The Jack Finney Reader

by Jack Finney

  For a minute I just sat there, knowing his plan would flop, and him along with it. Then I just shrugged and said, Yeah, I guessed he was ready. I was astonished; but at the same time I knew why I'd changed my mind. You've known someone like Ted if you ever worked in an office; they're standard equipment, like filing cabinets. He happens to be tall and skinny, though they come in all shapes, a bumptious sort of guy with a hideous, mocking horse laugh. He's a know-it-all, a pincher of stenographers, a credit hog — I've got to watch him all the time to see that I get any recognition for the work our department does — and even when he's patting you on the back, there's a sneer in his eyes.

  Sitting at my desk after he'd left, I was perfectly willing again to give him the business. Then, unaccountably, the image of the ghost at my livingroom windows flashed up in my mind. It made me suddenly furious — I didn't know why — and I knew I wanted that ghost explained and exorcised. Somehow I knew I had to get him out of my apartment and out of my mind.

  Now, the building I live in is no ancient, crumbling castle with a history hopelessly shrouded in the mists of time. It was built in 1939 and is managed by Thomas L. Persons Company, a big realty firm. So I reached for the Manhattan telephone book, looked up their number and called them.

  A girl answered in a brisk, bitter voice, and I explained that I was a rent-paying customer and wanted to know if she could tell me the names of previous tenants of my apartment. From the way she said, Certainly not! you'd think I'd made an indecent proposal. I persisted, spoke to three more people and finally reached a man who grudgingly consented to open the archives and get me what I wanted.

  A woman and her mother — no men in the family — had occupied my apartment from 1940 till 1949, when we moved in. In 1939, and for a few months after, the apartment's first tenants had lived there: a Mr. Harris L. Gruener — pronounced Greener — and his wife. The ghost was Gruener, I insisted to myself, and if it could possibly be done, I was going to prove that it was, and that it had nothing to do with me.

  That night, around 3, I woke up again, took the blanket from the foot of the bed and settled down on the davenport to settle Ted's hash. Deliberately I worked myself into a tough, ruthless frame of mind. Business is business, I said to myself, lying there smoking in the dark. All's fair, et cetera, and Ted Haymes would certainly do it to me, if the situation were reversed.

  The nice thing was that I didn't actually have to do anything. I'd worked for a much smaller candy and cough-sirup company, before McCreedy & Cluett; and they had once tried what was virtually Ted's plan. It had looked good, sounded good — and it had failed completely. We figured out why. Except for the tiny fraction of people who happened to have coughs at the moment we gave out our samples, most of them dropped our little bottles into overcoat pockets, where they stayed for days. Presently they may have reached the shelves of medicine cabinets; and maybe eventually they were used, and even resulted in sales. But the immediate sales results of the plan were zero. And it was dropped, just as fast as we could let go.

  I knew it would happen again. All I had to do was say nothing and look doubtful. When it failed, I'd be the man with the sales instinct who'd been pretty doubtful about the plan from the start, and — not right away, of course, but presently — I'd have Ted's job, and he'd be out. It wasn't surefire, but I had nothing to lose, and I lay there working out the best way of subtly getting my doubts on record with the boss.

  Yet that wasn't all I was doing, and I knew it. It was the dead of night, utterly silent outside and in, and I knew I was also waiting for a ghost, and that I was actually afraid to light another cigarette.

  And then the ghost came strolling in from the hall, his head down on his chest, wearing that mangy old bathrobe. He crossed the room to the windows, and then just stood there again, staring down at the street. For twenty minutes or so, he went through the same performance as he had the night before. I don't mean identically, every movement the same, like a movie you see twice. I had the feeling this was another night for him, and that he was up once again, standing at that window, working over the. same old problem, whatever it was.

  Then he left, just as before, walking around the invisible object that was no longer there, and I knew he was walking through another time.

