The Jack Finney Reader

by Jack Finney

  Turning on his stool, Tim put away the comb and looked at Eve intently, anxiously. I don't suppose I could interest you in a cup of hot coffee?

  She looked at him wonderingly. No.

  Tim sighed and took a sip of his drink. Then he smiled. Leaning toward Eve, he placed his cigarette on the rim of the ash tray, beside hers. My cigarette loves your cigarette, he said softly.

  Eve smiled. Okay, she said, that does it; come on over. But first, she added quickly, as Tim started to rise, take those ridiculous glasses off.

  Tim took off the glasses and sat down beside Eve, moving his drink. I'm a pretty smooth customer, I guess. Picked you up — he glanced at his watch — in just four minutes flat.

  She smiled. What've you been doing with yourself, besides buying new toys?

  Tim shrugged. Nothing much; just wandering around.

  I found a dress; a very simple little old sky-blue poplin with a jacket and lace collar and cuffs.

  Fine.

  For a moment they were silent, then Eve said, What else did you do?

  Oh … I ate some popcorn. He smiled. And fed some of it to a pigeon. Had a drink. Bought these tricks. And walked around town pretending I was single again.

  Eve's eyes widened for an instant, then she said quietly, Sounds like fun.

  He swirled the drink in his glass, staring at it, then looked up at Eve again. No, be said, it wasn't; it was no fun at all.

  She waited.

  It was about as empty an afternoon as I ever want to spend. He looked at Eve for a moment, then continued. You want to know something? When we were talking today about how it was to be single, there's something I forgot all about. But toward the end of the afternoon I remembered, and all the way over here just now, I thought about it. I remembered a bus ride I took once, on a Sunday afternoon, by myself. I rode clear up to the Cloisters and back down to Washington Square just for something to do. And it was a miserable afternoon. It seemed to me that everyone in New York but me had friends or a girl to be with. He looked at Eve for a moment, then said, That was a part of being single, too. Why, I spent evenings, I don't know how many, wandering around the streets alone, or sitting in a bar or movie wishing I were somewhere else, and I don't see how I could have forgotten it.

  Oh — he shrugged — I met people in New York after I'd been here a while; I made friends and a lot of them, but even then I was lonely a lot of the time. I'm not kidding myself; I had fun, too, and there was a special exciting kind of feeling about those days that you never quite have again. But right along with it, there was strain and doubt and worry, too; people forget that.

  He shook his head, remembering. You had to be making an impression all the time, or you thought you did, anyway. Always trying to make a place for yourself that you didn't yet have. And always with the feeling that everything was temporary, that you were really waiting for your real life to begin. Which you were. He grinned at Eve. When I finally met you and got to know you, there was nothing I wanted more than to be married to you, and that's exactly the way I still feel. He reached out to Eve's hand lying on the bar and put his hand over hers. Good to see you again, old lady.

  Eve turned her forearm so that her palm met his. It's good to see you, she said, and now I'll tell you something. Remember Georgie? I half kidded myself that I liked him pretty well, and even today at lunch that's the way I remembered it. But this afternoon, standing at a counter waiting for a salesgirl, not even thinking about him or what we'd been talking about, the way it really was came drifting into my mind. You know what Georgie really was? And several others, too? She looked at Tim for a moment. They were date-insurance.

  Tim frowned, puzzled.

  Georgie meant a sure Saturday-night date, and maybe another during the week, and that can be important, really desperately important. It's hard on a girl to sit home too much, and at times it can happen to the best of them. Eve shook her head. Don't tell me about evenings alone. Or worry and doubt and strain, I wouldn't go back, not for a moment. Not even to the times after we met. She smiled and squeezed Tim's hand. I like it here fine.

  Suddenly, happily, Tim grinned at her. So do I, he said, and his eyes began to move over her face, her hairline, her lips and eyes. For a moment he sat staring at Eve, then he reached into his pocket, brought out the glasses and false nose again, and put, them on. Look, he said, I know this is sudden, but — let's just skip the preliminaries. How about spending the weekend with me? In my luxurious apartment?

