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On subsequent inspection the citizen was required to show the properly entered stamps of the last inspection. The Examiner, when he stopped a large group, would only examine and stamp the cards of a few. The others were then subject to arrest because their cards were not properly stamped. Arrest meant "provisional detention"; that is, the pris- oner would be released if and when his Affidavit of Explanation, properly signed and stamped, was ap- proved by the Assistant Arbiter of Explanations. Since this official hardly ever came to his o%office, and the A%fidavit of Explanation had to be presented in person, the explainers spent weeks and months waiting around in unheated offices with no chairs and no toilet facilities. Documents issued in vanishing ink faded into old pawn tickets. New documents were constantly required. The citizens rushed from one bureau to another in a frenzied attempt to meet impossible deadlines. All benches were removed from the city, all fountains turned off, all flowers and trees destroyed. Huge electric buzzers on the top of every apartment house (every- one lived in apartments) rang the quarter hour. Often the vibrations would throw people out of bed. Search- lights played over the town all night (no one was permitted to use shades, curtains, shutters or blinds). No one ever looked at anyone else because of the strict law against importuning, with or without verbal approach, anyone for any purpose, sexual or otherwise. All cafes and bars were closed. Liquor could only be obtained with a special permit, and the liquor so ob- tained could not be sold or given or in any way trans- ferred to anyone else, and the presence of anyone else in the room was considered prima facie evidence of conspiracy to transfer liquor. No one was permitted to bolt his door, and the police had pass keys to every room in the city. Accompanied by a mentalist they rush into someone's quarters and start "looking for it." The mentalist guides them to whatever the man wishes to hide: a tube of vaseline, an enema, a hand- kerchief with come on it, a weapon, unlicensed alcohol. |
