by Jack Finney
The back door slammed, and Guy popped out of the house again; it's an old-fashioned two-story house with tall old windows and wooden gingerbread under the eaves, a lot of it broken off. Guy had a key in his hand, and at the barn doors he unlocked the fat old padlock, swung a door ajar; we all walked in. Guy twisted the old-fashioned light switch, a round black knob on a porcelain base, and high up on the beams three bulbs went on. They were dusty but gave off a fair light; the inside of the barn had been whitewashed once, so you could see pretty well. But it was large enough so that the far corners were still semidark.
Anyone ever use the place? Brick asked.
Nope, Guy shook his head. Not since my dad was alive and we had a car. I don't think my mother's been in here twice in five years. And look at those windows!
We looked at the windows along the side walls; the glass was dead black, shiny under the electric light. I started to set up a darkroom in here when I was in high school. Painted the windows and tacked tar paper over every crack in the walls and doors. The place is actually lightproof; even if anyone came snooping around, which no one ever does, they couldn't see a thing inside!
Well, Jerry said, no question about it, this is the place. You could hide half a dozen cars and trailers in here forever. We've got our way to get to Reno. It's sound, it's practical; a lot of trouble, but it'll work. Nice going, Al. And we've got the perfect day to do it; nice work, Guy. Why, this thing could really be done!
Staring straight ahead, Brick said, Then we ought to buy the outfit now, This week. For a moment longer he stared ahead, then turned to us, his face sober. I've got some money, a fair amount. In a Chicago bank. Watching our faces, he said slowly, I'm willing to put up enough for a used car and trailer.
How do you mean? Guy frowned al him wonderingly. You mean actually buy them?
Brick looked away; he began waving his fist up and down and rotating it or his wrist. Then he glanced up again Yeah, he said.
Inside my mind I was turning handsprings. In my head I was shouting and laughing out loud. I don't think anything showed in my face, but I was wild with relief, realizing as Brick spoke that I might have known I wouldn't be the only one who'd been moving along, traveling further down the road we'd all turned into without knowing it yesterday afternoon. Whatever his reasons, Brick too had stopped playing a game and was dead serious now. It occurred to me then that this, right now, was the moment of decision; that if Guy and Jerry weren't willing to turn the game into reality now, they never would. I hardly breathed, wondering what they would say.
Several moments passed, and no one said anything. Then Guy spoke slowly. Look, you guys. He stopped, and sat frowning, getting his thoughts in order. I've worked summers, he went on then, every year since my dad died. And Saturdays, afternoons, and evenings, every chance I've had. I pretty much pay my own way through school right now; but my mother still has to work, six days a week, clerking in a dry-goods store.
We all knew that, but no one said anything. Outside in the street, far off, a car passed; then the sound faded. It's hard enough work, but it isn't killing her, Guy went on conversationally. Her boss doesn't horsewhip her, and she isn't starving. But she doesn't make much money; we never have a dime to spare. She's needed some dental work for a year and a half, and the house is gradually falling apart. Guy shoved his hands into his belt and sat staring ahead. My father was a doctor who never hounded anyone for money, and he left my mother over seven thousand dollars in uncollected bills that practically no one has ever even offered to pay.
Clasping his hands behind his head and gazing calmly up at the ceiling, Guy said casually, Personally I think she's getting a lousy deal out of life. She isn't old. She's only around fifty, and I've often wondered if she's going to go on for another twenty-five years, always right next door to being downright poor. Because before I can do anything for her — by the time I'm out of school, and then the Army, working and finally getting somewhere — why, it could be ten or fifteen years. If ever. Not moving his head but lowering his eyes, Guy looked at us. But we're moving along pretty fast all of a sudden. Yesterday we fell flat on our faces following that armored truck around, and today we're seriously talking about robbing Harold's Club.
Well — Guy sat up, and shrugged — maybe. Darned if I know — and I don't think any of us knows — what we're capable of. And maybe we're just four kids not capable of much. But if I thought we could actually work it out, with a better than even chance of really pulling it off, I'd be absolutely willing to rob a gambling casino. And if anybody talked morals or ethics to me, I'd spit in their eye. Maybe it's the spirit of the times, youth on the rampage or something. I don't know, or care, but that's how I feel.
