He went back to the desk and picked up the letters. There were no bills. Of the seven letters, six were advertising, the seventh in a plain white envelope addressed in a craggy hand.
He tore it open. There was one sheet of white note paper, neatly folded. He unfolded it and read:
My dear friend Vickers:
I hope that you are not unduly worn out by the strenuous efforts which you undoubtedly will have thrown into the search for me today.
I feel very keenly that my actions will impose upon the kind people of this excellent village a most unseemly amount of running around to the neglect of their business, though I do not doubt that they will enjoy it most thoroughly.
I feel that I can trust your understanding not to reveal the fact of this letter nor to engage any further than is necessary to convince our neighbors of your kindly intentions in what must necessarily be a futile hunt for me. I can assure you that I am most happy and that only the necessity of the moment made me do what I have done.
I am writing this note for two reasons: First, to quiet any fear you may feel for me. Secondly, to presume upon our friendship to the point of giving some unsolicited advice.
It has seemed to me for some time now that you have been confining yourself too closely to your work and that a holiday might be an excellent idea. It might be that a visit to your childhood scene, to walk again the paths you walked when you were a boy, could clear away the dust and make you see with clearer eyes.
Your friend,
Horton Flanders
XV
I WILL not go, thought Vickers.
I cannot go. The place means nothing to me and I do not want it to mean anything now that it is forgotten after all these years of trying to forget it.
He could have shut his eyes and seen it—the yellow clay of the rain-washed cornfields, the roads all white with dust winding through the valleys and along the ridgetops, the lonely mailboxes sitting on forlornly leaning fence posts, the sagging gates, the weatherbeaten houses, the scraggy cattle coming down the lane, following the rutted path that their hoofs had made, the mangy dogs that ran out and barked at you when you drove past their farms.
If I go back they’ll ask me why I came and how I’m getting on. “Too bad about your Pa, he was a damn good man.” They’d sit on the upturned boxes in front of the general store and chew slowly on their cuds of tobacco and spit out on the sidewalk and look at him out of slanted eyes and say, “So you write books. By God, some day I’ll have to read one of your books; I never heard of them.”
He’d go to the cemetery and stand before a stone with his hat held in his hand and listen to the wind moan in the mighty pines, and he’d think, if only I could have amounted to something in time for you to have known, so that the two of you could have been proud of me and bragged about me a little when the neighbors dropped in for a visit—but, of course, I never did.
And he would—finally, he admitted it—drive past the great brick house with the portico and the fanlights above the door. He would drive very slowly and he would look at it and see how the shutters had come loose and were sagging and how the paint was flaking and how the roses that had bloomed beside the gate had died.
I won’t go, he said.
And yet, perhaps, he should.
It might clear away the dust, Flanders had written, might make you see with clearer eyes.
Might make him see what with clearer eyes?
Was there something back there in his boyhood lanes that could explain this situation, some hidden fact, some abstract symbol, which he had missed before?
Or was he imagining things, reading significance into words that had no significance? How could he be sure that Horton Flanders with his shabby suit and ridiculous cane had anything to do with the story that Crawford had spelled out about humanity standing with its back against the wall?
There was no evidence at all.
Yet Flanders had disappeared and had written him a letter.
Clear away the dust, Flanders had written, so that you may see better. And all that he might have meant was that he should clear away the dust so that he could write better.
VICKERS put a hand on the manuscript and ruffled its pages with his thumb, an absent, almost loving gesture. So little done, he thought, so much still ed out the top drawer on the left he’d done nothing on it. Two full days wasted.
To do the writing that should be done, he must be able to sit down calmly and concentrate, shut out the world and then let the world come in to him, a little at a time, a highly selected world that could be analyzed and set up with a clarity and sharpness that could not be mistaken.
Calmly, he thought. How can a man be calm when he has a thousand questions and a thousand doubts boiling in his mind?
FIRST was the moppet who had come to breakfast and after that the paper he had read. Then he’d gone down to get his car and Eb had told him about the Forever car. Because his car had not been ready, he’d gone to the drugstore corner to catch a bus. Mr. Flanders had come and joined him as he stared at the display in the gadget shop and Mr. Flanders had said—
Wait a second. He had gone to the drugstore corner to get a bus. He had gotten on the bus and sat down in a seat next to the window. He’d looked out the window and no one else had come and sat down with him. He’d ridden to the city in a seat all to himself.
That is it, he thought, and even as he thought it he felt a wild elation and then a sense of horror at an incident forgotten and he stood for a moment unmoving, trying desperately to blot out what had happened so many years ago. It would not blot out and he knew at once what he must do.
He turned to the desk and pull to do. Now, for two whole days, side and slowly, methodically, took out the contents, one by one. He did this with all the drawers and did not find what he was looking for.
The attic, perhaps. One of the boxes up there.
