LITMIR.BIZ

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there was nothing better than riding the bike down country roads. Out of town, on a two-lane blacktop, he twisted the throttle up to seventy miles-per-hour, the countryside around him brilliant green grass and trees beginning to change color.

      Then he turned back to the tiny trailer park where Keith lived; over the speed bump to the third trailer on the left, the smallest one. Keith’s white Corvair was not in the driveway. Mark idled down the row of old trailers, front yards dotted with redneck litter. He made a circle through the place and got back on the highway.

      The wind whipped by. Freedom. Less of that around that we all think. Keith had plans to graduate in Business, get a job with an accounting firm, make the big bucks, buy a Porsche, clothes, big apartment, first class airfare.

      Guess all that’s changed now.

      * * *

      Lying on the mattress in Dave’s stuffy apartment, Allison toed the stack of books and magazines which slid out across the floor in a colorful fan. “What’s this?” She picked up a Playboy. “Miss October had better watch her weight or that baby fat is going to be permanent.”

      “Look at the Jazz poll,” Dave said. “Look where they put Monk, and Getz isn’t even on the list.”

      Allison laughed. “I’m sure that was the first thing you turned to.” She pulled up her Mexican peasant blouse and flashed Dave her tits. Dave wrestled her to the mattress and onto the floor across books and the tangled Indian blanket. “Ow!” Allison said, holding up a book titled Capitalism and Freedom. “Get this fascist crap out of my butt.”

      Dave let go of her and picked the book up. “Friedman’s no fascist. He’s a liberal in the true sense of the word, not like those blockheads in SDS. Speaking of which, you should have been in Peace Park this afternoon. Idiots lecturing idiots. Unilateral disarmament, macrobiotic vegetarianism, solar power, eliminate all money…if he’d come up with one more half-assed idea I would have puked right there. He doesn’t have any idea how society works.”

      “And you do?”

      “More than him.”

      Allison was lying on the bed, her blouse riding up to show her left nipple. “Gonna be a revolution…” she sang. Dave ignored her and flipped the book open. “Listen to this. Here’s some of the stuff Friedman thinks the government should not do—draft people into the army, that will get a lot of applause, agricultural price supports—lots of farmers here in Missouri live off the subsidies…”

      “My dad says soybean price supports are the only way he can stay in farming…” She looked at Dave but his attention was elsewhere. Her voice changed, “He’s so weak these days he can barely climb up on his tractor.”

      “Price supports distort the market, cause artificially high prices. Low prices are the market’s way of telling farmers to quit growing soybeans. The country needs fewer farmers.” Dave continued to flip through the Friedman book.

      “He loves that old farm. It’s his life,” Allison said quietly. She sat up and pulled her blouse straight.

      Dave looked up. “What did you say?”

      “Nothing.”

      Dave continued, “The SDS up in Chicago has a good agenda, Hayden and those guys, but these bean-heads here in town…they’re just idiots. They say they want freedom, but freedom means taking more responsibility, not less. Responsibility for ourselves and for each other. The bean-heads in the park want big daddy government to take care of everything for them, and they want total freedom too. They are like five-year-olds, depending on their parents and hating them too.”

      “Childlike is good.”

      “Childish is not good,” Dave tossed the book aside and turned on the window fan. “It’s hot in here.”

      “Must be all this hot air.” Allison stripped her blouse off, then raised up and slid out of her jeans. Dave stripped off his clothes too, but he wasn’t quite finished lecturing. “Back in the park this afternoon I should have expressed my opinion, right then and there, but I missed my chance.” She put her hard little hands on him. They kissed and fell silent except for the movement of their bodies. The last of the sunlight changed slowly from gold to red on the old wallpaper, and the air softened and cooled with the coming of evening. After making love, they dozed. Dave woke as the last light of the sun tinted Allison’s dark brown hair with gold. She looked very young as she slept. He gently pulled the sheet around her.

      * * *

      Mark thought about dropping in on Dave, but instead went back to his trailer. He parked his Suzuki in the driveway and opened the hood of his car.

      His roommate Bill stuck his head out the trailer door. “Need any help?”

      Mark waved, “No, thanks. Just going to re-gap the points and plugs. This old 283 gets out of tune fast. I’ve got to pick up Jennifer in thirty minutes and this thing will barely start.”

      Friday night and Bill’s home studying, thought Mark. But he’s clear about what he’s doing and where he’s going too. He’ll have a solid career with a reputable firm, doing good work. And he knows that’s the best route to what he wants: a house in the suburbs, good-looking wife, two kids, two cars, a dog. He knows what he wants, but I don’t. I have all the freedom in the world, and still I’m not happy. I would be happy if I could keep everything just as it is, nothing changing, my friends and family happy, healthy and living forever.

      Mark stared at a small scratch in the shiny black distributor cap. It had been a sunny afternoon four years ago when his screwdriver had slipped and he’d made that scratch. September 1964. He’d just re-tuned his old Chevy and the three of them, he, Dave and Jeff, had driven to the Uptown Theater to see the Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night. Afterward, the music still filling their minds, they had cruised around Columbia recapping the movie. They were all eighteen years old, just graduated from Hickman High, just starting their freshman year at MU. He’d lived at home that year. He’d sat at his old desk and paged through his crisp new Physics 20 textbook absorbing the smell of the fresh pages, the perfect neatness of the formulae, the symmetrical beauty of the diagrams. On the bookcase behind him were the red and yellow and blue and green spines of the science fiction books he had read and reread since he was ten years old. He stared at his Physics book and dreamed of starships falling through the endless night of space, stars glittering like jewels on black velvet. He was on his way to becoming an engineer. Maybe one day he would be involved in the space program. He saw himself working in an ultra-modern office overlooking a Southern California beach, designing launch vehicles destined for the space station or the lunar surface. The delicious future with its unlimited potential. And for that moment, like this moment staring at the engine of his car, the future and the past coexisted, the familiar and the new, a savory mix of what was, what had been, and what could be.

      Mark came back to the present, snapped the two retainers off with a screwdriver, took off the cap and rotor, disconnected wires, loosened or tightened screws, adjusted gaps. He started the engine, and it idled smoothly.

      He stretched the kinks out of his back, smiled at the evening sky. I’m happy. I have everything I want. Later in life, I’ll have more—more money, cars, things. I’ll have been places and done things, but I won’t feel any happier than right now, this minute.

      * * *

      As Jennifer came down the stairs of her dorm where Mark was waiting, guys’ heads turned. She tilted her head down to let her long hair hide her embarrassment. She was wearing a short red minidress that was perfect for her slim tanned legs and long black hair. “You look great!” Mark told her. She shifted the paperback she was carrying and took his arm. “We’re going to study tonight?” he asked. She smiled.

      At the Hofbrau they ordered their usual bratwurst plates with a draft beer and a Coke. “I love Blake,” Jennifer said. “I want you to hear this.” She opened her book and read “The Crystal Cabinet.”

      “Sounds like a science fiction story,

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