by Ken Kesey
"Stamper!" Willard hears the phone buzz in his ear. "Wait, please. . . ." He stands in the booth, surrounded by his three dimly lit reflections, listening to that electric hum. This isn't the way he planned it; not at all. He wonders if he should call back, make the man understand! But he knows calling back won't do any good because the man obviously does believe his story, whether he understands completely or not. Yes. There is every indication that he believes him. But . . . no evidence at all that he was concerned; not even the slightest!
Willard returns the receiver back to its black cradle. The phone thanks him for his dime with a polite clatter as it drops the coin from the points into the box. Willard stares at the phone for a long time, not thinking of anything at all; until his breathing fogs the images from the glass walls and his feet and calves go to sleep.
Back in his car he starts the motor and turns up Necanicum Street toward the coastal highway, driving slowly through the twisting rain. The enthusiasm he felt at his house is all but gone. The anticipation dampened, the adventure of the night blunted. By that man's cruel indifference. How could the devil not care? How could he have the heart to not care even the slightest? How could he have the right!
He reaches the highway and turns north, traveling along the edge of the dunes in a gradual rise toward the palisades where the Wakonda lighthouse stirs the thickening sky. The muffled cadence of the surf to his left annoys him and he turns on the radio to drown it out, but it is too late to pick up local stations and the terrain is becoming too hilly to pick up Eugene or Portland; he switches it off. He continues to rise, following the flicker of white guardposts that line the cliff side of the highway; he is too high now to hear the surf, but a feeling of annoyance continues to nag at him. . . . That Hank Stamper and his talk about spine; what kind of way is that for a man to react to such a desperate phone call, just brushing it off with a good luck and good-by? . . . What gave him the right?
By the time he reaches the stone-fenced view point near the top his chin is quivering, and by the time he is approaching the turn the hot-rod crowd calls Bustass Curve, his whole body is quaking with grim outrage. He drives on past the turn. He has half a mind to go back and make another call, by golly! Even if the man doesn't understand completely, he has no right to be so heartless. Not when he is so much to blame! him and the rest of that bunch. No! No, he certainly does not!
Willard pulls into the drive that leads off to the lighthouse, and backs out, turning around. Fuming with indignation, he heads back toward town. No, by golly; no right! Hank Stamper is no better than anybody else! I have every bit as much spine as he does! And I will prove it! To him! And Jelly! And everybody! Yes I will! And I'll do everything possible to help drag him off his high horse! Yes I will! I promise, I swear I will . . .
And, hissing down from the palisades along the wet, winding pavement, swollen with anger and determination and life, Willard goes into a slide on the very turn he had picked weeks before, and unintentionally keeps both his appointment and his promise. . . .
"Oh . . . heard tell over the news, I did . . . you recollect that puny little drink of water owned the laundry till he took over the picture show a year or so back? Willard Eggleston? Well sir, they scraped his carcass offn the rocks out by Wakonda Head this mornin'. Slammed through the guard rail, he did, sometime last night."
The old man followed this piece of information with a loud belch and returned to the less spectacular gossip about the townspeople's trials and tribulations. He hadn't expected any of us to pay the news much attention; the man was too vague an entity to concern any of us. Even Joe, who usually could be counted on for elaboration about any of the local citizenry, admitted that he knew about as much about the unfortunate carcass as I did: that the little man sold tickets to the movies and had displayed about as much life as did an arcade fortune-telling dummy in his little glass case. Nobody knew much about him. . . .
Yet the news of this lifeless thing's death doubled Brother Hank over like a cannonball to the stomach, producing sudden coughing and a sheet-white face.
Joe's immediate diagnosis was "Bone in the throat! Bone stuck in the throat!" and he was out of the chair like a shot and banging away at Hank's back before any of the rest of us even had time to suggest a cure. The old man's opinion was "Leave off poundin' on him, for god's sake . . . all he's doin' is gettin' set to sneeze"--and he held his snuff can in front of Hank's mouth as though the snuff might coax the reluctant sneeze forth with its aroma. Hank pushed both Joe and the can away.