  The bartender, who had come back, coughed peremptorily and fixed Tim with a theatrical look of disapproval. Tim and Eve paid no attention to him.

  Eve squeezed Tim's hand again; then, raising her brows, her voice doubtful, she said, Well-l, Mister …?

  Ryan, Timberlake Ryan. Call me Tim.

  Well, Tim — I don't know. Do you really think I should?

  Sure. I've got a swell apartment; the drapes pick up the green in the davenport. What's more — he pushed his glass up against hers — my drink loves your drink.

  I'll go, said Eve.

  Tim grinned. Marvelous, he said. Then his smile faded, and he took off the glasses and nose and sat looking wonderingly at Eve. Marvelous, he repeated, and his face and voice were completely serious.

  For a moment Eve looked at him, then she leaned close and whispered, You know, I go for you; in a really big way, and Tim winked and she blushed. Then she pushed their two glasses aside, and picked up her purse. Well, she said, let's go.

  Now? This very moment?

  She grinned. Sure.

  Tim scooped up his change and cigarettes, and turned, helping Eve as she slid from the stool. Then they walked, Eve's arm under his, to the door, and as Tim pushed it open for Eve, he turned and waved to the bartender, who stood watching them wonderingly.

  On the sidewalk, Eve turned east, but Tim reached out, holding her arm, and he beckoned at a hackstand down the street. We're taking a cab, he said. Eve smiled. Oh, you kid! she said.

  Collier's, September 30, 1950, 126(14):16-17, 52, 54, 56

  The Third Level

  The presidents of the New York Central and the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroads will swear on a stack of timetables that there are only two. But I say there are three, because I've been on the third level at Grand Central Station. Yes, I've taken the obvious step: I talked to a psychiatrist friend of mine, among others. I told him about the third level at Grand Central Station, and he said it was a waking-dream wish fulfillment. He said I was unhappy. That made my wife kind of mad, but he explained that he meant the modern world is full of insecurity, fear, war, worry and all the rest of it, and that I just want to escape. Well, hell, who doesn't? Everybody I know wants to escape, but they don't wander down into any third level at Grand Central Station.

  But that's the reason, he said, and my friends all agreed. Everything points to it, they claimed. My stamp collecting, for example; that's a temporary refuge from reality. Well, maybe, but my grandfather didn't need any refuge from reality; things were pretty nice and peaceful in his day, from all I hear, and he started my collection. It's a nice collection, too, blocks of four of practically every U.S. issue, first-day covers, and so on. President Roosevelt collected stamps, too, you know.

  Anyway, here's what happened at Grand Central. One night last summer I worked late at the office. I was in a hurry to get uptown to my apartment so I decided to take the subway from, Grand Central because it's faster than the bus.

  Now, I don't know why this should have happened to me. I'm just an ordinary guy named Charley, thirty-one years old, and I was wearing a tan gabardine suit and a straw hat with a fancy band; I passed a dozen men who looked just like me. And I wasn't trying to escape from anything; I just wanted to get home to Louisa, my wife.

  I turned into Grand Central from Vanderbilt Avenue, and went down the steps to the first level, where you take trains like the Twentieth Century. Then I walked down another flight to the second level, where the suburban trains leave from, ducked into an a
rched doorway heading for the subway — and got lost. That's easy to do. I've been in and out of Grand Central hundreds of times, but I'm always bumping into new doorways and stairs and corridors. Once I got into a tunnel about a mile long and came out in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel. Another time I came up in an office building on Forty-sixth Street, three blocks away.

  Sometimes I think Grand Central is growing like a tree, pushing out new corridors and staircases like roots. There's probably a long tunnel that nobody knows about feeling its way under the city right now, on its way to Times Square, and maybe another to Central Park. And maybe — because for so many people through the years Grand Central has been an exit, a way of escape — maybe that's how the tunnel I got into … But I never told my psychiatrist friend about that idea.

