My phone went off at seven oh one. I fumbled for it. Brought the handset to my ear.
“It had to be yooooou,” someone was singing. “It had to be yoooooou.…”
Himmelmann from the Times. I hung up on him. I rolled out of bed. I sat in my underwear on the edge of the mattress, my feet on the floor, my face in my hands.
At seven oh two, the phone rang again.
“Hi, John, this is Hank Larson at Channel Four. I was wondering.…”
“Hank, I’d like to talk to you, but I’ve gotta leave this line open. My managing editor is trying to reach me. Try me at the office in an hour or so.…”
I hung up on him too.
It was now seven oh three. The phone was ringing. I cursed Alexander Graham Bell. I cursed Don Ameche. I picked up the phone.
“John.” It was Cambridge. “John. John. John.”
“Hey, Bob,” I said. “Listen, I’d love to talk to you, but I promised I’d get in touch with Hank Larson over at Channel Four.…”
There was dead silence. I fumbled for the cigarettes on my nightstand. I lit one. No coffin nail ever tasted so good. Cambridge said: “John.” He did not sound happy. He took a deep breath. I took a deep breath. “We have got a real problem here,” he said. “A real problem.”
In the next several seconds, I ran through every dodge I knew. At one point or another in my long, illustrious career, I have tried them all. I have avoided editors with feigned sicknesses and rigged cars. I’ve ducked their assignments by telling them the line was busy or the address was wrong. I even hid under a desk once to get out of calling some train wreck victim’s widow. If there’s any kind of daylight between an editor’s stupid and misguided notion and my own crystal principles and lucid vision, I’ve snuck through it. But today, I felt I’d come to the end of my rope.
Eventually, one way or another, the fact that I was the reporter who turned down Kendrick’s pictures was going to become common knowledge. I was guilty as sin of failing to be relatable, and sooner or later, the whole world was going to find out. I smoked my cigarette, grateful for small favors, and waited for Cambridge to go on.
Cambridge noticed my silence. He knew it for the capitulation it was. I guess he figured there was no point toying with me. He brought out his big guns.
“The people upstairs want to see you. They’ve asked me to arrange a meeting in the upstairs conference room for eight-thirty.”
I glanced at the clock. It was seven oh five. It had been a long day.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
There was another silence. Then Cambridge said: “John.” Then he said: “John, John, John.” Then he sighed. Then he hung up.
I placed the handset back in the cradle. The phone rang. I pulled the plug. I could hear the phone in the other room ringing. I waited. I sat on the bed. I smoked my cigarette. Finally, it stopped.
I threw on a bathrobe and wandered into the living room. I put the coffee on in the kitchen. The phone on the desk by the window started ringing again. I pulled the plug on that one, too.
I drank my coffee standing by the window. I peered out over the coffee’s steaming surface. I looked down on Eighty-fifth Street. I watched the marquee of the triplex theater four stories below. Its lights were off. It seemed oddly pale and anemic in the early morning light.
Everything out there seemed that way. Pale, faded, quiet. It was the heat. The heat again. My air-conditioning was on, but I could feel it. The windows were closed and the smells and sounds and weathers of the street were muted. But I could feel it out there all the same. The heat. I could practically see it. The sun and the morning sky were covered by that faint, damp mist that had hung there for days. The sun burned white through it and washed out the city’s colors with blank, unrelenting fire. The sun baked the sidewalk. There were few people walking there. Those who were walked slowly, bent over. The sun drained the color from the green newsstand and the black pavement and the white garbage trucks just starting to grind from station to station. The sun shone hot against my windowpane. I drank my coffee and I felt it and I sweat. The collar of my bathrobe grew damp and warm.
It was seven-twenty when I set the empty cup down on the table. I went into the bathroom. Showered, shaved and dressed. Now it was close to eight. I’d put on my best suit, a gray pinstripe. I’d put on a red-striped tie. Solemn but not somber. Introspective but not necessarily penitent. I gave myself the once-over in the mirror. I practiced rubbing my chin thoughtfully. I said, “Well, sir, you may be right,” once or twice, trying to make it sound sincere.
