by Robert Bloch
“I can’t take any more,” she said, quietly. “I’ve tried, and I want to—believe me, I want to—but I can’t. I know you really think that what you told me is true, even though you were cleared. But that only makes it worse. Because it means that nothing I can say or do will ever make you change your mind.
“No, Tom. A year won’t help, two years won’t help. Not as long as you believe what you do. If doctors couldn’t change your mind for you, I wouldn’t have a chance. So I’d better go.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Right now.” And she walked over and picked up her purse. I stared at her because I couldn’t believe it was happening this way. Kit, who loved me, just walking out.
I thought of a million things to say, but none of them were any good. Nothing was any good. She was walking out on me, leaving me alone in the dark.
She was moving toward the door, and the sunlight was captured in her hair, and every golden inch of her I knew, and loved, and—
Kit stopped and turned around. She looked at me, sighed. “I know,” she said. “I know I’m a heel. Walking out on you when you need me. When you need someone to take care of you during your blackouts, so it won’t happen again—if it ever did happen.”
I had told her, then. Everything.
“But it’s your fault, too, Tom. If you loved me as much as you say you do, you’d go to another doctor. To ten doctors. You’d get rid of your trouble, somehow, and be a whole man again—for me.”
I could only nod. She was right, of course. She was so right. And I knew, of course, that she was giving me another chance. Another chance, now, to tell her that I’d do just that. I’d go to a psychiatrist, and I’d find out the truth, and then Kit and I would get married. It was all so simple, so easy. Except that the blackouts weren’t as bad as really knowing, really being sure. If I was sure, then nothing and no one, not even Kit, could help me.
So she waited for my answer, and there was only one answer I could give her.
“Good-by, Kit,” I said.
“Good-by.” She turned away. She said the rest very softly as she went out the door, so softly I almost didn’t hear her.
“I still don’t think you really killed your wife,” said Kit. “And what’s more, I don’t care.”
I cared. I cared a lot. It’s a habit you get into—caring. Some people seem to cultivate it and others don’t.
There’s the old story about the man attending his wife’s funeral. He breaks down at the church, he breaks down at the cemetery, he sobs and sobs uncontrollably all the way home.
His best friend, who accompanies him, tries to cheer him up. “Look,” he says, “it isn’t that bad. Why, in six months or so, you’ll get over all this sorrow, forget all about it. I’ll bet before a year is out you’re likely to meet a new girl, get interested in her, take her out, even marry her. Then you’ll be sleeping with her just as if—”
“Sure, I know,” wails the guy. “But what about tonight?”
Every time I hear that story, it reminds me of some people I know. The lucky, lucky people; the ones who don’t seem to care. But I’m not that way. And I wasn’t that way when Kit walked out of the door, out of my life. I wasn’t that way when Marie died.
Sitting in the store, that afternoon, I’d think about it, when the customers weren’t bothering me for Zanzibar #156, unused (watermarked multiple Crown and Script CA) or Galaxy, June, 1952.
It was no use fooling myself. I’d loved Marie just as much as I now loved Kit. Kit was tall and blonde, Marie was—had been—short and dark. Kit was forthright, Marie shy and reticent. But she’d loved me, and we were both scarcely past the fumbling-discovery age, and I was going in for a hitch and people had just begun to find out there was a place called Korea.
And so we were married and lived happily ever after—for about two weeks. Then she followed me to boot camp, and she followed me to embarkation, and then her letters followed me.
After I went to the hospital, after the long time when I wasn’t reading anything, I had the stack of her letters to catch up on. Thirty-seven of them, one hundred and ninety-two pages. I know, because I counted them. I even counted the words, the number of times she wrote, “I love you.”
Then I counted the weeks, and the days, and the hours, and the minutes until I was discharged and we were together again. We had our first dinner at the Top of the Mark. And we spent our first night in a cabin outside of Redwood City. Those things I could remember, now.
But I couldn’t remember my first blackout with her, nor any of the others, including the last. I could remember what went on between, though.
