Makers by Cory Doctorow (best romance ebooks .TXT) đ
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- Author: Cory Doctorow
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better than what you had around here. The state of the art is genuinely progressing.
âThere were a lot of nice old brass spirit-levels and hand-lathed plumb-bobs but they were more decorative than useful by a damned sight. Great old steel work-helmets looked cool, but they weighed about a hundred times what the safety helmets around here weigh.
âWe were going to give in and try to bring you guys a big goddamned tube-amp, or maybe some Inuit glass knives, but I didnât see you having much of a use for either.
âWhich is how we came to give up on tools per se and switched over to leisureâsports tools. There was a much richer vein. Wooden bats, oh yes, and real pigskin footballs that had nice idiosyncratic spin that youâd have to learn to compensate for. But when we found these, we knew weâd hit pay-dirt.â
She picked up Kettlewellâs paper sack with a flourish and unzipped it. A moment later she presented them with two identical packages wrapped in coarse linen paper hand-stamped with Victorian woodcuts of sporting men swinging bats and charging the line with pigskins under their arms.
âTa-dah!â
The kids echoed it. âThese are the best presents,â the little girl confided in Perry as he picked delicately at the exquisite paper.
The paper gave way in folds and curls, and then he and Lester both held their treasures aloft.
âBaseball gloves!â Perry said.
âA catcherâs mitt and a fielderâs glove,â Kettlewell said. âYou look at that catcherâs mitt. 1910!â It was black and bulbous, the leather soft and yielding, with a patina of fine cracks like an old painting. It smelled like oil and leather, an old rich smell like a gentlemanâs club or an expensive briefcase. Perry tried it on and it molded itself to his hand, snug and comfortable. It practically cried out to have a ball thrown at it.
âAnd this fielderâs glove,â Kettlewell went on, pointing at the glove Lester held. It was the more traditional tan color, comically large like the glove of a cartoon character. It too had the look of ancient, well-loved leather, the same mysterious smell of hide and oil. Perry touched it with a finger and it felt like a womanâs cheek, smooth and soft. âRawlings XPG6. The Mickey Mantle. Early 1960sâthe ultimate glove.â
âYou got the whole sales pitch, huh, darling?â Eva said, not unkindly, but Kettlewell flushed and glared at her for a moment.
Perry broke in. âGuys, these areâwow. Incredible.â
âTheyâre better than the modern product,â Suzanne said. âThatâs the point. You canât print these or fab these. Theyâre wonderful because theyâre so well made and so well-used! The only way to make a glove this good would be to fab it and then give it to several generations of baseball players to love and use for fifty to a hundred years.â
Perry turned over the catcherâs mitt. Over a hundred years old. This wasnât something to go in a glass case. Suzanne was right: this was a great glove because people had played with it, all the time. It needed to be played with or it would get out of practice.
âI guess weâre going to have to buy a baseball,â Perry said.
The little girl beside him started bouncing up and down.
âShow him,â Suzanne said, and the girl dove under the table and came up with two white, fresh hard balls. Once he fitted one to the pocket of his glove, it felt so perfectly rightâlike a key in a lock. This pocket had held a lot of balls over the years.
Lester had put a ball in the pocket of his glove, too. He tossed it lightly in the air and caught it, then repeated the trick. The look of visceral satisfaction on his face was unmistakable.
âThese are great presents, guys,â Perry said. âSeriously. Well done.â
They all beamed and murmured and then the ball Lester was tossing crashed to the table and broke a pitcher of blueberry syrup, upset a carafe of orange juice, and rolled to a stop in the chocolate mess in front of the little girl, who laughed and laughed and laughed.
âAnd that is why we donât play with balls indoors,â Suzanne said, looking as stern as she could while obviously trying very hard not to bust out laughing.