It didn’t sound very sincere.
It was eight o’clock. The man on the radio told me. Then he told me about Paul Abingdon again. He told me about the pictures of a sexual nature. Then he told me about the reporter for the New York Star. The reporter who was now believed to be John Wells.
“Shut up,” I said. I killed the radio. I killed the air-conditioning. I killed the lights. I plugged in the phone. It started ringing. I killed the phone. I turned my back on it and walked away.
I went to the door and opened it. The heat hit me in the face like a fist.
Then a fist hit me in the face like the heat. It was a fist the size of a basketball. A black pit opened in my head. I stumbled backward and fell into it.
5
I was going to be late for my crucifixion.
That was the first thought that occurred to me as I opened my eyes. I was on the floor. I was on my back. I was looking up at the ceiling. I noticed the plaster up there was webbed with cracks. I noticed there were lights dancing up there like fairies. I noticed that the ceiling swayed: someone had forgotten to nail it down.
A shadow passed between me and these visions. The ceiling was blotted out. Oddly, the little dancing lights kept dancing even in the shadows. But then the fairies can do anything they want, can’t they?
I squinted. I shook my head. The shadow began to resolve itself into a shape. Or several shapes. A human shape. Or the shape of several humans. I pushed up on my elbows. I squinted. The shapes of the shadow whirled sickeningly. Slowly, then, they joined together into one shape. One human. One enormous human. For a moment, as I tried to bring him into focus, he seemed to be bearing the ceiling on his shoulders.
The giant human shape spoke to me. It said: “God will punish you for what you have done.”
“More?” I said. The word did not quite make it out intact. I worked my way into a sitting position. I groaned with the effort. I looked down between my knees. The floor was spinning.
“Beg for forgiveness,” the giant shape above me said.
“Please forgive me,” I muttered.
“Not from me, from God.”
“Whoever hit me.”
The shape lapsed into silence. The spinning of the floor was making my stomach spin, too. I shook my head to make it all stop. A barbell rolled across the floor of my brain.
Now, the shape crouched down in front of me. He really was huge. His head alone filled up my blurring vision. It was a round head with shaggy blond hair framing the face of it.
“God forgive me,” he said in a soft, deep voice. “I … I shouldn’t have turned to violence.”
“I’ll say.”
“Let me help you.”
He wrapped an enormous hand around my entire upper arm. He hoisted me to my feet. I was beginning to see more clearly. I could see he was a young man, maybe in his early twenties. Round-cheeked like a kid, with a sweet, open expression. With blue eyes that were troubled but clean and clear. On either side of that face, shoulders seemed to extend forever. From the shoulders, arms hung down thick and heavy as beef.
I nodded as he set me aright. The giant boy smiled shyly.
“Thanks,” I said, and I kneed him in the balls.
He bent forward. I reared back and hit him in the face with the longest roundhouse I could throw. The force of the blow brought me spinning to the floor again. The giant, on the other hand, swayed back and forth for a long moment befo
re he went down. He landed on his ass. I was on my hands and knees. He groaned. I gagged. I pushed my way back to my feet.
The giant was sitting propped against an easy chair. His nose was bleeding from the right nostril. His mouth hung open. His eyes gazed blankly into space.
I stumbled over to him and grabbed him by the shirt front. I tried to haul him up. It was like trying to haul a bag of sand. I tried again. I felt a sharp pain across my lower back. I grunted. I straightened. I stopped trying to lift him.
“Awrigh’,” I said. “Wha the fubus dubus?” Somehow, that didn’t sound right. I rubbed my hand over my forehead. It didn’t seem to help. My legs seemed to be getting weaker by the second. I didn’t think they would support me much longer. I staggered away from the sitting giant. I put my hands out in front of me. I reached for the swivel chair by the desk near the window. When I got hold of its arms, I pulled it to me. Gingerly, I lowered myself into it. I sat silently a moment, staring at the giant who sat silently staring into space.
