The League of Grey-Eyed Women

by Julius Fast

  Desperately he turned back to the path And the benches. Think! Dear God, what could he do? There had to be something, someone who could help him. Christ, what a mess! He rubbed his eyes and sank back against the rock, fighting down the panic that tilled him. Be calm. Never mind how this happened, the thing to concentrate on is how to get out of it. Who could help him?

  Clifford. Of course! Clifford worked at home. He was bound to be in his studio. If he could get to a phone. He stood up and stared around wildly. Yes, there was a phone booth near the boathouse. He could call him, and Clifford would come and bring him clothing.

  But he couldn't walk down to the boathouse naked. He couldn't go anywhere like this. He shivered as he became conscious of the cold, and he rubbed his arms. If he could move around, run—but he didn't dare come out of the shelter of the cleft. Even if he waited here till after dark and wasn't discovered, even if he reached the booth, how could he make a phone call with no money? Could he flash the operator, call collect? Not from a dial phone, not in the city.

  His eyes came back to the sleeping man. If he could steal up behind him and grab his jacket. But his jacket was under his head. He'd wake up. Even if he didn't, what if anyone saw him stealing up to a sleeping man like this...

  Last night, he thought with a sudden irrational surge of pride. Last night I could have taken the jacket and outrun him. I could have outrun anyone, any animal! He felt his legs tense, and he half rose on the balls of his feet. Then he dropped back in dismay. Was he crazy? The pride changed to sick shame. Christ, what had happened to him? He had run out of Anna's place naked, drunk and naked, thinking he was a wolf?

  That must have been what happened. Of course! He remembered drinking, calling Anna when he was half stoned. He remembered her room, starting to make love, the intruder, and then...

  Something had happened. Something had snapped inside him, some half-remembered animal part of his brain had taken over. My God, he thought with a sick recall, he had smashed the window, leaped out on the fire escape with no clothes and he had run through the city like that. Poor Anna. Oh, Christ, what had she thought?

  And yet the night was so clear in his memory, every detail of it. He hadn't felt drunk. No, he had felt alive, alive as he had never been before.

  He looked back at the benches. On the one next to the sleeping man's, another man sat hunched forward, his head on his chest, his topcoat thrown over the back of the bench. Was he sleeping? He must be. No one could sit like that without being asleep. The two benches were isolated from the others, out of anyone's direct line of vision.

  Jack made up his mind instantly and acted before he could hesitate. He lifted himself out of the rocky cleft and on silent feet raced down the rock, jumped over the stream and paused behind the bench for a tense second. The man still sat hunched forward, unmoving, snoring very softly. Quickly Jack grabbed the topcoat and ran.

  Incredibly, no one had noticed him. No one moved. The man on the bench lay still. The man whose coat he had taken still slept, hunched forward.

  It was a grey topcoat, shapeless enough to fit anyone, and he struggled into it as he ran, only anxious to put as much distance between himself and the bench as he could.

  He turned and looked back as he reached the lake. There was no one coming after him. No one had seen him or if they had, they had ignored him. He slowed down to a walk and found himself breathing heavily, his throat raw from exertion.

  The coat came down to his knees and he could button it at his throat. His bare feet and bare legs were peculiar enough, but at least he was not naked. There were men who wore shorts, he told himself, even in this weather. There were young men who went barefoot. It didn't matter as long as his body was covered.

  What a difference clothes made; what security to have some covering, some mask to crouch behind, the protected feel of a covered body.

  Ahead of him he saw a police officer walking along slowly, and he felt his throat tighten. He turned and cut off the path into the woods, wincing as the twigs cut into his bare feet. The police were his only problem. Anyone else in the park, hell, in the entire city, would only stare and turn away. A policeman might ask questions. How uncovered could a man be, by law?

  He thrust his hands into the pockets of the coat, and he felt coins and a handkerchief in one of them. He winced as he took out the dirty, crusted handkerchief and he flung it aside, then he reached in and brought out the coins. There were two quarters, a dime and seven pennies. Thank God for that. He could hardly believe his luck. There was still no sign of pursuit, but he had a coat and some change. Now if he could find a phone and call Clifford, ask him to bring some pants and shoes.

