by Rod Serling
He pushed her out of the way and went out, down the hall, to the rear stairs and started to climb. Ethel followed him, pleading all the way, arguing, cajoling, but he would have none of it. On the roof, he headed toward the light well. It was a big, square hole covered by glass. There was a small concrete shelf around it that stood only about eight inches high. Ethel immediately got between Walter and the concrete strip, and held out her hands to him.
“Please, Walter,” she said. “Please, my darling—”
Bedeker said, “Ethel, go drown in the tub and leave me alone. I’m going head first down that light well, and I want you to get out of the way!”
He advanced toward her and she backed away from him.
“Please, darling,” she said. “Please come back to the apartment. I’ll make you potato pancakes. Remember, you used to love potato pancakes.”
Bedeker yanked her arm away from him, pushed her aside. “You, my dear,” he said, “are a potato pancake. You look like a potato pancake. You have all the excitement of a potato pancake. You are as tasteless as a potato pancake. Now I’ve told you for the last time to get out of my way.”
She threw herself against him, struggling to push him back and only at the last instant did she realize that her foot was no longer on the level of the roof floor. It dangled over the concrete stoop surrounding the stairwell. In a moment her balance shifted and she had fallen backwards, smashing through the glass, and hurtled fourteen stories down to the concrete courtyard below. Even her scream was a quiet, pathetic noise coming from a quiet, pathetic woman. It was more misery than horror; more a gentle protest than the last utterance of a woman going head first to her death.
Bedeker tiptoed over to the light well and looked down. Lights were going on sporadically on every other floor like the panel board of an elevator announcing the stops. He scratched his jaw, took out a cigarette and lit it.
“I wonder what it felt like,” he said softly.
Some place off in the distance he heard a siren. There was a growing mumble and jumble of voices inside the building. Then suddenly he had a thought. It was a wonderful thought. An exciting thought. He hurried to the door leading to the rear stairs, went down them two at a time, trotted into his apartment and picked up the telephone.
“Operator,” he said, “get me the police, please. Immediately. It’s an emergency.” After a moment he heard the voice of a desk sergeant at the local precinct. “Hello? Is this the police station? Well, this is Walter Bedeker, 11 North 7th Street. That’s correct. Apartment 12B. Will you please come over here right away. No, no trouble. I just killed my wife. That’s right. Yes, I’ll stay right here. Good-by.”
He put the receiver down, took a deep luxurious drag on his cigarette, flicked the ashes away and said, “Well, let’s give the old electric chair a whirl!”
The trial of the State vs. Walter Bedeker was, in the words of the District Attorney, “the most predictable thing to hit town since professional wrestling.” The court reporters, spectators, and certainly the jury seemed to share the prosecution’s view. In three days of proceedings, the State made one telling point after the other. They established motive. (Six witnesses had testified to the fights between Walter Bedeker and his wife.) They showed premeditation. (The janitor testified that he had heard Bedeker threaten his wife on at least a dozen occasions.) And they did everything but bring in photographs of the actual commission of the crime. (At least ten neighbors had seen Bedeker come down off the roof and hurry back into his apartment.)
So in short, Mr. Walter Bedeker sat alongside of his lawyer on the eve of the last day of trial in a most vulnerable position. You could not have told this, however, by looking at Walter Bedeker. He sat half smiling at the judge, the witnesses, the prosecution. On the stand he openly and freely admitted he had pushed his wife down the light well and had no misgivings about it at all. As a matter of fact, he would do it again.
His lawyer, hired by the State, was a desperately energetic young man who objected on the slightest provocation, who argued, pleaded and thundered throughout the trial, who parried every telling thrust on the part of the prosecution and parried well. But his was a losing cause and he knew it. He became acutely aware of just how losing it was when after sending a penciled note of inquiry over to his client he received the note back with the following scrawl underneath his question, “Go to hell, affectionately, Walter Bedeker.”
From that point on the defense was reasonably certain that the normal rapport between client and lawyer did not exist in this case.
And further, that this was a client whose answers on the stand seemed to suggest collusion between him and the prosecution. Because Walter Bedeker was convicting himself with every answer, every gesture, obviously because he wished to.
