Rock Island Line

by David Rhodes

  “I’m fine.” He laughed. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He laughed again. “What are you doing now? You’re not busy, are you?”

  “No. I was just watching television.”

  “So you’re just sitting there now, huh?”

  “No, as a matter of fact, I’m standing. Why?”

  “I was just trying to picture you there. It seems so unbelievable that I’m talking to you.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, it just seems funny. I mean I guess I think you’re really great.”

  “I’m glad,” she said.

  “Are you?”

  “Of course I am.”

  Pause.

  “You’re just saying that, huh? Don’t you have a chair there?”

  “Well, yes,” she laughed. “Why, do you want me to sit down?”

  “Not if you don’t want to.”

  “What are you doing? Are you sitting down?”

  “No. Even if I had a chair I couldn’t. The cord’s not long enough. It’s a steel one. I’m at a pay phone.”

  “A pay phone! You mean you’re out on a corner somewhere?”

  “No. Right outside my room.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “On Sampson Street.”

  “Is it a nice house?”

  “Sure. I guess so. Do you think we could sometime get together? . . . I mean, go out or something?”

  “Well, I suppose. What do you have in mind?”

  “Well, I suppose you’ve something to do tomorrow.”

  “When, in the afternoon?”

  “Or morning. The morning’s fine too.”

  “Say, really, what’s it like over there? Are you really at a phone booth?”

  “No, actually it’s on the wall. But, yes, it’s right here. I know you can’t ever be sure, ‘cause you can’t see it—but here it is, black and squarish with a coin-return empty.”

  “Say, did you call before today?”

  Pause.

  “No.”

  “You have to admit it if you did.”

  “Why?”

  “Just because.”

  “What time of day?”

  “Any time. Did you call any time before?”

  “No.”

  “That’s lucky. My roommate thought there was an obscene phoner. She picked up the phone when it rang and shouted, ‘Who is this? The police’ll get you’ at whoever it was. They hung up . . . and who wouldn’t?”

  “Now that you mention it, I guess I do remember something about that. Is she kind of short?”

  “Well, not really. She’s kind of heavy, though.”

  “Yes, I do remember now. I guess I did call at that. Slipped my mind. . . . So how about Sunday?”

  “You never decided morning or afternoon.”

  “Either one.”

  “Well, what are we going to do?”

  “Anything you like.”

  “Oh, you could just make me shout, as Mother always says.”

  “All right—I mean don’t shout—how about ten a.m.?”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “One decision’s enough for now. Where do you live?”

  “In the Rittenhouse Apartments. Number fifty-seven.”

  “I’ll be there. . . . Should I just ring for you . . . or call you before I come?”

  “Just come over and ring the bell. I’ll come down.”

  Pause.

  “Well, OK. . . . See you then.”

  “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye,” he said and tried to climb into the receiver after her voice in that second before she hung up. Then the hissing stillness. He let the cradle down with his finger and fitted the round earpiece into it, disengaging himself from it as though it were a delicate package-bomb. He backed away and stood in the doorway. Then such an excitement started when he turned and looked into his room he could hardly contain himself. For an instant it was as if he could see through things, the bed, the bathroom door and the refrigerator. Butch jumped up on the table to check for butter or butter wrappers, found nothing and sat with serene indifference.

  “Say there, you cat,” sang out July, coming into his room and shutting the door behind him. “Watch out there. You just don’t know whose table you’re walking on.” Butch looked at him in a way that might say, “Lower your voice, please,” and shut his eyes, ending July’s first surge of excitement as quickly as it had begun.

  He became filled with anxiety and couldn’t eat anything. Each hour brought more agitation. During the night the phone rang and he dashed across the room and opened the door before he even realized it, only to come face to face with a young man from upstairs, nearly the same distance from the phone. Both stopped and looked at each other, wondering. July thought he could sense some curiosity over him, the guy who never came out of his room. The telephone rang its loud, clattering ring and the blond youth in his crisp, white shirt came briskly forward, taking control of the situation, and answered it.

  “Hello.” Pause. “Oh hi, sure. Say, what’s going on over there?”

  “I thought it might be for me,” mumbled July, shutting the door.

  No, it couldn’t be for me. She doesn’t know the number, or where I live. But I told her a little about the room. I said . . . and he began another long, detailed reconstruction of everything that’d been said two hours earlier. But, as before, he wasn’t completely satisfied with having remembered it all.

  The clock on the windowsill said it was three thirty. Then four. It read five before it even occurred to him that he should try to get some sleep, and he heard the early-morning bells from the church without ever having lost consciousness or strayed from his previous line of thinking.

  Footsteps began filling the floors and walls. Running in the water pipes. Toilets flushing. Occasional traffic noise. Doors slamming. The first eight layers of sky were still black, but behind them and especially along the horizon of roofs was some blue.

