Space On My Hands

by Fredric Brown

  For a moment his eyes met her pale blue ones and he thought, she is worrying about me. It scared him a little.

  After the door had closed behind her, he said, “Let’s not finish the game, Charlie. Let’s get to the brass tacks, because I’ve got to see Clare about nine. Dunno how long I’ll be gone, so I can’t very well not say good-bye to her.”

  Charlie looked up at him. “You and Clare serious, George?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Charlie picked up his beer and took a sip. Suddenly his voice was brisk and business-like. He said, “All right, let’s sit on the brass tacks. We’ve got an appointment for eleven o’clock tomorrow morning with a guy named Irving, Dr. W. E. Irving, in the Appleton Block. He’s a psychiatrist; Dr. Randolph recommended him.

  “I called him up this afternoon after Candler talked to me; Candler had already phoned Randolph. I gave my right name. My story was this: I’ve got a cousin who’s been acting queer lately and whom I wanted him to talk to. I didn’t give the cousin’s name. I didn’t tell him in what way you’d been acting queer; I ducked the question and said I’d rather have him judge for himself without prejudice. I said I’d talked you into talking to a psychiatrist and that the only one I knew of was Randolph; that I’d called Randolph, who said he didn’t do much private practice and recommended Irving. I told him I was your nearest living relative.

  “That leaves the way open to Randolph for the second name on the certificate. If you can talk Irving into thinking you’re really insane and he wants to sign you up, I can insist on having Randolph, whom I wanted in the first place. And this time, of course, Randolph will agree.”

  “You didn’t say a thing about what kind of insanity you suspected me of having?”

  Charlie shook his head, He said, “So, anyway, neither of us goes to work at the Blade tomorrow. I’ll leave home the usual time so Marge won’t know anything, but I’ll meet you downtown — say, in the lobby of the Christina — at a quarter of eleven. And if you can convince Irving that you’re commitable — if that’s the word — we’ll get Randolph right away and get the whole thing settled tomorrow.”

  “And if I change my mind?”

  “Then I’ll call the appointment off. That’s all. Look, isn’t that all there is to talk over? Let’s play this game of chess out; it’s only twenty after seven.”

  He shook his head. “I’d rather talk, Charlie. One thing you forgot to cover, anyway. After tomorrow. How often you coming to see me to pick up bulletins for Candler?”

  “Oh, sure, I forgot that. As often as visiting hours will permit — three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday afternoons. Tomorrow’s Friday, so if you get in, the first time I’ll be able to see you is Monday.”

  “Okay. Say, Charlie, did Candler even hint to you at what the story is that I’m supposed to get in there?”

  Charlie Doerr shook his head slowly. “Not a word. What is it? Or is it too secret for you to talk about?”

  He stared at Charlie, wondering. And suddenly he felt that he couldn’t tell the truth: that he didn’t know either. It would make him look so silly. It hadn’t sounded so foolish when Candler had given the reason — a reason, anyway — for not telling him, but it would sound foolish now.

  He said, “If he didn’t tell you, I guess I’d better not either, Charlie.” And since that didn’t sound too convincing, he added, “I promised Candler I wouldn’t.”

  Both glasses of beer were empty by then, and Charlie took them into the kitchen for refilling.

  He followed Charlie, somehow preferring the informality of the kitchen. He sat a-straddle of a kitchen chair, leaning his elbows on the back of it, and Charlie leaned against the refrigerator.

  Charlie said, “Prosit!” and they drank, and then Charlie asked, “Have you got your story ready for Doc Irving?”

  He nodded. “Did Candler tell you what I’m to tell him?”

  “You mean, that you’re Napoleon?” Charlie chuckled.

  Did that chuckle ring true? He looked at Charlie, and he knew that what he was thinking was completely incredible. Charlie was square and honest as they came. Charlie and Marge were his best friends; they’d been his best friends for three years that he knew of. Longer than that, a hell of a lot longer, according to Charlie. But beyond those three years — that was something else again.

