Night Call and Other Stories of Suspense

by Armstrong Charlotte

  The minister was looking at him with a pleasant smile. “I believe you,” he said.

  Zeigler found himself relaxing. “The truth is, I want in the worst way,” he admitted, “to know what it is that you do here. Do you—well, preach to them? I know you’re a minister.”

  “No, sir, I’m not. Not any more. And so, of course, I don’t preach.”

  “Then what?”

  “Oh, I listen to them. Some of them. Sometimes.”

  “But that’s what the doctors do, isn’t it? Do you listen better?”

  Macroy said, as if to correct him gently. “The doctors here, and all the staff, are just as kind and understanding as they can be.”

  “Yes. But maybe you listen differently?”

  Macroy looked thoughtful.

  “The point is,” pressed Zeigler, “if there’s some kind of valuable insight that you have, shouldn’t it be told to the world?”

  “I’m not saving the world, Mr. Zeigler,” said Macroy drily. “I’m not that crazy. On that good either.” He was smiling.

  Zeigler who had momentarily forgotten that this man was supposed to be insane, said, “Just a mystery, eh? You don’t know yourself?”

  “It may be,” said Macroy melodiously, “because I’m one of them. For I understand some of these sheep.”

  “In what way to you understand them, sir? I’m asking only for myself. Last time I saw you—Well, it’s bothered me. I’ve wished I could understand.” Zeigler really meant this.

  Macroy was looking far away at the pleasant hills beyond the grounds. Then as if he had reached into some pigeonhole and plucked this out, he murmured, “One hell of a newspaperman.”

  “Yes, sir” said Zeigler, suddenly feeling a little scared.

  But Macroy didn’t seem perturbed. In a moment he went on pleasantly. “Some of them don’t speak, you know. Some, if they do, are not coherent. What man can really understand them? But there are others whom I recognize and I know that I love them.”

  “That’s the secret?” Zeigler tried not to sound disappointed. “Love?”

  Macroy went on trying to explain. “They’ve fallen out of mesh—out of pattern, you know. When they’ve lost too many of their connections and have split off from the world’s ways too far, they can’t function in the world at all.”

  Elementary, my dear Watson, thought Zeigler.

  “But it seems to me,” Macroy continued, “that quite a few of them didn’t do what they were pressured to do, didn’t depart from the patterns, because they could sense—oh, they couldn’t say how, they couldn’t express it. Yet they simply knew that somehow the mark was being missed, and what the world kept pressuring them to do and be just wasn’t good enough. Some, poor seekers, not knowing where there was any clue, have made dreadful mistakes, have done dreadful things, wicked things. And yet—” He seemed to muse.

  Zeigler was scarcely breathing. Wicked things? Like murdering your wife, for instance? “In what way,” he asked quietly, “are you one of them, sir?”

  “Oh.” The minister was smiling. “I always wanted to be good, too. I was born yearning to be good. I can’t remember not listening, beyond and through all the other voices, for the voice of God to speak to me. His child.” He smiled at Zeigler, who was feeling stunned. “I don’t mean to preach. I only say that, because I have it—this yearning, this listening, this hearing—”

  In a moment Zeigler said, rather vehemently, “I don’t want to upset you. I don’t want to trouble you in any way. But I just don’t see . . . I can’t understand why you’re not back in the pulpit, sir. Of course, maybe you are expecting to leave here, some day soon?”

  “I really don’t know,” said Macroy. “I cannot return to the ministry, of course. Or certainly I don’t expect to. I must wait—as I would put it—on the Lord. And it may be that I belong here.”

  He caught Zeigler’s unsatisfied expression. “Excuse me. The obvious trouble is, Mr. Zeigler, that every time they take me into town, as on occasion they do, sooner or later I stop in my tracks and burst into tears. Which wouldn’t make me very useful in the pulpit, I’m afraid.”

  “I guess,” said Zeigler, “you’ve had a pretty rough deal. In fact, I know you’ve had, but—”

  “No, no,” said Macroy. “That’s not the point. It isn’t what anyone did to me. It’s what I couldn’t do. And still can’t. Of course, here, it is much easier. I can love these people, almost all of them.”

