Tomorrow's Problem

A Short Story

Editor’s Note:

Have I got a story for you, dear reader.

We’re starting off this week with another (in my humble opinion) hit from Zack Grafman, whose skill with a pen is deadly and storytelling capabilities continue to sharpen.

Curious? Then read on.

- Frank Theodat

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Jimmy watched everything around him as the aging perfection of their perfect community blurred past the window. Gradually the monorail from Yesterday's villas and market streets glided to a stop, a smooth bump as the magnetic braking engaged. Jimmy exited the car with a few families just finishing their pre-dinner grocery shopping at Main Street before scattering to the cozy and carless suburban greenspace of Tomorrow. His feet took him habitually to the nook between the invisible overlapping circles of the closed-circuit surveillance eyes as he fished in his pockets for a smoke. No sense in picking up demerit points again.

He watched the pedestrians strolling across the hub courtyard and sorting themselves down the radiating streets as they chatted and laughed. He wasn't sure yet what he was looking for exactly, but it always paid to keep his eyes open. It was amazing what people would tell you, right out there in the open, as plainly as if they were wearing a sandwich board covered in painted letters. The tall man balancing his daughter on one hip and a paper parcel of groceries on the other was suspected of low-level skimming by his place of employment, if Jimmy was placing the face correctly from this morning's Issue Bulletin. His wife, or rather the woman walking alongside them, was an unregistered interloper domiciling at their residence since the unceremonious exit of his actual wife a few months ago. She just left, no contract closures or paperwork, all the loose ends still frayed in the wind. Just a little more chaos for the Resident Assistants to clean up.

He finished the smoke cupped in his flattened hand, then dropped it into a hedge as he walked past. He could have smoked in the center of Main Street with news photographers clicking away and the only provable Conduct Book infraction would be that he touched his face more than was strictly necessary, and occasionally there was the faintest hint of white vapor eddying through humid air swirling in the wake of his tan trench coat. Suspicious Behavior maybe, and then only if someone was very bored and very eager for paperwork all at the same time. Of course he smelled like a damp ashtray, but that was different. Folks weren't likely to acknowledge evidence of the non-photographable kind, even if it literally assaulted their senses. Too busy maintaining their own double lives, Jimmy figured.

Enough loafing, he supposed. The trench coat was trapping the sticky air and hugging it close so that even the exertion of a walk across the courtyard created trickles down his back. But the trench coat was also Costume Regulation so there wasn't much to be done except suffer. He kept half an eye on the faces while his mind wandered. Maybe his assigned resident hadn't done anything wrong, after all. It had happened before, a bulletin coming out with no real infraction to be found. He wouldn't know until he found the guy, and so far Jimmy hadn't seen his mark exit the monorail substation. So he strolled over to the call box tucked behind a shutter on a false storefront facade and punched his keystring into the thick square plastic keys. He listened to the inoffensive ambient loop of cheery futuristic theremin wash pouring into the public consciousness from hidden loudspeakers tucked into the corners and crannies. By the time the Autocorder finally clicked onto the line his mind had absorbed itself back into the ever-present soundscape and he cursed knowing that it would be hours before he would be able to fully ignore the music again.

"Hello Mr. Schifano, I hope you are having a successful day. Please press one if you would like me to read the tapescript of your latest bulletin. Press two for further assistance." The clean and even monotone had a female hint and the barest whiff of foreign influence to the accent. He caught himself imagining she was real sometimes. He chunked the first numeral button and switched ears to let his already-clammy left one have a break from the warm plastic of the receiver handset. It didn't work.

"Mr. Schifano, your most recent assignment is to observe the male Resident of 17 Apex Park, Mr. Clark Wilson. Energy Sector foreman, fifty-two, family of four. The volume report from Recycling Management seems to indicate that Mr. Wilson has additional non-Residents at his domicile over the last two weeks. Please report any out of order behavior for follow-up." Jimmy was already grinning in spite of himself. He hated how much fun he had sometimes. After all, everyone was guilty if you watched long enough. Fifteen minutes later, and no sign of Wilson in the dwindling afternoon flow of people. Jimmy snuck another cigarette and started ambling towards the address.