She didn’t know what was the matter with me, of course, any more than I did. She tried to understand. She tried not to question me—ask where I’d been, or why—and it helped. Because I asked myself those questions, often enough. She never complained, no matter how bad I got, and that helped, too.
The trouble is, it didn’t help enough. It didn’t help to prevent her from having those crying spells, and from sitting up nights worrying, wondering where I was and how I was.
That was when we were still on the Coast, and I had this job over in Oakland. Just a working stiff, and on the intermediate shift, but the job was enough to keep us going. Or it would have been, if anything could have kept us going.
But instead of complaining she cried, and perhaps that had something to do with it. There were times when I wondered if she was ready to crack up, if she was even closer to it than I was. All that seemed to happen to me were these blackouts—temporary amnesia. But her melancholia was chronic, acute.
I managed to check up on myself, from time to time. Actually, what I did during those periods of blankness wasn’t startling or unusual in the least. I’d go off for a few drinks, take a bus ride thirty or forty miles up the line, or just wander around by myself. I never, to my knowledge, got into any trouble or created a disturbance. Others who were with me didn’t even realize that I’d gone under. Apparently it was just a secondary reaction to a severe concussion—service disability.
I didn’t wonder then, but I wondered now: what had happened to Marie during those times? I’d go out and get lost in a city. Marie would stay home and get lost in her own mind. That’s melancholia.
If it hadn’t been for Art Hughes, I don’t know what either of us would have done. Art Hughes: plant supervisor, Gershwin enthusiast, best friend of the family. I knew him in all three roles, but it was the latter one I admired the most, and came to lean on.
It was Art who went out, many’s the night, and located me somewhere in town, or beyond town. It was Art who sat there and cheered Marie up, talked her out of her depression, slipped on the Iturbi duo-piano version of the Rhapsody, or the Levant variations on I Got Rhythm, or old George himself doing the Preludes.
Art was trying to help. I know Marie tried, and I tried too. But it didn’t work out in the end. Nothing worked out to prevent the final blackout.
This one started like all the others. I was walking down the street, after the shift was over, heading for the two o’clock bus and hoping I wouldn’t miss it. The next one wouldn’t be around for another hour. I wanted to get home (yes I did, I wanted to very badly) because Marie had been crying when I left. She had been crying yesterday, too, and when I’d asked her what was wrong she wouldn’t tell me. Or couldn’t.
I remember I was thinking again for the tenth time that perhaps I should persuade her to see a doctor. She’d been to a g.p. just two weeks ago, but I wanted her to see a specialist. If she could only get hold of a good psychiatrist, a top man like Greene—although he was a neurologist, really—perhaps he’d find the answer. As it was, she was all tightened up inside, tightened up and ready to explode.
Explode. That was the last thing I remember thinking about. Then, without any warning, the roof fell in, the curtain came down, and I was lost. “I” was lost. Not the person that walked, talked, ate, drank, functioned on the surface level. I’m talking about the real “I”—the
observed Observer.
But “I” was lost, and the blackout came. The fugue. Fugue and variations.
Usually, coming out of it was simple. There’d be a moment of panic—always the panic, upon realization of who I was and where I was, together with wondering where I’d been, where I was now. Then I’d gradually reorient myself and get ready to pick up the pieces and go home. So far there had never been any pieces. So far, I’d never snapped out of it and found myself at home.
Only this time—
This time I came out of it standing in our bedroom in the apartment. Standing there in the moonlight with the scissors glinting in my hand. Standing over the body of Marie and looking at the place where those same scissors had cut her throat . . .
THREE
It was almost five o’clock. Kit had been gone now for about four hours, and it seemed like only a minute. Only a minute, but long enough for me to live it through all over again with Marie. Long enough for me to deal with Mr. Simpson and his copy of the Decameron, with Buzzy Foster who wanted some of those new airmails in blocks, with the fat woman who collected Planet Stories but ripped off all the covers from her purchases.
