The Jack Finney Reader

by Jack Finney

  Oscar shifted, let out the clutch and turned south onto Fifth Avenue, and there was not a soul in sight as far as we could see in either direction, and I felt a stab of disappointment. We wanted to startle a few people; we were out to play a joke. It wasn't a practical joke; to my mind that phrase means cruelty, a joke that is no joke but an embarrassment, annoyance, shock, or even injury to someone. We intended the opposite; I was entirely certain that to anyone seeing the incredible vision of this lighted old bus, our costumed selves inside it, wheeling slowly along Fifth Avenue in the middle of the night, it would be an astonishing sight and pleasure never forgotten.

  We were disappointed as kids, and I'm sure that's why Oscar drove farther than he meant to; someone just had to see us. He drove through one block, then another and into a third, along the deserted late-at-night street, and we didn't see a person or a car. Then a woman walked out of a doorway with an Airedale on a leash. The dog stopped, the woman stood waiting, and as we rolled past she glanced up at us. There was no change of expression on her face, she showed absolutely no interest, and as her dog moved on, so did she without a backward glance. She's from out of town, Joe said. She thinks it's a regular bus.

  Alice said, Did you see her dress and hat? Hell, half the women in the country are wearing cloche hats and short dresses these days; we're no surprise to her, we're the latest style!

  Oscar was pulling to the curb; 50 feet ahead under a street light, two men frowning in conversation stood waiting for a bus, and he was going to oblige. He yelled, On your feet, conductor! and as I got up quickly and walked to the rear of the bus, Oscar slowed and stopped.

  The two men stepped up onto the back platform without a break in the sound of the older man's voice, a gray-haired man of 60 in a wide-brimmed Panama hat and a snow-white suit. The younger man, who wore a gray business suit, stood listening, his eyes never leaving the older man's face. The man in white brought change from his pocket, and held out his hand, still talking. I lifted my fare collector, a little nickel-plated contrivance with a slot in the top, and he turned just long enough to push two dimes, one after the other, into the slot, and a chime sounded each time. Then I reached overhead, tugged at a rope, a bell tinkled over Oscar's head, and he pulled out from the curb. Our two passengers stood where they were, on the back platform, and the older man's voice — urging, selling, persistent — never stopped once, and now I was aware of what he was saying.

  I don't really know anything about stocks or the stock market, but I've taken a small flyer now and then. Sometimes I've made a little, more often I lose, but I'm always hoping for hot tips. Now I seemed to be hearing some, and I stood making an effort to remember them. Buy any of them, Georgie, the older man was saying for at least the second time. It doesn't matter which, I guarantee you can sell out at a profit in a month. You won't want to, though. You'll thank me, and ask to buy more. But right now, start small and convince yourself. Buy a hundred RCA at around forty-four for a starter. A little New York Central at one-thirty, and some General Motors at a hundred and forty-one. Listening to this money talk, watching those two anxious profiles, I knew they could have stepped onto a red-white-and-blue bus manned by a crew in clown suits without noticing it, and I glanced at the others, all looking back here anxious to be noticed, and shrugged.

  At the beginning of the next block Oscar pulled to the curb again, and a boy and girl got on. Neither was more than 19, and they climbed the narrow stairs to the next deck holding hands — no easy trick. I followed, my fare collector ready, and on the top deck they sat way up front in the first seat. The girl's head found the boy's shoulder, his arm went around her, and I dropped the fare collector in my pocket. I didn't bother wondering why they'd showed no surprise about the bus they'd boarded; they were aware of only themselves, and I stood there envying them. It was wonderful up here under the summer stars, the air balmy, and I wished Jessie and I were up here as they were. A buzzer sounded, the bus swung to the curb, and I looked downstairs to see the two men, the older one still talking, step off and walk away into the night, and I went downstairs again to sit next to Jessie.

  Half a dozen yards from the Washington Square arch, Oscar slowed and stopped at the curb. He'd lived in New York once, and he remembered; this was where the old buses always waited for a few minutes before swinging in a half circle to head north again. We're some big surprise to the natives, aren't we? Joe said sarcastically; he and the girl were sitting together now, up near the front of the bus.

