Ragle and Sammy came out of the clubhouse and joined Vic and his wife. The four of them faced Bill and Junie Black.
At last Black said, "I apologize for trespassing on your property. We wondered if you’d like to go bowling with us tonight."
Beside her husband, Junie smiled idiotically. Vic felt a little sorry for her. She had clearly no idea that she would offend anyone; probably she had not even been conscious of transgression. In her sweater and blue cotton trousers, her hair tied up with a ribbon, she looked very cute and childlike.
"I’m sorry," Margo said. "But you shouldn’t barge into other people’s houses, you know that, Junie."
Junie drew back, flinching and unhinged. "I—" she murmured.
"I said I apologize," Black said. "What do you want, for Christ’s sake?" He seemed equally perturbed.
Vic put out his hand and they shook hands. All was over.
"You stay if you want," Vic said to Ragle, indicating the clubhouse. "We’ll go on inside and see about dinner."
"What do you have in there?" Black said. "I mean if it’s none of my business, tell me. But you’re sure in a serious mood."
Sammy spoke up, "You can’t come in the clubhouse."
"Why not?" Junie said.
"You’re not members," Sammy said.
"Can we join?" Junie said.
"No," Sammy said.
"Why not?"
"You just can’t," Sammy said, glancing at his father.
"That’s right," Vic said. "I’m sorry."
He and Margo and the Blacks walked up the steps, onto the the back porch of the house. "We haven’t had dinner," Margo said, still tense with hostility.
"We didn’t mean go bowling now," Junie protested. "We just wanted to catch you before you made plans. Look, kids, if you haven’t started dinner, why don’t you come over and eat with us? We’ve got a leg of lamb, and there’s plenty of frozen peas and Bill picked up a quart of ice cream on the way home from work." She appealed to Margo with tremulous urgency. "What say?"
"Thanks," Margo said, "but maybe some other time."
Bill Black did not seem to have quite calmed down: he kept aloof from them, dignified and somewhat cool. "You know you’re always welcome in our house," he said. He led his wife in the direction of the front door. "If you feel like going bowling with us, drop over about eight. If not—" He shrugged. "Well, no harm done."
"We’ll see you," Junie called, as Bill led her out of the house. "I hope you’ll come." She smiled yearningly at them, and then the door shut after them.
"What a pill," Margo said. Opening the hot-water tap she ran water into a kettle.
Vic said, "A whole psychological technique could be erected on how people act when they’re startled, before they have time to think."
As she fixed dinner, Margo said, "Bill Black just seems rational. He put up his hands until he saw it was only a toy gun and then he put them down again."
Vic said, "What are the chances of his wandering over at that particular moment?"
"One of them is always over here. You know how they are."
"True," he said.
In the locked clubhouse, Ragle Gumm sat with the earphones on, monitoring a strong signal and making occasional notes. Over the years, in his contest work he had learned excellent systems of quick notation, all his own; as he listened he not only made a permanent record of what he heard but he also jotted down comments and the ideas and reactions of his own. His ballpoint pen—one that Bill Black had given him—flew.
Watching him, Sammy said, "You sure write fast, Uncle Ragle. Can you read it when you get finished?"
"Yes," he said.
The signal, beyond a doubt, emanated from the nearby landing field. He had got so he recognized the voice of the operator. What he wanted to find out was the nature of the traffic coming into and leaving the field. Where did they go? They shot overhead at terrific speed. How fast? Why did nobody in town know about the flights? Was it a secret military installation, some new experimental ships that the public was ignorant of? Reconnaissance missiles ... tracking devices ...
Sammy said, "I’ll bet you helped crack the Japanese code during World War Two."
Hearing the boy say that, Ragle once again had a sudden and complete sensation of futility. Shut up in a child’s clubhouse, an earphone pressed to his head, listening for hours to a crystal set built by a grammar-school child ... listening to ham operators and traffic instructions like a school child himself.
I must be crazy, he said to himself.
I’m the man who’s supposed to have fought in a war. I’m forty-six years old, supposedly an adult.
