by Jack Finney
I ate a sandwich, the bread hard and dry, and an apple; then I drank half a carton of water, half turning on my back to let it run down my throat. And now, the ground warming, the air around me comfortable, I lay, head pillowed on my arms, feeling drowsy. I had not been certain this would be true, but now I had learned that I need not lie breathing through my overhead pipe. Small though the pipe opening was, so was the space I lay in, and with my bodily movements and oxygen consumption at a minimum, I got enough air. At times I felt stifled, the quality of the air bad, but a few minutes of breathing with my mouth over the pipe end would overcome that, I'd found. Drifting to sleep, I had a feeling of certainty that it would not occur to the prowling guards to look for me in the bare ground under their feet; that even if the possibility should occur to them, and I doubted that it would, there was no possible opportunity, in their minds, for a San Quentin inmate to ever dig such a shelter as I lay in now. Feeling competent and assured, ready for a long wait, I drifted into comfortable sleep.
At some time during the morning I woke up warm and sweating, and the air enclosing my body had the hot motionless quality of air in an attic under a summer sun. I turned quietly onto my back and, my mouth at the pipe, breathed deeply of the outside air for several minutes. Then I sipped some water and felt better, and lay on my back, hands clasped under my head, staring up into the blackness.
At noon, I listened to the faint remote voices of the factory men leaving for lunch, and once again heard my name mentioned. When the last voice had gone, I took off all my clothes — that took twenty-five minutes of slow, awkward, infinitely careful movement. Nevertheless, in the rigid, inescapable heat of the noon sun pouring down on the earth just above me, it was hard to keep myself from audibly gasping for each breath of air. I lay most of the time now with my mouth at the pipe, but the sweat ran steadily from my body — I could feel it trickle — soaking into the canvas I lay on.
The Warden must be grateful for the sun, I thought; he knew that in whatever unlikely cramped space I was hiding, the heat might be at me. And on every wall, both in the prison and industrial area, extra guards would be waiting and watching in alert relentlessness for the betraying movement or sound or actual emergence — this had happened before, and more than once, at San Quentin — of the man who was hiding out. For now the quality of the search would have changed; men would still be prowling the prison, poking under and into and through every place they could think of to look. But they'd be covering old ground now, sometimes for the third, fourth, or fifth times, and there'd be a perfunctory quality in their searching, their hope of actually coming onto me virtually gone. For new and unique hiding places impossible to detect short of tearing down the prison have been discovered or worked out by San Quentin inmates before me. Once a man, a skilled carpenter, built a trapdoor into an upper floor of a condemned and unused building; no cabinet maker could have disguised it more beautifully. He lay four days between the floor and the ceiling of the room below him, and might have hidden there indefinitely if he'd been able to stand it. But the Warden had waited and watched, extra men on each wall staring down into the prison, and finally hunger drove the man out. He was seen on the fourth night, a moving shadow in the darkness, creeping along the wall of a building; and he was actually relieved to be caught and fed and to again have a bed to lie on.
Now, while he would not have ordered the actual search to end, the Warden, working in his office and going on with the routine of the prison, would no longer be hoping that searching would find me. He'd be counting now — or tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, or if not then, next week — on my being obliged to reveal myself. And so the battle was on; I knew that San Quentin Prison — with a quiet tension and terrible alertness — was waiting for me to give up and come staggering out from wherever I was hiding.
