Skeleton Crew

  " 'Excuse me,' Brower said with complete gravity, 'but I never shake hands!'

  "Davidson blinked. 'Never?' he said. 'How very peculiar. Why in the world not?' Well, I've told you that he was a bit of a puppy. Brower took it in the best possible way, with an open (yet rather troubled) smile.

  " 'I've just come back from Bombay,' he said. 'It's a strange, crowded, filthy place, full of disease and pestilence. The vultures strut and preen on the very city walls by the thousands. I was there on a trade mission for two years, and I seem to have picked up a horror of our Western custom of handshaking. I know I'm foolish and impolite, and yet I cannot seem to bring myself to it. So if you would be so very good as to let me off with no hard feelings ...'

  " 'Only on one condition,' Davidson said with a smile.

  " 'What would that be?'

  " 'Only that you draw up to the table and share a tumbler of George's whiskey while I go for Baker and French and Jack Wilden.'

  "Brower smiled at him, nodded, and put his paper away. Davidson made a brash circled thumb-and-finger, and chased away to get the others. Brower and I drew up to the green-felted table, and when I offered him a drink he declined with thanks and ordered his own bottle. I suspected it might have something to do with his odd fetish and said nothing. I have known men whose horror of germs and disease stretched that far and even further ... and so may many of you."

  There were nods of agreement.

  " 'It's good to be here,' Brower told me reflectively. 'I've shunned any kind of companionship since I returned from my post. It's not good for a man to be alone, you know. I think that, even for the most self-sufficient of men, being isolated from the flow of humanity must be the worst form of torture!' He said this with a queer kind of emphasis, and I nodded. I had experienced such loneliness in the trenches, usually at night. I experienced it again, more keenly, after learning of Rosalie's death. I found myself warming to him in spite of his self-professed eccentricity.

  " 'Bombay must have been a fascinating place,' I said.

  " 'Fascinating ... and terrible! There are things over there which are undreamed of in our philosophy. Their reaction to motorcars is amusing: the children shrink from them as they go by and then follow them for blocks. They find the airplane terrifying and incomprehensible. Of course, we Americans view these contraptions with complete equanimity--even complacency!--but I assure you that my reaction was exactly the same as theirs when I first observed a street-corner beggar swallow an entire packet of steel needles and then pull them, one by one, from the open sores at the end of his fingers. Yet here is something that natives of that part of the world take utterly for granted.

  " 'Perhaps,' he added somberly, 'the two cultures were never intended to mix, but to keep their separate wonders to themselves. For an American such as you or I to swallow a packet of needles would result in a slow, horrible death. And as for the motorcar ...' He trailed off, and a bleak, shadowed expression came to his face.

  "I was about to speak when Stevens the Elder appeared with Brower's bottle of Scotch, and directly following him, Davidson and the others.

  "Davidson prefaced the introductions by saying, 'I've told them all of your little fetish, Henry, so you needn't fear for a thing. This is Darrel Baker, the fearsome-looking fellow with the beard is Andrew French, and last but not least, Jack Wilden. George Gregson you already know.'

  "Brower smiled and nodded at all of them in lieu of shaking hands. Poker chips and three fresh decks of cards were produced, money was changed for markers, and the game began.

  "We played for better than six hours, and I won perhaps two hundred dollars. Darrel Baker, who was not a particularly good player, lost about eight hundred (not that he would ever feel the pinch; his father owned three of the largest shoe factories in New England), and the rest had split Baker's losses with me about evenly. Davidson was a few dollars up and Brower a few down; yet for Brower to be near even was no mean feat, for he had had astoundingly bad cards for most of the evening. He was adroit at both the traditional five-card draw and the newer seven-card-stud variety of the game, and I thought that several times he had won money on cool bluffs that I myself would have hesitated to try.

  "I did notice one thing: although he drank quite heavily--by the time French prepared to deal the last hand, he had polished off almost an entire bottle of Scotch--his speech did not slur at all, his card-playing skill never faltered, and his odd fixation about the touching of hands never flagged. When he won a pot, he never touched it if someone had markers or change or if someone had 'gone light' and still had chips to contribute. Once, when Davidson placed his glass rather close to his elbow, Brower flinched back abruptly, almost spilling his own drink. Baker looked surprised, but Davidson passed it off with a remark.

