Free Fletch Reflected by Gregory McDonald

recreation building itself, Jack could see from the road, obviously had a large main room behind the veranda. On one end of the building, lower than the main hall, was a locker, shower, changing room for women; at the other end, one for men. Jack saw no evidence of a snack bar or other food service. The entrance to the recreation hall was on the other side of the building, canopied, facing a small parking lot. At two o’clock on Friday afternoon, the place was empty.
    Across the parking lot from the recreation hall was a small clinic. Next to it, the ambulance garage doors were also open.
    At the end of the road (it was a dead end) was a tower, taller than anything else in the village. In the tower, facingthe village, was a huge digital clock showing the hour, the minute, the second, and the millisecond. Even in the shaded bright sunlight the frantic whirring of the milliseconds dial provided the otherwise still village with an impression of activity.
    Riding back to the General Store, Jack decided this would be called a designed community. Designed on a board in a brightly lit, air conditioned office, with pencil and ruler, or maybe on a computer screen. Designed with all the engineering essentials in place, not all of the human essentials, places for people to neck, fight, laugh, scream, cry, hide. There were birds in the trees, and a few tanned children idling about, but there were no dogs, cats, squirrels visible in the village. Except for the whipping of the big blue and white flag atop the clock tower, the place was as quiet as ice on a December pond.
    As he pushed his shopping cart toward the produce section, he heard the two men from the hearse enter the store. “Hi, Marie.”
    “Frank.” A sneeze. “Junior.”
    “How’re the allergies doin’?”
    “They’re gettin’ healthier.” The woman behind the counter blew her nose. “They’re gettin’ healthier, and I’m gettin’ sicker.”
    “Came out to pick up Doctor Wilson. Got gassed to death.”
    “I heard.” Marie sniffled. “Didn’t know there was such a thing as lethal gas on this place.”
    “In the laboratory,” one of the undertakers said. “In the lab.”
    “What was it?” Marie asked. “The gas, I mean.”
    “Damned if I know. Enough to set fire to the place. Blow it up.”
    “Was that the big noise I heard?”
    “The lab. building blew up.”
    “I guess some thought ol’ Radliegh was in the buildingwhen it blew,” the other man from the hearse said. “He wasn’t.”
    “Too bad,” Marie said.
    The store’s fresh produce, Jack realized, clearly was untouched by any beautifying chemicals. Tangerines and oranges were spotted yellow and black; the tomatoes, even in that season, were more yellow and green than red; the bananas more green or black than yellow; the apples yellow and green, none shiny red. The carrots looked like carrots.
    “You got Wilson in the hearse?” Marie asked.
    “Yeah.”
    The shelves indeed stocked no canned foods, not even soups or boxes of cereal. There were bags of potato chips, tins of dry mustard, but no ketchup; olives, but no pickles; peanut butter but no marshmallow.
    There was no candy counter.
    “So what did you stop for?” Marie asked. “If we had chawin’ tobacco or beer, which we surely don’t, you know I couldn’t sell it to you any which way.”
    The only toothpaste available had a baking soda base. There were soaps available, but no sprays.
    “I was wonderin’ if I could buy some of your roast beef,” one of the undertakers said.
    “You know I can’t sell it to you, Frank.”
    “I married your sister, Marie.”
    “Thank you, but I can only sell to employees and guests of the estate, Frank. You know that.”
    The jars of instant coffee were all decaffeinated except the acid free Kava. The teas were all herbal.
    “I’m a relative of an employee, Marie,” Frank said: “You.”
    “Doesn’t count.” Marie sneezed.
    “Marie doesn’t count,” Junior said.
    “Frank