Yes, he thought. And I’m a man who lies around the house scrounging a living by filling out Where Will the Little Green Man Be Next? Puzzles in a newspaper contest. While other adults have jobs, wives, homes of their own.
I’m a retarded—psychotic. Hallucinations. Yes, he thought. Insane. Infantile and lunatic. What am I doing, sitting here? Daydreams, at best. Fantasies about rocket ships shooting by overhead, armies and conspiracies. Paranoia.
A paranoiac psychosis. Imagining that I’m the center of a vast effort by millions of men and women, involving billions of dollars and infinite work ... a universe revolving around me. Every molecule acting with me in mind. An outward radiation of importance ... to the stars. Ragle Gumm the object of the whole cosmic process, from the inception to final entropy. All matter and spirit, in order to wheel about me.
Sammy said, "Uncle Ragle, do you think you can crack their code, like the Japanese code?"
Rousing himself he said, "There’s no code. They’re just talking like anybody. It’s some man sitting in a control tower watching military aircraft land." He turned toward the boy, who was watching him with fixed intensity. "Some fellow in his thirties who shoots pool once a week and enjoys TV. Like we do."
"One of the enemy," Sammy said.
With anger, Ragle said, "Forget that kind of talk. Why do you say that? It’s all in your mind." My fault, he realized. I put it there.
In his earphones the voice said, "... all right, LF-3488. I have it down in corrected form. You can go ahead. Yes, you should be practically overhead."
The clubhouse shook.
"There one goes," Sammy said excitedly.
The voice continued, "... entirely clear. No, it’s fine. You’re passing over him now."
Him, Ragle thought.
"... down there," the voice said. "Yes, you’re looking down at Ragle Gumm himself. Okay, we have you. Let go."
The vibrations subsided.
"It’s gone," Sammy said. "Maybe it landed."
Setting down the earphones, Ragle Gumm got to his feet. "You listen for a while," he said.
"Where are you going?" Sammy asked.
"For a walk," Ragle said. He unlocked the door of the club-house and stepped outside, into the fresh, brisk, evening air.
The kitchen light of the house ... his sister and brother-in-law in the kitchen. Fixing dinner.
I’m leaving, Ragle said to himself. I’m getting out of here. I meant to before. Now I can’t wait.
Walking carefully down the path around the side of the house, he reached the front porch; he entered the house and got into his room without either Vic or Margo hearing him. There, he gathered up all the money he could find in his assorted dresser drawers, clothes, unopened envelopes, change from a jar. Putting on a coat he left the house by the front door and walked rapidly off down the sidewalk.
A block or so away, a cab approached. He waved his arms and the cab stopped.
"Take me to the Greyhound bus station," he told the driver.
"Yes, Mr. Gumm," the driver said.
"You recognize me?" Here it was again, the projection of the paranoiac infantile personality: the infinite ego. Everyone aware of me, thinking about me.
"Sure," the driver said, as he started up his cab. "You’re that contest winner. I saw your picture in the paper and I remarked, Why, that guy lives right here
in town. Maybe one day I’ll pick him up in my cab."
So it was legitimate, Ragle thought. The odd blurring of reality and his insanity. Genuine fame, plus the fantasy fame.
When cab drivers recognize me, he decided, it’s probably not in my mind. But when the heavens open and God speaks to me by name ... that’s when the psychosis takes over.
It would be hard to distinguish.
The cab moved along the dark streets, past houses and stores. At last, in the downtown business section, it drew up before a five-story building and stopped at the curb.
"Here you are, Mr. Gumm," the driver said, starting to leap out to open the door.
Reaching into his coat for his wallet, Ragle stepped from the cab. He glanced up at the building as the driver reached for the bill.
In the street light the building was familiar. Even at night he recognized it.
It was the Gazette building.
Getting back into the cab he said, "I want to go to the Greyhound bus station."
