Earth Unaware

right now, sharpy, my women’s intuition tells me a wheel is going to come off this go-cart.”

Buzz took his stogie from his mouth and looked at the unlit tip. “Women’s intuition,” he said flatly. “First we get hexes and spells and now we get women’s intuition. Next week I’ll meet somebody who believes in fairies.”

From the first, the program didn’t come off exactly the way Ed Wonder and Buzz De Kemp pictured it. In fact, it didn’t come off remotely in the manner they had pictured it.

Up until Jerry, in the control booth, signaled that the mike was hot, everything was routine. Ed Wonder had set up Studio Three for five persons, himself and four guests. There was a mike for each of them. A pad and a pencil for each, so that anyone could make notes, or doodle, or whatever. Tubber and his daughter Nefertiti had arrived a full hour before broadcast time. Helen and Buzz De Kemp came together, a half an hour later, Buzz having picked up Helen at her house, afraid that she might renege at the last moment.

Ten minutes before going on, Jerry, the engineer, had taken a level on their voices. Then they had waited. When the red light had lit, signifying that the studio was hot, Ed launched into his routine. Since his program was live and off the cuff, rather than being taped, it could be variable. Sometimes one of his guests, and the panelists he had to help question them, would take up the full horn, effortlessly. Sometimes, however, he’d get a kook who just didn’t come off and Ed would have to wind up the interview and play music and chatter for the rest of the time.

Tonight, he had a satisfied belief he wasn’t going to have to play music.

He said into the mike, after the routine of station identification and the naming of the program, “Folks, tonight we’ve got something different. Of course, every Friday night I try to bring you something, somebody, different. We’ve had everything from a man who talked to horses to a woman that flew. Now, of course, to some this might not seem very far out, but on this program things are special. Not only did our guest talk to horses like any jockey or cowboy might do, but he got replies since he was speaking horse language. Our woman who flew didn’t bother to have an airplane around her. She flew all by her lonesome. Levitation, she called it.”

From the side of his eyes, Ed Wonder could see that his guest of the evening Ezekiel Joshua Tubber, wasn’t taking this any too well. His daughter, sitting next to him, was showing signs of acute apprehension.

Ed hurried on. “But tonight, folks, we’ve got somebody here who’ll really set you back. A religious prophet, crisscross my heart and point to heaven, who can cast hexes wholesale. And what’s more, we’re going to prove it. Because folks, we have here in the studio the man responsible for the Homespun Look, that supposed fad which has swept the globe in the past week. It’s not a fad, folks, not a fad at all. It’s a real, true hex which our guest of the evening, Ezekiel Joshua Tubber, has cast on all womankind. Also with us tonight is Nefertiti Tubber, daughter of our guest-in-chief; Helen Fontaine, well known Kingsburg socialite; and Buzz De Kemp, whose byline in the Times-Tribune you’ve all come to know. Mr. Kemp, who simply doesn’t believe in spells, folks, will help question evangelist Ezekiel Joshua Tubber.

“Now then, first of all, Mr. Tubber, with a name like yours I assume in your revival meetings you carry on a long tradition of good Christian family.”

The Lincolnesque face had been losing some of its gentle sadness as Ed progressed. Now Tubber said tightly, “Then you make an incorrect assumption, Edward. First, the meetings I have been addressing are not revivals. It is my teaching that Christianity, along with Judaism, Mohammedism, and indeed all other present day organized religions, is a dead, profitless religion and I have no intention of reviving the corpse.”

“Oh,” Ed said blankly. “Ah, evidently I gained a wrong impression, folks. Then, just what were you, ah, preaching at your tent meetings over on Houston Street, Mr. Tubber?”

“A new religion, Edward. One fitted to our times.” His voice had taken on inspiration.

Buzz De Kemp said wryly, “The human race needs another religion like it needs an extra collective aperture in the head. We’ve got so many religions now, we can’t sort them out.”

Tubber turned on him quickly. “To the contrary. But very little knowledge of religion shows that a major one has not come upon the scene for nearly fifteen hundred years. And what was that? Mohammedism, a religion, like Judaism and Christianity, born in the desert to express the religious needs of semibarbaric nomads. The great religions of the East, such as the Hindu and the Buddhist, are even older. I tell you, dear ones, that in their day perhaps these beliefs of our ancestors were positive in their effects. But the world has changed. Man has changed. There is need today for a new religion, one that fits out modern condition. One that will point out the way to a more full life, not simply parrot the words of men of past centuries who knew not the problems that would confront our generation. The proof that these hoary religions of the past are no longer valid is to be seen in the direction of our people. We play lip service to our churches, temples, synagogues and mosques but the lives we lead are without ethic.”

Buzz De Kemp said sceptically, “You think it’s up to you to start this new religion?”

“An individual, dear one, does not start a religion. A religion swells up from the hearts of a people to fit a need. Had the Christ been born two thousand years earlier, there would have been none to listen to his words, his time was not yet. Were the Prophet Mohammed to be born today, rather than in the 6th Century, he would meet with closed ears rather than the open acceptance of his own times. It is simply that I have been one of the first to sense this need for a new creed. I have felt it and the duty is upon me to spread the word.”

Ed Wonder wasn’t feeling any too happy about this. Mulligan had warned him repeatedly that he was to stay away from politics and anyone who attacked accepted religion. Mulligan didn’t want any subversives or atheists on WAN.

Ed said hurriedly, “Well, folks, this is all very interesting. Our guest of honor seems to think the world is due for a new religion. It reminds me of that chap we had on a few months ago who told us he had flown up to Jupiter and been given a New Bible which he was going to have published.”

Tubber’s face was growing dark again, and Nefertiti made ineffective motions to Ed Wonder which were obviously meant to turn off his present trend of chatter.

“But lets get back to this curse thing, sir. Now…”

Buzz De Kemp said, “Just a minute, Little Ed. This new religion. From what you’ve said, and from your lectures I’ve attended, I get the impression that there are socio-economic connotations to it. Now could you tell us, briefly, just what this new religion stands for?”

“Yes, of course.” Tubber seemed slightly placated. “We seek the path to a better life. To Elysium, where a new society will replace that of today.”

“Just a minute,” De Kemp broke in. “You mean this new religion of yours plans on upsetting the present social order?”

“Exactly,” Tubber said.

“Overthrowing the government?”

“Of course,” Tubber said, as though nothing could be more obvious.

“You plan to establish some sort of communism…?”

“Certainly not. The Communists are not radical enough for me, dear one.”

Ed Wonder closed his eyes in anguish. He could picture Fontaine, Mulligan and the whole Stephen Decatur Society, for that matter, all tuned in.

He said, hurriedly, “Now this curse thing.”

“What curse thing?” Tubber said testily. It was obvious that the whole show was not going anyway similar to what he’d had in mind. “You keep talking about hexes and curses. Is this a serious program or not?”

Nefertiti put a hand on his arm and whispered, “Father…”

He shook off her gentle restraint and glared at Ed Wonder.

Buzz De Kemp was chuckling silently.

Ed looked at the would-be religious leader blankly. “The curse,” he said. “The curse you put on Miss Fontaine here, and all womankind.”

It was Tubber’s turn to go blank. “Are you insane?” he demanded.

Ed Wonder put his hand over his eyes and leaned for a brief moment on the table.

Helen at long last said something. She leaned forward and said urgently, “Little Ed has asked me to publicly apologize to you and ask that the curse be lifted.”