  She said irritably, What's the matter with people, anyhow?

  Well, what did you expect? Alice Weeks said, across the aisle. After all, this is New York. I once saw twenty-five elephants walking west on Fifty-seventh Street at three o'clock in the morning; absolutely silent, walking trunk to tail, on their way to Madison Square Garden where the circus began next day. And a guy on a street corner never stopped reading his paper. You can't surprise them; they don't believe what they see. They think we're advertising something.

  Or making a movie, Jessie said, smiling.

  We sat waiting, not quite knowing why. Then, just as Oscar shifted gears and began pulling away, a man in a light summer suit came walking out from under the arch, saw the bus, ran for it, and I stood and walked up front; the conductor shouldn't be seen sitting next to a passenger. He hopped on, walked down the aisle, saw Jessie, and I was instantly sorry I'd stood.

  Because he was a very handsome guy — lean-faced, blue-eyed, wavy black hair — and he stopped motionless, staring down at Jess. Then, slowly, not taking his eyes from that wonderful face, he sat down beside her, and something I've never before actually seen happened under my eyes. Jessie saw it, too; she turned and saw a man falling in love with her.

  We've all heard love at first sight discussed; usually it's a debate about whether it's possible. But I think it happens all the time. A man and woman meet, and something often happens right then and there, for one or both of them. But usually weeks or months have to pass before they admit what it is. Meanwhile, that instantaneous burst of feeling is called most anything else. But the truth remains that people often fall in love in a single look; the only thing rare about it is people who recognize it.

  Jessie did. She saw it in his face, but whether he knew it himself I don't know. I walked down the aisle and stood listening; I couldn't help it. His voice was low, meant only for Jessie, but I heard. With absolute simplicity he said, Look, I don't know what to do. I'll never again see a girl like you as long as I live. I don't know what to say, but I can't just sit here and let you go. I've got to know your name and see you again, I've got to. You must know that?

  There was no mistaking the quiet passionate truth in his voice, and I hated to look Jessie full in the face for fear of what I'd see there, too. But I did, and I saw that she was pleased — not because he was handsome, I thought; she saw handsome men every day of her life — but because a response like his couldn't help but affect her or any other woman, I suppose. But she hadn't fallen in love with him; Jessie wasn't falling in love with anyone just now. She smiled — pleasantly, sweetly; Jessie's a nice girl — and actually reached out and patted his hand. No, she said kindly. I don't live here; I'll be gone in a day or so.

  But where —

  No, she repeated, still nicely but with an edge of finality, and turned away from him.

  He sat staring at her; his mouth opened to speak once or twice; then he suddenly swung away, standing up, and walked fast down the aisle to the back of the bus, and hopped off. I was staring after him, so was Jess, so were the others; they hadn't heard what had been said, they were too far front, but they knew something had happened. Out on the street, dwindling behind us, he stood on the asphalt paving of Fifth Avenue in the summer night staring after us. Then he turned abruptly to the curb, stepped up, and was gone.

  We drove straight back to the garage; the young couple on the top deck was gone when I checked. In the garage we covered the old bus with the tarp, then walked back to the house and changed to ou
r own clothes. Nobody had much to say; our little joke hadn't really worked out. I was going to offer to take Jessie to her hotel, but when I came out of the dressing room she was gone.

  • • •

  Work started at eight sharp the next morning, and Jessica's big scene was the first thing Ernie Wyke had scheduled. Until noon we had the two blocks we'd asked for on lower Fifth Avenue; barricaded at both ends and at the side-street entrances, a cop at each barrier detouring traffic and keeping spectators at bay. We had the two blocks again in the afternoon from two until four, then we had to be finished and off the street for good. Out of camera range stood a generator truck, a sound truck, a motorized camera dolly, a motorized sound-boom dolly, a sprouting of reflectors on stands and other odds and ends of equipment, and a scattering of people of the unit standing around or sitting on the curb. Out in the street stood three period cars Al Berg had located here and rented, and our bus. All four motors were running, costumed drivers at the wheels, and inside the bus sat half a dozen men and women in Twenties costume, including Jessie in the light-blue outfit she'd worn the previous night.

