Rock Island Line

by David Rhodes

  “I would’ve known.”

  “Maybe it happened before—”

  “I would’ve known,” he said, with such abruptness that the whole subject sank and the silence instilled itself again.

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” he said finally.

  “Let’s not talk about it now.”

  “I think I’d like to go for a walk. Do you want to come?”

  “No. I’ll just stay here, if it’s all right. I’d like to do some sketching.”

  “Sure, fine. I’ll bring back a pizza.”

  “And something to drink?”

  “And something to drink.”

  “Do you love me?”

  “Well, yes.” He smiled and was gone.

  Mal was alone. She sat on the bed and listened to the house noises. They were comforting—much more so than the sounds in her own apartment, which always forced her to consider the causes behind them. These noises were nothing more than sounds. They had nothing to do with her. She didn’t live here. To her they were sounds from outer space. No one could expect them to be more to her. The responsibility for them belonged somewhere else. She listened, and escaped from the grip of her unresolved passions. Then she got her pad and began to sketch.

  Forty-five minutes later she felt a slight chill from the window and, not wishing to stop the breeze and close herself off, she got up and went to July’s bureau in search of a sweater. She found the red one in the second drawer from the top, but having a preference for the yellow, she went down one more. Here she not only found the sweater, but, neatly shoved up against a back corner, the chubbiest Bible she’d ever seen, with frayed edges and all the gold lettering chipped away. She took it out and opened it. Immediately a picture sprang up: two people and a child. The man looked a little haggard; his wife was beautiful but dressed old-fashionedly. The boy, she believed, might have been July.

  Mal put on the sweater and carried the book to the bed. A hundred pages farther on was another picture. She plucked it out, held it up close and studied it. At that moment the door opened and July came in, carrying a flat box and two cans of Coke. He looked at her and his face turned gray.

  “Get away from that,” he said, with an anger that cut her to the bone. She quickly set it on the table.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “That’s mine.”

  “Well, I assumed it was.”

  He put the pizza and Cokes down and took up the book, clutching it with both hands. But once he had it safely within his grasp he didn’t know what to do with it; and he didn’t know what to say. “That’s mine,” he repeated.

  “I didn’t know they were personal. Really, I’m sorry. I’ve got things like that too. I just thought it was an old book. I keep mine stuck away inside my jewelry box, underneath the lining. I wouldn’t show them to anybody for anything.”

  July sank down into the chair. For the first time in his life he realized that he might not be the only one who had things that were more than special to him, that were neither in the past nor the present, but the future—things that were always just one step beyond, whose importance could never be judged because they were never finally realized . . . things that he was ashamed of because he felt so deeply about them. The idea that Mal had such things too made the realness of her snap a frame closer. Again, he realized, I’ve made a fool of myself.

  “Do you think that you’d ever show them to me?” he asked.

  “Maybe sometime.”

  He crossed to the window and closed it. “Sometime I’ll show you these.” And he put them back in the drawer. They ate the pizza with great pleasure, July getting all the crusts. Mal took a bus home. Her car was no longer operating.

  It was the very day following this that July made the greatest decision of his life. Wednesdays at work were very slow because of being right in the middle of the week. He anticipated this one with the usual quiet dread. Arriving at the post office, he hung up his coat, punched in and waited for the bell to ring. Then he began sorting. By ten o’clock he was so excited that he could hardly make out the most legible handwriting (and he prided himself on being able to read anything; people from all over the building brought scrawled letters to him). By the noon bell there was no possibility of working on. He went to his supervisor, Mr. Anderson.

  “I’d like to have the afternoon off, Mr. Anderson.”

  “Oh, you would, hmmm? Naturally, I would too. Tell me . . . uh, Jason, what seems to be the trouble?”

  “No trouble. I’d just like the afternoon off. I’m not getting much done.”

  “Some days are slow, some aren’t. Do your best. Nobody asks more than that.”

  “I can’t work any more.”

  “Listen, Jason, you’ve got to be more specific. What’s the matter, prostate trouble? Infection? Weak liver? Ha ha.”

  There was a long period of no talking while July looked at the floor.

  “What I’d really like to do is quit.”

  “Quit for good?”

  “Yes.”

  “Better think it over.”

  “I have.”

  Anderson shrugged his shoulders. “Up to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Nothing to me. We’ll mail your check to you.”

  “Fine.”

  “Goodbye, and thanks.”

  “Nothing to me.”

  He grabbed his coat and walked out of the building, feeling as he stepped outside a hundred pounds lighter. His feet barely touched the steps. The corners of a smile crept up into his cheeks, and as fast as he could walk he set off for Mal’s apartment.

  “July! What are you doing here?”

  “Nothing . . . I expected you not to be here. I thought I’d ruffle through your jewelry box.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past you. Come on in and don’t stand around in the hall. I just got back from school. Why aren’t you at work? Is this some kind of holiday?”

  “No. I quit my job.”

  Mal sat down on the sofa and July sat beside her. She could hear the emotion in his voice and, not knowing what to say, sat quietly until he would find a way to tell her what was obviously burning away inside of him.

