The Jack Finney Reader

by Jack Finney

  I don't know just when I guessed, or why; but the feeling had been growing on me. Partly, I suppose, it was the color — the faded-out remains of the deep-green this old car had once been. And partly it was something else, I don't know just what. But suddenly — standing in that old barn with Helen and her mother and dad — suddenly I knew, and I glanced around the barn and found them: the old plates nailed up on a wall, 1923 through 1931. And when I walked over to look at them, I found what I knew I would find — 1923 Illinois tag 11,206.

  Your old Jordan plates? I said, and when he nodded, I said as casually as I could, What's your first name, Mr. McCauley?

  I suppose he thought I was crazy, but he said, Vincent. Why?

  Just wondered. I was picturing you driving around when the Jordan was new; it's a fast car, and it must have been a temptation to open it up.

  Oh, yeah. He laughed. I did that, all right; those were wild times.

  Racing trains, all that sort of thing, I suppose?

  That's right, he said, and Helen's mother glanced at me curiously. That was one of the things to do in those days. We almost got it one night too; scared me to death. Remember? he said to his wife.

  I certainly do.

  What happened? I said.

  Oh — he shrugged — I was racing a train, out west of town one night, where the road parallels the Q tracks. I passed it, heading for the crossroad — you know where it is — that cuts over the tracks. We got there, my arms started to move, to swing the wheel and shoot over the tracks in front of that engine — when I knew I couldn't make it. He shook his head. Two, three, seconds more — if we'd got there just two seconds earlier, I'd have risked it, I'm certain, and we'd have been killed, I know. But we were just those couple of seconds too late, and I swung that wheel straight again and shot on down the road beside that train, and when I took my foot off the gas pedal and the engine rushed past us, the fireman was leaning out of the cab, shaking his fist and shouting something, I couldn't hear what, but it wasn't complimentary. He grinned.

  Did anything delay you that night, I said softly, just long enough to keep you from getting killed? I was actually holding my breath, waiting for his answer.

  But he only shook his head. I don't know, he said without interest. I can't remember. And his wife said, I don't even remember where we'd been.

  I don't believe — I really don't — that my Jordan Playboy is anything more than metal, glass, rubber, and paint formed into a machine. It isn't alive; it can't think or feel; it's only a car. But I think it's an especial tragedy when a young couple's lives are cut off for no other reason than the sheer exuberance nature put into them. And I can't stop myself from feeling, true or not true, that when that old Jordan was restored — returned to precisely the way it had been just before young Vince McCauley and his girl had raced a train in it back in 1923 — when it was given a second chance, it went back to the time and place, back to the same evening in 1923, that would give them a second chance too. And so again, there on that warm July evening, actually there in the year 1923, they got into that Jordan, standing just where they'd parked it, to drive on and race that train. But trivial events can affect important ones following them — how often we've all said that if only this or that had happened everything would have turned out so differently. And this time it did, for now something was changed. This time on that 1923 July evening someone dashed in front of their car, delaying them only two or three seconds. But Vince McCauley, then, driving on to race along beside those tracks, changed his mind about trying to cross them and lived to marry the girl beside him. And to have a daughter.

  I haven't asked Helen to marry me, but she knows I shall; after I've graduated and got a job, I expect. And she knows that I know she'll say yes. We'll be married and have children, and I'm sure we'll be driving a modern hardtop car like everyone else, with safety catches on the doors so the kids won't fall out. But one thing for sure — just as her folks did 32 years before, we'll leave on our honeymoon in the Jordan Playboy.

  Good Housekeeping, April 1956, 142(4):66-67, 190-199

  House of Numbers

  Lying in the darkness, uncomfortable as always in a strange bed and room, I heard the snap of a light switch, then the click of high heels in the hall just outside the thin wood of my door. And in my mind I could see the sleek nyloned legs that were making this sound only a few feet from my bed, the delicate fine-boned ankles. A switch clicked in the bedroom we'd decided would be hers, and I tried to picture the girl's face as it had looked when we'd met this morning, and I couldn't. I could see her hair, very heavy and long, with the yellow, mixed with darker, strands that only genuinely blonde hair has. But her face … Then suddenly I saw it again, the prominent cheek bones, the pale magnificent complexion, and the gray intelligent eyes that revealed Ruth Gehlmann's personality.

