Summer dawn. The sun had about risen and Curtiss pushed back the fire door and emerged on the roof. He breathed deeply and happily, the brightening sun warm on his face. He drank in the morning sun, and it bathed his strong black features until his face shone like copper.

Curtiss had the most magnificent coop in Harlem. Built and added to over the years, it was more like a miniature pagoda than a coop. Curt loved these moments alone before he flew the birds. The coop stood in a corner of the roof. It was red and gold, and shone quietly, the birds within cooing and rustling as they awoke, preening and stretching.

He would prolong these moments as long as possible. Once the birds were released, they would fly and whirl: so many specks of pepper in a shifting pattern that always seemed to be on the verge of spelling something. The whole city could enjoy them. But for now, they were only his. The plastiscreen reflected the pink early morning light, and Curtiss wanted to sing; he was bursting with quiet joy and pride.

Below, on Lenox Avenue, a mechisweeper was making its automated rounds past the empty, abandoned buildings across the street. Curtiss half watched as it stopped before an obstacle. He imagined he could hear computers chattering as the sweeper analyzed the obstruction. The night before, a car had been burned, and now there was a heap of melted hardened plastic at the curb. The sweeper almost never erred. A cold light swept the street, shone on the plastic mess, and dissolved it. Curtiss was unimpressed. He watched as the big brooms began again to rotate, and the sweeper lurched off into the next block.

He had once wondered about the cost of those mechisweepers, but eduvision had compared the operation with the simple selection of a floor by an elevator. The whole thing had been made to seem so practical and uncomplicated. A narrator had suggested that it was vastly more efficient to automate wherever possible, rather than hire and maintain human operators.

Curtiss shrugged and walked to the coop. He spoke to the birds. "What's the difference? Life is good, we all eat, hey?"

The birds knew their time was coming. They finished primping and hopped about with quick, jerky movements. He unlatched a few doors, and they began jumping to their little exit ledge, looking around, and then flying off. Curtiss felt a touch of envy. The pigeons would go where they wanted, see and be seen by anyone, while he waited on the roof until it was time to eat. All there was for him to do was eat, sleep, and tinker with his coop.

No one went downtown anymore. Of course, some people were reclaimed when they interfered with the operation of a city machine, but they never returned, and over the years, the curiosity had finally dissipated. It didn't seem strange to anyone that there was no curiosity. All needs were met. Everyone was fed and clothed housing was adequate. The people had become complacent.

Curtiss tilted his head back and watched as the birds formed up, whirling and diving above him until they drifted away, an airy perpetually breaking wave, constantly forming and reforming, hypnotically growing smaller.

They called this roof where Curtiss spent his days, "Pigeon City of 112th Street." He sighed and went to the toolbox. There was never a question of not having enough materials. The super filed a monthly requisition, and it was easy to get him to include a pint can of metallic gold paint or a few yards of plastiscreen.

Everyone knew the computers downtown kept track, but no one minded as long as all needs and most wants were satisfied.

Curtiss rubbed his eyes and selected a small brush. He spread some paper and began to paint. The computers encouraged everyone to have a hobby. No requisition for a hobby was denied. The fact that the computers kept track was confirmed by their handling of Allen, the throwback, the dissident, the exception who proved the rule of general content.

The sun was up now. Curtiss took off his shirt and draped it on the knob of the fire door. It was warm, it was good. He hummed softly as he painted. The sun baked his muscles as he stroked the plastiwood. Life was easy, so sweet. Eduvision said the ghetto represented man's first arrival in Utopia.

Allen cropped up again in Curtiss' head. There was something righteous in the way Allen had complained when he had been cut off by the computers. There was data assembled on Allen, just as there was data assembled on everyone else, but Allen had requisitioned dynamite.

It was a joke. Under "reason" Allen had written, "hobby." He had been given the explosive, but his subsequent requests were turned down. Allen had even been mentioned on eduvision. He was a local star, a source of real entertainment, like Curtiss' pigeons.

The people knew how Allen felt. Allen hated. As a child in the street, he had lost his foot. It had happened when he played with a mechisweeper. It was all right to climb on back and go for a little ride, but to obstruct it, to scream at it and taunt it as Allen had was lunacy. When the sweeper's computer had elected to override interference due to Allen's antics, and he had seen that he would be ignored, Allen had dashed in front, trotted backwards, laughed and shouted.

Then he had tripped and fallen . . .

It was time to eat. Curtiss carefully set his brush in thinner and capped the paint. The sky was blue and cloudless. Soon it would be fall. Impossible beauty, peace and happiness were all around him. He strode to the fire door and into the dank tenement on which he played and dreamed.

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