The waiters were accustomed to wiping up spills and Lester was awkwardly helpful. While they were getting everything set to rights again, Perry looked at Eva and saw her lips tightly pursed as she considered her husband. He followed Kettlebellyâs gaze and saw that he was watching Suzanne (who was laughingly restraining Lester from doing any more âcleaningâ) intently. In a flash, Perry thought he had come to understanding. Oh dear, he thought.
The kids loved the shantytown. The little girlâAda, âlike the programming language,â Eva saidâinsisted on being set down so she could tread the cracked cement walkways herself, head whipping back and forth to take the crazy-leaning buildings in, eyes following the zipping motor-bikes and bicycles as they wove in and out of the busy streets. The shantytowners were used to tourists in their midst. A few yardies gave them the hairy eyeball, but then they saw Perry was along and they found something else to pay attention to. That made Perry feel obscurely proud. Heâd been absent for months, but even the corner boys knew who he was and didnât want to screw with him.
The guesthouseâs landlady greeted them at the door, alerted to their coming by the jungle telegraph. She shook Perryâs hand warmly, gave Ada a lollipop, and chucked the little boy (Pascal, âlike the programming language,â said Eva, with an eye-roll) under the chin. Check-in was a lot simpler than at a coffin-hotel or a Hilton: just a brief discussion of the available rooms and a quick tour. The Kettlewells opted for the lofty attic, which could fit two three-quarter width beds and a crib, and overlooked the curving streets from a high vantage; Suzanne took a more quotidian room just below, with lovely tile mosaics made from snipped-out sections of plastic fruit and smashed novelty soda bottles. (The landlady privately assured Perry that her euphemistic âhourly tradeâ was in a different part of the guesthouse altogether, with its own staircase).
A few hours later, Perry was alone again, working his ticket counter. The Kettlewells were having naps, Lester and Suzanne had gone off to see some sights, and the crowd for the ride was already large, snaking through the market, thick with vendors and hustling kids trying to pry the visitors loose of their bankrolls.
He felt like doing a carny barker spiel, Step right up, step right up, this way to the great egress! But the morningâs visitors didnât seem all that frivolousâthey were serious-faced and sober.
âEverything OK?â he asked a girl who was riding for at least the second time. She was a midwestern-looking giantess in her early twenties with big white front teeth and broad shoulders, wearing a faded Hoosiers ball-cap and a lot of coral jewelry. âI mean, you donât look like youâre having a fun time.â
âItâs the story,â she said. âI read about it online and I didnât really believe it, but now I totally see it. But you made it, right? It didnât just... happen, did it?â
âNo, it just happened,â Perry said. This girl was a little spooky-looking. He put his hand over his heart. âOn my honor.â
âIt canât be,â she said. âI mean, the story is like right there. Someone must have made it.â
âMaybe they did,â Perry said. âMaybe a bunch of people thought it would be fun to make a story out of the ride and came by to do it.â
âThatâs probably it,â the girl said. âThe other thing, thatâs just ridiculous.â
She was gone and on the ride before he could ask her what this meant, and the three bangbangers behind her just wanted tickets, not conversation.
An hour later, she was back.
âI mean the message boards,â she said. âDonât you follow your referers? Thereâs a guy in Osceola who says that this is, I donât know, like the story thatâs inside our collective unconsciousness.â Perry restrained a smile at the malapropism. âAnyway a lot of people agree. I donât think so, though. No offense, mister, but I think that this is just a prank or something.â
âSomething,â Perry said. But she rode twice more that day, and she wasnât the only one. It was a day of many repeat riders, and the market-stall people came by to complain that the visitors werenât buying much besides the occasional ice-cream or pork cracklin.
Perry shrugged and told them to find something that these people wanted to buy, then. One or two of the miniatures guys got gleams in their eyes and bought tickets for the ride (Perry charged them half price) and Perry knew that by the time the day was out, thereâd be souvenir ride-replicas to be had.
Lester and Suzanne came by after lunchtime and Lester relieved him, leaving him to escort Suzanne back to the shantytown and the Kettlewells.