  “I was thinking,” he began, but stopped, folded his hands and started again. “I’ve decided to go back home.” Then a pleased smile came to his face.

  “This is very strange. My doorbell rings at one thirty in the afternoon. It’s my beloved July. He’s not at work. He says he’s quit work. Then he says he’s going home after just getting here.”

  “Oh no!” he said, bursting into laughter. “Is that what you thought! Back to my room! Oh no, I’m going back home. Back to Iowa. Back to Sharon Center!”

  “Where?”

  “Forgive me. My head’s swirling. See, I was at work sorting, and all of a sudden I thought, ‘I’ll sort no more’—no, forget that. There’s so much I haven’t told you. But it’s all right now. Everything’ll be all right. It’s so simple. See, we’ll go together, you and me, tonight, as soon as we can get on a train. We can be there in less than twenty hours. We’ll just leave a forwarding address at the post office—General Delivery, Iowa City—and we’ll take off!”

  Mal couldn’t sit still. She got up and walked to the kitchen, turned and came back.

  “To Iowa?”

  “ Yes.”

  “Where’s that? Isn’t that in the Midwest?”

  “ Yes. Hurry! Get your things together. I’ll go down to the post office and call the station. No! We can call from here.”

  “Wait a minute. You expect me to just pick up and go with you? Just jump and follow you off somewhere? You really expect me to do that? This is where I live. This is my home. I’m not going chasing off to somewhere . . . You can’t ask me to do that. You’re testing me. I won’t. I have my own life.”

  July looked as though he’d been struck in the face. “ You must understand. See, I’m not trying to test you. That never occurred to me. I’m going. Today. I’m going.”

  “Be re
asonable, July. This isn’t something that can be decided like that. It takes time. There’s—”

  “But I’m going.” He got up. “More than anything in the world I want you to come with me. But even if you don’t, I’m going. I have to. I don’t belong here. I came here to run away. I have to go back. My parents died in an automobile accident when I was ten. Something important went out of my life then, but I can get it back. I want you to come with me. I want you to be with me when I finally become a whole person.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Mal—”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  “But I thought we—”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Then . . .” A tear came to his eye and he abruptly turned away to the door. “I’ll be going,” he said, and left.

  The first thing he thought when he stepped from the building onto the street was that he’d run back into it, ring her bell, dash up the stairs, into her arms and forget the whole thing. I’ll call down to the post office, tell them it was all a mistake, and tomorrow everything’ll be back the way it was. Everybody’s allowed to have some bad ideas. He looked up the eleven stories to her window, thinking to see her.

  But the window was empty. The truth of his situation revealed itself: he was abandoned. She hadn’t chosen against what he’d planned. She’d chosen against him. It was inevitable. There was nothing of July Montgomery that would ever be anything to another person.

  It was this very apartment building, he realized, that I came to when I first arrived. I was turned away then and I’m turned away now. He began walking toward the bus stop, caught a bus and went back to the roominghouse. Within a few minutes he packed in a shopping bag everything he cared to take with him: one change of clothes, a piece of cheese, his Bible and pictures, a pistol, a diamond on a white gold chain, a ring of keys. With these and a coat flung over his shoulder, his cat Butch and a little less than one week’s wages, he set off for the train station.

  “One way to Iowa City, please.”

  “You don’t plan on taking that cat, do you?”

  “No, why?”

  “Because there’s no pets allowed, that’s why.”

  “He belongs to my brother . . . and my brother’s not going anywhere on the train.”

  “That’ll be thirty-five seventy-four.”

  July paid. “When does it leave?”

  “Four forty-five. You’ll have to make a change in Cleveland and Chicago.”

  “Fine. Thank you.”

  He got a box from the station newsstand, poked three holes in one end with his finger and, when the Reading Railroad train arrived, put Butch in it and carried him aboard. He took a seat by a window at the end of the car so no one would be able to sit across from him, and put his luggage on the accompanying seat: the car wasn’t crowded and there was no reason for anyone to be forced up against a person who wanted to be alone.

  It was a nice car, he noticed, with large, tinted windows, reclining chairs, footrests, head pads and little reading lights. Outside, people walked on the platform and he wondered if he shouldn’t have gone to visit his cement room before leaving. No, he thought. It’s just as well. He peeked into the box and said hello to frowning Butch, promising to bring him out as soon as it got dark (though they’d be through Cleveland by then). At the other end of the car a conductor came in and began punching tickets and attaching them over the seats. The train began to move, picking up speed in its slow, heavy, lurching way. The conductor steadied himself against a passenger’s seat, and July turned back to the window, remembering how when he was little he’d always thought those men were so daring to be standing up when the train was accelerating, with their completely relaxed, almost bored look—tempting fate at every second turn. Then he heard the door bang closed. “Say, miss, please stay in your seat until we’re moving.”

  “I’m sorry,” said a voice and July swallowed an icicle, “but I’m looking for someone,” and as he looked up he saw Mal with two big suitcases and a box, bumping her way down the aisle, her mouth set in a determined, grim manner.

