Famine

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

   "You're early," Jonah said as Rene drove up.

   Rene wore red slacks with a matching pullover.  a red and blue jacket lay in the front seat.  She instructed Ralph to drive them to the Sternwheeler that was docked at the riverfront.  She looked over to Jonah and asked, How was our day?"

   "Jennifer took me over to the archives on Griffith Avenue.  She was in dire need of getting the social and fashion history of the twentieth century right.  Last night she had furnished my room with so many anachronisms that I almost laughed in Jennifer's face/  she even thought that she was supposed to have sex with me all night in my room.  I'm relieved to tell you that she is straightened out now on some things."  Jonah paused and laughed. "Well, almost.  She has been singing Alice's Restaurant all day."

   "What's that?"

   "Nothing but folk nostalgia from the nineteen hundred sixties," Jonah said with a smile.  He paused. "Say, you look nice tonight."

   "Thanks," she said with an inviting smile as she turned onto Frederica Street.

   This was an opportunity for Jonah to ask about his old neighborhood. "Say, what happened to homes on Griffith Avenue?"

   "Home-grown terrorists.  Socialists pressed President George McGovern, IV, to disarm unilaterlly and to distribute excess money to the poor or face consequences.  They bombed the homes as symbols of capitalist greed.  They were executed, but the homes left as they were with the names of the victims and the mindless terrorists and the consquences they suffered for senseless murder."

   Jonah did not respond but looked at the cars on the side streets.  "Hmmmm, free parking and without the meter maids."

   "Meter what?"

   "Oh, I was thinking out loud.  I got a parking ticket here once.  The city collected money for parking and customers went to the outskirts where parking was free.  The city dads drove business out of the center part of town."

   The car reached the riverbank parking lot.  Rene instructed Ralph to park after they got out.  a replica of a Mississippi steamboat waited below.

   "Now, that's cool.  A riverboat.  What do they run on now?"

   Rene surprised Jonah.  "They still run on steam nowadays.  They have a cleaner-burning coal or wood.  we have fewer people in the world now and far more woods available than Lewis and Clark ever saw."

   They walked up the gangplank throught the city dome's exit and onto the deck of the riverboat.  Its main section included a large room with a bar, a stage, restaurant tables, chairs, and a dance floor.  Some people were were eating, others dancing, and some were gathered around the bar.  It was still Happy Hour with entertainment to follow.  Nothing much had changed in almost  two hunded years,  Rene said the drink prices always went up when the band played or the floor show had begun.

   Rene introduced Jonah to some friends and excused herself for a moment.  She left Jonah with George Mitchell, who saved his drink with such care taht Jonah thought that he was expecting it to draw interest.  He suspected George would still be nursing the same drink at the end of that evening.  Nope, he downed it as soon as he got it got warm and ordered another.  He then offered t buy one for Jonah.

   "Well, it's been a long time.  I guess it can't hurt me.  I will have Jim Beam if you still have it nowadays."

   "Ah, you're also from Kentucky if you ordered that instead of a Tom Collins or an Old Fashioned.  How do you find your old home state compared to what it was when they crowded you all in in your day?"