At two-thirty I was no longer entirely sane; I lay in a blind and suffering stupor, and thoughts beyond my volition moved sluggishly through my mind in a kind of delirium. Once, years ago, I'd worked at a desk for two hours in a room where the recorded temperature was a hundred and nineteen degrees. I knew vaguely that the motionless air surrounding me now was much hotter than that; and I lay in simple agony, mouth at the pipe, chest heaving, my heart laboring to stay alive. The deadly ovenlike oppressiveness of the awful hotness was an actual physical pressure I could feel on every fractional inch of my skin, clogging and blocking my pores. I drifted often into unconsciousness, and drifted out of it sluggishly — semidelirious, not wanting to awaken, only a tiny portion of my mind and spirit willing to fight any longer. But that little core of resistance and will to live understood that my weak and dehydrated body would die in the carbon dioxide of its own making if I lay here as I wanted to, in motionless suffering. And it made me rise each time into some kind of consciousness and renewed agony, and put my mouth to the pipe and the life-giving air outside. And, past ever fully satisfying my thirst, 1 swallowed, and swallowed, and swallowed again, mouthfuls of water from the little cardboard cartons. The darkness — to suffer this incredible heat in velvet-black darkness — was a helllike thing; and each time I awoke to breathe new oxygen into my fighting lungs and renew the fluid which poured from my tissues, I flicked on my flashlight to fight back the fear of it.
I was buried alive and could not stand it. I knew I had to come out; and the thought of crawling out, back into life again, became all important. No consequences mattered, I knew I had to do it — and yet I waited, postponing it second after second. I thought — the words of it stumbling in stupid slowness through my mind — that men in prison had once suffered in hot boxes. Men had been chained in steel boxes under the sun all day long, and some had died of it; but some had not. And yet even in a metal box, there had been some ventilation. No one, I believed, had ever endured this. I tried leaving where I was with my mind, deliberately thinking of Ben and Ruth, imagining what they might be doing now. But all I could picture was the two of them sitting in a room, an electric fan going, each sipping a tall iced drink. Endlessly they sat, sipping cold drinks, the ice clinking, moisture beaded on the sides of the glasses; and they were cool and comfortable and smiling; and I hated them, I couldn't help it. Squeezing my eyes tight shut, I forced the picture to change, trying to imagine them doing anything but sipping those cold, cold drinks. And suddenly — as clear as a picture projected on a screen — I saw them in bed; Ruth in a thin white nightgown, Ben in pajamas, both lying back smiling, her head resting on his arm. And then I cursed myself, and told myself that this was impossible, that it couldn't happen, that I was a foul and ungrateful bastard to even think it; and I deliberately opened my senses again to the heat I lay in.
Again I fought that unbelievable heat, and knew I could not last it out, and felt a terrible helpless rage at the men around and just above me who were waiting for me to come staggering out of somewhere. With all my soul I wished I had a gun. If I could have heaved up out of that hole in the ground, a gun in my hand, and killed some of the bastards who'd come at me then before they killed me, I'd have done it. And if the guard I'd hit had been with them, I'd have done it with pleasure. But I had no gun, and so once again I postponed for just a little longer the simple act that would end my torture.
I got through the afternoon that way; by minutes and seconds at a time, enduring on the endless promises I made to myself — and endlessly broke — of relief after only a little bit longer. And in time, only barely conscious, my mouth muscles slack and without strength at the pipe, I became aware of a minute decrease in the terrible temperature. A little more time passed, and now there was a definite slackening off in the heat; then steadily and perceptibly, minute by minute, the heat drained out of the air around me. My mouth at the pipe end pulled air into my lungs from outside that was actually cool, wonderfully refreshing; and I drifted into full consciousness again, limp, terribly weak, but exultant and filled with pride.
A long time later, using my handkerchief and water from a carton, I forced myself to take a kind
of bath; sponging the drying sweat from every surface of my body. Then I ate — forcing myself at first, then — suddenly ravenous. I ate two dry sandwiches of salty roast beef and an apple, swallowing the beginning bad spots and eating the core; I did not want to foul my cave with decaying food, for now I knew I was going to stay in it. Then I chewed down a mouthful of salt, shaking it into my mouth from the little cardboard shaker I had. I drank two cartons of tepid water and part of a third and then it was cool enough to work myself quietly into my clothes.
