The Jack Finney Reader

by Jack Finney

  But it took time; the work ate up the hours. And we made mistakes, we spoiled sheet metal, and Jerry simply would not allow any sloppy work to get by. If it was anything less than perfect for our purpose, it had to be done over again. But by simply going doggedly ahead, doing what had to be done one step at a time, solving each problem as we came to it, we finished the job, at two-thirty one morning. When we all stood there then, like kids around a Christmas tree, looking at what we had done, I never felt more proud of anything I'd ever accomplished in my life before.

  In Chicago, at a west-side wholesale house, we bought a first-quality tape recorder. We bought a six-volt automobile storage battery and a converter. In Guy's barn we welded holding brackets for them, mounted them on sponge rubber, wired and soldered electric connections, tested the thing over and over and over, then jounced and banged the whole works around, giving it twice the punishment it would have to take in Reno and during the trip; and it stood up fine. Then we wiped every last square inch clean with alcohol swabs.

  Oh, we did it; Jerry's fantastic brain child became a reality. But have you ever seen a movie, or read a story, in which elaborate equipment is set up with no trouble at all? I remember one story in which a television camera was secretly hidden in the crooks' hide-out, concealed in the attic, with the lens over a small hole made in the ceiling. Wires ran from the camera — it wasn't explained who did that or how — to another house, connecting it with a television set. There were hidden microphones too, and the good guys sat at their television set watching and listening to the crooks' secret plans. I accepted all that when I read it. Why, sure; just install your handy television camera, set up your microphones — why not?

  But working in the reality of Guy's barn, night after night, I often thought of that story. And now I wanted to know just where they got that television camera, exactly when and how they lugged the thing into the crooks' attic, and who made a hole in the ceiling without knocking the plaster down? Who bored holes in the woodwork for the connecting cable? How was that cable concealed outdoors? — and so on and on. Because, in reality, even the comparatively simple thing we did is incredibly difficult.

  It just doesn't go smoothly; you make impossible little mistakes in measuring and something that should drop into place doesn't fit at all. Everything takes hours, and working with the metal, you wear blisters and then calluses on your hands. You hurt yourself, burn yourself; you get tired, and you have to stop to eat. You run out of things you need and have to drive downtown to a hardware store before you can go on. You get your arc too hot or too cold, and a weld comes apart in your hands. An electric circuit that, by all the laws of physics and the universe, ought to work just doesn't. And it takes two and a half hours to pull it apart and put it back together before it finally does work, and you never know why it didn't in the first place. One night Guy suddenly dropped a pair of pliers and a roll of friction tape, turned aside, and vomited out of sheer physical weariness. But we finished what Jerry had described to us.

  Then, typescripts in our hands, we rehearsed and recorded, rehearsed and recorded, with Jerry coaching, till we hated him. But when finally that was done too, and done right, and we were completely finished, we knew Jerry had been right: This thing could be done; it could actually work. But it carried no guarantees, and we knew it and were able to think of a fair number of ways in which it could go all wrong. And there were moments when I was certain we were all insane, moving along of our own free wills to death, or imprisonment for the best part of our lives.

  Guy made a trip to Chicago to a theatrical-supply house. We got the last of our jugs filled with gas. We bought motor oil from Montgomery Ward; I stole several quarts of distilled water from the chemistry lab; we bought a supply of paper-covered mystery novels, playing cards, a first-aid kit, aspirin — we thought of everything. And late in June, around eleven o'clock, two nights before we were due to leave, we packed the stripped-down trailer, lashing supplies and equipment in place according to a chart we'd worked out, with Jerry standing there crossing off items on a check list on a clip board, like Noah supervising the loading of the ark.

  Tina had given notice at The Bowl; she was going home to her folks, she told them. And suddenly, a day and a half early, we were ready to leave, with nothing more to do but attend a few final classes and catch up on sleep.