On the evening of the third day of trial, Bedeker’s lawyer went to see Bedeker in his cell. He arrived during his client’s dinner and found himself completely ignored until Bedeker had started his dessert. Then the little man looked up as if suddenly realizing the lawyer was there and nodded perfunctorily.
“Cooper, the legal beagle. What brings you here at this odd hour?”
Cooper sat down on the other chair and studied his client. “Mr. Bedeker,” he said grimly, “you may not realize this, but at the rate things are going this case will go to the jury by tomorrow.”
Bedeker nodded and continued to spoon down ice cream. “How do you feel, Cooper?” he asked.
Cooper squirmed with frustration and put his briefcase on the floor. “How am I? I’m miserable, Mr. Bedeker. I’ve been miserable since I took your case. I’ve had tough clients before, but nobody like you.”
“Really?” Bedeker asked insouciantly. “What disturbs you?”
“What disturbs me is that in three days of trial you’ve acted like a man desperate to get convicted. When I examine you, you shut up like a clam. When the prosecuting attorney examines you, you act as if you were betting on him to win the case.” He leaned forward intensely.
“Now look, Bedeker, this is the goods here. If this case goes to the jury tomorrow as things stand now, you don’t have chance number one.”
Bedeker lit a cigarette and leaned back on his cot. “Is that a fact?” he asked.
“That is a fact. Now tomorrow this is what I want us to do!” He lifted the briefcase and unzipped it. He was diving into it for papers when Bedeker said, “Don’t bother, Mr. Cooper. Just don’t bother.” He waved at the briefcase. “Put it away.”
“How’s that?” Cooper asked.
“Put it away.”
Cooper stared at him for a long, unbelieving moment. “Bedeker, did you get what I was trying to tell you? You’re about twelve hours away from a guilty verdict on a charge of first degree murder.”
Bedeker smiled and clucked. “And what will the penalty be?”
“The penalty,” Cooper said tiredly, “in this State for first degree murder is death in the electric chair.”
“Death in the electric chair,” Bedeker repeated. He tapped his fingers on the side of the cot and then examined his nails.
“Bedeker,” Cooper shouted, almost beyond control.
“Death in the electric chair. And if I were in California?”
“What?” Cooper asked incredulously.
“How would they try to kill me if I lived in California,” Bedeker said.
“Capital punishment there is the gas chamber, but I frankly don’t see why—”
“And in Kansas?” Bedeker interrupted.
“In Kansas,” Cooper answered, “it’s hanging. Now I’m going to tell you something, Bedeker—”
Bedeker rose from the cot and surveyed the lawyer who now had a thin covering of perspiration over his face.
“No, Mr. Cooper,” Bedeker said mildly. “I’m going to tell you something. The only thing they’ll get for their trouble if they try to electrocute me is a whopping electricity bill! Now good night, Mr. Cooper. See you in court!”
Cooper sighed deeply. He slowly
zipped up his briefcase and rose. “I don’t know, Bedeker,” he said. “I just don’t understand you. The alienist says you’re sane and you say you killed your wife. But way down deep I know you didn’t. So tomorrow when I sum up for you, I’m going to lead from terrible weakness.” He shrugged hopelessly. “But I intend to do the best I can.”
He turned and went to the cell door, tapping on it for the guard. After a moment they heard him coming down the corridor. He unlocked the door and Cooper walked out.
“Mr. Cooper,” Bedeker’s voice came from behind the bars.
The defense attorney turned to look at him.
Bedeker smiled at him. “Mr. Cooper,” he said. “Really—don’t bother!”
The prosecution on the following morning delivered one of the briefest summations in a murder trial ever presented in the history of the State. It lasted only a minute and a half and afterwards the District Attorney walked smiling and confident back to his seat. Mr. Cooper rose for his summation and after about ten seconds of a stumbling if sincere start, he seemed to warm up and a relatively listless jury suddenly seemed very aware of him. Even the judge leaned over on his elbows to listen more intently. A court reporter later described it as one helluva summation—one of the best ever heard in that courtroom.
