Time Exposures

by Wilson Tucker

“Hell of a note,” he declared and let the earpiece bang against the wall. Behind the faded wallpaper some loose plaster dribbled down. “Hell of a note, I say.” He turned to appraise the room.

  The room was dingy like all cheap hotels, the carpet was ragged and worn as in all firetraps and the bed was a hand-me-down the Salvation Army had thrown away. He looked at the discolored sheet and wondered how he had slept on it, sniffed the odor of the room and wondered how he had stayed alive in it. His body itched, so he scratched. His chest seemed to be encrusted and matted with a sticky, odorous glue. The glue had a familiar smell. Dust covered the bed other than where he had lain, covered the solitary chair and the light fixture hanging from the ceiling. Dust arose from the carpet as he stalked across it. George paused once more to examine the bottles—a thin layer of dust covered the bottles.

  “Hell of a note,” he repeated and picked up his trousers. He shook the garment, sneezed twice, and put them on. He couldn’t find his socks, shoes or shirt—there was nothing in the room other than his trousers. Wearing them, he unlocked the bedroom door to stare at the number. He was on the third floor. Without hesitation he strode into the hallway and sought the stairs, dust flying with every footfall. George clumped down the stairs, taking a savage delight in making as much noise as possible, navigated the second floor landing and continued on to the street floor. The lobby was empty.

  “Hey there! Wake up—it’s me, George Young.”

  There was no answer, no sudden appearance.

  George strode over to the tiny desk and pounded on it. Dust flew up in his nostrils and he sneezed again. He glanced around the lobby to discover he was still alone. A calendar pad caught his eye and he whirled it around, blew dust from the surface and read the date.

  “The sixteenth,” he repeated it aloud. “That was ... uh, two days after I left Dix. Yeah. The sixteenth ... so I’ve got eight days left anyhow.” He pounded on the desk once more and waited several minutes for an answer. The sunlight shining through the unwashed glass of the street door finally caught his eye, and he turned toward it.

  George Young pushed out into the bright sun, stood on the hot pavement to stare at the empty street.

  “What the hell goes on here?” he demanded.

  A collie dog pushed up from the back seat of a nearby automobile, regarded him with some surprise, and leaped out to trot over to him.

  “Well—hello, George!” the dog greeted him warmly. “Mother of Moses, am I glad to see you up and around. I am your best friend, George.”

  “Go to hell,” George snapped peevishly and pivoted on the sidewalk to stare both ways along the deserted street. “Where is—” He broke off, whirled back to the dog.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said,” the animal repeated happily, “that I am your best friend. You know—a dog is man’s best friend. I am a dog and you are a man, so I am your best friend.”

  George stared suspiciously at the collie’s shining eyes, its open mouth and lolling pink tongue. Then he very carefully backed across the sidewalk and into the lobby, pulling shut the door. The dog padded after him and put its nose to the glass.

  “Open the door, George. I am your best friend.”

  “Nooo ... not mine, you ain’t. Go away.”

  “But George, I am so. You told me.”

  “I didn’t tell you nothing ... now scat!”

  “You did, George, you did,''' the animal insisted. There was something akin to pleading in its voice. “This is a hell of a note! You were upstairs sleeping on the bed and I came up to see you every day. You taught me to speak, George, you said you didn’t want any dumb dogs hanging around. You taught me everything I know.”

  “I don’t bark,” George declared hotly.

  “You said it was the English language, George, whatever that is. Good old King’s English, you told me. Is King a man too, George? You said a dog was man’s best friend, so here I am a dog, eager to be your best friend.”

  George fixed the collie with a beady eye. “I never saw a talking dog before.”

  The dog giggled. “I never saw a talking man before. Gee whiz, but you stinked.”

  “Where are they?” George demanded then. “Where is everybody? Where’d they go?”

  “Alas, they were all gone when I arrived.”

  George Young jumped and searched the visible parts of the street outside, and then whirled around for another inspection of the lobby. He was the sole remaining human in sight. He glared down at the dog, summoned his courage and pushed through the lobby door a second time to stand on the burning pavement. He made a careful survey of the street.