  The heels clicked toward me again, then stepped onto the tile in the bathroom. I heard the medicine cabinet open, and then the door close, and I was intensely aware of all these sounds and of the girl, living under this roof with me now, who made them; and I tried to ignore them, and think of something else. But the door opened again, the steps sounded once more on the wooden hall floor, then stopped. There was a moment's complete silence; then I heard them approaching. A very light tapping sounded on my door; it opened quietly, and the girl's handsome figure stood sharply silhouetted against the hall light. "Asleep?" she whispered.

  "No," I said quietly.

  She hesitated, then said, "Ben? Do you ever — are you at all — frightened?"

  "Oh," I said, "I don't know. Yeah, a little. Why? Are you frightened?"

  She nodded, standing there. "Yes, some. Oh, Ben," she said suddenly, "yes, I am! I'm scared! Tonight, after you left the living room, I sat there, the house so quiet, and it was as though I had time, my first chance all day to really think, and— Ben, talk to me!" She moved quickly to my bed, and sat down on its edge facing me.

  In the faint light from the hall I could see her face straining for control. I sat up, my mind searching for words, and she leaned forward suddenly, hands to her face, and dropped her forehead on my shoulder. Automatically, my arms rose and went around her, and as she huddled against me for comfort, I patted her back gently and began to murmur, "There, there, take it easy; you've got a right to be scared, you've got a right to let down and shed a few tears." My voice a monotone, the sound of it more important than the words, I said, "All in one day, you move out of your apartment, move in here with a stranger, and the worst is still to come — why shouldn't it get you? You'll be all right in the morning; things will look better; you'll be all right." I went on and after a little time she wriggled her shoulders under my arm with a little shuddering sigh, then lay against me, breathing quietly.

  For a moment longer I held her, sitting up there in bed; then I arched my chest to push her gently erect, and as she looked up, frowning in puzzlement, I put my hands on her shoulders, and leaning back, held her at arm's length. "Go to bed now," I said, and though I smiled to soften the effect, I hadn't quite kept the gruffness out of my voice. "Go ahead now," I said as she stared at me, and I couldn't help it — there was an edge of irritation in my voice, and I knew I had to explain it. "Look," I said gently, "I know how you feel, and I want to help you, but — damn it, Ruth," I burst out, "you're a beautiful woman! Not just pretty, or attractive, but beautiful! And we're alone here, absolutely alone, living and sleeping under the same roof, and now here you. are sitting—" I suddenly stopped, then said, "I'm sorry."

  She was nodding, the light from the hall yellow in her hair. "Of course," she said quietly. "I just didn't think; it didn't enter my mind, at the moment. I was scared, I wanted comfort, but of course." She stood up quickly from the bed, nervously brushing her skirt. "I'm sorry, Ben. And I'm all right now."

  My name is Benjamin Harrison Jarvis. I'm twenty-seven years old, a stocky man several inches under six feet, weighing 170 pounds, with black hair, blue eyes, and an ordinary average American face, and I'm
no faster thinking than the next guy. But now for the first time in these strange and hectic past two days, I seemed to be thinking straight; things fell into focus. "Get your coat," I said to the frightened girl standing beside my bed. "We're going to take a little ride."

  I own a 1953 Plymouth hardtop convertible, and I'd driven up in it from Los Angeles two days before. When I'd dressed, I got in it with Ruth, and we drove out of the garage, heading for Paradise Cove, on Richardson Bay. I know Marin County; I'd lived and worked in Los Angeles for five years, until Saturday, but I grew up here in the San Francisco Bay area, and knew where I was going, and how to get there.

  We didn't talk during the quarter-hour it took us, but as the winding, almost deserted, back road came out onto the bay and we saw the pale orange glow of light almost directly ahead, I felt Ruth's body in the seat beside me go rigid. Glancing at her profile in the faint light from the dashboard, I saw that her face muscles were set, and that her eyes were closed, but I said nothing, offering her not a word or gesture of comfort. The dark road wound on, skirting the bay, and between occasional houses or clumps of trees were caught frequent glimpses of the orange glow across the water, growing steadily larger and closer.