  I had to do something. I knew I had to prove to myself that this ghost had nothing to do with me, and I walked out to the hall telephone and, with my hands trembling, looked up Gruener in the telephone book. There were several listed, but, as I'd expected, no Harris L. Feeling relieved and a bit silly, now, I tried the Brooklyn directory - and there it was. Harris L. Gruener, it said in cold, black type, with a telephone number and address, and then I was really panicky. For now it seemed certain that Gruener was nothing more than a previous tenant of this apartment, who lived in Brooklyn now, and had no connection with the ghost. And if the ghost wasn't Gruener … I wouldn't let myself think about that now, and I went to bed knowing where I had to go in the morning.

  The house when I finally found it far out in Brooklyn, was a small white cottage; there was nothing unusual about it. A kid's bike and an old ball bat, split and wrapped with tape, were lying on the front porch. I pressed the button, and a musical chime sounded inside; then a woman in a house dress and apron came to the door. She was in her early thirties, I'd say; nice-looking but overworked. Mr. Gruener? I said.

  She shook her head. He's at work now. I'd half expected that and wished I'd telephoned first, but then she added, Or do you mean his father?

  Well, I said, I'm not sure. I want Harris L. Mr. Harris L. Gruener.

  Oh, she answered, he's around in the back yard. She smiled embarrassedly. You mind walking around the side of the house? I'd ask you through, but it's in kind of a mess yet, and —

  Of course not. I smiled understandingly, thanked her, touching my hat, then followed the walk around to the back yard. A moment or so later, fumbling with the latch of the rusted wire gate, I glanced up, and there in a garden lounge chair across the yard, face up to the sun, sat my Mr. Gruener.

  It was a relief and at the same time a cold shock, an utterly frightening thing, and I just stood there, my hand still automatically fumbling with the gate, my mind churning to make sense out of this. I'd seen no ghost, I explained to myself; this man must be insane and had twice broken into my apartment in some unguessable way for some mad, secret reason. Then, as I got the gate open, Gruener opened his eyes, and I knew that I had seen a ghost.

  For there, watching me approach, smiling pleasantly in greeting, was unquestionably the face I'd seen staring down at the street from my apartment window — but now it was a dozen years older. Now it was the face of a man in his seventies, looser, the muscle tone gone, the skin softer. With a courteous gesture of his hand, the old man invited me to take a chair beside him, and I sat down, knowing that what I'd seen in my apartment was this man — as he'd looked a decade before. Across the yard, his back against the board fence, a boy of perhaps twelve sat on the grass, watching us curiously, and for a moment I sat staring at him, trying to figure out what I could do or say. Then I turned to the old man and said, I came because I've seen you before. In my apartment. Then I added my address and apartment number.

  But he only nodded. Used to live there, he agreed politely, and waited for me to go on. There was nothing else to do; I began at the beginning and told him what I'd seen. Gruener listened in silence, staring across the yard. I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

  Well, he said, smiling, when I finished, it's all news to me. Didn't know there was a ghost of my former self wandering around 9M. Don't tell the landlord, or they'll be charging one of us extra rent.

  His voice broke on the last word. I turned to look at him, and his expression had collapsed. His mouth gaped; his eyes stared. Then — I was horrified — two tears squeezed out from the corners of his eyes, and he covered his face with his hands. No, no, no, he moaned in a whisper, oh, let me alone.

  The old man sat there, his elbows on his knees, his
face buried in his hands, breathing slowly and deeply, getting hold of himself. Presently, turning to face me, he sat erect again, dropping his hands, and the muscles of his face were controlled once more, and he stared at me, his eyes sick. You're seeing something — I have no idea why — that I try every day of my life not to think of. I paced that apartment once. I stared out that window, just as you saw me. His face twisted, and he shook his head. I can still see it — the way that street looked in the dead of night. Hateful, hateful.

  For half a minute he sat, his eyes wide and staring; but he had to go on now — we both knew that — and I waited. Quietly, he said, I was trying to make up my mind to kill myself. He glanced at me. I wasn't despondent; nothing like that. It was simply and obviously the only possible conclusion to my life.