“Shit,” I said.
The giant turned his head toward me. He kept staring.
“Huh?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
The giant raised one heavy hand to his face. He took it away. He stared at his palm.
“Blood,” he said. “Blood. You hit me.”
I nodded. “Thash righ’. And if I ever stand up, I’ll do it again.”
“Oh sweet Jesus, am I all right, am I alive?”
“How the hell should I know? What is this anyway?”
Now, the kid put both hands to his forehead. He let out a long moan. But it seemed more a sound of anguish than of pain.
“Oh, Father in Heaven, what have I done?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But next time, knock on the door like anyone else.”
“Huh?”
Then this thought seemed to get through to him. He nodded. He reached back and grabbed hold of the easy chair, He lifted himself into it. He felt the effort in his groin. He laid a hand on it and bent forward in the chair.
“Goshagorry,” he said. “You really hurt me, Mr. Wells.”
The quaking in my brain seemed to be slowing. When I spoke next, I could almost understand what I said. “At least you had the right man. Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so. I’m Wally Shakespeare.”
“Nope.”
“But you know her, don’t you?” Moving by painful inches, he dug into his pants pocket. He brought out a hefty black wallet. He opened it and held it out toward me.
I took it, looked it over. It was opened to a plastic folder. Through the fog and scratches on the surface of it, I could make out a picture of a girl. I caught my breath at the sight of her.
“Don’t you?” said Wally Shakespeare.
I nodded. I handed the wallet back to him. “She looks good with her clothes on too,” I said. It was the girl who had been with Abingdon in Kendrick’s pictures.
The gargantuan kid rocketed out of his seat. I didn’t think I’d left that much energy in him. Suddenly, he was towering over me again. His round face was scarlet. His fists were clenched at his sides.
“Shut up!” he said. “Shut up about her, that’s all!” Then he brought his hands to his forehead. The fingers were curled up like claws. He cried out, “Oh God, help thy servant in his pain.”
I decided he wasn’t going to hit me again. I let out my breath. “Why don’t you sit down, son? Start at the beginning.” He nodded. He stumbled backward blindly. He dropped into the chair. He replaced his head in his hands.
The air conditioning had only been off a few moments, but already the heat was seeping in again. The air had begun to cling to me. It was like sitting in a swamp. It made my throbbing head throb more. I managed to get to my feet. I went into the bedroom and clicked on the a/c. As I passed, I glanced at the disconnected phone. I imagined Cambridge dialing on the other end. Dialing and dialing. Angrier and angrier. I glanced at my watch. It was eight twenty. A long, long day.
When I returned to the living room, Shakespeare was sitting just the way I’d left him.
“Have you got those sinful photographs?” he said miserably. “Are you gonna put them in the newspapers for all the world to see?”
“No. Hell no.” I walked into the kitchen. I poured what was left in the coffeepot into a pan. I put the pan on the stove and turned the fire on under it. “You want coffee?”
“Huh? Yeah. But they said on the radio …”
“They said Kendrick tried to sell me the photographs.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“They didn’t say I bought them.” I leaned in the kitchen doorway. I lit a cigarette. “Say, you’re not a reporter, are you?”
He’d raised his head now. He looked at me blankly. “Huh?”
“A joke. Never mind.” He didn’t seem to get it, but he nodded anyway. “So what is this?” I said. “I take it you know this girl.”
He sniffled. He wiped away the blood from his nose with the back of his wrist. He jerked his chin up and down, his face forlorn. “She’s my fiancé—” Fi-ansee, he pronounced it. “She’s my fiancée, Georgia Stuart.”
The coffee bubbled in the pan. I poured a mug for each of us. I brought him his. He set it on a lamp stand and never touched it again. I brought mine to the desk and set it there and never touched it again. I sat down in the desk chair.