âYou two seem to be getting on well,â Perry said, jerking his head back at Lester as they walked through the market.
Suzanne looked away. âThis is amazing, Perry,â she said, waving her hand at the market stalls, a gesture that took in the spires of the shantytown and the ride, too. âYou have done something...stupendous, you know it? I mean, if you had a slightly different temperament, Iâd call this a cult. But it seems like youâre not in charge of anythingââ
âThatâs for sure!â
ââeven though youâre still definitely leading things.â
âNo wayâI just go where Iâm told. Tjanâs leading.â
âI spoke to Tjan before we came out, and he points the finger at you. âIâm just keeping the books and closing the contracts.â Thatâs a direct quote.â
âWell maybe no oneâs leading. Not everything needs a leader, right?â
Suzanne shook her head at him. âThereâs a leader, sweetie, and itâs you. Have a look around. Last I checked, there were three more rides going operational this week, and five more in the next month. Just looking at your speaking calendar gave me a headacheââ
âI have a speaking calendar?â
âYou do indeed, and itâs a busy one. You knew that though, right?â
Tjan sent him email all the time telling him about this group or that, where he was supposed to go and give a talk, but heâd never seen a calendar. But who had time to look at the website anymore?
âI suppose. I knew I was supposed to get on a plane again in a couple weeks.â
âSo thatâs what a leader isâsomeone who gets people mobilized and moving.â
âI met a girl in Madison, Wisconsin, youâd probably get along with.â Thinking of Hilda made him smile and feel a little horny, a little wistful. He hadnât gotten fucked in mind and body like that since his twenties.
âMaybe Iâll meet her. Is she working on a local ride?â
âYouâre going to go to the other rides?â
âI got to write about something, Perry. Otherwise my pageviews fall off and I canât pay my rent. This is a storyâa big one, and no one else has noticed it yet. That kind of story can turn into the kind of money you buy a house with. Iâm speaking from experience here.â
âYou think?â
She put her hand over her heart. âIâm good at spotting these. Man, youâve got a cult on your hands here.â
âWhat?â
âThe
âThere were a lot of nice old brass spirit-levels and hand-lathed plumb-bobs but they were more decorative than useful by a damned sight. Great old steel work-helmets looked cool, but they weighed about a hundred times what the safety helmets around here weigh.
âWe were going to give in and try to bring you guys a big goddamned tube-amp, or maybe some Inuit glass knives, but I didnât see you having much of a use for either.
âWhich is how we came to give up on tools per se and switched over to leisureâsports tools. There was a much richer vein. Wooden bats, oh yes, and real pigskin footballs that had nice idiosyncratic spin that youâd have to learn to compensate for. But when we found these, we knew weâd hit pay-dirt.â
She picked up Kettlewellâs paper sack with a flourish and unzipped it. A moment later she presented them with two identical packages wrapped in coarse linen paper hand-stamped with Victorian woodcuts of sporting men swinging bats and charging the line with pigskins under their arms.
âTa-dah!â
The kids echoed it. âThese are the best presents,â the little girl confided in Perry as he picked delicately at the exquisite paper.
The paper gave way in folds and curls, and then he and Lester both held their treasures aloft.
âBaseball gloves!â Perry said.
âA catcherâs mitt and a fielderâs glove,â Kettlewell said. âYou look at that catcherâs mitt. 1910!â It was black and bulbous, the leather soft and yielding, with a patina of fine cracks like an old painting. It smelled like oil and leather, an old rich smell like a gentlemanâs club or an expensive briefcase. Perry tried it on and it molded itself to his hand, snug and comfortable. It practically cried out to have a ball thrown at it.
âAnd this fielderâs glove,â Kettlewell went on, pointing at the glove Lester held. It was the more traditional tan color, comically large like the glove of a cartoon character. It too had the look of ancient, well-loved leather, the same mysterious smell of hide and oil. Perry touched it with a finger and it felt like a womanâs cheek, smooth and soft. âRawlings XPG6. The Mickey Mantle. Early 1960sâthe ultimate glove.â
âYou got the whole sales pitch, huh, darling?â Eva said, not unkindly, but Kettlewell flushed and glared at her for a moment.