  The old man sat back in his chair, his hands on the arms. I was once nearly president of one of the largest investment firms in the world. I got there by hard work, as I often told people, and it was true. But I didn't say that I got there, also, on other men's backs. I was and am a selfish man; I knew it, and I was proud of it. Nothing and no one ever stood in the way of what I wanted, not my wife, or even my son — and he's paying for that now, and always will, though that's another story.

  The old man reached out and tapped my arm with a curved forefinger. I justified it, boy. If a man can't take care of himself, it is no one else's concern; I said that all my life, and practiced it. I became chief clerk of my firm, manager, junior vice-president, senior vice-president and had the presidency in my grasp, and what happened to those who stood in my way was their affair, not mine. He smiled sadly. But I, too, stood in someone's way, I discovered; someone like me, only smarter still.

  And instead of the presidency, I was suddenly out of the firm — out of a job and absolutely broke. By then, fortunately, I was a widower, but my home in the country was lost, and the rent was paid on the small apartment I used in the city during the week, for only nine more days, after which I had to move.

  In less than a single week's time, I was suddenly facing the choice of dependency, of actual charity or of ending my life; and the way I had lived demanded the latter. But I couldn't quite do it.

  Contempt for himself was plain in his eyes as Gruener looked at me. I almost could, he said. I had it planned: sleeping tablets, with a note marked private, and mailed the evening before to an old friend, Dr. William Buhl. The note would have told Buhl what I'd done and why, and would have requested him to certify my death as heart failure. Whether he would have done so, I can't say; I could only hope that he would.

  Instead — he spat the word out with sudden loathing — I moved in here with my son and his family. He shrugged. Oh, they were glad to have me, Lord knows why, though it meant extra expense, and they had to take the baby — he nodded at the boy — into their bedroom to make room for me.

  But if you think that's what bothered me, you're wrong. No, it was this: from a busy, prosperous man with considerable prestige in his occupation, I was suddenly turned into a nobody, living in a child's bedroom. He shook his head in disgust, and added, Baby-sitting in the evenings, for the first six or eight years, helping with the dishes, reading the morning paper, listening to the radio in my bedroom with the Donald Duck wallpaper, sitting out here in the sun. That's been the absurd end to my life, just as I knew it would be when I made my decision.

  Smiling bitterly, Gruener said, And now you know what I was pondering, staring down through the windows of apartment 9M when somehow you saw me. I had the chance to justify the whole philosophy of my life — to be on top or forget the whole thing. But during two nights I could not achieve the courage to do it. And on the following night, I knew I had to. I stood there, I remember, staring down at that dismal street, hoping for help.

  Almost superstitiously, I stood hoping for some little sign, the least encouragement from somewhere or anywhere. That is all I needed, I am certain, to tip the balance in the right direction. But of course there was no sign; it was up to me alone. When the night began to end, I had to make my own decision, and you see what I chose. The old man stood up. Why you should see my ‘ghost’ or whatever it was, I don't know.

  I stood, too, and we strolled toward the end of the yard. But they say, he added, that a particularly intense human experience can sometimes leave behind some sort of emanation or impression on the environment it happened in. And that under the right conditions it can be evoked again, almost like a recording that is left behind in the very air and walls of the room.

  We reached the high wood fence and leaned on it, and Mr. Gruener turned to me, smiling a little. Maybe that's what happened, boy. You, too, were up in the night in that very room. You, too, were pondering some problem, and maybe those were the right conditions: a sort of similarity of atmosphere that for a few moments could reach out and, like a delicate, beautifully tuned radio, bring back whatever impression my agonizing experience had made there. Or, he said, losing interest, and turned back into the yard, maybe somehow it brought back the actual time itself, and you really saw me, solid and real. Perhaps you saw back through time itself, to twelve years before; I really don't know.