  "Jack Wilden had commented a few moments earlier that he had a drive to Albany staring him in the face later that morning, and once more around the table would do for him. So the deal came to French, and he called seven-card stud.

  "I can remember that final hand as clearly as my own name, although I should be pressed to describe what I had for lunch yesterday or whom I ate it with. The mysteries of age, I suppose, and yet I think that if any of you other fellows had been there you might remember it as well.

  "I was dealt two hearts down and one up. I can't speak for Wilden or French, but young Davidson had the ace of hearts and Brower the ten of spades. Davidson bet two dollars--five was our limit--and the cards went round again. I drew a heart to make four, Brower drew a jack of spades to go with his ten. Davidson had caught a trey which did not seem to improve his hand, yet he threw three dollars into the pot. 'Last hand,' he said merrily. 'Drop it in, boys! There's a lady who would like to go out on the town with me tomorrow night!'

  "I don't suppose I would have believed a fortune-teller if he had told me how often that remark would come back to haunt me at odd moments, right down to this day.

  "French dealt our third round of up cards. I got no help with my flush, but Baker, who was the big loser, paired up something--kings, I think. Brower had gotten a deuce of diamonds that did not seem to help anything. Baker bet the limit on his pair, and Davidson promptly raised him five. Everyone stayed in the game, and our last up card came around the table. I drew the king of hearts to fill up my flush, Baker drew a third to his pair, and Davidson got a second ace that fairly made his eyes sparkle. Brower got a queen of clubs, and for the life of me I couldn't see why he remained in. His cards looked as bad as any he had folded that night.

  "The bettings began to get a little steep. Baker bet five, Davidson raised five, Brower called. Jack Wilden said, 'Somehow I don't think my pair is quite good enough,' and threw in his hand. I called the ten and raised another five. Baker called and raised again.

  "Well, I needn't bore you with a raise-by-raise description. I'll only say that there was a three-raise limit per man, and Baker, Davidson, and I each took three raises of five dollars. Brower merely called each bet and raise, being careful to wait until all hands were clear of the pot before throwing his money in. And there was a lot of money in there--slightly better than two hundred dollars--as French dealt us our last card facedown.

  "There was a pause as we all looked, although it meant nothing to me; I had my hand, and from what I could see on the table it was good. Baker threw in five, Davidson raised, and we waited to see what Brower would do. His face was slightly flushed with alcohol, he had removed his tie and unbuttoned a second shirt button, but he seemed quite calm. 'I call ... and raise five,' he said.

  "I blinked a little, for I had fully expected him to fold. Still, the cards I held told me I must play to win, and so I raised five. We played with no limit to the number of raises a player could make on the last card, and so the pot grew marvelously. I stopped first, being content simply to call in view of the full house I had become more and more sure someone must be holding. Baker stopped next, blinking warily from Davidson's pair of aces to Brower's mystifying junk hand. Baker was not the best of card
players, but he was good enough to sense something in the wind.

  "Between them, Davidson and Brower raised at least ten more times, perhaps more. Baker and I were carried along, unwilling to cast away our large investments. The four of us had run out of chips, and greenbacks now lay in a drift over the huge sprawl of markers.

  " 'Well,' Davidson said, following Brower's latest raise, 'I believe I'll simply call. If you've been running a bluff, Henry, it's been a fine one. But I have you beaten and Jack's got a long trip ahead of him tomorrow.' And with that he put a five-dollar bill on top of the pile and said, 'I call.'

  "I don't know about the others, but I felt a distinct sense of relief that had little to do with the large sum of money I had put into the pot. The game had been becoming cutthroat, and while Baker and I could afford to lose, if it came to that, Jase Davidson could not. He was currently at loose ends, living on a trust fund--not a large one--left him by his aunt. And Brower--how well could he stand the loss? Remember, gentlemen, that by this time there was better than a thousand dollars on the table."

  George paused here. His pipe had gone out.

  "Well, what happened?" Adley leaned forward. "Don't tease us, George. You've got us all on the edge of our chairs. Push us off or settle us back in."

  "Be patient," George said, unperturbed. He produced another match, scratched it on the sole of his shoe, and puffed at his pipe. We waited intently, without speaking. Outside, the wind screeched and hooted around the eaves.