  He began to shiver with a delayed reaction to the cold. He still wanted to believe that it was a dream, but things were too clear, too brilliant. The lake was such a startling blue, the sky so bright and gold, the sunlight danced on the water, etching each tiny ripple, and drenched the trees and paths with a cold hard light.

  The grey paths, the still-green lawns, the red of a passing car, the yellow of a child's balloon, were all vivid, almost painful to his eyes.

  But it was not only his eyes. All his senses were assaulted. His hearing was amazingly acute, his sense of smell keen and crisp. He heard sound, saw images, smelt odors and felt the touch of the wind, the texture of the walk under his feet, all in a rich vivid rush of impressions, almost a painful flooding of sensation.

  Everything was more brilliant, he realized with a start, than it had been in years. What had happened to his senses to make him so aware? And his eyes—the years had built up some farsightedness, but that was gone now. He could see every detail of the buildings across the park, and every hair on the back of his hand when he held it up. He was aware of things too, of everything about him, an awareness that he had felt last night, racing through the moonlight.

  He shivered and pushed the memory aside. Right now he had to get out of the park. If he climbed the steps behind the fountain, he could reach the 72nd Street cut-through and perhaps catch a cab. But with only 67 cents in change, barefoot and barelegged—what cab would stop for him? No. The sensible thing would be to call Clifford. There was a phone booth near the boathouse and he could make the call from there. In the meanwhile he hurried on, his hands shoved into his pockets, his skin a mass of gooseflesh under the light topcoat.

  He reached the boathouse and the phone booth, but someone was in it. Shivering, he waited till he left, then hurried over and shut himself into the booth.

  He started to dial and then forgot the number. He hung up, terrified that his dime wouldn't be returned, and felt a flood of relief when it was. He dialed information and got Clifford's number, dialed it and waited frantically as the phone rang again and again. He had to be home, dear God, let him be home!

  He felt his body go limp with relief as the ringing stopped and Clifford said, "McNally here."

  "Cliff—oh, Christ, thank God you're in!"

  "I'm just about. I was on my way out for some lunch and I heard the phone—Jack? What's wrong? You sound funny."

  "Oh, my God—funny!" he fought back an urge to giggle. "Cliff, listen. I need your help. Right away."

  "Yeah, sure. What is it?"

  "Listen, Cliff. I'm in Central Park. I'm in the phone booth in front of the boathouse. Do you know it?"

  "Yes—of course. What are you doing there? Jack, have you been drinking? At this hour?"

  "Cliff, I'm half naked but I'm sober. I just stole an overcoat. I have no money, no shoes or pants, Cliff. Oh, Christ, can you get a cab and pick me up?"

  There was a long silence, and then slowly, carefully, Clifford said, "You're not putting me on, Jack?"

  "My God, no! Cliff, please!"

  There was no mistaking the desperation in his voice. Clifford said, "I'll be there in ten minutes. Hold on."

  He waited in the booth, an endless agonizing wait, desperately watching every cab as it raced past in the park road. One stopped and he started forward, but it was a woman
and child.

  Someone rattled the door of the phone booth and he turned, startled, to see an annoyed young lady spread her hands and shrug. "Are you finished?"

  "In a minute." He picked up the phone and fished out a quarter.

  She looked down at his bare legs through the glass door and shook her head. "What do you think you are, mister? Superman?"

  He dropped the quarter in and dialed WE 6-1212, nodding his head at the taped weather report, talking every now and then as the girl watched suspiciously.

  He was covered with sweat, in spite of the cold, when a cab slowed down in front of the boathouse and Clifford opened the door. Jack raced out of the booth and climbed into the cab, slamming the door behind him.

  "Jesus—I thought you'd never get here."

  "You weren't kidding. Are you naked under that coat?" Clifford asked.

  He leaned forward and gave the driver his address, and then collapsed in the seat as the cab took off.

  "You want to talk now, or wait?" Clifford asked, staring at him.

  He started to answer, but the taxi driver, turning, interrupted. "Tell him now, mister. You can't expect me to go through a day without knowing how you got into Central Park naked."

