Time Out of Joint (5 page)

"Look," he said to Junie, getting to his feet. "I’m going up the hill to that soft-drink stand and see if by any chance they’ve got any beer. It could be."

"Suit yourself."

"Do you want anything? Root beer? A Coke?"

"No thank you," she said in a formal tone.

As he plodded up the grassy slope toward the soft-drink stand he thought, I’d have to take Bill Black on, sooner or later. In combat.

No telling what color the man would turn if he found out. Is he the kind that gets down his hunting 22 and without a word sets off and shoots the trespasser of that most sacred of all a man’s preserves, that Elysian field where only the lord and master dares to graze?

Talk about bagging the royal deer.

He reached a cement path along which grew green wooden benches. On the benches assorted people, mostly older, sat watching the slope and pool below. One heavy-set elderly lady smiled at him.

Does she know? he asked himself. That what she saw going on down there was not happy springtide youthful frolic at all, but sin? Near-adultery?

"Afternoon," he said to her genially.

She nodded back genially.

Reaching around in his pockets, he found some change. A line of kids waited at the soft-drink stand; the kids were buying hot dogs and popsicles and Eskimo Pies and orange drink. He joined them.

How quiet everything was.

Stunning desolation washed over him. What a waste his life had been. Here he was, forty-six, fiddling around in the living room with a newspaper contest. No gainful, legitimate employment. No kids. No wife. No home of his own. Fooling around with a neighbor wife.

A worthless life. Vic was right.

I might as well give up, he decided. The contest. Everything. Wander on somewhere else. Do something else. Sweat in the oil fields with a tin helmet. Rake leaves. Tote up figures at a desk in some insurance company office. Peddle real estate.

Anything would be more mature. Responsible. I’m dragging away in a protracted childhood ... hobby, like gluing together model Spads.

The child ahead of him received its candy bar and raced off. Ragle laid down his fifty-cent piece on the counter.

"Got any beer?" he said. His voice sounded funny. Thin and remote. The counter man in white apron and cap stared at him, stared and did not move. Nothing happened. No sound, anywhere. Kids, cars, the wind; it all shut off.

The fifty-cent piece fell away, down through the wood, sinking. It vanished.

I’m dying, Ragle thought. Or something.

Fright seized him. He tried to speak, but his lips did not move for him. Caught up in the silence.

Not again, he thought.

Not again!

It’s happening to me again.

The soft-drink stand fell into bits. Molecules. He saw the molecules, colorless, without qualities, that made it up. Then he saw through, into the space beyond it, he saw the hill behind, the trees and sky. He saw the soft-drink stand go out of existence, along with the counter man, the cash register, the big dispenser of orange drink, the taps for Coke and root beer, the ice-chests of bottles, the hot dog broiler, the jars of mustard, the shelves of cones, the row of heavy round metal lids under which were the different ice creams.

In its place was a slip of paper. He reached out his hand and took hold of the slip of paper. On it was printing, block letters.

SOFT-DRINK STAND

Turning away, he unsteadily walked back, past children playing, past the benches and the old people. As he walked he put his hand into his coat pocket and found the metal box he kept there.

He halted, opened the box, looked down at the slips of paper already in it. Then he added the new one.

Six in all. Six times.

His legs wobbled under him and on his face particles of cold seemed to form. Ice slid down into his collar, past his green knit tie.

He made his way down the slope, to Junie.

FOUR

At sunset, Sammy Nielson put in a last tardy hour galloping around the Ruins. Together with Butch Cline and Leo Tarski he had dragged a mass of roofing slats into a heap to form a real swell defensive position. They could probably hold the position indefinitely. Next came the gathering of dirt clods, those with long grass attached, for superior throwing.

Cold evening wind blew about him. He crouched behind the breastwork, shivering.

The trench needed to be deeper. Taking hold of a board that stuck up from the soil, he pried and tugged. A mass of brick, ash, roofing, weeds and dirt broke away and rolled down at his feet. Between two split slabs of concrete an opening could be seen, more of the old basement, or maybe a drainage pipe.