He climbed the stairs and, reaching the top, blinked at the glow of the unshielded light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was a chill in the air and in the starkness of the rafters, coming down on either side of him, like a mighty jaw about to close.
Vickers went from the stairs to the storage boxes pushed against the eaves. In which one of the three would it be most likely to be found? He had no idea whatever.
So he started with the first and he found it halfway down, under the old pair of bird shooters that he had hunted for-last fall and had finally given up for lost.
He opened the notebook and thumbed through it until he came finally to the pages that he was seeking.
IT must have been going on for years before he noticed it. The record said that it was worse than he had first imagined, that it concerned not only one phase of his existence, but many different phases. As the evidence accumulated, he stood aghast that he had not realized it before, because it was something which should have been obvious from the very first.
The whole thing started with the reluctance of his fellow passengers to ride with him on the bus. He lived at the time in an old ramshackle boarding house at the edge of town near the end of the line. He’d get on in the morning and, being one of the few who boarded at that point, would take his favorite seat.
The bus would fill up gradually as the stops were made, but it would be almost the end of the run before he’d have a seat companion. It didn’t bother him, of course; in fact, he rather liked it that way, for then he could slump down in the seat and think and probably even doze a little without ever considering the need of civility. Not that he would have been especially civil in any case, he now admitted. The hour that he went to work was altogether too early for that.
People would get on the bus and they’d sit with other people, not necessarily people whom they knew, for sometimes, Vickers noticed, they didn’t exchange a single word for the entire ride with their seat mate. They’d sit with other people, but they’d never sit with him until all the other seats were filled and they had to sit with him or stand.
Perhaps, he had told him
self, it was body odor; perhaps it was bad breath. He had made a ritual of bathing after that, using a new soap that was guaranteed to make him smell fresh. He brushed his teeth more attentively, used mouth wash until he gagged at the sight of it.
It did no good. He still rode alone.
He looked at himself in the mirror and he knew it was not his clothes, for in those days he was a smart dresser.
So, he figured, it must be his attitude. Instead of slumping down in the seat, he’d sit up and be bright and cheerful and he’d smile at everyone. He’d smile if it cracked his face to do it.
For an entire week he had sat there looking pleasant, smiling at people when they glanced at him, for all the world as if he were a rising young business man who had read Dale Carnegie and belonged to the Junior Chamber.
No one rode with him—not until there was no other seat, He got some comfort in knowing they’d rather sit with him than stand.
THEN he had noticed other things. At the office, the fellows were always visiting around, gathering in little groups of three or four at one of the desks, talking about their golf scores or telling the latest dirty story or wondering why the hell a guy stayed on at a place like this when there were other jobs he could just walk out and take.
No one ever came to his desk, so he tried joining one of the groups. Within a short time, the fellows would all drift back to their desks. He tried dropping by to pass the time of the day with individual workers. They were always affable enough, but always terribly busy. Vickers never stayed.
He checked up on his conversational budget. It seemed fairly satisfactory. He didn’t play golf, but he knew a few good stories and he read most of the latest books and saw the best of the recent movies. He could damn the office with the best of them, even though he liked working there. He read the newspapers and went through a couple of news weeklies and knew what was going on and could argue politics and had armchair opinions on military matters. With those qualifications, he felt, he should be able to carry on a fair conversation. But still no one seemed to want to talk to him.
It was the same at lunch. It was the same, now that he had come to notice it, everywhere he went.
He had written it down for a full six months, with dates and an account of each day, and now, fifteen years later, he sat on a box in a raw and empty attic and read the words he’d written. Staring straight ahead of him, he remembered how it had been, how he’d felt and what he’d said and done including the fact that no one would ride with him until all the seats were taken. And that was what had happened when he’d gone to New York just the other day.
Why?
He’d asked himself the question all those years ago and now, at last, he thought he knew the answer.
It was because he was different in some way, in some subtle way you couldn’t put a finger on, but one that you could sense.
A group of dogs would not tolerate a strange dog. They would smell him over and insult him and gang up on him and drive him away.
Strange dog, he thought, that is what I am. A strange dog among the normal, barnyard dogs of the human race. And these normal dogs do not accept me. They smell me over and walk stiff-legged and keep a wary eye upon me and at times, perhaps, they may even fear or hate me. My God, what am I?
XVII
SOMEONE was hammering on the door downstairs and shouting, but it was a moment or two before he realized it was his name that was being called.
He rose from the box and the notebook fell from his fingers and fell rumpled on the floor, face downward, with its open pages caught and crumpled.
“Jay!” the voice shouted. “Jay, are you here?”
He stumbled down the stairs and into the living room. Eb stood just inside the door.
“What’s the matter, Eb?”
“Listen, Jay,” Eb told him, “you got to get out of here.”
“What for?”
“They think you did away with Flanders.”
Vickers reached out a hand and caught the back of a chair and hung onto it.
“I won’t even ask you if you did,” said Eb. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t. That’s why Pm giving you a chance.”