  Then as the road emerged directly beside the bay, I pulled to the side, and parked. I turned off the motor, and we sat in the sudden silence staring at that orange glow across the black water, and now we could see plainly what it was.

  It was a line of huge floodlights mounted on standards higher than telephone poles and shining on an immense, peach-colored building which rose up out of the spade-shaped point of land across the narrow bay. Before it stood a smaller structure of the same material and color. On the edge of the shore, high in the air before the great building, stood a glass-windowed hut on immensely tall, stilt-like legs. Off to the left, fading into the darkness beyond the floodlights, were more buildings, tinted a delicate green.

  "Well," I said, "there it is." And after a moment Ruth nodded.

  "It's colored," she murmured. "I can never get over that. It's not gray, but colored; and in pastels."

  "Yes, San Quentin, the pastel prison; it's almost pretty from here." I turned. "Look at it, Ruth; fill your eyes with it. You can actually make out the bars on the windows; notice?" She nodded, her face pale. "And off to the left, way back" — I pointed — "you can see one of the walls. There are men up there, Ruth, with guns; and it's all real. You're looking at it now; San Quentin prison; there's nothing more real in the world. And we're actually talking about taking a man out of there," I said softly. "Actually helping Arnie escape from San Quentin! Take a good look, Ruth, because that's the kind of place you'll end up in — you, Ruth, in the women's prison at Corona — if anything goes wrong!"

  I sat looking at her, half-turned on the car seat to face her, and her jaw muscles were rigid, but I didn't let up. "See that green light?" I said, and she lifted her face to stare up at the globe of vivid green light mounted high on a standard over the prison. "It's green now because all's quiet, every last man accounted for. But once that light turns red — if you helped do it, you're in the worst trouble of your life; and you may never be free of the consequences as long as you live." I waited, letting her look her fill of the stone-and-steel floodlighted reality before us. Then I said softly, "When I told you this morning what Arnie wanted us to do, you said yes, you'd help. That doesn't count; it came at you too fast. But now you've had time to think. What about it, Ruth?"

  After a moment she turned to stare at me wonderingly; then she turned back to look at the great prison ahead, and shook her head. She whispered, "Ben, you're right; I can't do it!" and she covered her face with her hands.

  After a moment she lowered her hands and turned to me, eyes bitter. "Maybe I ought to. You didn't see him at the trial, Ben, and right after!"

  "I was in Europe; my first vacation in four years."

  "Well, he was wild, Ben; just wild at the thought of prison; I know he hates it even more than most men. And we're engaged; we'd have been married over a year now, if he weren't in there! I owe him my loyalty and help!" She shook her head. "But all I can tell you is that I can't do it; I simply haven't the courage. I don't want to be in a prison any more than Arnie does! And I don't care what you think!" She covered her face again; she was crying.

  "Don't be so quick about what I'll think," I said. "I'm not going to help him, either." Ruth lowered her hands to stare at me. "That's right," I said quietly. "Arnie's my brother, and I'd do a lot for him. But I didn't put him in there, and I'm not going to end up in there with him. Escape," I said bitterly. "Help Arnie escape! Why, it's fantastic, it's absurd. Ruth, you know what he did?" I said angrily. "I drove up here Saturday; I come up every month to visit him. I saw him Sunday, and we talked for nearly the full hour; just chitchat, as always; nothing important. He waited till the last few minutes to spring this on me! He had to escape, he was suddenly telling me; he had to, and I was to get hold of you, and we had to help him. There was no time for questions; he told me how to reach you, that we both had to get our time free somehow; move into Marin County close to the prison, and be ready to help. I'm to come back tomorrow for my second visit to hear the rest." I shook my head. "Then the guard was tapping me on the shoulder. I had to leave, and I left with this terrible feeling of urgency. You know how Arnie can communicate that to you; you know how excited he gets; I didn't have time to think! I phoned my boss in L.A. from a phone booth, and just quit my job; I didn't know what else to do. I phoned my landlady, and arranged to have her express my things up here. I visited real-estate agents, and rushed around looking at furnished places for rent all afternoon, and took the house in Mill Valley. And in between, at every available phone booth I came to, I phoned you all afternoon and evening, and couldn't reach you. Then today — well, you know what today has been like."