  “And you can’t help trying to help them, can you?” Zeigler said, finding himself irresistibly involved. “Why do you say you don’t expect to return to the ministry?”

  “Oh, that’s very simple,” Macroy smiled a little ruefully. “I’ve explained, it seems to me, to a great many people.” He sighed.

  “I wish you’d explain it to me,” said Zeigler earnestly.

  “Then of course I’ll try,” said Macroy. “But I hope you’ll understand that, while I must use certain terms, I don’t mean to exhort you to become a Christian, for instance.”

  “I understand,” said Zeigler.

  “Christians were given two commandments,” Macroy began slowly. “You, too, were given much the same ones, I believe, although in a different form.”

  “Go on,” said Zeigler eagerly.

  “The first is to love God, which God knows I do. But I was also committed to the second commandment and that one I could not obey. Oh, I longed to—I even thought that I was obeying. But it isn’t, I discovered, a thing that you can force yourself to do. And when that Grace—I mean, when it didn’t come to me and I simply was not able—”

  “To do what, sir?”

  “To love them all.”

  “All!” Zeigler’s hair stirred.

  “That’s what He said.” Macroy was calm and sure. The voice was beautiful. “Thy neighbor? Thy enemy?”

  And Zeigler saw it, suddenly. “You took it literally!” he burst out.

  “Yes.”

  “But listen,” said Zeigler in agitation, “that’s just too hard. I mean, that’s just about impossible!”

  “It was certainly too hard for me,” said Macroy, sadly, yet smiling.

  “But—” Zeigler squirmed. “But that’s asking too much of any human being. How can you love all the rotten people in the whole damn world—excuse me, sir. But surely you realize you were expecting too much of yourself.”

  “So they keep telling me,” said Macroy, still smiling. “And since that’s my point, too, I know it very well. What I don’t feel they quite understand, and it is so perfectly plain to me—” He turned to Zeigler, mind-to-mind. “Suppose you are committed to follow Him, to feed His sheep, to feed His lambs, to be His disciple, which is a discipline, isn’t it?—and suppose you cannot make the grade? Then, when you see that you cannot, mustn’t you leave the ministry? How could I be a hypocrite, when He said not to be?

  “Let me put it in analogy,” Macroy continued, warming to argument. “Some young men who wish to become airplane pilots wash out. Isn’t that the term? They just can’t make the grade. So they may not be pilots. They would endanger people. They may, of course, work on the ground.”

  Ziegler was appalled. He could not speak.

  “So if I have necessarily left the ministry,” said Macroy, “that doesn’t mean that I may not love as many as I can.”

  Zeigler saw the image of a ray of light that came straight down, vertical and One-to-one. Suddenly there was a cross-piece, horizontal, like loving arms spread out—but it had broken. Zeigler’s heart seemed to have opened and out of it flooded a torrent of such pity, such affectionate pity, that he thought he was going to cry.

  A thousand schemes began to whirl in his brain. Something should be done. This man should be understood. Zeigler would storm into the doctor’s office. Or he would write a story, after all.

  Zeigler said, his voice shaking, “Thanks, Mr. Macroy, for talking to me. And may the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and shine upon you and give you peace.”

 
Macroy looked up. His look made Zeigler turn and almost run away.

  Zeigler, speeding along the walk, was glad no one else had heard him sounding off in singing scripture, like some old rabbi, for God’s sakes! Okay, he’d felt like doing it and he had done it and what was it with the human race that you’d better not sound as if you felt something like that?

  Maybe that man is crazy! But I love him!

  Just the same, Zeigler wasn’t going back to Doctor Norman’s office, not right now. There’d been a reaction, all right, but he didn’t care to have it seen all over his face. He’d go see Milly Norman who would give him some coffee and gossip. She always did. He’d take time to cool it. Or figure out how to translate it—

  No, let the man alone, let him stay where he was. Why should Zeigler say one word to help get Hugh Macroy back into the stinking world, which would kill him. Sure as hell, it would.

  Zeigler was blind and he ran slambang into a man and murmured an apology.

  “Hey,” said the man, moving to impede him further, “hey, Press, you get any good news outta the nutty preacher, hey, Press?”

