Chapter 1

You see this town?

Pretty bad, wouldn't you say? Sure, there are plenty of small, dull towns in this particular belt of country and none of them is anything to speak of. But even against a background like that, this town looks bad.

It has only one real street and that's Main Street, of course. On Main Street you'll find about a dozen shops-a dry goods store, a grocery, a tailor, a shoemaker, and a few others of that sort; little businesses, in the same location for years, just making survival money by serving the needs of the townspeople. There hasn't been a new business here since Grant took Richmond.

Down at the end of Main Street stands a bar. It's the only one in town, so naturally it's the center of the town's activity anyway.

And that's about it. There's no movie house. There's no train depot. The nearest television station is on the other side of the hill and comes in well only when it's raining. There used to be a town newspaper, but it folded up and went out of business long ago.

Right now, just about the only thing connecting this town with the rest of the world is the Post Office. But since nobody here really knows anybody out there, and vice versa, even that connection is pretty slim.

It's a bum town. It's a bum to visit, or even to pass through. Every afternoon around four a Greyhound Express comes roaring down Main Street bound for parts unknown, and you can see the effect, that this town has on the passengers just by watching their faces in the windows. They're only here for a minute, but while they are, they feel it.

It's such a bum town, in fact, that there's no reason for anyone to live in it, which explains why so few do-all told, only three hundred and sixty-eitht, counting the dogs, choose to stay here.

The people have made the town what it is. After all, a town is nothing but a patch of earth laid out and marked off into streets and avenues. A town has no mind, no guts, no soul of its own. A town has to take its personality from the humans who use it.

It's a bum town because it's filled with bum people, and that's the whole answer right there.

Maybe if somebody were to come along and clean the place out-take all the natives and dump them down a garbage hole somewhere, open up the houses, let the stink air out for a year or so, then move in some new people and start the town all over again-there might be a chance to do something with it. With a lot of work and patience, this crummy burg might be scoured clean enough to be fit for real people.

But that's not going to happen. Not ever. The town is too far gone. Like the patch of yard behind the dry goods store where all the dogs go to relieve themselves-the spot is so soaked with crud by now that there isn't a thing anyone can do with it but avoid it.

That's one of the reasons there's no hope for this town.

The other reason is a little more complicated. You'd never guess it from the way things are now, but this town wasn't always as bum as this. In years gone by it really had quite a bit of potential, and a lot of good people founded their hopes and their lives on the development of that potential. If things had gone differently, the place might have grown into something fine.

But the town had its chance-one chance only, a big one-and it muffed it.

There is no point asking anyone around here to tell you the story. For various individual reasons, the townsfolk don't like to talk about it. A few of them realize the enormity of the chance they missed; they're still bitter about it, and bitter people aren't very talkative. The others all seemed to feel that the day the opportunity passed was the greatest day in the town's history, and you wouldn't want to talk to any of them either, because they're about the bummest people you're going to find anywhere.

If you really want to hear the story, it'll have to be from the beginning.

Who am I?

That's a good question, but the answer isn't important right now. For the moment, let's just say that I'm in a good position to know all about this town, and let it go at that. All right?

Now-before we get started-here's a question for you? Do you know the difference between Good and Evil?

Don't get insulted-you're not being accused of stupidity, but these are two words that you hear a lot, and only one person in a million has any clear idea of what they mean.

Let's put it this way: when you think about Good, do you think of Motherhood, Church on Sundays, Boy Scouts, Charity, capital-letter virtues like that?

And does the word Evil make you think of Prostitution, Crime, Booze, Sin, and all the capital-letter vices? Good equals Virtue, Evil equals Vice? Is that the way you see it? Fine.

No, I'm not challenging those ideas of yours. You're entitled to your personal opinions just the same as any man. The only reason I brought the subject up was to make sure we were in agreement on our terms beforehand. You have to get the difference between Good and Evil straight in your mind before you can really appreciate this story.

All right?

Now, let's go back a few years. How far isn't really important, but if there had been a movie house in town it would have been showing a brand new Martin and Lewis movie around the time the chance passed through. The town hasn't changed physically since then, so there's no need to imagine a different setting. For a starting point, just picture old Main Street here at about three o'clock in the afternoon of a nice day along toward the end of summer. There are three or four people on the streets a few more sitting on chairs in front of the barber shop. At the moment, there's only one man in the bar besides the bartender.

Now turn around and look back along Main Street. That's east you're facing, and east is the direction it's going to come from. Right up there, where the road climbs up over the top of that hill-that's the spot to watch.

Watch for what? You want to know what's going to come over that hill and down into this sleepy afternoon?

Don't worry about it.

You and all the people in this town will find out soon enough.