  Automobiles stood at the curb before the hotel and were parked elsewhere along the street. None contained an occupant. Office windows and shop doorways were open to the warm summer air, quite empty of life. Debris littered the streets and avenues, moving only on the occasional prompting of some idle breeze. Tall buildings reared along the block, uninhabited. There was no sound but his own hoarse breathing. The thoroughfares were empty, the cars empty, the stores and offices empty, the lobby behind him empty. He saw no people— George chopped off the train of thought to glance into the air, to search the ledges running along the nearer buildings. There were no birds, either. Nothing, no one, but him and the collie.

  “Where is everybody?” he asked again, weakly.

  “Gone,” the dog told him sadly, echoing his emotions. “Alas, all gone, absent without leave, over the hill, taking a powder, vamoosed. Hell of a note.”

  “But where?” the bewildered soldier insisted.

  The collie tried and failed to shrug. “Gobbled up.”

  George growled at him. “You’re pretty damned sassy for a dog.”

  “I am your best friend, George,” said the collie. “I came up to see you every day.”

  “You’re nuts. The door was locked.”

  “Oh no, George. I flew. I am your best friend.”

  The soldier contemplated the dog with a weary disgust. “So all right ... so you flew. If you can sit there and argue with me, I guess you can fly.” And then he added triumphantly: “But I was asleep all the time, so how could I teach you anything?”

  “Mother of Moses, George, it all came forth from your mind! Oh yes, you were asleep all right, hitting the sack, rolling in the hay, taking 40 and whatnot, but the King’s English flowed right out of your mind. Everything I am today I owe to your mind, brain, gray matter, skull-stuffing, sawdust and et cetera. You didn’t explain et cetera to me, George. All the while you slept your mind flowed, flowed right out to me in brainwaves. I know it all, I know everything you know. I am your best friend, George, because you said a dog was man’s best friend.”

  The man stared, incredulous. “Do you mean to say you flew upstairs and read my mind while I slept?”

  “That I did, George, that I did. You smelled, George. We were in perfect sync, fix, communion, tune.”

  “Oh, brother!”

  “Am I really your brother, George?” The collie’s tail wagged with sudden pleasure. “Yes, I guess I am your brother. You said once you were a son of a—” The dog yelped with pain and jumped away. “Now, George!”

  “Don’t you now-George me! Get away from here, go on, shoo. I don’t like talking dogs.”

  “You shouldn’t treat your best friend that way, George old pal, bosom buddy, good stick.”

  He lunged savagely at the animal. “You ain’t my best friend—not by a long shot! I don’t make friends with talking dogs. I don’t make friends with smart-aleck dogs. I don’t make friends with flying dogs. I don’t ever want to see you again! Now get out of here before I kick your—” and he sent the kick flying. The frightened collie yelped and scuttled away, to look back just once before vanishing into an alley.

  George Young left the hotel behind and strode with a determined purpose to the nearer intersection. Standing at the corner, he raised a hand to shade his eyes from the sun and peer along the four streets. His determination dribbled away. No l
iving thing moved in his line of sight. Down the block a car had gone out of control, veered across the sidewalk and smashed into a store window. He ran to it hopefully, prepared to welcome nothing more than the body of some unlucky motorist. The car was empty, save for a crumpled newspaper.

  “The bomb!” he shouted aloud at the sudden thought. “The dirty bastards dropped the bomb. They wiped—” His voice trailed away to nothing as he examined the nearer buildings. None of them showed the slightest traces of a blast, any blast. There was nothing to indicate so small a thing as a black powder bomb going off. Defeated, he reached into the car for the newspaper and smoothed it out.

  It held no mention of a bomb, no hint, or threat of a bomb, no clue or forewarning to any sort of a catastrophe. The front page as well as those inside mirrored nothing more than the day-to-day violence at home and abroad. Like the dusty calendar on the hotel desk, the newspaper was dated the sixteenth. A stopping date. He dropped it, uncomprehending. “Hell of a note,” George complained.