  “Mal!” he cried, and nearly upset Butch in his hiding place. “Over here!”

  With all her luggage, she wedged herself quickly toward him. He put the shopping bag in the rack overhead, then her two suitcases. She fell into the seat beside him.

  “I thought I’d never find you,” she sighed, and blew out a long puff of exhausted air.

  “I don’t doubt it. Are you really coming? I can hardly believe it. It’s too good to be true.”

  “I called your house and they said you weren’t there. So I called the station and hardly had time to get down here. The train was moving when I got on it!”

  “What can I say?” said July.

  When the conductor reached them, they handed their tickets over, and as he punched the small holes he looked at them suspiciously, then went on to the next car. July opened up the box on his lap and showed Mal Butch, his eyes green in the dark.

  “What made you come?” he asked.

  “I guess I’m just a fool for you. But just in case anything ever happens like this again, I brought enough to come back. It’ll be my escape money. I’ve never ridden on a train overnight. This is pretty nice.”

  “I know. It’s the only way to travel without getting a headache.” July could sense that Mal was uneasy—that if the train had still been at the Philadelphia station she might have excused herself to the bathroom and never returned. But the decision was made, the train was moving flat out, stopping for nothing, and even if he himself might have wished differently it would have been of no matter. They talked easily back and forth, then Mal closed her eyes and kept them closed all the way to Cleveland, where they bought sandwiches and changed trains.

  She was afraid. Most of her wished she’d never come. Something ominous hung in the air, a kind of impersonal dread. She tried to displace these feelings by stuffing them into her mind’s image of July so that he would become bigger, larger than her family, her school friends, her ambition to be a great painter, Carol and the apartment. But the more she tried to do this, the more July’s image resisted and stayed small and measly. She didn’t know that much about him, and now they were going to Iowa together. Of course there was some reason to come. She did like him a lot. He was nice to be with most of the time. He had a capacity for understanding her and never playing games. He was good-looking, and a conscientious listener. She was getting tired of school. Her roommate depressed her because her whole life was getting up, going to work, coming home, talking about her friends, and Mal was afraid her own life would become like that. And besides, a true painter would be able to work anywhere, and one whole suitcase was filled with her oils, brushes and sacred art books. She also desired adventure. There was reason for coming.

  So it was back and forth all the way to Cleveland. But then the bad thoughts took the upper hand, and one hour into Ohio, with July talking quietly in the dark to his cat who sat on his lap, Mal decided that at the next stop she’d get off and go back. The decision brought her a great release.

  As she sat there, eyes closed, content with her decision and running over how much money she could get back by exchanging the unused part of her ticket, she noticed July was becoming restless. He changed positions constantly, put Butch back in the box, took him out again, went to the bathroom, came back, went for a drink of water from the water fountain, put Butch back, bought a paper, turned on the light, then turned it off.

  “Say,” he asked when a porter passed by, finding his way in the blue overhead nightlights, “how far is it to Chicago?”

  “About four hours.”

  “How far from there?”

  “Depends on where you’re going, boss.”

  “Iowa City.”

  “This train don’t go to Iowa City. We’re headed for Milwaukee and Minnesota.” He talked in a perfectly intelligible, practiced murmur. Mal continued to keep her eyes closed, sustaining the myth that she was asleep.


  “Well, how far would you guess it was to Iowa City?”

  “From here?”

  “No, from Chicago. I don’t care, either one.”

  “Are you going to Chicago or Iowa City?” asked the porter, and Mal smiled in the dark, recognizing the tone of humor in the man’s voice, knowing that July wouldn’t know he was being teased. He’s so serious, she thought.

  “We’re going to Iowa City.”

  “Oh, then you’ll have to change trains in Chicago.”

  “I know that. I wonder how far it is to Iowa City from there?”

  “You mean you want me to make a guess?—’cause it would have to be a guess . . . this train’s goin’ to Minnesota.”

  “A guess, then. How far?”

  “Five and a half hours.”

  “Five and a half . . . I figured closer to six.”

  “You might be right, boss.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “You betcha,” and he went silently on down the aisle, his white coat a little bluish from the light.

  “So ten hours,” July told his cat, “ten hours.” Then he got up, clambered over Mal and went to the bathroom again, came back, tried to read the paper, put it down and woke Butch up to play with him. The cat jumped down and got into the box. July cupped his hands and looked out the window.

  “It’s a shame,” he murmured, “for it to be so dark.” Mal was astonished. He talked to himself! She’d never known anyone who talked to himself. First sign of insanity, the saying went, but now that she’d finally heard someone she was sure it wasn’t true. July could be a hundred things she could never imagine, but not insane. His problem, she thought, was that he was too sane. There was a solidity to him that could never be shaken. She felt safe with him. She stretched, turned toward him and opened her eyes, thinking there would come a time between then and Chicago when she could tell him that she was going back.

  “Oh hi,” said July. “Have a nice sleep?”

  “Pretty good. Once you get used to the motion and the sound, it relaxes you.”