ht. I had first thought
about it when Wally Claus disappeared. It occurs to me then that
everybody has times when they wish they could crawl out from under and
quietly disappear. You see, Joe had assumed that some people were
adjusted to society and some weren't. Well, actually _nobody_ is, it's
just a difference of degree.

Once Wally took off, it sorta burst the dam. More and more people
sneaked into the booths, dropped in a quarter, and _whisht_--they were
a billion miles away.

It was lonely and dark in town. No street lamps, of course. There was
nobody down at the power plant to work the switches. And there weren't
any lights in the houses 'cause there wasn't anybody around.

"I can't imagine _everybody_ going," Joe says, biting his lip. "What
about all the kids?"

"I kinda think they were among the first," I says. I waves at the
starry sky. "There's probably a planet up there some place where
there's nothing but hot rods and football stadiums. And I suppose
there's one section of the universe fenced off for all the Junior
Spacemen that'll be roaming around it."

Anybody you could think of mighta had a reason for leaving, I told
him. The boys at Schultz's probably took off for a world where Marilyn
Monroe has a thousand twin sisters; and Johnny Douglas, the ace at
Kelly's Bowling Alley, is probably located on a world where it's
impossible to bowl anything but a three hundred game.

By then, we were in front of Joe's house. It was as dark and curtained
as the others.

* * * * *

The house was empty. The blinds had been drawn, the dishes neatly
stacked and put away, and a note left on the doorstoop telling the
milkman not to bring any more milk.

The note to Joe was on the kitchen table. It was hard for Joe to read
on accounta it was blurred in spots where Marge had been crying and
the tears had fallen on the paper. It told Joe--among a whole mess of
other things--that she thought she had married a man, not a radio set,
and since everybody was using them she was going to visit a _Paradise_
booth that night.

"What am I going to do?" Joe asks remorsefully.

"That's your problem," I says heartlessly, thinking of all the chili
dinners that went with Marge. "You made the booths in the first
place."

"Yeah, I know." He pulls out a wad of papers from his pocket and
thumbs through them. "I got contracts here for a _Paradise_ booth in
every town over five thousand population. I