“Guilty, yes,” Cooper roared. “But premeditated? Hardly!” His client, Cooper contended, had not led his wife up to the roof. She had followed him No witness had proven otherwise. Killed her—yes, this he did. Pushed her off the stoop, down the light well—absolutely. No contest. But had he planned to do it? This was a moot point. Twenty-eight minutes later, after an address loaded with moot points, Cooper sat down next to Walter Bedeker and listened to the murmur running through the courtroom. Bedeker smiled vaguely at him. He hadn’t been listening. He was busy jotting notes on a pad. Things he intended to do after he got out. Cooper could see a few of his scrawled plans over Bedeker’s shoulder. “Land on third rail in subway station.” “Jump in front of diesel engine.” “Hide in hydrogen bomb testing area.” Etc. Etc.
Sixty-three minutes later the jury came back with a verdict of guilty and shortly thereafter Walter Bedeker stood in front of the bench for his sentencing. He leaned against the bench on his elbow, picked his teeth, yawned and looked generally bored. Walter Bedeker had paid little heed to the proceedings in that courtroom. Even now he scarcely heard what the judge was saying. Something to the effect that the court prescribed life imprisonment. It was not the words that jarred him. Rather it was Cooper, grabbing him, hugging him, shaking him.
“Life imprisonment, old man,” Cooper screamed into his ear joyfully. “I knew we could do it! I just knew we could do it.”
As the turnkey led Bedeker through the side door of the courtroom he became gradually aware of the hum of voices around him. “God, what a summation!” “Life imprisonment—masterful!” “There’s one helluva lucky man!”
It wasn’t until Bedeker was walking down the corridor outside that he realized what had happened. Cooper had got him off with life imprisonment. He stopped, turned toward the courtroom at the other end of the corridor and screamed out loud, “Wait a minute! WAIT A MINUTE! I can’t get imprisoned for life! Don’t they understand? Don’t they know what this means? I can’t go to prison for life.”
He began to cry. He was crying when they put him in the black paddy wagon to take him back to jail. He cried all during the trip and that night in his cell he was still crying.
When the cell guard brought him his dinner he noted that Mr. Bedeker’s eyes were red-rimmed and that he only toyed with his food.
“You’re a lucky guy, Bedeker,” the guard said through the cell doors. “Tomorrow they’ll be taking you to the penitentiary. That’ll be your new home. It’s a long way from the death cell.”
Bedeker didn’t answer. He sat looking down at the tray of food on his lap and felt the rising bubbles of sadness and hopelessness and misery crawl up his body and he had to stifle a sob.
“Look at it this way,” the guard said philosophically. “What’s life, Mr. Bedeker? Forty years. Fifty years. Hell, you can do that standing on your head.” Bedeker could hear him as he went down the corridor. “That’s all. Forty, fifty years. Maybe not even that much—”
Bedeker set the tray on the floor and put his head in his hands. “Forty, fifty years,” he murmured to himself. “Forty or fifty years. Or sixty, or seventy, or a hundred, or two hundred.”
Numbers drifted across his mind. Five figure numbers. Six figure numbers. And he heard a voice thundering at him from no place in particular.
“After all, what are a few hundred years or a few thousand? Or five thousand or ten thousand? What is it in the scheme of things?” The voice ended on a note of laughter. Big laughter. Resounding, quaking laughter that came from the belly of a fat man.
Walter Bedeker looked up to see the corpulent blue-suited figure of Cadwallader standing in the middle of the cell grinning at him, his white teeth gleaming, his eyes suddenly coal red.
“Mr. Bedeker,” he rumbled. “Just think of it! Immortality…indestructibility...institutions fail, governments disintegrate, people die! But Walter Bedeker goes on and on.” His laugh was rolling thunder across the cell. “Walter Bedeker goes on and on. And on and on and on.”
Bedeker screamed and buried his face against the pillow on the cot. There was an odor in the cell. A burning odor. Was it brimstone? Very likely.
“Mr. Bedeker?” Cadwallader’s voice was soft now, the words arrived on velvet. “About that escape clause. Would you care to exercise it now?”