  Why ... you’d think he was the last man in the world.

  George Young sat on the curb in front of a grocery store, watching the summer sun go down and eating his supper from a collection of pilfered cans and jars. He had helped himself to the food, there being no one in the store to serve him or restrain him. The bread he had passed by because it was hard and some of the loaves showed traces of green mold, and that in turn had caused him to doubt the fruits and vegetables. Most of the meats and cheeses in a neutralized refrigerator seemed to be safe, but still it held a peculiar odor and he had slammed the door on the box.

  Cans, jars and a box of wax-sealed crackers made up his meal. Unable to locate a coffee pot or running water, he drank canned juices and soda water.

  In the several hours since leaving the hotel he had also helped himself to an automobile and wandered the length and breadth of the town, looking for someone, anyone. He had left the car radio running for hours, waiting for a voice, any voice, child, man or woman. The only moving thing he had seen was a flea-bitten sparrow that faithfully followed his wanderings, clearly chirping “George—” at tiresome intervals. He had thrown a rock at the sparrow. The day was gone and empty, the sun setting on a lonesome city and a lonesome man.

  “Hell of a note!” he cried for the hundredth time, and hurled an empty can far across the street. It rattled loudly in the deserted silence. The silence puzzled him, frightened him, made him unsure of his future. Should he drive on to Camp Walton—would he find anyone living in California? What about tomorrow, and the next day, and all the days after that? What would it be like to be alone for the rest of his life?

  “Hell of a note,” he said again, shouting after the can. “Just one woman would do. One lousy woman!”

  “Georgie, lamb....”

  He stiffened with surprise and swiveled his head on his shoulders. She stood waiting only a few feet away, a vision for his starving eyes. He toppled from the curb with shock and lay in the street, looking up at her. Wow, what a woman!

  She possessed the shape of all those lovely, desirable girls in the pin-up pictures he treasured, only more shapely. Her hair was the glorious color of flaming ripe wheat to match the glowing descriptions he had read in a thousand stories, only more glorious. She had a face so breathtakingly beautiful it defied description; eyes like limpid, inviting pools that heroes tumbled into. She was a tall, long-legged, chesty, tanned babe with enough sizzle for five harem dancers. And she was clad in nothing more than a skimpy two-piece swim suit.

  Her every line and curve, hollow and hill shrieked a precious commodity which George was always seeking. She had shining golden eyes and a lolling, pink tongue. She was what that guy Smith would describe as a seven-sector call-out. And now she waited there all alone, appealing to him! George struggled up from the gutter.

  “Honey ... baby...," she seemed to whisper.

  “Mother of Moses!” George declared. “All mine!”

  “Lamb-pie, angel child ... come to mama.” She held out her hands to him.

  “Where in hell did you come from?” he demanded.

  “Oh, I’ve been around, George. Are you lonely?”

  “Am I lonely!” he shouted, and leaped the curb to put his hands on her. “Baby, where have you been all my life?”

  She smiled up into his happy face. “Oh, I’m from Glissix, George, but you don’t really care about that. I came here a few days ago. I’m a floozy.”

  George froze. “Say that again?”

  “I’m a floozy, George, a skirt, a doll, a walker, a babe. Do you like me, George? Do you like my skin?”

  He raised the palm of his hand to slap his forehead rapidly, knocking out the cobwebs. She was still there. “Look,” he pleaded, “I don’t get all this. I don’t care a damn where you came from and I don’t give a damn what you are. You’re people, and you look like a million to me. All I know is that you’re the hottest peach I ever laid eyes on in my life, and I’m craving company.” He held onto her arm tightly lest she vanish. “Let’s get together. How about a drink?”

  “Drink? But I don’t need water, George.”

  “Who said anything about water? Look, doll, you must know the score, you’ve seen what this town is like. There ain’t nobody here—the whole damned population has skipped out and left us. Mass desertion, that’s what it is. The place is ours, see? All we have to do is walk along and help ourselves.” He tugged at her arm to start her moving. “Look down there—see that saloon? That’s for us. And over in the next block is another one, and another one. All ours. We just help ourselves, doll, free and on the house. Come on, let’s you and me have a nip of rotgut.”

