by David Ely
“Well, yes, but—”
“No buts, my friend. Believe me, we all have your best interests in mind,” said Bushbane, with obvious sincerity. “We want you to join us heart and soul, we really do. You’re one of us, after all. You just have to set yourself to act in good faith, to trust . . . and to accept. And we’ll help you, Wilson. We stand ready at any hour of the day or night to help you. Filter and Hamrick and the rest, they’re all good loyal fellows, of fine upstanding backgrounds, just your kind of people, Wilson, and as sure as I’m sitting here now, my friend, any one of them would rush to your side at the drop of a hat to give you a boost over a tough moment.”
Wilson could not help being touched by Bushbane’s words, but he also was somewhat puzzled by their meaning. “What kind of tough moment?”
“Well, in case you feel a sort of urge coming on to look backward, to think about things that—well, that aren’t part of the life of Antiochus Wilson. That kind of thing isn’t healthy, Wilson, as you’ll be the first to admit. You are Wilson, you see. You’ve got a responsibility to yourself to build a new and better past, and you can’t very well do that if you keep harking back to something that doesn’t bear constructively on that point.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
“So what I’m saying, Wilson, is that you’re bound to have low times. You’re bound to feel sort of regressive once in a while. All I want is for you to promise me one thing. When you feel yourself slipping into one of these moods, you just call me up—call up Hamrick, or Filter, or Jolson, for that matter, and we’ll run right over to see you.”
“And do what?”
Bushbane lighted a cigarette. “Why, we’ll do something to take your mind off your troubles. Do you play chess or checkers? Like to zip into town for a girlie show? It doesn’t matter what. Whatever it is, we’ll do it with you—we’ll do it for you, and pretty soon, you’ll be yourself again, and then in time you’ll be free of these urges and you can join us, Wilson, in extending the old helping hand to newcomers. Believe me, my friend, that’s just about the biggest satisfaction in life—helping others to find a little happiness,” Bushbane declared, his gloomy face alight with fervor. “It took me a long time to realize this fact, Wilson. Why, when I remember how in the old days I used to—” He broke off suddenly as if in embarrassment and gnawed his lip. “I mean to say, well—we stand ready to help you, that’s all,” he concluded, somewhat lamely. “Can we shake on that, Wilson?”
“Of course,” said Wilson, warmly. They clasped hands briefly. “I can’t tell you how much your words have meant to me, Bushbane. It’s lucky that we bumped into each other out here, as a matter of fact,” he added, reaching in his pocket for his wallet with the vague notion of displaying his Denver ticket to Bushbane as a token of his new trust. “Are you expecting to meet someone arriving, by the way?” he inquired conversationally.
“Well, no. I came out with the rest of the committee as soon as John called.”
Wilson’s hand rested on the wallet but did not withdraw it. “What committee?”
Bushbane grinned disarmingly. “Well, you just told John you were going to be gone for a few days, without saying where, and so he called us.”
“Why?”
“Well . . . to talk to you, Wilson. We were afraid you might be prepared to so something desperate.”
“You mean, you followed me out here?”
“In a sense, yes. Filter and Mayberry and myself. We split up to find you. The reason I dragged you back to this booth,” Bushbane added with a conspiratorial wink, “was that I thought I’d do better with you alone. I mean, Filter and Mayberry are fine fellows, but a little on the direct-action side, and they might have offended you.”
“I see,” said Wilson.
“But everything’s all right now, isn’t it? That is, you’re over your depressed state, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Fine. Look here, Wilson. You’re going to forget this nonsense about Las Vegas, aren’t you? The thing to do in the first few months, you see, is stay with the gang, and then when you get your sea legs, there’s no reason in the world why you can’t trust yourself to go anywhere you please and do anything you please, within reason. But going off by your lonesome at this stage—well, that’s a bit risky.”
“I see your point,” said Wilson, shoving his wallet down more firmly into its pocket.
“You know what the saying is about freedom,” continued Bushbane persuasively. “Eternal vigilance, Wilson. That’s the way freedom grows. Here, I’ve got an idea. Bob Hamrick and I have planned a little outing to the city for tonight. A good meal, a good show, and then afterward, there’s a little place on the hill with Chinese girls. You’ve got no idea, Wilson, what tricks those Chinese girls can play. We just discovered it last month. How about it—you game?”
Wilson hesitated for just an instant. “Of course,” he said. He glanced toward the door with an uneasy expression. “There’s just one favor, though, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Name it.”
“I’m a little—embarrassed by all this, Bushbane. My behavior, I mean.”
“Forget it, Wilson.”
“And right now I’d rather not face your other two committee members. Do you think you could get them to go on back without seeing me?”
“Sure thing. Look, I’ll pick you up at your place about five, okay?”
“Five ought to be just right for me, Bushbane . . .”
By five o’clock, however, Wilson was in a taxicab on his way from the Denver airport to the town nearby where his daughter lived. He had telephoned in advance, naturally, saying that he had been a close friend of her late father, and had received a rather hesitant invitation to come for cocktails.