"What?" the driver said, thunderstruck. "Is that what you told me? I’ll be darned—of course it was." He jumped back in and started up the engine. "Sure, I remember. But we got to talking about that contest of yours, and I got to thinking about the newspaper." As he drove he swung his head around, grinning back at Ragle. "I’ve got you so tied in with the Gazette in my mind—what a sap I am."
"It’s okay," Ragle said.
They drove on and on. Eventually he lost track of the streets.
He had no idea where they were; the nocturnal shapes of closed-up factories lay off to the right, and what appeared to be railroad tracks. Several times the cab bucked and floundered as it passed over tracks. He saw vacant lots ... an industrial district, with no lights showing.
I wonder, Ragle thought. What would the cab driver say if I asked him to drive me out of town?
Leaning forward he tapped the driver on the shoulder. "Hey," he said.
"Yes, Mr. Gumm," the driver said.
"What about driving me out of town? Let’s forget the bus."
"I’m sorry, sir," the driver said. "I can’t get out on the road between towns. There’s a rule against it. We’re city carriers; we can’t compete with the bus line. It’s an ordinance."
"You ought to be able to make a few extra bucks on the side. Forty-mile trip with your meter running—I’ll bet you’ve done it, ordinance or no ordinance."
"No, I never done that," the driver said. "Some other drivers maybe, but not me. I don’t want to lose my permit. If the highway patrol catches a city cab out on the highway, they haul it right down, and if it’s got a fare in it, bam, there goes the driver’s permit. A fifty-buck permit. And his livelihood."
To himself, Ragle thought, Are they out to keep me from leaving the town? Is this a plot on their part?
My lunacy again, he thought.
Or is it?
How can I tell? What proof do I have?
A blue neon glow hung in the center of a limitless flat field. The cab approached it and stopped at a curb. "Here we are," the driver said. "This is the bus station."
Opening the door, Ragle got out onto the sidewalk. The sign did not read Greyhound; it read NONPAREIL COACH LINES.
"Hey," he said, jolted. "I said Greyhound."
"This is Greyhound," the driver said. "The same as. It’s the bus line. There isn’t any Greyhound here. The state only allows one bus line to be franchised for a town this size. Nonpareil got in here years ago, before Greyhound. Greyhound tried to buy them out, but they wouldn’t sell. Then Greyhound tried—"
"Okay," Ragle said. He paid the fare, tipped the driver, and walked across the sidewalk to the square brick building, the only building for miles around. On each side of it weeds grew. Weeds and broken bottles ... litter of paper. Deserted region, he thought. At the edge of town. Far off he could see the sign of a gas station, and beyond that street lights. Nothing else. The night air made him shiver as he opened the wooden door and stepped into the waiting room.
A great blast of rackety, distorted sound and tired blue air rolled out over him. The waiting room, packed with people, confronted him. The benches had already been taken over by sleeping sailors and despondent, exhausted-looking pregnant women, by old men in overcoats, salesmen with their sample cases, children dressed up and fretting and squirming. A long line stood between him and the ticket window. He could see, without going any farther, that the line was not moving.
He closed the door after him and joined the line. Nobody paid any attention to him. This is one time I wish my psychosis would come true, he thought to himself. I’d like to have all this revolve around me, at least to the extent of making the ticket window available to me.
How often, he wondered, does Nonpareil Lines run its buses?
He lit a cigarette and tried to make himself comfortable. By leaning against the wall he could take some weight off his legs. But it did not help much. How long will I be tied up here? he asked himself.
A half hour later he had moved forward only a few inches. And no one had left the window. Craning his neck, he tried to see the clerk behind the window. He could not. A wide, elderly woman in a black coat held the first place in line; her back was to him and he assumed that she was involved in buying her ticket. But she did not finish. The transaction did not end. Behind her a thin middle-aged man in a double-breasted suit gnawed on a toothpick and looked bored. After him a young couple murmured together, intent on their own conversation. And after that the line merged into itself, and he could make out nothing but the back of the man ahead of him.
After forty-five minutes he still stood in the same spot. Can a lunatic go out of his mind? he wondered. What does it take to get a ticket on the Nonpareil Lines? Will I be here forever?