“A chance?” asked Vickers. “What are you talking about?”
“They’re down at the tavern now, talking themselves into a lynching party.”
“They?”
“All your friends,” Eb said, bitterly. “Someone got them all stirred up. I don’t know who it was. I didn’t wait to find out who. I came straight up here.”
“But I liked Flanders. I was the only friend he had.”
“You haven’t any time,” Eb said. “You’ve got to get away.”
“I can’t go anywhere. I haven’t got my car.”
“I brought up one of the Forever cars,” said Eb. “No one knows I brought it. No one will know you have it.”
“I can’t run away. They’ve got to listen to me.”
“You damn fool, this isn’t the sheriff with a warrant. It’s a mob and they won’t listen to you.” He strode across the room and grabbed Vickers roughly by the arm. “I risked my neck to come up here and warn you. After I’ve done that, you can’t throw the chance away.”
Vickers shook the hand off. “All right, I’ll go.”
“Money?” asked Eb.
“I have some.”
“Here’s some more.” Eb reached into his pocket and held out a thin sheaf of bills.
Vickers took it and stuck it in his pocket.
“The car is full of gas,” said Eb. “The shift is automatic. It drives like any other car. I left the motor running.”
“I hate to do this, Eb.”
“I know just how you hate to, but if you want to save this town a killing, there’s nothing else to do. Come on, get going.”
VICKERS trotted down the path and heard Eb pounding along behind him. The car stood at the gate. Eb had left the door wide open.
“In you go,” said Eb. “Cut straight over to the main highway.”
“Thanks, Eb.”
“Get out of here.”
Vickers pulled the shift to the drive position and stepped on the gas. The car floated away and swiftly gathered speed. He reached the main highway and swung in toward the west.
He drove for miles, fleeing down the cone of brightness thrown by the headlights. He drove with a numb bewilderment that he should be doing this—that he, Jay Vickers, should be fleeing from a lynching party made up of his home town friends.
They were not his friends, he reminded himself. They were the barnyard dogs and he was the strange dog that had wandered in. He thought of them one by one, and as he thought of them their lips pulled back to reveal their fangs and there a savage growl rumbling in their throats.
Someone, Eb had said, had got them all stirred up. Someone, perhaps, who hated him? But there was no one who hated him. No one he could think of.
But even as he thought it, he knew who it was. He felt again the threat and the fear that he had felt when he had sat face to face with Crawford—the then-unrealized reaction that had made him refuse the offer to write Crawford’s book.
There’s something going on, Horton Flanders had said, standing with him in front of the gadget shop.
And there was something going on.
There were everlasting gadgets being made by nonexistent firms. There was an organization of world businessmen, backed into a comer by a foe at whom they could not strike back. There was Horton Flanders talking of some new, strange factors which kept the world from war. There were Pretentionists, hiding from the actuality of today, playing dollhouse with the past.
And, finally, here was Jay Vickers fleeing to the west.
By midnight, he knew where he was going—where Horton Flanders had said that he should go, doing what he had said he would certainly never do.
He was going back to his own childhood.
XVIII
EXACTLY the way he had expected, they sat out in front of the general store, on the bench and the uptu
rned boxes, and turned sly eyes up toward him and they said: “Too bad about your Pa, Jay. He was a damn good man.”
They said: “So you write books, do you? Have to read one of your books someday. Never heard of them.”
They said: “You going out to the old place?”
“This afternoon,” said Vickers.
“It’s changed a whole lot. There ain’t no one living there.”
“No one?”
“Farming’s gone to hell. Can’t make no money at it. This carbohydrates business. Lots of folks can’t keep their places. Farms around here being bought up for grazing—just fix the fences and turn some cattle in. Don’t even try to farm. Buy feeder stuff out in the west and turn it loose the summer, then fatten it for fall.”
“That’s what happened to the old place?”
“That’s what happened. Feller that bought it after your Pa, he couldn’t make the riffle. Your Pa’s place ain’t the only one. There’s been lots of others, too. You remember the old Preston place, don’t you?”
Vickers nodded.
“Well, it happened there, too. And that was a good place. One of the best there was.”
“No one living there?”
“No one. Somebody boarded up the doors and windows. Now why do you figure anyone would go to all the work of boarding up the place?”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Vickers.
The storekeeper came out and sat down on the steps.
“Where you hanging out now, Jay?” he asked.
“In the East.”
“Doing right well, I expect.”
“I’m eating every day.”
“Well,” the storekeeper said, “anyone that can eat regular is doing downright well.”
“What kind of car is that you got?” another of them asked.
“It’s a new kind of car,” said Vickers. “Just got it the other day. Called the Forever car.” They said: “Now ain’t that a hell of a name to call a car?” They said: “I imagine it cost you a pile.”
They said: “How many miles to a gallon do you get on it?”
The Complete Serials Page 43