I lay there quietly then, comfortable, very tired, ready to sleep. Without warning or preliminary thought, I understood suddenly that the picture that had formed in my mind — Ben and Ruth — was true. He was living in a house somewhere alone with good-looking, long-legged, exciting Ruth, and she was alone with him; they were living together, undressing under the same roof, and sleeping together, damn them! And an instant later, I laughed. Ben's a good boy, I reminded myself; quiet, modest, damn near an honor student in school; and he never really did know how to have much fun. I tried not to feel it, but I couldn't help it; I felt an almost contemptuous certainty that Ben wouldn't ever — wouldn't even know how to even — look sideways at Ruth.
But still I lay there actually disliking my brother, resenting him; and it was hard to figure out why. All my life he's been the one people really liked; without effort he's made friends; he's never known what it's like to work for them. And over and again it's worked out that I ended up depending on Ben; even as a kid, and in school, I was often asked places only because I was Ben's brother. And to lie here now in a hole in the ground, with absolutely everything depending on Ben — my safety, my life, Ruth — I didn't like it. And it didn't help to tell myself how grateful I ought to be; and I felt ashamed and lay there like an animal in its hole till I fell asleep.
16
Ruth and I rented a small furnished apartment in the city on Sutter Street the morning — Saturday — after Arnie hid out. Or rather Ruth did while I waited in the car; I still hadn't shaved. She told the landlady it was for her brother who was moving up from Los Angeles, paid a deposit, got the key, and came down and gave it to me. It was a nice apartment, she said, and it was in a nice location.
We had lunch in a drive-in, then went to a movie on Market Street. We saw half the picture, maybe, and then I couldn't stand it and neither could Ruth. All we could think of was Arnie lying in that hole out at San Quentin — maybe being dragged out right now — and we couldn't watch the picture, and got up and left. I headed back for Marin then; and we went to Muir Woods, and walked along by the little stream that runs through it under the giant redwoods; and that was a little better. It was hot today, for the Bay area, but here in Muir Woods it was cool and peaceful, and we stayed for a couple hours, just wandering around. But a large part of the time we walked holding each other's hand, clinging to each other for comfort against what we felt and what lay ahead.
We heard a local news broadcast in the car coming home from Muir Woods; there was nothing in it about Arnie, and I felt certain he'd made it through the day and was still safe. At home, we had some supper, just sandwiches; neither of us felt hungry. I don't know how we got through the evening. We talked, but I don't really know about what. We watched some television, or at least stared at the screen. But apprehension lay in the air around us, and once when I said something or other — some inconsequential remark — Ruth burst into tears. I walked over to the davenport where she was sitting, sat down beside her, and took her hand between mine. "Don't worry," I said. "I really mean it; don't worry. It's almost over; it will be in a few hours," and I could feel her relax a little. "Just take it easy," I said then. "Arnie's going to be all right." And she burst into tears all over again.
We got through the first part of the evening, finally, by just talking about Arnie, and what he and I had to do tonight; it was a lot easier than trying not to. Once Ruth said — and it startled me, I actually hadn't thought too much about this — "What's he going to do after he's out, Ben? Where can he go? And what can he do?"
"I don't know," I said slowly. "And I don't think he does; there hasn't been time to worry about that. But hell, you read in the papers every once in a while about some guy who escaped from a prison years before. And he's been living for twenty-five years under an assumed name, a peaceful law-abiding citizen and all that. So there must be others — even more of them — that you never hear about, who are never detected."
She was shaking her head. "It's hard to imagine, though," she said, "about Arnie; all alone, without the help of all the reassurances and props he's always needed from the people around him."
I nodded. "Unless you were with him," I said, "helping him through it."
She was shaking her head. "I'd have to love him for that. There's a limit to what you can do for other people, no matter what their troubles. The time's past when I could be married to Arnie."
"I know, I know." I was nodding my head, shutting her off. "He's got to make it himself, now. And if he gets through this, I think he will. But he isn't through it yet." I glanced at my watch, then said, "I guess it's time now, Ruth," and she bit her lip and nodded.