No telling what might be discovered. Lying down, he scooped up handfuls of plaster and chickenwire. Bits covered him as he labored.

In the half-light, straining to see, he found a soggy yellow blob of paper. A phone book. After that, rain-soaked magazines.

Feverishly, he clawed on and on.

In the living room, before dinner, Vic lounged across from his brother-in-law. Ragle had asked him if he could spare a couple of minutes. He wanted to talk to him. Seeing the somber expression on his brother-in-law’s face, Vic said,

"You want me to close the door?" In the dining room, Margo had started setting the table; the noise of dishes mixed with the six o’clock news issuing out of the TV set.

"No," Ragle said.

"Is it about the contest?"

Ragle said, "I’m considering dropping out of the contest voluntarily. It’s getting too much for me. The strain. Listen." He leaned toward Vic. His eyes were red-rimmed. "Vic," he said, "I’m having a nervous breakdown. Don’t say anything to Margo." His voice wavered and sank. "I felt I should discuss it with you."

It was hard to know what to say to him. "Is it the contest?" Vic said finally.

"Probably." Ragle gestured.

"How long?"

"Weeks, now. Two months. I forget." He lapsed into silence, staring past Vic at the floor.

"Have you told the newspaper people?"

"No."

"Won’t they kick up a fuss?"

Ragle said, "I don’t care what they do. I can’t go on. I may take a long trip somewhere. Even leave the country."

"My gosh," Vic said.

"I’m worn out. Maybe after I take a rest, six months of it, I’ll feel better. I might tackle some manual labor. On an assembly line. Or outdoors. What I want to clear up with you is the financial business. I’ve been contributing about two hundred fifty a month to the household; that’s what it averages over the last year."

"Yes," Vic said. "That sounds right."

"Can you and Margo make out without it? On the house payments and car payments, that sort of business?"

"Sure," he said. "I guess we can."

"I want to write you out a check for six hundred bucks," Ragle said. "Just in case. If you need it, cash it. If not, don’t. Better put it in an account ... checks are good only for a month or so, aren’t they? Start a savings account, get your four-percent interest."

"You haven’t said anything to Margo?"

"Not yet."

At the doorway, Margo said, "Dinner’s almost ready. Why are you two men sitting there so solemnly?"

"Business," Vic said.

"Can I sit and listen?" she asked.

"No," both men said together.

Without a word she went off.

"To continue," Ragle said, "if you don’t mind hearing about it. I thought about going to the VA hospital... I can use my veteran’s status and get some kind of medical assistance. But I have doubts as to whether it lies in their province. I also thought of using the GI Bill and going up to the university and taking a few courses."

"In what?"

"Oh, say, philosophy."

That sounded bizarre to him. "Why?" he said.

"Isn’t philosophy a refuge and a solace?"

"I didn’t know that. Maybe it was once. My impression of philosophy is something having to do with theories of ultimate reality and What is the purpose of life?"

Stolidly, Ragle said, "What’s wrong with that?"

"Nothing, if you think it would help you."

Ragle said, "I’ve read some, in my time. I was thinking of Bishop Berkeley. The Idealists. For instance—" He waved his hand at the piano over in its corner of the living room. "How do we know that piano exists?"

"We don’t," Vic said.

"Maybe it doesn’t."

Vic said, "I’m sorry, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s just a bunch of words."

At that, Ragle’s face lost its color entirely. His mouth dropped open. Staring at Vic, he drew himself up in his chair.

"Are you okay?" Vic said.

"I have to think about this," Ragle said, speaking with effort. He got to his feet. "Excuse me," he said. "I’ll talk to you again some time later. Dinner’s ready ... or something." He disappeared through the doorway, into the dining room.

The poor guy, Vic thought. It certainly has got him down. The loneliness and isolation of sitting around all day... the futility.

"Can I help set the table?" he asked his wife.