  The corridor I was in began angling left and slanting downward and I thought that was wrong, but I kept on walking. All I could hear was the empty sound of my own footsteps and I didn't pass a soul. Then I heard that sort of hollow roar ahead that means open space and people talking. The tunnel turned sharp left; I went down a short flight of stairs and came out on the third level at Grand Central Station. For just a moment I thought I was back on the second level, but I saw the room was smaller, there were fewer ticket windows and train gates, and the information booth in the center was wood and old-looking. And the man in the booth wore a green eyeshade and long black sleeve protectors. The lights were dim and sort of flickering. Then I saw why; they were open-flame gaslights.

  There were brass spittoons on the floor, and across the station a glint of light caught my eye; a man was pulling a gold watch from his vest pocket. He snapped open the cover, glanced at his watch, and frowned. He wore a derby hat, a black four-buttoned suit with tiny lapels, and he had a big, black, handle-bar mustache. Then I looked around and saw that everyone in the station was dressed like eighteen-ninety-something; I never saw so many beards, sideburns and fancy mustaches in my life. A woman walked in through the train gate; she wore a dress with, leg-of-mutton sleeves and skirts to the top of her high-buttoned shoes. Back of her, out on the tracks, I caught a glimpse of a locomotive, a very small Currier & Ives locomotive with a funnel-shaped stack. And then I knew.

  To make sure, I walked over to a newsboy and glanced at the stack of papers at his feet. It was the World; and the World hasn't been published for years. The lead story said something about President Cleveland. I've found that front page since, in the Public Library files, and it was printed June 11, 1894.

  I turned toward the ticket windows knowing that here — on the third level at Grand Central — I could buy tickets that would take Louisa and me anywhere in the United States we wanted to go. In the year 1894. And I wanted two tickets to Galesburg, Illinois.

  Have you ever been there? It's a wonderful town still, with big old frame houses, huge lawns and tremendous trees whose branches meet overhead and roof the streets. And in 1894, summer evenings were twice as long, and people sat out on their lawns, the men smoking cigars and talking quietly, the women waving palm-leaf fans, with the fireflies all around, in a peaceful world. To be back there with the First World War still twenty years off, and World War II over forty years in the future … I wanted two tickets for that.

  The clerk figured the fare — he glanced at my fancy hatband, but he figured the fare — and I had enough for two coach tickets, one way. But when I counted out the money and looked up, the clerk was staring at me. He nodded at the bills. That ain't money, mister, he said, and if you're trying to skin me you won't get very far, and he glanced at the cash drawer beside him. Of course the money in his drawer was old-style bills, half again as big as the money we use nowadays, and different-looking. I turned away and got out fast. There's nothing nice about jail, even in 1894.

  And that was that. I left the same way I came, I suppose. Next day, during lunch hour, I drew three hundred dollars out of the bank, nearly all we had, and bought old-style currency (that really worried my psychiatrist friend). You can buy old money at almost any coin dealer's, but you have to pay a premium. My three hundred dollars bought less than two hundred in old-style bills, but I didn't care; eggs were thirteen cents a dozen in 1894.

  But I've never again found the corridor that leads to the third level at Grand Central Station, although I've tried often enough.

  Louisa was pretty worried when I told her all this, and didn't want me to look for the third level any more, and after a while I stopped; I went back to my stamps. But now we're both looking, every week end, because now we have proof that the third level is still there. My friend Sam Weiner disappeared! Nobody knew where, but I sort of suspected because Sam's a city boy, and I used to tell him about Galesburg — I went to school there — and he always said he liked the sound of the place. And that's where he is, all right. In 1894.

  Because one night, fussing with my stamp collection, I found — well, do you know what a first-day cover is? When a new stamp is issued, stamp collectors buy some and use them to mail envelopes to themselves on the very first day of sale; and the postmark proves the date. The envelope is called a first-day cover. They're never opened; you just put blank paper in the envelope.