  "I know." She nodded. "When you woke me ringing my doorbell, Ben, you started talking while I was still half asleep. And then all I could think of was what I had to do; get to the office, and arrange to start my vacation. That took some talking! I told them my mother was very sick. Then packing, and moving into a house with an absolute stranger." She shook her head again.

  "Well, there's time to think now," I said tiredly, "and it's time to do it. Damn it," I said furiously, "other men serve out their time in prison! Arnie can do it, too, without dragging us in there with him. This is just a sudden idea of his; he said so. And he doesn't know how he'd escape, or even go about trying. Escape from San Quentin," I said contemptuously. "Look at it! It's impossible to get a man out of there; at least for us, it is. But it'd be damn easy to get into it trying. Come on," I said angrily, and turned on the ignition, reaching for the starter button. "Let's get the hell out of here. I'll drive you home in the morning, after I go talk to Arnie, and tell him to grow up and behave." We drove back to the rented house in Mill Valley then, while I wondered if I could get my job back.

  The block guard who brought the morning ducats around just before unlock had one for me Monday — Arnold Jarvis, for 9:15 on The Porch, it said — and I was glad I'd made up my mind to have Ben and Ruth get ready and stand by. I didn't know exactly what was waiting for me this morning, but I knew what it was about and was scared.

  I showed up at nine-fifteen, there on The Porch of the Yard Captain's office; a dozen or so other inmates were already there in blue jeans and work shirts like me, lounging around, waiting, staring out at the Captain's Garden. I glanced in through the big plate-glass window, and the Disciplinary Committee were all there. The Captain stood at his desk shuffling through his papers and pink charge sheets, wearing a very neat, well-pressed tan uniform as always, and his cap with the gold insignia. He's a thin-faced, quiet-spoken, smart-as-hell man, maybe forty-five years old. Allingham, one of the associate wardens, and Fengle, one of the prison psychiatrists, were sitting at each side of his desk.

  The buzzer sounded at nine-thirty, the Porch guard stuck his head in the office door, then turned and called, "Cahill," and
a heavy-set guy maybe thirty-five years old, with deep black circles under his eyes, walked into the bare little office to stand before the Captain's desk. It was another hot as hell August day, the door was ajar, and I could hear what went on; it was like a hundred other weekly Disciplinary Committee hearings.

  This Cahill had refused to put a pair of shoes under his bunk when a block guard told him to. It turned out they weren't his shoes, but his cellmate's in the top bunk, but neither of them told the guard that. Cahill just got stubborn, and wouldn't pick up the shoes, till the guard got mad, and put him on charges. Now, Cahill's defense was that they weren't his shoes. "Something wrong with picking up your cellmate's shoes?" the Captain asked. "He got athlete's foot?"

  Cahill grinned, and shrugged, and said No.

  "All right, then," says the Captain, "a guard tells you to put away some shoes, you put them away, no matter whose they are. A guard tells you to stuff some shoes down the toilet, you stuff 'em down the toilet! That's how easy it is to get along in prison, Cahill; just do what you're told." They gave him seven days' isolation, and maybe it was worth it; you couldn't tell from Cahill's face.

  They had a guy in for fighting, and the Captain picked up his record card.

  " 'Four days isolation, December, '54, fighting,' " he read from it. "January, February, March, May, June, and July, more fighting — you missed April; must have been sick. Quite a hard-nose, aren't you, Manfred?"

  Manfred, a thin young guy, maybe twenty-three, just shrugged.

  "Don't take nothin' from nobody, hmm?"

  "That's right," Manfred said. He drew fourteen days.

  They had a colored kid in, nineteen years old. He had rigged up a frame-work of wire coat hangers. and suspended a can of shellac in it, with a little hole in the cork. The shellac dripped onto the cut end of a loaf of bread underneath it. From the bottom of the loaf, the clear filtered fluid dripped into a funnel stuck into the neck of a narrow-mouthed bottle. He had this rig hidden in a paint locker, in the paint shop where he worked. "A thing I hate to do," said Allingham, "I hate to phone a man's relatives and tell them he's dying in the hospital because he drank shellac, or paint thinner, or something."