  He cleared his throat because the words were going to stick a little. But he had to ask, he had to be sure. “Charlie, I’m going to ask you a hell of a question. Is this business on the up and up?”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a hell of a thing to ask. But — look, you and Candler don’t think I’m crazy, do you? You didn’t work this out between you to get me put away — or anyway examined — painlessly, without my knowing it was happening, till too late, did you?”

  Charlie was staring at him. He said, “Jeez, George, you don’t think I’d do a thing like that, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. But — you could think it was for my own good, and you might on that basis. Look, Charlie, if it is that if you think that, let me point out that this isn’t fair. I’m going up against a psychiatrist tomorrow to lie to him, to try to convince him that I have delusions. Not to be honest with him. And that would be unfair as hell, to me. You see that, don’t you, Charlie?”

  Charlie’s face got a little white. He said slowly, “Before God, George, it’s nothing like that. All I know about this is what Candler and you have told me.”

  “You think I’m sane, fully sane?”

  Charlie licked his lips. He said, “You want it straight?”

  “Yes.”

  “I never doubted it, until this moment. Unless — well, amnesia is a form of mental aberration, I suppose, and you’ve never got over that, but that isn’t what you mean, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Then, until right now — George, that sounds like a persecution complex, if you really meant what you asked me. A conspiracy to get you to — Surely you can see how ridiculous it is. What possible reason would either Candler or I have to get you to lie yourself into being committed?”

  He said, “I’m sorry, Charlie. It was just a screwy momentary notion. No, I don’t think that, of course.” He glanced at his wrist watch. “Let’s finish that chess game, huh?”

  “Fine. Wait till I give us a refill to take along.”

  He played carelessly and managed to lose within fifteen minutes. He turned down Charlie’s offer of a chance for revenge and leaned back in his chair.

  He said, “Charlie, ever hear of chessmen coming in red and black?”

  “N-no. Either black and white, or red and white, any I’ve ever seen. Why?”

  “Well —” He grinned. “I suppose I oughtn’t to tell you this after just making you wonder whether I’m really sane after all, but I’ve been having recurrent dreams recently. No crazier than ordinary dreams except that I’ve been dreaming the same things over and over. One of them is something about a game between the red and the black; I don’t even know whether it’s chess. You know how it is when you dream; things seem to make sense whether they do or not. In the dream I don’t wonder whether the red-and-black business is chess or not; I know, I guess, or seem to know. But the knowledge doesn’t carry over. You know what I mean?”

  “Sure. Go on.”

  “Well, Charlie, I’ve been wondering if it just might have something to do with the other side of that wall of amnesia I’ve never been able to cross. This is the first time in my — well, not in my life, maybe, but in the three years I remember of it, that I’ve had recurrent dreams. I wonder if — if my memory may not be trying to get through.

  “Did I ever have a set of red and black chessmen, for instance? Or, in any school I went to, did they have intramural basketball or baseball between red teams and black teams, or — or anything like that?”

  Charlie thought for a long moment before he shook his head. “No,” he said, “nothing like that. Of course there’s red and black in roulette — rouge et n
oir. And it’s the two colors in a deck of playing cards.”

  “No, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t tie in with cards or roulette. It’s not — not like that. It’s a game between the red and the black. They’re the players, somehow. Think hard, Charlie; not about where you might have run into that idea, but where I might have.”

  He watched Charlie struggle and after a while he said, “Okay, don’t sprain your brain, Charlie. Try this one. The brightly shining.”

  “The brightly shining what?”

  “Just that phrase, the brightly shining. Does it mean anything to you, at all?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Forget it.”

  *

  IV

  *

  He was early and he walked past Clare’s house, as far as the corner and stood under the big elm there, smoking the rest of his cigarette, thinking bleakly.

  There wasn’t anything to think about, really; all he had to do was say good-bye to her. Two easy syllables. And stall off her questions as to where he was going, exactly how long he’d be gone. Be quiet and casual and unemotional about it, just as though they didn’t mean anything in particular to each other.