It seemed like only a minute, and I wondered if it would always seem that way, if a part of me would always be standing near the counter telling Kit good-by.
That’s when I decided I was going out to get drunk. I watched the minute hand edge up to eleven, then go past it to twelve. Two more minutes and I’d close. I picked up the outgoing mail—some more approval requests had come in during the afternoon and I had a respectable pile—and then the door opened and he came in.
Sherlock Holmes would have loved my business. Dealing as I did in stamps, coins, magazines and second-hand books, I got an odd assortment of customers. After a time, I was able to size them up and make a pretty reasonable snap judgement. One look usually told me what the newcomer was seeking. I could even refine it down to categories within categories. That is, if my customer was a stamp collector, I could peg him as U.S.—general, strictly airmail, a completist, or a professional philatelist specializing in British Guiana only. In books, I could separate the “just looking, thank you” browser from the obscurantist; the Proust addict from the furtive individual in quest of “them there Jack Woodford books, hey.” So when my late client arrived, I gave him the benefit of all my experienced appraisal—and drew a blank.
Oh, not because he wasn’t a type. He was as typical as they come; except that his type didn’t make a practice of coming into my shop. There was nothing for them here.
The man was porcine: hog-fat, hog-jowled, with pork-bristles on his neck and chin, little pig-eyes set in folds of fat on either side of his blunt muzzle. He wore a bright blue suit that was designed to drape; on him, it merely bulged. A long-collared maroon shirt bunched up around his thick neck, and it is almost unnecessary to add that a nude was portrayed on his hand-painted tie. He was almost a self-caricature; the fake “hood,” the Central Casting mobster. Actually, he was probably a petty gambler—the real dealers don’t dare to dress that way any more.
“Say,” he said. “Got a minute?”
“Certainly.”
He lumbered over and tested one of my chairs to the uttermost. It creaked when he sat down, but did not collapse.
“You sell stamps?”
Good Lord, don’t tell me I’d slipped up after all! Maybe I was looking at my golden opportunity to unload one of those Coronation sets! I ventured a bright smile.
“That’s right. Something you’re particularly interested in?” I turned around, thankful I hadn’t yet locked the safe.
“No, not me. I was just wondering. You ever buy stamps, too?”
“You mean collections?”
“Uh-yeah. I guess so. I mean, books full of ’em.”
“You have an album you wish to dispose of?”
“Right. A album.”
“Might I take a look?”
“Here.”
He hefted the album up onto the table. It was a green Gibbons—British album for British colonies, the kind only a specialist would own. I riffled through the pages, fast.
What I saw interested me greatly. There was almost a complete Barbados here, mint. Ditto for most of the West Indies. Strong early Canadian. Most of the Cape triangles in excellent condition—used, no forgeries. Early Labuan, excellent showing of high-value Rhodesia without revenue cancellations, nice St. Helena.
“Would you mind telling me how much you want for this collection, Mr.—?”
“Calgary. Joe Calgary.” He shrugged. “I figure it’s worth mebbe a fast two hunnert.”
A fast two hunnert wouldn’t have touched his Canadians. I closed the book. “I suppose it’s fairly complete,” I said. “You have the 1839 Mauritius?”
“Oh—sure.”
“And the 1940 Tanganyika?”
“All them there. Diden’ you see?”
I nodded again. There is, of course, no 1839 Mauritius and no 1940 Tanganyika, either. Any more than there was the faintest possibility that this man owned the collection.
“Well, whaddya say? Is it a deal?”
I hesitated. “Could you tell me just how many countries are represented in your collection?”
“Countries? Uh—I dunno. I mean, it ain’t really my album, see? It’s—it’s my brother’s. He saves ’em. Onny he needs some dough kind of fast like. You know how it is, and I figured—”
I stood up. “I understand. But unfortunately, I’m rather heavily overstocked right now. I’d suggest you try elsewhere, or return the album to your brother and let him try. He could probably answer more of the questions that will be asked. On second thought, I recommend that—give it back to your brother.”