Guy grinned. But I can't add a funeral bill to my poor gray-haired old mother's expenses, plus the exorbitant cost of shipping my cold little body from Reno — I hear you have to pay for two tickets. I don't even want her to have a jailbird son, in case she got a raise and decided to join the Women's Club.
He stopped smiling. So I say this — it's only a suggestion — sure, let's go ahead and work this out, the best we know how. Let's buy the car and trailer, if Brick's willing and Al and Jerry are interested. Do everything else we have to — set out for Reno when the time comes, just as though we were going to do it, and actually see how it all shapes up. See if it's really working out, if we really cross the country as though we were invisible, like Al says we will. And see if our nerve holds up when we're on the edge of actually doing it instead of just sitting back here talking about it. Make the Nevada boundary the dividing line. If this all looks good when we cross the state line — if it still looks real and not just a crazy idea, and if no one's backed out up till then — we're committed, and we go through with it. Otherwise we just breeze into Reno, get summer jobs again, and the whole project was only for laughs and to make the trip interesting. Brick can sell his car and trailer in Reno and get his money back, maybe even make a profit.
Guy shrugged, and sat back. So from this moment till then, I'm free, and we're all free, to back out if this doesn't look good, or if any of us gets scared. Or for no reason at all. If that spoils me as a partner in this, now's the time to say so. And I'll drop out, guarantee you I'll never say a word about this to anyone no matter what happens or doesn't happen; and I won't want to hear another word about your plans.
He stopped, and Brick said quietly, Comments?
Well, — Jerry pursed his lips thoughtfully — personally I haven't any reason for wanting a big slug of money. And the truth is, it doesn't interest me much. But what does interest me is planning a thing like this. And I'd be even more interested in actually testing those plans, in the only way you can, He smiled coolly. So I'll say right now that I'm willing to do it — except for one thing. I won't carry a gun. Not a loaded one, anyway. And if anyone else wants to, count me out now. If you guys are actually talking about going through with this, I'll help you rob Harold's Club. But no outsider is to be killed, or wounded, or even scratched. This is still a sort of game to me, and no one is to be hurt for my fun.
Al? Brick said,
I'm in, I said shortly, and never mind my reasons. What Guy and Jerr say sounds good to me. The Nevada state boundary is the line of decision. And no loaded guns. I'll rob Harold's Club, for my own reasons, but I've got no right to kill somebody doing it,
In that case — Brick shrugged — we're all set; it suits me. He smiled. Personally I've been ready since yesterday afternoon. And the whole thing was settled, as easy as that.
Lying across two rusty nails protruding from the whitewashed wall beside us was an old buggy whip. Jerry reached out, picked it up, and leaned forward to flick it at an imaginary horse. Then he quoted the roadside advertisements you see all over the western United States. ‘Harold's Club,’ he said, and smiled wryly, ‘or bust. ’ And as he spoke those last two words, it occurred to me that I might be killed.
I don't mean that the idea had never crossed my mind before, but it hadn't seemed real.
But now, as we each took in the idea that we actually meant to carry out our plans, it hit me, really, for the first time. I could actually be lying on a dirty, cigarette-strewn floor in Reno, Nevada, very soon, in the center of a ring of staring strangers, with a bullet hole in my head — a still warm but never again thinking, feeling, or breathing body. For all I knew, I might right now be living the last days of my life.
Less than thirty minutes later, I was trying to explain that to Tina. Brick drove us back to the campus, and we agreed on the way that he'd run up to Chicago on the night train — it's a two-and-a-half-hour trip — get an expense fund from his bank in the morning, and be back for his two-o'clock class the next day. We'd alibi for him at the house and around the campus, and there was no reason for anyone to realize he was gone.
When I tapped at her door, Tina answered, and I said quietly, It's Al. The bolt turned, the door opened, and Tina stood looking at me, wearing a long belted robe. Over her shoulder, on the little green desk beside one of the windows, I saw her manicure equipment and a bottle of nail polish. Tina stepped aside to let me in.