A fifteen minute stroll up the pedestrian way brought him to the start of the Apex Park loop, tucked fractally into the branching series of unfurling mega-cul-de-sacs like a cluster of fern fiddleheads all connected to a single stalk. The slightly rolling greenbelt at the center of the living spaces was sprinkled with gently tended flowerbeds landscaped to look more accidental than manicured. Or at least, that had been the original plan, though the effect at this season of critically low staffing was more gestating jungle than quaint park. The bougainvillea musk hung so thick it was almost a taste. Jimmy tucked himself behind a line of Italian cypress trees, their skinny columns a perfect spot for a smoke and a concealed view of the house's entrance. Like its neighbors, 17 Apex was a low sprawling midcentury-style family dwelling, the glassed living room fronting the pedestrian area and the entire structure accessible from every side by public access greenspace. The empty swimming pool on the right side of the house held a single floating lounger orbiting aimlessly in the sweaty breeze. Jimmy waited for signs of life indoors.

With no car to give the game away, he had to visually establish who was home first. No problem when three quarters of the wallspace was window. As families across the loop started trickling home from their day, he waited and smoked. There was a female child, then two male children, trooping up the front door back from school. Mr. Wilson was nowhere to be seen yet, but Jimmy could see there was activity inside. That would be Mrs. Wilson crossing the living room to the kitchen now. Nobody else visible from this side. So who was the second female, slowly making her way across the living room to sit in the shade just out of view?

Jimmy was surprised to see the two women together since the brief had all the earmarks of a textbook smuggle-in-the-mistress affair. He grinned like the Cheshire Cat as he pulled the small monocular from his coat pocket. It wasn't his job to judge their particular brand of fun. Just to gather enough evidence for a citation to the Residents' Board and a ticket for resource overuse. Let the neighbors sort it out from there. He clicked his minitape recorder and started murmuring into his coat lapel as he scoped slowly across the living room.

"Subject is female, early twenties, dressed in Resident-issue garments. Will submit for background workup once identified." As he watched the unknown woman sitting in a lounger near a window, Mrs. Wilson finished something in the stainless-and-plastic cleanliness of the kitchen and came into the living area with a tray. The unknown woman shifted in her seat and into the light, unknowingly allowing Jimmy's eager eye a perfect view. "Subject is pregnant, appears to have black or bruised eye and seems to know Mrs. Wilson from their interactions. Mr. Wilson has not yet returned from his employment although shift time was up over an hour ago." He clicked the recorder off and started maneuvering around as best he could to approach the house from a different angle.

He was in full view of the rest of the neighborhood, tramping around the flowerbeds and tree lines sweating profusely. But he didn't spare anyone else a thought. They knew who and what he was, and that was part of the point of the costume after all. To remind everyone that somebody was always looking out for them, giving parents a reason to sleep better at night. That is, unless they were up to no good themselves. That was Jimmy's favorite part. To watch perfectly innocent-looking bystanders and citizens sweat bullets as he walked past. To know that their idyllic exterior was concealing some crawling evil or even just a snarl of peccadilloes. It was better than his pay packet. He felt their eyes on him, as they cowered in their perfectly laid out suburban world and hoped that he wouldn't bring order to their particular seething patch of hidden chaos rotting out the idyllic veneer from beneath. He loved that they watched him watching them.

He had just burrowed into a hedge and pulled out the monocular again when Mr. Wilson walked up the lane connecting the pedestrian path to the house. Jimmy fumbled to click the minitape back on again.