  Brick was graduated, and had to attend the ceremonies. A lot of good-bys were said on the campus and at the fraternity house, and then one noon school was suddenly over. That afternoon the campus already had its sleepy summertime look, green and beautiful, almost deserted. That night, at two-thirty, the streets and houses dark and silent, Brick was at the wheel of the car in front of the barn, the motor off. Guy, Jerry, Tina, and I sat silently on the floor of the pitch-dark trailer, wearing our gloves. Brick released the brake a little; the trailer rolled slowly down the cinder driveway, pulling the car along behind it, Out in the empty, silent street Brick started the motor, released the clutch; and we felt ourselves moving ahead at last, north toward Chicago before turning west.

  It wasn't too bad in the trailer. The highways to Chicago are concrete, and the loaded trailer rode smooth. On top of our supplies we had a heavy layer of newspapers with blanket padding over them, and it was pretty comfortable.

  Outside of town, rolling along the road at an even forty, we turned on the light, a good powerful battery light in the ceiling. The Venetian blinds were closed tight over the windows, and Guy, grinning but not saying a word, pulled open a cardboard carton. Silently he began passing around the outfits we were going to wear into Harold's Club, and — grinning too now — we put on the green, red, black, and yellow cowboy shirts he handed us; Tina took Brick's. Then we put on the cheap felt cowboy hats, and Guy buckled on his Roy Rogers pistol. Finally, grinning so wide it actually hurt, we hooked on the false beards Guy had bought at the theatrical-supply house.

  Then we looked at each other. For a moment the three of us stared at Tina, wearing that absurd mustache and beard; then we began to scream with laughter. We knew we ought to be quiet, but in a moment we were actually rolling on the floor, howling with delight; and when Guy began snapping his pistol at us I laughed so hard it hurt to breathe. Maybe it really wasn't that funny, but it seemed so; some sort of release from tension, I suppose. And I don't know what that trailer sounded like, if anyone passed it rolling along the dark highway toward Chicago at three o'clock that cool June morning.

  The trailer slowed, then stopped at the side of the road; and an instant later the door opened and Brick stood there, his face blank and astonished at the uproar. When we looked at him — that astounded face staring in at us — it set us off harder than ever, and we shrieked and howled, Guy snapping his pistol at him and yelling, Bang, bang! Fall over; you're dead! Tears were roiling down our cheeks. Brick chuckled, shook his head helplessly, closed the door again.

  Huddled against one wall of the trailer, Brick was asleep; he'd driven till dawn, and Jerry was at the wheel for the day. Guy said quietly, I have here in my hands, in a large cup of delicate bone china, some freshly made, perfectly brewed, steaming hot coffee, together with sugar in a silver bowl and a pitcher of fresh, thick, country cream. What am I bid? In shirt sleeves, like Brick and me, he was lying on his back, smiling, his head on a rolled-up blanket.

  Five dollars, I said.

  Guy sneered. Obviously this man hates coffee. Do I hear a real bid?

  Tina smiled a little and signed; she was sitting beside me, wearing slacks and a sweater, her back to one wall of the trailer. Right now I think I'd give twenty-rive dollars for a good cup of coffee, I really do.

  The lady has a faint, very mild hankering for coffee. Myself, I'd give everything I own, including my shoes, and throw in my right arm, for a cup. it wouldn't even have to be very good. It could be yesterday's coffee, warmed over and served in a tin can. Just so it was hot. Steaming hot coffee. I'd sell my soul—

  Don't, I said. I'll kill myself.

  Staring at t
he ceiling, Guy said, You can have your bacon, crisp and right out of the pan; canned peaches are okay with me. You can have your eggs, beautifully scrambled or perfectly fried; I'll get along with dry cereal right out of the box. But coffee! A goldfish bowl full of it, held in my two trembling hands, while I sniff it like fine old brandy. Coffee, sustainer of the human spirit, builder of morale and nerve tissue. Good, hot—

  Listen, I said, there must be some way we can get it without violating security too much. Why can't Jerry just pull in to some roadside joint, like any other guy dragging a trailer, and—

  No. Tina was shaking her head. You know better.

  I nodded. I know. I just like to torture myself. Think of something else to talk about, Guy.