A growing fright began to settle over him. Maybe he would stand in this line until he died. Unchanging reality ... the same man ahead of him, the same young soldier behind him, the same unhappy, empty-eyed woman seated on the bench across from him.
Behind him, the young soldier stirred fitfully, bumped against him and muttered, "Sorry, buddy."
He grunted back.
The soldier locked his hands together and cracked his knuckles. He licked his lips and then he said to Ragle, "Hey, buddy, can I ask you a favor? Will you hold my place in line?" Before Ragle could answer, the soldier turned to the woman standing behind him. "Lady, I got to go make sure my buddy’s okay; can I get back in line here without losing my place?"
The woman nodded.
"Thanks," the soldier said, and pushed a passage through the people, over to the corner of the waiting room.
In the corner another soldier sat with his legs apart, his face resting on his knee, his arms hanging down. His compatriot dropped down next to him, shook him, and began talking urgently to him. The bent-over soldier raised his head, and Ragle saw the bleary eyes and twisted, slack mouth of the drunk.
Poor guy, he thought to himself. Out on a toot. During his own days in the service he had several times-wound up in a dismal bus station with a hangover, trying to get back to the base.
The soldier sprinted back to his place in line. Agitated, he plucked at his lip, glanced up at Ragle and said, "This here line; it isn’t moving one bit. I think I must have been standing here since five this afternoon." He had a smooth young face, tormented now by anxiety. "I have to get back to my base," he said. "Phil and I have to be in by eight o’clock or we’re AWOL."
To Ragle, he appeared to be eighteen or nineteen. Blond, somewhat thin. Clearly, he of the two of them did the problem-solving.
"Too bad," Ragle said. "How far’s your base?"
"It’s the airfield up the highway," the soldier said. "The missile base, actually. Used to be an airfield."
Ragle thought, By god. Where those things take off and land. "You’ve been hitting the bars down here?" he said, in as conversational a voice as he could manage.
The soldier said, "Hell no, not in this jerkwater dump." His disgust was enormous. "No, we com
e all the way in from the Coast; we had a week furlough. Driving."
"Driving," Ragle repeated. "Well, why are you in here?"
The young soldier said, "Phil’s the driver; I can’t drive. And he hasn’t sobered up. It’s just a crummy old jalopy. We dumped it. We can’t wait around for him to sober up. Anyhow, it needs a new tire. It’s back along the road with a flat. It’s only worth about fifty bucks; it’s a ’ 36 Dodge."
"If you had somebody who could drive," Ragle said, "Would you go on by car?" I can drive, he was thinking.
The soldier, staring at him, said, "What about the tire?"
"I’ll chip in on it," he said. Taking hold of the soldier by the arm he led him out of the line and across the waiting room to his hunched-over buddy. "Maybe he better stay here until we get the car going," he said. The soldier, Phil, didn’t look as if he could walk very far or very well. He appeared to understand only vaguely where he was.
To him, the soldier said, "Hey, Phil, this guy’s going to drive. Give me the keys."
"Is that you, Wade?" Phil groaned from his coma.
Wade crouched down and rooted in his buddy’s pockets. "Here," he said, finding the keys and handing them to Ragle. "Listen," he said to Phil. "You stay here. We’re going to walk back to the car and get it running; we’ll drive by and pick you up. Okay? You got that?"
Phil nodded.
"Let’s go," Wade said to Ragle. As they pushed open the door and stepped out of the waiting room, onto the dark, cold street, Wade said, "I sure hope the son of a bitch don’t get into a panic and run out of there; we’d never find him."
How dark everything was. Ragle could barely see the cracked, weed-ridden pavement under his shoes as he and Wade started off.
"Isn’t this to hell and gone?" Wade said. "They always stick these bus stations in the slums if it’s a big enough town to have slums, and if it don’t, then it’s out to hell and gone like this." He strode along, crunching the miscellaneous debris that neither of them could see. "Sure dark," he said. "What have they got, a street light every two miles?"