simak's death, Wixon began a long-term project to secure the rights to all of Simak's stories and find a way to make them available to readers who, given the fifty-five-year span of Simak's writing career, might never have gotten the chance to enjoy all of his short fiction. Along the way, Wixon also read the author's surviving journals and rejected manuscripts, which made him uniquely able to provide Simak's readers with interesting and thought-provoking commentary that sheds new light on the work and thought of a great writer.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

“Leg. Forst.” © 1958 by Royal Publications, Inc. © 1986 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in
Infinity Science Fiction,
v. 3, no. 4, April, 1958. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“Physician to the Universe” © 1963 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. © 1991 by the Estate of Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in
Fantastic Stories,
v. 12, no. 3, March, 1963. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“No More Hides and Tallow” © 1945 by Real Adventures Publishing Co., Inc. © 1973 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in
Lariat Story Magazine,
v. 14, no. 12, March, 1946. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“Condition of Employment” © 1960 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation. © 1988 by the Estate of Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in
Galaxy Magazine,
v. 18, no. 4, April, 1960. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“City” © 1944 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. © 1972 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in
Astounding Science Fiction,
v. 33, no. 3, May, 1944. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“Mirage” © 1950 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. © 1978 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in
Amazing Stories,
v. 24, no. 10, October, 1950, under title “Seven Came Back.” Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“The Autumn Land” © 1971 by Mercury Press, Inc. © 1999 by the Estate of Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,
v. 41, no. 4, October, 1971. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“Founding Father” © 1957 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. © 1985 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in
Galaxy Science Fiction,
v. 14, no. 1, May, 1957. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“Byte Your Tongue!” © 1980 by Random House, Inc. Originally published in STELLAR SCIENCE FICTION STORIES #6, ed. by Judy-Lynn del Rey, Ballantine Books. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“The Street That Wasn't There” © 1941 by H-K Publications, Inc. Originally published in
Comet,
v. 1, no. 5, July, 1941. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“The Ghost of a Model T” © by 1975 by Robert Silverberg and Roger Elwood. Originally published in EPOCH, edited by Robert Silverberg and Roger Elwood, Berkley Publishing Corp., 1975. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

Copyright © 2015 by the Estate of Clifford D. Simak

Cover design by Jason Gabbert

978-1-5040-1284-3

Published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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