Now, as the cab drummed over an ice-patched road beside the wall of snowy mountains, Wilson was unpleasantly conscious of his guilt. First of all, by deceiving poor Bushbane, he had violated a deep, instinctive taboo: one simply did not lie to an honest man—and Bushbane was clearly such a man—particularly if one expected to have further dealings with him. He had forfeited Bushbane’s trust, and as a matter of fact he would not exactly have improved his standing with the other men, either. There would be long faces and reproving glances when he returned to the colony, that was clear, Wilson thought. But on the other hand, he felt he had the right to decide for himself where he might travel and when, without the intervention of Bushbane and his committee.
“What number was that, sir?” the cabdriver inquired, as he slowed at the outskirts of the town.
“Three twenty-seven.”
Sally, his daughter. He felt guilty about her, too. And fearful. Suppose she penetrated his masquerade . . . suppose the eyes and voice and mannerisms gave him away . . . suppose he made some revealing conversational blunder? His hands were cold and damp. He wiped them on his handkerchief, dropped the handkerchief accidentally on the muddy floor of the cab, and, despairing, let it remain there.
Sally greeted him calmly at her door. “Mr. Wilson? Oh, please come in. Let me take your hat . . .”
He had braced himself irrationally against the shock of her recognition. Stupid of him. It undoubtedly only made him look strained and awkward, when he should have appeared genial, friendly, debonair.
“Ah, yes, um.” He so feared he would call her Sally that he resolved to call her nothing at all. “And this is your, ah—pleased to meet you, doctor.”
His son-in-law was a wiry, dark little man, with a faintly amused and superior expression no doubt copied from some exalted member of the medical school faculty. He frisked Wilson professionally with his eyes, as if his guest were some cadaver laid out to illustrate a surgical problem.
“Bourbon?”
“Yes, thank you.” Wilson had dared give Sally no more than a glance at first, for there had been a shock, but perversely he was the one who had failed in recognition. She was Sally, wasn’t she? She must be. And yet it was only gradually, with occasional furtive loo
ks at her, that he was able to reconstruct in his mind an acceptable image of his daughter. She was not pregnant, but all the same there had been a distinct physical change in the eighteen months since he had seen her. Nothing gross or obvious; still, she was clearly no longer the rather angular and excitable creature whose church wedding had been the triumph of Emily’s career. Sally was placid now, formal, composed. The alteration of maturity, perhaps, Wilson thought. He cleared his throat, not knowing what to say, not sure just why he had made this visit. Had he expected to find his little darling toddling about and shrieking “Daddy!” as she saw him ascend the steps? No, the child was gone, so was the energetic virgin, and in their place was a rather aloof young woman who had moved into matronliness. Change and mobility. Thus, life. He swallowed some of the bourbon and forced a smile, conscious that these two young people were waiting for him to justify his visit. Their curiosity was stifling.
“Well!” he began, heartily. “It’s a pleasure—”
The cry of a baby in the next room so startled him that his hand shook. Some of the liquor splashed out on his wrist.
“You have a child?”
“Oh, yes. He’s two months old now.”
“But you never—your father never mentioned that you were going to have one.”
“I guess he didn’t know. Did he, Sam?” she asked her husband. “Well, anyway, I think he died just about the time we were certain of it—you know, the third month. Would you like to take a look at him?”
“I certainly would.”
His grandson was red with fury, kicking puny legs, his pink mouth disproportionately huge, but even so Wilson triumphantly detected his immortality in such tiny matters as the ears, whose lobes hung free, unlike those of the father. He glanced with secret relish from the howling baby to a wall mirror—where he saw an ungrandfatherly Antiochus Wilson transfixed in virile leanness, and noticed, too, that the surgeons had sewn the lobes tight.
“What’s his name?”
“He’s Sam Junior,” said Sally, applying a pacifier to the open mouth.
“Oh. I thought possibly you might have . . .” He shrugged and smiled into his drink. “A fine baby. I’m sure your father would have been—delighted by him. It’s a shame he didn’t at least know about it, before . . .”
They moved back into the living room.
“Being a grandfather,” Wilson remarked, “I mean, it’s an experience for a man. Something new. And, well, it sort of demonstrates the continuity of life, doesn’t it?” They made no response. He was aware that their curiosity about him had given way to impatience.
“Actually,” he went on hastily, trying to improvise an adequate reason for his visit, “your father asked me to drop in on you if I ever passed through Denver, just to extend his—um.” He coughed and fumbled in his pocket for cigarettes. “I saw him shortly before his—his death, you see, and he spoke very fondly of you, and it was his greatest wish to come out for a visit.”
“He never seemed to be able to break away.” Her voice implied indifference, rather than reproach.
“Oh, he wanted to. He wanted to very much,” Wilson insisted. “He was terribly attached. It was just that his position required . . . unusual fidelity. He carried heavy responsibilities, your father did.”
Sally merely nodded.