  When the pipe was aglow and things seemed set to rights, George continued:

  "As you know, the rules of poker state that the man who has been called should show first. But Baker was too anxious to end the tension; he pulled out one of his three down cards and turned it over to show four kings.

  " 'That does me,' I said. 'A flush.'

  " 'I have you,' Davidson said to Baker, and showed two of his down cards. Two aces, to make four. 'Damn well played.' And he began to pull in the huge pot.

  " 'Wait!' Brower said. He did not reach out and touch Davidson's hand as most would have done, but his voice was enough. Davidson paused to look and his mouth fell--actually fell open as if all the muscles there had turned to water. Brower had turned over all three of his down cards, to reveal a straight flush, from the eight to the queen. 'I believe this beats your aces?' Brower said politely.

  "Davidson went red, then white. 'Yes,' he said slowly, as if discovering the fact for the first time. 'Yes, it does.'

  "I would give a great deal to know Davidson's motivation for what came next. He knew of Brower's extreme aversion to being touched; the man had showed it in a hundred different ways that night. It may have been that Davidson simply forgot it in his desire to show Brower (and all of us) that he could cut his losses and take even such a grave reversal in a sportsmanlike way. I've told you that he was something of a puppy, and such a gesture would probably have been in his character. But puppies can also nip when they are provoked. They aren't killers--a puppy won't go for the throat; but many a man has had his fingers stitched to pay for teasing a little dog too long with a slipper or a rubber bone. That would also be a part of Davidson's character, as I remember him.

  "I would, as I can say, give a great deal to know ... but the results are all that matter, I suppose.

  "When Davidson took his hands away from the pot, Brower reached over to rake it in. At that instant, Davidson's face lit up with a kind of ruddy good fellowship, and he plucked Brower's hand from the table and wrung it firmly. 'Brilliant playing, Henry, simply brilliant. I don't believe I ever--'

  "Brower cut him off with a high, womanish scream that was frightful in the deserted silence of the game room, and jerked away. Chips and currency cascaded every which way as the table tottered and nearly fell over.

  "We were all immobilized with the sudden turn of events, and quite unable to move. Brower staggered away from the table, holding his hand out in front of him like a masculine version of Lady Macbeth. He was as white as a corpse, and the stark terror on his face is beyond my powers of description. I felt a bolt of horror go through me such as I had never experienced before or since, not even when they brought me the telegram with the news of Rosalie's death.

  "Then he began to moan. It was a hollow, awful sound, cryptlike. I remember thinking, Why, the man's quite insane; and then he said the queerest thing: 'The switch ... I've left the switch on in the motorcar ... O God, I am so sorry!' And he fled up the stairs toward the main lobby.

  "I was the first to come out of it. I lurched out of my chair and chased after him, leaving Baker and Wilden and Davidson sitting around the huge pot of money Brower had won. They looked like graven Inca statues guarding a tribal treasure.

  "The front door was still swinging to and fro, and when I dashed out into the street I saw Brower at once, standing on the edge of the sidewalk and looking vainly for a taxi. When he saw me he cringed so miserably that I could not help feeling pity intermixed with wonder.

  " 'Here,' I said, 'wait! I'm sorry for what Davidson did and I'm sure he didn't mean it; all the same, if you must go because of it, you must. But you've left a great deal of money behind and you shall have it.'

  " 'I should never have come,' he groaned. 'But I was so desperate for any kind of human fellowship that I ... I ...' Without thinking, I reached out to touch him--the most elemental gesture of one human being to another when he is grief-stricken--but Brower shrank away from me and cried, 'Don't touch me! Isn't one enough? O God, why don't I just die?'

  "His eye suddenly lit feverishly on a stray dog with slat-thin sides and mangy, chewed fur that was making its way up the other side of the deserted, early-morning street. The cur's tongue hung out and it walked with a wary, three-legged limp. It was looking, I suppose, for garbage cans to tip over and forage in.

  " 'That could be me over there,' he said reflectively, as if to himself. 'Shunned by everyone, forced to walk alone and venture out only after every other living thing is safe behind locked doors. Pariah dog!'