In the back bedroom, I changed into my blue denims and work shirt. Then, from a dresser drawer, I took the wooden gun I'd carved, glancing into the mirror at the black stubble on my face. In the garage, Ruth was waiting at the wheel of the car, wearing her navy-blue trench coat and dark beret. Standing by the car, I smeared some car oil from the floor on my pants and shirt, then rubbed floor dust into the stains. I got into the car then, sat on the floor of the front seat beside Ruth, and she started the motor.
She got out and opened the garage door, letting it slide quietly up to the roof, holding it with one hand, not allowing it to bang. She got back into the car, pulling her door closed so that the latch caught. She drove out into the driveway, stopped, got out, and closed the garage door quietly. Then she got in again, pulling her door closed tight with her hands, not slamming it. She drove down into the street and turned left toward the highway, switching on the parking lights. At the highway, a quarter of a mile west, she switched the car lights on full, and turned north. Whether anyone in the neighborhood had noticed our leaving, neither of us knew, but we'd done nothing to direct attention to ourselves. At home, we'd left lights on in several of the rooms.
Again we drove four or five miles north on 101, toward the county road we'd turned onto several nights before. But this time, swinging into the left-turn lane, we turned west away from the prison, and onto the Greenbrae Road. A quarter mile down it, Ruth pulled off onto the wide dirt and gravel shoulder and stopped. "Soon be over," I said quietly.
"Yes," she answered, but her head was shaking no. "Oh, Ben, this is the worst part. This is where you could be — She didn't finish. Glancing at me, her face set and angry, she said shortly, "You look terrible."
I smiled and said, "No, I don't," rubbing the bristles on my face. "I'm the Schweppes man; I look distinguished."
But she wouldn't smile back. "And now I can start waiting and worrying about you again," she said. I started to say something, smiling again, but she burst out at me. "I hate it!" she said. "I hate sitting alone wondering what's happening to you!"
I put a hand on her arm. "Nothing's going to happen. There's really not much to worry abou— "
"Of course not!" she said angrily. "Before you might have ended up in prison; tonight you may only get shot."
I tried to think of something to say to minimize what now lay ahead of me, but couldn't. "It'll be okay," I said. "Don't worry." It was the best I could do, and I reached out and patted her thigh comfortingly. Then I stood as well as I could in the car to look through the rear window. "Nothing coming," I said. "Turn around; I'll say good-by now; see you soon," and Ruth released the clutch, made a U-turn to the other side of the road, then slowed.
I opened the door, stepped out immediately, and as the car slid past me, pushed the door closed. I stepped down into the summer-dry drainage dit
ch beside the road and lay down on my belly, my chin in my cupped hands, the upper half of my body supported on my elbows. I saw the twin ruby tail lights of the car curve into the little highway approach ahead, and then brighten as Ruth touched the brakes to stop. I watched the motionless car stand for some seconds till the traffic light changed, then saw it start up, pull onto the highway, and head south.
For perhaps five minutes I waited, then I stood and began to walk toward the highway ahead. The road I was on was deserted of traffic at the moment and I walked perhaps two hundred yards. Then headlights approached from far behind me, and I stepped into the weeds and lay down until they passed. Twice more I walked on, and twice more waited in the weeds till a car passed me.
Then, twenty yards from highway 101 just ahead, I lay down in the ditch once again. From a side pocket of my pants, I brought out a sealed envelope and tore it open. From it I shook a dozen fragments out onto the surface of the dry ditch; they were scraps of torn paper, each coated with clear plastic. I put the envelope back into my pocket, and then, in the next forty minutes, I counted nineteen cars which passed me, slowing for the highway ahead, and there was something wrong with each of them for my purpose.
Some were driven by or contained women. Half a dozen contained more than one person. Half a dozen others contained men driving alone; but four of them, I could see as they stopped to wait had their right-hand windows rolled up, either to the top or part way. Two cars were driven by men alone, and their right-hand windows were rolled down, but both of these drivers were lucky; as they approached and slowed for the highway, the light was red for highway traffic, and they were able to swing onto 101 without stopping.