"Damn!" he declared. "I'm not trying to choke or sneeze, neither one! I'm all right. I just had a tinge in my back is all, but Joe beat it to death."
"Are you sure you're all right?" Viv asked. "What do you mean, a tinge?"
"Yes, I'm sure." He insisted he was perfectly all right and, much to my disappointment, neglected to answer her second question (I would have enjoyed knowing what a "tinge" was myself), choosing instead to get up from the table and stride across to the refrigerator. "Don't we have a can of cold beer on the place?"
"Don't have a can of no kind of beer." The old man shook his head. "Not beer, wine, nor whisky, an' I'm drastic low on snuff, by god, if you want to hear some real tragic news."
"What's the matter? I thought we had a standin' order at Stokes's?"
"I guess you ain't heard," Jan said. "Henry's old friend Stokes has cut us off. Stopped delivery."
"Friend? That ol' spook? Shoot, I ain't no more friend to that--"
"Stopped delivery? How come?"
"He said it was because there wasn't any other stops out this way for his delivery truck to make," Jan answered from beneath her eyelids. "But the real reason is--"
Hank slammed the refrigerator door. "Yeah; his real reason is . . ." He picked up the clock from the stove and looked at it; everyone waited for him to go on; even the kids had stoped eating and were exchanging the scared glances kids exchange when the big folks is actin' funny. But Hank decided not to go into real reasons: "I think I'll go on up and hit the sack," he said, putting the clock back.
"An' miss Wells Fargo?" Squeaky asked incredulously, lifting an eyebrow. "You don't ever miss Wells Fargo, Hank."
"Dale Robertson'll have to handle Wells Fargo without me tonight, Squeaks."
The little girl pursed her lips and lifted both eyebrows at that; oh boy, the big folks was really actin' funny tonight.
Before he left the kitchen Viv hurried across to feel his forehead, but he said all he needed was a decent night's little sleep without phone calls, not a head rub, and clumped on up the stairs in his boots. Viv looked after him, worried and wordless.
And her worry and wordlessness worried me. Especially the wordlessness, in view of Hank's footwear: it was as unusual for cork boots to pass the first step without Viv's calling out, "Boots," as it was for Dale Robertson to ride the Wells Fargo stage without Hank sitting glued to the TV set with Squeaky on his lap. I couldn't understand my brother's funny actin' any more than Squeaky could (I did know, however, that it was no more brought on by a mere lack of sleep than by bone in the throat; his reaction to the theater-owner's death was so classic a reaction to bad news that he might have taught Macduff a thing or two) but I was very quick to pick up on Viv's concern.
"He's more a man than I am," I said with grudging good nature, "because I certainly could use a head rub."
She seemed not to hear.
"Yes. I admire the man his health. . . ." I stood up, groaning. "He was able to make it up those stairs, at least."
"You going up to bed too, Lee?" she asked, turning at last to me.
"Going to attempt it. Everybody wish me luck."
She was looking back at the stairwell again. "I'll drop around to your room in a bit," she said absently, and added, "I wish I could find that thermometer."
So, with mysterious WATCH OUT still echoing in my head, I vowed that the time had come. Tomorrow was V-day, without fail. And if I could not understand the qualms I felt, I could nevertheless s
till understand that a dilution of Viv's concern was in the offing unless I moved quickly. I could still understand that if one is to alter iron at all he'd best strike while that iron is still hot. I didn't need a thermometer for that. . . .
The old house is noisy even without television. The children talk in whispers, and the rain outside seems to whisper back, but the geese call full-throated and brazen as Hank lies listening. . . . (I don't even bring a paper to read. I just hop right in the sack. I'm about asleep when I hear the kid come up and go on down to his room. He's coughing a little, sounds about as real as the cough Boney Stokes been putting on thirty years. I listen to see if anybody else comes up, but there's a flock goes so loud I can't hear. Thousands and thousands and thousands. Flying round and round and round the house. Thousands and thousands and thousands. Banging against the roof, crashing through the walls till the house is full of them gray feathers beaks at my ear hard and hollering at me beating chest and neck and face hard whacking wings of thousands and thousands louder than--)
I woke up, feeling like something was haywire. The house was dark and quiet and at the foot of the bed the glow-dial clock said it was about half past one. I laid there, trying to figure what had woke me. The wind was blowing outside, crashing rain against the window so hard it sounded every once in a while like that old river out there was rising up in the dark and striking at the house like a big swaying snake of water. But that wasn't what woke me; if I was woke up by every little wind kicking against the window I would of died of exhaustion years ago.