  It had to be that way. He’d known Clare Wilson a year and a half now, and he’d kept her dangling that long; it wasn’t fair. This had to be the end, for her sake. He had about as much business asking a woman to marry him as — as a madman who thinks he’s Napoleon!

  He dropped his cigarette and ground it viciously into the walk with his heel, then went back to the house, up on the porch, and rang the bell.

  Clare herself came to the door. The light from the hallway behind her made her hair a circlet of spun gold around her shadowed face.

  He wanted to take her into his arms so badly that he clenched his fists with the effort it took to keep his arms down.

  Stupidly, he said, “Hi, Clare. How’s everything?”

  “I don’t know, George. How is everything? Aren’t you coming in?”

  She’d stepped back from the doorway to let him past and the light was on her face now, sweetly grave. She knew something was up, he thought; her expression and the tone of her voice gave that away.

  He didn’t want to go in. He said, “It’s such a beautiful night, Clare. Let’s take a stroll.”

  “All right, George.” She came out onto the porch. “It is a fine night, such beautiful stars.” She turned and looked at him. “Is one of them yours?”

  He started a little. Then he stepped forward and took her elbow, guiding her down the porch steps. He said lightly, “All of them are mine. Want to buy any?”

  “You wouldn’t give me one? Just a teeny little dwarf star, maybe? Even one that I’d have to use a telescope to see?”

  They were out on the sidewalk then, out of hearing of the house, and abruptly her voice changed, the playful note dropped from it, and she asked another question, “What’s wrong, George?”

  He opened his mouth to say nothing was wrong, and then closed it again. There wasn’t any lie that he could tell her, and he couldn’t tell her the truth, either. Her asking of that question, in that way, should have made things easier; it made them more difficult.

  She asked another, “You mean to say good-bye for — for good, don’t you, George?”

  He said, “Yes,” and his mouth was very dry. He didn’t know whether it came out as an articulate monosyllable or not, and he wetted his lips and tried again. He said, “Yes, I’m afraid so, Clare.”

  “Why?”

  He couldn’t make himself turn to look at her, he stared blindly ahead. He said, “I — I can’t tell you, Clare. But it’s the only thing I can do. It’s best for both of us.”

  “Tell me one thing, George. Are you really going away? Or was that just — an excuse?”

  “It’s true. I’m going away; I don’t know for how long. But don’t ask me where, please. I can’t tell you that.”

  “Maybe I can tell you, George. Do you mind if I do?”

  He minded all right; he minded terribly. But how could he say so? He didn’t say anything, because he couldn’t say yes, either.

  They were beside the park now, the little neighborhood park that was only a block square and didn’t offer much in the way of privacy, but which did have benches. And he steered her — or she steered him; he didn’t know which — into the park and they sat down on a bench. There were other people in the park, but not too near. Still he hadn’t answered her question.

  She sat very close to him on the bench. She said, “You’ve been worried about your mind, haven’t you, George?”

  “Well — yes, in a way, yes, I have.”

  “And your going away has something to do with that, hasn’t it? You’re going somewhere for observation or treatment, or both?”

  “Something like that. It’s not as simple as that, Clare, and I — I just can’t tell you about it.”

  She put her hand on his hand, lying on his knee. She said, “I knew it was something like that, George. And I don’t ask you to tell me anything about it.

  “Just — just don’t say what you meant to say. Say so-long instead of good-bye. Don’t even write me, if you don’t want to. But don’t be noble and call everything off here and now, for my sake. At least wait until you’ve been wherever you’re going. Will you?”

  He gulped. She made it sound so simple when actually it was so complicated. Miserably he said, “All right, Clare. If you want it that way.”

  Abruptly she stood up. “Let’s get back, George.”

  He stood beside her. “But it’s early.”

  “I know, but sometimes — Well, there a psychological moment to end a date, George. I know that sounds silly, but after what we’ve said, wouldn’t it be — uh — anticlimactic-to — ”

  He laughed a little. He said, “I see what you mean.”