  Inside Mal’s apartment building was a panel of buzzers, and without hesitating for even a fraction of a second he pushed the one above ROURKE—PICKNEY 57 and waited. In less time than it would take to fall five flights of stairs, the inside door swung open and there stood Mal wearing a bright red-and-white outfit, the collar and sleeves looking soft and immaculately clean. She smiled and her eyes flashed with a cool, brilliant blue. The warmth in her expression brought July his second thrill, and though he was twenty-six hours without sleep, he had never been more awake or more deeply involved with the present.

  “You sure look good,” he said.

  “Do you like it?” she sang out, twirling around to reveal every inch of her, with movements so light and unaffected that July nearly blushed. “My mother bought it for me. I’ve never worn it before. Actually I felt a little silly putting it on—it seemed so, well, loud—but then why not? I reasoned. A Sunday morning, after all. I don’t think I’ve ever been out on a Sunday morning. Have you?”

  “What?”

  “On a Sunday morning. Say, let’s go. This makes me nervous standing here in the entrance.” They went out onto the sidewalk. A brisk breeze caught the ends of Mal’s hair and she pulled a white scarf from some unseen pocket and tied it around her head in a businesslike flurry. “I mean,” she began again, taking in huge lungfuls of wet-flavored air, “have you ever had a date on Sunday morning before?”

  “No . . . no, I haven’t. It’s the first one for me.”

  “And me too. It seems sort of exciting, doesn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “Being out on Sunday morning.”

  “Yes, it sure does. Say, did you finally decide what we were going to be doing this morning? I guess you know everything’s closed now—unless you want to go down to the drugstore.”

  “I thought you lived over on Sampson Street.”

  “I do.”

  “Then how did you know the drugstore was open?”

  “I used to live around h
ere, before.”

  “Oh, where? This seems so exciting. I don’t know anything about you—just nothing. Why, for all I know, you might’ve lived almost anywhere. It seems hardly likely that you could’ve been living around here all these years and I never knew you. I mean, how can it be?”

  “It does seem suspicious.”

  “Where did you say you lived? We can walk by it, that’ll give us something to do.”

  “I don’t remember. Somewhere around here. No, closer to City Hall. It was a long time ago.”

  “Don’t you ever go back?”

  “What for?”

  “See your friends and stuff.”

  “Not too often.”

  “Let’s walk over there.”

  “Why?”

  “I just think it would be fun to see where you used to live. Also, it’s a good day for walking and what else are we going to do? Drugstores aren’t my favorite places. And smell the air—doesn’t it seem fresh?”

  “It’s because of the rain.”

  “Well, are we going or not?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Oh, good.” And they began walking slowly toward Spruce Street. Mal stopped to look in windows and inspect everything along the way. Each time she would turn away provided July with another chance to stare at her, and before they reached Broad Street he was feeling like some smart fellow walking on Sunday morning with his girl, living on the edge of his emotions, chattering lightly back and forth, Mal Rourke’s smile bright white and her short bursts of laughter as clean and rapid as running a stick tapping over a row of colored bottles. The churches were letting out, spewing their visitors back onto the street in their best clothes, the lull of the service falling away from them imperceptibly with each step. For a short distance she took hold of his arm as the sidewalk grew crowded, not wishing to be separated, and July (though he realized it was very much unlike himself) was nodding and smiling in recognition of the passing glances he received. They tried to judge from the way people looked what their names might be and what they’d done with most of their lives. At a convenient place July pointed to the top floor of an office building and claimed it was where he used to live.

  “That’s an office,” she said.

  “Now. It didn’t use to be.”

  “Did you live here with your folks?”

  “For a while . . . well, no, I guess I didn’t.”

  They continued walking. July thought Mal was beginning to tire, but he didn’t know what else to do. It seemed sometimes that they had nothing in common, and many of the things she talked about were intoned in such a way that it appeared her whole self was held together with private prejudices and little attitudes about things that she had gained through relationships with other people—relationships that he viewed with hostility. Then they went to a $1.29 steak house.

  “I just make more efficient use of my food,” he said, when he noticed Mal’s eyes watching him pick at his plate. Her appetite seemed enormous and she ate the whole baked potato, salad, steak and milk, and then ate a bowl of ice cream, which, though he had to force it on her, she finished in a matter of seconds. He could tell that the waiter was attracted to her—several times he had caught him looking at her breasts—but he also treated them as being together and his smile was friendly when July would say something. All this, he felt, was lent him by Mal—a generous loan from her abundant personality. She ate with such delicate relish that July was ashamed of his own clumsy use of the fork, which made him more clumsy, and once a slice of meat sprang off his plate and landed on the tablecloth. When they were both able to laugh at it, he wanted to thank her.

  A stiff wind had come up while they were eating, and they went back to Mal’s apartment building. The closer they came, the more July filled with agitation.

  “Come on up and see my apartment.”

  “No, I don’t think I better.”

  “Why not?—my roommate’s there.”