“All right,” I said. “Hit me.” He glanced up quickly. “A figure of speech. Tell me everything.”
“Oh.” He sat forward in the chair, his hands dangling down between his knees. He took a moment to gather his thoughts. “You ever been to Ohio?” he asked.
“Passed through, yeah.”
He laughed ruefully. “Golly, I wish I were there now. Fallonville. You know it?”
I shook my head. Killed one cigarette, lit another.
“It’s pretty,” said Wally Shakespeare quietly. He smiled at the opposite wall, like he could see it there. “Right around this time. Hot, real hot, but not hot like this, you know? Not all wet and dirty like this, just … I don’t know. Clean hot. Like it’s supposed to be. Sky all blue. Fields land of tan brown. And every now and then, a breeze sort of comes out of the high grass to cool you off, or you can go down to Fallon Creek and jump in off the rope.… You know what I mean?” He glanced over at me. I glanced at my watch. I’m gonna lose my job, and the Ohio tourist board is doing a presentation. Eventually, friend Wally went on. “Anyway …” He sighed for his lost state. “Anyway, it’s just a small town, a little farming town, Fallonville. Fifteen thousand souls, maybe. If that. My dad’s the preacher there. Only one. Does just about all the marrying and burying folks could ask for.” He smiled fondly. “My dad …” he said. “His people were from over in Tankersville. They …”
“Son … Wally … Please,” I said.
“Huh? Oh. You got an appointment or something?”
“Sort of. Yeah.”
“Sorry. I forgot. This town: everybody rushing everywhere. No time for talking.”
“It’s a shame, I know. Now just lay it out for me, willya?”
“Right, right. It’s just I haven’t been back home in—golly, in six months now almost. I kind of miss it.”
“Is that when you and Georgia Stuart got engaged?”
He nodded and looked away. He seemed to have to brace himself to go on. I watched the tip of my cigarette burning, the second hand of my watch moving. “I was down … See, I’m in school now myself over in High Corner, studying to be a preacher like my dad. It was at the end of the Easter holidays, though, and I was at home. So now, I noticed, while I was gone, a new shopping.mall had opened up just a few miles down the highway, and my daddy, he was telling me how it was snaring young people and leading them into the ways of sloth and sin.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve heard of those.”
“You bet. You bet,” he said. “So now my daddy, he figured whereas I was closer to these misguided young people by way of a
ge, I might be more effective in preaching the gospel to them than he was. Because, see, he’d tried it.… He’d actually gone right down there, right into the lion’s den itself and he’d preached to them, and they just laughed at him outright. I mean, this is the shepherd of God we’re talking about, and they just laughed at him. So he said to me, ‘Son, God has set before you a trial.’ And I spent that night, Mr. Wells, I spent it watching and praying by my bed for guidance. And in the morning, I went down into the lion’s den myself.”
I looked at my watch. It was eight forty-five. I crushed out my cigarette. I lit another. The smoke hung in the still, thin, air-conditioned air.
“Well, armed with the gospel, I went down there,” Wally Shakespeare said. He hunched his giant shoulders at the memory of his own heroism. “I walked right into the lion’s den. Well, actually, it was the Burger King, but you know what I’m saying. And I addressed the poor sinning young folk gathered there in sloth and ignorance, gathered there in their torn denim jackets and their tight black jeans and their godforsaken haircuts and I said—” And his voice all at once became a deep, rolling earthquake of a thing—“I said, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless you are born again, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.’” He quieted down again. “Well, Mr. Wells, sir, those children gathered before me in the Burger King, they treated me just as they treated my father before me. Just as they’ve treated the prophets throughout the history of creation. Just like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Elijah himself, I was pelted with french fries and with the empty cups of milkshakes until I turned my head sadly and walked out into the parking lot.”
I nodded sympathetically. It was a little tough to imagine Isaiah getting slapped with a side of fries, but I let it pass in the interest of time.
The Rain Page 4