  “Nothing I can use,” said Zeigler bitterly. He started off, but he thought, Love them all?

  So he stopped and looked experimentally at this stranger. Here was a patient. Zeigler didn’t doubt it. A middle-aged, foxy-faced, shambling man, with salted red hair, little beady eyes, and soft repellent lips.

  A more unlovable sight Zeigler had seldom seen.

  Just the same, he said aloud and heartily, “Hey, don’t you worry about a thing, old-timer,” and then, with his eyes stinging, but telling himself to stop being so much the way he was, because he’d never make it, anyhow—suddenly it was too much for him and Zeigler sprinted to his car.

  In a little while a man shambled up to where Macroy still sat on the bench under the pepper tree.

  “Hey, you the Reverend Macroy?”

  “I’m Hugh Macroy. Not a Reverend.”

  “Well—er—my name’s Leroy Chase.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Chase?”

  “Yah. Glad to meetcha. Say, listen, there’s something I guess I gotta tell you.”

  “Sit down,” said Macroy cordially.

  The man sat down. He put his unkept hands through his graying red hair. “I’m kinda nervous.”

  “You needn’t tell me anything.”

  “Yah, but I wish—I mean, I want to.”

  “Well, I’m listening.”

  “Well, see, it’s a kinda long story.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Well, see, I was up Salinas this time and I was hitching back down to L. A.”

  Macroy had turned his body slightly toward his companion.

  “Well,” the man said, “I guess you know that hitchers can’t be choosers. Hah! So I get this ride and this stupe, he takes California One.” Chase’s little eyes shifted nervously.

  Macroy said, “I see.”

  “So he dumps me in Big Sur, which is nowhere. So when I finally get another hitch south, I figure I’m lucky. Only trouble is, I find out this bird is juiced up pretty strong, and when the fog starts rolling in, believe me, I’m scared. So I want out. So I get out. So there I am.”

  The man was speaking in short bursts. “In that fog, what am I? A ghost or something? Who can see a thumb? Nobody is going to take his eye off the white line to look, even. And it gets dark. And what can I do?”

  Macroy was listening intently, but he kept silent.

  The red-headed man chewed on his own mouth for a moment before he went on. “Well, I got my blanket roll on me, so I figure I’ll just bed down and wait out the fog. Why not? So I find this big rock and I nest myself down behind it, where no car is going to plow into me, see? And there I am, dozing and all that. Then there’s this car pulls off the road and stops, right ten, fifteen feet in front of me.”

  The man leaned suddenly away to blow his nose. Macroy looked away, flexed one ankle, then let it relax. He said nothing.

  “So I wonder, should I jump up and beg a ride? But it’s all so kinda weird, see—white air, you could say?” Chase was gesturing now, making slashes in the air for emphasis. “A man gets out with a flashlight. It’s like a halo. And the other party gets out, see. Well, I dunno what’s up. I can’t see too good. I know they can’t see me. I got a gray blanket. I’m practically another rock. And I’m lying low and thinking, why bother?”

  The man’s speech became slower, his voice a little deeper. “What’s the matter with where I am, I think. It’s kinda wild out there that night—the white air and all. And I can hear the sea. I always liked listening to the sea, especially by myself, you know?”

  Macroy nodded. His eyes were fixed on the man’s face.

  “Listen, you know what I’m trying to—”

  “I’m listening.”

  “So when this person starts coming along with the flash, I turn my face, so it won’t show—”

  “Yes,” said Macroy, with a strange placidity.

  “Then the light goes down on the ground. It don’t fall, see? It’s just pointing down. And I’m wondering what the hell—excuse me—when . . .” The voice was getting shrill. “My God, I know what she’s gonna do! Listen, no man can take a thing like that, for God’s sake!”

  The man was crying now, crying. “So I think, ‘Oh, no, you don’t! Not on me, you don’t!” So I just give a big heave and, holy God, it’s too close! And over she goes! Oh, listen, I never meant—I never—But who could take a thing like that?”

  Chase was now on the edge of the bench. “Before I know what I’m doing, I drag my roll and I’m running up the edgy side, north. My life is in my feet, brother, but I gotta get out of there. It’s just instinct, see?