Bedeker never even raised his head from the pillow. He nodded and a moment thereafter felt a pain sear across his chest, a terrible pain. A pain more agonizing than anything he’d ever felt before. His body twitched convulsively and he fell off the cot to land on his back, his eyes staring lifelessly up toward the cell. Walter Bedeker was a dead body.
The thing that had been his soul let out a strangled scream and struggled inside the pocket of a blue suit as it was carried into another dimension.
The guard found Walter Bedeker during bed check that night. He opened the cell door, rushed in and felt for a pulse. Then he’d called the prison doctor and the warden. It was a heart attack and this was written on a cardboard tag that was attached to his chart.
A comment was made by one of the attendants in the prison morgue. It was something to the effect that he’d never seen a look of such utter horror on a man’s face as that which Walter Bedeker’s wore as they shoved him into a refrigerated compartment and closed the door.
From Rod Serling’s closing narration, “Escape Clause,” The Twilight Zone, November 6, 1959, CBS Television Network.
The CAMERA PANS away from the body and then slowly up the side of the cell until it stops on a shot of the barred window facing the outside.
NARRATOR’S VOICE
There’s a saying...every man is put on earth condemned to die. Time and method of execution unknown.
(a pause)
Perhaps this is as it should be. Case in point—Walter Bedeker, lately deceased. A little man with such a yen to live.
Now the CAMERA MOVES out and through the bars and is shooting up into the night sky.
NARRATOR’S VOICE
Beaten by the devil...by his own boredom...and by the scheme of things in this...The Twilight Zone.
FADE TO BLACK
Walking Distance
His name was Martin Sloan and he was thirty-six years old. As he looked at his reflection in the dresser mirror, he felt that recurring surprise that the tall, attractive man staring back was he, and beyond that was the wonder that the image bore no real relationship to the man himself. There was Martin Sloan, a tall six-foot-two with a lean, suntanned face, a straight nose and a square jaw; just a few threads of gray on either temple, medium-set eyes—a good face, all in all. The inventory continued down the glass. Brooks Brothers suit that fitted with casual perfection, Hathaway shirt and silk tie, thin gold watch, and all
of it so appropriate, so full of taste.
He continued to stare at himself and marveled at how a veneer could be spread over a man’s frame to camouflage what was underneath. Because that’s what he was looking at at this moment—camouflage. Hell, yes, he was Martin Sloan, an ad agency exec, with a fabulous bachelor apartment on Park overlooking Sixty-Third, and he drove a red Mercedes-Benz and he was an agile-minded, very creative, oh, so subtly pushy kind of rising young man. He could order in French and call Jackie Gleason by his first name and feel the very odd warmth of status when the maître d’ at Sardi’s East, or the Colony, or Danny’s Hideway, called him by name, and smiled a quiet, respectful deference when he entered their places.
But the hell of it, the misery of it was that Martin Sloan had an incipient ulcer that at this moment began a slow, raking crawl over his insides. He knew panic a dozen times a day—that convulsive, breath-stopping, ice-cube feeling of doubt and indecision; of being second guessed, of being wrong; the effort to make his voice firm, his decisions sound irrevocable, when deep inside his gut—worse as each day passed—he felt a vague slipping away of all the props he conjured up and took on the stage with him when he faced the president of the agency, the clients, or the other account execs.
And that ulcer! That Goddamned ulcer. He felt it rise in him again and tensed himself like a man going into a cold shower. It burned across his stomach. After it subsided, he lit a cigarette and felt the wetness on his back as the hot June perspiration turned his Hathaway shirt into a clinging, itchy thing and made his palms sodden extensions of himself.
Martin Sloan went to the window to look out at New York. The lights were on along Park Avenue and he remembered the lights of his home town. He often thought about his home town lately. For the past several months he had been coming back to the apartment from the office to sit in the dark living room and drink long, solitary scotches; to think about himself as a boy, and where it had all begun—the chronology of the thirty-six-year-old man who had the world by the short hair, but at least three times a week felt like crying.