I told her first all that had just happened. Tina listened, asking a question occasionally. But when I'd finished, Tina went back to work on her nails, waiting, knowing I hadn't come here just to tell her that. I noticed she was being very careful about her robe, keeping it snugly around her however she moved; I couldn't even see her ankles. I grinned a little at that, reaching into my shirt pocket for a cigarette; and glancing up, Tina saw me, grinned too, and shrugged.
Then I took a breath and said, All right, look. I may be dead in a matter of weeks. They won't fool, Tina. They'll cut me down, if they can; they'll put a hole through my head. Tina, these may be the last couple of weeks I've got to live. Her nail file motionless, she was staring at me. Or they'll throw me into a Nevada prison for twenty years. Tina, it's true. It can happen. It may happen. She nodded slowly, and now her eyes were fearful. From the moment I step into Harold's Club, I may never see you again. And in that case, Tina, it hasn't been enough.
I couldn't sit there; I stood suddenly, went over to her chair, squatted down beside it, and took her hand in mine. Do you know what I mean? I said softly. She nodded, and I said, I want you to live with me, Tina. I've got no place of my own to ask you to, so I want to move in here with you. From now till we leave. I looked at her, trying to find the words. I think it's right, I went on, but that wasn't saying it, and I tried again. I think it's the right thing for us to do. Oh, Tina! — I stood up, furious in case she refused.
Tina stood too. Then she smiled, her eyes amused and kind. I think so too, Al, Tina said then.
I grabbed her, and she didn't resist or try to pull away, but she said, Not now, Al. I don't want to have to leave and go to work. Tonight—
Forget the work!
But she shook her head. There's no money to live on, Al; there just isn't. I've got to keep working till we leave. Tonight, Al, she insisted gently. You get your things and bring them here; I'll give you my key. She reached up and smoothed her finger tips across my cheek; I could feel each separate finger. We'll be together for the rest of our lives, and I want us to start out right. I'll be back early tonight; you be here waiting for me.
I spent half the afternoon sitting in the fraternity-house living room waiting for Dick Pulver, the fraternity president, to come back from his classes. When he finally came up the front steps — a blond, wholesome-looking, empty-faced boy — I slouched down in my chair and deliberately put my feet up on the table near the center of the room. Pulver walked into the front hall, and I heard him setting a good example by hanging his hat in the front closet instead of tossing it onto a chair or the radiator cover. Then he walked into the front room, looked at me, and sighed wearily; one of his most irritating habits is the way he acts the harassed adult burdened with the responsibility of a bunch of unruly children.
Look, Al, he said in the tiredly patient voice he uses on such occasions, how many times have I asked you to keep your feet off—
Too many times, I said, and I'm sick and tired of it. This joint isn't a museum; it's supposed to be a place to live in.
Listen, he said quietly, if I have to make formal charges against you at the next chapter meeting —
The details — what he said and what I said — don't matter. I let myself go, and pretty soon we were shouting, and when the four or five guys in the house at the time heard us and got down to the living room, I yelled, To hell with you, Pulver, I'm moving out! and turned on my heel.
I didn't like doing that. I didn't care for Pulver, but I didn't hate him, and I knew this would worry and hurt him, but I had to do it. It occurred to me, though, that there'd be more people I'd have to hurt, in a lot of ways, before I was through; and I didn't feel good, walking up the stairs to my room. But there had to be a reason for my moving out of the house, and now the whole school would soon know why I'd moved without my having to offer any other explanation. I was out of the house before Brick, Guy, or Jerry showed up for dinner, and I ate at the depot restaurant, where no one from school ever goes. Then, carrying my laundry bag, crammed with everything I owned, under one arm, I walked through the darkness, using side streets, to Tina's.