Looking back, it's easy to figure what it was: the geese had all shut up. There wasn't a sound, not a hoot nor a honk. And the hole left in the night by their honking was like a big roaring vacuum; enough to wake anybody. But at the time I didn't realize that. . . .
I slid out of bed, taking it real easy to keep from waking Viv, and I got hold of the six-cell light I keep in the room. The way the weather was carrying on out there I decided I maybe ought to have a look at the foundation, seeing as I hadn't checked before going to bed. I walked over to the window and put my face up near the glass and shined the light off in the direction of the bank. I don't know why. Laziness, I reckon. Because I knew that even on a clear day it was next to impossible to see the foundation from that window on account of the hedge. But I reckon I was just punchy enough to hope this time it would be different and I would see the bank and it would be fine. . . .
Out past the glass there seemed to be nothing but rain being whipped around in long filmy sheets, like the banners of the wind. I was just standing there, stroking the beam of that light back and forth, still about half sacked-out, when all of a sudden I see out yonder a face! A human face! floating out there on the rain, wide-eyed, wild-haired, with a mouth twisted in horror like a thing been trapped outside in the storm for centuries!
I don't know how long I stared at it--maybe five seconds or five minutes--before I gave a yell and jumped back from the window. And saw the face mimic my actions. Oh! Oh for chrissakes . . . It's just a reflection, nothing but a reflection. . . .
But so help me god, it was about the wildest thing I ever had happen to me; the worst scare I ever had in my life. Worse than in Korea. Worse even than the time I seen the tree falling at me and I tripped right underneath it and fell next to a stump and the tree hit that stump like a two-ton maul driving a stake; the stump was pounded a good six inches into the ground but it protected me so I didn't suffer no more than the loss of my breakfast. That particular incident shook me so bad I laid there without moving for a good ten minutes, but I tell you so help me god, that wasn't nowhere near the scare I got from that reflection.
I heard Viv hustle around behind me. "What is it, honey?"
"Nothing," I told her. "Nothing. I just thought for a minute there the bogey man was after me." I laughed a little. "Thought the old boy had come for my ass at last. I looked out the window to check the foundation, and there the sonofabitch was, face looking like death warmed over." I laughed again, and finally turned from the window and walked to sit on the edge of the bed beside her. "Yessiree, a regular fiend in the night. See him yonder?"
I shined the light up toward my face again so's Viv could see the reflection for herself, and made a face at her in the window. We both laughed, and she reached out to take my arm and hold it against her cheek, the way she used to do when she was pregnant.
"You were tossing and turning so; did you finally get to sleep?"
"Yeah. I guess them geese finally give up tryin' to get in."
"What woke you, the storm?"
"Yeah. The rain woke me, I imagine. The wind. She's walkin' and talkin' out there tonight. Dang. I bet that river's comin' up, too. Well, you know what that means . . ."
"You're not going down to check, are you? It's not that bad. It's just blowing a lot. It couldn't have come up so much since you checked after supper."
"Yeah . . . except I didn't check tonight after supper, remember? I had a bone in my throat."
"But it was all right when you came home from work; that was just before supper. . . ."
"I don't know," I told her. "I should go check. It'd be safest."
"Honey, don't," she said and squeezed my arm.
