The Year of the Jackpot Read Online Free PDF Page B

DEAD-LOCKED
FASTER-THAN-LIGHT WEAPON PROMISED
TYPHOON DOUBLING BACK ON MANILA
MARRIAGE SOLEMNIZED ON FLOOR OF HUDSON
    New York, 13 July—In a specially constructed diving suit built for two, Merydith Smithe, cafe society headline girl, and Prince Augie Schleswieg of New York and the Riviera were united today by Bishop Dalton in a service televised with the aid of the Navy’s ultra-new—
    A s the Year of the Jackpot progressed, Breen took melancholy pleasure in adding to the data which proved that the curve was sagging as predicted. The undeclared World War continued its bloody, blundering way at half a dozen spots around a tortured globe. Breen did not chart it; the headlines were there for anyone to read. He concentrated on the odd facts in the other pages of the papers, facts which, taken singly, meant nothing, but taken together showed a disastrous trend.
    He listed stock market prices, rainfall, wheat futures, but the “silly season” items were what fascinated him. To be sure, some humans were always doing silly things—but at what point had prime damfoolishness become commonplace? When, for example, had the zombie-like professional models become accepted ideals of American womanhood? What were the gradations between National Cancer Week and National Athlete’s Foot Week? On what day had the American people finally taken leave of horse sense?
    Take transvestism. Male-and-female dress customs were arbitrary, but they had seemed to be deeply rooted in the culture. When did the breakdown start? With Marlene Dietrich’s tailored suits? By the late nineteen-forties, there was no “male” article of clothing that a woman could not wear in public—but when had men started to slip over the line? Should he count the psychological cripples who had made the word “drag” a by-word in Greenwich Village and Hollywood long before this outbreak? Or were they “wild shots” not belonging on the curve? Did it start with some unknown normal man attending a masquerade and there discovering that skirts actually were more comfortable and practical than trousers? Or had it started with the resurgence of Scottish nationalism reflected in the wearing of kilts by many Scottish-Americans?
    Ask a lemming to state his motives! The outcome was in front of him, a news story. Transvestism by draft dodgers had at last resulted in a mass arrest in Chicago which was to have ended in a giant joint trial—only to have the deputy prosecutor show up in a pinafore and defy the judge to submit to an examination to determine the judge’s true sex. The judge suffered a stroke and died and the trial was postponed—postponed forever, in Breen’s opinion; he doubted that this particular blue law would ever again be enforced.
    Or the laws about indecent exposure, for that matter. The attempt to limit the Gypsy Rose syndrome by ignoring it had taken the starch out of enforcement. Now here was a report about the All Souls Community Church of Springfield; the pastor had reinstituted ceremonial nudity. Probably the first time this thousand years, Breen thought, aside from some screwball cults in Los Angeles. The reverend gentleman claimed that the ceremony was identical with the “dance of the high priestess” in the ancient temple of Karnak.
    Could be, but Breen had private information that the “priestess” had been working the burlesque and nightclub circuit before her present engagement. In any case, the holy leader was packing them in and had not been arrested.
    Two weeks later a hundred and nine churches in thirty-three states offered equivalent attractions. Breen entered them on his curves.
    This queasy oddity seemed to him to have no relation to the startling rise in the dissident evangelical cults throughout the country. These churches were sincere, earnest and poor—but growing, ever since the War. Now they were multiplying like yeast.
    It seemed a statistical cinch that the United States was about to become godstruck again. He