For four hours I sat in her apartment, waiting. I tried to read, but nothing ever printed could have caught my interest. Several times I sat holding a hand in front of my eyes, watching it tremble, and my stomach muscles began to ache from constant tensing. Finally I just sat, thinking about where I was and why, and hardly able to believe it. After a while I thought about what we were going to do in Reno, and it seemed impossible, and I wondered how it was that human beings got themselves into incredible situations just through a chance word or encounter, through having looked out a window at one moment instead of the next.
It was a long time later when the door opened and Tina stepped in; she'd tip-toed up the stairs to surprise me. She locked the door behind her, and when she did that, my heart began to pound and I couldn't talk.
She was beautiful. She wore her good coat and hat, and I could see the collar of her new maroon knit dress. It was her best outfit, and I realized, stumbling to my feet, that she'd worn it to work and back just for this moment. Then I helped her off with her coat, grinning sheepishly. Not a word came to my mind, and I wished I'd prepared something wonderful to say. Then, her coat off, Tina just stood, and I actually felt faint.
Her figure was stunning, it was staggering. Her ankles, her legs, were perfection, gorgeous. Tina Greylek was the most exciting thing I'd ever seen, and I stood looking at her, then swallowed and said, Well.
Yeah. She nodded. Well.
Then the blood clogged in my throat and behind my eyes, and I stepped toward her — and Tina lost her nerve. Before my hands could quite reach her, she'd turned quickly away, toward my laundry bag on the floor, and I knew she was as nervous as I was, and I didn't try to touch her.
We put in some time stowing away my things. Kneeling before her combination desk and dresser, Tina cleared out a drawer for me. Then she laid my three good shirts carefully in the drawer, then my socks, my handkerchiefs, and all the rest of it and I stood watching and couldn't ever get a deep-enough breath. We'd hardly said a word — we were terribly nervous — and now Tina took my good shoes to her closet and set them on the floor between two pairs of her own. She pushed her shoes together to touch mine on both sides, looked up at me, and smiled. I grinned too, but my eyes smarted, though I couldn't have said why. I stepped forward quickly, and took her in my arms, very gently. We just stood there holding each other; actually, I guess, we were clinging to each other.
I'm an orphan; my parents were killed in an auto accident when I was eight. I was raised by my mother's older sister, a widow. She was and is a fine woman, but she was eighteen years older than my mother; she was never too well, and raising a child was really too big a job for her. And when it was over — when she sat in the high-school auditorium at my graduation exercises — she was glad and relieved, an
d so was I. With no ill will or resentment, she'd never loved me, I'd never loved her, and there was very little between us any more. A few times a year I'd write to her, and presently she'd answer, and that was that. She owned her house, had a pension, and needed nothing; and I knew for a fact that visits from me simply upset the orderly old-lady routine of her life and seldom saw her any more. And so — I don't feel sorry for myself about this; it's simply a fact — for most of my life I never felt I really belonged to anyone, or had anyone to love or be loved by.
Tina's parents were alive — they were farm people somewhere in Illinois — but she hadn't seen them for nearly three years. I didn't know much about it, except that without hating them, she had no use for them. The point is that I knew we both felt the same thing as we stood staring at our shoes, side by side on her closet floor. It hit us with enormous force that now we belonged to someone, each of us; that I had moved in here; that we were together, and our lives were now joined.
For seconds, my alarm clock ticking away on Tina's desk, we just stood there, letting ourselves experience what I tried to describe. Then, though that feeling continued; I became terribly aware of Tina pressed against me; and so did she. She drew back to look up at me, then lifted a hand to stroke her fingers along my cheek. I'm glad you're here, Al, she said; then an odd and sorrowful look passed over her face; it was gone in an instant, and I doubt if she realized it.
My hands on her elbows, I looked down at her; she was smiling at me. But I didn't smile back. You are? I said.
Yes. She frowned, wondering why I should question it.
But you wish we were married, I said flatly.
For a second Tina didn't answer, and I could read her mind and knew she was wondering whether she could successfully deny it. Then she sighed and turned away from me. It's silly, isn't it?
I shrugged, staring at the back of her head, trying to hold my annoyance in check. Not if that's how you feel. I waited, then said quietly, I'd like to marry you, Tina. I feel married to you now; I'd like to be married to you.