  They walked back to her home in silence. He didn’t know whether it was happy or unhappy silence; he was too mixed up for that.

  On the shadowed porch, in front of the door, she turned and faced him. “George,” she said. Silence.

  “Oh, damn you, George; quit being so noble or whatever you’re being. Unless, of course, you don’t love me. Unless this is just an elaborate form of — of runaround you’re giving me. Is it?”

  There were only two things he could do. One was run like hell. The other was what he did. He put his arms around her and kissed her. Hungrily.

  When that was over, and it wasn’t over too quickly, he was breathing a little hard and not thinking too clearly, for he was saying what he hadn’t meant to say at all, “I love you, Clare. I love you; I love you so.”

  And she said, “I love you, too, dear. You’ll come back to me, won’t you?” And he said, “Yes. Yes.”

  It was four miles or so from her home to his rooming house, but he walked, and the walk seemed to take only seconds.

  He sat at the window of his room, with the light out, thinking, but the thoughts went in the same old circles they’d gone in for three years.

  No new factor had been added except that now he was going to stick his neck out, way out, miles out. Maybe, just maybe, this thing was going to be settled one way or the other.

  Out there, out his window, the stars were bright diamonds in the sky. Was one of them his star of destiny? If so, he was going to follow it, follow it even into the madhouse if it led there. Inside him was a deeply rooted conviction that this wasn’t accident, that it wasn’t coincidence that had led to his being asked to tell the truth under guise of falsehood.

  His star of destiny.

  Brightly shining? No, the phrase from his dreams did not refer to that; it was not an adjective phrase, but a noun. The brightly shining. What was the brightly shining?

  And the red and the black? He’d thought of everything Charlie had suggested, and other things, too. Checkers, for instance. But it was not that.

  The red and the black.

  Well, whatever the answer was, he was running full-speed toward it now,
not away from it.

  After a while he went to bed, but it was a long time before he went to sleep.

  *

  V

  *

  Charlie Doerr came out of the inner office marked Private and put his hand out. He said, “Good luck, George. The doc’s ready to talk to you now.”

  He shook Charlie’s hand and said, “You might as well run along. I’ll see you Monday, first visiting day.”

  “I’ll wait here,” Charlie said. “I took the day off work anyway, remember? Besides, maybe you won’t have to go.”

  He dropped Charlie’s hand, and stared into Charlie’s face. He said slowly, “What do you mean, Charlie — maybe I won’t have to go.”

  “Why —” Charlie looked puzzled. “Why, maybe he’ll tell you you’re all right, or just suggest regular visits to see him until you’re straightened out, or —” Charlie finished weakly, “ — or something.”

  Unbelievingly, he stared at Charlie. He wanted to ask, am I crazy or are you, but that sounded crazy under the circumstances. But he had to be sure, sure that Charlie just hadn’t let something slip from his mind; maybe he’d fallen into the role he was supposed to be playing when he talked to the doctor just now. He asked, “Charlie, don’t you remember that —” And even the rest of that question seemed insane for him to be asking, with Charlie staring blankly at him. The answer was in Charlie’s face; it didn’t have to be brought to Charlie’s lips.

  Charlie said again, “I’ll wait, of course. Good luck, George.”

  He looked into Charlie’s eyes and nodded, then turned and went through the door marked Private. He closed it behind him, meanwhile studying the man who had been sitting behind the desk and who had risen as he entered. A big man, broad shouldered, iron gray hair.

  “Dr. Irving?”

  “Yes, Mr. Vine. Will you be seated, please?”

  He slid into the comfortable, padded armchair across the desk from the doctor.

  “Mr. Vine,” said the doctor, “a first interview of this sort is always a bit difficult. For the patient, I mean. Until you know me better, it will be difficult for you to overcome a certain reticence in discussing yourself. Would you prefer to talk, to tell things your own way, or would you rather I asked questions?”