Perry broke in. âGuys, these areâwow. Incredible.â
âTheyâre better than the modern product,â Suzanne said. âThatâs the point. You canât print these or fab these. Theyâre wonderful because theyâre so well made and so well-used! The only way to make a glove this good would be to fab it and then give it to several generations of baseball players to love and use for fifty to a hundred years.â
Perry turned over the catcherâs mitt. Over a hundred years old. This wasnât something to go in a glass case. Suzanne was right: this was a great glove because people had played with it, all the time. It needed to be played with or it would get out of practice.
âI guess weâre going to have to buy a baseball,â Perry said.
The little girl beside him started bouncing up and down.
âShow him,â Suzanne said, and the girl dove under the table and came up with two white, fresh hard balls. Once he fitted one to the pocket of his glove, it felt so perfectly rightâlike a key in a lock. This pocket had held a lot of balls over the years.
Lester had put a ball in the pocket of his glove, too. He tossed it lightly in the air and caught it, then repeated the trick. The look of visceral satisfaction on his face was unmistakable.
âThese are great presents, guys,â Perry said. âSeriously. Well done.â
They all beamed and murmured and then the ball Lester was tossing crashed to the table and broke a pitcher of blueberry syrup, upset a carafe of orange juice, and rolled to a stop in the chocolate mess in front of the little girl, who laughed and laughed and laughed.
âAnd that is why we donât play with balls indoors,â Suzanne said, looking as stern as she could while obviously trying very hard not to bust out laughing.
The waiters were accustomed to wiping up spills and Lester was awkwardly helpful. While they were getting everything set to rights again, Perry looked at Eva and saw her lips tightly pursed as she considered her husband. He followed Kettlebellyâs gaze and saw that he was watching Suzanne (who was laughingly restraining Lester from doing any more âcleaningâ) intently. In a flash, Perry thought he had come to understanding. Oh dear, he thought.
The kids loved the shantytown. The little girlâAda, âlike the programming language,â Eva saidâinsisted on being set down so she could tread the cracked cement walkways herself, head whipping back and forth to take the crazy-leaning buildings in, eyes following the zipping motor-bikes and bicycles as they wove in and out of the busy streets. The shantytowners were used to tourists in their midst. A few yardies gave them the hairy eyeball, but then they saw Perry was along and they found something else to pay attention to. That made Perry feel obscurely proud. Heâd been absent for months, but even the corner boys knew who he was and didnât want to screw with him.
The guesthouseâs landlady greeted them at the door, alerted to their coming by the jungle telegraph. She shook Perryâs hand warmly, gave Ada a lollipop, and chucked the little boy (Pascal, âlike the programming language,â said Eva, with an eye-roll) under the chin. Check-in was a lot simpler than at a coffin-hotel or a Hilton: just a brief discussion of the available rooms and a quick tour. The Kettlewells opted for the lofty attic, which could fit two three-quarter width beds and a crib, and overlooked the curving streets from a high vantage; Suzanne took a more quotidian room just below, with lovely tile mosaics made from snipped-out sections of plastic fruit and smashed novelty soda bottles. (The landlady privately assured Perry that her euphemistic âhourly tradeâ was in a different part of the guesthouse altogether, with its own staircase).
A few hours later, Perry was alone again, working his ticket counter. The Kettlewells were having naps, Lester and Suzanne had gone off to see some sights, and the crowd for the ride was already large, snaking through the market, thick with vendors and hustling kids trying to pry the visitors loose of their bankrolls.
He felt like doing a carny barker spiel, Step right up, step right up, this way to the great egress! But the morningâs visitors didnât seem all that frivolousâthey were serious-faced and sober.