  Before he began filming, Ernie sent them through the scene. On a street corner just beyond the waiting cars and bus, an actor stood waiting for his cue; he was a friend of Ernie's, a middle-aged New York actor who was in a play here, and who had occasionally played small picture roles. This was the man, in the story, whom Jessie was in love with; a man very nearly three times her age. In the story he was important and frequently referred to, but he actually appeared only three times, each briefly, and it was really a small part. There'd been no need to bring anyone from Hollywood for it; any competent actor of his type and age could handle it, and I was seeing him now, waiting there on the corner, for the first time. My only criticism of him was that he looked like an actor: the plentiful crisp gray hair, at least part of which was probably an expensive hairpiece; the good but blurred profile; the not-too-portly figure, because he'd had to keep in reasonable shape to get work; the magnificent tailoring. He didn't look quite real.

  Ernie said to him, All right, Frank, let's go through it, and Frank began slowly pacing his street corner, glancing often at his watch. Ernie beckoned, and now the waiting automobiles drove past Frank one at a time, passing between him and the camera out in the middle of the street. The camera was centered on Frank, though it wasn't turning. A moment after the third car passed, the bus came along, drawing toward the curb, and it stopped at the street corner cutting Frank from view. Just behind the bus, and just out of the scene, the motorized camera dolly and sound-boom dolly had followed along. On the other side of the bus, just out of the previous shot, another camera was centered on Frank and the rear exit of the bus, and I knew Frank was standing there, a gentle smile on his face, offering a hand to Jessie as she stepped off the bus.

  I walked around the two dollies to watch the rest of the scene. Frank was speaking a phrase of greeting, Jessie smiling tremulously in response, and the bus was moving on up Fifth, still in the scene as Frank took Jessie's arm and they began to walk ahead. Now the two dollies in the street began to follow, keeping abreast, the microphone on its boom suspended over their heads just out of camera range — and the cars and bus, out of the scene now, 'U-turned and came back; the sounds of their motors as they passed would be picked up as appropriate street noise.

  I won't repeat the dialog as they walked along those two blocks of Fifth Avenue, but the point of it was that Frank told Jessie he was not going to see her again, that he was too old for her. It went on longer than that, but that was the gist of his speech: He loved her and would never stop, but he was plainly too old for a young girl, it had to be recognized and he was doing so, even if she refused to face it.

  Jessie argued with him, pleaded, and finally begged. But he could not be changed, and presently he left her, walking toward the side street just ahead, then turning the corner out of the scene. As he disappeared — and this was the big point of the scene, this was the scene, the climax — the camera turned full on Jessie's face, and her face had to show what she felt. This was tragedy, a truth to be accepted, as she knew, but the most sorrowful moment of her life. Jess had to show that. During the rest of the scene, her face filling the screen, she had to make the audience know it was true; that this young and beautiful girl genuinely loved this man so much that his leaving her life broke her heart.

  And she showed nothing of the sort. With Ernie, I stood beside the camera watching her — and her hands rose as though to reach after him, her mouth opened as though to call, then her face assumed an expression of sorrow. And you didn't believe it, because neither did she. She couldn't show what she'd never felt herself.

  Ernie said, Fine, Jess, you're getting it. Let's try again. Frank came back around the corner, and Ernie took Jessie's arm and began to talk as we all walked back toward the beginning of the scene, trying to find a way to make her feel it.

  It was the worst morning I ever went through; if I could have, I'd have just walked away, and kept on walking for a long time. I'd hoped Ernie would find the key for Jess, though I didn't think he would, and he couldn't. After a while he began filming; he had to get the scene in the can. If anything, Jessie got worse; trying the scene in a variety of ways, as an actor who isn't getting it will sometimes do, hoping to somehow get it on film by accident.