"All done," Margo said. Ragle had gone on by, down the hall to the bathroom. "What is it?" Margo said. "What’s wrong with Ragle tonight? He’s so miserable ... he didn’t flunk out of the contest, did he? I know he would have told me, but—"

"I’ll tell you later," he said. He put his arm around her and kissed her; she leaned warmly against him.

If he had this, he thought, maybe he’d feel better. A family. Nothing in the world is equal to it. And nobody can take it away.

At the dinner table, as they all ate, Ragle Gumm sat deep in thought. Across from him, Sammy yammered on about his club and its powerful machinery of war. He did not listen.

Words, he thought.

Central problem in philosophy. Relation of word to object ... what is a word? Arbitrary sign. But we live in words. Our reality, among words not things. No such thing as a thing anyhow; a gestalt in the mind. Thingness ... sense of substance. An illusion. Word is more real than the object it represents.

Word doesn’t represent reality. Word is reality. For us, anyhow. Maybe God gets to objects. Not us, though.

In his coat, hanging up in the hall closet, was the metal box with the six words in it.

SOFT-DRINK STAND
DOOR
FACTORY BUILDING
HIGHWAY
DRINKING FOUNTAIN
BOWL OF FLOWERS

Margo’s voice roused him. "I told you not to play there." Her tone, sharp and loud, caused him to lose his line of thought. "Now don’t play there. Mind me, Sammy. I’m serious."

"How did it go with the petition?" Vic asked.

"I got to see some minor clerk. He said something about the city not having funds at the present time. The infuriating thing is that when I phoned last week they said contracts were being let, and work ought to start any day. That just goes to show you. You can’t get them to do anything. You’re helpless; one person is helpless."

"Maybe Bill Black could flood the lots," Vic said.

"Yes," she said, "and then all the children could drown instead of fall and crack their skulls."

After dinner, while Margo washed the dishes in the kitchen and Sammy lay in the living room in front of the TV set, he and Vic talked some more.

"Ask the contest people for a leave of absence," Vic suggested.

"I doubt if they would." He was fairly familiar with the pack of rules and he recalled no such provision.

"Try them."

"Maybe," he said, scratching at a spot on the table top.

Vic said, "That business last night gave me a real turn. I hope I didn’t get you upset. I hope I’m not responsible for your feeling depressed."

"No," he said. "If any one thing’s responsible, it’s probably the contest. And June Black."

"Now listen," Vic said. "You can do a lot better for yourself than Junie Black. And anyhow, she’s spoken for."

"By a nitwit."

"That doesn’t matter. It’s the institution. Not the individual."

Ragle said, "It’s hard to think of Bill and June Black as an institution. Anyhow, I’m not in the mood for discussing institutions."

"Tell me what happened," Vic said.

"Nothing."

"Tell me."

Ragle said, "Hallucination. That’s all. Recurrent."

"Want to describe it?"

"No."

"Is it anything like my experience last night? I’m not trying to pry. That bothered me. I think something’s wrong."

"Something is wrong," Ragle said.

"I don’t mean with you or with me or with any one person. I mean in general."

" ’The time,’ " Ragle said, " ’is out of joint.’ "

"I think we should compare notes."

Ragle said, "I’m not going to tell you what happened to me. You’ll nod gravely right now. But tomorrow or the next day, while you’re standing around down at your supermarket chewing the rag with the checkers ... you’ll run out of conversation and you’ll hit on me. And you’ll convulse everybody with titillating gossip. I’ve had enough gossip. Remember, I’m a national hero."

"Suit yourself," Vic said. "But we might—get somewhere. I mean it. I’m worried."

Ragle said nothing.

"You can’t clam up," Vic said. "I have a responsibility to my wife and my son. Are you no longer in control of yourself? Do you know what you may or may not do?"

"I won’t run amuck," Ragle said. "Or at least I have no reason to think I will."

"We all have to live together in the same house," Vic pointed out. "Suppose I told you I—"

Ragle interrupted, "If I feel I’m a menace, I’ll leave. I’ll be leaving anyhow, probably in the next couple of days. So if you can last that long, everything will be okay."

