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The Lemon-Green Spaghetti-Loud Dynamite-Dribble Day
William Tenn

Testimony of Witness No. 5671 before the Special Presidential Investigative Commission. Leonard
Drucker, thirty-one years old, unmarried, of 238 West 10 th Street, New York City, Borough of
Manhattan, employed as a salesman by the Har-Bern Office Partition Com-pany of 205 East 42 nd
Street, New York City, Borough of Manhattan. Witness, being placed under oath, does swear and
depose:

Well, I don't know, the telephone woke me up about eight A.M. on that Wednesday morning. I grabbed
at it, half falling out of bed, and finally managed to juggle it up to my ear. A girl's voice was saying, "Hello,
Lennie? Is that you, Lennie? Hello?"
After a couple of seconds, I recognized the voice. I said, "Doris? Yeah, it's me. What's the matter?"
"You tell me, Lennie!" She sounded absolutely hysterical. "Have you been listen-ing to the radio? I
called up three people already and they're just as bad as the radio. You sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine. Hey, it's eight o'clockтАФI had another fifteen minutes sleep. And my coffeeтАФit's in the
percolator. Let me turn theтАФtheтАФ"
"You too!" she screeched. "It's affected you too! What's the matter with everybody? What's
happening?" And she hung up.
I put down the phone and shuddered. Doris was a girl I'd been seeing, and she'd looked very
normal. Now it was obvious she was just another kooky Village chick. I may live in the Village, but I
hold down a good job and I dress conservatively. Usu-ally, I stay far away from kooky Village chicks.
There was no point in going back to sleep, so I flipped the switch gizmo on my electric percolator
and turned it on. That, I guess, is the crucial part of this testimony. You see, I always set up my coffee
percolator the night before and fill it with water. When I get up in the morning, I'm too blind and dopey to
cook anything.
Because of Doris's call, I also flicked on the radio before I went into the bathroom. I splashed some
cold water on my face, rinsed out my toothbrush, and put some tooth-paste on it. It was halfway to my
mouth when I began listening to the radio. I put it down on the sink and went out and sat next to the
radio, really fascinated. I never brushed my teeth: I was one lucky son of a bitch all around.
The radio announcer had a warm, sleepy voice. He was enunciating carefully:
"...forty-eight...forty-nine...forty!
Forty-one...forty-two...forty-three...forty-four...forty-five...forty-six...forty-seven...forty-eight...forty-nine
...forty! Forty-one..." .
I stayed with that voice, I don't know, for a long time. It didn't ever get up to fifty. The coffee had
finished perking, so I poured myself a cup and sat and twirled the dial. Some of the stationsтАФthey were
the Jersey ones, I found out laterтАФsounded pretty much as usual, but most of the broadcasts were wild.
There was a traffic report, I remember, that just gripped me.
"...and on the Major Deegan Expressway, traffic is moderate to spaghetti-loud. All
dynamite-dribbles are reported moving smoothly. The Cadillacs are longer, the Continentals are thinner,
and the Chrysler Imperials have mostly snapped in two. Five thousand Chevrolet convertibles are
building a basketball court in one uptown lane of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive..."
While I was having another cup of coffee and some cookies, I happened to glance at my watch, and
I realized almost an hour had slipped by with that damn radio! I gave myself a one-two-three shave with
the electric razor, and started dressing frantically.
 I thought of calling Doris back to tell her she was right, but I thought, better not, better get to work
first. And you know something? I never saw or heard from Doris again. I wonder what happened to her
on that day. Well, she wasn't the only one. Right?
There was hardly anyone on the street, just a few people sitting on the curb with funny expressions
on their faces. But I passed that big garage between my apartment house and the subway station, and