I am searching for the Bradbury story of a man walking at night through a future town. Everyone is indoors, no one goes outside anymore, except to drive to another location. A policeman stops the man and wants to know what he's up to. (Can't remember what happens after that...)

The funny thing about this (and the reason it was brought to mind) is that this happened to my boyfriend last weekend in Irvine. I guess no one goes for walks anymore...

T

The answer is "The Pedestrian," collected in Golden Apples of the Sun, S Is For Space, and perhaps another collection or two I'm forgetting.

"The Pedestrian" is beautifully written, a potent idea compressed for optimum effect. Hey, I guess that would describe most of Bradbury's stories.

It's funny, but this was one story that when I first read it I thought Bradbury went overboard with the idea...surely this could never happen in real life in a "free country"? Then I learned it was based on an actual experience of his! Guess what was already that bad in California 50 years ago is catching up with the rest of the country, sad to say. There was an "Adam-12" episode which reminded me a lot of this. A certain neighborhood had suffered a rash of nighttime burglaries. A young man was out at night and police hollered at him to stop so they could question him. Reed and Malloy arrived just in time to prevent the other officers from shooting the poor kid, who, as it turned out, was deaf!

The idea of not being out on the streets, of course, also occurs in F451, as opposed to the wonderful scenes with everyone on their porches all summer long in Dandelion Wine!



[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 06-05-2002).]

...and at the end of the story as he is ordered to get into the car (to be taken to a psychiatric center for such behavior), he finds there is no one in the car. Pure automation..how efficient!

I just read and then listened to this one on cassette. Harmonious details of the night and then the stark reality!

Q: "X Marks the Pedwalk? Was that a Vonnegut?

RE: Found it! Fritz Leiber - crossing the road is a competitive match between the Pedestrians and Motorists. Government sanity quotients, "graphic" confrontations, neighborhood tactics, bullets, run-downs, crashes, strategies. It's kind of like Roller Ball or a high tech video game in a literary text! Interesting read!



[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 06-05-2002).]

signed, sealed, and delivered. Pretty spooky
when you think about walking alone at night on a street. Think about being a silent cipher on the info highway of current identity theft where one wrong mousing, turns into an embolism, or being targeted for another snafu of municipal undersight due to a mispaced digit on some obscure form.
I rant, but at some point the machine grunts, snickers, kicks, changes a one to a nine, on a form sits back, and waits for the funny little hairless apes to react. I think that is what Mr Bradbury trys to get us to do is not let technology get beyond a compassionate humanity. Whether you like it or not a drone police car has to be the most sterile coffin you could think of. So much for catching a little night air...

We might all take some action like the man in The Murderer. Funny, he too was with a psychiatrist because of his behavior. Radio, tv, cell phones, micro-wave towers, 250 channels, computer homes, headphones, video games....

Books, conversation, engaged listening don't seem to "fit in". A walk in the night air starts to sound quite inviting, if we dare!

[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 06-05-2002).]