"Mr. Wilson appears aware subject is in the home, and there is no clear point of tension between subject and the family. Possibly the original suspicions of dossier may not be correct but will pursue direct engagement with family to determine course of action." He eased out of the hedge again and started up the lane, shaking leaves loose and doing his best to stay out of view until he got to the door. It was always more effective when they didn't have any mental preparation time at all.

He knocked twice and waited, feeling his suspenders dig into the curves of his shoulders as they hugged his sweaty shirt close. As the door swung open, he walked right in. The inside smelled just like the outside, just with the added tang of the organic cleaning solution layered over the bougainvilleas.

"Good afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, I'm Jimmy Schifano from Resident Assistance. I just had a question regarding--why hello there! I haven't had the pleasure?" Jimmy's voice was thick with a clear sham of surprise, and he knew that everyone in the room was aware of the ruse. He let the pause float in the humidity, the ice clinking in the tray of glasses Mrs. Wilson carried the only sound to break the tension as he stared at the subject seated in the lounger. Her eyes widened and flicked from Jimmy to the Wilsons, but she said nothing. She just went on saying nothing until Mr. Wilson cleared his throat gently, and for the first time that day Jimmy felt as if he was not totally in control of proceedings.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Schifano, it appears there's some mistake? Our guest is my wife's sister, she's here on a short visit. Would you like something to drink? It's a hot one out there today!" Mr. Wilson smiled broadly and Jimmy blinked as he failed to discern any hint of fear in the man's face whatsoever. Maybe it was time to convince this family of the seriousness of their position.

"Now Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, I want you to know that Resident Assistance is here to help you and your family no matter what the situation might be. But you've got to level with me so that I can help you, alright?" He let his officially friendly tone carry the baggage of a clear threat. "The fact is that your Residency Package does not include permanent houseguests and in addition, it seems to me that Miss here is not at home, where she belongs. Perhaps you'll let me know your address, so I can call us an Express?" He let the subject hold the silence again until it neared the breaking point.

"Mr. Schifano, I don't think your help is needed here today. It might be best if you go." Mr. Wilson spoke in a low and even voice, and never once dropped his eyes from contact with Jimmy's. Now things were starting to feel really out of control. Jimmy could hear himself chuckle harshly and wondered vaguely if this was a good idea.

"Alright, if that's the way you feel about it. I'll be back tomorrow with a citation to appear before the Resident's Board so that they can unreel whatever it is you're all up to here." He leered openly at the pregnant woman in the lounger, then watched the Wilsons for a reaction. Mr. Wilson remained still and quiet, but then Jimmy heard a metallic click as Mrs. Wilson set the tray down firmly on the glass coffee table. Her voice stopped him dead in his tracks and he suddenly couldn't feel the humidity anymore.

"If you do that, Mr. Schifano, I think you will personally regret your decision." She crossed over to where the young woman was sitting, crying quietly on the lounger. "I'm sorry for being rude, please allow me to introduce my sister, Mrs. Gloria Richardson. Her husband, Todd, is at their home at 3 Constitution Avenue. In Yesterday."

Jimmy's mind went blank as he heard his supervisor's name, his upper-echelon address. Mrs. Wilson nodded curtly as he stood staring. "I'm sure you understand the delicacy of the situation, Mr. Schifano. Mr. Richardson's drunken behavior has caused a rift between them, however he seems brokenhearted over his actions. We have waited for the last few weeks to see if his new resolutions are trustworthy, and my husband just returned from visiting my brother-in-law to plan a family reunion very soon. We all hope that this painful period will be just a memory."

Jimmy continued standing there in the living room, his mind twisting to find the next step on the path. There had to be a form, a routine to follow. They had to be wrong. Everyone was wrong, if you watched long enough. Finally he croaked out "You actually expect me to simply mark this closed, leave this entire situation unresolved?"