  There was actually no comment to make, and all I could think of was, Well, you made the right decision.

  He stopped suddenly, there on the grass. No, I did not! I've been a useless burden! He walked on again, toward the chairs. My son is no moneymaker and never will be; he didn't even have a telephone when I came; so I had one installed, paying for it from the little income I still have. Pathetic, isn't it? He smiled as we sat down. Still trying to be somebody, even if no more than a name in a telephone book. Originally, I suppose, I had some idea that one of the firms would eventually be after me, in what capacity I don't know, and I wanted to be sure they could find me.

  No, he said belligerently, I know now what I knew then: these extra years have meant nothing to me. And I also know now what I didn't even consider then: what these years have meant to my son, his wife and that child. He nodded at the boy across the yard. I think he'd have a brother or sister now, if I could have done to myself what I did to others. As it is, there simply wasn't room for another baby, nor quite enough money. But without me, there would have been. I feel now what I would once have been incapable of feeling: that I deprived a grandchild of being born; a whole life was lost in exchange for something that should never have been — a few more useless years for me.

  Quickly, anticipating my objections, he cut them off, ending the conversation. Well, he said, nodding at the boy, at least it's been good watching him grow and develop; he's a nice boy, and one of the few things I'm proud of.

  It's obvious, of course — and was obvious to me on the way back to Manhattan, through the rest of that day at the office and all through that evening — that in a sense I had seen a ghost of my future self, there at my apartment windows. Through the accident of occupying Gruener's apartment, I had somehow seen — how or why I couldn't imagine — what I might become myself.

  But still, sitting and pretending to read that night, while Louisa knitted, my problem was a long way from the easy, obvious-at-a-glance dilemma of somebody else. I sat remembering the faces of men in my office — and they're in every office — who have reached their middle thirties, with their big chance lost somewhere in the past. At some point or another it dawns on them, and from then on, you can see it in their eyes that the confident ambition of their youth is never going to be fulfilled.

  Shakespeare said it; I remembered the quotation vaguely, and got up and went to the bookshelves for our one-volume complete Shakespeare, and finally found the quotation in Julius Caesar. There is a tide in the affairs of men, Brutus says, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

  He was right, damn it! I sat there knowing it. You're not handed a promotion for being a good boy, for doing your work c
onscientiously or for always getting to the office on time! You're not handed it at all; you've got to make it and take it. And you've got to recognize the time for it and grab it while it's there.

  Of course I was awake again that night. I dragged myself out to the davenport, and of course I saw Gruener's ghost again; and this time I got mad. I swear I hadn't even been thinking of him. I lay flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, and for a long time I was tempted to steer Ted Haymes off his idea and kiss my chance of stealing his job good-by. It was the peace of mind waiting for me the instant I'd decided that tempted me; the good feeling I knew would come flooding over me. I wanted that, and I knew it would sustain me for days and weeks. But at the back of my mind lay the question: Then what? Two or three more years as assistant before, finally, past thirty, I somehow made sales manager? Just a little too late, a little too old to be a candidate still for the really important jobs at the top?

  Lying there smoking in the dark, I hated Ted Haymes. He deserved nothing from me! The man was no good; was I going to sacrifice Louisa for him? I knew suddenly what was the matter with me. I was one of the timid people who want life to work out like a story, and when it doesn't, they retreat from it and call their timidity virtue.

  There is a tide in the affairs of men, and this was mine and might never come again, and all of a sudden, in a flood of hot feeling, I was going to take it. I sat up on the davenport, shaken and deeply excited, knowing that from now on I was a different, tougher man, and I actually muttered out loud, giving myself a sort of miniature pep talk. Do it! I told myself. Damn it, go ahead; all it takes is nerve. I felt pretty good, actually, and I started to get up, thinking I might even wake Louisa and tell her about it. And that's when I noticed Gruener's fat ghost in his crummy old bathrobe, standing at the windows again.