  “I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem quite right. Besides, . . . well, I just don’t want to.” Clearly fixed in his mind was an image, among others, of her roommate making a mockery of him panting on the phone. “But I would like to call you again, do you think that would be all right?”

  “Yes. I’d like that.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “And do you think we could go out again?”

  “Why not? But why not come up now?”

  “No, I’ve got to be going . . . but when should I call?”

  “When? Any time you feel like.”

  “I mean, when are you most likely to be there?”

  “Any time except when I’m working. I work—”

  “I know, from noon till six on Wednesday, eight till four-thirty on Thursday and eight till four thirty on Friday.” He smiled sheepishly. “But I mean when’re you most likely to be there . . . and answer the phone?”

  “Oh,” said Mal, realizing what was on his mind, but with the discretion not to let him know. “Usually in the evening, between seven thirty and eleven.”

  “OK. Well, goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  The door swung shut, leaving him alone on the sidewalk. Then the dark thoughts from the day descended on him and he carried them home in a brown paper bag. Back in his room with Butch, he was so anxious that he returned to a childhood magic he’d devised. He drew a glass of water full to the very top, set it on the table, sat down and said, “Bloodroot,” out loud into it. Then picking it up in both hands, being careful not to spill because that would break the spell, brought it to his mouth and drank it all the way down, drinking the word into himself. This done, he would be safe from any tricks of destiny until he heard someone say that word, letting the evil forces loose. He tried to smile at himself because it was such an immature thing to do, but ended up repeating the whole ritual with the word “Glory,” which was a more normal word, and if the risk was greater, so was the protection.

  “So what was he like?” asked Carol, leaning out from their little kitchen alcove when Mal came in.

  “He’s very nice. But he’s very unique. He’s so quiet.”

  “You mean he doesn’t talk?” Carol asked, coming into the living room.

  “Well, he talks sort of. But I don’t think I know any more about him than I did yesterday. I mean you ask him something about himself and he just kind of doesn’t answer. And he looks so serious much of the time. But, boy, he’s got a nice smile.”

  “What else?”

  “He’s pretty shy. But then at the same time I feel so comfortable with him.”

  “Did he . . . try anything?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nope.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Just nothing. I don’t know anything more about him than I did.”

  The phone rang and Mal answered it.

  “Hello, is Mal there?”

  “Yes. That’s me.”

  “Oh hi,” said July, immediately regaining his natural voice. “I thought that was you, but I couldn’t be sure.”

  “You only left here a few minutes ago.”

  “I know, but I sort of wanted to call. I’m not bothering anything, am I?”

  “No.”

  “See, I was wondering if . . . well, if you had a nice time today.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I am. I thought you could tell that.”

  “Well, I thought so, but when I got to thinking about it I wasn’t so sure. I must seem like such a fool to you.”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry if I do.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “I know it. Say, I’ll call you back later, huh?”

  “You’re acting pretty strange this afternoon. Have you been drinking?”

  “No.” Laugh. Pause. “I’ll call back. Are you going to be home tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good
. . . Say, I don’t suppose you want to go to a movie tonight.”

  “Why didn’t you ask me earlier this afternoon?”

  “I knew you’d probably have something else planned. Never mind. I’ll call back some time when—”

  “No, I don’t have anything planned and I’d love to go to a movie with you.”

  “You would?”

  “You’re going to make me mad.”

  “I’m sorry. Really, I’m sorry. When do you want to go? What movie do you want to see?”

  That night when he’d rung the bell and the door opened moments later, she was wearing a different outfit with a brown coat that came almost to her knees, stockings shining, bright black shoes, and once again the freshness of her spirit nearly knocked him over. She seemed so clean, her clothes, her smell, her hair, teeth, everything about her—the way she treated him and the gay world she lived in—all of it was so exciting and foreign to him that he was almost afraid. It was a world that had never existed for him, but that now was held before him like a carrot before the mule, and each step forward was making more of a fool of him. But sometimes he thought he could trust her and in those times he was the most afraid of all because it was as if the carrot were handed to him as a gift, and his image of himself was one which took nothing from anybody.

  They watched a western, and once, at a suspenseful scene, just where a rattlesnake darted out from the rock, Mal squeezed his forearm in a moment of uncontrollable surprise, and he nearly fainted. At a very well-lit place just before the end she burst into a short little laugh and whispered: “You have on red socks.” July was completely stunned and thought nervously throughout the rest of the movie, What could be so funny, or wrong, with that?

  This time, when they returned to her apartment building, she didn’t ask him up, which relieved him at first but on his walk home he began to wonder about it, and wondered if it was OK to be in a girl’s apartment in the daytime but not at night, or if there was some other reason.

  Five days later. “Hello, is Mal there?”

  “This is she.”

  “This is July Montgomery.”

  “Oh hi. Say, hold on a minute, will you?”

  “Sure.” He heard the clunk of the phone being put down and he stopped breathing as he listened for her folding into the arms of some man standing beside her. Each second was a month.