  " 'Come now,' I said, a little sternly, for such talk smacked more than a little of the melodramatic. 'You've had some kind of nasty shock and obviously something has happened to put your nerves in a bad state, but in the War I saw a thousand things which--'

  " 'You don't believe me, do you?' he asked. 'You think I'm in the grip of some sort of hysteria, don't you?'

  " 'Old man, I really don't know what you might be gripping or what might be gripping you, but I do know that if we continue to stand out here in the damp night air, we'll both catch the grippe. Now if you'd care to step back inside with me--only as far as the foyer, if you'd like--I'll ask Stevens to--'

  "His eyes were wild enough to make me acutely uneasy. There was no light of sanity left in them, and he reminded me of nothing so much as the battle-fatigued psychotics I had seen carried away in carts from the front lines: husks of men with awful, blank eyes like potholes to hell, mumbling and gibbering.

  " 'Would you care to see how one outcast responds to another?' he asked me, taking no notice of what I had been saying at all. 'Watch, then, and see what I've learned in strange ports of call!'

  "And he suddenly raised his voice and said imperiously, 'Dog!'

  "The dog raised his head, looked at him with wary, rolling eyes (one glittered with rabid wildness; the other was filmed by a cataract), and suddenly changed direction and came limpingly, reluctantly, across the street to where Brower stood.

  "It did not want to come; that much was obvious. It whined and growled and tucked its mangy rope of a tail between its legs; but it was drawn to him nonetheless. It came right up to Brower's feet, and then lay upon its belly, whining and crouching and shuddering. Its emaciated sides went in and out like a bellows, and its good eye rolled horribly in its socket.

  "Brower uttered a hideous, despairing laugh that I still hear in my dreams, and squatted by it. 'There,' he said. 'You see? It knows me as one of its kind ... and knows what I bring it!' He reached for the dog and the cur uttered a sn
arling, lugubrious howl. It bared its teeth.

  " 'Don't!' I cried sharply. 'He'll bite!'

  "Brower took no notice. In the glow of the streetlight his face was livid, hideous, the eyes black holes burnt in parchment. 'Nonsense,' he crooned. 'Nonsense. I only want to shake hands with him ... as your friend shook with me!' And suddenly he seized the dog's paw and shook it. The dog made a horrible howling noise, but made no move to bite him.

  "Suddenly Brower stood up. His eyes seemed to have cleared somewhat, and except for his excessive pallor, he might have again been the man who had offered courteously to pick up a hand with us earlier the night before.

  " 'I'm leaving now,' he said quietly.- 'Please apologize to your friends and tell them I'm sorry to have acted like such a fool. Perhaps I'll have a chance to ... redeem myself another time.'

  " 'It's we who owe you the apology,' I said. 'And have you forgotten the money? It's better than a thousand dollars.'

  " 'O yes! The money!' And his mouth curved in one of the bitterest smiles I have ever seen.

  " 'Never mind coming into the lobby,' I said. 'If you will promise to wait right here, I'll bring it. Will you do that?'

  " 'Yes,' he said. 'If you wish, I'll do that.' And he looked reflectively down at the dog whining at his feet. 'Perhaps he would like to come to my lodgings with me and have a square meal for once in his miserable life.' And the bitter smile reappeared.

  "I left him then, before he could reconsider, and went downstairs. Someone--probably Jack Wilden; he always had an orderly mind--had changed all the markers for greenbacks and had stacked the money neatly in the center of the green felt. None of them spoke to me as I gathered it up. Baker and Jack Wilden were smoking wordlessly; Jason Davidson was hanging his head and looking at his feet. His face was a picture of misery and shame. I touched him on the shoulder as I went back to the stairs and he looked at me gratefully.

  "When I reached the street again, it was utterly deserted. Brower had gone. I stood there with a wad of greenbacks in each hand, looking vainly either way, but nothing moved. I called once, tentatively, in case he should be standing in the shadows someplace near, but there was no response. Then I happened to look down. The stray dog was still there, but his days of foraging in trash cans were over. He was quite dead. The fleas and ticks were leaving his body in marching columns. I stepped back, revolted and yet also filled with a species of odd, dreamy terror. I had a premonition that I was not yet through with Henry Brower, and so I wasn't; but I never saw him again."