  He sat up, elbows on his knees, gloved hands dangling between his ankles. Then he said, L.

  O, I said, turning to Tina.

  She thought a moment, then said, S.

  Guy shook his head regretfully at Tina. I.

  I shrugged, turning to Tina. N.

  She considered that, then shrugged too and said, All right, G.

  I'm sorry to announce — Guy smiled at her — that you finished the word ‘losing’ and are now one fifth of a ghost.

  We played on, with Tina and Guy then ganging up on me till I lost five times and was a full-fledged ghost. Then Guy brought a pack of cards out of his shirt pocket and began riffling them invitingly. A little Canfield? Russian bank? Faro? Piquet? Or should we wake up Brick for some bridge?

  I shook my head. I can't play cards in a moving car; makes me sick. So Guy and Tina played casino while I lay back with my eyes closed for a few moments; then I dozed off.

  I woke up, aware that the trailer had stopped. Brick was awake now, and the four of us glanced expectantly at each other. A car whizzed by; then Tina opened the door on the opposite side a fraction of an inch and stood peeking out, me beside her. We waited; another car passed; then as its sound receded the motor of our car raced for an instant; and at that signal from Jerry that the road was now clear, Tina stepped out of the trailer. I kept the door open half an inch and watched her walk quickly across the yard of a deserted country schoolhouse, then disappear around a corner of the building.

  Several cars passed, widely separated. Then, the road once again clear of traffic, Tina came back to the trailer. The motor raced immediately, and the rest of us, including Jerry, got out and went to the boys' room behind the school.

  That day everything was fun; canned peaches for breakfast, breaks at country schoolhouses — twice during the day and again at night, when we all slid down the slides and bounced on the seesaw in a pitch-dark little schoolyardand all the other things we did to pass time. We talked a lot, laughed a lot, read, played word games; we even played mumblety-peg with Guy's pocketknife on the top of a carton. And we all napped easily; we had a lot of lost sleep to make up, and the trailer seemed comfortable. Some of the novelty had faded the second day, but it was all still new and interesting enough to sustain us.

  But beginning about midmorning of the third day out, it was suddenly pretty bad. Breakfast was over — canned fruit again, zwieback, dry cereal, and water — and we began our routine of games, talk, cards, and reading. But none of them lasted long. One after another we began the things we'd done previously to pass time, and were sick of them almost before we began. Long before noon we were sitting or lying in the jiggling trailer, trying to sleep; or staring into space, waiting for the morning break, the feel of solid ground under our feet, and something new to focus our eyes on.

  Then, the break over so quickly it only tantalized us, we sat waiting for noon and the lunch we didn't want. That afternoon — I couldn't read in the moving trailer without getting dizzy — Tina read aloud, a mystery novel. And from then on we put in a fair amount of time that way, Guy and Brick spelling Tina at reading.

  But still, though I'd tried imagining what the trip would be like; it was worse than I'd expected. For the first time in my life I began experiencing actual claustrophobia; at times I had to hold onto myself to keep from yelling that I wanted to get out. The inside of that trailer is printed on my mind forever, and I hated the look of it; we all did. And we began to be aware — at first slightly, then acutely — of how much we were in each other's way. You'd shift position and your back would press the heel of a shoe; or someone's sleeve would brush your ear and you'd want to lash out at him.

  We even began looking forward to gas stops as some sort of break in the terrible monotony, though we couldn't get out or do anything but lie there motionless. We were saving our gas for the last thousand miles, and each night around dusk — not full daylight but just before a gas station turned its lights on — whoever was driving would stop, his hat pulled low, wearing sunglasses.

  He'd pick a station with no other cars waiting; and he always bought to the even dollars' worth, the bills waiting in his hand; never once did he have to wait for change. When the attendant asked about checking oil and water, he'd just shake his head no; he let them clean the windshield, though. Often as not he would get in and out of a filling station without having to say any more than Four dollars' worth; ethyl.