"Yep, one hell of a scare," I said, shaking my head. "Most like it was the dream had a lot to do with it; getting me ripe for a scare, sort of. I'd been dreaming again that college dream again, you know? Only this time the reason I quit wasn't because I was just too duncy to hack it, but because Ma'd died. I come home from school and found the old lady dead, like the time when I was a kid. It happened just like it really did: I found her bent nearly double, with her face in the launder tray. And when I touched her she tipped sideways and banged to the floor, still bent, like she was frozen bent, like a piece of a root. 'Probably a stroke,' was what Dr. Layton said. 'Probably suffered a stroke while she was washing and fell in the water, drown before she could come to.' Hmm. . . . Only in this dream I'm not a kid; I'm twenty or so. Hmm. . . ." I thought about it a minute, then asked Viv, "What you suppose, Doctor; am I completely schitzish?"
"You're completely nuts. Get under the covers. . . ."
"Funny, ain't it . . . the geese hushing up all at once. I almost think that's what woke me."
Looking back, I know damn well that's what woke me.
"That or the rain knocking to remind me I ain't checked the foundation tonight . . ."
Looking back, a guy can always pick him out some top-notch reasons to explain what happened. He can say the reason he woke up like he did was because the geese hushed; and the reason that reflection spooked him so was the dream he'd been having leaving him in a kind of spooky frame of mind . . .
(I sit there on the bed, listening to the rain. I can feel her cheek pushed up against my bicep, all warm and smooth, and her hair falling down in my lap. "I'm sure it's all right, honey," she says. "What's that?" I say. "The foundation," she says. . . .)
A guy can even look back and see that the thing that happened the next day at work was because of them dreams and reasons, along with thinking about that nut Willard Eggleston, and with all that week working so hard and not sleep enough when I got home . . . he can look back and say there was the why of it . . .
(I shake my head. "I don't know," I say. "I know I ought to go down there and check, just run a light over the waterline to see how things are . . . but oh lord god," I say, "how I hate the thought of pulling on a pair of ice-cold boots and go slopping out in that soup . . .")
Even that flu bug that was going the rounds, a fellow could add that on, looking back . . .
(I reach over for my trousers off the back of the hard chair. "Especially," I say, "the way my kidneys are giving me hell. . . ." "Your kidneys?" she says. "Yeah, you remember, they used to bother me some just after we was married; Layton said it was from riding all the way across the country on the cycle with no support on; floating kidney or something was what he called it. Hadn't troubled me none for the last couple years. Till today. I skidded of
fn a peeled one and whanged hell outa my rear end and back--" "Oh," she says, "bad? Let me look." She flicks on the bed light. "It's okay," I tell her. "Sure," she says. "Sure, it's always okay with you." She sits up and gets hold of the scruff of my hair and pulls me back over on the bed. "Now roll over to your stomach and let me look.")
Yeah, a fellow can look back and add up all the reasons and say, "Well, it ain't really so hard to figure how come I was so punchy and so logy, and so careless out working the state park the next day, what with all the hassles banging at me so long; no, not really so hard . . ."
(She pulls up my undershirt. "Hon-ey! . . . it's all raw." "Yeah," I say into the covers, "but nothin' to fuss over. Nothing you can do with a bruised butt anyhow but pee blood for a few days while it heals. I tell you, though: you might see can you unravel some of the kinks in my shoulders while you got me here . . . okeedoke?")
But just the same, being able to look back and give reasons and all that still don't do much toward making a man proud of what happened because of them reasons. Not if he can look back as well and see how he could have kept it from--no, not could; look back and see how he by god should have kept it from happening. There's shames a man can never reason away, though he looks back and piles up reasons over them forty dozen deep. And maybe those are the shames a man never should reason away . . .
(She gets up and goes to the dresser for something and switches on the electric heater on her way back. She's wearing the nightgown with the one broken strap. I smell that she's got the analgesic before it touches my back. "Boy," I say, "that's all right. I sure didn't realize how knotted up I was." She hums along with the electric heater for a while, then commences to sing in just this least little whisper possible. "Redbird in a sycamore tree-ee, singing out his song," she sings. "Big black snake crawls up that tree and swallows that poor boy whole." "That's nice," I tell her. "Dang, that's nice. . . ." She rubs round and around and around; and it is nice, it's very nice . . .)