  That night, among my oldest first-day covers, I found one that shouldn't have been there. But there it was. It was there because someone had mailed it to my grandfather at his home in Galesburg; that's what the address on the envelope said. And it had been there since July 18, 1894 — the postmark showed that — yet I didn't remember it at all. The stamp was a six-cent, dull brown, with a picture of President Garfield. Naturally, when the envelope came to Granddad in the mail, it went right into his collection and stayed there — till I took it out and opened it.

  The paper inside wasn't blank. It read:

  941 Willard Street

  Galesburg, Illinois

  July 18, 1894

  Charley:

  I got to wishing that you were right. Then I got to believing you were right. And, Charley, it's true; I found the third level! I've been here two weeks, and right now, down the street at the Dalys', someone is playing a piano, and they're all out on the front Porch singing, “Seeing Nellie home.” And I'm invited over for lemonade. Come on back, Charley and Louisa. Keep looking till you find the third level! It's worth it, believe me!

  The note was signed Sam.

  At the stamp and coin store I go to, I found out that Sam bought eight hundred dollars' worth of old-style currency. That ought to set him up in a nice little hay, feed and grain business; he always said that's what he really wished he could do, and he certainly can't go back to his old business. Not in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1894. His old business? Why, Sam was my psychiatrist.

  Collier's, October 7, 1950, 126(15):36

  Such Interesting Neighbors

  I can't honestly say I knew from the start that there was something queer about the Hellenbeks. I did notice some strange things right away, and wondered about them, but I shrugged them off. They were nice people, I liked them, and everyone has a few odd little tricks.

  We were watching from our sun-parlor windows the day they arrived; not snooping or prying, you understand, but naturally we were curious. Nell and I are pretty sociable and we were hoping a couple around our own ages would move into the new house next door.

  I was just finishing breakfast — it was a Saturday and I wasn't working — and Nell was running the vacuum cleaner over the sun-parlor rug. I heard the vacuum shut off, and Nell called out, Here they are, Al! and I ran in and we got our first look at the Hellenbeks.

  He was helping her from a cab, and I got a good look at him and his wife. They seemed to be just about our ages, the man maybe thirty-two or so and his wife in her middle twenties. She was rather pretty, and he had a nice, agreeable kind of face.

  Newlyweds? Nell said, a little excited.

  Why?

  Their clothes are all brand-new. Even the shoes. And so's the bag.

  Yeah, maybe you're right. I watched for a second or so, then said, Foreigner
s, too, I think, showing Nell I was pretty observant myself.

  Why do you think so?

  He's having trouble with the local currency. He was, too. He couldn't seem to pick out the right change, and finally he held out his hand and let the driver find the right coins.

  But we were wrong on both counts. They'd been married three years, we found out later, had both been born in the States, and had lived here nearly all their lives.

  Furniture deliveries began arriving next door within half an hour; everything new, all bought from local merchants. We live in San Rafael, California, in a neighborhood of small houses. Mostly young people live here, and it's a friendly, informal place. So after a while I got into an old pair of flannels and sneakers and wandered over to get acquainted and lend a hand if I could, and I cut across the two lawns. As I came up to their house, I heard them talking in the living room. Here's a picture of Truman, he said, and I heard a newspaper rattle.

  Truman, she said, kind of thoughtfully. Let's see now; doesn't Roosevelt come next?

  No. Truman comes after Roosevelt.

  I think you're wrong, dear, she said. It's Truman, then Roosevelt, then —

  When my feet hit their front steps, the talk stopped. At the door I knocked and glanced in; they were sitting on the living-room floor, and Ted Hellenbek was just scrambling to his feet. They'd been unpacking a carton of dishes and there was a bunch of wadded-up old newspapers lying around, and I guess they'd been looking at those. Ted came to the door. He'd changed to a T-shirt, slacks and moccasins, all brand-new.

  I'm Al Lewis from next door, I said. Thought maybe I could give you a hand.

  Glad to know you. He pushed the door open, then stuck out his hand. I'm Ted Hellenbek, and he grinned in a nice friendly way. His wife got up from the floor, and Ted introduced us. Her name was Ann.