He got it, all right. He stood up, slammed the book against his side, and moved off without another word. His heels crunched against the floor, then clicked against the sidewalk outside as he slammed the door.
I stood there, watching a good thousand dollars’ profit disappear. It was a wonderful collection; I could have used it a dozen times over, and it was hot. I wondered where he’d stolen it.
Then I sighed, shrugged, and locked the safe—almost before the sound of his heels and the echo of his door slam died in the distance.
The sound of his heels . . .
I glanced down at my own shoes. Better get a pair of cleats put on, I thought. Then maybe I could hear myself walk. Next time I went off the deep end, I’d at least have a familiar sound to keep me company.
The deep end. I was going to get drunk, I reminded myself. All right. But first the cleats, and then something to eat.
Fratney was still open, and his boy put the cleats on for me. Then I went over to Rourke’s and had a steak. Big, manly deal. Cleats on the shoes, big blood-rare steak for dinner, and then a night on the town.
A night on the town? Why not? Anything was better than the memories I had, the memories I’d lost, the sound of voices I wanted to remember, the sight of faces I wanted to forget.
Walking down the street, after the steak, I ran into Blind Bill. He was standing on the corner at Oak, the way he always is at that hour of the evening. I dropped a dime in his hat and took a pencil.
“Thanks, Mr. Kendall,” he said.
“Thought the cleats would fool you,” I said.
“It isn’t the sound,” Bill told me. “It’s the rhythm. Everybody’s got his own rhythm.”
“Guess you’re right,” I said, and moved on. He probably was right at that. Everybody’s got rhythm. I got rhythm. Wonder what Art Hughes’ friend Gershwin would say to that? And what about Art Hughes? He might be up at Swanee’s now. He’d come to town last month, transferred to the branch plant, and I’d seen him just twice—both times in Swanee’s. Art had explained he had a room just around the corner. I’d promised to look him up but hadn’t because I’d been spending my time with Kit.
That is, I had until last night. If Nick at the cafeteria was right, I’d seen Art some time during the evening—pr
obably after my visit with Kit. And now I could see him again—tonight and every night, just like old times . . . old times before Kit, and the sight of Kit.
I wondered whether Blind Bill ever had to worry about the sight of faces he wanted to forget. Then I came to Swanee’s and stopped wondering.
Let’s put it this way. Swanee’s came to me. It was that kind of a place: big and brassy and forthright, a gaudy whore of a place, hanging over the window sill and shouting down into the street. The big neon lights blazed before your eyes while you were still a block away. Half a block and you could hear the booming of the juke box; a few feet more and you caught the overtones of conversation, punctuated by the clink and tinkle of glasses. Then the air from the joint came swooping right out to hit you, hit you and scoop you up and carry you in.
Up until a year and a half ago, I’d have run a mile to get away from such a hangout. It was the kind of a bar where the early-morning coffee drinkers go when their work is done.
But I’d learned to conform, and when you conform you go to places like Swanee’s where the lights are bright and the music is loud—so loud you can’t hear yourself think.
There must be fifty thousand places like Swanee’s scattered all over the country, and they all have the same atmosphere. When you go in, you can’t hear yourself think, and that’s the big secret of their success: nobody wants to hear himself think any more. If you drink enough coffee in the morning, if you drink enough of the beer or the hard stuff at night, you never hear yourself think. In time you even get so you stop thinking, and you don’t hear that, either.
I walked in, moving right up to the bar. The place was already half-filled, and so were its occupants. Only eight o’clock, but some people like to stop thinking early. I chose the far end of the bar—away from the television set—because although I wanted to stop thinking I still wished to maintain the illusion that I was alive.
The oldest of the three bartenders came right over.
“What’ll it be?”
“Old Overholt. Water on the side.” I didn’t ask for the brand name because I was a snob; it’s just that in the Middle West nobody seems to drink rye and the bartenders always do a double-take if you ask for it. Funny thing, they drink a lot of rye in the East, but once you get as far as Illinois, it’s bourbon all the way.