The Place Where Chicago Was

By JIM HARMON
Illustrated by COWLES
Well, they finally got rid of war. For the first time there was peace on Earth—since the only possible victims were the killers themselves!
It was late December of 1983. Abe Danniels knew that the streets and sidewalks of Jersey City moved under their own power and that half the families in America owned their own helicopters. He was pleased with these signs of progress. But he was sweating. He thought he was getting athlete's foot instead of athletic legs from walking from the New Jersey coast to just outside of Marshall, Illinois.
The heat was unbearable.
The road shimmered before him in rows of sticky black ribbon, on which nothing moved. Nothing but him.
He passed a signal post that said Caution—Slow in a gentle but commanding voice. He staggered on toward a reddish metallic square set on a thin column of bluish concrete. It was what they called a sign, he decided.
Danniels drooped against the sign and fanned his face with his sweat-ringed straw cowboy hat. The thing seemed to have something to say about the mid-century novelist, James Jones, in short, terse words.
The rim of the hat crumpled in his fist. He stood still and listened.
There was a car coming.
It would almost have to stop, he reasoned. A man couldn't stand much of this Illinois winter heat. The driver might leave him to die on the road if he didn't stop. Therefore he would stop.
He jerked out the small pouch from the sash of his jeans. Inside the special plastic the powder was dry. He rubbed some between his hands briskly, to build up the static electricity, and massaged it into his hair.