Farewell Summer ~ Ray Bradbury - Marimarister

―Something must be done!‖
―Life will do it.‖
―The damned fools are outside my house singing a funeral dirge!‖
―‗The Worms Crawl In‘? My favorite tune when I was a boy. Don‘t you remember being
ten? Call their folks.‖
―Those fools? They‘d just say, ‗Leave the nasty old man alone.‘‖
―Why not pass a law to make everyone seventy-nine years old?‖ Bleak‘s grin ran along
the telephone wires. ―I‘ve two dozen nephews who sweat icicles when I threaten to live forever.
Wake up, Cal. We are a minority, like the dark African and the lost Hittite. We live in a country
of the young. All we can do is wait until some of these sadists hit nineteen, then truck them off to
war. Their crime? Being full up with orange juice and spring rain. Patience. Someday soon you‘ll
see them wander by with winter in their hair. Sip your revenge quietly.‖
―Damn! Will you help?‖
―If you mean can you count on my vote on the school board? Will I command
Quartermain‘s Grand Army of Old Crocks? I‘ll leer from the sidelines, with an occasional vote
thrown to you mad dogs. Shorten summer vacations, trim Christmas holidays, cancel the Spring
Kite Festival—that‘s what you plan, yes?‖
―I‘m a lunatic, then?!‖
―No, a student-come-lately. I learned at fifty I had joined the army of unwanted men. We
are not quite Africans, Quartermain, or heathen Chinese, but our racial stigmata are gray, and our
wrists are rusted where once they ran clear. I hate that fellow whose face I see, lost and lonely in
my dawn mirror! When I see a fine lady, God! I know outrage. Such spring cartwheel thoughts
are not for dead pharaohs. So, with limits, Cal, you can count me in. Good night.‖
The two phones clicked.
Quartermain leaned out his window. Below, in the moonlight, he could see the pumpkins,
shining with a terrible October light.
Why do I imagine, he wondered, that one is carved to look like me, another one just like
Bleak, and the other just like Gray? No, no. It can’t be. Christ, where do I find Braling’s
metronome?
―Out of the way!‖ he yelled into the shadows.
Grabbing his crutches, he struggled to his feet , plunged downstairs, tottered onto the
porch, and somehow found his way down to the sidewalk and advanced on the flickering line of