“He was a fine man,” Wilson declared, shamelessly, determined to inspire some reaction. “Devoted to his family. Why,” he added almost defiantly, “there was nothing he wouldn’t do for them. I mean, he saw they got the best kind of surroundings, and clothes and things, and a decent environment . . .” He detected a look of boredom on Sally’s face. It outraged him. “Why do you suppose he worked so hard to be a success at a job he didn’t really like? For his family, that’s why. He certainly wasn’t doing it for his own amusement.” He broke off suddenly, for he sensed that he was on the verge of going too far. They were regarding him quizzically. His son-in-law’s eyes seemed to be scanning his face with microscopic intensity, probing for little surgical scars . . . He reached for his handkerchief, not remembering that he had left it on the floor of the cab. Another frustration. He sighed. “Well. I hope his death wasn’t too great a blow to your mother.”
“She’s doing quite well,” said Sally.
“Fine, fine. I suppose she’s sold the house.”
“Oh, no. She’s still living there. She wouldn’t want to move away from her friends.”
“Of course not, no.” He forced a smile. His glass was empty; they were making no move to refill it. He supposed he should leave, but he wondered whether the baby would not wake again to be fed or changed. He wanted a chance to study it more closely.
“It’s nice to know . . .” His smile ached on his cheeks. Know what? That he wasn’t missed? “I’m sure your father would be happy to know, that is,” he stammered, and then feeling an imperative need to change the topic, he turned to his son-in-law. “Well, doctor, I imagine you’ll be moving into a Denver practice one of these days, eh?”
“As a matter of fact, no. We’re established here now.”
“Of course. But I mean eventually.”
“No, not even eventually.” The young man displayed what struck Wilson as a smug little smile. “This town suits us. My office is a block away.” He glanced at his wife. “Sally and I have moved around enough in our lives already.”
“I lived in six different places by the time I went to college,” Sally said absently, looking toward the baby’s room.
“Six?” Wilson frowned down at his hands. Surely it hadn’t been that many. He began to count on his fingers; then, guiltily, stopped. Their eagerness for his departure was almost palpable. “Six,” he repeated. “Yes, that’s a lot, naturally. But it’s the way people live in this country. Moving around, I mean. Trying to better their lot. You can hardly blame your father for that.”
“I’m not blaming him for anything,” Sally said coldly. “Sam, perhaps Mr. Wilson would like another drink.”
“Oh, no,” said Wilson. “I’ve really got to be going.” He shifted position in his chair. “But on the question of social mobility, I think you’ll have to admit that it’s part of the process of . . . well, of individual freedom. It’s what we’ve been working toward in this country. I mean, people don’t have to stay put in one place.”
“It might be better if they did,” the young man said, with a touch of sharpness.
“Yes, of course. Moving a family is an unsettling business. But it’s the price one pays for—for benefits.” Wilson wiped his forehead with his hand, once more regretting the loss of his handkerchief. “What I’m trying to say is, this is the way things are in America. People move, that’s all. You can’t stop it, unless”—he attempted a chuckle—“you’re prepared to have a dictatorship.”
The son-in-law closed his eyes, as if impatient to the point of hostility. “We have so many authoritarian controls as it is,” he muttered, “that another one would hardly be noticed. People oughtn’t to be permitted to move, unless they can demonstrate that it’s in the interests of society as a whole.”
“You’re jesting, surely.”
“Not completely.”
“But, speaking in all seriousness, that sounds a lot like socialism. A man in your position—a physician—can hardly be inclined toward socialism.”
The son-in-law blinked wearily at Wilson. “We already have socialism, to a large extent. That’s just the trouble. It’s socialism without any real controls. Disorganized socialism.”
“My husband is actually rather on the conservative side,” Sally interjected, as if she were explaining some simple class problem to a backward pupil.
“Freedom,” said the young doctor, with the bitterness of a man whose dinner is being delayed by an unwanted visitor. “This freedom you speak of—it’s an illusion. Nobody knows how to make use of it. I refer to the great mass of people, naturally. They need to be protected from this freedom, Mr. Wilson, and frankly, if it takes a form of government which involves
strict and severe controls, well, I for one will be happy to see the day. Provided,” he added, with a wave of one hand, “they leave people like you and me alone.”
“Yes, I see what you mean.” Wilson was impelled by a powerful desire to leave. He no longer thought of the baby. “Really, I must be going.” He rose to his feet, and Sally and her husband stood up with ungraceful readiness as he did so.
“Must you really?” But she was taking his hat and coat from the closet. “There’s a cabstand at the corner, unless you’d rather telephone.”
“No, please. The corner will be fine.” He struggled into his coat. He stared wonderingly into the curved, calm face of what had once been his daughter. “Your father has always been a Republican—a liberal Republican,” he mumbled. The baby howled. She glanced behind her, toward the summoning voice. “He’s always tried to stay in step,” Wilson said anxiously, “with the times. He . . . well, goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Wilson.”
The sidewalk was unfamiliar in the darkness. He proceeded cautiously toward the corner, afraid that he might stumble. Behind him the breeze carried the cry of the child.
He returned to the airport, picked up his suitcase, and went to a hotel. He decided not to bother about dinner. Sleep was what he needed most, but no sooner had he tipped the bellboy, flung his coat and hat on a chair, and sunk wearily down on the bed, fully clothed, than the telephone buzzed at him. It was Charley, calling long distance.