THE RECRUIT
BY BRYCE WALTON
It was dirty work, but it would
make him a man. And kids had a
right to grow up—some of them!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Wayne, unseen, sneered down from the head of the stairs.
The old man with his thick neck, thick cigar, evening highball, potgut and bald head without a brain in it. His slim mother with nervously polite smiles and voice fluttering, assuring the old man by her frailty that he was big in the world. They were squareheads one and all, marking moron time in a gray dream. Man, was he glad to break out.
The old man said, "He'll be okay. Let him alone."
"But he won't eat. Just lies there all the time."