"Margo won’t let you go."

At that, he laughed. "Margo," he said, "will just have to let me go."

"Are you sure you’re not just feeling sorry for yourself because your love-life is fouled up?"

Ragle didn’t answer that. Getting up from the table he walked into the living room, where Sammy lay watching "Gunsmoke." Throwing himself down on the couch, he watched too.

I can’t talk to him, he realized.

Too bad. Too darn bad.

"How’s the Western?" he said to Sammy, during the midpoint commercial.

"Fine," Sammy said. From the boy’s shirt pocket, crumpled white paper stuck up. The paper had a stained, weathered appearance, and Ragle leaned over to see. Sammy paid no attention.

"What’s that in your pocket?" Ragle asked.

"Oh," Sammy said, "I was setting up defense bastions over at the Ruins. And I dug up a board, and I found a bunch of old telephone books and magazines and stuff."

Reaching down, Ragle pulled the paper from the boy’s pocket. The paper fell apart in his hands. Stringy slips of paper, and on each was a block-printed word, smeared by rain and decay.

GAS STATION
cow
BRIDGE

"You got these at those city lots?" he demanded, unable to think clearly. "You dug them up?"

"Yes," Sammy said.

"Can I have them?"

"No," Sammy said.

He experienced a maniacal wrath. "All right," he said, as reasonably as possible. "I’ll trade you something for them. Or buy them."

"What do you want them for?" Sammy said, ceasing to watch the TV set. "Are they valuable or something?"

He answered, truthfully, "I’m collecting them." Going to the hall closet he reached into his coat, got out the box, and carried it back to the living room. Sitting down beside Sammy, he opened the box and showed the boy the six slips that he had already acquired.

"A dime apiece," Sammy said.

The boy had five slips in all, but two were so badly weather-damaged that he couldn’t read the word on them. But he paid him fifty cents anyhow, took the slips, and went off by himself to think.

Maybe it’s a gag, he thought. I’m the victim of a hoax. Because I’m a Hero Contest Winner First Class.

Publicity by the paper.

But that made no sense. No sense at all.

Baffled, he smoothed the five slips out as best he could, and then added them to the box. In some respects he felt worse than before.

Later that evening he located a flashlight, put on a heavy coat, and set off in the direction of the Ruins.

His legs ached already from the hike with Junie, and by the time he reached the empty lots he wondered if it was worth it. At first his flashlight beam picked up only the shape of broken concrete, pits half-filled with spring rain, heaps of boards and plaster. For some time he prowled about, flashing his light here and there. At last, after stumbling and falling over a tangle of rusted wire, he came upon a crude shelter of rubble, obviously made by the boys.

Getting down, he turned his light on the ground near the shelter. And by golly, there in the light the edge of yellowed paper gleamed back at him. He wedged his flashlight under his arm and with both hands rooted until he had dislodged the paper. It came loose in a thick pack. Sammy had been right; it seemed to be a telephone book, or at least part of one.

Along with the telephone book he managed to dig loose the remains of large, slick family magazines. But after that he found himself shining his light down into a cistern or drainage system. Too risky, he decided. Better wait until day.

Carrying the telephone book and magazines from the lot, he started back to the house.

What a desolate place, he thought to himself. No wonder Margo wants the city to clean it. They must be out of their minds. One broken arm and they’d have a lawsuit on their hands.

Even the houses near the lots seemed dark, uninhabited. And ahead of him the sidewalk was cracked, littered with debris.

Fine place for kids.

When he got back to the house he carried the phone book and magazines into the kitchen. Both Vic and Margo were in the living room, and neither of them noticed that he had anything with him. Sammy had gone to bed. He spread wrapping paper on the kitchen table, and then, with care, he laid out what he had got.

The magazines were too damp to handle. So he left them near the circulating heater to dry. At the kitchen table, he began to examine the phone book.

As soon as he opened it he realized that he did not have either the covers or the first and last pages. Only the middle part.