Part 17: Fit The Fourteenth : Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Fit The Fourteenth : Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

I'd be the first to admit that there didn't seem to be much activity coming out of City Hall during 1920. So the usual critics took it as their cue to suggest that I was losing my touch as Mayor.

"Look at all this money in the bank!" said the likes of Lorem Ipsum, "Surely you could spend it on trinkets and hos for the long-suffering populace! Instead you're hoarding it! We must expand! Expand! EXPAAAAAAND!"

Imbeciles. Sure, six thou wasn't a bad amount of money to have in the coffers, but it wasn't enough for what I had in mind, we just had to wait a year until the next load of cash came in, then we could go berserk. Still, I could afford to spend a little during 1920.


Firstly by de-zoning all those shabby little factories across the river. I wanted farms and I got sweatshops. Sure, the state prison was nearby, but that was no reason to turn the whole peninsula into an oozing pus-encrusted wasteland. Of course the idea of kicking a few two-bit businesses out of town upset a few people, but I guessed they were glad to use that as another opportunity to slate me.


I did expand out the area by the harbour a little more, specifically approving some apartments for the area - despite my grand plans for downtown, not that much had come of that so far. I even put a park in the area, not far from City Hall itself, and sure to make the area more attractive to live in.


Gus had been on my case for years about this, and now the bastard was finally happy. I'd given him the brush off all that time, but it was really those two areas intended for farming which were kept deprived of water because I, with all my pride, had insisted remain mired in third-world conditions. Well, I'd completely de-zoned one area, whereas the other failed farming area towards RuPaul was reconnected, for a purpose known only to myself at that stage.


Of course not everything went according to plan. I couldn't remember approving a second haunted house next to the first, until Connie informed me that the old Deadmeat Market had gone belly up and left a grotesque derelict as its legacy. Ugh. What was with that?


1921 rolled around, and with it another stack of cash. Time to get to work.


Our current arrangement to ship garbage to Buttsville was costing the city over §250 a month, and as the city grew, so did its refuse and therefore the costs of getting rid of it. It all had to go somewhere. Or did it?


Fortunately, due to the new cutting edge technology of burning things, we had a new way to deal with trash. It wasn't that cheap, but a year's worth of frugality made it quite affordable. OK, it wasn't without its drawbacks, such as the amount of smoke it generated, but who cared about that? I was going to have it commissioned well away from the city anyway.


Bingo.


It didn't exactly capture the public's imagination, but whatever. I would have a lot more cash to splash on them now.


We even had a little cash left for that year, so I finally inaugurated the bus service, placing a stop on one of the busiest corners in town. The best part is that I only had to place stops where people would get on in the morning, they could get off wherever they liked. I assumed that the bus would pick them up where they left them. Upshot being, I really only had to place them in residential areas.


I got a slightly more optimistic story out of Mr Ipsum for that little move, anyway.


Still a little more left in the bank, so Ashy Bend was allowed to grow a bit more.


The incinerator dealt with the city's current garbage load more than adequately, though I guessed we might have to plop another one down before too long.


The first bus stop was also working out pretty well. People liked them. They could talk utter shit to each other on the way to work, while creepy men in dark glasses ogled the pretty schoolgirls.


I was impressed enough to place another bus stop near the museum before the year was out.


Ah, the payoff. Something like §2,500 more cash to play with, now that we were disposing of our own garbage. I didn't even have to deal with any Mob types, it was all clean money.


No doubt Buttsville would soon crawl around wondering what had happened to their regular supply of strange cargo.


Well, it was all going up in smoke.


Time to go shopping! Industrial space had been left stagnant for a few years, and it was particularly affected by the dismantling of the so-called Penisular Industry and Services Sector. So I threw them a sop by zoning more areas for them, including the first so-called "dense" industrial area. Personally I couldn't wait to see what smoke-belching monstrosities would take root there.


Then onto approving a primary school for Ashy Bend.


As well as more growth for the central business district.


OK, nothing too impressive had popped up in the dense zone, yet, but give it time.

Finally, as expected, the mayor of Buttsville turned up to grovel, or so I thought. I had Beryl lead him in. For some reason he had a smug grin on his face.

Good morning, Wal.

Good morning, Seymour, what brings you here?

Ah yes, our existing garbage contract. It's about time we renegotiated.



Oh really? You want to raise the price of taking our garbage? Despite the fact that we haven't sent you ANY in four months?

Yes, well, I noticed that you were holding out on us. I was just wondering if you were, you know, trying to force us to change our deal. Which we have. Happy now?

Uh, this is some kind of joke? We don't need to send you any more trash. But thanks for giving us the chance to cancel the deal without having to pay the cutoff fee.



So what gives? Are you sending it to RuPaul again? ARE YOU GIVING THAT BITCH MY DIRTY MONEY? HUH? You know she screwed you once but you go back like a lost puppy?

Whoa settle the fuck down Seymour, we're not shipping it to anyone anymore. We're dealing with it ourselves now.

How? You don't have any landfills, that's why you were palming it off on us, if I recall, oh, Funkytown's too NICE for it's own garbage.

Now, now, Seymour, come with me. I want to show you something.

I led him to the roof of the hall where we could see over the whole city and beyond. He was fairly impressed by the city even though it was quite smaller than his, but I pointed out the ominous pyre of smoke out towards the direction of RuPaul.

That? What the hell is that?

Incinerator. Garbage in, smoke out.

Holy banana peels, that is so cool. I gotta get me one of those.

Thought you'd be impressed. No hard feelings, right?

Man, I'd read about those things but never imagined seeing one in person. Hats off to you, Wal, I think I'm definitely going to rethink my city's garbage disposal strategy now.

Seymour left in relatively good spirits considering I'd just told him how I'd sacrificed his cash cow, but now the cash stayed in the city, as did the smoke, and everyone was happy.


Karen was also strangely rapt in my bold new direction into a brave new world of trash disposal, I thought she might be a little despondent about the increasing rates of smog, but not to worry.


After all that palaver, it was time to get cracking on more expansion. More houses for the unholy!


Now, "high taxes" was a common complaint of Charmaine's, and I was usually pretty hard-arsed about fobbing her off because it was a fairly petty rate. But now that city profits had increased almost three-fold in the past few years, and as the commercial sector was still the smallest of the three taxpayer bases, I guess I could stand to drop taxes on shops and offices a notch in order to encourage further development there. I'd consider it at the next finance committee meeting.


Gus was, well, he was back to his usual mood. This time we were running out of water, apparently.


Whatever, that was dealt with immediately. At least pumps were cheap, though I'd decided to start drawing straight from the river now.


I really felt like I was past the opening game, as it were; the city was nicely established, it had enough incoming funds to promote future development, and, without being too smug, yes, I had a firm hand on the tiller. FULL STEAM AHEAD!


Downtown was shaping up nicely, and I envisaged that the next couple of years would finally fill out the whole river bend out so we might even start expanding across the river.


I could do without the monthly ups and downs in population for no good reason, however, though at least the general trend was upwards. In fact we'd probably need a third power plant soon.


But, with the money flowing like water, that wasn't going to be much of a problem, really. Well, aside from the growing pollution. Though we could probably even afford one of the slightly cleaner oil plants next time.


But what was life without a few hurdles. My main problem now might well be keeping the burgeoning city from getting out of hand.