  "Okay, Buster. We'll do the routine and leave the driving to you," Clifford snapped.

  The driver shrugged. "You get all kinds. I had two hippies with no shoes yesterday—but they had pants. You really naked under that coat?"

  When neither of them answered, he shook his head. "Man, I'm not knocking it. We all got to get our kicks—but in Central Park."

  "Knock it off," Clifford growled, but he stared at Jack uneasily.

  At the apartment, Cliff paid the driver while Jack tore into the building. Cliff followed him up the stairs and stopped in front of the door where Jack was fumbling frantically with the lock.

  "No key?"

  He turned and spread his hands, at the thin edge of hysteria. "Cliff ... help me!"

  "You stay here. I'll get the super." He was back in few minutes with a complaining superintendent who waded through his ring of passkeys till he found the right one.

  "This is a hell of a day to go barefoot, Mr. Freeman."

  Jack opened the door and handed the passkeys back. "It's just a hell of a day, Andy. Thanks. I'll make it up to you at Christmas."

  Andy stood there. "You got no pants either, or yuh wearin' shorts?"

  Clifford walked into the kitchen and started mixing drinks while Jack unbuttoned his coat and with shaking fingers started to dress. Cliff came back with a half glass of Scotch and handed it to him. "Sit down and take this. You want to talk now?"

  "My God, I never knew how wonderful a pair of pants could feel."

  "Or would you like me to guess?" Clifford sat down in the armchair. "You walked in your sleep?"

  Jack swirled the liquor and sipped the drink. "I don't know. Maybe I drank too much last night. Maybe that was it."

  "You don't get off that easy. I've seen you pretty drunk over the years, but never half naked in Central Park."

  Jack stared at him. "Half naked, hell. I woke up completely naked, curled up in the rocks by the lake, like a goddamned animal, like a wolf." He hesitated, then took a deep swallow of the Scotch. "I stole the coat from some poor guy dozing on a bench."

  Clifford stared at him. "All right. Start at the beginning and let me have it."

  For a long moment Jack said nothing, then he sat on a straight wooden chair and put his drink down. "I've been feeling pretty lousy for the last five months. You know, you've been after me to see a doctor."

  Clifford nodded.

  "Well, I saw one, and I'm a hell of a lot sicker than I thought." He touched his lips with his tongue. "I have cancer, Cliff. An incurable gastric cancer, and I have about two months, or less, to live."

  Clifford's mouth fell open. "Jack! Oh, my God—"

  "I've tried to face up to it, Cliff, as much as any man can face up to his own death. No, that's not true. I've done anything but face it. Maybe I went a little crazy and began grasping at straws, even experimental ones." He started to gloss over his trip to Canada, but Clifford caught him up and made him tell it in detail.

  "And what about last night?" he asked when Jack had finished.

  "I don't know. I had a lot to drink, self-pity, I guess, and I almost let myself be picked up by some tramp in a bar—that's how drunk I was. I think that's important. You know how I am. If I've drunk that much, well, hell, I can make myself believe anything. It must have been the liquor. Anyway, I finally went to see Anna."

  "How is she?"

  "She's fine. Cliff, it's hard to tell this, about Anna."

  Cliff frowned. "I know about you and Anna. I've known both of you for three years. Now what happened?"

  "Anna and I—we were making love. That's the last thing I really remember before the hallucination—or whatever it was."

  "What hallucination? For Christ's sake, will you tell me?"

  "One minute I was with Anna..." He held his hands out, the palms curved upwards as if to grasp the essence of what he was saying. "We were in bed, making love, only ... I had a feeling of wildness, of savagery ... how can I describe it? Maybe it was the drinking, this whole business of the cancer and my own feeling of frustration over Steve and the mess she made of the DNA injections. Only I felt so savagely brutal towards Anna, Cliff. I just wasn't myself."

  "I can believe that. Go on."

  "Then all of a sudden I was a wolf."

  "What?"