âEverything OK?â he asked a girl who was riding for at least the second time. She was a midwestern-looking giantess in her early twenties with big white front teeth and broad shoulders, wearing a faded Hoosiers ball-cap and a lot of coral jewelry. âI mean, you donât look like youâre having a fun time.â
âItâs the story,â she said. âI read about it online and I didnât really believe it, but now I totally see it. But you made it, right? It didnât just... happen, did it?â
âNo, it just happened,â Perry said. This girl was a little spooky-looking. He put his hand over his heart. âOn my honor.â
âIt canât be,â she said. âI mean, the story is like right there. Someone must have made it.â
âMaybe they did,â Perry said. âMaybe a bunch of people thought it would be fun to make a story out of the ride and came by to do it.â
âThatâs probably it,â the girl said. âThe other thing, thatâs just ridiculous.â
She was gone and on the ride before he could ask her what this meant, and the three bangbangers behind her just wanted tickets, not conversation.
An hour later, she was back.
âI mean the message boards,â she said. âDonât you follow your referers? Thereâs a guy in Osceola who says that this is, I donât know, like the story thatâs inside our collective unconsciousness.â Perry restrained a smile at the malapropism. âAnyway a lot of people agree. I donât think so, though. No offense, mister, but I think that this is just a prank or something.â
âSomething,â Perry said. But she rode twice more that day, and she wasnât the only one. It was a day of many repeat riders, and the market-stall people came by to complain that the visitors werenât buying much besides the occasional ice-cream or pork cracklin.
Perry shrugged and told them to find something that these people wanted to buy, then. One or two of the miniatures guys got gleams in their eyes and bought tickets for the ride (Perry charged them half price) and Perry knew that by the time the day was out, thereâd be souvenir ride-replicas to be had.
Lester and Suzanne came by after lunchtime and Lester relieved him, leaving him to escort Suzanne back to the shantytown and the Kettlewells.
âYou two seem to be getting on well,â Perry said, jerking his head back at Lester as they walked through the market.
Suzanne looked away. âThis is amazing, Perry,â she said, waving her hand at the market stalls, a gesture that took in the spires of the shantytown and the ride, too. âYou have done something...stupendous, you know it? I mean, if you had a slightly different temperament, Iâd call this a cult. But it seems like youâre not in charge of anythingââ
âThatâs for sure!â
ââeven though youâre still definitely leading things.â
âNo wayâI just go where Iâm told. Tjanâs leading.â
âI spoke to Tjan before we came out, and he points the finger at you. âIâm just keeping the books and closing the contracts.â Thatâs a direct quote.â
âWell maybe no oneâs leading. Not everything needs a leader, right?â
Suzanne shook her head at him. âThereâs a leader, sweetie, and itâs you. Have a look around. Last I checked, there were three more rides going operational this week, and five more in the next month. Just looking at your speaking calendar gave me a headacheââ
âI have a speaking calendar?â
âYou do indeed, and itâs a busy one. You knew that though, right?â
Tjan sent him email all the time telling him about this group or that, where he was supposed to go and give a talk, but heâd never seen a calendar. But who had time to look at the website anymore?
âI suppose. I knew I was supposed to get on a plane again in a couple weeks.â
âSo thatâs what a leader isâsomeone who gets people mobilized and moving.â
âI met a girl in Madison, Wisconsin, youâd probably get along with.â Thinking of Hilda made him smile and feel a little horny, a little wistful. He hadnât gotten fucked in mind and body like that since his twenties.
âMaybe Iâll meet her. Is she working on a local ride?â
âYouâre going to go to the other rides?â
âI got to write about something, Perry. Otherwise my pageviews fall off and I canât pay my rent. This is a storyâa big one, and no one else has noticed it yet. That kind of story can turn into the kind of money you buy a house with. Iâm speaking from experience here.â
âYou think?â
She put her hand over her heart. âIâm good at spotting these. Man, youâve got a cult on your hands here.â
âWhat?â
âThe
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