  I could hear you calling—”

  “You heard me?” Macroy was looking at the sky.

  “Listen. Listen. So I’m about half, three-quarters of a mile away and now here comes this car going south. So I figure to look like I been going south the whole while. That way, I never was there. And damned if this guy don’t stop in the fog and pick me up. Well, I soon find out he ain’t exactly cold sober, but by this time I don’t care, I’m so— Then what does he have to do but stop for you? But you tell him to send help and we just—we just went on by.”

  Chase slumped. He would fall off the bench in a few moments.

  “If you had told me then—” Macroy had shut his eyes.

  “Oh, listen, Mister, maybe you’re some kind of saint or something but I didn’t know, not then. Didn’t even know you was a preacher.”

  “And you had two chances.”

  “Well, I had—well, three really. But look, nobody coulda said I’d done that on purpose. Maybe manslaughter. Who knows? What I couldn’t take was the—was the motive. See, it’s too damned hilarious. What

  I couldn’t take was the big hah-hah. I mean, I knew she never saw me.

  I know that. She wouldn’t have done a thing like that. But all I thought

  at the time was ‘Hey, this I don’t have to take.’ If I would have stopped

  for one second—but here it comes, outta the night, you could say—

  Who’s going to understand? Who? Because what a screaming howl, right?”

  Chase was sobbing. He wasn’t looking at Macroy. He sobbed into the crook of his own elbow.

  Macroy said musingly, “Yes, it is supposed to be quite funny.”

  “Listen, what I did do.” Chase gathered voice. “This happy-boy, he fin’ly gets into that gas station, and he don’t even know what day it is. The message is long gone from his mind. So I made the call to the Sheriff. That was the third chance. But I chickened out. I hung up. And I say ‘so long’ to this happy character and go in the café and when I see the cop car rolling I figure I done all I could and maybe she’s okay. I’m praying she’s okay. It was the best that I could do.” He hiccuped.

  They were silent then, in the sunshine that had crept around the tree.

  Macroy said in a moment or two. “Why are
you here?”

  Chase mopped his face with his sleeve. “Oh, I fall apart, see?” he said rather cheerfully. “I practically never been what they’d call ‘together.’ You talk about chances. I had plenty chances. But not me, I wouldn’t stay in school. I coulda even gone to college. But I wouldn’t go. So I’m forty years old and I’m crying in my wine, when I can get any, like a baby whining after a shining star, too far—” The man controlled his wailing rhyme abruptly. “Well. So. Now they don’t know what else to do with me. So I’m a nut. That’s okay.”

  He relaxed against the back of the bench with a thump. “So now,” he spoke quietly, “I’ll do anything. I mean clear your name? If you want? What can they do to me?”

  Macroy didn’t speak.

  “I wish—” said Chase. “Well, anyhow, now you know it wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t her fault, either. And it wasn’t—” He stopped and seemed to listen, anxiously.

  “Excuse me,” said Macroy. “I was wondering what I would have done. I’m no saint.” Macroy turned his face. “And never was.”

  “But I didn’t know you, Mr. Macroy,” Chase began to be agitated again. “You got to remember, for all I knew, you mighta killed me.”

  Macroy said, “I might have. I think not. But I wouldn’t have laughed.”

  Chase drew in breath, an in-going sob. “Ah, you don’t know me, either. All I ever been is a bum, all my life. I never did no good or been no good.”

  “But you wish you had? You wish you could?”

  “God knows!” The cry came out of him, astonished.

  “Yes. And I believe you.” Macroy bent his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. That woman was very dear to me. Very dear.”

  “Don’t I believe it?” cried Chase as if his heart had split. “Oh, God, don’t I know! I heard you calling her. I knew it in your voice.” Chase was sobbing. “I remember a thing—what they say in church—I remember. Don’t tell me it was good enough, the best I could do. Because it wasn’t, and that’s what I know.”

  Chase was on his knees and hanging to the minister’s knees, and sobbing. “Oh, listen, listen. I’m sorry. I got a broken heart. Believe me? Please believe me!”