  He stood up and began pacing back and forth. "I can't explain it. Maybe that's when the hallucination started. I remember leaping from the bed, and I remember Anna screaming. Then I ran down the fire escape—I smashed the window and ran down the fire escape—and then I was a wolf, Cliff, a wolf running through the streets of New York. Can you understand that?"

  "No," he said flatly.

  "I can't either. If it was an hallucination, then it was the most vivid one anyone ever had. I could smell everything, every odor.

  That's what was so clear and brilliant, the odor. Smell was like another dimension.

  "I remember smelling the park, and then I headed for it, and I ran through it all night, howling at the goddamned moon. I must have crawled into that cleft in the rock where I woke up naked."

  "Let me get this straight. You left your clothes at Anna's?" "I was naked with her in bed—and I guess I ran out of her apartment naked."

  "I guess you did, old buddy." Clifford downed his drink and poured himself another. "Man! If you had been picked up, they would have thrown the book at you."

  "This morning, do you know how I felt in the park? I've dreamed of being naked like that, but somehow in a dream you accept it. It worries you, but you accept it."

  "Maybe you accept it. I never do. When I dream of being naked, it scares the bejesus out of me."

  "Well, it scared me too, Cliff. Only I don't know which scares me most, the idea of being naked in the park, defenseless and naked, or the idea of the hallucination itself. That really scares me, Cliff. What the hell is happening to me? If I can run out into the street naked, really thinking I'm a wolf—I could smell that city all around me. Solid! I can remember it so clearly, Cliff, every odor. That couldn't have been an hallucination." Clifford looked up at him narrowly. "What do you mean, it couldn't have been? W T hat do you think happened? Do you think you were a wolf?"

  "Don't be ridiculous—only—" He bit his lip, then burst out. "It was so real, Cliff, so real. And the part of me that was a man was like a shadow, back somewhere in my head. If I could have gone on like that, like a wolf, I would have been happy— does that make sense?"

  Clifford stroked his bald head, scowling. "No, it doesn't make sense. Look, would you see a doctor now, Jack?"

  He wheeled away. "What for? What the hell is the point of a dying man seeing a doctor? What kind of a doctor, Cliff? A head man? To readjust my brain a little? I haven't got time for that. How much time do I have anyway? Maybe a month—"
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  Helplessly, Cliff said, "We've all got to die..."

  "Big deal. That's a hell of a comforting thought." Jack dropped down in a chair, suddenly penitent. "I'm sorry. I've got no right putting this all on you."

  "To coin a cliché, that's what friends are for. Jack, maybe this whole thing is part of the DNA treatment that this woman gave you. Maybe it works, well, like LSD, to give hallucinations. Is it like LSD? It sure sounds like it."

  "They're both initials, that's all. Chemically there's no resemblance between them. What I'm afraid of, Cliff, is that the cancer is the cause, that it's metastasized to my brain and I'm in for a series of these hallucinations before—before I die. I couldn't take that kind of a death."

  Abruptly Clifford stood up. "I'll tell you what you can take, a good eight hours of sleep. You get to bed and sleep this off. I want to call my answering service and see if anything came up while I was gone. I've been working on a layout for the Lessing Agency, big Madison Avenue account, not like that chintzy outfit of yours. I want to be available in case they start knocking my door down. I'll be back tonight."

  Jack smiled. "Anyway, thanks, just for being available. If it happens again..."

  "Keep your clothes on this time."

  "Thanks. I'll sleep in them."

  Afterwards, when Clifford had left, Jack lay in bed, shivering under the blankets. Sleep was impossible, but if he could rest, just rest and get warm again. He was asleep before he could finish the thought.

  He woke at dusk with a painful, throbbing headache and a mouth like dry flannel. He stumbled to the bathroom, shaved and showered, standing for fifteen minutes under the steaming hot water.

  Afterwards he made coffee and drank it with some biscuits, trying to force his mind away from what had happened last night, from this morning in the park, but it kept coming back in a frightening, confusing memory. What had happened and why? Was it the beginning of a mental breakdown, or was it the DNA as Clifford had suggested? He had been sure that there was no hallucinogenic effect to the drug, but what did he really know about it, or about cancer for that matter?