Free Fun House by Benjamin Appel Page B

number one and convinced her she hadn’t been dreaming. That evening at the Atomic Amusement Park she filled out the application Dr. Lawrence Quipper had promised. The doctor excused her from her tour of duty, and when we drove back to Greater Miami, I again applied the fifteen-times technique. Later, in her room, as she lay quietly in my arms, I asked her how I could contact her father. She wept. I reminded her of the application and again promised that her father would receive a full Presidential pardon. It was another half hour before she whispered her secret. Whenever she wanted to reach her father she inserted an advertisement in “Magicience-and-You’. 1 Now that she had told me, she wept hysterically. “I’ve betrayed my own father!” she kept on saying. I could only soothe her by reminding her that she would be on the first experimental trip into Urania 235. Gradually, she quieted down and began kissing me. At the sixth or seventh kiss I was suspicious. Maybe imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but there should be some kind of decent interval. I broke away from that feverish addict. My mission was accomplished, and I wanted an advertisement in the very next edition. A special edition, if necessary, could be ordered by the Commissioner.
    Downstairs in the lobby, I went into an Airwave 2 booth and, when I had the Commissioner, I said in the code we had agreed upon. “Operation love successful. Radiation recommended for protection from Martians now that she has given us Formula Minus X 3 .”
    Or, decoded: “Cleo F. is a woman after all. L. and O. protection recommended against St. Ewagiow now that she has given us information we wanted.”
    1 Situated in the Paris section of Greater Miami. Greater Miami prided itself on its slogan “Come to Miami and see the world.” Spreading over a 200-mile area, it included the facsimiles of the world’s most interesting cities. Paris-in-Miami, Rome-in-Miami, Tokyo-in-Miami, etc.
    1 These brassieres were made of roentgenic fibre that had been X -Ray powered. Especially popular at summer hotels, tourist cruises, etc.
    2 So-named after the first space satellites launched by the Russians in the year 1957. See Appendix.
    1 There were still a few Americans who enjoyed their anti-Semitism.
    2 Tourist Liners were equipped with all sorts of gadgets whose sole function was to get a laugh.
    1 STABB — Smoother than A Baby’s Bottom. It will be noted that even in their products they were fond of a humorous approach.
    2 One of their terms of affection. See Appendix for full list.
    1 Paris-in-Miami, that season, was a reproduction of the Paris that had existed prior to the first World War 1914-1918.
    2 An imitation of the mushroom clouds that had followed the series of A-Bomb and H-Bomb tests in the period after the second World War of 1941-1945.
    1 A fourwheeled conveyance made of rubber that could contract in heavy traffic and expand on the open road to vanity or limousine size.
    1 The B.O. Think Machines had wanted to allocate all jobs at the age of one because a child’s reactions then — bedwetting, feeding, crying, etc. — were most significant of his future character development. But the nation’s mothers, unwilling to give up Smile-At-Mother Pills, etc., could not be convinced to cooperate.
    2 She was boasting of their planned entertainment. One of their cabinet officials, human, was the Secretary of Fun, Pleasure and Miscellaneous Hobbies.
    1 An opium-fortified gin with unpredictable effects.
    1 The St. Ewagiow used a wide choice of symbols of which coffins and skulls were most favored. More morbid members went in for replicas of the inner organs; livers, intestines etc. Only hearts because of their sentimental associations with life and love, were forbidden.
    2 A powerful soberer known as Sansan from the advertising slogan: SANITY BY SANITARY METHODS.
    3 Characteristically, they made a Joke out of this work-serum. Bee-Ambo or Be-Ambitious. Invented in the year