  We'd lie there in the dark, listening to all the little sounds — the gas-tank cap coming off, the quiet whir of the pump — and straining to hear whatever was said. Most of all, though, we enjoyed — we drank in — the simple, wonderful fact of temporary motionlessness. In some ways the never-ending jiggling of the floor of that trailer was hardest of all to bear.

  There was no stopping for meals, a bottle of pop, a cup of coffee. No scenery to watch, no quitting at night for a decent night's sleep. No wandering around a strange town of an evening or seeing a movie. No stretching your legs every few hours or laying over somewhere for a day. We saw not a single new face and hardly a new sight to provide material for new conversation. There was nothing. No change, hour after hour after hour. And no position was comfortable now. Once I stood up in the vibrating trailer for twenty-five miles, just for the relief it would be to finally lie down again. And coffee — the terrible need for a cup of hot coffee in the mornings — was no longer a subject to be funny about.

  The night driving saved our minds; in some ways those three-hour shifts at the wheel are among the best moments of my life. Tina rode with me, up in the car. She never drove; we didn't want anything even as slightly out of the ordinary as a woman driving a trailer rig. Going through towns, no matter how late, she'd sit on the floor out of sight. If I even stopped for a traffic light I'd have my elbows on the wheel, hands at my face, as though I were tired and massaging my eyes. The invisible man and the invisible woman; I think we came as close to it as could possibly be done.

  The first few minutes of the night-time shifts were especially wonderful; it was like being born again to step out into the world once more. Whoever was driving would wait, toward the end of his shift, for a deserted stretch of country road; then stop quickly, leaving the motor on; climb out; and hurry back to the door of the trailer. Whoever's turn it was next would pass him on the way, climb into the car and be off.

  Every sight and sound, as you got the trailer moving again, was fresh and interesting. A darkened farmhouse, dim white in the night, was exciting to see. Stars in the sky were something to feast your eyes on; and to drive through a closed-down, empty little Main Street was an experience.

  We'd sit there, Tina and I, sniffing the soft June air through the open windows, glancing from side to side at whatever there was to see: roadside fences, sign-posts, billboards, fields of corn at first, then wheat, and after a time the endless sweep of desert country. For a little while we'd listen for sounds: crickets or frogs, usually; sometimes a bird; or cattle stomping as we passed a barn. Then after a time we'd settle back, find some dance music on the radio, and start to talk — in a way that wasn't possible back in the trailer. Driving was no strain; we'd tool along at an even forty, seldom passing anything except an occasional slow truck.

  I got to know everything about Tina in
those night tours. I learned what had happened, down on the farm in Illinois, with her folks. It was the old story of misunderstanding, fear, and finally the hate or indifference of a child for her parents; but it fascinated me. I learned that her name was Betty, not Tina; she'd changed it herself when she was fifteen. But even more important than the facts of her life I learned what Tina liked to do and read and think, and what she believed and hoped. Each night I fell deeper and deeper in love with her.

  We were five days out before we talked about the project, to amount to anything. We were in desert country now, and that night I had the siesta shift, twelve to three. The “siesta hour” was Guy's idea. In the desert it was easy now to turn off the road and bump slowly along, picking a path among the sagebrush clumps for a couple of hundred yards off the road, invisible to passing traffic. It was easy, and absolutely necessary now; we simply had to get out of that trailer for more than a few minutes at a time. We had to feel solid ground under our feet for long enough to get used to it again, had to get free of the walls and roof and get away from each other and be alone.

  We'd stop for one hour, and each of us, usually, would wander off alone, into the desert a way, for maybe three quarters of the time. Then we'd straggle back, and standing around we'd chat a little, refreshed and alive again, or at least able to get back in and go on when the hour ended. “siesta hour” meant everything to us; it kept us going. Jerry even woke up for it, just to get free of the car and trailer.

  Now, around two-thirty in the morning, our car and trailer a fat bug on the vast carpet of the desert floor, we were moving along a road as straight as a ruler, the sage flowing past our windows and stretching endlessly ahead and to the sides in the moonlight. We'd been quiet for a while; then Tina said, I'm happy with you, Al; I didn't know it would be this good.