  At 11 o'clock Ernie told her that any of several versions we'd filmed were great, and it was time to go ahead with the rest of the schedule. Then he went on to clean up several short takes, including the one of Jessie leaving her house, coming down the front steps pulling on her gloves. We picked up on those again at 2 o'clock, and were finished by 3:15. Ernie looked at his watch. All right, he called, keeping his voice calm, as long as we have time, let's try the big scene once more. We'll take it from Jessie stepping off the bus.

  Frank and Jessie walked to their street corner, the bus moving into position, and Ernie and I went along. This take, somehow, had to be at least acceptable; the others flatly would not do, and Ernie knew that. But he spoke quietly. He said, Jess, Frank's an old-timer, he might have a thought for you while they're setting up. Then he left to give Frank a chance to say anything he could think of that might help. It was all Ernie had left to try; he'd said all he knew how to say, and by the time we shot this one last take, we'd have to pack up and clear the street.

  Jessie looked at Frank. Well? she said sardonically; she knew as well as the rest of us how badly she was doing.

  Frank wanted to help, but didn't know how, either. He quirked his mouth, annoyed at the situation, and said, I don't know what to say, and for a reason I couldn't pin down, the words were familiar, and I saw Jessie's eyes widen as though she recognized them, too. For a moment she stared at Frank's face, then her eyes narrowed, studying it feature by feature, and I stepped over beside her and saw what she saw.

  I have no explanation for this; I simply don't know how or why it happened. All I can say is that in a single instant of understanding I suddenly knew why a woman had stood with her dog at the curb the night before watching without interest as our bus drove past her. I knew why she wore a fringed knee-length dress and a felt hat like a helmet; and I understood why a young couple in their teens climbed to the upper outside deck of a Fifth Avenue bus as though they'd done it many times before. And that evening, in the New York Public Library, I proved by the flaking brown-edged back files of the Times what I already knew. Listed in the market quotations were the stocks the man in white had mentioned, and the prices he'd quoted were correct — not for today, but for June 15, 1926. In some way beyond explaining or understanding, the conditions for this were precisely right; and in our ancient two-decker bus with the 1926 plates, dressed as we were then, that is the time — that is the lost June night and Fifth Avenue — that Oscar somehow drove into. And it was Frank, just outside Washington Square, who had stepped onto that bus and sat down next to Jessie.

  I knew it now, and so did Jess as she stared at Frank's face — slashed wi
th lines now, no longer lean and tight to the bones, and 38 years older — but the same face past all doubt. She said, Frank? Did you ever get on a bus like this — she pointed to it at the curb beside them — late one night in 1926? And see a girl like me, dressed as I am now? And you sat down beside her, and fell in love at that moment?

  He smiled, and with an old-style actor's gallantry, said, No, because if I had, how could I ever forget it? and there was no memory at all in his eyes.

  Ernie called out, Jessie stepped onto the bus platform, the cameras turned, and they moved through the scene once again. At the street corner, just as he had in so many other takes, Frank turned to leave, saying, I'm going. I won't come back. But I'll never forget you. Remember that; I'll never forget. And as Jess stared after him, her hands rose like claws toward her open mouth, and that beautiful face suddenly distorted into a grimace of terrible forsaken loneliness, and genuine tears streaked down through her make-up in a look that — real as her feelings were, Jessie's an actress and never forgets the camera — may damn well bring her next year's Oscar as best supporting actress.

  It raised the hair on my neck, that long look after Frank, and for a moment I thought it was grief for the vanished young Frank who had once fallen in love with her. But it wasn't for him at all, and it wasn't grief. I think it was shock, I think it was fright. She was crying for herself because suddenly she understood that love will not wait. It cannot be postponed; it dies instead. She suddenly knew that she couldn't continue to deny it, and deny herself — fending love off till her career was established — and then hope to find it and her capacity for it still patiently waiting. Jessie had had a glimpse of the future, her own future in which she stood forgotten by the man — whoever he might still be — who could love her forever, given the chance.