He could feel himself being guided to the front door as Mr. Wilson spoke kindly, firmly. "It really isn't our business at all how you choose to resolve your situation, Mr. Schifano. Hope you have a better day tomorrow." As he stepped back out into the damp sun, Jimmy looked back to see Mrs. Richardson reach up to clasp the comforting hand of her sister. Tears streaked her face, the purple and yellow blotch mottling her eye standing out vividly in the neat and happy interior of the home. She was smiling at Jimmy, the way his kid brother he had smiled when their dad shouted at the bully on their block. Jimmy was halfway back to the office, sitting silently on the People Mover, when his feelings changed from anger to guilt.

Of course he'd had to take some sort of action on the Bulletin. You didn't just leave assignments in the walnut inbox on the desk, not if you wanted to keep living in the City of Tomorrow. He kept trying to convince himself people's personal lives weren't his job, that anyone who got themselves into these messes needed the shock of exposure to teach them a lesson. Then he'd see Mrs. Richardson's face smiling at him. So he spent an hour chewing unlit smokes and pacing his tiny office before finally marking the thing "No Further Action." He'd only used that stamp once before, and that time had gotten him summoned to Uncle's Office. Sure enough, he was planted nervously in the palatial waiting room an hour after he shoved the file into the pneumatic tube.

The first thing you noticed when you opened the office door was the smell. Even to Jimmy, the intense baked-in stench of stale cigarette smoke roiled his stomach. Then once you got used to that smell the others began to compete for attention. Lubricating grease, and some sort of sidewalk-after-rain smell, apparently produced by the batteries and hypercapacitors according to employee gossip. Jimmy carefully avoided staring as he sought a well-upholstered leather chair.

"Well then Jimmy, they're telling me that you returned a bulletin marked NFA. Must have been a pretty unique situation, go ahead and tell me all about it." The voice's deep nicotine husk was gentle and yet laced with a frying electric current of energy.

Jimmy inspected the spots on the carpet as he chose his words carefully. He still hadn't thought this far, and the only thing in his mind was that woman's face. "Well sir, to be honest...that is, when I encountered the situation things were a little different than the bulletin indicated. There's not a lot more to say. Nothing was occurring that required our follow-up." The silence lasted for so long that he snuck a look up into Uncle Walt's face.

Always standing, Walt Disney presided behind the desk with a lit cigarette planted between his lips and a jovial smile on his face. Everything below his neck, which terminated in a brass collar neatly collecting thick coils of tubing and wire leads, was the finest work of the boys in Imagineering's secret workshop. It proved impossible not to get lost watching the whirring motors, the tiny bellows, the pistons moving in and out whenever he paced slowly and deliberately behind the desk or lifted one of his polished wood-and-brass finished arms to gesture. Uncle Walt gave a long sigh and finished his cigarette before lighting another with a spark from one fingertip.

"Jimmy, we've worked on this project for almost a decade and a half now. We knew when we started the City of Tomorrow that our work here would be watched, mocked by the outside world. Another of our impossible schemes. I thought that like our parks and films the whole job would be a matter of making everything just so, of putting in the sweat and the care. Making people responsible for their own lives and the world they lived in. It seems that every day we confront some new problem that I never would have imagined." With a sigh of actuators, he turned to face the wide bay windows giving him a view of Yesterday's neatly manicured faux-19th century streets and, past the jewel-tone lake, just a glimpse of Tomorrow. "I'm learning that people's lives are more complicated than we can imagine, that the only way to go on in all this mess is to start trusting each other a bit. Like I trust your judgement, Jimmy."

Sensing it was time to leave while he was ahead, Jimmy nodded gratefully and stood. "I think I understand you, sir. I'll do my best to help."

Jimmy turned, about to slip out the massive paneled door, for a final glimpse of Uncle Walt. The richest man in America, the front-running candidate for the upcoming 1972 presidential election, the uncrowned king of the Future, rummaged through his desk for a fresh pack of cigarettes. "And Jimmy? Lay off the smoking, will you?" A chuckle rumbled from somewhere in Disney's new torso, happy and inviting. "You've got a bright future!"