  She was trotting alongside him now to match his eager, rapid pace. “Will I like rotgut, George?”

  “Baby, you’ll love it!” he told her gustily, watching the jiggle of her garments from the corner of his eye. “It can do things for you.”

  It did things for her.

  Dusk had long since fallen and the moon was up, but it failed to top the taller buildings and illuminate the street canyons until near midnight. At that hour, George and the lovely doll had passed freely from the portal of one liquid refreshment to the next, sampling this and that, all unaware of the growing darkness and the absence of electricity. They were only aware of their interest in each other. And rotgut had done some startling things to the blonde whose hair was like ripe wheat. For one thing, the hair exhibited a certain difficulty in maintaining the color of ripe wheat. Had the various saloons been illuminated by electricity the carousing soldier might have noticed that, might have noticed that the hair was sometimes reddish, sometimes brown, sometimes like long green grass and sometimes no color at all.

  And for another thing, demon rum had caused the girl to be acutely aware of the confining garments she wore. They were an uncomfortable restraint and she soon slipped out of them. “I’m not used to wearing clothes, George,” she said by way of explanation.

  George grandly waved the explanation aside, and the upper half of the swim suit now reposed on the antlers of a buck hanging on some lost wall behind them. The lower half he carried in his hip pocket as a souvenir. He had offered to remove his trousers, the only article of clothing he now possessed, but he said he was afraid of catching cold. And somewhere, sometime during the night George discovered the moonlight spilling in the window.

  “Come here, buttercup,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I want to see how you sparkle in the moonlight.”

  He turned and marched away with the hand. The girl got up from her chair as quickly as she could and followed it. He paused at the window, to place her in the proper position and her body sparkled in the moonlight. The moon seemed to make it sparkle a bit queerly, as though seen through a haze or a curtain of smoky cellophane. George decided they needed another drink to dispel the illusions. He usually played bartender because she was unfamiliar with the liquids and had mixed some devilish concoctions.

  “I ain’t been drunk for a long, long time
,” George confided to her, thumping her shoulder with each word. “Not since last night in fact. I counted the bottles—man, what bottles! Only you know what?” He hesitated, groping for the half-remembered details of the episode. “You know what?”

  “What?” the sparkling body asked.

  He reached for the body, picked her up and placed her on the bar before him. “Gee, you don’t weigh a thing.” He was pleased with his unexpected strength, and slapped her thigh. “But you sure got what it takes.”

  “What?” she asked again, smoothing out the indentation his hand had made.

  “I didn’t really drink all those bottles—no sir! I thought I did, this morning, but I didn’t really.” He stopped again to collect the memories. “We was talking about those champagne baths, see? Me and some of the guys on the train. One of the guys, this corporal, said he read a piece in the paper about an actress or somebody taking a bath in champagne, and another guy pushes in and says no, it was a tub of milk. They got to arguing about it and to shut them up, I said I’d take a whiskey bath and see how it was. That’s what I said.” He paused for breath, took a drink and maneuvered a restless hand. “So I did, see honey? I bought all those bottles, must have spent over 400 bucks and got myself all those bottles.”

  “And took a bath,” she finished for him. “Baby.”

  “Naw, I didn’t take a bath! I couldn’t—there wasn’t no bathtub in my room. So I just laid down on the bed and poured it over me. Of course, I drank some you understand, but I poured it over me. Took a whiskey shower, by damn! Four hundred bucks worth, right on me.” George reached down to scratch the dried glue on his chest. “That’s why I’m all sticky.” He marvelled at himself. “Boy ... I’ll bet I smelled this morning!”

  “You certainly did, George. I visited you every day.”

  “You did? You really did? Do you mean to tell me that I laid there like a log with a hot peach like you in the room? I must be going crazy!”

  “Oh, I didn’t mind at all, George. I thought you were nice. I am your best—I want to do things with you honey, lamb-pie, sweet man, snuggles.”